by Darci Hannah
“Right,” Giff said. “Odd coincidence that he and wife number two just happened to be staying at the inn on the same weekend wife number one is murdered.”
“But I talked with them. Jack did too. I’m inclined to think that it really was coincidental. Stanley genuinely appears to have no hard feelings toward his ex. In fact, he’s been giving her money. Also, Erik witnessed Stanley and his wife entering their room around twelve thirty last night, the same time he was delivering the scones to Silvia. Stanley was staying just down the hall from her. He would hardly need to throw on a black cape and sweep up the stairs at two in the morning to kill her. Besides, the man’s an upstanding businessman. I doubt he even owns a black cape.”
“Which leads us back to Peter,” Giff stated again, casting me an I told you so look. “He’s a wizard … or shaman … or something. We know he owns a black cape.”
“Right,” I said, recalling the incident well. In fact, the image of Peter in his black cape sitting around a fire with Hannah and Erik was still burned in my memory, prompting me to add, “He was also convinced Silvia was a vampire—a soul-sucking vampire,” I clarified. “He’s a habitual pot smoker and clearly not dealing with a full deck. But he does have an alibi. Besides, black capes aren’t too hard to come by these days.”
I walked around the suspect board and underlined another name. “There’s also Fred Beauchamp,” I reminded Giff. “Silvia’s suspected lover, whom I still have to talk to, and Bob Bonaire, our head chef. He also despised the woman. But here’s the thing. If Fred wanted to sneak back inside the inn after midnight, he’d need a key. Bob wouldn’t. He has keys to the kitchen. He can enter the building whenever he wants to.”
“Does he own a black cape?”
I shrugged. “I honestly don’t know. But I don’t think he’d use a scone as a murder weapon. He’s got access to some of the best knives on the planet and knows how to use them. Besides, I have a feeling that the scone was a direct attack on me. Bob would never implicate me in that way. However, I still think we need to talk with him.”
“Okay,” Giff replied, then fell silent. A moment later he suddenly sat up. “Where would Peter keep his black cape?”
“In his room, I’m guessing. However, if he was with Hannah last night and they were down by the lighthouse holding their voodoo pow-wow, he would have brought it back to her place.”
“It would only stand to reason.” Then, with a pointed look, Giff remarked, “But don’t you remember how upset Peter was when he learned that the door to his room had been opened?”
“I thought that was about something else.” I set the marker I’d been holding back on my vanity. “Peter’s been smoking in a nonsmoking room, and I’m not talking about cigarettes.”
“Angel, he’s a hippie. They all have a blatant disregard for authority figures and rules. But let’s say it was about the cape. What if he’d used it to sneak back into the inn unnoticed and then left it in his room after the deed had been done? Since he’s already staying here he wouldn’t have to worry about being seen, and because he was staying here he obviously knows that his chances of running in to anyone at that time of night were slim to none.”
“You really can’t get over the fact that Peter has an alibi, can you?”
“Oh, I’ll get over it, once we can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that he didn’t murder Silvia Lumiere. I say we sneak into his room and do a little poking around.”
It was enticing, and yet I hesitated. Part of it was because I’d already been in that room once today and didn’t feel like subjecting myself to that kind of skunky mess again. The other part was merely philosophical. If Peter found out we’d been in his room again without his permission, I could get in real trouble. Murder at the inn was bad enough, but a manager that snuck into rooms out of sheer curiosity wasn’t the type of behavior that inspired customers to visit. I looked at Giff and offered, “We could just call Hannah and ask if Peter’s cape is still at her place.”
Giff, bristling with excitement, jumped off the bed. “Whitney, where’s your senses of adventure? Sure, we could call Hannah, but the inn’s empty and you’ve got a set of master keys. Also, and I’m just throwing this out there, angel, but, um, the Cherry Orchard Inn was the scene of a brutal crime last night. Aren’t you the tiniest bit curious to have a look at Silvia’s room?” With an inviting grin he opened the door. “I know I am.”
