Creative People Doing Creative Things: A Murder Mystery

by Gracie Fletcher

Chapter 1

“It was a dark and stormy night. The door of the room was closed and locked from inside. Even the high clerestory windows were shut against the rain, although their latches had long been broken. The fire sputtered on the hearth, and a book with torn pages lay open on a small table by the armchair. The cover on the parrot’s cage had been removed — unusual for this time of night — and the parrot cowered in silence on the far corner of its perch. The bottle on the small table was nearly empty. A broken glass lay under the pool table. The pool game had been left in mid-play. Only the drapes in the corners of the bookcases moved gently as pounding resounded through the room, a deafening banging on the door. And Margaret Spoon lay on the hearth-rug — dead.”

“What’re you reading, Ermentrude?”

I jumped. My book slipped out of my hand onto the floor. “Frank, you startled me.”

Frank bent to scoop up the paperback and flopped onto the sofa across from me. “Hmm, Mystery in Ghost Hollow,” he read and tossed the book back to me. “Sounds like a Scooby-Doo episode.” He laughed a little. “Actually, I think it was a Scooby-Doo episode.”

I shrugged and flipped through the book, looking for the page I’d been reading.

“Hey,” he said. “Were you at the lecture earlier?”

I sighed. With Mrs. Spoon lying dead, I couldn’t wait to find out what happened next. “Frank, I’m reading — ” I paused. “Wait. Lecture?”

“The lecture, ‘Using Art to Further Creative Pursuits.’ Everyone was there. Well, most people were there. Actually, to be honest, we had a fairly poor turnout, which surprised me because the subject was so — ”

“Do you have a point? I’d like to get back to my book.”

“I was getting there,” he said. “The director told us at the end of the lecture that the retreat center is in real danger of going under. Like bankrupt. Like foreclosure. All 40 acres, repossessed. By the — ”

“Really? The center is in trouble?”

“The director said that if we can’t raise $400,000 by the new year, he’ll have to hand over the property to the state or whoever. And they’ll probably turn it into condos or something.”

I gasped. “That’s terrible! I had no idea.”

“Now you know.” Frank brightened suddenly. “You going on the walk tonight? The nature walk?”

“What nature walk?”

“The walk through the woods that Melanie planned for later. She said she’s going to show us some of the wildlife that ‘creeps about after dark’ — her words, not mine. I think she means deer, raccoons…” He trailed off, looking over my shoulder.

“Hey, Dee.” He sprang off the couch. “Wait up!”

Without another word, Frank scampered out of the room after Dee, the tall blonde photographer I’d met a couple of nights before at the retreat center’s meet-and-greet mixer. Every guy in the room had found one reason or another to sidle up to Dee and find out more about her “photography.”

I rolled my eyes and turned back to my book. Just as I was re-reading the part about Mrs. Spoon and the parrot cowering in the corner, I heard footsteps. I held my breath. Couldn’t everyone see I was folded up snugly under a blanket on the sofa? Not exactly an invitation to chat.

“Is she in here? There you are!” I didn’t recognize the voice.

I looked up reluctantly. “Me?” I stared at the short woman standing in front of me. She grinned, patting the top of her head and smoothing her mousy gray hair where it stood on end.

“I’m Melanie. I just ran into Frank. He said to round you up for the nature walk.”

“I never said — ”

“You’ll really enjoy this, Erm…Erm…”

“Ermentrude.”

“Yes, you’ll enjoy this. Frank said you’re a writer. The woods are full of interesting, um, subjects you can include in your, uh, stories.” She looked at me.

“Really? The woods? Full of stories? At night?” I closed my book, but kept my finger between the pages.

“You sound doubtful, Erm, but most of the artists here at the retreat came for the weekend to find inspiration. And I can see by the way you’re hiding in here with your novel — ” She gestured dismissively at Mystery in Ghost Hollow. ” — that you are desperate for some inspiration.” She clapped her hands once. I cringed. “I’ll wait for you outside the dining room after dinner. We have about ten people in our group so far.”

“OK.” I couldn’t think of a reason to say no. Maybe something would come up during dinner.

