Aunt Stella knew that she wanted to keep the Silver Bullet Diner and the Sandy Harbor Cottages in the family. Luckily, she held out for me, and I jumped on buying everything from her. It was a time in my life that I needed to keep busy and do what I loved doing: cooking and baking.
Come to think of it, Rick Tingsley had also been a bit rude in trying to get me to sell the diner to him.
A horn blew loudly, waking me out of my reverie. A car pulled up in front of my Victorian into one of the parking spaces with new signage proclaiming CHECK-IN.
No doubt this was Mr. David Burrows.
I squinted into the burst of sunlight above. Burrows didn’t seem to want to get out of his car. Did he expect me to roller-skate to him like a carhop?
I didn’t move from the top step, feeling very inhospitable for someone in the hospitality business. He’d better make a move, because there was a possibility that my new chef’s pants were sticking to the newly painted step.
He finally got out of the car and walked slowly toward me. He was tall and thin with a head of closely cropped white hair with a prominent cowlick on his crown. He wore thick black glasses.
As he got closer, I saw that his eyes were red-rimmed, and he looked tired, as if he had been driving for a week straight without any sleep.
I stood up and heard my pants peel from the step. If I’d ruined these pants, I’d scream so loud they’d hear me in Syracuse.
“Mr. Burrows?”
“Yes.”
“I’m Trixie Matkowski, the new owner of the Sandy Harbor Housekeeping Cottages. We spoke on the phone. You’re checking in today?”
“Of course.” He checked his watch. “Seven thirty, prompt.”
“Yes. You are very prompt.” I forced a smile. “And what brings you to the cottages?”
He hesitated. “If you have to know, I’m a writer. I’m writing.”
“Oh. I see. I’ll get the key and show you the way.”
“No need.”
“You’ve been here before?” I’d never even thought of that. But of course, when he contacted me, Mr. Burrows knew that we had numbered cottages and specifically asked for Cottage Eight. Interesting.
“Uh, I—I was here, a long time ago.” He rolled his eyes. “May I have the key now?”
“Sure, but I have to go inside and get the required form. You know, the usual: name, address, car, license plate number. And if you’ll give me your credit card, I’ll run it through for future expenses.”
“That’s not necessary. I’ll pay cash for any additional expenditures.”
“Yes, but, having your credit card on file is just standard operating procedure.”
“Miss Matkowski.” He spoke very slowly as if I were a child. “I said that I’ll pay cash for any additional expenses.”
“I think I even owe you some money.”
“Then why do you want my credit card?”
“In case there are more charges, so—” We were going in circles.
“Let me repeat myself: there won’t be any additional expenses.”
He raised his head to the sky as if he was saying a prayer for patience.
He needed to say one for me, too!
“One moment, please, Mr. Burrows.”
I hurried up the step. Got the form, put it on a clipboard, grabbed a pen and the key to Cottage Eight.
Back outside, I handed him the clipboard and the pen. He ignored my pen and slipped one from his shirt pocket.
I bit back a giggle.
Here was my first guest, and I couldn’t warm up to him.
“Your meals will be delivered as instructed.”
“See that they are.”
“Starting this morning, Mr. Burrows?”
He looked at me as if I had snakes crawling out of my ears. “Of course.”
He finally looked at me, and I saw that he had pale blue eyes. They matched his pale blue Windbreaker and pale blue shirt. He had on pale blue polyester pants. He probably wore pale blue underwear.
He handed me the clipboard, and I handed him the key.
“You can drive around to the front of the cottage,” I said.
“I know.”
“If you have any guests, they have to park in the parking lot.”
“I’m not expecting any guests.” He glanced toward his pale blue car. “Is there anything else?”
“Well, yes, there is.” I took a deep breath. “May I ask why you wanted to specifically rent Cottage Eight?”
“No, you may not.”
I pulled on my earlobe. Did I hear him right?
“I may not . . . what?” I asked.
He looked down his nose at me, and I went up a couple of steps, backward, to be eye level with him. “You may not ask me that question.”
“But it is my business. It’s my cottage. If anything illegal is—”
“I am not up to anything illegal. I am a writer.”
“Okay, Mr. Burrows.” I plastered on a smile. “Your breakfast will be delivered at eight o’clock sharp. Happy writing, Mr. Burrows.”
“Happy?” He snorted. “Happy writing? I doubt it.”
With that strange comment, I’d just checked in my first guest.
Chapter 3
I immediately phoned Juanita at the Silver Bullet and informed her as to what Mr. Burrows’s standard breakfast order would be.
“Juanita, please make sure that Clyde or Max delivers it promptly to Cottage Eight at eight o’clock. Eight at eight. That should be easy for them to remember.”
“Got it,” Juanita said.
I hurried up the stairs, anxious for a shower and some sleep. Blondie, my rescued golden retriever, greeted me and gave me a look that meant she had to go outside.
I put her leash on and hustled her outdoors. From my side yard, I could see the backs of the twelve white cottages all lined up like chubby soldiers along the shoreline.
In the space between Cottage Seven and Eight, I could see that Mr. Burrows had parked his car and was unloading things from the trunk.
