Town in a Wild Moose Chase

by B. B. Haywood

  “And electronic locks,” Candy said, seeing an opening to steer the conversation to a more pressing topic. “Listen, I have a question for you.”

  Maggie swiveled in her chair so she could give Candy her full attention. “Fire away.”

  “Okay.” She took a quick breath and plunged right in. “Well, earlier today I found this brass hotel key, attached to one of those red plastic key tag thingies with room numbers on them. You know what I mean, right? Now, I know most hotels around here use electronic key cards, but there are probably a few places in the area that still use actual keys instead of plastic cards. Any idea which ones those might be?”

  Maggie was silent for a moment, a haze of confusion clouding her face. Finally, she asked, “Is this a technical question?”

  “Sort of, I suppose.”

  “I just wondered because, you know, you’re asking me about keys. That’s not a common topic of discussion. So, of course, it makes me curious: Why the sudden interest in keys?”

  Candy shrugged casually. “I just like keys. Keys are interesting things.”

  “But you never cared about keys before.”

  “I’ve gained a new appreciation of them, due to recent developments.”

  “Hmm.” Maggie scrutinized her friend with a narrowed gaze. She glanced down at Candy’s pockets. “Do you have this mystery key with you?”

  “Not at the moment.”

  “Why is that not surprising?” Maggie tapped her pursed lips with an index finger. “You know what I think? I think you’ve been nosing around—without me, I might add—and you found a clue. And now you want my help in figuring it out. Is that about right?”

  The corners of Candy’s mouth turned up into a conspiratorial smile. “You’re not totally incorrect. I’ve had a busy afternoon, yes.”

  “You must have. I’ve barely seen you all day. What have you been up to?”

  “Like you said—nosing around. Getting myself in trouble. And just for the record, I wasn’t intentionally doing it without you—nosing around, I mean.”

  “I know that, honey. You can’t help yourself,” Maggie declared knowingly. “Just like Mr. Biggles, God rest his soul—always on the prowl. He was relentless. Nothing could stand in his way when he was on the trail of something.”

  She paused, grinning cagily as she sharpened her gaze on her friend. “That’s how you get when there’s a mystery in town. I admit, it’s probably due to some sort of chemical imbalance in your brain or something like that, but it’s why we all love you.” She smiled warmly.

  “Um, thanks—I think. Anyway, back to the key question.”

  “Which is?”

  “I’m looking for hotels that use real brass keys, like the one I saw. Any idea which ones those might be?”

  “Oh, right. The key. It’s probably the key to this whole thing, right?” She chuckled, amused. “That’s pretty funny. The key is the key. How often does that happen? Not very often, I’d guess. Well, hmm, let me think.” She closed her eyes for a few moments as she pondered the issue. With her eyes still closed, she asked, “Did you get a good look at this key?”

  “Well, yes and no. I saw it, but I didn’t pay that much attention to it. There were… distractions.”

  Maggie opened one eye. “Such as?”

  “I’d rather not say at the moment.”

  Maggie opened the other eye and gave her friend a questioning look. “Withholding evidence? You’ve been warned about that, you know.”

  “I know.”

  “If I help you out, I could be considered an accomplice in whatever crime you’re about to commit—or have already committed.”

  “It wouldn’t be the first time.”

  “That’s true. Okay, so, sometimes those old keys have room numbers or the name of the hotel stamped on them. Did you notice anything like that, during the distracted time this particular key was in your presence?”

  Candy ignored her friend’s humorous asides and stuck to the facts. “It looked like it had at one time, but it was so old that anything valuable had rubbed off.”

