Penny and I high-fived each other across the table while Alejandra set three steaming mugs of coffee down. “Are you guys talking about the race too?” she asked. “It seems like that’s on everyone’s mind this morning. Norm is over there taking bets that his boat is going to come in first place.”
“No, no, no,” Scooter said as he placed his hand on my arm. “I can see what you’re thinking. You want to make another bet with Norm.”
“I sure do,” I said. “I won the last one he made with me. I’d love to see the look on his face when I win this one too. Besides, with Penny as our captain, there’s no way I can lose.”
Alejandra bustled back with our meals. “Thanks again for letting me use your family’s kitchen the other day to bake my cake,” I said as I moved my coffee cup out of the way to make room for my pancakes. “It was so nice to have enough space to work in.”
“No problem,” she said. “Having a big kitchen is one of the benefits of still living at home with my parents. Saving on rent is another plus—gets me that much closer to saving up enough money to open up my own nail salon.”
Penny gave Alejandra an encouraging smile. “Don’t worry. It’ll happen sooner than you think. And Mollie and I will be first in line for a manicure.”
I held up my hands, showing off my short, unvarnished fingernails. “Good luck transforming these. Boat work has taken its toll.”
“Challenge accepted,” Alejandra said over her shoulder as she hurried back to the kitchen.
Scooter frowned while he stared at the mound of potatoes piled on his plate. As I reached for the maple syrup, I said, “Anyway, back to Norm. Care to place a side bet? If Pretty in Pink wins, you’ll go back to eating normal food.”
His eyes lit up. “And if Naut Guilty wins, you’ll stop cheating. Don’t think I don’t know about the chocolate you’ve been carrying around in your purse.”
“Deal,” I said, shaking his hand. “Now, let’s eat.”
While Penny gobbled down her oatmeal and I polished off my pancakes and bacon, Scooter picked at his eggs, pushed his hash browns around his plate, and tried his best not to make eye contact with his sausage links.
Penny’s phone buzzed. “I barely heard that over your tummy grumbling,” she told Scooter.
“That’s just his stomach realigning itself,” I said. She gave me a quizzical look before checking her messages. I stuck a fork in Scooter’s potatoes. “If you’re not going to eat these, then I am. Extra crispy, just the way I like them.”
Scooter pulled his plate away. “How can you still be hungry?” he asked. I smiled as he scarfed down the hash browns. “I’m just saving you from yourself,” he said in between hurried bites.
Penny put her phone down. “That was Jeff. He wants to see some more boats.”
“Really?” Scooter crumpled up his napkin and put it on his now-empty plate. “I would have thought he would be too broken up over Emily’s death.”
“Me too,” Penny said. “But he seems more determined than ever. He’s even decided to name his new boat Emily Belle, after her.”
“That’s sweet,” I said. “Makes me wonder if our boat was named after a real Marjorie Jane.”
“Sounds like another investigation for you,” Penny said.
“Please don’t encourage her.” Scooter waved at Alejandra and pointed at his coffee cup.
“Speaking of investigations and Jeff, what do you know about him?” I asked.
Penny smiled. “How did we get from investigating the name of your boat to Jeff?”
While Alejandra refilled our cups, I tried to figure out what to say. On one hand, I didn’t want Scooter to know I had accidentally overheard Wanda and Jeff talking about Emily the previous night. Knowing him, he might jump to conclusions and claim I was eavesdropping. But on the other hand, they had talked about how Emily had been poisoned, and each of them seemed to want to pin it on the other.
I needed to know more about Jeff’s backstory and his relationship with Wanda. Of course, Scooter would say that I didn’t really “need to know” anything about it, that it didn’t involve me. But after eavesdropping on their conversation—oops, scratch that—after accidentally overhearing their conversation, I was obliged to follow up. You know what they say: “Do unto others as you’d have them do unto you.” It’s like paying it forward. If something mysterious ever happened to me, I’d want folks to investigate.
