by Sara Rosett
“In broad daylight in a busy coffee shop. What could happen there?”
“That’s not the attitude you’d have if our situations were reversed.” I thought of all the lectures and warnings she gave me as a teen.
“Well, nothing happened. He was charming and so interested in genealogy.”
“That doesn’t seem like something a guy in his twenties would be into.”
“Just because you’re not interested in it doesn’t mean no one else is. It’s fascinating. Anyway, he was thinking of tracing his own family tree and wanted to know how to go about it.”
“So you talked to him about genealogy. What else?”
“You’d sent me a picture of your wedding dress, and I couldn’t resist showing it to him. He wanted to hear all the details about the wedding.”
“That seems odd.” I tried to picture Alex buying coffee for a middle-aged woman and being interested in the details of her daughter’s destination wedding…nope. I didn’t see it happening.
“If you think he was only being nice, you’re wrong,” Mom said. “He wanted to know all about Parkview and the village. He had an interest in architecture and wanted to visit England to see castles and cathedrals and country estates.”
“He was an architect?” The man named Nick seemed a little young to be in that profession.
“No. He was an architecture student.”
“Why do you think he showed up here on the same day you arrived? You didn’t give him your travel dates did you?”
She looked away and reached for the dress. “Um…no. I don’t think so.”
“You did. You told him.”
“No, I did not.” She moved to the wardrobe. With her back to me, she said, “Not in exact words, but…he may have…been able to work it out. I might have mentioned the date in September.”
“I can’t believe that you told a stranger so many personal details. He could have broken into your condo while you were gone.”
She took the dress off the hanger, then slammed the hanger onto the rod in the wardrobe. “But he didn’t. He came here and got murdered.” She turned, and her eyes were glassy. “And now it’s all a horrible mess with the police…”
She jerked a tissue out of the box on the dressing table and dabbed at her eyes. I wasn’t big on hugging and neither was my mom. In fact, we’d probably both had so many hugs in the last few days that we’d be good for months, so I went across the room and patted her shoulder. She put her hand on top of mine for a moment then nodded briskly. “I’m fine.”
“Let’s concentrate on what’s important,” I said, mentally trying to let go of the questions and worries her actions brought to mind—was my mother routinely meeting strangers for coffee and spilling the details of her life? “Why do you think Nick came to England on the same day as you?”
“I suppose it was to see those things he mentioned…the buildings,” she said, but she didn’t sound convinced. “What else could it be?”
“But why would he arrive on the same day?”
“It was just one of those things. Happenstance.”
I knew the police wouldn’t agree, but I pressed on to the more important topic. “What did he say to you at the airport?”
She moved away and shook out the dress. “He wanted an invitation to the wedding.”
“What?”
“It’s true.”
“But why?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t stop to think why or to question him about it. I told him I didn’t think it would be possible.”
“You did?” I asked, surprised. Usually my mom was a more-the-merrier type of person.
She fiddled with the zipper on the dress. “Yes. Normally—I would have asked you and not thought a thing about it, but…” Her next words came out in a rush. “I didn’t think it would look good.”
“Why not?”
“He was young. So much younger than me. I wouldn’t want anyone to think—it would have looked absurd, especially if he attached himself to me during the reception. I didn’t want to embarrass you.” She waved her hand around the room. “It’s such an imposing setting with all these grand people. I didn’t want anyone to think—and you…occasionally cringe at things I say and do, so I—”
“Oh, Mom—”
“You do,” she said quickly.
“Okay. That’s true. But you cringe at things I say and do, too. Our personalities are very different, but I’m so happy you came for the wedding.” She smiled at me, and I smiled back. Her eyes looked a bit glittery, so I said, “And if you wanted to bring your boy toy, it would have been fine.”
She swatted the dress at me, but I was glad to see her eyes crinkle with laughter. “I’d better change. And I’ll contact that police person—the inspector—and tell him all about Nick before I go down to dinner. Give me his phone number. Interesting that you have his contact information—I want to talk to you about that later. I’ll make sure he understands that it was nothing more than a few casual meetings in California and that I have no idea why Nick was here.” She shooed me toward the door. “We’ll let the police work out the reason he was here. That’s their job after all,” she said as she firmly closed me out of her room and locked the door.
