Shadow of a Spout (8 page)

“No reason; idle curiosity. Bye, Melissa. Have a nice evening.” She turned and walked over to Rhiannon, who was talking to someone in the little alcove on the other side of the divider near the front glass door, where there was a seating area with a few chairs and potted palms. “Hey, Rhi, how are you? You look tired.”

The other woman shrugged. Rhiannon Galway was in her midtwenties, with dark auburn hair curling down her back, big green eyes and a pale face covered in freckles, not the kind just sprinkled over the nose but all over her cheeks and down her neck. “I’m fine. It’s been a rough couple of weeks.”

They hugged, and Sophie asked, “Why? What’s up?”

Her gaze slid away from Sophie as she shrugged again. “Oh, you know, just . . . preparing for the convention, that’s all, as well as a few personal things. I had to make goodie bags and fight with Zunia about what to put in them. Working with
her
was a nightmare.”

“At least you weren’t staying in the inn last night when all the commotion happened,” Sophie said. “I’m here to help Nana through it. It’s awful, isn’t it?”

“I can’t believe it! I was just saying that to Frank,” she said, indicating the man she had been speaking to. “Pastor Frank Barlow, this is Sophie Taylor.”

He stood and gave a curt kind of bow, not taking her hand. He was a gentleman in his fifties, probably, with a swoop of graying hair over a balding forehead and a potbelly that stretched his plaid short-sleeved shirt. He wore wire-framed glasses. His pale blue eyes watered behind the smudged lenses, as if he had been crying. He had his finger in a book that proved, on closer examination, to be the Bible. “Terrible . . . simply terrible. Poor Zunia. I know she was a little strong-minded, but she was a wonderful woman.
Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing
.”

Rhiannon stared at him, eyebrows raised. The scripture quote seemed oddly out of context.

“Are you here for the teapot-collecting convention, then, Pastor?” Sophie asked.

“Frank is a member of the same group that Zunia was in,” Rhiannon said.

“I’m
so
sorry for your loss,” Sophie said sincerely. She saw the genuine sadness on his face, and on an impulse said, “I’m going to be joining my grandmother and godmother for dinner here and I’d love to hear more about Zunia. Would you and Rhi join us?”

He blinked. “Your grandmother?”

“Mrs. Rose Freemont, of the Gracious Grove Silver Spouts.”

He blanched and shook his head. “Oh, no, I don’t think—”

“Frank Barlow, you don’t honestly for one moment believe that crap about her doing Zunia in, do you?” Rhiannon scoffed. “Rose is five foot nothing and eighty years old.”

Sophie didn’t say that her grandmother still hauled thirty-pound garbage cans out to the street if Sophie forgot, or that she worked from dawn until evening with more vigor than many thirty-year-olds.

“If you say so, my dear Rhiannon. All right, I will.”

The reverend had a curiously old-fashioned air about him for a man just in his fifties. She supposed there were worse attributes than being old fashioned. Sophie nodded. “Where is the dining room? Do I need to make a reservation?”

“It’s to the right when you’re facing the check-in desk, just before the door into the coffee shop, but don’t worry. They’re only serving dinner for another two hours. I’ll talk to the hostess and take care of it,” Rhiannon said, giving her a brief hug. “I was here to . . . to see about their tea supply, so I had to speak with her anyway. Go on up to your grandmother.”

Sophie headed to the desk first, though. She introduced herself, and the fellow told her he was Bertie Handler, owner and manager of the Stone and Scone Inn. Bertie . . . as in Bertie’s panic room? She examined the middle-aged man, his ashen face marred by scars from long-ago acne and graying stubble lining his soft jowl. What had Melissa meant by a panic room? She was familiar with the phrase, but the housekeeper had said it was a joke. “I was hoping you had an extra room I could book?”

He shook his head, shuffled papers together on the counter then disarranged them again. “I don’t have a thing. I’m sorry, but with the police here, and one room off-limits and no end in sight and . . .” Tears welled in his eyes. “I don’t have that many rooms to begin with and they’re all taken.” One tear welled over his lower lid and trailed down his cheek.

She had dealt with these kinds of emotional fellows before. Male cooks were, in her experience, more mercurial than their female counterparts. There was only one way to handle them, matter-of-fact and cool with a dash of bracing good sense. “Well, I’m staying overnight, so I’ll need a trundle bed in my grandmother’s room until we get this mess all sorted out.”

