Boiled Over (A Maine Clambake Mystery) (8 page)

When the ship’s bell rang signaling the start of dinner, I took off my apron and ran to do my hosting duties. I spotted Chris down by the fire helping Sonny and his team. Sonny said something to Chris, who threw his head back and laughed. Good. My family’s Bad Attitude about Chris was, in great measure, driven by Sonny. They’d been friends in high school and both had reputations for being wild. But Sonny had been a husband and a father for a decade and Chris had continued . . . well, no good could come from speculating about what Chris continued doing.

I was delighted to spy Chuck and Cindy Kelly seated at a picnic table.

“Hello, dear,” Cindy said. “Seeing you yesterday reminded us how much we love this place. We’re here for the lobster. And for the sunset.” Morrow Island offered a gorgeous over-ocean view of the setting sun, a rare sight on the eastern seaboard. Cindy gestured toward the woman seated across from her, “Do you know—”

Bunnie Getts. I couldn’t believe it. I’d thought one of the best things about Founder’s Weekend being over would be the absence of Bunnie from my life. Yet there she was, seated in front of me. How did she and the Kellys even know each other? I couldn’t see Chestnut Hill Bunnie hanging out with teachers of modest means who lived in a motor home.

“Oh! Of course you two know each other,” Cindy remembered. “You were on the Founder’s Weekend committee together.”

“Hello, Bunnie.”

“Hello, Julia. I’m glad to see the clambake’s association with the young man, the murderer, hasn’t hurt your business,” she said, more loudly than necessary.

Conversation around us died then surged back again. As I groped for something to say, one of our waitstaff arrived with a tray laden with cups of clam chowder.

“That’s the ticket!” Chuck proclaimed. He was as eager to change the subject as I was.

“Leave one more clam chowder,” Bunnie instructed the young college kid waiting on them. “My dinner companion will be here at any moment.”

Dinner companion? What dinner companion?
I looked around to see who might show up.

Bunnie jumped up, waving vigorously to a figure hiking out of the woods at the top of the hill by Windsholme.

Reggie Swinburne! He scanned the crowd and strode purposely toward us. When he arrived at the table, he bent over and gave Bunnie a kiss on the cheek, muttering, “m’dear.” Then he stuck his hand out to me. “Miss Snowden. We meet again. Lovely place you’ve got here. Lovely. I just hiked over to the little beach on the other side of the island.”

“Reggie’s quite the outdoorsman,” Bunnie said, blushing.

Blushing? Really? Blushing Bunnie?

“He’s a birder and a fisherman. He loves to hike and hunt and . . .” Bunnie continued on, but I had trouble paying attention.

She and Reggie are a couple? It’s improbable that she and the Kellys are friends, but she and Reggie?

Bunnie was still prattling, not a word or an activity I’d ever thought to associate with her. “In the fall, Reggie’s taking me duck hunting. He’s been teaching me to shoot. He bought me a shotgun.”

By that point, I was speechless. Completely blown away. I looked at Bunnie in her Lily Pulitzer shift and ballet flats, her little matching bag sitting on the bench beside her. Did she even have a clue what she’d have to wear to sit in a duck blind in Maine in the fall?
Love is blind,
I reminded myself.
Blind and stupid
.

“Now that our committee duties are over, I do hope you can finally make it to my house for that cup of tea,” Bunnie said.

Was she talking to me? It was true, Bunnie had invited me to tea before, but at the time it felt more like a summons to the principal’s office.

April

Vee gave me a ride to the second Founder’s Weekend Committee meeting in the well-used maroon Subaru station wagon the sisters shared. Clumps of melting, dirty snow sat by the roadside reminding us that though winter was over, she hadn’t gone far and might come back at any moment for one last curtain call.

Bunnie’s dark green SUV was already in the Tourist Bureau parking lot when we arrived, as was Stevie’s minivan. I was somewhat surprised to see Bud’s battered pickup there, too. Dan’s bike leaned against the deck rail. At least one of us had we decided it was spring.

Bunnie ran the meeting on a tight agenda, moving from old business to new. She’d booked the windjammers, which had an open Saturday as they sailed from Bar Harbor to Portland for celebrations in those cities. That meant the date for Founder’s Weekend was fixed. We were off and running.

