by Vicki Delany
“Look, Mark, there’s no nice way to say this, so I’ll just come out and say it. I know it’s not really any of my business, but you’re seeing my best friend and her well-being matters a great deal to me. I’ve heard about what happened to you in the city. And, well, I have to wonder how important this job is to you?”
“I’d ask if Vicky put you up to this, but I know she didn’t. Last night I told her the whole sordid story.”
“Oh,” I said.
“You’re right, it is none of your business.” His brown eyes were dark with anger. “But, to stop you from going around making insinuations . . .”
“I’m not . . .”
“I’ll tell you that this job is important to me. Very important. The cooking world is surprisingly small at my level, and reputation is everything. Mine’s pretty much shot, through no fault of my own, so I need to rebuild it. This place is perfect for that.”
“You say no fault of your own . . .”
“The restaurant owner convinced me to work for him because he said his place would be all about fresh, quality local products from small farms. That’s the sort of cooking I believe in. Things went well for a while, the restaurant was a big success, and I was establishing good relationships with farmers. Then he brought his brother in to help.” Mark made quotation marks in the air with his fingers. “Some help. The brother started cutting corners, so slowly at first, I wasn’t quite aware of what was happening.”
I glanced around the office, the desk piled high with papers. “Don’t you receive the products, pay the bills?”
“Yeah, I do. My only crime, if you want to call it that, was slacking off. The restaurant was a hit, successful beyond my wildest dreams. I wanted my hand in every pot of soup and every drop of salad dressing. I was overwhelmed, glad to hand off some of the business affairs to the brother. Turns out the brother was buying inferior goods, billing the restaurant for the best stuff, and keeping the difference. When I finally found out what was going on, I went to the owner. He refused to believe me, wouldn’t even talk to his brother, so I quit on the spot. Unfortunately, the night before an influential restaurant critic had eaten a substandard meal at our place, and his article hit the papers. The owner publicly blamed me, because that’s the kind of man he is, and said he’d fired me.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Yeah, you and me both. But Karma comes around. He had more money than brains and not the slightest idea how the restaurant business works. He figured if he fired me publicly everything would get back to normal. Except, as I could have told him, the night after word got out, the dining room was almost completely empty. And it never got better. They soon closed.” Mark shrugged. “Restaurants don’t recover from bad press. Ever.”
I believed him. Maybe because I wanted to, and maybe only because I liked him, but I believed him. I could imagine how furious he’d been when he found out that Gord Olsen wanted to source inferior food. That would have been the final nail in the coffin of Mark’s reputation.
I realized that by convincing me he was not a con artist, Mark had just given me a very good reason for him to kill Gord Olsen.
He read the expression on my face. “If your next question is ‘Did I murder Gord?’ the answer to that is no, I did not. The police asked me if I had an alibi, and the only one I could give them is this place. Gord had come in at some point in the evening and stuck his nose where it didn’t belong. I ordered him to leave, and he wisely did so. I didn’t see him again. Things were winding down at the time the cops say Gord was killed, but we were still on the hop. I could have slipped out for five, ten minutes, but if there was a problem, and there often is, I would have been missed. No one missed me.” He spread out his hands. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, Merry, I have work to do.” His tone was cool, his eyes flat.
“Other than my parents, Vicky’s the dearest thing in the world to me,” I said. “I know you guys went out last night. I have to make sure you’re not . . .”
“A vicious killer.” To my surprise, he laughed. “We should all be so lucky to have friends like you, Merry. I like Vicky. I like her a lot. Don’t you dare tell her I said so.” The green sparks were back in his eyes.
“Mum’s the word,” I said.
I left Mark to do magic with a dead chicken and a mountain of kale and headed for my car. Was I absolutely positive he had not killed Gord? No, but I was pretty darn sure. When I got home I’d put a line through his name on my list of suspects.
