Hang Ten Australian Cozy Mystery Boxed Set

by Stacey Alabaster

  He crossed his arms. “Huh.” He leaned against the wooden pole that held the sign with his number. “And did you see anything?”

  I just thought, hey, I’m supposed to be asking the questions here, buddy. Pipe down. I’d had enough questioning from the cops.

  “Where were you that evening?” I asked him, refusing to answer his before he had answered mine.

  “Why do you ask that?” he asked, looking down at me over his nose, even though he was not that much taller than me. Maybe only 5’8”.

  “Well, you are the captain,” I pointed out. “Surely you feel a responsibility for this vessel. I didn’t think you’d go too far from shore.”

  He screwed up his face. “I was having dinner out that night.”

  I could smell the scent of a lie in the air. It had been almost impossible to have dinner out that night with all the restaurants either already sold out of food or long booked out in advance before the cruise ship ever docked in town.

  But I tried not to let my disbelief show on my face. Always better to make people think that you believe their tale so that you can catch them later. “Oh?” I asked, making it sound like I was genuinely interested. “Where did you eat?”

  “The VRI,” he replied, with only a moment’s hesitation.

  Got him.

  Only now I was going to have to speak to Matt.

  There was no hostess to greet me at The VRI, so I waltzed right through the doors and into the dining room uninhibited, trying to spot Matt behind the bar.

  Oh my goodness. There was a young woman. I could see a mop of long, golden, curly hair cascading down her back, and I started to turn to run out the door.

  “Excuse me, miss, can I help you?”

  The voice was too low. I spun around. Not Alyson. She had light features and pale blue eyes. Must be a new staff member.

  “Oh. Sorry. I, um, I’m looking for the manager. Matt Foulkes.”

  “I’ll just get him for you.”

  Matt looked slightly apprehensive when he greeted me this time. Or maybe I was just being paranoid. I told myself that I was. I told him about my run-in with the captain, whose name I realized I still hadn’t gotten. Oh great. It was really going to be easy to figure out if he had a booking then, wasn’t it? Stupid, stupid Claire.

  I tried to compose myself because I didn’t want Matt to know my dumb mistake. Hey, we all want to look good in front of our exes, right?

  “He says that he was in here that night.” I described his physical appearance for Matt and pointed out that he most likely would have been wearing his captain’s hat.

  Matt frowned and kinda scratched his head a little as though trying to think. “Hmm, I’m not sure. We were booked out that night so there were a lot of people in here. I was slammed. Run off my feet. I came straight from the beach to manage the evening shift.”

  “I understand.” I was going to have to ask about the bookings then. I was still pretty sure that it would have been impossible for anyone to get in seeing as the restaurant would have been booked out before the ship even docked. “Do you remember if you were already booked out prior to that night or did you take bookings on the day or in the days leading up?”

  Matt seemed slightly irritated at having to try and recall this. “I think we still took a booking or two the day before.”

  “Oh.” I could feel my face fall as I thought about that. Well, I suppose the captain wasn’t totally caught out as being a liar then. Not yet, anyway.

  “I don’t know his name,” I finally had to concede, feeling sheepish, but then Matt interrupted me.

  “Carl. Carl Sanderlands.”

  Oh. How did he know that?

  “I can look through the books, I suppose, but I’m really not supposed to give out information about our customers.”

  I made a face. Now that, I did not get at all. It’s not like it was some great big secret. For one thing, the captain—er, Carl—had told me he was here that night. For another, it wasn’t like it was a top secret, private place. “I could have walked past here that night, looked in the window, and seen exactly who was in here,” I pointed out, feeling salty. “What’s up with all the secrecy? He’s not the President of the USA. Though he is from there, I believe.”

  “It’s just policy, that’s all.”

  But it seemed like there was another reason for Matt’s hesitancy to help me. Just like Rachael the day before, he was talking longer than it needed to flick through the pages.

