Inn Keeping With Murder Read online

  Once we had all settled back with our alcohol of choice, Rudy asked the waitress for a dictionary. With a raised eyebrow, the young woman glanced down to where Rudy’s smart phone sat on the table.

  “Wouldn’t it be faster to just look up what you want on the net?” she said with contempt.

  Rudy tilted her head back to look up at the girl. Her eyes narrowed and the muscles in her jaw clenched. If you looked closely, you could see Rudy’s eyes click on the girl’s cringe-worthy orange hair (shaved short on one side), and then to the barely visible tattoo of a winged dragon that peeked out from under the black vest of her uniform. Rudy gave a quick snort, prompting the rest of us to sit forward with anticipation.

  “Tiffany,” she began, reading the girl’s nametag. “There are over 171,000 words currently in use in the English language. Did you know that? There are over 47,000 obsolete words, and another 9,500 that are derivatives. Suffice it to say that the list grows daily. I don’t expect you to care about words because to you an entire sentence is probably nothing more than LOL or IDK. But to me, the use of a word constitutes the meaning of life. It describes the smell of rain on a summer’s day, or the glow of an autumn moon, or dare I say the iridescence of your shockingly brassy hair.”

  Tiffany started to smile and then stopped, clearly confused as to whether she’d just been insulted or not.

  “When I hold a dictionary,” Rudy continued, “I can feel all of the things those words bring to life. But…,” she reached out and grabbed her phone. “When I hold this…the only thing I feel is its ring tone.”

  I smiled and glanced at the girl, thinking it was her turn. But clearly, Tiffany wasn’t up to the challenge. She stared at Rudy for a brief second and then shrugged.

  “Okay,” she said. “I’ll see what I can find.”

  She turned on her thick rubber heel and left the lounge.

  “Damn, you’re good,” Doe said with a big smile. “Care to join me at the bargaining table?”

  “Bravo,” Blair said, in her best cheerleader’s voice. “But what’s a derivative?”

  Rudy shook her head, and we all laughed. Blair wasn’t fooling any of us. Even though she played the part of an airhead in real life, she was smart as a whip.

  “Look,” Rudy said, picking up the conversation again. “When you travel just to get away, it doesn’t do anything for your soul. When was the last time you remember Ellen chatting about the culture or historical facts about a specific location? As I recall, over the last couple of years, the only trips she and Ray took were somehow connected to his business.”

  “Okay, but what’s wrong with volunteering for the homeless shelter?” Blair was dipping her little finger into the Lemon Drop in her hand when she asked this. “The homeless need our help.”

  “Ellen didn’t volunteer for the homeless shelter.” Rudy made this a declarative statement as if she challenged anyone to deny it. “She mostly sat on the board and made policy decisions. It’s not the same thing. What she did filled her time, but not her brain, and certainly not her heart. I think that’s what she was trying to say.”

  “Are you saying that you think Ellen drove off that cliff on purpose?” Doe spoke up, her striking dark eyes pinched with doubt.

  Rudy shifted in her seat. “I don’t know. But I think her final words could only be construed as meaning she wasn’t as happy as we all believed she was.”

  Doe nodded. “She did sound defeated. I’ve certainly never heard her talk like that before.”

  “It would make sense,” I said, remembering my earlier thought. “I mean, if she did it on purpose. Why else would she have been up there in the middle of the night?”

  A pall fell over the group as we sat quietly nursing our drinks. While I thought that all of us had busy, purposeful lives, if Ellen wasn’t satisfied with her life, then what could be said about ours? Perhaps we were all in jeopardy. I couldn’t imagine driving my little Miata off a cliff, but then I would never have guessed Ellen would either.

  I glanced over at Martha, who had started to twist her napkin into a knot.

  “You okay, Martha?” I said quietly.

  She looked up and nodded, a tear forming. Unlike Doe and Rudy, Martha had never had a career. Caring for her daughter and her husband had consumed the first half of her adult life. With her husband now gone and her daughter married and living in England, her life was filled largely with friends. And Ellen had been the best of the bunch.

