by Maia Chance
Aw, rats. Alexa had already mentioned that she and Delilah were together that day, and that meant Delilah couldn’t be the murderer. Not that she even had a motive or anything. But I realized that, in the back of my mind, I had been hoping she’d get thrown in the slammer for murder, keeping Otis forever out of her reach.
“Here’s my cappuccino,” Delilah said. “I have to caffeinate before I start making today’s batch of German chocolate cupcakes. I don’t know why, but I just can’t keep them in stock. Gotta go!” She swanned out of the bakery.
It occurred to me that maybe, just maybe, it wouldn’t be so bad if I accepted the title of Gourd Queen, after all. Just to prove … well, to prove something.
Nah.
*
When I shoved into the inn’s kitchen with an armload of white paper bags, Chester and Aunt Effie were in a huddle at the table. They both looked up.
“Did you get sticky buns?” Chester asked.
I tossed him one of the sacks. “Why do you guys look like Act Three of The Shining?”
“Late last night Hank pounded on my door and woke me up to inform me that he heard mice in his wall,” Effie said. Under her luminous makeup, she looked tired.
“Oh, no,” I said. “Maybe he heard me ripping up the rotten floorboards in the attic bathroom last night.”
“Ripping up floors at night?” Effie said. “Agnes, you need your beauty rest.”
“You don’t mind?” I asked her. “About the floor? I should have run it by you, but I was just itching to get those rotten boards out—”
“Mind?” Effie said. “Of course I don’t mind. This is your project, too. Besides, the attic is your private space, to do with as you wish.”
“Yeah, it’s my project, but it’s your inn.”
“Tell me, what are you going to replace the floor with, wood or tile?”
“I was thinking vintage-style tile. Black and white mini hexagons?”
“I adore those.”
“You need a subfloor first,” Chester said through a mouthful of sticky bun. “Lined with a moisture barrier.”
I had no idea what that meant, but I said, “Yeah, I know.”
“Chester knows how to do carpentry,” Effie said to me. “He’ll cut the subfloor pieces for you.”
“I will?” he said.
“Yes,” Effie said, “because that’s the kind of cousin you are.”
“By the way, there are mice in the walls,” Chester said through another bite of sticky bun. “They skitter around like a Lawrence Welk Show finale.”
“I’ve heard them, too,” I said, setting the rest of the bakery bags on the counter. “In the ceiling right above my bed. Chewing.”
“Ugh! Why didn’t you tell me?” Effie cried. “I told Hank he was surely mistaken.”
“I assumed you knew,” Chester said. “Hey, at least it’s not rats. Rats smell disgusting.”
“We’ll get some mousetraps,” Effie said.
“If you set mousetraps anywhere Hank can see them, you can’t keep telling him he’s delusional,” Chester said.
“Why don’t we let Tiger Boy inside?” I said. “He’ll kill the mice, or at least scare them away—”
“He comes into the kitchen for food,” Effie said, “but I’ve never set him loose in the rest of the inn. He’s feral … although, on the plus side, I did see him killing a bird the other day.”
“Not a plus for the North American songbird population,” Chester said.
“He doesn’t even have to be good at hunting mice,” I said. “The mice just need to smell a cat, and then they’ll move out.”
“Get him a collar so he doesn’t look like such a derelict,” Chester said. “There’s nothing you can do about all those notches in his ears, though, or the way he makes that face with one squinty eye like a boxer with an eye swollen shut.”
This was all true. Tiger Boy looked tough.
“It’s a plan, then,” Effie said. “Invite the stray cat to live in the inn. Fabulous. Now, who moved my cigarettes?”
Chapter 13
Fact: every hotel maid in the world deserves a Medal of Valor for her service. What. A. Job.
The gaggle weren’t even as dirty as I imagine folks in, like, Vegas, can get. They didn’t party. They weren’t eating room-service barbecue ribs. They weren’t sneaking indoor cigars or using the mattresses for Zumba practice. Still, making beds is an athletic undertaking, and scrubbing other people’s toothpaste and hair out of sinks is an existential crisis.
