by Lyndsey Cole
Hannah’s fingers swept through the shelf one more time but the result was the same. No metal box. She climbed down. Frustrated, angry, and in no mood for chit chat.
“You’re the only one who knew about the box, Cal. I’m not saying you took it, but if it wasn’t you, who did?”
Cal opened the paper bag and held it toward Hannah. “Have a cider donut. They’re still warm.”
“Don’t ignore me.” She glared.
“I’m not ignoring you, I’m digesting the information you dumped on me and I’m trying to come up with a logical answer. Now, sit down and have a donut before I eat them all.”
Hannah flopped onto a chair. She was drained of energy as all her senses fired over each other. The smell of rain mixed with the cinnamon of the donuts. The patter of drops on the roof beat in sync with her racing heart. The sight of Cal calmly eating a donut contrasted with the memory of Dwayne’s Last Will & Testament.
She crossed her arms. She knew she was being childish but she couldn’t help it.
Cal held the bag closer. “Smell that cinnamon and sugar coating?” He licked his fingers.
Her resistance vanished and she reached into the bag and helped herself to a warm, sweet donut. “Thank you,” she added after her first bite.
Cal leaned back with his coffee. “Okay, Patches is gone and the box is missing. How about Jack or Samantha?”
“They were with me last night. And Meg, too. It couldn’t have been any of them, and why would they take the box anyway? None of them even knew about it.”
“Ruby? She has a key to your apartment.”
“No. She’d never leave Olivia at home alone.” She finished her donut. “You never told me where you were last night. Your boat was dark when we were at the marina.”
“I didn’t want to be there when all of you were on Blake’s boat. There’s something about that guy that I just don’t like, so I went to visit my sister. She’s been bugging me to come over and help her with a few things.”
Hannah barely heard Cal’s explanation. “It had to be Ebony. She threatens to take Patches away from me every chance she gets.” She walked to the closet and found her raincoat.
“Slow down, Hannah. Are you planning to confront Ebony? Do you think that’s a good idea? Maybe it was someone else trying to set her up.”
“It has to be her. Even last night, she told me she was my worst nightmare and without a will, everything of Dwayne’s would be hers. All her plans are ruined if his will is exposed.”
“Did anyone else hear her threaten you?”
“As a matter of fact, Marty was there on the dock, too. He kept trying to shush her but Ebony was so mad she couldn’t keep her mouth shut.”
“Maybe Marty broke in and took Patches, found the will in the metal box, and assumed you’d blame Ebony.”
“You’re right, I didn’t even consider that possibility.” The shot of adrenaline Hannah felt moments ago, faded. How would she figure out who broke in? Did one of them come after they left Blake’s boat? Desperate to find something before the deal with Blake fell through?
But was it Marty or Ebony?
“You have to call the police. Someone broke into your apartment, Hannah. Let Pam take over now before you get yourself into trouble.”
The heavy rain turned into a light drizzle. Nellie went to the door and whined.
“I’ll take Nellie out and decide what to do,” Hannah said. Her mind raced with options that went in every direction but none led to a definite conclusion. She opened the door. She felt her mouth drop open in surprise. Patches, soaking wet, walked past her into the cottage.
Hannah looked at Cal. “Someone, either Ebony or Marty, is toying with me. They want me to know they mean what they say about Patches and Dwayne’s papers.”
Nellie took herself out to do her necessary business and returned in a few minutes.
“Did you leave your door open last night? Maybe you were in such a hurry you didn’t pull it tight and Patches let himself out?”
Hannah pursed her lips. She tried to walk through her actions from the previous night. The problem was, when you do something that is so automatic, like closing your door, it’s hard to actually remember doing it. She just couldn’t be sure.
But the fact of the matter still remained—Dwayne’s Last Will & Testament was missing.
“Will you call the police for me, Cal? I’m calling Jack. I want him here for moral support when his daughter shows up.”