  “Well, I know Ellen always dreamed of becoming an interior designer,” Doe said, staring into her glass of Chardonnay. “She used to talk about it whenever she’d had anything to drink. I think that’s why she always volunteered to be decorating chair for all of our events. She was good at it.”

  Doe sat forward, resting her ample bosom on the table as she was apt to do whenever she wanted to make a point. It was probably the only way she could get the attention of the dozen or so men who shared the board room with her. And even though she was pushing sixty-five, her bosom was a sight to behold.

  “Interior design was something she’d wanted to do since she was a girl,” she continued. “But she got married and then had children, and her husband wouldn’t hear of it. You’ll have to admit, that man is a control freak.”

  “Good ol’ traditional Ray,” Blair said a little too loudly.

  “Ray controlled every aspect of her life,” I said quietly. “That alone would have driven me crazy.”

  “And yet she had all the money in the world,” Doe said. “That’s what people usually say they want—more money. But in her case, I guess it wasn’t enough. She never got to live her dream.”

  “Exactly!” Rudy slapped the table, making us jump. “Ellen was telling us to forget tradition and not to give up on our dreams, whatever they are.”

  “Or maybe to create new dreams,” I offered, swirling the margarita around in my glass. “New challenges. Don’t let life pass us by, that sort of thing.”

  “But we’re too old to start catching up on our dreams, aren’t we?” Martha reminded us for the millionth time how set in her ways she was. “I think you’d all agree that we’re more than a hair’s width past our prime.”

  There was that whine.

  “That’s the point, Martha,” Rudy stated. “This is exactly the time when we shouldn’t give up on our dreams, when we should go for it!”

  “All the more sweet at our age, don’t you think?” Doe winked at Martha.

  “But don’t you think some of us are actually living our dreams? I mean, look at Julia,” she said, gesturing to me. “She runs the nicest inn on Mercer Island. And you, Blair, get to drive any fast car you want.”

  Blair grinned stupidly. Her first husband had been a NASCAR driver and had introduced her to the adrenaline rush of driving fast cars, actually teaching her how to do it. Now, her current husband owned a string of foreign import car dealerships in the Puget Sound area, giving her access to whatever car she wanted. If anyone had driven off a cliff by mistake, I would have thought it would be Blair.

  “You have to admit, Rudy,” I said. “Martha is right. As a journalist, you spent your entire career covering some of the most exciting stories around the world.”

  “Yes…but we all have things we dreamt of as a child,” Rudy replied. “What about you, Martha? Didn’t you ever have something you always wanted to do, but never got the chance?”

  Martha looked like she’d just bit into a lemon. Getting her to go along on this vision quest would require a major change in attitude. At seventy-three, Martha was the oldest amongst us. She had spent the better part of her life as the painted backdrop to a prominent state senator. That’s how I met her. We’d sat next to each other at a tea held for the wives of incoming junior Washington state senators some twenty-five years earlier. She was older than me by ten years and already a pro at being the consummate politician’s wife since her husband had already been in the state senate for four years. As the wife of a new senator, I watched and learned. Mart
ha knew how to smile with the best of them. And she was better at saying nothing than anyone I knew. I stood next to her in more than one receiving line and listened to her chatter on with each and every guest, realizing later that I couldn’t remember one word she’d said. Of course, neither could she. Asking someone like that to share their dreams was like asking them to remember high school algebra. This wouldn’t be easy. But with a little encouragement from the rest of us, a mischievous smile slid slowly across her round features.

  “Well…I’ve always wanted to study art,” she said self-consciously.

  We all erupted in cheers.

  “How about you, Blair?” Rudy said, turning to Blair. “What is it that would make you feel truly alive? And not just driving fast cars.”

  The alcohol in her Lemon Drop was bringing a good deal of color to Blair’s already overly blushed cheeks, and she giggled, flashing her perfectly whitened teeth.