“Sorted out?”

“Until we all find out who did this awful thing. It wasn’t my grandmother, obviously, but someone tried to make it look like she did it, and I want to know why.”

He looked doubtful and shook his head. “I don’t know what to do. Those police won’t let anyone leave,” he said, sending a dirty look at a uniformed police officer who strolled through the lobby. “I’ve got guests coming in tomorrow night. Not a lot, but a few. I just—”

“Mr. Handler, the faster this is resolved, the faster your inn will be out of the limelight for all the wrong reasons.”

“That’s true.”

“Sure it is! This will all be over with and you can go on with your business,” she said in her most bracing tone. “So please don’t forget: I need a trundle bed for my grandmother’s room, and I’ll pay the extra occupancy fee. We’re going to have dinner in the dining room. It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Handler,” Sophie said, thrusting her hand over the check-in desk. “My grandmother thinks a lot of you,” she made up on the spot. She had no idea how her grandmother felt about Bertie Handler, but it never hurt to build people up.

He shook her hand, brightening considerably. “I’ll get a cot for your grandmother’s room right away—room nineteen. And I hope you enjoy your dinner. Do try the chicken. It’s very good!”

She looked around, decided not to wait for the elevator, which in older inns was invariably slow and clunky, and took the stairs instead on the other side of the little hallway out of which Melissa had guided her. At the top of the stairs she emerged into the corridor, letting the door swing shut behind her.

At the elevator was a cordoned-off area screened from view by dividers and crime scene tape. It made her queasy to think about the life lost just past that divider. Someone was there working; she could hear a small vacuum. She surmised that the body had been taken away. There was one room that was sealed with police tape.
That must be the Pettigrews’ room
, she thought.

The hall wasn’t really very well lit, but she found room nineteen and rapped on her grandmother’s door.

Laverne called, “Come on in!”

She pushed the door open and breezed in. “Let you two troublemakers out of my sight for one day and look what happens!” she joked.

Chapter 8

“M
y Sophie, I’m so happy you’re here!” her grandmother cried, as Sophie crossed the floor for a hug.

Her grandmother and godmother, both dressed in their leisure outfits, similar velour tracksuits, were sitting at a little table by one of the tall narrow windows overlooking the street below. Sophie hugged Laverne, too, and sat cross-legged on the end of the bed, telling them who she had talked to, what had been said and her plan to have dinner with the Silver Spouts, Rhi Galway and Pastor Barlow. It was damage control, something she was good at from her past experience in the restaurant industry.

She let them in on the arrangements she had made in Gracious Grove for the two establishments, theirs and Thelma’s, and how she had left Gilda in charge. Then she got the whole story out of her grandmother and godmother. It had rattled them both but they seemed to have taken it in stride and bounced back.

“We’ve spent most of the day cooped up in here,” her grandmother said, after the tale was told. “First, we both slept because we were woken up in the middle of the night. I didn’t think I could, after seeing . . . you know . . . but I did. Then we visited with Malcolm and Horace in their room for a while, but those two old foxes went out walking in the village and I didn’t feel like doing that.”

“I sure hope my daddy didn’t cause any commotion. He’s been known to fake heart trouble when he sees a pretty woman,” Laverne said, shaking her head.

“Horace will keep him on the straight and narrow,” Nana said.

“Has anyone had dinner yet?” Sophie asked.

“With the day so jumbled, we all ate a late lunch,” Laverne said. “So no, we hadn’t decided what to do about dinner yet. Your plan sounds fine.”

“I’ll get changed and let’s go down!” Sophie said brightly. “I’ll leave you two in charge of rallying the troops.”

“All of them?” Nana said, exchanging a look with her friend. “Even Thelma?”

“
Especially
Thelma,” Sophie said, with feeling. After the trouble she’d caused, they needed to keep a tight rein on the woman.

It was a while after seven by the time they rounded everyone up and entered the dining room. Rhi Galway stood and waved to Sophie, indicating the long table she had snagged. Altogether there were ten of them. The waitress, Joyce, was a pleasantly plump middle-aged woman. She brought them drinks, then rattled off the dinner specials.

