The Extinguished Guest (A Lexie Starr Mystery, Book 2) (2 page)

I turned over for at least the hundredth time in my quest to find a comfortable sleeping
position, but the mattress had less give than a concrete runway at Chicago's O'Hare
Airport. I'd have to convince Stone Van Patten, my boyfriend and proprietor of this
recently renovated inn, to buy featherbed mattress pads for the beds. Harriet's Camelot
B&B in Schenectady, New York, where Stone and I'd become acquainted, had down-filled
mattresses and to me, sleeping on a down-filled mattress was like sleeping on a cloud.
I'd seen this kind of mattress pad selling on the Internet for less than a hundred
dollars, and if Stone wanted repeat customers, his investing in comfortable bedding
would be money well spent.

I'd be lucky if I didn't end up covered in bruises from all the flopping around and
flipping from side-to-side in my attempt to fall asleep. I just knew I'd be groggy
and out-of-sorts while trying to perform my duties as Master of Ceremonies at the
induction dinner, honoring Horatio Prescott III, the new president of the Rockdale
Historical Society. The induction ceremony was being held in conjunction with Alexandria
Inn's grand opening. Stone had been thrilled when approached with the idea by the
club's secretary, Patty Poffenbarger.

Having no luck in falling asleep, I considered taking one of the four sleeping pills
I'd been carrying around and hoarding for nearly twenty years. But like every other
time I'd thought about taking one, I talked myself out of it. Instead I opted to save
them for a more critical occasion—when getting a good night's sleep was of life-altering
importance—even though my pills were on the verge of disintegrating into dust.

"What am I saving them for?" I asked myself, feeling disgusted with my neurotic tendencies.
I hated to admit it, but I'd fried pork chops with more sense than I sometimes exhibited.
Could I be saving the pills for the restless night before I gave my presidential inauguration
speech, or perhaps on the eve of my wedding day when I was to marry a foreign prince?
Was it so I could be well rested and alert before blasting off in a space shuttle
to orbit some far-off planet in a distant galaxy? For goodness sakes, I was Lexie
Starr, a widowed forty-eight-year-old, Midwestern library assistant. I led a normal,
sedate life in the suburbs of Kansas City, and mine was a life not exactly riddled
with important, life-altering occasions. I wasn't apt to be accepting an Oscar, an
Emmy, a Pulitzer Prize, or even the neighborhood award for "Lawn-of-the-Month."

I sighed and turned over once again, knowing that should I meet with a situation worthy
of one of the antiquated sleeping pills, they'd be less than useless, anyway, and
totally ineffective from being several decades past their expiration date, if not
merely little piles of powder. I might just as well have flushed them down the toilet
immediately following their acquisition many years ago. That was shortly after the
unexpected death of my husband, Chester, when I was not yet thirty years old. He died
suddenly of an embolism when our only child, Wendy, was seven years old. It'd been
her and me against the world for the next twenty years, but we'd persevered and survived.

I was thinking about the transition I'd made back then, to being a single mom following
my husband's death, and I was finally drifting off to sleep when a loud noise broke
through the night's silence. The resounding thud came from the ceiling directly above
my bed. I sat straight up in alarm. It sounded as if someone had dropped a sixteen-pound
bowling ball on the floor above me, or perhaps had fallen out of bed while flopping
around, as I'd been doing most of the night. I was quite sure whatever caused the
sudden loud noise could not be a normal occurrence.

I glanced over at the alarm clock on my nightstand. There were less than two hours
before I had to be up and about if I were to be dressed and ready to help Crystal
prepare breakfast for our guests by seven-thirty. Falling asleep now might be worse
than not sleeping at all.

I considered going upstairs to investigate the loud noise, but like with the sleeping
pill, I talked myself out of it. It was never a smart idea to go waltzing into a stranger's
room at 5:08 in the morning. That would be a good way to find yourself waking up dead—from
being shot as an intruder with questionable intentions.

