Heather Horrocks - Who-Dun-Him Inn 01 - Snowed Inn

by Heather Horrocks

  She looked worse— I’d seen her having a migraine and after finding a knife stabbed into her pillow, after all— and she looked better then. Her eyes were puffy from crying, the aftermath of the horrible blowup she and Martha had shortly before, no doubt. I felt guilty over having basically caused the fight. If I hadn’t said anything, Martha wouldn’t have known she was a grandmother.

  But no matter what happened, Alexis always had a look of elegance, her hair neatly tucked into an elaborate bun, her slender body in the trim, navy blue suit. I envied her that ability. Despite the swollen eyes, she looked jubilant and gorgeous.

  I held out the four books. “Would you be so kind as to autograph these books for me before you go?”

  “Of course. I’d love to.” She reached out and took them.

  “You look happy today.”

  “I am,” she said, searching for a pen. “This nightmare is finally over; plus, I get to go home.” She set the books on the desk and pulled a pen from her purse.

  She sat at the desk and started writing.

  “And would you please autograph one to Jennifer Ross? You’re her favorite author and she’s like twelve months pregnant and all she can do is read right now.”

  She smiled. “Sure.”

  She put the top book aside, and lifted the cover of the second book. After signing all four, she smiled again and handed me the novels back. “Here. Although why you want to remember this weekend is beyond me.”

  “Well, at least I met lots of wonderful authors,” I said.

  That got another smile from her. “Not all of us, though.”

  I wasn’t sure if she meant some of them weren’t wonderful people; or some of them weren’t wonderful authors. Either way, I wasn’t about to touch it.

  “Bet you’re anxious to get home to your little boy.” I was missing Zach terribly, and thankful Lonny had him. No telling who Paul would arrest next, but it couldn’t be soon enough.

  She nodded. “I am. I can’t wait to get home and hug him.”

  “And your someone special.”

  “I broke up with him.” Because he was bisexual? I wondered. A wistful look came across Alexis’s face. “He promised me the moon. But he lied.”

  “I’m sorry.” Especially since, after what she said earlier, I knew Alexis did some lying of her own. I wondered which version was the truth, and realized she must not have known or remembered I overheard her earlier. But I distinctly remembered her telling Martha she had a boyfriend and their relationship was just fine, thank you. Maybe she just lied to Martha to save face.

  “Well, I’m over him now. Who needs men, anyway?” Without looking at me, she returned to her packing.

  I opened her book and read the inscription. A very nice one. “To Vicki, Thanks for an unforgettable weekend. Your Who-Dun-Him Inn is delightful and you are a wonderful hostess, in good times and bad. Alexis Cordova.”

  Her feminine, flowery penmanship seemed a fine match to her personality and style.

  Alexis reached into the dresser, pulled out some underwear and turned to put them in the suitcase lying on top of the bed.

  Before I closed the book, I read the inscription one more time, enjoying the sound of it. And that’s when I discovered that just two words could have even more impact than a whole string of them. My eyes wandered across the facing copyright page. Interestingly enough, the book was not copyrighted to Alexis Cordova, but to Julie Swenson.

  Tingles spread up my back and down my arms.

  The Julie who Garrett said he wasn’t going to let Calabria hurt anymore? Did protecting her give Garrett even more motive to kill Calabria?

  It couldn’t be. As Garrett said, there were lots of Julies in the world. I was just overreacting to everything because I was scared. With good reason, I told myself. Shut up, you’re scaring me! I snapped back.

  While I tried to get my mind around this new bit of information, Alexis took a handful of hangers, clothes neatly hanging on them, from the closet. “You know, I was really scared, especially when the murder weapon ended up in my pillow. I have never been so freaked out. I am so glad that madman was taken into custody. I hope they put him away forever.”

  “Me, too,” I said, even as what she said hit me. She said the words that made the most difference of all.

  After all, nobody knew that the knife was the murder weapon.

  Nobody except Paul, Liz, Dr. Ray, the police, and me.

  Oh, and the murderer, that is.

  Was I still overreacting?

  But I couldn’t put the thought from my mind. Was it possible Alexis— Julie— could be the murderer?

