“Sorry, sorry,” I whispered as I followed him down the stairs. I turned my head away. I couldn’t face Hayden’s disappointed eyes.
We stood in the hall near the bar. “Which guy?”
“Black slicked-back hair, big gold watch, Easter-egg-yellow shirt, navy blazer.”
“I have to make a phone call.” Hayden hurried toward the kitchen.
Music blared from the bar, along with conversation and too loud laughter. Tears pricked my eyes as I went into the dining room.
Lorel sat at a table with some friends from her high school softball team, an untouched glass of sparkling water in front of her.
At the far end of the dining room, away from the loud music, Mrs. Yardley sat in a booth with her sisters and some friends, including Aunt Gully. They had full glasses of wine in front of them along with a photo album and an arrangement of white roses and daisies. They were enduring this raucous wake. I slid into the banquette seat next to Aunt Gully.
Aunt Gully rummaged in her purse, took out two boxes, set them on the table, and handed me a package of tissues. “Oh! I forgot about these.”
Our eyes met.
White jewelry boxes. Tinsley’s gifts from our night catering at Harmony Harbor.
Please don’t let anyone ask what these are.
“What is it, Gully? A present?” Her friend Mrs. Ruth took a box, opened it, and took out the necklace Tinsley had given to Aunt Gully.
Aunt Gully’s mouth made a little red lipsticked O. The whole evening at Harmony Harbor washed over me.
Mrs. Ruth held the necklace to the light. “Oh, that’s beautiful!” She tilted the medallion by the flickering candle on the table
Aunt Gully took a deep breath.
“Where did you get it?” Mrs. Ruth asked.
“Oh, it was a gift, from a job.” Aunt Gully waved her hand vaguely.
A couple of the women exchanged glances, friends who knew that the only catering job we’d done was at Harmony Harbor. Mrs. Yardley probably knew it, too. A terrible reminder of what had happened to Patrick, not that she needed reminding.
Mrs. Yardley took the necklace but passed it on without looking at it.
The women murmured in appreciation as it went around the table. “What’s the design?”
Aunt Gully said, “Not something I’d pick out myself. It’s so dramatic.”
Mrs. Yardley excused herself and we slid out to let her and two friends out of the banquette. They headed toward the restroom.
Everyone exhaled.
Aunt Gully took the medallion and boxes and shoved them back into her purse. “I forgot I had them.”
“Makes sense, though,” Mrs. Ruth said.
“What makes sense?” I asked.
Mrs. Ruth taught Classics at the college. “It’s a wolf. Stellene’s last name, Lupo, means wolf in Latin.”
“I didn’t know that. Allie, what did you do with your bracelet?” Aunt Gully asked.
“I threw it away.” My mind replayed the moment the bracelet sank beneath the water at Kiddie Beach. This was a conversational door I didn’t want to go through. “Excuse me.” I went to Lorel’s table.
Lorel stared down into her drink while her friends talked quietly. I knelt next to her and whispered, “Lorel, can I talk to you a sec?”
“What is it?”
“Those backers, the ones that you said weren’t nice guys. Are they here?”
Instead of looking around, Lorel ran a finger around the rim of her drink. “Allie, I have no idea. It’s just something Patrick said. About his backers putting the screws to him to pay back his loan. Those were his words. I just thought, you know, people who put the screws to other people are not nice people.”
“Come here, I want to show you something. Please.” I tugged Lorel’s hand and hustled her into a dark corner of the bar, ignoring her friends’ raised eyebrows. “See those guys in the bar?” I nodded toward Mr. Miami Vice and his friend.
Lorel rolled her eyes. “I don’t know them.”
She crossed her arms. Should I tell her? “Lorel. I just saw that guy with the slicked-back hair go into Patrick’s room upstairs.”
“They can’t get into it. It’s locked. There’s police tape,” Lorel said.
“I know it’s not locked because I just went in there. The room has been torn apart. It’s a total mess.”
“What!”
Verity came into the bar. Several people did a double take. She wore a black fifties wiggle dress that fit her like a too tight glove. She’d paired it with dramatically high black stilettos.
