“The other one! Dave Sommerset is here too!”
“You’re kidding. What kind of happenstance is that? Do the two of them know each other?”
“I suppose they might,” said Barney.
“Did you talk to him?”
“You mean Dave? No. Not yet. I’m just getting settled in. He’s in the dining room. Oh no! That reminds me: I already ordered food. I’d better get back out there.”
“You ordered food and forgot about it?” asked Jean.
“I’ve got to go,” said Barney.
“Have you lost your mind?” Jean barked.
“I don’t know. Today’s drive really took it out of me. You can’t even imagine, Jeannie. There was a bridge out…”
“Don’t you think you’d better go back out to the dining room?”
“I guess you’re right. I’ll call you later.”
“Okay. Do that. Don’t forget.”
“I’ll remember,” Barney said.
He hung up the phone and went to use the bathroom. By the time he washed his hands and came back out to the quaint little living room, he couldn’t remember what was supposed to happen next.
There was a knock on his door.
“Hello?” he said.
“Hi. It’s me, Klarinda. The innkeeper.” She smiled at him. A friendly face. That was always a good thing.
“Hello,” he said again. He wasn’t sure whether he’d set it yet or not.
“I’m sorry to bother you, but your meal came out a little bit ago and I’m afraid it’s getting quite cold.”
“What?”
“The meal you ordered? The lasagna and chicken? It’s been on your table for a while and I was getting concerned that something might have happened to you.”
“Oh! Oh, right. My dinner. I’ll be right out.”
“Okay, great. I’ll see if we can’t put it back in the oven for you for a couple of minutes.”
“That sounds good,” said Barney.
The friendly woman smiled and walked away. Barney closed the door after her and leaned against the wall. He’d been having a lot of trouble remembering things lately, but this was on a whole new level. Before the moment could get away from him, he grabbed a pen he happened to see lying on the kitchen counter of the small apartment and wrote EAT DINNER NOW on his hand. He positioned his hand right where he would see it when he opened his eyes. Then he let himself close his eyes for a long, needed moment, trying to ground himself.
Start with what you know and go from there, he told himself. This was how he did it when things got confusing.
He was in Windy Pines.
He’d driven here to meet someone.
He’d been driving all day. It had been terrible.
He’d left his gun in a gas station restroom. That felt like a dream, but it had really happened.
He was here for a meeting. It had something to do with that lobster plan.
Today had been a hard day. He couldn’t believe he’d even made it here.
Why was he here again?
He wasn’t sure why he was here.
Man, was he tired!
He was going to have to figure things out tomorrow.
He opened his eyes.
“Eat dinner now,” he read.
That sounded like a good idea.
He opened the door in front of him and came out into a hallway, then he followed his nose and ears to the dining room. The pretty dark-haired woman was standing by a table, setting hot food on it.
“All ready for you,” she said. She was smiling.
“Thank you,” Barney said, sitting down, feeling nothing but relief.
Chapter 29
Earl Morn stumbled down the stairs of the inn, holding his urn of ashes in his arms like it was a beloved child.
“Are you looking for the dining room?” asked the dark-haired woman standing at the front desk.
“I suppose so,” he said, rubbing his eyes. He hadn’t been out of his room in over twenty-four hours. He was coming to terms with the fact that he was still alive.
After this young woman had visited him with the basket of room refreshers, Earl had opened the packet of pain killers and then, on a whim, washed them down with a glass of water and the vial of poison, murmuring, “Sorry kids,” and “See you on the other side, Tabitha!”
The poison had been fizzy and delicious. It had erupted in his mouth and, for a few minutes, he’d contemplated calling 911 as it had worked its corrosive magic on his tongue and throat. But then, as he’d lain there waiting to die, curled up in a little ball on top of the bed, urn pulled in close to his chest, eyes closed, waiting for the pain to come, he hadn’t been able to resist smacking his lips at how tasty that poison had been. Especially after eating nothing for such a long stretch of time.
