Death and a Pot of Chowder

by Cornelia Kidd

  “Your father tried to reach you there. Luc said you’d left a couple of hours ago.”

  “Why was he checking up on me? Don’t you trust me? I had to talk to Matt about something. That’s all. So, I left a little early. I’d been there for hours, anyway.” He looked around. “Is Dad home?”

  “So have you and Matt resolved whatever you were fighting about, then?”

  “Not exactly. He’s being an idiot about it all.”

  Izzie interrupted us. “Jake, is that your tablet?” She pointed at the counter. “Your mom and I were looking for you this morning and I saw it in your room.”

  “You were in my room? Can’t I even have any privacy?” He looked around. “Where did you say Dad was?”

  “He’s lying down. I hope he’s taking a nap. He didn’t sleep well last night. What about the tablet, Jake?”

  “It’s not mine. It’s Uncle Carl’s. He loaned it to me so I could see a couple of movies. Uncle Carl trusted me. He didn’t go through my things!”

  I glanced at Izzie, who’d picked up the tablet. “We didn’t go through your things. It was on your bed. You weren’t home when I went to wake you up this morning. I was worried about you.”

  “You don’t need to worry about me. I’m okay. I couldn’t sleep, so I went for a walk down to the lighthouse.”

  “Next time you do that, leave me a note so I know where you are,” I said. “Until whoever killed your uncle is arrested, I worry about all of us.” I changed the subject. Jake was clearly not in the best mood, and I wasn’t either. “Much homework tonight?”

  “How should I know? That state trooper pulled me out of school this morning. I’ll be behind in all my classes tomorrow.”

  He’d never worried about that before.

  “Has that detective figured out who killed Uncle Carl yet?”

  “No. But he’s working on it. He was here half an hour ago to talk to your dad. Your dad’s rifle is missing. Detective Preston and your dad are both concerned about that. Have you seen it anywhere?”

  “That Preston is a pest. Mr. Burnham said he asked him a lot of questions, too.”

  “He’s been asking questions all over the island. And the police searched Carl’s apartment and took his computer and guns.”

  “That’s stupid. They think Uncle Carl shot himself?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t think so. His computer was more important. They’re trying to figure out who your uncle was close to, what trouble he might have been in, or who might have been angry with him.”

  Jake made a face. “All they’re going to find on that computer are games and porn.”

  “Jake! What a thing to say.”

  “I’m right, though. I’ve used his computer.”

  Not exactly news I wanted to hear. What was Jake looking at on his own computer? I thought the school had fixed the software so the students couldn’t get into trouble, but now I wasn’t sure. I filed that question for the future.

  And there was that tablet. That could be used for e-mail too, couldn’t it? I’d never used one, but I’d seen them advertised.

  “I’m going to take a shower. I had to unpack dusty old books today. Mr. Burnham has stacks of cartons of them. They stunk.”

  Blue jumped off my lap and went into the kitchen for a drink.

  “Did you see any old recipe books or books on housekeeping?” Izzie asked.

  “I was dusting them, not reading them.” He turned to me. “Is the quiz over? Okay if I go upstairs now?”

  “Go ahead,” I agreed, and he stomped upstairs.

  Jake was home and safe. That was really all I cared about. He’d just gone for a walk this morning. That was unusual for him, but these days everything was unusual. He’d gone to school, and he’d been working at the bookstore for a while. Maybe he needed privacy to grieve.

  “Being fourteen isn’t easy,” Izzie said. She looked at the tablet. Carl’s tablet.

  “Being the mother of a fourteen-year-old isn’t either,” I said, joining her in the kitchen and starting to set the table for supper. “Do you know anything about those tablets? I don’t.”

  “I have one.” Izzie had stopped looking at food and was focused on the small screen in her hands.

  “Jake said he was watching movies on it.”

  “Carl’s got a couple of dozen movies on here. He must have used it for that.”

  “Movies won’t help us.”

  “No. But e-mails might,” Izzie said. “A lot of them are here. I don’t know who most of them are from. A lot of them have screen names.”

  “He never wrote to me. And Burt didn’t mention e-mails.”

