Murder at the Tremont House (A Blue Plate Cafe Mystery) Page 9

  “Were you romantically involved with this man?”

  “I don’t see how my personal life has anything to do with your exploration of small-town life,” I said, biting my tongue to keep from telling her I thought the question was rude and intrusive. “But, the answer is no.”

  “So now you’re having an affair with the chief of police.” It wasn’t a question, but she went on before I could answer. “I looked into your life in Dallas—not hard when you know where to look. You weren’t without a man in your life for long.”

  My tone was icy again. “People change, and so do circumstances. I am not having an affair with Rick Samuels.”

  “So you say.” Her smile was a bit too smug for me.

  “Let me ask you something,” I countered. “What kind of credentials do you have? You’ve told me you won’t name the magazine you writing this for, and the card you gave me isn’t at all informative about your background. Can you show us a résumé or clips or something to document your journalism career?” I forced myself to stay calm and keep my tone level.

  She unwound herself from the chair and began to pace. “You don’t trust me?”

  “No,” I said shortly. “I really don’t. Sorry, but it’s better to get it out in the open.”

  “Why?” She stopped, a hand on one hip, and stared belligerently at me.

  I thought about her approach to Miss Tilly, getting her to “open up” about her dead lover, but I didn’t say that. “You haven’t interviewed Tom, you haven’t as far as I know contacted Representative Angela Thompson, who knows an awful lot about this town. You’ve insulted Reverend Baxter about his personal life…even his sex life, which should be an out-of-bounds area for a man of the cloth. But you haven’t asked him what it’s like to pastor a congregation in a small town where everyone knows everyone else’s business. Are you simply interested in our sex lives?”

  Her eyes blazed. “No, of course not. But often a person’s private life tells you much about the way they live their entire life. If I connect enough of the dots….”

  “Then why spend so much time with Cary Smith, a high school senior. No doubt he has the same kind of sex life boys that age have always had—maybe some fumbling in the back seat of his dad’s car, a lot of fantasy, a lot of talking to the boys. You shouldn’t have to spend as much time with him as you do to find that out. And why him? He’s no different than any of his classmates. Have you talked to them?”

  “How do you know how much time I spend with Cary Smith?” she demanded, her tone harsh, her posture angry.

  I kept my cool. “Word gets around town,” I said. “Cary spends as much time with you as he does with his math tutor.”

  “Now that’s another story, and I’m looking into it.”

  It suddenly dawned on me that she thought Cary was having an affair with his math teacher. Omigosh! Gram, help!

  “It’s not unheard of,” she said harshly, as though she read my thoughts.

  “So you’re going to write another Peyton Place and expose Wheeler to the ridicule of Texas, if not the whole country?”

  Now she turned lofty. “The truth is what it is.” She turned away from me and went to refill the wine glass she’d just emptied almost in one gulp.

  I had barely sipped my wine, determined to keep my wits about me. There was something to this story that I was not getting—and instinct told me it had to do with Cary Smith.

  She came back with a generous pour of wine, plopped herself down in the chair, and did what I feared—splashed wine on the upholstery. Looking down, surprised, she said, “It won’t show on all these flowers.”

  “Do you have club soda?” I asked.

  “I doubt it.”

  “I’ll just go look in the kitchen.” I found small bottles of club soda and used one to eradicate the stain.

  “We’re not getting anywhere,” I announced. “I think I better leave. I’d hoped to learn something about you tonight, maybe even see where I can help you. But that’s not going to work, is it?”

  “No,” she said forcefully. “It’s not going to work. I’d just as soon you kept your nose out of my business.”

  “Ditto,” I said and turned toward the door.

  Just then the sound of a shotgun blast was followed by breaking glass, and I realized the living room was being peppered with buckshot. “Hit the floor,” I yelled.

  “What the hell…?” she cried as she dove under the coffee table.

  “Someone’s shooting buckshot at us. Could be fatal, but it would hurt like sixty even if it weren’t. Stay down. I’ll crawl to my phone and call Rick.”