I drove slowly around the corner of the building, taking care as snow was piled high on either side of the lane, making it even narrower than normal. A dark shape broke from the shoveled path at the employees’ entrance and dashed into the road. As carefully as I was going, when I hit the brakes my wheels spun and my car skidded to a halt. It was Grace, and I’d missed her by inches. Heedless of the weather she wore an open sweater and pumps. She turned as if to say something rude, but she recognized me and hurried over. I rolled down the window. “What is it? Is something wrong?”
“Jack,” she said.
“I’ll follow you.” Mom had told me Grace hired a private nurse to stay with Jack a few hours a day so Grace could look after things at the inn. Jack had been out of the hospital for only a few days. I hoped it wasn’t another heart attack. Surely a second attack so shortly after such a serious one would prove fatal.
I parked in front of the cottage, and by the time I was out of my car, Grace had thrown open her front door. I didn’t bother to take off my coat or boots, but ran after Grace into the living room. The moment I saw Jack, I felt overwhelming relief. He was sitting in a reclining chair with an afghan in shades of green and red covering his thin legs. His face was pasty white, and his sparse, graying hair was standing on end, but he was alive and conscious. A woman, short and chubby, dressed in faded pink hospital scrubs, leaned over him. “There, there,” she said, using the same tone Dad employed to comfort a fractious child who didn’t really want to sit on a scary-looking stranger’s knee. “Nothing’s out there.” She turned as she heard us come in. “Oh, Mrs. Olsen. I’m sorry to bother you, but he’s so upset.”
“What happened?” Grace knelt on the floor beside her husband’s chair and took his hand. He looked at her through watery red eyes. I was shocked at the change in his appearance. Less than two weeks had passed since his heart attack. He’d been a laughing, robust, storytelling man then. Now he was just old. His strong, square jaw seemed to have shrunk, the color in his once-twinkling blue eyes was flat and dull, and the eyes themselves were red rimmed.
“I don’t know.” The nurse wrung her hands together. “I was in the kitchen getting him a cup of tea when I heard him yelling to beat the band. When I came in, he was pointing at the window.”
“Jack, darling?” Grace said.
He turned to her. His rheumy red eyes were wide and frightened. “Someone’s out there. Watching me.”
“Don’t be silly.” The nurse sounded like she was admonishing a three-year-old for being afraid of monsters under the bed.
“It was a guest, Jack,” Grace said. “They cut through the back sometimes, heading for the woods. You know that, darling.” She looked up at the nurse and me. “Even though we have a fence around the cottage property, a gate with a latch, and a sign that says ‘Private,’ you’d be surprised at how many people don’t think that applies to them if they want to cut thirty seconds off their walk.”
Jack shook his head. “He was there, looking in the window. I saw him.”
“Why don’t you get that tea, Harriet?” Grace said, her voice soft and calm. “I’ll stay with Jack for a bit. I’m sorry if I frightened you, Merry.”
“I think you should call the police,” I said.
Harriet gasped.
“It was nothing,” Grace said.
“In most cases I’d agree,” I said. “But in light of . . . what happened here recently,
can we be so sure?”
Grace pushed herself to her feet. She took my elbow and led me to a corner of the room. We stood next to the large balsam, its cheerful lights turned off. The gas fireplace, however, was on, and the room was stiflingly hot and stuffy, filled with the cloying smell of medicine and illness. Grace’s voice was a whisper. “What are you saying, Merry?”
“I’m saying someone killed Jack’s son. Can we be so sure it stops there? Maybe they have reason to be after Jack, too.”
“You can’t be serious!”
“I am perfectly serious. It won’t do any harm to give Detective Simmonds a call. She can check for footprints or something.”
“It can do a lot of harm, Merry. I’m working night and day to reassure everyone that this inn is safe and respectable. I can’t have the police tromping around again.”
“Simmonds can be discreet,” I said.
“No. You’re making something out of nothing, Merry.”
“Are you planning to do a deal with Fine Budget?” I asked bluntly.
She blinked. “What?”
