Muffin But Murder

by Victoria Hamilton

  One more odd event marked the late day.

  I went to Golden Acres to visit with Gogi Grace. She is a lovely, classy, elegant woman in her sixties, and I’d always figured that though her retirement home was a business venture, it was also a way of serving her community. We got along extremely well; in other words, she could not be more different from her obstinate, grumpy son, the sheriff.

  We were sipping a cup of her favorite cappuccino in her office, a warm, cluttered, happy room on the main floor of Golden Acres. It was more like a living room than an office, with bookshelves, artwork, and a sitting area at one end. We had been discussing Percy Channer’s visit, and I had vented a little of my lingering mourning for my late husband. I went into my purse for a tissue and came out with a crumpled piece of paper, one I had totally forgotten about until that moment. Flattening it out on my lap, I read it, and the surprise must have showed on my face.

  “What’s wrong, Merry?” Gogi asked.

  “It’s this note I found on my car the other day,” I said, explaining to her the confrontation with the frowsy woman and the note I had found on my windshield. “I didn’t read it until just now.”

  “What does it say?”

  “Well, it’s scrawled, really, like it was done in a hurry. It says, Your not welcome here. What will it take to make you leeve?” I handed the note over to her. “Why do people want me to leave, Gogi? What have I done wrong?”

  She put on her rhinestone-studded cheaters and read the note. She handed it back to me. “Give it to Virgil.”

  “He’s not doing anything about the vandalism; what could he do about a crank note?”

  “You don’t know he’s not doing anything about the vandalism. And the note could be connected. In fact, it could all be just one person, like the woman who yelled at you.”

  “Virgil says some people in town are worried about what I’m going to do with the castle.”

  Sighing, Gogi said, “Unfortunately I heard that at book club just the other day. Helen Johnson expressed a concern about your party. She wondered if you would be inviting the ‘wrong kind of people’ to Autumn Vale.”

  “Helen,” I mused, thinking it sounded familiar. “Oh! I met her about a month ago or so. A church lady, right? And she’s friends with Isadore?”

  “As much friends as Isadore has, and more because Helen feels it’s her duty to be kind to the downtrodden, as she puts it. We all belong to the same book club. But in truth, Helen is just a little old-fashioned. She doesn’t mean anything by it, and I know for certain that she wouldn’t be your vandal.”

  I remembered a tidy little church lady in tweed capris and pearls. I couldn’t picture her with a can of spray paint, nor did I think she would misspell you’re and leave, as the writer of the note had. “No, this doesn’t seem like her. Has anyone else said anything?”

  “I’ve heard that Minnie, the post lady, has been gossiping quite a bit about Shilo and Pish, calling them weirdos,” Gogi said, with an apologetic shrug.

  “She doesn’t like you, either, though,” I said.

  “Oh, I know!” Gogi said, with a chuckle. “She keeps telling people I murdered both my husbands!”

  “I guess I won’t worry about it,” I said, folding the note and putting it back in my purse. “If I can sell the castle, it won’t be any of my concern anymore.”

  “Will you stay in Autumn Vale? You could buy a house here with the proceeds from the castle and still have a lot of money left over.”

  I shook my head, regretfully. “Even if I sell the castle, I’ll have to find work, and there doesn’t seem to be anything for my particular skill set here in this town.” I touched her arm, then stood up. “I’ll miss so many Valers when I leave.”

  “You’ll always have a place to visit,” she said. We hugged, and I headed home.

  The days passed, and October continued its lovely procession, the woods surrounding Wynter Castle taking on the umber shades of autumn. It was so beautiful. Though I had a lot to do, sometimes I just needed a sanity break from my two well-meaning but demanding friends. Pish was full of expensive, if lovely, ideas for the castle, while Shilo wanted to talk nonstop about her day, which usually involved trips with McGill to see friends, or visit his mother, or help stage a house he was selling. I actually missed her presence and worked hard on not resenting the real estate agent’s demands on her time. We had made no progress on the mystery of the hidden loot, my uncle’s little game, but I knew we would once we had the party stuff out of the way. All of our excess time was spent fixing up the castle.

