by Darci Hannah
“Jack,” I began, totally playing along, “don’t you watch those Bigfoot documentaries on cable? Bigfoot’s your classic kleptomaniac. He doesn’t hunt or fish. Whatever he needs he steals, like that boat.”
“Exactly,” Jack said, and the smile broke through at last. “I told you I caught a glimpse of your Squatch—not a good one, but I did see the boat. It’s one of Tate’s, the kind he rents out to vacationing fishermen. Let’s hope your old boyfriend can help us sort this one out.” Jack pulled out his cell phone, scrolled through his call list, and pressed a number. He looked at me. “He is your old boyfriend, right? Or are you two … ?”
“Old. Definitely old,” I was quick to assure him. “All that’s in the past.”
Keeping his ear to the phone, Jack gave a meditative nod, not even flinching when MacDuff bounded beside us and shook the water from his fur.
“Hey, this is Jack,” he said into the phone. “You missing a boat? You don’t know if you’re missing a boat? It would be one of the little fishing boats you rent. I think I just saw one speeding into the fog. You didn’t rent any out this morning? Can you go check and see if one’s missing? I’ll hold.” Jack looked at me and rolled his eyes. Then they narrowed. “What? Why can’t you jump down to the docks and check? Where are you? Where am I? I’m standing at the water’s edge, right below the bluffs half a mile down from Cherry Cove Lighthouse. I’m virtually across the bay from you. I believe one of your fishing boats was beached here early this morning, and I just caught a glimpse of it speeding away. I don’t know where it was headed. It’s foggy. But I can tell where it wasn’t headed. Back to the marina. This is very important, Tate. I need to know who’s in that boat.”
Jack then paused a moment, looking confused. “You’re not at the marina? Where the hell are you?” As he listened, his eyes shot to me with a dark look. He covered the phone with his hand and whispered, “Apparently after I called your mom, she called Tate. He’s poking around the woods looking for you.” He put the phone back to his ear. “No need to worry. She’s here with me. Here, talk to her yourself.” Jack thrust the phone into my hand, gave a deprecatory shake of his head, and headed back into the woods, aiming for the tire tracks.
I looked at the phone and cleared my throat. Tate, Tate, I thought, what the heck are you playing at?
∞
“Holy Mother! That’s one of the inn’s Gators, MacLaren. And five casks of wine. Nice work, dude. You found the missing wine!” Tate, standing beside me at the mouth of a little cave, leaned across and gave Jack a fist bump. Shortly after sighting the motor-boating Sasquatch, we’d run into Tate in the woods.
Jack grinned and met him knuckle to knuckle. “Thanks, bro. But I can’t take all the credit. It was Whitney who discovered the tire tracks, and they led us here.” Jack shifted his attention back to the wine. “Five casks? That means there are still a few missing.”
The cave in question was one of the more accessible natural fissures in the face of the limestone bluff. And it was feeling a little cramped, sandwiched as I was between the two men and their budding bromance. Truthfully, I was happy to see them getting along so well, yet a part of me was a little disturbed by it too—the part that had grown a little suspicious of Tate. Especially since he’d been trouncing around the woods looking for me. Apparently Mom had made it clear when she called him that Giff wasn’t my boyfriend.
Then again, what if Tate had already been in the woods when Mom called? What if he’d been the one following me? What if he was the creature Jack had spied in the boat, dressed as a Sasquatch? It was Tate’s boat, after all, and he more than anyone knew how my mind worked. The thought was as distasteful as it was unsettling.
“Whit, babe,” he said to me now, “did you know all this was here too?” He smiled as if the awkwardness of last night had never happened.
“Not until a second ago,” I said, taking a step away from him. “I told you, I came out here looking for the missing wine. When I stumbled on the tire tracks under the bluff I was confused, but I’m not anymore. Did anyone know this Gator was missing?”
Tate shook his head. “I never thought to look. But it’s the one Jeb used to drive.”
Jack looked up from his cell phone. “No one realized it was missing? Tate,” he said sharply, “don’t touch anything! I’m calling this in to the station in Sturgeon Bay. They’ll want to take a good look at this. Hopefully they can lift some prints.”
The moment Jack ended the call, he pulled a pair of latex gloves from the back pocket of his jeans and began examining the Gator.
