Death in Room 7 (Pine Lake Inn Cozy Mystery Book 1) (10 page)

Without waiting to see if I had anything else to say, he turned and went up to the altar, then through the door to the back room.

I wasn’t sure what to make of that.  Not that I had a lot of time to think about it just now.  I had to find Kevin.  Hopefully, he’d be down at the police station.

Tell you this, though.  The look on Pastor Albright’s face was like he’d seen a ghost of his own.

***

I know I’m supposed to be going back to the Inn.  The place doesn’t run itself and Rosie, bless her soul, is busy enough in the kitchen without trying to pick up my slack at the front desk.

But I think a little side trip to the police station is in order.

Although side trip doesn’t really describe a walk from one end of town to the other.

It’s more than an hour before noon, but I’ve skipped breakfast again and as my belly begins grumbling in protest I figure I’ll need something to keep up my strength.  It’s going to be a long day.  So when I got to the Milkbar I charged a soft drink and a few chocolate bars to the Inn’s account.  There’s a few perks to owning my own business.  Running a tab at most of the other businesses in town is definitely one of them.

No such thing as ghosts.  The good pastor had seemed so sure.  Or had he?  I remembered the way he looked just before I’d gone, and the way he’d been all nervous to begin with over the whole subject.  Maybe he didn’t believe in ghosts, but at the same time, maybe his words were covering up what he really believed.

On the other hand, Darcy had been very sure about what she believed.  Ghosts were a real part of my American friend’s life.  The dead could reach out to the living, encourage them, guide them, even ask for help.

I know what I had felt, dreaming about Jess.  Maybe it was just a dream, maybe not.  But I couldn’t deny how real it felt.

My friend needed my help.  I could figure out the rest of my life some other time.

The bottle of no-name cola was gone by the time I got to the other edge of town.  Oliver Harris was outside his two stall garage up here, banging away at the motor of a little red coupe that had its hood propped up with a broom handle.  He got a lot of business being right across from the police station.  ‘Course, being the only tow truck driver in town helped, too.  He waved one massive, grease-stained hand at me before whacking away at the engine again with a long monkey wrench.

Oliver had never been the brightest in his family.  A high school football injury had pretty much limited his choices in life.  For all that, I’ve never seen him unhappy.  Maybe I should ask him his secret someday.

I didn’t so much march into the police station as I slunk in, hoping that Senior Sergeant Cutter hadn’t decided to break tradition and come into work on the weekend.  I’d put him in his place over the whole arresting Kevin thing and I he wasn’t likely to forget it anytime soon.  As it was, he had Kevin working every Saturday and Sunday and a few night shifts besides, just because my son had solved that whole poisoning case and made Cutter look like the kangaroo’s backside that he is.

So when I hit the little customer bell at the counter I wasn’t surprised to see Kevin come to the window.  “Mom, I don’t have anything new yet.  You have to be a bit patient, right?”

“Sure, sure,” I said, taking out one of the candy bars and opening it with more attention than it really deserved, trying to hide a smile.  “I could be patient, or we could try to find Torey Walters.”

“Well, that’s the plan, Mom.  Just don’t know where to look.  My source tracked her here for me but her trail just turns bottom up.  I don’t even know where to begin.”

“I do.”

The look of surprise on his face was pretty gratifying.  I’d savor it more if I didn’t feel like time was working against us.  I can’t really explain it.  That’s just the way it felt.  Like there was some big grandfather clock in my head counting down the hours, minutes, seconds…

After I’d explained what Pastor Albright had said, Kevin just shook his head.  “You got all that with just one visit to church?”

“Well.  You know.  The Lord works in mysterious ways and all that.”

“So do you, apparently.  Better come in and we’ll make some phone calls.  Seems like we’re closer to the truth than we knew.”

Closer?  I really didn’t feel like we were closer to the truth.  It felt more like one step forward and two steps back to me.

Inside the station Kevin sat me down at a desk in the back interview room.  We went through the information we had again, all our theories, and he had me repeat the description of Torey twice.

Finally, he nodded.  “Yeah.  That’s her.  I remember that tattoo.”

Under his notepad was a folder.  It was marked with Jess’s name and as he opened it, I got a real sense of how much work he’d put into investigating her death so far.  It was full of papers, printouts, and other pages.  Leafing through it, Kevin made sure I didn’t see anything a civilian wasn’t supposed to, then brought out one form that had a bunch of typed information on it and a photo in the corner.  It was black and white, but it perfectly fit the image of Torey Walters that I’d formed in my head.

