Cherry Scones & Broken Bones

by Darci Hannah

  “So I’ve just heard,” he said. “Tay forgot to mention it to me until we arrived. Apparently, judging from the fanfare on the front porch, the unfortunate woman had admirers.”

  “I’m sorry,” Tay replied earnestly. “I should have thought to mention it to you before we came. I didn’t think it really mattered, you know, considering all the pressure you’ve been under lately. It’s not like you knew the victim or anything.”

  Grandma Jenn, studying the conversation with extreme interest, suddenly leaned forward. Looking squarely at the knight, she supplied, “Silvia Lumiere, dear. She was a famous portrait painter who spent her summers in Cherry Cove. Did you know her?”

  Lance stilled. Then, suddenly, he stood. “Excuse me,” he said, and left the table. Tay, looking troubled, threw down her napkin and ran after him.

  “That was odd,” I remarked again, a good while later.

  Giff, Hannah, and I had been sitting on the patio enjoying our favorite post-dinner drinks while mulling over the evening’s events. Dinner had ended shortly after Lance and Tay left, but not before cherry pie ala mode had been served. The table had been cleared and Mom, Dad, and Gran had retired. Peter, who’d been masquerading as a vegetarian but was, in reality, a fried perch junky, stated that he needed to lie down after gorging himself on such a delicious meal. Hannah remained with us once Peter left for his room.

  It was a warm midsummer night. The sky was clear, black and full of twinkling stars. Giff still marveled at how many there were once away from the bright city lights of Chicago. It was too beautiful a night to retire so early. Besides, Lance’s odd behavior was a subject worthy of discussion.

  “I met him a while ago,” I continued. “He seemed a great guy. Tonight, however, he looked positively hounded.”

  “Or haunted,” Hannah said. “You saw him. That man was clearly spooked by the possibility of there being a curse on this place.” Hannah, although sorry that her remark about the Cherry Orchard Inn being cursed had virtually ended dinner, was clearly convinced of the matter herself.

  “Who knew he was so sensitive?” Giff shrugged and took a sip of his microbrewed beer.

  “Sensitive? Are you kidding me?” I emptied my wineglass and cast him a theatric eye roll. “The guy works at a Renaissance fair and just took the beating of his life. This morning, when I talked with Tay, she was afraid something like this would happen. Lance has his own personal demons to battle.” This was the real crux of the problem, I knew, recalling what Tay had said about Lance’s beautiful armor being repossessed at the fairgrounds. I continued. “I hardly think something as silly as a curse is going to spook him—even if there was such a thing, which there’s clearly not. No, what we witnessed tonight is something quite different. A man like that doesn’t just fall out of love with jousting. In fact, when I first met him he was wearing a full suit of armor. He was so magnificently convincing in the role that I nearly believed I had actually traveled back in time.”

  “Cool.” Hannah looked impressed. Then, suddenly, her face came alive with a thought. “Hey, what if Lance really is a time traveler? You heard him. He’s a millennial and doesn’t do technology. Maybe that’s what’s bothering him. Maybe he’s trying to find a way back to the time he came from but can’t because the portal’s been blocked, and he’s trapped here, with us.”

  Giff set down his beer. Dripping incredulity, he stared at Hannah. “Sweetheart, you really need to stop hanging out with that hippie of yours. Time travel doesn’t exist. I know, because if it did I wouldn’t be here. I’d be in ancient Rome driving a chariot and totally rocking a thigh-length toga.”

  “Good point,” I said, and turned back to Hannah. “There you have it. A definitive answer on time travel. It doesn’t exist because Giff is here with us and not in ancient Rome rocking a sexy toga. Okay, we know that Lance is a modern guy who’s down on his luck. And I’m pretty sure I know why.” I hastily told them about Lance’s money problems and his embarrassment earlier in the week when his prized suit of armor had been repossessed.

  “It’s put a strain on their relationship,” I continued, “one that Tay wants desperately to fix. She really likes this guy. As her friends, we need to find a way to help her.”

  “Okay,” Giff replied prosaically. “But why did the name Silvia Lumiere set him off?”

