“Let me ask you something—" Bugsy began to say while I stared off in the other direction, with not an iota of interest in responding to him. “Ok, Hagen,” Bugsy shifted and addressed the man sitting between us. “Ask her if she knew she was going to inherit the money. She seemed pretty casual about it in the lawyer’s office, considering her best friend is probably, well, you know,” he said, and from my peripheral vision, I noticed he used air quotes around best friend.
My jaw dropped and I stared a hole through Bugsy. It was none of his goddam business how I reacted to news of any nature. In the presence of law enforcement, I resisted the impulse to rip his face off.
Hagen looked like he was about to say something when I beat him to it. “Oh, Hagen… ask Mr. Beedle how he thinks I accomplished the task,” I said and, like a tennis court umpire, Hagen turned back to Bugsy.
“Hagen, you can tell her that everyone knows she conveniently has access to all kinds of boats in her line of work, and there’s a list of men who would have helped her!”
I raised my eyebrows — he was giving me more credit than was due and, what’s more, he’d really thought this through. Hagen waited for my return volley, which came in the form of an eye roll.
“I saw that,” Bugsy said in an offended tone, scowling at me.
“Well, I wasn’t trying to hide it!” I shouted in the same offended tone. “Hagen… Bugsy has more access to boats than I have. He has all the keys. Now, how about you ask him about the intruder I saw on Nat’s boat.”
“Hagen, tell her that nobody but her saw the intruder.”
My jaw dropped again, lower this time, I think. “So, you think I threw myself headfirst into the counter in the galley? That’s what they call a kitchen on a boat, by the way! Hagen, you can tell this poor excuse for a manager that if he’d have fixed the bloody security cameras, he’d have seen for himself there was an intruder.”
Hagen looked at Bugsy who had no answer to that. Instead, he posed another question. “Ok, Hagen, ask her why she has a gun on her boat. Did you know about that?” Bugsy asked. A fact he must have gleaned when he was on the hunt for Nat’s boat key aboard the Alex M.
“Yes, I know,” Hagen replied coolly.
“You know?” I asked, a little surprised.
“Sure. We investigate everyone’s background. You shoot trap and target, if I’m not mistaken,” he went on to say. “The guys at the club say you’re a pretty fair shot.”
I nodded. I didn’t know if I should be offended or not. I never thought I’d been considered a legitimate enough suspect to be thoroughly vetted, but I was somewhat pleased to know that my acumen had not gone unnoticed at the gun club.
“Hagen… ask her why she told Aggie she wouldn’t take a polygraph and why she’s been so antsy and why she changes the subject when she’s asked about Nat.”
“Oh, you mean like that night you tried to ply me with wine and your cozy couch when you practically interrogated me?”
Hagen shot me a curious look, then one toward Bugsy, shook his head, and leaned back in his chair where he proceeded to drink the rest of his lemonade. He put his empty glass on the table. “I’m done here. I don’t think she’s involved and Holden doesn’t either.”
“Look, just because your idiot girlfriend told you to play detective—" I began to say.
“Who told you that?” Bugsy looked across the table at me. And he looked angry.
“I overheard the whole conversation Thumper was having on the subject.”
“Your girlfriend is named Thumper?” Hagen asked. His head snapped toward Bugsy.
Bugsy screwed up his face a little. “No! It’s Bunny.”
“Same difference,” I said. “She’s playing you like a fiddle, Bugsy.”
“I still—” Bugsy began.
“Get the hell off my boat, William Beedle… before I get the cops here in an official capacity.”
I didn’t care what happened to Bugsy after that. He seemed genuinely convinced that I was responsible for whatever happened to Nat, or at least he wanted me thoroughly investigated. I wasn’t going to tell him that ole Bunny was on the company payroll, banging his brains out for the bottom line. He could find that out on his own.
The two men exchanged looks like they both knew I was pissed. Hagen nodded at Bugsy before they stepped up to the dock, and I watched Bugsy trudge away. The parting I had with Officer Hagen was cordial but terse. I mentioned the subject of Nat’s naval service and the possible angle of a disgruntled former crewmember. He may have been humouring me and my grasping at straws, but nonetheless, he jotted a few notes on his pad.
