Dead in the Dinghy

by Ellen Jacobson

  I sat back in my chair. “I don’t get it. Anabel is a hippie-chick, free-spirit kind of gal, right? She’d be proud of that picture. She’s always protesting something. Just last week, I saw her outside the bowling alley holding up a sign—”

  The chief held up his hand. “True. If it was just about her, she wouldn’t have cared, but…” He shook his head as his voice trailed off.

  I gasped. “Don’t tell me. The dogs she rescued. Did they happen to be two Yorkshire terriers?”

  He nodded.

  “And are the dogs named Frick and Frack by any chance? The dogs the two of you share joint custody of?”

  “Yes. She was trying to protect me,” he said. “If anyone found out I was harboring stolen dogs, it could be the end of my career. So she agreed to his demand.”

  I passed him another cookie. “What did he want?”

  “She was supposed to write an article for an art journal praising Gregor and talking about the invaluable contribution he has made to the art world. He told her to send it to him by Saturday.”

  “This Saturday?”

  The chief took a deep breath. “No, last Saturday. When she was at the artists’ retreat…”

  “The day Gregor turned up at Warlock’s Manor,” I said, finishing his sentence. “I see where this is going. Anabel had a strong motive to kill Gregor.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Don’t worry. We’ll figure this out. I already have some promising leads.” I filled the chief in on the new developments while he nibbled on the last cookie. “Sawyer is my prime suspect now. She definitely knew Gregor, she had a grudge against him—either because he fired her or because he broke up with her or both—and she has some serious knife skills.”

  “You could say the same thing about Anabel,” the chief said reluctantly.

  “She has knife skills?” I asked.

  “Yep. When we first got engaged, I taught her all sorts of self-defense techniques, including basic knife moves. She was really good at it.”

  “Well, that’s not very helpful,” I said. “I guess I just need to get Sawyer to confess.”

  The chief leaned forward. “This isn’t one of these murder mystery shows you always watch. Murderers don’t blurt out confessions. Convictions happen because of thorough investigations by trained professionals.”

  “We don’t really have a choice, do we? There’s no body.” I paused and looked at the chief. “Hey, wait a minute, since there isn’t a body, how can they convict Anabel?”

  “If this had happened any place normal, instead of on Destiny Key, you’d have a point,” he said. “But Tyler will find a way to make it stick. He’s very well connected with people in positions of power.”

  I chewed on my lip for a moment. “Okay. We don’t have a body, and goodness knows what happened to the evidence. It seems like everyone and their mother has a motive, opportunity, and the ability to have killed Gregor. Getting a confession seems like the simplest option at this point.” I smiled. “Besides, it won’t be the first time I’ve managed to get a killer to spill their guts.”

  The chief put his head in his hands and groaned. “I can’t believe Anabel’s fate depends on you getting Sawyer to confess.”

  “Piece of cake.” I pushed my chair back from the table. “Now, I better get back to Marjorie Jane and start cooking. You know what they say, ply someone with good food and drink and they’ll tell you all their secrets.” As I walked past the chief, I put my hand on his shoulder. “You know, you really should tell Anabel how you feel about her.”

  He nodded. “Maybe. When this is all over.”

  * * *

  “Permission to come aboard?” Sawyer asked as she knocked on Marjorie Jane’s hull.

  I leaned over the side of the cockpit. “Well, ordinarily I would give your permission, but I’m not the highest ranking member of this crew.” I smiled and pointed at Mrs. Moto. “It’s really up to the admiral.”

  At the sound of her name, the calico jumped out of my lap and bounded over to Sawyer.

  “I think I know how to win her over.” The young woman pulled a bag of cat treats out of her backpack. She set a few down on the deck and watched as the cat inhaled them. Mrs. Moto then sat back on her haunches and made a chirping sound.

  “I think that means you can come aboard,” I said.

  After Sawyer climbed on board, she handed me a bottle of wine. “And here’s a little something for you and Scooter.”

  “Thanks. That was sweet of you. This will be perfect with dinner.” I patted a cushion next to me. “Have a seat. Scooter will be back any minute. While we’re waiting, can I get you anything to drink? Soda? Gin and tonic?”

