Well, Roger had tried, on my behalf. I met his apologetic gaze and shrugged, silently telling him that he was fighting a losing battle, but that I was still grateful for his support. Then I addressed Mom, who finally sat down on a suitably throne-like wingback chair. “How do you know all that?”
“I ran into Norman”—that was what Mom always called Norm Alcorn—“a few minutes ago, when I excused myself to use the facilities near the staff offices.” Mom lifted her chin, letting us know that she was normally above using what everyone else called the bathroom.
Socrates made another rumbling sound, and I looked down to see that Artie had joined him and Snowdrop by the fire. The Chihuahua had also conked out, his vest askew and his tongue hanging out of his mouth while he dreamed. Axis remained by the front desk, and, growing too warm, I wandered over to give him a pat.
“Norman happened to be exiting his office,” Mom added, “and he shared everything that he’d been told by the police.” My mother rested a hand on her cascade of jewels. “He seemed quite shaken!”
Bending down to pet Axis, who wagged his tail, I recalled that I’d last seen Norm leaving the ballroom with Jeff. Neither man had looked too happy.
And I’d forgotten that the hotel even had offices. But, of course, it was a fairly big operation, employing a full-time event planner, as well as a general manager and someone who coordinated housekeeping. As the inn’s owner, Norm would have a work space, and there were likely more employees with offices, too. Private spaces at the rear of the hotel, where a person could probably slip in and out of a back door, unnoticed, and maybe even hide bloodstained clothes until they could be disposed of permanently, after the police were gone.
Straightening, I was about to ask Mom what Norm had been wearing when she’d bumped into him, because I’d last seen him in a jacket and tie. If the jacket was missing, or he’d changed his shirt, that could be telling.
Then I hesitated, because I had no real reason to suspect Norm of murder. Just because he’d pressured me to speak with Gabriel about toning down negative coverage of local events didn’t make Norm a killer.
Plus, I was assuming that Jeff had been stabbed, like CeeCee. But the fact that the homicides were almost certainly related didn’t mean the weapons were the same or similar. For all I knew, Jeff had been poisoned, bludgeoned, or gunned down, as per my mother’s worst fears.
“This second crime has to be tied to CeeCee’s death, don’t you think?” Piper noted, making the same connection I’d just made.
However, I was only half-listening to my sister and Roger, who was expressing agreement, while my mother again bemoaned the fact that murder was bad for business. My attention was mainly on the front desk, as I replayed the conversation Norm and I had recently shared, standing in that same spot.
I’d set my boxes of dog cookies on the gleaming counter, pushing aside the few objects that were always there. One of which was now missing . . .
“Oh, gosh,” I muttered under my breath, my gaze sweeping the blotter and the omnipresent stack of mail. “Where’s the . . . ?”
Behind me, I heard Mom chastise me for being rude. “If you’re going to converse, Daphne, please speak up. We can’t hear you when you mumble!”
Then her voice was drowned out by a rush of cold air when the door opened again. I assumed that yet another police officer had entered the hotel, until something crashed into my knees, nearly knocking me over.
I didn’t need to glance down to know who’d arrived on the scene, but I looked, anyway, because there’s nothing cuter than a pug in a knit sweater with a grumpy catchphrase.
“Hey, Tiny Tim,” I greeted the dog who was turning quick circles on the carpet. Skidding to a halt, he yipped twice, then trotted toward the door, where he stopped and looked back at me before barking again.
“What is he doing?”
Roger sounded confused, and Piper and my mother also seemed baffled. Or, more accurately, Mom appeared appalled by the ill-mannered canine who’d lacked the decency to wear formal attire to the ball, like his counterparts.
Only I grasped what the precocious pug was trying to convey, and—suddenly realizing that I hadn’t ever seen Moxie and Mike rejoin the party after their disappearance—I groaned and said, reluctantly, “Lead the way, Timmy. I’m coming!”
Chapter 42
Stepping outside the hotel, I glanced quickly to my left, where squad cars were parked at the intersection of Market Street and Linden Lane. I couldn’t see the sleigh, but someone was leading the gorgeous Friesian horse, now blanketed, to a waiting trailer. And amid the flashing lights, I spotted Jonathan, who was conferring with Detective Doebler and Vonda Shakes, their heads bent together and Jonathan’s back to me.
