A Dead And Stormy Night

by A. R. Winters

“There are worse things to sound like, sweetheart,” Granny said. The kettle started to bubble. She switched off the camping stove and made our tea while she talked. “And there are worse sins than aiming for higher than your lot. Although there aren’t much worse than speaking ill of the dead.”

  “I’m surprised she waited that long,” Tabby said. “Emily pretends she’s classy and cultured, but she doesn’t fool me for a second. She only married Uncle Jerry for his money. My sisters don’t like her either, but Mom and Daddy said we had to be nice. And when we can’t be nice, we have to be respectful. Then she runs his name into the ground in front of strangers.”

  “You probably shouldn’t read too much into that,” I said, grabbing my mug of tea and bringing it up to my lips. It smelled like cherries and vanilla. “We’re staff members. Sometimes we blend into the scenery for people.”

  “Pfft, not Emily. She was a waitress at a wine bar before she met my uncle. She loves to flex on service workers most.” Tabitha’s expression deepened to a scowl. She snatched her mug from the table, nearly scalding herself as she brought it up to her nose to take a sniff. Her shoulders relaxed a bit.

  “It smells amazing,” she whispered as if she couldn’t believe something as simple as tea could smell so good.

  “Tastes even better,” Granny said. “Just go ahead and try it. That blend doesn’t need sugar or honey.”

  Reluctantly, the young woman took a sip from her mug. The faintest of smiles flashed across her face, and she nodded thanks to Granny. For a while, she seemed content to sit in silence—except for the wind and occasional thunder—enjoying my grandmother’s fruity tea blend. Then, suddenly, she looked up at me with tears in her eyes.

  “I really am sorry for whatever my dad did to your friend,” she said. “Daddy was…he was loaded when I saw him after dinner. He only had a temper when… when he was drunk.”

  “Ashley will be fine,” I reassured her. “She knows how to handle herself around… overly friendly customers.”

  Tabby made a sound somewhere between a scoff and a laugh. “Friendly was the last adjective anybody would use to describe Daddy. Bully fits better, and my mom got the worst of it.”

  I blinked in surprise but held my comment to myself. Tabitha Jepsen wasn’t just a traumatized young woman; she was also a guest of the Paradise. It wasn’t my job to tell her how to feel or grieve. Only to help her find enough calm to get a good night’s sleep.

  “They even fought the night he died. The last thing he ever did was push her into a wall and call her…” Tabitha sniffled and shook her head. “They didn’t even know I could hear. My room’s at the other end of the hall. Couldn’t have his princesses hear him for who he really was, oh no. Daddy took her toward Kenneth’s room. I only heard because I was there. He could be so… awful.”

  “It’s best not to spend too much time judging those who’ve passed on,” Granny said. “They’ll always be found wanting. All it will do is sour whatever memories you have that might be sweet otherwise.”

  The kitchen descended into silence again. Tabitha wiped the new tears away and brought her mug back up to her mouth. I could see her mind was still working, but she didn’t seem ready to share yet. So I turned back to my tea and my own thoughts.

  The smudge of blood I’d found on the wall had been right outside Kenneth’s room. If Harold had laid hands on his wife before he died, it was just as likely the blood belonged to her. Her breezy vacation ensemble was cut just loosely enough to have hidden any bruises or scrapes from view.

  Without asking Catherine what happened that night, I had no way of knowing for sure. And I couldn’t ask about the fight she had with her husband without accidentally telling on her daughter.

  For now, at least, this clue only seemed to have led me to a good cup of tea.

  Chapter Fourteen

  After we finished our tea, we went our separate ways. Granny had apparently decided she preferred the back porch to bunking down in the front parlor or the above-garage condo with Danielle, Andrew, and Ben. Tabitha and I went back upstairs.

  “You don’t have to escort me,” Tabitha said. “I promise I’ll go back to my room.”

  “There’s no need to promise me anything. It’s just a coincidence.” I pointed to the door across from hers. “That’s the office, and I’ve got a very neglected kitten to give snuggles.”

