Curses, Boiled Again!

by Shari Randall

  “And Megan.” Verity hunched forward and imitated Megan’s short, quick, tentative steps.

  “So they left early.”

  “Yeah, they probably figured they’d need a good night’s sleep before the food festival.”

  “Okay.” I fast-forwarded again. “Kahuna’s closes at midnight. Staff cleans up. Everyone leaves.” The last car left the parking lot.

  “Now what?”

  I pressed play. “We watch.” My stomach growled. “I hope it goes fast.”

  Part of me hoped I’d see Finella Farraday posting the sign. Wouldn’t that be a treat for her yacht club friends?

  Ten minutes of hazy footage later a car pulled into the parking lot. A sports car.

  “Look!” Verity said.

  A stocky figure got out of the car carrying a large poster board. He hurried to the Kahuna’s sign. Within moments he hung the poster board and jumped back into the car. The car rocketed out of the parking lot and up Pearl Street.

  “Heading to the Mermaid,” I murmured. “He lied. He said he came down early the day of the food festival, but there he was the night before.”

  “That was Chick Costa,” Verity said. “Even grainy, you could tell. Not Finella, sorry.”

  “Yup.”

  “Chick Costa is a lobster libber? A guy who owns his own lobster shack?”

  I clicked off the TV. “A fake lobster libber.” I thought of the way he’d pressured Megan. “Do you think he made the signs to throw suspicion onto lobster libbers? Megan would poison the rolls but the signs would make police think the libbers were responsible?”

  “Does that mean he sent the letters to Aunt Gully?” Verity asked.

  “I don’t know how he could’ve done that from Chatham. But who else would? Megan Moss? And what about the paint? He didn’t make the red X.”

  Verity took the remote from my hands. “Maybe he went back later. We’re not going to find out tonight. Let’s get to your aunt’s and gorge ourselves. We’ll come back.”

  Chapter 37

  Aunt Gully and I exchanged stories of our police interviews and celebrated our freedom with a delicious dinner: lazy man’s lobster, lobster mixed with seasoned bread crumbs and baked golden brown under the broiler; green salad; potato salad; and a lemon tart from the Tick Tock.

  Hector and Hilda and a line of well-wishing neighbors and friends streamed in and out of Gull’s Nest until Lorel shooed them away.

  “Aunt Gully needs her rest.” Lorel acting like a mother hen? What happened to my big-shot executive sister?

  “Beauty sleep, right, sis?” Dad teased. He was on Skype with Aunt Gully.

  “How the police could think you two were guilty! Ridiculous!” Esmeralda’s lovely round face leaned in to the camera.

  My dad beamed behind Esmeralda. He’d bought my explanation that I’d spoken to the police. Technically true. Nobody had the heart to tell him I’d eluded the police all day. Dad looked relieved. Esmeralda kept a protective hand on his arm. Perhaps it was good that he had her, even if her theatrical mannerisms drove me crazy.

  “Besos. Besos.” She threw us kisses. The air was so festive in Aunt Gully’s little dining room, Lorel and I threw besos right back at the woman who stole our dad away. Even for just four months, it was too long. I couldn’t wait until Dad returned.

  I escorted Aunt Gully up to her claw-foot bathtub and started running the water. “In, young lady.”

  “I’m not fighting tonight,” Aunt Gully said. I poured her lavender-scented bath crystals and hung her powder-blue chenille robe on the hook by the bathtub.

  “My lazy mermaid.” She shook her head. “Allie, I just want the police to find the person who did these terrible things. Poor Ernie Moss! Do you think the same person poisoned the rolls and then beat up Ernie?”

  “No idea, Aunt Gully.”

  She took her Maeve Binchy novel from the shelf, then put it back, and pulled down another.

  “This is a Nora Roberts night.” She closed the door.

  I joined Verity and Lorel in the kitchen.

  “I thought you said the police searched the house?” Verity said. “Don’t they usually make a mess? This place looks even cleaner than usual.”

  “Aggie watched the whole thing from her kitchen window. When the police left, she and a bunch of neighbors came over and tidied up.” Lorel closed the dishwasher.

  “We’ll have to do the same at the Mermaid tomorrow,” I said. “They’ll let us open tomorrow, right?”

