A Deadly Snow Fall (3 page)

Through the haze of my utter amazement, the
nasal tones of the attorney’s voice pulled me back to reality. An
inn. Cape Cod. Perhaps, a summons from the Queen and a sterling
silver shovel might not have been quite so shocking, after all.

“Of course, a young, well-educated woman such
as you are will not want to bother with running an inn. The town is
dead as a dormouse all winter and in summer is flooded with quacks
and tourists …many of them interchangeable.” He paused as if to say
something else. Appeared to dismiss the thought as irrelevant and
then, blurted it out. “Full of queers. The Greenwich Village and
Fire Island crowds flock there these days. A disgrace.”

I didn’t feel that it was my responsibility
to correct the ignorant, homophobic man on his choice of the term,
“queers.” My complete intolerance for homophobia, on a par with the
social inequities subscribed to by family, however, bubbled over at
his words. I longed to leave the presence of the prejudiced and
officious man. But, there was more to come. I bit my tongue and
persevered.

He pointed to a map on the wall behind his
desk. “We summer in Chatham. A lovely, quaint town with excellent
architecture, fine beaches, the best restaurants and shops, but
Provincetown is, well…let me put it this way...an offensive dumping
ground for…”

My taser-like eye contact with the annoying,
tiny-minded man put an end to that speech.

Regaining his balance, however, he shot me a
few more bullets.

“That degenerate Eugene O’Neill and his
cohorts turned Provincetown into a sordid gathering place for
socialists. That radical writer John Reed and his tramp mistress
Louise Bryant hung out there.” Blah, blah, blah.

Conversely to his intentions, everything he
was saying that was meant to discourage me was rather, intriguing
me. I conjured up an American version of Penzance in Cornwall,
England. A favorite seaside place in my childhood.

The man babbled on in his efforts to convince
me that I ought to sell the inn immediately, take advantage of the
favorable real estate market, wipe my hands of the whole affair and
pocket a goodly portion of money, etc., etc. I began a little
fantasy in my head. Wouldn’t it be fun to contact my parents with
the news that I’d fallen in love with a Boston chimney
sweep--complete with broom, bucket and sooty face--and I would be
bringing him home to London to meet the family? It would serve them
right. My poor, dear aunt. Ostracized for falling in love outside
the realm. I figured if she had chosen the little seaside village
way down the peninsula of Cape Cod then it was probably a far more
real place than where she came from. One more reason to like the
woman I’d never met but wished I had.

According to the lawyer, my aunt’s American
husband died soon after they settled in the village and with his
life insurance she had bought the antique, distressed house and,
doing much of the work herself, restored it to its eighteenth
century beauty. She supported herself by taking in summer guests
and then in winter by teaching piano to the locals. She had been a
pillar of the community, served on the library board and more
recently, until her untimely death, had been chairperson of the
Provincetown Historical Society. As my admiration for my dead aunt
increased, the man’s words floated by me, unheard. Blah, blah,
blah.

Spotting some photos poking out of the file
in front of the lawyer I asked, “Are those photos of the property?”
Was that a “harrumph”?

Pulling them toward me I saw a solid,
four-square white house with deep front veranda. Four stalwart
chimneys, gleaming windows framed by deep cranberry painted
shutters and a front yard overflowing with wildflowers filled me
with enchantment. The white wicker furniture set out on the front
porch for the guests to enjoy the evening salt breezes called to
me. I found myself slipping into a love affair with a house. When
my eye fell on a huge, ancient tree overhanging the yard and a
sturdy limb just perfect for an old fashioned rope swing I knew I
had to live there.

All through my childhood I’d wanted a rope
swing like the ones I saw in storybooks. Of course my request for
one was anathema to my parents’ ideas of propriety. “But darling,
you don’t want to look like the bumpkin child of the help.” I never
fully understood who it was who was going to see me and pass
judgment on one small girl enjoying a swing.

Looking at the photo, I wanted to walk right
in, brew a pot of tea and sit on a wicker chair to read Beatrix
Potter. Well, the old girl showed them, didn’t she? She made a good
life for herself despite her family’s odious treatment. My affinity
for this courageous woman blossomed as I leafed through the photos.
Then, sending a shiver down my spine, I was face to face with
myself. Yes, the hairdo was dated and the flowered summer dress
would be a big hit in a vintage clothing shop, but otherwise there
stood I. My father’s sister and I were so alike I wondered how my
parents felt when they looked at me. Did they have second thoughts
about ostracizing her? Probably not.

