Cozy (Stanley Hastings Mystery, #14)

by Parnell Hall

  As soon as I began reading I realized why. The paperback had been published with its British title. I knew it under its American one. So 4:50 from Paddington, which I thought was a Hercule Poirot novel I had never read, was really What Mrs. McGillicudy Saw!, a Miss Marple novel I had not only read before, but also remembered who did it.

  Oh, well. At least it ought to put me to sleep.

  Only it didn’t. I have trouble adjusting to new surroundings, and my first night in a new bed I usually have a devil of a time.

  Tonight was no exception. I tossed and turned, fussed with the blankets, readjusted the pillows, apologized to the cat, and worried about whether I should leave the door open so it could go out.

  And reread Agatha Christie. Every now and then looking over at Alice and cursing the paper-thin walls.

  Unfortunately, the state of the walls was a fact I could not dispute. When our next-door neighbors returned twenty pages later, I could hear them quite clearly. I could hear them moving around the room, washing up, and getting into bed.

  I could hear them in bed.

  And they either had no inhibitions whatsoever, or else they were totally unaware they could be heard.

  It was so distracting, I couldn’t read. All I could do was listen. And hope they wouldn’t wake the cat.

  As I lay there, next to my attractive-yet-sleeping wife, listening to their nocturnal activities, which seemed to be going on for quite some time, it occurred to me that Frankie, the frog on my door, had his hands in his pockets and a rueful smile, while Freddie, on their door, was winking and signaling, A-okay!

  9.

  “I HAVE A cat in my room.”

  “An orange, stripey cat?” Louise said.

  “That’s the one.”

  “That’s Max. He’s a sweetheart. Is he bothering you?”

  “No. I was just afraid someone might be missing him.”

  “Don’t worry. He’s not that type of cat. Very independent. Likes to hang out with the guests. If you get sick of him, throw him out. He’ll show up at the kitchen door when he’s hungry.”

  “He’s your cat?”

  “In a manner of speaking. He belongs to the inn. Oh, here’s your wife.”

  Alice came in from the porch where she had stopped to talk to two women on her way to breakfast. As usual, I had misread the situation. Like a fool, I had assumed that people on their way to breakfast intended to eat breakfast. At the door to the inn I had gone inside, only to watch Alice veer off in the other direction. This had left me inside the inn but outside the dining room. Hence the conversation with Louise about the cat.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Hastings,” Louise said. “Seven-thirty breakfast reservation, right this way.”

  She led us into the dining room and sat us at a table. “Your waitress will be right with you.”

  When she left, I jerked my thumb in the direction of the porch. “Jean and Joan?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Which is which?”

  “Jean’s thinner.”

  That did it for me. Jean was the one with leathery skin and short, frosted hair. Joan was the plump one with the glasses and curly, blond permanent.

  “Uh-huh,” I said. “Am I to assume you stopped to gossip about what I observed last night by the pond?”

  “Gossip?” Alice said. “My, what a rude word.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “You mean you didn’t tell them?”

  “I may have mentioned it,” Alice said. “In passing. But I don’t see the big deal. It’s the sort of thing you’d comment on. After all, you told me.”

  “You’re my wife.”

  “Exactly,” Alice said. “If it’s something you’d tell your wife, it’s certainly worth repeating.”

  “Certainly,” I said. “So that’s Jean and Joan. Do you know there’s a song about them?”

  “There is?”

  “Well, not about them. But there’s a Jean and Joan in a song. As I recall, the chorus goes, You’ve got to change your evil ways, baby.”

  “You’re just making that up.”

  “No, I’m not. Don’t you remember the song. It goes—”

  “No. Don’t sing. Not at the breakfast table.”

  “Just a chorus.”

  “Stanley.”

  Our waitress appeared. She couldn’t sneak up on us the way she could when we were in a booth, still there was something in the way she approached our table that made her seem like something out of an old movie. Something furtive. A spy, perhaps, or secret agent.

  I chided myself for having such a vivid imagination.

