Chapter 25
When Hayley took Leroy on his nightly walk around the neighborhood, she couldn't shake the feeling that Hugo knew more about what had happened that night at the warehouse than he was letting on. What if Lex's crew, which was supposedly partying next door and didn't hear a thing, was lying? What if their drinking and carousing led to Garth flying off the handle again? It could have spiraled out of control, and one of the construction guysâNick Ward or Billy Parsonsâflew into a drunken rage and beat Garth to death? The only problem with that theory was there were no obvious signs of a fight or struggle either outside the warehouse or inside, where the body was found, or even in Lex's shop, where the three men were at the time of the murder. Sergio had searched the place thoroughly during his initial investigation. Also none of the men appeared particularly drunk when questioned by Sergio that night. There was also the nagging detail of the locked door and security footage. How did they get in or out? How did anybody get in or out unless there was another key, besides the one Connie Sparks had? A key that everyone who knew Garth said didn't existâunless they were all lying. But why?
Still, the look on Hugo's face when he realized he had probably said too much was very revealing. In Hayley's mind, in order to take the suspicion off Ken Massey, the hapless Hugo only had managed to direct it toward himself.
Leroy stopped by a fire hydrant and lifted his leg as Hayley admired a neighbor's “Candy Cane Lane” Christmas display. Rows of giant illuminated candy canes led to a giant tethered balloon of Frosty the Snowman. Ridiculous. Garish. Over the top. Hayley absolutely loved it! It was much more impressive than the simple Christmas wreath hanging on her front door, with a red envelope taped to it containing a holiday bonus for the postman.
Leroy was just about finished, and ready to resume the sprint back to the house, when Hayley noticed someone following her.
Walking toward her.
His face in the shadows.
Picking up speed.
Closing in.
Has Ken Massey come back to finish the job?
She cursed herself for not calling Sergio and reporting him right away for pouncing on her on her own property.
Hayley yanked Leroy's leash and the poor little guy dropped his leg and yelped as she dragged him into the neighbor's yard, where she hid with him behind one of the biggest plastic candy canes on the snow-covered lawn. She poked her head around to see if the man was still there, lurking, but he was gone. She waited a few moments, just to be safe, and was about to come out of hiding, when she heard a crunching sound. Like the heel of a boot grinding into the hardpacked snow. Hayley grabbed the first weapon she could find: a plastic red candle with white wax and a yellow flame. It was the size of a baseball bat. It would have to do.
Just as the man came around the candy cane and on top of Hayley, she reared back with the candle and let him have it. She pounded him mercilessly. The man ducked and covered his head.
“Stop it! Stop it, Hayley!” he begged. “It's me! Bruce Linney!”
“Bruce! What the hell are you doing skulking around my neighborhood and scaring me half to death?”
“âSkulking around'? I don't
skulk,
Hayley! I came over to your house to talk to you! I saw you walking Leroy, so I was just trying to catch up to you.”
“Whatever it is you need to say, couldn't it have waited until the morning?”
“No. It's impossible to talk discreetly in that office. The place is filled with reporters with big ears and even bigger mouths!”
“What, Bruce? What's so important that you had to stalk me and nearly stop my heart from fright?”
“I'm worried Sal is going to fire me!”
“Fire you? For what?”
“Sexually harassing you at the Christmas party!”
Hayley burst out laughing.
“I fail to see what's so funny!”
“Bruce, I'm reasonably confident your job isn't in jeopardy. You just had a little too much to drink. We all do things we regret when we're under the influence.”
More than she was willing to spill to Bruce, that's for sure.
“In two weeks' time, nobody is going to even remember your grossly inappropriate behavior,” Hayley said.
“Are you calling me âgross'? I mean, wow, Hayley, I may not be your type, but do you have to be so mean?”
“I'm not calling
you
âgross,' Bruce! I'm saying
your behavior
was
gross.
There's a difference. Seriously, just forget it.”
“But Sal has the evidence recorded on his phone to use against me. I've been worried sick about it. I need this job, Hayley.”
“Do you want me to talk to him?”
“You would do that for me?”
“Yes. If you were to get fired, it would be weird not having you around irritating me. I'll go to Sal tomorrow and tell him we sorted it all out and it's over and done with. Maybe I'll even get him to delete the recording.”
“Thank you, Hayley, thank you! If there is ever anything you need from meâ”
“Good night, Bruce,” Hayley said, smiling and shaking her head, tugging on the brown leather strap leash to get Leroy, who was sitting on the pavement staring up at them, back up on his feet to make the short journey home.
She stopped suddenly. “Wait. There is one thing.”
“Anything, Hayley. Just name it.”
“You can share your notes on the Garth Rawlings case.”
Bruce flinched slightly. He was hypercompetitive and loathed sharing any kind of information he was gathering for one of his columns. However, he knew he owed Hayley big-time, and he had just made a big show of doing her any favor.
“Just this one time?”