  “I’ve always wanted to be a country western singer.” She grinned, and her blue eyes twinkled.

  Doe hooted, and I clapped loudly just as the waitress returned with a large dictionary and dropped it with a thud in front of Rudy. Rudy thanked her, gave her a five dollar tip, and opened the book. She whipped out her reading glasses and flipped pages until she found what she wanted. Then, she ran a finger across the page.

  “Okay, we don’t want the traditional definition of ‘old maid.’ Wait a minute. This must be what Ellen was referring to.” She looked up at us. “Here we go.” She began to read from the book. “An old maid is a person who is too much concerned with being proper, modest, or righteous; someone marked by excessive concern for propriety and good form.” After a pause, she slammed the book closed and glared at us. “I think Ray turned Ellen into the worst kind of old maid. She was warning us not to follow in her footsteps. Well, I don’t plan to.”

  Rudy grabbed her Gucci purse, threw another five dollar bill on the table and stood up.

  “Where are you going?” Blair asked loudly enough to make heads turn.

  Rudy stuck out her recently micro-dermabrasioned chin and replied proudly, “To schedule the horseback riding lessons I’ve wanted to take since I was ten! Anyone care to join me?”

  And with that, the Old Maid’s Club was born.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The morning after Ellen died I moved slowly through my regular tasks at the inn and finally tucked myself into the small office behind the registration desk to pay bills. I was staring at an invoice for laundry detergent when a pen that was sitting off to the side began rolling toward me.

  “Chloe,” I said. “Not now. I’m not in the mood.”

  The pen stopped. Then it rolled back to where it began.

  Everyone who had worked at the inn over the years had described unexplained experiences of one sort or another. Libby, my housekeeper, who lived in one of the upstairs bedrooms, often complained that laundry she’d just folded and stacked on the washer would be toppled over if she left it unattended. Several guests had reported hearing voices, or seeing the image of a woman dressed in a nightgown walking through walls. We believed that to be Elizabeth St. Claire, and I’d seen her do it once or twice myself. Seeing a ghost, any ghost, is a bit frightening. But watching an apparition disappear through a solid wall can turn your stomach. I mean, where do they go? But I forgave Elizabeth the offense, since most of the doors in the building had been moved over the years and she probably didn’t know it.

  For some reason, the little girl, Chloe, liked to hang around the office and tease me with her ghostly antics. Usually, it delighted and amazed me, but today, I could only think of Ellen, who now lived in Chloe’s world—a thought that brought tears to my eyes.

  Under the circumstances, I thought maybe I needed to do something physical. So I decided to take a walk and called the dogs. Mickey and Minnie are my long-haired miniature Dachshunds, which means they each weigh about ten pounds. Mickey is a noble-looking black and tan, while Minnie is a beautiful copper-red. They pretty much follow me wherever I go and were right at my feet. When I clapped my hands and said, “Walkie!” they sprinted for the front door, barking all the way. Outdoor walks provide numerous opportunities to communicate with the outside world, which if you know Dachshunds, is as good as Disneyland to a four-year old.

  I decided to walk the neighborhood rather than along the beach, since a stiff breeze had come up. The inn has a circular gravel drive with a parking area for about six cars. I started up the left side of the drive with both dogs pulling on the split leash as if they were a team of miniature horses, kicking up gravel as they went. Once I made it to the sidewalk, I realized that either way I turned I would have to pass right in front of Ellen’s house. This made me stop.

  I stared sadly at the large two-story Cape Cod-style home, picturing my friend inside busily cleaning a counter or organizing a cupboard. Ellen had been obsessive that way. Although she had a cleaning woman who came once a week, she only allowed the woman to do the heavy stuff. Ellen attended to everything else, and the house was always immaculate —down to the junk drawer.

