by R M Wild
I shook my head, reversed from my spot, gave him a dismissive wave, and then pulled onto the highway.
8
On my way back to the inn, I couldn’t help myself and pulled into the alley beside the Gold Bug Tavern. I parked beside the harbor, not twenty feet from the bulldozer sitting on the edge of the wharf like a lion waiting in the weeds.
I had no idea what I was going to say to him, but was so keyed up by Phyllis’s death that it didn’t matter. Whatever happened, happened.
I got out, crossed the wet, reflective lot, and opened the heavy Tudor-style door.
The insides were brightly lit, the bottles of soda sparkling on the shelf behind the bar. I had never seen the tavern so clean before; I supposed this was what happened when you had no customers—but if that were the case, then why couldn’t I keep the spiders out of my place?
Fitzgerald was standing behind the now-defunct draft handles and playing a game on his phone.
“I need to see Peter,” I said, my voice shaking.
He looked up, the blue light from his phone showing not a single wrinkle on the underside of his chin. “He ain’t here.”
“Where is he?”
Fitzgerald returned to his game. “I got no idea.”
“When will he be back?”
He shrugged. “Beats me. He didn’t tell me nothin.”
I stood for a moment, wavering. “Did you know?”
“Know what?”
“Never mind,” I said and headed back outside.
By the time I made it back to the inn, the harbor was black, the night hovering above it purple, the electric lighthouse winking in the distance and dying the crusty foam on the rocks pink. There was no time to eat. I unlocked the front door, tidied up the pillows on the couch, straightened the chairs at the kitchen table, and then hurried outside to meet Captain Herrick on the dock.
As I walked the planks, The Moaning Lisa chugged through the pink white caps. For once, Captain Unreliable was on time. I carried the step stool over to the edge of the dock and waited for the boat to tap its rub rail against the piling.
But as Captain Herrick swung the bow around, my insides quivered. There were only two Q-tips on board, two heads of pure white. It might as well have been a ghost ship.
Captain Herrick jumped over the gunwale and tied the boat to the cleats. He clenched a bottle of Red Rum between his thighs, the neck protruding as if he were overly excited to be on time.
I resisted getting close enough to smell him, figuring that if he were drunk, I didn’t want to know about it. If I knew about it, I’d have to do something about it—or at least say something—and I had already experienced enough drama today to last me until the end of days.
“Only two guests tonight?”
“I didn’t see any others on the wharf,” Captain Herrick said.
“You didn’t see them? Or they weren’t there?”
“You don’t trust me?”
I didn’t answer. No wonder he was on time. With only two guests, they could both sit on the far side of the bench while he throttled up and spewed smoke to his heart’s content and neither would get black lungs.
I pulled out my phone and checked my reservation app. “It says here we had five reservations tonight.”
Captain Herrick shrugged. “I dunno what to tell you. I been on my boat all day. These two were the only ones waitin.”
My patience had run thin. I didn’t even bother to have this conversation away from earshot of my guests. “Don’t lie to me, Captain. How many did you leave back at the pier?”
“None. Chill out, Rosie the Righteous.”
I eyed the bottle between his legs. “I thought we had this conversation. Multiple times. You’re drunk again.”
“I ain’t drunk. My crack’s on the line here too, Missy. I put all my roe in this pot. I want to see this business succeed as much as you do.”
“Says the guy who inherited a boat from his father and doesn’t have any debt.”
“Says the gal who inherited a mansion from her mother and doesn’t have a sense of humor.”
I steamed and turned toward the guests. “Has your Captain been drinking tonight?”
Wide-eyed, the two shook their heads.
“The bottle’s for you,” Captain Herrick said and shoved it at my chest.
“Watch it,” I said. I snatched the bottle out of his hand and rubbed my sore boobs. “Why would I want this?”
“Look inside.”
I held the bottle up to the yellow light spilling from my kitchen window. A small tube of paper hid inside, the bottom reddish from whatever dregs of liquor it had soaked up.
With two fingers, Captain Herrick held up a Post-It note that said “CASKET.”
“Someone left the bottle on my deck for you. It’s a message in a bottle.”
The old couple on board shifted to the gunwale for a peek.
“Is it okay to get down now?” the husband asked.
“Yes, I’m very sorry,” I said. “We’re talking shop. I didn’t mean to hold you up.” I set the bottle down on the dock and helped them climb down. “We’ve had a rough day.”
“No worries, Dear. It’s hard to mix love and work.”
Captain Herrick and I glanced at each other.
“Oh, we’re not together,” Herrick said.
“Definitely not,” I added.
The woman swung a leg over the gunwale. They were in their early seventies at best, but enviably spry. “Relax dear, your secret’s safe with us. We’re not married either. Call me Doris and call him Bob.”
“I didn’t see those names on the list tonight.”
“Exactly,” Doris said with a wink.
“I’m Rosie. It’s nice to meet you both. Did you have a good tour of the harbor?”
“Yes, very nice,” Doris said.
“But a little rocky,” Bob added. “Tell me, Rosie, are the rumors true?”
“What rumors?”
