by Clover Tate
“True. So he might have come up the dock.”
“Someone might have been waiting in the shadows near a pier—”
Just then a rat scurried across the dock’s old wood. Stella grabbed my shoulder. We both stood a second and caught our breath. The rat disappeared beneath the pier.
“Someone could have stabbed Miles then,” Stella finished.
“Then they’d have to drag him to the boat and take him out to sea.” I shook my head. My heart rate began to return to normal. “That seems like too much trouble. Wouldn’t it be easier to lure him on board, then kill him? Less messy, too.”
“So someone lured Miles onto Avery’s boat.”
“I thought of that. Anyone could have retied the boat. Maybe the blood wasn’t even Miles’s.”
We pondered. I wasn’t sure where this line of reasoning led. The rain had picked up, and I wiped a damp strand of hair from my eyes. How could the mushroom hunters have found out about Avery and set up the whole boat business? Unless they were in cahoots with someone. Like Sam. The facts kept returning to him. The dark, the rain, the cold bay. No one was here at night. It was the perfect place for a murder.
“What are you girls doing?” a voice slurred from one of the boats.
Stella nearly fell over, and my pulse pounded so hard I could barely hear. “What?” I managed to get out.
“I said, what are you girls doing? Come in. Out of the rain.”
I saw him now, a little guy holding a beer can on the wooden boat to our left. “Thank you, but we’re just leaving,” I said.
“Actually—” Stella shot me a glance. “If you don’t mind, it would be nice to dry off a moment.”
What was she thinking? Get on some strange guy’s boat? “I’m not—”
“You’re not fond of the rain, are you?” Stella finished. “It’s so nice that this gentleman is offering us shelter for a few minutes.” Stella’s pointed stare said, Get in here, dummy.
Yes. Yes, Stella was right. The man might have seen something. But should we really risk it? Stella didn’t even look at me for confirmation. She’d refused to go with me to find the mushroom hunters, but she’d get on a stranger’s boat? Apparently so. She stepped off the dock onto his small boat, and after a moment’s hesitation, I followed. I ducked my head to enter and raised it to a small cabin lit by a handful of pillar candles. It smelled of incense, beer, and—this was odd—litter box.
“I’m meditating,” the man said. “Name’s Ace.” Ace did resemble a Buddha, in fact. A Buddha with a gray-streaked ponytail and beer belly.
“Oh, Ace Plumbing,” Stella said, gracious to a fault. “You installed my dishwasher. I almost didn’t recognize you. Nice work you did.”
“After all that working the body, I find it a relief to get away from the missus and center my mind.”
And consume a few gallons of beer, I thought, taking in the box of empty bottles near the door.
“Yes,” Ace continued. “It’s all about balance, the yin and the yang.” A gray tabby, apparently deciding we were all right, leapt from behind his chair and butted Ace’s head. “That’s Yin,” he said. “Yang’s probably hiding under the bed.”
“I adore cats.” Stella reached to scratch Yin’s head. I didn’t think Madame Lucy would hang out with these low-class boat cats, but maybe she shared her owner’s sense of adventure.
“Me, too. In my line of work I find more than my share of strays and kittens. These two I spotted under the jiffy mart when I was snaking a drain. Their mother had abandoned them. I had to bottle-feed them the first few weeks.” He stroked Yin under the chin, and the tabby lifted his head for a better angle.
“They clearly love you,” Stella said. “Spend a lot of time here?”
Ace laughed, a broad ha-ha-ha. “Couple of nosey ones, are you? Come down to see where the chef was murdered?” He cracked open a beer. “Thirsty?”
No and no, I thought, but Stella had other plans. Rain pattered on the boat’s roof as Ace dug in his cooler and retrieved another can.
“Why, I’d love a beer, Ace. Thank you,” Stella said. “And I do admit to being a bit curious. I imagine the sheriff questioned you thoroughly.”
Ace erupted into laughter again. When he caught his breath, he said, “That’s a good one.”
