Claws for Alarm

by Karen MacInerney

  "I didn't think of it when they came by to tell me," he said, staring into the distance. "I guess... I guess I was just too shocked. I still feel numb; it's like it's not real, like she's going to walk in that door at any moment."

  "Grief is funny that way."

  "The postcards, though. I don't know why I didn't think of that. Do you think I should mention them to the police?"

  Someone threatens you with death and you don't tell the police? I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt; he was probably in shock, after all. "Of course you should. They probably won't be able to get fingerprints. But maybe the police will be able to find out who sent them, or where they were bought."

  "They're just average Maine postcards," he said. "Cadillac Mountain, the Margaret Todd... typical tourist sights. There's no way to know where they came from."

  I flipped through the postcards again, studying the black ink as if it could tell me its secrets. "The police need to know about them. And you never know... they might be able to figure out where they came from."

  "How would they do that?" Gus asked. "Could they find out who spray-painted our house, too?"

  "It's possible," I said. "Maybe someone saw someone; I'll ask Charlene if anyone bought paint. What color was it?"

  "Silver. Here, I'll show you." He stood up and led me to the French doors off the living room. A cool breeze swept off the water as we stepped onto the expansive back porch.

  "Right there," he said, pointing to a loose scrawl on the freshly painted wood siding. It was jarring against the picture-perfect exterior.

  I ran my fingers over the words—GO HOME—and looked at Gus. "Same as the postcards. The writing is a bit different, but that could be because it's spray paint instead of Sharpie. I'm so sorry this happened to you."

  "To tell you the truth, we haven't felt particularly welcome here," he told me.

  "I imagine not," I replied. "It can be a difficult transition for some folks." I'd received a few bits of hate mail in my time, too, now that I thought of it. "I think some of it may be getting used to what's here, instead of trying to recreate the outside world. Folks like the island the way it is." I tapped the postcard. "But that doesn't make things like this okay."

  "Or what happened to poor Francine," he said, tearing up. "What am I going to do without her?"

  I touched his arm and stayed with him while the wave of emotion passed. He took a deep breath and looked at me. "Who do you think would have done something like this?"

  "I don't know," I said. "Someone who felt threatened, maybe. I don't know if whoever did this is the one who... who killed Francine, but it's certainly possible." I looked back at the words on the house. "Spray paint makes me think teenagers," I told him. "But most of our teenagers are pretty mild-mannered."

  "She didn't argue with any teenagers. That I know of, anyway."

  "Before I forget... did Francine say anything about seeing anyone she recognized at the inn?"

  His forehead wrinkled. "At the inn?"

  "Yesterday evening," I prompted.

  "That's right; you told me that earlier. Why was she there again?"

  "She wanted to talk to John," I said evasively.

  "She didn't tell me anything about it. Why do you ask?"

  "Just a feeling," I said. "You know, it's possible she might have known one of the guests."

  "Are you thinking someone at your inn might have killed her?"

  "It's unlikely, but you never know."

  "What are their names?" he asked.

  I recited the names of the guests, but Gus shook his head. "None of them sound familiar, I'm afraid."

  "Ah, well," I told him. "I know you don't have a lot of family around here, so if there's anything that would help you out, please let me know. I can organize dinners, company... whatever you need."

  "That's kind of you," he said. "Let me get my bearings, and I'll think about it." He turned his coffee cup around in his hands, looking like a lost little boy. "What am I going to do with myself today?"

  "You're welcome to come by the inn if you like. There are a ton of yoga people there, but my door is always open." In truth, I was hoping he would come because I wanted to know if he recognized anyone.

  "I'll think about it," he said as we stood up and walked to the front door. "Thanks for coming by."

  "Of course," I said, handing him a card with the inn's information on it. "Call if you need anything. I'll tell my husband about the cards... and the spray paint. Someone should be back out soon, I imagine."

  "Thanks." The words came out almost as a whisper. He seemed to be going downhill fast.