✽✽✽
I was so charged with energy that I went for a run after that – feeling strong and empowered. On my cooldown, I slowed as I neared Aggie’s store, ready to debrief her on my latest skirmish. As it happened, I didn’t get to do that. You know that feeling you get when you walk into a room and you can tell people have been talking about you? Well, that’s the feeling I had when I walked into Aggie’s store and saw her looking chummy with Bugsy and Jack Junior.
I turned right around and left.
CHAPTER 13
Two days later, Bugsy’s approach may have been sincere, but his timing sucked. Not only was it a Tuesday, but it was also my wedding anniversary. Though I’d only been married to Nick for eighteen months, the car accident that claimed his life was one tragic event that made me think of the next and the next and so on, like knocked-over dominoes I had to pick up. I was somewhere between hypnotized and comatose, looking at my computer monitor reading The Times online, and hadn’t noticed the footfalls of the latest visitor on my stern deck.
“Ahoy!” I heard a voice in the open doorway.
I looked up from my monitor to see Bugsy filling the doorway to my home. He was dressed in khaki pants and a white t-shirt, and for a moment he reminded me of Nat.
“Nobody says ahoy. Just so you know,” I said and returned my glazed-over gaze to the computer monitor in front of me.
“Well, what do you do for a doorbell?” he asked pithily, still not gauging my mood well.
“You don’t,” I was curt and continued staring at the monitor.
He cleared his throat to get my attention. “Peace offering,” he said, shrugging off my comment and holding up a box with his palm. I could tell from the red logo of a rolling pin crossed with a spoon printed on top of the box that it was from the M.M.M. Bakery on State Street.
I didn’t say anything and tried to lose myself in an article about a bail reform bill sent to the California Senate. Yawn. It was the day before the Fourth of July, and I would have loved to have seen a new email pop up from a customer, but odds aren’t good around holidays.
“May I come in?” Bugsy asked sheepishly from the other side of the door.
I did not respond.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” he said and walked over the threshold. “Look, I feel bad. It’s Tuesday. Now, didn’t you used to have pie every Tuesday with your friend?”
“I used to have pie every Tuesday with Nat. My pie days are over,” I grumbled from my desk chair where I sat with one leg propped up on the seat, my elbow resting on it, and my cheek pressed into my palm.
“So, you’re just never having pie again, is that it?”
“That’s it,” I said, though it was a lie. Pie and I were lifelong friends.
“Do you really think that’s the best thing to do?” he asked.
“Yes, I’m not interested,” I said.
“Are we still talking about pie?” he asked with a crinkly-eyed, quizzical expression.
“I am,” I said.
I didn’t like what he’d done to me, that he’d skulked around following me. I didn’t like that he had been thinking with his little head rather than the one on top of his shoulders, and I didn’t like being used so he could ingratiate himself with Bunny because, from what I’d seen and heard, she didn’t deserve anyone to do anything for her.
“Look, it’s just pie. It
’s Tuesday and I know it’s your thing.”
“My thing?” Did he really just reduce my Tuesdays with my best friend to a “thing”?
“Well, you know what I mean,” he replied, wincing and looking chagrined.
Bugsy’s little pie peace offering was clearly meant to assuage his conscience and, since he seemed the type who wouldn’t leave until he’d been satisfied, I decided to accommodate him, in my own special way. I collected my composure, nodded, and plastered on a bogus half-smile as I got up from my chair and stretched. I glanced toward the sofa at Pepper and he gave me the side-eye as if he knew I was up to no good. Smart dog.
“Let’s go outside, it’s such a nice day,” I said as I walked toward the doorway. Bugsy backed his way onto the stern deck and, when I glanced up, I saw the sun glinting off the blonde in his hair. He smelled like soap and Coppertone. Dammit.
