“Les, she never said one word to me about it,” Aaron said huskily. “I just… I assumed you would be taking over. Frankly, I thought that’s why you married her.”
Les bristled, greatly offended. “Thanks a lot, pal. It’s nice to know what you think of me after all of these years.”
“Forgive me for being honest, Les,” Aaron said. “If you’d rather I lie to you, I certainly will.”
“I’d rather you go screw yourself.”
“Look, I am aware that you were very fond of Mother,” Aaron acknowledged, retreating somewhere over near the neighborhood of an apology. “I didn’t mean for that to sound so harsh.”
“No, I’m sure you did,” Les said angrily. “You’re known for choosing your words carefully. Hell, you’re goddamned famous for it.” Les got up and went over to the window, his shoulders noticeably hunched. In mourning, the ruddy innkeeper seemed older and frailer. “I simply wanted you to know that I’d be happy to stay on in an employee capacity, if you wish,” he said, gazing out at the frozen river and the snow-capped hills of Essex beyond. “I’m sure Jory and Jase would like to stay on, too.”
“Les, it’ll be months before Norma ‘s estate is settled,” Carly pointed out. “Aren’t we getting a bit ahead of ourselves?”
“Not if Aaron wants to keep the inn open while we’re in probate,” he replied. “Our food and liquor suppliers will have to be taken care of, our kitchen staff paid. We’re running a business here.”
“Well, I certainly don’t wish to run it,” Aaron said loftily.
“Like I said, I’m happy to stay on,” Les persisted. “But I can’t access the inn’s accounts without some form of temporary legal authority. We have to sit down with Whit and draw up an agreement.”
“Les, my mother is dead upstairs,” Aaron said frostily. “I don’t wish to talk about food and liquor suppliers right now, okay?”
Les held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Fine, some other time. But if it’s not soon then I’ll have to contact the guests who’ve booked reservations and tell them we’re shutting down.”
“Do not try to strong-arm me,” Aaron warned him.
“I’m not trying to strong-arm you, Aaron. I’m simply explaining the reality of our situation to you so we can deal with it responsibly. This mattered to Norma. It mattered a great deal.”
“Relax, Acky.” Carly reached over and patted Aaron’s hand. “Les is just as upset as you are.”
“I should think more so,” Ada said. “After all, he’s the one whose life has been turned completely upside down.”
“Wait one second…” Aaron said suddenly, his eyes narrowing at Les. “It just occurred to me what this is all about. You’re afraid I’m going to sell this place to some big hotel chain, aren’t you? And then you’ll be out of a job and a home. That’s what this is really about, am I right, Les? Tell me I’m right.”
Les refused to respond. Just moseyed over to the pool table and rolled a ball against a cushion, watching as it caromed back toward him.
“I have no intention of selling Astrid’s Castle,” Aaron assured him. “Mother would want it to stay in the family. As far as I’m concerned, you can continue to run it for as long as you choose.”
“Thank you, Aaron,” Les said faintly. “That’s good to know.”
“After all, I happen to enjoy a seven-figure income,” Aaron boasted. “It’s not as if I’ll need the money anytime soon-or ever, for that matter.”
Ada let out a heavy sigh. “Dear Norma was right. You are very young, Aaron.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he demanded.
“It means, dear boy, that it is always a mistake to predict one’s own future. Because if you can imagine it happening, if it is rational and makes good sound sense to you, then that is not what will happen.”
Aaron frowned at her. “What will?”
“Life will.”
A life, Des reflected, in which Carly might very well decide to hire herself that shark lawyer and divorce him, in which case she could end up with the seven-figure income he so enjoyed. Hell, she might even end up with Astrid’s Castle.
Des heard some polite throat clearing and turned to find Jory standing there in the taproom doorway, an ingratiating smile on her face. Des wondered if she’d been there long enough to overhear that Aaron would be the new lord and master of Astrid’s Castle.
“Les, I’ll be plating breakfast in five minutes,” she informed him, her pink-cheeked face betraying not a thing. “And, believe me, the food won’t stay hot for long.”