  "I'm so sorry," I told him again, pausing at the front door. "Are you sure you're okay here by yourself?"

  He gave me a wan smile. "'That which does not kill us makes us stronger,' right?"

  "That's what they say," I said, thinking that Francine had gotten the raw end of that deal.

  * * *

  "The investigators need to head back out to the Hodges' place," I told John when I got back to the inn. The kitchen was tidied, and he was relaxing at the table with a cup of coffee and a small plate with half a cookie on it.

  "Why?" he asked as he finished off the last of the cookie. I sighed, thinking I should have made a triple batch, after all, and told him what Gus had shared with me.

  "Gus said Claudette is the only person he knows Francine was feuding with, but I don't see Claudette resorting to postcards and spray paint."

  "Why didn't he say anything to the police this morning?" John asked as I grabbed my recipe binder and sat down at the table across from him.

  "He said he must have been in shock," I told John as I leafed through until I found one of my favorite easy cookie recipes.

  "Maybe," John mused. "Shock does do funny things to people."

  I looked up from the binder. "You know, I didn't check on the retreat. I'm so caught up in what happened to Francine that I'm not taking care of business."

  "Relax," he told me. "Gwen and Catherine are at the helm."

  "Did Tom stop by with lobsters for tonight?"

  "Not yet," he said, "but we still have a few hours to go."

  "I'll give him a call in a few to make sure we're on the schedule. Any more romantic trouble?"

  John gave me a reassuring smile. "It seems to have simmered down. Rainy hasn't left her room, and Ravi and Kellie are playing it cool. Unless there's another love triangle I don't know about, we should be fine."

  "Speaking of love triangles, has Catherine said anything else about her new suitor?"

  He sighed. "I get the feeling there’s trouble in paradise. I never thought I'd say this, but it kind of makes me sad."

  "I know. Murray was so much nicer with Catherine on his arm. Still," I said, "just because she's going out with someone else doesn't mean she's done with Murray. Maybe she was just spending time with a new friend."

  "She chose to clean toilets rather than hang out with Murray," John replied, grimacing

  at the flowers. "If you ask me, that doesn't bode well. I'll have to see if I can find out who this mysterious yacht owner is. It's not someone on the island."

  "You could ask her," I suggested. As I spoke, the kitchen door swung open, and Catherine walked in with an armload of towels.

  "Speak of the devil," John said.

  "Pardon me?" she asked, peering at him over the mound of terry cloth.

  "Let me help you with the towels, and then I'll interrogate you," John said with a grin.

  "Thanks," Catherine said as he took half of them off her hands. They loaded the washer together as I pretended to look through my recipes.

  "Now," she said once she'd started the washer and rinsed her hands, "I imagine you want to know about the man I'm going out with tonight, correct?"

  "That was going to be the subject of my questions, yes."

  She drew herself up and looked down her nose at him—quite a feat, because he was about a foot taller than she was. With her blond head craned back, she
said tartly, "The answer is, I'm a grown woman and it's none of your business."

  Before John could respond, she turned to me. "The rooms are all taken care of. I'll replace the towels and run the rest of these through. I won't be here for dinner," she continued, glancing at John, "but I can help with breakfast."

  "Thanks," I said. "I appreciate your help."

  "And I didn't mean to be nosy," John added.

  She sniffed. "Yes, you did."

  "I just want to make sure you're okay. I care about you."

  "Thank you," she said. "But I don't want to talk about it."

  John hesitated for a moment before speaking. "May I offer one word of advice?"

  She sighed and rolled her eyes. "Do I have a choice?"

  "All I want to say is this: If you break up with Murray, try to do it nicely. It's hard sharing an island with someone who hates you."

  He had a point. It certainly hadn't worked out well for Francine, I thought, as Catherine sniffed again. As I watched, my mother-in-law strode out of the room, head held high, like a younger, svelter Queen Elizabeth. Only minus the tiara and plus a cashmere twinset.

