“Now what are you going on about?” the sheriff asked, turning testy. He’d made a mistake or two in his youth that he liked to keep buried.
“Just that you were seen riding down Main Street on Reverend Scrim’s white horse.”
“On whose word?”
“All the ghosts out to the cemetery.”
“Joe,” the sheriff lectured, “if that’s all the testimony you’ve got—”
“And the reverend,” I tacked on before he could build up a full head of steam.
The reverend gave the sheriff the kind of sad little helpless nod he passed out to sinners, and for once the reverend’s wife’s mouth was open without any sound rushing out.
“I hope you’re going somewhere with all this,” the sheriff crabbed, “ ’cause you’re shedding friends fast.”
“Only this,” I said, strolling behind everyone circled up in the parlor. One or two craned their heads to follow me, but mostly they all stared straight ahead, tensing up as if expecting me to tap them on the shoulder. “One of the people in this room,” I went on, “might not be exactly what they pretend to be.”
“Joe, Joe, Joe,” the sheriff lamented, wagging his head weary like, “that goes without saying. You can’t be human without accumulating yourself some secrets. That much is a given.”
“This particular suspect,” I continued while stopping behind Etheline Spavin’s wheelchair, “has been heard arguing over the telephone with every person who’s turned up dead.”
“I hope you’re getting all that from some kind of reliable source,” the sheriff cautioned.
Well, my theory was a little weak on that point, but I was hoping that Mrs. Becky would step up and join her voice with mine ’cause I was pretty sure she listened at her phone same as everyone else. I should have known that she was at least as prideful a creature as her husband and didn’t want anyone to know that she’d actually stooped to eavesdropping on that party line. When my eyes darted toward her, she was busy gazing out the nearest window, even though there was nothing to see out there but shadows. So my gamble was a bust, not that it kept me from playing my bluff out to the bitter end.
“I’m not just depending on one source,” I forged on. “I’m going by what I’ve seen with my own two eyes.”
“And what’s that, pray tell?” The sheriff fought a yawn.
“That some of the ghosts in this town aren’t as dead as others.”
That revelation at least got Rutherford Dewitt leaning forward to hear what I had to say next.
“Any in particular?” the sheriff quizzed.
“One,” I answered, and without warning, I took hold of Etheline Spavin’s wheelchair and tipped it forward.
What happened after that wasn’t exactly what I’d been planning on. Etheline didn’t stand up to break her fall, which was what I’d been hoping for. No, she tumbled onto the carpet, her legs as curled up and lifeless as a rag doll’s. That wasn’t what all my investigating had led me to expect at all. I had kind of doubted she’d make a run for it. She was in her upper eighties after all. But I did think she might blush a little for pretending to be an invalid all these years and maybe even ’fess up that she’d been sneaking around scaring people to death. How she’d managed that last part hadn’t exactly revealed itself to me — yet. But one step at a time, that’s my motto. Nothing of the sort happened though, and didn’t I feel the fool? Still, that didn’t explain who was wearing a cloak and floating around so grand up on the widow’s walk.
Etheline’s nephew made a grab to catch her but too late. And Alfreda Scrim found her voice long enough to say, “Well, I never.” And the sheriff had to pretend to cough to cover up a laugh ’cause he always enjoyed himself most when I was flailing around and sinking fast.
I didn’t get a chance to worry about any of that though, not as busy as I was trying to help Etheline back into her chair and flinging apologies and wishing I could turn invisible as a ghost myself so that I could fade through the nearest wall. There were six men in that room, and all of us but the sheriff lent a hand to get that poor old lady upright again. Once comfy, she was willing to forgive. Actually, she didn’t even seem to quite understand what had happened to her. Her nephew was another story.
Perry Woodley wanted me arrested on the spot. Given the general mood of the room, I’d be getting off easy if that’s all that happened, but then the sheriff did the one thing I would have never expected. He stood up for me. In his own way.
“Truth be told,” the sheriff said, “the first one I’ve got a mind to arrest is you, Perry Woodley. ’Cause my deputy here ain’t the sort of lawman who goes off half cocked, excepting maybe when he’s been misled by a professional.” He shot his wife a knowing little sneer, as if he suspected that she’d misled me about Etheline Spavin’s arguing with the others over the telephone. His thinking that only made sense if he’d caught her eavesdropping a time or two, so I’d been right about that much. “His instincts were sound,” the sheriff breezed on, “even if his aim was off. Perry Woodley, I do hereby arrest you for the murders of Widow Brown, Cedric Whipplemore, and Molly McIntosh.”
A steamboat whose smokestacks were spewing sparks could have cruised straight through the center of that parlor and I’ve got my doubts anyone would have noticed. Everyone was too keen on watching Perry Woodley straighten up to his full height, which was a good deal higher than any of us had ever noticed before, level a quaking finger at the sheriff’s nose, and demand to know, “What gives you the right—”
The sheriff didn’t even bother to get up, just answered from his chair, “Oh I think you know exactly what gives me the right. For starters, the fact that you happened to buy some rat poison from Rutherford here.”
“To take care of some rats for my aunty.”
“Now ain’t that a little too much to swallow?” the sheriff asked, patting the tomcat on his lap. “What with all the cats around here?”
“Tell him, Aunty.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know w-what to say,” Etheline Spavins sputtered.
“Remember?” Perry Woodley urged with a frown. “For down in the cellar. You don’t let the cats down there.”
Etheline’s jaw trembled as if she was trying to recall what her nephew was talking about but couldn’t. All she managed was a feeble, “Oh, dear.”
“Why would I want to murder those people?” Perry said, turning away from his aunty. “That’s crazy.”
“Maybe because you thought it would leave you rich?” the sheriff suggested.
“What are you talking about?”
“Yes, what?” Alfreda Scrim wanted to know, beside herself to think that someone in Marquis knew something she didn’t.
“His inheriting this mansion,” Sheriff Huck revealed.
“Are you daft?” Perry Woodley cried. “Aunty’s leaving it to the town. To install telephones. Everyone heard her say that.”
“And how do you feel about that?” the sheriff wheedled.
“As if it’s her business,” Perry Woodley answered, though it came out kind of stiff and resentful.
“And mightn’t there be something you think she should do with her inheritance?”
“What are you getting at, Sheriff?”
“That maybe you’re hoping to change your sweet old aunty’s mind about who gets what when she’s gone.”
“I resent—”
But the sheriff was playing to the whole room by then and talked right over him, saying, “If ghosts were to convince Etheline here that these telephones aren’t safe — which they aren’t — then she might forget this nonsense about putting one of the things in every house as her legacy. She might decide to do something else with her worldly possessions, something like leave them to her nephew here, who’s always so kind and Johnny-on-the-spot when she needs something done.”