Claw Enforcement

by Sofie Ryan

  “Most of the credit should go to Liz and Neill Halloran. The two of them make a formidable fund-raising team. I don’t think anyone they approached turned them down.”

  John put a hand on Gram’s shoulder. “And who got the project so much publicity?” he said.

  Liam nodded, “John’s right. Without you getting so much of the town’s—so much of the state’s—attention focused on the window, the library board would have quietly sold it and a part of the town’s history would have ended up in another country.”

  “So what will happen to the window? Will it stay in storage?” I asked, picking up my fork again.

  “Do you remember the original plan for the harbor front development project?” Gram said.

  “North Landing.”

  She nodded. “One of the parts of that project was some kind of residential living space.”

  “Condos,” John said.

  “Yes,” Gram said. “The idea is being tossed around again. Apartments this time.”

  “And the window would be part of this somehow?” I said.

  “The centerpiece of a two-story entrance.”

  “I like that idea,” I said. I looked at Liam.

  He held up one hand. “I’ve heard the rumors. It’s just in the talking stage right now, but it is a possibility.”

  “I hope it works out,” Gram said. She got to her feet and went over to check Elvis’s bowl. “Would you like a little more?” she asked.

  “Merow,” he said. His whiskers twitched.

  “Gram, is there any point in me asking you not to spoil my cat?” I said.

  She paused, a thoughtful expression on her face, her mouth twisted to one side. “No,” she said after a moment. She picked up the cat’s dish and took it over to the stove. “You know, when the condos were being proposed, Liz talked about buying one.”

  I nodded. “I remember that. Do you think she’d really be interested in an apartment?”

  Gram frowned. “I guess that depends on how much longer Avery stays with her.” She added one more piece of chicken to the cat’s bowl and carried it back to the spot it had been before, on a folded dish towel close to the table. Elvis murped his thank-you and Gram came back to the table. “I know this is a little gossipy of me,” she said. “But what’s happening with her and Channing Caulfield?”

  Channing Caulfield was a former bank manager and financial adviser who had worked with Liz on Emmerson Foundation business. He’d also helped the Angels more than once. He was smitten with Liz, who claimed not to return his feelings.

  I dipped the last bit of biscuit into the gravy in my bowl. “I don’t know,” I said. “She’s insistent that she’s not interested in him, but I don’t know if I believe her.”

  “The lady doth protest too much, methinks,” John said with a smile.

  I stabbed the air with my fork. “Methinks, too.”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised to find out there’s been a little something going on with those two,” Gram said, wiggling her eyebrows.

  Liam almost choked on his water. He sputtered and coughed.

  I reached over and patted him on the back.

  “Are you all right, sweetie?” she asked.

  He waved off her concern, coughed again and wiped his mouth with his napkin before he spoke. “I’m fine but do we have to talk about people’s . . .” He made a circular gesture in the air with one hand.

  “Love lives?” Gram said. There was a mischievous glint in her eyes.

  Liam rubbed the space between his eyebrows. “Yes.”

  “Older people have romantic lives, Liam,” she said. “We’re old. Not dead.”

  Liam shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Given all the times he’d had no problem whatsoever talking about my love life—or, more accurately, the fact that I didn’t have one—including repeatedly urging me to “lay a big ol’ wet one on Nick,” it was hard not to see the humor in his discomfort.

  “We could always talk about your love life,” Gram said. “How serious are things with Jess?”

  “We’re not serious,” he said. “Well, not that serious. I’m too busy working for anything like that.”

  “You work too much.”

  “And you sound like Mom,” Liam said.

  She smiled. “Doesn’t mean either one of us is wrong.”

  He looked at me. “You could help me, you know.”

  I leaned back in my seat and folded my arms. “Nope. I’m pretty sure I can’t.”

  “I’m not going to nag you about your personal life,” Gram said. “But I am going to remind you that life is short. And Jess is a lovely person.” She turned to me. “The same reminder applies to you, Miss Work-All-The-Time. There aren’t nearly as many chances to be happy as you might think. When one comes along, grab it with both hands.”

  “Or at least whack it over the head with a book,” I said. I tried to keep a straight face but couldn’t.

  John laughed. “You walked into that one, Isabel,” he said. He and Gram had met when she knocked a library book off a shelf and it hit him in the head.

  Two spots of color appeared on her cheeks. “That was not my fault.” She squared her shoulders and her chin came up. “The book was not set on the shelf properly and the shelf itself was crooked.”

  I leaned toward Liam, keeping my eyes on Gram. “Turns out it wasn’t the first time she tried something like that,” I stage-whispered.

  “Really?” He looked across the table at Gram. “And when did this caveman-like behavior start?”

  “I thought we weren’t going to talk about people’s love lives,” she said.

  “I didn’t agree to that at all,” I said. I turned my attention back to Liam. “It started when she was six. She brained Clayton McNamara with her book bag.”

  “That was totally Clayton’s fault,” Gram said indignantly. “He just stood there grinning at me. He should have gotten out of the way. Or at least ducked.”

