Miz Scarlet and the Vanishing Visitor (A Scarlet Wilson Mystery)

by Sara M. Barton

  Chapter Five --

  My clothes were already in the suitcase. I gathered my toothbrush, toothpaste, shampoo, conditioner, and deodorant, shoved them inside my plastic travel case, and zipped it closed. Moments later, I was in the foyer. I deposited the luggage, hit the powder room, and then found Jenny and Captain Peacock in the kitchen.

  “Okay. I’m ready.”

  “I’ll follow you,” he announced.

  “Oh.”

  “Jenny will be traveling with me, Scar. I need to talk to her about a few things.”

  “I see,” I told him, but the truth is I didn’t. Something didn’t feel right. They were keeping secrets from me. There were worry lines around Captain Peacock’s eyes. Did he think Richie’s killer would make an attempt on Jenny’s life?

  Jenny was the first one out the door. She headed to Kenny’s Ford Escape in the garage. He caught my hand, pulled me close, and whispered, “I’ll make it up to you.”

  His warm touch made me shiver, especially as his lips brushed my cheek. An electrical charge pulsed through my veins. Love is good, even when it comes late, and better late than never.

  “Let’s try to make it without stopping, Scarlet.”

  “Is it important?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then we’ll do it.”

  Three hours later, I pulled my Ford silver bullet into the long driveway of the Four Acorns Inn and continued to the carriage house. I parked in my garage bay, lifted the hatchback, grabbed the luggage, and met Kenny and Jenny out front. Inserting the key into the front door, I stepped aside to let them pass.

  “Wow,” the teenager sighed as she entered. She twirled around, enthralled with the house. “It’s a mansion.”

  “Yes, it is. Every guest room has a private bath.” I led her through the first floor, showing her each of the public rooms. We finished in the living room, where my mother, Laurel, and her cousin, Lacey, were playing Scrabble with Mr. Hornblower. I introduced our newest visitor.

  “She’ll be working part-time,” I told the assembled crowd, “to pay for her keep.”

  “How nice,” Lacey decided.

  “Indeed.” My mother gave the plan her stamp of approval. I gave Jenny a conspiratorial wink, to let her know she was doing just fine.

  “What’s for din-din?” came a booming voice behind us. We all turned to see my brother, Bur, saunter in, dressed in his golf clothes.

  “Whatever you’re making,” I shot back. After all, I had just driven nearly two hundred miles non-stop.

  “Now, now, Miz Scarlet. No need to get snippy. Is this the little waif? Let me take a look at her,” he insisted.

  “Ignore him,” I instructed Jenny.

  “Don’t listen to her,” my brother replied, going right up to the teenager and staring in her face. “I don’t see any obvious signs of drug use. No needle marks, no yellowing of the eyes to indicate liver damage....”

  “Pay no attention to the ignoramus. We only let him out once a day. Otherwise, he stays in his pen in the backyard.”

  “My sister kids. I live in the carriage house.”

  “Wow, do you two always fight like this?” Jenny seemed shocked.

  “Are you kidding?” Lacey was laughing. “They were born belligerent.”

  “I wouldn’t say belligerent,” my mother spoke up.

  “Thank you, mother.” Bur nodded in her direction.

  “More like cat and dog, two separate species.”

  “Dog!” I called, beating my brother to the punch.

  “Fitting in every way,” he shot back. “Woof! As in bow-wow!”

  “At least I’m not a mouse chaser like you, you old dust bag! Help yourself to a saucer of milk.”

  “Better still, why don’t you fetch it, Fido?”

  “Children!” There was that admonishing tone in my mother’s voice that brooked no nonsense. She might be stuck in a wheelchair, but she still had a voice that could carry above the din. “Enough! Both of you stop it. Now, Scarlet, where is Jenny going to sleep?”

  “I thought I would put her in the library for now.”

  “No, that won’t do at all,” my mother decided. “She should be on the second floor.”

  “But....”

  “No buts about it, Scarlet,” Lacey added.

  “I beg your pardon, ladies. May I remind you that it’s my job to see to the guests?”

  “Or you could put her on the third floor,” my mother suggested, “with you.”

  “What?”

  “Why not? That storage room could be transformed into another bedroom....”

  “But....” I tried to protest, but the Googins girls were already talking over me, like I wasn’t there.

  “They can share the sitting room.”

  “And it will be a quiet getaway.”

  “Mother,” I cut in. No response. “Lacey!”

  “You’ll have to share the bathroom, but that’s not really a big deal, is it, Scarlet?” Neither of the elderly ladies bothered to wait for my response.

