I then turned around and saw Ron slap a pair of handcuffs on Homer and another pair on Jake. I smelled cigarette smoke as Harriet lit up a Pall Mall behind me. I heard Andy call 9-1-1 on his cell phone. Finally, I felt Stone pull me to his chest and embrace me tightly. I heard him say, "Oh, thank God you're okay. I love you, Lexie. Don't ever do anything that impulsive and courageous again."
"What did you say, Stone?"
"I said you are one crazy, impetuous, utterly adorable woman."
"And?"
"And if you do ever do something like that again, I'm not sure my heart will be able to handle it. It almost stopped beating when I saw you jump up on the porch. It hadn't dawned on me yet that you'd realized the gun was out of ammo. After the dust settles, how about if we spend a few days traveling up to Maine and New Hampshire, so you can really see the beautiful fall colors?"
I didn't get him to say those three magic words again that day. Even so, I knew he loved me and I loved him too. I readily agreed to a trip to New England with Stone—just the two of us, getting to know each other better. I decided I was ready to take the next step in our relationship, and I told him so. I couldn't just drive home to Kansas and forget him. That would be impossible at this stage.
"Ah, so I'm beginning to grow on you a little?" Stone asked.
"A little." I teased.
"Kind of like Harriet's coffee?"
"Yes," I agreed, laughing. "Exactly like that!"
The End
Page forward for Book 2
THE EXTINGUISHED GUEST
A Lexie Starr Mystery
Book Two
The Extinguished Guest
Lexie Starr Mysteries Boxed Set
Book Two
by
Jeanne Glidewell
Dedication
Dedicated to my Grandma Dolly, aka Mary Van Sittert, who passed away in 2009 at 94 years young.
I miss her greatly.
Acknowledgments
I'd like to thank my friend and editor, Alice Duncan, of Roswell, New Mexico, and my friend and writing mentor, Evelyn Horan, of Temecula, California. I'd also like to express my gratitude to Five Star Publishing for releasing this novel in hard cover and large print paperback in 2008, and thank my friends and family for their support and encouragement, and especially my husband, Bob Glidewell, and sister, Sarah Goodman.
Chapter 1
I turned over for at least the hundredth time in my quest to find a comfortable sleeping position, but the mattress had less give than a concrete runway at Chicago's O'Hare Airport. I'd have to convince Stone Van Patten, my boyfriend and proprietor of this recently renovated inn, to buy featherbed mattress pads for the beds. Harriet's Camelot B&B in Schenectady, New York, where Stone and I'd become acquainted, had down-filled mattresses and to me, sleeping on a down-filled mattress was like sleeping on a cloud. I'd seen this kind of mattress pad selling on the Internet for less than a hundred dollars, and if Stone wanted repeat customers, his investing in comfortable bedding would be money well spent.
I'd be lucky if I didn't end up covered in bruises from all the flopping around and flipping from side-to-side in my attempt to fall asleep. I just knew I'd be groggy and out-of-sorts while trying to perform my duties as Master of Ceremonies at the induction dinner, honoring Horatio Prescott III, the new president of the Rockdale Historical Society. The induction ceremony was being held in conjunction with Alexandria Inn's grand opening. Stone had been thrilled when approached with the idea by the club's secretary, Patty Poffenbarger.
Having no luck in falling asleep, I considered taking one of the four sleeping pills I'd been carrying around and hoarding for nearly twenty years. But like every other time I'd thought about taking one, I talked myself out of it. Instead I opted to save them for a more critical occasion—when getting a good night's sleep was of life-altering importance—even though my pills were on the verge of disintegrating into dust.
"What am I saving them for?" I asked myself, feeling disgusted with my neurotic tendencies. I hated to admit it, but I'd fried pork chops with more sense than I sometimes exhibited. Could I be saving the pills for the restless night before I gave my presidential inauguration speech, or perhaps on the eve of my wedding day when I was to marry a foreign prince? Was it so I could be well rested and alert before blasting off in a space shuttle to orbit some far-off planet in a distant galaxy? For goodness sakes, I was Lexie Starr, a widowed forty-eight-year-old, Midwestern library assistant. I led a normal, sedate life in the suburbs of Kansas City, and mine was a life not exactly riddled with important, life-altering occasions. I wasn't apt to be accepting an Oscar, an Emmy, a Pulitzer Prize, or even the neighborhood award for "Lawn-of-the-Month."
