by Duffy Brown
“No one on the island is one for that.” I finished off my scone.
“And a good thing it is too. We’d all die of boredom, and I suppose you be heading up there tonight to see about this barn?” Donna pursed her lips.
“In this rain? Hardly, I’m not sure I could even find the place. There’s nothing that can’t wait ’til tomorrow.” I downed the last of my tea.
“Meaning there’s no stopping you.”
“And you are not to follow me or call Mother or Fiona or anyone else if you ever want me to help serve wedding cake again.”
“Considering how that last wedding cake event turned out, I’ll be taking that as a promise more than a threat, me dear girl.”
Irish Donna put down the spoon, snagged a flashlight from the shelf over the sink, and plucked a raincoat from the hook by the door. She handed both to me. “To be finding the barn, look for an old feed wagon they’ve done piled with yellow and purple mums as some fall decorations. It marks the driveway, but you need to look hard or you’ll walk right by it and... Oh, for Pete’s Sake.”
Donna turned off the oven, untied her apron and flung it over a stool, and grabbed another flashlight. “I best be coming with you as ye will never find the place in this downpour. And another thing is that Nate’s a great chap and the only way you two will ever get together is if you don’t up and die on me. Going snooping like this just might make it happen.”
Donna put the sheet of scones in the fridge to bake later and snagged another rain slicker as a crack of lightning electrified the sky. We made for the door.
“The good thing is,” Donna said as we hurried along with rain dripping off our raincoats’ hoods. “Nobody with the sense God gave little green apples will be out in this here mess.”
“Unless they’re building an ark.”
“Don’t be tempting fate now. Never good to be tempting fate with a killer on the loose.”
We trudged down Market Street, rivulets of water snaking across our path. Puddles pooled everywhere and streetlights and shop lights blended into swirls of color on the wet pavement. Diehard barflies darted from one watering hole to the other as Donna and I scrunched up into our raincoats with me trying to ignore how my gym shoes were soaked clear through.
We started up Fort Street as cascades of water rushed towards us, giving me new respect for spawning salmon. It also gave me more respect for Irish Donna who had at least thirty years and thirty pounds on me. We huddled close to the shops to cut the wind, the only sounds the moan of foghorns and the split splat of our footsteps until we got to the top of the hill. The white walls of Fort Mackinac loomed to the right, the Governor’s House to the left, and the lights of the town glistened below. I followed Irish Donna onto Huron Street.
“Least we be out of the wind now.” Donna clicked on her flashlight and I did the same.
“I think the worse of the storm’s over, at least for a bit.” I looked up to a star sneaking out from behind the clouds as we rounded a bend. Overlook Cottage, which was more Daddy Warbucks than Winnie the Pooh, sat to one side and Irish Donna pointed to the flower wagon up ahead.
“Here is the lane. Bless be, we made it and I wasn’t all that sure we would with it raining cats and dogs. We need to be turning off the flashlights so we don’t look like we’re leading a parade. You can make out the house just ahead with the lights a blazing. Helen used to have us all to her place for Christmas brunch, but that was before she got bad arthritis in her knees and Frank turned into a big old tightwad. The barn’s around back if I remember right.”
Irish Donna looked at me her eyes bright even in the darkness. “So now what, me dear?”
“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”
“There’s only so much flour and butter a woman can take in one night before she goes a little loopy in the head.”
Using the light from the house to navigate, we made our way down the lane, trying to avoid puddles and mud, not that my shoes could get much dirtier. Gravel crunched underfoot, more stars popped out overhead, and the night was ink black since no moon follows a full moon.
Ducking down, we scooted below a big bay window and skirted around a fountain with a woman pouring water out of a jug. We wedged ourselves against the apple trees so we could stay off the beaten path and out of sight.
“I think the barn door be on the far side,” Irish Donna whispered as we both stumbled over a log and nearly landed on our faces. “And why is there a motor running of all things?”