  John got to his feet and picked up his plate. “Maybe he liked assertive women.” He kissed the top of her head. “I know I do.”

  Gram swatted his arm. “Stop trying to charm me,” she said. She was pretending to be annoyed, but I knew she wasn’t. I could see the gleam in her eye when she looked at John.

  He kissed her again. “Never,” he said.

  “I want that,” I said softly to Liam.

  “Me, too,” he said.

  We finished the meal with Gram’s apple crisp and talked about some of the school photos that had been unearthed. I told Gram and John about Glenn McNamara’s class photo.

  “I’d like to see that.” She laughed.

  Liam and I cleared the table and loaded the dishwasher. Gram sent us both out with leftovers.

  “Love you,” I said as I hugged her good night.

  “Love you, sweetie,” she said. Then she wrapped her arms around Liam. “Love you, too.”

  “To infinity and beyond,” he said, referencing Buzz Lightyear from the movie Toy Story. He and Gram both loved that movie. They’d seen it and the various sequels more times than I could count.

  We both said good night to John and headed down the stairs, trailed by Elvis.

  “I’m glad we did this,” I said as I fished out my keys.

  “Yeah, me, too,” Liam said.

  “Do you have plans for the weekend? Maybe with Jess?” I teased.

  “Ha, ha. Very funny.” He raked a hand back through his hair. “How am I going to get out of this Thanksgiving thing?”

  “I don’t know.” I gave him my best faux innocent look. “Maybe you could just tell the truth.”

  “Yeah, there’s a good idea. Tell Gram and the rest of the matchmaking crew that I don’t really have a girlfriend and have another very awkward conversation with Rose about how I should be wearing boxers instead of briefs.”r />
  I started to laugh.

  “It’s not funny.”

  “Oh yes, it is. You didn’t have the slightest bit of sympathy when they told Nick I had all my own teeth.”

  Liam started to laugh as well. “They aren’t going to give up, are they?” he said.

  “No.” I brushed a stray hair back off my face. “You know what they’re like.”

  His expression grew serious. “Speaking of not giving up, I know they have a new case.”

  “Nick told you.”

  “Yeah, he told me.” He shifted from one foot to the other as though the subject made him a bit antsy. “Look, I know how the lawsuit makes things look, but Joe had nothing to do with Healy’s death.”

  “No one is saying he did.” Elvis butted my leg with his head. His way of saying he was getting tired of waiting for me to let him inside.

  “So then maybe they don’t need to dig around in the man’s life.”

  “If you’re asking me to tell Rose and the others not to investigate Joe, there’s no point. They don’t listen to me.” Rose had been hit over the head and almost killed doing something I’d asked her not to do and she still didn’t listen to me.

  “Joe’s a good guy, Sarah.”

  “You keep saying that,” I said. “If it’s true, then he doesn’t have anything to worry about.”

  “I gotta go,” Liam said abruptly. “Let me know when you get everything for the auction up on the website.”

  He was gone before I had a chance to reply.

  I looked down at Elvis. “If Joe Roswell is such a good guy, why doesn’t Liam want anyone checking him out?”

  The cat’s green eyes narrowed. It seemed he didn’t know why, either.

  Chapter 10

  Elvis and I picked up Avery on Saturday morning. Her and Rose’s plan for using our school pictures to catch people’s attention on the website seemed to be working. I’d noticed an increase in the bids on the old school photographs. Glenn had already offered a hundred dollars to get the photo of him with long hair.

  Avery climbed into the SUV carrying her own glass smoothie bottle and a second one. “Hey, Sarah; hey, Elvis,” she said. Avery belied every stereotype about teenagers who won’t get up in the morning. She liked to be up early and often sat up in the branches of one of the big trees in Liz’s front yard with a green concoction and watched the world go by. Not that much of it was going by before six AM.

  She offered the second smoothie bottle to me. The contents were a deep green and made me think of seaweed. “This is for you.”

  “Thank you,” I said. I saw Rose’s hand in this, which Avery quickly confirmed.

  “And Rose said yes you have to drink it. She said you need more greens.” She looked expectantly at me. Elvis cocked his head to one side and did the same. The furball had a sense of humor.

  I was going to have to at least take one taste right now. I unscrewed the top. It smelled like . . . bananas. I took a drink. “That’s not bad,” I said. The smoothie tasted like blueberries and banana.

  Avery nodded. Elvis had nudged her hand and she was scratching behind his left ear. “People always say that.” Her dark hair was cut in shaggy layers with long bangs. Like a lot of teens, she dressed mostly in black. The colorful collection of bracelets on her left arm—I counted five today—were the only color she wore.

  I took a second drink and screwed the cap back on the bottle. “So what’s in it?”

  “Blueberries, banana, orange juice, vegan protein powder and spinach,” she said. “The spinach is what makes it kinda look like pond slime.” She looked at me and shrugged. “I probably shouldn’t have told you the last part.”

  I nodded. “Probably.”

  We started for the shop.

  “So where are Rose and Charlotte going this morning?” Avery asked. “It’s something to do with the new case, right?”

  “Yes, it is,” I said, slowing down as the car in front of me turned. “They’re going to interview someone.”

