A Case of Imagination Page 21

  I couldn’t imagine Juliet being embarrassed by anything. “What do you mean?”

  Nell took another big bite, chewed, and swallowed. “See, him being a poet and all, he went to the school to give a talk and help the kids with their poetry. Then he read them out loud to the class.”

  “Let me guess. Juliet’s poem was too hot and steamy for high school?”

  “No, from what I hear, it was more like rainbows and puppy dogs.”

  “Juliet’s poem?”

  “She probably didn’t like the other kids laughing at her.”

  Public ridicule. Never a nice experience.

  Jerry brought his plate of pancakes to the table and sat down. “Kind of set her reputation back, didn’t it?”

  No, I thought. It revealed a side she didn’t want anyone to see.

  Nell reached for the syrup. “Just thought of somebody else who tried to help. Augusta Freer. She’s the wife of Toby Freer of Freer and Mason. Teaches English. Never says anything bad about any of her students.” Jerry flopped more pancakes on her plate, and she proceeded to drown them in syrup. “You go to the funeral?”

  “I did,” I said.

  “Hoping to catch the killer skulking around, like they do on TV?”

  “I can dream, can’t I?”

  “Heard there was quite a few people there.”

  “More than I expected. All the judges, Evan James, Cindy, and a lot of high school students.”

  “Hear you found Val’s car. I coulda told you where it was.”

  Between Nell and Denisha, there were no secrets in Celosia.

  Nell held up her coffee cup. “Oh, waiter.”

  Jerry filled her cup and turned to me. “Anything for you, ma’am?”

  Just you. “No, thanks.”

  He went back to the stove. “More pancakes on the way.”

  “Keep ’em comin’,” Nell said. She shoveled the last of her stack into her mouth and spoke around her food. “So you met Tully Springfield. He’s a weird one.”

  “He was quite pleasant.”

  “Oh, yeah, well, it’s all the medication.”

  “Yes, he told me about his heart condition.”

  “Yeah, he’s bipolar, too, or whatever they call bad mood swings these days. Had a big blowout at the grocery store one day. That’s why he don’t come to town much.”

  I envisioned Tully with a semi-automatic, mowing down hapless shoppers and supermarket displays. “A blowout?”

  “A breakdown, I guess I should say. Just totally lost it in the produce section. Maybe the melons weren’t ripe enough.”

  “Yes, but he’s not dangerous, is he?”

  She shrugged.

  “Did he know Juliet? Would she have crossed him in some way?”

  “He probably knows who she is. Remember where you are, Madeline. Everybody knows everybody here.”

  “He said he didn’t know her.”

  “Wouldn’t matter to him if he did. All he cares about are those pictures of his.”

  Jerry brought another stack of pancakes to the table and sat down. “Those freaky clown pictures?”

  Nell’s eyes narrowed. “I happen to like those.”

  Jerry grinned at me in pure impish delight. “Excuse me. I meant to say those charming clown pictures.”

  “I’m trying to eliminate Tully as a suspect,” I said. “Do you think his condition makes him violent?”

  “No more than Hayden Amry’s. See, these artistic guys can’t handle the pressure.” She took her fork and stole three pancakes from Jerry’s stack. “It’s a good thing you’re not talented, peewee.”

  We ate until we were properly stuffed. Nell pushed her empty plate away. “This tape you found. Worth getting killed over?”

  “It all depends on how desperate the person was to get it back.”

  Nell made a thoughtful “Hmm” noise and drank her coffee. “I’m going to see about those floors.”

  After she’d gone upstairs, Jerry offered me the last of the pancakes.

  “No, thanks. Those were great, by the way.”

  He gathered the dirty dishes. “What did you mean about a desperate person wanting the tape back?”

  “Here’s how I see it, Jerry. We search the house for videotapes, and find none. Only empty cases in the attic. Ted’s office and Benjy’s station were ransacked. At the station, all the tapes were on the floor, as if someone had been pawing through them. All these odd incidents involving videotapes are too much of a coincidence to be ignored. I think somebody besides us has been looking for a videotape. A specific videotape. This person couldn’t find it here in the attic, so he or she must have thought Ted or Benjy had it. Which means there’s a connection between what was going on in the attic and with Juliet’s murder.”

