An Old-Fashioned Murder (26 page)

“They go to the front porch and the front door,” Parker told her. “Although they're harder to see in the deeper spots. Do you want me to show you?”

Daisy shook her head. She had no doubt that he was right. Tracking footprints from one door of the inn to another wasn't particularly tricky. It didn't require any great skills in bushcraft. She looked at a second set of shoe prints. They were scattered around the woodpile not far from the kitchen door.

“Those are mine,” Parker explained. “I wanted to help Emily by bringing in some more logs. That's how I saw the other prints.
His
prints.”

Her eyes went from one set of prints to the other, then from Parker's shoes to Bud's boots. Even with the drifting and the melting and the prints crisscrossing each other, Daisy could see that the boots presently on Bud's feet looked remarkably similar both in size and shape to the boot prints marching around the porch. She raised her gaze to him.

“Well?” she asked Bud.

When he didn't immediately provide a confirmation or denial, Parker's fingers dug into Bud's arm, and his voice rose in fury.

“They're his prints, Daisy! And I'll tell you what happened! He didn't go to the front door first that night. Instead he came around here and snuck in through the kitchen while we were all in bed. He went into the dining room and pushed the secretary on top of Henry. Then he snuck back out this way and circled around to the front, banging on the door and pretending like he was just arriving. He made up that whole cock-and-bull story about getting lost and being stranded in the storm. His plan was always to kill Henry!”

Daisy waited for Bud to respond. There was a short pause, as though he was carefully considering his words. Then in one swift movement, Bud wrenched free from Parker, jumped toward the woodpile, and grabbed the hatchet that was sitting on top of the stack. The next second, he was holding it to Parker's neck.

 

CHAPTER

24

She knew exactly how sharp that hatchet was. Daisy had held the hickory handle and swung the steel blade more times than she could count. Over the years, she had chopped an awful lot of kindling for the inn during the winters and various power outages. So had Beulah and Aunt Emily. Had they been there, they all could have told Parker not to move an inch. One good thwack, and his neck would split just like a log.

There was a strange sort of irony in the fact that half an hour earlier, Bud's neck had been at the mercy of Parker, and now the roles were suddenly reversed. But Daisy found herself less startled and also less alarmed standing on the back porch than she had been in the parlor when Parker was strangling Bud. That was because in the parlor, Parker had been completely out of control. His rage and horror at the discovery of the boot prints and how he assumed they related to Henry Brent's death had overwhelmed all his reason. Bud, on the other hand, was entirely rational, or at least so he appeared. He didn't shout, swear, or shake with fury. Instead he remained as still as the icicles dripping from the railing, no twitching or shifting, only his eyes moving, alternately glancing at Parker and then at Daisy.

Daisy remained still as well, taking a deep, slow breath. As calm and clearheaded as Bud seemed, she also didn't want to do anything to alarm him. He truly held Parker's life in his hands. Under the circumstances, even an accidental slip of the hatchet blade could be fatal. No one at the inn could stop that kind of bleeding, and with the condition of the roads, an ambulance wouldn't be able to reach them quickly enough.

For a long minute, they all stared at each other. Parker looked more stunned than terrified, as though he couldn't quite fathom how he had gotten where he was. Bud had a watchful and almost weary expression. Daisy felt weary, too, and also slightly impatient, like they were wasting valuable energy on useless threats and counterthreats when they could be getting down to serious business. She was no closer to learning anything pertinent about Bud or figuring out who had murdered Drew and Henry. It was time to cut to the chase.

“I know it wasn't you,” she told Bud. “I know you didn't kill them.”

Parker let out a squeak of protest, but Daisy interrupted him brusquely.

“The man is holding an ax to your throat, Parker. It's probably best not to antagonize him.”

Bud respond with a snort of laughter. “Well said! I always thought you were the smart one in the group.”

Daisy didn't laugh back. Smart or not, she didn't find it the least bit funny that Bud was an inch away from slicing open Parker's jugular.

“It was the way you looked at me when you first opened the door that night I came here,” Bud went on. “You saw something not right, and you automatically didn't trust me. That makes you smart.”

