Giulia pointed over her shoulder. “Behind you is the carriage house, which Mac—everyone calls her Mac—converted into her own living area. The first floor of the inn has the kitchen, dining room, living room, music room, and sunroom. Also a pass-through to the lighthouse. The second floor has two bedrooms and a reading room which she calls a library. The third floor has three bedrooms and that’s it, except for the attic and cellar.”
Frank stooped to scratch the beagle’s ears. “Sounds like a plain old renovated house.”
“Bingo.” Giulia looked in vain for the cats. “There are no TVs.” She cut off Frank’s groan. “But there is Wi-Fi.”
“There’s hope for my fantasy baseball league yet.” He stopped just inside the kitchen and checked the placement of all visible doors.
“Stop being a cop,” Giulia whispered.
“Never off-duty,” he said, “especially when my wife is here to evict a territorial ghost with an affinity for setting fires.”
“That’s not what happened.”
Frank stopped at their doorway. “Sand Dollar room?”
“It has atmosphere.” Giulia opened the top dresser drawer.
“What it doesn’t have is a TV.” He tossed underwear, shorts, and shirts in more or less the same order as hers. “What’s the Wi-Fi password? Never mind. I see it here.” He typed into his phone, scowled, and waited.
“Ah, ESPN, how I love you.” With the phone in his left hand, he spread out the other papers. “We can get pizza and beer delivered. Shrimp baskets too. I like the beach.”
Giulia opened the top drawer and fluttered her slinky nightgown until Frank looked away from his phone.
His eyebrows arched, but he didn’t comment. Instead, he set down his phone, walked to the bed, and pushed on the mattress several times until it bounced. “No creaks,” he said. “Good.”
“Come outside and I’ll give you the whole fire story.”
“Not yet. I have to find this YouTube video.”
Giulia groaned. “You’re supposed to be on my side.”
He typed into his browser, typed again; a third time. A fourth. His finger touched the screen and after a good twenty seconds Giulia heard Solana’s voice describing Giulia’s “pall.”
Frank’s face got redder than his hair until he laughed so hard he drowned out the sound from the phone.
“Muirnín, that’s priceless. Who do I thank for this?”
Giulia left the room without answering. Frank caught up to her on the stairs. The cleaners were still working on the patio so they walked out to the porch.
The driver’s door of a slate blue Prius closed on Solana’s dark hair. Giulia put a hand out to stop Frank. They didn’t move until the car drove away down the street.
“That was the psychic.”
“But I wanted to ask her about the Veeeiled Woooman.”
Giulia stomped down the porch steps. Frank followed, laughing again.
Twenty-One
Giulia bought a tangerine snow cone and Frank a hot dog as they walked along the boardwalk parallel to the beach.
She started with last night’s three-way Ouija board session, segued to the fire, recited a précis of everything she knew about the guests, and ended with the sheaf of printouts waiting for her in their room.
The beachfront was packed. Jimmy Buffett songs played from the speakers at one bar. A block farther on, a second bar played sixties retro. Down the streets between the bars, different shops sold t-shirts, salt water taffy, sunscreen, magazines, and disposable cameras. “I didn’t know those still existed,” Giulia said.
They hung a right down the street with the least crowded sidewalks and tossed their food papers into a trashcan shaped like a sandcastle.
“It sucks that the fingerprints were a bust,” Frank said.
“I know, but the suspect pool is small enough for that not to matter.”
One storefront appeared to have the swimsuit market to itself. A coffee shop advertised banana daiquiri smoothies. Frank pointed out three restaurants for them to try. When they returned to the beach, speedboats and Sea-Doos crowded the water farther out on the lake.
“Ever been on a Sea-Doo?” Frank said.
“Never.”
“We need to shoehorn in an hour for that. All in the name of our cover story, of course.”
“The rental place should be right around here. Mac’s nephew runs it.”
Frank pointed. “Second pier to the right.”
