The Ghost and the Muse (Haunting Danielle Book 10) Read online

  “What time was that?” Brian asked.

  “It was 10:15. I looked at the time when I went to bed a few minutes later,” Lily explained.

  “Hillary’s dead?” a new voice called out from the doorway.

  They all turned to face the new arrival. It was Danielle’s neighbor Heather Donovan. The fact Heather looked more girlish—than the young woman she was—was partly attributed to her habit of wearing her hair pulled back into two regular, three-strand braids, with her severe bangs cut straight across her forehead.

  “I saw the police cars—the ambulance. I just saw them put Hillary into the ambulance, and she’s dead?”

  “I’m afraid so,” Danielle said sadly. “We think it might have been a heart attack. I found her this morning. But we’ll know more after the autopsy.”

  Heather walked into the room. “I can’t believe it. I just saw her last night. Damn…I was kind of short with her. I was tired, cold, just wanted to get back in the house.” Dejected, Heather took a seat on an empty chair.

  “When did you see her?” Brian asked.

  “Last night. I was taking out my trash. It was late, I’d already gone to bed when I remembered today’s trash day. So I got up, took the can out to the sidewalk and ran into Hillary. She told me she was heading down to the beach to take a final moonlight walk. She said she was checking out this morning.”

  “Do you have any idea what time that was?” Brian asked.

  “Sure. I looked at the clock when I got out of bed to take the trash out. It was 10:15.”

  Four

  Beverly Klein had just started to make herself a sandwich when the landline began to ring. Abandoning the opened loaf of bread on the cutting board, she walked to the far end of the kitchen and answered the phone.

  “Beverly, hi. This is Susan Mitchell. Is Steve there, by chance?”

  “Steve? Why would he be here? Isn’t he at work?”

  “He hasn’t come in today. I tried calling his cellphone. But he doesn’t answer. He has an 11:00 meeting.”

  Holding the phone’s receiver to her ear, Beverly glanced at the wall clock. “It’s almost 11:30.”

  “I know. That’s why I’m calling. Do you know where he is?”

  Moving the receiver from her right hand to her left, Beverly leaned against the wall. “He should be at work.”

  “Do you know what time he left this morning?”

  “Not really. When I got up, he was already gone. I assumed he was at the bank.”

  “This isn’t like him. He never misses meetings.”

  Beverly stood up straight and glanced to the door leading from the kitchen to the garage. “No, this isn’t like him. Let me see what I can find out, and I’ll call you back. Do you have my cellphone number?”

  “Yes. I have both yours and your husband’s.”

  “Good. If he shows up, please call me immediately. If I’m not at the house, you can reach me on my cellphone.”

  When Beverly got off the phone, she went directly to the garage. Steve’s car wasn’t parked in its normal spot. She glanced around. His tackle box, which he kept on the workbench, was absent, as was his fishing pole.

  Going back into the house, she grabbed her purse and car keys.

  Fifteen minutes later Beverly pulled into the Frederickport Pier parking lot, where she found her husband’s car. After parking next to it, she got out and peeked in the windows. Nothing looked out of place. Turning from the vehicle, she made her way to the pier.

  No one seemed to be around save for one man who was fishing along the same side of the pier as the café and the row of shops. Yet on the other side of the pier, she spied a folding chair she recognized. Instead of approaching the chair, she surveyed the area from afar, noting what appeared to be Steve’s tackle box, open and upside down, with tackle scattered around the chair’s perimeter. Steve was nowhere in sight. She went immediately to the lone fisherman.

  “Excuse me!” Beverly greeted the man when she approached.

  Preparing to bait his hook, the man paused and looked to Beverly. “Yes?”

  “Did you notice where the man who was fishing over there went?”

  He shrugged. “I haven’t seen him. No one’s been over there since I got here. Figured whoever it was is probably at the café, getting something to eat.”

  “How long have you been here?”

  Again the man shrugged. “Couple hours, I guess.”

  “A couple of hours? And in all that time, no one’s been over there?”

