Heather Horrocks - Who-Dun-Him Inn 01 - Snowed Inn

by Heather Horrocks

  “Nothing. Just thought I’d visit the old stomping grounds. Got lonesome for some good, old sibling rivalry.” Something wasn’t right between Liz and Gene, but I didn’t know why or what.

  There was a knock on the door at the top of the stairs and Henry Susselman, the telephone repairman, called out to me.

  I jogged up, unlocked the door, and greeted him. “Come on down, Henry.”

  He followed me downstairs.

  I got to know Henry pretty well three years ago after his wife of thirty-five years died of cancer. He came into the Moose Muffin Café plenty of times just needing to talk with someone. He was only a few inches taller than I, but seemed more so because he was so slender. He had one of those strong, wiry builds. His face was lined from years in the weather.

  And his smile was very sweet. “Your phone is fixed.”

  “That’s fantastic. How much do I owe you?”

  “I owe you plenty. This one’s my treat.”

  The family room phone rang; he looked at me, and we laughed.

  “Well, go ahead,” Liz said, “and answer the stupid thing.”

  So, after I told Henry to help himself to breakfast, I did answer it. But I didn’t feel my “Laugh yourself to death” line was appropriate today. Instead, I said, “You’ve reached the Who-Dun-Him Inn. This is Vicki.”

  Henry waved and headed toward the stairs, as I waved back and mouthed, “Thanks.”

  He nodded and disappeared.

  “Hi, Vicki,” boomed a voice I’d recognize anywhere and wished to avoid. It was my cousin, Manny Much, so-called by the rest of the family because he’d been married more times than you could count on one hand.

  “Um, Manny, now is not a really good time for me—” was all I managed to get out before he interrupted.

  “Listen, Vicki, I’m having a meeting Sunday, that’s tomorrow, and I’d like to show you how to make a whole lot of money.” That was the other thing he was known for— sharing the financial wealth opportunities of every multilevel marketing plan on earth, one at a time, with his lucky family.

  “Manny, I really don’t—”

  ”Vicki, it’s a cinch. The best colloidal mineral supplement on the market, and if you join now, you’ll be getting in on the ground floor. It doesn’t get any better than that.”

  “How about the website thing you signed Liz and me up for?”

  Liz glanced up and rolled her eyes. “Tell Manny no way!”

  “Much better. This one is a winner. You’ll come, right? Tomorrow night. Six o’clock. My place. Don’t be late.”

  “Manny, you don’t understand. This is not a good time.”

  “Listen, Vicki, have I ever steered you wrong?”

  “You’ve just steered us into too many of these, Manny. I’m sure Amway, Melaleuca, and Body Toddy are all very fine companies, but are you still selling any of them?”

  “Nope. This one is much better. Come over and give my friend a chance to make the presentation. You’ll like it.”

  “Manny, you live an hour away.”

  “It’s only forty-five miles to Salt Lake.” He cajoled. “Listen, Vicki, it’s really more of a chance for me to ask you if you know any nice women you could introduce me to.”

  “Women? What happened to Cindy?”

  “Aw, Vicki, she went to seed. Gained a hundred pounds and got an attitude and I just couldn’t take it no more.”

  I couldn’t keep up with Manny’s love life. And I certainly would never introduce any woman I actually knew to him. “I’ve got to go, Manny. Good luck with the minerals.”

  * * *

  Over the next hour, I got the authors settled in the parlor with mugs of Stephen’s hot chocolate. At ten p.m., they were still playing their own version of Clue.

  Garrett said, “Hey, Bonnie, I’m gonna grab my laptop. What say you brainstorm my plot with me? You always figure out the best plot twists, and I could use some help with my latest.”

  I walked out onto the front porch, and the cold caught my breath. The sunlight glinted off the fresh snow, a strange sight since it was still snowing. I was watching for any sign of Kent and Cielo Freestone. They usually arrived about ten, but today, I didn’t know how they’d get here. Not in their Suburban. Dog sled? Snow shoes? Did they have a snowmobile? But I knew it was futile. No one was coming up these roads today. I was on my own to provide clean towels and freshen up the bathrooms.

