Murder on the Rocks

by Karen MacInerney

  The berries tumbled into a silver colander like dark blue and red gems, and as the water from the faucet gushed over them, the small boat paused to haul a trap. A moment later, the engine growled as the boat turned and steamed toward the mainland, threading its way through the myriad of brightly colored buoys that studded the cold saltwater.

  Since moving to the island, I had learned that each lobsterman had a signature buoy color that enabled him to recognize his own traps, as well as the traps of others. I had been surprised to discover that what I thought of as open ocean was actually carved up into unofficial but zealously guarded fishing territories.

  My eyes followed the receding boat as I gave the berries a final swirl and turned off the faucet. Lately, some of the lobstermen from the mainland had been encroaching on island territory, and the local lobster co-op was in an uproar. I strained my eyes to see if any of the offending red and green buoys were present. The veil of fog thinned for a moment, and sure enough, bobbing next to a jaunty pink and white one was a trio of what looked like nautical Christmas ornaments.

  The boat had vanished from sight by the time the fruit salad was finished. I eyed my creation—the blueberries and raspberries interspersed with the bright green of kiwi made a perfect complement to the cantaloupe—and opened the fridge to retrieve a dozen eggs and some fat-free milk. When I turned around, I slammed into Ogden Wilson, Katz’s skinny assistant. My fingers tightened on the milk before it could slip from my grasp, but the impact jolted the eggs out of my hand. I stifled a curse as the carton hit the floor. Was I going to have to install a lock on the kitchen door?

  Ogden didn’t apologize. Nor did he stoop to help me collect the egg carton, which was upended in a gelatinous mess on my hardwood floor. “Mr. Katz would like to know when breakfast will be ready.” His eyes bulged behind the thick lenses of his glasses. With his oily pale skin and lanky body, he reminded me of some kind of cave-dwelling amphibian. I wished he’d crawl back into his hole.

  I bent down to inventory the carton; only three of the dozen had survived. “Well, now that we’re out of eggs, it will be a few minutes later.” It occurred to me that I hadn’t considered him when doing the breakfast tally. Although Ogden generally stuck to his boss like glue, it was easy to forget he existed. “Are you going to be joining them?”

  “Of course. But do try to hurry. Mr. Katz has an extremely busy schedule.”

  “Well, I’m afraid breakfast will be slightly delayed.” I tipped my chin toward the mess on the floor. “But I’ll see what I can do.”

  The oven timer buzzed as Ogden slipped through the swinging door to the dining room. I rescued the cake from the oven and squatted to clean up the mess on the floor. What kind of urgent business could Bernard Katz have on an island of less than a square mile? Most of the movers and shakers here were fishermen’s wives after a few too many beers. I hoped Barbara Eggleby would be able to convince the board that the Shoreline Conservation Association was the right choice for the land next door. The Katz development would be a cancer on the island. Lord knew the Katzes were.

  I raced up the stairs and knocked on my niece’s door. Gwen had come to work with me for the summer, cleaning the rooms, covering the phones, and helping with the cooking from time to time in exchange for room and board. The help was a godsend—not only was it free, but it allowed me time to work on promoting the inn—but Gwen was not a perfect assistant.

  Part of the reason Gwen was spending the summer at the inn was that her mother didn’t know what else to do with her: she’d flunked half of her classes her first year at UCLA and my sister couldn’t spend more than ten minutes in the same room with her daughter without one or the other of them declaring war. Her work at the inn, while not F-level, was between a B and a C, when I needed everything to be A+. Still, help was help, and beggars couldn’t be choosers. I wished that some of the enthusiasm she showed for the art classes she was taking on the island would spill over to her housekeeping skills.

  “Who is it?” answered a groggy voice from the other side of the door. I cracked the door open. Gwen’s hair was a messy brown halo in the dim light from the curtained window.

  “I’m sorry to wake you, but I need you to run down to Charlene’s and get a dozen eggs.”

  “What time is it?”

  “It’s just after seven. Please hurry . . . I’ve got guests waiting.”

  She groaned. “Seven in the morning?”

