by Ellis Quinn
She said, “You talk to your dad recently?”
Vance steadied his knee, leaned against the bench’s back and rubbed his palms on his thighs. “Talked to him a few days ago.”
“Did he mention me?”
“Not once.”
“Guess that’s a positive sign,” she said.
Vance leaned forward again. “I hate being in police stations.”
“That’s a good thing,” she said, then looked at him sternly. “Unless it’s from experience.”
“No,” he said. “Police stations make me so anxious I always behave myself.”
Bette said, “This is a new station,” looking around at the clean interior. The building was a two-story vinyl-sided Federal-style that looks more like a big home than a police station. “When I was in the Cove, the cop station was this dingy old brick building out back of the courthouse. You had to go down the steps to get in, and then—if you were in real trouble—you had to go down more steps, down to this place that felt like a dungeon when I was younger, and they had four cells with real black iron prison bars like . . .”
Vance squinted at her. “You’re speaking from experience, aren’t you?”
“Never mind,” she said, and looked away.
Vance persisted, trying to catch her eye. She turned his way, then had a great reason to change the subject: “Oh, hey, here comes Cherry.”
Coming through the bullpen of empty desks, they could see Marcus leading Cherry. Cherry had her hands gathered at her front and her chin down. He brought Cherry out to the foyer, and they gathered there.
Bette asked Cherry: “You okay?”
“I’m fine,” she said.
Marcus said, “She’s free to go now. We’re all done here.”
Bette said, “Well, I didn’t think you were going to keep her here.”
Cherry said to Vance, “Can we go now please?”
Vance walked with Cherry to the police station’s front doors and they stepped outside.
Bette and Marcus waited for them to leave, then Bette said, “Where are we at?”
Marcus said, “You didn’t introduce me to your boy.”
“Oh, wow,” she said, feeling bad, “I’m sorry, Marcus, my mind was elsewhere. I really am sorry, I forgot my manners.”
“It’s all right. He’s a good-looking kid.”
She looked at Cherry and Vance out on the concrete landing at the top of the stairs leading to the police station from the street. “He makes me proud, that’s for sure. So, I’m sorry to be all business, but did you learn anything from Cherry?”
Marcus sighed, scratched his forehead and said, “I’m glad Miss Jambo came in. That was good of her. She needed to answer some questions.”
“She’s got nothing to hide.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” he said.
“You’ve got to be joking.”
“Look, what she has going in her favor is there’s no real evidence. She’s been forthcoming, giving me the keys and all. And we don’t even have a murder weapon.”
“What kind of murder weapon are you looking for?”
“What—are going to keep an eye out for me?”
She cocked a hip, frowning, smile tucked to one side. “Don’t be sarcastic, Marcus. You know you asked for my help just last night.”
Marcus met her eyes a long moment, stroked his chin, looked up and down the hall. Jason was nearby, but smitten by the young officer behind the counter. Quiet, he said, “It’s a knife.”
“Jack Dawson was stabbed?”
Marcus nodded. “We’re thinking a kitchen knife. You know, like a butcher knife.”
“I’ll keep my eye out for any bloodstained butcher knives. I’m not going to find one at Cherry’s, I can tell you that.”
Marcus sighed and chuckled, made to leave. “You take care, Bette.”
“You doing okay?” She touched his forearm.
He’d half-turned, ready to leave, but now he left-faced, eyes lowered to where her hand lay on his forearm and smiled. “I’ll be all right when this is over.”
She patted his arm before she let it go. “I’ll see you soon,” she said, then added, “And I’ll keep my eye out. I’ll probably solve it before you do, so no worries . . .”
He laughed and turned at the door to the bullpen saying, “And you say you’re not feisty, Red? . . .”
She watched him pass through the desks on the other side of the glass, touching her hair and muttering, “Well, maybe just a little, Marcus.”
* * *
Outside, Cherry and Vance waited for her, standing at the concrete steps that led down the grassy slope to the street. Vance stood between Cherry and the sidewalk, two stairs below her, a concerned expression on his face; Cherry stood with her head bowed, eyes closed, smoothing her eyebrows over and over with a thumb and middle finger.
