A Dead And Stormy Night

by A. R. Winters

  “Harold didn’t have a heart condition or anything, if that’s what you’re asking,” she said. “Just an allergy to cranberries and a love of spirits. Hal never met a bottle that he didn’t like. He kept the epinephrine autoinjector and his nausea pills in that bag. It doesn’t surprise me to hear he went for it this morning.”

  “There was a bottle of wine next to him,” I whispered. “But it didn’t look like he drank much of it.”

  Catherine sniffed. “He wouldn’t have needed to. When I left the suite, he was still nice and toasty from the drinks he had with dinner. A glass of wine or three would have been an easy way to take the edge off the morning. Or maybe he used it to soothe himself to sleep through the storm.”

  I forced a smile to my face, but the new information made my brain spin.

  “If you don’t need anything out of the room, then I’ll leave you and your girls to relax,” I said. “My sister is making a sandwich for your sister-in-law, and then she should be starting on lunch. Did you have a particular request? We’re on generator power right now so she can’t get too fancy, but Danielle is a whiz in the kitchen.”

  Catherine waved a perfectly manicured hand. She wasn’t wearing her wedding or engagement rings anymore. But then, despite being dressed, she wasn’t wearing any jewelry.

  “Any old thing is fine,” she said. “I’m not picky about food.”

  I left Catherine Jepsen where I found her, watching over her children with an untouched cocktail beside her.

  There was nobody in the hallway, so I stopped to regroup. My mind went back to the open wine cellar door. Harold Jepsen seemed eager for something stiffer than the wine we served with dinner. The stronger liquor was in the bar in the front parlor, but the wine would have been easier to get to with me, Danielle, Ashley still in the big house.

  Why not ask any of us for it? At worst, he might have been told he’d had more than enough. Even if he had a drinking problem, it didn’t seem likely a man like him would have bothered to hide it from the staff.

  Maybe he didn’t try to hide it at all. Maybe that’s why Emily saw him downstairs.

  Most of us wouldn’t have bothered to keep the wine away from Harold Jepsen. We would have handed it over with a nice glass and added it to his bill.

  Ashley might have been willing to cut him off. Especially if she was alone and tired of dealing with him.

  You don’t even know that the bottle is one of ours. Catherine didn’t see him drink it, so she doesn’t know either.

  I couldn’t check the wine cellar or ask Danielle without having to explain myself. In all of our years, I’d never gotten good at lying to Danielle or Granny. The longer I could go without having to try with either of them, the better.

  Before I did anything else, I needed to go back into the Jepsen suite. If I hadn’t remembered to check the label on the wine bottle, chances were I’d missed something else too.

  On my way past the reading room, I saw Tabitha Jepsen and Kenneth in the downstairs. They sat on either side of the circular wooden table at the center. A self-help book lay unopened in front of Tabitha. Kenneth didn’t have a book at all.

  From the tone of their voices, it was a tense conversation.

  I kept moving to the staircase, climbed a few steps, and stopped when I was sure they couldn’t see me.

  “I mean, I’ll do it, but you know this is silly, right?” he asked. “You’re a grown woman. So what if you were out of your room past curfew? Who cares what anyone thinks?”

  “She’s not anyone! She’s my mom. I care,” Tabitha insisted. “And if you care about me, you won’t make a big deal about it.”

  “Tabby, I already said I wouldn’t say anything,” Kenneth said.

  It sounded like normal—if a little old fashioned—young adult stuff, so I moved away from the door and kept climbing the stairs.

  What happened to Tabitha’s father might not have been normal. And for everyone’s sake, I needed to find out.

  Chapter Seven

  I crept back to the Jepsen’s suite as quietly as I could, praying with every step that I didn’t run into Emily Jepsen again. The Jepsen family was grieving, but they wouldn’t be this low maintenance forever.

  If she asked for something, I wouldn’t have a good reason to say no. If all seven of the guests decided they wanted to eat lunch or dinner together, it might get too busy for me to get back to the suite alone. And even if they preferred to stay in their separate corners, I had about fifteen minutes before Danielle would want to make sure I had checked in with Catherine Jepsen.

