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“WELL, WHO’S THIS hefty guy?” I stood in the foyer of The Gabbling Goose, keeping a solid grip on Sexy Beast’s basket tote as the biggest house cat I’d ever seen nudged my ankles, nearly knocking me over. SB peered over the edge of the tote, his little nose working overtime as he attempted to compartmentalize this strange new creature.
My nose was working overtime, too, but not because of the cat. Ambrosial scents wafted from the direction of the kitchen. Someone was baking.
“I guess you didn’t meet Toby when you were here last week,” Shelley said. “She was probably down in the basement, hunting.”
“Hunting?” I said. “You mean, like, for mice?”
“Best mouser we’ve ever had.” She lifted SB out of the tote and gave him scritches, while he kept a wary eye on the supersize brown tabby at our feet. “The Gabbling Goose has always had a cat around to keep the critters under control, starting way back in Oswald and Sybille’s time. Sybille was quite accomplished with a needle and she actually embroidered some of the cats’ portraits. They’re hanging in the dining room.”
Toby’s body was over two feet long. A thick, bushy tail added at least another twelve inches to her overall length. A long, shaggy coat, extravagant chest ruff, oversize paws, striking green eyes, and furry, tufted ears added to her distinctive appearance. She didn’t so much meow as trill, a sort of musical purr.
“This has to be a Maine Coon,” I said. “Aren’t they the largest domestic cat breed?”
“Right you are,” Shelley said, as she set SB on the rug. He scrambled right back to me, begging to be picked up. I hesitated, not wanting to appear overly protective of my nervous little poodle, but let’s face it. The inn’s resident mouser was easily twice his weight, and appeared even larger with all that fur. She might see him as simply another species of vermin in need of eradication, albeit one with a meticulously trimmed apricot coat and neatly clipped nails.
Shelley’s knowing gaze told me I was doing a poor job of concealing my trepidation. “Don’t worry about Toby. She’s more dog than cat if you ask me. Your basic gentle giant and very friendly—well, as long as you’re not a mouse.”
Sure enough, Toby appeared curious and even playful, nudging and sniffing SB, gradually putting him at ease. I witnessed no tail twitching on Toby’s part, no hissing, no unsheathed claws.
“How about that, SB?” I said. “You made a new friend.”
It was late afternoon, about half past five. Once that bizarre meeting at Sten’s office had finally adjourned, I’d grabbed a quick lunch at Janey’s Place: my usual papaya-ginger smoothie, a so-called healthy drink so yummy I could forget it was supposed to be good for me.
Yeah, that’s right, I’m a picky little kid who has to be tricked (even by herself) into consuming food with redeeming nutritional value. Your point?
Following lunch, I took Sexy Beast for a long walk on what had turned into a bright, sunny afternoon, after a miserable gray start to the day. Then I tried to concentrate on some Death Diva paperwork while SB watched a rerun of Sesame Street, his favorite TV show. However, my mind kept sliding back to Stu Ruskin and my unanswered questions. It was one of those questions that had brought me back here to The Gabbling Goose.
Okay, you’re right, I should’ve just left the whole thing alone. It was none of my business and all that. But looking at it objectively (which, as you know, I always do), it was clear that the cops (specifically my ex-husband’s ex-fiancée, the chief of police, not that that had anything to do with it because I’m, you know, so objective) had jumped to the conclusion that Stu Ruskin had done himself in, despite compelling evidence to the contrary. And, I mean, it’s not like I was conducting my own investigation or anything. I’d just gone to The Gabbling Goose to satisfy my curiosity on one little point. Perfectly understandable and not at all presumptuous or meddlesome, right?
Okay, you’re not the boss of me, and I’ll be presumptuous and meddlesome if I feel like it.
A burst of muted feminine laughter from another room told me Shelley and I weren’t alone. Too bad. I was hoping for a nice private chat with her. “You’re probably busy,” I said. “I’m taking you away from paying guests. I just had a quick question, but I can come back some other time.”
“No guests here at the moment,” she said. “We had the nicest group of ladies staying with us for a few days—a ‘wench convench,’ they called it, isn’t that cute?—but they left this morning, and no one else is expected until after dinner. Woody’s upstairs getting the rooms ready. He actually enjoys cleaning, and I’d rather take care of reservations, payments, all that managerial stuff.”
“Sounds like a match made in B&B heaven,” I said.
“Well, plus Woody has become so forgetful and confused,” she added, sotto voce, “it’s really better if I take care of the business end of things.”
Sexy Beast must have decided Toby was all right. He lowered his chest in the classic doggie play bow, an invitation that was not lost on his new friend. They began to chase each other around the room. SB yipped happily, while Toby emitted the occasional birdlike chirp.