Twenty-Three
W ith the master keys in hand, Giff and I walked into the empty foyer. It wasn’t quite midnight yet, but the main lights had been turned off, leaving only the soft lighting of the wall sconces in the hallways and the glowing fixture above the front desk. I looked at the foot of the spiraling staircase and felt the hairs on the back of my neck prickle. Less than twenty-four hours ago the body of Silvia Lumiere had been there, neck broken, mouth stuffed with one of my cherry scones. The discovery of the body had left a haunting image. It took a cleansing breath and a conscious effort to shake the eerie feeling that had come over me.
“I suppose the elevator’s out of the question?” Giff mocked with an impish grin.
“Too soon, and not funny,” I hiss-whispered, then headed up the stairs.
The Pine Suite was tucked away at the end of the darkened hallway. I had never seen the inn so eerily silent and empty as it was now. Although we were the only two souls in the entire place, we moved with quiet reverence until we stood before the door to Peter’s room. “Ready,” I whispered, knowing that I was about to violate the trust of a non-paying guest. As an innkeeper the thought disturbed me; as Hannah’s best friend I was more than ready to do a little poking around. The key was almost in the lock when Giff stopped me.
“Wait. Knock first,” he advised with a sudden look of caution.
“Why?” I asked in muffled tones. “It’s not like he’s in there or anything.”
“Right. But you can’t just open the door to someone’s room without knocking. It just looks bad.”
“There’s no one here, literally,” I reminded him.
“I’m here.”
I looked at the idiot. He was serious. I was of half a mind to remind him that breaking into Peter’s room had been his idea to begin with but decided to take a different tactic on the matter. With a well-placed sarcastic snarl, I turned to the door and slammed my fist against it with the force of an angry teen. The echoing sound made us both cringe. I’d hit it harder than I intended to, yet received a ripple of satisfaction from Giff’s theatric really? glare. However, a heartbeat later, we both jumped when the door flew back on its hinges.
We were hit with a putrid cloud of smoke. Giff coughed and waved at the cloud with furry, cursing under his breath. I was choking too, and seething. The room wasn’t on fire; it was filled with pot smoke—a flagrant violation of our non-smoking policy.
A slim figure appeared in the fog. “Hannah?” it asked, then coughed. A shaggy head broke through the cloud to peer into the hallway. “Dudes, like, you’re not Hannah.” Peter was about to shut the door when I thrust my foot in his room and stopped it from closing.
“What the heck are you doing here? Where’s Hannah? Holy cobbler, could you please put on some clothes?” I shaded my eyes with a hand. The only piece of clothing the guy was wearing was a very skinny little thong made out of jungle camo.
Giff, never more delighted than when I was in an uncomfortable situation, replied, “His room, his rules, am I right, brother?”
“Dude. Totally. But I have some pants here … I think.” Peter turned and stumbled back into the cloud of skunky smoke.
While Peter was searching for said pants, Giff and I went about defogging the place. We shut the hall door, opened the windows, and turned on the ceiling fan. The moment Peter was decent, I pounced. “Why are you here and not at Hannah’s?”
Although the guy was still high as a kite and just as confused, he looked glum. His head dropp
ed to his chest, causing the bushy unbound hair to swirl around him like a tuft of unruly weeds. “Like, Hannah left. I … um, really pissed her off this time.”
If it was possible to feel sorry for a pot-smoking idiot with a blatant disregard for hotel rules, one who just might be a cold-blooded murderer as well, then the dejected puppy dog look was working for him. The guy was dazed and truly down on his luck, and that struck a chord somewhere deep within me. It was how I’d felt earlier in the day when the two men I cared about most had both dumped me.
We sat Peter on the bed and asked him to tell us what had happened. His movements were slow and lethargic. A part of me was afraid he was going to flop back on the bed, unconscious. To prevent that from happening, Giff fired up the en suite Keurig and began the process of brewing a cup of coffee while I kept Peter talking. Eventually, once enough caffeine had been administered, his brain engaged and he told us the reason Hannah had left the inn without him.
Apparently Hannah had made Peter promise to stop dabbling in the dark arts, and, more importantly, to stop self-medicating with his cleansing herb. Whatever they’d done on the beach beneath the lighthouse last night had freaked them both out, especially when they’d learned of Silvia’s death this morning.
