A Likely Story

by Jenn McKinlay

  Sully was watching her from behind Evelyn. He moved his head from side to side, indicating that she should not say anything, or maybe it was to warn her against losing her temper. She knew both were excellent suggestions, and still, she desperately wanted to shake him off.

  “Why do you say that?” Lindsey asked. She was pleased that her voice sounded even and not snarky. Evelyn still held her in a tight grip, and Lindsey couldn’t figure out how to extricate herself from the woman’s hold.

  “Because you are the only person he allowed onto the island,” Evelyn said. “Clearly, you know more than you’re saying, and since the police seem reluctant to demand the information from you, I will.”

  Evelyn gave her arm a rallying squeeze, and she wrinkled her nose again, as though if she packaged her demand in cuteness, Lindsey would be unable to refuse.

  Manners and fury had a duke-out in Lindsey’s gut. Fury won.

  “Are you accusing me of something?” Lindsey snapped. She pulled her arm out of Evelyn’s hold and crossed her arms over her chest.

  Evelyn drew herself up to her full height, which topped out at Lindsey’s nose. One of her eyebrows ticked higher on her forehead in a look that said she did not approve of Lindsey’s attitude.

  “I want to buy the Rosen house,” Evelyn said. “It is one of the last original buildings from the turn of the century. I must have it. I must. And I need Stewart Rosen in order to get it.”

  Lindsey noticed the entire restaurant had grown quiet as everyone was blatantly eavesdropping on their conversation. She decided she didn’t like Evelyn. The woman could try to hide behind cuteness all she liked, but Lindsey had her number. She saw the glint in Evelyn’s eyes. Owning the islands, all of the islands, had become a thing for her. She was collecting them like the Rosens had collected toasters or National Geographic magazines or whatever else caught their interest. It occurred to Lindsey that Evelyn’s avarice for the islands was not unlike the Rosens’ hoarding.

  “Well then you’d better hope nothing bad has happened to Stewart,” Lindsey said. “Or you’ll never own that house. Never.”

  Evelyn looked as if Lindsey had slapped her. It was a mean thing to say. Lindsey knew that. She wasn’t proud of herself. She had seen exactly where to stab the word knife into Evelyn’s avaricious heart, and she had done it and twisted it without any remorse.

  “What are you saying? Is he dead? What do you know?” Evelyn demanded. She looked panicked.

  “I don’t know anything,” Lindsey said, “but it’s a fact that estate paperwork can really jam up a property sale. It’s all so much easier if the seller and buyer come to an agreement, don’t you think?”

  Evelyn pulled her coat more closely about her rail-thin body. “Of course, it is my fondest wish that Stewart be found so that I can offer him top dollar for his home.”

  No one at the table spoke, and Lindsey knew she wasn’t the only one thinking that Evelyn Dewhurst could care less about paying top dollar. She wanted the island, and Lindsey suspected she would do anything to get it, perhaps even murder.

  “I’m sure it is,” Lindsey said. Her voice was thick with sarcasm, but if Evelyn heard it, she didn’t show it.

  She stared at Lindsey. Her face was impassive, and Lindsey realized she had no idea what Evelyn was thinking. Being a librarian, Lindsey did her share of studying people as she tried to help them find what they needed. All too often people attempted to make her job easy for her by keeping the information vague, like the time a man asked for a book about angel dust and came back to her after she sent him into the illegal drug section. Then he told her that he was sure it was about an Irish immigrant, at which point Lindsey handed him a copy of Angela’s Ashes, which was what he had wanted all along.

  She could usually tell when a patron withheld information or was operating on sketchy facts, and she’d gotten pretty good at gently prying details out of them. Looking at Evelyn now, however, she couldn’t even hazard a guess as to what the woman was thinking. Evelyn blinked.

  “Well, if you see Mr. Rosen, please tell him I’m looking for him,” Evelyn said. She didn’t grab Lindsey’s arm or wrinkle her nose or anything. Instead, she simply turned on her heel and left.

  “She’s . . . interesting,” Kevin said as Lindsey and Sully resumed their seats. It was obvious he was trying to be diplomatic.

