No Escape Claws

Chapter 4

It was a busy morning at the shop. There was a customer waiting when we opened, a tourist heading back to New Hampshire looking for a rocking chair she’d seen the day before. It took some maneuvering, but Mr. P. and I managed to get it securely into the back of her SUV, wedged between two suitcases, several shopping bags and an oversized inflatable—and fully inflated—lobster.

“You have very good spatial acuity, my dear,” Mr. P. said, as the woman pulled out of the parking lot.

“I guess I do,” I agreed, brushing off the front of my jeans. They had sand and bits of dried grass stuck to the denim from when I’d crawled into the back of the customer’s car. “I think it comes from all the forts I used to make with Josh when we were kids.” Josh was Josh Evans, another summer friend from my childhood and more recently the Angels’ lawyer on a couple of occasions.

Mid-morning, Jess dropped in with some pillows she’d made from fabric I’d found in the first storage unit. She was probably my closest friend. Jess had grown up in North Harbor, but we hadn’t really known each other, probably because I was a summer kid. We’d gotten close when I put an ad on the music department bulletin board at the University of Maine looking for a roommate. Jess was studying art history and was rarely in the buildings that made up the School of Performing Arts so she insisted it was fate that had brought us together. I think it was the fact that Jess had a crush on a tall, bearded music major that was responsible for her seeing my ad that day. She had been the only person to call because it turned out she’d taken the ad down after she saw it to stop anyone from getting in touch with me before she could.

Jess had a great sense of funky style, and with a sewing machine and a pair of scissors she could make over just about any piece of clothing. Everything she restyled ended up in the clothing shop on the waterfront in which she was part owner. Jess has been making her own clothes since she was a teenager because she’s curvy and could never find anything that fit her right.

“These are great,” I said, pulling two of the cushions out of the canvas carryall she’d handed me. Jess had cut the fabric into fat triangles and seamed those together to make the cushion covers. They were all a mix of bold colors—red, tangerine, lemon yellow, blue, sea green.

“I did some smaller ones that I was going to keep but I may end up bringing them here instead,” she said, pushing her long, dark hair behind one ear.

“Whatever works best for you,” I said. “Once we get into fall, people start nesting. These should sell pretty quickly.” I stacked the cushions on the cash desk.

Charlotte had gone out back to get two large, ornate picture frames that Avery and I had refinished and turned into bulletin boards. I’d finally decided where I wanted to hang them.

“The Angels have a new case,” I said.

“Anyone I know?” Jess asked, picking a stray strand of thread off one of the pillows.

I shook my head. “I don’t think so. Their client is a former student of Charlotte’s.”

“You do realize that Nick is going to have a cow.”

“Uh-huh. Liam already pointed that out.”

“Oh yeah, I invited him to join us for the jam,” she said. Jess and I were pretty much regulars at Thursday Night Jam, aka the jam, at The Black Bear Pub. The house band played old rock and roll and anyone was welcome to sit in for a song or a set.

“Liam or Nick?” I asked.

“Liam. You know Nick will be there unless he’s working.”

“Is there something going on between you and my brother?”

She laughed. “No.” Then she raised one eyebrow, smiled slyly and said,” At least not yet.”

Her expression went from amused to serious. “Has Mac said when he’s coming home?”

I raked a hand back through my hair. “There are things he needs to take care of in Boston. The house hasn’t closed yet and there’s still a lot of paperwork.”

Jess studied me for a long moment and I couldn’t really read the expression in her blue eyes. “He’ll be back,” she finally said. She gave me a hug and left.

Charlotte came in from the workroom then. “Are those the cushions made from the fabric we found in the first storage unit?” she asked, picking one up and turning it over in her hands.

I nodded.

“Jess does lovely work,” she said. “I like the pattern. Would you like me to price them and put them out?”

“Yes, to both,” I said. “The tags are by the cash register.” I pointed to the second floor. “I’ll be in my office if you need me.”

I headed upstairs but instead of going to my office I went into the tiny staff room for a cup of coffee. I’d sounded defensive when Jess had brought up Mac. That was probably because I hadn’t talked to him since Sunday evening. I’d gotten the breakfast text on Monday but nothing more since then. I missed Mac and not just for the dozens of things he handled around the shop. I missed the way he’d help me keep my perspective whenever the Angels had a case. I was fairly certain I was going to need that, especially when Nick found out what was going on.

