Muffin But Murder (A Merry Muffin Mystery) (18 page)

She shrugged.

“Was it late in the evening or early? Was there anyone else around? Did anyone say anything to the fat vampire?” I watched her face. What had been bothering me for some time was that whoever killed Hooper should have had blood on him. How had that escaped notice? “Did you see him again later?”

Alcina shrugged again, and I could feel her withdrawing.

“Shilo?” I pleaded, and nodded toward the girl.

“Aly,” Shilo said, and the girl looked up at her. “Why did you notice the vampire and the cowboy?”

It was not the question I would have asked, but I held my tongue.

Alcina shrugged again. “It was funny, this little fat, sweaty vampire and the tall, skinny cowboy. It was like . . . a cartoon.”

“Did you notice anything else about the vampire?” I asked.

She shrugged and shook her head.

Lizzie watched me, then her gaze flicked over to Alcina. “Why didn’t you tell me that stuff, Aly?” she asked, her feelings hurt.

“Let her answer me,” I said to Lizzie.

But Alcina was done. She jumped up, smiled at us all briefly—a look like sunshine—then said, “I’ll race you home, Lizzie.”

It had stopped raining and, though it was cold, the sun was shining. I followed them outside hoping to get more info, but after offering me an apologetic shrug, Lizzie took off after Alcina. I stood on the terrace, watching them cycle down the sloping drive and disappear around the curve. Maybe Virgil could get something more from Alcina. It left me wondering about the timing. Who among my friends and acquaintances had seen Channer and Hooper arguing and told Virgil about it? Was that inside or out on the terrace? If it was late, then Channer just might be the murderer.

I reentered the castle. Pish said he was going back to work on his book, but after our morning expedition, I was at a loss for what to do.

“Why don’t we go up to the attic? You have to see it, Merry,” Shilo said, looping her arm through mine.

I thought about it for a second as McGill joined us in the great hall. There were a thousand things I ought to have been doing. I should have been following up on the sighting of the vampire who I thought might have been Channer. I should have gotten back to work peeling wallpaper off the frieze in the turret room. But I didn’t want to do anything. My heart and mind felt overburdened with worry for Pish, about Cranston, and over the fate of Wynter Castle.

Virgil had warned me that some of the townsfolk were worried about what was going to happen to the castle and property when I sold. I was beginning to worry about that, too. Who would appreciate Wynter Castle more than I would? That was probably not the right frame of mind to go up and look through a century of Wynter family memorabilia. Even after two months it was still a shock to me that I had such a deep and storied family history.

But I needed something to distract me, and I was suddenly curious. “Okay. Let’s do it!”

The stairway to the attic was behind a narrow door tucked away in a corner of the gallery hallway. I followed Shilo and McGill up there, and we turned on the lights that hung from the rafters. It was a revelation, not at all like other attics I had known. It was huge and spacious, with high ceilings and windows that let light in even through dust. “Wow,” I breathed, coughing a little from the dust. “This is amazing, like an entire third floor! McGill, there’s even room up here for more guest suites, if a buyer was interested.”

He simply nodded, but he looked troubled.

I paced the length, then explored the groupings of furniture shoved to the side. There were at least two entire sets of Eastlake bedroom furniture, the design along the top of one headboard reminding me of eyelet lace, as well as a couple more complete sets of Victorian furnishings. The dressers were heavy as heck, as I found when I tried to move one. McGill came to my aid, and we turned one around so I could have a look at it.

“Magnificent!” I breathed, staring at a chest of drawers with an ornate mirror topping it. It made the set I was using seem modest in contrast.

We actually moved some of the furniture downstairs to an empty room so I could use it for the turret bedroom once I was done redecorating. It was fortunate that I was a strong woman and that McGill looked stringy but was strong, too. We then moved a bunch of stuff to the edge of the attic stairs, ready to take downstairs as well. I could already picture the turret bedrooms finished. One would be the Eastlake room, complete with a washstand topped by a pitcher-and-bowl set, with a wardrobe that was too big to move without help but was earmarked for one of the few walls without windows. The other turret bedroom would be done up in traditional Victorian style. I was having far too much fun with the planning, and it was worrisome, given that I was doing all of the work for someone else.

