A Twist In The Tail

Mom pressed her lips together. ‘And I bet Tony wear chef’s clogs.’

We all glanced at the window.

Millie whipped out her phone. ‘There’s one way to find out for sure.’

She thumbed into the phone like a teenager. After a few seconds she squinted at the thing, then nodded and smiled. ‘All set. We have a reservation for 1 p.m. at the Marinara Mariner. Come on Rose, let’s go see if Vera can fit us in at Tremulous Tresses. I think I need my roots touched up before we confront the suspect.’

Eleven

I had some time to kill after I cleaned up the breakfast dishes and fed the cats—who did not act at all appreciative of the shrimp I’d given them the night before—so I decided to head downtown. It would be closer for Mom and Millie to meet me there anyway and I wanted to visit my best friend from high school Jen Summers, who worked at the Post Office.

Another good thing about moving back home was that I’d had a chance to reconnect with Jen. We’d been inseparable when we were younger, but had drifted apart when I’d moved away. It was hard to stay in touch while raising kids and all, but now that the kids were out of the house and I was back in town, we had a lot of time to catch up and I stopped in whenever I could.

The post office was the epicenter of Oyster Cove’s rumor mill and Jen always knew everything that was going on in town. But I wasn’t going there to pump her for information, I was going for the emotional support.

The Oyster Cove Post Office was in an old brick building in the center of Main Street. It had been built in the 1920s and no one had thought to do a thing with it since. It still retained the old marble-checked tile floor, oak teller windows with bars, wainscoting on the bottom half of the walls and the pervasive smell of stamp glue. I had to admit, it had a certain charm.

Jen looked up from her job of stuffing the post boxes as I entered. A smile replaced the bored look on her face and she practically dropped the mail on the floor to greet me.

‘Hey, how’s it going? I heard you had a murder at the guesthouse! I hope you’re okay out there?’

Her expression was a mixture of interest and concern. I was touched that she was concerned about me but figured she also wanted to know all the details. Clearly I was okay, since I was standing right in front of her.

‘I’m fine. It’s terrible that someone died but, even worse, I think Seth Chamberlain might suspect me.’

‘Pfft…’ Jen waved her hand in the air. ‘I wouldn’t put any stock in what he says. Remember when we were in high school and he kept trying to catch us with our boyfriends at Makeout Point? He was pretty easy to pull one over on.’

She had a point. It hadn’t been hard to evade Sheriff Chamberlain when we were younger. ‘That makes me even more nervous. If he’s so incompetent, he might arrest me just because he can’t find the real killer.’

Jen gnawed on her bottom lip. ‘Oh, yeah. True. So, tell me what you know.’

I told her about the partial note, the affair with Tina, the missing cookbook, the sabotage and the clog print. ‘And Flora said that Stella Dumont has been hanging around the guesthouse so, naturally, I suspect her.’

Jen nodded. ‘She’s sketchy and I heard she needs money.’

‘You did? I did too. Mom said she entered some cooking contest and when I went over to question her, she acted evasive. You ask me, those gulls that keep pooping on her deck are hurting her business.’

‘But why would that make her kill your guest? Do you think she wants to make it so people are afraid to stay there?’

‘Maybe. She acted like she had a reason to be there.’

‘What reason?’

‘She implied she was there to see Mike Sullivan, but then he denied it.’

Jen made a face. ‘Hunky Mike Sullivan? What would he want with Stella? I’m sure she was making that up. She’s not the most truthful person you know.’

It was true that Stella was prone to lying. ‘Yeah, but I’m not sure I trust Mike either. Whoever sabotaged that room had carpentry knowledge.’

‘Oh, come on. Mike wouldn’t do that. He’s a nice guy. Please tell me you aren’t still holding a grudge about what happened back in high school.’

My spine stiffened. ‘Of course not. That would be so immature. I couldn’t care less about Mike Sullivan. But, like I said, the crime scene was altered by someone in the trade and if the shoe fits…’

‘Speaking of shoe, you found a clog print and Mike doesn’t wear clogs. My money is on Stella.’

‘Stella wasn’t wearing clogs when I visited. She claimed she doesn’t wear them ever, but she could be lying. There’s another person who might fit that clog print too.’ I told her about the review I’d seen on the lemon meringue pie. ‘I’m meeting Mom and Millie to go there for lunch at one.’

‘Lordy, you have your mom and Millie in on this?’

‘Not much choice. Those two get into everything.’

‘Are you regretting your decision to move back here and keep an eye on your mom?’ Jen wheeled a cart over and started sorting mail.