“Air conditioning.” With the rain slowing to a drizzle, I slid back the hood of my raincoat and Donna did the same. “Bladen stores wine for weddings and events so he needed the AC for temperature control and a place that could accommodate drays and deliveries. Sure hope there’s not an alarm system.”
“It’s an old barn on Mackinac Island, not the Federal Reserve.” We slogged up to what I hoped was the barn and I undid the purple paperclips from my jacket.
“I’ll go inside and you stay out here,” I said to Irish Donna. “If things blow up you’ll have to call in the Calvary. Petula’s already knocked off two guys and gotten away with it and nobody knows we’re here. We don’t need the body count to jump to four.”
Donna parked her hand on her hip, flipped back her red curls, and stuck out her bottom lip. “I came all this here way through rain and storm and gloom of night to stand out in the dark like an old fencepost?”
“You came all this way to one-up Mildred Fernwright’s gossip when you get your hair done at Village Glam.
But for now, put your hand over the flashlight to cut the brightness and aim at the lock so I can see.”
“How’d you learn how to do this?” Donna asked as I straightened the clips.
“The same way you know how to bake the world’s best scones.” I hunched down to get a better view of the lock and jabbed in one paperclip then the other, hoping I wasn’t working on one of those super fancy Yale gizmos. “Practice, practice, practice.”
I twisted one of the prongs, kept one in place, and felt the pins give way. The main cylinder turned then turned a little more. I grabbed the knob and slid back the door. “Tada!”
“My word and williwigs! Ye went and did it.”
“Don’t tell Mother, it’ll just give her something else to worry about. If Petula shows up, knock three times on the barn door so I can hide.”
“And if she does show up, how do you plan on getting out?”
“I’m working on it.”
Irish Donna slipped off the shamrock she wore around her neck and looped the gold chain over my head. “This isn’t the first time you’ve given me your lucky charm,” I said.
“And the way things are going around here, it won’t be anywhere near the last.” Irish Donna added a smile and I slipped inside the barn, pulling the door closed behind me. I reset the lock in case Petula showed up, so she wouldn’t suspect someone was inside, and turned on the flashlight. I took a look around as the AC hummed in the background.
The barn was more of a mini warehouse than a barn. Boxes of tablecloths, napkins, aisle runners, and vases sat on one group of shelves. A pile of wicker flower stands was parked in the corner while plastic tubs of white candles, blue candles, cream pillars, spools of lace, tulle, and ribbon of every size and color imaginable filled another section of shelving. A bunch of empty boxes from Sandhill Crane Vineyards was heaped in a corner and a map of Lake Michigan and Huron was taped to the wall with the Barefoot Gal’s schedules beside it.
Cases of Dom Perignon with its crest logo stamped on the outside were stacked in a row organized by vintage - 2004, 2005, 2009. Cases of Louis Roederer Cristol Brute 2009 with a gold oval logo were stacked next to the Dom and Champagne Armand de Brignac Brute. I recognized the Ace of Spades champagne logo from my parents’ twenty-fifth wedding anniversary party. There were more cases of other champagnes that I didn’t recognize, but since my areas of expertise were Nutty Buddies, buttercream icing, and Bud Lite, I was way out of my league.
<
br /> So, we had wines and champagnes and a lot of wedding stuff, but none of it was illegal. It’s what was needed to pull off a wedding. A really nice wedding, but again not criminal unless you were the father of the bride footing the bill for all this - I’m sure it seemed criminal to him. So what were Bladen and Petula up to that—
Three soft knocks echoed throughout the warehouse and I shoved my hand over the flashlight beam, leaving only enough light to find my way to the cases of Dom since that was the tallest stack. I wedged myself behind it as the door opened, lights came on, and I found myself toe-to-toe and chest-to chest with Nate Sutter. I got an exasperated what the heck are you doing here look and gave Sutter a what the heck are you doing here look of my own.
