He was magnetic, with a charming smile and soulful brown eyes. A discount would be nice. So would… wait! No. I was not going to go there. Best if he was out of my sight for good.
‘I wouldn’t want to take advantage of you, but thanks for the offer.’ I gestured toward the door. ‘I really need to get to work.’
He pushed away from the wall, obviously disappointed. ‘Ok. But I hope you really are cleaning. I’m serious Josie, there’s a killer on the loose and it could be dangerous.’
‘Me too. Just cleaning.’ I smiled and managed to hold his gaze until he walked away. Once I heard the last stair creak, I let out my breath. I didn’t like being sneaky or lying, but one did what one had to do.
I slipped the key into the lock, turned the knob and the door squeaked open.
Given Flora’s description, I had expected the room to be filled with feathers and straw, but it was neat as a pin. Maybe Flora had cleaned. Most likely she’d exaggerated. I poked around in the bureau, under the bed and in the medicine cabinet.
The sound of tires on gravel startled me and I ran to the window. It was only Mike leaving. The driveway was empty. The Weatherbys car was still gone, but I knew I had to hurry.
In the small drawer of the writing desk, I hit pay dirt. An envelope addressed to Bill and Cindy Weston. Hmm… maybe I was on to something, but I needed more.
Maybe in the closet or between the mattress and box spring?
I was on my hands and knees in the closet, examining the bottom of Ron’s shoes, which had straw and twigs embedded inside the thick treads, when I heard the door open.
‘I’ve been craving clams ever since—’ Iona’s words were cut off as she noticed me crouched there on the floor. ‘Josie? What are you doing?’
‘Ummm… just cleaning.’
Her questioning gaze was riveted on my right hand, which still held Ron’s shoe.
‘I like to vacuum under the shoes.’ I plopped the shoe back down and jumped up. ‘See? All nice and clean.’
Ron’s closed the door and glared at me. His eyes were not friendly. ‘I don’t see any vacuum cleaner.’
Crap. Maybe Mike had been right and I should have stayed out of investigating. But if I didn’t, I’d have to remember to bring props next time if I was trying to pose as a cleaning excuse.
‘I prefer the old-fashioned method of picking stuff up by hand.’
Mew!
The cats must have snuck in with the Weatherbys. They trotted around Iona’s feet, looking up at the bag of take-out food from Salty’s which was filling the room with the delicious smell of fried clams. Just my luck they’d decided to get takeout instead of eat in.
Meow!
Nero cast a glance at me. Was he trying to signal me? To let me know they would help me escape if need be? Because judging by the way Ron was planted in front of the door with his hands on his hips, I might need help.
Iona put the bag on the dresser and Marlowe immediately jumped up and started sniffing.
Iona glared at me. No longer did she look like a sweet old lady. ‘Looks like you didn’t rush home to feed the cats like you said you were going to do when we saw you out in the woods. This one appears to be starving.’
‘Oh, them.’ I waved my hand dismissively at the cats. ‘They beg for food all the time.’
I inched toward the doorway. Maybe I could rush Ron and knock him over? I hated to knock over a senior citizen, but he was a killer.
‘No sense in lying, Josie. We know what you were up to out in the woods,’ Ron said.
So they knew I was on to them. Fine! I’d get myself out of this somehow.
Mew!
Nero jumped up on the dresser and sniffed.
Iona snatched up the bag. ‘I don’t think fried clams are good for cats.’
Lovely, a senior citizen killer who cared about cat nutrition.
‘That’s right. I’ll just take them downstairs for some properly formulated cat food.’ I glanced at Nero and Marlowe. Not sure what I was expecting. Maybe for them to distract the Weatherbys while I made a break for it? But they were more interested in the takeout bag because now they were sitting at Iona’s feet practically begging like dogs.
‘Nice try, Josie. You might as was well confess. We aren’t letting you go.’ Ron stood firmly in front of the door.
Images of my body at the bottom of the stairs in the West wing bubbled up. I hadn’t heard any other cars pull in, so it was likely no one else was home. Why hadn’t I listened to Mike? I decided to buy some time.
