Murder at Mistletoe Manor: A Mystery Novella Read online

  “What stopped you?” asked Klarinda.

  “Oh, I don’t know. I suppose since it’s none of my business.”

  “We’re friends now,” said Klarinda, “so it is too your business.” She took the bottle from Pierre. “I wound up here because I thought it would be relaxing and picturesque.” She took another swig. “I paid for it with money I’d earned over ten years in the advertising industry. I used to live in Chicago. I used to have to wear suits and high heels every day! Can you picture it?”

  “No,” Myrtle and Pierre said in unison.

  “I wanted a change of pace, and I really thought I had what it took to turn this place around.” She took another swig. “And the biggest reason I wanted it? Well, I thought it would be a guy-magnet.”

  At that Myrtle and Pierre both burst into laughter.

  Their laughter was abruptly cut short, however, by the sound of a crash upstairs.

  “What the hell was that?” exclaimed Pierre.

  The three of them darted out of the kitchen, through the hall and up the stairs, and then paused in the upstairs hallway between Lannie’s suite and the guys’ rooms, trying to determine where the sound had come from.

  “Hello? Is everyone okay?” called Klarinda to the closed doors before her.

  “What was that?” asked Benji opening her door and scowling out at them. She looked half awake. Klarinda noted that even her pajamas were that same shade of rusty orange.

  Caroline’s door opened then and she and Jacob stepped out, both wrapped in sheets and blankets. They joined the others in the larger portion of the hallway. “What’s happening now?” asked Jacob.

  “That’s what we’re here to find out,” said Klarinda. She began knocking on each door.

  “I’ll get the master key. Just in case,” said Myrtle, dashing down the stairs.

  One by one the doors opened. Lannie’s door, and Christopher’s a moment later, until five of the six remaining guests were standing in the hallway. Klarinda went over to Tessa’s door and rapped on it as hard as she could.

  “Tessa? Are you in there? Please come out! We’re worried about you,” shouted Klarinda.

  “Here’s the master key,” hollered Myrtle, barreling up the stairs. She tossed it to Klarinda, who then opened Tessa’s door in a hurry.

  “Aarghh!” screamed Klarinda, jumping back. Everyone came rushing forward to get a better look.

  “Oh, no! No! Not again,” yelled Lannie, clutching Pumpernickel to her chest. She and the little dog were dressed in matching pink nighties. Klarinda tore her eyes from that spectacle to the bigger problem: The ancient, solid oak armoire that had always been a focal point of the blue room had somehow toppled over, and Tessa was crushed beneath it, lying in a pool of her own blood. A tiny bottle of vodka lay beside her open hand, making its own little puddle.

  “How could this have happened?” asked Klarinda. “That armoire weighs hundreds of pounds and is just about impossible to move! How in the world did she manage to knock it over on herself?”

  “Let me check for a pulse,” said Pierre, rushing in and raising Tessa’s limp wrist. They all waited in nervous anticipation. After several long moments he shook his head and solemnly placed her hand back on the floor.

  “It’s all our fault. This happened because she was going after her vodka and cigarettes,” said Caroline.

  Jacob stepped forward, hanging his head. “We put them up there so she’d stop smoking and drinking, and just go to bed.”

  “We thought we were helping her,” said Caroline.

  “You two drunks were trying to help her,” scoffed Lannie. “I mean, no offense. I’m just saying.”

  “But she must have climbed up there to get them, and then pulled the armoire down on herself,” Jacob continued, as if Lannie hadn’t even spoken.

  “But do you think she’s going to be okay?” asked Benji, straining her neck, trying to get a better look.

  “She’s not okay! She’s dead!” said Klarinda.

  “I guess I ought to call 911 again?” asked Myrtle.

  Klarinda nodded. “Thank you, Myrtle,” she said, forcing herself to look away from the horror.

  “I’m going to get back to cleaning the kitchen,” said Pierre, skulking off.

  “If she would’ve come to my room like I asked her to, she’d still be alive right now,” Christopher noted.

  Klarinda stood up, doing her best to gain control over the situation. “Alright, everyone. Please, go back to your rooms. The police will be here soon. This has clearly been a terrible accident. There’s nothing any of us can do.”

