Лейганн Доббс - A Twist In The Tail

‘The stairs were pretty rotten, but it looked like someone helped them along. The way the boards broke look like they were snapped in two as opposed to breaking from the pressure of someone standing on them. And, the nails had been pulled up.’

I wasn’t sure what to do with this information. Tell the police? Could they figure that out on their own? And what did Mike know about stairs anyway? Sure, he was doing carpentry work here, and he seemed to be doing a good job, but he’d been a Navy officer before. Carpentry was just a sideline.

I was just about to open my mouth to say as much when Flora bustled in, her white orthopedic shoes squeaking as she sashayed toward Mike.

Flora was a skinny elderly woman with gigantic round glasses that made her eyes owlish. When Millie had sold me the Oyster Cove Guesthouse, she’d said that Flora had been the maid for fifty years and depended on the money. I mean, who can live on social security? I assumed that meant she actually did some cleaning, and since I was from out of town and didn’t know of anyone else, I agreed to keep her on. The joke was on me. Since I’d been here she’d managed to wiggle out of every job I’d tasked her with. Naturally, I didn’t have to keep her on, but who could fire a little old lady with thirty-two grandchildren? I didn’t have the heart for it. Maybe someday when funds allowed I’d get another maid that actually worked.

‘Mr. Mike, are you done in the sand dollar room?’ Flora blinked up at him. It was a long ways up, too, since Flora was about four feet tall and Mike was over six.

Mike smiled down at her, turning on that boyish charm that I remembered from long ago. Apparently it wasn’t only reserved for young girls. Of course that kind of charm didn’t work on me anymore but it worked on Flora, who practically swooned. ‘I am. Did I leave too much of a mess in there?’

Flora shook her head. ‘Oh no. I’m happy to clean up anything you leave.’

My mouth practically fell open. Since when was Flora happy to clean?

Mike bent down and gave her a little kiss on her papery cheek. ‘Thanks. You let me know if it’s too much.’ He turned to me. ‘And you let me know if I can help out, Sunshine.’

We all watched him leave, Flora’s gaze on a specific part of his body clad in faded jeans. As soon as he cleared the door, Flora turned to me, a scowl on her face.

‘I hope you don’t have any ideas about me cleaning up that mess in the West wing. I do not do crime scenes.’

And with that she turned and left the room, brushing past Ava Grantham in the doorway.

‘I’ve just been upstairs and Tina is finally settled down. Young people these days, they can’t handle anything worth a monkey’s patootie. Good thing those Weatherbys have clear heads. Your sheriff is up in Prescott’s room. He’ll be interviewing all of us soon.’ She pulled a straight back chair over and plopped down in it. ‘Honestly, I’m not surprised someone murdered Prescott.’

‘You’re not?’ We asked in unison.

Ava shook her head. ‘Nope, not at all. He was a nasty man.’

My mother and Millie exchanged a glance.

‘You knew him?’ Millie asked.

‘Of course.’ Ava pointed to herself. ‘This old bird’s been around for a while. We worked together on a few newspapers.’

‘Charles worked in news? Was he a writer?’ I asked.

Ava gave me a funny look. ‘You don’t know who he was?’

I didn’t like the way that sounded. Was Charles someone I was supposed to know? Knowing someone who’d been murdered in my guesthouse might not be good for business… or my freedom.

‘No idea,’ I said.

‘Charles Prescott was the Laughing Gourmet. You know… the food critic and chef.’

Darn! I probably should have known who he was. Hadn’t Clay—my ex—mentioned his name before? The truth was, I really hadn’t paid much attention to what was going on with the ex’s chef job in the later years.

When we were first married I’d been very involved. Always eating at his restaurants and going out to events with him, but then Emma came along and we agreed my focus should be on taking care of her needs. I started paying less and less attention to what was going on with the ex, because his career was going well and he was working his way to the top of his field. Little did I know he was also working his way to the top of a succession of pretty female sous chefs.

‘I might have heard of him,’ I said.

‘Well, I wouldn’t be surprised if you hadn’t. Truth is, he’s not that popular anymore.’ She leaned forward. ‘His column is barely read nowadays. It got cancelled from the paper we both worked on last year. Heard he was hurting for money, too. Rumor has it he was writing some fancy pants cookbook full of innovative and unusual recipes that he thought would make him rich.’

Millie’s brows shot up to her hairline. She looked at my mom. ‘Money? That’s usually a motive for murder.’

Mom opened her mouth, but before she could reply, footsteps pounded down the front stairs. Seth Chamberlain appeared in the doorway holding a plastic bag in his hand. Inside the bag was what looked like a small piece of paper.

‘What’s that?’ Millie asked.

‘We found this in the victim’s room. Looks like he was writing some sort of a note. And since we discovered that he is a food and hotel critic, it isn’t a big jump to assume the note was about the Oyster Cove Guesthouse.’ Seth held the corner of an envelope up. We could see it was part of a note, a few words scrawled on the edge. No, not exactly words, just parts of words. I could make out ‘ull’ and ‘ick’ and ‘son.’

Millie craned her neck forward and squinted. ‘That doesn’t look like a review to me.’

Seth turned the bag back to face him. ‘Of course it’s not the whole review. But anyone can put together that he was writing something about the inn being ‘dull’ and the food ‘icky.’ The killer clearly took the rest of it because they didn’t want anyone to find it.’ His eyes drilled into mine. ‘And who wouldn’t want someone to find a bad review about the Oyster Cove Guesthouse?’

‘Lots of people,’ Mom chimed in.

‘I didn’t even know who he was until Ava mentioned it just now,’ I said.

Seth made a face. ‘You expect me to believe that? Your husband is a famous chef, surely you’d have heard of the Laughing Gourmet.’

My expression turned sheepish. ‘I never really paying that much attention to what my husband said.’

Seth didn’t look like he believed me. I had visions of him whipping out handcuffs and hauling me off to jail. Millie must have had the same vision because she stood and went to Seth’s side, possibly to distract him.

‘Josie wouldn’t kill anybody over a review. That’s ridiculous.’ Millie patted his arm.

‘People have killed for less, Millie. You’re too nice.’ Seth beamed at her.

‘Be that as it may, I have known Josie since she was in diapers and she is no killer.’

Seth frowned and swiveled his gaze back to me. ‘What about that time she was caught trying to sneak out of the bowling alley with the rental shoes still on?’

Millie waved her hand dismissively ‘Teenage hijinks. Besides, stealing shoes can hardly be compared to killing someone. I hope you’re not getting any ideas about arresting Josie. That would be foolish. You have no concrete proof. This isn’t even a letter, just some partial words. You wouldn’t want to arrest the wrong person, would you?’

Seth considered that for a second, then said, ‘Maybe arresting the wrong person is better than arresting no person. We haven’t had a murder in this town in more than a hundred years and I think the townsfolk will be nervous and want to know that the police are doing something.’