  “Okay, we’ll just have to figure it out. Which hotels still use keys like that?” Maggie asked herself rhetorically as she tapped at her chin. “A few maintenance men from those places used to come into the hardware store when I worked there. One was from Hidden Valley Motel and Cabins, that place up on Route 1. And then there’s the Shangri-La, that little place just outside of town. It’s a little dingy, if you ask me. Probably hasn’t been renovated since the sixties. One of those room-by-the-hour places, if you know what I mean. Of course, I’ve never been in a place like that myself. But I’ve heard rumors.…”

  Maggie’s eyes suddenly lit up, as if something had just clicked inside her brain. She raised a finger. “Hey, you know what, I just read something strange about that place when I was online this morning before I went to work. Now, where was it?”

  She swiveled back to her computer, grabbed the mouse, and began navigating her way around the screen. After scrolling down through the browser’s history and clicking the back button numerous times on the half dozen tabs she had open, she finally found the page she was looking for.

  It was a bright, busy design, with flashy typefaces and bright lime green and fluorescent purple colors.

  Candy had seen it before. It was Wanda Boyle’s blog, The Cape Crusader.

  Maggie looked a little embarrassed. “Oh yeah, that’s right. I remember now where I saw it.”

  Candy waved it off. “That’s okay. I’ve been checking Wanda’s blog a lot lately myself. I hate to admit this, because if she gets any inkling it came from me, I’ll never hear the end of it, but she’s actually been doing some pretty good reporting, for someone just starting out.”

  “She’s got the inside scoop on a lot of things, that’s for sure.” Maggie pointed at the screen. “Here’s the item that caught my attention.”

  It was a four- or five-paragraph blog posting titled Police Log.

  Candy leaned in for a closer look. Ben ran a similar thing in the paper, compiled by one of the volunteers. The only problem was, the paper published only twice a month in the winter, so it lost its timeliness. They’d transferred some sections online but usually updated it only once or twice a week. Wanda was posting daily, and often multiple times. The police log was one of several postings she’d made the previous evening.

  “See, right here,” Maggie said, pointing, and she read,” ‘A guest staying at the Shangri-La Motel on North U.S. 192 reported a missing toboggan on Thursday, January 27. The guest had left the toboggan leaning against an outside wall of the motel. A brief search turned up no sign of the item. The owner later reported finding the toboggan in the woods behind the motel. Police surmised someone had taken the item and later returned it.’ That’s all it says. Not much, really.”

  Candy was silent for a long time as she pondered the implications. Finally, she said softly, “It could be nothing… or it could be everything.”

  THIRTY-ONE

  As Candy was headed out the door, Maggie put a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t go yet. You almost forgot the most important thing.”

  She ran off into her bedroom and emerged a few moments later with a slinky black dress on a hanger, covered with plastic wrapping. “I found this for you. It’s your size and it should make you look beautiful. And here.” Maggie handed her a long, black velvet jewelry case. “My pearls and earrings. Ed gave them to me years ago for our tenth anniversary. We were happy for a while, you know,” she said wistfully. “Cost him a month’s wages, if I remember correctly. I felt like a queen when I wore them. I thought they’d look spectacular on you tonight.”

  Candy accepted the dress and jewelry box, and gave Maggie a tight hug. “Thanks for helping me with this.”

  “Honey, it’s my pleasure.”

  “Hey, you know you’re always welcome to come along with me, right? I’m not quite sure where I’m headed next, or what I’ll find when I get there, but no matter what it is, I ca
n always use your help.”

  “Of course you could.” Maggie patted her affectionately on the shoulder. “And I’d love to go tramping off with you into the snowy woods or fields or wherever you’re off to. I really would. And you know I’ve always got your back, whenever you need me. But I have a hair appointment in forty-five minutes. Sheila managed to squeeze me in this afternoon. I was lucky to get the slot. She’s booked up tight all day. The Moose Fest Ball, you know.”

  “You found a date?” Candy asked happily.

  “I did!”

  “Who is it?”

  “Well, you’ll just have to wait and see. I guarantee you, it’ll surprise everyone! In fact, the whole thing was a surprise. He came into the cleaner’s this afternoon, we got to talking, and, well, one thing led to another.”