  “Are we going to leave her lying there? In her own blood?” exclaimed Lannie.

  “The least we could do is pick up the armoire,” suggested Christopher.

  “I suppose you’re right,” said Klarinda.

  “Let me help,” said Jacob, tying his bedsheet into place and stepping forward. Klarinda would have preferred him not to, seeing as how lifting the armoire was going to mean also dragging her new, five hundred thread count sheets in the blood. But mentioning such a thing seemed crass and heartless, so she bit her lip instead.

  “On the count of one... two... three,” said Christopher. He and Jacob lifted the armoire, tilting it back until it settled heavily in its original place.

  “Ugh! I wish you guys hadn’t done that,” said Lannie. She blocked Pumpernickel’s eyes with her hand.

  “Cover her with a blanket, please,” said Caroline. “She looks like a squashed squirrel you’d see on the street.”

  “Here. Take mine,” said Benji, bringing in the $250 duvet that Klarinda had just purchased a few weeks earlier. Before she could argue, the duvet was covering Tessa.

  “Alright, everyone,” said Klarinda. “Please go back to your rooms. The police will be here again soon, I’m sure, but unless they need to speak with any of you individually, I’m going to ask you to stay in your rooms. And I don’t normally say this to guests, but in light of everything that has happened tonight, I’ll be downstairs in my apartment if anyone needs me throughout the night. Good night.”

  Chapter 9

  The clock beside Klarinda’s bed said 1:17 when she sat up in bed, wide awake. She listened, trying to figure out what had woken her up. The inn was quiet and nothing seemed out of sorts. The police had left about thirty minutes earlier, and she’d fallen asleep minutes after she’d locked up after them.

  Now she was as alert as a jackrabbit, but she had no idea why. She got up and peered out the window. The snow was still coming down. The bottom half of her window was covered; she had to stand on the ottoman to look outside. An old hanging lantern cast a shallow yellow glow across the parking lot of the inn. It highlighted the snowflakes and Christopher’s crookedly parked Subaru, and not much else.

  Klarinda crawled back into bed and was just dozing off again when she heard what she guessed to be the sound that had woken her in the first place: Somewhere in the inn, a woman was crying.

  She got out of bed, opened the door from her apartment to the back hallway of the inn, and listened. Now she could hear it more clearly. She followed the sound, up the stairs, and straight to Lannie’s room. The wailing coming from inside was growing louder and louder. She saw a sliver of light appear beneath Caroline’s door, and realized that Lannie was waking up the entire inn, so she knocked lightly on her door.

  “Hey! Are you okay in there?” she called, when the wailing continued.

  The crying stopped and the door opened a crack.

  “Sorry,” sniffled Lannie. “Was I that loud?”

  “No, no. Not at all,” Klarinda lied. “Clearly, it’s been a very strange, upsetting evening. Is there anything I can do to help?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe I just need someone to talk to,” Lannie said. “Death always makes me really sad,” she added through her tears.

  “I think that’s pretty normal,” said Klarinda.

  “Come in. Sit down,” said Lannie, gesturing toward the small living room
of the suite.

  “Sure,” said Klarinda, closing the door behind her and taking a seat in the paisley wingback chair.

  Lannie placed her dog on Klarinda’s lap. “Please, comfort her. I just… can’t,” she said. Then she flung herself on the love seat and picked up a crumpled tissue from the coffee table and loudly blew her nose into it. After several honks, she buried her face in a pillow, snotting it up like nobody’s business. Just when Klarinda was considering whether she ought to get up and leave, Lannie shot back up, ready to unload.

  “When I was back at the academy, something horrible happened,” she said. “Do you already know about this? I mean, I suppose someone else has already filled you in on all the sordid details.”

  “Actually, no,” said Klarinda. “I don’t know anything about what happened at the academy.”

  “I want to tell you, but I’m afraid you’re going to j-j-judge me,” Lannie bawled.

  “I won’t judge you,” Klarinda promised.

  “Good! Because I really need to get this off my chest!”

