by Sofie Ryan
I’d had Elvis for the past seven months. He’d just appeared one day, down along the harbor, mooching from several different businesses, including The Black Bear. He had shown up at the pub about every third day for a couple of weeks. No one seemed to know who owned the cat. That scar on his nose wasn’t new; neither were a couple of others on his back, hidden by his fur. Sam had managed to con me into taking the cat. I was pretty sure Elvis had been in on the scam, too.
He was very social, I’d discovered. He’d quickly made himself at home in the shop, charming customers who could easily get distracted by his war wounds and end up spending more than they’d intended. I’d quickly realized that Elvis’s skill at sales wasn’t his only ability. Strange as it sounds, he had an uncanny knack for figuring out when someone was lying. When someone was stroking his fur, if they were not being completely honest about whatever they happened to be talking about, he somehow knew, the knowledge evident in the disdainful expression on his furry face.
Mac had pointed out that researchers had discovered dogs had a part of their brains devoted to decoding emotions in people’s voices, so why couldn’t Elvis decode lies from the truth? Jess’s theory was that Elvis was the feline version of a polygraph. Somehow he was responding to changes in a person’s heartbeat, breathing and skin. It was as good an explanation as any. The problem was the kitty lie detector acted as one only when it suited him.
I slid the strap of my purse over one shoulder, put the tote bag over the other and bent down to pick him up. “This doesn’t mean you’ve won,” I said. “It just means I don’t want to stand here all night.”
“Murr,” he said. He looked up at me, a guileless look in his green eyes. We both knew who had won.
“Why do I even have these . . . discussions with you?” I said to him. He regarded me thoughtfully, as though he couldn’t figure it out, either.
Juggling purse, bag and cat, I managed to get the door locked and hurried across the lot to the SUV. I put everything, including Elvis, on the passenger side. The cat shook himself and then got settled on the seat. As I pulled out of the lot, he looked both ways. Whoever Elvis had belonged to before me had clearly driven around with him a lot. He’d look both ways at an intersection or a stop sign, and he’d even turn to check over his shoulder when I backed up. Once he’d meowed loudly at me when I’d run a yellow light. It was like having a little furry backseat driver.
Once we were home, I got Elvis some fresh water and a little something to eat. Then I went into the bedroom to change. It was cold, but I wanted to walk downtown to meet Liz instead of taking the SUV, so I put on leggings under my jeans, along with a lavender turtleneck and a heavy cable-knit sweater over that. I stuck my feet into my favorite fleece-lined booties and went out to the kitchen.
“Want to go take a look at the apartment?” I said to Elvis. He was washing his face, but he took a couple more swipes behind his ear and came over to me.
“Merow!” he said with enthusiasm.
I’d ended up with my house after a series of trades that had started when I’d cleaned out an old barn and the owner had told me I could have the rusting Volkswagen Beetle I’d discovered inside just for getting it off the property. Eventually I’d ended up with the chance to buy the old Victorian plus a pretty decent down payment for it. My apartment was on the main floor at the front. Gram had the second-floor unit. I wasn’t sure if she and her new husband, John, would keep it, or if they’d eventually want something bigger. At the moment they were in New Orleans for the winter, building houses for the charity Home for Good. I missed Gram, but I hadn’t seen her so happy in a long time.
The apartment Rose would be taking overlooked the backyard. Like Gram’s place, it had a covered verandah. I let myself into the unit and stood in the kitchen, looking around at all there still was to do. It was the room that needed the most work. The bottom cupboards were in place and so was the countertop, but the doors hadn’t been hung, and there was no sink or taps and no upper cabinets at all.
The walls were going to need to be touched up as well. Elvis was nosing around in the living room where the cabinet uppers were stacked on a tarp. The walls and the ceiling in there needed a couple coats of paint.
“Did I undersell how much there still is to do?” I asked the cat.
He looked around the room and made a sound halfway between a burp and a snort. I bent over and scooped him up. “Thank you for that vote of confidence,” I said.
