Murder at Pirate's Cove

by Josh Lanyon

  “Mr. Page?” If possible, she looked more disapproving. “Very well, thank you. How are you?” It was pointed. “I saw your picture in the social column this morning.”

  She had never struck him as having a sense of humor, so maybe she was being ironic.

  “Sadly, they failed to capture my good side,” Ellery said.

  She sniffed again.

  He refused to be daunted. “Anyway, that’s why I’m here. I wanted to tell you I’m sorry about what happened to Trevor, and to personally assure you I had absolutely nothing to do with his death.”

  “If you had nothing to do with his death, why are you sorry?” she asked coolly.

  “I’m s…what?”

  Janet repeated, “If you had nothing to do with my ex-husband’s death, I’m not sure why you’re here expressing regret. I’m further confused as to why you’re expressing regret to me. My relationship with Trevor ended years ago.”

  “I guess because the paper basically accused me of murder, and I wanted to make it clear to everyone that that’s a lie. I knew you were once married, and I assumed you probably had mixed emotions about his passing.”

  “Mixed emotions? Not really. My feelings have always been perfectly clear-cut where Trevor was concerned.”

  Ellery had a flash of inspiration. “He always spoke highly of you t—”

  “Ha! You’re clearly thinking of someone else,” she said crisply. “The only person Trevor ever had a kind word for was Logan.”

  “Logan?”

  “His brother.” Her smile was sardonic. “And here I thought you two were such good friends.”

  This was not going at all according to plan. “I wouldn’t say that.”

  “I wouldn’t either.”

  “Okaaay. Again, sorry for your loss. Such as it was. And you can rest assured, I wasn’t involved.”

  “I don’t care if you were involved or not. Trevor has been no concern of mine for a very long time.”

  “Right. Well…” Ellery began to retreat. There was something unnerving about her.

  “We reap what we sow,” Janet said almost cheerily. “When you’re my age, you’ll understand how true that is.”

  Ellery stopped retreating. “It sounds like you might have a couple of theories on who might have killed Trevor.”

  “I assume you did.”

  “I certainly did not. I just said I didn’t.”

  Her mouth curved primly. “Just goes to show you can’t believe everything you read in the papers.”

  What the… Janet Maples was definitely an odd duck. He was trying to think of an answer when she added, “Either way, all’s well that ends well. Don’t worry about unloading the Crow’s Nest. I’ll make you a very fair offer.”

  “I don’t want a very fair offer. I don’t plan on selling.”

  “That’s brave, but you’re not a businessman. You’re an actor, aren’t you? You must be eager to get back to the bright lights of Broadway.”

  “I’m not an actor. I’m a screenwriter. According to my agent, anyway. In the meantime, I’m a bookseller.”

  “I doubt that. But you’ve put a lot of work into the old place. I’ll make you a very fair offer. Much fairer than Trevor would have.”

  The penny dropped. Ellery said, “Do you inherit Trevor’s properties?”

  “Of course.”

  Of course? Was that usual in a divorce? Didn’t people change their wills after a divorce? Especially such a bitter divorce?

  “I see,” Ellery said. “I appreciate the offer, whatever it would have been, but the Crow’s Nest is not for sale.”

  “Pride goeth before a fall,” Janet said.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It’s no secret you’re struggling to keep your head above water. You’re going to need cash pretty quick, according to scuttlebutt. Legal fees can mount up fast, take it from one who knows.”

  “All the same,” Ellery said.

  “Let me know if you change your mind,” Janet said. “I’m guessing you will. And soon.”

  Chapter Eleven

  No cars or motorbikes were allowed in the village center, so when Ellery left Old Salt Stationery, he had to walk back to the Crow’s Nest to retrieve the VW. When he reached the bookshop, he spotted someone peering through the windows, hands cupped around her face. He felt a flash of unease, but then recognized Nora Sweeny.

