I sighed. "This just gets more complicated, doesn't it?"
"It does. Speaking of complicated... what about romantic motives?" she asked. "Greed, revenge, and jealousy are three big motivations. We've got greed and revenge... but what about jealousy?"
"There's Jared, of course. He's got both jealousy and greed, not to mention possible revenge."
"That puts him in the top suspect position, I would say," she said.
"Cal's ex-wife Gretchen was at the store, too," I said. "Maybe she was jealous of his new girlfriend? Or thought he still had a little something for her in the will, and thought he was going to change it?"
"They've been divorced for a while," Bethany pointed out. "I would think that he would have changed his will right after the divorce... assuming he even needed to. He had a pretty ironclad pre-nup, from what I hear."
"You're probably right," I said, sinking down in one of the comfy chairs I'd scattered around the store for readers to enjoy. If only there were readers here to take advantage of them. And shoppers. Being a murder suspect did not appear to be good for business. Had I made a mistake by buying the store? Natalie had told me to follow my dreams... but what if I’d been wrong? "What a mess," I said, staring forlornly at the quiet cash register.
"It's just a setback," she said. "Look, I'll bet Josiah will be down at the Salty Dog for lunch today. Why don't you go down and see what you can find out from him, and I'll do some more poking into Kirsten online?"
"Are you sure?"
"Positive," she said. "Besides, this might help me shake loose my own mystery issue!"
The Salty Dog was bustling when I walked in. I hadn't been there in a few years, but not much had changed. Nautical maps and prints of sea creatures and old sailing ships adorned the raw wood walls, and varnished pine tables were filled with what appeared to be a healthy mix of locals and tourists. The smells of fried fish and beer perfumed the air as I let the door close behind me and headed toward the bar. Bethany had been right; I recognized Josiah from the Facebook profile picture she had shared with me, sitting at the end of the bar with a tankard, talking intently with the bartender, who I guessed was Jared. Josiah looked a lot like Cal, only in hippie form. Same chin, from what you could see under a good bit of bristly brown shrubbery. Same straight nose, same light eyes... only where Cal exuded success, you could read the bitterness on Josiah from across the room.
I walked over to the bar and sat down two stools away from him. "I think you should be good," Josiah was saying. "If they have another election, Meryl..."
Jared glanced over at me and stiffened. Josiah looked to see what his friend had reacted to; when he saw me, his eyebrows shot up.
"Hi," I said to Jared. "I'm sorry to interrupt."
"Weren't interrupting," Jared said in a surly tone, swiping at the bar with a rag. Like Josiah, he wore a thick beard, but had about forty pounds on his friend, and his arms were the size of tree trunks. He reminded me of a bear—and not a friendly one. If I were Sylvia Berland, I wouldn't want to cross him. In fact, even though I wasn't Sylvia Berland, I still didn't want to cross him. "What can I do for you?" he asked.
"Just a Pilsener and a basket of fried clams, please." I couldn't afford them, really, but I had to do something to justify my presence at the bar.
Besides... fried clams.
"Coming right up," he said, shooting a warning glance at Josiah before turning to grab a mug.
"Hi," I said, turning to Cal's brother and extending a hand. "I'm Max Sayers; I just bought the bookstore in town."
"Josiah Parker," he said, ignoring my extended hand. I caught a sour whiff of something stronger than beer as he spoke.
"Oh... I heard about your brother," I said, pulling my hand back. "I'm so sorry."
"Thanks," he said curtly, taking a swig of his beer and then turning to examine me more intently. "My brother was giving you a hard time about the store, wasn't he?"
I swallowed, my mouth suddenly dry. "Do you mean the permitting issues?"
"Oh, I'm not accusing you of killing him," he said. "Not totally, anyway," he added, giving me another speculative glance. "Cal gave everyone a hard time. Had to line the pockets, even though they were already full of gold. He always had to be the big man, throw his weight around."
"It doesn't sound like you miss him much," I said.
"I do and I don't," he said frankly. "Jared here certainly won't," he added, taking another sip of beer as Jared plunked a mug down in front of me.
"No, I won't," Jared admitted. "But that doesn't mean I had anything to do with what happened to him," he said in a warning tone to Josiah.
"Of course not, buddy. How could you? We were down at my place all night, finishing up that keg of Whale Tale Ale."
"Good thing we've got an alibi," Jared said. "Or they'd probably drag both of us down to jail." Jared cut me a look. "It was your doorstop that did him in, I hear."
"That's what I hear," I said. "Fortunately for me, half the town was in the store that day."
"It happened behind your shop," Jared pointed out.
"On public property," I retorted.
He shrugged.
"I hear Cal was giving you a hard time about your business, too," I said.
"He was," Jared admitted. "Trying to gouge me for my liquor license. He was messing with everyone in town. I think he was trying to turn Snug Harbor back to the way it was during its glory days. Tryin' to drive out the old stalwarts and bring in some higher-end stuff."
"It was like the Palm Springs of the Northeast back in the 20s, wasn't it?" I asked.
"It was," Jared said. "My grandfather used to get his booze from your house during prohibition," he said.
"I heard something about that," I said. "Even his wife didn't know."
