Snakes & Snails and Deadly Cattails

by Caryn Thomas Mitchell

  Carter and Luann showed up, separately but at about the same time, and soon everyone was introduced. We ordered several bottles of wine for the table.

  "Ivy?" Bruce asked as he took on the job of pouring after the waitress left.

  "No, thanks, I'd better not. Training and all."

  "Training? Oh, right the mini-tri you guys are doing. How's the training going?"

  "Well, other than that one day, it's fine. I'm slow as molasses, but my team mate here" I inclined my head toward Gigi, "and her daughter are going to save my sorry self. Are you interested in signing up? It's not too late!"

  "Ha!" He laughed and shook his head, "Nope, I have my hands full just trying to do the job I was sent here for, I'm not adding anything to my plate."

  "Speaking of plates, would anyone like the house special appetizer?" this from Luann, she wore her hair in a silver braid and sat up straight and was very maternal. She was a masseuse and seemed to have found her niche taking care of people. She was certainly intent on getting us to focus on food.

  There was some general discussion, with the TV show women insisting that they weren't hungry and the men at the table insisting everyone had to eat.

  Eventually the appetizer and drink orders were sorted and the table fell into an uncomfortable silence. Luann broke the ice by asking about the well-being of the crew, and offering a discount on massages. Bruce agreed that everyone could use a little special care and very nicely offered her a credit on the show in return. I realized I had been holding my breath, and let it out a little. This idea of everyone at dinner was way more stressful than I had imagined, and I couldn't figure out why.

  "So what's your schedule looking like now? You're back at work, right?" Carter said to Bruce.

  "No, actually not. There's some paperwork snafu with the bank, and until everything is all squared away, we can't be on the site. It's really proving to be quite a problem."

  "Well, if the rumors are true, there's a lot of paperwork snafus you're going to have to explain," Carter said, while eating the house special of smoked bluefish pâté on a small piece of toasted homemade cracker.

  Everyone at the table stopped what they were doing and stared at him.

  "What? It's the rumor."

  "What's the rumor," I asked.

  "That there's something fishy with the finances on the show."

  "That's an old one," Bruce piped up, "whenever a show is successful there are rumors about it. I assure you our finances are in order."

  "Hey," Carter held out his hands in front of him as if to warm them by a fire, meaning to settle the situation down, "I didn't mean anything by it, I was just repeating rumors. I mean, construction is legendary for money laundering, and your show has lots of different income streams so..." he trailed off and smoothed more pâté on another cracker. He stuffed it in his mouth and made a production out of chewing it, and not talking anymore.

  My cell phone vibrated quietly in my purse and I slipped it out and glanced at it. It was a text from my sister. Gigi was sitting three people away from me. I glanced at the message, 'Finances!' was all it said. Clearly this was something she wanted to talk about later. I sent her a return text of a thumbs up, and smiled when I saw her try to surreptitiously read her screen.

  What I really wanted to get around to was who was where, and when were they there, on the night of the murder. I just hadn't known how we'd get to it. I was saved by an Angel, well by a woman named Angel, but I'd take it.

  "I was so surprised something like that could happen here. It seems so nice here, and so busy, it's hard to believe no one saw anything helpful."

  "I know, right? It is weird, isn't it?" I said, "I was home all night though, anyone else out and about?"

  Everyone shook their heads to indicate they were home.

  "We, all three of us, were at the house we've rented. We had dinner and hit the sack early I'm afraid," this from Bruce.

  I quickly glanced at Heather and Angel to see their faces, but they appeared to be in agreement.

  Bruce must have seen my look, "Anyway," he said, "The show is the golden egg, right? Or is that the goose?", he thought a minute. "Either way why would we want to endanger the source of our income? Or hurt anyone," he shook his head. "I know we're new here, and just because you don't know us we're going to be looked at with suspicion. But we certainly didn't hurt anyone. And there's nothing like money laundering going on," here he glared at Carter who was still eating pâté and crackers. "Besides, I heard your police friend had someone in custody."

