7 Madness in Miniature

by Margaret Grace

  I’d been to more than a few weddings here and knew that the interior was equally reminiscent of New England, with a cozy, dark-paneled library, handmade quilts on the beds in every room, and a lounge with a handsome but unnecessary-for-California fireplace. It was as if the Olsons had transported their homestead from three thousand miles away. Bev had wanted to have her wedding here, but occupancy laws limited the inn’s gatherings to one hundred or fewer, and in the end, Bev and Nick couldn’t whittle down their list. We were resigned to celebrating their marriage in San Jose, at a hotel the size my New York visitors would feel comfortable with.

  “Wow,” Maddie said, peeking through the fence, “they have a pool.”

  I scanned her face for signs of teasing, but found none. I might have to accommodate to this new hydrophilic Maddie.

  We entered the lobby, which was more like a living room, with groupings of sofas and easy chairs in soothing fabrics and patterns. I wasn’t surprised to see Loretta herself at the desk; she’d always wanted to stay close to the everyday operations. Her intense blue eyes were focused on a computer screen, though the desk seemed better suited to a large, leather-bound ledger with blotchy signatures in dark ink. In fact, the picture Loretta presented was not an unusual one these days—a gray-haired woman pecking away at her laptop as comfortably as if she were stitching a HOME SWEET HOME needlepoint sampler for the entryway.

  “Look who’s here,” she said, mostly to Maddie.

  She came around to the front of the counter and gave us each a welcoming hug, then made a call that brought a young woman from the back room, ready to take over reception duties. The new woman looked so much like Jeanine, the same age, with a slight build and long hair, that I nearly excused myself to call the poet’s girlfriend and ask to see another sample of her handwriting. In particular, I would have requested a few more upper case Y’s and P’s. When had I become so easily distracted? And suspicious? And impatient? Instead of listening to what my old friend was saying, I proceeded to rehash my conversations with Skip, wondering why he hadn’t gotten back to me about what led them to arrest Catherine.

  Therefore, I missed most of Loretta’s narration on the way to the screened-in porch that she suggested for our visit. I tuned in again as we passed an old-fashioned game room with a Ping-Pong table and pinball machines. Another “Wow” erupted from Maddie as she stopped for a glimpse into the past.

  “Would you like to play in there for a while?” Loretta asked Maddie. “There are some new video games in there, too.”

  Maddie shook her head. “No, thank you. I’ll stay with Grandma.”

  I let Loretta think how sweet and loving it was that Maddie chose me over a game room. She wasn’t aware of The Chart, which I now thought of in initial caps, much as I did The Case, Maddie’s designation from years ago. Loretta couldn’t have known that no mere entertainment center, new or old, would steer Maddie away from her goal of filling in the rows and columns of her latest fixation.

  On the porch, Loretta directed Maddie and me to seats at a wooden table encircled by weathered chairs. Large fans at either end, plus a plastic container with weedkiller and assorted small gardening tools, disrupted the pastoral setting a bit. But the much-needed cooling effect was worth the blight on the décor from the fans, and I knew all too well the necessity of unpleasant substances to keep the beautiful plants and flowers growing.

  “I’ll be right back,” Loretta said, and disappeared into the inn.

  “When are we going to ask her about the earthquake and what broke in the rooms?” Maddie whispered when we were alone.

  I was aware that Maddie and I hadn’t talked about exactly how we’d present our question to Loretta. “What do you think?” I asked her, also whispering, although the nearest people were in chairs three tables over—a young couple who were clearly not interested in what we were talking about.

  “We can start by asking if she felt the earthquake.”

  “Good idea,” I said. “And we also can try to learn what the police found when they searched Catherine’s room.”

  “I forgot about that. What if they already found out something. Like, that she lied about her alarm clock?”

  “Maybe she didn’t lie,” I offered.

  “Yeah, but maybe she did.”

  I had a frightening thought. “Maddie, you’re not hoping Catherine Duncan lied, are you?” What I meant was, I hope you’re not glad there’s a murder to solve.

