by BV Lawson
Drayco stopped. Time to show the neighbors he wasn’t a stranger casing their homes. “Morning,” Drayco offered. “I’m staying at the Lazy Crab down the road. Nice houses through here. Very picturesque.”
The man thrust his hands into his pockets. Hopefully, he wasn’t reaching for a Smith & Wesson. “We ain’t Virginia Beach. Give us a year or two, the way things are going. People buying and selling property like it’s crack cocaine. No thought of what it means to have land passed down through generations. As my granddaddy told me, trees without deep roots topple in the first bit of wind.”
“You’ve lived here a long time?”
“Six generations. Nowadays, we got people and money pouring in here like a tidal wave. Most of ’em from D.C., like that new Opera House owner.”
Drayco smiled. “That would be me.”
The man tilted his head to one side. “Kinda coincidental, ain’t it? That you buy the Opera House and Oakley Keys gets murdered there?”
That word again, ‘coincidence.’ First the sheriff, then Randy at the gun shop, now the Jepsons’ neighbor. “Coincidence is a four-letter word in my line of work.”
“So’s d-e-a-d. The newspaper called you a crime consultant, didn’t it? Well, why don’t you consult on this—with tidal waves you also get rotten fish. We got people in this town who don’t belong. Nothing but trouble. And all this construction will lure ’em like worms on a corpse.”
Drayco tensed at the corpse remark. If this man weren’t the artist responsible for the sign at the edge of town, he might as well be. Was that why Oakley Keys wanted to hire Drayco? An investigation into the development company, anything to stave off the inevitable? Drayco wanted to ask the man about Oakley, but he turned his back on Drayco and strode toward his porch, the edges of his yellow raincoat flapping like the wings of a duck.
As Drayco returned to the Lazy Crab, he noticed the smoke from the chimney also struggling to get up this morning, blowing sideways and down. What did that old wives’ tale say? If chimney smoke falls toward the ground, it’s a portent of bad weather ahead. Sounded much sexier than “downdrafts” or “temperature inversions.”
Inside, the Major was oblivious to much of anything other than his third cup of Darjeeling. He raised the cup in Drayco’s direction, “Care for a sugar lump or two? They’re maple.”
Drayco declined. He perfected the art of surviving on buckets of black coffee back in his college and FBI days. Or when he got his hands on one, a bottle of Manhattan Special espresso soda. Someone should create an injectable form. Better yet an implant.
The Major was in rare form, regaling Drayco with tales of previous Lazy Crab guests, like an alleged old salt of a sea captain with an eye patch, bushy beard, and pipe. He turned out to be an investment banker gone daft, traveling up and down the coast conning unsuspecting residents. “His family traced him here, and we got a visit from his brother who took him back to New York for therapy. Nice fellow. Had all the lingo down. Funny thing—he was allergic to fish.”
Maida popped in the doorway, wagging her finger. “Not that story.”
The Major flattened another maple cube with a spoon to add to his coffee. “It was a remarkable thing, really. Our sleepy hamlet isn’t scandal central.”
Maida flopped down into a chair. “That was before Oakley’s murder and that god-awful development mess.”
Major Jepson stirred his cup of tea until the liquid turned into a continuous whirlpool. “I dropped off some wood for Oakley Saturday. Didn’t realize it was the last time I’d see him. Makes it hard to believe somebody’s gone when you don’t have a chance to say goodbye.”
Drayco joined the Jepsons in silence, thinking back to the man in the yellow raincoat and his not-so-veiled accusation. What odds would a mathematician give that Oakley’s murder and Oakley hiring Drayco were related—sixty-forty? Fifty-fifty? He closed his eyes for a moment but opened them again to stop the parade of red carnations marching across his eyelids.
He said, “The sheriff called Oakley an odd bird. Aside from being an endangered species, what did he mean?”
Maida sighed. “Nothing about Oakley seemed to fit. He didn’t fit in town. His career didn’t serve him. Sometimes I think he wore his personality like a too-tight suit.”
The Major added without a trace of irony, “When they measure him for his coffin, that’ll fit him.”
