I heard the lock click, and the door opened. My sister’s worried face peered around the door, looking down at me as I stepped into the warm kitchen. “Why’d you lock me out? It’s freezing out there. Feels like it’s gonna snow.”
“Sorry, my hands were dirty.”
I hung up my coat and grabbed an apron. Mel locked the door and went back to her muffins. There weren’t many dirty dishes yet, so I joined her at the worktable, warm mug of coffee thawing out my fingers. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
“Who says I’m afraid?”
“You’re beating the heck out of those muffins, and they never hurt a soul.”
Mel’s hand stilled. She looked down at the batter, then pushed the bowl away. “How can you be so calm?”
I took the bowl and ladled batter into the tins Mel had prepared. “Oven hot?”
“Yes, it’s ready when you are.” She sat down on a metal stool and took a deep breath. “Thanks, Cara. Between morning sickness and all this with Frank and Taylor, I don’t know how I’m gonna get through the day. Thank God it’s just locals.”
“I’ll come back once I’ve got my shipment out and keep you company.” I finished with the batter and carefully slid the muffin tins into the oven. I set the timer and went back to the worktable to clean up.
“Anybody left at the cabins?”
“Just one. I’ve also got a few houses on the far side turning over and Tay’s of course.” Our family didn’t own all those properties, but since I was accustomed to dealing with renters for our cabins, other families trusted me to rent out their properties when they flew south for the summer. The money I earned had been enough to tide me over in the days before the gallery opened. Now that I didn’t need the income, I kept doing it because no one else had volunteered to take over the responsibility.
“Did Taylor say anything when you two got home?”
“Nope.” I pulled a jug of orange juice out of the cooler and poured a glass for Mel. “I had a nightmare about it though, straight out of a slasher movie.”
Mel raised her eyebrows. “You think Taylor had something to do with Frank’s death?”
“No, I don’t. Dan put the fear of God into me last night.” I put the orange juice back and leaned on the counter. “You know Tay. She can be a flake.”
“And self-centered.”
“And she has a temper, but none of that makes her a killer.”
“I suppose anyone could kill if they had reason.”
“Tay wouldn’t have had any reason to kill Frank. Assuming the body actually is Frank’s.”
“It has to be, Cara. I don’t like it either, but Frank wouldn’t blow off his tours.”
I stared into my coffee. I felt a tear tip out from the corner of my eye. “I don’t want it to be Frank.”
“I know.”
I put down my cup. “This is crazy. I don’t want Frank to be dead, but even if he’s alive, he’s into Taylor now. I really know my way around men, don’t I? First Johnny, now Frank, and that’s not even counting the guys in college. Everybody wants Taylor. Nobody wants me.”
“Johnny?”
I turned away from her. “It’s nothing. I’m feeling sorry for myself. It’ll pass.”
“I never knew there was something between you and Johnny.”
I laughed, but it was one of those times you aren’t laughing because you think something’s funny. “That’s because I never said anything.”
“Why not?”
“I didn’t want to be pushy. We’d been friends forever, you know? I figured if he were interested in me, he’d get around to saying something. We were run off our feet that summer, remember? We were spending all our time building the gallery, getting ready to open. I figured if it was meant to be, it would happen.”
“Then Johnny met Taylor.”
My shoulders sagged. “And that was the end of that.”
“And now she’s gone after Frank.”
“Taylor’s not like that, Mel. He must have gone after her.”
“She should have tossed him back. For heaven’s sake, Cara! She did this to you in college too?”
“It’s not her fault that men go for her.”
“Why are you defending her?”
“Because how can I blame her if men would rather be with her than me.” I tried to stop myself, but the words had been dammed up so long they poured out. “She’s funny and flirty and drop-dead gorgeous. Everything I’m not.”
“Cara!”
“Don’t say it, Mel. I know it’s not true.”
“Caribou King, stop this right now.”
