The Haunted Inn (A Lin Coffin Mystery Book 8)

by J A Whiting

  “Well, whatever you do, don’t change her mind,” John told them. “She wants me to list the place right after her husband’s memorial service.”

  Lin and Viv sat in stunned silence while John talked to Jeff about some changes he wanted to make to the galley below deck.

  “Do you have time to take on a job like that?” John asked.

  “Let’s go see it,” Jeff suggested.

  The men went below to discuss the project.

  Viv got up and moved to the chair next to her cousin. “Maggie’s selling?” she asked. “I’m shocked.”

  “I suppose it’s understandable. Her husband was murdered here. She must be crushed by what happened and just can’t be here anymore,” Lin said.

  “Still, it’s very unexpected. I didn’t think that woman would ever sell the house,” Viv said.

  “The Toppers didn’t have children so maybe Maggie has no one to leave the place to. She must have decided there was no reason to keep it,” Lin said. “We’ve been focusing on Topper’s infidelity as the reason for his and Maura’s murders. We haven’t paid attention to other reasons for the poisonings.”

  “Do you have other ideas?”

  “What about the Topper’s friend, Paul Monroe?” Lin asked.

  Viv’s eyebrows went up. “Paul Monroe? Why?”

  “He made a point to come sit with us at the music event. He seemed like he’d had too much to drink. Was it a put-on? Did he confide in us that Warren had a woman in Boston to make us think the woman killed Warren after finding out he was married?”

  “You think Paul had something to do with the poisonings?”

  “It’s not too farfetched, is it?”

  “What would be his motivation to kill?” Viv asked.

  “Paul could have been having an affair with Maggie. Remember I felt like there was some awkward tension between them when he showed up while we at her home? Were they awkward because Paul thought Maggie would be alone and when he saw us, he had to come up with a reason to have arrived unexpectedly?”

  “Wow. It did seem like Maggie wasn’t that attached to Warren and Maggie’s friend implied the same thing. Maybe Maggie was bored with Warren and needed some excitement. But why would Paul kill Warren?” Viv asked. “Maggie could have just divorced her husband and taken up with Paul.”

  “Maybe Maggie didn’t see Paul as a long term thing. She may have only wanted a fling. Paul might have thought if he got rid of Warren, Maggie might have turned to him for a permanent relationship.”

  “That could be. I completely overlooked Paul. He should be a suspect. Wait. If Paul killed Warren, who killed Maura?”

  “Paul might have killed Maura to throw suspicion off of him. It makes the murders more complicated. It keeps eyes off of him.” Lin said, “If Maggie suspects Paul was behind Warren’s death, maybe she’s worried about her affair becoming public. That could be why she was so angry with us. We’re getting too personal. She might be afraid we’ll expose her affair. But there’s a problem with Paul as a suspect. How does he connect to Elise and who would be his third victim?”

  Viv stared out over the water and after a minute, she said, “I have no idea. Is there anyone else we should be considering?”

  Lin took a deep breath. “What about Rosalind McKenna.”

  “Really?”

  “Lots of people lie. Rosalind seemed reluctant to tell us Maggie wasn’t actually thrilled about life with Warren, but maybe she was pretending. Maybe she made up that story to throw suspicion off of herself.”

  “Why would Rosalind kill Warren?” Viv asked.

  “An affair with him gone wrong?”

  “And she killed Maura, too?”

  “I don’t know.” Lin said. “There’s another thing that’s bothering me. We’re looking at this from only one side. What if the killer was after Maura specifically and Warren was secondary? Someone may have targeted Maura and linked her to Warren so they both had to die.”

  Viv rubbed her temple. “This whole thing is a like a giant ball of thread and every time we pull at a piece, it gets tangled up with four more pieces.”

  “There’s another question I have.”

  “My head hurts.” Viv rolled her eyes. “Why do I think what you’re about to say is going to make everything worse?”

  “We can come up with theories for why Warren and Maura were killed. But the note found on Maura said one down, two to go. How do any of our theories include a third victim?”

