Death in Room 7 (Pine Lake Inn Cozy Mystery Book 1) (13 page)

“Exactly what I was thinking.”  He started the car as I said it and switched on the headlights against the darkness.  “If we find his partner, we’ll find him.”

“You’re sure about this?” Kevin asked me.  “I mean, that’s a pretty big assumption.  If he tipped Antonio Ferarro off…”

“Then you arrest him.”

“Gonna be a pretty mess in the papers.”

I couldn’t care less.  I just want my family safe, and I want Jess’s killer brought to justice.  “Just drive,” I tell him.  “We’ll worry about what comes of it after.”

“Isn’t that what every good Taswegian does?” he joked.

The house he took me to is a humble white bungalow that doesn’t stand out from its neighbors.  There’s flower gardens in front, one to each side of the door, and they display red and blue and yellow blooms in Kevin’s headlights.  The walkway up to the front door is made of dull black dolerite flagstones like the kind that would come from the quarry where Torey Walters was hiding out.  The world’s largest supply of that stone is right here in Australia, which makes it pretty easy to come by for construction or yard decoration.

Kevin reached past me to knock on the front door, and then we waited.

Lights came on inside the house, and a curtain moved as someone peeked out.  Here we go, I told myself.  This is not going to be an easy convo, that’s a given.  This man has his pride, I’m sure, although you’d never know it from his simple home, or the way he answered the door with a smile.

Or how he’s wearing pajama bottoms with dinosaurs on them.

“Dell?  Kevin?  It’s way too early for visitors, don’t ya think?”

I looked him straight in his liquid blue eyes.  “Sorry, James.  This couldn’t wait.”

James Callahan, reporter extraordinaire for the Lakeshore Times, had been very interested in the death of my friend.  He’d been at the police station the day of the search.  He had all of the inside information on the crime that I had given him over a lunch that I had thought was just two friends talking.

It was possible that the man was just doing his job.

On the other hand, this could be our killer’s inside man.

“We need to talk,” Kevin told him.  “This is official police business.”

James pushed his sandy blonde hair back into place, sort of, and scrunched up his forehead.  If it occurred to him he was naked from the waist up, it didn’t seem to bother him. 

I noticed.

Ahem.

“You always bring your mom along on business, Kevin?” he asked.

“I do when it involves her,” was the quick response.  “Someone tried to shoot her tonight.”

Those words impacted on James, I could tell.  There was definitely something going on with him.  His eyes darted from Kevin to me.  “Are you all right?  Did he hurt you?”

“Now, that’s interesting,” Kevin said.

James blinked at him.  “What d’ya mean?”

“Well, you asked if ‘he’ hurt her.  Never said it was a guy who shot at her.”

“Was it a woman, then?”

He asked it so innocently that for a moment I thought maybe I was wrong.  Maybe he didn’t have…no.  It had to be him.  Who else?

“Let’s go inside,” Kevin suggested.  Then he added, a moment too late, “Please?”

“Of course, of course.  Anything to help, if Dell’s in trouble.”  He stepped aside for us, and just like that we were all inside, all the lights in the house switched on, and a kettle boiling on the stove.  He excused himself for a moment to change into sweats and a gray t-shirt.

James invited us to sit at the little round kitchen table, four chairs squeezed around it, then spent the next minute or so clearing papers and folders and notebooks away before he sat down with us.  “Research,” he told us.  “On this case, and a few other stories I’m working on.  Sorry.  I don’t usually have company over.  Not at this hour.”

“We’re not company,” Kevin told him.

“Yeah.  Getting that feeling.  Well, you’ve got my attention.  What’s going on here, Kevin?”

My son looked over at me, waiting for me to ask the first question.  I didn’t have the police officer skills that he does.  All I knew to do was ask.  “James, did you tell anyone that Torey was still in Lakeshore?”

“What?”  He shook his head.  “I don’t understand.  I mean, of course I did, I wrote up a whole story on it.  It’ll be printed in today’s paper.  Something like this’ll be front page material.  So?”

“That’s not what we’re asking.”  Kevin explained, leaning his elbows on the table.  “Did you tell anyone yesterday that we were going to do a search round Lakeshore for Torey Walters?  In the quarry?”

