Murder in the Graveyard, page 4
“I saw him in Northgate Mall and tried to talk to him,” Tasha said, “and he didn’t even know who I was. Turned out he was there with his girlfriend.”
Maddie. They hadn’t dated long, and of course, he’d gone to a different school. No wonder Tasha had been clueless.
“Why?” I asked Maddie, incredulous. In the past year, she and I had acknowledged our mutual envy and misunderstanding, and we’d rebuilt our friendship. But I never would have suspected her of anything so cruel.
“Because her project beat mine at the science fair.” She turned to Tasha. “I’m sorry. Teenage girls can be awful. I’ve got a tween at home and I can see it coming on.”
“You didn’t think I was as smart as you. As any of you.”
That was true. All through high school, Maddie and I had traded the top spot in the class back and forth, Kristen, Britt, and Allison not far behind us. And we had never thought of Tasha as competition.
We hadn’t thought of her much at all. Kristen had invited her to the party because her mother said she needed to expand her circle. That she should look around for one girl that others didn’t like and make a point of including her. It was a generous gesture, and we’d had fun with her that night, or so I’d thought. But it hadn’t changed the social order in the long run.
A loud crack pierced the cold night air. I tightened my grip on Maddie’s arm as Britt fell to the ground. Tasha looked around wildly. She’d dropped the pistol and Britt scrambled for it, but Tasha beat her to it.
“Mom?”
The single word sent a chill up my spine. The noise hadn’t been a gunshot but a branch. A fallen branch snapping beneath a thick-soled Doc Marten boot on the foot of a teenage girl.
Savannah.
“What are you doing?” Kristen’s voice rose in panic. “I told you to stay home.”
“I—I thought a midnight ghost tour sounded like fun.” Savannah’s voice trembled, the moonlight catching in her blond hair. “Grown-up fun. Not like a family outing in daylight. So I snuck out and followed you.”
Tasha reached the girl before Kristen could and yanked her half off her feet. Shoved her in front of the Devil’s Chair. “Sit.”
“Don’t do this, Tasha.” Britt stepped forward. “None of them knew anything about what Allison and I did to you.”
I heard a collective intake of breath. I let go of Maddie’s arm.
Tasha seemed uncertain for a moment, then barked at Savannah. “I said sit.”
“Leave her alone, Tasha. Take your revenge out on me.” Britt moved in front of the chair, edging Savannah to the side.
“None of it would have happened if Kristen hadn’t thrown that stupid Halloween party,” Tasha said. “She’s as much to blame as you. Pepper, too. Still joined at the hip, after all these years. How pathetic.”
“It’s not their fault,” Britt said firmly. She kept Tasha in her sights, though her gaze took all of us in. “The rest of you were upstairs in the meditation room where Pepper’s mom was giving tarot readings. Allison and I dared Tasha to leave the party with us and go to the cemetery at midnight, to prove how brave we were.”
“I actually believed you liked me,” Tasha said. “That if I went with you, I’d get to be part of the group. When we got here, they dared me to climb up Mrs. Wilson’s monument.”
Impossible, especially for a teenage girl in a costume.
“When I couldn’t do it, they told me instead I could sit in this chair, the Crawford chair. It was scary, but I did it. I was proud of myself.” A sob caught in her throat. “That’s when they told me it was the Devil’s Chair. Anyone who sat in it on Halloween would die within a year.”
Ohmygod. I felt sorry for the teenage girl she’d been, the victim of a prank. But I had nothing but fury for the grown woman deliberately visiting terror on us now.
“They ran off,” Tasha continued, “leaving me to find my way back to the party. I wanted to go home but I couldn’t. Buses didn’t run that late at night and I didn’t dare call my mom. Thanks to you”—she waved the ivory handled pistol vaguely at all of us—“I spent the next year terrified that I was going to die.”
My hands flew to my mouth. I could not imagine.
“Figures you two boneheads would get it wrong,” Maddie said to Britt. “That’s not how it goes. The real story—”
What was she doing? I took a step forward, but Maddie waved me back with a low hand. “It isn’t the person who sits in the chair who dies. You’re still alive, Tash. It’s the person who makes them sit. If you force Savannah to sit, she won’t die. You will.”