He leaned over and licked my ear.
Elvis was contentedly ensconced in front of Jeopardy! when I headed out, the TV set on a timer to shut off when the game show was over. He watched the show faithfully, Monday through Friday. I had no idea why he liked it so much. Maybe it was the theme music, maybe it was host, Alex Trebek, or for all I knew, maybe Elvis was playing along at home.
I got to The Black Bear about five minutes before Liz. The place was only about a third full, typical for a Tuesday in January, I knew. Sam gave me a hug and showed me to a booth along the back wall. He was tall and lean. His shaggy hair was a mix of blond and white, and he was usually wearing a pair of dollar-store reading glasses.
“Is Jess meeting you?” he asked.
I shook my head. “No. Liz.”
“What can I get you while you wait?”
“I’m not driving,” I said. “So maybe a glass of wine.”
“I have this new hot-toddy recipe,” Sam said, running his fingers over his beard. “Want to try it?”
I eyed him suspiciously. Sam’s drink concoctions had a tendency to lead to a person waking up wearing a sombrero, with their cheek drool-stuck to the table and no memory of the previous twelve hours.
“What’s in it?” I said.
“Cranberry juice, apple cider, Patrón, Drambuie and some fresh lime,” he said, ticking off each ingredient on his fingers.
“Tequila and apple cider?” I shook my head. “I think I’ll just stick with a glass of white wine.”
Sam leaned over to plant a kiss on the top of my head. “Good choice,” he said. “I’ll send someone right over with it.”
Liz arrived just as my glass of wine did. “I’ll have a cup of coffee, please,” she said to our waiter. “And it’s one check. Mine.”
He nodded. “I’ll be right back.”
Liz tossed her coat onto the seat of the booth and slid in next to it.
“What are Avery and Rose making?” I asked.
“Some kind of five-layer lemon cake with the raspberry preserves Rose put up last fall. Avery picked all the berries for her.”
“It sounds good,” I said, rubbing my hands, which were still cold, together. Maybe I should have ordered the hot toddy after all, I thought.
“It probably will be,” Liz said as the waiter came back with her steaming mug of coffee. “I don’t have the patience to teach Avery how to bake. Not that I bake anyway.”
We both ordered the hot turkey sandwich. I knew the turkey would have been roasted earlier in the day, the gravy hadn’t come out of a can and the thick slices of multigrain bread had come from Lily’s in the morning order.
Liz looked around. “It’s quiet,” she said. “I was hoping we’d have a few more buses of tourists from that snow tour.”
“I talked to the bus driver from today’s group,” I said. “There should be a couple more buses through on the weekend.”
“And if we get a little more snow, we should see more skiers,” Liz said, reaching for the tiny pitcher of cream the waiter had brought when he’d brought her coffee.
“Were you at the meeting about North Landing last night?” I asked.
“Oh yes.” She tapped one peach-hued nail on the table. “You know, even with the Japanese tourists and the Canadian skiers, off-season revenue for most of the businesses in town is down close to ten percent.”
I wasn’t surprised. Although I hadn’t been in b
usiness last winter, my profits were off about eight percent from my estimates. Luckily, the online store was making up the difference.
I traced the rim of my wineglass with a finger. “Do you think there’s any way the town can force Lily to sell the bakery?” I asked.
“No,” Liz said with a shake of her head. “I don’t see how they can make eminent domain—or anything else for that matter—work. A good lawyer could argue against the public-use clause.”
I exhaled loudly. “Is there a chance that Lily can be persuaded to change her mind?”
Liz laughed, but there wasn’t any real humor in the sound. “Name someone who hasn’t tried. A couple of people spoke to Caroline, for all the good it did—which was none.”
Caroline was Lily’s mother. I sometimes saw her running at the track when I was there. I had no idea how she felt about the development project. I did know that Caroline was the kind of person who’d support her daughter no matter what her own opinion was. My own mother was the same way.