  Izzie shrugged. “He probably called you or texted. Give me a little time. I need to read these to see if they’re important. I can do that after dinner.” She put down the tablet, took a knife from her kit, and started chopping apples and walnuts for the salad she’d planned.

  “You do that so fast!” I said, watching her.

  “Part of learning to be a chef,” she said. “My knives are really sharp. If you ever borrow one, be careful. We were taught they’re safer when they’re sharper. They do what you want them to.”

  I shook my head. “I’ll stick with the knives I have.”

  “Good decision,” she agreed. “These can be tricky. Thanks for listening to me prattle on about my dream restaurant,” she said as she added wine and water glasses to the table. “I’m excited about looking at that building tomorrow. But our other project is more immediate.”

  “Our other project?” I asked.

  “We made a start today. But we still have to figure out who killed Carl,” she said. “I know we can’t talk much when Jake is around, and Burt is upset enough. But tonight, I’ll check the e-mails and tomorrow morning, after we see the realtor, we’ll ask questions.”

  She tucked the tablet in a drawer and added a dressing to the salad.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “Egg Wine: Break a nice fresh egg into a tumbler and beat it until it is smooth and thick. Add a tablespoon of pulverized sugar and stir in a glass of the best Port wine. This is very strengthening for an invalid to take about the hour of noon, if the physician permits it. When wine is not allowed, a glass of new milk may be used instead.”

  —Mrs. Seely’s Cook-Book: A Manual of French and American Cookery, with Chapters on Domestic Servants, Their Rights and Duties, and Many Other Details of Household Management. New York: 1902

  Martha’s lasagna was good, and after dinner we made a major dent in the brownies we’d been given. Burt and Jake covered theirs with ice cream. I was tempted, but Izzie resisted and I didn’t want to look like the pig I sometimes was. I did manage to eat one of the chocolates in my stash when no one was looking.

  My little sister was setting a good example for me. That was the first time I’d raided my chocolate hoard today.

  Except for several brief condolence calls, including one from Reverend Beaman asking when we wanted to schedule Carl’s funeral, the evening was quiet.

  “Funeral! We don’t even have Carl’s body,” Burt ranted after he got off the phone.

  His rant didn’t last long. We were all exhausted.

  Jake was quieter than usual during dinner. He didn’t ask about the tablet, and after dessert he put more ice on his swollen eye and headed up to his room. His uncle’s death must be sinking in.

  Izzie was restless. I could tell she was excited about her appointment with the realtor, but she didn’t mention it to Jake or Burt. When the rest of us said we were tired, she borrowed one of my cookbooks to read in bed and took Carl’s tablet with her up to her room.

  I hoped she’d find something that would give us a clue to Carl’s killer.

  * * *

  “So, was there anything important on that tablet?” I asked as soon as Izzie came downstairs the next morning. Jake and Burt had already left for the day, and I was drinking my second mug of coffee, with a brownie.

  If you weren’t supposed to eat brownies,
why did people give them to you? We had several boxes full.

  “I’m not sure,” said Izzie, pouring herself a mug of coffee and joining me at the kitchen table. “But Carl definitely had an active social life. He was writing, regularly, to more than one woman. Most of them had screen names, though, so I don’t know who they were.”

  “Rose wouldn’t be happy to know that.”

  “She was the only one whose identity I think I figured out. I’m guessing she’s ‘beachflower.’ She always signed with love and kisses,” Izzie wrinkled her nose. “Didn’t you say there were beach roses on the island?”

  “Definitely. In lots of places. By the lighthouse, and Mom has them on the trellis outside her house,” I agreed. “People take the rose hips and make tea or jelly.”

  “Well, Carl and ‘beachflower’ exchanged a lot of messages during the winter. Most of them were long notes from her about his apartment. I think she was the one decorating it. Or she wanted to know what she should cook for dinner.”

  “That does sound like Rose,” I agreed.

  “But those messages stopped about a month ago. And the notes from people I assumed were other women, were different. Someone named ‘Sincity’ and Carl met sometimes, too. But while ‘beachflower’ wrote about furnishings and food, ‘Sincity’ wrote about sex.” Izzie paused. “It sounded as though their meetings were basically for sex. They had cybersex, too.” She wrinkled her nose. “Not fun to read.”

