Inn Trouble

by Dixie Davis

  And plenty of witnesses to keep her safe, just in case.

  Sometimes it was nice to step out of the frame for a few minutes and just enjoy the show, to feel the energy around you and know that you were a part of that. Certainly she wasn’t a “real” Dusky Covite to most of these people, but she was on her way.

  Finally — five minutes late — Clint walked in, looking harried and flushed, even on the top of his head, shining like polished metal. Lori had been late so many times in her life she definitely couldn’t fault him for that. But had he been rushing around getting rid of evidence?

  Clint approached and she got a whiff of cigarette smoke. Another clue, with the cigarette butts at the scene?

  Lori stood. “Hi, Clint.”

  “Lori.” He nodded and accepted her handshake. “I’ll be honest: I’m more than a little surprised you wanted to talk with me after yesterday.”

  Her backside chose that moment to remind her of the fall he’d caused yesterday, though she knew it had been an accident. Probably.

  They got a table, and Lori realized how full she was after all the rich food she’d had today, starting with Vera’s dosants, then the loaded baked potato soup from Mimosa Café, then the mug-cake sundaes. For the very first time in all her visits to the Salty Dog, Lori ordered only the side salad.

  Clint opted for the special: deep-fried halibut. Normally that would have sounded heavenly to Lori, but today, she couldn’t stand the thought of another drop of grease.

  “So,” Clint began, “you wanted to talk business?”

  Oh dear. She should have spent her waiting time coming up with enough questions to make this look like the business meeting she’d requested. “Well,” Lori drew out the word, stalling further, glancing up at the shallow shad boat mounted on the wall. It didn’t have any ideas.

  Finally the idea sprang up in her mind. “I’ve just finished my first tourist season as an innkeeper. Does it ever feel like you’re not just running from one fire to another?”

  Clint laughed a little. “Sorry, no.”

  “I was afraid of that. It’s a lot to juggle.”

  “That’s true. We do our best to set realistic expectations beforehand, but it’s one of those things you really don’t understand until you’re an innkeeper yourself.”

  Lori nodded like she was absorbing his wise words. If she couldn’t get to the pertinent questions quickly, at least she could build up to them by feeding his ego and building up a rapport. “What was the hardest part for you when you became an innkeeper?”

  “Actually, it was part of the business side. I really find all the work of running a small business tough. The taxes, social security, health insurance. Silly mundane stuff. My wife works very hard to stay on top of everything for me.”

  Not for the first time in her life, Lori silently wished she had someone she could dump all her mundane, menial mental maintenance tasks on — though that hardly seemed like a fair thing to do to your business partner, let alone a spouse. “Does your wife enjoy that?”

  Clint pressed his lips together and looked to the side, clearly a no that he didn’t want to admit out loud. “Are you married, Lori?”

  “I used to be.”

  He swept a hand out in front of him like that said everything, assuming she’d been divorced.

  “We all make compromises,” he said. “I do things that I don’t like, too. It’s what a marriage is.”

  Lori nodded again, like she was absorbing this wisdom. She hadn’t called him here to get marriage counseling.

  How could she segue to the Bughs?

  Of course — Clint was their competitor, staying with one of her competitors. “So, how do you like the Cape Inn?”

  “It’s nice. They could charge a lot more with waterfront property, though. I’m assuming you have views?”

  He’d looked up which B&B was hers? “Yeah, I do. I’ve only met the innkeeper at the Cape Inn once. Is Sara a good hostess?”

  “Yeah. Personable, but gives you plenty of space. The breakfast is mediocre, though. Just a little better than you might expect from a place like the Riverboat Motel.”

  The server arrived with their plates, giving Lori a minute to think about what he’d just said.

  And he knew the Riverboat? He’d definitely done his research on Dusky Cove.

  Or maybe he’d looked up where Howard was staying, and asked him to meet at the Riverboat this morning.

  Maybe he’d pushed Howard over the railing.

  Maybe she was dining with her friend’s murderer.

