Murder at Pirate's Cove

by Josh Lanyon

  “Mr. Page?” Chief Carson’s voice broke through Ellery’s reverie. He stared at the chief. Carson was tall and lean. He had an athletic build, but he didn’t tower, he wasn’t physically imposing. So why did it feel like he was taking up all the space in the small office?

  “What?”

  “Tell me about your relationship with Mr. Maples.”

  “There was no relationship. He wanted to buy the bookstore. I didn’t want to sell. He wasn’t used to being told no.” Ellery shrugged.

  “It’s fair to say the relationship was contentious?”

  “I don’t know that it’s fair to say that. It’s not like we exchanged words.” Actually, yes, today’s encounter probably qualified as exchanging words. Both he and Trevor had been testy, and toward the end, Trevor had bordered on threatening. Ellery revised, “It’s not like we came to blows.”

  “How many times would you say you and Maples argued?”

  Meeting Carson’s cool and steady gaze, Ellery felt his scalp prickle with unease. “I’m not sure where you’re going with this, Chief, but you saw me in the Salty Dog this evening. I have an alibi. You can confirm my alibi. Right?”

  “I saw you in the Salty Dog just after seven this evening. You were there for about forty-five minutes,” Carson agreed. “The ME’s preliminary examination puts Maples’s time of death between five and seven p.m. So as alibis go…”

  Ellery could think of nothing to say. Should he keep quiet? Should he keep trying to explain? What was the real-life protocol? He had nothing to hide, and yet it was increasingly clear that Carson believed he was somehow involved.

  Did Carson believe that? Or were these just basic interrogation tactics? It felt like they’d been sitting here covering the same ground for a very long time, but maybe that was how it was supposed to work.

  Carson said briskly, “Mr. Page, if I may ask, where were you tonight between five p.m. and seven p.m.?”

  “Here. In the Crow’s Nest. The shop was still open at five o’clock. I didn’t close up until six thirty.”

  “Can anyone confirm that? Did you have customers? Deliveries? Did anyone stop by to chat?”

  “I…”

  No. His last sale had been at three that afternoon. He had received no deliveries that day. After the sale of the bookmarks, he did not recall anyone walking into the shop even to use the restroom.

  Ellery had never been a fan of crime shows or mystery novels, but three months of running a mystery bookstore had given him a rudimentary understanding of how murder investigations worked. At least in fiction.

  He said, “Wouldn’t someone have heard the shot?”

  The downcast black crescents of Carson’s eyelashes flicked up. He studied Ellery. “Shot?”

  “Yes. The businesses on either side of me stay open until five. If Trevor had walked into the Crow’s Nest and I’d shot him, surely someone would have heard that?”

  After a moment, Carson said, “Maybe you used a silencer.”

  “Where would I get a silencer? I’m not a hitman. I don’t even own a gun, let alone a silencer.”

  There was something odd about Carson’s expression. Ellery’s theater experience meant he was pretty good at reading facial expressions, but he couldn’t interpret that particular blankness on Carson’s face.

  “What you’re saying is, no one can corroborate your claim that the shop was still open until six thirty.”

  “I’m not saying that. I’m saying I can’t think of anyone. But someone could have noticed. One of my neighbors or maybe someone walking past.”

  Ellery wasn’t sure if he was more scared or more exasperated. How could Carson think he had anything to do with this? Did he have no instinct for people?

  “This is such a ridiculous scenario. You’re suggesting I killed someone and then calmly went to dinner and then came back here and pretended to find the body?”

  “It’s not as far-fetched as you might imagine.”

  Oh brother. And Carson had gleaned this from all his years of policing the mean streets of Pirate’s Cove?

  “The forensics people checked my hands. Wouldn’t they have seen the gunpowder residue or whatever you call it?”

  Carson was giving him that odd look again. He said finally—almost growled it, really, “It doesn’t work like that.”

  “Well, how does it work?”

  “I’ll ask the questions.”

  “I don’t think that’s very fair!” Ellery protested. “When I might be able to come up with something that helps my case?”

