Лейганн Доббс - A Twist In The Tail

‘No, the tape fell off and I was just reattaching it,’ I said, just in case my assessment of her attitude was wrong.

She surveyed us with narrowed eyes. ‘Uh huh…’

Millie didn’t miss a chance to question another suspect. ‘Didn’t you mention that Charles was working on a cookbook?’

Ava shrugged. ‘That was the rumor in newspaper circles. Why?’

‘Well do you see it in there?’ Millie pointed to the bookcase.

Ava leaned over the tape for a closer look. ‘No, those are all already published. His wasn’t published yet. He usually makes notes in one of those binders, you know the refillable kind that you used to use in school?’

‘A three-ring binder?’

‘Yeah, that’s the one.’

I glanced back at the bookcase. No three-ring binder. Maybe the police had taken it.

‘We didn’t find any binder in there,’ Mom said.

‘I wouldn’t be surprised if he just started that rumor to make himself look important and wasn’t even working on anything. He was washed up old has-been.’ Ava leaned toward us and lowered her voice. ‘It’s a mystery to me how the women still found him so attractive.’

‘They did?’ I couldn’t imagine anyone finding Charles Prescott attractive, and judging by the sour looks on Mom and Millie’s faces neither could they.

‘Yes, can you believe it? Of course he used to be a looker back in the day, but now… well you saw him. Nothing to write home about. But I heard he still had a string of women.’ Ava glanced down the hallway, then turned back to them and lowered her voice again, this time to a whisper. ‘He even had one here.’

‘Here?’ Millie looked aghast.

‘Yep, I saw Tina coming out of his room late the other night.’

‘The other night? You mean the night he was killed? Are you sure?’ Mom asked.

‘I’m as sure as a monkey’s uncle. But it wasn’t last night. It was the night before. See, I’d fallen asleep in front of the TV in the sitting room and I was coming up the back stairs over there.’ Ava pointed to the stairway at the end of the hall. ‘When I saw Charles’ door open, I must confess, I ducked into the bathroom and hid behind the door because I didn’t want to talk to him. But it wasn’t Charles who came out. It was Tina.’

‘Did she say anything about why she was in there?’ I still couldn’t picture pretty Tina cavorting with Charles, but stranger things have happened.

‘I didn’t talk to her. I ducked back behind the door and I guess she just slunk off to her own room because I heard a door close, and when I peeked out the hall was empty. She never saw me.’

Millie turned to me. ‘Did you get any indication that they were that chummy?’

‘Not at all. It seemed like they didn’t even know each other.’ I thought back to the interactions I’d seen between Tina and Charles. Charles had arrived four days ago, Tina had arrived the next day. Had they acted a little strangely around each other? It did seem like they’d made a point to avoid each other. Was I reading things into it because of what I now knew?

‘Well that is his modus operandi,’ Ava said. ‘He has a wife back home, so when he has these affairs, he just pretends like he doesn’t know the girls. Oh, there were plenty of young girls at the papers we worked at years ago who were quite smitten with him. Though even then, I couldn’t figure out what they saw in him.’

‘Tina did seem overly upset at his death, didn’t she?’ Mom asked.

Millie chewed her bottom lip and glanced back at the door to Tina’s room. ‘Yes, she did. Was that because her lover had been killed or perhaps because she had killed him and was afraid of getting caught?’

‘I wouldn’t be so quick to pin the murder on her. She seems like a nice person and if you ask me, there are plenty of people who would’ve wanted Charles Prescott dead,’ Ava said.

Mom’s eyes widened. ‘Really? You mean like old lovers?’

‘Or his wife?’ Millie asked.

‘Not just them. Charles was a jerk. He wasn’t above stepping on someone to get ahead, throwing a co-worker under the bus or even blackmailing someone if he had something on them. I say good riddance to him.’ Ava shot a sour look into Charles’ room, then turned and strode down the hall.

We watched her go into her room before Millie turned toward the stairs. ‘Come on, we’ve got our work cut out for us. If what Ava says is true, we need to prove that there was a connection between Tina and Charles.’

Six

‘I didn’t realize you were being so literal when you said we should go back to the guesthouse and sniff around.’ Marlowe lifted her nose from the flower bed and sneezed. ‘All this sniffing is making me hungry.’

Nero gave an exasperated sigh. Marlowe still had to learn the art of patience. ‘We can eat soon. First, we must cover every inch. You never know where the killer might have dropped a clue.’

‘Right. Every inch.’ Marlowe stuck her nose back into the flower bed, then moved along to the corner of the guesthouse.

Nero continued on his course. So far he’d sniffed up several toads, a grasshopper and a few gull feathers. The feathers gave him pause, but luckily the gulls didn’t come over from Smugglers Bay Inn often, which was just fine with Nero.

He got a whiff of a familiar scent and looked up. He was on the east side of the house, where the wind whipped in from the ocean, causing the paint to peel. Millie had it repainted every two years. The mansion did need a lot of work, especially the old windows, which were no longer tight to the frames. The icy wind easily found its way inside in winter, especially on this side. During a Nor’Easter, the house could be downright frigid, especially if the power went out.

As Nero looked up, he saw that someone had fixed the window frames so that the windows were tight, and, according to what his nose was telling him, that person was Mike Sullivan.

‘Looks like Mike fixed the windows.’ Marlowe sat down in the grass beside him. ‘I heard him tell Millie he was going to do it even though she didn’t pay him to.’

‘He must have overheard Josie worrying about the heating bills come winter.’ Nero’s heart swelled at the human’s kind gesture. Mike must have done the work on his own time to help out Josie. Apparently not all people were selfish and uncaring. Maybe there was hope for humankind after all.

‘Yeah, he’s good people. And he gives good chin rubs.’

Nero glanced at Marlowe sharply. ‘True, but you mustn’t act like you enjoy them too much.’

‘Oh, I know. I give a few purrs of encouragement but jump off his lap just when he thinks I’ve settled in.’

Caw!

A gull swooped overhead, and the cats ducked, crouching low while it flew past on its way to Smugglers Bay. Nero glanced over at the inn. Two gulls were circling above the deck. There used to be at least six. ‘Stella Dumont must be happy at the decrease in gulls.’

‘I’m sure she is.’ Marlowe continued sniffing along the side of the house. ‘I just hope our buddy Mike is smart enough not to fall for her.’

Nero glared at the inn. They could see one corner of the building and the outdoor deck where Stella served meals to her guests. Nero wasn’t above skulking around the edges of the deck looking for scraps, but not when the gulls were around. ‘She certainly does flirt with him, but do you think that’s all she wants when she comes here?’

Marlowe followed Nero’s gaze. ‘I don’t know. She does seem very interested in the kitchen, but I haven’t seen her do anything suspicious.’

‘Hmmm.’ Nero went back to sniffing. He didn’t trust Stella Dumont, and not just because it seemed like she wanted to get her claws into Mike. She had a certain, deceitful scent about her.