one

In that bygone era known as the twentieth century, newspapers hired battle-hardened journalists to write editorials that addressed the critical issues of the day. Cigar-smoking men with suspenders and slicked-back hair published scathing opinion pieces that railed against everything from child labor practices and political graft to Irish immigration and Prohibition.

The new millennium gave rise to the electronic revolution, where faltering print news was replaced by cyber news that can be delivered to a computer device faster than Wile E. Coyote can hit the ground after falling off a cliff. But even though the presses virtually stopped, opinions didn’t, so anyone with internet access was afforded an opportunity to editorialize on any topic that he or she was itching to talk, whine, or wax eloquent about.

These posts were first known as Weblogs, which was later shortened to the more diminutive “blog.” According to internet statistics, one hundred million bloggers now vie for our attention on a regular basis, voicing their opinions on subjects ranging from the authenticity of catfights on the Housewives TV franchise to the best fiction novels featuring a feline in a leading role. Imagine: one hundred million people clogging the telecommunications highway with a nonstop barrage of often inconsequential chitchat.

As a freak Atlantic storm turned the flower garden outside our B&B’s window into a pool of mud, I was playing host to six bloggers who’d joined the ranks of our regulars for a tour of southwest England that would include Cornwall, Lyme Regis, Bath, Stonehenge, Chawton, and London. It should have been seven bloggers, but I had received a text from my agency’s fill-in secretary that blogger number seven had been involved in a car accident on her way to the airport and would be spending her anticipated holiday in a Newark hospital with a broken pelvis.

Our bed-and-breakfast, dramatically dubbed the Stand and Deliver Inn, sat as isolated as a lost sheep atop a sweeping bluff on Cornwall’s north coast—a centuries-old working farm that had been converted into upscale lodgings for the tourist trade. The original farmhouse was a long, rambling one-story dwelling constructed of stone that was whitewashed to igloo brilliance. A half-acre of thatched roof covered the house’s many angles and ells, and planters bleeding with summer flowers hugged every window ledge. The interior, dripping with cozy charm and country florals, could have graced the cover of House Beautiful, its extensive floor space having been reconfigured into guest suites that bore names as colorful as Cornwall itself: Sixteen String Jack suite, Quick Nick suite, Galloping Dick suite, Blueskin Blake suite.

I’m Emily Andrew-Miceli. With my former Swiss police inspector husband, Etienne, I own and operate Destinations Travel out of Windsor City, Iowa—an agency that caters to intrepid seniors who’d rather be in Paris, taking selfies at the top of the Eiffel Tower, than at home, playing bridge at the senior center that my grandmother helped pay to refurbish. A core group of a dozen hometown regulars keeps our agency in the black. On occasion they even get along with each other in a relationship that I’ve come to think of as affectionate anarchy. As a bonus for myself, I join the group in an official capacity as chaperone/escort, though on many excursions I’ve also had to don another hat: reluctant sleuth.

One of the downsides of our international tours has been my discovery of an occasional dead body at some of the major sites we’ve visited. Unfortunately, most of the victims were members of our tour group, which hasn’t enhanced my reputation as an escort among my regulars, but I have high hopes that this trip will be different. And when I say different, I mean corpse-free.

Etienne often accompanies me abroad, but for this trip he’s making a side trip to Rome before he meets up with us in Lyme Regis on day six of the tour. Pulling a few strings among the elite in her order of Catholic nuns, his aunt on the Italian side of the family, Sister Mary Giovanna, arranged for all the Miceli men to attend a religious retreat at the Vatican, where they would be enlightened by words of wisdom from none other than Pope Francis himself. It didn’t matter that the retreat would interfere with Etienne’s travel plans. When Sister Giovanna told the men in the family they were going to do something, they fell in line without daring to voice a complaint.

I was sorry not to have him along on the first leg of our journey, but I could understand his decision not to bump heads with Giovanna. I’d been taught by nuns in school and understood the power wielded by one small woman who wore a crucifix the size of a bludgeon hanging from the belt of her religious habit.

The one thing that bothered me about Etienne’s retreat was that he wouldn’t be allowed to use any type of electronic device for the duration. No cell phone. No iPad. No laptop. Nothing that would interfere with his temporary spiritual immersion. So if I ran into a problem and needed his advice, I was on my own.

The walls of the Stand and Deliver Inn shook with a thunderous boom as a wave geysered above the two-hundred-foot cliff outside the inn and pounded down on the newly thatched roof, eliciting terrified gasps from the guests who were gawking out the bank of dining room windows.

“The roof’s caving in!” cried Helen Teig, tenting her hands above her head to deflect anticipated debris away from her eyebrows. She’d penciled them on with Joan Crawford perfection today, their symmetry a thing of beauty, so I understood why she was being a little overprotective. They hadn’t looked this good since her real ones had blown off in the exploding grill incident a couple of decades ago.

