“I did go out for a ‘walk.’” Hannah mimicked the air quotes. “I ran into Calder—”
“How convenient,” Kerry murmured, the delighted look back in her glowing emerald eyes. “I’m liking this. Who’s involved in some shenanigans now, huh?”
“At midnight,” Fiona went on, shooting a glare at Kerry. “You just happened to bump into him. At midnight. By the harbor. Where the fire started.” She slapped her palms on her thighs. “And you think he’s innocent?”
“Which is exactly why I’m representing him,” Hannah said calmly. That, and because I apparently can’t say no to the man. Which was something she was going to have to get past and quick. “I do think he’s innocent. And because he was down by the docks, it does look suspicious.”
“Look suspicious?” Fiona barked. “It is suspicious. And hold on another minute. If you were down there with him, then how can you represent him? I mean, aren’t you like, what do they call it, like an accessory? Or something? Aiding and abetting?”
“We were walking, Fi. And talking. No one was doing any aiding or abetting.” We were too busy trying to keep our hands off of each other. And failing. Well, his hands had been on her. And sure, he’d just been doing some kind of acupressure voodoo, but there had been that kiss at the end. And holy . . . wow. There had been that kiss there at the end, all right. She cleared her throat. “Like I said, I was there. I saw his reaction. Which was the same as my reaction. And the first thing he did was to race down there and save Jonah and his great-granddaughter. Which no one seems to be mentioning.”
“Well,” Fiona said, stalling, wheels clearly turning. “What better way to make himself look innocent? I mean, you have to admit it’s a rather extreme coincidence that he was down there when this happened.”
“He was scoping out the harbor, trying to figure out Winstock’s plan.”
And then it all clicked in Hannah’s brain, even as Fiona added a sarcastic, “At midnight? Really, Han? Did he try to sell you some swampland while he was at it? Or maybe a bridge for the harbor?”
“Winstock,” Hannah breathed. Now her wheels were turning and she tuned her sisters out and focused on the trail that was forming in her mind. She turned to Fiona. “How fast can you work your magic on this?” She made a circular motion around her face with her hand.
“What are you going to do?” Fiona wanted to know. “We have a bachelorette party we’re apparently hostessing this evening.”
“I’ve got that covered,” Kerry said with an airy wave of her palm.
“That’s what worries me,” Fiona said.
“Just get my face to look more professional and less zombie and then the two of you can carry on with the wedding and bachelorette party plans. I should only be gone a few hours. Three max. Or four. Adding in drive time,” she said, since she was out at the Point. “Are you doing the bachelorette thing in town? Because then I could just meet you.”
“It’s nine in the morning,” Fiona told her. “Whatever we do won’t be until later this evening.”
“Unless!” Kerry bounced on the bed. “What if instead of girl bonding over drinks and half-naked male strippers—or all naked, if we’re lucky—maybe we could do a spa day? Mani, pedi, facials, massages, lunch, the works.” She batted her eyelashes at Fiona. “Would that meet your oh-so-prim-and-proper standards of bachelorette party acceptability?”
Fiona opened her mouth for the usual retort, then stopped, looking momentarily stunned. “Uh, yes. Actually, it would. That’s an awesome idea.”
“Then why are you frowning at me?” Kerry wanted to know.
“Because you’re the one who came up with it, so I’m going over the plan in my mind to see where the loopholes for inappropriateness are. Because we both know there are some.”
“You mean other than a spa day would be done by dinnertime, so plenty of time for us to get our freshly mani-pedi’d selves all dolled up for the drinking and half-naked men part later? That kind of loophole?” Before Fiona could sputter her reply, Kerry threw an arm around her sister’s shoulders and pulled her close for a shoulder-to-shoulder hug. “Oh, and make sure Delia can come with us today. She’s free this evening, but not sure what she has going on today. Something, I’m sure, because when is she ever not working?” Kerry lifted her hands, palms out, leaving the previously leaning Fiona to sprawl heavily across her sister’s lap. “So, I’m totally not kidding, but how about this? How about we take the spa day, and feel Alex out about the evening plans, and if she’s into it, we go, and if not? We respect the bride’s wishes.” She grinned even more widely. “And go by ourselves!”