“She said that now Silvia’s gone there’s no reason to, ya know, cleanse. But, like, dude, there’s always a reason to cleanse. Am I right?” This he directed to Giff, having a hard time focusing on me. The puppy dog look had vanished, and with it all my sympathy.
“Hannah finally figured out that this”—I waved a hand at the dissipating smoke—“isn’t medicinal but recreational, and that you’ve been lying to her, playing on her sympathies and generous nature.” I gave Giff a knowing nod. “So, Peter, what else have you been lying about?”
“Well, I came up here to rest up a bit after that delicious dinner, and that’s not a lie. I really wanted to, but then I thought about Silvia and kinda freaked out again. I mean, dudes,” he said, his glossy brown eyes staring intently at us, “I’m not really a shaman or a wizard. I just do that stuff because chicks really dig it.” He brought his hand over his chest. “Like, I’m the biggest Harry Potter fan. Those books totally changed my life when I was a kid. Everyone wants to believe in magic, right? Especially when they’re beholden to an evil soul-crushing pixy like Silvia Lumiere. It was my way of coping with her demands, that and the fact that I was little better than her slave. But I swear, I’m like a total pacifist. Is it a crime that I use a sweet combination of weed, art, and magic to lure hot chicks into bed with me?”
“Not a crime, per se,” Giff remarked, as I was too angry to reply. He beheld the man with mild distaste. “The word I’d use is ‘deceitful’ … and creepy.”
“Dude. It’s my thing,” Peter said defensively. “But, um, last night everything went wrong. I was so angry with Silvia. I mean, the bitch, like, had banned my girl from the inn! Hannah’s special. We’re, like, soulmates, ya know? We both love yoga pants, quoting Harry Potter, taking long pumpkin spice bubble baths, and, like, watching videos of baby goats on YouTube.” He giggled unsteadily. “Those little dudes are super cute and super bouncy.”
As Peter smiled at the memory of baby goat videos, Giff, clearly still stuck on the pumpkin spice bubble bath comment, looked disturbed. He mouthed over Peter’s head, “Is that even a thing?” and shivered slightly. I didn’t know and didn’t really care. All I was concerned with was the fact that Peter keep caffeinating. I handed him a second cup of coffee.
“Goats might be cute,” I warned, “but they’re the reason Hannah was banned from the inn to begin with. Goats, and certain people, can’t be trusted.”
“Silvia couldn’t be trusted,” he countered, his voice infused with passion. “That’s why I took Hannah to the beach below the lighthouse. I told her we were going to hold a special ceremony. Like, it’s spooky down there, ya know? I’m pretty sure it’s haunted too. The fact that it was forbidden only made it better. Dudes, it’s like the ultimate aphrodisiac. We got stoned and I put on quite the show. I was totally focused on taking revenge on Little Silvia.” He gestured to a lump in his pocket, which I assumed was the eerie little doll.
As I explained Little Silvia to Giff, Peter paused to take a sip of coffee.
“I, like, snapped off her head,” he told us, illustrating with his hands. Giff, still marveling that the man had kept a little doll of his employer in his pocket, shivered. “I might have even said that I wished the old bag would choke on a bone or, like, break her beefy neck. I even pretended to speak in tongues, purely to impress Hannah. But I totally swear that I had no idea my powers were real. It’s freakin’ me out. I killed Silvia,” he uttered in a fear-stricken whisper. He then held up his hands, focusing on his wiggling fingers. “And, like, I don’t even know what to do with these things. I’ve turned them into weapons of murder. Hannah was right to leave me.”
“First off,” I said, crossing my arms and sounding frighteningly like my mother, “I suggest that you stop smoking pot. It’s not only a flagrant violation of our non-smoking policy, but it’s also warped your sense of reality.”
Giff, casting me a mildly reprimanding look, turned to Peter. “Were you, by chance, wearing a black robe last night?”
Peter nodded. “My wizard cape. It, like, sets the mood; creates the illusion. Hannah’s got a thing for my cape.”
