Death of a Lobster Lover

by Lee Hollis

“Does a bear—?”

  “Thank you, Mona!” Hayley shouted, cutting her off. “We won’t be long.”

  It was a short drive back to Rufus’s house from the Starfish Lounge. When Hayley and Sue got there, the street was empty of people who had been hanging around earlier and the squad car that was parked in front of the house was long gone. The body had already been picked up and shipped off to the morgue and the house was locked up tight. Sue made a beeline for a flowerpot that sat on the right of the front stoop. She lifted it up and picked up a shiny silver key, which she used to unlock the front door. Hayley followed her inside.

  There was a dank, musty smell throughout the whole house. Tiny dust balls blew across the floor like tumbleweeds and the whole place seemed to cry out for a thorough cleaning.

  “Sue, I’m curious, why didn’t Rufus make his granddaughter Ellie the executor of his estate?”

  Sue shrugged. “Beats me. He did mention to me once he didn’t want to expose her to all of his secrets. He wanted her to remember him as just her sweet loving granddaddy.”

  “What secrets was he talking about?”

  “I asked him the same question, but he changed the subject. I figured I’d find out eventually once he died and so . . .”

  “I guess we’re about to find out.”

  In the living room, Hayley stopped to look at a wall full of hanging pictures. There was one of Ellie when she was just a girl, maybe ten years old, cute as a bug. She posed like a teen model. There was one of Rufus’s son and Ellie’s dad, who had died tragically in a plane crash. At the end she found a portrait of Rufus, maybe thirty years younger, with a beautiful, olive-skinned, dark-haired beauty.

  “That’s Rufus’s late wife, Annabelle. A real looker, wasn’t she?” Sue said, coming up behind Hayley.

  “I’ll say, she’s gorgeous. Did you know her?”

  “No, she died before Rufus moved up here to Maine. From what Ellie told me, her death nearly destroyed him. A part of him wished he would’ve died shortly thereafter so he wouldn’t feel so lonely, but he hung on for another ten or so years . . . until today,” she said, sniffing, fighting back her emotions.

  “You should make sure Ellie gets that. It’s a nice thing to have to remember her grandparents.”

  Sue reached up and lifted the framed picture off the nail that it was hung on, and was surprised to see a small, gaping hole in the wall.

  Hayley stuck her hand through it, felt around, and then pulled it out. She knocked several times on the wall. “It’s hollow. Might be some kind of storage space. What do you think is in there?”

  Sue gave Hayley a conspiratorial look, and then marched into the kitchen, rummaged through some drawers, and returned with a hammer in her hand.

  “What are you going to do with that?”

  Without answering, Sue reared back with the hammer and pounded it hard against the wall near the hole, creating a wider space.

  “Sue! You can’t just tear the whole wall down!”

  “I’m not! I’m just creating a wide enough space to see what’s in there!”

  “Letting ourselves in the house is one thing, but legally speaking, this might be a stretch!”

  “As the executor of Rufus’s estate, it is my responsibility to obtain all available information inside the house, wherever it may be, in order to properly execute his last will and testament.”

  “If the whole bar thing doesn’t work out, you can always become a lawyer.”

  Sue kept pounding. It was a very thin wall and plaster and wallpaper fell away to the floor, creating a mess, until Sue managed to stick her entire head through the hole to see what was there. She then quickly pulled it out.

  “It’s too dark. I can’t see anything. Hand me your phone,” she said.

  Hayley grabbed her phone from the pocket of her shorts, opened the flashlight app, and handed it over to Sue, who hacked off more of the wall with her hammer until she was able to wedge both her head and her hand with the phone through the opening.

  “Oh my God!” Sue yelped.

  “What? What do you see?” Hayley screamed, fearing it might be yet another dead body.

  Sue extracted herself and then began madly smashing the wall with her hammer until almost half of it came crashing down, enough space for a whole person to actually fit through. She climbed inside. Hayley waited for a moment, but couldn’t stand the suspense anymore, and followed her. She was immediately swatting away cobwebs and sneezing from the dust and plaster, but once she was able to open her eyes and look around, she gasped in surprise.