“Thank you, Jory. You’d best let the boys know, too.”
“Hannah’s outside fetching them.”
Now Des heard the stamping of feet out in the entry hall and the resounding echo of husky male voices.
Hannah appeared behind Jory in the doorway. “I encountered very little resistance when I said the words ‘hot’ and ‘food,’” she reported.
“I believe I shall dress,” Ada announced, getting slowly to her feet. “I can’t stand to eat in my bathrobe. It’s a detestable habit.”
“Don’t take too long, Ada,” warned Jory as the old lady wafted past her. “Or your food will be ice cold.”
“Feel free to start without me,” Ada said with a dismissive wave.
The rest of them started out of the taproom in the direction of the dining hall, where the lumberjacks were trying to warm themselves before a roaring fire, all three of them looking frozen and starved. With his full beard and stocking cap, Jase looked as if he’d just wandered in from the Great North Woods. He also gave off a noticeably gamy odor.
“Hey, Master Sergeant,” Mitch exclaimed, his frigid hands held out toward the flames.
“Back at you, Mr. Bunyan.”
Teddy wandered in as well, furrows etching his long thin face. He seemed lost in his grief, very far away.
“I think I’ll go upstairs for a minute, too,” Hannah decided. “Try and do something about my face.”
“Good,” barked Ada, who was gliding toward the stairs. “Without your makeup on, you look as if you belong behind the counter of the Burger King.”
Hannah immediately rolled her eyes at Jory.
“I saw that, Hannah,” Ada snapped at her.
“Aha, so you do know my name,” Hannah said, pursuing Ada to the stairs.
“Of course I do. What I don’t know is why the hell you were hired. Pick up your feet when you walk, girl. You tromp around the house like an army of Huns.”
“Yes, Ada.”
“And stop crowding me, will you? I cannot abide hoverers.”
“Think I’ll clean up myself,” said Spence, following them up the stairs.
“You I don’t like, period, Mr. New York Office,” Ada growled at him.
“What on earth did I do?” wondered Spence, bewildered.
“You smile too much,” she told him as they disappeared upstairs. “Every studio man who ever stole money from me just smiled and smiled.”
Aaron stood there in the dining hall doorway, shaking his large head. “I would not have thought this possible, but I swear she’s getting nastier.”
“That’s just her grief talking,” Teddy said quietly. “The old girl doesn’t mean one word of it. Just give her some space.”
“Fine by me,” Aaron said. “She can have as much space as she wants.”
Jase moved over next to Jory and spoke to her, his voice a faint murmur, his eyes cast shyly down at the floor.
Jory listened to him intently before she turned to Les and said, “Do you mind if I serve Jase, too? Our stove out in the cottage is electric, and the poor thing’s famished. He can eat out in the kitchen with me.”
“Nonsense,” Les said. “He’ll eat with us in the dining room. You both will. You’re family.”
“That’s very kind of you, Les,” she said. “Sweetie, could you maybe wash up a bit? There are some Handi Wipes out in the mudroom. I’ll show you, okay?”
Jase nodded and st
arted for the kitchen, rolling up his sleeves. Jory followed him.
“Do you suppose he eats with his hands or with his feet?” Carly wondered aloud, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
Des wasn’t sure if Jase heard the nasty little crack, but Jory sure as hell did-she shot a poisonous look at Carly as she passed through the kitchen door.
“Cut him some slack,” Mitch spoke up in Jase’s defense. “He’s a good guy.”
“He smells like an animal at the zoo,” Carly pointed out. “Believe me, when I was growing up in Virginia we had a name for people like that.”
“And believe me, we really don’t want to hear what it was,” Les said coldly. “So kindly spare us.”
Carly went ballistic in response: “You were right last night, Acky,” she hissed, seething. “We shouldn’t have come here. No one wants us here. They hate us. They all hate us!” She turned on her heel and stormed off in the direction of the main stairs.
“Carly, where are you going?” Aaron called after her. “Carly…!”
