Лейганн Доббс - A Twist In The Tail

Maybe it had gotten wedged somewhere when I dropped the file the other day. The cabinet door under the sink didn’t close right. Maybe it had fluttered inside and was laying amongst the bottles of Windex and stacks of sponges?

I got down on all fours and stuck my head inside the cabinet. Marlowe and Nero trotted up beside me. In fact, they’d been sticking to me like glue all night. Probably afraid of the storm.

Kaboom!

The cats jumped and so did I, hitting my head on the inside of the cabinet. Ouch. At least the sound of the thunder had been muted with my head inside that thing.

I pulled my head out. I couldn’t hear a darn thing with it inside the cabinet, but I was expecting to hear a flurry of footsteps above as my guests leapt out of bed. But no. They all must have Ambien prescriptions because they were apparently fast asleep, tucked into their quilt-covered beds.

I stood, rubbing the back of my head and Nero jumped on the counter.

Meow.

‘Hey, I just washed that. Get down.’ I waved my hands at the cat who simply turned his back on me to look out the window. Good thing Barbara Littlefield wouldn’t be making a surprise visit tonight in the storm.

I followed his gaze out the window just in time to see a bolt of lightning illuminate the turbulent surf in the cove near the Smugglers Bay Inn. No seagulls were flying around in this storm.

Meroow!

Marlowe paced over by the door to the hallway. The sound of his meow reminded me of the tone of his wailing when we found Charles’ body. Hopefully it wasn’t a tone reserved only for body finding.

Nero leaped down from the counter and trotted toward the door, looking over his shoulder at me.

Kaboom!

The thunder sure was loud.

Creak.

Wait, what was that? One of the guests? I tilted my head to the side and cocked my ear toward the ceiling. No, the creaking hadn’t come from upstairs, it had come from the direction of the foyer. Both cats were now sitting in the doorway that led to the hallway and looking at me expectantly. Were they trying to alert me to an intruder?

I grabbed the first weapon I could find. A rolling pin. Not the new glass kind. The heavy old-fashioned wooden kind.

My heart pounded against my rib cage as I crept out into the darkened hallway.

Creak.

Whoever it was, was near the stairs! Was that the killer coming back to the scene of the crime? And if so, why?

I probably should’ve called the cops, but I didn’t want to alert the intruder to the fact that I knew he was there. Because now I had the element of surprise and I didn’t want to lose it. If I took my phone out and called, they might hear me and run off. I needed to catch him in the act and then hopefully detain him long enough for the police to come.

I moved slowly along the hallway, my rolling pin raised above my head.

A big hulking shadow loomed by the stairs. He looked like he was about to head down the hallway that led to the West wing. Just as I suspected, the killer was returning, probably to make sure he hadn’t left some sort of clue.

I was almost upon him when lightning lit the hallway, exposing the intruder. My heart crashed along with the accompanying sound of thunder.

It was Tony Murano and he was holding something shiny in his hand.

I must have made a noise because Tony spun around.

I flicked on the lights and raised the rolling pin over my head. ‘You! Put that down. I knew you were the killer!’

Tony shoved his hand behind his back, scrunched up his face and shaded his eyes against the light with his free hand. ‘Huh? Listen lady, you’ve caused enough trouble for me.’

He took a step toward me. I couldn’t see what was in his left hand. Was it the cleaver I’d seen him wielding the in restaurant? He seemed to enjoy hacking things with it. But I wasn’t going to let him intimidate me. ‘That’s far enough Tony. I’ve already called the police and they’ll be here any minute.’

‘Good, because you should be arrested.’

‘Me? You’re the killer!’

‘No. You are. The marriage killer. What do you mean coming over to my restaurant and getting my wife all upset. You should mind your own business.’

Huh? This wasn’t going the way I thought it would. Why was he talking about his wife? Perhaps he was trying to distract me.

‘I’m not falling for that! You broke in here! I bet you think we’re getting too close to the truth and want to make sure you didn’t leave more than just a footprint at the scene of the crime.’

‘I didn’t break in.’ Tony gestured toward the door. ‘I was knocking on the door but nobody answered. It was unlocked so I just came in. It was dark in here and I was standing, getting my bearings, when you came out and tried to attack me.’

I looked at the door. Had I left it unlocked? I couldn’t remember, but surely I would’ve heard him knocking? Then again, I’d had my head inside the cabinet and barely heard the thunder.

Nero and Marlowe were pacing around Tony with their tails high in the air. Now, what exactly did that mean? I was sure they were trying to tell me something, but was it that Tony was the killer or that he was not the killer? Either way, I wasn’t safe with him in here. I dug in my pocket for my cell phone and quickly realized I’d left it in the kitchen. Now what? Maybe one of the guests would come down and help distract him, and I could clonk him over the head with the rolling pin.

My arm was getting really tired, but I raised the rolling pin higher. ‘You can’t talk your way out of this. I know that you snuck over the other night and killed Charles. Maybe you broke in the same way you did tonight. And you went out the window afterwards.’

‘Charles? Who is Charles and why would I kill him?’

‘Charles Prescott. The Laughing Gourmet. He wrote a bad review on your restaurant last year and when you found out he was staying here, you took your revenge.’

‘Bad review? You mean that review on my lemon meringue pie?’ Tony laughed, the sinister sound echoing along the hallway. ‘Why would I kill him over that? That review was good for business.’

‘You expect me to believe a bad review is good for business?’

‘Sure, that review is just sour grapes and it hasn’t hurt me none. In fact, it’s brought more people to my restaurant asking for the sour lemon meringue pie. Turns out there’s a whole bunch of people who like their pie sour.’ Tony said. ‘So you see I wouldn’t want to kill him. I want to thank him.’

I gnawed my bottom lip. It seemed like Tony might be telling the truth about that. Maybe my mom had been right about the love triangle. ‘All right, maybe that review was not the reason why you killed him. Maybe you killed Charles Prescott because of the love triangle!’

The stairs creaked and we looked up to see Tina standing there, her eyes wide, her mouth hanging open as she stared at Tony. ‘You killed Charles?’

Tony’s brow furrowed. ‘What? No. I didn’t kill him. I wasn’t mad about that review.’

‘Not the review,’ I said. ‘You were jealous because you had to share Tina with him!’

Tina gasped. Tony’s gaze jerked to Tina’s face. He looked like he was ready to cry. ‘You were having an affair with this Charles guy?’

Tina’s eyes were about as big as Floras. ‘No. I swear!’ She rushed down the stairs to Tony’s side. ‘You’re the only one I’m having an affair with.’

Tony looked dubious. He turned to me. ‘What do you know about this affair?’

I crossed my arms over my chest, mostly because my right arm was aching from holding up the rolling pin. ‘One of our other guests saw Tina sneaking out of Charles’s room.’