Curses, Boiled Again!

by Shari Randall

  The tarred roof surface was uneven. I stumbled on one of several small low vents that made an obstacle course across the roof. It was lunacy to be up here, but I was with a woman who had long ago shaken off reality’s grasp.

  “Stop. Please. Come back inside.” I raised my voice to be heard over the wind, but I tried to keep my tone calm and reassuring.

  Contessa turned to me. Her chest heaved and I remembered her age. She swung a leg over the low railing. I lunged forward. “No!”

  “Don’t come closer.” She held up a warning hand. I stopped, my body taut with adrenaline.

  “I’m tired of living. I’ll just pull you down with me.” She pulled off her wig and let it drop from her fingers. Shouts rose from below. “I will. I don’t care. “

  Where were the police? Surely Verity had told them where we were. I needed them to come now, before she threw herself off the building. I was alone with this broken woman three stories above an unforgiving gravel drive and I didn’t know what to do.

  Aunt Gully. She’d know what to say to this woman, but I could think of nothing.

  More shouts rose from far below. Police radios squawked. Contessa unwound the scarf from her throat, raised her arm, and watched the wind snatch it away. The rescuers were too late. Nothing they could say to this woman would change her mind.

  Contessa spoke clearly. “There’s nothing left. Nothing worth living for.” She leaned over the edge of the roof.

  I thought of Contessa’s dance. I said the one thing that came into my mind.

  “Beauty. Beauty is worth living for,” I shouted.

  She straightened and turned.

  I hummed the music of her Gypsy’s Daughter solo. Slowly I stepped toward her on the hot, sticky black tar-covered roof. My bare feet burned as I swayed into her dance, slowly spinning, turning my arms into the elegant shapes she’d made, as much an artist as anyone who held a paintbrush or the bow of a violin.

  She turned toward me, giving me her full attention.

  “Brava, my child, brava!” Contessa clasped her hands. Her balance point shifted away from the edge.

  She pulled her leg back over the rail and stepped toward me, her body bent forward against the slight pitch of the roof. Her arms swung side to side just as they had in her film. I could practically see her full Gypsy skirt swirl around her. Together we hummed and moved to the music only we could hear. As we danced, I maneuvered myself between Contessa and the rail, praying that she didn’t hear the footsteps clanging up the metal steps.

  A body curled up from the stairs into the glass cupola. Detective Rosato. She stepped forward, and as she did, I threw myself more deeply into the music we hummed. I had to fully embody the dance to keep Contessa’s attention. One flicker of my attention toward the police would break the spell, could send her hurtling toward the rail.

  I maneuvered Contessa back toward the stairs and threw myself into the final pose. Contessa mirrored my movement. She burst into laughter. Detective Rosato and another policeman dashed forward. Contessa focused on me so intently that she seemed unaware of them even as they grabbed her arms.

  “Wonderful! Wonderful!” Contessa cried. “My theater the sky! My audience the stars and the ocean!”

  Detective Rosato caught my eye.

  “Thank you, Miss Wells.” I bent into a deep révérence.

  Detective Rosato jutted her chin at the policeman holding Contessa’s other arm. They slightly loosened their hold.

  Contessa put her hand over her heart and curtsied back.

  “Wonderful performance,” Detective Rosato said to Miss Wells. She nodded to another police officer. “Make sure she gets downstairs safely.”

  We watched them descend the stairs.

  “What did I just see?” Detective Rosato asked.

  “A performance by Contessa Wells.”

  Chapter 47

  Detective Rosato and I descended the slippery metal stairway to the second floor. I pressed my hand against the walls, trying to take the weight off my throbbing ankle. At the bottom, I put the walking boot back on but a shock of certainty pierced me. My ankle was reinjured, months of healing and rehabilitation ruined.

  Detective Rosato held my arm at the bottom of the stairs. “So the woman who died at the food festival was—”

  “Her sister, Juliet Wells.” Suddenly I was exhausted.

  A tiny line appeared between her eyebrows. “Were they twins?”

  “No, but only a few years apart. This woman’s the real Contessa Wells. Her sister”—it was so crazy I could hardly explain—“stole her life.” I broke away and limped to the staircase. “Is Verity okay?”

