by Tim Myers
Alex was comfortable enough in his outfit, so he checked the answering machine for messages, something he did routinely whenever he was away from the inn.
There was a blinking “2,” and Alex hit replay. The first message was from Reston Shay. “Listen, I had something I had to take care of last night in Charlotte. This guy with the insurance company is driving me crazy. Help him settle this fast if there’s anything you can do, will you? I still want the room, don’t rent it out. My assistant will bring a check by in the morning; I want to reserve it for the next month. One condition though. I don’t want anyone going in the room. That means you and Elise, too. The insurance guy insisted. Talk to you later.”
The second message was from Monet, the restaurant owner. “Mr. Winston, I need to speak with you at your earliest convenience. Perhaps you can drop by this evening. I await your reply.” As an afterthought, he added, “This is Monet from the—,” as the machine cut him off.
He was stoking the fire when Elise rejoined him, wearing a flannel shirt and jeans, her outfit of choice, and truth be told, Alex’s favorite. When she was dressed elegantly, he felt awkward with her, knowing full well how striking she really was. In jeans though, he could see her more for what she was, a friend and coworker with a good heart and a strong spirit, and not just a lovely woman.
Elise started to sit by the fire, then said, “Hang on, I’ll be right back.”
“He’s not here,” Alex said.
“Who’s not here?”
“Reston Shay. He isn’t in his room.”
Elise said, “How did you know that was where I was going?”
“Call it a hunch.”
She said, “But you’re worried too, aren’t you?”
“Why do you say that?”
“You checked on him yourself.”
Alex hit replay on the answering machine, and Elise listened to both messages. After Monet was finished, she said, “How odd.”
“Monet is a rule unto himself, isn’t he?”
Elise shook her head. “That’s not what I’m talking about. Why would Reston take the room for an entire month when he has a home not ten minutes from here? I don’t buy his story that it’s so it will be available to the insurance investigator. There’s got to be more to it than that.”
Alex said, “I told you before, he’s a real eccentric. Just think of it as a guaranteed month’s stay. We could use it.”
She said, “I know, but it’s still odd.”
Alex laughed. “We never seem to have a shortage of that around Hatteras West.”
They were just settled in by the fire when the front door of the inn banged open. Patrick Thornton walked in, knocking the rain from the brim of his hat and hanging his jacket up by the door. “It’s still coming down out there,” the surveyor said.
“We’re in for a good storm,” Alex agreed.
Thornton ran a hand through his hair, then looked intently at Elise before speaking. “Excuse me, I’m sure this must sound like some kind of line, but are you sure we haven’t met before?”
“I don’t believe so.”
He shook his head. “Your face is awfully familiar.”
Elise said, “I’m sorry, I don’t remember you.”
“I’ve got it. Didn’t I see you in the Miss West Virginia pageant a few years ago?”
“No, it must have been someone else.”
“Sorry, my mistake. My cousin was entered, and I could swear...oh, well, I’ll say good-night. I’ve got a big day ahead of me tomorrow, and slogging through the mud won’t make my work any easier.”
“Where will you be tomorrow?” Alex asked.
“I haven’t decided yet, but it will be wet, I’ll tell you that.”
After he was gone, Elise was brooding about something. Alex asked, “What’s wrong?”
“It’s nothing.”
He persisted. “I’ve seen that look before, something’s troubling you. If you want to talk about it, I’d be happy to listen.”
“It’s that pageant nonsense.”
“Don’t hold that against him. Anybody could make a mistake,” Alex said.
Elise studied her thumb a few seconds, then said, “He was right. It was me.”
“I thought you gave up pageants long before that.” Elise had shared part of her history with Alex before, but only in vague terms.
“I needed the scholarship to finish college, and Mom and Dad were going through a rough time at the inn. I got it, too. I was first runner-up.” She said the last as if she was admitting she’d been arrested.
“I can’t believe that,” Alex said.
“That I’d enter a beauty pageant, knowing the way I felt about them?”
“No, that you didn’t win,” Alex said, his disbelief an honest reaction.
“Please. Alex, there are millions of pretty women in the world.”
“So why did you deny it when Thornton asked you about it?”
“Because I entered for all the wrong reasons. I’m not slamming the women who choose to participate, but for me it was a travesty. Here I’d battled with my mother about all of the junior pageants she’d forced me into entering, and I was going after the biggest prize of them all. I’m not proud of it.”
“Did you cheat to get first runner-up? Steal somebody’s sheet music or trip another contestant?” Alex asked softly.
“What? Of course not.”
“So why apologize? You stayed in school and got your degree. Wasn’t that what it was really about?”
Elise sighed, then said. “My whole life I’ve been saddled with this genetic windfall, and the entire time, I’ve been trying to prove myself in spite of it. So what did I do when things got dicey? I caved in.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself.” He stared at the flames a few moments, then asked, “So what was your talent?”
“No, sir, you’re not getting that out of me. That is all ancient history.”
Alex grinned. “I would have voted for you.”
She ruffled his hair as she got up. “I know you would have. Good-night, Alex.”
“Good-night.”
