A Whisker in the Dark: A purrfectly unputdownable cozy mystery (The Oyster Cove Guesthouse Book 2)

Thirteen

“Just how do you propose we interrogate the family?” my mother asked Millie, who was pawing through the recipes looking for the perfect one for the town celebration. Unfortunately, I hadn’t had the presence of mind to hide the remains of my burned peanut-butter-banana loaf, and Millie had seen it in the trash.

Millie had her lips pressed together and was squinting at the cards as she flipped through them. She stopped and then pulled one out. “Yes, this is the one, the apple-pecan bread.” She looked at me and nodded, her eyes sparkling. “That’s the one, Josie. It’s a showstopper. Now let me see if we have the ingredients.”

She bustled over to the cabinets, pulling out the flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, a bag of pecans and a bottle of vanilla vodka. She had pulled some apples and a pitcher of orange juice out of the fridge, then turned to me. “Do you have any champagne?”

“Champagne and vodka?” my mother asked. “Do you put those in the apple-pecan bread?”

“No. Those are for Paula. I think she’s making up that story about seeing Flora, and what better way to trip her up than to get her drunk?” Millie said. “And we all know she likes her drinks. I was thinking maybe we could cut her from the herd, serve her a complimentary vanilla mimosa and get her to confess.”

It sounded like a good plan to me, and, luckily, I did have some champagne on hand in the butler’s pantry. I knew one little drink wasn’t going to loosen Paula’s tongue much, so I proceeded to make a pitcher of mimosas. I might’ve taken a little sip or two for myself. I needed to steady my nerves. After all, it was a bit disconcerting that another body had shown up on the property.

Seth Chamberlain was taking people’s statements in the reading room. He had the pocket doors shut, and, try as we might, we couldn’t hear much through them.

“They sure don’t make things like they used to. These doors are solid,” Mom said as we pressed our ears to the door.

“Yeah, too bad,” Millie added. “Oh well, let’s find Paula, that will be much more enlightening than eavesdropping on Seth’s investigation.”

We found Paula sitting alone in the back parlor. The back parlor was a cozy room with overstuffed chairs and pillows in blue-and-yellow accents. Mike had painted the walls pale yellow and I’d had the pine floors refinished so they glowed like warm honey. The room wasn’t used much because it didn’t exactly have a nice view right now as it overlooked the gardens, which were an overgrown mess of tangles. Eventually, I would spruce them up, but now it was mostly weeds and dead flowers. Paula didn’t seem to mind, though. She was sitting in the chair, her blank gaze fixed at something outside the window.

Perhaps her somber mood was due to guilt over killing her brother and she’d break down and confess right away. That would be convenient for me, avoiding a long, drawn-out investigation with the police traipsing through my guesthouse.

“That dreadful sheriff has already taken my statement. It was so stressful.” Paula lifted a shaky cup of tea to her lips.

“I know, dear,” Millie clucked and sat down beside her. I set the silver tray with the pitcher and a champagne flute on the table beside Millie, and she poured a mimosa and held it out to Paula. “We’ve prepared a little something for you to settle your nerves.”

Paula’s eyes lit up. She grabbed the glass, settled back into the chair and chugged the whole thing down.

“Would you like another?” Millie asked.

Paula nodded and Millie topped the glass off.

“It must’ve been dreadful for you, dear, seeing your brother like that,” Millie said.

Paula nodded, the glass still to her lips.

“Funny that you were right at the beginning of that trail last night, though. I don’t think a lot of people were down there digging for treasure, so what made you think that would be a good place to dig?” I asked.

“I didn’t. I went there because it was out of the way. I didn’t want to be disturbed, that’s why I chose that particular bench,” Paula said.

“But it seems odd that you would’ve seen Flora down there. I mean, like we said, it was out of the way and I don’t even think she was digging for treasure. Are you sure it was her?” Millie asked. “I mean, she is kind of old to be traipsing around out there at night.”

Paula put the glass down and wrung her hands together. “I know. That’s what the sheriff said. I got the impression he thinks I made that up, but I swear I didn’t kill Bob, and I’m sure it was the maid I saw.”

“But you did have a fight with Bob earlier, didn’t you?” I asked.

Paula’s eyes narrowed. “What makes you say that?”

“Oh, somebody else mentioned it. I think it was something about your cheese sculptures not being up to par.”

Paula sniffed. “Sure, we fought about that, but that was nothing new. Bob was always fighting with us about one thing or another, and that’s no reason to kill him. I really was on that bench asleep, honest.”

