“It’s strange.” Paying her another visit was on my agenda in the morning. “According to Jackson, she did it as a nod to Vinnie and Jackson’s past together.”
“Hmm,” Lola murmured.
“What was the catastrophe tonight?”
“When the front drape hit the ceiling last night I knew something was wrong with the curtain or the crew.” She sipped her iced tea. “It was a little of both. It rose for the start of Act Two and suddenly stopped. Somebody on the crew yanked on the rope and the drape ripped, then fell to the floor, landing on black boxes. The cast of Sound of Music freaked out. The lights came up accidentally, and Maria von Trapp was standing stage center, her mouth in a huge O”—Lola imitated the terrorized actress—“her eyes bugging out of her head. She was so agitated she sang ‘So Long, Farewell’ while the pianist played ‘My Favorite Things.’ Maddy came onstage and called another intermission while they cleaned up and regrouped.”
“Wow! Sorry I cut out after Act One.”
“You didn’t miss much. Our scenes were so-so, and King Lear went up on his lines. Altogether not the best night for the New Jersey Community Theater Festival.” She exhaled. “One more night.”
“I’m sure tomorrow will be smooth as anything,” I said.
“Honestly, I’ll be glad when the whole thing is over. It was nice to be included, but…”
I got it. Some things, or people, were not worth the effort. Was I thinking of Jackson? Could he be guilty of murder?
We finished our drinks, and I accompanied Lola to her Lexus. As she backed onto the road, I spied a white van parked a few houses down the street. I hadn’t seen it before. I’d spent a fair amount of time on the porch this last week and was familiar with most of the vehicles on our block. Was it my imagination that made it appear ominous? I hurried onto the porch, locking the door. Not a peep emanated from Jackson’s sleeping bag. I crept into the house and went to bed. Bill didn’t move a muscle as I pulled the covers around my shoulders. His breathing was even and steady. Like him. I felt safe here.
* * * *
Light flooded into the bedroom. The hum of the air conditioner muted the clatter from outside the room, but something had awakened me and interrupted a delicious dream. Literally. I was at the Sandbar and Grody brought me a huge dish of steamed mussels. I gorged myself, becoming bigger and bigger until I was ready to burst. It didn’t bother me; I ate away with a smile from ear to ear. I remembered the next bit of dream. I held an ice pick and suddenly popped like a balloon. Geez. My dreams, aka nightmares, were getting out of control. I reached for Bill’s head on the pillow next to mine. It was empty. The alarm read 7 a.m.
“Bill?” I sang out in my early morning voice. He was probably in the shower. No answer. With all the sleep he got yesterday, it was no shocker that my guy was already up and going. I fantasized about breakfast. French toast, pancakes… The sun was out, so that meant beach time and the tiki bar. Bill was correct. With a high-priced lawyer on Jackson’s case, there was little need for me to snoop around. Once I paid a final visit to Maxine to thank her and ask a question.
I slipped into my robe—I’d been there, done that with Jackson observing my nightwear—and opened the bedroom door. “You’re up early—” The kitchen was quiet, no smells of impending breakfast. Not even coffee. I peeked out the door to the porch. Jackson’s clothes were neatly piled, his sleeping bag rolled up, and all items pushed into the corner. What had I slept through?
Back in the kitchen I put on the coffee and spied a piece of paper with a scribbled message. I HAD to go out. Business with my car. I will explain all. Call later. B. As if I wouldn’t know who it was from. It seemed to me that Bill had gotten himself too involved in the car theft. He should take his own advice: Let the professionals deal with it. Never mind, I didn’t intend to let his agenda deter me from my agenda—enjoying the beach today. I planned to text Maxine and then Lola to see if she was up for sunbathing this afternoon. Last night it sounded as if she needed something to soothe frayed nerves before the last performance of Arsenic and Old Lace.