  “Oh, you have a kitten?” Even with her face mostly in shadow, I could see Tabitha’s eyes light up. “I’ve always wanted a pet, but my parents aren’t fans of them. Daddy didn’t want anything his money paid for getting destroyed.”

  Though Tabitha left it unsaid, I assumed Catherine Jepsen was more against constant fights with her husband over an animal than the pet itself.

  “If you like I can bring her out after lunch tomorrow,” I smiled. “She’s a bit shy at first, but give her a treat and a scratch beneath the chin and she’s your friend forever.”

  “I think I’d like that.” Tabitha stopped beside her door, hesitating for a second. “I’m sorry to ask again, but please, don’t tell my mom about tonight?”

  “You’re an adult, and it doesn’t sound like Kenneth hurt you,” I shrugged.

  “He would never!” Tabitha wrapped her arms around herself. “Kenny is a good guy. He’s nothing like my father.”

  “Then there’s nothing to tell. But just for the record, you should consider it.”

  “Would you have filled your mother in on the details of your love life?”

  “Our parents had been gone for a long time when I was your age. Granny raised us, and as you just saw there’s no use hiding romantic troubles from her. She has a nose like a bloodhound for raging hormones and broken hearts.”

  Tabitha’s expression softened. “I’m sorry. That was mean of me.”

  “You didn’t know, and it doesn’t hurt as much anymore. If I could give you any advice, it would be that. After a while, the pain smooths out.”

  I would never have admitted it to a stranger, but I rarely thought about my parents anymore. In the beginning, it had just hurt too much. Years of practice had turned avoiding their memory into second nature. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. Storms and death were as much a part of life in Paraiso as sunshine and water.

  “I hope you’re right.” Tabitha went into her room.

  Tempted as I was to keep looking around for anything related to Harold Jepsen that I might have missed, it wasn’t a good idea when Granny and Tabitha Jepsen were still awake. Granny knew every one of my lying expressions, and she’d insist on joining the investigation the second she figured out what I was up to.

  I opened the door to the office to find Coral lounging in her most majestic pose on Danielle’s mid-century wooden desk despite the fact that Ashley had brought her bed and litter box over from the garden cottage.

  “You little rascal,” I tried to sound mad, but I couldn’t manage it. “You know you’re not allowed on desks and tables!”

  As if she perfectly understood me, Coral stood, stretched deeply, and hopped off the desk. She trotted over to me and rubbed her side against my shins.

  If Danielle saw my sweet orange tabby on her furniture, she would lose what little grip she had left on her cool. The office, like everything else in the Paradise, had been decorated with an eye toward cohesion, calm, and tropical relaxation. Guests rarely came up to the office, unless a couple wanted to sign the contracts on site. From the plush seafoam carpet beneath the desk to the wedding photo to the photo of Baby Ben with his enormous toothless grin, this space was designed to keep my sister calm.

  Of course, the storm had kicked things like calm and relaxation far to the bottom of Danielle’s to-do list. While I’d been downstairs cleaning, snooping, and consoling a devastated young woman, the others had shoved the office furniture against the wall to make room for two cots and an assortment of cat furnishings.

  “There, see? Mommy’s here,” Ashley said to Coral. “Now you can stop giving me the stink eye.”

>   “You have service?” I asked, nodding toward Ashley’s laptop.

  “Nah, but that doesn’t stop me from writing ad copy,” she said. “It’s for a course to teach mompreneurs how to build an empire from their kitchen table. I know that audience like the back of my hand. I mean, I practically am one.”

  “Except for the husband and kids part.” I bent down and scooped Coral into my arms, nuzzling the spot behind her ear. She purred in gratitude.

  “By choice! And after spending a weekend with the worst version of the Bennets imaginable, I feel vindicated in that choice. I know it’s bad manners to speak ill of the dead, but that man…”

  I’ve been hearing that a lot about Harold Jepsen.

  I kicked off my sneakers and flopped down on my cot. It creaked in protest, but held up. “Tabitha Jepsen asked me to apologize on her father’s behalf.”

  “Is that what kept you? Everything all right?”

