by Lee Hollis
“Mona, this is no time to be stubborn! Liddy could be hurt! What if her car somehow skidded off the road into a ditch, and she’s trapped and crying for help, but nobody can hear her? Did you think about that? Time could be of the essence!” Hayley yelled.
Mona flinched. She couldn’t argue with that. She sighed, and grabbed her phone off the kitchen counter and called Corey.
He arrived at the cabin in less than fifteen minutes to pick them up. They squeezed into the cab of his pickup truck, Mona forcing Hayley to climb in first so she would be stuck in the middle, separating her from Corey. Sadie wagged her tail in the bed of the truck.
Corey peeled away, but once he hit the main road, he slowed down to a crawl, scanning both sides of the road to check for skid marks and any other signs of an accident.
By the time they reached the business district, it was close to eight thirty, which, according to the voice mail message they had received, was the time the law office of Oliver Hammersmith was open for business.
Corey dropped Hayley and Mona off, and told them he was going to go pick up some breakfast sandwiches and coffee for them while they spoke to the lawyer. If it was going to be a long, grueling day searching the area, they were going to need their strength. He drove away, and Hayley and Mona entered the small office in the center of town, basically an add-on to the main building, which housed a far busier and more prestigious real estate business.
They walked into the cramped space, where there was a tiny desk so close to the entrance they banged the edge of it when they opened the door. Behind the desk was a rotund elderly woman with more than a passing resemblance to Mrs. Claus with her white hair tied in a bun and tiny reading glasses teetering on the bridge of her nose. She even wore a red sweater to keep warm from the blasting air conditioner. She turned her attention away from her desktop computer and greeted them with a tight smile.
“May I help you?”
“Yes, we’re here to see Mr. Hammersmith,” Hayley said, returning her smile.
“Do you have an appointment?”
“No, we don’t, but it’s an emergency,” Hayley said.
Oliver Hammersmith’s office door was open halfway, and he was clearly visible sitting behind his desk, feet up, paper cup of steaming coffee in front of him, reading the print edition of the local paper.
“I’m sorry. He’s booked this morning,” Mrs. Claus said as she gazed back at her computer screen and tapped a few keys on the keyboard, perusing his schedule. “How about next Friday?”
“You don’t understand,” Hayley said patiently. “We are clients of Mr. Hammersmith. He is currently representing us in a court case and—”
“I understand, but I’m afraid he just can’t see you right now.”
“Excuse me,” Mona interjected. “But can I just point out that we have a clear view of the guy at this very moment. We can see him in his office reading the paper! He doesn’t look that busy!”
“Mr. Hammersmith never meets with anyone before noon. He needs his mornings to prepare himself, reflect on what is expected of him for the day, it’s all part of his process,” the secretary said, a little discomforted by Mona’s aggressive demeanor.
“Screw that! We need to talk to him right now! It could be a matter of life and death!” Mona screamed, pounding the door wide open and marching inside.
Hayley threw an apologetic smile at the secretary and then followed Mona.
Oliver Hammersmith, startled, threw his paper in the air and kicked his cup of coffee with his shoe so it spilled all over his desk. He jumped to his feet.
“What? What is this?”
The secretary pushed her way into the office behind Liddy and Mona. “Mr. Hammersmith, I’m so sorry! I told them you were unavailable but they refused to listen and barged right in!”
Hammersmith began hyperventilating with short, quick gasps, as if he was asthmatic. He clutched his chest. “There are too many people in here! One of you has to go! This is making me very uncomfortable!”
“Well, we’re not going anywhere! Not until you talk to us!” Mona said, folding her arms and glaring at him.
Hammersmith, unnerved, turned his wide, alarmed eyes to his secretary and between gasps, said, “Alice, go next door and find a rag to clean this mess up! But wait until these ladies leave before you come back in here, okay?”
“Yes, Mr. Hammersmith,” his secretary, Alice, huffed, glaring at Hayley and Mona, galled by their rudeness, before quickly retreating out of the office.
