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  Anchored Inn

  A Gray Whale Inn Mystery

  Karen MacInerney

  Copyright © 2020 by Karen MacInerney

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Other books in the Gray Whale Inn Mysteries:

  The Gray Whale Inn Mysteries

  Murder on the Rocks

  Dead and Berried

  Murder Most Maine

  Berried to the Hilt

  Brush With Death

  Death Runs Adrift

  Whale of a Crime

  Claws for Alarm

  Scone Cold Dead

  Anchored Inn

  Cookbook: The Gray Whale Inn Kitchen

  Four Seasons of Mystery (A Gray Whale Inn Collection)

  Blueberry Blues (A Gray Whale Inn Short Story)

  Pumpkin Pied (A Gray Whale Inn Short Story)

  Iced Inn (A Gray Whale Inn Short Story)

  Lupine Lies (A Gray Whale Inn Short Story)

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Sneak Preview: A Killer Ending

  Recipes

  Apple Coffee Cake

  Easy Thai Curry

  Gray Whale Inn Breakfast Casserole

  Maple Walnut Coffee Cake

  Sugar-topped Cranberry Muffins

  Fudgy Bundt Cake

  More Books by Karen MacInerney

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  1

  It's not every day an eclectic, reclusive multimillionaire rents the entire upper floor of your inn. At least not if you run a small establishment in quaint Cranberry Island, Maine.

  As my niece Gwen and I went over arrangements in the cozy yellow kitchen of the Gray Whale Inn, I started fretting over all the extra requests we'd agreed to in order to host Brandon Marks. He'd made his millions (or billions) with a social media platform called WhatsIn, and despite the "social" nature of his business, he was a notorious recluse. I had no idea how he was going to manage on an island with subpar Internet, but his staff hadn't asked or added anything about it to the rather extensive list, so I hoped they'd figure it out.

  "Let's go over the checklist one more time," I said as Gwen looked over the list Brandon's assistant had sent me. Gwen had come to stay with me when I opened the inn, taking a break from her studies at UCLA to spend the summer helping out around the place while I launched the business. She'd begun painting under the auspices of the late Fernand LaChaise, and soon discovered she not only had a rare talent for watercolor, but a deep and abiding love for Cranberry Island——and for Adam Thrackton, the only Maine lobsterman I knew of to have earned a degree from Princeton.

  Her mother, my sister Bridget, had been on board with the match until she figured out that Adam's work, while it did technically involve merchandise and a boat, was not in fact international shipping, but fishing. Family life had been rocky for a while, but things had finally calmed down between Bridget and Gwen, at least for the time being, and Gwen had recently started the Cranberry Island Art Guild, which provided classes for artists of all levels as well as gallery space. We'd been working together to set up some art retreats for the coming year, figuring it would boost both our businesses, and hoped to get the first promotional materials together before Christmas.

  Having Gwen here at the inn was a real treat; she no longer lived above the kitchen, as she had for years, and now spent most of her days at the Art Guild, working on her own art, teaching classes, or managing the other artists. Now that it was fall, though, things were slowing down for the season, and with the sudden rush at the inn, she'd offered to help me out. My mother-in-law Catherine was pitching in, too; she'd headed to the mainland to pick up a few things Brandon's assistant had requested at the last moment and that were not readily available from the small store on the island. Gwen drew circles on the corner of the page and sighed. "I know he's gluten-free, but any other weird dietary restrictions?"

  "No sugar, some dairy," I said.

  "Ouch. That's a culinary challenge." She eyed the batter I was putting together. "So is it safe to assume that coffee cake you're making is not for them?"

  "Correct," I said. "It's for my other guests, Max and Ellie."

  "I like them," Gwen said, a faint smile crossing her face.

  "So do I," I said. The two women, Max Sayers and Ellie Cox, were from Boston; Ellie owned a bookstore, and Max was her assistant manager; they'd checked in a few days earlier. Evidently the trip to Cranberry Island was a post-divorce "cleansing" of sorts for Max, who had just parted ways with her husband of twenty years and was trying to figure out what to do with her life. Ellie had reserved rooms for both of them; evidently they'd become very close friends.

  "I hope Max'll make it through okay; she seems nice, but shell-shocked."

  "Oh, I think she will," I said. "Once she gets herself together, she'll bloom." I'd never divorced, but I'd been through a nasty break-up. It had taken a while for me to realize it, but it had been the best thing that ever happened to me. And if I hadn't gone through it, I never would have met my husband, John. I smiled just thinking about him; this morning he was down in his workshop doing a toy boat order for Island Artists. Christmas was right around the corner, so even though the inn business usually slowed down, things usually picked up in the workshop around this time of year. "Plus, she's a good egg; I can tell."

  "Me too," Gwen said. "When's the bigshot coming in, by the way?"

  "He's actually flying in via helicopter and then taking a private boat," I informed her. "They'll transport him directly to the dock."

