Inn Keeping With Murder

by Lynn Bohart

  “Oh, right,” she said, retracting her hand. “That’s okay. But God, it smells good.”

  “If you’re going to drink wine, though,” I said, “I have some nuts here.”

  I showed her a bowl of mixed nuts I’d put on the table. Blair had long ago instilled in me the importance of eating something if she drank wine.

  “Thanks, Julia,” she said with a smile.

  I had brewed a pot of coffee and had hot water for tea. I had also opened a bottle of chardonnay. We took both into my small living room. Once we were all settled, I told them about the breakin and the destruction of my antiques.

  “That’s really scary, Julia,” Blair murmured, pouring a glass of wine and grabbing a handful of nuts. “Aren’t you a little freaked out?”

  I sighed as I considered her question.

  “Yes, but I’m more heartbroken about Martha’s table and the other antiques. Fortunately, no one was hurt. In fact, no one even saw anyone lurking around the barn.”

  “But aren’t you a little afraid they might break into the inn?” she asked.

  “I have the dogs,” I said with bravado. “Well, dog,” I corrected myself, looking over at Lucy who had curled up by the fireplace. “Sybil has Mickey and Minnie. So maybe I should ask José to stay over here tonight.”

  Doe nodded. “That’s not a bad idea. Isn’t he a black belt in something?”

  “Yes. Tae Kwon Do, I think. Wait a minute while I give him a call.”

  I ran to the phone and called José. He agreed immediately and said he’d take one of the guest rooms.

  “Okay, that’s done,” I reported. “So what did we find out?”

  Blair got up and went to the door of the apartment, opened it and wandered down the hallway towards the registration desk. I glanced after her, but she passed out of view.

  “I talked to Philippe, one of my drivers,” Doe began. “He said that Carlita is so broken up about Martha’s death, she can’t stop talking about it. She’d cleaned Martha’s house for three years and liked her. She says that Martha had been acting strange lately, though. She was really uptight and jumpy around the house and kept going to the Mercer Island Library for some reason.”

  “The library?” Rudy said.

  “She also spent an unusual amount of time online, something she normally never did unless she was looking for recipes. Pretty soon, she was complaining that she wasn’t sleeping. That went on for several days, until she said she got one of those self-help tapes. Carlita said she had this MP3 player she carried with her everywhere the last few days. Martha said she was sleeping better, but according to Carlita, she didn’t look much better and started eating a lot of sweets even though she was trying to lose a few pounds.” Doe shrugged. “Weird, hunh?”

  “I wonder what she was doing at the library,” I said.

  “Can’t you go down and ask?” Rudy asked. “You’re on the board.”

  “They don’t keep records of what people search for. I could ask one of the librarians if she asked for help, I suppose.”

  “Wait, there’s more,” Doe continued. “Carlita also overheard Martha on the phone the Tuesday after Thanksgiving. She doesn’t know who Martha was talking to, but she said, ‘I need your help. Something is really wrong here.’”

  “Wow, that doesn’t sound good,” Rudy said.

  “It sounds like she was frightened of something. The police should interview Carlita. Thanks, Doe.” I glanced over at Rudy. “What did you find out?”

  Rudy settled back and crossed one leg over the other. “I called a lot of my contacts and finally found a beat reporter down in Olympia who knew something. She told me that Senator Pesante chairs the Senate Judicial Review Committee, and it’s rumored that he’s about to start an investigation into allegations of bribery at the highest levels of the state Republican Party.”

  There were gasps around the room.

  “Whoa, that would make him unpopular,” Doe said.

  “Yes, very unpopular,” Rudy agreed. “I also talked to Elliott. Pesante used to be the prosecuting attorney in Walla Walla. He has a reputation for being relentless, which means he doesn’t give up. Elliot’s heard he’s received threatening emails. That’s not uncommon for politicians, but I guess some of these have been pretty specific.”

