“My name is Penny. Penny Sanders. Mr. Walters never refused cleaning each day, was always out of his room by 10 AM when we begin our cleaning, and always left a tip in the room along with a nice note. If only all the people who stayed here were like him.”
Remembering the handwriting I’d thought was a female’s, I asked, “Did you happen to keep any of those notes, Penny?”
“I did,” she said excitedly as she stuffed her hand into the pocket in her maid’s uniform. Pulling out a tiny piece of paper folded in half, she held it up for everyone to see. “Here it is! I saved it because it was so nice.”
“Can I see that, Penny?” Alex asked and reached over to take it from her.
As she continued talking about how awful it was for someone to hurt such a wonderful man, Alex and I read the note.
Thanks for everything. You’re the best!
I looked up at Alex as I pointed at the loops and swirls of the handwriting. “It’s the same as the note we found with just numbers. Now I’m sure it’s a female who wrote both of them.”
An older woman at the end of the table piped up and said, “He wasn’t that wonderful. I’m not saying I wished him dead, but he wasn’t as nice to me when I had his room.”
Looking up from the note, Alex and I focused on the woman and he said, “I thought Penny was his housekeeper.”
“She was the last couple days, but for the first two days of his stay, I was the one assigned to Room 307.”
“What’s your name?” he asked as he got out his notebook and pen again.
“My name is Marilyn Angerson.”
As he wrote down her information, I studied this woman and saw how different she was from everyone else sitting around that table. Much older than the rest of the housekeeping staff, she had golden blond hair with grey mixed in that even her hair dye couldn’t cover, and she wore her shoulder-length hair in a teased style more popular to a generation or two ago than now. She also had deep lines in her face, especially around her mouth and eyes, all of which told me she was likely in her fifties or even older.
Marilyn also had a different way of approaching people than her co-workers, if the scowl she wore as Alex spoke to her was any indication. I had a feeling no amount of charm would work on her.
“So you didn’t find the victim to be as pleasant to you as Penny says he was with her?” he asked.
She sneered at the question and then at Penny. “No, I did not. In the two days I was assigned his room, he left no tip whatsoever and no cute note thanking me for doing my job.”
The rest of the housekeepers erupted into laughter, and a dark haired woman close to where Alex and I stood said, “That’s because you’re as mean as a hornet. He probably saw you in the hallway when he was leaving one morning and you gave him that look of death you always have on.”
The woman next to her chimed in and added, “And you’re not very good at your job. I see you outside taking smoke breaks all the time during the day.”
Marilyn’s mouth dropped open, and then she angrily pushed her chair out from the table and stormed out of the room. The other housekeepers laughed as she left and began talking among themselves about her.
I turned to face Alex, who looked like he couldn’t figure out how he’d lost control so quickly. Patting his shoulder, I said, “It’s okay. You never had a chance once the first one decided it was hunting season on Marilyn. It’s best to just sit back and let it all unfold because if you try to get involved, they’ll eat you alive.”
He didn’t say anything, but instead asked them all for their names before he put his notebook and pen away. “Thank you, ladies. We’ll be in touch if we need any more information.”
I followed him up to the first floor where he stopped for a moment. Turning toward me, he pointed toward the upper floors. “I think I want to head back up to the room to look at a few things. Do you have to get back to work?”
“That’s right! I forgot to tell you. It’s looking like I’ll be able to spend more time away from my desk from now on. I’ll be able to come along for more cases.”
His face showed his confusion. “What happened?”
“I’ll tell you on the way upstairs. By the way, I’m waiting for you to admit that I was right about a female writing those notes. No self-respecting male would be caught dead writing like that.”
We walked up the stairs, and he agreed I was likely correct about that detail. “I’ll give you that it’s a possibility, but I want to hear about what’s changed at your work that means you’ll be out more.”
As we hit the third floor, I said, “I agreed to take on the crime beat feature each week, so in exchange for me saying yes, I made my boss agree that I’d be able to be out with you more since crime isn’t going to be happening in my office. At least I hope not.”
Alex seemed surprised at my news. “Really? That’s good. Any more money or just more work?”
He’d listened to me complain about how little The Eagle paid a number of times before, so he knew more pay would be an incentive for me to take on more responsibilities. “No, but I was happy to get the ability to leave more often so I could join you like this today, so I figure that’s a good trade off.”
At the doorway to Room 307, he turned to face me wearing a serious expression. “Do they expect you to put details of our investigations in the newspaper?”
I couldn’t help but smile. Always so serious when it came to the job, he naturally would ask that. “No, I think they want me to make the police blotter sexier and more interesting. I have no idea how I’m going to do that, though.”
That dire look he wore when he was worried faded away. “Oh. Okay.”
He stepped into the room, but I stopped him to explain myself. He needed to know, if he didn’t know already, that he could trust me. “Hey, I would never share details about the cases we work on. You know that, right?”
“Of course. I was just worried they’d try to force you to do something to keep your job. I don’t want to see what we do together endanger your work.”
“This is just as much my work as writing my columns for The Eagle, Alex.”
