by J A Whiting
Lin frowned. “You know the saying … an eye for eye makes the whole world blind.”
“I don’t think the killer cares much about that,” Leonard said.
Carrying flowers from the truck to the gardens behind the house, the landscapers got to work putting the blooms in place. Nicky followed them and found a comfortable spot in the shade where he could supervise the job.
“You need to think about your safety, Coffin.”
“Oh, I am,” Lin said kneeling next to the garden plot. “Sometimes, it’s all I think about. It’s a terrible thought to feel like someone is out there watching me.”
“Did anyone who worked at the factory die in an accident?” Leonard asked.
“I don’t know. I haven’t looked into it yet. Anton is researching trying to find some link. Viv and I are meeting with him this evening.”
“Maybe those factory owners did something to hurt someone financially,” Leonard speculated.
“That’s a good idea.” Lin used a trowel to dig some holes for the flowers. “Maybe someone was ruined financially by the three factory owners. Maybe the thing being avenged doesn’t even have anything to do with the silk factory itself. Maybe it’s the three men who formed the business. They must have invested in other things together besides the factory.”
“The place went out of business in less than ten years,” Leonard thought aloud. “There could have been someone who lost money due to the factory’s closing and the relative blames the factory owners for ruining that person’s life.”
“That’s reason to kill? After so many years?” Lin asked. “It was almost two hundred years ago.”
“Stranger things have happened.” Leonard tugged some flowers from their containers. “Especially on this island.”
“Maybe the police will sort it all out.” Lin moved further down the garden bed.
“What about the ghost you saw in the inn?” Leonard asked. “You think she’s from the mid 1800s?”
“I get that impression. The way she wears her hair, the clothes she has on. Maybe she worked in the factory?” Lin guessed.
“Why is the ghost appearing to you?”
“To warn me of danger?” Lin offered. “I also saw Sebastian and Emily standing outside the inn on the sidewalk.”
Leonard lifted his head and turned to his partner with an expression of worry. “Both of them?”
“Yes.”
“Huh.” Leonard stared at the flowers, thinking. “Well.”
“Well, what?” Lin looked up from her planting. “Do you have an idea?”
“Not an idea, really. I was just wondering … if Marguerite knows what’s going on.”
Leonard’s wife, Marguerite, died a number of years ago and she had not yet crossed over. Her spirit remained in the house she’d shared with Leonard, and although he was able to see her, his wife’s ghost never uttered a word to him.
“You think she knows what’s going on with other spirits?” Lin asked with excitement in her voice. “Can you ask her?”
“I will ask her.” Leonard gave a nod. “Can’t promise anything.”
“I know, but it’s worth a shot.”
Leonard gently tamped some soil around the flowers he’d just planted. “So the questions are … what’s the killer’s motivation? Why is he killing now? Who is the ghost-woman at the inn? What is she trying to tell you?”
“You forgot one other question,” Lin said. “Who’s next?”
Leonard did not want to give that question any thought. “What do you know about the dead woman … Maura Wells?”
“Not a whole lot. She was a professor of history, a researcher at a university in the Chicago area. Anton didn’t like her much. He said she was arrogant.”
“The pot calling the kettle black?” Leonard’s lips turned up into a smile thinking that many people might say the same thing about Anton. “Was Ms. Wells on-island to do some research?”
Lin sat back on the grass and Nicky crawled over so she could scratch his ears. “I wonder. If she was here researching, did that set things in motion? Did her research stir up something that should have been left alone?”
“Anton should look into that,” Leonard suggested. He pulled two bottles of water from the cooler and handed one of them to Lin. Before sipping from his bottle, he took out the doggie bowl from the cooler and filled it for the dog. “What thing could Maura Wells have come across that instigated someone to commit murder? How long had she been here?”
“I think Libby told me Ms. Wells had been here for only a week.”
“Do you know how long she planned to stay?”
“A month.”
“Someone moved fast,” Leonard noted. “Someone found out pretty quick that Ms. Wells was here. Was she going to stay for a month at the inn? That would have been expensive.”
“Libby said Ms. Wells was moving in a couple of days to a house she’d rented for three weeks.”
Leonard took an apple from the cooler. “Why don’t you stay with Viv for a while.”
Nicky had rolled onto his back so his owner could rub his tummy. “You’re scaring me,” Lin said to her partner.
“You need to be careful, Coffin. I’ve got extra bedrooms. If you and Viv want to come to my place for a while, you’re welcome to stay. That little, brown hound of yours can come, too.”
Nicky jumped up, hurried over to the man, licked his face, then plopped down in his lap.
Leonard wiped at his cheek to remove the dog kiss. “Maybe I better rethink the dog’s invitation.”
“What about Queenie? Are you fine with a cat in your house?”
“The more, the merrier.” Leonard bit into the apple. “As long as none of you mind a ghost in the house.”
“Marguerite wouldn’t mind?” Lin asked.
“Nah. She likes you. She thinks your friendship has been good for me.” Leonard patted Nicky’s head. “Of course, I always tell her she’s wrong about that.”
