The Gallery of the Dead (Tropical Breeze Cozy Mystery Book 3) (10 page)

At three o’clock that afternoon, I was sitting at the top of the stairs in the gallery, alone.

Incredibly, nobody else on the project was even there to observe. I have never pretended to have psychic abilities, and I could have used the help. Despite my sympathetic nature, ghosts do not come to me. I don’t know why.

I have an incredibly accurate watch, and I decided to keep a vigil from 2:50 to 3:50 with my EMF meter, an audio recorder and one of Wyatt’s less complicated video cameras set up on a tripod.

Wyatt had seemed mildly interested, even helpful, but when I asked him to stay and observe he said, “Sorry, man, I’m no psychic, but even I can feel the negative vibes coming from Teddy about this, and he’s the boss. He’s the one who signed me to a contract and as far as he’s concerned, the money shot happens at midnight.”

“I understand,” I told him. “Thanks for at least allowing the use of your camera.”

“Just don’t tell Teddy.”

If I recorded any phenomena, I fully intended to have my material analyzed. Then I would publish, even if it negated whatever evidence Teddy managed to gather. But until then, there was no point in causing another upheaval, and I wasn’t going to get Wyatt in trouble for helping me.

During that time, I heard Misty happily trotting around in the kitchen, and presently I began to smell what I perceived to be more cookies baking. (We had cleaned her out.) That might be viewed as a distraction from a dead-serious investigation, but the small and innocuous details of a normal home in the afternoon seemed just right to me. Just so would the Whitby household have been, one hundred years before. Barnabas III’s notes indicated that the argument between father and daughter had broken out as he had arrived home around 3:00. The girl had been waiting to have it out with him, but until he arrived, the house would have been quiet. The atmosphere would have been tense, but it would have been quiet.

It’s entirely conceivable that somebody would have been baking. Many women (and men, for that matter) have told me that when they are under stress, cooking or baking can calm them. With my own mother, it was fudge. My father had been a scientist, exacting, detail-oriented and absent-minded. He inspired many, many batches of fudge. I would have given up the homemade confection if it would have spared her the upset, but as it was, the fudge was our very own silver lining, my mother’s and mine. We’d eat it out of the pan with spoons before it was even set.

So I have understood from childhood that the smell of home-baked goodies in a house does not always indicate a happy home. I kept this in mind as I settled down to my analysis.

Cassandra’s mother, Henriette, would have had no say in the dispute between father and daughter. Barnabas III made it clear that Ephraim was firmly in control of his household.

Anyone in the house with Cassandra while she waited – Henriette, a maid, a cook (possibly baking), would have been aware of her seething rage. The tension must have been unbearable. But the house would have been quiet, and an afternoon in April in northern Florida would most likely have been warm and sunny, such as the one I was experiencing in the present day.

At 3:17 Misty came up with a plate of warm cookies. She knew about my vigil, so she said nothing, set the cookies on the top step beside me, and smiled. I nodded at her in thanks, but this was no time for cookies.

At 3:23 I stood up and walked to the railing above the front door and looked down into the foyer. I touched the banister and held myself very still. Something told me the time was near.

At 3:33 all hell broke loose.

Porter burst into the foyer, barely restrained on a heavy leash, slid into the opposite wall, turned, shook his head, looked up and sniffed. Then he saw me.

A woman from the animal shelter that I recognized as Angie Kelly was holding the reins of the dog like a charioteer with runaway horses, and up she came with him, able to pause and catch her breath only when Porter reached the cookies. He inhaled them wetly, then came over to me to say a hysterical hello.

I defended the tripod.

“I’m sorry,” Angie said, exhausted, “were those your cookies?”

I waved the cookies away with a disinterested hand. I was impressed that she still had a hold on Porter’s leash. Most people would have been face-down a half-mile back in the road.

“Are you doing something important?” she said, looking at the equipment.

“Probably not. Still, I try.”

