No Escape Claws

Chapter 5

Nick stayed for another half hour. We talked about the shop, about his job, about what it was like to share living space with Liam. We both agreed my brother used his abnormally long monkey arms to stick things in out-of-the-way places just to be annoying.

Finally Nick stretched and said, “I should get going.”

“Thanks for the popcorn,” I said.

He grinned. “Thanks for the half a pound of butter I put on it.”

I followed him to the door. “Will I see you at the jam Thursday night?” I asked.

“Of course,” he said. “We’re friends, Sarah. We’re family and we always will be.” He gave me a hug, kissed the top of my head and left.

I straightened the sofa cushions, rinsed the two root beer bottles and put them in the recycling, and dumped the few unpopped kernels of popcorn into the trash. I thought about my neighbor, Tom, once telling Rose and me that when he was a boy those leftover kernels were called “old maids.”

“Such a terrible way to have referred to anyone,” he’d said. Then he’d smiled. “My dear mother once chastised my very stern and formidable grandfather for using the term when referring to his sister—who, for the record, had no interest in any husband or any man, for that matter. ‘Then what would you call a woman of a certain age who had no husband?’ he’d asked. ‘Lucky,’ my mother retorted.”

“I think I would have liked your mother,” Rose had said.

Tom had smiled at her. “I suspect the two of you would have been as thick as thieves,” he’d said in his warm Scottish burr.

“Is that what I am?” I asked Elvis. “An old maid?”

The cat seemed to actually think about my words and then to my amusement vigorously shook his head. I leaned down and picked him up. “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I said, kissing the top of his furry black head. Somewhere in his previous life Elvis had learned the art of listening, cocking his head to one side, focusing his green eyes on the speaker’s face and making encouraging little murping sounds to keep the conversation going. Maybe that was why I tended to talk to him like he was a person.

He leaned over now and licked my chin and I set him on the floor again.

By the time I’d gotten the coffeemaker ready for the morning and turned off the light, Elvis had disappeared. That probably meant he was in the bedroom starting his nighttime routine, which mostly involved an elaborate face-washing followed by the two of us pretending he wasn’t going to sleep on the chair by the window.

Twenty minutes later Elvis was settled in his chair watching some kind of car chase on TV while I searched for the mate to the one slipper I’d found by the bed. “Did you take my slipper?” I asked the cat.

He gave me a blank look. That didn’t mean he hadn’t had anything to do with my missing slipper. Just that he was really good at not looking guilty.

The phone rang. I looked at the caller ID and smiled. It was Mac. “Hi,” I said, dropping onto the bed and tucking my feet underneath me so I was sitting cross-legged. “It’s good to hear your voice.”

“Yours, too,” he said. “I’m sorry I didn’t call earlier. I was stuck in a meeting.”

“Where are you? Is everything okay?”

“Everything is good. I’m in Montana. I had an unexpected offer on a small piece of property that Leila and I own—owned. We bought it on impulse on our honeymoon. It’s really the last big thing I need to take care of as far as the estate goes. The agent thought it would take a while to sell so the offer was a surprise.”

Montana. I pictured snowcapped mountains and endless blue sky. “Did you think about keeping it?” I glanced over at the closet and noticed the toe of my missing slipper sticking out under the edge of the door.

“No. It was past time to sell. I have different dreams now.” He cleared his throat. “I probably could have handled all the paperwork from Boston but it just seemed faster to fly out and deal with it all in person.”

The sleeve of my flannel pajamas had fallen down over my hand and I pushed it back up my arm. “When are you coming back?” I asked. “I mean back to Boston.”

“In the morning.” He yawned. “Sorry. Changing time zones has gotten to me.”

Elvis glanced over at me and yawned as well. Was I putting people—and cats—to sleep?

“Tell me about the Angels’ new case,” Mac said.

“How did you know they have a case?”

“I had a text from Alfred.”

That shouldn’t have surprised me. The two men had gotten to be friends, despite the fact that Mr. P. was old enough to be Mac’s father. And they had a lot more in common than would seem apparent at first glance. They were both smart, resourceful, kindhearted and deeply loyal.

I gave him the short version of what was going on—including Nick’s role.

“So let me get this straight: Nick and Rose are working together?”

