“Indeed,” Florence replied brusquely, straining to catch Thaddeus’s attention. He was sharing a story with my mother, who looked lovely when she tossed her head back and laughed. Glowering, Florence tried to break free of the constraints of social etiquette, ignoring all attempts at conversation. When it became abundantly clear that there was no dissuading the determined Ms. Vinson, Lacey did the one thing she knew would put those granny pants in a bunch.
“Reverend Hoskins, what a wonderful sermon! Let me introduce you to one of our guests. This is Florence Vinson.”
That did the trick. The woman didn’t dare dismiss one of God’s messengers. She took the hand offered to her before trying to resume the chase. Unfortunately for her, Reverend Hoskins is a man who likes to chat with parishioners. The longer we stood beside the kindly minister in the gray robes, conversing, the thinner Ms. Vinson’s patience became, until finally it shattered in one very obvious shrug of the shoulders.
“I have to go! Excuse me!” Panic seemed to overcome her -- the woman was on a mission and no one was going to stop her from completing it.
“My word,” said the reverend as he watched Florence crabwalk her way out of the pew in pursuit of my mother and Dr. Van Zandt. “What an unusual woman. Is she okay?”
“The jury’s still out on that,” Lacey sighed. “Thank you again, Jim. You certainly gave me plenty to think about.”
“Indeed,” I concurred, sticking out my hand to shake his. “Thank you.”
“It was my pleasure, ladies. Enjoy the day.”
Out in the parking lot, a passing crowd of rubberneckers began to gather around a silver sedan. Lacey and I headed to the scene as voices became louder and more animated.
“I’m more than happy to sit in the back seat,” said a huffy Ms. Vinson.
“I’m afraid that’s just not possible. Mrs. Wilson and I have plans,” the doctor replied firmly. “Now, if you’ll excuse us, we’ve got to be going.”
“But, we haven’t had a chance to catch up, Thaddeus!” Ms. Vinson grabbed his arm and held fast to it, even as the doctor recoiled from her touch. “It’s been fifteen years!”
“Yes, it has. But now you must excuse us.”
I turned to Lacey at the same moment she whirled around to face me. “They know each other?”
“Apparently they do.”
A moment later, Thaddeus got into the driver’s seat, started the engine, and drove off, leaving a very agitated Florence in his wake.
“I don’t understand. How can he treat me that way, after all we’ve been through together?”
“You’ve known Dr. Van Zandt a long time?” Lacey delicately probed, even as she urged Ms. Vinson towards my Ford Focus.
“We worked together in the hospital. I was head nurse on the unit.”
Ah, that explained a lot -- the pushiness, the determination, the anguish. Ms. Vinson must have had a crush on Thaddeus, even though he was married. Now that he was widowed, she probably thought she had a clear path to her goal. At the moment, though, my mother was standing in her way, and I wanted to make sure she didn’t steamroll right over Laurel.
“I could be good for him,” Florence said, more to herself than to us. “I can take care of him, especially if he is going to need more surgery. Why would he want to saddle himself with a woman in a wheelchair when there’s so much I can do?”
“Excuse me,” I cut in, offended by her callous dismissal of my mother’s worthiness. “I’ll have you know, Ms. Vinson, that woman you’re so cavalierly discussing is my mother. She may not have your mobility, but she certainly is a very decent, intelligent, and interesting woman.”
“What?” The look on her face was one of shock. For a split second, I considered I had crossed a line of social propriety, but then I remembered Thaddeus’s reaction to the woman. He wasn’t interested in pursuing their old connections.
“Dr. Van Zandt told you....” I started to sputter, but Lacey put a hand on my arm, her fingers squeezing me into silent mode.
“Scarlet, I think I dropped my compact in the church. Will you be a dear and go look for it?”
“But....”
“Please?”
With a heavy sigh, I handed her my car keys before I turned on my heel and headed back inside. I wasted five minutes on my hands and knees between pews before I realized there was no compact. When I got back to the parking lot, I found the two women had climbed into the back seat, where Florence was now weeping loudly on Lacey’s shoulder, tissues in hand. That left me little choice but to chauffeur them back to the inn. This time around, I took the most direct route. By the time we arrived at the front steps, Florence had dried her tears and was already talking about booking an earlier flight back home.