  I looked at her, glad she was still talking about her little boy. She was incapacitated the night of the murder. I’d seen it myself. Or else she was faking it. But why would she have killed Calabria?

  “Don’t you agree?” she asked.

  “I’m sorry, what was that?”

  “Things are looking up. I’ll be back with my son soon. And the idea for a new book came to me this weekend.” And then she went off again on how much she missed her son.

  And what did I miss? Grandma came up to this room and saw Alexis here. So how could she be the murderer?

  Was there any way she could have left the room while Grandma thought she was still here? Grandma didn’t actually say she saw Alexis, just that she was following her advice. But sometimes Grandma would go in the bathroom, shut the door, run the hot water on her feet and put a cold washcloth on her head, and we’d hear the sound of water running in the bathtub without seeing her. What if Grandma didn’t actually see Alexis? What if Alexis started the water running, left it running, shut the door, and left?

  I was stretching, but it could have happened that way. I could be overreacting— except that Alexis knew something no one except the murderer should know.

  Alexis paused as she picked up the picture of her son and I could see the love for her son in her face. I could again see his uncanny resemblance to Xavier. She continued rambling on as she wrapped the frame in a shirt before packing it in the suitcase, and slowly it dawned on me that, if Xavier was the baby’s father, Calabria was the grandfather. And since Calabria had disowned Xavier, maybe he made sure Xavier wouldn’t marry Alexis. But that was carrying his restrictive contract too far, even for a control freak like Calabria.

  And didn’t Xavier tell his mother that the baby was his? Or did I read that into what he said because I thought it was true?

  Perhaps Xavier told his mother the baby was his so Martha wouldn’t realize another, far more disturbing possibility. If Xavier wasn’t the baby’s father, he could well be his brother; and then almost assuredly, Calabria was the father of both dark-haired boys.

  I remembered how strongly Alexis reacted to finding out about Liz’s cheating husband.

  What if Calabria and Alexis had an affair, and the little boy was the result? What if he promised Alexis he’d leave Martha for her, like I heard cheating husbands often do, but instead he showed up this weekend to announce his engagement to someone else? Now that would be enough reason for a woman to kill a man in an act of passion.

  But it was still just a whole bunch of “What-ifs?”

  In that instant, I remembered the way Alexis’s face looked at dinner. When she found out BJ’s book was being promoted, Alexis was upset. But when she learned Calabria was going to marry BJ, when he said he loved BJ, her face went completely calm, not revealing anything. Did she repress her anger only to have it boil up later on in the carriage house?

  Alexis continued to ramble, oblivious to the thoughts exploding in my brain, the most frightening of which was my becoming more and more convinced that I was standing alone in a room with a murderer.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  I looked at Alexis and my hands shook. I hoped my voice didn’t. “Will you excuse me? I just remembered I left something bubbling on the stove.”

  Without even a glance at me, she nodded. “Sure. I’ll be down in a few minutes to catch my cab.
I already called.”

  I hightailed it out of there and met Liz in the front foyer. “Oh, my gosh, Liz,” I whispered, pulling her into the dining room. “I think I know who the murderer is!”

  I shut the door, my heart pounding, and told the story, as quickly as I could. When I finished, she stared at me seriously. “Call Paul. Now! What if he didn’t get your earlier message?”

  I pulled the phone from my pocket, but before I dialed more than three numbers, the dining room door flew open.

  Alexis stood there, holding Grandma’s no-longer-lost gun.

  If I thought the adrenaline rushed before, I was wrong. My muscles tensed. My lungs tightened. My stomach bottomed out.

  Liz and I flicked glances at each other. Did Grandma really leave bullets in it? Or was she fibbing?

  “Alexis, how wonderful,” I said, trying to bluff my way through this. If Alexis thought we didn’t know what she’d done, would she hand it over? “You found Grandma’s gun. She’s always losing things, isn’t she, Liz?”

  “Don’t play innocent with me.” Alexis motioned toward the mirror. “I heard your plotting through your spy glass.”

  Holy crap, she must’ve listened in while I spilled my theory. Liz rolled her eyes at our stupidity. And I didn’t call Paul first. Incredibly stupid.