  “All right as they can be, given the circumstances. Emily’s performance at dinner really stuck in her craw.”

  “I don’t blame her! Who talks about their family-in-law like that around strangers? I didn’t buy that defend victims act she put on for one second.” Ash slammed her laptop shut and sighed. “As if I’ve never had a drunk creep make a move on me.”

  “It’s funny you call it an act.” I told Ash what Tabitha said about Emily, her past, and how she had been jockeying for the position of senior woman in the family. I even told her that Tabitha heard her parents arguing the night her father died.

  “Sounds like Harold Jepsen was a charmer right until the end,” Ash said wrinkling her nose.

  “Yeah, but come on, Ash. ‘I’d do worse?’”

  She shrugged. “I meant I would blow the whole thing open to his wife! I didn’t expect his sister-in-law to do it posthumously. I wonder what they argued about.”

  “Tabitha didn’t say, but she might not have heard.”

  Ashley shook her head. “The walls aren’t that thick.”

  “Then she probably just didn’t want to tell me. Do you think Catherine could have seen what happened in the reading room?”

  “It’s possible, I guess. To be honest, I didn’t know Emily had seen it until she brought it up at dinner.”

  “When she told Danielle and I about it, she made it seem like she was in the room with the two of you!”

  Ashley shook her head. “Didn’t see her in the hallway either. But it wouldn’t have changed anything if I had. Men like him only act that way because they think they can get away with it. They think money makes them invincible.”

  “Unfortunately, they’re usually right.”

  “I know, but it shouldn’t be that way.” Ashley climbed to her feet and padded over to her laptop to put it away. “I wouldn’t have done a darned thing differently. No, I take that back. I would have offered my sympathies to Catherine Jepsen before her husband died. Men like him don’t deserve women like her.”

  “From what I’ve seen, it seems like half of the Jepsen family agrees with you.”

  “It reminds me of those old murder mysteries,” Ashley said. “Except we’d be ahead of the game. I know you didn’t do anything to Harold Jepsen.”

  “And I know you didn’t do anything to him,” I said. “Same for Danielle, Andrew, and Granny.”

  “Then if we didn’t do anything…”

  “One of the Jepsens must have,” I finished. As much as I didn’t like to think about it, I couldn’t rule it out. Something happened to Harold Jepsen that night, and if we didn’t figure out what, Emily Jepsen might make her first mission as the newly minted matriarch to see the whole thing blamed on us.

  We were strangers, after all.

  Ashley said, “In murder mysteries, the killer is always the person with either the most to gain or the least to lose.”

  “Most to gain would be Jeremy, but I don’t think he had it in him to hurt his brother.”

  “Next would be Mrs. Busybody, Emily.” Ashley climbed back into her bed and pulled the sheet up to her neck. “Who had the least to lose?”

  “Catherine Jepsen,” I said. “With the prenup, the only way to keep the lifestyle she’s used to would have been to become Harold’s widow. After that would be Tabitha. But then again, Catherine had decided not to leave.”

  “What about the dreamboat they brought to set the daughter up with?”

  “Kenneth? Maybe, if he were white knighting for Tabitha. Otherwise there are less violent ways to give notice.”

  Ashley nodded and pursed her lips in thought. After a while, she heaved a heavy sigh. “We can keep an eye on them and hope someone slips up… but we’re never really gonna know, are we?”

  “That would be a good thing,” I said. “Maybe the best we can do is not get mixed up too deeply in this. If the Jepsens are content to put Harold to rest, maybe we should be too.”

  It wasn’t a comforting thought, but in a crisis, sometimes the worst of the storm missing your house was the best you could hope for.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The storm still hadn’t let up the next morning. The electricity hadn’t come back on either, forcing me to take a sink bath in tepid water. I tried to look on the bright side. The inn hadn’t been damaged. Neither had the garden cottage, at least as far as I knew. Once the storm let up, I could go back to my normal—if slightly hectic—life.

  After giving Coral a quick snuggle and making sure there was food and water in her reach, Ashley and I went downstairs to eat. Granny, Danielle, Andrew, and Baby Ben were already up and working their way through mason jars of overnight oats.