“This is from our investigation of Roy Fittimer, drug dealer and all around waste of space.”  He tapped the photo thoughtfully.  “So, I guess it’s time to put out some missing posters and a BOLO message to the area police departments.”

“Couldn’t she still be in town?” I wondered out loud.

“It’s a small town.”

“Sure it is.  But there’s a lot of forest around to hide in.  There’s the quarry.  Tons of hiking trails, too.  I send tourists out to the trails all the time.”

“You think our junky prostitute’s been hiding out in the wilderness?”  He arched an eyebrow at me, all smug like.

“You’re assuming she’s still alive.”

“That’s true.  Could always be dead.”  He sighed, rubbing his hand through his hair.  Obviously he hadn’t considered that possibility.  My Kevin is smart, but sometimes sons need to be reminded to listen to their mothers.  “All right.  Better call the other guys in.  Get some volunteers to form search parties.  The fire department guys train for this sort of thing out in the bush.  Heh.  Cutter’s not gonna like this.”

I bit my tongue rather than say how much I didn’t care what Cutter liked.  If we could find Torey, alive or not, then we might actually be closer to the truth.  For real.

“Excuse me, Kevin?”  Another officer opened the door after a single knock.  Blake Williams, leaning in with a confused look on his face.  “We letting the prisoner have his meds?”

Kevin sat up straighter.  “Medicine?  What medicine?”

“Brought them in from his room at the Inn.  Hey, Miss Powers.”  He nodded to me, then hesitated to say anything more.

“Oh, strike a light, Blake.”  Kevin almost laughed at the other man.  “It’s not like she doesn’t already know what’s going on.  This is Lakeshore, not Melbourne.  It’s not even Hobart, for that matter.  We’re all just folks here.”

“Right.  Right,” Blake said, shrugging his shoulders.  “No secrets in a small town.  Not that this is a secret, I suppose.  He just needs his medicines.”

“What are they for?”

Blake looked back at him, blinking.

Kevin leaned back in his chair with a long breath as he crossed his heavy arms.  “You didn’t ask.  Did you?”

With an annoyed scowl spreading over his face, Blake shook his head no.

“Well, maybe you should go ask him now,” Kevin suggested, “before we give him something prescribed by a doctor.  It, uh, is a prescription, right?”

“Of course it is.  I’m not daft.”

When Blake left the room Kevin looked at me with a meaningful glance.  “Cutter’s right hand man, you know.”

“Heh.  You should be the one in charge here, Kevin.”  This wasn’t just a mother’s pride talking.  I know the score, and it isn’t just me.  “Everyone in town says the same thing.”

Kevin rolled one shoulder.  “I’m not the Senior Sergeant.  I don’t need to be.  I just want to see the good folks of Lakeshore kept safe.”

The way he said it might have sounded hokey coming from someone else.  From him it was sincere.  This was why he’d become a police officer in the first place.

“Well, someday I hope you have your shot at the top spot here,” I tell him.

“Probably won’t happen.  It takes time to be promoted to Senior Sergeant. They won’t just give the post to a constable.  Won’t be me.”

I know he’s right, but that doesn’t mean I can’t hope.

Blake comes back with a knock on the door.  “Says it’s for diabetes.”

Kevin sat forward.  “It’s insulin?”

“No, uh,” he lifted the medicine bottle in his hand to read the label, “Cycloset.  Says to take every four hours.  Been here a lot longer’n that.  I think Cutter would want him to have his meds, right?  Kevin?”

Without answering Kevin stood up from the desk and took the pill bottle from Blake, then he was off down the hallway. 

We followed him right to the holding cells at the back.  There’s just the two of them, side by side between two cinder block walls.  The front wall is these thick iron bars spaced closely enough that the people inside couldn’t squeeze through.  The wall between the cells was more bars.

In the cell on the right, Horace sat with his arms and legs crossed and a scowl on his face.  When he saw the bottle in Kevin’s hand he jumped up from the little bench and stuck his hand through the bars.  “About time. I need that, ya know.”

“So I’m told,” Kevin said to him, standing just out of his reach with the bottle.  “Tell me why you need this.”

