Wendy Delaney - Working Stiffs 02 - Sex, Lies, and Snickerdoodles

by Wendy Delaney

  I’d sputtered down this sparky road with Kyle Cardinale once before only to find him hesitant to create any real heat with me. “It’s nothing.” And it was going to stay that way now that I was with Steve. At least, kind of with Steve, in a semi-committed sex buddy, non-serious relationship way.

  “It certainly didn’t look like nothing.”

  “We’re not talking about this anymore.”

  Holding my mother’s hand on the wet, slippery wood, we thunk, thunk, thunked our way back down Dock C toward the Boneweaver.

  “Where are we going?” she asked. “I thought we were done at the marina.”

  “Almost. I want to take a picture of that boat before we leave.”

  “You don’t think Kelsey could possibly have anything to do with that poor boy’s death, do you?”

  “I don’t know.” But I wasn’t going home before trying to find the answer to that question.

  After the drive from the marina past the Cedars Cove boat launch on Bayshore Road, Marietta flashed a brittle smile at me. “I have a little problem.”

  Great. “What’s the problem?”

  “I need to go to the bathroom.”

  “We talked about how we weren’t going to have this particular problem tonight.”

  She shrugged. “I know, but I had three cups of coffee.”

  “He had a bathroom on his sailboat.”

  “I didn’t need to go then.”

  My fingers tightened around the steering wheel. “Do you want me to go back to the boat launch? There might be some facilities back there.”

  “No, I can hold it for a little while.”

  I’d heard that before. “You’re sure?”

  Looking resolute, she nodded.

  After another quarter mile, I pulled over, ten feet from the entrance to a steep driveway for a house with an unobstructed view of the bay—possibly one of the houses Pete Lackey had said had its lights on early last Saturday.

  “Okay, there’s only about an hour until sunset, and I don’t want to be going door-to-door in the dark, so I’ll make this fast.” Grabbing my tote and umbrella from the back seat, I gave my mother what I hoped was a reassuring smile. “Sit tight and I’ll be right back.”

  Twelve minutes later, I headed back to my car after having knocked on three doors.

  The first didn’t answer.

  The middle-aged man with the scruffy beard at the second house had been disappointed that I wasn’t delivering the pizza he’d ordered. When he added that he had been out of town last weekend I shared in his disappointment.

  My experience at the third house had at least been cordial since the elderly couple living there knew me from Duke’s, but once Mrs. Houghton described her evening ritual of closing their front curtain after the sun went down, I knew they wouldn’t be able to help me. Especially once the Houghtons started teasing one another about who fell asleep in front of their television first.

  Squinting through the drizzle at where my mother should have been sitting waiting for me, I saw an empty passenger seat. “What about sit tight don’t you understand?”

  I’d expected that to be a rhetorical question to the gray skies above, but a reedy voice answered from the hillside, and it was calling my name.

  I looked up and saw Fred Wixey standing on a narrow foot trail that ran the length of the scrub-covered hill. “Hi, Mr …. uh … Fred.”

  He motioned for me to join him. “If you’re looking for your mom, she’s up here.”

  Since he was the one who’d found her, I hoped it wasn’t behind a bush.

  Hiking up the slope, loose pebbles kicking out from under my sneakers, I tried to not pant like a dog by the time I reached the crest of the hill.

  “Good thing me and Barney were on our evening constitutional,” Mr. Wixey said, leading the way to his back gate. “I don’t think Mary Jo could have sat tight too much longer if you catch my drift.”

  I caught it all right.

  He opened his back door where Barney, the fox terrier, had been pacing, barking his intruder alert. “That’s enough, boy.” He winked at me. “Don’t be trying to scare off all my lady friends.”

  I heard a toilet flush and knew his other lady friend would soon be making an appearance.

  Mr. Wixey pointed at the barstool I’d sat on last Saturday. “Might as well take a load off.”

  I didn’t want to give my mother the impression that this rest stop detour could provide her with another trip down memory lane with one of the locals. “I’ll stand. Been sitting all day.”

