Town in a Cinnamon Toast

by B. B. Haywood

  “It’s in one of your books?”

  “Two of them, actually. The volumes on the Whitby and the Sykes families.”

  “Why those families?” Herr Georg asked.

  “Because it was on land they owned—Foul Mouth, that is. It’s not called that any longer, of course, but it was commonly used back in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and even into the early part of the twentieth. I’ve seen it occasionally in old land deeds and in wills. The Native Americans originally named it, in their language, in something unpronounceable to the early English settlers, but it sounded like they were saying Foul Mouth and it stuck—for a while, at least, until cooler heads prevailed and someone decided the name was a little too offensive, so they came up with something more acceptable.”

  “And where is it?” Candy asked, so excited in anticipation that she realized she wasn’t breathing.

  Lucinda pointed out the window. “Well, it’s largely forgotten now. I’m not sure anyone remembers it. But it’s right there, across the bay. I look at it every day.”

  In unison, as if they’d rehearsed their movements, both Candy and Herr Georg rose from their chairs to look out the window, eastward, in the direction Lucinda indicated.

  It was the point of land upon which the Whitby estate stood.

  “Whitby Point?” Herr Georg asked, turning back toward Lucinda with a confused expression on his face.

  “Yes, that’s how we refer to it these days, but that’s a relatively new name. I’ve seen it referred to in various sources as Pine Point, Sykes Point, and even Rocky Point, though there were already plenty of those around the region, so it became confusing to sort everything out. And I’ve also seen it listed on an old map or two as Smuggler’s Point.”

  “Smuggler’s Point? Why was it called that?” Candy asked.

  “Well, from what I’ve read, as that name implies, it once was a common hangout of smugglers and privateers along the coast. They were quite prevalent around here a century or two ago.” She nodded out the window, at the point of land across the bay. “There’s a small harbor around the other side of the peninsula, farther up toward the main land mass, though because of the tides and the rocks it was considered too treacherous to navigate, to be of any real use. But with the surrounding vegetation and the isolation of the peninsula, it was a popular transition point for contraband. Supposedly there’s a cave over there—this place called Foul Mouth—where the smugglers stored their stolen booty until they were able to get rid of it. I’ve even heard rumors, which I haven’t been able to verify, that there’s a secret passage leading from the cave up into the Whitby estate itself—which, as you probably know, was originally built by a member of the Sykes family.”

  “No, I didn’t know that.” Candy pondered this latest revelation as she settled back down into her chair, though Herr Georg remained standing, staring out the window.

  “Oh, yes, but this was a long time ago, back at the early years of the last century, when the Sykes fortune was still humming along, before they fell on hard times. Just a few years after they built it, they lost the estate somehow, possibly in a poker game or something like that, and the Whitbys have owned it ever since. They’ve kept it in the family until just recently, when it sold to a new owner.”

  “And do you know who bought it?” Candy asked.

  When Lucinda shook her head, Herr Georg told her. “It’s Porter Sykes,” he said quietly. “I heard it from Marshall Bosworth, the family’s attorney.”

  “Oh my,” Lucinda said, and she scrunched up her face as if she’d just caught a whiff of a particularly bad smell.

  “Porter is headed up from Boston tonight or in the morning, possibly as we speak,” Candy said, “and he’s going to be out there tomorrow. It appears, from what you’ve told us, that he’s bought back a property his family once owned.”

  “I hadn’t heard anything about that,” Lucinda said, her voice quivering just a bit. “It hasn’t been in the paper, has it?”

  “Not yet. I don’t believe it’s been officially announced, but that should happen shortly.”

  “Well,” Lucinda said, “I just hope they don’t resort to their old ways, and that they’re able to maintain the peace around here. There’s been some animosity over the years between the Sykes and the Pruitt families, you know.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  “It turned quite violent at times,” Lucinda continued. “I tell some of those stories in the books. Did you know that at one point, during an escalation of the feud, they shot cannonballs back and forth at each other across the bay, from the Whitby estate—the Sykes estate then—toward Pruitt Manor, and back?”

  “No, I didn’t know that either,” Candy said.

  “Can you imagine?” Lucinda seemed pleased with herself for revealing this bit of information to an ace reporter. “Some of those old cannons could shoot as far as two thousand yards, which is more than a mile. But of course the bay is a few miles across, so all the shot went into the water. The echoing booms could be quite deafening, though. I’ve heard they could shatter windows here in town. Thank goodness those two families didn’t live closer! They could have destroyed each other’s houses. I read about it in a very old edition of your paper, the Crier, which I found in the historical archives.”

  “If you’ll forgive me,” said Herr Georg, settling uneasily back down into his chair, “this is all very interesting, but I’m not quite sure why this place called Foul Mouth caught Julius’s attention.”

  “Well, I wondered the same thing,” Lucinda said, her voice rising in agreement. “I thought it was such an odd inquiry for him to make, the way he came out of the blue with it like that. That’s why I mentioned it to you.”

  “And what did he say when you told him about it?” Candy asked.

