“Going to be a little difficult to keep the fire under the radar, don’t you think?”
“Something tells me that the next time I see Chief McPherson he’ll have come up with a perfectly reasonable explanation for ignoring a case of arson that just happened to take place in the home of a woman who had recently OD’d.” He took another bite of French toast, chewed and reached for his orange juice. “Course, McPherson and Webb probably aren’t counting on Irene. If anyone can get the arson onto the screen, she will.”
“Luke?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t take this wrong, but do you think maybe you should be careful about getting any more involved with Irene Stenson? I mean, I like her a lot. She’s really different from anyone else you’ve ever been with. But there’s no getting around the fact that she seems to be contributing heavily to your stress levels.”
Luke gave him his war face and ate more French toast.
Jason cleared his throat. “Dr. Van Dyke told Dad that, given your history, it would be a good idea not to subject yourself to too much stress right now.”
“Screw Dr. Van Dyke.”
Jason grimaced. “I’d rather not. Something about those sensible shoes and those sturdy tweed suits she wears probably. Maybe I just lack imagination, but I don’t think I could get past them.”
“Go back to Santa Elena and tell everyone to stop worrying about me. I’ll see you all at the birthday party.”
“What about Irene Stenson?”
“Stressful she may be, but at least she doesn’t wear sensible shoes and tweed suits. Or maybe you didn’t happen to notice the high-heeled boots and the black trench coat?”
Jason’s eyes rolled back in his head. He twitched a little. “Oh, yeah. Saw the boots. And the black trench, too. You think maybe there’s a little whip to go with them?”
“Don’t know. But it has become my mission in life to find the answer to that burning question.”
Luke was checking in the newlyweds when Irene opened the front door and strode—that was the word for it, he decided, strode—into the lobby. One quick, covert survey told him everything he needed to know about her mood. Another black pullover and another pair of black trousers, the black leather boots and the trench. She was in full battle armor again, ready to duel with Dunsley.
She took in the scene at the front desk without saying a word and quietly crossed the room to the coffee service table. Out of the corner of his eye, Luke saw her examine the pot of coffee and the day-old doughnuts that he had put out earlier.
The last thing he wanted right now was to be bothered by paying guests, he thought. He had things to do with Irene Stenson.
He shoved the registration form and a pen in front of the gawky young husband.
“Name, address and driver’s license number, Addison,” he said. “Full signature at the bottom. Initial the departure date.”
The very new Mrs. Addison’s eyes widened in alarm. She took a quick step back from the counter, looking as though she thought Luke might vault over it and go for her throat.
Now what? he wondered, striving to hang on to his patience. All he had done was ask her husband to fill out the damn form.
Mr. Addison gulped so hard that Luke saw his Adam’s apple move.
“Uh, yes, sir,” Addison said. He grabbed the pen and hastily went to work filling out the form.
Across the lobby, Irene paused in the act of removing a tea bag from her purse. She frowned. Luke opted to ignore her.
“All finished, sir.” Addison pushed the form back across the counter with obvious relief.
Luke gave the paper a cursory glance, checking to make sure each section had been filled in. “Checkout time is twelve hundred.”
Across the room, Irene closed her eyes in a rather pained way.
Addison went blank. “Uh, twelve hundred what, sir?”
“Hours. High noon.”
“Yes, sir,” Addison said quickly. “Don’t worry, we’ll leave before noon.”
Luke swiped a key off a hook and handed it to Addison. “Cabin Number Ten. There’s a list of regs posted on the back of the door. Read ’em.”
Addison blinked uneasily. “Regs?”
“Regulations,” Luke said, trying to be patient. “No loud disturbances of any kind, no illegal activities, no one who isn’t officially registered is allowed to spend the night in the room and so on.”
“Right. Sure. I mean, yes, sir.” Addison bobbed his head nervously. “No problem. It’s just the two of us. Sir.”
“You will also find a little card on the nightstand requesting that you help the management of this lodge conserve energy. You will treat that request as a regulation. Understood?”
“Yes, sir.” Addison cast a quick, urgent glance at his nervous wife. “Janice and me are real big on preserving the environment, aren’t we, Janice?”
“Yes,” she said, barely audible.
“Glad to hear that,” Luke said. “Enjoy your stay in the honeymoon suite.”
Addison blinked. “The honeymoon suite?”
Mrs. Addison was clearly astounded. “We got the honeymoon suite?”
“Sure,” Luke said. “Why not? You are honeymooners, right? You’re not just saying that in order to get the honeymoon suite, are you?”
“No, sir,” Mrs. Addison assured him. “We just got married this morning. At the courthouse over in Kirbyville.”
Addison looked more uneasy than ever but he stood his ground. “Uh, how much extra is the honeymoon suite?”
Luke leaned on the counter. “For you two? No extra charge. Provided you obey all the regs, of course.”
On the other side of the lobby, Irene raised her eyes to the vaulted ceiling.
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.” Addison grabbed his wife’s hand and dragged her toward the door. “Come on, Janice. I got us the honeymoon suite.”
“I can’t wait until we go back to Kirbyville to tell everyone about this,” Janice said, alight with anticipation.
