Ring for Murder (Lighthouse Inn Finale) (5 page)

“You don’t have to do this,” Alex said.

Mor grinned at him. “Are you kidding me?
This helps me out in two ways. I didn’t know what to get you as a
wedding present, so a free day of work from Les and me was Elise’s
suggestion. That’s one practical woman you’ve got there.”

“What’s the second reason?”

“My wife won’t be trying to dragoon me into
her wedding prep squad.” Mor patted Alex hard on the back. “It’s a
win-win situation no matter how I look at it.”

“Well, if you’re sure, there’s a closet
light in the Blue Ridge Suite that never has worked.”

“Let’s see to it, then,” Mor said.

Alex opened the door, and Mor walked over to
the closet. He flipped the switch, and nothing happened. After a
moment, he pulled off the cover plate, looked in, and said, “I can
fix this in two seconds.”

“Should I turn off the power?” Alex
asked.

“No, it’s okay. I’m fine.”

Mor worked for five minutes, and when he was
finished, the light came right on at the flick of the switch.

“That’s great,” Alex said.

“Anything else in here need fixing?” Mor
asked.

“I don’t think so.”

Mor took out his outlet tester and said,
“Let’s check anyway.”

“They all work,” Alex said.

Mor plugged the tester into an outlet behind
the door. “This one’s dead.”

“It can’t be. It was working last week when
I vacuumed here.”

“Maybe it was tied in with the switch,” Mor
said.

“Is that even possible?”

“
With this old wiring,
nothing would surprise me. Let’s see what we’ve got,” Mor said as
he started to take the cover plate off.

“I really should turn the electricity off.”
As an innkeeper, Alex was a jack of most trades, but he wasn’t all
that comfortable when it came to two things: electricity, and
natural gas lines.

“If I have to swap it out with another
receptacle, we’ll kill it, but I’m just looking right now.”

Mor took out a large flashlight and peered
into the outlet as soon as it was exposed.

“That’s odd,” he said.

“What? Did a wire slip off?”

“From what I can see, the wires aren’t even
connected to this outlet at all.” He took his screwdriver and began
to remove the outlet itself.

“Well, would you look at that,” he said.

The big man was blocking his view, so Alex
couldn’t see anything at all. “What is it?”

“This outlet was live pretty recently, but
someone’s taped off the wires and killed the outlet on
purpose.”

“How can you tell?”

“The electrical tape looks brand new, and
the scratches on the posts look fresh.”

Alex had to take his friend’s word on that.
“Why would anyone do that?”

“Beats me.” Mor reached into the opening,
and Alex was afraid his friend would get a shock despite the
protected wires, but instead, he pulled out a small folded piece of
paper.

“What is it?” Alex asked.

“I figure it’s your inn. You should have the
honors. It’s probably a gag by a disgruntled electrician.”

“It could be,” Alex said.

As he opened the paper, Alex found a cryptic
photocopy, of what, Alex was not at all sure. There were what
appeared to be random numbers in several columns, but they made no
sense at all to him.

He showed Mor, who examined it as well, but
the big man couldn’t make out any meaning to it, either.

“I have no idea why anyone would do that,”
Mor said. “I need a drink of water.”

Alex was still studying the fragment when
Mor called out from the bathroom, “Alex, get in here.”

“Hang on a second,” Alex said, still trying
to figure out what the piece of paper could mean.

“I don’t have a second. Then again, maybe
you should stay right where you are.”

That got Alex’s attention. He started for
the bathroom door, but Mor blocked the way.

“What is it?” Alex asked, a fresh sense of
urgency in his voice.

“You don’t need to see this.” He shoved his
cell phone into Alex’s hands. “Call Armstrong.”

Alex felt his body go numb. “Is it Elise?”
He couldn’t imagine living without her, and wasn’t sure he’d even
want to.

“No, it’s not her. It’s Tony.” Mor could
barely get out the next few words. “I’m sorry. He’s dead.”

Alex looked at his friend to see if it was
some kind of twisted joke, but one glance at Mor’s expression told
him that this was no laughing matter.

“I need to see him,” Alex said.

“You shouldn’t. Trust me.”

