by Lee Hollis
“I’m pretty sure you’re okay,” he said, suppressing a smile and winking at Hayley and Mona. “But I’m guessing you could sure use a drink right about now.”
“Yes, I think that’s the smart choice,” Hayley said. “You need something to calm your nerves.”
“I need something to dull my senses so I’m not reliving this nightmare over and over again,” Liddy said, pulling away from Corey.
“Then allow me to escort you ladies into town and buy you all a drink. This may be my last chance, since Mona tells me you’re all leaving tomorrow,” he said.
“That’s very kind of you, Corey, thank you,” Hayley said, grabbing her bag.
“Yes, let’s get as far away as possible from this vermin-infested hole,” Liddy said before spinning around and glaring at Mona. “I swear, you intentionally swung that broom handle around to drive that rat with wings right in my direction.”
Hayley pushed Liddy out the door.
“Mona did no such thing,” Hayley said, pushing Liddy in the direction of Corey’s truck where Sadie waited in the flatbed, tail wagging. She turned back to Mona. “Right, Mona?”
“No, I totally did,” Mona said as a smile crept across her lips.
Corey stifled a laugh, and then put his arm around Mona as they walked toward the truck. Hayley noticed Mona shift uncomfortably as Corey gently lowered his open hand, resting the palm on the small of her back, but then Mona couldn’t help but relax into it. She obviously enjoyed his touch. And it was clear to Hayley at that moment, that despite her full-throated protestations and denials, Mona Barnes was falling for this guy.
Big-time.
Chapter 13
“Yeah, we argued. I won’t deny it. The guy really pissed me off,” Sue said from behind the bar at the Starfish Lounge.
“What did he do?” Hayley asked, nursing a Jack and Coke as she sat atop a high chair near the service station where Sue was washing glasses.
“He was just real nosy, always poking around and asking questions, about me and my customers, ever since he blew into town. I finally told him to knock it off at the lobster bake!”
“He told us when we met him that he was a travel writer. Just part of the job, I guess,” Hayley shrugged.
Sue was having none of it.
“A travel writer talks about what’s the nicest hotel to stay at, or the best restaurant to order fried clams, or which hiking trails have the most scenic views. Jackson’s questions were far more personal and they just rubbed me the wrong way,” Sue said, scowling.
She finished washing the glasses and then poured a mug of beer for a scraggly faced, big, burly fisherman wearing a dated “Make America Great Again” ball cap.
Hayley stirred her drink with a straw and casually glanced back up at Sue. “At the risk of ticking you off again, just how personal did his questions get?”
Sue sighed and leaned down on the bar in front of Hayley. “Look, I’ll be honest with you, Hayley. I’ve had a few troubles in the past. I went through some pretty rough times back when I was serving in Afghanistan. And as proud as I am of my days in the military, there’s also a lot of stuff that went down there I’d rather not talk about.”
“I understand completely,” Hayley said, determined not to upset this large, imposing woman with an obvious short fuse.
“I got into a few scrapes with the law when I came home to Salmon Cove after two tours. Mostly related to my PTSD,” Sue said, eyes downcast, her voice barely audible over the crooning of Toby Keith coming from the jukebox.
PTSD.
Post-traumatic stress disorder.
A very common affliction for soldiers returning from combat.
“Here’s the thing,” Sue said. “Other than my family, my doctor, and Sheriff Wilkes, nobody knew about those incidents. I didn’t tell a soul. And Sheriff Wilkes was kind enough not to leak them to the local paper. But then Jackson Young comes in here and starts asking me all about them.”
“Maybe he somehow got his hands on the police report.”
“Yes, I suppose it is possible, sure, but why would a travel writer even care about my secrets? How do you square digging up my personal problems with writing a simple travel article? I mean, it doesn’t make any sense.”
Hayley nodded. Sue was right. Jackson Young’s insatiable curiosity went far beyond a fluffy puff piece on a quaint, out-of-the-way Maine tourist destination.
