Scones and Scofflaws

by Jane Gorman

“No, I guess not. But it happened to me. My Great Aunt Louise died and in her will she left this house to me.”

  “Louise Gannet?” Walsh asked. When Anna nodded, he added, “Sure, I remember her. She was a hoot, that lady. We all miss her. I didn’t know much about her family life, but she was a leader in the community here.” He paused, thinking. When he spoke again, he returned to his friendly tone of voice. “So your Great Aunt Louise dies and leaves you Climbing Rose Cottage. Then you open for business and your first guest dies.”

  Anna stared down at her hands and felt the tears welling up in her eyes. Aunt Louise would not be happy with the mess Anna was making of this.

  “Why did you reopen the B&B? Louise had closed for business years ago,” Walsh pressed. His voice remained friendly but Anna heard the firmness in it. He expected her to answer. As if she could.

  “I know,” Anna said. “She had to stop running it when she got too old. But it used to be quite successful. I remember coming here when I was a kid, seeing her dealing with the guests. Everyone always seemed so happy here…” She blinked away more tears. “I had some great memories of this place. I thought I could recreate that.”

  Anna shook her head and lowered her eyes again.

  Walsh waited a moment, then said softly, “Tell me about George Hedley.”

  Anna took a deep breath and shrugged. “I don’t know him. He checked in yesterday. He said he was in town for work. Oh, he has a wife. He said she might be joining him.”

  Walsh nodded, taking notes. “We’ll be in touch with her, too, of course. Do you know what business he was in?”

  Anna shook her head again. “I don’t.” She sniffled, realizing she was about to cry. “I don’t know anything about him. I don’t know how this happened. I don’t know…”

  She felt a comforting hand on her shoulder and looked up to see Patrolman Burley leaning toward her. “Can I bring you some water? Or a cup of tea?”

  She nodded, thanking him, then took a few deep breaths, trying to regain control. When Patrolman Burley returned with her tea, she was already feeling a little better.

  “What’s going to happen next?” she asked, looking back and forth between the two men. She turned her head to see police officers criss-crossing the hall, a loose end of yellow police tape visible from where she sat. “Is my dining room…” She faltered and took a breath. “Is my dining room a crime scene?”

  “As far as I’m concerned, the whole house is a crime scene,” Walsh replied.

  “What?” Anna sat up in surprise.

  Walsh scowled at her. “We have to treat every suspicious death as a crime until we know otherwise. It’s standard procedure. We don’t know how George Hedley died. The medics say he didn’t choke, but that’s all they could tell. It might have been natural, might have been accident. Then again, might have been something else entirely.” He nodded toward Patrolman Burley. “Burley did the right thing securing the dining room and kitchen, but it’s not enough. I don’t plan to let anything slip through my fingers. If something in this house caused his death, we’re going to find it.”

  Anna’s eyebrows shot up. “Not enough? You’re not going to arrest me, are you?”

  “We’re going to need to search the whole house,” Walsh replied, ignoring her question. “Do we have your permission?”

  “Of course.” At least she wasn’t being arrested for accidentally killing George. But what could they possibly be searching for? If he didn’t choke, how did he die?

  “We’ll go through his room next, once we’re done down here. Can you tell me which room it is?”

  “Second door on the right, on the second floor,” she answered glumly. “How long will my house be…” she trailed off, not sure what she was asking.

  Patrolman Burley answered her. “This might take a while, Ms. McGregor.” His eyes flicked briefly to Detective Walsh. “Detective Walsh is rigorous. Your other guests are going to have to find somewhere else to stay.”

  Anna inhaled sharply as Detective Walsh nodded his approval. “I have to close?”

  “A man has died here, Ms. McGregor. In unusual circumstances.” Detective Walsh’s voice was firm. “You don’t want to just continue with business as usual, do you?”

  “No, of course not.” Now Anna felt guilty for even thinking about her business as her first guest lay dead in the other room.

  At that moment, George Hedley left the premises, carried out through the lounge on a stretcher covered in black plastic. She gulped as she watched the officers or technicians or whatever they were, carry him away.