  It was now or never.

  Once I was in the room with the door closed behind me, I paused to take a breath and steady myself. Then I turned around and started to sweep the room.

  When she and Andrew officially took over the Paradise, Danielle updated the decor and furnishings in all of the guest rooms. This suite had been designated the “executive suite” because its generous square footage had allowed for not only a desk, but also a sofa with lots of floor space to spare.

  True to Danielle’s interior decorating philosophy, the major elements of the room were all in the same color family. The matching colors in the sofa upholstery, curtains, and bedspreads gave the room a sense of cohesion. The rich blue color gave it a sense of luxurious calm. The creamy white walls and beige carpet served as unassuming backdrops—there to be appreciated, not seen.

  It was all perfect. Right out of a styled photoshoot.

  Except for the newly deceased former occupant.

  The discarded bottle was next to Mr. Jepsen’s right hand. I grabbed it by the tip, turning it quickly so no more of it spilled on the carpet.

  Not that we’re ever going to get that stain out.

  The wine cellar was the newest addition to the Paradise Bed and Breakfast. After they had hosted a few lavish wedding receptions and noticed how particular some guests could be, Danielle and Andy had the cellar built not long before Baby Ben was born. As far as I knew—which when it came to fine wine wasn’t much—there were a few particularly expensive wines in the collection.

  Harold and Catherine Jepsen were exactly the kind of customers who would be impressed with a decent wine collection. But at dinner, only Mrs. Jepsen had expressed an interest.

  Why chase alcohol with wine?

  If he had intended to use the wine as a nightcap, he must have changed his mind. There was barely enough wine missing from the bottle to fill half a glass, and most of it was staining Danielle’s carpet.

  Emily Jepsen said he was drunk when she saw Ashley yell at him. Maybe he just never got around to drinking the wine?

  If that were true, there should have been some other sign.

  I put the bottle on the nightstand and went into the bathroom. It smelled like a mix of storm air and the standard Paradise diffuser mix—wet earth, cherries, and lavender. The bathtub still sparkled as if it hadn’t been used. Even the toilet bowl was still gleaming, though at least one of the Jepsens had spent the whole night in the room.

  Less ambitious innkeepers might have gone with plain white for the bathroom furnishings. White towels were easy to bleach and cheap to replace. But not Danielle. Each room had its own set of towels—and at least three replacement sets on site—tailored to the theme of the room.

  The bathroom of the executive suite had a ceramic counter top wash basin sink with an elaborate tropical pattern carved into the side. The bowl had been covered in blue glaze, leaving only the carvings white. To match the bowl, the executive suite had a set of pale blue washcloths and towels.

  My first week back home, I hadn’t noticed the color scheme. Granny thought the idea of special towels was ridiculous and tried to use Danielle’s brief maternity leave to excise the practice from the operating procedures.

  It had been years since I’d heard them argue that fiercely over something that seemed so small. But to Danielle, no detail of the Paradise was too small for her attention.

  The sink was the only thing in the bath
room that had been disturbed. Someone had laid one of the pale blue washcloths across the basin. A red stain covered more than half of it, making it appear deep purple.

  More wine?

  I picked up a corner of the washcloth with pinched fingers. It stayed stiff and crumpled.

  Blood?

  Furrowing my brow, I went back into the bedroom. After a few minutes, I found what Ashley and I had missed before.

  A small crescent-shaped gash in Harold Jepsen’s scalp. It wasn’t deep enough to have killed him. I knew from portrait sessions with more than one hyperactive child that head wounds produced an astonishing amount of blood. More than was on the washcloth in the sink.

  Finding the wound only raised more questions.

  If Harold Jepsen had hit his head on the nightstand, at least the lamp would be out of place. And why was the washcloth in the sink instead of beside him?

  He hit his head somewhere between here and the reading room, grabbed the wine to soothe the headache?

