by Kylie Logan
The fact that Kate had yet to complain about the noise said a lot about how worried and depressed she was feeling.
Chandra and Luella had insisted that I keep all the pumpkin seeds, and at Chandra’s urging (which was actually more like badgering, and I discovered I had no defenses against her greenness), I had agreed to roast them. They were washed and picked through, and I’d just put them in salted water to soak overnight when Liam and David showed up at the back door.
“I didn’t think I’d see you this early,” I told them.
“It’s never too early when you’ve had too many beers.” David laughed and, with a slap on the back, sent Liam into the hallway and up the stairs. The way he reeled, I hoped he’d make it, and when I heard his room door shut, I breathed a sigh of relief.
“Will he be all right?” I asked David.
He’d grabbed a bottle of water out of the fridge and settled back against the counter to drink it. “He’ll be fine once he sleeps it off. When it comes to beer, Liam’s a lightweight.”
“You’re not?”
David grinned. He had a nice smile, great cheekbones, and a strong, square chin. I can’t say if it was planned, but I didn’t have a shred of doubt that he’d attract plenty of female fans to EGG’s TV show.
“I’m smart,” David said, and the wink he gave me told me he was only half kidding. “I know when to stop. Two beers are plenty for me.”
“Liam had more than that?”
“Thought they’d have to send to the mainland for more.”
He finished his bottle of water, and I pointed him to the recycle container just outside the back door.
“So . . .” Since I couldn’t risk looking too eager, I went to the sink and wet down a cloth, then swiped it over the countertop. Yes, I’d just cleaned it. David didn’t know that. “No work tonight, huh? That must be a welcome change.”
“Everybody scattered the second Dimitri said we deserved a night off. Most of us went to the bars, but I hear he and Jacklyn took off to some fancy restaurant down by the water.”
I remembered how I’d heard Dimitri coughing earlier in the day. “I hope he was going to order chicken soup.”
David peeled out of his EGG jacket. “His immune system must be shot—guy’s always got a cold.”
“So he deserves a night off.” I hoped I was subtle about getting the conversation back on track. At least back on the track I wanted it to take. “You all deserve a little R & R, what with everything that’s happened this week.”
“You mean Jacklyn coming back.”
“Actually, I meant Noreen’s murder.”
“Oh yeah. Sure.” David was far too self-confident to look embarrassed. “Don’t get the wrong impression. It’s not like I forgot she was dead or anything. It’s just that we’re trying to move ahead. You know? Dimitri, he got everyone together this afternoon and he told us we’ve got to focus. On our investigations. On the show. On our careers. He’s right. This is a huge opportunity for all of us, and we can’t blow it. What’s done is done and what’s over is over.”
“What about mourning?”
“Noreen?” He scrubbed a hand over his chin. “She was a tough lady.”
“And not easy to get along with.”
“I don’t know anyone who liked her.”
“And now she’s dead.”
“And you’d like to know who did it.”
I hoped I wasn’t that transparent.
I lifted a shoulder. “It’s a small island, and there’s nothing like a little gossip to heat things up.” I rinsed the cloth and set it in the sink. “Do you have any theories?”
David laughed. “You sound like that cop! He asked me what I thought, too, and I could only tell him the truth. It could have been anyone.”
“Anyone but you?”
Another laugh, and he swept a finger, crosswise, over his heart. “I didn’t like Noreen any more than anyone else did, but I didn’t kill her. She could really get under my skin. And she could make me so mad, it felt like my head would explode. But she wasn’t worth going to prison over. That’s for sure.”
“And you think the person who did this will end up in prison?”
“You don’t have to like Noreen to hope for some justice, do you?”
He was right.
“So what can you tell me?” I asked him.
“About the murder?” Thinking, he pursed his lips. “Not a thing. You saw the knock-down-drag-out Noreen had with the woman at the winery.”
“Kate.”
“Yeah, with Kate. You heard what they said. You saw how mad that Kate was. I guess the cops think she had a good reason to kill Noreen. At least that’s what we heard in town tonight. People are talking. You know, about how the cops are looking at Kate and thinking they’ve got their murderer.”
“I think they’re wrong.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “Kate’s not that kind of person.”
“That’s why you wonder who really did it.”
I didn’t argue. In fact, now that we had that much out in the open, I didn’t feel the least bit self-conscious when I asked, “After that knock-down-drag-out, you all came back here?”
“Absolutely. Except for Fiona. When we were leaving, I tried to tell them she was nowhere around, that we were leaving her behind, but Noreen was so steaming mad at that point, she didn’t listen. She didn’t care. She screamed at me, told me to get in the truck and start driving.”
“Did that make you mad?”
Oh, that smile of his was going to light up TV screens from coast to coast!
“Not mad enough to kill her,” David said.
At this point, I wasn’t sure if I believed this or not, but there was no use arguing. “When you left the winery, you came right back here?”
He nodded.
“And after you got back here, Noreen came inside with you?”
“She did.” There were still some cookies on a platter on the counter and, with a look, David asked if he could take one. When I said yes, he chose peanut butter. The man had good taste; peanut butter were my favorites, too.
“But Noreen left again.”
