Musseled Out

by Barbara Ross

  The Ramsey cottage was just a few blocks from the Murrays. I hoped Bard would be home. I walked the short distance and rapped on the Ramseys’ sea-green front door.

  “Julia Snowden, as I live and breathe. Come in.” Bard Ramsey loomed in the doorway, his arm in the blue sling. He stepped aside so I could enter.

  Sonny’s dad and his much younger brother, Kyle, had been a part of my life almost as long as Sonny had been a part of Livvie’s. Sonny’s mom had died when he was in middle school. I was fuzzy on the details of her death. I hadn’t known Sonny back then, but I’d seen the fallout. Bard, always a hard drinker, had gone fully down the road to alcoholism. An aunt had stepped in and done the heavy work with Kyle, who had been a toddler at the time, but she’d left town ten years later, eager to reclaim something of a life of her own.

  Once the aunt was gone, Livvie had insisted on inviting Bard and Kyle to every one of our family holidays. I couldn’t blame her. They were her family, and why shouldn’t Page spend her holidays and birthdays surrounded by all her living grandparents?

  Bard Ramsey wasn’t a nasty drunk. He wasn’t loud or argumentative or insulting. In fact, the more he drank, the more expansive and flattering he became. “You’re like the perfect American family,” he said to us one Christmas. “A successful businessman, his beautiful wife, two wonderful girls. Every time I come to your home, I want to stand up and salute the flag.”

  I never detected sarcasm in his tone, or envy. But his little speeches put me on edge. We weren’t a perfect family, for one thing. His son had been the center of family battles for years. When Livvie had kept flunking out of prep schools to get back to Busman’s High and to Sonny, when she’d announced she wasn’t going to college so she could stay in town and marry him, and finally when she’d announced she was pregnant before the wedding had taken place.

  Bard eased himself into a blue recliner so new it still had a large tag hanging from one of its arms. Across the living room from the recliner was an equally new, gigantic flat-screen television. Bard motioned to me to take a seat.

  From my spot on the sofa, I could see almost the entire first floor of the tiny house. The interior surprised me. In all my previous visits, the house had seemed like an increasingly shabby museum, flash frozen at the time of Abby Ramsey’s death. The wallpaper faded, the upholstery grew worn, and the same knickknacks sat in their places year after year.

  Now there were colorful fall gourds in a pottery bowl on the round oak dining table and new curtains at the kitchen windows. There were new coasters on the coffee table, though it already had so many rings from the glasses and cans that had rested on its surface, it was like locking the barn door after the horse escaped.

  “What brings you here, darlin’?” Bard asked.

  He didn’t seem drunk. He seemed hyper-alert, though his complexion was florid. A network of broken blood vessels etched a cobweb pattern across his nose. Even when his drinking was at its worst, Bard was a functioning alcoholic.

  “I want to ask about yesterday morning. Sonny says he came here to pick up Kyle to haul your traps.”

  There was a slight hesitation before Bard answered, “If he says that’s what happened, it did.”

  “Around what time would you say he got here?”

  Bard didn’t speak for so long, I thought he’d admit it hadn’t happened, but then he said, “Around ten.” He sat forward in his seat. “But tell me, what makes you such a curious kitten?”

  The question I’d dreaded. Instead of answering directly, I asked, “When’s the last time you talked to Sonny?”

  “Last night.”

  “Did he tell you about—”

  “The horrible phone call he got? Indeed, he did. Sicko, whoever made it.”

  I took a deep breath and told a giant lie. “Sonny’s asked me to help him figure out who called him.” I gambled that if Bard asked Sonny about it, he’d go along with my version rather than admit the truth; he was lying to his wife so she sent her sister after him.

  Bard looked amused. “If you’re trying to find out who made the call, why are you asking if I saw Sonny after he got back from the hospital?”

  “Just being thorough.” Bard was all but laughing at me by that point, but he didn’t seem hostile, so I continued. “Sonny said he saw both you and Kyle here, but Kyle was feeling ill, so Sonny went out on the Abby alone.”