  Viv pressed her lips together for several seconds and sighed. “They don’t.”

  21

  The morning sun was strong as the passengers waiting for the ferry stood in a line on Straight Wharf while the people on the boat from Hyannis disembarked.

  Lin and Viv wore casual dresses and carried light sweaters for their trip to Boston.

  Viv was telling her cousin about how busy the bookstore-café had been recently and how she hoped to have her best September yet when Lin noticed someone walking towards them pulling a small, wheeled suitcase.

  Giving Viv a jab with her elbow, Lin said, “Look. Is that who I think it is?”

  Viv moved her gaze to a young woman in her late thirties with shoulder-length dark hair, tanned skin, and dark eyes. Wearing a red dress and black heels, the attractive woman had just stepped off the ferry from the mainland.

  “Well, gosh,” Viv said. “It’s Sofia Rizzo. She just saved us from a long day trip to see her.” Narrowing her eyes, she asked, “Why the heck is she here?”

  “Let’s go find out.” Lin ducked under the rope that contained the waiting ferry riders and started after the woman.

  Hurrying after her cousin, Viv asked, “What are we going to say to her?”

  Lin smoothed her hair and put on her sunglasses as she moved alongside Sofia. “Oh, excuse me, aren’t you Sofia Rizzo?”

  The dark-haired woman slowed and looked at Lin. “Yes, I am. Do we know each other?”

  “We’ve not been introduced. My cousin and I were acquaintances of Warren Topper,” Lin fibbed. “Warren was a friend of yours, wasn’t he?”

  Sofia’s face hardened. “Was. Past tense.”

  “I’m sorry for the loss of your friend,” Viv said.

  “He was no longer my friend,” Sofia muttered.

  “Are you here for vacation?” Lin asked not wanting the woman to walk away.

  “Not really. I’m here to talk to the police.”

  Lin wasn’t expecting that response. “Is everything okay?”

  Viv said, “Lin and I do case research for the police on a part-time basis. We’ve done some work on Mr. Topper’s and Maura Wells’s cases.”

  Sofia looked at them. “Have you learned anything important?”

  Lin stopped walking and extended her hand. “I’m Carolin Coffin. This is my cousin, Vivian Coffin. Do you have time to get a coffee with us?”

  Sofia assessed them and their invitation and said, “Okay. My meeting at the police station isn’t for an hour and I can’t check in at my hotel yet.”

  The three women sat in a café on Easy Street and after ordering coffees, Lin asked, “Have you been to the island before?”

  “I haven’t. This is my first visit.”

  “Did the police ask you to come?”

  “No. I called them and asked to meet with them.”

  “Why?” Viv asked.

  Sofia shifted in her chair. “I probably shouldn’t say.”

  Lin told the young woman that they were among the first to arrive at Maura Wells’s murder scene and that they’d interviewed several people in regards to the deaths.

  “What have you been able to uncover?” Sofia asked.

  “Some interesting facts and details,” Lin said pointedly, making eye contact with Sofia.

  The waiter came with the drinks and set them down.

  “You knew Warren for a couple of years?” Lin asked.

  Sofia blew out a breath knowing full well that Lin and Viv probably knew about her relationship with W
arren. “Yes. A little over two years.”

  “You were close friends?” Viv asked.

  Sofia gripped her mug with both hands. “You could say that.”

  “Until recently?” Lin asked. “You broke off the friendship?”

  “I did.” Taking a long swallow of the coffee, Sofia set the mug down with a loud thunk. “Have you ever been deceived?” She didn’t wait for answers. “It isn’t pretty. It’s upsetting and unsettling. To trust someone, to think you know them, and then discover you’ve been deceived … well, you begin to question everything you’ve ever thought. You start to think there must be something faulty in your decision-making skills, in your ability to judge a person or a situation.”

  Viv said, “It’s not easy to open yourself to another person, and then to find out they aren’t who you thought they were, well, it’s a shock.”