“Already told your other guy.  I’m a diabetic.  Type two diabetes.  Easy to maintain, if I get my bloody medicine!”  He glared daggers at all three of us.  “Have to stay away from sweets and exercise on a regular basis, too, and oh yeah it helps if I don’t get too stressed out.  Like by being arrested for something I didn’t do!”

My eyebrows shot up.  That’s why Kevin had been so interested in what Horace’s medicine was for.  Horace had to stay away from sweets.  Diabetic medication and no sweets.

All those little hard candy wrappers in the dust bin.  Where they’d found the key.  The killer had been sucking on candy while he waited to…do that to Jess.

The killer had a sweet tooth, and Horace couldn’t have sweets.  Certainly not that many at a time.

Kevin caught my eye as he handed the bottle over to Blake and instructed him to give Horace the dosage.  For a moment I felt like the world had just been yanked out from under my feet.  I had to turn away, walk away, hold my head down so my son wouldn’t see me cry.

Horace wasn’t the killer.  He couldn’t be.

You don’t know him,
Jess had been trying to tell me.  I should have listened.

I didn’t know her killer.

I might not understand Horace, but I knew this devil.

Out there, somewhere, was a devil I didn’t know.
 

Back at the Inn I made sure that one of my employees had the desk covered.  We weren’t scheduled to have any arrivals come in for the next two days, but that didn’t mean we wouldn’t have a tourist wander into town at some odd hour and need a room.

Here’s to hoping it turned out better for them than it had for Jess.

I went straight up to my room.  As I walked down the second floor hallway there was this pressure that made my skin tingle.  It broke over me as I went past room seven, unseen and ephemeral, like walking through spider webs.
I didn’t even stop outside of Jess’s room.  Couldn’t bring myself to do it this time. 

My own room had never felt so big and empty to me.  Not since before Richard had left.  My hubby.  It hadn’t been easy, getting past that kind of betrayal.  It almost would have been better if he’d died.  At least then there would have been closure.  All he’d left me with was questions without answers.

I was hungry, and I was bone tired, and I was so frustrated I couldn’t even cry.  Someone had snuck into the Inn—
my
Inn—and then killed my friend and now it looked like they were going to get away with it.

So.  I could go down to lunch and let Rosie make me something to eat.  I could crawl into bed and sleep the rest of this whole day away.  I could even curl up into a tight little ball and just wait for tomorrow to come.

Choices, choices.

Another option occurred to me.  A warm soak in the tub.  Just what every girl needs, sometimes.  I’d like a glass of beer to go with it, or two, but that would mean I’d have to go downstairs again.  I’d rather just hide in my room for a while, I think.

Seashells greet me as I open the connecting door to the bathroom.  Maybe it was time to change the décor in here.  It was a sight too cheerful for my state of mind.  Stripping out of my shirt and my pants, kicking them over in the corner, I push aside the semi-transparent shower curtain around the tub about to turn on the hot water.

“Heya, Dell.”

I was too scared to scream even though I needed to.  It welled up into my throat and choked me and made my blood cold.  Throwing myself backward I slipped and fell, going down hard, my head bouncing against the floor.  A ringing rose up in my ears.  Pain brought me back to my senses.

Jess had been standing in the shower.  She was gone now, the room empty again except for me, but I know what I saw.  It had been Jess, with that crooked smile of hers and those eyes full of mischief.  She’d been wearing the same ripped jeans and form fitting t-shirt.  The Jess that I remembered being so alive and vibrant.

Gone now.

Using the bathroom sink for leverage I made it to my feet again.  There was a lump at the back of my head that throbbed in time to my pulse.  I could feel it rising under my gently probing fingers, under my hair.  Was I bleeding?  That had been a pretty hard knock. 

“Jess,” I said to the air around me, “don’t do things like that.”

In the medicine cabinet mirror I tried to see the damage.

Except I couldn’t, because it was fogged over.  I hadn’t even run the bathwater yet, and it was fogged over.

In the misty condensation of the glass a single word was written.

Mine.

***
 

A bite to eat suddenly sounded right good to me.

If it was an excuse to get me out of my bathroom, out of my room, I didn’t care and I didn’t argue the point.  Believing in ghosts is one thing.  Having them leave cryptic, possessive messages on my bathroom mirror is something else entirely.

