Ghostly Tours (Sweetfern Harbor Mystery Book 4) Read online

  Allie was dressed in a glittering Cleopatra outfit and had a masquerade-style mask that she held in front of her eyes. She put it down long enough to give candles to the first group of fifteen ticket holders, who waited excitedly in the lobby. The tours were scheduled every twenty minutes. If guests arrived early, there were plenty of refreshments laid out on top of the long tables set up in the sitting room and more in the dining room. The mood was spooky as well as celebratory, with some appropriately mysterious music playing on the stereo.

  Allie led the first group, and Phyllis followed at the end with her lantern to make sure no one got lost. In addition to the second floor, the tour went through the third floor and the attic, which had been decorated and lit especially for the occasion. All the staff had memorized their scripts. Brenda felt good about the way they were written. Phyllis and William had done well, making each story scary enough to cause shivers throughout the crowd. From downstairs, she and William listened to the responses of the tour group on the floor above them. Some screamed and there was the clatter of footsteps as others clutched one another and stumbled. On their way back downstairs, several couldn’t seem to get to the lobby fast enough. Without a doubt, an impression was made on all of them.

  “They loved it,” Allie enthused. “I’ll follow your group, Brenda. I think you’re up to lead the next tour.”

  Brenda noticed that Jenny Rivers and Bryce Jones had joined her group. Bryce put a protective arm around Jenny, who shivered as she looked around at the spooky décor. Brenda was glad to see that their relationship appeared to be developing well. Also, David and Hope Williams joined her tour group. Brenda thought Allie wanted to see her parents’ reactions during the tour by volunteering to come behind everyone. On the way upstairs, Brenda began the tale of the grisly murders in the second-floor hallway first. She made her voice alluring, intoning the words in low tones as if to hypnotize her listeners. She told of the two boys who murdered their girlfriends, starting with how they climbed the fence to get into the abandoned house. Brenda emphasized how they crept through this same silent hallway before the girls lost their lives.

  “It all happened right here in this hallway. They were found stretched out on this very floor, the floor you are walking on right now.”

  Several guests scurried to the side edges of the passageway to avoid treading where the innocent girls were slain. Brenda paused long enough for the group to feel the anguish of the murdered victims and then proceeded down the hallway. “In fact, it is said one may still glimpse their shadowy figures on certain nights. It is said they cling to these walls because they still try to cling to the young and happy lives they lost.”

  Jenny pushed closer to Bryce. Brenda smiled to herself at the effect her storytelling was having on everyone. Even she felt shivers as she detailed the events of the past. When they drew closer to the Captain’s Room, a momentary dread fell over her. The door was closed, as expected.

  “This room holds one of the worst tales in the history of Sheffield Bed and Breakfast.”

  Brenda reached for the doorknob, but hesitated to open it. Allie admired her for her expert acting in conveying the horrors of the bed and breakfast. The more she listened to Brenda, the more the young woman was convinced that ghosts did roam these halls.

  Brenda paused before her next line. Silence hung like wet curtains. They could hear muffled voices from downstairs, but otherwise this part of the mansion was still. Candles flickered and a few flames wavered as guests breathed fast, thinking about the lives so brutally taken. The tension ratcheted expectations even higher for what lay behind the door.

  “A young woman was strangled in this room long ago. Her jealous husband found out about her affair with another man…and had enough. But she wasn’t the only woman to die here...”

  Brenda paused again. This time she didn’t do it for emphasis. Instead, she put her hand on her heart and felt faint. Panic constricted her chest in the darkness of the hallway, with the candlelight and the guests around her. She didn’t want to tell the story of Ellen Teague’s murder in this room. It was so much more recent, more real. She had only reluctantly agreed with Allie and Phyllis to add a mention of it at the very end of the tour, since it was agreed that everyone would expect to learn where the famous actress had met her untimely death. She took a deep, steadying breath.