  Maddie’s face took on a sheepish expression. “I’m sorry, Grandma. I know a man died and I should be sad about that. But sometimes I forget this is not just a homework problem.” Maddie’s eyes teared up, causing mine to do the same. We shared a quiet hug. Something told me my granddaughter was sorting through quite a few confused feelings, and that her tears were probably about all of them.

  In the few minutes we had before Loretta returned, we pulled ourselves together and engaged in a round of “Love you/Love you more,” with a promise to talk again when we were home. We also agreed to move slowly toward getting the information we needed from Loretta.

  The aroma of warm apple pie preceded Loretta onto the porch. “I hope you don’t mind leftovers,” our hostess said. The young woman, now introduced as Dana, placed a tray on the table and distributed slices of apple pie and glasses of iced tea.

  “Mmm,” was all that could be heard as we tasted the delicious “homemade goodness” that store-bought pies only write about on their wrappers.

  “There were a few pies left over from an event over the weekend. A big baby shower on Saturday for the daughter of a friend in Palo Alto.”

  “That’s where I live,” Maddie said.

  “I know.”

  “Did the people at the shower feel the earthquake on Saturday?” Maddie asked. I gave her a raised-eyebrow look that was meant to slow her down.

  “The earthquake? I almost forgot. It must have been the smallest I’ve ever felt. But the shower was long over by then.” Loretta took a sip of tea.

  “Did anyone else in your guest rooms feel the earthquake? Or did things break?” Maddie persisted.

  “Nothing that I know of. If we’d lost anything significant, the housekeepers would have reported it.”

  “Even if it was just a glass?” Maddie asked.

  Loretta paused, and came up with what would have been a natural question for a normal eleven-year-old with a tiny earthquake still on her mind. She put her hand on Maddie’s. “Did the quake scare you, honey?” Loretta asked.

  “Uh-uh. My teacher told us all about them and how to protect ourselves,” Maddie said. She leaned over to me. “Can we see the rooms now?” she asked in a low voice, pointing to where The Chart rested in my tote bag, which I now secured between my ankles.

  “In a minute, sweetheart,” I said. I turned to Loretta, who, thankfully, was so involved in removing a glob of apple from her bosom that she missed Maddie’s question. “How’s Mike doing after his surgery?” I asked quickly.

  Maddie fidgeted like a child half her age as Loretta reported that Mike was progressing better than the doctors had expected, after an operation on his knee. We moved on to an update on Garrett, their son (he who gave the inn its name), who was now a successful realtor in San Francisco; and then on to my son, Richard.

  “Your dad’s a surgeon at Stanford,” Loretta said to Maddie, with an uplift in her voice that suggested she was impressed.

  “Uh-huh, and my mom’s an artist,” Maddie added, surprising me. I’d expected her to blurt out our reason for being here.

  But I knew Maddie couldn’t last through too many additional rounds of family talk, and decided to veer off in our self-serving direction. “We have something in particular to ask you about, Loretta,” I said. Maddie’s legs started moving, her “tell” when she was excited.

  Loretta banged her forehead with the palm of her hand. “I should have known,” she said, with a grin that was incongruous with her next utterance. “The murder. The man from New York who was killed during t
he earthquake. And our guest who was arrested for it. Of course. You’re up to your old tricks, aren’t you, Gerry?”

  “Tricks? What kinds of—” I began.

  “Shall we review the number of times you’ve inserted yourself into—”

  “No need to do that,” I said. “We’re just here to—”

  “I meant nothing bad, Gerry. You’ve been a huge help to the—”

  “Not really. I’ve simply—”

  “And you’re teaching your granddaughter now. I love it!”

  Maddie, who looked like she was about to explode, took advantage of the interruptions with a turn of her own. “We need to ask you some questions about where the coffeemakers and ice buckets are in the rooms upstairs,” she said.

  Loretta looked amused and confused. I was nervous about showing her The Chart, not wanting to put her on the spot in case the police came fishing. I managed to get one more interruption in, when Maddie said, “We have a chart that shows—” I broke in with, “If we could just see the rooms upstairs, Loretta, we’d be really grateful.”

