Crime and Nourishment_A Cozy Mystery Novel

by Miranda Sweet

  “All we need now is to be serenaded by a Spanish guitar player while we eat,” Walter joked.

  She appreciated his effort, but then he fell silent. Angie tried to start a conversation several times, but he kept giving one-word answers. Not a night for witty banter. She tried to give him some silence.

  “I’m sorry, I’m terrible company,” he said finally. “But I appreciate your coming here and feeding me. I’ve been eating these amazing B&B breakfasts…then frozen dinners for the other meals. But…”

  He went silent again, swallowing several times.

  “My mother isn’t taking it well,” he said. “In fact the reason that I’m at the B&B is that she kicked me out of her house. She says it was all my fault that Father died.”

  “How on earth could she possibly think that?”

  “She says that if I hadn’t been here, on the island, he never would have let that burglar into the house.”

  The lack of logic infuriated Angie, as well as Phyllis’s gall to blame her only son. “That makes no sense whatsoever.”

  “I know. But that’s my mom for you.”

  “What?” said Angie “The burglar was pretending to be you? And what makes her so sure it was a burglar? What did the burglar steal? I’m sorry, Walter, but I think whoever killed your father went over there with the intent to do it.”

  She hated when she got this way. Her nosy know-it-all self couldn’t help but come forth when everyone was dancing around the crime and coming up with half-baked theories instead of really thinking it through.

  Walter’s eyes seemed to sink deeper into his face.

  “I’m sorry, Walter,” Angie said. “It’s bad enough you have to deal with your father’s death. I just feel, well, strangely protective of you.”

  He nodded and gave her a genuine smile. “I appreciate that.”

  The wind kicked up white caps in the ocean. They looked like small hands waving at them.

  “Did you ever find her that night?” Angie asked.

  He looked at her. “I’m not supposed to talk about anything even remotely important, even to you. Lawyer’s orders.”

  A car drove up to the front of the B&B. Angie turned around to look at it. A police cruiser. Walter sighed and finished off the rest of his bottle of beer, then stood up. “I better be going.”

  “Going?”

  “I have a feeling that cop car’s for me.”

  “Why?”

  He didn’t answer her, only walked back down the hill with his hands in the pockets of his jeans.

  The two police officers had gone inside. By the time Walter reached the bottom of the hill, they had come back out again and were walking his way.

  They asked him his name and he nodded.

  “You’re under arrest for the murder of Alexander Snuock. You have the right to remain silent…’

  One of the officers padded him down and put handcuffs on him. The other one held open the door as Walter climbed in.

  Walter didn’t look back at her until he was in the back of the car and the police were turning around in the parking lot. Then he looked at her, and the three of them drove away.

  She suddenly felt overexposed on the small hill with the darkening sky as open as a gaping mouth. She wrapped her arms around herself. If she had had to put a word to the expression on his face, it would have been resigned.

  Chapter 7

  Yo Ho Ho and a Bottle of Rum

  She drove back into town feeling lonely and disoriented. She went home and paced the house for a while, then to the bookstore. Aunt Margery had been thorough. There wasn’t much she could even pretend to do other than paperwork, and she just wasn’t in the mood for that.

  She tried to pet Captain Parfait but he shook her off. His ears were back and he was stalking something in the children’s book section.

  She called Jo, but the call went straight to voice mail. Mickey, on the other hand, had the decency to answer his phone.

  “Hypothetically,” he said without saying hello, “how would you make a child’s Halloween cake in such a way that you wouldn’t freak out any children.”

  Still obsessing about Halloween cakes. Angie shook her head. “No spiders.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  “Pretty sure.”

  “Blood?”

  “Nope. No blood, either. Skeletons are okay.”

  “But—”

  “Mickey.”

  “Ahhh, okay.” She could practically hear the wind being let out of his sails. “When’s the last time you saw Walter?”

  “Mickey.”