  Brenda finally opened the door. Her hands shook and she steadied her voice to resume. She had not noticed the peculiar decorations in this room when she inspected it earlier – specifically on the bed. Allie must have come up with another idea at the last minute, and a very realistic one, she thought. She felt breath on her neck and turned around to see Bryce staring at the mummy-like form on the bed. The thought came to Brenda that perhaps it was this mummy come to life that had startled her on that terrible night. Then she had to laugh at herself for such a silly idea.

  “I want to take a closer look at that mummy,” Bryce said intently, moving closer with obvious curiosity, even as Jenny shuddered a little as he pulled her along with him. Brenda stepped aside, resenting his interruption of her performance. She glared at him a little in the darkness over her flickering candle.

  The detective, at first bent over the bed with fascination, suddenly straightened up with a sober look on his face as he turned to Brenda. “This is not a Halloween prop,” Bryce said in a heated whisper. “This is the body of a real man and he’s dead.”

  Brenda had had enough. She caught only one last look at the figure on the bed before dizziness overtook her and she landed on the floor in a dead faint.

  Jenny grabbed Brenda’s candle just in time. At first the guests thought it was all part of the act. Even Allie thought it was a clever move until she looked closer and realized Brenda wasn’t moving. Allie pushed between the tourists and knelt by Brenda, calling her name several times. Allie raced downstairs for help. William and Phyllis hurried up to find Brenda still unmoving on the floor, with Bryce by her side. The tourists were told to stand back in the hallway.

  “She’s just fainted,” Bryce said, and then went to stand in the doorway to the hall to reassure the tourists, who were growing disgruntled at the tour interruption. “All the heat from the candles must have gotten to her.”

  Jenny knelt by Brenda and avoided the form on the bed.

  “Phyllis, will you take the guests downstairs?” Bryce said. “Perhaps they’d like to enjoy some of your wonderful refreshments in the sitting room.” The ticket holders’ faces brightened at that suggestion and they began to troop back down the stairs. He held Phyllis aside for a moment and told her in a quieter voice, “The tours will have to be put on hold for now. I’ll call Mac to get over here as soon as possible.”

  Phyllis froze and stared past him at the form on the bed. Bryce reminded her again and she hurriedly escorted the guests to the foyer. William helped Phyllis move everyone far from the scene and back into the comforting light of the parlor and dining room. Once downstairs, the guests buzzed about the tours and the grotesque scene they had witnessed, some still arguing about whether it was real. William finally stepped in front of the group and cleared his throat.

  “I think everyone should stay right here until the police can get your names and contact information. I’m sure they will want to talk with everyone.” William searched their faces. “Of course, you will have your money refunded for your unused tickets. I apologize for your disappointment, but this is a serious matter. I’m sure you understand.” The guests sat quietly chatting and eating their refreshments, subdued as they contemplated everything.

  Not minutes later, Detective Mac Rivers rushed into the building. He hesitated at the front door, seeing the large gathered crowd waiting for the latest news. He told them all to stay where they were until he could talk with them and then took the stairs to the second floor two steps at a time. The first thing he saw was Brenda being carried out by Bryce toward her apartment in the small side wing at the end of the second-floor hallway. His heart nearly did a flip to see
her like that and in the arms of another man, but he tried to master his feelings and focus on the matter at hand.

  He rushed over to help Bryce move her into the apartment. Phyllis returned upstairs and hovered behind Mac, watching as the two men gently laid her on the soft covers of the bed. “Mac, I will take care of Brenda,” Phyllis said in a soft voice, firm but kind. She knew he was torn, not wanting to leave Brenda but knowing that Phyllis was right, he had work to do. He nodded and left his fiancée in Phyllis’s capable hands, and followed Bryce back to begin their inspection of the crime scene.

  In the meantime, William had finished telling everyone in line that the evening’s tours were canceled due to unforeseen circumstances. He had set Allie to work refunding money to the disappointed visitors. The solemnity of the occasion overshadowed the surging excitement Allie Williams felt, and she could barely focus on her task. She couldn’t believe she had seen the mummy figure of a real man stretched out on Ellen Teague’s bed.

