by Dixie Davis
“Oh. What’s the argument about?”
Vera waved the spider utensil for fishing out the donuts, as if to make Lori’s concern evaporate like steam from the fryer. “It’s gone on so long I don’t know if we even remember. Just keeps coming back in different disguises. A never-ending cycle.” She turned back to the fryer, starting to flip the dosants in this batch. “One that I’m absolutely finished with.”
Lori frowned. She tested the temperature of the first batch — still too hot to touch.
Perhaps this topic was, too.
Vera pressed the back of her hand to her head. “You know, I’m not feeling all that well. I’d probably better get some rest before InnCon today.”
Getting up this early wasn’t the best idea for either of them, but Lori had an actual reason to be up, with her guests upstairs. “You go lie down.” Lori took the spider tool from her. “I’ve got this.”
“Thank you.” Vera tugged off her apron and disappeared down the hall.
By the time her guests arrived in the dining room at seven, Lori had a dozen donuts and dosants in a chafing dish for them, plus many more cooling on the counter, awaiting their spot in the freezer, and leftover dough in the fridge. She’d be feeding guests croissants, sweet rolls and donuts for a month!
The Johnstons raved over the fresh donuts, but when they tried the dosants, they were silent. Lori finally dared to try one, and she immediately saw why they were quiet.
This kind of transcendent culinary experience defied even a pleased sigh. The warm, delicate, flaky layers were even more crisp than a croissant baked in an oven, while the interior of the dosant was still tender and buttery. The strawberry whipped cream was smooth enough to add a perfect sweet-fruit counterpoint to the lightly sweetened croissant dough.
This was pretty much heaven.
And Vera and Howard were definitely missing out. As soon as the Johnstons left to explore the town, complete with Lori’s own guide — a mix of her discoveries around the town and advice from the previous owner where she hadn’t had a chance to explore — Lori headed up to the Bughs’ room with a tray.
She was almost to the door when her phone rang in her pocket with the special ringtone she’d given to Mitch.
Her heart skipped in her chest.
But why would he be calling her at seven thirty in the morning?
Lori stopped and set her breakfast tray on the hall table. She pulled out her phone and made sure it was Mitch’s number calling. It was.
“Hello?” she answered.
“Did I wake you?” Mitch sounded rushed, out of breath.
“No, I have guests — up for breakfast.”
“Good. Are your guests there?”
Lori couldn’t help but furrow her brow. “The Johnstons left a few minutes ago.”
“Are they the ones who came with you to the cookout?”
“No, no, those are my friends, the Bughs. Why?”
Mitch released a long sigh. “Mister Bugh is dead.”
Lori got off the phone with Mitch in a daze.
Howard, dead? That couldn’t be right. It just couldn’t.
Lori picked up the breakfast tray again. Mitch wouldn’t joke like that. He’d met Howard and Vera. He knew what they looked like.
But wasn’t Howard sitting on her porch?
She jogged down the stairs, still carrying the tray. It was fully light outside now. None of the rockers she could see from the windows held a silhouette.
But he couldn’t be —
Lori ran back up the stairs, puffing a little by the time she reached the top. How could she tell Vera that this was even a possibility? That she’d seen her husband for the last time, talked with him —
No, argued with him.
And then she’d said she was absolutely finished with their decades-long argument.
A chill shuddered through Lori.
No. Just because Vera wanted their cycle of arguing to end didn’t mean she’d bring him to an end. Not like this.
Before she could talk herself out of it again, Lori knocked at Vera’s door. Immediately, it swung open. “Oh,” Vera said, “thank you.”
Why would she be thanking her? Then Vera reached for the tray. Right, the tray, of course. Lori handed it over. “Vera, I just got some bad news.”
Vera’s eyebrows knit together and she looked up from the delicate, flaky dosant awaiting her. “What’s that, dear?”
“It’s about Howard.”
Vera’s shoulders lowered slowly. “What about him?”
