Sinister Secrets Read online

  Ignoring Cherry’s greeting, she speared Leslie with her sharp eyes. “You’re Cherry’s niece. Ain’t seen you since you were in saggy diapers,” she said as if she were accusing her of some derelict of duty.

  “It’s nice to see you again, Mrs. Took,” Leslie replied with a smile, even though she’d never been in Wicks Hollow in saggy diapers. That she knew of.

  “It’s Maxine. And it was never missus nothing,” she replied, then jabbed up at Orbra with a curling, arthritic finger. “You got cinnamon scones today?”

  “Fresh ones, because I knew you were going to be back,” Orbra replied dryly. Cherry looked at Leslie and they both smothered grins.

  “I want three. And bring me some of that Earl Grey with the vanilla in it. And some milk. Real milk, not that nut stuff you tried to kill me with last week.”

  “Leslie, I don’t know if you remember Juanita Alecita and Iva Bergstrom,” Cherry said as the other two ladies sat down. “They’re part of our Tuesday Ladies group as well. The three of them just got back from a trip to Chicago.”

  “Used to be six of us till Jean Fickler died last summer,” Maxine said in an uncharacteristically subdued voice. “She didn’t even make it to my eightieth birthday party. That was a hell of a bash,” she added, giving Leslie (who’d known nothing about it because she’d still been in Philadelphia) an accusing look for daring to be absent.

  “I’ve heard all about the Tuesday Ladies,” Leslie said, knowing that the name was a misnomer, for the older women didn’t limit their socializing to Tuesdays—and hadn’t done so for years. “I’m sorry it took this long for us to finally meet again—I’ve been so busy getting settled.”

  “Don’t you worry about that, honey.” Juanita Alecita smiled as she placed a napkin on her broad lap.

  She was in her late seventies and had hair of an impossible paprika color. It was curled and teased into a bubble at the crown of her head, while the sides and back were stick straight. Someone had once described Juanita’s hairdo as a mushroom cloud, and Leslie couldn’t disagree. The older lady had soft, pudgy hands with pink nails buffed to a long, gentle curve. She carried a large bag, and a small dog with huge ears that reminded Leslie of butterfly wings peeked out from the top.

  “But you did get the salsa recipe from Cherry, didn’t you, Leslie?” Juanita had owned a chain of ten Mexican restaurants scattered throughout Michigan and Indiana until she “retired” in 2000, and she had recently passed on her secret family recipe to Leslie via Cherry.

  “It was perfect. I never would have thought to stew the tomatoes and peppers in vegetable stock before blending them.”

  “And the vegetarians of the world thank you for using vegetable stock instead of chicken stock,” Cherry said. “Such a little thing, but it definitely broadens what we can eat.”

  Iva Bergstrom had taken the last chair. She was a woman of sixty-fiveish with round apple cheeks and neatly styled blue-white hair. “So nice to see you again, Leslie. And now you’ve moved to Michigan permanently—to open a B&B, is that what I heard?”

  “Yes, and it’s haunted—but Leslie hasn’t seen or heard of the ghost yet. She’s been here more than a month,” Orbra informed them just as Bethy appeared with a crowded tray that made Leslie’s mouth water.

  Besides blueberry and apple cinnamon scones, the newly arrived tray also held tiny white stoneware pots of clotted cream and jam, finger sandwiches with salmon salad or cucumbers sliced paper-thin, and profiteroles. There were small plates and tiny spoons, irregular lumps of sugar in a dish, a narrow bowl of fresh berries, and half-dollar-sized open-faced quiches.

  “Can you believe she’s heard nothing?” Orbra went on. “Not one sign of the ghost. I don’t think she’s trying hard enough. It’s not as if the ghosts in Wicks Hollow are shy or anything.”

  Leslie was well aware of Wicks Hollow’s reputation—at least among the Tuesday Ladies; she didn’t think anyone else had the same crazy notion—of the area having a particular propensity for ghostly happenings and haunting instances. She didn’t believe it herself. After all, an historic town with so many old, Victorian buildings obviously attracted legends and tales just by virtue of the fact that they had history. Plus, the Tuesday Ladies—well, they were…old. And some of them were battier than others.