  “Well, he didn’t say much of anything, really. He just nodded and made a few notes. That was about it. But it stuck in my mind, especially after . . . well, after what happened to him.”

  “Do you think there’s a connection?” Herr Georg asked.

  Lucinda shook her head. “I don’t know that for sure. If I did I would have gone to the police by now. It’s just . . . well, it’s been bothering me, that’s all. I had to tell someone about it—someone who might know how to use that information in the proper way.”

  “There’s another question you could answer that might help us out,” Candy said. “You say you wrote sixteen books in all, covering fifteen families, with the Pruitts getting two volumes. Is that correct?”

  Lucinda proudly nodded a confirmation, and Candy continued. “When Julius was here, did he ask you about any of the other families—the Bosworths, for instance, or the Ethinghams, or the Rainsfords, or the Palfreys?”

  Lucinda thought a moment, then shook her head. “Not individually by name, not that I can recall.”

  “Are there any specific connections between those families—the Bosworths, Ethinghams, Rainsfords, and Palfreys, as well as the Sykes and Whitby families? Anything that might tie them together?”

  “Well, yes, I suppose there could be a number of things. Some of them intermarried, for instance, and some were involved in various endeavors together. Cape Willington is a small community, you know. It would have been impossible for them all to live here and not have had some connections between them.”

  “Anything specific you can think of?”

  “In what way?”

  “Well, is there any sort of thread that links the families, perhaps an incident or person or an event, something like that?”

  “Well, I don’t know.” Lucinda abruptly went quiet as she considered the question. “I suppose there could be, but nothing jumps immediately to mind. I could research it, of course, see what I can come up with—if you think it’s important.”

  “It might be,” Candy said, “but let me ask you this: In what order did you write the book
s? Did you start alphabetically, or chronologically? Which family did you start with?”

  “Oh, that one’s easy to answer. I started with the Rainsfords and the Libbys, of course, since they were both part of my husband’s family tree. And then I moved on to the Pruitts, who were the first unrelated family I wrote about. Even though there are a number of histories about them, I thought I had to include them in any collection of the town’s founding families, since they were the most influential, as I said.”

  “Are all those books you wrote in the museum’s archives at the Keeper’s Quarters?”

  Lucinda seemed a little surprised by the question, but nodded her head. “As far as I know, yes. Why?”

  “Because I was up there recently,” Candy said, avoiding any mention of the actual timing of her visit to the archives, “and I saw only a few of them on the shelves.”

  “Well, that’s interesting.” Lucinda leaned forward slightly in the wicker chair, absently rearranging the throw around her legs. “Which ones, dear?”

  Candy recited the names quickly from memory: “Bosworth, Ethingham, Whitby, Rainsford, Palfrey, and Sykes.”

  “That’s all you saw?”

  Candy nodded. “They were all on the shelves in a row, in that order.”

  “Where are the rest?”

  “I don’t know. That’s why I thought I’d ask you.”

  “Well, I suppose they could just be shelved in a different area, though that wouldn’t make much sense, would it? Maybe you just missed them somehow.”

  “Maybe. Is there anything significant about the order of those families?”

  Again, Lucinda didn’t seem quite sure how to respond. “Significant? In the order? No, I don’t think so.”

  “They’re certainly not shelved alphabetically,” Candy pointed out, “and from what you’ve just said, not in the order in which they were written. Maybe there’s another reason? Date of publication?”

  Lucinda blinked several times, and it appeared as if she was tiring. “Maybe they were just shelved in a random order?” she said helpfully.

  Candy acknowledged that was a possibility, though the order matched the names on the list that had fallen out of the book Owen picked up. But she left that part of the mystery unspoken, and when she saw Lucinda stifle a yawn, she realized they wouldn’t learn much more today. But there was just one more question she had to ask.

  “Who published your books?”

  “It was a small imprint for the University of Maine Press.”

  “Not the Kennebec Press? Not Plymouth Palfrey?”

  Lucinda waved a hand as her mouth puckered. “No, not him. He hadn’t started his publishing business yet, of course, though I’ve talked to him since about other histories. But I don’t think I’d ever publish with him.”

  “Why not?” Candy asked.

  “Well, because we just don’t get along. We have different ideas about what makes a good history book. He tends more toward popular subjects, while I prefer those that are more scholarly. And he uses a lot of, well, coarse language at times. I’m not comfortable with it.”

  A short time later, out of questions, they thanked Lucinda and Jenny, said their good-byes, and headed back out to the baker’s car.

  “So,” Herr Georg said as they settled inside, “did that help?”

  “Yes, though I haven’t figured out how yet.”

  “What do you think we should do next?”

  Candy thought back over all she’d learned just in the past few hours—and hadn’t learned. They now knew the location of the place called Foul Mouth, they knew the Sykes family had once owned the Whitby place, and they knew Porter Sykes had recently bought it back from the Whitbys. They knew Scotty Whitby was missing. She knew Julius had kept a pair of binoculars in his car, and that he’d had sand on the bottoms of his shoes, which meant he might have been out on the narrow beach, staring out across the bay with the binoculars.

