IT TOOK A few smacks to the cheeks, but Detective Walker finally opened his eyes.
He groaned. “There are no ghosts.” Detective Walker was in a daze and thought he’d seen Mr. Roberts, but when he tried to wake up, he had just fallen back into the darkness that was caused by the blow to his head. Now he tried to sit up. “Poppycock,” he said.
Penny didn’t think that now was the time to argue. She knew what she’d seen, and she knew that the Barclay Hotel’s ghost groundskeeper, Mr. Roberts, had probably saved her grandpa’s life. “Someone whacked you in the head, Grandpa.” Penny stood. “I’ll go get help.”
“No.” The detective’s voice was faint. He was slowly coming back to consciousness, so he stood, rubbing his head. “The killer thinks he got me. Let’s see how he reacts when I come to dinner.”
Penny and her grandpa brushed off the snow. “Do you know who hit you over the head?” Penny asked.
Her grandpa said, “I don’t know who was out here, but I was following footprints in the snow. Large ones.”
Penny nodded. “Like cowboy boots.”
“That’s what I was thinking when I started following them. Nice detective work, kid. That was very brave,” he added.
“I want to be a detective, like you,” Penny said. “I can do it.”
“I know you can.” Her grandpa smiled. “I’m proud of you, Penny. But now I’m going to clean up and get some veal.”
“And catch a criminal,” Penny said. It was a bit cheesy, but true. “Oh, and I should probably warn you, there’s no veal.”
“What’s for dinner, then?” The detective looked grumpy again.
“Waffles. Come on, let’s go,” Penny said. Her feet were frozen.
“That’s if we can find our way out of this maze,” the detective said, rubbing his head and wincing.
Penny smiled and said, “It’s easy: follow me.”
PENNY AND HER grandpa rejoined the dinner party (which still didn’t feel much like a party). Mr. Barclay had made all the guests sit at the same table, even though everyone looked pretty unhappy about it.
Dinner was a quiet affair. The waffles were magnificent, Penny thought.
After everyone finished eating, the detective cleared his throat. “I found out some new evidence today. I spoke to one of my colleagues using the landline. She confirmed that our murder victim is actually Gerrit Hofstra, a famous con man from the Netherlands.”
“Penny and I had already figured that out!” JJ exclaimed.
Penny smiled. She was feeling pretty smart.
“Where’s the Netherlands?” Fiona Fleming asked, ignoring JJ. “My geography is a little stale.”
Detective Walker said, “Near Germany, north of Belgium and France. In any case, he’d been stealing fortunes from unsuspecting rich people all over the world, before he came to Colorado.”
Mr. Barclay said softly, in a sad voice, “He was trying to con me out of the Barclay estate.” It had to be hard to realize that the person you trusted most was out to con (and kill!) you.
The detective nodded. “It seems Mr. Hofstra would befriend a wealthy landowner, someone with a similar height and build to his, so he could disguise himself and change the will. Then . . .”
They all knew what this con man had planned to do next. Murder, is what.
“Well, then maybe it’s good that he’s dead,” the cowboy said. “He sounds like a horrible man.”
Everyone looked at the cowboy.
“But I didn’t kill him!” Buck Jones pushed his plate aside.
“That’s what all guilty people say,” Fiona Fleming shot back.
And Ms. Chelsea just gave everyone a librarian stare, which she usually saved for loud people in the library.
Things were heating up. The question was, of course: who wanted Gerrit Hofstra dead?