Smulder handed it over and I opened it then lowered my nose to one of the folds. Brian stared at me like I’d finally lost my mind—the cutesy cat dress I wore today in a shade of toxic green surely didn’t help. “Yes,” I said. “That’s the same smell I picked up on around the back of the inn earlier. It must be your admirer’s perfume.”
“At least you’ll know when she’s around.” Gamma gave him an encouraging smile. “And if you want to meet her, and perhaps tell her that less is more when it comes to perfume, you can always wear one of those red roses in your breast pocket.”
Smulder grumbled under his breath, snatched the note from me and shoved it back into his pocket.
Gamma and I left him to his work, strolling back toward the inn together and the piles of chocolate eggs waiting to be wrapped.
“I’ve been thinking, Charlotte. Perhaps, it’s time we had a chat with this Aunt Gracie and her nurse. What do you say? Are you interested in probing into this case a little further?”
I fluttered my eyelashes at her, clasping my hands together in front of my chest. “Why, Georgina,” I said, in a put-on accent, “I thought you’d never ask.”
11
Aunt Gracie’s hair wasn’t just pink, it was bubblegum wrapper pink. It was a fabulous distraction technique. I managed to tear my gaze away through sheer force of will.
“Thank you so much for doing this,” Aunt Gracie said, from her wheelchair. “I appreciate that you have a stair lift to get me around, but it’s so much easier to stay up here.” She lifted one of the cocoa cupcakes we’d brought up and peeled back the paper. “Good heavens, how decadent.”
“It was our pleasure to bring you something.” Gamma’s smile lit up the room. “And your nurse, sorry, I didn’t catch your name?”
The tall, swarthy nurse in a pair of slacks and a uniform shirt, stepped forward from where he’d been hovering behind the wheelchair. “Kieran,” he said. “Kieran McIver.”
“Well, Nurse McIver,” Gamma continued, “please join us.”
“Yes, Kieran, sit,” Aunt Gracie said.
The nurse took an armchair from next to the bed and dragged it closer to the coffee table in the center of the room. Aunt Gracie had booked herself into one of the Gossip Inn’s fancier suites, complete with a Jacuzzi in the bathroom, a sofa set, coffee table, TV, and a room with a king-sized bed. That room had a connecting door to another smaller one with a single bed. I knew because I cleaned both of them on a daily basis.
Blindfold me and send me off through the inn in the middle of the night and I’d make my way through it without bumping into anything once. Not even the collections of trinkets that had once belonged to the museum and were stacked in every nook and cranny of the place.
“Would you like some tea or coffee?” I asked, gesturing to the two pots we’d brought up.
“Tea would be wonderful. With honey.” Aunt Gracie was pleased as punch. “This is great, you know. I haven’t had anyone but poor Kieran to speak to in the last few days. I’m sure he’s getting tired of my ramblings.”
“Never,” Kieran said, fiercely. “I enjoy our chats, Gracie.” Apparently, these two were close—there was no sign of ‘ma’am’ here.
“Well, you have to,” Gracie said, but not unkindly. “You’ve been listening to them for ten years.”
That was an awful long time to need a nurse. And to have the same one. I poured the tea without comment and dolloped honey into it before handing over the cup and saucer.
Gracie accepted it with trembling hands and stirred a spoon through the liquid. “Such a treat. Thank you again.”
“We wanted to offer our condolences,” Gamma said. “It’s terrible what happened to Bob.”
Gracie took a sip of her tea. The cup clinked in the saucer. “Yes, terrible. Terrible that anyone would be murdered, though, I’ve got to say if anyone deserved to get shot in the street it was my nephew.”
A stunned silence permeated the room.
“Gracie,” Kieran prompted, and placed a hand on the arm of the woman’s chair.
“Oh sorry,” she said, “I didn’t mean to startle you. It’s just that, well, Bob was a terrible human being. He was mean and stingy and he thought he was better than everyone else. I hoped that his invitation for me to come here and see him had meant that he had changed, but that wasn’t the case.”