The waiter arrived then with our sandwiches. They came with a side of cranberry chutney and another of apple carrot salad.
Liz picked up her knife and fork, cut a bite of her sandwich and ate it. “Oh, that’s good,” she said. She set down her fork and reached for her coffee. “You know, if the development were to go ahead, I could live in one of the new apartments, eat here whenever I felt like it and never have to lay eyes on one of Avery’s kale frittatas again.”
“Kale is good for you,” I said, putting a forkful of cranberry chutney on top of my sandwich.
“Yes, I’m sure you eat it all the time,” Liz said, raising her eyebrows over the top of her glasses.
“Avery is good for you, too,” I said.
“Point to you,” she said with a smile.
“Would you really sell your house and move into an apartment?” I asked.
“Maybe.” She shrugged. “Avery won’t be with me forever, and if you tell Rose this, I’ll smack you with my purse, but I don’t think I’d like Legacy Place any more than she has.”
I made an X on my chest. “Your secret is safe with me.”
We ate without talking for a couple of minutes. Then I thought of something I’d meant to ask Jess. “Liz, isn’t there some way the development could just be built around Lily’s Bakery?”
Liz put down her fork and knife, looked around for our waiter and, when she caught his eye, pointed to her empty coffee cup. “You’re not the first person to think of that, and no, it can’t. You see, the basements of the buildings on either side are connected to the basement of the bakery. At least they were when the buildings on that whole end of the street were constructed. There are fire doors between each one, but they’re connected.”
I frowned at her. “Connected? How?”
“From the bakery and the bookstore right on down to that old building that belongs to Eamon Kennedy, at one time the basement was all just a big common dirt cellar for storage. Rumor has it that space was part of the underground railway at one point.”
“I had no idea,” I said.
Liz shrugged. “Most people don’t, but my first husband was a bit of a history buff. I’ve crawled around just about every old building in town. Frankly, I think it’s a part of North Harbor history we should talk more about.”
I tried to imagine Liz in her high heels and perfect manicure crawling around the dirt-floor basement of some old building. The mental image made me smile, and I bent my head over my plate.
“Never mind grinning, missy,” Liz said tartly as though she’d just read my mind. “Just because I clean up well doesn’t mean I can’t get down and dirty.”
I lifted my head and smiled at her. “I’ll remember that,” I said. I took another sip of my wine. “If the basements are all closed off now, why couldn’t the developer just tear down the other buildings and leave the bakery?”
The waiter came with more coffee. Liz added cream to hers and stirred before she answered. “I’m no structural engineer, but as I understand it, it has to do with the integrity of the common outside stone walls. Basically, if the other basement walls are taken down, Lily’s will collapse as well, like a row of dominoes. Without her property, Jon West can’t get a building permit to tear down the buildings around the bakery.”
She picked up her cup. “There was some talk about just working around the bakery anyway, but since the engineer’s report details the possible damage to the building if they go ahead, Lily would be able to sue, well, practically everyone if her basement collapsed. She could keep the whole project tied up in court for years.”
“No wonder there’s so much animosity toward her,” I said, skewering a chunk of turkey and swirling it through a puddle of gravy on my plate.
“You heard about the—I don’t know whether to call them ‘pranks’ or ‘vandalism,’” Liz said.
I nodded. “I didn’t just hear. I saw.”
Liz frowned at me. “What do you mean ‘saw’?”
“I stopped in for coffee. It looked as though someone had hurled about a dozen eggs at the front window.”
“What’s the world coming to?” Liz asked, shaking her head. She tried the apple carrot salad and gave a murmur of approval. “That kind of childish behavior isn’t going to fix anything.”
I couldn’t help playing devil’s advocate. “I know,” I said, nodding my agreement, “but when some people get frustrated, they also get stupid.”
“Stupid is as stupid does,” Liz retorted, pushing up her glasses with one finger. “I’m frustrated with the whole situation, but you don’t see me sneaking around in the middle of the night toilet papering the bakery.”
