“Wait,” Aunt Edie said as Lydia started to open her car door. “I need to talk to you.”
“I don’t think we’ll be in any danger here, but you can stay here if you’re worried.”
“If I were worried there was a danger, there would be no way that I would let you go in there alone,” Aunt Edie responded. “It’s something else.”
Aunt Edie rubbed her hands together anxiously. Now, Lydia was getting nervous.
“What is it?”
“I wasn’t sure that I should say anything, but now I think I should. I tried to be subtle to see if you knew about it, but I think it’s clear that you don’t know. But maybe Leo does, and that’s why he’s seemed so on edge.”
“This isn’t about the case?”
“It’s about Suzanne. My friend saw her yesterday. She was decorating her home office for her. And my friend mentioned that Suzanne was wearing an engagement ring,” Aunt Edie said. “Leo must be so upset about this. She said no to him but then agreed to marry the first man that came along. He must be so hurt. I know he really cared for her.”
“I have a feeling that Leo does know about this,” Lydia said, getting out of the car. “But you should probably talk to him about it. Maybe he’ll be able to fully explain how he feels about the matter.”
Aunt Edie followed Lydia as they headed toward the marina’s office. The dock was cordoned off with a rope so that visitors were supposed to check-in at the office before heading to the moored boats.
“Can I help you?” the balding man behind the counter asked as the ladies walked inside.
“Are you Mel?” Lydia asked.
“That’s right. I own this place. I hope you were recommended to come here and this isn’t a complaint of some kind.”
“It’s not a complaint,” Lydia assured him. “But we had some questions about Bill Vector and his boat.”
“It might be tied here now, but the boat was not at our dock when he met his unfortunate end,” Mel said. “You can’t judge my marina by what happened to him.”
“No. I didn’t mean to make it sound like you were at fault.”
“We just saw Julia Levine,” Aunt Edie said. “She was quite upset about what happened to her lawyer. She wanted to know what happened and we thought we would ask. Do you know Julia? She was the one who told us to ask for you.”
“Of course, I know Julia. I know her and her husband – I mean, her ex-husband. They were my neighbors before they separated, and both moved. And they had their boat here at my marina. I know Julia sold it to the man who died after the divorce, but it used to be theirs. They’re both good people. I’m sorry it didn’t work out between them.”
“Is there anything that we could tell Julia that would make her feel better?” asked Lydia.
“Is she concerned that I’m involved because it’s my marina? Or that she is because she sold the boat?” Mel asked. “I don’t know exactly what to say. I don’t know all the details except that at first the police thought it was suicide, but then came back today and were asking more questions. They think it was murder now. I gave them all my security tapes.”
“You have security cameras here?” Lydia asked.
Mel nodded proudly. “It’s a recent development, but it’s state of the art now. You see about two weeks ago one of my customers reported that he thought he heard someone trying to steal a boat. The thief ran off when the customer tried to confront him, and the man was wearing a mask, so we know that he was up to no good. Now I have cameras trained on all the boats. We can keep track of everyone who enters after checking in with the office, and now we’re constantly recording in case anyone comes up from the water.”
“All this was handed over to the police?” asked Lydia.
Mel nodded again. Lydia was glad that the detectives had this evidence now, but she would have liked to see it for herself, too. With it in police custody, there seemed no chance that she would be able to watch it.
“Did you happen to look at those tapes?” Aunt Edie asked. “Was there anything suspicious on them?”
“I did watch through them at high speed before I turned them over,” Mel admitted. “And I didn’t see anything funny. I watched since Bill Vector took the boat. No one went by that boat who wasn’t supposed to. There were no strangers who went by it. Bill went out on his own a few times. He went out with a skinny lady before. And he went out on one trip with a group of men.”
“Do you know who these men were?” asked Lydia.
“Some friends, I think,” said Mel. “I had them sign in for security, but I gave those records to the police.”
Lydia nodded. She felt the same about the records as she did about the security tapes. She was glad Leo had them but also knew there was little chance of her seeing them now.
The door to the office opened, and a wiry man entered with a box of flyers, reminding boat owners to care for their vessels as the waters turned colder.
“You can put that right on the counter, Vincent,” Mel said. “Thanks for getting that.”
“I still try and be neighborly,” Vincent said, placing the box down. “I’ll get out of your way if you have customers.”
“Actually, I’m glad you’re here,” Mel said. “This is Vincent Calhoun. He does odd jobs for me around here. Since I scanned through the tapes, I saw that you weren’t near Julia’s old boat. But you still might be able to help.”
“How?”
“Did you see anything that could point to who might have wanted to hurt Bill Vector?”
“I thought he killed himself.”
“The police think it’s murder now,” Mel said. “Did you notice anything strange? You might want to tell them if you did.”
