by Dana Mentink
Roxie waved a hand at him.
“Thanks, Bryce. I’ll just be a minute.” Ruth finished packaging up the worms.
“Who was that?”
“My son.”
“I didn’t know you had kids.”
“He’s visiting from Chicago.”
“Crazy city.” Roxie looked back at the door, an odd expression on her face.
“Do you have children, Roxie?”
“Me? No.” Ruth almost didn’t hear the second whispered comment. “Not anymore.”
Ruth watched her pull at a hole in her knit cap. “Would you like to join us for dinner? Monk’s making his famous meatballs, and there’s always enough for an army. We’d love to have you.”
“No. Thanks for the offer, but I’ve probably overstayed my welcome already. I’ll take my worms and get out of your hair.”
Ruth led her back through the cottage to the front door, watching until the woman was out of sight. She stood there for a moment, breathing in the evening air that had turned cool and the savory smells of oregano and browning meat from the kitchen.
So the college students were hiding something, busy making night dives in spite of their comments to the contrary. Roxie was right. No one should be in the water that late.
Then again, why was Roxie?
Chapter Seven
“I’m mighty glad to have my niece home.” Monk slid Jack a heavy mug filled with coffee. There was a lull in the Wednesday morning breakfast traffic so he untied his apron.
“Me, too. Bobby seems like she belongs in Finny.” They walked to a table by the window. Jack tried to look casual as he looked around the coffee counter. “Is she here today?”
“She’s visiting Ruth, but she’ll be along later.” He eyed the detective. “If you dillydally with that coffee long enough, you’ll see her.”
Jack felt his cheeks warm. He cleared his throat. “I actually came to see you. Official police business.” He pushed a photograph toward the big man. “What do you make of this?”
Monk squinted at the paper. “Is this the knot tied around his—”
“Uh-huh.”
“I’ve used many a knot in my day, but I’ve never seen one used like that on a person. I thought the man drowned.”
“No. Coroner says he was strangled and then dumped in the water. I wondered if you could tell me anything about the knot.”
Monk scratched his stubbled head and looked again. “It’s a figure eight on a bight. Not too fancy, easy to do with some practice. I imagine plenty of folks use them but me; it’s not my favorite.”
“How so?”
“It would be difficult to untie after you had a heavy load on it, which is why the murderer didn’t take the time to remove it, I’d imagine. Plus it’s bulky, and it takes a lot of rope to make.”
Jack sighed. “So you can’t deduce that this knot was tied by a left-handed ex-sailor with brown eyes and a size 14 shoe?”
Monk drained his cup. “Sorry, no. I’m no Hercule Poirot. Ruth’s the mystery solver in our family. I guess I didn’t solve your case for you then.”
“Afraid not but it was worth a try. How is Ruth getting on these days?”
Monk grinned sheepishly. “Fine as can be. ’Course having her grown son sprung on her was kind of a shock, especially after finding a body and all.”
“Is Bryce staying with you two?”
“Uh-huh. One big happy family.” He sipped some coffee. “Not that it’s my business or anything, but Bobby and I were jawing last night and she says she might take a job out of state. Seems pretty serious about it, too, Jack.”
Jack nodded, swallowing the odd feeling of panic that rose in his gut.
Monk raised an eyebrow. “I’d sure hate to see her leave, a great girl like that. Wouldn’t you?”
Jack busied himself gulping coffee to avoid an answer.
A couple came in with cameras around their necks, cheeks flushed. “Excuse me,” Monk said. “They look like they need some reviving.”
“Don’t we all,” Jack muttered as he left the shop.
He opened the door and stepped through, just in time to stumble into Bobby, almost knocking her down the front step. He reached out and caught her, and his heart kicked into overdrive. “Good morning.”
She regained her footing. “Good morning. Did you come for your coffee fix?”
“Yes, ma’am. How is Ruth feeling?”
“Sick, but otherwise okay.” She eyed him closely. “How are you? You look tired.”
