Death Runs Adrift (The Gray Whale Inn Mysteries)

by Karen MacInerney

  “Maybe,” I said. “It’s been hanging out nearby lately.”

  “That’s a bad luck place for you, Miss Natalie,” he warned. “You sure you’re up for it?”

  I nodded. “I think so.” My voice sounded more confident than I felt. “As long as you’ll take us in.”

  “Ayuh,” he said. “Can’t hurt to have a look-see.”

  The storm clouds had come closer by the time we reached the little black cavern on Cranberry Island. Although the water was studded with multicolored lobster buoys, there was no sign of a lobster boat.

  “I’ll hand her over to you now,” I said, idling the motor as Eli and I switched places. He slowly approached the cove, deftly guiding the little skiff around the submerged rocks we both knew littered the water around it.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  “Let’s do it.”

  I gripped the sides tightly as he urged the little skiff forward, using just enough power to keep her moving past the rocks, but not so much that we’d approach the rocky, dark mouth of the cove too fast.

  The sound of the little skiff seemed to be magnified a hundred times as we entered Smuggler’s Cove, the thrum of the motor ricocheting off the rock walls. I realized as soon as we passed into the cove that I had forgotten an important thing: a flashlight. As I opened my mouth to tell Eli we had to go back, a narrow beam of light came from behind me, darting across the rocky shelf.

  “Where did that come from?” I asked, relieved. It was hard enough to maneuver in the cove with light; turning the skiff around in the small space without it would be treacherous.

  “Always carry one on my keychain,” he answered as I scrambled to put out the bumpers and tie the little skiff up to the rusted iron loops that had been there for decades. Maybe longer. “Never know when it’ll come in handy.” He hopped up onto the rock shelf first, nimble despite his years, and reached out a hand to help me up.

  “Let’s take a look.” His calm voice helped soothe my jangled nerves, and I followed him through the little opening into the larger cave.

  “Muddy,” he pointed out, scanning the rough floor with his penlight. It was impossible to tell if the cove had been used since the last time I’d been here, or if the mud was old. “Not much else here, though.”

  “Think they stopped using it after they saw me going in here?” I asked.

  “Was there anything in here then?”

  “Just mud. Same as now.” He swept the floor with the light again, and I spotted something. “Wait. Point it back over here.” I moved toward a crevice near the back, where I’d spotted something shiny.

  He moved the light over the area until it caught on something that looked like crumpled plastic. I reached for it; it was a sandwich bag. It looked empty at first, but then I took a closer look. Little bits of green clung to the inside, and when I opened it, my suspicions were confirmed.

  “Marijuana.”

  _____

  Eli made a “tsking” noise. “Probably some high school kids,” he said. “Up to no good. Used to be liquor they filched from their parents’ houses, but nowadays …”

  “Let’s look and see if there’s anything else.” While I listened nervously for the sound of an approaching boat, Eli carefully ran the light over every nook and cranny of the cave, but came up with nothing.

  “Looks like they’re using the cove for a smoke,” he said, resignation in his voice.

  “That doesn’t make sense, though,” I replied. “The window of time for getting in and out of here is too small. Surely there are enough hidden-away places on the island that would be better.” I pushed my hair back behind my ear. “Besides, why go to the trouble of disguising a lobster boat just to have a smoke in Smuggler’s Cove?”

  “People do odd things. But in the meantime, unless you’d like to spend the next twelve hours in here, we should think about heading back out.”

  I shivered. I didn’t relish the thought of doing that again. Particularly if that lobster boat decided to make a return visit. I tucked the bag into my shorts pocket and followed Eli back to the skiff, untying the ropes as he revved the engine. At my request, he paused in the mouth of the cove. Wherever the fake Zephyr was, she wasn’t here today, though, so as the water crept up the sides of Smuggler’s Cove, he zipped through the opening and turned the boat toward home.

  _____

  “So,” Eli asked when we pulled back into the dock behind his house a half hour later. “What do you think of her?”

  I looked down at the beautiful white skiff and grinned. “I love her. How much?”

