Missing in Mystic Grove

by S F Bose

  “Did you notice anything?” I asked.

  Addie looked at Nana Anna and they both shook their heads. “When we sat down with Nancy and David, the Wescotts and Cloutiers were playing cards and the DeMarco family was still playing a board game. We chatted with Nancy and David briefly, but we both wanted to get back to the kitchen to talk to Grace about Thanksgiving dinner,” Nana replied.

  “The Blackwells were talking about leaving too,” Nana Anna added.

  Grandma looked at her sister and nodded. “That’s right, they were.”

  “So you and the Blackwells left the dining room at the same time?” I asked, feeling disappointed.

  “No, they still had a little coffee left to drink,” Grandma replied. “They were still at their table when we went back to the kitchen.”

  “And you didn’t stop to chat with the guests?” I asked.

  “No, they were all doing fine and seemed to be having a good time. Sometimes guests get tired of the innkeepers and want to be on their own,” said Grandma Addie and smiled.

  I smiled back and felt a glimmer of hope. “If the Blackwells were still there after you left, maybe they saw something.”

  “Wouldn’t they have said something?” asked Marie.

  I shook my head slowly. “They may not have realized what they saw. It wouldn’t hurt to talk to them.” At the very least, I was hoping that the Blackwells had seen Josh walk up to the table and speak to Dante and Ray. That would confirm a key part of Marie’s story. Also, maybe Dante or Shelly could confirm that Josh knelt down near her purse. However, even that wasn’t evidence he was a thief.

  Addie looked down at her watch. “Nancy and David both go to bed early. I’ll call them first thing in the morning.”

  “Sounds good,” I replied.

  “I was in the kitchen most of the night. Out of curiosity, aside from B&B guests, what local diners were here for dinner?” asked Grace.

  Grandma rattled the names off, “The Blackwells, Mr. and Mrs. Burcott, Ron Newmont and a woman I didn’t know, and Pastor Will Thatcher and his wife.”

  “You know all of them?” Marie asked, surprise in her voice

  “Yes. The Blackwells are the older couple you saw earlier tonight. They’re old friends of ours. Mr. Burcott is the principal of the Mystic Grove grade school. Ron Newmont is a deputy sheriff in Mystic Grove, and Pastor Will is at the Mystic Grove Community Church. They’re all good people,” Grandma replied.

  “I had five tables with diners who weren’t regulars. They were all from nearby communities and had reservations,” I added. Grandma and Nana nodded.

  “How do you keep everyone straight?” asked Marie.

  Grace smiled and leaned forward. “Well we learn to quickly recognize each B&B guest, which makes everything else easier. All B&B guests get a free breakfast and light lunch as a part of their stay. If they join us for dinner, we add the cost of their meal to their room account.”

  Addie nodded. “Non-B&B guests have to call and make a reservation for dinner. Diners from Mystic Grove are usually regulars, and we know them. When we get reservations for diners we don’t know, we ask if they’re from Mystic Grove or another community. If they’re not from Mystic Grove, we ask how they heard about us. Non-B&B diners can pay with cash, credit, or debit cards.”

  “We do get the occasional drop-in but it’s almost always a regular from Mystic Grove and we seat them,” Grace added.

  “Good system,” Marie said. I agreed. I knew we factored the cost of breakfast and lunch for B&B guests into the daily room rate. However, the guests loved that those meals were included. What amazed me was how much our dinner trade had expanded over the years, thanks to more diners from Mystic Grove and surrounding communities.

  I squinted as I thought about the end of dinner. Then I smiled. “You know, except for the Blackwells, all of the non-B&B diners left before you started the card game and the DeMarcos started playing Monopoly. That means we can rule them out as suspects.”

  “And the Blackwells certainly didn’t take your ring,” said Grandma.

  “The older couple? No, they were never near my handbag,” Marie agreed. She reached into her bag for more tissues and dabbed at her nose. I was happy to see she seemed to be calming down a little.

  “I don’t see how any of the outside guests could have taken your ring,” Nana Anna said.

  Marie nodded slowly. “I don’t either.”

  “Marie, when you and Ray left the dining room, did you physically bump into anyone?” I asked.

  “No, we didn’t see anyone at all, so there was nobody to bump into.”

