A Purrfect Alibi

Ten

Breakfast was a somewhat solemn affair. Esther, Victor and Gail sat together at one table. I hadn’t seen them sit together before and didn’t know if they were clustered together for comfort or to keep their enemies close, each being afraid the other had murdered Madame Zenda.

The smell of sausage and coffee lured me closer to the buffet server and I picked at a lemon muffin as I eavesdropped on their conversation.

“I just can’t believe Madame Zenda was murdered right under our noses!” Gail wailed into her napkin.

“Speaking of which.” Victor narrowed his gaze on her. “Where were you? That scream roused me out of a deep meditation. It was loud enough to wake the dead.”

Gail sniffled and reached for her tea. She turned to Victor, a wan smile on her face, but not before I noticed a hint of malice in her eye. Was it simply that she didn’t like the guy? I couldn’t say I blamed her there, he was annoying. Or was she angry he called the fact she didn’t come running last night to everyone’s attention?

“I’m hard of hearing.” Gail pointed to her right ear. “I drank some chamomile tea and was out like a light. With my hearing problems, I never heard a thing. When I got up, the police were here wanting to question everyone. Imagine my shock when I found out why.”

Guess she hadn’t seen the murder in her tea leaves. A movement under the table caught my eye and I tilted my head just in time to see a ginger-and-black tail disappear under the tablecloth. Marlowe. I was sure Nero wasn’t far behind. Or probably in the lead. He seemed to be the instigator. I watched as Esther broke off a teeny piece of sausage and slipped it unobtrusively under the table.

There was no point in shooing the cats away. I didn’t want to call attention to them in case the other guests hadn’t noticed their presence. I’d also learned that telling them not to do something only made them do it more. Best to let them skulk around unnoticed. They seemed to be able to pick out the guests who didn’t mind having cats in the dining room and were able to hide their presence from those who did, so there was no harm.

“You ask me, it could be that reporter. She discovered the body.” Esther glanced out the window as if expecting to see Anita skulking around.

“But why would a reporter want to kill Madame Zenda?” Victor asked.

Esther shrugged. “Maybe Madame Zenda wouldn’t give her an exclusive.”

“Oh, did Anita ask you for an exclusive too?” Gail asked Esther.

Esther’s eyes dropped to her plate and she got busy eating the rest of her breakfast. “Maybe.”

Gail turned to Victor. “What about you? You’ve been awfully quiet with all your meditation. Did you talk to the reporter too?”

“I’m not quiet, I just don’t associate much with beings on this earthly plane. I prefer to spend my time on spiritual endeavors. I’m perfectly happy to wait for Jedediah to contact me as I’m sure he intends to do,” Victor said, avoiding the question.

Gail took a sip of tea, then looked down in the mug. Was she looking for something in the tea leaves? “But he was already going to talk to Madame Zenda. Why talk to the rest of us too?”

“Pffft… I doubt Biddeford’s ghost was going to contact Madame Zenda, as she has no psychic talent. She was probably making that up for the benefit of the reporter. If such an article got picked up for syndication it could have helped her flagging career.” Victor fluffed his napkin onto his lap with an exaggerated flourish. “You ask me, we should all be wary. There’s a killer on the loose.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure that Madame Zenda didn’t have any psychic talent. She did predict a death… too bad it was her own,” Esther said, echoing Mom’s words from last night.

Just then, the phone in the foyer shrilled. Darn it! I wouldn’t be able to eavesdrop anymore.

I rushed to the foyer and plucked the wireless phone off its cradle. “Oyster Cove Guesthouse!” I chirped in my most pleasant tone. No need to sound somber as if a murder had just happened the day before, that wouldn’t encourage potential guests to reserve rooms.

“Hi, this is Dolores Johnson.”

I hesitated, the name was familiar.

The person on the other end continued, “I had a reservation for next week.”

“Of course! Good to hear from you Mrs. Johnson. How can I help you?”

“Well, I hate to say it, but I have to cancel.”

My spirits fell. “Cancel. But why?”

“Ummm… you see… we’ve decided to go somewhere else on vacation. I read on your website that you can cancel up to seventy-two hours in advance and get a refund, is that correct?”

“That’s correct. So you’re sure you want a refund? I can’t guarantee the room will still be available if you change your mind again.” The guesthouse wasn’t fully booked, but you never knew when new reservations would come so it wasn’t a total lie.

“Oh, I’m sure. Thank you.”