“Yes they are,” I said. “See what happens when you leave us for so long?”

There was a silence that went on a bit too long and then Mac asked, “What’s next?”

I shook my head even though he couldn’t see me. “I don’t know. If Gina Pearson’s death wasn’t an accident . . .”

“You’re thinking it’s possible her husband could have killed her.”

I sighed. “I’m just afraid we might end up making things a lot worse for Mallory and her brothers.”

“You’ll figure it out,” Mac said. “You always do and if you need to talk you can call me. Even if it’s the middle of the night.”

I stifled a yawn of my own. “You might regret saying that.”

“I won’t,” he said. “Get some sleep. I’ll talk to you soon.”

We said good-bye and it wasn’t until after I’d set my phone on the night table that I realized once again he hadn’t said anything about when he was coming back to North Harbor.

• • •

I got up early and went for a run. Elvis watched me, one eye open, the other half closed as I pulled on a hoodie and tied my running shoes. There were dark clouds overhead and I hoped that wasn’t some kind of omen for the day.

Elvis was sitting on a stool at the counter when I got back. He gave me an expectant look that I knew meant he was looking for breakfast—his own and a taste of mine if he could manage to mooch it.

I showered and got dressed. Then I made breakfast, Greek yogurt, berries and one of Rose’s apple raisin muffins for me, Tasty Tenders for Elvis.

I decided to leave early for the shop. Rose wasn’t working until after lunch so I could head out whenever Elvis was ready and he’d been very pointedly sitting by the door for a good five minutes. When I stepped outside my door I discovered Rose and Mr. P. waiting in the hall. Rose had one of her massive tote bags, which I hoped held cookies or a coffee cake, and Mr. P.’s messenger bag was over his shoulder.

“Good morning, dear,” she said. “May Alfred and I ride with you?”

“Merow,” Elvis said as he headed for the front door. It seemed to be okay with him.

“Of course you can,” I said. “Did you and Charlotte trade shifts?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. She didn’t elaborate further.

“Let me take that bag for you,” Mr. P. said. Along with my purse and my briefcase I was carrying a bag of vintage pot holders, which I’d brought home to wash and iron.

“Thank you,” I said, handing over the brown paper shopping bag. I locked my door and we headed out to the SUV. As usual Rose took the front passenger seat and Elvis joined Mr. P. in the back without complaint. As we drove Rose told me about the film she and Alfred had gone to see at the library the night before, some kind of epic fantasy in French, with subtitles.

It was raining by the time we got to the shop. Liz’s car was in the lot and I saw Charlotte in the passenger seat. I looked at Rose. “What’s going on?” I asked.

She looked surprised. “It’s a strategy meeting. Thanks to Nicolas now we know we have a murder to solve.” She held out one hand and I dropped my keys into it. Then she opened the passenger door, popped open the very large, flowered umbrella she’d pulled from her bag and started for the back door. I saw Liz and Charlotte follow her.

Mr. P. put a hand on my shoulder. I turned in my seat to look at him. “Don’t worry, Sarah,” he said. “Rosie has a plan.”

I didn’t have the heart to tell him that’s exactly what was making me worry.

Mr. P. shared his oversized umbrella and we dashed to the back door. I held Elvis inside my coat so he stayed dry. Rose had already gone up to put the kettle on because this detective agency ran on tea.

We gathered around a long table that I’d been putting off refinishing because I couldn’t decide what to do with it. It occurred to me that what I should do was give it a couple of coats of paint and save it for the Angels’ office when it was done. We seemed to have at least one “strategy meeting” in every case they took on. Finally everyone had a cup of tea and Charlotte had sliced the coffee cake that Rose had brought in her bag.

Rose looked around the table. “Are we all on the same page?” she asked. Her gaze stopped at me.

“I talked to Nick last night, if that’s what you mean,” I said.

“He told you what the arson investigator told him?”

I nodded.

She broke a slice of the coffee cake in half but didn’t take a bite from either piece. “So the first thing we need to do is figure out who might have wanted to kill Gina Pearson.”

“How about Mike Pearson?” I said.

Rose shook her head. “Mike Pearson didn’t murder his wife.”