  However, I did walk in the woods a few times, accompanied by Becket, who loved racing ahead on a path, then jumping out at me when I least expected it. Though he’s just an ordinary marmalade tabby, his personality is quirky and intelligent with a liberal dose of independence. He made a good companion on my rambles, since neither Pish nor Shilo were into it.

  Occasionally I came across Lizzie Proctor and her friend Alcina. Alcina had a talent for constructing faery gardens in the woods—little gnome homes and faery rings—which I would happen upon during my walks. Lizzie photographed them, as she did everything, and then showed the pictures to me; some of them were very good.

  A few days before the party, I just couldn’t stand being inside anymore. Pish was directing Zeke and Gordy on some of the decorations that needed to be hung, and Cranston was in the way, as usual, offering suggestions I trusted Pish would not listen to. McGill and Shilo were in the kitchen doing some of the grunt work associated with such a large party, and since it involved a lot of whispering, kissing, and laughter, I felt like a third wheel. McGill insisted on helping out a lot, his way of justifying the fact that he was still the agent for the property and would write the contract and help me through all the intricacies of a sale, along with the lawyer, Andrew Silvio. McGill would be in for the biggest payday of his life if I sold the castle, but I knew he was conflicted. He was a good guy and a good friend, and I liked him a lot.

  So I had delegated; now it was my turn to get out of the way and let my friends do what they wanted to do, how they wanted to do it. Later I had to go into town, but it was too early to do that. It was a gorgeous day. I needed some fresh air. Those two things meant a long walk. I put on boots and a jacket, since it was beginning to get cold, especially in the depths of the woods where the sun would not pierce the gloom. I surveyed my property as I walked across the grassy expanse toward the path into the woods. Zeke and Gordy had done a great job of mowing the land and keeping it mowed, so the turf resembled real grass more than the weedy hay it had looked like when I first arrived.

  As always before plunging into the woods, I paused, turned, and looked over my property. I got a chill down my back every time. It seemed too much, this vast abundance, and the superstitious part of me swore I’d pay for being the Wynter heir in some way. Maybe that’s what all the harassment and vandalism was about.

  What would become of the Wynter estate once I sold it? Most of the outbuildings would probably be torn down. I had explored every one of them and most were sturdy, but only one would be useful to whomever bought the property. The garage, built from the same stone as the castle, was a beautiful building now that the glass in the gothic arched windows had been repaired and the weeds cut down from around it. It had originally been stables, no doubt, but had been converted for motor vehicle use sometime early in the twentieth century as horseless carriages replaced the kind that needed hay. The garage’s structure was so good that a future owner could even make it into a suite of rooms. I had seen that done at country inns before, where it would be given a classy name, like The Carriage House.

  I turned to look at the castle itself. It was mellow gold in the midday sun, hard autumn light gleaming against the newly cleaned arched windows. Set in a wide open space with a flagstone drive curving up to it, it was surrounded on all sides by a wall of forest. I scanned the far edges of the w
oods. So far I had only walked though the arboretum, but I did know that the other sections of forest were natural, not planned. I had been told by locals that there were a couple of natural spring-water streams and ponds and other features I’d love to explore in nicer weather. Gogi had even told me my great uncle Melvyn and grandfather Murgatroyd Wynter had planned a fairy-tale-themed park many years ago and had begun to build it in one part of the forest. I’d have to find it. If I had time before I sold the castle.

  I had to keep reminding myself that it was not for me to concern myself with all of this land, what to do with it, and how to manage it, because there was no way on earth I could keep it. Becket melted out of the woods and joined me, just sitting patiently, waiting for me to step into his world, the place where I had first seen him almost two months before.

  “What am I going to do, Becket?” I said, a catch in my voice, as I stared at the castle again. “I love this place, but I just can’t keep it. It’s going to hurt to leave, but I couldn’t stay in Autumn Vale after selling and watch someone else rip this place to shreds and make it over into a commercial hotel. Even though that’s the only use it could possibly have in this world.”