It looked as though he was lugging in an old typewriter. No, it couldn’t be. Hadn’t he ever heard of a laptop or any one of a dozen gadgets that would do the same thing without causing back problems?
As Blondie did her business, Clyde did his. I mean that I saw him hustle over to Mr. Burrows, and Clyde never hustled. Juanita must have read him the riot act.
Clyde handed Burrows a plastic bag. I checked my watch. Eight at eight. One down, many more meals to go.
It seemed that Clyde tried talking to Burrows but then left, shaking his head. Clyde loved to talk and he was probably disappointed that Burrows wasn’t interested in being a fresh pair of ears for his old army stories.
Just as Blondie and I were about to go back into the house, I heard the whine of diesel engines switching gears. On the road that led to the diner, I could see three huge tourist buses rolling in.
I wasn’t expecting any buses!
I scooted Blondie into the house and hurried to meet the first one in line. The door opened and the driver came down the stairs.
“I’m Trixie Matkowski, the owner of the diner and cottages. Can I help you?”
“We had reservations at Brown’s, but . . . uh . . .”
“No one’s there?”
“Yeah.” He shook his head. “We are looking to eat, and one of the cops in town—one with a cowboy hat—said to come here. Any chance you could accommodate all of us?”
The cop with the cowboy hat had to be Ty Brisco. “How many people?”
“Eighty-two.”
“How about a buffet instead of individual meals?” I asked, mentally calculating my inventory of eggs, ham, sausage, juice, and bread items. We’d restocked recently and just might be able to pull this off!
He grinned. “
Perfect.”
“Stall a little . . .” I looked at his name tag. “Stall a little, Ronald, and we’ll supply them with coffee, tea, and juice to make them happy while we get things ready.”
“You don’t know how much we all appreciate this, Trixie. Five Star Journeys will be notified of how you helped.”
I smiled and ran as fast as I could—which isn’t fast at all—to the back door of the diner. Juanita, Sandy, and I could pull this off and have fun in the meantime.
I took out my cell and telephoned Max. “Max, I need two tables set up in the side room of the diner. Tablecloths, too.” I went inside the diner and motioned Chelsea and Nancy aside.
“Get a boatload of coffee going and hot water, and bring out as much juice as you can. And we need to get a buffet set up, too. We are doing a breakfast buffet for eighty-two people.”
Announcing the same to Cindy and Juanita, we sprang into action.
“I heard the buses, Trixie,” Juanita said. “Did you forget to tell us?”
Hey, I wasn’t that forgetful. Was I?
“No. They were supposed to be at Brown’s, but ACB must be motorcycling with her ex-husband’s brother, or maybe she just forgot.”
“That can’t be good for business,” Cindy said.
I nodded. “But it is for our business, isn’t it, team?”
“Team Silver Bullet!” we all cheered together.
“So, let’s do this,” I said. “Juanita, you and Cindy get all the meat cooking. I’ll get the scrambled eggs going. Think you two can fry up some pancakes in between?”
“No problem, Trix,” Cindy said, reaching for the handle of the refrigerator.
Juanita was already pulling boxes of sliced ham, link sausage, and bacon out of the walk-in cooler, so I couldn’t hear her mumbled answer.
My heart was pumping as we all did the Diner Shuffle with the three of us behind the prep table, vying for room at the huge commercial stove. Funny, how it didn’t seem so huge with the three of us cooking at it.
I quickly looked out of the pass-through window and saw that Clyde was making coffee. Max was even walking around with two pots in his hands—regular and decaffeinated.
They were part of my team, too. Clyde and Max, jacks-of–all-trades. They deserved a raise—or maybe an embroidered uniform shirt. Maybe both.
Some nonbus customers wanted to order off the menu, so we had to make those up. Most of them were thrilled to find a buffet and asked if they could order that.
“Absolutely,” I told Chelsea when she asked me.
All the interest made me think about adding a breakfast buffet on Sundays.
I made a mental note to ask Juanita’s and Cindy’s opinion.
“What do we have for something sweet? Danish? Pies?”
Cindy glanced at me, then returned her attention to the stove. “Mrs. Stolfus just made a delivery, so we are flush with pies and sweets, but there won’t be anything left for tomorrow.”
“I’ll give her a call! Oh, wait.” I kept forgetting that Mrs. Stolfus was Amish, and she didn’t have a phone. “I’ll stop at her house.”
“I’ll do it, Trixie,” Chelsea said. “I can go by her house on the way home. Just write down what you want me to order.”
“Hmm. Tell her that I’d like the same items that she just delivered today.”
We laughed. It was wonderful to have friends. Friends that I enjoyed working with. Cindy was quite a bit younger than Juanita and I. For heaven’s sake, she’d just graduated from high school, but the girl was mature beyond her years. That probably came from helping her single mother raise her eight brothers and sisters.
Cindy even had to bring all her siblings to her job interview with me. Remembering how I had had them all order off the menu and then had Cindy make up the orders, I smiled. I had hired her on the spot and given her whatever hours she could handle around her babysitting duties.