Whatever Jess was claiming as hers—
mine
—I was very certain I didn’t want to have any part of it.

It never occurred to me that any other ghostly hand could have written that message. It’s not like my Inn has a whole bunch of ghosts running around to choose from.

I rushed into the dining room just about fifteen minutes later.  Time enough to wipe the message away and see it reform itself, throw my clothes back on, and lock the door behind me.

Don’t ask me why I did that last step.  From everything I know, ghosts can walk right through a locked door.  I suppose it just made me feel better.

Through the dining room and into the kitchen behind, I was watched by a singular set of eyes.  I’d missed the lunch rush, and the place was empty except for Mister Brewster.  His odd-colored eyes followed me, his elbows folded on the table and his interlaced fists resting against his chin.  He regarded me with a serious look.  Like he was examining me.

I noticed there was a glass of water in front of him along with an untouched turkey club sandwich.  I’ve never seen the man eat.  He orders his food, and then he sits with it, and after a while it just seems to disappear bit by bit.

He pays for his room a month in advance, I told myself.  As long as his money was good he could be as creepy as he wanted to be.

I wonder if he’s ever seen a ghost?

The thought was so sudden that it stopped me at the swinging door to the kitchen.  I’d never consider asking that question of one of the other guests for fear that they’d pack up their things and leave the Inn, the state, maybe even the country itself.  But Mister Brewster was, well, creepy enough that maybe he wouldn’t spook at the thought of having a recently deceased neighbor living in the next room over.

Then again…

He pays his rent in advance, I reminded myself.

Pushing through the door I left Mister Brewster to his meal.

Rosie was directing the washing and tidying up of the lunch dishes.  She’s a very hands-on kind of boss, and the employees who work the kitchen or the dining room know that about her and respect her for it.  As I watched, she waved a white towel at one of them, shooing them to go faster, then tossed the cloth aside.

It landed on the griddle, still slick with hot grease, and in two seconds flat we had a small fire blossoming right there in our kitchen.

Fortunately that’s such a common occurrence that the staff doesn’t even blink over it anymore.  Without missing a beat on his way to the sink with an armful of dirty plates, Paul picked up the container of white flour and poured it liberally over the stove top.  Still walking, he passed me with a wink.

“I’ll clean that up in a sec, Miss Powers.”

“Thanks Paul,” I whisper back.

When Rosie turns around again to see her stove covered in flour, she throws her hands in the air.  “What is this?  I can’t turn my back on you lot for a minute.  Paul, clean this up straight away!"

“Will do, Rosie.”  With another wink at me, he sets his plates in the sink to be washed and attends to the near disaster.

“Lord above, Dell,” Rosie says to me.  “We’ve got to get ready for dinner service and it’s still chaos in here.  What’ya been up to?  Haven’t seen you all day.”

“Um.  Well, that’s kind of a long story.”  I’m going to tell her all of it, and I know that.  I think that’s why I really came down here in the first place.  “Mind if I make a sandwich first so I can talk and eat at the same time?”

“Oh, no need.  Gretchen, can you get Dell some of that three-cheese macaroni, please?  Wait till ya try this, Dell.  Make your tastebuds dance, it will!”

I never doubt my friend’s culinary opinion.  When the dish is set down on the center island in front of me, the smell makes my mouth water.  But, I stand there, looking straight at Rosie with a patient little smile on my face.

“Oh, my,” she says, immediately seeing what I need.  “Everyone out, please.  Take a half hour break and be back ready to go. Yes.  Scoot, please.  Thanks.  Good job, everyone!  Best lunch service in a long time.  I mean it!”

When the kitchen is clear of everyone but us, I take a breath, choke back a few frustrated tears, and tell her everything that’s happened in this one, impossibly short day.

Rosie’s eyes were comically big before I ran out of things to say.  Not that any of this was funny.

“I can’t believe it,” she said.  “I thought all of this was behind us.  Horace isn’t the one who did it?  Then who is?  I can’t believe this.”

“Me either.”  The only part I left out of my story was what had just happened to me up in the bathroom.  Considering Pastor Albright’s reaction I can only imagine what Rosie’s would be.  “This mac and cheese is wonderful, by the way.  I haven’t had time to eat all day.  Well, except for some candy bars.”

“Well I can imagine.  I’m so sorry, Dell.  I, um, may have been unkind before in the things I said about Jess.”

