Claw Enforcement

by Sofie Ryan

  Gorham looked at me then. “What makes you say that?” He didn’t flush, didn’t look away from me, but a tiny twitch pulsed in his left eyelid.

  I gestured at his keys. “She gave you that key ring.”

  For a moment he didn’t say anything. Then he shrugged with a bit of an embarrassed smile. “Okay, yeah. The geologist I consulted is my ex-wife. What’s the problem?”

  “The problem, Mr. Gorham, is there’s a conflict of interest,” Mr. P. said. “The two of you have a personal relationship.”

  “Had a personal relationship. Had. Leesa’s my ex-wife.” A little irritation had crept into his voice. “And if anything, the fact that she’s my ex should give more credibility to her recommendation.” Again, that easy little-boy smile.

  “But the two of you are on pretty good terms,” Rose said. She gave him her sweet little old lady smile. “You’ve had dinner together since she’s been in town, haven’t you?”

  Gorham nodded. “Like I said, we were consulting on the Gibson’s Point project.”

  Rose nodded as though she believed what he’d said. I knew better. “Mr. Gorham, I need to ask you where you were the day Christopher Healy died,” she said. “Really just late that afternoon between about four and six PM?”

  He picked up the spoon he’d stirred his coffee with and turned it over in his hand. “I’m sorry. I don’t remember. I had a crew doing some site cleanup at the hotel. I would have been there for a while. And I think that was the day I talked to a possible client about renovating one of those old Victorians downtown. My days are pretty busy. They can all run together.”

  “We understand that,” Mr. P. said. “Luckily, there are a surprising number of security cameras all over the harbor front and most of the downtown core. I’m sure you’ll turn up on at least a couple of them so we can confirm where you were.”

  “Don’t you worry about it,” Rose added. For a moment I thought she was going to reach over and pat his hand, but she didn’t. She pushed back from the table and started to get to her feet.

  “Hang on a minute,” Robb Gorham said. “Did you say between four and six?”

  She nodded encouragingly. “That’s right.”

  “I remember now. I had a . . . meeting with Leesa. I was bringing her up to date on the court case.”

  “The meeting was at your office then, I’m guessing,” Mr. P. said. He gestured at the room with one hand. “Or did you come here?”

  “We um . . . we actually met at the Knight’s Inn. See, it’s one of my former projects. I was there to check on an issue with their hot tub. Leesa was in the area so it was just simpler for her to meet me there.”

  Rose had reached her limit. She shook her head. “Do you really take me for that big of a fool, young man? I am well aware what kind of ‘consulting’ you and your ex-wife have been doing out at the Knights Inn. I don’t care about your convoluted personal life. What I care about is getting justice for Christopher Healy and I don’t want to waste any more time on you and your whereabouts if I don’t need to.”

  Robb Gorham was learning the lesson dozens of middle schoolers had already learned: Don’t try to pull a fast one on Rose Jackson.

  She pulled her phone out of her pocket and held it up. “If I were to call your ex-wife right now and ask her if she was ‘consulting’ with you on Wednesday of last week, what would she say?”

  I had no doubt that if he didn’t give an honest answer Rose would call Stella right now and get his ex-wife’s number.

  For a long moment Gorham didn’t say anything; weighing his options, I guessed. Finally he exhaled loudly. “She’d say yes because I’m telling you the truth. There are security cameras at the motel, too. You should be able to find us on the footage.”

  “We will check,” Rose said.

  He looked at a point just past her right shoulder. “You’ll find us.”

  That put an end to the conversation. Rose and Mr. P. headed out to the car while I went to pay for our coffee and the lemon tart. Glenn inclined his head in Robb Gorham’s direction. “I know that look,” he said. “In fact, I had that look the time Rose caught me smoking in the woods behind the soccer pitch. And no, I’m not going to tell you how many years ago that was.”

  I grinned at him. “Glenn McNamara, I had no idea you were such a bad boy.”