“And he didn’t stop there,” Sue said. “He wanted to know intimate details about my customers, everyone who hangs out here. I tried to be polite at first because he was in here spending money every night he was in town, but then I caught him asking Boyd and Ellie personal questions about me at the lobster bake and that was the last straw. So I dragged him down to the beach and had it out with him.”
“What did he say when you told him to stop asking so many questions?”
“He rattled on about how he was just trying to paint a colorful portrait of the Salmon Cove locals for his article, but I could tell he was lying, which just made me madder than a wet hornet!”
“Was there any kind of physical altercation between you two?”
Sue eyed Hayley warily. “I may have jabbed a finger in his chest when I was yelling at him to lay off with all the questions, but when I left him at the beach, trust me, he was still very much alive. I didn’t even know he had been killed until one of my customers told me later that night at the bar.”
“Do you have any idea who might have strangled him?”
“We have a pretty tight community here. I’ve known a lot of these people all my life and I can’t imagine any of them going off the handle like that and murdering a man. I think it was an outsider, someone not from around here, maybe a random mugging or something.”
“In Salmon Cove?” Hayley asked, incredulously.
“I know it sounds far-fetched, but what other explanation is there?”
Sue wandered off to the other side of the bar to wait on a customer who had just walked in. Hayley glanced around the bar. Mona and Corey were engaged in a heated game of pool near the back where it looked like Mona was kicking Corey’s butt again and loving every minute of it. She also spotted Liddy, who had left Hayley ten minutes earlier to freshen up in the bathroom. She was standing a few feet from the restroom, immersed in a conversation with a young couple sitting at a table near the window. Hayley could tell from Liddy’s pursed lips that she was annoyed, and from her eyes darting back and forth, it was clear she was eager to find some means of escape. But the couple, who were in their mid- to late twenties and both very attractive, were oblivious to her body language and continued talking her ear off and making it very difficult for her to make a graceful exit.
Hayley’s eyes then fell on Boyd, hunkered down at a table near the jukebox, his face buried in a comic book.
Hayley slid off the high chair at the bar and ambled over to him.
“Hi, Boyd, I’m Hayley. We met the other night.”
“I know,” Boyd said, never raising his eyes from his comic book.
“What are you reading?”
“The Third Coming,” Boyd said, in a flat, listless tone. “It’s about aliens who are coming to Earth to enslave us, and how they are sending down some of their top soldiers in human form to study our habits and customs and to also learn our weaknesses in order to make the invasion go faster and easier.”
“Sounds exciting,” Hayley said.
Boyd looked up at her with a mix of surprise and disgust. “It is not exciting. It’s scary. This is happening. This is real.”
“Okay,” Hayley said, trying hard to react in a way that would not offend him. “I’ll try to be prepared.”
“You better be,” Boyd said, looking up from his comic and staring at her with a dead-serious expression. “Because when they arrive, it’s going to be a bloodbath.”
“Good to know,” Hayley said, biting her lip. “Sorry to bother you, Boyd. I just saw you and Ellie at the lobster bake, and I was curious to know how yo
ur date went.”
Boyd’s sober face slowly gave way to a slight smile. His cheeks turned beet red and his eyes quickly averted back to his comic book.
“It was nice,” he said in a whisper.
“That’s so great to hear,” Hayley said.
Suddenly Liddy was at her side, clawing at Hayley’s arm. “I thought I would never get away from those two!”
“Excuse us, Boyd,” Hayley said. “It was lovely to talk to you. I’ll let you get back to your comic book.”
Boyd stared at Liddy, eyes wide as saucers, and then back at his comic book. He flipped the page around and showed a drawing of a female alien in a steel bustier and with curly black hair and Medusa-like snakes slithering out of the top of her head.
“I didn’t notice it before when I first saw her, but she looks just like the alien queen!”
Liddy glanced down at the comic and gasped. “How could you say that? I look nothing like her! I don’t have snakes coming out of the top of my head!”
Hayley grabbed Liddy by the arm and steered her back over to the bar.
