Chapter Fifteen

I first met Connor McNeil at a beach party the summer I was fourteen and he was fifteen, when I was spending my vacation with Aunt Ellen and Uncle Amos. We’d had the briefest, and most innocent, of summer romances. He’d been gone the next year, spending the season working on a charter fishing boat, and I hadn’t thought much about him since then. But, to my surprise and increasing delight, the feelings we’d had for each other as teens had been rekindled when I moved to the Outer Banks a few months ago.

He picked me up at the library, and we arrived at the beach house at six o’clock. Connor took my hand and gave it an encouraging squeeze as we walked up the path together. Aunt Ellen, wearing a white-and-pink apron with a bib and sash, opened the door. She greeted us with a big welcoming smile, but I could see the tension lurking behind her eyes.

“Something smells great.” Connor handed her the bouquet of colorful mixed flowers he’d brought.

She accepted the gift with thanks and said, “Come on in. We’re having drinks in the living room before dinner.”

A small crowd had gathered in the cheerful room. A log fire was burning in the big fireplace that was the centerpiece of the room, and candles in glass candlesticks flickered on side tables. The room was cheerful, but the people were anything but. Faces were long and serious. Jake and Josie sat close together on the couch. Gloria was seated in the big leather chair next to the fireplace that I knew was Uncle Amos’s favorite chair. Stephanie sat next to Amos, who looked highly uncomfortable perched on the edge of the love seat trying not to glance wistfully at “his” chair.

“Come in,” Gloria said to Connor, “and let me have a look at you. We haven’t met, but I hear you are Lucy’s young man. Lucy is now an honorary niece of mine, and I want nothing but the best for her. You’re the mayor, I understand.”

“Yes, ma’am, I am,” Connor said.

“Don’t care for politicians,” she said. “Slimy bunch, the lot of them. Still, you’re young and handsome enough.”

Ellen sucked in a breath. Amos smothered a laugh. Conner looked momentarily confused, and then decided to take Gloria in stride. “Thank you, ma’am.”

“What do you do when you’re not mayoring? And I hope you’re not going to tell me you have ambitions at the state or federal level.”

“I’m a dentist and I have a practice here in town. When my term is up, I intend to go back to it full-time.”

Gloria beamed. “A doctor! Excellent. You’ll do. Lucy, when you begin to plan the wedding, call on Florence for help. Now that Mirabelle’s not around, she needs the business.”

“That’s a bit blunt, isn’t it, Grandma?” Josie said.

“It’s true,” Gloria said. “I can always be counted on to speak my mind.”

“No kidding,” Ellen muttered.

“What was that, dear?”

“Nothing.”

“I do believe I smell something burning. Not coming from your kitchen, I hope.”

Ellen gasped and hurried away. Amos got to his feet and said, “How about a drink?”

“Where’s Florence and Mary Anna?” I asked, accepting a glass of wine from Amos.

“Not invited,” Gloria snorted. “I do believe I’ve never heard anything so foolish in all my years. Imagine, not inviting visiting family to dinner. I raised you better than that, Amos.”

“I think you’ll enjoy this wine, Connor,” my uncle said. “It’s from a winery in Oregon I’ve recently come across.”

“I always agree with your taste,” Connor said.

Connor and I found seats. Amos gave us a slight shake of his head. We nodded, having received the silent message not to talk about the one thing that was foremost on all our minds.

Conversation was difficult. As if trying to ignore a shark thrashing around in the bottom of a fishing boat, we didn’t discuss the death of Mirabelle. Gloria wanted to talk about Josie and Jake’s wedding, and Josie tried to sound upbeat, but she couldn’t quite pull it off. Stephanie and Amos talked about business for a few minutes, boring the rest of us.

Soon, Ellen was back, calling us to dinner, and we gratefully trooped into the dining room. She’d made a roast chicken and served it with thick gravy, fluffy mashed potatoes, and roasted root vegetables. The food was delicious but the conversation strained. After dinner, I helped clear the table, and then Ellen served an apple pie and put the coffee pot on. It seemed to me that we were lingering a long time over our pie and coffee, as though we were waiting for something.

