Лейганн Доббс - A Purrfect Alibi

“And you have mud stains on your shoes.” Mom pointed at Gail’s feet. “I bet that’s the same mud that’s out near the gazebo.”

“And we know you were on that cruise with Madame Zenda. You have a previous connection!” Millie said.

“Yeah, one that might hide a motive for murder,” Mom added, with a knowing nod.

“Hey, wait a minute,” Gail said. “Esther and Victor were on that cruise too.”

“But you are the only one who wasn’t upfront about your purpose there. We saw a photo, and Esther and Victor were front and center as featured mediums and you were lurking in the background,” Millie said.

Gail fidgeted. “I’m not hiding anything. I wasn’t a medium on that cruise.”

Millie tapped the recorder. “So you’re saying you didn’t hide this in the gazebo?”

Gail was silent, her eyes darting between the three of us as she gnawed her bottom lip. Finally, Gail slumped back on the sofa. “You’re right. I am hiding something.”

“I knew it!” Millie whipped out her cell phone. “I’ll just call the sheriff now. Won’t he be surprised to find that we’ve gotten the confession from Madame Zenda’s killer!”

“Confession? No!” Gail put her cup down on the coffee table and I quickly shoved a coaster under it. Not for nothing, because the coffee table was antique mahogany and it was almost impossible to get those white rings out. I’d heard Flora complain about that plenty of times.

Gail continued, “I didn’t kill Madame Zenda. That’s not why I’m here. I’m here because of Victor.”

“You were planning to kill Victor?” Mom must have taken a dim view of Victor, because she looked as if she was considering letting Gail go.

“No. I was here to prove he was a fraud. That’s why I put the recorder in the gazebo.” Gail gestured toward the device in Millie’s hand. “I didn’t put it in there to play ghostly noises, I put it in there to record Victor.”

Millie raised a brow at her. “You did?”

“Take a look at it. You’ll see it’s on record . And it’s blank, so you won’t find any ghostly noises.”

Millie, Mom and I looked at each other. We’d already messed up the original setting, but that would explain why all that was on it was the recording of our conversation.

“But what were you going to record?” Millie asked.

“I was going to prove once and for all that Victor was a fraud. He said he’d talk to Jed’s ghost and mentioned the gazebo and the cemetery. I put recorders in both places hoping I could pick up something that proved he was a phoney. They are voice activated,” Gail said.

“So you have a beef with Victor. I admit he is obnoxious. And those stupid velour suits. But what about the cruise?” Mom asked.

“And why is there no record of you being a psychic?” I gestured toward the teacup. “Most everyone has a website or some kind of ad, but you have nothing.”

Gail looked down at the floor. “I’m not really a tea-leaf reader. I came out here on that pretense to trap Victor. Mary Chambers was my best friend. We were on that Dreams Divinity cruise together. That’s where she met Victor.”

It all clicked. I should have realized it before. Anita had said Gail was from Ohio and so was Mary. “Mary was the woman that Victor bilked out of money, claiming he could talk to her dead husband, wasn’t she?”

Gail nodded, her eyes moist. “Yes. She was a lovely person and she so wanted to talk to her husband again. She died broken-hearted when her daughter convinced her that Victor was cheating her and she hadn’t really been talking to her husband.”

That explained why I’d seen her staring out the window at Victor and why Anita had seen her following them when they’d talked to the movie producer. If Gail’s story was true, she’d been looking for dirt on Victor all along.

“Well then, who killed Madame Zenda and made the ghostly noises?” Mom asked. “Someone had to hide something somewhere to make them. Unless there really is a ghost.”

Millie gave Mom an annoyed look at her suggestion that there might actually be a real ghost, then narrowed her gaze at Gail. “Maybe you killed Zenda by mistake, thinking she was Victor?”

“Hardly. There was no mistaking one for the other, and besides, I wasn’t going to kill Victor, just prove he was a fraud so the whole world would know.” Gail tapped her fingers on her lips. “But I did see one person doing something odd on the grounds when I was putting the tape recorder in the gazebo. I was sneaking around so no one would see me and so was the other person.”

“We know all about Anita Pendragon lurking around,” I said.

Gail shook her head. “No, it wasn’t her. I hate to even mention it because she seems like such a nice person, but she really was acting odd.” Gail looked up at us.

“Who?” I prompted.

“It was Esther Hill and she was messing around in that old outhouse. I have no idea what she was doing, but she was in there for quite some time.”

Twenty-Four

“It’s always the nice ones who have dark secrets,” Millie said as we headed toward the outhouse, flashlights in hand. Now that the sun had set, the dark shadows of twilight loomed around us and the hooting of owls and scurrying of squirrels and chipmunks in the leaves took an ominous tone.

“I should have connected the dots earlier,” I said. “Flora said Esther was at the outhouse, remember? I thought she was just doing her usual complaining about cleaning, so when the ghostly noises happened I didn’t put two and two together, but the noise came from that direction and it would be a great place to hide something.”

“Easy to see how you would think that. She does complain a lot.” Millie flicked her light at the shabby structure as we approached.

The outhouse was fairly large and it wasn’t in very good shape. It was listing to one side, the wood gray and rotting. Grass and weeds had grown up knee high around the outside. The door had a crescent moon cut out, but it was too dark in there to see inside. We creaked the door open slowly.

Nero and Marlowe pushed through ahead of me. The moonlight slanted in from the door opening and reflected off the cats’ eyes as they sat blinking at us from the darkness inside.

“Well don’t just stand there, let’s go inside.” Mom aimed her light at the interior and pushed in front of me.

“What do you think Esther was doing in here?” I asked as I pointed the beam of my light around. The flashlights were all small pen-sized lights that sent out a narrow beam that didn’t reach far. Probably not that great for the job but, seeing as I hadn’t anticipated skulking around in outhouses in the middle of the night, they were all I had on short notice.

“Hiding the speaker that made the ghost noises, of course.” Millie shot me a look that said “duh”.

“We shouldn’t jump to conclusions. Maybe there is another reason she was here.” I pointed my light at one of the holes. Nothing but a black pit. I dared not look too closely, that hole led to things I didn’t want to think about. “Maybe she thought being here would bring her closer to Jed. I mean, he probably spent a lot of time in here and I do remember someone mentioning that being close to places or things that someone spent a lot of time near when living could help raise their ghost.”

“This is an odd place to hide the recorder,” Mom said. “Maybe Gail was lying to us. If I were the killer I’d lie to us.”

“But Flora saw Esther here, too,” I reminded them.

“And the recorder that Gail had didn’t have ghostly noises on it,” Millie said. “Her claims about the real reason she is here do make sense. We know Victor scammed that woman from the cruise. We should find a way to verify that she really was that woman’s friend though.”