The Deadly Art of Deception

by Linda Crowder

  “Glad to know you crossed me off your suspect list.”

  “You’ve also been in Coho Bay too long to be the man who married Taylor.”

  “So you did have to think about it in order to eliminate me as a suspect.”

  “Hey, like you told me, until I know better, everyone’s a suspect.”

  “At least you were listening to something I told you.”

  I pushed him out the door and locked it. “I listen to everything, Dan, though you’ve been pretty quiet until now. Other than a food order, I don’t think you’ve said ten words to me before.”

  Dan zipped his coat and waited for me to start walking, then fell in beside me. “I don’t usually have much to say.”

  “You’re from Homer, right? I think I remember Dad telling me that.”

  “Yep. Born and raised.”

  “And you moved to Coho Bay when your uncle retired. Why take a job in a one-horse town like this? Must seem dull.”

  “Have you ever been to Homer? Not exactly a hot spot. At least here I get the cruise ships coming in and out. New faces, new stories.”

  I stopped. “You like talking to the tourists?”

  He stopped and turned to face me. “That surprises you?”

  “It does. I’d have sworn you were annoyed by all the attention they give you.”

  “Well, you’d be wrong.”

  “This is a new side I’m seeing of you, Dan. Who knew you were a social butterfly? You’re the only man in town who has a table to himself at Mel’s.”

  “I’m not any kind of butterfly.” He started walking again, leaving me to catch up with him this time. “Not true. Besides, the tourists treat me like I know a thing or two.”

  “I thought you told me once that tourists treated you like you were some kind of hick.”

  “A few do. I must have been having a bad day when I said that.”

  “I guess so. So why do you always sit alone at Mel’s?”

  “You probably don’t know this, but Coho Bay isn’t the easiest place to fit in.”

  “Everybody treats you like an outsider. Dan, that’s terrible.”

  “It’s not that bad, but when you’re not from here, then you add being the only cop in town, and people keep their distance. Even honest people suddenly get nervous when I come into a room. People eat fast if I sit down with them, so I sit alone.”

  We reached the bank, and I tucked my deposit into the night box. “I’m sorry, Dan. You can sit with me tonight. Heck, if you don’t I’ll be eating alone, so you’ll be doing me a favor.”

  “Don’t let it get back to Tammy, or she’ll have us picking out china.”

  Poor Dan didn’t realize he’d stumbled across Mel’s comment from this morning, so he probably didn’t understand why I sat down right there on the edge of the boardwalk and laughed myself silly. There had been too much stress, too much tension, and the laughter helped break through some of that. Dan sat down next to me, watching me with a look on his face that set me off again. It must have been a full five minutes before I could breathe normally.

  “You know, most men would be insulted if a woman laughed like that at the thought of marrying him.”

  “Dan, stop it, you’re gonna make me pee my pants.”

  “Now that’s romantic.”

  After another round of laughter, I was finally able to scramble to my feet and head across the street and into the dining room. The small crowd of locals barely looked up as I hurried through. Mel and Bent gave me a look as I sped by them into the bathroom, but they were used to me. By the time I came back into the dining room, Dan was sitting at a table in the corner, deep in conversation with one of the local fishermen. I guess he hadn’t wanted to eat with me after all. With a twinge of disappointment, I climbed onto my barstool, and Mel slid a plate in front of me. “Not sure I should give this to you, but Bent said he’d already made it and it wouldn’t be right to let it go to waste.”

  “Crab cakes? Whoo hoo! Tell Bent I’m all his if he ever wants to skip out on you.” It was an old joke, and it made Mel laugh. “Why shouldn’t you give it to me? What’d I do?”

  “It’s not what you did, it’s what you will do. Crab cakes always keep you up at night.”

  “True, but what a lovely way to get heartburn. Worth every antacid in the bottle.”

  “Just you remember that when you’re miserable tonight.”

  I dropped my voice to just over a whisper. “Trust me, I’d rather stay up all night with heartburn than have another one of those nightmares.”

