Murder Most Maine

by Karen MacInerney

  “I have to measure and plate everything, so don’t worry about dishes, but if you could set out the silverware and the cups, that would be great. I’ll get everything set up in the kitchen.”

  “Will do,” she said, and headed into the dining room to get the tables ready for the morning. When the door swung shut behind her, I reached for the cookie jar. The lid was off and I was breathing in the aroma of ginger and cinnamon, fingers about to close around a cookie, when my sagging willpower kicked in. I pulled my hand out and thrust the lid back down.

  “Oatmeal,” I told myself sternly. “You’re in here to prep the oatmeal.”

  I had just opened the pantry and pulled out a can of pureed pumpkin when Gwen pushed back through the kitchen door. “Done already?” I asked.

  She sucked in her breath. “Not yet. But John’s here.”

  “Really?” I said, wondering why he hadn’t come to the kitchen door. “Why don’t you tell him to come join me in the kitchen?”

  Gwen bit her lip and said nothing.

  “What is it?” I asked, although something told me I didn’t want to know.

  “I’ll go tell him,” she said, “but right now he’s on the couch in the other room. With Vanessa.”

  I put the can of pumpkin down and leaned against the counter, feeling a little light-headed. And not just because of the near-starvation diet.

  “Why don’t I take care of the kitchen while you go talk to him?” Gwen offered.

  “No,” I said. No way I was going to hover around like a jealous girlfriend. When I was done in the kitchen, I’d consider heading into the living room, but I wasn’t going to go scurrying off to keep John from talking with another woman. Even if that woman was gorgeous—and an ex-girlfriend to boot. “I think I’ll finish up in here. If he wants to see me, he knows where to find me.”

  “Are you sure?” she said softly.

  I nodded and reached blindly for the pumpkin pie spice as the door swung shut behind Gwen. Stay cool, I told myself. They’re old friends, that’s all. And besides, you need the business.

  After measuring out the oatmeal and spices and setting up the coffee pot (I’d recently invested in one with a timer, which had made dark winter mornings much more bearable), I checked my reflection in the window over the sink and prepared to face John. And Vanessa.

  Vanessa’s throaty laugh greeted me as I pushed through the kitchen door. I ignored the pang of jealousy that clutched at my chest as I arranged my face in a pleasant expression and headed past Gwen into the living room.

  Just as Gwen said, they were on my overstuffed blue sofa, in front of the fire I had lit earlier that afternoon. On opposite ends, at least, but their body language was anything but distant; Vanessa was semi-stretched out on the couch, her delicate sock-clad toes just inches from John’s knee, and John was leaning toward her, green eyes glued to her heart-shaped face.

  “Hi,” I said.

  “Natalie!” Vanessa said, turning to look at me. The glow of the fire deepened the hollows under her cheekbones and made her dark eyes and glossy hair shine. “We were just reminiscing about old times. Won’t you join us?”

  John’s gaze flickered to me—a little guiltily, perhaps?—and I could see what a handsome couple the two of them made. They looked like those pictures you see in House Beautiful magazine—the happy couple relaxing in their gorgeous period home, enjoying a few hours by the fire. Only this was my inn, not theirs—and besides, they weren’t a couple. But they used to be, a little voice whispered in my head.

  “Actually, I think I’ll just turn in early,” I said, determined to be nonchalant about the whole gorgeous ex-girlfriend thing.

  “Are you sure?” John asked.

  “I have to get up early tomorrow to get breakfast going,” I said.

  Vanessa stretched like a cat and checked her watch. “You know, it is getting late. I should probably head up, too.” Her eyes slid to John. “We’re jogging out to the lighthouse in the morning, if you want to come. It’ll be just like old times.”

  “Only with a lot more company,” I joked stiffly.

  John gave me a tight smile, but before I could pursue the lighthouse issue further, Dirk appeared in the doorway. His blue eyes took in the scene on the couch, and Vanessa stiffened slightly. At that moment, Cat came down the stairs and headed past us to join her friends in the dining room, evidently oblivious to the tense scene that was playing out before her.

  “What’s up?” Vanessa asked.

  Whatever charm Dirk had must have been used up on the women who were paying for the retreat, because his voice was brusque. “I need to talk to you,” he said to Vanessa, ignoring John and me. “Now.”

