by Lynn Bohart
Despite the loss, the thought brought a smile to my face.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I slept little that night, flinching every time a tree rustled or the building creaked, wondering if the noise was Ahab outside trying to get in. I rose the next morning, threw on my robe and hurried out to the breakfast room, hoping against hope that I would find him in a tree outside.
The weather had soured overnight, filling the sky with clouds pregnant with rain. A strong breeze brought whitecaps up on the lake’s surface and the temperature had plummeted again, making me wrap my arms around my chest for warmth.
I pulled open the drapes and searched the trees that surrounded the back of the Inn, but no Ahab. After all, how could a little parrot find his way so far north and across the lake to one building tucked on the other side of Mercer Island?
I returned to my apartment depressed and disappointed. Time to get ready for another busy day at the Inn.
After breakfast, I sent a notice to the Renton Reporter about a lost parrot. By mid-morning it had started to rain, and the sky had turned a deep charcoal gray. Around noon, a family of four checked into our only suite, which was located above the breakfast room. Their last name was Kohl and they had two boisterous eight-year old twins, Barry and Sherrie – who kept chasing each other around their exasperated mother.
“We’re here for my mother’s eightieth birthday tomorrow night,” Mrs. Kohl said, reaching out to grab her son by the collar. “Stop,” she ordered, turning to stare hard at him. He slunk away to toy with the ship’s wheel by the front door. “Sorry,” she said, turning back to me. “But do you have any suggestions for things to do today?”
“We have some brochures in the rack over there,” I said, pointing next to the staircase. “But I’d recommend Pike Place Market or the Space Needle. There’s even the Pacific Science Center, if you’d rather be out of the weather.”
The door opened and Mr. Kohl came in with the bags, shaking his head to dispel the moisture. He stepped up to the counter.
“Are we all set?” he asked his wife.
“Yes,” she replied.
“You’ll be at the top of the stairs and all the way down to the right,” I said, handing her two keys.
“Does it ever not rain up here?” Mr. Kohl said with a slight frown.
“I thought you’d want to bottle it and take it with you,” I said with an amiable smile.
His frown deepened. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Uh…the drought,” I replied. “Aren’t you rationing water in California?” He glared at me, so I attempted to save the moment. “Well, a little rain never hurt anyone. I’d take umbrellas just in case, though. It’s always good to be prepared.”
Just then, the front door blew open with a gust of cold air. Everyone turned, and their daughter whimpered and huddled up close to her mother.
“Is it the ghosts, Mommy?” she whined.
Mrs. Kohl turned to me with a concerned look. “We read that the Inn is haunted. Is that true?”
The door suddenly slammed shut, making everyone jump. The little girl screamed and attempted to tuck herself under her mother’s elbow.
“Um…well…there have been some incidents,” I replied, glancing at the door.
“Cool,” the little boy said, rushing over to look out the sidelight window.
Mrs. Kohl turned to her husband, who was staring at the door skeptically.
“Mrs. Applegate,” he began, turning to me. “I’m not sure I’ll appreciate any tricks being played on us or on the children while we’re here.”
I stood up a little straighter. “I assure you, Mr. Kohl, that we don’t play tricks, as you say, on anyone. The ghost activity is real. We’ve had it documented by a paranormal group that stayed here for two nights a year ago. I’ll understand if you’d prefer to stay somewhere else. I have to warn you however, that you would lose your deposit.”
He bristled at that. But I was on firm ground and he knew it, since the ghost activity was mentioned in all of our promotional materials and on the website.
“So was that one of the ghosts?” young Barry inquired, coming back to the desk.
He was a short, stocky kid, with bushy eyebrows and a straight nose, just like his father. I imagined he’d be a bully by the time he was a teenager. Sherrie looked more like her mom. She had a delicate face and high cheek-bones.
I paused before answering, not sure whether to be honest and further irritate the parents. On the other hand, Mr. Kohl had raised my hackles.
“Most likely that was Chloe. She was about your age when she died in a fire here, back in 1962. She likes to play tricks on people. Especially children.”
Barry’s eyes opened wide. “That’s awesome! Dad, can I stay up all night? Maybe a ghost will appear.”
His father looked slightly apoplectic. “Of course not. There’s no such thing as ghosts, Barry. There’s some other explanation for what goes on here. Let’s just go to our room so we can get out and do some sightseeing.”
He gave me an openly hostile look, took his room key and grabbed their bags. Mrs. Kohl followed the kids up the stairs, as I moved away from the desk. They were only halfway up the stairs, when the reception bell rang. I quickly ran back and put my hand over it, and then glanced over at the family, who had all stopped on the staircase to stare at me.
“Sorry. I must have hit it by mistake,” I lied.
They continued up the stairs, while I shivered at the drop in temperature around me. I heard another lighthearted giggle. Chloe was nearby. I waited to chastise her until I heard the door to the suite upstairs close.
“Chloe!” I whispered. “Be good, or you’ll get me in trouble.”
The desk bell rang twice more, so I grabbed it and put it in a drawer. Just then, April appeared around the corner.
