Four Seasons of Mystery

by Karen MacInerney

  "If you have a few minutes, I can put on the tea kettle," I suggested.

  "He doesn't come into the kitchen, does he?" she asked, looking wary.

  "He hasn't so far."

  As I spoke, I caught a flash of light outside the window, near the driveway. I bit my lip; it was the sun glancing off the lens of Alex's ever-present camera as he strode down the hill.

  "He's here," I said as he spotted Charlene's van. A hungry, hopeful look on his handsome face, he trotted up to the kitchen window and peered in.

  Charlene froze, a cookie halfway to her mouth, looking like a deer caught in headlights. He hurried to the door and let himself into the kitchen, along with a burst of fresh spring air. With his good looks, his lean frame, and the eager sparkle in his eye, I could see why Charlene had been drawn to him, but her face now was closed.

  "Charlene!" he said. "I was just down at the store looking for you, and it turns out you're here. Did you get the flowers?"

  "I did," she said. "But I'm seeing someone. You need to stop."

  "I messed up before," he said. "I didn't make you enough of a priority. But things have changed. I want to settle down, share a life with you... maybe even start a family."

  At the mention of a family, I saw the set of Charlene's jaw soften, and her eyes looked a bit misty. "But you were never here," she pointed out. "You kept promising..."

  "I know," he said, crossing the distance between them. "But things are different now. I quit my job."

  "You quit?"

  "Last week," he said. "I told them I'm done. I want to settle down, be part of a community. I just can't keep living out of a suitcase all the time."

  "Why didn't you do this before?" Charlene asked, swiping at her eyes. "I begged you to stay, but you always said just one more job..."

  As I watched, he got down on one knee in front of her and fished in his pocket. "It wasn't until I lost you that I knew what I had. Charlene," he said, producing a sparkling diamond ring. His voice was low and hoarse. "Will you marry me?"

  Charlene blinked at him, a half-eaten shortbread cookie in her right hand. As she and Alex stared at each other, there was a shadow at the back window. As I turned to see who it was, there was a knock at the door leading to the front of the inn.

  I turned to see my cousin Robert.

  "Oh, no," Charlene breathed, standing up and wiping crumbs from her shirt. "Put that away," she admonished Alex, hurrying to the door to greet Robert, whose expression was, to put it mildly, stormy.

  "Who's this?" he asked.

  Before Charlene had a chance to answer, Alex stepped up and extended a hand. "I'm Alex Van der Berg. And you must be my rival for this beautiful woman's affections."

  "So you're the one who's been stalking my girlfriend," Robert said.

  "Not stalking," Alex said. "I came to visit her."

  "I don't believe she invited you," Robert said coolly, "and it's my understanding that she's asked you to leave her alone."

  Alex shrugged. "She's angry over what happened between us," he said. "And she should be. I just want to explain..."

  "Leave," Robert said in a voice that brooked no discussion.

  "Where am I supposed to go? I'm staying at the inn."

  "Go to your room then," Robert said. "I don't care where you go, as long as it isn't here. If the lady has told you to leave her alone, you need to respect her request."

  Alex put his hands up. "No offense meant," he said. "I'll leave now." Before he turned to go, his eyes shot to Charlene. "Think about it," he told her, then walked to the door and let himself out quietly.

  "Think about what?" Robert asked when he'd gone.

  "It's nothing," Charlene said, her eyes darting away from his. "I'm so glad you're here." She planted a kiss on his cheek, but I couldn't help noticing that there was a distracted air to the gesture.

  "What happened?" Robert asked.

  Charlene sighed. "He just proposed to me."

  Robert blinked. "Proposed? What did you say?"

  "You turned up before I had a chance to answer," she said. Then, after a pause, she added, "The answer is no, of course."

  Robert's face flushed, and his eyes glinted with anger. "He asked you to marry him?"

  Charlene nodded.

  "What a jerk," Robert said, shaking his head. "He can't be bothered to stop by for six months at a time, and now that you've let him go and started another relationship, he wants to pull you back in."