"He had to hide the loot outside the house so she wouldn't find it, the story goes. Kept the details hidden somewhere; nobody ever found them."
20
"You mean like a treasure map?"
"Or a journal... something like that. He used to walk over to Snug Island at night sometimes. Story goes it's hidden over there somewhere, but no one's ever found it."
"How did he keep all the booze hidden from his wife?"
"He did all his business while she was at church," he said. "And he walled off half the basement; it was all hidden behind shelves, with an outdoor entrance she didn't know about."
"How did he manage that?"
“He built it while she was in Boston. Everyone in town knew about it but her."
"Sounds like a marriage built on trust," I said dryly.
"She never wanted for anything," Jared said, glancing down the bar toward the door to the kitchen. Was Sylvia back there? I wondered.
"At any rate, everyone's always said he left something in the house to point to where he hid his ill-gotten gains, but after all these years, nobody's ever found anything.”
"Loretta didn't tell me anything about that."
"Of course she wouldn't," Josiah said with a snort. "She's already looked for it, is my guess, and decided it must have been just idle speculation."
"Keep your eyes peeled, is all I'm saying," Jared said.
"And we'll be happy to take fifteen percent for tipping you off," Josiah said.
I laughed and said, "I'll keep that in mind." As I spoke, Sylvia emerged from the kitchen, looking wan and tense. "Fried clams?"
"Right here," I said, admiring the basket of golden fried deliciousness. "Those look amazing."
"Thanks," she said, a small smile of pride crossing her face. "A lot of people like 'em with tartar sauce, but I prefer them plain."
"Me too," I said. "Thank you."
"My pleasure," she said. She darted a look at Jared, who had tensed when she appeared, and vanished back into the kitchen.
"Don't ever get married," Jared advised Josiah when the swinging door closed behind her.
"Awww... Sylvia's one of the good ones," Josiah said.
"Need another?" Jared asked, pointing
to Josiah's mug.
"Please," he said. "The same."
"Coming right up," Jared said, and poured him a fresh one.
"How'd it go?" Bethany asked when I got back to the bookstore a little while later.
"They both have an alibi," I said. "They were drinking together at Josiah's that night."
"Drat," she said, then cocked her head. "They could be lying."
"They could," I said. "I heard all about the history of the store, too... at least the Prohibition chapter of it."
"The whole hidden ill-gotten gains story? I'm not sure how much of that is true and how much is local legend," she said. "This house has been inhabited pretty much constantly since that time, and Loretta even renovated it into a bookstore, and nothing's been found."
"Do you think that's what my intruder might have been looking for? Some sort of map?"
"It's possible," she said. "The newspaper ran an article on Prohibition-era Snug Harbor not too long ago, and mentioned the role of Loretta's ancestor as the town liquor procurer. But I'm guessing it has more to do with some documentation that might show that Agatha sold her share to her sister."
"You think Agatha was the intruder?"
"It seems the most likely option."
"Hmm," I said. "I am curious about the cellar."
"Want to take a look?"
"I've been down there before, but it couldn't hurt."
"I'll make sure the bell on the front door is working and we can check it out together," she said. "It does feel creepy down there; I've only been down there a handful of times, but I don't like being there alone."
"If the stories are true, the only thing he stored down there was liquor."
She shivered. "I have a feeling there's more to the downstairs than rum and whiskey," she said. "Maybe it's this mystery I'm writing, though. I put an ad in the local paper; I'll be hosting the first meeting this weekend at the store, if that's okay."
"Sounds terrific!" I said as she opened the door to the cellar and turned back to me. "Ready?"
"Ready," I said, and together we descended into the basement.
It was a big, empty room, just as it always had been, with rock walls.
"It's big, isn't it?" she said. "You can tell where they dug it out to make it bigger than the house."
"It doesn't look big enough to store liquor though, does it?"
"Not for the whole town, no," she said. "You can see where people got in and out, though," she said, pointing to the hatch doors that led to the back yard.
We walked around the place for a bit.
"This is disappointing," she said. "Nothing here."
"No," I said, running my hand along one of the dusty walls. My finger slid into a groove between the rocks. "What's this?" I asked.
"I don't know," Bethany said. "It doesn't look mortared in."
"It's not," I said. I pulled at the edge; one corner of the stone moved. "There's something here," I said.
"Let me help!" Together, we pulled out the rock and laid it down on the stone floor. Bethany shone the light of her phone into the opening.
"It looks like some kind of old radio," she said as the light flashed on brass dials and a dusty wooden case.
"It is," I said. I could tell from the size of it that a few more rocks would have to come out to use it; sure enough, the ones beneath the one we had moved were also unmortared. "It's even got headphones."
"Why would someone hide a radio down here?" she asked.
"Rumrunners needed to communicate," I said. "I'll bet this is how he hid it from his wife."
"Wow," she breathed. "I wonder what else is here?"
"Let's find out," I said, and together we removed the rest of the loose stones. When we were done, she shone her light around the radio. There were a few cigarette butts in one corner, and something shiny. I picked it up and turned it over in the light from Bethany's flashlight. It was a Wheat Penny from 1913. "No one's opened this for a long time," she breathed.
