Spooky Times (Alice Whitehouse Book 1) Read online

  Spooky Times

  Alice Whitehouse 1

  Nic Saint

  Puss in Print Publications

  Contents

  Spooky Times

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from First Shot (Washington & Jefferson 1)

  About Nic

  Also by Nic Saint

  Spooky Times

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  Who is Alice Whitehouse? Mortician’s assistant, gun store clerk and chairwoman of the neighborhood watch committee. Loving daughter of the Chief of Police. Best friend to local baker Felicity Bell. And then there’s the fact that Alice sees dead people. Unfortunately, they can also see her, and occasionally ask her help in solving their murder. With pluck, resolve and cheerfulness in the face of danger, she does just that, aided and abetted by the members of her neighborhood watch committee, and local police detective Rock Walker, on whom she may or may not have a secret—or not-so-secret—crush.

  When Gemma Weston is found murdered, the crime baffles the police. It also baffles Alice’s neighborhood watch committee, but that has never stopped the spunky ladies of the committee before. They dive headfirst into the murder investigation, very much to the exasperation of Alice’s dad, Chief of Police Whitehouse, and the newest member of the Happy Bays Police Department, Detective Rock Walker. Spurred on by an increasingly annoying Gemma, whose ghost isn’t the nicest one Alice has ever encountered, she puts her sleuthing powers to the test to catch a killer before he or she can strike again.

  Spooky Times is the first installment in this new humorous cozy ghost mystery series featuring Alice Whitehouse. You may have met Alice before, in The Mysteries of Bell & Whitehouse. This spinoff fully stands alone, and doesn’t require any knowledge of the original series, which is complete at nine books.

  Prologue

  Gemma Weston was cooking up a storm. For the first time, she’d been granted the unique honor of hosting the Happy Bays Historical Society in her own home and she wasn’t going to let this opportunity pass her by without making an indelible impression on the venerable members of the group. She’d been wanting to join up for a very long time, and finally she’d been accepted.

  She checked the recipe she’d found on Martha Stewart’s website and then checked the duck that was cooking in the oven. She was going to blow those old fools away, she thought as she brushed a strand of hair from her brow. She’d tied her long blond locks back with a pink ribbon, and patted her head to make sure everything was still in place. She’d already washed her hair and didn’t want to have to do it again. Silly, of course. She probably should have finished her cooking first, then touched up her makeup and made sure her hair looked nice.

  Just then, there was a soft tapping sound. It seemed to come from the kitchen window. She looked up in alarm. Had a society member arrived early? No way. She wasn’t ready yet. She glanced over at the window, but didn’t see anyone. She breathed with relief. She still had to set the table, tidy up the living room, double-check the bathroom for smudges and spots, and slide into the conservative black dress she’d bought for the occasion.

  It was the first time her little house was receiving such distinguished guests and she’d worked hard to make it look all spic and span for the prying and highly critical eyes of the society’s ladies. She bought the house with a cheap loan from the bank where she worked, and she loved it. She even had a sweet little garden, a strip of green that she’d turned into the cutest patch of floral delight. She just loved to sit out there at night with a couple of friends and enjoy a nice barbecue. Only lean meat, of course, and lots of veggies. She was nothing if not a stickler for healthy living. In fact, just before she’d started preparations for tonight’s feast, she’d put in her daily six-mile run.

  There. Now she was sure she’d heard it. An insistent tapping on the kitchen window. And this time, when she looked over, she saw a shadow passing by, lit up by the light from the kitchen. Someone was out there. She quickly wiped her hands on her apron and hurried over. She opened the door and looked out. Nothing. Not a soul in sight. How strange. And that’s when she saw it. A shadowy figure was standing right next to her. But before recognition dawned, the figure heaved something high over their head, then brought it down on her with a crushing blow. There was an explosion of pain in her cranium. The last thought that entered her mind was what was going to happen to the duck? Then she crumpled into a heap and knew no more.

  Chapter 1

  I stared down at the slab where Uncle Charlie had just placed the body of Mrs. Baumgartner. In life, she’d been a sizable woman, and he needed my help putting her in position on the preparation table. Next up was the embalming procedure, where the blood in the veins of the deceased is replaced with formaldehyde to slow down the decaying process. This was the part I looked forward to the least, and usually I excused myself and spent this time in the casket selection room. Yep, I’m one of those girls that faint in class when a frog is dissected, and goes white around the nostrils and weak at the knees when I see a cadaver on the road. I’m uncomfortable around death, which probably isn’t such a good thing when you’re a mortician’s assistant. But there you have it. I like people when they’re alive and kicking, not having their blood drained from their bodies on my Uncle Charlie’s slab.

