Skull Screw Up: A Halloween Helper's Cozy Mystery Read online

  With a nod and a high five, Vinnie turned on the flashlight and quietly opened the ornate door. As soon as Vinnie walked in, Diggy slowly pulled the door so that it was mostly shut. Only a sliver of light shone in through the crack.

  Vinnie shone the flashlight around, figuring she would start by the door and work her way towards the front of the room. The first time she had been in there, it had seemed empty, but as she got a better look around with the flashlight, she realized that it was actually just a wide open space.

  Besides the strange emptiness of the room, the other thing that surprised Vinnie was how clean it was. The corners and along the walls didn't have any cobwebs or dust bunnies. Vinnie wondered if there were hidden lights that they turned on to clean the room or maybe vampires just used their night vision to clean the ceremony room. It seemed to be a very boring use of an otherwise awesome paranormal skill.

  As she continued to shine the flashlight around the empty floor, Vinnie supposed that night vision would come in handy when she was cleaning their house. Some of the rooms and staircases were a bit dark and holding a flashlight while sweeping was quite a chore. Night vision would make it so much easier.

  Vinnie was only halfway through the large room and so far she had found nothing, literally nothing. What kind of a ceremony did they hold here? Vinnie imagined that they all just came in and stared at the shelf of ceremonial knick-knacks, chanted some words, and then filed out. There weren't even any chairs to sit on, so it must not be an extended sort of ceremony.

  After what seemed like a very long time, probably because of the boredom of searching an empty room, Vinnie had finally made her way to the front of the room. She glanced back, seeing that the door was still only open a crack. Diggy hadn't made any noise whatsoever, so the coast must still be clear.

  The shelf had four circles of light coming from a set of expensive looking track lighting that was mounted to the ceiling. In one was a wooden heart figurine. In the other was a polished metal moon figure. The middle circles of light were empty except for a transparent plastic stand where the ceremonial skull was supposed to go and another spot for something else that was also missing now.

  Vinnie had no idea what any of the things were for or if the vampires had to have all of the artifacts together or if they were used separately. She made a mental note to read up a bit more about paranormal creatures other than witches that they may come across in their new line of work. This mission was making her feel woefully unprepared.

  As she walked slowly from one end of the table to the other she couldn't help but notice that the table had been dusted. Vampires appeared to be fastidious cleaners, which Vinnie had to admit was admirable. But when they could see in the dark and move like they were floating, it probably made it much easier.

  The flashlight in her hand had dropped down to shine on the floor while she inspected the shelf. The beam of light swung back and forth as she slowly moved along the length of it until suddenly Vinnie kicked something as she got to the end of the shelf. Had someone dropped something and now Vinnie had kicked it under the table? Maybe it was the other artifact that wasn't on the shelf anymore. She bent down to look.

  Instead of finding a misplaced object, Vinnie found something much, much worse. The misplaced skull case had just taken a left turn that made it ten times more difficult. Under the table at the front of the ceremony room was Bram. And the stake through his heart suggested that he wasn't taking a nap.

  Chapter Five

  Vinnie couldn't help herself as a scream erupted from her mouth. She was not able to keep her cool in this kind of situation. If anything, she had been afraid that she had just kicked a human skull under the table but instead it was a dead body.

  The door to the ceremony room slammed open and Diggy came running in, bumbling her way to the front as her eyes adjusted to the darkness. Behind her, a steady stream of vampires appeared out of nowhere from the library, called by Vinnie's scream.

  "Are you okay?" Diggy asked, grabbing onto Vinnie's hands.

  Vinnie tried to answer, but she found that she had forgotten to breathe. She took a deep breath to center herself but before she could show Diggy what had happened, another vampire spoke up instead.

  "Bram, get up. What are you doing?" Francine screeched, as if Bram was an actor who had wanted to take command of the stage by overplaying his role.

  "Where's Bram?" Diggy asked, confused because she still couldn't see anything besides the bright spotlights in the dark.

