Death of a Lobster Lover

by Lee Hollis

  Vanessa lowered her gun and marched up to Sue, and held the badge close to her face. “Take a good look. Trust me, it is real.”

  Hayley eyed the pistol Buck still had trained on them. “Could you please stop pointing that gun at me? We won’t try to run, I promise.”

  Buck had almost forgotten he was holding it, and then flipped the safety lock and stuffed it in the back of his khaki shorts.

  “We told you what we’re doing here. So why don’t you tell us what you are doing here?” Sue said, eyes fixed on Vanessa.

  “I’m Agent Stiles, this is my partner Agent Goodman,” she said.

  “Husband,” Hayley said.

  “No, partner, as in work colleague, we’re not married,” Vanessa corrected her.

  “You sure bicker like a married couple,” Hayley said.

  “Hell, we’re even in couples therapy twice a week,” Buck added.

  Vanessa shot him an irritated look and then continued.

  “We were sent here to look into the death of an investigative journalist—”

  “Jackson Young . . . ?” Hayley offered.

  “Yes,” Vanessa reacted, taken aback. “But his real name is—”

  “Conner Higgins,” Hayley said.

  Vanessa nodded, impressed. “When Higgins was found murdered here, the agency began to suspect it might be related to a story he had been working on, one we were well aware of.”

  “Enos O’Shannon,” Hayley said.

  “Yes, that’s right,” Vanessa said. “Are you sure you are not working for the FBI?”

  “Oh, no, that’s silly!” Hayley laughed. “I’m just a newspaper columnist, but not the kind you think, I don’t write the sort of pieces Jackson, I mean Conner, did, you know, about criminals and corruption, mine are about food because I love to cook, and I love to eat, but I’d be lying, however, if I said I didn’t have a somewhat morbid interest in crime, you see my brother-in-law is the chief of police in Bar Harbor, and sometimes I find myself getting involved in one of his investigations, which by the way annoys him to no end—”

  “Excuse me, is this going to last much longer? I feel like I’m listening to the audio version of your autobiography,” Vanessa said, exasperated.

  “I’m sorry, it’s just that you two are carrying guns, and I hate guns, they make me very nervous, and when I’m nervous I can’t stop talking—”

  “Sorry, I’ll put it away,” Vanessa said, following Buck’s example and flipping the safety lock and stuffing it in the back of her white shorts. “Anyway, we were sent here to find out why Higgins was killed, and if it was related to Enos O’Shannon, who the FBI has been trying to catch for decades.”

  “I think you may have finally found him,” Sue said.

  “We do too. Once we saw Rufus at your bar, he was on our radar, and we were surveilling him until we could confirm his identity, but then he up and died on us so we came here to his house hoping to finally find the proof that O’Shannon and Rufus were one and the same.”

  “Did Rufus know the FBI was onto him?” Hayley asked.

  “I don’t think so, why?”

  “Because if he thought the feds were closing in, he might have taken his own life. He told me at the bar that he would never serve a day behind bars for anything because he was too old, too set in his ways, and he was never going to allow that to happen. I thought it was kind of odd at the time, but now it all makes sense.”

  “We have no reason to suspect he did commit suicide. O’Shannon is as slippery as an eel, if he had an inkling we were on this trail, he would have disappeared from Salmon Cove never to be seen or heard from again.”

  “What about his granddaughter Ellie?” Hayley asked.

  “We don’t believe at this time that she is even aware of her grandfather’s real identity. She was just a young girl when he brought her here after her father was convicted and sentenced to life in prison,” Buck said.

  “So tell me, Agent Powell,” Vanessa said with a healthy dose of sarcasm. “Is the proof we are looking for behind that wall?”

  “Yes,” Hayley said.

  “Is anything else back there that we should know about?” Vanessa asked, a hint of suspicion in her voice.

  Hayley and Sue flashed knowing glances at each other, not sure they were ready to give up all that money. Sue tried to signal Hayley to keep her mouth shut, but Hayley knew it was a lost cause. The government would reclaim it eventually.

  “There’s some money . . .” Hayley said.

  “How much money?” Vanessa asked.

