Bel, Book, and Scandal: A Belfast McGrath Mystery (Bel McGrath Mysteries)

by Maggie McConnon

  An old slogan went through my head—“Easy. Breezy. Cover Girl”—but I wasn’t an easygoing type, couldn’t do breezy, and definitely was not a cover girl. I attempted a combination shoulder shrug/hair flip to indicate that I didn’t care, but something on my face told my brothers that I definitely did care. Too much.

  Behind me, Cargan whispered, “I believe him,” while in front of me, Feeney said, “It was all I could do not to punch him in the teeth.”

  “For what, Feeney?” I asked. “Carrying around a photo of a missing girl?”

  “For breaking your heart, Bel,” Feeney said. “For messing up probably the best thing that he had ever had in his miserable life.”

  And the look on my brother’s handsome face, his black hair hanging on to his forehead and making him look as he had when we were little and our relationship wasn’t quite as close, his protective nature not in full view, coupled with his hand on my shoulder, brought tears to my eyes. My brothers encircled me and muttered all the right things: He was a jerk. He didn’t deserve me. He would pay. (That was from Feeney, totally alarming; his brand of justice was one that I didn’t want meted out.)

  They were wrong, though. He wasn’t a jerk; rather, he had been a warm blanket on a cold night, with strong arms to hug me. He did deserve me and I him. That day, the day of the Kevin Hanson and Mary Ann D’Amato wedding, when I had found a photo of Amy Mitchell in his wallet, a heart drawn on it, my own heart had stopped. He claimed it wasn’t his, that he didn’t know how it had gotten there, and to me, that sounded like the protestations of a middle schooler, one who would think that his word was enough to make me believe the unbelievable. He did know and it was his and I told him that I never wanted to see him again, the look on his face unlike any I had ever seen.

  He was shattered.

  I knew the feeling.

  He honored my wishes, though, and I hadn’t seen him again. It was a small town, though; we were bound to run into each other and that was not a day I was looking forward to.

  I wiped my eyes and extricated myself from my brothers. “Let’s move on,” I said. “That’s over and we have a lot to do.” I pulled the lid off a box of Christmas lights and handed the balled-up spool to Derry. “Here, this should take you a while,” I said, noting that every year that I had been involved in this maneuver—and admittedly, I had been gone for many of them—we implored Dad to wrap the lights up in a neat fashion and every year we opened the box to find a knotted-up spool of lights, some of which didn’t work. I bent over another box and pulled out more lights, my brothers now silent as we continued with our mission to decorate the tree.

  When it was done, we stood back in a semi-circle admiring our handiwork. “Good job, boys,” I said, and high-fived Cargan, standing next to me, as always. “Dad will be happy.”

  “Dad’s never happy,” Arney said before racing out of the Manor, late for his appointment.

  We managed to decorate the tree in spite of the wonky lights, and when I flipped the switch the tree was ablaze, silver tinsel glinting in the morning sun streaming through the windows on the second floor and through the transom over the big front double doors.

  “It looks beautiful,” I said, giving them each a brief hug as they left. The whole project had taken no more than an hour. Cargan and I stood in the foyer, admiring our collective handiwork.

  “They come through sometimes,” I said.

  “Rarely. But sometimes,” he said. Before he walked away, he turned to me. “He was a nice guy. He made a mistake.”

  “Sometimes it sounds like you’re on Brendan Joyce’s side,” I said.

  He didn’t say anything, going into the office next to the kitchen, leaving me to appraise the tree, alone.

  CHAPTER Eight

  This darned job was getting in the way of my social life (which was basically nonexistent anyway) and this new mystery (which was my new reason for being). That Saturday, I got up early and got to work preparing for the upcoming afternoon affair, a small wedding by Manor standards, sixty people, a former local girl and guy who were a few years older than me but who had met on an online dating site, not realizing until they met that they had both grown up in the same town.