  “I wasn’t always the stellar member of society that I am now.” He laughed. “So what did Gorham do?”

  “It’s more of a who than a what,” I said.

  He held up a hand. “Say no more.”

  I put my wallet back in my jacket pocket. “However, what he didn’t do, it seems, is kill Christopher Healy.”

  “That’s a good thing, isn’t it?” Glenn asked.

  “I hope so,” I said.

  It didn’t take very long for Mr. P. to confirm Robb Gorham’s alibi. “I’m sorry,” Rose said when she came up to my office to deliver the news. “I know that Liam is going to be hurt if it turns out Joe Roswell is the killer.”

  “I wanted to save him,” I said.

  Rose frowned. “Save Liam? From what? From finding out the truth about his friend?”

  “No. I wanted to save Christopher Healy.” I swallowed the lump in my throat. It was the first time I’d said what I’d been thinking for the past week out loud. “I thought that Nick and I . . . I thought his heart would start beating. I thought he’d breathe again.” I looked down at my hands, remembering how I’d linked my fingers and pressed on his chest while Nick breathed for the man.

  “He was already dead,” Rose said gently.

  I nodded. “I know. Nothing either of us did made a difference because it was too late.” I raised my head and met her gaze. “I want to find out who killed Christopher Healy for Mr. P. and for Elliot and his wife. But I also want to find out for me. Does that sound stupid?”

  Rose shook her head. “No, it doesn’t. It sounds kind.” She put her hand on top of mine and gave it a squeeze. “We’re going to catch this person, whoever it is. I promise.”

  Chapter 18

  Saturday morning I stopped to pick up Charlotte. Elvis moved over as she got in and murped hello.

  “Good morning, Elvis,” Charlotte said as she fastened her seat belt. She smiled at me. “How do you feel about lasagna?”

  “I have nothing but good feelings when it comes to lasagna,” I said.

  “Merow,” Elvis added. I wasn’t sure how many words he understood, but lasagna was definitely one of them.

  “How would you feel about lasagna at my house tonight? Or do you have plans?”

  “Merow,” Elvis said again.

  “So you’re in?” Charlotte said to the cat as we pulled out of the driveway. He bobbed his head. She looked at me. “What about you?”

  “Well, I did have plans for a Star Trek marathon with Elvis, but since he’s ditched me, yes, I’d love to have lasagna with you. Will this be what Liz calls, ‘Hail, hail the gang’s all here’?”

  “I hope so,” she said. “I think it would be good to be together for no other reason than just to be together. Rose and Alfred are in. And so are your grandmother and John, and Liz. Nick is a maybe. I have to call Liam. I’ll talk to Mac when we get to Second Chance.” She was ticking people off on her fingers. “What do you think about asking Avery to bring Greg Pearson?”

  Avery had been spending a lot of time with the teen over the past few weeks. They’d met because of one of the Angels’ cases early in the fall. She strenuously denied they were dating. Avery was a little gun-shy when it came to any kind of romantic connection thanks to her parents’ tumultuous relationship, but I had watched the two of them together and it was easy to see that she cared about Greg.

  “I think it’s a great idea,” I said. “But just how much lasagna are you planning on making?”

  “Two of my big pans. Rose is bringing the garlic bread
and Isabel is making strawberry frozen yogurt.”

  I could see her looking at me from the corner of my eye. “And?” I nudged.

  “Liz is making a salad.”

  “Ha!” I gave a snort of laughter. “You mean The Black Bear kitchen is making a salad.”

  “I’m going to rephrase that,” Charlotte said. “Liz is bringing a salad.”

  “I really like the chopped salad that they do. Would it be wrong to call Sam and ask him to make that one?”

  “Yes,” she said firmly. “It would.”

  “Fine,” I said. “What can I do to help?”

  “Come early and help me set up.”

  I stopped at the corner and looked over at her. “How would you feel about me coming early to help you set up and bringing Avery and hopefully Greg so she can do that thing she does with the table?”

