by Blythe Baker
“Hey, Pipes,” she said, calling me by the nickname she’d christened me with (without my consent) the first time we’d met. “Those guests eating you out of house and home again?”
“They each ate way more than their fair share of syrup,” I said.
“We have regular and lite syrup on the shelves near the oatmeal, but we also have maple syrup in the glass jars in the organic section,” she said. “Though, I’d imagine those are a bit expensive to serve to the bed and breakfasters. My husband doesn’t think anyone should spend ten dollars on syrup, but it tastes so much better. Have you ever been to Vermont? We went there for vacation—before the kids, of course—and stayed at a little inn that served the fluffiest buttermilk waffles you’ve ever seen and had the fanciest syrups. Blueberry and raspberry syrup! Have you ever heard of such a thing? But their maple syrup was to die for. I bought a bottle from the chef before we left. It cost me fifteen dollars, but it was amazing. I still have the glass bottle. It was shaped like a Maple leaf. Mabel puts her marbles in it. HA! That sounds like a tongue twister.”
Her words washed over me like a tidal wave—too large to swim, so I let the current take me away—and I smiled and nodded as I raided the store’s supply of syrup. I opted for five bottles of regular and three of lite.
I gathered the bottles precariously in my arms and waddled to the front of the store where I unloaded them on the table between a rack of lighters with seascapes painted on the sides and several boxes of fifty cent gum.
“Is this everything?” she asked, already scanning the syrup.
I almost nodded yes when I remembered the butter. “Oh, shoot. No,” I said, turning and jogging towards the refrigerated section. “I forgot the butter.”
“We have sticks of butter next to the cream cheese or the vegetable oil knock off stuff next to the shredded cheese. Personally? I like the sticks of butter. I know they say it’s bad for your health and such, but it can’t be worse for me than the thousand and one ingredients they use to make that Frankenstein butter. You know? Of course, no offense if that’s the kind of butter you like to use. Everyone has their own preference.”
I grabbed a tub of the “Frankenstein butter,” as Katie had so succinctly called it, and walked back to the register.
“Now are you sure this is everything?” she asked again, a laugh in her voice.
I nodded. “Positive.”
By some kind of miracle, Katie rang up the rest of my items, bagged them, and accepted my card without any conversation. I was beginning to think I would make it out of the store without being pulled into one of her tirades. However, just as I looped the plastic bag handles over my wrists and lifted them off the register, she spoke.
“You know, I actually had a guy come in here yesterday just before closing. His card was declined and he wanted me to give him a pack of cigarettes for free. He tried buttering me up, but I’m married, you know, and I don’t go around flirting with strange men. So obviously, I told him I couldn’t do that. Then he asked to use the phone. It’s supposed to be only for employees and never for personal calls, but I was afraid to tell him no again, so I let him. Whoever he called didn’t pick up, but he left a message. He was talking really quietly, and I tried to listen in, but I could only catch bits and pieces. It had something to do with a bank account—probably in relation to his card being declined—and getting a boat in the morning.” She stopped and rolled her eyes. “When he hung up the phone, I told him the ferry was free and he didn’t need any money to ride it, but you know what he did? He gave me a real nasty look and told me to mind my own business. Not a nice man. Not a nice man at all.”
“Did you catch who he was?” I asked, wondering whether it wasn’t the same guy we’d kicked out of the bed and breakfast the day before.
“I think he had brown hair, but it was hard to tell because he had a baseball cap on. I should have known he would be rude when he first walked in. No gentleman wears a ball cap inside. My husband is coaching my youngest son’s tee ball team, and one of the first things he taught them was to remove their hat indoors and when the National Anthem plays. Of course, they don’t play the National Anthem at Tee Ball games, but still, it’s a good lesson to learn.”
It was clear I’d lost Katie to another tangent, and I wasn’t going to get much more information out of her, so I quickly grabbed my bags and began moving towards the door, smiling and nodding as she spoke. As soon as she paused for a breath, I wished her a good day and ducked out onto the sidewalk.
As soon as the door shut behind me, I turned and crashed into a large, solid man, and stumbled backwards, catching myself on the doorframe.
“So sorry,” I said, righting myself.
“I think I can manage to forgive you,” a low, smooth voice said.
I looked up into Jude’s square face.
“Oh, hi,” I said, relieved it was someone I knew. “I guess I ought to look out where I’m going.”
He shrugged. “Trust me, there are worse things than running into a Lane girl on the street.”
I blushed and felt ashamed of myself. Not only was Jude the first guy my sister had shown any interest in since her divorce, but Mason was the guy who was supposed to make me blush.
“What brings you to our island’s most popular one stop shop?” I asked, gesturing to the general store window, which also advertised for a hardware store located at the back of the building.
He smiled, and his perfectly white teeth actually glinted in the sunshine. “Just picking up a few things.”
“You are so mysterious,” I said, narrowing my eyes at him.
“Am I?”
I nodded and pursed my lips. “Page said you left because you had ‘business to attend to,’ and now you are just ‘picking up a few things.’ It’s tough to get a straight answer out of you.”
