A Catered Halloween Read online

  “But I wasn’t there,” Sean reminded her.

  Libby leaned forward and pointed at her sister. “And we wouldn’t have been, either, if it weren’t for her.”

  Bernie snorted. “Like I knew what was going to happen?”

  “If we had been setting up like we were supposed to, we wouldn’t have been there. We would have been in the kitchen,” Libby snapped.

  “We were cultivating a potential customer, which, in my humble opinion, was worth the ten minutes we were going to spend having Mark show us around,” Bernie countered. “Besides, it was interesting to see how the place was rigged up.”

  “Not to me,” said Libby as she put her hand on her forehead. “I’m going to have nightmares for years.”

  “Oh, don’t be so dramatic,” Bernie snapped.

  “It’s true. I am,” Libby wailed.

  Bernie groaned. “Which you’re going to blame on me, just like you do everything else.”

  “That is so unfair,” Libby retorted.

  “Girls,” Sean said before Bernie could reply.

  Both of them turned to him.

  “Enough,” said Sean.

  “But,” Libby began.

  Sean held up his hand. “I mean it. This bickering—”

  “We’re not bickering,” Bernie objected.

  “Fine,” Sean said. “Whatever you want to call what you’re doing doesn’t do no one—”

  “Anyone…,” Bernie corrected.

  Sean glared at Bernie. She’d been like this ever since she’d learned to talk. “Any good. So do you have to give the retainer back? Is the Haunted House closed down for the duration?”

  Libby and Bernie both shook their heads.

  “It’s opening tomorrow afternoon,” Bernie volunteered.

  Sean snorted. “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope. That’s what Mark told us.”

  “This has to be the fastest processing of a crime scene in the history of the town. But then what do I know? I’m an old man,” said Sean. He tapped his fingers on the side of his chair. At least in his day, they would have kept the crime scene closed off for a couple of days. He’d learned to his cost that if you rushed, you always missed something.

  Bernie took another sip of her Scotch and put her glass down. “Well, it is a big fund-raiser for the volunteer fire department.”

  “And money always wins,” Sean said after he’d taken another bite of his pumpkin bar. “You better bake some more of these. You know what people are like. The more gruesome the crime, the more people want to see where it took place and the hungrier they are after they’ve seen it.”

  “Yeah,” Bernie said. “When business is slow, we should just kill someone.”

  Libby glared at her. “That’s disgusting.”

  “But true,” Bernie countered. “Every time we’re involved in a case, the shop is packed.”

  “I wonder why?” said Libby.

  “People are nosy,” Sean said. “Look what happens when there’s an accident. Everyone always slows down.”

  Bernie frowned as she thought. Finally, she said, “Or maybe it’s because we miss that kind of stuff on some primordial level. You know, in the old days, they used to have public hangings and torture. Now there’s nothing like that. Maybe that’s why haunted houses and horror movies are so popular. People like to be scared and disgusted.”

  “Not me,” Libby said firmly. “Not in any way, shape, or form. In fact, I don’t think I want to go back there.”

  “You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Sean told her.

  Bernie untwisted her legs and stood up. “Yes, we do. We have a contract.”

  Sean took a final bite of his pumpkin bar. “I think a beheading might count as a cancellation clause, don’t you?” he asked after he swallowed. He’d love a cigarette now, but since the girls didn’t know he’d gone back to smoking, he couldn’t ask them to get him any.

  Libby folded over the empty wrapper of the chocolate bar she’d been eating and creased the line with her thumb. Then she did the same thing again.

  “I’m serious. Maybe I won’t go,” she announced.

  “Why?” Bernie said. “What more can happen? Anyway, then we’d have to give back the money, which we can’t exactly afford to do.”

  Sean watched his eldest daughter run her thumb across the edge of the wrapper again. She didn’t say anything.

  “For real,” Bernie said to Libby. “What more can happen?”

  “Someone could cut off our heads,” Libby replied.

  Bernie rolled her eyes. “Please. You can’t be serious.”

  “Of course, I am. Why wouldn’t I be?” said Libby.