  She looked up at me, eyebrows practically up to her hairline. "You're joking, right?"

  "Nope," I said.

  "Oh, man. It's going to be like a reality show here the next few days, I'm afraid."

  "You may be right," I said as I finished chopping up a few apples I'd picked from one of the many trees dotting the island. I had no idea what kind they were, but they were small, with russet and red skins, and both tart and firm, perfect for the cake I was making. "But it will help with the bank account," I reminded her as I added the apple chunks to the batter for the decadent apple-cinnamon coffee cake I was making for my non-gluten-free guests. Outside, the birch and maple trees were glowing gold and red, and the sky was a vivid blue; it was a beautiful late fall afternoon on Cranberry Island, and despite the slight worry over getting everything right for our soon-to-be-arriving finicky guest, I was feeling pretty good about life in general.

  "All right, let's get through the rest of this, then. Organic detergent only on towels and sheets," my niece read, pulling her dark, curly hair up into an impromptu bun as she spoke.

  "I rewashed everything and Catherine remade the bed in his room."

  "Check, then. Gluten-free breakfast, coconut oil and stevia for c
offee—do we have the brand of coffee he requested?"

  "We do," I assured her. I'd had the special coffee (hand-picked by free-range, organically fed baboons? Roasted over seasoned mahogany? At 40 dollars a pound, I certainly hoped so) overnighted; it had come over on the mail boat from the mainland the day before. "And Catherine's picking up the organic coconut oil on the mainland today; she's visiting a friend for dinner and will be back with it tonight."

  "Good," Gwen said, looking a little green around the gills as she finished tying up her hair and made a checkmark on her list. She glanced up at me, her face a pale oval under the mass of hair; she looked drawn, I noticed, and her black cardigan sweater seemed to hang on her thin frame. "They're paying extra for all this, right?"

  "A lot extra, or there's no way I'd do this." Brandon had booked the entire upper floor, taking the biggest suite for himself and the adjacent rooms for his two assistants. The other rooms were to be left vacant, lest his majesty be disturbed. It must be nice to have that kind of cash to throw around, I thought as I finished mixing the batter and poured it into the baking pan.

  "Why did they pick the island, anyway?" Gwen asked.

  "Evidently he likes his privacy," I told her, scraping the bowl as I spoke. "I think he's landing his helicopter just up from the dock; he paid the island a few thousand dollars for the privilege. They're going to put it toward the museum, I heard."

  "So Murray Selfridge is not going to be the wealthiest guy in town for a week or two," Gwen said, grinning.

  I put down the bowl and reached for the brown sugar. "Not by a long shot. I heard the Jamesons and the Karstadts are also here for the summer." Both families were long-term summer residents of the island, but didn't mingle much with the rest of us, limiting their contact to the harbormaster (they had to moor their fancy boats somewhere, after all) and the folks who took care of maintenance issues for them. It wasn't ideal, but it did provide some work and funds for islanders.

  "Where did he make all his money, anyway?"

  "Social media," I said as I dumped brown sugar into a small bowl and then spooned flour into the same measuring cup. I added it to the sugar with some cinnamon and butter, and set to work cutting the butter in with a fork; I could almost taste the sweet, buttery streusel already, and forced myself to remember what we were talking about instead of fantasizing about coffee cake. I looked up at Gwen. "Brandon's company went public a few years ago, and now he's wealthy enough to buy a Central American country. Maybe more than one."

  "Must be nice," she said.

  "I think I'd rather live on Cranberry Island," I said, truthfully. Although with the discovery of a long-missing German U-Boat a few miles off the coast a week ago, things had suddenly gotten a bit crazy. Since the team funded by Brandon had identified the wreck, just about every person on the island with a Y-chromosome had suddenly discovered a deep, hidden passion for World War II naval ships. Apparently the U-Boat in question had destroyed at least a dozen ships, some of which had borne islanders' relatives, before disappearing; Brandon was on the island in order to observe the first trip to the U-Boat with a submersible, which was expected to definitively identify the vessel.

  "This whole submarine thing is a pretty big deal, isn't it?" Gwen asked as she did a last check of the list. I might not be fascinated by it, but I was happy to be hosting the funder of the expedition that had located the U-Boat, and so was half the island.

  As I sprinkled the streusel over the batter, I glanced over at my niece. The drawn look worried me. "Are you okay?" I asked.

  "I'm just not feeling well these past few days," she said.

  "I hope it's not flu," I said.

  "Me too," she said, grimacing. "At least Adam hasn't caught it. There's supposed to be bad weather coming this weekend, too; I wish he'd stay home on blustery days, but he never does."

  "Good work ethic cuts both ways, doesn't it?" I said as I tucked the cake into the oven.

  "It does," she said. "At least he loves his work."

  As she spoke, John walked through the back door into the kitchen, smelling of paint and that particularly woodsy smell that I found so intoxicating. A cool breeze accompanied him, bringing the scent of salt air and falling leaves.

