The sleek red, two-seater BMW convertible pulled to a halt and my neighbor jumped out. “Was that Amy Redmond, leaving here? Late for her to be calling, so I thought I’d better check on you guys. Everything okay?”

  “Minor incident concerning a guest,” I said. “Bernie not with you?”

  “Something about having to rush home to respond to the call of her muse.”

  “Oh, dear,” I said. “That usually means she’s heading off in an entirely new direction in the book.”

  “Yeah, I know. I keep telling her to focus, but every idea she has is guaranteed, according to her, to be the big breakthrough. What sort of minor incident?”

  Simon explained.

  Matt frowned. “Has it occurred to either of you that this might be aimed at you and Rose, Lily?”

  “Us? Nonsense. I wasn’t hurt. It was over before I got there. Rose didn’t even come out of her room.”

  “I don’t mean you two personally, but rather in a business sense.” Simon started to speak, but Matt said, “Hear me out. Stuff happens around here. Strange stuff.”

  “All that stuff, as you call it, has been brought to a successful conclusion,” I said. “Charges were laid, the miscreants sentenced. The book thrown at them. Cases closed.”

  “Yes, but is it possible those incidents put an idea in someone’s head?”

  “Like who?” Simon said. “And what sort of idea?”

  On the veranda Ivan helped his mother inside. Regina followed saying something along the lines of how Ivan was wasting his time here and needed to present the strong, reliable face of the company to the business world. Sophia snapped at her to shut up.

  “This is a mighty nice piece of property, Lily.” Matt kept his voice low. “Acres of ground, great views, grand house, well maintained. Not far from town but far enough to be considered private, even exclusive. You’ve had developers nosing around before.”

  “And look what happened to him,” Simon said.

  “You can’t be saying a developer, or potential buyer, attacked Sophia to cause trouble for us?” I said. “Preposterous.”

  “I’m throwing the idea out there, Lily. That’s all. You and Rose have weathered earlier problems here extremely well. If anything, you’re doing better because of all the publicity.”

  “I wouldn’t put it like that. You make it sound as though we’re the ones causing these so-called problems.”

  “Not what I intended. All I’m saying is, pay attention if any rumors start swirling around about Victoria-on-Sea being an unsafe place to stay. Remember the recent fire?”

  “The garden shed burned down.”

  “Destroyed me best seedlings,” Simon growled.

  “No one was ever in any danger,” I reminded them. “Other than the seedlings. The police caught the person who did it.”

  “We know that, Lily,” Matt said. “But such is the stuff rumors are made of. As is a guest being attacked at night while strolling in your garden.” Matt looked at Simon. “Make sure she takes care.”

  “I will, mate.”

  “Hey, you two.” I waved my arms over my head. “I’m still here! I’m listening. I can look after myself, and I’m perfectly safe on my own property. Someone attacked Sophia tonight specifically because she is Sophia Reynolds. We’re a hotel. People bring their problems and their squabbles with them, and I can’t do anything about that. I’ll admit, I can’t always look after Rose, though. No one can look after Rose. Not even herself.”

  Simon put his arm around me and pulled me close. As though she understood what I’d said, Éclair rubbed her nose against my leg.

  “I’m asking you to pay attention, that’s all,” Matt said.

  “I can do that,” I grumbled.

  “I don’t like what you’re suggesting,” Simon said. “But I’ll admit it does have some validity. I’ve always wanted to add close protection officer to my résumé. Now’s my chance.”

  Chapter 21

  Think I got something. Sending you a picture. Tell me what you see

  I blinked, trying to clear cobwebs from my head, and read the text again. Bernie had sent it overnight, but I’d put my phone on do-not-disturb with only Rose or my mother allowed to override the notification.

  In the bathroom, the shower stopped running and a few moments later Simon came into the bedroom, rubbing a towel through his hair. “Problem?”

  “I don’t know.” I studied the picture Bernie’d sent. It was a photo of a photo on a Facebook page. I handed Simon the phone, and he sat on the bed next to me to accept it.

