Part 8 (1/2)
Another collateral victim of Ray Wilson's killer. ”You mentioned Ray's tux and suitcase. Do you happen to know if he had a big camp trunk in his room?”
”A trunk?” Clarice put on her thinking face. It was new information for her. ”Why, no. I was here at the front desk when the state police carried everything out. There wasn't any kind of trunk. But they did tow his car out of our parking lot. It could have had a trunk in it. Is the trunk important?” Clarice squinted at me, eager for another murder tidbit.
”Did the police ask about it?” I pressed.
”Uh, no. Not that I heard. You're the first one to mention it.”
”Then I'm sure it's not important.” I was sure of no such thing. The camp trunk bothered the heck out of me. What could have been in it and where had the trunk gone? ”Any theories about where Ray Wilson went that night after he left the hotel?”
”I heard that hunky Chris Durand dropped him at the front door. The night desk guy said this Wilson came in, obviously drunk. While he was in the lobby, trying to remember the way to his room, his cell phone rang. Can you imagine? After 1:00 in the morning?”
I shook my head, indicating that I, indeed, could not imagine such an affront to acceptable behavior among humans as a cell phone call that late at night.
”The night guy said Wilson didn't even answer the phone, just looked at the display and staggered out the side door. The night guy went after him because everything but the lobby door is locked at night, so he was worried Wilson wouldn't be able to get back in the way he went out. But Wilson was nowhere to be seen.”
”I wonder what the police think?”
”I don't know. Who could have called Wilson at that hour? It must have been one of the wedding party, right? They were the only ones in town who knew him.”
”Right,” I confirmed her speculation. ”Must have been one of them.” There was no point in telling Clarice that Ray Wilson was from Bath. I was after information about the wedding party and didn't want to get Clarice off track. I knew as soon as I left, she would be telling people, ”Julia Snowden says it's one of the wedding party who called Ray Wilson that night.”
I, too, thought it must have been. But who?
From the dockside, I carried the lighter tote bag back up the hill toward the Snuggles Inn. The two ”maiden ladies” who ran it, Viola and Fiona Snug, were not actually British, though they always seemed so to me. Their parents had moved to Maine from England before the sisters were born, so their father could work as the golf course pro at one of the resorts out on Eastclaw Point. They'd been raised taking tea, wearing jumpers instead of sweaters, and eating pudding instead of dessert. They always had at least one spoiled and happy dog.
Fiona or ”Fee” was a plain woman bent over with arthritis, always in a skirt and sensible shoes. She was forever calling out, ”Walkies!” and taking the dog, currently a friendly Scottish terrier, for a rigorous tramp up and down the harbor hills. With her bent back, she looked like a question mark bustling along the road.
Viola or ”Vee” was something else entirely. In her seventies, she was still glamorous, with a beautiful head of coiffed snow-white hair. Even on days when she didn't plan to leave the house, she wore full makeup, a tailored dress, nylons, and pumps.
In the dead of winter, she wore boots with lambs wool cuffs around the ankles and high spiked heels. As she grew older, the boots caused no end of arguments with Fee, who feared Vee would fall and break a hip. The whole town feared Vee would fall and break a hip. But she never did.
When their parents died, the sisters took their inheritance and bought the Victorian gingerbread house across the street from my parents and created the Snuggles, one of a dozen bed and breakfasts in the harbor. My dad fixed various things around the inn, mowed the lawn, and shoveled their snow. They, in turn, lay out and cared for the beautiful English gardens at our house. The sisters always felt a special bond with Livvie and me, two sets of sisters, and treated us to tea and scones whenever they got the chance.
”Julia!” Fee cried through the screen door as I made my way down their walk.
”h.e.l.lo, Fee. I've brought you our new brochures.” Though, at their insistence, I'd been calling them by their first names for almost a decade, the names still stuck in my throat. To me the sisters would always be, ”The Misses Snug.”
Before I knew it, I was sitting in their old-fas.h.i.+oned kitchen, drinking tea, eating scones, and accepting the commiserations of both ladies about the clambake's recent troubles. I knew if I were patient, the conversation would inevitably turn to Ray Wilson. I didn't have to wait long.
”We were shocked, just shocked by the murder of that young man on your island. And the bride and her attendants stayed right here in this house,” Fee said.
”Julia, didn't you recommend us to Michaela?” Vee asked, eyes narrowing.
