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had been to make Papa proud and to create an enduring name for the McMurphy.
    The hotel itself was smaller than the large hotels like the Grand and the Island House Hotel. It also didn’t have the painted-lady architecture of some of the other bed-and-breakfasts. The appeal of the McMurphy was the fact that it sat right smack in the heart of historic downtown. People liked the charm of a small, old-fashioned hotel with a view of the harbor and the smell of fresh, homemade fudge from the shop below. My hope was that the newly remodeled lobby and the additions I planned would make the McMurphy even more appealing.
    It was my love of the old building that made me vow to keep the place going, even if it meant taking another job during the winter. It was why I received degrees in both hotel management and culinary arts. I’m a planner and I planned to succeed. I also planned to spend the rest of my life on island. I wanted to raise my children here. Where they could watch the ferry boats come and go and they could play hopscotch on the sidewalk.
    It was a grand plan. Unfortunately some things can’t ever be planned for . . . things like Joe Jessop expiring in my closet.
    Papa used to say if you wanted something, really wanted something, you’d never stop until you got it. “No matter what you do, you can’t avoid the unexpected or it wouldn’t be . . .”
    “Unexpected,” I’d say, and he’d smile at me and wink.
    “You might as well problem solve toward the things you want.”
    And that was what I planned to do, but first I had to get the power turned on. Then I could figure out how to get everyone in town to forget that Joe Jessop died here. Not an easy thing to do if Frances was to be believed. And one thing I figured out early on—Frances was definitely a person in the know when it came to the island and the people who lived on it.
    “Is it true? Did you find Joe Jessop dead in your basement last night?” Mabel Showorthy must have walked in when I was searching my papers. She’d been one of my grandmother’s friends. She owned Agatha’s Family Fudge Shop two blocks down. It’d been there so long no one knew who Agatha was or even if she’d ever been a real person.
    “No.” I kept my comments short in hopes she’d get the hint that I was super busy.
    She cocked a white eyebrow with suspicion. “No, you didn’t find Joe Jessop dead last night? I’m sorry but I know for a fact that man is currently in the morgue. The coroner’s assistant is my sister’s son-in-law.”
    “No, I didn’t find him in the basement,” I said as I continued to dig through papers.
    “So, Joe is dead.”
    “Yes.” I thumbed through another pile. This time I found a check I’d been looking for and a bill I’d forgotten to pay.
    “But you didn’t find him in the basement. Where did you find him?”
    I liked Mabel. I did, but right now I didn’t have time to play twenty questions. The clock was ticking and the power company would be closing soon. If I didn’t have power, I wouldn’t be able to convince Frances—let alone Officer Manning—that it was safe for me to spend the night in my own apartment.
    “I found him in the second-floor utility closet,” I muttered as I searched. “Ha! Got it!” I squealed with pride and waved the power contract in the air as a conquest. “I don’t really have any other details, Mabel. Officer Manning kicked me out while they did their thing.” I gathered up all the other papers into a neat pile and placed a crystal sugar canister on top to hold them down.
    Mabel sniffed and looked around the lobby. “You’re painting the lobby pink and white? Did you run the color scheme by the historical society? This is a historic building. All colors must match original time periods.”
    “Yes, I did, Mabel.” I grabbed my purse from behind the reception desk and my jacket from the coat tree that had been moved away from the painters. “I’ll have the power back on soon,” I reassured