  “Your friend downstairs? Yes. She reported a medical emergency.” Detective Rosato didn’t realize I knew what the medical emergency was.

  One look at the grand staircase and I threw my leg over the gleaming wooden banister. My ankle couldn’t take any more stairs.

  “Wait!” Detective Rosato shouted.

  The slide down the banister was faster than I’d anticipated. I slowed myself at the bottom to step carefully to the marble floor. Detective Rosato’s footsteps clattered down the stairs behind me.

  Verity stood by the kitchen door, wringing her hands. I stopped at the threshold.

  “You okay?” I said.

  Verity shook her head.

  Breathing heavily, Detective Rosato shouldered past me. “Go wait in the foyer.”

  She strode to where an EMT bent over a still form on the tile floor. The EMT stood to speak to Detective Rosato. The nurse we’d met earlier lay on her side, her eyes closed, her uniform skirt spattered with liquid. A delicate tea service was in disarray on the table, a cup broken on the floor near her hand.

  “Is the nurse alive?” I whispered.

  Verity wiped her eyes. “I don’t know.”

  Chapter 48

  After the EMTs left with the nurse, Verity and I met with Detective Rosato and Chief Brooks in the morning room of the Wells House. It was surreal to sit on the same sofa as the woman we thought was Juliet Wells, a woman who’d killed her sister and almost killed three other innocent people. My ankle throbbed. I trembled as I recounted what had happened on the widow’s walk.

  “First time I’ve had a case cracked by a dance-off.” Detective Rosato rubbed her forehead. “Still, there’s no way to prove what she told you was true—that she’s the real Contessa Wells.”

  Ravings of a madwoman, the real Contessa’d said.

  I was sure it was true. I’d seen her dance.

  “We’d need to do DNA testing to confirm her identity,” Detective Rosato continued.

  “So what would you need for that? For DNA testing?” I asked.

  “A sample we were certain identified each woman. Then we could test this sister who says she’s Contessa Wells by matching to a sample we were certain was from Contessa Wells.”

  Verity and I looked at each other. The silhouettes.

  “Look at these.” I hobbled to the childhood portraits of Contessa and Juliet.

  I took one down. On the back, in spidery handwriting, was a label. “Contessa.” I handed it to Detective Rosato. She showed it to Chief Brooks.

  “There’s hair in them,” Verity explained. “Hair braids.”

  I took down the other and turned it over, showing Detective Rosato the same spidery writing. “Juliet.” I imagined a mother, preserving these precious reminders of her beloved daughters’ youth. What would she think of the cruelty of one daughter, the insanity of the other?

  I handed the frame to Verity and she replaced the two silhouettes. “Hair art was a thing a long time ago,” Verity said. “Pretty old for the Wells family even, but the Wells family was pretty old-fashioned. I mean she, Juliet, I mean Contessa, had that lachrymatory—”

  “I’m pretty sure she hid the monkshood in it.” I eased back onto the couch.

  “Lachrymatory? Monkshood?” Detective Rosato asked.

  “Victorian vial, for collecting tears,” Verity explained.
Detective Rosato blinked.

  I shook my head. “I’m pretty sure she tossed it into the grave with Fake Contessa, er, Juliet. At the burial ground.”

  “The lachrymatory that was buried had monkshood in it?” Detective Rosato’s voice resumed its precise edge. “Do you have proof?”

  “No proof, but I just bet that’s where she stashed the grated monkshood root she used at the food festival. What a great hiding place. She told me she grew her own.” I nodded toward the garden in the darkness outside the French doors.

  “We’ll conduct a search,” Detective Rosato said.

  “What happened to the nurse?” I asked. “Was she poisoned with monkshood, too?”

  “We don’t think so,” Police Chief Brooks said. “Looks like an overdose of a sedative.”

  “There are a lot of pills in a drawer upstairs,” I said. “A lot.”

  “Will she be okay?” Verity asked.

  Chief Brooks nodded. “The EMT said yes.”

  I set my foot on the coffee table. I imagined the starched and proper nurse, trying to be professional, trying to be kind, sitting down to share tea with Miss Wells. Susan would never have done that.

