Death in Room 7 (Pine Lake Inn Cozy Mystery Book 1) (12 page)

He’s gone.  I can imagine what happened.  He saw…something.  Maybe he didn’t even know that it was Jess he saw.  However it looked to him, it scared him enough that he slipped on the open windowsill and fell back into the room, and then he ran away with his tail between his legs.

I put my hand on Rosie’s shoulder, shaking her out of her state.  Her eyes popped open and she looked up at me.  In a whisper, she asked, “Is he gone?”

“Yes.  He, uh, couldn’t stay.  Something scared him off.”

Crossing herself, she balanced the raspberry tart in one hand, looking down at it in surprise.  “Well.  I suppose he won’t be wanting this, then.”

I have to laugh.  Leave it to Rosie to put the whole thing into perspective.

Together, we went downstairs again, slowly, careful to keep an eye out in case Ferraro is still here.  He’s not, but on my registration counter is a memento.  His crushed bowler, with a note beside it, the pen from the guestbook laid neatly across the small piece of paper.

You ruined my hat.  I’ll be back to collect.

The phone rings at that exact moment, making me jump, the note dropping from my hand.  Behind me, Rosie drops her tart.  The plate smashes against the floor.

I grab the phone up and put it to my ear.  It was off the receiver, from my failed attempt to call for help, but the secondary line is the one that’s ringing.  When I press the flashing button, I hear my son’s voice.

“Mom?  Mom,” Kevin said, his voice filled with excitement.  “We got her.  Found her right there in the quarry just like you thought!”

My mind was racing.  They had Torey Walters.  I looked down at the bowler hat, one long vertical crease running its length, and remember Antonio Ferraro’s promise to come back and collect his revenge.  “Kevin, you can’t bring Torey here.”

“Whassat?  How’d ya know I was gonna ask?”

“Because I know you.  Listen, she can not come here.  Okay?  Put her…no, don’t tell me where you’re going to put her.  Just find someplace safe for her and come over to the Inn straight after, all right?”  I look over at the portrait of David Collins, laying on the floor, once again knocked off that wall by a force I can only guess at.  I wonder if he ever had to deal with things like this.

“Just get here as fast as you can, all right Kevin?  We just found Jess’s real killer.”
 

***

“How did he know?”

That was the same question I’d been wondering at, along with a dozen or so other things.  Like why Jess’s murderer was still in town.

Well.  That one sort of answered itself.  Whatever group Antonio was working for, his business associates, wanted the money Torey had stolen from them.  Wanted it badly enough to kill for it.

And they weren’t going to leave until they had it back.

“I mean,” Kevin was saying, sipping his coffee, “we only figured out she was in town, what, yesterday?  They knew we were looking for her before we even got started.  How?”

“They could’ve been staking out the police station,” Rosie offered. 

The three of us were sitting at a table in the dining room.  Now that it was after dark the Inn was quiet.  A few of the guests sat out in the common room watching television together but where we were, the three of us were alone.  We’d been talking about this for an hour or better now, and Rosie’s suggestion was the best we’d come up with.  How did Antonio know Kevin and the others were going to go looking for Torey?

“Maybe this man was watching us,” Kevin agreed.  “This Antonio Ferarro.  The alternative is that someone ratted on us to him.  I’d hate to think any of our officers were in bed with whoever this man is.”

His hand fists around the coffee mug.  He had been mad enough to know that some bloke had been in here threatening me.  Now he had to imagine one of his own people was the reason it had happened.  I could see the rage in his eyes.

That’s my Kevin.  Still looking out for his mom.

“Did Torey tell you anything?” I asked him.

“She’s being pretty tight-lipped.  Scared, is what she is.  Cutter’s interviewing her.  You can imagine how that’s going.”

Rosie and I share a look.  Cutter.  The shining example of law enforcement in Lakeshore.

“We did find her mobile on her.”  That brought a sour smile to Kevin’s face.  “It’d been shut off for a while, but lots of missed calls from a single number.  When we tried to ring it back the call went straight to voicemail.  The message says Antonio can’t take a call right now.”

I turn my cup around on the table.  Antonio.  He’d been trying to find Torey for days.  Ever since he found out that he’d killed the wrong girl.  “So, we’re thinking that he killed Jess by mistake?”

“No.  Not by mistake.  He was here for Torey, sure, and he expected to find her here.  But he sedated your friend.  He probably asked her all his questions first, wanting to know what she knew.  Then he…”

He stopped talking, and I’m grateful for that, but I’ve got the image in my head already.  Antonio sat Jess in that chair, drugged up, and after finding out she didn’t know where to find Torey either, he slit her wrists and left her for us to find.  It should’ve looked like a suicide.  Did look like one to Cutter.  Too bad for Antonio we figured it out.

