Whispering Pines Mysteries Box Set 3

by Shawn McGuire

  “You only have one room booked?”

  I switched her over to speakerphone so Tripp could share my joy over talking to my mother first thing in the morning. He rolled out of bed and pulled on a T-shirt. Where was the support?

  “The nephew and niece-in-law of one of the villagers are arriving tomorrow as well,” I told her. “That will be two rooms.”

  “Two out of seven. How do you expect to be profitable?”

  “I could charge Dad and Rozzie.”

  “Don’t be smart. You know what I mean.”

  Across the apartment, Tripp filled Meeka’s breakfast bowl as I explained, “It’s the off-season, Mom. Whispering Pines is primarily a summer tourist town.”

  “I thought you were going to offer outdoor winter activities. Cross-country skiing, ice fishing, snowmobiling . . . and whatever else people enjoy doing in the snow.”

  We had talked about that. Limited funds meant we couldn’t get those things set up this first year. Next year, yes. We’d start promoting our new winter amenities to our guests this summer.

  “It’s the Midwinter Celebration tomorrow,” I reminded her. “The shops are shutting down until the day after Christmas so there’s nothing for tourists to do. There isn’t even anywhere for them to eat because the restaurants will be closed too.”

  Slowly and succinctly, as though I’d missed it the first time, she repeated, “Outdoor winter activities. And you could provide three meals a day while the other places are closed. Do you at least have a sign on the highway advertising your availability to people passing through? It’s not like they can see the house clear down by the lake.”

  That was actually a good idea. It wouldn’t take any time at all to run up to the highway and flip a sign from “Rooms Available” to “No Vacancy.” I rummaged around in my nightstand drawer for a pen and pad of paper and wrote that down.

  “What about you?” she continued. “Does the sheriff get the midwinter whatever off as well?”

  “I’m always on duty, Mom. It takes five minutes to get myself and Meeka suited up and out the door in an emergency. I timed it.” That was considering my K-9 wasn’t hiding on me.

  “I did call for a reason.”

  “I figured.”

  She made a humming sound again. That meant I was frustrating her. “I just got off the phone with Rosalyn. Your father’s plane landed in Chicago. His connecting flight to Dane County Regional is on time.”

  “Wonderful.”

  “He actually expected her to drive down to O’Hare and pick him up there. Can you imagine?”

  “That would be a lot of driving in one day. Especially since they’re coming all the way up here afterward.”

  “It’s rude. How could he ask such a thing?”

  I draped my free arm over my eyes and considered smothering myself with my pillow. “There’s nothing wrong with asking, Mom. Maybe he thought Roz would be in the area.”

  “In the area of Chicago? That’s two hours from Madison.”

  “You go there all the time.”

  “I go there for work. Your sister is still in college.”

  “Maybe he thought she was on winter break.”

  She sighed, a defeated sound, and then quietly murmured, “You always take his side.”

  I felt bad but wasn’t sure which parent the feeling was for. “I guess I feel like someone should. You’re always against him.”

  “You don’t understand,” she began and cut herself off.

  I left all snark out of my voice as I said, “I bet I’d understand if you told me.”

  She seemed to consider doing so then abruptly dismissed the thought. “I simply wanted to let you know what was going on.”

  “Thank you.” I hesitated before adding, “You know, the benefit to having rooms available here is that you could come up too.”

  “No.” My mother despised Whispering Pines and had since Rosalyn and I were in grade school.

  “But you’ll be alone for Christmas.” For the first time ever as far as I knew.

  “I appreciate your concern, Jayne, but worse things could happen. I’ll be fine.”

  “Okay, but the offer stands.”

  Her little hmm was happier this time. Guess she liked that I offered. “I hope you have an enjoyable visit with your father. It’s been more than two years since his last visit to the States. You have quite a lot to catch up on.”

  “We will. And I hope you have a good Christmas, too, Mom.”

  We said goodbye and as I lay there wondering what she’d do by herself, Tripp emerged from the kitchenette area.

