The Fast Аnd Тhe Furriest

Chapter 7

The next morning, just after Elvis and I arrived at the shop, Liz showed up with Avery. The teen hugged Charlotte and me tightly. She’d had more layers cut into her dark hair and the shaggy style suited her.

“I missed you so, so much!” she said. She bent down, picked up Elvis and kissed the top of his head. “And I missed you.”

He nuzzled her chin, cat for “I missed you, too.”

“We all missed you,” Mac said. “It was way too quiet around here.”

“Nonna told me about your wife and her friend,” Avery said. “I’m really sorry. And anyone who thinks you would hurt anybody is a moron.” She glanced at her grandmother. “I’m sorry, I know you don’t like the word, but it’s true.”

Mac gave her a smile. “I appreciate that. Thank you.”

Avery looked around and spotted the collection of empty teacups waiting on the workbench. Turned into tiny planters, they were always popular with tourists. “Sarah, do you want me to start working on those?” she asked.

“Please,” I said. “The haworthia is out in the garage.”

Avery threw her arms around Liz. “I have work to do,” she said to her grandmother. “I’ll see you tonight.”

Liz kissed the top of her head. “Have a good day,” she said.

Avery headed outside and Liz walked into the store with Mac and me. “You’re right,” she said. “It was quiet while she was gone. It was worth having one of those hideous smoothies for breakfast just to have her back.”

“So what’s on your agenda for today?” I asked, putting an arm around Liz’s shoulders.

“I have a meeting at the bank and I’m having dinner with Channing Caulfield tonight,” she said.

“Business or pleasure?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. I saw Mac try to stifle a smile as he moved across the room to unlock the front door.

“You’re a saucy miss,” she said tartly.

I put a hand on my chest and tried to look aggrieved. “I was just curious.”

“Curiosity killed the cat,” she said, pointing a warning finger at me.

“And satisfaction brought it back,” I countered.

“I knew I was going to regret teaching you the rest of that.”

I laughed. “So is this a date with Mr. Caulfield?”

“It most decidedly is not,” Liz said firmly. “I’m looking for more information on du Mer. Small New England companies are one of Channing’s areas of expertise. I thought he might know something.”

“I appreciate this,” Mac said.

She reached out and laid a hand on his shoulder as he came level with her. “You’re family,” she said. “This is what we do.” She looked at the watch on her left arm. “I need to get going.”

“I’m not going to have to start calling Mr. Caulfield ‘Uncle Channing,’ am I?” I called after Liz.

She kept on walking but over her shoulder she said, “Watch it, missy. You can be replaced with one of those self-driving cars and a robot that vacuums.”

Mac had been watching us, arms folded over his chest. Now he smiled at me. “What would I do without all of you?” he asked.

I smiled at him. “Given the tenacity that the Angels have shown on other cases I don’t think you’re ever going to find out.”

Charlotte and I spent the first part of the day back out at Clayton McNamara’s house, continuing the inventory on the main floor of the house. There was so much furniture stuffed into the little rooms.

“This house is like one of those little cars at the circus that has about twelve clowns inside,” I said to Charlotte.

“Ah, but I bet none of those cars ever had a Big Mouth Billy Bass,” she said, holding up the musical prop which looked, from a distance, like a mounted trophy fish. In reality it was an animatronic novelty that had been very popular in the early 2000s.

“Does it still work?” I asked.

Charlotte pushed the button under the rubber fish and it lifted its head and began to sing “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.”

I buried my face in the crook of my elbow so Clayton wouldn’t hear me laughing. I knew the musical fish would sell quickly, but I was thinking maybe I’d hang it in my office where I could make it sing to me the next time I got caught up in one of the Angels’ cases.

Midmorning, Clayton brought us coffee and I got a kick out of how he flirted with Charlotte—and how she was flirting back.

