“Ags, you know who was just out there?”
“Who?”
“Nat’s wife,” I said, and I couldn’t help but notice the disdain in my voice as I said the words. It had come as a shock to me that he had been married and not mentioned it, but after meeting her, I rather wanted to put her out of my mind as well.
“Oh, is she still alive?”
“You know her?”
“Yeah, she was here once. I think Nat was late with an alimony payment or something. Isn’t she a prize?” Aggie said, rifling through a cupboard behind the counter.
“Not exactly,” I muttered, and I wondered how I could ask Aggie what I was about to ask her. “Look, Ags, she was here for Nat’s key, and Jack Junior and I don’t think she ought to rifle through the things on his boat. You know what I mean? She’s all gung-ho to…” I couldn’t finish the sentence.
“Uh huh,” she said as she spritzed a little window cleaner on the refrigerator that housed the fruit juices.
“And Bugsy’s got the key to the boat.”
“Uh huh,” she said, wiping down refrigerator number one.
“And he left not long ago.” I went on and looked down at my watch anxiously.
“Yeah…”
“And I was thinking that if I could just get my hands on that box of keys that—"
“You want to steal the key to Nat’s boat,” Aggie said, finishing my sentence matter-of-factly. “Why didn’t you just say so? We’re burnin’ daylight here, girl.”
Ags put the glass cleaner and roll of paper towels down on the counter, flipped the sign on the door around to read “Back in ten minutes”, and in a flash was waiting for me to catch up before she turned the lock. I smiled. Everyone needs a friend who will be a partner in crime and keep their trap shut about it. Besides, I should have known that Aggie didn’t really need another reason to toy with Bugsy.
The two of us walked toward the cottage, smiling and chatting as though we were expected guests, just in case anyone should notice us. As we did, I sized up the place a bit more and convinced myself it shouldn’t take much to find the big tan metal box in there. There would be only so many places to hide it.
We had assigned Jack Junior to be our lookout near the store. He could see who was approaching the gates, and if Bugsy’s white truck returned, we were promised a signal that would sound like a crow. For reasons known only to Jack, he seemed to have perfected this skill and demonstrated it proudly, complete with full-body gestures.
“Ok, you just keep a lookout and give me some kind of sign if he’s coming,” I said to Aggie, not nervously so much as eagerly.
“You sure you don’t want me to go in while you stay out here?” she asked.
“No. Knowing how much you want to live in that place, I’d never get you out of there. Just give me a signal or keep him occupied, and I’ll find my way out.”
“Got it,” Aggie said, ducking behind the corner of the cottage, fixing her attention in the direction of Jack Junior and waiting for his bird imitation.
I took a deep breath. The lock on the front door of the house must have been original to the 1920s structure because all it took was a good jiggle, a shoulder, and a smidge of luck and, presto, it opened. It creaked a little on the hinges, and I was surprised Bugsy had put up with that for as long as he had. As I walked into the eerily quiet front room, I could hear my own footsteps, even in my sneakers. For some reason, it made me think. Who would name a kind of shoe “sneaker” anyway. Doesn’t that just promote questionable activities like I had undertaken?
Anyway, the cottage was nice inside. I tried not to dilly-dally on my mission, but it was hard not to take notice of my surroundings. The living room walls and ceiling were covered in whitewashed shiplap, and the wide plank pine floor was topped by a sisal area rug. There was an oversized navy-blue velvet couch, a coffee table shaped like a ship’s wheel with glass on it, and a wing chair upholstered in some vintage cabbage rose print. There were some black and white photos of sailboats and marine landscapes, a couple of side tables with blue glass lamps, and a stone fireplace at one end of the room. The place seemed devoid of personal touches except for a stack of books leaning against one end of the sofa and a pile of moving boxes on one side of the room. Some boxes had items spilling out the tops, but most were still taped shut. There didn’t look to be any good hiding spots for the key box in the living room, so I moved on.