  I looked at him, suddenly thinking of several things at once. Lance, although appreciative of Dad’s offer, was hesitant to work at the orchard. He’d said he was unaware of the murder at the inn, and yet didn’t seem overly concerned by it. Most telling of all was Gran. She’d been watching Lance closely before offering up the victim’s name. She’d also asked, rather pointedly, if he had known her. That was when Lance had stood up from the table and left.

  “Holy cobbler!” I breathed, staring at my friends. “Could Lance have a connection to Silvia Lumiere that we don’t know about?”

  “I doubt it,” Hannah was quick to say. “That would be a long shot. But you could always call Tay and check. Anyhow, I thought this was the guy’s first visit to the Cherry Orchard Inn. My bet is on the curse. If I had money problems I’d have to think twice about hitching my wagon to a place that’s been the site of two murders.” She drained the last few drops of wine from her glass and checked her iPhone. “Okay, gotta run. I told Peter I’d stop by his room before I went home. FYI, he’ll be staying at my place tonight. The inn’s giving off a creepy vibe, being so empty and all. Also, he has the feeling that Silvia’s disgruntled ghost is going to be staying here a bit longer. You might want to consult your brother on how to handle this one, Whit. It’s more in his line of work than yours. Okay. Tootles.”

  We all stood. As Hannah and I exchanged a parting hug, she said quietly, “Call Jack. I know you two had a falling out today, but I need you to find out if he has any other leads on the murder. You and Tay know what Peter and I did last night. I know you don’t want to believe it, and, truthfully, neither do we, but sometimes the weirdest explanation is the correct one. We weren’t at the inn. There isn’t any physical evidence to say otherwise, but if Jack gets wind of what Peter did, I’m afraid he’ll charge him with Silvia’s murder. Will you call him?”

  “I’ll think about it,” I said, and let her go.

  I wasn’t going to call Jack. I had nothing to say to him, and as far as I was concerned, Hannah could make the call herself when she was ready. Instead, Giff and I continued to sit on the patio, discussing my suspect board. Half an hour later, we were both brought to our feet by a rustling in the bushes. We were spooked to silence, especially since the events in the orchard this spring still haunted me.

  “Who’s there?” I asked, staring into the darkness. A moment later a bright flaxen head appeared in the moonlight.

  “Miss Bloom?”

  It was Erik Larson. What the devil was the kid doing sneaking around the inn so late at night? He acknowledged Giff, then stepped onto the patio.

  “Erik. What’s going on?” One look at the boy’s face and my heart sank. He looked troubled. I softened my tone and beckoned him forward. “Come here and have a seat. Then you’re going to tell us what’s bothering you.”

  “I, um, I need to talk with you,” he said, nervously wringing his hands. “I knocked on the door to the family wing. Your mom told me you were here with Mr. McGrady.”

  I smiled kindly and urged him to go on.

  “I, um, I have a confession to make. I lied to you about last night.”

  Twenty-Two

  Erik Larson had been terrified of losing his job, and so he had lied. The confession hadn’t come easy. He was more nervous than I had ever seen him, which was saying quite a lot. Erik was a young man who took risks, for better or worse. Apparently, whatever he had done last night, I was inclined to believe it wasn’t for the best. In fact, it had taken two sodas to drag it out of him. When the kid was finally ready to talk, I had a sinking feeling. Part of me ac
tually wished he had decided to carry his secret to the grave with him. Undoubtedly, he had considered this himself. However, given the fact that he was only eighteen and had a long life ahead of him, the obvious strategy he’d embraced was to get this misdeed off his chest.

  “So, um, I came to tell you that I didn’t leave the inn when I told you I did.”

  I looked at him through narrowed eyes. “You lied about leaving the inn after delivering room service to Ms. Lumiere? Why?” Erik cast a nervous glance at Giff and remained silent. “Okay,” I said, “what time did you leave then?”

  “Um, later. Much later.”

  “Do you remember what time that was?”