“That’s codswallop,” assured our proprietor as he shooed imaginary dust motes away from the pink-and-white striped dessert plates and matching mugs that he’d arranged on the massively long dining room table. He was a short, square, cuddly Brit named Enyon Gladwish who ran the inn with his partner, Lance, a world- class chef who’d been holed up in the kitchen since our arrival.

“This house has occupied the same spot, undisturbed, for three hundred years,” Enyon informed Helen. “What does that tell you?”

“That it’s a disaster waiting to happen,” Bernice Zwerg shot back. Bernice was a three-pack-a-day ex-smoker whose voice was only slightly less strident than the sound of steel wool being run through a meat grinder.

Enyon sucked in his breath and clapped a hand over his mouth to hide a giggle. “Shame on you for even thinking that,” he scolded Bernice. “This is what I love about you Yanks. Your senses of humor are so blinding.”

“Bernice’s sense of humor isn’t blinding,” corrected Dick Teig. “It’s nonexistent.”

“Moron,” sneered Bernice.

Another wave broke over the house with a roar like a thunderclap. Windows rattled. Flatware clattered. The floor rumbled beneath my feet, vibrating all the way to my back teeth. Guests reached out for handholds on the windowsills and each other. “Are all your coastal storms this violent?” I asked as a blast of sea spume and brine splattered the outside windows.

“Violent?” Enyon laughed. “This is nothing, luvvie. A mere shower. You should be here when El Niño factors into the mix.”

It’s moments like this that make me appreciate the fact that Iowa is landlocked.

“Do you mind my asking when we might be able to check in to our rooms?” asked Margi Swanson. Margi was a part-time nurse at the Windsor City Clinic and a full-time activist for instituting a law that would require dispensers of sanitizing gel to be placed inside every building in Iowa, including hog barns, chicken coops, and dog houses.

Enyon’s smile froze on his apple-cheeked face. “Did I mention that Lance will be out at any moment with tea, fresh scones, homemade strawberry preserves, and our famous clotted cream? You’ll feel much better about your miserably long ride from Heathrow today when you have something in your tummies.”

“So we can check in after we eat?” asked Margi.

Enyon bobbed his head, his voice suddenly cracking. “Uhhh…”

Dick Stolee swung his attention away from the scene outside the window to cast a look at him. At a lean six feet tall, Dick Stolee had been playing Mutt to Dick Teig’s roly-poly Jeff ever since their grade school days, when getting into mischief had been their main pursuit. Sadly, in the intervening years, the two friends had simply become older versions of the rascals they’d been in kindergarten—and in Dick Stolee’s case, significantly taller. “How come we can’t check in to our rooms now?”

“Because he’s afraid the roof’s gonna cave in,” said Bernice.

“I’m adopting a cautionary stance at the moment,” Enyon explained, his gaze drifting to the low ceiling with its exposed beams. “As I mentioned when you arrived, the new roof is untested in foul weather, so even though this squall is piffling by Cornish standards, should any problems arise, I’d rather have all our guests gathered in one place than scattered about the premises.”

“Right,” Bernice deadpanned. “It’ll be easier for the rescue squad to recover our crushed bodies if we’re all heaped in one place.”

The kitchen door swung open and a burly hulk of a man in a black chef’s jacket emerged rolling a three-tiered food trolley laden with porcelain teapots, trays of pastry, and bowls of what I suspected were the aforementioned jam and clotted cream.

Enyon hailed his appearance with loud clapping and a sigh of relief. “Afternoon tea is served. Don’t be shy, my pets. Eat up.” He flounced around the dining room, herding us toward the table before he ventured into the adjoining lounge to separate the bloggers from their laptops and earbuds. By the time Enyon had corralled everyone in one area, Lance had poured several mugs of tea and was busily placing fresh-baked scones onto dessert plates in assembly-line fashion.

I eyed Enyon’s partner surreptitiously as I plucked silverware off the table, noting that he was seriously intimidating with his shaved head, bulging beefcake muscles, hooked nose, dark eyes, and jagged scar slashed across his cheek. He might have been a chef, but he looked more like a villain in a Disney flick.

“Yo,” he boomed without preamble. “This is the dwill for the clotted cweam and jam. Jam first, then cweam. In Devon they do cweam first. But we’re not in Devon, so youse do it like I tell youse. Understand?”

The lisp was unexpected, but not half as unexpected as the New Jersey accent.

“I’m only saying this once, so listen up.” He’d divided the dessert plates into four groups, and as he spoke he gestured toward each group. “Moving fwom left to wight, we got youse scones with dwied cherwies…with dwied cwanberwies…with bittersweet chocolate…and with gwated citwus zest. Cwispy on the outside, flaky on the inside. Any questions?”