He’d forced himself to get serious, to think about the bliss of dancing on golden shores with his beloved. He’d wondered whether they’d be old or if they’d get to be young again. He’d pictured Tabitha wearing a long, flowy dress, and himself wearing loose linen pants, a Hawaiian shirt, and flip-flops. He’d been mildly curious why heaven looked like Margaritaville, but had decided not to fight it. He’d become drowsy then and thought, “This is actually quite relaxing. Goodbye, Earth!”
Then, a few hours later, he’d sat up in bed. Right back at Mistletoe Manor. He’d been overcome with a desire for real food and some human company.
Apparently, the poison he’d bought from the teenagers hanging out at Pappajohn Sculpture Park hadn’t been poison after all. Honestly, he was pretty sure now that the poison he’d paid $500 for was actually crushed cherry Pop Rocks.
So he’d gotten up, gotten himself dressed, and here he was.
“You’re staying in the blue room, right? I stopped by and gave you some aspirin earlier?” said the innkeeper. She had a kind face, Earl decided. Being alive was nice sometimes. Maybe sticking around for another year or two wouldn’t be the worst thing.
“That’s right, that was me,” he said. “What’s all that noise out there now?”
“Just a tow truck hauling someone’s vehicle away so he can get some work done on it.”
“Noisy place around here,” said Earl.
“Sometimes it gets a little chaotic,” she agreed.
Earl cleared his throat and hugged the urn a little closer to his chest.
“Would you mind stopping back up here after dinner so I can get you officially checked-in for another night?” the woman asked, taking a moment to give his urn a quizzical look.
“Sure, I’ll do that,” said Earl. “It’s my wife,” he added, giving the urn a loving little squeeze. Being minutes post-suicide gave a man little reason to sugarcoat matters.
“You must really love her. To bring her on vacation with you.”
“I do.”
“I hope someone loves me that much someday. Well, sir, it’s a full house in there again tonight,” she said, “and it’s about to get even crazier, because the reindeer sweater oldies are back…”
“The what?” Earl interrupted.
“You’ll see. Follow me. There’s a table for two available. Let me show you to it.”
Neil Prescott was seated in the parlor, hiding from the man in the dining room, pretending to read his book, but watching this exchange. This was the moment, he would later look back upon and know, when he had fallen in love with Klarinda Snow.
Chapter 30
Josephine had long since arrived for her shift, but Klarinda was in no hurry to get back to her lonely apartment. She and Pierre were standing near the door to the kitchen, listening to the carolers singing Come, All Ye Faithful, followed by Un Flambeau, Jeannette, Isabella. To Klarinda’s surprise, Pierre was getting teary-eyed.
“They’ve been doing this for years. Usually it’s Jingle Bells or Deck the Halls with Boughs of Holly. If they could sing this song in French, why did they wait so long?” he wondered.
“I don’t know, but now we’ll know to request it,” Klarinda said,
patting her normally stoic chef’s arm.
The old man who was staying in her apartment was also getting emotional over the Christmas carols. He was still seated in the dining room, even though he’d finished his meal quite some time ago. He kept wiping at his eyes and taking long, deep, gulping breaths of air. Probably because he’d finished enough food for two or three people and didn’t have much room left inside his body for his lungs to expand. He blotted at his cheeks with an old cloth handkerchief and belched, then unbuttoned the top button of his trousers to make a little more room. Now and then, he looked around the room, checking, Klarinda assumed, to see if Neil had come in or not.
Neil hadn’t been down all night, though, to Klarinda’s disappointment. She’d seen him in the parlor hours ago, but then he’d gone upstairs to his room. It was now long past her bedtime and it looked like she wouldn’t be seeing him again. Not tonight, perhaps not even tomorrow if he happened to check out when she wasn’t covering the front desk. She knew her alarm was set for 5:45 in the morning, but her hope of seeing him was a large part of what had kept her at the inn so late.