  He rubbed against my leg, and I leaned down to pet him. “I know you love it, too. What’s going to happen when I leave? You’ll have to come with me, but it might kill you to leave here.”

  He looked up at me, his beautiful golden eyes full of sympathy, then set off into the woods. I followed him but kept to the paths even as he galloped into the thick shrubs. I wanted to see if Alcina had made any new faery structures. Lizzie had told me some of her friend’s story, that her mother was often sick and confined to home and didn’t have a lot of energy to worry about Alcina. Shilo, now friends with Emerald, Lizzie’s mom, had learned even more. Emerald, who was still trying to figure out how to deal with her daughter’s new family, Binny, who was Lizzie’s aunt, and Rusty Turner, her grandfather, welcomed Alcina in their home. The girl had told Emerald that her mom had come back to Autumn Vale to die, sick with some incurable disease. It wasn’t said out loud, but the implication was it was cancer. Emerald and Lizzie tried to keep Alcina busy and happy, and I appreciated that about them.

  There were dozens of species of wildlife in the woods. I had made something of a hobby of spotting and identifying them: raccoons, squirrels (both the regular kind and little cute red squirrels), groundhogs, skunks, possums. I had even seen a porcupine. One of my most exciting views had been of deer at the edge of the woods and bounding across my property. Pish had binoculars, and I had taken to using them from my window to try to catch a glimpse of the shy animals, the ones spooked by my presence that I only “felt” when I was in the forest.

  I’ve been a city girl my whole life. Who knew I’d be so woodsy?

  As I approached the latest faery art installation, I got an uneasy sense that I wasn’t alone. I knew there were coyotes in these parts, and had actually seen one along the edge of the arboretum. It worried me to death that Becket might get picked off, but he was wily and had lived on his own for the better part of a year until I had come along. As a precaution, though, I made him stay in the castle at night, no matter how much he bellyached.

  This time my sense that I was not alone had nothing to do with an animal. It felt like there was someone human nearby, a feeling that Becket seconded in his alert: bristly fur and obvious caution. His ringed orange tail puffed up like a bottle brush. I rounded a bend in the forest path and saw someone bending over the latest faery house, a structure set in a stump. Was it Alcina? Or Lizzie? But no, this girl was wearing low-riding jeans and had a whaletail above them, the infamous top of a thong showing above her jeans.

  “Hello,” I said loudly, and she jumped, whirling around.

  “You scared the crap out of me!” she shrieked, almost losing her balance.

  I examined her with interest, from the bleached fuzz of hair piled upon her head to the sharp-toed boots that I knew at a glance cost about nine hundred dollars. This was no Valer, I’d wager. From her blue glittery makeup making her look like a nineteen eighties Madonna wannabe to her crystal-studded jeans, she’d stand out by a mile in our town. “I’m sorry, but I didn’t want to just walk up on you. What are you doing in my woods?”

  “Your woods? Aren’t woods just there? I mean, no one owns them, right?”

  I didn’t think she was willing or able to have a philosophical conversation on the concept of ownership of the earth and its resources, to argue from a First Nations viewpoint that no one owned the earth and that we traveled on it as companions to the woodland creatures—a view I sympathize with, by the way, but am not sure how to support in our modern culture—so I tackled it pragmatically. “Yes, woodlands are owned, and this one happens to be owned by me. Who are you?”

  “My name is Zoey Channer.”

  Chapter Six

  I PAUSED A BEAT while it sunk in. Zoey Channer; she was infamous, the wild-child daughter of Percy Channer, hotelier. “I think your father is looking for you.”

  She nodded. “Yeah, right? He doesn’t like that I’m out of his control now.”

  “So he knows you’re in this area,” I said, not as a question.