  “Certainly, I’d be glad to show you.” She grinned. “Anything to help you with your—”

  “I have no tricks,” I said, grinning back.

  Chapter 15

  Loretta, as tall as I am, but always considerably heavier, lumbered up the carpeted stairs, holding onto the white wooden banister. Maddie and I followed behind. From the grin on Maddie’s face, an observer unfamiliar with my granddaughter might think she’d won a ticket to the Grand Opening of the world’s greatest theme park, or to a wonderland where pizza and ice cream were free and served at every meal.

  We reached the KenTucky Inn’s second level, the first of two floors of guest rooms. “I can’t show you Catherine’s or Megan’s actual rooms, of course, but I can take you to ones just like them,” Loretta said.

  “Did you happen to notice if the LPPD took anything away?” I asked, as we walked three abreast down the long, wide hallway.

  “The cops didn’t take very much,” Loretta said. “Just one box full of stuff, like a computer paper box, uncovered, with some brown bags sticking up. They wouldn’t tell me what they were looking for, but they were in there for quite a while.”

  “So they didn’t leave with a suitcase or piles of clothes over their arms?” I asked.

  “Nothing like that. And believe me I was waiting at the bottom of the stairs the whole time.”

  “In case they carried out an antique dresser or a vintage rag rug?”

  “Exactly. You can’t trust the cops.” She smiled and added, “Except for your venerable nephew, of course.” She leaned toward me. “As a matter of fact, Amelia overheard something interesting.”

  Amelia Reyes was the Olsons’ supervisor of housekeeping, whose daughter I had tutored in English a couple of years back. “Do tell.”

  “Not that she was eavesdropping, but she was checking the room adjacent to Catherine’s, and even though the connecting door was closed”—Loretta shrugged her shoulders and displayed her palms—“sound carries.”

  I tried not to seem too eager. Maddie had her pencil ready, poised over her clipboard. “Amelia couldn’t help it if they were talking loudly,” I prodded.

  “Apparently they found a piece of a ceramic pot or something that they were looking for. I guess they’d been tipped off.”

  It fell into place. The anonymous caller Skip had mentioned pointed the police to a piece of the vase that was the murder weapon. Skip had held back for some reason, but I trusted Amelia’s report, which was staggering. But I didn’t believe Catherine would be arrested based only on a shard that anyone could have planted in her room. Not as easy as slipping notes under her door, but still doable. Didn’t anyone in the LPPD wonder why she would bash Craig Palmer over the head and then take a piece of the weapon home with her? What was I missing?

  “Are you going to keep the room available for Catherine”—I gritted my teeth—“in case she’s able to come back?” I asked Loretta.

  “I couldn’t get any information from the cops on that, either, but I hate to just leave her in the lurch. I’m going to have Housekeeping pack up her room and put her things in the storage area downstairs. We’re not that busy yet, but this coming weekend we have a tour coming through, and then it will pick up for the rest of the summer.”

  When we reached the door identified by lettering on a wooden plaque as Room 213, Loretta took a set of keys from the pocket of her smock and unlocked it. “Even though Catherine is…uh…indisposed at the moment, I’d feel uncomfortable taking you into her room, which is right above us. But, as I said, this one has the same layout.”

  “That’s what we expected. We appreciate this,” I said.

  “Does it have an alarm clock?” Maddie asked.

  Loretta nodded her assurance. “All the guest rooms have clocks. Also, this room is the same layout as Megan’s, which is number three-eleven, upstairs. Unless you want to come back tomorrow when she’ll be gone? Then I’d be able to show you her exact room.”

  Gone? “Megan is checking out?”

  “Yes, she told me she’ll be leaving tomorrow, after the store opens, sometime in the afternoon.”

  “But the Grand Opening isn’t until Saturday,” I said, as if Loretta would know why that mattered.

  Loretta shrugged. “I guess she doesn’t have anything to do with that.”