I wanted to tell him that I was leaving—and where I thought I was going—but he was so deep in conversation that I wasn’t sure if I should bother him with what was probably pointless information. Moreover, Tiny Tim was growing impatient. He yapped again, and I turned to see him trotting off down the street, heading in the direction I’d expected.
With one last, uncertain glance at Jonathan, I followed the pug past Spa and Paw, toward Flour Power. We didn’t make it as far as my bakery, though. All at once, Timmy darted between two buildings, leading me down a narrow walkway to the alley that ran behind the storefronts.
As I’d anticipated, we were heading back to Mike’s apartment. My canine guide didn’t move quickly, but I struggled to keep up in Moxie’s heels. And I was shivering in her wrap, which had been fine for crossing the single street that separated Moxie’s apartment from the hotel, but which wasn’t meant for longer treks on frigid evenings.
“Wait up,” I called to Tiny Tim, who’d turned the final corner, onto the dead-end lane lined with pretty Victorian houses in pastel hues. “Wait . . .”
I didn’t need to keep calling. When I rounded the corner, too, I discovered that Tiny Tim had stopped halfway down the block. But he didn’t stand at his front door. He’d paused before a neighboring pale-pink confection of a house that was surrounded by gumdrop-shaped shrubs.
As I approached, confused, he barked so shrilly that his entire body jerked on his stiff legs.
“What is this about?” I asked softly, walking closer and crouching down, to the degree that I could do that in a custom-fitted gown. Reaching out, I stroked Tiny Tim’s soft, wrinkled head while I peered into the shrubbery. Then my hand froze in place, and my blood ran even colder, when I spied what the little pug had wanted me to see.
A pearl-handled letter opener, which was almost concealed by one of the bushes, and which had tinged the snow red.
To my admittedly untrained eye, it appeared that the sharp-looking object, which I’d last seen at the Sylvan Creek Hotel, had been tossed hastily. Perhaps by someone fleeing to a different house, down the block.
I couldn’t seem to move, even when I heard footsteps approaching from the same direction Tiny Tim and I had just come. I was completely locked in place until Jonathan bent down and grasped my arm.
He locked up, too, just for a moment, when he saw the object that had put me in a deep freeze.
Then he helped me to my feet and pulled his cell phone from the pocket of his overcoat. Shrugging out of the coat, he wrapped it around my shoulders, telling me, gently but firmly, “You should go home now, Daphne. It’s going to be a long night for some of your friends, and they might want you there in the morning.”
Chapter 43
Recalling how quickly I’d recovered from my minor truck accident with the help of a stack of pancakes, I decided to pull out the big guns for Moxie Bloom, who had texted me no fewer than twenty frowny faces, somewhere around midnight. I’d still been awake, trying to get Axis, Artie, Snowdrop, and Socrates settled into my tiny cottage, while Tinkleston had loudly expressed his displeasure with the temporary living situation. It had been a long night for me, and as Jonathan had predicted, for Moxie, too, so I didn’t make reservations at the area’s fanciest brunch spot, Magee Mansio
n, until 11 a.m.
Even so, sitting across from me at a table in the sunny atrium, Moxie appeared tired and a bit drawn. That was worrisome, because she normally bubbled over on the occasions we’d splurged and visited the Magee, which was housed in a renovated Georgian Colonial estate in the adorable, nearby village of Zephyr Hollow.
The restaurant was only open for brunch and packed during the holidays. Fortunately, I often watched the head chef and owner’s three Chow Chows—Ina, Bobby, and Alex—and she’d finagled me a spot in Moxie’s favorite room, which overlooked a pretty, now snow-covered, garden with a glittering pond and icicle-hung gazebo.
Moxie’s face was turned toward the lovely landscape, where brilliant red cardinals flitted among crimson berries on the branches of winterberry trees, but her gaze was focused inward, and her mouth drawn down.
“Are you okay?” I asked, reaching across the table to give her wrist a squeeze. My timing was bad—she was holding a forkful of the mansion’s legendary cinnamon roll French toast bake—and I quickly withdrew my hand as the gooey, icing-covered bite fell back into a delicate white casserole dish. “Tell me what happened.”