  Sue was standing next to four garbage bags stuffed with money.

  “Come on, let’s count it!” Sue said, excited, as she picked up one of the bags and tore it open.

  After ripping open all four bags as well as a stack of manila envelopes full of papers and legal documents, Sue spent the next twenty minutes greedily counting the cash while Hayley perused the mountain of papers they had found.

  After dumping the last bag of bills onto the floor and sorting and counting them, Sue let out a whistle.

  Hayley looked up from a binder full of past tax returns she was painstakingly inspecting. “How much?”

  Sue swallowed hard and said, “Almost eight hundred thousand dollars.”

  “Eight hundred thousand?”

  “That’s a lot of whiskeys at my bar!”

  “How did Rufus get his hands on so much money and what was it doing hidden behind this wall?”

  “I don’t know, but I sure as hell hope I’m not just the executor, but I’m actually listed in his will!”

  “But from everything you told me, Rufus lived a very simple life. It wasn’t like he was walking through town throwing money around all the time! Why not spend some of it?”

  “Maybe he wanted to keep a really low profile.”

  “Because the money wasn’t from his life savings but from ill-gotten gains?”

  Sue laughed. “It’s ridiculous! I mean, I knew the man well and never once did I ever get the impression he was some kind of criminal mastermind.”

  “That’s because criminal masterminds work very hard to not give you that impression.”

  “I just don’t believe it, Hayley,” Sue said.

  “Look, I’ve been going over his past tax returns, ones dating back to when his wife was still alive. Something stood out to me. Look at this one from 2005,” she said, handing the return to Sue.

  She gave it the once-over and looked up at Hayley. “So? Looks like a typical tax return to me.”

  “Look at the Social Security numbers.”

  Sue studied the numbers listed. “They’re sequential.”

  “Exactly! Social Security numbers are assigned at birth and by region, which would mean Rufus and Annabelle would’ve had to have been born right next to each other in the same town, but if you look at the photo that was on the wall, Annabelle was at least ten years younger than him.”

  “So you’re saying . . . ?”

  “Rufus and Annabelle might not be their real names. They could have established fake identities with fake Social Security numbers,” Hayley said.

  “Then who are they?”

  “Let’s keep looking.”

  Sue grabbed a stack of manila folders off the pile and tore into them as Hayley continued examining the tax returns. Sue emptied out one folder on the floor. She picked up a piece of paper and studied it.

  “What is that?”

  “Looks like a prison visitation application Rufus filled out to see someone named Miles O’Shannon,” Sue said, flipping the page.

  “Prison? Let me see that,” Hayley said, snatching the form from Sue. She read it over and then looked up. “Do you still have my phone?”

  “Oh, yes, sorry,” Sue said, picking it up off the floor and handing it to her.

  Hayley did a quick Google search on Miles O’Shannon and when the results loaded the first face she saw was a strikingly handsome man with Cary Grant looks.

  “I’ve seen
that face before. It’s Ellie’s father. She showed me a photograph just the other day,” Hayley said.

  “Her name is not O’Shannon,” Sue said. “And I thought she said her father died in a plane crash.”

  “That’s what she told me, too. But according to this article in the Boston Globe he’s still very much alive and serving a life sentence in prison for first-degree murder,” Hayley said, skimming through the article on her phone.

  “Do you think she just made up that story about her father dying in a plane crash because she was embarrassed he had been put away for murdering someone?”

  “Did you ever ask Rufus about his son?”

  “I did once. He was drunk, and just said, ‘Whatever Ellie told you is the truth, and that’s all I have to say on the matter.’ So I dropped it.”

  “The article says it was a mob hit, a restaurant owner who blew the whistle on a protection racket, and that Miles O’Shannon . . .” Hayley said, and then gasped.

  “What?”