I wanted to stop, but I couldn’t. There comes a time when you have to speak the truth no matter how painful it is. “Look at me, Mel. Not as my sister. Look at me as I really am. I’m a tall gangly string bean with beet-red hair and more freckles than stars in the sky. I know you mean well, you and Mom both, always telling me how pretty I am, but I know better and so does every guy I’ve ever met. One look at Taylor, and the fat lady sings.”
Mel looked as though I’d slapped her in the face. “Cara, I mean it. Cut it out. A real friend wouldn’t have slept with Frank knowing you were interested in him.”
“Taylor warned me you can’t keep a guy waiting, or he’ll go somewhere else.”
“I don’t care what Taylor said. She was out of line.”
“It was the first anniversary of Johnny’s death. She was hurting so bad, missing him, she didn’t know what she was doing.”
“That doesn’t excuse her.”
“Well, what do you want me to do? Whether she should or shouldn’t have slept with him, if Frank were really interested in me, he wouldn’t have slept with her.”
Mel sighed. She walked over to me and put her arms around me. “I’m sorry. You don’t need me piling on.”
“It’s all right. You’re not saying anything I haven’t thought.”
“Someday you’re going to find a guy who appreciates all the amazing things you are.”
I leaned my head against her shoulder. “You think so?”
“I know so. And don’t be so mean to my little sister. She’s beautiful whether she knows it or not.”
“Maybe I’m doing it wrong. Tay sees what she wants and goes after it until she gets it.”
“She goes after men, but what good has it done her?”
I looked at her and made a face, “You really do sound like Mom.”
“Stop making excuses for Taylor. She shouldn’t have slept with Frank, and you know it.”
“It’s a moot point now.” I shuddered. “Nobody deserves to die like that.”
“Maybe it wasn’t Frank,” said Mel, not very convincingly.
“You said it yourself. If it wasn’t Frank, he’d be here.”
Kenny knocked just as I was smoothing the last label on the last box. I unlocked the door and led him to the back room. He was sporting his end-of-the-season ball cap this morning, with Almost Huntin’ emblazoned across a cartoon hunter stalking a worried-looking moose. Stacking boxes on his dolly, I asked if he’d seen Frank yesterday.
“Nah, I heard about it though. Nasty business, that.”
“Sure is. I was hoping you’d seen him when he dropped Taylor off at the gallery.”
“He dropped her off here?”
“That’s what she says. Why?”
“I saw her walkin’ along the pier yesterday, but there weren’t nobody with her.”
“Are you sure it was yesterday?”
Kenny stopped stacking boxes and tilted the dolly back, steadying them as the dolly rocked under the weight. “Thought it was. Days kinda blend together, you know?”
“I hear you. Since we started taking cruise ships, the only day that stands out during the season is Thursday. The others are one big blur.”
Kenny laughed. “Light day. You usually have three or four more loads.”
After he left, I sat in my office, staring blankly at my computer screen. I looked up at the ceiling, pictur
ing Taylor sleeping in the bedroom above me. Since there were no answers written on the ceiling, I got up and walked into the gallery. “There has to be a logical explanation,” I said aloud, trying to drive away the fear that was creeping over me. As usual I found myself in front of Johnny’s paintings. No matter what Dan thought, Taylor couldn’t have killed Johnny. She was at the gallery when he died.
She could have had an accomplice. The words crossed my thoughts unbidden. Had someone followed Johnny into the woods and murdered him while Taylor was establishing an alibi? Men did things for Taylor, maybe one killed for her. But how do you kill someone and pass it off as a bear attack? The coroner would have seen through that.
Assuming Taylor killed Frank, why would she have wanted him dead? He had followed her out of Mel’s, and that was the last I’d seen of him. It was the last anyone admitted to seeing him except for Taylor. Taylor said they’d gone to Frank’s place and had been in bed together during the frantic search. I didn’t know much about making love to a man, but wouldn’t a policeman pounding on the door put a damper on the mood? I could see why you wouldn’t want to get up and go to the door, but why not just shout out to him and let him know you were there? Unless you didn’t want anyone to know you were there.
