six

The town of Port Jacob was situated on a hill so steep, a sign warned travelers to check their brakes before venturing down High Street, which dead-ended directly into the harbor without benefit of a sea wall or guard rails. I wondered how many rental cars had careened into the drink before the town had decided to place a car park at the top of the hill, which is where our bus had let us out.

Port Jacob exuded quaint coastal charm with its whitewashed buildings tumbling higgledy-piggledy down High Street hill, leaning into each other like drunken soldiers. Flowering shrubs drooped over picket fences, their boughs dangling above cobblestone walkways that looked more menacing than a bed of nails. Pots of flowers cheered every door stoop, while hanging baskets swung from every portico, spilling out blossoms in pink, red, and purple. The hardware store where we’d rented our metal detectors—Kneebone Hardware and Museum—sat at the very top of High Street, so while Wally escorted the rest of the group down to the harbor with its galleries, craft shops, tearooms, pottery shops, restaurants, and pubs, Jackie and I returned the detectors to a man who was only slightly taller than he was wide, the proprietor of the store himself, Treeve Kneebone, who steadied himself on a walker behind the counter.

“Did you ladies have a spawny outcome?” he asked as we stacked the devices in front of him. He wore a knit cap that was pulled all the way down to his eyebrows, a knitted vest that strained to cover his expansive chest and belly, and a friendly smile that caused the loose flesh in his face to jiggle like a turkey wattle. “You should have been here for the brouhaha a few years back. The deep-sea explorers had a bit of a knees-up. Struck it rich, they did. Two hundred fifty million pounds sterling in gold and silver coins from Mexico, salvaged from the wreck of the Merchant Royal that went down off the coast here in 1641. And there’s jewels that’s still washing ashore.”

“No jewels for us.” I sighed. “Our discoveries fell more into the rusty nail, bottle cap, and sea gunk category.”

Treeve grinned, revealing a missing canine tooth. “You found all our duff.”

I gave him a blank look. “Excuse me?”

“Our junk. Our rubbish.”

Jackie rolled her eyes. “Oh, yeah. We found plenty of other people’s rubbish.”

“Bully for you for tidying up.” He slammed his fist on the counter and broke out in a bark of laughter. “Bill the government! Tell them it’s for litter removal. Maybe you’ll provoke an international incident. Always warms me heart to have someone throw a spanner at those bleedin’ tossers in London.”

“Funny you should say that,” I confided. “One of our more opinionated female guests threatened to charge your prime minister for her waste-disposal services.”

Treeve flattened his hand over his breast and bowed his head. “A woman after me own heart.” Then back to business. “If you give me a minute, I’ll dig out your paperwork and send you on your way, but since you’re staying at the Stand and Deliver, I’d recommend you visit our highwayman museum before you leave.” He gestured toward the far corner of the store. “It’s me hobby: collecting highwaymen curiosities. You’d be surprised what people sell at flea markets and jumble sales thinking it’s worthless. And to give me little display an air of authenticity, I even have a couple of exhibits on loan from the library in Truro. Me boy Jory’s an accomplished artist, so he’s added his own touch. And we’re planning to expand from one aisle to three once we sort through everything I’ve collected. It’s right over there in aisle five—at the end of four-wheel rollators and forearm crutches. Mornin’, Nigel!” he called out as the bell above the front door jangled.

The man who entered the store wore an aircast boot strapped to his leg and was maneuvering on a set of aluminum crutches that were snugged beneath his armpits.

“I heard about your spill. Nasty break, eh?”

“Not the first time, Treeve. Won’t be the last. You know how it goes.”

“We’ll give the museum a look-see,” I agreed, unsure if Jackie gave a flip about British bandits. “Do you want to wander over to aisle five while I sign off on the paperwork?” I asked her as Treeve riffled through his receipts.

She rolled one shoulder in a half shrug and sighed with a hint of ongoing malaise. “I’ll wait for you.”

“Here we are.” Treeve plucked our receipt from the pile and slapped it onto the counter in front of me. He handed me a pen. “Signature and date, if you please.”

“Would you happen to know of any villagers who’d be willing to cook dinner at the Stand and Deliver for a night or two?” I asked as I signed on the dotted line. No time like the present to get an honest opinion from one of the locals. “For a small party of, say, twenty-one people?”

Treeve’s eyes lengthened as he pulled his cap lower over his eyebrows. “Your troubles at the inn are all over the Twittersphere. It’s trending number one. Me hat goes off to Gladwish. I don’t know what the bloke will do without his chef, but I can tell you that all the cooks for miles around are employed elsewhere. It’s summer, luv. Demand is high.”