  “Nope. But now that I think about it, not a good idea to just leave your gear lying around on the pier. Anyone could walk off with it.”

  “Umm, yes, you’re right. Okay, thank you.” Beverly smiled and turned away from the man, making her way to Steve’s fishing spot.

  When she got to the other side of the pier, she surveyed the area. It was Steve’s folding chair and tackle box, but the sack he had taken with him was nowhere in sight. She remembered he had forgotten to take his thermos the previous night, and if he had picked up coffee on the pier, there was no evidence of that. She didn’t notice the fishing pole immediately. What she noticed first was a section of broken railing directly in front of the chair. Her gaze moved down, and then she saw it, Steve’s fishing pole lying on the pier, its line still dangling out in the water.

  Beverly turned and made her hasty way to the Pier Café. The moment she entered the door, she practically ran head-on into a waitress with rainbow-colored hair.

  “Mrs. Klein,” Carla squeaked, coming to an abrupt halt before slamming into the banker’s wife and spilling the pot of coffee she carried.

  “Hello, Carla, is my husband here?”

  “Your husband? Why would he be in here?”

  Beverly cocked her brow. “I would assume to get something to eat.”

  “Umm…oh yeah…” Carla laughed nervously. “No…no, he isn’t.”

  “Has he been in at all this morning?”

  Carla shook her head. “Not since I got here. But I don’t know about before that.”

  “How long have you been here?” Beverly asked.

  Carla glanced to the wall clock. “I’ve been here for about an hour.”

  “Did you happen to see him last night?”

  “He came in to buy some coffee. Is there some problem?”

  “I don’t know.” Beverly glanced to the window. “He came down here to go fishing last night. And he never came home. His fishing equipment is still on the pier.”

  “Why would he leave his fishing equipment on the pier?”

  “And his car in the parking lot,” Beverly added.

  Sergeant Joe Morelli guessed Beverly Klein was a good ten years younger than her husband, somewhere in the early forties range, which would make her a few years older than himself. Yet unlike Joe, who was still single and unmarried, Beverly was not only married, she had two grown, college-aged children, a boy and a girl.

  When Joe had learned about Steve’s affair with Carla, his first reaction was—why? Why would a man like Steve Klein risk it all for a flighty waitress not much older than his own daughter while he had a wife that looked like Beverly at home? Rumor had it that in Beverly’s younger years she had been Miss Colorado, or was it Miss Connecticut? He couldn’t recall exactly. Whichever state it was, he suspected the story of Beverly Klein once being a beauty queen was true, considering how she now looked. Beverly Klein—with her trim yet curvy figure, startling green eyes, and perfectly coifed strawberry blonde hair—was an attractive woman. Far more appealing than the younger Carla, Joe thought.

  He stood with Beverly at her husband’s fishing site. Together they looked over the area.

  “And you didn’t realize he hadn’t come home last night?”

  “No. But that’s not so unusual. Thursday night is bridge and fishing night. I spend the evening with my girlfriends and he goes fishing. There’s lots of times he doesn’t get home until after I’ve fallen asleep and then he’s already gone to work before I w
ake up in the morning. I just figured he was at work. I didn’t realize anything might be wrong until Susan from the bank called me, looking for Steve after he missed a meeting. When I went into the garage, his car wasn’t there and neither was his tackle box. He never leaves that in his car when he comes back from fishing. He always keeps it on the workbench in the garage. When I didn’t see that tackle box this morning, I just knew he never came home last night.”

  Hands on hips, Joe looked at the upside-down tackle box, its lid askew and its contents scattered along the wooden pier under and around the folding chair. When Beverly leaned down, preparing to right the box, Joe reached out and grabbed her wrist, stopping her.

  “No. I don’t want you to touch anything.”

  Beverly paused and looked up at Joe, her eyes wide. “What are you saying?”

  “What’s this about Steve Klein going missing? That he might have drowned?” Danielle asked the chief as she walked into his office late Friday afternoon.

  Looking up from his desk, MacDonald tossed his pen aside and leaned back in his chair. “It has been one hell of a day, that’s for sure.”