“Is our bell malfunctioning?” she asked with a smile.
“No. Chloe is malfunctioning. I don’t think she likes the new kids that just arrived.”
“She does pick her favorites,” April said, bemused. “Maybe she just wants them to play with her.” She handed me a slip of paper. “Here’s the receipt for the food I bought for the Jason Spears reception. By the way, a man stopped by yesterday while you were gone to see if we had a room available, but Crystal told him we were all booked up.”
“Was there a problem?”
“No. Not really. It’s just that he asked if we knew where Dana Finkle lived.”
That got my attention.
“What did he look like?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t see him. Crystal’s in the laundry, though, if you want to ask her.”
“Thanks,” I said.
Since I had to leave the desk, I decided to chance it and pull out the desk bell again in case anyone came in. Then I hurried down the hall. The hallway angled to the right and around a corner to a back room we’d turned into a laundry. It had a commercial size washer and dryer, a sink and a folding table, and was wall-papered in a cheery red and yellow flowered paper. Crystal was standing at the counter folding some towels.
“April told me a man stopped by yesterday asking about Dana,” I said to her. “Can you tell me what he looked like?”
Crystal was in her late twenties, with bright blue, intelligent eyes and light brown hair she usually wore tied into a loose ponytail. She had worked for us for almost two years while taking night classes at the UW. I trusted her implicitly, especially her instincts. She never failed to read guests as they checked in and could tell whether they would pose a problem or not. So I was interested in getting her impressions of this guy.
“He was tall and overweight,” she said, laying down the last towel. “Maybe in his fifties or early sixties. He wore glasses and had really large hands with the tattoo of an eagle on the back of one. I thought maybe he’d been in the service at one time.”
“How did you see his hands if he didn’t sign in?”
“He laid a hand on the counter. Anyway, he said he�
�d just gotten into town and needed a place to stay. But we were full.”
“And he asked about Dana?”
“Yeah,” she said with a shrug. “He wondered if I knew her and wanted to know if she lived close by.”
“Did he say why?”
“No. But I asked him if he was a reporter or something…you know, because of the murder investigation. He said no, that he just used to know her. And then he left.”
“What time was that?”
She thought for a moment. “Close to 3:00.”
“Did you get any other impression about him?”
She shrugged. “Just that he seemed…I don’t know…angry. I had a feeling he didn’t like Mrs. Finkle much.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I’m going to pay some bills, so I’ll watch the front desk for a while.”
I did my duty this time and called David to let him know about the guy looking for Dana. Then I took a phone call from Jason Spears, the paranormal writer, about his upcoming event on Friday. We’d planned a small reception, after which he would read a chapter from his latest book and then his wife, who was a medium, would attempt to contact the spirits at the Inn.
I was understandably nervous about the event. I felt a certain kinship to Elizabeth and Chloe. I wasn’t sure they would cooperate and make an appearance. But if they did, I had this unnatural sense of protection, as if I didn’t want them exploited.
The rest of the day went by uneventfully, until David called that afternoon to let me know they had ID’d Big Al. His full name was Al Dente, which by anyone’s standards was funny. But his record wasn’t. Dente had gone to prison for armed robbery and had only been out for six months. And although they’d staked out his apartment, he hadn’t returned.
÷
By 6 o’clock that night, the girls were all positioned around the old farmhouse kitchen table. We had extended the flaps so that April could join us. I thought it was time to bring her in. She was smart and inquisitive, and if nothing else, we needed her sixth sense.
She came with a freshly baked loaf of bread, and I had a pot of my mother’s minestrone soup on the stove. Doe walked in with a cold bottle of Chardonnay, and Blair brought brownies left over from the senior center, where she’d spent the afternoon trying to dig up dirt on Dana.
Rudy rolled in around 6:15, straight from her trip to Vancouver. It was still raining, so she came in shaking water off like a wet dog. She hung up her coat and grabbed a glass of wine.
“I have news,” she exclaimed.
“So do we,” Blair blurted. “Julia and I got into a fight yesterday with the man who stole Ahab, and almost got taken to jail.”
Rudy shook her head. “Wait a minute. Slow down. What?”
“Hold it,” I said. “Let’s get our food first and then we can start at the beginning.”
We took a few minutes to fill our soup bowls and get beverages. Then we came back to the table.
“Okay, let me have it,” Rudy said. “It sounds like your day was much more eventful than mine.”
Since Doe hadn’t heard the whole story either, Blair and I filled them in one step at a time. By the end, both Doe and Rudy looked worried, while April cast a slightly admonishing look my way.
“So who is this guy?” Doe asked.
“His name is Al Dente,” I said.
Rudy almost spit out some wine. “Is that a joke?”
“No,” I said, smiling. “Apparently his mother wasn’t a cook. Either that or she had a wicked sense of humor.”
“I can’t help but wonder why he would suddenly steal Ahab,” April said. “No one here seems to know him. How would he even know you had Ahab? It’s not like he had ever been out to the Inn and he certainly wasn’t at the party.”
“Right,” Rudy agreed. “So someone must have hired him.”
