Smugglers & Scones

by Talbot, Morgan C

  Lake and I both stared.

  She tilted her head impatiently. “He’s a mummified mouse, okay? I keep him on the windowsill. No big. Can we do this thing?”

  Lake’s hesitant expression showed his doubts, but he hadn’t come up with a better idea, and apparently, he knew when he was beaten. “Fine, you win, Chloe. Chief Craig confiscated my office key, but the spare is hidden in a magnetic box up inside the drainpipe just around to the left of the front door.”

  She shot him a grin, grabbed her coat, and bolted out the door.

  Lake clicked his tongue. “Forgot to warn her about the front door. It sticks in the frame unless you push it just right. If she tries to force it, someone could see her, and I’m not sure she could explain away the fact that she’s literally breaking a door.” He pulled a phone from his own back pocket. “What’s her phone number?”

  I glanced at her application form, still on top of a pile of paperwork at the hostess station, and read it out to him. As he punched in the numbers and started texting, I asked, “You have a new phone?”

  He nodded absentmindedly, eyes on his screen. “I bought it yesterday from the electronics store out by the highway. My old one’s in police custody.”

  Someone knocked on the stained glass, and I headed past Lake to open the door.

  Tyleen stood on my porch, looking incredibly shifty. “I think the killer is a backpacker,” she stage-whispered.

  I frowned and leaned against the doorframe. This from the woman who called 9-1-1 at the sight of a black cat running across the road—one of Svetlana’s many would-be suitors, no doubt. “Why is that?”

  Tyleen glanced left and right to make sure she wasn’t being overheard. “I saw one not fifteen minutes ago, skulking along Second Street. He had one of those big traveling backpack frames, too, like some kind of crazy drifter. I bet he has a whole collection of Bowie knives in there.”

  I wondered if Lake had a collection of Bowie knives. When I glanced at him, he was easing out of her view so smoothly he could’ve been riding a conveyor belt. At least Tyleen wasn’t carrying a shot-put ball.

  “Had you ever seen him in town before?” I asked. Tyleen shook her head. “Well, what did he look like?”

  She frowned thoughtfully, and her blue eyes wandered up to the pale-cream paint on the underside of my porch roof. “Middle height, burly, like some kind of a lumberjack. He had a big beard, one of those big bushy things the young men grow nowadays. And he had bloody hands.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Bloody hands? Are you sure?”

  She nodded impatiently. “I saw them clear as day, Pippa. I’ll never forget his brazen cockiness.”

  Brazen cockiness? Tyleen had probably just finished another romantic mystery novel. “Okay, did you report him yet?”

  She nodded vigorously. “I left an anonymous tip.” She lifted her chin and gave me a self-satisfied smile. “Did you know that 9-1-1 has a maximum emergency quota per household per month? That’s what the chief told me last year. So I need to start leaving anonymous tips with his office instead of ‘tying up critical resources.’ And I remembered this time.”

  My own phone rang in my pocket, and I pulled it out. “Speak of the devil. I need to take this, Tyleen. It’s Chief Craig.” I hope he hasn’t broken out of the hospital.

  She made an exaggerated I understand face, silently waved goodbye, and tiptoed across my porch as if her footsteps would disturb the phone call I hadn’t answered yet.

  “At least it can’t be about me this time,” Lake said from behind me.

  “Wanna bet? The man’s flat on his back in a hospital bed—or at least he should be. Whatever he’s calling about must be pretty darn important.” I let the front door shut and answered the phone. “Yes, Chief? How are you feeling?”

  A long sigh of exasperation greeted me. Oh, dear. Now what? I mentally tracked my guests: Skylar and Paul were still upstairs, nice and quiet and working on their novels, but I had no idea where Al Daulton was.

  “Pippa, I just got a call from the sheriff’s office. Since I’m—no, Anita, I don’t want any green Jell-O, woman—I’m stuck here waiting for some test results, I can’t respond to the call. I’m going to need you to head out to the Sandy Bluff Overlook. You need to retrieve one of your guests before he gets his spleen forcibly air-conditioned.”

  I rubbed at my forehead and sighed. “It’s Al, isn’t it? What’s he done this time?”