CHAPTER 9
“M y mom thinks I should leave everything to the police and let them sort it out,” I said as Marie, our waitress, approached to remove our dinner plates.
Alex snorted and waited until she had cleared the table before he said, “Doesn’t your mother know that you’re not one to sit back and wait?”
“She knows it. It was her way of telling me to back off.”
We were among the last guests in the Old Nether Woodsmoor Inn dining room. After I left Mom, I’d found Dad and Alex wrapping up their billiard game. Alex and I had left Parkview, intending to return to the cottage and head out again for dinner since the only food in Cart Cottage consisted of one leftover scone, but we’d gotten…distracted. We hadn’t actually made it to the restaurant until much later.
I glanced around the inn’s dining room with its linen tablecloths and soft candlelight. “Let’s not talk about that right now.” I wanted to enjoy the moment without thinking about murder or the nagging feeling of worry that I couldn’t quite escape when I thought about my mom.
“Sounds good to me,” Alex said as Marie returned with two cups of coffee and a plate with a slab of the inn’s chocolate cake.
Alex said, “We didn’t order dessert.” In fact, we’d already paid for dinner.
Marie smiled, accentuating the dimples in her round face. “Tara says it’s on the house. An extra wedding present. She says the ceremony was the loveliest she’s seen in years.”
“That’s sweet of her.” I drew the plate closer.
Marie added, “Even Doug said it was ‘right nice,’ and that’s saying a lot, seeing as it was Doug who said it.” Doug and Tara owned the Old Nether Woodsmoor Inn. They were the first people I’d met in the village and had been at the top of my invitation list. Doug had a build like a bulldog and manned guest check-in and the inn’s office. Tara was an excellent cook whose delicious food drew people from neighboring villages to the inn’s restaurant. She was a quiet and efficient sort of person, who worked in the background. Since their son had gone away to university they’d hired Marie, a local girl of about sixteen, to help with the rooms in the afternoon and with serving in the restaurant in the evening. Tara, who was checking on another table, caught Marie’s eye and nodded toward another table. Marie said quickly, “Let me know if you need anything else.”
Tara, a tray of cleared dishes in one hand, stopped by. “Sorry. Marie is a bit of a chatterbox.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “Thanks for the cake.”
“You’re welcome. Thanks for the invitation to the wedding. We enjoyed it.”
After she left, I slid my fork under a piece of cake with a thick layer of icing. “I may need a workout in the morning after this cake.”
“We can do that,”
Alex said, and gave me a significant look.
Before I could reply, Doug approached the table, hesitated then said, “Kate…your mum—well, it seems she’s trying to break into one of the guest rooms upstairs.”
As I hurried down the low-ceilinged hall, I suppressed a groan. My mom was indeed crouched down near the handle of one of the doors at the far end of the hall. She’d changed out of the leopard print dress into a rough-weave gold sweater and jeans. The aged floorboards creaked as I picked up my pace until I was almost jogging. I heard Alex come up the stairs behind me more slowly, but I didn’t wait for him. I wanted to get this sorted out before something embarrassing happened—as if having a good friend tell you your mother was having a little spot of breaking and entering wasn’t embarrassing enough.
“Mom,” I whispered. “What do you think you’re doing?”
She jumped and dropped a thin wire. “Shush.” She picked up what I now could see was an unfolded paper clip. She inserted it in the door’s keyhole and jiggled it. “You’ll attract attention if you don’t keep your voice down.” Her voice was barely audible.
“You already have. The owner of the inn came to get me from the dining room where Alex and I were having a nice dinner to tell me my mother was breaking into a room. What are you doing?”
She shook her head and continued to wiggle the paper clip in the lock. She had a second one already positioned in the lock and held it steady as she moved the first paper clip. “I’m picking this lock, dear. If you’d stop talking I might be able to get it done.”