  It was plausible. I also didn’t have any proof it happened that way. The only thing I’d proven was that Harold Jepsen was hurt before he died. It was possible someone had hurt him deliberately.

  Someone… or Ashley?

  No! Ashley had a dark sense of humor. Okay, she could be downright creepy sometimes. But she would sooner die than hurt another person. Whatever she said to Harold Jepsen that night was all bluster, and I was going to search that room until I found something to prove it.

  I went to the dresser and pulled it open. When that drawer turned out to be empty, I opened another.

  They must not have had a chance to unpack before the argument.

  I went to the closet and pulled it open. A hard plastic silver suitcase as high as my hip was tucked into the corner. The blazer Harold Jepsen wore when the family checked in hung on a hanger.

  What are you going to do if you find something?

  I didn’t know. But I reached for the pocket anyway.

  Just as my fingers brushed the lining, the door to the room swung open.

  Chapter Eight

  There was nowhere to hide in the suite except for the closet—which was the quickest way to get myself trapped just when Danielle started looking for me. Instead, I forced myself to take a deep breath and tried to look like I actually belonged there as I turned around.

  Andrew, Kenneth, and Jeremy Jepsen stood in the doorway. Andy was holding the camera we used to take photos of guests enjoying the grounds. In the innkeeping business, not unlike the photography business, it was easiest to attract your next customer if they could envision themselves enjoying your service.

  “Hey, Laura,” Andrew said, smiling despite the sheet of sweat that clung to his forehead. “Everything all right in here?”

  “Right as ra—” My eyes darted to the torrent of rain outside the window, killing the words before I could accidentally crack a joke. The SOP didn’t mention jokes, but if it had, I’m sure it would have said not to in front of a grieving family. “Everything’s all right in here. You look exhausted.”

  Andy grabbed the collar of his T-shirt and wiped his forehead. “The wind did more damage that I’d have liked, but it’s mostly to the landscaping. I cleared the paths just to be on the safe side.”

  Poor guy. Ashley’s noodle arms and perpetually sore wrists, both earned from years spent hunched over a laptop, would have been no help at all.

  Kenneth and Jeremy Jepsen hung near the door. The younger man looked at me and then turned his attention to the bed, completely avoiding the floor. I didn’t blame him. Despite his somewhat intimate conversation with Tabitha Jepsen, he didn’t seem close to the family. Come to think of it, nobody had mentioned how and why he came on vacation with them.

  Jeremy Jepsen, on the other hand, had his eyes firmly fixed on his unmoving brother. He leaned on his cane, gripping the thick metal handle so tightly his knuckles turned white.

  The curved end of the cane’s handle caught my eye. It was almost the same size as the wound in Harold Jepsen’s head.

  “Sure is. I was just grabbing a few of Mrs. Jepsen’s things.” I figured the less I said, the better. As a lawyer, Andy was uniquely qualified to spot lies. “Anything I can help with?”

  Andrew turned to the guests and gestured for them to wait. He walked to me, lowering his voice as he spoke. “Mr. Jepsen objects to his brother being left on the floor all day. To be honest, I agree with him. The trouble is I still can’t get in touch with the sheriff’s department.”

  “Do you think their line is down?”

  “Maybe, but I think it’s more like they’re overloaded with calls,” Andy said. “If the storm took us by surprise, it must have surprised a lot of other people in the county too. And some of them won’t have been as lucky as we’ve been. I wouldn’t care at all except if we move Mr. Jepsen and something… less than legal occurred here…”

  “Then we would have tampered with a crime scene.” Like I had been doing before Andy and the guests walked in. Thank goodness he’d stopped me before I’d gotten too caught up in the search. The last thing I wanted was to accidentally put myself on a potential suspect list. I’d been down that road, and I did not want a repeat trip.

  “I knew you’d get it,” Andy said. “Ashley couldn’t wrap her head around it. She wouldn’t even come with us.”

  “She wasn’t excited about being in here with me earlier either,” I said. “So the camera is the compromise?”

