Still Life and Death

by Tracy Gardner

  “Oh my God.” Sydney slapped the table. “Do you think it was him? What if Libby fought him off? Maybe she gave him the black eye. With him having that key, he easily could’ve gone right up those stairs and killed her. It explains why the flower shop was still locked up.”

  Savanna shook her head. She knew her sister needed someone to direct her anger toward, but... “That doesn’t make sense. What would he have against Libby? And how would someone Libby’s age and size be able to punch Valentine? He’s, like, eight or ten inches taller than her.”

  “Maybe it wasn’t a punch,” Skylar said slowly. “If she was attacked, she’d have lashed out in any way possible. Elbows, feet, a ceramic pot—who knows?”

  “Was there a struggle? Did Nick mention anything like that?” Sydney asked.

  “He hasn’t mentioned much about anything,” Savanna said. “You know how that goes. And I’m not trying to start rumors about Miss Priscilla’s tap teacher. It’s just weird timing. Maybe I’ll ask him what happened to his eye when I take Mollie to dance tomorrow.”

  Skylar raised her eyebrows. “Really? All right, go for it. Just make sure you’re in the lobby with people and not by yourself with him.”

  “Hey, Kate might know who lives in the building. Her yoga studio has been there forever. I can ask her,” Sydney said.

  “Oh, ask her!” Savanna sat forward in her chair and pushed Syd’s cellphone on the table toward her.

  Sydney placed the call and put her phone on speaker, but it went to voicemail. She left a message and then also sent a text for good measure.

  Savanna tapped the screen on her own phone. “I can’t find anything online about Marcus Valentine, other than what’s on Miss Priscilla’s website. What’s the building address?” She squinted across the street, then returned her attention to her phone. “Well, that didn’t work, either. It just says here the address houses apartments 201, 202, and 203. If Kate doesn’t know who else rents there, I’ll go ask Yvonne.” Her friend Yvonne, a receptionist at the Carson Village Offices, was usually a wealth of information.

  “Good idea,” Skylar said. “Listen, I’ve got to get back, but you know we’re doing your birthday scavenger hunt Saturday, right?”

  “Oh! I sort of forgot. You don’t mind doing it?” A stab of nostalgia hit Savanna. They’d started the tradition as teenagers, their mom helping create riddles the birthday girl would have to solve to determine the three or four destinations that were plotted out on their mini road-rally.

  “Of course not. We’ve only missed a couple,” Skylar said. “We’ve already got yours all planned out. You took care of the second stop?” she asked Sydney.

  Their younger sister nodded. “All set.”

  Skylar stood. “We tried to make your clues harder this time. We went too easy on you last year!”

  Savanna laughed. “Thanks a lot. You don’t happen to know when we’ll be back, do you?”

  “I’m relieving Willow here at four, so not too late,” Sydney said.

  “Perfect.” Savanna helped clear the table and stopped on her way out the door. She suddenly felt hopeful. They finally had a plan, some small ways to connect the dots and maybe contribute to the investigation. “Syd, are you okay? You seem better today.”

  Her sister nodded. “I’m all right. This is hard, that’s all. Finn came by last night, and that helped a lot.”

  “Good. Hey, let me know what Kate says, will you?” Savanna asked. “If she doesn’t know who lives in the building, I’ll go talk to Yvonne.”

  Aidan was outside Sweetwater Boats chatting with the proprietor when Savanna arrived at the marina that afternoon. “I see you two have already met. How are you, Gus?” She leaned in and gave him a hug, and Augustus Connelly patted her on the shoulder.

  Gus looked every bit of his seventy-five years, with permanently tanned and freckled skin and deep crow’s feet around pale-blue eyes and sun-bleached eyebrows. He’d looked the same age since Savanna could remember, and she’d known him since she’d started coming to Carson Marina with her dad as a kid at least twenty years ago. “Can’t complain,” he said, his voice gravelly. “Your dad was out this morning. Caught a nice-sized silver he let me have. But you’re not thinking fishing, right? You need a sailboat? Got one in mind?”

  “How about a sloop? Maybe that twenty-six-foot Catalina, the red one?”

