The Inn

by William Patterson

  Zeke nodded.

  “But why? Didn’t you hear what I said, Zeke? I want my wife’s renovations to go forward. I want this place to become a popular resort.” He leaned down close to Zeke so as to make himself clear. “I want to make a lot of money,” Jack enunciated.

  “That’s good, but we need to brick up the fireplace. . . .”

  Jack laughed at him. “My grandmother is dead! I don’t have to worry about her foolish sentiment anymore! We need a fireplace, Zeke! This is a goddamn New England bed-and-breakfast! Guests expect fireplaces!”

  “But, Mr. Jack, you’ve got to listen to me!”

  Just then, Zeke heard the back door open and the sound of people coming inside the house. Chief Carlson was speaking with Annabel.

  “Please, Mr. Jack,” Zeke whispered, “will you let me speak with you privately later?”

  Jack glared at him. “Yes,” he said finally. “All right. But don’t you dare touch those bricks in the meantime.”

  He strode off toward the kitchen.

  Zeke turned around and looked at the fireplace.

  He heard the scurrying down below.

  51

  That night, Annabel slipped under the sheets beside Jack. What a terrible day it had been. They hadn’t had much time to talk about anything with the cops and the forensics team in and out of the house. Neville had decided he couldn’t leave without knowing what had happened to Priscilla, so he was staying on at the house. Around five o’clock, Paulie’s brother had arrived with spare keys to Paulie’s truck and drove it off the property, but not before insisting he look around the house himself for any clue as to what had happened to his brother. And Richard Carlson had been there until the sun went down, scouring the place with his eyes, seeming to commit every inch of the house to memory.

  Annabel just wanted the day to be over, hoping that when she woke up the next morning she’d realize it had all been a bad dream.

  Jack lay there beside her, eyes open, just staring up at the ceiling.

  “Oh, Jack,” Annabel said. “I worry now that the Blue Boy will never shake its reputation of being cursed and haunted.”

  “Don’t you worry, sugar babe,” her husband told her, still staring at the ceiling. “We are going to do just fine.”

  “What were you and Zeke talking about earlier? After the chief finally left?”

  Jack didn’t take his eyes off the ceiling. “Just a few things that needed to be done around the house.”

  “You seemed to be very intent. And when I came in, you both stopped speaking.” She pulled closer to Jack. “Is there anything going on that I need to know?”

  He turned his eyes abruptly to meet hers.

  “No,” he said. “Nothing you need to know.”

  “I feel so badly about Neville,” Annabel said. “Not knowing about Priscilla, whether he should stay here or go back home. . . .”

  “He’s paying for his extra night here, isn’t he?”

  Annabel spun on her husband. “Jack! How unfeeling of you! Of course, he’s not paying. He offered, but I said he could stay here as our guest.”

  Jack grunted.

  Annabel settled back against her pillows. “I know it was uncomfortable when the police chief kept asking you about Priscilla,” she said. “But that was just his job. He had to ask those questions. Now hopefully he can find out what happened and we can move forward.”

  “You’ll keep going on with the renovations?” Jack asked.

  Annabel looked over at him. “Do you think I should?”

  “Yes.” He smiled at her. “In fact, I’m going to help finish the fireplace myself.”

  She returned his smile.

  “Where do you think they went?” Annabel asked him.

  “Who?”

  “What do you mean, who? Priscilla and Paulie.”

  Jack shrugged. “They ran off together. She was kind of trampy, wasn’t she?”

  Annabel frowned. “Not at all. How can you say that?” She thought Jack was being awfully cavalier and insensitive.

  “Besides,” she said, “Paulie’s truck was still in the driveway . . . and Priscilla left her things.... Jack, something bad happened here today. The chief speculated that whoever killed Roger Askew may have come by here, disposed of the hand, and then taken Paulie and Priscilla away, maybe at gunpoint or something.”

  “So he was certain that the hand in the wood box was this guy Askew’s?”

  “Yes,” Annabel replied. “There was a tattoo or something that clinched it.”