"Nope. It's not treasure, but it's an indicator that not all the rumors are wrong."
"Let's put the rock back and look some more," she said. As she spoke, the bell rang upstairs.
"Coming!" I hollered, and together we heaved the rock back into place and headed up to the shop.
We didn't make many sales, but we had a lot of what my mother used to call "lookie-loos" in and out. Bethany had to go home, so we abandoned further inspection of the cellar for now, but my interest was definitely piqued; I planned to do some research on rum running soon, to see what the radio was all about.
Things were slow for a bit, at least long enough for me to get the baking started. I'd just started measuring out flour when the bell at the door downstairs rang (I hung it on the doorknob when I had to go upstairs) and I heard Denise's voice ring out.
"I'm upstairs baking!" I called down. "Come keep me company!"
"I brought scones," she said. "We can eat them while we wait for whatever you make to come out of the oven. What are you baking?"
"Chocolate toffee bars," I told her as she bounded up the stairs, bringing a buoyant, sunshiny energy with her. I smiled just seeing her; for a moment, it was as if all the decades, with their joys and heartbreaks, had never happened, and we were both twelve years old again. "Tell me more about those scones!"
"Cranberry walnut," she said. "With clotted cream on the side."
"No. Really? I haven't had that since I visited England and went to a tea room in the Cotswolds!"
"Good for the soul, if not the waistline," she said. "I brought coffee, too, of course."
"Of course," I said, smiling. "I made a big pot of French Roast this morning; it was amazing. I don't know if you heard about the excitement here last night, but it made it hard to sleep."
"No. What happened?"
As she pulled two plates from the shelves above the sink and laid out the scones, I told her what had happened.
"And the police think you somehow faked the break-in? Why?"
"I don't know," I said. "But there was no broken window when someone was in the store the other night, although I can't swear that the back door was locked."
"Maybe they got lucky the first time and had to break in the second time," Denise suggested.
"Maybe. But what were they looking for?"
She shrugged. "Hard to know, but maybe we should do some poking around for secret compartments ourselves."
"Bethany and I did that today," I said. "In the cellar. We found an old radio hidden in a rock wall; I'm guessing the rum runners used it to communicate."
"Not exactly treasure, but that's really cool," she said. "Think that's what whoever it was was looking for?"
"I doubt it," I said. "But who knows?"
"I'm just glad they weren't in your cozy little apartment here," she said. "It does look good, by the way. That sea glass mobile in the window is gorgeous!"
"Thanks," I told her with a smile, looking at the mobile I'd made from a piece of driftwood we'd found on the beach when the girls were little, with strings of blue, green, and brown glass dangling down from it: blue at the top for sky, green in the middle for the water, and brown at the bottom for the sand. “I made it with my girls many years ago," I said, "from glass we picked up in on the shore in the summers."
"How are they doing with everything, by the way?" Denise asked as I combined the flour, brown sugar, and salt for the cookie base.
I sighed. "I think they're both okay," I said, "but Caroline is struggling with it more than Audrey. I get the impression she's not sure who to be angry at. I don't know if Ted is having the same experience I am—we haven't talked much the past few months, trying to get some separation—but I know it's been hard on her."
"And Audrey?"
"She seems relieved that the tension is gone," I said as I cut butter into the flour mixture and reached for the eggs. "Honestly, I wish I could say what went wrong. I still care for Ted, and he cares for me... we just hit a point where all the years of disconnection and
frustration built up so much that neither of us could figure out a way to break down that wall. It's like once you have so many bricks, it's no longer possible to see over it to the other person."
"That's a great description," Denise said.
"All we can do is love the girls and support them and hope one day they'll understand," I said. "At least that's what I tell myself when I don't hear from Caroline for a month and a half." I added chocolate chips, then set aside some of the dough and patted the rest into the pan, then put it into the oven. Once it was done baking, I'd pour condensed milk over it, then sprinkle it with toffee chips, chocolate chips, and the rest of the dough and bake it for another half hour. The result would be a decadent bar cookie I had a hard time not devouring all at once.
As the crust baked, I sat down and broke off the end of a scone, slathering it with clotted cream before popping it into my mouth. "This is divine," I told her after I'd washed it down with a swig of hot coffee. "I have no idea how you manage to stay so thin."
"Good genes," she informed me as she bit into her cream-covered scone. "By the way, I saw your author friend today."
"She's not my friend. Was my ex with her?"
"No." She shook her head. "She just ordered a skinny latte. While she was there, she had a run-in with some woman at the coffee house. I don't know what they were talking about, but it seemed pretty intense."
"What woman?"
"She's pretty. Big glasses, dark hair. Drives a fancy green car. She ordered an espresso and said her name was Deirdre."
"Oh," I said. "That's Cal's girlfriend. I met her there yesterday. I wonder if she came back?"
"They didn't seem to get along well at all. The Deirdre woman was practically screaming at Kirsten, something about it all being her fault, although the espresso machine was so loud I couldn't make out what she was talking about. Kirsten finally just got up and walked out on her, but she looked pretty upset."
"Weird," I said.
A Killer Ending Page 13
