Berried to the Hilt

by Karen MacInerney

  “Oh, I’d bet they would,” I said, thinking of Murray Selfridge, Cranberry Island’s wealthiest resident. I couldn’t imagine Murray giving anything up—ever.

  “It usually depends on the value of the find,” she said. “We’ll see.”

  “I know Adam Thrackton called you in,” I said. “If there was anything of value, would he be entitled to a percentage?”

  Carl smiled. “Adam is a delightful young man, and has assured me that his interest in the wreck is purely archeological.”

  “But if there’s gold …”

  “It all belongs in a museum,” Carl said staunchly.

  “I think we’re putting the cart before the horse here,” Molly said. “We’ve found some concretions, but no coins.”

  Carl turned to his partner. “We don’t know what’s in the concretions yet, Molly. And some of them are missing.”

  “You think,” she said. “We haven’t mapped the site, and you know as well as I do that the sea floor changes constantly. There’s no way to be sure.”

  “But if I’m right, and Iliad has them, they could be putting together a claim on the vessel right now. And we’ve got nothing.”

  No wonder Carl was concerned about anyone knowing about the bell—and about hauling it up as soon as possible. If Iliad had indeed pulled artifacts up from the wreck, knowing that their competitor had located the bell might spur Carl and Molly to speed up identifying the artifacts—and making a court claim. Honestly, though—the company had just lost both its top guy and its research vessel. Did Carl really think Illiad was such a threat?

  “Iliad is a mess right now,” Molly said, echoing my thoughts. “They’ve got no ship and no equipment. We’ve got time.”

  “I won’t sleep until I know we’ve identified it,” he said. “Damn. I wish we had those lift bags now!”

  “They’ll be here tomorrow,” Molly said, patting him on the arm. “One day won’t kill us.”

  “I hope you’re right,” he said grimly.

  “I’m going to call down to the lab and see when we can get the Sea Vixen up,” Carl said, excusing himself and heading for the phone.

  “What’s the Sea Vixen?” I asked Molly, who was stretching like a cat.

  “She’s the lab’s biggest vessel—she’s got cabins, and can stay out at the site twenty-four hours a day. She’s also equipped with a submersible and sonar equipment. The only problem is, she’s out on another research project until next week.” She grinned at me. “Not that I mind the wonderful food and the comfy beds here.”

  “Speaking of food, I’d better get the clam chowder going,” I said. I turned to go, and Molly headed toward the fireplace. Then I hesitated. “Molly?” I asked.

  She turned toward me. “Yes?”

  “I don’t know if you can answer this, but do you know anything about Audrey Hammonds?”

  “What about her?”

  “I was wondering about her and Gerald. I understand they were seeing each other. But Gerald had just gotten engaged to another woman.”

  “I’ve heard rumors,” she said. “Gerald always had a woman on his arm, and had no concerns about mixing business with pleasure. I did an internship with him one summer, years ago, and he rarely slept alone.” Something in her tone of voice—and the hint of intimacy I’d seen between Molly and the treasure hunter the night Carl had attacked Gerald—made me wonder if Molly hadn’t been one of his companions.

  “But you don’t know anything about their relationship?” I asked.

  Molly smiled, deepening her dimples. “You’re wondering if maybe she killed him out of jealousy?”

  “Perhaps,” I said. “I’m just looking at all the possibilities. A good friend of mine is in jail for the crime right now, and I just can’t believe he did it.”

  “People do crazy things when they feel threatened,” she said, shaking her head. “You never know what someone is capable of.”

  Too true, I thought. But Eleazer wasn’t the only one feeling threatened. “What about Gerald’s partner—Frank? Was everything smooth between them?”

  “There’s always been a rivalry between them,” she said. “I heard rumors there were some changes in the partnership, and Frank wasn’t happy about them. A friend of mine told me it’s been pretty tense over there.”

  “What kinds of changes?”

  “I think they were talking about going public with the company. Also, there was talk of investing in a new vessel—apparently Frank wasn’t as excited about it as Gerald.”

  “Did you tell the investigators any of this?”