Too bad for Jess we weren’t just that much smarter.  We might have saved her life.

Tears made me blink my eyes over and over until I could see clearly again.  Now we knew for sure who killed Jess.  We just had to find him and make him stand trial.  My friend deserved that kind of justice.

Which reminded me.  “Where’s Horace gone off to?”

Kevin chuckled.  “He left town.  Said he’d had enough of us dills here in the backside of Woop Woop.”

When Rosie and I both stare at him, he added, “His words.  Not mine.”

Rosie shifted in her seat.  “Well.  That was rude.”

“That’s the Horace we remember, now isn’t it?”  I shrug my shoulders.  “Then again, we did arrest him for killing his wife when he really didn’t.”

“Don’t make him a nice man, now does it?” Rosie asks.

Across the room, in the reflection of a window where night is pressing in from outside, I thought for just a moment that I could see Jess.  She was laughing at our comments.  Horace.  A real git.  That made her laugh.

Then the image was gone, and I was sure I imagined it.

Only, I didn’t imagine it up in the room when Jess saved us from Antonio.  And I didn’t imagine that word left on my mirror.  And I didn’t imagine the dream with Jess that led me to the first real clues in this whole crazy mystery.

So did I really imagine it now?

Either way, when I look for her again she’s gone.

“Any idea how they knew which room Jess would be in?” Rosie asked while pouring more cream in her coffee.  “I mean, there’s two floors up there and sixteen rooms.  How’d they know which one?”

“We found text messages from Jess on Torey’s phone.”  Kevin pushed his cup away.  “She told Torey to meet her here in room seven.  Right after that’s when the phone got shut off.  Guess she saw the police vehicles here when Jess died. Not sure how Antonio knew what room Jess was in though.   Maybe Torey told him or he heard about it around town.  Something like that.  So that’s means, motive, opportunity.  All the right elements to solve a crime except one.”

“Which one?” I asked him.

“The most important one.  Where our suspect is.”

“Well, we know where he’s going to be,” I pointed out.  “He’s going to come back here.”

“Are ya sure?” Rosie asked.  The idea obviously didn’t set well with her.  “He has to know the police are looking for him now, right?”

“I agree,” Kevin said.  “He tried to scare you into helping him, Mom, and you and Rosie beat him off.  Not likely he’ll be back anytime soon.”

Not that me and Rosie had anything to do with Antonio being scared off.  Still.  “I don’t think this guy is going to give up that easily.  He’ll be back.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Isn’t it obvious?  I ruined his hat.”

For a moment Kevin just stared at me, before he burst out laughing.

Somehow, Kevin convinced me to come stay with him for the night.  I can’t remember the last night I spent away from the Inn.

His place isn’t big.  Just a shoebox on one of Lakeshore’s sidestreets.  One bedroom, one bathroom, one small living room off the kitchen and dining room area.  It’s always been just enough for him.  Now, it was enough for him and his houseguest.

Ellie Burlick fit nicely into this space, I thought.  I can’t believe my son has kept their relationship such a secret all these months.  From me.

So much for a mother’s intuition.

Which put me on the couch tonight while he and Ellie slept in his bed.  I feel kind of bad, actually, because it’s her last night here in Tasmania.  Tomorrow she’s back to the mainland.  Got a job that won’t let her stay away for too long.

Although, I heard them talking when they thought I was already asleep.  Seems she might be able to transfer to Hobart.  Also seems she’s seriously considering it.

I’ve been through a lot of pain in the last few days.  Knowing Kevin has found love in his life goes a long way to making me feel better.  Life goes on, after all.

I fought sleep for a long time, because I’m so very sure that Antonio Ferraro is going to come through a window and sit there across from me popping little candies into his mouth, and tell me he owes me for ruining his hat.

When that doesn’t happen, I finally let myself drift until I can’t remember if I’m awake or not.

“Hi.”

I don’t think I was even dreaming yet.  When someone sat down in the chair down by the end of the couch, and spoke that one word, I sat bolt upright.  At first, I was sure it was going to be Jess.  At this point it wouldn’t surprise me if she walked through the front door and asked me out to lunch for a long talk about how nice Heaven is.

It’s not her.  It’s Ellie.

She’s wrapped in a blue flannel robe.  If I remember correctly blue is her favorite color.  Can’t help but notice this robe’s one of my son’s.  In the dim light of the reading lamp on the end table her dark blonde hair is the color of gold spilling loosely around her neck.  Usually she has her hair in a perfect tail, but here she’s at her ease.  The way she’s sitting, with one leg up on the glass coffee table, makes the shoulders of the too-big robe slip down her arms.  She’s wearing a purple pajama top underneath.  Straight from bed, then.

‘Course, there’s only the one bedroom, and my son’s home too, so that paints the picture just about as vividly as a mother needs to see it.