  “No, of course not,” she repeated.

  The Gormleys were the first to leave. They’d started packing and calling other B&Bs before being told they had to. They were lucky it was off-season. They found another place easily. Anna waved them off, then returned to find Jim escorting a still distraught Maryanne down the stairs.

  What she had seen that morning had clearly affected her. Her typical sneer was replaced by lines of worry and fear that streaked across her forehead and around her eyes, eyes that were red and swollen from crying. Jim tore his attention away from his fiancée briefly to ask Anna where they should go.

  “Oh. I don’t know. I could make some calls for you, if you’d like,” she offered.

  “Thank you, yes. Maryanne’s never found a dead person before. I don’t know how she’s going to get over this.”

  “Let me help you into the lounge,” Patrolman Burley came to Jim’s aid. “We can wait there while Anna — Ms. McGregor — finds you a new place to stay.”

  “Of course. Thank you.”

  Anna watched the gentle officer escort the couple into her lounge, making sounds of consolation and support. He was pretty good at his job, she thought. Assuming his job mostly entailed comforting distraught victims.

  She pulled her cell phone from her pocket. She knew a few other B&B owners she could call. They’d be happy to take the couple. She was more worried about her future guests — and if she’d have any.

  Anna stood on the front porch watching Jim and Maryanne leave. Would she ever have guests again, she wondered? Who would stay in a Bed and Breakfast where someone had died? As she let her mind wallow in depressing thoughts, she noticed she wasn’t alone.

  A slip of a boy with round, wide eyes and skinny legs stood in the front yard watching the proceedings intently. He pulled out a tattered notebook and a stub of pencil and started writing.

  Glancing behind her, Anna realized the boy could see straight into the hall and lounge, where police officers were setting up equipment, dusting for fingerprints, and doing whatever else it was the police did to investigate a death.

  When she turned back to the front yard, a man she didn’t know stood next to the boy.

  “Ms. McGregor, is it?”

  Emotionally drained by the events of the morning, Anna didn’t have the presence of mind to hide her surprise at hearing the thick Irish accent issuing from the Black man in front of her.

  “Ah, my appearance surprises you. I can see from your expression,” he added as she tried to shake her head.

  “I’m so sorry. Of course, there are African-Americans in Ireland too.”

  His eyebrows shot up. “I shouldn’t think so! Perhaps those who’ve moved there. But there’s nothing American about me, I can assure you.”

  Anna thumped her hand against her face. “I’m so sorry. I’m saying… I’m thinking all the wrong things. I do apologize. As you can see”—she waved her hands around her—“it’s been quite a morning here. Now, sir. Can I help you?”

  “Sir? You do not know me, then? Not expecting me, eh?”

  “Um. No, should I have been?”

  “I’d been told you’d be expecting me, I was. I bring your cousin, Eoin.”

  The boy looked up when he heard his name. Seeing both adults looking at him, he clasped his hands behind his back and stood to attention, a look somewhat diminished by the heavy wrinkles that creased his shorts. He wore a woolen vest o
ver his button-down, short-sleeve shirt, and ends of the shirt stuck out in places where it had become untucked. His bright red hair curled around his ears and over his wire-framed glasses. The perfectly round lenses of the glasses made his eyes look even bigger as he stepped closer and looked up at Anna, smiling shyly.

  “Hello Cousin Anna.” His voice came out in a whisper.

  “Ha! Look at him whispering. That lad can talk the black off an iron kettle.” The man laughed. “I had an earful throughout our drive down from New York.”

  “Eoin?” Anna finally found her voice. “My cousin Eoin, from Ireland?” She pronounced the name like the English name Owen, as she had been told by her father when he’d first arranged the visit.

  “Eoin.” The boy responded in a high-pitched voice, pronouncing it more like “Oween.”

  “Oween,” Anna replied.

  “Eoin,” he repeated in his high voice, shaking his head.

  “Eoin,” the man said.

