Berried to the Hilt

About the Author

Although she currently lives in Texas with her husband and two children, Agatha-nominated author Karen MacInerney was born and bred in the Northeast, and she escapes there as often as possible. When she isn’t in Maine eating lobster, she spends her time in Austin with her cookbooks, her family, her computer, and the local walking trail (not necessarily in that order).

In addition to writing the Gray Whale Inn mysteries, Karen is the author of the Tales of an Urban Werewolf series. You can visit her online at www.karenmacinerney.com.

Berried to the Hilt: A Gray Whale Inn Mystery
© 2010 by Karen MacInerney.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

First e-book edition © 2010

E-book ISBN: 9780738727745

Book design by Donna Burch

Cover design by Ellen Dahl

Cover illustration © 2010 Bob Dombrowski/The July Group

Editing by Connie Hill

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Acknowledgments

Thank yous, as always, go first to my family—Eric, Abby, and Ian—for all their love and support; also to Dave and Carol Swartz, and Ed and Dorothy MacInerney. I am so lucky to have my extended family so close! Thanks also to Bethann and Beau Eccles, my adopted family; my wonderful nieces and nephews on both sides; to my sister, Lisa, and her family; and to my fabulous grandmother, Marian Quinton (and Nora Bestwick).

Many thanks to my agent Jessica Faust, who is there for me at every plot turn. I cannot say enough good things about the fabulous Midnight Ink team—particularly Terri Bischoff, whose support, (and willingness to wait a few months when things got hectic) has been amazing. Thanks also to Connie Hill, editor extraordinaire, for finding my mistakes and making me look good, and Ellen Dahl, whose cover concepts rock. I also want to give a shout-out to Thea Eaton, here in Austin, for all of her help with the web page.

And a big thank you to all those supportive friends out there – particularly Dana Lehman, J. Jaye Smith, Jessica Park, Austin Mystery Writers, and all my friends at the Westbank Library and my local coffee shop and bookstore. Thanks also to all of the wonderful readers who take the time to tell me you enjoyed the books; I couldn’t do it without you!

Dedicated with love to the memory of
Merrie Leigh Orton MacInerney

“What were you thinking?”

It was a question I had often asked myself over the last few years, ever since I quit my job, sold my house, and plunked down my life savings on the gray-shingled inn on Cranberry Island, Maine. As gorgeous as the locale was—after more than a decade in sun-baked Texas, I was still awed by the beauty of the mountains across the water, their granite shoulders now swathed in the brilliant golds and russets of early October—starting a bed and breakfast had been fraught with challenges.

But Charlene wasn’t referring to my decision to gamble my life savings on a house on an island. Nor was she talking about my recent transition from bed-and-breakfast to full-service inn, which, even with help, was turning out to be a more-than-f-time job.

“I don’t know,” I said, switching the phone to the other ear and stepping out of my steamy kitchen onto the back porch. A welcome gust of cool fall air swept over me, and I took a deep breath of it before continuing. “I guess it sounded like a good idea at the time.”

A month ago, Tom Lockhart, the Cranberry Island selectman and head of the lobster co-op, had asked me to judge the annual cranberry bake-off. Flattered to be included, I had said yes, thinking it was a wonderful way to become more involved with the community.

I was right about the involvement in the community. But I got the “wonderful” part all wrong.

“Natalie, you’re doomed,” Charlene said. “It doesn’t matter who you give the prizes to; everyone else will accuse you of playing favorites. Ten years from now, they still won’t have forgiven you.”

“But the entries are anonymous!” I protested. “I won’t know whose is whose!”

“We live on an island of under a hundred people, Natalie. Do you really think you won’t recognize Claudette’s sugarless cranberry pie?”

I puckered involuntarily at the mention of the infamous pie, realizing that Charlene was right as usual. As Cranberry Island’s postmistress and general store owner, she was the arbiter of all things island. She and I had hit it off almost immediately, and now I couldn’t imagine life without my impeccably dressed, bubbly friend.

“So what do I do?”

“I don’t know. Maybe you could ask John to drop something on your head—something heavy enough to put you in the hospital for a few days. It might be easier.”

Despite my dire situation, I couldn’t help feeling a little tingle at the mention of my neighbor—and now fiancé—John. I held up my left hand; the sapphire stone of the engagement ring sparkled in the light. We hadn’t set a date for the wedding yet—I’d been too busy with the transition to lunch and dinner service to do much other than sleep—but we were thinking maybe early spring, before the tourist season began. “I can’t go into the hospital,” I said. “I’ve got a business to run.”