  “Well,” Jack said. “It’s as good a theory as any.”

  Annabel shuddered. “If I hadn’t run to the market at that particular moment, he might have taken me, too.”

  Jack reached over and stroked her hair. “It’s okay, baby,” he said.

  “But Jack,” Annabel went on, “I worry about the publicity. I mean, with everything . . . the hand in the wood box, Cordelia’s death, the missing people . . . We’ll never break free of the macabre reputation the Blue Boy has had for so long.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t worry your sweet little head about it, angel baby,” Jack said, rolling over toward Annabel. “We are going to be a huge success. Trust me.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  “I know I’m right.”

  He began to kiss her. Annabel tensed. She didn’t feel like making love. Not after everything that had happened today.

  But unlike last time, Jack was rock hard.

  She couldn’t stop him. She felt him grab hold of her pajamas and yank them down. He mounted her, and without any foreplay at all, he clamped his lips onto hers and entered her, roughly and abruptly. Annabel shuddered. She surmised that Jack was acting as quickly as he could, before he went limp again like last time. He thrust into her four or five times, then reached orgasm. He withdrew and rolled over onto his back again, breathing heavily.

  Annabel just lay there. She felt dirty and violated. Their sex life hadn’t been good in some time, but it had never been like that, so quick and so rough. Soon Jack’s breathing turned into snores. Annabel slipped out of bed and took a long, hot shower.

  More than ever, she wanted to run. Run as fast as she could and as far as she could, far, far away from this strange old house and these dark, cold woods, until she was safely back among the skyscrapers, bright lights, and taxicabs of New York.

  52

  “Thanks very much,” Neville said, accepting the mug of coffee and gratefully bringing it to his lips.

  The morning sun was streaming into the kitchen. The Englishman watched as Annabel sat opposite him. Neither had said more than a few words since getting up. Neville had been unable to sleep much. He’d tossed and turned all night, and one glance in the mirror had shown him just how tired he looked.

  “What will you do?” Annabel asked. “I mean, how long will you wait?”

  “Well, the chief wants me to stick around for a while. He said he might have to ask me more questions.” Neville grinned sheepishly. “I guess I’m a suspect.”

  “We all are,” Annabel said, “but there’s no evidence any crime was committed.”

  Neville sighed. “Well, I’m not scheduled to fly back home to England for another week, but Florida is certainly no longer in the game plan. I’ll stay here a few more days, if that’s okay. I’ll be glad to pay for my room—”

  “No,” Annabel said. “I wouldn’t hear of it.”

  “Please, I can’t stay for free.”

  Annabel shook her head. “After all we’ve been through, I insist you stay as our guest.”

  “You’re very kind,” Neville told her.

  They exchanged small smiles.

  “It must be so hard for you,” Annabel said after a pause. “Worrying about Priscilla. We’ve got to just continue to hope that she’s okay.”

  Neville frowned. “I suppose that’s the way to look at it, but I must be honest and tell you, I think she’s gone for good. Whatever madman stabbed that man on the trail in the woods h
as taken her, as well as that man who was here working on the fireplace. And given how he butchered his first victim in the woods, I don’t suspect he’s going to go any easier on these two.”

  “But if he has taken them, as the chief suggests,” Annabel said, “then maybe he’s using them as hostages. Maybe he’ll release them unharmed. This Roger Askew was occasionally a drug dealer. It was probably a revenge killing, and the murderer will try to use his hostages to negotiate with police. We’ve got to keep believing that Priscilla and Paulie will be returned safe and unharmed.”

  “I like your optimism,” Neville said, taking another sip of his coffee and then setting it down on the table in front of him.

  Silence resumed. Nobody had mentioned breakfast.

  “Is Jack still sleep—” Neville began to ask, but at the same moment his coffee mug flew off the table, shattering on the floor and spraying the hot brown liquid everywhere.

  “Oh!” Annabel exclaimed.