  “Sounds right. He’s been helping me out since I had rotator cuff surgery. Too many years of lobsterin’ come home to roost. I’m near useless on the boat.” He held his right arm out, like an old dog offering an injured paw.

  “Is Kyle home?” I asked. I wondered if he, too, would corroborate Sonny’s story.

  Bard heaved himself out of the recliner and went to the bottom of the stairs. “Kyle!” he bellowed. “Julia Snowden’s asking for you.”

  Silence. Bard turned back to me with a shrug. “Since that boy moved back home I never have any idea if he’s home. He comes and goes as he pleases.”

  Not unusual behavior for a twenty-one-year-old. Bard, Sonny, and the departed aunt had done their best for Kyle, but there was no question their best was a long way from good and Kyle had a rough go of it. He’d played football in high school like Sonny, but not nearly as well. He’d done a semester at University of Southern Maine, but college life didn’t take. He’d stayed in Portland, waiting tables, washing dishes, nothing with a future in it. He’d come back to Busman’s Harbor to be his father’s sternman, which he could’ve done right out of high school.

  “Kyle didn’t seem sick when I saw the two of you at Gus’s this morning.”

  “There’s sick and there’s sick,” Bard reminded me.

  So it had been that kind of sick. I’d spent a lot of Monday mornings tracking down college-age workers at the clambake who’d overdone the partying over the weekend.

  “Anything else? Have I helped you investigate?” Bard asked.

  “Yesterday at the marina, Lorrie Ann said if Sonny had been on the El Ay, none of this would have happened. She yelled it in public, and she probably repeated it when she was interviewed by the cops.”

  “Don’t worry about what Lorrie Ann said, Julia. You’re young. I’ve seen more of these types of accidents than you have. People say things when they’re grieved. They want to believe if they, or someone else, had done something different, the result would have been different.” He waved his good arm around, taking in the universe. “When it’s time for the sea to claim you, there’s nothing you can do about it. It’s tragic, but it’s true. Once Lorrie Ann comes to her senses, she’ll stop blaming Sonny. It’ll all turn out to be nothin’.”

  “And the phone call?”

  Bard dismissed it, too. “Terrible prank by a buddy, it will turn out to be.”

  Terrible buddy, if that’s really what happened, I thought.

  Chapter 11

  It was dusk when I walked back to Mom’s house. I hadn’t accomplished much. Lorrie Ann had refused to talk to me, and Bard had supported Sonny’s story, while assuring me there was nothing to worry about. I wished I believed him. I’d discovered nothing that would satisfy Livvie and nothing I could use to goad Sonny into telling her the truth, whatever it was.

  I was intrigued by the changes to Bard’s house. Had Livvie had a hand in livening up the decor? Doubtful. In ten years of marriage to his son, she’d never done so. Which left only one possibility. One of the Ramsey bachelors, Bard or Kyle, had a woman in his life.

  As I passed the fire department-town offices-police complex, a familiar white taxicab pulled up to the front door. I stood at the edge of the big parking lot and stared with pleasure at Chris’s bowed head as he and his passenger conversed. His door opened and he unfolded himself smoothly from his seat, went to the back of the cab, opened the trunk, and extracted a rolling carry-on bag. Then he opened the rear door and bent to help his passenger.

  A glamorous young woman swept out, clothed in the kind of expensive black jacket I recognized from my Manhattan
days. She had short black hair that curved smoothly toward her chin. Though she was tall, Chris still bent his head downward as they spoke. He had the kind of ease with people that created instant intimacy. Women loved this about him, and I had to guard against the visceral jealousy that punched my chest as I watched them. It means nothing, I reminded myself. He picked me.

  I could tell from Chris’s posture he was concerned about this woman. I couldn’t catch what he was saying, though as he ended the conversation, I lip-read, “I’m sorry,” and “Take care.”

  She swept into the police station and he slammed the passenger door. “Chris!” I called as he came back around to the driver’s side.

  He broke into a grin of such genuine pleasure it dispelled even the tiniest of green monsters. “Hey, beautiful.” He lowered his voice as I came closer. “That was David Thwing’s business partner, come to identify the body and try to pick up the pieces of the business. She seemed devastated. I felt for her.”