  What—or who—had he been searching for?

  She checked her watch. Not quite six P.M. Maggie wouldn’t be back for another hour or so, and it was probably a good idea to keep Herr Georg distracted, so he wouldn’t think too much about his fiancée’s absence.

  And she still had some investigating to do. Might as well kill two birds with one stone—something she’d been successful at doing today.

  “I think, if you’re up for it, we have one more stop to make before we head home.”

  The baker nodded, inserted the key into the ignition, and pulled on his seat belt. “Where to?”

  “Across the bay. To the Whitby estate.”

  THIRTY-THREE

  “It’s like déjà vu all over again,” Herr Georg said as they approached the Whitby place on the pockmarked dirt road nearly half an hour later. “I was just here this morning, but it feels like ages ago.”

  “It’s true,” said Candy, peering out the windshield as the house revealed itself through the trees and rising road dust. “A lot has happened in a short period of time. We’ve made some good progress, and I feel like we’re closing in on some real answers.”

  “About the Whitby estate? And Foul Mouth? You think they’re the keys to this whole mystery? About what happened to Julius?”

  “Yes, those. But also Marshall Bosworth and Porter Sykes, and Scotty Whitby and that bottle of champagne. And that list of names Owen found. And those deeds of yours, and their connection to Foul Mouth. You know, Judicious Bosworth made an interesting comment when we were talking to him. He thought Julius might have found out something in one of those old books he was researching, or possibly overheard a private conversation when he was upstairs at the museum. But I think it could be more than that. He certainly could have run across the words Foul Mouth in one of Lucinda’s books. But I’m wondering if he also found that reference mentioned when he was reading through the deeds.”

  The baker’s eyes widened. “But that makes perfect sense! It would link the deeds and Foul Mouth together.”

  “It would. It’s certainly possible—even probable—that the Whitby estate and this Foul Mouth place would have been mentioned in those deeds. And if Julius made inquiries about what he’d learned, it might have put him in dangerous territory, especially if what Judicious said is true—that there’s something larger going on.”

  “I suppose that’s what we’re here to find out,” Herr Georg said, looking out at the house in front of them. As he surveyed the property, he added, “Marshall Bosworth must have left. I don’t see his car in the driveway. The lot is empty again, just like this morning when I drove out here.”

  Candy was a little surprised she didn’t see Porter Sykes’s car in the driveway, although she had no idea what kind of car he drove. If he was planning on meeting with her tomorrow, he must be on his way here. Would he arrive later tonight—or in the next few minutes, while they were snooping around the place?

  She definitely didn’t want to be seen here if he should suddenly show up. It would be, at the least, very awkward.

  “We probably shouldn’t stick around too long,” Candy said, thinking out loud. “Technically we’re trespassing, although I’m sure no one would press charges if someone found us out here.” She paused. “Mostly sure.” She paused again. “Okay, I’m not sure at all. Let’s just not stick around too long.”

  “I’m all for that,” the baker said as he pulled the car to a stop in the graveled parking area. “A quick look around and then back to town?”

  “Right. Good plan.”

  As Candy opened the car door and stepped out, her cell phone rang. She fished it out of her pocket and studied the screen.

  The Cape Willington Police Department was calling.

  “It must be Chief Durr, responding to that message I left for him,” she said, and swiped at the screen. “Hello?”

  Their conversation was relatively brief, as the chief was so
mewhat abrupt—obviously a man with a lot on his mind at the moment. So she quickly told him about the list of family names Owen had found and how she thought it might help with his investigation.

  “What makes you think that?” the chief asked, sounding suspicious.

  “I saw Neil Crawford this afternoon. He played the message Julius left for him on his cell phone. Julius mentioned something about Foul Mouth, which was also written on that list of names. I think it was created by Julius before he died.”

  The chief took down the information and turned away from the phone for a few moments to talk to someone else. When he came back on the line, he sounded distracted. “Why didn’t you tell me about this list before?”

  “I didn’t know if it was significant or not.”

  The chief grunted at that. “We’ll look into it,” he said, and quickly ended the call.

  As Candy slipped the phone back into her pocket, she realized that Owen had never called her back. Not surprising, she thought. They probably weren’t on the best of speaking terms at the moment. She decided to let the police follow up with him, and turned her attention back to the matter at hand.

  She stood for a few moments staring up at the facade of brownstone and dark windows before her, studying it, searching for any signs of movement or activity. But it looked lifeless, deserted. Her gaze darted back and forth, to the trees on either side, and to the half-seen outbuildings around the back. She was struck by the building’s stateliness, but also by its isolation out here, all by itself on this lonely spit of land.

  But then she turned, and was transfixed by the view out over the bay.

  It was spectacular, she thought, and she instantly knew why they’d chosen to build upon this spot. The water before her stretched out to the west and south like fine glass, glistening in the bright sun, moving and wiggling gently like a living thing. And it had a voice as well; she could hear the muted sound of waves breaking on rocks below, the calls of the gulls above, and the distant thrum of boat engines, chugging north and south on the bay.