“The Fine Budget people are still here. They say the deal’s still on.”
Grace’s eyes shifted. I stood my ground. I felt horrible just thinking it, but was it possible Grace wanted total control of the business for herself? She seemed to be devoted to her husband, but could it all be an act?
She lifted her chin and faced me. “Not that it’s any of your business, Merry Wilkinson, but I am prepared to listen to what they have to say. I have to think about the future, for Jack as well as me. If he doesn’t get back on his feet soon, I’ll have trouble caring for him as well as managing this place. At best we earn a small profit every year. We’ve had a number of cancellations today, for rooms as well as the restaurant. I can’t afford that, not at this time of year. Maybe it is time to sell.” She turned her face toward her husband. Jack was staring at the window, his expression wary. Tea things clattered in the kitchen. “I need my Jack back.” Grace wiped at her eyes.
“What do the doctors say?”
“That he needs time. His body had a major shock with the heart attack, and now he’s grieving the death of Gord. It’s a lot to handle.”
“Grace,” Jack called.
“Just a minute, dear.”
“Don’t minute me,” he said with a trace of his old voice. “I can’t abide people whispering in corners. Never up to any good, whisperers.”
A smile lit up Grace’s face. She hurried to Jack’s side and called to me over her shoulder. “Merry, can I ask you to have a look outside? Then we’ll decide about making that phone call.”
“What phone call?” Jack asked.
I slipped out of the front of the house. I kept to the shoveled sidewalk leading to the lane. A driveway curved around the cottage, heading to the detached garage tucked away at the rear of the property. I walked carefully, watching where I put my feet. The lane had been plowed down to bare concrete and I could see no footprints. Jack and Grace’s cottage backed onto the woods and had a small private garden surrounded by a chain link fence. The gate stood open, held in place by drifts of snow. The sign saying “Private” was covered in sticky snow that obscured most of the letters. It wasn’t coming down now, but strong winds were tossing flakes through the cold air. Two sets of boot prints were clear in the otherwise untouched expanse of snow. A line of prints pointing in each direction left the cottage driveway, went through the open gate, and crossed the lawn. I followed, being very careful not to step on the prints. Drifting snow had not filled in any of the depressions caused by the boots’ treads, so they had to have been laid down only moments ago. I pulled out my cell phone and snapped a couple of pictures. I thought back to the snow-covered garden after Gord’s death. There had been footprints, for sure, but if I’d noticed any details I didn’t remember. These ones had a deep zigzag pattern. The prints went in a straight line, directly from the gate to the back of the house. I followed them across the lawn, up the stairs of the deck, across the deck to the French doors. I peered inside. Jack sat scowling in his chair, Harriet fussed with tea things, and Grace stood by the windows, watching me.
I pointed to the prints, which were directly up against the doors. Someone had stood here, all right, shifting their feet, peering in. Watching Jack. Grace had been at the inn. Had they not known Jack had a caregiver? Did they expect to find him alone in the house?
What would they have done if he had been alone?
I lifted my phone to show it to Grace. She nodded.
I had Diane Simmonds’s personal number in my contacts list so I phoned her rather than 911. I agreed with Grace. Cruisers screeching into the inn under lights and sirens—again!—would not be good for business.
Simmonds answered immediately and said she was on her way. I walked to the end of the driveway to wait. While waiting, I called the shop to check in.
“Jackie O’Reilly’s Christmas Treasures,” Jackie announced when she answered the phone. “The sole employee speaking.”
“Ha. Ha. How are things?”
“So-so. I could be robbing you blind, Merry, you do know that, don’t you?”
“Jackie, I’m not in the mood at the moment. I should be back in about an hour, and Crystal comes in at five so you can have your dinner break then.”
“I’ll try to live that long,” she said.
I hung up without further comment.
Now I had two names to cross off my list: Mark and Grace. Okay, I’m a lousy judge of character, but I’d seen how concerned Grace had been at her husband’s agitated condition. I was positive there was no way she’d do anything to harm Jack. Considering the perilous state of his health, even a shock could kill him.
