Scone Cold Dead Page 10

  I felt myself glow with pride. "Thank you for saying so," I told her. "I feel the same way."

  "And so do you," she added, glancing around at the dining room. "This is your art. You've created a place. This inn is your work."

  "I'd never thought of it that way, but... I think you're right," I said, looking around at the pine tables, the scones in a basket on the buffet, the sea glass sparkling in a Mason jar on the windowsill. "Ever have moments of doubt?" I asked, thinking of my low bookings and my worries about the future.

  "All the time," she said. "But I push through anyway."

  "Of course you do," I said. As I spoke, she tore off the sketch and handed it to me. "View from your dining-room window on a cloudy morning," she said. "For you."

  "Thank you," I said as she packed up her things.

  "My pleasure," she told me, smiling. "Thank you for creating this beautiful place. I'm thinking of trying something new... and I don't think it would have occurred to me if I hadn't stayed here."

  "Like what?" I asked.

  "You'll see," she said. "Thank you for breakfast. And for the conversation."

  "Likewise," I said. "You've given me a lot to think about."

  As she tucked her notebook into her bag, she said, "Watch out for those people."

  "What people?"

  "Chad's parents," she said. "I have a bad feeling about them. And my feelings are usually right." And with that, she walked out of the dining room.

  After I'd finished the last of the cleanup, I called Gertrude again, but there was still no answer, so I left another message. John had gone down to his workshop, and I had no idea where Catherine was. Feeling at loose ends, I decided to start another scone recipe; the deadline for submitting the recipe was next week, and I was still trying to come up with something spectacular.

  I opened the fridge to see what I had. John had picked up groceries at the store, so we now had lemons, along with a flat of wild blueberries. Lemon scones with blueberries might work; I'd made muffins with that combination, but never scones. With a lemon glaze, they could be sensational.

  I flipped through my binder to find a basic scone recipe, then turned on the oven and set to work. As I gathered ingredients, I thought about Chelsea, and who might have wanted to do her harm.

  She and Chad obviously had some background, so there was at least one person who knew her before she came to the island. And if she was in fact an investigator—or if people thought she was one—it was in the interest of any lobsterman who was up to no good to have her out of the way. Mac was the obvious suspect—after all, he had not only threatened Earl, but bashed in his boat—but what about Earl himself? He had a secret compartment in the Lucky Lady, after all.

  But if his boat was in dry dock when Chelsea arrived on the island to observe—or potentially investigate—fishing infractions, what motive would he have for killing her? You can't get caught if you're not fishing, after all.

  As I measured out flour and poured it into a bowl, my mind turned back to Chelsea. She'd shown up for breakfast, then left quickly after her run-in with Chad. Either whoever encountered her on the path knew she was going that way or was spying on the inn and followed her when she left. Was it possible that Mac was lying in wait for her? Maybe he’d watched for her to leave the inn, then followed her and killed her once she was out of sight of prying eyes?

  I knew most lobstermen were out on their boats early, but with the mooring lines cut, no one would have been out on the water. I knew a lobsterman usually worked with a sternman. Mac worked with Josie Barefoot. Even thought they hadn't been out on the water, she might know where Mac was when Chelsea died. I made a mental note to find out where Earl was, too... just to cover all the bases.

  I zested a lemon and added the zest to the dry ingredients, then cut in the butter. The rhythmic movement calmed me. I thought again about my mistake with Gertrude, and turned my mind to potential suspects.

  It could have been any of the lobstermen on the island, but there were options at the inn, too. Chelsea and Chad had had a run-in in the past. Had Chad's hurt feelings been enough to make him do in his old classmate?

  Or was there some other piece of history there I didn't know about?

  On a whim, I added vanilla to the cream and egg I'd just whisked up before pouring them into the dry mixture. I'd saved the juice for the glaze so it wouldn't interfere with the rising of the dough. I measured out blueberries, gently kneading them into the dough, and then jotted down the proportions so I wouldn't forget.

