"Um, nothing. Is it still sore here?' Her soapy hand snaked beneath the water line. Tyber sucked in his breath as she massaged him in a very special place with the touch of heaven.
"Ah, no," he answered truthfully before he realized what he was saying.
She removed her hand.
"I mean, yeah, it's very, very sore, baby."
"You poor thing." He tried his very best to look like "a poor thing." Her hand recommenced its massaging. Zanita's soothing touch was always magic.
"Tyber, I think we may have two things going on here…"
"You've got that right." He glanced down at the water.
"On the one hand, we have what I think is a genuine paranormal incident."
"That hasn't been proven. A little lower, baby." He guided her hand to where it "hurt" the most. Or best, depending on how one viewed it.
"On the other hand… what's this?" She pulled a round net sponge from the water and stared at it. Shrugging, she tossed it over her shoulder onto the tile floor, placing her hand immediately back under the water.
"What?" Tyber paled slightly. He had been mentally floating away under her ministrations. The quick find and toss were a wee bit too fast for his fogged faculties. All he registered was her hand in the water and a round thing sailing past his head. Both occurrences were too close to a certain part of his anatomy for comfort, even though logical told him there was no cause for concern. Males were funny that way.
"Nothing. It was just an extra sponge."
"Oh." He gingerly rested back, his color returning.
"Anyway, as I was saying, on the one hand…" She stopped. Her violet eyes opened wide. "My god, what is in this water!"
Tyber stared at her immobilized as her hand rapidly fished around in the tub, brushing him in several sensitive areas as she did so. Finally her hand seemed to grasp something solid, preparing to yank it up.
Tybers mouth dropped open in horror. In a fluid motion he sat forward. "Wait!"
But Zanita got a good hold on something squirming and pulled it up fast.
Tyber went perfectly white and leaned back against the rim. Closing his eyes, he waited to feel excruciating pain.
When none was forthcoming, he slowly opened one light blue eye. Zanita was holding a drenched Hambone over the water by the scruff of his neck. The pirate tabby had a glare of disgust on his face as he continued to drip into the water.
Tyber crossed his arms over his chest and raised an eyebrow. "Now, how did you get in here?"
"He probably came in to investigate the bubbles and fell in behind us," Zanita explained, remembering that her grandmothers cat used to do that. "I have never figured out the fascination cats have with humans in bathtubs. My grandmother's cat used to push the door open while you were soaking, walk up to you, and sniff at both you and the water with a cross-eyed look. Once she realized you were okay, she'd look at you like you were demented and leave. But she checked you every five minutes just to be sure."
Tyber chuckled. "Yep. They do have a repulsed yet fascinated interest in the bath."
She put Hambone down on the tile. He shook from head to tail, spraying them with water. Raising his tail in the air, the tabby tried to exit with what little dignity he had left.
Her hand went back to massaging Tyber. His came out to still her, moving it to his shoulder.
She gave him a questioning look.
"Three strikes and you're out. I'm not taking any chances."
"Huh? Anyway, we know that besides the paranormal activity happening here—and don't snort, that explanation you gave for the book suddenly appearing inside the cabinet was totally hokey and you know it."
"I'm still working on that one." He rubbed the back of his neck, his forehead furrowing as his hand encountered the exclamation point on the top of his head.
"Giving you some trouble?" she needled him, in the science.
He wagged his finger at her. "I'll get back to you on it later."
She raised her eyebrows. "So let's see what we have. The moving picture on the sideboard during dinner…"
"That one's easy. It was pulled by a thin fishing line to the floor. The line was then quickly retracted."
"I might buy that. Who do you think did it?"
"I have my suspicions, but I'm not saying yet."
"Okay. What about the poltergeist activity with the flying gadgets?"
"Someone just inside that secret panel at the top of the library stairs. And with a strong pitching arm, too." He grinned. "Maybe it was the ghost of Jerome 'Dizzy' Dean."
"Tyber! Be serious! I think all of us were present in the library."
He rolled toward her. "Not all of us."
She thought a minute. "Sasenfras. But why? To scare us from the house?"
"Or lure us to the passage."
"Which brings us to the message in chicken blood."
"Ah, the chicken blood. Puts one in a voodoo kinda mood."
"Voodoo?"
"You do."
"Do wh—don't start that!"
He laughed huskily. "The chicken-blood writing could have been done by anyone in the house."
"Including the ghost."
"Including the—" He stopped, realizing what he had almost said. "Anyone in the house."
She trickled water over his chest. "Then there is the matter of the Polaroid with my eyes wide open. I can't figure how any of this fits in."
"That's a dark horse, as far as I can tell. Let's put that aside for now, too."
She nodded agreement. "What about the Ouija board messages? Sasenfras seemed pretty upset."
"How can you tell?" he asked blandly.
"You're funny," she said, and went on, "Someone besides Todd is trying to get him to sell. And remember, he did speak fondly of Todd when we were at his house."
"Fondly?" he said incredulously. "We are speaking of Sasenfras for whom the wolves bay?"
"Well, fondly for him. Personally, I think it has to be someone else who's after him to sell."
"The question is, who would want only a wing of an inn? It's damn odd."
"Especially since said wing has a body in it."
They looked at each other.
"They might not know that," she said.
"They might," he said.
They were silent for a few minutes.