Vincent considered it. “Now that you mention it, I did see the guy arguing with a young woman. They walked right past me. This might sound funny, but I thought she smelled like ice cream. Those two were definitely not getting along.”
Lydia frowned. That sounded a lot like Amber. It seemed this trail had not led to finding a better prime suspect yet.
12
Station Secrets
After visiting the marina, Lydia and Aunt Edie headed to the police station. This was mostly because Aunt Edie wanted to talk to Leo about Suzanne’s engagement to another man, but Lydia also hoped that she could find out a bit more about the murder while there.
Aunt Edie looked apprehensive. Lydia tried to reassure her that it would be all right, but without giving away too much information about what was really going on, Aunt Edie didn’t seem to believe her words.
“Oh, I didn’t expect to see you here.”
The first words Lydia heard when she entered the station were also immediately true from her point of view. Brie Rankin was standing nervously near the waiting room.
“Why are you here?” Lydia asked. “Are you trying to get updates for a story? Or is this about Amber?”
“Actually, neither,” Brie said. “I’ve been thinking about what you said, and I decided that you were right. I should tell Detective Grey that I am sorry. I came here to apologize to him, but I started to get cold feet.”
“It’s a good thing to do,” Lydia said.
Brie nodded and took a deep breath. She started walking further into the station to find Detective Grey. Lydia knew that this wouldn’t completely fix the damage that had been done, but she was glad that Brie had realized the error of her ways and was trying to make amends.
“I hope this apology mends some of the hurt he’s been feeling,” Lydia said to her aunt. “I know it won’t erase it all.”
“I hope that there will be something that will help mend Leo’s hurt,” Aunt Edie said. “I can’t believe that Suzanne is about to marry someone else.”
“Let’s just find Leo and try to get this straightened out,” Lydia muttered.
She and Aunt Edie passed Brie and Detective Grey who were having their awkward conversation and found Leo at his desk going over some papers.
“Aunt Edie,” Leo said,
covering the pages so Lydia couldn’t look over his shoulder. “It’s so good to see you. I hope you’re keeping Lydia out of trouble.”
“You’re not going to try and hide when you see me?” Aunt Edie teased instead of responding to his last comment.
“Oh. You did notice that” Leo said with an embarrassed frown.
“It’s quite all right,” Aunt Edie said. “I understand now why you did it.”
“You do?” Leo asked, shooting a dirty look at Lydia.
“Her friend saw Suzanne wearing an engagement ring,” Lydia explained. She thought that his distrust of her being able to keep his secret was unwarranted.
“I just can’t believe that she would agree to marry someone else right after saying no to you,” Aunt Edie said. “You didn’t want me to know this, did you? Leo, it’s all right for me to know that you’re feeling hurt. You should know that you can tell me anything. I can’t help you if you don’t tell me that something is bothering you.”
“But it’s not really bothering me,” Leo said.
Lydia noticed that Suzanne was approaching them with four cups of coffee. Lydia barely had time to register this fact because Aunt Edie had not noticed her arrival and was starting to let her have it.
“Of course, it must bother you. It bothers me. I thought that Suzanne was a sweet, creative girl who was a very good match for you. But it seems that I was all wrong about her. She’s a heartbreaker and a trollop. She wears too many headbands, and she’s clearly bad news. It’s a good thing that you didn’t end up marrying her. I know now that she’s awful!”
“Aunt Edie, I wish you wouldn’t say that,” Leo said. “You don’t know the full picture. I love Suzanne, and she loves me. The person she’s going to marry is – me!”
Aunt Edie took a deep breath. “Why didn’t you tell me that?”
“I thought that you’d be mad that I didn’t tell you about the engagement right away. I was trying to figure out how to tell you.”
“So rather than enlighten me right away, you thought it was better to let me get furious with the woman who is going to become your wife?”
“I’m so sorry,” Leo said. “To both of you! Aunt Edie, I should have told you right away. And Suzanne, I should never have put you in this situation. My family really does like you. I know it.”
He tried to take her hand, but she pulled it away. He looked heartbroken for a moment until he realized that she needed it to cover her mouth and stem the flow of her laughter.
“I’m sorry,” Suzanne said. “When I saw your aunt this afternoon, she told me that she might have to teach you a lesson for not keeping her in the loop, but I didn’t know it would be this.”
“This was a joke?” Leo asked incredulously, glancing from one to the other.
“That’s why you have four cups of coffee,” Lydia said, realizing why it had bothered her to see so many when she first approached them. “You knew we would be here.”
“Aunt Edie asked me to come when she knew she was,” Suzanne said.
“I really think the world of Suzanne and I’m so glad that you’ve decided to tie the knot after a long engagement. You know, I think I remember your uncle once mentioning how he thought that you and Suzanne ought to get together someday.”
