Free Heather Horrocks - Who-Dun-Him Inn 02 - Inn the Doghouse by Heather Horrocks Page A

stranger’s stone. “I can’t sit here.”
    “I guess you’re feeling better, after all.” She stood and helped me up.
    I could hear the sheriffs calling back and forth to each other, as well as to Paul and DeWayne.
    Silver City hadn’t hosted a murder for over a hundred years, not since a mining dispute in 1887. That is, until last month, when one of my guests at the Inn was killed.
    And now, here was a second body. And not just any body—but the body of my twin’s estranged husband. “Who killed him?” I whispered.
    “No one.”
    I looked at her. “He didn’t shoot his own face off. That’s too awful.”
    She shrugged. “They found a suicide note. I heard the guys talking about it while you were being sick.”
    I glanced over again. That must have been the paper I noticed stuffed in his coat.
    And then I saw what I didn’t notice before: a gun resting near his hand, as if he really did shoot himself and it fell onto the ground when he could no longer hold it.
    “He seemed like he wanted to get back together with Liz,” I said. “Like he really meant it. He must have been utterly heartbroken to do something like this.”
    Heartbroken enough to kill himself? But Gene taking his own life just didn’t make sense. He had the pregnant girl he told to take care of his baby. Alternatively, he was trying to get back together with Liz. He had a successful business that he loved. Nothing made sense.
    But I’d already learned when Robert got hit by a drunk driver that death before its time wasn’t supposed to make sense. It just happened; and we survivors just had to deal with it.
     
    ~ ~ ~
     
    It took forever before Paul could finally walk me to my car. I started to unlock my Jeep, but he put a hand on the door and shook his head. “There’s no way I’ll let you drive in your state of mind. I’ll take you home.” He looked back in the direction of the body and his mouth tightened grimly. “I have to tell Liz, anyway.”
    Even though normally, I would have brushed him off, I was shaky enough that I just climbed into his police car, feeling relieved.
    We rode in silence through the outskirts of Silver City where the old cemetery was, and up the windy, narrow road that hugged the mountainside. Halfway home, I said, “How can you tell her something like this?”
    “It’s going to be hard.”
    I put my hand on his arm. “I know. Do you want me there with you?”
    He shook his head. “No. This is my job. I’ll do it.”
    Relieved and a little embarrassed at having him do it alone, I sat back in the seat.
    When we reached the Inn, he searched for Liz in our basement family quarters.
    As I crossed the large, fancy foyer of the Who-Dun-Him Inn, I smelled something delicious cooking. David must have been here again, but he wasn’t fixing food for the guests. This was a bed-and-breakfast, not a bed-and-dinner, except on the weekends during the murder mysteries. We usually had two mystery weekends a month, depending on how busy the season was. And early November was a very busy season in the ski country of the state with the “greatest snow on earth.” Or so our license plates still proclaimed.
    With the Inn being just a short jaunt from Snow Haven, a swanky ski resort, we were becoming a popular winter sport destination.
    I sat down at the check-in counter, my hands still trembling.
    My guests from Denmark, a couple and their two preteen children, all blondes, red-cheeked and sturdy looking, came out of the Mayor’s Parlor, now Sherlock Holmes’s study, and headed toward me.
    I forced myself to chat with the parents normally. When she spoke, she had a light Danish accent, “I love our Charlie Chan room. The pictures of all fourteen of his sons are great. And that secret loft! Wherever did you get such a great idea for the detective rooms?”
    “I love murder mysteries.” Thinking of Gene’s body, I added, “Reading them, I mean.”
    “I just love the idea of detective rooms. What other cool