EPILOGUE

  

(Day #22: Saturday Early Afternoon)

  

A bright sun warmed the air to a flawless seventy-eight degrees. The salty air moved the trees, rustling the leaves of the towering magnolias on the back lawn of the Big House. Fifty children in their Saturday best ran wild searching for colorful Easter eggs hidden throughout the gardens and sporting courts.

I’d spent many an afternoon with Lucy in the weeks that followed the showdown at Captain Blackbeard’s. She remained hospitalized, but wouldn’t be for too much longer. I’d returned her notebook and journal and their respective Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators hidey holes. Mostly we played Scrabble and Clue, though sometimes we’d talk. About Lola and Jessie and the entire miserable week she’d been in a coma.

She wouldn’t divulge all the riddles in her notebook, like her star system, a secret of the trade, she called it. She said to reach out after I logged another thousand hours off my PI-in-training and then she’d share. What she did tell me: who was whom in her version of Storybrooke. I’d correctly guessed most of them.

Chas as Rumpelstiltskin, the money man. Her motive reasoning the same as mine: Chas was all about the money. Making it and spending it to solve his problems. His development would tank if Lola sold Fisher’s Landing to Hollis Jones (or if he bought it for a song in a foreclosure hearing). Chas paid off the balance, thereby neutralizing the threat.

Chef as Jiminy Cricket. The son who only wanted his family’s approval for paying back the debt he owed his brother. He took what he saw was the noble road and almost lost his life for it. It did boost my confidence to know I’d dismissed Jessie as Jiminy and didn’t overthink that one.

Bitsy as the Queen of Hearts. One I’d given a fifty-split to. Lucy had seen Bitsy with Hollis Jones (Geppetto) and assumed an affair was lurking. She needed more time to observe them together, but she knew they were linked.

Imogene as Red Riding Hood. In Storybrooke, she worked at the diner same as on Sea Pine. Lucy had noted empty bundles (one of the first places she searched; always suspect those closest, she reminded me), and also the deleted browser history. A later more thorough search of the Imogene’s computer drive revealed those online searches all related to creating a mobile pot farm, mostly from YouTube videos, likely by Austin. Score one for me for figuring that one out.

Austin as Hook. An obvious one with him working at Captain Blackbeard’s. And that rocket man reference? It was the Elton John song and a line about the rocket man being high as a kite. Lucy thought his setup was pretty genius. Until she realized he might have been involved with her mother’s death. That tree she shook? It was a pot plant. She stole one from his trailer and left it on his door step with her card. She thought he’d come talk to her, give her info, not try to kill her.

Grandmother Virginia as Granny. I definitely misidentified Tug. This time Lucy was being literal. She said you had to do that every now and again. Keep the snoops guessing. She hated to think her own grandmother would be involved, but Virginia was an unhappy woman tired of letting her life pass her by. And by life, she meant others getting the golden goose while she kept making egg salad. Virginia’s analogy, not mine.

In the end, Lucy convinced me I needed a coded system for future investigations. No more plainly written notes jotted in a spiral left on the nightstand. She also agreed with Ransom on the security system. She insisted I needed more and told him so. It was still under consideration.

Zibby’s bonnet auction raised nearly forty thousand dollars. I wore the belle of her collection: a pale pink wide-brimmed stunner adorned with foot-long feathers and silk hydrangeas. Won for me by Lieutenant Nick Ransom.

Ransom and I sat at a table near the pool overlooking the rumpus. Enjoying it, but not joining it. He poured me a fresh glass of icy lemonade.

Chef Carmichael joined us. He brought baskets of flaky croissants stuffed with a variety of delights: raspberries and clotted cream, honey ham and Gouda cheese, smoked salmon and other seafoody things I’d never eat.

“How’s Lucy?” I asked Chef. “I’m surprised you’re not at the hospital.”

“She made me leave,” he said. “But I’ll go back after the brunch here. I bought her a bonnet.”

“She’s healing fast,” Ransom said. “Only been a few weeks.”

“Be out on Monday,” Chef said. “I’m going to miss her when she heads to Dallas.”

“Me, too.”

I looked from Chef to Ransom, then back to Chef. “No hard feelings?”

“Did it to myself,” Chef said.

“No kidding,” I said. “Jessie wasn’t even slightly involved.”

“We know that now,” Chef said. “Thanks to you.”

“I was already on my way,” Ransom said. “Less than a mile. His buyer friend from Tug’s ratted him out. Scared he’d get caught up in it. You should’ve called me. I would’ve told you.”

“Firstly, you would not have told me,” I said. “Secondly, I do what I want. Though duly noted on calling first.”

Chef stood, stuck his hand out for Ransom to shake. “I appreciate you looking into Lola’s passing. Even though I didn’t want you to at the time.”

“What about Jessie?” I asked.

“He’s heading out today,” Chef said. “I’ll meet him at the hospital. Spend time with him and Lucy.”

“Is he selling Fisher’s Landing?” I asked.

“Nope,” he said. “Tug’s the new manager. They’re going to replace those old rental trailers. Fix it up the way Lola wanted.”

I watched him walk down to the lawn, pausing by the entrance to the Zen garden. Vivi and her pug companions played with the youngest of children on the grass. Chef bent to rub their ears.

“All because of a trailer park pot farm,” Ransom said.

“Who knew it’d have a security system with motion sensors? Seemed awfully sophisticated compared to the homemade skylights. I’m surprised the motion detectors weren’t tin cans on string stretched across the doorway.”

“He was actually a lot more resourceful than anyone assumed. A stabbing, a shooting, a dog kidnapping.”

“Pugnapping.”

“No one was going to stand in his way,” Ransom said. “Not after he realized Lola knew about the pot farm.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I wish Lola would’ve told me that when we met. She worried about all the housing developments going on around her, but not the illegal drug trailers in her backyard. I guess she thought she could deal with it on her own.”

“People always think they can handle things themselves,” Ransom said with a nudge to my foot.

“Not for nothing, I kind of did.”