That afternoon Charlotte, Avery and I went back to the storage unit. I’d just parked the SUV when my phone signaled a text.

It was from Mac. On my way to the airport. Call you later.

Airport? I wondered where he was going. If he were coming back to Maine he would have been driving. I read the words again. Mac had said he’d call me later. I’d just have to wait to find out what was going on.

With the storage unit partly empty, it was easier to look at what else was inside. Along a side wall we discovered a dressmaker’s dummy, a treadle sewing machine and another box of fabric including some beautiful embroidered pale yellow tulle. Charlotte held up the buttery yellow material. “I’m sure Jess will create something wonderful with this,” she said.

As we loaded the large cardboard box into the SUV it dipped sideway and an old wooden cigar box fell out. Avery picked it up and looked inside. The box was full of beads. “Look at these, Sarah,” she exclaimed. “They’re beautiful. Some of them have to be really old.”

I peered at the contents of the box. Avery was turning beads over in her fingers, making excited little exclamations of surprise. “Would you like to have them?” I said.

She stared at me. “Seriously?”

“Yes.”

The teen’s eyes lit up and she flung one arm around me in an exuberant hug. “I’d love them! Thank you.” She put the box on the front seat, gave the top a little pat and then bounded back inside.

Charlotte smiled. “I’d love to have that child’s energy and enthusiasm.”

“Maybe you should start having a green smoothie every morning,” I said with a teasing grin as I righted the tipped-over carton of fabric.

Charlotte put her hands on her hips. “I will when you do,” she said with an equally teasing gleam in her eye.

I laughed. I loved my coffee and everyone knew that.

It was late afternoon before we returned to the shop. The SUV was packed full and so was the trailer. We’d been able to get both the sewing machine and the dressmaker’s dummy onto the trailer through a combination of effort and luck. I was certain both would sell in the shop. Those sort of older items were always popular.

Mr. P. came out to help us unload everything else. “How was your afternoon?” I asked as we pulled another box of mason jars out of the back of the car.

“Nothing we couldn’t handle,” he said. “We kept the ship on course.”

“I wouldn’t expect anything less,” I said.

With the four of us working together it didn’t take long to unload everything except the sewing machine and the dressmaker’s form. Mr. P. stood next to the trailer. I could tell by the way he was squinting at the last two items he was calculating whether the four of us could lift them out. I had a feeling that would be harder than loading them had been.

“There are a couple of pieces of plywood we can use as a ramp,” he said. “And we have the wheeled dolly. We can definitely move the sewing form. Maybe the sewing machine as well.”

I hesitated.

“Without anyone dislocating anything, my dear.”

Avery and I hauled out the plywood and the dolly, and to my surprise we managed to get everything into the garage with less exertion than I’d expected.

“I’m glad you were here,” I said to Mr. P. “I wouldn’t have thought to use the plywood and the dolly. Thank you.”

He smiled. “It’s just physics, my dear, but you’re welcome.”

I sent the others inside, locked the old garage, unhitched the trailer, and pulled the SUV into its usual spot. I headed in hoping I’d find that there was one of Rose’s molasses oatmeal cookies left in the staff room. Instead I stepped into the shop and learned exactly what Rose had meant when she’d said desperate times called for desperate measures.

Nick was standing in the middle of the room. Rose was with him.

I walked over to them. “Hi,” I said. Rose was looking very pleased with herself. Nick, on the other hand, didn’t look like the top of his head was about to blow off the way he usually did when the Angels had a case. I wondered what the heck was going on.

“Hello, dear,” Rose said. “How did you make out? Did you find anything interesting in the storage unit?” She gave me a guileless look that might have fooled some people but didn’t fool me for a second.

“A couple of things,” I said. “I found a box of old beads that I let Avery have. Charlotte discovered another box of those canning jars. Anything interesting happen here while we were gone?”

“As you can see, Nicolas dropped in,” she said, patting his arm with one hand. He towered over Rose but there was no question which one of them was in control of the situation. “And he had some information to share about Gina Pearson’s death.” She gave him her sweet, little old lady smile. “But I’ll let him tell you. I need to get Alf a cup of tea. He must be parched.” She hurried away

I looked at Nick. “I didn’t expect to see you here,” I said.

