Berried to the Hilt

by Karen MacInerney

  I felt a swell of anger at the thought of Adam, unconscious from a head injury. Who had done this to him? “Did Adam tell you who he was going to talk to?”

  “No,” she said, sounding miserable.

  “Oh, Gwen, I wish I were there,” I said. I ached to be at the hospital with her, but with the storm outside, there was no way we could cross the water in our skiffs safely. As much as I loved living on an island, there were times when the isolation was a real hindrance—and this was one of them.

  “It’s not safe—not with the storm,” she said. “I’ll be okay. Adam’s mom and dad are driving up tonight.”

  “Thank God,” I said. I was glad she’d have company—and crossed my fingers that they were able to support each other. It was going to be tough on all of them. “Please let them know Adam—and all of you—are in our prayers, Gwen. I wish I could be there with you.”

  “I know, Aunt Nat. But I’ll be all right.”

  And I knew she would. As different as Gwen and Bridget were, My niece had inherited my sister’s strength. “Call me as soon as you hear anything, okay? Any time of night.”

  “I will,” she said.

  “I love you, honey.”

  “I love you too, Aunt Nat.”

  I hung up and relayed what Gwen had told me to John and Charlene. “And she has no idea who Adam was going to talk to?” John asked.

  “None at all,” I said.

  “Evan must have been in deep trouble,” John said. “I heard he’d gotten into gambling, but he must have been in debt to some dangerous people.”

  “Do you think that’s why he skipped town?” Charlene asked.

  “I’m hoping he got a chance to skip town,” John said.

  I shivered. Had Evan, too, fallen victim to a murderer? “Poor Evan.”

  “Poor Adam,” Charlene said. “It was his generosity that got him mixed up with Evan in the first place.”

  “Adam’s a kind-hearted man,” I said. “That’s a big part of the reason Gwen loves him so much.”

  “I know—it’s just a shame.”

  “Before we throw anyone else into danger, I think we need to talk to Ingrid, and find out what she knows,” I said.

  Charlene snorted. “Get her to tell you anything negative about her precious boy? Good luck with that.”

  “If it means helping find her son, she might open up,” I said.

  “Anything’s possible, I guess.”

  John leaned back and stretched. “I’m ready to hit the sack,” he said.

  “You’re welcome to stay here if you want,” I said to Charlene.

  “I’d love to, but I’ve got to open early.” She gave me a hug. “Call me if you hear anything, okay?”

  I promised her I would, and after watching Charlene’s one tail light recede up the drive, John put his arms around me and kissed me. Then, together, as lightning forked in the sky outside and the wind howled around the eaves, we climbed the darkened stairs to the bedroom.

  _____

  The storm had dissipated when I woke to darkness the next morning. As I stumbled down to the kitchen, I was glad I’d planned an easy breakfast; I was still half-asleep and worried about Adam. It was a good thing the oven wasn’t working. Normally baking was a refuge for me, but this morning, I wouldn’t have been surprised if I accidentally substituted salt for sugar.

  I had just started the coffee when the phone rang. I almost dropped the basket of muffins in my hurry to get to the phone.

  “Gray Whale Inn,” I blurted into the receiver.

  “He’s awake!”

  “Thank God,” I said, slumping against the wall. “Is he okay?”

  “He can’t remember a thing that happened,” Gwen said, her voice jubilant, “but other than that he’s just fine.”

  “Oh, Gwen. I’m so glad. Are his mom and dad okay?”

  “It was a tense night, but everyone’s fine now,” she said. “Of course, his face looks like hamburger meat, and they’ll have to straighten his nose out, but he’s going to be just fine.”

  “How long will he have to stay in the hospital?”

  “They want him there for at least another twenty-four hours before they’ll let him go. His mom and dad have reserved two hotel rooms, so we’re going to stay in town until he’s ready to go.”

  “Don’t let him drive the Diem yet, okay? I want you both back on the mail boat—or if it’s not running, call me and I’ll arrange something.”

  “Sheesh. Now I’ve got two moms.”