“Kevin, I only heard about it from one of the guys down at the fire station.”  The kettle began to whistle and he got up to get it off the burner.  “When I got to the police department you already had twenty people there to do the search.  Had no idea where everybody was going, but the whole town knew ‘bout it by then.”

That was true.  In a small town like this, I’d seen gossip spread faster than a wildfire in the bush.  Still, for Antonio to be waiting for me at my Inn by the time I got back, someone had to let him know about Torey Walters before the search even got underway.  That didn’t happen from gossip.  Someone who was there must’ve called him.

“James.”  My voice had a hard edge to it when I spoke his name.  “If you did this, you should know it isn’t just me you’re putting in danger.  This bloke, this Antonio Ferarro, will kill anyone in his way.  He killed my friend.  He tried to kill me and that bullet could have just as easily hit Kevin or…”  I saw my son’s face.  He still wasn’t ready to let that secret out.  “…or anyone else.”

“Dell, I don’t know what you think I…hold on.”  He paused, kettle in one hand, three mugs with tea bags in them waiting to be filled up.  “Did you say Antonio Ferarro?”

“You can’t print this, James.”  Kevin’s warning was very clear.  “This is all off the record.  If you want access to anything the department does, ever again, then I don’t see a word of this in the paper.”

James stared at him like he’d gone round the bend.  “You couldn’t stop me if I wanted to print a whole transcript, word for word, of everything ya just said, Kevin.  Be that as it may that’s not why I’m asking.  I know how serious this is.  Especially if the likes of Antonio Ferarro’s involved.  Do ya know who he is?”

“He’s the guy trying to kill me,” is my answer.  “That’s all I really need to know.”

“No,” James assured me.  “It’s not.”

Putting the kettle down in the middle of the stove, he went to the counter where he’d stacked the papers from the table.  In the middle of them he found a manila folder.

“This is what ya need to know.”  He sat down, opening the folder and turning it to me.  “I couldn’t care less about a byline in this one.  Antonio Ferarro’s a soldier in the Catalaggi family.  They’re part of the
'Ndrangheta.  It’s like the Mafia, only worse.”

“I know what the ‘Ndrangheta is,” Kevin said.

I don’t.  They were pronouncing it N drawngetta, no matter how it was spelled on the page in front of me, and I sure had no idea what it was.  Like the Mafia, only worse?  That probably sounded just as bad as it was.  “Why do you have a file on him?” I asked.

“It’s from the arrest of Roy Fittimer.  The drug dealer that Torey Walters was connected to.  It’s why Torey came to Lakeshore in the first place.  Figured it would all connect up in the end.  Looks like it is.”

I followed his line of reasoning through.  Roy had been arrested in a big, splashy, headlines-making arrest as part of the investigation into the poisonings in town last year.  He was a drug dealer.  One of the biggest in Tasmania.  Got noticed by the big boys, these N drawngetta.  Torey had been one of his drug runners.  When Roy got arrested, Torey was left without a paycheck.

So, she’d stolen money from the mob.  No, not the mob.  Worse than the mob.  She stole money from the ‘Ndrangheta and ran right back here.

Then she called Jess for help.  They knew each other from before, back when they were both working girls.  Organized crime had their fingers in prostitution just like they did in drug trafficking.  Torey Walters had been in bed—no pun intended—with organized crime, stole from them, and then nearly lost her life because of it.

Instead, she’d gotten my friend killed.

“So Antonio’s a hitman for the mob,” Kevin was saying, flipping through the pages in the folder. 

“Yes,” James said.  “Made quite a name for himself, too.  Got a reputation for doing jobs in high rises.  Likes to leap from ledge to ledge, get into places where the front door’s locked.  That sort of thing.”

“That’s bad, no denying,” I said.  “Still don’t explain who tipped him off.”

“You think I…”  James sat back in his chair, blowing out a breath.  “Dell, I’d never do that to you.  To anyone.  I haven’t been talking to ya just for the info.  I really did care.  Do care,” he corrected.  “That day, in the Milkbar, I really was just a friend.”

Okay, color me a fool, but I believed him.  There’s a look in his eyes, same as before, and I understand it now.  I haven’t seen that look in a man’s eyes in a long while, but there’s no imagining it’s anything but what it is.

