Spirits, Pies, and Alibis

by Nicole St Claire

  “Heading to work.”

  “At six in the morning? I didn’t think the clinic opened until nine.”

  “Wednesday is biscuits and gravy day at the Dockside Diner,” he confessed with a sheepish grin. “I like to stop in for breakfast before work.”

  “Every week? But you’re a doctor,” I teased. “Or does the Dockside serve special gravy that doesn’t clog your arteries and send your cholesterol sky high?”

  “Afraid not. But like I always tell Uncle Doug, we’ve all gotta die somehow.”

  At first there was laughter, but the shift in mood was palpable as Noah’s use of the present tense somewhat belatedly caused the memory of Noah’s recent loss sank in. I shifted awkwardly in my seat. “Any new developments in the investigation?” I asked.

  “Actually, yes. I heard from the lead investigator at the NTSB, and they’ve pretty much ruled out mechanical failure.”

  “Really?” I chewed on my lower lip. If the plane wasn’t to blame, that meant no matter how perfect a suspect he might be, Larry Sloane was off the hook. Which also meant I could take my car to be fixed, so that was good. “So that means what, then?”

  “It means it was pilot error, whether accidental or…not.”

  “Oh, Noah. I’m really sorry.” His hand was resting on the gear shift, and I placed mine over it, giving it a squeeze before quickly pulling away. “How are you and your family dealing with the news?”

  “I’ve told Curtis I think we need to be prepared for whichever way they decide. He refuses to hear it.” Noah’s jaw had hardened, and I could tell it was tearing him up much more than he wanted to admit.

  We were nearing the turnoff for the clinic, and I pointed out the window in the other direction, toward the docks. “Why don’t we skip the checkup and go to the Dockside for some coffee?”

  “Are you sure? You fell pretty hard. You could have a concussion.”

  “I feel fine. I promise. Besides, you can keep an eye on me there just as well as in the clinic. Come on, my trea—” As soon as the words hit my lips, I remembered that when I’d fled the house in terror, I hadn’t exactly stopped to grab my purse.

  “What is it?” Noah asked, picking up on my not-so-smooth delivery.

  “I left my wallet at the house.” Right next to my dignity and poise, apparently.

  “That’s okay. Breakfast is on me.”

  “No, I couldn’t.”

  “The least I can do after almost running you over is buy you some biscuits and gravy.”

  “Trying to kill me the slow way this time, huh?” I laughed. “Fine. Let’s go.”

  The Dockside Diner was a hole-in-the-wall kind of a place on the waterfront that had been in business for decades. It shared an entrance with a shop called the Fisherman’s Friend, where they sold everything from live bait to that head-to-toe yellow rain gear like the guy on the fish sticks box wears. Behind the diner was the stretch of dock where the lobstermen stored their traps, rows of cage-like boxes stacked ten high and stretching all the way to the seawall. The sign on the window announced that the diner was open for breakfast at three o’clock every morning. Though I shuddered at the thought of such an early start to the day, I knew that was half the secret to the diner’s success. Lobstering was the lifeblood of the island in the off-season, with long hours that started before dawn and hard work that built up a healthy appetite.

  We sat ourselves at a booth near the kitchen. It was one of several that were available, arriving as we were after the boats had headed out to sea but before most tourists had opened their eyes. The menu was posted on a chalkboard on the wall, next to a corkboard filled with community news. A flyer announced a missing cat, but as the picture bore absolutely no resemblance at all to Gus, my hope of pawning off my aunt’s murderous beast to some unsuspecting family was quickly dashed.

  The waitress came over, a woman in her mid-fifties with blonde hair pulled into a tight bun on top of her head and black liner applied thickly around her eyes. She had a coffeepot already in hand, which endeared her to me immediately. There was a mug sitting upside down beside the paper place mat in front of me, and as soon as I flipped it over, she filled it to the brim.

  “Morning, Noah,” she said. “The usual?”

  “Good morning, Sheila. Yes, please, with extra gravy.”