I hung up the phone and stood there. Taking a vacation somewhere else? It was more likely word of the murdering ghost had gotten out. Maybe Myron was actually more perceptive than he let on. If news was spreading and people were afraid to come here, then I had to put a stop to it, and I knew of only one way—catch the real killer and then the newspapers would move on to more interesting stories.

I heard footsteps on the stairs and turned around to see Flora coming down. She had the big pink feather duster in her hand and was running it over the banister as she descended. She glanced down at me, the magnification of her large glasses exaggerated at that angle. “Something wrong?”

I sighed. “I just got a cancellation. I’m afraid all this ghost and murder business might be scaring people off.”

“Darn, that’s too bad.” Flora swished the duster in the air and a shower of dust rained out of it. “I don’t like that one bit. Of course, fewer guests mean less work for me but more guests mean job security and that’s more important. Guess I was right in shooing that reporter off then.”

“You mean Anita Pendragon? The one who has been hanging around outside?”

Flora descended so that we were at eye level, which meant that she was standing about four steps up. “Yeah, I caught her around the kitchen door looking like she was trying to get in.”

“When was this?”

“Couple of nights ago. Though I shouldn’t be surprised with all the goings-on around here. Tarot readings. Crystal balls. You ask me, all these people here are a bunch of weirdos. You should get a better clientele.” She fluffed the air with her duster one more time, then shuffled off toward the front parlor muttering under her breath, “No wonder murders happen here so often.”

I stood in the hallway a few minutes longer, thinking about what Flora had just told me about Anita. Why would she be trying to get in the back door and did that have anything to do with Madame Zenda’s murder?

I didn’t have a lot of time to think about it because just then I saw Millie’s decades-old Dodge Dart drive in. Mom and Millie jumped out and hurried to the front door, stopping short when they saw me standing in the hallway.

“Oh good, you’re ready,” Millie said. “We’re going down to Felicity’s Fabrics. They have the largest selection of buckles in town.”

I was momentarily confused. “Buckles?”

“Yeah, you know, like they found on the body.” Mom lowered her voice. “If we figure out who bought the buckle, we figure out who the killer is.”

“Speaking of which,” Millie said. “Do you still have that book with the historical etchings and photos of the guesthouse in it? I think there might be one we can use to validate whether or not that buckle really is Jed’s.”

Millie had left lots of things in the guesthouse. Furniture, doilies, plates, glasses and books, including a history of Oyster Cove that featured historical photos, etchings and drawings of the guesthouse. It hadn’t always been a guesthouse; initially it had been built by Jedediah Biddeford as a family estate, then over the years it had been expanded and eventually turned into an inn. I remembered one of the earlier etchings featured Jed and his family sitting in front of the house all dressed up. Apparently, Millie wanted to scrutinize it and see if we could match the buckle.

“It’s in the kitchen.”

Mom and Millie followed me into the kitchen where I plucked the book out of the bookshelf and handed it to Millie. Nero and Marlowe must have had their fill of breakfast treats because they trotted in and begged Millie for attention, which she had no trouble providing. After petting the cats for several minutes, she flipped through the book, stopping on the page with the drawing of Jed’s family. Jed sat in a chair, a small child on his knee and older children beside him. A dour-looking woman in a voluminous black dress, who I assumed was his wife, stood behind him. Off to the side several servants were lined up.

Millie whipped out her cell phone and zoomed in on Jed’s shoe. “Look at this! The artist must have been very good, it looks so realistic. Almost like a photo. And look at his shoes! Does this look like the buckle we found on the body?”

I peered over her shoulder. My memory of the buckle on the body was fuzzy, but it looked similar. “Hard to tell, that drawing might not be exactly accurate. Looks like it could be, but I’m sure the buckle on Madame Zenda wasn’t an actual buckle from Jed.”

“Yeah but why would someone go to the trouble of getting a buckle that looked like that?” Mom asked.

Millie snapped a photo. “Probably because they just wanted it to look like it could be Jed’s. Maybe I can persuade Seth Chamberlain to tell me if the buckle is a replica or not.”

Mom and I remained silent. Millie had a way of “persuading” Seth to tell her things about the investigation that he wouldn’t normally tell a civilian. Neither one of us wanted to know exactly what she did to get that information.

“So far the only thing I’ve been able to get out of him is that the note wasn’t real blood and the murder weapon was wiped clean.” Millie shoved the cell phone into her large purse. “Come on, girls. All we need to do is show the picture of that buckle to Felicity and find out who bought a similar buckle and we can solve this case.”