Busman's Honeymoon (Savannah Martin Mystery #10.5)

by Jenna Bennett

  Rafe shook his head. “She was lying on her left side. Blankets up to her shoulders, dressed in a nightgown, with a pillow under her head and another on the floor next to her. No sign of a struggle.”

  He had noticed a lot more about the crime scene than I had. I had seen Frenetta curled up on her side, with a blanket over her, but I hadn’t noticed the nightgown or the second pillow.

  “There was saliva on the pillowcase,” Lou said.

  “Maybe she drooled.” I do sometimes. Not that I like to admit it.

  Rafe hid a smile.

  “This was the pillow on the floor,” Lou said. “Not the one under her head. Someone placed that pillow over her face and held it there, and then dropped it on the floor when she was dead.”

  “Or she knocked it off the bed herself.”

  Rafe shook his head. “She was dead to the world, darlin’. Probably didn’t stir at all after she crawled into bed.”

  Fine. “So someone went up to the apartment and smothered her. And it was one of the people in the B and B. Either before Rafe and I got there, or after.”

  She could have been asleep as easily as dead when we arrived in the parking lot at ten o’clock.

  “That’s about the strength of it,” Lou agreed.

  “Why? I never met her, but she was an elderly innkeeper in a small town in Florida. Who’d want her dead? Was she rich?”

  “Not as far as I know,” Lou said, “although I expect the property is worth a pretty penny.”

  I expected she was right. Beachfront property isn’t my specialty—Tennessee is landlocked, although houses and building lots on the river or lake go for a nice chunk of change—but it didn’t take expertise to see that the Davenport Inn B and B was a beautiful, old house on a large piece of land across the street from the beach, and there are only so many of those around.

  “I heard rumors that a developer was sniffing around last year sometime,” Lou added. “Nothing ever came of it, that I know. People in Davenport are resistant to change. Nobody wants the town to become another Destin or Panama City Beach. We like it peaceful. But I remember there was talk about some developer in Atlanta making an offer.”

  Those Atlanta developers are everywhere. They’re buying up large chunks of Nashville, too. Just a couple of months ago, a sub shop on West End Avenue, that had been there for forty years, had had to close its doors after an Atlanta developer bought the land. The plan was to raze the old building and put up a thirty-story apartment tower. And while that would mean more homes—or condos—for yours truly to buy and sell, I still wasn’t thrilled about it. I’d only been in Nashville for eight years: three at Vanderbilt University, two with Bradley after I dropped out to marry him, and these last three on my own... but I’d already seen a lot of changes, and not all of them for the better.

  Progress is necessary, and sometimes even good, but I don’t think we have to lose everything old and original in the name of it. The idea of Frenetta’s B and B being knocked down to make room for highrise apartment buildings with parking garages and pools and a view of the ocean from the thirtieth floor, gave me a bad taste in my mouth.

  “Chip and Nina live in Atlanta,” I said.

  “That’s what they said.”

  “Gloria and Hildy said they overheard Nina arguing with Frenetta yesterday morning. About Chip.”

  “So they told me,” Lou nodded.

  “Do you think Chip did it? Is that why you’re following him?”

  “I’m not following him. David’s following him. I’m following you.”

  Right. “Did you ask him what he does for a living? Chip?”

  “I don’t think he does anything,” Lou said, “but Nina’s father is a developer.”

  “Land developer?”

  She nodded.

  “That’s quite a coincidence.” What were the chances that last year’s developer from Atlanta and Nina’s father were one and the same?

  “We’re looking into it,” Lou said. “The land the B and B sits on is worth a fortune. And a fortune’s a good motive for murder. However—”

  I nodded. This was something I knew about. “It isn’t like Chip will get the land now that Frenetta is dead. I guess it goes to Vonnie, unless Frenetta had a will.”

  “She had a safety deposit box at the bank,” Lou said. “I’ll be checking it tomorrow morning. I’ll also be checking with the local attorneys, once they open for business. But if there’s no will, then yes, I assume Vonnie will get the house. Frenetta never did have any children.”

