Christmas Cookie Murder #6

by Meier, Leslie

  “Want something to eat?” asked Bill, standing up and stretching as the teams straggled off the field.

  “And spoil our appetites?”

  Lucy was starving but didn’t want to admit it.

  “I’m starving,” said Bill. “It’s been hours since breakfast. How about some hot dogs and hot chocolate?”

  “Make it popcorn and black coffee for me.”

  “You got it. Come on girls—I’ll need help carrying the food.”

  Left to her own devices, Lucy decided to head for the ladies’ room. She was standing in line when Sue saw her and stopped to chat.

  “How’s it going?” she asked, flipping her tartan scarf over her shoulder and straightening her matching gloves.

  To her surprise, Lucy felt tears pricking her eyes. She blinked furiously. “Great,” she said.

  Sue narrowed her eyes. “If things are so great, how come you look so miserable?”

  “I’m just feeling sorry for myself, I guess. Toby looks great. He’s doing fine at school. He has lots of friends.”

  “But he doesn’t have any time for you?”

  “No.” Lucy shook her head and her bangs bounced.

  Sue wrapped an arm around her shoulder.

  “I told you. You never get back the same kid you sent away. When Sidra was in high school she was hard working and organized. She kept her room neat as a pin. She played field hockey every fall and stayed in shape the rest of the year by running. She’d bring me little things she found: a perfect acorn, a seashell, a pink pebble.” Sue sighed. “She came back from her first semester a completely different person. She would only wear black. She spent the whole vacation lounging on the couch. When I suggested she get some exercise she actually growled at me. I didn’t know what to do. I was frantic. Finally, I dragged her to the doctor.”

  “What did he say?”

  “After he examined her, he took me into his office and wrote me a prescription for tranquilizers!”

  “Did they help?”

  “I didn’t take them. I decided I just had to let her grow up.

  I couldn’t wreck my life worrying about her. It was time to let go.”

  “Easy to say,” said Lucy, tempted to growl herself.

  “Not easy to do,” agreed Sue. “See you later.”

  Back in the stands, Lucy propped her popcorn in her lap and wrapped her hands around the paper coffee cup. The warmth felt good. She slid a little closer to Bill and rested her head on his shoulder. He turned his head, brushing her forehead with his beard.

  “They’ve gotta turn it around,” he said, as the teams lined up for the kickoff. “Go, Warriors, go!” he roared.

  The Warriors’ cheerleaders were doing their best, leading the crowd through the familiar litany of cheers. It seemed to work; the Warriors played a lot better in the second half and got two more touchdowns, thanks largely to the heroic efforts of Brian Masiaszyk.

  By the fourth quarter, the Warriors were obviously tired and getting sloppy. The Giants started putting pressure on the Warriors’ quarterback, Zeke Kirwan. In a desperation move, he threw a long pass that missed and the Giants got possession of the ball. They didn’t go for any flashy maneuvers. They just drove down the field like a machine to score a touchdown. When the Warriors got the ball back they couldn’t make a first down and the Giants had the ball once again. The Warriors had lost their lead. The game was tied at nineteen to nineteen, and there were two minutes left to play when the hometeam finally got the ball back.

  Nevertheless, hopes were high on the Tinker’s Cove side of the field. Fans stood and cheered, hoping for a miracle as the teams lined up on the thirty-yard line. Maybe Masiaszyk could score again? Maybe it was time for Kirwan to try another Hail Mary pass?

  The stands fell silent as the players crouched down, waiting for the referee to signal the snap. All eyes were on the field, practically everyone was holding their breath in the tension of the moment. Raising his arm, the referee seemed to move in slow motion. He had the whistle in his hand and was bringing it to his lips when, suddenly, a woman’s high-pitched scream ripped through the stadium.

  It was one of the cheerleaders, Megan Williams. She was standing on the sidelines, shaking and sobbing. An EMT approached her and she pointed behind the concession stand; then she collapsed in his arms as he wrapped a blanket around her. He stood holding her as a couple of police officers ran up to them. There was an exchange of words and one of the officers signaled that the game should resume.

