Murder at Mistletoe Manor
By Holly Tierney-Bedord
By Holly Tierney-Bedord
Blurb:
Klarinda Snow is the innkeeper of a beautiful, historic bed and breakfast in Windy Pines, Idaho. Guests come to Mistletoe Manor to escape from their troubles while enjoying the scenic mountain town.
When all seven rooms of the inn get booked on a Tuesday night in December, Klarinda is excited about having so much business, but a little confused as well. After all, her inn normally isn’t exactly a destination hotspot.
The guests have barely settled in before strange things begin happening. Is this the most accident prone group of travelers ever, or is someone out for revenge?
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Excerpt:
Chapter 1
There were seven
guestrooms at Mistletoe Manor, and it was strange for more than one to be
booked on a Tuesday in December. Yet here was the appointment book with all
rooms confirmed, a week in advance, no less.
Klarinda Snow chewed on
the eraser of her pencil, pondering the odds. Unable to make sense of this
anomaly, she brought up the Windy Pines online calendar of events to see if
there was something special going on around town that night. Aside from the
Christmas market, which happened throughout the holiday season, there was
nothing special on the calendar.
“Must be some kind of a
reunion,” she said aloud. But if it was a reunion, wouldn’t at least one of the
guests have said so? And wouldn’t they have booked their rooms all together, at
once? But she could tell from the different colors of ink in the appointment
book that Myrtle had written them at separate times. She flipped the page over
to the notes section, but there was nothing written there.
Just then the door swung
open and her Jill-of-all-trades came in, carrying a pile of snow-dusted
firewood.
“Hello, Klarinda! It’s
getting nasty out there!” Myrtle said, setting the pile of wood on the old
bench just inside the foyer by the front door. She removed her mittens and hat
and set them on the radiator. “Do you want the fireplace in the dining room
going yet, or should we hold off until later in the day?”
“Let’s hold off for
now,” said Klarinda, anxious to ration as much firewood as possible.
Unfortunately, running Mistletoe Manor meant scrimping on the luxuries, and
sometimes even the necessities, at all times. “Myrtle, did all these bookings
for December thirteenth come in at the same time?”
“Throughout the day
yesterday, when you were up in Winter River getting new snow tires put on your
truck.”
“Seems a little funny to
have every room booked, doesn’t it?”
“I certainly thought
so,” said Myrtle.
“And none of them paid
in advance?”
“Come to think of it, I
guess not.”
“Strange. We may need to
change our policy on allowing bookings without prepayment. I feel like we’re
being scammed,” said Klarinda.
“You’re such a cynic,” joked
Myrtle.
“Perhaps. Or maybe I’m a
realist. Did any of them mention one another?”
“No. Each seemed to be
unrelated and random. It happens, I suppose. All the rooms getting booked at
once like that.”
“It doesn’t happen, though,” said Klarinda. “I wish it did! But I can’t
remember the last time all seven rooms were booked at once.”
“Don’t look down on good
luck,” Myrtle advised.
“I’m not,” said
Klarinda, smiling to prove it. Nearly twenty years younger than Myrtle, she
received her fair share of sometimes-wise and often-overbearing pearls of
wisdom from the older woman, despite that she was Myrtle’s boss. Still, she
appreciated Myrtle’s work ethic and experience, so she usually bit her tongue
when Myrtle doled out her advice. Not to mention, sometimes Myrtle was right.
“Oh, bother! This means
we’re going to have to get the toilet working in the purple guestroom,” said
Myrtle, remembering the project Klarinda had been reminding her about for two
months.
“So… You got that?”
asked Klarinda.
“Yes, boss. I got it,”
said Myrtle, shaking her head good-naturedly. “While I take care of that, you
need to call The Christmas Company. They can bring a tree here, with lights and
non-breakable red ornaments, and have it all set up for just two hundred
ninety-nine dollars. It could be here by the end of the business day today.”
“Nice try,” said
Klarinda, “but it’s not in our budget.”
“You’re the boss,”
sighed Myrtle.
