by Delia James
Could it?
Dale and I stared at each other, with contempt on his side and confused near panic on mine. Near panic lasted longer. Dale Hilde slowly crumbled and at last sat in the leather wing-backed chair.
“This office was my great-grandfather’s,” he said as his gaze wandered about the room. “My mother gave it to me when I took over as financial manager. Rich had wanted it, but she gave it to me.” The ring of pride in his voice was painfully audible. “She said since I was the one keeping the hotel on an even keel, I deserved the captain’s cabin.”
“You two must be close.”
I meant it as a compliment, but Dale looked at me like I’d criticized the color of his great-grandfather’s drapes (green plaid, in case you’re wondering).
“You’re going to do it, too, are you?” he said.
“I don’t—”
“People make a lot of assumptions when they find out a man my age is working for his mother. If it’s his father, nobody’s got a problem. But if it’s his mother, they start looking at him cross-eyed, like she’s got to be a dragon and he’s got to be a wimp or terribly, terribly resentful because she’s in charge and I’m not.”
“Erm . . .”
“Look, Miss Britton.” Dale Hilde planted both hands on that acre of antique mahogany. “My mother held this place together single-handed after my father left. She fought because it is our home and because she loves it. I’m proud of my whole family and I’m proud of what we’ve built. That’s why I’m still fighting to keep us going.”
“So, you wouldn’t be in favor of selling the hotel if an offer got made?”
Dale’s reached up and very carefully shoved his glasses back into place on his nose. “Who told you there’d been an offer on the hotel?”
I just looked at him. He sighed. “That would be Frank Hawthorne, of course. Publisher of the local fish wrapper.” He slicked back his hair nervously. “All right, yes, I admit it. We had an offer. We get them. We are an extremely valuable and lucrative property.”
“I’d heard the hotel was actually in a little trouble,” I said. “I mean, everybody’s still climbing out of the recession and all . . .”
“Oh, well, of course I’m just going to tell you all our business. I know I can trust you because you’re with the Luces and we can always trust them, especially when it comes to sabotaging our plans with the zoning board. And of course, you’re also friends with Frank Hawthorne and everybody knows we can trust him to be fair and impartial when it comes to business development in Portsmouth.” He waited for me to make some kind of protest, but not for very long. “I think you’d better go, Ms. Britton, and I really do not want to see you around here again.”
I got to my feet. I’m sure I meant to make some devastating parting comment, but I didn’t get the chance, because somebody knocked on the office door, loud and fast.
“Excuse me,” said Dale without taking his eyes off me. “This could be important.”
He didn’t wait for an answer; he just opened the door. Rich Hilde stood on the other side.
“Dale,” he said, a little breathlessly. His hair was tousled, too. Had he been running? “Mom said you were”—Rich spotted me right then, and he drew up short—“in here. And, oh, ah, yes. You’re busy.”
Dale sighed and stepped back so Rich could come inside. “Miss Britton, you’ve met my brother, Richard?”
“Yes, of course we met.” Rich said before I could. He also tried to give me his manager’s grin, but this time he couldn’t quite pull it off. “She and her grandmother have been making themselves right at home.”
“Well, not anymore,” said Dale firmly. “Rich, did you actually need something?”
“Well, yes, actually, just . . . Anna, could you excuse us?”
“Sure. Of course.”
Of course I walked out into the hallway and looked behind me with longing. Unfortunately, it was a busy hall. A hotel is a people-intensive operation. Men and women in uniform jackets were already passing by, wondering what I was doing there.
But there was that open window. So perfect for a little autumn eavesdropping. Which was very rude, of course, and kind of risky, because I had no cover story for why I should be hanging around outside office windows after I’d been told to get the heck off the grounds. But if this was the last time I got to set foot in the hotel, I was going to have to get as much information as I could, right?
Right.
The Harbor’s Rest has two long wings. They curve around the marina like the building is embracing the river. There were also approximately a hundred windows that faced the water, so that as many guests as possible could enjoy the scenic view. Two or three dozen of them were on the ground floor, and a lot of them were open. If anything interesting was being said in that office, the conversation was going to be long over by the time I figured out which one I needed.
“Merow?” Alistair strolled past me. “Merp?”
“Good kitty,” I said, purely to the boats in their slips, of course. “Can you find me a window?”
That was when I noticed Alistair was not alone. Miss Boots was also trotting alongside. Alistair looked at her.
“Merow?” he inquired.
“Merow,” she agreed, and bounded off ahead.
Alistair looked over his shoulder and, I swear, gave me a wink.
I wasn’t going to argue about any of this. I just followed the cats. Trying to be nonchalant yet hurry at the same time is harder than it sounds.
Finally, Miss Boots charged ahead and leapt up on a sill.
“Ahg!” shouted a familiar voice.
“Easy, bro.” Rich laughed. “It’s just Bootsie.”
“That cat is a menace, popping in and out everywhere. It’s going to give somebody a heart attack!”
You have no idea. I settled myself onto the sloping grass underneath and tried to look like I was watching the boats on the river. Alistair curled up beside me. I scritched his ears. I was going to have to pick up a fresh bag of K.T. Nibbles for this, and possibly some more tuna. And that kitty gym membership.