I lingered over breakfast, enjoying an extra cup of coffee while I skimmed through my email—lots of spam and a message from the Windjammer’s previous sous chef, Wilson. He was back in Haiti visiting family and acting in a play at a local theater—the result of his involvement with the ELT’s co-production of Bye, Bye, Birdie. Yay! My Facebook page boasted new pictures of my nephew Cory on a carousel at a carnival. I burst out laughing. Then I remembered… I’d asked Jackson about his escape from the Candle Beach arcade into the amusement park behind the building, but he never gave me a solid answer. I doodled on Bill’s note, making a further list of the loose ends in the murder investigation. Jackson and the arcade, the anonymous tip, the ice pick in Jackson’s backpack, Sam Baldwin, Tiny, the black book…
The black book. I dashed into the shower and speedily dressed in comfortable shorts and a sleeveless top. I slapped on my sandals and headed out the door, not before locking both the bungalow and the porch doors. If Jackson returned before I did, he’d need to text me about gaining access to his belongings.
I slid into the front seat of my MINI Cooper and switched on the ignition. Before I pulled out of the driveway, I quickly texted Lola about the beach and then Bill: message received. I hoped that wasn’t snarky. Nothing left to say. We’d talk later. I put the car in Reverse and my cell rang. It was Pauli. I put the car in Park.
“Hey. What’s up?” I asked.
“Like, I’m checking in,” he said.
“If you have any info on the searches you’re doing, let me know. See you at the beach later.” I was about to click off.
“Like yeah, but wait.”
Maxine had texted that she’d be available until eleven o’clock. It was a quarter to ten.
He took a bite of something. I could hear chewing as he talked. “I searched on Jackson like you asked.”
A knot twisted in the pit of my stomach and I turned off the motor. “What did you find?”
“Pretty much nothing. He had like a minor run-in with the cops in Bannon, Iowa.”
Where his brother lived.
I was curious. “What kind of run-in?”
“Like, some argument in a bar with these other guys and they sort of trashed the place.”
“Was he charged?”
“Nah. They made the guys pay for damages.”
Okay. Not too bad. Not a felony or a record. “Thanks, Pauli. If you find—”
“Yeah, and like one more thing.” He took a drink of something. “Sorry. Breakfast. He got engaged.”
“He what?”
“Like he’s going to marry this woman. I saw their picture in the Bannon Gazette.”
“Oh.” Why was I surprised? We’d canceled our relationship years ago. I was in deep with Bill. “That’s nice. What’s her name? What’s she look like?”
“Tammy Littleton. She’s like awesome.”
My heart plummeted. Jackson had never mentioned Tammy to me, while Bill and I had to put our relationship out in the open. It was irrational, I knew, but still…
“When’s the wedding?” I asked brightly.
“Doesn’t say.”
“Thanks, Pauli.” I ended the call with a promise to get back if I needed any other intel, and Pauli promised to keep digging.
I tore out of my driveway and cruised down Ocean Avenue toward Maxine’s, irritated. Why didn’t Jackson come clean about the engagement? And what impact did it have on his homecoming to Candle Beach? Did he intend to bring his bride here? And why was he openly flirting with Lola?
As I rehashed Jackson’s love life, I noticed a white van a car length behind me. I turned off Ocean Avenue. The van turned off too. I continued down Land’s End toward Maxine’s yellow Victorian. I hit the brakes and the van slowed down as well. About twenty yards from Maxine’s house, the vehicle sud
denly spun right onto a narrow lane and disappeared. My hands were clammy as I gripped the steering wheel. Someone was tailing me. Odds were it was the same vehicle parked on my street last night.
I waited five minutes in my MC before I got out of the car in case the van showed up again. I knocked on her screen door, light winds swirling around the planters of flowers on the porch making them dip and bow. Reminded me of my aunt’s flower beds at her home in Ocean Port. Soft rock music drifted outside from the interior of the house.
Maxine appeared at the door. In a white linen suit and stiletto heels, Vinnie’s grief-stricken fiancée looked more composed, less fragile. “Hi.”
“Hope I’m not holding you up?” I glanced at her outfit.
“No. I have an appointment with my financial advisor later this morning.”
About Jackson’s bail? “Thanks for seeing me.”
