Snowed Inn

by Heather Horrocks

  We reached the parlor just in time to hear BJ say she was missing some clothes. And suddenly, in a flash, I remembered the wet carpet under the window and wondered if BJ was the person who climbed out onto the outside staircase in the snowstorm. BJ was certainly athletic enough, but why would she have done that? She was supposed to sleep in the carriage house that night, so why didn’t she just go out the back door?

  A new, more sinister thought struck me. Unless BJ was the one who murdered her fiancé, and didn’t want to be seen going back.

  What if she caught Calabria with Martha?

  For the first time, I began to believe perhaps the murderer could indeed be in my house— svelte, sexy, not to mention athletically limber, and supposedly bereaved: BJ.

  “I think we found your missing clothes,” Paul said.

  BJ looked up at him, concern in her eyes.

  “There’s blood on them.”

  “Gregorio’s blood?” Fainting, she would have put a Victorian heroine to shame.

  * * *

  DeWayne carried BJ’s tiny, size six, limp body into the elevator and up to her third floor Southern Sisters suite.

  The other guests we passed on the way— Garrett, Dr. Ray, Alexis and Bonnie— soon crowded in to see if they could help. I guessed keeping the blood-stained clothes found in the dryer a secret was an impossibility, though I supposed Paul intended for it to be public knowledge or he wouldn’t have told BJ.

  When Paul ordered all of us except DeWayne to leave BJ’s room, we gathered on the third floor landing.

  Liz said, “We need something to do. Something wild, something fun, something totally unrelated to a murder.”

  “What do you suggest?” Garrett grinned. “Spin the Bottle?”

  Liz rolled her eyes. “We’re not that big of hicks.”

  “I am,” Lonny said as he jogged up the stairs. “I loved Spin the Bottle.”

  This time, I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, and you had a crush on Cecilia Hoffenphfeffer, too, but we don’t want to bring that up.”

  Lonny looked at me with those big, brown eyes and dark lashes. It was becoming harder to look at him and recall the image of him dragging his teddy bear behind him. Instead, he was more like a big teddy bear, himself. In a low, sexy voice, he said, “I loved playing Spin the Bottle with Cecilia Hoffenphfeffer.”

  He was away on his mission to Brazil for the past two years, back now only six months, and had grown from a gangly kid into a twenty-two-year-old man. Judging by the way he was looking at me right now, I was pretty sure he was well aware that I was now a woman, which I was not ready for.

  “If you’re looking for a touch of Utah, I suggest a rousing game of Uno,” Liz suggested. “Or, if you want to get more aggressive, make it Uno Attack.”

  “When in Utah,” Garrett said, leaving the rest unsaid. So we moved to the dining room and tried to get into a festive mood, catching Grandma and her new admirer, Dr. Ray, and Stephanie in our wake. We settled into seats around the largest table.

  Before long, we were laughing and slapping down penalty cards— “skip,” “draw two,” and the dreaded “draw four”— on each other. One hand into the game, I stood up, passing Clark Harmon as I left the room to bring in drinks for everyone, along with some chips and salsa.

  I found Paul watching the Uno action through the one-way mirror. At first, I had a weird feeling, knowing I’d be watching people eat and listening to them talk without their knowledge, but it seemed necessary for the actors and play.

  Now it seemed like an excellent idea. If it helped us catch the murderer, it was worth every penny it cost me.

  Paul said, “I’ll take one of those sodas.”

  I pulled a cold can of A&W root beer from the extra fridge and handed it to him. “How’s BJ?”

  “She’s okay. She has some color in her cheeks.”

  I blew out a long breath. “Who do you think put those clothes in the washer, Paul?”

  He shook his head. “Darned if I know.”

  “Where’s the food, Vicki?” Liz came through the door. “Hi, Paul. How’s Jennifer? Am I an aunt again?”

  He shook his head. “False labor.”

  “Ooh. That sounds bad.” Liz mocked a shudder. “Is that like when you have a false positive on a pregnancy test?”

  “Not funny, Liz.” Paul’s normal good humor was long gone.

