The Inn (16 page)

“N
o trace of anyone or anything,” Adam told the chief. “We've scoured those woods. Except for Roger's hand in the wood box, there's been no evidence of anything suspicious. Certainly no sign of the two missing persons.”

Richard sat back in his chair, propping his feet up on his desk.

“This just doesn't make sense,” he told his deputy. “How could whoever killed Roger Askew force his—or her—way into the Blue Boy Inn, take off with two hostages, likely on foot, and not leave a single trace?”

“Are you certain they made off on foot?” Adam asked. “I mean, a car could have pulled in there during the time Ms. Wish was out at the market. . . .”

“Didn't you read the report, Adam?” Richard asked him.

The deputy stiffened. “I glanced at it. I've been out interviewing so many people . . .”

Richard smiled. “It's all right. Well, when you do get around to reading it, you'll see that I interviewed Ted Cassidy, from the Department of Public Works. He was filling in a pothole around the corner from the inn. He saw Annabel go to the market, and he saw her come back. He was certain no other car came by in that time.”

“Jeez,” Adam said.

“We've searched the house, we've searched the grounds, and nothing,” Richard said.

“It just doesn't make sense how three people could disappear so completely.”

“And you still think whoever killed Roger also killed the old lady?”

“It's a working theory. Maybe he wanted to hide out at the inn, Cordelia gave him a hard time, and he whacked her over the head.”

“But why would they be in her bedroom?” Adam asked.

The chief shook his head. “Good question. That's what I mean. None of this adds up.”

“Well, here's another monkey wrench to throw into your theories,” said Richard's secretary, Betty, walking into the room and placing a sheet of paper on the chief's desk.

“What's this?” he asked.

“Fax just came in from the county coroner's office,” Betty told him.

Richard snatched it up and read it quickly.

“Christ,” he grumbled.

“What is it?” Adam asked.

Richard laughed. “The coroner is ruling Cordelia's death an accident. Her head injury is entirely consistent with a fall, during which she struck her head on the iron doorstop.”

“So then we don't have a murder investigation,” Adam said. “Just a couple of missing persons.”

“I don't buy it,” Richard said. “The old woman's skull was cracked. She'd have to have come down to the floor at a superhuman rate to hit that doorstop and crack her head that severely.”

“Can you contest the finding?” Betty asked.

Richard sighed. “Sure, I can. But it'll take time.” He pounded his fist on his desk. “That coroner is old and out of it. This isn't the first ruling of his I've disagreed with. But there's not much I can do at the moment.”

He hesitated.

“I'm going to have to tell Neville Clarkson he's free to go back to England.” The chief picked up the phone. “If he takes off immediately, that would be a sign he knew more than he was saying. If he sticks around, waiting for news of his girlfriend, then he's innocent of anything. Let's keep close tabs on the place, okay?”

Adam told him he'd visit the Blue Boy twice a day for the next week. The chief gave him the thumbs-up as the phone started to ring at the inn.

“T
hank you for coming back,” Annabel said, greeting Chad Appleby at the door.

The young contractor offered her a small, sad smile as he stepped inside. “I could either listen to the village idiots at Deb's Diner bleating about the curse of the Blue Boy, or I could say, hey, I've got a job to do,” Chad told her. “And if I didn't come back here, I'd be forever branded a chicken all around town.”

“I'm sorry to have put you in this position,” Annabel said.

“It's okay,” Chad told her.

Annabel looked genuinely unhappy that her inn had such a sordid reputation. “You do know that the chief called yesterday and told us that the coroner had ruled Cordelia's death to be an accident, don't you?”

Chad nodded. “Seems a strange coincidence, though, given Roger Askew's hand being found out back and Paulie and your guest disappearing at the exact same time.”

“I know,” Annabel said, “but we have to believe it. Who knows? Maybe Cordelia saw something from her window, and in her hurry to call the police, she tripped and fell. That's what Chief Carlson suggested as a possibility.”

Chad shrugged. “I guess it
is
a possibility.”

