Mansions Can Be Murder: A Cozy Mystery (Gemma Stone Cozy Mystery Book 2)

by Willow Monroe

  “Good morning, Ms. Northlake,” Gemma said, offering her a smile.

  Victoria nodded once in her direction and then scurried off down the hall and into the library. Gemma heard the door to the sitting room close with a bang and suddenly she felt sorry for Simone. Even as adults they appeared to be polar opposites of each other and she was sure that led to nothing but trouble.

  The door to what had become Ross’s interrogation room was partially open and Gemma grabbed each of them a cup of coffee before going inside. Ross looked like he had slept very little even though he had gone home for the night. Dark stubble covered his strong, classic jaw line but he was wearing his usual dark suit with a neatly pressed shirt and a dark blue tie.

  “Good morning,” Gemma said, carefully placing his coffee on the table in front of him. “I hear the roads are awful.”

  “Treacherous,” he said with that sexy smile that he seemed to reserve just for her. It sent Gemma’s heart racing. Then he took in her casual jeans and sweater. His gaze stopped at all the places it usually did when he looked at her and he licked his lips slowly. “Nice jeans,” he said. “Dressing down today?”

  It was suddenly very hot in the small room and Gemma fanned herself with one hand. “Hadn’t planned on it, but I came down here earlier to talk to you about something I forgot,” Gemma found herself longing to touch him but held onto her coffee with both hands to prevent that from happening. “When you weren’t here I did a little exploring...”

  “Not investigating?”

  Gemma shook her head. “I was really just curious about the Northlake family history. I ended up in the library with Mrs. Northlake. Did you know she was French?”

  Ross nodded. “I did. We’ve run a pretty thorough background check on almost everyone.”

  “Including Simone?” Gemma asked, stunned. “She’s just a little old lady who misses her husband badly.”

  Ross just grinned. “Tell me what you forgot and then I’m going to share some confidential information with you,” he said, taking a sip from the Styrofoam cup.

  “From the autopsy?”

  Ross made a ‘come on’ motion with his hand. “You first. What did you forget?”

  “I forgot to tell you that I overheard a conversation between Benjamin Northlake and the general yesterday at the restaurant.”

  She had Ross’s full attention now as he reached for a pen and legal pad.

  “I think they were working on a deal of some sort. They were talking about a meeting with the general and all three of the Northlake children. I overheard them yesterday, in the cafeteria. That might have been what the money was all about, but why would he give them cash?”

  Ross looked thoughtful for a moment. “What else?”

  “Oh, yesterday, just before I turned to help the family with the babies inside, that guy with the books...”

  “Bilker?”

  “Yes. He and the guy in the top hat with the magical cane...”

  “The steampunk guy?” Ross asked, interrupting her again.

  Gemma nodded, feeling as if she had given Ross an important piece of information she didn’t even know she had. “They both came into the lobby at the same time and went flying past me so fast they almost knocked me down.”

  Ross was scribbling on his legal pad.

  “The guy in the top hat is Walter Shores. He has disappeared,” Ross told her.

  “Disappeared?”

  “As in gone from the hotel.”

  “How did that happen?”

  Ross shrugged. “We can’t be everywhere at once. I wasn’t too worried up until just now because his background came back clean. Not even a parking ticket. But I don’t like the fact that he’s friends with Bilker and that he’s disappeared.”

  “What does CID think?”

  “Don’t know,” Ross said softly.

  “Bilker is still here,” Gemma offered. “I saw him in the elevator earlier.”

  “We’re watching him closely but so far all we’ve uncovered is some minor harassment of military officials. He’s mostly a loud mouth full of empty threats,” Ross finished with a shrug of his broad shoulders.

  “Why does he hate the military so much?” Gemma wondered aloud.

  “Seems he was caught doing something he shouldn’t have been doing and, instead of a court marshall, they went easy on him and gave him a dishonorable discharge. It’s on his record and he’s had a hard time getting a job so he burned up his energy writing a book about what he feels is the corrupt military.”