  “I know. But it’s an emergency.” She grumbled something and began to move toward the side of the bed, so I closed the door and jogged back down the stairs. I’d start with fruit salad and a plate of coffee cake, and bring out the eggs later. Maybe a pan of sausage, too . . . I could keep it warm until the Bittles came down at 8:30.

  I was retrieving a package of pork sausages from the freezer when someone tapped on the door to the back porch. I whirled around to tell the Katzes I’d meet them in the dining room shortly, and saw the sunstreaked brown hair of my neighbor, John Quinton.

  “Come in!” I hollered, smiling for the first time that morning. John’s green eyes twinkled in a face already brown from afternoons out on the water in his sailboat, and his faded green T-shirt and shorts were streaked with sawdust. John was both a friend and a tenant; he rented the inn’s converted carriage house from me, as well as a small shed he had converted to a workshop. He was a sculptor who created beautiful things from the driftwood that washed up on the beaches, but supplemented what he called his “art habit” with a variety of part-time jobs. In the spring and summer, he made toy sailboats for the gift shop on the pier. He also held a year-round job as the island’s only deputy.

  “You’re up early. Working on a new project?” I asked.

  “Island Artists ordered a few more boats. I figured I’d churn them out this morning and then start on some fun stuff.” His eyes glinted with mischief. “One of Claudette’s goats was eyeing your sweet peas, by the way. I shooed her off, but I’m afraid she’ll be back.”

  I groaned. Claudette White was one of the three members of Save Our Terns, and was known on the island as “eccentric.” Although her husband, Eleazer, was a boatbuilder and popular with the locals, most of the islanders gave Claudette a wide berth. Her goats were almost as unpopular as she was, since they were notorious for escaping and consuming other people’s gardens.

  When Claudette wasn’t caring for her goats or knitting their wool into sweaters and hats, she was holding forth at length about the evils of the modern world to anyone who would listen. I wasn’t delighted that she had chosen to join Save Our Terns, but since the only other takers had been my best friend, Charlene, and me, we didn’t feel we could turn her down.

  John watched me pry sausage links out of a box and into a cast-iron pan. “I’m not the only one up early. I thought breakfast wasn’t till 8:30.”

  “Yeah, well, we’re working on Katz time today.” A thump came from overhead, and then the sound of the shower. I sighed: so much for urgency. Gwen must be performing her morning ablutions. I appealed to John for help. “Do you have any eggs I can borrow? I was going to send Gwen down to the store, but I’m short on time.”

  “I just picked up a dozen yesterday. Is that enough?”

  “You’re a lifesaver.” He disappeared through the back door, and the thought flitted through my mind that he might stay for a cup of coffee when he got back. I spooned fruit salad into a crystal bowl and reminded myself that John had a girlfriend in Portland.

  Five minutes later I sailed into the dining room bearing the fruit salad and a platter mounded with hot coffee cake. Stanley Katz had arrived, and sat hunched in an ill-fitting brown suit next to his wife. Estelle glared at me. “Coffee cake? I can’t eat that. I thought this breakfast was supposed to be low-fat!” Then she pointed a lacquered nail at the ginger-colored cat who had curled up in a sunbeam on the windowsill. “And why is there a cat in your dining
room? Surely that’s against health department regulations?”

  I scooped up Biscuit and deposited her in the living room. She narrowed her gold-green eyes at me and stalked over to the sofa as I hurried back into the dining room. “I’ll have skinny scrambled eggs and wheat toast out shortly,” I said. “We had a slight mishap in the kitchen.” I shot Ogden a look. He blinked behind his thick lenses. I attempted a bright smile. “Can I get anybody more coffee?”

  Estelle sighed. “I suppose so.” She turned to her father-in-law, who had already transferred two pieces of cake to his plate. “With this kind of service,” she muttered under her breath, “I don’t know how she expects to stay in business.”

  When I got back into the kitchen, a carton of eggs lay on the butcher-block counter. Darn. I’d missed John. The sausages had started to sizzle and Estelle’s egg whites were almost done when the phone rang.

  “Nat.”