  “Any reason for the lack of cooperation?” I finally asked Matt once he had well and truly irritated me.

  “Excuse me?” he said, pausing the finger he was using to run down the list of names of bookings.

  I put my hands on my hips. “Why don’t you want help me, Matt?”

  “No booking,” he said and put the book away. “Now, I’m sorry, Claire, but I really have to get back to work.”

  5

  Dan Millen’s face was staring back at me from the most recent issue of the paper. The once-weekly Eden Bay Journal now ran daily versions. Shorter, only a few pages long, but more up to date. I stared back at him. The dead surfer, yes. But another victim of the Surfboard Killer? Surely not. It just didn’t seem likely. In fact, it seemed downright impossible.

  Mr. Carbonetti was still in jail. He hadn’t been set loose, he hadn’t been out on bail, and he definitely hadn’t escaped from prison in Sydney. So there was no way that he could have done it

  The captain had broken protocol when I’d called him later that evening and he gave me the number of the person who was sharing a room with Dan—a young guy named Michael who was a fellow surfer and possibly one of the men I had seen surfing with Dan the evening of the murder. I had arranged to meet him at Captain Eightball’s. There were no spare tables, so I perched at the bar and waited for him. Finally, he walked in. Yes, that is him. Interesting. He didn’t seem overly impressed about being there. Like he was doing me some huge favor.

  I introduced myself and tried to be friendly, but he was a little standoffish as he glanced around. He was tall, with a shaved head, unlike most of the surfers around who kept their hair long. But he was the kind of guy who could pull off the shaved look. He had the cheekbones for it.

  “So you were sharing a cabin with Dan before the gas leak?” I asked as my milkshake was passed to me by an overworked waitress.

  This milkshake was dreadful, but I suppose that was what happened when you ran out of full cream milk and ice cream and had to use skim. Plus, it was too warm. I set it down and focused on Michael.

  Michael nodded and leaned against the bar. He had only ordered a water. And no ice either, because they didn’t have any. “I can’t believe it.” He was talking about Dan’s death, not the ice situation. “Actually, I can’t believe anything about the story you’re telling me. Dan is not the kind of guy who would steal a surfboard.”

  I just stared at him. Was this dude really calling me a liar?

  “Well, he was the kind of guy who would steal a surfboard, because he did. I saw him with my own two eyes.”

  Oh, I knew what that look meant. It meant that I couldn’t be trusted, that my word now meant nothing. Was Rachael right? Had all my credibility been thrown into question now?

  “He was a pro surfer. People literally gave the guy surfboards. And expensive, brand name ones as well. Not some no-name board that some weirdo sells on a beach.”

  Wow. I mean… I was allowed to distrust and offend Alyson, but that was only because she was my best friend. No one else was allowed to. “Well, I don’t know if I would put it quite that way,” I said through gritted teeth while I saw Michael’s eyes grow colder.

  I wanted things to get back on track so that I could at least get some decent info out of the guy.

  “Why did you want to meet me?” Michael asked coolly. He reminded me a lot of myself, demeanor-wise, but I was sure that was just about all we had in common. He was just a surfer on a cruise ship. Probably no real ambitions beyond that either.


  “I am just wondering if you saw anything on the ship before it docked that might give us all some clue as to what happened to Dan. Did he get into a fight with anyone? Make any enemies?”

  Michael shook his head. “Nah, no way. Dan was a decent guy.”

  “And how did the two of you get along? I know there can be tension when you share a room with someone.”

  He had barely given me anything during our whole conversation, but after that, he really closed up.

  “Think I ought to get going,” he said with an eyeroll.

  “Hey, I didn’t mean anything by it—” I tried to protest, trying to get him to sit down again.

  “Sure you did,” he said. “I can see what game you are playing here. And I don’t want any part of it.”

  I felt my cheeks flush a little as he walked out of the restaurant and I had to compose myself for a few minutes.