“I didn’t expect to be here,” he said with a smile.

Nick Elliot was tall, well over six feet, built like a big teddy bear only with muscles instead of padding. He had sandy hair and the same brown eyes and warm smile as his mother. When I looked at him I could sometimes still see the shaggy-haired, wannabe musician I’d had a crush on when we were teenagers. I couldn’t remember a time when Nick hadn’t been in my life and he and Liam had been friends since they were seven.

Nick worked as an investigator for the state medical examiner. He had a PhD in criminal psychology. He had worked as an EMT to put himself through school and Charlotte had harbored a not-so-secret hope that he’d go to med school.

“So what exactly is this information Rose is talking about?” I asked, walking him over to the front window, where there was a bit more privacy.

“I talked to the current medical examiner. She pulled up the file on Gina Pearson’s autopsy—it was done by her predecessor—and Claire concedes it might—might—be possible that the injuries on Pearson’s neck, which the old medical examiner had attributed to an earlier suicide attempt, were in fact made in some other fashion.”

I held up a hand as the meaning of his words sank in. “Wait a minute. Are you saying Gina Pearson was strangled?” I stared at him, flabbergasted.

He swiped a hand over his mouth. “No one is saying for certain that’s what happened. Claire isn’t willing to alter the cause of death at this point. And the body was cremated.”

“But it could have happened.”

“Yes.”

I studied his face. “And you think it did,” I said. I didn’t phrase the words in the form of a question.

He was silent so long I didn’t think he was going to answer, but finally he nodded.

I looked down at my feet to hide a smile but Nick noticed. “Yes, I am on the same side as Rose Jackson. Go ahead and laugh.”

“I’m not laughing at you,” I said.

“Yes. You are.”

“Rose called in that favor you owed her, didn’t she?”

Several weeks before, Rose had conspired to set me up so Nick and I could talk after we’d had an argument. I remembered him showing up in the shop’s parking lot, wearing a suit because he’d been in court, pulling off his sunglasses with a tentative smile.

“I conspired with Rose, Sarah,” he’d said. “That should tell you how much I want to fix this thing between us.”

Nick had looked so earnest standing there that I couldn’t help laughing. “Now you owe her,” I’d told him.

“Which shows just how important this is to me. Please, tell me what I can do to fix things.”

And in the end, we had fixed things.

I sidled up to Nick now, bumping his hip with mine. “So was it worth it now that you have to pay up?”

He smiled at me. “Absolutely.”

Nick and I had a volatile relationship at times, but things were good between us right now and I was glad. I’d known Nick all my life and I loved him like a brother.

There wasn’t really anything more to say. Nick said he’d do a little more digging around and left. Liz came to pick up Avery, and Rose and Mr. P. headed out with them as well. I dropped Charlotte off and Elvis and I headed home.

My house was an 1860s Victorian that had been divided into three apartments somewhere around thirty years ago. It hadn’t been in very good shape, at least cosmetically, when I bought it, but it had good bones. Dad, Liam and I had done most of the work on my main-floor apartment and Gram and John’s second-floor one. Mom had helped decorate with yard sale chic. She had a great eye for color. For a long time the third small apartment at the back of the house had stayed empty. It was where my parents or Liam stayed when they came to visit. Then, when the lease on Rose’s apartment at Legacy Place hadn’t been renewed, Avery had suggested Rose move in. Rose had turned down Mr. P.’s offer to move in with him. Originally she was going to stay only until she found somewhere else to live, but having her close by had worked out a lot better than I’d expected. We respected each other’s privacy and I liked having a constant source of cookies close by.

I glanced up at the second floor as I pulled into the driveway. There were no lights on in Gram’s apartment, which meant I was on my own for supper. Luckily I’d made shepherd’s pie over the weekend—following Rose’s instructions to the letter. I stuck it in the oven to heat while I changed my clothes and put a load of laundry in the washer.

My kitchen, living room and dining room were one big, open space with tons of light from the double bay windows at the front of the house. My bedroom overlooked the backyard, which would have been nothing but grass if it hadn’t been for Gram and Rose. Instead there was a raised flowerbed full of perennials and two hanging baskets by the back door.