  "Oh, I'm sure Ivy didn't mean to suggest that anyone here was the culprit," Luann broke in, always the one to pat down frayed nerves. "You can see how the town would be on edge though with this coming on the heels of the last bit of...unpleasantness we had. And you're right, someone was arrested, so that should be that, right?" She looked around the table brightly hoping someone would agree.

  "True. But we've known Harold forever and he has always been pretty harmless. He's a drinker, and he's unreliable, and he needs to shower more often, but he's no killer. So it's difficult, you know...." Gigi trailed off.

  "Who would have it in for the bank president? What was his name?" said Bruce.

  "His name's Luke, and while he wasn't exactly beloved he had to make a lot of hard decisions that had an effect on people's lives," Gigi explained. "I went on a few dates with him years and years ago, he was more into it than I was. He could be fun, loved to dance, loved live music, but he didn't feel like he could tell anyone or be himself because sometimes he had to make hard choices that people didn't like."

  "Well, that's every bank officer, right?" asked Bruce.

  "Yeah, kind of, but out here there aren't really that many other banks to take the heat. In Boston, there's a bank on every corner, you know? Here not so much, and they're pretty much all linked. So, if one says no, you're kind of..."

  "Screwed," Carter supplied.

  I glared at him and he waved at the waitress for more crackers.

  "Well, not exactly," I interjected, "but a few people here and there have blamed him for their troubles. Nothing that would lead to a murder I wouldn't think. On the other hand, what other reasons could there be?"

  "Love triangle?" piped up Luann.

  We all turned to look at her, and she blushed to the roots of her silver hair. "Sorry, too many soap opera re-runs, don't mind me, I'm sure that's not it at all."

  "Was he seeing anyone?" I asked Gigi.

  "Not that I know of, we talked sometimes but not too often. I got a real ‘you're the one that got away vibe’ from him and it made me uncomfortable."

  Just then our waitress returned to take our orders, and before I knew it dinner was over. As I walked through the restaurant toward the bar, Gigi joined me and we grabbed a high-top table to have a glass of wine and puzzle out what had been revealed at dinner. Which was perilously close to nothing, but not entirely.

  Chapter 10

  Naturally, because our town was so small, and my luck was so terrible, Drake walked in to find us sitting at the table, our drinks in front of us while we contemplated the sunset. Fortunately, we were not in the middle of an important conversation about something he might disapprove of, and the rest of the people we had eaten with had found their own tables to sit at.

  Still, he was suspicious.

  "What's up ladies?" he paused, then, "Are you breaking training?" he said pointing at my wine.

  "It's my first glass, I ate vegetables and fish for dinner and I'm not running tomorrow." I answered. Maybe a little more defensively than necessary.

  "All right then, I'm going to have a beer. Mind if I join you?" he tossed over his shoulder on the way to the bar.

  "Um, no?" Gigi replied.

  I have to admit; every time I see Drake my heart flips a little in my chest. I'm not sure what it is, is it 'like'? Is it 'more than like'? When I asked him to help me train for the tri, I thought we'd have more one-on-one time together to help me sort this out. As it turned out
, so far, thanks to his job, we hadn’t gotten to. Which was fine I suppose, who needs it? Right? But then why was it so intriguing?

  I looked up just then to see him looking at me from where he stood at the bar. Our eyes met and I felt that little flutter again. It was never safe to be in a bar after dinner, nursing wine and feeling flutters. Late night, plus alcohol does not brew great decisions. Oh well, at least it's white wine and not tequila.

  "So, what are you really doing here?" Drake asked as he dragged a chair over to join us. Even sitting he was much taller than either of us, and I had to resist the impulse to stand up on my high heels just to even the score.

  "We had dinner," I said. Incomplete facts are still facts.