  “Go ahead,” said Klarinda, “but if you wouldn’t mind keeping it down a little…”

  “Right,” said Lannie, lowering her voice a smidge. “So, it was my sophomore year, and I was about to turn sixteen. The crazy part is, the night I’m talking about was ten years ago exactly. It was a Wednesday night. It’s almost like this reunion has something to do with that. I don’t know?” She shrugged helplessly.

  “Go on,” said Klarinda.

  “I had decided to have a sweet sixteen party, and I’d been planning it for weeks, and it was going to go on for days. From December thirteenth through December seventeenth.”

  “That’s quite the celebration,” said Klarinda.

  “I guess,” said Lannie. “My actual birthday is December sixteenth, so I had this idea like I might as well celebrate all weekend. Since I didn’t live with my parents, I had to throw the party for myself. That sounds kind of strange, I guess, but everyone at the academy did that. Sweet sixteen parties were a huge deal, and it was normal to plan your own, and you know, just have your parents send you the money to pay for it. And it was normal for them to last several days. You can relate, right?”

  “Oh, sure,” said Klarinda, thinking back to her own impoverished childhood, growing up in the tiny town of Orfordville, Wisconsin, and being raised by her disabled grandparents.

  “So, I planned an amazing party for myself, because my mom and dad said that the sky was the limit. I bought myself a bunch of outfits, because I was going to do several costume changes, just like everybody else had done at their parties, and I even got my parents to buy me a car.”

  “Your parents bought you a car,” Klarinda repeated, “as part of a birthday party?” I was lucky to get a piñata, she added in her head.

  “Well, yes and no,” said Lannie. “I was turning sixteen anyway, and they knew I’d need a car, so even though I hadn’t passed my driving test yet, they called a local dealership, bought me what I wanted, and had it delivered to the academy. You know, with a bow on it and all of that. Like lots of kids’ parents did.”

  “Wow,” said Klarinda, looking around the room, making sure she hadn’t slipped into some parallel but very different universe.

  “Anyway,” Lannie continued, “I invited everyone who was anyone. I didn’t have a boyfriend, so I invited, like, every cute boy in the whole academy. I invited plenty of girls too, so I didn’t look like I was totally boy-crazy. Tessa and Caroline were roommates, right across the hall from me, so I invited them. I invited their boyfriends, Christopher and Jacob. Honestly, I invited anyone who was even remotely cool, because I’m an inclusive person. I always have been. I hate hurting people’s feelings. But I didn’t invite my roommate Avery. I just couldn’t. She was too gross. I hated her! She would have ruined my party.”

  “How would she have ruined it?” asked Klarinda.

  “Everything about her was all wrong. And keep in mind, I was sixteen. Things are harder at that age. And kind of magnified, you know?”

  “That’s true,” said Klarinda.

  “Sure, during the summers we got to be home, or vacationing, or whatever, but during the school year, being trapped together in that teensy room... So many hours together, non-stop. Ugh! She drove me nuts!” Lannie shuddered in ick-filled remembrance.

  “I can imagine,” said Klarinda.

  “She had really bad skin that she picked at. And she picked her nose right in front of people! She was really unhealthy. She ate fries and candy bars for every meal! Her clothes were hideous. She got terrible grades. There were even rumors that she was going to get kicked out of Mount Hemlock, since she was on a scholarship and wasn’t doing well enough to stay. You understand why I didn’t invite her, right?”

  Klarinda didn’t like where this was going. “So, what happened to her?”

  “Like I said, it was a Wednesday night, and I’d just gotten back from the mall with some new shoes. I went straight to Tessa and Caroline’s room to show them. They were hanging out with Christopher and Jacob, watching some movie. They loved my shoes! I sat down and started watching the movie, too. It was… Oh, shit! I mean, sorry for swearing, but I just remembered what it was. It was Mean Girls, of all things. Ugh! I’m making it sound like we were a bunch of bullies, but we weren’t. Really! Being not interested in someone doesn’t make you a bully.”

  “Okay,” said Klarinda, since Lannie seemed to be waiting for some feedback. “Were you guys ever nice to her? Did you ever include her in anything?”