  "He is a jerk," I concurred.

  "I just wish he'd never come back," Charlene said, stuffing the rest of the cookie into her mouth. "I'm surprised to see you, sweetheart; I thought you weren't here until this coming weekend!"

  "I took a few days off," Robert said. "The weather's lovely, and I wanted to spend it with you."

  "That's so romantic," she said, leaning over to give him a kiss.

  "Tania said you'd come up to the inn. I wanted to surprise you; I guess I succeeded."

  "You got here just in time," she said. "I've got to head back to the store; want to come with me?"

  "I'd love to," he said. I watched as the two left the kitchen, hands linked as they headed for Charlene's truck, and couldn't help feeling a frisson of worry. Robert was a good man; he was solid, handsome, and loved Charlene completely. But he didn't have the rakish looks or sense of adventure of her former flame, and I had a bad feeling that, despite her protestations, she still harbored feelings for the wayward photographer.

  Not for the first time, I wished Alex had stayed out with the whales in the San Juan Islands, or wherever he was, as long as it wasn't here.

  I was just finishing another batch of lemon shortbread cookies when there was a knock at the door. It was Matilda Jenkins, the town historian and keeper of the museum.

  "Hey!" I said, opening the door and welcoming her in. "I hear you made an exciting discovery this week!"

  "I did," she said. "And since you live in one of the Selfridges' houses, I thought you might be interested, too, so I made a copy of the diary for you."

  "That's so sweet!" I said. "Want a cookie?" I offered. "They just came out of the oven."

  "I'd love one," she said, sitting down at the kitchen table. As I set out a few cookies on a plate, she pulled a stack of copies from her purse and spread them out on the table.

  "Margaret's diary?" I inquired as I sat down next to her, taking in the spidery writing.

  "It is," she said. "I just wish I had more information about which house she was living in at the time."

  "Nobody knows?"

  "She moved around from one child's house to another," she said. "They shared the burden of caring for her as she started to decline."

  "That's what Charlene said. And you don't know where she was at the end?"

  "No," she said. "She doesn't say. She just talks about pirates coming, and burying her valuables "where the wolves gather to gaze out at Gull Rock."

  I leaned over her shoulder to look at the spidery, erratic handwriting.

  "Wolves? There aren't any wolves on Cranberry Island."

  "She was struck with dementia at the end," Matilda reminded me. "The thing is, I made the mistake of telling Emmeline about this. Now the whole island knows; I even got a call from Gertrude from the Daily Mail."

  "Oh, no," I said. "Everyone's going to be digging for the famous ruby ring now. Was that really a thing, by the way?"

  "I have a photo of her wearing it," she said. "Right here." She pulled out a photo of a pretty young woman in a long, old-fashioned dress, standing stiff-backed next to a man with a beard and a suit. On her hand, which was held at an angle in front of her, was what appeared to be a massive ring. Behind them, I recognized the shingles of the inn; it was odd, seeing these strangers in a picture of the place I now called home. It was once theirs, I realized, and wondered what these walls had seen over the years.

  "Is that William Selfridge with her?"

  "One of Murray's ancestors, yes. He brought the ring back for her. She was supposed to m
arry someone else, but he managed to woo her away... this giant ruby was part of it. She wore it long after he died at sea, apparently... only in the last few years did she start having paranoia about pirates."

  "So she hid it."

  "She did," Matilda confirmed. "She supposedly buried the ring and the rest of her jewelry. But no one knows where."

  "Well, we do now," I said.

  "Right," Matilda said dryly. "Where the wolves get together to look at Gull Rock."

  "Gull Rock's right off the island. Anyone on the island named Wolf?" I asked.

  "Not that I know of," she said, "but I'll double-check the records. That's a good idea."

  "Are people really digging up gardens at all the old Selfridge residences?"

  "They are," she said. "Ingrid lost her hydrangeas and Emmeline found a bunch of kids digging around her veggie garden. You haven't had anyone here yet?"

