Corpses & Conmen (Rosewood Place Mysteries Book 2) (6 page)

Devon scowled. “Yeah, he’s allergic to TigerLily. Granny Bessie told me I have to keep her out of the sitting room while the guests are here,” he added. Annie hadn’t even thought about Devon’s cat being an allergen for Mr. George. She would have to make sure she added a disclaimer to her website; the cat wasn’t going anywhere. “And that phony psychic woman is a nutcase if you ask me.”

“Devon, that’s not nice,” Annie chided.

“Yeah, I have to agree with Devon on this one.” Rory shook his head. “She cornered me this morning and told me my aura was lonely. I think she’s a few sandwiches short of a picnic.”

“I heard her tell Kizzy that she is an internet psychic and she helps people contact their dead relatives. What a load of crap.” Devon rolled his eyes. “Mom, you’d better be careful. You’re turning into a real freak magnet.”

Annie swiped at her son’s arm playfully. “Well, I guess I’d better go check on my circus,” she sighed. “Hopefully, no one else has died, found any dead bodies, or had their aura read by Marie.”

She watched as Devon climbed behind the wheel of Rory’s truck and prepared for his driving lesson, then she turned and headed back to the house, not wanting to watch her son grow up before her very eyes. She also feared that she’d left her mother unattended for too long, and hoped that the woman hadn’t been stirring up some sort of mischief in Annie’s absence.

Annie’s smartphone buzzed in her pocket as she reached the door leading into her kitchen from outside. Her heart moved itself up into her throat when she recognized Emmett’s phone number on the screen. Surely he couldn’t have the coroner’s results so quickly.

“Hi, Emmett,” Annie greeted him. “How’s things?”

Emmett chuckled. “You sound like you’re always expecting bad news, Annie. You should try expecting good news; it’s a lot more fun.”

Annie dared to relax, just a little. “So you’re calling to tell me that my missing guest just took a tumble in the dark and there was no foul play involved?”

Emmett sighed. “Well, actually, no. He did take a tumble, but it looks like someone killed him before he hit the water. It wasn’t a drowning,” he explained. “No water in his lungs. I’m still waiting on the toxicology report, but the coroner says it looks like a case of anaphylactic shock.”

“You mean like an allergic reaction?” Annie felt sick. She’d taken such care to make sure that the foods at the buffet had been kept separate for this very reason, despite the fact that her one allergic guest hadn’t even been present. “Mr. Ross told me that he was allergic to nuts, so I made sure I kept those and the shellfish separate when I set out the food last night. And it was all gone when I went to bed,” she added, “presumably before he ever arrived.”

She thought about it for a moment, then began to relax. She had done everything right, she was certain of it. Perhaps Lou’s death had simply been a tragic accident. “Sounds like you did everything you could to keep your guests safe,” Emmett concluded. “However, I’m still not sure that Mr. Ross died of natural causes. At the very least, I don’t think he died in that water.”

Annie’s mind tried to process what Emmett was hinting at. “You think someone dumped his body in the pond? Why?”

She could practically hear Emmett shaking his head through the phone. “Well, I just don’t know. But I know a few people who would have liked to see Mr. Ross floating facedown in that pond. I ran his driver’s license and prints through the database and, holy smokes, that man was wanted in a dozen different states. He had a list of prior offenses and suspected offenses as long as my arm,” he added.

“What kind of offenses?” Annie couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “You mean he was a criminal?” He had seemed so nice on the telephone. Annie shuddered to think that she’d almost let a wanted criminal stay in her home, then she felt extremely embarrassed for having had the thought. Rory had a criminal past. Granted, his was a one-time, drunken event, but who the heck was she to go judging people for having a criminal record?

“Well, now, seems like Mr. Ross was wanted for embezzlement, fraud, theft, and quite a few unpaid parking tickets.” Emmett cleared his throat. “I’d say that Mr. Ross was a very active con artist, based on what I’ve read here.”

“Wow.” Annie leaned against the side of the house, swatting a fly from her face. It was hot, and she wanted to go inside, but she didn’t want her guests to overhear her conversation with Emmett. She felt as though the Chief had just handed her a box filled with puzzle pieces, and she wanted to know exactly how they would fit together before she involved anyone else in the process. “So, for now, we’re calling this a--a what? An accident, a murder, an accidental murder?”

“I’ll let you know when I know,” Emmett replied. “I just thought you ought to be aware of the circumstances surrounding the man’s death, just in case you see anything else suspicious.”

“You mean in case any of my other guests drop dead?” she replied with more than a hint of sarcasm.