  Once upon a time, Nora had run the Pirate Cove Historical Society, but the building that had housed the society had been condemned and the land sold to, guess who? Trevor Maples. Trevor had built a bicycle rental shop on the property, which reportedly did a nice summer trade, but was closed during the winter months. As for the historical society, without a roof over its head, the organization had simply faded away like the town history it had hoped to preserve.

  Nora was small, but her personality was mighty. She was slight as a child and stood just over five feet in her sensible shoes. Her eyes were gray and piercing. Her long iron-hued hair was worn in a tight ponytail. She was a little nosy and a little on the garrulous side, but Ellery liked her. She was sharp and lively and, for her age, surprisingly—or maybe it wasn’t surprising, considering her age—unshockable. Even so, it had been a long day, and he was looking forward to going home and having a leisurely, hot bath and possibly a glass or two—or maybe a bottle—of wine.

  “Hi, Nora! Did you need something?” he called.

  Nora jumped guiltily. “Ellery! There you are. I thought you’d left for the day.”

  “I have. But I had to come back for my car.”

  Nora looked a bit confused but smiled anyway. “I wondered if you could spare a moment, dearie.” She was the only person outside of a character in a play Ellery had ever heard use the term dearie.

  He groaned inwardly, but said, “Sure. What’s on your mind?”

  “It’s a little delicate; maybe we should step inside?” Nora suggested hopefully.

  “If you’d prefer that.” Ellery swallowed his sigh, unlocked the front door, and ushered her in.

  Her gaze went instantly and unerringly to the darker patch in the center of the floor, and Ellery hoped this visit wasn’t about Nora wanting a personal tour of the crime scene.

  She met his gaze, and maybe she read what he was thinking because she said briskly, “First of all, I wanted to tell you how appalled I was by the story in the Scuttlebutt. Such an irresponsible thing for Sue Lewis to have done.”

  “Thank you,” Ellery said.

  “And I’m not the only person in the village who thinks so.”

  “I hope not. I guess people would rather believe an outsider killed Trevor than one of their own.”

  Nora said tartly, “I don’t think most people give a hoot about Trevor Maples. Maybe you never noticed, but he wasn’t well liked in Pirate’s Cove. Nor are you an outsider. In fact, Trevor was more of an outsider than you. There have been Pages in Pirate’s Cove since they first broke ground in the village.”

  Maybe so, and he appreciated what she was saying, but even if Ellery’s distant family had lived in Pirate’s Cove, most people did regard him as a stranger. He was a stranger. The feeling was mutual.

  Nora was still running on. “This will all blow over. You’ll see. Chief Carson is a very clever man. You might not think it to look at him, but he is. He has a way of ferreting out the truth. He’s the one who figured out Elinor Christmas was stealing from the church fund, and that was practically the perfect crime.”

  Ellery grinned at both the “you might not think it to look at him,” and the idea of Carson applying his master detective skills to pilfering from the collection box. “That’s reassuring.”

  “It is. He’s a very good man. A little gruff, but he’s had his share of sorrow.”

  “Has he?” Ellery was unwillingly curious.

  “Oh yes. His wife died, you know. They were childhood sweethearts. She was killed in a hit-and-run.”

  “Here?” He was genuinely shocked. Also surprised
because cars weren’t allowed in so much of the village—and the people who did drive, did so like they were afraid of getting their tires dirty.

  “Oh no!” Nora looked equally shocked. “Not here. Heavens. In Los Angeles. Chief Carson moved to Pirate’s Cove after his wife’s death.”

  “I thought he grew up here.”

  Nora laughed at the idea. “Chief Carson? Oh no. He’s from California. He was a homicide detective with LAPD. He wanted a change of pace, and I guess he got it.”

  “How long has he been chief of police?”

  “It’s been about five years now.”

  “I had no idea.” To put it mildly. In fact, practically everything he had thought about Jack Carson was incorrect. He was straight, he was not an inexperienced small-town cop, and he was not a hometown hero. This was not even his hometown.

  Nora squeezed his arm with her small, bony hand. “You see? You just have to have faith, hang tight, and this whole mess will all be sorted out.”

  “Thank you,” Ellery said. He meant it. He didn’t believe it. But he was still grateful to her for trying to reassure him.