  “It’s tough to have so many B&Bs and motels in town,” Lori said, carefully steering the conversation from their last topic to the one she’d been angling for. “What tips do you have for finding the balance between competing and cooperating?”

  “Cooperating?” Clint leaned forward over his fried fish, intensity sizzling in his eyes so strong that Lori shrank back . “Why would you want to cooperate with someone who stands to steal your business? That’s what competition is about.”

  “Oh. So you really didn’t like Howard?” She tried to keep the accusation out of her tone, but failed.

  For a split second, the heat simmering in his eyes blazed to a boil. Lori suddenly remembered the warnings she’d heard about Clint and his threats.

  Clint’s gaze dropped to his halibut. He picked up a fried filet with his fingers, dipped one end in tartar sauce and took a bite. “I didn’t want the man dead, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

  “Of course not. When did you find out?”

  “This morning over breakfast. When I came down, Sara had already heard. Small-town gossip wasn’t on the menu, and when I heard what happened to Howard, I was even less hungry.”

  Lori nodded. It must have been nice for him, to be one of those people who couldn’t eat when they were stressed. Lori poked at her salad. Suddenly she wished she’d ordered the halibut.

  Clint sighed, shaking his head. “That man was a trip.”

  “Sorry?”

  “If you think I’m bad for the things I have my wife do for me, you should have seen what Howard had Vera doing around their inn.” He gave a low whistle, shaking his head. “Anything that even smelled like work was her purview. Paperwork right down to laundry and cleaning up puke.”

  Lori winced. Vera wouldn’t let Howard do that to her, would she? And Howard wouldn’t — didn’t — did he?

  Her gaze shifted to the fishing nets strung across the ceiling as her mind replayed the argument she’d overheard that morning. Neither of them were at their best at those moments, but could that have been what all of their marriage was like?

  Forty-three years of that would make anyone crack.

  And Vera? She was sad, she missed him, but she kept struggling with the not-so-positive memories, too. Was that normal? Lori had been there, but not on the day Glenn died.

  Chilly fingers trailed down her back. Could Vera really have murdered Howard? Lori had worked against that suspicion all day whenever it crept in, but the police were saying it, and now Clint. What could he gain from saying this?

  If he was the murderer — yes, that made a lot more sense. He was the murderer, and he was trying to frame Vera. Lori’s heart settled again. Vera couldn’t be a killer. No matter how many people thought that. No matter that Lori couldn’t give her an alibi. No matter that she and Howard argued and had problems.

  Lori had barely finished with her salad when she heard the sirens. Her lungs instinctively shrank. They almost never had to deal with police sirens here. There just wasn’t enough road to warrant them. Ambulances from time to time, definitely, but this was the police.

  Lori looked to where the police officers, Eddie and Ken, had sat before Clint met her. They were gone.

  The sirens screamed closer and closer, suddenly throwing Lori back six months to the last time police sirens had headed in her direction. When her guest had died.

  Like this morning.

  Lori hopped to her feet, thanked Clint a
nd tossed a ten dollar bill on the table. She just had to be sure this wasn’t something to do with her, or her inn, or — or Vera.

  She was almost running as she made her way to the door. The blue and red lights zoomed past the Salty Dog, whipping into the parking lot for the Salt Marsh Boardwalk.

  No.

  Lori ran as fast as she could for the parking lot.

  This wasn’t happening.

  This wasn’t possible.

  An officer stood at the entrance to the Boardwalk, under the gazebo-like roof. Lori ran over to him, barely able to catch her breath. “What — what happened?”

  The officer knew her, apparently. “Mrs. Keyes, we can’t —”

  “Please, my friend was out there. The widow from this morning’s murder.”

  The officer frowned and looked away.

  Nausea filled her gut. No. No.

  Chief Branson strode out from behind the officer. From the Boardwalk.

  “What happened?” Lori tried with him. Surely he’d tell her if her friend was hurt. Wouldn’t he?

  Chief Branson turned his grim frown on her. “It’s Vera.”