For a moment, we stood there awkwardly staring at one another, but then he smiled and walked over to the desk Canton Walters had been sitting at when he was murdered. Changing the subject, he slipped on a pair of gloves, took out the papers we’d found there, and lay them on the desk in their original position.
“I wanted to take a better look at the handwriting in these forms and compare it to the two notes we have from him.”
I joined him and immediately saw the handwriting on Walters’ business forms wasn’t the same as the writing on the notes. The numbers and words on the expense sheets showed a male had written them. They had no loops and no swirls like the notes had.
Pointing at the male writing on the top sheet, I said, “See? This is what male handwriting looks like. Nothing fancy, nothing girly. Canton Walters sat here and wrote on these forms, but he didn’t write those notes.”
Alex nodded but said nothing. Maybe he didn’t agree, but he was wrong if he didn’t. Those notes were written by a woman, and I was convinced that same woman was likely the person who jammed that knife into his back to kill him. Now the question was why.
What had Canton Walters done to his killer to make them angry enough to stab him in the back?
Chapter Three
The morning breakfast rush had ended and the lunch crowd hadn’t arrived yet, so the Madison Diner was almost completely empty when Alex and I arrived at just before noon. Unlike at The Grounds where we had our usual spot, neither of us had spent much time at the most popular diner in Sunset Ridge since becoming partners a few months ago, so as we walked into the main dining room and saw the sign that said Seat Yourselves, we stopped and looked around and then at one another.
“Any particular place you want to sit?” I asked him.
He scanned the diner another time and then pointed toward a booth in the back left of the resta
urant. “We should be able to get some privacy back there. I don’t want people hearing us talking about the case.”
“Lead the way.”
I followed him to the most secluded table in the Madison and took a seat with my back to the rest of the room. I hated being in that position, but I imagined it would be awkward if I sat next to Alex on the opposite side of the table. Plus, I hated when couples did that. As if they couldn’t be separated by even a table for a meal without missing one another.
“You look uncomfortable, Poppy.”
I noticed I’d been fidgeting since I sat down and stopped my legs from moving. “I don’t like sitting with my back to an entire restaurant. What if someone came in and I was in danger and couldn’t see it because my back was turned?”
He cracked a small smile. “You mean like a ninja? Because other than that, you’re safe. I can see the entire restaurant, and I wouldn’t let anything happen to you.”
“And if a ninja shows up?”
“Then we die together right here in the Madison Diner because I’m good but I’m not sure I’m ninja good.”
The server arrived with menus just as I was about to chastise Alex for slacking off on his skills. A short, round woman in a traditional black and white waitress uniform, her white name tag said her name was Dorothy. I lifted my gaze from her name to look at the face of the woman with a name last popular in the 1950s and saw a person who looked no more than forty years old. Fifty tops, but her face wasn’t even as wrinkled as Marilyn’s from the hotel.
Maybe her parents had been fans of the Wizard of Oz.
When she spoke, a distinctive New England twang came through loud and clear. “What can I get you to drink, hon?”
I doubted the coffee at the Madison would be like the dark roast I liked, so I reconsidered having another cup of caffeine and smiled at her as I said, “I’ll have an iced tea.”
She nodded but wrote nothing down before turning to look at Alex. “And you?”
“Coffee. Black.”
“Right back,” she said with a smile like she approved of Alex’s beverage choice.
I scanned the laminated cream colored menu for what to eat and noticed how nearly every dish the Madison offered seemed overloaded with cholesterol. The word fresh appeared to be foreign here. I’d been to the diner a few times years ago, but once The Grounds opened, the Madison had little to offer and I’d abandoned it. Now I remembered why.
Peering over the menu at Alex, I asked, “So what’s your feeling on The Case of Canton Walters and The Kitchen Knife in the Back?”
He lowered his menu so I could see only his dark eyes and raised his eyebrows. “Is that what we’re calling it?”
I may not have been able to see his smile at the name I’d given our newest case, but I heard it in his voice. He definitely was a serious guy, but in the past few months he’d gotten used to my sense of humor and even lightened up a little around me. I liked that. It made him easier to work with and made me feel less like his inferior.
“Like the Sherlock Holmes stories. It’s catchy, don’t you think?”
He lowered his menu to the table and laughed. “About as catchy as the fried crab cake salad with cole slaw and fries listed under Healthy Choices on the bottom of the menu.”
“Don’t get that. I’d hate to see you stroke out right here before we find out who killed our victim,” I joked.
“No fried crab cake salad for me then. We’ve narrowed it down to a female, so that eliminates half of the population already.”
I sensed he was poking fun at me. He didn’t believe anyone had been eliminated. “You doubt my handwriting expertise?”
“Not necessarily. I just don’t feel as sure as you do that Walters was killed by a woman.”
Dorothy returned with my iced tea and Alex’s coffee and took our order, again writing nothing down. Not that I didn’t think she could remember a chicken salad sandwich with chips and a pickle for me and a ham sandwich on rye with a pickle but no chips for him, but I always felt more comfortable when servers wrote something down when I ordered.
As Dorothy headed to another table, Alex continued our conversation where we’d left it. “I will admit, though, that I’ve never seen a man write like you pointed out, but then again, I can’t say I’ve ever put much thought into it.”