A bus tour stopped in at the shop late afternoon, which kept us all busy. We sold every one of the teacup planters Avery had made, along with several quilts and other small kitchen items. The man with the great hair who had been in the shop the previous day came back and I sold him a guitar, a 2006 Takamine cutaway. The acoustic-electric came with the original hard-shell case, and the buyer didn’t quibble over the price I was asking, but I felt confident we were both getting a great deal. Sam Newman had helped me set the price and he knew more about guitars than anyone I knew. I’d known Sam my whole life and he’d been playing a lot longer than that.

After the tourists had gone Mr. P. came downstairs with a cup of coffee for me. “Thanks,” I said. “I needed this.”

He smiled. “It’s my pleasure.”

“Have you come up with anything?” I asked after I had taken a long drink from the mug he’d handed me.

“As a matter of fact, I have.” He had a bit of a cat that swallowed the canary look about him. I’d seen that expression before. It meant that he was particularly pleased with whatever he’d unearthed. “I found Leila’s cousin, Stephanie. She’s living in Carrabassett Valley.”

“That’s easily doable,” I said, taking another sip of my coffee. “It’s just a couple of hours’ drive. When do you want to go?” I knew Liz would be happy to make the trip but truth be told I wanted to meet Stevie and I had the illusion—even though I knew it was probably misplaced—that if I went along Rose and Mr. P. would get into at least a little less trouble.

The latter smiled at me now. “I was hoping you’d say that, my dear. Will tomorrow morning work for you?”

Mac had been getting the vacuum out from under the stairs. I knew he’d heard the conversation. I looked over at him.

“I’ll open,” he said. “Avery and Charlotte will be here. We can take care of everything.”

Avery and Charlotte were just coming in from the workroom.

Charlotte nodded. “Of course we can,” she said. Then she looked at me and frowned. “What are we taking care of?”

“Here, Saturday,” Avery said. “So Sarah and Rose and Mr. P. can go talk to Mac’s wife’s cousin.”

We all looked at her.

“Yeah, I was eavesdropping.” She shrugged. “You all know I do that so if you don’t want me to know stuff you should talk quieter.”

“Saturday’s covered,” Mac said with a smile.

Mr. P. turned to look at him. “Thank you, Mac,” he said.

Mac brushed off the front of his jeans and came over to us. “I don’t need any thanks,” he said, “but I owe them to you.”

“We’re happy to be able to help,” Mr. P. said.

Mac shook his head. “I know I sound like a broken record but I can’t believe that Stevie would hurt Leila. They spent a lot of time together as kids and Stevie was very supportive of Leila when she started the company. And why would she kill Erin?”

“We aren’t going to see Stephanie to prove she killed Erin,” Mr. P. said, hiking up the waistband of his pants. He had an unfortunate tendency to wear them up in his armpits. Given that I’d once rocked overalls with one strap hanging down and combat boots—in the summertime—I wasn’t going to criticize. “We’re going to see Stephanie to learn more about Leila from someone she grew up with. We’re fact-finding. You’ve seen us do that before with other cases. Scientia potentia est.”

“Thomas Hobbes,” Charlotte said approvingly. “Knowledge is power.” Charlotte had coached the high school debate team and I knew the quote was one of her favorites.

Avery had her head under the table where she’d been changing the linens before going out to the workroom to help Charlotte find a box of snow globes Jess and I had bought at an auction. “Actually the quote was used hundreds of years before Hobbes by a seventh-century imam who wrote ‘Knowledge is power and it can command obedience.’” Avery straightened up and looked at us. “That’s the English translation. He wrote in Arabic.” She smiled at us and headed back out to the workroom to get something. “I love knowing things,” she called over her shoulder. “It freaks out adults.”