Giff was clearly charmed by this piece of information. “And do you happen to have it here with you?”
Peter cast a look around the room, then shook his head. “Nope. I must have left it at Hannah’s last night.”
“Okay. Here’s another question,” Giff said. “Do you remember coming back to the inn last night at around two in the morning wearing that cape?”
Peter looked at him as if he were mad. “Like, that’s not possible, dude. My wizard cape and I were otherwise engaged at Hannah’s place until way past two in the morning.”
Giff seemed mildly impressed, which fanned the flames of Peter’s besotted grin. While Peter was momentarily lost in some wildly inappropriate memory, Giff turned to me. With a look that brought me back to my advertising days, he conveyed that he was finally satisfied that Peter had nothing to do with Silvia’s murder.
“Well,” he said to the swiftly sobering hippie, “I’ve got some good news and some bad news for you. The good news first. You didn’t kill Silvia Lumiere with your mad wizarding skills. The bad news? Aside from an uncanny psychic moment, I’m afraid you’re just a muggle like the rest of us.”
“Whoa, dude. Are you sure?”
“Pretty darn,” I said, looking at the slightly confused man. “Let me explain.” I then told Peter about our earlier discussion with Erik Larson and his eyewitness account of a person wearing a black robe at the inn late last night. “So, you see? You couldn’t have killed Silvia because there was someone else at the inn last night who we believe actually did the deed. But that’s where I’m stumped. Who else might have a black cape and a reason to want Ms. Lumiere dead.”
“Whitney, um, like, black capes aren’t hard to come by.” Peter drained the rest of his coffee and stood, clearly relieved that his imagined powers hadn’t killed anyone. “And, like, she offended nearly everyone she knew. If I were you I’d start by looking in her room, not mine.”
I turned to the shirtless, wild-haired man with the slowly sobering gaze and thought that Giff had been correct. Peter didn’t have wizard powers, but he just might be a little psychic. He had, after all, read my mind. I was itching to get into Silvia’s room, which was, ostensibly, off limits. I was now soundly convinced, as was Giff, that Peter wasn’t at the inn last night when Silvia was murdered. But he was her assistant. He traveled with her, knew her habits, handled her paintings, and knew of the people she dealt with. He was obviously unaware of the fact himself, and perhaps the prodigious amount of weed he smoked was to blame, but Peter knew Silvia’s killer. The problem would
be getting him to remember a conversation he might have overheard or recall some small slight the woman had made to the wrong person. I looked at both men, one groomed and styled to perfection, the other unkempt as a Yeti. It was like staring at the perfect before-and-after photo of a clever men’s hair product ad. I pushed the thought aside and pulled out the set of master keys I’d been carrying. I held them up, indicating that Silvia’s room wasn’t off limits.
“Whitney,” Giff breathed, feigning shock. “Silvia’s room is a crime scene. You’re not allowed to go in there. Legally,” he clarified. “If you thought Officer McHottie was mad at you before, think of how irate he’s going to be if he finds out that you’ve been snooping around in Ms. Lumiere’s room.”
“But he’s not going to find out. Because we’re not going to tell him, are we? And we’re not going to touch anything either. Silvia obviously had her secrets,” I reminded them, “and I’d really like to look at her room. There are so many people she annoyed and stomped on; so many who have cause to shove a scone down her throat and push her down a flight of stairs, but only one person was unhinged enough to do it. Gentlemen, the sooner we find Silvia’s murderer, the sooner the Cherry Orchard Inn can get back to business.”
Twenty-Four
The Sailboat Suite wasn’t our biggest room, but the airy cottage décor and spectacular view made it one of my favorites at the inn. Although Mom had a flair for modern Victorian, she had a real knack for creating unique and comfortable rooms of all themes. The Sailboat Suite boasted white beadboard wainscoting below walls of pale blue. A navy and white striped wingback chair sat beside a white-mantled fireplace with a painting above it of a historic ship at full sail. Near the window sat a small table with two chairs, and on the white-framed bed was a quilt in shades of blues, whites, and pinks. The floor was knotty pine, with striking area rugs beneath the bed and in the sitting area.
