Four

The family quarters were essentially two thousand square feet of private living space in the wing of the inn opposite the guest rooms. The bedrooms were upstairs, and the kitchen, dining room, sunroom, and Dad’s office were on the first floor. I walked down the back hall toward its front door, wondering where everyone was, when all of a sudden Mom popped into the hallway in front of me. She had come flitting out of the kitchen bearing a tray of fluted stemware and a pitcher of mimosas. She apparently hadn’t seen me coming from the hotel side, and turned in the direction of the sunroom, oblivious.

Either my mom had hit rock bottom and was planning on doing a little drinking, or she was hosting a brunch, which was odd, I thought, under the current circumstances. I hoped, for the sake of my poor father, it was the former and not the latter. “Mom!” I called out to her retreating back. At the sound of my voice she froze.

After a moment, the unflappable Jani Bloom swung her blonde braids in my direction. Her round blue eyes lit up with joy. “Whitney, darling! You’re here! Oh, and I just love what you’ve done with your hair!”

It was the kind of greeting I’d expect if we’d just met for coffee, not one for the current occasion. I hadn’t seen Mom in over six months. I hadn’t been home in nearly eighteen. I had just driven five hours because I was told there’d been a murder at the orchard and that Dad was suspect number one. Apparently, none of that seemed to matter. Mom was ogling my hair as if it were spray-painted gold and dripping with jewels.

“That cut’s so darling on you, so sassy and modern! It frames your beautiful face, highlights your big blue eyes, and is the perfect cut for those shiny blonde locks. I just love it!”

I’m not gonna lie. I was kind of in love with my sleek new face-framing bob as well. I thought it made me look older, more sophisticated—like an aspiring business woman should look. Not sassy.

Mom tilted her head to one side, smiled, and thrust out her tray. “Mimosa?”

Heavens, it was tempting. But what the devil was she thinking!? And who makes a pitcher of mimosas the morning after their husband has been accused of murder? I wasn’t entirely certain what was going on, but whatever it was, did it really require a tray of mimosas? Either I’d been away too long this time or Mom was losing it. Likely it was a little of both.

“Ah, no thanks, Mom. Where’s Dad?”

“Dad?”

“You know, my father? The man who, apparently, murdered Jeb Carlson last night? Do you remember our conversation, Mom? At all?”

Her blue eyes widened, then rolled sideways in the direction of the sunroom. Her cheeks flushed bright red. “Hush, darling,” she said. “Not so loud. Of course there’s been a murder, a terrible one, but we’ve all decided it’s for the best if we keep it quiet—just for the weekend, you know.”

“What?” I cried. “Mom, you can’t just brush something like murder under the carpet! We’re talking about Jeb Carlson here! He’s not just anybody, Mom. He’s family!” I was heaving with indignation as I spoke.

“Of course it’s not okay!” she replied quickly. “And I know how this looks. I’m sick to death just thinking about it. But what’s done is done. There’s no use frightening the guests in the meantime.”

I stared at her, and then my eyes fell to the tray of mimosas, the fluted crystal gently tinkling under her shaking hands.

“Dang it!” I breathed, and took the tray from her before she dropped it. “I’m sorry, Mom. I know how much this weekend means to you and Dad, just as I know how much Jeb means to this place.”

“We don’t want to do it,” Mom said, looking ill. “We all want to mourn him, as he should be mourned, but we have our guests to think about. They paid a pretty penny to be here, and the festival must go on.” She spoke bravely, but I could see through the façade. Her chin quivered and her eyes glistened with unshed tears. She then took a fluted glass off the tray I was holding and poured herself a mimosa. She gulped it down like water and continued reflectively. “It’s just a shame that nice young couple staying in the Swan Suite, Ryan and Jillian McSweeny, had to stumble upon Jeb’s body last night. You see,” she said, staring at me, “the McSweenys snuck into the orchard for a little nookie-nookie under the blossoms and found poor Jeb instead, a big dent in his head and dead as a doornail.” She hiccupped at the thought, stifling a flow of tears. “Imagine their shock at finding him like that.”

She paused for a moment, pressing her knuckles to her lips to keep them from quivering. Her hand came away. “If they’d come straight to the front desk, we might have been able to contain the murder a little longer. But they didn’t. They ran straight to the lounge, and you know how fast bad news spreads in a lounge. If they hadn’t gone into the orchard last night,” she continued, “Jeb’s body might not have been found until later today.” A slight shiver took her at the thought, but I really didn’t see how that development could have made such a tragedy any better. “At least if we’d been the ones who found him, we could have done something about that mallet.”

“Mallet? What mallet, Mom? You didn’t say anything about a mallet last night.”

She looked at me, frowned, and whispered, “Your father’s croquet mallet, dear. The gold-plated one Dr. Engle gave him on his fiftieth birthday.”

It was then that her words hit me with force. “Holy cobbler!” I exclaimed. “Tell me that Dad’s mallet wasn’t the murder weapon.”