  Alexis tipped the gun my way. “Put down the phone, Vicki.”

  I set it on the table, but she grabbed it and threw it into the wall, where it broke into pieces.

  “Hey, what are you doing?” I said. “That phone cost—”

  ”You won’t need it again. Just stand right where you are.”

  Liz rolled her eyes again. “Why should we?”

  Startled, Alexis said, “Because otherwise, I’ll shoot you.”

  Liz took a step closer. “Not with that gun, you won’t. We emptied out Grandma’s bullets when she arrived.”

  “She told me she reloaded shortly after that. Besides, I know it’s loaded. I do know how to open the cylinder.”

  “She’s bluffing,” Liz said. “We can take her.”

  Alexis’s eyes hardened. “Try it.”

  Shocked, I put out a hand. “Liz, stop. Are you crazy?”

  Apparently, my sister was certifiable, for she took another step toward what I was pretty sure was a loaded gun. Alexis removed all doubt by pointing the gun toward the outside wall, and shooting out my large, beautiful, hard-to-replace antique dining room window.

  The gun cracked. The glass shattered. The frigid October air swept into the room. I screamed and grabbed Liz’s arm.

  There was no one in the Inn to hear the shot and come running. Liz and I were all alone— with the murderer.

  Grandma was downstairs, but I wasn’t sure even a gunshot on another floor could awaken her.

  Liz jumped back. “Okay, then. My mistake.”

  Alexis smiled. It was an ugly smile that made me shiver.

  “Why’d you do it, Alexis?” I asked softly. Maybe if we were calm, we could quiet her down.

  “You guessed most of it, Vicki. Every Tuesday and Thursday night, he promised he’d marry me. His divorce has been final three months. He brought me here to propose to me. How dare he announce he loved BJ and was marrying her? How humiliating.”

  She stopped and took a couple of deep breaths. She was losing it. Is this how she was with Calabria just before she stabbed him and hit him over the head?

  “I went out to talk with him, but he was playing with me. So, I decided if he wouldn’t marry me, he wouldn’t marry anyone.”

  “Oh, Alexis,” I said. “Was it worth killing him?”

  “He killed everything important to me.”

  “You still have your son.”

  “Yes, and I plan on keeping him. If anyone finds out, they’ll send me to jail. I can’t let that happen. That’s why, as sorry as I am, I have to kill you.”

  I believed her. She planned to kill us and go back to her son and her life as though she weren’t insane. She looked like the same elegant woman, but the intense craziness now revealed in her eyes must have been there when she stabbed her lover, too.

  “You’ll never get away with it,” Liz said.

  “Let me plot it out for you. The others thoughtfully went skiing, which leaves no witnesses. I’m wearing cotton gloves, which will hide my fingerprints and keep any gunpowder residue off my skin. My cab will be here soon. When they track me down in a day or so to question me, I’ll say you were both alive and well when I left. Your grandmother could go to jail, though. This is her gun, and it will be found with her fingerprints here, along with the bodies of her granddaughters.”

  Would it really end this way? And would Grandma actually go to jail? No. We might die, but I knew Paul, DeWayne and the deputies could figure out what actually happened.

  Alexis obviously liked believing her scenario, in her demented little mind; while I liked to think Liz and I were going to escape alive. “You can’t keep killing and expect to get away with it.”

  “No one will find you until after I’ve left. I’ll get my son and we’ll go away. Far away. Somewhere your brother will never be able to follow us.”

  “You’re crazy.” Liz clenched her fists.

  “I have enough money. We can go someplace without extradition. My baby will learn a second language. I like complex plots, but today, I think the simpler, the better.” Alexis smiled. That cold smile. Those icy eyes. That big gun.

  “Calabria deserved to die,” I rambled, my fear loosening my tongue. “But we haven’t done anything to you. Let us go.”

  “Goodbye,” Alexis said, taking deadly aim at my twin. “No!” I lunged, knocking the gun from Alexis’s hand. She snatched the heirloom candlestick and swung. I tried to twist out of the way, but the blow to my head knocked me to my knees, and I was helplessly swaying with pain.

