“Better?” Gunner asked when I emerged from the bathroom.
“Much,” I said. “Sorry, I just needed a moment to collect myself.”
“So, she ate these candies, and that’s when she got sick?” Gunner asked.
“It appears that way. She came down the steps saying she didn’t feel well and handed them to me. By the time the ambulance got here, she was unconscious and barely breathing. Jessica said she wasn’t thinking.”
“What was she doing at the time?”
“I was down here, but I assume cleaning the victim’s room. I wonder if she was just in the groove cleaning and popped one in her mouth, without thinking, like she said.”
“I’m going to have to have a talk with my deputies. I can’t believe they just left something like this behind given the cause of death.”
“So, it was poison?” I asked.
I knew Gunner wouldn’t want to talk about the case with me, but we were already on a roll. I just had to keep him talking.
“The coroner won’t know until they get the toxicology back, but he said it looked like poison. There weren’t any other obvious signs that would point to another cause of death.”
“Interesting,” I said.
Gunner bristled. Oops, he’d realized he’d been talking to me.
“Where did the candies come from?”
“They were here when I started working. Jessica found them in the pantry when Mr. Maynard checked in. It was a special request he made to the owner, but specifically, they came from Prue’s Chocolate Treasures.”
“I’m going to have to have a talk with Mrs. Jenkins. Thank you,” Gunner said. “Stay out of this.”
“Yes, sir,” I said, but I had no intention of staying out of it.
Chapter Five
The next day, the inn had a few overnight guests. It was supposed to be filled with people from the retreat, but Remy told me how to put rooms up on the discount travel websites, the ones that offer great deals for last-minute travel. I was surprised, but somehow, a few people found the deal and took advantage of it.
While I was putting out fresh fried chicken at the breakfast buffet, Gunner came in through the front doors. I was surprised to see him, and even more shocked when he told me what he’d come to talk to me about.
“I wanted to speak with you about Jack Maynard’s death,” he said. Before I could answer, his attention turned to the breakfast buffet. “That chicken smells amazing, did you just make that?”
“I did. Grab yourself a plate and a cup of coffee, if you like. We can talk in the kitchen.”
“I couldn’t,” he said a little sheepishly.
“Of course, you can. Consider it a law enforcement special. We take care of our boys in uniform in Coventry.”
“If you really don’t mind,” he said with a smile.
“I’ve got plenty. You’d actually doing me a favor.”
“Thank you,” he said and tipped his hat to me.
Once he had his plate and coffee, I led Gunner into the kitchen. I felt bad making him stand at the counter and eat, but I didn’t want to discuss Jack’s death in front of the few guests we had.
“How can I help you?” I asked Sheriff Black after I’d given him a few minutes to eat.
“Well, here’s the deal. The coroner believes Jack was poisoned, and the hospital found poison in Jessica’s system. As a preliminary, we’re assuming Jack was poisoned.”
“But?” I sensed a but coming on.
“The coroner has to run a bunch more toxicology tests, and some of the more sophisticated ones won’t come back for a while. Until then, he’s not willing to make a definitive ruling,” Gunner said. “We got a search warrant for Prue’s shop, but that turned up nothing.”
“So, she’s cleared then?”
“For now, yeah. There’s no evidence or motive for her to have poisoned him.”
“And that brings you to me?”
“You seem to have your finger on the pulse in this town far more than I do. I was wondering if you had any suspects in mind?”
“I thought you wanted me to stay out of the case,” I deadpanned.
“It’s true that I don’t want you meddling, but right now I’m asking for your assistance. Annika said you’d be a little standoffish at first, but she said you’d help.”
I debated whether or not I should tell him about Oliver. While I didn’t I want to send Gunner on a wild goose chase, it was a lead. I reasoned that it was a way to clear Oliver’s name too. It was going to get back to Gunner sooner or later that Jack and Oliver had a big time falling out after college.
“Oliver who runs Bubble & Brew coffee shop was kind of enemies with the victim,” I said.
“Meaning?”
“The company Jack was running, Oliver helped him come up with all of the ideas. Then Jack took the ideas and ditched Oliver. I’ve heard all of that around town, anyway.”
“Annika mentioned it too,” Gunner said. “I’ll look into it. For now though, I need you to stay out of the case.”
“You just brought me into it.”
“Unless I ask you,” he said. “You know, I don’t think you did it, but technically, you’re still a person of interest in this case.”
“Awesome.”
Chapter Six
Late morning, the inn had an unexpected arrival. Much to my surprise, it was Mrs. Maynard. It was a little strange that she was there, and I halfway expected her to start yelling at me.
“I’d like to check into the room my husband stayed in,” she said.
“You want the room he was in the night he…”
“Yes. The room he was in the night he died, please.”
Before I could answer her, there was a crash in the breakfast room. I went in and found a blue vase that decorated the breakfast bar smashed on the floor, and no one was around. I almost called out for Jessica, but I remembered that she was still in the hospital.
“I’ll just sweep it up after I check this woman into her dead husband’s guestroom,” I whispered under my breath.
