FOUR

I woke the next morning to a gentle, melodious chiming coming from a small box on the bedside table. “The time is seven thirty a.m.,” a mellifluous female voice intoned. I drew back the covers and slid off the bed with a lovely swishy sound. I dressed, now wishing I’d brought something a little nicer than jeans and a T-shirt, took one last appreciative look around the Clover Room, and closed the door behind me.

Back at the Bonaparte House I opened the kitchen door to a blast of country music. Russ came in behind me lugging a box of organic romaine lettuce and tomatoes he’d just picked up from the Rossie hippies. He set the box delicately on the stainless steel counter. It had taken a long time to train him not to slam the boxes down, bruising the produce within. “Treat the veggies like beagle puppies, Russ,” I’d told him, and he got it after about a hundred reminders.

“Mornin’,” he grunted. He must have been out late carousing. Easy enough to do that in Bonaparte Bay.

“Good morning, Russ.”

“I made you a cup of coffee, just the way you like it—cream and lots of sugar,” chimed a voice from behind the prep counter.

“Hi, Dolly. Thanks so much.” I’d already had a cup of delicious brew at the spa, but those little pink bone-china cups, so thin you could see a transparent rosy glow through them if you held them up to the light, did not hold anywhere near enough to fortify me for the morning. I accepted the cup gratefully and took a sip.

“It’s my birthday today.”

“Happy Birthday! Any big plans?”

“Well, I have to work tonight.” She looked at me expectantly.

I considered. “Why don’t you get the prep work done and then take the afternoon off? You can come back in around four o’clock and leave early tonight.” I’d have to run down to Kinney’s, the drugstore on the corner, and get her a birthday card and a bottle of Shania Twain’s perfume. Starlight, it was called.

“Thanks, boss!” She smiled, picked up a giant chef’s knife, and went back to chopping onions at a pace that always left me concerned for the future of her fingers. For whatever reason, she didn’t like to use the food processor and would just chop, chop, chop all morning until a giant mound of vegetables was reduced to the appropriate-sized cookable pieces. At least the worker’s comp insurance premiums were paid up.

I didn’t honestly think that Dolly thought she was putting one over on me by telling me it was her birthday. She just enjoyed celebrating her birthday twice a year, once in the summer so her coworkers could share in the gift giving, and once in late November when she was actually born. The summer date tended to change around a bit, so as not to fall on her day off. Sophie and I always played along, not wanting to spoil her fun.

Hmmm, where is Sophie? I thought.

“Dolly, Russ, have you seen Sophie?”

“She called and asked me to have Russ go pick her up at her cousin’s about ten,” Dolly said.

I turned to Russ. “Finish up putting away the produce, pull out the tomato sauce I made yesterday, and then head out. Better take Sophie’s Lincoln, so she’ll be comfortable,” I said. “And no smoking in the car,” I added.

“I ain’t smoking anymore,” he said, puffing out his chest just a bit.

“That’s terrific, Russ. I’m proud of you. Quitting must have been tough.”

“It wasn’t so bad. I’m dipping now.”

I looked at Russ. There was a distinct unnatural bulge in his lower lip. Ick.

“No spitting in the Lincoln, then. Or out the window, either,” I added. “Get rid of it before you get in the car.” The thought of a big brown glob of tobacco juice blown by the morning breeze along the side of Sophie’s immaculate white land yacht was enough to turn my stomach.

I took my coffee and walked through the hallway, down into the main dining rooms. There were three rooms we used to seat guests: two that had originally been parlors separated by beautifully grained native chestnut pocket doors, and the third the home’s original dining room, which now served as the bar area. The other downstairs room had been the library, and was now my office. All four rooms were of a moderate size, and felt intimate despite their soaring twelve-foot ceilings. Because the house was octagonal, which was thought to promote the flow of good energy back in the days the place was built—a kind of French Empire feng shui—the rooms were a bit oddly shaped.

Sophie had decorated the tall narrow windows with heavy blue velvet drapes. Shiny gold ropes ending in long, fringy tassels tied them back. They were awfully formal, and a bit gaudy if you asked me, but the guests seemed to like them all right. One winter while she was in Greece and Cal was still in school, I had ripped out the carpet and had the underlying wood floors refinished, which lightened and modernized the whole place. Sophie hadn’t been happy when she found out, but the floors were spectacular and were nearly always the first things customers commented on when they walked in. Second were the white marble fireplaces that graced each room, relics of the days when houses did not have central heating. The walls were still white with a stenciled blue Greek key border around the top. If it were my place, really my place, I’d paint everything red.

