Murder at the Tremont House (A Blue Plate Cafe Mystery) (14 page)

“
If she’s not there? No way! That big old house is spooky at night.”

So much, I thought, for the big, brave on-site owner. I wondered if Tom would be happy to have her or if they
’d just have an awkward evening all around. Nothing I could do about it, but I made a note to invite the children for a sleepover that weekend.

Rick came in for his cup of coffee and asked about Carolyn and the dread in her bones.

“They’re each worried about the other,” I said, “and they’re not talking to each other, not sharing it.” I thought about the gulf between Donna and Tom, which was much wider and much deeper. “Have you ever noticed how married couples often don’t talk to each other? Even the ones who seem happy?”

“
Yeah,” he said in an almost sour tone. “I’ve noticed. Enough to sour you on the idea of marriage.”

After he left, I tallied up the sales for the day and thought to myself,
It’s a good thing I wasn’t hoping to marry him.

Chapt
er Eleven

Things went along peacefully in
Wheeler, and I found Sara Jo out of sight—and out of town—was also out of mind. I had no idea what Donna was doing, but I hoped she was paying attention to her family.

Things changed dramatically one afternoon when Sara Jo had been gone three days. Donna called me in such hysterics that I could barely make out what she was saying, between sobs and exclamations of
“What am I going to do? Henry, he…well I told Henry not to play in the barn. Now, poor Henry….”

“
Is Henry all right?” I demanded loudly and harshly, thinking he’d gotten hurt on some old farm equipment in the barn or fallen off the hayloft or something worse, something even fatal. The mind always leaps to the worst conclusions.

“
Of course Henry’s all right. Just scared.”

“
Okay, Don, slow down and tell me what you’re saying.”

I heard her take a deep breath.
“Henry and his friends…playing in the barn…I’ve told them a thousand times not to, but boys are boys. They don’t listen, don’t remember. I’m telling you they found the car.”

“
Found the car? What car?” I was really lost here and trying too hard.

“
Sara Jo’s car,” she screamed as if I was an idiot. “They just came in and told me. Tracked mud on my floor, too.”

Slowly I realize
d what the hysteria was about. If Sara Jo’s car was in the old barn, sans Sara Jo, which I assumed it was, where was she? Once again, I could think of some pretty frightening possibilities, and my heart pounded. No wonder Donna was hysterical. “You call Rick. I’ll be right there. Just hold on, Donna. I’ll call Tom too.” My mind was going in circles.

“
I hate Rick! I won’t call him.”

Slow and easy, Kate. Breathe deeply.
“Don, you have to call him. It’s now a missing persons case. Keep the boys in the house with you, away from the barn, and call Rick. I’ll be right there.”

“
Do I have to? Can’t you?”

“
No. You have to. I’m grabbing my car keys now.” I slammed down the phone, tried to avoid alarming the few customers in the café, and told Marj I’d be back when I could. She gave me such a puzzled look that I mouthed the word, “Emergency.” She nodded as if she understood perfectly, but she mouthed back “Donna?” I whispered I’d tell all when I got back.

Rick beat me to
The Tremont House, but barely. He was getting out of his car when I pulled up.

“
Go inside, stay with her, and keep those boys there,” he ordered. “I’ve called Tom. I’m going to the barn.” And he took off at a lope before I could say I’d already called Tom. As I turned to go in the house, Tom drove up, the brakes on his pickup squealing as he came to a sudden stop. He ran to the barn without even looking at me.

Donna was pacing around in the kitchen, with two solemn little boys watching her in awe. They sat on stools at the kitchen island as if frozen. Donna never glanced at them, never spoke to them.

When I came in, Henry slipped off his stool to rush over to hug me and ask, “Have I done something wrong, Aunt Kate?”

I rubbed his shoulder—he was too tall these days for me to stroke his hair—and said,
“No, you’ve probably done something right. But you were told not to play in that barn, weren’t you?”‘

He nodded.
“It’s just such a perfect place to play hide-and-seek.” He hung his head and watched his foot scuff back and forth on the floor. I waited for Donna to tell him not to scuff her new floor, but she said nothing.

An idea flitted through my brain.
“Henry, when was the last time before today that you played in the barn?”

He sat back down on his stool and looked at his friend.
“When, Josh? Maybe last week sometime?”

Josh, the son of a druggist who worked in Canton, nodded but said nothing.
His blue eyes were clouded with fear, and he kept brushing a shock of blond hair off his forehead.

“
Remember that, boys, and tell Chief Samuels when he asks you.”

