Wound Up In Murder

by Betty Hechtman

  “I see your point,” I said with a smile. “I could keep looking for the heir, on the q.t. of course.”

  “And I could help,” Lucinda offered. She made a nodding gesture toward Maggie, the proprietor of the Coffee Shop. “Maybe she knows something.”

  Maggie finished with a customer and came from behind the counter, stopping at our table. As always, she was wearing something red—today it was a bright red tunic. She’d had more than her share of tragedies—she had lost her daughter and shortly afterward her husband—and I thought she wore the red to put on a bright front to keep up her spirits.

  “Cappuccinos coming up,” she said to me with a smile. Hers was the original coffee spot in town and everybody’s favorite. Her coffee was great, but I think they came mostly because of her. She made everybody feel at home and it was kind of the news exchange spot. That was a nice way of saying she heard all the local gossip.

  “You better make it a double for her,” Lucinda said and then told her who I’d just been meeting.

  Maggie’s blue eyes went skyward as I told both of them about the retreat project problems. “It should be quite a weekend. Kevin St. John has been running around town like a crazy person for that 1963 retreat he arranged. He stopped in here for a coffee the other day and wanted to know if I knew any special coffee drinks that were popular in 1963, so he could put them on the menu in Vista Del Mar’s café. You know, I’ve known him since he was a kid.”

  Lucinda and I traded glances, both thinking about what we’d just said about him. “Did he wear those dark suits when he was a kid?” I said, rolling my eyes at the image.

  “No. But I will say he looked old even when he was young.” Maggie gave me a sidelong look. “Is there something else?”

  There was, but I couldn’t figure out how to bring it up without saying what we were doing. Lucinda followed my lead and we both shook our heads.

  “Okay, then. I’m off to make your drinks.” She went back to the counter and began working at the espresso machine as more customers came in.

  She delivered the large frothy drinks a few moments later and made sure we were happy with them before she went back to deal with new customers. They were perfect, of course, and she had made me a double. After a few sips the drink perked me right back up.

  “What do we know about the secret heir besides what her mother’s initials might be?” Lucinda asked.

  “I think she’s somewhere in her mid-fifties. There was no date on the picture. I’m just going by the date on the ledger sheet and assuming she was born sometime before it, but who knows how much before.” Lucinda listened to me and then made a gesture toward Maggie again.

  “I thought Maggie was older than that,” I said. “But then, I don’t know for sure. And we can’t really just ask her. Think about the question. We don’t say, ‘How many years since you were born?’ We say, ‘How old are you?’ I can see why people of a certain age feel it’s a rude question.” I paused for a moment. “Come to think of it, I don’t like people asking me. Maybe it’s only an okay question for young kids who don’t fixate on the word old.”

  Lucinda chuckled. “You might be overthinking that question, but I do agree that asking her directly would seem odd.”

  “It is such a relief to talk to you about what I have. Up until now, Julius was my only confidant,” I said. “I don’t think he cares that there is someone who is entitled to the ownership of Vista Del Mar and a portion of the Delacorte fortune unless it involves him getting an extra serving of stink fish.”

  “Do you think Edmund’s mistress ever tried to come forward?” Lucinda asked.

  “I thought about that. She would have had to deal with the Delacorte sisters’ mother. There was no DNA stuff back then, so even if she went to Mrs. Delacorte, she probably would have been brushed off.” Suddenly the impossibility of it all sank in. “Who knows if Edmund’s woman is still alive? And the baby, who we know is likely in her fifties, probably has no idea who she really is. We don’t even know if the heir is still in town. This is worse than looking for a needle in a haystack.”

  Maggie cruised by again and asked if we needed refills. No matter how hard I tried to pay her for the drinks we’d had, she refused. She always said it was professional courtesy.

  Lucinda was already gathering her things. “I have to get back to work,” she said, draining the last of her coffee drink. “Tag gets crazy if I’m not putting the specials in the menus at least an hour before we open for lunch.” She got up and picked up her bag.

  “Have fun,” Maggie said with a wink.

