by Josh Lanyon
“I know. You did.” Ellery dreaded asking, but he had to know. “Look, I can’t— I have to— Am I really a suspect in Trevor Maples’s death?”
Carson made a sound that fell somewhere between laugh and snort. “Of course you’re a suspect. You’re my main suspect.”
Chapter Seven
“But I can’t be.”
Carson looked interested. “Why can’t you be?”
“Because… Well, first of all, because I barely knew Trevor. Which means, how could I have a motive?”
“We’ve yet to determine how well you and Maples knew each other. That’s what background checks are for. Which means, we don’t yet know whether you have motive or not.”
“But—”
Carson kept talking. “What we do know is that Maples’s body was found in your bookstore by you, following an argument earlier in the day with you.”
“I can’t be the only person with a motive.”
“True.”
“Or the only person Trevor argued with.”
“As far as we can determine, you’re the only person Maples argued with on the day of his death. And yes, while there are others with grudges against our victim, those were long-standing grievances. I can’t ignore the fact that you showed up in Pirate’s Cove and shortly after, Maples ended up dead.”
“I don’t believe this.” Ellery closed his eyes, took a couple of deep breaths, opened his eyes and glared. “Are you even looking at anyone else?”
“I just told you we were.”
“Because according to Sue Lewis, I’m the only suspect.”
“Sue Lewis? What does Sue have to do with anything?”
“She came to my house today, wanting an interview with the prime suspect.”
Carson shrugged. “She didn’t get that from my department. But it’s a logical deduction.”
“Great.”
Carson studied him. “You’re not going to be railroaded. We’re going to conduct a fair and thorough investigation. A man has been murdered. We owe him and every other citizen of Pirate’s Cove no less.”
Ellery nodded. His throat was too tight for words. He understood what the chief was saying, and if his own situation wasn’t so precarious, maybe he could have accepted things more stoically. But as it was…
“I’m barely hanging on now.” He tried to keep his voice steady, but his words were embarrassingly husky. “The shop, I mean. If I’m forced to stay closed, I’m finished. I’m probably finished anyway. No one is going to want to come into a place where a murder happened.” He had to stop. He could feel Carson’s gaze, though he avoided meeting it. Finally, he shrugged, got out, “Okay, well, is that it? Can we go?”
“The list,” Carson reminded him.
Ellery’s temper came to his rescue. “There is no list! I told you that. Nothing was taken. Everything is exactly as I left it.”
“You still can’t think of any reason for Maples to come back in here last night?”
“No!”
“Because that’s the key piece of evidence against you.” Carson sounded impatient again. “The body was found in your place of business by you. That’s two strikes.”
“I don’t care if it’s a hundred strikes. I didn’t have anything to do with this!”
“Why did you come back last night?”
Ellery looked ceilingward. “We’ve covered this how many times? I had to get my car. I was parked in the back.”
“But why did you come into the shop?”
Ellery was still gazing upward, past Chief Carson’s head, past the top of the doorframe. He answered mechanically, “The lights were on. I could see them from the sidewalk.”
Carson glanced behind himself, glanced at Ellery, followed Ellery’s fixed gaze to the two empty hooks in the wall above the door.
“Something wrong?”
Ellery swallowed. “I-I just noticed. Something is missing.”
“What?”
He pointed. “The pirate sword above the door.”
Carson repeated without inflection, “The pirate sword.”
Ellery said quickly, “It wasn’t real. I mean, it was real, but not an antique. It was a replica. I don’t think it was valuable or anything.”
Carson said nothing, continuing to eye him with that unrevealing gaze.
One reason Ellery had not been a very good actor was because he was not a very good liar. He was by nature a little too forthcoming, a little too free-spoken. But only an idiot could fail to see that his already delicate position as most-likely-to-wind-up-with-an-inmate-number was about to get even dicier.
“It was just a typical pirate sword. A short, wide, double-edged blade, basket-shaped hilt—”
“A cutlass.” Carson spoke with bleak certainty. “That makes sense.”
It did? But why? Why did Carson sound like that? Why was he giving him that look? Why did it make Ellery’s position so much worse if someone had broken in to steal the sword? It wasn’t like—
Realization swept over him. Ellery sucked in a breath, said faintly, “But I thought he was shot…”
“Did you?” Carson said grimly.
“Yes! Of course. You mean you knew last night he wasn’t shot?”
“I’ve seen enough gunshot wounds to know one when I see it.”
“I haven’t.”
Carson said nothing.
“I didn’t know,” Ellery insisted.
“You didn’t know Maples was stabbed to death, and you didn’t notice the sword was gone, even though it hangs right over the front door and even though you said you searched for anything missing or out of place.”
When he put it like that…
“I don’t know what to tell you. It was there yesterday afternoon. I’m positive about that. It fell down when Trevor slammed the door—”
“Slammed the door,” repeated Carson. “So it was a heated argument.”
“I already told you he was annoyed because I didn’t want to sell him the bookshop. He was a door-slamming kind of person. That doesn’t prove anything.”