This wasn’t so bad, except for the chest-to-chest thing that brought back images of Hello Kitty and beyond. Sutter and I could take Petula except take her for what? Being a wedding planner? But if she found Sutter, then that would really be bad, and—
Penny, knock, knock, knock, Penny, knock, knock, knock sounded from my back pocket and echoed like a brass band throughout the quiet barn. Really? Cell phone service now? I fumbled with my flashlight to get the phone out of my pocket while Sutter closed his eyes and shook his head and Petula stuck her head around the cases of Dom.
“Hello?” I said into the phone.
“Evie, is that really you?” came Fiona’s voice. “The storm must have zapped something and we got service, isn’t that totally cool. Anyway, you’ll never guess what, Finn said he loves me.”
“I’m a little busy here.”
“Me! He loves me. He bought flowers and candy and good champagne not the cheap stuff from Doud’s and he thinks Nate needs to make a run for it and we came up with a plan to make it happen. Abrams said the FBI is coming in tomorrow and they’ll find Nate for sure and the evidence against him is just too damning. Have you seen Nate?”
“He’s standing right here.”
“Yeah, right. Sure he is. Meet Finn at the bike shop in twenty. Nothing’s going to happen until tomorrow so the bike shop is safe until then and you need to find Nate right now.”
I disconnected and slid Sheldon in my pocket. Petula looked from me to Sutter. “Hope I’m not interrupting.”
There was a knock at the door and it slid back to, “Yoo-hoo, anybody home?” Irish Donna’s footsteps came closer. “I’m sorry to be barging in like this but I was wondering if I could...uh...be borrowing a cup of sugar, I’m always running out of sugar, you see.”
Petula folded her arms. “Let me guess, the Mackinac Island comedy hour?”
“I know you did it,” I said to Petula. Sutter and I scooted from behind the champagne cases and Irish Donna pulled up beside me. “I know you knocked off Bladen and John and you’re behind the whole smuggling operation in Detroit and here. You have the five million dollars that’s gone missing and you can’t knock off all three of us so you might as well confess everything and give up now.”
Petula spread her arms wide. “Honey, you are downright delusional. Do I look like I have five million dollars? If I did I’d be on a beach in the Caribbean sipping something with an umbrella in it.” Petula waved her hand over the wedding items. “Smuggling what?”
“This.” Sutter picked up a case of Dom 2004, walked it over to the box with the Sandhill logo, and dropped the case of Dom neatly inside. Sutter closed the flaps and ran a strip of packing tape across the seam.
“You order extra champagne as part of weddings,” Sutter said. “You pay for the extra yourself then ship it off to Canada under the Sandhill Wines logo. The wine distributors in Canada pick up their orders, pay the duty and taxes that is not much on cheap wine running ten buck a bottle. They wire transfer you funds and now they have champagne that’s worth two-hundred-fifty, three-hundred, four-hundred bucks a bottle.”
“I don’t have the money and as for the rest...” Petula tossed her head. “Prove it. John and Bladen are dead so they’re not talking and the guys in Canada are never going to give up this good deal. Who’s going to listen to the ramblings of a crooked cop and the crazies trying to get him off the hook.”
Petula nodded at Sutter. “Soon you’ll be behind bars in Detroit and we all know what happens to cops in prison. You won’t be talking much then. The only reason I’m not calling the cops myself is because the phones are screwed up. I didn’t do in Bladen, you did because you have the money. You did me a favor.” She waved her hand over the barn. “Now this is all mine. I’ll lay low until you’re tried and convicted so it looks like the smuggling ended with you, but then I’ll start up again and it’ll be business as usual.”
“Someone will figure this all out, you just wait and see,” Irish Donna insisted.
“In your dreams. Honey, they’ve had two years and came up with zip. With Mackinac Island being out of the way like it is and nothing but a bunch of fudge-eating tourists, it’s not on anyone’s radar.”
Petula went to the door, yanked it open, and said to Nate, “If I were you, I’d take that five mil you stole and run. You’re never getting out of this. The evidence against you is too solid. You, Nate Sutter, are toast.”
Chapter Fifteen
“Running is the only way out,” Finn said to Sutter, the three of us in the dark bike shop as rain beat steadily against the porch roof. I sat on the stool, Bambino and Cleveland took up space on the workbench, and Sutter paced the room.