Kerry waggled her eyebrows, which was when Hannah noticed the tiny silver ring that was pierced through the outside corner of the left one. How had she missed that? Oh, I don’t know. You missed an entire pregnant wife, so an eyebrow piercing isn’t all that surprising.
“You feel Alex out,” groused Fiona as she managed to get herself upright again. “But I’ll play devil’s advocate. And if she says no thank you, because, you know, she will be getting married less than forty-eight hours later, then you’re on your own at the strip club. Which . . . where would there even be one?”
“Augusta,” Kerry said, without hesitation. “Hey, you’re not the only one who can do advance planning. Talk about making memorable moments.” She nudged Fi with her hip. “Now make Hannah pretty. Or at least less living-dead-like, so she can go save the town, rescue her hero, and still meet us at the spa in time for facials and Brazilians.”
“Who said anything about Brazilians?” Fi demanded at the same time Hannah said, “He’s not my—oh, never mind.”
She saved her breath and her argument, realizing the two weren’t even listening to her. They wouldn’t have believed her anyway. She let them carry on as they pretty much had been since being born fourteen months apart, closed her eyes while Fi worked her magic . . . and started to plot out how she was going to work hers.
“Yes, I was in the harbor area,” Calder told the police chief. “But I wasn’t out on the docks and I didn’t set the fire. I came here hoping to mend fences, not burn them down.”
Chief Logan McCrae sat on the opposite side of the scarred heavy oak table in what passed, Calder supposed, as the interrogation room. It also appeared to be the break room, given the fridge in the corner, the counter with a sink, a microwave, and a few cupboards built in overhead.
Calder watched Hannah’s brother make some additional notes, thinking brother and sister definitely had their fair share of family similarities. Both were tall and had dark hair, serious faces, and a very straightforward manner. He couldn’t say if Chief McCrae shared his sister’s smile, or her dry humor, as he’d yet to get either out of the man. Not that the situation was a laughing matter, far from. But a little gallows humor would go a long way at the moment toward helping him keep his annoyance and temper in check over being pulled in for questioning in the first place. He wasn’t here as a witness, but as the prime suspect.
“Walk me through the events of the evening,” Logan instructed.
“I gave one of your sergeants all of that last night after the fire had been put out. Voluntarily,” he added.
“I’d like to go over it again. Once the adrenaline rush has passed, oftentimes other details emerge. Include as many as you can think of, even the most innocuous thing could be helpful.”
Calder didn’t bother to ask exactly what he’d be helping the chief to do. Clear him? Or nail him for a crime he didn’t commit? “How far back in the day do you want me to go?” As the question was leaving his mouth, another thought struck his mind. If Logan wanted a detailed description of Calder’s activities the night before, some of them were going to include Logan’s own sister. Oh, the day just keeps getting better and better.
“Start with lunch and we’ll backtrack if we need to.”
Calder nodded, pressed his palms flat down on the table, then leaned back in his chair and propped one ankle on the opposite knee. He thought back
over the previous day, and realized he’d spent more than just the last part of the day with Chief McCrae’s sister. Yeah, might as well lock me up right now. He didn’t have sisters, but he had nieces. And though the oldest was only eight, he could already well imagine his attitude, not to mention her father’s, about any boy who came sniffing within a mile of her sweet little self.
Calder drew in a slow breath, let it out, and got his thoughts in order. “I was supposed to meet with Brooks Winstock the evening prior. Wednesday. To discuss the details of a job he’s hiring me to do.”
“Which is?”