After she was gone, Alex lingered over the fire, reveling in the feeling of security that being in the inn gave him. Outside, the storm was lashing at the windows, pounding down the rain, and inside, he was dry and warm and safe from its reaches. The front door banged open in the wind, and a couple struggled in with their suitcases.
“You must be the Darcys; Vince and Laura.”
The man shook the rain off his jacket and said. “What are you, some kind of mind reader?”
“Don’t give me that much credit. I’ve been expecting you.”
The man’s wife said, “Sorry to keep you up. We ran into some problems with the map.”
Vince said, “Now let’s not get started with that again, Laura.”
Alex checked them in swiftly and showed them to their room. By the time he got back to the lobby, the fire was dying, but he promised himself to enjoy the last remnants of it while he could.
All was well with the world, until an explosion on the second floor jolted him out of his seat and sent him racing up the stairs.
Chapter 9
Elise joined him as he passed her door. The sound had come from one of the second floor guest rooms, and Alex couldn’t imagine what could have caused it. It had sounded like something between a gunshot and a mortar shell going off.
He found Claudia Post one of their guests who’d been with them six days, standing in the hallway outside her room covered with a purple concoction from the curlers in her hair to the pink fuzzy slippers on her feet. The flannel nightgown she was wearing would never be the same. Claudia looked nothing like the reserved, older woman who walked the grounds of the property every day. The smell hovering around her was like rotten grapes left out in the hot sun.
“What happened?” Alex asked as he surveyed the dripping purple puddles on the hardwood floors. He hoped whatever it was wouldn’t leave a permanent stain on the f
loor, now that he’d seen that his guest was unhurt.
“What did you say?” Claudia asked, driving her fingertips into her ears.
“Are you all right?”
She smiled sheepishly. “No fight. Just a little accident.”
Elise went to the linen closet in the hallway and grabbed a handful of fresh towels. He noticed as she casually dropped one at Claudia’s feet, sopping up the liquid before it could stain the floor.
Alex still didn’t have a clue about what had happened when Claudia said, “I brought some homemade wine with me. It appears I may have used a tad too much sugar in the fermentation process for that particular batch.” She bit her lower lip, then added loudly, “The bathroom’s a mess. I’m afraid. I’ll be willing to cover whatever additional charges there are for cleaning it, above and beyond my bill.”
Alex cringed at the thought of the cleanup job ahead of them. “Let’s worry about that later. Right now, we need to get you some clean clothes.”
“Yes, a little did get up my nose, but I’ll be fine.” The explosion had deafened the woman, or at least lessened her hearing for the moment.
Elise said, “Let’s move you to another room so we can get you right in the tub.”
“I don’t need a backrub,” Claudia said. “I said I’ll be fine.”
Elise steered their guest down the hall to another room as she turned to Alex and said, “Grab her things, would you?”
They settled Claudia in the room next door, then went about the arduous cleaning process. There was wine everywhere in the bathroom, from the ceiling to the baseboard, covering nearly every square inch of space, from wall to porcelain to cast iron.
“It’s not coming off the walls,” Elise said.
Alex surveyed the room, then said, “You know, this bathroom might look nice painted purple.”
“We’ll have to paint it, but I don’t think purple’s the right choice. What on earth was she thinking? At least she opened it in here and not in the room.”
Alex paled at the thought of something happening to the quilt his mother had made, now covering the bed. Since the fire, they’d lost several of the handmade quilts, and Alex now loaned them out grudgingly to their guests. Claudia had appeared safe enough, but that was clearly not the case. He thought about pulling them out of circulation in the rooms altogether, but making the beds every day, smoothing the quilts out, brought back memories of his mother; the touch of her hand on his brow, the way she sang as she worked, the hint of jasmine she always wore. Those quilts had been created to give comfort. They didn’t belong stored away in some closet.
Elise saw him stroke the quilt gently. “That could have been much worse,” she said. “We really should protect your mother’s quilts.”
“We can’t put them up, they belong out where people can see them.”
Elise said, “I have an idea. Why don’t we frame them and hang them in each room? They’re much too special to take any more chances.”
“I want people to be able to enjoy them,” Alex said.
“All the more reason to preserve them before they’re ruined. We’ve lost more than one since I’ve been here, and I’d hate to see them all disappear.”
Alex studied the quilt again, remembering. “Maybe you’re right.”
“I’ll talk to Mor about framing them,” she said.
“I can do it myself. He’ll think I’ve flipped my lid.”
Elise said, “Not if I tell him it was my idea. I know you’re a fine woodworker, but you don’t have enough time for it anymore.”
Alex shook his head. “That’s true enough, but go ahead and let him think I’m crazy. I don’t mind taking the blame. It will give him something to rib me about.”
“Alex, do you think they’re happy?”
“Emma and Mor? I’d have to say so. Why do you ask?”
She bit her lip. “They seem to fuss at each other quite a bit, don’t they?”
“They always have. I never believed for one second their marriage vows would change that. You’ve got two strong personalities there, Elise; they’re bound to clash sometimes. Don’t forget, Emma already suffered through one bad marriage, and Mor’s never been married at all. I can’t imagine the adjustment process those two are going through.” When he saw that his words weren’t comforting her, he said, “Don’t worry, I’m sure they’ll be fine.”
