Wilmington, NC 03 - Murder On The Ghost Walk

about his friends' deaths from the TV news. He was going to be devastated. I wasn't a bit sleepy. I'd drive back into town and tell him myself. But first I had a stop to make.
    I started the engine and turned onto Airlie Road, heading in the opposite direction from home. I followed the Waterway for a quarter mile until it curved inland. It was impossible for me to drive this route without feeling a tug on my heartstrings. This was where Daddy died.
    I passed Airlie Gardens and Arboretum, closed now and shrouded in heavy darkness. Picking up Oleander Drive for a short hop, I crossed the bridge over Bradley Creek, then made a sharp left into the heavily wooded neighborhood at Greenville Loop Road. Melanie lived at the end of Rabbit Run on Sandpiper Cove in a ranch house with bleached cedar shakes, green shutters, and a split rail fence covered with late-blooming rambling roses.
    My headlights picked out the opening in the fence and I maneuvered my Volvo down her sloping, sandy driveway, parking behind her new SUV.
    The Volvo station wagon I drive used to belong to Mama before she stopped driving. It had many miles left on it and served me well as a business van, transporting tools and equipment to the site. With my commission from Mirabelle, I'd be able to buy a real van.
    Melanie's garage door was shut but light shone diffusely from the windows in the house. I took my purse and stepped carefully down illuminated shallow steps to the small front porch. Pressing the doorbell, I heard soft chimes play inside. I waited but she didn't come. Maybe she's in the shower, I thought. I' d give her a minute.
    I gazed out over the porch rail into the dark backyard where the land dropped away into the cove. A lush harvest moon floated out of cloud cover. Lights from the Coast Guard Station on the southern tip of Wrightsville Beach flickered across the water. Here in the woods, away from streets and traffic, the wind sighed and stirred piles of leaves.
    I gave the doorbell a final ring. The porch light sprang on and I blinked. At the same time Melanie flung open the door.
    " OK , what . . . ? Oh, Ashley, it's you. What on earth are you doing here?"
    "I'll only stay a minute. I have something to give you."
    She hesitated, then invited me in. As she tied the sash of a peach satin kimono securely around her waist, she gave her disheveled hair a shake.
    "Were you asleep?" My feet sank into thick carpet as I stepped inside the foyer.
    Melanie caught sight of herself in a mirror over a console and took a moment to comb her fingers through her hair. "No, I wasn't asleep. You caught me . . . at a bad time, is all."
    "You mean you're not alone?" I whispered, glancing down the shadowy hall toward the master bedroom. Faint light shone from the bedroom, slanting in a wedge on the hall carpet which meant the door was ajar. I didn't want whoever was in there to hear our conversation so I moved away, toward the living room.
    "Let's talk over here." I steered her into the adjoining living room where one small lamp glowed.
    The serene room was done in pale taupes and ivories with deft touches of peach and aqua. I remembered how we'd decorated this room together when I was home on a summer break. How much fun we'd had shopping for the wonderful art deco pieces that blended marvelously with the fat Thirties-style Tuxedo sofas and club chairs. How we'd selected the filmy linen panels that hung in deep folds across the sliding glass doors that led to the terrace.
    "What is this all about? Why are you behaving so mysteriously?" she asked.
    "Shhh. I have something that belongs to you." I pulled the tissue-wrapped cameo brooch from my purse and placed it in her hand.
    She unwrapped the tissue paper. "What's this? You certainly are acting strange, even for you . . . Oh, my stars!"
    For a split second, her face registered alarm, and some other emotion. Fear? Had I seen fear? Then her face clamped shut, and she regarded me defiantly. "Mama's been looking for this brooch. Where did you find it?"
    "Not Mama. You. You'd better tell me the truth, Melanie."
    Her chin shot up. "Mama lost it. And you know how she is."
    I moved to the far side of the room, as far away as possible from the passageway to the bedrooms.
    "Where did you find this?" she asked again.
    "I didn't find it. Tommy did. It was wedged down in a sofa he's reupholstering for me. Shelby Campbell's sofa. So that brooch has been hidden there for the past six years. What I want to know is how it got