“So you didn’t see anything that night,” I said. “Or maybe you weren’t here.” Or maybe you weren’t sober enough to care.
Yin had settled himself into Ace’s lap and purred like a lawnmower.
“I was here all right. If I thought I had something the sheriff needed to know, I’d tell him.”
“Maybe you don’t think much of him?” Stella asked.
“He’s all right. I put low-flow toilets throughout his house. Paid me on time and didn’t stand around trying to tell me how to do my job.”
Unlike me, trying to tell the sheriff how to do his. I bit my lip.
“Sometimes even the smallest things can offer a lot of information.”
Yin stretched a paw toward Stella, then circled to settle again.
“You’re an attractive lady, uh—”
“Stella Hart. How’s your wife?”
“Sorry, with so many customers, I can’t keep track.” He set his beer on the floor. “Mrs. Ace is fine, thank you. Her scrapbooking club meets tonight.”
Stella smiled benignly. “So you didn’t hear or see anything the night Miles was killed?”
“It’s not like I keep an eagle eye on the dock, you know. People can come or go, and it’s none of my business.”
“Of course.” Stella’s voice was soothing. She hadn’t touched the beer he gave her, and his voice was suddenly surprisingly sober. I had to wonder if his drunkenness was all a show. The bottles might have been piling up for weeks instead of days. “Still,” she continued, “you might have a story or two.”
One hand in Yin’s scruff and another on his beer, he examined us. “Not about that night, I don’t. Just the usual. Sam and—”
“Sam Anderson?” I nearly leapt from my chair.
“Yeah. And another lady—”
“Sam was here?” I repeated.
Ace squinted at me. “Didn’t know he was so exciting.”
“He was Miles’s boss,” I said.
“And a crabber,” Ace said. “It was slack tide then, a good time to go out, although crabbing’s not so great in the spring.”
“He has a boat on this dock?” Stella said.
“Sure. Didn’t I say he crabs?” He looked around as if someone else might be in the claustrophobic cabin and leaned forward. “He might be doing a few other things, too.”
“Like what?” I said.
“Not telling.” He tossed his empty can in the box. “Ace ain’t no tattletale.”
“You said he was with a lady. Did you get a good look at her?” I asked. A lady could have been Annabelle. Or someone else.
“Did I say lady? I didn’t mean that.”
“What did you mean, Ace?” Stella asked in a satiny voice.
Ace smiled and shook his head. “You are a charmer. I swear, if my old lady and I hadn’t been together so long, I might make a play for you myself.” He chuckled. “How do you feel about a man who meditates a bit in his boat?”
Lord, he was irritating. “You saw someone,” I said. “Now you’re trying to cover it up.”
Ace’s smile turned to a frown. “Your friend doesn’t have your finesse, Stella.”
“She gets edgy in tight spaces, that’s all,” Stella said. She turned away from him and mouthed to me, “Calm down.”
“He clearly saw something,” I couldn’t help saying. “The sheriff should know.”
Ace set his can on the floor and rose. “I’ll see you out.”
On the dock, the rain pounded. Stella and I, each of us with our heads bent aga
inst the downpour, made our way back to the parking lot.
“What got into you back there?” Stella asked once we were clear of the dock.
I’d blown it. I was too anxious, and I’d blown it. “He knows something.”
“And he might have told us if we’d handled it right. You know what they say about bees and honey.”
“You’re right.” Just then I felt a lot more bitter than honey.
chapter fifteen
Early the next morning, I parked the Prius on an old logging road just past the turnoff where Dave had said morels were growing. Avery’s words came to me. I should leave the case alone, because “it could do more harm than good,” she’d said. I wasn’t interfering, though. I was trying to find more information—information that I’d give the sheriff to help him. Not get in his way. I was doing this for Avery’s own good.
Figuring that the most serious morel gatherers worked early, I’d set my alarm for 5:00 a.m. It had been dark out when I left the house, but now the sky was turning pink, and the air smelled damp and sweet with cottonwood trees. I’d filled my daypack with a couple of sandwiches and a thermos of coffee, and my sketch pad and pencils were zipped into an outer pocket. Private investigators sometimes had to stake out apartments all day in their cars. I was ready to do the same.