  Gemma shook her head and sipped her coffee while Ross made notes on the legal pad. Finally she said, “So, did they find the bullet?”

  Ross looked up at her, totally confused by what she’d said. “Oh, you mean during the autopsy?”

  “Yes, that’s what I meant,” Gemma said and then grinned. She knew he was being deliberately slow with her.

  “General Loden West was not shot as we’d first suspected,” Ross said. With his elbows on the table, he rested his chin in his hand giving Gemma a minute to digest this.

  “Not shot?”

  Ross shook his head. “He was stabbed.”

  Chapter Ten

  “Stabbed?” Gemma gasped.

  Ross nodded. “Stabbed with a very sharp round object that went up through his left arm pit and directly into his heart.”

  “Sounds like they knew what they were doing,” Gemma said.

  Ross nodded again. “That’s what I thought, too.”

  “Any idea about what the killer might have used as a weapon?” Gemma asked.

  “Not really. Something round, about the size of a bullet and at least twelve inches long,” Ross said.

  “The way you described it, it sounds like it could be an ice pick. Not that people generally carry an ice pick around with them any more...” Gemma shook her head, out of ideas.

  “CID is thinking this might be a professional hit,” Ross said, rubbing his face with both hands. “Whoever it was knew exactly what they were doing and they were able to get close to him.”

  “The lobby was really crowded. It would have been easy to bump up against him,” Gemma finished with a shrug. Then she smiled. “That takes the CID’s attention off me.”

  “At least for now,” Ross said. “I’d still like to get this wrapped up before they get here this afternoon.”

  “I’m sure we can,” Gemma said, standing.

  “There’s no ‘we’ in this, Gemma,” Ross said, standing as well.

  “But...”

  Ross pushed the door gently closed and took her in his arms. “I want you to keep your pretty little nose out of this,” he said.

  Before Gemma could argue, he kissed her with that rough kiss of his that made her knees weak and set her pulse racing. As she had done so many times in the past weeks, she mentally compared her reaction to the two men in her life. Nick’s kisses were warm, tender and loving. Ross’s kisses promised something exciting, almost forbidden.

  “I’m pretty sure we’re going to keep you out of prison,” he told her, pulling her close and stroking her back. “But if you get in the killer’s way, I don’t think he’d hesitate to take you out to protect himself.”

  “You’re scaring me,” Gemma said, resting her head on his shoulder briefly while she snuggled closer.

  “Good. You need to be scared,” Ross said. “Now, go get dressed up and sell some of that beautiful jewelry of yours. I’ve got work to do.”

  On her way out of the conference room Gemma ran into Nick, who looked relieved when he saw her. “There you are. I came up to your room to bring you coffee and Holly didn’t know where you were,” he said.

  “I’m sorry, I’ve just been exploring a little bit this morning,” she explained.

  “You couldn’t answer your phone?” he asked, his blue eyes flashing with a hint of anger now that he knew she was safe.

  Gemma pulled her phone out of her pocket and saw that she had several calls from him and Holly. “It looks like the sound g
ot turned off somehow,” she explained. “I didn’t mean to make you worry.”

  Nick just shook his head but finally he took a deep breath and then began to smile. “Where were you exploring?”

  “In the library. In fact, I tried to get you a job.”

  “A job?”

  “Yeah, I was talking to Mrs. Northlake about writing her life story. During World War Two, she escaped from Austria and went to France right after the rest of her family disappeared. She met Winter Northlake when he was in France during the war. They married and he brought her here to live. I don’t think his parents liked it very much, but she had no choice. Doesn’t that sound like a fascinating story?” Gemma asked.

  Nick nodded. “It does. And I had no idea. Maybe we can both talk to her once all this is settled.”

  “I don’t know. She really seemed a bit reluctant to talk about it and when I suggested a book she got really nervous,” Gemma sounded doubtful. “So where are you headed besides looking for me?”