He chuckled. “I think that’s the look you get when you pin on a police badge. It’s a perpetual part of the uniform.”
She laughed. “Can I come over and play with Paul after I pick up Uncle Monk’s supplies this afternoon? I bought him some more Legos so that we can make a pirate ship. It’s really cool.”
“You bet.” He tried to sound casual, but his pulse began to pound at the prospect of sharing an evening with her. “Um. . .when. . .around what time will you come around?”
“I’m thinking four-ish. Louella will let me in, won’t she?”
“Of course. She’ll be thrilled. I’ll call her and give her the heads-up.”
“Don’t do that. She’ll start cooking up a storm.”
“Yes, but you always put her in a panic, being a vegetarian and all. She’s convinced if you tasted her pot roast, you’d become a meat eater on the spot.”
Their laughter mingled as Bobby walked around him into the shop. “See you later, gator.”
He inhaled the scent of strawberry shampoo as he jogged back to his car, with a new energy that had nothing to do with caffeine.
Sandra Marconi shifted in her chair in the conference room. “Are we almost done?”
Jack nodded. “Pretty much, but I want to know why you’re here, and I don’t think you’ve quite given me that yet.”
She blinked, eyes wide above her full cheeks. “Why we’re here? I thought I explained all that. It’s a project for our thesis. Ethan and I are filming a documentary about the—”
“The wreck of the Triton, I know. You told me that before. But according to your college neither of you are enrolled at the moment.”
“Oh, that. We had to take a semester off, is all.”
“Why?”
Her gaze darted back and forth before returning to Jack’s face. “Because we couldn’t keep up with a full load of classes and still get this project done, among other things.”
“What other things?”
“Money things. College isn’t cheap, you know.”
“So you had to drop for a term. Why not wait on the project?”
“The timing is right to do it now. It’s the anniversary and—”
“Isn’t it unusual for college sophomores to take on such a big project? Why wouldn’t you want to wait until your senior year maybe?”
She straightened. “Sometimes you’ve just got to move on a gut feeling, you know?”
The words vibrated in his ears. “I understand that.”
“But you still think I’m hiding something?”
“I’ve been a cop for a long time, Ms. Marconi. I’ve learned that when something strikes me as odd, it bears checking into. I find it odd, that’s all. Risky, to leave school. Why not film later in the summer during break?”
“Then we’d be here along with the other tourists.”
“That’s not usually too much of a problem in Finny.”
“If we can pull off this project, the university will be impressed, maybe even impressed enough to offer us a scholarship.”
“Sounds pretty iffy.”
She sighed. “I suppose it is. Call us optimists, I guess.”
His stomach grumbled to remind him he’d skipped breakfast again. “Who’s bankrolling the project then if it isn’t the college?”
“We got a five-thousand-dollar grant.”
“From whom?”
She picked at a thread on her shorts. “I’m not sure it’s public information.”
He waited a beat. “There’s no such thing as private information during a murder investigation. Who is bankrolling you?”
“The Skylar Foundation.”
“Tell me about them.”
“I don’t really know anything about them. You’ll have to ask Ethan.”
He made a note on his pad. “One more thing. How are you going to finish your project without a photographer?”
“Ethan’s going to film it.”
He saw a flicker of uncertainty in her blue eyes.
“Ethan? He’s got quite a few talents. Okay. That’ll do for a while. You’re free to go.”
When the door closed behind her he called to Nate, who was trying to unclog his pencil sharpener. “Ever heard of the Skylar Foundation?”
“Nope.”
“They give grants to students.”
“Do they provide financial assistance to precocious six-year-old triplets?”
“I don’t know, but you can ask them when you call.”
He made it back home a few minutes to four, in time to kiss Louella and usher her to the door.
“Why the rush, Jack?” She put her hands on her massive hips. “Don’t you tell me. You’re having a lady over.” Her round face crinkled in alarm. “My stars, you didn’t tell me again. I should have cooked. I could have whipped up a nice lasagna. There’s hardly any meat in that. I can fix you some chicken. Does a chicken count as meat?” Her eyes rolled in thought. “They’re mostly bones and beak.”
