Berried at Sea

by Peg Cochran

  “I imagine she must be on your suspect list then,” Greg said, hiding his smile by taking a sip of his wine.

  “She was.” Monica sighed. “But she seems to have an alibi of sorts.”

  Greg looked surprised. “Really? What?”

  “The night of our wedding, Gina had invited Xavier to come for dinner and spend the night. She had all sorts of special things planned, like caviar and some fancy dessert with chocolate truffle sauce. But Xavier begged off saying he didn’t feel well and thought it would be better if he went home.”

  Monica opened the oven door and peeked inside. The potpie was beginning to turn slightly golden and bubble around the edges.

  “Tempest happened to pass Xavier’s house the next morning and saw Victoria getting into Xavier’s car. It seemed apparent that she’d spent the night.”

  “How does Tempest know Victoria?”

  “Victoria had been in Twilight at some point. Tempest remembered her because her check bounced.” Monica opened a drawer and took out a handful of cutlery.

  “Let me do that.” Greg held out his hand for the forks and knives.

  Monica handed them to him. “When I spoke to Victoria—”

  Greg stopped what he was doing and looked at Monica, his eyebrows raised.

  Monica felt her face flushing, and she quickly opened the oven and pretended to peer inside.

  “Victoria was obviously furious with Laszlo,” she said under cover of the oven door. “But she also said that if she’d been the one to kill him it would have been with a gun and not a knife. I guess she was telling the truth.”

  • • •

  Monica got to the farm kitchen early the next morning. She was pleased to see that she’d even managed to beat Kit, who was obviously a habitual early riser. It had taken all of her willpower to throw back the down comforter her mother had given them for a wedding present and leave her cozy bed where she’d been snuggled so contentedly next to Greg’s warm body.

  But guilt had driven her out of bed and into the shower an hour earlier than usual. She’d been leaving way too much of the baking to Kit. The last thing she wanted was for him to feel overworked and quit.

  “Good morning, sunshine,” Kit said when he arrived five minutes later. “I’m surprised to see you here so early.”

  Monica felt a renewed stab of guilt. “I thought I’d get a start on the scones. They’ve been selling very well lately. Nora said she’s usually out of them by noon.”

  She smiled at Kit as he unzipped a navy blue hoodie. He was wearing skinny jeans that were so tight Monica couldn’t imagine how he got them on, a plaid shirt with every last button buttoned right up to his Adam’s apple, and a pair of black high-top sneakers.

  “Your cranberry walnut chocolate chip muffins were also a hit, Nora said. Let’s keep them on the menu.”

  “I’ll get started on a batch right now,” Kit said, slipping the strap of his apron over his head.

  Monica had the first batch of scones in the oven when the door burst open. She looked up, surprised. They rarely ever had any visitors at the farm kitchen.

  Jeff was standing in the doorway holding up his right hand. Even from a distance Monica could see it was bleeding heavily.

  “What happened?” She dropped her rolling pin and rushed over to him.

  Jeff scowled. “I’ve managed to give myself a nasty cut. Mauricio and I were repairing some machinery and I didn’t even realize it had happened until I saw the blood.”

  “Let me look at it.”

  Monica took Jeff’s hand in hers and peered at the cut. The laceration appeared to be quite deep and fresh dirt clung to Jeff’s palm.

  “First off, you need to wash your hand,” Monica said, leading him over to the sink.

  “Do you have any disinfectant?” Jeff said.

  “I’m afraid not. I keep meaning to put together a proper first aid kit to keep here but somehow I still haven’t gotten around to it.”

  Jeff turned on the tap. He grimaced as he held his hand under the running water.

  “I think you should have that looked at,” Monica said. “It might need stitching.”

  “There’s one of those doc-in-the-box places out by the highway,” Kit said, joining them at the sink. “It’s not far. Maybe fifteen or twenty minutes from here.”

  “It’s only a little cut,” Jeff protested. “I’ll put a bandage over it and get back to work.”