"You know, Sasenfras spoke rather strangely of Winnie, too. He doesn't really seem to blame her for her infidelity. His attitude seemed to be that she couldn't help herself."
Tyber rubbed his jaw and stretched his long legs over the rim of the tub. "That is strange. Especially for a husband." He gave her a sidelong look. She ignored it.
"How do kitchen gadgets fit in? To scare off Todd, maybe? And why scare off Todd?"
"I suppose flying kitchen tools would really get under a chefs skin. You know how touchy they are about their equipment—just look at Blooey. As to how it fits in, that part is still at the ballpark, too, baby."
"Along with Dizzy Dean?" She wiggled her toe on his calf.
"Ahuh." He smiled.
"And then there was the ghost in my room."
"Ah…"
"Not a ghost?"
"Nope."
She put her hands on her hips, splashing the water. Tyber's gaze followed her motion with interest. "How do you know? I was there, and I'm telling you it was unearthly! The muted light, the book falling—"
"The book was pushed."
"What?" She splashed in the water. "How do you know that?"
He gave her a pure-science smirk. "Physics is the jewel of mystery."
"Quit the enlightened-guru routine and speak!"
He laughed. "Remember when I examined the place where you said the book hit the floor?"
She nodded.
"There was no marking, scratch, or groove in the wood floorboards. It was a heavy book, but still it might not have made a mark. I checked the empty slot in the bookcase which was directly above where you thought it had fallen. It seemed fine at first. But then you said that the book had fallen spine side up. The only way that could have happened was if it fell directly to the floor below. But when I examined the floor to the right, there were two nicks in the wood spaced precisely as I would expect from that kind of impact. I knew what I had to do then, but not in front of everybody in the room. I waited until I knew the room was empty later that night and came back up here. I drew an imaginary line from those nicks on the floor to the bookcase and found right at that slot… the book, On the Road."
"By Kerouac?" She was completely puzzled now.
"Yes, but I'll get back to that later. When I removed that book, voila! There was a small peephole in the back. Someone with a dowel could have easily knocked the book off the shelf and did."
"But what woke me up? I felt something brushing against my face!"
"I carefully examined the room and found another peephole under the desk. My guess is, whoever it was used a penlight and flashed it over your face several times to wake you up. A small fog machine, also made to filter through the other peephole by the books, created the wafting, unearthly look, along with the herbal-scented incense. To a half-dazed person just awakening from sleep, a spirit appeared."
"My god. But how did the slot that the book fell out of change places with the other one without my seeing?"
"In the time between when you came down and when we all went back up, the perpetrator had moved the books over to hide the real slot."
"Who wasn't with you in the parlor when I was upstairs sleeping?"
He thought for a minute. "Everyone went in and out; it could have been anyone. There was plenty of time, and don't forget, whoever did it had it all set up ahead of time, so it wouldn't have taken them much time to do it." |
"Why do you say that?"
"Because whoever did this is the same person who was in our room that first night. They planted that particular book in that slot."
"They wanted us to find it. Planned it. What do you suppose they are trying to lead us to?"
"More than the murder. There's something else underlying everything. I think the answer may be in that code."
"Any luck cracking it?"
He just smiled.
"Well?" She slapped him with the washcloth. "What does it say."
"I haven't completely broken it, but I'm very close." He stood up in the water, and rivulets of bubbles sluiced down his toned body. He offered her a hand up. "One thing I am positive of."
"What's that?" Her hands steadied herself on his slick, muscular shoulders. He lifted her out of the Jacuzzi.
"We have to go to
He walked over to the large glassed-in shower and turned on the taps.
"You want to see if you can find out anything about Sasenfras?"
"Yeah. And whatever else we can come up with. We can't keep this to ourselves much longer. There was a murder, albeit about thirty years ago. We're gonna have to call the cops in soon, baby." He tugged her under the spray with him to rinse off. Streamers of soap sheeted down his hair and golden chest. And her curls and legs.
"What was significant about that book by Keroac? The one that was placed in the original slot?"
"I opened it up, and you'll never guess whose name was on the inside of the jacket." The flats of his palms slid down her back and sides.
"Who?" She closed her eyes and let the warm water and him flow over her as she leaned closer, letting their lower bodies touch intimately.
"Our own flower child… Winifred Sasenfras. The plot thickens."
"Is that what this is? A plot? I had no idea it was called that." She grinned cheekily.
He laughed. "Wait till you see the pacing," he drawled wickedly.
There was no unnecessary conflict from her. But then, he knew her outline word for word.
Tyber informed Todd that a sudden business problem had cropped up and he needed to meet with some colleagues in
Boston
right away but that they would be back by the next afternoon. He didn't want anyone knowing that they were going to
Nantucket
. He also instructed Blooey to hold down the ship in their absence and to keep an eye on Auntie.
Zanita wanted to kiss him for that but knew she would embarrass him.
"Aye, aye, Captain! Consider it done! Don't you and Her Ladyship worry about nothing a-tall. Me and Hambone will batten down the hatches. Right, Hambone?"
The scruffy cat gave a whine and placed his paw on Tyber's leg. Occasionally even a pirate kitty gave in to embarrassing displays of affection.
Tyber got down on one knee and petted the disheveled cat-head. "Sorry, pal, not this voyage."
Zanita furrowed her brow. How the tabby knew they were taking a boat ride was beyond her. Sometimes the Evans household was beyond eccentric.