  “Then why did you broadcast the news that you’d found a tape?”

  “I’m hoping the killer will come looking for it.”

  He stopped. “Whoa, hold on. You didn’t tell me this part.”

  “This is the part where it gets serious,” I said.

  Jerry looked puzzled. “I don’t get it. It’s just a sleazy little film, right? Maybe Kimberly Dawn would be embarrassed if people saw it, but how does Juliet fit in?”

  “There’s one way to find out.” I picked up my pocketbook and car keys. “I’m going to have a look in Juliet’s house.”

  Jerry trailed me to the living room. “You’re not leaving me in the House of Impending Doom.”

  “Impending Doom. Would that be the Return of Olivia?”

  “Ha, ha. No, the House of the Phantom Videotape Murderer.”

  “Isn’t that what you wanted the house to be?”

  “Yes, but not really.”

  “Come on, then, and bring your special keys.”

  ***

  We drove to the Super Food and found Grayson Street. There was one blue house on the street. Jerry and I decided it must be Juliet’s.

  Jerry was concerned about being seen. “Chief Brenner mentioned he didn’t want you to do fool around with crime scenes, didn’t he?”

  “He said if I see yellow tape, don’t cross it. Do you see any yellow tape?”

  “No. How are you going to get in?”

  “That’s why I brought you and your special keys along.”

  “I haven’t done this in a long time, Mac.”

  “Are you saying you can’t do it?”

  He glowered. “A simple front door, no dead bolt or anything? You must be kidding.”

  “Let’s see if anyone’s at home first.”

  We didn’t see any cars parked in the driveway or out front. I knocked and rang the bell. Jerry peeked in the windows.

  “All clear.”

  He didn’t have any trouble picking the lock. We let ourselves in. The living room had a sofa and a TV and little else, as if Juliet and her aunt never used the room. Of the two bedrooms, it was easy to guess which one was Juliet’s. That girl had more clothes and shoes than most department stores. She had six jewelry boxes loaded with costume jewelry, mostly fake pearls and rhinestones. Among the mass quantities of makeup, hairspray, and negligees, I found a folder marked “Poems.” Inside the folder were pages and pages of Juliet’s poetry. Many of the poems were about flying to fantasy worlds on unicorns and flowers turning into stars. Several were typical teenage expressions of being misunderstood. “I walk alone in the rain,” “My life is a sunset that no one will see,” that kind of thing. Also in the folder were addresses of poetry magazines and submissions guidelines.

  “She was serious about her poetry, Jerry.”

  “Is it any good?”

  “It’s not bad.”

  I closed the folder. On the bookshelf next to the bed were books on collecting seashells, collections of poems by Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost, classics like Little Women and Black Beauty, and books on makeup tips and fashion design. Lying on top of these books was a slim fantasy novel with a black cover and silver spiderweb design. The book was titled The Monsters of S
pider’s Rest. I read page one and sat down. The first character mentioned was an evil young woman named Portia. She was described as having black hair and black eyes. She wore a long white gown and had a black heart-shaped mark on her forehead.

  Jerry had been rooting in the closet. “Find something?”

  “Jerry, you have to read this.”

  “What is it?”

  “Just read a little and see if it reminds you of anything.”

  He took the book. I watched as he read. His eyes widened, and he made surprised noises.

  “Mac, this is Hayden’s story!”

  “Exactly.”

  “A spooky woman named Portia is after this guy, and there’s a monster named Theo—everything’s the same.”

  “Yep.” I took the book and read the end flap. “‘Spider’s Rest is the eyesore of Specter, a foreboding mansion owned by Tylin ValEndise. Young monster hunter Holly Dark is assigned to guard the mansion and to spy on its owner. Is Ty creating monsters of his own? Why does he feed the creatures at his door? Little does Holly realize she must rescue Ty from evil beings, as well as from his unfeeling family, the true monsters of Spider’s Rest.’” I shut the book. “It’s all here: Portia, Theo, the alternate universe, and my guess is Hayden is a stand-in for the hero, Tylin. At least, that’s what she wants him to believe.”