  Sean coughed. The girls turned back to him.

  “You know,” he said. “Amethyst has…had…a lot of enemies. I don’t think this crime was committed by some nut looking to get his jollies off. I think it was committed by someone looking to kill Amethyst. So you two have nothing to worry about.”

  “My sentiments exactly,” Bernie agreed.

  Libby stood up. “But you don’t know that for a fact.”

  “It’s true, but that’s what my gut tells me,” said Sean.

  Libby plucked at the top button of the shirt she was wearing, then absentmindedly rearranged the magazines on the table over by the wall. “She wasn’t well liked, was she?”

  Sean wiped his fingers on the napkin in front of him. “That’s one way of putting it. Look at what she did to Bob Small.”

  Bernie put her hand to her mouth. “I can’t believe I forgot to tell you. We saw him today. He was working at the Haunted House, as a skeleton.”

  Sean raised an eyebrow. “Now that’s interesting.”

  Bernie sat back down and took a sip of her Scotch. “I bet the police are going to pick him up in a hurry. I’d be surprised if he’s there when we go back.”

  Libby shook her head. “I don’t know. I can’t see him doing this. He’s just not the kind of guy who would chop someone’s head off.”

  “In my experience, you get someone angry enough and you’d be amazed what they can do,” Sean said. “Remember Bernard? He weighed what? One hundred pounds, if that? He was so shy he could hardly look you in the face when he talked, and yet he managed to kill his two-hundred-and-fifty-pound girlfriend, drag her out of the house, and put her in the trunk of his car before he was caught, and that was only because he couldn’t get the lid all the way down, so he tied it shut. If he’d gone to Boy Scout camp and practiced his knots, he might never have been found out.”

  Libby frowned. “Bob Small went to jail because he stole stuff.”

  “No,” Sean said. “Bob Small went to jail because he gave Amethyst a top-of-the-line BMW off the lot of the dealer he was working for so she could get to work and back while she had her car fixed. But instead of doing that, she took off to Florida with a guy she picked up at a bar and totaled the Beamer. Bob lost his wife and his job and spent a year in prison because of her little shenanigans. If that’s not a motive, I don’t know what is.”

  Libby was about to reply when the door buzzer rang downstairs.

  “You think Bob is guilty?” Bernie asked her dad as Libby went to see who was at the door.

  Sean shrugged. “Don’t know, but if I were the investigating officer, I’d like Bob for it. He had motive and opportunity. Of course, like I was saying, Amethyst had plenty of enemies in town. Considering all the things she pulled, it’s a wonder someone didn’t do something like this before.”

  “She liked to make trouble just because she could,” Bernie observed as she studied one of her nails. She really needed to get them done. And talk about getting things done. She was developing frown lines. Maybe it was time for a little Botox. Character lines were nice, but no need to go too far.

  “Some people get a real kick out of that,” Sean said.

  “In this case she got kicked back.”

  Sean grunted. His attention was focused on the footsteps running up the stairs.


  “Who the hell is that?” he asked as two men burst through the door. Libby was right behind them.

  She gave her father an apologetic look. “They insisted on coming up.”

  “It’s okay.” Sean could feel himself relaxing. He glanced up at the two men approaching him. “Well, well, Curtis and Konrad Kurtz,” Sean said. “I haven’t seen you boys in a while. Still got the same bad haircuts, I see.”

  Both men stopped. They shuffled their feet. Konrad hugged the tape deck he was carrying closer to his chest.

  “We don’t drink anymore,” Curtis volunteered. “That night was the last time.”

  Sean laughed. “Yeah. That was quite a night. How many guys did you send to the ER to get stitched up?”

  “Six,” Konrad said. “But like Curtis said, we don’t do that no more.”

  Curtis raised his hand. “I swear. Except for Thursday night bowling, when we have one or two brews.”

  “Sometimes three,” Konrad said. “But that’s the max. Honest.” He nodded toward his stomach with his chin. “We’re hardworking family men now.”

  “That’s a good thing,” Sean said.

  Both men nodded solemnly.

