FOURTEEN

Whoever had searched the house hadn’t known what to look for either, and certainly hadn’t been looking for furniture. I could exchange the table for Spiro and we’d sort out whatever money mess he was in, he could tell the police what, if anything, he knew about Big Dom’s death, and everything would get back to normal. Sophie would never have to know. I doubted she’d miss this table. Despite her professions of infirmity, she was quite spry for her age; but it required a heck of a lot of steps to get all the way up here and I felt sure she almost never made the trek. In a couple of months, after we got everything fixed and I sent Sophie and Spiro back to Greece where they’d be out of harm’s way, I would alert the authorities to be on the lookout for the seller of a valuable antique table, and we’d be able to bring the kidnapper/extortionist and whatever else he was to justice, and get the table back too.

I needed a short-term plan. The table was unwieldy but not too heavy, so it would be easy enough to get downstairs. I’d have to avoid being seen, though, and there was only the one central staircase, which was visible from most angles of all the downstairs dining rooms. My only choice was to send Sophie out to Marina’s again, close up early, and get the thing out of the house when everyone was gone. I’d need to get the table down to the water without damaging it and onto a boat— rather a large hurdle since I didn’t own one. Nor did I know how to operate one.

But first things first. I wiped the dusty surface with my arm, obliterating the love note the ghost hunters had left me. I carried the table over to the open stairway and maneuvered it down the stairs to the second floor. Since it was now the peak of the lunch hour and Sophie would be managing the dining room and the kitchen without my help, it didn’t seem likely she would come upstairs, but I looked around me to be sure. I set the table down in front of my door, fumbled in my pocket for the key, heart racing, and set the table inside.

I grabbed a random sock from the pile on my floor and gave the whole table a quick going-over. I’d definitely seen a table just like this on Antiques Roadshow and it had been appraised at several hundred thousand dollars. I extricated a blanket from the tangle of linens at the foot of my bed and wrapped it up. Digging through the mess, I found what I was looking for—an old army green web belt with an adjustable buckle. Ugh. Had I ever really worn this thing? I secured the belt around the central spoke of the table, making sure all the loose edges of the blanket were secured in it and all the surfaces of the table were covered. It wasn’t perfect, but it would do.

So how was I going to transport this priceless wooden antique over water and somehow secure it inside the cave on Devil’s Oven Island without getting it wet and damaging it? Couldn’t this kidnapper have picked an exchange location on terra firma? Why make it so difficult? I undid the belt and went into the bathroom, unclipping the tropical-flowered plastic shower curtain from its rings. I wrapped the blanketed table in a waterproof layer of plastic and secured the belt again. Not the prettiest package I’d ever wrapped, but certainly the most valuable.

I went back into the bathroom, grabbed a washcloth, and saturated it with cold water. I draped it over my face and luxuriated for a moment in the cool sensation of it. I wiped off my dusty, sweaty arms. A cool shower would have been heavenly, but there was no time. And no shower curtain. So I stripped down to my underwear and took a quick, cool sponge bath. The evaporating moisture felt wonderful. I ran a hairbrush through my hair, applied some fresh deodorant, then changed into clean clothes. I headed back downstairs, being sure to lock the door behind me.

I was ravenous and went straight to the kitchen, which was bustling. We must have had a good crowd out in the dining rooms today. It was Thursday and people were starting to come into town for Pirate Days.

Sophie watched me. She had probably noticed my change of clothes, but didn’t say anything. Dolly was working feverishly to keep up with the orders, so I made myself a sandwich. Sliced marinated chicken breast on grilled, buttered bread with lots of melted provolone cheese and some roasted red peppers. I sent one of the busboys down to the bar for a Diet Coke with a slice of lemon. I slammed down the sandwich and dropped my plate in the dishwater, then took my drink back to my office.

I fired off a return e-mail to the kidnapper telling him I had found what he wanted and would bring it to the drop-off place tonight as instructed. I couldn’t help adding, in what I hoped was a nonthreatening way, that I would be expecting Spiro’s safe return tonight or tomorrow. Were you allowed to do that with kidnappers? I hoped he would be so happy to have his demands met that he would overlook any etiquette breach I might have made.

I found my cell phone and dialed Liza’s personal number so I wouldn’t have to go through her switchboard.

“It’s Georgie.”