I dug through a stack of boxes, many of which had china and serving pieces I couldn’t wait to investigate further. Then I came across a box of photo albums and started trembling. Was my dad in there, in that box? Would I recognize him if he was in a photo? I moved it from place to place, then finally shoved the box aside. I was on the edge of my nerves shattering. I told Shilo I’d had enough and needed to go back downstairs.

It’s hard to explain to people who have had family their whole lives, but I’ve been independent a long time, and my “family” has always been my circle of friends. It was hard to get a grasp on this whole other part of my past, a Wynter family that had existed for hundreds of years and of which I was the living relic. I had to get away, out of the stuffy attic, where I sensed the ghosts of Wynters. Shilo understood and let me go.

It was time for me to make dinner, anyway, and cooking soothes me like nothing else. I put on a pot roast, surrounding it in the Dutch oven with lots of potatoes, carrots, garlic, onions, and wild herbs. The aroma was divine, wafting in puffs of steam from the pot. While it was cooking, I tried to go back to planning for the sale of the castle, but my mind was just not in it. I was in no-man’s-land, wandering between worrying about a second death at the castle and who was guilty to Pish’s situation as a suspect to Cranston’s claim on the estate to what the heck I was going to do with it all. Despite how frantic the uncertainties were in my mind, at least it was a change from a few months before, when my worries had been about my career, how I was going to make a living, and who would hire me.

We ate in the kitchen, Shilo, Pish, McGill, and I. The tension began to unknot from my shoulders as I listened to Pish’s plans for his book. He was using the Autumn Vale Community Bank as an overarching story line, with chapters in between discussing various aspects of bank frauds. He was going to have to travel some for it, but he was wealthy and had the time and means. I wondered when he was going to get bored with the isolation of Wynter Castle and want to go back to the city. What would I do without him?

I turned to ask Shilo something and caught her smiling over at McGill; his expression, goofy with love, made me smile. I was just so grateful for friends at a time like this that I forgot about my worries for the moment. “Let’s retire to the parlor,” I said of the newly furnished room just beyond the dining room. “We can start a fire and plan a wedding!”

The parlor was a smallish nook, in comparison to the size of the other rooms, and was furnished now with antiques, some that belonged to the castle collection and some I had found at Janice’s shop. I loved the room, from the rich wine-colored Victorian draperies to the Persian rug, and including the antique settee and low rosewood table, upon which I had centered my silver tea set, a wedding gift from my mother-in-law.

While Pish worked on building a fire in the parlor, McGill, Shilo, and I paced out the great hall, and I expanded on the ideas I’d had for a winter wedding the very first time McGill had shown me the place. It amazed me how the last two months had progressed: he hadn’t known the wedding we’d be planning would be his own! I had them stand, hands joined, in front of the fireplace, and my vision blurred. Suddenly I had become a crybaby, but I was so happy for Shilo, who looked up at McGill with trust and love in her eyes, her head back and long dark hair flowing down in waves. I had styled her many times, and this time I could see her in front of a roaring fire, a vision in white, a circlet of flowers on her hair. McGill I would put in a jacket but no tie, and certainly no tuxedo. He didn’t suit anything too formal. It was going to be beautiful.

We gathered in the parlor around the fire with Shilo and McGill on a low settee, and Pish and I, like a mother and father, sitting in wing chairs opposite them with the low round table between us. I made tea for myself and Shilo, while Pish cradled a brandy and McGill sipped his ever-present Dr Pepper. We chatted about the wedding, but then the conversation inevitably turned to the murder.

It was a ball of confusion to me, I admitted.

Pish said, “You’ve assumed that Juniper attacked this Zoey girl because she was dumped by Les in Zoey’s favor, right?”

I nodded. “There wasn’t anything specific that gave me that idea, except . . . well, I assumed Les fired Juniper because their relationship ended, and it sure seems like Zoey is with Les now.”

“But you just told us that there was a long-haired guy hanging around Les, right? Maybe you didn’t notice, but Davey Hooper had long hair. And couldn’t he equally as likely be the guy Zoey met through a cellmate? Hooper was in jail, too.”