  “Oweeen.” Anna tried to lengthen the name.

  Man and boy both shook their heads.

  “Look, lass, I’ll be off then. Sorry to have found you in such dire straits,” he added, looking inside the house to the scene of investigation. “But I have a tight schedule. You’ll be fine here with your cousin, lad.”

  He turned to leave.

  “Wait,” Anna called out, stopping him in his tracks. “I wasn’t expecting Eoin”—she noticed the boy looking up at her and shaking his head, but she forged on without trying her pronunciation again—“until June.”

  The man’s eyebrows raised again. “I can’t help you with that, miss. Your own family made the arrangements with me. It seems likely they would have shared the same information with you, don’t you think?”

  Eoin nodded vigorously. He ran over to the man and said something Anna couldn’t hear.

  “The lad says they emailed you.” He nodded once. “Right, I’m off. Have a wonderful summer, Eoin.” He raised a hand in a farewell wave as he passed out through the front gate.

  Anna stared after him then turned her stare onto the boy in front of her. He pulled his lips into a shy smile, pushed his glasses up on his face with one finger, and blinked rapidly at her.

  6

  Anna looked down at the boy in her front hall, her hands on her hips. He tilted his head up to look back at her, a worried expression on his face, his lips squeezed together so tightly they were turning white. She’d just finished a call with her mother that had mostly explained what Eoin was doing there early. And how she’d failed to get the message.

  “I did know you were coming, of course, Eoin —” she started.

  “Eoin,” he said, his voice coming out as a nervous squeak.

  “Right, Oween.” She held up a hand to forestall the correction she knew he was about to make. “I just didn’t expect you until June, that’s all. Don’t worry,” she added quickly as she saw the tears pooling in his eyes. “I’m all ready for you. Come on, ignore these men and women, let me take you up to your room.”

  She grabbed his small suitcase in one hand, took his hand in her other, and led him up the three flights of stairs to their rooms. She showed him around the cheerful space, explaining the various toiletries she had for him in the bathroom, stowing his few items of clothes and books in the room’s closet.

  Even as she tried to chat lightly, she could hear the noise of the officers searching her house, gradually making their way up, level by level. She couldn’t stay here. She couldn’t keep Eoin here while this was going on.

  “Come on,” she said, smiling brightly. “Do you want to go out for a walk?”

  Eoin nodded solemnly and Anna noticed he grabbed his small notebook and pencil as he left the room. She picked up one of his cardigans, draping it over his shoulders as they went downstairs, and considered her options. She could go to the coffee shop on Washington Mall. She’d spent plenty of afternoons there before, working, chatting with friends and neighbors.

  Today, the idea of facing all the questions her neighbors were sure to ask — not to mention the risk of further spreading the news that a man had died in Climbing Rose Cottage — turned her feet toward the library and the computers available there. Maybe she could focus enough to work on some of her ongoing marketing efforts.

  The unobtrusive, one-level building that held the local branch of the Cape May County Library was not usually a hotbed of activity, so Anna was surprised to see a cluster of teenage girls gathered around the reference desk. Felicia Keane, the librarian, huddled close with them, directing their attention to various books and passages within them. She looked up to catch Anna’s eye and gave her a sharp nod that encompassed the group in front of her. She might be a while.

  “Ms. Keane, what about the eighteenth century?” One of the girls asked, recalling Felicia’s attention to her in the process. The girl, who stood a few inches taller than the others, shook her head as she asked, causing the beads fastened to the ends of her many long braids to bounce against each other. Other girls in the group looked up at her and nodded their agreement.

  “Ah, well that would be in this book.” Felicia reached behind her and pulled out another volume.

  Baffled as to what they could be researching, Anna moved past them toward the computers against the back wall. Marketing, that’s what she was here for, she reminded herself.

  The reminder didn’t help. The comfortable nook set back into the window opposite the reference desk looked too cozy to pass up, particularly with the shelf of popular books leading the way.

  Taking Eoin’s hand once again, Anna led the way to the chairs by the window. “Do you like to read, Eoin?”

