by Lee Hollis
Mom very quickly and sternly replied, “No.”
When Mr. C pulled up in front of our house, Mom barely allowed the truck to come to a complete stop before she jumped out, and ordered Randy and me to grab our knapsacks and go inside the house. We loitered just a bit by the front door because we were dying to hear what Mom was going to say to Mr. C.
Mr. C, oblivious to Mom’s building rage, casually put his truck in park and shut off the engine. He jumped out, and made a move to come inside the house with us.
“Hey, since we didn’t stop for lunch, how about you whip up some of that Lobster in Spicy Tomato Sauce dish you were telling me about the other night?”
We could see her just staring at him, her face beet red and her eyes blazing with fire. She calmly reached down and opened the cooler she had just pulled out of the back of his truck. Then she grabbed a plastic bag of lobster rolls that we never had a chance to eat on our fishing trip.
“You want lunch? Here is your lunch!” she hollered as she hurled the rolls at Mr. C, a string of curse words escaping her lips, words I had no idea she even knew!
Mr. C threw his hands up to protect his face from the flying lobster meat covered in mayonnaise, and ran to the safety of his truck, wiping dollops of mayo off his face as he sped away. Mom chased after him half a block, still throwing what few lobster rolls were left at the truck like a Hall of Famer baseball pitcher!
Later that evening, Mom ended up following Mr. C’s advice and making that delicious Lobster in Spicy Tomato Sauce for us (Randy of course happily munched on a peanut butter sandwich), and she promised us we would never have to lay eyes on Mr. C ever again. And then she sat back and enjoyed a Whiskey Peach Cocktail to relax herself after our exciting summer camping adventure.
Whiskey Peach Cocktail
Ingredients
4 basil leaves
½ ounce agave
3 ounces of whiskey
4 ounces of peach puree
Club soda
In a tall glass muddle your basil and agave until aromatic.
In a shaker filled with ice add your whiskey and puree and shake until blended.
Fill your glass halfway with ice. Pour the whiskey peach mixture over the basil. Then finish off with club soda.
Sheila’s Lobster in Spicy Tomato Sauce
Ingredients
1 pound boxed spaghetti
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons butter
1 large shallot, finely chopped
1 tablespoon crushed red pepper flakes
1 pound grape tomatoes
1 to 1½ pounds cooked lobster meat
(if you prefer shrimp, go for it)
Lemon wedges for serving
Cook your spaghetti according to the directions until al dente.
Heat your oil and butter in a large skillet on medium-high heat and cook the shallots and red pepper flakes for two minutes or until shallots are soft. Add the grape tomatoes, and cook until they are soft and juicy, about 5 to 6 minutes.
Add your lobster meat and mix well.
Now add your drained pasta and half of the reserved pasta water, and simmer to thicken, coating all the pasta. Add more water as needed.
Top the pasta with the lemon zest. Serve with lemon wedges for added lemon flavor if desired.
Despite what my brother Randy might tell you, this dish beats a peanut butter sandwich any day!
Chapter 11
Liddy screamed at the top of her lungs, and a couple of seagulls who were peacefully balancing on top of a floating buoy several hundred feet out from shore shot up into the air, wings flapping madly, spooked by the sudden sharp sound.
Hayley took Liddy, who was still screaming, by the arms and shook her violently. “Liddy, calm down! I don’t want to have to slap you, but I will!”
Liddy struggled to regain her composure, taking deep breaths, but then she would glance down at the dead body and start hyperventilating again.
Hayley immediately called 911 on her cell phone and reported what they had found, and within minutes, they heard sirens approaching in the near distance.
“Are you absolutely sure he’s dead?” Liddy panted, her hand on her chest.
Hayley stepped closer to Jackson and knelt, examining him. “He’s definitely dead.”
She knew better than to touch the body, but she got down on her hands and knees to get a good look at him and study his face. His mouth was contorted into a silent scream, his lifeless blood-red eyes open and staring up at her. She shuddered, and then noticed some discoloration, purple bruising on Jackson’s neck.