  The boys were tuning up their instruments in the dining room while Feeney sang some kind of love song into the microphone, his tenor on point as always. Cargan was playing around on the violin, his fiddling—musical doodling really—better than that of most people playing an actual tune.

  The menu was simple: a sampling of our best canapés, a cheese station, tenderloin with roasted fingerling potatoes, and a cauliflower mousse. They were bringing in their own wedding cake. It was the simplest of meals and I could have done it in my sleep.

  Dad came into the kitchen, looking spiffy in his tuxedo, which he wore when we hosted an event. Mom was behind him in a classic little black dress, a strand of pearls around her neck. “We ready, Belfast?” Dad asked as he did every time we began a wedding service and my answer was always the same.

  “I was born ready, Dad.”

  He still didn’t get the joke but appreciated my being on the job and ready for the action to come.

  When the family arrived, entering the foyer, I could tell by the wrinkle of her nose that Mom was not a fan of the bride’s gown, a fitted, off-the-shoulder number that showed every curve the voluptuous woman had, the low-cut neck highlighting her ample bosom. Dad glad-handed the men in the group and then led the family, sans bride and groom, into the dining room. The happy couple made a grand entrance to my brothers’ practiced introductory music, the bride shimmying before going through the doors that led to the party.

  I went back to cooking, loading up Colleen and Eileen, our two remaining longtime servers, with trays of canapés, my special mini-quiches always a hit, even if I found them a touch boring. Give the people what they want and all. That was Dad’s motto, along with “the customer is always right” and, inexplicably, “it never rains in Southern California.”

  I was deep into meal prep when the doors to the kitchen swung open and a man came in, smiling. “Belfast!”

  “Mr. Malloy,” I said. “Long time, no see.”

  “Well, there was that quick hello a few months ago,” he said, reminding me that we had seen each other since high school when I was a student and he was a teacher as well as my swim coach. “Still doing the hundred-meter free in your spare time?”

  “Do I look like I get any exercise at all?” I said, laughing. “I think it’s pretty obvious that I don’t. But you’re very kind.”

  “Your food is amazing, Bel,” he said. “You really knocked it out of the park today.”

  I put a large pot in the sink and filled it with water. “So the guests are happy?” I asked. “The bride and groom?”

  “Everyone is beyond happy,” he said. “You know, I’ve never been to an event at the Manor. Or it’s been years if I have. Crazy, right?”

  “You didn’t chaperone our junior prom?” I asked.

  “I don’t think I did,” he said. “Or maybe I did? That was a long time ago.” He pointed to his head. “The memory isn’t what it used to be.”

  “No one’s is,” I said. Colleen and Eileen came into the kitchen with trays of dirty dishes, loading them into the big industrial dishwasher while I chatted with my former coach.

  “I should let you get back to work,” he said.

  “I think they are going to cut the cake,” I said, peeking out from the kitchen into the dining room. “And you don’t want to miss that. That’s usually the most entertaining part of the wedding.” I thought back to a few Mom had told me about from past events: The one where the groom got a chipped tooth from an overzealous bride; the one where the bride slipped and broke her leg on some icing that had fallen to the floor; the one where the bride’s mother had left crying because the whole tradition had gotten so far out of hand, cake smeared on her daughter’s lovely décolletage and ten-thousand-dollar dress.

  Mr. Malloy stood there a minute
longer, his hands in his pant pockets. “Remember when I used to the ‘cool teacher,’ Bel?” he asked.

  “You were never that cool, Mr. Malloy,” I said, smiling. He had been, though, a young guy teaching kids not that much younger than he was, the teacher we went to with complaints and problems and issues related to teenaged angst.

  “Guess you’re right, Bel,” he said. “We men are an odd bunch. Always trying to hold on to our youth. Women age much more gracefully, go into middle age without a complaint.”