He didn’t tip off Antonio.  Someone else did, but it wasn’t James.

Who?

“Dell,” he says, his voice quiet and withdrawn, “I, uh, want to say something to ya.  Um.”

Kevin’s mobile rings, saving James from trying to put his feelings into words.  I can’t tell if I’m relieved or disappointed.

“Hello.” Kevin stands up with the call.  Then after a long few seconds, he swears.  I didn’t know he even knew some of those words.  “You have got to be kidding me.  No.  No, don’t do that.  I’ll be right there.”

He hung up, and turned to me, his face angry, his voice tight.

“Torey Walters is dead.”

Kevin brought me with him to the police station.  James offered to let me stay with him, but Kevin wanted me where he could see me and keep me safe.  I didn’t argue.  Mostly, because I didn’t want to bring the same trouble to James’s doorstep that I’d brought to my own son’s.

Mostly.

We weren’t two steps inside the front door to the police station when we heard Cutter yelling.

“Guess he doesn’t like to be woke up out of bed either,” Kevin said to me in a low voice.  I doubt he needed to whisper.  At the moment Cutter was loving the sound of his own voice too much.  “Come on, then.”

He used his key to get us through the door to the inner office space, and then told me to take a seat out in the radio dispatch area until he’d told Cutter I was with him.  Considering that Lakeshore’s Senior Sergeant had already thrown me out of the building once this week, and arrested Kevin out of spite a few days before that, waiting here seemed like a good plan.

I could hear Kevin knock on the door to Cutter’s office.  I counted ten seconds off in my head before I heard the reaction.

“What!  Why in the name of all that is holy do ya keep bringing that woman here!  Strike a light!  What do ya think this is, bush week?”

It went on like that for a while.  Spinning in the little office chair, I let him blow off his steam. 

This building has never seemed so small as it does today.  I can’t believe all of this is happening.  First Jess, now Torey Walters.  My hands start shaking as I remember my name could’ve been added to that list.  I was the only one who had seen Antonio’s face and could identify him for who he was…

No.  I wasn’t the only one.

Oh, God forgive me, why hadn’t I realized this sooner?

I jumped out of my chair and ran for the door, meaning to run all the way back to the Inn if I had to, only to stop and turn back, knowing I have to tell Kevin first.  I’m going to need his help.

Rosie.  Rosie had seen Antonio’s face.  She was with me when we hid in the Inn, and Antonio spoke to her.  He asked her to make a raspberry tart, for the love of God!

“I wasn’t watching her!” I hear Cutter yelling.  “Blake had guard duty.  At his house.  I want him arrested!  I want the bludger in handcuffs, in my cell, before the sun comes up!  I don’t give a rat’s—”

My bad luck to open the door in the middle of that sentence.

Cutter’s face was already crimson, veins standing out on his neck.  Kevin and one other officer were standing, weathering the storm of their Senior Sergeant’s anger, but I could see how uncomfortable they were to be in this room.  When he turned the heat of his glare on me, I came very close to shoving it back down his throat.  It was my friend who had died, not his, and if he’d only listened to me and Kevin from the start of this then we wouldn’t be standing where we are today!

“This is a private discussion!” he bellowed at me, louder than a herd of bull elephants.  “You do not come into my office unless I say—!”

“Stuff it, Cutter!” I snapped, knowing it’s exactly the wrong thing to say at exactly the wrong time.  I actually see the other officer and my son cringe.  “Kevin, we need to get to Rosie.  Antonio might go after her.”

Understanding spread over his face as he caught on.  “I should’a thought of that one myself.  Senior Sergeant, I have to go.  Antonio Ferarro is still out there and my mom’s right.  If he went after her, he could be going after Rosie, too.”

Cutter picked up random files from his desk and tossed them into the air, like a child throwing a tantrum.  “Well that’s just crash hot, then.  Go on with ya.  I’ll just mop up the mess on this end while yer playing follow the leader with yer mom!  Tell me the truth, Powers.  I woulda been better off to hire her, wouldn’t I?”

Smarter than his years, Kevin didn’t rise to the bait.