  Gus dipped his chin once toward his chest, a quick nod. “Yep. She’s prepped and ready. Had a feeling you’d pick her. Slip two twenty-three,” he said, pointing.

  “Oh, I’m so excited! I haven’t been out since last summer—well, on Dad’s boat, but there’s just something about sailing,” she said, grinning up at Aidan. “You’ll see.”

  “Um.” Aidan took a few steps, following her toward the docks, but stopped, turning back toward Gus. “Mr. Connelly, what about life jackets? And shouldn’t you, I don’t know, help us back it out or something?” He cupped one large hand around the back of his neck, his bicep straining the short sleeve of his gray Henley.

  “Nope. No worries, Dr. Gallager,” the older man said. “Life vests are aboard, and this one knows her way around a rig.” He spoke to Savanna, who’d just returned to Aidan’s side and taken his hand. “The water’s calm. Your sunset’s at nine oh-four tonight. Take your time.”

  Savanna climbed aboard the small craft first, momentarily wrapping her fingers around the mainstay to steady herself. When she turned around, Aidan’s expression conveyed volumes of concern, those twin lines between his eyebrows etched deeply; his stance was askew, as if he’d tried to reach to help her but then realized she was on the boat and fine. “Aidan.” She made her voice soft, gentle. “What is it? Let’s forget this—it’s silly, anyway.” She moved to climb back onto the dock, but he stopped her.

  “No. I’m silly. That word is actually silly.” He smiled sheepishly at her. “This is great. I want to go.” He made no move to climb aboard. The sailboat, smaller than many in the surrounding slips, sat below the level of the dock, making the first step a big one.

  A thought occurred to her. “One sec.” She ducked down into the cabin briefly, reappearing with the two life jackets, and held one up to Aidan. “Put that on.”

  He raised one eyebrow at her. “I’m not worried about falling off the dock.”

  What was he worried about? Calm and collected Aidan Gallager was certainly not himself, that was for sure. “All right.” She dropped the vest and held out a hand to him. “Step onto the edge of the cockpit here, and use the shroud—that cable from the mast—to keep your balance.”

  Aidan took her hand and came aboard, his long legs making it look effortless. “No problem.” He met her eyes, less than a foot from her in the small cockpit.

  “Can we sit for a minute?” She didn’t let go of his hand and sat facing him. “Aidan, if you feel unsure about going out, I promise it’s okay. Some people just don’t like boats.”

  “That’s not it,” he said, his voice low. “I’m fine. Really. Let’s do this: tell me what to do. Doesn’t every captain need a first mate? You’re the boss of me for the next few hours.”

  “I am? That sounds nice.”

  “You are. I’ll prove it. Give me a command.” Aidan rested his elbows on his knees and leaned toward her, deep blue eyes gazing intensely into hers as he waited.

  She swallowed. “Oh, the possibilities,” she murmured, unable to avoid glancing at his inviting lips. She made the sensible choice. “Tell me what you’re afraid of,” she said quietly.

  His eyes betrayed uncertainty. He took a breath, and she thought he was going to tell her, but then he looked down at their feet. When he met her stare again, that naked emotion—fear, sadness, something she couldn’t place—was gone. “Give me a different command.”

  She sighed. She’d never seen him guarded like this. “Kiss me.”

  The corner of his mouth turned upward and
he placed a hand on her jawline, fingertips in her hair. He leaned in and kissed her, sending a zing of electricity from her throat to her toes. The clean, slightly spicy scent of his aftershave, his warm hand on her skin and the other on her knee, gave Savanna the sense that all was well, even if she’d known that wasn’t true minutes ago. She cupped her fingers around his forearm, and when he stopped and drew back, she frowned, searching his face.

  Aidan kept his hand possessively on her knee through the denim. She’d worn jeans and her white Vans sneakers with a pink windbreaker. “Sailing’s easy,” he said.

  Savanna laughed. “Are you ready? Or should we get out of here and go to Giuseppe’s for dinner instead?”

  “You kind of sold me on those sub sandwiches you brought,” he deadpanned, clearly unwilling to talk about whatever was going on in his head.

  She bit her lower lip. “Aidan. I seriously am happy doing anything, as long as we’re together.”

