A Ghost in Time (Destiny Bay Cozy Mysteries Book 3) (10 page)

He shut the door and smirked as he took off his jacket.
 

“Did you find him?”

He shrugged. “I caught a glimpse of a car, but it took off and I didn’t see enough to identify it. Looked like a regular late model RAV or a CRV, one of those small SUVs. But he’s gone now.”

That was a relief. I could walk to my own car without worrying about being jumped.
 

“Okay. Thanks for checking that out,” I said it with a smile, hoping to seem friendly. “So you three are all cut flower grower apprentices, huh?”

Danny gave me a worried look, then scanned the others. “So, whatever these two have been telling you, forget it. They live in la la-land. If you want the real story, you’ll have to talk to me.”

“Crabs in a barrel,” I murmured to myself.
 

“What?”

I shook my head. “Why do you all seem so suspicious of each other? Here I thought you all were Star’s eager gang of protectors, three musketeers, a one-for-all and all-for-one sort of deal.”

“Hah!” Leah flopped down on the couch and made a face. “You’d be
 
cynical too if you had the rug pulled out from under you like we did.”

“You mean, Star’s death?”

“More than that, finding out she didn’t set up to leave us the ranch the way she’d been promising for a year,” she claimed with dramatic Valley Girl emphasis. “She hadn’t paid us anything since Halloween. Now we’re high and dry with no place to go. We thought we were building a life here, a business, only to find out she was lying to us all that time.”

I looked at them, amazed. “You really thought she was leaving you her ranch? The three of you?”

Danny nodded. “That was what she said. We signed papers and everything. She said she wanted to go live in the Caribbean on a yacht. We were supposed to keep this place going and send her monthly checks for the rest of her life. But the ownership of the ranch would be split three ways.” He grunted. “So we already found out that isn’t happening. She never put through the final paperwork. We’re out of luck.”

“Wow. That’s too bad.” I looked from one to another of them. “Uh…who gets it?”

They shrugged in unison. “The lawyer won’t tell us that.”

They all looked at me, as though maybe I had some new information. I was beginning to think I’d stayed here long enough. They were going to start wondering what I was doing here again. And I didn’t want to have to defend myself. I started to turn, then thought of something and turned back.

“Do you have a black cat? Or know of one living around here?”

They all shook their heads and that gave me a spark of hope. But I was going and it was past time to do so.
 

“Listen, let me ask you one more thing,” I said quickly. “Can you think of anyone who might have wanted Starflower…uh…dead?”

It seemed an awkward question but their reaction was surprising.
 

“You want a list of people who hated her for one thing or another?” Leah said with a bitter laugh. “It would be easier to give you a list of people who liked her. We might be able to think of one or two.”

I felt a shiver. “Didn’t you all like her? I thought…”

“Listen Miss Activity Director,” Danny said caustically. “We were here for the benefits. We were using her, sure. But she was also using us. It was mutually beneficial, and we all got what we needed and what we wanted. Until she stopped paying us and now we found out she was cheating us all along.”

I couldn’t resist asking. “So…does that mean one of you might have wanted her…gone?”

They looked at each other and I could tell this wasn’t a new thought to them. Boy. Crabs in a barrel was mild compared to this gang.
 

“Sure. But we weren’t here. We were all three at the country club, and we’ve got witnesses out the tubes. So don’t try getting your aunt out of trouble by framing one of us.”

“Oh no. I wouldn’t dream of it.”
 

I turned to go and that was when it happened. One of the letters that I’d thought I’d tucked safely in under my shirt fell right to the ground at my feet. The handwritten address staring up at us all said “Star” big enough to see from the moon.

Chapter Twelve

Francie stepped forward and picked up the letter, waving it like a fan. “Hey, is this yours?” she said, handing it to me. “It just fell out of your sweater.”

“Th…thanks,” I managed to gurgle out. I took it and shoved it in my pocket and prayed the other two wouldn’t fall out too. Then I looked into her eyes. Hadn’t she noticed?
 

