Dead and Berried

by Karen MacInerney

  An image of the red stain on Polly’s chest flashed before my eyes. I squeezed back tears. “Suicide,” I choked. “Or murder.”

  Murray tripped, and his arms flailed as he regained his balance. “Murder? Are you sure she’s dead?” The sun gleamed on his Bryl-creamed hair as he closed the gap between us.

  I nodded. “I’m sure.”

  “Where is she?” he huffed. “What happened to her?”

  I pointed toward the red maple. “She’s over there,” I said. “I’m not supposed to say anything else about it. I’m keeping an eye on her until the police get here.”

  Murray hitched up his khakis and stepped off the path toward Polly, but I held up a hand. My voice was suddenly steady. “The police told me to keep everyone clear of the area.” He paused. I glanced at Russell and the surveyor, who had started down the path behind Murray and had almost reached us. Russell peered at the soft ground anxiously, lifting his feet up in a strange, prancing gait, presumably to protect his polished black wingtips.

  As he minced down the last few yards of the path, panting from the exertion, he said, “What happened?”

  Murray answered him. “Polly Sarkes is dead.” Then he stared at me. “Natalie won’t say what happened to her.”

  Russell stood up straight. “Isn’t Polly Sarkes the woman who owns this house?” He cast an appraising eye at the small wooden structure.

  “That’s right,” Murray said.

  “Huh.”

  The surveyor spoke for the first time. “I don’t know when I’ll be able to make it out again. Can we at least get a look at the place?” He turned to me. “We won’t go near the body. I just need to take some measurements.” He blinked at me in the sunlight.

  A woman had just died, and he was concerned about measurements? “Fine,” I said. “Just stay away from that maple tree.”

  I walked reluctantly over to where Polly lay and positioned myself about ten feet away, with my back to her crumpled body. Just being near her made the whole thing horribly real, and tears pricked my eyes again as I fixed my gaze on the gulls wheeling and diving in the blue air. After a minute, a scratchy sound rasped behind me. I turned, startled. It seemed to be coming from Polly.

  I stepped a little closer, confused by the sound, and then it rasped again. This time I recognized it. The sound came from a skinny gray kitten that lay shivering at Polly’s feet. It was Pepper. In my haste to get back to the house and call the police, I hadn’t noticed her.

  ___

  By the time the police arrived, Russell had abandoned all hope for his wingtips and was trudging along behind Murray and the engineer. I held Pepper in my arms and watched as they progressed across the bog, the engineer stopping every few minutes to squat down and look at something. Both Russell and Murray kept sneaking peeks at me and at Polly’s house. I stood a few yards away from Polly, stroking the trembling kitten and glancing back at Polly every few minutes to make sure a marauding seagull didn’t do her any further harm. It was surprising that the gulls hadn’t found her already.

  I had stood there for at least a half an hour when a rickety truck pulled up beside Murray’s Jaguar, and three people got out. My heart sank as I recognized the slow swagger of Sergeant Grimes. His belly hung over his police belt, and his greasy hair was slicked back. I caught a breath of stale cigarette smoke on the wind as he tramped toward me, followed by two men I didn’t recognize. They were carrying bulky equipment cases; I assumed they were the forensics team.

  “Another body, Miss Barnes?” Grimes glanced at the crumpled form. His close-set eyes reminded me of a weasel’s. “You’ve got a knack for finding corpses.”

  He was referring to the developer whose body I had discovered earlier in the year. For a long time, Grimes had been convinced that I was the murderer. I wasn’t sure he had gotten over the disappointment of finding out that someone else had killed him. Grimes walked over to Polly and stared down at her. A camera flashed. I turned my head away.

  “Classic case of suicide,” he said.

  I stared at Grimes. “Are you sure? She left her cats with no one to take care of them, and there’s no note. Also, it looks like she was packing to take a trip.”

  Grimes’ eyes narrowed. “Packing to take a trip? How do you know that?”

  “I had to go into her house to call the police. I couldn’t find Pepper, so I took a quick look around.”

  “Pepper?” Grimes looked confused. “What, were you eating a roast beef sandwich or something?”

