Death in Room 7 (Pine Lake Inn Cozy Mystery Book 1) (8 page)

I let myself breathe again.  It felt so good, knowing there was someone I could talk to who would understand.  Someone who wouldn’t think I was crazy.  Nice to have friends, no matter where they live.

“Thank you, Darcy,” I said to her.  “This is what happened…”

After a talk with my friend Darcy Sweet I was left with more questions than answers.  I felt better by the time I hung up, though.  Darcy had explained the ins and outs of ghostly apparitions to me.  Dreams were a common way for the deceased—but not necessarily departed—to communicate with the living.  When you slept, she said, your mind’s defenses lowered.  You were more open to contact from the other side.

Jess had spoken to me in my sleep.  The question became, what was she wanting to say to me?

Darcy didn’t have an answer for me there.  She said that part was up to me to figure out.

I was dressed and walking downstairs to start my day.  With all these thoughts going through my head I was standing in the middle of the second floor before I realized it.  The door to Jess’s room was right beside me when I looked up.  Just like it had been in my dream.

“You don’t know him.”
  I hope to God that Jess has more to tell me sometime, because that wasn’t much to go on.  Kevin had her killer in custody.  Her husband.  Telling me I didn’t know him was like telling me water was wet.

The rest of the dream played through my mind, mixed in with all my other jumbled thoughts.  Maybe, if I went in to look, things would be like they were before and I’d see something that we had missed…

I put my hand to the doorknob.  My fingers settled around the cold metal and I held them there while I tried to make myself believe I wasn’t scared.

Then, in the next breath, I took my hand back.  Maybe when the sun was up.  Maybe that would be a better time.  After all, the thing was done.  I wouldn’t gain anything by putting myself through that again.  Doing it in my dream had been hard enough.

Downstairs I found a note from my night manager.  She leaves at midnight.  After that there’s a sign we put out for the guests telling them to ring my room if they need something.  As an Inn, that doesn’t happen very often, thankfully.  We’re not one of those brand name hotels up in Hobart where people come and go at all hours.

The note says that Kevin was here, late last night, wanting to see me about something important.  When Ann—my night manager—had told him I was already asleep he’d said it could wait until morning. 

I smile at that.  He’s such a good boy.  Wish he’d woken me, though.  It had to be about Horace Sapp, and now I was burning with curiosity.  Hopefully I could catch him at home.

I’ve known Kevin’s number by heart for years.  I have trouble remembering his cell phone but then that’s what contact lists are for.  I try his home phone first, and after two rings someone answers.

It’s just not Kevin.

Instead, a familiar, deep female voice greeted me.  “Hello?”

Hm.  “Ellie Burlick.  How are you?”

“Oh.  Um.  Hi, Dell.  You probably wanted Kevin, I reckon?”

“I did.  But I see I got you for the moment.  How’ve you been?”

“Fine, thank you.  Much better than the last time we spoke.  Um.  Kevin told ya I was here visiting, right?”

“He did.  Not to worry, Ellie, I’m happy for him.  He’s needed a good woman in his life for a long while.”

The relief in her voice is almost funny.  “Too right.  A bit rough around the edges, your son.”

There’s laughter on the other end, hers and Kevin’s both.  Then I hear the phone changing hands.  “Hi, Mom,” Kevin says.  “I think I’ll just take over the call from here.”

“Oh, but Ellie and I were having so much fun.”

“Sure.”  There’s a short pause, and I imagine he’s saying something to Ellie that he wouldn’t want his mother to hear.  “Okay.  Mom, listen.  We got the report from the Coronial Court late yesterday.  There’s things you should know.”

Things?  “Kevin, I don’t understand all that technical lingo.  I’m sure you can explain it all to the magistrate at the trial.”

“That’s the thing of it,” he says to me.  “May not be a trial.”

“What?  Kevin, he—” With a quick look around the room, I make sure none of the staff is close enough to hear me, and then lower my voice anyway.  “He killed Jess.  How is there not going to be a trial?  Did he confess or something?”