Facing me, Moxie set down her fork without taking a bite. Instead, she nibbled her lip. “It should’ve been a dream come true,” she noted, speaking more softly than was probably necessary. All of the mansion’s dining rooms were filled with chattering parties, made up of both locals and visitors to Sylvan Creek, Zephyr Hollow, and nearby ski lodges. A holiday brunch at the Magee was a tradition for many families. “Not only was Jonathan Black wearing a suit when he questioned me,” Moxie continued, “he was in an Armani tuxedo, with black satin peak lapels and a classic one-button closure!”
“Um, how do you know the brand, let alone those details?” I asked, digging into my own mini baking dish, which held the day’s special, a cheese-and-croissant breakfast casserole, with fluffy eggs, nutty Gruyère, and sweet croissant bread crumbs. I was sympathetic to Moxie, but starving. And, although I’d thought Jonathan had looked a cut above most of the other party goers, I added, “All tuxes look basically the same to me.”
Moxie shook her head, already regaining some color in her cheeks and some spark in her eyes as she warmed to the topic of fashion. “Oh, no!” she objected, picking up her fork again. “Tuxedos are all about the details. The slant of a pocket, the cut of the shoulders, the quality of the fabric . . . Each little feature can make or break the suit. And Jonathan Black’s was just perfect.”
Grabbing a carafe, I poured some heavy cream into my bone china mug of house-blend coffee. “So, you could tell it was Armani, just by the details?”
“Goodness, no!” Moxie dabbed at her lips with a cloth napkin. I was glad she’d started to eat. “At a certain point, he took off the jacket, so he could roll up his sleeves. And when he left the room to question Mike, I checked the label.”
“Moxie . . .” I hated to shift the topic away from tuxes, given how she’d perked up. Yet, I still felt I should offer, one more time, “If you want to talk about last night—either what happened at the police station or with Mike—I’m all ears. But I understand if you’d rather just enjoy brunch.”
The light in Moxie’s eyes dimmed, but, as Jonathan had anticipated, she wanted to unburden herself. “There’s really not much to say about the murder, except that I feel terrible for poor Jeff Updegrove. But I have no idea why there was a bloody letter opener near Mike’s house.”
“Was it the murder weapon?” I inquired, as Moxie and I switched dishes on some wordless cue. That was our tradition. “Has that been determined yet?”
“Not that I know of.” Moxie took a bite of the casserole and gave me a thumbs up while she chewed. Swallowing, she noted, “I don’t think there was time to run whatever tests need to be run, but it seems kind of likely, don’t you think?”
“Yes, I actually thought that when I noticed the opener was missing from the hotel’s front desk.” I’d tried the French toast, and, although an opinion wasn’t really needed—the dish was consistently flawless, like an Armani tux, only with icing—I flashed a thumbs up, too. “I felt like it was always there, holding down stacks of mail.”
Moxie and I sat back so a server in a crisp, white dress shirt could set down two small bowls of winter fruit salad we’d ordered to finish off our meals on a bright, citrusy note. When the young man stepped away, Moxie said, “At least neither Detective Black nor Detective Doebler could find a motive for me to kill poor Jeff, unlike with CeeCee. I could barely recall anything about him, except that he’d been a truly outstanding parliamentarian. Way better than most. And exceptional parliamentary service is hardly a reason to kill someone!”
I wanted to ask Moxie what the heck that particular school officer even did, but I had a more pressing question. “What about an alibi, Moxie? You had one, right?”
“Yes,” she assured me, pushing aside the empty casserole dish and drawing the bowl of fruit closer. “Only it’s really flimsy, and backed up only by Mike, who, in turn, only has me to vouch for him.”
“If you don’t mind my asking, where were you both?” I’d scraped the last drizzle of icing from the casserole dish and reluctantly set down my fork. If I’d been at home, I probably would’ve licked the plate, but even I had some decorum, and I set the plate at the edge of the table. “What happened between you two last night?”