Annabel smiled. “Yes,” she said, “it is.”

“Well, let's move on,” Chad said. “Like I said, I have a job that I was hired to do. And we were planning to start in the parlor, right?”

“Yes,” Annabel said, leading him inside. They stood in the center of the room. The bricks Paulie had removed from the fireplace were still piled off to the side. “Tell me what I need to do to prepare for you to start.”

“Well, we'll have to move all this furniture out of here.”

“I can do that. Jack will help me put it in the basement.”

“Then you and I need to pick out some tiles, and some paint. You said you want that wall knocked down there, correct?”

Annabel was nodding. “That's right. It will open the room up into the dining room. Make the flow a lot smoother.”

Chad walked over and knocked on the wall. “That should be easy enough. But that's the only structural change you want, right?”

“Right. Well, except for the windows.”

He walked over to the windows and inspected the wood. “That's not really structural, though you do want to make them a little bit bigger.”

“Yes, to bring in more sun.”

“We can do that.” He peeled off a piece of wood that was flaking off the sill. “Okay, so new windows, the wall removed, and we'll sand the floor and the moldings. . . really restore everything.”

“And the fireplace,” Annabel added. “We'll need to finish it.”

Chad was nodding. He approached the fireplace and looked down. “Paulie said the chimney was sound. I can finish removing any last bricks that are needed, then we can paint the rest white, as you suggested.”

“I think that will brighten up the room,” Annabel said.

“You might want to clean out the ash dump down in the basement,” Chad told her. “There should be a door on the chimney underneath the fireplace. You can hire a chimney sweep, or maybe just have your caretaker do it, if he's familiar with it.”

“I'll ask him,” Annabel said.

Chad smiled at her. He liked Annabel. He felt sorry for her, too, trying to get this place in shape, battling its reputation and now confronted by the inn's latest streak of bad luck. He didn't blame her for whatever happened to Paulie. Chad still hoped his friend would turn up alive, but he didn't have a good feeling about it.

“I can start the actual work in a couple of days,” Chad told Annabel. “But I'll be back tomorrow to take measurements. Maybe later in the week we can take a drive up to Great Barrington to pick out some tiles and paint.”

“That sounds like fun,” Annabel replied. “I'd like nothing more than to take a drive out of town.”

Chad smiled. “Then it's a plan.” He shook her hand. “I'll be here tomorrow afternoon with my measuring tape.”

“Thank you for sticking with the project,” Annabel said.

“Don't mention it,” Chad told her, as she escorted him back to the door.

A
nnabel watched from the window as Chad drove away. She was glad he'd be coming back. If he had backed out of the renovation, Annabel would have been devastated. The renovation was her reason for staying here.

It certainly wasn't Jack.

If Chad had not agreed to continue fixing up the place, Annabel really thought she would have called a taxi to take her to the nearest bus terminal and returned to New York. She had no idea where she would have stayed in the city, but she would have had found something. If it had meant continuing to live in this stark, musty house without any hope for change, Annabel would have bolted.

Because she had never felt so alone. Not even during those harrowing days in rehab, when at least she'd had doctors and therapists rooting for her, surrounding her with support.

Here, she felt increasingly she was on her own.

Jack had been distant and strange these past two days. Thankfully, he hadn't tried to force himself on her again. Annabel would have kneed him in the groin if he did that again. In fact, when they slept, they stayed to their own sides of the bed. That was fine with Annabel.

She tried to keep hope alive, however. This was just a bad stretch. They could either give in to the tragedy of Priscilla and Paulie's disappearance, or they could move forward. Richard Carlson had been by and told her that he was having his deputy come by at least twice a day, just to make sure the kidnapper had not returned, and that made Annabel breathe easier. She liked seeing the police car come up the driveway in the mornings and the afternoons, and Officer Burrell get out and look around. She knew that a patrol car came by at night, too.

They could get through this. And she hoped that as the house started taking shape, Jack would start acting more normal again. This was a stress on all of them. If they could survive this, they could survive anything.