  “And the big donors are shying away from him, too,” Blair said as she sauntered back into the room, closing the door behind her. “Mr. Billings says Pesante is toxic right now. No one will give him money. He’s too much of a lightning rod. He’ll launch an investigation into anything he perceives as wrong and something he can get attention for.”

  Blair made a left turn and floated into my kitchen.

  “That’s weird. Graham called him a lightning rod, too. Maybe Pesante was the target after all,” I said.

  “Did Martha know Pesante?” Rudy asked.

  I had to think. “Yes, I mean probably as well as I do. We’ve both met him, and of course Robert would have known him. In fact, I think he was at Robert’s funeral.”

  Rudy settled back into her chair, sipping her wine, a thoughtful expression on her face. A noise made me look up to where Blair was opening and closing a cupboard in the kitchen. Everyone else tracked my gaze. The kitchen was open to the living room, and we all watched Blair turn and look under the counter. I exchanged quizzical looks with Rudy and Doe.

  “But if the senator was the target,” April began, not really paying attention to Blair, “then why were we targeted for a breakin?”

  That brought everyone’s attention back to the question at hand.

  “I suppose it all could be a coincidence,” I said. “A rash of neighborhood thefts.”

  “But nothing was stolen,” April said.

  We heard the refrigerator door open and all looked up to see Blair rummaging through one of the shelves. A moment later, she found what she was looking for and reached in and grabbed it. She turned around ready to open a box of my fudge, only to find all of us staring at her. She stopped with the lid of the box halfway off.

  “What?” she said. “I’m hungry.”

  I got up and came slowly around the counter.

  “But, Blair, you can’t eat that.”

  Suddenly, the other girls were there, too.

  Doe said, “What’s wrong, Honey? What’s going on?”

  Blair just stared at us and then looked at the box in her hand. All of a sudden, she dropped it and April caught it.

  “Oh my God! Is it poisoned? Is it the same fudge?”

  “No, no,” I said, drawing her out of the kitchen. “I’ve had that fudge for several weeks.”

  Rudy stepped in and took her by the shoulder. “C’mon, Blair, let’s go sit down.”

  She steered Blair to the sofa, while April put the fudge back. Blair was practically hyperventilating, so I grabbed a glass of water.

  “Blair, are you feeling okay?” Rudy placed a hand on her forehead.

  “Yes, of course. I’m fine. I was just…”

  Her eyes glazed over as she turned inward, thinking.

  “What is it, Blair?” I asked, handing her the glass of water. “What were you looking for?”

  She turned to me, her eyes clouded. “The fudge. I wanted the fudge.”

  “That specific fudge?” Doe leaned in to ask her.

  Blair rubbed her forehead and closed her eyes as if thinking. When she opened them again, she said, “No. I couldn’t find the right box.” She took a drink of water, her eyes staring straight ahead as if she was in a trance.

  We all sat back, harboring our own thoughts. It was April who finally voiced what we were all thinking.

  “Just like Martha,” she said.

  Blair suddenly seemed to re-engage.

  “I have a headache,” she said, rubbing her forehead again. “Maybe I could go lie down?”

  “C’mon, Blair,” I said, taking her into my bedroom.

  I helped her lie down and put a throw over her legs and then returned to find a very somber group o
f women in my living room.

  “Wow,” Doe exhaled. “She really did act just like Martha.”

  “If I believed in voodoo,” April said, “I’d say both Martha and Blair had been hexed.”

  “Seriously?” Rudy said, giving her a critical look. “Voodoo?”

  April merely shrugged. “Do you have any better ideas?”

  No one responded.

  “Wait a minute,” Doe said rather quietly. “Remember what Carlita said about Martha not being able to sleep?”

  We all nodded.

  “Blair told me that she’s been having trouble sleeping, too. I guess Mr. Billings has been gone a lot, and she doesn’t like staying in that big house alone.”

  Rudy rolled her eyes. “If having trouble sleeping was the trigger for eating poisoned fudge, we’d all be dead.”

  Good point, I thought.