But her gaze was unfocused, as if she was thinking about something else. And the others didn’t even seem to notice anything was going on. I looked at each in turn. They were deep into their own thoughts. I jammed the envelopes back where they belonged, and headed for the door. My luck had to be running out. Time to go. I was ready to get out of there.
 

Too late. Just before I reached the door, something big and heavy pounded on it. We all looked at each other. Something about the way the visitor was knocking was very ominous.
 

“Who is it?” Danny called out.
 

There was a pause, as if the person hadn’t decided whether to tell the truth or make something up.
 

“Jason Moon,” he said at last. “I used to be married to Star.”

We all looked at each other again and shrugged.
 

“No kidding,” Danny said softly. “Have any of you ever met him before?”

We all shook our heads.

“Me neither.” He frowned. “Hey, maybe he can help us figure out a way to get our back pay, at least. Let’s let him in. Might as well see what he has to say.” And he opened the door to him.
 

Jason was a thick, burly guy with a baby face, sort of pleasant, vaguely vacant. He wasn’t a bit like anything I would have expected, but then, I hadn’t even known he existed until a few hours ago.
 

“Are you people Star’s apprentices? I’ve heard a lot about you. I’m hoping you can give me a key to the house.”

He looked at each of us expectantly, and we all shook our heads.

“Sorry,” Danny said. “We never did have it.”

“And we’re very sorry for your loss,” I spoke up. “Did you get a chance to see her before…the accident?”

If I hadn’t been reading “Sleuthing for the Clueless” all afternoon, I would never have had the nerve to ask a question like that in this situation. But I’d begun to realize, if I was going to try to do real detection work, I was going to have to ask hard and unpleasant questions of everyone involved. That was just the way it was.
 

And he didn’t seem to mind. He shook his head and for the first time, he focused on me. His eyes narrowed somewhat. “You’re not one of the apprentices,” he said.

“No, I’m not. Bebe Miyaki is my aunt.”

His head reared back. I expected anger, disgust, anything but the smile I got. “Oh yeah, you’re the one,” he said cryptically. “You hang out with that cop a lot.”

I opened my mouth to protest that characterization, then closed it again. Why not go with the rep? It might even help.
 

“To answer your cop-like question,” he said, “no, I just got here today.” He looked sad. “I didn’t even get a chance to try to win her back into my arms. So that’s all over now.”

He sounded like he listened to a lot of country and western music. I had the impression Star was more into medieval monks and flute serenades. Maybe that was one of the things that drove them apart.

Danny was growing impatient. “Hey, listen,” he said. “Do you know who is going to inherit this farm? Are you in line for any of it?”

Jason made a face. “I do not know. That is one of the things my lawyer is going to be looking into. After all, I had a lot to do with building the place up into what it is now. Why shouldn’t I get a piece of the action?”

“You?” Danny didn’t try to hide his dismay. “I heard the odds are on Margie getting it.”

For the first time, anger appeared on Jason’s face. “If this place goes to Star’s sister and that jackass husband of hers, I’ll shoot myself,” he declared bitterly.
 

The letters hiding in my sweater shifted precariously and I took that as a sign it was way past time for me to leave. I said goodbye, but they were getting into it now, and no one seemed to notice my departure. That was just as well. The letters fell out just as I reached the eucalyptus trees.
 

I grabbed them back and took a little detour. I wanted to see what kind of car Jason had. Could it be a small SUV? It was parked just short of Star’s house and I quickly got close enough to see it well.

No, it was a cheap economy number. Probably a rental. I took out my cell phone and gave myself a message as to its license number, then turned back to where my own car was parked, scanning the darkness for a black cat which didn’t appear.
 

I got in and there was Dante. I smiled at him, relief flooding me. I just wanted to get home, and now it looked like I might make it. I wasn’t sure why he always gave me such a sense of comfort and wellbeing—but he did and I was ready to go with it for now.
 

“Hey,” I said as I started the car. “Where’ve you been lately? I haven’t seen you since before Bebe’s accident. You know about that, right?”

He nodded slowly, watching me in a way that made me feel warm and quivery, his gaze slipping over me in a slow and sultry way. That was new, and I wasn’t sure I was happy about it. So I kept my eyes on the road and ignored it, chattering on about what had happened since I’d seen him last.
 