  I held up the small, furry body. “The kitten. I found her here.” I shuddered, realizing that was probably why the gulls had left the body alone.

  “So, you were tampering with evidence?”

  “I didn’t touch anything.” I remembered the box of bullets. And the refrigerator door, and the medicine chest, and the suitcase. “Well, not much, anyway.”

  Grimes shifted his substantial weight from one foot to the other. “It doesn’t look like it’ll matter, anyway.” He jerked his head toward Polly. “This here is an open-and-shut case if I’ve ever seen one.”

  “It doesn’t feel right to me,” I said. “I knew Polly. I can’t believe she would go out to the middle of the bog and shoot herself. Not with her cats to take care of. Besides, why would you pack a suitcase if you were planning to kill yourself?”

  Grimes shrugged. “Maybe she changed her mind. Maybe the tickets were more than she could afford, and she decided to take a one-way trip instead.” He guffawed at his own joke. “Don’t have to worry about the airlines losing your luggage that way, do you?”

  “You will look into the possibility of homicide, won’t you?”

  Grimes dug a pack of Marlboros from his shirt pocket and tapped out a cigarette, flicking open a gold lighter. As he cupped his hand around the end of the cigarette, the wind swept a glowing ash toward where the forensics team leaned over Polly’s body. The shorter of the two men looked up.

  “Get that cigarette out of here. You’re contaminating the scene.”

  Grimes grunted and moved a few steps further from the crouching men. His ears reddened, and he glared at me. “Just keep your nose out of things and leave the police work to the professionals, okay Miss Barnes?”

  Heat rose to my face. If I’d left things to the professionals last time a body showed up on Cranberry Island, I would currently be serving thirty to forty years for a crime I didn’t commit. I hugged Pepper to my chest. “You’ll have to forgive me if I’m a bit reluctant to do that.”

  “Yeah, well, you don’t have a choice.” He leaned toward me and stabbed at his chest with his empty hand. “I’m the cop,” he hissed. His blue eyes were ice cold. “If I decide it’s suicide, then it’s suicide. End of story.” He took another drag from his cigarette and turned away. “Now go home. If I have any questions, I know where to find you.”

  I was still hugging Pepper to my chest as I closed the kitchen door of the inn behind me. The warm pine floors and butcher-block counters were a nice change from Polly’s olive vinyl and formica, but even the cinnamon smell in the air didn’t do much to dispel my mood. I set Pepper down next to Biscuit’s food bowl, and was relieved when she sniffed at it and then started eating. Fortunately, Biscuit was nowhere to be seen. I hated to think what would happen when she found out I’d let a strange cat—a kitten, no less—have a go at her food bowl.

  I picked up the phone and dialed John, but he didn’t answer. I glanced out the window toward the dock; John’s skiff, Mooncatcher, was gone. He must have taken the last batch of toy boats down to Island Artists. I was trying to decide whether or not to call Charlene when I noticed a Styrofoam cooler on the counter. Gwen must have picked up my delivery for me.

  I tipped over the foam cube and examined the address label. It was from Brenham, Texas, which was about two hours outside of Austin. Who did I know who lived in Bre
nham? I grabbed a knife from the block and sliced through the packing tape, then pried up the lid.

  Two half-gallon cartons of Bluebell Homemade Vanilla ice cream lay nestled in a bed of dry ice. My mouth watered as I extracted the containers from the cooler and set them on the counter. I had been devastated to discover that Bluebell wasn’t available north of the Mason-Dixon line. It was my favorite ice cream, and I had missed it sorely since moving to Maine.

  But who had sent it? I grabbed a potholder and pushed the dry ice to the side. After a few moments of digging, I excavated an envelope encased in a baggie. I tore it open and pulled out a card with a picture of bluebonnets and an ancient barn on the front of it. The inside bore two sentences in an unfamiliar hand. Happy Birthday was the first. See you soon was the second.

  I flipped the card over, but the rest of it was blank. There was no signature.