“I think it’s for the best, dear,” Lacey agreed. “After all, there’s no shame in loving a man, but you want to be able to hold your head high. You gave it a good shot, but it just wasn’t meant to be. Would you like me to drive you to the airport?”
“Do you mind?”
“Not at all. You let me know what time your flight is, Florence. I’ll run you out to...ah....” Lacey suddenly stopped talking. “Scarlet, what are the dogs doing outside on their own?”
“Excuse me?” Sure enough, Huckleberry and January were sitting side by side on the front porch, with no one around. Given the fact that the Four Acorns Inn sat at the edge of some prime wilderness, complete with bears, fisher cats, coyotes, and even foxes large enough to view tiny dogs as appetizers, this was not good news. That’s why we had signs posted throughout the inn to warn guests that our pets were not to be let out, not even Scrub Oak.
“Is Jenny there?”
“I don’t see her,” Lacey told me.
“Could you make sure the dogs get inside, while I park the car?”
“Sure.”
Two minutes later, I shut the automatic garage door and headed toward the brick walkway, intending to enter through the sun porch. Instead, I found myself greeted by a pair of tail-wagging pups, who rushed out of the open door, sprinting towards me. “Ah ha! So, that’s how you rascals got out!”
I climbed up the steps, shooing them back, and as I stepped inside, I heard a crunch under my sandaled foot. Shards of broken glass were strewn across the painted wood floor.
“What the....” I glanced down at the sight and then back at the door I had just shut. There was a pane missing just above the doorknob. “Son of a....”
My first move was to call Bur and tell him to get his fanny down to the inn pronto. My second was to call Kenny. After all, what’s the point of having a boyfriend who had recently retired as assistant director for public safety at Princeton University if I couldn’t ask him what I should do? As the new regional chief of Mercer Security, he could advise me.
“Are you alone, Scarlet?” he wanted to know.
“No, I just dropped off Lacey and a guest. I called Bur,” I told Kenny. “I can see him now.”
“Round up the guests in the living room and wait there. I’ll be with you in five minutes. In the meantime, I want you to call the cops.”
Right after I called 911, I put the dogs in the powder room, just to keep them from getting underfoot while the cops searched the house.
Looking out the window, I noticed the only car in the inn’s parking lot was the Wilkies’ sedan. The Johnsons must have left for their college reunion luncheon, I decided. They had settled their bill before breakfast. Where was Jenny? A moment later, I heard sirens screaming up the street. A marked cruiser pulled up to the front door, followed by Kenny’s SUV.
Chapter Six --
“What’s going on?” Jenny appeared at the top of the stairs, a worried expression on her face.
“It looks like someone tried to break in through the porch. The dogs were outside when we got back.”
“What?” Her nimble feet flew down the steps, with Mozzie on her heels.
Bur ushered Lacey and Florence into the living room, just as I opened the front door to a pair of unif
ormed officers. I led them through the dining room and onto the sun porch, where I showed them the damage.
“Okay. Let’s just take a look around,” said Officer Burnley, as Kenny joined us. They walked through the inn room by room, checking closets and under beds, to make sure the intruder wasn’t lurking.
Twenty minutes later, with nothing apparently stolen, the officers were ready to leave. “If you find anything missing when you do an inventory, we’ll update the incident report. Your insurance company will want a copy in the event you make a claim, so have their rep call us.”
“Thanks.” I saw the pair to the door, even as Kenny, prince that he is, got busy replacing the glass. He grabbed a tape measure and jotted down the information before he made a trip to the hardware store for caulk and a new window pane, cut to size. Bur hung around, just in case there was more trouble. He settled himself down with the Sunday papers in the living room, keeping Lacey and Florence company.
Poor Jenny, home alone at the time of the attempted break-in, was rattled. I couldn’t really blame her for feeling that way, especially if our return from church was the only thing that scared off the perpetrator.
“I don’t understand. Why didn’t Huck and January bark, Miz Scarlet?”
“There was no barking?”
“I swear I didn’t hear a peep from the pooches.”
“Hmm....Maybe the culprit was careful not to raise the alarm. Maybe he knew we had dogs.”
