An Old-Fashioned Murder (4 page)

Daisy stared at her.

“You should have told me that he was back!” she went on breathlessly. “I would have prepared. We would have thrown a party.”

There was a moment of stunned silence all around. Daisy's mouth opened, but not a syllable emerged.

“We
are
throwing a party,” Aunt Emily reminded Lillian crisply after a minute, “and I can assure you that Matt McGovern is not in any way involved.”

Lillian's face fell.

With his own face hidden behind a humongous paisley carpet bag, Parker said, “Which room was it again, my dear?”

“The James Longstreet,” Aunt Emily answered. “Third floor. First door on your right. The key will be in the lock.”

Henry Brent gave an amused clack. “Very appropriate choice in rooms, I'd say,” he commented to Drew.

Drew looked at Daisy quizzically. History was not his forte.

“All of the inn's rooms are named after Confederate generals,” she explained briefly. “Longstreet isn't considered the most popular. He befriended Grant after the war—”

“—and lost Gettysburg,” Edna finished for her, with a distinct hint of pique.

“Yes, indeed,” Henry Brent chimed in. “Edna is the president-elect of our local chapter of the Daughters of the Confederacy. If there's anything that you want to know about the war, she's the one to go to.”

Edna's back straightened proudly. Both she and her sister were loyal, longtime members of the organization. Edna had been diligently working her way up the rungs of the officer ladder for many years. When finally selected as president, she had proclaimed to everybody who would listen that it was the happiest day of her life.

“What room am I in?” Henry Brent asked Daisy.

“The Jubal Early, I believe.”

He nodded approvingly.

“It's on this floor, on the other side of the dining room,” Daisy told him.

“We didn't want you to have to climb up and down the stairs all weekend, Henry,” Aunt Emily added.

“But climbing is evidently just fine for us,” Lillian remarked acidly.

Aunt Emily turned to respond, but she and Parker had already started down the hall toward the stairs.

“That woman is going to be a headache, isn't she?” Drew said in a low tone that only Daisy could hear.

“
Headache
isn't a strong enough word,” she replied with a sigh.

His brow furrowed. “Should I try talking to her?”

Daisy shook her head. “It won't do any good.”

“But maybe if she got to know me a little better, then she wouldn't be quite so stuck on your ex.”

“It's a nice idea,” Daisy put her hand on his appreciatively, “except Lillian will always be stuck on Matt. Somewhere along the line she decided that her darling nephew could neither be blamed for anything nor do anything wrong. And she's getting worse about it, not better. Talking to her will only provoke her. It's like waving a hunk of fresh hamburger in front of an ornery badger.”

“Well, I'm not just going to sit by and let her ruin the whole weekend for you,” Drew said.

“She's not going to ruin anything.” Daisy gave his fingers an affectionate squeeze.

He responded with a rakish grin. “Good, because I have no intention of being separated from you for the next two days.”

“Only the days?” Daisy returned, with her own grin. “Not the nights?”

Her flirtations were cut short by Aunt Emily.

“Now, about this surprise?” Aunt Emily chirped, looking back and forth between Daisy and Henry Brent.

Daisy could only shrug. “I know nothing about it, other than there is one.”

Henry Brent gurgled mischievously. He might as well have been a seven-year-old hiding a stash of gum balls.

“It must be a good surprise,” Aunt Emily prodded him eagerly.

He gurgled some more.

May started to speak, but the squeaky front door interrupted her.

“The rain has arrived,” a booming voice announced.

“Rain!” Henry Brent hiccupped in distress.

“Give it another couple of minutes,” the voice continued, “and it should be a real downpour.”

“Oh, then I must hurry!” And without hesitation, Henry Brent set off in a full sprint for the entrance hall.

“Mr. Brent,” Daisy called after him, remembering how cold the wind had been. “You're not going outside, are you? Because I don't think—”

She began to rise from her chair to follow him, but Drew stopped her.

“I'll go,” he volunteered. “He may need help anyway, with whatever his surprise is.”