  “I started a pot of coffee. The furry one finished her breakfast, so I’m going to let her out.”

  It took longer to get from the apartment to the patio doors than it did for Meeka to do her duty. The little Westie didn’t like the cold. She did, however, love the trench Tripp dug in the snow around the house where she could run laps around the building and burn off some of her immense amounts of energy. He also dug a pathway into the woods where her personal bathroom was tucked out of sight of the B&B guests.

  I got into a hot shower and exhaled long and deep, trying to force myself to relax. As Mom had pointed out, I hadn’t seen my father in over two years. His love of digging up buried things led to a career in archaeology that sent him overseas a lot. This had been an especially long stint. If my parents’ relationship had been stronger, he likely would have come back to the States, and us, more often.

  “Are you trying to test the limit on the hot water heater?”

  I jumped at the sound of Tripp’s voice on the other side of the shower curtain.

  “How long have I been in here?”

  “Meeka and I got back ten minutes ago.”

  Good thing we installed an on-demand heater in the apartment.

  “Sorry, I’ll get out now.”

  “Good. Oh, your sister called. She and your dad are going to be early.”

  Chapter 2

  I’d just spoken with Mom. Why hadn’t she told me Dad and Roz would be early? I guess it was possible she didn’t know. My sister had a hard time sticking to the speed limit. For that matter, she had a hard time sticking to within twenty miles-per-hour of the speed limit. I’d lost count of how many tickets she’d been threatened with. She’d perfected a way of flirting with male officers and had an amazingly high success rate for getting out of the citations. Female cops, however, had no sympathy for her tears and stories of woe. Flirting with a woman had only worked once.

  Then Tripp clarified that Dad’s plane arrived twenty minutes early.

  “You could have led with that,” I scolded. “Here I thought they’d be pulling up to the house in half an hour.”

  He held up his hands in surrender. “That’s you and your obsessing brain again. All I said was that they’d be early, not that they were almost here.”

  Was that a grin on his face? Was he really messing with me right now? While he showered, I got dressed, then poured a cup of coffee and called my sister to find out exactly what was going on.

  “His plane from O’Hare landed five minutes ago.” Her voice vibrated with giddiness. “He’s waiting for his bags. Are you ready for us?”

  “We’re ready.”

  “I don’t mean the house.”

  “I know what you mean. I’m a little jealous you get to see him first.”

  “You could have driven five hours down here, picked him up, and then picked me up, and driven five hours back to Whispering Pines.”

  “I’m not that jealous.”

  “You’ve got the room off the kitchen reserved for me, right?”

  Seemed obsession ran through both of the O’Shea sisters. This was at least the third time in the past two weeks Rosalyn asked about the room. She had a month-long winter break and wanted to spend most of it here. A year ago, I would have dreaded this decision. Of course, a year ago, us spending any amount of time together, let alone a week, was unthinkable. We’d recently patched the huge tear in our
relationship, and I was actually excited to have her around.

  “Mom isn’t happy.” Roz sighed. “I think this will be the first Christmas she’s alone.”

  “I told her we have a room for her if she wants to come up.”

  “And the chance that she’ll take you up on that offer is?”

  “There’s a better chance all the snow in the village will have melted by the time you get here. Drive safe. Don’t speed! See you this afternoon.”

  By the time I hung up the phone, Tripp was getting out of the shower. We had coffee, cleaned up the apartment, and discussed visiting Whispering Pines’ newest establishment, Hearth & Cauldron.

  “I can’t wait to see what Reeva’s done to the place.” I stood back to inspect our freshly made bed and then repositioned the pillows. “Mr. Powell’s people have been scrambling over the past month to get it ready.”

  Tripp shook his head. “It’s not quite as dramatic as Reeva makes it sound. I ran into Schmitty at Sundry last week. He told me Reeva has known what she wants her shop to look like for months. Everything has been in the warehouse waiting to be installed.”