  The boy shifted in his chair, clearly fearful of answering the question. Earlier, when I had gone to the Larson house to speak with him, I had the feeling that Erik had been hiding something. My suspicions had been confirmed, and yet his fear of coming clean and telling the truth was wearing on me as well. It wasn’t like him to be so shifty. “Look,” I finally said. “You came here for a reason, so you better just tell us. What were you doing here?”

  Even in the soft lighting of the patio I could see his face flushing to an unhealthy blood red. He took a deep breath and boldly stated, “I, ah, I was in the elevator.”

  I turned to Giff, curious to see what he’d make of this. He too looked perplexed and answered my look with a questioning shrug. No help there. “Okay,” I said, studying Erik closely, not quite sure what he was getting at. “So, you were in the elevator. Were you traveling to the second floor?”

  Erik shook his head. “Nope.”

  “Okay, you were traveling to the first floor.” Again, the boy shook his head. I was swiftly losing patience. “Look, Erik, there are only two floors here. This isn’t rocket science. What the fudge were you doing in the elevator that late at night if you weren’t going up to one floor or down to the other?”

  Before the boy could reply, Giff suddenly grabbed my arm. One look and I could tell he’d figured it out, only he couldn’t speak because his other hand was balled into a fist and pressed tightly against his quivering lips. Erik, noting the man sitting next to me, looked mortified.

  “It, um, was stopped between floors,” he confessed.

  “Oh, for the love of cobbler! Were you trapped in there? Did it stop working? Did you try pressing the emergency button?” I was horrified to think the boy had been stuck in an elevator all night.

  “No, ma’am. I wasn’t stuck. I was the one who stopped it.”

  “What? Why on earth would you do that?”

  Giff, removing his fist, turned to me. He’d been stifling a case of the giggles. “Seriously?” he asked. “An eighteen-year-old boy has just confessed to being in an elevator well after midnight that was stopped between floors, and you can’t figure it out?” Judging from the look on my face, he decided to fill me in on the joke. “The young man was otherwise engaged.”

  Erik eyed Giff and confessed. “It’s true, Miss Bloom. Kenna and I … we, uh, we use the elevator at night to—”

  “WHAT!?” I felt as if my eyes were about to pop out of my head. Honestly, the thought had never occurred to me. “Stop right there!” I held up a hand in warning. “You and Kenna have been using the inn’s elevator to … to? Oh, there are so many health violations in what you’ve just told me, not to mention the very real violation of common decency! I don’t even know whether to scream or cry right now, I’m so flaming mad at you.”

  Giff squeezed my arm once again. “Angel, how about you just calm down and listen. I doubt Mr. Larson has come here to brag about his nocturnal conquests in the inn’s only elevator, no matter how epic they might be. The point you’re missing is that he was here much later last night than he originally told you. Isn’t that right?”

  Erik nodded.

  “And you saw something, didn’t you?” Giff asked.

  Again, the boy nodded.

  “Well, Mr. Larson, I’ve paved the way. Now’s your chance for redemption.”

  “Okay,” Erik began softly. “We did see something, but you’re not going to like it.”

  Sparing us the details of his elevator exploits, he told us that when he and Kenna were between floors, someone had tried to call the elevator.

  “It shocked us. It was nearly two in the morning. No one’s ever wandering around the inn at that hour, and I should know.”

  “Right,” I said, still miffed about the brazen misuse of my elevator. “Because you and Kenna do this all the time.” Giff cast me a chiding look while urging the young man to continue.

  “Ms. Lumiere liked to stay up late to paint, but she didn’t wander around. Once she was in her room, she hardly ever left it. Anyhow, this person tried calling the elevator again, but by the time we were in a position to, um, unlock the elevator, whoever it was had already made for the stairs.”

  I looked at the boy, suddenly realizing what he was saying. He and Kenna might have witnessed Silvia Lumiere’s murderer. If so, this little bit of information might change everything. I knew that Silvia was missing a room key, something a person not staying at the inn would need to enter the building. The fact that this person tried to use the elevator might indicate many things, the chief among them being that whoever was in the building was trying to be as inconspicuous as possible when traversing the floors. I looked at Erik. “When you unlocked the elevator what floor did it go to?”

