Death in Room 7 (Pine Lake Inn Cozy Mystery Book 1) (11 page)

They were ready for some real excitement this time.

I found Kevin in Senior Sergeant Cutter’s office, along with Blake and the fire chief.  Kevin was surprised to see me, but it was Cutter’s reaction that filled the room.

“What d’ya think you’re doing in here?” he bellowed, and every eye in the room turned to stare at me.

“Uh, I needed Kevin for a minute.”

“I don’t give a brass razoo!  This is a police station, Miss Powers!  Ya don’t just waltz in here to have a convo with yer little boy!”

I really hate this man.  “Listen, Cutter, I ought to give you—”

“Senior Sergeant I’ll take her out,” Kevin said in a quick staccato, making sure to grab me by my elbow before I could say another word.  He steered me through everyone to the back of the station. 

I couldn’t help but notice that Horace was gone already when we went by the holding cells.

Instead of walking me out the back door Kevin stopped by an empty stretch of hallway where a corkboard held notices about criminal activity and a full color map of the town and the area around us.

“Kevin, what are you doing!” I blurt out.  “I was just about to give Cutter a piece of my mind.”

“D’ya think that might be why I did it?”  He smiled at me even though I could see the stress he was under. “He’s on my case on this one, Mom.  Again, I might add.  It’s not gonna look good for me if my mom comes popping in to tuck my nappie into my shirt.”

He took a breath, then shook his head at himself.  “Sorry.  Sorry, you didn’t deserve that.  That was Cutter talking, not me.”

I figured as much, but it still stung.  Cutter wasn’t the one standing here mouthing the words.

“What was it you needed?” he asks me, in a kinder voice.

I hadn’t been able to think up a good way to explain this to him.  So, I’d settled on the direct approach.  “I know where Torey is.”

“What?  How?”

“Call it…a mother’s intuition.”  That would have to do for now because I wasn’t about to go into more detail.  Reaching past him to point at the map on the wall, I stick my finger at the exact spot he’ll need to direct the search.  “Right here.”

Kevin turned, and leaned in to squint at the spot.  “That’s the rock quarry.  It’s not open for the season yet.”

“Exactly.  All of those tunnels into the rocks, plus the supply sheds with canned rations for the workers.  It’s the perfect spot to hide out.  Torey could stay there for a couple of weeks, before the crews come in to start digging again.”

He thought about it, one hand rubbing at his chin.  “The rock quarry.  With the tunnels where they mine dolerite.”

“Exactly,” I agree. 

The quarry.  Also known as… 

The mine.

Time moves on.  That’s a favorite saying of mine.

Then there’s days where time stands perfectly still and goes absolutely nowhere.

The ride back to the Inn was one of the longest in my life.  In reality, of course, it didn’t take me any more time than it ever did.  It just felt like I was forever and a day getting back.

What would happen when we found Torey?  What could she tell us about Jess’s killer?  What if I was wrong about the message in the mirror, for that matter?  Hey, for all I knew Jess was saying she really liked that mirror and wanted to claim it as her own.

No.  I don’t think that’s how it works, either.

Thing is, I’m not as practiced at this whole ghost business as Darcy Sweet is.  It’s all new to me.  Like, I still can’t believe it.  That kind of new.  So, maybe I don’t know all the sorts of ghostly things that ghosts do, but I’m willing to bet they don’t waste energy scribbling out a furniture wish list.  Jess had been telling me where to find Torey.  In the mine.

Kevin was already in hot water for having his mommy show up at the station during such an important operation.  It wasn’t like I was going to be invited to join the volunteers on the search.  So, off I went, gone home to wait for word that they’ve found Torey.

Alive, I have to add.  That they find her alive.

The searchers wouldn’t be able to be out for very long before they’d have to call it a night.  Sunset was upon us as I reached the Inn, at the end of the big hill on Fenlong Street.  From here, the view of Pine Lake is spectacular.  The way the dying colors of the sun paint the tips of the gentle waves red and orange.  The way the water laps at the shoreline.  The dark, scraggly Monteray pines that stand silent watch over the water. 

A pair of grebes swooped out over the middle of the lake, splashing down with a rustling of wings, looking for a dinner of bugs and fish.  It’s a beautiful place, Lakeshore is. 

It’s getting a little darker than it used to be.  And I’m not talking about the sunset.

I stow the Wallaby away into the Inn’s storage shed along with the holiday decorations and boxes of cleaning supplies and lightbulbs and other oddments.  Don’t know when I’ll need it next but it’s good to know it’ll be there for me when I do.

Inside the Inn, I notice two things right away, each one just as surprising as the other.

First, George somehow managed to hang the portrait of the honored Lieutenant Governor up on that spot on the wall.