  “I suspect she’s the sort who’s never heard the word no,” Calvin said. “Do you think Stewart will sell to her?”

  “Assuming that he turns up,” Lindsey began but then paused. She thought about the shell of a man she had fed soup to the night before. She had no idea what Stewart would do. “I honestly don’t know.”

  They finished their meal with limited conversation that revolved around weather, sports and local politics. She didn’t get the feeling that either of the collectors knew where Stewart was. In fact, Calvin seemed particularly concerned about the older man.

  “I hope he’s all right,” he said. “I really enjoyed corresponding with his brother, Peter, about their different collections.”

  “How were you in touch?” Lindsey asked. “I mean, how did you find each other?”

  “After we met in an online auction, he wrote an email to our shop,” Calvin said.

  Lindsey and Sully exchanged a glance. Lindsey knew he was thinking the same thing she was: that they hadn’t seen any computers or high-tech gadgets in the Rosen house when they were in it, so how was it Peter had been using email?

  “We get a lot of that,” Kevin said. He glanced between Lindsey and Sully, clearly misinterpreting their look as one of confusion. He explained, “People contact us looking for rare and specialty items or looking to sell them to us. We do a ton of business online.”

  “Was Peter interested in buying or selling?” Sully asked.

  “Peter inquired about the value of mechanical banks, which is one of my interests,” Calvin said. “So, I answered him. We’ve been writing back and forth for several months now.”

  “Do you have the emails with you?” Lindsey asked.

  “I have them saved on my laptop, and I printed the one where he invited me for a visit,” Calvin said. “So Peter would know it was really me when I showed up.”

  “Did you show them to the chief of police?” Sully asked.

  “I forwarded them to the chief,” Calvin said. He looked uncomfortable. “I’m still surprised they didn’t clear us to leave town after that. There really wasn’t anything other than shoptalk in the emails.”

  “He’s right, and I’m worried about the shop,” Kevin said. “Our employees are great, but they’re only part-time, so our hours have been dicey since we’ve been gone. We need to get back. Maybe we should stop by the station tomorrow and ask more specifically when we’ll be able to leave.”

  “I should think you’d be cleared soon,” Sully said. “I have part-time workers, too, for the summer’s busy season. I can’t manage without them but can’t afford full-time, especially in winter.”

  They went on to compare small business operations in each of their towns. Kevin was boggled by the taxes Connecticut residents pay.

  “If they hit us that hard, we’d have to shut down,” he said.

  “Location, location, location,” Sully said.

  Mary came by and asked if anyone wanted dessert. They all declined. Lindsey had tried to do justice to her meal, but she was still sick with worry about Stewart and she knew she’d get no peace until he was found alive and well.

  Sully drove Lindsey home. As soon as Sully climbed into the truck, she started analyzing what they’d learned.

  “Email? Why does it seem weird to me that Peter Rosen was sending email?” she asked.

  “Because the brothers were hermits, because they didn’t socialize with anyone in town never mind out of town, because there was no evidence of any computers or cell phones or tablets or whatnot in their house,” Sully said. “Frankly, it just never occurred to me that the Rosens might be surfing the Internet.”

&
nbsp; “I know,” Lindsey said. She thought about Mrs. Garabowski and her issues with social media. “It just doesn’t feel right, does it?”

  “No, but then that seems judgmental,” Sully said.

  “Do you realize what this means?” Lindsey asked.

  “Yes, that we have no idea who Peter Rosen was in touch with, making the list of suspects who ventured to the island to murder him longer than we imagined,” Sully said. He sounded discouraged.

  “Especially since we have no idea how he was on the Internet,” Lindsey said. “Do you think Emma has found a computer or cell phone or anything?”

  “She hasn’t mentioned it to me, but she must be thinking like we are,” he said. “Of course, there’s always the possibility that it wasn’t Peter.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What if it was just someone posing as Peter?” Sully asked. “What if someone was conning the collectors?”

  “You mean like catfishing them?” she asked. “Using the Internet to pretend they’re someone they’re not?”