  “Charlene? You’re up early.” Charlene was the local grocer, a fellow member of Save Our Terns, and my source for island gossip. She was also my best friend.

  “I’ve got bad news.”

  I groaned. “You’re kidding. The Katzes sprang a surprise 7 am breakfast on me and then his assistant broke all of my eggs. It can’t get any worse.”

  “It can. I just talked to the coastal airport: no planes in or out, probably for the whole day. A big nor’easter is about to hit the coast.”

  My heart thumped in my chest. “The airport is closed? So Barbara isn’t going to make it in time for the council meeting?”

  “It’s just you and me, babe. And Claudette.”

  My stomach sank. Without a representative from the Shoreline Conservation Association to combat Katz’s offer for the property next to the inn, we could only sit and watch as Katz wooed the board of selectmen with visions of the fat bank accounts the island would enjoy when the Cranberry Island Premier Resort came into being.

  I leaned my head against the wall. “We’re sunk.”

  Save Our Terns might not be able to seduce the board with the promise of well-lined wallets, but I’d decided to resort to the best weapon in my arsenal: chocolate. That was my theory, anyway. Charlene had promised to try to schmooze with the selectmen one last time before the meeting. For my part, I’d been trying to reach Barbara all day, and ended up leaving six messages on her voice mail. The weather had only worsened; the fog had been supplanted by fat drops of rain that flung themselves at the kitchen windows, and the wind howled past the inn’s eaves. The airport was definitely closed.

  Since Barbara was not going to be here to advance our case, the job fell to me. My plan was to coerce the board of selectmen—and the rest of the island—with mounds of decadent desserts. Although I loved the island, it had been difficult getting to know the islanders, most of whom viewed both me (an outsider) and anything related to conservation with a wary eye. I hoped the international language of chocolate would help.

  The timer dinged, and as I slid a pan of golden oatmeal chocolate chip cookies out of my twenty-year-old electric oven, I found myself wishing for a larger model. Maybe in another year, after revenue got steady, I’d invest in more appliances. My stomach lurched. If there was a second year.

  I finished spooning chocolate-studded mounds of batter onto a pan and consoled myself with one of the cookies cooling on a rack. Ten dozen cookies down, ten dozen brownies to go. I rinsed the bowl out in the sink and began to root through the pantry for baking chocolate, crossing my fingers that the box was full. Five pans of brownies required a lot of chocolate, and I didn’t relish the thought of a walk to the store in driving rain. Besides, time was running out; it was already three, and I was hoping to have time for a batch of shortbread before the meeting started at seven. I put my hand on the box and gave it a good shake; to my relief, it was almost full.

  “Aunt Nat?” Gwen stood in the doorway and ran a hand through her long mass of curly brown hair. As usual, she was artistically dressed in a long, flowing black skirt and a close-fitting purple tank top that accented her slender waist. It wouldn’t be my choice for changing sheets and cleaning bathrooms, but she seemed comfortable.

  “How’s it going back there?”

  “I have to show you something.” She spoke with a note of urgency, and visions of overflowing toilets, broken water pipes and electrical fires passed before my eyes.

  “What’s wrong? Is it an emergency?” My hand strayed to the phone. “Do I need to call John?” John often helped out with inn emergencies; plumbers were hard to come by on short notice.

  “No, no, it’s not that. Just come look.” I followed her through the parlor down the long hallway to Ogden’s room. When Gwen opened the door, my eyes swept the room. The blue-and-white-checked quilt lay smooth on the bed, and the wood floor shone as if freshly waxed. Either Ogden was a neat freak, or Gwen’s housekeeping skills were improving. I hoped it was the latter.

  “Everything looks great. Except the weather.” My eyes drifted to the window, where starched white curtains were pulled back to expose an ocean of molten lead, interrupted by violent crashes of white as the surf hit the rocks. My throat tightened at the reminder that we were on our own at the board meeting tonight.