A tall, white-haired man was choosing between small motorboats when Giulia and Frank walked onto the dock. Two grade school kids sprawled on the dock flat on their stomachs, staring into the water. Three sets of fishing gear, two small and one large, lay at the adult’s feet.
A man about Giulia’s age was describing the different features of each boat. His retro-preppie look wasn’t completely out of place. Where else to wear deck shoes minus socks if not on the waterfront? Although no preppie worth the name should have the beginnings of that beer gut. He wore his brown hair in the 1980s blow-dried style too. To complete the look it really ought to have been blond.
The old man chose a boat and paid. The kids grabbed their paraphernalia and bounced into the boat, rocking it something wicked. The old man got them settled and the preppie cast the boat off. Then he turned to Frank with a business smile.
“Morning. Looking to rent a boat?”
“Yep,” Frank said. “We’re staying at that lighthouse place and it’s girly. I need some real recreation.”
“Liar,” Giulia said. “You said it reminded you of your grandmother’s.” She wasn’t quite sure if Frank was trying to create a male bonding moment to get the nephew to open up easier, so she waited for a cue.
“What do you have in mind?” the preppie said. “Fishing? Water skiing? Sea-Doo?”
Frank turned to Giulia. “Yeah, babe—Sea-Doo. Don’t you want to scream across the lake, sending up fountains of spray with the wind whipping your hair?”
Giulia made the face she got when a skunk walked by their house. “My new bathing suit is meant to be seen, not to get wet.”
Frank rolled his eyes as he turned his head toward the preppie. “Guess it’s fishing.”
Giulia walked away to the souvenir shop where the street met the dock and made a small show of evaluating the handcrafted jewelry in the window. The window also gave her a faint reflection of Frank and his new bud. They laughed. Frank mimed the length of a caught fish; the preppie acted impressed.
They walked several steps over to a narrow two-story house farther back from the water’s edge. The first floor was taken up by the rental and repair shop.
The preppie took a brochure from a rack outside the door and pointed out several things in it to Frank. After a few more words, Frank came over to Giulia.
“I have a new soulmate,” Frank said as they walked back onto the crowded beach. “Walt and I can’t understand why women buy bathing suits that aren’t supposed to go in the water. Also, I may have embellished the length of that pike I caught on my last fishing trip.”
“Father Carlos is always ready to hear your confession,” Giulia said.
“That’s still better than confessing to my own brother,” Frank said.
“It’s the hazard of all families with a priest as a sibling. If you ever have to confess to Pat, I will wheedle a recording out of him despite the seal of the confessional.”
“Hell will freeze over first.”
Three preteens ran into them, apologized, and kept running. Two smaller children chased after the older ones, trying and failing to aim gigantic squirt guns.
Frank said, “My pal Walt could be a Casablanca-like fount of information. Everybody comes to the boat dock on a lake.”
“Then by all means spend more time with him.”
“I hear and obey.” Frank stuck the brochure in his pocket. “A two-hour small boat rental is only fifty bucks. I can get in some fishing and take him for a beer afterward.”
Giulia said, “This afternoon is dedicated to research on guests and staff. If the Wi-Fi is always as slow as it has been today, I’ll have to go back to Cottonwood Monday to get in any useful searching.”
“Leaving me on my own with Sea-Doos at hand. Awesome.”
They reached the Stone’s Throw area of the beach and climbed the short hill. The patio was empty but large “WET PAINT” tent signs blocked the cushionless furniture. The older man who’d tended the bonfire last night was hammering croquet wickets into the abused grass. A bocce ball court on the opposite side of the patio still needed raking, but the sides had been replaced.
“Game later?” Frank said.
“Always. First, though, studying.”
“For you. For me, ESPN.”
They entered the sunroom, where Roy and CeCe were playing Monopoly with Marion and Anthony. Giulia introduced Frank. Roy and Gino gave Frank elaborate, in-the-know winks when he left to take Giulia to their room.
