by Darci Hannah
“Good call. Silvia was so hyper-critical of his delicious food it’s a wonder the man didn’t strangle her in the middle of the dining room.”
“Peter McClellan,” I added next, sinking my hands in the moist dough and giving it a good kneed.
“Hot Jesus, her hippie assistant. Can’t leave that wack job off the list.” Tay grinned and scribbled his name on the suspect board.
“And Erik Larson,” I said, less than enthusiastically. “I believe he was the last person to have seen Silvia alive after delivering a tray of scones to her room.”
Tay grimaced as I said this, but wrote his name down as well. She turned to me, noting that my hands were covered in sticky, lumpy dough. “Do you really think he could have done something like this?”
As I shaped the dough on the floured surface, patting it in to a nice inch-thick disk, I shook my head. “I dearly hope not. But we’re going to need to talk with him. Also, and I hate to even mention this, but I have another name that I think we need to consider.”
“Who?” Tay remarked, looking quizzical.
“Hannah. You’ll recall that after her goat yoga debacle on the lawn Silvia had her banned from the inn … and I allowed it.” I gave a guilty shake of my head. “To keep the peace, mind you. But you know as well as I do that Hannah was mortally embarrassed, especially so because she’s romantically involved with Peter. It all got out of hand, and Silvia would have been perfectly justified asking to have all goats banned from the lawn while she was painting. But she wasn’t satisfied with that. She wanted her pound of flesh from Hannah and was going to take it come hell or high water. It was a personal attack on our friend, and I’m inclined to believe it was more the fact that Hannah had grabbed Peter’s attention than her questionable yoga class. I was with Jack one morning in the bakery when he had warned Hannah not to get involved with Peter. He told her that Silvia was very possessive of her things, Peter included. Hannah, of course, just laughed.”
“I would have too,” Tay admitted, thinking on what I had just told her. “So, you think Silvia was in some private war with Hannah?”
The dough, now cut into six perfect pie-shaped wedges and brushed with a nice egg wash, went into the hot oven. I shut the oven door and answered. “I think Silvia was in a private war with nearly everyone that displeased her. In Hannah’s case I believe Silvia’s goal was to deny her access to Peter. Think about it? She banishes Hannah from the inn and runs poor Peter ragged with her petty requests. But our Hannah’s not one to sit back and take that kind of thing lightly.”
A fearful look crossed Tay’s face. “But … would she really kill the old witch?”
“I hope not, but …?” I shrugged. Tay gave a nod and added the name Hannah Winthrop. I had just dumped the dirty bowls into the sink when I saw the other name she’d added—a name placed at the top of the list.
“What?” I cried, drying my hands and slapping the dishtowel on the rim of the sink. “You can’t do that!” I protested. “You can’t add my name to the list. I’m investigating this murder!”
“Right. But if you were the murderer, that would be the perfect cover, wouldn’t it?”
“But I’ve already told you that I didn’t murder her! That’s why we’re doing this!”
“Easy, Whit. I believe you. But to the rest of the world you’re still a prime suspect. As Jack pointed out, you have motive, opportunity, and access to the murder weapon.” Here she pointed to the oven where the scones were baking nicely. “Plus there’s only your word that you were asleep during the critical time. That’s why we have to add you to the list. We need to write your statement down, then prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that you didn’t murder Silvia Lumiere.”
“You do have a point,” I grudgingly admitted. I crossed the kitchen, opened one of the drawers and pulled out a notebook full of hand-scribbled recipes. I flipped to a clean sheet, grabbed up a pen and handed both to Tay. “Here. It’s best that you take this down—for the record.” Then, while the scones baked and filled the kitchen with their heavenly cherry smell, I proceeded to walk Tay through every detail I could remember, from the last time I had seen Silvia alive talking with Fred Beauchamp to the moment Grandma Jenn took me to the lifeless body at the foot of the steps.
“Damn, those smell good,” she remarked. Then, studying her notes, she added, “Question. Would Jenn have any reason to want Silvia dead?”