  He grinned at me. “Consider her an early wedding present.”

  “Eli, it’s too much …”

  “You’re one of us now, Natalie,” he said. “And if you’re going to be an islander, you need a boat.”

  I reached over and hugged him. “Thank you, Eli. Thank you so much.”

  “When is that wedding going to be, anyway?”

  “There may be some news on that front very soon,” I said. “We thought we were getting married in Florida, but there may be a change in plans.”

  “Oh, really? What do you have in mind?”

  “It’s still a secret,” I said, grinning at him. “I’ll let you know as soon as I can.”

  “Well, let us know,” he said. “If we can make it, we will. Got time for a cuppa? The missus is dying to see you.”

  My heart expanded until it filled my chest. “Absolutely, Eli. Absolutely.”

  sixteen

  After a long chat with Claudette, who also gave me a few skeins of handspun yarn for the knitting I never quite got around to, I stopped by the Sorensons’ house again, but this time it was quiet. I knocked on the door, but there was no answer, so after a few minutes I gave up and headed back to the inn. John was hard at work in his workshop when I got there, looking grim.

  The smell of fresh sawdust soothed me, as always, probably because I associated the scent with John. He was handsome as usual today in a green T-shirt that stretched over his muscular chest and blue jeans that looked like they had been cut just for him. He looked up at me with those green eyes of his, and my heart did a little skip. “Hey, beautiful,” he said, putting down the sandpaper and walking over to hug me. I let him fold me into his arms, relaxing into his chest and inhaling the scent of him. “What have you been up to today?”

  “We got a new skiff,” I said. “A wedding present.”

  “From Eli?”

  “He took me out on it,” I said. “We found the mysterious lobster boat.”

  “What?” John stepped back, hands on my shoulders, and looked at me. “Where?”

  I told him about our visit with Mike, and his theory that there was another boat posing as his.

  “I wonder why?” he asked.

  “Somebody doesn’t want to be recognized,” I suggested. “We also went back to Smuggler’s Cove.”

  “Natalie.” I could hear the concern in his voice.

  “Eli was with me,” I told him. “We found an empty baggie with some pot in it.” I reached into my pocket and withdrew the crumpled plastic. He opened it and took a sniff, then closed it, looking grim.

  “Was there anything else?”

  I shook my head.

  He sighed. “Teenagers. It appears we have a drug problem on the island; I’ll have to let Detective Johnson know.”

  “It doesn’t make sense, though. Why go to Smuggler’s Cove to smoke? It’s hard to get into, and once you did, you’d only have about a half hour before you had to clear out.”

  “It also doesn’t explain the Green Zephyr double,” he agreed.

  “Another puzzle,” I said. “Just what we needed.” I looked up at John. “Any word on Tania?”

  “No news,” he said. “I’ve got three messages in to the detective, and I’m still waiting for a call back. I’ve been keeping myself busy while waiting.” He pointed to his latest creation. “What do you think?” he asked, giving his work a critical look.

  “It l
ooks like it’s going to fly right out that window,” I said, admiring his sculpture of an eider duck in flight. While the tail still held the unmistakable look of driftwood, it seemed to magically morph into a graceful, streamlined waterfowl taking flight. John had long scoured the beaches of the island for chunks of driftwood he could transform into beautiful sculptures, and his work had earned the attention of a few major galleries, providing a nice change from the small toy boats he carved and painted every winter to sell at Island Artists. He always said the animal was in the wood, and he was just helping it out, but it looked like magic to me.

  “They won’t tell me what other evidence they have,” he said, reaching for a piece of sandpaper and running it across the underside of the duck’s wing. “And her alibi is challenging; she said she was asleep in her room all night. Charlene says she would have heard if she’d left, but there’s a window without a screen in her room—it wouldn’t have been any difficulty getting out without being heard. And she was supposed to meet Derek the night he died, which complicates things.”

  “What motive?”

  “Jealousy,” he said. “Adam told me he’d been with another woman; he talked about it down at the co-op.”