Lydia and Leo looked at one another and smiled. They had also come to the conclusion that their uncle had orchestrated Leo meeting Suzanne that summer.
“And I like her even more now that I know she’s willing to go along with my plans,” Aunt Edie said. “You should have seen your face, Leo. I hope you learned your lesson.”
“I won’t leave you out of the loop again,” Leo promised. “You’ll be the first one we tell after we pick a date for the wedding.”
Suzanne handed out the coffee and gave Leo a kiss on the cheek.
“I got distracted. I wanted to tell you when I came in that I think we should check on your partner,” Suzanne said. “It looked like he was talking to Brie. I know that might not be pleasant for him.”
“Let’s go,” Leo said, following after her. He paused when Lydia didn’t join them. “Lydia, what are you doing?”
“Adjusting my coffee lid to hurry after you,” she lied.
“You have ten seconds,” he said before following Suzanne away.
“Okay,” Lydia agreed.
A few seconds was all she needed to see who had signed in at the marina with Bill Vector on the group fishing trip. She quickly opened the Mel’s Marina binder on the desk and scanned the page. There were several people signed in: Jim Harlowe, Matt Smith, and Charlie Vector.
Hoping she still had another second to spare, Lydia also looked at the picture of the boat that had become a crime scene. The photo was of the exterior of the vessel, and she couldn’t tell much about it except that it was named: The Jewel-ia. It also had a figurehead of a mermaid on the front that looked unnecessary on such a modern boat.
“I’m coming. My coffee is all set,” Lydia said, figuring she couldn’t spend any more time looking at the files. With jail cells so close, Leo might actually follow through on his ongoing threat to lock her up for interfering with an investigation.
13
A Knock at the Door
Brie had left by the time the group reached the detective. Detective Grey said that her words did help him have closure, but that he really did wish to move on from this matter. Respecting his wishes, Lydia and Aunt Edie left the station so that he could focus on the case with Leo.
Lydia was also focusing on the case, and it continued to occupy her mind all through her evening with her aunt and Sunny. The fishing line had to be switched after the group trip out on the boat (so no one else would have accidentally suffered from the poison except the intended victim) and when Bill Vector went on his solo trip that ended in his death. If Mel from the marina and his amped up security were right and no one had approached the boat that wasn’t there without Bill’s approval, then the killer had to be one of his friends, his brother, or Amber.
Lydia had already dismissed Amber as a suspect, and she wasn’t convinced that Charlie Vector was a killer either. Perhaps this was because he had insisted that she be a part of the proceedings at the station earlier, but she did feel like he wanted his brother’s killer caught. She would have to track down Jim Harlowe and Matt Smith, and determine which of them made a better suspect.
The next morning, she enjoyed some French toast that her aunt made. Lydia kept reminding Aunt Edie that she was her guest and didn’t need to make meals for her, but Aunt Edie insisted, reminding her that she rarely got to cook while on her travels.
“I love cooking, and there’s no need to think it’s a bother,” Aunt Edie said. “I thought I might take Sunny to the beach this afternoon if you’re going to work on that murder case.”
Sunny recognized her name and the word beach and immediately began wagging her tail.
“I think that would be great,” Lydia said, “But you’re not going to insist that you come with me? You’re not going to argue that I need protection if talking to a potential killer?”
Aunt Edie shrugged and turned all her attention to the French bulldog mix on the floor. Lydia was about to question her aunt further, but then she heard a knock at the door. She hurried to answer it, wondering who it could be.
When she opened it and saw Daniel there, she felt her stomach drop. She tried not to show her disappointment on her face.
“I guess this is my lesson from her,” Lydia muttered.
“What?” Daniel asked as Lydia shook her head to dismiss the question. “Your aunt invited me over for breakfast.”
“And I’m sure you’ll have a lovely meal with her, but I need to get going. I have a suspect to interview, so I’ll see you later. The French toast is really good, though. You’ll enjoy it.”
“Lydia,” he said, grabbing her hand before she could rush off. “I know you’ve been avoiding me.”
“I’ve been really busy lately,” she said, trying to deflect. “There was a
murder, and I had to work with Amber Allen. Also, my aunt is visiting, and I wanted to make sure I spent some time with her before she zipped off around the world again.”
“I understand, and I was trying to give you space. But I do need to talk to you.”
“We’ll do that soon, but I need to make sure that a killer doesn’t get away with his crime. This murder was orchestrated in a way that makes me sure that the killer is smart. I need to give this my full attention.”
Daniel looked disappointed but didn’t seem willing to argue. It was then that Aunt Edie appeared, holding some French toast in a Tupperware container.
Pink Lemonade and Penalties Page 6