  I nodded. “Did you take the elevator or stairs?

  “Stairs,” Marie replied quickly.

  “Did you drop your handbag at any point?” I asked.

  “No,” Marie said with a shake of her head.

  I sighed. Then I followed up on something that bothered me. “Marie, I’m a little confused. If you thought Josh stole your ring, why didn’t you lead with that? Instead, you seemed to think you’d lost the ring.”

  Marie’s eyes teared up again. “At first, I was sure I had lost it. I thought that maybe the ring had fallen out of my purse somewhere. So I looked for it in all of the logical places but didn’t find it. Until just now, I wasn’t thinking that anyone stole it. But then it struck me that Josh DeMarco was the only person who got close enough to my handbag to steal the ring,” she said.

  “How would Josh have known there was a ring in your handbag?” Grace asked.

  “When the DeMarcos were playing their board game, Josh’s chair faced in our direction,” Marie replied. “He might have seen me drop the ring into my handbag and then came over to our table for that reason. When he knelt down to tie his shoelace, he could have reached into one of the outside pockets and taken the ring. He was certainly acting guilty. So while I didn’t see him actually take the ring, he had the opportunity.”

  I thought back to my walk-through of the dining room after dinner. Josh’s chair had faced the Wescotts and Cloutiers. The position of the table would also have made it easy for him to watch Marie, if he wanted to.

  “You noticed where Josh was before he walked to your table?” I asked.

  Marie’s face colored. “I looked over at Holly and Jade Cloutier from time to time. They were coloring and talking one table over. I’ve been missing my children and grandchildren,” she explained. “Anyway, a couple of times I noticed that Josh DeMarco was looking at our table. One time our eyes met and he looked away quickly. I just chalked it up to his nervousness.”

  “So you really think Josh stole your ring?” I asked.

  Marie took in a slow breath and exhaled. “To be honest, I really don’t know. A part of me still thinks it might have fallen out of my bag somewhere. But I also know that Josh DeMarco had the opportunity to take my ring.”

  She teared up again and pressed the facial tissues to her eyes. “I just want my ring back,” she suddenly wailed.

  Nana Anna moved closer and put her arm around Marie’s shoulders. Grace leaned forward in concern. Nana Anna murmured something reassuring and eventually Marie regained her composure.

  Grandma Addie stared at Marie and then advised, “Marie, under no circumstances can you approach Josh DeMarco about this. Despite how close he was to your handbag, you have no concrete evidence that he took your ring. If you accuse him, it would likely go very badly for you. People are very litigious these days.”

  Marie stared at Addie. Then her head moved up and down in agreement. “I understand.”

  “Will you be okay tonight?” Nana Anna asked Marie, her voice filled with concern.

  “I will,” Marie replied. Then she sat up straight and pulled herself together. “I won’t say anything to Josh DeMarco, but he was near my purse and now my ring is gone. At the very least, he’s a logical suspect. However, I’ll still keep looking for the ring, in the event that it dropped out of my purse somewhere.”

  Grandma looked at Marie and nodded. “G
ive us time to sort this out.”

  Marie shoved a mound of facial tissues into her tote-bag and stood. “We’re returning to Chicago on Saturday. If we haven’t found my ring by then, I’ll have to tell Ray. I can’t tell you how desperately I want to avoid that conversation. But if it comes to that, we’ll also have to call the police too.”

  Grandma Addie stood and the rest of us followed suit. “We’ll do everything we can to find your ring,” she said and squeezed Marie’s arm.

  “Would it be all right if I looked around the dining room one more time?” Marie asked hopefully.

  “Of course you can,” Grace replied. “I’ll go look with you.”

  I watched them both leave through the back kitchen door and felt a quiver of worry shoot down my spine. I had a bad feeling about Marie’s missing ring.

  Chapter 4

  Grandma Addie, Nana Anna, and I sat at the farmhouse table staring at each other glumly. Millie returned through the back kitchen door and we all jumped. Max and Bella followed her into the kitchen and ran to their water dishes.

  “Sorry,” Millie said with a smile when she saw we were startled. “Just coming to collect my coat and Tillie.” I smiled back.

  “I’m here,” Tillie replied, coming out of the pantry. They retrieved their coats and purses from the lockers in the small office and said “Goodnight” as they left through the back kitchen door.

