by Ellis Quinn
Cherry smiled, almost laughed. She said, “I’m not falling for it, Bette.”
Bette sat back, putting her hands up in mock surrender, saying, “Falling for what? I mean it just sounds like you two maybe, I mean,” she broke into a breathy chuckle, “look, Cherry, you didn’t like the guy, I get it, but did you have to . . .?”
Cherry shook her head, smirking. “My goodness, and I don’t have an alibi.”
“I’m starting to feel better already,” Bette said, leaning close. Cherry leaned close and they had a stare down until they both broke up laughing.
Pris was watching them, and when they finally stopped laughing, she said, “You know what I’m thinking, seeing you two jokers hounding each other for alibis?”
Cherry said, “That you don’t have an alibi, either? . . . You can tell us, we’ll keep your secret, Pris. How did you do it?”
Pris’s chin stayed in her palm, elbow on the table, eyeing them dreamily. Bette knew her aunt’s scheming look—Pris’d engaged her mother, Scarlet, in much hijinks through the years before Mom passed, and her mother would bend before her sister’s whim like young willow. Bette said, “Uh-oh.”
“Hush, Bette,” Pris said, softly scolding. She jabbed a head nod toward Cherry, saying, “Ask this one what she listens to when she cleans up here after closing.”
Cherry rolled her eyes, smiling at Pris and folding her arms, slumping against the back of her chair. Bette asked Cherry what she listened to and Cherry said: “Podcasts.”
Pris persisted. “But what kind of podcasts?”
Cherry’s one-sided smile tucked a sheepish dimple in her cheek. “Murder podcasts.”
“How to’s?” Bette said snidely. “I really think you’re going to need that alibi now.” They both chuckled and stared each other down again.
“Whodunits,” Pris said.
Cherry said, “You’re going to get me in trouble again, Pris.”
Bette said, “She does it to you, too?”
But Pris’s cart was already on the track and gaining momentum. She said, “You know that room in Fortune, Bette, the brick building, the room that’s out front, Pearl had it for her sewing . . .?”
“Yeah . . .?”
“When your mother and I were little—I was eight and she was six—that room was a library. Your grandfather was a reader, and he let us have our own shelf in there and barely complained about our girly dime-store books amongst his classics, and one summer your mother got hooked on me reading to her about a certain young detective girl by the name of Nancy . . .”
TWO DAYS LATER
Her grandmother Pearl would stand at the Dutch door of the kitchen when Bette was little, foot up on the cross brace, and there was still her mark there, a softened edge to the wood where her grandmother’s slipper foot had rested all those years while she gawked out the open top half, looking for a wren or a kinglet or an oriole. It’d be mid-baking—the woman was always baking or cooking or just hanging out in the funnest, warmest room in the whole house—and she’d go to the Dutch door and lean out whistling her own bird songs or making a soft psh-psh-psshh.
Pearl had always seemed a farm woman; soft cottony dresses, rubber boots, often seen in an apron . . . yet as a little girl, Bette’d been transfixed by the picture of Pearl that hung near the top of the stairs to the second floor. A twenty-year-old Pearl, looking young and vivacious—she’d daresay sexy even—at college in her smart skirt and her dark lipstick in an old black-and-white photo from the fifties.
Was she now ready for that kind of change? Go from homemaker and executive’s wife, moving from bustling Bethesda into the rural place of her home?
If she were to go out and buy new clothes tomorrow, would she go to the co-op and get overalls and rubbers, a simple farm woman’s dress, maybe a straw hat? Or strike out against it, resist the urge to settle into complacency and go into the city sometime next week, get a whole new wardrobe of chic and sleek clothes. Then: what would that say about her? Wouldn’t everyone read the fear and desperation on her?—did others think the same as Royce, how Whaleys chased off men and they were doing something wrong? Perhaps a middle of the road approach would be better. A steady hand on the stick as Pearl’s airline pilot brother-in-law used to say. And wasn’t that it? Wasn’t this a bit of turbulence? Of course, one of the things she feared most about flying was turbulence. The feeling she’d get in her tummy right at that first drop, the anticipation of the next one, the rattling, the shaking . . . that sick-stomach dread was pretty much how she felt now, alone in Fortune and accused of murder.
