Shadow came up, drawn by all the commotion in the doorway. His eyes went wide and his ears perked up when he saw Jane. He came trotting over immediately. But about a foot from their shins, he stopped, wrinkling his nose. Then he stalked away ahead of them.
Must be the smell of Ukrainian mobster on us,
Sunny thought.
Well, the good news is that if any of them comes ringing the bell, I’ll have Shadow sniff under the door and warn me.
The three of them ate in the kitchen, Mike doing his best to play the genial host while shooting sidewise glances at Jane and then at Sunny.
He’s been rooting for me to kick her butt when it comes to Will,
she realized,
and he can’t understand why I’ve invited her home.
But in between her dad’s nervous glances, Sunny was shooting him “knock it off” looks.
The three of us must look like a nervous tic convention.
The wry thought made Sunny chuckle, earning her another laser-glare of death from her dad.
“This must be a very
serious
time for you,” Mike said to Jane, emphasizing the word “serious” with an exasperated look at Sunny. “Is there going to be a funeral?”
“That’s an interesting question,” Jane said, sipping at her glass of diet soda as if she wished it were something much stronger. “The chief medical examiner hasn’t yet released Martin’s body. And when I got in touch with them, I found out that someone else had already been making inquiries.”
“Who?” Sunny and Mike said together.
“Dawn Featherstone.” Jane shook her head. “It seems she wanted to save him from my clutches. As if I would want Martin back.”
“Well, this sounds kind of awkward,” Sunny said.
“No, we found a way to resolve it,” Jane told her. “Martin always wanted to be cremated.”
Might give him a taste of what he’s in for,
the irreverent voice in Sunny’s head suggested.
“So when all that is taken care of, Dawn will organize a memorial service, and I’ll pay for it.”
Mike looked scandalized. Cremation was definitely not the Kittery Harbor way. “No funeral? No family?”
“Martin’s parents both passed away before I even knew him,” Jane explained. “My dad is no longer with us either, and my mother is in Arizona. She says the heat makes up for all the Maine winters she lived through. Also, although she’s never said it . . . she never liked Martin. Guess Mom is a better judge of character than I am. And neither of us have any siblings. So I figured I’d let Dawn make whatever arrangements she wants in Portsmouth. That was where Martin went off to have his new life. Let him stay there.”
“Uh-huh,” Mike said, looking a bit thoughtful—and relieved.
So it won’t be Kittery Harbor business after all,
Sunny thought.
Well, Martin was a stranger in town. It shouldn’t be that big a deal.
After that, the conversation settled down a bit. Mike and Jane talked a little politics. Before the Leisters moved away, Jane’s father had been an alderman. No mention was made of the police investigation . . . or of Will Price.
“Well, that really hit the spot,” Jane said as she dug into the last of the broccoli wedges. “I don’t like the reheated taste of pizza by the slice. And getting a whole pie for one person, that’s just wasteful.”
Mike nodded with approval. That was good Kittery Harbor thinking.
“You could always freeze it,” Sunny offered. Back in her New York days, the freezer section of her refrigerator often held relics of several pizza binges.
Mike and Jane both shook their heads. “It never tastes the same.”
When they were done, Jane helped with the dishes and thanked Mike for a pleasant evening. Beaming contentedly, he headed off to the living room to catch up with his shows.
Jane took Sunny by the arm. “Oh my goodness,” she said. “Your car is still downtown. I think it’s only fair that I give you a lift to pick it up.”
They said good night to Mike, pulled on their coats, and went out into the chilly night to Jane’s BMW. As she drove, she said, “Thanks, Sunny. That was worth the price of the pizza. After our little adventure, I needed to be around normal people.”
“And here I stuck you with my dad,” Sunny joked.
Jane laughed. “Oh, it took him a little while to settle down, but then he was a lot of fun.” She glanced over at Sunny. “You’re lucky to have him around.”
“He’s lucky to be around.” Sunny took a deep breath. “At least when he got the chest pains, he had the good sense to call for help immediately instead of trying to tough it out.” She shook her head. “Even so, he was awfully sick—awfully weak.”
“I think you did the right thing, coming up to take care of him.” Jane was silent for a moment as she negotiated a hill. “Oh, I know it screwed up your job. But it’s good that the two of you are together. My dad was gone too quickly. I barely got to Arizona in time to say good-bye.”