I wrapped my hands around my teacup. They were suddenly cold. “You don’t know that, unless there’s something you haven’t shared with the rest of us.”

Charlotte leaned toward me across the table. “Sarah, is there something you’re not sharing with the rest of us? Why do you think Mike is the killer?”

“I don’t necessarily think he is,” I said, “but are you ready if he turns out to be?” This time I was looking around the table at all of them.

“You’re thinking about Mallory and her brothers,” Charlotte said.

I nodded. “She came to you to help get her father out of prison. Are you prepared to maybe keep him there for the rest of his life?”

“That’s not going to happen,” Rose said. It was impossible to miss the certainty in her voice. “If Mike Pearson wanted his wife dead, all he had to do was let her drink herself to death. He didn’t need to strangle her.”

“He was—he is—a good father,” Charlotte added. “When Mallory was my student he didn’t miss a single event—not a parent-teacher night, not an awards assembly, not a school play.” She twisted the plain gold wedding ring she still wore around her ring finger. “I talked to several teachers who have had Mallory’s younger brothers as students. He was the same way with both of them. Does that sound like a man who would murder his wife and set his house on fire?”

It didn’t, however I knew that murder wasn’t always logical. People did things in the heat of the moment. Charlotte was still looking at me. They all were. I remembered what Nick had said about his mother’s insight into people. Could I go forward on the premise that Mike Pearson had not killed his wife, because I was part of this investigation? I could protest all I wanted, but I’d get pulled in. I always did. I wasn’t as sure about Mike as Rose and Charlotte were but I did trust both their instincts. I could at least give the man the benefit of the doubt. For now.

“Okay,” I said.

Liz leaned sideways so she was in my line of sight and waved two fingers at me. “Wait just a minute, missy. Don’t you want to know what Alfred and I think?”

“Are your opinions any different from Rose’s and Charlotte’s?” I asked, reaching for a slice of coffee cake. I could smell cinnamon and brown sugar.

Mr. P. shook his head. “I’m in agreement with both of them,” he said.

I popped a bite of the cake in my mouth and raised one eyebrow at Liz.

“I agree with the others, but it’s nice to be asked,” she said.

“I’ll try to remember that,” I said, stifling a smile.

“I think for now we should keep what we’ve learned about Gina’s death from Mallory,” Charlotte said.

Rose nodded. So did Mr. P.

“Well, of course,” Liz said, picking up her cup.

“I agree,” I said.

“So do I,” a voice said from the far end of the workroom. I turned around. Nick was standing there. He was wearing jeans and his hands were in the pockets of a navy windbreaker. The shoulders of the jacket were damp and so was his hair.

Rose got to her feet. “What exactly is it you think you’re agreeing to, Nicolas?” she asked. She wasn’t at all intimidated by Nick, and he didn’t look intimidated by her, either. Although he really should have been.

“You’re going to try to find out who killed Gina Pearson and set that house on fire,” he said.

“Does that mean you think she was murdered?” Charlotte said.

Nick nodded. “I do, Mom. And I think I can help.”

He looked at Rose and she looked back at him. I felt like I was watching a pair of gunfighters—the grizzled veteran and the wise-guy kid with something to prove. In this case the grizzled veteran wouldn’t shoot the kid’s gun out of his hand if he messed up, but there was a possibility that she’d whack him with a loaded tote bag.

“All right then,” Rose said. She looked across the table at Mr. P. “Alfred, would you please make coffee?”

“Of course,” he said, getting to his feet.

“Nicolas, would you like a piece of coffee cake?” she asked, turning her attention back to Nick.

“I would,” he said. “But is this it? Don’t you do a group cheer or an all-for-one thing with your hands stacked up on one another’s?”

I wasn’t sure if he was teasing or partly serious.

“No, we most certainly do not,” Liz said, looking at Nick over the top of her glasses to press the point home.

“We could,” Rose said. “If it would make Nicolas feel included.”

I had gotten up and was getting a chair for Nick. I was careful not to look in his direction, afraid that I’d start to laugh.

“We could, but since we’re not a hormone-addled boys’ hockey team, we’re not.” Liz set her cup down on the saucer with a clink as if to make the point that the discussion was settled. “Sarah’s getting him a chair. Alfred is making him coffee. He’s included Rose. Move on.”

