The Legend of Tabby Hollow (Whales and Tails Mystery Book 5) (8 page)

I knew that while Cody tried to focus on local news, from time to time he purchased articles from the Associated Press for the empty spots when he couldn’t get his advertising space filled up.

“I’ll go with you,” I offered.

Cody held my hand as we walked out to the car. Max and Ichabod both followed us and hopped into the backseat when Cody opened the door.

“It seems like Finn and Siobhan are getting along pretty well,” he said as we drove toward Pelican Bay.

“Yeah. Seems like. I just hope she doesn’t break his heart again.”

“You think she will?” Cody asked.

“I think she might. Siobhan is my sister and I love her very much, but she tends to fritter from one person to the next. She has a short attention span when it comes to relationships and Finn is a forever kind of guy.”

“I guess I can see how she might not be the settling-down sort. Still, I did catch her looking at him the entire time we were talking. If she stays long enough they might find a way to work things out and meet in the middle.”

“I hope so. I care a lot about Finn.”

Outside the paper, I grabbed Ichabod so he couldn’t jump out and scurry away, and Cody escorted Max into the interior of the small office. I set the cat down once we were inside and he trotted back toward the morgue as if he knew where we were going. Cody opened the door and Ichabod trotted inside. He circled the room and then jumped up onto a shelf.

“Let’s start there,” I suggested.

“Those are the editions printed the first week I reopened the paper.”

Cody and I each took one of the newspapers and began looking through it.

“Look at this.” I pushed the paper toward Cody. There was a small article he had picked up as filler from a Canadian newspaper on the bottom of page eight.

“I remember that,” Cody commented. “They found the body of a man on one of the islands in the Georgia Strait. The man’s boat had most likely gone down during that big storm that swept through the area a week or so before he was found. The man died of dehydration rather than drowning, so it was determined that he must have somehow made it to the island before he died. His name was Jeremy Vance.”

“So that’s why he stopped showing up at the Fisherman’s Lodge,” I concluded.

“Yeah, but what’s even odder is that when they found his body there was a black poker chip in his pocket.”

It had been two days since I’d discovered that Maggie hadn’t attended the yoga retreat and yet there’d still been no word from her. I was beyond worried. Her original plan was to come home on Sunday evening, and I found myself clinging to the hope that she’d show up as planned and everything would be okay. Cody suggested that I let him handle the choir this week, but I needed something to keep my mind off the horrific scenarios stomping around my mind, demanding to be heard. I decided to do the only thing I could under the circumstances, which was to go about my day the best I could and hope that everything turned out okay.

We agreed not to mention to anyone that we didn’t know where Maggie was until she failed to show up and we knew for certain she was missing. Why worry my mom and Marley and most of the other residents on the island unless we needed to? Cody, Finn, Danny, Siobhan, Tara, and I had spent the entire day Saturday trying to figure out where Maggie might have gone, but every lead we’d followed had ended up nowhere. There were only eight more hours until the last ferry of the day arrived. Only eight more hours left to wonder.

“Veronica says her throat hurts and she can’t do her solo,” Trinity Paulson informed me.

“She seemed fine just a while ago,” I said.

Trinity shrugged. “That’s just what she told me.”

I looked around the room. I didn’t see Veronica anywhere.

“Do you know where she went?” I asked.

“She left.”

Terrific.

“Did you happen to notice if her parents came to get her?” The last thing I needed was a runaway ten-year-old who had been entrusted to my care.

“No, I didn’t see her parents.” Trinity hesitated. “I don’t think her throat really hurt.”

“No? So what do you think was wrong with her?”

Trinity nodded across the room to where Annabelle Sawyer was talking to some other girls.

Annabelle had truly been blessed with a magnificent voice. She could sing like an angel, but she was severely lacking in the personality department. Annabelle knew her voice was exceptional and fully expected to have every solo assigned to her without question. When Cody and I decided to occasionally spread the opportunity around, Annabelle could be venomous. If I had to guess she’d probably teased Veronica about being off key and the poor girl had scurried away with her tail between her legs.

“Thanks. I’ll handle it,” I told Trinity.

“Cait…”

“Yes?”

“If Destiny gives her baby to another family will I still be an aunt?”

I decided on a simple answer to a complicated question, given the fact that I really did need to track down Veronica. “You will most definitely still be an aunt, but if she gives the baby to another family you will be a different kind of aunt than your own Auntie Genevieve is to you.”

“What do you mean?”