  “I heard they did the autopsy this morning. I was just going to check with Ross to see if I could run a second piece in the paper with a little more information,” Nick explained.

  “You’re a good man, Charlie Brown,” Gemma said, hugging her long-time friend and former fiancé. “Other reporters would be all over it, not caring whether they were leaking privileged information or not.”

  “That’s not the way I roll, Betty Boop,” Nick said, hugging her back. “Now, I think Holly was planning on having breakfast with you before the convention hall opened up again.”

  “Then I’d better get upstairs and get changed,” Gemma said.

  Just as she and Nick parted ways, she noticed Benjamin Northlake leaving his office. With a coffee cup in his hand, he headed away from her toward the restaurant. It suddenly dawned on her that if she could get a look at his calendar, she might be able to confirm that he had a meeting scheduled with General West. Maybe he’d even written down the subject of that meeting. That would help Ross and her own cause as well.

  She waited until he was out of sight. Heart pounding in her chest, she didn’t give herself time to think. Gemma stepped to the office door and turned the knob. It opened with just a little creak and she slipped inside. It was as dark as usual with only a couple of lamps to warm up the space but there was a fire in the fireplace.

  That big desk loomed in front of her, but it was a lot messier than it was the last time she’d seen it. It was covered with what looked like ledger pages, spreadsheets and a stack of unpaid bills. Several of them were stamped ‘Final Notice’. Interesting.

  Gemma reminded herself why she was there and that she probably didn’t have much time. After all, he was probably just going after coffee.

  But...

  If the Northlakes were having money problems - and she’d heard rumors that they were - that might be some information Ross could use as well. First, she checked every calendar she could find and there were a few. But the flip calendar on the desk was the only one missing a page from the previous day. Impulsively, Gemma grabbed the page after that, folded it and stuffed it into her pocket.

  Then she began quickly shuffling through the bills, trying to memorize everything she could. From what she could see, it looked like the restaurant and hotel were in the most trouble, although there were a few bills pertaining to golf course maintenance dated the previous summer. All marked unpaid.

  Gemma ran her finger down the ledger and tried to compare it with the spreadsheet. Her limited knowledge of accounting made it impossible to know what she was looking at.

  The slight creak of the door sounded like a gunshot to her ears.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Do you think she did it?” Vincent asked.

  “I wouldn’t put it past her. She was so dead set against the whole deal,” Benjamin answered as the two men entered the office.

  After hearing their voices, Gemma barely had enough sense or time to get out from behind that cluttered desk and cross the room to the sofa. And that’s where they found her.

  “May we help you?” Benjamin asked, frowning slightly.

  His voice was as cold as usual but even from where she stood in the gloomy room, Gemma could see the fire in his eyes. At that moment, she was sure he would have killed her if given the opportunity.

  “I seem to have lost one of my earrings.” Trying to sound bright and chipper, Gemma said the first thing that came into her head.

  Both men continued to stare at her and she wished she could just disappear through the floor. The brothers seemed like giants to her at that moment, and they were blocking her only escape route. Panic threatened to overtake her. She swallowed hard and kept talking.

  “I was thinking that maybe when they brought me in here yesterday, I lost it on the sofa or in the cushions,” Gemma said, suddenly feeling surprisingly calm. And then, as if to prove her story, she lifted up one of the cushions looked underneath.

  “My office is cleaned daily,” Benjamin said. “If you had lost an earring in here someone would have found it by now.”

  “Oh, okay. Well, if it does turn up, would you let me know?” she said with a bright smile as she tried to edge past them toward the door.

  Neither man moved at first. Vincent smiled down at her but it was like looking into the face of a snake. Waves of anger simply radiated off of Benjamin. At the last minute they stepped aside to let her pass.

  Out in the hall, she closed her eyes briefly and fought the urge to run. All she wanted to do was get as far away from that office as quickly as possible. She stepped onto the elevator and came face to face with Victoria Northlake.