  Chapter 49

  “You go ahead and cry, Allegra Larkin. You stubborn thing.” Aunt Gully threw a look at me from the driver’s seat of her van. I slouched in the passenger seat. The pain in my ankle was excruciating, but not as bad as the doctor’s news. My ankle had to be reset. Months of therapy and treatment ruined.

  We drove past Verity’s Vintage and She Sells Chic. Finella stood in front of her store with a guy in a gray suit.

  “Hmmm,” Aunt Gully said.

  I raised an eyebrow. “What does that ‘hmmm’ mean, Aunt Gully? Hmmm?”

  “That man’s a real estate agent.”

  “Is Finella selling?” I sat up. “That would be great for Verity. She wants to expand her shop.”

  “She might get her wish. Rumor has it Finella’s looking at other opportunities.” Aunt Gully started humming “Get Happy” from Summer Stock.

  I turned to her. “Spill.”

  “Well, back at the shack, when you mentioned Finella.” Aunt Gully pulled over and turned to me. “It made me think about the letters and the tires. Now, I try to think the best of people, but Finella.” Aunt Gully shook her head. “Well, I decided, best to let the woman explain herself. So I went up to her shop.

  “Of course she denied sending the letters and ruining my tires, but that night Leo Rodriguez was on the news asking her questions about the lobster libbers. The next day she sent me a check for the tires. More than enough to cover the whole thing, labor, parts.”

  “How nice,” I said, careful to keep my voice neutral. I remembered what I’d written on the envelope holding the fancy lobster pick that I’d tossed into Leo’s news van: “Lobster Liberation Group. 55 Harbor Street. Mystic Bay.” The address of Finella’s shop, She Sells Chic.

  Finella’s moving was all the proof I needed.

  Aunt Gully’s voice faded as my eyes closed. “Funny, I couldn’t find that fancy lobster pick anywhere.”

  Maybe I’d confess to Aunt Gully after the lovely pain medication wore off.

  Chapter 50

  A few days later, Verity and I sat at a picnic table by the Lazy Mermaid’s pier just before closing time.

  “Why couldn’t the murderer be Chick Costa?” I said. “Personally, I’d like him to go to jail forever.”

  “Assaulting Ernie?” Verity said. “Destroying Ernie’s car? He’s got to get some jail time out of that.”

  “You know what I mean. That business with Megan. Hiding her own child from her. Not that it’s not awful, what he did to Ernie, but what he did to Megan.” I took a bite of my lobster roll. “When it all comes out, I bet he’s going to wish he went down with his friend’s sailboat.”

  Chick had indeed hidden his sports car at a friend’s house on Fox Point and taken his friend’s sailboat, the perfectly named Escape Hatch. Unfortunately for Chick, the last time he’d sailed off Mystic Bay was years ago. He’d forgotten the rocks off Orion Point and ran Escape Hatch aground. The Coast Guard picked him up and escorted him to the police.

  Verity and I clinked bottles of lemonade.

  “We could spread rumors about him.” Verity’s eyes glowed. “Something embarrassing so he never gets another date…”

  “May we join you?” A man wearing a floppy hat and white windbreaker took off sunglasses.

  “Rick! Of course.”

  Rick Lopez held a tray with two lobster rolls, two cups of chowder, and several slices of coffee cake. Rio, wearing a baseball cap and an oversized sweatshirt, slowly followed him, using a walker. She placed the walker to the side of the picnic table.

  We scooted to make room.

  Rick placed the tray in front of Rio. Almost all the tables and Adirondack chairs were taken by diners enjoying the glow of sunset on the Micasset River. Aunt Gully had added strings of lights above the dining area, and the colors danced in the breeze.

  “Your ankle! Wasn’t it in a walking boot?” Rio asked.

  I grimaced and held out my foot in its hard cast. “I reinjured it.”

  “In a dance-off with a murderer,” Verity breathed.

  “What!” Rick exclaimed.

  Verity launched into the story of my dance on the widow’s walk of the Wells House.

  “So that’s how it went down,” Rio said. “Juliet was Contessa, and Contessa was Juliet. Ouch, my head hurts. We’d never have guessed she was an imposter. You see people in movies or television and you just think that of course they look different in real life.”