  “I’d be happier if you put some disinfectant on that,” Monica said. She bit her lower lip. “I don’t like the looks of it. If it gets infected, you’ll lose a lot more than a couple of hours of work.”

  Jeff scowled. “I don’t have time to run into town to the drugstore. I’ll just put a bandage over it for now and take care of it later. I want to get that beater repaired so we can start on the last bog. It’s already been flooded so it shouldn’t take too long.”

  “I’ll go get some disinfectant for you.” Monica began to untie her apron. She turned to Kit with a rueful smile. “You don’t mind, do you?”

  “Not a bit. You run along. I’ll be fine.”

  Monica grabbed her purse and fished out her keys as she walked back toward her cottage, where her car was still parked in the driveway. It didn’t take her long to drive into town, although she had to circle the block twice before scoring a parking spot along Beach Hollow Road.

  The space was in front of Gumdrops, and as Monica got out of the car she noticed Hennie in the window waving to her. She waved back and began to walk briskly down the sidewalk. A sweater in Danielle’s Boutique caught her eye and she slowed her step briefly to look at it even though she knew she couldn’t afford it. Wealthy tourists were the only ones who could pay the prices the store charged.

  Despite the fact that she’d recently had breakfast, Monica found her mouth watering when the scent of bacon frying emanating from the diner reached her. She dashed across the street, startled when a Prius coming along honked at her indignantly. Monica waved an apology as she reached the safety of the sidewalk.

  A large Sale sign was propped in the drugstore window where the remains of their summer stock was displayed—brightly colored inner tubes, blow-up rafts, swimming goggles and bottles of suntan lotion.

  Monica hurried inside and began walking the aisles searching for the first aid products. She found them on a shelf a few feet beyond a display of bobbing balloons and a helium tank.

  There were a number of products to choose from. She scanned the labels quickly looking for the most potent disinfectant she could find. She hadn’t liked the look of that cut on Jeff’s hand one bit.

  Her hand was hovering between two products when someone bumped into her.

  “Excuse me,” a female voice said.

  “No problem,” Monica said over her shoulder. She was about to turn back to the display when she realized it was Detective Stevens.

  “Oh, hello,” Monica said. She gestured to the shelf behind her. “I’m picking up some disinfectant. I really need to put together a proper first aid kit.”

  Stevens brandished a small bottle with a medicine dropper top. “I’m hoping this will allow me to get some sleep. The pharmacist said it ought to help with the baby’s teething pains. Heavens knows I’ve tried everything else from frozen washcloths to rubbing whiskey on his gums.”

  “Is there anything new on the Laszlo case? I know you can’t really talk about it,” Monica said in a rush.

  “That Laszlo was a nasty character,” Stevens said. “It’s hard not to think he got his just comeuppance. But no one has the right to take another’s life, so we plod on.”

  “I understand his first wife died rather tragically.”

  Stevens’s brows quirked up. “Yes. She drowned. We had our suspicions but . . .” She shrugged.

  “The first wife’s sister seems to think that Laszlo had something to do with her death.”

  “Oh, her.” Stevens rolled her eyes. “She made quite the nuisance of herself at the time. Mind you, we had our
suspicions too, but we will never be able to prove anything. Laszlo had great cunning. I’ll give him that.”

  “Do you think Mattie finally snapped? And decided to take the law into her own hands?”

  Stevens looked startled. “There’s no evidence of that. Mattie did try to run him off the road once. He ended up with a nasty bump on his head and a bent frame on his very fancy Beamer. I don’t know which upset him more.” Stevens sighed. “In the end he refused to press charges, insisted it was an accident. We couldn’t prove otherwise so it became an issue for the insurance company, not us.” She held her hands out palms up.

  “Does this mean that you won’t be holding Andrea Laszlo under arrest any longer?”

  Monica knew she was going too far and wasn’t surprised when Stevens refused to answer.

  “I’m afraid that’s a question I’m not at liberty to answer.”