“No, it’s a lot more complicated than that.  We should meet.  At the Inn.  Give me twenty minutes and I’ll be over.”

***

Rosie was at the Inn by the time Kevin arrived.  Was it already Saturday?  Hard to believe, with everything that had been going on.  She and I spoke for a while about Jess, and Horace.  It was the talk of the town by now, of course, helped along by the morning newspaper.  James Callahan had written a full, front page article about the whole thing.  The paper gets delivered early in Lakeshore, to every door that subscribes, my own included.  I must say, he had some very good information.

Almost like someone who knew the facts had given him a phone call.

“Just can’t believe it, even still,” Rosie said to me.  “Who would have thought this would be the way of it, back when we were in University?”

“I know.”  I’d been thinking a lot about the past myself.  Guess my dream had put me in a mind for it.  “Life goes on, though.”

“Oh, that reminds me I’ve got to start the breakfast if’n we expect to have anything to serve!  Dippy eggs don’t make themselves!”

She turned, almost knocking over a cup filled with pens and pencils in her haste.  Smiling, she righted the cup and backed away from the registration desk.

When she turned to go through the door to the kitchen she yelped and hopped on the foot she stubbed against the frame.

That was my Rosie.  Awkward as if she were still a teenager.  I doubt she’ll ever outgrow that.

Nice to know there are some things that will never change.

Kevin was a little more than the twenty minutes he’d promised in getting here.  Odd, considering his house is ten minutes away at best.  I suppose he had things to attend to at home.

And good on him for that.

He’s dressed in his uniform, dark blue shirt buttoned up tight, duty belt strapped on with his sidearm and his handcuffs.  In his hand is a manila folder.

“It looks like you’re dressed for work,” I tell him.  “You have time for some breakfast?  I think Rosie’s making puffed cheese omelets today.”

“Seriously?  The ones with the rosemary and sage?”  I could tell he was considering it, but then he just shook his head.  “Not now.  I need to show you this first.”

Raising the folder for me to see, he put it out flat on the registration desk between us.  That’s when I saw the white label on the tab.

“The report from the coroner?”

“Yup.”  He opened it up, the pages inside turned to face me.  “It came by special courier late last night.”

“I thought it was going to take a week or more?”

“Well, this is a preliminary report only.  Maybe it’s a slow week up in Hobart.  Plus, we were able to tell them this was a murder, after Cutter got off his high horse, so they rushed it for us.”

“Kevin, I told you I don’t understand any of this.”  Half the words were in Latin or lawyer-speak, which is just about the same thing to me.  “Should you even be showing this to me?”

He shrugged.  “Way I see it, I’m conferring with a witness.”

“Might want to add a translator into the mix.  Why don’t you break this down for me?  What’s in here that’s so important?”

He flipped a page, then another, then started pointing to facts that still look like a meaningless jumble on the page to me.  “Here’s the part about the cuts to Jess’s arms.  To the naked eye they don’t look that special.  Closer examination showed the cuts weren’t smooth.  They were jagged inside.  Most likely made by a serrated blade.”

I can feel my eyes getting wider.  “Jess had a razor blade in her hand.  That doesn’t have a serrated edge.”

“Exactly my point.  There’s more.”  He stopped, looking up from the pages at me, his eyes full of concern.  “Are you sure you want to hear this?”

No, was my first thought. 

Yes.  Maybe. 

No? 

“Yes, I do.  I need to know what happened to her.  I need to know that we got the man who killed her.”

“Well, now, that’s the meat of it.”  He flipped another page and scanned, upside down, until he found the right paragraph.  “I’m only showing you this because she was your friend and, well, Cutter’s probably gonna have my head if he finds out, but…here.  The examination found a tiny pinprick, inside one of the cuts.  Like a needle mark.”

“Inside the cut?”  I tried to picture it.  The only way that could happen was if someone had intentionally poked a needle into one of the cuts, or…  “You think someone injected her with something, then cut over the mark.”

“Always knew I got my smarts from you, Mom.”  He turned a couple pages back.  “In her body they found a high level of pentobarbitone.  That’s a sedative.  Remember how we were wondering why Jess would just sit there and let someone kill her?”

