I’d said, “Of course.”
The news was on the little TV Aunt Gully had on her kitchen counter. Leo Rodriguez’s face came on-screen. I hit the mute button, but could still read the words scrolling on the bottom: “Student murdered at Halloween party … Bizarre twist, giant lobster left at scene … Campus thrown into mourning … Fraternity brothers to arrange special celebration-of-life service.”
My older sister, Lorel, entered the kitchen door from the breezeway, adjusting the belt on a dark blue sheath dress. “Morning. What’s going on?”
“Lorel! What brings you home this early on a Sunday?” After the death of a longtime friend a couple of months ago, my sister had gone back to Boston, where she was vice president of the social media company where she worked. She hadn’t been home since.
“I can’t come home for a visit?” She gave Aunt Gully a kiss on the cheek and started the coffee maker.
I filled Lorel in on the previous night as she sipped her black coffee. “Sis, this is awful. Madame Monachova is no murderer. I can’t believe anyone would think that,” she said briskly, smoothing her glossy blond hair.
“And what on earth was Lobzilla doing there?” Aunt Gully said.
I shook my head. “No idea. I do know that Fred was talking to the police about taking him to the lab. Lobzilla was moving when I saw him.” I didn’t mention what a shock it had been to see that lobster by the body of Max Hempstead.
“I’ll call Fred to find out,” Aunt Gully said.
Lorel set down her coffee cup. “Did Aunt Gully tell you about the exciting development?”
“Exciting development?” I set down my fork.
Aunt Gully poured herself more tea and took a long sip.
“Allie, for the last month, a company in New Hampshire has been writing to Aunt Gully about her chowder. They’re starting a franchise called Chowdaheads.”
Aunt Gully caught my eye, eyebrow quirked.
Aunt Gully had mentioned the Chowdaheads offer, but she’d tossed the letters in the trash because she wasn’t interested. I knew where this conversation was going.
Lorel plunged ahead. “Cute, right? Anyway, I ran into Don O’Neill, the president of Chowdaheads, at a conference. He wants to buy Aunt Gully’s chowder recipe. Isn’t that wonderful?”
I looked at Aunt Gully. “Is it?”
Aunt Gully took a deep breath. “It’s a nice compliment. Oh, look at the time. I’m off to church.”
“I’ll go with you.” Lorel put her mug in the sink. She’s going to church with Aunt Gully? Without complaining? She really did want this deal to go through.
Aunt Gully had her Zen face on. She’d obviously told Lorel no a million times.
Lorel looked at me as Aunt Gully took her pink sweater from a peg. “Coming?”
I almost laughed. “I promised I’d bring some things to Madame Monachova this morning.”
“Give her my best. You can always go to the five o’clock service later,” Aunt Gully said.
I didn’t want to lie. “See you later.”
As I tidied the kitchen, my friend Bronwyn Denby texted. Can you meet for coffee?
I texted back that I was meeting Verity at one of our favorite coffee shops, Grounded, at eleven.
Bronwyn texted: See you there.
* * *
As I pulled the door closed and stepped into the breezeway, I noticed the boots I’d left outside.
The boots I’d worn to the Halloween party.
I’d worn them home, then taken them off as soon as I could. I didn’t want to bring them into the house and I couldn’t bear looking at them. I grabbed a shopping bag—I’d give them back to Verity and let her decide what to do with them.
As I put the boots in the bag, a crumpled scrap of paper fell to the floor.
I froze. I’d forgotten the scrap that I’d picked up next to the body. It was a clue, an important clue. I flattened it and read: “M—meet me at the grave. I’ll bring the money.”
M?
M must be Max.
I turned it over. The message was typewritten. The paper plain, like you’d find loaded into any printer.
I got an envelope from Aunt Gully’s desk, berating myself as I slipped the paper into it. How had I forgotten this? I should have given it to the police!
I took a deep breath. My friend Bronwyn was studying criminal justice and worked as an intern for the Mystic Bay Police. Bronwyn would know what to do.
Bronwyn would kill me.