  That elicited a full smile. “Let’s go sailing.” Aidan stood, donned his life jacket, and stepped out onto the deck, moving to the right around the cabin and steadying himself with the grabrail. He stopped at the bow, a hand on the mainstay, and looked back at her. “Are you ready? Should I untie her?”

  She stared at him, starting to feel the way she did when she was furiously struggling to read Detective Jordan and couldn’t. She shook her head. She’d wait until they were out on the lake and ask him again. “No,” she called. “Hold on.”

  Once she’d stowed their things in the cabin, checked the lines, and flipped the switch to start the inboard motor, she gave him the go-ahead and watched as he tossed both ropes onto the dock, freeing the Catalina. He moved carefully from bow to stern, and then stayed in the cockpit with her while she steered them out onto Lake Michigan.

  When they were far enough clear of the channel, she cut the engine, plunging them into a breezy silence. She glanced at Aidan. “When I raise the mainsail, it’ll catch the bit of wind we’ve got, okay?”

  “What can I do?”

  “Honestly, nothing yet. Just stay put.” Savanna moved along the length of the boom and tugged on the halyard to be sure it was loose, then pulled the mainsheet hand over hand until a good length of the rope was coiled up at her feet as the sail unfurled above them. She wrapped a length of rope around the winch and used the winch handle to bring the sail the rest of the way up, watching the telltales far overhead for wind direction. She trimmed the sail a little more and secured the mainsheet on the winch. They set out on a leisurely westward course, surrounded by blue water, no sounds but the water lapping the hull.

  Savanna kept a hand on the tiller and breathed deeply, face turned into the wind. Every time she was on the water, she wondered why she didn’t do it more often. She turned to find Aidan watching her.

  “I have a million questions,” he said. His expression was unreadable, but his tension was betrayed by the muscle in his jaw pulsing.

  “I have some too. Ask me one. Or a million.”

  “Who taught you to sail? Did you ever have your own boat? Do you go out on the water often? And alone? Why did I never know this?” He took a breath. “And what is a silver, and why did your dad give it to Gus?”

  Savanna smiled. “A silver is a silver salmon. It’s a good catch, better than a lake trout around here. Dad taught me to sail when I was thirteen, and I did have my own boat when I lived in Chicago,” she said, enjoying Aidan’s surprised expression.

  “How cool. What happened to it?”

  “I had to sell it when I moved back. My dad would’ve trailered it home to Michigan for me, but I didn’t even know where I was going to live or if I’d find a job. It made more sense to get rid of it. I miss it.”

  “So, those couple of times last summer when you said you were going sailing, you literally meant you were going sailing. Here. Alone. In one of Gus’s boats?” His voice went up at the end, his tone incredulous. “I just assumed you meant with your dad. But he doesn’t sail now?”

  “He sold his sailboat years ago and swapped it for a cabin cruiser. I think it fits his purposes better; he uses it to fish, and he and my mom even take it on trips together. When I say I’m going sailing, I usually mean here, either with one of Gus’s boats, or sometimes my dad’s friend takes us all out on his yacht—I’ll have to show you when we get back to the marina. It’s like something out of a movie. It’s a fifty-five-foot X-Yacht, the biggest sailboat I’ve ever seen. He and my dad race in the regatta every fall.”

  Aidan was shaking his head, staring at her. “I’m sorry. I can’t believe I’ve just discovered this hidden thing about you that I should’ve known.”

  “Aww, Aidan. Don’t do that. You know a lot. You pay attention. I only went out last summer a handful of times, when you were working. And you assumed correctly that most of the time I was going with my dad, only on Sebastian’s boat. I like to be safe, so I watch the weather—I’ve never been caught in a storm. And I don’t go unless I can drag Sydney with me. Or maybe now you?”

  He was silent. He didn’t answer her, his gaze moving out onto the horizon, where the sun was dropping lower in the sky.

  Savanna put the tiller lock on; she couldn’t trust it for long, but she needed to not be tied to steering for a few moments. She touched his leg across from her, leaving her hand there until he looked at her. She was dying to ask him her question; she had only one. But she’d pressed him so hard earlier, and he still seemed closed off. Instead, she shifted to the bench next to him, hugging him and resting her head on his shoulder.