  “Your inn is haunted, Leslie?” Iva said, and her eyes sparkled with interest. “I’ve got to come and visit. I went to see a medium last week, and—”

  “Sounds like a great way to scare off potential customers,” grumbled Maxine. She picked up one of the triangular sandwiches with fingers curved like talons. “We had some ghost-happenings back over the summer, you remember that, Juanita?”

  “Yes, of course I remember.” Juanita rolled her eyes. “Ay-yi-yi, Maxine! It was only a few months ago when that all happened with Diana and that nice Ethan and—”

  “Don’t try an’ tell me my memory’s going,” groused Maxine, showering crumbs everywhere. “At least I can hear everything—which is better than you, when I have to repeat it all the time.”

  Hadn’t Maxine just accused her friend of being blind, not deaf? Not that Juanita seemed to exhibit either symptom. Leslie glanced at Cherry, and saw that she and Orbra were laughing silently together. Tears were streaming down Cherry’s face.

  “Did the three of you ladies really drive all the way to and from Chicago together?” Orbra said to Iva when she could speak clearly. “You have my condolences,” she added in an undertone.

  “It’s really Hollis who’s the saint. He drove us, the lovely man, and that’s why I told him he could golf as much as he wanted while he’s here on vacation. Hollis lives in Grand Rapids,” Iva explained to Leslie. “But he’s taking the entire month of October off to spend it here in Wicks Hollow with me.” Iva’s cheeks went slightly pink as Cherry and Orbra made “oooooh” and “awwwww” noises. Leslie couldn’t help but laugh, because they sounded as if they were in middle school.

  “Hollis and Iva are very hot and heavy,” Cherry explained. “She met him back in April, and I swear, he’s been down here in Wicks Hollow more than he’s been in Grand Rapids.”

  “He’s very handsome and has more hair than Maxine does—which is saying a lot for a seventy-year-old man,” Orbra put in. “Iva’s got him wrapped around her little finger.”

  “I told Hollis the only thing he has to attend is the reunion,” Iva went on, studiously ignoring the razzing. But her cheeks got even more pink.

  “Oh,” Leslie said, reaching for a small blueberry scone. It was warm and practically crumbled in her fingers, chock-full of tiny wild blueberries. “That’s right—there’s the big class reunion on the nineteenth.”

  “That’s right. There ain’t enough of us left from each of the classes—we’re all dead—so we bunched ’em all together into one big reunion,” Maxine informed her. “It’s my sixty-second reunion, and Juanita’s fifty-eighth, and Iva’s—what one is it?”

  “Thirty-fifth.”

  “Right. Thirty-fifth.” Maxine paused, peering at Iva as if she didn’t know whether to believe her or not. “Thirty-fifth? I thought you were older than that. Aren’t you—”

  “You’ll never guess what happened,” Iva interrupted loudly. “You know that little store, up on Gertrude? The one that’s hardly ever open and looks like it needs a good cleaning?”

  “Damned eyesore,” Maxine grumbled. “Someone ought to do something about it.”

  “Well, someone’s going to,” Iva replied brightly. “Turns out the owner is—was—a client of Hollis’s law firm. The man was over a hundred, and he died about a month ago. So there’ll be a new owner at the shop. And guess who it is!” She looked at Maxine as if she were dangling a donut on a string in front of a very hungry child.

  “Tell us,” Juanita said.

  “Ethan Murphy’s sister!”

  “You mean that red-headed girl? Looks like a gypsy? Likes to read palms?” Maxine growled. “She said I was gonna live to a hundred myself. Not sure how I feel ab
out that,” she added grumpily.

  “Yes. Her name is Fiona. I expect once all the legal tangle’s taken care of, she’ll come down here from Grand Rapids and spruce the place up.”

  “Well, someone needs to see to it,” snarled Maxine. “Tired of looking at the dingy place ever’time I drive by.”

  “You never drive that way anyway,” Juanita said. “It’s completely out of your way. Why, you probably haven’t seen it for three months—”

  “I drive past there all the time,” Maxine returned. “You just ain’t paying attention. Always messing with that snooty French dog of yours.”

  “Why, how dare you say such a thing! My Brucie isn’t snooty—”

  “You’ll never guess who’s staying in the Sunflower House,” Iva exclaimed, once again diverting the subject. She glanced at Leslie. “It’s too bad your bed and breakfast isn’t ready yet, because maybe you could have been the one to host him.”