  Two more blasts followed, each shattering another window. As I wormed my way toward the couch where I’d left my bag, I watched those fancy mullioned windows shatter and slide to the floor in slivers of glass. I could only think of Donna’s reaction.

  Then we heard an engine gun it, and a truck—no doubt a pickup—roar away. I got my purse and with shaky hands punched in Rick’s number. “You all right?” I asked Sara Jo.

  “Scared out of my wits, and I don’t scare easily. I’ve never been shot at before.”

  I wanted to say, “First time for everything,” but I bit my tongue and said, “They didn’t want to kill either of us. Just scare us and maybe hurt us. Buckshot can ricochet and do serious damage. We’re lucky.” I sounded calm, but my hands were still shaking.

  “Can I get up now?” Sara Jo was face down, scrunched under the coffee table.

  “Probably, but don’t go near the windows.”

  She fixed me with a scathing look. “I know enough to stay away from broken glass. I suppose you’re going to use this incident to reinforce your idea someone’s trying to scare me out of town. Well, it won’t work.”

  Rick answered or I would have replied in the heat of my anger at her. I explained someone had just sprayed the B&B with buckshot, and he said, “Stay there, and stay down. I’ll be right there.”

  “Lie back on the floor,” I told Sara Jo. “You don’t have to hide under the coffee table, but stay down. Rick will be here momentarily.” Then I took a deep breath. “Of course, someone’s out to scare you, and they’re getting more serious about it. Slashed tires are one thing; buckshot kicks it up a level.”

  She stayed silent, looking balefully at me, until we heard the siren on Rick’s car. I got up to open the front door, and he walked into the mess that had been Donna’s living room.

  “Omigosh! Your sister will have a fit,” were his first words.

  “I would think,” Sara Jo said stiffly, “you’d be more concerned for our safety.”

  He studied her and said slowly, “I am. But you’re safe. Shooter’s gone. And this place is a mess. I’ll have to call Tom to come board up the windows and we’ll all have to clean up the glass.”

  “We all?” she echoed. “I have work to do,” and she started up the stairs.

  “Not so fast,” Rick said. “I need to ask some questions.”

  Of course, neither Sara Jo nor I could provide any answers. We hadn’t seen the truck.

  “I’ll look for tire tracks and skid marks and all that, but we’ll probably never find the shooter.” He shrugged. “Sorry, but that’s just the way it is.”

  “Law enforcement in a small town,” she sniffed. “This will go into my story.”

  “I bet,” I muttered.

  Rick called Tom and Donna. Donna sent Tom because she couldn’t leave the children, but her screech through the phone was audible throughout the room. “Shot out my windows! Somebody’s going to pay.”

  “Probably your insurance,” Rick said smoothly.

  I got a broom and a trash can lined with a black plastic bag and began sweeping. Sara Jo watched without once moving to help, though I could have used her to hold the dustpan. Shattered glass lay everywhere. After he finished on the phone, Rick helped, and pretty soon we had most of it up. Then I got the vacuum to get the fine pieces we couldn’t see.

  Tom finally arrived with the plywood.
He’d had to go to the store, of course, to get supplies, but he and Rick began nailing the wood over the windows, on the inside where, of course, it would leave marks and mean repainting the woodwork as well as replacing the mullioned windows.

  Sara Jo had silently left us and gone upstairs.

  While he worked, Tom said, “Donna’s fit to be tied. She’s screaming about the destruction to The Tremont House since Sara Jo arrived and is sure no one will ever stay here again because it will have a bad reputation.”

  “If she doesn’t spread the story, probably no potential guests will know about it,” Rick said. I admired his calm in the midst of this situation and meant to tell him that later.

  At last, we had The Tremont House cleaned up and secured. I had used the vacuum attachment to be sure no glass shards were on the couches, and I’d shaken the magazines and run a wet paper towel over the coffee table surface. We had done all we could.

  Rick looked at me glumly. “I think we should go with Tom to tell Donna the extent of the damage.”

  I wanted to say, “Really? I want to go home, have another glass of wine, and hide my head under my pillow,” but I nodded. We left without seeing Sara Jo again.

  And so, we caravanned, in our own cars, to Tom and Donna’s, where hell’s fury awaited us.