“So Flora woke you up when she came by then? Was she carrying a shovel?” I’d looked at the back of Bob’s head and was pretty sure that he’d been hit with a shovel, but I hadn’t seen any blood on the shovel at the crime scene. I glanced out the window in time to see Johnnie collecting the shovels from the shed. Looked like I was right then.

Paula closed her eyes as if trying to remember. “You know, I’m not sure if she had a shovel, but I saw her clear as day coming down that path. She didn’t notice me because I was on the ground out of the line of sight.”

I jumped on the inconsistency in Paula’s description. “Well, if you were lying on the ground asleep like you said you were, then how could you see Flora coming down the path? You must’ve been awake to see her.”

She squinted again and sipped her mimosa. “Right. Something else woke me up because I did see Flora, but after I was jolted awake by something.”

“Something or someone?” Millie asked.

Paula took a deep breath. “I guess it was someone. Someone stepped on my hand. I didn’t see who it was, though. I was fast asleep on the ground, my face pressed to the grass, and then all of a sudden, there was this big shooting pain in my hand.” She made a face and winced, grabbing her hand. “I woke up right away, but the person had already gone by. All I remember seeing is a black Ferragamo tag on the back of their shoes, then when I turned back to try to pull myself up, I saw the maid coming down the path.”

“Ferragamo shoes?” Millie raised her brows. “Those are very expensive shoes. Not everyone wears those.”

“Yeah, and what kind of a moron would wear them digging in the dirt?” my mother asked.

Paula’s eyes widened as if she had made a sudden realization. “I know one moron who would. My brother, Earl.”

I went to the kitchen to wash out the empty mimosa pitcher while Mom and Millie ran off to find Seth so they could tell him about the Ferragamo shoes.

If Paula was telling the truth and she really was asleep at the time, I was sure she hadn’t been simply napping. She’d been passed out drunk, which made her an incredibly unreliable witness. I still wasn’t convinced that she wasn’t making the whole thing up so she could frame someone because she was the real killer. Maybe she figured she could throw the investigation off track by implicating both Flora and Earl.

On my way back to the parlor I passed the front sitting room and saw poor Doris in there looking as if she’d lost her best friend. My heart squeezed. The woman’s son had just been murdered and it was possible that one of her other kids did it.

I slipped into the sitting room. “Can I bring you something? Maybe some tea? I have some fresh snickerdoodle cookies.”

So what if I didn’t mention that Millie had baked them at her house? Did it really matter where they’d come from? If Doris thought I had nicely baked cookies for her and gave me a good review on Yelp because of it, Millie wouldn’t mind my little lapse.

Doris turned red-rimmed eyes to me, then glanced in the direction of the kitchen, her nose twitching. “Are they burning?”

I straightened my back. See what happened when you were nice? People mocked you.

“No.” I wasn’t baking anything so of course nothing was burning.

She sighed and slumped in the chair. “It’s just so awful, that Sheriff interrogating us. It’s preposterous to think one of us would have murdered Bob.”

“Do you know anyone who would have wanted to murder him?” I wasn’t pumping the grieving mother for information, just trying to take her mind off things. But if she happened to have some information about who might have wanted Bob dead, all the better.

Doris pressed her lips together. “Hopefully not his own brother or sisters, though there has been a lot of fighting and animosity lately. You see, Bob could be a bit of a troublemaker. Never quite got along with the rest of the family.”

I raised my brows. Maybe Bob had done something to his brother or sisters and they had a long festering animosity toward him. “Really? What kind of trouble?”

Doris shrugged. “You know, the usual things. Not pulling his weight. Wanting to surf and ski instead of working. Marrying that awful woman.”

I frowned. Bob hadn’t brought a wife to the guesthouse. “He was married?”

“Yep. They were getting a divorce. Good riddance to her, I say.”

“Is it an amicable divorce?” My hopes rose. Maybe the person who had killed Bob was his soon-to-be ex-wife.

Doris wiggled her hand back and forth in a seesaw motion. “So-so. I guess it’s fairly friendly, as divorces go.”

I inched forward to the edge of my chair. “You don’t think the ex-wife could have killed him, do you?”

“I wish. It would take the heat off my other children. I can tell that the sheriff suspects them.” Doris looked thoughtful, as if she was coming to terms with the possibility that one of her children had killed Bob. “But she’s out of the country. I told the sheriff all about her. He’s going to double-check, but, honestly, I wouldn’t think she’d have it in her.”

“What about somebody else from his past? If he was a troublemaker, maybe he rubbed someone the wrong way.”