At the beckoning gesture I made with my hand, he handed over the box and I flipped up the flimsy cardboard lid and looked at the pie. Again, with the fake half-smile. Then at him. He gave me a big smile, proud of himself for winning me over.
“Get off my boat, Bugsy,” I said calmly.
“Haven’t you realized yet, that that particular moniker isn’t catching on?” He sniggered.
I nodded and smirked. “I’m an optimist.”
“So am I, so how about you and I just sit down and have a nice piece of pie. Boston cream,” he said, raising his eyebrows — expecting me to be tempted by the dessert.
I pursed my lips and nodded as though I were thinking about it. Though, in truth, enjoying pie with him was the furthest thing from my mind. I slid my hand under the cool aluminum plate and tossed the cardboard box onto the chair close to me.
“See, there ya go. That wasn’t so hard, was it? Now, how about you go get some of your little mismatched plates and—"
As I stood motionless with the pie in my right palm, I locked eyes with him and my half-smile dissolved. My cold stare produced an anxious look from Bugsy, and he backed himself toward the railing of my boat. His arms out to his sides, he raised his hands and angled his palms toward me as though he were surrendering. He stumbled over his words.
“What… uh…”
With impressive gymnastic skills, he leaped sideways from my boat to the dock and, were it not for my pitching arm being a little rusty, and the fact that I throw like a girl, the pie I launched at him wouldn’t have missed.
It was worth it — I could hose off the dock after the seagulls had feasted.
✽✽✽
That afternoon, after I’d cleaned up what little of the Boston cream mess the seagulls hadn’t gobbled up, I got to the business of finishing my painting work on the Alex M. The July Fourth deadline the next day, and the festivities surrounding it, kept me motivated.
Even though I didn’t particularly care for the boat judging aspect of the day, I still didn’t want to be the girl at the dance with the run in her stockings, if you know what I mean. In my case, the run was the unfortunate scrape marks on the bow where Pike had scrubbed up against a piling on one of the last times he docked her. We had been out on a long run with her and, by the time we’d returned, the wind had kicked up. Docking the boat wasn’t exactly textbook that day.
I donned my coveralls overtop my yellow crochet work bikini, grabbed my wire brush, and trudged up from the engine room with a half gallon of gloss black paint, my favourite angled brush, and a roller and tray tucked under my arm. I was busy touching up the black and hanging precariously over the water on a ladder I’d leaned against the side of the boat when a set of footsteps came down the dock.
“Looking good,” I heard Aggie say over the sound of the oldies I had blaring to lighten my mood.
“Thanks.” I admit to replying coldly. I hadn’t seen her since I’d found her consorting with the enemy two days earlier.
“You hungry? I brought lunch.”
“Not really. Thanks anyway,” I said and dipped my brush into the can of paint I had tied to the ladder.
“Roast beef sandwich.”
“Nah, you can have it.”
“Don’t be a goof. I brought one for me too,” she said.
When I turned to give Aggie a scowl, the bill of my baseball cap flipped up against the ladder and one of my luckiest hats landed in the drink. Crap. If it hadn’t been one of my favourite hats, I would have kept working, but that hat and I had some history. So, Ags helped me fish it out of the water with a pole I kept on the starboard side of my boat. I slapped the hat against my leg to get most of the water out of it and walked with it toward the stern deck where I set it to dry in the sun.
“How about now? Hungry?” Ags asked as she followed me like a puppy dog.
“Ok, I guess,” I grumbled and watched her lay out the sandwiches, chips, and lemonade. I really need to work on my willpower.
“You mad at me or something?” she asked before popping a crunchy, homemade chip in her mouth.
“Why do you ask?”
“Well, because I haven’t heard from you for a couple days, since—"
“Since I caught you sympathizing with the enemy in your place with Jack Junior?”
“I was doing no such thing,” she said, handing me a sandwich.
“Uh, yeah you were.”
“Eat your sandwich. You’re getting hangry,” she said.
“Ok, enlighten me. What was going on when I saw you the other day?”
“We were talking about you,” she said.
“Thanks for the sandwich. You can go now.”
