ELEVEN

I hightailed it back to the restaurant. Nobody was around yet so I had to unload everything by myself. A note was stuck on the back door saying that Marina had invited Sophie and Dolly to breakfast at the Pancake Heaven, and they’d be back later. Those three biddies could gossip all morning, so I had some time alone. I put the coffee on and stowed away everything I’d bought at Sunshine Acres, then went to my office to check my messages. No plain white envelopes, thank God, and no e-mails.

The answering machine was blinking, though. I hit the button. Beep. “Uh, hi. This is Jack Conway from the Coast Guard. Remember me? Could you give me a buzz? Thanks.” My blood froze. Why was he calling me? No way was I returning that call.

I took a deep breath and headed upstairs with my coffee mug. I opened Spiro’s door and surveyed the damage. Briefly I wondered whether I should even be here, but common sense told me that whoever the intruder had been, he—or she—was long gone. I restored everything to its more or less proper place in short order. For once I was grateful that Spiro was a neatnik and a minimalist like his mother. I checked every possible hiding place and went over the walls, floors, and closet twice, looking for I didn’t know what. This break-in should be reported to the police. I knew that. And if the state police ever returned my call, I would. No sense calling the local cops. Like everyone else in Bonaparte Bay, they were preparing for the crowds that would descend during the pirate festival.

I pulled back the curtain at the window and looked out on Theresa Street. It was still early but there were a few tourists sauntering down the street, stopping here and there to look in the windows of the gift shops or examine the racks of sale clothing out on the sidewalks. A line was beginning to form down at the docks in front of the tiny square building that served as the Lady Liberty Boat Tours ticket office. A good day for the tour boats generally meant a good day for the Bonaparte House, and things looked promising. A couple of agile green-shirted deckhands jumped off the Lady Liberty II. One used a broom to sweep off the gangplank and the other put up rope railings to keep unwary tourists from falling into the weedy water.

I turned my head and looked in the other direction. I had forgotten how far I could see from this window. My own room looked out over the employee parking lot and our tiny patch of lawn.

There was the Express-o Bean; Sweet’ums, the fudge and candy shop; the Sailor’s Rest, still closed up; and I could see just the corner of Inky’s place. I looked down toward Marina’s Pancake Heaven and saw a swarm of people exiting the front door in a hurry. A light haze of smoke was emanating from Aunt Jennie, the eight-foot-tall aproned lady whose smiling neon face had graced the Heaven for close to fifty years. Aunt Jennie had some sort of perennial short in her wiring that caused her to periodically sizzle and smoke, not unlike bacon on a too-hot griddle. She’d be okay once she cooled off. I glanced back down at the street and saw Sophie and Dolly heading this way.

I moved away from the window and took one more cursory glance around. My eyes settled on that scuffed spot on the floor over by the wall adjoining Sophie’s room. Much as I wanted to ignore it, I couldn’t look away, like staring at a zit on somebody’s face. It was just so incongruous when everything else around me was so perfect. I couldn’t believe Spiro could stand it. Well, if he didn’t do it himself, I’d get the floor sanded and treated this fall after we closed down. The downstairs floors needed attention too. I remembered with a pang that if I didn’t find what needed to be found, Spiro might not be around to be annoyed by the imperfections. But if I did find him, the floors might not be my problem anymore.

I secured the doors to my and Cal’s rooms so the messes inside wouldn’t be inadvertently seen, and hustled back downstairs to meet the ladies.

*   *   *

I made it to the kitchen just before Sophie and Dolly came in the back door. Dolly unzipped the gray hoodie she was wearing and hung it on the row of metal hooks installed by the door. Underneath she wore a very tight hot-pink tank top designed for a much younger woman with a few less tummy rolls and a bit less, or at least better contained, cleavage. A huge, shiny yellow-gold crucifix dangled precipitously into the jiggling crevasse between her freckled boobs, drawing attention to the “Baby Girl” logo on the front of the shirt. I was relatively sure she wasn’t Catholic, but that was a big, expensive piece of gold if it was real.

“Morning, Dolly. Morning, Sophie.” I found it hard to look away from the glitzy Vegas-style mammary show going on over at the prep counter.

“Mornin’,” Dolly said as she expertly maneuvered a hairnet over her coiffure, which remained miraculously undisturbed. She opened the walk-in, brought out one of the Sunshine Acres boxes, snapped on a pair of gloves, and went right to work on her pile of vegetables.

“I am going to go lie down for a while,” Sophie said. “You can handle everything, right?”

Sure! Georgie can handle everything. “Are you all right, Sophie?” I said with concern.

“I’m tired.” She cut her eyes over to Dolly blissfully chopping away, then back to me. “Marina’s dog kept me up all night, yip, yip, yip! It make me crazy!” Marina did, as I recall, have one of those microscopic, hyperactive little poodles. Quite cute in small doses but irritating for more than a short time. Sophie was definitely a cat person. We didn’t have pets here, but she kept a big, elegant white Persian back in Greece. One of her many other cousins cared for it over the summer until she returned.

“Shall I walk you upstairs?” She apparently wanted to talk to me alone, but didn’t want to do it now.

“No, you come up later on if I no come down.” She sighed. “You hear any noises last night?”

“Nothing.” Not a lie. I hadn’t been here.

“Good.”

I saw her to the bottom of the stairs and watched her walk up to the second floor. I returned to my office and called in one of the busboys early to replace Russ and adjusted the schedule for the day. I reviewed the specials menu and filed away the receipts and other paperwork that I had left undone last night. I checked my e-mail again. There it was, a message from my anonymous sender. I double-clicked and read the simple message.

DON’T FORGET, TONIGHT, ALONE.

My stomach tightened into a knot. What the hell was I going to do? I had less than twelve hours to find the something, find a boat, learn how to use the boat, get myself to the Devil’s Oven at night, deliver whatever it was, and somehow get myself back home to wait for the safe return of Spiro, all without Sophie finding out or getting myself killed.

The phone rang and I let the machine pick it up, too rattled to answer it myself. I heard a click, then: “Georgie, it’s Jack Conway again. I’d like to talk to you. Call me back, please.” The voice was firm and insistent, but not unfriendly. He didn’t sound like a killer, but everybody thought Ted Bundy was a normal guy too. I pressed delete.

I went back out to the kitchen. “Dolly, I’m going upstairs.” If there had been anything to find downstairs, I would have found it during my searches yesterday, although it would have been a whole lot easier if I had any idea what I was looking for. I still needed to check my room and Cal’s room, and I was running out of time.

“Sure, boss,” Dolly croaked back at me, forty years of smoking evident in her voice, her décolletage merrily bouncing in rhythm with her chopping.

“I’ll be back down soon. Hold down the fort for me.” I turned and started toward the stairs, when a bold knock sounded at the kitchen door. I stopped and heard Dolly call out, “C’mon in, I’m busy here!”

I stepped back into the kitchen. The tall, burly form of a New York State Trooper filled the doorway.