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Andrea wasn’t one to get dolled up, but I noticed she put on the pearl earrings she inherited from Aunt Libby last year. She also abandoned her snow boots and put on a pair of sharp-looking, deep brown boots that I didn’t know she had with her. I didn’t say anything because if I had, she would have assured me that she wasn’t getting any more dressed up than when she went to lunch at Nell Flannigan’s in Pine Summit with her retired teacher friends.
I walked to the lobby with her and sat down on one of the chairs by the fireplace after she walked out the door. It seemed strange not to have Andrea there beside me in the other chair. She would never admit to being lonely, but I couldn’t help wondering. My life was very different from hers. I have my memories of John to keep me company, and it’s enough. I live beside the Trinity Methodist Church, and friends are always stopping by before our quilting sessions or Bible study. Andrea has lunch once a month with a few retired teachers, and except for the time we spend together, that constitutes her social life. But she’s always been a loner.
I’ve tentatively suggested a time or two that the two of us move in together, but she’s shown zero interest in that proposal. She’s always been the smart one in the family, so she probably knows best about where we should live. I picked up my book from the coffee table and opened it to the bookmarked page where I’d left off.
Ivy was shuffling through some papers at the reception desk, and I found myself wishing she’d come over and chat. Or better yet, that she’d invite me to the kitchen for coffee and cookies. Not that I needed them after the breakfast I had earlier, but it’s always fun sitting in a kitchen and chatting over cookies and coffee. Maybe she’d know some interesting gossip. I just wasn’t in the mood for reading.
She did come over after a while. “I need to clean a couple of rooms, and Asbury had to go for a load of wood. Would you mind keeping an eye on the desk, and if anyone comes in, come and get me? If the phone rings, the machine will get it, and I’ll call them back later. I’m going to the Nicholson’s room first, and then Mr. Bosch’s.”
“I’ll be glad to watch the desk. Do you mind if I put some coffee on? We could have a cup when you get through.”
“That would be nice.” Ivy smiled, something she never used to do when she thought we were suspicious of Asbury. She went off down the hall toward the Nicholson’s room, and I went to the kitchen to make half a pot of coffee. Maybe Asbury would want a cup too when he finished with the wood.
I settled down to read while the coffee dripped and Ivy cleaned. No one came in, and the phone didn’t ring. I kept wondering what was going on with Andrea and Sheriff Sterling. I put my book down. Were they talking about the murders, or was it something more. Neither was a flirty type person, for sure. If they were interested in getting to know each other better, they’d be absolutely straightforward about it. Oh, how I longed to be a fly on the wall of that restaurant!
I felt a little chilly and got up to go to our room for a sweater. I could see something moving in the dim light of the hallway, and as I got closer I could see that it was Cherie, the poodle who belonged to the dog people staying in the east wing. She trotted to the edge of the hallway and squatted down to make a puddle. “Stop!” I shrieked. She turned and scampered back toward their room, and looking down the other hallway, I could see that the door was standing slightly ajar.
I wasn’t about to let her mess up the carpet in Stefan’s hotel, a hotel that Maggie would undoubtedly be sharing soon. I chased Cherie down the hall and grabbed her as she hit the door to her room and started to wiggle through. I picked her up and held her upside down, hoping gravity would work in my favor till I could resolve the situation.
I held her against my body with one arm and pecked on the door of her owners’ room with the other hand. There was no answer. I pushed the door open a little and peeked inside. The room was an absolute chaos of suitcases, clothing, and other possessions strewn all around. No one was there. Obviously the owners had gone off somewhere and left Cherie in the room. Somehow the door had opened and she got out.
I rushed down the hallway with her and headed for the front door. Ivy was nowhere in sight, so I couldn’t inform her that I was leaving my post, but I figured getting Cherie outside was more important than keeping an eye on a desk that was quiet and had been quiet since I’d been sitting in the lobby.
I wished I had a leash, and there probably was one in Cherie’s room, but I didn’t want to go rummaging through her owner’s stuff to find it. I’d hold onto her collar while she took care of business, then I’d hustle her back inside and shut her in the room. And I certainly intended to tell her owners what had happened. The nerve of such people!
I set her down in the snow at the edge of the parking area, and she squatted down and made a puddle that dissolved a hole in the snow. Then her head went up, and she looked off toward the back of the hotel. Maybe it was because my fingers were freezing at this point, with no gloves on, that they slipped out from under her collar as she lunged forward and streaked toward a distant stand of pines behind and to the side of the hotel.
I trotted after her, yelling “Cherie” as loud as I could. She paid no attention to me at all. My heart was thumping, partly from the exertion and partly from the fear that she was going to disappear into the distance and be gone forever. I lost sight of her as she entered the pine grove.