“Do you think we could lure someone away from their current position by offering them a ridiculously high wage?”

Jackie snapped to immediate attention, dollar signs registering in her eyes. “How ridiculous?”

I stared her square in the face. “Can you cook?”

A pause. “Is that a trick question?”

“No. It’s the kind of question you ask a person who’s applying for a position as a cook.”

She fisted her hand on her hip. “I happen to be a fabulous cook. In fact, I could spit when I think of how many precious hours I wasted preparing meals for that two-timing snake I married.”

Jack had learned his way around the kitchen? I fought off a twinge of jealousy that my transgender ex-husband, who couldn’t even operate the electric can opener when we were married, had evolved into a decent cook while I hadn’t. Obviously I needed to spend some serious face time with Betty Crocker. “Do you have any specialties?”

“Sure.” She ticked the list off on her manicured fingertips. “Toast. Toast n’ serve waffles. Toast n’ serve breakfast tarts. Toast n’ serve—”

“What about food that doesn’t require a toaster? Anything from scratch?”

She regarded me, befuddled. “I thought breakfast tarts were from scratch.”

“So tell me, ladies, what do you think really happened over there at the Stand and Deliver?” Treeve Kneebone leaned toward us, his voice a conspiratorial whisper. “Do you know the last time a murder occurred in Port Jacob? Never. Not even during the war when enemy spies were crawling out from under every rock.”

“See there?” Jackie shot me a smug look as she bobbed her head at Treeve. “I’m not the only one who’s suspicious of the ‘Lance accidentally fell down the stairs’ narrative.”

“I’ll not be pointing me finger at anyone, mind you,” Treeve confided. “But our local DC must be suspecting a certain inn proprietor of something suspicious. Why else would he give him a personal escort to the nick for questioning this morning? Our DC is planning to retire his badge in a fortnight, so you know he’ll be wanting to wrap up this case before he leaves. Me mates on High Street are taking odds that he’ll be willing to pin Tori’s death on anyone just to be rid of it, and Gladwish is the most likely candidate. Scuttlebutt has it we’re talking murder. Port Jacob’s first. Could be good for business, though. Might even attract a film crew to do the documentary.”

Jackie fired a look at me, her mouth falling open. “Did you know about this?”

Busted. “Uh…Wally might have mentioned it in a phone call to me earlier.”

“And you didn’t tell me?”

“If I told you, I’d have to tell everyone else, and the whole group would have hypered themselves into a frenzy.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“Because just before they completely imploded, Enyon would be cleared, and all that emotional upheaval would have ended up being a total waste of energy. So no, I didn’t tell you.”

She twitched her lips, looking offended. “I would have told you.”

“The thing is,” Treeve continued, “Lance Tori was a damp squib. He didn’t fit in. And I think he enjoyed not fitting in. No one understood how Gladwish tolerated the bugger’s foul moods or vile temper.”

“I never met Lance personally,” shared Jackie, suddenly sounding like a witness for the prosecution, “but I’m pretty sure no one in our tour group liked him either. He apparently picked a fight with everyone he came in contact with, including some of the most patient and tolerant members of our group. Between you, me, and the bedpost, I think everyone had it in for him.”

“Is this a good time to browse through the museum?” I asked Jackie, hoping to pry her away from Treeve before she could implicate the tour group any more than she already had. Even I knew it wasn’t a good idea to admit to a complete stranger that everyone in your tour group despised the dead guy.

The store phone rang, interrupting our conversation, so while Treeve answered it, I pulled Jackie away from the counter and herded her toward aisle five. “For future reference, Jack, I’m not sure it’s wise to spread the word that every guest on our tour despised Lance.”

“You think I should be more accurate? Like…nineteen out of twenty-one guests despised him? What would that work out to on the percentage chart?”

“It doesn’t matter. You’ve basically given the police a viable reason to question and detain all twenty-one of us.”

“Oh.” She pondered this as we passed shelves of furniture polish, feather dusters, and household cleaning products. “How are the police going to find out what I said to Treeve? Is the store bugged?”

“What if the constable is a personal friend of his? They could even be related for all we know. Do you know how easily your comment could be passed along the grapevine to someone who might decide your observation warrants further investigation? You could become the number-one trending item on Twitter.”

“Really?” She gave a little shimmy of excitement. “I’ve never trended on Twitter before.”