He helped her pull on a sweater, ignoring the grin that expanded her face a few more inches. “No need to cook anything. I just thought I’d come home early.”
Her eyebrow arched in disbelief.
“And Bobby might come by,” he admitted.
She kissed Paul good-bye. “Well, if you ask me, it’s about time. I saw Bobby chatting with a handsome young man yesterday. Fine girl like that won’t wait around forever.”
The word shot out like a cannonball. “Who?”
“Don’t know,” Louella said, gathering her purse. She leveled a serious look at him. “But maybe you ought to find out, Mr. Detective.”
The door closed behind her and Paul peeked out around the corner, a chocolate milk mustache dark on his pale skin. “Scary Bear?”
For the hundredth time, Jack thanked God for letting Paul talk again. The period of selective mutism the boy suffered after watching Lacey die nearly put him over the edge. Every word, every syllable was precious now.
“You’d better run, little man. Big Scary Bear is coming.” With a growl he took off running after the happily shrieking boy. He caught Paul on the back porch, throwing him over his shoulder and doing his loudest bear impression. “Now Big Scary Bear is going to eat you for dinner.”
Paul hollered and laughed as Jack tickled him.
They both stopped short to see Bobby come through the side gate. She stooped to pet Mr. Boo Boo, who promptly rolled over to give her access to his canine belly.
“Hi,” she said. “I knocked but no one answered. I heard a bear on the rampage, so I let myself in the backyard. Hope that’s okay.” Her black eyes sparkled.
His stomach fluttered. “You bet. Sure. No problem.”
“Hey, Paul.” Bobby held up a Lego box and shook it.
“I got some new ones so we can make that pirate ship.”
“Daddy, down.”
Jack righted the boy, who took off like an arrow toward Bobby, pulling her inside. “Let’s go make our ship.”
“Right, Captain Paul, but I get to be first mate.” She laughed as Paul tugged her toward his room.
“Can you stay for dinner?” Jack called to her back.
“If it’s no trouble,” she said as she vanished down the hall.
“No trouble!”
He pumped his fist in a silent victory cheer and went to unpack the groceries he’d picked up on the way home. As he laid out the food, Louella’s words intruded on his happiness. Bobby had been talking with a handsome man? Someone Louella didn’t know? Must be an outsider. It wouldn’t be hard to find out and he was going to. Soon.
He put the thought aside and went to work warming cheese quiche and slicing green beans to steam. Strawberries and melon and a side of hot dog for Paul. The hot dog made his mouth water, but he wasn’t about to give in to his carnivorous instincts in front of vegetarian Bobby. Best behavior, Jack.
When he finally finished the dinner preparations, he went to find them. They weren’t in Paul’s room. Following the sound of laughter, he found them in the studio. For one second, he couldn’t breathe.
It was a room he hadn’t entered since the day he had buried his wife, a room that still smelled of her paints, though the tubes had long since dried out. Paul sat on Bobby’s shoulders, pointing to an amateurish oil painting of a sunrise.
Jack had never understood Lacey’s desire to paint, hours spent with brushes and palettes to produce a painting that would never be sold, or most likely even hung up. “What’s the point?” he asked, after a particularly bad day at the office.
She looked at him, blond hair pulled back and green eyes much older than her twenty-eight years. “Because you never know when there’s something beautiful right at your fingertips.”
He’d been too much of a fool to see the beautiful thing he had until it was too late.
Bobby looked up. “Nice paintings. I’m a wreck at art. I can’t even draw a stick man. Best I can do is a smiley face and even that turns out looking like a football most of the time.”
He opened his mouth, but nothing came out.
She looked closely at his face and then lifted Paul down. He scampered down the hallway. “Um, I think maybe I wasn’t supposed to come in here. I’m sorry. I should have asked first. I didn’t realize it would upset you.”