After we closed I took Elvis home. I had a plate of sundried tomato and chicken pasta salad that Charlotte had made. Elvis had a little chicken and then headed for the bedroom to get settled for Jeopardy! I put my dishes in the dishwasher, brushed my teeth and put on a little lip gloss. The TV in the bedroom was on a timer, set to come on for Jeopardy! and shut off when the game show was over. I had no idea why Elvis liked to watch the show. Maybe it was something he’d done with his previous owner. I kept thinking he’d get tired of the routine but after more than a year of living with me he was still a faithful viewer.

“I’m leaving,” I called from the living room. I was going to pick up Jess. We were taking part in a trivia/Pictionary–style contest at McNamara’s. It was a charity challenge and Jess and I were playing for the hot lunch program at the elementary school.

“You ready for this?” Jess asked as she climbed into my SUV.

“Well, I can draw a pretty wicked stick man,” I said as I pulled onto the street. “You, on the other hand, were born for this.” Jess had a head for odd bits of trivia. The odder, the better.

She grinned and nodded in agreement. “Yes, I was.” I could see her eyeing me out of the corner of my eye. “How many planets are there?” she suddenly asked.

“Nice try,” I said. “But I know this. Eight. There used to be nine and then Pluto got demoted.”

“Pluto was reclassified.”

“Isn’t that the same thing?”

“No,” Jess said, vigorously shaking her head. “Pluto didn’t meet all the criteria to be a planet.”

“In other words the cool planets didn’t want Pluto hanging out with them anymore.”

“The International Astronomical Union altered the definition of what constitutes a planet.”

“Like I said. The cool planets didn’t want Pluto hanging out with them so they changed the rules.”

Jess nodded. “Pretty much.” She shifted in her seat. “How many dwarf planets are there?” she asked.

“Are you going to quiz me all the way there?” I flipped on my blinker to turn right.

“That was my plan,” she said. “How many dwarf planets?”

“Seven,” I said.

“No!” Jess said. “Seven dwarves is Snow White. There are five dwarf planets. You’re not taking this seriously.”

I nodded in agreement. “You’re right. I’m not. I don’t need to know any of this because you do and you’re on my team. All I have to do is draw great stick men and be gracious when we win.”

And that was all I had to do. Although I did ace the question “How many planets are there?” We moved on to round two in two weeks.

“You two are a great team,” Glenn said.

“We pretty much clicked from the moment we met back in college,” Jess said. “Sarah stuck an ad up looking for a roommate.”

“Which Jess immediately took down because she didn’t want anyone to answer it before she could,” I finished.

Jess tilted her head in my direction. “If Sarah were a guy I would have broken her heart at least once by now.”

“Or maybe you would have had a great romantic love story,” Glenn said.

Jess and I looked at each other. “Nah,” we both said at the same time.

Glenn had half a dozen blueberry muffins for the two of us for winning our first round.

“Thank you,” I said. “You didn’t have to do that.” Glenn’s blueberry muffins were delicious, full of juicy berries with a hint of lemon and a crumbly streusel topping.

“I figured you deserved some sort of prize,” he said with a shrug. “You could stack them up and make a little trophy with them.”

“A trophy I can eat. I like that,” Jess said. Something across the room caught her eye. “There’s a customer I need to talk to,” she said, making a vague gesture in my direction. “Just give me two minutes and I’m ready to go.”

“Take your time,” I said. I turned back to Glenn.

“Rumor has it that there’s a connection between Mac and the woman whose body was found down on the boat dock,” he said. “Is everything all right?”

I rubbed the back of my neck with one hand. “Yeah, for now.”

“So the Angels are on the case?”

“You couldn’t pry them away from it with a crowbar,” I said.

Glenn brushed crumbs from the front of his apron. “I don’t know if this is important or not, but the woman who was killed was in here just a few hours before she died. She was looking for directions to your shop.”

“Did you see anyone with her?” I asked. I knew it was a long shot even as I said the words.

Glenn shook his head. “No.”

He hesitated, just for a moment before he answered.

I squinted up at him. “There’s something you’re not saying. What is it?”

“It’s probably nothing.”