Chapter 2

Unfortunately, nothing came up during dinner. The director of the Creative People Doing Creative Things retreat center had drawn up our seating assignments alphabetically. He had filled each of the four tables in the dining room with five people — but my table was surprisingly underpopulated. Only two others were already seated when I arrived.

I found myself next to Gary, the back of my chair dangerously close to the kitchen door, which kept swinging open and barely missing my elbow.

Gary was explaining his work as a garbage sculptor. “Seriously, Frank, I made this out of discarded orange peels and soda cans!” he shouted, waving a photo of his creation at us.

Frank held up his hands. “Fine, Gary. Lay off. I believe you. I just said that it seems like orange peels would start to mold or turn brown — ”

“Who are you to say what I should use in my art!” Gary bellowed. He tossed the picture in the air and let it flutter to the floor.

“What’s going on?” Doreen pulled out a chair. “Sorry I’m late for dinner. Did I miss much?”

“Not much, except hearing Frank trash all over my — ”

“Trash all over your what? Your trash?”

“My sculptures are so much more than trash, Frank. I’m warning you right now — ”

I studied my salad, arranging the cucumber slices and cherry tomatoes in a circle. Gary and Frank continued to spar, growing louder by the minute, and Doreen looked from one to the other like a spectator at a tennis match. I sighed with relief when the director stood and addressed the dining room.

“Monsieur, Madame.” He used an exaggerated — and terrible — French accent. A few people laughed. “I hope you are enjoying the meal. The creative chefs in the kitchen will be out shortly to take their bows. I wanted to make a few announcements about what’s going on after dinner.”

I heard someone clap behind me. I turned just enough to see Melanie beaming at the director.

“Melanie, there you are. I didn’t see you at your table,” the director said.

She blinked at him and smoothed her hair self-consciously. It was flying every which way, even more unruly than before.

“Melanie’s leading a group on a nature walk at 9 o’clock. You may have heard about it.” He chuckled. “If you’re not interested in finding out how inspiring nature at night can be, or if you are afraid of raccoons, as Toby has told me he is, you can convene in the study for a game of Balderdash.”

Drat. Why hadn’t I told Melanie I was afraid of raccoons? In fact, I was terrified of rodents in general, but raccoons, with their opposable thumbs, were the most terrifying of all. However, Toby had already used that excuse.

After the creative chefs received our praise and the director dismissed us, I started to sneak off toward the study.

I felt a firm hand on my arm. “Emma, I’m glad you came. To be honest, you didn’t seem that interested.”

I regarded Melanie’s hand on my sleeve. Her fingernails were surprisingly grimy. “Actually — ”

“Here’s your flashlight.” Melanie handed me a headlamp.

A headlamp? “I’m supposed to put this on?”

She looked at me. “What else would you do with it?”

I slipped the band around my head and flipped on the light. “There.” I looked around at the few people who’d joined us. I was surprised to see that both Gary and Frank were present. From the way they’d been arguing, I assumed one of them would’ve taken the Balderdash option.

Melanie distributed the headlamps, chattering about the creatures she hoped to run across. “Possums are particularly intriguing to me, with their pink noses and their whiskers.” She laughed and shook her head, as if envisioning a possum engaged in some amusing antic at that very moment. “Sorry, I’m a little batty tonight. I only had a few bites of my dinner.”

We headed single-file down a path that wound its way out of the backyard. Melanie pointed out a firefly here, a bat there, until we reached the woods. I hadn’t paid much attention to the woods earlier that week when we’d arrived and been invited to explore the grounds. I was too busy finding a quiet place in the house to hunker down with my novel. The trees were thick, mostly pines, and they towered above us. Through the branches, we could see gray clouds overhead illuminated with a yellowy glow from the nearly-full moon.

“Ouch! Watch it!” Gary cried.

“Oops. I’m so sorry.” I had been studying the moon and searching for a glimpse of a bat — mostly to make sure none were close enough to touch me — and hadn’t noticed that the group had stopped walking.

Melanie leveled me with a glare. “Em,” she whispered. “It’s important to stay very quiet. You won’t see any raccoons if you keep making all this noise.”

I looked at the ground. My headlamp made a circle of light on the dirt.