  “See, there you go. Getting judgy,” said Lannie. “I knew I should have kept my mouth shut.”

  “Forget I asked,” said Klarinda.

  “We weren’t bad to her,” Lannie insisted, tears filling her eyes again. “Christopher, for instance, used to stick up for her. She probably never even knew that. Anyway, the door to Tessa and Caroline’s room was open, so Sara stuck her head in to see how we were doing. She was our floor’s big sister. That’s like an upperclassman hall monitor, kind of. Just for the record, she was so much cuter back then. I didn’t even recognize her when I first saw her again. Having ten kids certainly didn’t do her any favors! Just saying. Gosh, I sound horrible, don’t I? Speaking ill of the dead like this.”

  “You mean to tell me that ten years ago tonight, the six of you who were just sitting around that table were all together, watching a movie?” asked Klarinda.

  Lannie nodded. “And once it was over, I went back across the hall to my own room. And that’s when I discovered Avery.”

  “Discovered Avery…” Klarinda repeated.

  Lannie nodded. “Yes,” she said. “I discovered her. Lying there. Dead.” Her voice cracked on the word dead.

  “That’s terrible,” said Klarinda. “What happened?”

  “I screamed! That’s what happened! Tessa and Caroline, and Christopher and Jacob, and Sara… Well, they all rushed over, trying to calm me down. I was so upset!”

  “I meant, what happened to Avery?”

  “Oh, yeah. Avery. She had swallowed an entire bottle of sleeping pills, and left me a note that said ‘This is all because of you, Alanna. Thanks for inviting me to your party. Not!’ Can you believe she did that? I’ve never, ever forgiven her! As you can imagine, it was the worst night of my life.”

  Klarinda nodded. “I’ll bet.”

  Lannie yawned. “Oh my gosh! It’s three in the morning! I’ve got to get some sleep! Thanks for listening.”

  “Anytime,” Klarinda said, handing Pumpernickel over to Lannie and letting herself out.

  Chapter 10

  At four twenty-three, Klarinda awoke to a strange sensation. She was so tired that at first she tried to convince herself it was a dream. So I’m being rained on, she told herself. No big deal. It’s a warm rain, and a little rain never hurt anyone.

  But it didn’t stop, and it was too real, and suddenly she knew it wasn’t a dream at all.

  She sat up in bed, and wiped at her wet face
. She reached behind her, patting at her pillow, and discovered that the entire side of her pillow was damp. She was about to reach for her lamp, but even in her groggy state, she thought better of it. Instead, she got out of bed, walked across the room, and turned on the lamp by her doorway instead. To her horror, the plaster ceiling above her bed was dark, damp, and dripping water. She did a quick mental calculation, realizing that she was directly below the yellow room’s bathroom. Without further hesitation, she grabbed the master key and sprinted up the stairs to Caroline Bradbury’s room.

  She knocked loudly on the door, not caring who she woke up. By the looks of that spot on her ceiling, the entire bathroom must be flooded, and she’d be lucky if the old seventy-two inch clawfoot bathtub didn’t come busting right through the second floor down onto her bed!

  When there was no answer, she let herself into the room. The bed was empty, and it was a rumpled mess. Wine bottles were spilled on the floor, and an open bottle of whiskey sat on the bedside table. A black lace bra dangled from the lampshade and a bottle of massage oil lay in the middle of a dark, greasy stain on the bed. The bathroom door was closed, but the crack under the door showed that the light was on inside.

  Klarinda didn’t have time to feel bad about having yet another set of ruined sheets. She ran over to the bathroom door and pounded on it. “Hello? Are you okay in there?” The carpet here was squishy and soggy. When no one answered, she turned the knob and swung open the door. Water was everywhere. It was flowing over the center, dipping edge of the tub, flooding the entire bathroom. And in the tub – Klarinda rubbed her eyes, almost not believing what she saw -- were two lifeless bodies floating face down.

  Klarinda leaned into the small bathroom and turned off the gushing faucets. She didn’t have to flip the bodies over to know they were Caroline Bradbury and Jacob Reese.

  Chapter 11

  “I’m starting to think we should set up camp here,” Deputy Franklin joked grimly.