  “Well, now that we have that settled, let’s talk about dinner.”

  “Settled?”

  “She’s in the Red Oak room until the guests arrive this week, and then we’ll move her to my room, and I’ll temporarily stay in the library, until the new bedroom is finished,” Lacey told me. “Weren’t you listening, dear?”

  “Kenny is staying in the Red Oak room tonight,” I pointed out.

  “Put him in the library,” Lacey suggested. “He won’t mind, will you, dear?”

  “No, ma’am,” said the former Eagle Scout, grinning at the Googins girls.

  “Let’s not get carried away, ladies. I’m still in charge of the guest accommodations.” What good did it do to assert myself? They pretended not to hear me.

  “I...I don’t want to cause any problems,” Jenny piped in, clearly distressed at all the discussion over her sleeping arrangements.

  “Kiddo, you’ll have to get used to this,” Kenny confided. “It comes with the territory.”

  “Don’t listen to him,” said Laurel, offering the girl her hand. “My daughter and son like to bicker. I don’t know where they get it from, probably their father’s side of the family.”

  “Hardly!” Bur was all over that statement in a flash. “This is definitely Googins in origin!”

  My mother sniffed, her pert little nose rising toward the ceiling. “I think not, Bur. The Wilsons were hardly the epitome of good breeding. I’ll have you know that your father was reputed to have quite a temper as a young man.”

  “That’s because you drove him batty,” my brother responded.

  “Oh, lordy!” I sighed. “Welcome home. Speaking of which, where are those dogs? And Scrub Oak?”

  “Damn!” That was Bur. “I put them up in your room when the workmen were here this afternoon. We had a small problem with the gas furnace during the annual maintenance check, and they were coming and going, in and out of the house.”

  “Come on, Jenny,” I shook my head. “Grab your suitcase and I’ll show you where you’re sleeping.”

  Leading the way up the long staircase, I watched the girl take in all the details of the grand two-story foyer. The house, built during the era of success for the pressboard mill my grandfather and his partners ran, truly was a marvel of architectural elegance.

  These days, as a bed and breakfast, it was popular with our clientele, thanks in part to the elevator we had installed in a closet decades ago, after my mother lost her mobility. With only three, sometimes four guest suites, we were hardly a swank hotel. But our guests had come to expect pampering and socialization, two things at which we excelled. Some came on their way in or out of the hospital, whether for cancer treatment or general surgery. Some came because they had physical limitations and had business in Hartford County. I often arranged for physical therapists to come to the house, nurses to check on recently discharged patients, or supplemental oxygen for people with breathing difficulties. There was a ramp to the driv
eway, gardens that were handicapped-accessible, and a peaceful setting for guests to kick back and relax in while they were with us.

  “Here you are,” I told her, leading her to the door of the Red Oak room. She stepped in, mouth open, and gasped at the carved bed. “Wow!”

  “Like it?” I patted her shoulder. “It belonged to my grandparents. You can put your case down on the trunk there.”

  Even as I spoke, I could hear the barking upstairs. Huckleberry and January were in full chorus. I could only hope my suite was still relatively intact. After hours of being cooped up on the third floor, the Four Acorns Inn resident pets were likely to be feisty.

  “Good thing you like dogs,” I told Jenny. “How do you feel about cats?”

  “Oh, I love all kinds of animals,” she cooed, as I showed her the way to the staircase to the third floor. Definitely less grand, it was far more private, something I appreciated. When I went to bed at night, it gave me comfort to know that I could shut the door and be in my own little world, at least for a few hours.

  The sounds of barking stopped the moment the door opened at the second-floor landing. We both looked up to see three figures, all about the same size, waiting at the top. Huckleberry was my Yorkshire terrier, a sweet little boy who was affectionate and perpetually hungry. He loved the cocktail hour, when little tidbits fell on the floor. I could see him dancing around as he waited for my arrival.

  “They’re so cute!” Jenny declared. “Oh!”

  As we stepped into my sitting room, January claimed Jenny as her own. The fox terrier practically threw herself into the teen’s welcoming arms.

  “She belonged to one of our first guests, Hank. He stayed with us while he had cancer treatment, and when he passed away, January joined the family.”

  “Poor baby,” Jenny decided, burying her face in January’s coat. I thought I saw her wipe away a tear as she hugged the tiny pooch. Maybe it was that Hank, like her mother, had passed away from cancer. Maybe it was that Jenny had lost Mozzie, her dog, to Richie’s barbarian ways. Something told me that January would soon have a new champion in her corner.