A little less wiser for my years, I started to say something that probably would have gotten Kevin fired.  He grabbed me by my wrist and pulled me physically out of the room before I could, saving us both the embarrassment of learning whether I could shout Cutter down.

I could.  I know I could.

“Not the best of plans, Mom,” Kevin says to me when we’re outside and getting back into his car.  “If you want me to stay on this case, best not to upset the apple cart too much.”

“Cutter’s as bad an apple as they come,” I point out.  “And I don’t care about his ego.  I only care about Rosie being safe.”

“Did you try calling her?”

“Rang her mobile.  There’s no answer.  She might even be at the Inn already, starting breakfast.”

His car roared to life and he spun it around in the street to head it back toward town.  “Then why don’t you just call the Inn?”

“Because at this hour all of the incoming calls get sent up to my phone.  No one would even know I was calling.”

“Great system,” Kevin grumbled.  “Add that to the list of things to change, right after putting alarms on your windows.”

“We’ll need to split up.”  Okay, for the record, I don’t like that plan.  In fact, I hate it, but I don’t see any other way.  Cutter won’t be able to spare any men.  One of his officers is already driving me across town at top speed and he intends to arrest another.  All we have is each other.  “Drop me off at the end of Fenlong Street.  I can check the Inn, you can check her house.”

“I’m not doing that.  No way.”

“Kevin, this is my friend.  My best friend.  I’ve already lost Jess.  I can’t…I can’t lose Rosie.”

We turn onto Fenlong Street with a squeal of tires and then a harsh jamming of brakes as the car starts down the slope to the Inn.  “I’ll take a quick look with you.  If she’s not there, we’ll find her.”

I looked at him, wanting a promise.

“We will, mom.  We’ll find her.”

Pulling into the driveway too fast, we kicked up dirt and a flurry of leaves as we skidded to a halt.  I was the first one to the door.  Kevin was half a step behind me, pulling me back to go in first, gun drawn and ready.

Hard to imagine a quieter place than the Inn at that moment.  It was nearing six o’clock, and I could hear a few of my employees moving around out in the kitchen, but other than that and the tick-tock of seconds slipping past us from the clock on the wall, everything was silent.  The lights were off in the common room.  The sign was up on the desk asking guests to ring my room if they needed anything.

Everything seemed fine.

On our way to the kitchen we met Paul, the young male server who Jess had found so cute, a tray full of dishes bound for the tables here in the dining room.  “Heya, Dell.  You’re up early.”

“Is Rosie in?” I asked him, knowing I don’t have time for small talk.

“Er, no.  Ain’t seen her as yet.  Kinda early for her.  She left us directions for breakfast last night and—”

“I’ll check her house,” Kevin told me, squeezing my arm before turning to leave.  He was trying to be reassuring.

It just wasn’t working.

“You mean, we’ll check her house,” I said, catching up to him.

“No, Mom.  Stay here.  Rosie walks to work every morning.  If she’s walking between her house and here, we might miss her altogether.  We don’t have time to search the whole neighborhood.  I’ll check her house, you stay here in case she shows up to work.”

I don’t like this plan, either.

But he’s right.

“Lock the door behind me,” is his final bit of advice.  Then he’s gone out into the night, his car speeding back up Fenlong.

Probably a bad time to tell him that these doors haven’t had locks for years.  Never figured I needed locks on doors that were always open to guests.

Sure.  I know.  One more thing to add to the list of changes to make when this was over.

“Dell?” I heard Paul asking behind me.  “What’s going on?”

“Seen anyone come into the Inn?” I asked him.  He’s still got that tray of dishes in his hands and his eyes are nearly as wide as the saucers.

“Guests have all been in bed.  Nobody’s up and moving except the hired help.  Me and the others in the kitchen.  Ain’t even seen George yet.  He’s usually in by now.”  He follows me to the doors.  “Something’s wrong, ain’t it?”

Closing the doors won’t keep anyone out, not without a lock, but at least we’ll have some warning if they get opened.  They’re heavy pine wood, no windows, and I doubt even a hired killer for the ‘Ndrangheta would start taking blind shots through a door.

“Paul.”  I finally turn my attention on him, knowing that I have to tell him something.  “Get all of the servers and the cooks into the kitchen.  Stay there until you hear from me or from Kevin.  Understand?”