Second, there’s a man sitting in one of our chairs from the common room, pulled out here into the foyer.  He’s leaning back in it with the top resting against the wall and two legs off the floor, right under old David Collins’s face.

Where am I supposed to begin with something like that?

He smiled at me and gestures with the bowler hat in his hand.  “Sorry, love.  Wasn’t sure when you was gonna be back, so I made meself to home.”

His accent is more British than Australian, although an untrained ear probably wouldn’t notice the difference.  Americans, for instance, usually say we all sound alike.  He was sort of tall but very thin, sitting there in my chair like an upstart child in school.  His dark hair was cut short and then shaved on the sides.  His face was all sharp angles and stubbly beard growth.  Like a GQ model who was moonlighting as a grim reaper.

Okay, maybe that’s a little dramatic but even his suit fits the part.  Gray, with white pinstripes, and a blue silk tie.  His watch was probably the real article and not a knockoff which meant it was worth more’n most Taswegians earned in a year. 

“Uh, can I help you?” I asked him. I noticed there was no one at the front desk.  It wasn’t like Rosie to leave that unattended when there was a guest out here or in the commons room.  There wasn’t much cash behind the counter but there was enough that we didn’t want some light-fingered bugaboo slipping back there.

“Don’t worry none about your business partner,” the man said to me, settling his chair down on all four legs with a hard thump.  “Sent her back to the kitchen with a special request. She does love to cook, now don’t she?”

Above him, the portrait of David Collins shook, but stayed where it was.  What had George done, glued the thing to the wall?  “Sir, I wouldn’t sit—”

“Antonio, Miss Powers.  The name’s Antonio Ferarro.  Under normal circumstances, I’m sure I’d be pleased to make your acquaintance.”

There was a cold vibe coming off him that settled across me in waves.  I went around to the space behind the counter where at least I would have that little bit of furniture between me and him.  I felt like I needed a barrier between us.  Plus easy access to the phone, which had the police department’s number and Kevin’s on speed dial.

‘Course, that wouldn’t do me much good when they were all in the bush around town looking for a missing witness.

Oh, snap.

I cleared my throat, realizing the only thing I can do is keep him talking.  “Was there something you needed me to do for you, Mister Ferarro?”

He leaned forward to put his elbows on his knees and spin the curved brim of his bowler hat between the tips of his fingers.  “Well, like I says, these are not normal circumstances.  I’m here on what you might call business.  It’s a right nasty business, too.”  The hat stopped spinning.  “It would seem that you are about to find the elusive Torey Walters for us.  I’ve been looking for her meself, to be sure, but I didn’t have a Danny where she’d be.  She’s a right slippery…uh, crafty lady.  Tell the truth I was getting tired of tramping through those pine trees of yours anyway.  Got me knickers in a right twist, it did.”

I’m sure my mouth was open.  He smiled at me in a “gotchya” kind of way and I had to remind myself that this man wasn’t here on a social call.  Freezing up in front of him, like a deer in headlights, was probably not my best course.  “How do you know about Torey Walters?”

“Well, that there’s the big question.”  He set that hat square on his head and leaned the chair back against the wall once more.  Thump.  “See, Torey has something that belongs to us.  She’s…an associate of ours, you might parlay.  Sure.  An associate.  Thing is, she took something of ours, and we needs it back.”

“That doesn’t explain why you’re here.  In my Inn.”

He cleared his throat, and started tapping the back of the chair against the wall.  Thump, thump, thump.  “Seems she was supposed to be coming to stay here.  Leastwise, that’s the tale the pastor spins.  Bit dodgy, that bloke.  Like he sees spooks in every corner.”

“You spoke to Pastor Albright?”  My hand kept hovering over toward the phone.  Calling for help seemed like the best idea I’d had all day.

“Too right.  The good pastor and I had a long chat.  Well, a short one, but still.  We knew she’d be coming here anyways.  Not like there’s a lot of places to stay in Lakeshore, now is there?”

“I don’t know how I can help you, Mister Ferarro.”

“Seriously,” he said over me, “it’s a bitty flyspeck of a place, now ain’t it?”

All the while, he thumped his chair back against the wall.  Thump.  Thump.

Thump.

“Maybe I should just call my son,” I suggested, with emphasis.  “He’s a policeman.”

“No need for that,” he said, his smile stiff.  “He’s off chasing our Miss Torey, now ain’t he?  Let’s have him do his job while you and I go have us a chat, somewhere private, so’s I can explain what happens to folks that don’t do what we ask.  See, Torey stashed some poppy what don’t belong to her.  Got herself in a spot of trouble.  Don’t want that to happen to you.”

His accent makes it hard to follow, but I get the gist of it.  Torey stole from this man’s “associates.”  He wants to get back whatever it is she took.