  Carson scribbled into his notebook, muttered, “Pretty unlikely.”

  “No, it’s not. What’s my motive? Tell me that?”

  He kind of wished he hadn’t asked because Carson’s expression grew more closed, his eyes turning as bleak and chilly as the winter shoreline.

  “I’d say your motive for getting rid of Maples is the same as his for wanting to buy you out. You’re both struggling to survive in a town that can’t support one of you, let alone both.”

  It was almost funny.

  “You think I killed Trevor to wipe out my competition?”

  “Did you?”

  “No! That’s…” The words dried in Ellery’s throat at the expression in Chief Carson’s fierce eyes. “No.”

  “But you admit Maples was your main competition?”

  He was serious. Ellery’s eyes widened in alarm. “No. Trevor sells books, but they’re all antiques, first editions and that kind of thing. He considered himself an antiquarian. I’m not—I’m just a guy running an ordinary bookstore.”

  The chief said nothing.

  “Besides, most of Trevor’s business was antique furniture. We weren’t really competitors.”

  “According to Maples, you were.”

  It was Ellery’s turn to keep silent. He was pretty sure he already said way too much.

  One of Carson’s deputies stuck his head in the office. “We’re wrapping things up now, Chief.”

  Carson nodded. “Thanks, Martin.”

  Ellery pushed to his feet, ignoring the wobble in his knees. “Is that it? Or am I under arrest?”

  A lifetime seemed to pass waiting for Carson’s reply. When it came, it was almost disconcertingly prosaic.

  “That’s it for now.” Carson laid his pencil on his open notebook. “Thanks for your cooperation. You can go.”

  “Aren’t you going to tell me not to leave town?”

  “Are you planning to leave town? Fifteen minutes ago, you told me you planned to stay in Pirate’s Cove.”

  “I am. Planning to stay, I mean.”

  “Good. This is an ongoing investigation. The expectation is you’ll keep yourself available for further questioning.”

  Ellery swallowed. He suspected it looked and sounded like a gulp.

  Carson nodded at the door in dismissal. Ellery headed out of the office, his knees nearly giving out as Carson said, “One other thing.”

  Ellery turned, unspeaking.

  “I’ll need you to inventory the store and let me know what, if anything, is missing.”

  Ellery nodded.

  “And I’ll need that as soon as possible.”

  “Yes. Of course,” Ellery got out.

  Carson nodded again, and turned back to his notes.

  The medical examiner had already come and gone, collecting Trevor’s body for the morgue and subsequent autopsy. Ellery’s queasiness returned at the thought.

  He couldn’t help feeling that the uniformed officers and crime-scene investigators were staring at him accusingly as he quickly gathered his coat and other belongings, heading for the front door.

  Maybe he would sell the shop.

  He was pretty sure he would never be able to think of it the same way. Never look at the place where Trevor’s body had lain without forever seeing that ghastly, bloodstained image. He risked a quick look, expecting to see a chalk outline, but his uneasy peek revealed nothing more than a couple of plastic markers and a pool of stomach-
churning crimson staining the floorboards.

  Here was a problem. Who would he sell the shop to, now that Trevor was gone?

  One of PCPD’s finest began to turn off the lights, row after row of bell-shaped lamps going black.

  Another uniformed officer pushed open the front door for Ellery. The little bell tinkled with almost sinister good cheer, the sound cutting off as the door swung shut behind him with a curt bang.

  Chapter Five

  Sunday morning found Ellery prying loose cracked and peeling moss-colored linoleum from his kitchen floor—and trying to wipe the image of Trevor Maples’s sightless eyes from his memory.

  There was always a chance the 18th Century architect of Captain’s Seat had not been on crack when he drew up the plans for the sprawling Dutch Renaissance style mansion. But how likely was that?

  In Ellery’s opinion, not very.

  But then again, maybe it wasn’t the architect’s fault. Maybe the skewed artistic vision had belonged to the original owner, Captain Horatio Page. Back in the 1700s, Page had been a famed hunter of pirates, eventually retiring to this quiet little corner of Rhode Island. Maybe he had liked remembering his glory days. Maybe he just had a taste for architectural bling.

