‘But why be so hard on the guesthouse? It’s one of the oldest buildings in town and I fully intend to renovate it in keeping with the way it was back in the day.’
‘You left town, so you’re sort of an outsider in Barbara’s eyes. She doesn’t trust you yet. Give her time.’ The cats came in and trotted over to Millie without even giving me a glance. Guess they forgot who their owner was now. I had to admit I was a little bit jealous of the way they settled in on Millie’s lap.
‘I guess the cats prefer their old owner,’ I said, earning a cold glare from Nero.
‘Owner?’ Millie was aghast. ‘Cats don’t have owners, dear, it’s the other way around. The sooner you realize that, the better your relationship with them will be.’
Nero shot me a smug look and then curled up and went to sleep.
‘I have to say, though, I don’t know what this town is coming to,’ my mother said. ‘First dead gulls then dead people.’
‘Now Rose. Don’t you worry,’ Millie said. ‘Why there’s been hardly any problems here in town for decades. We’re due and now that we’ve had these two pieces of bad luck it’ll be smooth sailing from here on out.’
I hoped Millie was right. I had invested everything I had into the purchase of the guesthouse and was counting on it being filled with guests for the summer season. The dead seagulls weren’t a problem for me though. Gulls generally stayed away from the guesthouse, possibly because of the cats. If that were the case, I’d have to thank them. Seagulls could be annoying pests and I didn’t want them swooping around and driving away business. While I didn’t wish harm on any of God’s creatures, I wasn’t going to cry about fewer gulls. Then again, having dead birds wash up on the beach, like they had been doing lately, wasn’t very attractive to tourists either.
There was a sound at the door and I turned to see Mike.
‘I thought I heard you, Auntie.’ Mike gave Millie a peck on the cheek then turned to my mother. ‘Rose, how are you?’
‘Just fine Michael. Tommy said to say hi to you by the way.’
Mike winked at me and rolled his eyes. My mom had been calling him Michael since childhood, no matter how many times he told her he preferred Mike.‘How is Tommy doing?’
My mother rolled her eyes.‘Good, except he seems to think Maine is too far to come for a visit.’
My brother Tommy had moved to Florida a few years ago and now claimed Maine was too cold for him and only came to visit twice a year. I personally thought maybe he didn’t come often because Mom’s antics with the crime scenes and all were a bit much for him. Luckily, I was here to try to reign her in… not that that was working out very well.
Mike gave my mother a sympathetic look and turned to me.‘Hey Sunshine, I heard about the police verdict that your guest was actually murdered. I was wondering if I could do anything to help?’
‘I don’t think I really need any help, do I?’
Mike shrugged.‘I don’t know, but I’ll tell you one thing, I’m almost positive someone messed with those stairs.’
I frowned.‘Why would someone do that?’
‘To mask the murder of course, dear,’ Millie said, as if I was some kind of a dunce.
My mother nodded.‘Yes of course. They were probably hoping Sheriff Chamberlain would say that it was an accident.’
Huh, that was interesting. He almostdid say it was an accident… and hadn’t Ron Weatherby mentioned that small town police forces usually didn’t have the capacity to investigate thoroughly? I hoped that wouldn’t be the case here, a murder was bad enough but an unsolved one was even worse.
‘What kind of tampering do you mean?’ I asked Mike. If someone had murdered Charles on purpose, then tried to stage it as an accident, they would’ve spent a bit of time in that room. But that section had been blocked off, the doors locked. I supposed anyone could have picked the lock, and thesounds of tools echoing through the guesthouse wasn’t uncommon since Mike was working on repairs.
‘The stairs were pretty rotten, but it looked like someone helped them along. The way the boards broke look like they were snapped in two as opposed to breaking from the pressure of someone standing on them. And, the nails had been pulled up.’
I wasn’t sure what to do with this information. Tell the police? Could they figure that out on their own? And what did Mike know about stairs anyway? Sure, he was doing carpentry work here, and he seemed to be doing a good job, but he’d been a Navy officer before. Carpentry was just a sideline.
I was just about to open my mouth to say as much when Flora bustled in, her white orthopedic shoes squeaking as she sashayed toward Mike.
Flora was a skinny elderly woman with gigantic round glasses that made her eyes owlish. When Millie had sold me the Oyster Cove Guesthouse, she’d said that Flora had been the maid for fifty years and depended on the money. I mean, who can live on social security? I assumed that meant she actually did some cleaning, and since I was from out of town and didn’t know of anyone else, I agreed to keep her on. The joke was on me. Since I’dbeen here she’d managed to wiggle out of every job I’d tasked her with. Naturally, I didn’t have to keep her on, but who could fire a little old lady with thirty-two grandchildren? I didn’t have the heart for it. Maybe someday when funds allowed I’d get another maid that actually worked.
‘Mr. Mike, are you done in the sand dollar room?’ Flora blinked up at him. It was a long ways up, too, since Flora was about four feet tall and Mike was over six.
Mike smiled down at her, turning on that boyish charm that I remembered from long ago. Apparently it wasn’t only reserved for young girls. Of course that kind of charm didn’t work on me anymore but it worked on Flora, who practically swooned. ‘I am. Did I leave too much of a mess in there?’
Flora shook her head.‘Oh no. I’m happy to clean up anything you leave.’
My mouth practically fell open. Since when was Flora happy to clean?
Mike bent down and gave her a little kiss on her papery cheek.‘Thanks. You let me know if it’s too much.’ He turned to me. ‘And you let me know if I can help out, Sunshine.’
We all watched him leave, Flora’s gaze on a specific part of his body clad in faded jeans. As soon as he cleared the door, Flora turned to me, a scowl on her face.
‘I hope you don’t have any ideas about me cleaning up that mess in the West wing. I do not do crime scenes.’
And with that she turned and left the room, brushing past Ava Grantham in the doorway.
‘I’ve just been upstairs and Tina is finally settled down. Young people these days, they can’t handle anything worth a monkey’s patootie. Good thing those Weatherbys have clear heads. Your sheriff is up in Prescott’s room. He’ll be interviewing all of us soon.’ She pulled a straight back chair over and plopped down in it. ‘Honestly, I’m not surprised someone murdered Prescott.’
‘You’re not?’ We asked in unison.
Ava shook her head.‘Nope, not at all. He was a nasty man.’
My mother and Millie exchanged a glance.
‘You knew him?’ Millie asked.
‘Of course.’ Ava pointed to herself. ‘This old bird’s been around for a while. We worked together on a few newspapers.’
‘Charles worked in news? Was he a writer?’ I asked.
Ava gave me a funny look.‘You don’t know who he was?’
I didn’t like the way that sounded. Was Charles someone I was supposed to know? Knowing someone who’d been murdered in my guesthouse might not be good for business… or my freedom.
‘No idea,’ I said.
‘Charles Prescott was the Laughing Gourmet. You know… the food critic and chef.’
Darn! I probablyshould have known who he was. Hadn’t Clay—my ex—mentioned his name before? The truth was, I really hadn’t paid much attention to what was going on with the ex’s chef job in the later years.
When we were first married I’d been very involved. Always eating at his restaurants and going out to events with him, but then Emma came along and we agreed my focus should be on taking care of her needs. I started paying less and less attention to what was going on with the ex, because his career was going well and he was working his way to the top of his field. Little did I know he was also working his way to the top of a succession of pretty female sous chefs.