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“In a minute. First you can help me get my things out of the car.” She started for the side entry and glanced back at him. “Then we’ll be even.”
It was as much of an admission as he was going to get that she was the one who’d gone through his room last night. He walked behind her out to the side porch and down the stone walk to her VW Beetle, its back stuffed with boxes, bags and a heavy suitcase that had to be forty years old.
Zoe nodded at two knitting needles and a mass of milky-gray yarn spilling out of one of the bags. “That’s my scarf. I started with a hundred stitches and now I have seventy-seven. What do you suppose happened to the other twenty-three?”
“You dropped them.”
“Dropped them where?”
There was a glint of humor in her eyes—more gray in the late morning sun than blue—as she opened the driver’s door. “Bruce says you’re a closet eccentric,” J.B. said.
“He said that about Aunt Olivia, too. Bruce is an authority on two subjects: lobstering and the Maine coast. Anything he says on any other subject is not to be trusted.”
J.B. was still confident the flax seed and the soy powder were hers. “He says you refused to carry a weapon on duty and encouraged a Texas Ranger to interfere in the investigation into the Connecticut governor’s death.”
“I didn’t encourage him—I just didn’t stop him. And I didn’t refuse to carry a weapon—I just didn’t.” She lifted out a backpack and hoisted it onto her shoulder. “Any other questions?”
“About a million, but I’ll resist.”
She said nothing and grabbed a plastic bag overflowing with books, the top one a primer on domestic goats. J.B. watched her turn up the walk to the side door. He could almost see the demons swooping around her, haunting her, toying with her as she tried to tell herself she had to get used to the idea that she might never know who killed her father—that she might never know if telling her aunt about his murder had somehow contributed to her death.
She stopped on the side porch and turned back to him. “How much did you read of what I wrote?”
“None of it. You have lousy handwriting, Detective West.”
“That’s very decent of you,” she said quietly, unexpectedly. “Thank you.”
But he could see she knew he’d lied. He felt like a heel. She’d only picked through his underwear and his reading material, none of which he’d written himself.
After they got the last of her stuff out of her car, J.B. made his bed, packed, cleaned his bathroom and wiped down the kitchen counter and sink where he’d made tea. Then he offered to take Zoe West to lunch at her sister’s café.
To his surprise, she accepted.
* * *
Betsy O’Keefe stretched out on a cushioned lounge chair on the afterdeck of Luke Castellane’s yacht and listened to the seabirds. A lifelong resident of Goose Harbor, she still barely knew a seagull from a duck. Just wasn’t interested. She closed her eyes and welcomed the ruffle of a breeze over her. It had warmed up nicely. Almost seventy degrees. Luke had on a toasty warm-up suit, but Betsy, in elastic-waist yellow jeans and an oversize white shirt, wished she’d put on shorts that morning.
Luke hissed impatiently as he read a health article at the nearby table. He was always reading health articles. After Olivia died, he’d invited Betsy over to check his blood pressure three times a day for a week. He was worried the stress of Patrick West’s murder and all the publicity of Olivia’s death would push him into a stroke. He was in his early fifties, sandy-haired and good-looking, if a little too whip-thin from his diet and exercise regimen. Healthy as a horse. She’d had her eye on him even before that terrible twenty-four hours last fall, but even she was surprised when he took to her.
She could do worse than Luke Castellane.
His cell phone rang. He sighed—if anything did him in, it would be his natural impatience—and answered it. “Yes, what is it?” He listened a moment. “I can’t talk right now. Do nothing without my permission. Is that understood?”
He didn’t give whoever was on the other end a chance to respond before he disconnected.
“Who was that?” Betsy asked mildly.
“What? No one. A money matter. Go back to sleep.”
“I wasn’t sleeping.”
He didn’t reply. Olivia West had always had a soft spot for Luke. She told Betsy it was because she saw what his parents did to him. His oddities, she believed, were a direct result of their psychological abuse and neglect, and that at heart, Luke was a good man who wanted to be able to connect with other people and have healthy relationships but didn’t know how.
Olivia had left Betsy a generous sum that she’d immediately put away as her nest egg for the future. She didn’t know how long Luke would have her but didn’t delude herself into thinking it would be forever.
She swung her feet onto the deck and sat up. “I’m going for a walk. Care to join me?”
He shook his head.