“That’s because as a male you didn’t spend hours writing your boyfriend or crush’s name in the margin of your notebooks every day of high school. Trust me. I know handwriting, and those two notes were written by a woman.”
The steam floated up from his coffee cup, but still he lifted it to his lips to take a drink. Before I could open my mouth to warn him it was still too hot, he burned his tongue and dropped the cup onto the saucer. Coffee splashed everywhere, hitting him down the front of his uniform and me all the way across the table.
“Hang on!” I said as I jumped up to grab napkins from the dispenser sitting on the end of the table. I took a handful and awkwardly hovered my hands over his chest, unsure if my desire to help would be crossing some line. Finally, I just gave them to him to replace the single one he’d saturated already and returned to my seat.
As he dabbed the napkins over his shirt, he said with a hint of embarrassment, “I should have known it was still too hot. My mind must be somewhere else.”
I wiped up the spilled coffee from the table and threw away the used napkins in the garbage behind the waitress station before returning to the table. Alex looked upset about the accident, so I tried to lighten his mood by joking. “You know this wouldn’t happen if you used milk. It cools it down.”
Despite himself, he smiled and nodded. “I can see that, but I wanted my coffee black.”
Feeling good about taking his mind off the coffee mess, I asked, “So other than the female who wrote those notes, do we know anything else?”
He started to remind me about Elizabeth Freely’s lie concerning seeing Canton at breakfast that morning when someone yelled my name. I turned to see Bethany making a beeline toward us, her wide eyes and huge smile showing how thrilled she was to see me.
Or Alex. I wasn’t sure.
“Hey! What are you doing here?” she asked before turning to offer her hand to Alex. “Hi, I’m Bethany. I work with Poppy over at The Eagle.”
He shook her hand and introduced himself like he always did with people he didn’t feel he had to manipulate or cajole into giving him information. His voice was deep and steady and indicated no excitement, and he said no more than he had to.
Not that this deterred Bethany. I knew her far too well to expect that. She appreciated a good looking man too much to let him get away with just telling her his name and then ending the conversation. She’d had to wait all these months to finally get her chance, and she wasn’t going to let it pass.
Flashing him another pretty smile, she asked, “How do you like it here in Sunset Ridge?”
Alex politely told her he enjoyed his adopted hometown but said nothing more. He was pleasant and civil, as he always was with people he didn’t know.
And still she continued talking. “I bet it’s boring for someone who’s spent time in a great city like Baltimore, but we have some things here that might interest someone like you.”
I wasn’t sure if he’d caught the meaning behind her words, but I knew what Bethany hitting on someone sounded like loud and clear. I’d seen it many times for myself.
For his part, Alex appeared oblivious to her attempts to make him like her and merely smiled and then said, “Poppy has never mentioned you, Bethany. Do you write for the paper too?”
Unfazed by his disinterest, she looked over at me and poked me gently on the shoulder. “No way. I couldn’t do that kind of thing, right, Poppy?”
I waved off her false modesty as she continued, now looking back at Alex, “I work in advertising, and I can tell you it’s no easy job to get people to want to advertise in a newspaper these days.”
Alex didn’t seem to have anything to say to tha
t, so I quickly jumped in and said, “It’s got to be easier now that the paper is going entirely online too.”
“Thank God, right? The Sunset Ridge Eagle finally jumps into the twenty-first century. Well, I’m just here to pick up some lunch for the department since we have our monthly sales meeting and it’s going to be a doozy. It was great to meet you, Alex. Maybe I’ll have the pleasure again.”
She extended her hand once more and he shook it for the second time. “It was nice to meet you, Bethany.”
She flitted away to pick up the lunch order she’d come for, and without missing a beat, he returned to where we’d been before she came over to the table. “We need to find out what that desk clerk at the Hotel Piermont is hiding since we can be sure she didn’t see our victim at breakfast this morning. Maybe she’s your female with the fancy handwriting.”
For a moment, I sat a bit stunned that Bethany hadn’t seemed to make much of an impression on him. Men loved Bethany. She was blond, good looking with a great body, and full of energy, which seemed to be part of her brand of magnetism. I found her exhausting at times, but I’d never seen men feel that about her.
Alex appeared to think nothing of her, though, strangely enough. Unsure if I should say something, I chose to leave the topic of Bethany to him. If he wanted to talk about her, so be it. Until then, I wasn’t sure what to say, so I’d say nothing.
“Elizabeth Freely is definitely hiding something. I agree.”
“I think after lunch I want to find out where Canton Walters was from, so if you want you can see what you can find out about Elizabeth Freely. I’m a little surprised you don’t know her. I thought you knew everyone in this town.”
“Not everyone,” I said with a smile, knowing he was teasing me about being a small town local yokel.
“Well, then you can dig up whatever dirt there is on her and I’ll find out about our victim.”
Dorothy arrived with our lunches and effectively put an end to our conversation for a while. As we ate, the diner filled up around us until it was standing room only by the time we finished our meals. I turned around after taking my last bite of my chicken salad sandwich and was surprised to find nearly all of Sunset Ridge behind me.
After Hours Page 3