Miz Scarlet and the Bewildered Bridegroom (16 page)

“Who knows?” Detective
Valboa shrugged as he waited outside the bathroom doorway. “It
could be anything from a desire for revenge to ordinary vandalism,
better known as destruction for the sake of
destruction.”

“Either way, I’m
definitely feeling harassed. Enough already.” I fondled the fabric
no longer attached to the beautiful drapes I had made. It was all
such a waste. Could I sew them back together or would I have to
replace them? The last thing I wanted on my to-do list before this
upcoming wedding was to have to redecorate. I sighed the sigh of a
hundred-year-old crone, feeling like that too.
Here lies Miz Scarlet, former schoolmarm,
done in by a couple of jerks running with scissors.
Where did they find a pair? Or did Kradic and
his thug friend bring them with them?

“Can you tell us if
anything has gone missing from the Wilkies’ room?” Parker wanted to
know.

“I’m sorry. I have no
idea what of theirs is supposed to be here and what’s not. I can
tell you that it didn’t look like this when I tidied it up
yesterday.”

“Fair enough. We’ll
take photographs of the crime scene, just in case something here is
significant. We’re also going to box everything up that belongs to
the Wilkies. I’ll have you sign a receipt before we
leave.”

The investigative team
went over every inch of the room. They even checked the bed, but
all they found between the box spring and the memory foam mattress
were a matchbook from Foxwoods Casino with six matches missing and
a ballpoint pen advertising the legal services of Johnny Rae
Plouffe.

It took me a good,
solid hour of scrubbing, sweeping, and polishing to restore the
White Oak Room and its attached bath to its normal state. Once that
was done, I got busy changing the bed linens and towels. When it
was time to throw on a coverlet, I pulled out a twenty-year-old
ivory spread from the linen closet. A little worn around the edges,
it had seen better days, but it would do until I could purchase
another. I headed up to the third floor storage room, dug through
the plastic bins stacked in neat rows, and found a pair of plain
Jane cotton panels that could do temporary duty. Once those were
ironed and hung, I stood back to decide if the room was presentable
for paying guests.

“Nuts!” I resigned
myself to a trip to Macy’s within the next few days, to hit the
sales bins for discounted window treatments and a bedspread.
Hopefully, I could find something neutral enough to work
temporarily. Sometime in the next few weeks, I’d schlep myself up
to the discount fabric outlet near Springfield and grab some
designer fabric to make a new set of drapes. Maybe some silk
dupioni would do the trick and chase away the memory of this
unfortunate incident. “I might even paint the walls if I find some
fabulous print for the drapes.”

On my way out the door,
I paused to pick up the matchbook and pen left behind on the walnut
dresser by Valboa and his team and pocketed them. There was no
reason to leave the Wilkies’ trash behind now that their belongings
had been boxed up for safekeeping.

A short time later, I
was sitting in the living room while Kenny was on the phone to his
team, making plans to secure the inn. Considering we already had an
alarm system, surveillance cameras, and some of the best exterior
locks money could buy, I couldn’t fathom what other safeguards he
thought he could provide. I found out a short time later, when he
hung up.

“Max is coming over.
He’s bringing his Auntie Ruthie to stay for the night. And Edna
Rivera will also be joining us.”

“Your answer to our
problem is to bring in a couple of female guests? How does that
solve anything?”

“It’s ‘two birds with
one stone’ time, babe. Max wants the woman who raised him to get to
know the mother of the woman he’s dating. And Edna is already
getting on Larry’s nerves, which is hardly a surprise. She’s more
than happy to pick up the tab for her mother’s stay. Besides, we
need to fill the inn with guests who aren’t
worrisome.”

“You’re up to
something, Captain Peacock.”

“I am, Miz Scarlet. I
suspect someone is trying to put the Four Acorns Inn out of
business. I just haven’t figured out why.”

Chapter Twelve --

“Do you think we can
keep Max’s aunt and Edna safe? I’ll remind you that both Lacey and
Bur were attacked this afternoon.”

“We’re going to have
to, honey. It’s the only way to stop Max and Larry from killing us
-- you know they will if anything happens to Ruth and the Queen of
Clean.”

Just after three,
Laurel and the doctor returned home, exhausted and discouraged.
Thaddeus’s test results confirmed a new spot of
cancer.

“It’s slow-growing,” he
explained, trying to be nonchalant, “nothing to worry about in the
foreseeable future. I have some time to weigh my options and decide
what to do.”

“I’m sorry,” I told him
lamely. “I wish it was better news.”

“You and me both,” he
smiled sadly. “Still, it could have been worse. This time around,
there are new treatments available, with fewer side
effects.”

“That’s good.” I
glanced over at my mother, who was unusually quiet. She was
watching Thaddeus closely, as if trying to decide what to do. This
was the first man she had shown a real interest in since my dad
died all those years ago. Why did it have to be this way for her?
Somehow, it didn’t seem fair. I decided to break the news about
Edna and Ruth. “We’ve got new guests arriving
shortly.”

“Oh?” My mother barely
reacted, still fretting about Dr. Van Zandt’s
health.

“Larry’s mom and Max’s
aunt will be staying with us.”

“That’s fine” There was
no enthusiasm for the evening’s plans. There was no enthusiasm for
anything. The wind had gone out of Laurel’s sails.

“The reason they’re
coming is because we had some excitement while you two were gone.”
I didn’t even have a chance to break the bad news before the local
town crier arrived.

“
Yoo-hoo!” The front door popped open and Lacey came rushing
down the hallway, her voice brimming with excitement. A moment
later, she arrived, breathless, in the living room. “You’re back!
How did it go at the hospital?”