  “Miles O’Shannon is the son of notorious Boston crime boss Enos O’Shannon, who has been on the FBI’s Most Wanted List for over ten years.”

  Hayley hastily tapped the name Enos O’Shannon into the search engine, and several images popped up of a man bearing a disconcerting resemblance to Rufus.

  “When did you say Rufus moved to Salmon Cove?”

  “About ten years ago,” Sue said, shocked. “After his wife died.”

  “The same time the Boston prosecutor brought racketeering charges against Enos O’Shannon. He was lucky enough to avoid a number of convictions over the years, mostly because key witnesses ended up disappearing or got rubbed out, but this particular case was stronger than anything they had on him before, and it looked like he was finally going to be put away for good. They issued a warrant for his arrest, but he blew town before they had a chance to arrest him,” Hayley said, scrolling down farther.

  “I just can’t get my head around the fact that Rufus is a big-deal mob guy,” Sue said. “I mean, it sounds so preposterous!”

  “He’s dyed his hair and put on some weight and may have even had a nose job, but it’s definitely him!”

  Hayley intensely kept loading article after article on her phone, stopping at one, and holding the phone closer to her face, squinting at a picture.

  “What is it?” Sue asked, looking over her shoulder.

  “The byline for this article has a picture of the reporter who wrote it, and it looks just like . . .”

  She pressed a finger to the picture to enlarge the image and stared at a good-looking young man in a jacket and tie with glasses that made him look intellectual. He appeared slightly different, more professional, but there was no mistaking who it was. She turned the phone so Sue could see the picture.

  “Hey, isn’t that—?”

  “Jackson Young! But that’s not his real name. He’s actually Conner Higgins, and according to this mini-bio next to his name he is a freelance investigative journalist. It’s all starting to make sense!”

  “Jackson, I mean Conner, came here because he got a tip where Enos O’Shannon might be hiding out?”

  “Yes, posing as a travel writer, but when he got here, Rufus, or Enos, may have been tipped off about him, and killed him before he could expose him!”

  “But Hayley, Rufus was an old codger, healthy, yes, but still really old. Do you honestly believe he could be strong enough to strangle a fit, able-bodied, thirty-seven-year-old man?”

  “Not likely, but the evidence is overwhelming that Jackson Young or Conner Higgins was killed due to his investigation of Enos O’Shannon’s whereabouts, and I’m afraid—”

  Hayley’s hands began to shake and she put down her phone.

  Sue stepped forward and took her hands into her own, trying to get them to stop trembling.

  “What is it?”

  “I just have this awful feeling that Liddy’s disappearance is also tied up in all of this, and since we now know that we’re dealing with a murderous crime family that has wiped out witnesses in the past, then that could mean—”

  It was too frightening to think about.

  Chapter 28

  “As much as it pains me to have to do this,” Hayley said, “we have to take what we’ve found and call the police.”

  “Sheriff Wilkes?” Sue asked, incredulous.

  “What other choice do we have? We have to alert some kind of authority figure, and she’s the only one this town has at the moment.”

  Sue shrugged. “Okay, I’ll call her and have her meet us over here.”

  Sue pulled her phone out of the back pocket of her pants and was about to punch in her security code when a thump startled them both.

  Hayley and Sue looked at each other, and then a rattling sound caused both of them to jump.

  Someone was trying to enter through the front door.

  “Did you lock the door after we came in?” Hayley whispered.

  Sue nodded.

  The rattling became more violent.

  Someone desperately wanted to get inside the house.

  Hayley and Sue froze in place.

  And then the rattling stopped.

  They waited a few moments, standing still, staring at each other, both distressed.

  There was a long silence.

  “Do you think whoever it was is gone?” Hayley said in a hushed tone.

  “Probably just a couple of kids fooling around . . .”

  A window in the kitchen was smashed and glass spilled to the floor.

  They heard the lock on the sill inside unlatch with a click and the sounds of a man huffing and puffing as he climbed through and inside the house.

  “Ow! I just cut my finger on some broken glass!” a man’s voice wailed.