  This explained why Percy Channer had called me, why he wanted an excuse to roam the area, why he had asked so many questions about Autumn Vale and Ridley Ridge, and why he had gone to the town after leaving Wynter Castle and talked to many people there. I had heard about his time in town but shrugged it off as the control-freak billionaire’s way of checking out the neighborhood, so to speak, before buying the castle. I had even, bless my naïveté, seen it as a sign of his interest. It was well known in the financial world, Pish had told me, that Percy was fierce about every detail of his hotels.

  But why hadn’t he just asked if I had seen her? Had that simple approach not appealed to him? “Why are you here?”

  She shrugged. I eyed her with skepticism. The fashion industry attracts its share of celebutantes, and I had heard about Zoey Channer’s antics: walking through the woods in Prada boots did not fit her MO. “You’re in the area with someone,” I surmised. “Who?”

  “Just a boyfriend.” She looked around. “I guess I’d better get going,” she said, and started to walk away from me down the path toward the highway.

  “Wait! Why are you really in the woods?” I shouted.

  She threw over her shoulder: “Maybe I was heading to your castle to case the joint. Ever been robbed?”

  She strode away, and I was not about to follow her. What good would it do? I figured she had a car, and I was assured of that when I heard the roar of a powerful motor—some kind of muscle car—on the road beyond the woods. Why was she in my woods? Where was this boyfriend she mentioned, at the wheel of the getaway car? It was unlikely I was walking in the woods at the only moment she happened to be there, so how much time had she spent in my forest, and why? Had she been spying on us all?

  I felt an uneasy sense of intrusion on my privacy, though that was silly. I wasn’t exactly living in a glass house. My peaceful, contemplative mood ruined, I called Becket and returned to the castle, the cat racing ahead of me. I told Pish about my experience. He wanted me to tell Virgil about what sounded, in retrospect, like a threat, but I was tired of telling Virgil anything, and what could he do anyway? I suppose I could have called Percy Channer and told him about meeting his daughter in my woods; it might even have gained me brownie points with a wealthy, powerful hotelier, but to heck with him, I thought. If he couldn’t be forthright and just ask about his daughter, then it wasn’t up to me to hook him up.

  Instead of doing anything about it, I headed into town for a few last-minute errands before the party in two days. I chose a weekday to host my little soiree for two reasons. First, this was business. And second, all of the folks I invited had busy social lives on weekends, and this was fairly short notice. A weekend date would be hard to squeeze into their soci
al calendars, I reasoned, so a week night worked out best for everyone. It was only the first, after all, and for future events I could give invitees more time to plan. Enough people had said yes to the invitation that the ballroom would be full.

  Autumn Vale is a town like many in our country; it has suffered through a dreadful recession, fighting a losing battle, in some cases, and winning the day only occasionally. Main Street looks like a fighter’s mouth missing teeth, with several dark gaps where there used to be quaint stores. But it had not yet descended into the grim drabness that was Ridley Ridge, and might not if Pish could save the bank from closure, since the bank drew people to Autumn Vale, where they then spent a few of their hard-earned dollars. It was truly the economic heart of the community.

  I tried to patronize the local establishments as much as I could, and on a selfish level I think it worked somewhat; most of the locals are polite on the surface, at least, barring the occasional verbose lunatic and Minnie the local post lady who had decided, as Gogi had told me, that I was a snob and too big for my britches. I am not too big for my britches. Actually I like them tight fitting but not indecent. I dropped in again on Gogi at Golden Acres just to make sure she and Virgil were still coming to the party and bringing Doc with them, then I headed down to the library.

  Hannah, the wheelchair-bound librarian, was a special friend to me. When I first met her, she was mourning the death of Tom Turner, the fellow I’d found at the bottom of one of the holes on my property. I felt for her; losing the one you love is the worst pain anyone can experience. She was still sad—she loved him with a romantic intensity suitable to the twentysomething she was—but with the attention of Lizzie and I and Tom’s sister, Binny, she was beginning to come around. I would be seeing her at the party, but she had called me the night before to tell me she had some information she wanted to share on the possible antecedents of Cranston Higgins. Even though it was a Sunday, she wanted me to meet her at the library so she could show me or tell me what she had found.