“Yeah, I had thought about that. And actually, I did tell Virgil about the guy hanging around Les’s store, and that maybe he was Davey Hooper, but I guess everything that happened just knocked the waitress’s skinny, long-haired ‘vampire’ out of my mind. So you think that maybe
Hooper
is the guy Zoey was hooked up with, not Les? If so, she sure doesn’t seem cut up that he’s dead.”

“But Juniper does, right?”

I thought about Pish’s conjectures, but McGill was ahead of me in some ways.

“So maybe Davey Hooper was hanging out in Ridley Ridge to be near Autumn Vale so he could get close to where his brother died?” he asked.

We had gone over the possible reasons behind Davey Hooper’s sojourn in Ridley Ridge many times, and I had privately considered that he was setting up to blackmail Pish some more. But how had he figured out Pish was at Wynter Castle? It wasn’t something I could talk to anyone about, so I was left to my own conjectures.

Shilo said to me, “Maybe he was out to hurt you because you were his mom’s downfall, you know?” She paused and shook her head. “No, I guess that doesn’t work. He wouldn’t wait for the party to attack you, would he? That would be a bad time. He’d just . . . I don’t know, run you off the highway or something.”

“That’s not a bad point, though, Shilo, that he may have been stalking me using Zoey. After all, I’m the reason his mom’s in prison. But the fact remains: I am not the one who ended up dead—Davey is.” I pondered that for a long moment. “I feel like there’s this big part of the story we’re not seeing, something that would make it all gel. Something that would connect it all together.”

“Let’s go back to Juniper,” Pish said, sitting back and swirling his brandy. “She was distraught after the party, as you learned from Binny, or if not right after the party, once word got to her about who was
killed
at the party.”

I thought about that for a moment, because if Juniper hadn’t been upset until she’d found out who had been killed, that let her off the hook as the killer. “So you’re saying maybe Juniper Jones had been hooking up with Davey Hooper, and that’s why she was distraught when she found out the identity of the victim.” I stared into the fire briefly, then said, “I know the timing of her meltdown seems to indicate otherwise, but I still say we can’t rule Juniper out as killer, if she was the spurned lover. I can attest to that girl being handy with a knife.” I stared into the fire. “And the handprint!” I explained my finding of the bloody handprint on the wall by the smoking terrace.

Shilo shivered. “It’s like some gothic book . . .
Curse of the Bloody Handprint
!”

“Maybe she became distraught because she
was
the one who murdered Hooper and the police questioning scared her,” I mused. “I keep coming back to one question: why did she disappear from the party? Well, she would have had to if she were covered in blood. No one knows how she got home, or even if she went right home.” Unless she had told the police all of that.

Shilo shuddered and clung to McGill. “Do we have to talk about this right after planning my pretty wedding?” she complained.

“Yes, we do, honey,” I said, sitting cross-legged in the wing chair. “I won’t rest until this is cleared up.”

“I know,” she murmured. “Sorry, go on!” McGill patted her hand on his arm and kissed the top of her head.

Pish said, “Let’s go back first, before talking about Juniper as the possible killer. Say something happened between Hooper and Juniper, and maybe he dumped her for Zoey Channer.”

I readily adjusted my thinking to having Hooper and Juniper and Zoey in a love triangle instead of Les Urquhart as the male lead.

“Zoey is rich, or at least her daddy is,” Pish went on. “We know the Hooper family is all about the money. That’s Zoey’s attraction . . . money.”

“But if Alcina’s fat vampire is Percy Channer, I still think
he’s
our most likely killer,” I said. I like simplicity, and it just seemed so obvious now that I knew someone fitting Channer’s general description was at the party, had fought with Hooper, and had clearly avoided me. “He was seen arguing with Hooper, and now we know he told him to get out on the terrace. Wouldn’t be the first dad to kill a guy like that if he was buzzing around his wealthy daughter just to score some money.”

McGill said, “You know . . . that guy, Percy Channer, he may be stocky, but he’s short. I never noticed, but maybe he has small hands and the handprint is his! You have longer fingers than a lot of men, Merry.”

“That’s true. Okay, you may have a point: the handprint could even be Percy Channer’s.”

Pish looked unsettled. “But how do we know—”

As sometimes happens in real life, two things happened at once: Pish’s cell phone rang, and there was a loud gong that meant someone was at the door.