  Uncle Charlie runs Charlie’s Funeral Delight, our town’s premier funeral home. I wasn’t always going to be his assistant. I actually wanted to be a cop. Since my dad is Chief of Police of the Happy Bays Police Department that seemed like a no-brainer. Only I never managed to pass Police Academy. And since even my dad couldn’t hire me without that requirement, he finally decided to put me out of my misery and suggested I try for something else instead. Problem was, there was nothing else. It was always the police force or nothing. This nothing turned out to be a part-time position at Charlie’s Funeral Delight, and a second job at Mick’s Pick, my other uncle’s gun store.

  My uncles seem to think it’s funny that together they corner the market on death in this town. Uncle Mickey sells the guns that kill people, and Uncle Charlie buries the victims. It’s a win-win. With me as their hapless go-between.

  My one consolation is that I get to run the neighborhood watch committee in our town. It’s not the same as being a cop, but at least it’s something.

  When I returned, Uncle Charlie was already hard at work applying makeup and doing Mrs. Baumgartner’s hair. The family had requested an open casket, so he had to work extra hard to make her look presentable.

  “She looks pretty pale,” I said. “Is that normal?”

  Uncle Charlie mixes the formaldehyde with dye, to make the skin look flushed. This time it hadn’t worked, as she was still looking ghostly pallid.

  “Bad circulation,” was his professional opinion. “Hand me the can of spray paint, will you, honey?”

  I took a can from the rolling desk and handed it to him. It was the flesh-colored one. He pressed the pump a few times, handling the can like a regular artiste. Uncle Charlie takes his work very seriously. He’s in the business of making people l
ook great in death, and he doesn’t like to disappoint.

  He was humming Return to Sender, the Elvis Presley song. My uncle is an Elvis nut. He even has the Elvis coif, though when he’s working he doesn’t don the white suit, like he likes to do at home. He does fly out to Las Vegas a number of times a year, dressed up as The King, and of course he’s the chairman of our local Elvis Presley fan club.

  “Return to sender, address unknown,” he sang softly. “No such number, no such zone.” He deftly applied eyeliner to Mrs. Baumgartner’s closed eyes.

  “She still looks pretty pale,” I said. “Maybe more spray paint?”

  “Just hand me the rouge. That should do the trick.”

  I watched as he touched up the dead woman’s face, bringing the roses back to her cheeks. He worked quietly and efficiently, knowing that the customer is always king and that relatives like to see their dearly departed looking as healthy and hearty as they had in life, or even more so. Mrs. Baumgartner had always possessed an abundant chest, and Uncle Charlie had opted to outfit her with a wonder bra, augmenting her naturally expansive features, making her assets look like a pair of cruise missiles about to pop.

  In life, the widowed Mrs. Baumgartner was a popular woman, with an eager bunch of male admirers. This crew was bound to turn out en masse for the viewing. Giving them what they wanted was just another example of Uncle Charlie’s keen business sense. He now adjusted the old lady’s wig, so it covered the nasty bruise she’d suffered when she bumped her head against the edge of her bathtub. From where I stood, I could tell he’d gone the extra mile to cover up the damage, making it almost impossible to notice.

  He stood back to admire his handiwork. “So what’s the verdict, honey?”

  “She looks like she could get up and walk off the slab any moment.”

  Uncle Charlie grinned. “Just what I wanted to hear.”

  I’d obviously paid him the greatest compliment a mortician can get.

  “Why don’t you go over and prepare the visitation room? I’ll take it from here.” He took hold of the old lady’s hand and started putting on her rings and bracelets.

  I ambled over to one of the three viewing rooms. Uncle Charlie had selected the biggest one, as he was expecting Mrs. Baumgartner to be a big draw. I’d already done most of the preliminary work, like setting out the flowers and plenty of chairs. I took a sniff, to make sure the room didn’t smell of formaldehyde. Nobody likes to come to a funeral home and be reminded that the person up there in the casket is actually dead.

  I was just checking that the right CD was ready in the CD player when Felicity breezed in, looking all flustered. Fee Bell is my best friend. She works with her folks over at Bell’s Bakery & Tea Room. They make just about the best bakery products in Happy Bays, and I’m the one who gets to taste all the goodies when Fee’s dad decides to try out a new creation. Fee and I are also roomies, living together in the neatest little house I inherited from my grandfather when he retired to that big old tea room up in the sky.

  “Hey, Fee,” I said when Felicity swept into the room. “Are you all right?”

  Fee is a big girl with an abundance of red curls and hazel eyes. I’m more of the pint-sized variety, with a blond bob and large green eyes.

  “You’re not going to believe this,” she said, her chest heaving and falling rapidly. “It’s Gemma Weston. She’s dead!”

  I frowned. Gemma is the bank teller at our local branch of Armstrong & Tillich. Fee and I went to school with her. “Dead? Why? What happened?”

  Fee dropped her voice dramatically. “She was murdered!”

  “Murdered!”

  “Hit over the head.”

  I stared at her. Now this was news. Murders rarely happen in our small Long Island town. Usually people just drop dead of their own accord, die in their sleep, or get caught in the tide and swept away, never to be seen or heard from again. But murder? Never.

  “Are you sure?”