“I look nothing like that! If there is any comic book character I resemble it’s Veronica from the Archie comics. She may have been a bitch, but she had so much poise and style.”
“Boyd’s a little off. I wouldn’t worry about it too much,” Hayley said, chuckling.
“Can we go now, please? I don’t want to get stuck talking to those two over there again,” Liddy said.
“I don’t want to leave just yet. It looks like Mona’s having a good time and I don’t want to cut it short,” Hayley said.
“Fine,” Liddy said, sighing. “But if those two come over here, you talk to them.”
“Who are they?”
“A couple of tourists from Ohio, Dayton or Cleveland, I think, but who really cares? They snagged me on my way back from the bathroom and wouldn’t stop chattering about how much they loved Salmon Cove, and how they sold their house and all of their possessions and bought an RV and have been driving around this great nation for the past two years seeing the sights and meeting all kinds of interesting people our country has to offer, and all I wanted to say was, ‘Wake up! You are not two of those interesting people!’”
“I think it’s admirable they’ve decided to treat life like one big adventure,” Hayley said, glancing over at them.
They both smiled and waved at them.
“Stop drawing their attention. I swear, if you get stuck in a conversation, you’ll never get rid of them,” Liddy warned.
Suddenly something slammed into Liddy’s back and she was thrown to the ground. It was the fisherman in the “Make America Great Again” cap. He was swaying back and forth, bleary-eyed, blisteringly drunk. He pounded his empty beer mug on the bar for another round.
Hayley bent down, took Liddy by the arm, and helped her crawl back up to her feet. “Are you all right?”
“Yes, just a little shocked. I didn’t see that coming,” Liddy said breathlessly. “That’s one of the fishermen who kept me company when I hung out here during the lobster bake. He’s even more soused now than he was then!”
“Hey!” Sue bellowed, charging toward them from the other end of the bar. “You just knocked that poor woman off her feet, Lewis! You need to apologize.”
“I ain’t apologizing for nothing, Sue, just pour me another beer,” the fisherman mumbled, as he squinted at Liddy and sneered. “Hey! Have we met?”
“You’ve had enough, Lewis. I think it is time for you to go home,” Sue said.
“Don’t you dare tell me when I should go home. I’ll go home when I’m damn good and ready. Now are you going to pour me another beer or do I have to come back there and do it myself?” the drunken fisherman slurred.
That was all Sue needed to hear.
She shot out from behind the bar, grabbed the fisherman by the end of his scraggly beard, and pulled him toward the door. He stumbled and swayed and then took a swing at her.
Sue easily dodged the blow and then seized him in a headlock.
The fisherman waved his arms frantically as she choked him out.
There was fire in her eyes, a focused determination, as she squeezed harder until he was gagging and gasping for air.
Hayley watched in horror as the fisherman slowly began to pass out.
Fearing she might kill the drunk, Hayley finally blurted out. “Sue, stop!”
As if suddenly freed from a trance by the sound of Hayley’s voice, Sue released the fisherman and he collapsed to the floor. She turned to Boyd.
“Get him out of here.”
Boyd dropped his comic book on the table, and hustled over, bending down and grabbing the half-conscious fisherman in a bear hug and herding him out the door.
Liddy stepped forward and put a gentle hand on Sue’s arm. “Thank you for coming to my defense.”
Sue just grunted, shook Liddy’s hand off, and went back behind the bar without saying another word.
Hayley couldn’t believe it.
She had never seen a woman possess such powerful physical strength.
Sue had dispatched her unruly customer, who must have had at least twenty-five pounds on her, without batting an eye.
There was no doubt in her mind that Sue, despite her claim of having left him alive on that beach at the lobster bake, could easily have strangled the smaller, wiry Jackson Young.
Chapter 14
Boyd came back inside the bar after a few minutes, and told Sue that Lewis had promised to go home quietly. However, he had just sat back down and picked up his comic book when the Taylor Swift song playing on the jukebox ended and everyone in the Starfish Lounge heard a man outside yelling.
