by Agatha Ball
"Sounds perfect!" I replied, unable to keep the smile from spreading wide across my face.
"I'm going to go drop off my purchases at my place and hit a few more spots. See you soon, okay?"
I admired his retreating figure before turning back toward Tim's fishing shop. Investigating a murder that I may have been accused of should have put me in a much fouler mood, but it was hard when you had a partner who looked as good as Nate.
I tried to look casual as I walked over to the shop. The fish and tackle shop had a cluttered display window filled with old glass floats and thick nets. There were some pretty antique fishing lures someone had once hand-tied. I had a feeling that Tim's wife probably set up the window, but Tim took it upon himself to add the stuff that he thought was cool. He didn't quite understand that there was a rhyme and a reason to not putting every single interesting thing he offered in his shop on display.
I opened up the heavy wooden door and stepped inside. The planks of the floor were wide and if they ever had any polish on them, it had long worn off from all the feet traipsing to and fro.
"Hey, Tim!" I called out to the man at the far end of the shop, raising my hand in greeting.
"Well, hello there, Paige!" Tim called back. He was older, but still in crazy shape. While it was more likely because he ran regular deep-sea fishing trips, rumor had it he once served in the Coast Guard and kept up his physical fitness in case they ever needed him to leap into the fray. His hair was curly and reddish, his face was permanently burned. He had a regular rotation of plaid flannel shirts he wore no matter what the weather. He folded up the newspaper he was reading, took off his brass-rimmed reading glasses, and put them on the counter. "What can I do you for today?"
"Oh..." I replied, glancing around the shop. "Thinking about putting together a new brochure of all the stuff in Seaside. A lot of tourists ask questions I have no answer for. Realized I'd never really come in to see what you have."
"Well, take your time! Look around! Make yourself at home." He got out his glasses and put them back on his face. "Let me know if I can answer any of your questions."
I picked up a jar of bait eggs and pretended I was super interested in them. "Isn't it crazy what's been taking place here on the island?"
He took his glasses off of his face again and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I know. You think you live in a quiet little village, but then suddenly have two murders in a week. What is our town coming to?"
"Did you know Old Man Byron much?" I asked as nonchalant as possible.
Tim gave out a disgusted grunt. "More than I would have liked."
"Really?" I asked. "What was he like?"
"Meanest, greediest, son of a biscuit eater, if you excuse my French, I ever did meet. Not that I would ever wish harm on any human creature, but some people just need killing."
I couldn't help a small, rueful laugh. "That's what I'm hearing from a lot of people around town."
"You'll be hard pressed to find a single person who liked that man. Here he was, one of the richest people in town, and all he wanted was more. Never did anything good with his money! All he did was collect it. It would have been different if he had used his power to do something good... like... building that community garden that Marnie is always talking about. Or a library for the kids. Or even donated to the flower fund for the geraniums on Main Street."
"He never did anything like that?" I said.
"Miserly freeloader." Tim launched into it, totally wound up. "I'd understand if he was saving up to buy a boat or something, but he never did anything. Just sat up in that miserable house of his, thinking his miserable thoughts, living his miserable life."
"Not exactly a ray of sunshine?"
"Not a bit."
I put down the eggs and picked up a packet of fishhooks. "So weird they found him in the water. Did he have any connection to the sea?"
Tim barked out a laugh. "Not that I know of. He never booked one of my excursions. I'd be surprised if he took the ferry to the mainland more than once a year. I think that's how Stan knew it was murder. Byron wouldn't have so much as gone down to the beach to admire a sunset. NO chance he would have even been there to get knocked down by a rogue wave."
"That's so weird," I said.
"What is?"
I hesitated. "There was a guy... he looked like a sailor... he stopped in my shop last night."
"What did he look like?" asked Tim, his ears pricking up with interest.
I gave him the description. Tim's face turned several shades of pale, and there was a decided shift to the temperature in the room.
"Do you know him?" I asked when I was done.
"No," said Tim, suddenly rushing from behind the counter. He began mopping his forehead nervously. "Listen, I just remembered I have a doctor's appointment and need to shut up shop for a couple hours. I'm afraid I'm going to have to move you out."
"Oh!" I replied, putting the fishing hooks back where I had found them. "Oh, that's fine."
"I'm so sorry," he said, completely distracted. "It is just this dentist appointment."
"I thought you said doctor?"
"Did I? I meant dentist. Slip of the tongue," he answered, putting a hand on my back and guiding me out the door. "Say hello to your grandmother for me. Tell her that my wife and I will invite you two over soon and get caught up. But for now, I really need to go."
"Sure!" I said, allowing myself to be pushed out of the door. "I'll interview you about your shop later."
The door shut behind me a split second after I stepped onto the threshold and Tim quickly flipped his sign to "Closed."
I wonder what it was about that sailor that had Tim so scared...
Chapter Fifteen
The next person on my list was Georgia. Georgia was an interesting woman. She was forty years old and already a grandmother several times over. I had heard her family had been here on the island since before it had been officially settled. Byron's family got off the boat and Georgia's family were there to help tow the dinghy in. Not that they were native to the island or anything. Her family just didn't like people very much, and so braved the treacherous waters in an effort to get away from everyone. Evidently, it didn't work.