After they each finished quick phone conversations, Hannah threw her phone on the couch. “Jack said he’d be right over.” Cal handed Hannah another cup of coffee but she waved it away. “My nerves are too jangled already. I don’t need any more coffee.” Her hand reached into the paper bag and extracted the last cider donut. She needed to do something while she waited, and eating was the easiest activity.
“Tell me what happened last night,” Cal said after he sat across from Hannah.
Hannah grinned. “Ebony almost fell off the dock into the water. You should have heard her scream. That was the highlight of the night.” She started to laugh and she couldn’t stop. All her built-up tension bubbled to the surface with the memory of that moment. “And when she tried to stomp away, the heel of her shoe got jammed between two boards and she walked off, trying to look dignified with one shoe on and one shoe off.”
“So the night wasn’t a complete loss.”
Hannah’s laughter turned into hic-ups. “No. And Blake told me what he is trying to buy from Marty and Ebony.”
“Oh? A comedy show and a drama all wrapped up in one night.”
“Yeah. Those plans I found of Dwayne’s? That’s what Blake wants. It will give him an advantage over all the other wineries.”
Cal nodded. “And make someone very wealthy from that transaction, I imagine. You should show those papers to Pam, too.”
“Yeah, I told Jack to bring them along. Pam’s gonna be furious with me for not showing them to her as soon as I found them.”
“Listen, Hannah. You didn’t know everything was tied together. Lay it all out for her and let her ask Marty and Ebony the hard questions.”
The door of Hannah’s cottage opened and Jack walked in with Hannah’s manila envelope, followed by Pam with an angry frown.
“What’s going on?” Pam demanded.
Jack handed the envelope to Hannah.
Hannah handed the envelope to Pam. “I found this in my filing cabinet.”
“Why did my father have it?”
“Can we sit down and talk about this?” Hannah asked, ignoring Pam’s question as she motioned to the couch and chairs. She hoped to rid the atmosphere of, at least, some of the tension before she started on her story.
Pam opened her mouth but sat before she said anything. “Okay. Start talking.” She crossed her arms and waited.
Hannah glanced at Cal for support. Pam had always been one to make her feel uncomfortable, and with all the papers she needed to explain, she had to put her best story forward. The version that didn’t make Pam think Hannah had the most to gain from Dwayne Dunn’s death or, at least, that Hannah didn’t know she had the most to gain until after his death.
She sucked in a lungful of oxygen, exhaled slowly, and pointed to the envelope in Pam’s lap.
“I found those papers in my Great Aunt Caroline’s filing cabinet. From what I can tell, Dwayne gave them to her for safe keeping.”
Pam slid the papers from the envelope and shuffled through the stack. “This is Dwayne’s work?”
“It says those are the original papers for his clarification process which Blake McVee wants to buy.”
“Why were they here with your great aunt’s papers?”
“She befriended Dwayne, from what I understand. I guess he gave them to her for safekeeping. But that’s only a guess.”
Pam nodded.
Hannah let her spine relax slightly. So far, so good.
“I got suspicious when Ebony Dunn made several threats about t
aking Patches if I didn’t give her Dwayne’s papers, which I knew nothing about when she first threatened me. She was so adamant, I decided to search through Great Aunt Caroline’s files.” Hannah shrugged. “That’s when I found the papers, but I didn’t know what their significance was, and I certainly wasn’t planning to hand them over to Ebony. I decided, if Dwayne had wanted her to have the papers, he would have given them to her and not to Great Aunt Caroline.”
“Okay. I’m following all this. How does this all tie together?” Pam asked.
“Last night, I accidentally found something else.” Hannah clasped her hands together to keep them from fidgeting. “I was putting something away in that top shelf.” She pointed to the high cabinet over her counter. “I found a metal box that was shoved all the way to the back.”
Pam shifted her legs and sat up straighter.
“The box contained the Last Will & Testament of Dwayne Dunn.”
Pam’s eyes widened. “And where is that Last Will & Testament.”