  In fairness, a couple of centuries ago, the house had probably been a bit of a showstopper with its distinctive curved gables, stained-glass windows, and twin conical-shaped rooftops. The exterior was made of slate-colored locally quarried granite. The interior was paneled in white oak, the lower level windows were arched segmental ones like on a pirate galleon, the mismatched flooring reportedly came from the timbers of ships crashed to pieces on the jagged coastline.

  Quaint, yes. Cozy… Captain’s Seat had six bedrooms and seven baths. The bedrooms were large. Large enough for every single one to have its own fireplace. Along with all the bedrooms came a grand foyer, a great hall, a gallery, a drawing room, a library, a game room—that had been a thrill to the former reigning Scrabble champion of the Manhattan Scrabble Meetup Group—a pantry and a wine cellar. No doubt it had required a fleet of servants to keep everything shipshape and Bristol back in the day.

  Nowadays…

  Even if extreme housekeeping had been in Ellery’s wheelhouse, the place was falling down around his ears. Literally around his ears. Two nights earlier an ornate lantern-shaped sconce had fallen off his bedroom wall and nearly knocked him out while he stood brushing his teeth in front of the life-sized portrait of his distant ancestor.

  The mansion was full of charming, murderous decor. Like the chipped and peeling mermaid figurehead dangling over the mile-long dining-room table, or the banisters built to look like the row of cannons on the broadside of a warship, or the gigantic bronze shell that had once decorated the stern of a French frigate but now hung over the fireplace in the “great hall.”

  The roof leaked, windowpanes fell like rotting teeth, and some of the floorboards were see-through. The entire place smelled of must, dust, and rust.

  Okay, so maybe it wasn’t that bad. Or rather, it was that bad, but it was also undeniably the coolest house he’d ever been in. There was a trapdoor in his bedroom, for heaven’s sake! It just didn’t get better than that. If he’d had unlimited time and a couple of extra million dollars, there was nothing Ellery would have enjoyed more than restoring Captain’s Seat to its original manic glory. As it was, he had one day a week—Sunday—a cordless drill, and his trusty hammer.

  He was not making a lot of headway, although he had managed to get the master bedroom into reasonable shape—barring the occasional outbreak of homicidal lighting fixtures. Actually, he was pretty happy with the way his bedroom had turned out. The large corner room overlooked both the wide, overgrown meadows behind the house and the green and rocky ocean cliffs in the front. In the morning, buttery sunshine warmed the polished oak panels and brass fixtures, turning the room as gold as pirates’ bounty. In the evening, he could see the stars and hear the distant crash of waves and the call of the owl that lived in the garret.

  Anyway, after the horror of Saturday, it was a relief to stick close to home and hearth. Ellery tried to focus on the job at hand—removing the ghastly mid-century green vinyl tile in the kitchen—but despite his best efforts, he couldn’t help brooding over the previous day’s events.

  The shock of being suspected of murder—and the fear of being arrested for that crime—had initially so overwhelmed him that it wasn’t until Sunday morning that it occurred to him a murderer was loose in Pirate’s Cove.

  And the more he thought about it, the more convinced he was that murderous someone had deliberately tried to frame him.

  Why else would Trevor’s body have been dumped in his shop? (Or had Trevor been killed in the Crow’s Nest?) Either way, why? What was there to gain by framing him?

  And if he wasn’t being framed, what was the point of all this? Had there been some pressing need to get rid of Trevor’s body and Ellery’s shop happened to be handy?

  And why was Chief Carson so eager to pin this crime on him? Couldn’t he see how obviously flimsy Ellery’s supposed motivation was? Even Ellery knew the evidence against him was entirely circumstantial. Had the chief taken some kind of instantaneous dislike to him? Or was it simply Ellery’s outsider status that made him the prime suspect? Because wasn’t the victim’s spouse or partner supposed to be the main suspect? Or was that only in movies and books?