  "I imagine you did, and what about all these other folks?"

  "Just welcoming them to the neighborhood?" Gigi squeaked, sounding more like she was asking than telling.

  "You know what I think?" Drake asked.

  "You think we're up to something, that's what you always think."

  "Right!" he said, pointing at her then turning to me. "A little birdie told me you think I have the wrong guy. And I know what that means. That means you're going to try to find the person you think is the right guy. And you're not on the force, remember?"

  I looked around the bar surreptitiously trying to figure out who the little birdie was. My eyes settled on Lydia, the bartender. It was probably her, she was extra busy washing glasses and didn't look up, although I'm sure she could feel my gaze on her.

  "He wasn't a bad guy," Gigi said, folding her napkin in half and in half again until it was too thick to fold anymore.

  "I know, and I want to know what happened. We have the guy, and we know they were together. Harold's car was full of mud and stuff which matches with the scene. Harold doesn't recall what happened. There was no weapon, which squares with him being mad and flying off the handle. We're still working on it even though we've picked him up. We're asking him questions, trying to see if he can remember what happened that night. We're on it."

  "Okay, well I wanted to make sure, that's all. Anyway, look at the time, I have to get home to the family. I'll see you tomorrow," she said as she gathered up her things and blew me a kiss good-night.

  And that's how I ended up sitting with Drake at the Purple Crab, watching the last of the sunset over Cape Cod bay.

  "So, I hear you were at dinner with all these folks? Find out anything interesting?"

  "Isn't that your job?"

  "Humor me," he smiled.

  "I'm not feeling humorous, but okay. Probably nothing you don't already know. Bruce and the two women all live together so they're each other's alibi for that night. They hung out at home. Everyone else is a local, Luann, Carter, me and Gigi, you probably don't think any of us could have done it."

  "Well if you could kill with a look I'd be gone by now, but no, I don't think it was anyone you just named. Assuming for just a second we're wrong in taking in Harold, I don't feel like it was anyone at the table either."

  "Although...Carter did say the rumor in town was the production was running so much cash through the bank that it had to be money laundering."

  "Yeah, we've heard that too. The crazy thing is there are an awful lot of records we can't account for. Things are kind of busy and a little confused there with the audit going on, but you'd think that would make it more organized rather than less organized."

  "I'd think so, yeah. Why are there records missing? And Bruce said that the ownership of the property was in limbo or something so they haven't been working?"

  "Right again, Nancy Drew," Drake smiled at me, "the papers regarding the ownership of the property have vanished. Which is nearly impossible these days with email and faxes and copiers in every corner of every office. And yet," he held up his hands and shrugged, " as a whole, they're nowhere to be found."

  "That makes no sense at all, can they be reconstructed?"

  "That's what they're doing, but it's time consuming, and expensive because they're spread all over at different offices, and everyone is charging per page for re-created documents that they're retrieving from their servers. And then once they have the file re-created, it comes to us, and not to the production company, which holds things up further for them I'm afraid."

  "I don't think they know that part, or maybe they're just hoping that's wrong, I know they want to go back to work."

  "Well, it's expensive to keep them here cooling their heels. I talked to their camera guy, what's his name...Mike? Turns out it's his dad's production, anyway, he was saying it was expensive to keep them all just sitting here and maybe they'd just move on to something else."

  Before I could respond, Drake covered my hand with his, "I don't want to talk about this anymore. I have this," he tapped his beer glass, "and you here, let's talk about something that's less like work."

  My heart started beating double time and I looked up into his eyes. That thing I was thinking earlier about a handsome man and night time in a bar mixed with alcohol was totally true. This was probably not the clearest thinking I was going to do this week.

  "Like what?" I asked.

  Drake looked around, "Okay, forget the beer. Let's get out of here, go for a walk maybe, too many prying eyes if you know what I mean."