“Hi.” Verity sipped from a martini glass as she joined us. “Thought I’d need something to fortify myself before I talk to Mrs. Yardley. Oh, hi, Lorel.”
Hayden hurried through the bar, his head bent over his phone. My cheeks flamed.
Patrick’s whole life was on that phone. Who’d said that?
“Do you remember when you tried to call Patrick the night of the, er, Fourth,” I asked.
“Yes.” Lorel rubbed her head. “The call went to voice mail.” Her voice caught. “He never let my calls go to voice mail.”
“Well, yeah, he dropped his phone in the water, right?” Verity sipped her drink.
Lorel stared. “How do you know that?”
Verity choked. We exchanged glances. Verity knows because I told her I’d seen Patrick drop his phone in the water the night you broke up with him at Kiddie Beach.
“So what do you do with a wet phone?” I said in a rush.
“I dropped mine in the bathtub once,” Verity babbled. “Actually got it to dry out in rice.”
“I remember that,” I said. “When we found Patrick, in the boat, I didn’t see a phone.” My thoughts tumbled. Someone had searched Patrick’s room. Mr. Miami Vice went up to search, too, but wasn’t carrying anything when he left. What would be important to find? I remembered his aunt talking about Patrick’s phone. What did she say? His whole life was on there. Where was it?
I pulled Lorel by the hand. “They have rice here, right in the kitchen.”
“I’m sure you’re going to explain this wild-goose chase somehow.” Lorel followed.
We hurried into the kitchen. In a pantry to one side, huge bags of rice were stacked on stainless steel shelving.
“You think Patrick left his phone here?” Verity ran her hands over the large bags.
“You ladies need some help?” One of the chefs came over, nodded when he saw Lorel. “Hey, how you doing, honey?”
“Okay, Sean.” They hugged. “How ’bout you?”
Sean rubbed his face. “Not good. It’s hard.”
“This is my sister, Allie, and her friend Verity.” Lorel’s manners were automatic and beautiful. She always did the right thing at the right time. Thank goodness, because I was ready to explode. I was so sure the Miami Vice guys were bad guys and that we had to find Patrick’s phone now, before they did.
So I could show Hayden I wasn’t a screwup.
“Did Patrick ask you for rice, recently, by any chance? For a wet cell phone?” I waved at the rice bags.
“Yeah,” Sean said. “As a matter of fact we were joking about it. I gave him a smaller bag and he took it with him.”
“With him?”
“Yeah, I was closing up the kitchen on the night of the third. Really late. Next day was the Fourth”—Sean winced—“so easy to remember.”
“Did he stay here that night?” I pressed.
He shrugged. “Not sure. I remember he went out the back door with the bag. Said he was going to check on his boat. That’s the last time I saw him.”
His boat. Miranda. Maybe he wouldn’t have left his phone here. Maybe he knew that bad guys were waiting to search his room.
“Thanks. Nice to meet you, Sean,” I said.
“Good night, Sean.” Lorel went back into the bar and Sean returned to his work.
I tugged Verity’s hand and we exited through the door into the rear parking lot. The door thudded shut, muffling th
e music and kitchen noise.
The parking lot wasn’t the most attractive spot at night. Cars and empty crates jammed the gravel near the Dumpster. Verity and I walked around the building, Verity holding my arm as she tottered on her stilettos in the gravel.
The marina wrapped around one side and behind New Salt. Docks with dozens of boats ran the length of the parking lot.
We hurried down the uneven planks that led to the marina. Miranda, my dad’s old lobstering boat, was in a slip at the very end of the dock. The music and light of New Salt faded and the gentle creaking sound of boats on the water grew louder as Verity’s shoes tapped on the uneven wood.
Verity and I stepped onto Miranda. Usually, seeing the boat was like visiting an old friend. Lorel and I loved her almost like a pet. In the darkness, I picked my way across the floorboards, threading through stacked lobster pots and coils of rope.
“Why’re we here?” Verity whispered.
“Because.” I shined my cell phone flashlight on the lobster pots. “Patrick left with rice. Out the back door.”