The kitchen was directly next to the living room. The shiplap in that room was navy blue, and the cupboards were crisp white with simple hardware. Above the base cabinets, storage consisted of raw wood open shelves, which were almost completely empty. I chuckled. If Bugsy hadn’t dropped the box of dishes, they wouldn’t look so bare. In my search for the key cabinet, I found the cupboards also empty except for a roasting pan and waffle maker that looked as though they probably came with the house.
I leaned against the butcher block countertop, bit my bottom lip, and surveyed the room, looking for any place the box could be stashed. The only sound in the room was the ticking of the clock above the window; it seemed loud and underscored my need to act quickly.
My inner cat-like curiosity drew me to the note I spotted on the fridge, held on with a magnet that probably came with the place, so old that the phone number of the establishment it advertised didn’t include the area code. “Coffee maker, steak, cereal and milk” were scrawled on the paper it held up. I made a face. Who doesn’t have a coffee maker anyway? Remembering what happened to the proverbially curious cat, I got back to the task at hand, checked the linen closet and the small mudroom, both of which were a bust.
Next stop, the bedroom. There was not much going on in there, and I wondered if there ever would be. The room was painted something in the beige family and the pine bed and white sheets did little to inspire creativity in me, though it was a safe bet I would not be an invited guest to that room anytime soon. Or ever. I got on my knees to look under the bed, practically expecting the box to greet my gaze, and dammit but it didn’t. I rested on my haunches and bit my lip again as my eyes searched the room in a frantic randomness.
Time was ticking away, and I had no idea how much more of it I had. The bureau drawers revealed nothing interesting other than the fact that Bugsy exclusively wore white underwear and blue socks. The closet. Must be in there. I opened the closet door to a sea of blue shirts. Someone probably told Bugsy once that he looked good in blue and he never forgot it. A pair of loafers was perfectly aligned on the floor, but no box of keys was in sight.
I stood in the doorway of the bedroom with my hands on my hips. And, when I remembered that it was Bugsy’s go-to pose for confrontations, I abruptly changed my stance.
The bathroom was the only room I had yet to check. For a smallish cottage, the bathroom was generous in size. The shower and tub were separate from each other and, around the room and halfway up the wall were white subway tiles separated by indigo grout. There was a large frosted window that let in lots of light, a big vanity, and above it hung a beveled mirror flanked by nautically inspired chrome sconces. The room smelled like Bugsy — a perfect ratio of aftershave and soap. I opened the double doors of the vanity more than anything out of a curiosity for the brands of toiletries he used. Imagine my surprise when I spotted the metal box of keys stowed between the extra bars of soap and rolls of toilet paper. Beedle was a three-ply kind of guy, and the type of soap I found implied he had sensitive skin.
I removed the key cabinet, placed it on the rug on the floor, and squatted beside it, hoping that Bugsy had been considerate enough to organize the keys on the pegs and make the task of finding Nat’s key just that much easier. He had not. I scoffed at him a bit for not taking his job more seriously, then reflected on my own scoff-worthy situation, having just committed a “B and E”. I wasn’t long into my sifting through the keys when I heard Aggie’s voice in conversation with someone.
Nervously, I flipped through the pieces of silver and brass like they were doubloons in a tre
asure chest. Nat’s was a silver key. Schlage. Blue fob. With a piece of paper inserted into it with Slip 73 printed in blue pen. I remembered that much. I tend to remember mundane details, but don’t ask me my social security number. I found the key to my own boat, it merited a red fob, and I wondered if that meant anything. I debated taking it but doing that might make it obvious that I had swiped Nat’s key if Bugsy was ever industrious enough to sort the blasted things.
“Come on,” I whispered aloud, encouraging myself, and I finally found the silver key to Nat’s boat. A moment later, Aggie’s volume increased and then I heard the creak of the front door opening. I put Nat’s boat key into my shorts pocket and closed the lid of the box with the faintest of clicks and placed it back into the vanity. I quietly prayed that Bugsy wasn’t going to make a beeline for the john, and I also hoped like hell that the bathroom window opened. I suspected it did since a quick look around the room told me that there was no exhaust vent.