I sighed and turned over once again, knowing that should I meet with a situation worthy of one of the antiquated sleeping pills, they'd be less than useless, anyway, and totally ineffective from being several decades past their expiration date, if not merely little piles of powder. I might just as well have flushed them down the toilet immediately following their acquisition many years ago. That was shortly after the unexpected death of my husband, Chester, when I was not yet thirty years old. He died suddenly of an embolism when our only child, Wendy, was seven years old. It'd been her and me against the world for the next twenty years, but we'd persevered and survived.
I was thinking about the transition I'd made back then, to being a single mom following my husband's death, and I was finally drifting off to sleep when a loud noise broke through the night's silence. The resounding thud came from the ceiling directly above my bed. I sat straight up in alarm. It sounded as if someone had dropped a sixteen-pound bowling ball on the floor above me, or perhaps had fallen out of bed while flopping around, as I'd been doing most of the night. I was quite sure whatever caused the sudden loud noise could not be a normal occurrence.
I glanced over at the alarm clock on my nightstand. There were less than two hours before I had to be up and about if I were to be dressed and ready to help Crystal prepare breakfast for our guests by seven-thirty. Falling asleep now might be worse than not sleeping at all.
I considered going upstairs to investigate the loud noise, but like with the sleeping pill, I talked myself out of it. It was never a smart idea to go waltzing into a stranger's room at 5:08 in the morning. That would be a good way to find yourself waking up dead—from being shot as an intruder with questionable intentions.
I rolled over, forcing the curious thoughts about the predawn thud from my mind, and soon fell into a light slumber.
* * *
My fear of being shot as an intruder must have been prophetic because as it turned out someone did wake up dead that morning, even if that someone wasn't me. And the "deadness" was indeed the direct result of a gunshot wound. The victim was our distinguished guest of honor, Horatio Prescott III. But Mr. Prescott couldn't have been accidentally shot as an intruder because he was found murdered in his own room. After he'd failed to show up for breakfast, Stone and I went upstairs and found him, face down on the floor, next to the window overlooking the flower gardens outside. I assumed he'd been killed at approximately 5:08 A.M. and was surprised to see he was already dressed for the day in a dark gray, pinstriped, three-piece suit. As it drained from a single bullet hole in the back of his head, a pool of blood had formed beside his body. It was a gruesome sight, forever imprinted in my memory.
While I studied the scene, I saw a ballpoint pen in the victim's right hand. There was a look of amazement frozen on his face as rigor mortis set in. I surmised the killer had utilized a silencer on his weapon. I'd heard a distinctive thud-like sound that would have been made by Prescott's stout, compact body hitting the floor. But I was positive there'd not been an audible bang preceding the thud, like the sound of a bullet being fired into the back of the man's bald head. I couldn't recall any other sounds, such as two men wrestling over possession of a weapon. I had a hunch that Horatio Prescott had been taken completely by surprise and was dead the second after he r
ealized he was about to be killed.
Looking down at the rigid, prostrate body, I felt a moment of guilt and regret. Perhaps if I'd gone upstairs to investigate the noise as I'd considered doing soon after I'd heard the thud, Mr. Prescott could have been saved with the assistance of emergency medical technicians. Perhaps, even, the killer who'd offed Mr. Prescott could have been apprehended, or at least identified, had only a mere minute or so been allowed to pass following the fatal shot. But then, perhaps the killer who'd offed Mr. Prescott could have panicked and also offed the middle-aged library assistant who, out of idle curiosity, was schlepping up the stairs in an oversized K.C. Chiefs' football jersey she called a nightshirt. Seems it may have been a damned good thing I was able to persuade myself to ignore the noise and stay under the covers in my rock-hard bed for another two hours!
