Dead in the Dinghy

by Ellen Jacobson

  “Nah. Nothing out of the ordinary ever happens there,” the scrawny man said. “That’s on account of the fact that I run a tight ship there.”

  “What are you doing here, Tyler?”

  “Well, me and the missus came into town for a few days. She wanted to have a fancy meal at Chez Poisson and stay at that boutique hotel. I’m not crazy about this town of yours, but it’s what she wanted, so…” He shrugged as his voice trailed off.

  I leaned over the back of the couch. “I think what he meant is what are you doing here, at the art gallery?”

  “I’ll ask the questions here, Mrs. McGhie,” Chief Dalton said. When the other chief smirked, he added, “What are you doing at the gallery, Tyler?”

  “I heard you’ve got the person who killed Gregor Smirnov. Thought I would come check things out. His murder did happen in my jurisdiction.”

  “It looks like you can close that case now. Victoria Williams murdered him, then killed herself. If you head out back, my deputy can show you the body and fill you in.” Chief Dalton’s eyes bored into his rival’s back as he watched him go through the door. Then he turned to me. “Why don’t you head home, Mollie? Things could get ugly here, and I don’t want you mixed up in it.”

  As I walked back to my car, I felt my stomach churning. Something was bugging me about this situation and it wasn’t just Chief Dalton’s hot and cold manner toward me. Victoria’s suicide seemed too convenient, too easy of an answer. As I looked at the topiary of Jack and the Beanstalk, I chided myself for trying to make things more complicated than they were. There weren’t any ‘magic beans’ at work here, just a simple murder-suicide as Chief Dalton had said. Be happy that Anabel was free from suspicion and let the matter drop, I told myself.

  * * *

  Later that night, I went back to the gallery for the art presentation. I was surprised it was still taking place, but apparently clearing the scene of a suicide takes a lot less time than that of a murder. When I walked inside, Thomas was hanging a painting on the far wall. After he positioned it, he stepped back and sighed loudly.

  “Is that one of Victoria’s?” I asked, looking at the seascape.

  “Yes. It’s one of the few that wasn’t damaged.” He pressed his fingertips underneath his eyes as if holding back tears.

  “The two of you were close, weren’t you?” I asked.

  “We were practically raised together,” he said. “She was my cousin on my mother’s side.”

  I thought back to the previous night in the parking lot when Thomas had said something to her about being family. I had assumed he meant a metaphorical family, the community of artists.

  “Is that why she addressed her suicide note to you?”

  He raised his eyebrows. “You saw it?”

  “Yes. Chief Dalton showed it to me. You do know that I was the one who found her, don’t you?”

  He fiddled with one of his cufflinks. “Sorry, the chief told me that. With everything that happened, it slipped my mind.”

  “Why don’t you cancel tonight’s event?” I asked. “Everyone would understand. You lost a member of your family.”

  He straightened his shoulders. “No, she would have wanted me to carry on. Getting more people interested in art was important to her.”

  “It sounds like a nice tribute to her.”

  He nodded.

  “Do you mind if I ask you something? In her note, Victoria said something about you being right about not keeping things a secret. Did you know that she had killed Gregor?”

  Thomas chewed his lip for a moment. “I suppose it doesn’t matter now…” He choked back a sob. “Now that she’s passed. I saw her that night. I had gone downstairs to check on the generator. I looked out the bay window and saw her standing on the dock. The storm had passed, and the skies were clear. She was illuminated by the moonlight. Her white nightgown glowed like that of an angel.”

  “Was Gregor there?” I asked.

  “No, not then. I guess it was right after she…” His voice trailed off as he pressed his fingers to his face again.

  I put my hand on his arm. “It’s okay. You don’t have to talk about it.”

  “Thanks,” he said. “Somehow I feel responsible. If only I had seen her earlier and spoken with her, maybe I could have prevented it.”

  “Don’t beat yourself up. You couldn’t have known. She seemed happy when she went to bed that night.”

  “That’s what Jim keeps telling me.”

  “What was she like when she came back in the house?”