“Afternoon sex. Ah, vacation,” Frank said. But when they closed themselves into their room, he left the bed to Giulia and her research and took his phone into the bathroom.
“What the hell kind of a shower is this?”
Twenty-Two
At least three hours had passed and Frank was asleep next to Giulia’s piles of paper on the bed when shrieks filled the hall on the other side of their closed door. Giulia reached it first and yanked it open. The shrieks quadrupled in volume.
Marion stood on the polished hall floor covered only with a bath towel.
Brown goo oozed down her hair and glopped onto her shoulders. Tendrils of gunk stretched thinner and thinner as they dripped onto her chest and rolled off toward her feet.
“Mac! Oh my God! Mac, where are you?”
The gunk oozed onto her cheek. Marion opened her mouth again and a tendril ran into it. Her resulting shrieks threatened to shatter the stained glass window.
Anthony came out of the room behind her, towel in hand. Marion swatted it away.
CeCe and Roy, in matching bathing suits, stood on the stairs to the third floor, open-mouthed. Mac and Matthew the handyman, whose face mimicked Grumpy Cat in human form, pounded up the stairs from the first floor. Both of them stopped and stared for a few seconds.
Marion’s latest screech cut off in the middle and the eerier noise of groaning pipes replaced it. She flung out her arms at Mac and the bath towel slipped. Anthony grabbed it in time to prevent a wardrobe malfunction.
“It’s coming out of the shower.” Marion’s voice acquired the tones of a supervisor chastising an underling.
Mac deflected her guest’s wrath with action. “Matthew, the shower.”
Grumpy Cat clomped into the room and the pipes stopped moaning a moment later.
Giulia came forward and touched Marion’s shoulder. “Would you like to use our shower while yours is being fixed?”
More brown gunk hit Marion’s shoulders. She shuddered. “Thank you. Yes, I would very much like to use a shower that works.”
Mac’s expression said she was calculating the odds the couple would cancel their stay and demand a refund. Giulia led Marion past Frank into their room.
“Honey, could you maybe go check out boat rentals for tomorrow?”
“Sure.” He headed downstairs.
“Mac,” Giulia said, “may we have a few extra towels?”
“Of course.” Mac turned to Anthony. “Can I offer you some lemonade or iced coffee while your room is being attended to?”
He called after his wife, “Honey, I’ll take your purse with me,” returned to the room and came out with a tasteful white leather bag. “Iced coffee, thanks, Mac.”
Giulia repacked all the papers and sat in the room’s single chair, reading the latest issue of Cosmo. More clomping and pipes banging came through from the hall. When the shower stopped, she turned on her phone’s voice memo function and slipped the phone into the front pocket of her capris.
Marion came out of the bathroom, hair plastered to her head and wrapped in clean towels.
“I used both of your bath towels. I’m sorry.”
Giulia put down the magazine and stood. “That’s quite all right. Mac is bringing up some more.”
“Thank you for the use of your shower. I’ve never been so disgusted in my life.” Her voice had reverted to its usual sophistication now that she wasn’t imitating an angry crow. “Now that your husband’s arrived, do you have plans for dinner?”
“Not yet. We’ve been celebrating our first day by taking a nap.”
“Why don’t you come to dinner with us? The Oyster Shuck caters to the boating crowd. The owner knows us well.”
“We’d be happy to. I’ll track down Frank and meet you…downstairs?”
“Excellent. I’ll be only fifteen minutes. I need more than one martini tonight.”
Giulia erased the unprofitable voice memo and went in search of Frank. She found him practicing bocce on the restored court.
“You’re letting your wrist snap too much on release,” she said.
“Yeah? Show me.”
Giulia stepped into the long, rectangular bocce pit and picked up a ball. “Like this.” She raised the ball in both hands and sighted along them for the pallino, cocked her right arm back, and half-threw, half-rolled the ball off her hand, following through with her entire arm aligned. The larger ball stopped three inches to the right of the tiny target ball.
