by Krista Davis
Aunt Birdie stopped dead. “He might need help.”
“Indeed,” said Mr. Huckle.
“I believe I will take a rain check on that tea. Excuse me, Mr. Huckle.”
She hurried up the stairs faster than I thought she could move.
Mr. Huckle returned to us, all smiles. “And that, my dears, is how it’s done.”
“Is Max hosting an author chat?” I asked.
Mr. Huckle shrugged. “Perhaps. Or perhaps an elderly gent got his days confused.”
I explained the insulin pen situation to Mr. Huckle, who seemed a little bit too delighted to be part of the plan. I slid on my jacket, bundled up Trixie and Gingersnap, and headed out to the plaza in front of the inn to pick up Dave’s cop buddy.
He was even more thrilled than Mr. Huckle. Dave had informed him that he was going to collect evidence but he didn’t know the whole story. I explained it all while we walked.
He was a young guy and obviously excited to be released from his boring post at the entrance to the inn.
When we reached Randolph Hall, I rang the bell.
Ian answered the door. “Yes?”
I was pretty sure that he recognized me from the inn. Maybe he didn’t know my name.
The cop made quick work of identifying himself. He whipped out his badge lickity-split and asked if we could come in.
“No.” That was all Ian said.
I hadn’t expected that.
From the look on his face, neither had the cop. “I can come back with a search warrant.”
Ian gave a curt nod. “Fine. You do that.” He closed the door!
I was stunned. It never occurred to me that they wouldn’t cooperate. “What now?”
“It’s up to Dave, but I suspect he’ll send me back to Snowball to get a search warrant.”
“That could take hours.”
“Yup.”
“They’ll be gone by then.”
“Probably.”
I looked toward the side yard. “What if I sneaked in through the back?”
“Don’t do that. It would be tainted evidence. We have to go by the book.”
I heard him but I walked around the side of the house anyway. There was a tiny screened porch in the back. More of a stoop, really. Four steps up, and I would be able to see inside the kitchen door. My heart hammered but I tiptoed up the wooden stairs and dared to step inside the screened area. I cupped my hands around my eyes to see inside the window of the door that led to the kitchen.
There was the cap, still sitting exactly where I had left it. I scrambled to leave the screened porch before Ian caught me. Breathless, I hurried back to the cop, who said, “Are you deaf? I wish you hadn’t done that.”
“Good news. It’s still there.”
He stared at me with a stony face and put away his radio. “Dave is sending me over to Snowball for the search warrant. Will you be okay walking back to the inn by yourself?”
“Of course. No loan sharks are after me.”
He walked away, and I looked up at Randolph Hall. Ian watched me from a front window.
Back at the inn, the reception lobby seemed like a train station. Luggage was piled in heaps along the wall. Robin and Geof waited on the love seat, looking miserable, and Zelda was in the process of checking out members of The Thursday Night Cloak and Dagger Club.
I squeezed past them and slipped behind the counter to talk to Zelda. “How’s it going?”
“So far no problems.”
Weegie waved at me.
I moved over, out of Zelda’s way.
Weegie walked up to the counter. “Two of the other book club members and I would like to stay on for a few days to be here for Myrtle. She’s a pest and annoying, but she doesn’t have anyone, and we wouldn’t feel right leaving her in the hospital all alone. Would you have a room for three? I’m not sure how long we’d need it. At least until her sister arrives.”
“Of course. Given the circumstances, we’ll give you a special rate. You’re probably tired of that rollaway bed, too.” I checked the schedule, and blocked two connecting rooms for them. “I’ll let you know when your rooms are ready.”
She leaned over the counter. “Is it true that one of the Tredwells murdered Norm?”
“Honestly, we don’t know anything yet.” Sheesh. Now I was starting to sound like the police. I hated it when they sidestepped questions. On the other hand, it was remotely possible that the insulin pen in question was not the one used to kill Norm. And that the cap I had seen at Randolph Hall was meant for something else entirely. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to dodge your question. I’ve actually been out so I don’t know what has happened.”