  As I worked the dough into a rough circle, my eye fell on the bedraggled stuffed animal I'd found on the doorstep last night. Instinctively, I checked the window where Biscuit and Smudge liked to lie in the sun; thankfully, both were there, but I didn't like the threat. The cats usually enjoyed their indoor/outdoor independence, but John and I had decided to enforce indoor quarantine until we figured out who had left that horrible thing on our doorstep. But how would we figure it out? There wasn’t a lot to go on.

  And what was the reason for the threat?

  I didn't know, but I did know I wanted to talk to Josie Barefoot, Mac Penney's sternman. And to Tom Lockhart, to see if he had any more insight as to what all was going on down at the co-op. And I was still waiting for news on Claudette's tests.

  The phone rang, and I sighed, wondering what it could be now. Adam? Eli? It had not been a good week, I thought to myself as I wiped my hands and reached for the phone.

  "Hello?"

  Breathing. There was the faint sound of a boat motor in the background.

  "Hello?"

  More breathing. And then a click.

  14

  Goose bumps rose on my arms as I pulled the phone away from my ear and checked the Caller ID. Whoever had called had blocked the number.

  It had been years since I'd received a prank call. Was that what this was?

  Or was it related to what I had found on my porch the night before?

  My meditative mood shattered, I cut the scones and put them on a parchment-paper-lined baking sheet, then slid them into the oven and checked the locks on the doors again, then pushed through the door to the dining room, intending to head to the front door to make sure it was locked, too; I didn't usually go to such measures, but right now, I was being very careful.

  I was about to round the corner into the parlor when I heard voices.

  "I told you. We're fine."

  "Are you sure?" The first voice was low and male, the second female and anxious. "What if she told someone?"

  "Who would she tell? No one here knows us."

  "I don't mean here," the woman said. "I mean back home."

  "Who would she tell?" the man asked again. "We don't run in the same circles. We're only acquaintances; it's not like we were best friends, or like she had phone numbers or anything."

  "She might have called," the woman protested. "Looked up the numbers online."

  "The service here is so spotty, I don't see how she could. Besides, she only had what, a half hour? You worry too much."

  "If it got out, I don't know what I'd do. Oh, God. I knew this was a bad idea."

  "We're fine. No one will know."

  "I don't know. I shouldn't have agreed to this. I'm so stupid... this was such a bad idea."

  "Noelle..."

  "I need to be alone," she said. "I need to think."

  Footsteps sounded, and then came the squeak of a door opening. I retreated to the kitchen door, and was just about to slip through it when Bruce rounded the corner, looking angry and unhappy. His eyes narrowed when he saw me.

  "Oh, hi," I said. "Can I get you anything?"

  "How long have you been here?" he asked.

  "Been where?" I asked. "I've been in the kitchen making scones. They'll be out in a bit if you're hungry. I was just about to check to make sure the front door was locked."

  He stared at me, as if sizing me up.

  "Is something wrong?" I asked.

  "No," he said slowly. "It's
fine."

  "Good," I said, bustling past him. "Let me know if you need anything. And like I said, scones will be out in a bit."

  "I'm not hungry, but thanks," he said. "And don't lock the door yet. I'm going for a walk."

  "Sure," I said, oddly thankful that he'd be leaving the inn. There was something deeply unsettling about Bruce at the moment: agitated, brooding. Potentially violent?

  As he let himself out the front door, I headed to the front desk and pulled up the bookings screen, thinking of what he and Noelle had been talking about. What were they worried about someone—presumably Chelsea, based on Bruce's timing comment—seeing?

  I looked up the home addresses of Bruce and Noelle. Both were from a suburb a little bit north of Portland. Then I pulled up Chelsea's address.

  Same neighborhood.

  I glanced up to make sure I was alone and then pulled up Noelle's Facebook page. Her profile picture showed her with two black-haired children and a man I didn't recognize.

  A quick look at Bruce's profile confirmed what I suspected. Both Noelle and Bruce were married. Just not to each other.