  She rested a hand on her hip, where I could see the elaborate designs on her manicured fingers. “Have I ever forgotten the extra gravy?”

  “Uh, no,” Noah mumbled.

  Sheila laughed. “And what’ll you have, hon?”

  “The same for me, but you can just go ahead and give me however much gravy you’d like,” I told her, shooting a teasing look at Noah. “I’m not picky.”

  “Oh, I know that. Not if you’re hanging out with Nerdy Noah here.”

  The waitress laughed even more, and the tips of Noah’s ears turned pink. “I think I’m outnumbered this morning,” he said.

  “Sure, he may be a handsome doctor now, but I’m old enough to remember when. Thickest glasses I’ve ever seen and, oh Lord, that hair. You know, he used to write poetry. He was scribbling all the time in that notebook he’d carry around.” The waitress ruffled his hair, the type of affectionate gesture that suggested she’d known him forever and had probably changed his diapers a time or two. “Why’d you ever stop, Noah? Some of it wasn’t bad.”

  “I…uh…” The poor guy was staring at his place mat in agony.

  “Probably ‘cause of a girl, am I right?” Mercifully, she didn’t wait for an answer but was still chuckling as she returned to the kitchen with our orders. My stomach twisted and my cheeks blazed. Sheila was definitely right on the mark about that one, even if she seemed oblivious to the fact that the girl in question was sitting right in front of her.

  It was my turn to stare at my place mat, which was printed with advertisements for local businesses. I studied each one carefully. Sadly, there wasn’t anyone on the island who specialized in smoothing over embarrassing memories, as I would’ve been willing to pay pretty much anything at that moment for their services.

  “I’m sorry about the teasing,” I said when the silence between us had stretched on long enough to be even more uncomfortable than speaking.

  He shrugged. “Not your fault. If a guy’s going to go around writing poetry in a place like this, he should know what he’s getting himself into.”

  I felt my shoulders hunch as my head attempted to retract, turtle-like, deep inside my torso. “I meant about the biscuits and gravy. I shouldn’t have given you a hard time about your order in front of the waitress, since you did invite me to breakfast.”

  “No worries.” He brushed away the whole incident with a wave of his hand. “Sheila’s harmless, and it’s all in good fun with her.”

  He sure had become the cool and collected one. Was all of his childhood sensitivity gone now, or had he just learned to hide it? Even more puzzling to me, perhaps, was to try to pinpoint when I had lost those traits. There’d been a time when nothing had rattled me, but the recent upheavals in my life had left me floundering and doubting myself constantly. All things considered, I was fortunate he was so willing to put the awkwardness of our past and be my friend. “I really do appreciate…everything.”

  His eyes flickered to his place mat, and the lopsided half smile on his lips hinted that the sensitive poet side of him wasn’t completely gone, after all. “Between nearly running you over and saddling you with all those financial reports, breakfast was the least I could do.”

  I sucked in my breath at the mention of the reports. With everything else that had happened, I’d forgotten about my discovery from the night before. “Speaking of that, I think I found something.”

  “In the financials?” Frown lines creased Noah’s brow.

  “Did your uncle have any money troubles you knew of, or maybe a gambling problem or something?”

  “Not that I was aware of, no.” The lines grew deeper. “What did you find?”

  I bit m
y lip, not wanting to tell him but knowing it was the right thing to do. “As I was reconciling the bank statements, I came across some irregularities. I have reason to believe your uncle was skimming money from the business and moving it to shell accounts.”

  “You think Uncle Doug was stealing from Strong Corp.”

  “It’s not the only explanation, but it’s a real possibility.” My heart dropped at the sadness in Noah’s eyes. “There’s something else. Strong Corp. had just received notice they were being audited. I have no doubt a trained auditor would have picked up on the clues I found in a heartbeat.”

  “Most of Strong Corp.’s major investors have ties to the island. If a rumor started that he was stealing money, his reputation would have been ruined.”

  “Rumors move like wildfire here. Not to bring up a sore subject, but weren’t there already some whispers about your uncle’s business practices?”