“You’re starting to sound like your mother, Annie Richards. Of course, I happen to like your mother, so I’m going to let that one slide,” Emmett joked. “Just keep your eyes and ears open and let me know if you see any guests acting suspiciously. I’ll call you as soon as I find out more information.”

Annie and Emmett exchanged goodbyes. Her phone felt sweaty in her hand as she stepped into the cool air-conditioned kitchen. Bessie and Doris sat at the small kitchen table, snapping green beans. Annie was amazed at her mother’s ability to get their paying guests actually to do work while enjoying their stay. She wondered whether she’d see Frank out in the yard mowing the grass next.

“Who was that on the phone, Annie?” Bessie asked as nonchalantly as possible, but Annie could tell she was chomping at the bit for information. “Have you heard anything from Emmett?”

Annie knew her mother so well. “Could I see you in the other room for just a minute, Mama?”

Bessie excused herself, leaving Doris cheerfully snapping beans and humming to herself.

“What are you doing asking our guests to prepare the food?” Annie tried sound annoyed, but she really didn’t have the energy. Did she really even care if her guests wanted to help out?

“Oh, you grumpy thing,” Bessie retorted, “she and I were just having the most fascinating chat. Did you know that the Martins are moving down here, possibly even to Coopersville?” Bessie’s eyebrows were on high alert, trying to make Annie understand the importance of Bessie’s bean-breaking conversation.

“And poor Doris told me that she and Frank had the worst thing happen to them last year. She told me that some scummy realtor took them for ten thousand dollars’ worth of their savings. Isn’t that awful?”

For a second, Annie forgot why she’d wanted to speak with her mother. “Wait--what? How does that even happen? You don’t pay realtors any money.”

“Oh, he wasn’t even a real realtor,” Bessie said in a hushed voice. “He was a conman! Doris told me that the police think he’s done that to dozens of elderly people in their state. He told them that he could secure the house of their dreams and get them approved for a mortgage at less than one percent interest. Can you believe that?”

Annie shook her head in disbelief.

“Did you hear from Emmett?” Bessie asked again, moving on from her gossip to the topic she really wanted to talk about.

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I did.” Annie pushed her chestnut hair behind her ears. “The man in the pond, the missing guest, he didn’t drown.” She waited for Bessie to react, but her mother said nothing. “Emmett isn’t sure, but he thinks that the man died from an allergic reaction to something. He also thinks that his body was put in the pond after he died,” she added and watched as Bessie’s face became animated.

“I knew it!” she said, almost gleefully. “I mean, who drowns in two feet of water? Oh, Annie, you know what this means,” she asked, putting one hand to her mouth for just a moment. “It means that we could have a killer in our midst.” She nodded gravely.

Annie protested. “Hold on, Mama. Emmett told me that we shouldn’t jump to any conclusions just yet. It’ll be a little while before he gets all the information back from the coroner, so let’s not do anything hasty. Besides, the last thing we want to do is scare the rest of our guests away with talk of murder. Let’s just let the police do their job and keep a close eye on things here in the meantime.”

Bessie agreed reluctantly. Annie knew that her mother probably wanted to discuss the matter at great length with her new friend, Doris, but Annie reminded her that if one of the guests did have something to do with Lou Ross’s death, they still had no idea who it was. “I know you like Doris, but for now, the less she knows, the better. I suppose everyone's a suspect until we know more about how the man died.”

Bessie returned to the kitchen and her bowl of beans while Annie went to her office. She sighed when she found a stack of papers had been knocked off her small desk. A cup holding pens and pencils had been knocked over on her desk and the empty cup bumped against her foot as she moved her chair. “Darned cat,” Annie mumbled aloud, looking for any other evidence that TigerLily had been using her office as a playground.

She didn’t see anything else out of place, so after sorting and straightening the papers and pens she pulled her clipboard out of her desk. It may have been an archaic way of keeping track of her guests, but Annie preferred keeping a printout of the business’s guest list as well as any pertinent information about the guests that she wanted to remember. She didn’t keep any financial information on the clipboard--that was all on her laptop--but she could tell at a glance when her guests would arrive and leave, whether they had any special dietary needs, and whether they’d be traveling alone.

Lou Ross’s name jumped out at her. She’d had the page with his information on it at the top of the clipboard, anxiously awaiting her final guest’s arrival. Now that she knew he wouldn’t be staying with her, she was tempted to simply shred the document, though she knew she couldn’t put the man out of her mind.

She moved his sheet to the back of the pile and reviewed her other guests’ information. Kizzy was planning to stay until the end of the week, Rob had planned on leaving after only one night. She wondered why he’d changed his mind, but realized that he probably hoped that there’d be an opportunity for him to get a scoop on what happened to Mr. Ross.

