Copyright© 2007 by Jessica Thomas
Bella Books, Inc.
P.O. Box 10543 Tallahassee, FL 32302
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
First Edition
Editor: Cindy Cresap Cover designer: KIARO Creative Ltd
ISBN-10: 1-59493-081-3 ISBN-13: 978-1-59493-081-2
To Bunny with special love, and a toast to our future meeting on that little village green near the cozy little pub!
And thanks to my editor, Cindy Cresap, who almost makes it all seem easy.
About the Author
Jessica Thomas is a native of Chattanooga, Tennessee, where she attended Girls’ Preparatory School. She later graduated cum laude from Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, with a bachelor’s degree in literature.
After an early retirement, Miss Thomas spend a bit of time doing some rather dull freelance assignments and ghostwriting two totally depressing self-help books, always swearing someday that she would write something that was just plain fun. When her friend, Marian Pressler “gave” her Alex and Fargo, Jessica took them immediately to heart and ran to her keyboard.
Miss Thomas makes her home in Connecticut with her almost-cocker spaniel, Woofer. Her hobbies include gardening, reading, and animal protection activities.
Chapter 1
Nobody who lived in Provincetown would ever forget that summer.
That summer. The weird, angering, frightening summer when we were allegedly invaded by an alligator and definitely invaded by a vicious-tempered journalist. Most of us thought the alligator less threatening.
Not the wet summer when the rains wouldn’t leave, and the tourists wouldn’t stay.
It didn’t take visitors long that year to figure out they could sit around, damp and chilly, watching little stop-and-go rivers on their windowpanes at home . . . a lot cheaper than they could do it at a motel in Ptown.
That summer. The crazy, fearsome summer when the actors came to town and brought laughter and romance and murder with them—murder that would seem to have been committed by one of our most beloved citizens.
Not the hot, dry summer when the rains wouldn’t come. When the air was so sticky you felt you could wipe it off your skin, and the rain teased us every afternoon, sending in the high, rolling cumulus clouds, dark and heavy with unspilled water, heat lightning signaling from inside them like a candle flickering behind a curtain. But without a drop of rainfall. The summer when wafts of hot air sent small dust devils cantering slowly up Bradford Street, gritty and weary, as if they’d just ridden in from Laredo.
Neither overly wet nor dry, that summer came to us with a disarming smile and wearing spring’s clothing. The tulips and daffodils and hyacinths gave us just the right sugary look, and we were almost ready. We touched up the paint and starched the curtains. We washed the windows and spread our wares. Owners of shops and restaurants rubbed their hands in anticipation. Most old ring-up cash registers had been replaced with quiet, computerized models, but to those who punched in the sales figures, the carillons of tourist expenditures still rang in their ears with a resonance equal to the bells of Notre Dame.
The tourists were here. They had come to us again. All hail.
Almost everyone who lived in Provincetown was in some way dependent on the tourist. The restaurateurs, of course, plus those who provided lodging, sold souvenirs or sold clothing. I think there must be factories all over China whose workers produce nothing but T-shirts for Ptown. But there were other dependents. There were the grocery stores and the art galleries, the nightclubs and the whale-watching boats, the clinic doctors and the vets who patched up the unlucky and the pharmacists who filled their prescriptions.
The dependents included, to a degree, my Aunt Mae, with her own little “season” every year. When my Uncle Frank died, Aunt Mae got interested in raising herbs, mainly as a time filler. But she became an expert at her hobby and had now converted her garage into a small shop where she sold live herbs in little pots and dried ones in little jars to an amazing number of people. She had actually published two small books on the subject and sold enough to keep them in print.
Even the bank, where my lover Cindy was the in-house certified financial advisor, processed millions in travelers’ checks and enjoyed a great volume increase in their commercial accounts. Unfortunately, they also had the wearisome job of trying to help those feckless few who always managed to lose their wallets and/or checkbooks and came into the bank crying help!
And of course, there’s me. I’m Alexandra Peres. I was named after my great-grandmother, who was herself named after the strikingly beautiful, doomed Tsarina of All the Russias. Aware that I don’t fit the first part of the Tsarina’s description and hopeful I don’t fit the second, I prefer to be called Alex. My work, too, picks up between April and October.
Why? Because tourist spots are like candy stores to children for those who like to make money while posing as vacationers. Most of them are typical accidents—real or imagined—that could actually happen: like slipping on wet tile. Some are more creative, and sometimes not too smart. One man sued the B&B where he was staying because the porch steps collapsed under him. Indeed they did, and when he fell, he was still holding the saw he had used to cut through the supports. Of course, genuine accidents do happen, and several insurance companies keep me on retainer to sort out the possible from the simply frivolous.
Sometimes I also check out other types of insurance fraud. And I do background investigations on potential employees for local businesses. I look for runaway kids thought to be in the area. And, God help me, I am occasionally broke enough to check out a spouse whose other half believes “Something is going on and I damn well want to know what it is!”