I toured around all the rooms and noted with satisfaction and relief that the ghost hunters from the night before did not seem to have disturbed anything or left any equipment lying around. I straightened up some of the oak chairs that were out of place, but otherwise everything looked pretty good. I’d have to see how the upstairs fared later.

I returned to my office and sat down at the desk. My laptop whirred to life as I pressed the power button and pulled up the file I’d made last year containing my notes and plans for Pirate Days, which would start soon. For two weekends in August, the Bay celebrated a two-hundred-year-old skirmish between some river pirates and British soldiers stationed on the Canadian side.

For the last decade or so a group of rebel reenactors had been sailing across the river and invading the village. They traipsed around in full pirate regalia, brandishing swords and large mustaches for the amusement of the tourists, many of whom dressed up as pirates themselves. There was music, dancing, magic shows, human chess games, and a whole lot of drinking.

Sophie initially thought her establishment was too sophisticated to allow the rowdies in, but eventually she realized that Big Dom was sucking in cash by the boatload by opening up his bar, and she followed suit. “It’s only for two weekends,” she said, counting tens and twenties as she spoke.

We would have seafood specials all week, with discounts on rum cocktails as well. I’d found a recipe for a lovely rum cake, which we’d serve with a big dollop of vanilla ice cream. The waitstaff could dress up (no big billowy sleeves, though, to drag across the entrees; some cleavage would be okay) and I’d allow them to be pert and saucy with the customers to increase their tips.

I made some notes and e-mailed the next day’s orders to our suppliers. In the background Dolly was singing “Stand By Your Man” along with Tammy Wynette. Dolly was horribly off-key but passionate. She loved the classic country station on the satellite radio. By this time she would have finished slicing the eggplant for the moussaka. Next would be the half bushel of heirloom Baldwin apples to be peeled and cooked into a chunky applesauce, redolent of cinnamon, nutmeg, and clove, dark and syrupy with cooked brown sugar. It would make a perfect accompaniment to tonight’s American special of pork tenderloin medallions sautéed in butter and sweet onions.

I began to sort through the mail, which Russ had brought in and dropped into the wire mesh basket that served as my in-box. The circulars and flyers went into the recycling box without a second look. A couple of bills that would need to go to the accountant to pay. My personal bank statement and my retirement account statement, neither of which was likely to inspire more than the basic satisfaction that they existed. I had a decent nest egg saved from my manager’s salary, but I wished there were more. If I had to start over somewhere on my own, I would need a stake.

I set those aside and reached for a note from the ghost hunters saying they would contact me in a few days, after they reviewed the material they had recorded. Next in the stack was a white number ten envelope with no return address, no stamp, and no postal cancelation. The envelope was addressed to “Georgie,” with no surname and no address, in odd blocky handwriting I did not recognize.

I took a swig of my still-warm-enough coffee, and opened the envelope. A single piece of lined notebook paper fell out. The edges were yellowed and frayed as though the paper had been sitting around in bright sunlight for a few years. Printed in the same strangely square lettering was:

BRING IT TO ME AND I WON’T HERT HIM. WAIT FOR INSTRUCTIONS.

What the hell? As if vague, misspelled e-mails weren’t enough. Him? Who was “him”? I sat up straighter. Spiro. Could he have been . . . kidnapped? The thought was ridiculous, yet it was starting to make some sense in light of his disappearance and the fact that he didn’t have his cell phone. Liza had said he might be mixed up in something shady. But this was Bonaparte Bay, for Pete’s sake, not New York City three hundred and fifty miles to the south. Not that we didn’t have our share of petty crime, being so close to the Canadian border. But people just didn’t get kidnapped around here.