  “You can say that again.” Sofia looked down at her coffee.

  “You didn’t know Warren was married?” Lin asked gently.

  Sofia’s head popped up. “Absolutely not. That liar. I must look pretty stupid not to have figured it out.”

  “Not at all. Warren Topper seems to have been a very skillful liar,” Lin said. “It seems he was able to hide his deception for years. How did you find out?”

  “I started to become suspicious of him. He never wanted to be in the public eye with me, like at a company function or a charity event. If he went to anything like that, he wouldn’t arrive or depart with me. He said he didn’t like public displays of affection so he never acted like we were anything more than colleagues. I started to wonder why he behaved like that. It was a bunch of little things that finally added up. I can’t believe I never did an internet search on the man until the end ... and when I did, I nearly fainted dead away.”

  “Did you confront him?” Lin asked.

  “I sure did. I didn’t know I could be so angry. I let him have it with both barrels. He didn’t even apologize. I told him to get out, and he did. He didn’t even look back.” Sofia’s eyes welled up. “I’m not upset about getting rid of him. I’m upset for wasting two years on a monster.” Sofia sighed. “When I found out he’d been killed … I know how awful it is for me to say this … but, I was glad someone murdered him. I was glad he was dead. The disgusting monster was gone. He couldn’t hurt or manipulate anyone else ever again.”

  “Did you know Maura Wells?” Viv questioned.

  “I didn’t, but….”

  “But?” Lin asked, watching Sofia’s face.

  “I was away on business when Warren was killed. I was in Spain on business with some colleagues from the real estate firm. I got an email from a woman named Maura Wells.”

  Lin sat up straight.

  Sofia continued, “When I returned from the trip, I found out Ms. Wells had been murdered here on Nantucket the day before Warren was poisoned.”

  “What did she say in the email?” Lin asked.

  “She said she knew I was seeing Warren Topper and she had some important information to share with me about him. I thought it was some scam, like she might be trying to blackmail me. I didn’t answer and she didn’t reach out to me again. I was honestly horrified when I learned the woman had been killed.”

  “What do you think Maura Wells wanted to tell you? That Warren was cheating on you?” Viv questioned.

  “That was probably what it was about. She most likely wanted to tell me Warren was married.”

  “Why though? What did it matter to her? Did Warren ever mention Maura Wells to you?” Lin asked.

  “No, he didn’t. I never heard the name until I received her email,” Sofia said.

  “We’ve heard that Warren and Maura might have known each other,” Viv said. “We learned that someone overheard Warren and Maura arguing down by Brant Point. The person thought it was a professional argument, that maybe Warren had been handling Maura’s investments and something went terribly wrong. Maybe he stole from her or maybe he lost all of her money.”

  Sofia lifted her mug to her lips. “I never allowed Warren to handle my money. From what I knew, he was knowledgeable and more than capable of managing money. Knowing how devious Warren was, my guess would be that he stole Ms. Wells’s investment money and she found out. He would have been in deep trouble.” Leaning forward and with a soft voice, Sofia asked, “Is it possible Warren murdered Maura Wells to keep her quiet about his mishandling of her money?”

  A shiver of anxiety ran through Lin’s body. “That could very well be possible.”

  Sofia groaned and leaned her head into her hand. “I was not only seeing a lying cheater, but I might have been dating a killer.”

  “Did Warren ever behave in a way that frightened you?” Lin asked. “Was he ever abusive? Physically or verbally?”

  “No, he wasn’t. He would be adamant over his restrictions about seeing me, where we could go, when we could go, but he never lost his temper or acted threatening.”

  “Did he seemed worried about anything? Did he confide in you about his finances?”

  “He never talked about money. He never confided in me about anything,” Sofia said shaking her head. “You’d think that him never getting close to me or opening up to me would be a red flag. It took me two years to figure it all out.”

  “It’s easy to look back and see things,” Lin said. “It’s much harder to see those things when you’re in the middle of it.”