“No, let her go.” Les took Aaron by the arm, holding him there. “It’s a stressful time for all of us.”
“Carly happens to be my wife, Les. I’ll thank you to stay out of my marriage.”
“You could use some help, my boy,” Teddy advised. “You’ve pretty much made a mess of it.”
“And how would you know? Have you ever even been in a relationship that’s lasted for longer than seven minutes in the front seat of a car?”
Teddy stiffened but didn’t respond. Which made him a true gentleman in Des’s book.
Les turned to Mitch and said, “I’m sorry I’ve been of no help to you guys out there. I feel pretty darned useless.”
“As do I,” Teddy said. “Mind you, I haven’t done any serious physical work in ages. You’d probably have to carry me inside on a stretcher within a half hour.”
“Not to worry,” Mitch assured them both. “The three of us are making excellent progress. At the rate we’re going, we should have those sycamores completely cleared away by the end of March.”
Les let out a halfhearted chuckle. “The power crews will dig us out before you know it.”
“The sooner the better,” Aaron grumbled. “All I want is to get Mother in the ground and me and Carly the hell out of here.”
“Believe me, we all want that,” Teddy concurred.
Aaron arched his brow at him. “I know you think you’re being terribly amusing, Uncle Teddy, but I will not take this crap from you. I’ll have you know that there are plenty of people-influential, powerful people-who actually respect me.”
“Only because they don’t know you as well as we do,” Teddy said. “But give them time, my boy. They’ll come around.”
“Where did Carly go?” Aaron wondered, ignoring him now. Or at least pretending to. “I’ll bet she’s sneaking a cigarette.” He started toward the stairs after her. “Carly…?”
“I’m going to help Jory with the serving, if you’ll excuse me,” Les said. “Would you folks care to listen to the news or some music? The batteries on the sound system are good and charged.”
“I’d rather listen to the wind,” responded Teddy.
“Sure, whatever you want.” Les headed off to the kitchen.
Teddy lingered there before the fire with Des and Mitch. “Seriously, what kind of progress are you boys making out there?”
“Seriously? We might be here for a couple of days.”
“Damn.”
“Somewhere you need to be?” Des asked Teddy.
“Sig Klein’s,” he replied glumly. “I don’t get paid if I don’t sell clothes. And this weekend is a total washout as far as my Jazzmen gig is concerned. Not that I mean to sound petty. It’s just that we all have our lives to lead, and mine isn’t particularly well-funded right now, sad to say. I have to think about these things. I have to…” Teddy trailed off mid-sentence and went over toward the windows to look out at the darkening clouds.
Mitch and Des were alone now before the fire. He immediately put his arms around her and hugged her tightly, his unshaven cheek rough and cold against hers.
“Are you happy to see me or are you just looking for a warm-up?” she wondered, hugging him back.
“Does it matter?” he murmured, his mouth finding hers, kissing hers.
“Not one bit.”
“Des, you’re putting me on another diet when we get out of here. I don’t ever want to end up like Norma-wheezing, laboring, dead.”
“That’s good, baby. I don’t want you to either.”
“But is there any way we can work just a single glass of chocolate milk per day into this one? Along with the skinless chicken breasts and all of that leafy stuff, I mean.”
“I’ll do some research and get back to you,” she said, unable to keep a silly smile off her face.
“It’s snowing again,” Teddy declared from the windows.
They joined him, gazing out at the wet snowflakes that were beginning to fall on top of the hard coating of ice.
“Ain’t it lovely?” Teddy cracked.
“Yeah, it’s a winter wonderland, all right,” Mitch responded.
Their table was all set for breakfast. Jory emerged from the kitchen lugging the oatmeal in a big serving tureen. Les followed her a few seconds later with covered platters of eggs and bacon.
“Don’t wait for the others,” Les urged them as Jory bustled back into the kitchen. “Dig right in. This stuff’s no good cold.”