  Once again the players took their positions, but Lucy knew Ted would expect her to find out what was going on.

  “I’ll meet you at the car,” she told Bill and made her way down from the bleachers. Once she was on firm ground she ran over to the refreshment stand, oblivious to the struggle that was taking place on the field.

  Several more officers had arrived when she joined the small group of curious onlookers. Spotting her friend, Officer Barney Culpepper, she elbowed her way through and went up to him.

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  Barney considered for a minute, glancing left and right as he removed his cap. Then he brushed his hand through his crew cut and carefully replaced it.

  “We’ve got a homicide.”

  Lucy gasped in shock. “Who?”

  “Curt Nolan.”

  For an instant, Lucy didn’t register the name. Then it hit her. Her hand flew to her mouth. “Oh, no.”

  “You know him?”

  “A little.”

  Lucy tried to remember when she’d seen Curt last. Of course, it had been yesterday at the pie sale. She could practically see him raising a fork loaded with blueberry pie to his lips, a glint of mischief in his eyes.

  “You’re sure he’s dead?” asked Lucy, unwilling to believe the bad news.

  Barney nodded. “Brain’s bashed in.”

  Lucy grimaced but Barney wasn’t through. “Murder weapon was right there beside him. Some sort of Indian club.”

  The roar of the crowd rang in her ears and she was jostled aside as the police cleared the area. For a second, she got a glimpse of Nolan lying on his back, his face to the sky.

  That’s where he’s gone, she thought. Up above the clouds into the bright sunshine beyond.

  Please turn the page for an exciting sneak peek of

  Leslie Meier’s newest Lucy Stone mystery

  ST. PATRICK’S DAY MURDER!

  CHAPTER ONE

  Maybe it was global warming, maybe it was simply a warmer winter than usual, but it seemed awfully early for the snow to be melting. It was only the last day of January, and in the little coastal town of Tinker’s Cove, Maine, that usually meant at least two more months of ice and snow. Instead, the sidewalks and roads were clear, and the snow cover was definitely retreating, revealing the occasional clump of snowdrops and, in sheltered nooks with southern exposures, a few bright green spikes of daffodil leaves that were prematurely poking through the earth.

  You could almost believe that spring was in the air, thought Lucy Stone, part-time reporter for the town’s weekly newspaper, the Pennysaver. She wasn’t sure how she felt about it. Part of her believed it was too good to be true, probably an indicator of future disasters, but right now the sun was shining and birds were chirping and it was a great day to be alive. So lovely, in fact, that she decided to walk the three or four blocks to the harbor, where she had an appointment to interview the new harbormaster, Harry Crawford.

  As she walked down Main Street, she heard the steady drip of snow melting off the roofs. She felt a gentle breeze against her face, lifting the hair that escaped from her beret, and she unfastened the top button of her winter coat. Quite a few people were out and about, taking advantage of the unseasonably fine weather to run some errands, and everyone seemed eager to exchange greetings. “Nice day, innit?” and “Wonderful weather, just wonderful,” they said, casting suspicious eyes at the sky. Only the letter carrier Wilf Lundgren, who she met at the corner of Sea Street, voiced w
hat everyone was thinking. “Too good to be true,” he said, with a knowing nod. “Can’t last.”

  Well, it probably wouldn’t, thought Lucy. Nothing did. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t enjoy it in the meantime. Her steps speeded up as she negotiated the hill leading down to the harbor, where the ice pack was beginning to break up. All the boats had been pulled from the water months ago and now rested on racks in the parking lot, shrouded with tarps or shiny white plastic shrink-wrap. The gulls were gone—they didn’t hang around where there was no food—but a couple of crows were flying in circles above her head, cawing at each other.

  “The quintessential New England sound,” someone had called it, she remembered, but she couldn’t remember who. It was true, though. There was something about their raspy cries that seemed to capture all the harsh, unyielding nature of the landscape. And the people who lived here, she thought, with a wry smile.