“Now the games,” Bunnie said, crossing the old agenda items off her list with such force I thought her pencil might go right through the paper and come out the other side of the wooden clipboard. “I’ve listed trap hauling, lobster crate running, and cod fish relay.”

Dead silence.

“Trained seals,” Bud muttered. Morgan stirred at his feet, turning her head to make sure he was all right.

More silence.

“Will someone tell me what the matter is?” Bunnie demanded, drumming her pencil on her clipboard. “These are exactly the contests we have every year at the Shrimp Festival.”

Finally, Dan Small cleared his throat. “I think, ah, Bunnie, that’s the problem. The Shrimp Festival is for us. We have it this month, in April, before the tourists get here. We dash across floating lobster traps and run relay races holding dead fish to celebrate our way of life. Not to amuse a bunch of—”

“Massholes,” Bud finished, using the preferred local term for the inhabitants of the great Commonwealth to our south.

Bunnie stopped tapping her pencil, brows knit. “I don’t get it.”

“Because you’re a—” Bud started.

Mercifully, Vee jumped in. “The Shrimp Festival celebrates our
former
way of life. There used to be thirty shrimp boats in this town and two canneries. Now there are no boats, not full-time anyway. If we don’t bring in tourists this summer, ten years from now we’ll be having bed-making contests and getting all weepy and nostalgic for our way of life back when we had a hospitality industry.”

That shut everyone up. People misjudged Vee based on her ever-present heels and hosiery. Down deep, she was as practical as they come. After some brainstorming, we added the B&B bed races and the pie-eating contest to the list, and agreed to go ahead with the local games.

Vee volunteered to do publicity. Stevie would book the music for the concert and arrange for the fireworks. Bunnie asked Dan and I to organize the food. I was happy with the assignment, something I knew how to do.

“What would you like to contribute, Bud?” Bunnie asked sweetly.

“I’m just keeping an eye on the rest of you,” Bud grumbled. “Making certain this shindig doesn’t get out of control.”

We stood to go and I thought I was home free.

“Oh, Julia,” Bunnie said. “How’s your research going? Have you discovered who Mr. Busman was?”

“I . . . I . . .”

I had done nothing. It was all I could do to keep the clambake afloat. An acquaintance from New York had just booked the island for her June wedding. I was excited about this new line of business, but it meant more work and more fighting with Sonny.

Growing up, I’d heard at least a dozen stories about who Mr. Busman was, none of them believable, and I wasn’t going to take a chance and blurt one of them out.

“Well, that won’t do,” Bunnie said. “Julia, get to work. We need this information for publicity and such, and for my opening remarks. Perhaps you’d like to come to my house for tea and we’ll work on the project together.”

As we were leaving, Dan Small took pity on me. He leaned in and whispered, “Talk to your friend, Gus. He knows more about the history of this town than anybody.”

August

I stayed behind when the
Jacquie II
left the island. Chris could take me back to the harbor in his dinghy. I checked on Livvie who was sleeping peacefully, Le Roi snuggled in the crook of her knees. What a loyal cat—giving up cadging lobster from customers to watch over one of the island’s human inhabitants.

When I came downstairs, Sonny stood in the living room. “Livvie okay?”

“Sleeping.”

“Julia.” Sonny stared at his boots. “I’ve wanted to tell you. No, that’s not true. I
haven’t
wanted to tell you. But I’ve got to—”

“Sonny, you’re freaking me out.”

“Cabe was living here.”

“In this house?” I couldn’t imagine.

“In the playhouse.”

“
What?
” My voice shot so high, I thought only dogs could hear me. “In the playhouse Chris fixed up especially for me?”

“When was the last time you were there?”

Touché
. “Sonny, what were you thinking?”

“Cabe hated where he was staying. I needed him on the island early and late. I thought it was a win-win.”

“You didn’t know anything about him. You have Page here, and Livvie.”

“I thought you’d taken care of that, didn’t I?” Sonny yelled. “You were supposed to have checked him out.” He paused, breathing heavily. “Besides, no one was in danger from Cabe. We both know that.”

I did know that. Cabe was never a danger to my family. “Did you tell Binder and Flynn that Cabe lived here?”

Sonny lowered his voice even further. “No. I was hoping you would.”

“Me?”

“That way, I don’t have to take time off, go into town.”

