Murder and Mischief in the Hamptons

Murder and Mischief in the Hamptons

  Book Two in the Hamptons Series

  By T. L. Ingham

  This book is dedicated to my number one fan- may your flight be safe and may you thoroughly enjoy your read along the way!

  Murder and Mischief in the Hamptons

  Book Two in the Hamptons Series

  Copyright 2012 Tammy L. Ingham.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Murder and Mischief in the Hamptons

  Book Two in the Hamptons Series

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  A Note from the Author

  Sneak Peek at Family and Fiends in the Hamptons

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  My name is Sigreid Larson, but only my mother calls me that. Oh, and my father. My friends call me Reid. So does my police detective boyfriend, my gallery co-workers and my no-one-word-can-describe-her boss. Pretty much everyone I know calls me Reid. Even the ghosts.

  Confused?

  Allow me to explain.

  The short version: One solid marble sculpture (applied to the noggin brusquely)- $1,200. One cat scan (to examine crushed skull)- $2,300. A lifetime of visitation from the spirit world- priceless.

  Okay, so you might need the longer version…

  Up until a few weeks ago my life was both peachy and keen. I was still living at home, to the everlasting joy of my mother and the eternal despair of my father. Not that my father didn't love me or want me around. Just that, like all other fathers, he wanted his baby bird to fly the nest. His chicken to leave the coop. His cub to abandon the den. You get the picture. He wanted me to move out and start paying rent someplace else.

  Someday.

  Sooner would be better.

  Now's good.

  And I did. Temporarily anyway.

  But like a boomerang, it wasn't long until I came flying back. See, like any good daughter I had gone off to college in order to pursue an education and eventually a career. I managed the first half decently enough; it was the latter that I struggled with. After receiving my diploma, I quickly found out exactly how difficult it was to break into the art world. With all my dreams of a glamorous artsy lifestyle in some New York City borough smashed beyond recognition, I returned home with my tail tucked firmly between my legs. And there I spent two unproductive years helping out on the dairy farm my family owns and working nights waitressing. I had given up on art entirely.

  Then all that changed when a call from an old college professor helped me land a job at one of the most prestigious art galleries in the Hamptons, Darcy Stillwell Fine Art Gallery. Sounds fancy doesn't it? Believe me, it is.

  Since then, I have taken up permanent residence in my employer's guest house and have also been promoted from personal assistant to buyer for the gallery. On top of that, I've managed to land myself a boyfriend who not only has gainful employment, but is extremely easy on the eyes.

  Sounds good right?

  Couldn't be better.

  Except.

  Well, as with all things, you have to take the good with the bad. And I got plenty of the bad. My old professor turned out to be a scheming art thief, not to mention a psychotic murderer, and in no time at all I found myself framed for these crimes. It was pretty awesome. I spent more time in the interrogation room at the local police department than I had anywhere else in the Hamptons, and let me tell you, the lighting isn't kind. Only dressing rooms in clothing stores have worse lighting.

  But that's beside the point. The point is that's how I met my boyfriend Jase. Well, actually I met him when he was called to the gallery to investigate the art theft. But, I got to know him in the interrogation room. And we had our first date in the interrogation room. Well, technically, it wasn't a date, it was lunch. But it is where he asked me out for our first date- which incidentally took place in the hospital. Hey, I'm a girl that likes to get around.

  Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself. The long and the short of it is, I- through no fault of my own- got caught up in all the professor's evil machinations and wound up being whacked on the head with an incredibly hard, incredibly heavy sculpture. I awoke to a splitting migraine and the ability to see and speak to ghosts. The migraine eventually dissipated. The ghost thing did not. And you would never guess how many of them there are floating around the Hamptons- ghosts I mean, not migraines. Although the latter is also true. Still, now I know where people go to die. And I always thought it was Florida...