“Fine,” Rose said, a tiny edge of petulance in her voice.

I set the chair at the table. “Having fun?” I whispered as I passed in front of Nick.

We spent the next few minutes deciding what we were going to do next. Mr. P. offered to see what he could dig up on Gina Pearson’s previous trips to rehab.

“I have some connections at the hospital,” Liz offered. I knew the Emmerson Foundation had been a generous donor to the Northeastern Medical Center. “I could ask a few questions.” In other words, she’d use her considerable charm, and the Emmerson last name, to get answers that otherwise would be a lot harder to find.

Charlotte offered to see if she could pick up any hints about Mike and Gina’s relationship from their younger children’s teachers.

Nick took a second slice of coffee cake. “I’m going to talk to Claire again to see if I can get her to amend Gina Pearson’s official cause of death.” I knew very little about the state medical examiner, but Nick seemed to like her. Maybe he could get her to reconsider Gina Pearson’s cause of death.

“That would be a big help,” Rose said. “Especially if we want Detective Andrews to reopen the case.” She was moving around the table gathering plates and cups.

“We want Michelle to reopen the case?” I asked as I got to my feet.

Rose turned to look at me. “Well, yes, dear. Of course we do.”

I folded the chair I’d been sitting on and reached for the one Rose had vacated. “Umm, why?”

“Because we need to get Mike Pearson out of jail and the best way to do that is to get the case reopened and then find the person who actually killed his wife.” She moved behind me and patted my arm. “And the police do have some resources that we don’t. We need to get everyone in the boat rowing in the same direction.” She smiled at Nick. He smiled back at both of us.

I knew this whole cooperation, let’s-hold-hands-and-sing-Kumbaya thing wasn’t going to last but it was kind of entertaining. “What would you like me to do?” I asked Rose.

“Talk to Isabel,” she said. “She went to school with Neill Halloran. See what she can tell you about the judge.”

I nodded. “What are you going to do?”

“Find a recipe for jam-jams.”

“Jam-jams?” I said. Mr. P. had folded his chair and I took it from him, taking all three back to where they’d been hanging on the far wall of the workroom.

“Yes. Melly Halloran, the judge’s mother, won a blue ribbon three years running at the state fair for those cookies.” She started for the door as though her words had explained everything.

“Hang on a minute,” I called after her. “I don’t understand what the judge’s mother’s cookies have to do with us figuring out who killed Gina Pearson.”

Rose gave the faintest of sighs and turned back around. “Melly Halloran made prizewinning cookies.”

“I get that,” I said.

Nick drained the last of his coffee and got to his feet. He grabbed his chair and the empty one beside him and looked at me. I pointed to a spot in front of where I’d hung the folding chairs. He nodded.

“So it stands to reason that Neill Halloran likes jam-jams.”

I nodded. “Okay, I’ll give you that.”

“And since he’s a widower it’s probably been a while since he’s had homemade cookies.” She sounded a bit like she was explaining to a three-year-old why it was a bad idea to eat dirt.

“Still with you,” I said, although I wasn’t sure where the conversation was going.

“So if we show up with a plate of jam-jams he’s far more likely to talk to us about why he says he saw Mike Pearson after the fire started when we know he couldn’t have.”

“Got it,” I said.

Mr. P. was already on his way to the sunporch.

Charlotte gestured toward the shop. “I’ll go open up,” she said.

I nodded. “Thanks. I’ll be there in a minute.”

“Have a good day,” she said to Nick.

He smiled and raised one hand. “You, too, Mom.” He dipped his head as he moved past me. “You have a good day, too, Jam-Jam,” he said with a grin.

Liz was still standing by the table. She walked around the end of it and came over to me. “Could you stop by this evening?” she asked. “I mean, if you don’t have plans.” She gave me a guileless look.

“I don’t,” I said, ignoring that little comment about my dating life—or lack thereof. “What’s up?”

“Michelle will be back soon and there are a couple of things I need to talk to you about before that happens.”

I nodded. “Okay.”

Liz glanced at her phone and then tucked it back in her purse. She looked up to see that I was still looking at her. “What?” she said. “Do I have spinach from one of Avery’s drink-this-and-you’ll-live-forever smoothies?” She shuddered.