“You two were talking about me?” he asked, a mischievous smile spreading across his face.
Oh no. Was that the wrong thing to say? Had I made Page look desperate by admitting that we’d talked about him? She would kill me if she knew I was talking to him about her. Worse yet, she’d kill me if she knew I was talking to him at all while, at the same time, being incapable of ignoring how incredibly handsome he was.
“There you go again,” I joked. “Changing the subject.”
He was about to respond with what I’m sure would have been a witty response, but the General Store door opened and Katie stuck her long, thin neck through the opening.
“They found a body,” she said, breathless.
The words stuck in my throat, though I hadn’t been the one to speak them. Suddenly, it felt as if I’d tried to swallow an entire sleeve of salty crackers without a drop of water.
“A body?” Jude repeated, asking the question I was too afraid to, his brown eyes going dark, indistinguishable from his pupils.
Katie nodded. “I just heard it on the police scanner in the store. Boss says the scanner is a distraction and pointless because the island is small enough that everyone knows what’s going on within a few minutes of it happening anyway, but I like to keep it nearby just in case something ever happens at my house or at the daycare where my kids go—”
“Katie!” I shouted, finding my voice, unable to take another second of Katie’s ramblings about anything and everything but the topic at hand. “What were you saying about a body?”
She looked startled by my outburst, but finally began relaying what little information she’d gathered from the scanner.
“A jet skier found a body in one of the caves along the shoreline on the east side of the island. He rode back to the Marina and called it in to the police.”
Jude’s face had gone white while Katie was talking and it looked as though he might pass out. I reached out a hand to touch his shoulder, steady him.
“What’s going on?”
I whipped around, startled by the sudden voice, to find Mason turning the corner, a giant roll of canvas under his arm and a box of paints in the other.
His eyes were darting suspiciously between me and Jude, and I instinctively dropped my hand from his shoulder.
“A body was found on the beach,” Katie said eagerly. She might as well have been an old-time newspaper boy shouting about breaking news on the street corner. EXTRA! EXTRA! READ ALL ABOUT IT!
“Who is it?” Mason asked, moving closer to me, wedging himself between me and Jude. “Are you alright, Piper?”
“I’m fine. It doesn’t have anything to do with me,” I said, grateful that there was finally a body with no connection to me or my family or my business.
Just as that thought crossed my mind, though, I remembered what Katie had said.
“You said the police were going to the Marina?”
Katie nodded. “They’re going to make it their headquarters since it’s so close to where the body was found.”
I sighed. “Blaire is at the Marina with Matthew. I should go check on her and see if she needs a ride home.”
Jude had barely said two words since Katie had delivered the news about the body, and he looked stricken, like he’d eaten some bad shrimp and was moments away from spewing everywhere.
“Are you okay?” I asked him. “Do you need a ride anywhere?”
“I can take you anywhere you need to go, man,” Mason said, jumping in to help. Though his offer was kind, I had a feeling it had a lot more to do with me than it did with wanting to help Jude. Especially since, up until a few seconds before, he’d never seen Jude in his life.
Jude shook his head. “No, I’m fine. Just surprised is all.”
“At the rate bodies keep popping up around here, it would be more surprising if they hadn’t found a body,” Katie said with a laugh.
Upon seeing my face, though, she sobered. “Sorry.”
It seemed Katie did have at least a modicum of self-control.
“I need to get going,” Jude said, glancing down at his watch and then taking off down the street without waiting for anyone to respond.
“He seemed kind of weird,” Mason said, whispering in my ear.
“He’s a very nice guy,” I said. “He was just in shock.”
Mason nodded, but I could see the hurt flare up behind his eyes. I knew he was being ridiculous—Jude was interested in Page, and I would never do anything to hurt my sister—but he didn’t know that. We hadn’t exactly set the parameters of our relationship, anyway. For all Mason knew, we weren’t exclusive and I’d been dating around behind his back.
“Most people aren’t accustomed to finding dead bodies at the rate we are,” I said, nudging him with my elbow, trying to make light of what was a very heavy situation.
Mason gave me a half-hearted smile. “Do you want me to go to the Marina with you?”
“No, it’s okay. You seem pretty busy,” I said, gesturing to the painting supplies in his arms, “and I’m just going to swing by and check on Blaire before heading back to the B&B.”
“I don’t mind,” he said. “I just had to make a run for more supplies. I have some time.”
“Really, Mason,” I said, running my hand down his forearm, trying to convey to him how okay we were. “It will take a few minutes and I’ll be home again. It wouldn’t be worth your time.”
He shrugged. “If you’re sure.”
“I am,” I said.
We looked at each other for a second, unspoken words flowing between us. Then, someone cleared their throat.
At the same time, Mason and I turned to find Katie still standing in the doorway of the General Store, staring at us blankly as though she were watching a television show. I raised my eyebrows at her, and it took her a few seconds, but she seemed to awaken, as if from a dream, and look away.