  As far as my first date in the hospital, well, that was a result of the drug Professor Stanley injected me with (he was really racking up the bodies), before attempting to hop a plane to Bermuda or some such place with his girlfriend. It put me in a coma for a few days, but it didn’t kill me. And so Jase, determined to have our first date sometime before my funeral (which was seeming far more imminent than would make a person feel comfortable), insisted on having it there, where I was safe at least for the time being. He relished the idea that we had the room to ourselves, affording us a privacy that we would not have had at a restaurant. Of course, he couldn't see the ghost nurse sitting in the corner…

  Which brings me to today. Released from the hospital: check. A ride home with the boyfriend: check. My mother still around to cater to my every whim while I lie in bed like a lazy lump and watch random television shows and drown myself in homemade chicken noodle soup: double check.

  Everything was going along swimmingly. Which should have been my first clue.

  No sooner had my mother opened the front door than Alex, the resident ghost of the guesthouse, burst through her- I mean through her- which is a very disturbing sight. It was like watching the alien burst out of Sigourney Weaver's chest. If it had… But I don't think it did. I think it was one of her space traveler cohorts. But you get the picture. It gave me the shivers and the willies when I had been looking forward to the warm and the fuzzies.

  "You've got to help me find my murderer, or else I'll be forced to haunt you forever!" Alex shouted, while my mother said, "Hello, dear! Oh, you're shaking. Are you cold?" It looked as if she had two heads and they were both speaking.

  "No, I'm fine," I said through chattering teeth.

  "The doc said she might have trouble regulating body temperature for the next few days," Jase told her, wrapping an arm around me. There was that warm and fuzzy I was looking for.

  "Well, then, best to get you off to bed," my mother instantly took charge.

  At the same time Alex was griping, "Are you listening to me? You have to help me!"

  "Did he send home any prescriptions?" my mother was asking.

  Jase was answering while Alex continued prattling. If he imparted any important information, I missed it. God, I hope my mother was paying attention.

  "-you hear me?! You'll have a lifetime of me constantly screaming in your ear! Do you want that?!"

  "- dear?"

  I had no idea what she'd just ask
ed me. "Um. Yes? No?"

  My mother sighed. It was the same sigh she had been using since I turned thirteen and puberty struck me deaf to all parental instruction.

  "I said-"

  "Damn it, Reid! This is important! Pay attention!"

  "- dear?"

  It was getting too confusing to try and separate the conversations, so I ignored them both and headed straight for the guest bedroom slash art studio. Since it was apparent I wasn’t going to be getting rest anytime soon, I decided I had some painting to do. Thanks to my long stint in the hospital I was already a week behind and hey, my paintings were selling like hot cakes. I'd already sold the two I'd painted since moving here (both for a decent amount of money) and I was planning on investing in a long overdue new car. I may as well make the best of my time and get busy on a third.

  "And just where do you think you're going, young lady?" my mother asked, grabbing me by the shoulders and attempting to steer me into the master bedroom.

  "I just had a few ideas I wanted to sketch out," I muttered lamely.

  "I don't think so! You just got out of the hospital! What you need is a few days bed rest."

  "I've already had a few days bed rest and then some," I complained. Never mind the fact that just a few minutes ago I had been daydreaming of just exactly that, bed rest and motherly nurturing, at least until my obnoxious ghost had ruined it.

  "I have to agree with your mother on this one," Jase chimed in. Of course he agreed with her. They'd done nothing but agree with each other the entire time I'd been in the hospital. My mother was ecstatic, delirious, on cloud nine and in seventh heaven about my dating Jase. Apparently, she found him highly suitable to be the father of the dozens of grandchildren she was busily planning. She probably already had their names picked out.

  If he only knew.

  "Fine, I'll lay down."

  Once more I headed toward the guest room, but my mother stayed me.

  "No, no! Not in there. You take the master; I'll sleep in the guest room. Lord only knows what breathing in all that vapor from those paints will do to you!"

  "They haven't killed me in so many years; they're hardly likely to hurt me now."

  "You haven't just come out of a coma in all these years either!" My mother, the word mixologist.

  "Are you listening to me?!" Alex was butting in again. "You have to help me find my murderer, or you'll be stuck with me forever!"

  I continued to ignore him and allowed my mother and Jase to lead me to the bedroom.

  "If you won't help me find him, then at least get Olivia over here to perform a cleansing, or an exorcism, or something!"