“Why?” I glanced over my shoulder, but only Alex stood in the hallway. I guessed Doug had decided to let Alex and me handle this…whatever it was.
“Because this is Nick’s room, and he—er—has something of mine. I must get it back.”
“I knew it. I knew you hadn’t told me everything.”
“Hush. I’ll explain later, if you’ll be quiet and let me focus. I’m sure I can do this. The people on the video on the Internet said there was nothing to it.”
“You’re watching lock-picking videos online? And you expect to be able to—”
The lock clicked, and my mother gave me a triumphant smile. She turned the antique handle and the door swung open.
Mom shot up and into the room. “This can’t be right. He said it was room seven. This has to be it.” Her gaze ran over the neatly made bed, the empty suitcase rack, and then back to the room number. “I know he said it was seven, that night at the pub. Room seven,” she repeated, lines deepening across her forehead as she frowned.
The scent of cleaning supplies and fresh linen lingered in the air. “The police must have cleared out Nick’s things, and then Tara had the room prepared for the next guest. Wait, what did you say about the pub?” I asked as she moved into the room. “Mom, stop. Was Nick at the pub?”
She jerked the doors of the wardrobe wide then scurried across the room to the small writing desk and yanked open the single drawer. “Empty,” she said in a devastated tone. “It must be here. It has to be.” She checked the small bedside table, then got down on her knees and flipped back the chintz bed ruffle. She sat up and leaned against the bed, her face pale.
I sat down beside her. The last time I’d seen that frightened look was years ago when she told me about the divorce. “Mom, what’s wrong?” I asked quietly.
“You’re right.” The energy seemed to have drained out of her, and she spoke in a weary tone. “You always are. So clever. So smart. You’d never get yourself into something like this.” She waved her hand in a circle around the room. I glanced up and saw Alex leaning against the doorframe. He gave me an encouraging smile, which my mom caught. “See, he is a keeper. Having a batty mother-in-law doesn’t faze him.”
“Yes, he’s a catch.” I sent him a smile before turning back to Mom. “Won’t you tell us what this is about? Maybe we can help. I’ve gotten myself into some pretty tight scrapes. I didn’t tell you about them because I didn’t want you to worry, but I do know what it feels like when everything literally falls apart.”
She frowned. “Sounds like something I should have been told about, and I want all the details—later. Right now, I suppose I better tell you about Nick.”
“The whole story, this time,” I said.
“Yes.” She sighed. “The whole story.” She shifted so that she was leaning more comfortably against the bed. “What I told you this afternoon was true. I contacted Nick about my family tree research. We met a few times, and he seemed so nice. I had no idea…” She paused and shook her head. “But it must have been an act. Once he found out what I’d written…”
I glanced at Alex with a frown. He closed the door and stepped into the room. “I don’t understand. What had you written?”
Her shoulders relaxed at his nonjudgmental tone. “Things I’d written in my journal.”
“You keep a journal?” I asked.
“Self-reflection is very important,” she said, and I was glad to see some of her usual spirit return. “I’ve done it a while now, in fact. Every morning over coffee, I jot down a few things. And I’m completely honest about everything. It’s no use to lie to yourself, is it?” She went on without waiting for an answer. “So my journals are—precious to me, that’s the only way to describe them. I’d never forget my journal, but after I got back from coffee one morning a few weeks ago, I couldn’t find it.”
“You took it to the coffee shop with you?” I asked.
“Yes, of course. That’s where I have my morning coffee, but when I got home it wasn’t in my purse. At first I thought it had fallen out in the car. Or maybe I’d taken it out of my purse when I got home, and I’d forgotten doing that, but it wasn’t anywhere—not in the car, the condo, or even in the Lost and Found at the coffee shop.” She batted at the chintz ruffle, her voice tight. “Nick had it. He must have been watching me. He knew where I went to coffee, and he knew about my journal. Once, when we were meeting, he was late. I was writing in my journal when he arrived, and he asked me about it.” She shook her head and sighed. “I should have put it together, but I didn’t. Not until that night at the pub.”