“That’s bogus,” Tasha said. “Look at Britt. She’s alive and well. All of you. You have money and friends and fancy houses while I’m living paycheck to paycheck. Struggling to support my mother who has Alzheimer’s and doesn’t even know who I am. The woman who sewed all my clothes—the clothes the rest of you laughed at—can’t even dress herself. She’s worn my sister to the bone.”
“You had beautiful clothes,” I said, and it was true. “That I remember. On Fridays when we didn’t have to wear uniforms, you always looked great.”
“I’m sorry about your mother,” Britt said. “But none of us has had it as easy as you think. And remember, I’m alive, but it was Allison who told you to sit in the chair.”
In the stunned silence, it was as if the very air around us shivered.
“She died years later,” Tasha said defiantly. “After we graduated. You all were in college then. It had nothing to do with the Devil’s Chair.”
“Are you so sure?” Britt asked. “Allison’s brain tumor was diagnosed a few months after the Halloween party. The next spring. I was the only friend she told. The symptoms weren’t that bad at first. And yes, she did graduate, and she did start college. She wanted to pretend she was a normal girl living a normal life, with glioblastoma. She was my roommate.” Britt’s voice cracked ever so slightly. “She was my best friend, and I watched her die, day by day. So I’m sorry for your trouble, but don’t you dare act like you’re the only one.”
It wasn’t the cold that had us trembling now. Finally, I spoke.
“Is that what this is about, Tasha? You want revenge for thinking you would die within a year?” All of this—Maddie’s fake note, the midnight trip to the cemetery during Kristen’s party, the timing of Allison’s diagnosis—was news to me. As was Tasha’s resentment of my closeness with Kristen. “Why now?”
“Because my mother doesn’t have long to live. When she dies, my sister will finally be free to live her own life, and she’s leaving Seattle.”
Meaning Tasha would never return to the city. This was her last chance to get back at the girls she blamed for making her an eternal outcast.
A quick flash of light caught my eye. Kristen, fumbling with her phone and trying to hide it. I slid my hand forward and took it from her, using her body to shield mine as I sent an SOS to a phone number I knew by heart.
“What are you two doing?” Tasha demanded. “Don’t do anything stupid.”
“Too late,” Maddie muttered.
Tasha swiveled toward her, pointing the gun. Then she hooked her other arm around Savannah’s neck.
Beside me, Kristen gasped and took a step forward.
“You do anything, any of you,” Tasha said, “and I’ll shoot her. I swear.”
“That’s your plan?” Britt asked. “To shoot a teenage girl who literally stumbled into this? You’re smarter than that.”
I wasn’t sure it was smart to provoke her, but maybe it was working. Tasha’s hand shook and her gaze darted between us. Was she losing focus? The moon broke through the clouds long enough to highlight the panic on her face, then dimmed again. Britt lunged at Tasha and snatched at her arm, trying to knock the gun loose. I darted forward, uncertain what to do, and felt the heavy weight in my pocket.
The flashlight. I whipped it out and aimed the beam at Tasha’s eyes. Swung and whacked her in the shoulder.
There was no mistaking the crack this time. The gunshot reverberated through the air. I heard a scream of pain and a metallic clatter as the gun hit the ground. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Britt kick aside the gun Tasha had dropped when I hit her. I grabbed one of Tasha’s arms, Britt the other, and we pushed her down.
I looked up. Maddie had managed to get the gun and held it uncertainly.
“We’ve got her,” I shouted. “Don’t try to shoot her.”
“Call 911,” Kristen said. “Savannah’s hurt.” On the Devil’s Chair, she sat beside her sobbing daughter, holding her black-and-orange scarf to the girl’s leg. Maddie pocketed the gun and made the call. As she spoke, Britt and I tied Tasha’s hands behind her back with one of her own scarves. She didn’t resist, the fight gone out of her.
“I only wanted—” she began.
“Oh, shut up,” Britt said, and shoved another scarf in her face.
Not a moment too soon, we heard voices and footsteps approaching, and bright lights shone on the scene. Not ghosts or phantoms, or the wind playing tricks on our rattled brains, but honest-to-goodness help. Detective Tracy from Major Crimes had gotten my text, arriving at the same time as the officers and ambulance responding to Maddie’s call. The gunshot had ricocheted off the Crawford monument and grazed Savannah’s leg, the shock of it and a shove from Tasha knocking her into the seat.