  Lorel shook her head. “I spoke to Coach Brooks. Chief Brooks.” She rolled her eyes. “He said he’ll check in tomorrow morning. The crime lab people had to finish processing the scene where Ernie was injured.”

  “What about the car and boat at the end of the dock?” Verity said.

  “Hugh and Megan’ll need to hire a crane to recover the boat and the car,” Lorel said. “I imagine their insurance will cover it. Better not be ours. It’ll cost a fortune.”

  “Maybe the police will raise the car,” I said. “It’s evidence.”

  Lorel pulled out her phone. “Maybe. I’ll call Chief Brooks now.”

  With all the business we’d missed, the Lazy Mermaid was hardly making money. “I hope we’re open while the crane’s at work. We’ll have crowds that’ll want to watch that.”

  Lorel’s eyebrows rose. “Good point, Allie. I can get word out on social media.”

  Verity put her arm around Lorel. “Lorel, why don’t you just hang with us tonight? We’re going to have a Contessa Wells Memorial Film Festival.”

  “We are?” I laughed.

  “Yes, we’re going to watch The Gypsy’s Daughter,” Verity said.

  “Have I seen that?” Lorel said.

  “Probably,” I said, “I’ve watched that campfire dance scene a million times.”

  Lorel shook her head.

  “You haven’t seen it?” Verity put her hands on her hips. “It’s just one of the most famous dances on film.”

  “Contessa played Adalia, a Gypsy girl who falls in love with a prince disguised as a traveling musician,” I said. “He falls for her as she performs her Gypsy dance. The high point is when she does this amazing bunch of spins in a circle around the campfire.”

  Verity started spinning wildly. I joined in, my precise tight turns contrasting with Verity’s wild circles, until my ankle told me to stop. I perched on the countertop.

  Verity stumbled into the table, upsetting a basket of Lazy Mermaid aprons. “Whoa, dizzy. I don’t know how you do that, Allie.”

  I laughed. “And the crazy thing is, Contessa does the whole thing spinning to the left.”

  “So? Is that a big deal?” Lorel asked.

  “We train to spin both ways, but usually people favor one side or another. Most people, and I’m one, are more comfortable spinning to the right. Clockwise. Contessa did all her spins to the left, counterclockwise.”

  “Like a goofy foot surfer?” Verity put the aprons back in the basket.

  “Kinda, yeah.”

  “Then what happens?” Lorel said.

  “Her frenemy Rosalia’s consumed by jealousy,” I said. “She watches Adalia do this amazing dance, sees the prince totally fall for her.”

  Lorel grinned and leaned back against the sink.

  As Verity and I hummed the music, I slid off the counter. My arms traced serpentine shapes in the air, my wrists turning, playing pretend castanets, as I remembered Adalia’s dance. It was magic, the way Contessa’s body had painted gorgeous shapes in the air to the Gypsy guitar soundtrack.

  Verity spun around. “And just when it can’t get any more smoking hot, you just want to swoon, she ends with that cool pose.”

  We both flung our right arms up, our left hand on our hip, heads tossed back. Lorel clapped.

  “The camera zooms in on Adalia’s earrings, an expensive gift from the prince pretending to be a traveling musician,” I said.

  “And when Adalia’s returning from a secret meeting with the prince. Woo-ho
o!” Verity crowed.

  “What? What happens?” Lorel said.

  “Rosalia jumps out of the shadows and rips one of the earrings from Adalia’s ears and pushes her into the campfire!” I said.

  Verity spun by me. I pretended to rip the earring from her ear. She fake shrieked, clutched her ear, and fell onto a kitchen chair, writhing in pretend pain.

  “She should have gotten an Oscar for the role,” I said.

  “It wasn’t really acting.” Verity got up, clutching her lower back.

  “What?” Lorel asked.

  “I read it on a movie Web site. Contessa was working on that film with her sister, Juliet.”

  “Juliet, the crazy sister that Contessa took care of?” Lorel’s eyes were wide.

  “Yeah, she’s still in the house at Rabb’s Point,” I said. “Juliet played Rosalia. Well, Juliet was supposed to pull off a stunt earring that would break away easily—”

  Lorel’s hand flew to her ear. “Oh my God, are you telling me—”

  Verity’s eyes glittered. “Yep. Juliet ripped Contessa’s pierced earring right out of her ear. Contessa never wore earrings again.”

