Innkeeping with Murder - Tim Myers [1]
Alex kicked the cast-iron base, cracking his big toe with the impact. “I can’t believe how ungrateful this mechanical nightmare is. I should have thrown it out years ago.”
He looked at the boiler with disgust. He could usually coax the antiquated system back to life with a judicious whack from his monkey wrench, but even his verbal threats to dismantle the oil eater and sink it in the lake down the road had met with no response. On second thought, he realized it wouldn’t do to pollute one of the features that drew guests to the inn. The lake, though small by some standards, was large enough to allow visitors to fish from the banks or from a canoe. Alex had gotten a good deal on four battered aluminum canoes from a summer camp that had gone bankrupt the year before. After giving each boat a fresh coat of green aluminum paint, he began offering them to his guests, for a slight fee, of course. Alex used every angle he could think of to generate more income, but no matter how much money he brought in, there never seemed to be enough.
The boiler was a case in point, nothing more than a big black hole waiting to swallow what was left in his dwindling bank account. Still, he had no choice but to have it fixed immediately. Lacking basic amenities, his guests would disappear faster than cotton candy in a thunderstorm. The weather in the foothills of North Carolina could suddenly turn cool during the fall months, and they were now in the heart of autumn.
As gently as he could, Alex asked, “What problem were you talking about when you came in?” Marisa started to answer, but Alex held up his hand to cut off her response. “Never mind, I don’t want to know. Marisa, if something’s wrong, you’re going to have to deal with it yourself. I have to call Mor or Les.” The two men operated the town’s combination handyman service and fix-it shop. Unfortunately, both men were on intimate terms with his troublesome boiler.
Marisa’s lower lip quivered in a rapidly increasing tempo, a sure sign she was fighting back a crying jag. Her teary spells had concerned Alex at first, but he’d soon learned that the girl would cry at the slightest provocation. Barely in her twenties, Marisa had the look of a wild doe, from her long thin body and matching oblong face to the biggest set of brown eyes Alex had ever seen.
Marisa stifled back the tears and mumbled something Alex couldn’t understand. He tried to bury his irritation with the girl before he spoke. She hadn’t done anything to anger him, but the throbbing ache in his head from the boiler collision was hard to ignore.
In a voice calmer than he felt, Alex said, “Relax and take a deep breath.” She did as he suggested, and Alex could see the quivering recede. “There, that’s better. Now what’s the problem you wanted to tell me about?”
“You said I should handle it myself.”
Alex coaxed her gently. “I shouldn’t have said that. I’ll take care of whatever’s wrong.”
“It’s Mr. Wellington,” Marisa said. “He asked me to wake him from his nap, but he won’t come to the door no matter how hard I knock. It’s time for him to take his medication. I just know he’s forgotten again.”
“Where’s Junior?” It was a ridiculous moniker for a fifty-year-old man, but that was the name Reg Wellington insisted everyone call his grown son. Although the senior Wellington had been vacationing at the mountain lighthouse for as long as Alex could remember, he had never brought his son with him before this trip.
Marisa said, “I can’t find him anywhere either. I don’t know what to do.”
Great, just great. For the hundredth time that day, Alex wished his dad had left him anything but the inn. After his father had died, Alex’s brother Tony had opted for cash, and in a burst of sentimentality that Alex had often regretted since, he’d volunteered to take over the ten-room inn and connecting lighthouse where the two of them had grown up.
Rubbing the crown of his head, Alex asked, “Marisa, would you like me to take care of Mr. Wellington