Aunt Margery clucked her tongue. “It’s a crime, that’s what it is.”
“It’s unfair and infuriating, but I wouldn’t call it a crime.”
“You’ll see. He’s trying to drive Quinn out of business. He’s having money problems, obviously. Quinn’s been letting the condition of the boat go. He’s on the edge of going under, financially. Mark my words, as soon as Quinn is out of business—”
“Rents will go back down? It’s a nice thought, Aunt Margery, but I doubt that will happen.”
“So cynical,” Aunt Margery said. “Dory says that the bakery will have trouble, too. At least Ruth will be fine. She’s a sharp one, Ruth.” Aunt Margery shook her head admiringly. “I don’t know how, but she’ll manage to come out on top of this. Mark my words.”
“Jo said that she and Mickey will be fine. They’ll just have to sell more.”
Angie wasn’t in the habit of playing stupid with Aunt Margery, but sometimes she couldn’t help herself. She decided not to bring up the fact that Jo hadn’t been her only visitor that morning.
“Sell more?” Aunt Margery said. “Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie Prouty, you know very well that those two children couldn’t work harder if their livelihoods depended on it. Which they do.”
“Necessity is the mother of invention,” Angie said. She hated being reminded of her full name; it was too cute for words, and she knew that her great-aunt was only doing it to bait her.
“‘Invention, in my opinion, arises directly from idleness, possibly also from laziness. To save oneself trouble.’”
It was an Agatha Christie quote, from her autobiography, which Aunt Margery seemed to have memorized by heart.
She added, “I don’t see how those children can be expected to invent anything at the pace they’re going. Driven, yes. Sustainable, no.”
“They’ll figure something out,” Angie said.
“Speak of the devil,” Aunt Margery murmured.
A tall shape topped by a blaze of bobbing blond hair loped past the window and appeared at the doorway: Mickey Jerritt, Jo’s twin. Even aside from Jo’s choice in hair colors, the two could hardly look less alike. Mickey Jerritt had been made to be a professional basketball player and he would have been, too—MVP three consecutive years of high school, the highest scorer on the team, he took them to the state championships, college scouts circled him like vultures—until senior year when he landed on his ankle and shattered it. The whole town prayed it would heal, and it did, but imperfectly. And then to everyone’s amazement, except perhaps his mother’s, he had a love of baked goods, and not just eating them; he channeled all his grief into a mixing bowl—flour, sugar, butter, vanilla—the unlikely hero of high-school Home Ec. It was almost something to laugh at, if only it didn’t make everyone want to cry so hard, too.
Angie waved at him. They’d dated during that tumultuous senior year. Mickey was sweet, not arrogant like you’d expect from a high school all star (even a fallen one); but blueberry muffins and pastries only offered so much solace, and when he couldn’t realize his own dream, he turned his focus on Angie’s. Set to be salutatorian of their class, she didn’t need her boyfriend, of all people, telling her what to do to get into Brown, or Princeton, or Harvard, and how she was falling short. Her eighteen-year old self tried to understand what he was going through, but when he told her to stop reading so much, because it distracted her from schoolwork and college applications, she knew their love was not meant to be.
Now they were friends, if for no other reason than because it would have been more awkward not to be, but also because Mickey had his hands full keeping his business above water that he wasn’t constantly trying to fix her. He had the kind of restless mind that never slowed down.
He entered the bookstore, ducking under the lintel and shaking his head. “Did you hear the news?”
“Jo told me,” Angie said.
“It’s terrible. Hello, Aunt Margery. Have you had breakfast? Would you like me to bring you up something from the bakery?”
Aunt Margery fought to keep a straight face. “I’m fine, dear.”
“Just terrible,” Mickey repeated, looking around the bookstore. His eye fixed on the well-lit pastry case; he took a corner of his white apron and wiped a fingerprint off the glass. “Some of those pastries aren’t the best looking. I could bring some that look better.”
“These are good,” Angie said.
“It’s no problem.”
