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

asked, not sure she wanted an answer.
    Merle gave another shrug. “Oh, long time ago. Before the Young Businessmen’s Chamber started all that nonsense at Halloween. Back when it was rented out for receptions and that. Like I said, though, it doesn’t seem to matter much who owns it. Funny stuff happens irregardless.”
    “There’s somebody over there,” Earl agreed with a nod.
    Leigh didn’t really want to know the answers to her next questions, but her traitorous mouth asked them anyway. “Somebody like who? What kind of funny stuff?”
    Merle pulled her worn cardigan more tightly across her chest. “Well now, that depends on who you ask. What with that church custodian being murdered way back when, a lot of people around here say the building’s just plain haunted. But Earl and me, we don’t believe in none of that nonsense.”
    “No, we do not,” Earl added with emphasis.
    “We were still living over in Bellevue when it happened,” Merle continued, “but we heard about it. Everybody did.” She gave an exaggerated shudder. “All that talk of devil worship and human sacrifice! Nothing but rubbish, if you ask me, but no church wanted the place after that, and it’s gone downhill ever since. We tell people what we see… with the lights bobbing around at night, and even vandals afraid to stay there — and they all say it’s haunted. But me and Earl, we just think it’s somebody messing with people. Who knows why. People are hard to figure sometimes.”
    “Lori Ann’s a little overweight,” Earl interjected.
    Leigh waited a moment. Merle made no response, and Leigh couldn’t think of an appropriate one, either. “The murder of the custodian,” she asked instead. “The case was solved eventually, right? They found out why it happened like it did?”
    Merle shook her head. “Never did figure that out. Not that I heard, anyway. Of course, the custodian was no prince himself, you know. Mean guy, nasty temper. They say the police were already watching him, ever since a buddy of his had gone missing a couple weeks before, right after the two of them got into a fistfight over a woman. So of course when the custodian got killed, everyone thought the buddy had come back and done him in. But the police never could find that other guy, dead or alive, and they couldn’t prove a darn thing one way or the other, so that was the end of it.”
    “What church did that woman go to?” Earl asked loudly.
    “What woman?” Merle asked louder.
    “Lori Ann’s mother!”
    “Seventh-day Adventist.”
    Earl squirmed slightly more upright in his chair, leaned over toward Leigh, and pointed his finger at her meaningfully. “She was a Seventh-day Adventist.”
    Leigh nodded silently back.
    “Haunted or not,” Merle continued, “we’d both be a whole lot happier if the damn place was just torn down. It’d make such a nice park, you know. Plant some trees and set up a few benches and swing sets for the kids — now that’s a sight I’d like to see out my windows. Wouldn’t you, Earl?”
    Earl was still looking at Leigh. “They have their services on Saturdays, you know.”
    “I’ve heard that,” Leigh replied, just as a spot of strawberry blond drifted into her peripheral vision. She looked across the street and recognized her cousin Cara walking around the rear of the building and down the side street with a camera in her hands. Cara caught sight of her at the same time and waved.
    Leigh rose with a smile. Her cousin always did have excellent timing. “It’s been nice chatting with you,” she told her hosts, “but I’m afraid I need to get back. I’ll send my Aunt Bess over sometime to talk to you about the theater. I’m sure she can answer any questions you may have.”
    The couple smiled and expressed their thanks, and Leigh darted back across the highway.
    “That looked interesting,” Cara commented as she snapped a quick picture of the front windows. “Were the neighbors pumping you for