“I didn’t know that,” Sunny said.
“Well, who would I tell?” Jane burst out. “That’s why I say it’s good to have your dad underfoot. Someone you can shoot the breeze with, someone with roots around here. Look, I know you and I have had kind of a rocky start. But the two of us—and Will—we have a different perspective from the folks who’ve spent their lives here and only know how the world looks from Kittery Harbor. Like it or not, we’re sort of outsiders in our own hometown. I appreciate that you looked out for me tonight.”
“Well, I had to, after those guys just about kidnapped us,” Sunny said modestly.
“Yeah, I just about ruined a good pair of pants when you all but accused Dani of murder.” Jane laughed, but her voice was a bit shaky again. “I know how to handle animals so they won’t bite me. But that—you’ve got guts, Sunny.”
“More like reporter’s instincts,” Sunny said.
And a whole lot of luck,
she added silently.
By then, they had reached the silent strip of New Store shop fronts, all of them dark by this time of night. Jane pulled up behind Sunny’s Wrangler and waited until she was in the driver’s seat, then waved good-bye and took off. Alone.
Sunny drove back toward home, her ornery dad, and even ornerier cat.
Which reminds me,
she thought.
Got to remember to take a shower tonight
.
I want to wash off whatever is repulsing Shadow.
*
It was nice
to enjoy a lazy Saturday morning. Sunny was able to sleep late—well, late-ish. She awoke to find Shadow with his forefeet on her pillow, standing nose to nose with her.
“All right, all right, I’ll take care of the food situation,” she muttered, wrestling her way out of the covers. “Sheesh.”
With nothing pressing, Sunny was able to enjoy a leisurely breakfast, listen to some oddball radio shows, chat with her dad, and make a list for an afternoon food-shopping expedition.
She planned to call Will, but waited till after one o’clock. Will’s tour on the swing shift ended this morning, and she wanted to give him some time to sleep before pestering him. She timed it right. He was yawning as he spoke to her on the phone, but conscious.
“Have you had breakfast yet?” she asked. “What do you say to swinging by the waffle house?”
The restaurant was a sort of tourist trap aimed at the outlet-land shoppers, but they made waffles all day, and the maple syrup was real.
“Sounds good,” Will said. “Shall I swing by to pick you up, or do you want to meet me there?”
“Meet, I think,” she replied. “I’ve got to go shopping afterward.”
They set a time that would allow them both to wash up and get dressed. Sunny whistled as she drove until she was about halfway to the restaurant. Then she began to plot what she was going to tell Will.
*
He sat staring
at her, a plate piled with waffles sitting disregarded in front of him. “A cigarette?” he said. “Really?”
“It’s what I found,” she told him.
“I guess I haven’t read your monograph on the subject, Sherlock.” He gave her a skeptical look as he finally tucked into his meal.
“I didn’t need to fool with cigarette ashes, there was a name on the side—in foreign letters,” she told him. “But I recognized the type. It’s called a
papirosa
. I saw people smoking them in a café in Brooklyn that a friend took me to—Russian mafia types.”
Will choked so badly, maple syrup practically came out his nose. Sunny gave him her napkin to help clean up. “You’re saying Martin Rigsdale was involved with Russian gangsters?”
She shook her head, remembering her promise to Jane about soft-pedaling the Ukrainian connection. “I’m saying that I found a store in Portsmouth that sells the same brand, and I found a guy who buys them by the carton.” The next part was going to be the tricky one. “I overheard the guy talking on his cell phone. It seems his name is Olek, and he was talking to someone called Dani.”
“You just happened to be eavesdropping on a guy in the Russian mob?” Will sighed and then gave her a stern look. “I don’t suppose you thought for a moment that might possibly be dangerous?”
Well, I did, just a little too late,
Sunny had to admit. But she kept those words to herself. Instead, she asked, “Have you heard about any guys like that in Portsmouth?”
“Not while I was on the force there, no,” Will replied. “When I was way up north with the troopers, though, we dealt with some biker gangs with organized crime connections.”
“Can you ask any of your friends about those guys?”
He frowned. “It’s not going to be easy. They were willing to pass on a little information to help out when the crime was on this side of the river. But this is a murder in their melon patch. People have to know that Trumbull is questioning me. It’s like I’m radioactive—contact with me may be fatal to their careers.”