Maxine joined me on the porch, and we settled into the rockers as we had the last time we met. “You heard about the bail money?” she asked quietly, rocking, her hands resting in her lap.
“That’s one reason I wanted to see you. To say thanks,” I said.
She fluttered one hand dismissively. “I can afford it. Anyway, unless he skips town I’ll see my investment returned.” She smiled, Sphinx-like.
“Still, it was awfully generous of you. Considering Jackson is a suspect in Vinnie’s…uh, Vincent’s death.”
“Call him Vinnie. That’s what Jackson called him.”
“At the memorial, right.”
“Also when he came to see me here,” she added.
Jackson was here?
Maxine shaded her eyes and peered at the ocean, where a cruise ship plowed through the waters. “I like Jackson. He told me stories about the JV and the fun they had together. How he and Vincent would take the boat out into the ocean and let it drift for hours. One time they fell asleep and got burned…”
I remembered that, the two of them red as lobsters.
“And the time they got stuck on a sandbar and had to wait for the tide to come in.” She laughed like a little girl, then her eyes filled. “I miss Vincent.” She faced me. “Do you think Jackson’s guilty?”
I wanted to yell “yes!” He should have told me about Tammy. But I forced myself back to the conversation at hand. “Of course not. I doubt you’ll ever see any reimbursement for the legal services, though,” I said carefully.
“I can afford that too.” She stopped rocking, her voice taking on a harder edge. “My father was glad to send his lawyer down here. In his mind, Jackson took care of a big problem. So why not help him out?” she said bitterly, then seemed to gather strength. “I would have hired a lawyer for Jackson even if my father disapproved.”
Yikes…some really bad blood there. “I know Jackson appreciates your help.”
“Sure.” She scanned the shoreline once more as if searching for a particular sailing vessel. Maybe The Bounty.
“Jackson said Vincent told him I was the first person he really fell in love with,” she said wistfully.
So Vinnie was actually ready to settle down…or else Jackson was providing some fabricated comfort to a grieving fiancée. Either way Maxine bought it. “Did Vinnie ever mention a black book?” I asked.
She gazed at me. “A black book?”
“Like a small pad.” I indicated its size.
“No. Why?”
What to say? “He showed it to Jackson the night he died. Jackson thinks it might be important in the investigation.”
“If it had anything to do with the charter boat, Vincent wouldn’t have mentioned it. He never talked business when he was home.”
“I thought maybe it would shed light on…things.”
“I went through his clothes the other day…” She paused to collect herself. “Nothing in his pockets. That was strange.” Maxine looked to me for confirmation.
I nodded agreement. It was kind of strange. My father continually left assorted items in his pockets that drove my mother nutty on laundry day.
“Except for a piece of paper with an address in a jacket pocket,” Maxine added.
My little hairs twitched. “Oh? What was the address?” I asked nonchalantly.
“Some place in Walker.” Maxine sprang out of her rocker and entered her house before I could comment.
Walker, New Jersey? New York? Pennsylvania? I’d never heard of it.
Maxine returned, holding the piece of paper in front of her. “Here.”
I scanned the sheet, memorizing an address in Walker, NJ. 1410 Main Street. “I don’t know that town. Do you?”
Maxine shook her head. “But Vincent had business stuff all over the place. Not only the charter boat. He’d call or leave messages from lots of towns.”
“I suppose the police have his cell phone?” I asked.
“I wanted to keep it as a token. They said they’d return it eventually,” she said wistfully.
After a beat, we exchanged pleasantries about the weather down the shore in summer and I offered my condolences again. Maxine invited me back anytime. As I walked away from her home, her eyes followed me, her loneliness palpable.
I drove back to my rental reflecting on the black book. Maxine didn’t have it; odds were, the police didn’t have it or Grody might have picked up some gossip about it. Where would Vinnie have stashed it? Perhaps the killer had taken it.