In spite of Mike’s ominous pronouncement at his apartment—his warning that whatever had happened in high school had been worse than what anyone believed—I’d secretly hoped that he was exaggerating, and that he and Moxie would rekindle their old spark. However, Moxie slouched down, seeming tired again.
“It was very strange to see him, at first,” she confided. “Like being kicked in the stomach, while my heart started racing in a way that might’ve been good—or bad. Neither one of us seemed to know what to say, so we just stood there in the busy ballroom, trying to find the right words. Then we realized Brett Pinkney was hiding behind some pine trees, for some reason—”
“I think Elyse’s ambitious décor wasn’t done in time for the ball,” I interrupted. “I saw him cutting away some netting at the last minute, before sneaking away.”
I’d actually forgotten that Brett had been at the ball—with a pair of scissors in hand—and that he’d disappeared out a side door, close to the time Norm and Jeff had left, too. I socked that detail away for future consideration, while Moxie continued her story.
“Mike and I decided we needed someplace more private to talk, so we went to the library, which was empty.”
The hotel had a lovely, but little used, reading room, where guests could choose from shelves full of ancient, leather-bound classic novels, or play old board games or do puzzles, if they didn’t mind a few missing pieces. However, the library was hidden away at the back of the inn. Plus, most people probably preferred to watch TV in the privacy of their rooms.
“So, nobody saw you?”
“I don’t think so,” Moxie said glumly, picking at her fruit. “We passed some people in the lobby—”
“Jeff? And—or—Norm Alcorn?”
Moxie shot me a funny look. “No. I don’t think so. Why?” “It’s not important right now,” I said, thinking the men’s absence might actually be a vital detail. But it was one that I’d consider later. Taking a big bite of the sweet, tangy salad, I made a waving motion with my spoon, then covered my mouth and said, “Getting back to you and Mike . . .”
“Oh, yes.” All at once, Moxie got a strange look in her eyes, something between bliss and wistfulness, and she spoke distractedly, her gaze fixed out the window again. “Once the awkwardness passed, we talked a lot about the recent past, and the present. What we’ve been doing in the last few years, and how Mike ended up in Sylvan Creek again.” Two pink spots formed on Moxie’s cheeks. A happy flush. “For a while, it was like nothing bad had ever happened between us. I felt . . .”
She couldn’t seem to articulate her emotions, but I could guess. “You fel
t what you used to feel for him.”
Moxie finally turned back to me, nodding vigorously, her eyes alight. “Yes. Exactly. And I could tell he felt the same way. We talked about getting together again.” She seemed to realize that sounded like they were rushing things, and she held up her hands. “Just for coffee. To talk some more, and maybe—just maybe—see what might happen.”
I could tell the story didn’t have a simple, happy ending. “But . . . ?”
Her face fell. “Mike wouldn’t tell me what really happened at the formal, when he and CeeCee disappeared.” She pressed her bow-like lips together, steeling herself. “And I can’t even think about seeing him again, if I can’t trust him.”
I’d hoped for some holiday magic at that particularly enchanted Bark the Halls Ball, but I knew Moxie was right. “I agree,” I told her. “You can’t be with someone you don’t trust.” I reached out and squeezed her wrist again. “I’m really sorry, Moxie. I hope someday he tells you the whole story, and that it’s something you can both move past.”
Withdrawing my hand, I recalled that Mike had mentioned that someone else—someone still living—knew the truth about that fateful school dance.
Was that person still alive?
Was silencing the witnesses part of the killer’s plan?
Because Jeff had probably been at the formal, and he’d given me the yearbook, which HAD to hold some clue . . .
“Daphne?” Moxie’s voice snapped me back to reality, and I tried to shake off my suspicions about Mike Cavanaugh. I didn’t want to be wrong about his character. I didn’t think I was wrong. But I had to admit that evidence seemed to be stacking up against him, and I was glad that he and Moxie hadn’t gone anywhere more private than a library in a hotel.
“You’re right to be cautious,” I repeated. “Mike needs to be completely honest with you, if he even wants friendship.”
Moxie cocked her head at me, while the server slipped the check onto our table. I grabbed the bill before Moxie could, because I’d promised that brunch would be my treat. Happily, she didn’t argue. But I didn’t like the new look in her eyes. The glimmer of curiosity.
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