  “Sure you don’t want to keep the pearls and wear them tonight?” Candy asked, indicating the jewelry box she held. “It’s not too late to change your mind.”

  “I’m going a different direction,” Maggie said. “You’ll see. I found the perfect ensemble.…”

  Back outside, Candy carefully laid the black dress on the backseat, slipped the black velvet jewelry box into the glove compartment, and fired up the Jeep. Putting it into gear, she headed back out toward the Coastal Loop, also known as Route 192. At the stoplight, instead of heading back toward Blueberry Acres, she flicked on her signal and turned right, powering northward out of Cape Willington.

  The road was wet from the snowfall, though the heavy traffic headed into and out of town kept it worn down to mostly clear pavement. Still, there was always the possibility of an icy patch, so she stayed under the speed limit and remained watchful as the wintertime scenery slipped past her.

  The woods of Cape Willington lined the road as she drove north, although there were plenty of places along the way where someone had carved out a half acre of land or so and built a house. There were a number of historic houses along this road, old capes, cabins, and farmhouses, dating back to the earlier years of the previous century. There were barns as well, some leaning so treacherously under thick blankets of snow that they should have been condemned. But still they stood, their ancient skeletal frames refusing to give way to the onslaught of winter, or any other season, for that matter.

  After a few miles she came to a filling station on the left with a small store attached, and a few hundred yards beyond that was the entrance to the motel’s parking lot.

  She’d seen the Shangri-La plenty of times before as she drove up and down this road but rarely paid it any attention. It was a nondescript building, with a low roof, long overhanging eaves, and a stepped construction that took the long line of rooms up a rising slope toward the woods behind it. At the back end of the property was a perpendicular row of rooms, so the building formed a long, drawn-out L shape. It was painted brick red with white-framed windows, now frosted from the weather. Out front, a terribly dated neon sign glowed morosely in the overcast day.

  Candy eyed the place suspiciously through the windshield, wondering if this was a smart move. She could easily just turn around and head home. Still, she knew she had to check the place out. She had no idea what she was looking for here—but she also had a feeling she’d know it when she saw it.

  Putting on her left turn signal, she eased into the motel’s parking lot, driving past the office and up the slight incline toward the rooms at the back of the property. A row of high pine trees rose up on the back side of the building, framing it like something out of a postcard. There were only a few cars in the parking lot at this time of day, and she saw no one about. She wheeled the Jeep into a parking spot halfway along the building, in front of room number ten, shut off the Jeep’s engine, and climbed out.

  The day had grown damper and colder with the approaching weather, and Candy huddled down into her fleece jacket. She stood for a moment looking both ways, toward the office at the front of the building, and to the far end, toward the woods at the back of the property.

  Despite the fact that the front of the building was so close to the road, it was fairly quiet back here, where the sounds of traffic were muted by the snow cover. She could hear the slight wind rustling through the pines behind the building and the call of a lone crow overhead, flapping past.

  She started walking uphill, toward the back of the property. She passed a few cars, and a few rooms that looked occupied. She could hear the sound of a TV coming from one of the rooms, voices in another. Somewhere behind her, a door opened and closed as the occupant emerged from one of the rooms and walked down toward the office. Candy turned to watch him go, but he never noticed her.

  When she reached the end of the row at room number sixteen, she came to a stop. Four more rooms angled off to her right, forming the cross arm of the L. Twenty rooms total.

  She studied it all, her gaze shifting about as she focused in on the details around her, but she saw nothing out of the ordinary, nothing that could provide a clue or tell her if anything pertinent, relevant, or even vaguely interesting had happened here.

  She frowned and shook her head. “Well, I guess this was just a wild goose chase,” she said to herself. Resigned to the fact that she’d encountered a dead end, she turned to head back to the Jeep.

  The sign on the far side of the parking lot caught her eye suddenly, as if it had practically leapt into her field of vision. It was a low wooden affair with some text and red numbers painted on it. To Rooms 21–24 it read, and beneath that a red arrow pointed back toward the woods.