“Do you have any idea what this could do to our time schedule?”

“If the police release Enyon, don’t you want the whole group interrogated just in case one of the guests did kill Lance? Or would you rather have the killer strike again after we leave Cornwall? Look, Emily, if Lance’s death wasn’t an accident, none of us are safe, are we?”

I sometimes longed for the good old days before Jack had undergone gender reassignment surgery. She made such commonsense arguments now. She’d never been this astute when she’d been a guy.

“Okay, point well taken.” As much as I’d want to find a killer, if there was one, I felt as if I was stuck between a rock and a hard place. I found Enyon so likable that I didn’t want him to be the perpetrator. But if he was released from custody, that would suggest someone else at the inn had killed Lance—realistically, someone in our group—and I didn’t want that to happen either.

Not this time.

We strolled past floor space jammed with four-wheel rollators and three-wheel roller walkers, aluminum crutches, wooden crutches, and walking sticks. Beyond the pegboard displays of canes in every form imaginable—folding, comfort grip, quadpod, round handle wooden—and shelving stocked with forearm and underarm crutches, we arrived at Treeve’s highwayman museum.

“Have you ever seen a business that sold hardware and highwayman lore?” asked Jackie as we scanned the orderly arrangement of glass cases.

“Nope. Night crawlers and cold beer. Fresh corn and fireworks. But never anything like this.”

The display cases sat against the wall and were overhung with an exquisite hand-drawn map of Bodmin Moor that showed the moorland’s proximity to Port Jacob. Squiggly lines that resembled mountain peaks illustrated the area’s geologic anomalies, their names spelled out in spidery calligraphic lettering—Showery Tor, Tolborough Tor, Brown Willy Tor. A dozen photographs flanked the map, showing panoramic views of barren wasteland, gray sky, marshy bogs, and stark isolation. And as we perused the moor with its bleak terrain and eerie rock formations, I grew aware of just how inhospitable a place could be without LED streetlights or a single PDQ.

“Brown Willy Tor,” said Jackie, reading the label beneath a picture that depicted a massive tumble of rocks at the summit of a rise. “I bet there’s something creepy buried under that rock pile. Look at these photos. The whole place is creepy. Cheesewring Tor.” We studied a column of enormous granite slabs that were piled one atop the other like children’s blocks to the height of a two-story building. “I don’t think this place is in danger of turning into a golf resort any time soon. Not unless some developer can make it look a lot more tourist friendly.”

“It was probably even more forbidding three hundred years ago when the highwaymen were plying their trade.” I noted an antique carriage in one photo, fully restored and polished, probably sitting in a museum somewhere, and I wondered at the terror its occupants might have felt when chased across the moor in the dead of night by a masked horseman wielding pistols and knives.

As I continued to study the photographs, Jackie wended her way down the row of display cases. “Hey, the name on these charcoal sketches is Jory Kneebone. You think this is the touch Treeve’s kid added? A portrait gallery of eighteenth-century criminals? They’re really good.”

I joined her at the display case and read the name on the identifying label beneath the drawing. “Sixteen String Jack. So that’s what he looked like.” He sported a straight patrician nose, overly large ears, and a mop of curly hair that peeped out from beneath the floppy brim of his hat. “He looks more like a teenage heartthrob than an infamous highwayman.”

“He wasn’t much more than a teenager when he died—1750–1774. He was only twenty-four years old.” She scanned the biographical information that was typed on a placard below the sketch. “‘Yada, yada, yada. Acquired the name Sixteen String Jack from the sixteen colorful ribbons he wore to lace the knees of his silk breeches. Yada, yada, yada. Hanged at Tyburn Tree wearing a pea-green suit with a nosegay in the buttonhole and blue ribbons tied around his leg shackles.’ Ooo. A man with unfaltering fashion sense. I would’ve liked this guy.”

“Not if he shoved a pistol in your face and demanded your valuables, you wouldn’t.”

As small as it was, the exhibit was intriguing. Not only had Treeve’s son sketched portraits of the most notorious highwaymen of the era, he and his father had provided examples of much of the plunder the thieves had filched and showcased them amid yards of flowing satin. There was a porcelain box the size of a cosmetic compact that held breath sweeteners, porcelain eggs with enameled motifs that were used as hand-coolers for young ladies who were attending balls, and flintlock pistols, powder flasks, and hair ornaments studded with what looked like precious gems.