  “You mean when I go to Vista Del Mar?” I asked. Maggie laughed and shook her head.

  “I’m talking about your date with Dane this evening.”

  “Don’t worry. We have it covered,” Lucinda said. “Our cook is making them a special meal with oysters. And we all know they’re aphrodisiacs,” she teased.

  “It’s just dinner and then we both have to go to work,” I protested. I could feel the color rising in my face. I was doing my best to make it sound casual. Dane Mangano lived down the street from me. He was a member of the Cadbury Police Department. In other words, he was a cop. Since the streets of Cadbury weren’t exactly mean, he spent a lot of time doing things like getting overzealous tourists out of the fish tanks at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

  He had taken it upon himself to try to keep the local teens from getting bored and in trouble by offering free karate lessons in his garage. He cooked for them, too. And for me.

  I might have been a master at muffins and dessert, but when it came to regular food, I wasn’t very interested in cooking it and was happy to eat a frozen entrée. Dane cooked homemade tomato sauce that made me salivate just thinking about it. We had an exchange going. He left me plates of spaghetti or lasagna, and I left him muffins and cookies.

  We’d been sort of circling each other. Even when my mother had visited, she’d noticed a spark between us. Not that she approved. Normally her disapproval might have been enough to make me jump into his arms, but I had been resisting the definite something I felt for him. With my history of leaving people and places, it seemed like the best idea. And he was my neighbor. If we got together and then broke up, it would be very awkward.

  Dane didn’t seem to be bothered by any of my objections. Finally, he’d worn me down and I had agreed to dinner in a neutral place. I was trying my best to make it seem like it was no big deal.

  “Whatever you say. But we have a table all reserved for you two,” Lucinda said as she went to the door.

  I drank down the last of my cappuccino and was going to leave myself, but I had a thought about Maggie. Maybe I couldn’t ask her age, but I could ask her about her parents. It was funny that someone who so easily talked about everybody in town was closemouthed when it came to her own life. It took some doing, and in the end I didn’t find out much except that she’d been named after her mother, who was now living in a retirement community in Phoenix. She had never really known her father. He’d been in the army and was killed in Vietnam. So now I knew her mother’s name started with an M. I wondered if the story about her father was just a cover-up. Could Maggie really be a Delacorte?

  4

  The skies in Cadbury were almost always cloudy, but there were different versions. Sometimes the clouds were a filmy white, letting some blue show through; other times they were tinged with gold from the sun trying to melt them. But most of the time the sky was spread with an even coating of white, which was how it looked when I pulled my Mini Cooper back into my driveway.

  The cappuccino had left me with an energized buzz, and I immediately began work on the cream cheese brownies for Kevin St. John’s retreat. The old recipes I’d found all started with brownie mix. I never used mixes of any kind, so I simply used my brownie recipe and added in the cream cheese part of the recipes I’d found. In no time the wonderful fragrance of chocolate swirle
d around my kitchen. Julius came in to see what was going on, but brownies did nothing for him and he left a moment later.

  Of course, I tasted the finished product before I packed them up. It was the first time I’d made them and I wanted to be sure they were okay. Wow. They were so good, I decided to add them to my dessert repertoire for the Blue Door.

  A short time later, with the brownies boxed up, I headed across the street to Vista Del Mar.

  As soon as I went past the two stone pillars marking the entrance of the hotel and conference center, I felt as if I’d entered a different world. My house was on the edge of town and there was a rustic wildness to the area, but the grounds of Vista Del Mar took it to another level. There wasn’t a hint of a manicured lawn or border of flowers. Over a hundred acres of gentle slopes were left to grow wild. Tall lanky Monterey pines grew everywhere between the weathered brown-shingled buildings that housed the guest rooms. And trees that had died were left on the ground to decompose naturally. The buildings were over a hundred years old, left from the center’s beginning as a camp. I thought the weather, the wild grounds and dark wood buildings all added up to a moody atmosphere with a slight touch of sinister.