“He left the inn this morning.” At least Lori had pieced that much together.
Vera nodded, as if this wasn’t news.
“And something’s happened to him.”
Vera drew in a breath. “Is he all right?”
Lori shook her head slowly. “I’m afraid he’s gone, Vera.”
“Gone?” she repeated.
Lori bit her lip. Why did she have to be the one to break this news to Vera?
“Did he leave a note?”
This time Lori had to give her friend a wary look. Was this suicide? Mitch hadn’t mentioned anything to indicate that.
“How do you know he isn’t coming back?”
Oh — oh. Lori had done this all wrong. So much for letting her friend down easy. “I’m sorry, Vera, I’ve got you all confused. Howard is . . . gone. He’s dead.”
Vera stared at her, almost unblinking, for a long time. A very long time. “Are you — are you sure?”
“Pretty sure.”
Vera backed up, then sank onto the bedspread printed with oak leaves. The tray came to rest on her lap at an angle, and the plates of dosants began to inch toward the edge. “Gone,” she repeated again.
Lori took the tray and set it on the dresser, moving aside the keys and wallet there. Howard’s keys and wallet? Mitch said the police were waiting at the Riverboat Motel. Howard must have walked there.
Why would he go there so early? What could have happened? Mitch said it looked like an accident, but if the police had come, there was at least some possibility it wasn’t, right?
The last time something like this happened, Lori remembered, it was murder. The last time this happened, Lori had spent a weekend in jail, with the whole town believing she’d murdered her first guest.
Clearly she wouldn’t be a suspect again — she hoped. But now the goose bumps wouldn’t leave her arms.
She turned back to Vera. “We need to head over to the motel,” Lori told her. “That’s where they found him.”
Vera nodded. She’d been dressed since before Lori found her in the kitchen, so that wasn’t a concern. She even had her shoes on. Lori helped her to her feet and walked her downstairs. It wasn’t very far to the Riverboat, maybe half a mile, but Lori would rather drive and get there sooner and spare Vera the suspense.
Lori pulled into the motel parking lot within five minutes of leaving her inn. Three police cruisers and an unmarked gold sedan — Chief Branson’s — already sat in the parking lot, blue and red lights flashing. Lori squeezed Vera’s hand. She opened her mouth to reassure her, but the words it’ll be okay died in her throat.
It wasn’t okay, and Lori knew that all too well. Although she’d had months to prepare herself when Glenn died, the loss was still a visceral gut punch, the attacker that just kept hitting, sneaking up on her when she least expected it. Even now, every once in a while, it stole in again — a whiff of his shampoo or soap on someone else, his favorite song playing on a radio station as she tuned past, another milestone of Doug’s or Adam’s he would miss.
Vera’s life would never be the same.
“You’ll make it,” Lori told her.
Vera nodded. But it was the truth. As heart-wrenching as losing Glenn had been, Lori kept putting one foot in front of the other, moving forward a day at a time, until suddenly she was making it through a day without crying, without aching, without a void.
She would always miss Glenn, but she’d learned to love life even wi
thout him there. And Vera could do it, too.
“I promise,” Lori added.
Vera patted her hand and got out of the car. Lori hurried to keep with up her for moral support. This was one time Lori could actually be there to help and guide Vera instead of the other way around.
The officers were setting up caution tape, settling for verbal warnings to the onlookers until their perimeter was established. Mitch spotted Lori and Vera first, or maybe Lori spotted Mitch first, in the crowd already beginning to mill around. Just the sight of his familiar face and flannel shirt gave Lori the tiniest measure of reassurance.
Mitch reached them and slid an arm around Lori in a side hug. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.
Lori nodded. “Did the chief give you a hard time again?”
Mitch flashed her a grim smile to convey a “yes” before releasing her and turning to Vera. “I’m sorry,” he said again, “but I think they want you to identify him just to be sure. I tried — but I had to tell them I only met him yesterday.”
