“Let's go with 'just felt like it'. It's more romantic.”

  “Speaking of romantic, maybe I should stay with you tonight. Just to keep you safe, of course.”

  “Thanks, but I just want to escape from this ridiculous costume and take a shower.”

  “I'll be happy to help you with both of those things,” Nick said. “Or you could just move into the lighthouse with me. I don't like the thought of your being alone.”

  Just then there was a loud chorus of “Auk! Auk! Auk!” coming from the swimming pool. “I'm never alone around here,” I said, and gave Nick another kiss.

  “What was that for?”

  “Maybe I just felt like it, too.”

  I watched until his lights disappeared into the night and then headed to the RV. The bonsai tree was sitting on the steps.

  “Looks like you had a late night, too,” I said, picking it up and carrying it inside with me. “I hope you had as much fun as I did.”

  Chapter Seven

  It was 8:30 the next morning when my alarm rang. I was mulling the idea of ignoring it until I remembered that this was the last day of the Archie Gras Festival and there would be a lot to do at the bed and breakfast. Duty called, so I got dressed, picked up the roaming bonsai tree and headed over to the kitchen. Aunt Sam and Dodie were sitting at the kitchen table, and Aunt Sam was looking particularly dejected. I sat the bonsai tree on the counter and grabbed a cup of coffee before I sat down.

  “What's up?” I asked. “Did something happen this morning?”

  “I've just got word that the airport up in Kansas has re-opened and the Head Auk and his family are flying down,” Aunt Sam said. “If they make their connecting flight, they'll arrive in time to join the rest of the Auks in the Archie Gras Parade late this afternoon.”

  “Maybe we'll get lucky and the connecting flight will get snowed in too.”

  “Their connecting flight is in Georgia.”

  “Oh.”

  “What are you going to do about it?” Dodie asked. “The unspeakable Doyletts are still in those rooms.”

  “True, but that's the least of my worries,” Aunt Sam said. “Today is the last day of Archie Gras and if we don't find Herb's murderer by the end of the day, Lois is going to arrest Bertie for it. So far we're no closer to figuring out who did it than when we started.”

  “Why don't we just put their names in a hat, pull one out and go with it?” I said. “I think they all deserve to be locked up.”

  Aunt Sam smiled in spite of herself and said, “I just wish it could be that easy.”

  “None of the Doyletts could be described as criminal masterminds. Can you picture any one of them being capable of pulling off the perfect murder? There has to be some clue as to who did it,” I said.

  “It's hard to solve the 'who' when we haven't even figure out the 'how'. Whoever poisoned Herb had to have done it in plain sight in a room full of people, and yet none of us noticed anything suspicious. How could that be possible?”

  “Could it have been done in the kitchen?” I asked. “Fern was in there and she could have put something into the food.”

  “There was no poison in my food!” Dodie said.

  “Yes, but if Fern spiked the food it would have affected everyone, not just Herb,” Aunt Sam said. “It's just doesn't seem possible.”

  “Well, if it wasn't in the food, it had to be in the drinks,” I said.

  “There was no poison in my punch either!” Dodie said. “Everyone drank it and they were just fine!”

  “But drinks were poured from the bar, too,” I said. “In fact, Augie insisted on making the drinks because he was afraid of 'cross contamination' or something.”

  “But if Augie poisoned Herb's drink at the bar, everyone would have seen him do it,” Aunt Sam said. “Somehow the murderer-”

  Just then Augie burst into the kitchen. “I heard you talking about me!” he shouted. “You're plotting to kill me next! Don't try to deny it; your clown agents have been stalking me all around the property!”

  Before any of us could respond to Augie's bizarre tirade, Clint and Tilly Owens walked in with their clown costumes and makeup on.

  “There they are!” Augie cried. “You won't get me! I won't be the next Doylett to die!” He dove between our chairs and scrambled under the kitchen table.

  “Calm down and come out from there,” Aunt Sam said. “This is Clint and Tilly Owens. They're guests at the B&B.”

  “Yep, that's us, Clint n' Tilly! Haw haw!” Clint laughed, but it wasn't Clint's voice.

  “Brody, is that you?” I asked.