Annabel was pleased that Neville had stuck around. His warm, calm presence made things easier. Annabel could talk to him in ways she couldn't talk to Jack at the moment. In fact, she could talk to Neville in ways she'd never been able to talk to Jack. She knew he'd be returning to England soon; the chief had said he was free to go. But he said he didn't feel right leaving without knowing anything about Priscilla. He told Annabel he'd wait until at least the week was out. And she was glad about that.

At the moment, Neville was out, taking a ride to clear his head. Annabel wished she'd been able to go with him, but she'd had to wait for Chad.

And Chad had asked her to have the ash dump cleaned. Zeke must know how to do it. He'd lived in the house so long.

But Zeke was upstairs again, working with Jack in the attic. Annabel would go up and ask him, and take a look around at the work they'd done.

One by one, she climbed the steep, narrow steps to the attic.

At the door at the top of the stairs, she turned the knob. But just like the other day, the door was locked.

She could hear them inside, muffled voices and the occasional pounding of a hammer.

Annabel rapped on the door. “Jack! Zeke!” she called.

No answer.

She knocked harder. “Jack! Why is the door locked?”

The muffled voices inside fell silent.

Annabel knocked again. “Jack! Zeke!”

The door suddenly opened without warning, with Annabel's hand still poised in the air. She gasped a little in surprise.

Her husband glared at her.

“We're in the middle of patching the roof,” he grumbled.

“Why was the door locked?”

“For your own safety,” Jack told her. “We've had to tear up some of the floorboards. You could have tripped.”

“Okay,” Annabel said, miffed at his tone of voice. “Sorry to have bothered you.”

“What did you want?”

She was already turning to leave, heading back down the stairs. “Never mind,” she said.

Jack grabbed her by the shoulder. “Wait, honey babe,” he said, stepping out of the attic room and closing the door behind him. “I didn't mean to be gruff. I just had to get down from a ladder. I'm sorry.”

“It's okay,” Annabel said, extricating herself from his grip and continuing down the stairs.

“Did Chad come by?” Jack asked.

“Yes. He'll get started on the renovation the day after tomorrow.”

“Great,” Jack said. “I'll be down shortly.”

“Okay,” Annabel said.

She didn't turn around. She heard him go back inside the attic and shut the door. And then she heard the faint click of the lock being slid back into place.

He's different,
she thought.
Ever since the night when he came on to Priscilla . . . and even more since his grandmother died....

Annabel recalled Neville's admission that he wasn't in love with Priscilla.

Was she in love with Jack?

She wasn't sure. She thought her feelings for him might return—she
hoped
they would—but at the moment, she was just not sure how she felt about her husband. All that she could detect was numbness when she thought of him.

Once again, Annabel felt like running.

She wanted to run out the front door and down the driveway and down the road to Millie's store. She'd call the taxi from there. She just needed to get out of this dark, stuffy house. She felt closed in. She felt as if she couldn't breathe. She was trapped. She couldn't get out! She would die in here!

Annabel gripped the post at the bottom of the stairs.

“Stop it,” she scolded herself.

As Dr. Adler, her therapist, had trained her to do, she took three long breaths, feeling the air as it filled up her lungs, then as it flowed back out through her nostrils.

“I'm going to turn this house into a showcase,” she said out loud.

She didn't need Zeke. She could clean out the ash dump herself.

Annabel made her way around to the stairs that led down into the basement. Since moving in, she'd managed to avoid the place pretty much. She and Chad and Paulie had taken one quick peek the other day, but Annabel had let them go ahead of her, and she hadn't stayed long, leaving them to do their inspection. The basement was dark and cobwebby and the ceiling was very low. It smelled of dank earth and mold and mice. For someone with claustrophobia, the Blue Boy's cramped basement was a place to be avoided at all costs. But Annabel pushed on. She was determined to ignore her fears.