Why had Taylor insisted on searching the boat first? Taylor said Frank told her he’d be going home after his tours so that would have been the logical place to look. Only he hadn’t finished his tours; he hadn’t even started them. He’d gone missing, but Taylor hadn’t known that when she searched the boat so why would she have gone there first? Was she alone on the pier yesterday morning, or had Kenny got his days mixed up? No one had been with her when I let her in, and it seemed odd that Frank would have left before Taylor was safely inside. Had the man who’d followed Taylor at the cannery been in the shadows again, and had Frank, confronting him, been killed?
My thoughts returned to the question I’d been asking since the day she’d walked into the gallery. What brought Taylor back to Coho Bay? She’d said she had no other place to go, but with her fortune, she could live anywhere. There was nothing but sadness for her here. True, her home on the island was breathtaking, but there were other beautiful places in the world, all of them less isolated, and none of them as steeped in memory as this one.
Taylor couldn’t have killed Johnny. I knew it in my bones. She had come back because this was where they had been happy together, and she hoped it would bring back a little of that happiness. I leaned on the wall, filling the empty spot between the two paintings. She came back because she loved him and wanted nothing more than to be where he had been. Now Dan was accusing her of killing both him and the man with whom she’d sought solace on the anniversary of his death. Reaching out, I put my hand on the nearest frame and felt a charge run though me. “You loved her, Johnny.” I whispered. “Show me what to do.”
I spent the rest of the day at Mel’s. Dan ate his usual eggs and sausage breakfast in record time and asked me to fill his aluminum thermos before he left. “You’re in a hurry,” I noted, handing back the thermos.
“Gotta meet the state boat. They left Juneau first light, should be here before long.”
He left. Not twenty minutes later, a ten-year-old boy, whose father worked at the cannery, poked his head in the door. “Boat’s here! They’re gonna take the body outta the cannery!”
The restaurant cleared, patrons tossing money on the tables and knocking over chairs in their haste. It might seem ghoulish, but I understood. Frank had been an outsider. He’d kept to himself last winter and worked alone on his boat, spending his off-hours flirting with me more than socializing with the locals. While nobody had anything against him, most people had only a vague idea of who he was, so his murder had none of the pathos that had surrounded Johnny’s death and his silent journey to the state police boat. There was only curiosity, and nobody wanted to miss a beat.
Business was so slow with many of the locals spending the day off packing up to leave at the end of the season that when I’d arrived to work the dining room, Bent had been able to persuade Mel to go back to bed. She came down as I finished clearing the dining room, looking refreshed and more relaxed than I’d seen her in a week. “Now I know why they say pregnant women glow,” I told her, giving her a hug as she tried to tie on her apron. “You look positively radiant, Mel.”
She blushed and pushed me away. “Let me get my apron on so I can help.”
“Help with what?” I asked, gesturing toward the empty dining room.
“Where is everybody?” she asked, looking up at the clock.
“Out at the cannery, watching the state police.”
The light went out of Mel’s face, and she leaned on the counter. “Any news?”
“Not a word.”
“Anybody missing besides Frank?”
“Not that I know of.”
The chime sounded, and Taylor pushed through the door. She wore a heavy sweater and no coat, so it must’ve warmed up when the sun came out. Her rich, golden hair was pulled back and knotted at the back her head, and she wore no makeup, and her face looked pale and tired. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen Taylor without makeup, even in those horrible days after Johnny died.
“Good morning, sleepyhead,” I greeted her. “Or should I say good afternoon?”
Taylor climbed up on her regular barstool and looked around the room. “Everybody still in church?”
Mel and I exchanged looks, and I decided it was better not to be honest. “Must be. You want breakfast or lunch?”
“Just coffee.”
I poured her a cup and placed it on the counter in front of her, moving cream and sugar into easy reach. “You have to eat, Tay. Bent makes a great egg-white omelet. Add spinach and Swiss cheese, and you’ll think you’ve died and gone to heaven.”