  Upstairs in Brenda’s apartment, Phyllis was more solemn about the events. She worried about how this would impact Brenda and her future here. She laid a cool washcloth on Brenda’s forehead and put on the kettle for tea, knowing the proprietor of the Sheffield Bed and Breakfast would need comfort above all on this strange, terrible night.

  Bryce slipped his mobile phone back into his pocket. “The coroner is on his way,” Bryce told Mac, who was inspecting the mummy closely. “He should be here any minute. I think this man, whoever he is, has been dead for quite a while. Look at the spot where I peeled back a strip of the canvas wrapping...his forehead is different looking from any dead person I’ve seen.”

  The coroner arrived while Mac searched for clues in the room. Only he and Bryce had disturbed the room, other than Jenny, Allie and Brenda. He knew they would be easy enough to rule out when comparing evidence. There was no disturbance to the locked passageway door or to the windows. Whoever had placed the body in this bed must have entered through the door to the main hallway, just as Mac had.

  “We’ll need to talk with Brenda when she wakes up,” Bryce said. “Jenny said there was a rumor that she had an experience in this room just last night.”

  “What was she doing in this room? I thought all the rooms were booked.”

  Bryce told Mac the story of why Brenda had slept in the room the night before. Mac felt ashamed that he hadn’t asked Brenda more questions when he had noticed she looked so tired earlier. On the other hand, he thought, she didn’t bother to ask him for help when she had experienced an intruder in her room in the middle of the night. For the hundredth time, he wished Brenda wouldn’t let her stubbornness get in the way of good common sense. “We can’t do much more here until the crime scene photographer arrives with the coroner. Let’s go check on Brenda.” Bryce agreed and they left the room.

  In Brenda’s apartment, the dim light of the bedside lamp cast an amber glow through the bedroom where they gathered. Brenda was just beginning to flutter open her eyelids and wondered how she ended up in her bed in a witch costume. Phyllis leaned over her. “Stay where you are, Brenda. You fainted. Are you feeling okay?” Phyllis felt Brenda’s forehead briefly, checking that she was not fevered.

  “I don’t remember fainting...but I had the craziest dream, Phyllis. I guess you could call it a nightmare. I saw Bryce looking at something awful...on the bed during the tour I was giving.” She looked at Phyllis, still confused. “I’m sorry, I didn’t finish the tour, or did I? Anyway, I dreamt Bryce found a dead man on that bed and not another Halloween decoration.”

  “It was no dream, Brenda.” Bryce stood over her with Mac at his side. “You were giving the tour and when you opened that door I had a sense that the form on the bed was no prop. I’m sorry I ruined your speech but I couldn’t let you bring in the other tour guests. And after closer inspection I knew it was a dead man on that bed.”

  Brenda closed her eyes and opened them again. “Don’t upset her with all of that,” Mac said. “She’s had enough for now.”

  “No, I want to hear it all,” Brenda said. She heard Phyllis rattling china in the little kitchen. Then the calming scent of her favorite lavender chamomile tea. She sat up a little bit against the pillows, beginning to feel stronger.

  Mac pulled up a chair next to her bed. “It is a dead body for sure,” he said. “Bryce seems to think it is someone who has been dead for a while, but the coroner will give us more information soon about that. I need you to tell me what you saw in there the night before. Are you up to that?”

  Brenda nodded. “I wanted to tell you when I saw you earlier but decided to wait until tomorrow, maybe after things calmed down when we got the first tours out of the way.” She told Mac of her experience in the room, trying to stick to the details and ignore the supernatural aspects that had so excited Phyllis and Allie. “The biggest question, besides why would someone come into the room to frighten me, was how did they get inside the room? I locked the door from the inside as soon as I went in there for the night. When I woke up and saw the figure, I turned the bedside lamp on. Whatever or whoever it was had simply vanished. I even went out into the hallway and turned on the lights. There was no sign of anyone. I was convinced it was my imagination, or perhaps that the apparition was real, after all. That’s why I didn’t want to tell you about it, Mac.” He nodded in understanding.