Will sat silent for a moment, thinking. “But if they’re in Portsmouth, these guys may be active on this side of the river, too. Maybe if I put it that way . . .” He looked down at his rapidly cooling stack of waffles. “Boy, Sunny, you really know how to ruin a guy’s breakfast.”
“Hey, I’m sorry,”
Sunny said to Will. “Does this mean you’re going to talk to Trumbull?”
“How can I?” Will stabbed his fork into the pile of waffles on his plate. “It’s a pretty thin connection to begin with, and you’ve fooled around with the evidence. Trumbull might even think you planted that cigarette to distract attention from Jane.”
“I wouldn’t do that!” Sunny protested.
“I’m trying to see this from Trumbull’s viewpoint,” Will replied. “He’s already asked me if, based on my experience, you were likely to interfere in his investigation.”
“My dad asked me the same question,” Sunny admitted.
“I wonder why.” Will took a sip of coffee.
“I’ll tell you what I told him,” Sunny growled. “The Portsmouth cops have their best detective on the job. Why should I get involved?”
“Why do I think I hear a ‘but’ coming up here?” Will said wearily.
Sunny nodded. “It seems to me that Trumbull is concentrating all his attention on Jane. You’ve talked with the guy. Can you tell me that I’m wrong?”
Will frowned, toying with his fork. “When a detective questions anyone—a witness, a source, a suspect—he purposely doesn’t give them the full picture.”
“Yeah, but as a cop yourself, you can sort of fill in the blanks between the questions and catch the drift of the investigation. Is Trumbull going anywhere other than after Jane?”
He hesitated for a long moment. “No. I don’t think so. That’s why I thought Jane should see a lawyer.”
“Well, she did,” Sunny told him. “And it was a pretty funny meeting. Turns out that Tobe Phillips is a grammar school classmate of ours under a different name—Toby Philpotts.” She decided not to mention the young Toby’s bladder problem—or how nice-looking he’d grown up to become.
“That’s one piece of good news.” Will sighed, not buying Sunny’s attempt to change the subject. “I wish you hadn’t messed with that evidence.”
“It’s not as if I meant to.” Sunny tried to defend herself. “I stumbled onto the observation post, trying to get out of the snow. So my footprints were there before I even knew there was something to find.”
Will shook his head. “But when you did find something, you took it away with you. That’s tampering at best. At worst, it means the cops can’t use it in their case.” He pushed his plate away. “It also means they can’t use it as leverage to get any information. We don’t know when that smoker—Olek or whatever—was standing there. But if he saw anything going on at that office near the time that Rigsdale died, we won’t be finding out about it.”
Sunny wanted to reassure him that Olek hadn’t seen anything, but of course she couldn’t. Mentioning that fact would open the door to a lot of questions she just couldn’t answer.
“Look,” she said, “I really am sorry about messing up your breakfast. Why don’t I pick up the bill for it?” She had a few extra bucks in her wallet—household money, meant to pay for the food shopping.
Guess I’ll have to find a few places to economize, that’s all,
she thought.
They finished their coffees, Sunny paid, and then Will said good-bye. “I think I’m gonna get some more sleep.” He stifled a yawn and climbed into his pickup, heading back into town while Sunny aimed her Wrangler deeper into outlet-land. There were a couple of supermarkets out there as well, and Sunny was working on a diminished budget.
She was pretty lucky, managing to get everything on her list or slightly less pricey alternates. The only problem, weirdly enough, was the low-sodium turkey she needed to get for her dad.
“Sorry.” The guy behind the deli counter apologized. “The low-sodium turkey was on sale, and we just had a run on it. There’s none left, not until Tuesday.” He turned around to the racks of deli meats and ran a big chunk of turkey through the meat slicer. “I’ve got this. A lot of folks like it.”
He handed Sunny a single slice on a piece of waxed paper. She chewed, swallowed, and shook her head. “Way too salty.”
“Sorry,” he said again.
“No problem,” Sunny told him, and then pushed her shopping cart to the checkout line.
But it was a problem. She had gone for all the bargains, starting at the farthest store and working her way back toward town. This should have been her last stop. She didn’t want to turn back now with a carload of all the other food she’d gotten.
Well,
she thought,
I could stop off at home, unload the car, and then go down to Judson’s for the turkey. It might be a bit pricier than I’d hoped, but I can swing it.
