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

by Maggie McConnon

  Her face lit up at the thought of a caper, a mystery. Hijinks. She was as excited by my discovery as I was and that alone made me feel a little less crazy, not as obsessed. She explained the thrill to me as we drove north. “It all started when my car was stolen, years ago, and one of my students was found in the trunk,” she said in a way that made it sound like it was the most natural thing in the world. “That’s how I met Crawford.”

  “Hmmm,” I said. “Lucky.”

  “Yeah, I know it sounds creepy,” she said. She thought for a moment. “Super creepy. But he turned out to be a nice guy, something my first husband was definitely not.” She turned the heat down in the car. “Who knows where you’ll meet your soul mate, right? Gotta keep an open mind.”

  My mind flashed on Tweed Blazer and I swept it away like an annoying mental dust bunny. The guy was lying to me and I still found him intriguing. Attractive. What was wrong with me? I had already had a lying fiancé; you’d have thought I had learned my lesson. Apparently not.

  “Anyway, that whole thing started a few years ago where I couldn’t take a step without finding a dead body or getting involved in something that I had no business being involved in.”

  “And Crawford?” I asked. “How did he feel about that?”

  “Hated it!” she said, going silent as she listened to her GPS. “Anyway, we had the baby, I settled down into motherhood, and he and I tried to establish this thing called ‘work/life’ balance,” she said. “Ever hear of it?”

  I made a noncommittal sound.

  “It’s bullshit. I come home from work—”

  “What do you do?”

  “College professor.”

  “Huh. Right.” I knew that, somewhere in the deep recesses of my brain. “Not what I would have guessed.” In the deep recesses of my mind, I think I remembered hearing that had been her profession but it was at odds with her entire gestalt—the nervous energy, the trouble-seeking streak that seemed to run through her, the one that made her want to get in a car with a woman she barely knew to solve a mystery she knew nothing about.

  “What would you have guessed?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. But I guess it makes sense,” I said. Now that I thought about it, she had to do something that involved a lot of talking. A lot of talking. College professor was starting to make sense, particularly if stream-of-consciousness was on the curriculum.

  “So that’s me,” she said, turning onto the exit. “What about you?”

  “Nothing to tell,” I said. “You know everything. The Monkey’s Paw, back to Shamrock Manor, live with the family.” I looked out the window. “That’s about it.”

  “And this thing following you around since you were a teenager.”

  “And this thing following me around since I was a teenager,” I said. “Yes. There’s that.”

  “That’s a lot, Bel,” she said, coming to a stop at the end of the exit. “That’s what they call ‘baggage.’”

  “I guess so,” I said. “It’s not like it’s informed every day of my life, but it’s always been there.”

  “But you feel responsible.”

  “I don’t. But people think I am,” I said. “Responsible, that is. I was her best friend. To lots of people, I must have had something to do with it.”

  She turned and looked at me for a split second.

  “But I didn’t. I didn’t know where she went or why. A lot of people don’t believe me.”

  “Well, that explains the obsession,” she said, almost to herself.

  We drove down the Main Street of the town; the holiday decorations—ecumenical and representing every creed on earth, or so it seemed—had exploded since my last visit. I pointed out The Coffee Pot, filled with people drinking coffee, on laptops, studying their phones. “That’s Tweed Blazer,” I said.

  She leaned over and peered out my window. “I’m not big on the Amish beard, but that guy is kind of cute,” she said, nudging me in the ribs.

  “I hadn’t noticed,” I said. “Anyway, he’s Archie Peterson’s son. The guy who started Love Canyon.”

  “Or as I call him: ‘the perv,’” she said, straightening up and driving slowly down Main Street. “Why do they have different names?”

  “Blazer is his mother’s maiden name. I think he wanted to distance himself from the father.”

  “The perv,” she repeated. “I read enough of that article to form an opinion, obviously.” She pulled over at the end of the street and threw the car into park, turning to me. “So, what do we do now?