  Danielle took a seat in front of the desk and tossed her purse on the floor by her feet. “I heard something on the radio coming over here about him going missing while fishing last night.”

  “He was fishing on the pier last night—his chair, pole and tackle box are still there, but he hasn’t been seen since last night, when he went into Pier Café to buy some coffee. What’s disturbing, the railing along the pier is broken. And from what we’ve learned, it wasn’t like that yesterday morning.”

  “Are you saying he fell off the pier?”

  “His tackle box was upside down, and everything was scattered all over the place. I don’t know if there was some sort of altercation down there—did he get in an argument with someone—it escalates—someone kicks over the tackle box and then—”

  “Someone shoves Steve over the rail,” Danielle finished for him.

  The chief gave Danielle a nod. “One thing that I don’t imagine was mentioned on the radio, we found blood and hair on one of the pillars of the dock. As if someone fell over and hit his head. It’s being tested now.”

  Danielle winced then said, “According to the radio report, they didn’t notice he was missing until this afternoon. I know Beverly’s back in town, I saw her at the grocery store the other day. If he went fishing last night, how is it no one noticed he was missing until today?”

  “I guess when she woke up this morning, she assumed he’d gotten in after she went to sleep, and left for work before she got up this morning.”

  Danielle considered his words for a moment and then with a gasp said, “Carla!”

  “Carla? What do you mean?”

  “Carla works at Pier Café. If she was there last night, maybe she and Steve had words. I can’t see her doing anything like that intentionally, but if she did get in a fight with him and it got out of hand, I imagine by now she is freaked out and would probably tell you whatever you wanted to know.”

  “As a matter of fact, Carla did work last night. Joe spoke to her. Steve stopped into the café to buy some coffee, and she swears she didn’t see him again last night.”

  “Not even when she locked up to go home?”

  The chief shook his head. “No. According to Carla, she locked up and went out the back door last night, so she wouldn’t have seen him fishing, even if he had still been there. Joe thought she acted a little uncomfortable during the interview, but not like someone who’d recently shoved an ex-lover off the pier.”

  Danielle slumped back in her chair, folding her arms across her chest. “I just think it’s a little weird that Steve chose to go fishing right outside the door where his ex-girlfriend works.”

  “Maybe. But right now, I have another problem and it involves you.”

  “Me? How?”

  “I spoke to the coroner, and while he’s fairly certain it was a heart attack, he may not be able to give me anything official until Tuesday.”

  Danielle frowned. “Why is that a problem?”

  “Brian is asking questions—questions I can’t answer, yet I have a feeling you can.”

  “Questions about what?”

  “Like why both Lily and Heather claimed to have seen Hillary at exactly the same time—the exact same time, 10:15 p.m.”

  Danielle slumped farther down in her chair and groaned. “I knew that was going to be a problem.”

  “Heather didn’t actually see Hillary last night, did she? I mean, not the living Hillary.”

  With a sigh, Danielle stood up and started pacing the room. “Technically speaking, I don’t think Lily saw the living Hillary either. I’m certain she was already dead when Lily peeked in the room.”

  Danielle went on to tell the chief about her and Walt’s encounter with Hillary the previous night and how Lily had looked into Hillary’s room before going to bed.

  She stopped pacing and turned to face the chief. “You know, Heather seems to be getting more and more sensitive to spirits. She saw Jolene and now Hillary. What makes me nervous, one of these days she’s going to catch more than a glimpse of Walt. Not so sure how that will turn out.”

  Five

  Sitting alone on the beach, the cup of hot coffee warming her hands, Heather played over in her head last night’s phone conversation with Danielle Boatman.

  “The next time you talk to Brian Henderson—and I have a feeling he’s going to be calling you or stopping by your house—you may not want to stick to that 10:15 time frame for seeing Hillary. Maybe suggest it was earlier than that—that it was 10:15 when you got back in bed after taking the trash out,” Danielle had suggested.

