by Gina LaManna
Chapter 12
We stopped by my mother’s store on the way to the Blueberry Lake Inn. I bribed her with a muffin and the promise of clothing sales and a movie credit, and she softened like butter.
“Go on, then,” my mother said. “Allie and I will hold down the fort.”
“I’ll actually be holding down the fort in just about an hour,” Allie said. “You know, after my lunch break.”
My mom gave us a skeptical look, but when she bit into the muffin and remembered her bribes, she piped down pretty quick. She wished us well as we made our way out of the store and into Allie’s vehicle.
With Allie driving, it didn’t take us long to make it to the inn. Still, the unusual amount of traffic made the ride closer to twenty minutes, when it was usually fifteen, despite pushing the speed limit boundaries on the highway.
Blueberry Lake Inn was set just outside of town on a large, glistening lake that spread into the distance. It was Hallmark in a nutshell. Cute little inn, wide-open lake, tiny little town. And the best part of all was that the inn wasn’t near anything else. For someone looking for privacy, the inn had it all.
The inn didn’t even take reservations online. It required over-the-phone bookings and handwritten receipts, much like my mother’s shop. It was as off the grid as one could get in this day and age. As we parked outside, I wondered who from Hollywood had a need for that level of discretion?
Allie had parked on the dirt parking lot before the building. We climbed out and made our way inside the old farmhouse that had been gutted and turned into a charming getaway. At the front desk sat a woman who looked up at the sound of a tinkling bell when we entered.
“Hi, there,” I said. “I’m—”
“I know who you are,” she said with a sigh. “Jenna McGovern?”
“That’s me.”
“I’m sorry for my mother,” Harriet Louise Schroeder said. “She’s a handful. It’s a full-time job trying to keep her confined to the nursing home. But it’s for the woman’s own good! She can barely hear, yet she thinks crossing the street alone is a great idea.”
“She’s a firecracker.”
“Yes,” Harriet said. “But she seems to like you. Are you with the police?”
“We’re looking into a case,” Allie said, dodging the question. “I’m sure you heard about the man who got shot on the movie set yesterday?”
“Yes, poor guy,” Harriet said. “How’s he doing?”
“Well, we’re looking to find who shot him,” Allie said, looking down and pulling up a picture of Tennison on her phone. “Has he been here?”
Harriet studied the picture. “I can’t say that I’ve seen him.”
“Bummer.” Allie turned to me. “Dead end.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “Do you currently have guests?”
“Well, yes.”
“Can I ask who?”
Harriet looked hesitant to offer information. Quite frankly, I didn’t blame her. It wasn’t like we’d shown any identification or anything of the sort. We’d just shown up asking questions with her mother’s blessing.
“It’s okay if you can’t say,” I said. “We’re just—”
“It’s not that,” she said. “I just don’t know what to tell you.”
That had me puzzled. “Um, their name might be a good place to start?”
She gave a soft chuckle. “Okay, then. That would be one Anita Bath.”
“Anita...” I looked up, stopped my smile. “I see. Fake name.”
“What gave it away?” she mused, a twinkle in her eye. “Look, I’ve supposedly gotten Mickey Mouse, Kim Kardashian, and George Clooney coming through my inn, if you’d like to believe what’s written in the register.”
“You don’t require any identification to stay here?”
“Why should I?”
I considered. “I’m not sure. Seems like every other hotel requires it.”
“We’re so far out of the way of any major hub, that I just don’t see anyone coming here to stay for any nefarious reasons,” she said. Then added, “I mean, any dangerous reasons. Obviously, some people require privacy and discretion. I don’t particularly care why people are staying at the inn, so long as they pay and keep the room in relatively tidy order. We’re a small business. Every room rented counts; you have to understand.”
“Of course,” I said. “Long story short, you don’t know who’s renting the room. Did anyone come here to check in?”
