Talk of the Town (8 page)

“It looks like human hair,” Alice observed.

“It couldn’t possibly be human hair, that high up in a tree.” By now Florence was nearly vibrating with excitement. “It’s Bigfoot hair! I just know it.” She suddenly stopped and looked around. “It could be watching us right now,” she said in a stage whisper. “I don’t think we should be out here unarmed.” And with that, she turned and began picking her way back to the road with surprising speed.

Maxwell looked at Alice. “Unarmed?”

Alice shook her head and smiled. “Florence is a force of nature,” she told him.

He laughed, wiping his hands on his pants. “I suppose we may as well follow her. There isn’t much left to see of those prints, as you expected.”

Chapter Seven

O
n Saturday morning, Jane served peach-strawberry stuffed French toast. She was assured that the meal was a hit when Maxwell accepted seconds, and then thirds, and Miss Havishim asked for the recipe.

When Maxwell told Jane he was planning to walk into town again, she asked him to pick up a copy of the
Acorn Nutshell
.

While Jane was checking the reservation book to see if Mrs. Moeller, their German guest, had designated an arrival time, Alice came downstairs in her uniform.

“I may not be home until close to suppertime,” Alice told Jane. “After I get off work, I thought I’d walk around the gas station and neighborhood where Wendell went missing one more time. I can’t believe no one has had so much as a glimpse of him.”

“Maybe we’ll get some response from the notice in today’s
Nutshell
,” Jane said.

Footsteps sounded on the front porch and a moment later, Maxwell came into the front hallway and toward the reception desk, where Jane was standing. “Here’s your paper, Jane. Good morning, Alice. Working today?”

“I am,” she said. “You?”

“Yes.” He waved a second copy of the paper. “I plan to get back to writing just as soon as I read the paper.” He shook his head, smiling. “I can’t believe there’s a special issue devoted to a discussion of those tracks you found. Carlene must have stayed up very late working on it, because it even includes mention of the hair Florence found yesterday.”

“Goodness.” Alice looked at the paper, which Jane had spread out on the reception desk.

“I’ll see you ladies later.” Maxwell went on up the stairs and they heard the door of his room shut a moment later.

Alice leaned over Jane’s shoulder. She drew in a shocked breath of dismay when she saw the headline: Bigfoot Visits Acorn Hill.

The entire front page was about the tracks. Jane read a section out loud:

An unnamed source tells the
Nutshell
that local folks are speculating that huge tracks observed along the bank of Fairy Pond on Thursday may belong to the North American Bigfoot, or Sasquatch. Bigfoot sightings have been reported throughout the continental United States for decades, although most sightings occur in the North and Northwest.

“Oh my gosh!” Jane said. “It goes on to mention the giant squid story as evidence that Bigfoot may exist. It sounds just like your conversation with Mark last evening.”

“What a coincidence!”

“Maybe.” Jane didn’t sound convinced.

Alice pressed on. “It’s not a big leap to say that if I thought about Bigfoot, other people also might have. Right?”

“Makes sense. But the giant squid…? You didn’t mention that to anyone else, did you?”

“Of course not. It was just last night. And Carlene printed the paper early this morning, I imagine, well before any of us were up and about.”

“Oh, good grief.” Jane pointed to a picture. “Look at this, would you?”

Alice groaned. “Could it get any worse?”

The picture was of Florence Simpson. She was standing in front of the Coffee Shop, holding up a clump of dark hair that Alice presumed was the stuff they had found by the pond.

Jane read:

Florence Simpson, one of Acorn Hill’s oldest residents, found a clump of hair from an unknown creature near the site of the tracks Friday afternoon. “Someone must do something,” Simpson says, “to ensnare this monster in our midst. We are fortunate that no one has been harmed so far.”

“Ensnare?” Alice repeated incredulously.

“I just read what I see.” Jane began to giggle. “I think Carlene must have meant that Florence was from an old family, but it doesn’t come across that way, does it? Florence is going to be hopping mad when she realizes Carlene called her old in the town paper.”