“We have a special announcement,” one of the old carolers said, as the grandfather clock chimed eleven times, making this, by far, their latest night out at Mistletoe Manor ever. “Those of you who are locals will see this in the Windy Pines paper this week, but Otis here is going to be leaving us soon.”
The dining room was filled with guests of the inn and a few townspeople. There was a collective gasp of disappointment at the news.
“What Ralph said is true. I’m retiring from this,” said the old man named Otis. “I can’t snowshoe up the mountain like I used to. I’ll still make appearances down in the town, but I can’t be a regular part of this group any longer, I’m sad to say.”
“So,” continued Ralph, after giving the people in the room enough time to express their appreciation for Otis, “if you know anyone who’d be a good addition to the group, let us know.”
Klarinda couldn’t help but notice that the man seated across from the urn looked intrigued by that.
“If you’d like to talk to us about it, we’ll be sitting right over there, having a nightcap before we head back on down the mountain,” said Otis, nodding toward the table in front of the fireplace.
Klarinda watched as the man with the urn finished his drink and then stood up and went over to where the four of them had just sat down. He pulled up a fifth chair and a sixth to set the urn upon, and then began talking with them.
“Who’s up for a moonlight snowball fight?” hollered Dave Sommerset.
“It’s going to be an exciting night, I see,” Josephine said, as she brushed past Klarinda with a tub of dirty dishes in her arms since the high schoolers had all gone home for the night. “I’m glad that creep is going outside,” she added. “He keeps checking me out, right in front of his girlfriend.”
“I’ll stick around a little longer and help you and Pierre,” said Klarinda, as almost everyone else in the room rushed outside to play in the starlit snow.
“No, go on ahead. We’ve got it. Go home and get some sleep.” Then she disappeared through the swinging door into the kitchen.
“Thank you,” Klarinda said after her, just as Neil came into the dining room.
“I’m so glad you’re still here,” he said.
“You are?” she asked, unable to stop herself from smiling.
Noticing she had her coat on, he asked, “Are you going outside too?”
“Just to go to my apartment. It’s behind the inn in the old carriage house out back,” she replied. “You missed dinner!” And I missed you, she added in her head.
“You’re going straight from here to your apartment? Don’t you ever get to leave this place?” he asked.
“Sure, I leave this place. Once every couple of weeks, I make a trip to Winter River. And I usually go to the grocery store here in town on Mondays.”
“You never go out on the town? Or out at night?” he asked her.
“When you’re in the middle of a hotspot like Mistletoe Manor, why would you bother looking elsewhere for entertainment?” she joked.
“Would you be up for venturing into town with me?” he asked.
“Right now?”
He nodded. “I took a nap and slept through dinner.”
“I had a feeling you didn’t meet with that old man who came to see you,” she said, shaking her head in pretend admonishment.
“I’m trying out something new called doing what I want to do,” Neil said. “And I didn’t want to meet with him.”
“You’re a rebel, Neil Prescott.”
“You know my name.”
“So I do,” she said, embarrassed.
He leaned in unnecessarily close to her and said, “Klarinda Snow, I thought I’d venture out and see if I could come up with anywhere still serving food.”
“Aha! So you know my name too. It’s so late that we might only be able to get drinks at this point,” she warned him, tilting her face in even closer to his.
“So that’s a yes?” he asked, smiling.
“It’s a yes,” she said. “I’ve got a place in mind. It’s right in the heart of Windy Pines. Can you give me five or ten minutes to change my clothes?”
“You look great, but sure, I can wait.”
“I’ll meet you at the front desk,” she said, before heading out to her apartment behind the inn to get ready.
Chapter 31
Barney was far too old for playing in the snow, but it presented an opportunity to talk to Dave Sommerset, since he still hadn’t had a chance to, and since Neil had never shown up in the dining room.
He followed all the couples outside and stood by the woodpile near the front porch, packing his pipe with tobacco, taking his time with it. Moments like this, he was glad he was a smoker. It gave him something to do with his hands.