  “It’s your fault,” Donna screamed at me. “What were you doing there in the first place?”

  “Sara Jo wanted to interview me. It, uh, it didn’t go very well. But Don, nobody was out to get me. They wanted to scare Sara Jo, maybe even hurt her.”

  Rick jumped in. “Buckshot isn’t to be taken lightly. It can do a lot of damage, even kill. After all, it kills deer.” He added this as an afterthought.

  “It did a lot of damage,” she yelled. “To my house.”

  “I meant to a person,” Rick said. “Kate and Sara Jo are lucky they escaped without harm. I think it’s due to your sister’s quick thinking.”

  Donna stared at me, as though she didn’t want to give me credit. I noticed three heads poking around the door from the stairway and motioned to Tom, who went to scurry the children back to bed. Then he came back to reassure Donna.

  “It will take days to order glass, get it installed. Those double-hung sash windows are murder to work with. We’ll have to putty and paint where the shot hit some walls but the damage is a lot less than you’d expect. I can have it in order probably in a week.”

  “I have guests, two sets, coming this weekend,” she said. “I expect it to be perfect by then.”

  I wanted to kick her in the shins, but I figured Rick might arrest me for assault.

  Tom said patiently, “I don’t think it will go that rapidly, Donna. You’ll just have to curtain that room off and use the study. It’s cozier anyway. I’ll do my best to keep the mess to a minimum, and you can explain it as remodeling.”

  She sniffed. “Remodeling? When I bill it as newly remodeled.”

  “Well,” I said practically, “I don’t think I’d say you’re repairing the damage from a load of buckshot.”

  Rick pulled me out the door. As we left, I felt sorry for Tom having to stay with Donna and her anger. Rick followed me home and came in, where, in spite of myself, I exploded much like Donna had.

  “Rick, that buckshot was meant for her. Trust me, she’s trouble for this town. And she wouldn’t talk about Cary Smith.”

  He fiddled with the coffee cup I’d given him—this morning’s coffee warmed in the microwave. It must have tasted awful, and he was barely sipping it. “It might just interest you to know that Cary Smith’s father, Roger, called me today. He wants to file a complaint of harassment against her. Says she’s badgering his son, making him the laughingstock of his friends. They tell him all the time she has a crush on him.”

  “Maybe she does. I wouldn’t put anything past her. Can he file that complaint?”

  “I doubt it. She hasn’t threatened the boy…or his parents. You can only get restraining orders if there’s a danger of physical violence.”

  Suddenly, I was tired of anger. We sat in silence.

  Chapter Ten

  Forgive my French, but all hell broke loose with my family before I could leave for Crandall the next day. First Tom came in, grumpy as he always was these days. He poured himself a cup of coffee and slumped down in a chair at the corner table, glowering at the world. He didn’t even look as carefully groomed as usual—his hair was semi-wild, and he’d mismatched the buttons on his plaid shirt.

  Recognizing a serious funk when I saw one, I tried to decide between matching his seriousness or countering it with levity. Unfortunately, I made the wrong choice. “Morning, sunshine,” I said. “You really know how to brighten a girl’s day.”

  “Do you know what she’s done now?” he growled.

  “Who? Done what?” I sat at the table, wishing I’d gotten a cup of coffee. “Maybe before you tell me, you’d like to re-button your shirt.”

  With the old Tom, that would have brought a sheepish grin, but not with this new man I now had to contend with.

  “Well, damn! See how rattled she gets me?” He slowly unbuttoned until he came to the one he’d skipped and then righted his shirt.

  I assumed “she” was Donna and wondered what she could possibly have done now. Turned out there were two “shes” behind this anger.

  “That Sara Jo woman put another screwy idea in Donna’s head, and of course now Donna’s hell-bent to take her suggestion.” He sipped at his coffee, and I saw that his hand was trembling just a bit. This must be real! He didn’t wait for me to ask what idea but went right on, “She told Donna if she’s gonna have long-term guests she should be on the grounds twenty-four seven….”