  “Three, if you count Adam’s mother,” I teased her. “Give him a hug for us, okay?”

  “Will do, Aunt Nat.”

  I hung up feeling about a million times better, and called Charlene. Then I ran upstairs to pass the news on to John, who was still dozing.

  “Wake up, sleepyhead,” I called.

  “Who called?” he asked, his sandy blond hair appealingly tousled.

  “That was Gwen. Adam woke up, and he’s going to be okay.”

  He fell back onto the bed. “Thank God.”

  “My thoughts exactly.” I gave him a quick kiss. “If you want muffins, you’d better hurry and get downstairs.”

  He looked at his watch. “I’ll be down in a few minutes. Is there coffee?”

  “Lots. I’ll pour you a cup.”

  As I trotted back downstairs, the phone rang a second time. I answered it on the first ring. “Gray Whale Inn.”

  “May I speak with Franklin Goertz, please?”

  It was barely eight o’clock; a bit early for a casual call. “I’ll see if he’s up,” I said. “Can I tell him who’s calling?”

  “Sarah Marks,” said the woman on the line. “Of Marks, Gravenstein, and Pousson.”

  “I’ll see if I can get him,” I said.

  Frank was up and dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt when I knocked on his door and informed him he had a phone call. “You can take it at the front desk if you’d like,” I said.

  “I will,” he said, following me to the desk. I hurried back to the kitchen and hesitated before hanging up the phone; I could hear their voices from the receiver. I was dying to listen in. Instead, I slipped through the kitchen door and crept to the far side of the dining room, straining my ears.

  “He didn’t sign it?” Frank asked. There was a pause; after a few minutes, he let out a whoosh of air. “So she’s not in the picture, and everything’s still the way it was when we set it up,” he said. He was quiet for a moment. “Well, it’s horrible what happened, but at least the timing worked out. Now we don’t have to wrangle over an IPO, and the shares stay with the original partners.” After a moment he spoke again. “Will the money from the insurance settlement automatically be used to buy the remaining shares?” There was silence again. “Okay. We’ve found a bigger R/V, and it’s coming in today. We should have this site identified in a day or two, and then I’ll be back in the office. Unless it’s urgent, just send any paperwork that needs to be signed to my office address, and I’ll take care of it when I get back.” There was silence for a moment, and then he spoke again. “Thanks for calling—I’ve been on pins and needles this last couple of days.”

  As he hung up, I scurried back to the kitchen. Unless I was mistaken, I had just found one more person who benefited from Gerald McIntire’s death.

  John was sitting at the kitchen table, his hair gleaming in the morning sun.

  “Who was that?” he asked.

  “I think it was Frank Goertz’s attorney,” I said.

  “What makes you say that?”

  I told him what I’d overheard.

  “Overheard, eh?” He shook his head, grinning. “You can’t help yourself, can you?” he teased. “You’re as bad as the natives. I’ll have to buy you a pair of binoculars for Christmas, so you can officially join the island’s traditional sport.”

  I tried to look innocent. “Birdwatching?”

  “No. Snooping,” he said. “It does have its uses, though. Do you think that ‘she’ was Gerald�
�s fiancée?”

  “That’s the only thing I can think of,” I said. “It sounds like Gerald was altering the partnership agreement now that his marital status was changing. I’m guessing Frank didn’t want the shares to revert to anyone other than him.”

  “But if it’s a partnership, wouldn’t both partners have to agree on something like that?” John asked.

  “Not necessarily, if one is the majority partner. It depends on how the contract was written. He mentioned using an insurance settlement. Sounds like he had a policy on Gerald—that’s what he’s using to buy out the rest of the company.”

  “It was probably pretty substantial, then.”

  “Looks like we’ve got another motive,” I said.

  “Maybe,” he said. “It would be stronger if he knew the papers hadn’t been signed yet. Murdering your partner is a big risk to take if you’re not sure of the payoff.”

  “You’re right,” I said, feeling my hopes deflate a little bit. Would we ever be able to get Eleazer out of jail?