“He invited you to the inn?” I asked.
“Why, yes, dear, of course. Why else would I come all this way?” Gracie fluffed her pink hair. “It’s difficult for me to travel. His invitation seemed so serious, though, didn’t it, Kieran?”
“Yes, it did.” The nurse hadn’t touched the tea, coffee or cupcakes yet.
“I’m Bob’s last living relative, you see. All the others dropped dead of heart attacks or strokes or whatever it is they died of,” Gracie sighed. “I don’t like to dwell on death too much.”
But did she like to dwell on murder?
Gamma cleared her throat. “He must have cared for you if he invited you here.”
“That’s what I thought,” Gracie said, “until we arrived. Kieran can vouch for me here—the minute we arrived Bob told us that he’d brought me here because he wanted me to know that I would never be privy to a cent of his fortune.”
“Oh dear.”
“But, of course,” Gracie continued, “I don’t want his fortune. Just because I’m poor doesn’t mean I want a hand-out. I think he assumed that I was that type of person because he paid for my stay here in full for over a month, but I didn’t say no to that because I thought he wanted quality time with family.”
The nurse, Kieran, had his hand on the arm of Gracie’s chair. His grip had tightened so much that his knuckles had gone white.
“Then he told me,” Gracie said, “and this is the funniest part of it all, just you wait. Then he told me that he was engaged and he introduced me to his fiancée. Leanne.” Gracie set down her cup in its saucer a little too firmly. She put the tea aside and reached for her cupcake. “He was so worried about me wanting his money, he didn’t even stop to think how ridiculous it looked, them getting engaged. I mean, did you see how young she is?”
“Uh, yeah,” I said, because Gracie had paused and clearly expected a reply.
“Yes.”
“Well, obviously,” Gracie continued, “she was a gold digger. She wanted his money and nothing else. You know, their room is just down the hall from mine, and I heard them arguing loudly the night before the murder. I bet he told her that he wouldn’t give her any money either or that she had to sign a pre-nup and she took exception to that. In fact, I would bet my last dollar that she was the one who killed him.”
The proclamation rang through the room.
“Gracie,” Kieran said, “it’s probably best not to make unfounded accusations.” His tone was warm, accented by a slight Southern lilt. “You wouldn’t want Leanne to hear that and get offended.”
“Kieran, honey, you’ve been with me long enough to know that I stand up for what I believe in and I say the things I mean. Bob got what was coming to him and Leanne gave it to him, you mark my words.” She took a ferocious bite of her cupcake and chewed. “Oh wow, wow, wow. This is divine. You must give me the recipe.”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to ask my chef,” Gamma said, though Lauren would never give out her sacred recipes. “I hope we haven’t upset you by talking about your nephew.”
“Great nephew,” Gracie corrected. “And no, you haven’t at all. And if you had, you’d have made up for it with these.” She took another bite and chewed. She was happy and didn’t give one hoot that her relative had been shot.
I excused myself from the tea party—unfortunately, I had to start my cleaning duties for the afternoon—and headed for the door, thoughts whirring away.
Could Gracie have hated Bob enough to have had him shot?
12
Once outside the room, I lingered a moment, taking in what had just happened. Aunt Gracie was spunky and strange and
entirely unconcerned by her nephew’s death. But that didn’t necessarily mean she was guilty.
I headed for the supply closet to fetch my feather duster, the vacuum and a few other supplies. Gamma had already fielded a few complaints about my cleaning prowess and I didn’t want her to lecture me again.
On the way back down the hall, I caught sight of Cocoa Puff. Gamma’s resident cat, who seriously didn’t appreciate the kitten center downstairs, sat on one of the antique chairs in an alcove, his black tail wrapped around his body.
He gave me a welcoming meow, and I him scratched between the ears. “Too much excitement for you,” I said, softly. “Too many new smells from those kittens, am I right?”
Cocoa meowed his agreement. He was very much a ‘people cat’ meaning he preferred humans to other felines who dared encroach on his territory. That suited me—he’d spent every night lying at the end of my bed, purring away, and I enjoyed the company.