  “Is it because he’s rich? Is that the attraction?”

  “Don’t.”

  “I can’t help it.”

  “Well try.” She looked out her storefront window. The street lamps glowed against the dark. Damn Jo and her big mouth. “We’re friends, right?”

  “Yeah. Friends…You really called for Jo didn’t you?”

  “I cannot tell a lie. Where is she?”

  “At Mom’s. Or so she says.”

  “So she says?”

  “She doesn’t normally go over to Mom’s, even if they were fighting and just made up.”

  “So she’s somewhere else?”

  “Who knows. I don’t keep tabs on them,” he said.

  She heard voices in the background. “Where are you?”

  “Me? At Sheldon’s.”

  “What are you doing over there?”

  “There’s some kind of mini-business association meeting going on. In other words, the Snuock renters are over here debating whether they’re going to—” He broke off. “It’s Angie, that’s who.” Another pause. “I know we’re not supposed to talk about Walter Snuock, but is it true he just got—”

  She could hear a shout in the background; another voice shouted back then several others. It sounded as if a riot were about to start.

  Over the noise, Mickey shouted, “Angie, can you hear me? I think you better come over and put a couple of minds at ease. As much as you can, anyway.”

  She heard the sound of breaking glass. Well, whatever else this evening was turning into, at least it wouldn’t be lonely.

  #

  Sheldon nervously greeted her at the door. “Welcome, welcome. So glad to see you. You do know what happened to Walter, don’t you?”

  “He’s been arrested,” she said shortly.

  “For…the murder of his father?”

  “Yes. I was there and heard the officer say that.”

  Sheldon shook his head then guided her inside. “If you’d say a few words to everyone…you don’t happen to know whether Walter’s going to keep that cursed rental increase in place?”

  “He was so upset when I saw him that I couldn’t make myself ask. I don’t think he could have answered anyway.”

  Sheldon patted her on the arm.

  The inside of the restaurant was packed with locals; the noise had apparently driven away all the tourists. Angie saw a flash of green hair next to the bar.

  “Jo!” she shouted. Mickey was standing next to her. When he spotted Angie looking at him, he pointed to the top of Jo’s head and shook his head while mouthing something. Whatever he hoped to get across was lost on her.

  Jo put up a finger, knocked back a shot of whiskey, and banged the glass down on the bar. “Another, bartender!”

  Nobody was at the bar.

  But the gigantic figure of Raymond Quinn was standing in front of it. He towered over everyone else in the room, his gray hair pulled back in a ponytail and his beard spread wildly over his plaid shirt.

  “That bastard tried to steal everything from me,” Quinn said, too loudly. If Angie had had to guess, she would have said he was a little drunk. “My boats, my women, my dogs, my cigarettes. There wasn’t anything of mine that that bastard could leave alone!”

  “Hear, hear!” Jo shouted.

  As Sheldon brought Angie up to the bar, Jo shouted, “Another, bartender!”

  “I think that’
s enough for the both of you,” Sheldon said. “Any more and you’ll be setting my chairs on fire again.”

  Surprisingly, Quinn turned red. “That was an accident.”

  “You were drunk on purpose though,” Sheldon said primly.

  Angie looked around for Sheldon’s wife, but she was nowhere to be seen, she must have beat a hasty retreat.

  Most of the people around here were fishermen and tour boat operators. The rest were shop owners that weren’t part of Aunt Margery’s set. If the rent increases went through, more than just Jo and Mickey would be hurt.

  Sheldon said, “What would you like, my dear?”

  She wasn’t about to start drinking in this crowd. “A ginger ale, please.”

  “That’s not a real man’s drink,” Jo announced.

  “No hair on my chest, thanks.” Angie had to raise her voice to be heard above the rest of the small crowd. “What’s up with you tonight? Everything okay?”

  Jo stuck out her tongue and blew a raspberry, then beat her hand on the bar top.