  Something pulled itself out of the back of my mind. Sara Jo had mentioned that last night, with a dismissive reference to “that husband and those children.” I just hadn’t paid serious attention because my mind was fixed on other things. Now I saw yet another facet to the damage Sara Jo could do.

  “That’s crazy. By the time all four of you moved in, there wouldn’t be room for paying guests. Maybe Donna wants to sell your house and live in the bigger one and forget about the B&B?”

  “You’re dreaming, Kate,” he said angrily. “She wants to stay at the B&B and leave me and the kids home. Says maybe in a year or two, we could talk about building a house on the property, when the B&B is profitable. You and I know that’s never gonna happen.”

  I shook my head, trying to clear cobwebs out of my brain. My sister had truly taken leave of her senses. “I’m sure this is just a passing notion, and she’ll get over it,” I said.

  “I wish I could believe that, but I don’t. I see it clearly as a separation, and I swear if she does that, I’ll file for divorce. I told you I married the wrong Chambers twin.”

  Oh, please, don’t start that again! “Tom, you know you love Donna, always have.”

  “Always did,” he corrected. “I’m fed up, had it. She’s slowly killing any spirit the kids might have, and she got to me long ago. I want to enjoy life. I don’t want to worry about what my crazy wife will do next. And, yes, I’d like a wife who would act like a wife. I take it you’re not interested? You could raise the children—they adore you.”

  He was almost as crazy as Donna this morning. “Tom, they’re Donna’s children too, and, no, I love them, I love you, but I’m not interested.”

  “I’m resigning as mayor,” he said abruptly, rising to go.

  “Sit back down!” I couldn’t believe I issued an order, but I did.

  Taken aback, he sat down though he stayed on the edge of his chair.

  “Gram wanted more than anything for you to be mayor of this town, and you’ve done a terrific job of it. You’ve brought the town back together after Angela Thompson drove a huge wedge into the good will that existed for years and years. You can’t quit.”

  “I can’t run a hardware store, raise my children, deal with Donna, and be mayor. Something’s got to give.”

  He did lo
ok like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders, and I reached out to put a hand on his arm. “I can help more with the children, and let me talk to Donna. I’m going to Crandall this morning—I’m a bit worried about my friend Carolyn Grimes—but I’ll go see Donna before I leave town. Is she at the B&B?”

  “Of course. Where else?” He put his hand over mine, but it was a gesture of brotherly affection. “Thanks, Kate. If nothing else, thanks for listening. I don’t know what you can do, but I appreciate your trying.”

  “Just don’t do anything in haste,” I begged.

  He gave me a wry smile as he stood up. “I won’t. You know that. I’m mostly talk.”

  My eyes followed him as he left. Tom was a good-looking, kind man, and if he and Donna ever split, there’d be no shortage of women setting their caps for him. He was tall, masculine in the right way, with slightly irregular features, enough so he didn’t look too good to be true. And basically, when he wasn’t stressed over Donna, he had a much happier disposition than Rick was endowed with. But, no, that would seem like incest to me.

  I told Marj I was leaving for the day. If she’d stay late—say four or so—I’d be back to take over. And then I headed for the B&B. I knew I was putting a lot off on Marj these days and vowed to give her a much-deserved raise and the title of general manager.

  In the car, I talked to Gram. “Tell me this is going to be all right, Gram, that I can talk some sense into Donna, that she’ll stop making Tom’s life miserable.” I wanted badly for Gram to say, “Oh, child, have faith. It will all work out as it’s meant to.” Instead she was silent, if she even heard me. Our communication was strictly on Gram’s terms, but I wondered if her silence didn’t mean she couldn’t give me the reassurance I wanted.

  Once again, I rang the doorbell. Donna greeted me with surprise. “Oh! I was hoping you were a paying guest.” She was dressed for the warm April day we were expecting—pale beige pants with a white sleeveless top, and a beige sweater fashionably tied over her shoulders. Her arms were toned and shapely, and I mentally cursed the fact that I did yoga or something every day, plus I got a lot of exercise at the café, and I’d never be in as good shape as Donna, who rarely lifted a finger, even to clean her own house, let alone exercise. Tom Bryson better think again about that wrong Chambers girl business.