I admitted I had. ”Did anything seem unusual to you about Michaela and her bridesmaids?”
”Not at first,” Fee answered. ”They seemed like ordinary bride and attendants.” Busman's Harbor was a popular wedding destination, so the ladies had a strong basis for comparison.
”But then?” I asked.
”But then, they came back from the rehearsal dinner and all h.e.l.l broke loose.” Vee was always the more outspoken.
Fee blushed a little at the swear word, but after more than seventy years together, they'd learned to tolerate each other's foibles. She picked up the thread. ”They went out to Crowley's after the rehearsal dinner. It was quite late when they got back. Vee and I were in our bedroom, listening to that nice Jimmy Fallon on the television, waiting for the group to come in.”
The ladies had their own bedrooms in the winter, but during the season they stayed together in a little room off the kitchen, so they could rent out all the upstairs rooms to maximize their income. Like most B&Bs in the harbor, they didn't give guests keys, so the ladies had to wait up to lock the door after whomever was the last one in.
”I got up to lock the door when I heard the most terrific row coming from upstairs.” Fee leaned over the kitchen table and lowered her voice. It wouldn't do if current guests heard her gossiping about past customers. ”It was the bride, Michaela, and the other one, Lynn, the maid of honor.”
”What were they fighting about?”
”The maid of honor yelled, 'Leave him be. Why do you care about him so much? He's nothing but trouble.' Then that Michaela shouted, 'How can you be so uncaring? Something was really wrong with him tonight.' Then the other one shouted, 'The same thing that was wrong with him every night not so long ago. He was drunk off his . . .' uh,”-Fee searched for the correct word to subst.i.tute for the one the maid of honor had undoubtedly used-”posterior.”
”So then what?” I prompted.
”Then Michaela said, 'I don't care. I'm going to find him.' And the other one shouted, 'Are you crazy? Are you trying to sabotage your marriage before it even starts? Stay away from him.' Then that nice Michaela came down the stairs, talking on her cell phone. She said to whoever it was, 'I'm coming over right now.' And she banged open the front door and marched out into the night.”
”Goodness. What happened next?”
”I went into the parlor to wait for Michaela to come back. I figured at least then Vee could get some sleep.” Vee had to be up extra early because she cooked the Snuggles' wonderful English breakfasts.
”I sat up reading until a little before two,” Fee continued. ”No sign of Michaela, though I overheard the maid of honor leave her several messages, saying how sorry she was and to please come back.”
”What time did Michaela return?”
”I don't know.” Fee looked sheepish. ”I fell sound asleep in my chair. Vee woke me when she got up to make breakfast.”
Vee took up the tale. ”When the girls came down in the morning, Michaela was with them. They all seemed to be the best of friends. It was like everything from the night before was forgotten.”
Fee's eyes widened. ”Imagine, me snoring away in my chair with the door unlocked while a murderer was on the loose.”
”Have the police interviewed you?”
”Oh yes, dear. That nice Lieutenant Binder came along with his handsome sergeant. They asked all sorts of questions,” Fee said.
”They only came the once.” Vee sounded slightly disappointed. ”We told him everything.”
Binder and Flynn knew from the maid at the Lighthouse Inn Ray hadn't stayed in his room the night he died. They knew from the Snugg sisters Michaela had gone out. I just hoped the cops were paying attention and weren't completely distracted by the fire.
Chapter 23.
I stood on the sidewalk outside the Snuggles with my even lighter tote bag of brochures. It seemed pretty obvious to me who had called Ray Wilson when he'd been in the lobby of the Lighthouse Inn and caused him to turn around and go outside again. Clarice had said that Ray merely glanced at the display on his phone while he was in the lobby. He must have called Michaela back once he got outside and then gone somewhere to meet her. But why would a bride go off on a middle-of-the-night rendezvous the day of her wedding?
I was certain Michaela hadn't killed Ray. I didn't believe that a girl from New Jersey who didn't know Busman's Harbor could have taken Ray out to Morrow Island in the dark. Nor did I believe she had the strength, at least by herself, to hang his body from the staircase at Windsholme. Most compelling, she'd been next to me when we discovered the body. Unless she was the best actress I'd ever seen, her distress was genuine.
Before the fire, Binder had theorized that the body was left at Windsholme to upset Michaela, so the police didn't think Michaela killed Ray, either.