“Come.” Shelley led the way through the adjoining drawing room, a cozy sitting area with a fireplace and comfortable antique furnishings. The walls were filled with old paintings and framed embroidery, the latter no doubt the work of Sybille Collingwood.
My gaze lingered on a rectangular wooden coffee table whose glass top protected a large embroidered panel depicting the exterior of The Gabbling Goose as it appeared back in Colonial days. I would have liked to linger and examine it more closely, but Shelley didn’t pause, so I followed her into the huge country kitchen, which managed to retain its Colonial flavor despite the ultramodern appliances.
“Oh my Gawd, it’s the Death Diva!” Georgia Chen wore a hot pink bib apron adorned with dozens of pin buttons, displaying everything from promotional advertising to jokey one-liners to sappy inspirational messages—The harder I work, the luckier I get!—to vintage political slogans. Richard Nixon and George McGovern shared equal billing on Georgia’s apron.
The pastry chef was in the process of sliding filled muffin tins into the oven. A couple of dozen finished muffins cooled on racks on the granite counters. Blueberry by the looks of them, and some that looked and smelled like apple-walnut.
She shut the oven door and rushed over to wrap her arms around me. It was only our second meeting and already I was getting the Big Hug. “So glad to see you, Jane,” she gushed. “What are you doing here?”
“I was about to ask you the same question,” I said.
“You’re looking at the new, official pastry chef for The Gabbling Goose.” Georgia executed a snappy salute.
“Don’t tell me you actually quit your job at Patisserie Susanne.”
“Nah. Mondays and Tuesdays are my days off. Amy got me this gig, she’s such a doll. Have you two met?”
Georgia directed this question over my shoulder. I followed her gaze and saw an attractive thirtyish woman entering from the enclosed porch.
“I don’t think so.” The woman crossed the room to shake my hand. “I’m Amy Collingwood.”
I introduced myself. So this was Ty’s daughter.
She frowned in concentration. “Your name sounds familiar.”
Shelley was pulling dessert plates out of a cabinet. “Jane was here last Wednesday night. She’s the one who found Stu’s body.”
Amy’s eyes widened. “That’s right, I remember now. Dad mentioned meeting you.”
Amy Collingwood had medium-brown hair pulled back in a practical ponytail, and eyes the same shape and blue-gray color of her dad’s. She wore a teal blouse and gray dress slacks, and I assumed she’d gone straight to her family’s B&B after work. I recalled Shelley proudly mentioning that Amy was a conservation scientist with the Long Island Environmental Alliance.
Georgia addressed Shelley. “So the ones in the oven are lemon-poppy. Once all the muffins have cooled, I’ll wrap most of them for the freezer and you can serve them all week. Next time I’ll make chocolate babka and cinnamon buns. I won’t even think about apple crisp, ’cause Amy told me that’s your specialty. Can’t wait to try it.” She rinsed her hands at the sink and dried them on an embroidered tea towel.
“Wait a minute. Is that...?” I took the damp tea towel from her and shook it out. An exquisite floral pattern had been meticulously stitched onto linen that appeared quite old. “Is this an antique?”
“Shelley insisted I use it!” Georgia cried, as if I’d accused her of some unspeakable act.
“Oh, that,” Shelley said. “That’s some of Sybille’s work. We have dozens of her pieces. Napkins, tablecloths, pillowcases—”
“And you use them?” I gaped at her. “Embroidery from the seventeenth century?”
“Would you prefer we lock them away in some trunk where no one can see them?” she said. “Sybille put a lot of work and love into those things. She wanted them to be used and enjoyed.”
“Well, but won’t they get destroyed?” I asked.
“Does that thing look like it’s been destroyed?” she asked, not unreasonably. “It’s not like we scrub the floors with them. We use them gently and clean them even more gently. Don’t worry, these pretty things will outlast us all.”
Amy was laughing. “You’re not going to budge her on this subject, Jane. Don’t even try.”
“Now for the important question.” Shelley plunked the dessert plates onto the oak table in the center of the room. “How do we know these muffins are any good? We’d better make sure.”
“You can never be too careful.” Amy transferred several muffins from the cooling racks to a small platter. “I’ll put on a pot of coffee.”
“You know what goes even better with muffins?” I withdrew a bottle of good Cabernet from my tote bag and wagged it.
The ladies greeted this idea with enthusiasm, and within a couple of minutes we were sitting around the table, enjoying a late-afternoon snack of warm muffins and first-rate vino.
“Oh my Gawd,” Georgia cried, “look at that cute little dog!”