Chapter 15
Bronwyn, Verity, and I met at Grounded Coffee Shop not far from Verity’s vintage clothing store. Verity lived in an apartment in a rundown, prerenovation house off a side street nearby—the only way she could afford three bedrooms with enough space to hold her stock. Bronwyn still lived at home, with her parents and four teenage brothers in a red Cape in the rolling hills north of Mystic Bay.
I handed Verity the shopping bag with the boots. She sighed and put them in the trunk of the Tank. “Sure you don’t want them?”
“Not now.”
We went in, ordered drinks, and found a comfortable spot on a pillow-covered divan in a corner of the café. There were lots of pillow-covered couches at Grounded and soft Spanish guitar music always played on the sound system. I exhaled as I relaxed against the soft cushions.
“You girls look like an ad in a fashion magazine,” said the server as he dropped off our drinks. We laughed. Bronwyn was stocky and muscular, with brown tousled pixie-cut hair and serious gray eyes. Verity’s mocha skin was from her African-American dad and her hazel eyes from her Irish-American mom. My red hair and blue eyes meant that I’d always have to worry about getting a sunburn.
I sipped my tea, considering when I’d tell Bronwyn about the scrap of paper burning like a guilty coal in my purse. Get it over with, Allie.
“Last night.” My words tumbled out as I handed the envelope to Bronwyn. “When I was looking at the body I found this. It was windy and I was afraid it would blow away so picked it up and put it in my boot and I didn’t remember it until now.”
Bronwyn opened the envelope. To my surprise she didn’t say anything about me messing up police evidence. She tilted the envelope so she could read the paper inside without touching it. “‘M—meet me at the grave. I’ll bring the money,’” she read. “So money was changing hands. Did you see any money?”
Verity and I shook our heads.
“No, but it was so dark and people were running around everywhere.” How I wish I’d stayed calm so I could have read the paper and looked for the money.
Bronwyn got her coffee black. Verity had mocha cappuccino covered with whipped cream. I decided to save my tea for later and got up to order another one of Verity’s drinks.
When I returned with my drink, Bronwyn said, “Take it to the police station. They’ll take a statement. Tell them everything.” I think at one time Bronwyn had been horrified by the number of times I’d had run-ins with the police, but now she seemed to accept it. Actually, I think she enjoyed having someone to talk to about police stuff.
We rehashed the previous evening over and over, and as Bronwyn asked questions, I began to see things through her eyes, appreciate her methodical approach.
“That’s why I’m back in town from my training in Meriden,” Bronwyn said. “I’m going to help with a grid search of the crime scene this morning. They secured the crime scene last night, but couldn’t search the area in the dark. All hands on deck today.”
“It was gross,” Verity said. She made a stabbing motion at her neck. “Bloody.”
“I wish I’d been there to see the body.” Bronwyn sighed.
“Poor Madame Monachova. There was blood all over her cape,” I said.
“There was so much blood,” Verity said. “It got all over Kathleen’s dress, too.”
“That’s hard to explain away.” Bronwyn drained her coffee.
“Of course Madame didn’t kill Max,” I said, but then I hesitated.
Verity was
right—there had been so much blood. “So how did that blood get on her cape?”
Bronwyn said. “We’ll know more after her cape undergoes testing.”
I became aware of a growing silence. The usual bustle of the coffee shop had disappeared. People sitting at tables around us were listening, hanging on every word. A man in the corner, a writer who occasionally got a lobster roll at the Mermaid, raised his eyebrows over his metal eyeglass frames, hands poised over his keyboard.
“Let’s go.” We took our drinks and said good-bye to our server.
On the sidewalk outside, we waved good-bye to Bronwyn as she unlocked her mountain bike from the rack. “My training session is over Thursday,” she said. “I’ll check in when I get back.”
“Let’s take the van to Madame’s house,” I said to Verity. “Lorel’s home so she’s driving Aunt Gully in her car.”
We rolled out of town and onto the highway, crossing the river into New London. I steered toward the southern part of the city, where beaches and lighthouses were a common part of the scenery. I turned into a cul-de-sac called Captain’s Way, a neighborhood of midcentury ranch-style homes.