“Someone toilet papered the bakery?” I said, my fork paused in midair.
Liz made a dismissive gesture with one hand. “No, no, no. I was just trying to make a point about how ill-advised some people’s behavior can be. The Emmerson Foundation holds the mortgages on two of the buildings that would be coming down for the development. Both of them are in default, and I don’t see the owners coming up with the money anytime soon. If the North Landing project falls through, the foundation will be out more than a million dollars. That’s money that was earmarked for upgrades to the Sunshine Camp.”
I leaned against the back of the booth. “Oh, Liz, I had no idea that much money was involved.”
“Well, it isn’t exactly something I’ve been trumpeting all over town.” She twisted her gold wristwatch around her arm. “I did do something that in retrospect was ill-advised, though.”
“What was it?” I asked, crossing my fingers figuratively if not literally that I wasn’t going to have to call on Josh Evans’s legal skills once I heard her confession.
Liz sighed. “When I said a couple of people talked to Caroline, well, I was one of them.”
“Oh, Liz,” I said softly.
She waved a hand at me. “I know. It was a stupid idea, trying to get to Lily through her mother. Caroline was nice about it, nicer than I probably would have been in the same position.”
I pulled my hands through my hair, gathered it all at the nape of my neck and let it fall on my shoulders again. It had been a long day and I was getting tired.
“What time were you at the store this morning?” Liz asked, clearly trying to change the subject away from Lily and the waterfront development.
“Oh-dark-thirty,” I said.
One well-groomed eyebrow went up, but Liz didn’t say anything.
“I’m still sanding paint off that old dresser, and I wanted to put the last coat of clear wax on the chair I’ve been working on so Mac can take it down to Jess. She’s going to reupholster it for me.”
“And did you?”
I nodded, reaching for my wineglass.
“Good,” Liz said. “Then there’s no reason to get up with the chickens tomorrow morning.”
“Except I have to pick up five dozen rolls for the hot-lunch program at the school first thing in the morning.” I held up a finger. “Remind Avery that I’m picking her up early, too. She’s going to help at the school, since she doesn’t have any classes herself tomorrow.”
“I’ll remind her,” Liz said. “When you consider what tuition costs at that private school of hers, you’d think they’d be in classes a little more often.”
I didn’t say anything. I just looked at her across the table.
She set her cup down. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to make a speech about how in my day I walked four miles to school barefoot through six feet of snow, uphill both ways.”
“I thought it was five miles,” I said, raising an eyebrow at her.
Liz grinned. “Maybe if I’m lucky Avery won’t have time to make me one of those hideous green-juice concoctions for my breakfast.” Her blue eyes narrowed, she tipped her head to one side and looked thoughtfully at me.
I shook my head. “Don’t even think about sending that child out to my car with some kind of organic kale smoothie,” I warned, “or Rose won’t be the only one you’ll have to watch around your pillows!”
Liz laughed. She had a great laugh, smoky and husky, and it made me glad all over again that I’d decided to come back to North Harbor after my radio career had gotten derailed.
We finished the meal talking about my grandmother and John and the house-building project they were working on in New Orleans. We both passed on dessert.
“Where are you parked?” I asked when we stepped out on to the sidewalk in front of The Black Bear.
Liz pointed down the street.
“I’ll walk you down,” I said, hooking my arm through hers.
She stuck out her foot in a black leather ankle boot with a two-inch spike heel. “Are you suggesting I can’t walk in these? Or are you afraid I’m too decrepit to make it on my own?” she teased.
“Maybe I’m afraid I’m too decrepit to make it to the corner,” I countered.
As we came level with Lily’s Bakery, I caught sight of Lily inside, wiping down the top of a small round table by the front window. And she caught sight of us. Don’t come out, I thought. But she dropped the cloth on the table and headed for the front door. I let out a breath, and Liz patted my arm with a gloved hand.