  “I took Finn out on a sailboat the summer after I graduated high school.” Aidan’s deep voice was calm, quiet. “I worked at a yacht club in New Jersey, and I went through this phase... I guess we both went through a phase that lasted years after we lost our parents. I thought I knew what I was doing; I saw the sailors go out and come back all day every day, I knew all the terminology, and mainly I was just angry all the time. I was angry no one seemed to have the problems Finn and I had. We broke in after closing on a Sunday night. I stole a boat. We got all the way out onto the bay, but when I put the jib up—I know now I have no clue which sail to put up first—it caught the wind hard, the boat keeled, and the boom came across and knocked Finn into the water.”

  Savanna sat straight up and gasped. “Oh my God! And at night!”

  “I got him. Obviously,” he said, giving her a wry smile. “It took some maneuvering to get to him. Neither of us could swim, no life jackets...you can imagine. Finn almost died. It was a bad night.”

  She didn’t know what to say. Why hadn’t he ever told her?

  “We’ve all got stuff,” Aidan said. “Baggage. Right? My recklessness almost got him killed.”

  “But it didn’t. And you were just a kid, one who’d been through too much already.” Her heart ached for what he must be feeling.

  “You sound like him. Listen, I need to put it to rest, I know that. I thought I’d moved past it until you brought up going out on the water.”

  “I wish you’d told me.”

  He shrugged. “Why? Look at this—” he made a sweeping motion over the vast blue lake. “I’ve lived here over ten years, and this is what I’ve been avoiding? It was a good idea, Savanna.” Aidan pulled her into him, kissing her temple.

  The sail above them rustled, going slack, and the boom slowly inched back toward the center of the boat.

  He glanced up. “Anyway, Captain, I’m keeping you from your job. We’re losing the wind. Would you do me a favor and put your life jacket on?”

  She hugged him again, briefly this time, and put on her life vest before correcting their course.

  They ate their submarine sandwiches on the sail back from Paradise Cove, where they’d watched the sun begin to set over the water. Aidan seemed fine after they’d talked, even when they’d unfurled the jib sail to pick up speed. They were still several minutes out fr
om the marina, triggering that feeling—the mixture of sweetness and sadness Savanna always noticed toward the end of their time together. She knew it was ridiculous. They’d part ways, and then they’d usually talk again before she went to bed or the next morning. Even so, it was bittersweet.

  “You’re off the hook tomorrow,” he said. “I’m leaving the clinic early to pick Mollie up from school to take her to dance. There are some forms I need to sign for the dress rehearsal and recital, and she wants me to see her tap number before they go on stage.”

  “You’ll love it. I got a preview last week. Do you know much about the new tap teacher?”

  He shook his head. “Just what I’ve heard in the lobby. He replaced Miss Cathy after Priscilla fired her. Mollie likes Mr. Marcus better, though she hasn’t really said why.”

  “That, I can answer,” Savanna said. “Mollie says he reminds her of her Uncle Finn.”

  Aidan chuckled. “Now it makes sense. No one’s cooler than Uncle Finn in my daughter’s eyes. Why do you ask?”

  “I just wondered.”

  He scrutinized her. “Is this about Libby’s murder?”

  She looked up at the telltales on the sail, checking the direction of the ribbons to confirm they were still headed into the wind. He knew her too well.

  “Because, if it’s about Libby’s murder,” Aidan continued, “I’m sure Detective Jordan has that investigation handled.”

  She could feel him watching her and finally met his gaze. “I know he does. It’s just, he only last night cleared Uncle Max, and Max and I were talking about the way he found Libby, and the fact that the flower shop was all locked up when he arrived that morning, which means the killer got up to Libby’s rooftop greenhouse some other way, like possibly through one of the other businesses or the tenant access door.”

  “And you think Mr. Marcus could be the killer?”

  “I didn’t say that. Anyone in the building could be the killer. Even Sydney’s friend Kate, by my logic.” She hesitated, then pressed forward. “But we saw him go in through the tenant door today. When the dance school wasn’t even open. So maybe he lives in the building. Aidan...” she leaned forward toward him. “He had a black eye on Monday. What if he was in a scuffle with Libby?”