Reservations for Murder

Praise for the Lighthouse Mystery series by Tim Myers

“Entertaining ... authentic ... fun ... a
wonderful regional mystery that will have readers rebooking for
future stays at the Hatteras West Inn and Lighthouse.”

—BookBrowser

“Myers cultivates the North Carolina scenery
with aplomb and shows a flair for character.”

 —Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel

“Colorful... picturesque ... light and
entertaining.”

—The Best Reviews

The Lighthouse Inn Mysteries by Tim Myers

Innkeeping With Murder

Reservations For Murder

Murder Checks Inn

Room For Murder

Booked For Murder

The Candlemaking Mysteries by Tim Myers

At Wick’s End

Snuffed Out

Death Waxed Over

A Flicker Of Doubt

The Soapmaking Mysteries by Tim Myers

Dead Men Don’t Lye

A Pour Way To Dye

A Mold For Murder

The Cardmaking Mysteries by Tim Myers written
as Elizabeth Bright

Invitation To Murder

Deadly Greetings

Murder And Salutations

Reservations For Murder

Copyright © 2002 by Tim Myers.

All rights reserved.

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a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either
are the product of the author’s imagination or are used
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dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely
coincidental.

Dedication

For Patty and Emily, the two women in my life
who make it all worthwhile

Acknowledgments

I’d like to thank the following people for
their contributions to this book, and more importantly, to my
life.

Kim Waltemyer, my wonderful and gifted
editor, for plucking me out of the slush pile and changing my life
forever.

Tamar Myers and the late Liz Squire, for
their friendship, laughter and encouragement.

Corki, Jan, Carolyn, Hannah, Cindy, Ed, Sarah
and all the staff at the Hickory Public Library, my true friends in
books.

Tracy, Linda, Danny, Rich, GeeGee, Mary,
John, Karen, Tom, Lelia, Maryelizabeth and all the other
booksellers across the country, for taking me into their
hearts.

Ruby Hall and Bob Myers, my parents, for
their love and support.

Jim, Wayne, Randy, Tom, Bob and Paul, true
brothers in my heart.

Kathy, Jay, Amy, Paul, Sarah, Tom, Charlotte,
Patrick, Katy, Mary, Steve, Bernadette, Matthew, Veronica, Bill,
Theresa, Monica and Martha, the best family I could have ever
married into.

For those, now gone but never forgotten, who
were such an important part of my life, and the very best parts of
me: Chris Myers, Dorothea Hurley, George Hurley, Katherine and
Lawrence Pickering.

And as always, for Patty and Emily. I
couldn’t have done it without you.

Chapter 1

“Alex, we need to talk.”

Alex Winston looked up from the pile of bills
he’d been wading through to find The Hatteras West Inn’s
housekeeper, Elise Dan ton, standing by his desk. He’d seen that
determined look in her eyes before. “Can it wait, Elise? I really
need to go through these bills this morning.” Though they’d
uncovered a handful of gems a few months earlier on the property,
there hadn’t been enough from the sale to do everything Alex wanted
to with Hatteras West. Emma Sturbridge, his resident gem expert,
hadn’t yet been able to locate the vein where they’d originated,
and Alex was beginning to wonder if she ever would.

Most of the money from the sale of the
emeralds had gone into the reconstruction of the Main Keeper’s
Quarters, a building that had burned to the ground earlier. Alex’s
inn was a near replica of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse and its
outer buildings, with one major exception. Instead of being close
to the ocean, his lighthouse was deep in the foothills of the North
Carolina mountains.

And Alex was determined to return the place
to all its former glory.

“Alex,” Elise said, “you know you can do
those later. I’ve already taken care of the urgent ones. We’ve got
an inn full of people, and the fair starts in two hours.” She
frowned slightly. “That’s what I need to talk to you about.”