“Of course, Bruce. Once the recording on Sal's phone is sent to the trash bin, it's your word against mine and you can go back to shutting me out so I don't horn in on your glory as Bar Harbor's topâand might I add âonly'âcrime reporter.”
“Okay,” Bruce sighed, resigned to discuss his current working theory. “Chief Alvares let me take a look at the security camera footage at the convenience store across the street from the warehouse, and he was right that no one was seen coming or going that night. So I have been focusing on the people in nearest proximity to Garth right before he died.”
“Lex Bansfield's contracting crew.”
“Yes. Nick Ward. Billy Parsons. And the kid, Hugo something.”
“I've gone down this road already, Bruce. There are no secret doors or hidden tunnels from their shop into Garth's kitchen. The only way in there was through the front door and it was locked. There was no way for them even to get to him.”
“I know. Nothing makes sense. But I've been hammering away at Nick Ward and Billy Parsons, trying to get a complete picture of what happened that night. Nick was very straightforward with his story, never wavered. He repeated the same details over and over. They were just hanging out and drinking beer the whole time. Never left the office until they heard the sirens outside. I interviewed Billy separately, and he basically told the same story. Backed up everything Nick said. He was adamant that they never argued with Garth that night or even saw him. Maybe it was his body language, I don't know, but my gut told me he was not telling me everything. So I pressed him, not knowing where it might lead, and Billy suddenly got very nervous. Then he just said he had to get back to work and asked me to leave. I have a hunch he's hiding something, Hayley. I showed up at his apartment this morning to let him know I had a few follow-up questions and his truck was gone. Landlord said she saw Billy toss a suitcase in the back of his truck at dawn this morning and drive off like he was in a real hurry.”
“He blew town?”
“Looks like it.”
Maybe Gemma's soft-spoken pageant costar wasn't so off the mark.
Ken Massey had motive and opportunity, and he clearly was unhinged at the terrifying thought of being arrested, which was why he jumped Hayley and begged her to believe he was innocent. But motive and opportunity did not add up to hard evidence.
And now, thanks to Bruce sucking down too much rum-spiked punch and losing all sense of propriety in the copy room, Hayley had a fresh lead to follow.
Hugo was trying to dissuade Hayley from assuming Ken Massey's guilt because he knew the real story of what happened that night.
Hugo knew the identity of the real killer.
And perhaps the real killer, fearing intrepid crime reporter Bruce Linney might eventually coerce the truth out of the two men he was with that night, decided to flee the scene of the crime.
Billy Parsons was on the run.
Island Food & Spirits by Hayley Powell
I make the same Christmas stuffing every year. It's a holiday dish that's been in my family for generations. And every year I lose the recipe. I'm not proud to admit that I am not very organized. I would like nothing more than for you to think that all of my favorite recipes are neatly organized and alphabetized in binders and lined up on lovely bookshelves in my kitchen. But, unfortunately, that is only a fantasy. I usually stuff them all in drawers in my kitchen after I'm through with them, which means, of course, I'm constantly pulling out stacks of every size of paper and notecards, searching through them, and tossing them aside until my kitchen looks like a paper factory exploded. Remarkably, I always eventually seem to find what I'm looking for, which is exactly what I was doing last night as I tried to find my stuffing recipe to share with you.
There was only one Christmas I didn't prepare this mouthwatering dish for my friends and family. A few years ago, for the first time, Liddy insisted on throwing her own holiday party, which meant she would hire a housekeeper to sweep her floors and dust her furniture and rely on all of her close friends and intimates to bring all of the food. Liddy, however, did have a fully stocked bar, so that counted for somethingâespecially with our crowd.
A few days before, I was having “Christmas Spirit” cocktails with Liddy and Mona at Drinks Like A Fish, which is a soothing cocktail special that Randy happened to be serving in his bar that evening. We were planning our menu for Liddy's partyâand as usual were feeling no painâand Mona made a crack about how Liddy never had to do any of the hard work. I must have laughed a little too much, because at that point Liddy stood up from her bar stool without warning and declared that she would be preparing all of the dishes for the entire dinner all by herself with absolutely no help from us. All we had to do was get ourselves there by 6:00
P.M.
It was as if the world had stopped. You could have heard a pin drop in the bar. Even the jukebox playing a holiday song by Nat King Cole went silent. My brother, Randy, froze in midshake behind the bar as he prepared a vodka martini. We all just stared at Liddy in complete and utter shock.
We all love and adore Liddy, but the poor woman is no chef. I won't even go into the 2002 microwave oven dinner fire incident. We immediately tried to talk some sense into her, without hurting her feelings. But in the end, as we called a cab to drive us home because of the three rounds of Randy's potent “Christmas Spirit” cocktails, we agreed to let Liddy do the dinner her way. We would just show up at the appointed time.
The night of the holiday party arrived, right along with one of the worst Maine blizzards of the year. But we being true “Mainiacs” and positive thinkers, we considered ourselves to be just like the United Postal Service carriers:
Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.
Or something like that! In any event we all headed onward to Liddy's house for an evening of Christmas cheer!