  “Yes, but remember Carlita said that Martha started listening to self-help tapes all the time,” Doe continued. “Blair told me she’d gotten one, too. I was with her at the gym yesterday morning, and she was listening to it while she was on the exercise bike.”

  “Actually,” Rudy said, standing up, “I noticed her take something out of her ears when she came in tonight.” She walked over to where Blair had dropped her purse on the floor. Rudy reached down and lifted up a small MP3 player and a set of ear buds.

  “So they were both listening to MP3 players. What could that mean?” I asked.

  “It depends on what it was they were listening to,” April said.

  “When I asked Blair about it yesterday,” Doe said, “she told me it had subliminal messages that would help her relax enough at night to go to sleep at night.”

  The room seemed to get significantly brighter as everyone’s eyebrows shot up. Rudy got up and ran into the bedroom. A moment later, she emerged with a strained look on her face. We all waited expectantly.

  “Well?” I asked.

  “I asked Blair where she got the MP3 player.” She looked around the room, allowing the anxiety to rise. “She got it from Martha.”

  There was a collective gasp. Doe even fell back onto the sofa.

  “What are we thinking?” April asked a moment later. “That somehow the tape has a hidden message on it?”

  We all looked at each other with questioning expressions.

  “Why not?” I shrugged. “Subliminal learning tapes are very popular.”

  Rudy sat down again. “But if it was commercially made, why would it have some weird message about eating your fudge?”

  No one had an answer to that. Suddenly, Doe sat up straight.

  “What if she didn’t buy it? What if someone gave it to her?”

  “Do you know what you’re saying?” Rudy said with raised eyebrows. “That someone purposely recorded a subliminal tape with a hidden message to eat poisoned fudge and then gave that tape to Martha.”

  “That sounds pretty fantastic, doesn’t it?” Doe said, flopping back again.

  “Let’s just say for a moment that Doe’s right, and that’s how it happened,” I said. “If it did happen that way, then Martha was the target all along.”

  They all turned and looked at me. Finally, April grabbed the teapot and stood up and went into the kitchen.

  “Something tells me she was.”

  “But why?” I said to her with exasperation. “Why would someone want to kill Martha?”

  “We need to find out if that tape has a hidden message on it,” Doe said. “We’re kind of stuck until we know that. If it doesn’t, then we’re barking up the wrong tree.”

  “And if it has a hidden message on it?” Rudy asked.

  “Then we focus like a laser on Martha,” Doe said with the tenacity of a CEO.

  “But how do we find out what’s on it?” I asked. “Isn’t the whole point about subliminal messages that you can’t hear the message?”

  “I think that sort of thing is done in layers,” Rudy said. “I’m sure you can pull the layers apart. I know the dean of the IT Department at the University of Washington, I could…”

  “Wait a minute,” April said, holding up a hand. “Shouldn’t we just give it to the police?”

  We all paused.

  “Yes, I think we should,” I said. “We already have something else to give them.” I glanced back at April, who was filling the teapot with hot water again.

  “What?” Doe asked. “What are you talking about?”

  “Wait a minute.”

  I got up and went to my study and got the ledger. I brought it back.

  “You want to tell them, April?”

  She shrugged, coming back into the room with the teapot. “Mr. Garth gave me this ledger yesterday after working on Martha’s table. I put it in my apron and forgot about it until late today, after the table was smashed.”

  “I’m going to give it to the police first thing tomorrow,” I said. “It may have nothing to do with Martha’s death, but if it does, they’ll figure it out.”

  “But what is it?” Rudy asked.

  I opened the book on the coffee table and everyone huddled around.

  “We thought it might be some kind of shipping ledger,” April said.

  “But for what?” Doe asked skeptically. “It doesn’t indicate any kind of product. It has dates and what looks like ports or something.”

  “You think shipping ports?” I asked.

  “Or maybe airports,” she answered.

  “It’s weird,” Rudy decided. “It’s not an official ledger. These aren’t ledger pages. Someone has turned a stupid-looking notebook into some kind of ledger.”

  Just then, Blair appeared at the bedroom doorway.