So this is where she was: face down on the oval cotton cottage rug below the kitchen sink, staring across at the closed Dutch door, mired in a deep and strange reverie amidst a familiar yet foreign home in moving box disarray.
She’d been unpacking yesterday and all morning. Upstairs done, now down to the kitchen—but what was the point? Pearl’s kitchen had all the utensils she could need; they were better, timeworn and proven, and carried much happier memories than the ones in the boxes she’d packed from the house in Bethesda. It might just be better to re-pack these boxes and send them off to Stick-legs and Roman, wrap a big ribbon on the box and put a note on it saying: In lieu of what you thought you’d inherit faithful at my side, here are all the things I cooked your dinners with for the last twenty-odd years. Best wishes, Bette!
Somewhere along the way, the weight of it all—Pearl’s passing, the divorce, the calls from Roman, the burden of unpacking, aloneness, and a striking accusation of murder—had pushed her to the ground where she lay wiped out but sleepless, cheek on a forearm, a line of drool slowly crawling from lip corner to jawline. Ripken had padded across the floor, done converting box corners to curled confetti, poked around her lifeless body and hopped onto her back. He’d plucked and prodded, circled, dropped, then curled into a sleeping, purring welcome weight between her shoulder blades.
She wouldn’t confuse it with feline friendship, not just yet, she was being used as the warmest cushion in the house currently, her body heat warmer than the weak sunlight through the windows on this gray afternoon. But she would take it—it was nice to be something to somebody, even your son’s persnickety cat.
An abrupt knock came to the front door and she jolted. Ripken didn’t flinch. She hadn’t heard anyone approach the house, though the ceiling fans of course’d been rattling, and a radio played from the sitting room . . .
“All right, Ripken, you gotta get off,” she said, wriggling her shoulders, trying to budge Vance’s cat. Ripken was unbudgeable. “Seriously, I gotta get the door . . .”
Then began an awkward sequence: A push-up, then a push up with one arm; trying to roll over, being gentle at first, but the more she persisted, the more Ripken was determined to stay. The purring stopped. Nails came out. Sharp little needle points poked in through her shirt and on either side of her bra strap, looking for purchase. “Okay, okay, claws in, claws in.”
The knock came again, this time louder. It was authoritative, and its sharp staccato filled her with new dread. “Okay, Rip, we’re rolling over,” she said, “I don’t want to crush you,” and began—with elbows tucked to her ribs—to roll over on her side. Ripken’s nails dragged; he had a hold of her hair now too. “Are you kidding me?” she said, and despite the pin prick scratching, she began to laugh. “Okay, okay,” she said, getting up on hands and knees. “We’re going to get a little higher—”
The authoritative knock came again.
“I’m coming, I’m coming . . . Hold on!”
Then she was up and squatting, knees bent, hunched over like a question mark, sagging against the kitchen countertop, giving Ripken something new and interesting to explore. At last he was offloaded, keen to see what he could find on the kitchen counter. She paused for one second to pat him between his ears, him doing that avoiding-eye-contact thing again, her shaking her head at him. “You’re a rascal,” she said as the door knock came another time.
She padded out of the
kitchen, down the hall past the stairwell to the second floor and could see silhouetted in the square frame of the front door a man with a big hat. She grimaced, even whispered Ugh, her quickstep turning to a slow shuffle. Bare feet. Sweatpants. Ratty old T-shirt. Probably with cat claw tears in the back. Hair up with a kerchief tied in a bow. . . . Too late to pretend she wasn’t home, she’d hollered out already, and the man’s silhouette was cocking his head, eyeballing movement inside the house now, seeing her coming.
She pulled inward the front door, pushed slightly outward the screen door, sniffed, said, “Hey.”
It was Marcus Seabolt, taking off the big hat now and holding it at his chest. He was in full Chesapeake Cove police uniform: Short sleeve black shirt, black shiny boots, pants with a side stripe, epaulets, shoulder mic, gun belt with all kinds of pouches, and a pistol on his hip. Probably handcuffs somewhere. A cold ball of dread formed above her stomach. “You here to arrest me?”