“Someone stole the box with the original, but I made a copy,” Hannah quickly added when Pam’s expression turned dark. She pulled a folded piece of paper from her back pocket and handed it to Pam.
Pam smoothed the creases. After she took half a minute to read the will, she looked at Hannah. “Assuming we find the original and this all holds up, you are the beneficiary of Dwayne Dunn’s will?”
Hannah nodded. “I never knew until I found it in the cupboard.”
“Let me be sure I have all this straight,” Pam said. “First, you found Dwayne’s backpack full of cash with a letter addressed to you. Then, you found a folder with his work which could be worth a lot of money. Last, you found his will and you are the beneficiary.” Pam leaned back against the cushion.
Hannah held her breath. She was afraid Pam would put it together in a way that made her look bad.
“Why would Dwayne leave everything to you, Ms. Holiday? How well did you know him?”
Hannah looked at Cal and Jack, hoping they had something to offer but they remained silent. The air in the room was heavy with anticipation. Thick with Hannah’s fear.
“All I can say, Deputy Larson, is that when Dwayne showed up and asked me for work, I saw a kind and humble man. I saw a man down on his luck but willing to work. I didn’t know him but I decided to give him a chance. At the time, I didn’t know my great aunt had been his friend. Maybe Dwayne came to me as a last ditch effort because of Great Aunt Caroline. His concern was for Patches, not his work or his money. I don’t think any of that really mattered to him.” Hannah’s confidence grew. She had given Dwayne a chance and she wasn’t going to give up on him now, especially after his death. She was determined to fight to find justice for whoever took his life.
“Marty and Ebony Dunn have shown that all they care about is getting Dwayne’s work so they can profit from it. I believe,” she looked at each person staring at her, “I believe that Dwayne didn’t want them to have that opportunity.”
“And I believe,” Pam pointed her finger at Hannah, “that you need to hope that metal box with Dwayne’s will turns up in someone else’s possession and your claim of being robbed is true.”
Hannah swallowed and felt a huge lump of fear stuck in her throat. What did Pam really think of Hannah’s information? Did she just shoot to the top of the suspect list?
Cal handed Pam a memory card. “This might clear up some of your questions surrounding Hannah’s information. It’s from the security camera I installed at The Fishy Dish recently.”
22
“What is on that memory card, Cal?” Hannah asked after Pam left. They had talked about installing a security camera but she didn’t know he had done it already. She felt relieved that the camera may have caught someone breaking into her cottage but worried about who that person would turn out to be. And annoyed that she didn’t know about the camera in the first place.
“It only shows Ebony Dunn walking by The Fishy Dish around eight fifteen last night. Unfortunately, I set up the camera to monitor around the snack bar, not your cottage, but it will give Pam something to think about.”
“And you didn’t tell me this first thing this morning when you found out I had been robbed?” Hannah didn’t know if she was angrier at Cal for keeping this information from her or at Pam for making her feel like she was the top suspect.
Cal held Hannah by her shoulders and stared into her eyes. “Listen, Hannah. I thought it was best that you gave Pam all the information and papers you have and let her question Ebony and Marty. If I showed you the video first, you would have stormed out of here and jumped into a potentially dangerous situation. It was for your own good.”
Hannah knew Cal was probably right but she was still upset and wasn’t going to let him off the hook so easily. “I thought you seemed too calm when I told you someone broke in.” She shook away from his hands. “I’m not sure what to think right now.”
Jack came to Cal’s rescue. “He did the right thing, Hannah. The longer you withheld the information from Pam, the worse it would look for you. Now, with someone else for Pam to focus on, you can relax while all the pieces fall into place.”
She sagged onto her chair. “Yeah, I guess so. But I can’t just sit still. Someone is out there and they broke into my cottage. What if they come back when I’m home?”
“Stay with Ruby until this is all over. She has a guest room now,” Cal suggested.