  “I think I’d better go home,” she said quietly. “I have a pretty bad headache.”

  Her face was pale and her hair tousled. I got up and went to her.

  “Are you sure, Blair? You could stay in the extra bedroom tonight.”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m fine. I heard what you guys were saying about the tape, though.”

  “Do you know where Martha got it?” Rudy asked.

  “No. She just told me that it had started working pretty fast, so she gave it to me to try.”

  “When?” April asked her.

  Blair had to think a minute. “Um…Wednesday night. I stopped by her house.”

  “So, you’ve only been listening to it for a few days?” April said.

  She nodded. “Yeah. But she told me to listen as often as I could. What’s that?” she asked, nodding toward the book.

  She wandered over and glanced down at the first page of the ledger.

  “We think Mr. Garth found it in Martha’s table,” I told her. “But we don’t know what it is. Or why someone may be looking for it.”

  She studied the pages for a moment and then shrugged.

  “Well, I’m going to go,” she said, heading for her purse.

  “Blair, maybe you should see a doctor,” Rudy said.

  “No, really, I’m fine. I just want to rest.”

  “Well, I’m driving you home,” Doe said, standing up. “We can pick up your car tomorrow.”

  “Okay,” she said weakly.

  “I’ve got to go, too,” Rudy chimed in. “What about the MP3 player, Julia? Are you going to give it to the police along with the book?”

  I glanced at April and she nodded. “Yeah, I’ll drop it off first thing in the morning. They’ll be able to find the right kind of technicians to deal with it.”

  “I think that’s a great idea,” Rudy patted my arm. “Let the professionals worry about it.”

  Ten minutes later, everyone was gone, and I was left to clean up, while the adrenalin dissipated from my system. I was in the kitchen wiping down the counter, when I felt a cold spot and glanced up. Elizabeth was hovering on the other side of the counter, her hand to her throat again. The adrenalin surged through my veins again.

  “Yes, I know. Martha was poisoned,” I said, hoping she would stop. “Now, we just ne
ed to figure out how and why.”

  Elizabeth withdrew her hand from her throat and suddenly pushed her palm across the counter toward the book. She didn’t touch it, and yet the book flew off the counter onto the kitchen floor.

  “What?” I gasped. “Why did you do that?”

  I bent over and picked up the book. When I stood back up, she was gone.

  I spun around, looking for her, but she had vanished. Now my heart rate was pumping hard. What had that meant?

  I glanced at the small book in my hand. Elizabeth had done that on purpose. But why? Like my mother, could she see things I couldn’t?

  I immediately marched down the hallway to my study and slid the book into the inside pocket of my purse. I was determined more than ever now to get it to the police in the morning.

  When the adrenaline had slowed, I let Lucy out in the backyard, got into my pajamas, and then went back to the kitchen to grab a glass of warm milk before going to bed. Blair’sMP3 player was sitting on the counter next to my Wicked Witch of the West cookie jar. It made me think about Martha and Blair. They had both listened to the tape and then gone looking for the box of fudge. Was that how it had happened? Had someone programmed a subliminal learning tape and then given it to Martha? I fingered the MP3 player—tempted to pick it up and listen to it. But then I changed my mind. Let the police deal with it.

  I took the ear buds and wrapped them around the body of the small device and left it on the counter next to the cookie jar so that I wouldn’t forget it in the morning. Then I downed a couple of Advil PM with the warm milk and went to bed, thinking only of a good night’s sleep.

  Boy, was I wrong.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  The grandfather clock in the inn’s entryway had just struck ten when my head hit the pillow. Like a miniaturized version of Big Ben, the deep, rich bells sounded throughout most of the building. It was a comforting sound, and many guests swore that it helped them sleep.

  Lucy had gone to the far side of the bed, where Angela had placed the dog’s donut-shaped pillow the size of Hawaii. She circled a few times and then finally plumped down with a groan. I listened to her settle in, remembering that she was a heavy sleeper. I wouldn’t see her again until the morning.