Reaching the bottom of the stairs, she moved her hand upward, feeling around in the darkness above her for the string that hung from the light. Her fingers brushed through sticky cobwebs and she recoiled. When she found the string, she pulled hard, and suddenly the dark basement was illuminated by a pale white light.

Unlike the attic, which was littered with junk, the basement was mostly empty. Letting her eyes adjust, Annabel glanced around to find the base of the chimney.

It stood some feet away, directly underneath the fireplace in the parlor. The chimney base squatted in the middle of the room, looking like an old man hunched over under a blanket of old bricks. Annabel approached. A black iron door, about two feet by three feet and even with Annabel's waist, had been cut into the brick. As she got closer, Annabel noticed an old, rusted padlock had been secured onto the door.

She lifted the padlock in her hands. It was an old thing, but it still held the door shut. A key was needed to unlock it.

Why on earth would someone padlock the door of a fireplace ash dump?

Annabel tugged at the lock. As old and rusted as it was, it still wasn't going to budge. She'd have to ask Zeke for the key. Until they had cleaned out God-only-knew how many decades of ashes that had collected inside, they wouldn't be able to get the fireplace blazing again. And Annabel felt that until the fireplace was crackling with wood, she wouldn't be able to call the Blue Boy her home.

Her eyes glanced up the length of the chimney that protruded through the floor above. There, on a small nail blasted into the mortar, hung a key.

It had to be the key for the padlock. But it was out of reach. Why was it hung so high? She really wanted to get a look inside the ash dump to see how much work cleaning it out would entail. If it was packed with ash and debris, she might have to call someone to clean it for her. But if there wasn't so much, she could maybe brush it out herself, into a pail, and dump it in the woods.

But that damn key was so high that not even Jack, who was six feet tall, could have reached it easily.

Annabel looked around the basement for something to stand on. Her eyes fell on an old wooden chest, one of the few items in the vast dark space. She hurried over to it, grabbed ahold of its sides, and pulled it back toward the chimney. The chest was surprisingly light. When she'd gotten it to where she wanted it, she decided to peek inside.

She discovered moth-eaten little girl's clothes and a couple of moldy plastic dolls.

These must have been Cynthia's,
Annabel thought, her heart breaking for Jack's little sister who'd been killed by some wild animal, her body never found.

Carefully replacing the clothes and the dolls, Annabel set the lid back down on the chest. Now she needed something else. A rusted old rake, leaning against the wall, would do the trick. Holding the rake in one hand, Annabel climbed up on top of the chest. Then she lifted the rake over her head and knocked the key off its nail. It went flying through the air, landing somewhere on the earthen floor in the dark.

“Oh, great,” Annabel grumbled, getting down off the chest and dropping to her hands and knees, feeling around for the key.

She found something else instead.

A furry mouse—or maybe a rat—squeaked as Annabel's hand closed around it. She heard it skittle away. She let out a gasp and felt the gooseflesh crawl up her arms. She was about to go upstairs and find a flashlight when, miracle of miracles, her fingers touched metal. It was the key.

Gripping the key tightly in her hands, Annabel stood. She returned to the padlock on the door of the ash dump. Bending down, she inserted the key. It fit perfectly. With a slight turn, the padlock fell open.

Annabel hoped there was enough light. The one bulb on the ceiling was directly behind her. She thought she'd be able to get a good sense of what was inside.

She opened the door of the ash dump.

And immediately a dark brown liquid dripped off from the inside of the door.

Some kind of oil?

Hunched down, peering through the door, Annabel tried to make out what was inside. She couldn't see much. But it was clear there wasn't a surplus of ashes. What was inside seemed more solid. With great reluctance, Annabel reached her hand inside.

What she felt was soft and pulpy.

She let out another short gasp and withdrew her hand.

It was covered in the same dark liquid that dripped off the door.

With a growing sense of horror, she walked slowly backwards, coming to a stop directly underneath the lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. Stretching her hand up overhead, she brought it as close to the light as possible.

One look told her what was on her hand.

Blood!

Annabel screamed.