“Yeah.” And it would be even better news if he woke up. I swiveled slowly two hundred seventy degrees to take in the room. It hadn’t made any impression on me when I was trying to catch Lonnie.
A ten by ten square, the room had the same wood floors as the rest of the house. A rag rug added a splotch of color by a single bed with a threadbare quilt on it, and wallpaper featuring overblown roses covered the walls. A stuffed doll with button eyes and yarn hair slumped against an embroidered pillow. A walnut armoire took up most of one wall, and the window filled most of another. It didn’t look like this room had been restored to its pre–Civil War origins. Rothmere descendants had lived in the house until old Phineas Rothmere willed it to the city upon his death in the 1950s, and some of the rooms were a confusing mix of Victorian, Art Deco, and other design sensibilities. Lucy Mortimer burned to restore it all to its original splendor, but that took money. Spaatz moved to the window and threw up the sash easily. The movement sparked a memory.
“The window was already open when Lonnie came in here,” I said. “He jumped right through it.” I thought for a moment. “Is Lonnie a good student?”
Spaatz looked over his shoulder at me. “He’s very bright, but he’s . . . shall we say ‘unmotivated’? I don’t think his home situation is good.”
“Bright enough to come check this place out before last night? How long has the field trip been planned?”
“You think he cased the joint?” Spaatz turned and half sat on the windowsill, stroking his chin. “Could be. It’s been on the calendar for over a month. Had to give enough time for the kids to get their permission slips filled out and ante up five bucks each so we could pay for the bus.” Sarcasm tinged the words.
“You know, he went out that window like a shot. Never even looked to see if the roof sloped or if there was something to hang on to or anything. I think he and his cohort—”
“Tyler Orey. Not as bright as Lonnie—more of a follower, I’d say.”
“I think they had this all planned out, the fog machine, the sheet, the escape route—everything.”
Spaatz straightened. “Could well be, but where does that get us relative to Braden’s fall? Nowhere. Tyler and Lonnie were out of the picture long before Braden’s accident.”
I deflated a little. “True enough.” I scanned the room and crossed to the armoire. It towered over me, easily eight feet tall. I tugged on one of the metal pulls and the door swung toward me, emitting a faint scent of camphor. A few wire hangers rattled on the metal pole that stretched across half the opening. Drawers marched down the left side of the cabinet and I opened them idly. Liner paper with a faint gold stripe and a few rodent pellets were all I found until I got to the last drawer. It didn’t open as easily as the others and I gave it a sharp jerk, nearly falling on my fanny when it slid toward me to reveal white fabric crammed into the drawer.
Spaatz and I exchanged a glance and I scooped my arms under the material and pulled it out in a crumpled ball. I found an end and flapped it, unfolding a white sheet. I arched my brows and poked a finger through one of two perfectly round holes, golf ball sized, in the middle of the cloth.
“The Ghost of Christmas Past, I presume?” Spaatz said dryly.
“Boo.”
We stared at the sheet draped over my arms for a moment.
“It must be Lonnie’s costume,” Spaatz said, rubbing a corner of the cloth between his thumb and two fingers.
I was shaking my head before he finished. “Uh-uh. Lonnie was still wearing his ghostie disguise when he went through the window. He got rid of it out there somewhere.” I tilted my head toward the gardens and the cemetery beyond.
“So who left that in there?”
I bit my lower lip. “I don’t know, but it seems to me that more than one of your students wanted to make sure you would find ‘spirits’ on your ghost-debunking field trip.”
A troubled look settled on Spaatz’s face. “This might explain why Braden came upstairs.”
I nodded. “If someone was playing ghost on the landing, with or without special effects like Lonnie’s, Braden might have come up to investigate. Trouble is, even though this explains why he came upstairs, it doesn’t explain how or why he fell.”
Spaatz widened his ice-blue eyes. A faint, half-moon scar curved from the outside corner of his right eye. “It must have been an accident, like the police said. He ran up to catch the ghost, caught his shoe on a tread, and fell.”
“So why didn’t the ghost get help, instead of stuffing his costume in this armoire and disappearing?” I asked quietly.