Alex pushed his big friend aside, something
that he wouldn’t have said was possible if he hadn’t just done
it.

Tony was lying in the tub, face up, with a
knife plunged into his chest.

It was clear there was no life left him.

“It’s not a joke, is it?” Alex asked, still
not able to believe what he was seeing. “Could he be trying to pull
a prank on me on Halloween?”

Mor shook his head. “The blood is real,
there’s no pulse, and he’s as cold as can be. I don’t know how long
he’s been dead, but it’s been awhile.”

Alex nodded, but he still had to see for
himself. The bathmat was gone, so he knelt beside the body on the
cold tile and studied his brother for a second from close up.

“He’s gone, Alex,” Mor said gently, as
though he were informing Alex that it was raining outside. Alex
ignored it, and his fingers probed for a pulse. Mor was right. Tony
had been dead awhile. His skin was cold to the touch, as though the
late October air had sucked out every last bit of warmth he’d had
in him. It felt to Alex as though some kind of weird transference
took place just then. It was almost as if Tony’s body was beginning
to chill him as well. Alex pulled his hand away, and started to get
up, putting his hand on the side of the tub for support.

Mor helped him up. “Are you okay?”

Alex just nodded as he suddenly realized
that he was the last living Winston in his branch of the family
tree.

Mor guided him gently back out of the room,
and he tried to take his phone back from Alex. “I’ll call the
sheriff.”

“No, I can handle it myself,” he said.

“Sheriff, this is Alex Winston,” he said
once he got the sheriff on the phone. It had taken three minutes,
with each passing second feeling as though it lasted a lifetime.
From where he stood, Alex could see that the hardwood floor was
scuffed, and he strangely thought that he and Elise should buff it
out before the police came. He knew on one level that it made no
sense, but he wasn’t in his best frame of mind, either. The drapes
needed to be replaced as well, he thought to himself.

Sheriff Armstrong finally came on the line.
“What’s going on, Alex? The wedding’s still happening, right? You
didn’t cancel it, did you?”

Was the sheriff trying to make a joke? Alex
suddenly realized that it was true. There was no way he and Elise
could be married, at least not now.

“Not yet, but we have to. Somebody killed my
brother at the inn.”

“Are you serious?” the sheriff asked.

“As I can be,” Alex admitted.

“You know the drill. Don’t touch anything.
I’ll be right there.” The sheriff hesitated a moment, and then
said, “Alex, I’m sorry, about your brother, and the wedding.”

“Thanks,” he said. “Mor will be guarding the
door when you get here. Come to the Main Keeper’s Quarters.”

“Where will you be?”

“I have to tell Elise that the wedding’s
off.”

Alex found Elise in the kitchen, helping
Emma with the birdseed packets folks would have been throwing at
them after the ceremony. The women were laughing and smiling as
Alex came in.

Elise dropped the packet she was tying with
ribbon and rushed to Alex. She must have read something in his
face. “What’s wrong?”

“Tony’s been murdered,” Alex said. “We have
to call the wedding off.”

Elise looked as though she couldn’t believe
it. “What? Tell me again, but give me details.”

Emma asked, “Where’s Mor?”

“He’s guarding the body over at the Main
Keepers Quarters until the sheriff gets here.”

“Then that’s where I need to be,” Emma
said.

“You shouldn’t do that,” Alex said.

Emma didn’t even slow down, though. Her
place was with her husband, and there was no way anyone would be
able to keep her from joining him.

Alex slumped down in a chair after Emma was
gone.

“I’m so sorry, Alex,” Elise said as she
stroked his hair lightly. “I know you two had your problems, but he
was your brother.”

“I can’t believe this is happening. Elise,
you know how much I love you, how much you mean to me, but we can’t
do this, not now.”

Elise shushed him. “Of course not. After we
find the killer, we’ll have our wedding ceremony, but Alex, in my
heart, we’re already married. All that’s left are the
formalities.”

“What about the honeymoon?” Alex asked.

Elise shook her head. “We’ll have to cancel
that, too.”

“It’s already paid for. We can’t get a
refund, but we can transfer it to someone else.” Alex had a sudden
idea. As he stood, he asked, “Why don’t we give it to your parents?
You said yourself they need a vacation more than anything in the
world. Let’s send them instead.”