Agitated by the mess on his desk in front of him, Oliver picked the newspaper up off the floor and dropped it on the desktop to soak up some of the spilled coffee before it cascaded over the side and onto the carpet.
“Now, ladies, about your case—” he said, discombobulated, trying in vain to focus.
“We’re not here about our case,” Hayley said. “We’re here about our friend Liddy.”
“What about her?” he asked, still staring at the desk to make sure the coffee didn’t start dripping off the side.
“She’s gone,” Mona said.
“Gone where?”
“We don’t know,” Hayley said, sighing. “We were hoping you could help shed some light on the situation. Do you remember what time she left your office yesterday?”
“She wasn’t in my office yesterday,” Hammersmith said, tapping his foot nervously, still staring at the newspaper and coffee. “Do you think the paper has absorbed enough to keep the coffee from spilling on the floor?”
Hayley couldn’t take it anymore. She grabbed some tissues she had in her bag and lined wads of them up along the edge of the desk as a barrier like tiny sandbags to stop the flow of coffee.
“There! Is that better? Can you focus on our conversation now, Mr. Hammersmith?”
Incredibly, it worked. He was satisfied his office carpet was safe. He finally looked at them for the first time.
“We had an appointment, but she never showed,” he said. “I had my colleague Sonny Rivers waiting on the line. I tried calling the cell phone number she gave me, but she never answered. I must have left three or four messages. Sonny is a very busy man, so after a half hour, he hung up and I went on to my next meeting.”
“But she dropped us off yesterday only a couple blocks from your office. She was on her way to see you,” Hayley said, her heart beating faster, a sickening feeling growing in the pit of her stomach.
“What can I say? She never made it,” he said, shrugging, totally unconcerned. “Are we done here? I can see Alice is back with that rag, and I’d like her to come in here and wipe up my desk, and unfortunately that can’t happen if there are too many people here—”
Mona looked as if she was about to lose it, but quite surprisingly, she held her tongue.
“Well, if you hear from her, please call us,” Hayley said, scribbling her cell phone number on a writing pad with a pencil. “Will you please do us that favor?”
“Of course. We still need to discuss your case and how we plan on proceeding. Sonny has a few ideas on our defense and I concur—”
“That’s not our priority presently,” Hayley said through gritted teeth. “But thank you.”
Hayley and Mona left the office. Alice waited until they were clear and then she rushed in with the rag to sop up the coffee that had soaked through the tissues and was now seconds away from pouring over the side of the desk like Niagara Falls.
Outside, they spotted Corey waiting for them at the intersection. He was parked in a loading zone so they hurried toward him before Sheriff Daphne spotted him and he got a citation.
At the sight of them approaching, Sadie’s tail wagged faster and faster.
Mona stopped in her tracks and whispered, “Uh-oh.”
“What is it?”
Mona pointed across the street. “Look.”
Hayley followed her gaze to the other side of the street where Liddy’s black Mercedes was parked next to another NO OVERNIGHT PARKING sign. It sat there, abandoned, with yet ano
ther printed traffic ticket stuffed underneath the windshield wiper.
Chapter 24
“Hayley, where is she? What are we going to do?” Mona said, her face tightened, worry lines forming on her forehead, in a rare display of distress.
“We have to stay calm,” Hayley said, failing to reassure her. “Now the car is parked directly across the street from the Starfish Lounge. Maybe someone saw her yesterday.”
She took Mona’s hand and they crossed the street and went into the Starfish Lounge, which had just opened its doors for the day a few minutes earlier. There were a smattering of early-day drinkers, including reliable barfly Rufus sipping a whiskey on the rocks in the corner, a couple of local fishermen drinking beer at a small table in the back, and part-time employee Boyd, who sat in a booth near the door, taking a break, reading a new issue of his alien invasion comic book series.
Behind the bar, Sue replenished her clean glassware, which had been left to dry on some towels behind the bar overnight.
“Mona, you go question those guys in the back while I talk to Sue,” Hayley suggested as Mona nodded and ambled over to strike up a conversation with the fishermen.
