Prize and Prejudice

by Miranda Sweet

  She remembered the book. The lighthouse had burned down multiple times early on because it had been constructed out of wood and the warning lantern had run on oil and kerosene. At one point, the lantern was a pair of poles and an ordinary lantern hanging between them, which must have been just about useless.

  The list belonged to a treasure hunter, more than likely.

  So why the lighthouse? It had definitely been in use in 1917 and 1918, so conceivably the painting could have been hidden inside it somewhere, but the book itself only went to 1901.

  She checked the shelf. No more copies. When she got a moment, she’d look in the back and see if she had any extra copies. She should probably order some more, regardless.

  They closed at ten. Still no word from Reed.

  Angie tracked down two copies of A Light in the Dark and set one aside for herself, then put the other one on the shelf. By ten-thirty, Janet had finished all her duties.

  “Reporting in for any additional tasks, ma’am, yes ma’am,” she said, appearing at the door to the stock room.

  Angie opened her mouth to tell her that she was fine to go home—she really didn’t want to pay overtime—but stopped herself. Hadn’t she just promised herself earlier that she would spend more time getting to know Janet and finding out how she could help with the store?

  “Janet, have a seat.”

  Janet made a pained face, and Angie laughed.

  “Sorry, sorry! I forgot how that kind of thing sounds. I’m not firing you.”

  Janet exhaled, clearly relieved.

  “I’m just mad at myself for not planning well. I should have figured out some training to do with you if we had the time tonight. And it’s occurred to me that I’m not really sure what kind of…plans you have for yourself later. I mean, I know that’s one of the questions that you get asked during a job interview, but I was so wired that I don’t remember if I did or not, or what your answers were if I did.”

  “You didn’t,” Janet said. “I thought it was weird, but not too weird. You always seem so worried about being rude that I just figured you didn’t want to pry.”

  “I’m nosy,” Angie said. “My natural instinct is to pry, pry, pry. So I guess I was trying to hold back so I didn’t freak you out.”

  She smiles wryly, and Janet laughed.

  Then Janet drew herself up. “To be honest, I’m not sure what I want for the future. Do I want to stay on the island? Do I want to go somewhere else? I’ve never really had a strong, um, calling for anything. I didn’t grow up saying, ‘Oh, I dream of being a ballerina.’ I like playing volleyball and softball, and I like reading books, and I like playing music, and I like animals, and—”

  “Music?” Angie asked.

  “Yeah, I play a little guitar. Really terribly. I don’t practice enough. But I still like to do it. You know, just sit out on the back porch of my parents’ house on the porch swing and play old songs. I played ‘I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry’ for a month straight, and my parents had to talk to me to make sure I wasn’t depressed or anything. I just liked the way the beagle across the street howled as I sang.”

  Angie laughed.

  “I don’t write, I don’t like to do crafts, I just hang around with my friends and complain about not getting enough dates,” Janet said. “I’ve done all kinds of jobs. I’ve worked at a nursing home and a grocery store and a couple of restaurants and a clothing store. The only one I didn’t like was the clothing store, but none of them really called to me. As soon as I had to go back to school, I’d quit whatever job I had and go back to Boston.”

  “What did you go to school for?” Angie asked. “Forgive me for having to ask again.”

  “No problem. I went to Brown in Rhode Island for Communications. My mom jokes that I was born to be in HR at some big company, but I think that idea stinks. I have friends at Brown that did that, and they have to deal with jerks all day, every day. You know who has to deal with it when someone’s been watching stuff they shouldn’t be watching at work? HR. Like, not even naughty stuff. I have one friend that had to fire someone for pirating movies at work. They could have gotten the company sued, but did they care? No. Out the door. The person had three kids, too, and was going through a divorce. Worst timing ever.”

  “I can see why you wouldn’t want to do that,” Angie said. She looked up toward the ceiling. “Okay, for the sake of the argument, what do you know about writing ad copy?”

  “Ad copy? Sure, I’ve done a ton of advertising campaigns. I can’t do the art, but I can usually pick some out that’s okay.”

  “And what about…a social media campaign? Like running a twitter channel?”

  Janet made a noise in the back of her throat and studied the tiles on the ceiling. “Well, first I’d have to write up a media plan and have you approve it. Because the worst thing is when you’re stuck in a situation where you’re trying to come up with advertising for someone and they just don’t get it. They’re like, ‘Just make something and I’ll tell you whether I like it.’ And that’s a fast way to spend a lot of money fixing mistakes and making changes. Nobody comes out of that happy.”

  “Would you like to work on something like that and see if it’s something you want to do?”

  “Sure,” Janet said. “Why not? Only I don’t really have a passion for it or anything.”

  “Sometimes passion isn’t as relevant as we think,” Angie said. “I thought I had a passion for data analysis, and here I am at a bookstore.”

  “So you must have some pretty good data about sales and stuff,” Janet said, perking up. “If I could have it, that would make writing a media plan a lot easier.”

  “Let’s try it,” Angie said. “Step one, write up a list of what you need from me in order to come up with a media plan for Pastries & Page-Turners. Hypothetically, we could start on the plan in January, or in February after the store opens up again.”