  “A dance-off with a murderer.” Rick shook his head.

  “It wasn’t a dance-off. It was just”—I exhaled—“the only thing I could think to do.”

  “Well, thank goodness it was you and not me,” Verity said. “What would I have done? Shown her my vintage cameo?”

  “You’re absolutely amazing, Allie Larkin.” Rick high-fived me. I blushed. I had told my story over and over to police, but had turned down interviews with the media. What had happened on the widow’s walk still seemed so unreal. Dancing with a woman I’d watched on-screen. Worshiped. My feelings were so tangled I didn’t even know myself how I felt about the woman who was Contessa Wells.

  “Tragic, really,” Rio said. “I wonder what’ll happen to her?”

  I shook my head. “Nobody’s heard.”

  Aunt Gully hurried down to the pier. Rio and Rick rose to hug her. I scooted along the picnic bench to make room for her.

  “How do you like your supper?” Aunt Gully asked.

  Rick and Rio grinned. “Fantastic!”

  A disbelieving smile broke across Aunt Gully’s face. “Really? You’re not just being nice because you remember me from Mystic Bay Elementary School?”

  Rio’s brow wrinkled. “Is that it? You think we picked the Lazy Mermaid for the contest only because I know you?”

  “Never fear.” Rick burped. “’Scuse me. Am I not the meanest man in network food? I’ve made grown men and women cry with my honest, perhaps too honest, reviews.”

  “For real,” Rio said.

  “When YUM decided to do the lobster roll contest,” Rick said, “they asked us to do the legwork, visiting dozens of lobster shacks all over New England. Since we were also scouting for a spot for our new spa, we jumped at the chance.”

  Rick leaned back. “At first, Rio’d wanted to skip Mystic Bay, but Kahuna’s is here so we had to come. We came to the Mermaid, yes, because Rio knew Aunt Gully a long time ago, but also we’d heard this newcomer to the food scene was fabulous.”

  Rick wolfed a bite of lobster roll. “Rio said that even with the disguise she wanted to be extra careful ’cause your aunt’s so perceptive she would’ve recognized her in a second. So I took the lobster rolls out to Rio and we ate them in the rental car.”

  “Come on, tell us about your disguise,” I said.

  “No can do.” Rio chuckled. “Top secr
et.”

  “When we had your aunt’s lobster roll.” Rick kissed his fingertips. “Awesome, the pure taste of summer, man. That secret sauce rocked our world.”

  “Bottom line is…” Rio took Aunt Gully’s hand. “Aunt Gully, we think you’re getting a raw deal from YUM on the lobster roll contest. We want to highlight what we think truly is the best lobster roll in New England. We’d love it if you’d let us do an episode on the Lazy Mermaid.”

  “Yes!” I said.

  Verity gasped.

  “A Foodies on the Fly episode on me?” Aunt Gully whispered. “You mean, park your trailer right here in the Lazy Mermaid parking lot?”

  Rick laughed. “Right here.”

  “And join me in the kitchen?” Aunt Gully beamed.

  “And pick lobster?” I said. “That calls for a celebration.” I hobbled as quickly as I could to the shack to tell Hector and Hilda. Aunt Gully always kept a bottle of champagne in the refrigerator “for emergencies.” I grabbed it and some paper cups and hurried back.

  We cheered as Rick popped the cork and poured. Aunt Gully raised her cup. “First of all, here’s to our brave Allie.”

  “Hear, hear!”

  “You cracked the case, Allie,” Verity said. “With your fancy footwork you brought a murderer to justice.”

  “When did you first suspect the imposter?” Rio asked.

  I put down my cup. “It was a feeling I had when we went to the Wells House the first time. The way Juliet, well, Contessa turned and moved. But still that was just a feeling. And you should’ve seen all the locks on the doors at the Wells House. It seemed impossible that she could escape with a nurse on duty and all the locks to keep her in.

  “Then I saw the walled garden outside the morning room. There was a bench, pulled up right next to the wall. When I looked over the wall, there was another bench directly on the other side. I thought how simple it would be to climb over, using the benches as steps. The wall wasn’t high. Juliet, um, Contessa was in amazingly good shape. She didn’t bother with the doors. She just went out through the garden and over the wall.”