Against the Claw

by Shari Randall

  “There are some wonderful people in the world,” Aunt Gully said.

  “Luckily, Kurt Lupo found another donor, a living donor, shortly afterward. Recipients do better with a living donor. Personally, unless it was to save one of my sisters, you’d have to pay me a million dollars for one of my kidneys. And even then, I don’t know if I’d do it. Donations can be harder on the donor than the recipient.”

  “That makes sense,” Aunt Gully said. “It must be a new lease on life for the person who gets the organ.”

  “That’s why some people call Kurt Saint Kurt,” Dr. Strange said. “Stellene’s president of his foundation.”

  “Excuse me, Dr. Strange.” I brushed crumbs from my hands. “I’ve got to go to rehearsal.”

  “Are you sure?” Aunt Gully’s forehead wrinkled.

  Dr. Strange laid a hand on her arm. “That’s good medicine, Allegra. Gully, can I still take you up on that offer of coffee cake? I want to talk to you about Darcie Yardley.”

  “Come right home afterward.” Aunt Gully pointed her wooden spoon at me.

  “Yes, Aunt Gully.”

  Chapter 24

  Monday, July 6

  Full sun streamed in my window the next morning. What time is it? Ten A.M.! Aunt Gully had let me sleep in.

  My phone buzzed from deep within my bag. I let it ring. Opening my eyes was an effort I could barely manage and I didn’t feel up to talking.

  Instead of the escape I’d craved, rehearsal had been the opposite. Emotions were already high. The “German soprano” still hadn’t shown and I knew why. Everyone had heard about Patrick Yardley’s death. Even those who didn’t ask questions looked at me with such pity I couldn’t stand it. When Margot hugged me, her eyes glittering with questions and false concern, I’d shoved her away.

  The house was quiet. Aunt Gully was at the shack. Lorel was probably still asleep. I sat up slowly. Stress had tightened my muscles. Instead of my usual exercise routine, I headed to the shower and let the steamy water pour over me. I considered crying, but I was cried out. So many questions kept running through my mind.

  Why was Patrick at Model Sailor? Had he heard that Lorel was going there? How would he have found out? Would he be jealous that she was going to the yacht with handsome Henry Small? That didn’t make sense. Patrick had never been jealous of another man. Other men were jealous of him.

  As unlikely as it was that Patrick had followed Lorel to Model Sailor, it was even more unbelievable that someone saw him and followed him there to kill him.

  It made more sense that one of us on the boat had killed Patrick. It wasn’t Lorel or me. So that meant it had to be Henry or Eden.

  My fingertips wrinkled. I wrapped myself in a robe and toweled my hair.

  The police would zero in on Lorel, especially if they knew the truth about her breakup. Which I hadn’t told them. Which my honest sister probably did.

  First things first. I had to learn more about Eden and Henry Small.

  Who was Eden? Just Eden, no last name. I searched online. There were thousands of results, and dozens of news stories about her stalkers. No wonder she felt hounded.

  After several minutes of research, only one thing was clear. As a headline said, “Eden—Music’s Mystery.” Little was known of her life, especially before she began her singing career.

  Why the secrecy? She didn’t seem shy but she was protective of her privacy. Who could blame her? But even her name, Eden. The obvious connotation was Garden of Eden. Who named their kid Eden? Nowadays lots of people gave their children unusual names, but Eden was older than I was. Was it even her real name? Was she hiding her real identity? What could be hidden in your past that was so terrible that you’d want to hide your identity? Was she a criminal?

  I shook my head. Overactive imagination, Allie. I looked closely as photo after photo of Eden flashed by on the screen of my phone.

  One old photo captured Eden onstage at a small club, sitting at a piano in front of a mural of race cars. I looked closer. I’d been in that club. The Checkered Flag in Boston. A guitarist stood behind her at a microphone. I looked closer. The guitarist was Henry Small.

  My phone buzzed. Verity and Bronwyn texted. I texted back, Call you later.

  Next I Googled Henry Small.

  The first image I found was from an ad campaign for beer: A picture of Henry, shirtless, cradling his guitar in a rusted pickup truck. His tousled blond curls, his crooked grin, the warm invitation in his blue eyes—the ad made me want to run out immediately and buy beer. Lots and lots of beer.