  “You betcha! Had ya fooled, huh?” Brody chortled.

  “Landsakes!” Dodie exclaimed. “I can't believe it! You look just like Clint did in that costume!”

  “That's what we're hoping for,” Tilly said. “Clint's ankle is still swollen, and since it was Brody's fault that he was injured and can't do our act at the festival-”

  “I believe we determined that it was a freak accident for which no one was to blame,” Brody said, “but in the interest of the good customer service that Brody Hicks is famous for, I agreed to help. So I got in Clint's gear, and we're pulling the old switcheroo! No one will be the wiser!”

  “Well, you sure fooled me!” Dodie said. “Let me take a selfie with you 'fore you go. My cousins ain't never gonna believe me if I just tell them about it.”

  Dodie handed me her phone and said, “Will you take the picture? I want to make sure to get the full costume in the photo. We can use these on our Christmas cards this year!””

  “Of course,” I replied and snapped a couple of shots.

  “Make sure you send me one,” Tilly said as she and Brody left the kitchen. “Now we'd better get going. See you all at the parade!”

  “Sure thing,” I called after them. “Break a leg! Er, I mean, good luck.”

  “Wasn't that something?” Dodie said. “Brody in a clown suit. Who woulda' thought?”

  I was about to reply, when I noticed that Aunt Sam had a faraway look in her eyes. “The old switcheroo,” she said. “Of course! So simple and yet so clever. It was right in front of everyone and I never gave it a second thought.”

  Dodie and I looked at each other and she shrugged.

  Aunt Sam stooped down to look under the table and said to Augie, “When you were serving drinks at dinner and Rory came up to you, he had a monkey glass, didn't he?”

  Augie thought for a moment and replied, “I guess so, but I wasn't really paying attention.”

  “Of course not,” Aunt Sam replied, “and that's exactly what he was counting on. But later, when Fern accused Rory of drinking and he held up his glass to show her that it contained apple juice, he was holding a pineapple glass. So why didn't he have a monkey glass?”

  “I don't know,” I said, feeling more confused than ever. “Why?”

  “Because the monkey glass wasn't Rory's glass, it was Herb's glass. Rory must have stolen Augie's pills earlier in the day and crushed them into powder. That night before dinner he had Augie pour him a drink in the monkey glass, then he must have taken it with him when he went to the restroom and poisoned it with the crushed pills. Then when he gets back he offers the drink to Herb, knowing that he won't turn down alcohol. After that, Rory gets himself a new glass and fills it with juice, and acts as if everything is normal. There weren't any more monkey glasses left, so he used a pineapple glass, assuming no one would notice. Then, when Herb drank the poisoned drink and became ill everyone assumed it was a medical issue, and by the time we realized it was foul play hours later, the glasses had already been washed and there was no way of telling how the drug had been administered.”

  “That's ridiculous!” Augie exclaimed. “Rory isn't clever enough to think up a plan like that!”

  “Just because he doesn't like to use his head, doesn't mean he can't use it when he needs to,” Aunt Sam said. “Besides, the plan was simple enough as long as he....”

  Aunt Sam's voice trailed off as she looked over my shoulder. I turned and saw Rory standing in the doorway. “Oh, don't stop on my account,” he said. “This is getting fascinating.”

  Aunt Sam stood up briskly and said, “I'm afraid we don't have any more time for chit-chat. We have a business to run and nothing's getting done while we sit here talking. We have a lot to do right now.”

  Rory smiled as he pulled a gun out of his pocket and said, “But I'm enjoying your company too much to let you leave.”

  “T-that's my gun!” Augie stammered. “I-I bought it from a fellow at that run-down casino at the other end of the island to protect myself.”

  “I didn't know why bothered since we both know that you'd never have the nerve to pull the trigger. But now I'm glad you did. I have the feeling this thing's gonna come in handy soon.”

  “Did you hear that that woman said?” Augie asked, pointing to Aunt Sam. “A-about Herb and you and-and murder?”

