Our Island Inn (Quirky Tales from the Caribbean) (20 page)

T
here was no reason to panic, she told herself. The items’ presence inside the journal would still lead the inspector to name Glenn as the primary suspect.

Pickering swung his light
across the floor, illuminating the fallen objects as well as a sweatshirt that had been pushed up against the corner of the wall.

Oliver knelt to the floor.
“Hey, that belongs to…”

As t
he inspector’s light flickered on the green–labeled jars, Oliver shifted his gaze from the sweatshirt to the scattered pieces of jewelry and then finally to the lower shelf. With his free hand, he turned the nearest jar.

An eyeball
floated to the top and rotated to look up through the glass.

“Glenn!
”

~
~ ~

WITH DIFFICULTY,
PICKERING pried the journal from the shrieking innkeeper’s grasp. He thumbed through the pages to the last entry and skimmed the handwriting. The lines in his face deepened as he processed the information.

“Elsie, send the search team home.”

The inspector looked sternly at the man who had collapsed onto the floor beside the shelving unit.

“
Oliver, you’re going to have to come with me. We need to discuss this at the station.”

STAGNANT HEAT STEAMED the police station holding cell as the morning sun pushed through the clouds.

Tucked into a niche at the bottom of a steep hill,
the concrete block building received little of the cooling sea breeze that swept through the rest of town. Circular fans had been plugged into every available electrical outlet, but the blades’ feeble whirring failed to alleviate the sweltering conditions.

Unbothered by the p
oor ventilation or perhaps drawn to it, the island’s insect population converged on the police station in hordes. Roaches, beetles and the odd centipede ambled across the walls in the entrance area; clusters of mosquitoes hovered in the receiving room’s still air. And in the windowless holding cell where Oliver’s limp body slumped in a chair next to a metal table, a fly buzzed beneath the ceiling’s bare light bulb.

Elsie
shuffled silently to the side of the room as Pickering prepared to begin his interrogation. The inspector paced a few strides back and forth, studying the stunned innkeeper.

Oliver stared, unseeing, at the metal cuffs secured around his wrists.
His shock appeared genuine, but with several dozen jars of human flesh having been identified in the restaurant’s kitchen pantry, at least three missing guests, and a cannibalistic husband and wife cooking team on the lam, Pickering couldn’t take any chances.

The inspector
had been rattled by what he’d seen at the inn. His only consolation was that while he was here at the station grilling Oliver, several other officers had been assigned the unenviable task of sifting through the rest of the pantry.

Fingering
the cross on the chain around his neck, Pickering reflected on what he’d read in Glenn’s diary. That would likely be the man’s only testimony. Given the eyeball they’d found floating in the green-labeled jar, it appeared that he had joined the growing list of individuals now presumed dead.

However improbable,
Glenn had been convinced that Oliver had killed the petty thief along with everyone else who’d recently vanished from the B&B. According to the diary, Glenn suspected Oliver had found out about his affair with the restaurant’s sous-chef. That explained the tensions Pickering had noticed between the two innkeepers over the last several months.

The inspector
released the chain and stepped toward the suspect, resting his weight against the table for intimidating effect.

He squinted at Oliver, trying to
determine if there was any truth to the assertions in Glenn’s diary. Was Oliver in cahoots with the cooking couple or just a hapless bystander?

It was
time to sort out these shenanigans and put the curse of Parrot Ridge to rest for good.

“Perhaps you should start at the beginning.”

~ ~ ~

PICKERING WAITED
FOR a response he knew wouldn’t come. Oliver was still too overwhelmed to communicate.

The inspector
glanced up as the fly singed its wings against the light bulb. He followed the bug’s sad trajectory onto the tabletop.

Hoping
to jolt Oliver out of his catatonic state, Pickering swept the wounded insect off the table with a sweep of his hand.

The
man didn’t flinch.

Frustrated, Pickering snapped his fingers
at Oliver’s face. “Hello. Is anybody in there?”

The sharp motion generated a blink.
Nothing more.

“Bah.”

Pickering pushed away from the table. He looked across the room at Elsie and shook his head. He had specifically requested that she assist him with Oliver’s questioning.

Right now, he was almost as interested in Elsie’s reaction
s as the innkeeper’s.

~
~ ~

OLIVER
STIRRED IN his seat, causing the handcuffs to jangle against the table’s metal surface.

Pickering spun around,
fixing his attention on the suspect.

The innkeeper
struggled to speak, but his lips could do no more than sputter. With effort, he forced his mouth into a circular shape, but the only sound came out as a puff of air.

“O…”

Pickering lunged forward.

“What’s that?”

Oliver’s eyes glazed over as his consciousness left the holding cell. His head dropped to the table, and his eyelids fell shut.

But
as Pickering stomped around the room, hurling insults at the ceiling, the story the innkeeper had tried to tell continued on inside his head – while his mind began to untangle the twisted path that had led to the gory discovery in the restaurant’s kitchen pantry.

~
~ ~

PICKERING
EVENTUALLY LEFT the holding cell and returned with a glass of water. Bending beside the table, the inspector tilted the glass and dribbled several drops across the side of Oliver’s face.