“We’ll continue this way, deeper into the woods. We’re approaching the grounds of an abandoned summer camp, which is on part of the land owned by the retreat center.” Melanie’s voice was almost impossible to hear above the rustle of the branches.

We crept after her, still in single file. I realized suddenly that I was last in line and hurried a little.

“Ouch again,” growled Gary.

“I’m sorry again.”

The group slowed to a stop in a clearing. By the light of our headlamps and the moon, we could see a group of shadowy tepees, ragged, gray, with tails of fabric flapping slightly whenever the wind picked up.

“Creepy,” someone muttered.

“This is where the boys of the camp stayed in the summers, in these tepees.” Melanie gestured at the group of six structures. “If you peek inside, you can see the bunk beds that were left behind to rust when the camp closed.”

“No thanks.” I could just imagine the family of raccoons that was no doubt holed up in there on one of the dingy mattresses, waiting for us to pop our heads in.

Gary turned to frown at me. “I’ll take a look.” He pushed past the cowering group, all of whom looked as if they wanted no part of the tepee peeking.

“No, Gary, I’ll do it!” Gary stumbled a little as Frank shoved him aside and then stood, stunned, while Frank pulled back the fabric. He swept over the interior with his headlamp. He jerked back. He looked at Melanie, his face surprised. “Is this a joke?” Melanie put her finger to her lips to shush him, but Frank wasn’t about to be shushed. “I said, is this a joke, Melanie? Because it’s not funny.”

Wrinkling her forehead, Melanie stepped forward and leaned into the tepee. Then she screamed.

Chapter 3

We couldn’t get back to the center fast enough. Having been at the back of the group, I was first in line when we turned to beat it out of the woods. I stumbled and held my headlamp in place as we crashed through the trees. I could hear the rest of the group behind me, thundering along.

Melanie was shrieking at the rear. “Run! Faster!”

When I burst out of the woods onto the lawn, I saw the group of Balderdash players assembled on the porch.

The director ran out to meet us. “What happened? Melanie? What’s going on?”

Melanie collapsed into his arms, limp, breathing heavily.

The director held her awkwardly away from himself.

“We saw…a body…in the tepee. Blood. A woman.”

Shocked, the director dropped Melanie on the ground.

She lay there, looking up at us, her face white. “I think it was Dee,” she breathed as she struggled to her feet and brushed off her clothes. “The hair, it was blond.”

“Dee? What happened? Where is she?” The director grabbed Melanie by the shoulders. “Pull it together. Was it Dee?”

We all turned to the Balderdash group and took a quick inventory. I didn’t see Dee among the players. Nor was she in our group on the walk.

Frank spoke up. “It was her. Now that you mention it, I can picture her face. It was…contorted…in a scream.”

“A silent scream,” Melanie intoned dramatically. “Her last scream on this earth.”

If the director weren’t so shaken, I’m sure he would have rolled his eyes. But he didn’t seem to hear Melanie. “We have to call the police. Does someone want to go back out there and see who it is in the tepee? For sure? Maybe it isn’t even anyone we know. Maybe it’s a vagabond.”

A vagabond? Finding shelter in the woods and being murdered by…raccoons?

No one volunteered to go into the woods. Not even Frank, who was pacing back and forth on the grass. Finally, someone went in the house to call the police.

We all lingered on the lawn and waited for the patrol car to arrive. I tried to get a look at every face. Did anyone seem nervous? Agitated? Was anyone splattered with blood? I noticed that Doreen was sitting on the porch swing, scribbling furiously in a notebook. Was she taking notes? I began to meander through the crowd, listening to snippets of conversation.

“I just saw her,” Frank moaned. “Just before dinner.”

“But was she at dinner?” someone asked.

I stopped. “No, she wasn’t. She should have been at my table, but we only had four people.” I looked at Frank. “You didn’t notice that she wasn’t at our table? Even though we had an extra place setting? And you’d just been with her before we ate?”

Frank looked alarmed. “I wasn’t with her per se. I saw her in the hall, and I ran after her, but she told me she was meeting someone and would miss dinner.” He looked around. “She said she was meeting with Gary. To go over some ideas for photos. She was going to photograph his sculptures for a magazine.”

“But why was Gary at dinner with us if he was supposed to be meeting Dee?”