We gulped quietly as we lent him our undivided attention.

“Good. I hate answering questions. Especially iwwitating questions.” He ranged a look around the table with his feral eyes. “Amerwican tourwists always ask iwwitating questions. So whaddda youse waiting for? Eat!”

I stepped back as the group snatched whatever plate was in front of them, slopped clotted cream and jam onto their dishes, grabbed mugs and silverware, and raced into the safety of the lounge. “Don’t spill nothin’! We just had the upholstery cleaned!”

“Don’t let him frighten you,” Enyon begged the fleeing masses. “He’s just an overgrown pussycat. All mouth and no trousers.”

Right. A pussycat who looked as if he’d rip your lungs out through your nostrils if you gave him any lip.

As I waited my turn, I glanced around the dining room, taking note of the spit-polished hardwood floor, the gleaming shine on the spindle-legged sideboard, the floral bouquets sprouting from porcelain vases, the lacy antique picture frames on the wall. A grouping of three hung above the sideboard, and from what I could see, one showed Enyon and Lance toasting each other in front of a wedding cake; one showed a school-age Enyon in a Little Lord Fauntleroy outfit with a man and woman who were probably his parents; and the last one showed a matriarchal-looking woman surrounded by people who bore a strong resemblance to Lance—beefy, bald-headed types with sneers for smiles and names, I suspected, like Frankie Two Fingers and Sammy the Snitch.

“Honestly, Lance,” I heard Enyon chide under his breath. “This is not your best effort. You can be such a knob.”

I froze as Lance riveted his gaze on me. “Youse got a pwoblem?” he growled when he caught me staring.

I flashed my most dazzling smile. “You’re not from around here, are you?”

“Who wants to know?”

Enyon thwacked him in the chest. “I’m so surprised you can detect his accent, Mrs. Miceli. We’ve worked so hard to soften his vowels and tone down his consonants.”

“Ya,” Lance agreed. “Eny said my accent was pwactically gone.” His heavy brows collided in a V over his nose as he stared down at his companion. “Was youse lyin’ to me?”

Enyon rolled his eyes. “Oh, do stop letting your drama queen tendencies rule your life. Lance hails from Jersey City, Mrs. Miceli, and in case you’re wondering, we met at cooking school.”

“The Fwench Culinawy Institute. The goombas who run the place changed the name, but that’s what it was called when we was there.”

“So you’re a chef too?” I asked Enyon.

Lance snorted. “I’m the chef.” He thumped his fist against his chest, gorilla-like. “Eny decided he’d pwefer to awwange flowers and decowate wooms.”

Margi crept toward us with her dish extended like a collection plate. “May I have more jam, please…and clotted cream?”

Lance stared at her half-eaten scone. “what have youse done?” Storming toward her, he snatched the plate from her hand. “Sacwilege! This is going wight into the wubbish.”

Margi swallowed slowly, her eyes growing round and terrified. “But—”

“Jam first, then cweam,” he bellowed. “Can’t youse follow instwuctions? Look at my scone. You’ve wecked it!”

Enyon hurried to Margi’s side and wrapped an arm around her shoulders to offer support. “There, there. You’ll be happy to know that we allow do-overs at the Stand and Deliver Inn.” He exchanged an irritated look with Lance. “Don’t we, Lance?”

“No!” Lance’s nostrils flared like oversized tailpipes as he glanced toward the lounge that opened directly onto the dining room in open-concept style. “The west of them are eating it wong, too, aren’t they? That’s it. Game over. I’m not making any more scones if youse goombas are gonna eat them all wong.”

“He doesn’t mean that,” countered Enyon in an apologetic tone.

“Yes I do,” snarled Lance as he stormed into the lounge. He snatched Osmond Chelsvig’s unprotected plate off his lap, then bare-handed the remains of Alice Tjarks’s scone onto Osmond’s plate.

“But…but I wasn’t finished eating that yet,” complained ninety- something-year-old Osmond.

“Yes youse were,” announced Lance as he put a bead on George Farkas, who, as Lance approached, shoved the remaining portion of his pastry into his mouth and smiled defiantly, his cheeks bulging like overinflated balloons.

“You’ll be sorwy youse did that,” warned Lance, poking an angry finger at George’s nose.

Without warning, George began spewing pastry flakes like Sylvester spewing Tweetie bird feathers. His face turned slightly purple.

“Is George still breathing?” I called out in alarm. “Somebody pound him on the back. Right now!”

“Enough, Lance!” Enyon clapped his hands to restore order. “Private meeting in the kitchen straightaway.”

Lance swooped Lucille Rasmussen’s scone off her plate and onto his growing stack, then strode toward Bernice, who raised her fork as if it were a Bowie knife. “Back off, cupcake,” she threatened, “unless you’d like to participate in my free body-piercing clinic.”

