Elaine Orr - Jolie Gentil 04 - Any Port in a Storm (26 page)

For once Aunt Madge was not the one bustling around her kitchen serving food. My friend Ramona, in her usual hippie-type dress that only she can pull off in the twenty-first century, was pulling out creamer for the coffee and butter for the wide array of Aunt Madge’s muffins, which are well known around town.

“Come on Jolie.” Scoobie called from where he and George were managing an array of soft drinks and champagne. “You may be all dressed up, but you need to get cracking.”

“LEFTOVERS FOR THE FOOD PANTRY?” Lance Wilson asked an hour later as he stood surveying the emptying great room.

“I checked with the health office,” I said. “Harvest for All can’t serve prepared food. Father Teehan and Reverend Jamison bought about thirty plastic food thingys, and some of the teens Scoobie works with are going to give them out at the big rooming house on
F Street in a few minutes.”

Lance, who is ninety with the spirit of someone half his age, just nodded. He’s the food pantry treasurer, and it’s been a tough month for him. For everybody, but his tiny house didn’t let him move anything further off the floor than the top of a table, so while there were only a few inches of water in his house, much of what he owned had to be trashed. He’s staying in an apartment for now.

“Okay, ladies. Time for my personal favorite event of every wedding.” George handed Scoobie a small box and Scoobie pulled out a tiny bridal bouquet.

I raised one hand and managed to turn my single raised finger into a four-fingered wave in their direction. Aunt Madge hadn’t held a bouquet, so I knew this was all on Scoobie and George. Since I’m divorced, I had no intention of joining my nieces, Ramona, and a couple young women Aunt Madge knows from First Prez.

“Go on, Jolie.” Renée gave me a gentle push in the small of the back, and Reverend Jamison applauded. I still wouldn’t have moved closer, but my mother looked horrified, so that made it worth it.

Ramona and Aunt Madge were laughing. “You helped plan this!” I said, hoping I didn’t look as irritated as I felt. George and I have been dating a few weeks, but this followed a year of sometimes intense dislike, on my part anyway, so I’m not as interested in talking about “a future” as he is.

If Scoobie had not swatted Aunt Madge’s bouquet toward me as I was backing away, I never would have caught it.

THE DOORBELL GONGED just as I pulled back the covers to get into bed. Mister Rogers and Miss Piggy had been supervising this, since Aunt Madge has never been away overnight in their memory and they seem to have little confidence that I can manage the B&B. My little black cat had permitted them to sleep in our bedroom, and I think I can speak for all of us when I say we were beat.

“Who could that be?”

Mister Rogers gave a tiny growl.

All week I had been convincing myself that I didn’t mind being alone in the large B&B. We have a security system now, and tomorrow there would be two guests. Aunt Madge had not accepted any for tonight, and my sister and her family were back home in
Lakewood. My parents live in Florida now, thank the heavens and earth and any other planet I can name. They were staying with Renée.

There are night lights along the hall and we keep a light on in the front hall, so I wasn’t nervous. No burglar rings the doorbell. I pushed the code to turn off the security alarm in the breakfast room as I walked to the front door.

The opaque oval window in the middle of the door in the main foyer let me peer out without opening the door. A woman dressed only in shorts and a fleece running jacket was shivering violently, and when she saw my face she sobbed and held up her mobile phone.

I flung open the door and she fell into my arms. A man’s voice came from her phone. “Turn off your cell, don’t use your credit cards or go near anyone we know. Hide! Do exactly…” He said something else I couldn’t hear clearly, and the line went dead.

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Watch for
Jolie Gentil and
Trouble on the Doorstep
in
March 2013.

From Hurricane Sandy to Cozy Corner B&B repairs to Aunt Madge’s wedding in three weeks. If Jolie can handle that surely she can deal with a sobbing woman, Pooki, who shows up at midnight playing a scary message on a cell phone. A shady deal for storm repairs at the Ocean Alley Senior Complex seems to be at the root of Steve Oliver’s hit-and-run death and his missing business partner, Pooki’s husband Eric. When the partner ends up dead at the B&B, Jolie’s digging for clues in between burning muffins and appraising houses. But when she doesn’t share all that she learns with her sometimes-boyfriend, reporter George Winters, he’s grouchy. Jolie is convinced she needs to find the murderer and expose fraudulent repair bids. Not everyone shares her views—not the police, her friend Scoobie, and certainly not the murderer.