Frank shrugged. “That’s what we need to find out.”

He started toward Gary just as the squad car pealed into the driveway. It came around the side of the house and flooded the yard with its headlights. Two uniformed cops jumped out.

“Who’s in charge here?” the tall one shouted.

Everyone in the group started talking at once.

The director stepped forward. “I am. I am the director of the retreat center here.”

The shorter cop started jotting things down in a notebook. “And where is the body? The dispatcher said there’d be a body.”

The director pointed toward the woods. “Out there, in a tepee.”

“A tepee?” The tall cop shot his partner a look. “Are you sure?”

“Sure about what? Sure there’s a tepee, or sure about the body? Or sure that there’s a body in the tepee?” The director twisted his hands, his voice getting higher.

“Sir.” The short cop closed his notebook and stuck his pen into his pocket. “Maybe you should sit down. Can someone take us to the body?”

Frank waved his hand. “I can!”

“Why would you take them, Frank?” Melanie squealed. “It was my nature walk.”

The tall cop narrowed his eyes. “Frank,” he said slowly. “I would like you to take us to the body.” He glanced at Melanie. “Ma’am, I’d like you to come as well.” He motioned toward the director, who was sitting next to Doreen on the porch swing. “You stay here, watch for the other squad cars. We’re expecting at least two more. If this really is a murder situation, we’re going to need a lot of backup.”

“What do you mean, if?” the director asked. “You don’t think it’s murder? What could have happened to her, if not murder?”

“Raccoons,” I muttered.

The cop’s head turned quickly. “What’s that?”

“Nothing.”

The officer held up his hand to shield his eyes. “Ma’am, please turn off your headlamp.”

I blushed, fumbling for the switch. “Sorry.”

“Were you on the walk with these individuals?”

I nodded.

“You come with us as well.”

“Me?”

“You.”

I shuddered. I should never have made the raccoon remark.

Chapter 4

With one policeman leading the way down the trail and one bringing up the rear, Melanie, Frank, and I trooped through the woods in the dark. Both officers had high-power flashlights that lit up the path like a football stadium. We didn’t talk until we reached the circle of tepees.

Melanie pointed at the offending structure where we’d found the body. The tall cop moved toward it without hesitation and pulled back the fabric.

He swept his light inside and called to his partner. “It’s a body, all right. A woman. Blond hair. Not much blood. Maybe strangled. Or suffocated.”

The other cop was taking notes again. “You’re going to need to answer some questions,” he told us.

“Questions?” squawked Melanie. “What questions? We have nothing to do with the murder. Are we under arrest? Shouldn’t you read us our rights?”

The short cop glanced at me. “You first.” He flipped to a new page in his notebook. “What were you doing out here?”

“I came with Melanie and the group on a nature walk.”

The cop narrowed his eyes. “A nature walk? At night? In the dark?”

“We had headlamps,” Melanie protested.

“Ma’am, don’t interrupt.”

“I agree, it was odd. I didn’t really want to go — ”

Melanie made a noise, but the police officer silenced her with a look.

” — but somehow I was roped into it. Melanie insisted we’d find inspiration out here for our art. I guess by seeing the possums at work in the forest? Whiskers?”

“Whiskers, ma’am?” He raised his eyebrows.

I shrugged.

“Fine. That’s all for now. I want to talk to this guy next.” He pointed at Frank, who had worn a path in the carpet of pine needles on the ground, pacing.

While the officer questioned Frank about his relationship with Dee and why she might have been out in the woods instead of at dinner, I wandered away. That’s when I stumbled on something. Literally.

“Oof.” I grunted. I bent to get a closer look without turning on my headlamp. The object seemed to be a camera. Should I touch it? What about fingerprints? Wasn’t Dee a photographer? A few steps away was a camera case. It was lying open on its side, with a notebook beside it. The notebook was open, and the pages I could see were smeared with dirt.

“What are you looking at?” Frank squinted at me.

I jumped. “This camera. Do you think it’s Dee’s?”

Frank leaned forward. His eyes fell on the notebook, and I heard him inhale sharply. “Where’d you get that?” He bent to pick it up.

“Hey — leave it. You can’t just take the evidence.”

“I’m not taking the evidence. That’s my notebook!”

