by Janet Bolin
Haylee and I agreed.
Mona murmured, “Don’t let them accuse that little girl from the bakery of murdering Neil. Cassie, that’s her name. She’s much too tiny.”
I backed away from Mona. “I’m leaving the investigating to the police.” Maybe saying it aloud would make me actually do it.
“Even if that hunk of yours is involved?”
I guessed Mona meant Clay. “How could Clay be involved in Neil’s death? And anyway, Clay’s not mine.”
Mona took a deep breath. “He’s not? Whenever you want to push him my way . . .”
Haylee quickly objected. “She’s not going to. But why would anyone say that Clay had something to do with Neil’s death?”
“Murder.” Mona rolled the rs dramatically. “You might as well call it by its proper name. That new guy in town, Fred Zongassi, found Snoozy Gallagher’s skeleton, right?”
I wasn’t about to tell Mona about Vicki’s interest in Fred. “Yes. Though last I knew, they’re still not certain it was Snoozy.”
Mona shook her head vigorously. “Who else could it be?” She pointed her hand like a gun at my face. “Fred works for Clay. Fred used to live in Elderberry Bay. Check into it. People are saying that Fred had a knock-down, drag-out brawl with Snoozy, and then fled just about the time Snoozy was murdered.”
I resisted pointing a finger back at her. “And you’re saying that Fred murdered Snoozy, buried him, and then came back thirty years later and unburied him? Why would anyone do that?”
Mona tugged at her tight dress. “I’m not saying that’s what happened, but then, the very next day, didn’t Clay dig up the treasure that Snoozy owned?”
Naturally, I had to defend Clay. “It’s not surprising that Fred and Clay both made finds while digging. Clay’s company is the only one around with earth-moving equipment.”
Mona blew at the tip of her finger. “See? That’s exactly what I’m saying. Someone tried to bury Neil in the excavation in your yard. And who can drive those earth movers?” She gave me a triumphant smile. “Clay and his employees. Like Fred.”
It wasn’t nice, but I enjoyed puncturing her theory. “No one used an earth mover to bury Neil. They threw a few shovelfuls of earth over him, that’s all. The murderer could have been anyone who found a convenient hole in the ground.”
Mona ran a hand over a cast-iron garden bench. Every curlicue had been painted a different jewel tone. “Well, maybe Clay somehow knew about the skeleton and the treasure. He’s Fred’s boss, so maybe Clay told Fred where to dig.”
I deflated her theory even more. “The new lodge owner and I were responsible for where Fred and Clay dug on our properties.”
That distracted her. She asked breathlessly, “Have you met the new lodge owner?”
“No,” I answered. “Have you?”
She pouted. “Not yet. But he’s going to need decorating help, and I’m going to make certain that he uses my talents.” She gestured at the merchandise in her crowded shop. “There’s lots more where this came from, and I know just where to find it. At prices that will allow me a decent markup as the designer.”
Clay had told me that he and Ben had restored the lodge, inside and out, to reflect its Victorian origin. The name of Mona’s shop, Country Chic, described her style perfectly, a style that didn’t seem Victorian to me. I asked, “Don’t you think the new owner will have completed the lodge’s interior design by now?”
Mona dismissed that with a wave of her hand. “People can never have enough artwork, and I can teach him how to change it with every season.” Arching her neck, she looked about to burst with a secret she was dying to tell. “He probably needs help with taste. I hear he’s single.” She peered around as if to check for eavesdroppers in the corners of her shop, then shielded one side of her mouth with a hand and whispered, “Widowed.”
I spluttered, “Lots of men have good taste.”
Mona only placed one forefinger against her lips.
Haylee tried, unsuccessfully, to hide a grin. “I wonder if he was around when Snoozy Gallagher died. Maybe he, and not Fred or Clay, had something to do with Snoozy’s death and burial.”
Mona stomped a foot. “Impossible. Whoever killed Snoozy Gallagher must be long dead. If he was alive, would he have left the treasure there all these years? No way.”
I didn’t tell her Clay’s and my theory about ice or floods having shifted the treasure during the years since it was first dumped underneath Blueberry Cottage. I merely answered, “So according to that logic, Fred Zongassi didn’t murder Snoozy.” And Clay had nothing to do with it, either, but I didn’t bother telling her that.