  "What's in the oven?" he asked, eyeing the bowl I was about to wash. He was wearing jeans and a green plaid flannel shirt that brought out the color of his eyes. Sawdust streaked his sandy hair, and there was a fleck of red paint on his cheek, which was absolutely adorable (although I didn't tell him).

  "Apple coffee cake," I informed him.

  "Gluten-free?"

  "No," I said. "I made some strange almond flour concoction I found online earlier today, and we'll scrambled some eggs and serve fruit salad in the morning."

  "What about dinners?"

  "Salmon and green beans, with sweet potato on the side and gluten-free bread from the mainland."

  "Sounds like everything here is under control," he said. "I just finished painting the last batch of boats; once they dry, I'll take them to the store. I'm done in the workshop for the day, so I'm happy to take care of dinner."

  "Thanks," I said, getting up on tiptoes to kiss him.

  He gave me a kiss, which made me all warm inside, and accompanied it with a squeeze, then looked at Gwen. He tilted his head as he took in her wan face. "Are you okay? You don't look so hot."

  "I'm just a little under the weather," she said.

  I glanced at John. "She's just going over last-minute preparations. But since you're here, why don't you take that over so we can send her home to rest?"

  "I'm fine," Gwen protested. "Really."

  "I think we've got everything here under control," I said with more confidence than I felt. The smell of apple cake baking was beginning to permeate the kitchen; I took a deep breath of the apple-cinnamon scent, then said, "Gwen, I'm ordering you to take the rest of the afternoon off."

  "Are you sure?" she asked, looking even greener than she had earlier.

  "Absolutely," John told her. "Now, go home and rest."

  "And take this container of chicken noodle soup with you," I said, opening the freezer and pulling out a plastic tub of soup I'd put in a few days earlier. "Do you have tea?'

  "Yes, Mom," she said.

  "You're welcome to curl up in your old room," I told her. "We can drive you back to the house when Adam's here."

  "I... I..." She stood up suddenly, hand on her mouth, and ran up the stairs.

  John and I looked at each other as she disappeared.

  "I think it's best if she stayed here," I said, and put the soup back in the freezer.

  "I'll leave Adam a message,” John said. "And then I'll do a last check on the rooms and do the dinner prep."

  "Have I mentioned recently how much I love you?"

  "You have," he said with a grin, "but you know I always love to hear it again."

  I was about to kiss him a second time when the phone rang.

  I sighed and picked up the receiver. "Gray Whale Inn."

  "Natalie? It's Charlene."

  I could tell by her voice that something was very amiss with my best friend, who ran Cranberry Island's general store and post office. "What's going on?" I asked, gripping the phone.

  "Tania's gone missing," she said.

  2

  "What do you mean, gone missing?" Tania was Charlene's beloved niece, and often helped her out at the store. She was around twenty years old, and still figuring herself out.

  "She was supposed to be here this morning, but she never showed up. She sent me a quick text late last night to say something came up and she'd be out of touch for a bit. I've called and texted her a half a dozen times, but there's no answer."

  "Maybe her phone's broken?" I suggested.

  "No," Charlene insisted. "That's not like her. I have a bad, bad feeling about this."

  "Did you call her best friend? Megan Canfield, right?" I asked.

  "I did," she said. "Megan's not answering her phone. Can you come down and help
me figure out what to do?"

  "I'll be over shortly," I promised. "I'm sure she's fine." I put a confidence into my voice I didn't feel.

  "Thank you so much," Charlene said, sounding relieved. "I'm probably overreacting, but... it's not like her."

  "I get it," I said. "I'll be there as soon as I can."

  "What's wrong?" John asked as I hung up the phone.

  "Tania's missing," I told him. I reported what Charlene had told me. "She wants me to come down to the store and figure out what to do next." Charlene ran the grocery store/post office, also known as the island's living room; it was where everyone went to have a mug of tea and catch up on the local happenings, or just to pick up mail or a gallon of milk. "I'm thinking we need to go talk to her friend Megan in person, and see if she knows anything about Tania; she's not answering her phone."

  "Do you think Megan has something to do with it?"

  "I have no idea," I said. "How long before you can put out a missing persons report?" Since John was not just an artist and woodworker, but the island deputy, I figured he would know.

  "She did say she'd be gone, so it's not like she totally disappeared, but I'll call the mainland police and ask about it," John said, looking concerned. As he spoke, here was a thrumming from behind the inn.

  "What's that?" I asked, peering out the back window at the sweep of ocean and the craggy mountains of the mainland beyond.

  "I think our special guest has arrived," John said just as I spotted a helicopter in the bright blue sky.

  John and I hurried to the back deck, shielding our eyes against the bright afternoon sun as we watched the helicopter descend toward a large white boat some ways out on the water. As we watched, it landed, like a bee alighting on a flower. A few minutes later, we saw the boat turn toward the inn.