Miz Scarlet and the Imposing Imposter

by Sara M. Barton

  With all my ducks in order, it was time to get a move on and head to the meeting with Kenny in the woods. Feeling the excitement rising, I ran upstairs, changed into a pair of stretch corduroys, a scoop-necked knit top, and my hiking boots. I touched up my makeup, threw on a pair of gold acorn earrings and a gold chain, and pulled my shoulder length hair into a ponytail before I rushed out the door and hit the stairs running. I got about ten steps before I was waylaid.

  “Scarlet!” my mother called to me from her bedroom. It could only mean one thing -- inspection of the troops by the general.

  “Damn,” I muttered, cringing. Taking a deep breath and slowly exhaling before heading down the hall and into Laurel’s room, I mentally prepared myself for what would come next.

  “Hey,” I greeted her.

  “Hey yourself. Let me look at you. Turn around.” Those fierce eyes studied me before yielding with a grudging acknowledgment. “You’ll do.”

  “Great,” I exclaimed, rocket-ready and hoping to launch.

  “Wait!” Stopped once again in my tracks, I paused. Oh, please. Oh, please. Oh, please. My silent little prayer went nowhere.

  “I don’t smell any perfume.”

  “That’s because I’m not wearing any.”

  “Pick something of mine.”

  “I’d rather not. I’m not supposed to know Kenny,” I reminded her.

  “Oh.” That shut her up, but not for long. “Well, when you do, wear it. You need all the help you can get to land this fish, Scarlet.”

  “What are you saying? That he’s only going to fall for me if I’m wearing Chanel No. 5?” I gave her a disbelieving look, hoping to dissuade her from dispensing any more unsolicited advice. Wishful thinking on my part.

  “No, I’m saying you need the perfume to remind yourself you’re trying to get him to fall for you. You have a knack, Scarlet, for playing down your emotions, so that people don’t really know what you feel. Sometimes I think you don’t know how much you feel, but it all spills out at the most inopportune times.”

  “Wow,” I growled, turning on my heel. “Thanks for the pep talk.”

  “You’re welcome. Don’t blow this,” she added helpfully, even as I made my escape.

  Hitting the stairs at full-speed, I traversed the sixteen steps down to the front hall as quickly as I could. The sound of my scurrying feet echoed in the open two-story chamber, bouncing off the high ceilings and marble-tiled floors. Grabbing my fur-trimmed parka from the cloakroom, I called the dogs as I picked up their harnesses.

  January came running at full throttle, her toenails tapped on the hard surface like stilettos. She was delighted, that little fanny wriggling with excitement at the prospect of a walk.

  Huck, on the other hand, had a very different take on the situation. He trotted out of the living room, stopped to observe the action as I buckled the enthusiastic Jack Russell into her hot pink number, and then took his sweet time joining us. Stretching his lean body with exaggerated care, he exercised each limb in turn before he sauntered over to submit himself to my ministrations. Obviously, I had disturbed his afternoon nap.

  “Come on, Huckleberry. I’m in no mood!” I warned him. Laurel had really gotten my dander up with that broadside about attracting a man like Kenny. I wanted to believe it was a done deal, a fait accompli, and she planted all those doubts in my head with the suggestion that I had to work to get Kenny interested in me. Not helpful.

  Glancing out the window, I saw Bur’s car driving up the road. Time to make my “exit, stage left” and preserve the illusion that Kenny Tolliver was just an ordinary guest at the Four Acorns Inn. I booked it down the back hall, into the kitchen, and scampered down the back steps, out of sight before the car stopped. I’d give my brother a good fifteen minutes to register the newcomer and introduce him to any inn guests within earshot. What would Kenny call himself on this trip? And would he pose as someone with a handicap or a need for care? Not all of our guests had mobility issues. Some just came because they wanted a quiet place to stay in town.

  Even as I made my way to the trailhead, I was beginning to feel the stirrings of that old excitement. What would Kenny look like now? It had been almost thirty years since I had last set eyes on him. As much as I was tempted last night to do an Internet search, I was afraid to know the truth until this moment. I wanted us to lock eyes as we saw each other for the first time in decades. I wanted to feel that sizzle inside me as the electricity flowed through my veins. Was he bald and wrinkled like one of those dried apple creatures we used to see at the county fair when we were kids? Was he carrying a spare tire around his middle from all the late-night donut runs as a campus cop at Princeton? Best case scenario? He’d be debonair and suave, a George Clooney kind of guy, but without the pet pig and the zillion girlfriends. Worst case scenario? He’d be like the Pillsbury dough boy, more than a little flaky, but “em-em good”.

  I took my time getting to the top of White Oak Hill, using the blue trail that took me past the water tower. Huck and January were enjoying themselves, prancing in the trodden, slightly icy path left behind by other hikers, human and canine. I crossed back near the top to pick up the white trail to the appointed meeting place.

  Alone in the woods on a sunny afternoon, with only the sound of my boots crackling on the surface of the snow crust, I felt at peace. Here, near the top of the 800-foot summit, the atmosphere was decidedly cooler and the wind much stronger. I watched my canine companions poke their noses up into the air, suddenly intrigued by a scent known only to them. January gave an energetic bark and bounced away, merrily on her way towards whatever captured her attention. Huck held back a bit, not quite sure if it was his cup of tea.

