A Twist In The Tail

Twelve

‘Anybody want the crusty garlic bread?’ Harry asked from his perch on the edge of the dumpster.

‘I do,’ Juliette said.

Nero watched as Harry used his tail for balance while reaching one orange striped paw into the dumpster to skewer the garlic bread, which he flipped to Juliette, who pounced on it.

A piece of newspaper drifted out and fluttered to the ground. Nero noticed it was the food section. ‘I hope there are no reviews in that paper from Charles Prescott.’

‘Like the one the police found in the victim’s room?’ Harry tossed out a cheeseburger and Poe claimed it as his own.

‘Yes and we also made another review discovery last night,’ Nero said.

‘Do tell?’ Boots wiped some marinara off his whiskers and sat on his haunches.

‘Well, I think we finally made a breakthrough with Josie,’ Nero said.

‘It took her a while to get our drift though.’ Marlowe looked up from the remains of the shrimp scampi she was chowing down.

‘Some humans can be a little slower than others,’ Juliette said. ‘Father Tim took a long time to get on the same wavelength, but I think he’s coming along fine. Don’t give up on Josie.’

Nero and Marlowe exchanged a glance. ‘Oh, we won’t. In fact, last night we were able to guide her toward something very interesting on the Internet.’

‘What?’ Boots asked.

‘It was actually Josie who instigated it, she’s not so bad after all. I think she has some smarts,’ Marlowe said. ‘She was looking for reviews for the Smugglers Bay Inn thinking that Stella Dumont might be mixed up in this.’

The cats all nodded. ‘Yeah, she could be a killer.’

‘No, she’s too stupid,’ Harry said.

‘Sometimes they only play stupid and they’re really crafty,’ Stubbs added.

‘Would you let them tell us what they discovered?’ Poe asked.

‘It was a review for this very restaurant,’ Marlowe licked scampi sauce off her nose.

‘The Marinara Mariner?’ Juliette asked.

Nero nodded. ‘Indeed, it seems Charles did not like a pie that he was served here.’

Juliette scrunched her nose up. ‘Was it the lemon meringue? It is very tart.’

‘Yes, I agree.’ Harry hopped down from the dumpster with a slab of eggplant.

‘Well that is very interesting.’ Boots’ whiskers twitched.

Harry swished his tail. ‘Tony had the saffron special the other night and saffron was smelled on the clogs outside the window.’

‘Are you sure it was saffron that you smelled?’ Poe asked Marlowe.

‘I don’t know, I never smelled saffron,’ Marlowe answered.

‘Me either,’ Nero added.

‘Hold on,’ Harry jumped up on the rim of the dumpster and leapt right in. The sides clanged as he rummaged around, jumping out with a small napkin in his mouth. He dropped it in front of Marlowe. ‘There’s a little bit on the napkin.’

Marlowe and Nero looked down to see an orange smudge. They sniffed. Nero’s eyes widened. It was the smell. ‘That’s it all right.’

‘Well there you have it,’ Stubbs said. ‘Tony got a bad review. Tony’s footprint was outside the window of the room where Charles was murdered. Sounds like a wrap to me.’

‘You think that dame I followed here has anything to do with it?’ Stubbs asked.

‘Tina?’ Juliette asked. ‘Probably just a coincidence. I mean, lots of people eat in the restaurant.’

‘Probably. And I admit that all of this with Tony sounds suspicious, but what about that old couple, the Weatherbys?’ Harry said. ‘I followed them around just like we suggested and you’ll never guess where they went.’

‘Where?’

‘Right up to the gulls’ nests. They were practically crawling in them.’

‘Why would they do that?’ Stubbs asked.

‘Birdwatchers. Some of them can be quite eccentric,’ Poe said. ‘But it makes me wonder. Charles was up on the cliff. The Weatherbys were up on the cliff. The gulls are up on that cliff. Could the gulls have something to do with Charles’s death and it’s not about a bad review? And if so, why was Tony’s footprint outside the murder room?’

When we got back to the guesthouse, the guests were either out or in their rooms, which was a good thing because Millie couldn’t stop blabbering about Tony and his cleaver.

‘He could’ve whacked any one of us right there in the kitchen!’ Her words echoed through the foyer as she dug out her phone.

‘I hardly think he would’ve done that in front of all the witnesses,’ Mom said.

‘Either way, I’m getting Seth to come right over and we can tell him about our interrogation.’ Millie dialed and put the phone to her ear.

‘I’d hardly call it an interrogation,’ I said. I was nervous about what Seth might say. Would he be mad that we went there? Would he feel threaten that we’d tried to do his job? But it was a little suspicious that Tony wore clogs and walked on the sides of his feet. It would seem to indicate that the print matched, but how reliable was a print in bark mulch? I could already picture Seth pointing out that any number of weather conditions could’ve altered the print. If the bark was too moist maybe his feet sank at a different angle. It was hardly conclusive. Then again, we had the bad review to back us up.

‘I need you to come over right away. I know who the killer is!’ Millie yelled into the phone. Unfortunately, she did this just at the Weatherbys were coming in.

Iona gasped. ‘Did she just say she knows who the killer is?’

Ron fumbled his camera, practically falling down the last three steps. ‘How would you know and not the police?’

‘We’re really not sure.’ I tried to usher them toward the stairs before Millie started talking about cleavers and chopping people up. ‘We think we might have some clues based on something we found here at the guesthouse.’

Iona’s hands flew to her face and she and Ron exchanged a glance. ‘Oh dear, it’s not someone staying here is it?’