  I glanced at the yellow ice cream containers. Whoever had sent them knew not just my favorite flavor, but also my birthday; I had just celebrated my thirty-ninth last week. I stared at the card for a moment, trying to guess who had sent it. Then I gave up and tossed the card on the counter. Frankly, after the morning I’d had, I didn’t really care who had sent the ice cream. I just wanted to eat it.

  Grabbing a spoon, I tucked one half gallon into the freezer and pried open the second, closing my eyes as the lush confection dissolved on my tongue. Wow.

  As I scooped up another spoonful, I decided that brownies would be a perfect foil to the cool, creamy vanilla. I couldn’t do anything about Polly right now anyway, and baking always improved my mood. Carbohydrates be damned: I needed chocolate. I stole one more spoonful, then slid the second carton into the freezer and headed for the pantry.

  As I pulled a package of baker’s chocolate from the pantry shelf, I spied a box of dried cherries I’d picked up to make scones. Cherries and chocolate... I grabbed the box and tossed it onto the counter with the chocolate.

  My mind flitted back to Polly as I unwrapped the dark squares and dropped them into the top of a double boiler. I still hadn’t recovered from the horror of finding her. The image of the flat, cold steel of the gun against her pale fingers flashed into my mind. I remembered reading somewhere that men usually shot themselves; women were much more likely to take a less violent approach, like a drug overdose. Guns weren’t the norm for women.

  I stirred the chocolate with a wooden spoon, watching the hard squares dissolve into a thick, dark puddle. What was Polly doing with a gun, anyway? And if you were going to shoot yourself, why would you go outside and do it in the middle of a cranberry bog?

  Unless it was a protest against the upcoming development, I ruminated. Maybe she’d seen killing herself in the bog as a statement about the pending subdivision. In that case, though, wouldn’t she have left a note? I couldn’t imagine her leaving her cats adrift. I glanced over at Pepper, who had finished eating and was heading toward the laundry room door. No, she wouldn’t leave Pepper. Besides, Polly’s refusal to sell her house was one of the only things standing in the way of Weintroub Development’s project. If anything, Polly’s death might make things easier; whoever inherited the house might be more inclined than Polly to sell it and take the cash. My eyes strayed to the empty can I had put on the counter, and I remembered the can of berries I had seen in her refrigerator. That was another thing that had bothered me. Why would Polly have bought fresh milk and picked cranberries for a new recipe if she was planning to kill herself? She had also started packing a suitcase, presumably for a trip. I gave the molten chocolate a final stir and reached into the refrigerator for eggs and butter. Nothing made sense.

  If Polly hadn’t killed herself, then who had? Murray Selfridge was an obvious possibility. He had almost killed me over the summer when he cut my bike’s brake lines in an effort to scare me away from protesting the golf resort. It wasn’t quite the same thing as shooting someone, but clearly the health and safety of others weren’t overriding concerns for Murray, particularly when it came to making money.

  As I plopped a stick of butter into the molten chocolate, my thoughts touched on the conversation I’d had with Russell Lidell at breakfast this morning. Russell also had a vested interest in Polly’s death. He’d told me this morning that the Cranberry Estates development was going to go through, no matter what. He’d seemed surprised that Polly was dead, but he could have been acting. If his job was on the line, he might have been desperate enough to remove any potential obstacles.

  I swirled the butter into the chocolate and turned off the burner. Who would inherit Polly’s house? The only relative I knew of was Gary Sarkes, and Charlene would know where he lived. After I finished making the brownies, I resolved, I would call Charlene and smooth things over.

  Then again, I thought, she had hung up on me. Shouldn’t she be the one smoothing things over? I sighed and cracked an egg into the mixing bowl. Why did life have to be so complicated?

  I was measuring out the sugar when the doorbell rang. I looked up with surprise; I was expecting a guest today, but not until late in the afternoon. It was probably a nosy islander who had heard about Polly. Or Sergeant Grimes, come to ask questions.

  A wavy form moved behind the front door’s antique glass as I walked through the parlor to the front hall. Whoever it was, I thought with relief, he or she was too tall to be Grimes.