“Now, that’s interesting,” Hayley said, curious enough to lean in even closer to study them.
“What is it? What do you see?” Liddy asked breathlessly as the sirens stopped, and from the edge of the beach, they could hear car doors opening and slamming shut.
“He’s got bruises on his neck and the red in his eyes means blood was forced up in the whites of his eyes,” Hayley said.
“What does that mean?”
“It means he probably died from strangulation.”
“You think he was murdered?” Liddy gasped.
“I’m pretty sure of it,” Hayley said.
“Step away from the body right now,” a loud voice demanded.
Hayley looked up to see Sheriff Daphne Wilkes, flanked by two officers, a small, wiry, wide-eyed, shaking, nervous male who had obviously never seen a dead body before, and a heavy, tall, serious, Mack Truck of a woman, charging down the beach toward them.
“Somebody strangled him,” Hayley offered.
“How do you know? Do you have training as a criminologist?”
“No, I just watch a lot of shows on Investigation Discovery.”
“You are compromising a crime scene,” Sheriff Daphne bellowed. “Now, I won’t tell you again. Get away from the body!”
Hayley sighed, annoyed, and crawled to her feet. “I didn’t touch anything.”
“Officer Caribou, escort these ladies over there where they won’t be in the way, and keep an eye on them. And I don’t want them going anywhere until I’ve had a chance to question them,” Sheriff Daphne ordered.
“Yes, ma’am,” the heavyset female officer said, and then lumbered over and roughly grabbed Hayley and Liddy by the arms. “Come with me this way, ladies.”
Hayley and Liddy were shunted off to the side while Sheriff Daphne circled the body a couple of times before kneeling and examining it closely, no doubt arriving at the same conclusion as Hayley. Sheriff Daphne then stood up and quietly confirmed to her officer that she believed Jackson Young had indeed been strangled.
Duh.
Hayley was hardly a fan of the sour, ill-tempered sheriff, who gleefully wrote unfair parking tickets and spoke down to her as if she was a petulant child.
Liddy grabbed her cell phone and called Mona. “Mona, what are you doing? Where are you?”
She paused as Mona spoke.
“Well, have Corey drive you back! This is an emergency! Hayley and I found Jackson Young on the beach!”
Hayley caught Sheriff Daphne stealing a few glances back in their direction. She began to fear she might wind up on the suspect list if she wasn’t careful. Certainly, if anyone overheard Liddy’s loud and hysterical threats promising to do Jackson Young serious bodily harm for so callously standing her up, her name most definitely would be on the top of the list.
“He’s dead, Mona! Dead! Somebody killed him!”
Liddy paused, and gasped. “No, of course it wasn’t me! Don’t be ridiculous!”
She cupped her hand over the face of the phone and turned to Hayley. “She’s on her way back.”
Sheriff Daphne whispered something to her male officer before trudging over to where her female officer was holding Hayley and Liddy at bay. She nodded to the stone-faced Officer Caribou, who walked back over to the crime scene to join her partner.
“When did you discover the body?” Sheriff Daphne asked, a grave tone
in her voice.
“Just a few minutes ago,” Hayley said. “We called 911 right away.”
“The strange thing was, we were out here looking for him,” Liddy spilled out nervously. “Hayley had seen him down here earlier so we walked here to try to find him.”
“Why were you looking for him?” Sheriff Daphne asked, curious.
“I wanted to kill him,” Liddy said matter-of-factly, before the realization of what she had just admitted hit her. “I mean, not literally! Figuratively! I wanted to give him a piece of my mind, that’s all!”
“He stood her up,” Hayley said, trying to be helpful. “They were supposed to meet at the cabin where we are staying and come to the lobster bake together but he never showed up.”
“I see,” Sheriff Daphne said, her words brimming with subtext as she stared at Liddy, her eyes full of suspicion.
Sheriff Daphne stood there silently for an interminable amount of time before turning to Hayley. “And after you called 911, instead of waiting for the police to arrive, you took it upon yourself to poke and prod the body to see if you could figure out what happened?”