“You were being truthful, Rosie.  That’s all.”  I put another few bites of my lunch away.  Or was it dinner?  I’ve lost all track.  “So, I guess the rest of it is up to Kevin and them.  Him and the volunteers and the rest of the force are going to look around the town.  We need to find this Torey woman.  I sure don’t know where to look.”

Pulling a stool over to sit across from me at the island counter, Rosie took up a fork and stole some of my mac and cheese.  “Well, sure,” she said around a mouthful of food.  “That makes sense.”

Her eyes stay focused on the food when she says it, and from the way she chose her words so carefully it was like she was doing her best to keep from saying Torey might already be dead.

Which was the same thought I’ve had in the back of my head all along.  I just can’t let it be true.  She needs to be out there, somewhere.  She might be the only one who knows who really did this to Jess.

“There are lots of places to hide out there,” I remind Rosie.

“Right,” she agreed, a little too enthusiastically.  “I mean, there’s the woods, and um, more woods, and the trails of course, and the quarry.”

“That’s exactly what I told my Kevin…”  With a sharp gasp, choking on a bite of food, I realize what we just said.  I sit there, staring at Rosie, coughing, as it finally clicks in my head.

Why hadn’t I seen it before?

“Rosie, I have to go.”  I take another huge bite of the mac and cheese, because it really is amazing and I really am hungry, but I have to go see Kevin.  I need to let him know.

“Dell?  Are you all right?” she asks me.

Now there’s a loaded question.

“Can you watch the Inn for me for a little bit longer?  I don’t know how long I’ll be.”

She picked up my plate and put it in front of her, intent on finishing it off.  “Can do.  I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

“Me too.”  I can’t tell her all of it yet.  If I’m right, then maybe I understand what Jess wrote in my mirror.

I hold my unicorn necklace tight as I rush outside.

The sun is heading down toward the horizon when I step out of the Inn.  I don’t own a car.  Kevin has one that I borrow whenever I need to drive out to Hobart or anywhere else outside of Lakeshore.  There’s the rental the Inn has, too, but I don’t have a car of my own.

What I do have, is a bicycle.

The Wallaby is the little red ten speed that I’ve had with me since University.  I named her myself.  She could use a coat of paint, and I never quite get around to greasing the chain like I mean to, but she makes getting from one end of the town to the other a lot easier when I’m in a hurry. 

The wind whips through my long hair now as I cycle through the gears and bring myself to the police station in a fraction of the time it would have taken me to walk.  There are a lot of cars here.  I recognize some of them.  Police officers, firemen, others from the town.  Near the back of the line is a beat up green Volkswagon Beetle, the old kind that actually had the engine in the back.  I recognize that one, too.

James Callahan stood outside his car, scribbling in his notebook, making sure to take note of everyone who came and went.  I guess that means I’ll be in his next edition of the Lakeshore Times, too.

He smiles at me as I step down from the Wallaby and walk my bicycle up the line of cars.  “Hey, Dell.  How’s things?”

“You tell me, James.  I’m just here to see my son.”  I feel bad for lying to him, because I had promised to fill him in on what was happening in the investigation, but this part of it has to stay secret.  For now.

With a smile and a shake of his head he shoved his pencil into the spiral wiring of his notebook.  “I was hoping ya could trust me more’n that, Dell.”

“I do trust you, James.”  I was surprised to hear myself say that.  We were friends, sure, but I didn’t know him all that well.  Just from around town.  That, and the long talk we’d had at the Milkbar.  “I, uh, need to see Kevin.  Can I call you later to tell you what I’ve found out?”

His smile is warm.  “I’d like that.”

I turn away with my face heating, and hook my hair back behind my ear like a schoolgirl.  There’s a mix of emotions inside of me and I don’t know what to do about them.  Except ignore them.  For now.  James is a nice guy, a handsome man, and maybe if my good friend hadn’t just died I would have taken some time to talk to him.

He was cute.  Amazing how I’d never noticed that before.

I had to push through knots of people talking and standing around to get into the police station.  I’m pretty much ignored as I go in.  Everyone is keyed up, ready to go on this hunt.  Something like this doesn’t happen here.  The last time was when Eliza Batiste’s daughter went missing and the fire department went on a three hour search of the woods only to finally find the six year old asleep in her own closet.