  “Makes more sense to me than Peter using the Internet,” Sully said.

  “But who would do that and why?” Lindsey asked.

  “I don’t know, but I think it’s safe to say that it cost Peter Rosen his life,” Sully said. He blew out a breath as if he really didn’t want to say what came next. “It could have been Stewart.”

  “Stewart?” Lindsey asked. “I don’t see that just like I don’t see him as Peter’s killer.”

  “Me neither,” Sully agreed. “But his disappearance when Peter was murdered looks terribly suspicious, plus he’s wandered the town at night for years. Who knows what he’s been exposed to or learned in all that time.”

  “Maybe,” Lindsey said. “But it could be that he disappeared to escape the killer.”

  “Or he’s out looking for Peter’s murderer himself.”

  Lindsey gave Sully a worried look.

  “What sort of vibe did Stewart give off when you saw him?” he asked.

  “Mostly cold, tired and a little crazy,” she said.

  “So, the usual,” Sully said.

  “No, a little more crazy than usual with the humming and the no speaking,” Lindsey said. “It hurt to see him like that when I have worked so hard to get him to trust me.”

  Sully reached across the truck and took her hand in his. She hadn’t put her gloves on, and it felt good to have his warm hand wrap around her chilled fingers.

  “He’s going to be all right,” he said.

  She wanted to believe him. She really did. He didn’t let go of her hand for the rest of the drive. His thumb ran across hers in a soothing way, and Lindsey tried to take comfort in the gesture.

  “Do you know what I can’t figure out?” she asked.

  “What?”

  “Why Hodges and Perkins? Why did Peter, or whoever was pretending to be Peter, pick a company that was so far away?” she asked.

  “That makes me think it was someone posing as Peter,” he said. “If it was Peter or Stewart, wouldn’t they go with someone local for sheer convenience if nothing else?”

  “You would think,” Lindsey agreed.

  Sully let go of her hand to navigate the turn into her driveway, and Lindsey felt the loss of his warmth immediately. The heater in the pickup truck was blowing a nice hot breath across her feet, so it wasn’t his physical warmth that she missed but rather the warmth of human contact when the world seemed a chilling place.

  Sully parked and then turned to face her. “But if it was Peter, why would he reach out now? Was he out of money? Was he suddenly tired of just having his brother for company? And again, why choose two collectors who are so far away and not local? None of this makes sense.”

  “Maybe he wanted them to be far away so that they wouldn’t know about him or his brother or the fact that he lived on an island,” Lindsey said.

  “Again, why?”

  “No idea,” she sighed.

  Lindsey pondered the question while Sully exited the cab of the truck. It was too cold out to have him open the door for her, so she opened it herself and hopped down from the truck, meeting him halfway so they could get into the warm house faster.

  Sully took her elbow and led her up onto the porch. The door didn’t bang open, and no Heathcliff appeared, wagging his tail off. Lindsey didn’t know what to make of that, and she felt horribly guilty for being out late again. She made a mental promise to take the boy on a big walk the next morning.

  “Thanks for dinner and the ride and being my wingman in the unofficial interrogation,” she said.

  “My pleasure,” Sully said. “I wish we could have found out something a little more concrete.”

  “We will,” Lindsey said. She hoped she sounded more confident than she felt.

  Lindsey glanced at the door again. Whenever Heathcliff stayed with Nancy, he would burst through the front door the minute Lindsey stepped onto the porch to greet her as if she’d been away for weeks instead of hours. Nancy said he had a sixth sense and usually started getting excited a few minutes before Lindsey arrived.

  “Where is our buddy?” Sully asked. He was frowning at the door as well.

  “He should have come out by now,” Lindsey said. “You don’t think anything happened to him and Nancy, do you?”

  Sully looked grim. He studied the door. “There’s no sign of a break-in.”

  “Maybe it’s unlocked.”

  Sully crossed the porch and turned the knob. It didn’t budge. Lindsey dug her keys out of her purse. Her fingers were shaking, so she handed the keys to Sully. He unlocked the door and pushed it open. Lindsey led the way, feeling her anxiety spike as she was swamped by the feeling that something was terribly wrong.