Sunny came quietly into the house. Mike was sprawled asleep on the couch with some sort of NASCAR race going on the television. From the middle of the sunny spot near the window, Shadow drowsily raised his head, slit his eyes at her for a moment, then rested back on his paws again.
“You’d think that he at least would be a little more enthusiastic, knowing I was coming home with food,” Sunny muttered as she unloaded her grocery sacks into the refrigerator.
Then she went back out. Perversely, parking downtown was much worse on the weekends than on weekdays. Even on a wintry Saturday, Sunny found herself walking for blocks to get to the strip of shops known as the New Stores.
Judson’s Market took up the equivalent of two storefronts. This was the second location for the grocery, Mike often told her. The original Judson’s had opened four generations ago in the redbrick part of town. Her dad’s friend Zack Judson had moved the market to the New Stores in search of more space and more customers. Over the years, to compete with the supermarkets springing up farther out of town, Zack had taken his operation considerably upscale. You could get exotic coffees, fancy cuts of meat, fine chocolates, and foreign cheeses. Even his cold cuts were expensive. But they were also very, very good.
Sunny walked in the front door to find the aisles jammed as if Zack were giving the stock away. Well, Saturdays were always busy at Judson’s. The rich folks over in Piney Brook called in their orders for delivery. The not-so-rich folks in their McMansions drove in to do their weekend shopping. And local residents still came in to get their milk and bread.
The meat and deli departments were in the rear of the store. Sunny had to wend her way through the shoppers to get back there, and then join a long line waiting for service.
This is a hell of a thing to go through for a pound of turkey,
she thought, but nevertheless she stood and waited, until finally there were only three people ahead of her. And then she heard a loud, complaining voice over by the meat counter.
“I hope you have an explanation for this, Mr. Judson.”
That woman sounds familiar.
Sunny turned to see Zack Judson making placating gestures to an older woman who looked like a cranky Persian cat—Carolyn Dowdey. Mrs. Dowdey was waving something in Zack’s face, a brown paper parcel—the old-fashioned packaging that Zack’s butchers used. In this case, though, the original packaging was wrapped in a clear plastic bag, and with good reason. Even ten feet away, Sunny could see that half of the brown butcher paper was soaked with blood.
“You can imagine my shock and surprise when your deliveryman arrived with
this.
” Mrs. Dowdey held up the offending package again. “I was under the impression that your staff knew the proper ways to prepare cuts of beef for cooking—and didn’t just hack bloody hunks of flesh off half-cooled carcasses. When I call in my weekend order, I expect the best—not body parts that will bleed all over the other items I had asked for.”
“Mrs. Dowdey,” an increasingly desperate Zack said, his eyes just about spinning as he took in all the customers eavesdropping on this conversation. “Please accept my apologies, and let me take that from you.” He practically snatched the bloody parcel from her hands. “Of course,” he went on, “we’ll reconstitute your order and deliver it—gratis. And I’ll personally supervise the preparation of a replacement cut of meat.”
Still carrying the bloody package, he went behind the butcher counter.
With that look on his face, it might not be a good idea to go walking into a room where there’s a whole lot of cutlery lying around loose
, Sunny thought.
Carolyn Dowdey stood her ground, waiting for Zack to return, a look of triumph on her face.
Yeah, yeah, Mrs. D.,
that irreverent part of Sunny’s brain thought.
You struck a real blow for the consumer today—for the little guy.
Sunny’s lips twitched as she hid a smile. Carolyn Dowdey would probably pop a blood vessel if anyone were to suggest that she was one of the little guys.
Then their eyes met.
“Young woman,” Mrs. Dowdey said, “don’t I know you?” She frowned, squinching her facial features into an even smaller area, and then smiled as she recalled where she’d seen Sunny.
“You had the beautiful cat with the gray coat and the tiger stripes,” Carolyn Dowdey recalled. “At the vet’s office.”
Her condescending smile stiffened a bit as she likely also remembered her performance during that particular visit. “I’m not sure that young woman is the best person to be treating your cat, I’m afraid.” Mrs. Dowdey sniffed.
Sure,
Sunny thought,
make a fool of yourself and then throw a little mud on the person you picked a fight with.
“I’ve only had Shadow for a few months, but Dr. Rigsdale has taken excellent care of him.”