I placed my hand on Trinity’s arm and gave it a slight squeeze. “I really need to go find Veronica. Maybe this is a conversation you should have with your mom.”

“She never wants to talk about Destiny’s baby. Mom is sad about it, but I want to be an aunt.”

“Okay, then, how about if we talk about it later?” I imagined the prospect of being an aunt must be pretty exciting when you’re eight.

“Okay.”

I told Cody what I suspected had occurred between Veronica and Annabelle before I headed out to look for Veronica. He agreed to have a chat with Annabelle in my absence. Hopefully, we’d be able to get the issue resolved before the choir was scheduled to go on in less than fifteen minutes.

When I’d first been approached about working with the children’s choir I’d been hesitant. I certainly didn’t have any children of my own and wasn’t sure I’d be any good at working with them. My mom had talked me into giving it a try, and I’m glad she did. I found I really enjoyed it, adolescent drama and all.

I found Veronica sitting near Father Kilian’s koi pond. She looked so lost and alone.

“Trinity tells me you can’t do your solo.”

“My throat hurts.”

“It was fine a little while ago when we were practicing,” I reminded her.

Veronica didn’t respond.

“Did Annabelle say something to you?”

Veronica sighed. “She said I had a dumb voice and I sounded like a cat in the blender when I tried to hit the high notes.”

I took Veronica’s hand. “Don’t listen to Annabelle. You have a beautiful voice.”

“Not as beautiful as hers.”

“That’s true.”

Veronica looked surprised by my honesty.

“But just because you can’t hit the high notes quite as well as she can doesn’t mean you shouldn’t sing. You’ll do a lot of things in your life. Some of them you’ll be the best at; others someone else will do better. But just because you aren’t the best at something doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it.”

“No one wants to hear me sing.” Veronica sighed. “Everyone wants to hear Annabelle.”

“
I
want to hear you sing,” I informed her. “Your parents want to hear you sing. And I know Cody wants to hear you sing. It was his idea to give you this solo in the first place. He said you’d be just right for it.”

Veronica smiled. “He did?”

“He absolutely did. So will you do it?”

“Okay.” Veronica hugged me around the neck.

We’d both stood up to return to the church when Veronica bent over and picked up something from the dirt surrounding the pond.

“Someone dropped this.” She handed me a black poker chip.

My heart pounded in my chest as I considered the ramifications. “Why don’t you go on inside and tell Cody you’re going to sing? I’ll be right in.”

“Okay.”

I looked around the area and didn’t see any sign of a body to go with the chip, but the koi pond was covered in lily pads, so I wasn’t able to see down to the bottom. My heart was pounding as I took out my phone and called Finn. I’d seen him arrive for Mass earlier, so I knew he was in the church. Cell phones weren’t usually allowed inside, but Finn was given a pass due to the emergency status of a lot of his calls as long as he kept the ringer on vibrate.

Please, God, don’t let there be a body to go with this chip.

Luckily, Finn didn’t find a body in either the pond or on the surrounding grounds. The chip had been lying near the pond, so it made sense that someone must have dropped it. It didn’t look as if it had been placed intentionally, so my money was on it having fallen from someone’s pocket. Did the killer attend St. Patrick’s? The thought was a lot more disturbing than I was prepared to deal with.

“Are you okay?” Cody asked me after services. He’d been inside directing the kids and so wasn’t aware of what had happened until Mass was over.

“Yeah, I’m okay. I was totally freaked out at first, but Finn has done a pretty thorough search of the grounds and there hasn’t been a body found. I was thinking I might talk to Father Kilian. I found the chip near the pond he tends every day. Maybe he saw someone lurking about.”

“Father Kilian just got back from the retreat he was attending this week. In fact, we had to start Mass five minutes late because the ferry was a little behind schedule. I doubt he knows anything.”

“That’s right; I forgot he’d been away. Maybe I’ll have a chat with Sister Mary instead.”

“You can talk to her later. The softball game is about to start, and then we’re all invited to your mom’s for dinner. I’m pretty sure I overheard your mom invite both Father Kilian and Sister Mary.”

“Okay. It can wait.” I took Cody’s hand in mine as we headed toward the ball field. As much as I tended to stress out about the fact that Sunday dinners at Mom’s could become the staging area for soap-opera-strength drama, I was really looking forward to it today. For the first time in a very long time, all five Hart siblings would share a meal in the home of their birth. When I was growing up there was a standing tradition that every Hart on the island would gather at our house on Sunday. Back then, before Dad died and the cannery closed, there were dozens of Hart aunts, uncles, and cousins. Other than my own family and Aunt Maggie, all of the Hart relatives had moved away. There were times when dinner was attended by only myself, Cassie, and my mom. But it sounded like we would have a full house this week. I only wished Aunt Maggie could be here to round out the family.