Maida’s eyes started to water. Was it grief or stifling a morbid laugh? Drayco bet on the latter. It was good to see her in better spirits, so when she popped up to answer a phone call, he hoped it wasn’t more bad news.
The call took less than a minute. When she rejoined them, she cast a sheepish look in Drayco’s direction. “I hate to spring this, but Nanette Keys wants to come by to talk to you. I didn’t know how to turn her down.”
Now that was a bit of welcome luck. With Mrs. Keys taking the initiative, it would save him butting heads with the sheriff. Drayco tried thinking of a sneaky way to arrange a meeting and here one was dropped in his lap. “Did she say what it was about?”
Maida shook her head. “But she was persistent.”
The Major said, “Probably thinks that developer did it. Wants you to dig up some dirt.” He laughed at his double entendre. “Developer. Dig up some dirt. Ha!”
“Maida, the sheriff said Nanette Keys does a lot for this community. What’s she like?”
To his surprise, the Major answered first. “Hell of a woman. Oakley was a friend, mind you, but had I been female, I wouldn’t have married him. You’d have to have the patience of Job, the dedication of Saint Joan and the tolerance of Buddha all wrapped up in one.”
Drayco asked, “The drinking and the affairs?”
Maida replied, “And maybe more. Though Nanette didn’t talk about Oakley much. She’s always interested in how everyone else is doing. The type who’s first to send flowers or a sympathy card. But when it comes to her own problems, nary a word.”
With the Jepsons’ description in mind, he formed a profile of Nanette. A meticulous appearance. Well-mannered, reserved, a perfectionist, trying to make up for all the things in her life she couldn’t control—most of all Oakley—with a cauldron of emotions bubbling under the surface. The type of woman perfect for a starring role in a Greek tragedy. But women in Greek tragedies were often as much villain as victim.
Oakley’s widow didn’t waste time making her way to the Lazy Crab, arriving half an hour after her call. Maida led her into the den where Drayco stood to shake her hand. Her grip was firm and not the gelatin flipper from D.C. lobbyists’ wives, who didn’t want to ruin their expensive manicures.
Nanette smiled and nodded at him, but her puffy red eyes belied her emotional state. Tall and slender, she wore the same hot-designer cowl neck dress he’d seen on his father’s wannabe-model secretary, only this looked less expensive, possibly a knockoff. She sat in a wing chair but perched on the edge. Was she aware she was sitting on her hands?
Earlier, Maida showed Drayco a photo of Oakley when he was alive. Time seemed kinder to Nanette, at least on the surface, with her unwrinkled skin and that spark of intelligence in her eyes. Reece said Oakley was a researcher and writer. Did a shared intellectual bond hold Oakley and Nanette together?
Maida offered to leave Nanette and Drayco alone, but Nanette asked her to stay, her words coming out in a rush. “I had to get out of the house. The sheriff and his deputies were there late in the evening. And again early this morning, looking for—whatever it is they’re looking for. They could have stayed all night because I didn’t sleep. All I could think about was an image of Oakley dying on the floor, and knowing there was some mystery quest of his ... it’s tearing me apart.”
She paused to catch her breath. “Why would he hire somebody like you?” Nanette clasped her hands together.
Out of the corner of his eye, Drayco saw Maida frown. He’d have to tell her later he was long past taking offense at such slights. “As I told Sheriff Sailor, Mrs. Keys, I had no prior ca
lls or correspondence from Oakley. Other than to set up the meeting.”
“I just—” Nanette wrinkled her forehead. “This is going to sound like paranoia ...”
She faltered, grasping for the right words. “For years Oakley traveled on business and was gone two weeks at a time. He wouldn’t leave an address. Only an emergency phone number. When I tried ringing it once, it was an answering service.”
She blinked watery eyes at Maida, who gave her a nod of encouragement. “I don’t want to believe ill of my husband. Not now. Even though he knew his drinking bothered me. And all those nasty rumors ...”
Maida reached over to touch Nanette’s arm lightly. “Just small town talk, dear. No need to rehash old fiddle-faddle.”