The pair dashed outside.
Luke folded his arms on the counter and watched the young couple through the window. “Honeymooners. Gotta love ’em.”
“It looked more like you were trying to scare them,” Irene said.
“Why would I do that? Marriage will scare them pretty damn quick. No need for me to speed up the process.”
“I’ll bet you don’t get a lot of repeat business here at Sunrise Lodge, do you?”
He spread his hands. “What did I say?”
“It wasn’t what you said, it was how you said it. You talked to that poor young man as though he was a raw recruit in boot camp. He’s on his honeymoon, for heaven’s sake, and judging by the fact that he and his wife booked a room here, I expect they’re on an extremely limited budget.”
“Give me a break. All I did was check them into a cabin.”
“The honeymoon suite, hmm? I wasn’t aware that this lodge had one.”
“Management takes the view that if you spend your honeymoon in one of our cabins, said cabin is, by definition, the honeymoon suite.”
“I see. Logical.”
“Certainly struck me that way,” Luke said.
“Nevertheless, you could have been a little more gentle with Mr. and Mrs. Addison.”
“All I did was ask them to fill out the damned forms.”
“Luke, you made them very nervous.”
He went around the end of the counter to pour himself another cup of coffee. “You know, I’m starting to think that’s the biggest problem with the innkeeping business.”
“What?”
“The clientele. They’re undisciplined, untrained and unpredictable.” He watched the Addisons climb into an aging Ford pickup and drive off toward Cabin Number Ten. “Yeah, gotta say, if it weren’t for the paying guests, this wouldn’t be a bad line of work.”
She shook her head. “Where’s Jason?”
“He left right after breakfast. Something about a meeting with a supplier later
this morning. What are you up to today?”
“I called an old acquaintance here in town, Sandra Pace, and asked her if she knew who has been taking care of the Webb house. Turns out it’s Connie Watson, the same woman who cleaned for Pamela and her father all those years ago when I lived here.”
“You’re going to talk to Watson?”
“Yes.” Irene glanced at her watch. “Thought I’d drive out to her place now. I’m hoping to catch her before she leaves for the day.”
He exhaled slowly. “Meaning she doesn’t know you’re coming?”
“I was afraid that if I called her and tried to make an appointment, she might refuse to talk to me. Like a lot of other people in town, Connie has reasons to be loyal to the Webbs.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“That’s not necessary, Luke.”
“I said I’ll go with you.”
She looked troubled. “It’s probably best if you don’t get any more involved in this thing.”
“Jason said something along those lines, too.”
Shadows deepened in her eyes. “He did? Well, he’s right. You live in this town, after all. You’ve got a business here, although, given the way you’re running it, I’m not sure how you’re going to make enough to pay the taxes. But that’s another issue. The point is, you should try to stay out of this mess. Anything that involves the Webbs is more than a bit dicey here in Dunsley.”
“Dicey in Dunsley.” He smiled a little. “Got a ring to it.”
“I mean it,” she said tensely. “I really think you should stay clear of this situation. Obviously your brother feels the same way.”
“What you and Jason don’t seem to grasp is that it’s way too late for all the good advice. I’m already up to my, uh—” He broke off, clearing his throat. “My neck in this thing.”
“It’s not too late.” She set the mug down so hard on the table that tea splashed onto the scarred wooden surface. She grabbed a napkin and hastily blotted up the drops. “You’re just being stubborn.”
To Luke’s relief, the door opened, interrupting Irene in mid-tirade. Maxine breezed into the room.
“Hi, everyone.” She peeled off her coat. “I saw a truck in front of Cabin Number Ten. New guests?”
“Pair of honeymooners all the way from Kirbyville,” Luke said.
“Really?” Maxine looked thrilled. “We haven’t had any newlyweds here in the whole time I’ve worked at the lodge. You know, this could be a market niche that we’ve been overlooking.”
“Luke gave them the honeymoon suite,” Irene said.
Maxine frowned. “We haven’t got one.”
“We do now,” Luke said. “Cabin Number Ten.”
Maxine glowed with enthusiasm. “I know what I’ll do, I’ll make up a little basket of amenities for them.”
“I’d skip the doughnuts if I were you,” Luke said.
Eighteen
Connie Watson glared through the screen door. She was a large, big-boned woman with suspicious eyes. She gripped a dish towel in one work-roughened hand. Everything about her from her expression to her body language suggested that she had long ago given up expecting anything good out of life.
“I remember you, Irene,” she said. She flicked a quick, uneasy glance at Luke. “And I know who you are, Mr. Danner. What do you two want?”
This wasn’t going to be easy, Irene thought. Her hunch this morning had been right. If she had called ahead, Connie would have found an excuse not to be home.
“I want to ask you a few questions about Pamela,” she said, keeping her voice as calm and soothing as possible. “I was her friend at one time, remember?”
“Course I remember.” Connie wiped her hands on the dish towel. She made no move to open the screen door. “I heard you two found Pamela the other night. Heard you burned down the Webb house, too.”
“Someone else set fire to the house,” Luke said. “We just happened to be in the neighborhood at the time.”
