Muffin But Murder (A Merry Muffin Mystery) (6 page)

As always before plunging into the woods, I paused, turned, and looked over my property. I got a chill down my back every time. It seemed too much, this vast abundance, and the superstitious part of me swore I’d pay for being the Wynter heir in some way. Maybe that’s what all the harassment and vandalism was about.

What would become of the Wynter estate once I sold it? Most of the outbuildings would probably be torn down. I had explored every one of them and most were sturdy, but only one would be useful to whomever bought the property. The garage, built from the same stone as the castle, was a beautiful building now that the glass in the gothic arched windows had been repaired and the weeds cut down from around it. It had originally been stables, no doubt, but had been converted for motor vehicle use sometime early in the twentieth century as horseless carriages replaced the kind that needed hay. The garage’s structure was so good that a future owner could even make it into a suite of rooms. I had seen that done at country inns before, where it would be given a classy name, like The Carriage House.

I turned to look at the castle itself. It was mellow gold in the midday sun, hard autumn light gleaming against the newly cleaned arched windows. Set in a wide open space with a flagstone drive curving up to it, it was surrounded on all sides by a wall of forest. I scanned the far edges of the woods. So far I had only walked though the arboretum, but I did know that the other sections of forest were natural, not planned. I had been told by locals that there were a couple of natural spring-water streams and ponds and other features I’d love to explore in nicer weather. Gogi had even told me my great uncle Melvyn and grandfather Murgatroyd Wynter had planned a fairy-tale-themed park many years ago and had begun to build it in one part of the forest. I’d have to find it.
If
I had time before I sold the castle.

I had to keep reminding myself that it was not for me to concern myself with all of this land, what to do with it, and how to manage it, because there was no way on earth I could keep it. Becket melted out of the woods and joined me, just sitting patiently, waiting for me to step into his world, the place where I had first seen him almost two months before.

“What am I going to do, Becket?” I said, a catch in my voice, as I stared at the castle again. “I love this place, but I just can’t keep it. It’s going to hurt to leave, but I couldn’t stay in Autumn Vale after selling and watch someone else rip this place to shreds and make it over into a commercial hotel. Even though that’s the only use it could possibly have in this world.”

He rubbed against my leg, and I leaned down to pet him. “I know you love it, too. What’s going to happen when I leave? You’ll
have
to come with me, but it might kill you to leave here.”

He looked up at me, his beautiful golden eyes full of sympathy, then set off into the woods. I followed him but kept to the paths even as he galloped into the thick shrubs. I wanted to see if Alcina had made any new faery structures. Lizzie had told me some of her friend’s story, that her mother was often sick and confined to home and didn’t have a lot of energy to worry about Alcina. Shilo, now friends with Emerald, Lizzie’s mom, had learned even more. Emerald, who was still trying to figure out how to deal with her daughter’s new family, Binny, who was Lizzie’s aunt, and Rusty Turner, her grandfather, welcomed Alcina in their home. The girl had told Emerald that her mom had come back to Autumn Vale to die, sick with some incurable disease. It wasn’t said out loud, but the implication was it was cancer. Emerald and Lizzie tried to keep Alcina busy and happy, and I appreciated that about them.

There were dozens of species of wildlife in the woods. I had made something of a hobby of spotting and identifying them: raccoons, squirrels (both the regular kind and little cute red squirrels), groundhogs, skunks, possums. I had even seen a porcupine. One of my most exciting views had been of deer at the edge of the woods and bounding across my property. Pish had binoculars, and I had taken to using them from my window to try to catch a glimpse of the shy animals, the ones spooked by my presence that I only “felt” when I was in the forest.

I’ve been a city girl my whole life. Who knew I’d be so woodsy?

As I approached the latest faery art installation, I got an uneasy sense that I wasn’t alone. I knew there were coyotes in these parts, and had actually seen one along the edge of the arboretum. It worried me to death that Becket might get picked off, but he was wily and had lived on his own for the better part of a year until I had come along. As a precaution, though, I made him stay in the castle at night, no matter how much he bellyached.

This time my sense that I was not alone had nothing to do with an animal. It felt like there was someone human nearby, a feeling that Becket seconded in his alert: bristly fur and obvious caution. His ringed orange tail puffed up like a bottle brush. I rounded a bend in the forest path and saw someone bending over the latest faery house, a structure set in a stump. Was it Alcina? Or Lizzie? But no, this girl was wearing low-riding jeans and had a whaletail above them, the infamous top of a thong showing above her jeans.