  “Want some tea? I was just gonna fix me a cup.”

  “Thank you, Fred, but we can’t stay,” Marietta said, meeting my gaze as she stepped into the kitchen. “Charmaine has some work she needs to get back to.” Sorry, she mouthed to me.

  Filling up his kettle at the kitchen sink, he shot me a glance. “Since you’re back in my neck of the woods, you must still be working on the Falco kid’s drowning.”

  “Just to wrap up loose ends,” I said, inching closer to the door to give him the message that I didn’t have time to stay and chat. “Need to find out if any of your neighbors with a water view saw anything that might be helpful to our investigation.”

  Mr. Wixey set the kettle on to boil and then folded his arms as he leaned back against the stove with Barney curling into a ball near his feet. “Like what?”

  “Like if they happened to look out and see any boats in the area.” Which he clearly couldn’t have done. The only thing Fred Wixey had a view of was his neighbor’s back yard.

  “Ah. Like that one that hung around Cedars Cove for a few hours.”

  I pulled out the barstool he’d pointed to moments ago and motioned for Marietta to have a seat.

  “I thought we were leaving,” she whispered.

  “Not now we’re not.” And not before Mr. Wixey told me everything he could about this boat.

  Sitting next to Marietta with my notebook in front of me and pen in hand, I smiled at our host. “So you saw a boat hanging around Cedars Cove late Friday night?”

  He nodded like that should have been yesterday’s news.

  “Would you mind telling me everything you remember about that?”

  He loudly exhaled. “Here we go again.”

  “Sorry,” I said under my breath. Obviously answering questions wasn’t his favorite thing.

  “Barney hadn’t done his usual business earlier and it was a nice night, so we set out around nine-thirty to go for a little walk. Up on the trail, where I was waiting for you, there’s a pretty good vantage spot of the cove. Anyway, that’s when I saw the boat’s running lights. Thought he was having trouble setting his anchor at first, the way he kept going back and forth.”

  “What do you mean back and forth?” I asked.

  “He’d nose out past the point and then put her in reverse a minute later and move back ten, fifteen feet.” Mr. Wixey waved his hands in unison as if he were conducting an orchestra. “Back and forth over and over again. I don’t know what he was trying to do, but this went on for a good ten minutes.”

  Ten minutes. “But you said that he hung around for hours.”

  The kettle whistled and Mr. Wixey picked it up. “Sure I can’t offer you ladies some tea?” He arched his eyebrows, a tease of a smile at his lips. “Or ice cream if you prefer.”

  “Ooooh,” Marietta cooed. “That would be—”

  “No, nothing, thank you.” I didn’t want anything else distracting Fred Wixey from the story I wanted him to tell me, since having my mother in the kitchen was probably distracting enough, and that was before she started pouting about the ice cream. “As you were saying …”

  “Let’s see … where was I?” He poured the steaming water into an insulated plastic mug and dropped a tea bag into it. “Oh yeah, so a couple hours later, I let Barney out one last time before bedtime and I got curious about whether that boat was still there, so I went back over to check. It wasn’t as easy to make out because the running lights wer
e off, but there was a light flickering in the cabin, so I figured the guy was in there watching TV or something. Then the darndest thing happened.”

  “What?” Marietta and I both asked as he took a sip of tea.

  “He did the same damned thing he did earlier, excuse my French. Nosed his boat out past the point, stayed there for a minute and then backed her up again.”

  My mother leaned toward me. “Could he have been looking for something in the water?” She tapped my notebook like I should write that down.

  Someone on the water would be my guess.

  Mr. Wixey shrugged a thin shoulder. “Don’t know. I guess I stood there for another five, ten minutes, trying to see what he was up to, but then that light in his cabin went out, so I figured he was done for the night.”

  I checked the notes I’d made to guess at the time. “So this was between eleven-thirty and eleven-forty?”

  “Maybe a little later,” Mr. Wixey said between sips. “The Tonight Show was on.” He looked at my mother. “You ever do that show?”

