A Deathly Display - Chapter 1

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A Deathly Display is Book 11 in the Perfectly Proper Paranormal Museum cozy mystery series by Kirsten Weiss.

one

Matricide is one of humanity’s darkest crimes. At least, that seems to be the consensus.

I was starting to have my doubts.

“What is my mother doing here?” I hissed.

Beside me, my curator, Herb Linden, smoothed his bow tie. “Hm?”

Men and women in business-casual attire mingled along the colonnades of the Roman villa. Alas, it was all an elegant fake. Italy was thousands of miles from this Central Californian courtyard.

The Domus Vinea museum’s spotlit walls were painted in Roman-era tones of terracotta, ochre, and deep blue. A fountain splashed, its sound echoing the murmurs of the small crowd.

The long, rectangular reflecting pool stretched down the courtyard’s center and was flanked by trimmed hedges and replicas of ancient marble statues. Olive trees, blossoming orange trees, and laurels filled the warm, spring night with their earthy fragrance.

My mother, on the other side of the low pool, raised a hand to touch the squash blossom necklace circling her neck. Elegant in in a white pantsuit and denim blue shirt, she smiled up at a sauve-looking, silver haired man.

There was no good reason for her to be here. “Mother,” I prompted, a Vesuvius of acid rising in my gut. “Here. Why?” My voice escalated unattractively on the final vowel.

The little man sipped from his wine glass then, with his free hand, he adjusted his coke bottle glasses. “Strange. I’ve never noticed you reverting to neanderthal grunts under stress before.” He canted his balding head.

I ignored that. “Why is she here?”

“I imagine your mother’s here to learn.” Herb peered into the crowd. “Like us.”

My jaw slackened. “To learn about 21st century exhibition techniques? She doesn’t work in a museum. She’s retired.” My mother was too busy running San Benedetto’s local charity and women’s club, Ladies Aid, to waste time and money on frivolities.

I wasn’t sure if this seminar would be worth it for Herb and me either. The paranormal museum I ran already had plenty of fun exhibits. But Herb had persisted, and for once, we’d had the funding to attend a short seminar series.

“Ladies Aid has a private collection.” Behind Herb’s thick glasses, his eyes narrowed with avarice. “It’s said the collection includes several haunted objects.”

My plastic champagne flute slipped between my fingers. I clenched them at the last moment, and the plastic cracked loudly. “What?”

I gulped the remains of my drink before too much liquid could stream onto my fingers. I knew Ladies Aid had at least one artifact—a strange statuette their founder had dug up on her farm over a century ago. It was not, however, on display to the public.

Herb shrugged, his ill-fitting brown suit rumpling on his skinny frame. “She’s either here about their collection or she’s here to support your sister.”

“Melanie?” I yelped. “She’s here too? Why?” I looked wildly around the courtyard.

There was even less reason for my opera-singing sister to be here, which meant my mother was up to something. My skin prickled, hives in the offing.

Herb aimed a finger across the reflecting pool. Melanie, in a sequined scarlet dress, stood beside a grand piano. Her blond hair was done up in an elegant up-do. My sister pointed to a piece of sheet music. The tuxedoed pianist nodded from his seat.

Herb cradled his chin in the palm of one hand as if he were trying to pop his head from his skinny neck. “There’s something I need to discuss—”

CRASH.

Herb and I jumped. A young woman in the black and white uniform of the catering company bent to gather miniature quiches scampering free across the mosaic tile floor. A silvery tray lay beneath a low boxwood.

I bent to pick up the tray and several quiches that had rolled into the raked earth beneath the boxwood. “Here you go.” I handed them to her.

The server made an involuntary noise of surprise. “Oh.” She brushed strands of smooth, dark hair from her face. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” I helped her gather a few more quiches and contemplated eating one that didn’t look too dirty. Thinking better of it, I dropped all of the above on her silver tray along with my crushed champagne flute. She hurried away, disappearing behind a winged, marble statue.

I pointed. “Is that a statue of Tisiphone?”

My knowledge of Greek myth was improving, thanks to the ancient Greeks’ love of ghost stories and supernatural beings. We’d had a lecturer on ancient Greecian curse tablets a month ago, and the three avenging Furies had figured prominently. Now which one was Tisiphone?

Herb didn’t respond. I looked around, but he’d vanished.

My mother stood on the opposite side of the reflecting pool. My sister leaned suggestively closer to the pianist—a handsome man in his forties. Knowing trouble when I saw it, I moved in the opposite direction from both, into one of the galleries.

The Domus Vinea Museum was a big deal in our area. I’d come here on school outings when I was a kid and knew it fairly well. The outdoor sculpture garden had been a popular make-out area—not that I’d enjoyed any of that.