Eventually, once the plates were scraped clean and seconds declined, Amos said, “Anyone care for an after-dinner drink? Mother, can I pour you a brandy?”

“You may.” Gloria pushed her chair back. Jake, Connor, and Amos leapt to their feet. Conner, who was nearest, helped her to rise. Amos got the bottle out of the liquor cabinet, and Jake brought his prospective grandmother-in-law her cane.

“Good night,” she said. “Lovely meeting you, Mr. Mayor. Ellen, next time put more butter in the mashed potatoes. They were too dry.” Josie took a heavy lead glass, containing a good couple of inches of dark liquid, from her father and followed her grandmother down the hall.

“My mother,” Amos said, resuming his seat, “likes to retire after dinner with a small drink to watch television before turning in. In light of what Lucy told me Florence is thinking, I thought it best not to discuss possible developments in front of Mother.”

“She isn’t known”—Ellen dropped into her chair with a sigh of relief—“for her discretion.”

“What’s Florence thinking?” Connor asked.

“Let’s wait until we’re all here,” Amos said. “So we don’t have to repeat things.”

We waited for Josie to return. When she did, she said, “The TV in Grandma’s room’s turned up nice and loud.”

“More coffee, anyone?” Ellen got up and fetched the pot.

“What did Florence say to Lucy?” Jake asked.

I studied the circle of faces, all of which I loved so very much, watching me expectantly, took a deep breath, and then said, “She implied that Josie had reason to kill Mirabelle.”

Jake sucked in a breath. Josie groaned.

“Unfortunately, only seconds after saying that to me, Detective Yarmouth arrived to talk to her. I did my best to convince him to let me stay, but he was having none of that, and I was unceremoniously kicked out.”

Jake groaned. “Great. That’s all we need.”

“There’s something else you need to hear,” Amos said. “About threats. Lucy?”

I turned to my cousin. “Detective Yarmouth told me someone overheard you threatening to kill Mirabelle.”

Josie’s face twisted, and Jake muttered.

“At first, I thought he was lying,” I said, “trying to trick me into saying I’d heard you talk like that myself. But then I remembered.” I didn’t want to say it, but I had to. “Yarmouth specifically told me I’d been present when that threat had been made.”

“Preposterous!” Aunt Ellen was going around the table refilling coffee cups. She almost poured the entire pot onto her husband’s lap. Amos leapt to his feet, and Stephanie handed him her napkin. He dabbed at his pants. Fortunately, Ellen’s pot was almost empty; she hadn’t even noticed what had happened. “He can’t go around making accusations like that.”

“Unfortunately,” Amos said, “he can say anything he wants.”

Ellen dropped into her chair with a groan. “We all say things we don’t mean. ‘I’m going to kill him’ is such a common statement, no one pays it any attention.” She couldn’t help but glance toward the door through which her mother-in-law had recently passed.

“Unless the object of the threat dies immediately after,” Steph said. “Then state of mind comes into play.”

“Precisely,” Amos said. “Go on, Lucy. Please tell us exactly what you heard.”

“Connor and I went to the bakery last Tuesday for lunch. You sat with us for a few minutes, Josie, and we were talking about Mirabelle and her plans for the wedding. And you said …”

“That I wished someone would bump her off.” Josie’s voice was very low.

“Unfortunately, you said more,” Connor said. “I remember now. You said you might take care of that yourself.”

“What of it?” Jake shouted. “I’ve wanted to kill more than a few people in my time. And every one of them is still breathing.”

“Blair,” Josie said.

“Yes,” I said.

“Who’s Blair?” Aunt Ellen asked.

“A new employee,” Josie said. “He’s not working out at all. He spent some time in jail for minor theft and a bar brawl that got out of hand and is out on parole. I wanted to give him a chance. He tries, he really does, but he simply doesn’t get it. He says inappropriate things to the customers, thinking he’s being funny, and bosses around the other employees, who’ve been with me longer. Alison’s threatened to quit if I don’t get rid of him. I can’t lose Alison. I was planning on telling him he had to go this morning. Then the police arrived and I had more important things on my mind.”

