Murder at the Rusty Anchor

In the alley, I was about to turn left to make my way back toward the bike shop when I spied Yvonne pacing behind the pub. The Rusty Anchor wasn’t far from the bakery. I still hadn’t heard from Orlean or Edwin about being frantically busy, so I pointed myself in Yvonne’s direction.

Almost as soon as I did, she stopped pacing. She stood, arms folded across her chest, facing away from me. I was a few yards away when she spoke.

“Uh-huh. Yeah, well, that’s not happening.”

She must have a Bluetooth device in her ear, or earbuds I couldn’t see. She fell silent, as if listening.

“No! I told you, I don’t want to be involved in that.”

I didn’t like the sound of this conversation. She wasn’t using any endearments, so she probably wasn’t speaking with her partner at home. I was dying to hear more. Except, at any moment she could turn and see that I was eavesdropping. I backed up a few steps, then scuffed a foot as I headed toward her again.

She whirled, her eyes dark with alarm. White wires trailed from her ears to a phone in her hand.

I smiled and held up a hand in greeting.

Yvonne quickly said, “I’ll call you back.” She jabbed her finger at the phone. And yanked out the earbuds.

“I was down at the bakery and saw you out here.” I thought it was best to jump in quickly with my story. “Thought I’d say hi.”

She barked out a laugh. “For a second there, I suspected you were spying on me.”

“Not in the least,” I lied. “How are you?” I’d love to figure out an excuse to ask her what the call had been about, but I didn’t hold out high hopes for her telling me.

“How do you think?” She wrapped her arms around herself. “The police are around here—and my house—at all hours. Carl is getting harder and harder to deal with. And all I can see is that poor dead man’s face behind the bar.” She didn’t look the best I’d ever seen her. Her hair was messy under her toque, and she hadn’t applied any makeup. A bare face wasn’t unusual for me, but it was for her.

“That’s really tough,” I murmured. “How is Carl being difficult?”

Yvonne stared at the back wall of the pub for a moment. “He’s not usually around. Now that he is, he’s trying to micromanage everything. Me, primarily. As if it’s my fault we had a body behind the bar.”

“That’s crazy. It isn’t your fault.” Unless she’d been the one to kill Byrne and fake her reaction that morning. “Do you know when he’s going back to wherever he lives?”

“North Carolina. No, he hasn’t said when he’s leaving town. Yesterday wouldn’t be too soon, as far as I’m concerned.”

“I hear you,” I said, although I imagined the police would rather he stuck around until the murderer was identified and apprehended. “Why are the authorities harassing you? You wouldn’t have any reason to kill Byrne, right?”

She regarded me. “No, but they might think so.”

I waited, not quite holding my breath but hoping she’d continue without me pressing her.

She glanced away, then back at me. “Quite a long time ago, I had a, uh, romantic entanglement with his wife. While they were married. We didn’t take the moral high ground, but it happened.”

“I imagine our victim wasn’t happy about that.”

“Bruce was furious at the time, and he’s blamed me for her death ever since.”

The screen door to the pub swung open, and Uly stuck his head out.

“I had no idea where you’d gone,” he said. “It’s getting nutso in here.”

My presence seemed to register. Was that alarm on his face?

“Hi, Uly,” I said.

“Mac, what are you—” he began.

“I’m coming,” Yvonne stepped toward the door. “Catch you later, Mac.” She almost pushed Uly back inside. The door clicked shut behind her.

Byrne blaming Yvonne for his wife’s death was certainly motive for her to get rid of him. For a high school English teacher, he’d become enmeshed in so many people’s lives. He’d apparently incited simmering resentment in many of them. But only one had taken it a step further—to homicide.

I turned back toward my shop, trudging with my head down as I considered Byrne’s impact on people. I hadn’t cared for him as a teacher, but I truly hadn’t thought about him in many years. On the other hand, I’d been a teenager, not an adult with a livelihood to lose.

“Oof.” I walked into something solid but not rigid and started losing my balance.

“Watch it now,” a man growled.

I glanced up to see that I’d collided with Carl O’Connor at the junction of the alley and the walkway between buildings that led to the street. The dark, narrow passage loomed like a menace.

Carl grabbed my wrist. “Are you all right?”

I stepped back, regaining my equilibrium. I pulled my wrist away from him, but he didn’t relinquish it.

“Listen, Mac,” he began.

Pointing to my wrist, I cleared my throat.

He glanced at my arm as if unaware he was holding on to me. “Sorry.” He let go.

“You have a good day, Carl.” I took a step around him in the direction of my shop but staying in the alley. I wasn’t going down that dark, foreboding tunnel.

When he reached for my wrist again, I folded my arms on my chest and turned to face him, feet slightly apart.

“What?” I asked.

He opened his mouth. And shut it. He glanced down the alley toward the pub’s back door. And back at me.

“Never mind. Have a nice day.” He headed toward the Rusty Anchor.

Fine with me. Carl was pretty much the last person I wanted to have a cozy alley chat with. Now or ever.