Mayhem at the Orient Express Read online

  She shouted over the noise of the storm. “I hate to ask.”

  Before she could, I motioned her inside and closed the door.

  It wasn’t very far from Kate’s house to mine, but Kate had been fighting the storm all the way; she was breathing hard. Her boots were caked with snow, and she slipped them off and put them on the area rug I’d set out near the door. “I don’t mean to be a bother,” she began.

  “But your electricity is off, and so is your heat.”

  Her come-and-go smile told me she was glad I’d said it so she didn’t have to. “I’d go to the winery. There’s a generator there. But . . .” There were tall, thin windows on either side of the front door and she looked that way and at the snow that slammed into the front of the house. “No way the roads are passable, and I could never walk all the way over there. It was hard enough getting here.”

  I felt as awkward offering help as she did asking for it. After all, there was that letter she’d written to the township board about how she was sure the B and B would be nothing but a nuisance in the neighborhood. Nuisance, huh? Looked like this was one nuisance that had literally turned into a warm port in a very bad storm.

  And now was not the time to mention it.

  I took the overnight bag out of Kate’s hand and set it down on the steps. “Suite #5 is open,” I told her. “And breakfast is in the dining room.”

  Kate shook her head. “I had yogurt at home. But I’ll gladly grab a cup of coffee, and I saw a computer in your kitchen last night. If your Wi-Fi is working . . .” Computer bag in hand, she was already padding into the kitchen to settle herself on one of the high stools at the countertop.

  While I watched Kate, Luella started down the steps. “She’s got a cold, poor thing,” she said with a look over her shoulder at Amanda’s room. “I told her I’d bring up tea with plenty of honey and lemon. You do have honey and lemon, right?”

  I thought I did. Maybe. I went into the kitchen to look, and Luella followed me.

  “By the way . . .”

  Luella sounded pained, and though I didn’t know her well, I was pretty sure she wasn’t the type of woman who was easily intimidated. By anything. My head already in the pantry, I stood up and turned around.

  Luella looked at the ceiling. She glanced at the floor, fingering the cell phone she carried in one hand. “Meg called while I was upstairs with Amanda.”

  Was that all that was bothering Luella? I brushed off her uneasiness. “If Meg is worried about getting fresh breakfast pastries over here for tomorrow’s breakfast, tell her to forget it! No way I want her to come out in this storm. We’ll get by. Even if it means we’ll be serving Cheerios.”

  Luella nodded. “That’s nice of you, really, but that’s not why she called. Seems her heat is out and . . . I hope you don’t mind, Bea. I know it wasn’t my place and it’s not my business and . . . but . . . well, I told her to bring the girls and come over here.”

  While I was still processing this, Luella jumped back in. “I’m sorry. I should have asked you first, it’s just that I was thinking of poor Meg there alone . . . you know her husband, John, he’s with the National Guard and stationed overseas, and she’s got little Isabelle and Mila, and I was thinking of them there at home in the dark and the cold and they’ve got a big old Hummer and they’re right down the street, so I’m pretty sure they can make it this far safely, but—”

  “Luella.” I stopped her before she could get any further. “I already know Meg is the best baker on the island. Tell me, is she any good at any other kind of cooking?”

  Luella didn’t see where this was headed so all she did was give me a tentative nod.

  “These folks are going to want lunch,” I told her. “And I’m pretty sure my cooking isn’t going to earn any five-star ratings. Of course Meg and the girls are welcome to stay here. I don’t mind at all, and we can use the extra help. They can have Suite #6 and you can stay up there with them if you’d like.”

  Relief swept over her expression at the same time Luella caught sight of a jar of honey and reached around me to retrieve it. “I saw some ground beef in your freezer last night when Kate was rooting around in there for the ice cream,” she said, and while she was at it, she grabbed a couple cans of diced tomatoes out of the pantry. “With the meat and these tomatoes, I can make sloppy joes for lunch. I’ll get right on it as soon as I make tea for Amanda.” Her arms loaded, she deposited the items on the table, but not before she gave me a wink. “I make pretty mean sloppy joes, and it’s the least I can do to thank you. We can serve the sandwiches along with pickles, and if you’ve got potatoes, I can make—”

  “Hiya! Hiya! Hiya!”