I looked around at the roomful of people standing with their mouths agape, stunned expressions showing on their faces. They were the other Historical Society members, and all were obviously as shocked as I. This was certainly not included on the copy of the schedule of events I'd been given the night before.
From across the room, Stone caught my eye and shrugged in disbelief. After checking Mr. Prescott's neck for a pulse for the sixth or seventh time. Stone lifted the phone from the night-stand and punched in nine-one-one on the handset. He motioned for me to herd all of the guests out of the room that had now become a crime scene. He may have been afraid the Historical Society was about to become the hysterical society, once the severity of the matter sunk in.
Stone instructed everyone to refrain from touching or disturbing anything in the room. I wasn't sure if Stone was trying to protect any evidence that might be present from contamination or protect the reputation of the Alexandria Inn he'd recently purchased. It was an antebellum mansion located just north of St. Joseph, Missouri. Stone had restored and named the historic inn after me. The inn had just opened for business the previous day, and a murder was not a particularly auspicious beginning for the lodging establishment. It was memorable, maybe—but probably not conducive to enticing hordes of customers to register at the inn, taking their chances on being shot dead in the middle of the night. The exalted guest-of-honor, Horatio Prescott, had been assigned the most luxurious suite the inn offered. Unfortunately, I feared, the impressive suite would forever after be known as "site of the murder" and not deemed very desirable.
"Come on, Cornelius," I said softly, as I nudged Mr. Walker toward the door. Nearby, I tapped the bony shoulder of the regal and sophisticated-looking Rosalinda Swift.
"Let's go make some coffee, Ms. Swift, while we wait for the police and coroner to arrive. We're obligated to preserve the purity of the crime scene, I'm sure. There's nothing we can do now for Mr. Prescott, anyway."
I nodded at the Poffenbargers as I watched Patty Poffenbarger absentmindedly bite the end off a chocolate long john dangling from her right hand. I was amazed she could even think of eating at a time like this, although she probably ate out of habit most of the time, without much thought about the food she was ingesting.
"Humph!" Patty said indignantly after she had licked the icing from her fingers. She glared at Stone with a look of accusation. "If I'd known something like this was going to happen, I would've made arrangements for the Society to stay elsewhere. What kind of establishment is this?"
I wanted to defend the Alexandria Inn because I realized Horatio Prescott could have been killed at any lodging facility in town. Actually, what I really wanted to do was slap a piece of duct tape across Patty's mouth. Instead, I counted silently to ten, took her by the elbow and led her across the room, with her husband trailing behind us. By my estimation, Patty would tip the scale at three hundred pounds, while her six-foot tall husband, Otto, couldn't have weighed over a hundred and twenty pounds, even wearing a heavy winter parka with its pockets full of rocks. It's not that I have anything against people who are heavier than they really ought to be—I was a bit on the pudgy side myself—I just didn't like anyone making negative remarks about the Alexandria Inn, a business we had worked hard to make successful.
Harry and Alma Turner were standing in the corner of the oversized room. Gesturing, I caught Harry Turner's attention. Trembling slightly, Harry leaned against the wall, as Alma stood next to him and dabbed at her eyes with a pink, flowery handkerchief. I waved the dumbstruck Turners out the door behind Rosalinda Swift, Cornelius Walker and the Poffenbargers, and as a group, we marched woodenly down the hallway to the staircase.
We passed Robert and Ernestine Fischer on our descent downstairs. I explained the situation and quickly turned the elderly couple around to go back to the parlor with the rest of us. The only guest unaccounted for was the overbearing and pompous man I'd met yesterday, Boris Dack, whose room was across the hall from mine on the first floor. Mr. Dack must have overslept, I concluded, as we passed his closed door on the way to the parlor. Like Mr. Prescott, Boris Dack hadn't appeared for breakfast at the appointed time of seven-thirty. His "Do Not Disturb" placard still dangled from the doorknob of his room. No one claimed to have seen him yet that morning.