Chester was exercising the gaggle out on the lawn. I could see them through the windows, with Tiger Boy looking on, flicking his tail, and the blue, blue lake beyond.
As I made up Dorothea’s bed, I told Effie about my conversation with Delilah at the bakery. Effie wasn’t helping with bed making. She had said something about osteoporosis and her lower back being in danger of snapping in half if she bent at the waist. Privately, I thought it was because if she bent at the knees, her skintight black jeans would rupture a seam.
“I have to say, I’m disappointed by this alibi Delilah has,” Effie said.
“Join the club. But keep in mind, Alexa and Delilah could be covering for each other.”
“Why?”
“Who knows? Also, how the heck did she figure out that Mikey had that influx of cash?”
“Alexa might have told her. Or perhaps Mikey bragged about the money to her.”
“She did say Mikey was always going in to her shop to salivate over her and her strawberry cupcakes.”
“She’s the kind of gal who thinks the lamppost is making a pass at her if she bumps into it, Agnes. Some people are just like that.”
“Conceited?”
“Well, on the surface. The reality is, they’re tragically insecure.”
What could Delilah possibly have to be insecure about? Not reaching her stolen-boyfriends quota for the week? “The point is, I can’t let Delilah cut me off at the pass. If she figures out who killed Mikey before I do…”
“Otis might run away to a cabin in the woods with her?”
I scowled.
“I very much doubt that, Agnes. That man adores you.”
“Yeah, right,” I muttered, now tucking the sheet double time. “That’s why he’s completely blowing me off.”
“Agnes, you aren’t very experienced with men, are you?”
“I’m not going to answer that.”
“Allow me, as one who has had an abundance of experience with men, to pass on a little tidbit of wisdom: when men feel stress, they act aloof. Always. And as a murder suspect, your scrumptious mechanic is under great stress. So, I might add, are his shirt sleeves with those muscles—”
“Aunt Effie!”
“Darling, I only aim to speak the truth. Now, what you ought to do is put on some mascara and a low-cut dress, buy some cookies, and take them to his house. Mother Nature will take care of the rest.”
“Omigod. Are you serious?” Actually, Otis did like cookies, especially oatmeal chocolate chip, but if I tried out the seductress-with-baked-goods routine on him and it didn’t work, I would never, ever be able to look him in the eye again. Besides, how could I compete with Delilah’s German chocolate cupcakes? “I think I’ll stick to using my own personality,” I said, “since Jessica Rabbit’s is already taken.”
“Suit yourself. But the method is tried and true, although sometimes one swaps out the cookies for rib eye.”
“I am getting way too much relationship interference from women over the age of sixty! First Lo, now you—”
“We speak from a combined century of experience.”
“Help me shake out this duvet,” I grumbled.
*
At a quarter to ten, Effie led Chester, the gaggle, and me into Lilting Waves Day Spa.
Karen was standing behind the front desk talking with the receptionist, and her eyes flared slightly before she beamed and said, “Welcome!”
I knew what she was thinking. Aunt Effie had enough
filler and Botox to qualify as legally embalmed in some states, but Karen didn’t have the fruit acid, salt scrub, and essential oil to even make a dent in the rest of us.
But spas peddle hope, and we’d signed up to be seasonally pampered, darnit. So Karen led us back to the changing rooms, and then Myron and Lo were whisked away by a white-smocked masseuse for their Couple’s Cinnamon Massage. The rest of us were instructed to loiter in the softly lit relaxation area, reading magazines and sipping herbal tea in pink robes and slippers.
Dorothea was led away first. She was signed up for a pedicure.
Chester showed up in his pink robe, his heels hanging several inches out the backs of the slippers.
“They don’t have men’s size slippers,” he said, helping himself to granola nuggets from a dish beside the tea stuff. “In case you were wondering.”
“I assume you’re getting the leg wax?” I joked, leafing through my Self magazine.
Chester munched granola, peering over my shoulder. “Those models are so photoshopped, they look like they’re made out of some kind of Plasticine modeling compound.”
“I know,” I said. “They look like they’d melt if they stood too close to a radiator.”