Bette joined them. “What’s going on?”
Cherry sighed, “Nothing.”
Vance shrugged and looked his mother’s way. “There were people passing by on the street. She got some dirty looks from them.”
Bette her hand on Cherry’s collar, slipped it under her long braids and stroked the back of her neck. “It can’t be helped, Cherry. That’s a small town for you.”
“I thought small towns were supposed to be nice.”
“Don’t worry, they’ll come around. They all thought the same thing of me a few weeks ago, but it didn’t take long for everything to return to normal. You’ve got nothing to hide, so don’t worry.” She thumbed Cherry’s neck, played with her earlobe, making her hoop earring jingle.
“I know,” Cherry said. “This is a lot of stress, though. I hate stress like this.”
Bette said, “Who’s at the café? Just Terry?”
“Just Terry.”
“Think she can handle it on her own? You should come back to my place, let me cook for you for once.”
“Terry can’t handle it all by herself— Oh, who am I kidding? With the place empty, of course she can.”
“That’ll come around too,” Bette assured her.
“It better. I can’t stay here without customers. I need the locals and the tourists, not just the tourists.”
“Today seems like a good day for soup and a sandwich. What do you like? Vance likes his grilled cheese with tomato. I’ve got homemade soup made. Let me make you a grilled cheese the way I do one. Please.”
Cherry nodded, put her hands in her pockets, sighed and stood straighter. “I’d like that,” she said, and it took a moment, but she smiled. “Thank you.”
All three of them walked together back toward the Bean where she’d parked her Bronco. And it was true, there were lots of sidelong glances Cherry’s way as they walked. Everyone wanted to get a look at the girl who had the blowout with Charlotte, offered snark to Jack, and then later, could she have . . . would she have? . . . Everyone wanted to know if Cherry was a murderer. There was no way Cherry was a murderer.
No one else noticed, but up ahead she saw—of all things—Charlotte Dawson and Lottie O’Grady from the Business Association stepping off the sidewalk and into Lacey Bronson’s dress shop, ‘The Chesapique.’ Bette had to quicken her step to get on the left side to block Cherry’s view, but when they passed Lacey’s shop, she could see Lacey, Lottie, and Charlotte kissing cheeks and talking close near the shop’s front window between the manikin with a business suit and another with a Thanksgiving-themed dress. Bette met Charlotte’s eye and Charlotte scowled.
Bette scowled in return.
* * *
In preparation of Vance’s visit, she’d prepared some easy-to-serve foods ahead of time. For their late lunch, she served her homemade crab stew; stewed tomatoes, lima beans, corn sliced off the cob, broth seasoned with Old Bay and packed with crab meat mostly pulled from claws. No one was hungry enough for grilled cheese sandwiches (or maybe’d lost their appetites over the seriousness of Cherry needing to be questioned) so they ate their soup with saltines and drank some ginger ale.<
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Her and Vance did their best to cheer Cherry up, but it was Ripken that got Cherry’s smile to return, Cherry seeing Vance’s black cat strutting through the family room, slinking off her kitchen stool and trotting in to visit her favorite kitty, getting down on all fours and letting Ripken come and rub all over her. She could hear the purring all the way over at the kitchen island.
She said to Vance, “I forgot to tell you, your mean little cat might not give a lick about me, but he goes wild when Cherry visits.”
“I see that,” Vance said, watching as Cherry was down on the floor, rubbing Ripken’s belly while Ripken kicked the underside of her forearm with his back claws and nibbled on her fingers. A real performative display of ingratitude, the cat fawning over the woman who didn’t feed him or clean his litter box, doing it right in front of the woman who did.
She said, “Your cat’s a rascal.”
“I know,” Vance laughed.
“And an ingrate.”
“He knows what he likes,” he said, still watching, chin in his palms.
“Go on and play with your cat, let me get the dishes,” she said, laughing, getting off the stool and taking his dish.
“No, I can get them, Mom,” he said, coming out of his reverie and minding his manners.