Sexy Beast and Toby had made an appearance, heading straight for the food and water bowls near the back door. SB slaked his thirst before sniffing delicately at the kibble in Toby’s food bowl, finally deciding to take a pass. Poodles are notoriously picky eaters. As far as my discerning pet was concerned, if it’s not people food or his preferred brand of gourmet dog food, it’s not worth taking a chance on.
I made the introductions, and Georgia lavished abundant love on my little guy. “We should introduce Sexy Beast to my boxer, Jackson. They could have a play date.”
“Bring Jackson next time you come,” Shelley said. “We’re dog-friendly here, and as you can see, Toby doesn’t discriminate.”
SB ate up the attention before joining Toby on her plush kitty bed, the two of them snuggling like cross-species lovers. SB started licking the cat’s head, a spa treatment she appeared to appreciate, judging by her half-closed eyes and trilling purr. I’d never known Sexy Beast to cough up a hairball, but something told me he might find out what it’s like.
I reached for a warm apple-walnut muffin. “I’m curious how you two know each other,” I said, looking from Georgia to Amy.
“Oh, we met at the patisserie,” Georgia said. “Just about a week ago, right, Amy?”
“Six days ago, to be precise,” Amy said. “Wednesday morning. I popped in before work to pick up a birthday cake for a coworker. Georgia wrote the happy-birthday message in icing and added a few extra garnishes.”
“So we got to chatting, and whaddaya know, it turned out we had someone in common.” Georgia frowned in concentration. “Didn’t I tell you about Amy? I’m sure I mentioned her.”
“I don’t think so.” I lifted my wineglass and took a sip.
“Yeah, yeah,” she said, “I told you that her and Stu got engaged while he was seeing me.”
I blinked at Amy. “That was you?”
“I’m afraid so.” Her expression was grim.
Shelley reached over and squeezed her hand, her sympathetic expression downright grandmotherly. Amy placed her free hand over Shelley’s and gave her a warm smile. I recalled Shelley mentioning that Amy, as a kid, had spent a lot of time at The Gabbling Goose when school wasn’t in session, and had worked there as a teen during summer vacations. The two were clearly very close.
“Amy,” I said, “I have to ask. Were you still engaged to Stu last week? When you met Georgia at the bakery?”
She nodded. An angry flush stained her cheeks. “The two of us compared notes. Turns out I’d been seeing Stu for a couple of months when he got involved with Georgia this past June. I still had no clue about her when we got engaged in November.”
“Meanwhile I dumped him in December,” Georgia said, “after he stole the cookie recipe and sold it to Conti-Meeker. I didn’t know about Amy at the time, of course. I only knew he was a home-wrecking rat thief.”
“And I didn’t know anything about the whole cookie scandal while it was happening,” Amy said. “It was dumb luck, meeting Georgia at the bakery last week. I learned that the man I was engaged to marry, the man I’d been planning to grow old with, had—” her voice cracked “—had betrayed me. I was so stunned, I nearly dropped the cake.”
“What did you do?” I asked.
“As soon as I got in my car, I called Stu,” Amy said. “He tried to weasel out of it, of course. He denied even knowing Georgia. I guess he thought I was too dimwitted, or too besotted with him, to see through his BS. But I was having none of it, and finally he was forced to admit it. He tried to make it sound like Georgia was this conniving seductress who worked her dark magic on him.”
At this, Georgia let out a shrill laugh, which startled Sexy Beast and Toby in mid-lovefest. “Yeah, that’s me, a real femme fatale.”
I wondered what, if anything, it meant that this little drama occurred last Wednesday, mere hours before Stu Ruskin—or someone—put a bullet in his brain.
“I take it you called off the engagement,” I said.
“Right then and there,” Amy said, “over the phone.”
“Did he try to change your mind?” I asked.
“Did he ever. He was distraught, almost desperate. Insisted we meet face-to-face to talk it over. No way. I was done.”
Georgia said, “I hope that rat gave you a big freakin’ ring and I hope you sold it for a lot of bread.”
“I had no intention of keeping that ring or selling it,” Amy said. “I knew Stu was visiting an account in the city, so I called my work to tell them I’d be late and drove straight to his house. He’d given me a key, which I left on his coffee table, along with the ring.”
“Gawd!” Georgia groaned. “You never give back the ring. Not after the rat shows his true colors. Don’t you know anything?”
Amy’s expression turned bleak. “What I know is it was never me he wanted. I figured that out before we got off the phone. Stu was using me. I was a means to an end.”
“Well, it’s all over now.” Shelley squeezed Amy’s hand again—more an admonition this time, I sensed, than a gesture of sympathy. “We don’t need to get into all that.”
Sure we do. I topped off their wineglasses. “What did Stu expect to get by marrying you?”
Amy spread her arms. “All of this. The Gabbling Goose and surrounding acreage. The Collingwood ancestral estate.”