  “So the holdup was her deciding on the location.”

  “Right. Smart that she went with the Fairy Path cottage. She’ll be right there in the middle of things during the tourist season.”

  The Fairy Path was flooded with tourists in the summer. One cottage along the path had been vacant since I’d moved here in May. Plenty of folks had tried to rent it, but the village council hadn’t approved any of the requests until Reeva’s. The only better spot would be near the pentacle garden. All of those shops were in use, though, and no one was leaving anytime soon.

  Shortly before it was time to go, I put Meeka’s snow booties on her and then, like every time, waited while she pranced around with exaggerated steps to get used to them. Once she had settled down, I slid her into her doggy parka. She loved the puffy parka.

  “Come on, baby,” I begged, trying for the third time to get the engine of my Cherokee to turn over. Even with a block heater, it had a hard time.

  “Not so sure it’s going to make it through the winter,” Tripp said. “You may have to start using your grandmother’s car.”

  I shook my head. “Can’t. Since Rosalyn is staying with us, Dad is planning to drive the Subaru back to Madison when he leaves. I don’t know if he wants to sell it or keep it, but it won’t be staying here.”

  I turned the key once more, and my SUV finally roared to life. Or rather, it wheezed to life.

  “You can always use my truck. It’s a small village. We can figure out how to get by with one vehicle.”

  “Over the winter, sure. But we need two during the tourist season.” I sighed and ran a loving hand over the dashboard. “I’ll look at something new in the spring.”

  After a quick stop at Sundry, where we picked up three pounds of chorizo and a pound of pepper jack cheese, we parked my nearing life-support vehicle in the small lot behind the sheriff’s station. Hearth & Cauldron was about a quarter of a mile from there.

  The villagers had been buzzing about the new shop for weeks. Along with selling an eclectic blend of household items, Reeva would also hold cooking classes. The way she explained it to me, the students would have two shots at each recipe. The first would be a practice run where they assembled, cooked, and served their creations to willing patrons in the dining room. Then they’d assemble the recipe once more, box it up, and cook it at home for dinner that night. I couldn’t imagine a better business for Reeva.

  Like all of the other cottages in Whispering Pines, Hearth & Cauldron had the appearance of having been plucked from a medieval English countryside with its white plaster walls and dark-stained trim. The roof, like on all the other cottages, looked thatched but was made out of cement or some other fire-resistant composite. With the thousands of towering pine trees surrounding the village like an army of protectors, it wouldn’t take more than a single well-placed spark to burn the place to ashes.

  As we got close to the shop, I noticed the sign hanging out front. The thick pine plank hung from a heavy wrought iron hook. The words “Hearth & Cauldron” had been burned into the wood in a witchy, old-English font along with a black cauldron with a spoon propped in it. In another setting, the image would have a creepy vibe. Here it gave a warm feeling of home and comfort.

  “Look at this place,” I gushed the second we walked in. “I knew it would be cute, but this is amazing.”

  The main door led directly into a kitchen with white cupboards, butcher block countertops, and dark-stained floors which had been waxed and polished until they gleamed. Thick timbers stained the same dark brown as the floor emphasized the high cathedral ceilings. A twenty-foot-long waist-high farmhouse-style table with heavy wood legs and a charcoal-gray soapstone top ran down the center of the room. Toward the back of the room were four industrial ranges, two on each side wall. A massive stone fireplace sat directly across from the front door. Shelving built into the walls put ingredients on display in labeled hinge-lidded Mason jars. Bronze pendant lights hung over the table while pot lights scattered across the ceiling gave the place a bright, welcoming feel.

  Currently three villagers—Lorena Maxwell, April O’Connor, and LaVonne LeBeau–stood at the far end of the table and were already taking advantage of Reeva’s kitchen and instruction.

  “I’m so glad you could make it.” We turned to see Reeva coming our way.

  “We wouldn’t miss it,” I told her as Meeka tugged on her leash, eager to explore. “Are animals welcome?”