  “He thought it would be a good idea to see what happens when you provoke a biker gang.”

  My heart dropped into my stomach. “He what?”

  “Yep. He’s lucky he ran afoul of the Stormkillers, instead of one of the more, shall we say, full-time gangs. These guys are weekend warriors, literally. Spend their weekdays pushing pencils and counting beans. A shiner and sore ribs are better than a headstone. He’s lucky a concerned tourist called 9-1-1 and that the sheriff was close by. He’s out there now, keeping things calm, but Mr. Daulton needs a ride back to town. The sheriff’s got, shall we say, more pressing obligations, and it seems that one of the Stormkillers has requested you come retrieve your wandering author.”

  That’s probably Dragon, and he only wants me there because he has an ulterior motive.

  “Says if you come and get him,” Chief Craig continued, “we can all walk away from this one. Not unscathed, but at least Mr. Daulton won’t need EMS.”

  I gritted my teeth and counted to ten in my head. Knowing Al, he’d probably researched local gangs and picked the one least likely to murder him, but still. “I’ll be there in a few minutes, Chief. Don’t worry.” Hopefully Al would refrain from any more Method research until I got there.

  I disconnected with a sigh and turned to see Lake and Hilt listening with concern.

  My uncle dangled a set of old keys from between his thumb and middle finger. “Take Sadie. I’ll stay here with Aquaman.” Lake gave Hilt an appraising glance at his new nickname.

  Despite the stress of the situation, my heart leaped. “Are you sure? I’ve only driven her a handful of times.”

  Hilt’s smile was wise. “It’ll do the trick.”

  “Woo-hoo!” I snatched the keys from his hand and darted for the door before he could change his mind. I pushed my arms into my coat sleeves as I ran across the porch toward the parking lot. Al thinks he’s sore now—wait ’til I get him back here safe and sound. Freaking me out like this, bothering the chief in the hospital… If he doesn’t apologize, well. Maybe I won’t be able to find my Tylenol bottle.

  Moorehaven’s lot had space for ten cars, max, but during full capacity and events, the extra cars parked along the side of the lawn anyway. At the back end of the parking lot sat our detached garage. I had driven to Seacrest just before Christmas six years ago in my little tangerine hatchback, one of those cars that everyone bought during that one year when the coolest new car color was tangerine. My little hatchback had sat in the garage almost the entirety of the next six years because I used a bicycle with a basket to get around town on all but the stormiest days. But my car wasn’t alone in there. It sat next to Hilt’s pride and joy: Sadie.

  My car had no personality. It was definitely an it. But Sadie, she was a classy dame, a true beauty. I hurried inside and closed the side door behind me, shaking off excess water before I dared to slide into Sadie’s front seat.

  There she sat, sultry and nearly purring, a 1965 Rolls Royce Phantom 5. Gleaming black with chrome trim, suicide doors in the back, and a black Scottish leather interior complete with curly maple inlays, the girl was a glory to behold, even to my untrained eye. I ran a hand along the edge of her hood as I approached the driver’s door. “Hello, old girl. Want to go for a spin? You know all the boys will be staring.”

  I buckled up, hit the clicker to open the garage door, and turned Sadie’s key. Her engine roared to life,
hungry for action. We eased out into the brisk day, and the rain let up just for her. I patted her dashboard. “Good girl.”

  I drove slowly through town, waving and flicking my headlights at people who called out or pointed as we passed. Funnily enough, none of them were creepy bearded hobo murderers. A couple minutes later, I was heading north on Highway 101. Sadie was no delicate flower. She inhaled that road like a woman coming off her diet for Thanksgiving. And in far too few minutes, we reached the turnoff for the overlook. The sun even managed to break through the clouds by the time I pulled onto the fenced-in asphalt oval that topped Sandy Bluff, one of a thousand picturesque juts of rock along the Oregon Coast.

  The sheriff’s car was parked near the fence, and a dozen Harleys hogged most of the rest of the blacktop. The little shelter that marked the spot closest to the ocean, complete with one of those What You See Here boards, was crammed with the sheriff, Al, and the Stormkiller riders, all of whom stopped glaring at each other as I parked.