  Neville jumped up. “Dear Lord, did I do that?” he asked, flustered and surprised. “My arm wasn’t anywhere near it, I swear! It just fell off on its own!”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Annabel said. She had sprung to her feet and grabbed a dish towel and was now soaking up the spilled coffee. “We’re all jittery this morning.”

  Neville was squatting down beside her, collecting the shards of pottery from his mug. “But, really, I didn’t do it. It was the strangest sensation. It almost seemed as if a child ran by and knocked the mug from the table. A child—a little person.”

  Annabel stopped what she was doing and looked over at Neville. Their eyes met just a few inches apart.

  “A little person? What do you mean? Did you see something?”

  Neville stood, carrying the shards over to the trash and dropping them inside. “No, not really. It was just how you sometimes have a sense—see something very briefly in your peripheral vision, maybe, and you get a sense of something. It felt like someone ran by the table and knocked the coffee to the floor deliberately. Someone small.”

  Annabel stood, dropping the coffee-soaked dish towel into the sink. She seemed struck mute by what Neville was saying.

  He tried to smile. “Well, don’t I sound like a lunatic. I suppose you’re right. We’re just jittery. I’m sure I did it myself, and I apologize.”

  “No need . . . to apologize,” said Annabel, though she continued to seem very distracted.

  Neville watched her as she walked out of the kitchen toward the parlor. She seemed to be looking for something. He poured himself more coffee into a new mug and sat back down at the table. Annabel returned in a matter of minutes.

  “Everything all right?” he asked her.

  “Yes. I was just . . . listening for Jack.”

  “He’s still asleep then?”

  “No,” Annabel told him, sitting back down. “When I awoke, he was already up and getting dressed. He said he was going to work with Zeke this morning repairing some broken eaves in the attic. He said we were losing a lot of heat through there.”

  “Yes,” Neville said. “I think I heard them banging around up there this morning.”

  “I’m sorry if they disturbed you.”

  “Not at all.” He cupped his mug in his hands, careful to keep it away from the edge of the table. “So no more guests arriving?”

  “No,” Annabel replied. “There had been a couple scheduled for next week, but I called and canceled, refunding their money. Until all of this is over—in fact, until the renovation is done—I think it’s best not to have anyone staying here.”

  “That’s smart,” Neville said.

  Suddenly he felt compelled to say something.

  “You know, I’m not sure why I need to tell you this, but here goes.” He paused for just a second. “I don’t think I’m in love with Priscilla. I think maybe that’s why her behavior toward Jack the other night didn’t really bother me.”

  Annabel lifted her eyebrows. “I see,” she said.

  “Of course, I want her to be found,” Neville went on, “and to be safe and unharmed and all of that. But I’m not in love with her. If I were, her behavior would have been very troubling to me.”

  Annabel gave him a tight smile. “I think what you’re telling me is that I ought to have found Jack’s behavior troubling.”

  “No, I would never presume to suggest—”

  “It’s okay,” Annabel said. “I did find it troubling. Jack was the aggressor, not Priscilla. But, you know, I’m not nearly as troubled by it as I might have been.”

  They shared a small smile again.

  Neville liked Annabel. He suspected her marriage was not very good. Almost as if he were reading her mind, he saw the Blue Boy Inn as their last, best try to make things work. And now, to be hit with all this . . .

  Annabel excused herself. She needed to call Chad Appleby. She was determined to press on with the renovation, and she hoped Chad would be as well.

  Neville sat at the table looking across the room, staring out the window into the gray winter day. Where was Priscilla? What had happened to her? Would she come back?

  And if she did, would he tell her what he had just told Annabel?

  53

  “No trace of anyone or anything,” Adam told the chief. “We’ve scoured those woods. Except for Roger’s hand in the wood box, there’s been no evidence of anything suspicious. Certainly no sign of the two missing persons.”

  Richard sat back in his chair, propping his feet up on his desk.

  “This just doesn’t make sense,” he told his deputy. “How could whoever killed Roger Askew force his—or her—way into the Blue Boy Inn, take off with two hostages, likely on foot, and not leave a single trace?”