  “I may have mentioned a few things,” she said, “but they really didn’t ask many questions.”

  That’s what I thought. I’d have to tell John all of this when I saw him. “I have one other question, while we’re talking.”

  Her eyes were wide. “What is it?”

  “I meant to ask Carl before he left, but maybe you know. Did Eleazer meet with him at all?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Before Gerald died. I understand Eleazer was going to ask Carl to take a look at his cutlass.”

  “The one he thought belonged to Davey Blue?” she asked. She thought for a moment, then shook her head. “I don’t remember him saying anything about it. I’ll ask him, though.”

  “Thanks,” I said, and as Molly grabbed a log and laid it on the grate, I headed back to the kitchen to start dinner.

  In less than twenty minutes, the cozy kitchen was redolent with the scent of frying bacon, onion, and potatoes. Outside the wind gusted, and the water had turned from cobalt to lead. Clam chowder was perfect for a cold autumn evening meal. A particularly strong gust rattled the windowpanes, and I realized I hadn’t heard from Claudette yet. Had she made it back to the island before the bad weather hit?

  I made a quick call to Charlene to check on Claudette, but she wasn’t at the store, and Tania, who answered the phone, hadn’t heard anything. Frustrated, I added some clam juice to the potato-bacon mixture and put a lid on my stockpot. I hated the feeling of helplessness—I had no idea where Claudette was, and couldn’t do anything to help poor Eli, who was miles away and behind bars. I hoped the beds weren’t too hard on his arthritis.

  I pulled off a corner of the apple turnover I’d bought and sat at the kitchen table to eat it. The flaky pastry and gooey apple filling were wasted on me, though; I was too preoccupied to appreciate them. John had told me I shouldn’t snoop. But if Audrey had killed her lover and nobody found out about it, the lives of three innocent people would be ruined: not just Gerald’s, but Eli’s and Claudette’s as well. My heart bled to think of Eli spending the rest of his life behind bars, and Claudette alone in her little clapboard house, her husband’s workshop empty.

  After approximately two minutes wrestling with my conscience, I got up, grabbed a stack of fresh towels, and headed to the front desk to pick up the skeleton key. I smiled at Molly as I passed; she was curled up on the couch before a crackling fire, trying unsuccessfully to get reception on her Blackberry. Despite my nerves, I smiled to myself; another of Cranberry Island’s mixed blessings was the lack of cell phone service.

  Audrey’s room was upstairs, near the end of the hallway. I knocked, half holding my breath; when no one answered, I unlocked the door and slipped inside, relocking the door behind me.

  The room was neat as a pin; either Audrey was a tidy soul, or Marge had outdone herself cleaning again. The desk was annoyingly clear of any debris; there was no laptop to be found, and there was nothing in the drawers, either. I peeked into a dresser drawer, but there was nothing but a neat stack of sweaters. Even the small closet turned up no clues.

  I sat down on the edge of the bed, frustrated. The room looked practically unoccupied; the only sign that anyone was checked in was a book on the nightstand. I reached for it, expecting it to be a tome on marine archeology; to my surprise, it was a self-help book called All the Rules: Time-tested Secrets for Capturing the Heart of Mr. Right.

  I cou
ldn’t help but be surprised, particularly when I glanced at the table of contents. “Be a ‘Creature Unlike Any Other,’” was one of the rules. How exactly was one supposed to do that? I wondered. “Don’t accept a Saturday night date after Wednesday,” was another. What was Audrey—sleek, athletic, no-nonsense Audrey, who looked like she could hike a mountain before lunch—doing with a book that seemed aimed at a Southern debutante?

  As I set the book back on the nightstand, something caught my eye. It was a photograph tucked between the pages, like a bookmark. The snapshot had been torn into pieces, but taped back together with painstaking care. It was Gerald, on the deck of a boat, smiling broadly, his arm around a beaming Audrey.

  I stared at the photo for a moment, then tucked it back between the pages of the book. After a check of the nightstand drawers—again, empty—I retrieved the towels and quietly left the room.

  On the way to the staircase, I paused. Carl was another suspect, and was currently down on his boat. What if there was something in his room to prove he had murdered his rival in a fit of passion?

