Anchored Inn

by Karen MacInerney

  "I have no idea," she said. "Maybe it was left here by an earlier guest?"

  "I don't think so. The last people in this room were a retired couple from Minnesota, and before that a family from Barcelona; I would have found anything they left when I was cleaning up, anyway. I wish I could make a copy of this."

  "Take a photo," she said.

  "Good idea. Then I can show it to Charlene. Although considering they just found Mandy, I'm not sure this is going to be good for Tom's case."

  "You think they're going to try to get him for Mandy's murder, too?" Catherine asked.

  "Why not?" I said. "They've already got him down for one murder, after less than a day of investigating. This way they can close two cases at once."

  "They wouldn't do that, would they?"

  "I hope not," I said as I snapped a few shots of the old photo in my hand, my eyes drawn yet again to Tom's arm around young Mandy's shoulder.

  And then a terrible thought occurred to me.

  What if Steve knew Tom had killed Mandy?

  And what if the discovery of Mandy's body led Tom to get rid of the only person who knew he'd done it?

  I pushed the thought away, but there was something in it that wouldn't leave me alone. I hated to think that the head of the lobster co-op and father of young children might be a murderer. But coincidences made me suspicious.

  I took one last picture of the snapshot and then gave it back to Catherine, who tucked it back under the bed.

  Speaking of coincidences... what was Brandon doing with an old photo of Cranberry Island?

  I had a feeling there was more to the reclusive multimillionaire than met the eye.

  10

  Murray's house was just like Murray: flashy, but without a lot of taste. His Jaguar was parked in the porte-cochere (although why anyone would need a porte-cochere on Cranberry Island was beyond me) when Catherine and I arrived. I left the van in one of the parking spots down the driveway and turned to my mother-in-law.

  "Ready?"

  She nodded, clutching the plate of cookies in her lap, and took a deep breath. "Let's go," she said.

  I followed her up the driveway to the massive front door, admiring, as usual, her sartorial acumen. She'd kept the slacks, but traded in the cashmere twinset for a lovely blue silk blouse that brought out the color of her eyes, and her blonde hair shone in the bright fall sunshine.

  She stepped up and pressed the doorbell, drawing herself up into a regal posture Queen Elizabeth would have approved of. It was only a few seconds before the door swung open. It was Murray, looking disheveled in sweatpants and a too-tight Patriots T-shirt that exposed about two inches of belly.

  Not for the first time, I wondered how Catherine and Murray had ever been an item.

  "Oh... sorry," he said, tugging at his T-shirt. "I wasn't expecting company. Come in, come in," he said, as if he and Catherine hadn't gone through a rather explosive breakup not too long ago.

  "Have a seat," he said, leading us to his palatial living room, which looked rather like a set labeled "Men's Smoking Room" from a period film. "Let me change out of these clothes... I was just, uh, working out."

  As Catherine perched on the edge of a massive leather wing chair, Murray scuttled out of sight. I'd never seen him look so uncomfortable in all the years I'd known him. It was obvious he still had a crush on Catherine, and as I looked at her, sitting on that massive chair like a princess in pale blue, I could see why.

  As we waited for Murray, I looked around the room, which was paneled in dark wood and smelled faintly of cigars. An oil painting with a gaggle of formally dressed and heavily armed men on horses graced the mantle above the giant stone fireplace; it looked like it could have been lifted from any of a number of English country houses. Flanking the fireplace were two massive bookshelves filled with the kind of hardbound books you buy because they look good, not because you want to read them. The head of a buck loomed over us from the wall behind the studded leather couch on which I had deposited myself. The only things that obviously came from this century were a stack of well-thumbed GQ and Esquire magazines and a book titled Love Languages. Was he perhaps trying to figure out what had gone wrong with Catherine?

  "This is quite a man cave, isn't it?" I observed.

  "The whole house is," Catherine said, picking up one of the heavy marble coasters from a walnut occasional table. "It's odd... I've spent so much time here, but it seems a lifetime ago."