  I closed the window and thought about Chelsea. She'd died a half hour after spotting Bruce and Noelle. Had one of them decided to get rid of her before she could break the news back home?

  The scones had just come out of the oven when John appeared at the kitchen door. "Everything here okay?" he asked first.

  "No more threats," I said. "Biscuit and Smudge are up in the bedroom. And no more murders, at least as far as I know."

  "Good," he said.

  "There was a weird phone call, though," I said as I transferred the scones from the pan to a cooling rack.

  "What kind of weird phone call?" he asked.

  As I laid another scone on the cooling rack, I told him about the breathing.

  "Did you get a number?"

  "Anonymous," I said. "I don't know if it has anything to do with the stuffed cat on the porch, but it was creepy."

  "It was," he said. "Maybe I need to spend more time in the inn with you until this gets figured out."

  "I'm sure I'll be fine," I said, transferring the last of the scones to the rack and then giving the glaze I'd made while they were baking a whisk. "Want one? It's an experimental recipe."

  "They smell amazing," he said. "How can I say no?"

  As I put a scone on a plate, adding a dollop of glaze as John poured himself a glass of milk, I relayed what I'd overheard between Bruce and Noelle... and what I'd found on Facebook.

  "And she died right after she spotted them," John said, echoing my thoughts from earlier. "This is amazing, by the way," he said, wiping a bit of glaze from his chin.

  "Good enough to enter in the contest?"

  "I'd give them a blue ribbon for sure. Don't let me keep you from continuing to experiment, though."

  "Well, at least one thing is going right."

  He swallowed another bite and said, "You really think Bruce and Noelle might have had something to do with Chelsea?"

  "Maybe it's far-fetched," I told him, "but I think it's worth thinking about. I knew she knew Chad, but I can't think of what would cause him to murder her. If anything, you'd think it would be the other way around; after all, he's the one with the silver spoon in his mouth."

  "He didn't stand to gain much from killing her," John agreed.

  "But what about Mac and Earl?" I asked.

  "I assume they were marooned on the island when she died," he said.

  "Which leaves us with a rather extensive suspect list.” I grimaced. "You don't think they'll go after Adam, do you?"

  "You're worried about that quote, aren't you?"

  "I talked with Gwen and tried to settle things down, but... I'm worried. Have you talked to the investigators at all?"

  "I told them about the stuffed animal, but I doubt they'll follow up on it. I know they talked with all the artists and the guests, but they haven't told me if they've got anything they consider a good lead. I'll tell them about Bruce and Noelle, though."

  "That'll make me popular," I said.

  "I won't mention that it came from you," he said.

  "Bruce knows I overheard them talking. I'm married to you. How hard do you think it'll be for them to figure it out?"

  "You do have a point."

  "On the other hand," I said as I took a corner of scone for myself, "the first priority is finding out what happened to poor Chelsea."

  "And making sure it doesn't happen again," John added in an ominous tone.

  Once the kitchen was cleaned up, I had a few hours before it was time to get dinner going, so I decided to head out to see if I could chat with Mac's sternman, Josie Barefoot. Charlene had told me she was living in a carriage house behind one of the old captain's houses close to the pier. The Boston family that owned the big house hadn't come up for the summer yet, but Josie was renting the carriage house from them and keeping an eye on the property for a discount.

  It was a beautiful day for a walk; the sun was out, and it was hard to imagine that anyone could harbor murderous impulses. Normally, I'd take the cliff path and enjoy the view of the water, but after finding Chelsea, I couldn't bring myself to walk that way. Besides, after the macabre deposit on my doorstep and the anonymous phone call, I was still on guard. Despite the sweet smell of balsam fir tinged with salt air, every time a breeze rustled the grass along the road, I found myself glancing over my shoulder. I was definitely jumpy.

  I'd just crested the hill when I ran into Lorraine Lockhart. "Natalie!" she called, shading her eyes and waving. "I was hoping I might run into you."

  "What's up?"