Calder sighed. So, it’s going to be like that, is it? McCrae knew damn well what he’d been hired to do, but was going to put him through his paces. Calder decided that was a good thing. Neat and tidy, all the facts lined up, i’s dotted, t’s crossed. “Building the yacht club. He acquired the property last August and originally had wanted the thing done by this July fourth, but the winter came in early, stayed late, and then he apparently had a falling-out with the architect, hired a new one, then the original contractor walked due to the architect switch.” Calder lifted his shoulders. “When he—Winstock—accepted my bid, he seemed pretty worked up about getting this thing under way as quickly as possible. But he ended up postponing our original Wednesday meeting to yesterday, midafternoon. Then he pushed that to dinner last night, then postponed it yet again. I went home to Calais Wednesday night, but opted to stay in town last night, to be available for this meeting the moment he could make it happen.”
“When is it scheduled now?”
“He was supposed to contact me this morning, but I’ve yet to hear from him. Your sergeant took my phone when I came in, which I was happy to give her. Also voluntarily,” he added. “Make sure you write that part down, too.”
Logan looked up a little sharply at that, and Calder worked again to tamp down his frustration. What annoyed him wasn’t so much that he was being dragged in, but that it was giving whoever had really done the deed time to cover his tracks.
“Go on,” Logan prodded.
“I decided to spend the time trying to dig a little more into what’s really going on with Winstock.”
Now he had McCrae’s complete attention. “What do you mean? Regarding what? The yacht club?”
“All of it,” Calder said. “He’s got this big new schooner for tours, now this fancy yacht club. And he looked pretty far afield for a new contractor. One who just happens to be related to someone with a fairly large chunk of harbor real estate.”
“He came to you for the bid on the club project?”
Calder nodded. “I knew something was up from that alone. I’m well aware—as is every member of the Blue clan on both sides—of the centuries-old feud. We don’t pay it as much mind in our neck of the woods as the Cove side apparently does, but I was curious to know more, I’ll admit . . .” He let the sentence trail off, but in the face of McCrae’s continued steady gaze, he said, “Family is important to me and I wanted to know what was really going on here.”
“You think Winstock was somehow targeting your family back in Calais?”
“I have no idea what’s on his mind, or what he’s thinking or planning. In the end, I opted to throw out an outrageous bid. If he was just looking to trade on the Blue name to demonstrate he was respecting Cove history or some other such bullshit, he’d take one look at that number and walk. But if he wanted a St. Croix River Blue here for another reason . . .” He shrugged.
“And he took the bid. No negotiating the number?”
Calder shook his head. “Not yet, anyway. I expect that to happen when we finally meet. If we ever do.”
“If you’re looking to repair family ties, building a yacht club a hundred yards away from your great-uncle’s fishing company won’t be the way to get that done. You had to know that.”
“I didn’t know anything, honestly. There has been no other contact between the two clans for more than a century. I didn’t know a damn thing about Jonah Blue until I looked into things after Winstock’s bid request came through. When Winstock took the bid, I figured the only way to find out what was what, was to come on down and meet with the man who was trying to put this into motion. Find out why.” He looked Logan in the eye. “I haven’t signed anything, or committed to build anything as yet.”
“So you just up and come to the Cove, with no agenda other than to find out what some deep-pockets guy here wants with you building his yacht club, because you think it might have something to do with family here that you’ve never met or had any contact with?”
Calder smiled. “That about sums it up.” His smile faded just as quickly. “I don’t like things that don’t make sense, or that I don’t understand, and when it potentially involves my family? I want to know what’s going on. Information is power and so yes, I have technically been hired to build a yacht club here, but I’ve used my time since arriving to meet with Jonah and learn whatever I could. Jonah was aware I was coming, by the way. I contacted him when the bid was accepted to let him know what was going on, thinking he might be interested in that information and to let him know the deal didn’t originate with me, but with Winstock.”
“What was his reaction to that information?”
