Plain Dead (6 page)

Rachel wished she knew why Evan needed to speak to Skinner first thing this morning, but she knew better than to ask. Whatever transpired between Evan and Jake was part of the official police investigation and none of her business. She told herself that as she got to work.

For a Monday morning, Stone Mill House was quiet, but quiet didn't mean she could remain idle. A couple had checked out two days early due to the imminent arrival of a first and long-awaited grandbaby, and the D'Silva sisters had wanted their coffee and blueberry muffins to go before hurrying out to catch the Amish Countryside horse-drawn sleigh tour. And besides offering her usual Monday morning cold-breakfast buffet, she made a hot menu available, so she was kept busy taking guests' orders.

Once Rachel was satisfied that the morning at the B&B was running smoothly, she needed to get over to the high school to meet with the festival committee to reschedule the judging for the ice sculpture contest, which had been canceled the previous day after Billingsly's body had been discovered.

Later in the morning, she had an interview with a local cable TV personality who was doing a feature on Stone Mill's Winter Frolic and had showed interest in featuring the ongoing restoration of the town. She hoped she could keep the content focused on the festival and not on the gruesome murder of the town's editor. She knew she should be thinking of something sensible to say to the host if questioning veered to the crime rather than the event, but she couldn't keep her mind from wondering what Evan and Jake were saying and if Evan was as suspicious of him as she was. She was certain that Skinner's presence in Stone Mill at the time of Billingsly's death wasn't a coincidence, not after the way Billingsly had behaved when he'd caught sight of Skinner on Saturday. Had Billingsly been afraid of Skinner? Was that why Billingsly had hightailed it out of the cafeteria through a back door?

Rachel threaded her way through the kitchen, carrying an empty sugar bowl, stepping around Minnie, who was turning sausages on the griddle, and taking care not to collide with Dinah as she brought a tray of sliced oranges, grapes, and grapefruit from the oversized refrigerator. Ada had a batch of cheese biscuits in the oven and was whipping up pumpkin pancakes. The kitchen was toasty warm, and the sizzle of the pork sausages and their wonderful odor made Rachel's mouth water.

The sleigh bell on the door jingled, and her brother Levi came in, his cheeks and nose rosy from the cold. “Morning. Something smells good in here,” he said cheerfully, in Deitsch. “Already, I fed up the ducks and the goats for you.” He removed his wide-brimmed black hat, pushed his unruly hair out of his eyes, and hung the hat on a peg by the door. “And I dug the ice out of the water troughs.”

“Thanks,” Rachel said, refilling the sugar bowl from a crock canister on the counter. “That was sweet of you, but shouldn't you be in school?”

Levi was a good student, but he was also creative about finding ways to play hooky from class. His teacher was a young woman not much older than her students, and Levi complained that she gave too much busywork instead of seriously challenging his reading and math skills. As much as she liked having Levi at the house, she couldn't condone skipping school.

“No school today,” he said. “Teacher's going with her grandmother to the hospital in Huntingdon. Her grandfather fell on the ice and broke his hip. Everybody has to write a paper about the Winter Frolic, due tomorrow. Two hundred words.”

“Did you wipe your feet?” Ada interrupted brusquely. “I won't have boys running in and out muddying clean floors.”

Levi winked at Rachel. “Left my boots on the porch, Ada.” He lifted one thickly stockinged foot as proof.

Ada scowled, seized a tea towel, and pulled a pan of biscuits out of the oven. A fantastic cook, Ada wasn't known for her patience with people who interfered with her schedule, especially boys. “Hands off these biscuits,” she warned Levi. “They're not for the likes of you. They're for the paying guests.”

“Go on upstairs,” Rachel urged her brother, giving him a meaningful look that told him he'd have a cheese biscuit and some sausage as soon as the coast was clear. Strictly speaking, it was her kitchen and Ada worked for her, but crossing Ada wasn't always the best policy if she wanted things to run smoothly at the B&B. “I imagine there'll be plenty of food left. There always is.”