Treeve must have spent a fortune at flea markets in an attempt to add to his collection, but in his haste to share his hobby with the public, I wondered if he’d allowed security concerns to slip through the cracks. Upon closer examination, the display cases were more rickety than they’d first appeared, with wobbly legs and protective glass that was both chipped and loose at the corners.

“Hey, Em, look at this.” Jackie lingered over one of the better- built cases. “This is a handwritten ledger kept by the constable of Port Jacob in 1749, and the ink hasn’t faded—you can still read the entries. It lists all the valuables that highwaymen stole from peers of the realm on Bodmin Moor. First item on the list is a gold egg-shaped etui with ivory and agate inlay. What’s an etui?”

“Isn’t that like a little case that holds sewing materials or manicure sets?”

She eyed me skeptically. “How do you know that?”

“Etienne. He’s developed an addiction for crossword puzzles.”

“Well, this etui thing was apparently lifted from Lord and Lady Rosemurgy, along with an emerald necklace and a gold timepiece. And listen to some of the other stuff: gold snuff box with agate emblem of crossed swords inscribed with initials AT. Porcelain scent bottle painted with initials MR. Gentleman’s personal fob-seal with trumpet-shaped amethyst fob, gold base, and inscribed with initials BP. Double-earred silver porringer engraved with initials SD.” She turned toward me. “Sounds like these guys didn’t own anything that wasn’t monogrammed. Do you suppose they were all related to Donald Trump?” She snickered. “So the thieves basically stole tobacco, air freshener, a stamp, and a bowl, but the only items of value were the containers. Man, if the highwayman craze hadn’t died out on its own, recyclable plastic would have killed it.”

She craned her neck, giving the surrounding shelves the once- over. “Would you mind if I take a quick spin around the store? I might spot something that could come in handy for our investigation.”

“We aren’t investigating anything, Jack.”

She smiled coyly as she flounced off. “We’ll see.”

The fact that she felt motivated enough to do a little shopping was encouraging, though. Maybe this would be her first step on the long road to emotional recovery.

I made my way back to the sales counter where Treeve was concluding a transaction with a customer in a closed-toed fracture boot who’d just purchased a plastic pail and shovel for his toddler. “At low tide, the harbor beach at the bottom of the hill will be perfect for mud pies and fairy princess castles.” He gave a little peek-a-boo wave to the toddler as she raced away toward the door, pail in hand. “Mind the cobbles,” he cautioned as the bell jangled their exit.

“A little late for that,” the man called over his shoulder with forced humor.

“So.” Treeve turned to me. “What did you think of my little museum?”

“It’s awesome. Your son’s drawings look like they should be hanging in an art gallery. The whole display is fascinating. But it’s stuck way over there in the corner.” I lowered my voice. “Aren’t you afraid someone might steal something?”

“In Port Jacob? Bollocks. We don’t have much problem with theft, and the tourists tend to be a good sort.”

“But some of the hair ornaments look as if they’re embedded with real gemstones.”

“That’s because they are, and I have documentation from an independent appraiser in Exeter to prove it.”

“Back in the States, a thief with the right tools could rob you blind in a few minutes flat—and in broad daylight. You’re not at all worried about that?”

He peered left and right before hooking his forefinger in the air to beckon me closer. “Surveillance cameras. Just in case. We’ve hidden them all over the store in places that don’t even look like places. If a bloke so much as nicks a pack of chewing gum, we’ll have his face on so many videos, it’ll be plastered over the telly from here to the Orkneys. Me boy’s idea.” He smiled his gap-toothed smile. “When he’s not working on his art, he’s full-bore with his computer toys. And with the price of his toys, he’ll turn me into a bloody pauper one day.”

Jackie emerged from a nearby aisle with a lilt in her step and an armful of items that she dumped onto the counter. She’d obviously hit the processed food aisle, buying up a dozen packages of cookies and potato chips, or as the English would say, biscuits and crisps. Maybe her investigative plan entailed forcing potential suspects to eat excessive amounts of carbohydrates until they confessed. Like enhanced interrogation, only with sugar.

She flashed a satisfied smile. “All stocked up.”

I eyed her stash. Dark chocolate digestives. Milk chocolate digestives. Shortbread rounds. Custard creams. Bourbon cream biscuits. Fruit shortcakes. Uh-oh. I hoped she wasn’t planning to binge-eat her purchases to fill the emotional vacuum left by her husband. She’d end up hating Thom and herself.

“Did you find everything you were looking for?” asked Treeve as he started ringing up her items.

“Not everything.” She smiled hopefully. “Do you carry ladies’ wigs?”