  She set a pot of coffee down on the table.

  Then, to my utter amazement, she glanced left and right, palmed a piece of paper from the pocket of her apron, and surreptitiously slid it under the corner of Alice’s plate.

  “I’ll be back to take your order,” she said, and hurried off to another table.

  “What in the world?” I said.

  “Shh,” Alice said. “Act natural.”

  I got it. Of course. Alice was getting back at me for the way I’d acted at dinner last night. How she’d gotten the waitress in on it I had no idea, but somehow she had, and now she was playing it for all it was worth, opening and reading the paper under the table.

  “Okay, I’ll bite,” I said. “What’s the secret message?”

  “You can see it. Just don’t make a big deal out of it. Here, take a look. Just don’t let anyone else see.”

  I took the paper Alice handed me and unfolded it.

  It was a Xerox copy. There was writing on it in longhand. I squinted to make it out.

  MIRIAM’S CHOCOLATE CAKE

  1 can of Hershey syrup

  4 eggs

  1 cup self-rising flour

  1/4 pound butter

  2/3 cup sugar

  Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs, syrup, and flour, and stir. Pour into greased 9 inch square. Bake at 375° for 35 to 40 minutes.

  Serve unfrosted.

  I looked up at Alice. “A recipe?”

  “Shh. You don’t have to shout it all over the place. Of course it’s a recipe. For the cake I had last night.”

  “I thought you couldn’t get the recipe.”

  “You can’t. I slipped Lucy ten bucks to get it for me.”

  “Lucy?”

  “Our waitress.”

  “You paid ten bucks for the recipe?”

  “Stanley. Did you taste that cake?”

  I had, and it was rather good. Still, ten bucks is ten bucks.

  Lucy returned to take our order. She made no reference to the recipe. Indeed, there was nothing in her manner to indicate anything out of the ordinary had occurred.

  Nor was there in ours. We merely placed our orders. Alice had waffles, and I had the French toast.

  Lucy went out, and Johnny and his wife came in. They must have missed Louise somehow, because they came in alone. With no one to show them to a table, they stood and looked around. After a few moments they spotted us and came over.

  “Good morning,” Johnny said. “You find that pond all right?”

  “As a matter of fact, I did. Ah, this is my wife, Alice.”

  “Pleased to meet you. I’m Johnny. This is my wife, Clara.”

  “So,” Clara said to Alice, “you went to the movie last night?”

  “Yes.”

  “I wanted to go, but stick-in-the-mud here wouldn’t see it.”

  “Seen it twice,” Johnny said.

  “We’ve already ordered, but would you care to join us?” Alice said.

  “Oh, we wouldn’t want to intrude,” Johnny said.

  Clara sat right down, said, “Thank you so much,” and proceeded to pour herself a cup of coffee.

  I couldn’t quite believe that Alice had offered or that Clara had accepted. I’m not sure Johnny could either, but he sat down, and his wife poured him a cup of coffee too.

  Lucy returned with our orders. Alice’s waffle was covered with berries—strawberries, rasp
berries, blueberries, and even had a slice of melon. My French toast was thick and cinnamon-sugar glazed.

  “That French toast sure looks good,” Johnny said. “I’ll have that.”

  “You will not,” Clara said. “Look at that sugar glaze. You want to drop dead on me, you go ahead and eat like that. Now, I’ll have the waffles and berries. There’s a sensible meal.”

  After a moment’s hesitation, Johnny sheepishly ordered the waffles too.

  I didn’t know whether to gloat. After all, I had the French toast. On the other hand, when I’d ordered it, Alice hadn’t seen what it was like.

  Florence came in with the two women I now recognized as Jean and Joan. Louise seated them at a table across the room. Florence, who was facing us, smiled and waved.

  “You know Florence?” Clara said.

  “We met her yesterday,” I said. “On a hike. At Champney Falls. Nice woman.”

  “Yes,” Clara said. “But she has that awful dog.”

  “Prince?” Alice said. “Oh, he’s a sweetheart.”