My footsteps echoed on the colorful patchwork marble floor. Paintings lined the walls, but a glimmer of blue drew my gaze upward, to the ceiling, painted with golden constellations against an evening sky.

“I told you for the last time.” An angry masculine voice echoed through the gallery. “The answer’s no.”

A second man replied, his voice too low for me to make out his response.

I stopped short. It sounded like they were in the next gallery. Embarrassed to intrude, I turned toward an archway that would take me to another, smaller courtyard.

“Is it?” the second voice said testily. “Everyone wants money.”

I halted, confused. Now it sounded like he was somewhere past the open arch in front of me.

“My uncle made his wishes clear,” the first man said. Minus the anger vibrating through it, his voice was the pleasant bass of an old-timey country singer. “It’s not for sale.”

The second man said something else too low for me to decipher. Not that I was trying to. This was none of my business.

The first swore in his low rumble. “Back off, Moffatt.”

A shadow filled the archway. I took a quick step away, but not quick enough.

A Goliath barreled into me, and I stumbled backward. I might not have fallen if I hadn’t backed into a low settee.

Its legs screeched against the marble floor. I sat down hard, landing in a sprawl on the settee’s stiff, forest-green leather. “Ooof.”

The man glared. “Heard enough?”

He was handsome as a Caesar, with tanned skin and lines that fanned from the corners of his brown eyes. His angular jawline was softened by a carpet of neat stubble, and his nose was slightly crooked. The man’s hair was a mix of browns, with gray beginning to show at the temples.

Tingling swept the back of my neck. I stood and brushed off the front of my white tunic blouse, even though it wasn’t dirty.

“Uh… That’s, um…” I faltered.

Dignified. That was me.

“Nice,” a woman drawled behind me. The blonde looked to be a few years older than the man, and was tanned, slim, and fit in a dress that matched the color of my khakis. Her hair had been pulled into a smooth updo. “Really nice.”

The man with the deep voice swore again. “Not you too?”

“Mark invited me,” she said mildly.

“He’s working on you,” he said.

“He doesn’t have to work on me,” she said. “You both already know my opinion. Now apologize for running the nice lady down, and I’ll slink away quietly.”

The man’s brows pulled together. His mouth tightened. “Sorry,” he said to me and strode off.

She sighed. “Bran spends too much time working and not enough in polite society.” She stuck out her hand, glittering with oversized rings. “I’m Paris Gilchrist.”

Automatically, I shook it. “Maddie Kosloski, paranormal museum.”

“No. Way.” She clapped her hands together. “You work for that place?”

“I kind of run that place,” I admitted.

She hooted with laughter. “I love the paranormal museum. Whenever I have an out-of-town visitor, I take them there. And don’t mind Bran.”

“Is he your...?” Husband? Brother?

“Cousin.” She tucked her arm in mine and steered me from the room. “Now. There’s something I’ve been dying to talk to someone at your museum about.”

“Oh?”

Her heels clicked on the marble floor. “It’s a haunted painting. At least I think it’s haunted. It’s hard to tell, you know?”

I nodded. “The paranormal’s tricky.” The activities of the normal could be scientifically replicated. But the paranormal was woolly—that thing you thought you saw out of the corner of your eye but could never quite be sure about.

“Exactly. Do you do consultations?”

I loved consultations. Even though I’m still not sure if the paranormal’s really real, it’s fun and it’s fascinating. But I didn’t want to seem too eager. Time is money, etc., etc. “Sometimes,” I said casually.

“Excellent.” She rummaged in the slim purse at her side. “May I call you at the museum?”

I reached into the rear pocket of my khakis and pulled out my phone. From its holder, I withdrew a near-black business card. “Here’s my direct number.”

She took the card. Without glancing at it, she dropped it into her purse and pulled out a set of keys. “Excellent. I’ll ring you tomorrow.”

“You’re not staying for the reception?” I asked, mildly disappointed. We’d put a lot of work into the paranormal museum’s augmented reality business cards.

Paris shuddered. “Not with Bran in the mood he’s in now. Besides, a promise is a promise, and we Gilchrists, for all our faults, keep our promises.” She strode through an arch toward the sculpture garden and parking lot beyond.

Baffled, I returned to the main courtyard and hesitated beside a young olive tree. A caterer with a tray of champagne flutes walked by. I snatched up a plastic glass and took a sip.

The handsome man who’d nearly run me down stood at the other end of the reflecting pool and spoke to a red-haired woman wearing a sheer, pink scarf around her neck. He glanced at me and looked away.