“I know…but you have a lot of work to do. Tell you what, if I get low, I’ll come over and pick some out.”
“Okay. I’ll hold the good ones back for you.” At six feet, five inches, his earnestness was disarming. It practically made Angie blush. “I won’t lie, Angie, things are going to be tight. If only Snuock weren’t such a miser. At least then I’d know that my money was out having fun. As it is, it’s going to get bored. Nothing to do, sitting in a bank like that.”
Angie smiled. “I’m sure that eventually it’ll go out and have adventures.”
“Yes, but I was planning to go spelunking in Chile in January. What kind of adventures is Snuock going to take it on? Subprime mortgage investments? I feel like this is all some kind of game to him—who can I make grovel? Dance, slave! Dance!”
Fortunately, the only two customers were at the back of the store, chatting flirtatiously with each other—it probably would have taken a gun going off to distract them.
“Mickey…”
“I know, I know. Business hours. I just needed to rant to someone who wasn’t going to encourage me. Jo just eggs me on. ‘I could just kill the guy!’ and all that.”
Angie shook her head. “If you’re coming to me as the voice of sanity, you’re seriously low on sanity.”
“Nah. I don’t think so.” He winked at her and combed his fingers through his hair. “Don’t forget, come and see me if you need more pastries. I want to make sure the good ones go to good homes. Stomachs, that is.”
“I will.”
“All right then, see you later.”
Back out the door he went, hitting his forehead on the lintel. Fortunately for him, enough people had hit their heads there that Angie had fastened a foam bumper to it. Some of the buildings around here had been around long enough that the doors were smaller than most people were used to.
Aunt Margery was shaking her head. “That boy. He’s been like that since he was born. Can’t slow down…and can’t shut up.”
“It’s kind of endearing, don’t you think?”
Aunt Margery raised her eyebrows.
Angie cracked her neck, checked the coffee, poured herself a cup, and said, “I’m going to finish sorting the delivery books for this afternoon. Will you be all right up here?”
“Certainly.”
Aunt Margery was looking out the front windows; one of her friends, Ruth Hepsabeth (who was also the owner of the antique shop next door) was passing by. Aunt Margery walked over to the front door and greeted her friend affectionately. The two of them chatted companionably just inside. Ruth wore a Bohemian-style skirt with a large, flowing blouse and about a dozen necklaces. She always looked like some sort of fortune-teller or New Age witch, but was sharp as a tack when it came to selling things on the Internet. Angie had gone to her for advice before.
“Quinn? Oh, he’s in an absolute fury,” Ruth was saying.
Aunt Margery smiled a wicked little grin. Captain Parfait stood up, stretched, then hopped off his shelf by the window to curl around Ruth’s ankles. His tail curled like a question mark. Ruth bent over and picked up the cat, cuddling him into one arm as she scratched his ears and under his chin. The worse the gossip, the more Captain Parfait seemed to crave petting and affection from the gossipers—and Ruth Hepsabeth was a terrible gossip.
The two flirting lovebirds at the back of the store were still deep in conversation, pulling books off bookshelves and handing them to each other; they both had a sizable stack next to them on one of the small tables Angie had scattered th
roughout the store for such an occasion. It might be hours before they noticed there was nobody at the till…
Angie stepped into the stockroom, leaving the door cracked open, just in case. After opening the third of her book boxes, she made a face: Snuock’s books had come in, and she was going to have to deliver them, or risk her rent going up even further.
Who knew what level Snuock might stoop to if he didn’t get his books?
Chapter 2
Special Delivery
The road out to Alexander Snuock’s mansion was a long and winding one, about five miles from the bookstore, just off Polpis Road. The last stretch was one of the few hills on Nantucket—and of course she always had to pedal it with a basket full of books! But the ride was a beautiful one, most of it on a well-maintained bike path, away from cars. On rainy or winter days, she would take her small VW Golf out onto the roads, but for the most part she preferred to ride. Even on days like today with a half-dozen heavy deliveries to make, people to chat with, dogs to admire, and orders to take.
