Town in a Cinnamon Toast

by B. B. Haywood

  No displays of affection in front of the board! It’s a public place, remember? (This means you, Mick Rilke!)

  Okay, so enough with the rules! Just be kind to the board—and to Jeff and Betsy. They worked hard to clean that up!

  THE BOSWORTH REPORT

  Official Judicious F. P. Bosworth sightings for the previous two weeks:

  Visible: 8 days

  Invisible: 6 days

  Thanks for flying out of the nest, Judicious. It’s great seeing you flocking into town this spring, along with the birds!

  * My favorite time of the year, of course, is HARVEST time, when we get to EAT what we planted in the spring. And as all of you know, I LOVE to eat—more than I love to plant and garden! My burgeoning waistband proves it! Diet time, I hear you calling to me!

  ONE

  “A toast!” said Henry “Doc” Holliday enthusiastically as he reached for his champagne flute and hoisted it in a ceremonial gesture. “Or, to be more precise, a cinnamon toast!”

  Around the table, the laughter, joking, and lighthearted conversations dwindled to an attentive hush as the other dinner guests reached for their glasses as well. All turned toward Doc, who cleared his throat and waited a few moments before launching into his remarks.

  “Now, I realize we’re currently missing two important members of our party—including our best man, who never showed up tonight, and our maid of honor, who went off looking for him—but I think we need to get the festivities going here. So in their absence, if no one minds, I’ll step in to fill their shoes.”

  Hearing no objections, and instead noticing smiles and a few nods of encouragement around the table, Doc took a breath, considered his next words, and continued.

  “Of course, I’m calling this a cinnamon toast, because that’s one of the colors you’ll be seeing everywhere during the biggest social event of the season. I’m talking, of course, about the impending wedding of two of my favorite people”—and here he angled the champagne flute toward the happy couple, seated across the table from him—“the beautiful and vivacious Maggie Tremont and her incredibly talented and debonair soon-to-be husband, Herr Georg Wolfsburger!”

  Several of the guests around the table applauded, as well as they could while holding their glasses of champagne, and offered a few words of encouragement and congratulations. The bride and groom beamed, their hands clasped tightly together. Doc noticed they were both blushing a little at the sudden attention, especially Herr Georg, who could turn bright red due to his ruddy complexion and white hair and mustache.

  “As the story goes,” Doc went on, “Herr Georg often made the comment around the bakery that the color of Maggie’s eyes reminded him of his favorite spice, cinnamon, which he uses frequently in his recipes. And, in turn, Maggie noticed one day that the color of Georg’s eyes is remarkably similar to that of a ripe blueberry. So it was an easy decision to make cinnamon and blueberry-blue the official colors for their wedding—which, by the way, is only three days away!”

  This statement brought looks of anticipation and a few whistles and catcalls from around the table. Doc acknowledged them briefly and plunged on.

  “Now, I’ve known both Maggie and Georg for a long time, and I don’t mind telling you they’re two of the finest people I’ve ever met. Maggie, of course, is an outstanding member of our community, who’s lived in Cape Willington for most of her adult life and raised her daughter, Amanda, here.”

  Amanda Tremont, seated to her mother’s left, along with her longtime boyfriend and fiancé, Cameron Zimmerman, affectionately clapped her mother on the shoulder. Cameron pumped his fist lightly in the air and gave out a low whooping cry of approval.

  “In addition to being a fantastic mom,” Doc said, “Maggie is a hardworking businesswoman, having spent many years as an administrative assistant at the Stone and Milbury Insurance Agency, which was right across the street from here, before it closed down due to the, shall we say, nefarious practices of its former owner?”

  “May he roast in Hades,” Doc heard Maggie quip under her breath, in a somewhat facetious tone, though with an edge to it. “You know as well as I do, Doc,” she said, her voice rising, “that that man was a liar and a cheat, and a few other things I won’t mention in mixed company!”