  He used his fingers to expand the picture and scrolled through the details. “Looks like Ralph and Sophia Reynolds. They’re at a party of some sort. I see a Christmas tree in the background, and one woman’s wearing a necklace made to look like a string of Christmas lights. People are in suits and ties and party dresses, meaning it’s a fancy affair. They’re about the same age as they are now. That Ralph was, I mean. So a fairly recent picture. Hard to make out many of the other people. I don’t recognize the name of the person who posted it, and I don’t think I’ve ever run into her. Alicia Kennedy. Do you know her?”

  “No.”

  “What time did Bernie send that?” He threw the towel to one side. His hair was wet from the shower and he smelled of shampoo and good soap.

  “Four a.m.”

  “She told Matt she had to get home to work on her book and instead she did some poking into the Reynolds family? And you expect me to believe you two are not investigating?”

  I gave him my most innocent smile. “Caught red-handed.”

  “Can’t say I’m gobsmacked.”

  “I suspect Bernie didn’t make up an excuse to give to Matt. She might well have gotten several hundred words written before turning her attention to another matter. On the other hand, she might have rushed home full of enthusiasm, and then forgot all about that enthusiasm and headed down a rabbit hole in pursuit of the Reynoldses.”

  He ruffled my hair and stood up. “Okay. What do you want me to do?”

  “Do? About what?”

  “Have you thought any more about what Matt had to say last night?”

  “No, and I don’t intend to. The idea’s ridiculous. Matt writes about crime. He’s finding criminal conspiracies everywhere he looks.”

  “You’re probably right, but . . . never mind. As for the other matter, you and Bernie investigating the Reynolds murder, I can help. I could charm the charmless McKenzie. She seems up to it.”

  “You stay away from McKenzie. Samantha was hinting pretty strongly that McKenzie sabotaged Hannah’s shower, but I don’t see her as a murder suspect.”

  “Why not? Completely self-absorbed is my take on her.”

  “Too self-absorbed, I think, to make any attempt to remain undiscovered. I wish Amy Redmond would tell us whose prints they found on the box the doll came in.”

  “That the present-giver made no attempt to hide their prints, means she, and I’ll agree McKenzie’s a mighty good suspect, didn’t expect the gift to be printed. Which it wouldn’t have been if not for Ralph’s death happening so soon after the shower and you pointing out the incident of the doll to the police.”

  “For fingerprint evidence to mean anything, the cops have to be able to match it with something they have on file. I’d love to know what caused McKenzie to be printed at some point in the past. I’ll get Bernie looking into that.”

  “Because you’re not investigating.”

  “Right. If McKenzie did play the so-called-joke with the doll, and she didn’t expect the police to have any interest in it, doesn’t that go some way to getting her off the hook for killing her father?”

  “If she’d planned it all ahead of time, sure. But otherwise, no.”

  “I still don’t see McKenzie doing it. If she killed her own father, my take on her, for what it’s worth, is she’d be eager to let everyone know she was justified in doing it. At a guess, I’d say she was going to tell Hannah all about her little joke in her own time. Spring it on her at the wedding, during the speeches maybe. Anything to get the spotlight turned back on her. But events got away from her. Meaning her father’s death. Even McKenzie realized the reveal of her tasteless little joke wouldn’t be as hilarious as she originally thought it would be.”

  “Do what you have to do, Lily. But please, try not to put yourself in danger this time.”

  “All our so-called investigating is being done online,” I said. “Nothing dangerous in that.”

  “Until it is.” He pulled his shirt over his head. “We’re assuming the attack, if it even was an attack, on Sophia was intended to be relatively harmless.”

  “What do you mean, if it was an attack? We both saw the injury.”

  “People can do things to themselves. Such as administer a whack on the back of the head. Redmond didn’t say anything about looking for what might have been used, so I’ll have a poke around later. But, as I said, if Sophia didn’t do it to herself, the assumption the attack was intended not to cause much harm, might not be correct. I’m going up to the shed to get into me gardening clothes and plan the day. See you at the kitchen?”

