Mocha Mayhem

Chapter Ten

After the first musician's set, as Keith was setting up and chatting with a few of his regular listeners, I stepped out onto the pub's back patio to call Sam. I felt that I needed to fill her in with all of this crazy new information!

She picked up on the second ring. "Aren't you supposed to be on your date?"

I rolled my eyes, even though she couldn't see it over the phone. "I am on my date. Keith's getting ready to play his guitar, so I thought I'd step out for a second and fill you in."

"On the date?"

"No, goofball. On the case!"

"What?" Sam used her fake-shocked voice. "I believe I am the one at the scene of the crime at the moment. You are on a date. What exactly are you going to fill me in on?"

"Well, believe it or not, you can learn a lot in this small town just chatting it up with the locals."

Sam chuckled. "Okay, but first, can I fill you in?"

"Sure!"

"I talked with Mr. Johansen. It was an...interesting exchange. And it took place over the phone as Mr. Johansen does not live up here."

I raised my eyebrows. "Oh, interesting! Mrs. Johansen missed that little tid bit of information when she was supposedly setting up a time for us to talk with her husband."

"That she did. And, also, I wouldn't call him Mrs. Johansen's husband, either. It turns out the housekeeper, Amelia, was correct. He didn't want to buy the resort, and—"

"They divorced over the resort?!" I practically squealed the words. What in the world was going on here?

"Let me finish. No, there were apparently many issues going on in their marriage for years, but the straw that broke the camel's back was when Elaine used their money to buy the resort without his permission."

"What? How did she even manage that? A purchase that large...?"

"Her father was the co-signer on the purchase apparently. I guess she comes from money even before she married her husband, and so she claimed that the money was a loan from her parents and not her husband's. Ex-husband's, now. Anyway, he was displeased. They apparently used to vacation up here all the time as a family, but he claims she'd been acting weird the last few years: wanting to visit haunted places in northern Wisconsin, claiming that she was clairvoyant, watching shows online about ghost investigations and exorcisms—"

"WHAT?!" Now I was really confused. A few people were eating on the back patio a few tables away, and they glanced over at me. I lowered my voice. "But—but—she seemed so afraid of the supposed ghost at the resort. Why the interest in hauntings?"

"He claims—the ex— that the only reason she even wanted the Crystal Clear Lake Resort was because of the story about Regina's haunting. She was going to do up the resort as a sort of haunted getaway. He thought it was crazy and said that all this nonsense about the resort was the final straw and he filed for divorce."

"Wow...uh, okay...I guess we need to have another chat with Spooky-Pants, who may clearly be earning her nickname in another way at this point."

"You're telling me." I could practically hear Sam shaking her head over the phone.

I tapped my foot on the wood under my feet. Despite the few people dining around me, it was quieter out here on the patio. Dim laughter and bits of conversation drifted out the windows of the bar, accented by the fiddler's music. The back patio opened on the river, so the sounds drifted off into the water and south of town. The water glowed a dull green under the stringed lights that lined the patio's pergola awning.