  Aside from the beer ad, there wasn’t much about Henry Small online except for a few articles noting that he was in Eden’s band and a couple of old photos. I scrolled through and stopped at one taken in a low-ceilinged club, showing him playing guitar behind two young women. A banner behind them read “3H” but the angle of the photo cut off whatever followed the H. Three H what? Hearts? Harbors? Hamburgers? Wasn’t there an organization called 4-H? Was it a play on words?

  I looked closer. It was definitely Henry, skinny but undeniably handsome even in a ratty wife beater T-shirt. The two women, teenagers really, were both blond. One had a round face, her head tilted, her eyes closed, deep into the music. Eden, I was sure. I’d seen her tilt her head that same way as she sang. The other young woman was captured mid-sway, her long hair swinging, her eyes on Henry. Who could blame her?

  The Web site was from a VFW hall in Wyoming. A quick search showed that the hall had closed years ago. A dead end.

  I scrolled further. There were photos of a sheriff Henry Small, Jr., his father, judging from the same wiry frame and strong jaw. I found a listing for Henry P. Small III from a graduation at Wyoming Central College. Associate’s degree in criminal justice. Henry the Third was Henry Small, the guitarist/model from Stellene’s party.

  Henry had been in a band as a teenager, had then taken a detour into criminal justice, then returned to music. Why? Family expectations? The law had been his family business, just like lobsters had been mine. A guy with a criminal justice degree seemed even less likely to be guilty of Patrick’s murder.

  I returned to the blurry photo of Eden in the Checkered Flag. I had a friend who’d been plugged into the Boston music scene for years. Maybe he knew Eden. It was early but Rafael never slept anyway so I called him.

  “Rafael!”

  “Allie! How’s my favorite dancer?”

  The truth would take hours to tell. “Wondering if you could help me out. What do you know about Eden?”

  “Eden? Well, I don’t know her personally. She’s the big mystery, right?” He laughed softly. “I know Lars, her partner, kind of. He’s out of MIT. He was into really experimental music. All I know is, a few years ago he went to a family wedding out West somewhere. Eden was singing in the wedding band. And when he came back, he brought her with him. Did you meet her?”

  “Yes. She’s nice,” I said carefully. “And I met her guitarist, Henry Small. I thought he was her boyfriend.”

  “Whatever floats her boat, right? Though Lars seems to be more than, you know, a boyfriend. Eden calls Lars her Creator.”

  Creator? “Wow, that’s strange. What about Henry Small? Hear anything interesting about him?”

  “Great guitarist.” Rafael was silent for a moment. “Been in a few bands. Something’s trying to surface. Some story about a girl leaving him at the altar? Or the other way around? Not sure.”

  I wondered if the girl had been Eden or the other girl in the blurry photo. I thanked Rafael and ended the call.

  Chapter 25

  An hour later I parked in the street near the Yardleys’ house. Cars crowded the driveway. The gray-shingled Cape was built in the eighteen hundreds and had always been in the Yardley family. When Patrick and Hayden were younger, its flower beds burst with color, the lawn was tidy, the windows gleamed.

  Now weeds choked the flower beds, paint peeled off the shutters, and the shades were often drawn. Darcie Yardley had gone back to work full-ti
me at the hospital and the boys’ father, Spar, had never had a taste for yard work.

  I’d picked a few white roses from Aunt Gully’s garden. As I passed through the garden gate propped open with a chipped brick, I felt their insignificant weight in my hand.

  A man held the screen door for me as he left the house. I stepped through a mudroom lined with coats and bags hanging from pegs. Just as I remembered it when Hayden Yardley and I were in Theater Club sophomore year of high school.

  Spar Yardley sat at the kitchen table, a half-empty bottle of whiskey and an empty glass in front of him. “Laughing Allegra,” he said. He always called me Allegra and quoted the Longfellow poem. He rose unsteadily from the table and patted my back. As I kissed his cheek, the smell of alcohol enveloped me.

  Spar Yardley was a wiry man with a head of thick brown hair shot through with white. A strong jaw that was handsome on his boys looked stubborn on him. Still, Aunt Gully said he’d been a handsome young man, until the drink got hold of him.