  “You’re closing the store?” Janet sounded panicked.

  “Aunt Margery and I are going on vacation in the Mediterranean,” Angie reminded her. Then she said, “Or…you could try running it yourself while I’m gone. Three weekends for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday is all, but they’d be long days so you could get some hours.”

  “Yes, please,” Janet said. “I’m saving up to move out of the house. I’m twenty-three. I need to start moving forward with my life if I’m ever going to.”

  “Housing is expensive here.”

  “I know it. But if a few of my friends share a rental with me, we might be able to make it work.”

  Midnight.

  Still no word.

  Angie sat down to pet Captain Parfait, who head-butted her chin and curled into her lap. After a few moments, she forgot to keep petting him and stared out the window instead. The weather had turned wet again, and the cobblestones shone under the streetlights. It would be a cold drive home.

  She hoped Reed was all right.

  Chapter 6

  Past Wit’s End

  She woke up in the dark, knowing that it was nowhere near time to get up yet. She’d been having one of those half-nightmares—not really scary, but saturated with anxiety and a sense of claustrophobia. She’d dreamed she was sorting through endless pieces of paper. In the dream, she knew that she had to find out something very important in the documents Jeanette had found. There was something that both of them had missed, and only the most scrupulous attention to detail was going to unearth what she needed to know. She remembered wishing she was a TV detective with a team of operatives who could do things like hack into computers to find the information she needed before the episode concluded, but nobody was around to help her.

  Her stomach was knotted with worry as she opened her eyes and answered her cell phone before she even realized it was ringing.

  “Reed, is that you?”

  “I’m sorry, ma’am. This is Detective Baily from the Nantucket Police Department.”

  “Hello, Detective Bailey. I’m sorry, I just woke up.” />
  “I know, ma’am,” he said in a pitying voice, and she suddenly remembered that he was only five years older than she was. At least, Aunt Margery had said so once.

  “Well Angie, I ran into Sheldon late last night, and he mentioned you were there in the evening. You were waiting for a fellow named Reed. Is that right?”

  “Did something happen to Reed?” she said. “Reed Edgerton is his full name. He’s from the Boston area.”

  The detective took a deep breath before delivering the news.

  “I’m afraid something did happen to him. His body has been found in the harbor just off Children’s Beach. We almost missed it. The tide was going out, and it was about to be carried out to sea.”

  Angie struggled to hold onto her phone. She felt like the dream hadn’t ended. The tightness in her stomach transformed into a hollow ache and she fought back tears. “So he’s… he’s dead?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I’m sorry Angie, Sheldon told me he was a friend of yours.”

  “Yes, I suppose we were friends. I didn’t see him often, but.. this is so terrible!”

  “Angie, I need you to come down to the station. We need to make sure that it’s Mr. Edgerton for sure, although we did find his wallet on him. And we’d like to ask you a few questions as a formality.”

  “I understand,” she said in a quiet voice. “I’ll come right in.”

  She decided to take the road past Children’s Beach on her way to the station. It was out of her way, but she wanted to see whatever she could.

  The Chamber of Commerce building was still lit as she drove by. She could see the top of Jasper’s head behind the front desk through the window. His round, wire-rimmed glasses flashed as he looked back and forth from the computer screen to something on the desk.

  It was just past two a.m. Poor guy.

  Four police cars were parked beside the beach, and she was directed around the area by a young policeman with a flashlight. An ambulance was driving away, its lights off.

  She pulled over on the side of the road to collect herself. Reed had been such a wonderful man, and she was feeling more emotional over his death than she had expected. She wiped a few tears away and took a deep breath.

  The police officer knocked on her window.

  “Are you all right, ma’am?”

  “Detective Bailey just called to tell me the news about Reed,” she said. “I shouldn’t have driven by here. I should have gone straight to the station, but I was curious.”

  He finally talked her into getting into his car and drove her the rest of the way himself before escorting her to Detective Bailey’s desk. That meant she didn’t have to talk to anyone at the front desk, and she was grateful for it.

  Detective Bailey took one look at her and sent the officer off to bring her some coffee. Blowing her nose, she explained to him what had happened—that driving past the place where the body had been found had upset her more than she had foreseen.

  “He wasn’t…he wasn’t a close friend of mine,” she said. “But he was a friend. I was so happy that he was coming to the island.”

  “He was here for the treasure hunt?”

  “Well… not exactly. He said he was coming for a some other ‘quest.’ He mentioned imposters. Reed was a Harvard Professor, and about as eccentric as you would expect him to be. There was something he was going to explain to me over dinner, and something he wanted to show me.”

  “What was he going to explain?”

  “I’m not sure. He was rather cryptic about it.”

  “And the thing he wanted to show you?”

  “He didn’t say what it was.”

  Detective Bailey was a serious-faced man with dark hair, a five ‘oclock shadow, and thin lines etched between his eyebrows as if he spent most of his time frowning. He struck her as calm and methodical, the kind of practical person who didn’t have a lot of flights of fancy or flashes of inspiration, but still got to the truth eventually.