  “Who?” asked Cherry.

  “It’s a famous writer,” Maxine said in what was possibly supposed to be a low voice, but rang in Leslie’s eardrums nevertheless. “Mildred didn’t tell us his name—claims she was sworn to secrecy, the crotchety old bat—but we figured it out. She can take her mysterious winks and hints and—”

  “Mildred is the owner of the Sunflower House,” Orbra told Leslie in an aside before turning back to Iva. “I heard someone was coming to stay there in the off-season—some big celebrity who wanted privacy. I was hoping for Robert Redford myself. It used to be Paul Newman I hoped would show up, but then he died. And then James Garner, but he died too.” She tsked, as if it were the poor actors’ faults they’d passed on before chancing a visit to Wicks Hollow.

  “Who is it?” asked Leslie—more interested in keeping the topic away from her not-so-haunted house than who the celeb was…because she was still remembering that odd sort of groan and shudder she’d felt when the staircase railing was opened. Not that anything had happened otherwise, but it had only been yesterday.

  How long did it take for ghosts to bestir themselves once awakened? Didn’t they most often show themselves at night, anyway? After the so-called witching hour of midnight?

  She wouldn’t know, for Leslie hadn’t slept at home last night, as it turned out, for Cherry had made her share a bottle of wine and watch reruns of 30 Rock till after midnight, and she ended up crashing in her aunt’s guest room. So this would be Leslie’s first night in the house since the stairway had been opened, since she’d felt the house shudder and moan—and what sort of nonsense was she thinking?

  Maybe she’d inhaled too much drywall dust or paint fumes. Leslie gave herself a mental shake and tuned back in to the conversation—still apparently about the identity of the mysterious celebrity staying at Sunflower House.

  “It’s the man who writes them big action books, Mildred said. She told me in confidence, you know,” Maxine announced.

  “Then she must want everyone to know,” Cherry said, laughing. “Then she can blame it on you, but still get the word out.”

  “Which action books?” Orbra demanded. “Who is it?”

  “They make movies about ’em with Tom Cruise—is that the guy?” Maxine peered at Juanita as if to read the answer in her bottle-bottom glasses. “The one who danced in his underwear?”

  “That’s Tom Cruise, yes. Action movies based on books, starring Tom Cruise. Jack Reacher?” Orbra asked.

  “No, not that one. The other Jack,” Maxine grumbled, frowning. “The author, I mean. His character had a Greek name or maybe a Roman name…something like one of them musicians nowadays.”

  “At least, that’s what Mildred was dropping hints about,” Juanita said.

  “Wait, are you talking about Jeremy Fischer?” Leslie said, a spark of interest sizzling through her. “He writes the Bruno Tablenture books?”

  “Yes, that’s him! Not Jack. Jeremy. He’s done locked himself away in the tower room at Sunflower, going to be writing on his new book, Mildred said. But she told me not to tell anyone, because he doesn’t want to be bothered.” Maxine clearly didn’t appreciate that sentiment.

  “Jeremy Fischer? For certain?” Even Aunt Cherry seemed impressed, and it took a lot to impress her. Or maybe she was just assessing her chances of getting to meet the man. “How do you know? He’s such a recluse. He doesn’t even do book signings.”

  “I told you, Mildred dropped a lot of hints for us. She even got a bunch of his books about Bluto, Brundo—whatever—those detective stories on her bookshelf in the sitting room. We’re going to have to go by for tea—no offense, Orbry,” Maxine added. “So we can accidentally-on-purpose run into him and check him out. Pam down to the book shop told me Mildred ordered in a whole bunch of them Bluto Talent-whatever books, and now she’s just put them out casual-like in the front parlor there. And they’re all signed. She ain’t saying for sure he’s the guest, but I know it’s him.” Maxine jabbed the air with her finger. “He’s telling everyone his name is John Fischer, though.”

  “So tell me about this haunted house of yours,” Iva said, turning back to Leslie.

  The sudden change of topic caught her by surprise, but Leslie recovered immediately. “There’s really nothing to tell. The house needs some updates—it’s been empty on and off for the last thirty or so years. The last woman who lived there stayed on the main floor, so there’s work that needs to be done on the second and third floors. I just had someone in yesterday about replacing a big wrought iron staircase.”