  “No.” She’d known, she’d suspected, and still, those two words sucked the little bit of air she’d gathered right out of her lungs.

  Not Vera.

  “Is — is she —?”

  Chief Branson barely dared to meet her eyes. “She’s gone, Lori.”

  Lori sat on the bench inside the gazebo-like entrance to the Salt Marsh Boardwalk. She knew it would only get colder and darker.

  She didn’t care.

  She’d brought Vera here to find some measure of peace. Instead, she’d brought her friend and mentor — mourning the death of her husband — to meet her doom.

  Snippets of police chatter floated to her. Drowned. No evidence of foul play. Autopsy. Suicide. Closing two cases.

  It wasn’t until the gurney rolled past that Lori came to herself.

  Vera did not just slip and fall in the river. That was too great a coincidence. Either she’d jumped, or she was pushed.

  She was too focused on getting back to Peggy to have killed herself.

  Leaving only murder.

  Lori followed the police officers leaving the Boardwalk. There was only one other car in the lot — a car she recognized.

  Walt’s black pickup. It was absolutely unmistakable, with the sides of the bed crunched inward and a little Band-aid applied to one side, as if that would help the severe damage.

  It didn’t really make sense — why would Walt want to kill Howard? — but the coincidence was too much to ignore. Howard had died at Walt’s motel this morning. And tonight, Walt’s pickup was the only car in the lot where Vera died.

  As Lori started to march out to find Walt — and do what, she wasn’t sure — Chief Branson caught her arm.

  “I’ve called Mitch,” he said.

  Lori whipped back around. She couldn’t imagine that was a phrase he’d said often. “Why?”

  This would be the perfect time for their stupid, petty rivalry to rear its head again. Or, really, Chief Branson’s high school grudge.

  “He’s coming to get you,” Chief Branson said. “I figured you could use someone.”

  Lori nodded slowly. The chief was looking out for her? That was a new experience.

  Before Lori could thank him, a white SUV pulled into the gravel and dirt parking lot. Mitch hopped out and nodded to Chief Branson, taking over care of Lori as if she were a child that needed to be passed off to her 24/7 caretaker.

  Oh no. “I don’t want to leave,” she told Mitch. “This wasn’t an accident.”

  “Okay,” he said slowly. “I’ll admit it doesn’t look good —”

  Lori laid out her case: Howard was murdered this morning, Vera wanted to get back home to Peggy, and Walt was connected to both crime scenes.

  As she talked, Mitch drew in a deep breath and slowly released it. “Yeah, that really doesn’t look good.”

  “Do you think Walt’s capable of something like this?”

  “The biggest question is why? He barely even knew them, right?”

  Lori nodded. Unless they shared some secret history, which seemed pretty unlikely. Walt was a native Dusky Covite, never lived outside the area, and Howard and Vera had never been there before this week. They could have met online, she supposed, but Walt had barely upgraded to computers at the motel this year, and Howard didn’t trust them much. Vera was even worse.

  That must have made running the business side pretty tough for her.

  Not tough enough that she’d contemplate suicide, though.

  “Wait a minute,” Mitch said. “Where is Walt?”

  Lori glanced around. “On the Salt Marsh Boardwalk, I guess?”

  “Don’t you think the cops would’ve cleared the Boardwalk first thing?”

  “The whole thing?” Although Mitch did have a point. They wouldn’t want random people wandering through their crime scene at the very least.

  If they were lucky when they cleared it, they might catch a killer.

  “Did the cops arrest anyone?” Mitch asked.

  “No. They said there wasn’t any indication of foul play.”

  Mitch nodded slowly, his eyes on Walt’s black truck. “So where’s Walt?”

  Lori bit her lip. She reviewed every face she’d seen in the Salty Dog tonight, but she couldn’t remember Walt being there. Nothing else seemed close enough to walk, although you could walk just about anywhere in town if you really wanted.

  Lori did not want. But maybe Walt did. The man was a string bean.