  “Nice for Vonnie, getting the house after all.”

  “It was thirty years ago,” Lou said. “I’m sure she’s over it by now. And as far as I know, she and her husband have a very nice house of their own in Tallahassee. They don’t need this one.”

  “Did you make sure of that?”

  She refrained from rolling her eyes, but I could tell she wanted to. “Yes, Mrs. Collier. We did. Financially, they’re doing just fine.”

  Rafe chuckled. “Leave the sheriff be, darlin’. She knows how to do her job.”

  I’m sure she did. I was just used to bouncing ideas off Tamara Grimaldi, and I guess I’d gotten a little carried away. “Sorry.”

  “No problem.” She got to her feet. “I see your food coming. I’ll leave you alone to enjoy it. Don’t leave town without letting me know.”

  She walked away without waiting for an answer. She and the waitress slithered around one another halfway to the door, and then Lou disappeared inside, and the waitress stopped beside our table to drop off the po’boy and chicken sandwich.

  “That was interesting,” I told Rafe after she’d walked away.

  “What? Lou?” He was busy getting a good grip on his sandwich, and didn’t even look up.

  I nodded. “I’m no longer surprised they let you go this afternoon. You didn’t mention that the sheriff was female.”

  “No reason to.” He lifted the po’boy and took a bite. Remoulade oozed out and decorated the corners of his mouth. I smiled.

  “It explains a lot. Women like you. You said so yourself.”

  He shrugged. “As long as you like me, that’s all I care about. Eat your food, darlin’. You gotta build up your strength for later.”

  That sounded promising. I lifted the sandwich and took a bite. It was good, but the compulsion to speculate was too strong. I put it down again and picked up a fry. “I didn’t know Vonnie was Frenetta’s sister.” Nibble, nibble, nibble. “Did you?”

  The fries were good, too.

  Rafe shook his head. “The only time I saw Vonnie and her husband, was this morning at breakfast. And a lot of old ladies look alike.”

  They do. Frenetta probably hadn’t looked like herself when we saw her. Corpses rarely do, I’ve found. And it stood to reason that if she didn’t look like herself, she wouldn’t look like Vonnie, either.

  “What do you think of the real estate angle?”

  Rafe chewed and swallowed. “For someone who said she was starving, you sure ain’t eating much.”

  “Sorry.” I picked up another fry and put it in my mouth. “But what do you think?”

  “I think it’s none of our business,” Rafe said. “I think Lou’s capable of figuring it out without our help. And I think you oughta eat your dinner so I can take you back to the room and have my way with you.”

  “That’s fine. But I’d still like to talk about who killed Frenetta and why.”

  “Married less than forty-eight hours,” Rafe said, “and you’re already tired of me?”

  “I’ll never get tired of you. But it’s not like we can do anything about it now. We’re here.”

  At the Sandbar. Not in the privacy of our own room at the B and B.

  Rafe shook his head. “Fine. Talk about Frenetta.”

  “Well...” Now that I had permission, I wasn’t quite sure what to say. “Someone killed her. And tried to pin it on us. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that, as soon as we left the house to go up to the apartm
ent above the garage this morning, someone called the cops. They wanted us to be discovered standing over the body. I think it was Chip.”

  “It mighta been Chip,” Rafe said, still enjoying his sandwich.

  I took another bite of mine. Chewed and swallowed. “Lou said a real estate developer from Atlanta is trying to buy Frenetta’s property. Nina’s father is a developer. Gloria and Hildy said Nina and Frenetta argued about Chip yesterday. Nina said something to the effect that Frenetta better do right by Chip, or else.”

  Rafe nodded, his mouth full of shrimp.

  “What do you want to bet Chip is here to try to convince Frenetta to sell the property to Nina’s dad?”

  Rafe swallowed. “That could be. But killing her ain’t gonna get him the property.”

  No, it wasn’t. “Could it have been an accident? Maybe the sleeping pills in the wine really did kill her. Maybe Chip did it so he could get her to sign on the dotted line while she was groggy and didn’t know what she was agreeing to, but then she died?”

