A Purrfect Alibi: A pawsitively gripping cozy mystery (The Oyster Cove Guesthouse Book 3)

by Leighann Dobbs

  I rushed in the back door and down the hallway on the way to my car, which was parked out front. I didn’t make it to the door though because a heated argument was brewing in the parlor.

  “I call foul on that! If you talked to Jedediah Biddeford, then I’m a monkey’s uncle.” Esther’s voice reached me in the hallway and I looked into the parlor to see her looking down at Victor, her hands on her hips and a scowl on her face.

  “I’m telling you the truth!” Victor was wearing a gray velour jogging suit. He patted his mustache and looked up at Esther innocently. “Jed will talk to me tonight. We’ll find the treasure and he will give me a unique clue to solve his murder.”

  “Ha! That’s how I know you’re lying.” Esther leaned down toward Victor. “There is no treasure.”

  “How do you know that?” Victor fixed her with a shrewd gaze.

  Esther frowned. “I… Umm… Well, after all these years it’s doubtful. And I read that there was a big treasure hunt here a few weeks ago. Nothing was found.”

  “We’ll see about that.” Victor shifted in his chair, noticing me in the doorway. “Your guesthouse will be famous. Especially when they make the movie.”

  “Movie?” Gail, who was on the sofa and had been gazing into a dainty floral teacup looked up at him. “What movie?”

  “Yeah, what movie?” Esther echoed.

  Victor made a face at Esther. “Don’t give me that. I saw you in town. You know that there is a movie producer sniffing around the story of Jedediah Biddeford’s skeleton. And he is well aware that I am the only real psychic here.”

  “Madame Zenda claimed that she was going to talk to Jed’s ghost too and look what happened to her,” Gail said.

  Something flickered across Victor’s face. Guilt over killing Madame Zenda or fear that the same thing would happen to him?

  Esther spun on her heel and went to sit in front of her crystal ball. It was on the table next to the window and the sunlight filtering in made the ball glow with an eerie light. She passed her hands over it and closed her eyes. “I don’t think Jed would like having his story sensationalized in a movie and I doubt he has any good clues as to who his killer is. And good luck with that treasure!”

  Victor waved a hand at her. “We’ll see tonight. I think I will pick an interesting setting. Like maybe the old family graveyard or that spooky gazebo. It’s important to set the ambiance, you know how movie people are all about that sort of thing.”

  Esther glared at him. Gail went back to gazing at her teacup. I turned and left to go to the bank.

  I didn’t know whether or not Victor was really going to talk to Jed, but he was right about one thing. Something was going to happen tonight. I hoped there would be a clue to this whole thing at the bank.

  Because if Victor was the killer, I had no intention of letting him get a movie deal with his fake communication with Jed. And if he wasn’t the killer… then I was afraid he might be the next victim.

  It was late afternoon when I got to the bank. The free cookies at the teller window reminded me that I had to start thinking about tomorrow’s breakfast. Millie would have a fit if I didn’t have something in mind. I grabbed a cookie—chocolate chip—and headed toward the back of the bank where the display was located.

  The area wasn’t large, just a case built in to the wall and a roped-off area where an old oak rolltop desk sat. On top of the desk was a brass lamp with a green shade, an inkwell and an old silver pen atop a desk blotter. An antique brass-and-black-enamel sign for the teller window sat off to one side, along with the old-fashioned window complete with iron bars and frosted glass.

  The locked case had interesting old coins, many of which weren’t even used for currency today. Myron sold old silver dollars and other old and rare coins at the bank, but the ones in the case were much older.

  The wall beside the case had a pictorial display of town history. The etching of Jed that Anita had was there, along with other drawings and old grainy photos of the bank along with the changes to the building over the centuries. On the end was a copy of the old etching of the Oyster Cove Guesthouse highlighting the connection between the Remingtons and the Biddefords and Thomas Remington’s humble beginnings as Jed’s butler. I turned away, depressed. There were no old clothes. Maybe another cookie would perk me up.

  But before I could make another trip past the plate of cookies, Myron stepped in my path. Perfect, as if the trip wasn’t a downer before, now I had to deal with him.

