Mayhem at the Orient Express Page 6

  Peter.

  This man.

  Murder.

  Ted’s laugh rattled me out of my thoughts. “This experience tonight, it’s really got me thinking, that’s for sure. I mean, about getting generators for the cottages. You know, in case any summer storms knock out the power. But heck, that would cost a small fortune.”

  There wasn’t much I could say, about the generators or to discourage him from staying, so I led the way up to Suite #2 and allowed him to step inside the room ahead of me.

  I have never been a fan of froufrou but, let’s face it, a rambling house needs its share of ambiance and guests expect a certain amount of kitsch in a Victorian B and B. For the room Amanda was staying in, I’d gone all out: wallpaper studded with violets, lacy curtains, antique photographs in gilded frames. In Suite #2, I’d toned things down a bit. The walls of this room were painted a tasteful, deep green, and the four-poster bed was hung with maroon damask bed curtains. The shelves near the window were filled with leather-bound books.

  Ted was apparently not a bric-a-brac kind of guy. He looked around and nodded his approval. “Hey, maybe we could come up with some kind of arrangement,” he suggested. “You know, if it ever happens that my guests can’t stay in one of my cottages for any reason, like there’s no electricity, I could have them come here to your place.”

  I said I’d think about it, told him breakfast would be on the table at nine, and hightailed it out of there, my mind still racing. Same tune, different words. The racket went something like this:

  Ted Brooks fought with Peter.

  Peter was dead.

  Ted was in my house.

  Good thing that sturdy oak door to his suite was shut before I started back downstairs. Otherwise, he might have heard me gulp.

  I deposited the tissues where Chandra could grab a box, then kept walking. My original intention was to follow Amanda’s lead and go into the kitchen and make a pot of tea, but heck, as genteel as that sounds, I knew there were better ways to soothe the battered spirits of four women.

  When I walked back into the parlor, I was carrying a tray with four fluted crystal glasses on it, and a bottle of Dom Perignon.

  Kate took a gander at the label and her eyebrows rose. “1986. You must have been saving that for a special occasion.”

  “It was a gift.” It was true, and as far as I was concerned, of no consequence. I poured and when she walked past the room, I offered to get another glass for Amanda. She declined and headed up the stairs, and I passed the glasses around.

  “We’re not . . .” When the bubbles in her glass tickled Chandra’s nose, she held the Waterford a little farther away. “I feel guilty. Like we’re celebrating something. And we shouldn’t be.”

  “Don’t think of it as a celebration.” My mind still reeling, I didn’t bother to sip. I took a nice big gulp and tipped my head back, enjoying the tickle of the bubbles in my throat. “Think of it as a way to help thaw the ice inside all of us.”

  “I’ll drink to that.” Luella took a long drink and smacked her lips. “Good stuff,” she said.

  “It should be.” Kate sipped and nodded her approval. “That vintage . . .” She thought about it. “I’d say that bottle cost more than five hundred.”

  “Dollars?” Chandra nearly choked on her first sip. She swallowed, burped, and pounded her chest. “Well, if that’s the case, I’d say the least we can do is toast.” She raised her glass. “To Peter.”

  It was a somber reminder of why we were all there in the first place. We clinked our glasses together and settled back.

  After another couple sips, Chandra sighed. “I suppose it’s pretty fitting that we’re sitting here drinking champagne tonight,” she said with a wistful look at the fire. “Today is my anniversary.”

  I would have offered my congratulations if Kate’s top lip hadn’t curled. “Was that your first wedding, Chandra?” she asked. “Or your second? Or maybe it was your third?”

  Chandra did not seem to hold these questions against her. She took another sip of champagne and answered matter-of-factly. “Second. You know, when I married Hank.”

  “Hank!” Luella threw back her head and laughed. “There was a match made in hell if ever there was one. You and Hank Florentine are like oil on water.”

  “You got that right.” Chandra grinned and downed the rest of her champagne. “That man is pigheaded and stone-hearted. I should have seen it from the start. Even when you know a guy is bad for you, sometimes you just can’t help yourself. It’s the whole moth-to-the-flame thing. You ladies know how it is.”