“They’re saying you set a convict on fire.”
My eyes bulged. “What? Who’s saying that?”
“Your Facebook page is flooded with comments.”
I whipped out my phone and checked. He was right. My page was getting even more traffic than after the Marie Claire piece. The comments were piling up, many linking to YouTube.
I closed it before I gave into my temptation to click, my cheeks burning.
“But we don’t believe in that hocus-pocus nonsense. You’re no more a witch than I’m a wizard. It actually turned out pretty well for us,” Doris added and nudged Bob in the ribs. “More privacy, right?”
Bob grinned. “Definitely.”
I glanced at Captain Herrick. He shrugged.
I tried my best to act as if the news didn’t bother me. I wanted to believe that controversy was good for business—that any exposure, even negative, would drive more traffic to my inn. After all, some of the rubberneckers who stopped for a peek at a flaming car on the side of the road had money to burn.
But I wasn’t sure the idea that all publicity was good publicity was true.
Still, the rooms were waiting—and the groceries weren’t going to pay for themselves. I faked a smile. “Right this way.” I grabbed the empty bottle of Red Rum and led them up to the inn, inadvertently stomping the deck hard enough to pop a few nails loose.
If only the bottle hadn’t been empty.
While sitting at the kitchen table listening to Eldritch regale Bob and Doris with tales of his heroics, I ignored the warnings of my better self and went back to my Facebook page.
Ever since that smear campaign against me in high school, I tried to stay off social media—except, of course, when I had to dig up dirt on a murderer. Recently, however, I had taken out a Facebook page for Red and Breakfast. I fully believed the social media giant was poisonous for democracy and wished I could avoid it, but I also thought fossil fuels were bad for the environment, yet had few affordable options in the transportation department. All the businesses
were doing the Facebook thing, so if I wanted to compete and be responsive to my guests, I needed a presence there too.
The header at the top of my Facebook page was a generic stock photo I had found online of a mug of hot chocolate. I had originally used one of the nice photos from the Marie Claire spread, but the publisher had immediately sent me a takedown notice claiming copyright infringement. In what crazy world did I not have the right to use a photo of my own building?
The comment section on my last post—put up a week ago—was already teeming with vitriol. My gut told me not to read the comments, but I doom-scrolled down the list anyway.
A charming little inn? More like charmed.
Witch room should I stay in?
What’s the difference between Phyllis Martin and Rosie Casket? Nothing. They both have fire crotches.
How the heck had these anonymous posters found out what had happened at the prison so quickly?
And then I realized it.
A link.
To YouTube.
Someone on YouTube was sending them here.
I winced and clicked on the blue text. I feared I would be sent to some crazy fringe propaganda site or to some fake news article about a conspiracy to dethrone the reigning ping-pong champion in Japan or something.
But instead, the link sent me to another Facebook feed where someone had posted a black and white video.
I held the screen up to my face.
In the video, I was sitting in front of a pane of glass. The angle was from behind my shoulder. It was a security video from the prison, this one taken from the opposite side of the room, and it was trending faster than a forest fire.
My stomach sank. How had they gotten their hands on that video?
There was only one explanation.
A leaker. Someone inside the prison must have leaked it.
I remembered God’s quip as I left the guard booth: I’m looking forward to the highlight reel.
Someone far richer than I believed in the power of publicity, but I wasn’t so sure that advice applied to a woman spontaneously combusting in your presence, especially when your business was renting out rooms in an old Victorian cottage with a cozy fireplace.
As I read the rest of the hateful comments, I grew tenser and tenser. I flexed every muscle in my body to resist the urge to fire back and spew some defensive vitriol of my own. In fact, I had fallen so far down the rabbit hole of anonymous hatred that I didn’t even realize when Eldritch called for hot chocolate.
“Sorry!” I said. “I’m working on it.”
I tossed my phone on the table and retrieved another chocolate bunny from the pantry. I chopped it to pieces as if I were trying to dismember one of those online trolls, chocolate chunks flying everywhere. I tossed three mugs into the microwave, served my guests, and then went back to my phone.
Innkeeper? More like a sin-keeper!
I’d say she should burn in hell, but she’d probably feel right at home.
My hands trembled, my heart pounding. I wanted to retaliate. But I summoned the courage to pull myself away and put my phone, face down, on the table.
I looked around the kitchen, hoping to find some kind of solace, a friendly ghost who could give me sage advice or something, when my eyes landed on the empty bottle of Red Rum sitting on the counter. The comments had burrowed so deeply under my skin that I had totally forgotten about it.
I glared at the label. Given how quickly rumors of warts on my butt and my dust-guzzling SUB (Sport Utility Broom) were spreading, I guessed the rolled-up message inside the bottle was nothing more than another nasty comment. What I needed to do was throw the bottle out to sea and hope it washed up in some ancient trash compactor.
Ignoring it would have been the healthy course of action. But it had been a long time since I had practiced any kind of self-care. I grabbed a knife, stuck it down the neck of the bottle, and wiggled it around to snag the paper.