Which made it even more surprising that someone who didn't like people as much as Georgia didn't like people would end up working the ticket booth for the ferry. I'm not sure if she actually paid that much attention to who came through her turnstile. I know she really liked it when somebody tried to sneak through without a ticket, and she had a chance to give them a good talking-to. She never messed with the police. She liked to handle all the trouble herself. In fact, she REALLY liked to handle all the trouble herself. One could even say that she sought out trouble just so she could handle it.
I was not looking forward to talking to her.
The ferry terminal was in the middle of Main Street. There was a small white booth built by the WPA in the 1930s. The now-crumbling concrete was occasionally plastered over in a vain attempt to get it looking a little more welcoming. Granny, in fact, had tried to organize a city council meeting on regular repair of the place, but no one else seemed concerned, so the matter was dropped.
Georgia sat behind a large glass window next to the turnstile, guarding the covered waiting room. We really didn't get that many people. It fit less than a couple hundred and it was only full during the summer. Rumor had it that Georgia had the volume on the speakers turned up so when she made an announcement, she could count how many people jumped. I guess if you're stuck in a glass box selling tickets for only two ferry rides a day, you look for ways to amuse yourself.
I walked up to the window. Georgia had short, frizzy hair that was once strawberry-blonde, but now the roots were white and she kept forgetting to dye them to match. Her face was squashed. It would pretty much look the same if she was sitting there or had it pressed up against the glass. She wore round, red plastic glasses on her pug-like nose. Her teeth were crowded in her mouth and her face wore the perm
anent lines of a permanent scowl. Her chin disappeared into her multiple chins, and if she had a neck, the waddle folded over her chest so many times you couldn't see it.
"Hey, Georgia!" I waved as I walked up to the booth.
She licked a thick finger with her wrinkly tongue and then turned the page of the newspaper. She didn't bother looking up. "Yep?"
"How is it going?"
Again, she didn't bother looking up. "It was going just fine until you decided to swing by and interrupt my reading."
"Sorry," I apologized. And then realized I really didn't have anything I should be apologizing for. "Listen, some weird things have been going on here and I was just wondering..."
She cut me off, again, not looking up from her paper. "I said all the saying that I was going to be saying to Stan when he swung by. If you have questions, you should go talk to the cops."
I could tell my "just trying to write a new brochure" excuse wasn't going to fly with a person like her. "Well, I'm trying to help them out," I explained.
That made her put down her paper. "Good. Because they have too much to handle already on the island without you going around killing people."
My jaw dropped. I was absolutely taken aback. "I am not going around... killing people..."
"Well, that's just what a person like you would say, isn't it?"
"What would make you think I'm the sort of person who could kill someone?" I asked.
She squinted at me, and then licked her thumb and turned another page in the newspaper. "I see things. I know people."
I took a great big breath. "Well, then, maybe you can help me. I didn't kill anyone—-"
"Mmm-hmmmm."
"—-but I want to find out who did. I want to help Nate figure out who killed his uncle."
Georgia paused her reading again to look up, her frowny mouth now contorted into what I think was sadness. "That was a good man, he was."
"Byron?" I asked, just to clarify that she was indeed talking about the same guy that everyone else on the island hated.
"Totally misunderstood by these fools. He was just trying to look after us and everyone here was always so bent on shunning him and making him feel unwelcome. He was a good man."
"What did he do that was so good?" I asked, genuinely hoping there was something kind I could pass along to Nate. I felt like half of our conversations were him apologizing for being related to Byron.
But Georgia didn't have anything.
"I just can tell about people. I can look at a person and just know. He spoke plainly and what was on his mind instead of hiding it behind all sorts of fancy talk. He wasn't fake. He was real. And that is more than I can say about just about anyone on this island."
I took another breath, biting back all of the words other people had told me about their feelings about Byron. "Well... I'm glad you feel that way, because I think you're the only one who can help us."
"Darn tootin' I'm the only one who can help you!" she exclaimed, sticking her elbow in the middle of where she had been reading and leaning forward to point her finger at me. "It is my patriotic duty to pay attention to the comings and goings of the people on this island and, let me tell you, I've been paying attention to everyone coming and going for years."
"That is FANTASTIC!" I said. "Tell me! Have you noticed anyone suspicious? Anyone who came over but then didn't go back?"
"Nope," she replied, her energy expended in her one outburst. She went back to her paper.
"Well, what about a sailor?" I asked. "There was a sailor who came and talked to me. He seemed rather strange. Maybe like he had seen some hard times."
"Oh, him? He wasn't suspicious. Just another man of the sea coming to say hello to the island."
I didn't waste my breath telling her what his "hello" entailed, namely threatening me. "When did he come over?"
"Don't remember."
"Did you see him leave?"
"Naw. I expect he has a boat here somewhere."
"Are you sure?" I pressed.