  “Josie, what brings you here? Your loan payment isn’t due until the thirtieth.” Myron smiled at me, but I could tell it was fake.

  “I know. I was just… um… checking my balance.” I certainly didn’t want him to know about my suspicions. He was already acting strangely enough as it was, no need to remind him of the unsavory happenings at the guesthouse.

  Myron’s brows tugged together. “Don’t you do that online?”

  “Sometimes. Hey, speaking of wondering why someone is at a certain place, why were you at the guesthouse earlier today?”

  Myron looked taken aback. “What are you talking about? I didn’t see you at the guesthouse earlier.”

  “You were out on the grounds. Near the barn and overgrown gardens.”

  Myron glanced around the lobby, probably making sure no one overheard the awkward conversation. He was all about keeping up appearances, which was probably the reason why he was so bothered by the ghost business at the guesthouse. And the murders… though I suppose anyone would be bothered by that.

  “Not sure what you’re talking about,” Myron said.

  I looked down to see cat hair on the cuffs of his pants. There were little black ones mixed with brown and white. Nero and Marlowe? Usually Myron was very fastidious about his appearance, so if the cats had rubbed against him when he’d been there earlier, surely he would have cleaned the hairs off by now. The cats couldn’t possibly be in the bank, could they?

  “Speaking of the grounds.” Myron lowered his voice. “I spoke with Mike Sullivan about the gazebo and you’ll have to watch out that people don’t go out to that ramshackle thing before it’s fixed properly. Wouldn’t want a lawsuit. That would be grounds to terminate the loan. I may have to inspect that thing myself when Mike takes a look at it later.”

  Ed would start work on the gazebo shortly and I vaguely remembered Mike saying something about coming out to inspect the gazebo for the permit. Had Mike said something about it to Myron? I was skeptical, as I was pretty sure that if something was wrong, Mike would have mentioned it to me first. I didn’t think guests were in the habit of going to the gazebo anyway, but even so, Myron was probably making something out of nothing. Which made me wonder if that was why he’d been out there earlier in the first place. Was he looking for a reason to call in the loan?

  I was about to ask when Rita Fortin came into the lobby. She was from a wealthy family and liked to flaunt it with designer outfits and purses that cost as much as a compact car. Today was no exception. She scanned the lobby from behind overly large sunglasses, her gaze stopping when it fell on Myron. Always one to follow the money, Myron immediately hurried over to suck up to her without so much as a goodbye to me.

  It was just as well, what I had been about to say to him wasn’t very nice. Better to have some time to cool off before I got Myron riled up. After all, he did hold my future in his hands.

  As Myron ushered Rita into his office, Belinda May, one of the tellers, started toward me, shooting looks over her shoulder at Myron to make sure he didn’t notice.

  “Hey, Josie, I have this for one of your guests. I was wondering if you could take it back for them. I was supposed to meet them later today, but my grandmother is ill and I can’t.” She held a plain A4 manila envelope out to me.

  “You want me to give this to Victor?” I mean, I assumed it was him since he was the one with an agenda. The envelope had no name on it.

  “No. Esther. That nice crystal-ball lady.”

  “She was here?” I lo
oked back at the display area then down at the envelope, remembering how upset Esther had been at Victor’s pronouncement.

  Belinda glanced around as if to make sure no one could overhear. “She was looking at the memorabilia area, then she gave me a lovely reading with her crystal ball. Of course, Myron wasn’t here then. I do hope her readings are true. She said a silver-haired fox would sweep me off my feet.”

  “She did, did she?” I shook the envelope. Nothing rattled. “So, what’s in the envelope?”

  “Oh, just some information about the bank’s history.”

  “Why would she want that?” I felt along the envelope, expecting to feel the bulk of a buckle or button or something, but it was flat. Just paper.

  Belinda shrugged. “I guess she found it interesting. Don’t worry, it’s nothing confidential. I mean, I’m sure it’s okay to give out, but you know how Myron can be… speaking of that, I need to get back to my station.”