  “And this fine fellow is Scrub Oak. He’s a house cat. We don’t let him outside because there are coyotes in the neighborhood. And fisher cats, hawks, owls....” I recited the list of predators in the area. “White Oak Hill is a park behind the house, known for its hiking trails and its wildlife. You might see deer in the garden from time to time. There’s an occasional bear sighting, usually in the spring when the mama has her cubs. Do you like to hike?”

  “I’m from New Hampshire,” she reminded me. “My mom used to take me camping every summer before she got sick. We had a kayak and we used to spend time paddling around Little Island Pond.”

  “Does that mean you can swim?” I inquired. Jenny bobbed her head. “In that case, you’ll be happy to know we have a storage rack down by the pond with a kayak and a canoe. The water’s about eight feet at the deepest point. It’s pretty good swimming, but just remember you’re sharing Mother Nature’s playground with the other critters. And don’t try to pet anything wild. Rabies.”

  “Cool.”

  “We should get these dogs out for a tinkle. Want to help me?”

  Kenny joined us at the front door, and we stepped out together to do a loop around the neighborhood. Staying on the sidewalk, he and I pointed out the sights to the young girl. She was duly impressed by the waterfall that cascaded down over the old stone wall.

  “This must have been a great place to grow up,” said Jenny, awe in her voice.

  “It was,” Kenny acknowledged. “I have a lot of good memories of Cheswick.”

  “You grew up here? I thought you lived in New Jersey.”

  “My dad changed jobs when I was a teenager, so we had to move. Bur and Scarlet were old friends of mine from high school.”

  “My mom was from Boston. That’s where I was born. I don’t remember it, though. She moved to Maine when I was two, and then to Vermont when I was seven. And when I turned ten, we moved to New Hampshire.”

  “No grandparents, aunts and uncles?” I probed. “Cousins?”

  “She had a sister who died when she was twenty. My grandpa died when I was six-and-a-half. Grandma lived with us in Vermont. She died four years ago.”

  “You’ve had a tough time of it, haven’t you?” That just slipped out of my mouth and as soon as it did, I wanted to take it back. The look on Jenny’s face told me the wounds were still very raw. And yet, it was true. The child had suffered serious losses in the past few years, and the wicked stepfather and Richie were the straws that could have broken that camel’s back.

  “What was your grandmother like?” the security consultant wanted to know. I looked at Kenny and saw him studying his subject with great curiosity. Was he doing a background check on the child?

  “Oh, Nana was wonderful. She was a science teacher at the local high school. She used to practice her lesson plans on me before she’d use them in class. We did a lot of hiking in the White Mountains, the three of us.”

  “Did your grandparents have any relatives?” Captain Peacock was on a mission.

  “Nana had an older brother, Vance, and a younger sister, Violet. I think they’re both dead because they didn’t come to Mom’s memorial service. And Poppy had a younger brother who died in Vietnam.”

  “Were they from Maine?”

  “Born and bred,” Jenny laughed. “Poppy was the manager of the local grocery store. I used to go visit him at work on Saturdays.”

  “Sounds like your family loved you a lot, Jenny.” Those intense eyes trained on the teenager and didn’t let go. What was Kenny up to with all this interrogation? Did he know something I didn’t?

  “They did. I had a really nice life, up until my mom got sick. And then....” she sighed heavily, shoulders slumping, her voice breaking off. She turned away from us, trying to keep her composure. That didn’t stop Captain Peacock. He ignored my glare and kept on picking at that scab.

  “And then what?”

  “Mom got worse and had to quit her job because she couldn’t think straight. That’s when my stepfather moved in.”

  Why hadn’t anyone stopped Steve from taking advantage of Jenny’s vulnerable mother? Didn’t the woman have any friends?

  “He insisted they get married, so he could take care of her. And he made her sign over the house to him, so she wouldn’t lose it to all the hospital bills.”

  “That explains a lot,” Kenny decided. “Jenny, would it be okay with you if I tried to find your family?”

  “But I don’t have one. My mom....”

  “Maybe your mom’s family lost touch with her, for one reason or another. Would you mind if I tried to find them?” he asked again.

  “Sure. But I don’t think you will.”

  “Let me worry about that. In the meantime, Miz Scarlet will get you settled here and show you the ropes of running an inn. Frankly, I’m glad you’re here. She can use the help.”

  “Oh?” I glanced over at him in time to catch a wink.

  “We’ve been dating for months now, and every time I want to whisk her away for a date, somebody needs her to do something.” There was that boyish grin I so loved. “You could start now. Any chance you could take the dogs back to the house and ask Bur to call up for a couple of pizzas?”