The Fast Аnd Тhe Furriest

Chapter 3

“Are you sure?” Mac said. He’d gone pale.

Michelle nodded. “Yes.”

He closed his eyes for a brief moment. My heart ached for him.

“What happened?” Josh asked.

“You know I can’t give you any details,” Michelle said. She was in police officer mode now.

“So why do you want to talk to my client?” I noted his choice of words: “my client,” not Mac. Josh was all business as well.

“Erin Fellowes had directions for Second Chance on her phone and three messages from Mac.”

“I’ve got directions for half a dozen places on my phone at any given time,” Josh said with a shrug of his shoulders. “And messages from all sorts of people. That doesn’t prove anything. What else do you have?”

Michelle didn’t answer. She pulled her phone out of her pocket, glanced at it and then put it away again.

“I know you have something,” he said. “You wouldn’t have shown up here and then waited for me if you didn’t.” He raised an eyebrow.

In return Michelle gave him a grudging smile. “Fine. Erin Fellowes was seen arguing with a man who matches Mac’s description down on the waterfront.”

Josh immediately shot Mac a warning look. Mac gritted his teeth but he didn’t speak.

“You know how unreliable these things are,” Josh said with a shrug. “Not to mention, this ID had to have happened once it started to rain and likely after it started to get dark. If that’s all you have, I think we’re done.”

“I didn’t do anything to Erin,” Mac said. “I didn’t see her. And I didn’t talk to her.”

“Are you charging Mac with something?” Josh asked, sending Mac a look that I knew meant Stop talking.

Michelle shook her head. “No. Not now I’m not.”

“Well, then, if you don’t have anything else to share, this conversation is over.”

“For now,” she said.

“If you need to talk to Mac again, please call my office,” Josh said in the same conversational tone of voice he might have used to comment on the weather. “I think you have my number.” He moved to show her out.

Michelle looked at me for a long moment. “Good night, Sarah,” she said, and then she left.

Josh stood in the hallway watching through the glass panel in the front door until Michelle pulled away from the curb. Then he came back inside. Mac was still standing in the middle of the room, arms folded on the top of his head. I had dropped down onto one of the stools at the counter. Josh picked up the glass of root beer he’d set on my coffee table and took a long drink.

“So what happens now?” Mac asked. He was restlessly shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

“What happens now is you’re in my office at nine thirty tomorrow morning,” Josh said, gesturing at him with the almost-empty glass, “because I want to hear about your entire day today, every tiny detail from the moment you got out of bed until right now.”

Mac nodded. “I’ll be there.”

“And for future reference, when I tell you not to talk, don’t talk.” There was a warning in his gaze.

“I didn’t hurt Erin. I didn’t even see her.”

Josh held up a hand to stop Mac from saying anything more. “I believe you,” he said, reaching over to set the glass on the counter. “It doesn’t change anything. Don’t volunteer any information unless I tell you to.”

“Thank you for coming, Josh,” I said, sliding off the stool.

He smiled and once again I saw the kid who had climbed trees with me in my grandmother’s backyard and who had worn a Darkwing Duck cape every day for one entire summer. “You and your friends keep my life interesting, Sarah,” he said. He glanced at Mac. “Nine thirty,” he repeated. And then he left.

I went into the kitchen. I’d remembered that I had half a pan of white chocolate bark that Rose had made and given me that morning. I took the lid off the container, took out a triangle of the candy studded with dried cranberries and pistachios, popped it in my mouth and set the tin on the coffee table. I knew I wouldn’t be stopping at just one piece. I sat on the sofa, pulling up my legs and wrapping one arm around my knees.

Mac sat down in the chair again. “I’m sorry for getting you involved in all of this,” he said. His right hand was pulled into a fist and he kept smacking it absently with the palm of his other hand.

“I’m sorry Erin is dead,” I said.

“I don’t understand what she was doing here. I told you, she sided with Leila’s parents in everything. I haven’t spoken to her in a long time.” He closed his eyes for a moment and sighed softly. “I still have to find out if anything has changed with Leila.” He stood up and I got to my feet as well. “I have to go,” he said, reaching for his sweatshirt.