I crossed my arms over my chest. ‘You confess first. I know what you’ve been up to.’
Ron and Iona glanced at each other. ‘You do? How did you find out?’
‘Process of elimination,’ I said proudly. But not too proudly, lest it anger them and make their killing method more painful.
Meroo…
Nero tore his attention from the bag long enough to blink at me. Was that some kind of signal? Too bad I didn’t understand cat-blink.
I moved toward the door another inch. Maybe it was best to let them take me to the West wing. That way I’d have more opportunities to escape. Or maybe I should try to reason with them? Convince them to give themselves up.
‘What are you going to do? Push me down the stairs and try to make it look like an accident? I don’t think the police will fall for that again.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Iona looked confused.
‘Don’t play dumb. I know the truth and what you’ve been up to. But you can’t kill me like you did Charles. It won’t work. Might be easier to give yourselves up. I’m sure it was an accident. The cops will go easy, but if you kill me too… not so much.’
‘What are you talking about? Why would we kill Charles?’
‘To cover up the fact that you were messing with the gulls, of course.’
Ron and Iona looked nervous. Clearly I’d hit a nerve. They hadn’t figured that I’d discovered their secret about the gulls.
Meroo!
Marlowe and Nero sat at Iona’s feet, tails swishing back and forth anxiously. Eyes focused on the bag of clams. Fine friends they were. Here I was about to be murdered and all they could think about was clams.
‘Oh, for crying out loud, give them a clam.’ Ron took a step toward me, and I backed up. ‘Now Josie, I see what you are trying to do but it won’t work.’
Darn! He was onto my ploy to keep them talking and try to hedge toward the door. Now what? I glanced back at the window, but we were on the second floor. Maybe I could lock myself in the bathroom?
‘You’re not going to get away with murder. Think about it.’
‘Why do you keep saying that?’ Iona had taken a clam out of the bag, picked off the coating and was feeding little pieces to the cats. They were lapping it up, not paying any attention to the dire circumstances going on around them. ‘It’s no use trying to cover up what you’ve been doing.’
I frowned. ‘What I’ve been doing?’
‘Yes dear,’ Ron managed to look fatherly. ‘It’s quite obvious that you’re the one who has been killing the gulls. Earlier when we caught you in the woods, we know you were going to the nests, but turned back because you ran into us. I don’t know what happened with that Charles fellow but if you just confess, I think we can convince the authorities to go easy on you.’
‘What I don’t understand is why you would do it… were the gulls hurting business at the guesthouse?’ Iona tossed a tiny clam morsel to Nero, who caught it mid-air like a dog.
This was confusing. What was their angle? Would they try to blame me for their crime? Maybe they were trying to force a confession like I was doing to them. I fisted my hands on my hips and stood my ground. ‘I had nothing to do with the gulls. They aren’t hurting business at all. They don’t even come here.’ I gestured toward the window where a few evening gulls were circling far over the water, as if to prove my point.
Iona popped a clam in her mouth and exchanged a confused look with Ron. ‘Well th
en, why harm them?’
‘It’s not me, it’s you!’
Ron shook his head and gave me a sad look of pity, then reached in the bag for a clam. ‘Think about it, this has been happening long before we came. It’s not us.’
I still didn’t believe him. ‘How do I know you weren’t in town staying somewhere else before? And what about the fact that you have been lurking up near the gulls. You don’t know the specifics of your camera and had straw and twigs from the gulls’ nests in your shoes!’ Ha! Now I had him.
Ron glanced at Iona. ‘Looks like we better enact plan B.’
He advanced toward me, a serious look on his face. Ooops, now I’d done it. I stepped back, but the dresser stopped me from going further. He kept coming. My heart thudded against my chest as I searched for a means of escape.
I glanced at Iona for help. I mean I know she was in cahoots with him but maybe she’d have pity on a fellow woman.
Too late. He was almost on me. He reached out as if to grab me, I dodged left, threw myself on the floor and tucked into a roll.
To my surprise he didn’t lunge for me. Instead he gave me a funny look and opened the bureau drawer.