I didn’t believe in the legend of the Devil’s Chair, not one bit. But that didn’t stop me from wishing it had been Tasha who’d landed in it.
***
Three women and a girl sat in the breakfast nook in Kristen’s kitchen, plates of warm spiced pumpkin cake with caramel sauce in front of us. I’d set a piece aside for Detective Tracy, knowing he always enjoys a sweet treat. I raised my brandy snifter and breathed in the aroma, like figs and caramel spiced with nutmeg. Across from me, Savannah cradled a cup of cocoa, her bandaged leg stretched out on the bench. Her heavy boot had saved her from a more serious injury.
On the floor beneath the table lay my dog Arf, offering emotional support to us all, and I ran my foot lightly over his back.
We’d each taken a turn in the living room, being interviewed by the detectives. Britt was with them now.
“I can’t believe you did that thing with Matt O’Neill and the note,” I said to Maddie.
“I can’t tell you,” Maddie said, “how sorry I am about that. Or how many times I’ve wished I’d apologized. I wonder what made Britt and Allison decide to prank her. Yes, she was an easy target. And Allison had an edge. But I never thought she was a mean girl. Not really.”
Neither had I. “Maybe the brain tumor was already affecting her.”
“Or was the tumor God’s way of getting back at her for scaring Tasha?” Savannah asked.
“Not the God I believe in,” her mother replied. “I don’t know why Allison got a brain tumor at seventeen and died at twenty. No one ever knows why terrible things happen. But it wasn’t because of this.”
We sipped in silence, the scent of the cake surrounding us, the warmth of the drinks and the kitchen and being alive together seeping deep into our bones.
“Anybody know who the Crawfords are?” Maddie asked. “Or the story behind the chair?”
“Not a clue,” Kristen said. “But we should take them flowers as an apology for disturbing their peace.”
“What will happen to her?” Savannah asked. “Tasha, I mean.”
“Some sort of criminal charges,” I said. “I mean, she waved around a loaded gun, even if it was an antique that only fired because she dropped it.” After I hit her. The whole incident demonstrated how bad we humans are at guessing others’ motives. Why we do what we do. “She did threaten to shoot you, but I think she was as shocked as the rest of us when the gun actually fired. Where do you suppose Britt and Allison got the idea of the Devil’s Chair?”
“From a horror movie we watched at my house,” Maddie said. “Though I’d forgotten all about it until tonight. The villain tried to make his enemy’s girlfriend sit in a stone chair in a graveyard at midnight, and everyone knew she’d die if she did. It’s not a real legend. Made-up movie stuff, to scare people.”
“It worked,” Kristen said, and reached for her brandy.
“But even if the legend was true,” Maddie said, “the curse only works on Halloween. We got out of there before midnight, so we’re safe.”
The laughter started with me, bubbling up from a low, low place. In a flash, we were all howling. I was sure the detectives could hear us, and after a night filled with tragedy, laughter was one thing I didn’t want to try to explain. I slid out of the booth and headed for the back door. The others followed. We stood on the deck, the clouds gone, the moon shining down, our arms around each other, and howled like fools.
Grateful fools, grateful to be together, grateful to be alive.
Warm Spiced Pumpkin Cake with Caramel Sauce
Pepper and Kristen know, from working in a spice shop, that nothing says “autumn” like pumpkin with just the right spices, here cinnamon and allspice. Egg whites, softly whipped, give the cake an unexpected lightness. And what isn’t better served with rich, fragrant caramel? Serve the cake warm. A dollop of whipped cream or vanilla ice cream would not be out of place!
For the cake:
2 cups cake flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon allspice
3 eggs, at room temperature, separated
1-1/2 cups granulated sugar
¾ cup (1-1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
3 tablespoons bourbon or 1 tablespoon vanilla
3 tablespoons buttermilk
1-1/4 cups canned pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling)
For the caramel sauce:
½ cup granulated sugar
4 tablespoons (¼ cup) unsalted butter
3 tablespoons dark corn syrup
1 cup heavy cream
pinch of salt
For serving:
2 teaspoons powdered (confectioner’s) sugar
¼ teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon allspice
Make the cake:
Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour a 10" Bundt cake pan, shaking out any excess flour.