Alex said firmly, “Elise, I know you’re not
happy, but I’m not going back on my word. I made a promise to
Shantara Robinson that she could tie her Golden Days Fair in with
the Lighthouse Lighting, and I won’t disappoint her. I’m sorry.”
The Lighthouse Lighting was the annual county-approved testing of
the tower’s beacon. People gathered from seven counties to see it,
and it had always been one of the high points of Alex’s tenure as
the innkeeper at The Hatteras West Inn.

“Alex, we agreed that in order to stay in
business, we need to start attracting a wealthier clientele. The
fair defeats that entirely.”

“But Shantara was desperate when Lucius Crane
reneged on his offer to use his farm for the fair. There was no
place else she could hold it on such short notice.”

Elise paced around the room. “I know how much
friendship means to you, Alex, but you’ve got to think of your inn
first. I shouldn’t have to remind you how close you came to losing
Hatteras West before.”

Alex shook his head. “Believe me, I know that
better than anyone. Don’t worry. The fair will tie in perfectly
with our lighting ceremony. I wouldn’t be surprised if we attract
more guests because of it.” He added softly, “Elise, everything’s
going to be fine.”

At that moment, there was a scream just
outside Alex’s office.

Alex and Elise bolted out the front door
together to find Marilynn Baxter, one of the exhibiting potters,
pale and quivering on the front porch.

“What’s wrong?” Alex asked, searching for
some reason, any reason for the woman to have screamed so
fiercely.

“I saw a snake,” she said shakily, her finger
pointing to the small copse of trees that stood between the inn and
Bear Rocks, a granite formation close to the inn that sported the
oddest shapes and forms in twelve counties.

“It’s all right now,” Elise said, scanning
the ground near them. “Whatever it was is long gone.”

Craig Monroe, the other half of the
husband-and- wife pottery team participating in the fair, came
rushing up to them. “What happened, Marilynn? I heard you scream!
Are you all right?”

Suddenly conscious of all of the attention,
Marilynn said curtly, “I saw a snake, Craig, a big one.”

“It was probably just a garter snake,” Alex
said, trying to ease some of the tension.

“It doesn’t matter what kind it was,”
Marilynn snapped. “I hate all snakes! They are absolutely vile
creatures!”

Craig put an arm around his wife. “You’re
okay now. Let’s go finish setting up, Marilynn. There aren’t any
snakes around our exhibit.”

“There’d better not be,” Marilynn hissed as
her husband led her back to the temporary fairground. Craig Monroe
offered a silent shrug of apology to Alex as they walked away.

As Alex and Elise started back inside, she
paused and said good-naturedly, “If I can’t get you to change your
mind about this fair, we should at least see what we’ve let
ourselves in for. Are you interested in walking around the displays
before Shantara opens the gates? Things were so crazy last night, I
didn’t even have a chance to see them setting up their booths.”

Though Alex knew Elise wasn’t thrilled about
having the Golden Days Fair at Hatteras West, he realized that she
would never let anyone else know how she truly felt. The offer of a
tour was her concession to making the best of what she considered a
bad situation.

“Sounds good to me,” Alex agreed as they
reversed directions.

The two of them gave the pottery area a wide
berth as they started their tour.

Bill Yadkin, one of the two blacksmiths
working the fair, already had a hearty fire going in his portable
forge. The big, fierce-looking young man stared intently at the
coals as they burned. Rachel Seabock, a traditional woodworker who
used only the hand tools she’d inherited from her
great-grandfather, hovered near the young blacksmith. Though Rachel
was a decade older than Bill, it was obvious from the look in her
eyes that there was more than just friendship between the
blacksmith and the woodworker.

Alex thought about skipping past them, but
Elise forged on before he could steer her to another exhibit. She
said, “That fire feels good this morning,” as she warmed her hands
near the coals.

Yadkin smiled. “We’ll see how you feel around
noon when the day starts to heat up.”

“No thanks,” Elise said. “What’s in the
fire?” she asked, pointing to the center of the forge. Alex looked
into the burning coals and saw a foot-long tapered shaft of metal
glowing a dull orange.

