Claws for Alarm

by Karen MacInerney

"Maybe you could talk to her."

  "And what? Ask about what I saw in her journal?" I sighed. "She did open up to me about James a little bit the other day. I'm sure she's upset and would love someone to talk to; I know it must be hard being peppy all day when your ex is ten feet away."

  "Catherine doesn't seem to be having that trouble," John commented.

  "Are they broken up, then? I thought they were talking."

  He sighed. "She's on the brink. I don't really like Murray that much, but I'm not sure two dates with Mr. Veuve Clicquot is a reason to call things off with someone you really seem to get along with."

  "I thought she was just doing it to convince him to back off the development plans," I commented.

  "I thought so, too, but apparently she kind of likes this guy."

  I was about to respond when there was a tap on the door, and Willow walked into the kitchen, her face pale.

  John exchanged glances with me and stood up. "I'm going to make that delivery to Island Artists," he said. "Do you want me to pick up the grocery order?"

  "I'll give you a call," I said, and turned to Willow. "Come on in! Tea?"

  "Sure," she said as John disappeared out the back door.

  "Sit down," I said as I busied myself with the kettle. "You look upset; what's wrong?"

  "Everything," she said glumly. "Everybody at the retreat is bickering, I don't know if Rainy's going to be okay, and James..." She burst into tears.

  "That's been really hard for you, hasn't it?" I asked.

  She nodded, and I handed her a tissue. She dabbed at her eyes and took a deep breath, struggling to get herself together.

  "What happened with him, anyway?" I asked.

  "I don't know," she said. Her eyes darted up to me, and then away. "He just lost interest, I guess."

  "I've had that happen," I said. "Chamomile tea? Mint? Earl Grey?"

  "Mint," she said, and I fished two mint tea bags out of the box, then swished out the teapot and filled it with hot water.

  "What was his dating history like before you met?"

  "Kind of sparse, I think," she said. "He's not the most flirtatious person on the planet. Good-looking, but not exactly a social butterfly."

  "What about the fiancée you mentioned?" I asked, thinking of the photo in his room.

  "He never talked much about her, though."

  "You mentioned she died. Do you know how?"

  "I don't know much about it really," she said. "He didn't talk about it much." She busied herself inspecting her short nails. "Anyway, that's ancient history."

  Ancient history. The same words I'd seen in her journal. She was hiding something. But what?

  15

  I was on my way back from the store when I spotted a familiar figure down by the lobster co-op. It was Gus Hodges, standing not too far from where Francine had been found, staring out to sea.

  I parked the van, thankful the cold food was safely stowed in coolers, and walked down to join him.

  He jumped when I greeted him.

  "Oh. I didn't hear you coming," he said.

  "How's it going?" I asked.

  "As well as can be expected, I suppose," he said after a moment's pause. "I loved Francine, but she was hard to live with. It's funny," he said. "For so many years I wondered what life would be like without her; I fantasized about it from time to time, to be honest. And now that she's gone..." He shrugged. "I just feel empty. Directionless." He made a small mark in the rocks with the toe of his leather loafer. "Lost, almost."

  "It must be a huge change," I said.

  "She was such a force," he said. "Unstoppable once she set her mind to something. It's hard to imagine someone was able to snuff it out, just like that." He snapped his fingers.

  "It's tragic," I agreed. "It shouldn't have been that way."

  "No," he mused. "No, it shouldn't. But I'm not completely surprised."

  "You're not?"

  "My wife spent the last four decades making people angry," he said. "I always told her it would catch up with her. I just didn't expect it to happen like this."

  "Who else did she make angry?" I asked.

  "Who didn't she make angry?" he replied. "It's a much shorter list. I wouldn't have guessed Claudette White would be the one to put an end to her, though. I guess those goats were like children to her."

  "Honestly, I'm not sure Claudette was the one responsible," I told him.

  "But they arrested her," he said. "Surely they wouldn't have done that without proof."