“If Blair overheard you making that comment about Mirabelle to Connor and me,” I said, “it’s possible he also heard you tell us you were considering firing him.”

Josie shook her head. Jake put his hand on hers. “Obviously I can’t do that now, can I?” she said.

“No, you can’t.” Steph said. “It would look as though you were firing him for talking to the police. I’d call that solid job security.” She turned to Jake. “Whatever you do, do not have any contact with this Blair. It won’t do Josie any good if he tells the police you threatened him.”

“I wasn’t …” Jake said.

“Yes, you were,” she said. “I can read your mind. Like your brother, your face is an open book.”

Jake sat up straighter in his chair and tried hard to close the book.

“Blair blabbed to the police,” I said. “He was clever enough to mention that I’d overheard the comment as well, not to mention our illustrious mayor. We’ll have to admit it if we’re asked directly.”

“You haven’t been?” Amos said.

“Not yet.”

“You will.”

“Yarmouth is still not convinced this was a murder,” Steph said. I realized now why she’d been invited to dinner. Not as a friend of Josie but as a lawyer. Amos and Steph could never represent Josie, if it came to that, but they could give her good advice and keep their ears to the ground in an attempt to find out what was going on. “He’s gathering ammunition for when the toxicology reports come back.”

“If they show something,” Jake said, “which they won’t.”

“That’s what we all hope,” Amos said. “In the meantime, we need to keep our powder dry.”

“When all this is over and we’re back to business,” Josie said, “I am going to get rid of that Blair so fast his head’ll spin. Imagine taking advantage of a woman’s death to save his own job.”

“Is it possible,” I said, “that he did more than that? Might he have tampered with your baking himself, as a way of getting back at you? He might not have intended to kill anyone. Maybe he wanted everyone at the party to get sick and he misjudged the dose.”

“Good thinking, Lucy,” Amos said. “You’re getting good at this.”

I groaned. “I’d rather I wasn’t.”

“I’ll dig around in his records,” Steph said. “See if he’s been in any other trouble, anything more serious than what Josie mentioned.”

“And I’ll dig around in the Nags Head grapevine,” Ellen said. “Far more reliable than any legal records.”

Jake shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He looked at me and I nodded, telling him to go ahead. “There is one other possibility,” he said. “I hadn’t given it a thought until Lucy mentioned that this might be an attack on Josie herself.”

“You don’t think …” Josie said.

“We have to consider it.” He went on to tell the table about his ex-girlfriend Toni.

“You think she’d do something this extreme?” Amos asked.

“It’s happened before,” Steph said. “What better way to get Jake back than to have Josie slapped in prison and poor Jake in need of consoling? Even if it never comes to that but Jake thinks Josie killed someone …”

“This is a nightmare,” Josie said. “Do I have enemies everywhere?”

“No,” we chorused.

“We’re only tossing around ideas, honeybunch,” Amos said.

“Because you have friends everywhere,” Steph said. “And we’re with you.”

Tears welled up in Josie’s eyes. Jake took her hand.

“What’s this woman’s name?” Steph asked Jake. “I can find out if she’s attracted police attention before.”

“Toni, with an i, Ambrose. Toni is short for Antonia, I think.”

“Does anyone know anything about this Detective Yarmouth?” Connor asked. “It’s unfortunate Sam isn’t in charge of the case, but I understand them bringing someone in from outside.”

“I ran a check earlier,” Steph said. “He’s had a totally undistinguished career. No highs, but no lows either. No blots on his record that I can see.”

Josie stood up. “Time to go. I’m beat. It’s been a heck of a hard day, and I fear tomorrow won’t be much better. I’ve stopped taking calls from anyone but my close friends.”

Jake, Connor, Steph, and I got to our feet and mumbled that it was time for us to go too.

Josie turned to Jake. “I guess the wedding’s off. For now, anyway.”

“Absolutely not,” he said. “We wanted something small and intimate, and that’s what we’re going to have. First Saturday in February as arranged. We’re in this together, and we’ll face it together, whatever happens. As a married couple.”

I glanced at Amos and Ellen. He had his arm over her shoulders and they were both smiling.