The officers heard us. “Sir, drop the item, please.”

Frank let the notebook fall.

“What is all this?” The cop nodded at Frank. “Did you find this?”

“No, she did.” He jabbed his finger at me and backed away.

“Don’t go anywhere, sir.” The officer turned back to me. “You found this?”

“Yes. I stumbled on it. Literally.”

The tall cop pulled out a camera and took a few pictures while the short cop scribbled on his pad of paper. “You think this is the victim’s camera?”

“I don’t know, but she is — was — a photographer. Frank just told me that was his notebook, though,” I added.

The tall cop looked around. “Frank? Where is Frank?”

Frank had disappeared.

Chapter 5

A half hour later, we were all standing on the lawn by the retreat center when the director came rushing out the back door. “No sign of him,” he panted. “He’s not inside.”

The officers had roped off the crime scene with yellow tape and marched us away. Their backup still hadn’t arrived. Now they were going from person to person, trying to gather information while the rest of us kept our eyes out for Frank.

Melanie sidled up to me. “Earlier,” she whispered. “I saw Gary and Dee on the lawn. Just before dinner. Gary took something out of Dee’s camera when she turned around. I saw him slip it into his jacket pocket.”

“What do you mean, took something?”

She shrugged. “I’m no good with technology, but it was small. Real small.”

“Was it the flashcard?”

“I told you, I’m no good with high tech stuff like that.”

I rolled my eyes and set off to find Gary. He was leaning against the porch railing, tapping his foot.

“Gary, can I borrow your jacket?”

He stared at me for a long moment. “Why?”

“I’m cold.”

“No, you’re not. I know why you want it.”

“Why?”

“You tell me.”

I stared back at him without budging. Then I said it more loudly. “Can I borrow your jacket? I’m cold!”

One of the police officers heard. “What’s the problem here?”

“No problem. I just want to borrow his jacket.” I looked at the cop meaningfully.

“Sir, do you have something in your jacket? Of interest to the police?”

“That depends — ” Gary began.

“Just hand over the jacket.”

Gary took it off and gave it to the cop. “This is illegal. You can’t just search people.”

The cop went through the pockets. “Is this your flashcard?” He pulled out a tiny black rectangle out of the jacket.

Gary nodded.

“We’ll see about that.”

“Hey, give that back to me immediately!” Gary shouted. But he didn’t move.

Chapter 6

We gathered around the director’s MacBook and watched the officer scroll through the photos on the flashcard. Several of the pictures were of Gary’s art, a few were of Gary with his art, and the rest were of cats.

“Gary, are these your cats?” The tall cop pointed to the computer screen.

“Gary doesn’t have cats. He’s allergic to cats,” Melanie offered.

“Then whose cats are they?”

“They are Dee’s cats.” The voice came from the back of the room. Frank was standing in the doorway. “Dee’s cats,” he repeated somberly.

“Sir, where have you been? You’ve aroused quite a bit of suspicion with your ill-timed disappearance.”

“I had to find something, something to prove who killed Dee.” He held up two pages that appeared to have been torn from a notebook. “I found these in Gary’s room, under his bed, in his suitcase.” He flapped the pages in the air for effect. “Let me read them to you — ”

“No!” Gary cried. “Give me the pages. Those are private!”

The short cop stood up. “Sir, are those pages torn from the notebook we found in the woods?”

Gary looked surprised. “In fact, they are.”

“We noticed some pages were missing when we inspected the item. Why did you tear pages out of Dee’s notebook? And when?”

Gary was silent.

Frank suddenly tore the pages in half and threw the pieces on the floor. “Because the pages profess his love for her! And his jealousy about me. He must’ve torn them out when he killed her, so he wouldn’t be linked to the crime scene!”

“That’s not entirely true,” Gary finally said. “I did tear out the pages, but only after I realized the notebook belonged to Frank, not to Dee. I found it in her bag when we were taking photos together earlier. She was documenting my art for a freelance project she’d proposed to Scrap Sculptures Today. I wrote a note to her, telling her how I felt about her, but later, when I saw the notebook again, I also saw that it had Frank’s name written on the front in red Sharpie. I was embarrassed. I had to hide the evidence of my love before Frank came upon it.”