Laverne was sitting next to Sophie and pointed out other ITCS members in the dining room, especially ITCS president Walter Sommer and his wife, Nora, sitting awkwardly at a round table for four with the grieving widower, Orlando Pettigrew, and his sulking daughter Emma. Josh, seated on the other side of Sophie, waved to Emma, who nodded, then went back to her phone, texting under the table.

“What’s up with them?” Sophie asked Josh. “She’s the dead woman’s stepdaughter, right?”

“They didn’t get along, Emma and her stepmom.”

“You’ve talked to her?”

He shrugged. “Yeah, there weren’t any conference things happening today, so we hung out while her dad talked to the police.”

“I thought your mom came when she heard about what was going on?”

“She wanted me to come home but I said I wanted to stay here, since they’re going to go on with the convention tomorrow. The talk I really want to hear on the history and development of the teapot was scheduled for tomorrow morning anyway. Mom had to go right back to GiGi to work, but she’s coming back here tonight unless I can talk her out of it. I have to call her in half an hour.”

“Why is Emma Pettigrew here at a teapot collectors conference?” Sophie glanced over at the girl, who was still texting, ignoring the adults at the table. “You’re a collector, but I can’t imagine she is.”

“Her dad made her come. He likes to present a united front, she says.” He frowned and looked over at her, blinking.

“What’s she like?”

“She’s okay, I guess; she hates her life. The breakup between her parents happened really fast, and it’s all still pretty new to her. She lives with her mom, but stays with her dad and stepmom every other weekend and at Christmas. She can’t wait until she’s eighteen and doesn’t have to visit him anymore, but that’s a couple of years away.”

“You said it’s recent. How long has this been going on?”

“Her dad married Mrs. Pettigrew just a year ago, I guess. Or less. Or more. She wasn’t really clear.”

“And she didn’t like her stepmom.”

“She says that Mrs. Pettigrew was a nightmare. I believe her, ’cause I saw that woman in action. I mean, it’s not just like the wicked-stepmom trope from fairy tales, she really was mean.”

Trope?
Where did a kid like Josh get a vocabulary like that? But, of course . . . he was taking college courses already, some in English literature. At every Silver Spouts meeting he brought a literary reference to tea drinking, tea making or teapots to read out loud to the group.

“You should have been at the meeting yesterday!” he continued, his long-lashed eyes wide with amazement. He adjusted the collar of his golf shirt so it would stand up, as he glanced over at Emma. “I feel bad for her,” he said, referring clearly to Emma. “Mrs. Pettigrew was mean to everyone, even your grandmother, and
no one
could not like your grandmother! She’s way cool, for an . . . for a senior citizen.”

Sophie flashed him a look, knowing he’d been on the verge of saying an old lady. But he was always respectful, so she couldn’t fault him for what he
didn’t
say. The boy was peculiarly grown-up and yet still a teenager, both sides coming out in odd ways at odd moments. He might collect teapots, but he also played PS4 and Xbox One. “Nana says that she heard Mr. Pettigrew and his wife fought all the time. Has Emma said anything like that?”

“Sure. She says her stepmom knocked her dad around once in a while—like, she was real physical. And Emma told one of the guys that works here that she cussed her stepmom out so bad once, she called the police on her. I mean, the stepmom called the police on Emma.”

“Emma Pettigrew has a room on your floor, right? Was she in her room? Do you remember seeing her when her stepmom’s body was found? Or . . . at least when you all came out of your rooms?”

He shook his head. “I didn’t see her, but I’m pretty sure she wasn’t in the inn. I saw her coming in later when we were downstairs talking to the cops, and I think she was wearing the same clothes that she had on the night before.”

“That’s odd, isn’t it? Why would she be out in the middle of the night?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“What time was that?”

“Not sure . . . maybe four or five
A.M
.?”

“Can you find out where she was? Without things getting weird, I mean.”

He looked thoughtful. Josh was a very bright fellow, beyond even book smarts, but he was pretty good with people, too. Collecting teapots was a passion because he believed in the historical importance of everyday objects. Sophie and he had talked a lot over the last couple of months and he already knew his path; he was going to be a writer, or a historian, or, mingling the two, a historical writer.

