Murder at the Dolphin Inn by C. S. Challinor

Murder at the Dolphin Inn by C. S. Challinor

Author:C. S. Challinor
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Perfect Pages Literary Mgmt, Inc.
Published: 2012-09-17T16:00:00+00:00


~FIFTEEN~

Entering the dining room the following morning, Rex was surprised to see the two students seated at breakfast toward the back of the room. Heads bent over the table in animated conversation, they broke apart when they spotted him, and fell silent as he took his usual place by the bay window.

“You’re up bright and early,” he remarked with good cheer.

They smiled back politely. Rex got the distinct impression he had interrupted something important. He decided to let them be, knowing from experience that young people were often not at their best in the morning. He wished he could speak to Michelle alone. However, that might prove difficult. She and Ryan were like conjoined twins; wherever one went, there went the other.

Walt bustled in soon after Rex was seated. “We have grits on the menu this morning,” he informed his guest with some measure of pride.

Rex had partaken of grits on a previous trip to the States and had not been unduly impressed. Perhaps he had needed to season it liberally with something, but had not been sure what, and had experimented with various condiments to no avail. In this instance, he declined and settled contentedly for Walt’s inimitable scrambled eggs, sausage patties, and fried toast. Just as well Helen wasn’t around to see him consume it. She was going to take it easy after their sightseeing stint the day before, sleeping in this morning and then relaxing by the pool.

As he shook out his copy of The Citizen, he saw on the front bottom half of the page that a man was being held for questioning in the Dolphin Inn murders. His heart quickened. Was this the elusive Bill Reid, or somebody else? It appeared Captain Diaz and his team were making greater inroads into the case than he was, not surprisingly, given their resources. All he had was one set of eyes and ears—and the advantage of being in situ. This morning he resolved to use his feet and get a bit of legwork in before lunch. He peeked through the gauze drapes.

“Fewer people nosing about outside today,” Ryan remarked from across the room, finally opening up the conversation.

“All to the good,” Rex replied. “I suppose interest is already dying down.”

“That’s because they were a couple of old people. If it had been a beautiful young female that was murdered, the coverage would never stop.”

“You may have a point,” Rex conceded. “All the same, the Dyers weren’t that old.” Though it probably seemed so to a twenty-something. “Someone mentioned you were Taffy’s great-niece, Michelle,” he said, with Walt out of the room. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, he decided.

A telling pause ensued. Rex waited.

“Yeah, but it’s not like we were close,” Michelle finally replied, emphasizing the word “close” and squirming in her chair. “I mean, I knew her when I was a kid, but then she and Merle moved here to open up this place, and I never saw them again—until now.”

“Yet they remembered you in their will, so to speak.



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