  I turned to John when the kitchen door had swung closed. "So much for island harmony. Is Mercury in retrograde, or something?"

  "I have no idea, but if this is a 'peaceful' retreat, I'm not sure yoga is the thing for me."

  He had barely finished speaking when there was a knock on the swinging door to the kitchen.

  "Come in!" I called.

  It was Sequoia, looking worried.

  "What's up?" I asked.

  "I can't find Rainy."

  9

  John stood up, still holding his coffee. "What do you mean, you can't find her?"

  "Isn't she in her room?" I asked.

  Sequoia shook her head. "The door was ajar when I knocked. I walked in, but she wasn't there."

  "Maybe she's out for a walk?" I suggested.

  "Maybe," Sequoia said doubtfully. "She was supposed to help lead the later session. Willow's running one now, so I can't talk to her, but I was wondering if she'd said anything to you, or if you'd seen her."

  "I haven't, but I haven't been here," I said, and turned to John. "I think we should take a look around, just in case."

  "I'm sure it's fine, but it’s probably good just to be sure," he confirmed.

  The yoga group appeared to be turning themselves into human pretzels outside on the lawn as we walked through the dining room. James made it look effortless, but a few of the other participants looked... well... I'll call it strained.

  "Tough pose," John said as we walked by.

  "She puts them through their paces," Sequoia confirmed.

  Rainy's room was on the first floor, near the end. The door was ajar, but the lights were off. John nudged the door open and stepped inside.

  “Rainy?” he called. Although the bed looked like it had been slept in at some point, there was no sign of her. The bathroom door was ajar. The shower was dry—no one had used it that morning and the towel hanging on a hook was no longer damp.

  * * *

  I had just gotten back to the kitchen when Tom Lockhart appeared at the door to the porch, carrying a large plastic crate.

  "Dinner has arrived," he announced when I opened the door to let him into the kitchen. I could hear the lobsters shifting around inside the crate as he carried it into the kitchen. "Where do you want them?"

  "In the laundry room would be perfect," I told him. As he set the crate down near the washer, Smudge tiptoed over to investigate, pawing at the air holes in the side. Even Biscuit hopped down from her favorite spot on the windowsill to check out the new arrival. "Thanks so much for dropping them off," I said. "Can I get you a cup of coffee?"

  Tom grinned. "I wouldn't say no to that."

  As I poured him a cup, I asked, "What do I owe you?"

  "We'll settle up later," he told me as he sat down at the table.

  "I'd offer you cookies, but they're all gone."

  "Eli won't be happy about that."

  "I know; I've got to make another batch. Hear anything else about what happened to Francine?" I asked as he stood up.

  "All I know is that Adam found her this morning," he said. "And that one of the detectives asked me a lot of questions."

  "Uh-oh." I poured two mugs of coffee and joined him, sliding one across the table to him. "Why?"

  "We tangled a few days back. Publicly."

  "Claudette had some issues with her, too," I reminded him. "And I'm guessing you two weren't the only ones. She wasn't a particularly pleasant person."

  "She and Ingrid Sorenson got into it, too," he said. "Francine was looking to see if she could get elected to the board of selectmen."

  "There's no way she would have won."

  "Maybe not, but she got under Ingrid's skin. Started talking about Ingrid's slacker son, and how her parenting style must be a sign of poor management."

  I cringed. Ingrid had suffered enough over her son's addiction issues. It wasn't at all fair to lay that at her doorstep... much less use it as a campaign talking point. "What did Ingrid say?"

  "I believe she told her to stick her island beautification plan where the sun doesn't shine," he said. "And then there's the plan for the lighthouse."

  "The lighthouse?" I hadn't heard anything about the lighthouse since Matilda Jenkins took on renovating it for the Cranberry Island Museum a few years back. "I thought that project was on hold because of funding troubles."

  "It was," he said. "Murray has some new plans for it, though."