“So,” I said, standing beside him, “I’ll bet whoever stole this thing murdered Jeb. He’s probably been using it to travel back and forth to the orchard.”
Jack looked up and gave a confirming nod, then winced as Katy Perry’s voice blurted out in the small, echoing cave, singing the refrain from her song “Firework.” I winced too. MacDuff started howling. Jack spun around and stared at Tate’s crotch.
“What?” Tate reached into his pocket. “It’s an awesome song.”
“Yeah, if you’re a thirteen-year-old girl,” Jack told him.
“Dude. Don’t judge.” Tate smirked and put his phone on speaker. “Mrs. Cushman! What’s the verdict? Is there a boat missing?”
I looked at Jack. “Mrs. Cushman?” I mouthed. “His housekeeper?” Jack nodded. A moment later an elderly voice could be heard shouting on the other end.
“Tatum? Are you there, dear? You sound like you’re in a tunnel again. Ooh, it’s the oddest thing. I popped down to the docks and counted those little fishing dinghies of yours like you asked and I think one’s missing again. Oh, and that Lori Larson stopped by this morning to see you. She dropped off another plate of those lumpy, dried-out little hockey pucks she calls scones. Honest ta Pete, they’re foul little buggers … unless you’re all bound up. In that case they’re better than a pound of prunes stewed in Metamucil. Its colon blow, I tell ya. I can’t figure out what she puts in ’em. Lard for sure. Rhubarb? Goat chow? A hand full of Grape-Nuts cereal? I’m stymied, but I’ll tell you what’s not in them, mister. A scone! And do you know what else? I think she’s what they call a cougar. You don’t want to get mixed up with a cougar, Tatum. I hear they have baggage, and your closets are too full already. I shooed her away. Told her you weren’t home, but she left her dried-out old buns anyway, so I brought them down to the docks and was about to toss ’em in the lake when that nice man on the yacht, that real classy gent, came over and took ’em. He was starving. I tried to warn him. Told him they looked better than they tasted, but he just laughed and ate one. You’d best check in on him when you get back home.”
“Will do. Thanks, Mrs. Cushman.” The woman was still talking when Tate ended the call. “Well, looks like you’re right again, MacLaren. One of my small rental boats is missing.”
“I thought I heard Mrs. Cushman say ‘again,’ as if it’s happened before.” Jack cast Tate a friendly, questioning look.
“Yeah,” Tate replied nonchalantly. “Thought I told you about that? Back in April I rented one to a fisherman. The poor guy got halfway across the bay and ran out of gas. It shouldn’t have happened. I always have Hank top off the tanks at the end of the day. Then, a week later, I found a slew of empty beer cans in one of the boats. One morning I even found a condom. Someone, and it wasn’t me”—affecting the look of a virginal choir boy, Tate focused on me as he spoke—“was getting busy in one of my fishing boats. However, whoever is borrowing them always brings them back by morning, so no harm no foul. Right?”
“Well, I’m calling foul,” Jack said. “Because the boat we saw wasn’t heading back to the marina this morning, Tate. It was heading around the point, aiming for state land or beyond. Whitney found the guy’s boot prints this morning coming out of the lighthouse. She followed them into the woods and down the bluff, where she found the tire tracks.”
“I saw
him through the fog,” I added. “He was going to knock me over the head with a stone.”
“Christ, Whitney!” Tate exclaimed, and to his credit he did look highly alarmed. He was filled with indignation, looking every part the Viking as he cried, “You saw this creep? What did he look like? Describe him and we’ll hunt him down.”
Describe the Yeti. That was the problem. “I … ah … didn’t get a good look at him. The fog was too thick.”
“Surely you saw something. How tall was he? What was he wearing? Can you describe the shape of his head?”
Jack looked at me, humor touching his eyes as he waited for me to reply. Damn him, I thought. If he really was C-Bomb he’d come to my defense. But Jack just stood there, looking oddly curious.
“Ah … the shape of his head. All I can say is that it was really shaggy.”
“Shaggy or squatchy?” Jack prodded with a muted grin.