  “You want to find Walt.” Mitch wasn’t asking, but Lori nodded anyway. “It’s Friday night.” Mitch said this like knowing the day of the week answered her question.

  When he didn’t add anything else to that statement, Lori sighed. “What’s so special about Walt’s Friday nights?”

  “It’s the old-timers’ poker night. He’s got to be out with Ray, Old Man Branson, Stevie . . .” Mitch trailed off, as if it suddenly registered that Lori did not know every intimate detail of the town’s long-standing, sacred traditions. “You’ve never heard of poker night.”

  Once again, not a question.

  “I’ve heard of poker nights, but no, I didn’t know about this one.” She let sarcasm slide into her voice. “I can’t believe you’ve kept this from me. I haven’t been able to invite my guests to the town’s biggest gambling attraction.”

  Mitch pursed his lips. “Let’s go see whose house they’re at this week.”

  He helped her up into his SUV — “Always at your rescue service, my lady,” he teased her — and started calling around to the poker night’s regulars. The first two were too sick to attend, but when he tried Ray’s number, Mitch hit the jackpot.

  “Yes, unfortunately,” Ray admitted on speaker phone. “Not going well this week.”

  Mitch shot the phone a skeptical look. “Is Walt there with you?”

  “Oh yeah, he’s here. He’s about to break even on me, too.”

  Lori furrowed her brow, but Mitch didn’t acknowledge the unspoken question.

  “I need to talk to him. In person. Where are you guys playing?”

  “Come on down to Stevie’s. Park in the back.”

  Lori didn’t know where Stevie lived — or who Stevie was — but she managed not to ask stupid questions like that on the drive. “What does Ray mean, ‘he’s about to break even on me’?”

  “A not very good night for Ray means he’s cleaning their clocks less than usual. They almost always end up owing him.”

  “Why do they keep inviting him, then?”

  They passed under a streetlight and Lori could see that Mitch seemed to be holding back a smile. “You’ll see.”

  Mitch drove to a residential neighborhood, and, as instructed, pulled around the back of a small house with white vinyl siding. He led Lori up to the back door and knocked.

  “Come in!” came a shout amidst laughter.

  Mitch open
ed the door into the kitchen and brought Lori in. She felt like she was entering a speakeasy in Dusky Cove’s seedy underground — or as close as they’d get here.

  However, there was no cigar smoke or hard liquor or dim lighting to be found. Instead, the “old-timers” sat at the kitchen table, laughing and drinking soda from sweating glass bottles. And instead of poker chips in front of them on the table, they had little light yellow balls.

  Then Lori saw the cereal box on the table: Kix, the same kid-tested, mother-approved breakfast she’d served her own children for years.

  “Hello there, young lady,” Stevie greeted. She recognized him from the deli counter at Lowe’s Foods.

  “Hi there, boys. Are you playing for money or just for kicks?”

  That set off every old-timer into guffawing, including Walt.

  Someone who’d just drowned a woman couldn’t laugh like that at a bad pun, could he?

  “Hey, Walt,” Mitch called, his voice casual. “Can we talk to you in the living room?”

  “You’ll disturb the sewing circle,” Stevie said. Again, the other old¬-timers laughed like this was a prime stand-up routine.

  Walt stood once his laughter subsided and led them into the living room, where it immediately became apparent why Stevie’s joke was so funny.

  In the middle of the dark room, three women crowded around the television, probably wives of the men in the kitchen. As opposed to their husbands’ low-stakes poker game, these little old ladies were cheering on a boxing match on TV with more colorful language than the announcers were allowed to use.

  Lori shook her head. Part of her wanted to scream at these people that two of her friends had died today.

  Part of her just wanted to be these blissfully ignorant people.

  “Walt,” Mitch started, “why’s your truck down at the Salt Marsh Boardwalk?”

  “Picked up dinner at the Salty Dog.”

  That wasn’t even half an answer. “When?” Lori asked. She hadn’t seen him, and she’d been there quite a while.

  “Little before five, I’d say.” Walt frowned. “Why?”