  An odd, serious sentiment given the jovial nature of our conversation, but I went with it. I thought about Mom in her Pilates studio, stretching and toning the older ladies of Foster’s Landing; neither she, nor they, were going into middle age gracefully, without a complaint. “You’re quite the philosopher, Mr. Malloy.”

  “Please. Dan. It’s just that this wedding is making me feel old.”

  “Okay. Dan,” I said, but it sounded weird coming out of my mouth. To me, he was still our teacher, our sometime confidant, not the almost contemporary standing in front of me, still handsome in that ruddy Irish way that I was familiar with, a little more heavyhearted, it would seem, than in our high-school days. I heard my brothers strike up the song that announced the cake cutting. “You’d better get out there. Cake cutting is getting under way.”

  “Just wanted to tell you what a great job you’ve done here, Bel,” he said, walking toward the doors to the dining room. “You’ve come a long way from swim team.”

  I watched him go. Yes, I have, I thought, even though I was right back where I started.

  CHAPTER Nine

  The next morning, alone in my apartment, I studied the photo in the newspaper, finding a small magnifying glass in the desk that had been here when I moved in, making it hover over the girl, half-turned, on the side of the frame. It was Amy, plain and simple, and no one would ever convince me otherwise. It probably made sense to ask Cargan as he had known her almost as well as I had, but this was my mystery to solve and involving him meant relinquishing control, something that I had done enough of in the last few months. I had left my job, and it hadn’t been my decision. I had moved back home, and while that had been my decision, the lack of control I had over my life—not to mention lack of privacy—was starting to concern me. Four brothers and two parents equaled meddling squared.

  No, I would go it alone.

  I found an e-mail address for the person who wrote the story, a guy named Dave Southerland, and e-mailed him, asking if we could talk further about the article and anything else he may have found out.

  I got dressed, for the first time in a long time, in civilian clothes, not in chef’s clothes. I put on jeans and a sweater, wrapping a scarf around my neck, letting my curls go free from the confines of the head wrap that I wore in the kitchen. I pulled on a pair of boots and grabbed my bag, heading down the stairs outside my apartment, hoping to get out of Foster’s Landing before the inhabitants of the Manor and their attached residence were stirring.

  I drove back to Wooded Lake, the drive less fraught for me almost a week after my last visit, thinking about that photo, the sun shining, the morning brisk but not terribly cold. I drove down the winding Main Street, finding a parking spot not far from The Coffee Pot, this time on the same side of the street. I didn’t know if Tweed Blazer owned the place or just worked there, but I hoped he was behind the counter so I could apologize for whatever I had done to offend him and, more important, get more information about the village and Love Canyon itself.

  The seat I had sat in that first day was unoccupied. Although he didn’t appear at first and I had to place my order with another person who worked there, he did come out of the kitchen a few minutes later, smiling warmly at me as I took my first sip of espresso.

  “Hi,” he said, and by the way he said it, I could tell that he didn’t recognize me out of my uniform. I didn’t want to prolong the charade, so I held out my hand. “We met the other day. I’m Belfast McGrath.”

  He took a good look at me and realization dawned on his face. “You were asking about Love Canyon.”

  “Guilty as charged.” I don’t know why I said that, implicating myself in something more sinister than he needed to know. “Yes. Love Canyon. I’m doing a little research. Wanted to get a feel for Wooded Lake.”

  Today he wore glasses, thick, dark rimmed, and square. Behind them, his eyes narrowed. “Why the interest?”

  I came up with the lie on the spot. “In addition to being a chef, I’m kind of a part-time historian. I’ve been looking into stories of the Hudson Valley and am hoping to publish a book. I started with the history of my parents’ catering hall, Shamrock Manor, and it just led me to think about other places in the area and their pasts.”

  “Sordid pasts?” he said.

  “Well, maybe,” I said. “I just think there are a lot of interesting stories to be told and I’d love to be the one to tell them.”

  “So full-time chef, part-time historian, and part-time writer?” he asked. “Sounds like you’ve got a lot on your plate.” He grimaced. “No pun intended.”