Daisy nodded gratefully, and Drew trotted after him. There was a loud bustle in the entrance hall as folks came in and folks went out. The weather prognosticator appeared a moment later.

“Those are some mighty black clouds rolling in.” His voice boomed just as loudly in the parlor as it had from the front door. “I predict one heck of a deluge.”

“Then we're glad to have you back before it hits,” Aunt Emily answered with all the courtesy of the good innkeeper. “Is your wife with you, Mr. Lunt?”

“Kenneth. I keep telling you to call me Kenneth,” he corrected her in an affable but firm tone. “And yes, Sarah's right behind me.”

Sarah Lunt stepped out of her husband's sizable shadow and murmured a faint greeting. She was a tiny woman, barely five feet tall with an equally petite frame. She reminded Daisy of a skittish field mouse. Her thin hair was a mousy brown, her darting eyes were the same drab shade, and her pointed little chin quivered whenever anyone spoke to her—or even looked at her—a smidge too hard. She couldn't have been older than thirty-five, yet she moved haltingly, as if weighed down by an oppressive burden.

What that burden might have been, Daisy didn't know. Kenneth Lunt was a boisterous and assertive sort of person who expressed his thoughts freely, but he didn't give any indication of being mean or aggressive toward his wife. If she was a field mouse, then he was a noisy blue jay. In his upper thirties, he had black hair that was beginning to gray at the sideburns and a bulky upper body that didn't match his angular legs.

“The Lunts have been staying at the inn while house-hunting in the area,” Aunt Emily explained to the rest of the group. “You sure did get an early start today,” she said to the couple in a polite way of making conversation. “We missed you at breakfast.”

“It wasn't as early of a start as hers,” Kenneth replied, motioning toward Daisy. “Are you always out the door at such an ungodly hour?”

Daisy responded with a small smile. “It's the curse of working in bakeries and diners, unfortunately—up before the rooster. But I am sorry if I woke you. I do try hard to be quiet, and I'm usually pretty good at it. I've lived here long enough to know where all the creaky old floorboards are, so I manage to avoid most of them. The stairs can get a bit tricky, though, especially this time of year when the wood is drier and more prone to squeaks.”

“No worries,” Kenneth told her. “I tend to be a light sleeper away from home. Every strange tick and click wakes me, even the quiet ones.”

Aunt Emily frowned at the newly delivered longcase clock. “Then perhaps we better not set that one while you're here. They can take some getting used to, and if you're already restless during the night, all those gongs every hour could be frustrating.”

“No worries,” Kenneth repeated. “I heard the clock over there on the mantel chime each half-hour, and it didn't bother me.”

Daisy blinked at him in surprise. “The chimes from that little clock are really light. You must have exceptionally good hearing.”

“He does,” his wife confirmed softly.

Aunt Emily's frown deepened. “I do wish that you would have mentioned this earlier. I could have moved you to a different room when there were still more options available. Let me think for a moment. You're in the George Pickett. That's directly at the top of the stairs on the second floor—”

“We would be happy to switch,” Lillian proposed, as she and Parker reappeared in the parlor.

She spoke the words with such a complete lack of expression that Daisy couldn't tell if the offer was one of genuine kindness or simply another complaint about having to climb to the third floor.

“That's generous of you, Lillian,” Aunt Emily replied. “But your room is directly at the top of the stairs, too, only slightly higher. I don't believe that's going to help much with noises echoing up the steps.”

“Sarah and I don't need to move,” Kenneth said.

“There is an empty room further down the hall on the third floor,” Aunt Emily told him. “It's rather small, though, because it tucks up into the attic, so I'm not sure how comfortable the two of you would be.”

“We're fine where we are,” he answered.

Aunt Emily didn't press the point further. He was the customer, after all. If he didn't have a problem with the location of his room, then neither did she. A somewhat awkward pause followed, during which Lillian and Parker deposited themselves on the gold-brocaded settee across from the Fowler sisters, who were seated on the emerald-brocaded settee.

“If you decide to set both clocks,” May observed after a moment to no one in particular, “you should check that they have the same time—”

“—or you'll have dueling chimes,” Edna concurred.