  Phyllis came to the bedside with tray with a steaming cup of tea for Brenda and coffee for everyone else. “Don’t forget I had an experience in there yesterday morning, too,” Phyllis added. All eyes focused on her as she told of hearing the moaning sounds. “Brenda came up right away and looked at everything. Nothing was disturbed, no windows open.” She looked at her boss for affirmation.

  “Nothing was even out of place.” No one responded right away as they gratefully sipped their hot drinks. Brenda’s hand flew to her mouth. “Oh no,” she said. “What if I didn’t see an apparition at all? What if I saw the murderer who had come to place the body on the bed, not knowing anyone would be sleeping in there? Perhaps the murderer was hoping it would be ignored or assumed to be a Halloween decoration. After all, on my tour, it looked like one of the decorations at first glance. Bryce was the one who suspected it was something more, but I doubt I would have discovered it until possibly the end of the weekend, when normal activity resumed. We would have had three days of tours before we would have discovered it was actually a body, if Bryce hadn’t noticed,” Brenda finished with a shudder, wrapping her hands more tightly around the warm cup of tea.

  Mac wished she would change out of her hideous costume, but he concentrated on her words instead. Her theory had merit, but there was much to do and he told her to get some rest. He and Bryce had their work cut out for them. Once again, yellow crime scene tape was placed across the door into the Captain’s Room, echoing the crimes of the recent and distant past.

  When the detective had left Brenda’s apartment, Phyllis told her she heard Mac give orders to several cops to stay on the premises. They had searched the premises for the perpetrator even though Mac was sure he was no longer there. Two officers would remain inside the building for the night, guarding the scene and ensuring everyone’s safety. William had personally visited each guest of the bed and breakfast to reassure them of their safety, much to Brenda’s gratitude.

  Mac returned to Brenda’s apartment to check on her before leaving. He sighed, relieved that the scene had finally been photographed and properly examined. “If you hear anything during the night, Brenda, it might be one of the officers patrolling this floor. I took the liberty of calling your doctor, too. She wants to take a look at you, Phyllis was concerned you might have received a concussion when you fell.”

  “Dr. Anderson is here? I didn’t know she made house calls,” Brenda said in surprise, but just then Dr. Sheryl Anderson poked her head in the door and came to her bedside.

  “You’ve had quite an evening, Brenda. How are you feeling?” She examined Brenda’s pupils and felt along her neck for sore
ness.

  “I’m a little better now. I have no idea how that dead body got in there.” Sheryl checked her reflexes briefly, then patted her arm and told her it was best to simply get some sleep. Brenda’s brow creased in anxiety at Dr. Anderson’s advice. “I doubt I’ll sleep much tonight. I can’t get thoughts to quit racing through my mind at all. I’m sure I’ll spend the late hours trying to figure it all out.”

  “Well, then I suggest you should take these sleeping pills,” Dr. Anderson reassured her, leaving a prescription on her bedside table. “You’ll need your rest if you want to think clearly tomorrow.” Her doctor also promised to let everyone know she was fine, and to ask Phyllis to double-check that Brenda’s door was locked.

  Brenda accepted the pills and thanked Sheryl profusely. Her doctor gave her a quick hug and said to call her in the morning if she needed anything, and headed downstairs. Brenda decided to change out of her costume, take a warm shower and wash off the traces of the heavy make-up first. Once in clean pajamas, she took the pills and settled back into bed. She could feel the weariness overtake her almost before her head hit the soft pillow.

  Chapter Five

  Diversions

  When Brenda came downstairs the next morning, Phyllis breathed a sigh of relief. Her boss looked rested and as if ready to carry on as usual. “Are you feeling better?” Allie asked her, and Brenda replied in the affirmative. As she walked through the rooms to the dining room, thoughts of the night before flooded over her. Her stomach did a flip-flop and she took a deep breath. She needed a good hot cup of coffee first. One of the housekeepers cleaning the buffet turned and smiled at her.

  “I’ll get you a cup of coffee, Miss Sheffield,” she said. Brenda smiled in return and accepted the steaming beverage.

  A few minutes later, she fetched herself a scrambled egg and dry toast from the buffet. “Is that all you’re going to eat?” Allie asked, hovering in the doorway.