“What treatment are you having?”
“Pumpkin peel facial and brow shaping.” Effie had insisted that if I didn’t get my brows done, I was in imminent danger of being mistaken for an Ewok. And since Delilah had perfect eyebrows (so Otis was clearly into that), I needed perfect eyebrows, too. “You?”
“Nothing.”
“Seriously, what?”
Chester muttered something, coughing at the same time.
“What?”
“He said back wax, darling,” Effie said, gliding into the relaxation area in her pink robe.
“Aunt Effie,” Chester yelped. “Can’t I have any privacy?”
“No, dear. Not with your family.”
“I dunno, Chester,” I said, sipping my tea. “I think Lauren once told me that she’s into cavemen.”
“This has nothing to do with Lauren,” Chester said, too loudly.
“Sure.”
A spa technician appeared in the doorway. “Chester?” she said.
“Just close your eyes and think of Britain,” I said to him as he got up to go.
He gave me a squinchy look over his shoulder.
After Chester left, Effie and I were alone. Effie asked me, “What time is your appointment?”
I looked at the clock on the wall. “In fifteen minutes.”
“Oh, good, mine too.” She stood. “Come on.”
“Um … where are we going?”
Effie lowered her voice to a whisper. “To have a look at Karen’s accounts.”
“Are you crazy?” I whispered back.
“Come on. We’ll lose our chance. I poked around a bit and stumbled upon Karen’s office, and she’s giving Hank his body scrub at the moment.”
I burst into nervous laughter. “Hank? Body scrub?”
“He says he has a thyroid condition that prevents his skin from sloughing off properly.”
“Okay, yuck, no, don’t tell me more.”
I followed Effie out of the relaxation room.
*
Karen’s office was on the third story, way at the top of the quirkily laid out turn-of-the-century building.
“Um … how was it that you quote-unquote ‘stumbled’ upon this?” I asked Effie as, breathless, we emerged in the office. It was a pleasant space, with soft blush walls, skylights, and a sleek white desk forming an L shape. Windows overlooked an alleyway with dumpsters.
The desktop was uncluttered, with stacks of papers—spa-specials leaflets, it looked like—an open laptop, and—“It’s her phone!” I whispered to Effie. A smartphone in a pink plastic case sat next to the computer.
“Well, what are you waiting for?” Effie said, jabbing a key on the laptop. The screen flashed to life.
“I can’t—”
“It may be password protected, anyway.”
I picked up the phone and swiped it on. “It isn’t. I’m on the home screen.”
Effie was clickety-clacking on the laptop. “This doesn’t seem to be password protected, either. Oooh, looks like someone is addicted to eBay.”
Feeling like a really crappy human being, I located the text-messaging icon on Karen’s phone.
This was wrong. This was really, really wrong, and it went against everything I believed about people’s right to privacy. Not to mention I’d once read that the virus and bacteria load on cell phones is catastrophic.
And yet … Karen might’ve murdered Mikey. Karen might’ve dunked me in that cold, dank, apple-bobbing water.
I opened her text messages.
A chain of texts between Karen and someone named Mark appeared.
“Who is Mark?” I whispered to Effie.
She was scrolling through what looked like an Excel file. “The husband. Remember, the one who was doing the OCD vacuuming?”
“Oh, right.” I turned back to Karen’s phone.
Mark: YOU LEFT A TOWEL ON THE BED AGAIN.
Karen: SORRY.
Mark: APOLOGY ACCEPTED.
Mark (a few hours later): COULD YOU PLEASE EMPTY THE CRUMB TRAY ON THE TOASTER AFTER YOU USE IT?
No reply from Karen.
So Karen’s husband was a clean freak. Granted, a little odd. And who empties the crumb tray on their toaster? I owned my toaster for, like, two years before I accidentally discovered the crumb tray.
I navigated my way to the list of all recent texts, and something else caught my eye. It was an exchange from Wednesday, between Karen and her son Scootch, whom we’d briefly met the day before.
Karen: GOT ANOTHER CALL FROM THE PRINCIPAL’S OFFICE.