I rolled over, forcing the curious thoughts about the predawn thud from my mind, and
soon fell into a light slumber.

* * *

My fear of being shot as an intruder must have been prophetic because as it turned
out someone did wake up dead that morning, even if that someone wasn't me. And the
"deadness" was indeed the direct result of a gunshot wound. The victim was our distinguished
guest of honor, Horatio Prescott III. But Mr. Prescott couldn't have been accidentally
shot as an intruder because he was found murdered in his own room. After he'd failed
to show up for breakfast, Stone and I went upstairs and found him, face down on the
floor, next to the window overlooking the flower gardens outside. I assumed he'd been
killed at approximately 5:08
A.M.
and was surprised to see he was already dressed for the day in a dark gray, pinstriped,
three-piece suit. As it drained from a single bullet hole in the back of his head,
a pool of blood had formed beside his body. It was a gruesome sight, forever imprinted
in my memory.

While I studied the scene, I saw a ballpoint pen in the victim's right hand. There
was a look of amazement frozen on his face as rigor mortis set in. I surmised the
killer had utilized a silencer on his weapon. I'd heard a distinctive thud-like sound
that would have been made by Prescott's stout, compact body hitting the floor. But
I was positive there'd not been an audible bang preceding the thud, like the sound
of a bullet being fired into the back of the man's bald head. I couldn't recall any
other sounds, such as two men wrestling over possession of a weapon. I had a hunch
that Horatio Prescott had been taken completely by surprise and was dead the second
after he realized he was about to be killed.

Looking down at the rigid, prostrate body, I felt a moment of guilt and regret. Perhaps
if I'd gone upstairs to investigate the noise as I'd considered doing soon after I'd
heard the thud, Mr. Prescott could have been saved with the assistance of emergency
medical technicians. Perhaps, even, the killer who'd offed Mr. Prescott could have
been apprehended, or at least identified, had only a mere minute or so been allowed
to pass following the fatal shot. But then, perhaps the killer who'd offed Mr. Prescott
could have panicked and also offed the middle-aged library assistant who, out of idle
curiosity, was schlepping up the stairs in an oversized K.C. Chiefs' football jersey
she called a nightshirt. Seems it may have been a damned good thing I was able to
persuade myself to ignore the noise and stay under the covers in my rock-hard bed
for another two hours!

I looked around at the roomful of people standing with their mouths agape, stunned
expressions showing on their faces. They were the other Historical Society members,
and all were obviously as shocked as I. This was certainly not included on the copy
of the schedule of events I'd been given the night before.

From across the room, Stone caught my eye and shrugged in disbelief. After checking
Mr. Prescott's neck for a pulse for the sixth or seventh time. Stone lifted the phone
from the night-stand and punched in nine-one-one on the handset. He motioned for me
to herd all of the guests out of the room that had now become a crime scene. He may
have been afraid the Historical Society was about to become the hysterical society,
once the severity of the matter sunk in.

Stone instructed everyone to refrain from touching or disturbing anything in the room.
I wasn't sure if Stone was trying to protect any evidence that might be present from
contamination or protect the reputation of the Alexandria Inn he'd recently purchased.
It was an antebellum mansion located just north of St. Joseph, Missouri. Stone had
restored and named the historic inn after me. The inn had just opened for business
the previous day, and a murder was not a particularly auspicious beginning for the
lodging establishment. It was memorable, maybe—but probably not conducive to enticing
hordes of customers to register at the inn, taking their chances on being shot dead
in the middle of the night. The exalted guest-of-honor, Horatio Prescott, had been
assigned the most luxurious suite the inn offered. Unfortunately, I feared, the impressive
suite would forever after be known as "site of the murder" and not deemed very desirable.

"Come on, Cornelius," I said softly, as I nudged Mr. Walker toward the door. Nearby,
I tapped the bony shoulder of the regal and sophisticated-looking Rosalinda Swift.