Nanette thanked her with her grateful eyes. “When we first moved here, I fell in love with the place—the sea air, the unspoiled fishing-village atmosphere. Oakley never came to love it as I did. A part of him resented it. I asked him many times if he wanted to move, but he was hell-bent on staying here. Wish I’d tried harder.” Her eyes welled up again, and Maida patted her hand.
Drayco thought back to his FBI case books full of black-widow tales where a woman killed her husband, sometimes more than one, for financial gain. Maida mentioned a “pirate’s chest full of money” at stake. Elaina Cadden, from his most recent case, looked like Nanette, with the appropriate tears and a slight tremor in her voice.
“The sheriff said nothing went missing from your house, Mrs. Keys, except for a mask of some kind. Can you describe it?”
“It was a wooden owl’s face, intricate, with feathers and all. There was writing carved on the bottom, ‘diable’ I think. I don’t know what it meant. Oakley spent a lot of time working on it, yet didn’t want to discuss it.”
“Oakley made the mask himself? I thought he was a writer.”
“He was also a skilled wood craftsman. Someone once offered a thousand dollars for a console table he made, but he turned it down. It was one of my favorite pieces, so he kept it.”
“When did he start working on this mask?”
“Recently. A few weeks.”
A man carves a mask right before it’s stolen, around the same time the man is carved up and murdered—it was the type of detail that slithered its way under Drayco’s skin. It was also another “coincidence.” He asked, “When did you notice the mask was missing?”
“It was at the house the day before he died. I didn’t notice it was gone until after Oakley’s death. I assumed Oakley took it with him.”
“Could someone have broken into the house to steal it without your knowledge?”
“I’ve had a cold the past few days, so I was home the entire time. The mask was a nice piece of artwork, but I’m not sure why anyone would want it. It wasn’t valuable.”
“It may relate to his murder.”
Nanette’s eyes widened. “I hadn’t thought of that. But a mask of an owl?” She laced and unlaced her fingers together, as if nervous, but she leaned toward him, not away. Mixed body language could mean a lot of things. Reading people was more effective than reading tea leaves when it came to predicting behavior. But like all forms of divination, scientific or not, it was flawed.
He smiled at her, encouragingly. “Mrs. Keys, I’m also curious about the red carnation Oakley wore.”
“That’s a puzzle to me, too. He’s never done that before.”
“He had on a thin seersucker coat, not much protection against the cold. Did he wear it all the time?”
“The opposite. I hated that mildewed old thing. He bought it right after our marriage and used it a lot at first. One day he stopped wearing it and hung it in the back of the closet. I tried throwing it out, but he wouldn’t let me.”
“Do you have any idea why he was at the Opera House? Did he play the piano, for instance?”
Nanette pinched her nose, looking like someone holding their breath underwater. “He hadn’t expressed any interest in that Opera House lately. And he doesn’t know how to play the piano.”
Drayco hesitated before asking his next question. He didn’t know what the sheriff had discussed with Nanette. “Did Sheriff Sailor tell you how the body was found?”
“That you found him. That he was ... he was ... yes, he told me. I can’t fathom what any of it means.”
“Can you think of anyone who hated him enough to kill him?”
For a fraction of a second, Nanette’s eyes flitted almost imperceptibly toward the foyer, then back. “He wasn’t well-liked. But no mortal enemies as they say in the movies. He was bitter over the development and angry with Councilman Squier for pushing for it. I’m glad he had a few friends who stood by him, Major Jepson, for one.”
Nanette launched herself off the couch, knocked her handbag to the floor in her haste, spilling items all over the floor. As she and Maida picked them up, Nanette apologized. “Guess I’m still shaky.”
Drayco and Maida both walked her to the door, as Drayco said, “I know this is difficult, Mrs. Keys. I’m sure the sheriff will do his best. And if I can help in any way—”
“I don’t know how you can, but thanks.” She stood less tall than before, more hunched.
Maida kept her waiting long enough to dash into the kitchen and grab some muffins she baked earlier. Apparently, Maida had an endless supply of food and sympathy hiding in her cupboard.
When Nanette was gone, Drayco asked Maida, “Does the letter ‘G’ have any special significance for you? A place, a name?”