  "Not that I know of," I said. "But I'm sure they'll be coming, especially if Gertrude publishes something about it." I groaned; that was all I needed... half of Mount Desert Island treasure-hunting in the front yard of the inn.

  "Wait," she said. "There was a Wolf family from Germany here at some point; I remember seeing it in census."

  "What year?" I asked.

  "I don't know," she said. "I'll have to research it."

  "If you can find out where they lived, at least that might distract some of the diggers."

  "I'll get on it," I said. "In the meantime, do you want me to leave this here? Maybe you can make something of it."

  "I'd love that," I said. "It's always fun seeing how people lived in the past."

  "It is, isn't it?" she asked, lighting up. "There's so much hidden history all around it; it's wonderful just thinking about it. That's why I work in the museum; it brings the past to life for me, at least in some small way, every day."

  "I often think about all the people who lived here before me," I said, touching one of the inn's walls. How many women had cooked in this kitchen? How many pies and loaves of bread had been baked here, how many dinners made for hungry families? "Thanks for bringing this by," I said, my mind still sifting through thoughts of the past as I riffled the copied pages of a diary almost a century ago. One passage in particular stuck out to me: William has been gone for 273 days now, and I have no way of knowing if he is alive or dead. I walk down to the shore every day, searching the horizon. His last missive arrived three months ago. He has been silent too long, I fear.

  "You said her husband died at sea?" I asked, looking up at Matilda.

  "He did," she said. "It was very sad. His ship went down somewhere off the Grand Banks; he last made port in England. Apparently she got his last letter just before she found out the ship went down, and all hands were lost. It's here," she said, flipping to the end of the stack of pages. "It's no wonder it's said the house was cursed for the Selfridges. His father, and then William."

  Dearest Margaret, the letter began. I write this to you from London. It has been a long and lonely journey, although successful; with luck, only a few more such voyages and I will be able to remain in your loving arms forever. I cannot wait to hold you again, and to see your sweet smile. I dream of you picking lupines in the spring, the roses in your cheeks, your hair flying in the wind, and of the sound of small feet rushing down the front stairs to the parlor, of you cradling our infant in your soft arms.

  In the meantime, I have acquired two volumes of botanical prints, which I trust you will love, including yet another treatise on the identification and uses of flowering plants.

  "So romantic. They were really in love, weren't they?"

  "They were," Matilda confirmed. "It's very sweet... and very tragic. She was apparently very interested in plants, and was something of a healer on the island."

  "No wonder he was bringing her books. How thoughtful!" I said, glancing over the description of the house in the letter again. "This sounds like the inn," I said.

  "It does, doesn't it?" she said.

  "Are there lupines?"

  "Not now, but who knows what there was back then?"

  I glanced out the window at the swathe of lupines leading down to the rocky coast as Matilda finished her cookie. "How long did they live here?"

  "I'm not sure," she said. "She and her husband lived here when they were first married, but I don't know when she started moving to stay with extended family. There were bedrooms on the first floor, but it must have been a lot to keep up for a widow, I imagine."

  "The place was in pretty bad shape when I bought it, but she'd been long gone by then. There's so much history I don't know about this old place," I said, looking at the yellow walls of my kitchen and thinking of all they had seen over the years.

  "Any more ghost sightings?" she asked.

  "Not since we solved the mystery of what happened," I said. A few years back, we'd had a specter at the inn; once we'd uncovered the cause of her death, she seemed to have been satisfied, and we hadn't heard from her since. I always wondered if Annie was still around... or if there were other ghosts here I hadn't yet encountered.

  "Strange business," she commented.

  "It is," I said. "I didn't used to believe, but now..."

  "There are more things in heaven and earth..." Matilda said, and a little shiver crept down my spine.

  John went to bed early, but I stayed up late that night, folding laundry and thinking about the ruby myth. Was there in fact a huge ruby floating around the island? I wondered if Margaret had lied about burying it and actually sold it. Were "the wolves" a reference to greedy relatives? And if so, where might they have gathered?