“That may be,” Ada grumbled, “but if we run short and your guests go hungry, who will you blame?”

“I'd never blame you,” Rachel soothed. “If those biscuits were any lighter, they'd float off the baking pans.” She and Levi exchanged glances, and he grinned at her.

Her little brother came to Stone Mill House whenever he got the chance because she had an extensive library and he loved to read. He was working his way through
Tom Sawyer
this week. She wasn't certain that her parents would approve. Her father would rather that Levi spend more of his free time studying his German, but Rachel didn't have the heart to refuse Levi. The two of them shared a passion for the written word. She told herself that so long as she didn't provide any books explicitly forbidden by the church or that were too mature in content, she was doing her brother no real harm. And there were a lot of things worse a boy could get into than Mark Twain.

Levi hurried off, and Rachel returned the sugar bowl to its place and then, on impulse, gathered a tray with coffee for Evan and Jake Skinner. Neither had asked for coffee, but she thought they might appreciate it. She almost added muffins to the tray, but serving coffee and pastries in a murder investigation interview didn't seem appropriate.

Rachel was at the closed door, lifting her hand to knock, when she heard Jake's gruff voice.

“Who says I knew Billingsly?”

Evan's deep reply was calm and professional. “Did you come to Stone Mill to see him?”

“Maybe I came for the sleigh rides and ice sculptures.”

“So, Mr. Skinner, you're stating that you didn't come to town
specifically
to meet with Mr. Billingsly?”

There was a pause in the conversation, and Rachel raised her hand to knock again.

“You have a conviction for battery,” Evan said.

Rachel froze.

“Long time ago,” Skinner answered.

“Can I ask you about the conviction?”

“You can ask,” Skinner barked. “Nothing says I have to answer. You got access to my arrest record. Look it up yourself, you want to know so bad.”

Rachel let out her breath, rapped twice, and opened the door. “Sorry to interrupt, but I thought you might like some coffee.” She stepped inside and placed the tray on an antique wedding chest that functioned as a table.

Jake stood by the fireplace, face hard, shoulders rigid, arms crossed over his chest. He ignored her. “You arresting me, Detective?” he asked Evan, not seeming to care that she was there to overhear.

“No, I'm not.” Evan frowned at Rachel. “We're not quite done here.”

“I didn't mean to intrude. I just assumed you'd be finishing up.”

“Yeah, we're finished,” Jake said gruffly. He looked at Evan. “Unless you're prepared to charge me. In which case I'll be calling a lawyer.”

“No need to get upset, Mr. Skinner.” Evan held up both hands.

Evan looked nice this morning in khakis and a gray sweater over a shirt and tie. Professional, but not too dressy. Nothing fancy, she'd warned him weeks ago when he'd been shopping for clothes for his new job as a detective. The people in Stone Mill would automatically be suspicious of him in a suit and tie.

“I'm just talking with everyone who knew Mr. Billingsly,” Evan explained. “Friends. Family. Ex-wives. Anyone who can help us figure out who might have done this.”

“I'll leave you two alone.” Rachel backed toward the door.

“No need.” Jake was wearing the same clothes she'd seen him in since his arrival. The only thing that ever changed was the hat: Sometimes it was a beret, sometimes a knit watch cap. “Nothing I've got to say that you can't hear. I didn't kill Billingsly, Detective.”

“Call me if you need anything,” Rachel murmured.

“Mr. Skinner said you sent him to the Black Horse,” Evan directed to her.

“I did.” Rachel glanced at Skinner. “He wanted to know where he could get a beer. About . . . what? Close to nine o'clock, Mr. Skinner?”

“Something like that,” he muttered. “It's not like I had an appointment.”

“And you walked?” Evan turned back to Skinner. “It was snowing pretty hard by that time.”

Jake shrugged. “I walk a lot. In all kinds of weather.”

Evan wrote something in his notepad. “And if I ask at the pub, they'll remember you?”

“They should. It wasn't exactly crowded, but it wasn't empty either. The bartender and I were talking about 'Nam. He should remember me.”

“And what time will he say you left?” Evan asked.