“Hello,” I said loudly, and she jumped, whirling around.

“You scared the crap out of me!” she shrieked, almost losing her balance.

I examined her with interest, from the bleached fuzz of hair piled upon her head to the sharp-toed boots that I knew at a glance cost about nine hundred dollars. This was no Valer, I’d wager. From her blue glittery makeup making her look like a nineteen eighties Madonna wannabe to her crystal-studded jeans, she’d stand out by a mile in our town. “I’m sorry, but I didn’t want to just walk up on you. What are you doing in my woods?”

“
Your
woods? Aren’t woods just there? I mean, no one owns them, right?”

I didn’t think she was willing or able to have a philosophical conversation on the concept of ownership of the earth and its resources, to argue from a First Nations viewpoint that no one owned the earth and that we traveled on it as companions to the woodland creatures—a view I sympathize with, by the way, but am not sure how to support in our modern culture—so I tackled it pragmatically. “Yes, woodlands are owned, and this one happens to be owned by me. Who are you?”

“My name is Zoey Channer.”

Chapter Six

I
PAUSED
A
BEAT
while it sunk in. Zoey Channer; she was infamous, the wild-child daughter of Percy Channer, hotelier. “I think your father is looking for you.”

She nodded. “Yeah, right? He doesn’t like that I’m out of his control now.”

“So he knows you’re in this area,” I said, not as a question.

This explained why Percy Channer had called me, why he wanted an excuse to roam the area, why he had asked so many questions about Autumn Vale and Ridley Ridge, and why he had gone to the town after leaving Wynter Castle and talked to many people there. I had heard about his time in town but shrugged it off as the control-freak billionaire’s way of checking out the neighborhood, so to speak, before buying the castle. I had even, bless my naïveté, seen it as a sign of his interest. It was well known in the financial world, Pish had told me, that Percy was fierce about every detail of his hotels.

But why hadn’t he just asked if I had seen her? Had that simple approach not appealed to him? “Why are you here?”

She shrugged. I eyed her with skepticism. The fashion industry attracts its share of celebutantes, and I had heard about Zoey Channer’s antics: walking through the woods in Prada boots did not fit her MO. “You’re in the area with someone,” I surmised. “Who?”

“Just a boyfriend.” She looked around. “I guess I’d better get going,” she said, and started to walk away from me down the path toward the highway.

“Wait! Why are you
really
in the woods?” I shouted.

She threw over her shoulder: “Maybe I was heading to your castle to case the joint. Ever been robbed?”

She strode away, and I was not about to follow her. What good would it do? I figured she had a car, and I was assured of that when I heard the roar of a powerful motor—some kind of muscle car—on the road beyond the woods. Why
was
she in my woods? Where was this boyfriend she mentioned, at the wheel of the getaway car? It was unlikely I was walking in the woods at the only moment she happened to be there, so how much time had she spent in my forest, and why? Had she been spying on us all?

I felt an uneasy sense of intrusion on my privacy, though that was silly. I wasn’t exactly living in a glass house. My peaceful, contemplative mood ruined, I called Becket and returned to the castle, the cat racing ahead of me. I told Pish about my experience. He wanted me to tell Virgil about what sounded, in retrospect, like a threat, but I was tired of telling Virgil anything, and what could he do anyway? I suppose I could have called Percy Channer and told him about meeting his daughter in my woods; it might even have gained me brownie points with a wealthy, powerful hotelier, but to heck with him, I thought. If he couldn’t be forthright and just ask about his daughter, then it wasn’t up to me to hook him up.

Instead of doing anything about it, I headed into town for a few last-minute errands before the party in two days. I chose a weekday to host my little soiree for two reasons. First, this was business. And second, all of the folks I invited had busy social lives on weekends, and this was fairly short notice. A weekend date would be hard to squeeze into their social calendars, I reasoned, so a week night worked out best for everyone. It was only the first, after all, and for future events I could give invitees more time to plan. Enough people had said yes to the invitation that the ballroom would be full.