  “Still,” John said. “If there was an argument over the IPO, it might have been worth his while to get rid of his partner.” He leaned forward. “The new agreement might still have made him majority partner in the event of a death—and having Gerald out of the way could make it easier to forestall an IPO. And unless they were canceling the insurance policy, he still stood to make a bundle.”

  “So he still has a strong motive,” I said.

  “I’d say so.” John grinned at me. “Excellent detective work. I think you’re officially ready for a pair of binoculars.”

  “Thank you ever so much,” I said. “See if you get muffins with that attitude.”

  He stood and bowed. “I deeply, humbly apologize, fair maiden and keeper of the baked goods.”

  “Oh, all right.” I tossed him a fat muffin; he caught it handily and set to work peeling back the wrapper. I turned on my big griddle and put bacon on to cook, then poured two cups of coffee and brought them to the table. Within moments, the aroma of bacon permeated the room. I took a sip of coffee, still thinking about the conversation I’d overheard. “It’s just too bad he’s sending the paperwork to his office.”

  “You know that opening mail is a federal offense,” he said.

  “Perhaps,” I said. “But coming across opened mail while dusting is still perfectly legal, as far as I know.”

  “Incorrigible,” John said, chuckling.

  “That’s what makes me so irresistible,” I said.

  He leaned over to kiss me, but our embrace was interrupted by the creak of the kitchen door.

  It was Claudette, looking more haggard than ever. “Come sit down,” I said, getting up to help her to a chair. She hadn’t eaten in at least twenty-four hours, and seemed to have aged ten years in the last couple of days. I was really starting to worry about her. “Let me get you some tea.” I hurried to put a kettle on. “Are you hungry? I’ve got fabulous blueberry muffins from Little Notch.”

  “No, thanks,” she said.

  “Why don’t you have just one—to keep up your strength.”

  “Okay,” she said, but just stared at the muffin when I put it in front of her. “I heard the phone ring. Is there any news?”

  John and I filled her in on what had happened to Adam.

  “Thank goodness he’s going to be okay,” she said. “He’s such a nice boy.”

  “He is,” I agreed.

  “Do you think what happened to poor Adam has anything to do with Gerald’s death?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “It could. I’m going to see if I can talk to Ingrid today.”

  “Poor Adam,” she said, shaking her head. “He’s like Eli—good-hearted.” She sighed. “I should go down to the house and check on the cats and the goats today.”

  I got up to turn the bacon and glanced out the window; the rain was lessening, but it was still coming down. “I’d wait until it clears up a bit,” I said, opening the fridge and taking out a dozen eggs.

  “It’s supposed to be sunny by noon,” John said.

  “Maybe we can finally get the oven fixed, then,” I said. I’d already planned to make sautéed chicken cutlets and steamed veggies for tonight—with a side of rice instead of bread—but it would be nice to know when I could start cooking normally again.

  “Speaking of baking, isn’t the bake-off this weekend?” John asked.

  “Don’t remind me,” I said darkly, and cracked an egg into a bowl with vigor.

  _____

  By the time the first guests came down to breakfast, my kitchen was empty again. Claudette had borrowed a raincoat and headed out to check on her animals, and John had returned to the carriage house to call the repair company. The dining room was bathed in watery morning light; already a few rays of sun were escaping the thick cloud cover. Cherry sat in her customary table by the window, cheerful as usual despite the cloudy morning, and the Iliad duo sat a few tables away. There was no sign of Carl and Molly.

  Frank looked more relaxed than I’d ever seen him as I poured coffee and informed him of what was on the menu. Even Audrey looked slightly less depressed than usual.

  “You look like you’ve gotten some good news,” I said as I finished my recital of the breakfast offerings and topped off Audrey’s coffee cup.

  “We got a line on a big R/V with a submersible,” Frank said happily.

  “What’s an R/V?” I asked.

  “Short for research vessel,” he said with a smile. For a man who had lost his partner only two days earlier, he looked remarkably chipper. After what I’d overheard this morning, I guessed the R/V wasn’t the only thing brightening his day. “It’ll be here this afternoon,” he added.