I gave him a half smile. “I’m pretty sure Rose has some words of wisdom about this but I can’t think of them. Please, just tell me what ‘probably nothing’ is.”

“Okay,” he said. “I gave the woman directions. I was standing right there.” He pointed toward the front window. “I saw her head up the street. There was a car parked on the other side, just down a bit. A gray Toyota. The driver turned and went the same way.”

“Did you notice whether the driver was a man or a woman?”

“Man, I think,” Glenn said. “The body type was right and he was wearing a baseball cap. It’s probably just a coincidence the guy happened to turn and head in the same direction.”

“Probably,” I said, because most likely it was a coincidence. They did happen sometimes. On the other hand maybe there were security cameras somewhere on the street that Mr. P. could get a look at.

Jess came back then, we said good night to Glenn and left.

I’d told Alfred and Rose that I wanted to hit the road at quarter to eight Saturday morning. I stepped into the hallway five minutes before that to find Rose coming out of her apartment with Mr. P. I decided I didn’t want to know if he’d walked over early for breakfast or spent the night. Liam liked to tease that Rose had more of a love life than I did. I was pretty sure she did, but I didn’t need confirmation. It seemed like everyone had more of a love life than I did. Liam’s solution to the problem was, as he’d put it while he sprawled on my sofa, to “lay a wet one on Nick.”

Nick. I hadn’t heard from him since his confession that he was Michelle’s witness. Maybe he was just tied up with the case that had called him away. Maybe he was avoiding me.

Stevie Carleton’s home was off the grid outside the Carrabassett Valley ski area in the western part of the state. The weather was gorgeous, not too hot or too humid and we made good time. It was about quarter after ten when Mr. P. directed me to turn left. We drove down a tree-lined road and pulled into a cleared parking area.

Off to the right I caught sight of the house. “Oh wow,” I said.

Stevie Carleton’s home was two stories, built of stone with a saltbox roof and wide, high windows. Beyond it I could see cultivated fields and beyond them trees. It was a beautiful spot.

We got out of the SUV, grateful to stretch and shake the kinks out of our legs. A curvy woman in her early thirties wearing a tie-dyed T-shirt and gray cotton shorts was coming down a path from the house to meet us, wiping her hands on her shorts. Her dark, curly hair, streaked with blond highlights, was pulled back into a messy knot at her neck. She had the same dark eyes and light brown skin as Leila did in the photo Mac had shown me. This had to be Stevie Carleton.

“Alfred, you found us,” she said.

Mr. P. smiled. “Your directions were excellent.” He indicated Rose and me. “Stephanie, this is Rose Jackson and Sarah Grayson.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” she said.

“Your house is beautiful,” I said. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Stevie smiled with pleasure. “Thank you. My partner, Davis, and I collected all the rocks that make up the outside walls.” She laughed. “We picked the rockiest section of land to buy and build on so there were plenty.” She gestured in the direction of the building. “You’ve had a long drive. How about a glass of iced tea?”

“That would be wonderful,” Rose said. “Thank you.” Mr. P. and I both nodded.

We followed Stevie back along the path. The house almost seemed to be rising from the land. There was a low platform, like a deck with no railings, in front of the house.

“These boards are from an old barn that was on the property,” Stevie said.

Mr. P. leaned forward for a better look. “Douglas fir?” he asked.

She nodded. “We salvaged everything we could. I have a table inside that’s made from the same wood.” She indicated several chairs grouped around an octagonal wooden table. “Have a seat, or would you like to see the house?”

Rose smiled. “I’d love to see the house if you don’t mind.”

“So would I,” I said.

“I think we all would,” Mr. P. added.

“Okay, then, let’s take the tour,” Stevie said.