Mona tightened her mouth in a peeved expression.
Haylee came up with another conjecture. “Maybe Snoozy buried the treasure, and someone else found out and demanded to know where it was. Maybe they fought, and Snoozy died.”
Mona flattened that idea with a downward sweep of her hands that threatened a garish purple and orange porcelain Shih Tzu. “That would be stupid, like killing the goose that laid the golden egg.”
I steadied the Shih Tzu. “Stupid happens, especially among thieves and murderers.”
Mona crossed her arms and glared at me. “Stupid is you and Clay digging up that treasure and then giving it away to the cops.”
And finding the treasure, not reporting it, and then being arrested for possessing stolen goods would be . . . what?
“Finders keepers, losers weepers,” Mona parroted in a girlishly high voice.
Haylee glanced at the flower-bedecked clock on Mona’s wall and brought the conversation back to our original question. “So, will Cassie know who made the salads for the picnic?”
“Cassie wrote down the woman’s phone number for me. It should be on my desk.” She glanced toward her office. Her desk had to be underneath those piles of paper.
I asked her, “Do you have any idea how we can reach Cassie now that the bakery is closed?” Tom had pointed out that Cassie could have caught the flu or gone back to Cleveland.
If we managed to get in touch with Cassie and she didn’t know anything about the salads at the picnic, we could at least give her some sympathy about her boss’s death.
“I should have her cell number on my desk, too.” Easing around chairs, tables, trellises, and garden gnomes toward her office, Mona raised her voice so we could hear her. “She said she was staying at Lazy Daze, the campground west of here, a few blocks from the beach, you know, just up the hill from the ice cream stand and on the way to the Elderberry Bay Lodge.” She scrabbled around in her office. Finally, she emerged and made her way back through aisles crowded with merchandise. Head shaking, she handed me two slips of paper that appeared to have been torn from the same notepad. “Here you go. The numbers Cassie wrote down for the salad caterer and for herself. No way Cassie’s a murderer.”
One slip of paper said, Yolanda can make the salads, and gave a phone number. The other said, in the same printing, Cassie, with a different phone number.
We had to admire about ninety more of Mona’s treasures before we left.
We sauntered up the hill toward In Stitches. Haylee said, “I’ve got another fabric saleswoman coming this afternoon, and then I need to bake several dozen cookies. But shall we take a walk on the beach tonight?”
“Great idea. We’ll probably need some ice cream.” The ice cream stand Mona had mentioned sold delicious homemade ice cream. The proprietors had purchased equipment and recipes from the 1940s, and when they said “cream,” they meant it. Ever since Memorial Day weekend, when the stand had opened for the summer, Haylee and I had discovered many reasons to walk the dogs to it.
Haylee grinned. “Yum, yes.”
* * *
AFTER SUPPER, I LEASHED MY DOGS AND TOOK them to the parking lot behind Haylee’s apartment. She made fusses over the wriggling dogs and took Sally’s leash from me.
We could have used roads and sidewalks to get to the ice cream stand, but all four of us preferred exp
loring the beach. We could always return by way of Beach Row and the Lazy Daze campground. The dogs plowed through the soft sand more easily than we did. Finally, we removed our flip-flops and padded along hard, damp sand near the water’s edge.
Sally and Tally seemed to think it was their job to drink all of Lake Erie, and when they weren’t attempting that, they wanted to chase the haughty seagulls stalking along just beyond reach.
The evening sun was warm and relatively high. Although it was Monday, many cottages were obviously in use. Strolling past their backyards made us feel part of the cottage community, which was always fun. A few cottagers waded and played in the shallows. Others tended barbecues on sandy lakeside decks, roasted marshmallows over campfires, or lounged, drinks in hand, in lawn chairs. They called to each other and greeted us. The fronts of those cottages would face Beach Row, which we explored only when blowing sand and spray kept us off the beach.
Sally and Tally watched a border collie stare at a Frisbee its owner held up in one hand. Obviously, Sally and Tally wanted to play with that dog. The border collie, however, saw only the Frisbee and the man about to throw it.