“I’m not here to arrest you, Bette. Whyn’t you invite me in?”
“I’ve been unpacking,” she said, hiding herself from him.
“Remember I said we needed to talk?”
“All right,” she said, “come on in—I’m not really dressed for company. I wasn’t expecting you . . .”
He took hold of the screen door from her, and entered the house, eyes going up and around the foyer, taking it all in. “Been quite a while since I was inside Whaley’s Fortune.”
“Can you come in to the kitchen?—hey, maybe I can make you some coffee or some tea . . .”
“Coffee’d be all right, thanks, Bette.”
She told him his boots were all right left on, and she had to sweep later, then led the way to the back of the house and into the kitchen. While she filled a kettle, then flicked it on, Marcus wandered beyond the island, checking out the sitting room, her unpacking disarray, then over to the view of the Bay out the back windows, the whole while spinning his hat between two hands. It was funny: here Marcus was a grown man now, and he still had the same mannerisms as when they were young. Not just how he used to spin his ball cap the same way when he was nervous, but the way he’d stoop to look out a window, turning his eyes up to look out from under his brow, the same way he’d lean weight on his right foot, that same stoic expression, like he was worried he’d give some inner thought away. But then look at her: Butt leaned against the counter edge, hands curled on the edging, chewing her cheek, her bare toes curling and wringing against each other. Old nervous tics were hard to escape.
She pushed off the counter, came to lean her elbows on the island, rubbing the backs of her arms. Marcus made his way toward her, standing for a moment on the opposite side of the island then coming into the kitchen, his boots making squeaks on the tile rather than the clunks on the hardwood. He stood near her side, not looking at her but beyond her out the windows over the sink. She turned to watch out them as well. Marcus said, “I want to offer my condolences on the passing of your Gran. Pearl was an amazing woman. Big part of the Cove, and the Cove is gonna miss her.”
“Thank you, Marcus.”
His eyes stayed toward the window, mouth working around, jaw muscles flexing until a small smile tugged at his serious mouth. He side-eyed her, said, “You remember she’d make cookies, leave em on that sill in the summer with the windows open and we’d sneak on up and swipe a few—”
“Trying to rearrange the rest so it wouldn’t look like any were gone,” she said.
“Then we’d hustle our bounty—apple cookies, she made the best apple cookies—we’d hustle the cookies down to the beach to eat em.”
“I remember,” she said, her smile matching his tentative one. “Then we’d go look for soft shells.”
Both their smiles slowly faded and she got uncomfortable, rubbing the backs of her arms again; the sky outside churned in shades of gray. She said, “I didn’t see you at the funeral.”
“I was there.”
She nodded, not knowing what to say, wondering why her old friend wouldn’t have come forward and said hello to her. “Did you try one of those crab and avocado grilled cheese?”
“What?” Marcus looked perplexed.
“At the memorial.”
He nodded. “Oh. I couldn’t stay long, Bette. I was on duty.” He set his hat on the island.
“Never mind. I just think I’m hungry. You hungry? Want me to make you something?”
“That’s all right, Bette, just the coffee. I already ate. So listen . . .”
The kettle’s lever popped and she flinched. She poured the hot water into the French Press while Marcus watched silently. She returned to lean on the island.
He said, “Tell me what happened with Royce, Bette.”
She told him the truth, straightforward as she could. Told him how she’d been bothered already that day, how she had a lot going on, went for a walk and found Royce’s floats off their shore.
“How d'you know they were Royce’s?”
“You know how I’d know they’re Royce’s—big man with a deer rifle, even his floats gotta be bullet shaped.”
Marcus nodded again, and she continued, telling him how she’d just been so mad because it was an insult to Pearl. How he would never’ve put his traps out there when Pearl was alive and he had no respect for her passing, he’s here a week later trying to take advantage.
“And I’m just sick of people like that, you know, Marcus? One’s who take advantage, who have no shred of honor or civility, no decency to at least wait a year till she’s gone before he pulls some Royce-stunt like that. I told him that: it was the timing.”