“Is it just me, or does Jeff have mismatched ears?” I asked. Okay, I know that seems like a random thing to say, but trust me, I had a plan with my line of questioning.
“You’re investigating Jeff’s ears?” Penny asked while Scooter rolled his eyes.
“I was just wondering if it’s an Australian thing,” I said casually. “That’s where he’s from, right?”
“Yeah, he moved here last year for work,” Penny said.
“I heard a rumor that he had been engaged before Emily. Was it when he was back living down under? Has he said anything to you about that? Do you know why it ended?”
“You heard a rumor,” Scooter said dryly. “Are you thinking his engagement broke off because of his ears?”
Penny scratched her head. “I’ve never noticed anything funny about his ears.”
“What about his former fiancée?” I asked.
“No, I don’t know anything about that,” she said. “Our conversations have pretty much just been about boats.”
“What kind of work does he do?”
“He’s some sort of sales rep. Travels quite a bit for client meetings.”
“With all that travel, he might not have had a chance to get to know that many people in Coconut Cove,” I said. “Like Ned, Nancy, Ben or…uh, say, Wanda. Do you know if he knows them?”
“Not sure if he knows Ben. I introduced him to Ned and Nancy when he first came to the marina to check out boats.”
“And what about Wanda?”
“Wanda met Jeff and Emily for the first time at the festival. I introduced them all at Ned’s seminar yesterday.”
“So none of them seemed to know each other beforehand?”
“No,” Penny said. “Why are you so interested in who he knows?”
“Oh, well, I know how it is when you’re new to town. It can be hard to meet people. I thought I could organize some sort of get-together for Jeff so he can get to know folks. It might also help him take his mind off Emily’s death.”
“That’s so sweet of you,” Penny said. “I’m sure he’d love that.”
While she excused herself to go to the restroom, Scooter turned to look at me. “What exactly are you up to?”
“Me? Nothing,” I said innocently.
“I’m guessing it’s opposite day,” he said. “Because when you say ‘nothing,’ I’m pretty sure you mean ‘something.’”
“Aren’t you late for your conference call?”
“Shoot, I am,” he said. He stood and picked up the check from the table. “I’ll pay this and meet you back at the boat later, okay?” After bending down to give me a kiss, he added, “And try to stay out of trouble.”
“Sure thing,” I said. Which was true. My next stop was to pay a visit to Chief Dalton and get him up to speed on my investigation. I couldn’t exactly get into trouble doing that—could I?
* * *
Rumor had it the chief was at the beach by the Palm Tree Marina watching the kids’ sailing races. Rumor also had it that the reason the chief and his ex-wife split up was because of a disagreement about what to name their dogs. Now I had two things to investigate—Emily’s mysterious death and whose idea it was to name the Yorkies Frick and Frack.
I heard these rumors at Penelope’s Sugar Shack. After the Sailor’s Corner Cafe, it was the next best place to catch up on all the gossip and find out what people were up to. The young woman who made my mocha had told me where I could find the chief and the scoop on his marital woes.
Coffee in hand, I walked down the wooden steps leading from the Palm Tree Marina to the
sandy beach, which stretched from one end of the cove to the other. “Mind if I join you?” I asked.
The chief was sitting on a piece of driftwood. When he looked up at me, his bushy eyebrows twitched. “I don’t suppose you’d ever take no for an answer.”
“I think you’re going to want to hear what I have to say.” I plopped down next to him, taking in his outfit—navy shorts, a crisp short-sleeved shirt, and sandals. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you out of uniform. I’m surprised you’re off duty at a time like this.”
He shook his head. “I’m not off duty. The dogs were running circles around me, begging for a treat. I tripped over them and spilled iced tea all over myself. All my other uniforms are in the wash, so I’ve had to settle for civilian wear.” He pursed his lips. “What did you mean by ‘at a time like this’?”
“Aren’t you investigating Emily’s death?”
“Why would I be doing that?”
“She was poisoned.”