  I stepped out, shut Sadie’s door, and headed in their direction. Every single man was staring at Sadie like little boys at Christmas, so I kissed my fingertips and dropped them against her hood. “Attagirl, Sadie.” I stopped and crossed my arms next to her front bumper.

  Al gazed out at me with a happy-go-lucky grin, a black eye, and a fat lip. The guy was wearing a hefty hitchhiker’s getup, complete with backpack frame—Tyleen’s murderous hobo, except he looked quite a bit different from Tyleen’s description. No beard, definitely not stocky, and those bloody hands were nothing more than red fingerless gloves. The better to flag down passing cars for a lift, my dear.

  The sheriff, a lanky fiftysomething guy named Kettleman, stood between Al and Dragon, the leader of the biker gang—a guy who actually was stocky. He was a regular in the Shelf. I knew him well. His real name was Kent, and he worked in a cubicle farm in Eugene. The three of them stepped out from the shelter at the same moment, their disagreement seemingly forgotten, drawn toward Sadie’s animal magnetism.

  “Holy cow, that is badass.” Dragon squatted down to admire Sadie’s gleaming bumper and ran a reverent hand over her chrome.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you had this gorgeous beast?” Al complained, stalking to the far side of the car from where Dragon crouched. He peered in the windows like a kid outside a candy store.

  “Haven’t seen this beauty in far too long.” Sheriff Kettleman’s smile was wistful.

  From back in the shelter, half a dozen wolf whistles emanated from the other bikers. I didn’t look over. They were whistling at the car, not at me. “Al, get in the car. Dragon, I’m sorry my author bothered you. Are we good now?”

  Dragon stood up again, and his good humor faded. He jabbed a finger bearing a skull ring at Al, whose head lurched back in alarm. “This little turd got up in my face, in front of my boys. Not cool, man. Not cool.” More jabs of his finger.

  I crossed my arms. Dragon was half teddy bear, and he’d be all talk and no walk now that I was there. He loved to march into the Shelf in full biker regalia, but I had the power to deny him his favorite books.

  Al began, “I just wanted an organic response—”

  “Yeah, well, you got one, didn’t you? With your stupid insults and whatever those stupid hand gestures were supposed to be. Organic response. Your organs are about to respond to my fists by bleeding internally.” Dragon started toward Al.

  Oh, maybe he is gonna walk the walk. “Hey!” I did a little finger jabbing of my own in Dragon’s direction. “You touch my author, you’re banned from the Shelf. And just before E. D. Kipling’s new book comes out, too. I know how you like his signed copies. And it would be a real shame if you couldn’t have any more of those signed books, ever again, wouldn’t it, Kent?”

  Dragon’s bright-blue eyes locked onto me amid a furious expression. His hand rose slowly, and his skull-ring finger gently poked in my direction. “You and your author have a good day now, Miss Pippa.” He stalked away, his heavy black boots thudding on the pavement. “Stormkillers, let’s ride!”

  As the gang roared out of the overlook area, the sheriff’s shoulders slumped with relief. He tipped his brimmed hat to me and climbed back in his car before pulling onto the highway and heading north.

  Al looked at me with a mixture of confusion and wonder. “That guy reads E. D. Kipling?”

  I opened Sadie’s left suicide door and ushered him inside. “Yep.”

  Al settled himself in the backseat, and I climbed in the front. Sadie roared to life again, and as we eased toward the highway, I caught Al’s puzzled expression in my rearview mirror.

  “What?” I asked.

  Al shrugged and leaned back, seeming to finally realize he was off the hook for his dangerous research plan. “I just never figured a guy in steel spikes and black leather would be an avid fan of steamy historical mysteries.”

  11

  “Why do I have journals full of plot ideas I’m probably never going to use? It’s the only way to get the stories out of my head so I can think. Being a published author is a blessing. Being constantly bombarded with an unending stream of ideas? That’s a curse of eternal paperwork. I will forever be my own secretary. (calls over shoulder) No offense, Margie.”