  Harry Crawford, the new harbormaster, was an exception. He wasn’t old and crusty like so many of the locals; he was young and brimming with enthusiasm for his job. He greeted Lucy warmly, holding open the door to his waterfront office, which was about the same size as a highway tollbooth. It was toasty inside, thanks to the sun streaming through the windows, which gave him a 360-degree view of the harbor and parking lot. Today he hadn’t even switched on the small electric heater.

  “Hi, Lucy. Make yourself comfortable,” he said, pulling out the only chair for her to sit on. He leaned against the half wall, arms folded across his chest, staring out at the water. It was something people here did, she thought. They followed the water like a sunflower follows the sun, keeping a watchful eye out for signs that the placid, sleeping giant that lay on the doorstep might be waking and brewing up a storm.

  “Thanks, Harry,” she said, sitting down and pulling off her gloves. She dug around in her bag and fished out a notebook and pen. “So tell me about the Waterways Committee’s plans for the harbor.”

  “Here, here,” he said, leaning over her shoulder to unroll the plan and spread it out on the desk. “They’re going to add thirty more slips, and at over three thousand dollars a season, it adds up to nearly a hundred thousand dollars for the town.”

  “If you can rent them,” said Lucy.

  “Oh, we can. We’ve got a waiting list.” He shaded his eyes with his hand and looked past her, out toward the water. “And that’s another good thing. A lot of folks have been on that list for years, and there’s been a lot of bad feeling about it. You know, people are not really using their slips, but hanging on to them for their kids, stuff like that. But now we ought to be able to satisfy everyone.”

  Lucy nodded. She knew there was a lot of resentment toward those who had slips from those who didn’t. It was a nuisance to have to ferry yourself and your stuff and your crew out to a mooring in a dinghy. With a slip, you could just walk along the dock to the boat, untie it, and sail off. “So you think this will make everybody happy?” she asked. “What about environmental issues? I understand there will be some dredging.”

  He didn’t answer. His gaze was riveted on something outside that had caught his attention. “Sorry, Lucy. There’s something I gotta check on,” he said, taking his jacket off a hook.

  Lucy turned and looked outside, where a flock of gulls and crows had congregated at the end of the pier. “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “The ice is breaking up. Something’s probably come to the surface.”

  From the excited cries of the gulls, who were now arriving from all directions, she knew it must be something they considered a meal. A feast, in fact.

  “Like a pilot whale?”

  “Could be. Maybe a sea turtle, a dolphin even. Could be anything.”

  “I’d better come,” she said, with a groan, reluctantly pulling a camera out of her bag.

  “I wouldn’t if I were you,” he said, shaking his head. “Whatever it is, it’s not going to be pretty, not this time of year. It could’ve been dead for months.”

  “Oh, I’m used to it,” sighed Lucy, who had tasted plenty of bile photographing everything from slimy, half-rotted giant squid tentacles caught in fishing nets to bloated whale carcasses that washed up on the beach.

  “Trust me. The stench alone…”

  She was already beginning to feel queasy. “You’ve convinced me,” she said, guiltily replacing her camera. Any photo she took would probably be too disgusting to print, she rationalized, and she could call him later in the day and find out what it was. Meanwhile, her interest had been caught by a handful of people gathered outside the Bilge, on the landward side of the parking lot. Tucked in the basement beneath a block of stores that fronted Main Street, the Bilge was a Tinker’s Cove landmark—and a steady source of news. It was the very opposite of Hemingway’s “clean, well-lighted place,” but that didn’t bother the fishermen who packed the place. It may have been a dark and dingy dive, but the beer was cheap, and Old Dan never turned a paying customer away, not even if he was straight off the boat and stank of lobster bait.

  Lucy checked her watch as she crossed the parking lot and discovered it was only a little past ten o’clock. Kind of early to start drinking, she thought, but the three men standing in front of the Bilge apparently thought otherwise.

  “It’s never been closed like this before,” said one. He was about fifty, stout, with white hair combed straight back from a ruddy face.

  “Old Dan’s like clockwork. You could set your watch by it. The Bilge opens at ten o’clock. No earlier. No later,” said another, a thin man with wire-rimmed glasses.