  Several folks around the table chuckled in agreement, and Doc smiled indulgently, raising his glass to her. “Hear! Hear! Since then,” he continued without skipping a beat, “Maggie has held a number of positions around our community. She’s worked at the dry cleaners, managed the local pumpkin patch, and currently helps run the famed Black Forest Bakery, along with her betrothed, Herr Georg.”

  Doc pronounced the German baker’s name the way he preferred it, calling him Gay-org, as did most of those in town, though there were still a few holdouts who simply called him George. The baker didn’t seem to mind, though. “I’m just glad they call me something,” he’d often been heard to say.

  “Now,” Doc said, “it was shortly after Maggie started working at the bakery that the romance between her and Georg blossomed—which, of course, will happen when you’re surrounded all day by all those fragrant wedding cakes Georg makes, along with the spicy ingredients he uses!”

  That brought a few more chuckles, and Doc sensed he was on a roll, but also knew it was about time to wrap this up. “Georg proposed to Maggie shortly after she started working at the bakery, and while it’s taken them a while to make it to the altar, that day is finally upon us. So please raise your glasses and join me in wishing good luck, continued success, and much prosperity to our soon-to-be newlyweds, the future Mr. and Mrs.—or perhaps I should say Herr und Frau—Georg Wolfsburger!”

  That brought more laughs and applause, as well as a few good-natured cheers as the dinner guests drank in the couple’s honor.

  There were ten chairs in all encircling the oval table, which was set into an alcove off the main dining room at the Lightkeeper’s Inn, but only eight were currently occupied. To Doc’s right were two empty chairs, reserved for Candy Holliday, Doc’s daughter and the maid of honor, and Julius Seabury, the elderly best man. To the right of Julius’s chair were Cameron and Amanda. On the other side of the table, to Herr Georg’s right, sat his future mother-in-law, Ellie Chase, who was Maggie’s vivacious widowed mother, now in her mid-seventies. In between her and Doc, completing the party, were the two wedding planners, Ralph Henry and Malcolm Stevens Randolph, smartly outfitted in the wedding’s colors.

  As the enthusiasm around the table died down, Herr Georg picked up a spoon and rapped lightly on his champagne glass. When he had everyone’s attention, he spoke up.

  “First of all,” he began, rising to his feet, “I’d like to thank all of you for coming today. Those of you gathered here are our nearest and dearest friends, and we couldn’t have made it this far without your help. As you know, we still have a lot to do out at Blueberry Acres before the wedding on Saturday, but I’m sure everything will be squared away in time. Of course, we couldn’t have done any of this without the assistance of Doc and Candy, who allowed us to hold the ceremony out at their farm. And with the blueberry fields just coming into bloom, it should be a spectacular setting.”

  “The tent for the reception went up yesterday,” Doc quipped, “so all the heavy lifting is done.”

  “Except for the chairs, tables, lighting, flowers, decorations, food, and of course, the guests!” quipped Malcolm with a mischievous smile.

  “Right,” Herr Georg acknowledged. “As I said, there’s still a lot to do, but Doc will address that shortly. For now, let me again say a hearty danke schön to all of you. And to my beloved,” he added, turning to Maggie and raising his glass, “I would like to say that you’ve made me the happiest man on this planet, and all the others in the universe!”

  That brought a roaring round of applause, as well as a few heartfelt ahhs from the dinner guests, and even a tear or two. It was
Cameron, acting as instigator, who turned to his future mother-in-law and said, “Speech! Speech!”

  As Herr Georg resettled himself with a broad smile, the call was taken up by others around the table. Maggie playfully waved them away until Amanda reached over to persuasively hoist her mother up, and Maggie finally rose to her feet.

  She quieted the crowd with a motion of her hands. “Okay, okay, keep it down, you banshees, or they’ll throw us out of this joint!” There was more laughter as Maggie smiled, and she placed a gentle hand on her betrothed’s shoulder.

  “Now, I would just like to echo what Georg said. Both of us are incredibly fortunate to live in a town like Cape Willington, with good friends and loving family like all of you. You’ll never know how much you all mean to us, but we’ll do our best to tell you in every way we can in the years to come.”

