"Don't let everyone in." Kieran had been content to let them make their plans, but all eyes turned to him at his unusual input. He shrugged and folded his arms across his chest. "What? Just...don't invite everyone under the sun."
Erik pushed his glasses a little further up his nose. "And why not?"
"Because the president was just murdered here." He held up a hand to stop the questions as he leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "Back in my village there was this big old house, almost as old as the village itself. Everyone called it The Big House, and everyone knew that The Big House was haunted as shit. Age, sickness, suicide, probably a murder or two; lots of ways for people to die in a house almost a thousand years old. So a while ago, maybe fifty or so years back, about the time your lot decided to have a grand ol' Civil War," he nodded at Sam, "there was a murder up at The Big House. Word was the husband went crazy, driven mad by spirits in the house. So he tied up the wife and a family friend who was stayin with them, tied em back-to-back. Pressed the pistol against the wife's head..." He closed one eye and pantomimed shooting a gun. "Two bodies, one shot. They said he was raving when they took him away. Died in Bedlam."
"Is this story going anywhere?" Erik pressed his lips into a line of impatience.
The pirate held up a hand. "Keep your hair on, I'm getting there!" He stretched his neck. "After the whole thing died down, the wife's family didn't move in or anything, but the didn't close up The Big House either. Maybe ten years after the murder, probably after having difficulty selling it, they reopened it as a hotel. Not just any hotel though: a haunted hotel. Getting up close and personal with the ghosts was an actual feature. Thing was though it cost two week's wages just to stay a night, for a normal fellow anyway, and staying in the grand bedroom? The one where the wife and the guest were offed? That was half-over." Kieran sniffed and paused for dramatic effect. "Well, I know a guy who knows a guy who actually knew the wife and the wife's family. Turns out, they were playing up the haunted part to hide her indiscretions." He smirked. "The family friend was her lover, who'd gotten her pregnant. The husband wasn't driven mad by spirits, he didn't even tie them up back to back; he shot them in a jealous rage. But it was in everyone's best interest--husband, wife's family, lover's family--if they blamed the ghosts and sent the husband off quiet somewhere to live out the rest of his life where the coppers thought he was just some poor mad soul grieving over what the spirits of the house had forced him to do to his beautiful young wife and good friend."
After he sat back and let the silence settle, Erik shook his head. "So what's that got to do with anything?"
"Well they all got together, settled on a story, and only let a few people at a time see the scene of the crime, didn't they?" He shrugged. "And it's not like they held a press conference, told everyone 'it was the ghosts.' They let it get out slow, through whispers and rumors they started themselves, so that nobody every second-guessed the husband's motives."
Anne Marie nodded slowly, beginning to understand. "We create an air of exclusivity," she said. "Only invite a few people in, people we know to be gossips and busy-bodies. The ones who are going to have the most burning curiosity about poor Paul. We give them some story when they ask, but oh it's too horrible to talk about, let's change the subject, have you heard..." She nodded again, gaining traction on the idea. "They will hang onto my every word, hoping for more about what happened, but I carefully avoid that in favor of fashion. So only a few people are invited to one of the more exclusive homes in Paris. We control the story, we even further elevate my status as someone fashionable, someone to listen to, we kill the fad that isn't happening, and the gossips are more likely to give us names. So instead of another grand ball, we invite them for tea."