  “He closed once for a couple of weeks, maybe five or six years ago,” said the third, a young guy with long hair caught in a ponytail, who Lucy knew played guitar with a local rock band, the Claws. “He went to Florida that time, for a visit. But he left a sign.”

  “What’s up? Is the Bilge closed?” she asked.

  They all turned and stared at her. Women usually avoided the Bilge, where they weren’t exactly welcome. A lot of fishermen still clung to the old-fashioned notion that women were bad luck on a boat—and in general.

  “I’m Lucy Stone, from the Pennysaver,” she said. “If the Bilge has really closed, that’s big news.”

  “It’s been shut tight for three days now,” said the guy with the ponytail.

  “Do you mind telling me your name?” she asked, opening her notebook. “It’s Dave, right? You’re with the Claws?”

  “Dave Reilly,” he said, giving her a dazzling, dimpled smile.

  Ah, to be on the fair side of thirty once more, she thought, admiring Dave’s fair hair, bronzed skin, full lips, and white teeth. He must be quite a hit with the girls, she decided, reminding herself that she had a job to do. “Has anybody seen Old Dan around town?” she asked.

  “Come to think of it, no,” said the guy with glasses.

  “And your name is?” she replied.

  “Brian Donahue.”

  “Do you think something happened to him?” she asked the stout guy, who was cupping his hands around his eyes and trying to see through the small window set in the door.

  “Whaddya see, Frank?” inquired Dave. He turned to Lucy. “That’s Frank Cahill. You’d never know it, but he plays the organ at the church.”

  “Is he inside? Did he have a heart attack or something?” asked Brian.

  Frank shook his head. “Can’t see nothing wrong. It looks the same as always.”

  “Same as always, except we’re not inside,” said Brian.

  “Hey, maybe we’re in some sort of alternate universe. You know what I mean. We’re really in the Bilge in the real world, having our morning pick-me-up just like usual, but we’re also in this parallel world, where we’re in the parking lot,” said Dave.

  The other two looked at each other. “You better stick to beer, boy,” said Frank, with a shake of his head. “Them drugs do a job on your brain.”

  “What am I supposed to do?” replied the rocker. “It’s not my fault if Old Dan is closed, i
s it? A guy’s gotta have something. Know what I mean?”

  “You could try staying sober,” said Lucy.

  All three looked at her as if she were crazy.

  “Or find another bar,” she added.

  “The others don’t open ’til noon,” said Brian. “Town bylaw.”

  “Old Dan has a special dispensation?” she asked.

  The others laughed. “You could say that,” said Dave, with a bit of an edge in his voice. “He sure doesn’t play by the same rules as the rest of us.”

  “Special permission. That’s good,” said Brian.

  “Yeah, like from the pope,” said Frank, slapping his thigh. “I’ll have to tell that one to Father Ed.” He checked his watch. “Come to think of it, I wonder where he is? He usually stops in around now.”

  My goodness, thought Lucy, echoing her great-grandmother who had been a staunch member of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. She knew there was a lot of drinking in Tinker’s Cove, especially in the winter, when the boats sat idle. Some joker had even printed up bumper stickers proclaiming: “Tinker’s Cove: A quaint little drinking village with a fishing problem,” when government regulators had started placing tight restrictions on what kind of fish and how much of it they could catch and when they could catch it. She’d laughed when she first saw the sticker on a battered old pickup truck. After all, she wasn’t above pouring herself a glass of wine to sip while she cooked supper. She certainly wasn’t a teetotaler, but her Puritan soul certainly didn’t approve of drinking in the morning.

  The laughter stopped, however, when they heard a siren blast, and the birds at the end of the pier rose in a cloud, then settled back down.

  “Something washed up,” said Lucy, by way of explanation. “Probably a pilot whale.”

  The others nodded, listening as the siren grew louder and a police car sped into the parking lot, screeching to a halt at the end of the pier. The birds rose again, and this time they flapped off, settling on the roof of the fish-packing shed.