Nodding as he glanced over at Emma, he said, “I can talk to her. She trusts me, I think, and I know some of the staff she’s been talking to, like the waiters and prep cooks. I can join in and hang out with them after dinner tonight.” He looked a little put-upon, as he added, “As long as my mom doesn’t end up coming back to stay.” He glanced down at his cell phone. “It’s almost time to call her. If I don’t call on the dot she’ll be on her way here.”

“I’ll talk to her if you want, okay? Tell her I’m here; maybe it’ll help. And let me know what you find out about Emma Pettigrew.” Sophie glanced over from behind her menu, examining the foursome. Orlando Pettigrew was not a small man and Zunia was apparently tiny. That didn’t necessarily mean anything about who was the aggressor in any tiffs the two had, though. She had seen enough tiny women with hair-trigger tempers who acted out physically. She’d even employed a couple. However, could the stepdaughter’s accounts be trusted? Emma didn’t have a good relationship with the woman, clearly, but was she exaggerating or fabricating out of her own loathing?

Plenty of possibilities there for follow-up as to who killed Zunia Pettigrew. One thing was clear: Whoever did it was going out of their way to make it look like Nana committed the murder because of the confrontation at the convention seminar.

While Josh was ordering his dinner, Sophie turned to Laverne. “So that’s the ITCS president and his wife, right?”

Laverne twisted to regard the couple sitting two tables over with the Pettigrews. “Sure is. Walter and Nora Sommer.”

“What are they like?”

She frowned. “Well, I’ve only met them at the convention, and they kind of keep to themselves. When we joined a few years back he was on hiatus from being the overall ITCS president, and was just the division president of the New York City teapot collectors group, so he didn’t attend our convention. He got the presidency back four years ago, now. He seems . . . I don’t know . . . proper, how you imagine the dean at a ritzy private college would be, you know? Nora is like the ultimate club woman, the kind who joins lots of organizations and does charity work, but not for the charity, for the networking and notoriety.” She smirked. “The kind who volunteers for everything then delegates the work.” The waitress approached and Laverne set about ordering broiled sea bass.

Sophie examined the Sommers with interest. He was tall, with a thatch of white hair above a long, narrow face. He was probably in his sixties, and he wore wire-framed spectacles over green eyes. His face was gaunt. He looked like he worried a lot. Nora Sommer was small, dark and intense, her hair dyed an improbable shade of brown. She had her hand on Orlando’s as the bereaved widower snuffled into a tissue. She was dressed dowdily but expensively in a navy skirt suit that appeared two sizes too big and was way too warm for an August day in upstate New York.

Walter looked like he’d rather be anywhere else but there, and in his perusal of the room, his gaze settled on Rhiannon. They exchanged a charged look, then Rhi looked away, biting her lip. Sophie frowned, wondering what was up between Rhi and the ITCS president. As his wife kept her focus on Pettigrew, Walter met Sophie’s gaze, bowed his head in a stately manner, and went back to drinking his wine.

It was an interesting exchange. Sophie had worked her way through culinary school. Her father said he was fine with her following her own path but he wasn’t paying for it, so a combination of grants, loans and hours of work in restaurants put her through a double-diploma program at ICE. Working as a waitress she had studied people to watch their habits as they ordered, ate, talked, drank and interacted with one another and their serving staff. She had, as a result, become very mindful of slight exchanges, glances, charged expressions.

Walter was aware that she was watching him. He stiffly ordered another bottle of wine, talked to his wife and ignored Orlando Pettigrew. He was either not comfortable with the mourning widower, or there was some personal reason for his uneasiness. It could have just been his awareness that Sophie was watching him, or was it something else? He leaned over, said a word to his wife, and she turned to stare at Sophie, then looked away.

Sophie turned to Laverne. “How did Walter Sommer feel about Zunia Pettigrew?” she asked, as there was a lull while they waited for their dinner.

The woman frowned into her teacup. “Well, now, it’s funny you ask that,” she said. “At the meeting I would have sworn Walter didn’t approve of Zunia’s handling of the meeting yesterday, but he never said a word. He was uncomfortable but he didn’t reprimand her even when Rose begged him to get her under control, and he’s
never
been afraid to act before. I don’t know what was up with him.”

Sophie turned her gaze back to the man who was staring off into space, sipping a glass of wine. What indeed?