  “Years ago with Johnny Carson.” She sighed contentedly. “Charming man.”

  Mr. Wixey nodded. “Hasn’t been the same since.”

  Now wasn’t the time for fond remembrances of television hosts gone by. I wanted to hear more about this boat. “Okay, so it might have been closer to eleven forty-five. Anything else that you saw or heard?”

  “I came in and watched the rest of the show, then Barney and me went to bed.”

  That sounded like the end of his story unless he could give me more specifics. “Back to the boat you saw, can you describe it?”

  He slurped his tea. “Not really. At this distance and with my old eyeballs I’m doin’ good just to see that there was a boat down there.”

  Fine. “From what you observed, did it look big, like it would have been moored at a marina?”

  “Probably.”

  I pulled out my cell phone and leaned across the counter to show him the picture I’d taken at the marina a half hour earlier. “Maybe a boat like this one?”

  Setting down his cup, he squinted at the picture of Dr. Donovan’s boat. “Similar shape, so yeah, could’ve been that one. Wouldn’t swear to it though.”

  Holy moly! That meant it could have been Kelsey on that boat.

  My hand started shaking as I held the cell phone. Breathe.

  I dropped the phone back into my tote. “Anything else that you can think of that I should know?”

  He shook his head. “You already know the rest. I got up the next morning, the boat was gone, then a couple hours later, Barney found Russell near the boat launch.”

  “Yes, we talked about where you and Barney discovered the body, but this is the first I’m hearing about the boat. So you’re saying it was gone when you got up in the morning?” I asked, poised with my pen to capture his exact words in my notebook.

  He frowned for a second, accentuating the marionette-like folds under his cheeks. “I coulda sworn that I mentioned that the boat must’ve taken off pretty early. Oh, I remember. It was Steve.”

  I stared at him. “What do you mean ‘it was Steve?’”

  “Steve was in the neighborhood a couple of days ago and asked me about what I saw that night, and I told him about that boat.”

  I painted a tight-lipped smile onto my face. “Really.”

  Mr. Wixey pointed a bony finger at me. “Just like I told you last Saturday, this is another example of government bureaucracy. Left hand and right hand not knowing what they’re doing.”

  Of course not. As per usual with the man I’d been sleeping with. He’d open his mouth to kiss me senseless, but when it came to information-sharing he clamped it tight like he had an iron jaw.

  “Well, sorry to ask you to rehash everything with me,” I said, putting away my notebook, “but we’ve certainly appreciated your time.”

  “And the use of your facilities.” Marietta slid off the barstool and extended her hand. “Lovely to see you again, Fred.”

  “Come back anytime.” He grinned mischievously. “Maybe next time without the chaperone. You still like chocolate mint?”

  She beamed. “You remember!”

  “I never forget a favorite flavor,” he said, tapping his temple. “You’re sure you two don’t have time for a quick scoop?”

  Marietta turned to me. “We don’t, do we?”

  What the heck. Steve probably wouldn’t be home for hours, and after what Fred Wixey had told me about the boat he’d seen, the only person I had questions for was Kelsey, and that would have to wait until tomorrow.

  I nodded. “We can make some time.”

  “Okay.” Mr. Wixey rubbed his hands together. “Two ice creams coming right up. Strawberry again, Charmaine, or would you like to branch out and try the chocolate mint?”

  His serving sizes ran on the small side, and I wasn’t in a little scoop mood tonight. “Could I have a scoop of each?”

  “Ooooh, mixing flavors. Watch out, Mary Jo, your girl’s livin’ dangerously.”

  Not yet I wasn’t, but I had a feeling I soon would be.

  While Fred Wixey went to his freezer for the ice cream I texted Steve. Can u make some time for me tonight?

  About a minute later, I received his response. Sure. Will call when I get back. Seconds later, I received another text. Should I pick up ice cream on my way home?

  Oh, hell no.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “You didn’t answer so I picked up some Neapolitan,” Steve said, following me into his kitchen after I pushed past him at the front door. “Strawberry for you. Chocolate for me. That way everybody’s happy.”