A row of snowmen had taken over the side yard. He was staring at them, puffing on his pipe, mesmerized by the way the colorful lights from the display up on the roof reflected off the snow, when he overheard Dave Sommerset talking.
“Some crooks from a place called Snake Whisper. You ever heard of it? Well, yeah, this woman sent me a letter about using my oceanfront property for catching lobsters…”
The comfortable post-dinner fuzziness that had settled over Barney like a cloud lifted and blew away, leaving him feeling naked, cold, and very, very alert.
The snowball fight was over before it had even begun. Everyone was gathered around Dave, listening to his story.
“Something about the story smelled fishy, so I called up my friend Dodd Mortenson today and I said, ‘Dodd, what do you know about trapping lobsters in Port Elspeth?’”
Barney gulped, just about choking on smoke. No one even noticed him hacking into the sleeve of his jacket. It went on and on until he was afraid that he might start puking. From the corner of his watering eye, between gut-wrenching gags and gasps for air, he watched them all still gathered in a circle, twenty or twenty-five feet away from him, listening to Dave. They were all still immersed in his story, ignoring his turmoil. He might as well have been invisible.
“Dodd told me that catching lobsters in Port Elspeth is strictly prohibited,” Dave was saying, when Barney’s coughing fit had subsided and his ears had quit ringing from the sound of his own retching and gagging.
So! Dave had involved one of the townspeople. What a little snitch! Boy, had he and Jean screwed up when they’d picked him as a candidate. And to think he’d told not just anyone, but a Mortenson. Wasn’t that one of the town’s founding families? Barney could remember that last name coming up a lot in the research he and Jean had done. If the name Mortenson was listed on a property, they avoided it and moved on. All that research and care, and for what? So Dave Sommerset could spout his mouth off to Port Elspeth locals and this crowd of people and who-knew-who-else? He was calling Port Elspeth by name, and did he have to mention Snake Whisper? This all felt like a nightmare. Everything
about today had been one long nightmare. Even the chicken, even the lasagna. They were fighting with each other inside his ripe-to-the-point-of-bursting belly.
Why hadn’t this fellow listened? Jeannie had done such a good job of writing that letter. It had specifically said not to tell anyone about the plan. This wasn’t good. Jean wasn’t going to like this one bit.
“I asked Dodd whether there had been a change to the bylaws, or something like that, and he said there hadn’t been,” Dave continued.
“Dave! They don’t want to hear this story. Let’s just play in the snow,” said the little blonde next to him.
“Tiffinie, I’m talking! So, Dodd said, ‘Dave, read the letter to me again,’ so I did. Then he said, ‘Why don’t you take a picture of it with your phone and send it to me.’”
This was too much for Barney. He sat down on top of the woodpile and let out a small wail. “I’m just an old man!” he cried. But a gust of wind came up over the mountain and carried away the little wail and his words.
Dave’s voice, however, could be heard loud and clear. “Dodd said he’d heard of people doing this. Running shady operations where they fish without trap tags or harvest lobsters that are any size and sell them to other crooked people who don’t care about the rules.”
“How can people be so terrible?” exclaimed one of the women.
“I guess he figured me for a real dumbass, but you can’t outsmart Dave Sommerset. I’m not going to let this go. I’m going to go out there to his ranch, just like he’s expecting, and I’m going to make him sorry he didn’t keep the name Dave Sommerset out of his mouth.”
Barney shoved himself up from the woodpile, ignoring the dozen or so logs that went rolling off the side of it, and slinked a little closer to the door of the inn, contemplating what to do. He needed Jean’s help. Then again, he was afraid to even tell her about this. He felt he had no choice though. He was going to have to call her.
His fingers had just closed around the doorknob when the door began to open. He jumped back, as Neil and the innkeeper stepped out of it.
In the Heart of Windy Pines Page 10
