Murder to Go (The Heights Bed and Breakfast Cozy Mystery Series Book 1) (3 page)

She
crossed the room to the suitcases and poked through the contents.

“Well,
well, well,” Carolyn exclaimed giving her daughter a knowing smile. “Porky was
definitely not here on business.”

Sarah
looked around. “What did you find?”

“This
is Porky’s toiletries bag,” Carolyn replied. “There’s a wedding band in the
front pocket. It looks like our friend Porky was hiding the fact that he was
married. I wonder if his wife knew about his weekend companion?”

“She
could be a suspect in his murder,” Sarah remarked.

“I’ll
have to tell that Gillespie about this,” Carolyn decided. “Anything to draw
suspicion away from your father.”

Sarah
glanced down the hall and opened the door wider. “Let’s get out of here. Being
in their room gives me the creeps.”

Carolyn
joined her in the hall. “You should pack up their stuff and store it down in
the front office. If the cops want to look through Porky and Monica’s personal
affects, they can do it somewhere else. You shouldn’t leave the room standing
vacant any longer than you have to.”

Sarah
glanced over her shoulder at the room. “I don’t think I could sell the room to
anybody now. Two dead people stayed in there.”

“They
weren’t dead when they stayed in the room,” Carolyn countered. “By the way, did
they both pay up front for their stay?”

“Mother.”
Sarah gasped.

Carolyn
followed her daughter downstairs, away from the room. “What will you do about
dinner tonight? Your father won’t be back in time to cook it.”

David
stepped forward. “I’ll take over. It’s my chance to step into the kitchen and
do things my own way.”

Carolyn
examined him. “You cook? I didn’t know that.”

“Before
you and Karl arrived I cooked all the meals,” David returned. “You might be
impressed by what I can come up with.”

“I
hope so,” Carolyn replied.

Her
phone vibrated in her pocket.

“I
have to go pickup your father from the police station,” she told Sarah. “I’ll be
back in a little while.”

“Good,”
Sarah remarked. “He’ll be back in time for dinner.”

“I
will have everything ready for you two when you get back,” David called out to
Carolyn as he rushed into the kitchen.

“Are
you sure we shouldn’t order a pizza?” Carolyn asked. Sarah smirked and shook
her head as she pushed open the door to the kitchen.

Carolyn
glanced over at Karl who hadn’t said a word since they left the police station.

“How
are you doing?”

Karl
stared out the window and didn’t answer. Carolyn sighed and turned onto Lake Street
heading back to The Heights.

“David
is going to have dinner ready when we get back.”

Karl muttered
to himself and crossed his arms over his chest.

Carolyn
patted him on the knee. “Don’t worry, darling. I’m working to figure out who
killed Porky. Then we can go on with our lives like this never happened.”

Karl
didn’t look at her. “I don’t want you getting involved. You keep out of the
investigation.”

Carolyn’s
eyes flew open. “What’s the matter? I thought you would want all the help you
could get. You don’t want a murder charge hanging over your head. I understand
you’re upset, but you don’t have to take it out on me.”

Karl
smacked his lips. “How could this happen to me? I used to be a respected member
of this community. I owned a restaurant in this town for decades. I had home
here. I could walk down the streets of Evergreen Cove and hold my head high. No
one could fault me for anything.”

“That’s
true,” Carolyn agreed.

“But look
at me now,” Karl spat. “I have to go around with my hat in my hand and beg my
struggling daughter to keep a roof over my head. If I hadn’t put our home up as
collateral to expand the restaurant, none of this would have happened.”

Carolyn
shook her head. “You can’t blame yourself for the restaurant failing. No one
could have foreseen that tourism would slow down. That was going to be a lean
year for the restaurant either way. You know, I was excited you were trying to
make a better life for us.”

“Better
life?” he shot back. “You trusted me and I let you down. Now I’m a suspect in a
murder case. I had no idea what was going on when the detectives asked me about
Paul Tenboom. Then I realized they were asking me about Porky. I hadn’t thought
about him in years.
 
He gave my
restaurant a rotten review, but he did that to everyone. After he wrote that
review of my restaurant, I would have loved to see his obituary in the paper,
but that was such a long time ago.”

“I
know,” Carolyn replied. “Back then, I would have posted a link to his obit on
my blog.”

Karl
snickered.

Carolyn
pulled into The Heights parking lot. She and Karl got out of the car, and Karl
started toward the B & B. Carolyn hurried up to him, took him by the hand,
and held him back. “Wait a minute. Talk to me for a minute before you go inside.”

Karl
frowned. “What do you want to talk about?”

Carolyn
drew closer to him. “I just want to spend a moment with you before we dive back
into the fray.” She gave him a quick peck on the cheek. “I missed you last
night.”

Karl
looked away. “We seem to be spending a lot of time apart these days.”

“I
wish we could spend more time together,” Carolyn remarked. “You work the same
amount here at The Heights that you used to work at the restaurant and my blog
has been taking off.”

“When
the restaurant was open,” Karl murmured. “We would at least be together. You
were waiting on tables and I was in the kitchen cooking. We saw each other
every day and night. We talked to each other all the time. We don’t do that
anymore.”

“Yes,
I remember,” Carolyn recalled.
“I think you are romanticizing
our time at the restaurant. You would shout at me about dishes that were cooling
on the pass. I would yell at you when you wouldn’t tell me specials that were
86’d. It wasn’t quality time. We didn't get to spend any time, just the two of
us alone, enjoying each other's company.”

Karl
gazed across the parking lot at the B & B. “Maybe we shouldn’t be staying
here. Maybe we should go somewhere else.”

“Where
would we go?” Carolyn asked. “They have space for us here.”