“Morning, Sue,” Hayley said, sliding up on a barstool.
“Well, good morning,” Sue said, looking up with a smile. “Must have been a rough night if you’re starting this early.”
“Yes, it was a pretty rough night, in fact,” Hayley said, solemnly. “We seem to have lost our friend.”
Sue noticed Mona chatting with the fishermen. “You mean the short, mouthy one with the expensive jewelry?”
“Liddy, yes, that’s the one,” Hayley said.
“You sure she didn’t just hightail it back to Bar Harbor? She didn’t appear to be a big fan of Salmon Cove as I recall,” Sue said, lining the clean glasses along a low shelf just above the ice cooler.
“I’m positive,” Hayley said. “Her Mercedes is still parked across the street. It looks like it’s been there all night, with a traffic ticket to prove it. Did you happen to notice it when you locked up the bar and left last night?”
“Can’t say that I did, but I’ve got to admit, I was pretty wiped out when we closed last night. I had a tough time herding out the customers after last call, and the floor was so sticky it took Boyd an hour to mop the place, and someone threw up in the men’s room, so I wasn’t too aware of my surroundings when I finally got out of here and slogged home.”
“Who was here for last call yesterday?”
“The usual suspects. Rufus, Boyd was here working, of course, that couple visiting from out of town, the real friendly, gabby ones, I forget their names, Bob and Vera . . . ?”
“Buck and Vanessa,” Hayley offered.
“Yeah, them, they’ve been here every night. We had a big crowd of college kids here for the summer who are working as singing waiters at that restaurant where the kids perform show tunes between dinner courses. They were big drinkers, pretty rowdy, in fact, but relatively harmless . . .”
“Anybody else you can think of?”
“It was awfully crowded, like I said, it was a challenge pushing everybody out the door when I tried to close.”
“And you personally never saw Liddy at any point yesterday?”
“No, I haven’t seen her since you were all in here the other night.”
Hayley took a deep breath, not looking forward to approaching the next subject, but she decided to just go for it anyway. “Sue, I heard a rumor . . .”
Sue leaned in, excited. “I hope it’s a juicy one.”
“It’s about you and . . .” Hayley nodded in the direction of the old man nursing his whiskey at the other end of the bar. “. . . Rufus.”
Sue laughed heartily. “I see you’ve been talking to Polly Roper.”
“Yes, I have,” Hayley said.
“She’s been peddling that story for weeks now. You have to understand something about Polly. She thrives on drama and scandal, even when there is none. She’s a total gossip fiend,” Sue said, shaking her head.
“So there is no truth to the rumor that you and Rufus are dating . . .”
“Dating? That’s rich!” Sue guffawed. “No, ma’am, that story has been blown way out of proportion. I suppose the whole damn thing got started because I do have a taste for older men, I’ve dated a few in the past, one in particular after I got out of the military. He was loaded and nice enough to loan me the cash to open this bar, but it didn’t last very long, and I paid him back . . . with interest . . . and there were a couple of married ones I may have gotten friendly with over the years, which I tried to keep on the down low for obvious reasons, but let’s leave it at that . . .”
“So definitely not Rufus?”
“Look, I like Rufus, and we have gotten close . . . but not in the biblical sense! I just find the old coot fun and interesting to talk to, he’s had quite a life, and yes, I have treated him to a few meals just to hear some of his stories, but give me a break. When I say I like older men, I mean men under eighty years old!”
“Got it!” Hayley said. “You’re just friends.”
“Why are you so interested in my love life? How does this help you find your friend?”
“I just have this feeling that there’s something larger going on here with that travel writer Jackson Young getting murdered on the beach and our friend Liddy simply vanishing into thin air. I don’t know, I’m trying to get to know as much as I can about this town and the people in it to figure out how all the pieces of this very strange puzzle fit together . . .”
“Well, I’m sorry to tell you, you’re wasting your time pumping me with questions. I don’t have anything to do with all that nasty business,” Sue said, turning away.
