The Inn (9 page)

“W
ell, Miz Wish,” Zeke was telling her, “what can I say? It's an old house. There have been many people who've lived and stayed here over the many decades. And maybe one of them had some rather unique reading interests.”

Annabel had told him about the books she had found behind the panel. “Well, they really disturbed me,” she said, shivering.

“I hope you threw them away,” the caretaker told her.

“No,” Annabel admitted. “The others I left inside the panel. The one that I took out and examined, I placed outside, on the wood box. Would you take it down to the library and donate it, Zeke? It's so old that I thought maybe some historian would want it.”

“Such blasphemy ought to be burned,” Zeke said. “Don't worry. I'll take care of it.”

“Good. I just want it out of the house.” She rolled out the diagrams she had drawn up onto the parlor table. “And maybe nail shut that panel for me, too?”

“Happy to oblige, Miz Wish.” Zeke smiled, looking down at the plans Annabel was showing him. “What do we have here?”

“Some ideas I have about redesigning this room,” Annabel said. “I've spoken with a contractor. He's coming by in the morning to help me get started. His name is Chad Appleby. His father is Charlie Appleby.”

The old caretaker lifted his bushy white eyebrows. “I've known Charlie since he was a boy riding his tricycle. Can't believe he's got a kid old enough to do contracting work.”

Annabel smiled. “He assured me that Chad is very good, that he thought he could give me a hand doing a few small jobs. When we move into the next stage, which will involve more intensive renovation, Charlie said he would come over to do the work.”

“I see,” said Zeke.

Annabel's smile changed into a smirk. “Charlie added that he only hoped he wouldn't find any bodies stuffed inside the walls when he starts tearing them down,” she said.

The caretaker shrugged. “Well, those are the risks you take when you start moving things around.”

“Look, Zeke,” Annabel said, “I need to know that I'll be able to count on you. I know Cordelia is worried that we'll destroy the historical character of the house. But trust me, that's the last thing I want to do. In New York, I helped redesign many old buildings. Staying true to the character and the integrity of the place was always one of the most important motivations.”

“What exactly do you plan to do to the house?” Zeke asked.

“For now, we're just going to start with this room,” Annabel told him, gesturing around the parlor. “It's the first thing guests see when they walk into the house. I want to clean it up and give it a good polish. We're going to paint the walls, replace the windows, and sandblast the floor. Eventually get some new windows, and take out that wall over there.”

She walked over to the fireplace.

“And we're going to open up the fireplace again,” she added.

Zeke just looked at her.

“I have a mason coming by as well tomorrow,” Annabel said, stooping down and examining the bricks that had been mortared over the fireplace opening. “I'll want to make sure the chimney is still sound. And I suspect we have mice or rats or squirrels living in there. I've heard a lot of scuttling. Up in my room, too.”

“Listen, Miz Wish,” Zeke said. “I don't think you oughta open up the fireplace. I can tell you that the chimney is no good. And the ash dump down in the basement is all cracked. Why don't you start on something simpler? Fixing the windows is a good idea, and I'll help you paint the walls.”

Annabel shook her head. “We need a roaring fire in this room to ward off the cold this winter. How inviting will it be to walk into this room and feel the warmth of the fire, see the light flickering on the walls at night?” She smiled, standing up, and turning around to look back at Zeke. “In fact, I'd say fixing the fireplace is number one on my list.”

Zeke stared at her. “Have you told Cordelia?”

“Jack spoke to her. Believe me, she's going to love how we fix the place up.”

Zeke watched her as Annabel spread her plans out on the table, looking up from them at the walls and the windows, then down at her blueprints again.

The woman was a fool.

She walks into this house and thinks she can do what she likes,
Zeke thought.
She has no idea. None whatsoever.

Zeke knew that, one way or another, he'd make sure that mason told Annabel to leave the fireplace alone.

“I
think this calls for a glass of wine, don't you?” Jack was asking.

They had all just come down to the dining room for dinner. Normally, the inn only served breakfast to its guests, but because a light dusting of snow was suddenly blanketing the roads, Annabel had offered to make dinner for everyone. Priscilla and Neville had thought that was a grand idea, since they weren't keen on skidding along back roads in search of some restaurant.

Jack uncorked the wine as Annabel began chopping vegetables in the kitchen.

“She's a vegetarian, you know,” Jack told his English guests, pouring some merlot in a glass for each of them. “Hope you don't mind a meal of carrots and lentils.”

“I'm sure it will be delicious,” Priscilla said, accepting her glass and taking a sip. “Oh, this wine is divine.”