“I
don’t want to depend on anyone,” Karl replied. “But I don’t have a choice. I
can’t support you. We have to take advantage of our daughter and son-in-law's hospitality.”

“How
many meals did we serve David in the restaurant while he was dating Sarah in
college? I think Sarah stills blames you for putting all that weight on him.” Carolyn
quipped, “We’re family. I don’t want to leave. I like staying here with Sarah.
I thought you felt the same way.”

“It
doesn’t matter how I feel about it,” Karl returned. “We’re stuck here whether
we want to or not.”

Without
waiting for her to reply, Karl headed into the B & B. As soon as he got
inside, he started toward the kitchen. “I better get dinner started.”

“David’s
cooking dinner tonight,” Carolyn told him.

“Right,”
Karl murmured. He got as far as the service window before David ran out of the
kitchen with an apron tied around his waist. “I’m making dinner tonight, Karl.
You’re taking the night off.”

Karl
puffed himself up. “Let me take care of dinner. It will only take me a few
minutes to get started.”

David
waved his hand. “I’m cooking dinner tonight. Go to the apartment and relax,”
David suggested. “You’re a suspect in a murder case, and the guests are
uncomfortable with the idea of you making them food, no matter how good it is.”

Sarah
approached from the reception desk. “Don’t worry, David. The guests are just
over-reacting,” Sarah insisted. “Dad, you can get back in the kitchen tomorrow.
The guests will forget everything when they smell you cooking breakfast.”

David
shook his head.

“Your
dad is not going back into the kitchen,” David protested. “I think it is time
for your parents to find somewhere else to stay. If I had put my foot down
before we faced these allegations, we wouldn’t be in this position. Your
parents have been a drain on The Heights for months.”

Carolyn
couldn’t hold her tongue any longer. “We have not been a drain on the B & B
and we never have been. I’ll have you know, David, my blog has been very
profitable. I’ve been contributing to The Heights ever since we moved in here.”

“You’re
lying,” David glared at her.

“You
can ask my daughter if you don’t believe me,” Carolyn demanded.

David
turned to Sarah.

She
dropped her eyes and fiddled with her fingers.

“How
long have you been doing this?” Karl bellowed. “I have been staying up at
nights worrying about paying back David and now you’re telling me you have been
doing it the whole time. This is humiliating.”

Carolyn
faced her husband. “I kept it secret from you because
I
knew how you would react. It’s bad enough we had to ask our daughter to take us
in, but
I knew you would be outraged if you knew
your wife was taking care of things.”

“I’ve
always done my part around here,” Karl shot back. “I’ve worked in the kitchen
from morning ‘til night since the very first day we moved in.”

“I
thought it was great that you were back in the kitchen. It was helping them out
and you seemed happier,” Carolyn told him. “But we cost the B & B more than
you save them in the kitchen. I couldn’t let our stay drain their finances. They
have a hard enough time making the business work. I covered all the costs of us
being here but I didn’t see any harm in keeping it from you. I told Sarah not
to tell David. I didn’t know how much David resented us being here. Maybe I
should have been honest with everyone from the start.”

Karl
puffed out his cheeks and waved his arms around, but words failed him.

David
smacked his lips. “Why did you keep it a secret? Why did you let me make such
an idiot out of myself?”

Carolyn
cast a sidelong glance at her husband. “I make a lot more money with my blog
than Karl ever did with our restaurant. That restaurant was his pride and joy,
but we never made much profit. If you want us to leave, I have enough money
saved up to rent a place in town.”

Sarah
gasped. “You don’t need to stay here? I didn’t know you had enough money to do
that.”

“It’s
a bit too late now, don’t you think,” David chimed in. “That would have been
helpful before your husband murdered two guests.”

“I
know you never really liked me, David. I’m grateful that you agreed to let us
stay when we had nowhere to go. If you really want us to leave, we will.”
Carolyn placed
her hand on her daughter’s
shoulder. “I didn’t want to leave. I really love living with you, this is the
closest we’ve been since you were young. I don’t want to lose that now.”

“I’ve
had enough of this, I need to start dinner,” David grumbled.

Carolyn
nodded. “David, I wanted to get to know you, too. I thought by living together
we would grow closer.”

Karl
growled. “Thanks for making me look like a fool in front of the kids. I guess
I’m just a bumbling, useless chef you need to take care of.”

Just
then, a loud knock came from the front door. Sarah opened it to find Detective
Gillespie waiting outside.

Babs
Gillespie sauntered in.

“What
do you want?” Karl snapped.

Babs frowned
at Karl as she announced. “I’m sorry, Karl, but I’m here to arrest you for the
murder of Paul Tenboom and Monica Rorschach.”

“What?”
Carolyn cried. “What proof do you have?”

Babs approached
Karl. “We found your response to Porky’s review of your restaurant. You wrote
back to him in the comments. You wrote you would kill him if you saw him in
your restaurant again. You must have been very upset when you saw him the past
couple of days eating your food at The Heights.”

“I didn’t
really mean I would kill him. I just didn’t want him to come back to my
restaurant,” Karl exclaimed.

Babs
reached into her side pocket and drew out a folded paper. After unfolding it, she
announced to the family. “This is the actual comment, ‘
I will kill you if I see you in my restaurant again. I will force you to
eat your words.’
That’s what you wrote, right?”

“I
wrote it,” Karl admitted. “I was really upset but I never intended to do
anything to him. I just wanted to let him know who he was hurting with his
reviews.”

“And
that was years ago,” Carolyn reminded the detective.

Babs
folded the paper and tucked it back into her pocket. “It shows he had a motive,
and he intended to seek revenge, and you definitely made him eat his words.”

“There
must be thousands of threats like that in the comments on Porky’s blog,”
Carolyn countered.