I started to ask why that was so important to him when the answer walloped me upside the head. “It all goes back to the blood feud, doesn’t it? Between the Collingwoods and the Ruskins.”
Shelley answered for her. “Stu Ruskin’s ancestors never managed to hold on to any property. A bunch of losers, all of them. Their original homestead in Crystal Harbor changed hands countless times over the years. You know that Sunoco gas station just down the road? That’s where Percival Ruskin’s house was, with the basement tavern.”
The tavern where Peg Leg Percy sold his version of Sybbie’s Punch back in the seventeenth century, after stealing the recipe.
“Stu knew I’d be inheriting all this someday,” Amy said. “He figured that marrying me was the only way to get his hands on the Collingwood estate. He probably saw it as a way for the Ruskins to finally stick it to the Collingwoods after all these years.”
“But you won’t inherit this place for a good long time,” I said. “I mean, your parents are, what, in their mid-fifties? Your father looks to be in great shape.”
“Dad works out a lot,” Amy said, “but it’s all about cardiac rehab—he has a heart condition. The Collingwood men tend to die young. And my mom is six years older than him and has her own health issues. Stu knew all this.”
“He wouldn’t have owned the property, though,” I said, “even if you two were married.”
Amy grimaced. “He knew me well enough to know I’d make my husband joint owner. I get sick thinking about how close I came to handing over my family’s legacy to that... that...”
“The word you’re groping for is ‘rat.’” Georgia tore off a piece of her apple-walnut muffin, inspected the texture, gave a satisfied nod, and popped it into her mouth.
“So the feud really isn’t over, is it?” I asked Shelley. “You told me things had cooled down between the two families, that they basically keep out of each other’s way. Sounds like Stu never got the memo.”
“He got the memo, all right,” she said, “he just had no interest in keeping the peace. He had no interest in anything that didn’t directly benefit Stu Ruskin, and he didn’t care who he hurt in the process.”
Amy picked at her blueberry muffin, her expression glum. “He was so smooth, so believable. So easy to fall in love with.”
“Don’t I know it,” Georgia said. “The guy was a sociopath, you ask me.”
“If I’d only known at the time.”
One of Shelley’s gray eyebrows arched. “Your dad tried to warn you.”
“Don’t remind me.” Amy looked chagrined. “I wish I’d listened to him.”
“He tried to talk you out of seeing Stu?” I asked.
“Of course. I didn’t take him seriously. I mean, would you have? Knowing it all went back to that ridiculous feud?”
“What did your father say when you two got engaged?” I asked.
“Oh, I didn’t tell him. And I never let him see the ring. The only person I told is sitting right here.” Amy laid a fond hand on Shelley’s shoulder. “And I swore her to secrecy. Not even Woody knew.”
Shelley said, “You thought your dad would come around eventually. I knew better. I was just praying you’d come to your senses before the wedding. You refused to hear anything critical about your fiancé.”
“I can be pretty stubborn, I admit it,” Amy said.
“Well, you come by it honestly,” Shelley said. “The Collingwoods and Ruskins are nothing if not stubborn.”
I said, “To keep a family feud going for three and a half centuries? Yeah, I’d say that’s the definition of stubborn.”
Amy turned to Georgia. “You called Stu a sociopath, but I have to disagree. From what I understand, sociopaths have no conscience.”
“My point precisely.” Georgia tossed back the last of her wine and grabbed the bottle. “Gawd, you of all people should know that rat didn’t have anything resembling a conscience.”
“Then why did he commit suicide?” Amy asked. “For sure it wasn’t because I broke up with him. I figure he could no longer live with what he did to you and Henry, and everyone else he ever cheated and stole from.”
“Oh, honey, you are so sweet but so naïve.” Georgia’s New York accent grew stronger with every sip of wine.
“The other day you seemed to think it was suicide,” I told Georgia. “Have you changed your mind?”
She shrugged. “I suppose anything’s possible, but yeah, I could totally believe he offed himself, for his own sick reasons. Like maybe he was some kind of serial killer or something, and maybe the FBI was closing in and he was like, ‘You’ll never take me alive, suckers!’”
Amy wore a lopsided smile. “Isn’t it too bad Georgia has no imagination?”
She laughed delightedly. “Never been accused of that.”
I smiled at the jest, but inwardly I was still trying to figure Georgia out. On the one hand, she clearly had despised her onetime boyfriend, that cheating rat Stu, and for good reason. He broke up her marriage, and not because of any deep love he felt for her, but to steal a valuable recipe. As a result, Henry’s bakery, The Cranky Crumb, went down the tubes, forcing both him and his ex-wife to scramble to support themselves.