  Charlotte nodded. “I like that idea.”

  Liz was just pulling into the parking lot to drop off Avery when we arrived. Elvis made a beeline for the teen. She bent down and picked him up. “Hey, furball,” she said. He licked her chin.

  “Are you coming to Charlotte’s tonight?” I asked as we headed across the pavement.

  “Yeah, I guess so,” she said, her tone indifferent.

  “Is Greg coming?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  Okay, she was in full teen mode. “I was hoping the two of you—or just you, if Greg can’t make it—would do me a favor.”

  “What do you want?” she asked giving me a suspicious side-eye.

  “Would you do the table? I told Charlotte I’d help her get things set up, but I’m not good at that kind of thing. You can use anything you want from the shop.”

  “Anything?”

  I nodded. “Anything.”

  “Do I have to do the table all fancy?”

  I laughed. “We are not a fancy bunch in case you haven’t noticed. So no, you don’t. Unless, of course, you want to. In which case, we’ll all try not to eat with our fingers and to hold back our burps.”

  “Yeah, funny, Sarah,” she said, but I noticed she almost smiled.

  I unlocked the back door. “So yes?” I asked.

  Avery nodded. “Okay. But I can’t promise Greg will come.”

  “I hope we’ll get to see him, but if he has plans, that’s okay.” I pointed at the end wall, where several large plastic containers with lids were stacked. “You can use one of those bins for whatever you want to take with you. We’ll stick it in the car at the end of the day.”

  “Only one?” she said.

  “No,” I said. What the heck was I getting myself into? “Use as many as you need.”

  * * *

  * * *

  Avery filled two plastic bins to take to Charlotte’s. Greg showed up just before we closed and carried them out to my SUV. Avery also had an armload of birch branches and a linen tablecloth on a hanger.

  I helped the two of them carry everything inside when we got to Charlotte’s and then headed for the kitchen to let Avery work without an audience—other than Greg.

  About twenty minutes later she came to get me to see the finished table. “Wow!” I said. What I’d thought was a tablecloth was actually an unbleached linen table runner. Avery had ironed out all of the wrinkles and stretched the runner down the middle of the table. A rustic wooden charger plate was at each place, set with Charlotte’s gleaming white dishes and polished knives and forks. Avery had filled three rectangular vases with what looked like real moss although I was guessing it wasn’t. Each vase held a mix of birch branches and clippings from Charlotte’s bayberry bushes in the backyard, the red berries bright against the more subdued dishes.

  In between the vases and running the length of the table, she had arranged pretty much every brown glass wine bottle we had, plus a few extra ones I suspected she’d gotten from the recycling center. Each container held a cream-colored taper and there were several matching pillar candles interspersed among the bottles. All the candles were lit. The effect was dramatic and cozy at the same time. It took a moment for me to realize that the candles were actually all battery-operated.

  Greg Pearson’s mother had died in a house fire. Things like candles and fire pits made him nervous. I was touched by Avery’s thoughtfulness. She was talking to Mr. P., who had just arrived with Rose and Liz, hands moving wildly through the air. He was smiling and nodding.

  Liz came up behind me and put an arm around my shoulders. “She’s a pretty terrific kid,” she said, “even if she does make me those damn green things for breakfast.”

  “She’s a lot like her grandmother,” I said. I reached up, put a hand on Liz’s arm and gave it a squeeze.

  She leaned her head against mine. “She’s got some pretty good role models around her, too.”

  Everyone showed up and there was more than enough lasagna and salad and garlic bread. When I took a second serving of salad, Liz smiled across the table. “I made that just for you,” she said. “I know how much you like my chopped salad.”

  “Good to know you were thinking about me, Pinocchio,” I said.

  Liz just laughed.

  I was halfway through my frozen yogurt when Liam dropped onto the chair beside me. I hadn’t talked to him in a couple of days.

  “I’m glad you came,” I said.

  He looked around the room. “Me, too,” he said. “I forgot how much I miss this kind of thing.”