  “Now the other thing I wanted to talk to you about is the bookshop.”

  “What about it?” Surely Nora wasn’t also going to offer to buy the Crow’s Nest?

  “I’ve been doing some thinking. I hope you won’t take this the wrong way, but it’s pretty obvious you really don’t know very much about mysteries and crime novels.”

  “I’m learning,” Ellery protested. “It’s not my background, no, but I’m picking it up. At least I know Agatha Christie is dead.”

  “And that’s a starting point,” Nora said in the tone of a kindergarten teacher encouraging a backward toddler. “But it’s also useful to keep track of who’s still alive. For example, who wrote the Commissario Guido Brunetti series? Can you take a guess?”

  “Professor Plum in the study with a poker?”

  Nora laughed. “No. Donna Leon. What about the Dave Brandstetter series?”

  “I’m guessing not Donna Leon?”

  “And you’re correct. Joseph Hansen wrote the Brandstetter books.”

  Ellery said, “Okay, well, now I know more than I did this morning. So that’s great. Thank you.” He was hoping Nora would wind things up pretty quickly because he was already well aware he did not know a whole heck of a lot about the mystery genre—but he sure knew more than he had three months ago.

  As if she read his thoughts, Nora’s cheeks grew pink. She took a little breath as though bracing herself to take a punch. “What I was thinking was perhaps you’d like to hire me to work in the Crow’s Nest with you.”

  Funny thing, his immediate reaction was yes! Then reality set in.

  He said regretfully, “I wish I could, Nora, but I can’t afford to hire anyone right now. Sue Lewis was right about one thing. The bookshop is failing.”

  “Oh, you don’t have to pay me,” Nora said quickly. “Not right away, at least. If the bookstore begins to turn a profit, it would be nice to earn a little extra money, but I’m all right, financially speaking. I have my late husband’s social security as well as my own, and I have a small retirement fund. It’s not that I need a job. I’d just like a job. And I think I’d be very well suited to working here. And you do, desperately, need help.”

  “Well, I don’t think it’s that desperate—”

  “Oh, but it is,” Nora said kindly but ruthlessly. “You’re really very much out of your depth.”

  Ellery opened his mouth to object, and Nora said, “What’s the hottest trend in cozy mystery?”

  “Murder.”

  Nora blinked. “Magic, dearie. Witches, in particular.”

  “My second guess.”

  She smiled tentatively. “Now you’re teasing me.”

  “Yes,” Ellery said, though he was not. What he was doing was seriously considering her proposal. He did need help. Maybe not desperately, but as things stood, he couldn’t step out for a sandwich or even use the restroom without risking losing a sale—and he couldn’t afford to lose any sales. “What would you be getting out of this arrangement, though?”

  “You can’t imagine.” She actually teared up. “It would be so lovely to have somewhere to go every day where I’m truly needed and can even make a contribution. Ever since the historical society closed…” She wiped her eyes. “You’re too young to understand, but once you get to be a certain age, people treat you like you’re on your way out. As though a lifetime of experience and knowledge means nothing. As though your just still being there irritates them. And you’re such a lovely young man. So polite and kind.”

  “You’re making me sound like Trevor’s murderer for sure.”

  Nora gave a damp chortle. “You even have a sense of humor.”

  Ellery weighed the pros and cons, and it did seem like there were a lot more pros than cons.

  “Are you sure you want to be so closely associated with me? Plenty of people—maybe your friends and neighbors—believe what Sue Lewis wrote.”

  “Anyone silly enough to make their minds up before they’ve heard the whole story isn’t someone whose opinion matters to me.”

  Still Ellery hesitated. “Even if I don’t get arrested, the shop may still go under. You might never get paid anything.”

  Nora said with touching solemnity, “If you let me work here, that will be all the pay I need. That’s the truth.”

  “You’re sure about that?”

  “One hundred percent.”

  Convinced at last, Ellery smiled. “All right, then. You’re hired. When can you start?”

  He was startled when she gave him a blazing smile and threw her arms around him. “I’ll be here at seven tomorrow!”