  “Apparently Bent agrees because he’s the one who set these aside for you. Those cruisers would have eaten us out of house and home if he hadn’t.”

  “You’re lucky. I barely sold anything today. Say, why do you suppose they’re always so hungry? Don’t they feed people on those ships?”

  “I don’t know, but I hope they stay hungry. We’ll have another mouth to feed next season.”

  “One thing at a time, Mel. I have to get through one more day, then I can close up shop and focus on being the best aunt a baby ever had.”

  Mel smiled at me and put her hand over mine on the counter. “You don’t have to do anything but be yourself, and that’ll be plenty good enough for me.”

  “So what’s Dan talking to Zeke about? Looks serious.”

  “I don’t know, but it can’t be too serious. He told me to serve him up here when his dinner’s ready. Things getting interesting between you two?”

  “Things aren’t getting anything between the two of us. Dan’s just keeping an eye on me because he thinks,” I stopped, remembering the ears that were likely focused on us right now, “well, you know what he thinks. That’s all it is.”

  “Sure.” Mel went back into the kitchen, and I dove into my crab cakes. It’s not fair that they don’t love me as much as I love them, but considering how many I’d eat if I didn’t know I’d be paying for it before morning, it was probably a good thing. The crab had been fresh caught in the bay that morning, and Bent had a way with spices that defied imagination. I would have loved anyone my sister loved, so long as he treated her well, but Bent’s cooking made it easy. It helped that he was a nice guy, but the way to this sister-in-law’s heart had definitely been through my stomach.

  “Crab cakes? How do you rate?” said Dan, sliding onto the stool next to me. First Frank, then Taylor and now Dan. That was definitely not a lucky stool. Maybe I should warn him. We should probably play it safe and sit at a table. Except then the whole town would be marrying us off in the morning.

  “Dad jokes that he and Mom helped open the restaurant because otherwise I would have starved to death.”

  “When’s your dad getting back?”

  “Should be here Thursday morning. Might make it home Wednesday night, but fortunately for the rest of us, they spend the night taking long showers before heading into town.”

  “Rough job, counting moose.”

  “Rougher than you’d think, but probably not as rough as your week’s been.”

  “I’ve had better. I’ve also had worse.”

  “Really? I can’t imagine what’s worse than this.”

  “Let’s keep it that way. I hear you’re not sleeping so well as it is.”

  “Girl can’t have any secrets in this town.” I dropped my voice and leaned my head close to his. “What’s up between you and Zeke?”

  He leaned close to me and matched my whispered tone. “None of your business.”

  I sat up. “Not fair.”

  “Ongoing investigation.”

  “No wonder people eat fast around you.”

  “Now who’s being unfair?”

  “Guilty as charged.” Mel dropped a plate in front of Dan before moving on to serve other tables. “Hey, you got crab cakes! How’d you rate?”

  “I reserved them when I stopped by at lunchtime. I don’t know what he puts in these, but I could eat them every day.”

  “I’m with you, but they wouldn’t be special.”
>
  “I could live with that.”

  “So what’s your story, Dan?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Born and raised in Homer. You were a cop there, I take it?”

  “Yep.”

  “Serve in the military?”

  “Nope, went to the police academy right out of college, then joined the force back home.”

  “Where did you go to college?”

  “Juneau. Criminal Justice.”

  “Then the police academy in Sitka?”

  “It’s the only one there is.”

  “Man, you’re not much for conversation. I’m pulling teeth over here.”

  Dan put down his fork and took a drink of his coffee. I switch to pop after work, but Dan almost always drank coffee. Funny what you learn about someone when you work in a restaurant. I could tell you what foods he liked and how he liked it cooked. I could tell you what he didn’t like and that he is allergic to peanuts, but I couldn’t for the life of me tell you what kind of man he was. “I told you. I’m not much good at conversation.”

  “Okay. I’ll just eat my dinner and stop bothering you.”

