Secrets of Harmony Grove (15 page)

“Said he walked over from his place around six o’clock, and that he didn’t hear or see anything unusual along the way.”

From another report, I was glad to learn that one couple who lived across the street from the B and B confirmed my arrival around 7:15 p.m. They also said that Floyd’s car had been gone for a few days, but that it had shown up tonight a little before 6:30 p.m.

According to the various reports, not one single person they spoke to in the area had heard or seen anything strange all day or night prior to the peal of sirens arriving around 7:30 p.m.

Mike thanked his people for their reports, and then we continued the rest of the way to the B and B in silence. By the time we reached the pool area, I was relieved to see that Troy’s body had finally been removed from the scene.

Though we had no real answers yet, things seemed to be winding down for the night, and I was starting to wonder what I was going to do about sleeping arrangements. My bed-and-breakfast apparently had plenty of empty rooms, but with its manager in the hospital, no other guests around, and a potential murderer and/or creature running loose outside, I wasn’t too keen on staying here all alone. I was too tired to drive back to my parents’ home in Radnor, much less all the way to my own place in Philly. That basically left only a few options, none of them that desirable: Impose on family, either by staying next door at Emory’s or with Jonah and Liesl, or lock up my empty bed-and-breakfast and pay to stay at a local hotel. As it turned out, neither was necessary.

Apparently, the crazy calls about animal sightings had already started to come in, and just in case folks might take it upon themselves to go creature hunting and possibly destroying evidence, not to mention shooting each other by mistake, Mike decided to post several of his men on the grounds for the night. Just knowing they would be out there made all the difference as far as I was concerned.

“We need you to remain in the area, if possible,” Mike told me, “at least for the next few days. If not, be sure to notify me before leaving.”

“Will do,” I said. Then, after a long pause and some internal debate, I added, “Just so you know, I have firearms and a license to carry. I plan to be holstered from here on out.”

He wanted to see my permit, so together we walked to my car. On the way I asked if he was feeling as pessimistic as I was, if he thought we would ever be able to make sense of all the strange things that seemed to have happened here today.

“I think the bulk of this case lies in the medical evidence,” he replied. “We should know a lot more about what happened to Troy after the forensics are all done.”

“How about Floyd and Nina? Do you think they were poisoned somehow?”

At the car, I handed my permit to Mike, and as he studied it I decided to
get my suitcase and things from the car to bring them inside. When I opened the trunk and spotted the cardboard box from my office sitting in there, I was reminded of the sum total of the disasters that had taken place today.

“Poison. Sure, that’s one possibility. It’s also possible that Floyd and Nina had been partying, and that maybe they partied just a little too hard.”

“What do you mean? Drugs? You think Floyd and Nina are in the state they’re in because they were taking
drugs
? That’s ridiculous!”

Mike shrugged. “They could have been inside getting high, heard a disturbance out by the pool, gone out there to see what it was, and tried to help Troy by pulling him from the water and doing mouth-to-mouth and all of that. Floyd could have passed out, and when Nina tried to get home, she made it as far as the bridge and then passed out as well.”

“What about the things that Floyd said? The fire-breathing creature he was talking about?”

“Floyd was totally out of his head.”

I nodded. “Okay, but drugs? Come on. I doubt that either Floyd or Nina were in the habit of taking drugs.” I went on to defend them both, though even as I explained what a wonderful manager Floyd was—so wonderful that he handled everything here without my help at all and had been turning a profit for me practically since day one—I remembered Troy’s words on the phone, and I knew there was a chance that Floyd wasn’t nearly as great as I was saying he was. But I wasn’t ready to share that with the police just yet. Instead, I focused on Nina, explaining how she had known our family for years and that my grandfather had trusted her implicitly.

Refusing Mike’s help I pulled my suitcase from the trunk and slammed it shut for emphasis.

Mike studied my face for a moment and then spoke. “Then maybe you can tell me why Nina had six little white pills in a baggie in her jeans pocket.”

“White pills?”

“Ativan. Easy to come by, easy to abuse.”

“Did you talk to her doctor? It could have been prescribed for her.”

Mike shrugged. “We’re looking into that. Her parents said that as far as they know she was given Xanax back when her daughter died, but they had
never heard of her ever getting Ativan. We’ll see. Even if she did obtain it legally, it takes more than the prescribed dose to knock somebody out like that. As I said before, the tox screen should tell us more. Often it all comes down to the medical.”

“Emory has pills to calm his nerves,” I said, remembering what Jonah had told me. “Maybe they belonged to him and she just had them on her because she’d been over there taking care of him.”

Mike handed me back my permit.

“So you’re thirty-three, huh?” he asked out of the blue, and I realized he had done the math from reading my birth date.

