Nightmares Can Be Murder (A Dream Club Mystery) by Mary Kennedy Page A

a few years ago.”
    “Really?” Minerva and Rose exchanged a look. “So all the murals had a religious theme. That’s very interesting, indeed.” She stopped to take a sip of lemonade. “Were there French doors leading onto a patio and gardens? A whole wall of doors with gauzy white curtains?”
    “Why, yes,” Lucinda said, a look of astonishment crossing her face. “That’s exactly what the room looked like. The doors were open, the curtains were blowing in the breeze, and I could see the gardens. They were spectacular.” She clasped her hands together. “They were tiered, all different levels, with slate steps—”
    “Slate steps leading down to a pond,” Rose cut in. “With a fountain in the middle. A statute of Cupid, with a bow and arrow. And there were lovely trees lining the pond, I expect.”
    Lucinda’s mouth formed an O of astonishment. “Yes, you described it perfectly. There was a fountain with the Cupid statue and the weeping willow trees, but how in the world could you know that? Did you have the same dream? Or are you a dream-hopper?”
    I looked up, interested. Sybil Powers always maintains that people who are tuned into this sort of thing can become dream-hoppers, visiting another person’s dreams. They can insert themselves into the dream, or just observe the dream for a few minutes and then move on to someone else’s dream.
    Minerva laughed. “Rose is no dream-hopper. The reason she recognizes the ballroom, dear, is that we’ve been there many times. Years ago, I mean. In our youth.” She exchanged a rueful look with her sister. “We had some lovely waltzes in that very room, didn’t we, Rose?” She gave a happy sigh, her blue eyes focused on a distant memory. “Our dance cards were always full, back in the day. We’d dance the night away with our handsome beaus and have cocktails on the white stone patio.”
    “You’ve been to this place—the place in Lucinda’s dream?” I asked. My pulse jumped and I wondered if there really was something to dream work. How could Lucinda have dreamt about a place she had never seen? Ali would say it was all part of the collective unconscious and we all have certain images deep within our psyches. This was all a little too woo-woo for me, but I must admit I was intrigued by Lucinda’s story.
    “Of course, dear. Half of Savannah has been there. It’s the old Collier mansion outside of town. It’s on the historical register. When the Colliers made a grand tour of Italy, they fell in love with some frescoes in Florence. The moment they came back to Savannah, they commissioned an artist to duplicate them in their ballroom. Back in those days, it was quite a showplace.”
    “That is was,” Rose agreed.
    “Then after the original Colliers passed away, it went to seed,” Minerva continued. “The younger generation of Colliers couldn’t afford to keep it up in the grand style, and there wasn’t enough money left in the estate to maintain it. Luckily a developer saw the possibilities and bought it and remodeled it, restoring it to its former glory. They had someone from the Historical Society oversee every step of the process. We take the past seriously here in Savannah, Taylor,” she said, lifting her eyebrow.
    “So it sounds like quite a lovely dream,” Ali cut in. She’d been listening quietly, her expression unreadable. “And you say you saw Chico in the dream?”
    “Well, that’s just the thing,” Lucinda said apologetically. “I really can’t be sure about the man who was dancing. He was tall and had dark hair; that’s the only thing I know for certain. And the woman, his partner, was blond and very thin.”
    That leaves out Gina
, I thought to myself. Gina was a voluptuous redhead.
    “So you’re not sure of his identity? But you saw everything else so clearly,” I said. “The cherubs, the curtains, the fountains, and gardens.”
    “I know,” Lucinda said, her eyes clouding. “But the man is a different story