She nudged her chin toward where Cherry and Ripken rough housed on the floor, saying, “Go on, spend some time with him,” showing him she was serious, looking in his eyes. “And her.”
While Vance and Cherry hung out in the family room talking and playing with Ripken, she did the dishes by hand, drying them with a tea towel. When she was done, she told them: “I think I’m going to go see your Aunt Pris. You guys should go for a walk around the property, stretch your legs a little and get some fresh air.”
They both looked at each other and nodded, then went to get their jackets and headed out the side door from the kitchen. After a few minutes she followed, grabbing her jacket, seeing them walking together out the path toward where the old barn was, and she went to the garage and brought out her bike.
It wasn’t a long walk from Whaley’s Fortune to The Promise, but it was quicker on her bike, and she had a lot on her mind; a lot of questions Pris might answer. The first leaves had fallen though the canopy still held its green, and she weaved her bike around where the leaves lay on the hard-pack path, emerging at last into the bright of sunlight at the side of Pris’s estate.
Pris was home, as expected, her pickup truck parked near the front side in her circular drive, but Bette stood on the pedals and swooped out the back and around to the far side, seeing the top of her aunt’s head now above the white picket fence that bordered her vegetable garden. She wheeled the bike up aside the fence, hopped off and walked it near Pris, letting it rest on the fence before leaning over on her elbows to say Hi.
“What’s brought you out on your bike, hon?” Pris kneeled on a foam pad to protect her knees, stooped low to the ground now and running a turquoise garden-gloved hand over some new bright baby greenery emerging from a row of soil.
“What are you doing?”
Pris said, “My radishes are coming up.”
“You can plant radishes now?”
“Sure,” she said, then jabbing a thumb over her shoulder to the row behind her adding, “Swiss chard, too.” She groaned then as she hefted herself up to stand and brushed off the knees of her khaki cotton pants. She joined Bette at the fence. “Are we working a case?” Pris removed her gloves, leaned on the pickets beside Bette, looking out to her beach and the Bay beyond.
“We know Cherry didn’t murder Jack Dawson.”
Pris said, “Of course she didn’t.”
“I just brought her back to The Fortune from an interview down at the police station with Marcus.”
“How’s she holding up?”
“She’s strong. But this is getting to her. Especially the effect on her business.”
“What did Marcus say?”
“He’s not ruling her out. He says he’s not sure she doesn’t have something to hide.”
“She cherishes her privacy. What would she hide?”
“No idea. But get this: Jack was stabbed.”
“Stabbed?” She let out a sigh, then rubbed at a temple.
“Marcus says I should be on the lookout for a kitchen knife, something like a butcher knife.”
“We’re not going to find it at Cherry’s.”
“That’s what I told him. So, listen, why don’t you tell me about Charlotte and the committee that selects who gets the Crockett Anchor.”
“Charlotte rules the roost, I’m sure of that. She’s the Queen Bee for all those dressed-up ladies on the Business Association—who aren’t even business owners—that like to play at town politics but stay on the sidelines. They’ll do whatever Charlotte tells them.”
“Why don’t you go in and run it?”
“I’m retired, Bette, hon. I’ve got better things to do—like my garden and my walks and, well, just about anything else at all, I mean—”
“I hear you, I hear you. Hey, you told me Charlotte’s brother Quinton had wanted Earl’s restaurant to turn it into a café for himself, but Cherry got in solid before he could and outbid him, anyway.”
“She did.”
“Why does Charlotte care so much about her brother not getting it when Quinton himself seems quite happy not to be doing anything? He’s moved on, why hasn’t she?”
“In my estimation, Charlotte Dawson’s always seen herself as more than just a small-town mayor’s wife. Woman’s got aspirations. Family empire aspirations, no doubt”—putting finger quotes around ‘family empire’—“I think the woman’s watched too much Dallas or something.”
“Like the crabbing business, and her brother with a café, her on the business board, her husband as the mayor . . .”
“And probably a few chess moves further along the board we don’t know about, too.”
“And Cherry took her queen.”