"Well, I don't remember seeing him come over and he didn't leave, so either he had a boat or else he is still here."
That simple sentence made my heart beat just a little bit faster. "Right." I chewed on the inside of my lip. I wasn't sure if I could trust anything that Georgia said, but I asked anyway, "Can you think of any reason why anyone would want Byron dead?"
"Oh, I can think of one..." Georgia muttered.
"What?" I asked.
"I'll take it to my grave."
"Lives may hang in the balance," I insisted.
She considered me with her rheumy eyes. "The thing is... he was always sweet on me."
That gave me pause. "What?"
She heaved a sigh, and I think she may have even wiped a tear from the edge of her cheek. "He never said anything, but we understood one another. Every time he bought a ticket, I was pretty sure that he was going to pop the question."
"Really?"
"And I'm pretty sure that the rest of the women on the island were jealous. Ours was a forbidden love, but his heart belonged to me and no one else. I'm pretty sure it was one of those 'if I can't have him, no one can' cases."
"Oh," I replied, so confused with how far off the rails this conversation was going, and whether Georgia was crazy, or if there really was something going on between her and Byron. I mean, I didn't know the guy... who knew? Maybe the whole reason he was such a recluse was that he needed to hide his feelings for her... or something...
"I'm pretty sure if Stan goes digging around a bit, he'll find out it was one of those busybodies who hangs out with your Granny that killed Byron."
That was the moment I knew she was crazy.
She sighed and rested her cheek upon her ham fist. "I think he actually went over to the mainland to buy a ring for me."
"When did he go over to the mainland?" I asked.
"Two days before he died," she replied. "He went over, looking very secretive and didn't even want to look me in the eye. And then when he came back, he just tucked his head down into his collar and wouldn't even acknowledge I was here. A man like that has secrets, and I know he knew that if he looked at me, he'd have ruined the surprise."
"Two days before he was killed, huh?" I mused, picking out the only bit of useful information from her ramblings. "Any chance you have a record... credit card records or something... of people who were on the ferry the day before he died?"
"I do," she replied. "But I'm not giving that up to you or no police unless they serve me with a warrant. Like it says in the Constitution."
"Right," I said with a sigh. "Well, thank you so much for your help."
"You're sitting here taking up all my time," she grumbled. "I'm going to have to cut short my break to make up for all the time you wasted."
I looked over my shoulder and up and down the street. There was no one anywhere around me who needed her help.
"Sorry about that," I apologized. "I'll be running along."
"And don't bother me again!" warned Georgia. "My love for Byron was between the two of us, and if I hear that word gets out, I'll know it was you! I'm pretty sure he left me everything he owns in that will, so you tell that nephew of his not to get too comfortable."
"I'll pass it along," I replied, my face frozen in what I hoped was a pleasant expression, and not the horror I was feeling at being in the presence of such a hateful woman.
She gave me a little half wave. "Get gone!"
And I did. And man, was I glad that interview was over.
Chapter Sixteen
My next stop was Jake's Tavern. It used to be that during the day, only the hard cases took up stools. But Jake had expanded his business model to include a small grill for burgers and fries, and it was a hit. Guess there was a market for folks wanting something a little more artery-clogging than the foodie joints up and down Main Street. I stepped in. Most of the tables were full and the entire place smelled of grease and meat. The jukebox was cranking out 80's hits and a rumbling din as p
eople tried to talk over the music.
"Hey, Paige!" Jake called out. "That grandmother of yours run out of things for you to do? I've got some dirty dishes in the back you can wash up if you're looking for a job."
"Ha ha," I replied as I sat down at the bar.
He tossed his dishrag over his shoulder. "What can I get for you?"
"Just a Coke," I replied.
"A Coke? You came in here for a Coke," he chided. He poured the drink and put the large pint glass in front of me and shook his head. "If you wanted a Coke, you should have gone down to the soda fountain. This here is a bar."
My stomach growled, betraying the truth that the burgers were smelling better and better. "Okay, and also a burger." I'd just pretend I hadn't eaten when I met Nate in a few minutes.
"THAT'S what I'm talking about. Show that Yvette she's not the only place you can get a decent meat sandwich in this town." He went into the back. I could see him through the pass-through flipping the burger on to the grill. He shouted at me over the sound of the sizzling grease. "How are you doing, by the way? You had a pretty big scare the other night."
I stuck the straw into my cup and took a big mouthful. "I'm okay, but it isn't anything I'd like to repeat."
"Glad to hear it," Jake said, looking through the pass-through at me, making sure I caught his eye so that I understood he really cared. "Nobody should have to find something like that."
I shrugged. "I think even more..."
"Just a second!" he shouted. I could hear him plating up my burger. He walked around to the bar and put it in front of me. "Now, what was that you were saying?"
"I was just thinking that more upsetting than finding the body... I mean... it's like, burned into my skull..."
"Play some video games," he suggested.
"What?" I replied, completely confused.
"Yeah, there was this article I read. Play some video games with the sound on. It short-circuits your brain and stops you from looping over a bad situation again and again."