Scootch: (Eye roll emoji)
Karen (that evening): WHERE ARE YOU? YOU ARE STILL GROUNDED!
No answer from Scootch.
Karen: OFFICER TORRES CAME BY AND SAID YOU AND DUNCAN WERE SEEN SMASHING PUMPKINS ON OAK STREET. YOU ARE IN BIG TROUBLE. I’M GOING TO TELL YOUR FATHER. THE CANADA CAMPING TRIP IS OFF.
No answer from Scootch.
And people think smartphones will help them keep tabs on their teenagers. Ha.
I scrolled up to read earlier messages between Karen and Scootch. There was a text from the previous Thursday at 7:32 PM.
Karen: DUNCAN’S MOM TOLD ME YOU THINK YOU’RE GOING WITH UNCLE MIKEY SUNDAY TO MEET RANDY AT GARAGE? THE ANSWER IS NO. YOU ARE GOING CAMPING WITH YOUR FATHER AFTER ALL IF IT IS THE LAST THING I DO.
No answer from Scootch.
Hold up. Mikey planning to meet Randy? At the garage?
Someone behind Aunt Effie and me cried, “Excuse me?”
I dropped the phone like it was hot. Effie straightened. We turned.
Karen was standing in the doorway, her face hot pink and contorted with fury. “What in the hell are you doing in my office?”
Effie and I looked at each other, then looked back at Karen.
“Oh,” I said, “we just, um, needed to check our email.”
“In my private office? What is the matter with you? People told me you’re both crazy, but I didn’t believe it till now.” Karen pushed past Effie, slammed the laptop shut, and then snatched up her phone. “What, are you guys seriously sleuthing?”
“What?” I said, scoffing.
“The only sleuthing I do is into my subconscious,” Effie said. “It’s an absolute labyrinth. No, as my niece said, we merely wished to check our email—we’re expecting important news—and we were under the impression that the computer here was available for spa clients’ use.”
“Well, it’s not,” Karen said, “so please go to the relaxation room.” Her voice shook, and I couldn’t tell if she was on the verge of tears or of blowing a gasket.
Effie and I slunk out.
When we had made it to the stairs, I whispered, “Did you see anything?”
“Yes. You?”
“Yep.”
; The relaxation room was unoccupied, so we sat down and, whispering, compared notes. I told Effie about the text messages—“I knew her son Scootch looked naughty,” Effie said—and she told me what she’d seen on the computer.
“The first screen was Karen’s eBay account. She has a dozen open bids on used designer shoes.”
“Weird.”
“I know. I love a bargain as much as the next person, but I draw the line at used shoes. Other people’s foot odor?” Effie shuddered. “Anyway, I pulled up accounting sheets in Excel for the last two months.”
“And?”
“The spa is just barely squeaking by. It’s a wonder she’s been able to keep her staff.”
“Money,” I said. “Everything keeps coming back to money.”
“Agnes?” a spa technician said, appearing in the doorway.
*
My facial was administered by a technician named Portia who was plump, almond-eyed, bleach blonde, and rocking a tan the color of a teak patio set. She greeted me so kindly, I assumed that Karen hadn’t told her about the spying incident.
She started in with the cleansing and scrubbing and massaging. Just when I was beginning to doze off, she covered my eyes with cotton pads and painted something on my face that smelled like pumpkin pie and tingled. A lot.
“This is the peel,” she said in her soothing, self-hypnosis-CD voice. She aimed a steady blast of warm steam on my face. “We’ll let it sit for a few minutes.”
“A few minutes?” I said. “I don’t know if I can last that long.” The tingle was becoming a burn.
“It’s the enzymes,” Portia said. “They gobble up all the dead skin just like Pac-Man, and your face will be as smooth as a baby’s bottom. Some of my clients who are way older than you have just the nicest skin because they come in for one of these peels once a month, religiously.”
“It … hurts,” was all I could manage.
“Like, my client Alexa? She just turned forty, but her skin is radiant.”
I forgot that my face felt like a marshmallow over open flame. “Alexa Rice?”