  Kate shook her head. “I don’t know that. Not at all. The smart way to approach any relationship is to evaluate things from the start. If there are that many obvious problems, why start dating in the first place?”

  “I’m afraid I can’t really relate, either.” Luella’s glass was empty and she set it on the table near her elbow. “Joe, he was the love of my life, the only man I ever needed.”

  It wasn’t until I finished my own champagne that I realized they were all looking my way, waiting for me to say something. Anything. About my love life.

  Collecting my thoughts and steeling my nerves, I refilled the glasses, and when I was done, I sat back down. Not to worry, I had anticipated that someday I might face this sort of questioning, and I was ready for it. The trick was making my story sound convincing.

  I wrapped my fingers around the stem of my glass. “My husband, Martin, died last year,” I said, and since I guess I was expected to add some romantic insight into the comment, I added, “And I do think he was the right man for me. Even though he was twenty years older.”

  Something about this statement appealed to Chandra; her eyes sparkled. Or maybe that was because of the champagne. “Oh, a trophy wife!”

  Back when I concocted the story, I told myself that folks would think this. I didn’t actually expect anyone to come right out and say it. I hadn’t prepared a response, so I covered with a laugh. “Nothing that interesting, I’m afraid. Martin owned an antiques store in Chelsea and I used to shop there. That’s how we got to know each other. When he died . . . well, I sold the shop and moved here.”

  “Which explains the great furniture.” Kate stroked one hand lovingly along the arm of the butter-soft leather couch.

  “And it explains how you were able to afford this place and all the renovations.” Who else but Chandra would have the chutzpah to put this into words? “We’ve been wondering, you know. All of us.”

  “I haven’t.” Kate distanced herself from this tacky little foray into my private life, and for this, I was grateful. It gave me a chance to finish the last of my champagne. When I was done, I set down my glass. “I’m afraid that was my last bottle of champagne,” I told them.

  “Not to worry!” Chandra popped out of her seat and scampered into the hallway to tug on her boots. “I’ll go home and be back in a jiffy. I’ve got a couple bottles of stuff.”

  “Oh, no.” Luella moved pretty darned fast for a senior citizen. She was out of her chair and had a hand on Chandra’s arm to stop her before Kate and I caught up. “No way you’re going to bring some nasty, herby stuff over here and tell us it’s good for us. We’d all drink it, just to be polite, and I’ll tell you what, I don’t feel much like being polite. Not tonight.”

  • • •

  Lucky for us, Chandra returned with a six pack of beer, but it wasn’t the only thing she brought from home. No sooner had she stepped into her rainbow house than she realized her electricity was off, too, and so was her heat. She returned with a sleeping bag and a promise to stay out of the way if only I’d let her sleep there for the night, and I told her not to worry about it and promptly showed her up to Suite #3.

  That taken care of, I rummaged through the freezer and found margarita mix. And as long as we were in the kitchen crushing ice and blending, I pulled out a jar of salsa, a bag of tortilla chips, and some brie and crackers and set them on the granite counter to the right of the stov
e so we could pull up tall stools and make ourselves at home.

  Believe it or not, I was halfway through my first margarita before a weird thought hit. “Hey, Orient Express.”

  Kate dredged a chip through the bowl of salsa. “Not open. Because of the murder. We can’t order Chinese food.”

  “Not what I meant.” There was a string of gooey brie on my finger, and I wiped it away with one of the purple cocktail napkins I’d set out. “Peter’s restaurant was the Orient Express, and we’re reading . . .” I used the royal we just to be polite and as a way of including Kate and Chandra even though they hadn’t read the book. “We’re reading Murder on the Orient Express, and there was a murder at—”

  “The Orient Express.”

  We all finished the thought together. Had it been any other night, we might have laughed. Instead, our hands stilled over snack dishes and libations and our expressions sobered.

  A shiver snaked over my shoulders. “It’s weird when you think about it. I mean, the similarities.”

