Mayhem at the Orient Express by Kylie Logan Page A

without thinking, and I flinched and braced myself
     for the firestorm of criticism I knew was sure to come. Being picky, petty, and picayune
     was what Kate and Chandra were all about.
    When no one jumped in to bite off my head—not yet, anyway—I went on to explain, “Yesterday
     when I stopped in at the Orient Express, Peter was . . .” I thought back to the scene.
     “He was distracted,” I said. “There was this man in the restaurant when I got there,
     and from outside, I heard them arguing.”
    Chandra’s hands flew to her neck. “The killer?”
    “We don’t know that. We can’t know it,” I pointed out. “But after the man left, I
     went in and placed my order, and Peter wasn’t his usual talkative self. Then again,
     I can’t blame him. It was a pretty ugly incident.”
    “Somebody we know?” Luella was asking about the man Peter argued with, of course,
     and the only response I could give her was a shrug.
    “I’ve never seen him before,” I admitted. “The rest of you . . . maybe you’d know
     him. He was tall and broad. He had small, brown eyes and a sort of doughy face. Not
     exactly fat, but padded, if you know what I mean. He was wearing a tan trenchcoat
     and a brown fedora. Kind of an Indiana Jones look without the Harrison Ford face or
     body to go along with it.”
    Chandra’s smile was watery. “There you go, talking like an English major again. Your
     description’s so good, I can picture him, and he sure doesn’t sound like anybody I
     know. Maybe . . .” Her eyes widened. “Maybe you walked in and interrupted something.
     You did say they were arguing, right?”
    “Yeah, but—”
    She warmed to the theory and didn’t give me a chance to finish, or to mention the
     creepy note I’d found when Peter went into the kitchen. “Maybe he was going to kill
     Peter yesterday, and then you showed up and he couldn’t. And so he left, and he went
     back today and . . . and . . .” The tears on Chandra’s cheeks glistened in the light
     of the fire.
    And I realized that a good innkeeper has duties that have to come before talking about
     murder. I had extra boxes of tissues upstairs in the linen closet and I headed out
     to fetch them.
    At the bottom of the stairway that led to the second-floor guest rooms, I bumped right
     into Amanda Gallagher.
    “Sorry,” she gasped, flinched, and stepped back at the same time she cinched the belt
     on her robe. I’m nobody’s idea of tall, but I had a few inches on Amanda, and she
     looked tinier than ever swathed in turquoise chenille. She had porcelain skin and
     hair the color of corn silk, and in the glow of the chandelier in the stairwell that
     I’d dimmed for the night, she seemed ethereal, like a wisp that had blown in on the
     tail of the winter wind. “I thought I’d just . . .” She sidestepped around me and
     in the direction of the back of the house. “I was going to make some tea.”
    “Of course.” I stepped back so she could get by, and when she did, I realized something
     was off. Automatically, I reached for the decorative basket I kept on a table just
     inside the front door. “I’ve got slipper socks,” I said, offering Amanda a pair at
     the same time I looked at the sturdy fur-trimmed boots she wore. “I know you weren’t
     planning on staying here long and you may not have come prepared with everything you
     need.”
    She grabbed a pair of socks and tucked them in the pocket of her robe. “Speaking of
     that . . .” A gust of wind rattled the front door and Amanda shivered. “I don’t know
     if the ferry is running—”
    “It’s not,” Chandra called from the parlor, and I couldn’t exactly fault her for eavesdropping.
     After all, there wasn’t exactly a talk fest going on in there.
    Amanda’s slim shoulders drooped. “If I need to stay another night—”
    “Of course you can,” I assured her. “They say no one’s leaving the island, and for
     sure, no one will be