  I topped off Frank’s coffee cup and stepped back. “I thought all of your big research vessels were in the Caribbean right now.”

  “They are,” he said. “My staff tracked this one down yesterday; it’s in Portland, and we’re leasing it for a few days. That’ll allow us to do a sonar map of the area and pull up a cannon—should make identifying the wreck a whole lot easier.”

  “Congratulations,” I said. “I’ve been meaning to ask, by the way—I know Evan Sorenson contacted you initially about the wreck. Did you enter into any kind of agreement with him?”

  His smile faded. “I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to talk about that,” he said.

  “You do know that Evan has disappeared, don’t you?”

  “I’d heard something about that,” he said, taking a sip of his coffee. “He’s a young man—probably went to visit a girlfriend or something. You know how college-age kids are.”

  “Speaking of disappearing, any word yet on the Lorelei?” I asked.

  “Not yet, unfortunately,” he said. “If it went down at the site, though, the sonar on the new vessel should pick it up, and we’ll find out if we can salvage it.”

  “I hope it was insured,” I said.

  “Everything’s insured at Iliad,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “We like to cover all of our bases.”

  Including murdered partners, I thought as I drifted back to the kitchen.

  Twenty minutes went by, and still Molly and Carl didn’t come down. Where could they be? They were usually the first ones at breakfast. I peered out the window at the water below the inn, and was surprised to see that both of the mooring lines were vacant. They must have headed out early, determined to take advantage of the lull in the storm. Had Molly remembered the lift bag she’d stashed in her suitcase?

  As I set down the basket of muffins, I replayed in my head the phone conversation I’d overheard that morning—and my brief chat with Frank. He seemed awfully cavalier about Evan’s disappearance. Was Iliad somehow involved in it? That didn’t explain what had happened to Adam in Bar Harbor yesterday, though.

  There were too many unanswered questions, I thought as I refilled the carafe with coffee, and no way of knowing if any of them were linked to Gerald McIntire’s death.

  One thing was certain,
though. If Carl had killed Gerald to buy the university time to identify the wreck, it was quickly running out.

  By the time I finished loading the breakfast dishes into the dishwasher, the sun was breaking through the clouds, and it was shaping up to be a gorgeous fall day. John had kindly offered to stick around and wait for the repairman to come, and since none of the guests would be at the inn for lunch (Cherry was checking out the cafés on Mount Desert Island, and Molly had left a note on the front desk saying they’d be out until dinner), I had a luxurious few hours of freedom.

  When my yellow kitchen was clean and sparkling, I slipped my windbreaker and sneakers on, retrieved a Tupperware container full of my oatmeal chocolate chippers I’d dug out of the back of the freezer—I would have baked fresh, but it’s tough to make cookies without an oven—and headed out the door, enjoying the fresh, cold breeze against my cheeks.

  After all of the stress of the last few days, the unsullied beauty of the island was a balm to my soul. The world looked washed clean, and although the wind and rain had torn enough leaves from the red maples to create a brilliant red carpet, there were still several clinging to the branches, glowing in the morning sun. Droplets of water glistened where they had caught in the russet leaves of a blueberry bush, and the low rush of waves hitting rocks and the cry of seagulls in the distance were a soothing counterpoint to the rustle of the pine trees. The island was like a jewel box—and I was reminded once again why I’d fallen in love with it in the first place.

  When I reached the top of the hill, I turned back and looked down at the inn. It looked like it had always been a part of the landscape—and I realized what a big part of me the sprawling old house had become. It was hard to imagine it belonging to Captain Jonah Selfridge, who had built it to house his wife. She had wanted to live far enough from the dock so her delicate nose wasn’t offended by the smell of fish. Time had marched on, but in many ways, Cranberry Island had changed little since the time of Captain Selfridge—or even of the famed pirate Davey Blue.

  My eyes strayed from the gray-shingled inn with its Provençal-blue window boxes to the water beyond. Had Captain Selfridge met his end mere miles from his home, and lain deep under the blue water for almost two hundred years? Or had Davey Blue and his doomed seventeen-year-old love gone down centuries earlier?