On the way to buy ice cream, I always carried on a debate with myself about flavors. Mint chocolate chip often won, but last time, the ice cream stand’s owners had made sweet woodruff ice cream, flavored by one of their garden herbs. It had been delicious.
I found a flat stone and skipped it. Plop. Well, I tried to skip it. “Maybe they’ll have double dark orange chocolate fudge tonight,” I said.
The ice cream stand was on Beach Row. We turned up a public walkway between two cottages. My bare feet sank into luxuriantly warm sand.
I was thinking, On the other hand, you can’t lose with vanilla . . .
Haylee stopped and grabbed my arm. “Is that them?”
21
“IS THAT VICKI’S SO-CALLED NORSE GOD?” Haylee asked in a sarcastic whisper. “Max? And the woman she saw with him who supposedly looks like me?”
Without thinking, I said, “She does look like you.”
Haylee made a growling sound deep in her throat. Tally couldn’t have sounded more forbidding. “Let’s go. We’ll come back another night.”
“But—” No vanilla or double dark orange chocolate fudge? No mint chip or ginger or pineapple?
Apparently not. Haylee led Sally toward the beach, and Sally was all too willing to take a closer look at seagulls riding the waves. And Tally insisted on keeping up with his sister. I had no choice. Still carrying my flip-flops, I had to go with Tally.
We caught up.
Haylee wasted no time putting distance between us and the people who might be her cousin or cousins, and Sally was probably eager to get home to the kittens she had adopted. We kicked up sand and water.
I puffed, “We’re burning enough calories for double scoops next time.”
Behind me, a man yelled, “Willow!”
I couldn’t help turning around. Max loped toward us. The blond woman jogged easily behind him.
Haylee stood like a statue beside me. The dogs sat at our feet.
Max took off his sunglasses. His wide smile almost outshined the golden sun behind his left shoulder.
He ran closer and stretched his arms out like he was about to hug Haylee. “Auntie Elbow,” he said. “I’ve missed you.”
Auntie Elbow. He had to be Opal’s long-lost nephew. Who else would have known that nickname for Opal? Always liking happy endings, I was excited about the prospect of a reunion between Opal and the nephew she’d loved.
The dogs stood up and wagged their tails.
Haylee spluttered, “Aunt?” Head up, she turned and marched away, taking Sally with her, east down the beach toward home. Sally looked back at Tally and me and whimpered.
Behind me, the woman giggled. I turned around. It was no wonder that Vicki had mistaken her for Haylee. She was a tiny bit shorter than Haylee, and her eyes were brown, not blue, and while Haylee was a natural blonde, this woman’s highlights were too evenly spaced to have grown that way. She was close to our age, and slender like we were.
Max stared dumbstruck at the rapidly retreating Haylee. He dropped his arms.
The woman punched him in the bicep. “Max, you doofus! That woman’s too young to be our aunt. You insulted her.”
“But she looks like I remember Auntie Elbow, I mean Aunt Opal. Aunt Opal was sixteen, and that woman’s definitely older than Aunt Opal was the last time I saw her.”
“And so are you, doofus! Aunt Opal would be about fifty now. There’s no way that woman you insulted is fifty. Run after her and apologize.”
I put my hand out to stop him, which was difficult with Tally-Ho tugging at his leash and eager to follow Haylee and Sally-Forth. “No, don’t. Who are you and what do you want and why didn’t you go talk to Opal after you talked to me? You drove away.” I hadn’t meant to sound accusing, but maybe it was just as well. Haylee could be right that this pair were only trying to hurt Opal.
Max managed to look apologetic. “I’m sorry. I went back to fetch—oh, sorry, I should introduce my sister. Willow, this is Zara Brubaugh. After I picked up Zara, we drove back to Tell a Yarn. The door was locked. No one answered.”
I remained stiff and, I hoped, unyielding. “Our shops are actually closed on Mondays. Did you say you’re looking for an aunt?”
“Our mother’s little sister. Her name is Opal Scott. She ran away from home when I was three, shortly before Zara was born.”
Opal Scott didn’t run away. She was banished. I wasn’t about to correct him, though. If he and his sister were fakes, the inaccuracies in their story would alert Opal not to trust them. Like Haylee, I wasn’t about to let anyone hurt Opal.