  DeWayne was the next person to push open the kitchen door. “Oh, yeah. Food.” He grabbed a handful of tortilla chips and dipped them, one by one, into the salsa. The look of enjoyment on his face did me good.

  “No double dipping,” Liz warned.

  I pushed the dessert cart, now the chips and salsa cart, into the dining room in time to hear Dr. Ray say he changed his mind and now thought Kevin was the murderer. By his side, Grandma nodded in agreement.

  Martha, wearing a classy, form-fitted navy pant suit, followed me and took a seat at the table next to Garrett.

  When he expounded his psychopath theory, Bonnie jumped on it. “Then what about BJ’s bloody clothes? A psychopath came into the Inn, donned BJ’s clothes, murdered Gregorio, and washed them? If that was a plot, I’d call it contrived.”

  Wow. Good news travels fast. They all knew.

  “Perhaps BJ put them in the washer,” Garrett said.

  Bonnie snorted. “Why would she do that?”

  “Two reasons come to mind,” Garrett said. “Either she’s the murderer and covering her tracks. Or she found the clothes in her room, recognized blood, panicked, and washed them.”

  “But that would be tampering with evidence,” Grandma said. “Surely a writer would know that.”

  “She’s not much of a writer,” said Martha coldly.

  Dr. Ray spoke up in BJ’s defense. “Gregorio’s fault, not BJ’s. It was her first book, and she was not trained by you, my dear. You must make allowances.”

  “I didn’t know you did that.” I’d heard explanations about agents before, but I wondered what information I might learn from Garrett and Martha. I used the line that worked before. “I guess I don’t understand this whole agent thing.”

  Garrett turned his smile on me. “When you start, you might write ten books before you get an agent or editor, because it takes time and a lot of writing to learn the craft. Gregorio, unfortunately, signed us up under his no-escape clause.” Garrett’s eyes narrowed.

  “He only took our souls,” Bonnie said. “It was supposed to be for five years, but his contract didn’t reflect the verbal agreement we made.”

  “I didn’t mind,” Alexis said.

  “You should have.” Garrett shrugged. “People change. Writers change. The whole publishing industry is changing. You can’t box people in forever, but Gregorio was determined to do exactly that. He didn’t want us changing.”

  “Except for BJ, who got a standard fifteen-percent contract.” Alexis sounded bitter. “Her and that horrible book.”

  I looked around the table. The authors were all shaking their heads. I asked, “But it sold anyway?”

  “Oh, yes.” Bonnie laughed. “Gregorio is… was… very good at what he did. And BJ’s writing does show promise; she just hasn’t learned the craft.” Her smile faded. “Gregorio put a great deal of money into marketing her book, money he didn’t put into our last books.”

  “I see,” I said, though things were clear as mud. As I looked around the group, I realized this issue was the crux behind why all of these folks had good motives for wanting him dead. “But if he was putting a lot of the money back into marketing, wasn’t that a good thing?”

  “The agreement was he got fifteen percent as our agent, twenty-five percent as the training fee, and an extra ten percent for marketing. And he had total control over whose books got what priority. Gregorio loved getting us all riled up.” Bonnie smiled. “But enough of that depressing subject.”

  Just then, BJ came in. She looked a little pale, and gave a nervous laugh. “I didn’t want to be alone.”

  Garrett motioned h
er to a seat at the end of the table, away from Martha. “Please, by all means, join us. The group was just applauding my brilliant psychopath theory.”

  Clark picked up his Uno cards. “It’s usually someone the victim knows. Trust me. I’ve done the research on this. I interviewed killers in prison while writing Mystery of Mars.”

  Liz grimaced. “Why on earth would you want to be in the same room with killers?”

  “Hey, you’re an attorney. You probably represent killers.”

  She stared him down. “I do not.”

  “Okay, if you say so. My particular killer and I were separated by glass.” Clark grinned. “Very thick glass and two guards with guns. I was perfectly safe.”

  I caught Grandma’s smirking expression. She was staring at me as if to say, “See? Guns keep people perfectly safe.”

  “I believe we are overlooking the obvious.” Clark shrugged. “It has to be Kevin Higgins.”

