Page 53 of Gumbo, Ghosts, and Deadly Deception
Arthur shook his head. “That wasn’t the purpose of my stay here this time.”
Huh. “So you’ve stayed here before?” I guess I had known that. He’d probably mentioned it when he’d made the booking or I’d seen him here before with Odette. Or maybe I hadn’t. It was easy to doubt myself these days.
“Of course.”
“Did you investigate at any time in the past?” I didn’t even know why I was asking. It was hardly relevant to a murder case.
But we had all heard a voice the night of the séance and I couldn’t ask Delia if it was “theatrics” as Ginger had seemed to suspect, or genuine paranormal activity.
“Once or twice.”
“Was it once or was it twice?”
He eyed me like he thought I was being pushy, which I was.
“Twice. It was just an expression to indicate it wasn’t a lot.”
Giving a nod, I waited for him to tell me the results, but he didn’t. Dang it. Now I was going to have to ask. I wasn’t even sure why I was grilling Arthur. There wasn’t really anything he could tell me.
“What did you think? Haunted?”
“Definitely haunted. Got a lot of muffled audio, just like we heard the night Delia died.”
I nodded. “That seems to be the general consensus. Haunted. Glad I can’t be accused of false advertising. Especially now that I’ve had a death in the house.” And something of an abduction, but I didn’t want to share that if Arthur didn’t know about it.
He would either find out or he wouldn’t but I wasn’t going to tell him.
Was that considered an abduction? Technically, they didn’t take Abigail anywhere. Just tied her up. That was probably false imprisonment or something. I’d have to ask Hollis the semantics.
As I was debating the legal definition of abduction something about what Arthur had said struck me as odd, but I couldn't figure out what it was. I couldn’t even remember exactly what he’d said.
“Definitely not false advertising,” he said, nodding.
“Well, I hope you’ll come back and stay with us again,” I said, somewhat weakly. “Is your flight home this afternoon?”
“5:04, to be precise.”
“Have a safe flight. Can I get you anything before you head to the airport?”
“No, no, doing well, thanks.”
“I’ll leave you to the garden then,” I said, trying not to glance over at the crepe myrtle tree.
I don’t know what I was expecting. Francine to pop up from behind it as a sixty-year-old and proclaim, “Just kidding! I’m alive!”
That would be nice though.
Teddy was done with the fresh air. He was waddling over to the back door. I followed him. As I did I stole a glance at the tree. And noticed a fresh footprint in the soil. Deep. Recent.
Size 11, maybe. Boot tread. Not mine. Clearly not Abigail’s.
Now I was just being paranoid. That could be anyone’s footprint.
It was probably Arthur’s, from strolling around the garden.
I really needed to get a grip.
When I went into the kitchen, Hollis was sitting at my table, drinking my now fully brewed coffee.