“What was that?” Mrs. Maynard called from the entry area.
“It’s just a vase. I’ll sweep it up when I’m done checking you in,” I said as I walked back behind the front desk. “We have other rooms, you know? I have a few that are very much like the one he stayed in.”
“No. I appreciate that, but I want that room. It’s open, right?”
“Yes, and if you’re sure, I’ll get you checked in. It’s a little early, but there’s no one in there now.”
I went through the process of swiping her card and having her sign for incidental charges before handing her the little plastic key that would open the door. She was hard to read. I was trying to figure out if Mrs. Maynard was checking into her dead husband’s hotel room because she was grieving, in shock, or if there was something else going on entirely.
“I can show you to your room, if you’d like,” I offered.
“Please,” she said and picked up the suitcase she’d set at her feet.
“You weren’t with your husband the night his company checked in for the retreat,” I mentioned as casually as I could.
“We’d gotten into somewhat of an argument the afternoon before he left,” she said plainly. “I didn’t want to come along and put on a happy face for his stupid team-building retreat. What did my husband know about building a team? A marriage is a team, but he cheated on that like he didn’t even know it was possible for little Jack to stay in his pants. He screwed over everyone willing to trust him. I just couldn’t play along.”
“So you stayed home that night?” I was still trying to sound casual and not like I was questioning her for an alibi. “I think I probably would have stayed with friends or family.”
“I stayed at home,” she said with a sigh. “I love my house, and I love it even more when Jack’s not there. It’s like a sanctuary. I guess it will be from now on too. It’s mine now. It’s all just mine now.”
When I came bac
k downstairs from showing her the room, Meri was waiting for me. He looked at me and used his head to indicate I should follow him to the kitchen. Just to be safe, he went down the basement steps. I closed the basement door behind myself and followed him into one of the storage rooms.
“That was weird,” Meri said.
“Yeah, I know.”
“She seems a little off,” Meri said.
“She also doesn’t have any kind of alibi for the night of the murder, and she has the most to gain from his death. All the benefits of being married to Jack without actually having to put up with him. At least, that’s how she made it sound.”
“But the candies were already here,” Meri said. “Jessica brought them out to you from the pantry. How would Mrs. Maynard have been responsible for the poison candy?”
“That is a sticky point,” I admitted. “But perhaps the candies weren’t poisoned when I handed them to him? Maybe it was something that was added later?”
“But how?”
“She might have come to the hotel after I’d left for the night. Perhaps she came under the guise of wanting to make up and poisoned the candy while he was in the bathroom or something?”
“I guess that’s possible,” Meri admitted.
“I know it sounds farfetched, but we have to consider every possibility.”
Our conversation ended abruptly when there was a series of loud bangs and screaming in the kitchen. I ran up the basement steps to find out what was causing the racket, but when I got to the top, the basement door was locked.
There were several more loud thumping sounds followed by more screaming. I used magic to open the door and found one of the guests who hadn’t left for the day yet with her back up against the back door. The refrigerator was open in front of her, and it had moved from its spot against the wall. Almost like it had followed her or chased her. The woman’s face was lily white and she was trembling in terror.
“What on earth?” I asked.
“I was just trying to see if there was any milk. The fried chicken got my acid indigestion going. When I opened the door and tried to grab the milk, this thing, I don’t know. It’s almost like it was walking toward me. How could that be?”
“Well, come around,” I said.
She shook her head. “I don’t want to get even an inch closer to that thing.”
I offered her my hand. “Come on, come this way. I’ll take care of it.”
She looked from my hand to the refrigerator and back to my hand again. The fridge let out a noise that was almost like a mechanical cough or growl, and the woman shrieked and jumped three feet in the air.
“Come on,” I said. “It’s just a malfunction in the motor mechanism. It happens with these commercial fridges more than people talk about.”
“Are, are, are you sure?” She shuddered.
I was not, but I wasn’t going to tell her that. In fact, I was making it up, but I needed to get her on the other side of the fridge that seemed bent on attacking her. Fortunately, Meri rubbed up against it and quieted the appliance beast.
“Come on,” I said. “I think it finally died.”
She took my hand and I pulled her quickly to the other side of the appliance just in case Meri hadn’t exorcised it of whatever mechanical demon had possessed it.
“My husband is going to want to sue this place,” she said as I led her out of the kitchen. “He’s going to have a field day with this.”
“Well, I’ll definitely comp your room. There has to be something else we can do to make this right.”
“Oh, no, he’s going to want to sue. I could have been killed.”
“Ma’am, with all due respect, you weren’t hurt, and you were in a part of the hotel you weren’t supposed to be stealing food.”
“Well, I never,” she said and one hand flitted up to her throat.
Meri meowed loudly and rubbed up against the woman’s leg. I could swear when I looked down at him, he winked too.
“What did I come down here for?” the woman asked.
“What?”
“I completely forgot why I came downstairs,” she said dreamily. “Oh, wait, I was going to ask you for a glass of milk.”