  “What do you think about the ring?” Grandma asked, bringing me back to our problem. I sat back and rubbed my eyes.

  “I saw Marie’s ring and it is beautiful. I can imagine her dropping it into her purse and being distracted by Shelly at the last minute. In my few conversations with her, I noticed that Marie sometimes gets easily sidetracked. I’m hoping the Blackwells and Cloutiers can confirm her story and give us more details.”

  “Do you think Josh stole the ring?” Nana Anna asked.

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. I do remember the DeMarco table was one aisle over and Josh had a good view of the Wescott and Cloutier table. He could easily see Marie. Maybe he did notice her put the ring in her purse. But wouldn’t it take a cool and collected person to come over to their table, snatch the ring from Marie’s purse, and then sit down to play cards with her? That doesn’t sound like Josh DeMarco to me.”

  After a pause, Grandma said, “Unless he’s desperate for money for some reason.”

  I considered that. “I guess it’s a possibility. We don’t know what his circumstances are.”

  Nana Anna shook her head. “I know he’s a jumpy fellow, but that doesn’t make him a thief. We have to remember that, so far, there’s no evidence Josh did anything wrong.”

  “True enough,” Grandma agreed.

  Aunt Grace returned to the kitchen and stood at the end of the table. Grace always smiled and looked on the bright side of things. Now she looked troubled. Her collar-length red hair was tousled, her crimson lipstick had faded, and her blue eyes had lost their usual spark.

  “No luck,” she said. “I crawled all around that floor and didn’t see any ring. I was sure I could find it.”

  She walked around the table and fell into the chair next to me. The dogs came to nuzzle her. “I feel so sorry for Marie,” she added, petting each one in turn.

  “We’ll find the ring,” Nana Anna reassured her. “How far could it have gone?”

  Grandma breathed in slowly and then exhaled. She looked at Nana Anna and nodded. “All right. Let’s focus on the missing ring. It’s Tuesday. We need to find that ring by Saturday. If word gets out that a guest at the Bean Family Bed and Breakfast either lost an expensive piece of jewelry or had it stolen, our goose is cooked.”

  Nana Anna grimaced. “The gossip mill would spread the news through Mystic Grove and the entire county in less than an hour.”

  Grace groaned. “Even worse, Marie could leave a bad review on our website, or on some of the larger online B&B travel sites, or—” At this point Grace’s eyes widened like saucers and she croaked, “God help us! She could give us a bad review on TripAdvisor or Yelp!”

  We all inhaled and I felt a group shudder. Over the years, we had been fortunate to be listed on a variety of the Ten Best Wisconsin Bed and Breakfast lists. The online B&B travel sites loved us. We always encouraged our guests to leave reviews on our website and on travel sites like TripAdvisor and Yelp. Thankfully, we usually received high ratings. However, a bad review on the big travel sites could definitely hurt business, especially if it involved the loss or theft of guest property.

  Grace sighed. “I hate to ask this, but is there a chance Marie Wescott is lying? You know…for money?”

  I looked at Grace. “Insurance fraud? The thought had occurred to me, especially when Marie didn’t want us to talk to Dante and Shelly Cloutier. Anything is possible, I guess, but she doesn’t strike me as the type.”

  Nana Anna narrowed her eyes. “I believed her,” she said shortly. “If this was insurance fraud, she would have already called the police and reported it.” Grandma, Grace, and I considered that and ended up agreeing with her.

  Then Grandma Addie clicked her tongue and I looked at her. She leaned forward and locked her baby blue eyes on mine. “Liz, you’re going to have to take the lead on this for us.”

  For a second, I couldn’t breathe. “What? Me? Why?” The words tumbled out rapidly.

  “Because you can’t cook,” Grandma replied.

  I was stunned for a second. “What?”

  “The rest of us are going to be cooking for Thanksgiving. We can’t put as much time into the search for the ring as you can,” said Grandma.

  “That makes sense,” Nana Anna agreed, and Grace nodded. I shot them both a ‘Geez, thanks guys’ look.

  “What about Chloe or Olivia?” I countered. They were Grace’s daughters and two of my three housemates. My younger sister, Katie, was the third housemate. She was a photographer and was traveling down South. We all lived in the coach house behind the B&B.