I didn’t have to wait long before I saw someone pulling into the private lane. I’d told Simmonds to meet me at the cottage. She’d come alone, driving an unmarked car. I told her what had happened and took her around the back to see for herself. Drifting snow was beginning to fill in the prints, smudging the edges. Simmonds squatted beside them and snapped pictures. She pulled a pen out of her coat pocket, laid it beside the prints, and took more pictures. “For measurement,” she said. “These’ll be gone soon.”
She straightened and followed the line of boot prints as I had done. I pointed out my own, and she kept close to them. She took more pictures at the French doors, where the prints were churned up. Obviously someone had stood in place for a while, shifting their feet while they peered inside.
“Is Mr. Olsen fit to answer a few questions?” she asked me when we were back on the pavement of the lane.
“I think so. He was frightened, but it might have given him a spark of interest. Be warned, though. Grace won’t allow you to upset him.”
Simmonds gave me a grin. “In that case, I’ll put away the bright lights and truncheon.”
Back in the house, I gave Grace what I hoped was a reassuring smile. Simmonds spoke to Harriet, the nurse, first. Harriet had seen nothing, she said, and heard nothing. She’d been in the kitchen, which is at the front of the house, overlooking the inn, not the backyard, when she heard Jack yell. She found him highly agitated, struggling to get out of his chair. He said someone had been at the window, watching him, but by the time Harriet checked, she saw nothing. Jack wouldn’t be calmed, so she called Grace.
“I know what I saw,” Jack said. “I’m not totally helpless yet, you know.”
“We don’t think . . .” Grace began.
But all Jack could tell us was that he’d seen a person standing at the French doors, staring in. He didn’t know if it was a man or a woman, and couldn’t guess at their height, other than to say it was around average. The window faced west and the winter sun was low in the sky behind this person. He, or she, wore a bulky, shapeless coat with a hood. Jack looked up, saw someone staring at him, and yelled. The person disappeared when Harriet came into the room.
Simmonds closed her notebook, thanked Jack for his time, and told Harriet and Grace to call her if anything else happened. She headed out. I hurried to follow.
We stood on the steps of the cottage. A few cars drove by as employees arrived to start their shift or headed home at the end of it.
“I can stay,” I said, “until the guard arrives.”
“What guard?” Simmonds said.
“You are stationing someone here to protect Jack, aren’t you? It’s obvious the person who killed Gord is now after Jack.” As I’d been watching Simmonds question the Olsens and Harriet, I kept thinking of Irene Olsen. With Gord dead, it would be unlikely his widow would get anything upon Jack’s death, but I didn’t know the contents of his will. Gord’s children would inherit, but I’d been told Irene and Gord didn’t have kids. Was it possible she was pregnant? That would surely change everything.
“Merry,” Simmonds said, “I don’t have those kinds of resources. And even if I did, I don’t come to the same conclusion you do.”
“It’s obvious. Someone’s after Jack. He’s hardly in any condition to defend himself in case of an attack.”
Simmonds rubbed at her face. “You’re letting your imagination run away with you.”
“That’s ridiculous. I didn’t imagine that hanging doll nailed to my door this morning.”
“No, you didn’t. I believe you when you said you found it there.”
“You believe me?” It never occurred to me, not for a moment, that anyone wouldn’t believe me. Was Simmonds saying she’d considered it possible I’d placed the doll there myself? Why would I do that? “This isn’t about me. It’s about Jack.”
“Mrs. Olsen admits that hotel guests sometimes come into the yard out of curiosity or thinking there’s a shortcut.”
“Yes, but . . . There’s a gate. And a sign.”
“Judging by the amount of snow blocking it, the gate has been open for some time. Signs don’t always stop people, Merry. Not to mention, that particular one is covered with so much snow it’s difficult to make out what it says.”