“Please read me the details of the property,
how many rooms, etc.”

Was that a groan of annoyance I’d heard?
Okay, two can play at this game I said to myself. If this man was
going to be annoyed by my interest in a property legally belonging
to me, one that he was ready to simply hand off to the highest
bidder, I would make him earn his fee. The man was getting on my
nerves, big time.

“I’d like to hear every tiny detail. I assume
my aunt lived there; therefore, there must be an owner’s flat. How
many rentable rooms are there and what is the going rate in season?
I’d even like the population of the village? I am sure your
secretary can quickly Google that.”

With a deep sigh the man looked to the file
folder and pulled out a sheaf of papers.

“Well, the building was built in 1748 by a
sea captain named Joshua Eldredge and lived in by the same family
until your aunt purchased the property and converted the private
home into an inn. It has ten rentable rooms all with private baths,
a sitting room, gathering room, formal dining room and a
kitchen…considerably outdated according to the surveyor. Your aunt
called the place the Cranberry Inn Bed & Breakfast and, yes, it
has a spacious owner’s apartment and the furnishings are in
excellent condition if terribly out-dated. It says here that it is
a “turnkey operation.” Therefore, I am sure you can unload it
fairly quickly.

My look, icy though I tried to make it,
appeared to have no effect. The man only rolled on to issue more
dire warnings.

“If you were to take on this business you
would need to hire a breakfast cook, cleaning people and a
bookkeeper and you must be made acutely aware of the upkeep
expenses demanded of such an old structure. In addition, this is a
seasonal business with no income for probably nine months of the
year, thus, blah, blah, blah.”

Thank goodness, I thought, I took that great
course at the Cordon Bleu in Paris the summer of my junior year.
What fun to try out all those great recipes I’ve been collecting
for years. If my cooking skills haven’t grown rusty in the
intervening years.

As the bombastic man prattled on with the
litany of reasons why I should want to wash my hands of this whole
affair as expediently as possible, I asked my self one simple
question. Why not go for it?

The man nearly tumbled off his chair when I
announced, “As far as the cooking goes I can whip up the flakiest
croissants and pain au chocolate your mouth will ever wrap around.
My soufflés are like clouds and I am sure I can hire help to do
what I cannot manage. By the way, as far as expenses and seasonal
income are concerned, I am sure that you are well aware that my
finances will allow me to hang on, do the improvements and, if
necessary, lose money—If I so choose.”

I didn’t bother to feed into his chauvinistic
attitude toward me by mentioning that I had not one iota of an idea
of how to run an inn beyond the possible fun of exercising my
cooking skills.

If looks could kill I’d have been slumped in
that handsome Windsor chair with my tongue lolling out. But I was a
match for the condescending man, although I did expect a harsh
parental issuance of a punishment to fit my crime. Young lady you
are grounded for two weeks due to your complete failure to
comprehend the magnitude of my sage advice.

“Sounds just perfect. When can I take
possession?”

Chapter Four

Truth can be stranger than fiction, now and
again. The mystery that took hold of the little seaside village of
Provincetown fell like a shroud and hung around, stirring up
trouble for some time. That it would come to involve me was another
earth-shaking happenstance. I was new to the village, not unlike
the weary, ship-worn passengers on the notable, tiny and inadequate
ship the Mayflower had been. I too had arrived in an unknown land
not sure the natives would welcome me. A compressed course in
American history (a tourist pamphlet for the Pilgrim Monument) for
this transplanted Brit, told me that Provincetown was the first
landing place in 1620 of the ship-weary Pilgrims. Not pleased with
the sandy soil, they moved across the bay to Plymouth. It was there
that the rag-tag band stepped back on land, or at least, onto the
iconic Plymouth Rock now enshrined in that colony.

One can imagine the native people waving
farewell from a high sand dune, grateful not to have to deal with a
pack of miserable dissenters from a faraway land. But that is, of
course, only a fanciful hypothesis for which I alone take
credit.