“I know that,” she chided good-naturedly, then turned serious. “Georgie, what is going on with you? I haven’t heard from you since you spent the night here, and I was beginning to worry.”

“Uh, I’ve just been busy.” Not the answer she was looking for, but true enough. “Li, I have to ask you a favor.”

“Of course, ask anything; you know that.”

“There’s just one thing. Please trust me and don’t ask me any questions. It’s something I can’t talk about right now. Maybe later, but not now, okay?”

“Georgie, what is going on? Are you in trouble?” she demanded.

“Please. I wouldn’t do this if it weren’t important.” A matter of life and death definitely classified as important. I picked up a stray pen on the desk and started to tap nervously with it.

She sighed. “What do you need me to do?”

“Lend me a boat.” Liza kept a small motorboat at the village docks so that her employees could transport guests to the island. She kept another, more luxurious one docked at the island so her guests could be treated to a private cruise if they wished.

“Anything that’s mine is yours; you know that. But what could you need a boat for? And since when do you know how to operate one?”

“I have to ask you again not to question me. I know what I’m doing.”

“I doubt that,” she said, then sighed again. I wished she would stop doing that. “The cuddy cabin should be unlocked. There’s an ignition key inside a coffee can in the cabinet over the galley sink.”

“Thanks. I appreciate this. And I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t important,” I repeated.

“If it’s that important, then you shouldn’t be attempting it alone,” she admonished. “If anything happens to you because I lent you this boat, I will never, ever forgive myself.”

“I’ll be all right. I promise to wear a life jacket.”

“You’ll find one in the compartment under the deck cushions at the stern.”

Right, the stern. I had no idea what the stern was. “Okay.”

“Have you heard from Spiro? He hasn’t come back yet, has he?”

“No, he hasn’t come back. I’m expecting him tomorrow, though.” If everything went according to plan tonight, that was. I crossed my fingers. It was silly superstition, but it couldn’t hurt. She didn’t press any further.

Remembering the other thing I needed to ask her, I said, “So, did you find out anything about those farmers we were talking about, the ones that Spiro was—” I caught myself. “Is supposedly involved with?”

“The Sons of Demeter.”

“Yes, that’s it.”

“My sources tell me that Big Dom was involved with them too.” I didn’t even bother to ask who her sources were; she would never tell me.

“Big Dom?” I swallowed. “Involved how?”

“The SODs are in the money-lending business. The Sailor’s Rest and Dom’s other restaurant in Watertown haven’t been doing all that well the last few years due to his mismanagement. He was also keeping a mistress over in LaFargeville, and she’s been getting more and more demanding of his time and money. He apparently borrowed some serious bucks from the SODs to keep everything afloat. And didn’t pay them back on time.”

“And?” I was afraid to ask.

“And it appears that they had something to do with his murder.”

I swallowed hard. Organized, murdering, money-lending farmers? In the North Country? This was unbelievable. And I’d had no idea that Big Dom’s restaurants were in trouble.

“How much money are we talking about?” I knew Spiro was into them for at least the seventy-nine thousand dollars he’d withdrawn from his accounts and the cash box under Sophie’s bed, but he must have paid them that. How much more could he owe?

“I don’t know the exact amount, but it may be in the six figures.”

Wow. Big Dom had gotten himself into a mess. A fatal mess. I knew where some of that money was—invested in a honkin’ big diamond ring currently ensconced in Sophie’s scrawny cleavage. Damn him. He’d been romancing Sophie for her money, plain and simple. If he hadn’t already been killed I might have had a go at it myself. I didn’t think Sophie had been that emotionally entangled, so hopefully she wouldn’t be too hurt when all this came out. Knowing her tough and resilient nature, I predicted she would be spitting mad, not humiliated.

“How in the world are these farmers coming up with that kind of money to lend out?” I didn’t realize there was that much money in the whole North Country.

“My guess is extortion and some kind of drug dealing, but I don’t have any proof of that. Up until now they’ve flown way under the radar. It might not be so easy for them now.”

Even if Spiro returned safely, how were we going to extricate him from whatever his obligations were and protect him in the future? “Who are these people?”

“Here’s the part that surprised me.”

“What do you mean?”

“The rumor is that they are headquartered in Rossie.”

Rossie was an adjacent township that covered a lot of square miles. “Where?”

“The Sunshine Acres commune.”