“I haven’t a clue. Man’s not exactly chatty. It was more like I left voice mails than had actual conversations. I figured I’d learn that when I got here, too.”
Logan’s expression hinted at that dry humor Calder had already come to expect from the man’s sister. “And how did that work out for you?”
“It was about as productive a meeting as you might suspect. It didn’t help matters any that I got a little hung up with the accident that happened as I was coming into town, which delayed my meeting with Jonah by quite a bit.”
“Yes, about that. I do owe you a debt of thanks for helping to take care of Hannah after the accident.”
“I’m just glad it wasn’t any worse. Your sister is a very capable woman, but I wasn’t comfortable leaving the scene until I knew for sure she could get help.”
“Which I’m sure she didn’t make easy,” he said, more to himself than to Calder.
“Actually, it was your other sister, Fiona, who was more . . . shall we say challenging.”
He thought he saw an actual hint of a smile, but McCrae quickly reined it in. “Yes, well, they’re all pretty independent. Most Mainers are, which I suspect you understand.” He cleared his throat. “Again,” he said, more businesslike now, “thank you. So, what did Jonah say when you met with him?”
“Not much. That I wasn’t welcome, by him or the town. Then he invited me to leave and warned me never to return. I respected that request.”
“And yet, by your own admission, you were down at the docks last night.”
“At them, yes. On them? No. Winstock cancelled our dinner plans late, very last minute. Or should I say his assistant did. I’ve yet to actually speak to the man himself since arriving in the Cove. I opted to stay here rather than make the round trip to Calais and back, got a room at the B and B on the edge of town—the Hurleys, nice couple—and then took a walk down along the waterfront trying to get a mental picture in my mind of what Winstock’s plans might be.”
“What makes you think he wants anything more than a yacht club?”
“Common sense. In the span of, what, eighteen months? He’s tried to take a chunk of the shipyard, but failing that, hired the guy who owns the property to build him a replica of a historic four-masted schooner; then he literally pulls the land for the yacht club out from under someone I understand is some kind of local icon. As you said, he has deep pockets, but he’s not using his money to win friends and influence anyone here, or he’d have bought out the shipyard owner up front and paid off that town icon. Instead, his maneuvers seemed to have cost his son-in-law his shot at being the mayor, and riled up the town against him. I’m just trying to figure out why a man smart enough to have amassed a fortune is going about all of this so ham-handedly. I don’t k
now him, but it doesn’t seem to make any sense. Bringing me in would seem to add more fuel to that fire, not dampen it. I spoke with the current mayor—”
Logan lifted a surprised brow. “You spoke to Owen? When was that?”
“Earlier in the day yesterday, when my first meeting was postponed. I learned a great deal of new information about my family history, but, other than some theories, Owen didn’t offer anything that directly explained Winstock’s thought processes about what he’s doing to the Cove, other than to say his actions aren’t really in keeping with how he’s done business in the past. Although he owns a fair amount of real estate in the Cove, both private and commercial, he’s never tried to make over the place in the way he is now.”
“What were his theories?”
Calder lifted his hands, then let them fall back on his propped-up calf. “I wondered if maybe the man was ill or in some other compromised situation that would make him act so rashly about the things he’s doing, but Owen felt he’d have heard whispers to that effect. We did wonder if perhaps, with no grandchildren, he’s hit an age when he’s decided to create a legacy of his own design, in order to leave something lasting if he does end up the last Winstock in the line. Well, his daughter would be, but you know what I mean.”
Logan nodded, but didn’t say anything.
“So, with that theory in mind, I was walking the harbor road, scoping it out from a contractor’s viewpoint, trying to see it as Winstock might envision it. With the shipyard out of his reach, the only real place he could have a presence on the waterfront would be in Blue’s spot. After that, it’s government-owned property with the Coast Guard, and then you’re out of the pocket of the harbor itself into less showy property units.”
“What makes you think his vision includes more waterfront property?”
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