He looked up from studying a recipe card. “Is that woman still here?”
Val shook her head. “She absconded with a stuffed bear, but I saved everything else from her clutches.”
“I now know why Suzette left home as soon as she could. Her mother harangued her about the car crash.”
“The crash explains why Suzette didn’t want a driver’s license and wouldn’t drink alcohol. It must have traumatized her.” Val remembered her own anxiety about driving after a car accident, and she’d had years of experience behind the wheel, unlike Suzette, who was just learning. “Do you believe what Mrs. Cripps said about Suzette trying to steal her boyfriend?”
“Nope. I think the boyfriend made a play for her. Either way, he had a grudge against her for wrecking his car.”
“Years ago.”
Granddad opened the refrigerator. “Revenge is a dish best served cold.”
“It was smart of you to ask Mrs. Cripps his name. You can do research on Lloyd Leerman and see if he lives around here.” Val sniffed the aroma of mint. It came from some sprigs Granddad had put in water on the windowsill. He must have just picked the mint. “What are you making?”
“Orzo salad with lemon, artichokes, feta, and mint. The recipe is in pretty good shape, but I want to make sure it’s perfect.”
When he first snagged the job of recipe columnist, he’d used Val’s recipes and cut out a few ingredients without bothering to test the results. He still used her recipes. At least now, he took the time to try out variations.
Val filled a glass with water. “I was surprised by what Mrs. Cripps said about Suzette and older men.”
“She might’ve been attracted to older men because she grew up without a father in the house. She was looking for a daddy substitute.” He drained the can of artichoke hearts. “Before she came here, she lived and worked in a house where there was a daddy.”
“Mr. Patel.” Val understood what he was implying. “It wouldn’t be the first time a man became involved with the family babysitter or nanny. Do you have any reason to think that’s what happened at the Patels’?”
“Not yet. I want to visit them and get them talking about Suzette. Their body language might tell me if there was anything going on between her and Mr. Patel.” Granddad sliced an artichoke heart in half. “I also want to know more about the note that was left on their doorstep, but I need an excuse to drop in on them.”
Val thought of a pretext for his visit. “Take the Patel boys a book. Tell them Suzette was going to buy it for them with the gift certificate she’d won.” She didn’t get the enthusiastic reaction she expected from Granddad to her suggestion, so she added icing to the cake—an excuse for him to chat with his favorite bookseller. “Dorothy can help you pick out a book for the kids.”
Granddad looked up from the cutting board, suddenly more interested. “Good idea. If I bake cookies for the Patels, they won’t just say thank you for the book and slam the door in my face. I’ll make some cookies for Dorothy too. She told me she doesn’t do much cooking or baking.”
Val smiled. He’d previously tried to capture the heart of an attractive widow by touting his cooking skills. Now he actually had a few skills. Val wished him better luck this time. She much preferred Dorothy over his previous attempted conquest. “Have you finalized the other recipes for this week’s column?”
He nodded. “Still have to type ’em up. Then Ned and I will canvass places Suzette might have gone Saturday night. You want to come with us?”
“Suzette’s boss, Nick, invited me for a drink.” But she didn’t plan on spending the evening with him. “I’ll call you when I’m done and join you.”
“Is Nick an older man?”
“Not to me, but to Suzette. He looks to be in his late thirties. Don’t get hung up on what Mrs. Cripps said about her daughter and older men. Since Suzette was in her early twenties, just about any man is an older man.”
“And not all older men are bad.” Granddad turned on the burner under a pot of water. “If you’re having fun with Nick the hotel manager, stay and have dinner with him, not just a drink.”
“You’ve got the wrong idea.” Nick probably did too. “I’m meeting him to find out what he knows about Suzette. She spent more time at the inn than here. If she had trouble with her coworkers as she did with the neighbors at her last job, he’d have noticed.”
“But would he tell you about it?”
“I’ll find out.”