  “A G&T would be great,” she said. “Victoria said that you guys make good ones.”

  “Did she?” I asked, remembering how she had gulped them down when we were anchored at Destiny Key. “Did you see her recently?”

  “Uh-huh. This afternoon at Coconut Creations.”

  “I was there today, as well,” I said. “It was my first time there. It’s a really lovely spot.”

  “Thomas did a great job renovating the building when he first bought it.” Sawyer chuckled as Mrs. Moto tried to burrow in her backpack. “I think she wants more treats.”

  The admiral squawked as I pulled her out. “She can wait until after dinner.” As I set the cat down, I said. “So why were you at the gallery today?”

  Sawyer grinned. “Thomas offered me a part-time job. It’s perfect. I’ll work there a few days a week and focus on my art the rest of the time.”

  “Have you ever worked at an art gallery before?” I asked innocently.

  “Uh-huh. In New York.”

  I cocked my head to the side. “Nowhere else?”

  She shifted uncomfortably. Maybe it was because Mrs. Moto was kneading her legs with her claws slightly extended. Or maybe it was because she hadn’t been forthright about working for Gregor. “Actually, I worked at Coconut Creations for a short while,” she admitted.

  “When Thomas owned it?”

  “Uh, no. After he sold it.”

  “So you did know Gregor,” I said casually.

  “Oh, well, yeah. I didn’t really know him on a personal level. It was a manager-employee relationship.” She stroked the cat’s fur. “I love this bobtail she has. It’s so cute. Like a bunny rabbit.”

  “Shush. Don’t say that too loudly. It will go to the admiral’s head,” I said. “I’d love to hear more about what it’s like to work at an art gallery.”

  She stroked Mrs. Moto nervously. “Uh, well—”

  “Ahoy there, ladies,” Scooter said as he climbed on board. Sawyer seemed relieved by the interruption. He looked at the calico. “I think she wants your attention.”

  The admiral was nudging Sawyer’s hand with her face, showing her exactly where she wanted to be petted. The young woman obediently scratched behind her ears.

  “What’s that in your hands?” I asked, eyeing the purple bakery box.

  “I stopped by Penelope’s to pick up dessert,” he said.

  “This is a great day for surprises.” I held up the bottle. “First, Sawyer brought this and now you’ve brought a cake.” I slid off the bench seat. “Hand me the box and I’ll put it downstairs with the wine.”

  “How about some G&Ts while you’re down there, my little stegosaurus?” Scooter said.

  “Of course. I promised Sawyer one, but then we got to gabbing and I completely forgot.”

  Over cocktails, I tried to steer the conversation back to Sawyer’s relationship with Gregor, but Scooter was oblivious to what I was trying to do. Instead, he happily chatted away about the latest dinosaur documentary he had seen. I honestly couldn’t tell if she was genuinely interested in learning that “Micropachycephalosaurus” is the longest dinosaur name and that it means “tiny thick-headed lizard.” She might have been fascinated or she might have just been a good actress, like when she told me on the beach that she didn’t know Gregor.

&
nbsp; After we finished our drinks, I suggested we go down below for dinner. “I have a lasagna in the oven. It should be ready in about ten minutes,” I said. “There’s also a tossed salad so we don’t feel guilty about eating cake for dessert.”

  While I cut some Italian bread to go with our meal, Sawyer did some quick sketches of the interior of the boat. “I love that old oil lamp. It has such character.” She set her charcoal pencil down and stood to get a closer look. When Mrs. Moto batted the pencil onto the floor, Scooter apologized, then bent under the table to retrieve it.

  “Ouch,” he said as he banged his head. He surfaced with the pencil, a toy mouse, and a crumpled up piece of paper. He held out the pencil to Sawyer, put the paper on the table, then tossed the mouse across the floor. Mrs. Moto bounded after it.

  “Good. That should distract her for a while,” I said, listening to the sound of her knocking it around in the aft cabin. “Dinner’s ready.” I set the casserole dish on the table. “Help yourself,” I said, handing Sawyer a spatula while Scooter poured wine.