  "Tom wants to talk to John," she said. "I don't know if you've heard, but someone's been messing with the boats down at the co-op."

  "I did hear," I said. "Any luck finding them all?"

  "All but Adam's," she said.

  "How bad's the damage?"

  "A few are pretty banged up, but miraculously, none of them have sunk. Presuming we find the Carpe Diem," she said, referring to Adam's boat.

  "Does Tom want John to look into it?"

  She nodded. "Tempers have been pretty high here lately, as I'm sure you know. Tom's hoping we can take care of things among ourselves."

  "I get that," I said. "But things seem to be escalating."

  "Are you talking about that young woman? This has nothing to do with her. I heard she fell and hit her head."

  "Maybe," I said. "But if she didn't, we may have a murderer running loose on the island. If that's the case, it might not be so bad to get the Marine Patrol on board."

  She sucked in her breath. "If it comes to it, I guess... but let's see what we can do first."

  "Got it," I said. "I'll tell John when I see him."

  "Thanks," she said.

  "Say hi to the kids for me!" I told her as she moved on.

  "I will!" she called, but she didn't sound chirpy.

  Why was Tom so adamant about not calling in the Marine Patrol? I wondered.

  Did he have something to hide?

  I was still ruminating when I got to the tall yellow house at the top of the hill by the pier. It had a full view of the small harbor, and I could almost imagine the former captain's wife at the top window, scanning the water for the return of her husband's vessel.

  Although the curtains of the yellow house were all closed, music with a heavy beat was emanating from the small house behind it. I had to knock twice before the volume dropped; a moment later, the door opened, and I was facing a surprised-looking young woman in cutoff shorts and a faded University of Maine sweatshirt. Her hair was cut short and shaved on the sides; the style accentuated her high cheekbones and angular jaw.

  "Hey," she said. "Are you looking for the Wakefields? They're not here for another week."

  "No," I said. "I think I'm looking for you. You're Josie, right?" I stuck out a hand. "I'm Natalie. I own the Gray Whale Inn."

  "Right," she said, shaking my hand with a firm grip but looking perplexed.
"But why are you looking for me?"

  "You're Mac Penney's sternman, right?"

  "I am," she said, looking wary. "Why?"

  "I was hoping you could tell me a little about Mac," I said.

  "I'm not so sure I should talk about my employer," she told me. Her eyes were steady on mine, but wary. "I need the job."

  "Something happened to a young woman by the inn," I said. "She was supposed to go out on Mac's boat. I'm not trying to go after your employer; I'm just trying to find out what happened.” I paused; she made no move to open the door wider. "A young woman died," I said. "I want to make sure that doesn't happen again."

  She scanned the area behind me. "No one knows you're here?"

  "No one," I confirmed. "And I won't say anything to anyone."

  She stood still for a moment, then appeared to make a decision. "Come in fast," she said, stepping back. "Before someone sees you."

  15

  I hurried through the door and she closed it behind her, peeking through the windows at the top of the door. "I should know better, really. There aren't any secrets on this island. And I need this job."

  "I appreciate it," I said.

  "I don't know if I'll be any help, but I'll do what I can," she said. "Can I get you a drink? Tea, water, coffee? I'm on short rations at the moment, I'm afraid; I'm trying to save for school."

  "Just water would be great," I said.

  "Go ahead, sit down," she told me, pointing to the two wooden chairs flanking a small Formica table. As I sat down, I glanced around the house. A small single bed, neatly made with what looked like a handmade quilt, stood in one corner under a window, with a crate functioning as a nightstand beside it. A slightly saggy beige couch was pushed up against the wall perpendicular to the bed; it faced a scarred wood dresser with a small, tube-style TV on top of it. The kitchen, which was on the wall next to the front door, consisted of a sink, two burners, a toaster oven, a dorm-size fridge, a microwave, and the table I was sitting at. The floor was scarred stained wood, with red rag rugs under the kitchen table and next to the bed. A door at the far end led, presumably, to a bathroom. It was small, but clean and tidy, with lots of windows and good light.