  “Of course,” she said, with an apologetic glance at John. She got up and hurried toward the glowering trainer, then turned back to John. “I hope you’ll join us tomorrow morning.”

  “Sure,” he said, unfolding himself from my sofa and stretching his lean torso.

  “Oh, that would be wonderful!” Vanessa said, beaming at him. Dirk didn’t look like he agreed; he put a proprietary arm around her, glancing over his shoulder at John, who was eyeing him with frank dislike. A movement at the other end of the room caught my attention. It was Bethany, standing at the dining room door, her face half in shadow. When she saw me looking at her, she stepped back out of sight.

  After Dirk and Vanessa left, I turned to John. “You and Vanessa are awfully chummy.”

  He shrugged. “It’s been years; there’s a lot to catch up on.” He glanced toward the doorway that she and Dirk had just disappeared through. “I get a bad feeling about that guy. The trainer—Dirk.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. Something about how Vanessa reacted when his name came up. They’re supposedly partners in this business, but she didn’t want to talk about him at all.”

  That made perfect sense to me, assuming the rumors were true and Vanessa and Dirk were an item. After all, if you’re angling for your ex-boyfriend, you don’t generally want to talk about your current flame.

  “Do you know how long they’ve known each other?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “But from what I’ve seen, I don’t like the guy. There’s something shady about him.” He stretched again and glanced at his watch. “I’d better let you get some sleep.”

  “What about the ‘to-be-continued-later’?” I asked, remembering this morning’s kiss in the kitchen. It had only been hours ago, but right now it felt like years.

  “You look like you’re pretty busy,” he said, leaning down to kiss my forehead. Which wasn’t quite what I had in mind. “How about we save it for a time when you don’t have a pack of starving guests to feed?”

  “Are you sure?” I asked.

  “Positive.” He kissed me again—this time on the lips, but so lightly I could barely feel it. “See you in the morning?”

  “Sure,” I said, feeling a gaping hole open up in my stomach. “Sleep well,” I said, trying not to sound hurt.

  “You too,” he said, giving my arm a squeeze and pulling on his jacket. When I heard the outside door close behind him, I stalked off to the kitchen.

  Gwen was there, nursing a cup of tea. “There is no way I’m going to Fernand’s tomorrow morning,” she said.

  “Why not?”

  She gestured toward the door John had just exited. A few raindrops gleamed on the wooden floor. “And let John revisit the lighthouse with Vanessa? Without you?”

  “The rest of the group will be there.”

  “And so will you,” she said.

  I bit my lip and stared at the carriage house. “Do you think I need to be?”

  “If I were you, I wouldn’t miss it,” she said.

  I closed my eyes and massaged my temples. Only six more days, I told myself. She couldn’t win him over in six days.

  Or could she?

  ___

  The combination of my rumbling stomach, my worries about keeping an inn full of dieting gue
sts happy for a week, and my nagging concerns about John and Vanessa kept me tossing and turning for hours. Biscuit abandoned me at midnight, annoyed at having her beauty sleep continuously interrupted, and at 1 a.m. I headed to the kitchen to make another cup of chamomile tea. I was just dunking a tea bag into the mug when I caught a flash of light in the darkness. I glanced out the front window; there, at the top of the hill, shone a pair of headlights. As I watched, they turned and disappeared back down the road. Who would be driving by the inn at one in the morning? I wondered. I waited for the lights to return, but they didn’t. I’d ask at the store tomorrow, I decided; someone there would know.

  My stomach rumbled audibly, and I was about to give in to temptation and grab a handful of gingersnaps when I heard the squeak of the front door. I closed the lid on the jar and pushed through the kitchen door, adrenaline pumping through me.

  Who was coming in—or out—in the middle of the night?

  I crept through the dining room and peered around the corner into the front hall. It was Vanessa, her black hair damp with rain. “Vanessa?”

  She looked up, startled. Her cheeks were flushed, and her dark eyes shone. “Oh my gosh. You scared me!”

  “You scared me, too,” I said. “What were you doing out there? Is everything okay?”

  Her eyes darted to the door, then back to me. “I had a hard time sleeping,” she said, “so I went for a walk.”