Val wondered which Nick would show up at the wine bar—the coolly efficient hotel manager or the prying vampire who’d come on to her at the bookshop. Either way, she had to convince him to talk about Suzette.
Chapter 11
Val arrived at the wine bar ten minutes before she was due to meet Nick. She bought a glass of sauvignon blanc at the bar and sat at a tiny stainless steel table near the window. He arrived within minutes.
Judging by his clothing—a shirt and tie under a maroon pullover sweater—Nick the manager had come. But at the table with a glass of red wine in hand, he was as inquisitive as he’d been on Saturday night when dressed as a vampire.
He swirled the wine in the glass. “Where did you say you lived before you moved here?”
She hadn’t said, but she didn’t mind satisfying his curiosity now that they were meeting socially. Besides, she had a few questions for him too. “New York City. I worked for a publishing house and handled publicity for cookbooks.”
“What brought you to this neck of the woods?”
“After my job went sour, I needed a change. My grandfather has a big house in Bayport. I stayed in that house every summer when I was growing up. I came here for what I thought would be a few months to regroup. That was a year and a half ago. It feels like home now.” Before he could get in another question, she turned the tables on him. “Where are you from originally?”
“Born and bred here on the Eastern Shore.” He sipped his wine. “I live in Cambridge.”
An easy commute, half an hour away from Bayport.
A server brought them snacks that Nick had ordered—small bowl of pretzels, cubed cheese, and olives.
When the server left, Val said, “What did you do before you got the job at the inn?”
“I’ve always been in the hospitality industry, working my way up.”
“And now you’re in management.” Val speared a cheese cube, trying to look nonchalant. “A woman who works at your inn was killed in a hit-and-run. Suzette Cripps.”
Nick ran his fingers up and down the stem of his wineglass. “Someone on the staff heard it on the radio and told the rest of us. I knew something was wrong when Suzette didn’t come to work yesterday and the police asked for an emergency contact. They said she was in an accident, but they didn’t tell me how seriously she was hurt.” He took a large green olive from the platter. “Was she a friend of yours?”
Val shook her head. “I’ve only known her for six weeks. She rented a room at my grandfather’s house in mid-September.”
“That’s when she came to work at the inn.” Nick bit into the olive. “How many rooms does your grandfather rent?”
“He’s not running a boarding house. Suzette was staying with us until she could find someone to share a place with. My grandfather told her the room wouldn’t be available around Christmas and New Year’s, when my brother’s family and my parents always visit.” Val reached for a pretzel. “Was Suzette friendly with anyone in particular at work?”
“Not that I noticed. The front desk people often become friendly while working together, but we’ve had a lot of turnover lately. The woman who worked at the desk for years left at the end of September, and the people we’ve tried in the job this month haven’t worked out.”
Had the woman quit because of something amiss at the inn? “It’s hard to lose a longtime employee. Did she retire or move?”
“She got a job offer from the Inn at Perry Cabin. We couldn’t compete with that.”
“I understand.” One o
f the premier properties on the Eastern Shore, Perry Cabin was the height of luxury and probably paid their staff well. Steering the conversation back to the Harbor Inn, Val said, “The staff at upscale places like that must have to cater to demanding guests. I suppose that’s true for you too. Managers have to handle all kinds of problems and disputes.”
“It’s my job to know what’s going on and prevent problems before they arise. Most of the time, I succeed.”
“Was Suzette having trouble with anyone at the inn?”
Nick looked taken aback. “What kind of trouble?”
Val shrugged. “I’m not sure. I found out she left her previous job because someone was harassing her.”
“We would jump on anything like that in a heartbeat.”
Val got the impression that his anything like that meant sexual harassment. She was about to explain that she didn’t mean that type of problem when Bram walked into the wine bar.
He waved and came over to the table. “Hey, Val. I was walking by and saw you sitting in the window. We need to work out a few details about tomorrow night. Can you stop by the shop or call my mother when you have a chance?”
“Sure.”