  “Maybe it was a gas leak and they’re unconscious,” she said. She sniffed the air by the door, but she didn’t detect anything.

  “Or maybe Nancy took him for a walk,” Sully countered, more reasonably.

  “This late?” Lindsey asked, a note of hysteria in her voice.

  Sully handed her keys back as they stepped into the foyer and approached Nancy’s door. It was unlocked, and he rapped on it twice before turning the knob and pushing it open. The entry was quiet. Nancy’s apartment was dark except for one lamp by the gas fireplace, which was lit.

  “Nancy!” Sully called out. They waited but there was no answer. Lindsey could feel alarm bells ringing in her head. Then she heard a soft bark and then someone saying Shhh.

  “Nancy? Are you here?” she called.

  There was the sound of a door opening in the back of the apartment, and Nancy and Heathcliff appeared. Heathcliff looked like he was going to wag his tail off as he greeted first Lindsey and then Sully. He gave a happy bark and spun around.

  “Nancy, is everything okay?” Sully asked.

  Nancy gave him a dark look.

  “Nancy, do you need me to call Charlie?” he asked.

  “No,” she snapped. “What I needed was for you to take advantage of the moment and kiss the girl before this one here jumped all over you, but did you? No.”

  She waved her hands dismissively at him, and Sully looked at her in shock.

  “You kept him in the back bedroom just so I could make a move?” he asked.

  “That was the general idea, yes,” she said.

  Sully burst out laughing. Lindsey felt embarrassment heat up her face like a blowtorch on high.

  “Nancy!” she protested. “You had us worried sick.”

  “Sorry, Heathcliff and I were in on it together until you called out, and then he just lost it.” Nancy gave the dog a chagrined look.

  “Thanks for dog sitting him,” Lindsey said. Then, just because she was relieved, she gave Nancy a quick hug. “You’re impossible.”

  “So I’ve been told.” Nancy hugged her back.

  “Come on. I’ll walk you up,” Sully said. Lindsey and Heathcliff led the way, and Sully followed. As they started up the stairs, he added, “Which was what I planned to do a
nyway, so I could kiss you good night.”

  Lindsey stumbled on the steps, and Sully caught her from behind, putting her back on her feet.

  “Did you catch that, Nancy?” he called down the stairs.

  “Yes, and it’s about time,” she said. “Hurrah!”

  Lindsey heard Nancy’s door slam as they passed by Charlie’s apartment and headed up to hers. If she had felt embarrassed before, now she was quite sure she would die of mortification. It was one thing if they had been on a date and Sully kissed her at the end of it because they both wanted to; it was another to have her landlady trying to orchestrate a good night smooch.

  She unlocked her door, and Heathcliff darted in, heading straight for his basket of toys. Lindsey glanced up at Sully, and that was as far as she got before he had her backed up against the wall with his lips on hers. Wow, just wow.

  By the time Sully and Lindsey broke apart, Heathcliff had managed to bring out each and every single toy from his basket. They were both breathing hard, and Sully had a wicked twinkle in his eye.

  “I didn’t want you to have time to overthink it,” he said. Then he winked at her, and Lindsey felt her knees buckle. She leaned against the wall, trying to appear nonchalant.

  “Well played,” she said.

  His grin deepened. He picked up two of Heathcliff’s toys and tossed them back into the apartment, sending the happy dog off in pursuit.

  Lindsey wondered if she should invite Sully in. Was she ready to try again? Was he? Judging by his kiss, she’d say he was.

  “I’m going out to the island Monday morning,” Sully said. “I can’t go tomorrow because the water taxi is booked solid.”

  Lindsey blinked at the abrupt subject change. “Huh? What?”

  “I’m going to go out and see if I can find anything Peter could have used to write emails,” he said. “Maybe we missed it the first time, given that we were busy with a dead body, an explosion and a fire.”

  “Emma is not going to let you do that,” Lindsey said. “It’s a crime scene, and the house is booby-trapped. You could get hurt or killed or worse.”