  “Are you certain they made off on foot?” Adam asked. “I mean, a car could have pulled in there during the time Ms. Wish was out at the market. . . .”

  “Didn’t you read the report, Adam?” Richard asked him.

  The deputy stiffened. “I glanced at it. I’ve been out interviewing so many people . . .”

  Richard smiled. “It’s all right. Well, when you do get around to reading it, you’ll see that I interviewed Ted Cassidy, from the Department of Public Works. He was filling in a pothole around the corner from the inn. He saw Annabel go to the market, and he saw her come back. He was certain no other car came by in that time.”

  “Jeez,” Adam said.

  “We’ve searched the house, we’ve searched the grounds, and nothing,” Richard said.

  “It just doesn’t make sense how three people could disappear so completely.”

  “And you still think whoever killed Roger also killed the old lady?”

  “It’s a working theory. Maybe he wanted to hide out at the inn, Cordelia gave him a hard time, and he whacked her over the head.”

  “But why would they be in her bedroom?” Adam asked.

  The chief shook his head. “Good question. That’s what I mean. None of this adds up.”

  “Well, here’s another monkey wrench to throw into your theories,” said Richard’s secretary, Betty, walking into the room and placing a sheet of paper on the chief’s desk.

  “What’s this?” he asked.

  “Fax just came in from the county coroner’s office,” Betty told him.

  Richard snatched it up and read it quickly.

  “Christ,” he grumbled.

  “What is it?” Adam asked.

  Richard laughed. “The coroner is ruling Cordelia’s death an accident. Her head injury is entirely consistent with a fall, during which she struck her head on the iron doorstop.”

  “So then we don’t have a murder investigation,” Adam said. “Just a couple of missing persons.”

  “I don’t buy it,” Richard said. “The old woman’s skull was cracked. She’d have to have come down to the floor at a superhuman rate to hit that doorstop and crack her head that severely.”

  “Can you contest the finding?” Betty asked.

  Richard sighed. “
Sure, I can. But it’ll take time.” He pounded his fist on his desk. “That coroner is old and out of it. This isn’t the first ruling of his I’ve disagreed with. But there’s not much I can do at the moment.”

  He hesitated.

  “I’m going to have to tell Neville Clarkson he’s free to go back to England.” The chief picked up the phone. “If he takes off immediately, that would be a sign he knew more than he was saying. If he sticks around, waiting for news of his girlfriend, then he’s innocent of anything. Let’s keep close tabs on the place, okay?”

  Adam told him he’d visit the Blue Boy twice a day for the next week. The chief gave him the thumbs-up as the phone started to ring at the inn.

  54

  “Thank you for coming back,” Annabel said, greeting Chad Appleby at the door.

  The young contractor offered her a small, sad smile as he stepped inside. “I could either listen to the village idiots at Deb’s Diner bleating about the curse of the Blue Boy, or I could say, hey, I’ve got a job to do,” Chad told her. “And if I didn’t come back here, I’d be forever branded a chicken all around town.”

  “I’m sorry to have put you in this position,” Annabel said.

  “It’s okay,” Chad told her.

  Annabel looked genuinely unhappy that her inn had such a sordid reputation. “You do know that the chief called yesterday and told us that the coroner had ruled Cordelia’s death to be an accident, don’t you?”

  Chad nodded. “Seems a strange coincidence, though, given Roger Askew’s hand being found out back and Paulie and your guest disappearing at the exact same time.”

  “I know,” Annabel said, “but we have to believe it. Who knows? Maybe Cordelia saw something from her window, and in her hurry to call the police, she tripped and fell. That’s what Chief Carlson suggested as a possibility.”

  Chad shrugged. “I guess it is a possibility.”

  Annabel smiled. “Yes,” she said, “it is.”

  “Well, let’s move on,” Chad said. “Like I said, I have a job that I was hired to do. And we were planning to start in the parlor, right?”

  “Yes,” Annabel said, leading him inside. They stood in the center of the room. The bricks Paulie had removed from the fireplace were still piled off to the side. “Tell me what I need to do to prepare for you to start.”