  When I finished the laundry, I assembled the ingredients for Chocolate Walnut Sea Salt Caramel Bars; I was craving something sweet, and had been dying to try the recipe. I softened the butter in the microwave, then set to work creaming the butter and adding in brown sugar and flour; I could almost taste the crust already as I pressed it into a foil-lined pan and put it into the oven. As I was measuring out chocolate and unwrapping caramels for the topping, I heard the front door open and close. Curious, I headed to the parlor, wondering who was out so late, but by the time I got there, whoever it was had already disappeared up the stairs. I heard a door close on the second floor above me. Since all my guests were on the second floor, there was no way to know who it was; I did, however, notice a bit of fresh dirt and grass smudged on the front carpet.

  I cleaned it up with a few paper towels, buffing out the mud, and then followed the tracks up the stairs, picking up bits of dirt and grass as I went. By the time I got to the top step, however, the dirt had worn off. There was one muddy bit of grass on the runner in the hallway leading toward where both Alex and Georgina were housed, but even a close examination of the rug in front of their doors didn't reveal who had been out. Had someone had insomnia and gone for a walk? Or had Alex made a late night visit to Charlene and Robert? If so, I mused, I'd find out about it in the morning.

  Why was I so worried about it, anyway? I wondered as I headed back downstairs; the timer on my phone had started beeping, and it was time to take the pan out of the oven. The digging must have me on edge; it bothered me to know someone was on the property without my knowing it. I retreated to the kitchen, pulled the pan from the oven and spread chocolate chips on it, covering the pan with foil so that the chocolate would melt. While the pan rested, I turned on the back porch light, grabbed my flashlight and headed out to the back yard. I swept the area with my light, but saw no sign of additional activity. Then I looked up at the inn. Both Alex and Georgina were still up; there were lights in both rooms, so there was no way to know who had been out and about.

  I sighed and headed back inside, still wondering who had been out—and why—as I smoothed the melted chocolate over the crust, then put the caramels into a bowl with cream and put them into the microwave to melt. When the caramel was melted, I spread it over the chocolate, then finished it with walnuts and a sprinkling of sea salt, allowing myself one warm corner before h
eading up to join John. It was crumbly and gooey and melty and delicious, and it was all I could do not to wolf down half the pan.

  Resisting the urge to dig into the cooling bar cookies again, I covered them with foil and headed upstairs to John. He was already asleep, and the cats, Biscuit, and Smudge, who were thoughtfully warming my pillow for me. Biscuit meowed as I crawled into bed, snuggling into me, and Smudge took up residence by my right ear; their purring soon soothed me to sleep.

  "How's the hunt?" I asked the next morning as Georgina came down to breakfast, a laptop under one arm and a basket slung over the other. She was a fit, attractive woman, her dark hair pulled back and only a touch of make-up on her chiseled features. Today she wore a pair of slim jeans that flattered her slender figure and an indigo blouse that dove rather deep; above it was a crystal pendant shaped like her favorite flower, the lupine.

  "I've found three stands," she said, "and about six scattered individuals. I'm collecting leaves for genetic analysis, but I'm going to have to come back to collect seed once the blooming period is over. But I found something even more interesting."

  "What?" I asked.

  "Some of the lupines I took from your property are genetically different from the others."

  "Oh, really?"

  "Yes," she said. "They have a mutation that I'm not seeing in the populations on the mainland, and it's concentrated in the plants around your inn. It's like they're a separate population, somehow... planted earlier, or in isolation."

  "Weird," I said.

  "It is. I wish I could get to the bottom of it." She glanced around the dining room. "Is the nature photographer down yet?"

  "I haven't seen him," I said as I poured her a cup of coffee. "You two have a lot in common, it seems."

  "Oh, we do," she said. "I was hoping I could get him to take a few photos of the lupines in bloom. I got a few pics on my phone, but they're not exactly magazine-worthy."

  "You could ask," I said. "I don't think he's here on a job."

  "I heard... something about a woman on the island? Charlotte, or something?"