  Maybe Trevor hadn’t had a spouse or partner. (In fact, all things considered, maybe that was a given.)

  More to the point, how was it that no one had seen anything?

  Sunset was around seven thirty, but yesterday had been the start of Buccaneer Days, so regardless of the time, someone would surely have been wandering the streets. Although, thinking back, yesterday had been pretty quiet. (If the goal of yesterday’s exercise in wardrobe malfunction had been to attract tourists to Pirate’s Cove, the Visitors Bureau needed to up their game.)

  He used his utility knife to cut another six-inch-wide parallel strip of vinyl flooring. His hand slipped as he remembered the blood seeping into the floorboards at the Crow’s Nest, and he banged his knuckles on the tile. Oh God. He was going to have to find a company that did crime-scene cleanup before he could reopen.

  Ellery rose, went to the sink to run cold water over his hand, and through the window noticed a figure walking up the gravel pathway toward the front door. A woman in a blue skirt and brown jacket. He didn’t recognize her.

  Turning off the sink taps, he grabbed the towel on the counter and wiped his hands. He started for the front door and heard the doorbell chiming slowly, sonorously through the house.

  He wasn’t expecting visitors, and it was kind of a weird day for company. Maybe she was selling magazine subscriptions. Or maybe she’d been passing by and her car had a flat tire.

  He reached the front door with its weathered planks and porthole, slid the metal bars, and opened it.

  “Hi. Can I help you?”

  “Ellery Page?”

  “That’s right.” He had the sudden, uneasy feeling she was about to serve him with a court summons. There was something about her…

  “Hi, I’m Sue Lewis.”

  “Right,” he said blankly.

  It surprised him that in a village the size of Pirate’s Cove there were still so many new faces, so many people he had yet to meet. She was about his age, pretty and petite. Her blond hair was long and straight, her brown eyes and olive complexion perfectly made up in flattering nude tones, her clothes fashionable business. She smiled, offering a glimpse of very white teeth.

  “Sue Lewis,” she prompted. “Editor in chief for the Scuttlebutt Weekly. Our local paper?”

  “Oh,” he said in a very different tone of voice.

  Sue’s smile widened with determination. “I can’t believe we haven’t met before now.” She held out her hand.

  Okay. He did not subscribe to the Scuttlebutt Weekly, but he did let them sell the paper in his shop. Ellery automatically shook hands. Sue
had a very firm grip and did not immediately let go of him.

  “I was hoping to ask you a few—” she began.

  At the same time, Ellery said, “If you’re here to ask about what happened last night—”

  “You mean the murder in your bookstore of one of our most prominent citizens?” Sue was still smiling, but her eyes were a lot harder than he had initially thought. Not a woman used to taking no for an answer.

  He dropped Sue’s hand and stepped back. “I don’t know anything about it,” he said.

  That seemed to amuse Sue. She said almost teasingly, “You must know something about it. Police Chief Carson interviewed you for over an hour last night.”

  Her comment landed like a brick in his belly. Apparently, it was true about no secrets in a small town. Was it now common knowledge that he was a suspect in Trevor Maples’s murder? Were all his friends and neighbors—okay, all his neighbors—openly speculating about whether he’d actually killed Trevor? And did no one have any boundaries? Why was this woman on his doorstep, accosting him in his own home? On a Sunday no less. Wasn’t church-going supposed to be a thing in villages?

  “No. Sorry. I’m not giving any interviews to anyone.” Ellery was firm. He reached for the door, started to close it—pausing in astonishment as Sue stepped forward, blocking him.

  “What can you tell me about the fight you and Trevor had yesterday afternoon?”

  “What fight? There was no fight.”

  “Come on, Ellery. I have an eyewitness who reported that you and Trevor got into a verbal altercation only hours before he was found dead in your shop.”

  “It wasn’t like that at all.”

  “You have to admit the timing is pretty suspicious.” Sue leaned in closer, and he realized she was holding a cell phone. Was she recording him?

  “Would you move please? I’m trying to close the door.”

  “Have you been advised to retain legal counsel yet?”