Never Thwart a Thespian: Volume 8 (Leigh Koslow Mystery Series) by Edie Claire

playing like idiots — who wants that outside their front door? Then they rented it out for receptions and that, and we still had drunks puking on the sidewalks. And those god-awful haunted houses! Good Lord. Earl and me would go over and stay at my sister’s whenever that happened.”
    “I thought it was twenty years,” Earl mumbled.
    “You know we moved here in 1979!” Merle insisted. She turned to Leigh once more, her expression troubled. “What kind of theater are we talking about? You don’t mean somebody else is trying to open up one of them girlie peep shows—”
    “Oh, no,” Leigh interrupted quickly. “Not a strip club. Nothing like it. A community theater that puts on plays.” Her mind searched for some agreeable titles. “Like The Mousetrap or Arsenic and Old Lace.”
    Merle’s frown lifted a bit. “Well now. That sounds all right, I guess.”
    Leigh smiled. Bess’s group had actually done both those plays, so she wasn’t being dishonest. There was no need to tell Merle what considerably more risqué shows Bess would produce if she actually got the chance, because there had always been enough reasonably sane individuals in the troupe to overrule her. Leigh could only hope there always would be, as she was pretty sure that any family member’s participation in a nude version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream would drive Frances Koslow to apoplexy.
    “But I still wish they’d just tear the damn thing down,” Merle repeated sulkily. “At least then we could stop worrying about what was going on over there. All night long, lights moving, strange noises… you know anybody could move into that place — drifters, whoever. We never know who’s over there. But damned if there isn’t always something going on.”
    “We moved in ’87, didn’t we?” Earl protested.
    “No!” Merle argued. “That was when Jimmy moved to Texas. We came here in ’79. The year after your mother died, remember?”
    “That was your mother.”
    “No! My mother died in ’76. You’re thinking of Jimmy’s mother-in-law having that heart attack right before he and Lori Ann went to Texas…”
    Leigh’s mind drifted. It was some time before the couple remembered her existence, and Earl never did concede on the year in which they had moved. But as soon as Leigh had her hostess’s attention, she asked the obvious question. “You said something was always going on in the building. Something like what? You mean when it was abandoned?”
    Merle’s shrewd eyes held hers. “I mean always. Can’t tell you how many times Earl or myself looked out our bedroom window and saw lights over there. Could be the middle of the night. Most of the time things were quiet, though, and as long as whoever it was didn’t bother us, we didn’t bother them, you know.”
    “You didn’t call the police?”
    Merle gave a shrug. “We never knew the owners — could have been them over there for all we knew. There was only one time we were sure it was vagrants — partiers, you know — what with the loud music and the voices and all. Earl was just about ready to call the police on them when they come running out the front doors like the devil himself was chasing them. Burst out in a big cloud of cigarette smoke, screaming and carrying on. Said the building was haunted and they could have been killed.”
    “Damn hippies,” Earl said with grunt.
    Merle nodded. “Earl and I heard every word of it — they were all right out in the street. Talking about how a man got murdered there once, and now the same murderer was chasing them. Or the ghost of the guy who got murdered — they didn’t seem real clear. Of course, they were most likely drunk or stoned or something. But they scattered, the lot of them, and they didn’t come back. And nobody else ever partied there after them, neither.”
    Leigh was beginning to wish she had accepted the offer of hot coffee. When had the spring air turned so chilly?
    “How long ago was all this?” she