  • • •

  Monica drove back to the farm with her head swimming. She wasn’t ready to dismiss Mattie Crawford as a suspect as quickly and easily as Stevens apparently had. Believing that Laszlo had killed her sister gave her a powerful motive for hating him. And her behavior indicated that she was impulsive and apt to act recklessly.

  Monica pulled into the small parking lot in front of the farm store. It was closer to the farm kitchen than her cottage was. She gathered up her shopping bag with the disinfectant she’d bought along with a box of bandages of assorted sizes, some gauze and first aid tape.

  Kit was alone sweeping the floor of the kitchen when Monica got back.

  “Where’s Jeff?” Monica said as she looked around.

  Kit jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “He said he couldn’t wait. He wants to get that last bog finished before sundown.”

  “You mean he’s gone back to work?”

  “I tried to persuade him to wait but he was having none of it.” Kit grabbed the dustpan and began sweeping up the pile of dust at his feet.

  Monica groaned. “I wanted to put some disinfectant on that cut. I guess I’ll have to go to him. I’ll be right back,” Monica called over her shoulder as the door closed behind her.

  The ground was muddy and Monica was glad she was wearing old shoes as she wound her way along the drainage ditches that bordered the bogs. The water was murky and dried leaves floated on top. She could see Jeff and his crew in the distance. They were clustered together at the edge of the bog. The pump truck was silent, and it looked as if they were taking a break.

  The berries were in the process of being harvested. The men had used the boom to corral them to the far corner of the bog where, once the men started back to work, they would be sucked out of the bog by the pump truck. The berries had looked like a carpet of jewel-like ruby red from a distance, but up close Monica could see the differences in color of the individual berries—from the deepest red to pale pink to white.

  A loud flapping noise startled her, and she watched as a loon took off from the water, soaring over the trees that surrounded the bog and uttering its haunting cry.

  Monica stepped on a twig and it cracked loudly. The men’s conversation ended abruptly and they turned in her direction. She held out the bag from the drugstore.

  “I’ve brought the disinfectant and some bandages,” she said.

  One of the men laughed, showing nicotine-stained teeth. “You’ve got your own Florence Nightingale, Jeff.” He punched Jeff on the shoulder.

  Jeff had made a clumsy bandage out of a piece of clean cloth torn from an old shirt, which he’d wrapped around his hand several times. Monica set her bag down on a tree stump and took Jeff’s hand in hers. She carefully unwound the cloth—it was sticking to the wound—and winced when she saw the depth of the cut.

  “I really wish you’d get this seen to, but I know you won’t listen to me.”

  Jeff laughed. “You know me too well.” His expression turned serious. “Please don’t tell Gina about it, okay? She’d be fussing and flapping around me until the darn thing’s healed.”

  “My lips are sealed,” Monica said as she squeezed antibiotic ointment onto Jeff’s hand. She bit her lip. “Does that hurt?”

  “Are you kidding? Do you have any idea what I went through in Afghanistan,” Jeff said, and his crew members laughed.

  “Jeff’s one tough guy,” the crew member Monica had seen talking to Eddie said.

  He now had on a red knit cap with some sort of patch sewed to the front. Monica thought she recognized the logo of a local sports team. He was holding a cigarette between his thumb and forefinger and had a travel mug of coffee in the other hand.

  Monica put the cap back on the tube of ointment and returned it to the bag. She got out the box of bandages and ran her thumb under the flap to open it. There were bandages of every size and shape. She chose a large square that she thought would cover most of Jeff’s palm.

  “Thanks, sis,” Jeff said when she was done. “Good as new.” He smiled at her then turned to his crew. “Back to work, guys. Let’s get these berries harvested in time to hit up Flynn’s for a nice cold beer before dinner.”

  The guys laughed and began shuffling toward the bog.

  The fellow in the red cap dropped his cigarette on the ground and ground it out with the toe of his work boot. He must have noticed Monica watching him.

  “Bad habit.” He smiled, revealing a dimple in his left cheek that gave him an appealingly boyish look.

  “Expensive, too,” Monica said with an answering smile.