  “They are as long as they don’t make a mess.” She gave the little dog a pointed look. “And I know Miss Meeka would never do such a thing.”

  As I removed the Westie’s booties and parka, I thought of Mom’s comment earlier about putting out a sign for Pine Time on the highway. “Before I forget, who made your sign? It’s beautiful.”

  “Isn’t it? Willie designed and carved it for me.”

  “Blind Willie? I had no idea he had that kind of talent.”

  “You know all those little signs along the Fairy Path and around the village?” She meant the foot-and-a-half-tall rectangular wooden signs that pointed the way to shops and services.

  My jaw dropped. “He made those too?”

  She nodded. “Years ago.”

  “This kitchen is a dream.” Tripp’s eyes had glazed over the moment we walked in.

  Reeva bowed her head in thanks. “From what I hear, your kitchen at Pine Time is quite nice as well.”

  “I’m not complaining.” He glanced pointedly at me. “Mine doesn’t have a fireplace, though.”

  For the five years before Tripp and I met, he had traveled the country in search of his missing mother. He lived in a popup camper and supported himself by taking any odd job he could get, the majority of those being kitchen help in various cafés and diners. Turned out, he had a natural ability for making down-home comfort food, and he desperately wanted to install a fireplace/pizza oven on our back patio.

  Tripp gave a nod toward the three women clustered at the end of the long table. “What are they making?”

  “Pork and vegetable hand pies,” Reeva explained. “Dicing is the skill they’re learning with this recipe. For a hand pie, it’s important to cut all the vegetables small and approximately the same size so they cook at the same rate. You’re free to make your own if you’d like. I’ve got plenty of ingredients.”

  “If we have time”—Tripp eyed the kitchen again—“I might take you up on that. We’re meeting Morgan and River here for brunch.”

  “I know you’re not a restaurant,” I began, “but you are serving today, aren’t you?”

  “No, this isn’t a restaurant,” Reeva agreed, “but as long as there are students here to learn, there will be food available for lunch.”

  She waved a hand at the dining room to the left of the huge kitchen, indicating that was where lunch would be served. The room was half the width of the kitchen and filled wi
th tables of varying shapes. Square tables could be pushed together for larger groups, while small round ones were perfect for parties of two to four. A small potbelly stove tucked into the back corner added warmth and more ambience.

  “I’ve ensured there will be plenty to eat for today. On normal days, the amount will vary. Prices will also vary depending on the recipe of the day.” Reeva leaned closer to us. “The income received from people buying lunch will offset the cost of all the ingredients for the classes. My profits will come from retail sales and class tuition.”

  “How many people per class?” Tripp wondered.

  “For simpler dishes, as many as fifteen. For the more complex ones where I’ll need to give more guidance, I’ll cap it at eight or ten. There are plenty of burners available across the four ranges, but oven space is more limited. I’ll hold two classes per day if there’s enough demand.”

  Tripp motioned at the room to the right. “Is that the retail side?”

  We stood in the doorway, and Reeva pointed around the third room that was also half the width of the kitchen. “It’s quite sparse right now, no sense fully stocking until spring. I’ll carry cookbooks and handmade leather binders for kitchen grimoires—”

  “Grimoires?” I interrupted. “Isn’t that a spell book?”

  “Right you are. Every kitchen witch needs a grimoire of recipes and household tips.” She pointed to the front left corner. “Over there will be pottery bowls and unusual kitchen utensils. Across from that in the other corner will be baskets for storing fruits, vegetables, and herbs. Straight across from the door, there will be jars filled with pre-measured ingredients for cookies, muffins, and quick breads. Along the back wall, I’ll have vintage household and kitchen items. I have a rather large inventory in storage of things I’ve collected over the years. I’m a sucker for estate sales.”

  “This is really great, Reeva,” I praised.

  “Oh!” She clapped her hands together. “I almost forgot to mention, I’ll also be setting up a shed in the back for making soaps and other natural household cleansers.”