“Oh, um, sorry,” she said, pivoting away from us. “I’ll leave you two be. I hope Blaire is alright, Piper. And Mason…well, bye.”
After she left and the door slammed closed behind her, the bell hanging inside the door tinkling softly, Mason finally smiled a real smile. “That was the first time I’ve ever seen Katie not know what to say.”
“Apparently all it takes is a really awkward moment and a good dose of shame,” I joked.
Mason kissed me once, quickly, and then walked down the street to his car. I watched him go until I began to feel like an overly dramatic character in a romance movie, and got into my own car, throwing the syrup and butter in the backseat.
Despite knowing I was going down to the Marina just to check on Blaire and leave again, something about being so close to the active investigation of yet another body on Sunrise Island made me uncomfortable. I didn’t want to be involved, and I certainly didn’t want to see another corpse. My body felt tense, ready for anything, but I was trying desperately to convince my nervous system that it didn’t need to worry. The Marina was just going to be a stop on my way home. I was going to spend the afternoon making beds, cleaning bathrooms, and prepping breakfast for the next morning. Nothing weird or murderous would happen at all. I was certain of it.
CHAPTER 7
The Marina was usually rather busy. Anyone who lived on the island typically did so, in part, because of the direct access to water they had, so the residents and visitors to Sunrise Island frequented the Marina to check out jet skis and tubes or to dock their own boats. Today, though, the place was flooded with people.
Cars were parked in the lot, but also all down the road leading to the Marina, and many people were on foot. People in dark blue uniforms and matching hats, clearly having something to do with the investigation, were carrying large plastic cases towards the shore. Small clusters of men in fishing hats and carrying tackle boxes stood against the Marina wall, checking their watches and shaking their heads.
I stopped my car in the driveway and got out.
“You can’t park there,” one of the fishermen said, exasperated.
“I’m just running inside for a second,” I said.
“No, you’re not. They aren’t letting anyone take any boats in or out,” he said.
I smiled at him as I passed by. “I’m not here for a boat.”
He called after me as I walked through the Marina’s main office door. “You still can’t park there.”
The sheriff, Shep, was leaning against the wall, looking tired. He tipped his hat towards me as I walked in. Blaire was sitting behind the main receptionist desk, Matthew right beside her, the phone pressed to his ear.
“I don’t know what’s going on,” he said. “But I need you or dad to come down here right now.”
As I walked in, he gave me a weary smile that quickly fell to an annoyed grimace. “I don’t think the police care that you have a hair appointment,” he said.
Blaire stood up and walked around the desk to me.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, talking in a whisper, though I didn’t know why.
“It’s lovely to see you, too, dear niece,” I joked.
She tilted her head to the side, clearly already annoyed with my presence.
“I heard they found a body, so I came down to make sure you were okay.”
“Did you think I was dead or something? Because you don’t seem nearly relieved enough to see me alive and well, if that were the case. Also, since when do you have a police scanner?”
I explained everything to her, Katie, the General Store, Jude and Mason.
“Wow,” she said when I was done. “It’s a miracle you made it here so quickly. Katie never shuts up.”
“That’s not nice,” I said, reprimanding her, though I couldn’t tell her it wasn’t true. I was still surprised I’d made it in and out of the store within twenty minutes. “What’s going on here?”
She sighed. “We don’t know. There’s a body, but they aren’t telling us anything else because they want to speak to an adult. Matthew is eighteen, but that doesn’t seem to mean much to them because he’s still in high school. Though,” she said, raising her voice and angling her head towards Shep, “LEGALLY he is an adult.”
I smiled an
apology at Shep and he gave me a knowing look that said something along the lines of, “teenagers, am I right?”
“Then call dad!” Matthew shouted into the phone. “This is your business, and the police are here asking for you. They won’t talk to me. Figure it out amongst yourselves.”
He slammed the phone down into the receiver and then looked up at Shep, a false smile dripping from his lips. “They will be here shortly.”
Shep nodded and turned towards me. “I’d actually like to talk to you when you have a minute. I’ll wait outside.”
He left and Blaire followed him with her eyes, mouth hanging open.
“How is it that everyone is always willing to talk to you, but they won’t give us the time of day? Matthew works here and I spend most of my time here, but somehow, we are further down on the totem pole than you are? How is that fair?”
“You don’t even know what he wants to say to me. It could be about anything,” I said.
“Not likely. You always have your hand in the murder investigations around here. So not fair.”
I wanted to remind Blaire that my life had been threatened on more than one occasion, that I’d had to kill a man to save my own skin, and that I’d never asked for any of this. I wanted to tell her how tired I was of the non-stop excitement and chaos. I just wanted to run my business and hang out with my boyfriend, or whatever Mason was to me, and not constantly worry about someone dying. But I didn’t say any of that because, regardless of what Blaire thought, she wasn’t an adult yet. She deserved to be protected, at least for a little while longer.
“Life’s not fair, kid,” I said, reminding myself of my dad. “Do you want a ride home? It looks like things might be a little crazy around here.”