On the other hand, while Georgia had a mercurial temperament, she didn’t seem like the type to hold a grudge. But what did I know? This was only our second meeting.
Henry was more of a wild card. He’d made no secret of his hatred for Stu Ruskin when we’d chatted in the cemetery after the funeral. He’d seemed to be pumping me for information, trying to find out how much I knew.
Then again, maybe he was just making conversation and I was reading too much into it. Not that I ever, you know, do that, but there’s a first time for everything.
I said, “Georgia, there’s something I’ve been wondering about.”
“Shoot.”
Unfortunate choice of words, but okay. “Stu tricked you into revealing the recipe the same day your divorce was finalized, right? You said it was early December?”
“December third.”
“And Henry found out about it a couple of weeks later when Conti-Meeker’s lawyers sent him that threatening letter?” When Georgia nodded, I said, “What I want to know is, why did Stu keep seeing you once he had the recipe? Why not dump you immediately?”
“That’s easy,” she said. “He was afraid that if he ended it too soon, I’d figure out what he was up to and alert Henry and maybe manage to blow up the Conti-Meeker deal. He had to keep me dumb as a stump until the deal was done.”
“Henry must’ve been pretty upset when he got that letter,” I said.
“Oh, he was beside himself. I never saw him so angry.”
Which brings us to...
“You told me Henry stays in a different part of the house,” I said. “I assume that means you’re not always aware of his comings and goings.”
I thought I was being pretty darn subtle until Georgia said, quite amiably, “You want to know if he was home when Stu died. You’re still thinking maybe it wasn’t really suicide.”
Smooth, Jane. “No, really,” I said, “I wasn’t implying—”
“Henry was at his mom’s place in Queens all day,” she said, “fixing a million and one things around the house ’cause she’s too cheap to hire a handyman. I heard him come in a little before midnight. I was bundled up in bed, binge-watching all my favorite rom-com flicks, back to back.”
“Even though you had to be at the bakery at five the next morning?” I asked.
“Yeah, pretty stupid,” she laughed, “but those feel-good movies are like a drug. Once I start, I have a hard time stopping.”
“That beats what I was doing,” Amy said. “I was home alone all evening, reading conservation journals and feeling sorry for myself. I’d just broken up with Stu that morning. I hadn’t a clue that he... well, I didn’t learn that he killed himself until hours later. Dad let himself into my apartment and woke me up to break the news to me. That’s when I told him about the engagement and our breakup. Needless to say, I didn’t get any more sleep that night.”
I said, “I’m assuming the detectives interviewed you?”
“I called Detective Werker myself the next morning,” she said, “and stopped by the police station after work to talk to him and his partner. They seemed particularly interested in the breakup—as if that had anything to do with Stu’s suicide.”
“How can you be so sure it didn’t?” I asked.
“Well, he was upset, like I said, but not in a sad or depressed way. It was more like someone whose fabulous business venture suddenly collapsed.”
“Ah, irony,” Georgia said.
“Which I realized later, when I thought about it,” Amy said, “wasn’t far from the truth. I was the linchpin in this grand scheme of his to ‘win’ that stupid old feud.”
I hadn’t seen either Amy or Georgia at the funeral. Little wonder, considering their history with the deceased. Ty, however, had made an appearance.
I turned to Shelley. “So you had no idea Stu had come onto the property and was having himself a soak out there in the hot tub?”
She shook her head. “Woody and I had our hands full inside. We had six people staying with us, and they kept us hopping. Cocktails, snacks, board games, charades. I didn’t mind. I like being busy, and they were interesting folks. Good conversation.”
It would seem this personable woman had found her ideal vocation all those years ago. She would have made a great cruise-ship director.
“Speaking of cocktails,” I said, “I can’t help but wonder about the glass Stu had with him out there.”
“Glass?” Georgia said. “You mean like a drinking glass?”
“A martini glass, to be precise. It was sitting on the rim of the hot tub.” I shrugged. “I mean, I know he wasn’t a guest here, so I was just wondering where he got hold of the drink. There are no other places within walking distance that serve cocktails.”
“Those detectives asked me about that glass,” Shelley said. “It was one of ours, all right, etched with the Gabbling Goose logo. The only explanation I could think of, and this is what I told them, was that Stu must’ve slipped in through the back door when no one was looking and poured himself a stiff one. It wouldn’t have been all that difficult.”
“Really?” I said. “You wouldn’t have heard him moving around in here, opening cupboards and mixing a drink?”
“We were all in the front parlor for most of the evening,” Shelley said, “and with music playing and lively conversation, he could’ve slipped in and out of the kitchen pretty easily.”
“Did the cops take the glass with them?” I asked.
“I assume so. It wasn’t there after they left.”