Madame’s house was a gray one-story ranch with a broad front window. Her two cats, Raisa and Rudi, green eyed with thick blue-gray fur, sat on the sill, evaluating us as we approached. They leaped from the sill as I keyed in Madame’s code on the security keypad.
“I can’t remember. Have you been here before, Verity?”
“I think when you were ten and there was a party after your recital.”
Music played as we stepped through the door. I wondered if she had it programmed to start as soon as the door opened. “Her own soundtrack,” Verity said. “Nice.”
Piano music. “Rachmaninoff, I think—one of her favorites.”
Raisa and Rudi circled our heels as we went into the kitchen. The entire house was carpeted in white and there were gold and brass accents everywhere. A baby grand piano a touch too large for the living room stood next to a stone fireplace.
“It’s a sixties time warp,” Verity said. Madame had had this house for decades, enjoying its proximity to the beach and the college. New London was halfway between Boston and New York, a perfect spot for a woman who loved theater, travel, the beach, and worked in both places.
Her walls were covered with a gallery of art, much of it from her early days in Russia and London. Verity walked the walls, oohing and aahing. “Some of these are really good. I wonder if they’re worth anything?”
Raisa and Rudi yowled and stalked off, tails switching back and forth. “I get it, I get it, you’re hungry,” I said.
“Where’s their food?”
“Let’s check the kitchen.”
I changed the water in the cats’ bowls, then opened cabinets until I found some cat food and matching bowls in a small pantry off the kitchen. I took the empty cat food bowls and put them in the sink to soak, then opened the food and set the fresh bowls on a pretty plastic mat printed with a matryoshka doll pattern. Rudi and Raisa pounced on the food as soon as I set it down.
I sat at the kitchen table watching them. Verity went to the sink and started washing the dishes.
“I’ll wash that teacup, too,” she said. An elegant teacup weighted a stack of papers on the kitchen table. I handed the delicate cup and saucer to Verity.
“This is gorgeous,” Verity said.
“Mmmm.” The papers drew my attention. The top one had Mortgage across the top and was dated a month ago. Madame had lived here so long—surely the house was paid for. Why would she need a mortgage? None of your business, Allie, but my mind churned with questions.
Unbidden, a thought slid into my mind. M—Madame Monachova? Her first name was Svetlana, but everyone called her Madame. Don’t be ridiculous, Allie. M—Max. The note was right next to his body. Wouldn’t the note writer call her by her first name?
“Madame has beautiful antique china,” Verity said, opening a cabinet. I sighed. Everyone did call her Madame.
The note mentioned money.
Madame had been so disappointed by the news that she didn’t get Royal’s grant. Could she be in financial trouble? Artists of any kind—dancers, musicians, authors—hardly made a good living. She was artist-in-residence at the college—surely that gave her some kind of financial security.
But Madame Monachova’s cape had been covered in Max’s blood. I had no explanation for that.
Verity poured dry food into Raisa’s and Rudi’s bowls. I jolted upright and pushed the papers away.
Sometimes I thought Lorel had it all figured out. MBA, high-powered job in Boston, fantastic condo overlooking Boston Harbor. It was hard not to compare with my total lack of a car—always borrowing Aunt Gully’s van, the vehicle I’d learned to drive on ten years earlier—my job at the ballet company, which barely covered my rent—of a tiny bedroom in a shared house.
I walked into Madame Monachova’s hallway and looked at her photos of herself in starring roles—Odette, Princess Aurora, Juliet.
Nah. I wouldn’t trade with Lorel for the world.
“Allie, these are the most beautiful cats I’ve ever seen.”
Verity sat on the floor, Rudi in her lap, stroking his blue-gray fur. “They’re such a gorgeous color.”
“They’re Russian Blues. Madame said they’re sometimes called Archangel Cats.” I picked up Raisa and tucked her soft head under my chin. She yowled, but I knew she liked me. She let me cuddle her. “They were from the Russian court. Purebred. Probably the most expensive thing in here. Except for her art. And piano.”
“Did Madame give you a list of things to bring to her in the hospital?” Verity said quietly.