“What time is it?” I ask blearily.  Rubbing my eyes, I look around for a clock.  Kevin’s apartment is such a bachelor pad.

“It’s still late,” Ellie said to me.  “Or, early I guess.  Depends on which side of midnight you’re standing on.  Sorry to wake you.  I, um, wanted to talk.  Um.  About your son.”

“You two are spending a lot of time together, he tells me.”

“Yeah.  We were trying to keep it a secret.  Not from you.  Please understand, Dell.  I didn’t want ya thinking we were ashamed of what we’re doing.”

“Ellie, I understand.  Really.  The whole thing with your sister…it complicates things.”

She sighed out a heavy breath, grateful for my words.  I can begin to see now how hard it’s been on her.  “You know my friend was killed here, right?  I’m sure Kevin told you.  I can understand how hard it’s been for you since your sister died.  I’m glad you have someone like my Kevin to keep you company and make life better.”

“He really does,” she admitted with a little quirk of a smile.  “Your Kevin is one of the special ones, Dell.”

“Thank you.  I like to take most of the credit for that, seeing as how his father saw fit to leave us a few years back.”

Ellie was silent for a moment, playing with her fingertips, tracing the lines of her beautifully manicured nails.  “Didn’t mean to bring up bad memories,” she said to me.  “Just wanted to make sure me and you are all right.  Sometimes a mother can be very protective of her son.”

“Oh, I am.  But Kevin has grown up to be able to take care of himself.  He’s a good man now, and I can tell he’s picked a good one with you.”

“I lucked out with him, that’s the truth.  Well.  I should let you get back to sleep.  He told me what happened over at your Inn.  That’s just awful.  Any idea how this Antonio bloke knew the police were homing in on Torey?”

All I can do is shake my head.  That’s the only big question left in all of this.  That, and where Antonio has disappeared to.  Lakeshore isn’t that big a town, and everyone knows everyone else, and unless he’s learned to sleep in trees like a koala, he has to be…somewhere.

“I don’t know how he found out,” I said to her.  “I know he came after me because Jess was my friend and he thought maybe she told me something.  Plus, Kevin’s my son.  Maybe he thought I had some kind of inside information.”

Inside information…

“Dell, are you all right?”

Ellie’s question is a faint sound over the buzzing in my ears.  My thoughts spin me back to yesterday, at the police station, when all of the officers and firemen and volunteers were getting ready to go hunt for Torey, not knowing if she’d be alive or dead.  When Cutter had all but thrown me out because I wasn’t supposed to be there.

“I have to go.” 

Throwing my blanket off, surprising Ellie, I get up off the couch and start fumbling in my overnight bag for a change of clothes.

“Dell,” she said to me, “you can’t leave yet.”

“I know it’s early, but I have to go check into something.”  Then I stop.  It is insanely early.  Nobody will be up at this hour.  Well, the man I’m going to see might be.  And if he is, we’re going to have a very long conversation.  If he’s not up, I’ll wake him up.  “I have to go.”

“You can’t leave yet.”

Her voice is strange.  Different than it was a few seconds ago.

“I have to,” I repeated, hoping that’s the end of it.

“You can’t leave yet.”

“Why not?”

“Dell,” she insists, “look at me.”

Turning to her, clothes spilling over in my arms, I see that it isn’t Ellie in the chair anymore.

Sitting there now, in that loose fitting blue robe, is Jess.

I dropped my things to the floor, standing frozen in place, watching the ghost of my friend as she points to the front door.  “If you leave now,” she said to me, “he’ll get you.”

The front door bursts inward in a shower of splinters and a screech of metal.  Antonio Ferarro follows, walking inside as calm as can be, that cold smile curling his mouth into a sneer.

“You ruined my hat,” he said to me, just before he raises his huge black gun, takes aim at me, and pulls the trigger.

With a gasp of air that nearly chokes me I sit bolt upright on the couch, shaking and feeling across my chest and torso for a bullet wound that wasn’t there.  A dream.  Just a dream.  A very bad, very vivid dream.  Laying back down on the couch my arm fell over the side and down to the floor, where it brushes against something.

I look down to see the clothes that I had taken out of my bag, in my dream, and then dropped right where they are now.

“Hi.”

Ellie Burlick plops herself into the chair at the end of the couch, wearing my son’s blue robe, her dark blonde hair spilling over her slender shoulders.  “Sorry to wake you.  I, um, wanted to talk.  Um.  About your son.”

I sit up again.  It’s all happening.  The same exact way it just did in my dream.  Ellie coming out to talk to me about Kevin, wearing his robe, nervous of what I think about the two of them dating.  All of it, happening all over again.

Which means…

“Kevin!” I yelled, jumping up off the couch, throwing the blanket aside, surprising Ellie.  “Kevin get up!  He’s here.  He’s outside the house!”