  Sheldon went around to the other side and poured a pair of ginger ales. Jo tried to knock hers back like whiskey and ended up coughing it out her nose.

  Angie sipped hers calmly and watched Raymond Quinn’s raucous performance.

  “He pushed us all too hard,” Quinn was saying. “Even his own son! The reason that Walter murdered his father—”

  Sheldon, who had climbed up on a stool behind the bar, put two fingers in his mouth and let out a piercing whistle. “That’s enough!”

  The room went mostly silent but for the shuffle of feet. Quinn had a defiant look on his face; he opened his mouth, but when Sheldon shot him a hard look he closed it.

  “Don’t you think it’s a little early to start analyzing the motives for a murder when the police haven’t announced whether Alexander Snuock was murdered or not yet?” Sheldon glared around the room.

  Angie got the feeling that Quinn didn’t agree with him, but had realized that he couldn’t push Sheldon any further without getting kicked out for the night. Quinn’s face was a storm of passing emotions.

  “And here we have Miss Angie to tell us exactly what’s going on,” Sheldon said. “So there’s no need to shout about what might have happened…when we have someone who can tell us what actually happened.”

  Oh, lovely.

  Angie said, “I don’t know—”

  Several people shouted, “I can’t hear her!” at the same time. “She’s too short!”

  Mickey, and Raymond Quinn helped her onto one of the barstools. Wonderful. Just wonderful. She put her hand on Quinn’s shoulder to help her balance. Mickey was taller, but Quinn was definitely sturdier.

  Everyone looked at her.

  She cleared her throat. “I don’t know much.”

  “Tell us what you do know,” Jo said.

  “Walter has been arrested,” she said. Before they could all start talking again, she added, “He didn’t say anything about the rent. I didn’t have a chance to ask.”

  “Are you dating him?”

  Jo wasn’t the one who asked, but her eyes twinkled with the most mischief.

  “We went on a date here once and I’ve fed him twice since then, but I wouldn’t call them dates,” Angie said.

  “So you’re dating him.”

  She sighed. “Not exclusively.”

  “Who else are you dating?”

  “Nobody!”

  She was starting to lose her temper.

  “How long have you known him?”

  “Since kindergarten!”

  The room erupted in an uproar. She climbed down off the stool and sat on it, and drank her ginger ale with a mixture of angry humiliation.

  The crowd seemed to have settled a little. Even though she hadn’t been able to tell them much, they seemed relieved. They broke up into smaller groups and drifted away from the bar, back to their tables.

  Sheldon had climbed down, too. He leaned forward across the bar, standing on tiptoe: “Thanks, Angie.”

  “I didn’t do anything.”

  He patted her hand. Raymond Quinn stood up from his stool and said, “Alexander Snuock deserved to die, and you all know it. The man wasn’t part of the community. He could do nothing but take, and take, and take. The only reason he hasn’t taken everything away from all of us is that he hadn’t found a way to do it.”

  Sheldon said, “You’d best lower your voice, Raymond, or you’ll have to take yourself out of the bar.”

  “Oh, I’m taking myself out of the bar all right,” Quinn said. “No need to worry about that. But you can’t take the truth out of the bar. Snuock deserved to die. End of story.”

  He picked up his empty glass and tried to drink out of it, then set it down with dignity and walked out the door.

  The men at the tables exchanged serious looks.

  Sheldon said, “All right, last call. And I’m serious about this.”

  After Quinn’s comments, no one seemed interested in another drink. The room cleared quickly as Sheldon ran credit cards.

  Angie, Jo, and Mickey bussed tables. All three of them had worked in restaurants around the island during their teen years and knew what to do. In a few minutes they had the dining room cleared. Sheldon sat down at one of the booths with his legs stuck out in front of him. “What a night.”

  The three of them walked out to the parking lot; it had rained, briefly, while they were inside.

  “If the police weren’t sure that it was murder, then they wouldn’t have arrested Walter for it,” Angie said.