“Sure, ma’am. You wait right here, and I’ll grab that for you.” I shot Meri a look. He’d wiped her memory. Something I wasn’t allowed to do, but apparently familiars could get away with in the name of protecting their mistress.
I went back into the kitchen and grabbed a glass of milk from the previously monstrous, but now completely subdued, refrigerator. On the way out the door, I used a little magic to quietly slide the fridge back into place and plug it in.
Chapter Seven
Cleaning the vacated guest rooms took less than an hour thanks to the fact that I could close the door and use magic to do all of the dirty work. A snap of my fingers and the sheets were clean. A wave of my hand and the beds were made. It was kind of fun, actually. I spun around the tiny bathroom like I had any dancing talent at all, and the porcelain sparkled as if I’d spent hours scrubbing and polishing.
When Jessica got back, I decided to promote her to assistant innkeeper. There was no reason to make her work so hard cleaning all of the rooms when I could considerably lighten her load without much work on my part. Plus, she was already cross-trained. I was going to find it in the budget to give her brother as much maintenance and landscaping work as I could. It was terrible for him to be out of a job when he was so obviously willing and enthusiastic to work.
I went downstairs to see if the coast was clear in the breakfast area so I could give it a little magical shine-up too. When I was about to cast the first bit of enchantment, the front door to the inn burst open and Lucy charged inside. Her cheeks were red, eyes narrowed, and a few strands of her hair had come loose from her tight bun. They jutted out from her head like tentacles or spider legs. The little hair appendages even moved when Lucy breathed like they were a living, breathing entity.
“Did you do this?” she demanded and broke me out of my study of her disheveled hair.
“Did I do what?” I had no idea what she was referring to, but she was angry.
I mean, I had some idea. It was probably about the CEO that had died on the kitchen floor during the first big booking event that I’d been responsible for after being paid five figures a month to run the place.
“Did you kill that man in my bed and breakfast just to further smear my family name?” she practically shrieked. “Was this about Hattie?”
“What? That’s crazy.”
“Are you calling me crazy, young lady?” Lucy’s eyes narrowed further. Any more and they’d be closed.
“No, but I’m saying the idea that I killed a man just to make you look bad is a little cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. I don’t blame you for something your sister did. I’ve got criminal family of my own.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, and her shoulders slumped as all the fight went out of her. “I’m being terrible.”
“Would you like some coffee or tea?” I wasn’t sure where the conversation was supposed to go from there, but she was technically my boss. The idea crossed my mind to just quit right there and walk out, but I still wanted to help Jessica and her family. Plus, Lucy being upset was completely understandable. I just wished she hadn’t felt the need to accuse me of murder, but she was apologetic. It was water under the bridge unless she blamed me for killing someone again.
“Tea, please,” she said. “With milk and sugar. If you don’t mind.”
“Not at all. Why don’t you have a seat, Lucy? I’ll get the tea and join you.”
I went into the kitchen and made her a pot of tea and myself a strong cup of coffee. One of Prue’s happiness-infused chocolates, without any poison, would have been nice. So would two fingers of whiskey, but it was morning, I was on the job, and I didn’t drink much whiskey.
Lucy and I would have to settle for some macarons I found in the pantry. I did a little magic cleansing on them just to ensure they weren’t spiked wi
th deadly chemicals too. I didn’t want to die from eating Cherry Jubilee and Blueberry Bay macarons with my whiskey-free coffee.
When everything was ready, I took the cookies and drinks out to the table on a silver tray. Lucy was playing some sort of game on her phone that involved brightly colored candy icons. She set the phone aside when I appeared at the table side. The phone screen didn’t go black right away, and I saw that she had a badge for being one of the top players in the nation.
“Thank you, dear,” she said. “This whole thing is just so upsetting, but at least there are macaroons.”
“I can imagine. Having someone die here when you just did all of these renovations has to be stressful,” I said.
“It’s not that. If nothing else, a sudden and tragic death will add to the whole haunted house mystique we’re going for in our branding. It’s having Jack dead. Knowing someone for such a long time, and then them being gone like this, it’s a shock to the system.”
“You knew Jack for a long time?” I glossed over the fact that she’d just said a tragic death was good for branding. I wanted to believe that was shock or trauma talking. It was a pretty macabre statement.
“Since high school,” Lucy said before taking a sip of her tea. “We were sweethearts before he left for college. Stuck together like glue for nearly all four years.”
“Not when he came back, though?” I asked.
“No, he was engaged to the woman who became his first wife by then. I was all but forgotten in that sense. It seemed like it was much easier for him to let go of what we had, but then again, he was out in the world having adventures and getting an education. I was here waiting for him to come back.”
I couldn’t help but note a tinge of bitterness lingering her voice even after all those years had gone by. It had been the same with Oliver. Apparently when Jack had cut someone, he’d cut them deep.
“But you guys were still friends, right? He booked his corporate retreat here.”
“We hadn’t spoken for a long time when he came to Coventry to visit. He and his third wife had booked a room at the bed and breakfast. They were so impressed with the renovations that he decided to do his retreat here,” Lucy said. “That was the first time I’d seen him years.”
Broom and Board Page 4