  Dani had swirled stewed berries through the oats and topped each jar with coconut cream. It was cold and mushy, but sweet and filling. Since I was starving, that officially made it the best breakfast I’d ever had, and I made sure to tell my sister so.

  After breakfast, Andrew went outside to inspect the grounds for more damage. Ashley went upstairs to gather supplies for linen changes while the Jepsens had breakfast. Granny took Baby Ben back to the condo for playtime. That left me and Danielle to handle passing out cold overnight oats and berries to the Jepsens when they assembled around the dining room table. Other than a grumble from Kenneth about cold instant coffee, none of the guests had much to say to one another while they ate.

  It struck me as strange for a family close enough to vacation together not to at least try to make small talk over a meal.

  I wasn’t the only one who found it strange. Without electricity, there was no hot water. Which meant we had to wash the breakfast dishes by hand. That’s when Danielle brought it up.

  “They were awfully quiet and somber,” Danielle said. “Did something else happen?”

  “Not that I know of,” I lied. Dani didn’t need to know about Tabitha Jepsen’s late-night rendezvous. “But what’s happened is probably stressful enough.”

  “Hmm… I guess you’re right.” Danielle was quiet for the rest of cleanup duty, but I could see the wheels of her mind turning. No matter the crisis, it didn’t sit well with Dani for guests to be anything but relaxed in her inn.

  Once the dishes were done and set out to dry, Danielle went up to the condo to check on Ben and Granny. I sat down to catch my breath.

  The air in the Paradise was hot and sticky, thanks to the storm, but I would have killed for a cup of Granny’s special tea blend right then. I was contemplating going to the condo and asking her for a cup when Emily Jepsen wandered into the kitchen.

  “Don’t mind me,” she said waving a hand at me. “I’m just looking for something to drink. You wouldn’t believe how thirsty pregnancy can make you.”

  “My sister said the same thing when she was pregnant with her son.” I climbed to my feet. “What can I get you? We’ve got water, sweet tea—”

  “Oh, there’s no need to trouble yourself on my account,” Emily batted her eyelashes and smiled. “I happened to spy exactly what I’m after earlier.”

  Before I could stop her, Emily sauntered over
to the fridge and tugged it open. She pulled out the bottle of cranberry juice Danielle had nearly disowned me over the day the Jepsens arrived.

  My face must have given away my surprise, because a sheepish look came over Emily’s face.

  “Strangest craving, right?” she said. “If Harold were here, he would never let me have it. Actually, he’d throw a fit for me even suggesting it. He was allergic.”

  Harold Jepsen’s allergy wasn’t exactly important to account for anymore. It was against procedure to let a guest serve themselves in the kitchen, but the storm had thrown procedure out the window. I grabbed a glass from the cupboard and passed it to her.

  “Sounds like a pretty severe allergy,” I said.

  “I thought so for years, but one year he accidentally ate some cranberry pastries I brought to the house for the girls. All that happened was he broke out in hives.” Emily rolled her eyes and filled her glass. “That man needed to control everything and everyone.”

  Unsure of how to react, I smiled tightly.

  The more the family talked about Harold Jepsen, the more he sounded like a tyrant. No wonder they all seemed so conflicted by his death.

  Maybe that’s why one of them wanted him gone. A chance to finally be free of the duty to keep up appearances.

  Emily drained half her glass of cranberry juice in two big gulps. Then she stopped to refill the cup. “I swear I’ve never been this thirsty in my life. No matter how much I drink, I’m always gasping for another cup of something. But I guess I’m lucky this is my worst symptom.”

  “That will give you and Mr. Jepsen one less thing to worry about while you get things settled. How far along are you?”

  “Only ten weeks.” Emily beamed and brushed her hand against her still flat stomach. “The thirst made me think something was wrong, so I went to my doctor to get a blood sugar test. Boy, was I in for a surprise!”

  “Isn’t ten weeks a little soon?” I blurted out the question without thinking and immediately regretted it. What was I thinking?

  Thankfully, Emily was too happy to notice how rude I’d been.