"Let's go make some coffee, Ms. Swift, while we wait for the police and coroner to
arrive. We're obligated to preserve the purity of the crime scene, I'm sure. There's
nothing we can do now for Mr. Prescott, anyway."

I nodded at the Poffenbargers as I watched Patty Poffenbarger absentmindedly bite
the end off a chocolate long john dangling from her right hand. I was amazed she could
even think of eating at a time like this, although she probably ate out of habit most
of the time, without much thought about the food she was ingesting.

"Humph!" Patty said indignantly after she had licked the icing from her fingers. She
glared at Stone with a look of accusation. "If I'd known something like this was going
to happen, I would've made arrangements for the Society to stay elsewhere. What kind
of establishment is this?"

I wanted to defend the Alexandria Inn because I realized Horatio Prescott could have
been killed at any lodging facility in town. Actually, what I really wanted to do
was slap a piece of duct tape across Patty's mouth. Instead, I counted silently to
ten, took her by the elbow and led her across the room, with her husband trailing
behind us. By my estimation, Patty would tip the scale at three hundred pounds, while
her six-foot tall husband, Otto, couldn't have weighed over a hundred and twenty pounds,
even wearing a heavy winter parka with its pockets full of rocks. It's not that I
have anything against people who are heavier than they really ought to be—I was a
bit on the pudgy side myself—I just didn't like anyone making negative remarks about
the Alexandria Inn, a business we had worked hard to make successful.

Harry and Alma Turner were standing in the corner of the oversized room. Gesturing,
I caught Harry Turner's attention. Trembling slightly, Harry leaned against the wall,
as Alma stood next to him and dabbed at her eyes with a pink, flowery handkerchief.
I waved the dumbstruck Turners out the door behind Rosalinda Swift, Cornelius Walker
and the Poffenbargers, and as a group, we marched woodenly down the hallway to the
staircase.

We passed Robert and Ernestine Fischer on our descent downstairs. I explained the
situation and quickly turned the elderly couple around to go back to the parlor with
the rest of us. The only guest unaccounted for was the overbearing and pompous man
I'd met yesterday, Boris Dack, whose room was across the hall from mine on the first
floor. Mr. Dack must have overslept, I concluded, as we passed his closed door on
the way to the parlor. Like Mr. Prescott, Boris Dack hadn't appeared for breakfast
at the appointed time of seven-thirty. His "Do Not Disturb" placard still dangled
from the doorknob of his room. No one claimed to have seen him yet that morning.

As the ever-gracious host, I was helping Crystal dole out croissants and pour fresh
cups of coffee a few minutes later. I wondered who'd want to kill Horatio Prescott
III on the very day of his induction as president of the Rockdale Historical Society.
Was the killer someone who coveted the honorable position and was determined to have
another crack at it? I found it hard to fathom why anyone would actually want the
position. I couldn't imagine nominating anyone for the position except out of spite
or pure orneriness. I'd rather sit through a root canal than be thrust in that position.

Did the killer have an entirely unrelated grievance against the dead man? Could it
have been a stranger who'd clandestinely entered the Alexandria Inn in the wee hours
of the morning, shot the prestigious Mr. Prescott, and then exited the building unobserved?

Or was the killer, instead, one of the nine other guests registered at the Alexandria
Inn? All the guests were acquainted with Horatio Prescott III and, in fact, had been
specifically invited to be a part of the induction ceremony. All but Alma Turner,
who was attending the event with her husband, were members of the Historical Society.
Could one of them have a reason to despise the man enough to kill him? Could one of
them have convincingly faked surprise at finding Mr. Prescott dead in his room? Would
the killer be identified and brought to justice? I knew I couldn't rest easy until
these questions had been answered.

My first impression of Horatio Prescott had been that he was a refined, fastidious
but unassuming gentleman. But I really knew very little about him or any of the other
nine guests making up the small, local Historical Society. However, I had a sneaking
suspicion, somehow, in some way, this was all about to change.

Chapter 2