“Not that I know of. Silvia and Gran were on friendly terms. The only plausible reason Gran might have to want her dead would be because of how Silvia treated me. But she’d hardly frame me for the murder by choking her with one of my scones. Remember the part when I told you that Gran thought I was responsible?”
“Right. But what if it was a little spat in the heat of the moment and there was nothing at hand but a couple of your scones?”
I shook my head. “First, Gran’s too thoughtful and centered to ever lose her head like that. And secondly, if she was going to murder someone, I think she’d use poison.”
“Yeah,” Tay nodded. “Totally. You’re gran’s the clever sort, and devious. She’d definitely use poison.”
We both knew it was a ridiculous line of conversation. Grandma Jenn was not a killer, but somehow the practice of thinking it through was cathartic. It helped soften the blow for the next name on our list.
“Okay. Let’s talk about Hannah,” Tay said, and drew a line under the name. “Do we know where she was when the murder took place?”
“Not yet. All I know is that Hannah and Peter arrived at the police station just as Jack was finishing up with me.” I cast her a wan smile. “They were both dressed for the Renaissance fair. They looked great. I hadn’t told them we weren’t going.”
“Whitney,” Tay chided, giving a disparaging shake of her chic red hair.
“But here’s the part I can’t get out of my head. When I told them that we couldn’t go because Silvia had been murdered, Peter barely reacted to the news. Hannah, however, looked scared. Really scared, and that’s not like her. Hey. What are you doing?”
Tay looked up from her phone. “Calling her. She’s our friend, Whit. Let’s give her the benefit of the doubt. Okay?”
Fifteen minutes later, while eating warm scones topped with sour cherry icing and mulling over the names on our suspect board, we heard a knock at the kitchen door. It was Hannah. She’d changed out of her medieval outfit and was now wearing shorts and a sleeveless top. She was also carrying a bottle of wine.
“It’s five o’clock somewhere,” she proclaimed, raising the bottle. “Dang it, girl! Those scones smell yummy.” As I plated one for Hannah, she continued. “Okay. I know what’s going on here. There’s been another murder, which means that Cherry Cove’s top crime solvers are on it. Ladies let the brainstorming begin. Swingin’ dingles!” she cried, noting the suspect board for the first time. “Would someone mind telling me why my name is on there … and Peter’s?”
Hannah looked pissed. It was becoming an all-too-familiar look for her when visiting the Cherry Orchard Inn, and rightly so. “Relax,” I soothed. “Mine’s up there too. At the top, no less. The only one of us who didn’t make the list is Tay. That’s why she’ll be asking the questions.”
Although it wasn’t quite yet noon, we unanimously agreed to open the bottle of wine and grease the skids, so to speak, before the uncomfortable questioning began. Tay, sitting on a stool before the suspect board, downed the remains of her wine. “All right, let’s get this over with. Hannah, where were you between midnight last night and five this morning?”
Hannah had already been questioned by Jack; apparently her interview went a little better than mine had. At least she could vouch for the fact she had spent the entire night with Peter, providing them both with an alibi.
“Okay, so you two were together the whole night. Was this at your place or the inn?”
“Well, since I was banned
from the inn,” she said, flashing me a pointed look, “I guess it would have to have been at my place, wouldn’t it?”
I studied her closely, noticing the crossing and uncrossing of her legs as if she were uncomfortable, and then came the nervous laughter. Hannah laughed easily, but this was a totally different kind of laughter. My friend was lying.
“You weren’t at home,” I said accusingly.
“Of course we were. That’s exactly where we were when you called us.”
“But that was this morning. You were at the inn last night, weren’t you?”
“I never stepped a foot inside the inn, not since you banned me.” She crossed her arms and glared at me.
There was something Hannah wasn’t telling us. Unlike Tay, I had seen her face the moment she learned of Silvia’s death. Hannah had been terribly frightened. She was hardly a murderer, so why was she so frightened? What did she know? I looked into my friend’s wide blue eyes and understood it had something to do with her latest infatuation, Peter McClellan.