“I’ll talk to Viv about it. Maybe we can take turns staying at each other’s house, then we wouldn’t have to barge in on you.”
“Suit yourselves. The door is always open.” Leonard narrowed his eyes. “You put me on speed dial, Coffin. Anything worries you, you call me right away.”
“You think this is a big deal, don’t you?” Lin sighed. “I’ve been trying to downplay it, but I’ve woken up the past two nights in a cold sweat.”
Leonard tried to calm Lin’s fears. “Listen, there are lots of descendants of the Coffins on this island. The odds are that this killer doesn’t even know you exist.”
Lin cocked her head to one side. “You and I run a well-known Nantucket landscaping business. Most people here know who we are.” When her phone buzzed, Lin pulled it out of her back pocket. “It’s a text from Anton.”
She turned the phone so Leonard could read the message.
Where are you? I have some news. I need to see you. Now.
5
Lin was waiting at the front of their client’s house when Anton pulled to the curb in his small, light blue car. Leonard had taken the truck and gone on to the next client’s place.
“I’ll take the dog with me,” Leonard had said. “Have Anton drop you off when he’s finished talking to you.”
Anton waved Lin around to the passenger seat.
“Where are we going?” Lin she shut the door and buckled her seat belt. “I thought you only wanted to talk to me.”
“Another person has been attacked.” Anton hit the gas.
Lin nearly choked.
“A man,” Anton said. “Poisoned. He was out for lunch with two of his friends. When they were at the bar, he keeled over, unconscious. He is at the hospital.”
“He lived?” Lin asked hopefully.
“He was alive when Libby contacted me. The man is in serious condition.”
Lin had to hold onto the grab bar on the door when Anton took the turn going too fast. “Who is he? He’s related to this case?”
“His
name is Warren Topper. He and his wife have a house here. They use it in the summer, the rest of the year they live in New York.”
“Is he related to one of the men who owned the silk factory?”
“We are assuming so, but we don’t know for sure. Libby is at the hospital right now. The police have cleared her to speak with Mrs. Topper.”
“The police know that Libby has some … powers?”
“Detective Forrest knows. He keeps it to himself. The rest of law enforcement knows nothing. Forrest and Libby were both born on-island and have lived here their whole lives. The man has had some interactions with ghosts. He knew Lilianna as well.”
A life-long resident of Nantucket, Lilianna had passed away not long ago. The woman was in her nineties ... at least. Lilianna had powers and was able to see ghosts. She’d helped Detective Forrest with cases from time to time.
“Does he know about me?” Lin asked in a soft voice. She didn’t like the idea that someone outside of her circle of family and friends knew about her skill.
“Don’t worry. Libby wouldn’t say anything to Forrest about you. If you’re seen with Libby, however, he probably suspects that you work with her. You don’t need to be concerned about Detective Forrest, Carolin. He only asks what needs to be asked. He doesn’t pry. He is a private man who allows others their privacy.”
“Okay.” Lin saw the hospital up ahead and braced herself for Anton’s wild turn into the driveway. She gave Anton a look out of the corner of her eye. “I should have had Leonard drive me over here. I wouldn’t have been afraid for my life if he was doing the driving.”
“Very funny,” Anton muttered as he pulled the vehicle into a parking spot. “You have arrived in one piece.”
When they entered the hospital, Libby was in the waiting room. She stood up when she saw them and herded them outside to sit on a bench that had been placed under a shade tree. “Better out here where I can speak freely.”
“How is Mr. Topper?” Lin asked.
Libby said, “Still unconscious. He was at the new restaurant down by the docks with two friends. He’s been checked for heart attack and stroke and both are negative. The police suspect poisoning. They’re waiting for confirmation from the lab.”
“Were you able to speak with Topper’s wife?” Lin asked.
“Briefly,” Libby said. “The men Topper was with are good friends of the couple. They’ve known each other for years. I doubt they had anything to do with the poisoning.”
“Where was Mr. Topper before he met his friends at the restaurant?”
“He was at home. Mrs. Topper is unsure if he made any stops before heading to lunch.”
“Was there a note?” Lin’s stomach clenched.
“No note this time.” Libby shook her head.
“Do you know yet if Mr. Topper was related to any of the silk factory owners?”
“Anton is going to look into that. When I asked the wife that question, she looked at me like I was crazy. I didn’t bother explaining Maura’s death to the woman. She is understandably distraught. The police can handle telling her the details of Maura Wells’s murder.”
“What about Maura?” Lin asked. “Was poison found in her system?”
Libby said, “The medical examiner’s results were consistent with poisoning. It was a fairly fast-acting toxin that would result in death in thirty to forty-five minutes after ingesting it.”
“Where was Maura before she ended up dead in the garden of a private home?” Lin questioned.
“That has not yet been determined,” Libby said.
After leaving the hospital, Anton drove Lin to her cottage and Viv met them there. When Leonard arrived to drop off the dog before heading home, Lin gave him an update on what had happened. Viv was brought up to speed about the latest victim and that poison had been used to kill Maura Wells.