  "Funny, isn't it? Sometimes, when I get an e-mail from one of my Austin friends, it feels like only yesterday that I moved to the island... but at the same time, I feel like I've been here my whole life."

  "Time is a strange thing," she said. "And old things keep cropping up this week." I knew she was thinking of Mandy—and the photo she had found under Brandon's bed.

  My eyes flitted around the room, looking for anything of interest. On one of the end-tables I spotted a manila folder with a few pages sticking out from the corner. I reached for it and flipped it open; to my surprise, inside was a stack of articles about Brandon Marks.

  I leafed through them; they were biographical pieces, mainly, about how he'd built his social media company WhatsIn from the ground up. At the mention of social media, I thought of Tania's dormant accounts, and wondered if Tania's disappearance might be linked to the arrival of Brandon. As far as I knew, the two weren't connected, and it was a long shot, but I couldn't rule anything out. I tucked the thought into the back of my mind, feeling uneasy about it, and read on.

  One article in particular caught my interest; it covered Brandon's early life. "After spending much of his childhood in a small town in Maine, where the only way to the mainland was a mail boat that made the crossing a half dozen times a day, Marks moved to Silicon Valley after dropping out of college. He managed to leverage a clever idea into one of the biggest tech companies in the country." Next to the article was a photo of a young Brandon, squinting into the sun from the bow of a skiff. I grabbed my phone and pulled up the photo I had found in Brandon's room.

  "Catherine, is it my imagination, or is this the same person?" I asked, hurrying over to show her the two pictures.

  "I think it is," she said. "But I don't recognize his name."

  I scanned the article. "Me neither."

  "Oh," she said slowly, looking back and forth from the photo on my phone to the photo in the magazine. "I know who that is. That's Brendan Marksburg; he spent summers on the island when John was a kid. I didn't recognize him; I can't believe it's the same person!"

  "He changed his name, then. I wonder why?" I mused.

  "He was a different kid. So... withdrawn. Always walking the shores by himself, looking for wreckage with a metal detector; he was obsessed with shipwrecks. He didn't spend much time with the other kids; he used to always mess with old radios and things, and spent all his time trying to make them work."

  "It seemed to have benefited him in the long run," I commented.

  "Yes, but he was always a loner. Never had any friends."

  "I'm not sure he does now, frankly. He's got people who work for him, but the relationships seem superficial. Employer-employee, but nothing more."

  "He always did seem more interested in things than people," she said. As she spoke, Murray materialized from the bowels of the massive house, dressed nattily (for him) in green plaid golf pants and a spearmint-colored Polo shirt. He'd even taken the time to shave, and I caught a whiff of piney aftershave from across the room.

  "Well," he said. "It's good to see you both. Can I get you ladies a drink?"

  "Just a club soda, if you have it," Catherine said.

  "Water, please," I said. He walked over to what appeared to be a built-in bookshelf and opened two doors to reveal a wet bar. Beneath it was a mini fridge, from which he retrieved a can of Canada Dry and some ice.

  "Are you sure I can't get you something stronger?" he asked. "It's been quite a week."

  "Just club soda. And yes, it has," Catherine agreed. "I found you
r handyman outside my carriage house this morning, Murray."

  "I heard," Murray said as he popped the small glass bottle open and poured it over ice, then filled a second glass with tap water for me. "I can't figure out what he was doing in your neck of the woods," Murray said. "Did you hire him to do some work?" he asked me, walking over and handing Catherine her glass. Their eyes met briefly; she colored and looked away. He gazed at her, looking a little like a moonstruck calf, before retreating to the other wing chair. I noticed he leaned toward her, though, as if she had some sort of gravitational pull.

  "No," I said. "I actually wondered why you kept him on; he seemed kind of nosy the one time I hired him. I found him going through my desk."

  "Did you," he said, rather than asked, his eyes turning to me. The easiness was gone, somehow, and his beady eyes fixed on me as if I were prey... or a potential predator. "Did he find anything juicy? A hidden secret or two?"

