Death in Room 7 (Pine Lake Inn Cozy Mystery Book 1) (14 page)

So I let him push me out the front doors and into the half-light of predawn.

Once we were outside, Antonio pulled out a slim automatic pistol that glinted a metallic silver.  From inside his suitcoat he took out a black cylinder that he proceeded to screw into the barrel of the gun.

A silencer.

When it was attached he waved the tip of it at the corner of the Inn closest to the shoreline. 

I couldn’t breathe.  Couldn’t hear anything except the booming echo of my own heart.  My legs trembled and my knees were weak as I took one step after the other, around to the back of the building.

Just past the corner is a heap of something that I nearly step on before I realize it’s a man.  Laying on his back, eyes closed, head rolled to the side, is George.  My handyman.  Blood is a dark splotch below his left ear, and it might have been the weak lighting or just my imagination, but his skin was very pale.

I covered my mouth with both hands, sure that a scream is about to come burbling up out of me.

“Relax,” Antonio chuckled.  “He’ll be right as rain.  Got a hard head, this one.  Managed to bash it a good one before he saw me.  So.  No need to waste a bullet on him.  Don’t you wish I could say the same ‘bout you?”

Poor George.  All he ever wanted to do was help people.  He loved working at the Inn.  I couldn’t ask for a more dedicated worker, or friend.

“Move,” Antonio reminded me.  “Down there.”

As we go, I take a good look at the Inn.  My life’s work.  The realization of a dream for both me and Rosie.  I picked out that color of yellow, so different from the white of every other building in town, and argued with Mayor Brown to get the permission to keep it that way.  I had overseen every bit of the renovations to the place.  Chosen each employee along with Rosie.  Agonized over every decision that had built the business up to where it was right now.

Even down to placing the little storage building out back.

Antonio gestured with the gun at the trees over by the lake.  “Down there, I think.”

I don’t think so.  Down there, I’m a dead woman.  I have another idea entirely.

I want to live.

Without warning I break and run.  Not for the safety of the trees.  Not for the solid security of the Inn that had been my home for years.  I don’t try to cut across lots to the nearest houses either, a few hundred yards away.

The little storage shed is my destination.

“Hey!” is all Antonio managed to get out before I’m at the door to the shed and wrenching it open.  I hear the faint
thwip thwip
of gunshots muted through the silencer as I throw myself inside.  I don’t know where the bullets went, and I don’t have time to find out.

I’ve got a madman on my heels.

“You’re a dead woman,” Antonio hissed at me into the silence of the night.  “Get back here!”

Inside the shed, I found exactly what I was looking for.

“You hear me?” Antonio demanded.  “I said get out here, right now!”

Well.  He asked for it.

Pedaling as hard as I can I flew out of the shed on the Wallaby right into the path of Mister Antonio Ferarro, hired hitman.  The ten-speed’s front tire caught him in the chest with a little help from a balancing act I haven’t tried since I was ten.  The wheelie maneuver probably looked cooler than it felt, and the jarring impact nearly unseated me, but it drove him to the ground and I was on my way.

The knobby tires on my bicycle eat up the ground and bring me right around to Fenlong Street.

Just in time for Kevin’s car to come wheeling into the driveway.

I’ve never been so happy to see anyone before in my life.  He stopped just short of me, and I spun my bicycle around so that I’m at his window.  Gesturing, panting for breath because I’m scared out of my wits, I pointed back in the direction of the backyard.  “He’s there!  He’s right there!”

And he was.  Antonio Ferarro had followed me, up from the beating my Wallaby had given him, gun still in hand, aiming it straight at me.

There are moments in your life when you are so completely terrified that you can’t move.  I knew I was going to die in that instant.  I knew it with a certainty that froze every muscle in my body.

I…could…not…move.

Thankfully there was someone else watching over me.

A shadow stood suddenly between us.  The dark shape of a woman I was proud to call my friend, despite her secrets.

Jessica turned and winked at me.  It’s just a faint impression of that pretty face of hers, caught between the faint light of approaching dawn and the headlights of Kevin’s car, and the dark expression on Antonio’s face.

“You,” I heard him growl.  “It can’t be you.  You’re dead!”

“Who’s he talking to?” Kevin wondered out loud as he clambered out of his car, gun drawn, ready for anything.  Well.  Anything but this.

“Don’t you see her?” I asked him.