“Why do all the good-looking men have to be such jerks?” I muttered.

“Because they can, darling,” my sister Melanie said.

I twitched. Champagne dribbled down the back of my hand.

“Has someone been a jerk to you?” she continued, her cornflower eyes wide and serious. “Do I need to defend our family honor?”

“Nah. I thought I’d stick with cutting remarks when they aren’t around.”

“Hm. Can you believe this place?” Melanie motioned with her copper water bottle, her expression mournful. “Does it have to look so... Italian?”

The faded majesty of classical Rome was sort of the point of the museum. “I didn’t know you’d be here,” I said carefully.

But I was careful a lot lately around Melanie. My sister had recently broken up with her Italian fiancé, and my chest gave a guilty squeeze. I hated seeing Melanie hurt—and not because my tiny role in the disaster made me feel like a slug.

I mean, what had I been supposed to do? Not tell her that her fiancé was involved in shady business? It would have been so much worse if she’d learned the truth after the wedding.

“Mom arranged it all.” Melanie lowered her head, and a length of blond hair fell from her up-do to coil suggestively around her slender neck. “She said I needed to get back in the saddle.”

Saddle of what? “Where, ah, is Mom?” I scanned the ground, my thumb absently rubbing the base of the plastic champagne flute.

“Never mind Mom.” Melanie drew a deep breath, her bust swelling alarmingly beneath the deep v of her sequined gown. “She’s trying to help, but she doesn’t...” She gave another quick head shake. “I wanted to tell you that I am taking steps.”

“Okay... I mean, good.” Melanie had been moping around San Benedetto like the Muse of Tragedy, assuming the Muse had swapped her lyre for an oversized water cannister.

Melanie clutched said cannister to her stomach. “I’m seeing someone.”

The muscles in my shoulders unraveled. “Oh. Wow. That’s wonderful.” Thank God. Though finding someone new in two months seemed a little quick. Too quick. I wrinkled my forehead. “Who—?”

“A dating coach. He’s amazing, a real genius. He just… understands.”

Narrowing my eyes, I took a small step back. “Is he married?”

Her blue eyes widened. “Yes. Why?”

“No reason,” I muttered. What was she thinking?

“Last week’s assignment was to list my top five values. But I have too many. I’m stuck. How am I supposed to whittle them down to only five?”

“I guess... I mean... Hold on.” I squinted at her. She wasn’t dating him? “You’re not—?”

“I thought you could choose my values for me.”

Are you kidding me? “No,” I said flatly. This was so typical. If it didn’t come easily to Melanie, she’d get someone else to do it for her. Though in fairness, most things did seem to come easily to my sister.

“It’s only five values,” Melanie wheedled. “It’s not like I’m asking you to write an essay.”

I folded my arms over my khaki blazer. It was a little tight in the shoulders, because I hadn’t worn it in years. For the record, I dislike business-casual attire. One of the benefits of running a paranormal museum is the casual dress code.

“They’re supposed to be your values,” I said, “not mine.”

“I don’t understand why you won’t help me after…” She turned her head away.

Oh, come on. But I shifted my weight, mild panic fluttering in my chest. “I’m not doing your homework for you anymore,” I said uncertainly. Would it really hurt to help her out?

She pouted. “You’re not still mad about that, are you? That was ages ago. We were kids. It wasn’t my fault you had a test the next day.”

A test I’d gotten a D+ on, because I’d been doing my sister’s homework the night before. And no, I wasn’t holding that against her. That was on me. But still...

“No,” I said. “Throw a dart at your list. Pick every third value. Do it yourself.”

Melanie stamped her foot. “You’re impossible.” My sister strode away.

And there it was, the Melanie I knew and loved. My gaze lifted to the faint stars, dimmed by the lights of nearby Sacramento. At least it was easier to deal with an annoyed Melanie than a sad-sack Melanie.

I finished my champagne. While I looked around for somewhere to put the plastic flute, a woman of indeterminate age approached. Artful streaks of gray fanned through her blond, cropped hair.

“We haven’t met.” She extended a bony hand. “I’m Genevieve Moffatt, director of the Petal and Stem.”

The Petal and Stem Museum specialized in botanical art. I shook her hand. Her grip was limp, her skin cool to the touch. “Moffatt?” I asked. “As in, Mark Moffatt, director of the Domus Vinea?”

Her chin lifted. “He’s my husband.” She was thin enough to be a fashion model, hard and angular. She had fashion model style to boot, in a fitted, hot pink sleeveless dress that stopped just below her knees.

“Maddie Kosloski, San Benedetto Paranormal History Museum.”