  "Mistakes have been made in the past," I told him. "If you have any idea who else might have wished your wife ill, please tell me. I'm afraid an innocent woman may go to prison."

  He sighed. "There was whoever was sending those notes, I suppose."

  "And whoever spray-painted your house," I pointed out. "Did you talk to the police about that?"

  "I did," he said. "They figured it was just teenagers."

  "Did you give them the postcards, too?"

  "I told them about them, yes," he said.

  "Did you give them to them?"

  "I think Marge must have burned them with the trash," he said. "I couldn't find them."

  Brilliant. Another clue gone. I gazed out across the buoy-studded water to where a lobsterman moved from lobster pot to lobster pot, like a bee visiting flowers. I squinted at the buoy at the front of the boat; it wasn't one I recognized. One of the interlopers' boats from the mainland? If so, they had a lot of nerve; they were within spitting distance of the co-op.

  "I've been wondering," I said idly as the boat turned toward the mainland and puttered off into the distance. "Why did you and Francine decide to move to Maine?"

  He gave me a sidelong look. "Well, we’re really just summer people… and the official story is that we were looking for a change of pace," he said, "but the truth is, there were threats."

  "Threats?"

  He sighed. "Like I said, she cut a wide swathe. She fought a lot of battles, and won them, too. Lots of folks were bitter."

  "Bitter enough for you to move?"

  He nodded. "Someone sent death threats."

  "Death threats? Like the ones you got here?"

  "Similar," he said, and his eyes widened. "You don't think those might be connected, do you?"

  "It's possible."

  "And there was an arson attempt," he said. "They burned down half our garage. If we hadn't caught it in time..." He shuddered.

  "Did the police ever find out who did it?"

  He shook his head. "Nope."

  "Surely you had an idea who it might have been, though?"

  "They never said why they did it.. And I know Francine's made a lot of people angry; it could have been anyone."

  "How did she make people angry?"

  "She had lots of people who were furious with her."

  "So you moved to escape the death threats?"

  "Ironic, isn't it?" he asked, staring out at the water.

  "It kind of is," I said. "Have you considered the possibility that someone followed you from Florida?"

  "Do you think?" he asked. "But what about the mail boat? Everyone would know if a stranger came to the island."

  "Maybe," I said. "You know the yoga retreat at the inn is from Florida, right?"

  He blinked. "It is?"

  "The studio that put it on is based in Pompano Beach," I said.

  "That's just down the road from Fort Lauderdale!" he said.

  "Those postcards; were they anything like the threats you received in Florida?"

  "I don't know," he said.

  I stifled a sigh. After forty years of having his life run by someone else, was he really that incapable of making simple connections? It sure looked like it. "Well, were they delivered in the same way? On postcards? Handwritten or typed?"

  "I... I think they were letters," he said. "In Sharpie."

  "Are you sure you didn't keep any of them? Even the threatening ones?"

  "I didn't do the filing," he replied, looking awa
y from me. "Francine would have taken care of that."

  "Is there any way you could look and see?" I asked.

  "I guess I could do that," he said. "If I still have them."

  "Because if the murderer is still at large," I said, to give him a bit of motivation, "he or she might not stop at Francine."

  Gus's eyes widened. "You don't mean... they might kill me?"

  I shrugged. "You never know," I said. "I'd lock the doors if I were you."

  He shoved his hands in his pockets. "I'd better go find those letters."

  "Need a ride?" I asked. "The van's over there."

  He glanced around, as if the murderer might have materialized on the rocky beach in the past thirty seconds. "No," he said. "I need my exercise. Besides," he said, "Francine was the one everyone wanted dead. Not me." He glanced at his watch. "Speaking of exercise, I think I'm going to start heading back."

  "Take care of yourself," I said. "And please look for those postcards again."

  "I will," he said in a tone of voice that didn't inspire confidence.

  As I walked back to the van, I glanced back over my shoulder. Gus was headed up the shore at a brisk pace... but not in the direction of his house.