“See…who?  Mom, there’s no one there.”

Jess laughed. 

I could see it as plain as anything, and it broke my heart because this was my friend.  This was the happy-go-lucky girl that I had known at University standing here in the way of danger meant for me.  The friend I would never see again.

I watched, as she turned and blurred at Antonio in a streak of movement that blended into the first true rays of sunlight streaking down from above.  Antonio screamed in a very unmanly way and squeezed the trigger on his gun, once.

The bullet is quiet as it leaves the extended barrel.  When it hits the hood of Kevin’s car it makes an impossibly loud metallic
thwunk
.

Kevin was shouting at me to get down as he took aim with his own gun and fired two rounds in quick succession.  Jess was already gone as the rounds stuck a shocked Antonio, slamming him backward, off his feet, to the ground.

As Kevin raced over to the wounded hitman I took ahold of the unicorn necklace, just to feel the little pendant in my hand.  Jess just saved my life.  Kevin’s too, maybe. 

While he twisted Antonio’s body around and dropped handcuffs onto the man’s wrists—not gently—I said a quiet thanks to a friend who stood by me when I needed her most, even after death.

My tears mixed with a smile.

This was finally over.
 

“Mom, he was just blinded by the sun.  There wasn’t anyone there.”

Kevin had sung this tune all morning, and I’ve decided to just stop arguing with him about it.  Smiling sweetly, I poured him more coffee, and then offered him the sugar bowl.

“Black is fine, thanks.”  He rubbed at his tired eyes.  “I’ve got to get back to the station.  Cutter’s in a fine mood, I tell you what.”

“Cutter can kiss my—”

“Mom!”

“Well, he can.”  I drank more of my own coffee, then put the cup down firmly on the table we’re sitting at in the dining room of the Inn.  We had to shut the whole place down for a few hours, so I had the servers run breakfast trays up to the guests in their rooms, and then sent most of them home.  The Inn is a crime scene once again.  Nobody was allowed to come in who wasn’t already here.

George was all right, thank God.  Just unconscious like Antonio had said.  He had quite the bump to the back of his noggin and a possible concussion on top of it, so it was off to the medical center in Geeveston for him.  His statement to Kevin had been pretty short.

“Something hit me from behind.”

They’d shared a laugh about that as the rescue squad members strapped him to a gurney and loaded him into their white rig with its yellow and red stripes to drive him away to hospital.  I was happy to know he’d be okay.

Antonio Ferarro was another matter entirely.

Kevin’s two shots had both bit deeply into the man’s right shoulder.  There had been a lot of blood lost, and I heard one of the EMTs say something about a broken bone, but they’d missed his heart.  I was impressed.  “That was a dead-on bit of shooting, cowboy,” I had joked with Kevin.

I’ll always remember the scowl on his face when he told me he’d missed.  Turns out he’d been aiming center mass, and Antonio had moved.

Lucky for him.  Lucky for Kevin, too.  I’m just as glad he didn’t have to live with someone’s death on his conscience.  Even someone like Antonio Ferarro, hitman for the 'Ndrangheta.

The other officers from the Lakeshore PD had been over the Inn from top to bottom while all this other stuff was going on, collecting the candy wrappers as evidence of Antonio’s involvement in Jess’s death and taking statements from wide-eyed guests. 

“You know, my Inn is getting quite the reputation,” I mutter.

“Gonna hurt your business?” Kevin asked.

“Hardly.  Half the people I have staying here now have booked reservations already for next year.  Guess they like the excitement.”

“Ha.  Crazy tourists,” Kevin smiles.  “Don’t they know people come to Lakeshore to relax?  Nothing exciting ever happens here.”

I raise my coffee cup to that, and we clink the ceramic mugs together in a toast to our beloved town.  We may not have been born here, but it really has become home to both of us.

“Here we go!” Rosie said brightly as she swept in from the kitchen.  “Lamingtons with strawberry jam and cream and chocolate icing.”

She had apologized to me over and over, when she finally got here, for being late.  Her cell phone had died and her husband had forgotten to set the alarm, and somewhere around that part of the very long explanation she broke down in tears and retreated to the kitchen.  She’d been in there baking ever since, for the guests and, apparently, for us too.

In Rosie’s world, food made just about anything better.

She was okay.  That was what mattered to me. She was safe, and I was safe, and Kevin was, too.  The bad guy was in handcuffs.  All things considered, I suppose it was the best we could hope for. 