  I’d barely cleared the driveway when the hotel van pulled in. I did a double take when I saw that it wasn’t the usual white one with Vista Del Mar painted on the side and a Monterey cypress next to the words. This one was white and there was a temporary sign on it with the hotel name. I was no car expert, but it was clearly a vintage model. And then I got it. Kevin St. John must have rounded it up for the Favorite Year 1963 retreat. Then I noticed some old cars parked in the small parking area nearby. The old Chevys and Buicks looked light-years away from the current style, but oddly enough the van looked almost the same as the contemporary model.

  The van stopped outside the building called the Lodge. I’d always thought of the large one-story building as being the heart of Vista Del Mar. It was where guests went to register and to gather. Like all of the buildings, it was designed in the Arts and Crafts style, constructed from local materials and meant to blend in with the landscape.

  The doors opened and Bree Meyers bounced out of the van. I thought of the first time she’d come to one of my retreats. She’d been a basket of worry. It was the first time she’d left her young sons and the first time she’d gone anywhere on her own. Now on her third retreat, she had a new aura of confidence.

  “I’m ready, willing and able to help any retreaters who are worried about being here alone, or worried about anything,” she said. Her blond frizz of curls seemed to have gotten puffier, but she’d stayed with the comfortable jeans and gray hoodie with her kids’ school name emblazoned on the back.

  Scott Lipton climbed out next. He had his knitting tucked under his arm. No more hiding it in a briefcase. “I want you to know the woman next to me on the plane commented on my knitting,” he said. “I will offer knitting lessons to anyone who wants them.” He had loosened up and changed from business-looking attire to more of a preppie look with khaki pants and an oxford cloth shirt.

  Olivia Golden got out last. Her almond-shaped face glowed with happiness and it was hard to remember how sad and angry she’d been on the first retreat.

  “I’m ready this time,” she said, opening the top of a duffle bag. There were piles of plastic bags containing folded sheets of paper with instructions and small balls of yarn. Olivia had learned to battle her own troubles by thinking of others. At the last retreat she started having our group knit squares, which got sewn together into blankets and then given away to people in need. She’d had limited supplies then, but she knew that we’d agreed to include any guests of Vista Del Mar in the square making this time, and so she’d come prepared.

  “I got my local yarn store to donate all this,” she said. She had needles as well.

  I called the three my early birds because they came a few days before the official start of our retreat. I realized I should really call them by what they had become—my helpers.

  “Let’s go inside,” Bree said. The rest of the van had already unloaded and the people had gone in. I had hoped to give them a little heads-up about what else was going on at Vista Del Mar, but Bree had the Lodge’s door open and was on her way in before I could say anything.

  I joined them and then we all crashed into each other when Bree came to an abrupt stop. I understood when I looked up. There was an archway with a sign that read, YOU ARE NOW ENTERING MY FAVORITE YEAR 1963. A crowd was gathered just inside the archway. I did a double take. A lot of the women were wearing white pillbox hats and pastel shift-style dresses along with heels. Whoever wore heels to Vista Del Mar?

  “What’s going on?” Olivia asked.

  Before I could answer, a man came through the crowd and joined us. “Welcome. C’mon in. Registration is right over there. Then you can just mingle.” His hair was cut into a short neat style and he wore a suit and tie. There was something charismatic in his even features and engaging smile. A younger woman accompanied him. She reminded me of a Modigliani painting with her elongated face framed in short dark blond hair. I did a double take at the nubby gray suit she was wearing. The pumps just accentuated her thick ankles. She seemed to be trying to keep up with the man, but still ended up a step behind.

  Through the throng of people, I could see that multiple tables had been set up and a line of people snaked around them.

  “Norman Rathman,” he said, pointing at his name tag. Underneath his name it said, President and Founder, Favorite Year Club. He offered his hand to Scott since he was the closest to him. “You seem like a new member. If you need any help, this is my assistant, Sally Winston.” The woman with the long face nodded her head in recognition. “I hope you’re ready for a fun fling into the past.” He gave my black jeans and shirt the once-over and his face clouded. “You do know that we’re all dressing in the style of that time.”