  My instincts told me there was more to Gus than he was telling me. I watched until he followed the path into a stand of trees... and then I stepped away from the van and headed back down to the beach.

  * * *

  The path was narrow, and not frequently used; it climbed past several huge granite boulders, then wound through a grassy knoll and into a thick tangle of mixed woods. I walked slowly, avoiding dead branches. Although I couldn't see Gus, I knew he must be ahead of me somewhere.

  I walked about a hundred yards before I heard voices. I slowed down, scanning the greenery for signs of Gus. I took a few more steps forward, being careful not to step on anything; then I spotted him.

  He was talking to a woman with blond hair, but I couldn't see her face; her back was turned to me.

  "I told you, it had nothing to do with us."

  "Are you sure?" she said.

  "I swear it," he replied. "When are you going to be free?"

  "I... I just don't know," the woman replied. She was wearing blue, and her light hair flashed in the sun though the trees. "It hasn't been that long. I'm just not sure it's the right thing to do. I shouldn't be seeing you at all."

  "He doesn't meet your needs," Gus said in a wheedling tone. "You've been unfulfilled for so many years. There's a reason I moved to Cranberry Island... It was you."

  "But..."

  "Shh," he said. "Stop thinking so much. Just be. Let me take care of you."

  There was silence, and what appeared through the thick branches to be kissing. I felt my eyebrows rise almost to my hairline. I would never have taken Gus for a ladies' man... and who was his target?

  The woman’s voice was soft. "I always feel so good when I'm with you."

  "When we're together, it will be like this all the time," he cooed. "I'll shower you with presents... you haven't seen anything yet. We were meant to be together."

  More silence. Presumably kissing. I strained to see who it might be.

  "I can't stay," she said finally. "I have to go."

  "Are you sure?"

  "Yes," she said firmly.

  I took that as my cue to double back before I was spotted. After a last try at identifying the mystery woman, I hurried back down the trail, anxious to get back to the van before Gus spotted me. I'd just closed the door behind me when he reappeared, walking more slowly this time, and with something of a smug smile on his face.

  For all his "lost" talk, he looked very much like a man with a plan. I was burning with curiosity to find out who he was just with; whoever it was must have been seeing someone else. But I didn't know of that many blondes on the island. There was the librarian Matilda, Ingrid... and Catherine.

  Was Catherine seeing Gus on the side? Had Murray found out? And if so, where did Nicholas come into the equation?

  And then there was Ingrid Sorenson. Ingrid, local selectwoman, the queen of propriety, who'd had a long-standing marriage, was a stalwart of the island, and was very invested in a proper appearance. Her struggles with her son's addiction issues had softened that stance a bit, but she still had a strong sense of right and wrong... and an affair would definitely fall on the "wrong" side of the equation. Was she really making out with Gus Hodges in the woods by the dock? It was possible, but I didn't know.

  Gus was a dark horse, though, that much was sure.

  And now I knew how he'd survived forty years with Francine.

  16

  As I drove back to the inn, I thought about Gus, wondering if, in fact, I'd overlooked the most obvious suspect, and found myself hoping to catch a glimpse of the blond woman he'd been canoodling with. I didn't see anyone until I pulled into the inn driveway, though.

  The yoga folks were out on the lawn today, all twisted into some kind of pretzel pose that would probably land me in the hospital if I tried it. As I got out of the van and opened the cooler, I scanned them, wondering if any of them had come to the island to settle a score with Francine. James was as far from Willow as possible, looking sculpted and aloof. Next to him was Kellie, resplendent in pink spandex, grouped with Barbara Sue and Blue. Ravi was at the far end, away from Kellie. Sebastian and Gage were next to each other, both looking a bit wobbly, and Virginia and Andrew had staked out a corner. They seemed to be getting along, I was glad to see.

  They all looked completely innocent, but any one of them could be a murderer. I knew next to nothing about them. And a lot of them came from Florida.

  I grabbed several bags and headed toward the kitchen door, deep in thought. Gus said Francine had made a lot of people angry. Angry enough to follow her to Cranberry Island?