  Hayley had heard the voice before.

  But she couldn’t quite place it.

  And who was he talking to?

  Hayley and Sue flattened themselves on either side of the gaping hole, knowing it wouldn’t take long for the intruders to notice it once they entered the living room.

  Hayley poked her head around to peer through the hole, and in the hallway, she saw the back of a man crossing to the front door, unlocking it, and opening the door to let another person into the house.

  He sucked on his finger and whined, “It really hurts!”

  “Don’t be such a baby!” a woman said as she swept inside.

  It was Vanessa, the chatty, annoying tourist who had come to Salmon Cove with her husband and tried so desperately to make friends with Liddy.

  “Did anybody see you waiting on the porch?” the man asked as he looked to make sure no one had seen them come inside the house, and then he shut and locked the door. When he turned around, it was unmistakably Vanessa’s loyal and equally grating husband, Buck.

  Except now they were not acting like the cheery, enthusiastic, happy couple enjoying their five-year road trip in an RV. They were serious, focused, methodical as they fanned out and searched the house. Hayley knew it was only a matter of seconds before one of them would come into the living room and see the bashed-out wall.

  “Vanessa! Come look at this!”

  They heard the shuffling of Vanessa’s boat shoes as she hurried in from the kitchen.

  “Someone obviously beat us here,” Vanessa said.

  “Unless the old man did it himself before he kicked it,” Buck said.

  “Go take a look and see what’s in there!”

  Hayley and Sue braced themselves.

  They were about to be discovered.

  “Why do I have to do it?”

  “Because you know from our training exercises at Langley that I have a serious case of claustrophobia.”

  Buck sighed, but before he had a chance to walk over and climb through the hole and find them, a gross, hairy rat ran across Hayley’s shoe and she yelped in surprise. It squeaked as she shook her foot, kicking at it, and then it disappeared into the blackness.

  It was deathly quiet for a moment.


  Hayley heard a clicking sound, like a gun cocking, which was followed by another.

  “Who’s there?” Vanessa demanded to know.

  “Come out with your hands up!” Buck ordered.

  Hayley and Sue eyeballed each other, waiting to see what the other one was going to do first.

  “I’m not fooling around! Come out of there, nice and slow!”

  Hayley sighed. She wasn’t going to do anything stupid especially since Buck and Vanessa had come to Rufus’s house armed, so with her hands in the air, she stepped back through the hole and into the living room, followed on her heels by Sue.

  Buck and Vanessa gaped at them, both surprised.

  “You’re Hayley, right? Liddy’s friend,” Vanessa said, confused.

  “Hayley Powell,” Hayley said nervously, staring at the barrels of their guns that were pointing at her and Sue. “Nice to see you both again.”

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “I’m here with Sue,” Hayley said weakly.

  Buck turned to Vanessa. “She’s the owner of the Starfish Lounge.”

  “I know who she is, Buck! I want to know what these ladies are doing in his house!”

  Sue stepped out from behind Hayley, making a snap decision to take the reins. “Hayley generously offered to help me go through Rufus’s personal effects. I am the executor of his estate, and so I have the grave responsibility of producing all the necessary paperwork in order for the lawyer to effectively execute his will!”

  “Is that your mess?” Vanessa asked, nodding to the large hole in the wall.

  Sue nodded. “Yes, it is. We found some important personal items that Rufus stored back there.”

  “What kind of personal items?” Vanessa asked.

  “None of your damn business!” Sue said. “We have every right to be here, but you two are guilty of breaking and entering!”

  “She’s right, we didn’t exactly go by the book here,” Buck said softly, cringing.

  Vanessa reached into the side pocket of her baby blue windbreaker jacket that she wore over a pink halter top and pulled out an official-looking silver badge, which she flashed at them. “We’re FBI.”

  Hayley blurted out a nervous giggle. “You’re what—?”

  “How do we know for sure? You can buy a badge like that at Toys ‘R’ Us!” Sue yelled.