Amy remained silent during this exchange, although she was intimately familiar with The Gabbling Goose and must have had some opinion on the feasibility of her ex-fiancé successfully managing a stealth cocktail grab. She stared glumly down at the muffin she was systematically shredding, and I could only imagine she had mixed emotions regarding the sudden death of a man she’d loved enough to become engaged to, a man who had not only cheated on her, but had turned her into an unwitting pawn in their families’ centuries-old blood feud.
Stu Ruskin, serial user of women. It might not be the worst of his crimes, but it was pretty reprehensible in my book.
“The cops talked to me, too.” Georgia wore a silky smile. “That Detective Werker is delish.”
“And married,” I said. Howie and the lovely Lillian had been happily hitched for many years.
“I know, I know.” She flapped her hand at me. “I saw the ring. No harm in looking—or fantasizing about tall, dark cops and their handcuffs. You met him, Amy. Does Detective Delish do it for you?”
“No one does it for me anymore,” she said. “I’ve sworn off men.”
Shelley failed to restrain a skeptical snort.
Georgia laughed. “They’re not all rats.”
“So, what do you think now, Shelley?” I asked. “Did Stu commit suicide?”
“Yes,” she said with finality. “That’s what the liquid courage was for. Wouldn’t surprise me if he was drunk before he got here. Don’t ask me why he did it. Someone that mean and calculating, who’s to say what drove him?”
I said, “Isn’t it possible someone else used the hot tub that evening—before Stu showed up or even at the same time—and that this other person left the martini glass there? One of your guests, maybe? You couldn’t be expected to know where every single person was at any given—”
“No, absolutely not,” Shelley said. “I would’ve known.”
“How?” I said. “I mean, you told me you had no idea Stu was out there, so how could you have known there was no one else?”
“I didn’t make anyone a martini that night,” she said.
“Maybe they helped themselves to the booze. Isn’t it possible?”
Amy spoke up. “Do you mind if we talk about something else? I’m sorry, I just...”
“No, I’m sorry,” I said, and meant it. “It was insensitive of me to keep talking about this.” Amy hadn’t appeared bothered by our earlier conversation regarding Stu and his death, but I guessed she’d reached her limit.
Shelley patted Amy’s back and murmured something soothing in her ear. Georgia got up to check on the lemon-poppy muffins in the oven. At some point Toby had slipped away, probably to terrorize any rodents foolhardy enough to cross the threshold of this historic B&B. Sexy Beast roused himself from his nap, stretched luxuriantly, gave himself a good shake, and commenced the restless pacing that told me it was time for a potty break.
I grabbed a plastic bag out of my tote, clipped SB’s leash onto his harness, and told the others we’d be back in a jiffy.
The sky was still light on this late afternoon in mid-May. I love this time of year, when the days grow not just warmer, but longer. The brine-scented breeze was balmy as I stepped onto the deck. Now that I could actually see the inn’s two acres in their entirety, I spied flower and vegetable gardens, a charming grape arbor, picnic tables, and a wealth of trees.
One impressive specimen stood out from the others. It was a huge oak tree, located in the dead center of the property. The massive main trunk was easily twenty-five feet in circumference, its many stout limbs curving in all directions, a few nearly touching the ground. I smiled. A wonderful tree for climbing.
My attention soon shifted to the hot tub—or what was left of it. Three workmen were busy dismantling the tub, reducing the stone exterior to a pile of rubble and disconnecting the pipes, filter, and heater. It was a noisy operation, requiring a bunch of scary-looking tools. I spied a reciprocating saw, which I assumed would be used to reduce the liner to manageable chunks.
I recognized Ty Collingwood from the back. It was a nicely sculpted back, clad in a slim-fitting hunter-green sweater over jeans that were just snug enough to advertise what Georgia would have called a killer booty. He stood halfway between the deck and the hot tub, arms crossed, watching the men work.
Ty’s body language told me he might not be eager for company, and I debated taking SB around to the front of the house instead. At that moment the little guy gave an imperious bark, demanding to know what the holdup was.
Ty glanced over his shoulder. It took him a second to recognize me, then he smiled and waved us over.
I returned the smile. “Give us a minute. Sexy Beast has important business to attend to.” I led him to a Japanese maple at the edge of the yard, which he watered with enthusiasm while executing an impressive doggie handstand intended to lift his leg as high as possible—the canine version of false advertising. Instinct told my puny shrimp of a poodle that the higher on the tree he peed, the bigger he would appear to any dogs that came sniffing around later.
Men!
Ty nodded in greeting as I joined him. I kept a tight hold on SB’s leash, not wanting him to interfere with the workmen or get hurt as they tossed debris onto the growing pile.