Frank and Doris Martin were leaving a day after Kizzy. Annie thought that they had to be the best guests she could hope to ask for since they hadn’t complained a single time and even seemed intent on helping out at the house. Her fingers slid across Alexander George’s page, noting the numerous requests he’d made. Non-smoking room (they all were, luckily for him), hypoallergenic sheets, if possible, though he noted that he’d bring his own hypo-allergenic pillow, and he noted a preference for a room with few windows. Annie had thought this an odd request at the time, but since meeting the man, she realized that he was quite an odd fellow in general.

Marie Robichaud had simply inquired about WiFi connections and requested a room with a view.
Ah, Marie, doesn’t every room have a view when you can see into the spirit world?
Annie chuckled aloud at the thought, then put the clipboard back in her desk drawer and retrieved a stack of bills from the same drawer, pulling the most current ones from the list and doing a quick mental calculation.

After a few minutes, Annie opened her laptop and began her least favorite task of the week. Paying bills had been bad enough when she ran a household of three, but now that her household was large enough to accommodate so many guests, the job was definitely more painful. She worked her way through the stack of paper bills, paying the ones that were absolutely due right that minute, then put the rest back into the drawer. She glanced at the clock on the computer screen and frowned. Time seemed to be in short supply these days, and Annie had just wasted forty minutes on paperwork and paying bills.

Annie swore to herself that she’d set up automatic payments on most of her bills once the business produced a steady income, but for now, the time-suck was a necessity, and so was keeping her guests happy, and alive. She rose from her chair and started to leave her office when she noticed a crumpled piece of paper lying just behind the door.
Darned cat must have been in the trash, too
, she thought.

Something bothered Annie as she reached for the paper. She almost always kept the office locked, and since the guests had arrived, she’d made extra sure that she did, for their safety as well as her privacy. After all, it wouldn’t do to have guests nosing around in her paperwork, looking at information about other guests and possibly stumbling across financial information. Privacy laws were strict, even in a family-run inn, and Annie took her guests’ privacy very seriously.

She checked for other signs that the cat had been in her trash can, but only found the one scrap of paper. Curious, she unfolded the crumpled paper, expecting to find a receipt or scribbled budget sheet (she still preferred to do most of her budgeting by hand on paper--it just made everything seem more manageable). Instead, she found a handwritten note with Frank and Doris Martin’s name and address written on it. Beneath this information someone had written a physical description of each of them, crude, but fairly accurate.

Annie stared at the strange note. She definitely hadn’t written it, and she didn’t recognize the handwriting. Instead of tossing the paper, she put it in her pocket and left the office, locking the door closed behind her.

As she turned to walk away, she nearly tripped over two of her guests. Rob and Kizzy were waiting for her outside of her office. She had no idea how long they’d been standing there.

“Annie, I’m sorry to bother you,” Rob began, “but your mother said you were in the office. I just wanted to let you know that I spoke to Emmett.” He lowered his voice. “It wasn’t a drowning,” he added, his voice just a notch above a whisper.

Annie nodded. “I know. I spoke with him earlier and he told me pretty much the same thing,” she replied. “And I’m sure he told you the same thing he told me--not to panic and to just keep an eye out for strange or unusual things,” she sighed.

“No offense, Mrs. Richards, but I’ve seen lots of strange and unusual things since I arrived,” Kizzy interjected. “Like that Marie woman, and Mr. George. Those two are some strange birds,” she giggled.

Annie smiled and suppressed a laugh. “Some of our guests are a little, erm, unusual, but I don’t think that’s what Emmett meant.” She felt strange discussing the matter with Rob and slightly uncomfortable talking about it with Kizzy. She knew nothing about the woman, apart from the few things she’d gleaned from their short conversations. Kizzy seemed like an open book, but Annie reminded herself that she’d found the woman’s phone at the same place she’d found Lou’s body. Could she really be certain that Miss Fitzsimmons was as honest as she seemed?

“If you two will excuse me, I’m just going to go help my mother in the kitchen,” Annie explained. “But I’ll see you two at dinner. Bring your appetites,” she added, “my mother is cooking a veritable feast.”

Annie left her guests standing in the little space beside the stairs and took herself into the kitchen, where Bessie was now frying chicken alone. “Doris went upstairs to have a little nap,” Bessie explained. “Poor thing’s not used to all this country living,” she added with a twinkle in her eye.

“Mama, you’re not supposed to work our guests to death,” Annie scolded, but she was secretly glad that Doris had been enlisted to prepare the beans. It wasn’t Annie’s favorite job, and at least she’d found the time to pay bills while the two older women tackled that particular kitchen duty.