The autumn before, Dave had told me, torrential rain had swollen the river to the point that it had washed over its banks in the state park northeast of town, where I was now. After a week, the river had returned to its bed, but the film of silt it left in its wake was fertile ground for morels. Although thanks to Dave I felt up to speed with morel-growing conditions, honestly, I couldn’t tell you what a morel mushroom looked like. The terrain around me was covered with small growing things: tiny ferns, slugs, baby-sized firs, and, yes, all sorts of fungi.
I chose a fallen log at the edge of the clearing and settled in. From here I’d be able to see most of the bend where the river had flooded. I set my sketch pad next to me on the log and took out the thermos. To me, the clearing looked about as dangerous as an Ansel Adams photograph. In other words, I wasn’t exactly shaking in my boots.
A few hours later, the sun was up, my thermos was empty, and I’d seen no one. No one but a doe and two fawns, that is, that picked their way over branches to drink from the river. I sketched one of the fawns with her gangly legs and blond spots. Beautiful. But my hind end hurt from sitting so long. Plus, the sky was thickening, and it looked like last night’s rain would be returning.
Thudding car doors from the turnout warned me that someone was coming. I grabbed my sketch pad and made like I was absorbed. A couple dressed in matching navy waterproof jackets trudged into the clearing.
“Jonathan,” the woman said. “Why can’t we go back to the picnic benches? I think it’s going to rain.”
“Too many people. Come on. The guy at the hotel said we should be able to find a trailhead somewhere around here.” He strode through the clearing, stepping over logs, the woman trailing behind. They didn’t see me. “This way. I think I see it.”
Not long after came the day’s first mushroom pickers. Stella’s warning rang in my ears, and my pulse quickened. Then they came into full view, a couple of elderly women garbed for the elements in chin-strapped sun hats and cotton gloves. Each woman had a plastic milk jug with a hole cut away in it and the handle looped through a canvas belt around her waist. They spotted me immediately and waved a cheerful hello. Honestly? These were the “dangerous” mushroom hunters I’d been warned about?
“Oh, now isn’t that nice. Sketching, are you, dear? Well, don’t mind us,” one of them said.
“Just gathering mushrooms,” the other said.
“That’s nice,” I said. “I hear you can turn a nice profit with those.”
“When you live on a fixed income you learn to get crafty,” the taller woman replied. “This is a popular spot. It’s best to get here early.”
“Before the meth heads wake up,” the shorter woman added.
“Oh.” Good grief. I set aside the egg-salad sandwich I’d intended for breakfast. “Meth heads?”
“Drug addicts, dear. They have great focus, but aren’t always the most polite.”
“Oh no. Think they own the place. Take my advice. You see them, just keep to your sketching and don’t mind them any. As long as you’re not taking morels, you should be fine.”
“Should be,” the taller woman said. “Personally, I wouldn’t risk it. Not without this.” She scanned the clearing, then lifted her jacket to reveal a steel gray handgun tucked in her belt.
Should be? I swallowed. “All right. Thank you.”
I spent the next hour or so working on my comet-kite design. Jack had been right. The area for the wind’s upthrust was small, and that coupled with its asymmetrical design doomed its flightworthiness. Once the ladies had filled their pails and left, I was alone again. But it was peaceful. Stella and Dave were full of baloney. It was perfectly safe to be out here.
It was looking like the day might be a bust when a couple of rough-looking guys carrying ten-gallon white plastic buckets, the kind restaurants get supplies in, strode into the clearing. Could one of them be Ron? These men were not the easygoing ladies or the determined kayakers. They meant business. The skin on my neck prickled.
I glanced behind me to see if I could ease out of sight. It was too risky. I’d have to stand up, and they’d see me for sure. By keeping still I stood the best chance of going unnoticed. The men barely talked to each other and kept their eyes to the ground, yanking mushrooms from the silt and tossing them into their buckets. They seemed to focus mostly around logs and washed-up branches. On one man’s hip was a worn leather holster holding a hunting knife. I barely breathed.
