A Plain Malice: An Appleseed Creek Mystery (Appleseed Creek Mystery Series Book 4)

by Amanda Flower

  I grimaced as my gut churned. I wondered if a cup of tea would help. It would require a walk to the kitchen on the first floor. The Dutch Inn wasn’t a coffeemaker/tea bags in the room kind of place. Jane said guests were welcome to the kitchen. I didn’t think there would be any Amish cooks in there at this hour. I picked up my phone from nightstand. Two in the morning. I tucked it into the front pouch pocket of my hooded sweatshirt along with the room key.

  Quietly as possible I put on a pair of socks and my tennis shoes. I didn’t want to walk around the inn in my bare feet. As I straightened, another wave of dizziness overcame me.

  Should I wake Becky? In the moonlight, her white-blonde hair fanned out on the pillow like an iridescent halo, making her even more beautiful. Aaron would faint dead away had he seen her like that. My heart ached for Timothy’s best friend. He was a kind and cheerful—well, cheerful until Becky told him she didn’t love him—man, and deserved happiness. I closed my eyes and whispered a prayer for both of them.

  Glancing at Becky one last time, I slipped out the door and tripped over a body.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Strong arms caught me before I hit the hall floor. “Chloe, are you okay?” Timothy hissed whisper was on the edge of frantic.

  I lay on top of him and rolled off. “What are you doing here?”

  Timothy was fully dressed and lying prostrate across the threshold to my room. He sat up. “I couldn’t sleep,” he said defensively.

  “You were guarding my door?” I asked.

  Even in the dimmed light from the wall sconces, I could see Timothy’s neck and cheeks turn red. “So what if I was.”

  “I thought you sent Becky to watch over me.”

  He snorted. “She’s doing a great job since you’re out here, and she’s in there sound asleep. I’m glad I decided to stay here tonight.”

  “You were going to sleep on the floor all night.”

  “I wasn’t sleeping,” he muttered.

  I tried to stifle a smile, but I couldn’t. How could I resist the idea of my Mennonite prince standing guard over me while I slept? I took his hand and coaxed him to his feet. When he was standing, I intertwined my fingers with his. “Come on before we wake everyone up.” I passed the elevator. “Let’s take the stairs. I’m still feeling a little dizzy,” I admitted.

  His hold tightened on my hand. “I knew you should have stayed at the hospital.”

  “Were you planning to sleep across my threshold there too?”

  “Probably,” he admitted.

  A grin crossed my face. Timothy caught my expression and relaxed. “You’re not mad?”

  “No.” I kissed him on the cheek when we reached first landing. “In fact, I think it might be the most adorable thing I ever seen.” I kissed him on the lips.

  “Women are so confusing,” he murmured against my lips.

  “So I hear.” I led him down to the first floor.

  “What are you doing up anyway?” he asked.

  “My stomach is still a little sore. I thought a cup of tea would help.”

  The grand staircase ended in the lobby. Except for the moonlight coming from the windows and the occasional wall sconce, the first floor was dark. The registration desk was quiet. We crossed in front of the desk into the hallway that led to the first floor guest rooms and the lounge. Of the rooms, the lounge was the best lit because it had floor to ceiling windows which allowed the moonlight to pour in.

  A person lay on the floor in front of the sofa. “Oh no,” I gasped. I dropped Timothy’s hand and fell to my knees next to the person.

  Suddenly, the room was awash with glaring yellow light as Timothy hit the light switch.

  “Pearl? Pearl?” She was on her side. I placed my head next to her mouth to listen for a breath. I heard it, but it was faint.

  Her head lolled to the side. Blood coated my fingers as I pulled my hand away from her shoulder.

  A bookend the shape of a horse’s head sat on the buggy patterned carpet beside her. One corner of it was caked with blood and a strand of Pearl’s crayon red hair.

  “Timothy, call 911.”

  He was already on the phone with the dispatcher. “Yes, we are at the Dutch Inn in Appleseed Creek.”

  Cheetos was on the chess table and puffed up to twice his normal size. He was a fur pumpkin and hissed repeatedly.