  “About eight hundred thousand dollars,” Sue said, regretful that she didn’t have a chance to remove the money and hide it somewhere safe out of the FBI’s reach before they got caught.

  “Give or take,” Hayley added.

  Buck and Vanessa gawked at them, their jaws nearly dropping to the floor.

  Chapter 29

  Vanessa and Buck, or Agents Stiles and Goodman, and the higher-ups at the FBI insisted on keeping the Enos O’Shannon story under wraps at least until they had a chance to complete their investigation. If the press got wind of the story of one of the FBI’s Most Wanted hiding for years in plain sight in a small Maine coastal town, Salmon Cove would be inundated with trucks and reporters from all the major news outlets and become the focus of intense worldwide attention.

  Although Vanessa played her cards close to the vest, Buck was the more inexperienced agent, and thus a little more free-wheeling and chatty, and before Vanessa could shut him down, he revealed to Hayley and Sue that the working theory they were going to present to their bosses was plain and simple. Rufus aka Enos O’Shannon strangled Jackson Young aka Conner Higgins when the investigative journalist came too close to ferreting him out and exposing his secret life in Salmon Cove in an article.

  This didn’t make sense to Sue and she let them know it.

  “I’m happy to hear your opinion, but you ladies can stand down now, we’re on it,” Vanessa said through clenched teeth, annoyed at having to deal with a pair of know-it-all amateur sleuths.

  “But Rufus was never at the clambake. He spent the entire day drinking at my bar,” Sue insisted.

  “You were with him the whole time?” Vanessa asked.

  “Well, no, I spent a little time down at the clambake . . .”

  Arguing with the murder victim, but Hayley knew Sue wouldn’t admit to that in order to save herself heaps of grief.

  “But he was there when I left and he was there when I came back,” Sue said.

  “How do you know he didn’t slip out after you were gone, kill Conner Higgins at the beach, and then hurry back to the bar before you returned?”

  “Because it’s impossible,” Sue said, eyeing Hayley, knowing she was going to have to tell the entire truth.

  “Why?”

  Sue sighed. She knew the jig was up. “Because I went to see Jackson Young, I mean Conner whatever, myself. I was angry because he kept asking me a ton of personal questions, now I know why. He was really a reporter, and we had it out on the beach, but I swear on my life, when I left him he was still alive. And that’s why I know it couldn’t have been Rufus who killed him. When I got back to the bar Rufus was sitting on his same stool, drinking his same whiskey, telling his same stories. There was no way he could have strangled that reporter and beat me back to the bar. It’s humanly impossible!”

  Vanessa sized up Sue. “We’ll take your story under advisement.”

  “It’s not a story! It’s the truth!” Sue said.

  Vanessa turned and signaled Buck.

  It was time to go.

  “Wait!” Hayley yelled, rushing forward. “My friend Liddy, she’s missing and I’m extremely worried!”

  “What do you mean missing?”

  “She was on her way to a lawyer’s office in town yesterday, and she told us to meet her for dinner a couple hours later, but she never came and when we contacted the lawyer, he said she never showed up to their scheduled meeting.”

  “D
id you contact the sheriff?”

  “Yes, but she’s not taking me seriously, and I believe her disappearance may be somehow related to the Enos O’Shannon case.”

  “In what way?” Vanessa asked, skeptical.

  “I—I—well, I’m not really sure,” Hayley stammered. “But Liddy got quite friendly with Jackson Young before he was killed, and it just seems like too much of a coincidence that all of this would be happening and then she just disappears without a trace—”

  “Look, I’m sorry to cut you off, but this unfortunately is not our jurisdiction. I suggest you go back to the sheriff if she doesn’t turn up soon. She can bring us in if it turns out to be a kidnapping or anything like that. Now, if you will excuse us, ladies, we have a lot of work to do.”

  Buck walked over and opened the door for them.

  Sue glanced at the hole in the wall and looked at Hayley. She obviously didn’t like the idea of leaving these two FBI agents alone in the house with all that money.

  As Sue followed Hayley past Buck and out the door, she stopped and whispered in his ear, “If I read that there was less than eight hundred gees found at this house, then I’ll know you skimmed some for yourself, and you can be sure I’ll make the biggest stink the FBI has ever seen!”