“The good news,” Ty said, “ is that the pool and spa don’t share water lines, so I won’t have to drain the pool and somehow get it sanitized.”
I could have recommended a crime-scene cleaning service to, shall we say, rehabilitate the hot tub. My friend Denny Pinheiro was a real pro when it came to such unsavory work. However, I couldn’t argue with Ty’s decision to obliterate the site of Stu Ruskin’s violent demise.
“Are you going to replace it?” I asked.
Ty pointed to the deck. “I’m having one installed up there. A recessed eight-seater with all the bells and whistles. There’s already a nice, thick cement foundation under the deck, so the weight shouldn’t be an issue. They’ll start this week.”
“Nice,” I said. “It might be more convenient for wintertime use, too, to have the spa a few steps from the back door.”
“That’s what I was thinking. In any event, I couldn’t leave this thing out here.” He gestured toward the work being done a few yards away. “We’ve already had a few ghouls sneak onto the property to goof around and take pictures—even before the crime-scene tape came down. You’d be surprised at the sickos out there.”
“Actually, I wouldn’t.”
He glanced at me, and I saw the instant he got it. “Oh, right. Look who I’m talking to.”
“Trust me, Ty,” I said, “I could tell you stories that would make your trespassing ghouls look like Boy Scouts helping an old lady cross the road.”
“That wasn’t my only reason for getting rid of the tub. None of us need to be reminded of what happened every time we come out here.”
“Well, I, for one,” I said, “think you’re doing the right thing.”
He tipped his head in acknowledgment.
SB tugged at the leash, trying to get closer to the action. I picked him up and exchanged kisses for dog-breath licks, and he settled down in my arms with a disgruntled sigh.
“It’s quite an accomplishment,” I said, “keeping this property in the family for three and a half centuries. And nothing less than astonishing that The Gabbling Goose has been open for business all that time. You should be very proud.”
“I’m just continuing the work of my ancestors,” he said, “most of whom faced tougher challenges than I ever have. And not just from the Ruskins. This place has survived a devastating fire, the billeting of both British and rebel troops during the Revolution, financial collapse during the Great Depression, and the Great Hurricane of 1938, which blew the roof right off the building and dropped a sailboat into one of the upstairs bedrooms.”
I tried to picture it. My imagination was not up to the task.
“Do you have a day job?” I asked. “I mean, aside from running The Gabbling Goose.”
He offered a self-deprecating smile. “Shelley and Woody run the place. I just take the credit. As to your question, I was fortunate enough to inherit a bit of money. My day job, if you can call it that, is investing it.”
As if summoned by the sound of her name, Shelley appeared on the deck with a tray laden with sandwiches and chips, which she placed on the glass-topped dining table. Amy followed with a pitcher of lemonade and glasses.
Shelley hollered across the lawn, “Aren’t you boys done for the day? You’ve been at it for hours. You’re going to faint from hunger.”
Three sweaty, dusty faces looked to Ty for permission.
“Don’t look at me,” he told them. “I wouldn’t cross her if I were you. That woman’s mean as a snake.”
“Go inside and wash up first,” she ordered as they gratefully crossed the lawn and ascended the steps to the deck.
Once we were alone, I said, “So you like jazz, huh?” At his questioning look, I reminded him, “The other night you mentioned you were at a jazz club in Southampton.”
With his phone silenced. Which was why he didn’t get the news about Stu’s death until the show ended.
“Oh, right,” he said. “Are you a fan?”
“I love jazz,” I lied. “Was it a good show?”
“Outstanding. The Manny Molina Trio.”
“Wow,” I said. “Lucky you.”
“In hindsight, I wish I’d stuck closer to home, maybe gone for a beer at Murray’s Pub instead. Shelley and Woody shouldn’t have had to deal with this mess on their own.” He jerked his head toward the debris field that used to be an elegant hot tub.
“For what it’s worth,” I said, “after the initial shock, they were calmly professional.”
“I’m sure they were, but I worry about them. Those two aren’t getting any younger.”
“Well, as for Murray’s,” I said, “I’m guessing your wife prefers cool jazz in Southampton to a cold pint at the local pub.”
“Jeanette’s no fan of jazz. Plus, she’s something of a homebody. Her idea of a good time is curling up with a book and a cup of tea. Fortunately for me, she doesn’t mind if I go without her.”
“Oh, so you went alone?” I asked. “I always like to go with friends who, you know, love jazz as much as I do.”
Sexy Beast raised his little head to stare right into my eyes, and I could swear he was thinking, Are you proud of yourself, Jane? Lying to this nice man?
I tore my gaze away as Ty said, “Yeah, it was just me that night. Most of my friends refuse to stay out late on weeknights, the old fuddy-duddies, and I have no problem enjoying live music alone. Sometimes I even prefer it.”