  “You mean the Sloane property. That nearly ruined the business.” Noah sighed heavily. “I’ll have to mention the accounts to Curtis. He’s not going to take it well.”

  Just then, Sheila returned to the table, setting a steaming plate of biscuits and gravy in front of each of us and plunking a bottle of hot sauce on the center of the table. “What’s that nephew of mine not gonna like this time?”

  “Nephew?” My tone conveyed as much surprise as I felt. “You’re Curtis’s aunt?”

  “That’s right,” Sheila confirmed. “She might live in that fancy house on the cliff now, but his mama’s still my big sister.”

  “I had no idea,” I said somewhat lamely. I’d only seen Curtis’s mother, Audrey, in passing, but now that I looked more closely at the waitress, I could detect a resemblance. Sheila had a similar face, though etched more deeply with the type of lines that come not just with age but with a lifetime of worrying about how to make ends meet, and her light blue waitress uniform covered the same rail-thin figure that Audrey had shown off in her designer gown.

  “Yeah, well, we don’t keep in touch much.” The way she said it suggested that they’d had a bigger falling out than she was letting on. “Say, you’re working over at the Pinecroft Inn, right?”

  “Yes, my aunt runs it, and I’m helping out.”

  “What luck! You’re exactly the person I need to talk to, then. I heard from Kevin Young the other day that the Pinecroft Inn was moving into the pie-selling business.”

  Kevin Young? I thought for a moment then realized this must have been the man I spoke with at the airfield. Only, of course, that pie thing had been a ruse. “Oh, right. Well, we haven’t quite—”

  “I’d like to place an order for a dozen blueberry pies a week. You have no idea what a help that will be.”

  “I’ll talk to Aunt Gwen about it,” I assured her. She looked so relieved I didn’t have the heart to say no.

  “A dozen pies,” Noah said after Sheila left our table. “That’s a big order.”

  “I know,” I said with a groan. “Especially considering I haven’t even mentioned the idea to Aunt Gwen yet, let alone started taking orders.”

  Noah’s face fell. “Does that mean I won’t get a finder’s fee?”

  “What kind of fee were you hoping for?”

  “A blueberry pie, for starters.”

  “I think I can hook you up, even if the order doesn’t pan out.” I was laughing as I said it, but that quickly faded as I remembered something else from my visit to the airfield that day. “Noah, I just thought of something. Does Curtis have any money troubles that you know of?”

  “Curtis? I don’t think so.” Noah cocked his head to one side, looking troubled. “You’re not asking just because you’ve discovered some of his family are locals, are you?”

  “What? Of course not. I’m not a snob like that.”

  The sharpness of his expression softened. “No, I didn’t think so, but unfortunately, I know how some of the summer people can be. It’s the reason he doesn’t talk about it much. Some of the investors can be awfully prejudiced against the year-round residents when it comes to money issues.”

  “No. The reason I asked is I only just remembered something I saw at the airfield the other day.” I went on to recount how I’d witnessed his cousin arguing with the man in the suit and retrieving a briefcase. “I have no idea what was going on, but it seemed a little unusual, so I thought I’d mention it.”

  Noah took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “That’s definitely odd, and I’m not sure what was going on, either. I do know Curtis has been getting into some heated exchanges with the insurance company. Maybe it had something to do with that.”

  “Insurance, like life insurance?” I asked, recalling a recurring payment from the bank records to Penobscot Life. Thinking back on it, the well-dressed man could have been an insurance executive, although something about him struck me as a little too glitzy for a small, regional company. Perhaps they were a subsidiary of a larger New York firm. “Would Curtis be the beneficiary?”

  “No. Strong Corp. carried policies for both Uncle Doug and Curtis, payable to the company in the event that one of them died. Not to sound coldhearted, but obviously my uncle’s death has disrupted business, and I think the insurance was intended to help with that.”

  My brain kicked into high gear as a new possibility occurred to me. “Did that policy have a suicide clause?”