“I’m making another stake for Rachel’s
canopy. Somebody walked off with the last one.”

Rachel said proudly, “Bill’s building up
quite a clientele. His business is really taking off.”

“You don’t have to sell me every minute of
the day, Rachel,” Yadkin said shortly.

“I wasn’t... I didn’t mean. . .” Rachel said,
looking flustered. After a deep breath, she continued. “I’d better
take Jenny that rocking chair she ordered before the fair gets into
gear today,” Rachel said. “I swear, I never thought a weaver would
be one of my best customers,” she added with a shrug before
hurrying off.

After she was gone, Alex said, “Rachel’s a
big fan of yours, isn’t she?”

Yadkin shrugged. “Yeah, too much, sometimes,”
he grumbled as he moved the glowing shaft around with a long set of
tongs.

As Yadkin started to pull the steel from the
fire, he warned, “You’d better move.”

Alex and Elise took a few steps back as the
young blacksmith pulled the glowing rod from the fire. In a
practiced motion, he began pounding the steel with a scarred and
worn hammer on the broad, flat top of his anvil. The anvil seemed
to sing with each strike, and in moments the shaft’s tip was
tapered to a point. Yadkin studied it a moment, then plunged the
steel back into the fire for another heat.

“That’s fascinating,” Elise said after he was
done. “It’s like alchemy.”

“I guess,” Yadkin said with a shrug.

Alex asked, “How did you learn to do
that?”

“My dad had his own forge when I was growing
up. It was a hobby for him, but it’s the only thing I know how to
do.” The young blacksmith was a great deal more eloquent with his
hands than with his words.

Alex looked at some of the pieces on the
display table in front of the blacksmith’s booth. “That’s an
interesting swoop,” he said as he fingered a delicate curlicue on
the end of a fireplace shovel.

“It’s my trademark,” Bill said heatedly, “no
matter what Jefferson Lee says. I hear he’s been making pieces
using it just to spite me!”

“You don’t get along with the other
blacksmith?” Alex asked gently.

“He’s not a blacksmith,” Yadkin said with a
snort of derision. “He’s a showboat and a bully, but he’s not a
blacksmith. Not in my book, anyway.”

Yadkin’s tongs dove back into the fire as he
pulled the tapered shaft out again. He laid the metal across a
wedge protruding from the top of his anvil, and with a quick
strike, he separated the spike from the body of the iron. Another
flurry of strikes, and the butt end was bent at a ninety-degree
angle. After a rapid dunk in the bucket of water beside his forge,
the spike was done. It was beautiful, even with its simple form and
function.

“I’ve got to get this to Rachel,” he said,
dismissing them in an instant.

As Alex and Elise moved on, she whispered,
“He’s an interesting fellow, isn’t he?”

“Rachel seems to think so,” Alex answered.
“You know, I never would have put those two together.”

“Love has a mind of its own sometimes,” she
said as they approached the next exhibition spot.

Jenny Harris, an attractive blonde in her
early thirties, was working at her loom, weaving an intricate
pattern of yarns into what looked like a shawl. As she worked, a
clamor of bracelets and necklaces tinkled like wind chimes. Jenny
obviously made all of her own clothes, using material laced with
splashes of colors and designs unique to her work. Alex noticed
that

Jenny’s feet worked the pedals of the loom in
a constantly shifting yet graceful dance as she shot a threaded
block back and forth across the top. She stopped the second she saw
them approach.

“Hi Alex, it’s so good to see you again,”
Jenny said as she abandoned the loom for a moment and stood.

Alex explained, “Things have been crazy at
the inn lately.” Elise coughed gently beside him.

He added, “Jenny, this is Elise Danton.
Elise, I’d like you to meet Jenny Harris. She’s an old friend.”

Jenny laughed. “I was a great deal more than
that not so long ago.” Jenny gave Elise her brightest smile as she
said, “Pleased to meet you.”