  BJ went pale again. “It was not Kevin. I lived with the man for three years. He is the most tenderhearted man ever.”

  “But he punched Gregorio,” I said. “And slashed Lonny and Alexis.”

  “Yes, he did,” BJ admitted, a slight frown on her face as she pondered this puzzling new side to the man she previously shared her life with.

  Martha sighed. “You have shown remarkable lack of judgment, in both your men and your books.”

  The room grew silent.

  Tears worked their way down BJ’s white face. “My books are potential bestsellers.”

  “Did you actually buy that crap Gregorio shoveled out? Did your novel win any awards?” Martha tossed her hair. I couldn’t believe the harshness of her words, but beneath, there was a hint of her vulnerability, and pain over losing her husband to this younger woman. “Love’s Sweet Desire won three for Bonnie. And, Alexis, didn’t Time For Trouble win a RITA? I read the reviews on your books, BJ. No awards are forthcoming.”

  Alexis shook her head at Martha and said, sharply, “Stop it. She’s dealt with enough already. Look at her.”

  I figured BJ made a big mistake in choosing this group’s company over being alone.

  In an apparent effort to change the subject, Garrett said, “We were just talking about Gregorio’s exclusive contract.”

  “Couldn’t you get out of it?” Liz asked, smiling brightly as if she couldn’t feel the cut-it-with-a-knife tension in the room. “There are ways to break contracts. Something that restrictive probably breaks state codes.”

  “I’ve spent a lot of money and time in attorneys’ offices to do exactly that, and I still haven’t succeeded.” Garrett pushed back his hair. “Gregorio really was a master at deal making. But if we ever wanted to branch out into anything new, we had to get his approval. And when you’re a thirty-nine-year-old adult, that could rankle you.”

  “You are so cute when you’re getting rankled.” Martha smiled at him. “Perhaps you killed Gregorio.”

  “But I was with you all evening, darling.”

  “Oh, yes, I remember now,” Martha teased. “Perhaps it was his lovely fiancée.” She turned to BJ. “You were pretty ticked off when he didn’t send me packing.”

  BJ clenched her hands on the edge of the table. “Did you all know Martha was in Gregorio’s room the night of the murder? She was there. She kissed the mirror. You don’t know her like I do. She’s vicious and mean. And a slut.”

  “Oh, you poor baby,” Martha said, and in that moment, I didn’t like her. “You didn’t really think Gregorio was going to marry you, did you? Do you know how many affairs he’s had over the years? How many women he promised he would marry? Do you really think he would have been any more faithful to you than he was to me? Poor baby.”

  Having been dealt more than she could handle, BJ screamed in anger and launched herself at the older woman.

  And, just like that, the Uno game disintegrated into an all-out, knock-down brawl. BJ knocked Martha on her tush and Martha came up with her claws out.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Garrett tried to get between them, but BJ practically climbed up his arm to get at Martha, screaming, “You old witch. He didn’t want you anymore.”

  Martha responded by slapping BJ in the side of the head. “You wouldn’t have kept his interest. He’d have cheated on you within a year. In fact, I’m pretty sure he cheated on you the night he died.”

  It took five minutes to break up the fight and move the combatants into different rooms. Paul asked me to follow him, so I went with him and a disheveled Martha into the library.

  Paul pointed to a chair. Martha, without any argument, sat. I thought she might have quite a shiner by tomorrow. BJ must have landed a good one in that flurry of slapping, scratching, biting, and hair-pulling.

  I was proud of my brother. The fifteen-year-old brother who turned into a tyrant when Liz and I got into one of our few fights had morphed nicely into a capable cop.

  “What are you trying to pull, lady?”

  “I was just—”

  But Paul cut her off with an angry wave of his hand. “I have eyes. I know what you were doing. Let’s start with your explanation of what you were doing when you wrote ‘How does it feel?’ on the bathroom mirror? Do you realize those four words make you a suspect? You don’t need any more trouble.”

  Martha looked blank. “What?”

  “Don’t give me any crap, lady,” Paul said. “I asked you before if you left a message and you said yes. Clear as a bell. In front of a witness, I might add.”