  He asked her questions about the emails that Reed had sent her, how the two of them had met, the nature of their friendship, what time she had expected him, his habits (as far as she knew them), and so on.

  “What…where was he?” she asked.

  Detective Bailey stood up, puffing air out of his cheeks. “I will answer your questions, Ms. Prouty, but first I have to ask. Would you come with me to identify the body? Do you think you can do that?”

  She shuddered. The thought of seeing Reed lying there, dead, did not appeal. But then…who else did he have on the island? He was such a solitary, private man. Who else did he have anywhere?

  Detective Baily drove her to the Nantucket Funeral Home, a bright new manufactured building with white fiber cement siding and a new white sign in the brightly lit parking lot. On the island, any building that wasn’t covered with gray shingles stood out. The Nantucket Cottage Hospital, which was where the morgue was usually located, was in the middle of changing locations from several different buildings in town to the new building on Prospect Street, and apparently the morgue hadn’t made it yet.

  It wasn’t like a morgue in horror movies: claustrophobic and shadowed, with flickering fluorescent lights overhead. It felt like being in someone’s house and going downstairs to the basement. She half-expected a large screen TV and a big couch. In the first room she entered, there was a rocking chair with a small monitor in front of it, a small stack of thin cloths, a child’s playpen, and a box full of toddler-safe toys.

  The detective led her through a pair of double doors to a sterile-looking area, a viewing room of sorts. It held a single occupied gurney covered with a sheet. She wouldn’t have to go into the autopsy room, thank goodness. A mortician waited for them.

  She sniffled. Detective Bailey said, “Ms. Prouty? Do you need a glass of water?”

  “No, I’ll be fine.”

  She and Detective Bailey stood next to the gurney as the mortician took the far edge of the sheet in both gloved hands, then looked at her. Part of Angie’s brain was gibbering I can’t do this, I can’t do this! but she ignored it. This already felt worse than finding Alexander Snuock’s body on the floor of his house last July, and she hadn’t even seen Reed yet. Maybe it was all the build-up. Maybe it was the fact that she actually liked Reed. Either way, she needed to pull herself together. She was strong, and the events of last summer had hardened her. She could do this.

  “Ready?”

  She nodded.

  The sheet was withdrawn and Angie took a step backward. Detective Bailey grabbed her arm—not to keep her from running away, but to make sure she didn’t stumble.

  “You okay?”

  “That’s Reed,” she said. His skin was strangely pale, even though he’d been a swarthy man. Death made his skin look wrong. The backs of his shoulders were red, she noticed. There was a large bruise on his forehead, swollen and red with blood. His eyes and mouth were closed.

  “What happened?” she said.

  “That is Reed Edgerton?” Detective Baily said.

  “Yes, that is Reed Edgerton.”

  “Are you certain?”

  “I am certain,” she said, swallowing hard. “What happened, Detective Bailey?”

  “Thank you, Pam, you can cover him back up,” Detective Bailey said to the mortician. “I’ll tell you, but let’s get out of here, shall we?”

  “It won’t be any easier to take,” Angie said.

  “It won’t be easy,” Detective Bailey agreed. “But it can get lots harder. Let’s get out of this basement and into the air at least.”

  The two of them walked out the back door and along the rear drive leading to the street. It wasn’t quite cold enough to freeze, but a mist was still coming down, coating everything with a sheen of wetness. It felt like if the air got one degree colder, everything would freeze. Winter was toying with the island, promising bad weather but refusing to give any hint of when.

  Detective Bailey turned the corner and suddenly they were walking alongside the park. Throughout the park, b
are branches on a scattering of trees had been decorated with LED Christmas lights, and they made the misty air turn a little brighter.

  “What we know,” Detective Bailey said, “is that Mr. Edgerton was discovered just off Children’s Beach. He was found in the water, following the current along the beach. As far as we could tell, he was headed toward Brant Point Light. He was found at one twenty-one a.m., and although we can’t get an official time of death until the county coroner comes over on the first ferry, the folks over at the funeral home all say that it looks like he died at least a couple of hours before that.”

  “How did he die?”

  “You saw that bruise,” he said.

  She nodded.

  “Well, they’re saying that it could be the bruise or it could be drowning or it could be a combination of both. I’m sure the coroner will be able to sort it out.”

  “Was he murdered?”

  “We can’t say at this time. It’s a slippery night. Sure looks like it’s possible that he slipped and hit his head. No way of saying at this point. You’re sure you didn’t see him earlier today?”

  “I wish I had,” she said, “but no.”

  He gave her a sympathetic look. “It’s a hard thing. One second they’re there, and the next they’re not. There’s no shame in feeling torn up about it, even if you weren’t that close.”

  “Thank you. What else can you tell me?”

  “Not much. We’re trying to find out when he came across on the ferry, but some folks aren’t as quick to answer the phone at o’dark thirty in the morning as you are. But we’ll find out in the morning, I’m sure. Everyone has to register their names.”

  Angie’s mouth dropped open. “Of course. Registering. Have you had a chance to check with the Chamber of Commerce yet? He was cryptic about his reasons for being here, but I’m sure he would have at least registered for the treasure hunt. He might have signed in there.”