“Caitlin, can you help Siobhan get the folding chairs from the attic?” my mom asked as soon as we arrived at her house after the game. “Bring them all down; we’ve got a full house today.”

Full house was right. There had to be at least thirty people there. Not that I was complaining. I liked the energy a crowd provided.

“It’s a good thing Mom made spaghetti,” I commented. “It’s easy to expand.”

“I overheard her send Aiden to the market for additional bread and salad fixings, but it seems like she had plenty of sauce and pasta on hand,” Siobhan said as we climbed the stairs.

“I really miss these big dinners,” I added as we started up the final flight of stairs leading to the attic. “It just hasn’t been the same since everyone moved away.”

“I don’t know that I miss the crowd, but I did miss Mom’s cooking,” Siobhan answered. “Takeout is fine; it gets you fed. But there’s nothing like Mom’s pasta.”

“Or her stew.”

“Or her homemade soups.” Siobhan placed her hand on her stomach and rubbed it in a circular motion.

I opened the door to the attic and turned on the light. The room was packed with mementos of four generations of Harts. Maybe more, if you counted any items the family may have brought with them from Ireland.

“Do you see the chairs?” Siobhan asked.

“I think they’re against the back wall.”

It had been a while since we’d needed to use the chairs and quite a few boxes had been stacked in front of them. It was going to take a bit of elbow grease to retrieve them.

“Maybe we should have grabbed a couple of the guys,” I realized.

“They were all watching the game. I don’t think Mom wanted to disturb them. Does Finn always come to dinner on Sundays?”

“Not always. But he does come sometimes.”

“I just figured once I moved away he’d stop coming.”

“He’s Danny’s best friend. In a lot of ways he’s part of the family,” I pointed out.

“Yeah, I guess.”

Siobhan began setting boxes to the side.

“So how is it?” I asked. “Seeing him again after all this time?”

Siobhan stopped what she was doing. She seemed to be considering my question.

“It’s odd,” she finally answered. “On one hand, it seems like a lifetime ago that we were a couple, yet the more time I spend with him, the more I realize how really normal and natural it feels. I’m not sure we’ll ever be a couple again, but I do think we can and will be friends. I don’t know why I thought friendship couldn’t be an option for us.”

“It probably wasn’t an option in the beginning,” I commented. “I mean, you did practically leave him at the altar.”

“It wasn’t at the altar. But yeah, I get what you’re saying. I’m sure I hurt him deeply, and I’m sorry, but he seems to be willing to forgive me, so I guess we’ll just build a new relationship on that. Is that my wedding dress?”

I looked into a closet at the far end of the room that had been left open. Hanging inside was both Mom’s dress as well as the one Siobhan never had the chance to wear.

“Yeah. I don’t know how the door got open.”

“Now that I’m on the island and Finn and I are talking again, Mom is probably planning to pick up right where she left off.”

“You think she thinks the wedding is back on?” I asked.

“I think she
hopes
the wedding is back on. She most likely had the dress out to check for size. I guess I need to have a talk with her.” Siobhan sighed.

“Let me talk to her,” I offered. “If you talk to her, you’ll most likely end up in an argument. Maybe I can help her see that she’s getting ahead of herself, if she indeed is seeing wedding bells in your not-so-distant future.”

“Thanks, Cait. You’re a good sister.”

I smiled. Siobhan had said that to me twice since she’d been back. I’m sure she had no idea how much her words meant, but they sounded wonderful to me.

“That was fun,” Cody said as we drove to the dock. I’d decided to meet the ferry to see for myself whether Aunt Maggie had returned as planned. Waiting to hear from her was literally killing me. “I have to admit that Sunday dinners at the Hart house are some of my fondest childhood memories. My family never did stuff together when I was a kid. I mean, we loved one another, but my parents had their own things and we kids had our own things. Other than holidays or special occasions we rarely even shared a meal together.”

“Not even dinner?”

“Not usually. When I was really young my mom would feed us kids early and then she’d eat with my dad when he got home from work. When we got older we’d usually grab a sandwich and then eat in our rooms or head out to a friend’s. I seem to remember Danny wasn’t any happier than Cassie seems to be now about the forced family time, but I would have given quite a lot for a big, noisy family like yours.”