  She rushed off, leaving me staring at the envelope. I was dying to know what was in it and why Esther would want information on the bank’s history, but it was sealed. Did I dare open it? I wasn’t sure I wanted to tip off Esther to the fact that I’d seen the contents. Which left me wondering… what in the world was Esther up to?

  Nero sniffed the contents of the Styrofoam container that Harry had pilfered from the dumpster of the Marinara Mariner. Red sauce, linguini… ahhh… there was a morsel of succulent shrimp. Nero gobbled it up and then licked his paws, washing his white tuxedo to remove any evidence of sauce.

  “No squid-ink dish today.” Juliette hopped down from the rim of the dumpster and eyed the container in front of Nero. “The only thing in here is common food, unfortunately.”

  “Indeed.” Boots sniffed the air with disdain.

  Nero had to admit, it was smelly here in the alley beside the restaurant. But sometimes Tony left good scraps for them and it was worth a try. Besides, they had an ulterior motive to meet there, it was across from the bank and they’d been watching Myron ever since Marlowe and Nero had seen him at the guesthouse.

  “Myron hasn’t left the bank since we started the stakeout.” Stubbs’ voice wafted up from the dumpster. “Speaking of which, I wish Tony had put some steak out.”

  “What’s going on with the police?” Nero asked Harry.

  “According to Louie, Millie and Rose came to the station and tried to get information out of Seth but he clammed up,” Harry said.

  “Clam sauce? Don’t think so. I don’t smell any in here!” Stubbs yelled from the dumpster.

  Harry gave the dumpster the side-eye. “Would you come out of there, there’s nothing good inside.”

  “Fine.” Stubbs appeared on the rim, then jumped down shaking the dumpster debris off his orange coat.

  “So, as I was saying,” Harry continued, “Seth didn’t tell much to Rose and Millie, but Louie said that they are narrowing things down to one suspect.”

  “Who?” Juliette asked.

  “He didn’t know. They are being very hush-hush.”

  “I bet it’s that guy with the mustache.” Boots glanced over at the bank. “He was in the bank earlier.”

  “You mean the man with the soft suits who is staying at the guesthouse? The one who came to the rectory?” Juliette asked.

  Boots nodded.

  “Victor,” Nero said. “Did he do anything suspicious?”

  “He came out of the bank with a burlap bag. He was glancing all around and then hopped into an Uber.”

  “What was in the bag?” Marlowe asked.

  “How big was it?” Stubbs added.

  “No idea what was in it,” Boots said. “It was about the size of an old bag of marbles and looked like it had something of heft and weight in it.”

  “Why would Victor want marbles?” Harry asked.

  “I didn’t say it was marbles.” Boots narrowed his eyes and looked toward the bank as if trying to visualize Victor and the burlap bag. “Just looked like something heavy.”

  “Huh, well that bears investigating.” Nero looked at Marlowe. “Perhaps we should head back to the guesthouse and see what our velour-wearing guest is up to.”

  “You might want to hurry.” Juliette swished her tail ominously. “That movie producer came to visit Father Tim again and he’s leaving town tomorrow. If the reason for the murder was to gain fame with a movie, whoever is behind it might be trying to step up their game.”

  Twenty

  I found Esther in the front parlor. Good thing she was alone, maybe I could get her to tell me what the contents of the envelope were. Then again, maybe it wasn’t a good thing to be alone with her if she was the killer.

  Nero and Marlowe were sitting on her lap. As I got closer, I could see she was feeding them some kind of treat. They didn’t seem bothered at all that she might be a killer, I could hear their purrs out in the hallway. Those furry little traitors would go to anyone for treats, yet when I put their dishes down with their nutritious cat food in it, they circled, sniffed and looked at me suspiciously as if I was trying to poison them.

  Esther and the cats looked up as I approached. I gave Nero and Marlowe the stink-eye but they both just blinked at me with blank expressions.

  I thrust the envelope out at her. “Just what is this?”

  Meow. Nero sniffed the envelope and then squinted at me.

  “You tell me.” She took the envelope cautiously. Playing dumb, was she? “Where did you get this?”

  I fisted my hands on my hips. “Belinda at the bank gave it to me.”