  “I didn’t see her until the next day. I checked the generator, then went back to bed.” He looked at the clock above the ticket kiosk. “I have time to hang one more of these before the session starts. Why don’t you head into the back room and mingle? There’s some coffee and cookies as well. Help yourself.”

  I should have offered to assist Thomas with the painting, but when someone mentions cookies, I tend to forget my manners. Plus, it seemed like he wanted some time to himself.

  While I was picking up a lemon bar, Anabel rushed over and gave me a hug. “I can’t believe you found Victoria like that,” she said. “How awful.”

  “You must be relieved that Chief Tyler no longer has a case against you,” I said.

  “I am,” she admitted. “But that isn’t the way I wanted it to happen. That poor woman is dead.”

  “Tiny must be happy too,” I said.

  “Oh, he is,” she said. “He’s glad he can focus on his job again.”

  I smirked. “You mean handing out parking tickets?”

  “Are you talking about Chief Dalton?” Ben asked as he reached around me to grab a chocolate chip cookie. “He’s set up a new speed trap near Alligator Chuck’s BBQ Joint. I almost got nailed today.”

  “What a surprise to see you here,” Anabel said to Ben. “I didn’t know you were interested in art.”

  “He’s not,” I said. “He’s interested in Sawyer. I saw you chatting her up when I walked in here.”

  “Guilty,” Ben said as he wiped crumbs off his shirt. “I wanted to ask her out, but Olivia wouldn’t take the hint. She kept standing there talking about the best way to crack open a coconut.”

  “She should move to Coconut Cove,” I said. “People are obsessed with coconuts here.”

  Ben rolled his eyes. “She’d fit right in.”

  “What method does she use?” Anabel asked.

  “She uses a machete. You whack the pointier end of the coconut with it until you get to the meat. She’s got a video of her demonstrating the process in Tahiti if you want to check it out.”

  “Can everyone take their seats and we’ll get started,” Thomas said as he adjusted his zebra-striped bow tie. He kicked off his presentation by showing us works painted in different styles and asked us which ones we preferred. Melvin favored Renaissance art, Ben liked the abstracts, and I was drawn to Warhol’s pop art, especially his Marilyn Monroe series.

  But my favorite part of the session was when he showed us paintings done by animals including whales, chimpanzees, elephants, and even bunny rabbits. The world better watch out, I thought. Once Scooter found out about this, he was going to get Mrs. Moto a set of paints and canvases and let her loose on camera.

  After an hour, Thomas suggested we all take a coffee break. When I told Ben and Olivia about turning Mrs. Moto into an artist, Ben asked us if we knew what the unluckiest kind of cat was to have. We groaned when he told us it was a catastrophe.

  “That was such a bad dad joke,” I said.

  “I better hurry up and get married and have kids so I can embarrass them,” he said.

  “I wish my father had limited himself to just telling bad dad jokes,” Olivia said. “That wouldn’t be half as embarrassing as all the other stuff he did.”

  “Like what?” Ben asked.

  “He’s one of those guys that always talks without thinking first. There was this time that one of my friends spent the night at my house.” She took a sip of coffe
e, then continued. “You know how when you have a really bad cold, you snore? It’s not your fault. You can’t help it. Well, my friend was all stuffed up and, let’s just say, I’m surprised she could sleep through her own snoring.”

  “Well, the next morning over breakfast, my father joked that he couldn’t sleep all night because there was an elephant sleeping in the next room. Then he made these trumpeting sounds. He thought he was being funny, but he wasn’t. The poor girl was mortified. You should have heard my mother tear into him. ‘Misha, keep it up and you’ll be the one sleeping on the couch tonight.’”

  “Colds are the worst,” Ben said. “Sawyer sounds like she’s coming down with one. I heard her sniffling earlier.”

  “She said something about her allergies acting up,” Olivia said. “They were bugging her on Destiny Key as well.” She looked over at Sawyer, who was chatting with Anabel at the front of the room. “Don’t say anything but Sawyer was snoring like a freight train when we were there. I even moved to the couch to get some shut-eye.” She grabbed a cookie, then scooted off to check with Thomas about the next part of the presentation.