  As I fumbled with the brass knob and swung the door open, a wave of familiar cologne hit me full force. I took an involuntary step backward.

  I stared at the tall man on my doorstep for a moment, taking in the lanky body, the tailored khakis and pressed chambray shirt, and the sensuous lips that, as usual, were curved into a wry smile. His blue eyes held mine for a moment. Then he stepped forward and engulfed me in his arms, crushing my face against his leather jacket.

  It was my ex-fiancé.

  Only it couldn’t be. This was Maine. As far as I knew, Benjamin Portlock still lived in Texas.

  “Natalie!” He spoke my name in a slow Texas drawl, his voice caressing the syllables.

  I pulled away from him. “Benjamin... What are you doing here? This is Maine, not Texas.”

  He looked around, surprised. “Really? That would explain why it’s so damned cold.”

  “It’s fifty degrees, Benjamin.”

  “Exactly. It’s only October.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Why, I came to stay at your fine establishment.” He peered past me at the living room. “Nice place you got here.”

  “But you don’t have a reservation!” I don’t know why that seemed relevant. The inn was practically empty.

  He cocked a rakish eyebrow at me, and I remembered why I had gotten engaged to him in the first place. “Oh,” he said, “but I do.”

  “No, you don’t.” I might be getting absent-minded, but I was pretty sure I’d recognize my former fiancé’s name in the reservation book.

  “If I remember correctly, a Mr. Bertram Pence is scheduled to arrive on the 4:00 mailboat. He’ll be staying for a week.”

  I gaped. “You’re Bertram Pence?”

  He bowed slightly. “At your service. A little early, I’m afraid, but I hope you’ll take me.”

  “Why didn’t you use your real name?”

  “Would you have accepted the reservation?”

  I chewed on my bottom lip. He was probably right. I glanced at the leather suitcase by his loafered feet. “Come in, come in,” I said. “I was just in the kitchen, making brownies.” Benjamin bent down and scooped up his suitcase, then followed me through the door. “Do you want me to show you your room, or would you rather join me in the kitchen?”

  “I think I’ll join you in the kitchen, if you don’t mind.”

  I glanced down at myself as Benjamin followed me through the parlor to the kitchen. I had kicked off my boots when I got home, exposing holey
wool socks, and my faded sweatshirt bore several bleach stains and was frayed at the cuffs. Not the outfit I would have chosen for an encounter with my ex-fiancé. I pushed through the door to the kitchen with Benjamin close on my heels.

  “I see you got my birthday present,” he said. He picked the bluebonnet card up off the counter and flipped it open. Most men sent roses. Benjamin knew me well enough to know that food, not flowers, was the fastest route to my heart.

  “Yes,” I said. “Thank you. I didn’t recognize the handwriting.”

  “That’s because it wasn’t mine. The woman on the phone wrote out the card for me.”

  Well, that was one mystery solved. “Actually,” I said, “I was just making brownies to go with the ice cream.” Benjamin put down his suitcase and settled himself at the table. “Can I get you a cup of coffee?” I asked.

  “No, thanks. I’ll just sit here and enjoy the view.”

  “Yeah, it is gorgeous, isn’t it?” I looked at the blue ocean unfolding in front of the window and glanced back at Benjamin. He was staring at me.

  Blood rushed to my face as I turned back to the counter and added a cup of sugar to the bowl. “So, what brings you to Maine?” I asked.

  “You,” he said.

  I set down the measuring cup and leaned against the counter. Then I turned around and looked at Benjamin. His usually mischievous eyes burned with an unsettling intensity. “What do you mean?” I asked quietly.

  He stood and walked over to me, placing his broad hands on my shoulders. His face was inches from mine, and memories rushed to the surface of my mind. Late breakfasts at Texas French Bread, sipping hot coffee and laughing over the newspaper... flying through the Hill Country in his little blue Miata...

  “I made the biggest mistake of my life when I let you go,” he said softly. “I’ve come to ask you to marry me.”

  I stared at him with disbelief. “We’ve been through that,” I sputtered. “You obviously weren’t ready. Why should things be any different now?”