  Turning to look at Herr Georg, she continued, “And to you, my cherished German baker, I would just like to say that these two years working alongside you in the shop have been among the most creative, most rewarding, and most glorious ones of my life. You’ve taught me so much, like how to make pretzels and fudge, not to mention Blätterteig and Franzbrötchen, that I can never thank you enough. But no matter how expert I become at making all those things, I’ll never achieve one tenth—one hundredth! one thousandth!—of your level of skills with a spatula and a mixing bowl. I can think of no other way I’d like to spend the rest of my days than to work beside you, rubbing elbows with you, learning from you, baking with you, eating with you, living with you, and loving you. And to finish, my Kuschelbär, I’ll simply say, Du bist die Liebe meines Lebens, which means,” she added, turning back to the table, “‘You are the love of my life’”!

  Amid the resumed applause and supportive calls, someone around the table asked, “What does Kuschelbär mean?”

  “It means,” Maggie said as she returned to her seat, “he’s my cuddle bear,” and she leaned over to give him a big hug.

  “Hey, Georg,” Malcolm called from across the table, “how do you say congratulations in German?”

  The baker finished swallowing a sip of champagne and turned toward the wedding planner. “Well, you would say Glückwunsch, or perhaps herzlichen Glückwunsch, which would add a superlative, such as hearty or sincere congratulations. Or you could say viel Glück for good luck.”

  “Well, then, herzlichen Glückwunsch and viel Glück!” said Malcolm jovially, and the others around the table echoed his words, though most of them stumbled over the pronunciations.

  “Well,” Doc piped in, “now that the remarks are out of the way, let’s get on to the food!”

  “Speaking of food,” Amanda said as Doc signaled to a nearby waiter, “I’ve heard Herr Georg is going to make quite a wedding cake for the reception.”

  “It will be the most important one I’ve ever made,” the baker said as he looked over at Maggie, “because it’s for our own wedding, of course.”

  “What’s it going to be?” Cameron asked. “Like eight feet tall?”

  “Are you going to use cinnamon?” Ralph asked.

  “Tell us about it,” encouraged Ellie, Maggie’s mother.

  But the baker simply raised a forefinger. “It is, so far, top secret,” he said, “but I will tell you that it’s from an old family recipe, one handed down to me by my mother. And, of course, its colors will fit with the theme of the wedding. But I’ll not say anything more, other than to promise you it will be special when it is unveiled on Saturday.” He squeezed Maggie’s hand. “Wait until you see it.”

  “He says he won’t let me in the shop while he’s making it, because he wants it to be a surprise!” Maggie added, beaming.

  That got them started, and they began to discuss the various details they had yet to accomplish before Saturday. But as they talked, Maggie suddenly went silent as she looked over at the two empty chairs. She caught Doc’s eye and mouthed, “Where are they?”

  Doc just shrugged and tried to put on a nonchalant air, but it wasn’t hard to see the concern in his eyes.

  TWO

  The place looked deserted.

  It was the last house at the end of a winding dirt road, a weather-beaten wood-framed cabin with a small front porch and a peaked roof, sitting on a rocky spit of land that jutted out into the dark sea. White-framed windows, graying cedar-shake siding, and a red-painted front door gave it a rustic appearance. A single rocker swayed back and forth on the porch. Windblown trees, a dwindling pile of firewood, and a few ragged lilac bushes dotted the property, which had been in the Seabury family for generations.

  The cabin’s windows were dark. Even though the sun was setting, there were no lights on inside. No car sat in the double-rutted parking spot at one side of the building.

  It seemed no one was home. So where could he be?

  With a concerned expression on her face, Candy Holliday pulled her teal-colored Jeep to a stop in front of the cabin and shut off the engine. As she opened the driver’s side door and stepped out, a sudden sea breeze tossed about her honey-colored hair. Absently she brushed it aside, squinting into the gathering dusk as she surveyed the oceanfront property with an inquisitive gaze.