“Bob rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, but I have no idea who he would have angered so much that they’d come here to kill him. I don’t think he knows anyone from Oyster Cove and most of the people he associates with are losers who wouldn’t travel so far to do him in.” Doris shook her head. “It’s just such bad timing with the family tensions being high because the business is doing so badly.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, not knowing what else to say.

“I suppose I’ll have to arrange a funeral. If only the cheese-sculpting business was doing better we could do something more lavish, but I guess now it will have to be something simple,” Doris said.

I patted her hand for comfort. “Simple is better, sometimes.”

Doris nodded. “They’re not bad children, you know. Even though they each have their little quirks. I blame my husband for making them so lazy and selfish. He wanted them to have it easier than we did and didn’t want them to work as hard. Barney and I started the business from scratch, you know.”

“You don’t say. What made you start a cheese-sculpting business?” I asked.

Doris smiled at the memory. “Barney used to make little sculptures out of cheese for parties and all our friends loved them. It was just a silly hobby, but then people started asking if they could order specific sculptures. Next thing we knew, we were shipping out of state and running a full-blown business.” Doris swiped at the tears drying on her cheeks. “When the kids were grown, we brought them in, and when Barney died they took over. Sometimes when you get something for nothing, you don’t appreciate it. You don’t work as hard. I’ve used up all my retirement income supplementing the business.”

I nodded. I knew how that was. I’d worked my whole marriage to make things good for my husband and he hadn’t appreciated it one bit. I’d put my whole life savings into the guesthouse and my future depended on its success. I sure as heck was going to work my butt off and not let it fall to ruin like Doris’s cheese-sculpting business. All the more reason to clear up this murder fast. I’d do just about anything to make sure my business was a success.

Hey, wait a minute… hadn’t Doris mentioned spending her retirement income earlier in reference to the treasure? She’d looked pretty serious too. But surely she wouldn’t bash her own son over the head in order to grab the treasure from him?

“Of course, some of them don’t have a lick of sense and that might be part of it. Take Carla, for example.” Doris shook her head and looked out the window. “Now before we started digging, we discussed where the old homestead was located in Jedediah’s day. Even though he started off with a pretty big house, it’s been added to quite a bit over the years. Carla knew the gazebo didn’t exist on the grounds back then, it was added after Millie’s people bought it.”

I nodded. Apparently talking had comforted her. She was more animated and not as sad now. “I’m going to have that restored, the gazebo.”

“Good idea, but Carla should have been smarter. See, that’s why the business is failing.” Doris tapped her head with her forefinger. “They don’t use their smarts.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because last night when we were digging, I saw Carla coming from the gazebo. Now we know Jedediah wouldn’t bury treasure there because there was nothing there in his day. No trees, no landmarks, nothing, and everyone knows, when you bury treasure, you need a landmark so you can locate it later.”

I thought about that. Why would Carla be digging in a place unlikely to have treasure? Did she know something the others didn’t? The gazebo wasn’t near the pond, but could she have killed Bob at the pond, then taken a long route to get away? Maybe she’d gotten lost in the overgrown bushes and grasses and found her way out at the gazebo.

A ruckus in the hallway interrupted my thoughts.

“That’s preposterous. Who would wear fine Italian leather shoes to go digging in the yard?” It was Earl. Millie had obviously talked to Seth, who was questioning him about the shoes.

“Who knows what people wear to dig? Now answer the question. Do you have Ferragamo shoes?” Seth said.

“Yes, but I was wearing Nikes,” Earl said, “and I can prove it.”

Doris and I went into the hallway in time to see Earl stomping up the stairs. We heard him rip open his door, then slam it shut loudly.

We all stood around looking at each other.

“What’s this about?” Doris asked.

“Your daughter Paula seems to think she saw fancy Ferragamo shoes when she was passed out on the bench before Flora ran past,” Millie said.

Doris scrunched up her face. “Are you people colluding? Trying to get my daughter to say something that she didn’t really see? I mean, you know she’s not that reliable.” Doris made nip-tipping gestures with her thumb and forefinger against her lips.

“I’m just being thorough,” Seth assured her. He narrowed his eyes at Millie. “We won’t be playing favorites here.”

After what seemed like ages, Earl came running down the stairs with a pair of white Nikes in his hand. He threw them down on the round table in the foyer so hard that the Tiffany bird lamp with the delicate stained-glass shade wobbled precariously. I cringed as I pictured the dirt in between the treads caking off onto Millie’s grandmother’s hand-tatted white doily.

“See?” Earl pointed at the mud caked on the side of his shoes. “Those are the shoes I was wearing last night, so if my sister claims she saw someone with Ferragamo shoes walking past her, then it wasn’t me.”