We all arrived around the same time. Mona and her husband and their whole rowdy brood, Randy and Sergio, me and my kids, plus a few other stray friends with nowhere else to go. It was now snowing so hard that we decided to pull into Liddy's unplowed driveway, just off the main road, and walk the rest of the way to her house to make it easier for everyone to get out later. We piled into Liddy's house, covered in snow, laughing and yelling, “Merry Christmas!” She wasn't there to greet us. I should have suspected something was up. Usually when you arrive at someone's house for a holiday party, you smell a turkey roasting in the oven or a pie baking. Something. Anything.
We trudged into Liddy's spacious kitchen. No pots on the stove. No pies cooling on the counter. Not even a green bean casserole covered in cellophane ready to be heated up. There was just poor Liddy sitting on a stool at her kitchen island. She had her head in her hands and her usually perfect hairdo sticking completely straight up and all over the place. She was wearing old torn sweats and an oversize men's white t-shirt with makeup stains all over it. She had obviously been using it like a tissue and wiping her face. Her eyes were puffy from crying.
We all stood there in silence. Even Mona's kids. That's right.
Even Mona's kids!
Liddy took one look at us and burst into tears again as Mona and I rushed to console her and find out what was wrong. Finally, after Randy had the foresight to find the biggest wineglass in Liddy's cupboard, pour it to the rim with a Merlot that didn't even have time to breathe, and hand it to her, Liddy was calm enough to speak.
After setting out to prove she could prepare a holiday feast for her loved ones, Liddy quickly realized the next day that her impressive confidence and bravado was surely enhanced by the “Christmas Spirit” cocktails at Drinks Like A Fish. However, she was too stubborn to admit her mistake, so she did a little online research and found a talented, award-winning catering firm out of Bangor with an impressive list of clients and booked them to prepare and serve our meal. She didn't want to use a local because she didn't want anyone to get wind of what she was doing. (Especially since she was ready to claim that the catering staff was just serving the food that she had so lovingly prepared herself!)
Unfortunately, the unexpected blizzard had waylaid the entire catering team, and they canceled because it was too dangerous to drive to Bar Harbor. Liddy offered to double their fee, but they were more concerned with their personal safety. This threw Liddy into a tizzy. She frantically called the only two restaurants open that night, only to discover they were both closing early because of the storm and could not even deliver an order of chicken wings.
Liddy was so embarrassed and humiliated, she promptly collapsed again on her kitchen island in another fresh flood of tears. That's when Sergio took matters into his own hands and promptly directed Randy to start mixing us all some much needed cocktails. He instructed the children to go into the living room and put on a Christmas movie, and he ordered Mona and me to start going through the cupboards and pull some kind of dinner together. Then he guided Liddy and her glass of wine toward her bedroom to freshen up a bit for the evening so she wouldn't scare the kids anymore with her frazzled and wild-eyed appearance.
Well, I'm happy to say that in the end it was a raucous and memorable party, with lots of laughs, as we chowed down on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, crackers, canned sardines, microwave popcorn, and a jar of caviar. I would be lying if I didn't admit the fully stocked bar helped us get through it admirably as well. We left Liddy's cupboards and fridge bare when we were finished, except for a couple of eggs. We decided to let her have them the next morning for breakfastâif she could figure out how to crack them open.
Well, since I am fairly certain most of you know how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, let me share my promised Christmas stuffing recipe, which, I hope, will become one of your own holiday family traditions. But first don't forget to liven up your own holiday party with Randy's “Christmas Spirit” cocktails, sure to be a hit with all of your drunk relatives!
Â
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Randy's “Christmas Spirit” Cocktail
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Ingredients
2 ounces Midori Melon Liqueur
½ ounce lemon juice
1 teaspoon simple syrup
Maraschino cherry for garnish
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Pour all of your ingredients into a cocktail shaker filled with ice and shake well. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass and add a maraschino cherry for garnish. This will start your night out the right way.
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Christmas Stuffing
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Ingredients
½ pound Italian bulk sausage
4 cups of your favorite cubed seasoned stuffing
1½ cups crushed corn bread stuffing mix
½ cup toasted pecans
½ cup minced fresh parsley
1 tablespoon fresh sage, minced
1½ cups slice baby portabella mushrooms
1 cup sliced button mushrooms (feel free to use your favorite)
1 large onion, chopped
1 cup chopped apples
1 celery rib, chopped
4 tablespoons butter
2 cups of your favorite chicken broth
Salt and pepper to taste
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In a large skillet cook and crumble your sausage until no longer pink; drain. Transfer to a large bowl. Stir in the stuffing cubes, corn bread stuffing, pecans, parsley, sage; salt and pepper to taste.
In your skillet sauté mushrooms, onion, apple, and celery in butter until tender. Stir into the stuffing mixture. Add enough of the broth to your desired moistness. Transfer to a 4-quart Crock-Pot. Cover and cook on low for 3 hours, stirring once.
As always, feel free to add your own touches to the stuffing and serve it with your favorite holiday meal.