“I wish you would look into what exactly happened last night,” I told him. “I mean, maybe you know a spirit of some sort who was there and knows how it all went down. Bebe didn’t see the mirror at the side of the road and she vaguely remembers a tall dark man being there right after she hit Star.” I glanced at him. “So if you could look into it, I would be very grateful.”

It was a long shot. Ghosts usually looked into things they wanted to look into—not what you wanted them to. But you never did know. It didn’t hurt to ask.
 

“And another thing,” I said as I remembered. “Sami is still missing. Could you keep an eye out for him? Bebe would feel so much better if we just could get him home.”

He didn’t seem to be listening anymore, so I let it go. I turned off the highway onto our road, and suddenly a loud explosion seemed to rip through the car. I screamed, jerking the wheel to the right, and then realized a rock the size of a fist had flipped up and smashed the windshield.
 

“Oh no!”

I pulled into my parking place at Bebe’s and stared at the damage,
 
devastated. There was a huge hole with shards of glass and a spiderweb of cracks radiating out from it. My little car had seen better days, but now it was going to look like a junker. I couldn’t afford to get this fixed. And I didn’t even have anyone to blame it on.
 

“What am I going to do?” I wailed.
 

It was awful, a sunburst of broken-looking glass right in the middle of where I needed to see clearly if I was going to go on driving this thing.
 

I looked at Dante. He gave me a twisted smile, then raised his hand and slowly moved it toward the broken windshield. Spreading his fingers wide, he almost covered the entire area where the break was. He chanted something softly and as I watched, the glass seemed to ripple. I stared hard, wondering, “What on earth?”---and then I realized what was happening. The glass began to melt. I clamped my hand over my mouth as if to stop myself from crying out and stared, fascinated and holding my breath. Suddenly he pulled his hand back. I gasped. The glass was perfect. There was no sign that it had ever been hit. I turned to gape at Dante. He winked at me, and slowly faded away.
 

I looked back at the glass, realizing what this was. Dante was making the case for Aunty Jane.
 

“
Here Mele, see? Magic works. You can use it in your everyday life. Get with the program, silly
.”

I groaned. I didn’t want magic. I was scared of it and I was afraid of what it could do. And frankly, I didn’t relish a future of fixing people’s windshields.
 

They were ganging up on me.

Chapter Thirteen

Bebe was talking to someone on her cell phone when I walked in. She hung up fairly quickly and turned to me with a smile.
 

“Who as that on the phone?” I asked in all innocence.

She suddenly looked evasive and turned away. “Oh. Uh, that was….uh…just somebody…”

She wasn’t going to tell me!
What?
I blinked at her in amazement. Not that she had to tell me everything she was doing or thinking, but … Wow. What could it be?

She turned with new resolution and faced me. “Okay, that was Captain Stone. He just wanted to find out if I was okay after all the questioning and everything.”

“Oh.”
Captain Stone?!!
“That’s nice. I guess.”

She flashed me a look. “What do you mean by that?” she said a bit defensively.

Okay, okay, I told myself. Be careful here
.
 

“Well, I’d be wary of that guy. Who knows what his real motivation is? He might be trying to get you to say something when your guard was down and …”

“Captain Stone has been perfectly nice to me all along,” she said, obviously annoyed with me. “I have nothing against Captain Stone.”

She turned and headed for the kitchen. I stayed where I was.
Nothing against Captain Stone, huh
? How about the fact that he had something against me? Didn’t that count?

And yes, I know, that was just me being a selfish, self-centered baby again. But I couldn’t help it. Knowing she was getting cozy with someone who so obviously had it in for me stung a bit.
 

We worked together on preparing dinner and that always tended to draw us back closer together. Her friend Suzy Alman had dropped by with the makings of a Poke Salad and we had fun spicing it up with anything we could think of—avocado chunks, chopped cilantro, tiny pearl tomatoes, crunched flakes of nori (dried seaweed). We used deep fried wonton strips like dip chips and had a feast—one of my favorite light meals.