  Shaken from her momentary paralysis, Kate sipped her margarita. “There’s the name of the restaurant, of course. That’s a no brainer.”

  “And the note!” It was the first I had a chance to mention the note I’d read when it blew off Peter’s front counter, and I told them all about it.

  “‘You won’t get away with this. I won’t ever forget. I swear, I’ll make you pay.’” Luella repeated the words I’d told her I’d seen cut out and pasted to the page. “What do you suppose it means?”

  “I didn’t know then and I don’t know now,” I admitted. “But think about how weird it is. There was a threatening note in the book, too. It was sent to the victim before he was killed.”

  “Creepy.” Kate wrapped her arms around herself.

  “Strange.” Chandra put down the chip she was about to take a bite out of.

  “And we’ve got a snowstorm, too,” Luella said. “That’s just like in the book, too. The victim and the detective and the suspects, that’s why they’re all together. The train they’re traveling in hits a snowbank and is stuck. They’re trapped.”

  “We’re kind of trapped, too.” Though my kitchen was newly renovated and brightly lit, Chandra’s gaze darted from corner to corner. “It’s like the movie. All the suspects gathered together with no place to go. No one can leave. No one can arrive.”

  Well, not exactly, because for the second time that night, someone knocked on my front door.

  6

  Considering the kind of night it had been, I wasn’t taking any chances. In an effort to look as decent as possible when the situation was anything but (both weather- and murder-wise), I made sure I wiped the salsa off my mouth before I went to the door. As it turned out, I was glad I did. First impressions are important, after all, though come to think of it, I don’t think I’d ever made the sort of first impression the woman on my front porch did.

  I was wearing my sweatshirt, jeans, and, since they were the closest footwear to the door when I slipped off my boots, my pink fuzzy bunny slippers.

  She was cocooned in a sable coat that brushed the tops of her knee-high leather boots. Alligator—I’d recognize it anywhere, even in the midst of a blinding snowstorm—and the three-inch-high heels made her tower over six feet.

  I’d scooped my hair back into a ponytail, the better to man the blender, but it’s pretty rambunctious hair to begin with, and great curling wisps of it had already escaped my ponytail holder and were whipped around by the wind.

  In spite of that stiff wind blowing off the lake, every strand of her brown chin-length hair was perfect. Just like her manicure, her makeup, and the hoop earrings crusted with diamonds that winked at me in the light of the porch lamp.

  The perfume she’d ladled on? Not so perfect, at least to my nose. But plenty expensive. I caught a hint of jasmine and vanilla and wondered if she wasn’t sniffing the air around me and picking up on the unmistakable aroma of lime and tequila.

  “Ms. Cartwright?” The woman’s voice was sultry and just a tad condescending. But then, there was the whole tequila/messy hair thing. “I was told you might have a room available for the night.”

  When I said, “Of course,” my words were blown away by the wind, so I motioned her to come in and I shut out the storm.

  “The electricity is off on most of the island,” she said, sighing with satisfaction as the warmth enveloped her. “I heard you had a generator and were open for business. The roads are terrible. I was sure I was going to get stuck out there somewhere.” She jiggled shoulders that were wide for a woman, but in perfect proportion with the rest of her body.

  “You’re not the only one who’s been stranded,” I told her. “But your timing is just right. I’ve got a couple extra guests, but there are still three rooms left.”

  I told her the rate, and this time, I didn’t offer a special weather-related discount. Like I said, sable coat, alligator boots.

  “I’m so glad I got here when I did. The weather’s getting worse and worse.” She offered a hand encased in a leather glove and I shook it. “Mariah Gilroy,” she said by way of introduction. “I threw some essentials into my tote bag . . .” She had the leather tote slung over one shoulder, and she touched a hand to it. “That way, I could leave my suitcase in the car.”

  “If you’d like me to get it . . .” I’d already stepped toward the door when she stopped me, one hand on my arm. Which, come to think of it, was a good thing. Bunny slippers, remember.