  Martha looked indignant as she glared at Paul. She started to rise, but he pointed one finger in her direction and she chose the smarter action and stayed seated. “The message I meant was the lip print. I didn’t write any words. I didn’t need to. The kiss mark in that shade was more than enough message for BJ.”

  “Then who wrote it?” I blurted.

  Paul motioned me to be silent.

  If only I knew if Martha was telling the truth. Was someone else in that room, after Martha, who wrote the words? And why would they do it?

  Paul lowered his voice, obviously with effort. “Why did you leave your tube of lipstick after you left the lip print?”

  “To rub it in.” Martha sighed, becoming silent for a long moment. “If I had any idea someone was going to murder Gregorio, I wouldn’t have done it. Much as I hate to say it, BJ has been through enough. It’s not really her fault Gregorio couldn’t keep his pants zipped.”

  I looked at her in surprise.

  She caught my gaze. “Yes, even I, the Queen of Mean, can be nice sometimes.” She laughed. “Though after my fight with BJ, perhaps you won’t believe that. I got carried away.”

  The woman could be rude and obnoxious, but there was something about Martha I really liked. Slowly, I smiled at her. Just as slowly, she smiled back.

  As if he couldn’t believe either one of us, Paul shook his head. “Ladies, if you don’t mind, could we go back to my questioning? Ms. Turner, do you realize that, despite your claims to the contrary, this fight makes you look more guilty?”

  “But I’m not,” Martha said indignantly.

  “But I don’t know that for sure, now, do I?”

  * * *

  Paul and DeWayne sent some of the guests to their rooms, like naughty children— Martha and BJ being the naughtiest.

  Garrett, Bonnie, Alexis and Dr. Ray resumed the Uno game, but without heart. I wasn’t in a mood to listen in on their verbal replay of the catfight.

  Since the guests were accounted for and behaving, I settled myself in my library window seat. I wrapped myself in the Utah State Fair prize-winning blue-and-white quilt, designed and sewn by my grandmother Devonshire years ago, and traveled a hundred years into the future. I had no Calgon to take me away, but Clark Harmon’s latest mystery could always do the trick.

  Someone walked past the library and coughed, as I automatically glanced up.

  What? I would have sworn the person before me was Kevin Higgins.

  It was!


  When he saw me, he started running for the front door.

  I began screaming for Paul, DeWayne, deputies, anyone, to come get Kevin, he was here in the house. I ran to the foyer and watched Kevin racing down the driveway as three deputies tackled him at once.

  They caught the murderer. Yes!

  The deputies pulled him to his feet. He was wearing a familiar-looking coat, but I couldn’t remember where I’d seen it before. His other coat, the denim one he wore when he arrived, was still hanging on my hook in the back hall.

  With the three deputies cuffing Kevin, I took a deep breath of relief. This nightmare was nearly over.

  The deputies hauled Kevin’s hind end to the house and inside. Paul instructed them to take him into the dining room. “Vicki, do you have any blankets? He’s not well. And ask Dr. Ray to come up.”

  Liz came along, following me to find Dr. Ray. “I hope he turns out to be the murderer, after all. Then all my guests can go home.”

  She laughed. “Whatever happened to the concept of hospitality?”

  “Lost. All gone. Vanished.” I grinned at her, and teased gently. “When are you going home, by the way?”

  She laughed again. “You can’t get rid of me that easily, Vicki. Besides, Kevin can’t be the murderer, because that would be too easy. After all, what else has gone smoothly this weekend?”

  After sending Dr. Ray to the dining room, Liz and I turned on the microphone. My brother could be pretty cool sometimes. He made sure we could watch.

  Dr. Ray did a quick examination of Kevin, and announced some broken left-sided ribs, a good start on hypothermia, and possible bacterial infection or pneumonia. The good doctor (who apparently still carried a mini kit in case of emergencies) gave Kevin a shot of antibiotics, and said he’d need more medical attention soon, but ought to be okay for some questions.

  He certainly didn’t look good through the one-way mirror. He was wrapped in blankets. I fixed some mugs of hot chocolate and chicken noodle soup and took them into the dining room. His face was gaunt and covered with stubble. “Thanks.”