  I planted my hands on my hips. “Do I look happy?”

  “Okay, fine, you can have some of my chocolate.”

  “I knew you knew more than what you were telling me that night at Eddie’s! But there you sat, handing me your ‘No coroner’s case, no investigation’ line.”

  He blew out a breath as he made his way to the refrigerator. “I told you everything you needed to know and then some.”

  “You just neglected to mention the boat that Fred Wixey saw hanging around the point at Cedars Cove.”

  “Like I said …” He pulled out two bottles of beer and headed for the living room. “… everything you needed to know.”

  “Yeah, right,” I said, hot on his heels.

  Setting the bottles on a pair of soapstone coasters, he settled into the end seat of the brown leather sofa and extended his arm across the top of the seat next to him like an invitation to get cozy.

  Not a chance.

  I needed to see his face, so I grabbed a bottle and perched on the overstuffed chair across from him.

  I pointed my bottle at him. “You don’t believe Russell Falco’s death was an accident any more than I do.”

  Without wavering, Steve met my gaze. “We’ve talked about this.”

  “I’m not done talking about it.”

  He reached for his beer. “Shocker.”

  “I’m sure Fred Wixey told you the same basic story he told me.” Given the editorial comments poured on like sprinkles by an annoyed Mr. Wixey to the story I’d asked him to dish out twice, quite sure. “That boat was there for hours, like it was lying in wait for Russell to return to the marina.”

  Steve sat, studying the label on his bottle. “Fred didn’t describe it quite that way to me but—”

  “But it’s pretty obvious that someone was there, waiting for Russell to come back from seeing Beverly Carver, and I think I know who that someone was.”

  His gaze locked onto mine.

  “Kelsey Donovan,” I said, watching for a reaction.

  A flicker of amusement registered at his lips. “Kelsey.”

  “I know. It sounds ridiculous, but wait until you hear this.” I took a sip of beer and then set the bottle down on the end table next to me. “Kyle Cardinale saw her take her father’s boat out earlier Friday night.”

  Steve’s jaw tightened, his eyes hard. “You
’ve been busy on this non-coroner’s case.”

  I could feel my cheeks burning with color from the intensity of his stare. “I just happened to be at the marina, and when Kyle mentioned that Dr. Donovan also moored his boat there—”

  “And I bet he just happened to mention it.”

  “Sort of. Anyway, that’s when he told me that Kelsey took off in her dad’s boat around eight forty-five. Based on what she told me about Russell needing to leave around eight because he had a date, I think she decided to follow him and find out who he was seeing.”

  Steve shook his head, the tic above his jawline warning me to choose my next words carefully.

  “Come on, people do some crazy things when they’re in love, so it makes some sense.” In a temporary insanity kind of way.

  “Very little of what I’m hearing is making sense.”

  I ignored the wisecrack. “Oh, and I took a picture of Dr. Donovan’s boat.” Pulling out my cell phone, I sat next to Steve to show him. “When Mr. Wixey saw this picture he said it looked like the same boat.”

  “Know why he said that?”

  Was that a trick question? “I just told you. Because it looked like the boat he saw.”

  “It was dark and the only reason he could tell there was a boat down there was because of the navigation lights. All he could make out was the general shape of a boat.”

  “A boat like this,” I said, shaking my phone in front of his nose. “And Kelsey was on the bay that night—”

  “And there’s a witness who saw something—something that looked strange—but with Fred Wixey’s eyesight, we don’t have much more than that.”

  “But …”

  Steve’s arm curled around my shoulder. “Really, that’s all we’ve got—a boat, and it could have been any one of a hundred boats that were on the bay last weekend.”

  I stared at the picture on my phone. “Have you talked to Kelsey recently?” Because I sure was itching to.

  “Not since I interviewed her on Monday.”

  I leaned into Steve’s warmth. “Are you going to schedule another interview with her?”

  “Since she neglected to mention taking out her dad’s boat, yes.”