“
Will he ask us a lot of questions?” Henry asked, his voice rising in that squeak of nervousness that betrays a male voice that hasn’t quite settled into its deeper ranges yet.

“
You can count on it.”

We waited forever or so it seemed. By my watch, those two men were out at that barn for an hour and a half, and I was beginning to think of going out there to find out what was going on. That, I knew, would throw Rick into a fit. Besides, I had my hands full with Donna and two nervous boys. Actually the boys were no problem. They were still frozen in place.

“What in hell are they doing out there? What could possibly take them that long? It’s either her car or it isn’t.” Donna was nearly hysterical again.

“
Did you go look before you called?” I knew almost for certain now what they’d found, and I didn’t like it one bit. My skin was clammy and I was cold, fearing the shakes would start any minute.

Donna
gave me another of those looks that implied I was incredibly dumb. “No, I didn’t go look. I didn’t want to see. The whole thing is creepy.”

Her answer told me she too knew what they
’d found but was in denial.
Donna the brave! Not a candidate to live alone in a B&B…or anywhere else.

At long last, two solemn men came in the back door, carefully scraping their shoes before they entered the spotless kitchen.

“Mrs. Bryson,” Rick said in his most official, formal manner. “I’m afraid we found Sara Jo. She didn’t go to Dallas this time.”

“
Found her? What do you mean? Where is she?”

He never showed an ounce of emotion.
“In the trunk of her car. With a bullet in her head.”

Donna did something amazing. She fainted. Just fell down right there on the kitchen floor. Henry and Josh
stared, while I worried about a concussion or something awful. She lay awfully still, and I was sure her head was at an odd angle. Could she have broken her neck?

Apparently my mind once again went to the worst extreme. Tom carefully checked her pulse and gently picked
her up. Rick asked if there was any ammonia in the kitchen. I moved automatically, searching under the sink, and uncovered a bottle of lemon ammonia. While Tom held Donna, Rick waved it under her nose but withdrew it quickly.

“
Too much can do serious damage to eyes, lungs, whatever,” he said.

Donna came to, shaking her head, finally focusing on Tom.
“Did he say she’s dead?”

Tom nodded
and set her on a stool, carefully holding on to her all the while.

She shook her head,
“No. That’s impossible. She can’t be.”

“
Folks,” Rick said in his most authoritarian voice, “we have a lot of ground to cover, and I have to call the country sheriff for the crime scene investigative team. You, young man”—he nodded at Josh—“can you get your parents on the phone, so I can tell them why you’ll be late for supper.”

Josh nodded,
“My mom’s at home. I’ll call her.” He took the cell phone Tom handed him, dialed, and said, “Hi, Mom. I’m with Henry. But there’s someone who wants to talk to you.” He handed the phone to Rick, who simply explained there’d been an accident and he’d need to question the boys. No, they weren’t in trouble. Yes, she could come if she wanted. “We’re at The Tremont House.” Apparently, she wanted, because Rick said she’d be here in a minute.

“
Donna, where are your daughters?”

Donna looked at him blankly, as though her thought was
Daughters? What daughters?

Tom answered,
“Omigosh. I’ve got to go get them. Jess wanted to watch Ava’s basketball practice, and I said I’d pick both of them up…twenty minutes ago.”

“
Can you take them to the café? They don’t need to hear what’s going on here.”

Tom nodded and left at a run.

Rick suggested I make coffee and busied himself calling Canton. I tried not to eavesdrop but I overheard bits, including, “I’d say about two days. Yeah, we all thought she was out of town.”

I nearly
dropped the coffee maker. Two days. I saw Sara Jo three nights ago. Would that make me that last person known to have seen her alive? Worse yet, would it make me a suspect? A big wad of dread landed in my stomach, and I thought briefly of Carolyn Grimes and her dread in the bones. Maybe that’s what I felt.

It took all night or so it seemed for Rick to interview everyone. He began with the boys and didn
’t keep them long. I assumed they had seen the car when they headed into the barn and not gone any farther, so they didn’t have much to say. Rick asked about the last time they were in the barn, and they repeated a week or more. Not much help to him in establishing time of death.

Josh
’s mother came and collected both boys, saying if it was all right, she’d keep Henry overnight and get him to school in the morning. Donna just nodded, and when Tom came back to collect the boy, she waved him away.

Rick spent forever with Donna, which left me pacing the kitchen, searching cupboards for wine, wishing I could at least get to the stack of magazines in the living room
but that was where Rick was interviewing Donna. In my haste I’d left my cell phone behind, so I couldn’t call the café to tell Marj I’d be delayed. There I was—me, a cup of coffee, and the pencil and paper Donna left behind.