  I needed some fresh air. For some reason, that Michael guy had really rattled me. And anyway, the milkshake was rotten. I decided to head down to the skatepark to clear my head, but on the way, I ended up at the flower park when I spotted an old friend coming toward me with white hair and bright blue eyes.

  Byron was walking along with a cane. Doing her best in her old age, but I could see the struggle all over her face. She’d had a nasty fall a couple of months earlier and her hip had never fully healed.

  “Hello, Claire,” she said brightly, waving at me as I approached her.

  It was just good to see her out of the hospital.

  I didn’t want to make any mention of the cane or focus on anything negative.

  “You are looking well, Byron,” I said as she took a seat on the park bench. She patted the place beside her for me to sit down as well. I obliged.

  “Could really do with a holiday, though,” she said. “With what little time I have left on this planet.”

  “Oh, don’t say things like that, Byron, please.” I didn’t think the town could deal with another death. Especially not the death of someone so beloved.

  I was actually pleased I’d run into her because I wanted to ask her something. She was a clairvoyant and had a way of getting to the truth. Through some divine nature or not, I wasn’t sure. But she was usually spot on with her predictions and answers.

  Byron was excited to have something to tell me herself. “Oh, Claire! I saw that friend of yours earlier…”

  “Oh, Byron, I really can’t,” I said, sorry to interrupt her, but I really couldn’t hear about Alyson. It was a total cold war by that stage.

  And I didn’t even know how cold it was about to get.

  “Oh.” She blinked a few times as though resetting. I felt like I’d upset her a bit, getting all hot and annoyed when she had thought she was telling me something I’d wanted to hear.

  “Byron, do you have any idea who might have done it?” I asked her, hating the sound of desperation in my voice. If you’d spoken to the Claire I was a year earlier, I would never have believed in anything psychic or supernatural and yet here I was, asking a psychic for advice.

  But she just laughed and said, “Well, how would I know, dear? I wasn’t on the boat!”

  “Oh, well, no, of course not. I just thought you might have…”

  “The divine answers?” She shook her head and leaned back on the seat a little, her cane still resting gingerly in her hand. “I am getting older my, dear, and divinity has struggled to speak through me lately.”

  I squinted across the road. It was late in the day and it looked like there was a new edition of the Eden Bay Journal. The cover was on display out front of the news agency.

  It was Alyson’s face. And this time, I hadn’t gotten her confused with someone else. “You’ll have to excuse me Byron. Please, take care and look after yourself,” I said before hurrying across the road.

  But the news agency was already sold out of all copies. Of course they were. There were too many people in this town and none of them had anything to read.

  I had to race down to Rachael’s office before it closed to grab a copy so that I could read the full article.

  A cover story. An interview with a traitorous best friend.

  Because Alyson Foulkes only had one thing to say.

  “Claire did it.”

  6

  Oh, this was it. This was really it. She had gone too far this time, and Alyson Foulkes had gone plenty far before. I turned on the shower to try and wash away some of the no-good, horrible day, but it wasn’t getting any hotter.

  “Hey!” I yelled out into the living room. “Has the gas been disconnected?”

  Bianca wandered down the hall and rolled her eyes before quietly whispering, “No, it’s just that our house guest keeps helping himself to four hot showers a day.”

  Ugh. That boat could not set sail soon enough. I turned off the tap and gave up.

  Bianca had some thoughts on the Alyson situation. Like everyone else in Eden Bay, she’d read the newspaper. “Did you ever stop to think that maybe she is just trying to cover up her own guilt?”

  She lounged back on the sofa with a tall glass of iced berry tea in her hands and her sunglasses still on, a bathing suit on with a pair of shorts over the bottom.

  I didn’t say much, just pulled open the salad drawer to make dinner. But Bianca wouldn’t stop her theorizing.

  “Think about how many strange things have happened over the past year, and hasn’t Alyson Foulkes been involved with pretty much all of them?”