He nodded his head at the same time that he said, “Er, no.”

“But you’ll do what I ask?”

“Sure thing.”

“Good.  See me tomorrow about a raise.”

“Really?”  A smile settled on his face and he hands the tray of dishes to me so he can run back to the kitchen and tell everyone what I needed them to do.

I set the tray down on the registration desk.  Antonio’s hat and note are gone, taken as evidence by Kevin to put in the growing file surrounding Jess’s death.  “Didn’t know you were going to cause all this uproar, did you Jess?”  I felt for the unicorn necklace on the cord around my neck, and I can’t help but laugh.  “’Course, you always did cause a scene wherever you went.”

The feeling of fingertips brushing against the back of my neck makes me turn around.  No one is there.

I guess there’s nothing for me to do now but wait.

Trying Rosie’s cell phone twice more doesn’t do anything.  Just a busy signal again, both times.  “Come on, Rosie.  Where are you?”

I start pacing just for something to do.  I know it won’t take Kevin long to check on Rosie’s house and get back here.  It just feels like it’s taking forever.  I exhaust the foyer pretty quickly, then move on to pace into the common room.  It’s dark in there.  We keep the lights off at night when they’re aren’t any guests watching television or playing cards.

Twenty paces from registration desk to the sitting couch, and twenty paces back.  I know the whole Inn like the back of my hand, and I know where to step each time, because there won’t be anything here that I’m not expecting.

Except that.

On the floor is a little square of waxed paper.  A small and brightly colored candy wrapper.

Oh, snap.

“Sorry,” Antonio said to me from the darkness.  “I know it’s impolite of me to litter like that.  I’ll clean it up later, I will.”

When he stood up I saw him, finally, melting out of the shadows where he’d been sitting and into the light.  He’s dressed just like before, maybe even in the same clothes, with his suitcoat and white button-up shirt left open at his neck, his tie hanging loose.  “Actually,” he said, “that’s a lie.  I’ve cleaned up more’n me share of messes in this podunk town.  Got me one more mess to take care of.  After this, I’m done.”

Had he been sitting here this whole time?  Watching me from the dark?  A shudder ran down my spine as he came right over to where I stood, and I wanted to run, but somehow I knew if I turned my back on this man, I’d be dead.

With a twisted smile, Antonio took my chin in his hand.  “I know there’s people over in that kitchen.  Don’t be calling for help.  You have to die because you saw me face.  That’s just the way it is.  Torey Walters is already dead, from what I hear.  That Rosie woman’s gonna have to go, too, but after that nobody else needs to get hurt.  Less’n you involve someone else.  Just you two fine ladies, then I pick up the fifty thousand that Torey stole from us, and I’m gone.  I was gonna wait for the two of you’s to be here, but…”  He shrugged, like it was no matter to him when we died.  “So.  Let’s just leave this between me and you, shall we?”

I nod my head, seeing the lethal intent in his eyes, and I’m very sure he means every word he just said.  He’s going to kill me.  He’s going to kill Rosie.  Then he’ll be gone like the wind, leaving only dust in his wake.

Which meant Rosie is still alive!  Thank God for small miracles.  Kevin would find her and keep her safe, at least.

One other thing he said is what really catches my interest.  He knew Torey was dead, from what he heard.  He didn’t do it himself, and there hadn’t been time for that tidbit to hit the rumor mill yet.  We only found out two hours ago from Senior Sergeant Cutter himself.  When we were at James’s place.  Kevin had gotten that phone call and then told me what had happened while James sat there, listening…

James.

I’ll kill him.  I’ll break his neck myself with my own two hands!  I believed him when he said he hadn’t told hitman Antonio anything.  Liar!  James must’ve called him right after we left his house.

I will kill him.  All by myself with my two little hands.  That’s a promise.

If I make it out of here alive, that is.

“Let’s step outside,” Antonio says to me now.  “Me and you can go round back, into the trees down by the lake, where it’s nice and quiet and no one else needs to see us, how’s that sound?”

There is no way I want to go anywhere with this man.  I know what’s at the end of that walkabout.  But I wasn’t going to be responsible for anyone else being put in danger.  I couldn’t do that to the people who worked for me.  My guests.  Everyone else in town for that matter.