  Vinnie shone her flashlight onto Bram to show Diggy first his face and then the wooden stake sticking out of his heart. Diggy gasped and buried her face into Vinnie's chest as Vinnie wondered if this made her a bad aunt. The first murder they had solved, they had been warned that they were going to a crime scene, but this was just supposed to be a misplaced or stolen object. Seeing a dead body was completely out of the blue.

  The vampires in the doorway were murmuring to each other, but none of them sounded particularly sad. The only sad one seemed to be Francine, who was wailing loudly. She was on her knees in the middle of the room, alternating between clutching at her heart and pounding her fists on the floor. Vinnie had gotten the sense that Francine was overly dramatic, but this seemed a bit much even for her.

  "What happened here?"

  Tucker burst through the crowd, shoving Wayne so hard that the small man fell to the floor, and walked to the front of the room, purposefully looking straight at Vinnie as to avoid looking at the dead body of his brother. He looked like he wanted to cry, but he seemed to push that back and put a serious face on instead.

  "What did you do to him?" Tucker demanded. "I knew calling the Halloween Helpers was a mistake. Which one of you killed him?"

  "Excuse me?" Vinnie said. "We are the Halloween Helpers. I think you neglected to listen to the part of our name where we help. I came in here to search for more clues and instead I stumbled across Bram's body. So no, neither of us killed him but it definitely means that one of you did."

  Tucker took a step back, his eyes wide as Vinnie laid the blame on the vampires for the murder.

  "Well let me tell you a few things," Vinnie said, hoping that she wouldn't make things worse. "Obviously Bram was murdered. I don't think he did this to himself and he wasn't clumsy enough to accidentally fall on a wooden stake. And Diggy and I have been searching the house ever since we sent you all to the library. Look at us, do we seem like we would be able to overpower and kill a vampire?"

  "You're witches," Wayne said. "I think you could use magic to kill him."

  Vinnie had to stop herself from rolling her eyes. This is the one time that she would love to admit that she was non-magical, but that would cause other problems. The vampires were all murmuring amongst themselves as they went back and forth about whether Vinnie and Diggy could have killed Bram.

  "Let me remind you that we are Halloween Helpers," Vinnie said, drawing herself up to stand as straight as she could which still made her an entire head shorter than all of the tall, lithe vampires. All except Wayne, who was the same height as she was. "It is our job to help. We are here on official business and no matter how we feel about any of you, we will be here to help. Not only will we be finding the skull, but we will now be solving this murder."

  Francine's wailing was not quite so loud and she wasn't rocking back and forth as much, but she was still on her knees by the door of the room. None of the other vampires seemed willing to help her and while Vinnie could sort of understand why, it felt cruel to not help the girlfriend of the deceased through her grief.

  "We will need you all to clear this room as we do a search," Vinnie said. "And as it is getting late, we will need to be leaving soon. I will have a magical bubble put around the house so that no one can leave and tomorrow we will be doing thorough interviews. This was obviously a terrible shock to all of us and that means I'd like you all to rest up tonight."

  "We're generally nocturnal," came a shout from the back of the group along with a few sn
ickers.

  Oh yeah, that would make sense. Still, if nothing else Diggy and Vinnie needed rest, so Vinnie decided to stick to her own plan.

  "Well you all just do whatever it is you do, but you will be restricted to the house," Vinnie said. "We will also seal off the ceremony room once we are done looking around so that no one can go in there and disturb the crime scene."

  The vampires were not happy. They started milling around in the doorway, angrily snipping at each other and bearing their fangs. It almost seemed like a show of anger, like they were trying to display their dominance to Vinnie. She pretended like she took no notice and instead started to shoo everyone out of the ceremony room.

  "I'd like you all to ;eave," Vinnie said. "You don't have to wait in the library any longer, but you cannot be in here. And perhaps someone could help Miss Francine to her room?"

  Tucker appeared again out of the crowd and took Francine by the arm, helping her off of the floor and towards the door. Some of the other vampires had left, but many were still standing in the entrance. As Tucker approached them, he took matters into his own hands.