“I wonder if there’s any news on who broke into Christina’s yesterday. I’m so glad she and Kyle weren’t there. He’s working like a demon on his Olivia West documentary, but I understand his materials are all at his apartment above the café, so it wasn’t in any danger.”
“No one’s interested in his documentary.”
Betsy stood up. “I suppose not. I was thinking more of vandalism or an accident.”
Stick Monroe, one of Luke’s few longtime friends, had stopped by that morning and mentioned Zoe was back. Luke seemed uninterested, but Betsy felt a stab of unpleasant anticipation, not because she didn’t like Zoe. Because they shared a secret.
I know who killed Patrick....
Poor old Olivia. To die thinking she knew the identity of her nephew’s murderer. It was ridiculous, of course, and Betsy agreed with Zoe there was no point mentioning it to anyone. Olivia had been so befuddled, and now she was dead.
Betsy told Luke goodbye and walked out onto the yacht club dock. In a week or so he’d be sailing for Florida, with various stops on the way. She thought she was invited, but she wouldn’t count on it until they were actually en route—for all she knew, Luke would ask her to stay behind in Goose Harbor.
As she walked toward the town docks, she fantasized that Luke was watching her and thinking sexy thoughts about her. Instead he was probably counting his daily fat grams or fretting about his blood pressure. She tried not to delude herself into thinking she really mattered to Luke. Only Luke mattered to Luke.
She had a sudden urge for a piece of wild blueberry pie. Christina West made the best in southern Maine. How lucky her café wasn’t a hundred yards off. Luke had commented not long ago that he hadn’t had blueberry pie in fifteen years.
His loss, Betsy thought, deciding she wouldn’t think about sugar, fat, refined flour, trans-fatty acids or calories at least for the next hour. Wild blueberries were a good source of antioxidants, but she wouldn’t even think about that. She’d just eat her pie and enjoy herself.
Six (#ulink_62173a1a-e31c-545e-ad56-83067fb5c33f)
Luke Castellane was paying him to keep an eye on Special Agent McGrath and Zoe West, but Teddy thought he might have to go over to Luke’s fancy yacht and beat the shit out of him. Arrogant, rude bastard. Hanging up on him. Teddy just wanted him to know that the FBI agent and Zoe West were having lunch at Christina’s Café. He was reporting back like he said he would. Wasn’t that why the asshole was paying him?
The FBI agent appeared out of nowhere and leaned in Teddy’s open truck window. Teddy didn’t rattle. He had a black tarp over his arsenal in back, an MP5 handy if he needed it. “Yeah? What do you want?”
“I thought you were having a heart attack. You’re okay?”
“Yeah, fine.”
“My mistake. Local?”
“Look, I’m in a hurry. I don’t have time for a chat.” Teddy didn’t bother keeping the sarcasm out of his tone, but he decided he didn’t want McGrath memorizing his license plate or lifting his prints off a coffee cup. He made himself ease off. “Thanks for checking up on me. Nice to know if I do have a heart attack, there are people around who’ll do something.”
“Sure. No problem.”
Teddy started the engine, and the FBI agent stepped back, still with his eyes narrowed and his cop look. Teddy wondered what he’d done to attract the guy’s attention. Maybe he could smell ex-cons and illegal weapons. “Heart attack, my ass.”
He didn’t know what he was supposed to do now. Wait for Luke to call with instructions, he guessed. He headed back through the village with its cute shops and pretty houses and took a side road down along the water just south of the harbor, veering off onto a dirt road until he came to Bruce Young’s lobster pound. The place was starting to pick up with lobster boats pulling in to turn in their catches. The tide was out. Teddy couldn’t stand the smell.
The driveway to the cottage he was renting from Bruce split off from the dirt road. Teddy shook his head when he saw its sagging roof and half-rotted back steps. Bruce was probably waiting for it to fall down so he could put up something new when he got the money together. He’d warned Teddy the place was a dump.
With a little luck, push would finally come to shove, and before he had to spend another hellish winter here, he’d be in good shape and moving on from Gooseshit Harbor, Maine.
* * *
“I thought you were on vacation.”