  It didn’t make sense. One of Megan’s prime duties as Craig’s admin was to oversee the program for SuperKrafts’ Grand Opening. Granted, the gala had been moved from tomorrow to Saturday, but I’d have thought Megan would stay on. She could have a good reason for needing to get home tomorrow as originally planned. A family event, for example, or important meetings at another store location. Or she could simply want to get out of town before she was the next one to be hauled in by the LPPD. I tucked away those thoughts in my mind, the way the inn’s guests tucked themselves into the charming beds, I guessed.

  Maddie had printed out several pieces of paper with a grid on them and fastened them to a clipboard I’d lent her. Her intention was to sketch the layout of the room. “I have some real graph paper at home,” she explained, lest someone think she was not well-equipped. “But I didn’t bring it with me. I found out you can print the lines from online images, though.” I was glad I was off the hook for having to provide tools that smacked too much of math.

  “Here we are,” Loretta said, with a flourish.

  She had every right to be proud of her establishment. We stepped into a large, lovely bedroom with matching bedspreads, headboard covers, and draperies, all in greens and pale yellows. An area rug in complementary colors filled the room to within about a foot of the walls, leaving highly polished dark wooden floors visible around the edges. Picture-book, I thought, and vowed that never again would I be embarrassed to send people here just because I didn’t like the way they spelled the name.

  Maddie began sketching, drawing different sizes and shapes of boxes to represent the beds, two chairs, two luggage racks, a dresser, and two end tables with lamps. I had a vision of Maddie entering her grandfather’s profession, designing rooms and buildings. I chided myself, as if she could see into my mind. If she did know what I was thinking, I hoped she’d realize that I’d always love her, no matter what path she chose.

  As if we’d all heard the same command, we walked closer to the end table that held the alarm clock. “This is the west wall,” Maddie said. Loretta nodded, a questioning look on her face. Maddie wrote a large uppercase W in the last column of Catherine’s row on The Chart, which I’d slipped under the drawing paper, out of sight. So far, so good, for Catherine. Except for a tiny flaw.

  I picked up the clock and checked its bottom, which had four rubber feet. “This isn’t likely to slide,” I said. Star reporter (also an acceptable career) Maddie nodded and made a note on her drawing.

  Maddie wandered around the spacious room, looking under some things, over others, as if she were just in from Scotland Yard.
She tapped her clipboard. “Where’s the coffeemaker?” she asked.

  “No coffeemakers,” Loretta answered. “We like to encourage the guests to use the common dining area. The idea of a B-and-B…” Loretta covered her mouth with her hand, pretending to have made a mistake, and not the same point I’d heard many times over the years. “Oops, we’re not supposed to call it that. Lincoln Point’s zoning laws say it’s too big for a B-and-B, and is technically a hotel. Anyway, a smaller hotel offers a family atmosphere, where people can meet other travelers and congregate in all the rooms downstairs. The restaurant opens at six in the morning, so there’s not a long wait for coffee.”

  “Are guests allowed to bring their own coffeemakers?”

  “Oh, yes, and some do. One thing we don’t have on a regular basis is room service. Until the city or the county tell us we have to, that is.” Loretta paused. “Say, Gerry, why don’t you get yourself on the Downtown Committee and use your influence to relax some of the laws for Lincoln Point businesses?” Just what I needed, but fortunately, Loretta wasn’t waiting for an answer about my political future. “Anyway, if things are slow and we happen to have someone available to take a tray up, we’re happy to accommodate.”

  “How about an ice bucket and glasses?” Maddie asked, on the job.

  Loretta pointed to the bathroom and we followed her to the doorway of the small room, which included a full bath with shower. “We have a small plastic container for ice, but no ice machine on the residence floors.” I was surprised she didn’t add “until the government forces us to have them.” “There’s a lounge downstairs, a full bar, open till midnight, and guests are free to take ice from there. There are plastic cups in the bathroom.”

  “No glass glasses?” Maddie asked.

  “No glass at all, for safety reasons, only paper or plastic cups.”

  “Hmm,” Maddie said as she added another note to the official record.

  Back in the bedroom, Loretta straightened a perfectly straight quilt on its rack, adjusted the lampshades and the positions of the chairs, and made other minute changes in the look and feel of the room. Maddie chewed on her pencil, a serious look on her face, the face I’d seen while watching her do her homework.