  The strange sound was halfway between a song and a chant. When it floated into the kitchen, Luella swallowed her words and we exchanged glances.

  “Hiya! Hiya! Hiya!”

  “Kate . . .” She was sitting at the countertop, her laptop open in front of her, furiously typing, and I looked that way. “That wasn’t you, was it? Are you watching a movie on the Internet or something?”

  Kate glanced up from her work. “I didn’t hear—”

  “Hiya! Hiya! Hiya!”

  This time, she did hear, and she jumped off the stool and moved to the back door. “It sounds like it’s coming from outside,” Kate said. “But that’s impossible. Nobody in their right mind would be out there on a morning like this.”

  Exactly what I was thinking, which, truth be told, was why I wasn’t surprised when I looked out the back window and saw Chandra on the porch. She was wearing a long purple coat, tall, sturdy boots that were covered with snow, and a knitted hat pulled down around her ears. That in and of itself wasn’t weird considering the weather. What was a little weird was the fact that she was pacing the length of the porch and that she had a bundle of some kind of greenery in her left hand. Whatever it was, it was smoldering, and the musty perfume of the burning weeds snaked inside and tickled my nose.

  “Hiya! Hiya! Hiya!” Chandra shook the bundle of greens and the smoke billowed and was blown away on the next gust of wind. “Hiya! Hiya! Hiya!”

  “Isn’t that just what I was saying to Alvin in court the other day?” Kate’s mouth pulled into an I-told-you-so smirk. “The woman needs to be committed.”

  “She does if she’s planning on spending the morning out in this storm,” I agreed. “I wondered why Chandra didn’t come down to breakfast. I figured she was a late sleeper.”

  “What you should have figured is that the woman is as nutty as a fruitcake.” Kate must have known what I was going to do, because she backed away from the door. That gave me a chance to go out into the little mudroom just off the porch and pull open the back door.

  “Chandra!” The name whistled away on the wind. I tried again. “Chandra, what on earth are you doing?”

  She waved the bundle and a puff of smoke stung my eyes.

  “I’m working to repair the island’s aura, of course,” she called out.

  We weren’t going to do that by screaming at each other.

  I waved her inside.

  Chandra must have been cold. She obliged.

  She stepped into the mudroom, and maybe she was doing me a favor and getting rid of any snow before she walked into the kitchen, or maybe she was trying to get her circulation going again. Either way, she stomped her feet and handed me the smoldering bunch of greens so she could pull off her hat.

  “I’m sure the murder has seriously damaged it,” she said.

  Luella and Kate were standing just inside the door, and Luella leaned forward. “Damaged what? Your thinking? Because I’ll tell you what, honey, you’re nuts to be out there in this weather.”

  “But we’ve got to do something, don’t you see?” Another couple stomps, and Chandra stepped into the kitchen. When it comes to cleaning, I’m not obsessive/compulsive, but I know a disaster waiting to happen when I see one. I got a couple kitchen towels out of a drawer and dropped them on the floor so Chandra could stand on them and d
rip.

  “Anytime something like a murder happens, well . . .” Chandra shivered, either from the cold or from thinking about Peter. Maybe both. “We’ve got to do something to get the island’s aura back in line. Right now, it’s pretty darned dark, and that isn’t good for anybody. The way I see it, we needed to start with a cleansing. That’s what . . .” She reached over and plucked the smoking bundle out of my hands so that she could wave it around. “That’s what I figured I needed to do first.”

  “First.” I’m not sure any of the others picked up on this, but trust me, I didn’t miss it. The fact that Chandra apparently had a plan was something of a surprise. I only hoped that whatever she was planning wasn’t so out there as to add any more odd smells or smoke—I waved one hand in front of my face—to the house.