  “What’s Juliet doing with it?”

  “Studying for her role as Portia.”

  “You mean, when he heard a ghostly voice and saw Portia, it was really Juliet dressed up?”

  “Sure. She appears a few times as Portia, tells him this horror story, and Hayden’s imagination runs screaming into the night.”

  Jerry looked troubled. “That’s the meanest trick I ever heard of. She had to know it would scare him.”

  “Of course she did. She wanted to pay him back for exposing what she thought of as her weakness by exposing his. I have to admire her creativity, but it was focused in the wrong direction. She must have felt extremely insecure to tear everyone down. I wish someone had been able to reach her.”

  “Sounds like Hayden tried.”

  “His mistake was trying in front of her peers. I think if he’d talked to her by herself, she would’ve appreciated his advice.”

  “So all we have to do is show Hayden this book, and he’ll be okay.”

  I took The Monsters of Spider’s Rest and put it in my pocketbook. “It’s probably not going to be that easy, but it’s a start.”

  Jerry sat still for so long, I thought he’d really gone into a trance. “Jerry?”

  “Then that’s who I saw.”

  “When you fell?”

  “And when I had the séance. It wasn’t Juliet’s ghost. It must have been Juliet dressed up as Portia.”

  “Why would she be at the Eberlin house? She’d have no reason to scare you.”

  “Maybe that’s where she went to practice being scary, and to get into her ghost makeup.”

  That didn’t make sense. “The Eberlin house is too far away from town. If she’s running back and forth from Val’s to Hayden’s, she wouldn’t want anyone to see her, so she wouldn’t use her car. We’re looking for a hideout, someplace between the Eberlin house and the Amrys’ house.”

  Jerry snapped his fingers. “The kids will know. Aren’t they always sneaking into places?”

  “We don’t need the kids,” I said. “I know.”

  ***

  The Laytons had a more elaborate lock that Jerry wasn’t sure he could pick, but a locked door hadn’t kept Juliet from sneaking in a back window, and it didn’t stop me and Jerry, either. I hopped in easily, but Jerry fell over the woodbox.

  “Ow! Damn, what’s that doing under the window?”

  The Laytons must have saved up all their pennies because this was the snazziest cabin I’d ever seen. Unlike Tully Springfield’s rustic décor, the living room had an elegant peach and maroon color scheme, huge artificial flower arrangements, and a selection of expensive-looking books about photography.

  Jerry hobbled up, rubbing his knee. “What are we looking for?”

  “I’m not sure. It doesn’t look like anything’s been disturbed.”

  The kitchen gleamed silver and white. The two bedrooms looked like sets for an upscale soap opera.

  “I was hoping to step on another pink fingernail.”

  “How about a sequin?”

  “You’re kidding.”

  He held up the shiny disk on the tip of his finger. I took it. “Is it Juliet’s?” he asked.

  I couldn’t tell for sure, but the sequin looked very much like the ones I’d seen around Hayden’s house and backstage scattered on the floor, those special one-of-a-kind sequins that caused Randi so much grief. “Sure looks like it. Let’s see if we can find anything else.”

  We checked the bathrooms and the closets.

  Jerry shook his head. “Nothing.”

  “Did you straighten the woodbox? I want to leave everything the way we found it.”

  A few of the logs had rolled under a chair. Jerry stooped down to reach for them and came up with a pair of silky red panties. “Uh, is this a clue?”

  We pushed the chair aside. Underneath was a box filled with all sorts of lacy underthings and a makeup kit.

  Jerry took out a matching red bra. “I don’t remember Portia being this sexy.”

  The makeup kit contained a large tube of white foundation and several black eyeliners, just what a ghost would need for that special dead look. “This was Juliet’s hideout, all right. I don’t know how the lingerie fits in.” There were crotchless panties and fringed leather bras, a short rhinestone-studded vest, and metallic G strings. “These look more like costumes.”