  “I heard your sister was in the hospital.” Spar’s eyes were red, watery. “Is she all right?”

  I wondered if the Yardleys knew that Patrick and Lorel had split. The realization that they probably thought that Lorel and Patrick were still a couple sent a wave of panic through me. What would I tell his mother?

  “Lorel’s home now, in bed,” I said. My stomach churned. “She’s okay.”

  “Good, good.” He slumped back into his chair.

  Mrs. Yardley’s sister came into the kitchen and set a cake plate on the kitchen counter. She gave me a quick hug and walked me into the dining room. “Your aunt’s already been here, left a pot of soup on the stove, bless her. People tend to go heavy on the cakes and breads but when there’s men in the house you need a meal.”

  “Is Hayden home?” Already I wanted to run, away from Mr. Yardley’s sad, drunk eyes.

  “Upstairs taking a phone call. You young people, always on the phones.” She shook her head. “Patrick was always doing business on his. His whole life was on there.”

  The night Patrick and Lorel fought on the breakwater flashed in my mind.

  Mrs. Yardley materialized at my elbow like a ghost. Normally, she was an energetic woman who worked long shifts at the hospital. Now her eyes were blank and dull. Everything about her was gray. Her curly hair was uncombed, her eyes were shadowed with gray smudges. She even wore a gray baggy sweater over a turtleneck. I tried not to show my shock.

  I embraced her bowed shoulders gently, then handed her the flowers. “Thank you, sweet girl.” Mrs. Yardley handed the roses to her sister. “Sis, put these on the coffee table, will you?”

  Her sister took the flowers and the hint. Mrs. Yardley steered me to the corner of the room. Over her shoulder, school photos of Hayden and Patrick marched up the stairs.

  “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Yardley.”

  Mrs. Yardley’s face crumpled. She pressed a lace-edged handkerchief to her lips. “I don’t know if it’s real yet.” She stared through the sliding door to the rusted swing set in the backyard. “At the hospital people pass all the time. It’s not real until it’s you.” Her eyes brimmed. “And then it’s still not real. Is Lorel all right? She was admitted to the hospital before we heard about Patrick. Before the police came.” Mrs. Yardley swayed. I lunged and caught her as she slumped to the floor.

  “Mom!” Hayden Yardley’s footsteps pounded down the stairs. Hayden’s broad shoulders made the room suddenly feel small. He slipped an arm around his mother. “I’m okay, I’m okay,” Mrs. Yardley whispered. She leaned on us and we walked her to the couch.

  “Maybe you should lie down again, Mom.” Hayden’s voice was strained. One of Mrs. Yardley’s friends tucked a pillow behind her head and another spread a wooly throw over her legs.

  “In a few minutes. Father O’Malley’s coming. I want to see him,” Mrs. Yardley said.

  Father O’Malley would have a challenge doing a service for a young man who never set foot in church. Lightning might strike St. Peter’s, or me, for thinking that.

  “Allie, hug your sister for me,” Mrs. Yardley said.

  “I will, Mrs. Yardley, I will.”

  Hayden laid his hand on his mom’s. She closed her eyes. I wondered if she had taken the same sedatives as Lorel.

  Hayden stood. “Allie, can you talk for a sec?”

  We went out through the sliding glass door onto a wooden deck, into birdsong and heat. A wall-unit air conditioner hummed behind us.

  We sat in the shade of a sun-bleached patio umbrella on two plastic lawn chairs. Hayden leaned his elbows on his knees and rubbed his face.

  “Allie, I wish I could say I’m surprised. But I’m not.” His eyebrows lowered over his warm brown eyes as he watched the swings sway in the breeze.

  My shoulders relaxed. Hayden and I could always talk. “I can’t figure out for the life of me what he was doing at Stellene’s yacht.”

  Hayden shook his head. “Patrick was into all kinds of trouble. And this is just between you and me so for God’s sake don’t tell Lorel, or especially Verity.” Verity never could keep a secret. Hayden inhaled. “My brother supplied drugs to Stellene. Bit of coke. For years. Started out doing errands for her, but…”

  I flashed back to Tinsley and Stellene. “Patrick was a friend—of Stellene’s.” No wonder Stellene didn’t want Tinsley to tell me she knew Patrick.