  After putting up the groceries—I was making avocados stuffed with crab salad for dinner... yum—I made a cup of tea, grabbed my laptop, and started typing in names.

  First on the list? Francine Hodges.

  I typed in Francine's name and the city she came from, and pages of results popped up immediately. Few of them were flattering.

  Francine was no stranger to problems with civic organizations, it seemed. Nor was she a stranger to remaking a town to suit her vision. She'd run for councilwoman in Pompano Beach, running a nasty smear campaign against her opponent. So nasty, in fact, that she'd been sued for libel.

  It hadn't stopped her from winning the election, though; her muckraking campaign had worked, and she'd managed to push through a shopping center instead of a park before she was ousted from the council on ethics charges.

  I looked back at the libel campaign, wondering if maybe Francine's opponent had been angry enough to follow her up to Cranberry Island and finish the job. Her name was Audrey Meadows, a thirtysomething environmentalist who'd fought to keep Francine from letting the park be developed. She'd not only lost her libel suit, but evidently the race as well. I looked through the few pictures of her available; she was an attractive woman, and she seemed familiar, somehow, but unless she'd undergone some major plastic surgery, she didn't resemble any of the yoga retreat participants. In one photo she was with a buff man—her boyfriend, I guessed, based on the way they stood together—but he was wearing sunglasses and a hat, so I couldn't tell much about him. I searched to see if she was married but found no reference to a husband.

  When I felt I'd exhausted that trail, I Googled Francine again, wondering about the arson attempt Gus had told me about. I quickly found an article.

  About eight months ago, someone had doused the Hodges' Florida garage with kerosene and set it alight. The fire alarm had gone off, and the fire department had limited the damage. Although no one was arrested, Audrey Meadows's name came up in another small article as a potential suspect. I bookmarked the page and searched for anything else on the topic but came up empty.

  For the next twenty minutes, I went through the other names on the inn's guest list, including the Texa
n trio—I wasn't surprised to learn that Kellie had been Miss Teen Texas in high school—but none of them were connected with Francine in any way—or at least not any way that showed up online.

  Frustrated, I clicked back to Audrey Meadows, trying to place her face. It was tickling the back of my brain, but I just couldn't get it.

  Finally, I closed the laptop and picked up the phone. Charlene answered on the second ring.

  "What's up?" she asked.

  "I'm still trying to figure out what happened to Francine," I said as I grabbed radishes, peppers, and cucumbers from the fridge. I figured I'd prep tonight's dinner while I talked with Charlene. As I chopped up veggies and transferred them to a big bowl, I told her what I'd discovered about Audrey Meadows and the development in Florida.

  "Francine certainly was consistent," Charlene said.

  I rinsed several baby cucumbers and transferred them to a cutting board. "I know. I recognize Audrey's face, but I can't place it. Can you pull her up and see what you think?"

  "Hang on," Charlene said. A moment later, she said, "I found a picture of her at the beach. Pink T-shirt, right?"

  "That's the photo," I said as I diced the cucumbers.

  "I don't recognize her."

  "I have a question," I said, "but promise you won't say anything to anyone.” I slid the diced cucumbers into the bowl and reached for two red bell peppers.

  "My lips are sealed."

  "What do you know about Ingrid and her husband?" I asked as I cut into the first pepper.

  "Why?"

  I glanced around the kitchen, which was silly, because I was alone; still, I dropped my voice. "I saw Gus with a woman today. I’m pretty sure it was Ingrid."

  "What?"

  "In the woods, not far from the dock. I'm not a hundred percent sure it was her, but how many blondes are there on Cranberry Island?" I discarded the pepper tops and shook the seeds into the sink.

  "I can count them on one hand," she said. "Catherine's one of them."

  "I thought of her," I said as I started dicing the peppers. "But she's seeing Murray and that guy from the mainland; I don't think it's her. Anyway, if it is Ingrid, I think she and Gus are seeing each other."