“Okay,” I said. “You weren’t at home all night, but you weren’t at the inn either. So where were you?”
She wrung her hands as her eyes nervously shot around the deathly quiet kitchen. “Oh, all right,” she relented. “But you can’t tell Jack. Promise?”
Tay shot me a look. If Hannah didn’t want Jack to know something, that was fine by me. We both nodded our agreement.
“Okay, we were here, but not at the inn.”
I inhaled sharply. “You were down at the beach again! You were down by the old lighthouse! Hannah, how could you?”
“How could I not?” she cried. “You saw what she did to me. And, from the moment she caught us making out in his room, she’s been merciless to Peter.”
“Wait.” Tay held up a hand, looking confused. “Silvia caught you two making out? When? Where?”
“A few nights ago,” Hannah admitted. “Peter has no privacy in that room. Silvia had his spare key. And Peter failed to mention that she barges in whenever she pleases. It was two in the morning, for cripes’ sake! Anyhow, last night Peter insisted we meet. Silvia was really getting under his skin.”
“So what were you two doing down by the old lighthouse?” Tay inquired.
“They were smoking pot,” I said, and crossed my arms like a disapproving adult.
“Well, yes, that was part of it. But we were also putting a hex on Peter’s voodoo doll of Silvia.” All the color drained from Hannah’s face and her lower lip began to tremble. “We didn’t mean to kill her, honestly … at least I didn’t. I thought it was just a bit of spooky occult fun, but when we heard …” Hannah broke off with a sob. “Oh, the horror of it!”
Tay, utterly confused, jumped in. “Wait. What the dickens are you talking about? Who has a voodoo doll?”
“Peter,” we both said in unison.
“Great Odin’s beard! And why am I the last to know about this?” Tay’s large brown eyes glittered with intrigue.
Once Hannah had settled down, and Tay was brought up to speed on the doings down by the old lighthouse, Hannah told us her mind-boggling tale. Peter, apparently pushed to his wits end by Silvia, had called Hannah and asked her to meet him at the Cherry Cove Lighthouse at midnight. There the two descended to the beach where they built a fire and partook of Peter’s medicinal cleansing herb. Hannah listened patiently to Peter’s latest diatribe against his manipulative employer. Having been banned from the inn by the nasty old woman, she agreed. That’s when Peter took out the voodoo doll of Silvia.
“He said some words,” she remarked. “I didn’t understand them. He wasn’t speaking English. Then, when he was done speaking, he held the doll up to the black sky and said he wished that the old bitch would trip and break her neck. That’s when he grabbed the doll’s head and snapped it right off at the neck. Peter’s a pacifist. It was the most violent thing I’ve ever seen him do. Then he threw the head into the fire and put the body back into the pocket of his cloak. But that was it. That was all. He killed the doll, but we never believed it would really work. Oh, God, I never imagined that voodoo was real! I’m such an idiot!” Hannah buried her face in her hands and began to cry.
“Hannah,” I said, placing a hand on her shoulder. “It’s okay. But I have to ask you something else.” She looked up from her hands, her fair face blotchy with tears. “You said that you met Peter at midnight. At any time between midnight and my phone call earlier this morning, did he return to the inn?”
She shook her head.
Tay, looking slightly amused, added, “And did Peter, by chance, try to shove a cherry scone down this voodoo doll’s throat before he snapped off her head?”
I shot my friend a questioning look, not sure where she was going with this. Her reply was a patient nod. Hannah merely looked confused.
“No,” she snuffled. “That doesn’t make sense. It’s a wooden doll. Wooden dolls don’t eat scones.”
“Does Peter?” I asked.
“Hardly. He’s a health freak. He says your scones are too full of nasty sugars and fats.”
“More like delicious sugar and fats,” Tay quipped. “So, Peter doesn’t eat Whitney’s scones?”
“No, and what’s that got to do with Silvia’s death?”
“Didn’t Jack tell you?” I asked. “Silvia was suffocated with a cherry scone before she tumbled down the stairs.”