I trusted myself to tell them a lot more than I trusted Sonny. At least, I knew it would get done. When I told them, they’d certainly come out to the island and they could interview Sonny then.

From outside, I heard Chris and Page approaching. They were arguing good-naturedly about something, probably the Red Sox. Page was the only person in the family who had no reservations about my relationship with Chris and that meant the world to me. He was great with kids, meeting them at their level, but never talking down. It was the kind of thing that made a little girl’s, and a grown girl’s, heart melt.

Chris pushed open the screen door with Page right behind him. “What’s going on?”

“How’s Mom?” Page asked Sonny.

“She’s sleeping.”

Chris looked from me to Sonny and back. It was obvious something was up.

“Go get ready for bed, honey,” Sonny said.

But Page would not be moved. “Is this about Mom?” she demanded.

“I promise. We are not talking about your mom,” I answered.

“Okay.” Page trundled up the stairs.

Sonny and I filled Chris in.

“He was staying at one of those boarding houses where they rent to more kids than they have beds. He absolutely hated it,” Sonny said. “That’s why I offered him the playhouse.”

“Do you know which boarding house?” There were a few around town that fit Sonny’s description.

“Never asked.” He gave me a look that said
let’s not get into who didn’t ask what
.

“Have you searched the playhouse since Cabe left?” Chris asked.

“Took a quick look. Didn’t see anything.”

“We should look now,” Chris said. “Before Julia talks to Binder in the morning.”

“Good idea,” Sonny agreed.

I wanted to ask why that would be, though I knew the answer. Sonny and Chris, both convinced of Cabe’s innocence, wanted to see if there was anything incriminating in the playhouse before the police searched it. I started to say, “Wai—” but the expedition was unstoppable.

Sonny went to the kitchen and pulled three powerful flashlights off a shelf. “We’re going outside for a minute,” he called upstairs to Page, then led the charge.

There were outdoor lights around the house, dock, and clambake pavilion, but once we’d walked beyond their influence, you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. I know because I stopped, flashlight pointed at the ground, and tried it.

A million stars were overhead. A meteor streaked across the night sky. The Perseids. I’d forgotten. I loved the clear, open Maine skies. Chris came up behind me and put a reassuring hand under my elbow.

“Look,” I whispered. A shooting star plummeted toward us.

“Beautiful.” He kissed my neck. The Maine skies weren’t the only thing I’d miss when I was back in Manhattan.

“What’s goin’ on back there?” Sonny yelled.

We hurried to catch up until I ran smack into Sonny, who’d stopped on the great lawn and trained his flashlight on something in the distance.

“Ow! Watch where you’re going,” he protested.

I grabbed the back of Sonny’s belt, Chris kept hold of me, and we crept up the lawn, then through the woods to the playhouse. Even with the flashlights, we had to move slowly. Running into a branch would smart.

Sonny stopped on the porch of the little house, about a foot in front of the door. He mumbled something I couldn’t catch.

“What?”

“The screen door opens
out
,” he hissed. “Back up.”

Chris and I did as requested and soon we were inside the playhouse—our intended trysting place. Where we’d never actually trysted.

Sonny lit a lantern and we spread out to look around. The house was tiny, a small front room and bunkroom. I wondered why all three of us had come. But who would have agreed to stay behind? I hated to admit it, but I was there because I worried Chris and Sonny’s unwavering belief in Cabe’s innocence might lead them to destroy anything suspicious they found. Sonny believed in Cabe because he knew him, as I did. Chris didn’t know Cabe well, but Chris always stood firmly on the side of the underdog. There was nothing that would move Chris more than the plight of a young man without resources, wanted by the police.

“Nothing here,” Sonny called from the bunkroom.

“Here, either.” Chris and I had searched the cupboards in the sideboard and under the cushions on the settee. There really weren’t many places to look.

“That’s a relief,” Sonny said. “At least I haven’t kept anything from Binder and Flynn they’d think was useful.”

“But don’t you see?” I protested. “There’s
nothing
here.”

“Exactly.” Sonny was losing patience with me.

“But Cabe must have had some things here. He owned more than one shirt, more than one pair of underwear. If there’s nothing here, it means that after the Founder’s Weekend celebration, he had no intention of coming back.”

“Crap.” Sonny said it, but we all thought it.