He fished underneath. Probably where he kept the gun!
I squeezed my eyes shut and threw my arm across my face as if that might stop a bullet. ‘Don’t shoot!’
‘Shoot? Josie, dear, what are you talking about?’ Iona asked.
I opened my eyes. Ron was standing in front of me, a yellow padded mailer in his hand. He reached in and pulled out what looked like a wallet. He flipped it open. Inside was a gold badge and ID card.
‘You didn’t believe us, so I wanted to prove to you why we were here and why we can’t possibly be the ones who have been harming the gulls.’ Ron handed the badge over.
It looked official, but I’d never heard of the department. ‘U.S. Department of Audubon Investigations?’
Rona and Iona nodded. ‘Yes. We’re investigators for a special government division. Not a lot of people know there is a department of Audobon Investigations. We often get confused with the Audubon Society, but we have no relation to that. You were right about one thing, we aren’t here as regular guests. We were sent to investigate what’s happening with the gulls.’
‘And our name isn’t Ron and Iona Weatherby either.’ Iona picked a clam out of the bag and passed it to Ron. ‘It’s Bob and Cindy Wesson and I’m sorry to tell you, but you’re looking mighty suspicious right now.’
‘Especially since we caught you skulking around in the woods today and looking very guilty,’ Ron added.
Iona nodded. ‘And the way you ran off after we caught you… well, you can see why we think you’re the culprit.’
I sank down on the bed. Ron and Iona (yes, I still thought of them as their fake names) were government agents? Even worse, they suspected me! I supposed I had been acting funny in the woods, but that was only because I thought they were killers. ‘I was guilty. But not of doing anything to the gulls. I was following you because I thought you were doing something to them!’
The cats purred around my ankles as I told Ron and Iona about the note and my suspicions that Charles wasn’t killed because of a review, but because he was blackmailing someone.
‘And you thought he was blackmailing us?’ Iona chewed thoughtfully. ‘Well I suppose I can see why. We were going off and watching the gulls every day, but that was for research, of course you didn’t know that.’
‘And we did investigate the nests,’ Ron said. ‘Funny thing we didn’t find anything wrong. We suspect someone is somehow poisoning the gulls. We’ve been trying to figure out where you kept the poison so we could confiscate it for evidence and turn it over to the police.’
‘Well it’s not me,’ I said. ‘I mean why would I? The gulls are not a nuisance to me and why would I kill Charles and put the reputation of the guesthouse in jeopardy?’
‘Good point.’ Iona sat on the bed beside me, passed me the clams and patted my knee. ‘Besides you’re not the killing type. Gull or human. And we’ve seen a lot of killers, haven’t we dear?’ She looked up at Ron, who nodded.
‘I was afraid we were on the wrong track with you, anyway,’ Ron said. ‘We had no evidence that you even went near the cliff until we saw you on the path. And, as you said, you have no motive.’
Iona nodded. ‘But when we ran into you on the path, we started to second guess ourselves. Funny that it turns out you were looking for the same person we were.’
I fished around in the bag and picked out a clam with a big belly. I paused before scarfing it down. ‘Well, if it’s not you and it’s not me, then who is it?’
Nineteen
Nero’s mouth watered as he watched Josie eat the succulent clam with the plump belly. ‘I wish they’d pass some of those to us.’
‘Yeah what gives? The lady was feeding us until they sorted things out.’ Marlowe watched Josie pass the bag to Ron. ‘It’s like they’ve forgotten all about us. Maybe I should hack up a hairball.’
‘No, they don’t like it when that happens around food,’ Nero sighed, and hopped down from the bed. ‘I’m just glad they’ve straightened things out.’
‘Yeah, I was sure there would be a problem when Josie followed them through the woods.’
‘Me too, especially since she wasn’t understanding our hints about turning back.’
Marlowe preened her belly. ‘It did seem as if she was turning to us for help a little while ago here in the room, though.’
‘Yet she didn’t ‘get’ the hint that we were not concerned and she shouldn’t be either.’ The clam bag crinkled and Nero looked up at the humans. They were seated side by side on the bed, no longer paying attention to the cats. Had they eaten all the clams?