“Bah. I’m out of practice.”
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, you call that out of practice? Let’s find someplace to eat so I can drown my athlete’s sorrows.”
“We already have dinner plans. Marion invited us to dine with them at the restaurant all the boating people patronize. They know the owner.”
Frank stepped onto the grass. “Dine, huh? Guess they don’t serve regular old fried fish and beer at this joint?”
“Oh, but of course. Overpriced imported beer and panko-crusted trout with truffle sauce.”
The waiter seated Frank, Giulia, Marion, and Anthony, and handed them menus. Giulia opened hers to the clipped-in paper with today’s specials and almost lost it when she read the top one: Panko-encrusted smallmouth bass with a Guinness reduction.
“Giulia, I forgot what business you said you were in,” Marion said after she’d partaken of the life-giving elixir called martini.
“I manage a coffee shop.” Giulia sipped a Guinness.
“Oh, how nice. Do you have much employee turnover? Anthony has such a difficult time finding a manager whom he can trust to keep the workers in line.”
Giulia put on Polite Smile Number Three. Marion had slotted her into a lower social sphere, which was fine with Giulia. Whenever people considered Giulia beneath themselves, she took it as a gift. People didn’t bother to censor their discussions around the lower classes.
“Our turnover isn’t too bad. It’s worst when college starts up every August.”
Anthony and Frank were talking network configurations over Coronas. Like at the boat dock earlier, Frank once again proved himself the perfect partner. He ranked Corona a notch above “lite” beers; in other words, only to be consumed under extreme duress. Yet here he was, using it to bond with a possible suspect to pump information.
Marion patronized Giulia as they ate panko-encrusted bass. Giulia asked her advice on hiring high school seniors versus college students. Marion instructed. Giulia splashed hot sauce on her hand-cut fries. Marion’s expression patted Giulia on the head for her plebian tastes.
Giulia struck. “Thank you for recommending this restaurant. The food is excellent.�
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“We eat here at least twice every time we stay at the Stone’s Throw. This is your first time, you said?”
“Yes. We’re both so busy we had to find a place on short notice. We seem to have chosen well.”
Marion finished her second martini and signaled for another. “This is our fourth year. Stone’s Throw is our exception. We stay at Westin resorts as a rule.”
The martini arrived along with the dessert menu. Giulia nudged Frank. “Split a brownie sundae with me?”
“I’m ready to do my duty as a husband.” He ordered coffee for both of them.
Marion ordered strawberry shortcake and a small kirsch. Anthony chose coffee and brandy. Giulia hadn’t felt this bourgeois in years. No, in ever.
“Stone’s Throw is roughing it,” Anthony said, “but it’s also research. There’s money in a bed and breakfast if the location is right. The historic value and the personal touches are what we’re looking for.”
Dessert arrived. Marion poured the kirsch over her shortcake. “A chef who wants to be away from the pressure of a four- or five-star restaurant or a recent graduate of a good school is necessary.”
Giulia swallowed a mouthful of brownie, ice cream, and real whipped cream. “So you’re not looking to run a B&B yourself?”
“Oh, no. I don’t cook.”
She sure drank, though. Three martinis and one liqueur and not a slur in her voice. Giulia’s limit was two beers.
Anthony sipped his brandy. “We’ve recommended Stone’s Throw to several friends. No one’s been disappointed. Frank, tell me more about using terminals instead of separate towers.”
The couples split after dinner. Marion and Anthony had an appointment with a local artist whose lake views Anthony was considering for one of his offices. Frank took Giulia by the arm in a proper protective manner and turned toward the beach.
“My cheeks ache from keeping up that empty smile,” Giulia said after a few minutes when they’d walked far in the opposite direction.
Second To Nun (A Giulia Driscoll Mystery Book 2) Page 10