  Jimbo’s large frame filled the entryway to the lounge. “What’s all the racket out here? Don’t you know people are trying to sleep? It’s two thirty in the morning.” He spotted me kneeling next to Pearl. “What did you do to her?”

  “Nothing,” I snapped.

  Timothy stuck his phone back into the hip pocket of his jeans. “The ambulance is on its way.”

  Jimbo shook a finger at Timothy. “You did this to her.”

  More sleepy faces appeared behind Jimbo’s in the doorway. Raellen had her hair up in curlers with a flowered bedcap covering it.

  I didn’t move from my spot next to Pearl, and I didn’t try to move her. Timothy was on the phone again. “Are you calling Chief Rose?” I asked.

  He nodded.

  Jane had a robe tightly wrapped around her waist, and she pushed through the crowd of tourist gathered in the lounge doorway. Ivy followed after her, but there was no sign of Ephraim. The girl gasped when saw the body, but then her eyes landed on Cheetos. She ran to the cat and scooped him up in a cloud of orange fur.

  Her mother said something to the girl. Squeezing her eyes closed, she fled the room with her cat under her arm.

  “Chloe, what happened?” Jane asked in English. A hand flew to Jane’s face, when she saw the bookend. “Oh no, do you think she tripped and hit her head on the bookend. I knew I should have gotten rid of those. Any time a child stays at the inn, I’m certain he will drop it onto his foot.”

  “Jane, she did not trip and hit her head on the bookend. Her wound is on the back of her head.”

  “Oh. Oh!” She said as realized what I meant. She half turned and looked at the Blue Suede Tour group and paled. “What can I do?”

  “Clear the guests out of the way, so that the police and EMTs can get through,” Timothy said.

  Jane nodded with a determined look and spun around. “Everyone, please go back to your rooms. The emergency crew will need space to work.”

  “We aren’t going anywhere. Pearl was a member of our group, we have a right to find out what happened to her,” Gertie said. Despite the late hour, she was wide awake.

  A siren wailed. A second later, the musical doorbell sounded, followed by a Bam, bam, bam, on the door itself.

  “Move!” Timothy cried.

  To my relief, the crowd backed off and made way for the EMTs. “Please move aside, miss,” an EMT said.

  I scrambled to my feet.

  “Don’t touch the bookend,” one EMT told the other. “Chief Rose will want to see that.”

  As if saying her name beckoned her, the petite Appleseed Creek chief of police strode into the room. Officer Nottingham, who looked like he just rode in on a big wave, was a few paces behind her. The chief’s purple-lined eyes took in everything in the room. I marveled that she had time to apply eyeliner at this hour and arrive at the scene so quickly. Did she sleep in it?

  Her eyes stopped at me and then fell to Pearl. A muscle twitched in her cheek. “Nottingham, start taking pictures of the weapon but don’t move it.”

  The surfer turned small town officer jumped into action with his SLR camera.

  I felt Timothy’s hand on my waist, guiding me out of the way.

  “Is she alive?” Chief Rose asked the closest EMT.

  He gave her a curt nod in return. “Yes, but the sooner we transport her to the hospital, the better the chance she’ll stay that way.”

  A third EMT ran into the lounge with an orange flat board. Another braced her neck with a foam collar, being very careful of her head wound. Then three men oh-so-carefully rolled Pearl from her side onto her back on the board.

  Why had I co
nvinced her to stay in the Dutch Inn? She would have been safer at the motel in Mount Vernon even with Brock Buckley sulking around the halls. I started to shiver. My toes curled in fighting the cold. “This does prove something,” I whispered as the EMTs carted Pearl away.

  Timothy wrapped an arm around my shoulders. Even his comforting touch did not calm my shivering. “What?”

  “The murderer is someone here in the inn.”

  The sirens started up again as the ambulance left the inn’s grounds. Jane reentered the lounge. Now, she wore her apron over her robe.

  When the sound of the sirens faded, Chief Rose said, “I want all the guests in the dining room, so that Officer Nottingham and I can question them. Hopefully, someone heard or noticed something that can give us a clue to who did this. This inn isn’t that large. It’s difficult for me to imagine no one saw or heard anything.”