  She nodded frantically, her red curls bobbing. “Sure I’m sure. Marjorie called, and she heard it from Virgil. He was the first officer on the scene.”

  I grimaced. “Dad could have told me.”

  “We have to call a meeting,” Fee said. Her cheeks were flushed, just about the same color my uncle had been going for with Mrs. Baumgartner. For some reason it looked better on Fee than it did on the old lady. You can’t beat real life, no matter how great a mortician you think you are.

  “You’re right. I’ll do it now.”

  “Aunt Bettina was with me when Marjorie called. And Marjorie said she was going to call Mabel.”

  “Great. That saves me the explanations.”

  “I’ve asked Mom to cover my shift. How soon can you get ready?”

  “If you help me move Mrs. Baumgartner into her casket I can be done in five minutes. Oh, and you’ll have to help me wheel her out for the viewing.”

  Felicity was shaking her head before I finished the sentence. “No way. I’m not helping you move a bunch of dead bodies around. No way. Uh-uh.”

  “It’s just the one dead body. And you know the dead don’t bite.”

  “They do. At least on The Walking Dead they do.”

  “Well, Mrs. Baumgartner isn’t a zombie. She’s a nice old lady who just happens to be dead. She won’t give us any trouble. Just look the other way or something.”

  She was still shaking her head. Fee hates my job even more than I do. She’s the kind of girl who doesn’t just faint when the third-grade teacher dissects a frog. She projectile vomits and then faints, which is even worse. More muck to mop up afterward.

  “I can’t look the other way, Alice. It’s like a car crash. I have to look.”

  “Well, try closing your eyes, then.”

  Fee shivered. “Why can’t your uncle do it?”

  “Because he’s preparing Mr. Mortimer for his viewing. It’s a busy day.”

  We both walked to the preparation room. Fee gave a soft yelp when she caught sight of Mrs. Baumgartner.

  “You have to admit my uncle did a great job,” I said. “She looks great.”

  “You’re right. She never looked this great when she was still alive.”

  “Uncle Charlie is an artist.” He really is. It takes a lot of skill.

  “I don’t understand how you can do this for a living.”

  “And I don’t understand how you can bake bread for a living.”

  “I don’t bake. My dad bakes. I just sell whatever he bakes.”

  “Yes, but you like to bake, and cook and stuff.”

  That was true. Even when we are home Fee loves to bake up a storm. She even has her own bakery column in the Happy Bays Gazette, with recipes and all. She makes them in our kitchen while I film her and then we post the video on her YouTube channel. She’s got a lot of fans. Me? Not so much. Nobody is interested in knowing what a mortician’s assistant is up to. Except maybe the freaks. And the people who are into The Walking Dead.

  We carefully lowered Mrs. Baumgartner into the casket her family had selected by using the body lift. Once she was snugly tucked away in the casket, I removed the straps.

  “There. That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

  I caught Fee staring down at Mrs. Baumgartner. “Remember how we used to steal apples from her garden? And how we almost got caught?”

  I grinned. “Mr. Baumgartner would try to catch us while his wife yelled up a storm.”

  “He almost caught us that one time. Only reason we got away was because Virgil tripped and fell and accidentally took down Baumgartner.”

  “Yes, Virgil took one for the team that day.” It hadn’t stopped him from becoming a cop. Though the Baumgartners had always reminded him he’d been a lawbreaker himself, and had never fully taken him seriously as a police officer.

  We wheeled the casket into the viewing room, Felicity pushing while I steered. We rolled her into position and I took one last look at the old lady.

  “How old was she?” Fee asked.

  “Ninety-fiv
e. Nice ripe old age.”

  “Yeah. If I manage to live that long I’ll be happy.”

  “We’re going to live to be a hundred, you and I,” I told her. “With the advancements in science, maybe even two hundred. Or three or four.”

  “I don’t want to be two hundred. What am I going to do with myself?”

  “You’ll bake a lot of cake. Like a lot a lot.”

  Fee is destined to take over Bell’s Bakery when her mom and dad retire. Her dad would like to retire now already, and move to Florida, but his wife refuses to budge. Not before Fee ties the knot and supplies her with a first batch of grandchildren. And since she’s already engaged to be married, that just might happen sooner rather than later.

  “See you later, Uncle Charlie!” I yelled.

  “Always on my mind, honey!” he crooned back.

  We filed into the Bell’s Bakery van, an old jalopy Fee uses for her morning bread runs, and she fired up the engine. It coughed to life with a rattle.

  “So what do we know?” I asked. “About the murder, I mean?”

  “Not much. Just that Gemma was bludgeoned to death sometime last night. She was supposed to host a night for the Historical Society, but when the first guests showed up and she didn’t answer the door, they figured she’d changed her mind and went home.”

  “They didn’t think it was strange that Gemma would invite a bunch of people over and then refuse to let them in?”

  Fee shrugged. “I’m just telling you what Virgil told Marjorie.”