“Squatchy?” Tate was lost. “As in Sasquatch?” Jack nodded. Tate then turned his dreamy blue gaze on me. “Whit, babe, I don’t judge, but were you, by chance, drinking this morning? Jani says you’re under a lot of stress—says you’re baking a lot and that you don’t even know that your own boyfriend Giff is gay.”
“He is not my boyfriend!”
“Obviously. But a Sasquatch, babe? There’s no such thing as a Sasquatch. I know you’d love to think differently, but it’s mere folklore and legend.”
“Ask Jack. He saw it in the boat.”
“Only a glimpse,” Jack was quick to reply. “I have no idea what she’s talking about, but I do have a question for you, Tate. Who’s stealing your boats?”
“I told you. I don’t know.”
All humor left Jack’s face as he gave Tate a penetrating look. “Don’t you?”
Tate’s expression turned pensive and he paled under the scrutiny. I’d never seen his sun-bronzed face look so white or so worried.
How did Jack know that Tate wasn’t telling the truth regarding his boats? What was Tate hiding? Who was he covering for? I looked at my former boyfriend again and thought that maybe C-Bomb was right to be suspicious of him.
If Tate’s face was pale, Jack’s was flushed with high color. Obviously the thought that his new bro-buddy was withholding information from him wasn’t sitting too well. An unspoken guy-rule had been broken, and the mood in the little cave suddenly turned chilly.
A sharp pain seized my stomach as my mind spun out of control, reeling over the possibility that Tate might know the identity of the man-creature stalking me. Worst case scenario, it was Tate himself. It took a moment before I realized Jack was speaking to me.
“Whit, I’m asking if you’d mind taking MacDuff back to the inn with you. Tate and I are going to have a little chat down at the station in Sturgeon Bay once Sergeant Stamper and the forensic kit arrives. I’ll call you when we’re done. Okay?”
“Yeah. Okay,” I said, suddenly feeling the need to get out of there. I took one last look at the former love of my life and felt a dull ache in my heart.
Jack attached a leash to MacDuff’s collar and handed it to me.
“Well, MacDuff,” I said, looking into the soulful eyes of the spaniel, “looks like you’re coming with me to the Cherry Orchard Inn.”
MacDuff, still damp and still bursting with energy, wagged his happy little tail.
Thirty-Four
We’d barely made it through the door of the inn when MacDuff caught whiff of something warm, fruity, and delicious. I unhooked his leash and followed him to the kitchen.
Mom was at the counter in one of her Barefoot-Contessa-on-steroids modes. The sink was full of mixing bowls, measuring cups, and empty pans. She was busily arranging slices of warm cherry coffee cake on a doily-topped silver platter. It was unbelievable. I didn’t know how long she’d been up, but obviously long enough to bake three of her famous cherry coffee cakes. Dad was also in the kitchen, dressed in a dark gray suit with a light blue tie that matched the color of his eyes. He was lathering butter onto a slice of warm coffee cake. One look at the delectable treat in Dad’s hand and MacDuff’s little stub tail kicked into high gear.
“Whitney!” Mom cried, spinning around to look at me. Her white apron, smudged with cherry juice and white flour, covered a form-fitting black dress. She still had a great figure, I thought, but her face looked older, pinched with anger as it was. “Dear Heavens!” she scolded. Then, catching sight of MacDuff, her eyes softened. “Is that Jack’s dog? Of course it is. Thank goodness he found you. He called us this morning, as you must already know, to ask if you were here. Why wouldn’t you be, I thought. However, when I went to check your room and found you gone, your father and I grew worried. There’s a murderer on the loose, Whitney! What were you thinking?”
“Obviously she wasn’t,” Dad replied for me, feeding half his slice of coffee cake to the dog. They both seemed familiar with MacDuff. Was I the only one who hadn’t known Jack had a dog?
“We called Tate then,” Mom continued, “Tate being such a dear. He always did have a way of finding you.”
“Well, if you must know, Jack and I found him,” I retorted, experiencing another sharp pang of remorse at the thought of Tate as a suspect. By now he would be on his way to Sturgeon Bay with Jack for questioning. It was still hard to believe Tate knew who was stealing his boats. What else was he covering up, I wondered, staring at my parents—two of his most ardent supporters.
