Fogged Inn (A Maine Clambake Mystery Book 4) Read Online Free

finished searching at the same time Vee got the rousted Fee out of her room. All three trooped down the stairs. Fee was covered from head to toe in a high-necked, plaid flannel gown, a matching flannel robe, and slipper socks. Behind her thick glasses, she blinked at the interruption to her sleep.
    “Now, Jamie Dawes, you tell us what this is about,” she demanded. I rose and met the three of them in the foyer.
    Jamie glanced at me and inhaled deeply. “Your guest passed away last night. At Gus’s restaurant.”
    Both sisters’ mouths dropped open. “How terrible,” Fee said. “Julia, were you there when it happened?”
    I didn’t answer. I undoubtedly had been, if being behind the restaurant bar or upstairs in ignorant slumber counted. I noticed Jamie hadn’t given any of the details. Like that the body hadn’t been found until this morning. Or its location.
    “We heard the sirens last night,” Fee added.
    Again, Jamie didn’t contradict or clarify, so I stayed mum. The sirens had been about something else entirely.
    “Right now, what we really need is your guest’s identity,” Jamie said. “I didn’t see anything in his room to help me. Just a clean shirt and underwear on the bed. No wallet or phone. Not even a suitcase.”
    “He had a backpack when he arrived,” Vee said. “I’m sure of it. I noticed it particularly because it seemed too large for a couple of nights. I thought he might be on an extended visit along the coast.”
    Jamie looked at me. “Did he have a backpack at the restaurant?”
    “No. I’m certain.”
    Jamie turned back to the Snugg sisters. “Do you remember if he had the backpack when he left for dinner?”
    “We didn’t see him go out. We were back in our den watching the news on TV. I heard the door slam. That was it,” Fee answered.
    “And it definitely was him leaving?”
    Fee looked mystified. “Who else could it have been?”
    “He’d have his wallet and probably his phone with him, wouldn’t he?” The remarkably smooth skin over Vee’s nose pinched in suspicion. “He’d have to pay for his dinner.”
    “Do you know his name?” Jamie asked.
    The sisters looked at one another. “I’ll fetch the guest register.” Vee took a few steps to the table in the center of the room.
    “I’ll get the reservation book,” Fee said, shuffling toward the kitchen in her slipper socks.
    Vee held out the guest register to Jamie and me. “Here we go.”
    Jamie squinted at the opened page, taking the register from Vee and holding it closer. “What do you think that says?” he asked me, tipping the book one way and then another, hoping to read the scrawl of a signature.
    “I think it begins with a Q,” I said. “Or maybe that’s a J?”
    “Can you make out the last name?”
    To me, the last name looked like nnnnnnnnnn . “I got nothing,” I told him. We stood together, turning the register from side to side as if it were a kaleidoscope that would suddenly reveal a discernible pattern. It was hopeless. The man’s signature was a cipher.
    Fee bustled back with the reservation book—a simple calendar on which they wrote guest names with arrows going through the days they were staying. “What does this say?” she asked. Her handwriting was no better. The four of us stared at the calendar.
    “Justin?” I suggested.
    “Or Jason,” Vee said. “Maybe Jackson?”
    “Or Jacob?” Fee said. “What did he say his name was?”
    Jamie sighed. “I take it he didn’t pay with a credit card.”
    “No,” Fee answered. “He paid in cash, up front for two nights.”
    “In the high season we require a deposit in full on a credit card to hold the room,” Vee explained. “But in the off season . . .” She trailed off, gesturing around the silent house. Justin or Jason or Jackson had been their only guest.
    “Did he have a vehicle?” Jamie asked.
    “No,” Vee answered. “He told me he came on the bus. And there’s no car parked anywhere around.”
    Jamie sighed