  Buck shook his head and slammed the door behind them.

  Outside, Hayley’s mind raced.

  She couldn’t just wait and do nothing.

  She had to somehow find Liddy.

  Sue, reading Hayley’s worried face, put a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Don’t worry. We’ll find her. I’m going to head back to my bar now and relieve your friend Mona. She’s been covering for me almost two hours. Can I drop you somewhere?”

  “The sheriff’s office,” Hayley said, determined. “She can’t ignore me forever.”

  They jumped into Sue’s car and drove the few blocks to the police station. Hayley told Sue to give Mona the message to call Corey and have him drive her back to the cabin just in case Liddy had somehow magically returned and was looking for them. She would grab a cab and meet Mona back there when she was finished with the sheriff.

  When Hayley walked into the station, receptionist Billy was preoccupied pounding his fist against the glass of a snack vending machine that had just eaten his coins. He didn’t notice her so she seized the opportunity to slip past him and down the hall to Sheriff Daphne’s office.

  She found the sheriff talking on the phone.

  “Yes, sir, I understand. This is a very delicate situation. There will not be any leaks coming from the local police, you can be sure of that!”

  She noticed Hayley standing in the doorway, and she grimaced.

  “Yes, sir, good-bye, sir,” she said into the phone before hanging up. She stared at Hayley, trying to stay calm. “That was the mayor. He was bringing me up to speed on everything. Apparently, he was just contacted by the director of the FBI. Can you believe that? Our little small-town mayor on the phone with the head cheese of the FBI!”

  “Sounds like a very big deal,” Hayley said.

  “It is! Nothing this exciting has ever happened in Salmon Cove. It seems we have a big-city mobster right out of Goodfellas hiding out in our midst!”

  “You don’t say,” Hayley said, stone-faced.

  “Yes, it turns out Rufus, the town drunk, is really Enos O’Shannon, who has been on the run from the feds for ten years to escape racketeering and murder charges. Who would have guessed little old soused Rufus would be on the FBI’s Most Wanted List?”

  “Sounds crazy,” Hayley said, playing along.

  “But you already know all this, don’t you?”

  Hayley’s whole body tensed.

  “According to the mayor, who was told directly by the director of the FBI, you were found by two of his field agents at Rufus’s house with all the evidence not to mention four bags stuffed with cash.”

  Hayley knew she had to defend herself. “I didn’t break in because I was with Sue, who is the executor of Rufus’s estate and—”

  “I don’t care!” Daphne blurted out, interrupting her. “Do you hear me? I don’t care! If I wanted to, I could arrest you all over again! You are a menace to this town, and you just won’t leave anything alone, and I am damn sick of it! I am sick of you disrupting things! This is my town and I will not put up with this anymore!”

  “This isn’t your town! You don’t own it or its people! You are here to protect and serve not bully and intimidate! Go ahead! Arrest me again! Show everybody how strong you are, how in control you are, how you rule this town with an iron fist! Who are you trying to impress? If it’s Corey Guildford, trust me, this isn’t the way to go about it!”

  Daphne sat back in her chair, stunned.

  She hadn’t expected Hayley to come back at her so aggressively.

  And she certainly didn’t expect her to utter the name Corey Guildford.

  “I know all about your unrequited love for Corey, and I honestly might think it was cute if you weren’t so consumed with jealousy! How dare you abuse your power as the sworn-in sheriff of Salmon Cove to scare us out of town just so the object of your affection would be out of reach for my friend Mona! Well, for your information, Mona is married and totally loyal to her family, and so even if she did harbor feelings for Corey, and we both know he certainly harbors feelings for her, she poses no threat to you!”

  Daphne stood up, eyes blazing with anger, staring Hayley down.

  “You can flash your badge all you want, write as many tickets as you can, or toss me and my friends back in jail, but that’s never going to make Corey love you!”

  Hayley braced herself.

  Daphne stood stoic for a few moments, but then her lip began to quiver.

  No one had probably confronted her head-on like this ever before.