“No,” I said, linking my arms through hers and starting for the door. “I was just thinking that you’re a good person. You didn’t have to help Michelle try to clear her father’s name.”

“Yes, I did,” Liz said, her expression serious. “When I first found out what Michelle was doing I was convinced she was wrong. Now it’s beginning to look like there’s a good possibility that I was wrong about Rob Andrews’s guilt and I need to know the truth just as much as Michelle does.”

I gave her arm a squeeze before letting go. “We’ll figure it out,” I said.

Liz opened her umbrella and we stepped outside in time to see Nick pulling out of the lot. Liz watched him go with a bemused expression on her face. “I never thought I’d see the day when Nicolas and Rose would be working together,” she said. “Talk about strange bedfellows.”

“I’m kind of afraid it’s not going to last,” I admitted.

Liz gave a snort of derision. “Of course it’s not going to last. The whole thing is going to explode like a bowl of pudding in a microwave.” She shrugged. “So we take our fun where we can get it.” She headed for her car. “See you tonight,” she called over her shoulder.

It turned out to be a busier day than I expected. A bus full of concertgoers on the way to Boston to see James Taylor stopped in. I sold two guitars, all but one of Michelle’s pillows and all of Avery’s map pails. And our collection of old vinyl records was seriously decimated.

Rose had gone home to work on her cookies when Avery arrived for her shift. Mr. P. had stayed behind to do more digging into Gina Pearson so he drove home with Elvis and me.

“Any luck?” I asked.

“I’m not sure,” he said, pushing his glasses up his nose. “Gina Pearson was in rehab three times in two years. Between the first and second trips she was in an accident that seriously injured a teenage girl.”

I exhaled loudly. “That’s bad.” I shot Mr. P. a quick glance. “Did she do any jail time?”

He shook his head. “No. She received a suspended sentence, community service and a court-mandated return visit to rehab.”

“Which I’m guessing didn’t work.” I stopped at the corner and looked both ways before turning.

“Sadly, it didn’t,” he said.

“What happened to the teenager she hit?” I asked.

“She’s doing well now. But it hasn’t been easy. Her name is Hannah Allison. She was only fifteen at the time of the accident. According to what Elizabeth learned the doctors thought they might have to amputate part of her leg.”

I grimaced at the thought.

“It seems she’s a big Patriots fan,” Mr. P. continued. “A couple of the players went to see her when she was a patient at Boston’s Children’s Hospital and they stayed in touch. That kept her story in the news.”

“I’m surprised Gina didn’t get any jail time.”

“I think it helped that a former judge spoke on her behalf.”

“Not Judge Halloran?” I shot him a quick look.

He nodded. “One and the same, my dear.”

“So the judge speaks up in Gina’s defense and later is the same person who ties her husband to her death,” I said. “That’s an awfully big coincidence.” I slowed down to let the car in front of me make a left turn. From the corner of my eye I saw a hint of a smile on Mr. P.’s face.

“You know how Rosie feels about coincidences,” he said.

I couldn’t help smiling, too. “The same way she feels about fat-free brownies. She doesn’t care for either one of them.”

I pulled into the driveway. “I need to talk to Gram about the judge as soon as I can,” I said.

“That could be very helpful,” Mr. P. said, reaching for his messenger bag, which was at his feet.

“Maybe we can figure out what really happened to Gina Pearson,” I said as we headed for the door.

“I have no doubt about that,” Alfred said. “You have a lovely evening.” He patted my arm and started for Rose’s apartment.

It wasn’t until I was inside my own place that I realized I’d said “we.” Maybe we can figure out what really happened.

I was part of the investigation no matter what I said, no matter how much I said I didn’t want to be. Like Nick, I was part of the team.

After supper Elvis headed for the bedroom. The cat was a Jeopardy! junkie, another holdover, I surmised, from his previous life. Monday through Friday the cat faithfully watched the game show. Somehow he seemed to know it was just a weekday thing.

No one was certain whether Elvis had been abandoned or whether he had wandered away from his previous owner. He’d just appeared one day down along the harbor front and after spending some time mooching meals at several different restaurants and charming pretty much everyone he met, the cat had come home with me. Elvis was a very social cat. Customers who had been in the store before looked for him the moment they came through the door.