Alice put a hand to her mouth as she, too, began to laugh.

“What’s so funny?” Louise came into the hallway from the parlor.

Alice and Jane looked at each other and laughed harder. Jane pointed to the paper. “Florence,” she wheezed as tears streamed down her cheeks.

“
Old
Florence,” Alice managed.

Louise began to smile. “You two are out of control.” She reached around them and picked up the paper. As she read, her eyebrows climbed higher and higher. “My heavens,” she muttered. “What was Carlene thinking? Those interviews with Bobby Dawson and the two younger boys are nothing short of inflammatory. Paired with that ridiculous monster quote from Florence, this article is likely to create a real furor.”

“I doubt it.” Alice had calmed down enough to speak again. She drew her index fingers beneath her lower lashes, wiping away the tears of mirth. “It’s a joke, don’t you see?”

“Yes,” Jane said. “It’s meant to be tongue-in-cheek. Florence played right into Carlene’s hands. But I don’t think anyone—except for maybe a few kids—will believe for one minute that there’s a monster on the loose in Acorn Hill.”

Louise had walked around her sisters and was looking at an inside page of the newspaper. “Oh, look. Bless Carlene’s heart.”

Alice knew what she meant immediately. “She put the notice about Wendell in the paper?”

Louise nodded. “It’s the lead article on the second page, with that wonderful picture you gave her, Jane, and it tells the whole story of his stowing away.” She laughed shakily. “If anyone from Acorn Hill happens to see him in Potterston, they’ll know in a New York minute who he is and where he belongs.”

“As opposed to an Acorn Hill minute,” Jane returned, “which undoubtedly is twice as long as a minute from New York.”

Louise smiled perfunctorily, but the lightheartedness had fled from the morning, and after a few moments, each sister went her own way.

Jane had to get the morning chores finished, but before she did, there was one more thing she wanted to do about finding Wendell. Getting out the telephone book, she laid it on the desk and began flipping through the pages until she found what she wanted.

A minute later, she dialed a number and listened while the phone rang on the other end.

“Potterston Animal Control, Wanda speaking. May I help you?”

“Good morning. This is Jane Howard from the Grace Chapel Inn in Acorn Hill. Is Jack O’Hara available?”

“Sorry. He’s in the field this morning. May I take a message?”

Jane made a moue of disappointment. “Yes. Could you please ask him to call me at his convenience?” She reeled off her phone number, and the woman repeated it.

“All right, honey. Got it. I’ll pass on the message to Jack. You say you’re from Grace Chapel Inn? Over in Acorn Hill?”

“Yes.”

“Jack’s doing some patrolling over that way today so he may stop by in person if I can catch up with him.”

“That would be even better. Thank you.” Jane wished the woman a pleasant day and hung up.

Shortly after lunch, the reservation bell dinged. Jane was out on the back porch folding newly laundered sheets and towels. She hurriedly set down the hand towel she just had picked up and walked to the front desk.

There stood a gray-haired woman, who appeared to be in her late sixties, and a blonde twenty-something young woman.

“Hello,” Jane greeted them. “I’m Jane Howard, one of the owners of Grace Chapel Inn. Welcome.”

“Thank you,” the woman replied in heavily accented English. She wore her gray hair in a short Dutch-boy bob, and her chocolate brown eyes were magnified by her wire-rimmed glasses.

“Oh, you must be Mrs. Moeller. It’s so nice to meet you.”

“And you the same, dear. This is my great-niece Amanda. She drive me from Philadelphia and take me to dinner, then go back home.”

Jane thought Mrs. Moeller’s grammatically garbled English was charming. She smiled at both women and then addressed Amanda. “I see. If you don’t have dinner plans, Amanda, I can recommend some local restaurants.”

“That would be nice,” Amanda said. “I can help Aunt Clothilda get settled and then come see you.”

