Just as well, I didn’t really want company. I headed back to the kitchen, the cats on my heels and thoughts of my visit with Stella on my mind.
I rummaged in the fridge, pulling out a bedraggled slice of pepperoni pizza, a few muffins that were leftover from breakfast and the remains of the seafood dinner I’d had two nights ago. Two glass baking dishes with foil wrapped around the tops were neatly stacked in the back. A note from Millie indicated they contained broccoli quiche for breakfast the next day.
That reminded me, I needed to figure out what to feed them for the rest of the week. I glanced over at the counter. Hadn’t Millie mentioned the sour cream coffee cake?
I shut the fridge, to the protesting meows of the cats.‘Don’t worry guys I’ll get your dinner in a second.’
I opened a batter-and food-stained hardcover copy ofThe Joy of Cooking and leafed through the loose recipes stuffed inside. Some were on index cards, some ripped out of magazines, some just on pieces of paper. All in Millie’s bold scrawl in fading ink. A smile tugged at my lips. I remembered some of these recipes from when I was a kid and had visited Millie here at the guesthouse with my mother.
As I leafed through the recipes looking for something that sounded tasty but looked easy, I chatted out loud to my feline audience.
‘It’s too bad Stella didn’t have clogs on. If she had I would seriously suspect her as the killer. Then again, maybe she lied about having clogs.’ I stopped the sorting and thought about that for a second. ‘I guess if she was the killer and wore the clogs, she might be afraid they had blood or some other evidence on them and lie.’
Meow.
I pulled out a couple of recipes that looked interesting and put them on the counter.‘And maybe she made that story up about Tina, but why?’
Mew.
‘She probably just did that to be mean. She’s like that, you know.’ I glanced down at Marlowe, who was watching me with her head cocked to the side. Did she give a little nod? I must have imagined it. ‘In high school she was one of those mean girls. Never could figure out what Mike saw in her. Not that I care. Is that why she keeps coming here, to see him?’
Merope.
‘Why would Mike lie about that?’
Meow.
‘I know. Men. Who can figure them out?’
I laid the recipes of interest on the countertop. I didn’t find the sour cream coffee cake recipe. I’d just have to pick something else.
‘I suppose Stella could have been here for a more nefarious reason.’ I glanced in the direction of the Smuggler’s Cove Inn. I could see the gulls circling it from the kitchen window. The deck had been set for dinner, but no guests were out there. Maybe they stayed inside because of the birds?
Was it possible that bookings at the inn were suffering because of the gulls? Stella had entered that contest where the winner would get five grand. Was it for the prestige of winning or because she needed money? And if she needed money, then having the Oyster Cove Guesthouse shut down would mean more customers for her. But would she stoop so low as to kill someone?
And let’s not forget that if Charles really was writing a new cookbook, then that book was missing. Had Stella somehow known about that and stolen it from Charles? What if that’s why she’d been here and he’d caught her and a struggle ensued that ended up in the closed off section of the guesthouse?
Nero jumped up on the counter and nudged my hand. Was that his signal that he wanted to be petted? But when I reached out a tentative hand, he let out a loud meow and almost scratched me. All righty then, here I was thinking that cat wanted affection but probably was just getting impatient for supper.
‘I know, you must be hungry but you have to get down from the counter. If Barbara Littlefield came in and saw you, she’d close me down!
I bent down and opened the cabinet where I kept the gravy-style canned cat food Millie had said they liked. The recipes fluttered down onto the floor around me. Nero had pushed them off the counter.
I looked up to see him peering over the counter at me.‘That’s no way to get your supper.’
Nero jumped down and batted at them.
‘Hey don’t rip these, they’re the only recipes I’ve got.’
Nero sat back and I started putting the papers into a pile. The recipes triggered a memory of the ripped note the police had taken.
‘Oh that’s right. That’s the other clue. The review that Charles was writing. But was it really a review?’
Merooo.
I hadn’t actually looked at the note in any detail, but when Seth Chamberlain had held that bag up I could see it was just a scrap of paper. Not even enough words to tell who the review was about.Ifit even was a review. Clearly the killer must’ve taken the other half. It seemed odd that the scrap of paper was found in his room, but Charles’ body was in the West wing.
Had he fought with the killer in his room and then somehow gone down to the closed off wing with them? That would indicate it was someone staying at the guesthouse. Of course, it could have been a review about the Oyster Cove Guesthouse. But if it had been, then who had taken the other part of it and why? Seems like I would be the only one interested in keeping that from publication.
The piece of paper might not even be a review, but that didn’t mean that Charles hadn’t written a bad review of someone else recently. What if he had? And what if that chef heard he was in town and wanted to exact their revenge?
I glanced in the direction of the Smugglers Bay Inn again, except I couldn’t see it because I was crouched on the floor. I didn’t need to though, because the thought was already in my head. If he’d previously written a review about Stella, maybe I could find it online.
I grabbed two cans of cat food in one hand and stood with the recipes in the other. The cans went onto the counter and I pulled out a recipe entitled‘Brunch Egg Dish Casserole’ that looked interesting. Bread, cheese, eggs, milk and ham. I had the ingredients for it. I could assemble it at night and pop it in the oven in the morning. If I wasn’t mistaken, mom had gotten this recipe from Millie and made it many times when I was a kid. It was quite tasty and seemed easy (at least it did when Mom made it). I put the recipe beside the cans and tucked the other recipes back intoThe Joy of Cooking.
Meow.
Marlowe had jumped onto the little table under the window that I used as a work desk and was prowling around my laptop.
‘I’m one step ahead of you about looking online.’
Mewoow!
I sat down and started typing. Turns out finding Charles’ Laughing Gourmet reviews wasn’t as easy as I thought. A search for the Laughing Gourmet brought up a website all about Charles, but when I searched for ‘Smugglers Bay’ on it, no review came up. Odd, because I saw a few other reviews of restaurants in New York and Connecticut. I searched Yelp. No review was posted by him on there either. Charles probably didn’t use common places where anyone could post a review though. I decided to do a search on the Smugglers Bay Inn.
My phone chirped and I glanced at the display. It was my daughter, Emma. My heart filled with warmth. As I answered, all thoughts of murder and bad reviews fled.
‘Em! How are you doing?’ I chirped.
‘Great, Mom. What about you? Gram said there was some excitement in Oyster Cove today.’ Emma’s voice had an edge of concern, and I wanted to put her at ease right away. As the parent, I was the one who was supposed to be doing the worrying, not her. Speaking of parents, what was my mother thinking, telling Emma about Charles? Hopefully she hadn’t mentioned that the excitement involved a dead body.
‘Oh, a little excitement is always good. It’s nothing to be worried about,’ I lied.
‘A little excitement?’ Emma sounded incredulous. ‘I would say a dead person is more than a little excitement. And I heard it was murder? Are you okay out there?’