“I’ll be there early to open the shop,” I said. I rubbed a dab of white chocolate off the end of my finger. “You can take the SUV to Josh’s office.”

He almost smiled. “I have the truck now, remember? And my feet work, too. But thank you. Thank you for the offer. Thank you for listening. Thank you for calling Josh.”

“Anytime,” I said. “Whatever you need.” For a moment we just stood there, looking at each other, and I had the sense that we were moving toward each other, so slowly the motion couldn’t be seen.

Then Elvis jumped down from the top of his tower. Whatever had been happening or about to happen between Mac and me passed.

“I’ll see you in the morning,” he said. “Sleep well.”

I nodded. “You, too.” I closed the door behind him and then bent down and picked up Elvis, who was at my feet now. “You have lousy timing,” I told him. He nuzzled my hand, found another dab of chocolate on the edge of my thumb and began to lick it away. Clearly he didn’t care about his timing at all.

• • •

I was just finishing breakfast the next morning—a scrambled egg with spinach, tiny tomatoes and mushrooms over an English muffin, plus lots of coffee—when I heard a knock at the door. “That’s probably Rose,” I said to Elvis, who was sitting on a stool next to me at the counter, mooching bits of egg.

But it wasn’t Rose. It was Nick.

“Hi,” he said. Nick Elliot filled the doorway. He was over six feet tall with the wide shoulders of an NFL lineman, although hockey was actually his sport. Nick was clean-shaven but his sandy hair was due for a trim. He was dressed in a blue golf shirt and black pants with a multitude of pockets—his work clothes, I knew.

“You have two minutes,” I said, turning and heading back over to the kitchen counter. I knew what was coming and I wanted my coffee.

“Two minutes for what?” he asked as he followed me, closing the door behind us.

I picked up my cup and sat down on the stool again, back to the counter this time. Elvis turned around and studied Nick, his furry black head cocked to one side.

“For your speech, the one in which you tell me to be careful and to not get involved in Michelle’s case.” I took a sip of coffee and smiled at him over the rim of the cup. “Oh, and how Rose and the Angels shouldn’t get involved, either, because that’s gone so well every other time you’ve made that suggestion.”

He had the good grace to blush. “Am I really that predictable?”

“You’re that pigheaded,” I said.

Ever since they’d taken on their first case Nick had been butting heads with Rose, Liz, Mr. P. and Charlotte—who was his mother. He thought detective work was too dangerous and the four of them didn’t have a clue what they were doing, despite the fact that Mr. P. had met all the requirements of the state to be a licensed private investigator and Rose was about to. Not to mention that they all had lots of life experience.

Nick was a former paramedic who was now an investigator for the state medical examiner’s office. He was a smart, well-educated man, but he had blinders when it came to his mother and her friends. I think what he really wanted was for them to just bake cookies and organize walkathons for new playground equipment for the elementary school, not ferret out clues and chase down suspects.

“You know Mac has a connection to the woman that was killed last night,” I continued.

“I wasn’t going to give you a speech,” he said, a note of defensiveness in his voice. “And I wasn’t going to say anything about Rose and my mother and their cohorts. I know that ship has sailed.”

“I’m glad you get that,” I said. The amusement I felt at his discomfort had to be showing on my face.

“I just want you to be careful.”

There was something stuck in his hair, just above his left ear. I slipped off the stool, reached up and grabbed a Cheerio. “Why do you have breakfast cereal in your hair?” I asked.

Nick leaned his head forward and gave it a shake. “Crap! I thought I got it all.”

“Some new styling product I don’t know about?” I teased.

He laughed. “No. It’s actually Liam’s fault.”

I folded my arms over my chest, happy to talk about something other than investigations and dead bodies. “Oh, this is going to be good, I can tell. Elaborate.”

“It’s just that your brother has arms like a spider monkey.”

“Liam has feet like a monkey, too,” I said. “He can pick up things with his toes.” There was only a month between my brother—who was technically my stepbrother—and me. We had been alternately torturing each other and covering for each other from the day his father married my mother. And Liam and Nick had been fast friends from the moment they met when they were seven years old.