  “A suspect?”

  “More like a person of interest.”

  She laughed. “Like I’ve never watched Dateline. Person of interest is another way of saying ‘person we think might have murdered the guy.’”

  She had a way of cutting away all the fluff in a conversation. I figured it came from spending so much time with her grandmother.

  “Person of interest is also another way of saying someone who may have information,” I said.

  “Right.” She didn’t roll her eyes, but she came close.

  It seemed like a good time to change the subject. We spent the rest of the ride to the shop talking about options for displaying the rest of the photos.

  Mac had the door to the old garage space open when we pulled into the parking lot, but it was what was sitting in front of the doors that caught my eye. And Avery’s. “Oh man, what did he do?” she said.

  I shook my head. “I don’t know.” I parked and we got out of the SUV. We walked over to Mac, Elvis leading the way.

  Mac smiled. “Good morning.”

  “Good morning,” I said.

  There were two wooden garden benches sitting on a tarp in front of the open door. At least, I thought they were wooden. It was hard to tell because both of them were painted a glow-in-the-dark shade of Pepto-Bismol pink.

  Elvis hopped up onto the closest bench. The pink did set off his black fur.

  “Anything you want to share?” I asked.

  Avery had made a wide circle around both benches. She looked at Mac now. “What did you do? Raid Barbie’s Dreamhouse?”

  Mac laughed. “No. I was out here and Cleveland pulled in. He had these in the back of his truck. I asked him what he wanted for them and the price was just too good to let them go. They’re teak.”

  “They’re pink,” I said.

  “Well, that, too, but we can fix that. They’re sturdy and well-built.”

  I ran a hand along the back of the bench closest to me. The pink finish was glossy and rock hard. “It’s going to take an awful lot of sanding to get these down to the original wood. That’s enamel paint.”

  “We’ve done it before,” he said.

  Avery immediately took a step backward and held up her hands. “I have photos to sort. I’m going to the shop.” I handed over the keys and she headed across the parking lot taking long strides. Elvis jumped down and followed her. He wasn’t interested in sanding, either.

  I looked at the benches again. “They’re really pink.”

  Mac smiled. “Trust me. You won’t recognize them when I’m done.”

  “Then I’ll just leave them in your capable hands,” I said.

  “In other words, you’re with Avery and Elvis.”

  I smiled back at him. “In just one word, yes.” I started for the back door.

  “I made coffee,” Mac called after me.

  “Doesn’t change anything.” I kept walking.

  “It’s strong, just the way you like it.”

  “Thank you.” I waved over my shoulder at him. “I’m still not sanding those benches.”

  Mac did not give up easily. “I know where the leftover cookies are.”

  “And I know where the leftover cake is.” I turned around, held up my right index finger, and drew an imaginary one in the air. He was still laughing when I went inside.

  Avery was already at the cash desk looking through a box of photographs with a furry helper. “Want me to open?” she asked.

  I checked my watch. “We have a few minutes yet.”

  “Okay,” she said. She narrowed her eyes at me. “Do you really know where the leftover cake is?”

  So she’d heard Mac and me.

  “Would I joke about cake?” I said.

  She actually considered the question for a moment. Then she shook her head. />
  “It’s Charlotte’s banana chocolate chip cake. Do you want a slice?”

  “Please,” she said with a smile.

  No spinach smoothie, no matter how good it might taste, was ever going to top a slice of Charlotte’s banana chocolate chip cake—not as far as I was concerned. I did, however, find out that spinach smoothies taste even better when you have them with cake.

  * * *

  * * *

  Rose and Charlotte came in about quarter to eleven. Avery and I had handled a steady stream of customers all morning. I’d sold a guitar, a lace tablecloth and two mason jars full of salad forks. Avery had managed to sell everything that made up her autumn table setting, including the china plates and bowls, the white pumpkins and the mismatched collection of silver candlesticks. The customer had even asked for the orange seedpods from the Chinese lantern plant. Since I’d noticed the woman take a couple of photos of the table with her phone, I felt confident that she was going to replicate the entire look when she got home.

  “How did it go?” I asked them once the man who had bought the forks left the store. Avery had gone back to sorting photos, but she wasn’t even pretending not to listen.

  “Robbie Gorham hasn’t changed since he was a teenager,” Charlotte said with a shake of her head. “He’s all charm but not a lot of depth.”

  Rose was wearing her fisherman-knit sweater and she undid the round wooden buttons. “He’s the kind of man who calls women our age ‘girls’ and thinks that’s a compliment.”

  “So, you didn’t find out anything.”

  “Heavens, no,” Charlotte said. “Unless you count that I don’t look a day older than when I retired.”

  “And you’re just as nice as you ever were,” Rose added with a smile.

  “Robbie claims he didn’t have any problem with Christopher Healy.” Charlotte smoothed the back of her hair with one hand. “He said he figured the lawyers would work it all out.”

  “So he didn’t admit to talking to Healy at the reception?” I said.

  Rose shook her head. “In fact, he made a point of telling us that he didn’t speak to the man, without us asking.”