  When I opened the back door, a burst of cold air had come into the kitchen, and since it still lingered like the hand of some unseen specter (see, I was telling the truth about having an imagination!), Kate and Luella went to sit at the counter, farther from the door. Chandra peeled out of her coat and kicked off her boots. There was still coffee in the pot, so I filled four mugs and passed them around.

  “What are you planning, Chandra?” I asked her.

  “You mean after I finish this?” She grabbed a piece of coffee cake and wolfed it down, and I realized I was being a lousy hostess. I pulled out dishes and flatware so everyone could grab a piece.

  “The way I figure it . . .” Smiling her approval, Chandra pointed to the coffee cake with her fork. She swallowed. “The way I figure it, we’ve got to find out what happened to Peter, or the island’s karma is going to be completely destroyed.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake!” Kate rolled her eyes.

  “No, wait.” Luella put a hand on Kate’s arm. “Let her finish. Chandra might be onto something.”

  “Thank you.” Chandra sat up and pulled back her shoulders. “What I was thinking is that there are so many people here on the island who depend on the tourist season for their livelihoods. I do tarot card readings for plenty of tourists, and chakra realignments and crystal healings. And you depend on tourists, too, Luella. Bea, so do you. And Kate, whether you want to admit it or not, I know you can’t possibly survive on the sales of the wine you ship to the mainland. You need the tourists who come and tour Wilder Winery and buy wine to take home.”

  “Yes, of course.” Kate had a bite of coffee cake on her fork and she stopped with it halfway to her mouth. “But what does that have to do with—”

  “If people are afraid to come here for vacations, none of us is going to survive,” Chandra said. “That’s why we have to figure out who murdered Peter before the ferry starts running again and the killer gets off the island.”

  Kate’s laugh was sharp. “Isn’t that what the police are for?”

  Chandra had put plenty of sugar in her coffee; she shouldn’t have looked quite so sour. “You heard Hank last night. We offered him some darned good theories, about the woman’s glove and the fight Peter had with . . .” She leaned back on the stool and peered at the dining room door, though since it was closed, she couldn’t see Ted and he couldn’t see us. “The fight with Ted, and the threatening note, and the Princess.”

  Blank stares all around.

  Chandra gave us a hard look. “The Princess. The one who came to the door last night. You know, like the princess in the book.”

  “Mariah!” I laughed. She did remind me of Princess Dragomiroff in the Christie classic: haughty, well-dressed, aristocratic.

  “Hank’s not listening to any of it,” Chandra continued. “And believe me, if there’s one thing I know about Hank, it’s that he can be as stubborn as a rusty old lock. We’ve got to show him. We’ve got to be detectives. You know, like that Parrot guy in the book.”

  I don’t know why I bothered, but I corrected her. “Poirot.”

  “Yeah, him.” Chandra warmed to her idea. “I read the book last night,” she said, beaming with pride. “Cover to cover. And I’m telling you, if the weird little guy in the book can do it, so can we. Besides, we’ve got to do something or everybody’s feng shui is going to be out of whack.”

  “Hmm . . .” Luella drummed her fingers against the granite countertop. “It would be an interesting exercise. And I’d bet it would make Alvin plenty happy to know you three are working together.”

  “Yes, but—”

  My protest was interrupted by Kate. “I liked Peter. He was a nice man, and he knew a thing or two about wine. He didn’t live on the island that long, but he’d already ordered a few bottles from me.”

  “I liked Peter, too,” I admitted. “But . . .”

  They were staring at me. Every single one of them.

  And all I could think about was the way we’d found Peter the night before. That, and how as a newcomer in the close-knit community, I understood something about how he must have felt when he came here to start a new business.

  “Where do we begin?” I asked.

  Leave it to Chandra to have the answer. She popped off the stool and threw an arm into the air. “We’ll use our little gray cells,” she announced in an accent that could only have come straight out of the movie she’d watched before she read the book. “Just like that Hercules guy!”

  8

  Was I worried about Chandra and her crazy idea that we could be detectives?

  You bet’cha!

  Which is precisely why I made sure to keep her busy and as far away from my guests as possible. No easy thing considering we were getting to the point of being wedged in like kippers in a tin.