“You got that right,” Mitch concurred, taking the same seat he’d had at dinner. “If there’s one thing I can’t abide, it is cold scrambled eggs. In my opinion, if they aren’t piping hot they taste exactly like yellow rubber that’s been vulcanized and then subjected to high-level centrifugal-”
Unfortunately, Mitch never got to finish sharing his strongly held personal philosophy on non-hot scrambled eggs with Les and Teddy.
Because now was when they heard the scream.
CHAPTER 9
Ada Geiger’s killer used her bedside telephone.
The phone cord was wrapped so tightly around the old lady’s throat that it had become embedded deep in her flesh. The receiver on the floor next to her was bloodied. So was the back of her head. The Queen of the B’s lay on her side next to the bed, half-dressed. She wore a long-sleeved undershirt and unbuttoned wool trousers. A heavy wool cardigan was strewn across the bed, as if she’d been about to put it on when she’d been rudely interrupted.
Very rudely interrupted, Mitch thought as he stood watching Des examine her.
The others were gathered outside the open door in the hallway in horrified silence. They were all out there. Hannah, whose screams had brought them running. Aaron and Carly, Les, Teddy, Spence, Jory and Jase. The scene was almost an exact replay of earlier that morning, when they’d been gathered outside of the room right next door. No one was saying a word. Partly out of shock. Partly because Des had asked them not to until she’d taken their individual statements-each was a potential witness to Ada’s killing and she did not want them coloring each other’s recollections. But mostly, they were hushed by the reality of what they all knew:
One of them had murdered Ada Geiger in cold blood within the past five minutes.
It had to be one of them. No one else was around, not unless somebody was hiding there in the castle’s deepest recesses, unbeknownst to all of them. Actually, this nutty notion did trigger a fleeting recollection of something that had happened to Mitch in the night. But the memory vanished before he could fully summon it, shoved aside by the overwhelming revulsion and sorrow he felt as he gazed down upon this gifted, indomitable woman lying there dead on the carpet.
Des crouched over Ada, studying the phone cord around her throat, the bloody wound to her head. She opened an eyelid and examined the pupil. “We have hemorrhaging in the eyes,” she told Mitch, keeping her voice very low.
“What does that tell you?” he croaked. He had a hot, bilious taste in the back of h
is throat.
“It points to strangulation, not the head wound, as cause of death. The small blood vessels in the eyes tend to burst under extreme pressure. Plus her head’s still bleeding. She was struck with that receiver before she died.”
“How do you know that?”
“The heart’s no longer pumping blood after someone’s gone. So there’s little or no blood. If it bleeds it leads-that’s our old crime scene saying.”
“I thought journalists owned that expression, vis-a-vis our news priorities, or total lack thereof. We tend to be drawn to the gory, as you may have noticed if you’ve ever picked up a newspaper, turned on a television or…” He was starting to blather. He knew this. He was shaken.
Not Des. She seemed cool, alert and focused. She had, after all, spent years working violent deaths for a living. But on the inside she wasn’t calm at all, and Mitch knew that. Because it was precisely this kind of hideous, gut-wrenching violence that had driven her to the drawing pad.
“Most likely,” she concluded, “the killer dazed her with the phone receiver, then used the cord to finish the job. Quick and quiet. See those scratches there under the cord?”
Mitch forced himself to look. There were bloody scratch marks on Ada’s neck. Many bloody scratch marks. “What do those tell you?”
“That she was still conscious.” Des studied Ada’s hands. “See this blood and tissue under her nails? I’m guessing it’s her own. She made those scratches herself, Mitch. The old girl put up a fight.” Now Des stood back up and moved away from Ada over to the window. Outside, the snow was falling heavier, the wind gusting hard enough to rattle the glass.
Mitch joined her there, keeping his voice low. “Let’s say she did struggle-could a woman have done this to her? Or are we strictly looking at a man?”
“I don’t see why it couldn’t have been a woman, provided she’s reasonably strong. Ada may have been full of piss and vinegar, but she was still ninety-four years old. Straight up, I don’t believe we can rule out anyone yet,” she said, letting out a sigh.
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