  “I wouldn’t ask anyone to go out in that weather. Not for anything. Like I said, I’ve got everything I need for tonight. I’ll worry about the rest of it in the morning. For now, if you could just show me to a room, I would be forever grateful. I need a long, hot bubble bath to thaw out.”

  I waved her toward the stairs and let her climb up ahead of me, and it wasn’t until I turned to follow her that I realized we had an audience.

  From the doorway of the kitchen, Chandra grinned and gestured up and down, one hand flat, her fingers splayed, as if to say ooh-la-la!

  Kate nodded. I suppose that was her way of congratulating me for not offering Mariah a reduced rate.

  Luella grinned and gave me the thumbs-up.

  I hurried and caught up to Mariah at the top of the steps. I was right when I said her timing was good; now that the three suites at the front of the house were filled, Suite #4, the first door to the left of the stairway, was the most logical one to show her to, and something told me she was just the woman for the room.

  I opened the door, turned on the faux Tiffany lamp on the cherry dresser, and showed her around. This was the most spacious and the most audacious suite at Bea & Bees, from the canopied bed to the shelves of bric-a-brac. It also happened to be the only suite that had a fireplace in the bathroom.

  One look at it and Mariah cooed with glee. “You don’t mind if I burn it?”

  “I can start the fire for you if you like,” I told her, and since there was already kindling and logs piled next to the fireplace, I did just that while she got herself settled.

  Once the fire was crackling, I told her about breakfast, wished her a good night, and left Mariah slipping out of her boots.

  I was all the way back to the kitchen before I realized Mariah wasn’t the only new arrival. There was a middle-aged man standing near my back door. Buzz-cut hair, square jaw, arms crossed over his chest. If the dark blue uniform wasn’t a giveaway, the gun he had strapped to his hip would have been.

  Put-in-Bay’s finest.

  And he didn’t look happy.

  His eyes snapped to mine. “So you’re one of the ones causing all this trouble.”

  I hoped he was kidding and decided in an instant that he didn’t know the meaning of the word.

  Dumbstruck, I pulled to a stop just inside the kitchen door. Kate wasn’t complaining about traffic, was she? On a night like this? Or maybe it was Chandra, upset at all the cars that were now lined up in my driveway, too close to her precious herb garden.
>
  I took a couple steps farther into the room, one bunny-shod foot in front of the other, and my smile as tight as my voice. “Me? Trouble?”

  I swear, if Kate was behind this, I was going to . . .

  Since Kate was seated at the countertop eating the last of a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey that I was sure had been in my freezer when I left to answer the front door, my suspicions were assuaged.

  And Chandra? She was sitting next to Kate, her back impossibly straight, her head improbably high. She took a swig of beer and thumped her bottle back on the black granite countertop. “No trouble here at all, Officer,” she said, each word as clipped as if she were biting it in two. “We can’t imagine what you’re talking about.”

  “Bunch of noisy women, partying.” He shook his head in disgust. “I should have known you’d be behind something like this, Chandra.”

  She hopped off her stool. “You think? Then you should know something else. We’re not sitting here just drinking and eating.” Her gaze landed on the blender, half-filled with limey green margarita, and on the plates and bowls of snacks scattered all around, and she swallowed some of her outrage. “Okay, so yeah, we are sitting here drinking and eating. But that’s not all we’re doing. As a matter of fact, we were talking about Peter’s murder. You know, about all the clues and such.”

  “Really?” The way he pursed his lips, I could tell he wasn’t as impressed as he was simply amazed. “Is that so, Ms. Cartwright? Because I’ll tell you what, I stopped over here just to talk to you for a minute, but if I’m interrupting your own private investigation . . .”

  There’s no buzzkill like a visit from the police in the middle of the night. I bunny-stepped over to the counter and put on a pot of coffee. “Don’t be silly.” Yeah, bad choice of words. From the tilt of the cop’s bullet-shaped head to the chip I swore I could see on his shoulder, this guy was anything but. “We’re just talking. That’s all. And yes, the subject of the murder came up. Of course it did. What happened tonight has upset all of us.”