Angie’s face was flushed and dewy, which sat well on her. She’s quietly attractive, thirtyish, with straight, shiny brown hair and nice brown eyes. Everything about her says “nice.” Not “hot,” or “brilliant,” or “classy.” Still, in my opinion, “nice” is better. Maybe I like her because she’s one of the few people in my world who is shorter than me.

“Where is everybody? You told me we were shooting around three. I thought I was late.”

“Didn’t anybody call you?” I said. Lily, as the production assistant, should have taken care of it, but I should have thought of it, too.

“No, they didn’t. I’ve been trying to get a hold of Teddy, but he’s not returning my calls for some reason. So what’s the deal – are we shooting or not?”

“I apologize, Angie. We’re scheduled to begin at 11:00 tonight, with everybody showing up around nine to get organized. Can you make it back with Porter then? Maybe you should get here around 10:30, so Porter doesn’t cause too much havoc before we get going.”

She was upset, but she didn’t take it out on me. She just agreed to keep Porter at her own house until it was time.

Meanwhile, Porter was snuffling around, vacuuming up any stray crumbs over at the top of the stairs. He had settled down a bit. Then, oddly, he sat down, looked up and tilted his head. His wheezy breathing stilled, and he looked surprised.

In a lifetime of fruitless waiting, one of those moments I wait for had come. I knew it as soon as I saw the dog react. Quickly I marked the time: 3:47. Since he was the only thing visible to me, I closely observed the dog.

Angie said something, I don’t know what, and I motioned for silence.

Porter’s eyes popped open and he gazed in my direction, only he was looking somewhere above me. After a moment, he expanded his lips into what looked very much like a smile. Technically, dogs and cats cannot smile. However, if I ever publish a paper on the event, I am prepared to testify that the animal smiled. His tongue came back out and he began to gently pant. Then he stood up, wagged the stub, and – incredibly – assumed the play stance, as if somebody were standing in front of him teasing him with a ball.

“Porter, what are you doing?” Angie said. To me: “He’s always doing that. It’s like he sees people who aren’t there.”

He was still gazing at the spot above my head, and I have to admit, I felt a thrill. Perhaps it was only suggestion. Try sitting quietly by yourself in one place, listening but not doing anything, for three quarters of an hour. It leaves you in an altered state, ready to jump out of your skin, ready to react to anything.

I record here that I was keyed up, wanting something to happen, but not expecting it, and by myself, I probably wouldn’t have experienced anything at all. But the dog was experiencing something. I
knew
it. Porter is a chronically hyperactive dog who does a lot of inane things, but this pantomime of preparing to play with somebody who wasn’t there actually did make sense.

I tried not to read too much into it. Objective at all times, that’s my motto. But stronger men than I had lost themselves in triumph on weaker evidence.

When I ended the session, I was careful to mark my recordings for later analysis. I looked at my hands and grinned; they were shaking. I found myself unwilling to leave the gallery, and I felt myself open out in a kind of ecstasy, despite never having any encouragement from passing spirits before.

“Are you okay, Edson?” Angie asked. “You look kind of lit up.”

“I am,” I told her. “I’m feeling just fine, thank you, better than ever before. Good boy, Porter!”

The dog whipped his head at me with a sloppy, interrogative grunt. Then he went back to snuffling around for cookie crumbs.

There was no point in my driving back to St. Augustine for a few hours, so I decided to wait it out in The Royal Palm, killing time by setting up my computer on the dining room table and reviewing some articles in
Skeptical World
. At around 5:30 I went into the kitchen and Misty was kind enough to give me a sandwich.

The cast and crew came straggling back after their own dinners in town, and Teddy, Lily and Jinx had all been on the beach too long. Lily in particular was looking well-done. I thought back to those injudicious days on the beach as a child, particularly the time I fell asleep in the sun. I remembered the boiled-brains, headachy and exhausted feeling afterward, staggering around in a bleached-out world, and could only tut-tut about their lack of professionalism. They were going to be cranky and exhausted for tonight’s shoot. Some of them talked about taking naps, which I could have told them would only make things worse. They were going to feel like something that should be served over pasta by the time they got up. But nobody asked me.