  Before I had a chance to think about it too much, I slipped the key into the lock and stepped into Carl’s room.

  Unlike Audrey’s, Carl’s room was a mess. Marge had made the bed—the blue and white counterpane was folded neatly at the corners, but the desk was stacked with reference books on sailing ships, bottles—even cannons. Carl was clearly a man obsessed. I did a cursory search, but there was nothing but a jumble of clothing in the drawers of the antique chest and stacks of books everywhere—and not a self-help tome among them. Nor, alas, did I find an empty scabbard, or any other indication that Eli had relinquished his cutlass to the archaeologist.

  I stepped back into the hallway and glanced at my watch; the chowder didn’t need to be checked for another ten minutes. Molly was downstairs curled up in front of the fire, and the skeleton key was in my hand. A Do Not Disturb sign hung from Molly’s doorknob, which I found odd—particularly since she was downstairs. Would it hurt if I took a quick look at her room, too? I listened for the sound of footsteps, then slipped inside.

  On the neatness spectrum, Molly’s room was right between Audrey’s and Carl’s; a few reference books, primarily on sailing ships, were stacked haphazardly on the dresser, alongside her clunky digital watch. There was also a short stack of folders. I peeked into each of them; they contained copies of accounts of Davey Blue’s battles and ports of call, along with a few articles on identifying cannons. I closed the folder and looked around the room. A pink sweater was draped over the corner of the made bed, and the corner of a suitcase peeked out from under the dust ruffle. I accidentally kicked it as I rounded the bed, and as I bent to push it back under, I noticed something bright orange sticking out beyond the zipper. I pulled the suitcase out and flipped up the lid; inside was a pack of neon orange diving lift bags. “Lifts up to 100 pounds” read the label on the outside of the package. The plastic had been opened, and only one remained.

  I tucked the bag back into the suitcase and pushed the case under the bed, confused. Carl had said they were out of lift bags, and Molly had told him more were coming tomorrow. Why hadn’t she used this one? Was the size wrong?

  I did a quick check of the rest of the room—loosely folded clothes in the bureau, a few jackets hanging in the closet. Nothing out of the ordinary.

  The bathroom, on the other hand, held a few surprises. Next to the toilet was a jug of something that looked like white vinegar; I opened the lid and took a sniff, but it didn’t smell like anything. Beside it were stacked several large plastic tubs. After pausing to listen for the sound of footsteps, I pried the lids back and peeked inside. Two were empty, but the third contained some kind of metal screen material and a car battery with wires attached to it. What the heck was it?

  And why was it stored in her room, instead of the research vessel? When she’d checked in, she certainly hadn’t lugged all of this stuff up here. All she had brought up from the boat was a small suitcase. When had she transferred everything else to her room?

  I took another whiff of the liquid in the jug, but couldn’t smell anything. Was it water? And if so, why would she store it in jugs? Hoping I hadn’t just inhaled poisonous fumes, I retrieved my towels and crept out of the room, wondering what the heck I had just seen. As I locked the door behind me, there were footsteps on the stairs. It was Molly.

  “Warmed up already?”

  “Working on it,” she said. “Is everything okay up here?”

  “Just checking to make sure everyone has enough towels,” I said. Smiling, I walked down the hall and turned down the stairs, glancing over as I headed down the stairs. Molly was bent over, picking up the “Do Not Disturb” sign from the floor. I must have knocked it off when I closed the door. I pretended I hadn’t noticed and kept moving down the staircase.

  The potatoes were just beginning to become tender when I made it back to the kitchen with my stack of clean towels, and I set to work adding cream, milk, and the clams to the pot on the stove. I then took the beautiful rounds of sourdough bread and sliced a ‘bowl’ in the middle of each and whipped up a Dijon vinaigrette for the salad.