By the time they finished cleaning the room it was just before midnight. There was still the distinct aroma of spoiled grape juice in the air, though Elise had opened the windows the second they’d started cleaning. She said, “I’m afraid this room will be out of commission until we can get rid of that smell.”
“That’s odd,” Alex said as he pushed the cleaning cart out into the hallway.
“What?” Elise asked.
“That explosion brought us both running, but neither of our other guests on this floor even peeked out their doors.” There was no way Thornton or Melva could have slept through the commotion.
“Not everyone keeps innkeepers’ hours, Alex. Maybe they’re both still out.”
Alex smiled. “Together? Could Melva’s postcards have more than a ring of truth in them?”
Elise said, “After what I’ve seen tonight, anything’s possible.” She glanced at the clock in the hallway and said, “Six a.m. is going to come awfully early tomorrow. Good-night, Alex.”
“See you tomorrow. Today, I mean,” Alex said as the clock ticked past midnight.
Alex was exhausted, but there was no way he could go to bed before he took another shower. Even after scrubbing his skin raw, there was a lingering aroma of grape juice on him. He couldn’t imagine what Claudia must smell like.
Finally, it was the last day of the great muffin trials, and Alex knew there was hardly any point in continuing the contest. The Muffin Lady’s offerings were all taken by the end of breakfast, while Sally Anne’s were mostly untouched. Alex was not looking forward to telling Buck and his daughter that, beginning next week, they’d be going with a different supplier. He’d have to find a way to break the news to them with the minimum amount of acrimony. After all, they were his friends, first and foremost, and friendship was very important to Alex. After he and Elise set up their morning breakfast offerings, Alex checked the answering machine as was part of his morning routine. It was as much a habit for him as walking out to the mailbox at the end of Point Road to collect the day’s mail.
There was a “1” on the machine, and Alex hit replay as Elise grabbed a cup of coffee.
“Alex, again, please call me when you get in. This is Monet.” The number to the restaurant followed, then the time was given. Monet had called twenty minutes after he’d gone to bed. What could have possibly been so urgent that it required a conversation in the middle of the night? In the middle of Alex’s night, he remembered. Surely the restaurateur kept different hours than he did as an innkeeper. It must have been hard keeping in sync with the rest of the world when Monet worked such off hours.
Elise joined him and asked, “Who was the message from?”
“Mr. Monet. He’s called twice, but I haven’t had the chance to return his calls. We’re on completely different time schedules.”
Elise took a bite of one of the jumbo strawberry muffins and said, “I wonder what he wants?”
“I’ll find out today, I promise.”
As their guests came down for breakfast, Alex kept a mental list on who left the inn and who went back to their rooms. Patrick Thornton, dressed for the outdoors again, topped at the desk on his way out.
“Alex, I’m going to be staying longer than I’d originally anticipated. Is that a problem?”
Since there was a dearth of guests, Alex had no problem with that at all. He pretended to study his reservation list, shook his head a few times, then said, “I think I can fit you in. Any idea how long you’ll be with us?”
“Sorry, I don’t have a clue.”
“We’ll try to keep something open, then.”
“
Thanks.”
Alex said, “I hope it goes smoothly for you,”
The surveyor nodded. “So do I.”
After he was gone, Alex said, “I’m going to get a jump m my rooms. Can you handle the cleanup here?”
“No problem. When you’re finished, come find me. I want to go with you when you talk to Monet. I’ve got the feeling something is wrong.”
He promised, then went to Patrick Thornton’s room to start his day of cleaning.
The room was as neat as he’d left it, and Alex wondered yet again about the guests who made their own beds. He lad one woman from Virginia who brought her own cleaning supplies with her for the annual week she spent at the Bin. Earline Christine claimed that cleaning calmed her, and Alex had promised her a go at the glass at the top of the lighthouse on her next visit.
Alex did a perfunctory check of the bathroom and noticed that the toilet was still running. Sometimes the chains got hung up and Alex lifted the lid to straighten it.
The cause of the problem was immediately obvious, but Alex didn’t know what to do about it.
He went back to the lobby and found Elise. “That was quick,” she said.
“I need you,” Alex said simply, and she followed him toPatrick Thornton’s room without a single question. That was one of the things he liked about her. Elise knew when it was time for discretion; there were things the inn’s guests didn’t need to know about that were going on a Hatteras West.
After he shut the door to Thornton’s room, Elise asked “What is it?”
“Come into the bathroom.”
She followed him in, and Alex gestured to the open toilet tank. Elise looked inside at the carefully bundled package about the size and shape of a large flashlight, then said, “What do you think it is, drugs?”
“I don’t know. The question is, what do we do about it?”
Elise asked, “How did you find it? I do a thorough job of cleaning, but even I’m not that meticulous.”
“The toilet was running, so I looked in to see if I could fix it.” Alex nudged the tube slightly, freeing the chain and dropping the stopper. The water started to fill again immediately.
“Should we call Armstrong?” Elise asked.