“The FBI’s coming in tomorrow on the first ferry.” Finn sat on the other stool. “With your fingerprints on the gun, and everyone thinking you ran off with the money, that’s motive and opportunity. Abrams thinks he’s got this case sewed up.”
Sutter raked back his wet hair. “Except I’m innocent.”
“So Fiona and I cooked up this plan, Finn went on. “Fiona saw the Barefoot Gal crew in the Pink Pony. I bought them a round and told them I wanted to get off Fudge Island. Barefoot has two berths for passengers and in this weather you can slip onboard and hide in my room. Next stop from here is Sault Ste. Marie. The Gal is heading out tonight as soon as the storm blows over. You’ll go ashore in Canada as John Bernard, coxswain, and get lost.”
“Passport?” I asked, trying to come to grips with Sutter leaving. “He’s not going anywhere without that and Nathaniel Sutter’s picture is plastered all over the media by now.”
Finn tossed the blue booklet onto the workbench. “Here you go thanks to Molly. You look enough like John Bernard to use his passport and John’s a regular in Sault Ste. Marie. Customs won’t give you a second glance and Canada won’t have the official update that John’s dead. It takes a week for that info to go international.”
“You’re taking a hell of a risk doing this for me.”
Finn walked over to Sutter. “I got you into this undercover operation in the first place and I need to fix it. I know this means you’re going to be on the run, but it’s better than being in a prison cell.”
Finn checked his watch. “We gotta move right now. The storm’s letting up and the Gal will shove off in less than an hour. I left a note for Abrams saying I was taking vacation so I didn’t have to be involved in the takedown of a friend. It’ll be days before they realize you’re gone too.”
“But won’t they connect the dots?” I asked Finn. “They’ll know you helped Sutter escape and then your neck is on the chopping block.”
“There’re a lot of boats on these lakes, and who knows when Nate took off. He could have stolen away on a pleasure boat, on a ferry, on a plane headed out of here, done the backstroke to Saint Ignace for all they know. There’s no connecting us, and Nate has a lot of friends that would help him escape. No reason to single me out. Look, I’ve got two years until early retirement. It’ll give me time to get evidence against Petula. From what you and Nate said, she’s the ringleader of all of this.”
Sutter turned to Finn. “I’ll follow in about ten minutes and leave by the back door. I can cut through the trees and around Mission Point to the dock. I’ll wait by the warehouse
. Signal me aboard when the coast is clear.”
“With both of us in dark raingear and hoods the crew will think I’m you.” Finn flashed me a tight smile. “Thanks for the help, Evie. This isn’t over by a long shot. See you around.” Finn flipped up the hood on his windbreaker and closed the front door behind him. His footsteps clattered across the wood planks of the porch until his silhouette faded into the rain.
I pulled the green paint can aka cash register from under the workbench, pulled off the lid, and wadded up the bills inside. I thrust them at Sutter. “You’ll need this.”
“I’m not taking your money.”
“Yeah, like what are you going to do, use the ATM so Abrams and his merry men know exactly where you are? They have a bead on all your accounts, that’s the first thing they do, follow the money.” I opened Sutter’s hand and smooshed the wadded money into his palm. “You can pay me when you get back.”
Our gaze fused through the dark as we both thought if you get back. “Take care of Mom and Rudy,” Sutter said in a tight voice. He let out a deep breath then slammed his fisted hand on the workbench. “This is total crap. I’m a cop. I uphold the law. I don’t break it.”
“I’ll keep an eye on Petula and get Captain and the guys at the docks to watch if she makes a move. We’ll get her.”
“Unless she changes locations, wine boxes, ports, deliveries to Canada. She’ll mix it up like they did in Detroit. Nobody will know what to look for and even if Petula does get caught smuggling, that’s not the two murders. Nothing links her to those, that’s all on me. She’s smart, a whole lot smarter than I thought, to pull this off.”
“Yeah, well...well I’m smart too.” I had to say something so I wouldn’t cry.