“This was down at the Crab?”
“I was hot, Marcus, I’m not going to lie. It wasn’t even Royce I was mad at, you know? I mean, he’s like my focal point, but it’s just everything all at once. I jumped in Pearl’s Bronco, went down to the Crab and told him to get his traps out of my water.”
“How d'you know he’d be there?”
“You think I’m stalking him? If he wasn’t at the Cracked Crab I’d head up to the next crab shack then the next one then the next one . . .”
“You really wanted him.”
“Not like that. Don’t try to implicate me. I just wanted to vent. And I wanted his traps off my property. There’s not a lot I have control of right now, I needed something to . . .”
“Royce just picked the wrong day.”
“He picked the wrong day to put his traps out front of Fortune, yes. But I swear, Marcus, you know me, sure I don’t like the man, and I talked plenty of trash about him when we were younger, but . . .” She shook her head, story fading while she recalled those teen years in the Cove.
“There’s bad family blood. Whaleys and the Murdochs.”
“That’s just stories, though. Truth was Royce was never bad to me, it was just those old family stories and the man’s generally objectionable nature that always got me riled. I thought I wasn’t supposed to like him, and he sure made it easy not to.”
“Family feuds,” Marcus said.
She said, “I was so shook up at how I talked to him . . . I felt terrible after. I never could have caused him real harm. I’d be a wreck now.”
He looked her way quick and sprung a question on her: “You throw a drink in his face?”
“I did not. I swear I did not. I picked it up like I would, then I could see from his grin it was what he wanted in the first place. Some men thrive on conflict.”
“Royce did like to get into it.”
She returned to the French press and plunged it before pouring two cups for them. “Cream? Sugar?”
“Black’s fine.”
She creamed hers and added sugar.
Marcus sipped and set his cup down. “What he say to get a drink almost thrown in his face? He say something bad about Pearl?”
She shook her head. “I’d rather not say.”
He tapped on the badge on his shirt: a reminder this wasn’t a social call.
She rolled her eyes, winced. “Bad ab
out me. About Whaley women in general and how we can’t keep a man, and—”
“It’s okay, Bette, you don’t have to say.”
“Guy’s a master at hurting feelings, I tell you what. I’m back in the Cove for a couple of sunrises and he’s already got me pegged, knows how to pop my balloon.”
“Royce had a way. I’m familiar.”
She sipped her coffee, watching the way the gray light made Marcus’s eyes look dark blue. She cleared her throat, said, “Is this where you tell me this is all a horrible joke and Royce died of natural causes, let me off the hook?”
Marcus sipped his coffee, set the cup down on the counter and toyed with it a moment. “You’re the one likes to play pranks, Bette. I’m afraid Royce was murdered.”
“I don’t like that he’s gone, Marcus, I hate that someone could take his life. Can you tell me what happened?”
He grunted, poked at his hat, his big finger touching the brim and scooting it back and forth on the island's surface. “Can’t do that, Bette.”
“You know I served you my best coffee, right?”
He chuckled. Looked up finally, and their eyes met, and it felt like the first time she’d really seen him since he’d set foot in Fortune. He stood to his full height, close to her, more than a head taller, and him with his gun and his big black boots and her with bare feet and tied-up hair got her feeling very small and vulnerable and exposed.
He feigned a stretch, groaned, made a reluctant sound in his throat. “Look,” he said, suddenly low and conspiratorial, knowing he shouldn’t be talking about this. He got down close to her, both of them with their elbows on the counter, steaming coffee cups between them. He said, “Someone knocked him on the head, looks like, wrapped him in trotlines and fishnet and threw him overboard.”
“Oh, gosh. Oh, wow. So he drowned?—or was he already—”
“Drowned. But he got dinged before he went in. Cut on his cheek, but no contusion. He was gone before it could swell.”
Some of the last few minutes' niceness ebbed from the room, and her fingers went cold. Royce mighta been an old devil, but it sure was a bad thing that’d happened to him, and she didn’t like to think of it.