I’d never had a cat because I’d always been on the move.
“And now there’s been another murder,” I said, falling into the trap of gossip. It was an easy pit to trip into in this town and this particular inn. “What do you make of it, Cocoa? Do you think it was the old—?”
A bang came from a few doors down and Cocoa leaped off the chair and darted off.
“—right now!” Trinity Malone stood outside Leanne’s room, her fists on her jean-clad hips. “I’m calling the police.”
“Please,” Leanne said, from within. “Please, you can’t do that.”
Jerry, Trinity’s dumpy husband, hovered nearby, panic drawn across his features.
“Where is our daughter?” Trinity screeched. “We know you have her.”
“What’s going on?” I asked, approaching with my feather duster tucked under one arm.
“This witch has taken my daughter and I want her back,” Trinity snapped. Jerry nodded frantically behind her.
“I don’t have her, I swear. I wouldn’t have any reason to take a child.” Leanne swayed on the spot, grasping the doorjamb. “Why would you even think that?”
Trinity pushed past her into the room. “Chrissy? Chrissy! Chrissy where are you?” But no cries for help came from Leanne’s suite—similar to the one that Gracie was in. Trinity stormed from room-to-room, pulling open cupboards and rifling through things, all while Leanne grasped her forehead and Jerry wrung his hands.
Trinity emerged from the suite, redder than she’d been when she’d entered it. “What have you done with her?” she demanded. “Where is she?”
“I haven’t done anything. Please, I was just trying to read. If your child is missing, you should call the police, and… and set up a search party,” Leanne said.
“That’s what you’d want, isn’t it?” Trinity poked her in the chest. “For us to go away so you could, so you could…”
“That’s enough,” I said, and stepped between the women. “Mrs. Malone, please calm down and tell us what happened. When last did you see your daughter?”
Trinity huffed and puffed, reached up and tugged her hair behind her ears but didn’t answer.
“It was a half an hour ago,” Jerry said.
“Jerry!”
“They’re trying to help us, Trin. We need help finding her,” Jerry said, flinching away from his wife’s stern gaze. “Look, it was that cat again. The calico one that makes my wife sneeze? It came up here and Chrissy started playing with it. She ran off after it down the stairs. I figured she’d be back soon, but she hasn’t come back and neither has the cat.”
“You don’t owe them an explanation,” Mrs. Malone said. “They’re—”
“Stop Trinity,” Jerry commanded, his upper lip already coated in a thin sheen of sweat. “We need help and it doesn’t matter where it comes from.”
Trinity folded her arms and tossed her hair, but didn’t say another word.
I’d been in a lot of hostage situations, I’d seen terrible things, and heard terrible stories, but kidnapping and Gossip didn’t go hand-in-hand. My best guess was that Sherlock and Chrissy had gone off to play and he might have lead her out into the garden. If that had happened, it was likely she’d gotten lost.
“Everyone remain calm,” I said. “I’m going to fetch Georgina.”
“What will that help?” Trinity snapped. “She’s the one who can’t secure that darn kitten center in the first place. Whoever heard of an inn having a cattery attached to it?”
It wasn’t a cattery, but I didn’t have time to argue. “Jerry, could you please call the police and report your daughter missing? Tell them the circumstances and ask for them to come out and help us find her.”
“Yes. Yes, right away. Come on, Trinity,” he said, beckoning to his wife and correctly assuming I wasn’t about to give the viperous woman an important task.
“Leanne,” I said. “Did you see or hear anything this morning? Meowing or giggling or footsteps?”
Leanne chewed on her lip. “No, nothing like that. Wait, I did hear footsteps on the stairs a little while ago, but that might have just been one of the other guests. Oh, Charlotte, what are we going to do?” She burst into tears and fumbled a tissue out of her pocket. “What if that little girl is lost? What if—?”
“Please, go back into your room and relax. The inn’s kitchen will offer you complementary cupcakes for your trouble.” Leanne was another woman I didn’t have time for at the moment—there were more important things to worry about than tears.