As the ever-gracious host, I was helping Crystal dole out croissants and pour fresh cups of coffee a few minutes later. I wondered who'd want to kill Horatio Prescott III on the very day of his induction as president of the Rockdale Historical Society. Was the killer someone who coveted the honorable position and was determined to have another crack at it? I found it hard to fathom why anyone would actually want the position. I couldn't imagine nominating anyone for the position except out of spite or pure orneriness. I'd rather sit through a root canal than be thrust in that position.
Did the killer have an entirely unrelated grievance against the dead man? Could it have been a stranger who'd clandestinely entered the Alexandria Inn in the wee hours of the morning, shot the prestigious Mr. Prescott, and then exited the building unobserved?
Or was the killer, instead, one of the nine other guests registered at the Alexandria Inn? All the guests were acquainted with Horatio Prescott III and, in fact, had been specifically invited to be a part of the induction ceremony. All but Alma Turner, who was attending the event with her husband, were members of the Historical Society. Could one of them have a reason to despise the man enough to kill him? Could one of them have convincingly faked surprise at finding Mr. Prescott dead in his room? Would the killer be identified and brought to justice? I knew I couldn't rest easy until these questions had been answered.
My first impression of Horatio Prescott had been that he was a refined, fastidious but unassuming gentleman. But I really knew very little about him or any of the other nine guests making up the small, local Historical Society. However, I had a sneaking suspicion, somehow, in some way, this was all about to change.
Chapter 2
"Ms. Starr, are you certain you read the clock and remember the time correctly? You'd have been barely awake, alarmed, and possibly disoriented," Detective Wyatt Johnston said as I poured a refill into his coffee cup. In my severely anxious state-of-mind, I sloshed coffee over the edge of the cup onto the kitchen counter. The detective absentmindedly wiped the spill with the sleeve of his blue shirt and gazed at me with unwavering eyes.
"I was completely awake at the time, Detective Johnston, I assure you. I have occasional bouts of insomnia, and last night it was kicking in at full force."
"Any particular reason for your insomnia? Were there unusual noises keeping you awake?"
"Like an argument or a life-and-death scuffle in the room above me?" I asked.
"Uh-huh, something of that nature." Detective Johnston shrugged and nodded with an expectant expression, as if convinced I'd heard such things and was suffering temporary amnesia. I knew he was going to be disappointed if I didn't have something more sensational to add to my statement.
"No. Sorry Detective, but I heard nothing of the kind."
"Okay," he said, obviously not convinced. "We'll come back to that later."
"I think she co
uldn't sleep because she needed a man beside her," came from a squeaky male voice behind me. "She was no doubt frustrated and unsatisfied."
I was flabbergasted by the remark as I looked up into the rheumy eyes of Cornelius Walker. I wasn't sure I'd heard him correctly. Was he unaware that the proprietor of this inn was my boyfriend? Then he winked at me through his thick, horn-rimmed glasses, with one of his bloodshot, watering eyes, and I nearly dropped the carafe of coffee on the floor. I started to make a sarcastic reply, but he spoke again.
"I think Dr. Walker has just the prescription she needs to make her sleep like a baby, Detective," the innocuous-looking, sixty-something-year-old man said, totally oblivious to my revulsion.
I glanced over at the policeman's amused expression and then back at Mr. Walker, who winked at me again and crossed toward the parlor. He was a short man, just a couple of inches taller than I, maybe five-four or five-five at the most. He wore plaid polyester slacks and had thinning, greased-back hair, large, prominent ears, and a slender build. I thought he looked more like a library assistant than I did.
As Cornelius walked out the kitchen door, Stone walked in, nodding politely at the slightly older gentleman as they passed.
"Stone, did you hear what he just said to me?" I asked, in complete astonishment.
"Who?" Stone asked with a chuckle. "Horny Corny?"
"Horny Corny?"
"I've heard several guests call Cornelius that, but not to his face, of course. Late yesterday evening, I heard him ask Rosalinda Swift if she'd like to 'participate in some passionate parlor games' with him. He suggested 'tonsil hockey' or 'spank the monkey' and for a moment I actually thought she was going to pass out 'with the vapors.' " With the last few words, Stone had raised his voice in perfect imitation of Rosalinda's. I laughed at his mockery.
Lexie Starr Cozy Mysteries Boxed Set Page 18