  All the while, though, I was thinking about what I had seen in the rooms upstairs. Audrey was clearly upset with Gerald, but break-ups happened all the time. And while she’d torn up the picture of them as a couple, she’d also taped it back together. Had she been hurt and angry enough to kill him in a fit of passion? And if so, why do it in the middle of the night, out at the wreck site? Besides, assuming the Lorelei’s disappearance was linked with Gerald’s death, why get rid of the boat? It didn’t make sense. Carl and Molly were the only ones who benefited from the vessel’s disappearance—unless Evan, of course, had taken it. I didn’t know whether a crew of one would be sufficient to handle a boat of that size, and made a mental note to ask John when I saw him.

  And then there was the paraphernalia in Molly’s room. I was curious about the stuff in her bathroom, of course, but even more curious about why they were waiting for a delivery of lift bags when there was already a lift bag in her suitcase. I also found it strange that she would keep equipment hidden in her bathroom, rather than on the research vessel. Was she doing something she didn’t want her partner to find out about? I hadn’t seen any artifacts, though. What was she up to?

  Gwen had the evening off, so I set the tables myself, lighting candles at each of them. The smell of clam chowder permeated the entire downstairs—a warm, comforting aroma—and I found myself looking forward to the reactions of my guests. I crossed my fingers the Times writer wasn’t a fan of Manhattan-style chowder.

  Rain began to lash the windows as I put the finishing touches on the tables. I had just lit the last candle when I heard the sound of a car bumping down the driveway. I extinguished the match and hurried back through the door to the kitchen, where I peered through the window.

  It was Charlene’s truck. I shrugged my jacket on, grabbed an umbrella, and hurried out to help Claudette from the truck. The older woman looked stricken. Charlene caught my eye as I reached out a hand to help her out, struggling to hold onto the umbrella with my left hand. The visit to Eli must have been a difficult one.

  When we’d installed Claudette in the kitchen with a cup of tea, I drew Charlene into the dining room. “What happened?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “It was so upsetting to her—she’s convinced he’ll never come back to the island again.”

  “Did she ask about the cutlass?”

  “He says he came by late, but no one was here, so he left it at the front desk at the inn, with a note on it.”

  “I never saw it,” I said. “Who was it addressed to?”

  “He said he left it for Professor Morgenstern,” Charlene said. “Oh, Eli. Why couldn’t he just have held onto the darned thing?”

  “The police believe he did,” I pointed out.

  “And I would too, if I didn’t know him as well as I do. The whole story sounds fishy.”
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  “Did he mention if he left the scabbard?”

  “He says he left both the cutlass and the scabbard here.”

  “Well, then, that’s something,” I said. Assuming he was telling the truth, a little voice inside me pointed out. I quickly quieted it. “If we find the scabbard …”

  “I assume you’ve checked the rooms?” she asked.

  “I have,” I said. “Except for Gerald’s,” I said.

  “Is it still cordoned off?”

  “No,” I said. “But everything has been taken to the lab. From what John told me, the investigators didn’t find anything—certainly not a scabbard.”

  “It was worth asking,” she said.

  I glanced at my watch. “I’d better get going. Dinner’s in ten minutes.”

  “What are we having?” she asked.

  “Clam chowder and pie from Little Notch Bakery.”

  “Mmm,” she said. “Do you have enough?”

  “You may have to skip the bread bowl, but I’ve got plenty of everything else.”

  “Count me in then,” she said.

  “Let’s go check on Claudette first,” I said. “And the chowder.”

  Claudette was sitting where we left her, her tea untouched, tears streaking down her pale cheeks. Charlene slid into the chair beside her and gave her fleshy shoulders a quick hug. “It’ll be okay, sweetheart. We’ll have dinner together, and then you can get some sleep.”

  “But Eli …”

  “He’s strong, Claudette. He’ll be okay. And he’ll sleep better knowing that you’re being strong.”

  My heart ached for my friend, and I was glad Charlene was on hand to comfort her. I busied myself plating salads, and was adding cherry tomatoes to each plate when John appeared at the back door.

  He greeted Claudette and Charlene, his voice strained; I could tell his efforts had not gone as well as he’d hoped. I abandoned the tomatoes and crossed the kitchen to give him a hug. The smell of him and the strength of his arms around me was a comfort—and underscored once more what Claudette must be going through.