Harriet shook her head. “They called to set up a late check-in option. I left the key to their room tucked into a planter out front. Like I said, it’s a small business. I’m the only employee, aside from my niece. She pops by to clean the rooms. I can’t possibly work around the clock.”
“Gotcha,” I said. “But wouldn’t they have had to pay?”
“They paid in full. In cash,” she said. “The room is booked until next Friday.”
“You haven’t seen anyone coming in or out?”
She shook her head. “Not anyone from that room. Then again, I leave at eight p.m. every day after I offer some light snacks for the guests. We have two other couples staying here, but they’re locals just out for a short getaway. One anniversary, one birthday.”
“Are they around?”
“I’m afraid not,” she said. “They’re both out hiking today. Beautiful weather.”
“That it is,” I agreed. “When’s your niece supposed to come by for her next cleaning shift? Maybe we could ask her a few questions.”
Harriet glanced down the hall. “She’s actually here now. I think she might even be doing their room.”
“Would it be possible to—”
“Look inside?” She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I do believe you’d need a warrant for that.”
“Of course. But maybe we could just talk to Ellen for a second?”
“I suppose that’d be fine. I mean, you’d have to ask her, but I can’t imagine she’d have a problem with it.” Harriet paused, then called down one hallway. “Ellen, you got a second?”
A blonde head popped out from one of the rooms down the hall. “Sure thing, Auntie Harriet. One sec—gotta finish the mirror before it streaks.”
“Good kid,” Harriet said. “I couldn’t run this place without her.”
A few minutes later, we were situated in a small parlor with an array of pretzels and beer nuts before us, along with a pitcher of water and a pot of coffee. Harriet was nothing if not a good hostess.
“Are you guys cops?” Ellen reached forward and took a handful of nuts. “My aunt said you might be stopping by. I guess you met my grandma?”
“She’s hard to miss,” I said. “Great lady.”
“Sure is,” Ellen said. “She’s going to cosign for my motorcycle once I turn eighteen.”
Ellen didn’t look like the stereotypical motorcycle-riding type. She had what looked like cherry gloss on her lips and thick mascara over her eyelashes. Her hair was pulled into a bouncy blonde ponytail, and she wore faded jeans and a simple white T-shirt that was tucked in. She looked more like a cheerleader than a motorcycle gal, but who was I to judge.
“Your aunt told us that there’s a couple staying here, in town from Los Angeles?” I asked. “Any chance you’ve seen who they are? Or, possibly, a name or something anywhere in their room?”
“Dude, their room is spotless,” Ellen said. She leaned in and took another handful of nuts. As she chomped through them, she whispered to us while keeping an eye out for her aunt. “I played three rounds of Candy Crush in there. I’m not a slacker by nature, but seriously. All I had to do was make up the bed and do a once-over on the bathroom. They didn’t touch the complimentary toiletries, glasses, nothing.”
“Interesting.”
“I don’t even know if two people are staying there, honestly,” she said. “I don’t see how two people can stay there and make so little of a mess. If it weren’t for the complaint, I wouldn’t believe it.”
“The complaint?�
� I asked, curiously.
“Sometimes, I take the night shift for my aunt,” Ellen said with a shrug. “All I have to do is keep my phone on overnight. I get paid a few extra bucks, and usually there’s nothing to do.”
“But you received a complaint about this couple?”
“Yeah, sort of awkward,” Ellen said. “When someone calls me, I basically just take down the information and pass it along to my aunt. But can you imagine having to tell your aunt that one couple is complaining about another because they’re, you know, getting too rowdy?”
Allie’s eyebrows shot up. “Wow.”
“Tell me about it,” she said. “They called twice. I missed the first one because I was sleeping. Okay, I was playing Candy Crush, and I didn’t hear the phone go off. Okay, I did hear it go off, but I was at a very critical part. I picked up the second time right away,” she added defensively. “Then I called my aunt and let her know. You know, the details. As fast as I could.”
“Do you know if your aunt did anything about it?” I asked, surprised that Harriet hadn’t mentioned the middle-of-the-night disturbance to us.