“Lance!” Enyon persisted.

“All wight!” he roared before stalking back toward the dining room and catching his toe on a scatter rug that sent him skating wildly off-balance. “I told youse to get wid of these damn wugs,” he shouted when he’d righted himself.

“And I told you to pick up your feet. You have no qualms about lifting your silly barbells. Why is lifting your feet such a problem?”

“The wugs are a nuisance.”

“The rugs are the decorative accent that tie the entire color scheme together. Carry on, my pets,” Enyon called back to us as he pushed Lance into the kitchen. “We shan’t be long.”

The door closed.

The shouting began.

I shot a nervous glance at Margi; she shot a nervous glance back. With a nod from me we tiptoed into the lounge as the shouting in the kitchen increased in volume. “I got ear plugs,” offered my grandmother, whose name was Marion Sippel. “But they might not do no good in this situation. What them two fellas need is good soundproofin’ material.”

Despite Nana’s eighth-grade education and regular use of split infinitives and double negatives, she was the smartest and most resourceful person I knew. Not to mention the richest, thanks to a winning lottery ticket. She and George Farkas has been sweet on each other for years but they’d yet to do anything about it, not because they were skeptical about the longevity of a mixed-faith marriage, but because if the announcement appeared in the newspaper, my mom would probably find out.

Nana and Mom had a kind of complicated relationship.

I winced as a volley of colorful epithets floated out from the kitchen, punctuated by the sound of dishware crashing to the floor.

Tilly Hovick raised her walking stick. “According to our itinerary, we’re due to eat dinner here tonight. Is that correct?” Tilly was a retired Iowa State anthropology professor whose IQ was probably higher than the combined ages of all our tour guests.

“Yup,” I said with more confidence than I felt. “Dinner here tonight.”

Another item of dishware crashed and shattered.

“Save your plates, everyone,” wisecracked Dick Stolee. “At the rate the china is shattering, we might need ’em later.”

“So is this a bed-and-breakfast or an inn?” asked Tilly. “A B&B doesn’t normally serve dinner, does it?”

I forced a tentative smile. “I think it’s a hybrid. A bed-and-breakfast that also includes dinner. So, would this be a good time to conduct our meet and greet?”

“We’re missin’ some folks,” Nana spoke up.

Which reminded me. “By the way, I haven’t had a chance to mention this yet, but I received word from the office a short time ago that Marianne Malec, our garden blogger, won’t be joining us at all. She was involved in an auto accident on the way to Newark Airport and broke her pelvis.”

“Smart,” said Bernice. “She probably looked up the guest reviews on this place and decided a holiday in a Newark city hospital ward would be more relaxing.” She cringed as another dish shattered. “Wish I’d thought of it.”

“I couldn’t find any reviews online,” puzzled Grace Stolee. “I thought that was a little odd, but I figured Emily and Etienne knew what they were doing. I’m sure I searched the right name.”

“I didn’t find any reviews either,” I admitted, “but their website stood head and shoulders above the rest. There’s a music video of the surf crashing against the rocks at the bottom of the cliff. And photos of the newly refurbished suites. And sample breakfast and dinner menus. And a detailed map. Plus, they have the best location of any bed-and-breakfast in the area. They’re centrally located to all the good attractions.”

“And they have their very own food nazi,” sniped Bernice. “Lucky us.”

I inhaled a deep breath. “We’ve probably just caught the guys on a bad day.”

The antique picture frames on the dining room wall tilted precariously as another round of dishes exploded against the shared kitchen wall. A nervous hush fell over the room.

“I’m thinkin’ paper plates might be on tap for supper,” warned Nana.

“Show of hands,” announced Osmond, Windsor City’s longest serving election official and self-appointed opinion pollster. “How many people think we’ll be—”

“Is every person in this room deaf?” cried a latecomer who dashed breathlessly into our midst. “I’ve spent the last ten minutes pounding on the powder room door for someone to let me out.” The woman threw her hand toward the interior corridor that housed the Stand and Deliver office, the public loo, and the guest suites. “The door must have swelled because it was stuck tight. Do you have any idea of the trauma a mildly claustrophobic person can suffer from being trapped in a two-piece washroom the size of a gym locker?”

She was stunningly gorgeous, with a flawless complexion, glossy hair, and hourglass figure. Tall as an NBA point guard but infinitely more stylish, she was clothed in black from her sunglasses to her off-the-shoulder tunic to her leggings to her designer boots. Black was the color theme she had chosen for the tour because, sadly, she was in mourning.

Her married name was Jackie Thum and she was a frequent guest on our trips, but in the years before her life-altering gender reassignment surgery and elopement with a high-end hair stylist, she’d been an off-Broadway stage actor named Jack Potter—and I’d been married to him.