  “Yum. This is delicious,” Sawyer said after she took a bite.

  “The secret is to layer basil leaves on top of the ricotta cheese mixture,” I said. “The other secret is to wear pants with an elastic waistband because this isn’t exactly low-cal. Not that you need to worry about that. You’re young.”

  There was a lull in conversation while we ate. The only sound was that of the cat pouncing on her toy mouse. After taking a sip of wine, I said, “It seems a bit strange to be eating lasagna in July when it’s almost one hundred degrees outside. We should be having something cold like pasta salad or gazpacho.”

  “That’s what air conditioning is for,” Scooter said as he helped himself to another slice of bread.

  “Are you going to be able to cope without air conditioning when you go cruising full-time?” Sawyer asked.

  I looked at Scooter. “What have you been telling her?”

  Sawyer raised her eyebrows. “I thought you were going to sail around the world like Olivia.”

  “One of us thinks we’re going to sail around the world,” I said. “That wouldn’t be me.”

  “She’s not totally on board with the idea, but I’m working on her,” Scooter said with a smile. “Admit it,” he said to me. “You enjoyed our first cruise.”

  “Someone was killed,” I said.

  “Well, besides that,” he replied. “The weather was great.”

  “Not on Destiny Key,” I said.

  “Okay, but besides that,” he said. “We got to watch dolphins, and we won one of the races. Best of all, we didn’t break anything. Think of how much money we saved.”

  “Are you forgetting the fact that our dinghy is still stuck on the island?” I asked. “We might have to buy a new one.”

  “That might be for the best,” he said. “I’m not sure I want that one back.”

  As I patted Scooter’s arm to reassure him, my hand brushed against the crumpled up paper he had set on the table. “What is this anyway?” I asked as I smoothed it out. “Oh yeah. Now I remember. It’s a note that Nancy left taped to our boat reminding us to only use American quarters in the washing machine and dryer. Canadian and Bahamian coins are not acceptable. I crumpled it up for Mrs. Moto to play with it. Nancy would probably be upset if she knew I turned her note into a cat toy. She’d say that I wasn’t taking it seriously enough. See how she put ‘not’ in capital letters and underlined it?” I asked Scooter.

  He peered at the note, then pointed at the bottom paragraph. “What does ‘N3V3R’ mean?”

  “Not sure. Looks like a typo.” I held the paper up to the light for a better look. “Or maybe it’s a code.”

  Scooter smirked. “A code? Do you think Nancy is some sort of spy?”

  “Hang on a minute. This reminds me of something.” I went into the aft cabin and dug through the bag we had with us on Destiny Key. As I returned to the table, I said, “I found this note in the shed by Warlock’s Manor. It looks like it’s written in some sort of code. Do you remember how I told you that Chief Tyler went into the shed and carried out bags to his vehicle?” Scooter nodded. “I thought he might have dropped this when he was in there.”

  “What was in the bags?” Sawyer asked.

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “But if I had to bet money on it, I would say it was something illegal. Chief Tyler is as crooked as they come. Maybe this note was about what he was supposed to steal. They put it in code so no one would be able to read it.”

  Scooter pointed at the torn edge. “You only have part of the note. Maybe that’s why you can’t understand it. It might not be code at all.”

  “Can I see it?” Sawyer asked.

  “Sure.” After I passed it to her, I topped up our wine glasses.

  Sawyer took a sip of the Chianti, then said, “I don’t think this is a code. I think it might be written in Cyrillic. See how this letter looks like a backwards ‘N’ and this one looks like the Greek letter phi?”

  I furrowed my brow as I studied the piece of paper. “Where do they speak Cyrillic?”

  “Cyrillic isn’t a language. It’s an alphabet. You know, like Russians use.”

  “I didn’t think Chief Tyler was Russian,” Scooter said.

  “No, but Gregor was,” I said. “So the question is, did Gregor write this note and, if so, what does it say?”

  12

  Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

  “This place it pretty cool,” Scooter said as we pulled into the art gallery’s parking lot.

