I smiled at him, glad he wasn’t going to fight Vi on this. Arguing with Vi was always a losing proposition.
He put his arm around my shoulder and pulled me into an embrace. “This is not the way I planned on spending our first full day of vacation,” he said into my hair.
“Oh, what did you have planned?” I asked and moved a little closer.
“First, breakfast on a balcony looking out over the ocean.” He tightened his hold and kissed me. “Then, maybe a stroll on the beach. Followed by—”
The doorknob rattled and we sprung apart.
“Here we are!” Vi announced as the door opened.
Mom came in first, followed by a nervous-looking Wally and then Vi.
Vi was breathing heavily. “They weren’t in the lounge, so I had to track them down in the library. Good thing Rose was looking at the door when I cracked it open,” Vi said. “Lucille was focused on her cables so I gave Rose the special signal and she snuck out without anyone noticing.” Vi turned to Wally and said, “Detective McKenzie doesn’t want his mother mucking around in the investigation. She doesn’t have any experience in this sort of thing.”
Mom cleared her cards off the coffee table and we sat by the window.
“Rose, you won’t believe what we just found!” Vi said.
Mac cleared his throat to interrupt her. She glanced at him and miraculously fell silent.
“Wally, do you know anything about a back staircase that leads to the kitchen from the turret room?” Mac asked.
Everyone looked at Wally, who turned bright red.
He nodded. “Yes, I know of it. I’ve never used that staircase. It was put in when the house was built. Ada Carlisle liked to cook even though in those days, everyone had servants and it was considered unladylike to be involved in the household duties.”
Wally stopped and looked at us.
Vi crossed her arms and raised her eyebrows at him.
“Once they moved in and she was so sick, her maid used it to get her meals and tea from the kitchen without going all the way through the house,” Wally said. “I think it had been closed up for a while after she died. But the family knew about it. I only found out when Ms. Carlisle moved into the turret room because she said she wanted Gus, the maintenance guy, to check it out and be sure the staircase was still safe.”
I watched Vi carefully. Her gaze kept straying to the velvet bag that held her pendulum. Mom gripped her tarot deck and I could tell it was all she could do to refrain from laying them on the table. My family liked to get a small amount of information from humans and then consult the oracles. I shook my head at both of them. If they started pulling out their psychic solutions, Mac would never confide in them again.
“Do you know if anyone has been using it?” Mac asked.
Wally’s face went blank and he wouldn’t meet Mac’s eyes. He shook his head. “Not that I know of, no.”
“Who do you think was using it, Mac?” Mom asked.
“I don’t know, but it opens up a new avenue of discussion if there was another way into that room.”
Wally adjusted his tie and looked at his lap.
“Okay, well, thanks for the information, Wally. You can go,” Mac said.
Wally jumped up and banged his leg on the table on his way out.
“He’s hiding something,” Vi said. In the absence of her pendulum, she had begun knitting. She claimed it helped her think.
“I agree,” Mac said.
“Then why did you let him go?” I said.
“I’ll follow up with him when he has a smaller audience. He might talk then.”
“I feel like I’m out of the loop,” Mom said. “How did you find the staircase?”
“I found it when we were searching Clarissa’s room,” Vi said. She sat up straight and puffed out her chest—her demeanor and wildly colored clothing brought a peacock sharply to mind.
“You searched her room without me?” Mom looked at us as if we had just told her we had gone to Disney World and left her at home.
“Not exactly, Mom. Mac and I went to check on a few things, and Vi was snooping around in there,” I said.
“It’s a good thing I was, or you never would have found the secret staircase.” Vi’s knitting project fell, forgotten, to the floor. “This castle is so amazing! Secret staircases, a ghost, a blizzard—the knitting is like the icing on the cake!”
Mac sighed.
Mom had grown quiet while Vi exulted over the castle. “There was a murder, Vi. I’m not feeling very cozy knowing there’s a killer lurking in the shadows.”
Vi’s smile faded and she adopted a more somber countenance. She quietly picked up her needles again.
“We should head back to the workshop,” Mom said. “I told Wally I’d read his cards later today. Maybe I can get a sense of what he might be hiding. . . .”
Mac took a deep breath and was about to say something, but I interrupted.
“I think Mac and I are going to go sit in the lounge for a while before lunch,” I said. I stood up and headed for the door, pulling Mac along with me.
15