My mind whirled as I pulled into my driveway. I was musing on the mystery when I yanked open the door to the porch. Then I stopped. I was sure I’d locked it. “Hello? Anybody home?” I tiptoed down the porch to Jackson’s pile. This morning he’d left everything in a neat mound in the corner. Clothes on top of the sleeping bag. Now the clothes—neatly folded—were set next to the sleeping bag. Someone had broken into the porch and rearranged Jackson’s things.
I clutched the pepper spray dispenser that I kept on my key ring. I’d never had occasion to use it, but there was always a first time. My next thought was Jackson’s money. I eased across the porch and rummaged around for his jacket. The wad of bills was still there. Whatever the motive for the breaking and entering, it was not Jackson’s cash stash. I tried the handle of the door leading into the house. It was locked. I inserted my key and slowly squeezed the knob. “Hello?” Silence. The burglar was in all probability long gone. I shuddered.
I weighed calling the Candle Beach police department about the break-in but I could already hear the skepticism in the voice of the thin, edgy cop who’d interviewed Jackson: Are you sure the clothes were on top of the sleeping bag? Was anything missing? How did you know about the money in his pocket in the first place?
* * * *
On the beach, the sun rose higher in the brilliant blue sky, the temperature hitting eighty-five. Perfect weather. With heat beating on my head and baking my brain, I was content to let the incident on my porch melt away for a while. There was nothing I could do about it at the moment. Neither Bill nor Jackson were available.
“The sand is burning hot,” said Carol, treading delicately around the multiple towels arranged in a square by the folks from Etonville, Pauli in tow.
I rolled onto my back and squinted through my sunglasses. “About time you showed up.” Lola and I scooted our blanket to one side to make room.
Carol eyed Pauli, who was quiet and grumpy. He stripped off a shirt, dumped his flip-flops, and mumbled something before he raced down the beach to the ocean. I think it was “I’m going in the water.”
“He’s been upset for the past hour. Janice Instagrammed pictures from Boston. She’s at a concert with some family friends,” Carol said.
“Having fun,” Lola murmured.
“One of the friends is a cute boy”—Carol raised an eyebrow—“teenage love.”
We were all privy to Pauli’s crush on Janice and the turmoil around them getting together while Bye, Bye, Bird
ie was in production. “Oops.”
“I’m trying to distract him.” Carol sighed, then perked up. “Walter’s strolling on the boardwalk. Pale as a ghost. He said he’s allergic to the sand.”
“Also to hanging out with friends,” Lola said wryly. “I tried to get him out here. No luck.”
Vernon, Abby, and Mildred tiptoed through the hot sand, ice cream cones in hand.
“This chocolate chocolate chip is delicious,” Mildred said between licks of her cone.
“I prefer plain vanilla. No chips, nuts, or swirls, for me,” said Abby decisively.
“To each their own.” Mildred settled herself on a towel next to Vernon, who munched on a waffle cone. “Dodie, want a taste?”
“No thanks. I’ll get something later. You’d better eat up before it melts.” Mildred swiped at a streak of chocolate that had dripped onto her beach coverup.
“Soak up the sun today,” Vernon said ominously and gestured to his cell phone.
“Cloudy tomorrow?” asked Abby.
“Thunderstorm’s coming in,” he said.
“Didn’t we have enough rain yesterday?” Mildred wiped her mouth with a napkin. “I think it brought bad luck to the show.”
Penny, who’d been playing gin rummy with Edna, sat up. “No such thing as weather bringing bad luck to the theater. Whistling backstage, yes. A good dress rehearsal, yes. Saying Macbeth, yes. Weather, no.”
“I think superstitions bring bad luck,” Mildred asserted.
Abby scoffed. “I don’t believe in superstitions. They’re all silly. Finding horseshoes and four leaf clovers bringing you good luck? Phooey.”
“Mrs. Parker called into the PD with a 10-60 one day. She was locked out. Claimed a black cat was responsible,” Edna said knowingly.
“How is that even possible?” asked Carol, who snickered.
Penny cackled, shuffling the cards. “I walk under ladders all the time onstage. Friday the thirteenth might as well be the twelfth or fourteenth.”
“I believe that if you sneeze someone is missing you,” Mildred said firmly.
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