  “Where else, sadly, would I be?”

  He gave me a quick kiss, and headed out. He’d put Éclair into the yard before going for his shower, and she dashed inside and leapt onto the bed. She licked my face with gusto.

  “There are,” I said, giving her a big hug, “worse ways to start a day.”

  * * *

  First thing I did on arriving in the B & B kitchen was to put the coffee on. The second thing was to text Bernie: Got the picture. Ralph and Sophia at a holiday party. So? What am I missing?

  She didn’t reply, and I studied the photo again. I then went to Facebook and searched for Alicia Kennedy. Not an uncommon name, and I got a lot of hits. I took a guess she lived near Boston, if she’d been at the same party as Ralph, and that narrowed the search down considerably. I soon found her. Alicia Kennedy, Facebook helpfully told me, was married with two children, lived in a suburb of Boston, and had two white rescue cats unimaginatively named Snowball and Snowflake. What was of interest to me was that she worked at Reynolds Tools, and the picture had been taken last December at the company holiday party. It was captioned, Nice to see big boss Ralph Reynolds, now retired, dropping in with wife Sophie. She’d gotten Sophia’s name wrong, but never mind that.

  The couple were posing together, but not smiling and not touching. If anything, Sophia looked downright angry. I remembered what I knew about the state of the marriage and particularly what McKenzie said about her dad always having affairs. He must have dragged the unwilling Sophia to the company party as a way of putting on a good corporate front.

  The party seemed to be at a restaurant or event hall. Black-and-white-clad waitstaff passed flutes of sparkling wine, glasses of red and white wine or beer, and a selection of elaborate canapés. A party like that would cost a bundle. Likely it cost more than the company could afford.

  Ivan was a faint figure in the background, smiling broadly, chatting to a couple of men around his age. I was about to look more closely at the rest of the sea of faces in the photo when Edna came in, accompanied by Detective Amy Redmond, the latter looking positively perky in a pink linen jacket and black jeans. Her hair was nicely arranged and her light makeup freshly applied.

  “Don’t you ever sleep?” I said to her.

  “Considering you were up last night at the same time as me, I could ask the same of you.”

  “Yes, but you went off to interview suspects. I went to bed.”

  “Police work never ends. Nor, I’ve been told, does feeding people. I managed to snatch some sleep and have a shower. I didn’t come in by the front door this morning, as I decided to take a few minutes to gather my thoughts while overlooking the bay. This truly is a special place, Lily. Even by Cape Cod standards.”

  “Whereupon I arrived,” Edna said, “and interrupted said gathering of thoughts.”

  “Is that coffee I smell?” Redmond asked hopefully.

  “Help yourself,” I said. “Mugs are right there. Cream in the fridge.”

  “Thanks, Lily.”

  “What brings you here so early?” I asked. I started laying out the baking ingredients while Edna took melons, oranges, and apples out of the fridge. “Can you peel and slice two extra apples, Edna?” I asked. “I want to use them in today’s muffins.”

  “Do I have to request you leave the room, Mrs. Harkness?” Redmond said as she took the first welcome sip of her coffee.

  “If you ask me not to repeat what you have to say, I will not. I’ve spent a lot of years married to a newspaperman, and I can divide my world into distinct parts.”

  “Good to hear. Okay, Lily, I thought you’d want to know that Jenny Hill’s in the clear, so far, for last night.”

  “Last night?” Edna said.

  “I’ll fill you in later,” I said. “I’m glad to hear it.”

  “At eleven o’clock last night Jenny, along with her daughter and prospective son-in-law, were at a late-night coffee and dessert place in Provincetown. Greg and Hannah are not exactly impartial witnesses, so I’d take any alibi they give her with a grain of salt. But . . .”

  “But . . . ?”