The door to the office opened, and Char marched out, her face flaming. She still carried Ella Mae, but she avoided my eyes entirely.
Dave called me. I waved to Weegie and hurried over. “They’re protecting each other. Didn’t get a thing out of them. Is it okay if Savannah hangs out here today with Shadow?”
“Sure.”
“I’m going over to Randolph Hall to question Ian and Blanche.”
“Good luck. What if they shut the door in your face?”
“Then they will be taken to Snowball for questioning at headquarters.”
He watched something behind me. “My guess is that the Tredwell clan will be departing Wagtail shortly.”
I turned around and saw Geof and Robin walk out the door. The Thursday Night Cloak and Dagger Club rushed off right behind them to Hair of the Dog for the awarding of prizes.
“Can’t you detain them? On TV they’re always telling people not to leave town.”
“I can tell them that. But I can’t enforce it. If they have a lawyer they can call, I bet they leave ASAP.”
“I don’t know about that. Ian and Geof were heavily invested in the game.”
Dave coughed. “You’re joking, right? Let’s see, what would be preferable? Avoiding being arrested for murder or winning a game?”
“Well, when you put it that way . . . What about Robin and her room? She’ll want to pack.”
“Stall. Stall as long as you can.”
“You’re not going to arrest her? Don’t you think she killed Norm?” asked Zelda.
Dave winced. “At this point, all I have is an insulin pen. I don’t even know if it was the one used in Norm’s murder. I’ve got no fingerprints and no confession. I’ll know more after I get this over to the lab.”
I looked over at Zelda. “Our job is to stall Robin.”
She nodded. “Gotcha. Holly is the only one who can let Robin into her room, and by gosh, I just won’t be able to find Holly.”
Dave shot her a thumbs-up and took off. In a matter of minutes, the rush had ended and the reception lobby was so quiet I could have heard kitten feet.
I had promised Val I would attend the prize ceremony. Given everything that had happened, I debated the wisdom of going. But the inn was quiet with everyone out at the final meeting of Murder Most Howl.
I walked out on the front porch.
Mr. Huckle followed me. “We had quite a morning here at the Sugar Maple Inn.”
“Yes, we did.”
“Your grandmother would be proud of the way you’re handling these crises.”
I smiled at him. “Thank you, Mr. Huckle. I fear we’re not done yet, though.”
“Dave appears to have it in hand. He’ll take it from here.” He looked at his watch. “Aren’t you supposed to be at the ceremony where the prizes are awarded?”
“I wonder if I should stick around here.”
Mr. Huckle toddled inside and returned with my jacket. “I shall call you if anything untoward happens.”
Maybe he was right. “Okay. Thanks, Mr. Huckle.”
By the time I walked over to Hair of the Dog with Trixie and Gingersnap, the presentations were almost over. Val was in her element, handing out prizes for all kinds of amusing things like Silliest Motive and Most Dog Clues Eaten. I watched from the back, laughing along with
the participants. To my surprise, Holmes and Ben had made it on time and assisted Val in handing out gift certificates and fun prizes.
Ian and Blanche were notably absent. Robin and Geof had come, but not Charlotte or Ella Mae. I watched them, wondering if I would have attended in their shoes. If I had murdered someone, would I go to an unimportant presentation? I thought not. Maybe that spoke to their innocence. Or maybe that’s what they hoped for—to appear unconcerned.
As I looked around, I realized that most of the participants were smiling. Maybe they hadn’t been impacted by Norm’s death. Maybe some of them hadn’t even heard about it.
When it ended, a lot of people stayed for lunch. Some filtered out clutching gift certificates for local stores. The chatter I heard was all positive but I had arrived too late to hear who killed the baron.
I made my way through the tables to Val, Holmes, and Ben. In spite of the din, I could hear burgers sizzling on the grill.
“Congratulations, Val. Looks like you pulled it off after all.”
“I heard a bunch of people say they’re coming back to play again with friends.” Holmes high-fived Val.