  Andy nodded and passed me the camera. “We photograph everything just the way it is. Mr. Jepsen and the air conditioner are the only things we change. Think you’re up for it?”

  “What about the wine bottle?”

  “That stays where it is too. The stain doesn’t matter. We’ll have to refurbish the room anyway.”

  Seeing as I was already holding the camera, there didn’t seem to be much point to saying no. Besides, Andrew and I wanted the same thing—to find and capture as much information about the suite as possible.

  I started with the rug and wine glass, making sure to capture the label, the stain, and the wound. Then I moved to the bathroom, snapping the bloody cloth and the clean stack for comparison. When I went back into the main room, Andrew and Kenneth had wrapped Harold Jepsen in a clean white sheet and were gently lifting him off the floor.

  What little color remained in Jeremy Jepsen’s face drained away. He raised a shaking hand to his mouth and wiped his lips, mumbled a soft “excuse me,” then left the room.

  Andy and I exchanged looks. Then I followed.

  The surviving Jepsen brother was standing just outside the door to the executive suite. He braced his weight against the wall with one hand. The other still gripped his cane.

  Up close, that cane definitely looked heavy enough to have caused the wound.

  “Can I get you anything, Mr. Jepsen?” I asked. “Or maybe help you back to your room?”

  Even accounting for the shock of losing his brother suddenly, the man didn’t look well. His cheeks were hollow, and there was an odd slackness to his skin. It made him look much older than either Catherine or Harold.

  He turned to me and flashed a smile that did nothing to brighten his ashen complexion. “I’m fine, thank you. It’s still all a bit of a shock. That’s all.”

  “That’s understandable, Mr. Jepsen. I’m sure this isn’t how you imagined your vacation would go.”

  “Or how my brother would go.” He looked down. “He was the older brother, but I’ve been sick for as long as either of us can remember… could remember.”

  “He was your older brother? My condolences, Mr. Jepsen.”

  “Jeremy, please. Hal was the one obsessed with rank. It may have bugged him how much Catie loves the Brits, but life as Duke would have been his idea of heaven.” He lowered his hand and slid it into his pocket. “It was always me who was going to go first. But the last few years, between work stress and the bottle, Hal managed to pull ahead.”

  “Was Mr. Jepsen ill?” I asked.r />
  He smiled bitterly. “The worst illness of all: a terminal obsession with all things material. He could never stand to lose at anything. There was always a bigger deal to chase or another unicorn to funnel money into. And Hal always had to win, no matter what it cost or who it hurt. I figured years ago it would be a heart attack that got him. Just didn’t think it would happen like this. Poor Hal.”

  He doesn’t strike me as the sort of man who would kill his brother in cold blood. It doesn’t look like he has it in him, physically or emotionally.

  “Then you think he died naturally?”

  Jeremy nodded. “I told your brother-in-law so. Several times. I appreciate him being thorough, but there’s nobody in the world who hated my brother as much as he hated himself. Not even Catie.”

  “I sensed some tension between them at dinner.” And ordinarily I wouldn’t have commented on it with another guest, but with Jeremy, it seemed like there were things he needed to talk through.

  There was nothing we could do to get the Jepsen family out of this nightmare faster. We were all at the mercy of the weather there. But the least I could do was help them work through their emotions.

  Jeremy shrugged. “Tension is a kind word. If it weren’t for the ties that bind, I think she would have walked out years ago. It’s not easy living with a man who criticizes everything about you.”

  “Love makes people look past strange things.”

  He smiled. “I’m sure it does, but that well had long run dry. If she could have taken the girls and the money, he would have never seen her again. Those poor girls.”

  “The last time I saw them, they were giving their mom a concert on the piano in the front parlor.”

  “Let me guess, showtunes?” When I nodded, he laughed. “We took them on a surprise trip to Broadway for spring break. Took half a year and too much money to organize, but their faces…”

  “You seem to love your nieces very much, Jeremy.”

  He shrugged. “Kids were never going to be part of the equation for me.”