“Frank, why was your notebook in Dee’s bag?”

“I have no idea. I’d been looking for it all day. I only found it when we found Dee’s camera next to the tepee.”

“Gary, why did you steal Dee’s flashcard?” I asked.

“She was threatening to back out of the project. While she was photographing my art, she said that she didn’t think the magazine was going to like the orange peels I’d included in the soda can sculpture. I had to steal the card so I could submit the photos myself. Otherwise, I might never have a chance to be in Scrap Sculptures Today. It’s my dream.”

Everyone was quiet.

“Where do we go from here?” the director asked the tall cop.

“We need to find out who Dee was meeting before dinner. Gary, someone told me she was meeting you.”

“She was — ” he started.

The group collectively gasped.

“— but I canceled. I was angry that she wasn’t going to do the story for the magazine. I went right to dinner.” He looked at me and then at Frank. “They sat at my table. They can vouch.”

I nodded. “He was there when I sat down to eat.”

Doreen spoke up. “I came in a little later,” she reminded me. “I had gone outside to investigate some shouting.”

“Shouting?”

“Yes. Dee and Melanie.” Everyone turned to Melanie, whose eyes widened. “They were on the lawn. Melanie was telling Dee that she had to do the scrap sculpture story. That it would save the retreat center from going under by showcasing the artists and what we do here. But Dee refused. She said the sculptures weren’t really art, that it was all wrong to make things out of orange peels. The mold!”

“What happened then?”

“Why don’t we ask Melanie?”

“I don’t know what she’s talking about,” Melanie protested. “We didn’t argue. I just suggested quietly that she do the story for the good of the retreat center. And she declined. Then she disappeared into the woods.”

“And you went after her?”

“Yes — I mean, no — I came to dinner.”

“But Melanie,” I reminded her. “You missed most of dinner. You said so yourself, that you’d only eaten a few bites. Where were you?”

Melanie started to turn white. “I had to go to the shed to get the headlamps.”

“And the shed is in the woods? Where Dee was headed?” the short cop probed.

“No…”

“Ma’am,” the tall cop said. “I think we’re going to have to take you downtown.”

“Down where? Downtown? But what about Gary and Frank? They clearly had motive to murder her.”

“We’re taking them as well. All three of you head for the car.”

“Wait!” Melanie started to cry. “I just wanted to save the retreat center. It’s my whole life. If Dee didn’t do the trash sculptures story — ”

“Scrap sculptures! Not trash! They are so much more than trash!” Gary cried.

“If Dee didn’t do the story,” Melanie continued, “we needed some other way to attract attention.”

“And you thought that murdering a woman and leaving her in a tepee on your property would bring visitors from far and wide?” The cop was incredulous.

“Not exactly. I thought someone, someone like Erm…Em…Emma here would write a story about the murder. About the mystery. I thought that if I provided the inspiration we’d all be able to channel it into our art — ”

“I think you’ve said enough, Melanie,” the director interrupted. “I think you should get into the car. Officers, does this mean that Gary and Frank are free to stay here at the center?”

“They can stay.” The short cop grabbed Melanie by the arm. “We’ll just take the lady. Come on, ma’am. It’s going to be a long night.”

Melanie hung her head. “I’m sorry, I was only trying to help.” She turned to me. “It’s not too late,” she implored. “You can still write about this. Aren’t you inspired? It’s OK. Admit it. You’re dying to wri — ”

Her voice was cut short by the slamming of the squad car door. The car backed out of the driveway and disappeared into the night.

“What about the body?” someone asked.

I went inside before anyone could reply. I headed right for the study, flipped my book open, and sank onto the couch. I might as well start over.

“It was a dark and stormy night…”

Gracie Fletcher taught third grade for 31 years. Since she retired in 2007, Gracie has immersed herself in her writing and parlayed her weekly PTA newsletter column, “Grade School Greetings,” into a popular blog for educators. She has also written articles for Teachers Today, Michigan Education Digest, and Kids Learning Monthly. Currently, she’s enrolled in a fiction-writing program offered online from the University of Phoenix and is learning something new every day. Please visit her website at: http://sites.google.com/site/graciefletcherwriter/