‘I think we need to figure out who has a vested interest in getting rid of the gulls,’ Ron said.
‘Are we really sure the gulls’ plight is connected to Charles’ death?’ Iona glanced at Nero. He willed her to pick out another clam for him and she did! But just so the humans didn’t think they were too eager, he let it drop on the floor before sniffing at it disdainfully for a few seconds, then hunkering down and eating it slowly.
‘I get the next one,’ Marlowe said.
‘Fine, but we can’t waste too much time eating. We have to point them toward the real suspect.’ Nero swallowed the last tidbit and licked his lips.
‘Maybe it doesn’t have anything to do with the gulls. I could have been wrong about the letter. I mean it was only a few parts of words,’ Josie said.
‘What were the parts?’ Ron asked.
While Josie fished out her phone and showed the Weatherbys the picture of the note, Nero got to work trying to give them a hint. Who was the killer and what were they doing with the gulls? Now that it had been proven not to be the Weatherbys, Nero could think of only one person it could be.
He hopped up on the old cast iron steam radiator under the window. Luckily it was summer and the heat wasn’t on, otherwise he would surely have burned his paws. As it was, the radiator, with its fancy accordion of scrolled pipes, was not very comfortable. It was all part of the sacrifices cats to make for their humans. ‘The humans are asking the same question we asked ourselves earlier. Maybe this time Josie will listen and come to the same conclusion.’
Meroo!
‘Oh shush now, you’ve had more than your share of clams.’ Iona waved a dismissive hand at him without even looking in his direction.
‘I think I’m going to need help,’ Nero said to Marlowe.
Marlowe joined him on the dresser. She sat and curled her tail around him, then looked out toward the cove, her whiskers twitching. The moon was out and the last gull had gone wherever gulls go at night. But hopefully Josie would get their drift.
Merooo!
Mewo!
Merowl!
‘What’s going on? Is something out there?’ Josie came to join them at the window, petting the top of Nero’s head. He had to admit it felt good. He let
down his guard and purred a few times.
Mew! Marlowe signaled that she wanted attention too, but she kept her eyes on the cove.
‘Something sure must be interesting out there.’ Josie petted Marlowe, giving her equal attention. ‘What do you see?’ Josie stared out the window. ‘Oh, I think I’ve got it!’
‘What’s that?’ Ron asked.
Josie whirled around. ‘Stella Dumont runs the Smugglers Bay Inn over there. The gulls have been hanging around her deck and pooping all over it.’
‘Really?’ Iona and Ron joined Josie, squinting out in to the night.
‘Not only that, but Stella has been seen lurking around here,’ Josie said.
‘And Charles was killed here,’ Ron added.
‘Do you think Charles caught Stella doing something to harm the gulls?’ Iona asked.
‘I wouldn’t put it past her to do that. Or to kill Charles,’ Josie said.
Nero and Marlowe hopped down from the radiator, they tails held high proudly. Finally, Josie had gotten their hint and now it was up to the humans to catch the killer.
‘I knew it was Stella,’ I said. ‘I should have trusted my first instincts, but I thought it had something to do with Charles’ cookbook. When I found out that it was Tina who took it, I ruled Stella out.’
‘But what proof do we have?’ Iona peered out the window as if the answer was out there somewhere.
‘Well, she does have a problem with the gulls,’ Ron said. ‘Remember when we went there for lunch and gull pooped in your clam chowder?’
Iona made face. ‘Yeah. Nasty.’
‘And my maid saw her skulking around here.’ Josie pressed her lips together. ‘I don’t remember if she said it was the night Charles died. I’ll have to ask.’
‘That does seem like a start. But it’s not enough to call the sheriff on.’ Ron’s words dashed my hopes.
‘But we have to do something,’ I said.
‘Indeed.’ Ron tapped his lips with his finger. ‘What we need is to set a trap and let her walk right into it and prove her guilt.’
‘Like what?’ Iona asked.
A Twist in the Tail: An absolutely purrfect cozy mystery (The Oyster Cove Guesthouse Book 1) Page 16