Max continued, “For the past few years, I’ve tried to find her. Do you know how many Scotts there are and how many Opal Scotts? I saw the name on Tell a Yarn’s website, so we drove up here to see if it could be her.” Tightening his lips, he gazed at Haylee, who was behind me, probably very far behind me. He focused on me again, and I read a plea in his eyes. “Please tell me, is that woman we just met, I mean almost just met, a relation of Opal Scott’s? She looks so much like I remember my aunt, and like the rest of our family.”
I was torn between wanting to give him good news and letting Opal tell him. And letting her decide what to tell him.
Loyalty won. I was fairly certain there couldn’t be two Max Brubaughs who called their Aunt Opals “Auntie Elbow,” but the story wasn’t mine to tell. I clamped my lips shut.
“You know them both, right?” he coaxed. “That woman running away down the beach, and the Opal Scott who owns Tell a Yarn?”
I relented, if only slightly. “How about if I get Opal to phone you?”
“Okay.” He pulled a card from his wallet. “Here’s my home address and cell phone number. We’re staying at the Elderberry Bay Lodge, so she can try my room or Zara’s there. We were heading off for ice cream when we saw you. Can I buy you a cone?”
“Thanks, no, I’d better let this fellow catch up with his sister.” Whining, Tally-Ho was adamant about possibly dragging me home along the beach. “But I recommend the ice cream.”
“We heard that,” Zara said, “from people at the lodge.”
“How is the lodge?” I asked. “Do you like it there?”
“I’d give it four stars,” Max said.
Zara wrinkled her pretty nose. “Our first night there, they found a body.”
“A skeleton,” Max corrected her.
“That’s no better,” she told him.
Promising to ask Opal to call Max, I left them to their arguing. They strode away, discussing why chocolate ice cream was better than strawberry, and vice versa.
I jogged down the beach. Tail up and waving madly, Tally wanted to run much faster than I could. How did dogs, with their shorter legs, manage to scoot along at such lightning speeds?
Haylee and Sally were almost out of sight when I glimpsed movement in a cottage window. Maybe my imagin
ation was working too hard, but I thought I saw Cassie appear at a window, then quickly back away until all I could make out was a pleasant sunroom set up as a dining room. If the cottage had an address, the number would be on the front, facing Beach Row. It was a cute little cottage, sided in gray, between a small pale yellow cottage and a two-story robin’s-egg blue cottage. It should be easy to find the gray cottage from Beach Row. Tally and I kept running.
The border collie was still flying after the Frisbee. The dog’s exhausted-looking owner tossed the Frisbee back the way I’d come. The dog charged after it, caught it, and trotted back.
Beyond the determined border collie, a tall blond man strolled toward me. Had Max changed his mind about ice cream? He stopped near the cottage where I thought I’d seen Cassie, then turned and looked out over the water. Pretending he hadn’t been following me?
Feeling persecuted and almost as annoyed as Haylee had been, I let Tally pull me toward where he’d last seen Sally and Haylee.
We caught up with them on Lake Street, heading up the hill from the beach. “Aunt!” Haylee complained. “He’s older than I am.”
“And you’re older than Opal was the last time he saw her. Opal was sixteen, then.” I handed her the card Max had given me. “Maybe Opal should be given the chance to communicate with him.”
“I don’t like him. Or his sister.” She shook her hair out of her face. “I guess I’m being childish and selfish.”
“Want me to come along when you give Opal that card?”
“Would you? They’re at Naomi’s.”
She whipped out her phone and asked Naomi if we could visit. Of course Naomi said yes, and to bring the dogs. We walked around the post office to the parking lot behind the Victorian row of shops. Smiling and murmuring about how pleased she was to see us, Naomi let us in through a door next to the steel-clad one that, when it was unlocked, would open into the back room where she stored her rolls of quilt batting. We climbed the stairs to Naomi’s apartment.
Everything in her apartment that could possibly be quilted was, including window blinds and upholstery. A glass of wine in one hand, Opal nestled in a wing chair. Edna snuggled with Gord on one of Naomi’s two love seats.