The main floor of the stone building was one open space. There was a kitchen at one end and a living/family room at the other with a central woodstove. The wall that faced south was almost completely windows and Stevie showed us the insulated shades that she and her partner had set up on a pulley system so they could be lowered at night or on bright days when the sun made the inside of the house too warm. She explained that the nearby solar panels provided all the energy they needed to power everything in the house. Stairs led to the second floor, where there were two bedrooms. The house was filled with light even with the shades partly drawn and I was captivated by how many things had been repurposed in the well-organized space.

Stevie got a glass pitcher from the refrigerator. There was a tray on the counter with glasses, cloth napkins, and a plate of cookies.

“I can bring this,” I said, indicating the tray.

“Thanks,” she said.

Stevie led the way back outside. Once we were all settled in our chairs with our tea she looked at Mr. P. “First of all, I need to say that I didn’t try to kill Leila.”

“That’s not why we’re here,” he said.

“Although we appreciate your frankness,” Rose added.

“Hey, it would make sense for you to suspect I had something to do with what happened,” Stevie said. “I know how it looks. I’m the one who benefits if Leila is dead.” She stopped speaking and cleared her throat, blinking several times. It was clear that she was emotional about Leila. “What I want is for Leila to wake up and come back to us. No amount of money is better than that.”

“When was the last time you saw Leila?” Rose asked, leaning forward in her seat.

“You mean before she ended up in the hospital?” I noticed that, unlike Mac, Stevie didn’t use the word “accident.” Did she think Mac had had something to do with what had happened?

Rose nodded.

“I saw her the day before she went into the coma. I was in Boston for a conference. We made plans to get together again in a few weeks. There was an exhibit coming to the Museum of Fine Arts that she wanted to drag me to: Japanese woodblock prints and those little carved figures—netsuke. Leila had a thing for Asian art.” Stevie shifted in her chair, pulling both legs up so she was sitting cross-legged. “I was at a lecture on hydroponic greenhouses at the time the heating system in the house would have been tampered with. And for the record I have the skills to mess with the heating system. I’ve learned how to do a lot of things since Davis and I started building this homestead. You can’t exactly just call a repair person when something goes wrong out here.”

So she didn’t believe what happened to her cousin was an accident.

“When I get my share of the trust on my thirty-fifth birthday I plan to start a charitable environmental foundation to promote the kind of lifestyle I’m living and help people learn about sustainable building and farming. It’ll be more than enough to do what I want. I have no designs on Leila’s share. I don’t need it.” Her voice was emphatic.

“Do you mind telling us what Leila was like?” Mr. P. asked.

I reached for a cookie as much to have something to do with my hands as because they looked delicious. I’d been wondering what Leila was like since Erin had first said her name.

A smile spread across Stevie’s face. “She was funny. She was a tiny person but she had this huge laugh and when she started laughing pretty soon you were laughing, too, just because she was. She didn’t take any crap from anyone, but on the other hand she was so kindhearted she wouldn’t even kill a spider in the bathtub.”

Leila sounded like someone I would like, I realized.

“She was only a year older than I am but she always acted like a big sister,” Stevie continued. “I talked to her about guys, about life, everything.” She pressed her lips together for a moment. “I miss that.”

“What was Leila’s relationship like with her sister, Natalie?” Rose asked.

Stevie reached for the pitcher of iced tea and refilled Mr. P.’s glass.

“Thank you,” he said softly. The tea was very good, lemony with a hint of sweetness.

“It’s a good indication of the type of person Leila was,” Stevie said. She paused for a moment. “The type of person she is. She welcomed Natalie and insisted from the beginning that everyone else in the family do the same or stay away. She was angry with her father for keeping Natalie a secret for so long, but Leila never took it out on her.”

She was still holding the pitcher and she turned to me and raised an eyebrow. “Please,” I said, holding out my glass.

She filled it and set the pitcher back on the low table.

“Leila always had a strong sense of what’s right and wrong. When she invited Natalie to work at her business Leila bought a life insurance policy with Natalie as the beneficiary, so if anything ever happened to her, Natalie would have the money to buy Mac out.”