His shrug was barely perceptible and spoke to how much David really didn’t care. “She must have.”
“Did anyone else?”
Another look, and this time, I gave David permission to go to the fridge and get a glass of milk. While he drank it down, he finished off two more cookies.
“You know I can’t say anything with certainty . . .” David began, and I guess the way I stood up like I’d touched an electrical line made him think he better add a caveat. “Just because I couldn’t find him, it doesn’t mean anything.”
“Because you couldn’t find . . .” I leaned forward, hoping to egg him on.
“You might have noticed Dimitri was a little out of sorts on Wednesday. Turns out that was the day he got the newest issue of Dead Time.”
“I know. I heard him say something to Noreen about it. She said she had an article in the new issue, but whatever Dimitri had to say about it, she didn’t seem to think it was all that important.”
“Well, that’s just like her, isn’t it?” There was no amusement in David’s laugh. “Noreen wrote an article about curiosity cabinets. You know, collections that people used to keep. It was a big deal back in the day. They’d collect rocks or art or gems or bones. And they’d show off their collections to their friends.”
“Yes, Noreen mentioned that.”
“Well, a year or so ago, Dimitri started talking about how those sorts of collections must hang on to residual energy. You know, so that they attract entities. He did a whole lot of research on the subject on his own, and he was planning on publishing his own article about it.”
“And Noreen beat him to it. I get it, I really do. I see why Dimitri was so angry. That must have been a big disappointment.”
“What it really was, was a case of Noreen hacking into Dimitri’s computer.”
I swear, nothing should have surp
rised me. Not when it came to finding out what Noreen had been up to. Still, the news made my stomach turn cold. “She stole Dimitri’s research.”
“All the facts. All the figures. All the photographs. Never gave him a shred of credit. Claimed it all as her own and published it before he had a chance. He wasn’t just mad. He was mad enough to kill.”
That chill in my stomach turned into a block of ice. “You think he did it?”
“That’s just it, isn’t it?” David scraped his hands through his hair. “I don’t think Dimitri’s that kind of guy. Don’t get me wrong, he can be a jerk sometimes. But that doesn’t mean he’s a murderer. Except . . .” The pained expression on David’s face told me there was more to come.
He let out a long, slow breath. “I wanted to see the article for myself, so after we got back here from the winery, I went to Dimitri’s room. You know, to talk to him about it and to borrow the magazine so I could read it.”
“And?”
“And”—a muscle bunched at the base of his jaw—“he wasn’t there.”
“Not in his room?”
“Hey, I’m not accusing the man of anything. Maybe he was down here getting a midnight snack. Maybe he went out to one of the bars. All I can tell you is when I went looking for him, he wasn’t in his room.” David took his glass to the dishwasher. “I’m not a betting man, but my bet is that it doesn’t mean anything at all.”
With that, he disappeared upstairs.
My mind buzzing a mile a minute, I thought about everything I’d just heard. I had to agree with David: the fact that Dimitri wasn’t in his room probably didn’t mean anything at all.
That didn’t keep something that felt very much like hope from blossoming in my chest.
As much as I hated the thought of having a murderer staying at the B and B (it wouldn’t be a first, and believe me, I wouldn’t like it any more than I had back when I first arrived at the island and the Ladies and I solved a murder at the Orient Express restaurant), I could barely stand still thinking that maybe—just maybe—I’d found what I’d been looking for: a suspect with a strong motive, and along with him, the breakthrough that would finally prove Kate’s innocence.
12
It was bound to happen.
The next day, a Sunday, dawned chilly and gloomy. The sky was packed with low-hanging clouds as fat as German sausages, and the wind picked up. Across the street from the B and B, the lake churned, peaking into whitecaps that dotted the gray surface with foam. With more fish being brought to the surface by the waves, the flocks of local lake gulls were thrilled. They raced and dove and rose from the water with breakfast in their beaks, all the while calling out a high-pitched creaky chorus.
For the record, I was not nearly as excited.
See, I’d arranged with Luella to go out on the lake that day, and because of her charter schedule and a forecast that promised even worse weather the next day, I knew this was my one and only chance. I am not an especially queasy sailor, but neither am I thrilled with riding a watery roller coaster. Too bad, so sad, I told myself. I’d already made arrangements with Meg to come in and take care of breakfast for me. And I’d already taken advantage of Luella’s friendship and her skill as a boat captain, and I wouldn’t ask her to flip around her schedule to accommodate my whims.
It was now or never.
I pulled on warm clothes, packed an extra sweatshirt and a slicker just in case, and threw together the lunch I’d promised Luella, who’d refused any money for the use of her boat and had been about to refuse my offer of a meal, too, until I crooned the magic word: caprese.
Luella is a sucker for fresh mozzarella and tomatoes.
I assembled the ingredients I’d need for our salads, and in light of the weather and the distance we had to travel, added a couple thermoses of hot vegetable soup, too, and the makings for both turkey and ham sandwiches. Since I am a firm believer that, except in dire emergencies, sandwiches cannot be eaten without pickles and potato chips, I packed those, too. Before anyone else in the house was up and moving, I loaded everything into my SUV and headed downtown.