  “Maybe she was saving them for another story.”

  “Or another kind of pageant.”

  “Miss Sex Kitten? I wouldn’t mind judging that.”

  I punched his arm. “Pick up the logs, please.”

  We took the box and let ourselves out the front door, which I closed and locked. The forest, as before, looked peaceful in the late morning light. As we walked back through the woods, I envisioned Juliet, dressed in her white gown, hurrying down the pathway to the Amrys’ house, slipping beneath Hayden’s window, and laughing inside as she gave her ghostly performance.

  “I still don’t know why she’d be at the Eberlin house,” Jerry said.

  “What if Juliet knew about the kids’ secret passage? Wait a minute. That explains the spooky draft of cold air.”

  “The what?”

  “The night of your séance, remember? Whenever the passage doorway is open, cool air comes out. Juliet must have been in the passage that night. Jerry. What if she was looking for a certain videotape?”

  “You think she knew about Kimberly Dawn’s second career?”

  “If she did, she might have thought it would give her a certain leverage in the pageant.” Then I stopped. “But Ted’s office and Benjy’s station were searched after Juliet’s death.”

  ”And if Juliet found a tape, it was Centurio senex doing his thing.”

  “Right. That must have been a shock.”

  “Not as shocking as what we got to see.”

  “And unfortunately, I need to see it again.”

  He stared at me. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “Something just occurred to me, Jerry. We’ve been too grossed out to see the whole video. Who’s running the camera?”

  “Either Uncle Val, or Kimberly Dawn just set it herself. You can do that.”

  “Maybe. Let’s see.”

  ***

  We returned to the house. Nell reported there had been no visitors and that she was going into town for more varnish. Jerry sat down on the sofa with his back to the TV. “I’ll listen for clues.”

  It was rough going, but I managed to watch the entire video. It lasted about twenty minutes. During the whole film, Kimberly Dawn’s hair never moved. The rest of her did. At one point, I glanced at Jerry.

  “You
’re not being much help.”

  “I can’t look at it. Listening to it’s bad enough. What’s all that ‘left, right’ business, anyway? When I’m having a, uh, moment, I’m not usually concerned about direction.”

  “‘Left, right’?”

  “Just before the long grotesque ‘ahhhh’ sound.”

  I stopped the tape and ran it back a few minutes.

  “Are you going to watch it again?” Jerry said in disbelief.

  “Just that part.” I tried to concentrate on the sound and not the picture. Sure enough, right before Kimberly Dawn let out an unearthly moan of manufactured passion a distant voice in the background could be heard saying, “Left, no right. Right. The other way.”

  I sat so still Jerry finally turned around. “What is it?”

  I’d heard that voice before, a voice demanding, “No, no, Miss Peace Haven! To your left! The other way!” “I know who that is.”

  “Who what is?”

  “The cameraman. It’s Percy, the choreographer who quit the pageant. The first day I met Evan James, Percy was videotaping the contestants to show them how badly they were screwing up his routine.”

  “Before or after he videotaped Kimberly Dawn trying to screw herself?”

  I turned off the TV and VCR. “That’s two people who know this tape exists.”

  “I thought Percy left town.”

  “Let’s find out. Besides, I need a sequin.”

  ***

  We drove to the theater and found Evan James in his office. He was looking through a stack of glossy head shots of the contestants. Juliet’s picture was on top of the stack.

  “Hello, Madeline,” he said. “I’m so glad you came by. I feel I owe you an apology.”

  “For what?”

  “When I hired you to find out who was doing all these things in the theater, I never imagined you’d have to be involved in such a terrible crime. Quite frankly, I’m worried for your safety.”

  “That’s all right, Evan.”

  He put his hand protectively over the pictures. “Do you suppose this murderer is targeting pageant contestants? If anything happened to any of these other girls, I’d never forgive myself.”

  “I’m talking to everyone I can. Do you know how I can get in touch with Percy?”

  He reached for his phone. “Cindy will know.”