Bram turned to Nick. “Sorry to interrupt.”
Val introduced the two men to each other. “Bram is the bookshop’s business manager. Nick is the Harbor Inn’s assistant manager. You two have something in common. You were both vampires on Saturday night at the bookshop.”
Bram stared at Nick. “You look familiar. You were there for the costume contest.”
Nick frowned. “I read the sign about the contest, but I didn’t stay for it.”
“I could swear I saw you there after it was over.”
“No,” Nick said. “Must have been some other vampire.”
Bram raised a skeptical eyebrow. How could he be so sure that Nick had been the vampire hanging around after the costume contest? Val hadn’t recognized him at the inn yesterday, though she’d talked to him for ten minutes the night before.
Val pointed to him. “On Saturday night Nick had blackened eyes and fangs. It would have been hard to tell him from any other vampire.”
“Nick,” Bram said, as if the name had just sunk in. “You called the bookshop so you could talk to Val about catering. Did you two work that out?”
Val was stunned at Bram’s personality change. The buttoned-up businessman was acting like a nosy neighbor.
Nick glared at him. “We were interrupted before we got around to it tonight.”
“I know what you mean. People constantly interrupt me too.” Bram gave Val a quick smile. “Talk to you later. I wouldn’t want to hold up a business meeting.”
As Bram turned to go, Nick said, “How are the wedding plans going, Val?”
The question hung in the air as Val focused on Bram. She watched him go out the door and turn in the opposite direction from the bookshop, possibly on the hunt for some dinner.
She turned back to Nick. “You said something about a wedding?”
“Your friend’s wedding. Did you tell her about the Harbor Inn?”
“I did.” Lying had two pitfalls—forgetting what you’d said and having to keep lying. “She hasn’t gotten back to me on it.” She tried to think of a different conversation topic. He reached for his glass of what looked to her like blood-red wine, perfect for a vampire.
Sipping it, he watched her over the rim of his glass. “Is the guy who interrupted us a good friend of yours?”
Val would have called Bram a foe rather than a friend after her first encounter with him. Since then he’d shown her a different side of himself every time, but it was still a stretch to call him a friend. “He’s a catering client.” Though he’d behaved almost like a jealous boyfriend. “While we’re on the subject, you were interested in my catering an event?”
Nick leaned toward her across the tiny table. “No, I was interested in you, but I didn’t think the bookshop people would link us up if I said that. I hope you don’t mind.”
“I don’t.” Given that she’d had an ulterior motive in meeting him tonight, she couldn’t object to his. By now she was convinced he wouldn’t tell her about any tensions or trouble at the Harbor Inn. Val sipped her wine, unable to think of anything else to say to him.
“It would be hard for me to share a house with a relative who’s a lot older,” he said. “What’s it like to live with your grandfather?”
“A challenge for both of us at first. When I moved here, Granddad still hadn’t gotten over my grandmother’s death. He ate badly and spent most of his time in front of the TV. But all that’s changed. He has a healthier diet now, and he’s tried new things, like cooking and writing a newspaper recipe column.”
“That’s very cool. It must have been an adjustment for you both when Suzette moved in.”
Val had been wondering how to bring up Suzette again, and now Nick had done it for her. “Not much of an adjustment. She had her own entrance and staircase to her bedroom. My grandfather and I barely saw her.” Val took a sip of wine. “Did Suzette get along well with the staff at the inn?”
Nick’s dark brows lowered over his narrowed eyes. “She must have said something to you about working there. You keep asking about it.”
“You were the one who just brought up Suzette, not me.” Val decided against repeating her question about Suzette and her coworkers. He obviously didn’t want to answer it. She wondered why.
He pointed to her nearly empty glass. “How about a wine refill?”
She looked at her watch. “I’d better not. I’m supposed to meet my grandfather and a friend of his for dinner.”
“Where are you going to eat?”