But Val flinched. “I think the merchants will be the judge of whether there’s a next time. Half the town isn’t speaking to me. I keep telling them it was Norm who wrote the scandalous clues, but some of them remain unconvinced.”
“Do you have a minute?” I asked.
She gazed around. “Lunch rush has started. Can you make it quick?”
“Why didn’t you tell me about Norm?”
“What about him?”
I stared at her in surprise. Why was she acting this way? What was she hiding?
She closed her eyes for a moment. “Okay, okay, okay. Come into my office.”
Holmes, Ben, and I followed her. She closed the door.
After a deep sigh she said, “Where to begin? I was surprised when Juliana and Norm moved to Wagtail. But then she started sending me gorgeous pictures. Juliana and her dog on a mountain peak. Juliana and her dog swimming in the lake. You get the idea. Fabulous pictures. She kept inviting me to come to Wagtail but I was always too busy at work. And then she was dead. It hit me hard.”
She stopped talking and looked away. “Last year, one of my work friends who was exactly my age died in an accident. When I came back to work after the funeral, they already had someone else in her cubicle, and I kept thinking—is that all there is? I come to work every day, and when I die, they plug someone else into my place like I never existed?” She blew out a breath.
“So I came to Wagtail on vacation. This will sound stupid, but I felt Juliana here. I felt at home. I loved that dogs and cats could go everywhere. Juliana would have liked that, too. I was out walking and saw that Hair of the Dog was up for auction. I did a little calculating, and with a loan from my parents, I thought I might be able to swing it. A couple of days before the auction, I went by Norm’s house to say hi and introduce myself. The minute I met him, I knew something wasn’t right. He fooled a lot of people by being charming but I saw through him right away. Imagine my shock when he showed up at the auction and bid against me!”
“He didn’t want you here,” said Ben.
Thirty-six
“Exactly. That became obvious very fast,” said Val. “So I did some checking up on him. The man was a worm, and he didn’t like that I was asking people about Juliana’s death. Shadow’s dad, Hollis, didn’t like that I was stirring things up again so he came into the pub one day and confronted me. Why was I asking questions about Shadow’s involvement in Juliana’s death? He came in to yell at me, but suddenly I had an ally because he also thought Norm murdered Juliana. The only downside to Norm’s death is that now we’ll never be able to prove what he did.”
“If it’s any comfort to you, Savannah also thinks Norm killed Juliana.” I explained about the rat poison. “There’s no way of knowing what he intended to do with it, but if one wife died from poison in her food, and he got away with it—”
“Why not do it again?” Holmes finished my thought.
“That’s why you were trying to yank Norm’s chain by making the clues in Murder Most Howl match his life.” I looked to her for confirmation.
“I hoped that they would push him to the edge when he found out. That he would slip up and confess in anger. I even bought a little recorder that I carried around, just in case he showed up to berate me and incriminated himself.”
I gave her a big hug. “I’m so sorry. But you went about it pretty stupidly. He could have killed you, too.”
“It’s over now. Whoever knocked him off gets my respect.”
Ben raised his eyebrows. “I’m not sure I’d go around saying that, even if I did think it.”
Val shooed us out of her office. “Go on now. I have work to do!”
On the walk back to the inn, Trixie and Gingersnap played with other dogs they met along the way.
In the lobby, Weegie hustled over to me. “Did you hear? I won! I can’t believe it. Of course, I feel a little bit guilty for stealing those clues from Myrtle, especially now that she’s in the hospital, but that’s the way the game is played. Right?”
I gave her a little hug. “Congratulations. Well played.”
“I thought for sure Ian and Geof would win but they were off by one very important little item. It was a clue that I found on the back of the cow at the ice cream place. They had weapons but I guess they didn’t think I was worth questioning.” She giggled with delight.
A number of her friends gathered around.
“So what was the solution?” I asked. “Who killed the Baron von Rottweiler?”
“As you know,” said Weegie, “I was his third wife. And I was quite afraid of him. I confided that to my brother, Max, who owns the local bookstore. Our mom had an upper respiratory infection. She was taking acetaminophen with codeine for it. When my brother cooked dinner at our mother’s house, he took some of Mom’s pills and put them into the baron’s flask to get rid of the baron to protect me.”