“Yes.” Raisa leaped softly from my arms. “I just hate the thought of her in the hospital.”
I looked at the list on my phone. Slippers, sweater, some clothes. Her prayer book. Her Kindle and her reading glasses.
I went into her bedroom, found a small overnight bag in the closet and set it on the bed, which was covered with a lush dove-gray silk coverlet. A dozen velvet and silk pillows topped the bed. Raisa and Rudi leaped onto the bed, watching us with their wonderful emerald eyes. As I packed the bag, Verity picked up a small book from the bedside table. “I think these are jewels on the cover,” she whispered.
Madame Monachova had always been an exotic creature to me, as exotic to me as her wonderful cats. No one else in Mystic Bay looked like her—like a star, with designer dresses, Parisian silk scarves, fur coats. But seeing her clothes in the bottom of the suitcase brought home to me the fragile real woman underneath the glamour. I clicked the locks on the suitcase. “Let’s go.”
“Hospital or police station?”
I sighed. “I better get the police over with.”
“Drop me back at my car,” Verity said. “I have a feeling that may take a while.”
* * *
An hour later, I left the police station. As Bronwyn had said, all hands were on deck at the Parish Cemetery. I gave my statement to a guy who told me that the police would be in touch. My stomach churned. I hoped no one thought I had anything to do with the death of Max Hempstead.
* * *
At Mystic Bay Hospital, a policewoman stopped me at the door to Madame’s room. “She’s sleeping,” she said shortly.
“She asked me to bring her things.” The woman took the overnight bag.
“Can I wait? So I can speak to her?”
The officer glanced back into the room. Over her shoulder I saw Madame, her hair braided into one plait over her shoulder. She lay on her side, huddled under a sheet, wires attached to beeping machines. Alone.
My shock must have shown on my face.
The policewoman exhaled and her tone warmed. “Listen, I think she’s sedated. Come back tomorrow.”
Chapter 16
Back at the Mermaid, I had to park on Pearl Street because our lot was so jammed with cars. When I went in the front door, Lorel was at the counter with Hilda, taking orders. Lorel loo
ked cheerful.
Something was up.
As I crossed the dining room to join them, I passed the ceiling-mounted television that was almost always tuned to news, cooking, or game shows. Today it was a travel show, a repeat of Foodies on the Fly that had showcased Aunt Gully and the Lazy Mermaid. The show had put us, literally, on the map. The Mermaid was a stop on at least a dozen food tours, their buses inching through Mystic Bay’s narrow streets to drop off dozens of hungry tourists at a time.
It wasn’t just the food that brought them. The shack was only yards from the sparkling Micasset River. Sailboats, pleasure boats, and even historic ships from the Maritime Museum upriver were a constant, photoworthy backdrop for our diners’ selfies. Picnic tables and candy-color Adirondack chairs made it easy for diners to relax and enjoy the scene.
Plus, the inside of the shack was unforgettable. Most shacks and seaside restaurants are decorated with a nautical theme: mounted fish, oars, netting, model ships, carvings of old mariners in yellow slickers and sou’westers smoking a pipe. The Mermaid’s walls had that and more, covered with what Aunt Gully called her mermaidabilia, her collection of some of the most unusual and frankly kooky mermaid collectibles imaginable. People sent her mermaids from all over the world—just last week a fan in Singapore had sent her a mermaid carved from jade.
Something struck me. I went back outside. Our mermaid figurehead had no leis.
I went into the kitchen. “Hey, no leis on our mermaid this morning? No prank on Halloween?”
“Not a one and no beer bottles, either,” Hector said. “I guess the police patrols have helped.”
Hector and Hilda pelted me with questions about the party and Max Hempstead’s murder. I filled them in.
“People are saying Otis Parish is walking again,” Hector said.
Aunt Gully bustled in. “Nonsense! Allie, you’ll be glad to know that Fred called. Lobzilla is safe in a tank at his lab. It was touch and go for a while, but Fred thinks that Lobzilla wasn’t out of salt water for very long. God only knows where he’d been.”
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