I reached for those, deciding that in this circumstance it was okay to peek.
Apparently, Donna had honestly been trying to plan to market The Tremont House—she’d made a list of places in Dallas to advertise and a note about calling the East Texas B&B group. Also a note about calling B&Bs in Tyler and Athens, I presume for marketing ideas. Good for her! But then, under that piece of paper, I found a rough—really rough—sketch for a four-bedroom house that would call for demolishing the other outbuildings on the property. Donna never gave up on some of her most unrealistic plans.

I took a blank piece of paper and tried to do menu planning for t
he next week, but of course my mind wouldn’t cooperate. I tore up that sheet of paper and began a new one, with what was really on my mind. People who might want to kill Sara Jo Cavanaugh, and I was surprised at the list, though I bet there were others I didn’t know about. Like Tom Bryson—oh, how I hated to put that name on my list, and Donna, and Cary Smith or maybe his father, and the Reverend Baxter, though I doubt ministers do much killing. My list was short, and my own name was on the top of it. There could be people from her background who may have tracked her here but that was unlikely. I was still convinced Sara Jo was from Dallas, but my attempts to find her had been dead ends.
Oh, Kate, bad pun!

Then, unexpectedly, I heard Gram
’s voice. “Rough times ahead, child. But you’ll weather the storm.”

“
Thanks, Gram, but I don’t need platitudes. I need some help.”

“
You’ll have to help Carolyn Grimes as well as your sister,” she added with a touch of mystery in her voice. “But I know you can do it.”

I yelped, literally, so loud I was surprised Rick didn
’t come running, but he didn’t. Help Donna? Why? She was infatuated with Sara Jo and then infuriated with her. Would she kill her? Would my sister really kill anyone? And what in heaven’s name did Carolyn Grimes have to do with anything? “Gram, you’re just confusing me,” but of course she faded away with a final, “Seek help from the Lord, child.” Her brief appearance was not a lot of help, but I was glad she was still watching over us.

“
Okay, Gram, I haven’t been going to church. I’ve been making sticky buns and running your café. But I doubt the Lord would look kindly on a desperate conversion or change of heart.”

Finally, Donna came into the kitchen
. “Your turn, sister. Have fun. I’m going home.” Bitterness made her voice harsh. She left without a backward look.

Before Rick and I could talk,
the sheriff’s team arrived, led by a tall man wearing a Stetson, jeans and boots and walking toward the barn with determination, followed by men with equipment, cameras and I didn’t know what all.

Ric
k groaned. “Sam Halstead is going to take over the whole damn case, and he doesn’t know the story, the people, nothing. Gotta go protect my territory.” And he was out the door at a lope to catch the sheriff who had never even looked around for him. I wanted to ask who had jurisdiction in this case but never got a chance. From Rick’s comment, Halstead seemed to be in charge now. Rick was gone maybe ten or fifteen minutes, when he came back to say, “Kate, I trust you. I know you’re not going to skip. Go close the café and go home. I’ll come by as soon as I can get away from here.”

To me that just drew out the suspense, because I was still seeing myself as the number one candidate for suspicion. I arrived at the café just as Marj was turning off the Open sign
.

“
Well?” she demanded, arms folded in belligerence.

I owed her
an explanation, so I just told her briefly that Sara Jo’s body had been found, described the circumstances, and swore her to secrecy. By the time we opened in the morning, the whole café crowd would be talking about it, so that promise was useless. I sent her on her way, tallied up the day’s business and entered the results in the computer. It kept my mind off brooding about Sara Jo and trying to figure out who killed her. I was sad at the loss of any life, but a corner of me was relieved she wouldn’t ever write that exposé. Murder though was a hard way to protect the town, if that’s why someone did it.

When
I went home, I poured myself a big glass of wine—over-served you might say. I had no appetite for supper, but Huggles let me know he did, so after some hugging and loving, I fed him and let him out.

Rick called about ten, said he would be another couple of hours, and could I meet with him at his office at nine in the morning. It was like being called to the
principal’s office when you were in elementary school.

“
Sure. Everything all right?”

“
Kate, you know that’s a dumb question right now. No, everything’s wrong.”

I bit my tongue, said I
’d see him in the morning and went to bed where, of course, sleep eluded me. I tossed and turned and deliberately avoided looking at the clock. Wynona objected sharply a couple of times to all my movement, and Huggles came to the edge of the bed to stick his nose in at me. By morning, I comforted myself that I’d slept some, but I sure didn’t’ feel like it.