“I … I can’t do that, dear. Oh, how I wish I could, but I can’t. I can’t because it was lying beside the body when they found him.”

“And … and so they think it is the murder weapon?”

“It appears so,” she replied, and bit her lip.

I could feel all the blood drain from my face. “But … but surely that doesn’t mean Dad killed him, right? It just means somebody took his mallet. Who could have taken his croquet mallet?”

Mom looked stunned, like a deer in headlights. “Well, that’s just the thing. Your father loves that mallet. He was using it before dinner, and he claimed he left it locked in his office after that. It didn’t help matters any that he was seen arguing with Jeb a couple of hours before he was murdered. Oh dear, it doesn’t look good. Not at all.” Her lip began to quiver again. The reality of Jeb’s death was finally breaking through her stoic Midwestern sensibilities.

“And whose idea was it to sweep this calamity under the table?” I asked.

“Well, I suppose Officer MacLaren is responsible for that. He wants all the guests to remain here while he looks into the matter—at least until tomorrow.”

“Officer MacLaren?” The name sounded vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place it. “Who the heck is he?”

“Excuse me.” At that very moment a soft, vaguely familiar voice came from the hallway somewhere behind Mom. “Perhaps I can clear that up for you, Whit-less?”

There was only one man on Earth who would have the nerve to call me Whit-less, even in such a teasing manner. Still holding the tray, I pushed past Mom, only to come face-to-face with a tall, trim, incredibly handsome ginger-haired police officer.

“Holy cobbler!” I breathed, staring unbelievingly into the face of my old friend and academic rival Jack MacLaren. Time, and the better part of a decade, had done wonders for him. He used to be a gangly, geeky, know-it-all boy and the top student in our school. I stood before him, marveling. “Either somebody’s actually gone and made you a cop, or you like dressing up as one.”

Jack took a glass off my tray, grinned knowingly, and poured himself a mimosa. He then allowed his honey-colored eyes to scan my body from head to toe. Amazement blazed, then gave way to a simmer of appreciation. I was pleased, purely from the shock of his reaction.

“Does it give you any satisfaction to learn that the uniform’s real?” He raised an eyebrow, took a healthy swig of mimosa, and added, “Blame the folks down in Milwaukee if you like.”

“Clearly, they have a sense of humor.”

Lowering his voice, he replied, “Unlike the ad people in Chicago.” He winked. Nothing could have humiliated me more.

“You … saw my ad?” It was a stupid question. I regretted it the moment the words left my mouth.

“I did. Several times, in fact. I saw it watching the game. I saw it again the next morning, although not as an ad per say, and it popped up again during a video game I was playing. For the record, I thought it was very convincing.”

Great. Was there any person on earth who hadn’t seen that ad ? Apparently not, and the fact that Mom’s smile was beyond disingenuous was even more upsetting.

“However,” Jack continued, grabbing my undivided attention once again, “you’ll be happy to know that once the folks in Milwaukee realized their mistake, I moved up here. I’m Cherry Cove’s only man in uniform. Actually,” he said, pretending to think, “I’m the only cop stationed on the entire peninsula. But don’t worry. I have backup. My boss resides in the police station down in Sturgeon Bay. Good thing I’m here, though. Right? Because there’s been a murder.”

Hearing the word again caused an electric bolt of dread to shoot down my spine. And the thought of Jack MacLaren as head cop on Dad’s case sent the tray in my hands shaking like a paint mixer. Jack took it from me, a look of concern crossing his compelling adult features.

“Don’t worry,” he said, “I worked as a detective in Milwaukee. This isn’t my first rodeo.” The wink he tacked on to the end of this statement was as disconcerting as his grin.

Thankfully I didn’t have long to contemplate it, because just then my father’s booming voice rang out from the vicinity of the sunroom.

“Jani, for God’s sake,” he cried, “where’d ya get off to with those drinks? Young MacLaren’s chomping at the bit to get on with it!”

“Dad?” I strained to see around the tall, alarmingly fit detective.

My dad, Baxter Bloom, a trim, successful, smartly dressed man in his late fifties, came bursting into the hallway. At the sight of me his feet faltered, his light gray eyes bulged, and his face turned the color of his sleek, silver-white hair. “Whitney?” he uttered, as if I’d just been resurrected from the dead. Apparently Mom, who’d never been known to keep a secret in her life, had failed to mention that I was coming home.

“Dad!” I ran forward to give him a long overdue hug. “Oh, Daddy! I was so scared when I heard they believed you’d murdered Jeb.”

But here Dad stopped and cast Mom an accusatory look. “You told her, Jani? And after I told you not to?”

At least Mom had the courtesy to blush. “She has to know, Baggsie. You can’t hide something like murder from your daughter.”

“Oh, fer cripes sake! How many times do I have to tell you people? I didn’t murder anyone!”

“I know, Daddy. I believe you. And I’m here because I’m going to find out who did.”