Taylor flinched at my unfortunate word choice, but she nodded. I started to head to the kitchen, but Mel stopped me. “I’ll go. You sit down, and I’ll bring you some lunch. You’re probably half-starved by now.”
“Thanks, Mel. You think Bent has any moose loaf left?”
She smiled and shook her head as she left. “You’ll have to settle for leftover roast beef.”
I filled a glass with diet pop and climbed up next to Taylor. “Thanks for the comforter. I must’ve been more tired than I realized.”
“I tried to wake you, but you were out like a light.”
“Long day. How are you doing?”
“I’ve been better.”
“Kenny brought the filter back from Juneau. Dad’ll be back Wednesday. It’ll take him and Bent maybe three or four hours to get it switched out and do a test run, then we can head out to the island. Won’t take long to get you moved in and Mr. Peterson moved out.”
She sat staring into her coffee cup. “I appreciate your taking care of the place for me, Cara.”
“It’s a beautiful house, easy to maintain and even easier to rent. I could have rented it four times over, but I chose Mr. Peterson because I knew you wouldn’t want a bunch of strangers running in and out of there.”
She smiled, more to herself than to me. “You know me too well.”
“I feel the same way about renting out my place while I’m out at the folk’s place every winter.”
“You let Frank live there last year?”
“He needed a place, and the renter I’d had in there the year before decided to go stateside.”
“You’re going to stay in town this year, aren’t you?”
“Probably. Only question will be whether Mom and Dad stay at my place and I stay here or the other way around.”
Taylor laughed. “Your mother isn’t going to let you live alone, and she isn’t going to let your Dad take her three blocks away from that baby.”
“Well, she’ll have to pick one or the other because we can’t all stay here. Although maybe the three of us should stay here and let Mel and Bent live at my place. It’s the only way they’ll be getting any privacy this winter
.”
“Privacy is overrated.” Mel beamed as she put the plates in front of us. I pulled the top off my sandwich and frowned. “Horseradish sauce. I forgot you actually like that stuff. Let me go get it.”
I slid off my stool. “I’ll get it. Why don’t you get something to eat and join us? Bent too. We’ll even sit at a table.”
“That’d be fun,” Taylor chimed in. Her voice was not as cheerful as her words, but at least she was trying, so Mel left to get Bent.
“Come on, Tay,” I said, grabbing the horseradish sauce from behind the counter and picking up my plate. “Let’s take a table by the window.”
Taylor picked up her plate and her coffee and followed me. I claimed the window seat, and she took the aisle. “I’ll go get my pop, and I’ll grab you a pot for when you want refills.”
“And my sugar, please. There isn’t any over here.”
I managed all three over in one trip. “That’s because nobody but you puts fake sugar in their coffee.”
“And nobody but you calls ‘soda’ pop,” she said, a little of her humor returning.
I enjoyed her lighthearted mood even if I knew it would be fleeting. “Six of one, half dozen of the other.”
Mel and Bent came out of the kitchen to find us both giggling. “What are you two so giddy about?” asked Mel. She put down their drinks, juice for both of them, and sat across from me. Bent put Mel’s salad in front of her and sat down across from Taylor. He had the biggest bacon cheeseburger I’d ever seen, complete with a batch of his homemade chips.
“Hey, how come you didn’t make me any chips?” I said, eyeing his. “All I have is coleslaw.”
“You like coleslaw,” said Mel, “and it’s better for you.”
I rolled my eyes, and Bent transferred a handful of chips to my plate without significantly denting the mountain on his own. “Knew you’d want some, so I made extra,” he said, winking at me while Mel poked him in the arm. “Taylor?”
“No thanks, but you do make a mean egg-white omelet.”
“Not much demand for them when there’s no cruise ship in town. Locals are more the extra meat, heavy on the cheese sauce type.”
The Deadly Art of Deception Page 11