  Hayden continued, “Suppliers and customers coming in on yachts, going out on yachts. He was into some bad stuff. He knew some bad people.”

  “Hayden.” I lowered my voice. “Did Patrick tell you that he and Lorel’d broken up?”

  “We didn’t talk about stuff like that. Honestly, we didn’t talk much at all. But Lorel and Patrick, that was never going to work.” Hayden shook his head. “Patrick didn’t know what a good thing he had with her.” He tilted his chair on two back legs. “Who am I kidding? She was way too good for him. I’m glad she broke it off.”

  “How am I going to tell your mom?”

  “I’ll do it.” Hayden took a deep breath and righted his chair. “But not today.”

  Hayden had always had to do the tough stuff. Get his father home when he was drunk. Drive his mom to her chemo appointments. Patrick was never around.

  “Have the police been here?” I asked.

  Hayden looked away. “You mean after they told us the news? No. My dad was drinking down at New Salt. My mom called me and I came down from Boston.”

  “I talked to the cops. Some G-man named Budwitz.”

  Hayden smiled. “Not your friend Detective Rosato?”

  “That’s probably in my future.”

  Hayden sat back, his dark brown eyes troubled. “Allie, did you see or hear anything important on the yacht? You or Lorel?”

  A car door slamming in the driveway made me jump. Maybe I shouldn’t be telling any of it but I told him everything. “And the worst thing is, Lorel found Patrick.”

  “She didn’t deserve that.”

  The glass door slid open. Mrs. Yardley’s sister stuck her head out. “Hayden, your mother wants you.”

  “I’d better go,” Hayden said. “Allie, let’s talk later, okay?”

  “Okay.” I gave him a hug and walked through the house. I could feel the eyes of the old ladies inside follow me, probably thinking, Those Larkin girls can’t stay away from the Yardley boys. How things would change when news got out that only Eden and Henry Small and Lorel and I were on the yacht with Patrick. That Lorel and Patrick had had a screaming fight and had broken up. Would people think that one of “those Larkin girls” killed Patrick?

  Chapter 26

  I drove past the Seahorse, a bar/restaurant in the marina where the hardcore sailors hung out. Maybe someone from Stellene’s waterfront crew would be here. It was the closest bar to Harmony Harbor. Maybe they’d know why Patrick was at Model Sailor.

  I pushed through the door into the snug bar, wood paneled with a low ceiling and red vinyl booths. It was almost noon. Several custome
rs already stood at the horseshoe-shaped bar. The television over the bar played a game show nobody watched.

  The bartender was a chum of my dad’s.

  He jutted his chin. “Allie girl! How’s the littlest mermaid?”

  “Doing okay, thanks.” I leaned over the bar and gave him a kiss.

  He leaned close. “You’re sure?” His troubled expression let me know that he’d heard about Patrick’s death.

  “Yeah, and Lorel, too.”

  He wiped a glass and changed tack.

  “Ankle’s healing fine, I hear. You’re going to be in that new show, right? The missus and I will be front and center.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Having lunch?”

  “No, I want to talk to somebody.” I lowered my voice. “Is anybody here that works for Stellene Lupo at Harmony Harbor?”

  He inclined his head toward a man sitting alone in a corner booth. “Ken Jackson. He’s been surrounded by amateur detectives wanting to know what happened at the yacht. Man just wants to eat his fish and chips.”

  Ken Jackson had taken us to the Model Sailor. “I won’t bother him. Much,” I said.

  Dad’s friend clapped a hand on mine. “You sure you’re all right?”

  His big warm hand reminded me of my dad’s. “Yes.”

  With a pang I realized that since my dad was still sailing with Esmeralda, Ondine would be the first time he’d missed one of my opening nights. Even when he was exhausted from a long day on the lobster boat, he always came to my performances.

  I straightened my shoulders and walked over to the corner booth.

  Ken hunched protectively around the remains of his fish and chips.

  “Sorry to interrupt your lunch, Mr. Jackson,” I said.

  He stood, wiping his chin with his napkin. “Hi, Allie, right? Please call me Ken. Have a seat.”