I wandered around the apartment, straightening a cushion on the couch, picking up a clump of cat fur from the floor, lining up my shoes. I couldn’t stop thinking about what I learned from Nick. Had someone actually murdered Gina Pearson and then set the Pearson house on fire? Could Mike Pearson have done that? Was that why he didn’t want us digging into things?

I wished Gram and John were home. Or Rose. I’d tried Liam earlier but I hadn’t heard back from him. Probably in another “meeting.” And I knew Jess had a date.

Elvis was at the top of his cat tower. I stroked the top of his head. “Liam is right,” I said. “Everyone does have a more exciting life than I do.”

The cat rolled over on his back and began to move his paws in the air as though he were doing some kind of feline aerobics routine. The message seemed to be, Speak for yourself.

The shepherd’s pie was good. Against all the evidence, Rose was actually teaching me how to cook. I gave Elvis a tiny taste of the meat and vegetables in their tomato sauce and he licked his whiskers.

“You’re welcome,” I said.

It was about quarter to nine when I settled on the sofa with the remote and the cat beside me. I was about to turn on the TV when there was a knock at the door. Elvis immediately looked at me. “Oh, you want me to get that,” I said.

He wrinkled his nose at me and made a low murp as I got up. Sometimes I thought sarcasm was wasted on that cat. Other times I wasn’t so sure.

I was hoping it was Gram at the door, maybe with cookies? Or Rose with cookies. It turned out to be Nick with a box of microwave popcorn and two bottles of Maine root beer. Not cookies but close enough.

“Hi,” he said. “Are you doing anything?”

Elvis meowed loudly from the couch.

“As you just heard, no, we’re not.” I opened the door wider. “C’mon in.”

Nick made popcorn while I opened the root beer. “Do you have any real butter?” he asked, opening my refrigerator door and peering inside.

“As a matter of fact, I do. Rose insists on it for making cookies.” I pointed. “Second shelf.”

He grabbed the butter, straightened up and closed the door. “You made cookies?”

“Sort of,” I said, suddenly feeling a little defensive about my culinary efforts. “I mean I did all the work, but Rose was at my elbow the entire time.”

“And?”

I held out both hands. “And as you can see my apartment is still standing and the cookies were pretty darn good, if I say so myself.”

Nick smiled. “Good for you. Next time save me one.”

“I will,” I promised. I actually had saved him a cookie. I’d saved him six. I’d put them in the freezer so I wouldn’t eat them and then discovered that frozen cookies can be defrosted pretty quickly in the microwave.

Nick and I settled on the sofa with the popcorn on his lap and Elvis on mine.

“Have you come up with anything else on the Pearson case?” I asked.

The smile faded from his face. “I spoke to an old friend who’s an arson investigator down in Portland and got him to take a quick look at the original arson investigator’s report on the fire.” There was a moment of silence filled only by the ticking of my kitchen clock.

“And?” I prompted.

“It’s possible that Gina Pearson started the fire, but given the amount of alcohol that would have been in her system at the time he said he found it hard to believe she did.”

I sighed. “Nick, she was an alcoholic who had been in rehab more than once. She would have had a higher tolerance for alcohol than a lot of people.”

Nick nodded. “I told him that. He wouldn’t commit to anything on the record—and I can’t blame him when it wasn’t his case or even his jurisdiction—but he told me that it was possible that she was just too drunk to have started that fire.”

“Could the fire have been an accident?” I seemed to have fallen into the role of devil’s advocate, which was something Nick usually took on.

He made a face, his mouth pulling to one side. “No,” he said. “There’s evidence that the fire was set.”

I pushed my hair back off my face, tucking it behind one ear. “So if someone else started that fire that’s more evidence Gina Pearson was murdered.”

Nick nodded. “Yes.”

I stared at the ceiling, feeling a little numb. “So now what?” I asked.

“I was thinking about talking to Michelle when she gets back to see if she knows anything, but I’d have to tell her why I was asking.”

Like Nick, Michelle wasn’t exactly enthusiastic about the Angels getting involved in police business.