  Rafe shook his head. “Saliva on the pillow,” he reminded me.

  Right. I thought about it some more while I had a few fries and another bite of the chicken. “So maybe Chip put the sleeping pills in the drink, but someone else killed her.”

  “I thought you wanted it to be Chip.”

  “I do want it to be Chip. It just doesn’t make any sense for it to be Chip.”

  Rafe shook his head. “You gonna finish those fries?”

  There were a lot of them, so no. “Help yourself.” I took another bite of the sandwich. “Who do you think did it?”

  “Dunno,” Rafe said, reaching for my fries. “Don’t care.”

  “How can you not care?”

  “Very easily.” He popped a couple of fries in his mouth. “We didn’t know her. We don’t know any of the others. And figuring it out is somebody else’s job. I’m on my honeymoon.”

  “That’s never stopped you before.”

  “I’ve never been on my honeymoon before,” Rafe said. “All I wanna do is have a good time and a lot of sex. Let Lou worry about it.”

  “But doesn’t it bother you that we’re sleeping in a house with a murderer?”

  “We slept in a house with a murderer last night, too,” Rafe said.

  “But we didn’t know about it then!”

  “Right.”

  I blinked at him, chagrined.

  “You almost finished?” Rafe asked, polishing off my French fries.

  “I guess.” The sandwich was so big I couldn’t eat all of it. And I had very few fries left.

  He dug a couple of bills out of his pocket and tucked them under his empty glass—enough to cover the bill and a tip—and got up. “You wanna walk on the beach?”

  Obviously he did. “Sure.” I put my napkin down and got to my feet, as well. He took my hand and led my across the deck and down the stairs to the sand.

  Chapter Eight

  It was a nice evening. Not overcast like yesterday. The moon was out, and the sky speckled with stars. The waves lapped gently against the shore. We couldn’t really see the ocean, but we could hear it. Rafe’s hand was warm and hard around mine.

  “When I retire,” he told me, “I wanna live on the beach.”

  “I’m sure we can manage that.” We had thirty years or so to save up, after all. And it would probably take all of that, but if beach living was what he wanted, I’d do everything I could to give it to him. So what if I’d have to spend my declining years under an umbrella?

  He squeezed my hand. “You still gonna wanna be married to me when I’m old and bald with a metal detector and a sun hat, digging tin cans and wedding bands outta the sand?”

  “That depends,” I said. “Are you still going to want to be married to me when I have wrinkles and gray hair?”

  “I’ve seen your mama, darlin’,” Rafe told me. “You ain’t got nothing to worry about. When you’re sixty, you’re still gonna look forty-five. And gorgeous.”

  I hoped he was right.

  “And anyway, I didn’t marry you ‘cause you look good.”

  “You married me because you knocked me up and my brother came after you with a shotgun.”

  “No,” Rafe said. “He didn’t even warn me I’d better do right by you.”

  “Figures.”

  He grinned, his teeth white in the darkness. “Your brother ain’t stupid. He knows I’m crazy about you. I’ll stick around as long as you’ll have me. And I ain’t doing nothing to change your mind so you’ll kick me out early.”

  “You don’t have to worry about that.” I rubbed my cheek against his shoulder. “I’ll keep you as long as you want to stay. Hopefully we’ll both be ninety-five before either of us has to worry about it.”

  “I’ll drink to that.” He dropped my hand to drape his arm over my shoulders and pull me closer. “How’re you liking married life so far?”

  “I like it just fine,” I said. “Although I’d like it better if our hostess hadn’t gotten murdered.”

  “And here we go again.”

  “I’m sorry. I just can’t stop thinking about it. Someone in the B and B is a murderer. We’ll be sleeping next door to a killer tonight.”

  “We slept next door to a killer last night, too.” He shook his head before we could start rehashing the conversation we’d already had. “I’ll protect you.”

  “I’m not worried that he’s going to do anything to me,” I said. And added, “Or she,” just to be fair.

  “Then you’d better stop asking questions, darlin’. You know the second victim’s always the one who knows too much.”