  "Like what?"

  "Someone expressed interest in bidding on it and turning it into a restaurant," Tom told me. "Murray's investing in it and helping broker the deal."

  "Wait. I thought she was trying to get the lobster co-op to move... why the lighthouse? It's awfully far from the pier."

  "That's the thing. Murray and Francine were concocting a scheme to make the lighthouse the focal point of a new tourist landing. They were going to make the lighthouse a 'destination restaurant,' and create a tourist pier."

  "I thought she just wanted to move the co-op!"

  "When she realized that wasn't going to work, she came up with another plan instead."

  "That would decimate the businesses at the pier," I said. "Spurrell's is having a hard enough time as it is." The lobster pound had lost its manager a few months back; family members were pitching in to make it work, but it had been rocky-going.

  "Did you know the Hodges bought two of the properties adjacent to the lighthouse right before she bought her house?"

  "I didn't know that. I guess she had this in mind all along, then."

  "And Selfridge has agreed to invest funds, too."

  "No wonder she was in to island beautification."

  "Exactly," Tom said. "The irony is, people love Cranberry Island because it's a real place with real people... not a cookie-cutter, Disney-fied destination. And yet, when they come here, the first thing people do is try to make it like everywhere else."

  "I hope the islanders don't think I've done that," I told him, feeling self-conscious.

  "Not at all," Tom said. "The inn was already here. You just renovated it and made it a going concern again."

  "Thanks," I said, relieved. "But you're right; this seems to be a battle we've had to fight almost every year." And Murray Selfridge was usually involved. Could his current project be the source of the discord with Catherine?

  "You'd think being accessible only by ferry would help, but sometimes I think that makes people feel it's more 'exclusive.'" He sighed. "I want my kids to be able to raise their kids here someday, if they choose to."

  "We'll just have to keep the school going," I said. Although islanders had to send their kids to Mount Desert Island for high school, the local school was a key element to keeping families like the Lockharts on Cranberry Island.

  "The new teacher has been terrific," he said. "The boys love going to school since she came. I heard Claudette's grandk
ids were asking if they could live here and go to school, too."

  "Wouldn't that be fabulous?" I asked. "And speaking of Claudette, I'm worried about her."

  "I am, too. She seems like a natural suspect. But she's not the only one who had issues with Francine; like I said, she and Ingrid had it out, too."

  "Does anyone else know about that?"

  "Half the island, I reckon. They were both waiting for the mail boat when it happened."

  This was both good and bad news. Good, in that Claudette wasn't the only person to have publicly had issues with Francine, but bad in that I didn't want anyone else on the island arrested either. I took a sip of coffee and leaned back in my chair. "Who else do you know that might have wanted her dead?"

  "Half the co-op, to be honest. But I don't think anyone wanted it enough to do it themselves." He grimaced. "She'd been nosing around and asking a lot of questions lately."

  "About what?"

  "About who owned some of the rental properties she didn't like, for starters. And who was drinking too much, and dropping comments about how the selectmen weren't doing a very good job of keeping the school tidy. She went after Sara Bennett the other day for not doing a better job with the dress code at the school."

  "School isn't in session now," I said.

  "I know. The kids were on the playground, and one of the boys wasn't wearing a shirt."

  "And Sara was supposed to do something about that?"

  "Francine was kind of out there," Tom said. "What's more, I heard she was on the mainland chatting up business owners for her new pier."

  "What about Island Artists?" I asked.

  "I'm sure she'd be happy to have them," Tom said. "As long as they could afford the rent."

  I sighed. "What was her motivation, do you think?"

  "She wanted to put her mark on the place, I guess. And they put an awful lot of money into that house. I'm not sure they would have gotten the funds out of it if they sold. Her husband must be a very patient man."

  "I saw him this morning," I told Tom. "He seemed really shaken up... almost in shock. I'm not sure how he's going to function without Francine to organize his life."