Reservations for Murder - Tim Myers [30]
Alex hoped Elise planned on coming back, but he had to accept the possibility that she was gone for good. After all, it appeared that she had already lined up a replacement, just in case she decided to stay in West Virginia.
The evening was certainly cool enough, so Alex gladly used it as an excuse to build a fire in the main lobby. He hadn’t had enough money to restore the fireplaces in all of the rooms yet, but the massive communal hearth in the lobby had never failed the Winstons in all the generations they’d owned The Hatteras West Inn.
As he reviewed his current situation, he acknowledged that it was a distressing predicament for an innkeeper to be in. One of his guests had been murdered, and another had disappeared without warning. To top it off, the rest of the crafters were leaving tomorrow night after the lighting ceremony, and Alex would be left with a nearly empty inn again. He knew that the first Golden Days Fair would also be the last, certainly as far as Hatteras West was concerned. It was just too much for him, added to his usual hectic life running the inn. When he lit the beacon tomorrow night, it would be a welcome end to something that had started out with so much promise.
As the logs caught fire, Alex decided to use one of the special pieces of firewood one of his guests brought him every year she visited the inn. He loved watching the minerals in the crusted wood ignite in flames of red, gold, green and blue. Alethia Garson brought a stack of driftwood she collected from her home in Buxton on the Outer Banks every time she visited Hatteras West. Alethia was a lighthouse nut; there was no polite way to say it. She’d proudly showed Alex pictures of her own home, filled with every imaginable product ever made in the shape of a lighthouse, from salt and pepper shakers to birdhouses to dinner bells. Without question, though, her proudest possession was a small-scale version of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse sitting in her own front yard.
Every time he burned a piece of wood from her special stack, Alex thought warmly of her and everyone else who had crossed his threshold to stay at The Hatteras West Inn. Alethia and other guests like her were the real reason Alex continued with the inn when all intelligence told him it was a foolhardy proposition. Not only was Hatteras West the only home he knew, but the people who came back to stay with him year after year were more of a family to him than his own brother had ever been.
As Alex watched the flames, he found himself wondering for the thousandth time who really had murdered Jefferson Lee. Could it actually have been Bill Yadkin, the most obvious suspect, despite Alex’s gut feeling? Jalissa Moore, a girl he’d gone to high school with and who now worked as a reporter for Elkton Falls’ only newspaper, once told him that one of the first things she’d been taught in journalism school was that if you hear hoofbeats, think horses not zebras.
Bill Yadkin was the obvious choice.
But Alex knew that even his good friend Shantara had reasons of her own to want the blacksmith dead.
Did Marilynn Baxter have something to hide concerning the murder? Could she have seen something she shouldn’t have? Had she run, or had she been kidnapped, as her husband believed? For that matter, did Craig Monroe know more about her disappearance than he let on?
There was also Jenny to consider. After all, she’d dated the blacksmith recently, and Alex knew firsthand how her moods could swing. How about Rachel? The woodworker was powerful enough, she’d proven it when she’d grabbed his arm, and she was certainly capable of it if she felt her lover was threatened. For that matter, all of the women at the fair were physically strong enough to have done it.
Alex had a thousand questions and not one solid answer for any of them. He wished yet again that Elise was there to talk it all over with him. Even if they didn’t come up with a solution on their own, they’d make