Her friends groaned and laughed, all talking at once. Some of them had half the clues, but none of them had figured out the full story.
Mr. Huckle came over and announced, “Your victory table is ready, ladies.”
He had pushed together a number of tables in the dining area so they could all sit together. I spied Leo on the grand staircase watching them.
Walking calmly so I wouldn’t frighten him away, I approached Leo and scooped him up in my arms. “No more mouse gifts, please.”
I carried the big cat, who purred, to the reception desk. “Zelda, I don’t mean to be cruel, but do you think Leo would mind terribly if I shut him in the office until Sylvie has left? They’re having lunch now, so it would only be a couple of hours. She clearly doesn’t appreciate his attention.”
“He knows her. That’s why he’s acting this way.”
“Zelda!” I didn’t want to insult her but I doubted that Leo was telling her that. “Are you . . . reading his mind?”
“No. I’ve been thinking about this. He never came over to the inn before Sylvie arrived in town. Didn’t you notice that? I walk to work all the time but he never follows me here. And giving gifts of mice, that’s something he does to the people he likes. He’s always bringing me little presents. He takes them to my neighbor, who is very sweet. But he never brought anything to my good-for-nothing ex-husband. His previous owner told me about his gift-giving habit. She warned me because her mother was appalled when he brought her gifts.” Zelda stroked Leo’s back. “He knows Sylvie from somewhere.”
I walked into the office and placed him on the sofa. “I’m sure you don’t like being cooped up, Leo. But it won’t be too long.”
I closed the door behind me. “Sylvie lives in North Carolina. Unless Leo has been there, I’d think it highly unlikely that he knows her.”
“He’s not the youngest cat. Maybe he’s getting senile, and she reminds him of someone.”
“Where did the previo
us owner live?”
“Here in Wagtail. In Randolph Hall. She loved Leo so much. She cried and cried when she gave him to me. She was moving to Shanghai and didn’t think he would like living in a cramped apartment after years of roaming free in Wagtail.”
I looked down at Trixie, who gazed up at me as though she was smiling. “I don’t know if I could do that. It was probably the right thing to do for Leo but . . .” No question about it. I couldn’t leave my little sweethearts. I picked up Trixie and held her close at the mere thought.
“It was complicated. Her husband found a job there. I had just moved here when they were leaving. Leo sort of latched on to me, and she asked if I would take him. It was my lucky day. He’s such a cool cat.”
“Shanghai. That’s awfully far away. Didn’t someone say that Sylvie’s kids live in China?”
“Really? I can’t imagine there’s any connection.”
The sound of footsteps racing on the back stairs drew our attention.
“Holly! Holly!” shouted Robin. “We figured it out. We know how those items came to be under my bed.” Robin beamed and hurried toward me with a phone in her hand. “Look!”
She showed me the phone, which displayed a picture of Ella Mae, her ears pinned back, carrying a man’s money clip. Robin pressed a button and a video played as the camera followed Ella Mae, who disappeared under a bed and emerged without the money clip.
“She stole it?”
“Exactly. She’s Klepto Dog! That’s why it’s such a weird collection of items. Do you know how to reach Officer Dave? We have to show him.”
I had seen Ella Mae dragging the mock candlestick. She had darted out of Weegie’s room right in front of me. “Of course. Zelda, would you call Dave?”
“Can I go in my room and pack now?” asked Robin.
“I think we had better wait until Dave gives the okay.” I excused myself and skedaddled to the main lobby so she wouldn’t keep pressing me. While Robin might be off the hook, there was still the issue of the pen cap at Randolph Hall. Not to mention the fact that Ella Mae must have found the insulin pen somewhere in the inn. Would she have put it inside the box? Or had someone else hidden it there and Ella Mae thought she was just stealing the tissue box? Instead of narrowing the list of potential murderers, everyone who had stayed at the inn was now suspect.