  I caught a glimpse of a man in the side yard. When I realized it was Paul, I joined him. I stared at the Snowcat in front of the carriage house. It was huge, with gigantic tires and a tank-like track. It had a cab wide enough for, oh, probably four men. Maybe five. And there was plenty of room in the back for all kinds of heavy equipment, along with a…

  I whispered, “Are they taking the body out now?”

  “Not yet.” Paul definitely looked paler.

  The murder was affecting lots of people that way. I’d never seen Liz quite so quiet before, either. But the authors— oh, my gosh, the authors! Every time I passed them, they were spouting their theories and “What-ifs” of the possibilities that might have happened, who the murderer could be, and what would motivate a person to murder? I have to admit I heard the word “motivate” enough times, I was getting rather weary of it this weekend. I could see how all of it might be helpful in a book, but honestly didn’t see how it could help find a murderer, who, I believed, was way down the mountain by now.

  I was thankful to be next to someone who I knew for sure was not the murderer. At least, my family tree was safe to climb. I sighed and turned to Paul. “Do you have any clues yet as to what happened to Mr. Calabria?”

  Paul paused as if trying to decide whether to tell me anything. He looked around to make sure we were alone, then looked into my eyes. “We’re still waiting for results on the tests we’ve run so there’s not much I can pass along.” Paul grew serious. “But so far, my vote is for Kevin Higgins.”

  “You know,” I said, “in a murder mystery novel, the most logical suspect is never the murderer.”

  Paul rolled his eyes. “I thought you were being serious.”

  “I am. Sorry. I’ve just been wondering about Kevin. If he really did return to kill Calabria, then where has he gone now? Has anyone seen him?”

  “The deputies sent teams down the mountain to interview your neighbors. I have a feeling about the guy. He came up to kill Calabria. He punched him out. He cut the phone lines. He murdered him. And you know my gut hunches are usually right.”

  I couldn’t help but smile. “You mean like that time you had a gut hunch Dad and Mom would be gone to Grandma’s another hour and you used the time to tie Liz and me up as prisoners of war? Only Mom and Dad came back early and you were busted?”

  “I would have gotten away with it, too, if you rotten girls hadn’t started screaming.” He couldn’t suppress a smile. “You two were always such big babies.”

  “Yeah. Silly us, protesting against being tied up.”

  “I abided by the Geneva Convention rules.”

  “Remind me to thank you sometime. Let’s go inside. It’s freezing out here.” I took his arm and we plodded through three feet of snow. “Do you think Kevin is still lurking around? Still wanting to talk with BJ?”

  “I don’t know, sis. But we’ll have men up here until he’s caught, so don’t worry. Do be careful, though.”

  We went through the back door and followed the laughter into the kitchen. Liz and DeWayne were there, sipping Stephen’s hot cocoa. She smiled at me. “Zach has worn me out. He’s now getting skunked by Grandma at Hearts.”

  “And your grandmother,” DeWayne motioned with his head, “is at the same time entertaining her gentleman caller.”

  “Dr. Ray?”

  “Do you have to ask?” Liz said. “Of course, Dr. Ray. Xavier’s in there, too. He’s really cute with Zach.” She took a sip. “So what were you guys doing outside? Snow patrol?”

  “Just figuring out who the murderer is,” I said, grabbing
mugs of hot cocoa for Paul and me. Paul sat next to DeWayne, and I settled in next to my brother.

  “Oh, good,” DeWayne said. “Then I can go home, right?”

  “Like you’re doing any work, anyway,” Liz teased him.

  “I’ve been working. This is my break.”

  “Cops don’t get breaks.” Liz tossed a miniature marshmallow into DeWayne’s cup, then looked up. “I can hardly wait to hear the newsflash. So… who done it?”

  I glanced at Paul, who shrugged. “I know nothing.”

  Liz said, “I think it’s BJ.”

  I didn’t buy it. “But why would she kill her own fiancé?”

  “Who knows?” Liz shrugged. “People kill when they’re upset. And they obviously fought over her husband showing up.”

  “Yeah,” DeWayne said, “I imagine that could put a real crimp in her wedding plans.”