  I stepped forward to say something, but Kevin St. John swooped in first. He stood between us and Norman, and did his best to hide us from sight.

  “They’re not here for your event.” The manager of Vista Del Mar was in an extreme mode I’d never seen before. He directed my three early birds to the registration counter to get their room keys. “I’m sure I mentioned to you that there is another much smaller, really tiny retreat going on here this weekend, too. They were already booked,” the dark-suited moonfaced manager said. There was a quiver in his voice. Was he actually nervous?

  I was stunned. This man had been nothing but trouble since I took over my aunt’s business. She had never said anything about him, so I don’t know if he gave her problems or just saved it all for me. The basic issue was that he wanted to have complete control of the hotel and conference center and arrange all the retreats himself instead of offering space to people like me and letting us plan our own events. When I kept refusing to turn the business over to him, he finally gave up. Then he realized I could be helpful to the place. My retreats always have a lot of impromptu gathering of knitters and he’d seen it as another activity to offer the guests. So, anytime there was any knitting going on in a public area, all guests were welcome to join in or even get a knitting lesson.

  Norman Rathman didn’t look happy. “My understanding was that we had the whole place. The point of our events are that we are completely steeped in a past year.”

  “That’s the beauty of Vista Del Mar,” the manager said. “If ever there was a perfect place to put on an event like yours, it’s here. The furnishings in this room are still true to its original style. And since we’ve gone unplugged, there are no people hovering over laptops or staring at tablets or cell phone screens.” He pointed toward the row of vintage phone booths that had been added. He segued right into the accommodations. The guest rooms had no telephones or televisions, only old clock radios—the kind that installing meant just plugging in. Kevin St. John did have a point. The place was like a blank canvas when it came t
o making it appear like any time in the last fifty years.

  There was, however, a sound system and I noticed music playing over the buzz of conversation. I couldn’t make out anything beyond the beat. Norman seemed to notice it as well. “Who put together the playlist?” he asked.

  Kevin St. John’s tense look turned to one of pride. “I did.”

  The president of the Favorite Year Club let out a disapproving sigh and pointed up in the vague direction the music was coming from. “If this is any example of your arrangements for the retreat, I’m very disappointed. Manfred Mann didn’t come out with ‘Do Wah Diddy Diddy’ until 1964. Maybe I better have a look at the list of songs.”

  Kevin looked stricken and gave me a dirty look, no doubt because I had just witnessed his dressing-down. “I’ll take care of it immediately and check all the songs,” he said, quickly stepping away and going toward the business area.

  “Remember, earlier is okay, but later than 1963 isn’t. We’re not putting on a retreat for clairvoyants,” Norman said with a warning tone.

  I glanced around the large main room of the Lodge, realizing I hadn’t asked Kevin St. John where he wanted me to leave the cream cheese brownies. I noticed that the crowd was made up of people of all ages. For some, 1963 was a memory, and for others, it was an ancient time when the TV show Mad Men took place. Interspersed with the crowd, I noticed several easels holding posters, and one that had a blown-up version of a baseball card. I caught sight of a table being set up with drinks and snacks at the back of the room, but then I saw someone else who grabbed my attention.

  “What is she doing here?” Norman Rathman said just as I was having the same thought. I turned toward him and quickly ascertained the she’s we were referring to were different. His she was a woman in the corner of the large room near the gift shop and both Norman and Sally Winston were staring at her. I couldn’t help but think of that saying if looks could kill, that woman would be dead. Was it because of her outfit? She must have gotten the year of their event wrong because the gauzy print skirt sprinkled with sparkly spots that caught the light and white tunic top looked to me to be more the style from the hippie era or the present day. The look had never gone out of fashion. Even from this distance I could see her large dangle earrings. They seemed to have tiny pieces of something shiny that reflected back the light. She had a scarf tied around her dark hair. Busy talking to someone, she didn’t seem to even notice Norman and Sally’s presence, let alone their reaction to her. After a moment I noticed they moved off in the other direction.