  My boss Pia, among her other eccentricities, wholeheartedly believes in ghosts, which comes in handy considering my position. Though, shockingly enough, when I initially made my confession to her about my suddenly inherited ability, she didn't believe me. Instead, she blamed it on brain damage and took me for a cat scan. Seriously.

  Anyway, one of her best friends (and the only other living person who knows my secret), is a self-proclaimed medium named Olivia St. Pierre. While Olivia can in fact speak to the dead, primarily she speaks to her husband Jean-Luc, who became attached to her upon his death. When Olivia does attempt to speak with other ghosts, she mostly hears what she describes as a buzzing noise. Because of this, more often than not she gets the information mixed up. For this reason Olivia had everyone believing that Pia's gallery was haunted by the Raphael and Pia's house was haunted by a civil war era freed slave named Cicily. Being depicted as a woman hadn't set well with Alex.

  Olivia had already performed a cleansing of Pia's home and gallery some time ago (in order to remove unclean spirits or some such), but this was hardly the time to remind Alex of that. I also could not point out that Olivia was not an ordained priest and therefore was unlikely to be capable of performing an exorcism. (I highly doubt her ever-present fur coats qualify as priestly vestments and the numerous baubles and bangles she wears are definitely not rosary beads.) My tongue was held only by the fact that my mother and Jase would be there to witness me speaking such things to the wall, no doubt causing them to rush me right back to the hospital where at the very least I'd be in for another cat scan. Or, if I was really lucky, I'd get a one way ticket to a stay in the psyche ward and a pretty new jacket with arms that tie in the back.

  Alex was unrelenting in his ranting the whole time my mother made me comfortable, fluffing my pillows and smoothing my blankets and cracking the window, before she finally headed to the kitchen to make me something to eat. Jase continued to hover a few minutes more, eventually saying goodbye with a few passionate kisses- kisses I might have enjoyed a whole lot more if Alex would just shut up for five minutes- and then he left for work.

  Left alone, (with the exception of one highly agitated ghost) I hissed, "Will you just stop for five seconds and listen to yourself? Olivia already performed a cleansing. What good would another one do?"

  "I don't know. Get rid of anything she missed, maybe? You don't understand- I'm in danger!"

  "How can a ghost be in danger? You're already dead- what more could anyone do to you?"

  "I don't know. I just know that it's bad. I have a bad feeling."

  "Well, your 'bad' feeling means nothing. She's already done a cleansing, inept as it was. You're obviously still here."

  "It's meant to remove malevolent spirits. But you do have a point, Olivia can be inept. Talk to Pia; see if she'll hire somebody else. Someone who knows what they're doing."

  I shook my head. "No can do. That's what caused the trouble between Pia and Olivia before. I'm not about to be the one to start it all up again." Gloria, Pia's deceased friend who was stuck to Pia as much as Jean-Luc was stuck to Olivia, had told me that Olivia had been very peeved with Pia when she found out that Pia had hired another medium to confirm Olivia's claims regarding the ghosts inhabiting Pia's home and business. It had all been patched up, but still, Olivia was having a hard enough time dealing with the fact that my own abilities far outweighed hers. There was no way I was going to add fuel to the fire by recommending another medium. Too many ghost-whisperers spoil the broth. Or something to that effect. I am my mother's daughter.

  Instead, I tried another avenue. "Has it dawned on you yet that another cleansing, or an exorcism for that matter, might result in your own banishment?"

  Alex flopped down miserably on the end of the bed. "Then what am I supposed to do? I simply can't go on like this!"

  "Go on like what?" I eyed him suspiciously. "Has something happened while I was gone?"

  "No, not really. It's just that she left me alone after you moved in. It kind of lulled me into a false sense of security. And then, with only your mother here, it became no holds barred. And you have no idea how vindictive she can be."

  "She who? Another ghost?" Just what I needed. I could barely keep track of them all now.

  "But, maybe now that you're back, she'll just disappear into the ether again."

  "She who? Alex! She who?"

  But it was too late. Apparently deciding he had already said too much, Alex disappeared. Damn him.