  “No love and kisses?”

  “Not online.”

  I sighed. “Carl must have had different women for … different purposes.”

  “I only went back about six months. There were several people he wrote to once or twice, but not recently. I didn’t think prices of bait would have led to him being shot. He’d written to several manufacturers of boat parts, too.”

  I nodded. “That makes sense. His boat’s engine wasn’t working right.”

  “There was one other person he wrote to often. Linus is a man’s name, but the notes sounded too sweet to be from a man. Do you know anyone named ‘Linus’?”

  “No one.”

  “Another screen name, then. Or someone off-island. Anyway, Carl and Linus met pretty often, too—often late at night. Those messages were really short, sometimes just a time, like ‘midnight,’ but there were a lot of them. And a couple of references were to trips.”

  “Trips? Carl didn’t travel.”

  “Maybe he was planning to. The messages never said when the trips would be or to where.”

  “Carl hasn’t been farther than Portland in months, so far as I know. And we saw him almost every day. He certainly wasn’t vacationing in the Bahamas. But it sounds as though he had a more exciting life than we’d assumed,” I said, dryly. “Where’s the tablet now?”

  “I left it in my room, in a drawer. Maybe we should give it to the police.”

  “Maybe. But let’s talk to Rose first. That first person you mentioned—‘beachflower’—did sound like her. Maybe she knows more about what was happening with Carl.”

  “Or maybe she doesn’t. Sounds as though he was hiding some of his life.”

  “True.” I stood. “But maybe not from everyone. And I haven’t forgotten your appointment this morning. We need to get over to the café. After we do that, we’ll try to talk to Rose.”

  Mrs. Evans, a realtor from the mainland, was waiting for us outside the deserted restaurant building.

  “Good morning, Miss Jordan,” she said, walking up to me. “So glad you called.”

  I stepped backward. “I’m Mrs. Winslow. My sister, Miss Jordan, was the one who called you.” I pointed at Izzie.

  Mrs. Evans’ face froze for a second before she turned to Izzie. “Sorry for the mistake. And thank you for calling. This building’s been on the market for a couple of years now. I haven’t even shown it to anyone recently.”

  Izzie and I exchanged a glance. That meant the seller might be willing to bargain.

  “I’m looking forward to seeing the inside,” Izzie said. Her voice was high and breathy with excitement. I hoped she wouldn’t be disappointed.

  I needn’t have worried. The building spoke for itself.

  Izzie walked around the central area several times. The room where she might seat customers was empty, but I could see possibilities there. Its pine floor was scratched, but could be sanded and polyurethaned. The walls needed plaster and paint, and broken windows had to be fixed or replaced, but the structure seemed solid.

  The kitchen was empty and its walls were stained with grease.

  “Does the building get town water?” Izzie asked, glancing at me to show she remembered yesterday’s conversation.

  “Town water April to October. The couple who ran the last restaurant here went to Florida in the off-season. But the business before theirs was year-round, so there is a well.”

  “What are the taxes?” she asked next.

  “Five thousand dollars a year” Mrs. Evans focused on Izzie. “I assume you’d be making improvements. That would trigger a reassessment and taxes would probably go up then.”

  Izzie checked the one bathroom—a unisex facility.

  “What do you have in mind for the building?” asked Mrs. Evans.

  “A small restaurant,” said Izzie. “A café.” I could tell she was mentally measuring the space.

  “I have a listing sheet that has the dimensions,” said Mrs. Evans, handing it to Izzie. “And we don’t have a Chinese restaurant anywhere near here.”

  “My restaurant wouldn’t be Chinese.”

  Mrs. Evans had the grace to blush.

  Izzie was looking at the listing sheet. “There’s space for the parking lot to be enlarged then, and a patio for outside dining.”

  “You’d have to get zoning clearances from the town for changes like that, but, yes, I think there’s enough property. Not all the land you see goes with the building. Near the bridge the land is owned by the state, and the neighbor on the other side owns several acres on both sides of the road.”

  “I’ll have to do some calculations, but thank you for showing it to us.”

