Page 8 of Gumbo, Ghosts, and Deadly Deception
Beau gave her a polite nod. “No ma’am. I’m a longtime friend of Harper’s.”
“Delia, this is Beau. Local historian and amateur croissant courier. Beau, this is Delia DuMont, one of my guests. She’s here for the paranormal convention.”
“I hear that’s a spirited event,” Beau joked.
Delia didn’t smile. “Do you keep records of this house?”
Beau blinked, caught off guard by the question. “Some. It’s been rebuilt a few times, but most of the original structure is still intact. Why?”
Delia hesitated, then glanced at me. “Do you have a basement?”
“Basements and soft soil aren’t a good fit. Just footers and spiders.”
“Is there anything beneath the foundation? A crypt, maybe?”
Beau and I exchanged a look. Midnight House might be a tinge in the direction of gothic, but it wasn’t Paris catacombs level of creepy.
“Nope, nothing under there. This isn’t one of those European castles,” I said.
Delia didn’t respond. She simply turned and walked back upstairs.
I stared after her, eyebrows lifting.
“She’s been like that since she checked in,” I murmured to Beau. “Nervous. Jumpy. Keeps saying things like ‘the veil is thin’ and talking about murder.”
“Old houses have their secrets,” Beau said, opening his folder. “Maybe this one has more than most, though I am certain if a murder happened here we’d know about it.”
I snorted. “Absolutely. There would be a plaque on the front of the house announcing it.”
He laid a set of papers on the kitchen table: deeds, maps, old photos.
I skimmed the oldest floor plan. There was nothing unusual until Beau pointed to a faint pencil mark behind what was now the kitchen pantry.
“This wall wasn’t always here,” he said. “There was once a passage that led to the back garden where the summer kitchen was. Closed up sometime in the 1920s and then presumably knocked down at some point since it’s no longer there. The door is still under the drywall, I’m sure.”
“That’s not very exciting. I was hoping for a secret room at the very least. Possibly a hidden wall safe with a few hundred grand in it. You know, that sort of thing.”
He gave me a small smile. “Sorry, nothing on the blueprints. Have you checked the attic for hidden treasure?”
Before I could reply, there was a knock on the kitchen door.
Teddy started and bolted behind the cupboard.
The door swung open and Maggie strode in, carrying her ever-present tumbler, which I knew would contain iced coffee. “What’s up? Murder Maggie in the house.”
Beau made a face. He thought encouraging the nickname was flippant and disrespectful of human life. “Good morning. You look…festive.”
Maggie had naturally blonde hair, perfectly symmetrical features, and a body like a back road—full of curves. All of which frustrated her and she generally ignored except when it was convenient not to, like while avoiding a speeding ticket or getting free drinks. She was usually dressed like a teen skater boy, baggy pants and Converse with graphic T-shirts. But this day she was wearing a black tutu with purple knee socks, a black lace shirt, and a tiny witch’s hat tilted jauntily on her head at an angle.
“You like it?” She did a curtsy. “If we’re filming today, I want to get some video as well so I might as well embrace the Halloween vibe.”
I glanced down at my gray joggers and my Metallica T-shirt. “I feel like I need to change.”
“Definitely.”
“I think you look fine,” Beau said.
Maggie turned and rolled her eyes at me. She thought Beau was too much of a yes-man. But considering her terrible taste in men—we will not discuss the time she started writing to a convicted felon for a podcast episode and thought he was a changed man—I thought she was too hard on Beau.