I headed for the bedroom myself, turned on the television and made sure it was set to turn off once Jeopardy! was over. My cat watching one game show was okay, but anything more than that would just be weird.

Liz had the kettle on when I got to her house. I’d stopped at McNamara’s and managed to snag a couple of lemon tarts for us.

“I saved them for you,” Glenn McNamara said as he rang them up along with a blueberry muffin for my breakfast in the morning.

I frowned at him across the counter. “How did you know—” I stopped. “Never mind,” I said. “Liz called, didn’t she?”

He grinned. “This morning.”

• • •

“My favorite. How thoughtful,” Liz said when I handed her the small cardboard box containing the tarts.

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes.

Liz made the tea and we sat at her kitchen table. “Where’s Avery?” I asked.

“Working on a class project with a couple of friends.” She put one of the tarts on her plate. “That reminds me. Do you still have that box of flowerpots? You didn’t give it away, did you?”

I shook my head. “No. Did you want them for something?”

“Avery has an idea. She says she can make them a lot more interesting.” She cut the lemon tart in half. “All I can tell you is that it seems to involve black paint and cheesecloth.”

I took a sip of my tea. “She might as well have at them,” I said. “I’d be lucky to get a couple of dollars for the whole box.”

“Thank you,” Liz said. She took a bite of her pastry and gave me a blissful smile.

I put the other tart on my plate. “So tell me what you found out. You said you were going to talk to Wilson and a couple of people who were on the board back when Michelle’s dad was running the Sunshine Camp.” Liz was digging into the history of the summer camp and the Emmerson Foundation itself under the guise of putting together a book about the foundation. What she was really doing was looking for evidence that Rob Andrews hadn’t embezzled money from the summer camp.

“I didn’t find out a damn thing.” She shook her head in annoyance. “I didn’t get anywhere with Wilson. He dismissed the entire thing as self-indulgent.”

Liz and her brother often clashed over the foundation. She claimed he still held a bit of a grudge because their grandfather had put Liz in charge of the charity when he stepped down instead of Wilson. Abernathy Emmerson had apparently been a very progressive man for his time.

“What about the board members you talked to?”

“Neither one of them had anything useful to offer.” She picked up the knife and cut the remaining half a tart into two pieces and immediately ate one. Then she held up a finger as something occurred to her.

I waited.

“There was one thing,” she said finally. “David Jacobs, who’d been a board member the longest, said he still found it hard to believe that Rob Andrews had embezzled the money.”

“Did he say why?”

“Just that Rob seemed to genuinely care about the kids that came to the camp.” She made a face. “For a minute I had the urge to smack him with my purse. Why in heaven’s name didn’t he say something at the time?”

I got up for the teapot and refilled both of our cups. “It wouldn’t have made any difference,” I said. “The case against Michelle’s father was pretty much airtight.”

Liz shook a finger at me. “That in itself should have been a red flag,” she said. “There was too much evidence. It was too damn easy. Rob Andrews was a smart man. He wouldn’t have been that careless.”

I sighed. “I know. The same thought’s occurred to me.”

Just recently Liz had unearthed some of the minutes of the board meetings from the time period when Rob Andrews ran the Sunshine Camp. The only incongruity we’d found was passing mention of several projects that then seemed to disappear without any explanation. There hadn’t been any money attached to those projects but the lack of information on them anywhere in the foundation records rankled Liz.

“Did you ask Wilson about those proposed projects we can’t seem to track down?” I asked, taking a bite of my own tart. I could see why they were Liz’s favorites. The pastry was crisp and flaky and the filling was lemony with just a hint of sweetness.

Liz looked so elegant sitting there with her tea, legs crossed, not a hair out of place, but there was nothing elegant about the snort she made in response to my question.

“He claims he doesn’t remember them,” she said. “And he probably doesn’t. Wilson has never been a details person. No one else seemed to know what I was talking about, either.”

“Do you really think these projects are connected in some way to Rob Andrews?” I asked.

She shook her head. “I don’t know. What I do know is that back then there were things going on that I didn’t know about. So maybe I didn’t know everything about Rob Andrews, either.”