  Candy felt her heartbeat quicken.

  She noticed it now, a narrow paved road headed around the side of the building. She’d initially thought it was just a service road, perhaps for maintenance vehicles.

  Apparently there were a few more rooms behind the main building.

  She glanced toward the front of the motel. Not a soul in sight.

  Trying her best to look as if she belonged here, she meandered around the corner of the building, following the narrow road, which led to a small back parking lot.

  The lot was empty except for a single car. A Honda, Candy saw. She scanned the room numbers on the doors.

  It was parked in front of room twenty-three.

  She stopped and looked around.

  She was all alone here, out of sight of anyone who might happen to be walking to or from the motel’s office or main building. But rather than feel safe from prying eyes, she felt strangely vulnerable, though at first she didn’t know why.

  It took a few moments for all the pieces to click into place, and for the magnitude of what she was seeing to register in her mind.

  The Honda Pilot SUV had a black roof rack and a sporty exterior upgrade with flared fenders and black side runners—the type of vehicle a guy like Victor Templeton might drive.

  Parked in front of room number twenty-three—the same number Elizabeth Foxwell had seen in her vision.

  Coincidence? Candy shook her head. She didn’t know.

  Whatever the explanation, she had to have a quick look.

  As casually as possible, she strode forward, past the door with the number twenty-three on it. The curtains were closed tight on the room’s single window, making it impossible to see inside. She lingered for the briefest of moments in front of the door, cocking her ear, straining to hear a voice from inside or the sound of a TV or anything to indicate the room might be occupied. But she heard nothing.

  She continued on, walking to the end of the row. There were three other rooms here, but the others seemed unoccupied, for their curtains were open, and she could see into their dark interiors. She had no idea whether room twenty-three was occupied or not.

  There was an easy way to find out. She could just knock on the door and make up an excuse if someone actually opened up. She considered that idea as she crossed to the Honda SUV. It was steel blue in color, though it needed a good washing. Crusts of black ice and salt clung to its undercarriage and wheel wells, and a layer of snow covered the roof and windshield.

&
nbsp; Now that she noticed it, banks of snow had blown up against the tires on one side, making it look as if the car hadn’t been moved in a while. Perhaps for several days.

  That would fit, she thought. This could be Victor’s car.

  She looked in the vehicle’s window, but there was not much to see. A standard blue and beige interior, with fabric seats and a plastic dash. She noticed two take-out coffee cups in the front holders between the seats, as well as sunglasses, CDs, and other items like a tire gauge. In the backseat were a few jackets, books, travel maps, and a red scarf with gold tassels.

  Candy turned all the way around until she faced the woods, looking away from the building. Which way am I facing? she wondered. Was Blueberry Acres somewhere behind here? And where was Solomon’s place from her current location?

  She unzipped her jacket and felt around her inside pocket until she found the compass Ben had given her. She pulled it out, flipped open the cover, and waited until the needle settled down to focus in on it.

  The red end of the needle pointed toward her right shoulder. North. She turned and looked in that direction, at an angle up across Route 192 and beyond.

  She turned back around, facing out behind the motel. That meant west was vaguely to her right, and south was to her left. Or to be more accurate, she was presently facing south-southwest, approximately.

  And Blueberry Acres lay in which direction?

  Off to her left somewhere, she surmised, to the south or southeast.

  And how far away was the farm from here? Most of the way across the Cape. A few miles, perhaps? More or less?

  She thought of the missing toboggan. Why would someone borrow it, only to return it a few hours later?

  She turned and looked back at the room.

  I need to get a look inside, she thought.

  On an impulse, she walked up to the door and knocked. She figured if anyone answered, she’d just make something up off the top of her head.

  She waited. Nothing.

  She knocked again.

  She moved over to the window and knocked on the cold glass, trying to peer inside to see if she could spot any movement.