“Oh no,” she breathed. “I didn’t see that one coming.” Hannah, fear-stricken, added, “He … he did mention something about hoping the old bitch choked on a scone, or … or maybe he said bone … right before snapping off her head. Either way, he’s one powerful wizard.”
Or one clever murderer, I mused, but kept that thought to myself.
Sixteen
W hile Tay went with Hannah to talk with Peter, I decided to head out to the old farmhouse on Stage Road where the Larsons lived. It was Erik’s day off, and although he wouldn’t be too happy to see me, I needed to talk with him before Jack did. Lori, his mother, answered the door. Her fingers were stained purple and she was covered from head to toe with flour.
“Baking pies,” she proclaimed, looking frazzled. “I’m trying my hand at blackberries. Messy little things. What brings you out here on a Sunday?”
Lori, a single mother, real estate broker and an ambitious novice baker, was very likely the only person in Cherry Cove who didn’t know there’d been a murder. For the love of me, I wanted to keep her in the dark, especially since her son was employed at the very site of the murder. However, she was a parent, and it was best she know all the details. Once inside the door I briefly described Silvia’s suspicious death and my reason for the visit.
“That nasty old witch,” Lori added. “Can’t say I’m sorry to hear it. Erik’s told me all about her and how horrid she was to you. He loves working at the inn, Whitney. I hope this doesn’t change anything?”
“Nope. Everything’s fine. But I do need to ask your son a few questions.”
“Well, you’re gonna have to wake him then. He got in very late last night. Good luck. That boy sleeps like the dead.”
It was my second, and hopefully last, visit to the garbage dump known as Erik Larson’s bedroom. And here I thought Peter McClellan’s room had smelled bad. Stale and skunky was repulsive, but it still couldn’t hold a candle to the taint of sweaty locker room bathed in dirty undies. I proceeded with caution. The boy was sleeping in his bed, buried under a pile of rumpled clothing.
“Erik!” I said loudly, not expecting him to react as violently as he did. He sprang up, eyes wide and gelled hair standing on end. Then, seeing my face, he flopped back down on the pillow. When I realized he wasn’t moving or attempting to wake up, I said his name again.
“Oh. You’re still here. I thought I was dreaming. What day is it? Am I late or something?”
“No. Listen, I don’t want to alarm
you, but Silvia Lumiere’s been murdered.”
He sat up again, this time making a serious attempt at waking. “What?” he cried.
“It happened last night,” I told him. “Sometime between midnight and five in the morning. This is important, Erik. As far as I know, you were the last person to see her alive.”
Above the clear blue eyes, his brow furrowed. “What … are you saying, Miss Bloom? Do you think I …?”
“No, but I do know she delighted in tormenting you.”
“You too,” he protested.
“True. She was an unpleasant lady. But I need you to think. You were the last person I saw last night. Do you remember what time that was?”
“You finished making your scones for the morning at around eleven thirty. I remember seeing you leave the kitchen,” he said. “I was in there with Boner and Kenna cleaning up. You told us that you were going to the front desk. Said something about a Renaissance fair and Sunday morning checkout.”
“Right. I was checking to see what guests were checking out and which rooms needed to be turned over. I was supposed to be at the Renaissance fair today and just wanted to get a handle on things before I went to bed. That’s when Silvia came over and demanded that a plate of scones and a bottle of wine be brought up to her room. I popped into the kitchen and relayed the order to you. I assume you’re the one who delivered it?” Erik nodded. “Okay, I need you to tell me what time you took it up.”
Erik pondered. “She was like a short, fat, wine-guzzling Bob Ross, only Bob Ross was way more chill.”
“And kinder,” I added, smiling inwardly at his remark. “All right, Erik, I need you to remember. What time did you deliver her tray?”
Erik stared into the distance a moment, scratching his messy blond hair. “I didn’t jump right to it, of course. I like to make her wait. If she’d been in the habit of tipping me, it’d be another matter.”
“I understand,” I said. “So what time did you go to her room?”
He shrugged. “Twelve thirty, quarter to one, maybe.”