She thought for a moment. “The development company behind those condos is Gallinger. But no high-profile places or founding family names beginning with ‘G.’ If that’s what you mean.”
The Major poked his head in. “What’s that?”
Maida waved her hand. “Nothing dear. Chewing the fat.”
The Major stroked his beard. “That saying has a nautical origin. Sailors would complain about their staple food, hardened salt pork fat. Sounds dreadful.”
“My better half,” Maida saluted with amusement in the Major’s direction, “Is a fount of trifles and minutiae. Don’t play Trivial Pursuit with him. You won’t stand a chance.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” And Drayco added his own salute to the Major. “There was nothing trivial about my run-in with Paddy Bakely yesterday. He didn’t pay Oakley any compliments.”
Maida said, “The townspeople don’t know what to make of Paddy. Part town drunk, part poet—he had a book of poetry published locally, if you can believe it. Makes a hobby of being in and out of jail. You’d think Seth would have washed his hands of him long ago. Paddy’s a middle-aged man and should know better.”
“Between Paddy and Oakley, the town must have its share of colorful characters.”
“Try crazy-quilt. Small towns bring out the best and the worst in folks.”
Drayco was quickly learning that about small-town life. Humanity thrown together in the equivalent of a Petri dish under a microscope bred malignant organisms as often as benign. “Why did Paddy hate Oakley?”
The Major, who was sitting so still it was hard to tell if he’d nodded off, piped up. “Jealousy. Oakley had everything Paddy didn’t. Talent, land worth a small fortune, a loving wife, and a few other lady attractions, to boot. Paddy, well. You’ve seen him. Oakley’s opposite. Reminds me of a fiddler crab. Kind of spindly, scuttles along and waves his claws around. At least he doesn’t molt.”
Maida eyed Drayco with an impish grin. “So you’re leaving us peasants tonight for the lure of lofty Cypress Manor?”
“Cypress Manor? Sounds like a retirement home.”
“That’s what Councilman Squier calls his house, though no one remembers the last time there were cypress trees. Most died of blight. The good councilman brags both sides of his family trace their roots back to the Mayflower. Guess he feels he’s got to look the part.”
“Mayflower roots, but no cypress roots. Got it. And it’s for one dinner only, scout’s honor.”
“Were you a scout?�
�
“A scout dropout. Never could get the hang of sewing those badges.”
“Don’t you come back putting on airs,” Maida said. “And dress frumpy. So Darcie Squier won’t notice what a handsome stallion you are.”
Drayco gave her a double-take. “You think I need a bodyguard?”
Maida held up her hand and replied, “I’d happily fill that role, but I’m allergic to shrews.”
Drayco grinned, but his grin quickly faded when he recalled one particular item from the contents of Nanette’s purse. Why would she need a passport? A brand-new one, at that. He rubbed a hand through his hair but stopped when he caught sight of a small wooden sailboat on a table in the hallway. Instead of sailing in with answers, Nanette’s visit left more questions. Oakley’s mysterious trips, those were definitely worth pursuing. That owl mask was another jarring note of dissonance. Owls usually signified wisdom, but Drayco found nothing wise about Oakley’s behavior.
Owls were also nocturnal, swooping down silently, with the soft edges of their feathers muffling the sound of the wings, before pouncing and swallowing their prey whole. Death unseen, death unheard, death from above—the military drones of the animal kingdom.
But most prey had someone who cared about them, cared if they lived or died. Nanette seemed to love Oakley if her concerns were genuine. Possibly Darcie Squier, too, in a warped way. Despite Drayco’s efforts to distance himself, he was starting to care about the failed writer and talented woodworker, the odd and enigmatic little man with a red flower in his lapel.
Chapter 8
The Seafood Hut was as prosaic as its name, plain white concrete blocks on the outside and sea-foam paint within. The owners, churning out the same crab cakes and “little nick” clams for decades, traded stereotypical nets and plastic lobsters on the wall for pictures of customers in a continuous collage. Drayco didn’t see a greasy spoon anywhere.
Sheriff Sailor picked a booth in the back, but they were the only customers. “Thanks for meeting me here for coffee, Drayco. A chance to escape the office.”