“Shoot!” I mumbled
under my breath. The last thing I wanted was for Lacey to spill the
beans in her usual dramatic fashion. She waited all of three
minutes, commiserating with Thaddeus on his difficult diagnosis,
before she sat back on the sofa and composed herself. I knew she
was about to deliver the story, line by theatrical line, so I cut
her off before she could begin her performance. “We had another
unfortunate break-in this morning, but we’ve already got a handle
on it.”

“There was another
break-in?” Laurel let out a soft, audible gasp. I watched her
fingers tighten on the arm rests of her wheelchair. On the sofa
beside her, Dr. Van Zandt waited expectantly, as if he hoped I was
about to tell him something interesting. He seemed willing to
converse about anything but cancer.

“I was grabbed by a
masked man!” Lacey cut in. “He threatened to throw me over the
upstairs railing!”

“He did what?” My
mother was clearly alarmed by the news.

“We know who it is. I
recognized him,” I told her, breaking in quickly. “He used to be a
regular in high school detention.”

“Oh, heavens! Has the
world gone mad?” my mother uttered. Before Lacey could confirm
Laurel’s worst fears, Kenny appeared in the
doorway.

“Good news. The police
just picked up Neil Kradic. They’re still looking for his
accomplice, but they’re optimistic they’ll shake it out of the
snarky little....” On the verge of saying something rather rude in
front of the senior citizens, Captain Peacock came to his senses
and edited his comment. “Um...twit.”

He confidently strolled
into the living room, like everything was copacetic. Laurel didn’t
seem convinced.

“Why is this happening
to us?”

“We’re not really sure,
Mom.”

“It’s like everything
in my life has suddenly turned upside down.”

As she said that, I
knew it wasn’t just the bad news about trouble at the Four Acorns
Inn. Her love life had taken a big hit with the news about Dr. Van
Zandt’s health. I hated to see her so upset.

He, on the other hand,
was eager to delve into the mystery. He leaned forward, elbows
resting on his knees, chin in hand, and got
started.

“What
did
happen?”
her companion inquired. I hesitated, wondering if I should give him
the sanitized version, but he waved me off. “I’m a big boy. Tell me
the truth.”

“They grabbed Bur and
bound him with a sheet and duct tape.”

“They used one of our
sheets, the Egyptian cotton ones?”

“No, Mom. They brought
it with them. It was a cotton-poly blend, inexpensive.” As I said
that, I suddenly felt like the world’s biggest snob, remarking
about the quality of cotton used to bind my brother, but I had my
reasons. When we invested in expensive bed linens, we did so for
the quality and we expected them to last for several years. A sheet
was just a sheet, unless you were afraid you’d have to replace it
with a new one.

“And while we were
freeing him, Neil and his friend let themselves into the inn,”
Kenny added.

“One of them had the
audacity to enter my room while I was in my nightgown and that’s
when I screamed!” Lacey was still appalled at the insult to her
sense of privacy. “Scarlet came running.”

Kenny filled in the
rest of the details, reciting the chronology of events, and when he
was done, he explained why Edna and Auntie Ruthie were coming to
stay with us.

“Good idea,” Thaddeus
nodded. “You can control what goes on that way.”

I glanced over at him,
thankful he was a reasonable man. That was something my mother
really needed in her life. If only that cancer hadn’t shown up to
the party, Laurel might have found her ‘happily ever
after’.

“If you feel you want
to stay somewhere else, for safety’s sake, I’ll be happy to book
you a room in Manchester,” I offered. “Or even Hartford, if you’d
prefer.”

“No, no. I wouldn’t
dream of it. This will be a welcome distraction from my own
troubles. Who knows? Maybe I can help.”

“But if someone is
determined to ruin us, you could be in harm’s way, Thaddeus.” My
mother shook her head. “Maybe we should just close up the inn for a
few weeks. We could go away on vacation. Bermuda is nice this time
of year.”

“So’s Tahiti,” Lacey
countered. “We don’t want some ax murderer coming after us, do
we?”

Thaddeus seemed to be
rather intrigued by our conundrum. He went at it rationally,
picking it apart with precision worthy of the skilled surgeon he
was. It’s hard not to love a man who can keep his head in a crisis,
as disaster appears on the horizon.

“Let’s take a rational
look at this. The Wilkies were hired to do what they did. It’s
likely that these other two gentlemen were also hired to bother
you. Thus, whoever is causing you problems is still around. Unless
I miss my guess, that means you’re setting some kind of trap,
Kenny.”

“Very good, doctor. We
think Kradic and his accomplice needed something in the Wilkies’
room. The question is did they find it?”

“
We
think?” I replied, my eyebrows shooting up in
surprise. “I thought
we
assumed this was done to
harass us.”

“When I say ‘we’,
Scarlet, I am referring to Max and the other folks at Mercer
Security,” Kenny informed me.

“Okay, fine. But what
about the blueberry bush chopper?”

“Blueberry bush
chopper?” Laurel inquired. She seemed calmer, thanks in large part
to Dr. Van Zandt’s steady, sane attitude.

“Some barbarian cut
down the blueberry bushes. We won’t have any fruit this year,” I
said forlornly. There would be no fresh-picked blueberries for
muffins, pancakes; or even a blueberry buckle coffee cake this
summer.

“All of
them?”

“Several,” I nodded. A
moment later, I corrected myself. “Actually, most of them were
destroyed.”

“Just the blueberry
bushes?” she wondered.

“Yes,” I
replied.

“Not the
roses?”

“Not the roses, Mom.
Why?”