Autumn Vale is a town like many in our country; it has suffered through a dreadful recession, fighting a losing battle, in some cases, and winning the day only occasionally. Main Street looks like a fighter’s mouth missing teeth, with several dark gaps where there used to be quaint stores. But it had not yet descended into the grim drabness that was Ridley Ridge, and might not if Pish could save the bank from closure, since the bank drew people to Autumn Vale, where they then spent a few of their hard-earned dollars. It was truly the economic heart of the community.

I tried to patronize the local establishments as much as I could, and on a selfish level I think it worked somewhat; most of the locals are polite on the surface, at least, barring the occasional verbose lunatic and Minnie the local post lady who had decided, as Gogi had told me, that I was a snob and too big for my britches. I am
not
too big for my britches. Actually I like them tight fitting but not indecent. I dropped in again on Gogi at Golden Acres just to make sure she and Virgil were still coming to the party and bringing Doc with them, then I headed down to the library.

Hannah, the wheelchair-bound librarian, was a special friend to me. When I first met her, she was mourning the death of Tom Turner, the fellow I’d found at the bottom of one of the holes on my property. I felt for her; losing the one you love is the worst pain anyone can experience. She was still sad—she loved him with a romantic intensity suitable to the twentysomething she was—but with the attention of Lizzie and I and Tom’s sister, Binny, she was beginning to come around. I would be seeing her at the party, but she had called me the night before to tell me she had some information she wanted to share on the possible antecedents of Cranston Higgins. Even though it was a Sunday, she wanted me to meet her at the library so she could show me or tell me what she had found.

The little Autumn Vale Public Library is on a narrow side street, and if you don’t know it’s there, it’s easy to miss. There’s a hand-painted sign that hangs out over the sidewalk and a wheelchair ramp built by the late, lamented Tom Turner. The inside is a little gloomy because the windows are set too high in the cinderblock walls to let in enough light, but it was improving, infused with Hannah’s book-loving personality. I had promised her the boxes of books I had had in storage for years, if they weren’t too musty. Since a lot of them were my mother’s and grandmother’s, the mix was eclectic, from mysteries to feminist philosophy to classic literature to poetry. I hadn’t gotten to that yet—the boxes of books were sitting in a vacant room upstairs—but I promised myself I would after the party.

The library was only open three afternoons a week. The rest of the time Hannah took books to Golden Acres for the folks who live there, and also to the local schools. The library was rarely empty on the days she was open, and even though it was Sunday, today was no exception. Word must have gotten around that Hannah was going to be there for a few hours, because Isadore Openshaw was perusing the shelves, and so were a couple of other patrons who I didn’t know. Isadore was a voracious reader, from all indications, and I would have talked to her about books, except she avoided me, perhaps seeing me as the author of her misfortune. It was troubling that she was becoming increasingly isolated—a layer of blame from the locals over the bank’s troubles and her own quirky, aloof personality were having the expected effect. She was being shunned, but if she wouldn’t loosen up and talk to people, what could anyone do? If she wouldn’t even let Pish help her, then she was in a sorry state indeed.

I greeted Hannah, and sat down in the chair beside her wheelchair. “So, what’s up?” I asked, after we had chitchatted about the upcoming party.

“I found some old references to a woman named Violet, and she may be the one Cranston is claiming as his grandmother,” she said, retrieving a file of old newspaper clippings from her desk drawer. She opened the file and laid it flat. “Look here, Violet Flores . . . it’s a 1942 notice that she’s leaving Autumn Vale and wishes her friends will come visit her and her older sister, Dorothy, at the Vale Variety and Lunch for an informal tea.”

I checked the date, and it coincided with what Cranston had said about his grandmother leaving Autumn Vale. But would a girl who was sneaking out of town because she was pregnant have a going-away party? “I should just do the DNA test and get it over with,” I mused, still undecided over Cranston’s claim. “But once that’s done, there’s no going back. I guess I’m looking for some way to ease into it, to get an idea of what to expect.”

“What happens if it turns out he is who he says he is?” Hannah asked, her wide gray eyes fixed on mine with a wistful expression. “Would that change anything?”

“No,” I said, knowing that she was actually asking if there was any way we’d all be able to stay in Autumn Vale. “In fact, it would probably speed things up, because Cranston is pressing for us to sell. Mind you, he has some unrealistic expectations of the real estate situation.” I made up my mind then and there to go ahead with the DNA test. “May I use your phone?”