  I looked around. Bruce, Angel and Heather seemed settled in for a while. They had found their way to a dart board in the corner of the bar and rounded up some folks to join them. It looked like they'd be a while. Luann was nowhere to be seen, and Carter was making small talk with Lydia at the bar.

  What did I have to lose? A quiet walk with a cop seemed like a safe way to wind up the night. Although I'd been wrong before.

  Chapter 11

  The cool night air was a welcome relief after the warmth of the bar and even though it was a bit chilly, I liked it. "Hang on," I told Drake, while I went to my car to grab a sweater I kept there for just such occasions. I used to love late night walks at the beach, until I was assaulted. I kept the sweater in the car because I didn't intend to be scared permanently off the beach.

  "I would have given you my jacket," he said when I joined him again on the sidewalk.

  "Very gallant, sir, but I've got this," I said, sliding my sweater on and pocketing my keys and cell phone. I'd left my purse in my car, covered with a small blanket and a pile of mail. Sometimes being messy is handy.

  We walked along in uncomfortable silence for a few minutes, then we both tried to talk at once.

  "Go ahead," he laughed.

  "Oh, nothing, I just wanted to thank you for helping me train."

  "No problem, how are you feeling?"

  "I still hate it. Does that go away?"

  "Depends. For some it does, others not so much. Some people do it because they know it will make them feel better later."

  "Like banging your head against a wall? You know you'll feel better when you stop?"

  He laughed again, it was a sound I didn't get to hear often enough, this man needed a vacation.

  "Yeah, maybe like banging your head against a wall."

  We continued walking in silence.

  "Sorry for being so distant lately," he stopped and turned to me. "You're important to me, it's just there's so much happening and it's hard to devote any energy to anything but work. Especially now with Luke, and the summer folks coming back. It's just a busy time right now."

  "I know, the store is busy too. It's okay, we'll have time, eventually," I reached out and smoothed his jacket, then stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. When I was flat on my feet again I looked up at his face and felt that familiar butterfly flutter in the pit of my stomach. Did he feel it too? You'd think I was fourteen, but I knew I needed to be careful for both our sakes.

  We stood on the sidewalk for a moment, as cars drove past on the street then he put his arm around me and held me close as we walked toward town.

  This felt good. Weird, but good, maybe we can... my thoughts were interrupted by a loud crash. Drake's whole body went rigid an
d he began to look around for the source of the sound.

  We’d gone far enough so that we were in front of some homes, and as I turned to look for where the sound might have come from I heard a cat screech as if stepped on.

  The house where the noises were coming from was Luke's. That Luke, former bank president Luke. His house was a very well kept and generously built cape. There was a large front lawn, and a driveway big enough for two cars. Fencing surrounded the property along with shrubbery that was short and well-trimmed.

  The windows on either side of the front steps, that faced the road, were dark, without a hint of light coming from the inside. No light from the gable windows upstairs either, that I could tell.

  Drake grabbed my hand and ran, crouched, quietly up the driveway, a service revolver having appeared in his hand seemingly from nowhere. He pushed me against the front of the garage and hissed at me, "Get down and stay here".

  I'm no hero so I stayed where he left me. Well mostly. I was torn between edging to the side of the garage where I could maybe see what was happening, and edging to the other side where I could happily avoid what was happening. Decisions, decisions. I edged toward the house. Nosey wins again.

  Drake must've slipped around to the back because I couldn't see him anymore.

  Then I heard something. It was on the side of the garage I wasn't. I stood up quietly and pressed myself against the building as I heard something walking on the other side of the building. I peeked around the corner, and a huge dark cat came hissing and flying past me. I had to press my lips together so that I didn't make any noise. I made my breathing even and steady, and tried to listen for more interlopers.

  I thought I heard something else, although it was hard to tell as my heart was still hammering in my ears. Darn cat!

  The night was especially dark, clouds had closed in after sunset even with the slight breeze, and there was very little traffic on the road. No headlights to pierce the darkness.