“Hang on, girl.”
“Aggie, do me a favour and please don’t talk about me to him,” I said.
“I thought you didn’t care what people thought of you?”
“Yeah, that’s when they didn’t know anything about me!” I protested and took another bite of my sandwich. I bit my tongue and it smarted.
“Look, I told him that we played him. That’s it. And…” Her voice trailed off.
“And what?”
“And I said you may be a lot of things but you ain’t no killer.”
“Thanks,” I said, shaking my head and taking a bite of the sandwich, more careful this time.
“And—" she began.
“And what else?”
“And he’s sorry. That’s why he brought you the pie.” She laughed. “You should have seen him after that. He was shell-shocked.”
I shrugged my shoulders. Bugsy deserved to have a pie thrown at him; he was just lucky I missed.
“I think you might have him all wrong,” she said.
“What? How can you say that? I thought we were on the same team here. He stole that place you want to live in, called the cops on me—"
“He didn’t steal it exactly.”
“Doesn’t matter. From what he told me, he doesn’t know if he’s staying anyway,” I said.
“I think he’s got to figure some things out,” Ags said and took a bite of her lunch.
“Is that what he was doing with you and Jack Junior? Figuring things out?”
“Eat your sandwich,” she said and kicked me under the table.
By the end of lunch, my mood was markedly better and my friendship with Ags was back on track. She returned to her store and I to the task of talking to passersby while I worked in occasional moments of painting.
“Looking good,” came the voice I recognized as Pike’s.
“Thanks.”
“Almost as good as the calendar picture,” he said.
“Well, I had to fix your little parallel parking scuff, but it was no biggie.” I laughed. “Speaking of the calendar, can I get the original picture of the DeFever for Stephen Richards? Sort of a boat warming gift,” I said as I pictured the calendar with the infamous typo.
“Oh yeah, I think she was January, right?”
“No, I think Jnauary,” I said, reminding Pike of the spelling mistake he’d never live down.
“We weren’t going to talk about that again, remember?” He si
ghed.
“Oh yeah, sorry,” I said. Not sorry.
“For the doctor, huh? You’re uh, not playing doctor with the doctor, are ya?” he kidded, and I shot him a smile as I craned my neck to look back toward him on the dock. I prefer keeping my romantic life a mystery, even if it’s nonexistent.
“Ok, doll, I’ll see ya tomorrow. I’ll email you the picture.”
“Sounds good. Thanks, punk.”
It’s amazing that I got my painting task completed with all the company that meandered by that afternoon. The S-troop, Peter Muncie, Tranmer, and Jack all stopped by to tell me what a good job I was doing and that they’d be voting for me in the contest. Tranmer, the lawyer, told me he’d vote for me twice. Shortly after he’d left, someone else called out to me from the dock as they were passing.
“Hello,” came a crisp, polite greeting.
“Good afternoon,” I said in a chipper, absentminded tone, my back toward the dock. A moment later, when I turned to see who it’d been, I realized it was Bugsy and cursed myself for being so hospitable.
The next time I spoke to him, I had just pulled my head out of a toilet.
CHAPTER 14
“Oh, excuse me, miss, have you by any chance seen Jack Ross Junior?” I asked cheerfully as I strode into Aggie’s store the next morning. Despite everything that had gone on in the past couple of weeks, the festive nature of the July Fourth holiday buoyed my spirits somehow.
Jack Junior’s back was to me as I found him sipping on a coffee and telling Aggie a story while she buzzed around behind the counter. I had recognized him, of course, but his hair was getting to an unusually shaggy length, suitable for teasing. When he swiveled on his stool to look at me, he bore a distinctly chilly expression while his cronies in the lounge area snickered at his expense.
“Hardy har, young lady,” he said. He rolled his eyes at me and swiveled back to face Ags.
When Jack Junior loved me, he called me kid. When he was in a mood, it was young lady. I plunked myself down on the stool beside him and considered myself warned. Aggie slid me an apple fritter and a cup of black coffee. The usual.
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