  “Do?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” she said. “Do you know where this Love Canyon is?”

  I tried to remain inscrutable, but she was on to me.

  “You do!” she said. “Isn’t that why we came here? Why you wanted my help?”

  I didn’t recall asking for her help, but I did want to dig deeper. I had never met anyone so determined to be involved in something that had zero to do with her and I wondered just how I had landed here, sitting in her Subaru, Goldfish crunching beneath my feet, an empty juice box shoved into the panel of my door. I couldn’t figure it out, so I asked her outright, “What’s going on? How did we get here?”

  “Here?” she asked.

  “Yeah. Here. In your car. In Wooded Lake.”

  She looked away from me, out her window, toward a little cluster of shops that I would have loved to visit if I hadn’t been sitting in a car with a virtual stranger who I suspected might be just a little bit crazy. “Want the truth?” she asked.

  “That would be great,” I said.

  “I’m bored. Out of my skull. Since I got married and had Bea, all I do is go to school, come home, clean, cook, and watch a little crappy television before going to bed. Make out with Crawford when he’s around and doesn’t fall asleep watching the aforementioned crappy TV.” She looked back at me. “Don’t get me wrong; I love my life. Wouldn’t change a thing. But when you told me that story about your friend, well, I don’t know, I just thought that this might give me the spark that I’ve been missing.” She rested her head on the steering wheel. “I love a mystery,” she said, sighing.

  “The wedding planning isn’t enough?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “It’s complicated. I know we look like a very cohesive unit, but I have to tread lightly. I’m not Erin’s mother and I think I may have overstepped a bit by bringing Crawford to Shamrock Manor on a lark like that.”

  “Got it.”

  “And frankly, sister, you look like you need something to break your way for once.”

  “What does that mean?” I asked. I thought I looked pretty healthy, mentally and physically.

  “I’ve been there. Where you are. You know, not being in a place you want to be professionally, personally.” She smiled sadly and put a hand on my shoulder. “I’ve been you.” She picked her head up and arranged herself in her seat, ready to go further.

  “You’ve been me?”

  “I’ve been you,” she said. “And just like that, it all turned around. I wouldn’t recommend finding love the way I did, but while it shouldn’t have worked out, it did.”

  “I’m happy for you,” I said. And I was. I believed what she was saying and hoped that I could find the same contentment, either with someone or on my own.

  She smiled. “So, let’s do this.”

  “So, you’re not a crazy person?” I asked. “Don’t make me regret this.”

  She shrugged. “I may be a little crazy but I own it.”

  I considered that. A little crazy may have been just what I needed. “Let’s go.”

  CHAPTER Sixteen

  “What are we hoping to find?” I asked Alison as we circumnavigated the property.

  “Hmmm?” she asked, looking around, not paying attention to me or the task at hand. “What does an acre go for up here? A nice little log cabin?”

  “You’re thinking about real estate?” I asked.

  “Why are you whispering?” she asked. “There’s no one he
re.”

  She was right; there wasn’t. All there was were some bare trees, the sound of chilly water lapping the lake’s edge, a bird or two circling, some poor, unfortunate field mouse in our midst being surreptitiously preyed upon. There was the log cabin where Tweed lived and the barn that he had taken me to, but other than that, there was nothing.

  No one.

  She walked over to the barn and slid in between the rickety doors. “This place is cool!” she called from inside. “I’m just thinking that it might be a good idea to snap up some land before it gets too expensive.” I heard her let out a cough. “Dusty in here.”

  I circled the barn. “You know, I don’t think there’s anything here,” I said, a certain anxiety gripping me, suddenly making my toes tingle. I hadn’t had this feeling in a long time, like something would happen that would be out of my control and that it would be bad. I wish I had had that feeling the night at The Monkey’s Paw, but all I felt that night was rage. Pure, unadulterated rage. I hadn’t felt it since and that was a good thing.