He managed a wan smile. “No, nothing like that. I, er, don’t come in here much.”
She slowly wrapped him in a tight hug. He burrowed his face into her neck, soaking in the satiny feeling of her skin. After a long moment he took her hand and led her out, carefully closing the door behind them.
“Paul said his mommy loved to paint.”
Jack blinked some tears away. “Did he? He doesn’t talk much about his mom. I wasn’t sure he remembered that.”
“I’m glad he does.”
“Me, too.” Jack held her hand as they returned to the kitchen.
Paul and Bobby hauled out the Lego creation they’d built and put it on the table. It made a fine centerpiece.
Jack raised his glass of tea. “To a couple of excellent construction workers and very accomplished pirates.”
“Arrrgggh,” Bobby said in reply.
They clinked glasses and dug in.
Paul looked pleased, Jack thought, as he wolfed down his hot dog. When he trotted off to find more Legos, Bobby chuckled. “He’s talking quite a bit more now than he did when I first met him. Long sentences and everything. You must be happy.”
“Beyond happy, I’d say. He still goes quiet when he’s upset, and that gets my heart thumping, but so far we’re weathering the storms pretty well. I. . .uh. . .notice he always seems to be extra chatty when you’re around.” His cell phone rang. He excused himself and answered, taking a few steps into the front room.
Nate gave him the report. “Cagey bunch, the Skylars. I’ve had to beat the phone bushes and cyber pavement to get anything on them.”
“And what did you find on the elusive Skylar Foundation?”
“It’s not much of a foundation. More like a salvage company, funded by a guy named Barnaby Skylar. He likes to provide the odd grant to folks involved in historical research.”
“Well, that fits.”
“Yeah.”
Jack picked up the hesitation in Nate’s voice. “So what’s eating you?”
“There’s very little info on his past projects. He’s not affiliated with the university, I can tell you that much.”
“So you don’t think he’s bankrolling Sandra and Ethan out of
the goodness of his heart, or to get credit in their paper?”
“Not likely.”
“Okay, Nate. Keep on it.”
He hung up.
“Did I hear you say the Sklyar Foundation?” Bobby pushed her plate away as he joined her again.
“Yeah. It’s the group that supposedly funded the film crew that’s poking around here. You ever heard of it?”
“Yes.” She frowned, twisting a strand of her straight black hair. “But I can’t remember where. It will come to me. Of course, you could just ask Ethan.”
Jack stilled. “Ethan? Do you know him?”
She nodded. “Actually, I met him in a geology class last year. I was surprised to see him in town.”
“I didn’t realize you two knew each other.”
“Not well. We went out a few times. Nothing serious. I’m going diving with him tomorrow.”
Jack put his fork down too loudly. The mystery of the handsome stranger was solved. “You’re going to dive together? Is that a good idea?”
She frowned. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
“He’s a suspect in a murder investigation.”
“A suspect? You don’t really think he killed his camera guy.” “It’s a possibility.”
“I promise I’ll always keep my guard up.”
He didn’t return her smile. “It’s a bad idea, Bobby.”
She folded her arms. “Let’s put it on the table. This isn’t about your investigation. This is because you don’t like me hanging out with someone else, isn’t it?”
He took a sip of water to stall for a moment. “I don’t like you muddying the waters when I’m working on a case.”
She snorted. “Muddying the waters? You make me sound like some sort of dog, playing around in your pond.”
“That’s not what I meant. I just think you should know who you’re going to be gallivanting around with.”
“Sometimes I’m not even sure I know you.” Her eyes blazed as she stood and pushed her chair in. “Don’t worry. I’ll be very careful not to contaminate any evidence when I’m out in the ocean with Ethan. Thanks for dinner.”
She grabbed her jacket. He heard her kiss Paul and wish him good night. The front door slammed. After a moment he followed, jogging down the front drive. “Bobby, wait. I’m sorry.”