  "You heard the lady, everyone needs to leave," Tucker said. "For now, I'm taking control of this house and what the Halloween Helper says, goes. That means everyone needs to scatter."

  With a few harrumphs and angry sighs, the vampires disappeared behind Tucker and Francine. Wayne was the last one out, pausing in the doorway before he too disappeared. Vinnie admired their speed and agility. She didn't have much experience with vampires, but so far besides their apparent moodiness, they were actually quite cool.

  "Diggy, shut the door please," Vinnie said.

  As soon as the door was shut, the room was plunged back into almost complete darkness and Vinnie wondered if she had done the right thing. But they couldn't risk someone peeking in and ruining the investigation.

  "How are you going to do the magic bubble thing?" Diggy asked. "You know I can't do that amount of magic, right?"

  "I figured, so I think I'll send a note to Norhand," Vinnie said. "If he thinks he can just take the magical member of our group, that means he will have to do some of the work."

  Vinnie scratched out a short note and Diggy sent it off to him. A few minutes later, the witches could hear the bubble taking shape outside. It sounded almost like a laser beam cutting around the building. It would keep everyone inside.

  "I already searched the room," Vinnie said. "The only part I didn't search was right by the body. I got a little upset when I discovered that. But we should just search that immediate area and see if we see anything that might be a clue."

  Diggy nodded, holding the flashlight up. Vinnie could just barely make out her face from the glow of the flashlight. As the time they had to spend in it got longer, the ceremony room was taking on an even eerier quality. Vinnie hoped that they would find a few clues and solve this thing ASAP.

  "Do you think the table thing moves?" Diggy asked. "It would be a lot easier to look at the body with those spotlights."

  "Brilliant," Vinnie said. "I hadn't even thought of that! Grab the other end and let's see if this thing moves."

  Each witch grabbed an end and carefully moved the piece of furniture away from where Bram's body was laying. Vinnie hoped no one would be upset that they had moved the priceless artifacts out of their spot. The vampire's body was suddenly bathed in light, which seemed almost disrespectful for a creature who was nocturnal. But the faster they could solved the murder, the sooner they could move him out of the harsh lights.

  Bram looked the same as he had looked when he was alive except that there was a giant wooden stake stuck in his chest. Otherwise, he looked surprisingly lifelike. Vinnie wasn't sure if that was because he was a vampire or if dead bodies normally looked like this. The only other dead person she had seen was Plant who had been turned to stone, so she definitely hadn't looked like this.

  "Other then that stake, he looks like he's about to sit up and make another snarky comment," Diggy said.

  "I was just thinking the same thing," Vinnie replied.

  The two of them crouched down and started to move slowly around the body, looking for anything out of place. It wasn't going to be easy to solve a murder if there weren't any clues left behind. Vinnie knew from her crime shows that physical evidence went a lot further than circumstantial evidence.

  Then a twinkle caught her eye. There was something about a foot away from Bram's body, but it was so small that it only gleamed if you stood in a specific spot. Vinnie squinted at it, not wanting to touch it right away but she realized that the darkness would impede her vision enough that it wasn't worth it to try. So instead, she put on a glove and gingerly picked up the object.

  In the palm of her hand was an earring. It was a beautiful, large ruby earring. It looked expensive and Vinnie was sure it was worth a few hundred thousand dollars, not that she knew much about jewelry. She held it up for Diggy to look at.

  "Wow, that is a crazy big ruby," Diggy said. "Where did you find it?"

  "It was about a foot that way," Vinnie said, pointing to where she had found the earring. As she picked it up, she had dropped a coin in its place so that they knew exactly where it came from.

  "Do you think it's a clue for the murder?" Diggy asked.

  "I'm not sure," Vinnie said. "I'm hoping it is, but this room is so dark that maybe it's been here for a while."