  Jo said, “They must have changed their minds since yesterday.”

  “What was up with you tonight anyway?” asked Angie.

  Jo chose to ignore the question. “You know, when they found him, there was just him and a gun in the room. What were they supposed to think, but that it was suicide? Only I heard that the forensics chick convinced them that the angle was wrong and that he probably hadn’t shot himself.”

  “Were there powder burns?” Mickey asked.

  “I didn’t hear.”

  “Jo,” Angie said. “Don’t try to distract me with clues. This is more important. Are you okay? Why haven’t you been answering your phone?”

  Jo brushed a hand across the top of her car then sat on the hood. “I found out something else that was pretty spectacular.”

  “Jo.”

  “I wasn’t with my mother on Thursday night,” Jo said. “Okay? I knew that you figured it out. Mom couldn’t keep her story straight…she said that Ruth bugged her about it and realized that you must have figured it out.”

  “Where were you?” Angie asked.

  “With someone.”

  “Who?”

  “Just…someone,” Jo said, running her hands through her hair. “A tourist, okay? It was a one-night stand.”

  “Wow. Uh…”

  “I got his name, I’m just not telling it to you. It’s not going to be a thing, all right? So don’t start carving my name on trees with someone I’ve only seen once. And don’t blame Mom. She was trying to cover up for me.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because…” Jo clacked her jaws shut. “I was embarrassed.”

  Angie said, “You’re my best friend.”

  Mickey said, “All right. I’ll get out of here so you can do the girl talk thing.”

  “Thanks, Mickey,” Angie said.

  “No problem. In fact, you don’t even need to consider it a favor.” He climbed in his car and took off.

  Angie sat on the car hood next to her friend. Jo leaned against her shoulder.

  “Dating,” Angie said. “What fun.”

  “I know, right?”

  “Wanna tell me about it?” Angie asked.

  “You first.”

  “It wasn’t much of an adventure,” Angie warned her. “He was too upset.” She started telling Jo about her picnic with Walter that ended with him in the back of a police cruiser.

  “And he just went
with them?” Jo interrupted. “Like that? As they pulled up?”

  “Yes. It was like he was expecting it.”

  “I don’t know what that means, but it doesn’t make him look innocent,” Jo said.

  “I guess not. On the other hand, he seemed too washed out and exhausted to look guilty.”

  “I don’t know,” Jo said, giving Angie a wry look. “Feeling guilty can really wear you out.”

  Angie took that as a hint that she was ready to talk. “Tell me all about it.”

  Jo sighed. “It seems like such a cliché. The woman with the bright green hair and the punk with the mohawk.”

  They had met down on the beach that afternoon, while Angie had been delivering books to Snuock’s mansion on the other side of the island. The two of them had gone to Sheldon’s, and had left just before Angie and Walter had arrived, then they’d gone to Jo’s apartment.

  “Did he spend the night?”

  “No,” Jo said. “He stayed pretty late, but…he had to go. He had to get back to Boston before noon.”

  “How late did he stay?”

  “Five a.m.”

  Angie rolled her eyes. “Then he stayed all night.”

  “We were just listening to old records most of the time…” Jo lay back against the windshield. “You know, I used to be pretty wild.”

  “ I know.” Angie chuckled.

  “But this is the first time that I’ve done anything like this.”

  “Do you have his number?”

  “I do, but I’m not going to call him.”

  “Not even to text him?”

  “Not while he’s at work!”

  Angie leaned back so she was beside Jo, the two of them looked at the stars above the streetlights. “Love,” she said.

  “I’m not in love,” said Jo.

  “I’m not either…I’m just thinking about it.”

  “Oh. What?”

  “That it’s been a long time since I felt anything even remotely romantic for anyone.”

  “Since your unmentionable ex. You like Walter?”

  “I do.” It felt good to admit it to Jo.

  They kept their eyes on the night sky. A satellite passed overhead.

  Chapter 8