  “That’s the first I’ve heard of that,” I said. “Still. They’d only been going out a few weeks. Is that really a valid motive?”

  John shrugged. “With the gun found in the trash can …”

  “Are they looking for other possibilities?” I asked. “Have they found anything out about his big business plans?”

  “I wish I knew. They’re being awfully close-mouthed about the whole thing.”

  “I need to talk to Evan,” I mused, sitting down on a stool a few feet from his workbench. “I tried to stop by today, but he and Ingrid were arguing.”

  “About what?” John asked.

  “She thinks he’s back into drugs,” I said. “She told him she was glad Derek was gone … and that she’d do whatever it took to keep Evan safe.”

  John’s green eyes darted to mine. “Do you think that might extend to eliminating bad influences?”

  “You think it’s possible she shot Derek?”

  “She’s taken measures to protect her son before,” he said. A few years ago she had gone to great lengths—not all of them ethical—to keep his drug addiction from going public. “It’s certainly worth considering.”

  “What about Evan himself?” I asked. “I heard he came back to the island for Tania, but she was infatuated with Derek. Is it possible he was getting rid of the competition?”

  “It is,” he said, “but we don’t have any evidence. It doesn’t explain the ‘T’ on the note in his hand. And with the gun at Tania and Charlene’s …”

  “We can at least tell Detective Johnson what we’ve found out,” I said.

  “Don’t forget that Adam’s also a potential suspect,” John pointed out, looking worried as he sanded the tip of a wing. I found myself understanding a little of what John said about the animal waiting to come out of the wood as I noticed a knot placed perfectly for an eye. It almost looked like the bird had grown out of a tree. Why couldn’t this murder investigation evolve as smoothly? My heart told me it had taken a sharp wrong turn—and the police were doing nothing to correct its course.

  “Derek was found in his skiff, but I can’t believe Adam would do something like that. Can you?”

  “Of course not. But Johnson doesn’t know him as well as we do.” John put down the sandpaper and ran a hand over the wing. Satisfied, he retrieved the paper and set to work on the tail feathers.

  “He sure seemed friendly—and was happy to eat my scones—but he hasn’t been very helpful, has he?” I asked. “And we still have the drug bust to deal with.” I groaned and closed my eyes. “Do you know how much marijuana they found?”

  “Well, there’s some good news there,” John said. “If they hadn’t found the gun, we’d be celebrating. It was only a couple of ounces, enough for a misdemeanor. She could get some jail time, but it could be worse—and at least she wouldn’t have a felony conviction.”

  “Unless she’s convicted for murder,” I said dully.

  “Well, there is that.” John ran a hand down the smooth back of the duck. “But I’ll pass on what you found to Detective Johnson. I need to find out if there are fingerprints on the gun, anyway.”

  “And we still have no idea who Derek’s mysterious ‘contact’ was.”

  “Or why he was taking Adam’s boat out late at night,” John added.

  “There’s something going on here,” I said, glancing out the window toward the blue water where I’d found Derek a few days earlier. “I just wish I could figure out what.”

  _____

  Agnes and Beryl were back already, talking excitedly in the parlor, when I walked back up to the inn.

  “Must have been some terrific popovers,” I said as I brought in a bottle of wine along with some Brie and a baguette, and set it down on the coffee table.

  “Oh, Jordan Pond House was divine,” Agnes said, stretching out in the overstuffed sofa, “but that’s not what we’re excited about.”

  “Did you hear back from the test?” I guessed.

  “We did,” Beryl nodded. “The bones belonged to my grandfather.”

  “How exciting! And yet sad, too,” I told her. “It must be hard knowing someone murdered your grandfather.”

  “I know; I never got to meet him, and I always wanted to.” Her eyes were a bit misty, and she took a deep breath before she spoke again. “I wish my grandmother were still alive; she pined for him for years. She never remarried, even though he was missing for more than forty years. She was always waiting for him to come home.”

  “Did your grandmother live here on the island with him?”