“It makes me a girl who's had a lying, good-for-nothing husband and lived in the hinterlands long enough to realize that strangers who come knocking on the door always want something, and it's usually trouble.”

Bud gave another amused snort, but he added a nod of acknowledgment. “I'll grant you that. So what now?”

“Now you put down the hatchet, and you tell us who you really are and what you're really doing at the inn.”

“And if I don't?” he retorted.

There was a moment when Daisy wondered in a panic if she had gone too far and played it too cool. If she was wrong about Bud not being the murderer, then she might have just sentenced Parker—as well as possibly herself—to death. Bud obviously had no difficulties or qualms about using a hatchet, considering how deftly he had grabbed it from the woodpile and turned the tables on Parker. He could cut Parker and fling the blade at her in the same instant, before she could do anything to stop him or even try to move out of the way. But the surge of fear subsided just as swiftly as it had arisen when Daisy remembered that Bud had absolutely no reason to kill Henry or Drew, and if he wanted her and Parker dead, he would have done it already.

“I think that it would be in all of our best interests,” she replied tactfully, hoping to sound more confident than she actually was, “if you told us the truth. Then we could help you, you could help us, and when the sheriff arrives, there's no need for him to hear about any of this.” Daisy gestured toward the hatchet and Parker's neck.

“Smart,” Bud complimented her once more. “And I like you. I like anyone who knows when to keep his—or her—mouth shut with the law.”

“Another thing I learned from my husband,” she remarked dryly.

“He sounds like my kind of chap.” Bud chortled. “I wouldn't mind meeting him.”

Daisy shot him a dark look. “So are you going to put down the hatchet? Because otherwise, I think Parker's about to pass out.”

It wasn't an exaggeration. Parker had overcome his initial shock and was now beginning to look seasick with fear. His face was puce, his nostrils were stretched wide, and his breathing was fast and shallow. If that hatchet remained at his neck, one way or another he wasn't going to be standing much longer.

Bud glanced at Parker, then at her, and then at Parker again. He seemed to be weighing his options. “All right,” he responded at last. He released his hold on Parker and tossed the hatchet back on the woodpile. The blade landed on a log with a loud thump, cracking off a thick piece of bark in the process.

“Thank you,” Daisy said, trying not to show how immensely relieved she was.

She reached out a hand to help support Parker as he took several wobbly steps away from Bud and toward her. He was visibly shaken, understandably enough. But to his credit, Parker recovered quickly. By the time he was standing next to Daisy and sufficiently distanced from any immediate further threat by Bud or the hatchet, his normal color had started to return and his bearing strengthened. A moment later, he was glaring at Bud with vehemence.

“Sorry about that,” Bud apologized, offering a halfhearted shrug. “But you didn't give me much of a choice. You wouldn't listen.”

Parker glared harder.

Unfazed, Bud shrugged once more. “You can accuse me all you want. It doesn't change the facts. I didn't kill anybody.”

“What about the footprints?” Parker countered, jerking his head toward the boot prints in the snow.

“What about them?” Bud rolled his eyes. “They don't prove anything. They don't even imply anything.”

“They prove you lied! They prove you—”

“Don't be stupid,” Bud snapped. “They're melted boot prints on a porch, not bloody fingerprints on a murder weapon.”

Parker's face was beginning to go puce again, this time from rage rather than fright. Not wanting another installment with the hatchet—one that might not end as peacefully as the first—Daisy put her hand on Parker's arm in an attempt to calm him.

“Bud's right,” she said. “The boot prints don't prove anything in regard to Henry.”

“But, Daisy—”

“He didn't kill Henry, Parker. He couldn't have. He wasn't in the inn when it happened. I know you think that he snuck in through the kitchen door before coming around to the front, but he didn't. The kitchen door is always locked at night. I check it myself.”

Parker couldn't argue with that.