When I finally reached the trees, she was sniffing around in the snow as if she’d been tracking some quarry that was now lost to her. I was huffing and puffing, and I took a minute to lean against a tree and catch my breath, thankful that she had stopped. I’m not an expert, but I could see tracks in the snow that were probably made by whatever she was chasing. My guess was a rabbit. After I began breathing normally, I started walking slowly toward her. “Good girl, Cherie. It’s time to go back to the hotel.”
She turned her back to me and continued with the sniffing. As I got closer, she started digging in the snow. By the time I reached her and put my hands down to pick her up, she had uncovered something that was shining in the sunlight slanting through the trees. I blinked. It looked like a knife blade. I grabbed Cherie and lifted her, and she twisted and turned, trying to get out of my grasp. She was determined to get back to digging, but I pulled her to me and petted her, and she finally calmed down.
Could that be the knife that had killed Olga? It hardly seemed likely, back here in the snow. However, it might be wise to mention it to the sheriff. I suddenly realized how cold I was without my parka and hurried back to the hotel with Cherie. I got some paper towels from the kitchen and wiped her feet. Then I pushed her back into her room and closed the door firmly in spite of the fact that by this time she had decided she wanted me to hold her. When I got back to the lobby I used the phone to call the sheriff’s office and told some unidentified deputy what I had seen. I was assured they’d send someone right out.
I found Ivy in Gunter Bosch’s room. “The dog was about to pee in the hallway. The owners aren’t there, so I took her outside and she got away from me. She went back to that grove of pines behind the hotel and started digging. She found something there that looked like a knife. I called the sheriff’s office.”
“The owners aren’t there? They went off and left that dog shut up in their room?”
“I guess so. She managed to get the door open somehow, or they didn’t have it shut right. Anyway, she was out in the hall. I’ll go wait in the lobby for someone from the sheriff’s office.”
A tall, skinny deputy who looked about sixteen showed up right away. I got my parka and took him back to the pines to show him where Cherie had been digging and then returned to the hotel and warmth. From the front window of the lobby I saw two more official cars drive up and park. The deputies got out and walked toward the back.
Ivy finally got through cleaning, and we went to the kitchen. She stacked some oatmeal-raisin cookies on a plate while I poured coffee. We moved back to the fireplace so Ivy could keep an eye on the rece
ption desk. I took a cookie. “I wonder when they’ll hire someone to replace Olga.”
“I’m hoping they’ll replace me, and let me replace Olga on the desk. I’m glad I’m getting a chance to show Stefan I can handle it.”
“Have you said anything to him?”
“No, but I’m planning to. Of course, there’s not a big labor pool around here to choose from. They might have a hard time finding someone who would like to clean the rooms.”
I was surprised Ivy would use a term like labor pool. Maybe she was sharper than I gave her credit for. I couldn’t help wondering how she and Asbury ended up here, with her being from Montgomery and him from Pine Summit. I didn’t dare ask questions, for fear she’d think I was suspicious of them.
I thought it best to change the subject. “Andrea and I are staying on longer than we planned. We’ve gotten interested in the history of the hotel, since our grandparents used to own it. We’re meeting with Birdie Lancaster Thursday. She used to work here, and her mother did, too.”
“I don’t know her, but we haven’t been here that long.”
“How long are the other guests planning on staying?”
“The Nicholsons said they’re leaving Wednesday. The fashionable lady and Mr. Bosch are scheduled to stay through the weekend. And the dog people haven’t said.”
“I suppose the sheriff hopes he can solve these murders before the guests leave. The guests who were here when Olga was killed, that is.”
Ivy took our cups and refilled them. “That Mr. Bosch is an odd bird,” she said as she set the cups on the table.
“He’s not very friendly.”
“He carries some odd things in and out with him. He has something that looks like a laptop computer that he has with him most of the time. None of our other guests ever carry a laptop computer around. He acts mighty strange.”
I took another cookie. “The other night Andrea and I went upstairs late to talk to Maggie. It was after ten, and the front door was locked. We were coming back down the stairs, and we heard someone knock. Andrea opened the door, and there was Mr. Bosch. That was the night we got stuck on the lift.”
“I wonder why he didn’t hit the buzzer that rings in Stefan’s room. That’s what guests usually do when they’re out late.”
“Maybe he doesn’t realize there’s a buzzer, or maybe he heard us on the stairs. Anyway, he was knocking, and Andrea let him in. I wouldn’t have had nerve enough to open that door, with a murderer running loose.” I didn’t want to mention that we actually had gone upstairs to talk to Stefan and he didn’t answer our knock, which probably meant he wasn’t there to hear Gunter Bosch ringing the buzzer. Either that or he wasn’t answering anything with people being murdered left and right.
“It may be two murderers, now that the lift operator was killed.”
“You’re right. It could be two. Then again, it’s hard to believe there are two murderers in Tucker County. It’s usually so quiet here.”