Although Parker wheezed in amusement, somehow the remark made the pause even more awkward. Daisy tried a new subject.

“Did you have any luck with the house-hunting today?” she asked Sarah, hoping to draw the woman—who was still standing half hidden in the shadow of her husband—out of her shell.

“There was one brick ranch,” Sarah began timidly. She looked at Kenneth for corroboration.

“We talked about this already.” He used the same tone that he had earlier with Aunt Emily—affable but firm. “It's not big enough.”

“But the garden was terribly pretty.”

Kenneth gave his wife an almost pitying glance. “It's the middle of winter. The garden was bare dirt with a few matted leaves in the corners.”

Sarah sniffled.

“Now, the garden here,” he went on, “that's an entirely different matter.” He turned to Aunt Emily. “I've seen those azaleas that you have along the eastern side of the house. They're so big, they must be ancient.”

Aunt Emily nodded with pride. “They were planted before I was born. We were very lucky not to lose them in the flood.”

Kenneth nodded back at her. “I bet they put on a fantastic show in the spring.” He turned again to his wife. “Wouldn't you like to have that for a garden?”

Sarah's drab eyes flashed with the barest hint of a spark. “Oh, I would.”

He smiled down at her. “That settles it then.” With a broad, sweeping gesture of his arm and an almost thunderous voice, he declared, “We've decided to buy the inn.”

 

CHAPTER

4

Daisy's instinctive reaction was that Kenneth Lunt must be joking, but he wasn't laughing.

“Buy the inn?” Aunt Emily echoed slowly.

“Buy the inn,” Kenneth confirmed.

The smile to his wife had been replaced by rigid lips and a jaw set in sober determination. The man definitely wasn't joking.

“I'm not…” Aunt Emily hesitated.

Her brow was furrowed, and her lips became rigid, too. She seemed confused, which in turn confused Daisy. Aunt Emily was the last surviving member of the oldest family in Pittsylvania County. Her kinfolk had originally settled the area, and the venerable Victorian was the final vestige of the once glorious Tosh tobacco empire, which had long ago crumbled into dust. The house had survived fires, earthquakes, tornadoes, and most recently, the flood. It was not only Aunt Emily's ancestral home, it was also her heritage. She wouldn't ever give it up—or so Daisy had always been led to believe.

“You'll be well compensated,” Kenneth said. “Taking into consideration all the work you've had done recently, of course. I will need some more information on the plumbing and electrical updates. And,” he made another sweeping gesture with his arm, “we'll take it fully furnished.”

“What a generous offer,” Lillian remarked.

Except it sounded much more like a demand than an offer. Or if not an actual demand, then at the very least an assumption that the matter was already a done deal. Ironing out a specific moving day and perhaps negotiating the disposition of a favorite knickknack was all that seemed to remain. Based on Kenneth Lunt's assured demeanor, the inn and its contents were practically signed, sealed, and as good as delivered to him and his wife.

Sufficient minutes had now passed that Daisy expected Aunt Emily to have overcome her initial shock and respond with a decisive rejection, but she didn't. Instead she appeared earnest and thoughtful, as though the idea required serious contemplation.

“Sell the inn.” Parker shook his head. “I didn't think I would ever see the day.”

“Time marches on,” Lillian replied casually.

Daisy shot her an irritated glance. Apparently it only marched on when it was convenient and agreeable to Lillian.

“But what would happen to my girls?” Aunt Emily mused, more to herself than to the rest of the group.

That was precisely Daisy's question. There was not the slightest doubt about the inn belonging to Aunt Emily and her having every right to do with it as she chose, but it was also the place where Daisy and her mama lived. Without it, they'd be out on the street—or more accurately, setting up cots and sleeping bags on the floor of the bakery—along with Daisy's best friend, Beulah, who likewise called the inn her home. In addition, Beulah's popular little hair salon occupied a former potting shed on one corner of the inn's property. She was working there right now, Friday afternoon being among her busiest times. Daisy could only imagine how horrified Beulah would be at the prospect of losing her business.