The Miss Luella, the thirty-foot fishing boat her late husband had christened in Luella’s honor, bobbed next to the dock. It was a gentle sort of seesawing motion. Up and down. Side to side.
I was hypnotized, and my stomach mimicked the rocking.
I told it to stop.
It might actually have listened and behaved if, when I got to the Miss Luella, Levi hadn’t hopped off the boat.
“Where’s Luella?” My gaze darted toward the boat. Up near the front, it had a roof over the spot where the controls were, and windows on three sides. Because of the day’s weather, a removable canvas curtain had been fitted and zipped at the back edge of the roof. I couldn’t see beyond it to where I assumed Luella was making last-minute preparations. “She’s getting everything ready, right?”
Levi grabbed the heavy carry bag I’d brought lunch in and swung it over the side of the boat to set it on deck. “Luella asked me to help her out.”
“She didn’t say anything about that to me last night when we carved pumpkins.” He grabbed for the sweatshirt and slicker in my arms and I had no choice but to hand them over. I followed my belongings onto the boat. It seemed awfully quiet beyond that zipped, canvas curtain. “Where is she?”
He unzipped the barrier and stowed my clothing inside, as well as lunch. No Luella. “Like I said, she asked me to help.”
“And she’ll be here in a couple minutes, right?”
“Maybe.” Levi started the engine and the boat motor roared to life. “But it won’t really matter, because in a couple minutes, we’ll be gone.”
“What do you mean?” I darted forward, a simple enough movement on solid land that turned out to be a little trickier when the deck beneath my sneakers rolled and bucked. I steadied myself, my arms held out from my sides, and took a few careful steps toward the controls. “Luella’s taking me to Canada today,” I told Levi.
He guided the boat out of its slip and ever-so-cautiously piloted it around the sign that warned, Slow! No wake!
I watched the dock grow ever smaller. That’s when the reality of the situation hit and I turned to Levi.
“You’re taking me to Canada.”
For a few minutes, he didn’t answer. He was too busy getting us safely out of the harbor, and for those few minutes, I watched him handle the wheel as if he’d been born on the deck of the Pequod. Finally he glanced my way. “Luella—”
“Asked you to help. Yeah, I got that part. But that doesn’t explain where she is or why she asked for your help.”
He was dressed in jeans and a navy sweatshirt, and he wore a North Face jacket that was the mouse gray color of the lake. In answer to my question, he lifted a shoulder.
We were in more open water by then, and he nudged the boat to go a little faster.
“Do you even know how to operate a boat?” I asked him.
He flashed me a smile, and in that one instant, it wasn’t so chilly anymore. “I know how to do a whole lot of interesting things.”
My feet far enough apart to brace myself, I crossed my arms over my chest. “Not what I asked.”
He stepped away from the controls. “You want to drive?”
“No.” To prove it, I backed away. The boat bucked, and I threw out a hand and hung on to the side to keep from toppling over. By the time I got my sea legs, we were out of the harbor and on the open water.
He threw me a sidelong glance. “Canada, huh?”
“Luella didn’t tell you where we were going?”
“She did.” He checked a navigation chart and made the proper corrections. “She told me to head for Middle Island, the southernmost place in Canada. It’s a nature preserve, you know.”
“I know.”
“The place is completely deserted and boaters are discouraged from docking there. Plus, you need special permission from the Canadian parks people to stop and disembark.”
“I go
t it.”
“On a Saturday.”
“Today’s Sunday,” I reminded him.
“Yeah, but you didn’t decide to go to Middle Island this morning. You called Luella yesterday, which means—”
“I talked to the proper authorities yesterday. Sure. Okay. I admit it. It’s no big deal.”
“Bet they wouldn’t have talked to me on a weekend if I called them.”
I prayed my smile was as charming as I hoped. “Maybe you’re just not as persuasive as I am.”
“Oh, I’m sure of that!” Levi grinned. He set Miss Luella’s autopilot and, arms braced behind him, he leaned back and studied me. “That still doesn’t tell me why we’re going to Middle Island.”
I let go of my hold on the boat and faced forward. It was better than meeting that very level, very intense, very blue gaze of his straight on.
Left, right, and dead ahead, all I could see was an endless expanse of gray, roiling water. Now and then, the sun poked through the clouds and gilded the waves.
Though I had been sure I wouldn’t need them when I left the house, I was glad I had brought along my sunglasses. I got them out of my pocket and slipped them on.
“This has something to do with Sleepy Harlow, right?” Levi asked.
“Exactly. See, back in the nineteen twenties, Middle Island was owned by a big-time mobster. He built a clubhouse there, and that’s where he and his gang lived. Pretty clever, huh? Just inside Canada, where there was no law against producing or selling liquor. And just close enough to the US to be a great distribution point. This mobster, he even had a casino in the basement of his clubhouse, carved out of the limestone bedrock. Middle Island is where Sleepy picked up his Canadian liquor.”
“So you’re looking for atmosphere again, like you were when you checked out my apartment. You want to get into Sleepy’s head and get to know him better.”
“That’s right.”
“Because you’re helping out Marianne.”