“I was here all alone,” she reminded me again, a note of disbelief in her voice. Of all the scary thoughts running through her head, that was the one that most frightened her. I understood her concern. Should we worry that she was the intended victim? Think, Scarlet. What does she need to hear?
“Well, you weren’t totally alone. Bur was in the carriage house. He came the second I called him.”
“Still....”
“Don’t worry, Jen. Kenny’s taking care of the broken glass. We’ll ask him what to do about security when he gets back from Moriarty’s Hardware Store.”
“It’s just creepy that someone tried to break in.”
“He didn’t just try, sweetie. He succeeded. That’s how the dogs got out.”
“But Mozzie was with me and he didn’t bark either,” she pointed out.
“Maybe the burglar didn’t make any noise,” I suggested, trying to make sense of this baffling episode. “Or you were out of earshot when the glass was broken.”
“Come to think about it, I only went up to my room about fifteen minutes before you got home.” She considered the possibilities. “I put the food away, loaded the dishwasher, and scrubbed the pans. I tidied up the butler’s pantry and put some bottled juices and waters in the guest fridge. And then, even though I thought it looked okay, I did a quick wipe and swipe in the powder room, to make sure it was presentable for guests.”
“When did the Wilkies leave for their hike?”
“It was just a few minutes before I went upstairs. Diana wanted directions for the blue trail, so I found her a park map. Last time I saw them, Dave was getting their binoculars from their car.”
“There’s something off about all this, Jen, something just not right. Why break a window at the back of the house when the front door was unlocked?”
“Maybe the burglar didn’t know the front door was unlocked.”
“Or he didn’t want to be seen entering the Four Acorns Inn. There’s shrubbery by the sun porch and plenty of places to hide, with no neighbors to see someone breaking the glass. Bur’s got a view of the sun porch, but he wouldn’t notice unless he just happened to look out the window at just the right moment.”
“But how could the burglar know he wouldn’t get caught inside the inn?” Jenny wondered. “It’s almost as if someone was watching me and waiting for me to go upstairs.”
“Good point,” I nodded. That made sense to me. It could even be someone who knows the daily routine. “Maybe it was someone who’s familiar with the inn, like a workman...a carpenter...or a delivery man.”
“Or someone who’s been here before, maybe a guest,” she added helpfully.
“A former guest?” That thought was rather unsettling.
“Or someone with a grudge,” she added.
Those words stabbed at my heart like an ice cold knife, chilling me to the bone. I could think of one man who would love to destroy the Four Acorns Inn. He was the same man who once tried to kill me and was sentenced to jail for his efforts. But as far as I knew, Ned Sorkin was still behind bars and not dumb enough to think he could get away with menacing me.
“Or it could just be some run-of-the-mill thief, in search of something to pawn at Phil’s Gold Exchange,” said an unexpected voice behind us. “Why don’t you both take a deep breath and relax? You’re safe, I promise you.”
“Kenny!” I felt a wave of relief wash over me when I heard him speak those words. “You’re always looking for the logical answer, aren’t you?”
“I am,” he smiled. “If it’s any consolation, the current heroin epidemic is driving a lot of criminal behavior, ladies.”
“You think it’s some junkie?” If only he had stopped after he said we were safe, we could have let ourselves believe. Now all I could think of was that some desperate creature, in need of a fix, was lurking outside in the hopes of catching an opportunity to break into the inn. I wasn’t the only one who felt this way.
“Whoa!” Jenny recoiled. “I could have been killed by some drugged-up maniac?”
“It was probably just a petty thief,” he insisted. “There’s nothing to worry about. I’m going to upgrade your security system right now. I even brought my tool kit with me.”
“You did?” I asked, still feeling alarmed at the prospect of another break-in. He held up a black satchel, proof he was a man of his word.
“I’ll do anything to keep you from climbing onto the runaway train to nowhere, Miz Scarlet. Do us all a favor. Don’t make this more than it seems, at least not without hard evidence. You’ll spook yourselves silly.” Kenny leaned in and planted a polite kiss on my cheek, even as he slipped his fingers down my back and playfully pinched my fanny, out of sight of our teenage chaperone.