“She’s going to find out at some point,” I said, reaching for the popcorn. Elvis shifted on my lap. He seemed to like the smell of the popcorn more than anything. It was probably all the butter Nick had drenched it with.

“I know,” he said. “I just don’t know how she’ll take finding out that for once I agree with Rose.”

I pressed my lips together so I wouldn’t laugh, but it didn’t work. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I shouldn’t be laughing but who would have thought that you using Rose to apologize to me would lead to this.”

“I do see the irony of me being on the same side as Rose and my mother when in the past I was butting heads with them.”

“I guess you can teach an old dog new tricks,” I said. Elvis lifted his head and looked around. “Figure of speech,” I told him, stroking his fur.

“Rose is very observant and Mom has very good instincts about people,” Nick said. “And if you tell either of them I said that I will never buy you another plate of chips and salsa as long as I live.”

I made a show of pretending to zipper my lips together. Nick grinned and threw a piece of popcorn at me. I grabbed it midair and ate it.

“So what happens now?” I asked, settling back against the couch again. I was surprised by how much information Nick had gotten in a few hours although I really shouldn’t have been. If Rose was like a pit bull in sensible shoes when she set her mind to something, the same could be said for Nick, except he was larger and had a little stubble.

“I can’t just ignore what I’ve learned,” he said. “I’m going to talk to Claire again and I am going to tell Michelle what’s going on as soon as she gets back from seeing her mom. Maybe she’ll be open to taking a second look at the case.”

“You know the Angels aren’t just going to sit around and do nothing.”

He nodded. “I know. Between Mr. P.’s computer skills and the fact that my mother, Rose and Liz know everyone in town, maybe we’ll get something else we can use.”

I noticed he’d said “we” twice in that sentence. I didn’t point it out.

Nick’s head was on my shoulder and I thought how comfortable it was, the two of us on my couch, sharing a big bowl of popcorn as if we were a couple. Except we weren’t a couple, no matter how hard Charlotte and Rose especially had all but shoved us at each other. I’d come to see that there was no heat between us—not the way there had been when we were teenagers, which may have been mostly because, hey, back then we were teenagers.

I remembered a conversation I’d had with Liz just a few weeks ago.

When Nicolas walks into a room after you haven’t seen him for a while, do your toes curl? she’d asked. She’d gone on to explain. Sarah, a lot of people say passion is overrated but I disagree. That kind of heat between two people can keep you warm when life gets cold. And it’s going to get cold.

I took a deep breath and let it out. Ask him, a little voice in my head said. “Nick do your toes curl when you see me?” It was a bit easier to get the words out when I couldn’t see his face.

“What do you mean, do my toes curl?” He shifted his head so he was looking up at me.

I noticed he hadn’t said yes. I leaned down and kissed him. “How did that feel?” I asked. His mouth was warm and the stubble on his face scraped my chin.

He smiled. “Good.”

“You had more enthusiasm for the root beer,” I said.

He sat up. “Sarah, what’s going on?”

“Nothing,” I said. “That’s the thing. We’ve both been back in town more than a year and absolutely nothing has happened, despite the best efforts of Flora, Fauna and Merryweather.”

He smiled at my comparing his mother, Rose and Liz to the good fairies in Sleeping Beauty. “I’ve known you all my life, Nick, and I can’t imagine it without you in it, but—”

“—but you want the birds to fly over the heather.”

I couldn’t believe he’d remembered. He was talking about the movie Wuthering Heights, the old black-and-white version with Merle Oberon and Laurence Olivier. We’d watched it at a library film festival the same infamous summer that I’d boldly French-kissed him. Nick had joked at the way the filmmaker had cut to birds rising up from the windswept moors—the birds flying over the heather—when the two main characters, Cathy and Heathcliff, were intimate. He’d thought it was silly. I’d thought it was so wildly romantic

He studied my face for a long moment. “You want passion.”

“Yes, I do,” I admitted. “And I want it for you, too.” I couldn’t help feeling a little sad. Nick and I together would have made so many people so happy.

Nick continued to look at me and I had the feeling he knew what I was thinking. He put his arm around me and I leaned against him. “Do you really think that kind of thing is out there?” he asked, his voice a bit husky all of a sudden.

I thought about Mac. I’d had no idea I’d miss him so much.

“I hope so,” I said.