I got the information I needed and hung up, then borrowed the phone again. “There,” I said, with a false brightness, as I pressed the End button. “For better or worse, I’ve made an appointment for two weeks from tomorrow at the hospital in Rochester for both Cranston and I.”

“Why a hospital?” Hannah asked. “Why not one of those at-home DNA tests?”

I shrugged. “If we’re going to do this, we may as well do it right. I’ve been told the test has to be administered at a hospital for legal purposes.”

“You shouldn’t have done that, Merry,” Hannah said, her eyes shining with tears. “I don’t want you and Shilo and Pish to leave, ever!”

I hugged her. “Avoiding this wasn’t going to change anything, sweetie. I can’t stay indefinitely without a proper source of income.”

“I know,” she said. A customer came to the desk, and Hannah signed some books out for her, then turned back to me as the patron hustled hurriedly from the library.

“But let’s not think about that!” I said. To change the subject, I told her about my encounter in the woods with Zoey Channer.

“Oh, I know about her. I see her picture in
People
and
EW
!”

“What have you heard lately? I’m trying to figure out why she’s hanging around here and not Hollywood or New York.”

For the next few minutes, she regaled me with stories of Zoey Channer’s exploits. First Paris Hilton had taken her under her wing, but then the two had a spat and ended up as frenemies. Zoey tried to get a reality show deal, but someone died on the set and the whole thing was canceled. She did a stint in rehab, then jail on a drug charge. Then rehab. Then jail. A theme was developing.

“So what is the latest?”

Hannah did a web search and came up with the most recent headlines, which were that Zoey had met someone through her cell mate in jail, and was going out with a “bad boy,” a guy named Dave Smith who had done time for fraud and robbery. Uneasily, I thought of her joking about casing the castle. Maybe it wasn’t a joke. She was currently out on parole.

“I think I’m going to call Virgil and just have him keep an eye out for Miss Channer and her sketchy boyfriend.” I got up to leave.

“I’m really looking forward to the party, Merry.” Hannah gazed up at me, her luminescent gray eyes gleaming with excitement. “It’s going to be my first.”

“Your first party?” I asked with amazement. “Didn’t you go to prom, or . . . or something?”

She shook her head. “I was a pretty good student but got bored at school, so my mom and dad took me out and I was homeschooled from then on. We belonged to a home school association and they had a prom, but they didn’t have it at a place I could get to. This party is going to be epic!”

For once she sounded her age instead of like an old soul. I had a sudden realization of how Shilo, Pish, and I coming to Autumn Vale had opened up her world, in a sense, beyond the scope of her beloved books, and how much she’d miss us when we left. I reached down and hugged her, not able to tell her we’d stay, but sure I would always stay in contact with her. “I’ll give you a personal tour of the main floor of the castle. It’s going to be a great party.”

The next day was unbelievably busy from dawn, when the temporary wheelchair ramp was delivered and affixed to the door off of the butler pantry so Hannah could get into the castle, through the food deliveries, to the arrival of Zeke, Gordy, and a crew of extra Valers, who helped in every aspect. I had a meeting with Lizzie, Alcina, Emerald, Juniper Jones, and Binny. We walked around the castle and I explained the party layout, which mostly covered the ballroom, the great hall, and the parlor, which I was making into a ladies’ room for fixing makeup, in the old tradition. It doubled as a coat area as well, and I had a couple of portable clothes racks and a few dozen wooden hangers set up, thanks to Janice Grover.

“Lizzie, you and Alcina . . . Alcina!” I repeated, trying to get the girl’s attention. She had spun off and was examining a teapot, one with butterflies all over it, her long, thrift-shop skirt dragging while her faery wings threatened to knock over anything too close by.

Lizzie caught my eye and shrugged. Emerald bit her lip and smiled. I had Lizzie’s mother there not because she’d be helping out at the party—she was coming as a guest only—but because I was making an effort to include her in her daughter’s life. She had had a rocky road as a single parent but had finally come to terms with her mother on where Lizzie lived—wherever she felt like that week, her mom’s or her grandmother’s—so things were starting to settle down in that respect. Now that Lizzie’s paternity had been exposed, Emerald and Binny were becoming friends; in Tom, both had lost someone who, though difficult to deal with on occasion, had been doing his best to become a more responsible and reliable grown-up.