“Was she?”
“Yes. Everyone knows that.”
“They do?”
“Wait a minute. I’m the one who should be asking the questions,” I said, pulling a notebook and pen out of my bag.
The chief raised one of his eyebrows. “You should be?”
“See, there you go again.” He raised his other eyebrow as he looked at my notebook. “What? You’ve never seen C-3PO and R2-D2 stickers before?” I asked.
He pointed at the kids who had finished their sailing race and were pulling their Optimist dinghies up on the shore. “I have, but usually with that age bracket, not yours.”
“How do you know how old I am?”
He shrugged. “It’s on your record.”
“What record?”
“Are you denying that you have a record?”
I kicked off my flip-flops and scrunched my toes in the sand. “It was just a misunderstanding.”
“A misunderstanding involving bolt cutters?” he asked.
“We have more important things to discuss than bolt cutters.” I flipped open my notebook. “First, let’s talk about what Emily was poisoned with. I assume you have the toxicology report back.”
“No comment.”
I scribbled a few notes down. “Okay, item number two—how she was poisoned. Was it an injection? Was it in something she ate or drank?”
“No comment.”
“Fine. We’ll move on to item number three. Who would have wanted Emily dead?”
“No comment.”
“Did anyone ever tell you that you’re not a great conversationalist?”
The burly man frowned. “Yeah. My ex-wife.”
“Tell you what—why don’t we make this more of an interactive discussion. I’ll tell you what intel I’ve come up with so far, and then you shed a little more light on the investigation.”
“Fire away,” he said.
“Okay. Jeff and Wanda are the prime suspects so far.” That generated a few eyebrow contortions on the chief’s part. I pulled a pencil out of my bag and made a quick sketch in my notebook.
“Is that a picture of me?” He pulled the notebook out of my hand and peered at it.
“Uh, maybe. You do know that you have very expressive eyebrows, don’t you? It’s almost like you communicate with them. Far more effectively than you do with words, I might add.”
“Have you been talking to my ex?”
“She’s the last person I’d want to speak with after she threatened to file a restraining order against Mrs. Moto.”
The corners of his mouth twitched. “Did she really go through with sending a letter?” Then he frowned and tapped the notebook. “Explain this picture, if you please, Mrs. McGhie.”
“Just trying to decode the language of your eyebrows. I figure when you move them in certain ways, it must mean different things. Kind of like decoding raccoon sign language.”
“I didn’t know raccoons had eyebrows.”
“They don’t. It just reminds me of that time I was studying raccoon—”
The chief held up his hand. “Enough about eyebrows and raccoons. Honestly, I’m surprised you and my ex don’t get along. You both have some really kooky ideas. Now, why don’t you get back to what you were saying about Jeff and Wanda having a motive to murder Emily.”
“Hah! You admit it. It was murder!”
The chief shrugged. “It’ll be in the newspaper soon enough. That photojournalist, Alan, managed to get a video recording of one of the clerks at the medical examiner’s office talking about it to a friend at the Tipsy Pirate. He keeps pestering me for more details. Remind you of anyone?”
“Nah. I’ve got a lot more personality than he does.”
The chief bit back a smile before folding his arms across his chest. “Jeff and Wanda,” he prompted. After I told him about the two of them knowing each other, despite pretending they didn’t, Jeff’s former fiancée, Wanda accusing Jeff of being a gold digger, and Wanda’s mysterious connection to Emily and her family, the chief finally relented and shared a detail about Emily’s murder.
“She ate a piece of poisoned cake. It was gelsemium that killed her,” he said. “Also known as woodbine. Some people use it to treat certain conditions, but it can be very dangerous, even in small doses.”
“So dangerous, it can kill someone,” I said soberly, thinking about the convulsions Emily had been having when I found her.
The chief nodded. “That makes us square.” He got to his feet. “Now, I better get back and feed and walk Frick and Frack before they tear the place up.”