“That’s it? Case closed?” The teenager didn’t seem convinced.
“Oh, I didn’t say that to lull you into a false sense of security, Jen. I do have a plan to protect the inn and its guests on the off-chance there is some funny business going on.”
“You do?”
“I do.” There were those two words again. I stifled a smile and left him to his explanation. “In fact, I think I’d like to be a guest at the Four Acorns Inn. From this moment on, I’m Milton Worman from the Garden State. I’m here on business and I would like a room for the night.”
“But you already met some of the guests,” I pointed out.
“Not all of them,” he reminded me. “It was just the ones at dinner last night and with the exception of Ms. Vinson and the doctor, they’re leaving today.”
“Actually, Ms. Vinson had a change in plans; she’s trying to book a flight as we speak.”
“Milton Worman? Aren’t you funny!” the teenager snorted, with the enthusiasm of a ten-year-old who just found out the Boogey Man wasn’t under the bed after all. “You don’t look like a Milton. You look more like a Lance or a Brad.”
“I may be funny, but I’d like that room. Is it available?” He took my hand and gave it a squeeze. As our eyes met, I saw the raw determination in that gaze and realized he was serious about keeping watch over the inn.
“Well, we have the Black Oak Room, because the Johnsons checked out earlier this morning or, when Ms. Vinson vacates hers, you can have the Red Oak Room.”
“Perfect. I’ll go with the Red Oak. It’s a little more private. Let me go brief Poup on the plan and I’ll just run home for a suitcase.”
The Wilkies came back from their hike on White Oak Hill after all the fuss was over. I left Bur to explain things to them, while Jenny and I got lunch started
.
Half way through our preparations, Florence came into the kitchen to say farewell and to settle up her bill. I could see Dave and Diana right behind her, so I put on a good show.
“We’re so sorry to hear you have an emergency back in Minnesota, Florence. Perhaps you will come back and visit us again.”
“You’ve been so kind. I...I can’t tell you how much I appreciate that.” She grew teary-eyed. It must be hard for her to see her romantic dream crushed in such a public fashion, especially after her mammoth effort to snag the bachelor.
“Not at all. I’m crediting your account for the unused night. You have a safe trip home.”
When Kenny returned thirty minutes later, overnight case in hand, he actually signed the guest register as Milton Worman. Jenny pretended not to know him as she escorted him up to the Red Oak Room, just in case someone was watching.
I got to work in the kitchen, making a pie. Under the wistful gaze of Huck, January, and Mozzie, I rolled out the crust, washed my fruit, and threw together my spice mix. They waited patiently at my feet, hopeful I might drop something tasty onto the floor. I almost did when the front door burst open and I heard someone calling my name. The three little dogs made a mad dash down the hall to greet Lacey.
“I’m back! And I’ve got a scoop for you, Scarlet Wilson! You’re not going to believe this!”
She came through the door, escorted by the canines, and settled herself on a counter stool. I grabbed the blueberries and sorted them into a large, stainless steel bowl, while she spilled the beans about Florence’s unfortunate crush. According to our departing guest, Thaddeus had been quite the handsome, chivalrous healer fifteen years ago. Although happily married, that didn’t deter a number of nurses, physical therapists, and other female hospital personnel from setting their sights on bagging the trophy.
Florence herself had had a number of affairs with married doctors over the years and all the affairs had ended badly. Once or twice, Thaddeus had lent her a shoulder to cry on, a sure sign in her mind that he was interested in her. She convinced herself he was a man of honor who didn’t wish to break his marriage vows. If only he had been free, they would have had a passionate romance. When Thaddeus’s daughter recently mentioned his upcoming appointment in passing to another member of the retired nurses’ circle, the news made its way through the social grapevine. Florence saw it as her “Nightingale” moment, her chance to play nurse to the patient in need. She found out he was booked at the inn and called to make her own reservation. Expecting him to be delighted to see her, she was stunned by his lack of response when they finally reconnected at the Four Acorns Inn. That’s the trouble with one-sided romance. It’s like hitting the proverbial brick wall at a hundred miles an hour when rejection sets in.
Miz Scarlet and the Bewildered Bridegroom Page 5