Carolyn Dowdey actually unbent a little. “Shadow—that’s a good name for him.” But then she got back on her high horse. “Perhaps you were lucky enough that he didn’t have a serious illness. I had two cats go through treatment at the Kittery Harbor Animal Hospital. They had kidney ailments.” The extra flesh on her face quivered a little. “It’s the same problem that took my late husband.”
Sunny had to bite the tip of her tongue to keep from saying something stupid like “maybe it’s something in the water.”
Carolyn Dowdey didn’t notice, having built up a good head of steam by now. “It’s almost like extortion. ‘We want to do the best for your cat, but if you feel it’s too expensive . . .’”
I could just imagine good old Martin saying that, with a wonderfully concerned look on his face,
Sunny thought.
“My last cat, Mrs. Purrley, went through a string of intravenous treatments, and then surgery.” Mrs. Dowdey’s face stiffened. “And all of it for nothing. I had to have her put to sleep by Dr. Rigsdale—the other one, who was in Portland.”
“The whole vet thing is a racket,” the guy in front of Sunny on the deli line burst out. “My wife took our dog all the way across the bridge to that quack in Portsmouth. Why? Because he’s so
nice
.” He drew out the word in disgust. “The guy was a pretty boy who played up to all the women so they’d bring him their pets and pay him a fortune. Damn vets and their phony ‘treatments.’ I told her, ‘Madge, this guy is robbing us. It’s not like we’ve got some prize-winning purebred. Chester is a mutt, and if he gets really sick, maybe we should let him die.’”
Carolyn Dowdey drew herself up, and for a second Sunny thought she was going to slug the guy with her purse. But then the deli man distracted the dog owner by asking him what he wanted, and Zack Judson appeared, carrying a nonbloody parcel. He led Mrs. Dowdey off to get the rest of her order, and peace if not quiet was restored.
Sunny ordered her turkey and waited while the deli man sliced it. As she headed with her packet to the ten-items-or-less line at the front of the store, she was deep in thought, remembering how she’d told Jane that everyone liked her.
Maybe I was a little hasty, saying that,
she thought,
because it looks as if a lot of people don’t like veterinarians.
*
Sunny arrived home
to find the living room empty. “Hey, Dad!” she called. “You here?”
“In the kitchen,” Mike called back.
Boy, I hope he’s not looking for the turkey,
she thought as she headed for the back of the house.
If Mike was searching for turkey, he was definitely looking in the wrong places. He stood at the top of their step stool, his head in one of the top kitchen cabinets, moving cans down onto the counter.
“What’s up?” Sunny asked, quickly stashing her package in the fridge.
Mike extracted his head from the cabinet and came down to floor level. “Got a call from Helena Martinson,” he explained. “She’s trying to stir up some donations for the food pantry. They’re getting more business than they can handle. I figure there’s stuff up top and in the back that’s probably been lurking since before I got sick.”
He sighed, thinking back to those wonderful days when he could eat anything he pleased. “Some of that stuff can probably go—like these.”
Standing front and center on the counter were a couple of small canned hams. “They were on sale right before I got sick. I remember picking them up, figuring I could slice them up and nuke myself a dinner, maybe make sandwiches. Or chop one up and make hash.” Mike shrugged. “Now I figure there’s too much fat and salt in ’em for me to eat—but they might help a family make dinner.”
Sunny nodded. “And there’s probably soup and canned veggies with more salt than you need. How about I climb and you sort?” She glanced around. “Where’s Shadow?”
Mike pointed. “His usual perch—on top of the refrigerator.”
As she climbed up the steps, Sunny found herself level with Shadow, who watched these unusual proceedings with a suspicious eye.
“Take it easy,” she assured him, “we’re not going after your food.”
Sunny bent to get into the cabinet and began passing cans down to Mike. “Yikes!” she exclaimed as she found one that was so swollen, it wobbled as her hand brushed it.
Carefully picking up the container, she looked at the label. “When did you ever buy canned apricots? And why?”
Mike shrugged. “Can’t say.” Then he held up a finger, frowning. “Wait a minute. There was a recipe in the magazine that comes with the Sunday paper. It was for homemade barbecue sauce. You started out running canned apricots through a blender.”
“And when was this?” She nervously eyed the deformed can. Its top and bottom made little domes.