‘Did you notice anything unusual last night?’ Nero asked. ‘I was chasing mice in the attic and catnapping in between courses. I didn’t hear a thing.’ He was only into the early part of his sixth life, and certainly not anywhere near the age his hearing should be going.
Marlowe shot him a sheepish glance.‘I… err… I may have gone down to the wharf.’
Nero raised a brow.‘You don’t say?’ He didn’t want to get into Marlowe’s nightly activities. Girls would be girls. He could already see that the cat felt guilty, and he wasn’t her parent, just her mentor.
‘I just hope we haven’t let Millie down,’ Marlowe said.
‘Yes, it’s unfortunate this has happened so soon after she entrusted the future of the guesthouse to us,’ Nero said.
Marlowe hung her head.‘We have failed our first important task.’
‘We may still be able to redeem ourselves. If we can help solve this quickly, it may not hurt things too badly. You know what a short-term memory humans have. The sooner the case is closed, the sooner they will move their attentions to something else. Making sure the guesthouse survives is of utmost importance. Millie entrusted that task to us.’ Nero frowned. ‘I do wish it didn’t come with that human Josie. She isn’t as savvy as Millie.’
Marlowe continued sniffing the perimeter of the room.‘Yeah, but she does come in handy for doing the menial work like a laundry, cleaning and cooking. And apparently since she came with the guesthouse, we need to be as loyal to her as we were to Millie.’
Nero nodded.‘I agree about the loyalty part. The cooking part needs work. She’s always burning things. Not like our Millie.’
‘As long as she fills our dishes.’
Nero joined Marlowe in sniffing.‘Have you picked up the scent of a stranger?’
‘No. Just the usual people and those who were in here this morning. Josie, Millie, Charles, Mike, Barbara Littlefield. There is something spicy, but I can’t quite place it. Oh, and Stella Dumont.’
Nero nodded sagely. Stella Dumont owned Smugglers Bay, just over the crest of the hill. They could even see the gulls that circled her deck from the side yard. Darn nuisance those gulls were. Apparently she’d been coming around the guesthouse to see Mike. ‘Yes, but we already know she comes here often.’
‘True, but I hope it is Stella that snuck in, because that would help us immensely. She owns a rival inn, and if she was out of the way, that might mean more guests would come here.’
Nero swished his tail thoughtfully.‘Indeed. Perhaps Stella was thinking that a dead body marring the reputation of the Oyster Cove Guesthouse would bring more business toher place.’
Marlowe narrowed her eyes.‘Yes, she could be the culprit.’
‘Are you sure thereis a culprit?’ Nero asked.
‘Wait, I thought you said there was.’
‘Maybe there is, maybe there isn’t. You need to investigate.’
‘You mean look at the clues. The stairs. The things the police are taking pictures of.’
Nero nodded.‘But perhaps they are not looking at something they should be. They are investigating under their assumption that he fell down the stairs.’
‘Oh right!’ Marlowe was quick on the uptake. She turned her attention away from the stairs, sniffing along the edge of the wall, where a pile of debris lay – railing for the stairs, wall paper that had fallen off the wall and a metal wall sconce. She stopped when she came to the newel post cap—a large metal ball with a point at the end.
It had been before his time, but Nero’s fine senses told him that before this wing had gone to ruin, the staircase had been a focal point, with honey oak stairs and a scrolled railing that ended in the carved newel post, the gilt globe sitting atop. He could almost picture the ladies in their gowns descending to the room once filledwith velvet sofas and mahogany side tables. He figured the rounded top of the newel post had been an ornamental focal point of the stairway. Last night, someone had found a more sinister use for it.
Marlowe sniffed the round cap a few times, then shot Nero a triumphant look.‘There’s blood on here, but the post is not near the body. Charles couldn’t have hit his head on it during the fall.’
Nero nodded in satisfaction.‘Very good, little one. Now how do we alert the police to our findings?’
‘Easy.’ Marlowe put her paw on the post, pushed and let out a howl.
Seth, Sheila and Johnny jerked their heads in Marlowe’s direction as the ball rolled toward them.
‘Hey, you cats shoo! We’re investigating!’ Sheila made shooing motions with her hands.
‘Yes, you cats shouldn’t be here.’ Seth tried to sound menacing, but Nero knew the sheriff liked cats, because sometimes he fed them donut holes from his police cruiser when no one was looking.
Nero trotted over to the ball and looked up at Seth.‘Meow!’
Seth’s gaze flicked from Nero to the ball. Then he squinted and craned his neck forward. Johnny was about to pick the ball up when Seth shot a hand out to stop him. ‘Hold on.’
Seth’s knees popped as he squatted. He pulled a pair of reading glasses out of his top pocket and slid them on his nose, squinting at the ball.
‘What is it?’ Sheila was still shooing the cats with her hands.
Seth glanced back at the body, then at the stairs, then pointed at a dark spot on the ball.‘Guess these cats do come in handy. This here looks like blood. And if I’m not mistaken, this round piece matches the indentation on the back of the victim’s head. I think we’ve got a murder on our hands.’
Three
‘Murder? Why, I can’t believe it!’ Millie said after Seth had given us the bad news. Mom, Millie and I had adjourned to the parlor and were settling into the overstuffed chairs arranged around a low marble-topped table as a private seating area.
Barbara had rushed off, probably to file a complaint against me. Or maybe she was poring over the town statutes to see what kind of fine one can dole out when a person has a guest murdered in her guesthouse. Tina had taken the news of the murder very hard and the Weatherbys had taken her upstairs with Ava, after stopping in the dining room for a snack.
‘It’s awful.’ My mother looked at me. ‘Who do you think would have wanted him dead?
‘He’s been staying here a few days. Did you notice him arguing with anyone?’ Millie asked.
Just me.‘Not really. He kept to himself mostly.’
‘Hmm… what about the other guests, have they been acting suspiciously?’
Had they? I had been too busy trying not to burn breakfast and dealing with Barbara Littlefield to notice.‘I don’t think so. Quite frankly I’ve had my hands full. And now this, and who knows what kind of a punishment Barbara is cooking up. Do you think she can have the guesthouse shut down?’
‘Why would she do that?’ Millie asked.
‘I don’t know, it seems like she has it in for me. I try to do everything to the codes and still she persists on finding things wrong.’
‘Well, she is very strict about the building codes dear, but it’s for a good reason. I’m sure she doesn’t have anything against you personally.’ My mother patted my arm. ‘It’s all for the good of the town. She wants to maintain the quaint atmosphere.’
Millie nodded.‘She can be a stickler, but she’s protecting us. I mean, look at the good she did with those lousewort plants.’
‘She was instrumental in putting a stop to that big hotel on the cliff – what do you think would’ve happened to the guesthouse if that had been built?’ My mother glanced out the window in the direction of the shore.
I had to give Barbara that. Last summer, she’d discovered growing up on the cliffs a plant, very rare in Maine, called Furbish’s Lousewort. She formed a committee and petitioned the state to declare the area where it grew protected, and in the nick of time. Some big conglomerate had been finalizing plans to build a huge hotel up there.