Read Haunted Guest House Mystery 03-Old Haunts for Free Online

politics in town starts to heat up. Everybody thinks they’re a big shot.”
    Jeannie looked disappointed. She prefers something a little more lurid. “No sex scandals?” she asked.
    Phyllis shook her head. “It’s summer, honey,” she explained. “Everybody’s too busy trying to make a buck because we were smart enough to start a town near the only beaches in the country that make you pay to get on.”
    It’s true—New Jersey’s beaches often require badges for admittance, and the badges require fees. Most other shore areas in the country don’t, but ours are more…beachy, I guess. Harbor Haven is one of the quieter towns on the beach (real New Jerseyans say “down the shore”), but if you want to swim near a lifeguard—and you should never go in without one nearby—you’re going to buy a badge.
    “How about some crimes?” I asked Phyllis, just to cheer Jeannie up. If she couldn’t find out who was sleeping with whom, maybe Jeannie could hear about a rash of bicycle thefts or a genuine convenience store holdup. “There must be some crime.”
    “Nothing,” Phyllis lamented. “It’s gotten to the point that I’m running a story on crime outside of town. Those bones they found in Seaside Heights. Sounds like a good mystery, anyway. Apparently, somebody bashed the poor guy’s head in.”
    Big Bob, then, was making news miles from where he was found. I told myself there was no way I was going to get involved this time. I guess, technically, Maxie was a friend, but murderers tend to be violent, unpredictable people, and I find it comforting to stay away from such types.
    “Ooh!” Jeannie perked up. “What’s that one all about?”
    “A man named Robert Benicio was killed in Seaside Heights, probably about two years ago,” I said. “Like Phyllis said, someone hit him hard in the back of the head. His body was buried in the sand, but far from the water and down deep enough that the remains weren’t discovered until recently. Dental records and fingerprints confirmed his identity, and now the county prosecutor’s major-crimes division is looking into the killing.”
    I kept walking and was suddenly aware that I was walking alone. I stopped and turned around to see Phyllis and Jeannie staring at me with the same expression on both faces—amazement.
    “What?” I asked.
    “Are you holding out on me?” Phyllis demanded. “You getting back into the PI business? Are you investigating this case?”
    “Me? What? No!”
    “Then how did you know all that?” Jeannie chimed in. Thanks a heap, Jeannie.
    “I read it in the paper,” I said.
    “But I haven’t run a story about it yet,” Phyllis said. They started to walk again, more slowly, something for which I was grateful. It was getting hot out, even at only nine in the morning.
    “I don’t want to hurt your feelings,” I told Phyllis, “but the Chronicle is not the only newspaper I read.”
    “I’m crushed,” she answered.
    “Don’t be. It’s just there are six days of the week when you don’t publish.”
    “So what caught your eye about this case that you did so much reading?” she asked. Phyllis’s reporter’s mind is rarely at rest, and she never accepts the easiest answer to any question without some skepticism.
    “Nothing special,” I tried. “I just noticed the story on a newspaper when I was hanging some wallboard in the attic, and the headline got me.” That was sort of close to the truth—it had been Maxie who’d noticed the headline, but I was there .
    “What about it?” Phyllis probed. She’d do whatever she needed to do to improve her headlines and get more people to read them.
    “Just the subject, I guess,” I answered. “You know, people do just read articles casually once in a while.”
    “Bite your tongue.”
    We arrived at Veg Out, which was bustling on this July day. An open-air section (normally part of the parking lot) was devoted to the latest from local farms, and both Harbor Havenites and some