She continued crying but retreated into her room and shut the door, the heavy sobs echoing through it.
I prepared to run off and fetch Gamma, but she was already on the way down the hall. Her step was brisk and businesslike. “What’s all the commotion, Charlotte? I heard screaming.”
I explained to her what had happened.
“That’s unfortunate. We’ll find her, though. There hasn’t been a kidnap in the history of this town, and I doubt that’s what this is. Sounds to me like the girl has gotten lost.”
“That’s my thought too. Jerry’s already called the police.” It wasn’t what we’d want—the cops crawling all over the inn, poking around, especially since we needed to keep our covers in place—but this was an extraordinary circumstance.
“Good. Let’s discuss this in the kitchen. We’ll have to organize search teams to find her. Do you know if her parents have checked the inn?” I asked.
“No, unfortunately not. Trinity seemed more focused on storming through Leanne’s suite than searching the grounds.”
“Then we’ll do it,” Gamma said, her jaw set. For a second, I caught a glimmer of the hard-edged agent she’d been, the mask of her grandmotherly sweetness fading away. “And after we’ve found the girl, we’ll have to figure out how the cats are escaping. This can’t continue.”
13
“All right, everyone,” Gamma said, her posh British accent more pronounced than ever, “I’m going to go around the room and ask you what your instructions are, and you are to repeat them to me. Is that clear?”
A murmur of ascent passed through the gathered crowd of search volunteers in the dining room. They stood next to the polished tables, packed so closely that some of them had to stand on chairs or leaned against the pale egg yellow walls.
Gamma had taken charge, staying sweet but businesslike while she did, and separated everyone into search groups. After that, she’d nominated a team leader for each. The cops had already arrived and started their own search of the inn, but we’d go over it ourselves, as well.
The volunteers had come from the town or from the inn itself, some of them were guests, one was the nurse, Kieran, and Jerry was there too. Thankfully, Trinity had opted to stay upstairs, either fuming or worrying. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know which.
“Brian.” Gamma pointed at Smulder who stood near the front of his group—the biggest in the dining area.
“We’ll be searching the inn’s grounds, forest and near the ravine, as well as the greenhouse.”
“Lauren.” Gamma’s finger moved over.
Our chef pressed her hands to her belly, cupping the small bump underneath her apron. “Upstairs,” she said. “We’re going upstairs. The first floor.”
The pointing and asking continued, and everyone repeated their search areas to Gamma, somberly or with grins and thumbs-up to keep the mood upbeat.
“Good. You all know what you have to do,” Gamma said. “Team leaders meet back in here in an hour to discuss your findings or lack thereof. Let’s find Chrissy and Sherlock before it gets dark.”
The leaders and their groups filed from the dining room, and Gamma and I were left alone. I’d forgotten to join a group in the rush of activity and Gamma had been so busy organizing, she’d done the same.
“Pick a group to join, Charlotte,” Gamma said, patting me on the shoulder. “I’m going to the second floor to check on Mrs. Malone.”
I pulled a face. I certainly didn’t envy my grandmother that job.
But what could I do? Everyone was organized, but the smallest search group by far was the one on the ground floor. I saw Gamma to the stairs then started my search. I opened the hall closet and caught a whiff of freshly laundered sheets and towels. The ornamental tables were in their usual places, the gaps between their legs empty.
What about the library?
There was an idea. The library door was still shut tight and it was on the ground floor.
I minced over to it and let myself inside. At a glance, the room was empty.
“Chrissy?” I called, softly. “Are you in here?” My footsteps were muffled by the carpeting. “Sherlock,” I sang.
But there was no answer. I checked under the tables and behind chairs then stood back, my fists on my hips. There was something strange going on here. The bookcases seemed… skew? No, not all of them, just the one. It had been pulled away from the wall on the right side.
Could Sherlock and Chrissy be hiding behind it?
Cocoa Conviction (A Mission Inn-possible Cozy Mystery Book 3) Page 5