  “Well, somebody had to do something,” Rory said nonchalantly. “It was bad enough that Herb was running the whole damn business into the ground, but this divorce stuff was going to sink us all. You heard what Herb said; he was going to fight the divorce even if he had to spend his last dime on lawyers to do it. By the time those vultures got done with those two, their wasn't going to be any business left to fight over. And what's supposed to happen to the rest of us? It ain't like we got pension plans or 401Ks. If we lose The Doylett Bowl, we got nothing. Nada. Now I don't know about you, but I don't plan to spend my golden years sayin' 'Do you want fries with that?'”

  “But-but m-m-murder?”

  “Look, college boy, you and your family all like to act high and mighty, but every time there's a mess, you all want Rory to clean it up. Well, we had a real mess here and Rory cleaned it up!” He looked at Aunt Sam, Dodie and me and said, “And now I've got another mess to clean up.”

  “You'll never get away with it,” Aunt Sam said sternly.

  “Oh, I don't know about that. I'm one-for-one so far and I'm feeling lucky.”

  “For heavens sake, Rory,” Augie protested, “you can't seriously mean to ---”

  Rory snorted and turned the gun towards Augie. “Listen, Augie, you can either be part of the problem or part of the solution. So what's it gonna be?”

  As soon as I saw that Rory was distracted, I grabbed the bonsai tree off the counter and threw it at him as hard as I could. The tree exploded into a shower of dirt and branches as it struck Rory on the side of the head. The gun dropped from his hand and he fell to the floor with a resounding thud. For a moment we all stood frozen in place.

  “Is he dead?” Dodie asked.

  “No, he's just knocked out,” Aunt Sam said as she grabbed the gun from the floor. “Thank God that you were such a good aim with that bonsai tree, Teri, or we were all going to be in trouble!”

  Actually, I had been aiming at the gun, not Rory's head, but I saw no reason to mention that now. I looked at Rory lying on the kitchen floor like a beached whale, surrounded by the remains of what had once been Dr. Brad's bonsai tree. “Do you think we should tie him up with something?” I asked.

  “I've got a mile of butcher's twine in the pantry that I use to truss turkey and I've been wanting to tie up this turkey ever since he got here!” Dodie said.

  “Sounds like a great idea,” Aunt Sam said. “You do that while I call Sheriff Landon.”

  “He was going to...you were going to...I was...” Augie stammered.

  “Look on the bright side,” Aunt Sam said, putting a hand on his shoulder and leading him out of the kitchen. “Now you'll get to use your frequent flier miles before they expire.”

  The next day I was sitting in the living room of the B&B with Aunt Sam, Dr. Brad and Bertie. Rory had been taken to jail, the kitchen had been cleaned up and the B&B was Auk and Doylett free. The “sound of silence” was refreshing.

  “So it was Rory. I can't believe it.” Dr. Brad said, shaking his head. “Of all the Doyletts, he was the last one I'd have thought could be a murderer. I never would have credited him with the ambition, let alone energy to kill anyone.”

  “Desperate people do desperate things.” Aunt Sam said. “In Rory's mind, he was going to lose everything he had, and he would stop at nothing to keep that from happening. Often it seems the less people have, the more desperate they are to protect it.”

  “It's just shocking,” Bertie said. “It's a good thing that we didn't have him at the front desk where he had to deal with the public. Who knows what he might have done? We could have had all kinds of lawsuits if he started murdering our customers.”

  “Uh, yes, well, we certainly wouldn't want that to happen,” I said. “So will you be running the business now, Bertie?”

  “Yes, although Augie will be in charge of the day-to-day operations. Poor Fern is in no state to think about business what with Rory being in jail. But I'll be overseeing everything to make sure that the Doylett Bowl business stays successful.”

  “That sounds like a big job,” Dr. Brad said. “Are you sure you're up to it? Maybe you should consider hiring a business manager to look out for your interests.”

  “Oh that won't be necessary,” Bertie replied, coyly. “You see, I've... met someone.”

  “Met someone? What are you talking about?”

  “A very lovely man. He came to the house while you were out and wanted to wish me condolences about Herb. We got talking and one thing led to another and well, he's coming back to Minnesota with me.”

  “What?!!”

  “He has his own prosperous company and he very generously offered to help me out with the bowling lanes. He's sophisticated, intelligent, not to mention a perfect gentlemen. Everything that Herb wasn't. I'm sure I'll be in good hands... in more ways than one,” Bertie giggled.

