McGill shrugged yet again, as he chewed and swallowed. “I just don’t know. There was so much going on. Rusty Turner . . .” He shook his head and made a sound between his teeth. “He was a contentious sort. Melvyn wasn’t the only one he was having trouble with.”
“But Binny clearly thinks he’s dead,” I insisted, refusing to be sloughed off.
“Tom’s got her convinced that Melvyn killed him, and—”
“Tom?”
“Her older brother. He worked for both Turner Construction and Turner Wynter, their construction partnership.”
“I didn’t know my uncle and Rusty Turner were in business together!”
“Oh, yeah! I guess I didn’t exactly say that. They had a company together, and Rusty’s son, Tom, worked for them. So did Dinah Hooper, Rusty’s sorta girlfriend. Rusty and Tom had Turner Construction, too. Anyway, Turner Wynter was working on the castle, as well as on developing other properties.”
“What other properties?”
He shrugged. “They had a few interests.”
“If they had a company together, that’s more than just a few common interests.” Was he being evasive or just noncommittal? “I don’t want any more trouble. If they keep digging holes . . .” I shook my head.
“Hey, I’m just guessing that Binny and Tom are behind the holes,” McGill said, holding up both hands. He pushed away his bowl. “I don’t have a scrap of evidence to back that up.” He glanced down at his watch and leaped up. “Shoot! I gotta go.” His cell phone wouldn’t work—service in Autumn Vale and environs was spotty, at best, he admitted—so he made a quick call using the castle landline for someone to pick him up. It was fortunate that he had left the landline hooked up for just that purpose, in case he got stuck out at his most remote listing without cell coverage. He then said, “Got a client from outta town meeting me at a house, and I’d better go home and clean up first. I’ll be back tomorrow to fill in more holes. Thank you, ladies, for the lunch. Those muffins . . .” He shook his head and rubbed his stomach, where a half-dozen cheddar-bacon muffins now lived. “So good!”
“I made a lot. Do you want to take some with you?” I asked, and laughed at the hopeful look on his face. I popped another half dozen in a big baggie and handed them to him. “They’re best while they’re fresh. You can warm them up in the microwave.”
Shilo and I washed up the mismatched jumble of bowls, mugs, and cutlery, then took a ramble around the castle. It was soon clear that the pattern of the building was a U shape. The kitchen and pantry was on the end of one prong, with a neglected kitchen garden behind. The entrance McGill had shown me in the butler’s pantry opened right out onto the huge swath of land where he was working, filling in holes.
But I hadn’t slept since the day before, and Shilo was always ready to snooze, so we both hit the hay early. I fell asleep right away, then awoke in the pitch black of night, feeling confused and scared for a few minutes. I finally figured out where I was, and once I fully came to, my mind began to teem with questions and ideas. I peeked in Shi’s room, but she and Magic were curled up together, deeply asleep.
As I padded downstairs in my slippers and robe, carrying a notebook and pen, it finally, truly hit me; I owned a castle, the real deal, almost two hundred years old! It was the middle of the night, but inspiration flooded my mind as I put the kettle on for tea, which I would either have to make in a mug (shudder) or in a saucepan. I chose a saucepan and poured boiling water over a tea bag and set the lid over it to steep as I sat down at the table, one low light illuminating my notebook.
McGill had told us a little about the castle during lunch. It had been built in the 1820s by Jacob Lazarus Wynter, an early nineteenth-century building baron who made his fortune constructing mills for the Indian bands along the various rivers emptying into Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. That was already more information about the paternal side of my lineage than I had ever known. I was descended from a robber baron? I vaguely remembered that phrase from school, but wasn’t sure Lazarus Wynter fit the mold. This place had real historical significance, and it made me sad that instead of a thriving family inheritance there was just poor little old me, who had to sell it to live. The least I could do would be to get some kind of historical designation for it, and maybe a plaque relating both what McGill had told me and whatever other family history I could dig up.
I made a note of that idea, then jotted down a few ideas for the inn, possible places to advertise my inheritance. Everyone I have ever known in the business world dreams of one day retiring from the rat race and opening a little inn in the country. Well, for the right price I could help them fulfill their dreams. I started writing down names of people; modeling agency owners, models, actors, caterers, anyone I could think of who might be interested, or know someone who would be.