“. . . and just what was I supposed to do?” Rich was saying over my head.
“You were supposed to do your job and manage the day shift and leave the whole thing alone!”
“Dale, this was not some stranger they’re accusing. You’ve known Jake as long as I have!”
“Yes, and I’m shocked. I hope it wasn’t him. I hope he’s cleared in a New York minute, but we have to let the law do its job. This is not our business!”
“Jimmy was our employee. We owe him—”
“What? Exactly what do we owe that arrogant little troublemaker?”
“I didn’t mean we owe Jimmy. I meant we owe Jake.”
Jake? Rich thought they owed Jake something? I looked at Alistair. He blinked up at me. Rich thought they owed Jake something. And Rich was going out of his way to make sure Miranda knew they were still friends.
And Rich was the one who spearheaded the family’s charm offensives.
Alistair’s whiskers twitched. Oh, yeah, I thought toward my familiar. Something definitely smells fishy here.
“Look, Rich,” Dale was saying. “I know you want to help. I know you want to be the good guy, but there are times when that’s not one of the options.”
“I know, I know, I just—”
“I wish it was different, too. Seriously. But that ship’s sailed. We’ve got to be smart, okay?”
“Yeah, yeah, okay. I’m good, I’m good.”
“Okay. Now, go see if you can calm Mom down, and I’d better go warn Christine about . . . all this.”
“Yeah. Right. Thanks, bro. I don’t know what any of us would do without you.”
“Neither do I.”
There was the sound of a door closing. I waited, and then, carefully keeping out of sigh
t, I got up and stretched and strolled away. I glanced at my watch. It was going on five. Jake’s party would have started by now. I should go. I’d said I’d meet Sean there after all. And I might just run into Frank, which would be good, because I had a few things I needed to tell him.
31
I’d turned off my phone when I went into the hotel to try to talk with Kelly Pierce. When I got back to the parking lot and climbed into my Jeep, I turned it back on and checked my messages. There were three, and they were all from Grandma B.B.
Alistair appeared in the passenger seat as I played back the first message and listened to Grandma saying there might be a tiny complication with her mission.
In the second, she said I shouldn’t worry and she’d meet me at home.
In the third she said I shouldn’t worry, but she was turning her phone off for a bit.
“Mer-owp,” said Alistair.
“Yeah,” I agreed as I hit Grandma’s number. The phone rang ten times, but all I got was her voice mail.
“This is a message from Annabelle Blessingsound Britton. Of course I want to talk to you, so please leave a message at the tone . . .”
“Grandma B.B., if you don’t call me back this second I’m going to hold my breath until I turn blue.”
I hung up and stared at the phone. Then I hit her number again.
“This is a message from Annabelle Blessingsound Britton . . .”
“I didn’t mean that, Grandma, but when you tell me not to worry, I worry. Call me back.”
“Merp,” said Alistair.
“Yeah.” I hung up again and shoved my phone into my purse. I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel. Maybe I should just go straight home. With what Dale told me, something had clearly gone wrong between her and Gretchen. But I needed to talk to Frank. And Miranda. And Chuck. And the day was almost over.
“Go look after her, Alistair,” I said. “I need to know she’s got a friend there.”
“Merow!” He swished his tail determinedly, and he vanished.
I threw the Jeep into gear.
* * *
Ordinarily, I would have walked the short distance between the hotel and Northeast Java, but since Dale Hilde had thrown me out, I thought it would be a bad move to leave my Jeep in their lot. So instead I parked in the public lot off the square. I could already hear the music rising from down by the river as I slotted my card into the automatic payment machine.
Jake’s welcome-home party spilled out of Northeast Java into Ceres Street and effectively blocked the foot traffic for three hours. There was a river of coffee, an ocean of congratulations, a banjo, and a bongo, and, yes, people did hold hands and sing “Kumbaya,” as well as “If I Had a Hammer.”
Sean was right. It was definitely a happening.
I squeezed into the crowd, saying hi to people I knew (more than I would have thought) and getting introduced to new and enthusiastic friends of Jake and Miranda (a lot more). I craned my neck, looking for Sean, but didn’t see any sign of him or Chuck, or Miranda or Jake for that matter. I did find Frank, though. He stood beside the coffee shop door, notebook in hand, talking to a plump woman with a toddler on her hip and another by the hand. I could see his lips move, and her answer, but I couldn’t hear a darn thing but the blur of voices and bongos.
I took a deep breath and eased my way forward. Frank glanced up, but his face remained professionally bland. He raised one finger to signal me to wait. I did.
“Did you want something?” he asked.
“I’ve got some news.”
“Oh?”
“I talked to Kelly Pierce this afternoon. She pretty much confirmed that she and Christine are doing some kind of deal with Shelly Kinsdale.”
Frank looked at me very steadily for a long moment. “Did she have details?”
“We got interrupted. But I also talked to Dale Hilde, who said there’d been an offer for the hotel, but it was turned down.”
Frank sighed. “Okay. Right.” He glanced at his watch. “Was that it?”
“Look, Frank, I know this is a big mess. All I can say is I really am trying to help.”