She was done talking.
And Hayley wasn’t anxious to get her ire up like the late Jackson Young did at the beach on the day he was murdered.
Hayley slid off the barstool and approached Boyd, who was in a booth, immersed in his comic book.
Before she even had a chance to open her mouth, Boyd looked up at her with a blank stare and said, “They’re here.”
“Who?”
Boyd glanced at the cover of his comic book, which portrayed some slimy lizard-like creatures stomping their way through Washington, DC, and overrunning the White House.
“Oh, you mean, the aliens, yes, you told me,” Hayley said, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. She sat down across from him. “Boyd, did you by any chance see my friend Liddy at any point yesterday around town? You remember her, right? Attractive, brown curly hair, kind of a loud, spitfire personality?”
Boyd buried his face back inside his comic, reading it, studying the pages like an impressionable Baptist boy at his first Bible study class.
“Boyd?”
He refused to lift his eyes from the pages.
“I know you can hear me. Did you see her?”
“No,” he grumbled before jumping to his feet, rolling the comic book up, and stuffing it in the back pocket of his jeans. “I got to get back to work.”
Hayley watched him hurry off, not sure if he was telling the truth or not. He was such a peculiar young man, very tough to read.
Mona soon arrived at Hayley’s side as she stood up from the booth. “So those two fishermen in the back said they were here last night, but left early because they had to head out at five this morning to haul their traps. They both remember leaving here around seven thirty and seeing Liddy’s Mercedes parked across the street.”
“So whatever happened to her must have happened right after she parked her car to go to the meeting with Oliver Hammersmith and before she arrived at his office, because she never made the meeting nor did she ever return to her car at any point after that.”
“Hayley, I’m scared. What could have happened to her?”
“I don’t know, but I’m beginning to suspect maybe there’s something to this alien invasion Boyd’s been going on about. Maybe they’ve beamed her up to the mother ship. It’s the only thing th
at makes sense at this point,” Hayley said, at a loss.
They started to head out of the bar, but Hayley, spotting Rufus, who was now starting in on a fresh whiskey, hunched over the bar, stopped to talk to him.
“Good morning, Rufus,” she said brightly.
Rufus squinted at her with bloodshot, weary eyes and managed to grunt, “Morning.”
“Do you recall seeing our friend, Rufus? Her name is Liddy . . .”
“The jailbird, yeah, you’re all jailbirds. I heard about you ladies getting thrown in the clink,” he slurred as his chuckle erupted into a coughing fit.
Hayley waited for him to down his whiskey and kill his cough before she continued.
“You heard right . . .” Hayley sighed. “But our friend, Liddy, she’s disappeared and we’re very worried . . .”
Rufus banged his glass on the bar for Sue to refill it. She glanced over, sighed, grabbed the bottle of Jack Daniels, and poured some in his glass.
“I’ll never let them put me in jail,” he said, leaning forward, teetering on the edge of his barstool to the point where Mona took a step forward to catch him if he fell off. “I got some sleeping pills hidden in a false bottom drawer back at my place, real strong ones, I swear if the cops show up at my door, I’ll swallow the lot of them. I’m never going to jail, you hear me? Never!”
He was in his own little world, lost in his own strange, fuzzy thoughts.
“Why would they throw you in jail, Rufus?” Mona asked, suspicious. “Have you done something that would give them cause to arrest you?”
“No, I’m innocent! Clean as a whistle! But you never know how they might try to railroad you,” he slurred, spit flying out of his mouth so high Mona tilted her head to dodge it.
“Rufus, about our friend . . .” Hayley tried again.
“She’s gone,” Rufus said, gulping down his whiskey.
Hayley and Mona exchanged worried looks.
“What do you mean gone?”
“She left.”
“Left where?” Mona barked, quickly losing patience.
“Town, she left town!”
“You saw her?”
“Yesterday when I was walking down the street to come here. She got in her fancy-ass car and drove that way!” Rufus said confidently, pointing in the direction of the road that led out of town.