“Dude,” Ellen said. “I certainly wasn’t going to ask my aunt if she came here and broke up that sort of party. Gross.”
“Fair point,” I said, making a mental note to ask Harriet about it later. “I’m guessing that means you haven’t found much in their room?”
“Nope,” she said. A beat later, she shoved her hand in her pocket and shot us a confused look. “Actually, no. It’s stupid.”
“What’s stupid?” I asked. “Nothing is too big or too little. The smallest thing might be important.”
“You haven’t really told me what it’s important for in the first place,” she said. “Is this about the dude that got shot?”
“Unfortunately, yes,” I said.
“You think the person here might be... you know... the bad guy?” Ellen’s eyes widened. “I might have cleaned the bedroom of the shooter?”
“I’m not saying that,” I said. “We’re just following all leads.”
“Okay, okay, well... maybe this is a lead, then.” Ellen fished out the thing she was toying with in her pocket. It was a huge button. “I found this in the room. Though I’ll warn you. I’m not sure it belongs to whoever stayed in that room recently.”
“What do you mean?” I reached out and took the proffered button from Ellen’s hand. “What else could it be from?”
“You know how I told you I wasn’t a slacker?” Ellen didn’t wait for a response to continue. “Well, I’m not. I cleaned that whole room top to bottom before I started playing Candy Crush. I was so bored out of my mind that I deep cleaned—you know, under the bed, in the corners of the closet, that sort of thing. This was tucked underneath the bed way, way back. I almost missed it, but it fell out when I was re-fluffing and vacuuming everything. I would’ve missed it, but you can see for yourself. It’s eye catching.”
The button was eye catching indeed. It was coated in bright silver glitter and sparkled like a disco ball. I wasn’t sure what article of clothing it’d come from, but it certainly wasn’t your average suit coat.
“That looks like it’s a button from something I’d wear,” Allie said. “I dig it. I wonder if maybe I can keep it? Buttons are surprisingly expensive. Ever tried to buy one?”
I looked over at Allie. “You know I’m a stylist, right? Of course I’ve tried to buy buttons. And, actually, I have a better idea.”
“Better idea about what?” Ellen asked. “The issue is that I’m not totally sure if it belonged to the people who stayed here this time, or the time before. I mean, I clean really well, but honestly, a button in the corner of the room might’ve gotten missed. It could’ve even been trapped in the bed or on the dresser somewhere and fallen off. There’s no way for me to know one hundred percent that this button came from the current occupants.”
“Here’s what I think we should do,” I said, flipping the button over and setting it on the table before all of us. I slipped out my phone and took a quick photo of it, just in case. “Let’s have you, Ellen, set it out on the nightstand. Maybe leave a little note that says something about finding a lost button when vacuuming. See if they take it.”
“They might take it even if it’s not theirs,” Allie said. “See Exhibit A about buttons being expensive.”
“While that’s possible, it doesn’t make sense,” I said. “Why would someone hoard buttons? Besides you, I mean. What are they going to do with one button?”
“I can think of a million crafts to do with one button,” Allie said. “But I agree with you, not everyone is as resourceful as me.”
“Exactly my point,” I said. “Anyway, if this person did lose a button, we want them to have it back. To pop it back on their clothes.”
“Sucks to be missing a button,” Allie said. “Been there.”
“More importantly, if there’s a chance this person might wear the outfit again while they’re in town, the one with sparkly buttons, we’ll be able to identify them,” I said. “They can really only wear the outfit if they have all the buttons.”
“Well, it should be pretty easy to identify them,” Allie said. “You can see the sparkle on this bad boy from across the street.”
“I see,” Ellen said. “Yeah, I can do that. If you give me your phone number, I can text you tomorrow when I come to clean and update you on the Case of the Sparkly Button.”
“That’s my sort of case,” Allie said, pulling herself to her feet.