“That’s not what folks are saying,” Connie muttered.
“It’s the truth,” Irene said. “For heaven’s sake, Connie, do you really think I’d burn down a house?”
“Heard you’ve been acting a little strange about Pamela’s death. Someone told me you’ve got what they call an unhealthy fixation about it, or something like that.”
Luke looked at her through the screen. “Who told you that?”
Connie jerked and took a small step back. Then she reached out and hastily locked the screen door. “Doesn’t matter. Word’s going around town, that’s all.”
Irene frowned at Luke, silently willing him to shut up. He certainly had a talent for giving orders and intimidating people, but at the moment she needed cooperation from Connie.
Luke raised his brows and shrugged a little, letting her know he had received her message.
She turned back to Connie. “Shortly before she died, Pamela sent me an e-mail telling me that she wanted to meet me here in Dunsley. Do you have any idea what she planned to tell me?”
“No.”
“Did she indicate that she was worried or upset?”
“No.”
“Did you see her the day she died?”
“No.”
This was not going well, Irene thought. She could feel Luke watching her, waiting for her to set him loose so that he could use his own, less polite style of interrogation. She scrolled back through her memory to come up with a new angle.
“Connie, I realize that you feel you owe the Webb family your loyalty, and I agree with you. But you also owe something to my family, don’t you?”
Connie crushed the dish towel in one fist. She took another step back. “Maybe I owed something to your pa, but he’s dead, God rest his soul.”
“Death doesn’t cancel all debts,” Irene said quietly. “My father is gone, but I’m still here. For the sake of his memory, will you please tell me whatever you can about Pamela’s last days here in Dunsley?”
Connie’s face crumpled. She gave a vast sigh of weary surrender. “Promise me you won’t tell him I talked to you.”
“Do you mean Chief McPherson?” Luke asked.
Connie blinked several times, alarmed. “You can’t tell him, either. He’d likely go straight to—” She broke off suddenly. “Never mind.” She switched her attention back to Irene. “Look, I don’t really know anything, and that’s the honest truth.”
“Just tell me what you do know,” Irene said.
“Well, four days before you found her dead, I got a call from Pamela asking me to get the house ready for her. Nothing strange about that. She didn’t use the place often, but when she did, she’d call me up and ask me to make sure there was food in the refrigerator and clean sheets on the beds and so on.”
“Did you see her after she arrived?”
Connie shook her head quickly. “No. Like I said, I just got things ready and then I left. Someone said they saw her drive through town the next day. Two days later she was dead. That’s all I know.”
Irene smiled in what she hoped was a reassuring way. “Did she ask you to stock the refrigerator for more than one person?”
Connie frowned. “No.”
“So she wasn’t expecting anyone else to join her?”
Connie shook her head. “I don’t think so. She would have asked me to make sure there were some cocktail crackers and cheese and plenty of booze on hand if she was planning on entertaining some of her fancy city friends.”
Irene stilled. “She didn’t ask you to buy any liquor?”
“Not this time.”
Luke planted one hand against the wall of the house. “There was an empty pitcher and a martini glass on the table when we found her.”
Connie made a vague gesture with one hand. “I heard about that. Don’t know where she got the booze. Usually she had me pick it up, except for the wine, of course.”
“The wine?” Luke repeated carefully.
“She was real picky about her wine. She always broug
ht it with her. But when it came to the hard stuff she had an arrangement with Joe down at the Dunsley Market. He knew what she liked and kept it on hand for her.” Connie shrugged. “I reckon she must have brought the martini makings with her from the city this time.”
“Liquor keeps well for a long period of time,” Irene said. “Pamela could have left a few bottles in the house the last time she was in town.”
“No,” Connie said with great certainty. “She never left any booze in the house. Everyone around here knew that. She always said it would have been an open invitation to every teen on the lake to break in and steal it. She said she didn’t want to be responsible for some local kids getting drunk and driving a car off Lakefront Road into the water. Said it would have been bad for the senator’s image.”
“How much food did you buy for her?” Irene asked.
“What?” Connie used both hands to twist the dish towel.
“Enough for a couple of days, perhaps? A long weekend?”
“Oh, the food.” Connie’s grip on the towel lessened slightly. “That was a bit strange, now that I think about it. When she called she said she wanted enough milk and cereal and salad makings and such to last about a week.”
“What was strange about that?”
“Usually she just came for a weekend, three days at the most. Can’t remember the last time she planned to stay for a whole week. And all by herself, too. She always had a man with her when she showed up in town.”
“Always?” Irene repeated carefully.
Connie made a face. “You remember how when Pamela was a teenager, she always had boys hanging around her like bees around a honey pot?”
“Yes.”
“Well, some things never change. There was always a man somewhere in the vicinity.”
Irene thought about the pink-and-white bedroom. “Where did they sleep?”
Connie looked bewildered. “At the house, of course. Where else would they sleep?”
“I mean, which bedroom in the house?”
“Pamela always used the master bedroom on account of it had the deck and the view of the lake. Her guests used the spare bedrooms. There was one upstairs and one down.”