It was just the four of them for dinner, plus Zeke, as Cordelia had complained of a headache and disappeared into her room. The rest of them sat around the dining table drinking their wine, Zeke sipping from a mug of beer.

“I should really go out to the kitchen and offer Annabel my help,” Priscilla said.

Jack grinned over at her. “You just stay right there,” he told her. “You're a guest. Annabel enjoys cooking.” And he winked at her.

Priscilla could feel her cheeks redden.

“Annabel said she's going to open up the fireplace,” Neville offered, apparently oblivious to Jack winking at his girlfriend. “A fire sure would be nice on a snowy night like this.”

Jack was nodding. “We've got some good ideas for this place. I was telling Priscilla earlier that if you come back a year from now, you'll never recognize it.”

“Now, look here,” Zeke said, gazing up at them from over his mug. “You told your grandmother you'd go slow.”

“Don't worry, Zeke,” Jack assured him.

“And I'm not sure that chimney is fixable,” the old caretaker said. “Not sure you want to spend four grand to fix it your first month here.”

“What's a bed-and-breakfast in the woods without a fireplace?” Neville asked. “I'm with you, Jack. Get that chimney smoking again.”

Jack was smiling and refilling everybody's glass of wine. “Absolutely,” he said. “We could be toasting marshmallows as we wait for dinner.”

They all laughed, except Zeke.

“What is that American custom of marshmallows and chocolate over a fire?” Priscilla asked.

“Do you mean s'mores?” Jack laughed. “Oh, sure, it's very tasty. Melted marshmallow and chocolate between a graham cracker sandwich. Sticky, but good.”

“Sounds delectable,” Priscilla said, allowing her eyes to find Jack's again.

His eyes locked on to hers. “Gooey, sweet, and very satisfying,” he told her, enunciating each word carefully.

Her cheeks reddened darker.

“Well,” Neville said, “if we come back next year, I hope you'll have performed an exorcism on all the ghosts in the place.”

Jack moved his eyes away from Priscilla and found her boyfriend. “Have they been keeping you up at night?”

“Only thing keeping me up is Priscilla jabbering with herself, thinking she's seeing spirits,” Neville replied, before reaching over for the bottle of wine and refilling his glass.

“I
am
seeing spirits,” she told him. “Two nights in a row now I've seen Sally Brown. Poor thing. She's very confused. Doesn't even know her name. But she comes into the room and sits at the end of the bed.”

“Oh, does she now?” Jack said, smirking, winking this time at Neville.

“She
does
,” Priscilla insisted. “I keep trying to tell her that it's okay to move on, that she shouldn't be trapped here between worlds. But she tells me she can't leave, that they're keeping her here.”

Zeke sat forward in his chair. “Who's keeping her here?” he asked.

Priscilla shrugged. “She hasn't said,” she told him, knocking back the last of her wine and setting down her empty glass, which Jack moved to quickly to replenish. “But if she comes by tonight again, I'll ask her.”

“Just ask her quietly, okay?” Neville quipped. “I don't like being woken up.”

“So you've seen nothing?” Zeke asked.

“I fall asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow,” Neville replied. “She sits up waiting for her ghosts.”

Jack stood, taking another bottle of wine out of the cabinet. “You know, if it were up to me, I'd keep the whole supernatural reputation for the place,” he told the group as he uncorked the bottle. “I think it's a great selling point.”

“It's a wonderful selling point,” Priscilla said. “But it's more than that. It's truth in advertising. You can't rent out rooms without telling people they might be visited by spirits in the night.” She smiled as she took a sip of wine. “Wouldn't be fair.”

That brought another round of laughter.

“Well, Annabel doesn't like the idea,” Jack said, sitting back down at the table, but this time taking the seat next to Priscilla, whose glass, though still half-full, he filled back up to the top. “Maybe we can work on her.”

Priscilla giggled.

F
rom the kitchen Annabel could hear them laughing.

She was glad they were having fun. It was good to hear laughter from real people in this gloomy old house.

The carrot-and-lentil soup bubbled on the stove. She'd also made rosemary popovers and an enormous salad. A good meal for a snowy night.

Maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all. She had the contractors coming tomorrow. Soon they'd be opening this place up, letting in light, sweeping out cobwebs, and drying out the mold. Maybe this little adventure would be just what Jack hoped it would be, a new start for both of them. A path to success.

The wind whistled against the house, rattling the glass panes in the windows.

Annabel couldn't wait until a fire was blazing in the parlor.