  In the distance, I heard the rumble of a vehicle.

  A motorcycle.

  “Alison,” I said. “There’s someone coming.”

  “What?” she called. “Do you know how much this reclaimed barn wood would capture at a flea market? I wouldn’t say that this Tweed guy could retire, but we downstaters are always looking for a bit of rustic authenticity. It’s amazing.”

  “We’ve got to go,” I said, but it was too late. The motorcycle roared down the deserted lane toward the log cabin, a long way from the road and a rutted path with only one destination.

  Her Subaru parked prominently in front of the cabin, there was no time to pretend we weren’t there, to try to head down that lane ourselves. The Irish are consummate storytellers; just hearing my dad tell stories of life in the “old country,” probably made up or, at the very least, exaggerated, and you knew that it was part of him. And now it had to be part of me.

  A man pulled up in front of the cabin, a shiny black helmet only partially masking a head of long white hair that grazed his shoulders. Wraparound sunglasses covered his eyes and a scarf wound around his neck hid the lower portion of his face. I looked around, but my partner in crime, one Alison Bergeron, was nowhere to be found.

  “Help you?” the man asked, taking one wary step toward me.

  “Yes!” I said, a little too brightly and with a faux cheer I didn’t feel. “My friend and I,” I said, looking back over my shoulder toward the barn, “are looking for reclaimed wood to put in our new house.” I stayed where I was, as did the man. “Downstate. Westchester County.”

  “Oh, I figured you’d say ‘Brooklyn,’” the man said. “That’s where all of the lookie-loos come from.”

  “Yep, that’s us,” I said. “Lookie-loos. But not from Brooklyn.”

  “How did you find this place? Did you come for Breath and Body?” he asked.

  When I didn’t answer, he elaborated.

  “Breath and Body. Yoga. Breathing. Some meditation. My class?” he asked. “You just drove down the road and found a barn?”

  “Yes! Breath and Body, too. We have heard such wonderful things. Restorative things.” I put a hand on my midsection. “Breathing. I need that.”

  He took one more step toward me. “You know you’re trespassing, right?”

  “Not trespassing at all. The class. The barn,” I said. “I’m not sorry now that I know that we’re in the right place.” I wondered how we were going to do yoga in jeans but as other cars started to approach realized that we’d have to figure it out.

  I couldn’t see the man’s eyes, but by the way he was standing I could tell he was thinking. “So tell me. How much does this reclaimed wood go for?” he asked. “In other words, how much would you be willing to pay?”

  I had no blessed idea. “Maybe one hundred and fifty a beam?” I asked. This was taking “fake it till you make it” to a whole new level.

  Alison emerged from the barn and I wasn’t sure how much she had heard of our conversation, if she knew that we were suburban prospectors on the hunt for reclaimed wood and that we’d soon be doing breathing exercises with a group of middle-aged, yoga-panted women who were assembling. “Hi!” she said with enthusiasm. Before she could go so far as to introduce herself, I put my arm around her waist.

  “This is my partner.” I pulled her close, the air going out of her with the force. “I’m sorry we trespassed. Lovely place you have here.”

  “Wait,” the man said. “Before we get into class. Do you have a card or something? Somewhere you can be reached?” he asked.

  “Um, no,” I said. “But if we’re interested, we know where you live.”

  “I’m sure my son would be interested in talking to you,” he said as Alison and I walked toward the Subaru.

  “Your son?” I said.

  “Yeah, my son. He owns this place. And a coffee shop in town that he practically lives at.”

  CHAPTER Seventeen

  And that’s how we found ourselves sitting in a circle on the dusty floor in the aforementioned barn, eyes closed, hands on our thighs, listening to the silence in the room of twenty people.