  “Yes, but he’s not trained. And he sheds. And drools. And he’s a terrible beggar. God forbid you should give him any food.”

  “Did you hear that, Stanley?” Alice said. “Stanley gave him a sandwich.” She managed to make it sound like a crime.

  “Excuse me,” I said, “but I’m going to eat this while it’s hot.”

  I cut off a piece of French toast, dipped it in maple syrup.

  “Gee, look who’s here,” Alice said.

  I looked over my shoulder to see Louise ushering in the Swedish hiking couple. It took me a second to realize I knew their names. Another second to realize I wasn’t quite sure what they were. Oh, yes, he’s Lars. Not that surprising. She’s Christine. Though I’d imagined her more an Inga.

  Louise seated them in one of the booths. They must have reserved it. It occurred to me if we’d only had the foresight to do so, we would have escaped dining with Johnny and Clara.

  Once Lars and Christine were seated in their booth, they were out of sight. Which should have put them out of mind.

  Except.

  A pot of coffee was delivered to their booth.

  And it wasn’t the waitress who brought it.

  It was the busboy.

  Louise’s son, Randy.

  Whom I had seen kissing Christine last night by the pond.

  That certainly made for an interesting dynamic. A glance at Alice showed that she thought so, too, but wasn’t about to mention anything in front of Clara and Johnny.

  The table across the way was far less restrained. Jean, Joan, and Florence had their heads together whispering furiously, and every now and then one of them would glance in the direction of the booth.

  Lucy returned with Johnny and Clara’s waffles, then headed to the booth to take the young couple’s order. There was a lull in the conversation while Johnny and Clara dug in. I accepted it gratefully, settled back, sipped my coffee, and surveyed the room.

  The dining room was not as crowded as it had been for dinner. I assumed breakfast was primarily for the guests. At any rate, aside from those I’ve already mentioned, the only other people in the room were the men I’d seen last night in the bar. This morning they looked more like tourists, in shorts and hiking boots. They sat in the corner, finishing up breakfast and reading the paper. I wondered where they’d gotten the paper, which appeared to be The New York Times.

  I also wondered if they were gay. And chided myself for the thought. Surely two men could travel together without being gay. On the other hand, maybe they were.

  I wondered what their frog looked like.

  Prompted by the thought, I turned to Johnny. “Who’s your frog?”

  He stopped with a forkful of waffle halfway to his mouth. “Huh?”

  “The frog on the door of your room. What’s his name?”

  “Name?”

  “Yeah. All the frogs have names. Ours is Frankie. What’s yours?”

  Johnny looked at Clara. “What’s our frog’s name?”

  She stopped sawing her waffle and impaled him with a look. “Well now, Johnny Mclnnerny, how would you expect me to know that?”

  Well, I guess that told me. Granted, Clara’d felt far more free to smash her husband down than if I’d been the one asking her, still the original question was mine.

  Which sort of drew the line in the sand. So, don’t care to know the name of your frog, eh? Well, Clara, baby, you and Johnny just lost a chance to go on my list of the all-time great fun couples.

  Nonetheless, part of her answer I liked—calling her husband by his last name. Now, instead of constantly saying Johnny and Clara, I could refer to them as the Mclnnernys. It occurred to me what minutely small satisfactions I was managing to glean from this vacation.

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw Lucy usher another couple in. They came right by our table, and I got a closer look. I was impressed. They were a most attractive couple. Not as young and perfect as the one in the booth, but still. The man was maybe thirty-five, but his face was smooth and unwrinkled, and his hair was jet-black, and all in all he looked like he’d just stepped out of high school.

  The woman looked equally young, but gave the opposite impression—that the bright eyes and curly brown hair belonged to the vice president of something. Something big, like an airline or movie studio.

  Anyway, the pair looked mismatched. It occurred to me, maybe they were mismatched. That this man and this woman were having an affair.

  I looked at Alice, to see if this had registered.