  Heather couldn’t believe what Danielle was asking of her. “You want me to lie to the police?”

  “Heather, haven’t you figured it out yet? You saw Hillary’s spirit last night. It wasn’t the flesh and blood Hillary. She was already dead—and her body was in the bed at Marlow House. Lily saw it, just like she said this morning.”

  Glancing down at the hot cup of coffee, Heather blew softly and then took a sip.

  “If there was some way to prove I was talking with Hillary’s spirit last night, the last thing I’d want to do is lie about when I saw her.” She took another sip.

  Settling back in the sand, telling herself she should be jogging instead of sitting and drinking coffee, she set her cup next to her on the beach, wiggling it slightly, burrowing it in the sand so it would stay put. She then removed her jogging shoes and socks. Burying her feet in the cool sand, she wiggled her toes.

  “This would feel much nicer in the summer.” Heather picked up her cup, its lower half now coated with sand, and took a sip. Looking out to the incoming waves, she watched as what appeared to be a massive heap of seaweed washed up onto shore not thirty feet from her.

  Her gaze still on the pile of seaweed, she watched as wave after wave gently nudged the heap farther and farther onto shore, and closer to her. She was just about to take another sip of coffee when she noticed movement on the beach to her right. She glanced over and looked. There was a man walking in her direction. A man wearing a black suit and red bow tie.

  “Another weirdo,” Heather muttered as she stumbled to her feet, deciding to cut her coffee break short and get on with her jog before having to talk to the oddly dressed man—oddly dressed for a stroll on the beach.

  Just as she stood and started to toss out what remained of her coffee, she glanced back to the heap of seaweed and noticed something sticking out of it.

  “Oh crap!” Heather cried out. She looked to the man walking in her direction and shouted, “Quick, it looks like a body!” Dashing to the seaweed, Heather looked down and discovered she had been correct. There, tangled in the mass of sea foliage, was the bloated body of Steve Klein, and by the way the back of his head looked, it appeared as if he had been hit in the head.

  When she looked back to the approaching man, she discovered he was no longer
there.

  “What the…?” Heather looked around and then promptly dug her cellphone from her pocket.

  “I’m giving up jogging,” Heather told Brian later that morning. She sat on a bench along the boardwalk and watched Steve’s body being loaded into the waiting van.

  “If that would cut down on the number of bodies we’ve been finding on the beach lately, then I’m all for that,” Brian mumbled as he jotted something down on his notepad.

  “No, I’m serious.” She sounded serious. “This is just getting ridiculous. Dead bodies, ghost ships. What the hell? I thought living on the beach along the Oregon coast was going to be calming—relaxing. DO I LOOK LIKE I’M RELAXED?”

  Surprised by Heather’s outburst, Brian inadvertently slammed his notebook shut. Startled, he said, “I know this must have been traumatic for you—”

  “You don’t know anything!” Abruptly, Heather stood. “And I did see Hillary Thursday night.”

  “I never said you didn’t. But the time—”

  “Well, I was right on the time. 10:15. Yes, 10:15! The same time Lily saw her. You know why that is, Officer Henderson?”

  “Umm…no…but I think you’re going to tell me.”

  “Because I saw Hillary’s ghost! She was already dead. Hillary wasn’t alive when Lily saw her in that bed.”

  Not expecting that answer, Brian blinked, somewhat confused.

  “Yes, her ghost! There, I said it! I see ghosts! I saw Harvey Crump’s ghost. I bet you don’t even know who that is. He was the teenager haunting Presley House, the poor kid my great-grandfather murdered.”

  Heather leaned over and roughly brushed the sand from her jogging pants. “And I saw Jolene’s ghost. Did you know that? I didn’t just find her body; I saw her ghost. Ask your boss. I told him. He believed me. Oh, he didn’t say he did. But I know he believed me. And I bet if I stick around here long enough, I’ll see Steve Klein’s ghost. But you know what? I don’t want to see any ghosts today! I don’t want to see any more dead bodies either. I’m going home!” With that, Heather turned and started to stomp away.