People don’t get murdered, either, a voice piped up from somewhere in my brain. My thoughts turned back to Big Dom. Nobody had said anything about murder. It had looked like an accident to my untrained eye. He’d been drinking, most likely out on a boat. He’d fallen and hit his head, then toppled overboard. But if that’s true, where’s the boat? I frowned. If he’d been alone, the boat should have been found nearby if he’d dropped the anchor, or farther downriver if he hadn’t. And if there’d been somebody with him, why hadn’t his companion come forward? Well, maybe he—or she—had, and I just hadn’t heard about it. Liza might have, though, and I made a mental note to call her later.

As for Spiro, all evidence pointed to the fact that he was off somewhere and had either forgotten his phone or was planning to buy a new one and had just left the old one here. He’d always come back before, and I was pretty sure he would this time as well. The e-mails and the note I’d just read still felt like somebody’s idea of a bad joke, though who would be sending me such things was still an unanswered question. I couldn’t think of anyone who might have a grudge against me.

But first things first. It was time to start looking for Spiro. I reached for my purse to retrieve his phone. Maybe there was something in his call records or voice mails that could tell me something. The landline rang. I turned, banging my knee on the side of the desk. An ugly bruise would no doubt grace my knee by nightfall.

“Bonaparte House, this is Georgie.”

“Mrs. Nik-Nik—” The voice faltered.

“Just call me Georgie. What can I do for you?” Whoever this was, I needed to get rid of him so I could look at Spiro’s phone and decide whether I needed to go to the police. State police, I amended. The local cops were more or less good guys, but they were a lot better at busting up bar fights than investigating real crimes.

“This is Captain Jack Conway from the Coast Guard station,” he said in a smooth baritone, apparently relieved of the burden of attempting to pronounce my name.

“Yes? Would you like a reservation for this evening?” I picked up a pen and tapped it impatiently on the desk.

“No. I would like to come by and speak to you later this morning, if I may. It’s about the body you and Mr. Morgan found yesterday.” The voice was beautiful, deep, and oddly compelling. I felt a little flutter in my stomach and wondered what the rest of that package would look like. I was more or less married, for now, but not dead. I sighed when I realized the caller would no doubt have a face for radio. And I had much more important things to be thinking about right now.

“I suppose that would be all right, but it might be a waste of your time. All I saw was Big Dom floating there on the water. I don’t know any more than that.”

“Please, ma’am, I just need to ask you a few questions.”

“Can you come by in a half hour or so and make it short? I’m sorry, but I have an enormous number of things to do.”

“I’ll be there soon, and I’ll keep it brief.” He hung up.

Coast Guard? Why would the Coast Guard be calling me about this? Wouldn’t the state troopers be investigating Big Dom’s death? Well, maybe he’d tell me when he got here.

I reached for the letter again, a knot forming in my gut. A little bell dinged, signifying that I had a new e-mail. I set the cell phone on the desk, then turned to my laptop and double-clicked on the mail icon. The screen flashed up large, angry-looking letters:

BRING IT TO ME AND I WON’T HERT HIM. WAIT FOR INSTRUCTIONS.

This was starting to feel less and less like a joke.

“Georgie? Are you in here?” a voice warbled from the doorway. “Are you all right, dear? You’re white as a sheet.”

I closed my laptop quickly and turned toward the voice. “Nothing to worry about, Sophie. I just banged my knee on the desk and it hurts.”

“Would you like for me to get you ice?”

“No, no, I’ll be fine.” I took a deep breath and attempted to compose myself. Sophie was sharp and perceptive, sometimes eerily so. I didn’t want to alarm her until I had more information.

“Have you heard from Spiro? He still no answer his phone.”

“Uh, he’s just gone off again. You know he likes to do that.” Sophie frowned. “I imagine we’ll hear something today.” Was my nose growing? I hated to lie to her but what was there to tell? I had nothing.

She looked at me expectantly.

What? Oh, of course. She’d heard about Big Dom. I sighed and took a deep breath.

“Yes, I found him. Keith Morgan gave me a ride to Liza’s spa on the island last night. We noticed the body and tried to save Dom, but it was too late.”

She continued to stare.

“I am not having an affair with Keith and there was no black thong near the body,” I spat out, and felt deflated. As though I’d just been through a grueling interrogation session in some downtown precinct room with a detective in shirtsleeves asking tough questions, smoke rings floating through the air.

She watched me, hawklike, and apparently decided I was telling the truth.

“Let me know when you hear from Spiro.” She turned and left the room.