“I know, I know. People always think I’m younger than I am,” I said, returning the permit to the glove compartment. “When I was in my teens and early twenties, I hated it, but these days I’m starting to see its value.”

“Yeah, you don’t look a day over twenty, maybe twenty-five at the most. On the other hand, even thirty-three is young to be the owner of a beautiful place like this.”

I thanked him for both compliments, explaining that I had done a fair amount of real estate investing in the past, but Harmony Grove Bed & Breakfast was mine mostly thanks to my grandfather’s will.

Mike asked me to go on, so as he took my suitcase and briefcase and I retrieved the two potted plants, I explained that the will had divided my grandfather’s holdings six ways, leaving various assets to his ex-wife, his two sons, his two grandchildren, and one charity.

“His ex-wife?” Mike asked as we headed toward the house. “I thought she died.”

“His
first
wife died, remember? I’m talking now about his second wife, my Grandma Maureen. They were married for less than ten years, I think. She divorced him back when my father was still a child.”

“Must have been a pretty amicable divorce if he named her in the will.”

“Actually, they rarely had any contact at all anymore. We were surprised at first when we found out he’d given her the grove, but the more we thought about it, the more it made sense. His obsession with that grove was a large part of what had come between them and ultimately ended their marriage, so I guess he figured it was the least he could do. As Grandma Maureen
says, when you marry a widower, it’s hard enough to compete with memories of his late wife—but nearly impossible when he dedicates the bulk of his land to a living memorial of her.”

“I can see her point.”

“Anyway, Emory got about five acres, which included the smaller back house, the barn, the springhouse, and the covered bridge out front. Like I told you earlier, he was also supposed to get the ‘assets left to him by his mother, Daphne,’ whatever those were, but he never did.”

We reached the door and stepped inside. I told Mike just to set my bags at the foot of the stairs as I continued.

“My dad got three acres, which included the main house and the shed. That was it for the buildings on the property, but my brother and I got the land that was left, two six-acre parcels that sat on each side of our father’s three.”

I set the plants on the mantel.

“I was doing a lot of investing back then, so when my dad and Scott and I were trying to decide what to do with our parcels, I tried talking them into combining all three and turning this place into a bed-and-breakfast. Scott wasn’t interested, but he really wanted to see the whole property stay together and in the family, so he sold us his share cheap. That, combined with my land plus my father’s land, was enough to make this place happen. My dad got my mother to agree by painting a picture of their retirement, saying that when that day came when he would no longer serve at the church, the two of them could move out here to the B and B and take over its management. Of course, that was before she was diagnosed with MS.”

“How about the grove itself?”

“My grandmother retained ownership of the grove, but she was happy to let us use its name for our bed-and-breakfast.”

“And the pool? Was it here already?”

Changing my mind about the plants, I moved one of them to the wide sill of the back window.

“No, we had the pool put in ourselves. Before we started the renovation, we thought the house might need to be gutted, but once we got down to it, it was in better shape than we’d expected. So we used the surplus in our
budget toward a pool, something we felt would give this place a competitive edge over most of the other B and Bs in the area.”

Mike pulled the notebook from his pocket and began flipping pages. I had thought we were mostly just having a conversation, but when he did that, I realized that the detective was still in full detecting mode.

“So this place is co-owned by you and your parents? You said earlier you were the sole owner.”

“We were co-owners at first. But then later, after it was up and running, my mother’s condition grew worse, and she had to quit her job as a church secretary.” I explained that we knew my parents would need every penny they could get, so even though I was already pretty strapped by that point, I wanted to do what I could. With some creative financing and my grandmother’s help, I had been able to buy them out. “Ever since then, it’s been all mine.”

Seemingly satisfied, Mike closed the notebook and slid it back into his pocket.

“Like I said, impressive.”

Our eyes met and held. After a beat, I looked away, moving toward the door to retrieve the rest of my things from the car.

“So if that’s what happened to all of the land, what went to the charity?” he asked as we stepped outside and headed down the walk.

“The what?”

“You said your grandfather’s will divided things six ways, the sixth being a charity. What did the charity get?”

“Oh, they didn’t get any land, they got money, what was left of Grandpa Abe’s savings. It wasn’t a fortune, but they were very appreciative.

“What was the charity?”

“The Holocaust Memorial Museum in DC.”

We reached the car, and I opened the trunk again to get out my FAA-approved gun box. Mike was silent as I unlocked and opened the steel container to check on my babies: a Kahr MK40 autoloader and a Ruger SP-101 double action revolver. They both seemed fine, but as I closed up the box it struck me that Mike hadn’t said a word the whole time.

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m just surprised,” he said. “The Holocaust Museum? Why there?”

“Daphne was Jewish. I’m sorry, didn’t I mention that before?”