  I know this because I’d helped her move some furniture upstairs once and asked to use the master bathroom. After I washed my hands, I took the liberty of glancing in her vanity. Her vanity was perfectly organized, with little matching plastic trays in each drawer– one for Qtips, one for Band-Aids, and another for tubes of cream. Top drawer blue. Second drawer black. The big bottom drawer also had matching trays for her hair dryer and curling iron, makeup remover, and vibrator. Okay, maybe I saw too much. My point is that while the St. Claire Inn is kept neat and clean on the surface, I tend to just throw things into drawers and let them fend for themselves. Ellen’s life, on the other hand, had been perfect, down to the little matching trays in her vanity drawers.

  As I gazed across the street, I thought how lonely the house looked in the early morning light. Ray hadn’t made it home from Thailand, yet. Nor had the adult children arrived from the East Coast with their families. Soon, the house would be filled with people again, but those little colored trays would sit there in lonely silence. There would be no one to clean them out or rearrange them with such loving care ever again.

  I wiped a tear away and was about to turn around and take a walk along the beach, when a white Mercedes pulled up. My neighbor, Sybil Moore, rolled down her window and poked her big head out.

  “Julia, I heard about Ellen,” she said in her annoying Southern twang. “It’s sooooo shocking.”

  I hated when Sybil drew out words like that. It made me think she had never left the tenth grade.

  “Yes, it is,” I agreed.

  “Martha told me y’all went to the hospital and were with Ellen during her last moments. Y’all were suuuuch good friends.”

  I didn’t know you could draw out the word “such,” but leave it to Sybil to find a way.

  “I’m just glad we could be with her at the end,” I said, feeling tears begin to pool.

  When I say that Sybil had a big head, I wasn’t kidding. It was out of proportion to the rest of her body. Right now she was tilting her chin to signify sympathy, her goofy up-do hitting the doorframe. I tried not to look at her.

  “It must have been hard, though.” She tsked when she said this, another of her irritating habits. “I remember I was with my papa when he passed away,” she said, gazing off into the distance. “He was hit by lightning, if you can believe it. I was only nine.” She sighed. “Just a little thing. We were at an outdoor picnic, and a storm blew in.”

  You could also always count on Sybil to turn any conversation into one about her.

  “I sat right there on the ground with him,” she said, shaking her head at the memory. “And I was the only one who heard his last words.”

  She paused and shifted her eyes to mine, her eyebrows pleading for my response. When I didn’t say anything, she leaned that big head forward as if to say, “Well?”

  “Um…wha…what did he say?” I mumbled, completely bored out of my mi
nd.

  She smiled a toothy grin. “He told me how much he loved me and mama. Those words have stayed with me all these years.”

  Sybil wore big framed glasses and reached under one lens to wipe her eye.

  “I hope Ellen said something nice like that. Something Ray can hold on to,” she said.

  I just stared at her.

  Well, no, I thought. In fact, Ellen hadn’t even mentioned her family. My brain whirred. That could prove awkward on the off chance Ray might ask, and I wondered how we would handle that once he got home. As my brain re-focused, I noticed that Sybil was still looking at me with expectation. She was obviously waiting to hear the loving words she was so sure Ellen had spoken at the hospital.

  Fortunately, my cell phone rang giving me cover, and I put a hand up to say, “Just a minute.” Then I reached into my pocket and pulled it out. It was Martha, crying again. I excused myself and turned to retreat down the driveway.

  “The police have ruled Ellen’s death a suicide,” Martha said, erupting in sobs on the phone. “Ray just called me. I can’t believe it.”

  As her grief engulfed her, I heard the Mercedes pull away behind me. I wandered the rest of the way down the drive and plopped down on a stone bench in front of the big porch. Deep down, I had suspected Ellen’s death might be suicide, and now the nagging question as to why she had been on Marchand Drive had been answered. When I sensed that Martha’s spigot was running dry, I chanced a question.

  “How do they know?”

  “The skid marks,” she blubbered anew.

  After several gulps, coughs, and snivels, she finally explained that apparently the skid marks left little doubt that Ellen had accelerated from a complete stop before racing down the hill and ramming through the guardrail.