Frank turned his notebook over in his hands a couple of times. “We all are.”
“What happened at the press conference?
He shrugged. “Just the expected. A whole lot of ‘We cannot comment on the ongoing investigation,’ laced with ‘The department and the district attorney are confident that we will be able to make our case and the murderer of Jimmy Upton will shortly be brought to trial.’”
“So, Blanchard still thinks it’s Jake.”
“Yep. This is just a reprieve, and, according to my sources, everybody’s pushing for a speedy trial date.”
“Shoot,” I muttered and Frank nodded in sincere agreement.
I leaned closer. I was planning on telling him about my conversation with Dale, but fresh movement beyond the edge of the crowd caught my attention. A familiar, tall, bearded figure in a pinstripe waistcoat and gray felt hat trotted down the steps from the square.
“There you are, Anna!” Sean called, as he shouldered his way through the crowd. “Thought I’d missed you. Had to go back and get that bottle.” He lifted the gift bag he was carrying. “Figured when the roar dies down Jake might need something a little stronger than coffee,” he said to Frank. “Have you seen where they’re at?” he asked me.
“No,” I said. “As a matter of fact, I was just going to look for them. Maybe in back?” I suggested.
“You guys go,” Frank said. “I’m on the job here. I’ve got to get some quotes from the community.” He looked around at the laughing, arguing, banjo-playing crowd. “I don’t think this is going to be one of my harder assignments.”
Frank pulled out his notebook and headed over to a cluster of men and women by the guardrail between the curb and the river.
“I wasn’t interrupting something there, was I?” asked Sean.
“No. Nothing.”
If he sounded a little tense, it was probably just all the noise. And those bongos. I couldn’t hear anything clearly because of the bongos. I certainly couldn’t have heard Sean whisper, “Too bad.”
I shouldered my way deeper into the coffee shop, with Sean behind me, holding up the bottle in its bag and tipping his hat to the people who called out to him or lifted coffee cups as we edged past.
I ducked around the counter. All the baristas were on duty, but they all were too busy handing out coffee and exchanging congratulations to notice us coming through. Except Chuck. Chuck looked up from the steamed milk he was pouring and saw me and turned a very nasty shade of gray.
We stood and stared at each other. I watched his Adam’s apple bob. He broke the stare down first, turning all his attention back to the espresso in front of him.
He wasn’t the only one having a less than swell time, either. When we got to the kitchen door, Sean and I both stopped in our tracks.
Jake and Miranda stood nose to nose in the tiny kitchen. Miranda had her hands on her hips and was staring up at Jake, anger plain in every line of her body. Jake was looking down at her, slumped and pleading. While we watched, Jake slowly spread his arms toward his wife. Miranda’s jaw worked back and forth for a minute, but then she all but fell into his arms. They hugged each other tightly, and Jake rested his chin on top of her head. Even from where I stood, I could see the tears gleaming in his eyes.
I glanced at Sean and he jerked his chin back over his shoulder, indicating we should leave. I nodded. Together, we started to ease backward, but some coffee purveyor’s instinct made Miranda look up just then.
“Oh, hey, Sean, hey, Anna.” She backed out of Jake’s arms and wiped at her face. “Thanks for coming.”
“Um, yeah, sure,” I said. “Just wanted to make sure you’re doing okay.”
“Oh, yeah. Everything’s cool,” said Jake, but
he also pulled his glasses off so he could knuckle his eyes. “It’s just been kind of intense.”
“This might help.” Sean handed the gift bag with the bottle to Miranda.
Miranda peeked inside at the moonshine. “Thanks, Sean.” She tried to smile and almost made it. “Hey, Jake, honey, why don’t you stash that? I’ll take care of things out front.”
“Sure thing.” Jake was trying to smile, too, but he didn’t move.
I looked at Miranda. I looked at Jake standing beside her. I examined my conscience and did not like the way it was looking back at me, so I ignored it.
“Miranda, have you got a second? I was hoping we could . . . talk?”
She straightened her shoulders. “Anything you’ve got to ask me, you can ask it right here. We’ll never hear anything out there anyhow.”
“You sure?”
Miranda took Jake’s hand. “I’m sure.”
I felt Sean looking down at me, uncertain where any of this was going and whether he should stick around for it. I swallowed. Well, he wanted to get to know me better. Here was his chance.
“Where were you when Jake got arrested?”
“Meetings,” she said. “Believe me, I’ve been kicking myself—”
“Was it with Rich Hilde?” I said it fast, like I was afraid I’d lose my nerve in the middle. Which I might have.
Miranda’s face flushed, but her husband gave her hand a little shake. “Go on, Miranda. No secrets.”
“No secrets,” she breathed. “All right. Yes. I was meeting with Rich. I . . .” She stopped and swallowed. “He told me Harbor’s Rest is looking for a new coffee supplier. Our renovations for the new place were costing more than we expected, and I thought, well, maybe if Rich and I could come together, we could find a way to talk with Gretchen and maybe make some peace. Find some common ground, and maybe Northeast Java could get the contract to supply the hotel with their coffee . . .” She stopped. “And that’s where I was when Blanchard came to take Jake away.”