  He nodded, his rounded eyes scanning the shelves as they passed. She slowed her pace, letting him examine each shelf until he saw one full of books for young readers. He squatted in front of the shelf — unnecessarily, Anna thought, since the position brought his eyes below where they needed to be and he had to look up to read the titles — then pulled one down with both hands.

  He’d chosen a book about the history of Cape May. Perfect! She grabbed a romance novel and settled into the lounge chair in the window. With Eoin curled up in the chair next to her, she prepared to spend some time in the hills of Scotland. She glanced once more at the girls. They had broken into two groups of three, sitting around a large table with pads of paper stacked around them. They were each writing furiously, taking notes from whatever volumes they had gathered. One small girl pushed her glasses back up her face periodically as she bent over the books, her thick, straight hair falling into her eyes. Another chewed on her lip as she focused on her work. An interesting group, for sure.

  She snuggled deeper into the chair and opened her book. Within minutes, she was lost in the castles and clans of the highlands.

  “Anna!” Felicia’s whisper was loud, almost violent, and Anna jumped, dropping the book onto her lap.

  “What?”

  Felicia laughed silently, one hand over her mouth. “I’ve been standing here for almost a minute trying to get your attention.” She perched on the padded windowsill next to Anna and put a hand on Anna’s leg. “How are you, dear? You seemed upset when you came in. And who is your friend?”

  “This,” Anna gestured to the sleeping boy, who had curled into a ball wrapped around his book, “is my cousin from Ireland. Well, technically he’s the son of my Dad’s cousin.”

  “How nice for you.” Felicia kept her voice to a whisper to avoid waking the child. “How long is he staying?”

  Anna pursed her lips. “I’m not really sure. To be honest, I wasn’t expecting him for a couple more months. I think he’s staying through the summer.”

  “That’s a lot of work for you, Anna.” Felicia let her concern show on her face. “Is that why you looked upset when you came in?”

  Anna wasn’t surprised Felicia had noticed. Felicia’s friendly disposition and obvious willingness to help others was coupled with the sharp eyes and mind of a librarian. She was a woman
who knew what to look for and where to look.

  “Felicia, a man is dead.” Anna kept her voice low, but that still didn’t take the tragedy out of the words. “In Climbing Rose Cottage.”

  Felicia’s eyes widened and her eyebrows went up, deepening the lines that already covered her forehead. Her browned skin reflected the years she’d spent living in the sun and wind of the Jersey shore town.

  “What happened? Are you all right?” She leaned even closer to Anna.

  “I’m fine, thank you. And I don’t know what happened. The police are at the house now, trying to figure it out.”

  “The police? So someone was”—Felicia glanced up at the girls still gathered around their table—“killed?” She dropped her voice so low she practically mouthed the word.

  Anna nodded.

  “Who was there, was it Evan Burley?” Felicia asked.

  Anna leaned forward. “Yes, he was there. Do you know him?”

  “Of course.” Felicia raised one shoulder in a shrug. “A very nice young man. I’m glad he’s involved. For you, I mean.” She turned her appraising eyes back onto Anna. “What else can you tell me? Who died?”

  Anna told Felicia about George Hedley, about the scone, about finding the body. She shivered a bit as she spoke, but it felt so good to let it out, to tell someone friendly. Someone who didn’t suspect her of poisoning her own guest.

  “You think he was poisoned?” Felicia asked when Anna had finished her story. “But you said the police didn’t know how he died?”

  “Oh. I don’t know.” Anna considered it. “I guess I just assumed it. But why?” She asked herself as much as Felicia.

  Felicia watched her, waiting, running one hand over her gray hair, cut into a no-nonsense style that matched her personality.

  Anna thought back through everything she’d experienced that morning. The shock of seeing George, emptying his pockets, feeling for a pulse. “The smell,” she finally said, looking back at Felicia, who nodded her encouragement.

  “What did you smell?” Felicia asked.

  Anna shook her head. “I’m not sure. It was out of place. I need to think about that.”