  Lorel’s eyes went wide. “And after that Contessa took care of Juliet? That woman was a saint.”

  * * *

  “I just remembered something.” Lorel rooted in Aunt Gully’s bag. “You had Aunt Gully turn off her cell phone yesterday when you took the phone off the hook. I’d better check her cell for anything important. Huh, she’s got four messages.” She took the phone upstairs.

  Verity yawned.

  “Verity, why don’t you sleep over? We’ll put sleeping bags in front of the TV.”

  “Great idea.” Verity stopped. “Oh, wait.” She swept her hand over her dress. She was still wearing the black dress she’d worn to the funeral. “I don’t have any pj’s.”

  “You left some the last time you were here. Make some popcorn and I’ll check.”

  I checked my closet. Verity had left some men’s striped silk pajamas. I gathered a terry-cloth robe and fuzzy slippers. As I slipped into my own pajamas and kimono, I heard the microwave hum.

  Aunt Gully emerged from the bathroom, smelling of lavender.

  “How’re you feeling, Aunt Gully?”

  “Like.” She tilted her chin and started to sing “Climb Every Mountain.”

  “Sweet dreams, crazy lady.”

  * * *

  While Verity changed, I grabbed a bottle of wine and two glasses. Then we unrolled two sleeping bags, ancient old things we’d used at Girl Scout camp years earlier. Aunt Gully was a true New Englander. She held on to things for years “just in case.”

  “Just like old times.” Verity sighed as she sank onto the musty sleeping bag.

  “Except now we have wine instead of lemonade.” We clinked wineglasses.

  Lorel came back downstairs, wearing Dad’s faded Bruins sweatshirt. “Aunt Gully’s out like a light.” A soft snoring wafted down the stairs.

  We offered Lorel the popcorn bowl. “So what were you doing today while I was at the Plex with Aunt Gully?” she said.

  “It’s kind of a long story.” I threw Verity a look.

  Lorel scooped a handful of popcorn. “I’ll get a wineglass.”

  “You’re still coming with me to Juliet Wells’s house, right?” Verity whispered.

  “Yes. It sounds like the Mermaid’ll be closed again.” I slumped against the couch. “I just want things to get back to normal. For me, for Aunt Gully, for Lorel. For you.”

  “With the haul from the Wells place”—Verity’s eyes glittered—“it’ll be better than normal.”

  “Here’s to better than normal.” We clinked glasses.

  “What do you think happened,” Verity said, “with Ernie at the Mermaid?”

  I sipped my wine. “All I know is Ernie was a mess when he left here. My theory? I think he drove home—”

  Lorel came back with her wineglass. “When he got home, Megan wasn’t there and Lucia didn’t know where she was.”

  “How do you know that?” I asked.

  “Aunt Gully’s voice mail,” Lorel said. “Aunt Gully’s cell phone was full of calls from Lucia. That woman has got to start answering her cell.”

  “So Lucia couldn’t get through. What did she say?”

  “She shouted, ‘Ernie found the roses’!” Lorel said.

  The roses. Verity and I exchanged looks.

  Lorel sipped her wine. “Lucia said she didn’t know where Megan was. In the next call Lucia said Ernie came home and blew up because Megan wasn’t there. Then Ernie went out to look for her. Then Lucia said Megan came home and didn’t know what happened to Ernie. Not a good night at Kahuna’s Kove.”

  My mind whirled. Had Megan known the car she cut off at Edwards Inlet was Ernie’s?

  Lorel said slowly, “I wonder if Ernie noticed Aunt Gully’s van when you were parked at Edwards Inlet.”

  “And he suspected that I’d poisoned the rolls to help Aunt Gully.” I nodded. “So at this point, jealous Ernie Moss sees roses that were a gift for his wife. He sees his wife with Chick. Reason to blow his jealous top.” My mind flashed back to Ernie’s furious red face. His barely restrained temper in the porch light of Gull’s Nest last night. The smell of alcohol.

  “And if he sees your van, what does he think then?” Lorel said.

  “He thinks…” The word surfaced from all the news interviews with YUM. “Conspiracy. That we were all conspiring against him. Us, Chick, Megan,” I said. “At this point he’s ready to blow.”

  “So that jerk Chick Costa cuts him off. What does Ernie do?” Lorel said.

  I remembered the angry sound of a car horn blaring.