I stood, too. Ellen and I exchanged phone numbers. Then she tucked her phone into her back pocket, and with one hand she grabbed the button. In the other, she helped herself to another serving of nuts.
“Lunch,” she said in explanation.
“Thanks again for your help,” I said. “Looking forward to hearing from you tomorrow.”
On the way out, I stopped by the front desk to look for Harriet. I wanted to ask her about the middle-of-the-night phone call, but a sign by the front desk said that she’d be back in thirty minutes.
“Speaking of, are you hungry?” Allie thumbed at the sign. “I could use lunch, too.”
“I’ve got to get back to work,” I said, at the same time realizing that I did feel a pinch of hunger.
I’d given away two of my three muffins from June and hadn’t yet gotten time to eat the one I had left. The pinch of hunger, however, brought back the uncomfortable reminder that I needed to get in touch with Cooper to reschedule our first official date. A sign that didn’t exactly bode well for our burgeoning relationship.
I pushed the thought out of my mind as we reached the car. Allie began driving us back toward my mother’s shop.
“One question,” Allie said as she spun onto Main Street and found herself stuck in unheard-of traffic. “How are you so sure that whoever is staying here shot at anyone? I mean, it sounds like whoever’s coming out here was doing so to have a good time.”
“Yeah, but wouldn’t it be easier to just do that at their own hotel?” I mused. “I mean, sure—I suppose there’s a slightly higher risk of them being discovered.”
“It’s pretty clear they want to be discreet.”
“True,” I agreed. “Which is why I’m thinking that whoever’s been coming out here is hiding something. A secret. There’s a chance that this little secret isn’t related to the murder at all, but—”
“You just said murder,” Allie interrupted. “It’s just a shooting. An attempted murder.”
I looked down at my hands.
Allie expelled a breath. “He didn’t make it.”
I shook my head.
“Yikes,” she said. “That’s sad.”
“It is,” I said. “And it’s all the more reason we have to find out who’s responsible for that shot being fired. Because now, it’s murder.”
Chapter 13
Once we crawled through traffic and made it to my mother’s shop, Allie parked her car in the lot. My mother was at the door to our vehi
cle before Allie’s wheels stopped rolling.
“Jenna, can I speak with you for a moment?” my mother asked. “Word just hit. Did you know the man died? The one that got shot?”
“I heard,” I said. “It’s really sad.”
“It’s very sad,” my mother said, pausing for a moment of silence for Tennison. Then almost immediately, she narrowed her eyes at me. “You’re not on set. You told me you were working.”
“I’m headed there now.”
“But...” My mother rested a finger on her lip. “Oh, you little fox. You’re running around trying to solve another murder.”
“That’s not entirely true,” I said.
“No,” Allie agreed. “She’s not trying, she’s going to solve it. Your daughter is two for two. That’s pretty good odds. Even the police don’t solve a hundred percent of the crimes they investigate.”
“I’d rather have my daughter investigate zero crimes,” Bea McGovern said with a frown. “Why are you involved in this one?”
“Look, I’ve got to get back to set,” I said. “I really do have a job to do, and I’ve already taken a long lunch.”
My mother frowned. “I’ve got my eye on you. And I’m sure Cooper does, too. He doesn’t like when you interfere in his cases.”
“Okay, thanks, Mom,” I said. “If you hear any whispers about what might have happened, be sure to tell me, okay?”
My mother crossed her arms and harrumphed. “Fat chance. But more importantly, what are you wearing tonight?”
“Tonight?” I winced as I remembered what she was referencing. “Oh, about that. I have to work.”
“Jenna!”
“Bye, Mother!”
“When you’re 150 years old and on your death bed, your career won’t be there with you, but Cooper will!”
“Wow. That’s ambitious,” I said. “A hundred and fifty years old. I’m not sure Cooper would last that long. Women tend to live longer than men.”
“Because you keep giving them heart attacks by canceling your dates. Remember that,” Bea called after me. “Have some sympathy for the poor man. He just wants to see you.”