“I don't know. Ten thirty, maybe eleven.”

Evan raised his head. “And you went where?”

“Walked around some.”

“In a snowstorm?” Evan lifted his brows.

“Like I said, I walk a lot. Then came back here. Went up to my room and stayed there the rest of the night.”

“Anybody see you come in?”

“Don't think so. It was pretty quiet.” Jake looked at Rachel. “You see me come in?”

Rachel shook her head.

“Guess nobody saw me. Are we done?” Jake asked.

“Almost.” Evan gave her a look that told her to beat it, and she quickly made her exit.

As Rachel went down the hall, she wondered if Evan had come this morning because he'd learned of Skinner's criminal record. Or was there something else? What could he have done that would have made Evan suspicious of him? And to think, he was staying under her roof. But that came with running a public inn. It wasn't like she could run background checks on all of her guests before they arrived. And to be fair, a person's criminal record didn't tell the full story. She, of all people, knew that.

Rachel entered the kitchen to find it empty. With Ada out of the kitchen, she realized it was the perfect time to snitch a biscuit and some sausages for Levi. Glancing in the direction of the dining room, she took two biscuits and a good-sized serving of sausage and put it on a plate. As she turned to make off with her booty, her gaze fell on Levi's hat hanging on the peg.

Something just clicked in her head, and it came to her. She knew what she'd seen in the snow beside Billingsly's house. The object that had been there, then disappeared. It was an Amish man's hat! If it hadn't been nearly buried by the snowfall, she would have recognized it immediately, but the snow had altered its apparent shape.

So why was it there? And then not there? Who could have dropped it there? And equally as important . . . who had taken it?

 

A few moments later, Jake Skinner entered the dining room and gave his breakfast order to Minnie. Since Evan hadn't appeared, Rachel went back to the parlor. “Evan?” she asked.

“Hey, Rache, I'm just about done here.” He was sitting on the leather sofa, scribbling notes in his notebook. “I hope I haven't driven off Skinner. I don't want to be responsible for running off your guests. I told him I might have a few questions later, but . . .” He shrugged. “Not overly friendly, is he?”

“No, he's not.” She joined him on the leather sofa. “But he isn't rude either. He doesn't use inappropriate language, and he's respectful to Minnie and the other help.”

“And most people aren't?”

She shook her head. “That isn't what I meant. It's just that Jake seems like a rough sort. He's certainly not my typical guest, but he's not a bad guy. He even helped to shovel the sidewalk yesterday.” She dropped her voice. “Which I have to admit I thought was strange, because I know he heard the paperboy say that Billingsly was dead on his front porch. You would think that he'd go down to take a look like half the town. But he didn't. He just started shoveling. Almost as if he already knew what had happened.”

“Or . . . maybe he'd seen enough dead men in the war. People react differently to emergencies,” Evan said. “And it would have been a lot better for the investigation if more people had followed his example and stayed away. The crime scene was a circus.” He rose to his feet. “I gotta go. I'm going to talk to Billingsly's receptionist and a couple of guys who work at the paper, and I have that phone appointment, and then this afternoon I'm going back to Billingsly's house to have a look around again. There were so many people there yesterday. I'd like to have a look on my own.” He glanced at his notebook.

“I remembered,” she said. “What it was I saw. In the snow?”

He looked up at her blankly.

“I told you last night. I saw something black in the snow. It was there when I first arrived at Billingsly's house, and then it was gone.”

He waited.

“It was a man's hat, Evan. An Amish hat.”

“I saw several Amish families there. Someone dropped it and then picked it up.”

“Amish men don't take their dress hats off outside,” she insisted. “And this one had definitely been in the snow. It was there, then someone picked it up.”

“Not much in the way of hard evidence.” He smiled at her as he rose. “But I'll make a note of it, if it will make you happy.”

“It won't make me
happy
.” She tried not to be annoyed that he wasn't taking her seriously. “It's just odd, out of place.”

“Maybe.” He gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. “I'm still waiting for the medical examiner's report. We'll know more once that comes in.”