“Well, as far as I know, he was using his abnormally long arms when he put the cereal at the back of the very top cupboard in my kitchen—which isn’t where it goes, by the way.”

“And you did that thing he does when things are out of reach of his monkey arms. You kept jumping until you got a couple of fingers on the edge of the box.”

“And it kind of fell on my head,” Nick finished, looking a little shamefaced.

I tipped my head back to look up at him. “Why can’t either one of you ever just get something to stand on?”

“We’re guys,” he said with a grin. “We like a challenge.”

“I think you just like making a mess.” I reached up to straighten his collar.

He caught my hand and gave it a squeeze. “Seriously, Sarah, just please be careful,” he said. “You don’t know that much about Mac’s past. You didn’t know he had a wife, did you?”

I pulled my hand away. “My conversations with Mac are private. And you can’t think Mac had anything to do with what happened to Erin Fellowes. C’mon, Nick, you know him.”

“All I’m saying is—” He stopped abruptly and shook his head. “No. I’m not doing this.”

“Doing what?” I countered.

“Apologizing for caring about you.”

“How about apologizing for jumping to conclusions about Mac without any basis for them? How many times has Mac been on your side?”

“I’m not jumping to any conclusions about Mac, Sarah, so I don’t need to apologize. I will say that it does feel that I keep saying the same thing to you because it doesn’t seem to get through. I care about you. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

I struggled to keep my frustration in check and my voice down. “Why can’t you just have faith in people and support them without treating them like they’re stupid?”

He pressed his lips together for a moment before he answered, and when he did speak his voice was tight. “I don’t think you’re stupid and I have never treated you that way. Why do you have a different standard of behavior when it comes to me?”

“I don’t,” I snapped, anger sharpening my voice.

His dark eyes narrowed. “Really? Why is it, then, that when my mother or Rose worries about you or Liam, it’s because they care, but when I do it’s because I’m pigheaded and condescending?”

Before I could answer, a stern voice said, “Stop it!”

Nick and I both turned toward the door. Rose was standing there all five-foot-maybe in sensible shoes. She looked at Nick. “It would be best for now if you left.”

He started to object but she held up one hand. “Now is not the time, Nicolas.” She made her way over to him, a tiny woman with short, white hair, warm gray eyes and a stubborn streak that made a mule look easygoing. She reached up and poked his shoulder with one finger. “Get,” she said.

Nick shot a quick look in my direction, mouthed the word “later” and left.

Rose smiled at me. “I know it’s not my morning to work, dear,” she said. “But I have some things to take care of in the office so I’m going to ride in with you if that’s all right.” She reached over and gave Elvis a scratch on the top of his head. “I just need to get my bag and change my shoes and I’m ready.” She started for the door. “Don’t forget to turn off the coffeepot,” she added over her shoulder.

I put my dishes in the dishwasher, turned off the coffeepot and went to brush my teeth. When I came out with my briefcase Elvis was waiting by the front door. Rose came out of her apartment as I was locking my front door.

We walked out to the car. It was another beautiful late August day. Winters in Maine could be challenging but the summer weather more than made up for the dark, snowy January days.

North Harbor sits on the midcoast of Maine, stretching from the Atlantic Ocean in the south up to the Swift Hills in the north. “Where the hills touch the sea” is the way the town’s been described for the past 250 years. It’s full of beautiful, old buildings, acclaimed restaurants and intriguing little shops. North Harbor was settled by Alexander Swift back in the late 1760s. It has a year-round population of about thirteen thousand but that number can more than triple in the summer with tourists and summer residents.

I opened the passenger door and Elvis jumped up on the seat. Rose got in beside him.

“Are we picking up Mr. P.?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Thank you, dear, but no. Alfred has to take his glasses to be adjusted. One of the arms is a bit too high. It makes him look a little cockeyed.”

I backed out onto the street. I was still waiting for Rose to ask why Nick and I had been arguing. “You missed a very thought-provoking discussion after the movie last night,” she said.

Okay, so apparently we weren’t going to talk about Nick.

“Ann asked if anyone thought Mr. Hitchcock was sexist. Alfred said yes.”

I shot a quick glance in her direction. “And you didn’t?”