  I’d been so concerned about the missing Peter Murray and Livvie’s concerns about Sonny, I hadn’t thought much about the friends and family of the late David Thwing. “That’s tough,” I agreed.

  “I don’t think she has a clue about the business. From what she said, she’s the chef, he was the businessperson.”

  We stood for a moment, silently contemplating Thwing’s partner’s troubles. I wondered if she’d proceed with the plan to open a business in Busman’s Harbor now that Thwing was dead. A day and a half ago, competition from David Thwing had loomed as a threat to my business and my freedom. Due to the circumstances surrounding his death, I hadn’t spent a moment enjoying the relief that would’ve come if the threat had been removed any other way.

  “Coming over later?” Chris asked.

  I hesitated for a fraction of a second. I’d left Le Roi in the little house on Morrow Island with plenty of food, water, and kitty litter. He’d be mad. He was the island cat and needed to patrol his domain. But he’d be fine, and for the human, me, it wasn’t hard to choose a warm bed over a trip over a cold ocean.

  “I’m cooking curried fish and vegetable stew,” Chris added.

  “Wow. You sure know how to seduce a girl.”

  “Is it working?”

  “Sure. I’ll be along,” I said. “I have a couple of stops I need to make.”

  “Fine.” Chris bent to kiss me. “I’ll see you when I get there.”

  As we broke the kiss, my childhood friend Jamie came out the police station door. Chris gave him a friendly wave, got in the cab, and drove off. Jamie came to my side and we watched Chris’s taillights disappear.

  Jamie, headed off duty, was dressed in civilian clothes, a gym bag in his hands. He was handsome as ever. The short hair required by the police couldn’t disguise his blond, surfer-dude good looks. In fact it emphasized the dark lashes surrounding his sky-blue eyes.

  “That was crazy on the pier yesterday,” I said to him.

  “It’s crazier now,” he responded. “Yesterday, we didn’t know it was murder.”

  “Is it absolutely certain it was murder?” I asked, remembering Sonny’s theory about how being pulled overboard by the trapline had caused the blows to Thwing’s head.

  “Oh yeah. He was dead when he went into the ocean. No water in his lungs.”

  “What time did he die?” I asked. I’d seen Thwing at nine o’clock and spotted the empty boat at a little after three.

  “Don’t have an exact time. The medical examiner’s office is examining the ‘fish activity.’” Despite his status as a police officer, Jamie wrinkled his nose in disgust.

  I realized belatedly the parking lot where we stood was filled with official-looking vehicles. There hadn’t been so many when I’d made my statement to Binder and Flynn earlier in the day. I saw all sorts of insignias, though I couldn’t read them from where I stood.

  “Who’s here besides the state police?” I asked.

  “Who’s not here? DEA, Maine Drug Task Force, Customs, Coast Guard. It’s like an ant farm in there. Only ants know who’s in charge.”

  Really? “I understand why the state cops and Coast Guard are here,” I said, “but what’s with the DEA, Drug Task Force, and Customs?”

  “Julia—” Jamie went on alert, a cop again, not the boy from next door.

  “No, I get it. DEA and Task Force mean drugs, Customs means from over the border. But what does it have to do with David Thwing and Peter Murray?” Because drugs would be a whole new angle.

  “Jule-YA!”

  I knew from long experience that when Jamie stretched my name out, with the emphasis on the second syllable, we were done. The door was closed. I’d get nothing out of him.

  “So how are you doing, anyway?” I asked, to keep the conversation going.

  “I’m great,” Jamie answered, a bit too enthusiastically.

  I wondered how long we could keep this up. Jamie’s family lived next to mine. He’d waited for the school bus with Livvie and me, played thousands of frenzied games of tag. When he was older, he’d worked at the Snowden Family Clambake every summer. When I’d returned to Busman’s Harbor in March, I’d had a chance to turn my junior high crush on Chris Durand into something real. But I wasn’t the only one with a crush. Livvie had explained that Jamie had long harbored feelings for me. I’d gotten my heart’s desire, the object of my school-age fantasies, which meant Jamie hadn’t gotten his.