  "I don't really have any secrets," I said, finding it interesting that he should immediately leap to that conclusion, as opposed to thinking Steve might have been looking for credit card numbers or other financial information. "But other people might."

  "No secrets here," he said in a jolly voice, but his eyes darted to the painting above the fireplace. What was back there? I wondered. A safe behind the painting, maybe? With something he didn't want anyone else to know about?

  "What kind of work did he do for you?" I asked.

  "Oh, this and that," he said. "A place this big always needs painting, or siding replaced, or window frames fixed... you know how it is. It is a bit curious that he ended up at your place. A tiff with one of your guests, maybe? Although I hear they put the cuffs on Tom today."

  "They did," I said. "But I don't believe he did it. We were wondering, since he spent so much time around here, whether you knew if he'd had issues with anyone else on the island."

  "So you didn't just come to bring me cookies and visit," he said, eyeing the plate of sugar cookies.

  "Oh... I forgot," she said, blushing and putting the plate on the table. "I know you had a working relationship that went back quite a ways; I'm sorry you lost him."

  "It wasn't anything other than a working relationship, but I'll take the cookies," he said, eyeing the plate with interest. "Sugar cookies?"

  "My mother's recipe," I said. "Go ahead."

  "Don't mind if I do," he said, lifting the plastic wrap and pulling out a pale round. I could see the sugar glinting as he bit into it. A row of windows lined the back wall of the room, framing the large swimming pool he'd recently built behind the house (rarely used, from what Catherine told me) along with a sweeping view of the Gulf of Maine beyond. "Delicious," he mumbled through a mouthful of crumbs.

  "Back to Steve, though," Catherine said. "What do you know about him?"

  Murray finished off the cookie before answering. "He kept to himself. Was a good worker. We never had any problems."

  "You didn't find him nosy at all?" I asked.

  "He kept to his work," Murray said coolly. "We didn't have any issues."

  His eyes were roving around the room, now... I could tell he was uncomfortable with the line of conversation. "What jobs was he working on?" I asked, as Catherine sat primly nearby. There was a tension in the room that didn't just come from my line of questioning; I could tell she still had feelings for Murray, and not all of them were good.

  "I didn't really keep track," Murray said, darting a longing glance at Catherine. "We kind of worked on a retainer system," he continued. "He was painting the front railings, as I recall."

  "It's hard to keep up with all that wood, isn't it?" I asked.

  "It is," he said. Then he cocked his round head to one side, as if just thinking of something. "Now that I think of it, he did mention a little bit of a dust-up with the Jamesons."

  "He did work for them too, didn't he?"

  "He did, until last summer; I think Jameson let him go."

  "Why?"

  Murray shrugged. "Ran out of money? Who knows? I don't keep track of my neighbors' finances."

  I didn't believe that for a moment. Anyone as competitive as Murray kept track of all his neighbors' finances.

  "I noticed you have some articles on Brandon Marks," Catherine said, pointing to the manila folder on the table.

  "What?" He grabbed the file. "I have an assistant who clips articles for me," he said, shoving it under his arm and shrugging it off. "She sent this to me as a curiosity."

  "Right," I said, not believing it for a moment.

  "So what's behind the painting over the fireplace?" I asked Catherine as the massive front door of Murray's house closed behind us a few minutes later.

  "What do you mean?" she asked, reaching up to pat her hair and glancing back behind her. I stole a backward glance, too; Murray was still standing at the window beside the door, eyes fixed on my lovely mother-in-law.

  "Just a hunch," I said. "He kept looking at it when I talked about Steve prying into things. I wondered if there was a safe or something back there."

  "I don't know," she said, "but I know he's got things stashed away."

  "He still has feelings for you, you know."

  "Does he?" she asked in a light tone that was completely unconvincing.

  "He does. I never did find out why you two broke up." Not that I hadn't probed; she'd repeatedly dodged questions from both John and me.