The workmen exited the house, seated themselves at the table, and dug in to the sandwiches and lemonade. With a gentle hand on my back, Ty steered me far enough from the deck to keep our conversation private.
I said, “That was a quite a nasty surprise you got last Wednesday after the show.”
“Shelley left a voicemail and a text, telling me to call right away. She sounded rattled, and nothing ever gets to that woman, so I knew it had to be something serious. Still, when she told me about Stu, I could hardly believe it.” He paused. “On the other hand, a little part of me wasn’t surprised.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“You never met Stu Ruskin, did you, Jane?”
“No, and from what I’ve heard about him, I wasn’t missing much.”
“The man would do anything to get what he wanted,” Ty said. “Well, except work hard and treat people decently. I wish I could say it was just him, but that seems to have been the pattern with all the Ruskins, down through history.”
From what Shelley told me, the first Collingwood to set foot in the New World was no saint either. Oswald was a counterfeiter of lottery tickets, in addition to other crimes, not to mention lazy and self-aggrandizing. Yeah, I chopped off King Charles’s noggin. That was me. Guess you could say I had an ax to grind ha ha.
I refrained from mentioning it. Instead I said, “So when you say you weren’t surprised by the news, does that mean you think Stu was murdered? Like maybe he crossed the wrong person and his bad behavior finally caught up to him?”
“It’s possible,” Ty said. “If it was suicide, for whatever reason, then his choice of venue was calculated to make life as difficult as possible for me.”
“Or for Amy,” I said.
He looked at me. “You know about that?”
I nodded. “I also know you didn’t approve of their relationship.”
He gave a mirthless laugh. “Talk about an understatement. I didn’t know they were actually engaged. I only found out after Stu was dead. That was my second shock of the night. At least she had the sense to dump him.”
I said, “Then you also know Stu was involved with another woman at the same time he was seeing Amy.”
“Georgia Chen,” he said. “Damn fine pastry chef. She’s in there now, whipping up some muffins or something. Did you meet her?”
“We actually met a few days ago,” I said. “I like her.”
He glanced over his shoulder, ensuring we still had privacy. “A little excitable, maybe. Very different from my daughter. I’m surprised they hit it off. They don’t have much in common, after all.”
Well, except for a certain dastardly, dead ex-boyfriend.
I said, “What Stu did to Georgia and her ex-husband, Henry Noyer, is unconscionable.”
Ty shrugged. “He was a Ruskin.”
Same crime, different era.
“I know about Percival Ruskin stealing Sybille Collingwood’s punch recipe,” I said. “Shelley told me.”
“I’ve spent my whole life looking for that recipe. Not just in there.” He jerked his head toward the house. “I’ve contacted every relative I could find, scoured public and private libraries, the Crystal Harbor Historical Society, countless university archives, every Colonial cookbook I could dig up.” He heaved a frustrated sigh.
“That’s a lot of effort to go to,” I said, “for an old recipe.”
“It’s more than an old recipe, Jane, it’s a pivotal piece of the Collingwood legacy. Look what Percival Ruskin did to get ahold of it. He led the king’s men to Oswald Collingwood. They shot him right where that giant oak tree now stands.” He pointed to the humongous tree I’d admired earlier. “Sybille planted an acorn on the very spot where her husband was gunned down, and put a curse on anyone who cut it down.”
A deep shiver ripped through me as I stared at the distant tree. A few minutes earlier, I’d pictured children scrambling all over it, laughing, jumping off the lowest branches—as they’d no doubt done for generations. Now, all I saw was a threatening tangle of twisted limbs and menacing shadows.
“Once he’d gotten Oswald out of the way,” Ty said, “Percival wooed Sybille just long enough to steal the recipe for her popular punch—in case you thought Ruskin men using Collingwood women for their own greedy ends was something new.”
“Sybille got back at him, though,” I said. “Didn’t she poison him?”
“She sure did, and can you blame her? It’s fair to say that recipe ignited the centuries-old feud between the Collingwoods and the Ruskins. I’d hoped to lay my eyes on it before I die.” He sighed again. “At this point, I have to face the probability that it’s lost to history.”
Amy had mentioned her father’s heart condition. A sense of his own mortality no doubt played a part in his quest for that missing piece of the Collingwood legacy.
“Isn’t it possible,” I asked, “that the recipe was handed down in the Ruskin family? I mean, Percival went to all that trouble to steal it. Maybe his descendants safeguarded it and it’s still around, hidden somewhere.”
Ty was already shaking his head. “The Ruskins squandered everything they ever got their hands on. Real estate, money, you name it. No one in that family ever managed to hold on to anything.”
Except a grudge, I thought.