Today, however, she found her legs pedaling slower and slower as she approached her final destination.
She still wanted to give Snuock a piece of her mind…but knew that wouldn’t be wise.
Finally, she turned off Polpis Road and onto the driveway leading to Snuock Hill and the house that everyone on the island called “Snuock Manor.” She stood up on the pedals and forced the bike forward, whether it wanted to or not.
She couldn’t afford to lose Snuock as a client, let alone as a landlord. She could be civil. She could be courteous. She could be…
In what seemed like a split second, she had passed through the gatehouse and was at the front door of Snuock Manor, an enormous shake-sided building that sprawled around a long, circular loop of driveway. Discreetly tucked around the back of the house were lines of trees, a caretaker’s lodge (complete with a barn), several guest cottages, and a horse paddock that was carefully mowed, but completely absent of horses. The back of the house opened onto the smaller Polpis harbor, overlooking waves, sky, and sailboats scudding around like birds.
Alexander Snuock’s maid, Valerie, opened the door for her.
“Hello, Ms. Prouty. Mr. Snuock is expecting you. If you’ll follow me?”
The two of them weren’t friends, but Valerie usually wasn’t as formal as this. Then again, Angie didn’t usually deliver books on days in which a significant portion of the business owners on Nantucket Island had received large rent increases. The day might have been a bit tense around the mansion.
The inside of the house was light and airy, and caught the breeze off the water. The long curtains across some of the windows danced in graceful arcs. Valerie led Angie through the front room—a gigantic parlor overlooked by a wide balcony—and up a curving set of stairs that led to Snuock’s study, a pale yellow room with white trim, decorated with oil paintings of boats sitting low in flat, almost unrippled water. His desk was under a small cupola roof; each hexagonal wall in the cupola had its own window, all facing the harbor. A model sailboat sat on the row of cupboards along the lower half of the wall. Underneath it was an antique silver pistol, very rococo…Angie clucked her tongue. No doubt it was a purchase made to accentuate the future display of his new books.
Alexander Snuock sat behind the desk, going over some paperwork. He wasn’t the kind of man to sit around and do nothing, even though he could afford that luxury—he could literally fill a bathtub with gold coins and do nothing for the rest of his life.
As usual, he smiled when he saw her.
He had a pleasant sort of face, with laugh lines around the eyes, thinning gray hair that was so smooth it looked like silk as it lay delicately on top of his head, and rounded shoulders. He had eyebrows so pale that they disappeared into his skin, and dimples on his cheeks.
He looked like a nice guy. That was the problem. But the pleasant look on his face could vanish in an instant. He could frown and make Angie quake in her sneakers. He could wink and make you feel repulsed—or charmed. It was an actor’s face. It made you want to keep him happy, just so you didn’t have to get an eyeful of his bad side.
“Ms. Prouty. You’ve brought my books, yes?”
“I have.” Blue skies or no blue skies, she wrapped up all her customers’ purchases in several layers, both to keep the purchases discreet and to protect them from the elements. She hadn’t grown up on the island for nothing, to trust the weather to stay the same from one minute to the next.
Snuock could easily have afforded to purchase his books online; he could just as easily have afforded to purchase her entire store. What he liked, though, was having people wait on him hand and foot, using their time and expertise and attention. Putting them in positions where they owed him favors.
She had known, long before Aunt Margery had warned her, to treat Alexander Snuock with kid gloves. She had grown up around here, after all—and Alexander Snuock’s father had been just as tyrannical as his son.
She shook her head: time to focus, not woolgather. Snuock cleared a place on his desk, and she lay the package on top of it. It was tied with heavy string, and the outer layer was heavy plastic. Snuock took out a gold paper knife, cut the string, and opened the package along the taped edges. As he unwrapped it, he handed each piece to Angie, who folded it neatly and set it on the countertop next to her.
Finally the stack of books was revealed. Snuock glanced at the titles and beamed at her. “These look delightful.”