Even if Val knew the answer, she wouldn’t have told Nick. Maybe he’d asked about her dinner plans just to make conversation or out of simple curiosity, or maybe he was hoping for an invitation to join them. He wouldn’t get it. She stood up. “Granddad is going to surprise me. It was good chatting with you, Nick, and thanks for the snacks.”
Her abrupt exit bordered on rude, but she had little interest in spending more time with him. His defensiveness about the inn’s work environment made Val think he was hiding something. Of course, her questions about the inn probably made him think she was prying . . . which she was.
She glanced in the window of Title Wave. Dorothy looked busy with customers lined up to buy books. Val would call her later tonight or in the morning to settle whatever details remained for tomorrow’s Fictionista meeting.
“Miss Val!” a woman behind her called out.
Val turned. It took her a moment to recognize the dark-haired maid. “Maria!”
“We heard at the inn that Suzette is dead. I am very sorry. She was a good person.” Maria glanced behind her. “I must tell you something. Let me go ahead. Walk a little behind, and I’ll wait for you around the corner.”
Val could hardly contain her curiosity. Would she finally learn why Suzette detoured rather than walk straight home from the inn? Val pretended to look in a gift shop window, waited until Maria walked half a block, and then followed her.
The maid turned the corner onto a side street and paused near a bush far from a streetlight. When Val caught up with her, Maria said, “I saw you in the window of the wine store, sitting with Nick. Stay away from him. He is a bad man.”
Val had no trouble believing that. “How is he bad? What does he do?”
“He is married. He should not be with another woman.”
Was Maria trying to protect Val from heartbreak or hinting that Suzette had been having an affair with her boss? “Was Nick, um, with Suzette?”
“No! She was a good girl.”
But she might not have told Maria the truth about her relationship with Nick, knowing that Maria wouldn’t approve. Or perhaps Suzette didn’t want anything to do with Nick, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer. “Is Nick interested in other women who work at the inn?”
Maria bit her lip. “I must go home now and pray for Suzette�
�s soul. You go back.” She pointed toward Main Street, turned, and hurried in the opposite direction.
Not the right time to pursue her for information. Apparently, she didn’t want Nick to see her talking to Val. Something strange was going on at the inn where Suzette worked. Did it involve Nick and did it have anything to do with her death? Val was sure Maria could help answer those questions, but getting her to talk wouldn’t be easy.
Val pulled out her phone, noticed it was almost out of juice, and speed-dialed her grandfather. “Hi, Granddad. I’m done. Where and when should I meet you?”
“We started on the far end of Main Street, toward the peninsula. We’re working our way back to the center. We should be at the Bugeye Tavern in about fifteen minutes.”
“A perfect place to grab dinner.” Val was closer to the tavern and would get there even sooner than Granddad and Ned. “The Bayport Bistro is right across the street from the tavern. I’ll show the staff there Suzette’s photo before I meet you.”
She walked along Main Street and turned left on Locust. In warm weather the tables on the front patio of the Bayport Bistro were usually filled, but with the sun down, the nippy autumn air made the indoors more appealing. She went inside and told the hostess she was trying to find out if her friend had stopped at the bistro on Saturday night. The friend lived in Washington, had visited Bayport last weekend, and had eaten in a restaurant she enjoyed. She couldn’t remember the name or the exact location, and she wanted to give the place a good online review.
Val then showed the hostess the doctored photo and pointed to Suzette’s image. “Do you remember this woman being here?”
“I don’t, but I greet a lot of customers. Let me show the picture to the two servers who were here Saturday night.”
Neither of them recognized Suzette or the other woman in the photo. Val thanked them, turned back toward Main Street, and crossed Locust Lane. The tavern in a brick building on the corner of Main and Locust took its name—Bugeye—from the type of oyster boat used in the nineteenth century. The tavern’s main room, with its wood floors and walls, hadn’t changed much since hardworking watermen gathered here after a day on the bay. The much newer glass-enclosed side porch with hanging ferns gave the eatery a split personality.
Crypt Suzette Page 10