  Viv said, “If we’re tossing around the possibility that Warren might have killed Maura, then that brings up an important question. If Warren killed Maura to hide his theft of her money, then who killed Warren?”

  Lin added, “And why did someone kill him?”

  22

  “Is your truck parked outside?” Viv hurried over to the table where Lin was having tea and a blueberry muffin. She’d gotten up earlier than usual and decided to go to the bookstore for her morning cup of tea before heading to the first landscaping client of the day.

  “I got a spot right out front.” Lin smiled. “The benefits of waking up before sunrise.”

  “Can you drive some baked goods over to the inn? Mallory usually does it for me, but she’s sick and isn’t coming in. I can’t do it. We’re short-handed without Mallory. I can’t leave. It’s the busiest time of the day.” The innkeeper of the Seaborne Inn had hired Viv temporarily to provide baked goods each morning for the guests’ breakfasts. The inn’s usual baker was having minor surgery and would be out for two weeks, and Viv was happy to fill in.

  Wiping her hands on her napkin, Lin stood up. “Of course, I can. I’ll leave Nicky here and come back for him after the delivery.”

  Lin loaded trays and boxes into the truck and drove the short distance to the inn. It was less than a quarter mile away and was an easy walk, but there were too many items to carry so a vehicle was necessary to transport the goods each morning.

  Pulling into the small driveway behind the innkeepers’ car, Lin cut the engine and got out. Before removing the things from the truck, she took a moment to let her eyes wander over the outside of the inn. It was hard to believe the beautiful building had started out as a factory where people worked to pay their rent and feed their families.

  Shifting her eyes to the lower part of the inn that housed the basement, a shudder ran through Lin as she thought about a young woman losing her life in that space. She’d hoped to see Elise when she dropped off the baked goods, but so far, she hadn’t made an appearance.

  Holding several big boxes, Lin rang the bell and, with a warm smile, Patricia opened the door to greet her. “Come in, Lin. Viv called to tell me you were bringing the bakery items over.” She took two of the boxes from Lin’s arms and led the way to the kitchen. “Just in time, too. A few of the guests have started coming down for breakfast.”

  Lin made two more trips to the truck.

  Patricia was busy at the counter removing muffins and slices of banana and cranberry breads from the boxes and placing them on colorful platters. “Come into the dining room
and sample some of the things. Milton is trying two new recipes today, one for a quiche and the other for pancakes and he’d like some feedback.”

  Lin protested, but Patricia gently took her by the arm and escorted her to the dining room. “I know you must have a long day of landscaping work to do. You need your strength, so eat up and let me know what you think about Milton’s new selections.”

  An older couple who sat at the dining room enjoying their breakfasts gave Lin smiles and a pleasant hello. Feeling underdressed in her shorts, tank top, and work boots, Lin took a plate of food to eat in the sitting room. A pretty young woman in her mid-thirties with strawberry blond hair and green eyes sat near the fireplace with a plate of eggs and toast and a cup of coffee.

  “Do you mind if I sit?” Lin asked.

  “Not at all.” The woman gave a nod and although she made a few pleasant comments about how beautiful the island was and how she wished she could stay longer, Lin felt a distinct sense of sadness from her.

  “Are you here on a short vacation?”

  No, I’m Bridget Wells. I’m the sister of the woman who was poisoned here several days ago.”

  Lin almost toppled out of her chair. “I’m so very sorry.”

  “I’m here to collect her body and take her back to Chicago.”

  Lin murmured more words of condolence. “I didn’t know Maura had a sister.”

  Bridget looked pleased that a stranger remembered her sister’s name. “Maura was a researcher, a professor of history. We had ancestors that once lived on Nantucket. I’ve never been here before.”

  “I’m sorry your visit isn’t under more pleasant circumstances.”

  “I’d like to come back some day. Maura had an interest in finding out more about our ancestors. She was looking into the life of our great-great-great-grandmother, Elise Porter. She worked in this building when it was a factory.”

  Lin’s heart pounded. “Did your sister find out anything more about her?”