  “Perhaps you’d be more interested in a larger building, in better condition,” said Mrs. Evans as she locked the door. “I have a listing for a restaurant in Pine Harbor, on the mainland. It’s been operating for ten years, and the owners want to retire. The kitchen and dining room are in pristine shape.”

  “How many does it seat?” Izzie asked.

  “About a hundred,” said Mrs. Evans, looking through the pile of papers in the leather satchel she was carrying.

  “That’s larger than I have in mind.”

  Mrs. Evans handed Izzie a card. “Call me if you want to look at the place again, or have other questions.”

  “I will,” said Izzie. She and I headed back to my truck as Mrs. Evans got into her car.

  “What do you think?” asked Izzie.

  “It needs a lot of work,” I said.

  “It does,” Izzie agreed. “That’s why it’s perfect. Sweat equity could make it affordable.” She raised her hand and mimed hammering. “How are you at painting and plastering?”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “An appropriate dinner bill of fare in winter, not so varied as for a fashionable dinner, but enough to be elegant: (course 1) Mock-turtle soup (2) Baked salmon with sauce Hollandaise (3) Fried oysters with cold slaw (4) Lamb chops with tomato sauce (5) Roast turkey with oyster stuffing and Saratoga potatoes (6) Roman punch, in lemon-skins (7) Macaroni, with cheese (8) Pineapple Bavarian cream (9) Vanilla ice cream with little cakes (10) Fruits (11) coffee.”

  —Old Doctor Carlin’s Recipes: A Complete Collection of Recipes on Every Known Subject by Doctor William Carlin. Boston, Massachusetts: The Locker Publishing Company, 1881

  “I could hardly sleep last night,” Izzie confided as we headed back home. “I stayed up late trying to figure out Carl’s messages, and whether they could help us figure out who killed him. And when I stopped thinking about
him, I thought about that building, wondering about it, imagining what it could look like. And what my menu might look like.” She shook her head. “But the café can wait. I’ve seen the building. It definitely has possibilities. But first, we have to find out more about Carl. You’ll call Rose and see if she’s free?”

  As I drove into our driveway, Detective Preston pulled his unmarked car in behind us. “Look who’s here,” I said. “I didn’t expect to see him again so soon. This can’t be good news.” Izzie and I headed for the front porch. We got there before Preston did. A large casserole dish was in front of the door.

  I opened the door and Izzie picked up the heavy dish and took it to the kitchen. “It’s more baked beans,” she called back to me. “A really, really big pot of baked beans.”

  “I called your husband. He’s coming in and meeting us here,” said Preston, brushing by me and following Izzie into the house. This time he sat in the living room.

  “You have news, then?”

  Izzie joined us. “I hope good news.”

  “I need to talk with Mr. Winslow,” Preston repeated.

  “He left several hours ago. If he’s coming in, he’ll have to tie up and walk from the wharf,” I said.

  What did he want to talk to Burt about? Preston looked serious. But then, he always looked serious.

  I wanted chocolate. I told myself to stay calm. Stay in control. Treat a visit from a homicide detective as an ordinary event.

  Blue meowed at me and then went and sat at his food dish. Everybody wanted something.

  I filled his dish and changed his water.

  My phone rang. I glanced down. Burt. Why was he calling? He was supposed to be on his way home. I walked out the kitchen door before answering. I didn’t want Preston to overhear me.

  Burt was talking fast. “Something’s wrong, Anna. I know it. Preston wouldn’t wait until I’d finished my run today. He insisted on seeing me right away. I’m afraid he’s found my rifle, and is ready to … Listen, you have to talk to Jake. That boy has to learn responsibility. If I’m arrested, it’ll just be you and him here. He has to man up, and fast.”

  “You’re not going to be arrested,” I assured him, hoping that was true, and trying to calm him down. “You can’t be arrested for something you didn’t do.” But, of course, once he had been arrested for something he hadn’t done. Burt never forgot that. I wanted to tell him that Izzie and I were going to find Carl’s killer, but why would he believe that? We weren’t detectives. Right now, Burt needed to hear facts. “Stay strong. You’re innocent.”