  “I have no idea. I’ve been helping out because my mom’s on the board, but I don’t really get involved in that level of detail. Sadly, though, I had a patient a few years ago who died by suicide, and I know for a fact that his family was able to collect on his policy. In fact, I kind of thought suicide clauses legally weren’t allowed anymore.”

  “That could be, but I think there are still some loopholes. Like, insurers can have restrictions on paying out if the policyholder dies by suicide within a certain number of months after buying a new policy.”

  “I’m not sure when the coverage was obtained, but something like that would explain why Curtis has been so adamant that our uncle’s death had to have been an accident.”

  After we finished our breakfast, Noah drove me back to the inn, but not before making me promise I would come to the clinic later in the day for a proper examination. I walked up the driveway to the porch and froze, unwilling to enter through the front door. I knew I needed to address the mysterious pyramid of furniture in the living room eventually, but I didn’t think I could handle having it smack me in the face the second I walked inside. Instead, I went around the back and used the kitchen entrance.

  It was still early in the morning, not yet seven-thirty, but even before I opened the door, I could hear the clatter of pots and pans coming from inside as the heavenly smell of cinnamon wafted through an open window. Aunt Gwen turned from the stove at the sound of the door latching shut, greeting my return with a look of mild surprise. “Tamsyn, you’re up early. Would you like to help with the waffles?”

  Her mood was so untroubled I immediately knew she hadn’t been in the living room yet. “Aunt Gwen,” I said as gently as I could, “I need to show you something.”

  She frowned. “What is it, dear?”

  “Just follow me, through here,” I said, my heart beating faster as I took her by the hand and led her into the dining room. I stopped abruptly as soon as the living room came into view. Everything was exactly where it was supposed to be, with not a single crocheted doily out of place. “I don’t understand.”

  “What is it you wanted to show me?”

  My insides buzzed like I’d had too much caffeine. “Did you notice anything strange in here this morning?”

  She looked at me blankly. “Strange? No.”

  “You didn’t move anything around or…?” My voice trailed off as I realized that, of course, she hadn’t. Considering how the room had looked when I left, it would have taken hours of hard work for me to put it all back in place, let alone my elderly aunt. I swallowed hard as the concern in my aunt’s expression deepened. “You know what? It’s n
othing. I think that sleeping potion hit me harder than I realized when I got up this morning.”

  But it hadn’t been the sleeping potion. Of that I was certain. Something or someone had reached out to me the night before and again that morning, trying to get my attention. Well, it had it now, that was for sure. What I didn’t know was what it wanted, although I had an idea of who might help. Skirting around the edge of the living room, as I was too freaked out to walk through the center, I headed up to my room. I’d avoided it long enough. It was time to call my coven again.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “I’m being haunted by the ghost of Douglas Strong.”

  We’d gathered in Cassandra’s house, or rather the house she shared with her mother and grandmother. It had been built at the height of the Queen Anne revival style of the late 1800s and was exactly the type of house you’d expect to find three generations of witches living in. It had brightly colored ornate gingerbread trim and a short wrought-iron fence surrounding the front garden.

  A three-story tower in the center of the house rose above matching gables on each side, and it was in the small room at the top of the tower where we had gathered a few hours after I’d made the call. Unlike the cheerful Victorian tearoom I’d visited on Main Street, this space oozed otherworldly ambience. The deep-green walls sucked in most of the weak light produced by a single brass chandelier that hung from the embossed tin ceiling. Old wooden shelves sagged from the weight of books, crystals, and other magical ephemera, while a circular table in the middle of the room displayed a single, thick book. Its heavily ornamented leather binding was covered in mysterious symbols, and I sensed without asking that it was the Hollings family grimoire. As crazy as it still felt to think of myself as a witch, I would be lying if I said that finding myself in these surroundings didn’t also give me a thrill.

  “Haunted. You’re sure?” Cass asked, but in a way that let me know she didn’t doubt the possibility.

  I nodded. “The pyramid of furniture in the living room was a dead giveaway.”