T
ammy Morelli sat opposite Chief Carlson, her fingers massaging her temples. “Well, sure, Roger had enemies,” she said. “Lots of people wanted him dead.” She closed her eyes. “Including me, sometimes.”

She opened her eyes again. They were bloodshot from crying. Richard didn't understand how a woman like Tammy, basically a good, decent, hardworking person, could actually grieve over a lazy bum who had beaten her and used her. But Tammy had sobbed like a baby when Richard had given her the news that Roger was dead.

Murdered.

“Anyone hate him enough to cut off his arm?” Adam Burrell asked her.

Tammy shuddered. “I have no idea,” she said, massaging her temples harder.

Richard felt sorry for her. “I don't want to keep you any longer, Tammy. But if you can think of anything, like maybe the symbolism of his right arm . . . like maybe he did something to someone and they were cutting off his arm for revenge. . . .”

Her eyes snapped open and she was looking directly at Richard.

“But Roger was left-handed,” she said. “If he did anything to someone, he'd have done it with his left arm.”

The chief nodded.

After Tammy was gone, Richard and Adam sat in silence for a while. Outside the snow squall was ending. It had been a light winter so far, but that could change. It was still early. They could yet be buried in seven feet like they'd been last year.

“Tell me something, Adam,” Richard said. “You grew up here. The cold case files tell me that there were a number of unsolved murders in this town before I took over as chief.”

The deputy was nodding. “They stretch way back, more than a century.”

“The last big flare-up was a little more than twenty years ago,” Richard told him, remembering the files he'd perused. “So you must remember that.”

“Sure do,” Adam said. “I was around seven years old at the time. My parents were terrified. Kept me in the house, wouldn't let me go outside to play. There was even stuff on the news about the Woodfield Serial Killer.”

“I seem to recall from the files that four people were killed in a matter of a few days.”

“Well, four people went missing, never to be seen again. But only one body was found. The police chief at the time presumed there was a link.”

“And why was that?”

“Because they'd all either been living or working at the Blue Boy,” Adam told him.

The chief stood, walking over to the shelf and retrieving several folders. Placing them down on the table, he thumbed through the top file.

“Yes, here it is,” he said. “A man and his wife had been staying at the inn. He reported she went for a walk and never returned. No body was ever found. But murder was suspected given the fact that the very next day Cynthia Devlin, the owners' granddaughter, also went missing. Although again no body was found, the little girl's blood was discovered all over the grounds. There was speculation a bear might have killed her.”

“It wasn't a bear,” Adam said. “Because there were two other guys as well.”

Richard flipped forward a few pages in the file. “Yes, here they are. Contractors. They'd come up from New York to do some work on the place.” He read further. “One would be reported missing by his wife. He never returned to New York. The other was found in the woods outside the Blue Boy, a bullet through his heart.”

“Yeah, that sounds about right.”

Richard couldn't figure it out. “There doesn't seem to be a pattern, except that they were all connected somehow to the Blue Boy Inn.”

Adam shuddered. “My parents always told me to stay away from that place, that it was haunted,” he said.

The chief was still reading through the file. “It says here that the owners were all questioned and were cleared of any suspicion.” He read a little further into the report. “Cordelia had just taken over the place, her husband having recently died. Her son was questioned, it says here, but having lost his daughter, the poor guy was pretty shaken up, and he moved away soon after that.”

“Hey, chief,” Adam asked, leaning back in his chair, his hands behind his head, “are you thinking that Roger Askew's death might be somehow connected to those deaths twenty years ago?”

“I can't see how it's possible,” Richard said, closing the file. “Roger was killed half a mile away from the inn. But I'd like to look into those cold cases regardless. The file left it all a complete mystery, saying no suspects or motives could be found, especially since only one body was ever found.”

Adam smirked. “It'll give us something to do. It's been pretty boring around here lately.”

“Don't let anyone know we're reopening those cases,” Richard told him. “Officially, we're only investigating the death of Roger Askew. I have a feeling that one will be easy to solve as soon as we start talking to Roger's cohorts. But as you're talking to people, ask what they remember about the Blue Boy twenty years ago.”

“Will do, chief,” Adam said, bolting out of his chair, replacing his cap, and heading out the door.

Richard sat back down at his desk. He thought of that woman who'd just moved to the Blue Boy, the one he'd met at Millie's store. Such a pretty woman. Annabel, she'd said her name was. Richard hoped he wouldn't rattle her too much asking questions about the Blue Boy's bloody past.