A look of horror washed over Viv’s face as her hand flew to her throat. “It really was poison that killed Ms. Wells.”
“After ingestion, this particular poison would have been effective within about thirty minutes,” Anton informed Viv.
“Someone at the inn could have poisoned Maura,” Lin speculated. “She may have had something to drink, then went out for a walk, became ill, spotted the bench, becoming disoriented, and headed into the garden to sit down.”
“We need to find out where she was before becoming ill,” Viv said. “How long was Mr. Topper at the restaurant before he passed out?”
Lin looked at Anton for the answer.
“I believe the man met his friends, the three of them went to the bar and ordered drinks,” Anton said. “The men chatted and enjoyed the beverages for about fifteen minutes before Topper began to show some signs of distress.”
“Someone at the bar could have slipped the poison into Topper’s drink,” Viv suggested.
“That’s true,” Lin said. “But Topper might have ingested the poison prior to his arrival at the restaurant. The dosage wasn’t enough to kill him so maybe it didn’t act as fast as it would have if he’d had a higher dosage.”
“That is a complication,” Anton told them. “Topper may have had something to drink before arriving at the restaurant … and that drink may have contained the poison. It may not have been the drink he ordered at the bar that poisoned him.”
“Can’t tests be run on the glass Topper was using to see if traces of poison are in it?” Lin asked.
“I’ve heard the glass can’t be found.” Anton sighed. “It broke when Topper collapsed and during clean-up, it went into the trash. The trash has been combed through and the glass was not found.”
Viv rolled her eyes. “Nothing can be easy, can it?”
Lin prepared tomato soup, grilled cheese sandwiches, and salad for dinner and when the meal was finished, the three amateur sleuths gathered around Anton’s laptop on the kitchen table to do some research.
Anton tapped away at the keyboard. “I’m in a database of family histories and ancestral lines. If Warren Topper has been added previously to the data, then his lineage will come up. Otherwise, it will take some work to find out if the man is related to Thomas Samuelson, the third factory owner, or perhaps, to Bradford Coffin. It took me a good amount of time to confirm that Maura Wells was a descendent of Garrell Williams.”
“Is there any information about something bad happening long ago in the factory?” Viv asked. “An accident? A death?”
“Not that I’ve found yet.” Anton adjusted his glasses to better see the laptop screen.
Viv sat up and turned to her cousin. “Do you still have those old newspapers Leonard gave you a while back?”
Lin’s eyes went wide. “Yes. I put the box away in the guest bedroom. I’ll get them.” In a few minutes, the young woman had returned to the kitchen carrying a huge box filled with old newspapers and books of collected newspaper editions. “We can look at the old newspaper articles from the mid-1800s. Maybe there will be a story reporting trouble at the factory.”
The cousins separated the articles and books according to date and split between them the stories from the time period they were interested in.
Settling in for a couple of hours of searching, Lin said, “At least when Mr. Topper is feeling better, he can tell us where he was before going to the restaurant to meet his friends. He can tell us who he interacted with and if he had something to drink before arriving at the bar.”
“That will be a huge help,” Viv nodded as she turned a page of one of the books.
“The man may not recall the details of his day leading up to his collapse,” Anton said without looking up. “Topper may not be the person he was prior to the poisoning.”
“How do you mean?” Viv asked.
“Poisoning can cause brain damage. Topper could emerge from his coma-like state with some issues … memory problems, trouble comprehending and producing language, motor issues, difficulties with cognition, mood problems.”
“Really? Gosh.” Viv stared across the room at nothing. “
I thought he’d wake up and everything would be fine.”
“We’ll have to wait and see,” Anton said. “Time will tell.”
“Here’s an article about the building of the factory,” Lin said. “The founders of the silk company were in such a rush to complete the structure, that during construction, they supported the building with barrels because the ground was frozen. The real foundation didn’t go in until after the ground thawed in the spring.”
“Why were they in such a rush?” Viv asked.
“Probably because they wanted to start making money,” Lin told her. Money. Was money the reason for Maura Wells’s death and the attack on Mr. Topper?
Anton’s phone vibrated and he picked it up to read the message. Viv and Lin heard him let out a long sigh before he raised his head and made eye contact with the cousins.
“Mr. Topper has passed away.”
Lin’s heart skipped a beat.
Two down, one to go.
6
It was a warm, sunny, late afternoon when Lin and Jeff rode their bikes for six miles on the paved bicycle path to the town of Madaket at the western end of the island. Passing green fields, wooded parcels of land, and the occasional house, they stopped at the town’s restaurant to pick up some sandwiches to eat on the beach.
Parking and locking their bikes, the young couple carried their backpacks and dinner down to the white sand beach with the blue ocean stretching out before them under the perfect sky. Some gulls cawed as they sailed overhead and the cresting waves shot white bubbles and foam into the air as they broke against the sand.
“Look at the water,” Lin said with a smile as she pulled a small blanket from her backpack and spread it over the sand. “Let’s jump in before we eat.”