  “Humphrey.” Chief Rose stood from her squat position. “Tell me what happened.”

  “I woke up still feeling a little queasy and thought a cup of tea would make me feel a little better. I headed to the kitchen to make one. I was shocked when I saw Pearl on the floor.”

  “Did you hear any unusual noises during the night?”

  I shook my head.

  “Timothy, your room is on this floor. Did you hear anything unusual?”

  “I was on the second floor all night.”

  She cocked an eyebrow. “Really?”

  His jaw twitched. “I was in the hallway.”

  A slow smile crossed her face. “Guarding Humphrey’s room, I take it.” She looked at the blood soaked into the buggy-patterned carpet. “Chivalrous and apparently necessary. That could have been Humphrey with a dent into the back of her skull.”

  I felt Timothy’s entire body quake.

  Click, click, click went Officer Nottingham’s camera shutter.

  “I think that should be enough, Nottingham.” The chief stood.

  He nodded and removed an evidence bag from his kit. With gloved hands he picked up the bookend and gently placed it inside of the plastic bag. He then removed tweezers from his kit and began to collect hair and minuscule pieces of lint from the carpet.

  “This is my fault.” Tears threatened to fall from my eyes, but I willed them back. “I shouldn’t have told Pearl to come here.”

  “I’m to blame for this too, Humphrey. I wanted her back at the Dutch Inn where you could keep an eye on her.” The chief’s eyes were sunken in. “This case has been a screw up from the start. I’ve been too concerned with the tight timeframe of the bus leaving the state to think of the safety of all those involved. I will station Nottingham at the inn for the rest of the night,” Chief Rose said.

  “They leave Wednesday—I guess that’s tomorrow now—and we’re no closer to knowing who killed Dudley or Ruby or poisoned me or hit Pearl,” I said.

  “I am well aware of that.” A muscle in her jaw flexed. “What’s on the agenda for the bus tour today?”

  “To tour the Amish farms in the district, which were missed on Saturday.”

  “Good. I’m glad you’ll be in town. That will make it easier.”

  “You want the tour to continue?” I asked.

  “Yes. It’ll keep all the suspects occupied and out of trouble.”

  “Chloe shouldn’t be doing this anymore. It’s too dangerous,” Timothy said. “Two people have been killed, a third savagely attacked. She was poisoned. It’s gone too far.”

  “That’s really up to Humphrey, isn’t it?” She turned to me. “What do you say? Are you in?”

  Behind me, Timothy’s body tensed. I knew the answer he wanted me to say, but the image of Pearl bleeding on the buggy carpet was more powerful. “I’m in.”

  Timothy made a tiny squeaking sound that only I could hear, but he didn’t argue.

  The chief nodded. “That’s my girl.”

  I glared at her condescending tone. “Don’t make me regret it already.”

  The chief laughed. “I like your attitude, Humphrey. The truth is you and I aren’t all that different.”

  No, we weren’t.

  “Now, you might want to go wash that blood off of your hands.”

  I looked down at my bloody hands, and I felt like I had been poisoned again.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Becky flew down the inn’s staircase in her new silk pajamas and bare feet. “Chloe, what’s going on? Why didn’t you wake me up? I woke up and found you gone from the room. I thought something happened!” She threw her arms around me.

  I hugged her. “Something did happen. Didn’t you hear the sirens?” I asked.

  She jerked back. “Sirens? What sirens?”

  I shook my head. Becky could sleep through anything.

  We stood in the tiny lobby, and the Blue Suede Tour guests gathered around us in their pajamas and bathrobes. They were all talking a mile a minute. Jane had no success in convincing them to move to the dining room.

  Timothy put two fingers in his mouth and released a piercing whistle.

  The room fell silent.

  “I didn’t know you could do that,” I whispered.

  He winked at me. “I have all kinds of tricks you don’t know about.”

  Jane, red-faced, cleared her throat. “Thank you, Timothy. Everyone, please move to the dining room.” She pointed to the right. “Go this way through the kitchen. The police need to question all of us.”