She sipped her coffee quietly for a moment. “With all these foreigners running around, there’s no telling what’s going on. It was just the natives up here in this area when I used to come here with my folks.”
I remembered that era, too. “Times have changed a lot. There’s a major influx from the Washington area now. I hear that some people from down there own property in this area now and use it for weekends and vacations. I’m sure it’s much cooler here in the summer than it is on the coast.”
“I don’t know what an influx is, but we’ve been getting a lot of skiers from over there since I’ve been working here, that’s for sure.”
I took a third cookie and decided I simply must stop right there. “You wouldn’t happen to know what phase of the moon we’re in, would you?”
“I sure would. The moon’s a waxing crescent now, but it was the dark of the moon the night the lift operator was killed.”
I was surprised by her reply—not by the fact that it had been the dark of the moon when Franklin Stuart was killed, but by her description of the phases in progress. “Do you believe in the signs of the moon, Ivy?”
“Certainly. My mother taught me all about the signs of the moon. You know the worst time is the dark of the moon, don’t you?”
“Oh, absolutely!” It was refreshing to find someone who agreed with me. “Our grandmother, the one who had the hotel here, always went by the signs of the moon, and I believe in them, too.”
“Asbury does, too. He says they always used to plant according to the moon. Harvested that way, too. There’s something to it, I know there is.”
I finished my coffee and put my cup on the coffee table. “If the moon’s a crescent now, we’re heading for the halfmoon, I guess this weekend. That’s a time of turbulence and trouble, according to Grandma Flynn.”
“Oh, I agree. It’s a time of turbulence, alright. It’s not always bad, though, not always troublesome, especially when the moon’s waxing. That’s what we’re going to have this coming Saturday. You can count on a right smart of commotion then. I check the moon signs on the calendar all the time.”
“So it’s only the waning halfmoon that brings on serious trouble,” I said
“That’s the way I was taught.”
I was glad to hear Ivy’s theory that the halfmoon wasn’t such a bad time, if the moon is waxing. I’d have to keep an eye on halfmoon events from now on and see if this checked out. I was thinking about this when Asbury came through the kitchen and into the lobby. His nose was red and he looked as if he were half frozen. “That coffee sure smells good. What’s going on back there, with the deputies and all?”
I had gotten so involved in our discussion of the moon phases that I’d forgotten all about the deputies. We explained what Cherie had found, and Ivy got up to get him a cup of coffee while he took off his parka. “I’ve still got a load of wood to stack, but it’s time for a break to warm up. Stefan probably thinks I should work faster around here, but it don’t make me no never mind. I just do what I can, with a break now and then, and hope I’m earning my keep.”
“He seems to be a pretty understanding fellow. Unless he’s said something, I’d assume he’s pleased with your work. It seems to me you and Ivy are busy all the time.”
Ivy came back with the coffee just as the dog people walked in. I stood up as they approached the sitting area. “Your dog got out of the room today, and she was about to make a puddle on the carpet of the hallway. I took her outside, then put her back in your room and closed the door.” I didn’t think they deserved to know that Cherie was somewhat of a heroine for finding what I imagined was evidence in a murder case.
Mrs. Dog Owner had a big smile on her face. “Oh, that naughty darling. I can’t imagine how she got the door open.” Her husband was standing behind her, looking as if he’d rather be somewhere else.
I wanted to say something that would wipe the smile off her face. She seemed not the least concerned that Cherie had almost made a puddle on the hall carpet. “It’s a good thing she did get out of the room, or she would have made a puddle there and you’d be walking in it. I don’t think it’s very considerate of you to go off and leave the dog here where she might damage hotel property.”
She continued smiling. “What we do, and what our dog does, is none of your business.” She gave a little bob of her head as if that ended the matter.
Asbury sat on the couch with his coffee, looking as if he thought he should help but didn’t know how. Ivy stood up. “From now on you’ll take the dog with you when you leave the hotel. Otherwise you’ll have to check out. And for heaven’s sake, take the dog out for a potty break several times a day.”
Mr. Dog Owner took his wife’s arm and practically dragged her, sputtering, toward their room.
Ivy had a satisfied smile on her face. “About time he showed some balls.”
Asbury looked shocked and amused at the same time. We calmed down, cooled off, decided we should tell Stefan about the incident, and went back to coffee and cookies. Then Andr
ea came in the front door. I looked at my watch. She left before eleven, and it was now three o’clock. Even counting time to drive to the restaurant in Davis and back again, that was a mighty long lunch. There was still a cup left in the pot, and she sat down to have coffee with us. I knew better than to ask her about the lunch in front of Asbury and Ivy. Best to wait till we got to our room—and she might not tell me anything then.
I started to tell her about my escapade with Cherie, but she already knew more than I did because of a call the sheriff received. The deputies had found not only a switch-blade knife, but the broken chain that undoubtedly had held Olga’s cubic zirconia pendant.
Moon Signs Page 18