  “Wait until you see the topiaries,” I said. “They’re all fairy-tale themed.”

  “There’s a free spot,” Scooter pointed out as he drove to the rear of the lot. “I thought you said Thomas organized this reception just yesterday. It seems like half the town is here.”

  “You know what the Coconut Cove grapevine is like,” I said. “News spreads fast. Now, you know what you need to do tonight, right?”

  “Speak with Olivia,” he said.

  “I still can’t believe you spent an hour with her yesterday and didn’t manage to ask one question about the murder.”

  “Like I told you, we got so caught up in talking about video editing that it completely slipped my mind.” He frowned. “I’m not really cut out to be an investigator.”

  I brushed his cheek with my fingers. “I’d have to agree. You seem to be missing the nosiness gene.”

  “I think you have enough of that for the both of us,” he said after he kissed the back of my hand.

  As we walked toward the building, I pointed out the topiary of Puss and Boots. “How do you think they managed to sculpt the plume on top of his hat?”

  “Very carefully,” Scooter said as he stopped to take some pictures. “Don’t you think it would be fun to video Mrs. Moto in front of this?”

  “Fun for you or fun for her?” I asked.

  He put his arm around my shoulder. “Fun for the entire family. You could dress up with a hat and sword too.”

  “Not gonna happen. Come on, I’m starved. Jim is catering the reception. I hope he’s serving those rosemary lamb kebabs.”

  As we walked in the door, the sounds of a string quartet filled the room along with the buzz of people chatting over drinks and appetizers. For someone who had only had an agreement in principle to buy back Coconut Creations, Thomas sure was pouring a lot of money into his grand reopening. I hoped that the widow didn’t change her mind about the deal.

  After grabbing a glass of champagne, I turned to Scooter. “Okay, let’s split up. You go find Olivia and find out if she knew Gregor, if she saw anything that night, and if she knows how to use a knife. Whatever you do, don’t let her change the subject. I’m going to go find Thomas.”

  As I wandered around the gallery for a while searching for our host, I spotted Penny looking at the watercolor miniatures of pink flowers. She seemed enchanted by them. I made a mental note to come back later in the week and pick one up for her birthday. When I
couldn’t find Thomas, one of the waitresses suggested that he might be in the garden behind the station.

  I walked through the back door out onto the old train platform. The wooden benches had been cleverly turned into displays of ceramic outdoor statues, the kind you see dotted in people’s gardens. I paused to examine a collection of cats dressed up like gnomes. It would probably be better if Scooter didn’t see these, otherwise he’d be tempted to get Mrs. Moto a red-pointed hat.

  I spotted a row of tall potted plants at the end of the platform. As I walked toward them, I heard two men talking. I paused to listen—only to see if one of them was Thomas, mind you. I wasn’t eavesdropping. Or at least I wasn’t eavesdropping until I heard the guys mention Gregor. Then I went into full investigation mode, hiding behind the planters and peeking through the leaves.

  Jim was standing next to a fountain with his arms crossed. “You need to tell the police what happened.”

  “I can’t,” Thomas said. “They’ll assume the worst.”

  “If you don’t, someone innocent might get hurt,” Jim said.

  Thomas wrung his hands. “It won’t come to that, I swear.”

  “I hope you can live with a guilty conscience,” Jim said. He started to walk away when Thomas grabbed his arm. “You won’t say anything, will you?”

  Jim looked down at the ground for a few moments, then said something too quietly for me to hear. He pulled his arm away and started to walk back toward the building. I took that as my cue to scurry back inside before I was caught eavesdropping…I mean, investigating.

  As I walked back through the gallery, I saw Scooter standing next to the buffet table. “Any luck with Olivia?” I asked.

  He sighed. “Not really. I started to ask her about Gregor, but instead she suggested I try one of these.” He pointed at something that resembled a pancake with smoked salmon and sour cream on top. “Try one. They’re really good.”

  I popped one into my mouth. “Delicious. What are they called?”

  “It sounded like she said ‘bleen,’” he said as he handed me a napkin. “I didn’t really catch it.”