“Okay. I’ll think about that.” She stood. “I have to take the dogs out and you need to get back to work so my new cottage is done as soon as possible. Make sure it has the best locks and security system. This really has me spooked.”
Cal smiled. “Don’t worry. Everything will be state of the art. Come on, I’ll walk out with you.”
Jack went into the office as Cal left with Hannah and the dogs. Clouds raced across the sky and the waves whipped into a frothy mess. But the rain was over for the moment, giving Hannah a break for her walk.
Cal rested his arm on her shoulder. “Still mad at me?” He shook her shoulder with his hand.
She tensed her body but couldn’t contain the twitch on her lip. Grudgingly, she said, “Thanks. I should have known you’d be keeping me safe.”
“I knew you were afraid to hand all those papers over to Pam because it made you look like you’d be the one with the motive to kill Dwayne. I think this worked out best for you. Now Pam can focus on Ebony and find out exactly what she was doing here last night.”
“Do you think she took the box?”
“Who else could it be?” Cal asked.
“I don’t know. No one else showed up on the security camera?”
“No one.”
When they got to The Fishy Dish, Cal turned right toward Hannah’s new cottage and she turned left toward the beach with the two dogs.
“We won’t take a long walk since it could start raining again any minute,” she said to Nellie and Patches.
Nellie wagged her tail. Patches plodded along with his nose to the ground.
Just like the two previous mornings, Blake McVee approached from the opposite direction.
Hannah wished she had a private beach so she wouldn’t have her walk interrupted by conversations she’d rather avoid.
“Good morning, Hannah. I wasn’t sure if I’d bump into you again with this wild weather that has been swirling around all morning. I love a strong wind. It makes the ocean look harsh and forbidding.” He stopped and faced toward the water as the wind whipped his hair around and made his clothes flatten against his body.
The wind carried the unmistakable briny ocean smell.
Hannah wrapped her arms around herself to keep a little warmth inside her fleece.
“I’ve been thinking about our conversation last night.” Blake had to shout so the wind didn’t blow his words away.
Hannah’s ears perked up. Maybe this was her opportunity to find out more about Dwayne’s clarification papers and what the process was worth.
“L
et’s go back to my office. I can barely hear myself think over this wind,” Hannah shouted.
Blake nodded.
They bowed their heads slightly and leaned into the wind. The dogs were happy to turn around and head back toward home, too.
Hannah opened the office door and ushered Blake inside. “I’ll be right back after I take the dogs into my half of the cottage. Would you like some coffee?”
“Don’t go to any trouble for me but if it’s made, I would love a cup.”
Jack took the leashes from Hannah. “I’ll take care of that for you, Hannah. Have a seat and warm up. Your cheeks are red from the wind.”
Hannah rubbed her hands together. “It’s not usually so chilly at this time of year. It feels more like a fall day. It’s supposed to blow over quickly and get back to more summer weather by tomorrow.”
“I’m only here for a couple more days so it would be nice to enjoy some more warm summer days.” Blake settled comfortably into the chair across from Hannah’s antique desk with his right ankle crossed over his left knee. “So, how did you become so interested in the wine business? You asked some interesting questions.”
Jack returned with a tray and two mugs of coffee, sugar, and cream. “I’ll check if Meg needs any help in the snack bar.”
Blake chuckled. “You certainly have a loyal group of people helping you here. It’s more like a family atmosphere than a business. How did you manage to find this group that looks after you so well?” He poured cream into his coffee and added a heaping teaspoon of sugar.
“They were all here when I inherited this place, except for Samantha.”
“Ah, yes, Samantha. She’s full of fire. But, back to your questions last night. Not many people even think about how wine gets clarified.”
“My question wasn’t completely out of the blue. For some reason, Ebony Dunn thinks I have her husband’s papers. Dwayne Dunn?”
Blake put his foot down and leaned toward Hannah. “The homeless guy I saw at the marina is her husband? How on earth did he ever manage to catch that dish of a woman?”