“Then we’ll have to come up with a strategy,” she said.

“I’ve got a novel idea. How about I taste all the dishes and give the best one the award?” I asked.

“You’re so naïve,” she said. “I’ll think about it and get back to you. I’ve got to get down to the dock for a delivery. Talk to you later!”

And then she was gone.

I hung up the phone and shaded my eyes, squinting into the distance. Sure enough, the
Island Princess
was puttering over from the mainland, leaving a pearly wake in the dark blue water as it hauled tourists, groceries, and mail to the island. Unless you had a boat, the only way on and off Cranberry Island was the mail boat, which made stops only a couple of times a day. Today’s load would not include a large grocery order for me, since my four guests would be departing the next day, leaving only one room booked for the weekend. The mortgage, unfortunately, didn’t care how many rooms were occupied; it still needed to be paid.

And then there was the bake-off to worry about.

I turned reluctantly from the sweeping view, my eyes lingering only briefly on John’s carriage house, which was just down the hill from the inn. I knew he had gone to Mount Desert Island in his skiff,
Mooncatcher
, to stock up on paints for the toy boats he sold at Island Artists. Like many on the island, he was a jack-of-all-trades: island deputy, artist, craftsman, and now part-time chef at the inn. The barn next to the small house functioned as his workshop, and would continue to—but to increase our income we had talked about renting out the carriage house once we were married.
Married
. Just the word was enough to send tingles through me.

The buzzer sounded as I opened the oven door, releasing the warm, yeasty scent of fresh rolls. Lunch was lobster salad, which I’d prepared a half hour ago and was already in the fridge, along with rolls, a lightly dressed green salad, and a cookie. I pulled the tray of golden cloverleaf rolls from the oven and put them on a rack to cool, then grabbed the flour and sugar from the pantry and set to work making my favorite gingersnap recipe. The recipe for the gingery cookies was a gift from an old friend, and a perfect accompaniment to the crisp fall air. The afternoon sun slanted through the old mullioned windows, making the yellow walls glow, and the antique pine floors creaked under my feet as I creamed the butter and sugar, then cracked an egg into the bowl. A few minutes later, as I scooped the stiff dough into balls and rolled them in sugar, I found myself smiling with contentment. So what if I didn’t have any bookings for the next few weeks? So what if I was about to commit social suicide at the bake-off?

Maybe I’d run a fall special, I thought, rolling another round ball in the sugar. I could e-mail my former guests and advertise a special weekend getaway. Even if I got only one or two takers, it would still be better than an empty inn.

As the smell of fresh-baked rolls mingled with the smell of ginger from the cookies I’d slid into the oven, I glanced out the window at the dark green pines at the end of the driveway. The copper-tinged blueberry bushes made a gorgeous autumnal carpet at their feet, and a white gull hovered overhead. As mercurial as the business of owning an inn was, I couldn’t think of anywhere I’d rather be.

_____

I had just finished cleaning up from lunch when John burst through the kitchen door, adding his familiar woodsy scent to the already intoxicating aroma. His sandy hair was windblown, his tanned face ruddy. Biscuit, my well-fed ginger tabby, glanced up from her perch on the radiator, then settled back down. I, on the other hand, felt my heart pick up its pace a bit.

“Did you get everything you needed?” I asked as he came up and wrapped his arms around me, kissing the top of my head.

“They were out of the green paint until next week,” he said. “But I heard some exciting news in Northeast Harbor,” he said.

“They’ve canceled the bake-off?” I asked. I was still shaking off the dream I’d had the night before—the one that had half the women in the island chasing after me with cranberry-stained butter knives. I’d just locked myself into the town library when the alarm went off, allowing me to escape.

“You wish,” he said, laughing. “Adam got a diver friend of his to clear up some tangled pots out by Deadman’s Shoal.” Adam Thrackton was a lobsterman—and also the beau of my niece, Gwen, who helped me manage the inn.

“I thought they just cut the lines and had done with them,” I said.

“Usually they do, but this time there were about a dozen of them tangled up, and Adam didn’t want to lose them. Anyway, you’ll never guess what they found.”

“Please tell me it’s not a body,” I said, feeling my stomach turn over. We’d had more than enough of those on the island recently; I wasn’t sure I could handle another.