In a medium bowl, stir together the cake flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt, along with the two teaspoons cinnamon and teaspoon allspice.
In a stand mixer, cream the egg yolks, granulated sugar, and butter until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add the bourbon or vanilla, buttermilk, and pumpkin. Mix until smooth, scraping down the sides of the bowl if necessary. Slowly add the dry ingredients and mix until well combined.
In a separate bowl with clean beaters, whip the egg whites into soft peaks, about 5 minutes. Add about one quarter of the whipped egg whites to the batter and stir; fold in the remaining egg whites.
Pour batter into cake pan. Tap pan on the counter several times to remove any air bubbles. Bake until cake is lightly browned and a tester or toothpick comes out clean, 50-55 minutes. Let cake cool in the pan about 10 minutes, then carefully invert onto a wire rack.
Make the caramel sauce:
In a heavy 1-1/2 to 2 quart sauce pan, combine the sugar, butter, corn syrup, half the cream, and the salt. Bring to a boil over medium to medium-high heat. Cook, uncovered, stirring continuously, until the sauce is thickened and turns a deep caramel color, 10-12 minutes.
Stir in remaining ½ cup cream. Return to a boil, stirring until the sauce is smooth and fully melted, about 30 seconds. The sauce can be made ahead and refrigerated, then warmed before serving.
To serve:
Stir together the powdered sugar, 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon, and 1/4 teaspoon allspice. Sift or sprinkle the spiced powdered sugar over the cake. (A tea strainer works nicely.) Slice the cake and drizzle each slice with the warm caramel sauce.
From the author:
Cemeteries often feature some of the best views around, and Seattle’s Lake View Cemetery, on Capitol Hill, is no exception. Founded in 1873, it is home to the graves of many of the city’s white settlers. Princess Angeline, daughter of the city’s namesake, Chief Sealth, better known as Seattle, and a powerful figure in her own right, is buried there. The most frequently visited graves are those of Bruce and Brandon Lee. Josephine Wilson’s monument remains one of the most mysterious, its story lost in time. I had intended to write my own version of its origins, but my research led me to an article on the legend of “The Devil’s Chair,” with photos of monuments around the world, including one in Lake View. As Pepper speculates, the chairs originated when rituals related to death were much different than they are now and cemeteries were regular gathering places. Never common, the chairs or benches had a gothic style that has come to feel a bit creepy to the modern eye, spurring legends of their strange powers. Sit at the wrong time and you’ll die. Or be haunted by voices from the grave until you atone, or die. The chairs have become the focal point of “legend tripping”—like when you and your high school buddies dared each other to run up and touch the door of a scary old lady’s haunted mansion at midnight. (Yes, I took that dare, though it wasn’t midnight because we had a curfew. And the old lady was actually very sweet.)
I know nothing more about the chair in Lake View than the names of the family and some of its members, and that it was probably erected between 1908 and 1912, after the earliest deaths in the family plot. I changed the family name so I could use the monument without the risk of causing emotional harm to descendants.
***
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Just a pinch of murder . . .
Leslie Budewitz fell in love with Pike Place Market as a college freshman and made it her life’s mission to eat her way through the Market. Happily, she’ll never finish, as the Market is always changing!
She blends her passions for mysteries, food, and the Northwest in two cozy series, the Spice Shop mysteries and the Food Lovers’ Village mysteries set in a lakeside village on the road to Glacier National Park. Her first Village mystery, Death al Dente, won the 2013 Agatha Award for Best First Novel. Leslie also won the 2011 Agatha Award for Best Nonfiction, for Books, Crooks and Counselors: How to Write Accurately About Criminal Law and Courtroom Procedure, and the 2018 Agatha Award for Best Short Story, for “All God’s Sparrows,” the title story in All God’s Sparrows and Other Stories: A Stagecoach Mary Fields Collection (2024), featuring a remarkable woman who was born into slavery and spent the last thirty years of her life in Montana. The collection is a finalist for the 2025 High Plains International Book Awards. Leslie’s work has also won or been nominated for Spur, Derringer, Anthony, and Macavity awards. Her short stories have appeared in Alfred Hitchcock, Ellery Queen, Suspense, Thug Lit, and other magazines and anthologies.
