Page 9 of The Murder Inn

“What? That now that I’ve done my last load of Mark’s laundry I’ll need to find a replacement?” Shauna flared up then sighed. “You’re right. I’ll get bored. Restless. I feel it already. It’s been ten days and I’m going out of my mind. But I can’t go back to being a mother. Henry’s in his forties. He doesn’t need me. And I can’t go back to teaching. I’m too old. I guess I just have to figure out who I am now.”

“And that’s a scary concept,” Bill said.

“You would know, I suppose.” Shauna looked at him. “You lost being a cop and being a husband all in one year.”

“Yeah, I did. And you know what? By the time I figured myself out, I was the keeper of an inn full of loveable nutjobs,” Bill said.

“I heard that.” Shauna smiled. “Rumor is you’ve got your hands full.”

“It’s a free-range asylum.”

“What makes it so crazy there?”

“Oh, you know.” Bill shrugged. “The house is a sort of vortex that sucks in trouble. We’ve had to deal with residents… dying. There was a drive-by shooting, too. A dead body was dumped there, and a wild rat turned up to live with us as a pet. It’s kind of the house mascot now. It wears a little collar so that we can tell it apart from all the other rats that are around.”

Shauna had no words.

“It’s never boring, at least,” Bill said. “It was Siobhan’s planfor me. For us. I was pretty skeptical at first. But to be honest? I’ve never been happier. So I’m telling you, whatever your future looks like, it’s—”

Bill’s words were interrupted by a squeal and a giggle from just outside the window. “Henry, come on, you can’t talk about her like that!”

Shauna and Bill froze in their seats.

“I’m telling you, the old woman will be dead in three years.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

I LEANED OUT of my seat a little to look through the lace curtains hanging on the sitting room window beside us. Shauna Bulger had withered in her seat. We both knew who was standing out there in the garden. I could smell her son Henry’s cologne through the window, and his new girlfriend’s cackle was unmistakable.

“Without Dad around, she’ll be hopeless,” Henry continued. “The man decided everything for her. She was like a little barnacle stuck to the side of a whale. Now the whale’s dead. She’ll float for a while but eventually she’ll sink.”

“Oh maaaaan. You’resobad, Henry.”

“What? You know it’s true.”

“Maybe I should—” I started to get up. Shauna flicked a thin hand toward me, locked me in place with her hard eyes.

“Sit, Bill,” she said.

I sat. We listened.

“In two years, Mom will be crazy,” Henry went on. “Inactivity messes with old people’s brains. Starts flicking the light switches off one by one. I’ve seen it before. When she’s crazy enough, we’ll stuff her in a home and she’ll be dead by Christmas.”

I felt my nostrils flare. My nails bit into the fabric of the armchair.

“We’ll put a home gym in the garage,” Henry said. “This can be your studio. We’ll have to leave the windows open for a while. Get the old-woman stink out.”

I shot up in my chair.

“Don’t.” Shauna shook her head at me. “It’s not worth it.”

“The little prick’s got some attitude on him,” I managed. I just about had to cough the words up through my throat, which was tightened with sudden rage.

“He’s just being an idiot.” Shauna looked suddenly tired, her chin resting on her palm. “Nobody’s going to stuff me anywhere, Bill.”

I’ll make sure of that,I thought. I made my excuses, slipped out to leave Shauna with her understandably dark thoughts. On the back porch of the house I ran into Nick, who was balancing a stack of food on a plate that would have been a polite amount for three or four people. “You were right about the food, Bill,” he mumbled through a mouthful of cookies. “Those Irish, huh?”

“Come with me,” I said. Nick must have understood my tone, because he put the plate down and was at my heels as I headed out and rounded the corner to the sitting-room windows. Henry Bulger had his arm around a fish-lipped blond girl with a tan no one could conceivably get in Boston or anywhere near it. I grabbed Henry and tugged him away from the girlfriend just as Nick stepped in to distract her.

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