Vera straightened her shoulders and nodded. She stepped up to the nearest officer and introduced herself, and the officer took her to Chief Branson.
“What are you doing here this early?” Lori asked.
Mitch sighed. “Walt called half an hour ago.” He pointed up at the railing along the top floor walkway, now cracked and leaning outward dangerously. “Said he’d heard something and saw this. Then when we came to take a closer look, we saw Howard in the bushes.” He nodded toward the tall, thick shrubbery. She could see how Walt might have missed something in there.
“So did he fall?”
“Looks like it.”
Lori sized up the distance. “Doesn’t seem that far.”
“Doesn’t have to be far if you land on your head.” Mitch rubbed at his neck. “Really didn’t need to run into Chip this way again.”
Lori cringed inwardly. Mitch and the police chief had a rivalry that extended back to high school. Lori still didn’t know the details, beyond that Mitch had gotten the girl they were both vying for. That was enough to make most people bitter, but then there was an added element of mystery, since Lori didn’t know how Mitch had come to not be married to her now.
However the marriage had ended, Mitch was still on Chip Branson’s blacklist, so turning up at his second murder scene in six months was not ideal to say the least.
A police officer hurried over to them, to tell them to stop fraternizing, no doubt. As a suspect he’d arrested and been wrong about, Lori wasn’t exactly the chief’s favorite person, either. A murder scene wasn’t the best place for her to be loitering.
Surely they wouldn’t be treated like suspects this time around, right? That wouldn’t make any sense.
Of course, it hadn’t made much sense when Mitch was interrogated after Lori had found her guest dead in her room.
Lori recognized the officer, one of two African Americans on the city’s nine-man police force. Ken beckoned for them to come over.
The chief actually wanted them there? Lori started toward Ken, but shot Mitch a skeptical look. Could this be right?
“You’re friends with the victim and the widow, right?”
The widow? Lori pointed at herself before the word clicked into place for Vera now, too. “Yes.”
“The chief wants you over there for moral support in a few minutes, but he wants to know if there’s anybody you know of who might have hurt the victim.” Ken pulled out a notepad and pen.
Hurt Howard? Two days ago, she couldn’t have imagined anybody wanting to hurt someone who’d always been so generous with time and advice and support for her.
But then there was yesterday, where she’d seen him almost start a public brawl three times in thirty minutes. Not to mention his argument with Vera this morning.
Lori sighed. “I’d look into a guy named Clint. He’s a rival B&B owner and he’s staying here in town. There were a couple people in Wilmington he argued with yesterday: Tom from an online booking service and Karl, a potter. And —” Lori broke off, craning her neck to try to catch a glimpse of Vera. Was she all right?
Of course she wasn’t all right. The living, breathing husband she’d argued with an hour or two ago would never argue again.
Ken looked up from his notepad and followed her gaze. “Sorry, we do have to look at her, too. She says she was at your B&B all morning. Can you vouch for her?”
“Of course. She was up before I was, making my other guests breakfast. I spoke to Howard, too, so I know he was alive then.”
How could someone she’d chatted with less than two hours ago be dead? She’d never be able to call him for advice or help or simply a listening ear again. She still had Vera, and she could always call her, but Vera without Howard was . . . unimaginable.
Then again, she had never been able to imagine life without Glenn until that happened, too.
“So she was with you all morning?” Ken asked, pen still poised to take notes.
And Lori hesitated. Vera had left the kitchen very suddenly and Lori hadn’t seen her again until just now. She hadn’t checked the time, but it was long enough to fry up a shad-boatload of donuts and dosants, glaze and fill a few, and enjoy them with the Johnstons.
It was only a twenty-minute walk to the motel, roundtrip. She’d sat with the Johnstons at least that long.
Could Vera have snuck out and done this?
Again, two days ago, her answer would have been a hard, firm no. But today, she couldn’t be quite so sure.