“Dell, what are you—”  Ellie never finished her sentence.  The sound of glass breaking makes us both drop down, and I feel more than see the bullet zip by me to hit the wall two feet in front of me.  The thunder of the gunshot follows immediately.

Then silence falls all around us.

“Mom?” I hear my son calling out.  He’s moving in the bedroom and I can imagine him hastily yanking on a pair of pants as he takes his .45 automatic from the drawer where he keeps it.  “Ellie?  What’s going on out there?”

Crouching down behind the sofa with Ellie, arms crossed over my head, I explain it as quickly as I can.  “Antonio is outside the house trying to shoot us!”

“Stay where you are,” he tells us.  “Stay down!”

The window in the bedroom opens, and I hear him climbing out.

The next few minutes were tense ones.  Ellie and I barely breathed.

“How did you know?” she whispered to me at one point.

I had a dream, I almost tell her, but I realize how mad that’s going to sound.  “Ellie,” I say instead, “you and my son are a perfect couple.  I’m happy that he’s got you in his life.”

“That’s what I was going to ask you just now,” she says, a little surprised...  “Doesn’t seem like the time now.”

In the dim lighting I found her hand and held it tight in mine.  “It’s always the right time to ask a mother about her son, when you’re in love with the man.”

We waited in silence after that.  I could hear my own heart beating in my ears.  In the excitement my unicorn necklace had fallen outside of my nightshirt and I can see it hanging loose, dangling from my neck.

Thanks, Jess.

We both tensed when we heard the door opening, but it’s only Kevin, using the spare key and not breaking it in like I had seen happening in my dream.  He’s got his gun in one hand and nothing more on than his trousers.  Rubbing a hand through his bed-mussed hair, he shrugs.  “I can see footprints round the house, but he’s gone.”  He looked over at the broken window, then follows the path the bullet took with his eyes until he finds the hole in the wall.  “Lucky for him.  If I’d found him out there I might’ve killed him myself.”

I believe him.  I know that look.  His father used to get that look on his face whenever he’d made his mind up about something.  Especially when it involved taking care of his family.

Too bad his father isn’t here now to see the man Kevin has grown into.  He’d be proud.

I know I am.
 

***

When I finally checked the time I found it was only three-thirty in the morning.  Ellie had been right.  It was too early to go out.  Or was that something she had said in my dream?  I really can’t remember which was which anymore.  Either way, she was right.  Normal people didn’t do business at this hour.

Kevin had his own objections about me going out, knowing there was a madman killer taking potshots at me.  Trying to get rid of witnesses now, I guess.  Might be best if I left town, was what Kevin told me.  Go to see the rellies up in Sydney.

I talked him into a compromise.  I was still going to do exactly what I wanted to do, but he could come with me.

It was just about an hour later when I sat in the front seat of Kevin’s car and he and Ellie said their goodbyes on the porch.  We were all dressed and ready to go, but Ellie was in her overcoat and pulling her suitcase behind her as well.  I felt bad, messing up their visit, even though it wasn’t really my fault.  They’d both smiled at me in that way people do when they’re being understanding, but I knew they regretted losing even a few hours together.

Kevin wasn’t letting me out of his sight but he had some private things to say to his girlfriend that a mom probably shouldn’t listen in on.  Fair enough. 

I couldn’t hear what they said, but I could tell by the look in their eyes and the way her fingers touched his face that it was personal, and it was intense.  That’s what love looked like.  I remembered having the same thing with Kevin’s father.  If he’d found that sort of love with Ellie, then I meant every word I’d said to her about the two of them.  Even if I had said most of it in a dream.

That was weird, that bit.  Waking up, talking to Ellie and interacting with the world around me, only to wake up again to realize it had been a dream.  Only, not a dream.  Had Jess sent me a warning?  Had she really been there—as a spirit, I mean—or could ghosts enter people’s dreams, or… 

Yeah.  I had a lot of questions that needed answering about all of that.  Maybe another call to Darcy Sweet would answer some of it for me.  When I had time.

Right now, I needed to find out if I was right.  Antonio Ferarro, and whoever he worked for, had been tipped off about Torey Walters.  I think I have a pretty good idea who did that.  Getting him to admit it might be tricky, but it might just save a lot more lives in the process.

Mine included.

With a final kiss and a whispered word, Ellie went off to her car, pulling her wheeled suitcase behind her, looking over her shoulders constantly for fear that some crazy bloke with a gun was about to pop out of the trees.  I don’t blame her, but I know Antonio isn’t out there right now.  He tried to strike at us from the shadows and he failed.  He’ll wait for another chance some other time.

“We need to find Antonio before he tries that again,” Kevin says to me as he got into the car to my right, behind the wheel.  “I am not going to give him another shot at my mother.”