“Nick was at the pub?” I asked.
“Yes, for a few minutes. He insisted he had to talk to me—just like he had at the airport—and I told him I’d speak to him outside. He’d asked at the airport if I could get him into the wedding,” she explained to Alex. “I thought he was going to ask again, but I hadn’t changed my mind. I wasn’t going to ask you for an invitation for him,” she said. “But at the pub Nick said he’d already sent a message to Calista Drappell, and told her what I’d written about her in my journal. If I didn’t get him into the wedding, he’d keep sending messages to other people I’d written about. He was even sending photos of my journal pages to prove what he said was true.”
She sat up a bit straighter as she intercepted a glance between Alex and me. “I know it all sounds terribly juvenile and not even worth worrying about, but I spent half an hour—at international rates, at that—on the phone with Calista the next day, convincing her that I don’t think she’s a sulky cow and that the horrible shade of dark mustard that she picked out for the entrance hallway was actually very nice. It was blackmail, that’s what it was. He wanted a wedding invitation and was going to keep contacting people and embarrassing me until he got what he wanted.”
I said to Alex, “Calista is the president of the condo board.”
Mom said, “And she does have horrible taste, but I do want to keep my covered parking slot.”
“Calista has the power to grant parking privileges,” I explained to Alex.
“And take them away,” Mom added, her voice bleak.
“I’m sure it was upsetting, but I don’t see—”
“How it could matter? But you were the one who told me the police would look at me differently, now that I’d lied to them. If they found my journal—and it had my name and phone number in it…lots of numbers, actually, I was always jotting down phone numbers
in it. That’s how Nick found Calista’s number,” she said, then her voice intensified. “Don’t you see? If they found my journal, they’d know that I knew Nick. I thought if I could slip in here and get it back, then they’d never need to know.” Her shoulders sloped. “But it’s too late for that.”
“Yes, it is,” I agreed, realizing that Mom’s earlier assurances that she would call Quimby were a bluff. I should have known. She gave in too easily. I put those thoughts aside and focused on what Mom had just told me. “Okay, so Nick had your journal. That’s not great, but other than the meetings, you had no connection with Nick, right?”
“Yes, exactly. I barely knew him. I only spoke to him a few times in California and then twice here. Once at the airport and later at the pub. If your father hadn’t interfered, I could have handled it.”
“Dad got involved…? Oh, Dad didn’t fall, did he?”
“No. I suppose he was trying to be gallant or something like that, but I had it well in hand. I’d told Nick I’d see to an invitation, but I wanted the journal back. He agreed and said I’d get it back after the wedding, but then your father blundered in. He was so pushy. I can’t say I blame Nick for giving him a good shove. I often wanted to do it myself when we were married.”
I went through my memory of that night. “The man running away. He wasn’t a jogger. That was Nick.”
“I suppose so. He left as soon as people came out of the pub. And then you were asking all those questions and accusing me of knocking down your father. I wasn’t watching so I don’t know when Nick left. All I know is that I looked around before we went back in the pub, and Nick was gone.”
“Sorry to accuse you of pushing Dad.” I felt a bit contrite. “I should have known you wouldn’t do something like that—at least not at a pub in full view of the wedding party,” I added.
She cocked an eyebrow, but gave me a faint smile.
Alex asked, “So you did get this Nick guy an invitation?”
“Yes, to the reception only. He was okay with that. I asked that nice assistant, Ella. I told her I didn’t want to bother either of you, and she said it wasn’t a problem at all, that she’d have the invitation sent here, to room seven, which is where Nick told me he was staying when he demanded an invitation. He gave me a piece of paper with his name on it—horrible penmanship, I could barely read it—and said, ‘Send it to room seven at the inn, that’s where you’ll find me.’” She sighed again. Mom was a master at sighing. She could convey disappointment, exasperation, and irritation, all with a puff of air. This sigh indicated she was resigned to the fact that the journal was gone. “It’s too bad that I’m too late to get the journal back. As you said, the police must have it.”