  "I think he was two-timing me," she admitted, her face flushing pink.

  "You think?"

  She nodded.

  "You don't know for sure?"

  "I just... he was hiding the fact that he was having dinner with another woman... what was I supposed to think?"

  I tried not to roll my eyes. The two of them were acting like teenagers.

  "You could talk to him, you know."

  "I could," she said. "But... there are other things, too. You know how he is. I always felt like he was keeping something from me, somehow."

  "You don't seem to be sure breaking up was the right thing to do," I said. "Have you really talked with him?"

  "I've thought about reaching out to him, but I just don't know."

  "You've got to follow your instinct," I said, "but I feel like there's unfinished business there."

  "I thought you didn't like Murray?" she said, eyeing me sideways.

  "We've never gotten along particularly well," I said. "But you two spent a lot of time together. It doesn't seem right to just let things go without at least discussing what went wrong. After all, you're living on the same island."

  She pursed her lips. "For now, anyway."

  "Wait. What?"

  "I... I was thinking I might move back to Boston."

  "No!" I was a bit taken aback by my own vehemence. When Catherine had moved to the island, I'd had some trepidation about how things were going—after all, we were very different people—but I'd come to love having her in the carriage house behind the inn. "Why?"

  "I just... it's hard being here. I'd like to have an opportunity to find a partner, but here on the island, there aren't exactly a ton of prospects. Plus, every time I turn around, there's Murray."

  "I can see that," I said, "but we love having you here... I'd be so sad to see you go! Maybe you should talk to him, at least clear the air between you."

  "No," she said, chin up. "If he wants to talk, he can come to me."

  "All right," I said as we got back into the van. I wasn't sure that was the best course of action, but it wasn't my life; it was hers.

  11

  When we got back to the inn, Adam was there, a fretful expression on his handsome face. He was wearing the thick sweatpants he favored for days out on the water, along with the red wool hat Gwen had knitted him for his birthday.

  "What's wrong?" I asked.

  "It's Gwen," he said. "She can't hold anything down; I have to struggle to get water into her. I've got to go out and haul traps, but I didn't want to leave her alone."

  "Where is she?"

&n
bsp; "Upstairs sleeping," he said. "If she's not better, I may take her to the emergency room tonight."

  "Has she been to a doctor yet?"

  "She keeps saying she'll go, but she hasn't yet. I think the boat ride makes her more nauseous."

  "She's going to have to get over that unless we can find someone who still makes house calls."

  "I know someone, actually," Catherine said. "She retired a couple of months ago, but she might be willing to come take a look at her. Let me call her and see if she can make it over."

  "I'm going to go check on Gwen now," I said.

  "I'm coming up with you," Adam told me. "Maybe together we can talk some sense into her."

  "I'll let you know what Barbara says," Catherine said as she pulled up the contacts on her phone.

  Adam followed me up the stairs to the room that used to be Gwen’s. I knocked lightly.

  "Come in," she answered in a scratchy, weak voice.

  I stepped into the dark room; the curtains were drawn, and I could just make out her pale face against the darkness of her hair.

  "You don't sound so good," I said.

  "I'm okay," she said.

  "No you're not," Adam corrected her. "You haven't eaten in three days, and you can barely hold down a teaspoon of water." He sat down on the edge of the bed and reached for her wrist, feeling for her pulse. "Your heart rate's way up," he informed her. "You're dangerously dehydrated. We need to take you in."

  "I'll drink something," she said. "I promise. Just... I can't handle the mail boat right now."

  "Will you try broth?" I asked. "The salt might help."

  "I'll try," she said.

  "I'll go heat some up. Adam, if you need to go, I've got her."

  "The traps can wait," he announced. "I'm going to make sure she keeps this broth down, or I'm taking her in the skiff this afternoon.”

  "Adam..."

  "Honey, I'm worried about you. The lobsters aren't going anywhere; they can wait."

  "Are you sure?"

  "Positive," he said in a tender voice, leaning over to kiss her forehead.