Rosie set the three plates down, one for each of us.  She sat down to join us and then folded her hands in front of her.  “Lord, thank you for bringing us all to this moment, safe and sound and able to enjoy good food.  Amen.”

I watched her.  When she noticed, she paused with a forkful of lamington halfway to her mouth.  “What?”

“Nothing.  I just don’t remember you ever saying grace before.”

She looked a little embarrassed as she took the bite of food from her fork and then talked around it.  “Well, I figure with all we’ve been through it won’t hurt to thank the Lord above.  Ya have to admit, it’s been a week we’d all rather forget.”

I couldn’t argue with that.  Maybe I’d even stop in to hear Pastor Albright’s sermon this Sunday.  First Jess, then Torey, now all of this here at the Inn this morning.  Which reminded me.

“What did they find out about Torey’s death?” I asked Kevin. Hard to believe I hadn’t thought of asking this before, but with everything else going on here, that poor girl’s death had been pretty far down my list of things to worry about. 

It’s a pretty long list.

Kevin’s face turned sour and he pushed aside his uneaten pastry.  “Didn’t find out anything good, I’m sorry to say.  Blake Williams had guard duty on her when she turned up dead.  Cutter had put her in Blake’s house for safekeeping til we figured out what to do with her.  So there she is, tucked away all safe.  Blake’s supposed to be keeping his eye on her.  Only, he says he heard a noise off in the trees outside.  Went to investigate, came back, and Torey had been strangled to death.”

“Poor girl,” Rosie said, crossing herself.

“Do you believe him?”  I had to ask.  With everything else that happened it was awfully convenient that Torey would just up and die.  “Do you think he’s telling the truth?”

“Well, any other time I’d say yes.”  Kevin crossed his arms, staring down at the table.  After a moment he just shook his head.  “Thing is, that’s not the end of it.  Senior Sergeant Cutter went through Blake’s house, and found the money Torey had taken from the crime family.  All thirty thousand of it.  Hidden under the floorboards.”

I let that sink in.  Blake Williams had always been a bit of a dunce, and he trailed along behind Cutter like a dog licking at his master’s heels…but killing?  Well.  I suppose thirty thousand dollars would be enough motive for some.  Not for me, not by a long shot, but I guess there’s always people willing to sell their soul for that much.  Judas sold his for thirty pieces of silver after all.  I guess if you adjusted for inflation…

Wait.

“How much did you say?”  My mind was replaying something from my memory, something that Antonio Ferarro had said to me this morning.  “Cutter found the money?”

“Well, sure,” Blake shrugged.

“And he found how much?”

“That’s not really your business, is it?” Cutter himself said, sauntering in with a stony glare aimed at Kevin.  “That’d be police business, and not a matter to share with civilians, now ain’t that right, Officer Powers?”

Kevin stood up from the table after giving me an apologetic look.  “Absolutely, Senior Sergeant.  Sorry.  I was just—”

“Telling stories outta turn.”  He pointed with his finger back to the lobby and the front door.  “Why don’t ya head back to the station with the others.  We got a lot to sort out, and yer mommy ain’t part of any of it.”

I bristled at the way he said that.  Kevin’s jaw clenched as he gave a tight nod and stepped out without looking back.  He must’ve figured he had me in enough trouble already.  I didn’t care about that.  I was thinking about something else entirely.  Cutter’s eyes locked on mine, and I could see him reading my thoughts.

“What?” he growled.

Rosie felt the tension between us.  She popped up out of her seat and grabbed the half-finished plates of lamington, shifting them in her hands and threatening to spill them all over as she backed her way toward the kitchen.  “Uh, I’ll get things started for the lunch service, Dell.  If ya don’t need me?”

She didn’t really wait for an answer before disappearing behind the swinging kitchen door.

Then it was just me, and Angus Cutter.

“Something ya want to say?” he demanded, leaning his hands against the back of the chair Kevin had been sitting in.

I looked up at him, and I knew.  Without any question, I knew.

“It was you,” I told him.

A little smirk curled his lips.  “You’re gonna have to be more specific.”

I planted my hands on the tabletop and pushed myself up.  I was shorter than him, though not by much, but I stared him in the eye with all the righteous anger that five-feet-seven inches could manage.

He backed away a step.