While he walked back down the beach toward the marina, I quickly scrawled down things to follow up on: (1) how did the killer get a hold of the gelsemium; (2) how did they know Emily would eat the cake; and (3) why did gelsemium sound so familiar?
* * *
“Where’s Mrs. Moto?” Katy asked as she ran up the beach toward me. She was followed by her younger brother, Sam, who was using his towel as a superhero cape.
“She’s back on the boat resting,” I said. “She had a long day yesterday.”
“Oh. I wanted to see her and tell her my good news,” Katy said.
“What’s that?”
“I came in first place in the under-ten division!”
“That’s great,” I said. “I saw the end of your race while I was sitting here. I’m going to be in my first sailing race on Tuesday. Do you have any tips for me?”
She thought about it for a moment, then said with a serious look, “Don’t fall off the boat.”
“Yeah,” Sam echoed. “Don’t fall!”
“Sound advice,” I said. “I will try to stay on the boat.”
“My uncle fell off a sailboat last year,” Katy said.
“Oh no, that’s terrible! Was he okay?”
The young girl tugged at the towel wrapped around her waist. “Yes, but my aunt was really upset.”
“I’ll bet she was.”
“She told him he wasn’t allowed to go racing anymore. He didn’t like that.”
“I can understand that,” I said, closing my notebook. “Is he your father’s brother or your mother’s?”
The two kids thought about that for a while. “Our dad’s,” they said in unison.
“He has lots of brothers and sisters,” Katy added.
“What’s a lot?”
Katy counted on her fingers. “One, two, three, four, five!”
“I wish I had brothers and sisters,” I said.
She cocked her head to one side. “You don’t have any?”
“No, I’m an only child.”
“I wish I had another sister, instead of a stupid brother. It would be just like in the movie Parent Trap.”
“Oh, I’m sure you don’t mean that,” I said.
“I do!” Katy glared at Sam. “He put my Elsa doll in the washing machine and ruined her.”
Sam looked down at the ground. “I said I was sorry,” he said softly.
“Why don’t you sit down and tell me abo
ut Parent Trap,” I said, patting the driftwood on either side of me.
“We saw it with Grandpa,” Sam said as he nestled against me.
“There were two twins—one lived with her mother and one lived with her father—and they didn’t know about each other,” Katy said. “They met at summer camp and discovered they were secret sisters!”
“Then what happened?” I asked.
“They trapped their parents into getting back together,” she explained.
“We ate popcorn,” Sam added.
“And cookies,” Katy said. “But Grandpa said we weren’t supposed to tell Grandma about the cookies. Promise you won’t tell her about the cookies either.”
“I promise,” I said solemnly. “I’m very good at keeping secrets. Speak of the devil.” Nancy was standing on the boardwalk motioning at the kids. “You better scoot along.”
I reflected on the upside of being an only child while they raced each other down the beach. My mom and I had fun watching Parent Trap together—the original, not the remake. I decided to send her a jokey text.
Remember Parent Trap? What’s my secret twin sister’s name?
I watched the gulls darting in and out of the surf while I waited for her response.
She sent a one-word text back, which probably took her five minutes to type.
Mary
Not the answer I’d expected. Who’s Mary? I replied, then waited another five minutes.
Your twin sister
I looked down at my phone in shock. Was it possible I really did have a secret sister? The only response I could manage consisted of question marks. A few minutes later, my mom replied with her own series of question marks.
I tapped on my phone furiously. How come you never told me I had a sister before?
Don’t be silly. You’re the one who told me about her. Gotta go. Late for bridge.
After not getting a response to any of my subsequent texts, which mostly consisted of more question marks interspersed with exclamation points, I put my phone and notebook into my bag and felt something hard at the bottom. I pulled out the small, empty, stopper-topped bottle that I had found in the trash in the men’s room the day Emily was killed. I peered at the label on the front. That’s why it had seemed so familiar. It was the herbal remedy for migraines, also known as gelsemium, that Nancy had shown me the other day.
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