  “In this rain?” I asked.

  “It’s kind of a nice change from California,” she said. “I just spent a few weeks there.”

  “Did you see the car outside?”

  Vanessa blinked at me with doe eyes. “Car? No, I didn’t.”

  Yeah, right. “It was up at the top of the hill, just a moment ago.”

  She shook her head slowly, then shrugged. “I must have missed it. Anyway, I’m off to sleep now. See you in the morning. Eight o’clock, right?”

  “Right,” I said as she disappeared up the stairs. Who had she just met with? I wondered. Tom Lockhart again? Or another man she’d seduced and left, years ago?

  I glanced out the window at the falling rain and retreated to the kitchen, where I retrieved my cup of tea and headed back upstairs. Biscuit had returned to the bed in my absence. She snuggled in at my feet as I pulled the covers around me once more, struggling to get to sleep—and hoping it wasn’t John that Vanessa had come in from seeing.

  ___

  Seven o’clock the next morning found me standing in my kitchen, clutching a mug of coffee in one hand and feeding eggs into a pot of cold water with the other. Sleep had not come until well after two the previous night, and even though I was on my second cup of coffee, I wanted nothing more than to crawl back under the covers with Biscuit.

  When the last egg was nestled in the water, I turned on the burner and took another swig of coffee before retrieving the can of pumpkin. The oatmeal wouldn’t take long to cook, so I had a few minutes of peace—and time to get something into my empty stomach—before tackling the next steps. I tossed a piece of wheat bread into the toaster—it wasn’t a cinnamon roll, but at least it would get me through to breakfast—and sat down at the kitchen table, staring through the window at the green world outside.

  The sky had dumped a few more inches of rain onto the already soaked earth, but the plants didn’t seem to mind a bit; I swear the grass had doubled in height overnight. I hoped the group planned to take the road, and not the cliff path, down to the lighthouse this morning. If they didn’t, they were at risk of being mired in the mud.

  The rumble of a car interrupted my reverie; it grew steadily louder, and then stopped outside the inn. A moment later, Charlene appeared at my kitchen doorstep, stamping mud from her boots and trying to rearrange her hair under the hood of her green jacket.

  “You’re here early,” I said as she peeled off her boots at the kitchen door.

  “Wouldn’t want to miss the jog,” she said. “Although how they’re going to get to the lighthouse in this, I have no idea.” She eyed the mug in my hand. “Got any coffee? I’m still half asleep.”

  “Coming right up,” I said, pouring her a mug as she hung her slicker on the hook by the door. Under her jacket she was dressed in a form-fitting pink sweater and designer jeans. “You’re jogging in that?” I asked.

  “Beauty before practicality,” she said, pulling up a chair at my big farm table.

  “Maybe you’ll just have to stay in by the fire,” I suggested.

  “That would be lovely,” Charlene sighed. “I wouldn’t mind a little one-on-one time with Dirk. As long as we could get rid of all those other people.”

  I laughed. “Better watch out. Rumor is that he and Vanessa are a couple.”

  She pushed out her lower lip. “Really?”

  “I can’t tell,” I confessed. “They don’t seem very close if they are.”

  “Speaking of close, what’s up between Vanessa and John?”

  “I don’t know. But they’ve been doing a bit more ‘catching up’ than I’m comfortable with. And Tom Lockhart was here last night, with fifteen pounds of free lobster.”

  “Uh-oh,” she said.

  “Exactly. He seemed absolutely smitten. Does Lorraine know?”

  “I don’t know, but you’d better watch out for that one,” Charlene said, cradling the mug of coffee between her hands as she slid into a kitchen chair. “Eleazer told me last night that she broke a lot of hearts on the island.”

  “Was John’s one of them?”

  “One of many, from what I’ve heard.” She took a sip of coffee and plunked the mug down on the table. “That woman,” she said, “is a menace.”

  “I’m positive she met with someone in the middle of the night. There was a car at the top of the hill, and she came in a few minutes later.”

  Charlene arched an eyebrow. “Sounds to me like Dirk’s a single man, then. Which is good news for you, too,” she added. “John doesn’t have a car on the island, so she must have been out with someone else.”