  It was certainly a prime piece of land, isolated and private yet within a short driving distance of downtown Cape Willington. A grass yard, still dull and flattened by the heavy snows of winter, extended a couple dozen feet behind the cabin, eventually giving way to dense shrubbery and a mixture of deciduous and pine trees. Spring wildflowers poked tentatively through the grasses and foliage in places, and Candy spotted a few wild raspberry and blueberry bushes along the back edge of the property, just coming into bloom.

  As for the cabin itself, it wasn’t anything fancy. Probably just a couple of bedrooms, she surmised, with a small kitchen and a living and dining room combination. But she imagined the ocean views from the porch, or from anywhere inside the cabin, were magnificent, and she had no doubt the place was cozy and comfortable inside.

  After a final glance around, she walked up onto the porch, stepped over to the red-painted door, and rapped on it several times. “Julius,” she called out, “are you home? It’s Candy Holliday. I’ve come to check on you.”

  She waited a few moments, leaning forward, her ear turned toward the door, but heard no response, nor any other sounds from inside.

  She knocked again, louder this time. “Hello? Mr. Seabury?”

  As the cape’s unofficial historian, Julius Seabury was a fixture around the village, and a favorite with tourists. For more than a decade, on weekends and holidays, he had settled himself at the foot of the towering English Point Lighthouse, seated in an old wooden folding chair at a card table he’d set up to display multiple copies of his self-published books. Most were short hundred-page histories of the lighthouse, its lightkeepers, the attached museum, prominent local citizens past and present, and the village itself. The books were filled with insightful commentary accompanied by vintage photographs pulled from the museum’s archives, and they sold like hotcakes—several dozen on a good day in the summer, when vacationers flooded into the area, thanks in no small part to Julius’s ebullient, chatty nature.

  Candy had known him for years and had talked to him on many occasions. During their conversations she’d always learned something new, and he’d provided important information that had helped her solve a mystery or two. He was a kindly soul with an active mind. Perhaps more important with the upcoming wedding ceremony, he was also the best man.

  And he was missing.

  He was supposed to have joined them for dinner at the Lightkeeper’s Inn that evening, but he never showed up, so Candy had volunteered to go out looking for him. He was getting older, she knew, becoming frailer. He didn’t get around as well as he used to, and he could be forgetful at times. Maybe he’d mixed up the date or time, or maybe he was just working on another book and everything else had slipped from his mi
nd. She’d tried to call him but his phone just rang, unanswered. So she’d jumped into her Jeep and driven out to his cabin.

  She knocked a final, halfhearted time on the red door, then backed away, stepping down off the porch. She walked the entire way around the cabin, peeking in the windows to see if she could spot anyone inside. But it was too dark to make out much, and she saw no shadows moving around. She wondered if she should try to find a way in, but decided against it for now. Breaking and entering was frowned upon by the Cape Willington Police Department. Best not to overreact—at least, not right now.

  Just to make sure he wasn’t meandering outside somewhere, she walked a long, wide circle around the property, going all the way back to the edge of the yard, and finally checked down by the water. But there was no sign of Julius anywhere.

  Where could he be?

  Only one other place, she thought.

  After a final look around, she climbed into the Jeep and drove back into town. But rather than return to the Lightkeeper’s Inn to rejoin the dinner party, she headed to the English Point Lighthouse, which was located near the inn on Route 196, known locally as the Coastal Loop.

  The lighthouse and its attached museum were a second home to Julius. Perhaps he was there conducting research.

  Since it was after five P.M., the buildings were closed, and the parking lot was nearly empty. But she thought she recognized Julius’s old red station wagon parked off to one side, where the employees and volunteers liked to park their cars. It was just a short walk from there down to the lighthouse and museum.

  She loved coming here. It was always an impressive sight, the whitewashed lighthouse tower standing tall beside the red-roofed Keeper’s Quarters, a two-story Victorian-style cottage housing the town’s historical museum on the first floor. Upstairs were the historical society’s archives, where Julius spent quite a bit of time conducting research for his books.