  And Hayley half expected her to lunge across her desk and wrap her big strong hands around her throat and squeeze the life out of her.

  But she didn’t.

  She just stood there, fighting back her emotions.

  “Please, Sheriff Wilkes, I’m desperate. I know something bad has happened to my friend and I need your help!”

  Daphne sat back down, plucked a tissue out of a box, and wiped her eyes before balling it up and tossing it in the trash can next to the desk. And then, finally, she looked up at Hayley and said, mustering as much professionalism as possible, “Tell me again when you last saw her.”

  Island Food & Spirits by Hayley Powell

  The first summer after my divorce I decided it might be a good idea to take the kids on a weekend getaway. It had been a particularly rough and busy couple of months for all of us dealing with life without a husband and father in the house, and I wanted to make sure the kids were adjusting well with all the big, monumental changes so I planned a mini vacation of hiking and swimming in Southern Maine near the coastal town of Kennebunkport. I found a quaint little hotel with a swimming pool on the outskirts of town. The kids were ecstatic. We had barely walked into our room before they were changed into their bathing suits and racing for a dip in the pool. I was happy to be left on my own to stretch out on the bed and dive into the new Lisa Jackson novel I was dying to read before dinner.

  Later that evening, as we walked the short distance to a local favorite seafood restaurant the desk clerk had told us about, Gemma was still chattering on and on about the impossibly cute boy her age she had met at the pool that afternoon. Dustin hung back, rolling his eyes, speaking volumes with his facial expressions. He was not as impressed.

  After the hostess seated us and Gemma was still talking about “Hot Sean,” I knew I was going to need a stiff cocktail. One stood out on the menu, a delectable-sounding chilled rum and orange juice cocktail called Mountain Sunset. It was a done deal. We ordered a round of Lobster-Stuffed Mushrooms for our appetizer, and Dustin and I devoured the whole plate because Gemma was too busy talking to put anything in her mouth. When she noticed the empty plate, she insisted we order another round, which we did in ad
dition to another Mountain Sunset Cocktail for Mother, because I knew in my gut we were in for a long, chatty night.

  By the time our entrees arrived, Gemma dropped the bomb that “Hot Sean” had invited us all to go boating with him and his father the following day.

  I noticed Dustin shaking his head vigorously from side to side, making clear his wishes, and counting on me to put a stop to this crazy idea right now. He knew I had been making a concerted effort to keep him happy during this difficult time of upheaval, and was not above using that to get what he wanted.

  “Gemma, I’m sure your new friend meant well, but his father probably won’t appreciate him inviting total strangers on a boating trip,” I said.

  She was ready for that one.

  “No, his father was there when he invited us! He encouraged the whole thing! And FYI, mother, Sean’s dad is a total hunk! Plus, he’s recently divorced, just like you!”

  The last thing I needed in my life at that point was a fix-up. But Gemma was so excited, and Dustin needed to learn a lesson about not always getting his own way, so after one more sip of my Mountain Sunset Cocktail, I sighed and said, “Okay, let’s do it.”

  Dustin was apoplectic. He had visions of hanging by the pool the whole weekend and playing video games on his phone. This was not part of the plan! But I had visions too. Baking in the sun with lots of wine and cheese on board a beautiful yacht sailing around the harbor off Kennebunkport. You certainly couldn’t beat that!

  Gemma gave me the cell number of Sean’s father, Dave, after we returned to the room, and I called him to confirm the details. He sounded very pleasant, with a deep, masculine voice, which I hate to admit, sent shivers up my spine. Dave gave me an address for our GPS and told us to be there at eight in the morning. After I hung up, I kept picturing my TV crush Mark Harmon on the other end of the phone and I melted.

  No! Stop it, Hayley! I said to myself. The last thing I needed or wanted in my life was a relationship with a man because now was the time to focus on the kids and myself.

  The following day, as I punched the address into our car’s GPS, I was a little surprised to see we would be heading north away from the coast. But I didn’t question it. We ended up driving forty-five minutes until we pulled up to the side of the Kennebec River. Suddenly my stomach started to churn as I realized what was happening. We weren’t going sailing along the coast in a yacht. We were going white-water rafting!