  “You better not say anything to Sawyer about her snoring,” I said to Ben as we walked back to our seats. “She’d be horrified if she knew Olivia told you about that.”

  “Of course, I wouldn’t,” he said. “I’m not a blabbermouth.”

  “Really? How come Sawyer knew that the knife that killed Gregor was part of his cane?”

  Ben hemmed and hawed, before suggesting that we sit down.

  After everyone was back in their places, Thomas said, “All right, I’m going to hand things over to local artist, Anabel Dalton. She’s best known for her fanciful oil paintings of magical creatures. You may have seen some of her work on display at the Sailor’s Corner Cafe. She also exhibits at arts and craft fairs around the state. I’m delighted to announce that she’s agreed to find time in her busy schedule to be one of our art instructors.”

  “How many of you are right-handed?” Anabel asked as she walked up to the front of the room. The majority of the people raised their hands, including me. “And the left-handers?” Ben and another young guy high-fived each other in solidarity as fellow southpaws. “Is anyone ambidextrous?” Sawyer scanned the room. “No one? That doesn’t surprise me. Only one percent of the population can use both their left and right hands equally well. For the rest of us, when we try to do something with our non-dominant hand, it’s quite challenging.”

  “I broke my left wrist when I was a kid. It was in a cast for a month,” Ben said. “My teacher had to give me extra time on my English test because it took me so long to write with my right hand.”

  Sawyer chuckled. “I remember that. You tried to blame your failing grade on the fact that your handwriting was illegible.”

  “But that was the reason why,” Ben protested.

  “You don’t think it had to do with the fact that you didn’t read the book?” Sawyer asked.

  The room burst out laughing. Ben wagged his finger at her. “I’ll get you back later, Miss Smarty Pants.”

  Anabel held up her hands for silence. “Tell you what, why don’t we do an exercise where we can all experience what Ben went through?” She passed out two pieces of sketching paper and a pencil to everyone. “On the first piece of paper, I want you to use your dominant hand. Write your name and today’s date at the top, then draw a simple picture of a tree, clouds, and the sun. You have five minutes.”

  Once everyone had finished, she pointed at Melvin. “Do you mind holding up your drawing?”

  “It’s not very good,” he said as he reluctantly got to his feet.

  “I think you’re being hard on yourself,” Anabel said, patting him on the back. “I like the shading around the clouds. Very creative. Let’s talk about how it felt to do this exercise. What was it like writing your name and the date?”

  Melvin shrugged. “Fine. Normal.”

  “Did you have to think about it?” Anabel asked.

  “No. It’s something I do every day,” he said.

  “So it was a normal, everyday activity? Nothing out of the ordinary?”

  Melvin nodded.

  “You can go ahead and have a seat. Okay, let’s do the same thing, but this time with your non-dominant hand.” She looked at her phone. “Five minutes starting now.”

  A couple of girls giggled as they compared their pictures. An older man broke his pencil as he awkwardly gripped it in his left hand while attempting to write his name. I almost crumpled up my paper after the sun I was trying to draw ended up more square-shaped than circular.

  “Time,” Anabel said. “Mollie, how about if you be our volunteer this time?”

  “This is so embarrassing,” I said as I held up my paper.

  “You shouldn’t be embarrassed, you should be proud that you tried to do something you’re not used to doing. I think your tree looks great.”

  “That’s supposed to be a cloud,” I said.

  “A cloud? Oh, yes, I see it now,” she said, peering at my drawing. “Now, how did you feel during that exercise?”

  “It was frustrating,” I said. “I felt anxious that I wouldn’t get it done in time.”

  “Those are all perfectly natural reactions,” Anabel said. “But the important thing to remember is that all of you were able to do this exercise with your non-dominant hand. Sure, it might have felt awkward, frustrating, and difficult but you all did it. You created something despite the limitations I placed on you.”

  Thomas walked up to the front of the room. “Using your non-dominant hand is a great way to get in touch with the creative side of your brain. One of the reasons I asked Anabel to lead this exercise is to show you the types of activities you’ll do in our introductory art class. Not only will you have fun and a lot of laughs, you’ll also get to explore different techniques.” He held up a clipboard. “I have a sign-up sheet which I’ll leave up front. Anabel, Sawyer, and I will also be happy to answer any questions you have.”