“I’ll get the edge,” one of the men said. He lifted his head, then stopped. Damn. “Chet. Look here.” He tossed his head in my direction. Both men headed toward me.
Panicked, I stood. “Nice day for sketching.” I waved my sketchbook as proof.
Despite the chill in the air, the men were dressed only in jeans and sour-smelling T-shirts. The one called Chet was heavier, and it took a moment for his breathing to slow from the effort of crossing the clearing. The other one’s T-shirt prominently featured SpongeBob dressed like a mad scientist saying “Get yer nerd on.”
“Sketching? Here?” The one with the SpongeBob shirt squinted over the nature-ravaged clearing. He was right. It wasn’t particularly scenic.
“Let me see.” Chet pulled my sketchbook from my hands.
“Hey,” I said.
“That don’t look like no landscape,” the other man—Ron?—said. He was dark haired and stocky like Sam had described him.
“It’s a design for a kite,” I said, my voice climbing toward a squeak.
“Why are you here to draw kites?”
“I do my best thinking outdoors,” I improvised. “Fresh air. You know.” And rain. A gentle patter began to fall around us. “I sketched a fawn, too—look.”
The other man lifted my backpack. “Put that down,” I said. “That’s not yours.” Panic had me by the throat now. I searched the clearing, hoping someone else had shown up, but it was just us. With the worsening weather, it would likely stay that way. Why hadn’t I listened to the warnings?
“Could be mine. Depends on what I find.” He pulled my other sandwich from the pack and dropped it in his bucket. “No citations.”
Citations. Realization dawned. He thought I was inspecting permits. “No. No, I’m just sketching. That’s all. Looks like it’s raining now.” I forced a laugh. “Time to go home.”
The men looked at each other. “What should we do with her?”
Do with me?
“Hmm.” Chet looked me up and down. “We might—”
I bolted. Blood pounded in my ears. I made it a full three yards before I hit a branch and fell facedow
n into the mud. I groaned. The men lifted me, one on each arm.
“Well, would you look at that,” Chet said. “She’s scared of us. Tried to make a run for it.” He tossed me back on the log next to my daypack. I wiped silt from my eyes.
“Go figure.” SpongeBob laughed until it became a wheeze and then a cough. “Relax. We’re not gonna hurt you. Are we?” He looked to Chet.
“Nah,” Chet said. “Just having some fun. That’s all. One thing for sure, you aren’t a mushroom picker.”
“Ha-ha-ha.” I felt like crying in frustration but plastered a fake smile on my face. “Nope. I hate mushrooms.” This was beginning to be the truth.
“No mushroom gatherer would have missed these.” Chet stooped to my feet and chucked five mushrooms in his half-full bucket. “They’re growing all around you.”
“You know, you might hate mushrooms, but you’d love morels,” SpongeBob said. He leered at his partner, who nodded in return.
“Maybe she’d like to buy these from us,” Chet said.
I scanned the clearing again. Still no one. I was alone with these guys. “Oh no, I’m not sure when I’d get around to—”
“Yeah. You’ll love morels so much. How much money you got on you?”
“Let’s check,” Chet said. He pulled two twenties and a couple of ones from my wallet. “Not much. Maybe enough for a pound.”
Forty dollars a pound? I yanked my wallet from his hands and slipped it into my inside pocket. I stepped back but hit the log and nearly fell again. Think, Emmy, think. “Ron and Monica don’t charge that much.”
“Ron and Monica.” Chet glanced at his friend. “You hear that? Ron and Monica. Where’d you hear about them?”
“Down at the Tidal Basin,” I said. I held my breath.
“Losers,” SpongeBob said.
“I wonder if they’ll be out picking today.” I tried to keep my voice casual, but my voice was climbing back into soprano territory.
“They’re down at the burnout left by that big fire last summer,” Chet said. “I don’t mind telling you. Go pick their lot dry before they get there.”