Hayley reacted, arching her back defiantly. “No! I told you, I never touched the body. I just noticed the marks on his neck and the blood in his eyes. I did not compromise the crime scene in any way!”
“So, when you saw Mr. Young earlier, was he with someone?” Sheriff Daphne asked, her eyes boring into Hayley, causing her to shift her body to one side. The sheriff was making her feel supremely uncomfortable.
“Yes,” Hayley answered. “He was with Sue.”
“The owner of the Starfish Lounge?”
“Yes,” Hayley said, nodding. “They were arguing.”
“About what?”
“I wasn’t close enough to hear.”
“Okay,” Sheriff Daphne said. “I would appreciate it if you stick around for a few days. I’m sure I will have more questions.”
“But that’s impossible,” Liddy piped in, upset. “We are going to drive back to Bar Harbor first thing in the morning.”
Sheriff Daphne glared at them and then said quietly and evenly, “Again, I would appreciate your cooperation. It would go a long way in showing me you are actually a help to this investigation and not a hindrance.”
Meaning if you blow town, you will be suspects.
“We’ll do whatever is necessary,” Hayley said, squeezing Liddy’s hand, a firm signal that she should just keep her mouth shut.
“Ladies, I’ll be in touch,” Sheriff Daphne said, giving them a dead stare for a moment longer, a blatant attempt to intimidate them, before turning her back on them and walking over to Jackson Young’s corpse.
Liddy was shaking. “I just want to go home.”
“I think it’s important we do what she says,” Hayley said, catching Sheriff Daphne once again peeking over at them.
“She’s not exactly a breath of fresh air, is she?” Liddy scoffed.
“No, she obviously doesn’t like us, which is weird,” Hayley said. “She doesn’t even know us. But I think it’s probably in our best interest not to give her any more reasons to hate us.”
By the time Hayley and Liddy walked back up from the beach, Mona and Corey were pulling up in Corey’s truck.
Sadie was in the back, tail wagging excitedly.
As Mona jumped out of the passenger’s side, Liddy hurled herself into the arms of Mona, who stiffened and scrunched up her face.
“It’s horrible, Mona. Poor Jackson is gone. I still can’t believe it,” Liddy wailed. “Such a handsome, sweet man, in his prime! How could this happen?”
Mona shook her head. “Just this morning you were saying he was a horrible monster and you wished terrible things would happen to him!”
Liddy pushed away from Mona and snapped, “For your information, you are terrible in a crisis.”
Mona shrugged, unconcerned. This wasn’t anything that was going to keep her up at night.
Corey slid over and leaned out the passenger-side window. “I’d be happy to give you gals a lift back to your car but you’ll have to ride in the back with Sadie.”
Liddy threw up her hands, and then climbed into the cargo bed of Corey’s pickup truck, and was greeted by sloppy wet kisses from Sadie.
“This day just keeps getting better and better,” she groaned.
Hayley’s stomach was tied up in knots. She was still dealing with the trauma of discovering a dead body on the beach.
And now she had the sickening feeling her troubles with Sheriff Daphne Wilkes were just beginning.
Chapter 12
“We’ve waited around all day for that sheriff to call, and she hasn’t bothered to so I say it is time we pack up and go home,” Liddy declared, zipping up her suitcase.
“I know you are upset about Jackson, and you just want to get out of here, but we were always scheduled to stay through Tuesday, and I’ve already taken the time off from the paper, so I think we should stay put for at least one more day just in case the sheriff has any further questions, and then we can leave,” Hayley said.
She was a little nervous about ticking off the surly, rude sheriff with a presumably personal vendetta against them.
“I agree with Hayley,” Mona said, chugging down the last of her bottle of beer at the rickety old kitchen table.
“Of course you agree with Hayley. Staying in Salmon Cove means more precious lovey-dovey moments with your handsome, sweet-natured lumberjack and his adorable and equally sweet-natured dog,” Liddy said, annoyed.