  Raymond Moore, 1955

  I parked Sadie in the garage and ushered Al back into Moorehaven. He climbed the porch steps with less swagger than I’d ever seen him possess. After setting his backpacker research getup in the hallway, I nudged him all the way into the parlor and made him sit down while I fetched a cold compress for his black eye.

  I didn’t see Chloe downstairs as I headed to the kitchen. Most likely, she wasn’t back from Blade and Boom yet. I was probably a terrible influence on her, letting her get involved in risky behavior like this. Her mom would kill me if she knew. But Chloe had a great sense of fairness, and Lake needed all the help he could get.

  As the towel-wrapped frozen gel pack chilled my left hand, I pulled my phone from my pocket. Jordan had left me a message while I’d been preoccupied with the Stormkillers. I paused in the hallway to listen to it.

  “Pippa,” Jordan said in a hushed voice, “I’ve checked over the hotel records for tour boat reservations. Only a couple of die-hard tourists in the past couple of weeks. Oh, and that cute documentary guy. Sorry I couldn’t be more help. Let me know if you need anything else.”

  Devin? He didn’t seem the type to commit murder either. Besides, he was working on a project for film school. Murdering someone would kind of ruin his chances of graduating. Still, Cecil hadn’t killed himself with a blow to the head. Someone out there was guilty of murder. I deleted the message and headed back to my latest patient. With all my first aid assistance lately, I wondered if I should start volunteering at Lori’s urgent care clinic.

  In the parlor, I handed the compress to Al. Svetlana sat on the coffee table and sniffed curiously in his direction. He held it to his face with a sigh of relief, and I commented, “I hope you got the feedback you wanted for your novel research, Al. Next time, maybe just tell the weekend warriors that you’re an author looking for good stories, rather than trying to manipulate the truth out of them. What do you think?”

  Al huffed a laugh from under the corner of the hand towel. “That’s no fun. How am I supposed to get awesome stories to tell at writers’ conventions if I don’t jump in with both feet?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know, Al. Maybe you could try making up a story about tangling with the Stormkillers. Making stuff up is your job, right?” I gave him a gentle punch in the shoulder, but apparently I wasn’t the first, and that other punch hadn’t been so gentle because Al winced and clasped it with his free hand. “Sorry about that. I do admire your willingness to risk bodily harm for the sake of realism in your novels. Can I get you some Tylenol? Maybe some booze?”

  Al’s visible eye twinkled with amusement. “How abo
ut a little of both?”

  “Coming right up.” I headed toward the library door, but then I noticed that the sliding glass door that led to our expansive backyard was ajar. Thinking unkind thoughts about the habits of bachelors, I shut it and continued on to the library, where I fetched two fingers of scotch from the wet bar. In a similar vein to Stephen King’s philosophy of writing drunk, Moore had done all of his own drinking in there. I remembered that I’d lent my nearly full Tylenol bottle to Lake upstairs.

  I headed up to get it, but no one answered my knock. I eased in with my master key in case Lake had somehow fallen asleep while talking Chloe through the search of Cecil’s office, but the Cobalt Suite was empty. I grabbed the Tylenol bottle and shook out two tablets for Al. Lake sure had wandered far afield for a guy who was supposed to stay in Moorehaven on a phone call. For that matter, I hadn’t heard bang nor boom of Hilt either.

  My authors were probably hammering away on their rough drafts, but otherwise, Moorehaven felt abandoned.

  On my way down the stairs, I heard the phone. I grabbed it on the fourth ring.

  Lori’s voice trembled with hushed excitement. “You didn’t hear this from me, Pippa, but the salvage team recovered Cecil’s baseball bat from the wreckage—his security system, he called it—and it had forensic evidence on it. Hairs embedded in a fracture in the wood. It’s the murder weapon.”

  My heart clenched. “Any fingerprints?”

  “Washed away, along with any blood. The hairs were gray, a match to Cecil. But they didn’t find any black hairs, so they can’t prove the bat hit Lake in the head. And without fingerprints, they can’t prove he didn’t do the hitting.”

  “But they can’t prove he did, either.” A small victory. “Thanks, Lori.”

  “One more thing. Naoma says she’s getting the brush-off from Mercer. Meetings all day, he claims. She can’t get any info about Cecil’s will today.”