  The room erupted into complaints and protests again. Chief Rose poked her head out of the lounge. “Move it, people, or I load you into bus and take you to the police station for questioning. You will not be happy there. I’ve been told my chairs are particularly uncomfortable.”

  That got them shuffling toward the back entrance to the kitchen. Becky and Timothy followed at the rear of the group to make sure no one wandered back to his or her room.

  Across the lobby, Ivy, holding Cheetos against her chest, and Ephraim watched the English tourists. Tears rolled down Ivy’s face and into her cat’s ruff. Even in the commotion, I heard the cat’s motorboat purr. Ephraim placed a hand on his sister’s shoulder.

  Melinda placed a hand on my arm. “Don’t blame yourself over this.”

  I hadn’t known she was there and jumped slightly at her touch. “Thank you, Melinda.” “Gertie is somewhere in that group, I better find her before she starts a mutiny.”

  I nodded.

  Becky and I dragged ourselves to our room at five. That’s when the chief and Officer Nottingham had finished conducting their interviews. I had asked the chief if she had learned anything particularly helpful, but she simply shook her head no.

  Timothy followed us to our room. When I opened the door, Becky bounced onto her bed and under the covers in one motion. She was asleep before her head hit the pillow. I wished sleep came that easily to me. As tired as I was, I would be tossing and turning until it was time to get up for the day. There were too many thoughts about the investigations and concerns about Pearl flying through my head to truly rest. Chief Rose had called the hospital before she left, so she could give me an update. Pearl was still alive but unconscious and in intensive care. The doctors worried about permanent brain damage because of her advanced age.

  I closed the door behind me in the hallway so I could talk to Timothy without waking Becky. Although I didn’t think a foghorn would wake her at that point.

  Timothy sat on the carpet.

  “Timothy, you’re exhausted. You’re not spending the rest of the night sitting outside of my door.” I gave him my hand and pulled him to standing. His blue eyes were bloodshot, dark circles gathered under his pale lower lashes. I wished I could wipe the dark circles away.

  His mouth quirked up in the corners. “Is that a direct order?”

  My heart melted. “Yes.”

  “Hmm… So you can tell me what to do, but I can’t tell you what to do. Is that how it works?”

  I wrapped my arms around his waist. “That’s exactly how it works.”

  “And wh
at if I don’t agree to this arrangement?”

  “You don’t have any choice.”

  I watched him until he disappeared down the staircase.

  Becky snored softly as I stepped into the room. I climbed into the bed and lay my head on the pillow, but just as I knew I would be, I was wide awake for the rest of the night.

  When I stepped out of my room a few hours later, Timothy was back at his post.

  * * * * *

  Because of the late night, I pushed the bus departing time back to noon. For once, no one protested. As consolation, Jane and Ivy had made a lovely brunch for everyone in the dining room.

  After my narcissus cocktail, the thought of food made me want to bolt for the closest bathroom. I pulled my Beetle keys out of my jacket pocket as Becky came down the main stairs with her overnight bag.

  “I can take Becky home,” Timothy said.

  I shook my head. “No. I don’t mind. I have to get away from the smell of that food.”

  He smiled. “I can come with you.”

  “No. You spent the entire night sleeping on the floor in front of my door. The least you deserve is a decent meal. Stay and eat. You can keep Officer Nottingham company. I think he’s starting to buckle under the relentless questions from the tourists.”

  “They are persistent,” Timothy said.

  Becky dropped her bag at my feet and yawned. “I don’t think I have been this tired since I left home and had to get up at four every day to help Mamm in the kitchen.” She stretched. “I’m happy to be working the lunch and dinner shifts tonight.”

  I picked up her bag and nearly toppled over from the unexpected weight. “Becky, what do you have in here? Bricks?”

  She thought for a moment. “Six pairs of shoes and four outfits, plus makeup and hair products. The basics.”

  “You created a monster,” Timothy said with a smile.

  “Don’t blame me for this.” I handed Becky her bag. “I should be back in half hour.”

  Timothy frowned.

  “I promise. I’m just going to drop her off, feed Gig, and come straight back.”

  “Okay.” He hit a button on his watch. “I’m timing you.”