No honor among thieves, after all.

From the way he’s sitting, I can see the bottoms of his shoes.  I really wish he wouldn’t do that, bang the chair against the wall like that, and I’m about to tell him so when I notice the tread on his shoes is oddly familiar.

“So, shall we walk outside for a bit?”

“I don’t think so,” I answer, slowly taking the receiver off the hook, and feeling the speed dial numbers with my fingertips.  “I think I’d rather stay right here.”

“Oh, but I insist.”

His hand goes into the inside of his suitcoat. 

My heart leaps up and I press the buttons for the first preset in the speed dial.

At the same time, he thumps the chair back down to the floor.

Thump.

From an inside pocket, he takes out a brightly colored candy wrapper.

Just as Rosie comes back in from the kitchen.

“Who’s ready for some raspberry tart?”

And the painting falls off the wall with a jerky leap and lands edge-first on top of Mister Antonio Ferarro’s bowler hat.

It probably looked funnier than it was.

No.  No, it was pretty funny.  Well.  I did tell him not to sit like that.

“Rosie come with me,” I tell her without waiting to see if Ferraro survived his run-in with Tasmania’s first lieutenant governor.  I grab her by the hand and drag her up the stairs and straight to Jess’s room.  I have it locked but the master key is in my pocket and we dodge inside before I close the door tight and lock it again.

Why did I choose here?  That’s a good question.  I’m not really sure.  I know there are a few other empty rooms on this floor.  The one next door where Horace had been staying, for instance.  But I came here without even hesitating.  I didn’t even go up to my room.

The stains from Jess’s death are still visible on the floor and the rest of the room is in the same state of disarray that Kevin and I had left it.  I still can’t do anything with it.  Not until the investigation is over.

Which it isn’t.

Yet.

Rosie is staring at me, her eyes probing mine, trying to read my thoughts.  Trying to figure out why I’m playing this game of hide and seek.  After a handful of heavy heartbeats she holds out the plate in her hands with her fresh baked tart on it.  “Want some?” she asks.

In Rosie’s world, food makes just about anything better.  I’ve eaten her food.  In most cases, she’s right.

“Rosie, that man downstairs, did he say anything to you?”

She lifted the plate again, as if raspberry tart explains everything.  “He asked me to make him some dessert.”

“Okay, um, anything else?”

“No.”  She shook her head at me, then looked down at the pastry in her hand.  “I just made him a tart.”

In the hall I can hear footsteps.  “Shh.  Rosie, don’t say anything.”

Her eyes grow bigger, and she nods her head, probably not understanding a single thing that’s going on but trusting my judgment just the same.  The footsteps thud down the hallway, closer, and closer.

Then they stop.  Right on the other side of this door.

Of course.  I should have expected that.  Of course he would know where this room is.

I work the cord on my unicorn necklace until the little wooden pendant is in my hand.  Jess’s last gift to me.  A talisman left by a friend. 

The handle rattles as Ferraro tries it from the outside.  So glad I thought to lock it.

Very suddenly his footsteps turn away, back up the hall.  Then they stop again.

Wait.  Did I lock the room where Horace was staying?

Rosie and I stare at each other as we hear that door open, then hear the muted footsteps walk inside. 

No.  I didn’t lock it.

Isn’t that just bonza.

All this time, Ferraro hasn’t said a word.  He’s silently acting out some plan, I just can’t figure out what it is.  Following him with my ears through the wall, imagining him moving across the floor in the room next door, I hear him at the window.

I hear the window latch rattling.

Oh.

Ferraro’s going to open the window, and jump across to this room here.  There’s no doubt in my mind that he’ll make the jump.

He did the same thing the night he killed Jess, after all.

The shoe print.  The candies he had in his pocket.  This was Jess’s killer.

Next to me, Rosie closed her eyes, and I can hear her quietly praying.  She still has the raspberry tart in her hands as she asks God to keep us safe.

I’m all for prayer, but I know that whole line about
faith without works being dead.
  If we want to be safe, we should get out of here, now, as quiet as two church mice.

“Rosie,” I whisper, before something steals my breath away.

Over at the window, transparent and as substantial as shadow, I see Jess.  She flipped her hair back over her shoulder, and winked at me.

I can’t say anything at all.  I can only watch as she faded through the window, moving outside.

Now I know why I brought me and Rosie here.  It was the one place in the Inn where I knew I’d feel safe from that man. 

Because it was the one place that I knew I’d find Jess waiting for me.

That thought is only just in my head when I hear the scream from the other room, a man’s cry of surprise, then a loud crash and the sounds of Ferraro scrambling across the room and out into the hallway.  I can faintly hear him running down the stairs.