It took
a few solid splashes before the handcuffed innkeeper awoke. Pickering lifted Oliver’s shoulders off the table and repositioned him in the chair as he spit out his first word.

“Olivia.
”

ELSIE PRESSED HER
shoulders against the wall, trying to make herself invisible as she eyed the doorway on the far side of the room. The morning had not unfolded quite the way she’d planned. But much as she hated to leave Oliver in the lurch, a hasty exit might soon be in order.

Pickering had released the handcuffs so that the innkeeper could drink. Oliver took a sip from the refilled glass and began his story.

“It started with Olivia Hamilton. The disappearances, that is.” He set the glass on the table. His grip was still unsteady.

“
She’s the inn’s previous owner, the wife of the man who was killed there fifteen years ago. She had remarried, but I recognized her name when she called to make the reservation – I remembered it from the documents associated with the land sale. She told me she was planning an anniversary vacation with her second husband. Given her history with the place, I thought the inn was an odd choice for that sort of celebration, but I couldn’t very well refuse her a room.”

He sighed
ruefully. “When she showed up with that horrible man, the one who kept going on about his little blue pills, I wished I’d told her we were booked.”

Pickering
resumed his pacing. He glanced over at Elsie. Unease shadowed the young woman’s face. Returning his attention to Oliver, he meted out his next question.

“
Did your partner know about Mrs. Hamilton’s connection to the inn?”

“No.”
Oliver wiped his sleeve across his flushed cheeks. “I handled all of the paperwork for the land purchase. I read the disclosures about the property…and what had happened before. But I never told Glenn about the first husband’s death, what they found in the previous pantry, or any of that. I didn’t want to spoil it for him. I told myself it didn’t matter.”

“You lied to him.”
Pickering stated the assessment in a flat tone.

“Yes.
I thought it was the right thing to do.”

Oliver fell silent, reflecting.
Fearing the man might slip back into his non-communicative state, the inspector cleared his throat, encouraging him to continue.

“
Well, like I told you before, that night, the Hamiltons came down to the restaurant for dinner. The husband was just as rude and offensive as when they checked in, even more so once he started drinking. After a while, he left for the restrooms below the kitchen…and he just never came back.”

Pickering
stroked his chin. “You’re not a very big man. How did you manage to take him down?”

“It wasn’t me,
” Oliver replied defensively. “I promise. I showed him to the outer stairs and then I went into the kitchen to check on a dessert order. Olivia sat there by herself for over an hour. I asked her if everything was okay. She just nodded and apologized for the inconvenience.”

Pickering
appeared unconvinced. “You didn’t wonder what had happened to him?”

“
Of course, but what could I do? Olivia wasn’t at all concerned about his absence. At the end of the night, she just got up and left without him.”

Oliver shrugged
.

“I think she was relieved.”

PICKERING DECIDED IT was time to increase the pressure. He thumped a fist against the table, startling Oliver.

“When did you find out about your partner’s affair?”

“With Jesús?” Oliver’s face reflected his inner pain. “At the beginning, I suppose. Glenn wasn’t very good at hiding it.” He turned sideways in his chair and stared down at the floor.

“
I think most people know when their lover begins to stray. There are signs you try to overlook, indications that the person is losing interest. It’s like a blister forming on your foot. You try to ignore it, but the wound gets deeper with every step. Finally, it festers and pops. When you pull off your shoe and remove your sock, there’s the welt.”

He glanced up as
a new set of flies began to bang against the ceiling’s light bulb.

“
You can’t deny the welt.”

Pickering
snorted at the comparison. “You must have been upset. Hurt. Jealous.”

“I felt…helpless.
” Oliver drew in his breath. “I watched them every night on the pool deck, laughing and joking, growing closer even as he and I drifted farther apart. I made excuses for him, and I kept hoping it would pass. I didn’t want to start a fight about it.”

He swallowed before
making the next admission.

“
I didn’t want to lose him.”

The innkeeper
drank the remaining water from his glass. “Then Glenn and Jesús started sneaking off to the clearing below the pavilion. I knew what they were doing down there. That was almost more than I could take. The day Romeo showed up, I saw the way Glenn smiled at him…”

Pickering
had heard enough about Glenn’s philandering. “Did you kill the thief?”

Oliver
shook his head, confused by the question. “Why would I do such a thing?”

Pickering recalled
a passage from Glenn’s diary. “You knew about the trail leading down to the beach where we found his body. You didn’t look surprised when the reverend uncovered the trailhead.”

“
I’d read about the trail in the real estate disclosures, but I had no idea it was in use. That night…the night we found Romeo…I was still numb from what Glenn and that thief had been up to the night before.”

“
What about the sous-chef?” Pickering pressed.

He
leaned back at the innkeeper’s honest reply.

“I have no idea what happened to
Jesús.”

PICKERING SHIFTED TO a different line of questioning.

“Let’s talk about Daisy Jones.”

Oliver held up the empty glass.
“Can I get some more water first?”

Rel
uctantly, the inspector nodded toward the rear of the room. “Elsie.”

The deputy
leapt forward to retrieve the glass, relieved for the chance to leave the holding cell.

Oliver waited
until the door shut behind her. “So, we’re back to Olivia.”