“Cuffs!” she repeated, spinning to face him.
“Jillian, just go with them. I’ll take care of it,” Taylor Branch promised her.
Van Camp came to stand by Aidan. “You want the interview, I imagine?” he asked in a low voice.
“Yes, thanks,” Aidan said. “I’ll follow you in about fifteen minutes.”
Van Camp and Voorhaven left with Jillian. She kept looking back, her eyes wide, tears streaming down her cheeks.
“That’s absolutely impossible,” Muscles—or Cory Stile—insisted.
“The chloroform was in her drawer,” Garcia said flatly and dispassionately.
Muscles shook his head. “She’s...she’s far too sweet and what she said was true. Jillian hero-worshipped Richard Highsmith. And I saw her—we all saw her!—testing the sound equipment.”
“She’s not under arrest,” Aidan explained. “We just need her to answer some questions. She’s right that the chloroform could have been planted. This is a hotel. There are passkeys. Maids and other staff come into the rooms. As I said, we’ll need to talk to her and, actually, Mr. Branch, an attorney isn’t going to help much at this point, because we’re going to try to find out if the chloroform was planted in her room.”
Branch scowled. “That’s what you say when you want to bully and trick people into confessions. You just want to ask questions,” he added sarcastically.
“I’m sorry you believe that,” Aidan said.
Branch started toward his room. “They’re not done in there,” Aidan told him.
Irritated, Branch stopped. “Fine. I’ll wait.” He pulled out his cell phone. “I need to get in touch with a lawyer right now. I can do that here as well as anywhere.”
Mischief—Rob Little—walked over to Aidan. “Muscles told you the truth. We’ve all come to care about Jillian. She’s a good kid. Idealistic. That’s why she loved her job, working for Richard. I’m telling you, you’re wrong.”
“Who in this group had access to her room?” Aidan asked.
The three “Shields” and Taylor Branch looked at one another.
“All of us,” Mischief replied.
“Then we’ll all have to talk, won’t we?” Aidan said quietly.
*
“Please? Pretty please?” Grace asked Mo over the phone.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Mo said.
The local attractions were reopening. Grace was on duty that night—and now she wanted Mo to play a part at the Haunted Mausoleum.
Sleepy Hollow and Tarrytown always put on a spectacular Halloween season. Like Salem, New Orleans and various other places of historic interest, Sleepy Hollow had the reputation and the buildings, graveyards and other locations to create a spooky atmosphere and attract visitors.
Philipsburg Manor put on Horseman’s Hollow, there were readings at the Old Dutch Church and a wonderful Haunted Hayride. Grace’s venue, the Haunted Mausoleum, was both effective and successful. There wasn’t really a main mausoleum; instead, there were several family tombs and graves on the property. The largest building was an old mortuary, originally built and opened just before the Civil War. It had done a booming business as the death toll during the fighting increased, and it had survived as a working mortuary well into the twentieth century. Finally, it was purchased by Grace’s employers in the late 1980s.
These days, visitors were taken on a tour through the main building and then out to the graveyard. At Halloween, the mortuary offered grim reapers, the dead trying to rise out of coffins and “the gauntlet,” a hallway filled with character actors portraying historical personages from all over the world known for their heinous acts, including Vlad Dracul, Countess Bathory, Jack the Ripper and more.
The cemetery itself concentrated on specters from local lore. Among them were Major Andre, the Woman in White, a Native American maiden who had killed herself over her lover, and the Bronze Lady—a large statue from the cemetery said to cry real tears. The infamous historical-murderer actors made appearances now and then, too.
While the haunted house was pure fun, visitors also went away with a booklet that gave real histories of the characters, and information on the other ghost stories of Sleepy Hollow.
There was usually a Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow who rode around the property, too.
He was not going to appear that night.
“Mo, if you don’t take Alicia’s part, they’ll hire someone else—someone I don’t know. Or trust. Come on, please?”
“What’s wrong with Alicia?” Mo asked worriedly.
“She’s in the hospital with an emergency appendectomy.”
“Oh, I’m sorry!” But the last thing Mo wanted to do that night was play the Woman in White.
“If the Horseman isn’t being used—”
“The Horseman is Robbie Anderson. He’s becoming H. H. Holmes for the night in the Gauntlet—and he’s not a woman.”
Robbie Anderson was a historian, but he was also big in local theater.