I padded to the window and pushed up on the sash. Stuck. Dammit all! I could hear noises in the kitchen like someone opening cupboards, maybe putting away groceries, and with the short list of provisions he’d left on the fridge, it wouldn’t take him long. The next thing I heard was a rapping at the front door. Aggie to the rescue, maybe. As quietly as I could, I banged on the top of the sash to loosen it. With not a modest effort, I pushed up the window and scrambled through it to the wrap-around porch and gently returned the window to a closed position.
With a racing heart and hastened gait, I deked around the back of the cottage, headed toward Aggie’s store, and took a seat out in front of her place beside Jack Junior. He looked positively apoplectic. A minute later, Aggie walked back from the cottage, pulled out a chair, sat beside me, and we locked eyes.
“That was you at the door?” I asked.
“Yep.”
“Thanks.”
“You get the key?” she asked.
“Yep.”
“Hey, what’d you say when you knocked on his door?” I asked.
“I asked him if he liked the color we picked out for the siding,” Aggie said with a shrug.
“And?”
“And he told me anything was better than the mess that was on there before.” She shot Jack and me a devilish smile and we all leaned back in our chairs exchanging satisfied looks.
CHAPTER 5
I had the key to Nat’s boat. Me. The good guy. I’d be damned if I’d let Cynthia McGregor-Grant get her gawdy, greedy, grabby claws on anything of Nat’s again. The one thing I could control about Nat’s situation was in hand. There was, however, no update on his whereabouts – I was reminded of this every half-hour on the half-hour when the news came on the radio. I eventually unplugged it and stashed it in a cupboard.
The day had seen an increase in marine traffic in the bay, volunteers doing grid searches for any signs of Nat, and I couldn’t bring myself to go out there. I didn’t want to be the one to find signs of him and hoped that if he was found, I’d be spared the details. However, I did find myself pacing periodically to the stern window of my boat to see if there was any commotion or if Bugsy was headed my way full steam ahead.
Seeing nothing of the marina despot and exhausted from, frankly, a surreal day, I turned out all the lights and my animal menagerie and I settled into a movie marathon of 1940s romantic screwball comedies. By the time you reach a certain age, everyone it seems has found the right coping mechanism to provide a mind-numbing distraction. For me, it includes handsome, lanky, well-dressed men and their respective co-stars in yards of chiffon and stylish hats. I specifically avoided any movie with a sad element – if I started crying, I might never stop.
✽✽✽
I woke the next morning to the din of outboard motors, and when I got up to look, the sight of the police boat leaving the marina made my stomach churn. It was heading out to look for signs of Nat again, and as I peeked out my port side window to see it motor out between the piers I couldn’t decide if I wanted them to find anything or not. At any rate, I felt that a change of scenery and some endorphins would do me good. A jog was in order. One of those mind-clearing, transcendental jogs where I could lose myself in music and the percussion of my feet pounding on the pavement.
I pulled on my blue running shorts, sports bra, white t-shirt, and a baseball cap. While I tied my laces, I mentally plotted out my circuit and made a note on my imaginary scratch pad to stop in and see Pike Murray on my way back. Pike, I hoped, would captain the boat for the sea trial of the DeFever I promised I’d arrange for Doctor Richards. The forecast looked good for later in the day, and so long as I could avoid looking at the police search boat, I’d keep it together. After a good stretch on the stern deck, I left Pepper in charge of things on the boat, and I was off and running. Literally.
Running down the dock toward my route, I saw Bugsy making the rounds in khakis and something from his collection of blue shirts. I smiled with a sense of satisfaction when I pictured the key to Nat’s boat, stowed securely on the Alex M. I had taken it out of my shorts pocket the night before and placed it on my bedside table along with some change, a hair elastic, and a bottle cap I had stuffed into my pocket absentmindedly the day before. When I got closer to him, I gave a cursory nod and noticed how the sun coming up caught the highlights in his sandy hair. Jerk.
He held up his hand as if to ask me to stop. “Can I talk to you?” I heard him say over the beats of one of my favourite oldies’ tunes.
I jogged in place for a moment and removed my right earbud. “What’s that?” I asked, squinting and sounding put out by having been made to slow my pace.