  Thank goodness it is a big house.

  When I saw Ted go into the parlor to turn on the TV, I made sure to send Chandra up to Suite #6 to help Meg and the kids get settled, and when she did that a little too quickly and barreled down the stairs with a sort of gleam in her eye that I remembered Albert Finney having when he played Poirot in the movie version of Orient Express, I intercepted her and assigned her to Luella’s sloppy joe team.

  Luella was also in charge of the french fries, and in no way was I worried about her. Luella (poor delusional thing) thought the idea of us working together to figure out what happened to Peter was a good one. That meant she wouldn’t go rushing headlong into anything silly. Or solo. And Kate? As much as I hated to admit it, it was admirable that Kate wanted to see justice done in Peter’s name. Surprise, surprise, the woman had a heart. But I knew she also had a brain. She’d never try to corner my guests to interrogate them. Not in an obvious way, at least. And never in a phony Belgian accent.

  By lunchtime when we set the table, we had those sloppy joes ready along with a nice variety of pickles that Kate had arranged artistically on one of my Depression-era glass platters, Luella’s kick-ass french fries (she was a wizard with seasoned salt), and a batch of chocolate and oatmeal no-bake cookies Meg had pulled out of her freezer and brought along as a way of thanking me for my hospitality.

  It was the perfect lunch for a snowy day.

  Now if only Chandra didn’t open her mouth and say something she shouldn’t to someone she shouldn’t say it to.

  The thought burned in my brain as I directed Ted and Mariah to the buffet. Amanda, it should be noted, was still feeling too punky to come down, so while Luella made up a plate for her, I informed my guests that the other ladies and I would leave them in peace and take our lunches into the kitchen.

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” Of course this was Mariah, ever gracious and acting like the lady of the manor even in my house. The dining room table seats twelve, and she waved at all the empty chairs, expertly showing off the nails that had been mauve at breakfast and were now candy apple red. “It makes no sense at all for you to be crammed in the kitchen when we’ve got so much room here. Besides, I’m just dying to hear more about each of you, and about the island.”

  It was exactly what I had been dreading, and exactly what Chandra had been waiting for. I hoped the look I shot her reminded her to be careful and to take it
easy. When her eyes flashed like the island lighthouse, I knew I was in trouble. Too bad I’d just taken a bite of sloppy joe, otherwise I might have been able to say something before she scraped her chair closer to the table and pinned first Ted then Mariah with what I think was supposed to be a clever, detective-like look that came off more like the desperate, eager expectation of a dog waiting for a scrap to fall from the table. That was, of course, right before she blurted out, “Have you two heard about the murder?”

  I was seated directly across from Ted, so I couldn’t fail to notice that he blanched. It was Mariah, though, who spoke first. She was the type—no big surprise—who eats a sloppy joe with knife and fork, and she paused, the flatware poised over the sandwich on her plate.

  “Not a murder here on South Bass, surely.” She dismissed the very thought with a twitch of her very red lips. “You’re talking about something you saw on the news this morning that happened somewhere else. Or perhaps something that happened here ages ago?”

  “Yeah, if last night counts as ages ago.” Chandra again, her eyebrows rising and falling with the excitement of sharing the lurid secret.

  This time, I was ready for her.

  Sort of.

  Before she could add anything to what she thought was the piercing look she darted between Ted to her right and Mariah on her left, I cleared my throat to deflect their attention.

  “I’m afraid it’s true, and I figured you hadn’t heard since we’ve all been stuck inside since last night. It’s a terrible thing.”

  “And not something that usually happens here, that’s for sure,” Luella added, defending the honor of the island.

  “But a murder? Really?” Mariah set down her silverware, her hands fluttering above her plate like anxious butterflies before she pressed them to her ample bosom. “How awful!”

  “It was. It is.” I saw Chandra open her mouth and knew if I didn’t speak fast, she was going to say something about the game being afoot. “Ted . . .” I did my best to make this sound like nothing more than a simple statement of fact, no guilt intended. “I believe you knew the victim. It was Peter Chan.”