  “First floor. The doors opened, and we got out, but no one was there. However, we did see something.” Giff and I both leaned in. Erik continued. “We saw, um, a … a black shadow.”

  “What?” I asked, thinking I’d misheard him. “What do you mean by a black shadow?”

  “A black shadow,” he stated. “Look, Miss Bloom, I’m only telling you what we saw. It was dark in the foyer but Kenna and I both saw the same thing. We both saw a large black shadow sweeping up the staircase. It totally freaked us out. We ran back through the kitchen as quietly as we could and out of the inn.”

  I gave an involuntary shiver as Hannah’s words sprang to mind. She had told me just before leaving to get Peter that sometimes the weirdest explanation was the correct one. None of us had wanted to believe it, but who was I to argue with an eyewitness? Was Peter as powerful a wizard as Hannah claimed him to be? Could he really have summoned up dark powers to murder his former employer? Giff, as if reading my mind, cast me a disparaging look and shook his perfectly coiffed head.

  “Dark shadow?” he questioned with a sardonic quirk of his brow. “Why would a dark shadow need to use the elevator? For that matter, why would it need to walk up the stairs? Could you and Kenna have witnessed a person perhaps? Maybe someone wearing dark clothing or a black cape?”

  With a little thought, Erik replied, “Yeah. It could have been a black cape. All I know was that it was dark, and it was super creepy. We just wanted to get the heck out of there, ya know? Okay, well, that’s what I’ve come to tell ya. Sorry, Miss Bloom. If you want to fire me, I totally understand.”

  I wasn’t about to fire Erik, at least not until he had scoured the elevator from floor to ceiling with our most powerful disinfectant. Instead I told him that he was on double-secret probation and would be until he accompanied me to the police station in the morning to correct the bogus statement he’d made to Jack. Hopefully, with this new revelation, Jack would remove me from the suspect list. Only then would I remove Erik from double-secret probation. How ironic, I thought, that the teenaged miscreant just might have provided the biggest clue yet in this case. Still, whoever it was Erik and Kenna had seen sweeping up the staircase in a black cape after two in the morning was still a mystery.

  “I don’t understand,” Giff said half an hour later, lounging on my bed with arms crossed and legs crossed at the ankles. He was staring at the suspect board now residing on my vanity, puzzling over this latest piece of evidence. “Every indication is pointing to Peter
McClellan. He has motive. He owns a black cape. He even admits to owing a decapitated voodoo doll of the deceased. How is he not the murderer?”

  I turned from the board with a dry-erase marker clenched in my hand. Wrestling with the same thoughts, I shrugged. “Because he was with Hannah all night. She swears that he was.”

  “He could have drugged her,” Giff suggested. “Knowing Hannah, she might not even realize it if she was.”

  “I’ve already thought of that,” I said. “I haven’t had the courage to ask her about the possibility. Being drugged by the guy you happen to be dating is not a pleasant thought.”

  “True. Okay. Let’s think about Silvia’s missing room key instead. We don’t know where it is, but that doesn’t mean the murderer had to use it. It could just be a coincidence, or Peter could have taken it to throw us off the trail.”

  “Or he could have used it to get into her room,” I offered.

  Giff shook his head. “No. He wouldn’t need it. You told me that Silvia kept him close. She would have opened the door to him no matter what time of night he came calling.”

  “Maybe, but here’s what we know so far.” I turned to the suspect board with my dry-erase marker ready to underline the facts. “Silvia was murdered sometime between two and five o’clock in the morning. I’m using the new time of two because when Erik and Kenna left the inn, Silvia was still in her room. At some point after they witnessed the black shadow sweeping up the staircase, Silvia was suffocated with a cherry scone and pushed down the stairs. The scones in question had been delivered to her room that very night by Erik Larson. I once publicly stated that I wanted to choke Ms. Lumiere with a scone, and I have access to the inn, including a key to every room. However,” I continued, drawing a line through my name, “I didn’t murder the woman. Which leads us to her ex-husband, Stanley Gordon.”