“Corey is not a lumberjack. He’s a lobster man,” Mona barked.
“What is the difference? He’s gorgeous and an outdoorsman, who looks like he just stepped off the pages of an L.L.Bean catalog,” Liddy said, scowling. “Who would want to leave that behind?”
“I’m a married woman,” Mona said.
“You keep saying that, Mona, and every time you do, it is with far less conviction,” Liddy said.
Mona slammed down her empty beer bottle and stood up from the flimsy table. “I’ve heard just about enough.”
“Would you two please stop bickering? I can’t take it anymore. This was supposed to be a fun girls’ weekend, and it’s been nothing but agony ever since we got here,” Hayley moaned.
“Well, it’s not our fault a dead body turned up to put a damper on things, Hayley. You should be a bit more sympathetic to what I’m going through. Jackson and I shared a very deep, very real connection.”
“You met in the lobby of a hotel for two seconds and then had one drunken conversation at a bar!” Mona howled.
“Hayley, please help me here. Mona just doesn’t get it,” Liddy pleaded.
“I’m sorry, Liddy, but Mona has a point. You and Jackson were not exactly a longtime couple like David Beckham and Posh Spice,” Hayley said quietly. “You had just met before he—”
“Was brutally strangled to death!” Liddy screamed. “That’s the other reason we should hit the road as soon as possible. Do either of you care that there is a mad killer on the loose? Who knows where he could be lurking about? He might be right outside our door at this very moment waiting to strike!”
Mona stared at something on the wall of the cabin.
Liddy noticed and huffed, “Mona, are you even listening to a word I’m saying?”
Mona pointed at a gray lump in the upper corner of the wall near the kitchen. “What is that?”
“What is what?” Hayley asked, turning around to get a better look at what had suddenly gotten her attention.
“Is that a bat?” Mona asked, stepping closer.
“A bat? Like a real flapping, black-eyed rat with wings?” Liddy screamed. “Where? Where?”
“Up there! It looks like he is sleeping,” Mona said.
“Well, for the love of God, Mona, don’t wake it up!” Liddy shrieked.
But it was too late.
Mona had already picked up a broom, and with the handle, gently nudged the gray balled-up mass.
Suddenly without warning, the bat jolted awake and, with extended wings, flew from its spot on the wall and swooped around the room. As it fluttered around Mona, she swung at it with the broom handle, driving it over to Liddy, who screamed at the top of her lungs and frantically waved her arms around. The bat squeaked loudly as it landed in Liddy’s nest of curly hair and got caught.
“Get it off me! Get it off me!” Liddy bawled, crying and screaming.
Hayley rushed forward to physically yank the bat’s claws out of Liddy’s hair, but before she could reach her, Liddy, in a panic, bolted for the door, shaking her head violently and swatting frantically with her hands at the bat nestled in her hair.
Liddy whipped open the door, and ran out straight into the chest of a tall man hovering outside.
Liddy, assuming it was the killer she feared might be lurking about, let loose with a deafening and sustained high-pitched shriek and pounded her fists hard against the man’s chest in a lame attempt to defend herself. The startled man grabbed Liddy’s wrists, desperately trying to get her wild, hysterical onslaught under control.
It was Corey Guildford.
He instantly noticed the bat scratching and flapping on top of her head, released his grip on her, and with a meaty hand, yanked the bat out of her hair and hurled it into the night sky.
Liddy wiped tears away from her face and stared at Corey for a moment, before collapsing in his arms, simpering. “Corey, you need to take me to the hospital immediately. I need to be checked for rabies.”
“Did the bat bite you?” Hayley asked, concerned.
“No, but you never know,” Liddy said. “Better safe than sorry.”
“You don’t have rabies!” Mona bellowed, leaning the broom up against the kitchen sink.
“You must know a lot about nature, Corey, being a rugged outdoorsman and all. Do you think I’m in any danger of contracting rabies?” Liddy asked, still helpless in his arms.