“You tipped off the ‘Ndrangheta.”  All this time I had thought it was James.  I had thought awful things about James, sure that it was him who had gotten my friend killed and put me and Rosie and Kevin in danger.  But it hadn’t been him after all.

It was Cutter.

“You’re daft,” he said to me now, that infuriating half-smile still in place and mocking me.  “I know you’ve been through a lot, but I wouldn’t go making accusations you’ll never prove.”

“It was you,” I say again, reading the truth in his eyes.  “You told Antonio Ferarro where to find me, this morning here at the Inn.  You killed Torey yourself!”

“Oh, really?  And just how do ya know that?”

“Because Antonio said he was looking for fifty thousand dollars, not thirty.”

The color drained from his face and that stupid grin turned feral.  He jabbed a finger at me, but kept his distance.  “Got all the answers, don’t ya?  Well, then answer me this.  If’n I did that, why wouldn’t I take all the money?  Huh?  Why would I bother killing that whore at all?”

Some of the wind slipped out of my sails.  I hadn’t thought about the why, just the who.

I suppose the first question was easy enough to answer.  He couldn’t take all of the money for himself, because the mob would come looking for it.  If he had most of the money in evidence, no one would dare touch it.  Hard to walk into a police station and complain your illegally obtained cash was missing a few bills.

The other thing he’d said, though…that was trickier.  Why would he kill her?  Why not just rob her and turn her loose?  Or confiscate the money and skim off his twenty grand then, leaving Torey alive.

Why?

If Antonio had killed Torey, he would have taken all the money with him.  And Blake was stupid, but not stupid enough to kill a girl and then set himself up to be arrested for it.  That left Cutter as the only suspect.

But…why?

My mind raced through possibilities.  What I settled on, as the most likely reason, was that Torey had known something Cutter couldn’t risk anyone else hearing.  Something to do with him.  Something serious enough that he was willing to kill to cover it up, and then frame one of his own officers to take the blame.

Which was a great theory, except what was it that Torey had known?

I didn’t know the answer to that.

This time, it was me who backed down.  I looked away from him, from those eyes and their anger and their deep darkness.  I was seeing him in a different way now.  He’d always been an incompetent glory hound.  Could he be something much worse?

That whole mess with Roy Fittimer the drug dealer came back to mind.  Cutter had kept that whole investigation under wraps for months before my friend Darcy Sweet had blown it wide open.  The excuse Cutter gave at the time had been that he was tailing Fittimer through a host of drug deals and illegal activity to find the bigger fish the man worked for.  All the while, Fittimer had dealt drugs right here in Lakeshore and across the southern states.

What if Cutter hadn’t arrested Fittimer because he was in on it?  Taking a portion of the illegal sales to line his own pocket?  What if it had nothing to do with good police work, and everything to do with Cutter’s own greed?

Just like the twenty thousand he’d stolen from Torey.

And maybe that was what Torey knew.

Cutter blew me a kiss.  “If I was you, Dell, I’d be a might careful about accusing someone of being in bed with the ‘Ndrangheta.  Especially the Senior Sergeant of police.  Until there was some proof for your wild accusations.”

With a nasty laugh, he turned, and walked out of my Inn.

My skin crawled.  What was I going to do about Cutter?  As much as I hated to admit it, he was right.  Without proof, I might as well be spitting into the wind.  All the maybes and what-ifs in the world didn’t amount to a hill of sand.  He’d get away with what he’d done if I started throwing around accusations before I could back them up.

I couldn’t prove anything.

At least, not yet.

***

It was a few hours more before I got everything situated at the Inn and felt comfortable leaving again.  I had to reassure the guests that everything was all right, and then the Carpenters wanted to book two more return stays.  They were wide-eyed at all the goings on and even said their friends were asking for the phone number so they could book a weekend here at the Pine Lake Inn.  I guess death and intrigue are what the people want.

There were servers to get back on task.  Menus to plan.  Rooms to reopen—Jess’s included—and arrangements to make for…

Yeah.  All of that is pretty much a lie.

I was finding busy work to do.  It wasn’t that I didn’t feel comfortable leaving the Inn again.  I was avoiding going out for an entirely different reason.

Walking over to James Callahan’s house again only took me twenty minutes or so.  Kind of dragged my feet, but I got there eventually, stood on his porch, and knocked on his door.  Part of me was hoping that maybe he was at the office reporting the big news.