High Spirits

Maureen Doherty, owner/manager of Haven House Inn on Florida’s Gulf Coast, is ready to participate in her first Christmas celebration since inheriting the inn. She has a dinner and a movie plan to go with the nearby Paramount Theater’s showing of old Christmas movies for the “Twelve Days of Christmas.” She meets the projectionist there and orders centerpieces from Petals and Kettles, the tearoom/florist. But Officer Frank Hubbard is following her around town. He’s investigating a cold case from almost 50 years earlier when a small-time hood was shot to death at the theater, and he suspects either the projectionist or the father-in-law of the tearoom owner. Both men were suspects at the time, and both are back in town. Maureen’s live-in ghost, a deceased movie starlet, has stories of the men and possible money laundering. When there’s a second murder at the theater, Maureen’s dragged into the cold case.