  “He follows him. Now he has road rage on top of everything else,” I said. “There were dents and scratches on Chick’s car.”

  “Their beloved cars,” Verity said. “That was one fight that was going to happen.”

  “But why at the Mermaid?” Lorel said.

  “Because Ernie’s mad at us,” I said.

  “But Ernie was following Chick.” Lorel’s brow furrowed. “You said Chick cut off Ernie.”

  “They were on Shore Road, right?” I followed the curving road in my mind. It led to a cut-through called Marsh Road. “Maybe they turned onto Marsh Road. It’s quiet. Dark. They were still jousting with their cars at that point.”

  Verity ate a handful of popcorn.

  “But if you want to pull over and duke it out, you need a place to do that,” Lorel said.

  “Kahuna’s is the first parking lot you come to. But even if Chick pulled in there, Ernie wouldn’t want to stop at his own restaurant. Think about it. By this time, I think they knew who the other one was. You know how tight the road is. The next parking lot they would’ve come to past Kahuna’s would be—”

  “The Mermaid,” Lorel said.

  A soft knocking on the door made me jump.

  “Oh, God, don’t be the police again.” Lorel sloshed wine on Dad’s sweatshirt.

  Verity whispered, “And there’s still a murderer on the loose.”

  “Don’t say that.” I hurried to the front door and looked out the peephole.

  “It’s Lucia.” A slight figure stood to her left in the shadows. “And Megan Moss!”

  Chapter 38

  A few minutes later, Lucia and Megan were seated on Aunt Gully’s couch.

  Lucia kept an arm around Megan. Megan’s pale, exhausted face contrasted with Lucia’s bright red lipstick and glossy hair.

  “Ernie told me what happened.” As Megan recounted Ernie’s actions, Lorel, Verity, and I shared glances. Everything Megan reported was pretty much everything Lorel, Verity, and I had deduced.

  “What’s this? A party I wasn’t invited to, in my own home?” Aunt Gully’s pink fuzzy slippers swished down the stairs and across the floor.

  Lucia burst into tears and jumped up to embrace her. “Oh, how I felt when I couldn’t reach you last night! So lost!”

  “What
happened?” Aunt Gully hugged Lucia, then the two women sat on either side of Megan.

  I got three more wineglasses from the corner cabinet in the dining room. After we got Aunt Gully up to speed, she leaned forward and refilled everyone’s wineglasses. “This story calls for more than tea,” she said.

  “Ernie regained consciousness,” Megan said. “He told me what happened last night. When Chick’s car cut Ernie off, Ernie saw red. He went after Chick and rammed his car.”

  She stared into her wineglass but didn’t drink. “When they got to the parking lot of the Mermaid, Chick pulled in and they just went at it. Of course Ernie’s bigger, but Chick works out.”

  Megan continued in a monotone while Aunt Gully rubbed her back. “Ernie said they wrestled and rolled in the gravel. Then Chick ran into your lobster shed. Ernie said, well, let’s just say he said Chick was a coward. When Ernie followed him into the shed, Chick jumped him. And that’s the last thing Ernie remembers. His head struck the edge of the lobster tank and he lay there all night. Ernie has a terrible concussion. Bled a lot, too. I heard there was blood all over. No wonder people thought he was dead.” Megan’s hands shook as she set her glass on the table.

  Lorel and I shared a look. We’d have to make sure we cleaned that up. I didn’t want Aunt Gully to have to perform that upsetting task.

  “I wonder if Chick thought he killed Ernie?” I asked.

  Megan shrugged.

  “But the car? Why did Chick drive Ernie’s sports car into the river?” Lorel asked.

  “Chick.” Megan shook her head. “Chick wanted to hurt Ernie. Chick told me, ‘Ernie won. He won you.’ As if life were a competition. Love was a competition. That’s how he sees everything. Winning and losing. It didn’t matter that I didn’t want to be won. I wanted to be loved.” Her voice trailed off. “To love.”

  Lucia patted Megan’s hand. A sympathetic silence settled over us. Suddenly, Megan was more than a woman wiping tables at Kahuna’s. She was a woman who had loved. Who wanted to love. Who had secrets.

  “Maybe Chick saw trashing Ernie’s car as another way to hurt Ernie. He could have driven Ernie’s car to the end of the dock,” Verity said. “And pushed it in.”