  Alice had indeed noticed the couple. To the Mclnnernys she said, “Who is that?”

  “I have no idea,” Clara said. “I haven’t seen them before.”

  “Me, either,” Johnny said. “You suppose they just got here?”

  “Either that or they don’t get out much,” I said.

  It had just occurred to me, maybe they were the couple I had heard next door. I hadn’t mentioned them to Alice. I figured it would just give her more ammunition for invoking the passion-free zone.

  I’d just had that thought when a little girl came bounding into the dining room, and went bubbling up to their table, squealing, “Mommy! Daddy!” and establishing the fact that what we were observing was your basic stable family unit.

  “They didn’t just get here,” I said. “That’s the kid who was in the TV room yesterday when I wanted to watch the Red Sox game.”

  “You should have thrown her out,” Johnny said.

  “Absolutely,” Clara said. “People have no business bringing children to a place like this.”

  That did it. That was the last straw. I had had it with the Mclnnernys. They didn’t like children, and they didn’t like dogs. Well, I didn’t like them.

  I was not about to be rude, you understand. Or even start an argument. I just made a mental note to be sure to tell Alice never to invite them again.

  Not that there was any danger of that. Alice was clearly as eager to get away from the Mclnnernys as I was. She attacked her breakfast at what had to be a record pace, and said, “Well, we better be going if we’re going to get any hiking done.”

  “Start at Pinkham Notch,” Johnny said. “They’ll fit you out with everything you need.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Pinkham Notch Visitors Center. It’s on the way to Mount Washington. You can’t miss it. A great big lodge by the side of the road. Information center, dining room, lodge, what-have-you. Everybody starts out there.”

  “Uh-huh,” Alice said. “And that’s right on the way to Mount Washington?”

  “Uh-huh. Can’t miss it. As a matter fact, we’re going there ourselves, we could show you the way.”

  “Oh, that won’t be necessary,” I said.

  “Don’t be silly,” Clara said. “We’re hiking there ourselves. Johnny, we should show them Pinkham Notch.”

  “Absolutely,” Johnny said. “We know the best trails to hike. Stick with us, and you can’t go wrong.”


  “But you’ve already hiked those trails,” Alice said. “You wouldn’t want to do it again.”

  “Oh, that’s no problem,” Clara said. “Some of those trails are beautiful.”

  “See,” Johnny said. “She’s willing to see that stupid movie three times, you think she can’t hike a trail again?”

  “So, it’s settled,” Clara said. “Johnny and I will show you Pinkham Notch.”

  I looked at Alice for help, saw she was at a loss.

  I looked at Johnny, smiled weakly.

  Kill me now, vengeful gods. Kill me now.

  10.

  SAVED BY THE dog.

  In the nick of time, Prince saved the day. A true hero, just like Lassie or Rin-Tin-Tin.

  You see, Florence and Jean and Joan came along to Pinkham Notch. And Florence brought Prince. And the Mclnnernys didn’t like dogs.

  What a relief.

  As they made their excuses and scuttled down some trail or another, I could hardly keep from cheering. Florence and Prince were lifesavers. I even felt a fondness for Jean and Joan. I didn’t know them at all, but compared to the Mclnnernys they had to be saints.

  So, having dispensed with our would-be guides, we were now left to happily work things out on our own.

  Alice, Jean and Joan, and I went into the visitors center and came back armed with instructions on what were described as easy but fun hikes.

  The first one was across the highway just beyond the far end of the parking lot. We crossed the road with Prince on a leash, and found a narrow trail leading off into the woods. For a while it was easygoing. Then about a hundred yards in, the trail began to slope up, first gradually, then steeper and steeper, and before you know it we were scrambling over rocks, bracing ourselves against tree trunks, and climbing from one ledge to another.

  Prince seemed to have no trouble with the terrain, but I found it hard going. I wasn’t about to complain, though, what with Jean and Joan scampering up the hill as happy as clams. I gritted my teeth, and scampered along with ’em, wondering just how high this damn mountain was.