  “That is ridiculous, Bianca,” I said, feeling annoyed. I was trying to get my head clear and she was just making it cloudier.

  She sat up straight. “Well, what if you got the wrong guy the first time and it has been Alyson ever since?”

  Roger’s ears pricked up and he looked over at me for my reaction. There was dead silence in the overheated apartment.

  I wasn’t sure I subscribed to the theory that my best friend was a serial killer who had been on the loose for a year, right under my nose, and I hadn’t even noticed that anything was up.

  But I did have to admit that she was the only one on the ship that night. And until I had proof that there was another single soul who could possibly have done it… Alyson had to be my prime suspect.

  I mean, she’d turned on me. So wasn’t it time for me to turn on her?

  Had it really come to this? Was this the end of our friendship—for good?

  A train would have been a life-saver right then, but they were working on the tracks heading north to Sydney and above, and I had already spent too much money on rental cars over the past few months.

  So I was left studying the bus schedule, trying to make heads or tails of all the interceding lines and trying to figure out which route I needed to take and where I needed to change in order to get to Silverwater Prison.

  Just when I was about to give up and decide that walking would probably be the quickest route, a car pulled up beside me

  It was Michael. Ugh. Of all people.

  He called out to me through the open window. “You look a little lost.”

  Part of me wanted to ignore him entirely. He didn’t seem that thrilled to see me either, but he had pulled over and stopped so he was at least attempting to be nice.

  “Why do you have a car?” I demanded to know. After all, he arrived in town by boat.

  “Rented it,” he said with a shrug. “Is that a crime?”

  None of the cruise ship passengers were supposed to leave town. I moved closer to the window. “You’re supposed to stay in Eden Bay.” We were right on the outskirts and from the speed he had been originally traveling and the direction he was headed, I knew he was leaving. If he tried to tell me he WASN’T about to leave, I wouldn’t believe him.

  But he just held my gaze. “And so what? I’m not a prisoner, am I? I’ve got some business I need to take care of up near Sydney.”

  “That’s where I’m headed. Well, nearby at least.”

  He smiled at me. “Well then, I suppose I’d
better give you a lift then.”

  It was almost perfect. Almost. Apart from sharing a car with this guy.

  But I accepted. We took off at a sped so high I didn’t even notice the “You’re Leaving Eden Bay” sign.

  <<< INSERT SECTION BREAK ??? >>>

  “I didn’t want to be stuck on a bus for hours,” Michael said as we cruised up the freeway. He sounded annoyed about the train being out of service. “Highly inconvenient.”

  “The trains are usually pretty reliable,” I said, automatically jumping to the defense of the Eden Bay transport infrastructure. I wasn’t even sure why.

  “To tell you the truth, I wasn’t that keen on being stuck in Eden Bay in general. It feels good to be free.”

  Once upon a time, I had understood that desire. Greatly. When I was a teenager, all I wanted to do was to escape Eden Bay and get to the city. But right then, I was sorry to be leaving. It was only under duress that I was. It wasn’t like I was going for a picnic. I was going—quite literally—to a prison.

  Michael glanced over at me. “I read the paper yesterday. You don’t look like a killer to me. Just for the record.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “Hey, I meant it.”

  <<< INSERT SECTION BREAK ??? >>>

  “So what do you need to go to the prison for?” Michael asked me when I’d been quiet for almost ten minutes. What I wanted was to put my earbuds in and listen to my podcasts, but I was worried that might be a little too rude considering this guy was given me a free lift. “You got a family member in there or something? A boyfriend?”

  I wasn’t sure if he was teasing or not. I just shook my head and told him that none of my family were behind bars and that I didn’t have a boyfriend at all, let alone one behind bars.

  “Oh.”

  That said, it wasn’t as though the man behind bars didn’t have any personal connection to me at all. “He was actually my favorite teacher when I was at school,” I said. “And I was his favorite student.”