‘No, it’s someone else,’ I assured them. Clearly they were very nervous about having a killer in their midst. I felt a little guilty about suspecting them earlier.

Their relief was obvious. Iona took Ron’s arm and propelled him toward the stairs. ‘Well that is a relief. Let’s go change and have a nice afternoon of birdwatching. The sun is out and the birds are twittering and if you’re catching a killer, all the better!’

It took Seth Chamberlain only ten minutes to arrive on the scene.

He looked at Millie skeptically and she explained everything that had happened in Tony’s restaurant.

‘And just how did you come about going to the Marinara Mariner?’ he asked. His arms were crossed over his chest and he wore a disapproving scowl on his face, even though his eyes turned soft as marshmallows whenever he looked at Millie.

‘Because of the review, of course.’ Millie glanced at me.

‘I found a review that Charles had written on the lemon meringue pie at the Mariner last year and it wasn’t very good,’ I explained.

The furrow between Seth’s brows deepened. ‘Last year? Why would Tony kill him now?’

‘Maybe he just found out that Charles was in town?’ Mom suggested.

‘Seems highly unlikely. Why would he carry a grudge all this time? Not to mention that he’d have to come all the way over to the Oyster Cove Guesthouse, sneak inside and then kill Charles.’ Seth shook his head, his eyes cutting over to me. ‘Nope, it seems more likely that the person he was writing that review about found it in his room. They probably ripped it up before they killed him. And it seems more feasible that someone here would be the killer.’

That made me a little mad. Up until now I was cutting Seth some slack. I mean, he was a friend of Mom and Millie’s and he seemed like a nice old guy, but now he was getting me a little angry with his not so subtle looks in my direction. ‘We don’t even know if he was writing a review. All you found is a scrap of paper with some words on it. And by the way, don’t you know me well enough to know I’m not a killer?’

Seth’s face reddened and he looked down at the ground. ‘Well Josie, I knew you when you were a kid. But you been away all these years.’

‘I’m still the same person.’

‘She has a point about the review. Let’s see what it said again.’ Millie said.

‘It’s pretty obvious, look.’ Seth pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and scrolled to a picture of the paper he’d had in that bag.

He held it up and we all craned our necks and squinted to read it. It was just the very edge of a handwritten note with just the endings of a few words.

.... ull

.... ick

.... son

‘Those endings could go with lots of words,’ Millie said. ‘I want a copy of that. Can you text it to me?’

‘Me too,’ I said.

Seth looked uncertain.

‘There’s an apple pie in it for you if you text it to me.’ Millie turned to me. ‘I’ll text it to you after.’

Seth sighed. ‘I suppose it won’t do any harm.’

‘Good,’ Millie said. ‘Now, until we figure out what that note really says, we have a lot of clues that point to Tony Murano. How many clues do you have that point to Josie?’

Seth opened his mouth but I cut in. ‘Never mind, don’t answer that. This is what we have on Tony. His shoe print was under the window, Tony has a bad temper and Charles wrote a bad review about his lemon meringue pie.’

Mom nodded. ‘Why would Tony’s print be outside the window if he wasn’t climbing out and why would he be climbing out if he didn’t kill Charles?’

‘Maybe the print wasn’t from Tony,’ Seth said. ‘I don’t think you can tell for sure that print was from his shoe. And besides, it’s risky to go out of the window. And how did he get in and mess with the stairs without anyone noticing? It makes more sense that it was an inside job.’

‘No one inside the guesthouse has a motive…. Well, except maybe Tina.’ Mom turned to me. ‘Didn’t Ava say she saw Tina sneaking out of Charles’s room?’

I glanced at Seth. He didn’t look surprised. Could he have known about Tina and Charles’ affair already? Maybe I wasn’t giving him enough credit. ‘She did. And Stella Dumont saw her down at the sleazy motel.’

‘Maybe Tina and Tony were in on it together,’ Mom said.

Millie bit her bottom lip. ‘You know now that you mention it, didn’t we notice that Tina works for the culinary section of the paper? Is it possible she and Tony know each other?’

Mom slapped her forehead. ‘Of course! That’s it. This wasn’t about a bad review at all Seth was right about that. It was about a love triangle.’

‘Love triangle?’ Seth looked more confused than ever.

‘Yes!’ Mom said. ‘What if Tina was having an affair with both Charles and Tony? Tony found out, and came here and murdered Charles out of jealousy!’

‘That would explain why Tina was checking into that other motel. Maybe Stella really did see her. She didn’t want Charles to know she was having an affair with Tony,’ I said.

‘That makes perfect sense,’ Millie said. ‘And Tony would have to go to a hotel because his wife seems very jealous. Did you see the way she acted in the kitchen?’

I nodded vigorously. ‘And she also seemed suspicious of him. Like she suspected he was having an affair.’

‘That’s it then.’ Millie turned to Seth. ‘Are you going to make an arrest?’

‘That’s not really solid evidence,’ he said. ‘We like to have a few clues other than people’s say-so. Especially with your say-so is tainted.’

‘Tainted? How?’ Millie was indignant.

‘You guys are trying to get Josie off the suspect list,’ Seth said.

‘We are not!’ Mom said. ‘Well I mean, we are, but that’s cause Josie isn’t guilty.’

‘Seth Chamberlain you know these clues are good clues. This is a good working theory. Are you going to check it out or do you want me to never cook you a batch of snickerdoodles again?’ Millie asked.

Seth lips quirked in a smile and his eyes twinkled. ‘Fine. I’ll check them out. I suppose I could find out where they were the night of Charles’s death and see how well this Tina person knew him. But don’t expect anything to come of it.’