This time, he had asked her for at least four books on the history of Russia before World War I and the Communist Revolution—the time of Peter and Catherine the Great, and Ivan the Terrible. He had a taste for histories by historians with a dry sense of humor, and was a voracious reader; the stack of books she had brought him would occupy him for a week or two, but not much more. He tended to avoid novels; they passed by too quickly for him to get truly involved in them, he claimed.
He picked up the book at the top of the stack—The Romanovs, 1613-1918, by Simon Sebang Montefiore, and flipped it to a random page. “‘When she went looking, she surprised Korsakov in flagrante delicto with Countess Bruce. In the resulting uproar, Korsakov had the impertinence to boast of his sexual antics with both women while demanding munificent gifts…Korsakov’s affair ruined Catherine’s friendship with Countess Bruce.’ I should say it did. Did you notice my little purchase? One of a pair of presentation pistols from 1809, from Alexander I to…I don’t remember. One of the Zubovs? At any rate, thank you for bringing these to me so soon, it has been a most trying day.”
Angie’s mouth fell open. Had the man completely forgotten that she was one of the business owners who was being heavily affected by his “trying day”?
“I’m sure it has been,” she said. “What with so many of your tenants coming to you to complain of their sudden increase in tribute.”
Rent. She had meant to say rent. But it was so hard to stay sane and tactful when one was within arm’s reach of the Russians.
Snuock’s faint eyebrows popped upward.
“It’s been a trying day for all of us.”
He squinted at her. “If I remember correctly, you came here from the McCory and Hiddle investment firm in Manhattan, as one of their more intelligent and savvy analysts. Oh, yes,” he smiled at her surprised response. “I remember checking up on you when you applied for the lease on the shop. The previous owner of the store had gone out of business due to several unsound business practices, and I wanted to make sure that the literary community on the island would be supported by someone who wasn’t such a…flake. You know how I feel about books. I wanted someone solid, and you are that.”
When she didn’t answer—what could she say? —he continued: “I repeat that I have no doubt that you, Ms. Prouty, aren’t in the least bit of danger of losing your business. You have consistently kept expenses low, goodwill high, and provided what feels like an irreplaceable service to those of us who want to be kept in the books we love without the bother of hav
ing to look for them. You aren’t in any danger.”
“So this is about getting rid of Raymond Quinn,” she said.
A sly smirk spread alongside half of his face. “Rumors do fly.”
“But the bakery?” she asked.
“What about it?”
She didn’t answer.
He looked down at his book, flipped a page back and forth, then said, without looking up, “Even if they’re too proud to have anything to do with me, the Nantucket Bakery could easily be supported by the mother of the current owners, if they find themselves in trouble that they can’t handle on their own, and you know it.”
“But they are too proud.”
Snuock grimaced. “As absurd as that sounds, I know how it is. The old families…we are proud, you know.”
Both the Snuocks and the Proutys had been on the island for two hundred years or more—so had the Jerritts and the Earles, which were Jo and Mickey’s mother’s side of the family. Which family he was referring to, Angie had no idea.
“Can’t you take it easy on them?”
“That would hardly be fair, would it? Now, if they were willing to do me some favors, I might find it worth my time to work out a reduction in rent.”
“What kind of favors?”
“Tell them that if they’re willing to swallow their pride, I’m sure we can come up with something.”
Angie felt her face getting red. “And if I were to do you favors?”
Snuock’s sly smile broadened as he looked down at his stack of books. “Aren’t you already doing me a favor?”
Suddenly the time that Angie had spent searching for just the right collection of perfect books for her landlord felt sullied—almost dirty. She found herself making a face.
“Don’t worry,” Snuock said, ringing a small bell. “I won’t ask anything of either of them that I wouldn’t ask of you, ethically speaking. A catered event or two…it might be advantageous in more ways than one. You know I praise you to the moon to all my visitors from the City? ‘You simply must stop by Pastries and Page-Turners. You know that the owner used to work with old Hiddle in Manhattan? Really, she has a brilliance for picking out the perfect book…”
Crime and Nourishment_A Cozy Mystery Novel Page 2