  Or the sound of our breath. That’s what we were instructed to do by the man on the motorcycle who still hadn’t officially introduced himself to us but who seemed to be a known quantity to the group of people who had assembled, men and women, young and old, all with a singular focus on listening to their own breath. I had heard his name whispered and figured out that this was Tweed Blazer’s father or Archie Peterson, alias Zephyr. I opened one eye and found Alison sitting across from me, her eyes wide open, looking around the room and flashing me a smile that told me that she had no idea how we had gotten here and or how we were going to get out. She jerked her head to the right, directing my gaze to a long table filled with brownies and cookies, mouthing the word, Edibles?

  Motorcycle man was speaking softly, his eyes still closed, his body relaxed. “I feel as if some of us aren’t focusing on our breath.”

  He was right. Some of us weren’t, and if this continued much longer the shaking I saw in Alison’s shoulders, the suppressed giggles, were going to come spilling out, blowing our cover as a renovating couple from Brooklyn. I closed my eyes tight and went inward, thinking that after the few months I had endured, a little introspection wouldn’t be a terrible thing.

  I did what I was told. I focused on my breathing, on the “soul living inside.” The soul was tired, though, and it was only when I slumped over, hitting my head on the dirt floor and knocking into the person next to me on the way down, that I realized that introspection, for me, equated boredom and boredom eventually led to sleep. I righted myself and tried to stay awake, but it was hard. Across from me, Alison seemed to have taken Archie’s advice and was stock still, her face placid and serene, her body relaxed.

  What was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I do yoga or mediation without going through a laundry list of my every failing, every humiliation, every error? Was it the Irish in me, constantly self-flagellating for transgressions that most people wouldn’t even remember? Or was it that lethal combo of Irish and Catholic, two identifiers that eschewed self-reflection of any kind and made sure that a hearty helping of guilt accompanied every joyful experience I might have? I didn’t know, but I worried this in my brain, wondering how long it would take to end this torture, the idea that I would never reach anything approaching Nirvana depressing me in a way that no other thought could.

  “Namaste,” Archie finally said even though we hadn’t done any yoga. I looked over at Alison and realized that her serenity was really a cover for a deep sleep and it was only when she let out a little snore that she awoke and looked around the room, momentarily confused as to where she was and why.

  We got up and met at the snack table. Alison picked up a brownie and surreptitiously sniffed it, looking at me and saying, “Bottoms up!” before stuffing half of it in her mouth.

  I grabbed her by the arm
and dragged her to a corner of the barn. “How are we going to get home if you are as high as a kite?” I asked, whispering.

  “You know how to drive, right?” she asked. She held her hand out in front of her and studied it. “Nope. These are just brownies. The one and only time I smoked pot, it looked like I had five hands.”

  “Just five?” I asked. “And pot may be different now than when you were—”

  “Please don’t say ‘young.’” She looked sad. “It was 1895, but it feels like yesterday.”

  “We really should get out of here,” I said. “It’s getting late and I have a cramp in my hip from sitting on the floor with my legs crossed.”

  “Who sounds old now?” she asked.

  Archie was standing by the front door as we departed, and I stopped, my one chance to get a little more traction, answers to my questions.

  “Excuse me,” I said.

  “Did you like my class?” he asked, smoothing back his hair. Yep, the guy was definitely on the make. Alison hung back and took in the surroundings; if I didn’t know better, I would have believed that she really did want to do some kind of renovation with reclaimed barn wood.

  “I had a friend,” I said. “And I think she lived here.”

  “I have lots of friends who lived here,” he said, smiling. “This place used to be a commune.”

  Well, that was easy. “Yes, I am aware,” I said. “My friend’s name was Amy. She was about eighteen when she came. Tall, blond. Really pretty. Do you remember her?”

  He tapped his head. “The old brain isn’t what it used to be. But you’ve just described about twenty percent of the girls who lived here.” He looked up, thinking. “Nope. No Amy.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked. “Amy Mitchell.”

  He shook his head. “Sorry, doll. I can’t help you.”

  With nothing left to ask and nowhere else to look, Alison and I slipped out the front door, nodding at our fellow meditators, and got into her car.