J.B. heard the slight surprise in Sally Meintz’s voice. He was in his Jeep on his cell phone. Sally was at her desk at FBI headquarters. Her surprise was very slight. There was a note of sarcasm in her voice, too. Not much got to her anymore. She was one of the thousands of support staff that kept the FBI and the rest of the federal government running. She was sixty, the mother of four, the wife of a retired marine officer and a by-the-book type. She didn’t like doing favors on the sly. But she would if she got talked into it, and she wasn’t a tattletale.
“I am on vacation. I just want you to run a plate for me.”
“State?”
“Maine.”
“Right. You’re there on vacation.” She’d let a little more sarcasm slip into her tone. “Give me the number.”
He gave her the license plate number of the rusting truck whose driver J.B. had known wasn’t having a heart attack. He’d spotted the truck last night outside Christina West’s house and then again this morning passing Olivia West’s house, not long after Zoe had turned up the driveway. The third strike was outside Christina’s Café at lunch.
“What do I get for doing you a favor?” Sally asked.
“My undying respect and affection.”
“I already have that. You coming back to Washington for good after this vacation of yours?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“They want to keep you from going off the deep end. God knows why. I’d let you jump.”
She disconnected. J.B. tossed his cell phone onto the seat next to him. Maybe it was a stretch to call Sally Meintz a friend. He climbed back out of his Jeep and stood in the sunlight. He could see his rented lobster boat bobbing in the water. At least no one had set fire to it overnight.
Zoe was still at the small table overlooking the water in her sister’s café, working on a massive piece of chocolate cream pie. J.B. had had a bowl of haddock chowder with her and watched the reactions of the people who knew her when they realized she was back in town. Alert, awkward, even nervous—or maybe it was seeing her with him. People probably wouldn’t mind if they both went away.
He spotted Bruce Young on the docks and walked down to join him. He had on his Carhartt and a black turtleneck as he untied his lobster boat, a fairly new vessel with all the bells and whistles—radar, GPS, a good radio, plastic-coated wire traps, lighter in weight than the old wooden traps. The knowledge and instincts of guys like Bruce still mattered, but maybe not as much as they used to.
“Been out today?” Bruce asked, not looking up from his work.
“Not yet.”
“Heard you had lunch with Zoe.”
“Fish chowder. She put butter in hers.”
“Best way to eat it. A pat of butter, a little pepper. People think she’s here to kick your ass and teach you not to toy with the good people of Goose Harbor.”
J.B. smiled. “Can she play darts?”
“Zoe? No way. She can shoot, though.”
“I camped out at her aunt’s house last night.”
Bruce grinned at him. “She catch you?”
“In the attic.”
“Good thing she doesn’t go armed anymore. What’d you want with Teddy?”
J.B. frowned. “Who?”
“Teddy Shelton. The guy in the truck. You were just talking to him—”
“Oh, him. I thought he was having a heart attack. You know him?”
Bruce lifted a thick rope into his callused hand. “I’m renting him a cottage down by the lobster pound. He does odd jobs around town.”
“He’s not from Goose Harbor?”
“I don’t know where he’s from. He showed up last summer. He keeps to himself. He tried working at the pound, but he didn’t like it.” Bruce shook his head. “Hates the smell of the ocean.”
“Why not move on?”
“Don’t know. Teddy’s not your big talker.” Bruce tossed the rope into his boat and climbed aboard. “What’d Zoe do when she found you in the attic?”
“Came after me with a drapery rod.”
“You backed down?”
“Amen.”
“Yeah. You wouldn’t want to lose a fight with a fired cop over a drapery rod.”
Words to live by. J.B. watched Bruce’s boat ease slowly out of the busy dock area and head south toward his lobster pound for another few hours’ work.
When Sally Meintz rang him back, J.B. didn’t tell her he already knew Teddy Shelton’s name. She said, “The plates are registered to a Teddy Shelton in Goose Harbor, Maine. Guess what else?” She paused, waiting for an answer.
J.B. sighed. “What else, Sally?”
“I did a little more checking while I was at it. He’s an ex-con. Served seven years in federal prison after he was convicted on charges of transfering and possessing semiautomatic assault weapons. ATF nailed him.”
“When did he get out?”
“Last July.”
He must have come straight to Goose Harbor. Three months later Patrick West was murdered. “Find out what you can about his case, okay? Thanks, Sally.”
“I like it when you say thank-you. It gives me hope for the rest of the world. What do I get for my trouble?”
“A cop-killer, maybe.”