“A sunken ship,” he said, his green eyes gleaming.

I shivered, thinking of the boats that occasionally disappeared in winter’s brutal storms. “That’s almost as bad. How recent?”

“That’s the thing,” he said. “They think it’s one of the old wooden sailing ships, from a couple hundred years ago. Eleazer thinks it might even be the
Black Marguerite
.”

Eleazer, the island’s shipwright—and my dear friend—was something of an expert on sailing ships.

“What’s the
Black Marguerite
?” I asked.

“The
Black Marguerite
belonged to Davey Blue, the pirate who used to operate off this part of the coast; he was supposedly in love with a woman who lived in the area. He and the
Marguerite
vanished sometime during the eighteenth century.”

“There were people living here then?” I asked.

“Not many, but some. Some people say Smuggler’s Cove was Davey Blue’s hideout,” John said. He was referring to a cove just a little way down the coast from the inn. It had a treacherous entry that was completely hidden at high tide.

“Why not call it Pirate’s Cove?” I asked.

“Sounds like a mini golf course.”

I laughed. “So, why do they think it might have been his ship? I’ve never heard of pirates prowling the Maine coast.”

“He didn’t prowl here, but he came from here, and returned often. He was supposed to be shipping out to the Caribbean, but he never made it, apparently. The legend is that it went down in a storm almost as soon as it shipped out, but it’s never been found.”

John gave me another squeeze and released me. “Smells like gingersnaps in here.” The gingersnap recipe I’d gotten from my old friend Rhonda Shield, who worked at my favorite Austin library and was an amazing cook, was one of John’s favorites. I called the cookies “Me-Maw’s Gingersnaps,’” after Rhonda’s grandmother, who passed the recipe down to her. Just the smell of them in the kitchen made me think fondly of Rhonda’s ready smile. Plus, they had an autumn tang that went well with the weather. “Mind if I sample a few?” he asked.

“Go ahead,” I said. He walked over and plucked three warm cookies from the cooling rack, making appreciative noises as he bit into the first one. Like my niece, Gwen, he could plow through half a jar and not gain an ounce. “How can they tell whether it’s the
Black Marguerite
?” I asked as he groaned in ecstasy.

When he’d finished the cookie, he licked the crumbs from his fingers, then answered my question. “I don’t know. Apparently they’re calling in a bunch of experts to see what they can find.” He opened his mouth to insert a second cookie, then paused. “You know, we’ve got a few mooring lines off the inn’s dock. If we moved the skiffs over, they could stay here and tie up right outside. Business is kind of slow right now.”

“As in dead,” I said. I had a few rooms occupied now, but with the exception of one booking—a woman named Cherry Price, who was arriving from New York that afternoon—the next two months were not looking good.

“And it would help fund the wedding,” John added. He had barely finished his sentence when there was a knock at the kitchen door. Adam stood on the back porch, an expectant smile on his face.

“Hi, Natalie,” he said when I opened the door and invited him inside. It was obvious why Gwen was taken with Adam—with a shock of dark hair that contrasted with his light eyes, he was a handsome man, and he was gifted with an outgoing personality and a great sense of humor that made him excellent company. In jeans and a heavy wool sweater, he looked more like the college kid he used to be than the lobsterman he now was. The two were a good match, I thought, with a twinge of misgiving. What would happen if Gwen went back to UCLA? Would the couple survive?

“Is Gwen ready to go?” Adam asked.

“I thought she was going to do some painting this afternoon!”

“She is,” he said, and winked. “Scenes at sea.”

I laughed. “John tells me you’ve had some excitement the last few days. I just found out about it, but evidently all the island’s abuzz with your discovery!” Except, I realized, Charlene. Maybe I’d get to fill
her
in on the local gossip, for the first—and probably the last—time.

“It was pretty amazing,” he said. “I was with Evan Sorenson—he just got back into town a few weeks ago, and is thinking of getting into lobstering.” Evan, who was selectwoman Ingrid Sorenson’s son, was back from a stint in rehab, I knew. I was glad to hear he was moving forward—away from the drug addiction that had almost destroyed his life. “Ingrid asked me to hire him for a few weeks. He was out with me—he was helping with the winch. Anyway, we were having trouble pulling up one of the traps—I thought we were going to have to cut the line—when finally it comes up with this huge timber attached to it.”