  We rounded the magnificent outcrop of enormous boulders. Fee, fie, fo, fum. Growing up, I played here often with the other neighborhood kids. This landscape always reminded me of a giant’s playground and my overactive imagination fantasized about the immense being who had scattered his oversized marbles before abandoning the game in favor of chasing little children like me.

  I smiled at the memory of the many hours I spent in these woods growing up. The dogs daintily wove in and out of the obstacles in their path. When we reached the smattering of granite and feldspar rocks a hundred feet below, Huck stopped in his tracks, giving me a little whimper in warning. As I searched for the source of his dismay, thinking we had a four-footed intruder in our midst, I spied a black heeled boot sticking out from behind a particularly large slab of feldspar, and that boot was attached to a leg. A human leg. “Holy crap!”

  Horrified, I moved in to take a closer look, even as the thought of what I might be seeing created a sudden mental chill that shook me out of my comfort zone. Is that what I think it is? Am I looking at a body on the ground? Conscious or unconscious? Dead or alive? My hands began to tremble involuntarily, even as my feet went wobbly and I unexpectedly pitched forward. Stumbling towards that stocking-covered leg, my breath came in little gasps, as I tried to make sense of what I was seeing. Female. Maybe the woman fell, I told myself. Slipped on the ice and hit her head. I should call for help. My hand patted my side, seeking my cell phone. How would I tell the EMT crew where to find us? Was she still breathing? All that was visible was that limb, but my brain was telling me it was attached to a person.

  “Scarlet!” A man was approaching from the opposite direction on the white trail, no more than twenty yards or so away. He was dressed in a tan parka, brown pants, boots, and red ski hat. Even as I looked up, he was yelling something else and waving his arms wildly in the air.

  “Back away! Don’t go any closer!”

  “What?”

  “Stop, stop, stop!” he shouted. My brain began to register his urgent tone.

  “But....”

  “Don’t go any closer!” Now he was running at me full tilt. “And grab those dogs!”

  “Huh?” I froze in my tracks. The pair of pooches strained to get nearer the unmoving body. Now I could see unnatural pallor of the exposed skin. Hu
man flesh was never meant to be that shade of blue. I knew that face, but it hadn’t looked like that last time I saw it.

  “Scarlet!” The man in the red ski hat veered off the trail, giving the body a wide berth. “Come to me, Scarlet. Walk over to me carefully.”

  “Kenny?” I moaned uncertainly, momentarily looking up. He was holding out his right hand.

  “Come on. Be a good girl. Trust me.”

  “Kenny!” Relief flooded me as I recognized the eyes below the brim of the knit cap. “I think someone’s hurt behind the rock.”

  She must be hurt, because if she wasn’t, she was...dead. I couldn’t fathom dead. I knew that face, with the lips so red.

  “Come to me,” he said again, his hand still extended. This time I took it and felt it grip mine tightly. He pulled me towards him and we started back the way he arrived. Even as I moved numbly, the dogs in tow, I looked back one more time. That’s when I saw the red stain in the snow. It seemed to seep out from under her. So red. Redder than her lips.

  “Is she dead?” My mind fought to filter the details, right down to the tight black dress, now hiked up above the splayed legs. Gretchen Powick. “Is that blood?”

  “Give me a minute.” Kenny pulled out his cell phone and started punching in numbers, even as he urged me to hurry away from that horrifying scene. “Bur, call Tommy Furlong and give him my cell phone number. Tell him I need to talk to him pronto.”

  The second he disconnected, he took my elbow and walked me another hundred feet to the bench near the summit. My teeth were chattering, even as he encouraged me to sit. His phone rang a moment later.

  “Listen, Tommy. I just arrived in town. I’m undercover, on a missing persons case. We’ve just come upon a dead body in the woods. Definitely foul play. Never seen her before in my life.”

  “Guest,” I managed to say, but Kenny ignored me.

  “Looks like the victim bled out. No, she’s been here a while, maybe a couple of hours. Yeah, I know. Right. Sure. We’ll be here. Oh, I’m with Scarlet Wilson.”

  Had the threatening note in the garden been for her? Get out now, before I am forced to act! Was this the murderer’s response for her failure to heed his warning? Had we caused her death by removing it from the post, sending her straight into the path of her killer? I gave a guttural groan as the reality of Gretchen’s death all came crashing down on me. I kept seeing that look of horror frozen on her lifeless face, an image now tattooed on the inside of my lids. I would no doubt be haunted by it in my sleep tonight.

  Even as I sat there, the cold creeping into my boots and rendering my toes numb, I thought about the permanency of death. Gretchen would never speak again. How would we ever really know what happened to her or why? What had she said to me before she left? Why couldn’t I remember our last conversation? It was as if I erased it from my memory bank. Was there a clue in her final words to me, or were they without any relevance to the event that took place here, in the woods I held so dear?

  “Oh, God!” That little gasp escaped from between my lips. I felt Kenny’s arm slip around my shoulder and pull me into the shelter of his embrace. This was not how I wanted our first meeting after all these years to go. Why did Gretchen have to be so dead?