We carried out a couple of aluminum rectangular pans full of steaming food. I lit the cans of liquid fuel on the two stands that I could find and set the pans on top. Underneath I laid out some serving utensils on plates in front of each pan and gave a signal to the waitresses that everything was ready.
The customers could serve themselves from both sides of the tables for quicker service.
The three bus drivers served themselves last. On his way, Ronald gave me a thumbs-up, and I grinned.
I was feeling good, up until the time several bus customers took a copy of the Sandy Harbor Lure off the wire rack by the door.
I held my breath. I knew what was likely to come next. Amazement, disbelief, horror rippled across the diner like waves on the lake. Then, when they realized that they were on the very location from which Claire Jacobson disappeared, the ripple became a tsunami.
It started as a whisper, like the game of gossip; then necks became rubber, faces were pressed against the windows of the diner, and fingers pointed outside. Some of the customers actually went out the door and counted off the cottages. Then they told others.
What on earth? Did they think that my Cottage Eight was some kind of tourist attraction?
I poured myself a cup of coffee, then walked over to Ronald to express my concern that something was cooking with his bus passengers, and it wasn’t another pan of link sausage.
“Well, this is a bus tour for mystery fans,” he said, and I almost choked on my coffee. He pointed to the paper in front of him. “And they like this kind of stuff. Maybe they think it’s part of the tour.”
A group of five walked out the door. I could see them walking across the lawn to the cottages. Oh no!
“Ronald, please tell them that this diner, cottages, and grounds are not part of their mystery tour.” I hurried out the door to round up the five individuals on the loose and turn them back to the Silver Bullet.
But I was too late. They had already knocked on the door and met the friendly and charming Mr. Burrows.
“What the hell do you all want?” he asked in his friendly and charming way.
“We want to investigate Cottage Eight,” one woman said, pulling a magnifying glass out of the pocket of her Windbreaker. “Are you one of our clues?”
“Am I what? What clue?” Burrows yelled. “I wish to be left alone!”
I stepped between Mr. Burrows and the five bus renegades. “Will you all please go back to the buffet? There’s a new pan of piping-hot sausage coming out and fresh coffee is available. This property is not part of your bus tour.”
“What bus tour?” Burrows yelled.
I peeked into Cottage Eight. Although I’d said the bus tour participants shouldn’t look, surely there was no harm in my curiosity?
There was his big monolith of a typewriter on the wooden kitchen table. It was dark gray, at least from the back. A piece of white paper was hanging from the roller like a white waterfall. The typewriter belonged in a museum.
There were two reams of paper on the side of the table and what appeared to be a big scrapbook, opened to yellowed construction paper pages with pictures and newspaper clippings taped to it.
Burrows caught me looking inside, and with a grunt, he stepped out on the little porch and closed the door behind him.
“This should be part of our bus tour,” said a tall, thin man with a tan raincoat. “This is the best mystery setup that we’ve had all week. The newspaper article that was planted in the diner was pure genius.”
“It wasn’t planted,” I said, stretching my arms out wide to move them toward the diner. “It’s the real news.”
“Then that’s even more exciting!” said a woman with a navy blue beret and a purse wider than she was. “Are we supposed to help the police?”
“What police?” Burrows looked right and left, then glared at me.
“There’re no police here, Mr. Burrows. Why don’t you go back into your cottage? I’
ll see that you’re not disturbed again.”
I had to wonder why he was so adamant about not being disturbed. Maybe it took all of his concentration to push down the keys of his relic of a typewriter so he wouldn’t make a mistake, or lose a finger between the keys in the process.
I shouldn’t be that harsh on him. It’s understandable that he wouldn’t want people barging in to inspect his cottage, but he still seemed a little too cranky, secretive, and over-the-top.
Managing to get the five mystery buffs walking in the direction of the Silver Bullet, I told them again that this was not part of their mystery tour.
“I’m going to request that it’s included next year,” said the lady with the magnifying glass.
“It’s going to be the first thing that I suggest on my comment card,” said Beige Raincoat. “This area would be a gold mine of clues.”
The case was over two decades old. All the clues in the gold mine had to be gone by now.
When she walked through the door of my diner, the first thing that Blue Beret with the big purse brought up for a vote with the other bus people was returning with Five Star Journeys to solve the mystery of Claire Jacobson’s murder.
They could return all right, as guests, not mystery solvers. I didn’t want to wait another year for Claire’s death to go unsolved.
And I wanted to be the one to solve the mystery of Claire’s murder. For some strange reason, I felt I owed it to Claire for being my friend every summer.
If I only knew where to start.
Maybe the bus people had the right idea. Start at Cottage Eight.
I helped cash out the bus people, and we got them on their bus before a crack of thunder scared me out of my sneaks. In my hurry to cook, I hadn’t seen the storm front rolling in over the water.
“Juanita, can you and everyone else get everything cleaned up and put everything away? I hate to leave you with such a mess, but I just have to get some sleep before my shift starts again.”
Both Juanita and Cindy shooed me away.
I hurried home just as the rain started falling in sheets. It stung my skin as I raced for the Big House. I kicked off my wet sneakers and got a clean towel from the laundry room, blotting the water from everywhere.
A Second Helping of Murder Page 3