  “You’re right,” I said, feeling a bit more chipper all of a sudden. “How come I didn’t think of that?”

  “That’s what friends are for,” she replied, glancing at the clock. “By the way, shouldn’t you be cooking something? It’s almost seven thirty.”

  “Already?” I glanced at the clock; she was right. I grabbed my now-cold toast from the toaster and tore off a bite before opening the pumpkin. I was scraping orange goo out of a measuring cup when Gwen trundled downstairs.

  “You’re up early,” I said.

  “You’re jogging up to the lighthouse along with John and Vanessa,” she reminded me.

  “Good plan,” Charlene said. “I wouldn’t leave him with that woman for a moment. It’s not that I don’t trust John. It’s just …”

  “Exactly,” said Gwen.

  I glanced out the window and shuddered, thinking of my last attempt to jog. I added a teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice to the oatmeal, suffusing the kitchen with the warm scents of allspice and nutmeg. After stirring it a few times, then stepped away from the stove. “The things we do for love,” I grumbled as I headed upstairs to find a decent pair of shoes.

  When I walked into the dining room in my sneakers a little while later, Bethany, who had donned a rather tight black sweat suit for this morning’s outing, was standing beside Vanessa, who had hardly touched her oatmeal.

  “Where’s Dirk?” Bethany asked. “Isn’t he going to be leading the hike?”

  “I’m sure he’ll be down at any moment,” said Vanessa, who didn’t seem to be showing any signs of sleep deprivation despite her late-night sortie. “We don’t leave until nine, so why don’t you go ahead and enjoy this delicious breakfast!”

  Bethany reluctantly returned to her table, and after one more bite of the fragrant oatmeal, Vanessa headed for the stairs, leaving her charges to grumble over the small portions.

  “This oatmeal is delicious,” said Cat, who had traded in her formless blue sweater for an equally form
less purple sweatshirt and a pair of black cotton pants. “Just like pumpkin pie—only healthy!”

  “I would have preferred an omelet,” complained Sarah as she cracked a soft-boiled egg onto a piece of dry toast. She was looking smart in white-trimmed pink workout pants and a matching jacket. “I don’t know how I’m going to run on this little food.”

  “Just think how gorgeous you’ll be for the reunion,” Boots reminded her, reaching down to adjust her sleek black Spandex jogging pants. She’d paired them with a tank top and a trim aqua jacket that brought out the deep blue of her eyes. I tugged at my own bulky jacket enviously; Boots, I decided, should give classes to full-figured women on dressing to flatter your shape.

  “I’m not sure it’s worth it,” Sarah said, adjusting her waistband. “Did Vanessa say there would be snacks along the way?”

  “I hope so,” said Cat, “or she’s going to have to carry me back.”

  “I don’t know. Ever since we got here, I’ve just had so much more energy,” said Bethany. “It must be all the clean eating.”

  Sarah rolled her eyes and took a bite of egg and toast as I headed back to the kitchen.

  “I’ll serve the rest of the guests. You’d better go get ready,” my niece said.

  “Thanks, Gwen. Marge should be here by nine thirty. Why don’t you plan on heading over to Fernand’s as soon as she gets here?”

  “We’ll see how it goes,” she replied, tucking a stray strand of dark hair behind one ear. I couldn’t help smiling to myself as I headed upstairs to change. When Gwen first arrived, her housekeeping skills had been minimal at best. Now, she was concerned that the help I’d hired wasn’t up to her exacting standards.

  At nine o’clock, everyone had left the dining room, Gwen was elbow-deep in soapy water again, and the rest of us were all assembled outside the inn, breathing in the cold morning air. The sun had come out from behind the clouds again, and the contrast of the robin’s-egg-blue sky against the green and gray of the island was breathtaking.

  John showed up as we gathered in front of the inn, and after kissing me briefly on the top of the head, had been pulled into Vanessa’s orbit. As Vanessa smoothed down her sleek black windbreaker, I pulled my puffy jacket around me, wishing yet again that I had invested in something a bit more stylish. I looked around at the rest of the group, who were standing on the front porch with their hands burrowed into their pockets. Things with John might not be going swimmingly, but I was happy to see that despite the size of the breakfast, everybody looked pretty chipper. There was only one thing missing: Dirk.