Driving back from Orleans on the morning of
the death of Edwin Snow, with Daph busy reading People Magazine to
stay on top of the latest secrets and scandals out of Tinsel Town,
I had time to contemplate the “case.” As the dead man’s body had
been lifted onto a stretcher, my second thought after wondering if
the snow was ruining my expensive Italian leather boots was about
the day I “met” the village curmudgeon.

Passing the Provincetown Town Hall, a stately
Greek Revival building in the center of the village, I’d stopped to
pat a handsome, white and black pit bull. I checked his collar and
found out that his name was Patton. We were having a fine time
making friends when suddenly an old man stepped up and yanked the
dog’s leash that had been trailing on the sidewalk. I’d looked up
and smiled. After all, I was brought up to be polite. However, the
wizened old geezer only stared back at me as if I’d been beating
his dog. Then, he pulled the dog away and off they went. So much
for everyone in the village being friendly.

That was when I spotted Frank Kavanagh, a
reporter for the Provincetown Banner, the local highly acclaimed
daily newspaper.

“Hi Liz,” Frank greeted me. “So, you’ve met
our local Scrooge.”

“Hi, Frank. Not a nice person, I’d say. Who
is he?”

“That, my dear lady, just happens to be the
least liked man in Provincetown, Edwin Snow III. My guess is that
after sucking on far too many lemons combined with rarely
practicing his smile, his smile muscles simply atrophied.”

“Why is he so hated? Does his dog hate him
too?”

“Ah, Patton, poor fellow, absolutely devoted
to his master. Good old dogs. If you want a best friend who’ll love
you unconditionally, get a dog. Even a mean son of a bitch can be
loved by a dog.”

“First person I’ve encountered in the village
with not even a smile to offer a newcomer. Maybe he mistook me for
a tourist and he doesn’t like tourists.” I laughed and Frank smiled
broadly.

“Nope. Our Edwin doesn’t like anyone.
Beginning and ending with himself. But he is one of our local
celebrities--at least, in his own mind. Claims he’s writing a
memoir of his glory days when he hung around with that artist
fellow Edward Granger who spent a few summers in our neighbor town,
Truro. Granger and his wife Ellyn, a New York theatre critic,
rented a place in the hills of Truro to which their hard-drinking
city friends came to visit. If you’ve ever seen Granger’s paintings
then you know that he painted the outer Cape in a rather Gothic
style. Often wondered if he only painted when drunk. Might explain
his odd take on the place. ”

“Yes,” I replied. “I was in Boston when his
recent show came through. I saw it at the Museum of Fine Arts. He
certainly saw Cape Cod through a rather stilted lens, didn’t
he?”

“That, he did. It seems, at least according
to our local crank, that Granger and his hard-partying New York
friends wandered into our fair community looking for the
entertainment and watering holes not to be found in sleepy Truro.
To hear Edwin tell it, he slipped under Granger’s wing and had a
rip roaring old time. Also, according to the old guy, he’s in
possession of certain secrets and scandals that are about to come
to light. He’s writing a book that will set the literary and art
world on fire.” Frank laughed and tossed his Green Genie Coffee
Shop paper cup into the nearby trash receptacle. “Gotta go;
deadline to meet. Nice talking to you Liz.”

“But wait, Frank. The man isn’t hated just
for that, is he? I mean plenty of people write that kind of book.
In fact, wouldn’t you think that, in light of how desensitized we
have become to scandal that what he has to reveal will be ho hum to
readers? After all, Edward Granger and all of his friends are long
dead or too old to care.”

“Right on, Liz. Unlikely anyone will care.
But the old guy is unpopular for lots of other reasons. It didn’t
take his announcement of an up-coming sizzler to get him on the
list of nastiest people ever. His old man, Ned Snow, started the
ball rolling. Mean and greedy and obviously without a scintilla of
conscience was old man Snow. Made millions grabbing property for
unpaid back taxes, overdue mortgage payments, whatever. Turned
folks out into the cold without a by your leave. A real Simon
Legree. Real clever though. Knew just how close he could come to
the line between legal and illegal in his machinations. Like a
hyena smellin’ carrion, old Ned swooped down and grabbed houses,
land, everything he could. Built himself a grand Victorian manor
house up on Pilgrim Lake Hill Road where he lived in splendor
looking down on all us peons. Everyone says that Edwin not only
inherited the old man’s fortune but his nasty disposition, as well.
Hey, by the way Liz, how’s that book club doing?”