  “I don’t think I told you yet. It turns out Martha is Calabria’s ex-wife,” I added thoughtfully. Maybe there was something to this line of thinking, after all.

  “Yeah,” Liz said. “According to Grandma, she ought to be locked up just for wearing that audacious shade of lipstick.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Do you want to know what a professional thinks?” asked Paul, exasperated with all of us.

  I smiled. I respected Paul’s opinion. I suppose it was too easy to second guess him because he was my brother. But it was obvious he was respected by the guys in the Summit County Sheriff’s Department. I saw that respect in action today. “Lay it on us.”

  “Okay. I’m going to take a chance on you guys and say you’re not guilty.”

  “Very generous of you.” Liz tossed a marshmallow at him.

  Paul caught it. “There are a few people who seem to have relatively air-tight alibis for the time of the murder.”

  “The Clue players,” I guessed, taking a sip of cocoa.

  “Bonnie McCall and Dr. Nicholas Ray. Unless they were in on it together.” Paul nodded. “Almost everyone was alone for at least a few minutes during the evening, so no one gets ruled out.”

  “Clark Harmon was with me the entire time from when he arrived until after the murder,” I said. “He was getting the generator back on line.”

  “What if he did it before he came inside?” Liz asked.

  “Possible, but not probable,” Paul said. “How would he know Calabria was in the carriage house suite? How would he even know there was a carriage house suite?”

  “By getting on the website,” I said. “Plus the lights were on, and it’s only a hundred feet from the house.”

  “Okay, so he might know there’s a suite, but how did he know Calabria was in it?”

  I finally shrugged. “Calabria told him?”

  “I wonder if anyone saw his cab pull up.” DeWayne stirred his cocoa again and set the spoon in the saucer.

  “He rented a snowmobile,” I remembered.

  “I’ll talk with Clark.” Paul continued, counting off suspects on his fingers. “Martha Turner and Garrett Long both claim they spent the entire evening in each other’s company.”

  “Maybe they’re in collusion,” Liz said. “Or they’re simply watching out for one another.”

  “Could be.” Paul sighed and picked up his mug again, cradling it to warm his hands. “And Alexis was zonked from her migraine.”

  “But maybe she was faking it.” Liz shrugged. “Women fake a lot of things.”

  DeWayne and Paul exchanged glances. DeWayne said, “I don’t think so. She was pretty wiped. And she got cut.”

  “Then,” Paul smiled sweetly, “that leaves Kevin.”

  “And BJ.” Liz smiled even more sweetly. I didn’t know if she really thought BJ was guilty or just wanted to bug Paul. “She could have murdered him and then started screaming.”

  “And don’t forget the psychopathic drifter,” DeWayne said.

  “Okay, I confess.” I put my hands out to be handcuffed.

  “It’s hard to get straight answers from these authors,” Paul ignored me. “I think they’re too used to making things up and keeping secrets. This isn’t a book.”

  “As you so graciously reminded me earlier,” I said.

  The phone rang. It was Kent Freestone. “Sorry we’re late, Vicki. We started up, but our snowmobile has fouled spark plugs. It’s going to take an hour or two for me to clean them up.”

  “You’re still coming up? In this storm?”

  “Wouldn’t want to leave you hanging up there.”

  “You’re awesome, Kent,” I said.

  “Well, let’s see how long it takes me.”

  As I hung up the phone, I sighed. “Break’s over.”

  * * *

  I kept an abundance of towels at the Who-Dun-Him Inn. Big, cream-colored, fluffy towels, for every room, but the Kinsey Millhone, which had royal blue towels, as described by Sue Grafton in G is For Gumshoe.

  And I planned to use my parents’ proven system for keeping them clean. Each day, Cielo or I would replace towels left on the floor. Twice a week, we washed the ones we collected. As we took them from the dryer, we folded and stored them on one of two shelving units on wheels. We’d load one with freshly laundered and folded towels in the wash room. After it was full, we’d take the elevator and store the towels in a large closet hidden behind a panel in the exercise room. Which was why I happened to be coming out of the exercise room with a stack of towels in my arms an hour after talking to Paul and Liz.

  I passed Garrett and Martha coming down the stairs. When they greeted Liz, too, I realized she was following me up, although I wasn’t immediately sure why.