With Myrtle upstairs,
plunging away, or whatever it was she was doing, Klarinda went back to the
appointment book, checking to see if any of the names were familiar to her.
In the master suite at
the front of the inn were Alanna Winthorpe-Newcastle and Tom Newcastle. In the
yellow room at the front corner of the inn, was Caroline Bradbury, alone. In
the blue room across the hall from her was Tessa Wycliffe, also alone. Next
were Jacob Reese in the green room and Christopher Murdock across the hall from
him in the gray room. The last two rooms were the least used, often unbooked
for weeks on end. Benji McKellar had reserved the orange room and Sara Byers
was across the hall in the purple room. Klarinda didn’t recognize any of these
names as those of previous visitors.
“Seems a little strange
that single people have booked six of our seven rooms,” Klarinda noted aloud to
herself. Mistletoe Manor was, unquestionably, a romantic escape for couples.
There were no conference centers or large corporations in the tiny mountain
town of Windy Pines, population 3,259. It was nearly twenty miles from the
closest large highway, and forty miles from the nearest small airport. This
wasn’t the kind of town or inn where people came for business, or while
stopping off in the middle of traveling. It was a destination in itself, and
single bookings were rare.
Befuddled, she closed
the appointment book and headed back to the kitchen to check on Pierre, her
chef. On slow days like this, he only made soup and a couple varieties of sandwiches
for lunch, and a few pasta dishes and steak for dinner. Weather permitting, the
Windy Pines Bake Shoppe brought in fresh bread and rolls each morning. Despite
the limited menu, the inn’s dining room was considered the best restaurant in
all of Windy Pines.
“Did Myrtle mention to
you that we have a full house next week?” Klarinda asked Pierre.
“Can’t say that she
did,” said Pierre. “You mean next weekend?”
“Next Tuesday, actually.
The night of the thirteenth.”
“What’s the occasion?
Some kind of family reunion?”
“I don’t think so,” said
Klarinda.
“One of those ladies’
crafting parties?” asked Pierre, offering Klarinda a taste of some new salad
dressing he had created earlier in the day to go with the evening’s menu.
She nodded in approval.
“Good stuff. But no, it doesn’t look that way either. Maybe it’s just a
coincidence.”
“You think so?” asked
Pierre, unable to hide his skepticism. He looked around them at the empty
dining room. They hadn’t had more than three or four tables filled at one time
since late September.
“I don’t know, Pierre.
It’s weird, but I ought to be excited about it. We certainly need the business
around here.”
“You can say that
again,” said Pierre. Like Myrtle, he was single, in his fifties, and lived on
the premises, in one of the two apartments in the old carriage house behind the
inn. Neither he nor Myrtle had gotten a raise in years. When Klarinda purchased
the inn two years earlier she’d been lucky enough to inherit Pierre and Myrtle…
along with all the items she hadn’t
been lucky to inherit. Like a leaky roof, outdated furniture, and atrocious
utility bills. She’d had big dreams of freshening up the inn, advertising more,
and turning it into the showcase she knew it could be. After all, it was a
beautiful old inn in a picturesque setting. But so far, she’d only gotten as
far as reshingling the roof, purchasing some new bedding, and creating a new
website for the inn. Now, out of extra money, she was waiting for a miracle.
Perhaps all these guests showing up at once were the start of that.
“You know we’ve got a
big storm rolling in on Tuesday night,” said Pierre.
“Which means they may
all end up canceling,” said Klarinda.
“Or, if you’re really
lucky, maybe they’ll all stay another night.”
“Wouldn’t that be
something?” All seven rooms booked for two nights in a row could mean getting
the snow blower they needed and some new drapes for the dining room, and maybe
even a new toilet for the purple room’s bathroom. “Running an inn certainly
isn’t as romantic as people think it is,” Klarinda remarked.
Pierre raised his potato
masher and sighed. “Tell me about it.”
About the Author:
Holly Tierney-Bedord is the author of over a dozen books. She lives in Madison, Wisconsin with her husband Bill and their dog Tyler.
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