“She was sedated.”  Horace had injected her with this pentobarbie thing.  Jess hadn’t fought back because she couldn’t.  “That low life.  That sicko coward.  Snuck into my Inn to drug my friend and then kill her.  I can not believe—”

“Mom.  I don’t think it was him.”

It was like a cold slap to hear him say it.  “What?  Kevin, didn’t we already decide it was Horace?  Everything fit.  What is it you’re always saying?  Means, motive, opportunity!”

“Sure, all that.  Except now we have the physical evidence.”

“We found the key to Jess’s room in his waste bin!” I reminded him.  “It was him, Kevin!”

George the handyman walked into the room right then, with that stupid painting of Governor David Collins under his arm.  He stopped, eyes wide, as he heard me yelling at Kevin.  “Uh, I’ll come back.”

Then he turned and hurried in the other direction.

I sighed, scrubbing my face with my hand, and lowered my voice.  “Kevin, Horace did this.  Even the newspaper said so.”

“Yeah, ‘bout that.”  Kevin tapped a finger on the registration counter.  “Strange how Callahan knew so much for that article of his.  Even had the bit about the search warrant.  Almost like someone called him, or something.  Wouldn’t you say?”

I shrugged a shoulder, unable to meet his eyes.  He obviously knew what I’d done.  I didn’t think I’d done anything wrong.  I didn’t say anything that Callahan wouldn’t have heard for himself.  Eventually.  Plus, I’d promised.

“Anyway,” Kevin went on.  “There’s enough here to make me rethink accusing Horace.  That’s what I wanted to tell you.”

“Not sure I want to hear it.”  I folded my arms, wanting to forget any of this had ever happened.  “It had to be him, Kevin.  Someone had to get close enough to stick Jess with a needle.  Who else could do that but someone she knew?”

“Okay, Mom, listen to me.  Just hear me out.  The cuts on Jess’s arms weren’t made by the razor blade.  Fine, that helps prove it was murder.  But then what?  Follow the logic with me.  Horace is dumb enough to leave the key to Jess’s room in his waste bin, but where’s the knife that made the cuts?  Where’s the needle?  He remembered to get rid of those but left the key for us to find?  Does that make any sense to you?”

I thought about it, turned it in my head every which way I could, until I was finally forced to agree with him.  It didn’t make sense.  It didn’t mean Horace wasn’t the killer, far as I was concerned, but all those little things sure did cast their doubts.  “So what happens now?  Are you and Cutter just going to let Horace go?”

“No.  He’s still the only suspect we have.  And this don’t say he’s innocent.  Just enough to get me thinking.  We’ll hold him for now.  Just need to do some more investigating.  Can we go up to the room again?”

“You think you missed something?”

“No.  I think Cutter might’ve, though.  He did the search of the room.”

Had to agree with him there.  Cutter was pretty slack on his best day.  Considering he hadn’t even treated Jess’s death as a crime scene at first, there was a fair to middling chance that if there was something to miss, then he missed it.

I sorted through the keys on my ring for the master key.  The spare had gone in an evidence bag after the search of Horace’s room.  The other two had been bagged up with Jess’s things.  As I found the right key, I asked him, “Horace isn’t your only suspect, right?”

“Eh?  What do you mean?”

“This girl that Jess was calling.  What’s her name?  She’d be a suspect too, wouldn’t she?”

“Torey Walters.  Right.  Not exactly a suspect, but we’re tracking her down.  Seems she don’t want to be found.”

Well.  Here I was set to start putting Jess’s death behind me, with Horace arrested and behind bars.  Guess the whole mess was a bit more twisted than all that.  A big old ball of yarn.  Every thread we pulled on drew out three or four others, all tangled up.

“Up to the room then,” I say, trying for a smile and failing.

“It’s alright,” Kevin told me.  “We’ll figure this out.  You and me.”

Going up the stairs together we get to Jess’s room without seeing anyone else.  It’s only now that I realize I’ve been calling this Jess’s room, as if it would always be hers somehow.  Room Seven.  Jess’s room.