  “She lived here for about a year, when he first was called here, but island life wasn’t for her. She spent most of the time in Bangor, with my great-grandmother,” Beryl said. “She had three kids, and her mother was a big help with them. He spent weekends up here at the Episcopal church and went back to Bangor during the week.” She shook her head. “And then one week, he never came back.”

  “How tragic,” I said.

  “My great-grandmother didn’t make it any easier on her daughter. She always claimed he’d run off to Canada with another woman, but my grandmother never believed her. She was loyal to him till the end.”

  “You mentioned you had letters,” I said.

  “I do,” she said. “She kept all of them, and there’s something in them I can’t figure out. Maybe you can help?”

  “I’d love to see them,” I told her. The distraction would be welcome about now.

  “I’ll go get them,” she said.

  “Right now, I’ve got to get dinner going. Will you show me afterwards?”

  “Of course,” she told me, reaching for the cheese knife and slicing herself a thick wedge of Brie, which she sandwiched between two slices of bread and popped into her mouth.

  As the two women talked excitedly, I excused myself to the kitchen. The buttery yellow walls and golden floors were warm and soothing, as was the sight of Biscuit curled up in her customary spot above the heater. I gave her head a rub, and she meowed at me, wondering where her wet cat food was. I opened a can of grilled chicken cat food—the only kind she didn’t turn her nose up at—then washed my hands and set to work.

  Comfort food was the order of the day, and although I’d been planning on roasting chicken later in the week, I decided that this evening would be a good time for it. I arranged the two chickens I’d ordered from the mainland on a roasting pan—I’d split them after cooking them, and serve each person half a bird—and rubbed olive oil and seasoned salt onto them. John had told me Catherine was eating at Murray’s house this evening, so there were only four of us. I smiled at the thought of Gwen arriving for the weekend; as much as I liked Catherine, I missed Gwen’s company. She was almost like a daughter to me, I thought as I emptied a bag of new potatoes into a colander an
d rinsed them under the faucet. I knew she’d spend most of her time with Adam, but I hoped she’d carve out at least a bit of time to catch up with John and me at the inn. The only cloud on the upcoming weekend was Tania’s arrest.

  Unfortunately, it was a pretty big cloud.

  As I sliced the new potatoes in half, my thoughts turned again to who else might have wanted to kill Derek. I couldn’t imagine Tania shooting him and setting him adrift in a dinghy. And speaking of dinghies, why had it been Adam’s? Had someone been trying to set him up? And what had the gun been doing in Charlene’s trashcan? Had that been what the tipster had in mind when he or she called the police?

  I had answers to none of those questions. But if I wanted to help Tania, I needed to.

  My information on Derek was sketchy, at best, I realized. And although I’d done a lot of prying, I hadn’t really talked with his employer, Fred Penney, about him. I’d have to fix that tomorrow, I decided as I tucked onion slices and celery into the chickens and slid both the chickens and the potatoes into the oven. I’d make a salad with the greens from the farm, I decided, and for dessert I’d serve parfaits made with vanilla ice cream, lemon pound cake I’d put in the freezer last week, and a lemony blueberry sauce. I rinsed a pint of berries and put them into a pot with some sugar and a splash of limoncello, then turned the heat to low and returned to the parlor, where Agnes and Beryl were leafing through a stack of letters.

  “Wow. That’s a lot of letters.”

  “It is, isn’t it?” Beryl grinned.

  “He wrote all of those to your grandmother?”

  “Actually, no.” Beryl riffled through the stack and pulled out a yellowed sheet with florid script on it. “A lot of them are correspondence with a priest in Nova Scotia. A Father Probst. Here,” she said, handing me a letter. “Tell me what you think.”

  I took the letter and read:

  It pleases me to learn that your flock is doing well and that the weather has not been too adverse, allowing you to make your weekly trips to visit your parishioners. I am sending the liniment you requested, and it should arrive next week. I hope your congregation is generous in its tithing as always. I will be praying for you, and putting in a good word with the Bishop. Thank you, as always, for your dedicated service.