“Maybe he was going home.” Verity sat in the wheelhouse. “He probably parks in the back lot.”
Where was home for Patrick Yardley? That apartment over the bar? His old room at his parents’ house? Somewhere else?
“Maybe.” I wondered if the police had taken his car. As I searched, I told Verity about the tossed room and the man I’d seen coming downstairs.
“So you think these guys want Patrick’s phone?”
“Maybe?” Could they be looking for something else? “Maybe there’s something incriminating on it.”
“Maybe the police took it already,” Verity said.
“Probably.” I sighed. “Maybe if we could find it we’d figure out what was up with Patrick. Why he came out to Stellene’s yacht.” I shined the light under some flotation devices. “I know he needed money. But he didn’t sell Miranda.”
“Well, that’s sweet, right?” Verity said. “He knew selling Miranda would upset Lorel.”
Sweet wasn’t how I’d describe Patrick Yardley.
I shined the light around the boat, spotlighting wooden planks, coiled rope, and stacks of lobster traps.
“I remember my dad and his friends talking about smugglers who used lobster traps to transport drugs,” I said. “I wonder if that’s why Patrick kept Miranda.”
“Smuggling drugs in lobster pots?” Verity asked. “Oh. I guess you could. One boat drops off in the pot and another pulls the stuff in.”
“And nobody’s out there watching,” I said.
The boat swayed gently underneath us.
“What are you sitting on, Verity?”
She stood and I shined my light on a large cooler.
“Open it!” I said.
Inside, my cell phone spotlighted a bag of rice. “No way,” Verity whispered. She aimed her cell phone light at the rice as I dug inside the grains. “Oh my God, that’s a cell phone!”
“Oh! Fingerprints.”
I dropped the phone back into the rice.
“Hang on.” Verity reached into her clutch. “I have this great silk scarf.” She handed it to me.
“Wait! I should keep it in the rice, right?” I wrapped the scarf around the entire bag with the phone in it and put it in my purse. My bag bulged.
“Now what? Isn’t that evidence?” Verity said.
A blast of Irish music made me look up. Two shadows moved from New Salt’s kitchen door. Large shadows. They passed under a security light by the fence. Mr. Miami Vice and a friend headed toward the dock.
“Verity,” I whispered. “Shh! Don’t say a word. I bet they’re coming here.” I dialed my phone.
“You mean the bad guys? Oh, God,” Verity grabbed my arm. “We’re at the end of the dock. We’re trapped.”
“Mystic Bay Police,” said a staticky voice on the phone.
“Two men are trespassing on Miranda at the Mystic Bay Marina,” I whispered. “Behind New Salt restaurant. End of the dock.”
“Name, please.”
I hung up and smacked my head. “That was dumb. I just called with my own phone, and then didn’t give them my name.”
“What do we do? I don’t want to jump overboard. I’ll ruin my dress,” Verity said.
“And the phone, we can’t get it wet again.” I weighed our options. These guys were bad, no doubt about it. I could feel it. But would they hurt us? Were they looking for the same thing we’d just found? The rice and phone were so heavy—I shifted my bag under my arm like a football. The handbag felt radioactive, as if there was a sign blinking above it: WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING FOR IS IN HERE.
“Too late for us to run.” I kept my phone in my hand, ready to redial the police. “Let’s just play it cool. Come on.”
Verity and I walked back toward New Salt. “Play it cool,” she muttered, “play it cool.”
“Casual, right? Walk slow, right past them, then we’ll run.” Verity’s shoes clacked on the boards. “If we have to run, kick off your shoes.”
Mr. Miami Vice spread his arms, blocking our way. “Ladies.”
Verity looked at me. I swallowed hard but lifted my chin.
“What brings you out here?” he said.
Verity put her hands on her hips. “None of your business.”
“We’re just taking a walk.” I shined my cell phone light at his face. He flinched and raised his hand.
Verity fumbled hers out of her clutch and aimed it at Miami Vice’s pal.
“Hey! Cut it out!” he said.
He looked familiar. “Have I seen you before?” I lowered my phone.
Blue lights strobed from the parking lot. The police.