  “Uh, I’ll be here at eight,” Ellery said. “See you then!”

  * * * * *

  The dog was sitting in the middle of the road.

  On his way home from the bookshop, Ellery was listening to Ashley Serena (probably not the wisest choice for that dark, lonely drive) when The VW’s headlights picked out the gleam of eyes first, and then Ellery saw the dark outline of a small animal—a dog—and hit the brakes.

  The VW skidded across the highway, narrowly missing the dog, which sprang away. Ellery fought for control as the beetle started to spin, managing to straighten out before he went careening off the road. The car bumped onto the dirt shoulder, traveled forward, and came to a stop nosed into a leafy wall of tall hedge.

  The CD player cut off, the engine died, the headlights went out. For a moment, Ellery sat motionless, breathing fast, shaking with adrenaline and relief.

  Jesus Christ.

  When he could think again, he turned the key in the ignition. Something clicked. That was all. The engine did not turn over. The car did not kick back to life. If anything, the surrounding silence seemed to deepen. He could hear the leaves of the hedge scraping against the front of the VW.

  He dug his cell phone out, pressed the Home button, and saw an unsurprising absence of bars. No service.

  Of course not. Because he was sitting on the edge of the flipping world, with nothing beneath him but a bottomless abyss of futility and failure.

  Okay. Maybe not that bad.

  But now what?

  After a moment, he turned everything off, pushed the driver’s door open, climbed out. The night air was cold and damp on his perspiring face. He shivered.

  He thought he could see the faraway gleam of lights through the hedge. Maybe there was a house within walking distance.

  The hedge rustled noisily next to him, and he jumped aside, expecting the next dire event: a bear, a serial killer, a—

  A small black something pushed out of the wall of leaves and wriggled up to him, whining. The dog. No, it was a puppy.

  “Hey, what are you doing out here?” Ellery knelt, and the puppy threw itself into his arms. It was too dark to really see, but he held a bundle of silky fur, floppy ears, wet, snuffling nose, and a frantically waving tail. The puppy’s whimpers
sounded nearly hysterical. Ellery knew the feeling.

  He felt over the small, wiggling body, but the puppy did not appear to have a collar.

  “How did you get here?”

  The dog, naturally, had no answer.

  Ellery scooped it up, holding it under his arm as he tried to peer through the hedge.

  Yes. There was a house. It sat on a small hill, and lights burned cheerfully on the upstairs and downstairs levels.

  He tucked the puppy more comfortably under his arm and walked along the hedge, seeking an opening. The puppy, seeking warmth, burrowed under his jacket, snuggling against his ribs.

  It took a while, and he had to walk out of his way, but eventually Ellery found a small wrought-iron gate cut into the hedge. The gate was padlocked, but he put the puppy through the bars, vaulted over, picked the pup up, and walked on toward the house. Before long he reached the bottom of a short drive. A metal mailbox stood to the side, stenciled with lettering that read MAPLES.

  It probably shocked him more than it should have. He was vaguely aware that Trevor had, like himself, lived outside the village proper.

  So much for that idea. He really didn’t have a lot of options, but for a few seconds, he stood there, trying to decide whether to proceed. All those blazing lights seemed to indicate someone was home. A housekeeper? A tenant? Maybe there was a girlfriend or a second wife? He’d never heard any mention of one, but it wasn’t like he’d paid a lot of attention to Trevor’s personal life. If anything, he’d tried to avoid hearing about Trevor.

  Anyway, whoever was residing there would hopefully allow him to use the phone so he could call Robertson’s Garage for a tow truck. He started up the drive toward the house.

  The puppy now slept inside his partially zipped jacket. That warm, breathing weight snuggled against his body was comforting. The night was unnervingly dark, unnervingly quiet, and the sky was brilliant with stars that looked as cold and hard as ice chips. There was no other house for as far as he could see.

  As he drew near, he could see the house was large and modern in design. It looked a bit like a small prison but with lots of large windows. Maybe one of those more progressive institutions.