I led them out of the room by their collars, and my mom actually stepped back.
It felt like my ability to form sentences disintegrated. My mom never retreated from anything. My parents had denied me a dog growing up, claiming our family was too busy to be fair to a dog. Maybe that was a cover. Maybe my mom didn’t want me figuring out that she was actually afraid of dogs.
“Nicole Elizabeth.” She pressed a hand to her throat. “Those are not dogs. What were you thinking? No one will rent you an apartment.”
Since I’d gotten Velma and Toby, I’d learned to ignore the questions people tended to ask when they saw them. Do you have a saddle for that thing? What do you feed it? I’d even had one woman—who I hope at least thought I couldn’t hear her—ask her husband why anyone would want dogs that big.
I’d never had anyone suggest they weren’t dogs though. I’d started to ask her what they were, but she looked legitimately concerned. “I don’t need an apartment. Uncle Stan left me this house along with Sugarwood.”
“Not here, obviously. When you come back to DC. What are you going to do with those things then?”
I tried counting backward from 100 by sevens in my head, but it wasn’t challenging enough to calm me down. Telling her I wasn’t moving back to DC would only start a fight on her first day here. “Why don’t you bring your bags up to the guest room while I take the dogs outside for a minute.”
Thankfully, my mom must have been as unwilling to argue on our first day together as I was. She gave a wide berth to the dogs and headed up the stairs.
“Second door on the left,” I called after her.
I released Velma and Toby, and they trotted to the door, tails wagging and ears perked. How anyone couldn’t love them was beyond me.
We’d just left the steps when my phone rang. My yard was an invisible minefield of cell phone dead zones, so I let the dogs run around and stayed put where I had a signal.
The caller ID read Sunburnt Arms. With my mom upstairs, this time it had to be Mandy.
Hopefully she hadn’t said something to get herself arrested or I’d end up as her lawyer after all.
“The police had me make a list of everyone who would have had access to The Sunburnt Arms,” Mandy said. She’d skipped the hello, and her voice had a breathless quality to it. “Guests and employees. They think if someone was murdered, it was someone who was already here. Which makes sense. A murderer wouldn’t have hauled someone into my bed-and-breakfast to kill them when they could have done it outside.”
The good friend part of me knew I should tell her to slow down and take a breath before she hyperventilated from a combination of excitement at having an investigation play out in front of her and fear over what it’d mean for her business. The part of me that was more curious than a toddler asking why won out.
I didn’t want to think about what that said about my strength of character. “Is anyone unaccounted for?”
“Two people!” There was a soft thump on the other end of the line, as if she’d realized how loud she was talking and clamped her hand over her mouth for a second so the police didn’t hear her. “Two people,” she said more softly. “My night clerk and one of the guests—the woman who was supposed to check in to that room yesterday evening. Do you think one is the victim and one is the murderer?”
The excitement drained from her voice on the last question. I could guess what she was thinking. Should she hope that her night clerk was dead or a killer? Neither was a good option. In the former case, she’d have to grieve him. In the latter, she’d have to deal with the guilt of having hired someone who could harm another human being.
I peeked in my front window. My mom still hadn’t made her appearance. She was probably snooping. “That seems like the likeliest conclusion. The police will have a better idea as soon as they test the blood for whether it belonged to a man or a woman.”
“The police say I can’t even stay here. They told me to go to a hotel or stay with family, but…”
But Mandy wouldn’t want to do either. She and her sister were in an ongoing argument over The Sunburnt Arms. Her sister thought Mandy should sell the place and retire, but Mandy loved working and loved interacting with the guests. And it was her last real connection to her dead husband.
Even I couldn’t imagine any way her sister wouldn’t use this as further ammunition. It’d only make Mandy more miserable right now to have her sister pushing her to sell.
Going to a hotel or one of the other bed-and-breakfasts that were starting to open up in anticipation of the tourist season would only spread rumors faster. This town couldn’t keep a secret if national security depended on it. The news would spread eventually, but if Mandy could keep it quiet at least until she reopened, it might mitigate the damage to her business.
With my mom visiting, Mandy would never ask to stay with me. She might accept if I offered, though. I wouldn’t tell her that the only other bed was mine. I didn’t mind sleeping on the couch for a couple of nights. “Why don’t you come stay with me?”
The gush of air on the other end sounded distinctly like relief. “You’re sure? I don’t want to get in the way of your time with your mom. I can be quiet, though. I’ll stay in my room and read most of the day.”
“This is what friends are for.”
Now I had to figure out a way to explain this to my mom that wouldn’t sound like I’d invited Mandy to stay with us so she couldn’t interrogate me about my future.
4
A text came in from Mark as my mom and I were headed out to the car to meet him for lunch the next day.
My mom insists on coming too.
Considering all the ways this visit had already gone sideways, Mrs. Cavanaugh wanting to meet my mom at the same time as my mom met Mark seemed like a small blip.
Only your mom? I texted back.
Dad has the flu.
Mark’s dad had the diplomatic people skills you’d expect from a man whose life’s work had been running a funeral home. He’d have made a great buffer.
Not that I expected either mom to be anything other than polite, but if I’d learned anything since meeting Mark’s mom a couple of months ago, it was that she had as many strong opinions about the future and well-being of her sons as my mom did about me. I also knew their ideas couldn’t have been more different.
If I was honest with myself, I was more worried about my mom meeting Mark’s mom than I was about my mom meeting Mark. He got an instant seal of approval thanks to the MD after his name. If we got married, they’d probably be more proud of having him as a son-in-law than they were of having me as their daughter.
I parked my car in the parking lot for The Burnt Toast Café. Mark and I had decided last night that it was the best choice. My mom’s aversion to fried food crossed A Salt & Battery off the list.
The Burnt Toast Café also had a slightly classier feel to it, despite the questionable choice of placing a giant smiling piece of toast on a rotating pole above the sign. It wasn’t so bad when his burnt face was facing you, but the paint job from behind made him look a lot like a bare bottom. According to Mark, Mr. Dobson, the owner, designed the rotating piece of toast himself and refused to give him up even after he married a lovely Italian woman who overhauled the whole interior.
I sent up a quick prayer of thanks that, as my mom and I entered, Mr. Toast’s face was toward us.
The inside, where Mr. Dobson gave Mrs. Dobson more leeway, resembled a Venetian street café. The entire left wall bore a life-like mural that made you feel as if you were actually sitting in the Piazza San Marco in Venice, looking out at the canals.