“I said, can I talk to you?” he shouted, though he needn’t have bothered.
“Maybe later?” I smiled, replaced my earbud, huffed through my stride, and trotted away at a pace meant to impress him, just in case he was looking.
My knees burned a little as I went up the hill leading out of the marina. My mind-clearing jog gave way to one of the thought-provoking variety. I wondered why Bugsy wanted to talk to me – could he have already discovered the key to Nat’s boat was missing? And did he suspect I took it? I felt a little insulted even though I had been the culprit. My mind went through a litany of hypothetical questions so I’d have some hypothetical snappy answers ready. I’d rely on straight-out denial if he asked.
I pulled myself out of my Bugsy-induced agitation when I saw a few young boys headed down to the public pier to do some fishing, bless their little hearts — I really wanted to join them in their carefree day.
During my jog, I looked at everything I passed but noticed very little. Sales in store windows and posters announcing upcoming Independence Day events were just words. I couldn’t tell you the details or how much you’d be saving on that new television you didn’t need. I did note that there was an increased police presence on the main drag, which is to say, I saw a police car, something I wouldn’t normally run into or perhaps just never noticed on my route. I sped up as I jogged past the ice cream place and Belmont’s, swallowing hard and stifling my memories of spending time at those places with Nat.
Maybe next time I’d choose a different route that wouldn’t make me want to throw up. I pumped my fists through the burn and turned up the volume to keep myself striding toward my imaginary finish line, the gate back at the marina. Before long, I had arrived, feeling strong.
The walk from the gate of the marina to Aggie’s is normally my cool down, but on this day, it worked me up. My mind was racing with thoughts of Nat, Bugsy, Richards, and Cynthia and what I could do about each of them. Inside Aggie’s place, I helped myself to some water and wandered over to Nat’s chums, gathered in front of the television. They were watching the news and discussing the current story on the screen, possibly waiting for something of Nat’s disappearance to rank in the scrawl.
“Hi, guys. Any news?” I asked the collective, and the men all looked up at me. My sweaty appearance probably upped my pathetic factor, and they gave me extra-consoling look
s. I took a seat on the arm of Sefton’s club chair.
“Sorry, kid,” Jack Junior muttered and shook his head.
“Some lady psychic says she can help, but I don’t trust her much.” Peter Muncie smirked back at me.
I nodded. When I looked toward the tv screen, there was an advertisement for a home monitoring system, and it sparked an idea. “Hey, what about the closed-circuit tv cameras? Wouldn’t they have something on tape from the other night?” I asked before taking a big gulp of water and wondering why the thought hadn’t occurred to me earlier.
A few members of the gang shifted awkwardly in their chairs, looked at each other, and cleared their throats.
“What?” I asked, searching Jack Junior’s eyes.
“Well, it’s… it’s just that I heard Beedle tell the cops that the cameras were busted,” he said lowly, averting his eyes, not keen on finding the disappointment in my face, I suppose.
“What? Seriously?” I shouted and wiped my sweaty brow with my forearm and heaved a sigh. I could feel the eruption rumbling in me. There really ought to be some early warning system for such occasions, like the kind you get when there’s a tornado in the area.
Jack Junior winced as if he knew what was coming.
There she blows! “What the hell kind of rinky-dink marina is this?! We can’t even feel safe in our own homes! God knows what’s happened to Nat, and that idiot over there didn’t believe me when I told him something was wrong and now we find out that there are no working security cameras! Who’s going to be next – you, Seacroft? Shears? Me? This is ridiculous!” I shook my head and saw Sefton dodge a droplet of perspiration.
“You can leave any time you want… The idiot will even waive the sixty days’ written notice,” came the familiar calm baritone from the doorway of Aggie’s store.
I could feel my heart stop momentarily as I recognized the voice being that of Bugsy and the tone as being one of extremely pissed. I didn’t turn to look at him. Instead, I grimaced in the direction of Jack Junior whose face was turning purple as he tried to keep himself composed. The rest of the gang averted their eyes, suddenly finding great interest in the anti-depressant commercial playing on the television; it showed a man on a bicycle grinning like a fool.
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