The policy Mr. P. had discovered. Rose and I exchanged a look. It seemed Leila had had some secrets from Mac.

“What were things like between Leila and Mac?” I asked.

Stevie grinned. “They were crazy about one another from the moment they first saw each other. I was there. It was a party and they literally saw each other across a crowded room and it was magic.” Her expression changed, the smile fading from her eyes. “Does Mac know you’re here?” she asked.

“Yes,” Rose said. “And for the record he told us there was no way you could have hurt Leila.”

Stevie hung her head for a moment. “He’s kinder to me than I was to him. I bet he didn’t tell you that we had words when Leila ended up in the hospital.”

“It must have been a very emotional time,” Mr. P. said, his voice warm and kind the way it always was. “Things are said that no one means at times like that. I doubt Mac holds it against you.”

“Maybe he should,” she said. “I’m ashamed to say that I asked him if he had anything to do with what happened.” She gave her head a shake. “I was wrong. Mac loved Leila more than anything in the world. He wouldn’t have hurt her. Of everyone who knew her you can be sure Mac isn’t the guilty one.”

I suddenly felt that the questions we’d been asking were way too personal. Mr. P. was looking at me, I realized.

“Thank you for telling us about Leila,” he said. “I’m wondering if you mind sharing something a little lighter? I’m curious about how you and your partner ended up in the wilds, so to speak, of Maine. I confess the idea of being so independent intrigues me.”

I tried to get a mental image of Mr. P. living off the grid, growing his own vegetables, making bread and getting his electricity from the sun. He’d probably be good at it. The more I got to know the man, the more he surprised me with what he knew and what he could do.

Stevie smiled. “I don’t mind at all. Being self-sufficient is one of my favorite things to talk about.”

She explained that they grew their own organic vegetables as well as apples and pears. “We don’t eat much meat but what we do eat comes from a small farm a few miles west where the animals are free-range.”

We spent another twenty minutes or so with Stevie, sitting in the sunshine and learning more about her desire to get her pear and apple butters business going. Finally Rose looked at me and said, “I think we need to be getting back on the road.” We all stood up. Rose took one of Stevie’s hands in both of hers. “Thank you for talking to us and thank you for letting us see this beautiful place.”

“You’re welcome,” Stevie said. She handed Mr. P. a piece of paper. “That’s the contact information for the registrar and several people who can tell you where I was the night Leila was hurt. I’d feel better if you confirm I’ve told you the truth.”

She shifted from one foot to the other. “I’m afraid I don’t have an alibi for the night Erin Fellowes was killed, unless you’d take the word of a couple of raccoons. I was here by myself. Davis has been away in Nova Scotia at a course on organic farming methods for the last couple of weeks.” She stopped and frowned. “I did have a flat tire earlier in the day. I’m not sure if that matters.”

“Thank you, my dear,” Mr. P. said.

“Had you spoken to Erin recently?” I asked. We still didn’t know how Erin had located Mac.

Stevie shook her head. “No. I barely knew her. She was Leila’s friend.” She brushed something from the front of her shorts. “Would you . . . tell Mac I’m thinking about him?”

I smiled. “We will.”

“You’re welcome to visit, you know,” Rose said.

Stevie smiled. “Maybe I will.”

As we started for home I glanced in the rearview mirror at Mr. P. in the backseat. “Do you think Stevie is telling the truth?”

“I want her to be,” he said.

Beside me Rose nodded. “I like her.”

“Neither of you answered my question,” I said.

Rose exhaled softly. “She had answers to all of our questions and all the right emotional responses.”

“But . . .”

I glanced at Rose. Her hands were folded in her lap and her expression was serious. “Well, sweet girl,” she said, “I’ve been around the block enough times to know that money makes people do things you just wouldn’t believe they’d do.”

“I’m afraid Rose is right,” Mr. P. said from the back.

“So we keep on digging,” I said.

Next to me Rose was nodding. “We keep on digging,” she echoed.