  “I’m seeing someone,” Jamie said.

  “That’s great.” I meant it. Jamie in a relationship had the potential to wash all the awkwardness away. He wasn’t my choice, but I loved him like a cousin and I wanted nothing more than for these freighted conversations to end and for us to resume being us. “Do I know her?”

  He didn’t answer and I didn’t press. Maybe it was too new to talk about. Besides, Busman’s Harbor was a small town. Plenty of people would vie for the opportunity to tell me soon enough.

  “See you soon,” I said. “Bring your friend around.”

  “See you soon,” Jamie answered.

  It took less than a second for us to realize we were both headed in the same direction. “‘Bye, Julia.”

  I stayed planted where I was, which he took as a signal he should go on ahead. Man, I’d be glad when this awkwardness was behind us.

  While I stood outside the police station waiting for Jamie to get a head start, Quentin Tupper emerged from inside.

  “Helping the police with their inquiries?” I asked.

  “I understand that’s your fault.”

  I smiled tentatively to see if he was joking. “All I told them was you sailed from Morrow Island to your house and may have seen something that would help them understand what time Peter’s boat drifted into the narrows. It couldn’t have been that bad.”

  “It was awful. They grilled me for hours.” He grinned. “Where’re you headed?”

  “Mom’s.”

  “My boat’s at the marina. I’ll walk with you.”

  We set off up the steep hill toward my mother’s house. “They didn’t really grill you for hours,” I said.

  Quentin laughed. “More like twenty minutes. Your cops were there, Binder and Flynn, asking the questions. And some fed who scowled through the whole interview, like your guys weren’t doing it right.”

  “They’re not my cops.”

  “They’re more yours than mine. Or anybody else’s in this town.”

  I ignored him. “What did they ask?”

  “Where I was at what time. What I saw. Pretty simple.”

  “Did you get any sense they’re close to solving Thwing’s murder?”

  “They know more than they’re saying,” Quentin said. “But no, I don’t think they have it tied up with a bow.” We walked a little farther. “I’m teasing, you know that,” he said. “I was happy to do my civic duty.”

  Quentin didn’t care to intertwine his life with other individuals, but he did have a strong sense of fairness and justice.

  “Did you tell the
m about the lobster buoys you found?”

  He stopped walking for a moment, though I couldn’t tell whether it was to catch his breath on the hill or because of my question. “No. I completely forgot about them. Besides, they didn’t ask.”

  “Did you track down the owner of the buoys using the license number?”

  “I told you, Julia. I forgot. I’ve been busy.”

  “Doing what?” Quentin had built his entire existence around the principle of doing nothing and answering to no one.

  He started walking again. “Doing nothing isn’t as easy as it looks.”

  I didn’t challenge him. Maybe it was true. If I didn’t straighten out my job situation, I might find out. “Did Binder and Flynn ask anything about the trouble between the Busman’s and Coldport lobstermen?” I asked.

  “Not a word. I don’t think they’re interested in our little harbor feuds.”

  “They should be. Most of the guys at Gus’s think Coldport was behind whatever happened.”

  “So the law enforcement experts at Gus’s have decided they know more than a building full of professionals?” Quentin laughed and we walked a little farther. “Did you take the apartment over Gleason’s, by the way?”

  “No.” I hadn’t called about the apartment. In fact, I hadn’t given it a thought all day.

  “Good. It’s not right for you.”

  “Actually, it’s perfect for me.” Then why was I hesitating?

  “If you didn’t take the ‘perfect’ apartment, does that mean you’re going back to New York?”

  “I don’t know.” I hadn’t given a thought to that option, either, or to the call to Owen Quimby, HR director, I needed to make in three short days.

  “If you stay, you could always live at my house over the winter,” Quentin said.

  “You’re leaving?” I wasn’t surprised. Quentin had houses all over and never stayed anywhere long.

  “Sailing the Flittermouse south to the Caribbean as soon as the hurricane season is over. No point in spending the winter here.” He looked at my face and quickly added, “No reason for me to spend the winter here.”