“That’s what I’m thinking,” April said with a nod.
“It must have been the person who made that statement in front of Ahab,” Blair said.
“But who is that? That’s the million-dollar question,” Rudy said.
There was silence for a few moments, while everyone concentrated on the food, keeping their thoughts to themselves. Finally April spoke up.
“You know, I’ve noticed on a couple of occasions that Ahab only has to hear something once before repeating it. I’ve been thinking about this a lot. And I remembered that last month there were two teenage boys here.” She looked at me. “You remember the O’Reillys, don’t you?” I had just taken a sip of soup and so nodded. “Well, I noticed one morning that the two boys were playing video games, and one of them said, ‘Smokin’, man!’ I didn’t think much of it until that afternoon. He came back into the room for some lemonade and Ahab immediately repeated that very same phrase.”
“As soon as the kid walked into the room?” Rudy asked.
“Yes. He remembered who said it and repeated it the moment he saw him. He probably does that more often than we realize.”
“Wow,” I said, exhaling. “So it could be that someone said they wanted to kill Dana in front of Ahab days before the party. Then, when he or she came into the room that night, Ahab saw them and repeated it, almost on cue.”
“I doubt it’s a guest, then,” Rudy said. “None of the guests that are here now were here for the Christmas Eve party, right?”
April and I shook our heads no.
“And none of the guests that were here then, would ever have had to come back,” she said. “So why would they worry about Ahab?”
“That’s a good point,” April conceded.
“If it’s not a guest though, it means it’s someone I probably know well,” I said grimly.
“Yes,” Rudy said. “And someone who would be likely to come back to the Inn again for some reason. That’s why the bird had to go. Whoever this is couldn’t risk coming back a second time and having Ahab repeat that line.”
“So we eliminate the guests,” Doe said quietly. “Now, all we have to do is figure out who said it in the first place.”
I got up and went to the refrigerator and pulled out the butter dish and brought it back to the table. But when I put it down, my hand was shaking. I plopped down in my chair.
“I can’t believe this. Whoever killed Trudy is someone who clearly has access to the Inn and has a reason to be here. It all makes sense. I just never thought of it that way.”
“Let’s be honest,” Blair said. “There are an awful lot of people who could say something like that about Dana, though, just out of frustration if nothing else.”
“Yes, but if they said something like that just as a joke, or even as a random comment, why would they hire someone to break in and steal Ahab?” Doe said.
“The more I think about it,” I said. “Ahab doesn’t pick up just anything. It has to stand out to him. Like what that kid said. He either picks up things that are repeated over and over, or specific comments made right in front of the cage. Otherwise, he’d be repeating everything everyone says all the time.”
“God, it just seems crazy that someone would stand right in front of Ahab’s cage and say that they want to kill someone…anyone!” Doe said.
“But they had to be talking to someone else,” April said. “And if it was said with enough intensity, Ahab would’ve picked it up.”
Doe gave a fake shudder. “That gives me the chills.”
“Look, you guys,” Rudy spoke up. “We’ve known since Ahab was stolen why he was stolen. Why are you so shocked now?”
“It just feels different when you put it all together,” Doe said.
“Okay then,” Rudy said. “Think back to the weeks before the Christmas party. What other events or meetings did you have here? When someone might have been left alone in the breakfast room?”
I sighed. “Oh dear, let’s see. We were planning the reception for Senator Pesante. But of course that was canceled. I did hold a library board meeting here during that time. And Mr. Mulford was here to do the books.”
“Don’t forget
, Roger’s son was here to install the new alarm system after Martha’s murder investigation wrapped up,” April said.
“That’s right,” I said. “That was the day before the party. And the caterer did a walk-through for the reception that never happened, and then she came back again with one of her caterers to discuss the Christmas Eve party.”
“Anything else?” Rudy asked.
I thought back to those days just before and just after Martha was murdered. “Nothing I can think of right now.”
April got up and went to the drawer in the center island and pulled out the same notepad and pencil I’d used earlier. “Let’s write it down,” she said, coming back to the table. “Who all is on the library board with you?”
I gasped. “Are you kidding? Those are all upstanding Mercer Island citizens. None of them would kill someone.”
“So were the gang of murderers who killed Martha,” Blair said solemnly. “And you and I just nearly got arrested as upstanding citizens,” she reminded me.
“Okay,” I relented. I recited the list of library board members. They included business owners, a fireman, a teacher, a nun, a college student, Roger Romero and, of course, Tony Morales.
“Was Tony here for that meeting?” April asked solemnly, writing down the names.
“Yes. We met in the dining room.” I paused, thinking back to that afternoon. “And as I recall, he left a couple of times to take phone calls. But he always does that,” I said, defending him.
“So, he could have come into the breakfast room and talked to someone on the phone within earshot of Ahab’s cage,” Rudy speculated.
“Yes,” I replied reluctantly.
“What do you know about Mr. Mulford?” Doe asked.
I slapped both hands on the table. “Oh, for heaven sakes,” I exclaimed, scaring everyone. “Mr. Mulford couldn’t kill anyone unless it was with his bad breath.”