“You're right, too, though,” Daisy continued. “They are his boot prints, and they do prove that he lied.” She turned to Bud expectantly. “I assume that since no one is accusing you of murder anymore, you can now explain to us why you were marching around the inn in the middle of the night, in the middle of a storm, before you came to the front door.”

“If you can keep your lips zipped,” Bud answered, pointedly directing the remark at Parker. “That sourpuss wife of yours is a talker.”

Again, Parker couldn't argue. Lillian was incapable of keeping even a mere thought to herself, let alone an actual secret.

“So long as it isn't anything bad about her,” Parker said, in loyal defense of the sourpuss.

“Of course it's not about her,” Bud replied tetchily. “I didn't come all the way from Charlotte because of that silly woman.”

Daisy looked at him with interest. It was the first real piece of information that he had given about himself. Bud Foster was from North Carolina.

“Yes,” he finally confirmed, “they're my boot prints. And yes, I went around the back before going to the front. But it certainly wasn't to kill someone. It was to—” Bud stopped and glanced at the kitchen door. “Can anybody in there hear us?”

“The whole place has thin walls,” Daisy told him, “so it's always possible. But they would have to be listening from the kitchen, and I can see from here that there's no one in the kitchen.”

Bud gave a dissatisfied grunt.

“What about upstairs?” Parker suggested, shivering. “One of the bedrooms. They're private—and warmer.”

Daisy would have responded that generally speaking the porch was more private than most of the inn, especially the upstairs bedrooms, but she understood Bud's concern about unwanted eavesdropping, and she was starting to get cold, too. None of them was wearing coats. She thought of the key tucked into her pocket.

“Henry's room—the Jubal Early—would be best,” she said. “No one will be in the dining room, and that's the only spot where somebody could try to listen in.”

“That'll work,” Bud agreed, looking chilly himself.

As they all turned toward the door, Daisy deliberately held back, so that the men would enter first. This was not an occasion for social niceties. She wanted to be last because she wanted to take the hatchet. It was sitting too openly on the woodpile for her comfort. With the weather now clear, anyone could step outside, notice the hatchet, and pick it up. She still didn't know who the murderer was, but she knew better than to leave such an obvious weapon lying around on the porch.

Once inside, Parker immediately began leading the way through the kitchen in the direction of the Jubal Early. Daisy paused by the hearth and listened. There was a mix of voices coming from the parlor. None sounded heated or hostile. She breathed a sigh of relief. At least that part of the plan was working. Aunt Emily was keeping everyone together and seemed to have succeeded in getting them chatting. Early in the day or not, she was probably serving strong drinks.

“It's on the other side of the dining room?” Parker called to Daisy.

“Not so loud!” Bud chastised him.

Parker flinched and hushed.

“Through the archway,” Daisy replied in a low tone. “End of the hall.”

There was only one archway and one door at the end of the short, narrow hall, so the Jubal Early was impossible to miss. As she had told Bud on the porch, there was nobody—aside from Henry Brent's body under the secretary and blanket at the far end—in the dining room. But just as Daisy was about to follow the men into the hall, she felt something move behind her. Spinning around, she caught a glimpse of a shadow darting through the kitchen.

Her mind went instantly to Georgia. It must have been her. She was the only one in the inn who would scurry like that, and besides, everybody else was in the parlor. But why was Georgia racing around the kitchen? It had almost looked as though she had been digging in the cookie jars on the shelf above the old farm sink. That was where Georgia had put her mama's tea bags. But surely she wasn't making tea? The kettle hadn't been on, and Lucy had faithfully promised not to let anyone into her room. Turning back toward the hall, Daisy shook her head. Of course Georgia wasn't making tea for her mama. She had probably been grabbing some food or a beverage for herself, before resuming her hiding place.

Although Daisy pulled the key from her pocket as she approached Henry Brent's room, she found that she didn't need it. The door was still unlocked from when she and Drew had been there the day before. The lamps had been working then, but once she stepped to the windows and drew back the heavy draperies, there was actually more light in the room now, without electricity. Similar to the view from the back porch, the side lawn was a glittering world of white, capped by an almost blindingly vivid blue sky. The drifts against the windows were high.