  He shrugged. “Cigs are a lot less expensive in Indiana.” He must have noticed Monica’s confused expression. “It’s the tax. The tax is a lot higher in Michigan than Indiana and that drives the cost up.”

  Monica tilted her head to one side. “So you drive to Indiana to buy cigarettes? What about the cost of gas?” She couldn’t imagine being so addicted to something that she would go that far out of her way to procure it.

  The fellow threw back his head and laughed. “If I had to drive to Indiana, sure, it wouldn’t be worth it. But I had this fellow who imported cigarettes, I guess you’d call it, from our friendly Hoosiers next door. I’d put in my order and get them from him.” He frowned. “The poor guy got himself murdered, if you can believe it.” He mimed holding a knife over his head and slashing down with it. “He was the fellow they found floating facedown in that drifting boat.” He shook his head. “Fortunately I’ve found someone else willing to keep me supplied.”

  “Have you thought about quitting?” Monica said with a smile, suspecting she already knew the answer.

  “Sure. I plan to. As soon as I’m ready.”

  A shout came from the farther end of the bog and the fellow spun around.

  “That’s the boss. Time to get back to work.”

  • • •

  Monica walked back down the dirt path toward the farm kitchen. The pump truck had started up again and she could hear it sucking the berries out of the bog. The men’s shouted instructions to each other floated toward her on the air, growing faint as she moved farther away.

  So Laszlo had been involved in what was essentially cigarette smuggling. Monica didn’t know much about it, but she remembered reading an article about it in the paper once. It was a lucrative business with plenty of opportunities to make money. Obviously Laszlo was operating on a bigger scale than simply a couple of cartons here and there. Did it have anything to do with his death or was this simply a red herring?

  Monica wondered if Andrea knew. She couldn’t believe Andrea would be involved in something illegal—it wasn’t like her. Not that she knew her all that well, Monica realized. Perhaps something had happened to cause Andrea to change. Maybe Laszlo had had something to do with it.

  Monica thought back to her conversation with Andrea when they’d found that picture of Victoria Cortez in Laszlo’s desk drawer. Andrea had said something about there not being as much money in their investment accounts as she’d expected.

  If Laszlo’s investment business wasn’t doing well, the idea of turning
to smuggling cigarettes might have seemed very attractive. Perhaps it was time she had another conversation with Andrea. Andrea might know more than she realized.

  But now, she had to get back to work. She’d been relying on Kit far too much lately. She’d been impressed by his initiative in creating those new muffins for them to sell. Nora had said that they’d been a big success as soon as she’d put them out and had suggested that they make even more of them. Monica realized she hadn’t tried creating anything new in ages. When she’d owned her small breakfast café in Chicago, she’d experimented on a regular basis. Her customers had loved her baked goods, but it had been impossible for her to compete when a chain coffee bar had opened up down the street, so she’d closed up and moved to Cranberry Cove.

  It had been in the back of her mind for a while to create some sort of breakfast bar that would be healthy and tasty and easy to eat in the car or while at work. She thought cranberries, walnuts and oats would be the perfect combination.

  Kit was taking a batch of cranberry banana bread out of the oven. The delicious smells greeted Monica when she opened the door.

  “That smells heavenly,” she said. “I realize I haven’t had any lunch yet. No wonder my stomach is grumbling.”

  Monica opened the refrigerator and poked around until she found the wedge of cheese she’d stashed in there. She had a box of crackers in the cupboard. Crackers and cheese would have to be her lunch today.

  “You’ve been working so hard,” she said to Kit as she sliced some of the cheddar. “Why don’t you take the afternoon off?”

  A look of pleasure washed over Kit’s face. “Are you sure? You’ll be okay by yourself?”

  “I’ll be fine,” Monica assured him. “Most of the day’s baking is already done, and we’re caught up on our cranberry salsa orders.”

  “If you insist,” Kit said, already untying his apron. “I have some errands to run in town. Is there anything I can pick up for you?”

  “Nothing I can think of, but thanks for offering.”