  “We’re working for Mr. Kane,” said Curtis. “Maintenance. Before that, we worked for the housing complex off Ridge Road.”

  “That’s very nice,” Sean said. “So what brings you boys out this time of night?”

  Curtis adjusted his suspenders. “It’s about what happened at the Haunted House.”

  Sean waited. When nothing else was forthcoming, he told them to go on. There was more shuffling of feet; then Konrad spoke.

  “See, we got this other hobby besides bowling and being volunteer firemen. Only it ain’t really a hobby. It’s more like an avocation. We go all over doing it. Some people think it’s silly, but it’s serious.”

  Curtis pointed to himself and puffed his chest out. “We’re professional ghost hunters. We even went to school for it. We got certificates to prove it.”

  “You went to school?” Bernie asked. “What school?”

  “The Vincent Ludovic School for Paranormal Phenomena. You can look it up on the Web if you want to. We are trained professionals,” said Curtis.

  “I’m relieved,” Bernie said. “I thought you might be fakes.”

  Sean motioned for her to be quiet. “Go on,” he said.

  Konrad shot Bernie a reproachful glance. “Well, we are the real thing. Being twins and all gives us a certain knack for it.”

  “I didn’t know that twinness gave you a leg up in that department,” Bernie said.

  “It’s true,” Konrad told her. “Boy Scout oath of honor. Me and Curtis been doin’ this for a while now. We done the Perkins Place and the graveyard over at Three Trees. We even done this house over in Parker, PA.”

  “And how do you ghost hunt?” Sean asked.

  Konrad motioned to his tape deck with a nod of his head. “We get tape recordings. You can’t hear anything if you’re just standing there, but if you ask people questions, sometimes you can hear their answers when you play the tape back. It’s called EVP Electronic voice processing.”

  “You mean electronic voice phenomena,” Bernie corrected.

  “There was a program on TV about that,” Libby said.

  “That’s where we got the idea from,” Konrad said. “And like I just said, it turns out we got a real talent for it.”

  “I take it this has something to do with why you’re here?” Sean asked.

  As Sean watched Curtis and Konrad nod, he noticed that they didn’t really look like twins at all. Curtis was blond and skinny, while Konrad was broad and dark. But they had the same mannerisms and dressed alike.

  “Okay. I think it’s time you told me what this is about,” said Sean.

  Konrad and Curtis looked at each other. After a few seconds, Konrad said, “Well, Mr. Kane hired us to be ghost hunters for this haunted house thing, and we jumped at the chance because there are actual ghosts in there, and lots of people have seen them. There’s Reverend Peabody; and his wife, Esmeralda; and Bessie Osgood, the kid that died, the one that was related to your wife.”

  Libby turned to her dad. “You never told me she was related to Mom.”

  “She was a distant cousin,” Sean said.

  “Why didn’t you mention it?” Libby asked.

  Sean shrugged. “There didn’t seem to be any need to.”

  “Mom never mentioned it at all,” Bernie said.

  “Well, she wasn’t one to mention painful subjects,” replied Sean.

  “Painful?” Libby repeated.

  “People said Bessie committed suicide,” said Sean.

  “That’s not what Bessie says,” Konrad interrupted.

  Sean raised an eyebrow. “And you know this how?” he asked.

  “’Cause, she told us. She told us other things, too. We got it right down on this tape recorder,” said Konrad.

  There sure was a lot of nuttiness out in the world, Sean decided as he looked at the two men standing before him. “Fine,” he said. “But how does that explain why you’re here?”

  “We’re here,” Curtis said, “because we know who killed Amethyst.”

  “So go to the police,” said Sean.

  “We tried, but they didn’t want to listen to our tape,” said Konrad.

  “And why do you think we will?” Sean asked.

  “Because,” Curtis said, taking over, “you always listened. You listened to our side that night.”

  “That was different. It was my job to listen,” said Sean. “There was a brawl between you and eight other guys, and I wanted to know what started it.”

  “And you let us go,” Konrad said.

  “The Myers brothers were punks.”

