Maid of Murder

Chapter Thirty-Six

I thought about going home and changing first, but I knew myself well enough and what a great big coward I was. If I didn’t go directly after work, I would never go at all. Instead of turning the prehistoric automobile toward my duplex, I drove in the opposite direction toward the town square.

The Cookery Inn came into view as I turned off the square onto Blossom Avenue, which snaked behind my mother’s church. The Cookery was an old Tudor-style mansion that had been revitalized into an inn in the late nineties under the threat of demolition. I remembered the event well, as my parents had chained themselves to the front door in order to block the city’s wrecking ball. By some miracle, they had found an investor who had the imagination and the means to transform the languishing building into the town pearl it is today.

The estate itself had once been very large, but was sold piecemeal to those businesses that couldn’t afford property directly on the square, leaving the inn on a postage stamp–sized property. All that was left of the grand estate was a large circular driveway and a garden in the back.

I parked in the circular drive behind a red compact car. A half dozen or so honeybees buzzed amidst the pink cosmos that flanked the door. The bees made me sad, because I knew how much they would have charmed Olivia.

I pushed open the heavy wooden door, which led directly into the reception hall. Dark wood chair rail ran the length of the room. Below the chair rail, the wainscoting was polished to a high sheen, and above the rail a floral wallpaper seemed to burst from the walls. The blossoms were so real they looked as if I could pluck them. On the right side of the room, a woman sat behind a desk reading a magazine. She looked up with a smile. When I approached her, her smile widened into a grin as we both recognized each other.

“Well, India Hayes, what are you doing here?” Maggie Riffle asked in her unmistakable raspy voice. During high school the sound of her approaching voice had made underclassmen throw themselves into their lockers just to avoid her. Shaped liked the little, squared-off robot that my brother played with as a child, Maggie had been my prime tormentor from kindergarten through the twelfth grade. Although I wasn’t her only victim, her favorite prey had always been artsy nerds, such as myself.

I swallowed hard and greeted her. “Wow, Maggie Riffle. How are you?”

“Not Riffle anymore. I got married. Last name’s Blankenship now.” She held out her hand to display an enormous diamond.

“That’s wonderful,” I said with as much enthusiasm as I could muster. The stone was at least an inch across and two inches high. It was a wonder she didn’t stab herself with it on a regular basis. “I thought you moved away after high school.”

“I did,” she said. “I lived out west for a few years. My husband and I moved back to buy this place. I had always loved it and when it came on the market, I just had to have it.”

“That’s great,” I said, surprised. Maggie had never struck me as a historic building buff, but, then again, we did not share our opinions about architecture when she was tripping me in the cafeteria lunch line. “Where’d you live out west?”

“Dayton.”

I mentally rolled my eyes. A three-hour drive west of Stripling to Dayton, Ohio, wasn’t exactly the Rocky Mountains.

“Coo-coo.” A pause. “Coo-coo.”

“What was that?” I asked, looking around.

“It’s those damn doves.”

Quickly, I stepped away from her, hoping to avoid any bolts of lightning that came shooting from the sky to strike Maggie dead. I was pretty sure it was a cardinal sin to use a curse word when referring to a dove. Instead of the bolt of lightning as expected, I locked eyes with a large white dove that was perched at the top of the crystal chandelier hanging from the hall’s ornately carved ceiling. The dove was as large as a hen. More coos echoed through the room, and I followed the sound around the high ceiling with my eyes. Two more doves roosted together in an unlit candle sconce near the French doors that led into the Cookery’s impressive English-style garden. A fourth dove watched me from the black walnut railing that led up to the second floor.

“Why . . .” I trailed off.

“You mean who. I have Regina Blocken to thank for those buzzards. They were supposed to take part in Olivia’s reception in our ballroom Saturday. That’s not going to happen now. I suppose you know why.” Maggie’s eyes narrowed and even though I hadn’t seen her in several years, I recognized her killer instinct look. I imagine that it was the same expression that a hungry cheetah wore when spotting his four-legged dinner. “I suspect you know all about that. I read about your brother in the paper. I’m surprised the little weakling had it in him. He was such a wimp in high school.”

I gave her a wan smile. “Well, Maggie, that’s why I’m here. I’m looking for her fiancé, Kirk Row. I was told he was staying here.”

“He is, but he won’t be much longer if he doesn’t make good on his bill. He better not pull a fast one like the Blockens are trying pull.”

“A fast one?” I asked, confused.

“The caterer, the cake decorator, the dove trainer, or whatever that guy is, and us are all getting stiffed. The Blockens claim since the wedding was canceled, they shouldn’t have to pay their bills. Luckily, I have non-refundable deposit to fall back on for the reception hall. I guess the dove guy wasn’t so lucky. Not that I won’t be taking a major loss. I had three other people who wanted to rent the ballroom for this week, and I had to turn them all down because of the Blocken wedding. I called them earlier today to see if any of them were still interested, but they’d made other arrangements months ago.”