Miami Vice’s friend rubbed his eyes then looked at me. His expression relaxed. “Oh, yeah, you’re one of the girls from Aunt Gully’s lobster shack. How you doin’?”
The men’s posture relaxed. Everyone laughed nervously. Miami Vice’s head swiveled to the police car in the parking lot. “Well, you young ladies have a good night.” He stepped aside.
Verity and I hustled past them.
Two police officers stepped onto the dock. “Are you the ones who called about trespassers on a boat?”
I hurried toward them, dragging Verity with me.
Farther down the dock near Miranda, a match flared. The cop shined a flashlight on the two men.
“Hey, that you, Alex?” the cop shouted.
Miami Vice’s friend shouted, “Yeah, just getting some air. We were at the wake.”
The cop was one I knew from the shack. He lowered his voice. “Allie, is everything all right?”
“Do you know those guys?” I said.
“Yeah, they work Harbor Patrol.”
Harbor Patrol?
“Sorry to bother you. There’s no one there now.” I knew those guys would wait until we all left and board Miranda the second we were gone.
The cop walked back toward the restaurant with Verity and me. “Sorry to bother you. I thought I saw someone on Miranda,” I said.
“So you’re sure everything’s all right?” he said.
I nodded.
“Okay, well, this gives me a chance to pay my respects to Patrick’s parents, then I’ll take a walk down along the dock and make sure everything’s okay.”
We said good night, then Verity and I got in the Tank. She locked the doors.
The red ends of Miami Vice’s and his friend’s cigarettes burned like devils’ eyes as they stood in the dark near Miranda.
“Should we film them?” Verity held up her cell phone.
“I don’t know what to do, Verity. Every time I do something it’s wrong. Those guys are Harbor Patrol. Maybe they’re investigating Patrick’s murder.”
But that didn’t seem right. Harbor Patrol managed the harbor, making sure people got the right boat slips, stuff like that. If there was a problem they helped boaters. If it was a true emergency they called the Coast Guard or the Mystic Bay Police.
“You know, it’s funny,
Verity, I remember seeing Harbor Patrol guys at the shack, the Harbor Patrol SUV rolling past our house, always when Lorel and Patrick were there. I think they were following Patrick.” I shivered. “And Lorel.”
Plus, tonight Mr. Miami Vice’s body language had been so threatening. “We’re going to have to be very careful, Verity.”
“We have Patrick’s phone,” Verity said. “Now what do we do with it?”
A voice in my head said, Take it directly to Detectives Rosato and Budwitz. “We need gloves.”
Verity reached into her glove box. “I have gloves we can use. Winter ones with the touch-sensor thingies.”
“You actually keep gloves in your glove box?”
“That’s why they call it a glove box.”
I put on the gloves and pulled the phone from the rice bag, trying not to spill rice all over the front seat. The screen lit up.
“Yes!” Verity said. “It works!”
“Oh, great,” I said. “He has it set so his password is his thumbprint.”
“You can still override with a password,” Verity said. “What would Patrick use? An important word. His girlfriend.”
I tried L-O-R-E-L. Verity watched as I spelled. It didn’t work.
“I just remembered something.” I sighed. “When Aunt Gully got her phone and she couldn’t figure out how to use it, she always used to get locked out. I don’t want this locked.”
“Or have the battery die.” Verity opened the glove box. “I have an emergency battery-charger.” I attached the phone to the charger.
“I just thought of something when you were typing Lorel’s name,” Verity said.
“What?”
“What if there are, um, photos of Lorel on there? You know. Girlfriend photos.”
“Oh, God.” Would my straight-arrow sister let her boyfriend take nude photos of her? I wrapped the rice bag and phone in the scarf and stuffed it into Verity’s glove box. “I can’t let the cops look.”
“So what do we do?”
I texted Lorel and Aunt Gully that I was leaving. My stomach churned. “The phone is evidence, right? It has to go to the police. I guess it’s more important to catch Patrick’s killer than worry about some random cops looking at naked photos of Lorel. Besides, Lorel just wouldn’t.” Would she?
Against the Claw Page 18