  “I’ll be safe, then. I don’t know anything.”

  “Maybe you do,” Rafe said, “but you don’t realize it.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t think so. I think I’m safe. But feel free to stay close all night to make sure.”

  “I think I might could do that,” Rafe said, and kept walking.

  We made it back to the B and B without running into anything worse than a jogger, another couple walking hand in hand, and a guy who looked like he was preparing to spend the night on the beach, but didn’t want us to realize it. It was probably illegal.

  Back at the Davenport Inn, it looked like business as usual. Not that we’d been there before and had anything to compare it to, but nothing seemed amiss. Nina and Chip were still out, or might be upstairs in their room, but Gloria and Hildy, Vonnie and Groot were downstairs in the parlor, watching Dancing with the Stars and critiquing the moves while sipping drinks.

  When we walked in, they all turned to us.

  “Oh,” Gloria said after a moment, “it’s you.”

  “Did you expect someone else?”

  She hesitated. “We thought maybe the sheriff had news.”

  “We just spoke to her,” I said. “At the Sandbar. She isn’t ready to make an arrest yet.”

  Groot muttered something, and I added, “Excuse me?”

  “I said, what’s she doing at the Sandbar if there’s a murderer to find?”

  “Following those of us who are suspects to make sure we don’t leave town,” I said.

  He smirked. “Are you a suspect?”

  “We’re all suspects,” Hildy told him, before I could say that no, I wasn’t, because we’d gotten to Davenport too late to have doctored the wine. “Someone killed her, and we were right here.”

  “And she was out there,” Groot said, pointing to the wall, behind which lay the kitchen, and then the parking lot and the garage. “Anyone coulda walked up those steps and smothered her.”

  “But only the people who had access to the house could have put the sleeping pills in the wine,” Hildy said.

  The sheriff must have told her that. They’d been asked questions about the wine bottle and who’d had access to it, I assumed.

  Groot muttered something, but not out loud.

  “Here you go.” Vonnie put what looked like a mint julep in my hand, and handed another to Rafe. Playin
g hostess, I guess, in the absence of her sister. “Have a seat.”

  “Thank you.” I sank down on one of the chintz sofas and put my glass on the table in front of me, since I couldn’t drink it. Rafe sat down beside me and took a sip of his. His face twisted. Too much sugar, I guess. To sweet, for someone whose preferred beverage is beer.

  I turned back to Vonnie, who had resumed her seat next to Groot on the other side of the table. “The sheriff said Frenetta was your sister. I didn’t realize. I’m sorry for your loss.”

  She blinked. I guess she hadn’t expected condolences. Or maybe hadn’t expected anyone here to know about the relationship.

  “This is a beautiful house,” I added, glancing around the parlor. Eleven foot ceilings, eight foot windows, tiled fireplace. “The sheriff said you grew up here?”

  Vonnie nodded.

  “We live in an old Victorian house in Nashville. Rafe’s grandmother’s house. It was probably built around the same time as this one.”

  I glanced at Rafe. He glanced back at me. I returned my attention to Vonnie. “And I’m a real estate agent. I’ve seen a lot of these old houses. This one is lovely. And very nicely maintained. Lots of original features.”

  “I’m not interested in selling,” Vonnie said.

  Gloria and Hildy exchanged a look, and it took me a second to find my voice. “I didn’t think you were.” And anyway, I would never be so uncouth as to suggest it, when her sister wasn’t even in the ground yet. Making a sales pitch hadn’t been my intention at all. I’d been leading up to something else. “Although the sheriff did mention that she’d heard rumors that a developer from Atlanta was interested in buying.”

  Vonnie’s lips tightened. “That won’t happen.”

  “But is it true, though? Someone was trying to buy the place? Was your sister interested in selling?”

  “No,” Vonnie said. “This is our home. It’s been in our mother’s family for three generations.”

  Gloria and Hildy exchanged another look, but neither spoke.

  “What will you do with the house now? The two of you live in Tallahassee, right? Will you move back here, or hire someone to keep running the place?”