  In the back of Vinnie's mind, she knew that the vampire's night vision capabilities would make that an almost impossible thing, but she didn't want to jump to any conclusions. She couldn't shake the hopeful feeling that this clue would lead to a speedy end to the case.

  Chapter Six

  After a brief moment of panic when Vinnie and Diggy thought they were also locked into the vampire's house for the night, Norhand did send them a different travel orb that would get them through the security barrier. As always, Vinnie landed with a thud on the ground, but she was so tired that this time she just laid there for a moment until Diggy offered her a hand. Together they walked to the kitchen where they threw together a quick dinner of snack foods.

  As Vinnie arranged meats, cheeses, crackers, and other finger foods on a beautiful wooden cutting board, she thought about the vampires. She had so many questions about them and how they lived. Before, when this was just a missing skull case, she didn't think it was appropriate to ask, but now that there was a murder, she needed to know everything about how they lived.

  Like were they related somehow or how did they find each other? Why did they all live in a gigantic house together? Vinnie was insanely curious, almost more so than Diggy was. She would have to put together a big list of questions to ask before they did their interviews tomorrow.

  As Vinnie deposited the board full of food in front of their spots at the kitchen table, she had to smile at Diggy. The girl had been in charge of the beverages and place settings and along with setting some of their best plates for this very informal meal, she had also poured large glasses of water in their fancy crystal cups and made a wonderful pot of chamomile tea for an after dinner sleep aid.

  For a while, both of the women dug into the food, very much aware of the fact that besides the delicious breakfast they had consumed many hours ago, neither of them had eaten all day. They contented themselves to filling their plates and then stuffing their face with the delicious assortment of food. Finally, Diggy was the one who broke the silence.

  "Who do you think killed Bram?" she asked before making another little sandwich out of crackers and cheese.

  "I think almost anyone there may have killed him," Vinnie said. "He wasn't a very nice man."

  "What is with leaders who are so nasty to the people in their group?" Diggy asked. "First Plant, now Bram? What is happening?"

  "I think people get power and then they crave more power, so they become nasty," Vinnie said. "That's why I'm glad I'm just little old me and I only get to rule over myself."

  "You are a Halloween Helper now," Diggy pointed out. "That's kind
of like having power.

  "Sort of, but it's a different type of power," Vinnie said. "I make important decisions, but they aren't the day to day decisions that rule a person's life. That is a different sort of power than what I do."

  Diggy nodded, her mouth full of salami and cracker. Vinnie took the opportunity to pop a few olives in her mouth as she also pondered who the suspects would be. No one seemed to particularly like Bram, not his girlfriend and certainly not his brother. Until they could positively rule anyone out, every vampire would be a suspect.

  Once Diggy and Vinnie finished their dinner, which was pretty much every single crumb of food that Vinnie was able to fit on the cutting board, they sat back to enjoy their tea before bed. It had been an exciting day and a few moments of rest were what was needed to wind down and be able to get a good night's rest, since they had even more to do the next day.

  A bolt of lightning crackled through the kitchen, making Diggy and Vinnie both jump. Diggy's tea spilled all over her lap while Vinnie seemed to topple right out of her chair, taking her tea down with her. As they cleaned themselves off, a greasy looking man stepped forward.

  "Aren't you both a mess," Norhand said. "I thought you'd be expecting me. After all, that is why I sent you the travel orb to get you home."

  "Here we were thinking you did that just to be nice," Vinnie said, mopping the floor with a kitchen towel. She had managed to save the tea cup, but the contents had been lost to the stone floor.

  "No, it was because I have the next clue for you to solve to prove yourselves worthy of this job," Norhand said.

  His face was drawn up in a sneer like he just couldn't believe that he had to work with such idiots. Funny, Vinnie had been thinking the same thing about him.

  "How is my mother?" Diggy asked.

  She was drenched down the front in tea, but she wasn't even trying to clean herself off. Diggy looked like she had forgotten about the large amount of warm tea that she had just taken a bath in, lost instead in hopeful wonder about her mother's condition.