  “Are you going to sign up?” Ben asked.

  “I think so,” I said. “How about you?”

  “Sure thing. Sawyer is one of the teachers.” He smiled, pointing at my paper. “Maybe by the end of the course, your clouds won’t look like trees.”

  As I looked again at the cloud I had tried to draw with my left hand, it hit me. There was no way Victoria could have committed suicide. She had been murdered.

  14

  Extra Ketchup

  “Whoa, whoa. Slow down,” Scooter said. “Start again at the beginning. Why do you think Victoria was murdered?”

  After the presentation was over I had rushed to my car without saying goodbye to anyone. Once inside, I made sure the doors were locked, then I called my husband. “It’s because of her hand. Remember how she was wearing a wrist brace? When we first met her at our splash party, she mentioned that she had carpal tendonitis. She was struggling to hold a paintbrush with her right hand. It got worse at the artists’ retreat.”

  “That’s right,” Scooter said. “When we were at Warlock’s Manor, she tried to pour some brandy into her glass and almost dropped the bottle. Thomas had to grab it from her.”

  “She couldn’t grip anything with that hand. How in the world would she have managed to hold a gun and shoot herself with it?”

  “Could she have done it with her left hand?” he asked.

  “I doubt it. She had problems with that one, as well. Not as bad as her right, but still.”

  “Where are you now?” Scooter asked.

  “At the gallery.”

  “I want you to get back here—”

  “Hang on a sec,” I said, peering through the windshield. “Sawyer, Olivia, and Thomas are all standing at the front of the building talking about something. It’s scary to think one of them killed Gregor and Victoria.”

  “Mollie, get back to the boat now,” Scooter said frantically. “Do not talk to them. Once you’re back, we’ll call Chief Dalton and have him
take it from here.”

  “No way,” I said. “You should have seen the way he treated me earlier. All ‘Mrs. McGhie this’ and ‘Mrs. McGhie that.’ He wants to believe that Victoria did it. I need proof that she didn’t commit suicide before he’ll take me seriously.”

  Scooter sighed. “We’ll talk about it when you get back.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  Before I could hang up, he added, “And no stops on the way back.”

  “Not even for a cheeseburger and fries?”

  After a pause, he said. “Okay. But only if you go through the drive-through. And can you get extra ketchup this time?”

  * * *

  The next morning, Scooter decided to take Mrs. Moto to the beach for a photo shoot. Before he left, he made me promise not to do anything foolish. When I asked him what he meant by ‘foolish,’ he said questioning of, eavesdropping on, or following Thomas, Olivia, and Sawyer. The previous night, he had phoned Chief Dalton and explained my theory about Victoria’s death. The chief thanked him and said he’d look into it. Scooter took him at his word. I, on the other hand, didn’t believe him. Chief Dalton was far more interested in how much revenue his new speed trap could generate than reopening Victoria’s case.

  When Scooter and Mrs. Moto left, he expanded on his definition of ‘foolish,’ telling me that I shouldn’t gorge myself on the bag of mini Snickers bars, reminding me that the last time I had done that, I had complained about having a tummy ache.

  I nodded, waved goodbye, stretched out on the settee, and unwrapped a chocolate bar. What’s great about Snickers bars is that they have peanuts in them. Peanuts are basically mini protein pellets and protein is good for you. Protein builds muscle. And you need muscles when you live on a boat. Sailing can be hard work.

  While I continued to build muscle mass, I leafed through a marine equipment catalog, pausing to look at the pictures of dinghies. There was no way we could afford to buy a new one. We were going to have to retrieve the one we had left at Warlock’s Manor. I decided to put Operation Destiny Key into action. I would go to the island, check on our dinghy, and figure out how to get it back. Scooter would be pleased with how I was going to spend the day—it wasn’t in the least possible way foolish. Chief Tyler was still celebrating his anniversary on the mainland so I wouldn’t run into him. And there wouldn’t be any temptation to question, eavesdrop on, or follow Olivia, Sawyer, or Thomas, as they wouldn’t be on the island either.