It took me five minutes to get it out, but once it was free, I unrolled the note and spread it flat on the counter. The bottom half of the paper was soggy and red from the dregs, but the words were clear, the ink and handwriting the same as the receipt left on my windshield:
Double, double, toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.
I put the note down. Seriously? Another one? This troll’s lack of creativity was only surprising in how utterly lame it was. The lines came from Act 4 of Macbeth, the most famous—and clichéd—words ever written about supernatural wenches.
I took a picture of the note and called up Matt Mettle.
“What’s up, Casket?”
“Did you see Facebook?”
There was a hollow pop and I guessed he was sipping a beer. “Unlike you, I’ve got more important things to do than scroll around on social media all evening. Besides, the compression is lousy. Phyllis Martin gets all blocky when she goes up in flames. It’s hardly worth replaying.”
“So you did go online? You saw the video?”
“I didn’t go online. Five different guys at the barracks sent me the link. They’ve got a sick sense of humor.”
“Did one of your guys leak it?”
“Possibly. But I hope not. If so, that’s gonna be a long department meeting Monday morning—and my weakness for donuts is going to come raging back.”
“I’m sending you a photo,” I said and sent him the picture of the message in the bottle. “Someone left that note for me.”
“So?”
“So it comes from the witches in Macbeth.”
“Even I knew that,” Mettle said.
“It’s worse than cyber bullying. It’s an actual note. It’s real-life bullying. Somebody took the time to shove it inside a bottle and leave it on the deck of Herrick’s boat.”
“You touched the note, right?”
“Yes. How else would it have gotten out of the bottle?”
“You could have smashed the bottle. Did you wear gloves?”
“No. But I bet you can still get a print.”
“Maybe,” Mettle said.
“These bullies are ruining my business. Three of my guests canceled their reservations for tonight. Usually, I’m booked a few nights in advance, but now there are no bookings for the rest of the week.”
“So basically you’re telling me you finally have the time to go on that date?”
I huffed. “C’mon, Matt. I’m freaking out over here. It took me months to finally get things rolling. Now these trolls are destroying me.”
“What would you like me to do? Go around and cut every fiber optic cable in Dark Haven? Like you said, they’re trolls, Casket. That’s what they do. They troll.”
“I don’t know,” I said, exasperated.
“Do you know where that term came from?”
I was barely listening. “Huh? What term?”
“Troll. Do you know where it came from?”
“No. Why would I care?”
“It came from the early days of the internet. Legions of jerks would go around trawling for suckers they could engage in verbal sparring. The proper term is actually trawl not troll, not the kind of freak that lives under the Cardinal Lane bridge, but one of them fishing boats that drags its net along the sea floor seeing what little critters it can catch.”
I perked up. The tidbit was actually pretty interesting—and equally impressive that Matt Mettle actually knew a relevant fact.
My interest was genuinely piqued. “Where did you learn that?”
“In the academy. They made me take a class on cyber security. You feel better now?”
“A little,” I said, surprising even myself. Matt Mettle knew exactly how to distract me. Toss me an obscure fact and I was like a snake on a frog.
“If you think you can prove damages, a loss of revenue or something like that, you might be able to sue some of these turds for smearing your good name,” Mettle said. “You’d better ask a lawyer, though. My legal advice comes with the usual disclaimer: I don’t kn
ow what the heck I’m talking about. Maybe you could talk with someone at your foster-father’s firm?”
Maybe. That was the best idea he had in a long time. “Thank you, Matt. I appreciate it.”
“No problem,” he said. There was another loud pop as he took another sip of beer. “Goodnight, Casket. Hang in there. Everything will be okay.”
Nothing would be okay, but it still felt good to hear him say it.
Too choked up from the day’s events to speak clearly, I could only muster a whisper. “Goodnight, Matt.”
9
Sleep didn’t come well that night. My bedroom had turned into a sleep-deprivation chamber. Every time I closed my eyes I saw flashes of fire—and every time I opened them again, that darn beam from the lighthouse swept past my porthole window and projected a gawking circle with the world’s worst case of pink eye.
Tonight, the light seemed brighter than ever; either the lighthouse commission had replaced the bulb with twice the wattage, or Phyllis’s flashy death had made me overly sensitive.
Even though I was deeply tired, I was actually relieved to get up and get moving. I crept out my door and down to the bathroom. From the guest room in which Bella Donley had once slept (depending on a potential guest’s amount of makeup, I sometimes used her name as a selling point), there were snores as loud as a pig getting its hooves tickled.
I didn’t want to assume it was Bob—as an innkeeper, I quickly learned that some of my female guests snored the worst of all (Phyllis being the all-time winner)—and I did my bathroom business as quickly and quietly as possible.
The other major downside to being an innkeeper is the utter lack of privacy. There’s nothing quite as humbling as sharing your bathroom with new strangers every single night—and no fan loud enough to mask the bathroom sounds when you never know who might be listening.
With the plan of returning in time to make breakfast before they woke up, I got in the Honda and drove downtown. The morning was clear, the moon still out, a bright yellow horseshoe dangling from the cupola of the Lighthouse Chapel.