  “You’re not bothering me. I just... I’m not very social.”

  “You’re plenty social with the tourists. Just think of me as one of them.”

  “That’s different. I don’t have to see them day in and day out. If I make them mad, or if they get on my nerves, they’re gone by sunset.”

  “So which are you afraid will happen with me?” He didn’t answer. “You don’t have to be anyone other than the person you are, Dan. I just thought that if we’re going to be thrown together for the duration, we may as well get to know each other.”

  “I know you.”

  “I mean something other than the fact that we both like crab cakes.”

  “I know that you broke your leg when you were eleven, jumping out of a tree that anyone with a lick of sense would have known was too high to jump from. I know that you read enough books to stock a library, and you would have opened a book store except cruisers won’t buy books, so you settled on your other love, fine art. I know that you love chocolate, and you have a stash of it in your sock drawer that you think nobody knows about.”

  “How did you know about the chocolate?”

  “I saw it when Ms. Lennon was rifling through things looking for the clothes she’d been wearing.”

  “I was standing right there, Dan. She didn’t look in my sock drawer. Her clothes sure wouldn’t have been there.”

  “I didn’t think so either. That’s why I had my hand on my gun. If you missed her checking the sock drawer, you probably didn’t notice that.”

  “I did, actually. I didn’t know whether that was deliberate or habit, but I wondered about it. What was she looking for in my sock drawer?”

  “I have no idea. She saw me watching her and slammed the drawer shut.”

  “There wasn’t anything in there other than socks when I got dressed the next day.” He raised his eyebrows at me. “Okay, socks and chocolate, but whatever it was, she must have taken it out after you left, when she told me she was going to take a shower.”

  “Did she take a shower?”

  “I heard the water running, but I fell asleep on the couch before she came out. Why would she hide something in my sock drawer? She knows I wear socks.”

  “You have a good point there. Maybe she was putting something into the drawer. Something she didn’t want me to find and didn’t have much time to hide.”

  “If she had something to hide, she wouldn’t have told you that you could have the clothes.”

  “Possibly. She might not have realized I was going to come with her and watch her while she got them.”

  “She did seem angry that night. I thought it was because you thought she killed Frank. I’d be mad if someone thought I killed somebody.” I looked down at my plate. If it weren’t crab cakes, I might have lost my appetite. “I think I liked it better when we weren’t talking about the case.”

  “Hey, you’re the one who told me I only know you liked crab cakes.”

  “Why do you know all this about me anyway?”

  “It’s my job to know about everyone, Cara.”

  “So who else in town is hiding chocolate in their sock drawer?”

  He chuckled. “It’s my job to observe. To listen. To put things together. Part of being a good cop is knowing who you can trust and who you’d better keep an eye on.”

  “And which category do I fall into?”

  “Both at the moment.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “You asked.”

  “So since you’re being so cryptic, let me ask you something else.” I lowered my voice again. “Bent thinks you have people keeping an eye on us. He said it’s so you know we’re safe.”

  “That’s not a question.”

  “You know what my question is.”

  He pushed his empty plate away and leaned back, being careful not to fall off the stool. Mel, who had a knack for keeping an eye on everyone’s meal progress, appeared with two dishes of vanilla ice cream, trading them for our plates, then vanishing into the kitchen again. Dan dipped his spoon into his dish and swirled around the softer edges. “I think you should be on your guard. I don’t think you’re in any great danger, but I don’t know that you’re safe either. Truth is, there’s too much I don’t know right now for me to know anything for certain.”

  “That’s not very reassuring,” I said, picking up my own spoon.

  “I could lie to you.”

  “No, don’t do that. I’ve heard too many lies already. I’d rather have the truth even if I don’t like the sound of it.”

  The room behind us fell silent, and I turned to look. I really have to stop doing that. Taylor was standing in the doorway, looking small and lost and frightened. Instinctively I started to move, but Dan’s voice stopped me. “She’s good, I’ll give her that.”