As much as she wanted to stick up for her friend, Lori needed more trouble with the police like she needed another hole in her donuts. She gave just enough of the truth to keep herself out of trouble — and hopefully not get Vera in it. “She went up to her room for a little while because she wasn’t feeling well. She must have been up half the night working on breakfast.”
Ken nodded and wrote that down in his little notebook of doom. “Thank you, Miss Lori.”
He said it like he was as much a teenager as Oliver the delivery boy, and she was some grandmother he had to show deference to. She liked respect, but not being treated like she was halfway to senility.
Ken escorted her back to where Vera sat on the steps that led up to the top floor’s walkway, cradling her arms around herself. She looked small and lost, and Lori just wanted to hug her.
But before she could sit down with her friend, Vera held up a hand. “I need a few minutes,” she murmured.
Lori shrank back a few steps. Ken had already turned to another duty, leaving Lori alone inside the police perimeter. She glanced back at where Mitch waited beyond the tape, hands in his pockets. He shrugged. He didn’t know what to do now either.
A white sheet, likely from the hotel, covered the bushes from this side, something she couldn’t see from the parking lot. Yes, it definitely made sense that Walt hadn’t seen him sooner. Lori looked around until she spotted the motel owner. He was short and unkempt, which matched his gravelly speaking voice. Right now, he was using that voice to talk to Chief Branson.
Surely the chief wouldn’t blame another innkeeper for a death on their property. Howard and Walt might have said hello at the cookout two days ago — might — but Walt couldn’t possibly have a motive.
Of course, Lori had always felt her supposed motive in her arrest was pretty weak, so maybe Walt wasn’t safe.
Lori snuck a little closer, hoping to overhear some of what Walt was saying. He pointed toward the railing, and then toward the bushes, and then shrugged.
Lori looked at both again, but neither held more clues.
The county crime scene investigation van pulled up and CSI techs filed out with their gear. Lori checked with Vera, who still couldn’t even look at her, which left Lori to watch the crime scene team.
These were probably the same techs who’d collected evidence in her inn not so long ago. What would they find here today?
They moved the sheet and started taking pictures, setting out number labels, using rulers fo
r scale in their photographs. Lori drifted close enough to hear some of their discussions and directions. One tech was assigned to use tape to collect trace evidence off the body, and then another was to check out his pockets and personal effects.
Vera would want those as soon as the case was closed — and Lori definitely didn’t want to observe the search. Vera finally let her join her on the steps, but made no move toward her, so Lori didn’t do more than place a hand on Vera’s back. They watched the crime scene techs march back and forth from their van. Vera pulled out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter and lit one. Lori hadn’t noticed the smell of cigarette smoke on her before.
After a few minutes, one of the techs stopped the one Lori had figured out was the supervisor.
“Nothing in his pockets, ma’am,” the junior officer reported.
The supervisor nodded, her brow furrowed. “Head on up to the balcony and see what you can find.”
The tech had to pick his way past Vera and Lori to get up to the upper floor walkway and railing, and Lori watched him work.
The simple actions should ground her in the present, but as she watched them gather evidence — evidence in her friend and mentor’s death — it felt less and less like reality.
How could this be happening?
Vera finally leaned her head on Lori’s shoulder and released the tears. Lori held on to her friend and let her cry.
There was a lot to cry about.
Lori wasn’t sure how long they sat there, but after a while, Walt brought over two Styrofoam cups of coffee for them. Lori hadn’t expected that kind of consideration from him and smiled her gratitude.
Walt had always struck her as just as gruff as his voice. He might work in the hospitality industry, but in name only.
Then again, maybe she’d underestimated him.
Vera sighed over her coffee. Lori tasted hers, somehow both bland and burned. Its one redeeming feature was that it was hot.
Lori glanced back at the cracked railing. The CSI tech up there held up a cigarette butt with a pair of medical pliers, examining it before dropping it in an evidence bag. The railing was well above the tech’s waist. It definitely looked tall enough that falling over it couldn’t have been an accident.