Oh no. Wherever that sword was, Ellery’s fingerprints were going to be all over it. He thought quickly, said, “For God’s sake, Chief. If I was going to kill Trevor, wouldn’t I need a better reason than he was starting to annoy me? And would I do it in my own shop? With my own sword? And then calmly go to dinner? I’d have to be crazy.”
“Maybe you are crazy. Who knows? You’re an outsider here.”
It shouldn’t have hurt because it was perfectly true. Somehow it did.
Ellery shook his head. He had no idea what to say. The missing sword. The dead body. All of this happening in his little bookshop. It was like a movie. The kind of movie he hated—along with war movies, prison movies, and animals-with-a-quest movies. How was this his life now?
“Where’s the sword?” Carson demanded harshly. “Don’t lie to me. Where is it?”
Ellery stared at him stupidly.
“Where did you hide it?”
“I-I didn’t.”
“Page, I can’t help you if you don’t help me. Where. Is. The. Sword?”
“How. Should. I. Know?” Ellery rapped back.
Carson continued to glower. Ellery scowled right back.
Was he supposed to melt into a guilty puddle beneath Carson’s steely gaze? Because that wasn’t going to happen. Yes, he was scared and worried, but he was also indignant at being judged so unfairly.
Maybe Carson saw that, saw Ellery’s mounting defiance, because some of the ferocity in his posture eased. When he spoke again, his tone was less abrasive. “Okay, let’s say you didn’t kill Maples. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, you came back from dinner last night, found him on the floor with the sword beside him, realized how it would look, and hid it.”
Did anybody really fall for that pseudo-sincere help-me-help-you schtick?
“Your officers searched the store last night,” Ellery said. “Was the sword here?”
“Last night we thought
we were looking for a knife, maybe a machete. We didn’t conduct the kind of search we’re going to conduct if you don’t produce that weapon in the next five seconds.”
The threat was not implied; it was thrown down right there in the open like a gauntlet.
“Go ahead and search. I don’t know what else to tell you. Maybe the killer, who is not and has never been me, took it away with them.”
He knew Carson didn’t believe him. Maybe in Carson’s position he wouldn’t believe him either. But if the chief wasn’t even going to try to find another suspect, Ellery would have to do it for him. Carson was right. Ellery was a stranger in Pirate’s Cove. He had no history, good or bad, no one could vouch for him, probably no one would even care if he ended up being arrested and convicted. That was the way the world worked. Everybody was busy with their own thing. Even people in small towns, where he had imagined it might be different.
It wasn’t different.
Worst of all, if he was arrested for this crime, the real murderer would likely rejoice. And that was the most galling part of all, because he couldn’t help feeling this was personal. Someone had deliberately dragged him into this murder. Used his shop, used his sword, used his difficulties with Trevor to, well, frame him.
He waited for Chief Carson to say the magic words: you’re under arrest.
It was so quiet in the Crow’s Nest, he could hear the clock in the Romantic Suspense section tick-tock-tick-tocking each second.
Carson continued to eye him, somber and silent.
What was he waiting for?
Just as Ellery was thinking he understood why, under the strain of interrogation, innocent people made false confessions, Carson said suddenly, crisply, “Very well. If that’s the way you want to play it.”
“That’s the way it is.”
Unimpressed, Carson handed over a business card. “If you remember something you believe would be useful in your defense, you can reach me at any of these numbers.”
Ellery stared down at the rows of tiny numbers. He nodded.
Carson turned, opened the door, and left.
The shop felt very large and weirdly empty after his departure.
Chapter Eight
Ellery stared down at the card he held.
It was kind of shattering to have someone gaze deep into your eyes and decide you were one of the bad guys.
Especially when you were one of the good guys. Or at least one of the normal, average, decent guys. One of the guys who wouldn’t resort to murder as a means of solving his problems.
And here he’d been thinking Todd cheating on him with Jerry was the worst thing he could go through. Man, had he got it wrong.
Great-great-great-aunt Eudora’s gift was coming with some unexpected strings attached. Strings that were starting to look alarmingly like handcuffs. So okay. He would not wait docilely to be thrown in the hoosegow by Sheriff Jack. He was going to prove his innocence to this town, if it was the last thing he did. He just needed to find where that sword had gone, and he’d know who really was behind all this. How hard could that be?
If there was one thing life had taught him, it was that people talked.
Whether they were gossiping about your cheating boyfriend or speculating on who might have reason to commit murder, people could be relied on to blab. Very well. It would be Ellery’s job to be a good and proactive listener.
Whoever had done this had to have a motive. Ipso facto, he just had to figure out who stood to gain the most by Trevor’s death. It had to be something pretty major to drive someone to murder, right? Not just that, though. Who stood to benefit by pinning Trevor’s murder on him? Because that had to be an important element in all this. The decision to frame Ellery couldn’t be random or spontaneous. No one had grabbed that sword on impulse. For one thing, they couldn’t have reached it without a ladder or stepstool.
Did that mean premeditation?
The only problem was, he couldn’t think of anyone other than Trevor who had anything to gain by him being in trouble with the law—and if this was Trevor’s plan, it was a terrible one. But it was true. No one but Trevor had ever shown any interest in buying the Crow’s Nest. The bookshop was not and had never been a thriving concern even though it was situated on a prime piece of real estate.
