Knight Casefiles Book 1: Revelations

Revelations [Chapter 23]

Chapter 23

I’ve read enough detective novels to delude myself into thinking like one of the characters, and right now my inner-Poirot was putting on his stomach and mustache. One of the foundations of an investigation, one of the first things one should do when they take on a big case, is make a list of the possible suspects. Throughout my training, I’d never had to deal with that, oh so integral, step because Sigrun always had me covered. Living as long as she has, she’s like a Wikipedia of monster & ghouls. I just have to cite whatever I noticed about the crime scene and then she’d nod, wave her hand, and magically come up with a name, characteristics, a list of old girlfriends, and at least fifty ways to kill it. That’s just off the top of her head.

Nowadays, I could do that myself to a limited extent, but in this case, I was drawing up a blank. The main problem, I guess, was that there wasn’t a “who?” yet to pin this whole mess on. My money was on Whistler but that could’ve been just a matter of prejudice. Plus, if it was him, then shouldn’t Margaret or Sigrun have at least picked up on it? As far as evidence was concerned, he was clean as a whistle.

There were still a lot of unexplained things, but bringing them all up would be a huge headache, so I decided to just save it for later, when I convened with Sigrun. Maybe she’d be further along than me.

Two names were already off my list – Margaret had given me the rundown of what had happened the night before, and Robert had indirectly given me valuable input about ghosts – that just left one person: Elaine. It made me a bit itchy considering her as some kind of informant or witness but that was what she was as far as the case was concerned. She’d obviously done a bit of digging back in town when I’d left her with Sigrun and I was banking on her journalistic skills to help me find that one connection between the town and whatever spooky tango was going on in the Lodge.

My phone rang, just then, as I turned the corner to Elaine’s room. I looked at my phone and was reasonably impressed enough that I could still get calls to consider giving the Lodge a good review. In New York, it was difficult getting a signal in the middle of the street. I pressed the receive button after admiring my three bars.

“Chris,” my sister’s voice crackled through. There was a certain tenor in her tone that was masked by the poor quality. Good review scratched. “How are you doing?”

I struggled to collect myself since, in my cellular amusement; I apparently neglected to check who it was. “Um, I’m fine. Thanks for asking.”

I thought I heard her sigh. “How’s the trip doing? Any preliminary verdicts?”

It took me a few moments to figure out what she meant. I’d forgotten I hadn’t flown across several states to do some ghost busting; I was here to scout out a “probable investment.” Might as well give her the truth. “How do you feel about ghosts?”

I gave Amelia the rundown of what had happened the night before. Not the Knight-related things, of course. Just the ones involving several people getting injured because of what might have been faulty wiring.

“Oh dear,” Amelia exclaimed when I’d gotten to the stampede part. “Are you okay?”

Concern dripped so thickly from her voice that I could’ve used it to hang on the ceiling. And just like that, she was Amy again. The sister who I’d admired. The sister who I’d cared about. It drew me back for a moment, long enough for her to ask again.

“Chris, are you still there?”

“Oh, uh, yeah,” I said, rubbing my temples. “Sorry, the reception’s pretty bad up here.”

“I see. Doesn’t add any points for it, I believe.”

“Heh, yeah. Anyway, I’m fine. I was in my room when it happened so you don’t need to worry,” I assured her.