  “So you gonna listen, or what?” Curtis asked.

  Sean shook his head. He was definitely getting soft in his old age. But what the hell. Why not? It wasn’t like he was going out anywhere tonight.

  “Sure,” he said. “Play the tape. Let’s hear what you got.”

  Chapter 4

  Bernie watched Konrad put the machine down on the table in front of her dad’s wheelchair. It was one of those old-fashioned reel-to-reel tape recorders.

  “Where did you get that?” she asked.

  “From my uncle’s basement. It’s real old. Almost an antique,” replied Konrad.

  “It looks it,” Bernie said.

  “But it works better than cassette players or those new voice recording things. It picks up more stuff,” said Konrad.

  “I used to have one of those in the eighties,” Sean remarked. “My wife made me throw it out. Me, I like to keep things like that.”

  “That’s because you’re a pack rat,” Libby observed.

  “No. You just never know when something is going to come in handy,” said Sean.

  “Like Konrad said,” Curtis replied, “this deck works real fine.”

  “I didn’t say it didn’t,” Bernie said. “I just said it was old.”

  Konrad held up his hand. “Listen now.” Everyone fell quiet and leaned forward. “Here we go,” he said, and he clicked the switch.

  Bernie heard someone that sounded like Konrad say, “Are we on?” Then Curtis answered, “We’re rolling,” and then she heard a lot of static and white noise.

  After a minute Curtis stabbed the air with his finger. “Did you hear that?” he asked excitedly.

  “I hear static,” Bernie said.

  “No. Listen harder. There’s Bessie,” said Curtis.

  “I’m sorry?” replied Bernie.

  “Focus,” Curtis said.

  “I’m trying,” said Bernie. And she leaned forward, closed her eyes, and concentrated. She thought she heard someone say, “Get out. Get out,” in a hoarse whisper. A chill went down her spine. She shook her head. Bernie, get a grip, she told herself. This evening was affecting her more than she’d thought. Now her hearing was playing tricks on her.

  “You heard something, didn’t
you?” Konrad asked her.

  “I’m not sure,” Bernie said.

  “That’s Bessie,” Konrad said. “Here.” And he stopped the tape and played it again.

  This time Bernie didn’t hear anything except a hiss. There were no words.

  “I didn’t hear anyone talking this time,” Bernie said.

  “Sometimes that happens,” Konrad said.

  Bernie turned to her father. “Did you hear anything?”

  Sean shook his head, but the way he shook it made Bernie wonder if he had.

  “I know I didn’t,” Libby said, but Bernie noticed her sister had the look she had on her face whenever she had one of her dreams.

  “But you have to have heard it,” Konrad said. “I’ll make it louder.” And he turned up the volume. Now the room was filled with earsplitting static.

  Sean winced. “It reminds me of someone drawing their nails across a blackboard.”

  As Curtis leaned over the tape deck, Bernie decided if he got any closer, he’d be in it.

  “See,” Curtis said, stabbing the air again. “There’s Bessie.”

  Bernie shook her head. All she heard was a hiss. Maybe she heard a word. Home? House? No. There was nothing there. She was just hearing things because Curtis was suggesting that she do so. This was a subtle form of hypnosis.

  Konrad began pounding his leg with his fist. “I can’t believe you can’t hear this. She’s telling us she cut Amethyst’s head off.”

  “I don’t hear anything,” Libby said.

  Bernie straightened up. This was giving her a headache. “You know,” she said to Konrad, “it’s been a really bad day, and I want to finish my drink, take a shower, and go to bed.”

  Konrad turned to Sean. “You heard something, didn’t you?” There was a pleading note in his voice.

  Sean shook his head. “Sorry. I can’t say that I did.”

  “Let me rewind it, and we can try again,” said Konrad.

  Sean held up his hand. “Let’s not. Instead, why don’t you turn it off and tell me what you think Bessie Osgood told you.”

  Konrad looked at Curtis, who shrugged and nodded.

  “Okay,” Konrad said.

  Bernie breathed a sigh of relief as Konrad flicked the switch up. The room became blessedly quiet.