Location helped, but it was not everything.
Well, maybe the point of framing him wasn’t personal. Maybe it was because someone had to take the fall, and why not Ellery? He was an outsider, he was conveniently located, and he had a somewhat contentious relationship with the victim.
But, according to Dylan, there were others with equally—or maybe even more—contentious relationships with Trevor. Including Dylan himself. Although it was really hard to picture affable, dapper Dylan committing murder. Especially in such a violent fashion.
Still, he would have to be considered. Along with the other cast of characters. Ellery would see what he could find out about each one of these other potential suspects: the ex-wife, the rival candidates for mayor…and there had to be others. Trevor had been an obnoxious personality. He was bound to have other enemies.
He contemplated the lock on the front door. Had it really not occurred to Chief Carson how easy it would be for someone to pick that lock? Heck, never mind picking it, they probably could have just given it a hard wiggle.
Come to think of it, did anyone have a spare key to the Crow’s Nest? He recalled something in one of the emails from Tommy Rider about Great-great-great-aunt Eudora giving a spare key to someone because the older woman sometimes forgot her own keys.
He would have to go through his emails and confirm that. In fact, wouldn’t Tommy have a key? She was the real-estate agent handling the property. Surely, she would have to have a key.
Whoa.
Tommy had just jumped to the top of his list of suspects. Except it was as hard to picture bubbly, flirtatious Tommy committing murder as it was imagining Dylan. Especially a premeditated crime. That had to require a certain coldness, a certain calculation that not everyone was capable of.
Also, how hard was it to run someone through with a sword?
Would it take a stronger than average woman?
Something else he would need to figure out.
In the meantime, he needed a little break from murder and mayhem. He needed to focus on something he could actually control. Something that made more sense than the situation he found himself in.
With the Crow’s Nest safely (fingers crossed) locked up, Ellery made his way to the hardware store. In addition to a new floor, which he could not yet afford, the kitchen at Captain’s Seat desperately needed a new coat of paint, and he needed to get some other supplies to help with the remodel of the mansion.
It was almost a relief to have the distraction of the old house. At least one thing in his life could be torn apart and put back together to be much better than before.
Hardware and More was the only hardware store in town. It was also one of the longest-running businesses in Pirate’s Cove. As one of the first legit enterprises to go up in the small seaside village, the proprietors showed extra enthusiasm in celebrating Buccaneer Days. Ellery felt like he was stepping back in time when he walked through the doors. Not only were the workers dressed up in their olden-days costumes, but so was the store kitted out in swashbuckling memorabilia meant to transport customers back in time.
It just went to show home improvement was not a modern development.
Ellery wandered down the paint aisle, considering shades and hues. The names of some of the colors were pretty entertaining: “Memory Lane,” “Lost in the Mist,” “Silverpointe”… Maybe a gray-blue accent wall in the dining room? Maybe green-blue walls in the kitchen?
He was thinking how closely “Clear Vista” matched Chief Carson’s eyes when a middle-aged man dressed in a greatcoat and tricorn hat bumped into him. The man dropped his blunderbuss on Ellery’s foot.
“Ouch,” said Ellery, steadying himself against the paint shelves.
>
“Good heavens! I’m so sorry. I’m afraid I was daydreaming.” The man stooped, snatched up his short-barreled shotgun, and offered an apologetic smile. His cocoa-colored eyes widened as they met Ellery’s. “Mayor Cyrus Jones, at your service. And you, if I’m not mistaken, are Ellery Page, our newest resident.” The mayor stuck out a beringed hand for Ellery to shake.
Ellery, grateful for a little friendliness, smiled back as he shook hands. “Nice to meet you.”
Jones had a firm but surprisingly gentle handshake. Beneath the blue tricorn hat, his face was chubby and clean-shaven; the wrinkles around his eyes gave away his age, but also indicated someone who laughed often and deeply. He had that elusively contemporary look some people have, but his costume fit like it was tailor-made for him.
A can of bright purple paint sat in his basket—“Unimaginable” according to the color chart—and the mayor beamed, catching Ellery’s gaze.
“My tweenaged granddaughter Elsie is visiting us this summer, and she wants her room to be purple.”
“She ought to love that shade.”
“I’m sure she will.” His expression grew kind and concerned. “And how are you holding up?”
“Well,” Ellery said. That was actually a start and not a statement, but he couldn’t think of anything to add. Prime suspect was such a weird and unbelievable situation to find himself in.
“Under the circumstances, eh?” Jones’s smile was sympathetic.
“Under the circumstances, yes.” They were getting a few curious glances from other costume-clad customers, and Ellery’s face warmed.
“Don’t you worry, my boy, Chief Carson will have this mess cleaned up in no time.”
“Sure,” Ellery said without conviction.
If the mayor heard his doubt, he gave no sign. “I don’t believe any nephew of Eudora Page is capable of such a heinous act. The Pages were always good people. Solid citizens.”
“Great.” How much was that worth? He really knew nothing about his father’s side of the family. His father had died when Ellery was a baby, and his mother had remarried when Ellery turned eight. He had always thought of George, his stepfather, as Dad.