It was a drunken Lewis screaming at the top of his lungs about how he was going to ruin Sue by filing a lawsuit for assaulting him.
Sue was fed up. She picked up the phone and called the police.
By now the mounting drama of the situation was enough for Mona and Corey to call off their latest game of pool, and wander back over to the front of the bar where Hayley and Liddy were on the edge of their seats waiting for Sue’s next move. No one wanted to plug a quarter in the jukebox and play another song because they didn’t want to miss a moment of the show playing out at the Starfish Lounge.
Sue marched outside and started screaming at Lewis, telling him she had already called the cops so if he didn’t get the hell out of there he would be arrested. Lewis hollered back that he was happy the police were on their way so they could arrest her for attempted murder. From the far end of the bar, a man Hayley hadn’t even noticed before who was slumped over in the corner, his head cradled in his crossed arms, was roused from slumber, and in an annoyed, scratchy voice, yelled, “What the hell is all that racket?”
It was Rufus, the eighty-something barfly, and Ellie’s grandfather.
He glanced around, momentarily unaware of where he was, but he quickly noted the familiar surroundings and settled into a sense of relief. He was safe and sound at his regular watering hole. Rufus winced, probably from a massive hangover, and then barked, “Where the hell is Sue? I need another whiskey!”
At that moment, a siren wailed in the distance, growing in volume as it got closer. All the remaining patrons in the bar, not many since last call was not that far off, excitedly filed outside to witness the dramatic scene unfolding. Everyone, that is, except for Rufus, who dropped his head back down on the bar and covered his head with his hands to pray the pounding away.
Hayley, Liddy, Mona, Corey, the chatty young tourists with the RV, Boyd, and a few others gathered outside to see Lewis, enraged, taking wild swings at Sue, who easily dodged them. As he charged at her again, she stuck out her arm and flattened the palm of her hand against his forehead, keeping him at bay as he repeatedly took swings at her with his spindly, rubbery arms, missing her by a mile.
A squad car rolled up in front of the bar and Sheriff Daphne, with a stern face and professional demeanor, climbed out of the car and slowly walked over to w
here Lewis was taking his pathetic potshots at Sue.
“All right, Lewis, I think you’ve made your point. Now it’s time to settle down,” Sheriff Daphne said.
“You need to arrest her! She viciously attacked me!” Lewis wailed.
“The only person who seems to be attacking anyone right now is you,” Sheriff Daphne said, exchanging a quick smile with Sue.
“I ain’t settling down until an arrest is made! You hear me, Sheriff?” Lewis yelled defiantly.
“Loud and clear,” Sheriff Daphne said, unclipping a pair of handcuffs from her waist belt and snapping one on Lewis’s right wrist. He struggled momentarily, but he was too inebriated to put up much of a fight and before he could break free, his left wrist was cuffed as well.
“You’re under arrest, Lewis,” Sheriff Daphne said coolly.
“On what charges?” he demanded to know.
“We can start with disturbing the peace and go from there. Sound good?”
“I’m going to sue you for every last dime you have,” Lewis spit out at Sue before cranking his head around toward Daphne, who was pushing him in the direction of her squad car. “And I’m going to sue the police department for false arrest!”
“Well, maybe when you wake up tomorrow morning in the drunk tank, you’ll have a change of heart,” Sheriff Daphne said as she opened the back door of the car and shoved Lewis inside before slamming it shut on him, effectively locking him inside. He was still screaming, nose smashed against the glass of the window, smearing the glass with spittle and snot, but his voice was muted and most of his words unintelligible. The crowd could only make out a few and they were all four-letter ones.
Sue checked her watch and turned to her small crowd of customers who were bunched up by the entrance to the bar. “Folks, I’m sorry to say it is almost one o’clock so you missed last call. Time to call it a night, but please come again tomorrow.”
Ellie strolled down the sidewalk toward the bar, her eyes widening as she took in the flashing blue lights on top of the squad car, the screaming drunk in the back, and the horde of people gathered outside.