  And, thank goodness, she’d just this morning hired a high school student as an intern to help her out after class and on the weekend with whatever needed to be done.

  “Are you talking about that big, grand staircase in the foyer? It always reminded me of that stairway Rhett carried Scarlett up in Gone with the Wind,” Iva said with a sigh. “I loved that movie.”

  “That’s the one. Some of the spindles are missing, and other ones are rusted.”

  “Leslie needed a blacksmith and I told her to call Declan Zyler,” Orbra said with a wink at her friend. “Cherry here can’t wait to see him in action in that hot, dark smithy—all sweaty and muscular and—”

  “And I figure if he’s doing work for my niece, I have an excuse to—er—check up on it.” Cherry grinned, looking very much like a naughty Helen Mirren with her spiky champagne hair and pink lipstick. “Leslie was on the front page of the paper today too—did you see it? Not because of the staircase, but because of her being famous and her plans to open a bed and breakfast. But you can see the missing section of railing behind her. Unfortunately, Declan wasn’t in the picture. Did you get my extra copy, Orbra?”

  “Of course. It’s in the back. I’ll get it later. What were you going to do if he had been in it? Hang it up in your office?”

  “Maybe.” Cherry’s eyes danced mischievously, then she glanced at her watch. “Time to go. I’ve got a hot class and have to turn on the heaters.”

  “You’ve got hot flashes?” Maxine demanded in her growly voice. “And you’re going to turn on the heaters? That’s about the dumbest thing—”

  “No, she’s got to teach a hot class at the yoga studio,” Orbra said. “It’s done in a very hot room.”

  “I’ve always wanted to try doing those Yogi Berra things,” said Maxine, crumbs flying again. “I could probably put my foot behind my head, now that I got a new hip—”

  “So about this ghost,” Iva said, closing her soft, wrinkled hand over Leslie’s as she shook with silent laughter. “Can I come over and walk through the house? I have a real sense for the otherworldly and metaphysical…maybe the ghost will show itself to me.” Her eyes danced with enthusiasm. “My medium told me I have the sensitivity.”

  “Of course, feel free to stop by any time. I’ll show you around—it sounds as if you’ve been in the house before.”

  “Yes, well, back when we were growing up—”

  “What’s this about the ghost?” demanded Maxine. “Have you seen it, then, missy?”
>
  “Don’t shout,” Juanita said, elbowing her companion. This was the first time she’d joined the conversation since the tray of scones and sandwiches had been delivered. She appeared to have sampled a bit of everything, if the remains on her dainty plate were any indication. “She’s just sitting across the table from you. And you’re talking about Shenstone House, aren’t you?” She directed her question to Leslie.

  Apparently, the conversation was going to center around the so-far-nonexistent ghost, despite efforts to the contrary. So Leslie decided she might as well dive in. “Who is supposedly haunting the place anyway?” she asked. “I don’t know whether I’m supposed to be seeing a male or female ghost.”

  “Well, you do know the history of the house, don’t you?” Juanita pulled herself upright and, gripping a teacup between two sets of fingertips, fixed her eyes on Leslie.

  “A little of it. I know it was built at the turn of the century, and that in the twenties, a rival of Al Capone’s used it for a hideaway from the cops in Chicago,” Leslie began.

  “I know about all that,” interjected Maxine. “My mama used to tell me stories about during Prohibition. Those damned gangsters used to come over here from Chicago acrosst Lake Michigan to get away from the authorities. They’d bring their families and make like a vacation. Or their girls—you know the ones, the floozies with the short skirts and rolled garters. They even smoked cigarettes and drank whiskey.”

  “Oh, come now, Maxine. You like your Maker’s Mark just as much as anyone else I know,” Juanita said.

  “I do, but I ain’t breaking the law drinking it!”

  “Yes, there were hideaways all along the west coast of Michigan, all the way up to Traverse City,” Juanita continued. “They probably used the Great Lakes to smuggle in booze too, from Canada. Didn’t even have to go all the way to Detroit—could just go right over past Sault Ste. Marie and through Lake Huron to Ontario.”

  “The name of the bootlegging gangster who owned Shenstone House was Sal ‘Red Eye’ Marciano,” Leslie continued. “And there’s a rumor he hid a bunch of jewels here in the area.”