“Alex, we don’t have to talk about that
right now.”

“Elise, there’s nothing to talk about. It’s
settled. Go tell them.”

She hugged him tightly. “You continue to
prove to me that I’ve found the right man to spend the rest of my
life back. They are as frugal as we are. I’ll tell them the trip is
nonrefundable, and they’ll have to go. Thank you, Alex, that means
so much to me.”

“You should go tell them,” he said.

“I can do that later. Right now, you need
me.”

“Elise, I love you with all my heart, but I
need a bit of time alone to come to grips with this. I’m going to
climb to the top of the lighthouse and see if I can make any sense
of it. Do you mind?”

“I knew she’d be your mistress long after I
became your wife,” Elise said with a smile. “Don’t worry, I love
her too, and I’m not the jealous type.”

Elise walked Alex to the foot of the
lighthouse, and as Alex passed by the first window, he saw her
going back inside.

He doubted that many people would have
understood his bond to the lighthouse, and his need to be alone
atop it.

He’d found the right person, too.

“Alex, are you up there?” he heard a voice
call out from below the tower. “I need to talk to you.”

Alex peered over the walkway and saw the
sheriff standing far below. “You could just come up.”

“Not likely. Let’s go, this is serious.”

Alex considered a hundred things he could
say in reply, but there was no use. He hurried down the steps, and
found the sheriff waiting for him at the bottom.

“We need to talk.”

Alex nodded. “I guess you heard about the
fight Tony and I had last night,” Alex said.

“Mor mentioned it.” Alex had brought his
friend up to date on the phone about Tony’s threat to take half the
lighthouse, so it didn’t surprise him.” He wasn’t trying to rat you
out, Alex. He just didn’t want me to find out on my own.”

“I’ve never doubted Mor’s loyalty to me,
sheriff, and I’m not about to start now. I wasn’t all that pleased
with my brother, but I didn’t kill him.”

“That’s what we need to talk about,”
Armstrong said. The sheriff looked at the ground for a moment, and
then said, “I just spoke with your father in law.”

“He’s not going to have that title for
awhile,” Alex said, and then it hit him. “He told you about last
night on the porch, didn’t he?”

The sheriff nodded. “He didn’t want to at
first, but his wife insisted. They aren’t bad people, Alex. They
just want to be sure their daughter is marrying the right man. You
can’t hold it against them.”

“I don’t,” Alex said, though in truth he
wasn’t pleased by the news. What did he expect, though? If he’d
been in Mr. Danton’s shoes and it was his daughter getting married,
wouldn’t he speak up? Of course he would. Elise’s parents clearly
loved her, and if they thought there was a single chance she was
getting herself into some serious trouble, they were obligated to
speak up.

“You mean that?” Armstrong asked. “I’m not
sure I’d be so forgiving, myself.”

“What if it was your daughter getting
married?” he asked simply.

The sheriff didn’t take long to consider the
possibilities. “I’d rat you out in a second.”

“The thing is, I didn’t kill Tony.”

“But he was threatening all of this,” the
sheriff said as he waved a hand around the place. Alex had often
thought of the man as nothing more than a blundering fool, but in
fact, Armstrong had changed since the heart attack he’d had while
Alex and Elise were away working on the Outer Banks at another
lighthouse inn. It was as though God had given him another chance,
and he’d decided to grab it with both hands. It didn’t mean that he
and Alex could ever be considered friends, but the sheriff wasn’t
as quick to think Alex committed a crime as he had in the past.

“That’s a point, but I spoke with Sandra
Beckett last night, and she promised me she’d have my back, that
Tony didn’t have a leg to stand on.”

“It’s kind of crazy how you two have stayed
friends, even after you dumped her for Elise.”

“There was a little difference of opinion in
the timing of it all,” Alex said. “But I trust Sandra, and so does
Elise.”

The sheriff nodded. “Okay,
we know why
you
might have wanted to see your brother dead. Have any other
suspects I can look at?”

Alex nodded. At least he wasn’t being led
off to jail, at least not yet. “You should speak with two people
who were at the rehearsal dinner last night. Remember the woman who
slapped Tony?”