“Take some aspirin,” I said from the dining room as they staggered around in the foyer comparing notes on the beauty of the beach and the town.

Paul welcomed them in. Well, ‘welcomed’ may be too strong of a word. He has the personality of a flat tire. Still, he was there, hanging around.

Carmilla materialized in full regalia, looking like she’d never been touched by the sun in her life. Where she had been she didn’t say, but if she’d been wandering around town like that, it would be in this weekend’s
Beach Buzz
, on the front page. Or maybe the Obituaries. She announced she was going to bed and if anybody disturbed her before the shoot she was going to eat their hands.

Teddy’s head appeared in the doorway of the dining room. “Oh, you’re in here,” he said to me. He strolled in and looked at my computer screen over my shoulder, realized what I was reading and muttered, “Seriously?”

I turned and looked right at him. “Yes. Seriously. Teddy, we are supposed to be serious here. How on earth did you come up with this cast of clowns? And more to the point – why?”

“Showbiz, my little friend,” he snapped. “A concept somewhere out there in the great beyond, as far as you’re concerned. If you meant that literally, you can take a peek at my personnel files.”

“Yes,” I said, just to irritate him. “I would like to.”

“Fine, little buddy. I’ll have Lily give you copies.”

“Oh, don’t bother. I don’t want to make more work for her.”

“It’s no trouble. That’s what she gets paid for.”

He went back to the foyer without making any further references to my being little. And, of course, when I later looked at what he grandly called his “personnel files,” I got a sketchy series of e-mails, a few distasteful overtures to Carmilla, and a pink “While You Were Out” phone memorandum saying Jinx had instantly accepted his offer. In a triumphant hand-written note on the last e-mail from Carmilla, Teddy had written, “Yes! I finally hooked The Big One!”

I could only sigh.

Nobody had thought to ask me about my vigil in the gallery that afternoon.

I heard Elliott saying something about having a quick one before the shoot, and inviting the others to come along. Wyatt declined, but Jinx and Paul accepted, and the three of them left.

Teddy called down at them as they were leaving, “Be back by nine. We start setting up then. Filming starts at 11:00. That should give us enough time to build tension for the actual event. Then we’ll be working through the night, if need be, to complete the investigation throughout the house.”

“Got it,” Jinx said, and the house was quiet again for a couple of hours.

About fifteen minutes before we were to gather in the gallery, I heard women’s voices in the kitchen. Strange. Lily and Carmilla were upstairs, and as far as I knew, Misty was alone in the kitchen. I put my computer away and got up to see what was going on.

Seeing me come in, Misty said, “Oh, it’s only you, Ed. Jane, you remember Edson Darby-Deaver? He was here the day I hired you.”

“No.”

“I was with Teddy.”

“Oh, yeah.”

I crossed the floor to shake her hand.

Even in mufti, she looked the same as when she was doing her housekeeping duties, except that her hair had strangely thickened. It didn’t look good. It didn’t even look real. It just looked really thick, which was something of an improvement. So she’d primped as best she could for Teddy, fixing her hair and wearing lots of make-up, but her clothes were the same kind she wore to clean the rooms. I wondered if she even had any other clothes. I didn’t have the expertise to advise her on fashion, but even I could see she needed help. She was wearing loose brown pants and an outsized black tee shirt, with blue flip-flops. Bernie had advised me of the woman’s tendency to spill things, and I assumed her strategy was to wear dark colors that didn’t show stains.

On a maid’s salary, she probably couldn’t afford Sharla’s Dress Shop, and I knew from past experience that telling a woman to go over to Girlfriend’s and put herself into Florence’s capable hands could invite a negative reaction. Even an assault. So I tried to overlook her apparel, but could not help but look askance at her make-up. It was so badly overdone she had to be one of those women who don’t usually wear make-up, then lay it on with a trowel for special occasions. A suspicion crept into my mind, observing her raspberry-colored cheeks.