“Wow, that’s too bad,” I said, barely containing my anger at her callousness. Had I not needed her to tell me where I could find Kirk, I would have hit her; I’ve wanted to hit her for years.

“You’re telling me.” She leaned on the reception desk, resting her arms on the guest book.

The doves cooed in tandem from above.

“If there won’t be a reception, why are the doves still here?”

Maggie grimaced and shot a nasty look at the bird clinging to the chandelier. If I were a dove, I would be up in a chandelier out of Maggie’s reach, too. She looked like she wanted to serve the bird up for dinner. “The trainer said he was leaving the doves here until he was paid. I told him it would be a cold night in hell before he gets his money out of Regina Blocken. If he doesn’t pick them up by the end of the day today, I’m calling animal control. If he wanted to make a statement to the Blockens about the birds, he should have left them on the Blockens’ doorstep, not on mine.”

I felt bad for the doves, but knew that I couldn’t add four large doves to the mix of warring felines back at my apartment. “I’m sure he’ll come. They must be very valuable to him.”

The doves cooed agreement.

“Why are you looking for Kirk, anyway?” Her dark brown eyes were trained on me.

“I wanted to see how he was doing. I’m worried about him.” This was technically true. I was worried about Kirk—worried about what he would do to Mark if he ever got his hands on him.

She shrugged. “I’m not supposed to do this, but since I’m going to kick him to the curb if he doesn’t pay up, why not?”

“Gee, thanks,” I said.

Either Maggie missed the sarcasm or didn’t care, because she said, “He’s in room twelve on the second floor.” She pointed to the staircase. “Just take that staircase up there.”

“Is he here?”

Maggie shrugged again. “I haven’t seen him, but I can call up to his room to check and let him know that you are here.”

“No,” I said quickly. “Don’t bother. I’ll just run up there and see for myself.”

Maggie’s eyes narrowed. “He has a temper on him, so don’t get him riled up. I don’t want any damage done to my Cookery. If there is any trouble, I will have to finish that swirly that we started in high school, understand?” The seriousness of her threat was carried all the way to her eyes.

I swallowed and headed up the stairs without a word. The doves watched me warily. Upstairs, a corridor lined with wallpaper patterned after peacock feathers led to my right. An oriental floor runner lined the passageway. The corridor was dark. The overhead light was off, and I had only the natural light from the large rosette window that loomed over the staircase to guide me. At the end of the hallway, I was grateful to see another small window. I hadn’t noticed it so much on the first floor, but the Cookery Inn had that particular smell that is common to many older buildings, a mixture of must, old wood, and something else I could never quite identify. Brass plate numbers marked each door. Number twelve was the very last room.

No light escaped through from under the door. I knocked lightly. There was no answer. Of course, I had knocked so gently that it wouldn’t have disturbed one of my mother’s church mice. I stood up straighter and gave the door a brisk rat-a-tat-tat. Still, no answer.

The door to number ten opened instead, and a slim figure stepped out. In the dimness, I couldn’t make out a face.

“India?” Bree asked. “What are you doing here?”

“I . . .” She’d caught me off guard, but even though it felt strangely like I was doing something wrong, I saw no reason to lie. “I want to talk to Kirk.”

She stepped closer. “He’s not here.”

“Do you know where he went?”

She shook her head. “I was just about to go across the street to the café to grab some dinner, why don’t you join me? We haven’t had much opportunity to get to know each other.”

I hesitated. I was still wary of her. If I was completely honest with myself, it was because she was the thinner, prettier best friend who had replaced me when Olivia and I went our separate ways after high school. Now, I feared that she would be taking Bobby, who was decidedly smitten with her, away from me too. But I wasn’t in high school anymore and should stop acting like I was. “I’d like that,” I said.

Bree and I walked downstairs to the coo of the dove. Maggie looked up from her computer screen. “You find him?”

“He wasn’t in his room,” I said.

“Do you want to leave a note for him?”

“No, no, that’s all right. I’m sure I will catch up with him sooner or later.” The last thing I wanted Kirk to know was that I was looking for him.

Maggie turned her beady stare on Bree. “I’ll need payment for your room tonight, Miss Butler.”

Bree’s beautiful face crumbled. “But the Blockens were going to pay for my room.”

Maggie’s face was hard. “Not anymore, they aren’t. You and Mr. Row will be paying. I have your bill right here.” Maggie slid a printout across the desk to Bree, who instantly paled when she saw the number. “But I don’t have that kind of money. That’s more than one of my paychecks.”

“If you can’t pay, I suggest that you start packing.”

Bree looked as if she was about to cry.

I patted her arm. “Come on, Bree, let’s go eat and sort it out.”

Bree folded the piece of paper and placed it in the large leather handbag looped over her arm. She followed me out the front door

Before the door completely shut behind us, Maggie called out. “And I don’t take out-of-state checks.”