  “And except for this.” Gwen walked over to the rolltop desk in the corner. “I rolled it back to make sure I hadn’t missed anything, and I found this.” She pointed at a blueprint that lay half-unrolled next to a stack of bank statements on the cherry-wood desk’s gleaming surface. My eyes lingered on the top statement; the holder of the account was listed as Holding Construction Company, and the most recent deposit was for more than $400,000. The Katzes must be doing pretty well.

  “I’m not talking about the bank statements, Aunt Nat. This is the blueprint for the resort.” She unfurled the pale blue paper and I stared down at the familiar coastline of Cranberry Island, disturbed by the sprawl of buildings depicted on the currently pristine property next door.

  “Parking lots?” I snorted. “Is he planning on putting in a car ferry, too?”

  “That’s the least of it, Aunt Nat. Where’s the Gray Whale on this map?” I looked at the section of coastline where the building that housed the inn had stood for more than a hundred and fifty years. In its place was an expanse of lined parking spaces. My stomach filled with ice water.

  “That creep,” I hissed. “Just this morning he was trying to convince me that the resort would be ‘good for business’, and all along he’s been planning to run me out of business so he can raze the Gray Whale.”

  A footstep sounded in the hall. I froze. Gwen snatched my hand from the blueprint, shoved it back into the desk half-rolled and started tugging at the rolltop.

  “Roll it down, roll it down!” Gwen wrenched the handle at the top of the desk, but it wouldn’t budge; the humidity from the storm must have made the wood swell. I dropped the blueprint and yanked with her. The footsteps came closer, then paused. Suddenly the top slammed down with a bang, landing on my left thumb. I winced with pain and scurried toward the bathroom, where I was inspecting the sink when the door opened.

  Ogden Wilson stepped into the room. His bulging eyes registered Gwen, then flicked to me. “What are you doing here?”

  I smoothed my hair back with my uninjured hand and smiled. “Just checking to make sure the room was okay. My niece started a few weeks ago, and I was just looking to see if she’d missed anything.”

  Ogden’s eyes roamed the room, lingering at the desk. A corner of the blueprint was sticking out. Had it been that way when we came in? “What was that noise I heard?”

  “Noise?” My brain raced to produce a plausible explanation. “Oh, I slipped on one of the rugs and whacked the doorframe with my thumb.” I raised my injured hand. The base of the nail had already begun to darken. “I’ve been meaning to buy some slip-proof pads,” I continued, forcing a smile. “I’d better pick them up so
on. I don’t need the business shut down over a liability case.”

  I moved toward the door, and Gwen fell in behind me. “Anyway, it looks like you’ve done a fine job, Gwen. Mr. Wilson, please just let us know if there’s anything you need.” I eased the door closed as Gwen slipped through. “Sorry to disturb you.”

  I hurried back to the kitchen with Gwen on my heels. “Thank you for showing me that, Gwen. I can’t believe this guy. If he wants to drive me out of business and then buy my inn, why is he even staying here?”

  Gwen shrugged. “Maybe he doesn’t like his son.” She glanced at her watch, then looked up at me. “Hey, I really want to get in a few sketches of the storm; do you mind if I leave the last room to you?”

  So much for a reformed helper. “On another day I’d say okay, but I’ve got 100 people to feed tonight and I still haven’t done any prep work for breakfast tomorrow.” Gwen sighed and trudged back down the hall. “Thanks for giving me the heads-up on the plans, Gwen,” I called after her. She didn’t respond.

  When the kitchen door closed behind me, I picked up the phone and dialed Charlene. I shouldered the handset and recounted what we’d found in Ogden Wilson’s room, unwrapping chocolate squares with my injured hand.

  “That dirty rotten fink!” Charlene fumed. “I can’t believe him! Nat, you should kick him out.”

  “I can’t. I need the money. Besides, what am I going to tell him: that I was snooping through his assistant’s stuff and didn’t like what I saw?” I unwrapped four sticks of butter and dropped them into a saucepan to melt, then reached for the flour and sugar canisters.

  “I guess it’s better to keep your enemies where you can see them. So Gwen filled you in on what was going on? That was unusually helpful of her.”

  “Yeah, I guess it was. Now if only she would apply the same zeal to her housekeeping duties.”