  On the second floor landing, where there was no one else, I stopped and asked Liz, “Okay, why are you following me?”

  “I just want to help,” she said innocently.

  “Help with chores?” As I stared at her, it dawned on me what her intention was. “I am just delivering clean towels. I am not going to ask them questions about the murder.”

  “Neither am I.”

  Why didn’t I believe her? “You’re offering to help me?”

  “Sure. I can be as silly as my mirror image.”

  “Liz, I know you. You’re dying of curiosity, aren’t you?”

  She frowned at me. “It’s that darned twin thing, right?”

  “Are you kidding? You’re more transparent than Zach’s invisible dog.” As she pouted, I laughed. “Fine, big baby. Tag along. But do not question the guests.”

  She saluted. “Yes, ma’am.”

  We started at the second floor Jessica Fletcher room. When Alexis opened the door, I said, “Fresh towels.”

  “The more, the merrier. Come on in.”

  We found Dr. Ray sitting in one of the chairs. Well, sitting for a moment until he saw us, and then, of course, he stood courteously and nodded at us. Grandma could do a lot worse, I thought. “Hi.”

  Alexis sat on the bed and crossed her long, model legs. “Nicholas was in doctor mode and stopped by to check my wound.”

  “Perhaps in friend mode.” Dr. Ray smiled, and his look of concern touched me. What a nice, older gentleman. “And you haven’t answered me yet. How are you feeling?”

  “Just fine. I slept much better last night. My migraine is under control.”

  I could tell because she was no longer pale and squinting in pain. She actually looked very nice today. Color in her cheeks. Hair done up neatly in her elegant bun. Boy, I envied her ability to make her hair do that. My own hair was uncooperative at best. “I’m glad to hear that. You look much better.”

  Alexis smiled. “Have a seat. Please.”

  Liz and I did. She sat at the table across from Dr. Ray, and I laid the towels on the bed before dropping onto the chair next to Alexis.

  “I feel well enough to appreciate what a great job you’ve done with this place,” Alexis said. “I love it.”

  “Thanks.”

  “And I’m finally getting my appetite back. I’m really looking forward to lunch.”r />
  I smiled, hoping Grandma was looking forward to fixing it.

  “I hate to bring this up.” Alexis tapped her fingernail on the bedspread. “Are the police close to finding the murderer?”

  I glanced at Liz. “I haven’t heard anything yet.”

  Alexis tilted her head. “Do they think Kevin got far?”

  “Oh, my dear,” Dr. Ray said. “You are assuming it’s Kevin.”

  She looked startled. “Who else could it be?”

  Dr. Ray shrugged. “That depends on whom you ask.”

  “I thought it was an open and shut case.” Alexis’s eyes widened. “Do they think one of us did it?”

  Dr. Ray answered. “It’s a possibility.”

  I kept my opinion to myself. Kevin was obviously guilty.

  “This is just so hard to understand. I thought, of course it was Kevin. But now, well…” Alexis put a finger to her temple.

  “Ladies, please excuse me,” Dr. Ray said. “I am expected downstairs.” No doubt, by a certain older woman related to me.

  As he left, I stood. “And I’d better get these towels delivered. I have lots more rooms still to do.”

  Liz remained at the table as I carried the towels into the bathroom, picked a towel up off the floor, and hung up a replacement towel, before placing an intricately folded hand towel on top.

  Hanging from the shower rod were some of Alexis’s clothes, which looked wet. A black bra. A blouse with a wet spot.

  Alexis came in behind me and saw where my gaze rested. “I’m so shaky when I have a migraine. I tried to wash them out myself.”

  “The washing machine is downstairs if you’d like me to wash them for you.”

  “No, that’s fine. I got the Diet Coke out, I think.” Alexis smiled at me. “You have to get it out fast, too.”

  I must have looked as ignorant of what she meant as I actually was, because she said, “You’ve never spilled Diet Coke on yourself?”

  “Only non-caffeinated.” I smiled. “But that would stain, too, I suppose.”

  Now she looked confused.

  “Mormon joke. We don’t drink caffeinated beverages.”

  “I live on Diet Coke. It’s how I stay a size six.”