I couldn’t tell them about Tate, not now, and so I didn’t. Instead I added, “We found something else, Dad. We found your missing wine along with one of the Gators, likely the one Jeb used to get around the orchard. We didn’t know it was missing. The Gator, we think, was used to transport the casks of wine. Both are in a little cave under the bluff about half a mile down from the lighthouse. I left Jack and Tate waiting there for backup from Sturgeon Bay.”
“It’s all there?” Dad asked, his silver-blue eyes brightening. “You recovered my wine?”
“Not all of it,” I said, and then told my parents a highly watered-down version of my morning, omitting all mention of the eerie twig-face in the lighthouse, my near-abduction by Sasquatch, and Tate’s stolen fishing boat and possible involvement. It was just as well. Mom reminded me that Reverend Dahl was holding a special memorial service for Jeb in a few hours and that the whole community was coming together to pray for Cody. Mom’s coffee cakes would be part of the after-service fellowship, held in the community room in the basement of St. Paul’s. The entire town of Cherry Cove would be there, with the probable exception, of course, of Jack and Tate.
“We need to come out in force as a community,” Mom added, wiping a tear from her eye. “And we need to come out strong as a family, because … because this doesn’t look good for the Blooms. Not at all. A murder, a poisoning, and a fire in less than twenty-four hours! And I don’t even want to think about what might happen at the cherry pie bake-off this afternoon. We just have to get through the day, Whitney. But I feel so … so G-damned helpless!”
Mom never swore. It was sobering. Unfortunately, I knew exactly how she felt.
∞
“So, Jack thinks Tate knows who’s been stealing his boats? Interesting.”
“It is,” I replied, casting a thoughtful look at Giff, who was riding in the passenger seat of my car. We were running late for the memorial service. I’d showered and changed into a navy skirt, white tights, white blouse, and my favorite cherry-red sweater. But that’s not why we were running late. It was Giff’s lengthy Hollywood shower and slavish devotion to fashion that had really put us behind. I had to admit, though, that it worked for him. He looked like a movie star on Oscar night in his black tailored suit and a gold-and-black silk tie.
I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw MacDuff—another vision of silky black-and-white elegance, only he was sprawled across the back seat in peaceful slumber. Jack had sent a quick text asking
me to drop him off at the Cherry Cove police station on my way to the church, but I was of half a mind to keep him. Then again, I lived in an apartment in Chicago. I couldn’t even afford a free cat, let alone a stately Springer Spaniel like MacDuff. I would have to return him, but I would visit. After all, the dog had saved my life.
I’d told Giff all about that too, sparing no detail. Giff was a creative soul. Whether or not he believed in Bigfoot didn’t really matter. He was still open-minded enough to be intrigued by the notion.
“Erik Larson,” he said.
“What?”
“The boy, Erik Larson. Think about it,” Giff suggested. “Who disappears the moment you try to speak with him? Erik Larson. Who is Cody Rivers best friend? Erik Larson. What if these boys were protecting a dark secret and one of them cracked—one of them decided to tell the boss’s daughter what was really going on? Would the other go so far as to kill him to protect this secret?”
“Holy cobbler,” I breathed. “Do you think Erik Larson was the person in the processing shed last night—the one who tried to kill Cody and me?”
“It’s super twisted, but kids these days are super twisted. I wouldn’t rule it out. Look, the kid worked closely with Jeb. He also had access to the processing sheds. I’ve never met him, but I’m told he’s a big, strapping young lad. And if he caught wind that Cody had sent you a message, he might have been desperate enough to try and stop him.”
“His best friend. Dear God, what are these kids involved in?” I uttered. Giff shrugged. “Well, what about Brock Sorensen and his sudden appearance near the processing sheds last night?” I asked.
“He might have been telling the truth,” Giff offered. “Look, I know Tay’s not a fan and rightly so. While you were out hunting Bigfoot this morning, I did a little checking up on him. The guy graduated at the top of his class from the University of Wisconsin, worked as an accountant for the Miller Brewing Company in Milwaukee, met his vegan wife while protesting the treatment of circus animals, got married, and shortly thereafter started working for a large organic grocery store chain. Got tired of that and moved here. He likes golf, he’s on a fantasy football team, and he subscribes to Aficionado, which he has sent to the inn. Sorensen make’s good money but he’s not ambitious. He’s plenty smarmy, but what motive does he have to kill Jeb?”