“Oh, that’s not necessary,” Jane said. She reached beneath the counter and pulled out a sheet on which she had made a list of places to eat in and around Acorn Hill and Potterston. “This is what you need. There are directions from the inn to each of those restaurants on the list.”

“Thank you. This is perfect.” The young woman smiled.

Jane quickly completed the registration process, gave Mrs. Moeller the key to the Sunrise Room, and picked up one of the two suitcases in the hallway, while Amanda picked up the other. “I’ll show you to your room now.”

“
Danke
… thank you.”

Jane smiled. “You’re welcome. I’m sorry I don’t speak any German, Mrs. Moeller. My sisters and I had hoped to learn a few phrases to welcome you, but we’ve had a very busy week and didn’t find the time.”

“No matter.” Clothilda waved a hand. “I must practice English.”

“My aunt, Ethel Buckley, is eager to visit with you. She is the one you spoke to on the telephone last week.”

“Ah. Yes. I remember.” The older woman followed Jane up the stairs to the second floor. “You call me Clothilda, not… not formal. Okay?”

“Okay. And you must call me Jane.”

“Jane.” It came out sounding more like “chain” but Jane figured it was close enough to get her attention. She set down the suitcase and indicated the room. “I hope you’ll be comfortable here. Please let us know if there is anything you need. I’ll begin serving breakfast at 7:30
AM
tomorrow unless you have a need for an earlier time. Just let me know and I’ll arrange to serve you at a time that suits you better.”

“You are most… good. Kind.” Clothilda smiled warmly. “I take a sleep right now. The travel makes me tired.”

“All right.” Jane gave her guest an encouraging smile, knowing that if she were visiting Germany, she’d have a lot more difficulty making herself understood than Clothilda was having in English. “Amanda, may I interest you in some tea or a snack?”

“Oh, no thank you.” The young woman smiled and dug a novel out of the backpack slung over her shoulder. “May I sit on the porch? I brought a good book along so I’d have something to do while Aunt Clo rested.”

“Of course. That would be fine.”

“Good. Good.” Clothilda nodded and smiled. “Thank you, Jane.”

Jane and Amanda left the Sunrise Room. Amanda went down to the porch, while Jane went up to her room briefly and then headed back downstairs. When Jane reached the first floor, there was a man waiting at the reception desk.

“Jack! Thanks for coming by.”

Jack O’Hara was the animal control officer for Potterston and the surrounding communities, including Acorn Hill.

“Hey, Jane. How are you?”

“Good, thanks. And yourself?”

“Tee-riffic.” He grinned, making the tips of his handlebar mustache slide upward. “Got a message here, says you want to talk to me. Animal problem?”

Jane nodded. “On Wednesday our family cat Wendell sneaked into a guest’s car and when the man stopped for gas in Potterston, Wendell jumped out. We’ve been looking for him ever since. I wanted to give you his description in case you should come across him in your travels.”

Jack brushed a hand reflectively across the crown of his flat-topped military style crew cut, although his brilliant red hair was in perfect order already. “Sorry to hear that. I’d be glad to keep a lookout out for him. Wanna tell me what he looks like?”

Jane nodded. “I’ll do you one better.” She reached beneath the counter and pulled out one of the flyers. “He’s a short-haired gray tabby with white feet and a black-tipped tail. And he’s fat. The picture is an excellent likeness.”

“Haven’t seen him,” Jack said, eyeing the picture. “Can I keep this?”

“Sure. We posted a number of them around Potterston and Acorn Hill already, and Alice alerted the animal shelter in case someone was to bring him in. Is there anything else we should do?”

“Vets,” Jack told her. “Take your posters around to all the local veterinarians. They usually have bulletin boards for public announcements about animals, and you should tell them at the desk, too, in case someone brings him in with an injury.”

Jane shuddered. “Oh, I can’t let myself think about that. But thank you for the advice. We’ll do anything we can to find him.” She paused, and then asked, “Do people often find lost pets?”