“Yeah, something like that. But Charlotte’s been spiteful and grudge-bearing since they moved to town. Which was for Quinton’s sake in the first place. He was a type A personality as a young man, ran himself into the ground with wild panic attacks they said, and ended up in the hospital. She brought her husband Vinnie and their kids out to the Cove for the sake of her brother, find a small town for the man not to run such a high pressure he bursts his pipes.” Pris frowned, shielded her eyes from the sun and peered out into the Bay.
Bette looked over her shoulder and saw a dark hump out on the water that looked like it could be a duck floating on the waves.
Pris continued: “Anyway, Vinnie and Charlotte come to town, what, twenty years ago. Moved the whole family, husband and three kids, just so she could watch over her brother. Vinnie starts his crabbing business, and, I have to give him credit, that man worked like a dog to make that thing work, he really did. It’s a hard, hard business. He has a natural personality that draws others to him, like a blue collar charm—but I know it was Charlotte that put him up for mayor. Left on his own, I think old Vinnie would be happier growing his crabbing biz even bigger, spending his days out on the water.”
Bette said, “I guess that’ll be up to Stephen now, what with his poor brother Jack dead.”
“Probably always was. Charlotte gave up on Jack a long time ago, and she didn’t even hide it. Jack went through some troubles, you know, fighting, drinking and all. Went away for a spell, but since he came back to the Cove, he’d really cleaned himself up. I don’t think it was enough for his mother to come around. Maybe he burned that bridge. When Jack was at his worst here in the Cove, he was pretty good at making problems.” Her frown deepened.
Bette turned again, and now the black spot on the water that she’d thought could have been a duck had come much closer to the shore. It wasn’t a duck at all, and it wasn’t black, it was brown. Whatever it was, it was swimming toward them. “What is that, an otter?”
“Too big to be an otter.”
“I think it’s a dog.”
“All alone by itself on the Bay?” She was already moving away from the picket fence and walking across the path that would take her around Pris’s flower garden, then down the lawn to the beach.
Pris soon joined her, and the two of them stood in the sand and watched what might be a dog head their way. It was like now the dog could see them, it had a destination.
At last they could make out the fur on his face, his squinted little eyes, could detect the frantic wriggling swimming motion of his body under the water. Bette went down to where the water lapped at the sand and patted her thighs, encouraging the dog, saying, “Come on! Come on, buddy!”
The dog locked eyes with her, and swam faster, snorting and snuffling as he went, and Bette cheered him on.
When the dog’s footing reached the bottom, it shambled up out of the waves, water sloughing off its drenched body, and Bette met it, crouching down in wary greeting. “Hey there, fella, you okay? That was a big swim.”
The dog came up onto the soaked sand of the beach and coughed water, and she moved out a fist so he could smell her. He was a boy dog, pretty big, maybe getting near sixty pounds. He looked like a retriever; fur in bronzy brown, his eyes a radiant gold color that mesmerized her. “Wow, you’re so handsome, aren’t you? Where’d you come from?”
The exhausted dog moved her way, head down, sniffing her hand, then lowering his head further, moving into her space like he wanted attention. She began massaging and stroking his soggy shoulders and ruffling the fur on his forehead. He coughed and snorted. “Poor guy’s exhausted,” she said to Pris. Then to the dog: “How long you been swimming, huh? Where’d you come from?”
Pris was down at the shore now, scanning the horizon to the left and to the right. “I don’t see any boats out there.”
Bette asked the dog, “Where’d you come from, buddy?”
“That’s a skinny boy,” Pris said, looking him over.
“You are,” Bette said, “you are so skinny. You been on your own for a while?”
Pris warned her: “He’s gonna shake.”
Bette popped up to stand, and they both stepped back and turned away as the dog gave in to the tickle of trickling water and went into spasms of shaking and wriggling, trying to shed the Bay’s saltwater off his coat. When it was done, he seemed happier, maybe even smiling while he panted. She presented him a hand again, and he didn’t even bother sniffing, just gave her a gentle lick. Her hands went around his shaggy neck but found nothing. “No collar,” she said to Pris.