She folded her hands primly in her lap. “I said if anything, he had mother issues. Look how he portrayed them in his movies. That led to a discussion with a young man with green hair about the causes of an Oedipus complex and what kind of a relationship Hitchcock had with his own mother. It was fascinating.”

“Sounds like it,” I said. Elvis murped his agreement.

“How do you feel about a man bun?” Rose asked.

Talking to Rose often led to things veering off into the conversational bushes. “Is Mr. P. thinking about a new hairstyle?” I asked.

She started to laugh. “Oh my word, I just got a mental picture of that.” She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth for a moment, shoulders shaking. “Please don’t tell Alfred I laughed.”

“Your secret’s safe with me,” I said with a smile.

“The young man with the green hair had a man bun. I’m still trying to decide how I feel about them.”

Out of the corner of my eye I could see she was frowning. “I’ve never really thought much about them,” I said. Or talked about them, for that matter, although it was better than arguing with Nick. “I guess I don’t really have an opinion.”

I stopped at the corner, put on my blinker and turned left. Elvis scanned the road the way he always did.

“Well, on the one hand they’re very tidy,” Rose said.

I nodded. “That’s true.”

“But on the other hand they’re not exactly sexy. Speaking just for myself, they don’t make me think, Hmmm, I’d like to get some of that.”

I tried to stop the laugh that bubbled up and failed, so I turned it into a cough instead.

“Are you all right, dear?” Rose said.

“Just something in the back of my throat,” I managed to choke out.

She reached over and patted my arm. “I think the ragweed is early this year. We should get you a neti pot.”

I had no idea what a neti pot was but I had a feeling I was probably going to find out.

When we got to Second Chance I parked and turned to get my briefcase from the backseat. Rose had already gotten out and was reaching for Elvis. “He can walk, Rose,” I said.

“The pavement is too hot for his feet.” She picked the cat up and Elvis meowed and wrinkled his whiskers at me, cat for “nyah, nyah, nyah.”

We found Mac inside at the workbench with the mechanism of a wooden music box spread out in front of him. There was a mug of coffee at his elbow and I wondered how much sleep he’d gotten last night.

“Good morning,” he said.

“Good morning,” Rose replied. She set Elvis on the bench. Her blue and white canvas tote was over her arm and I hoped she had cookies inside because I needed some sugar. I caught a whiff of Mac’s coffee. And more caffeine.

“How are you connected to the woman who was found last night down by the waterfront?” she asked.

I frowned at her. “How did you know?”

Elvis walked over to Mac and poked his furry nose in the top of Mac’s coffee cup. I made a shooing gesture at him and he made a face back at me before sitting down and starting to wash his front paws.

Rose was looking at me. “I pay attention. And you and Nicolas aren’t exactly quiet when you’re talking.” She gave me a pointed look when she said “talking.”

Mac turned to me. “Nick showed up last night?”

“This morning.”

I waited for him to say something in response, but he didn’t. He set down the tiny screwdriver he’d been holding and turned all his attention to Rose. “The woman’s name is Erin Fellowes. She is—she was—my wife’s best friend. My wife’s name is Leila. She’s in a rehab facility in a coma. Erin came here to talk to me but I didn’t get a chance to talk to her before she died.” He paused. “And for the record, I didn’t kill her.”

Rose made a dismissive gesture with her free hand. “Well, of course I know that,” she said. “We’ll all meet at my apartment tonight at seven. I’ll make cheesecake brownies. You can explain everything to all of us at once.” She started for the shop. “I’m going to put the kettle on,” she called over her shoulder.

We watched her go. I realized that Rose had to have heard pretty much all of my conversation with Nick. She always said she had ears like a wolf. And the conversation on the ride over—Hitchcock, sexism and man buns—had all been a way to distract me.

Mac picked up the screwdriver again, turning it over in his fingers. He looked up at me. “I can’t let them get involved in the investigation into Erin’s death,” he said. “You know how much trouble it’s going to make. With Michelle and with Nick.”

I couldn’t help it. Maybe it was all the stress of the last twelve hours, but I started to laugh. “You’re not going to get a vote on that,” I said. “Give it up, Mac. Like it or not, the Angels are on the case.”