Fortunately, following errant spouses is becoming a less frequent endeavor thanks to my learning how to use a camera because of it. I now take a lot of nature photos just for fun and am told I have a good eye for it. Certainly I have a love of it. Of late, my photos have been selling well at several galleries in Ptown and Wellfleet, at very good prices and in surprising quantity. So my finances are considerably more stable than they were a couple of years ago.
This greatly pleases my partner, who has a penchant for expensive rawhides. My partner is Fargo, and to clarify the above sentence, Fargo is a ninety-pound Lab with a lustrous black coat, a personality all his own and a heart beyond measure. He’s my pal, my clown, my protector, my confessor, and I’m happy to talk about him and his many attributes at any time.
There’s one small character defect I may lightly skip over. When Fargo is faced with, shall we say, a stressful situation, like a firecracker going off nearby, or someone approaching us threateningly, he has felt since puppyhood that he can best protect me if he is in my arms. When he was a puppy it was adorable. Since he is grown, ninety pounds of Fargo flying through the air and landing on my chest is much more likely to render me more hors de combat than my presumed assailant and leads to embarrassment all around.
So now, when I think this protective move is imminent, I do a little dance step to the side and grab his collar to let him know I am all right. I say sternly, “Easy, Fargo, not now, not now!” He has no idea what it means, but I hope it sounds to humans as if I am commanding him not to attack, and we take it from there. Look, he has never complained about the cold nights we have spent shivering in the car surveilling a house. He doesn’t mention that my omelets have been known to defy a steak knife, and he has never told me that a particular blouse makes my face look green.
He loves me. All right, he’s a creampuff. I don’t sweat the small stuff.
So, as innocently as that summer began, and bizarrely as it ended, Provincetown was her usual early-season self: charming, sparkling, breezy, energized and just a tiny bit greedy. We watched the parade of cars and buses come over the hill like an invasion of benign and colorful insects. We watched the excursion and ferry boats sail into the harbor with their self-satisfied oom-pah pahs. We heard the whine of airplanes approaching our runway. Provincetown was ready.
The world was our codfish.
Chapter 2
We were about to have that conversation again.
You see, when Cindy first took the job with Fishermen’s Bank, she rented a great little cottage from my Aunt Mae. Four rooms, two of them pretty good sized, plus a small deck overlooking a small pond. She loved it.
I already lived in my house that I’d owned for several years. Five rooms, all good sized, bath and a half and a detached garage, plus a large—for Ptown—backyard.
I loved it.
Shortly after her arrival, Cindy and I began dating. Before long we began dating exclusively, then next we were dating seriously. Subsequently we started using words and phrases like relationship, which we both disliked, and we must have something going here. Finally, we gave up, declared ourselves in love and wanting a lasting, monogamous affiliation.
We breathed a sigh of relief and were very happy. Then slowly, we began to realize that we were one couple with two abodes only a mile apart. Occasionally, I had an overnight business trip, and Cindy would stay at the cottage. Or Cindy would have a seminar somewhere or a weekend parental visit down to Connecticut, and I would be alone at the house. Sporadically, when we were both in town, we simply spent the night apart for no special reason. Usually, we spent weekends at the cottage. Somehow it seemed like a relaxing, faraway break. As time went on, however, the maintenance of the two places began to seem somewhat extravagant, and our friends began making veiled comments, and we began to talk of living together.
In the words of the immortal poet, this scared me to death. I’d been badly burned in some past relationships, and had been leery of becoming involved again at all. I was glad I had. I loved Cindy. I liked her and, as far as I knew, wanted to be with her forever. But living together was something else.
There was, of course, the question of where to put things. Like Cindy’s computer. The logical place was my office, but my computer was already there, along with a desk and file cabinet and a large table where I matted and put simple wood frames around my photographs. It was not a neat room. Cindy was neat. There were other spatial problems, although most of them could be worked out with a little ingenuity. Actually, “things” were not my real problem, anyway.
My problem was I was afraid I would slowly disappear, that we would become one amorphous mass, no longer each a clear individual structure. I was afraid I would look in my psyche’s mirror one morning and see a foggy, shapeless blob. Oh, my head or a foot might poke out once in a while, but basically, Cindy and I would be one colorless splotch. I would be, I was certain, sexually happy, intellectually challenged, entertained, loved and cared for, perhaps even healthier. But slowly I would no longer be Alex as I knew me. I would be alexandcindy. And then I would have to run away. Even though I loved her very much.
Now this may not make sense to you. In a way, I hope it doesn’t.
But it was a real and present fear for me, and I am sure Cindy must have sensed it. So when we spoke of living together, we verbally trod successfully on eggshells that never broke, because neither of us ever said anything heavy.
Tonight, I guess I felt singularly close to her, and perhaps very safe, for I was just beginning to find the courage to let these little terrors of mine be articulated, when the phone rang.
I wanted to scream, “How dare you ring now?” and rip it from the wall, but of course one never does. One picks it up and says politely, “Hello . . . this is she . . . oh, yes, Bill . . .”