  With my vision blurry from the blow, I forced myself to stand, as warm blood seeped into my hair.

  Liz roared with anger and rushed Alexis. I heard them thump into the wall as I struggled to my feet. Their arms and legs were flailing everywhere and they were breathing heavily. I staggered my way toward them, leaning on the chairs. I thought I would pass out from the pain in my head, but I had to keep going. I couldn’t leave Liz to fight a maniac alone.

  Alexis’s fist caught Liz in the nose, and Liz crumpled with a loud, “Ow! You crazy loon!”

  When Alexis lurched toward me, I used every bit of my strength to push off the chair and punch her in the stomach. She grunted and knocked me to my knees again with her fist.

  Panting for breath, Alexis lunged for and grabbed Grandma’s gun. Her smile looked absolutely demented.

  At this point, everything went crazy. The dining room door flew open, knocking Alexis off balance. She fell on top of me. Liz jumped on Alexis— smashing me— and pinning her.

  Grandma stood in the doorway wearing her church dress and coat. “You slut! How dare you shoot my grandbabies with my husband’s gun!?”

  Grandma picked up the vase of fall flowers, and hit Alexis over the head. Water spilled. Flowers toppled. Alexis dropped.

  Alexis quit struggling and became dead weight. Little as she was, I had trouble breathing with her limp body on mine. She was out cold.

  I stared up at both grandmas. “Way to go, Grandma. Ma’ams.”

  “I said you’d talk differently when I saved your fanny from a troublemaker.”

  Liz helped roll Alexis off me and we tied her up with duct tape.

  Her hands were still covered in rings, and slowly, I realized one of them was mine! “Hey,” I said, pulling her hand up and working off my ring. “She stole my ring.”

  As I slipped it on my ring finger, the tears started. I had Robert’s ring back.

  The tender moment was ruined by Alexis coming to, first yelling and screaming, then begging and pleading. We ignored her and inspected ourselves for injuries.

  Grandma looked at us and shook her head. “Didn’t your mother teach you girls not to wrestle like
tomboys? And on a Sunday, too.”

  “Grandma, how did you know she had Grandpa’s gun?” I asked.

  Grandma shrugged. “Something woke me up, and I went into the kitchen to knock off the rest of the ice cream. I saw that slut holding George’s gun in her dirty, little hands through your mirror.”

  Liz and I started to laugh, but I stopped immediately as it hurt too badly. We looked horrible, my head was still bleeding, and I could use a bath and some aspirin, but we weren’t dead.

  Grandma stared at us. “You girls are strange ones.”

  We laughed again, and she started to laugh with us.

  * * *

  It took Paul and DeWayne a while to unwrap the wonderful duct tape job we did on Alexis, with her screaming, punching and kicking the whole time. Like a madwoman, as it were.

  Liz dressed my small, but painful and swollen wound.

  I could tell DeWayne wanted to comfort Liz, but she didn’t invite his solace so he kept his distance. Instead, he taped a tarp over my shattered window to keep out the frigid air.

  I was willing to take comfort from anyone, so I accepted a hug from DeWayne, and one from Paul and three from Grandma.

  As Paul pulled the last piece of duct tape off Alexis, DeWayne slapped handcuffs on her. She wept like a baby. I actually felt sorry for her— until I moved my head. Ouch.

  Grandma studied Alexis. “Migraine meds aren’t going to help your problems, missy. You need a good shrink. In fact, you need to be completely shrink-wrapped.” She laughed at her own pun.

  While Alexis did the most unnerving, high-pitched, keening thing, I wondered who would take care of her son while she was being shrink-wrapped?

  “I’m going down to call Nicholas.” Grandma took a few steps, then stopped. “He’ll be sorry he missed all the excitement.”

  Most women her age would go down for another nap after taking out a dangerous criminal. But not my Grandma. She wanted to call her boyfriend. I smiled. She smiled back.

  I thought of my earlier questions. “Wait, Grandma. I have to know. Did you actually see Alexis in her room when you took the medicine up?”

  “Just heard the water running in the bathroom and assumed she was doing what I suggested. You need to clean up, Vicki.”