  “Even with them all trying to run your love life?” I teased.

  He smiled. “Even with that.”

  “You know that Jess was invited, right? The only reason she isn’t here is because she’s doing a last-minute makeover of a wedding dress.”

  Liam picked up my spoon and took a taste of my dessert. “I know,” he said. “I talked to her before I came. I tried to talk her into coming.”

  I arched an eyebrow.

  He made a face. “There’s nothing going on. Jess is just fun. I’m going to hate fake breaking her heart.”

  “I thought she was going to fake break your heart,” I said.

  Liam shook his head. “I don’t know. We haven’t worked the details out yet.” His expression grew serious. “You talked to Joe.”

  I nodded. “Liz and I.”

  “So now you see that there’s no way he had anything to do with Christopher Healy’s death. It hasn’t changed anything as far as the lawsuit goes.”

  I didn’t want to lie so I tried to steer the conversation in a slightly different direction. “I wanted to ask you something about that lawsuit,” I said.

  “Sure,” he said. “I don’t know a lot of the details, though.”

  “Why did Joe sue Healy and not the original owner of the property?”

  Liam propped his arms on the top of the chair back. “The woman’s old. She’s likely in the beginning stages of dementia. Joe didn’t want to put her or the family through a lawsuit, especially because he was convinced that Healy took advantage of her confused mental state to get her to sell to him.”

  “That’s kind of low if it’s true.”

  “It’s true,” Liam said.

  There was a bite of garlic bread on my plate. He reached over and snagged it.

  I looked around the room and caught sight of Charlotte doing something that involved swinging her arms and legs in unison. “Are Mac and Greg trying to teach Charlotte how to line dance?” I asked.

  He leaned sideways for a better look. “Either that or she’s teaching them how to play ‘Chopsticks’ on a giant keyboard. I’m not sure.” He turned his attention back to me. “Are you going to ask me about the broken light fixture at the hotel? Joe said you noticed his stitches.”

  “You were there when it happened.”

  He ran a hand back over his hair. “Yeah. It was just a fluke. They were on the staging lifting
a light up to the ceiling in one of the meeting rooms. One of the guys lost his footing. The light started to slip, Joe tried to grab it. It hit the floor. Glass went everywhere. This one piece flew up and sliced into the back of his hand. It was bleeding a lot. I just wrapped a towel around him and we went to the ER.” He shook his head at the memory. “Joe was mostly pissed at himself. If he hadn’t have already jammed a finger on that hand, he probably would have been able to grab the light fixture.”

  My heart began to thump, thump, thump in my chest, echoing it seemed in both ears.

  “He told us you took him to the hospital,” I said, hoping nothing on my face was giving away the tangle of emotions I was feeling inside. “What did he do to his finger? It didn’t look like it was broken but I didn’t ask.”

  “It wasn’t broken. He just jammed it. He was out cutting wood. Got some scratches on his arm, too.” Liam grinned. “I thought about Mom. You know how she is about chain saws.”

  I nodded, grateful for the change of subject. “Remember the time Dad was going to take down that tree in the backyard and he rented the chain saw?”

  Liam laughed. “I don’t think the rental place had ever had a piece of equipment that came back after ten minutes.”

  Charlotte came over to the table then. “I’m sorry to interrupt,” she said, “but I need to borrow Liam.”

  “He’s all yours,” I said.

  He got to his feet. “What do you need?”

  “I’m trying to show Mac and Greg how to do a backward crossover but something’s getting missed in the translation. Nicolas says it’s because we don’t actually have any ice or skates.”

  Liam stifled a grin and looked at me. “‘Chopsticks’ was close,” I said.

  “Show me what you were doing,” he said to Charlotte as they started back to the bare area of floor behind the sofa.

  I ate the last spoonful of melting frozen yogurt in my bowl and looked up to find Mr. P. watching me. I got up and walked over to join him.

  “Is everything all right, Sarah?” he asked. “I noticed you were talking to Liam.”