  “Sweetie, they have a business to run,” Grace replied calmly. I sighed. Chloe and Olivia owned and operated THE Herb Shop in Mystic Grove. Olivia was the herbalist and created herbal health and beauty remedies with our great grandmother, Bridey Shaw. Olivia and Chloe sold the remedies in their shop. They also stocked natural products made by a group of trusted herbalists and respected herbal companies. THE Herb Shop was popular and attracted both tourists and locals.

  “And, at the moment, you’re unemployed, Liz,” Grandma reminded me.

  “Oh, sure throw that in my face,” I retorted. Nana Anna chuckled but quickly sobered when she saw my face.

  I glanced at Grace. “What about Ryan?” Ryan was her oldest child. He ran our small stable, worked with Dad raising Connemara ponies, and was the all-around handyman at the B&B.

  Grace slowly turned her head, locked in on my eyes, and spoke slowly. “He also has a full-time job, Liz.”

  “Again with the job,” I muttered.

  “It will be fine, Liz. I’m going to ask Sam Nolan to help you. Together, I know you’ll find that ring,” Grandma said.

  “Sam who?”

  Nana Anna smiled. “Nolan. He’s here for dinner most nights. He looks just like a young John Cusack. You know, the actor?”

  My mouth dropped open. Grace leaned in toward me and smiled. “He’s cute, Liz. You’ll like him. He’s about six feet tall, straight-edged nose, thick black hair, and brown eyes.”

  “Don’t forget the boyish face and Cupid’s bow lips,” Nana added. My eyes flicked back and forth between Grace and Nana Anna. My Aunt and Great Aunt are fan girls!

  I shook my head. “I know the actor but I’m drawing a blank on this Sam Nolan guy.”

  Grace thought for a second and then her eyes lit up “He’s the customer with the odd diet. He eats the same thing for weeks on end--like scrambled eggs or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. He told me that lately he eats mashed potatoes for breakfast, baked potatoes for lunch and french fries for dinner. He usually drinks hot w
ater or tea. Honestly, I think he comes here more for the human contact than for the food. You know who I’m talking about?”

  The lightbulb went on. “Oh, the guy with the funny cap? Is that the one?”

  “It’s an Irish flat cap and there’s nothing funny about it,” Grandma replied sharply. I looked at her and nodded. The Bean family was Irish, and Grandma was very proud of our heritage.

  “Okay, why do you think he’ll be a help?” I asked.

  “Because he’s a private investigator in Mystic Grove. He’s also a friend. Tomorrow is Wednesday, so he’ll be here for breakfast. We can introduce you then,” Grandma replied.

  I usually slept in in the morning and then helped at the B&B for lunch and dinner. I’d never seen Sam Nolan at breakfast because I was rarely awake for that meal.

  “Since when do you serve breakfast to someone who’s not a B&B guest?” I asked Grace. She normally served breakfast and a light lunch to the B&B guests. Then she served dinner to B&B guests and any locals or tourists who called for a reservation.

  “Sam comes for breakfast a couple days a week. He’s a fine young man and feeding him is no trouble,” Grace replied, shifting her eyes from me to Grandma Addie.

  “We like him,” Grandma agreed. Nana and Grace both nodded.

  I took a few cleansing breaths and tried to clear my head. Things were moving too quickly and there was so much at risk.

  “Grandma, I’m not sure I’m the right person for this job. If we don’t find the ring and the Wescotts leave bad reviews on the travel websites, it could hurt the B&B. Not to mention what a property loss or theft claim might do to our insurance rates. Why don’t we just turn the missing ring case over to this Nolan guy? He’s a professional and investigates for a living, right?”

  What I was really thinking was that Grandma Addie loves the B&B and I didn’t want to do anything to hurt her or the business. Our family worked the farm from the early 1839 until Grandpa Pete died unexpectedly in 1984. Grandma Addie couldn’t farm the land by herself and none of her children had any interest in farming. Fortunately, she and Grandpa Pete had already set up lease agreements with several neighboring farmers who worked portions of our land. We then shared any profits with them. After Grandpa’s death, Grandma expanded the existing lease agreements and entered into new agreements with two more farmers.