  “Good morning, again,” Gemma said, wondering if this was the ‘she’ the brothers were discussing when they caught her in the office.

  Victoria merely nodded, her countenance as cold and rigid as her brother’s but there was something else there as well. Either she was on some medication or needed to be. Her dark eyes darted about wildly and she looked somewhat unkempt. Strands of limp brown hair had come loose from her customary chignon and sweat gleamed on her cheeks and chin in the dim lights.

  “Victoria, are you alright?” Gemma asked, unable to stop herself. The woman was obviously in distress.

  Victoria looked down at her hands. They were trembling. In fact, her whole body was shaking and it appeared to be getting worse by the minute. She took a deep, trembling breath.

  “Are you sick? Can I call someone?” Gemma asked.

  “They think I did it, you know,” Victoria sobbed.

  Gemma kept quiet.

  “My brothers think I killed him,” she repeated, almost as if she was talking to herself.

  “Why would you do that?” Gemma asked, keeping her tone low and quiet.

  Victoria shook her head, tears streaming down her face.

  “I didn’t want to go through with it. This is my home.”

  Gemma was beginning to put two and two together. Were they going to sell Northlake Manor to General West? Surely it would cost more than the cash he had in that briefcase. But if that had been a down payment...

  “How did your mother feel about it?” Gemma asked. Whatever ‘it’ was.

  “Mother knew nothing about it. They were going to just leave us to fend for ourselves and...” Victoria’s words were drowned out by tears.

  Gemma had a million questions but she was sure Victoria either wouldn’t or couldn’t answer them at this point. The elevator bumped to a stop and Gemma realized she hadn’t pushed the button for her floor. Instead they were all the way at the top of the building where Mrs. Northlake’s rooms were located, according to Nick. From what Nick had told her about the layout of the property, she knew that Mrs. Northlake shared the floor with Benjamin and Vincent.

  “Can I help you to your room?” Gemma asked, careful not to touch Victoria as they stepped out into the dark hall.

  Victoria looked at her as if she’d sprouted wings. “I don’t live up here.”

  “Oh,” Gemma
said, looking around.

  From what she could see, this part of the building looked older and more run down than the rest of the hotel. The carpet was completely worn through in some places and even though there were sconces on the walls, the whole length of the hall was dark and foreboding. Then Gemma shivered, realizing it was colder up here as well. Over Victoria’s shoulder she could see a bare window with a view of the mountains beyond.

  “I live in a guest cottage off the golf course,” Victoria said, bringing Gemma’s attention back to her. “I’ve lived there since-.”

  Before she finished her sentence, a door behind her opened and Gemma whirled around to see Simone standing there.

  “Ms. Stone,” Simone said. She forced a smile, even though it was obvious she wasn’t happy to see Gemma here.

  “Mother, I can explain...” Victoria began.

  Mrs. Northlake held up her hand. “Ms. Stone, these are our private quarters. We would appreciate it if you would not intrude on them.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Gemma said, suddenly more frightened of the little old lady than she had been of either of her sons. “It was an accident. I was helping Victoria and...”

  “Victoria is a drama queen, as you young people say, and you’re not to believe a word that she says,” Simone said, shooting a withering glance at her daughter.

  Originally when Gemma had seen Victoria in action in the restaurant and at the front desk, she had felt bad for the people working under her. Now Gemma’s heart went out to the woman in her mid-fifties, who appeared to shrink under her mother’s gaze.

  “Yes, ma’am. I’m sorry to intrude,” Gemma said, backing toward the elevator. She didn’t even dare breathe until the doors closed and she started downward.

  The whole episode was unsettling, and now she didn’t know what to think. Maybe the whole family was crazy. Maybe they had conspired to kill the general. Gemma didn’t know, but she was glad when the elevator stopped at her floor.

  “Oh, here she is now,” Holly said into her phone when Gemma opened the door to their room moments later.