  Good. As in acting. She looked genuinely distressed, but was it all an act? Had anything ever been true with Taylor? I slid off my stool and took my ice cream into the kitchen. “Taylor’s here,” I said in answer to Mel’s unspoken question.

  She looked at Bent, who put a burger into a to-go box and handed it to her. I leaned on the worktable, eating my ice cream, waiting for Mel to return. It didn’t take her long. She pushed through the kitchen door, worry in every curve of her face. “She’s gone, Cara. Dan too. I think he was going to run her back out to the cabins.”

  “Why was she here?”

  “Why do you think? How else is she gonna eat?”

  “She could buy food like everybody else. There’s a microwave at the cabin.”

  “Which nobody ever uses. Besides, she held out a whole day. She must be starved by now.”

  “It’s hard to have sympathy for someone who might have killed two men.”

  “You don’t think she’s a murderer, and neither do I. She’s not your favorite person right now, and I don’t blame you. I don’t know what to believe with Taylor either, and you know her better than I do, but it’s crazy thinking of her as some kind of siren, luring men to their deaths.”

  “It’s crazy to think that two men have been murdered.”

  “Only one for certain. I still can’t see how Johnny’s death could be anything but an accident.”

  “What did Dan have to say?” asked Bent.

  “Not much. The state lab thinks the mill is the murder scene, but they’ll have to wait until the test results come in to know whether the victim was Frank or Jack.”

  “Or neither. It might be someone else entirely.”

  “Don’t even think that, Bent,” I told him. “My head hurts enough already.”

  “Just saying it’s possible. We don’t know anything for sure yet.”

  “That’s what Dan said.”

  “Well, Dan’s a smart man.”

  “He is a smart man,” agreed Mel, “but is he a good man? If he’s gonna be dating my sister, I need
to know.”

  “Nobody said anything about him dating Cara. When did that happen?”

  “Nobody’s dating anybody,” I said. “It’s Mel’s imagination.”

  “Well, you know what Tammy said. You’re running out of options, Cara.” There was a smile on her face a mile wide.

  I threw a dish towel at her and retreated upstairs to the sound of her laughter. “Yell when you’re ready to close, and maybe I’ll come help.”

  “Where are you going?” Mel popped her head around the corner and looked up the stairs at me.

  “I need a nap.”

  “Antacid’s on your bedside table.”

  “Meanie!” I ducked into the guest room and kicked off my shoes. I lay down on the bed suddenly exhausted. Ten minutes later I found myself reaching for the bottle on the nightstand. Darn Bent, but those crab cakes were worth it.

  Chapter 11

  “That’s it! Cruise ship season is officially over!” I announced to no one in particular. The final customer had left the gallery, and the last tender was loading at the dock. I grabbed my coat and locked the door, joining the other merchants and tour guides on the boardwalk. As soon as the tender arrived at the ship, a cheer went up along the dock. When the ship’s horn sounded as it weighed anchor, music blasted from speakers hauled out from our one and only bar, and the town of Coho Bay celebrated the end of the season. We loved the business the cruise ships brought, and we enjoyed meeting the people who came ashore, but every year when the last ship sailed, we celebrated the sheer pleasure of having our town to ourselves again.

  Every business closed its doors, and residents spilled into the streets for a buoyant block party. If you didn’t eat at Mel’s, I didn’t see you from May until September, so I always looked forward to the end of the season celebration. It was exciting to catch up with friends, to hear the highlights of their summer and share with them what had been happening in my life. If you think not much could happen over a few months in a tiny town, you’ve clearly never been to one of our year-end parties.

  Since it was too cold to be outside after sunset, the crowd edged toward the hall where the united women’s groups of our three little churches were hosting dinner and dancing. All three congregations—Catholic, Russian Orthodox and Assembly of God—used the same building and rotated service times. They came together at least once a month during the winter, hosting events that brightened the endless twilight. This party had become a much-anticipated kickoff to their calendar.