  “Now see here!” Dr. Brad said. “We should talk about this before you-”

  Just then I heard a horn honking from out in front of the B&B. “Oh, that's him now!” Bertie exclaimed, jumping up from her chair and grabbing her suitcase. “He said he would give me a ride to the airport. Isn't that sweet of him?”

  “Wait a minute here!” Dr. Brad said, following Bertie.

  But Bertie had already disappeared through the front door. We followed her out onto the front porch where we saw a golf cart idling at the end of the driveway. Norman Schlock sat behind the wheel. He smiled and tipped his battered Fedora to us. Bertie climbed into the seat next to him and waved to us.

  “Good bye, Brad!” she called. “I had a wonderful time, well, except for the murder and everything. You'll come up and see me for Thanksgiving, won't you?”

  “Oh, um, Thanksgiving, well, that's right, there's definitely going to be a Thanksgiving again this year...” Dr. Brad mumbled.

  “Oh, and thank you for everything too, Samantha!” Do take care of Bradley for me while I'm gone, won't you?”

  “I'll make sure he gets plenty of TLC,” Aunt Sam replied, waving back.

  Norman tooted the horn and the golf cart pulled away with Bertie still waving to us until they were out of site.

  “Oh dear, Oh dear,” Dr. Brad groaned..

  “Why don't you come inside, Brad, “ Aunt Sam said, taking him by the arm. “It hot out here and you look like you could use some lemonade.”

  “I could use something a lot stronger than lemonade.”

  We returned to the living room where Dodie supplied us each with a tall cool glass of peach lemonade. “I'm sorry about your bonsai tree,” I said. “I'll be happy to replace it if you want.”

  “Don't bother,” Dr. Brad said. “Bouncing it off Rory's head was the best thing you could have done with it. I don't think growing bonsai trees is the thing for me anyway. However, I saw an interesting video on how to raise happy chickens, and I'm planning to look into it. Apparently, you can save hundreds of dollars on eggs if you raise your own chickens, and the eggs from happy chickens have an extraordinary nutritional value too! I already have the skills and education to make it work, too.”

  “What makes you think that?” Aunt Sam said.

  “Isn't it obvious? Nurturing my patients and nurturing chickens; both cut from the same cloth, the way I see it.”

  Aunt Sam and I exchanged glances, but we didn't say anything. Just then, the door opened and Nick came in. He plopped down in the nearest chair and let out a sigh of relief. “I have just ferried the last of the Auks, Doyletts and tourists to Golden Happiness Isle and if anyone else wants a ride, they had better learn to fly, because Captain Nick Delany is done for the day.”

  “Good riddance. Maybe we'll have some peace for a change,” Dr. Brad said. “Of course, Admiral Archibald Falls Island is still a bit crazy, but it's the kind of crazy that we're used to.”

  “Not crazy,” Aunt Sam said, “just happy with a twist.”

  “And I'm here to make the former Little Bo Peep happy by taking her to a special event this evening,” Nick said, getting up from his chair.

  “If it involves putting that costume on again, you can schedule me for the twelfth of never,” I replied.

  “Nope, just relaxing on the beach with a cold drink and watching the boat parade. It's the last hurrah of Archie Gras. So how about it, Teri?”

  “You had me at the word 'relaxing'. I almost forgot what that word meant.”

  “Well, enjoy yourselves,” Aunt Sam said. “Brad and I will watch the boat parade from the second floor balcony now that the house is empty, and for once I'm glad it is. Let's hope our next guests will be a bit tamer than the last ones.”

  “Amen to that,” I said. As I was getting on Nick's motorcycle I asked, “Isn't the beach going to be crowded with all the people watching the boat parade?”

  “Very crowded,” Nick said. “And that's why we're not going to the public beach. The lighthouse has a beach next to it. It's small, but private.”

  By the time we reached Nick's lighthouse, the setting sun had turned the water into a shimmering kaleidoscope of oranges and reds. Some boats were already passing by. The beach was cool and quiet and shaded by palm trees.

  “Best seats in the house,” Nick said, spreading out a beach blanket.