Genevieve dropped my hand like it scalded. “Oh.” Her mouth twisted. “I had no idea... I mean, I didn’t realize you’d be here.”

I shifted my weight on the mosaic tiles. “There’s always something to learn.”

“Yes, but, a paranormal museum…” Genevieve’s mouth twisted in a smile that landed somewhere between mockery and pity. “How ever do you verify the provenance of your spectral artifacts?”

And I was right back in middle school gym class, ungainly and awkward in my ugly red shorts. I tugged on my too-tight blazer, my face warming.

My reaction was silly. This wasn’t middle school. I was an adult. So what if some people thought my museum was more of a roadside attraction?

“The paranormal has always been a part of the human experience,” I said. “Our focus is paranormal history.”

One of her eyebrows lifted. “Like those creepy dolls?”

I grimaced. The creepy dolls had been one of our original exhibits, before we’d gotten a windfall of historical paranormal artifacts. They were also a crowd pleaser.

“Those creepy dolls are antiques,” I said. “But we also have relics from the American spiritualist movement—”

Genevieve motioned negligently. “Oh, I suppose they resonate with the zeitgeist of our current, ridiculous era. Did Mark… invite you?”

“Did I hear creepy dolls?” A Hispanic woman who looked to be roughly my age, in her mid-thirties, ambled up to us and grinned.

She wore a denim blouse over a longish black skirt that flared at the bottom. The blouse was belted with turquoise, and her fingers were covered in turquoise rings.

“You must be with the paranormal museum,” the newcomer continued.

Genevieve grimaced. “Did you know representatives from that, er, attraction would be here tonight?”

“The paranormal museum’s more than an attraction,” the dark-haired woman enthused and turned to me. “I was impressed with your use of QR codes in exhibits.”

Genevieve sniffed. “I suppose a normal museum’s canon of phytological artistry seems staid beside their… innovations.”

I tried to unpuzzle that. There was an insult in there somewhere—possibly in the word phytological, which I couldn’t define.

“I’m so excited you’re participating in this seminar,” the other woman gushed. “I can’t wait to hear what you add to the discussion. I’m Paula Gonzalez, Collections Manager at the San Benedetto College Museum.”

Genevieve lifted a blond brow. Turning on her spiked heel, she strode away.

“Oh,” I said. The college had a museum? “Nice to meet you.” We traded grips.

“Don’t mind Genevieve,” Paula said. “She’s a terminal snob.” She motioned toward the reflecting pool. “I think she’s a little insecure. Her museum can’t compete with her husband’s.”

I sympathized, and I tugged down the hem of my blazer. Both of my siblings were overachievers on the international stage. I… was not.

Usually, good sense kept the doubt at bay. But sometimes it snuck up on me. It peered in through a museum window or crept from my wardrobe of worn jeans and paranormal museum tees. Then I could feel its chill breath on my cheek, and no matter how hard I fought it, it stuck close, relentless.

“My museum can’t compete either,” Paula continued, “So I don’t try. But can you imagine their dinner table rivalry?”

“All too easily.” I grinned back. “My sister’s tonight’s entertainment. I’d say there’s some sibling rivalry between us, but it’s all on my part. There’s no way to compete with an opera singer.”

“Melanie Kosloski’s your sister? I should have guessed with the last name. Kosloski’s a bit unusual.”

“Not in Poland.”

A long, loud shriek cut through the courtyard, and I tensed. Conversations fell silent, people stilling into frozen postures like the statues of Pompeii. Low murmuring rippled across the reflecting pool.

My chest lurched. “That sounded like...” Melanie.

I raced toward the sound, through a gallery, and into a smaller courtyard. Lavender and other herbs lined the mosaic paths.

Beside a fountain, my sister sucked in a breath and screamed again. Spotlights from the up-lit olive trees turned her gown to glittering rubies.

The fountain trickled merrily in the center of the herb garden. A man lay face-down on the mosaic tiles, a scarlet stream of blood pooling about his head.

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Can Maddie’s sleuthing save her sister from a deadly encore?

Maddie and her sidekick Herb are just trying to survive a snooty curation class at the Domus Vinea museum. But then Maddie’s opera-diva sister, Melanie, trips over the museum director’s body. Suddenly, the vibe’s less “classy art seminar” and more “murder most melodramatic.” With a sneaky killer eyeing Melanie for the next curtain call, if Maddie can’t solve this mystery, Melanie’s next aria could be her last.

Maddie and her quirky crew must bumble through a lineup of suspects, including a swoon-worthy vintner whose haunted painting hides a chilling secret—and whose charm might just steal Maddie’s heart.

Grab A Deathly Display and start reading this hilarious cozy mystery today!

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