26

 

Josh’s reason for being stranded at the side of the road? He was on his way to get a part for his dad’s boat engine when his car broke down. He couldn’t afford a tow, so he’d started to walk. I’d been so lost in thoughts about my future with Geoff, I hadn’t even noticed his abandoned vehicle, which is amazing since Josh drove a fire-engine red hearse from the 1960s. No one should ever miss it.

I kept my eyes on the speedometer, making sure I stayed under the speed limit, to prolong the time I had with Josh. “You know the night you saw Danny-Boy at Hunter Hall? Did you happen to overhear anything he and Claude said?”

“I already told your brother I didn’t hear nothing.”

I flashed him what I hoped was a reassuring smile. “I know Andrew can be kind of intimidating when he’s in full cop-mode. When he gets like that with me, I can hardly remember my own name, let alone something I half heard days before. I just thought maybe, now that you’ve had time for stuff to percolate, you might remember something. Not the exact words, but maybe the gist of a conversation. Or their tone of voice?”

I felt Josh’s gaze slide over me, then away. “It’s complicated.”

“Whatever’s said in my car stays in my car.” I wasn’t sure if that convinced him, or just gave him the needed excuse to vent.

“See, if I did hear something it’d mean I was, like, someplace I was maybe not supposed to be. You know?”

“But could you say what you heard? Or what you saw? When you were where you weren’t supposed to be?”

He turned sly. “Anything in it for me?”

“Even if what you told Andrew is true, and you didn’t help yourself to Carrie Hunter’s frogs, you did steal from other people. Do Ash’s parents know about that?” I checked the rear-view mirror. I counted five cars behind me. If I went much slower, I’d start a riot. “So what did you hear?”

“They were, like, ‘How did you get them to reconsider?’ And, ‘Nothing’s definite. It’s in your camp now.’”

That sounded like they’d been discussing the Highland Brewery’s endorsement. “They weren’t talking about Carrie?”

“Why would they talk about her?”

I glared at Josh. “Because Claude found out about her and Danny-Boy.”

“Carrie and Danny-Boy? That’s twisted.”

“That’s all you’ve got? Claude and Danny-Boy discussing what? Beer?”

“What did you expect?”

“I don’t know. Something incriminating.”

A pickup, three cars back, pulled into the oncoming lane, and floored it. As the he drew alongside, another vehicle sped around the curve toward him.

I hit the brake. The guy coming towards us swerved onto the gravel shoulder. The pickup cut in front of me, barely missing my front bumper. The car behind me blasted his horn, and its driver flashed a middle finger salute. I saw it in my rear view mirror.

Josh gripped the dashboard. “Idiot!”

“You OK?”

He pried his fingers from the padded plastic, and slowly eased back in his seat. “No thanks to that idiot.”

“Life’s full of the unexpected.” I sounded much calmer than my white-knuckled hands suggested. “You never know what’s coming around the corner.”

“Like what happened to Claude? You going to start preaching?”

“Do you need preaching?”

“Nope. I know what you’re gonna say, anyway. I’ve been to church.”

“Then you know what you’ve been doing is wrong.”

“No one cares about kitchen frogs.”

“Ash does. Isn’t that why you’ve been stealing them for her?”

“So?”

I held up my left hand so he could see my engagement ring. “See that? It belonged to Geoff’s Mom. It’s second hand, so it didn’t cost him anything to buy it. The value of this gift isn’t about how much it cost. The value is in the love it represents. Stealing second hand kitchen frogs and giving them to your girlfriend, doesn’t say love. It says you don’t care one bit about her. It says you’re cheap and inconsiderate and untrustworthy.”

His face folded into a scowl.

“Are you cheap and inconsiderate and untrustworthy?”

He stared out his window.

“Is that what you want Ash to think about you?”

“No.”

“Then do the right thing. Give back the frogs. Tell Andrew what you saw and overheard the night Claude died. Be the kind of man Ash always thought you were.”

 

****

 

I parked on Main Street, and fed nickels into the meter, my mind still on the conversation with Josh. Maybe he’d take what I said to heart, and do the right thing. Or maybe he wouldn’t. Either way, it sounded like my theory that Danny-Boy carried a torch for Carrie Hunter needed a little more verification before I could claim it had any relevance in Claude’s untimely death.

I had no idea where I’d find that verification.

Why had I decided to walk south along the shore past Hunter Hall the morning Claude died? If I’d gone the other way, I never would have heard Carrie scream. I never would have run into her house, never would have offered to help, or agreed to chair that stupid Steering Committee meeting. Instead I’d be happily planning my wedding and hypothesizing about missing kitchen frogs. I would be totally unaware that Ash’s boyfriend was a thief. That Hunter Hall groaned during thunder storms. That Caber Oui desperately loved his master, or that Danny-Boy harbored inappropriate feelings for another man’s wife. Like David, Bathsheba, and poor Uriah. And look where that led.

No, if I’d simply walked the other way, I wouldn’t be caught in this web of mistrust and doubt. I wouldn’t be reading hidden meaning into fifteen-year-old photos. And I wouldn’t be imagining that someone I knew was a killer.

I’d been here before and, despite what Geoff said about murder making my eyes shine, I did not like it. I liked quiet. I liked uneventful. I liked normal.

Or was I just lying to myself?