  “We’ll be here,” said Kenny to Tommy. A moment later, the retired Princeton cop lifted my chin with his fingers, his eyes intense as he studied me. “How are you, Scarlet? You had quite a shock.”

  It took all my energy just to nod. It was true. The shock was more than I expected it to be. It rendered me speechless. What caused all that bleeding?

  “Talk to me,” Kenny demanded. “Come on, Scar. You can do this. Just say something, so I know you’re okay.”

  “How...how do you know it’s...it’s mur-mur-mur-der?”

  “Good question.” Kenny nodded approvingly. “You’re still smart, I see. Well, first of all, the wound is in her lower back and the amount of blood suggests the injury was severe. It’s not like she fell on top of the rock and hurt herself. My best guess is she was shot.”

  “Sh-sh-shot?” I couldn’t stop shaking. Was it the cold or the cold, hard truth about Gretchen’s death that made me shiver? “How do you know th-th-that?”

  “Small amount of blood on her stomach, suggesting it’s the entrance wound. The bullet passed through her major organs from front to back, exiting there. You wouldn’t get that with a knife wound. That would require a very long knife.”

  Chapter Eleven --

  “But...but I didn’t hear a...a...gunshot.”

  “I wouldn’t expect you to, Scar.”

  “Why not?” Now I could see Kenny’s still-blue eyes. There were crow’s feet that crinkled the corners. He was a man, not a boy anymore. Little flecks of grey at the temples. And he still wore a wedding ring.

  “You probably didn’t see them, but there are feathers on the ground. The shooter used a pillow to muffle the sound.”

  “Oh.” I sat there, considering his words. Feathers. Pillow. “That means it was planned.”

  “Indeed it was. The killer had the foresight and experience to bring that muffler with him.”

  “How do you know he didn’t just use his down parka?” Don’t ask me where that came from, or why I just blurted it out, but when I did, Kenny took a deep breath that sounded a lot like a gasp.

  “Geez!” he groaned, smacking his forehead. “Holy cow.”

  “Sorry,” I apologized. How long did I last this time around before I stuck my foot into my mouth? Ten minutes? “I...I wasn’t trying to correct you.”

  “No, no. Actually, that’s very clever,” Kenny acknowledged, even as he started taking notes. “Parka. Of course. Any chance you know the woman?”

  That was my opening and I took it. “Gretchen Powick. She’s a...was a guest of ours. The woman I told you about in the email.”

  “Crap.” Kenny didn’t sound happy about that.

  “What?” I studied that face, reacquainting myself with it. Still so handsome. He shrugged. “Why is that a big deal?”

  “This is complicated. We may have a bigger problem on our hands than I thought. Boynton led me to believe that the Jordans just ran away in the middle of the night. But the mystery woman murdered on top of the mountain? It doesn’t bode well.”

  We sat in silence, both of us lost in our own thoughts. I had expected to be swept off my feet upon seeing Kenny again, but all that passion was quickly shelved when Gretchen’s body surfaced. Now that the shock was beginning to wear off, my mind was starting to work again, unfettered. Was it that wedding ring still on his left hand? Was Kenny still in mourning for his late wife? Did that mean his heart was off-limits?

  The body. I was still having trouble wrapping my head around the idea that Gretchen was dead. What would happen to Lonnie now? The police would be all over the Four Acorns Inn. I started to do a mental check list of all the things to tell Tommy Furlong, starting with those pills in the bottle at Lonnie’s bedside.

  “You stopped shaking,” Kenny announced. He seemed pleased.

  “Mmm...can’t feel my feet.”

  “Stand up. Move around.” I did as he suggested. Pins and needles in my toes. “You’ve got something to share?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You got quiet. I assume that’s a sign that you’ve got something on your mind.”

  “Who would want to kill Gretchen?”

  “Can’t even make an educated guess at this point, Scar. I just don’t know enough about the victim.”

  “Bur thought I was the target for that note in the garden, but what if Gretchen was?” I demanded. “The killer must have known her, right?”

  “Probably,” he conceded. “Most victims are murdered by someone they know.”

  “So, we don’t have a demented killer running around on the loose,” I suggested, “ready to kill the rest of us.”

  “Well, we can’t really say that, Miz Scarlet.” I looked at Kenny. His face was so earnest. That didn’t change the fact he was begin
ning to get on my nerves.

  “So, we have a killer running around on the loose?”

  “Hard to know,” said the man with the Jesuitical mind.

  “Are we or are we not in danger?” I snapped. That got his attention. The minute those blue eyes lit on me, I found myself blushing.

  “Define danger.”

  “Is the killer going to try to break into the inn to finish the job?”

  “I’m not a psychic,” was his response.

  “What the....”

  “Let me rephrase that, Miz Scarlet. I’m staying at the inn and I’ve got a gun. Does that help?”

  “I don’t know.” It was an honest answer. All I could think of was the look on Gretchen’s face. Betrayal. She knew who shot her. That’s what I saw in those half-closed eyes. Recognition. If so, did that mean the end of the murderous streak? Or did we also know the killer?