  “I see what you did there,” I said. I took another sip of espresso, the caffeine giving me clarity, enough to continue the lie in convincing fashion. “There are a lot of stories to be told.”

  “Some that shouldn’t, too.” He turned to the cashier and asked her to cover. He pulled up the hinged counter and stepped under it. “Let’s grab a table so we can talk more about this.”

  I picked up my coffee and biscotti and followed him to an old Formica kitchen table in the corner of the store, two cane-seated chairs on opposite sides of it. We sat down, me facing the big picture window that looked out on to Main Street. I considered why I didn’t just tell him the truth, ask him if anyone ever spoke of a teenager living there, if the name Amy Mitchell meant anything to him, but I wasn’t ready for all of that. Slow and steady, I thought. Let it unfold naturally, I told myself. Don’t be impulsive, or more impulsive than you normally are.

  After we sat down, he pointed to a spot on the table in front of me. “How come you don’t have a notebook? Write things down?” he asked.

  Because I’m not really a historian? I thought but didn’t say. I put a finger to my temple. “Good memory. All up here.”

  “You must have done great on your SATs.”

  “Pretty good,” I said. “Good enough to get me where I wanted to go.”

  He turned at the sound of the door opening, a little bell above it announcing a new customer. He leaned in, lowered his voice. “Love Canyon is something we’re all trying to forget,” he said.

  “Why?” I asked. “It seemed like a commune for hippies? The ‘free love’ set? From my research anyway.”

  “Well, that’s one way to look at it, I guess,” he said. “It was a pretty interesting place, and not in a good way.”

  “How so?” I asked.

  He looked around, rubbed a hand, a workman’s hand, calloused and rough, over his face. “Listen, this was a nice little town. Off the grid. Under the radar. A place where you could play in the woods and be a kid and no one would bother you. That’s what I’ve been told. When the sun rose, you went outside. When the sun set, you came back in. But after Love Canyon opened people started coming here, looking for something we didn’t have.”

  “Like what?”

  “I’m not sure,” he admitted. “But whatever they were looking for, they weren’t going to find it in Wooded Lake.” He looked at a spot over my head, thinking. “What’s that they say? ‘Wherever you go, there you are’? That’s what it was like here. People running from something, looking for a way out, I guess.” He shook his head sadly. “It was never here.”

  It was more of an existential conversation, one that focused less on facts and more on musings. “You have a lot of opinions about the commune.”

  “I guess I do,” he said, sitting up straighter, a little defensive.

  “Why’s that?” I asked.

  “Well, you’re a
part-time historian,” he said, considering how much to tell me but deciding I was worth it, my fake profession giving me credence. “So, I guess it’s okay to tell you.”

  “Tell me what?” I asked after a few seconds of weighted silence.

  “Archie Peterson was—is—my father.”

  CHAPTER Ten

  He told me that he and his father were estranged, Tweed never getting over the fact that his father had turned the family compound into a sketchy commune that collected lost souls. Lost female souls. His mother had legally changed his name to her maiden name—Blazer—and he had kept it that way.

  “Love Canyon had been Merrill Farms, in Archie’s mother’s family since the 1700s. It was bucolic and beautiful and had so much history.” He smiled at the memory. “It was reported to be a stop on the Underground Railroad. It housed some soldiers for a time. It was a place of history and American solitude. Not a place for ‘free love’ and all that came with that.”

  He was sharing, so I took the time to listen, but in the back of my mind, I thought about when I would ask about Amy, if I was ready for what he would say.

  “The article didn’t mention that,” I said.

  A look crossed his face. “What article?”

  “The one in the Hudson Courier.”

  “Rag,” he said. “Not really known for its in-depth investigative journalism.”

  I pondered that; I had had a negative reaction to the journalism. Tweed continued. “Archie eventually ran the place into the ground and soon we had no money. I was about to leave for college…”