  Marlowe hopped on the table and stretched out to head-butt my hand. I relaxed and petted her soft head. At least there was one cat who knew which side to be on. Nero remained in Esther’s lap.

  “Oh…” Esther put the envelope aside. “That Belinda sure is nice. This is just some research I had her do for me.”

  “Research? On what?”

  She glanced at the crystal ball and it sparked, attracting the cats’ attention. They batted it gently with their paws.

  “You’ll have to wait and see about that. I can tell you one thing, that Victor isn’t going to get away with stealing the show this time.”

  I didn’t know what to make of this. Esther was acting more like a kindly old lady than a killer, but maybe she was good at pretending. I was mulling over how to approach my interrogation when the sound of tires on the driveway caught my attention.

  Mom and Millie were pulling to a stop and right behind them was Mike and then behind him was Myron.

  Ughh. What was Myron doing here? It wasn’t even an hour ago that he’d been schmoozing with Rita Fortin at the bank. Maybe he was coming to scope out a location for the pool for the condos he’d build once he foreclosed on the loan? I know he’d said he was going to have Mike show him the gazebo at some point, but this soon? I wondered if he had ulterior motives. At least now I’d have backup if Esther tried anything. Though she didn’t seem like she was going to attack. She was simply sitting calmly in her chair, the cats back in her lap as if she had nothing to hide.

  I stepped out into the foyer as Mom and Millie came through the door. Flora was dusting the Tiffany glass lamp on the round mahogany table, apparently oblivious to our new arrivals.

  “Oh, Josie, there you are. We just came from the sheriff’s office,” Millie said, glancing behind her as Mike and then Myron piled into the foyer.

  “And?” I asked.

  Millie looked deflated. “Nothing new on the case, but we ran into Mike there. He was coming here anyway so he followed us.”

  Mike smiled. “Hey, Sunshine.”

  “Hi. What brings you here?” Mike and Myron were starting to frequent the guesthouse as much as Millie and Mom did.

  He held up the clipboard that was in his hand and tapped it with a pencil. “Permit for the gazebo, remember?”

  I glanced at Myron at the mention of the gazebo. Mike had issued the permit so that was a good thing, right?

  “I came because of the gazebo, too,” Myron sai
d.

  Mike frowned at him. “I hardly think that’s necessary. I wasn’t talking about much of anything, anyway. Ed can move forward with the work.” He raised a brow at me and handed me the permit.

  Millie leveled a look at Myron. “Now, Myron, don’t you think you are getting a little too involved in the business here? Why, barely a day passes when you don’t stop by.”

  Myron looked affronted. “Well, it is my investment.”

  Mom clacked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. “Myron, look here. I know you have a crush on Josie but really your excuses to come here are growing quite thin.”

  “And of no use,” Esther piped in from the parlor. “Remember, the ball showed tall, dark and handsome.” She shot me a knowing glance before casting an approving look in Mike’s direction.

  Myron straightened the cuffs of his expensive gray suit. “As charming as Josie is, she is not the reason I come here. She’s a client, nothing more. It’s just that the bank wants to foster community ties. And with the Oyster Cove Guesthouse being such an important part of Oyster Cove history, I feel I have a duty to see it restored back to its former glory.” He leaned in and lowered his voice, although why he felt like he had to do that was beyond me, it wasn’t like there was anyone else in the foyer. “It’s good for business if the customers know that you have pride in your own community.”

  “If you’ve come for the show, you’re all too early. That won’t be until ten p.m.” Victor strode down the hall. This time he was wearing a white golf shirt and tan khaki pants. I had to do a double take as I’d never seen him in anything but his velour jogging suits. “It seems ghosts like to operate under the cover of darkness.”

  “Show?” Mike shot me a quizzical look.

  Esther pushed up from the table, dislodging the cats who thudded to the floor. “Mr. Big Shot thinks that he’s going to talk to Jedediah Biddeford, but I have it on good authority that Jed won’t be speaking to him. And there is no treasure. Jed doesn’t need anyone making a mockery of him. But if his killer can be found, then I will be the one to do that, not Victor.”