  “Jenny Hill is, of all things, a devotee of obscure French art house cinema. She, along with Greg and Hannah, went to the showing of a movie in Provincetown last night. Most boring two hours of his life, Greg told me, but that’s beside the point. Jenny got to chatting with another couple as they left the theater. This couple have the same taste as she does, and extensive knowledge of that art form. They all went to the coffee place to discuss the movie. Jenny and the female half of the couple exchanged numbers in case they had a chance to catch another such film. I called the woman involved, and she confirms she and her husband were with Jenny, Greg, and Hannah, at the time in question. She says the movie finished at ten thirty, and they lingered over coffee and cake for about an hour. I’ll call the theater when they open to confirm that time, the coffee house to see if anyone remembers them, and I’ll have an officer pay a call on the movie-loving couple later to take a statement. I need to get all the times straight and confirmed, but I’m reasonably confident this couple has no reason to lie for Jenny, and that Jenny, if she was making up an alibi, would find something better than a small coffee shop shortly before closing, when they’re likely to remember who came in.”

  “I’m glad,” I said. “That’s one thing out of the way, but as for who did attack Sophia, if not Jenny, got any ideas?”

  She shook her head. “Not yet. I have an officer checking the spot where the incident occurred, in case something significant was dropped. I’ll let you know if we find anything, but I believe a rock was used, and there are a lot of rocks around here, and plenty of places to get rid of a specific one.”

  Edna sliced fruit. “That’s not good. Cops going through the shrubbery.”

  “What happened isn’t a secret,” I said. “The other guests heard us talking about it.”

  “You don’t want word getting around this place isn’t safe at night, Lily.”

  “Tell me about it,” I said. “Matt said much the same last night. As it’s highly unlikely to have been a random attack, surely the incident has to be directly related to the death of Sophia’s husband.”

  “I am acting on that assumption,” Redmond said. “I’m inclined to interpret events as you and Simon outlined them to me. It was not a serious attack, and it was not intended to do any real harm. Why then? To put a fright into Sophia? For what aim? A warning? Warning of what? Is she keeping something from me, and did that person figure they’d better give her a gentle reminder to keep her mouth shut? All I can do is ask her. And I will.”

  As she talked, I combined ingredients for a batch of apple and cinnamon muffins. Edna tossed chopped fruit into the big glass bowl. Redmond finished her coffee and put the mug into the sink. “Which is the other reason I’m here. To have a talk with Sophia. She might have remembered something new. I told her I’d be here at seven. Can I, once again, use your drawing room?”

  “You may.” I slipped the tray of muffins into the oven. “These’ll be ready in about twenty minutes. If you’re still here, you’re welcome to one.”

  “Trying to bribe an officer of the law, Lily?”

  “Is it working?”

  She grinned. “Yes.”

  “Before you go, I have a question for you. Maybe more of an observation, but . . . Have you remembered that Dave Farland was in this house the night Ralph died?”

  “I haven’t forgotten, no. Why?”

  “He said something last night that got me thinking. I told you Ralph offered Greg money to not marry Hannah. He told Greg that much money would go a long way toward his mural-painting business.”

  “You reported hearing that conversation, yes.”

  “Dave and Greg are partners as well as friends. I mean, partners in that mural-painting business. Dave said something last night about it being hard to make a living when starting out as an artist.”

  “It’s hard to make a living after decades of being an artist. For all but a very small number. But never mind that. What are you thinking?”

  “Is it possible Greg told Dave he’d turned his dad down? A hundred thousand is a lot of money. Did Dave then go to Ralph to ask for the money?”

  “Dave’s sharing a room with Ivan,” she said. “Both of them claim to have been asleep at the time we believe Ralph Reynolds died. Easy enough to get up in the night under the pretext of needing the bathroom, check your roommate is snoozing happily, and slip into the hallway. But—aside from the fact that we believe the killer spent some time in Ralph’s room, enough time to pour each of them a drink, add the digoxin to the bottle, encourage Ralph to have several more drinks—Ralph’s death wouldn’t get Dave any money.”

  “Maybe he expected Greg to inherit.”

  “Possible. No guarantee of that happening and, if anything, it’s unlikely. Ralph’s wife is still alive. She’s the most likely to inherit. She is, in fact, the only beneficiary mentioned in his will. For what that’s worth.”