Bill Meyer of the Chambered Nautilus Bed and Breakfast Inn. He and his wife Martha owned and ran it. It was a lovely old building in the Victorian style, with six or seven rentable rooms and baths, all nicely decorated. The downstairs sitting room was filled with genuine antiques plus a baby grand piano which Bill often played in the early evening, alternating light classics, show tunes, a little understated jazz, while the guests enjoyed tea or sherry if they wished. Both owners were thoroughly charming, and not just to their guests.
Their liability insurance was held by Plymouth Rock Security, which retained me to investigate claims in the Provincetown area. Naturally, I had nothing to do with the settlement procedures of serious injuries or serious frauds. Sometimes, however, troubled waters could be quickly calmed by a few well-spent dollars, or frivolous claims could die aborning with the delicate mention of the penalties of fraud.
I figured Bill had one or the other of these problems at hand.
“What can I do for you, William?”
“Alex, we’ve got the craziest thing I’ve ever heard of here. One of our female guests—lovely lady, known her for years, a real treasure—climbed up a tree in the front yard and fell out of it, stark naked, screaming there was a six-foot alligator chasing her. There were two other guests coming up the walkway at the time, and they—”
“Bill, did you say she was naked and being chased by an alligator?” I looked at Cindy and entertained a moment’s concern that her eyebrows had disappeared forever into her hairline.
“That’s what she said . . . still says. But I can’t find the damn thing! I’ve since gone over every inch of the house and shined a flashlight around the yard. They all ran for the house, when she tumbled out of the tree. Mr. Joyner fell up the steps and sprained his ankle. Alex, can you get over here now?”
“On my way. And, Bill, stay in the house. Just to make sure.” I hung up. Cindy and I looked at each other, then smiled, giggled and finally roared. I ran for the office where I took four crisp one-hundred dollar bills out of the safe where I keep ten of them, for insurance business only. Then I hit the bedroom, peeling off my T-shirt and replacing it with a clean sleeveless mock turtleneck top and light cotton blazer. I figured the jeans would do. I kicked off the sneakers and slipped into my boat shoes. “I’m off!” I gave Cindy a hug, then held her away from me and stopped laughing. “Hold this thought: I love you.”
“I love you, too,” she answered softly, and then smiled. “Be careful of that gator.”
As I backed quickly out of the driveway, I was guiltily grateful that Bill and Martha had an alligator on the loose. A certain conversation would have to wait until another time. Again.
After parking on the street, I walked slowly up the path toward the inn and shined my big flashlight into the limbs of the mimosa tree. To the best of my knowledge alligators didn’t climb trees, but something else might have. I saw nothing but a drooping broken branch, the delicate leaves already folding in prayerful farewell. I flicked the light around the flowers and shrubs, again with no result, and climbed to the porch. Bill came out to meet me.
“Thank God you’re here! What an unbelievable mess! Gale Withers still swears it was a great big alligator! By the way, she’s got a nasty looking scrape from the tree on one thigh. Can she sue? Nobody told her to climb the damn tree.”
I wondered if he preferred she had lost a leg to the alligator. “Stay out here a minute, Bill, and give me a little background. Take a deep breath. Nobody needs immediate medical attention, do they?”
“No.” He flashed a ghost of a grin. “Unless you count Martha and me. Okay. Gale Withers and her husband have been customers for a number of years. Always pleasant, no trouble, no noisiness, some drinks, but no problem. When Gale got here today and Martha was getting her settled in her room, they were chatting, and Martha found out Gale’s husband has left her for a newer model. He served divorce papers on her a few days back, on their wedding anniversary, if you can believe such sensitivity.
Her two kids—in their early twenties, I think—insisted she get away for a few days and get her head together before she tries to deal with any of this. I guess she was really shocked and broken up.”
I tried to guess who wouldn’t be shocked and distressed, and had no luck.
Bill held his hands out, palm up, in explanation. “Of course, the Chambered Nautilus, all of Ptown, for that matter, holds a great many memories for her. I could almost wish she had picked another spot, if that doesn’t sound too unkind. Oh, by the way, according to Martha, Gale was knocking back the sherry pretty hard earlier.” He shrugged. “That’s about it.”
I nodded. The poor woman was probably reliving happier days and wondering what kind of truck had hit her. “Do you know if she went out for dinner or just settled for the sherry?” I asked.
“Yes, she did go for dinner. She asked me to book a table for her at the Speedwell.” It was an upscale restaurant in town, named for the second ship in the Puritans’ little armada, which failed to live up to its name by arriving several weeks behind the Mayflower. “Unfortunately, if I recall correctly, the restaurant was a favorite of Gale’s and Tom’s in the past. That choice can’t have cheered her up, either.” He managed a wry smile.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s go in.”
We entered the sitting room, which at that moment held four people. Bill’s wife, Martha, sat a little apart in a wingback chair. A stocky forty-ish man lay on the couch with his left ankle on a pillow and sporting an icepack. A woman about the same age sat in a chair next to him, and a nice looking female in her late forties— Mrs. Withers, I presumed—now quite primly covered in a high necked robe and bedroom slippers, was half reclined on a settee. In addition to whatever damage she’d done to her thigh, I noted a couple of scratches on her arms and one on her face.
Murder Came Second Page 1