Lindsey was still thinking about finding Steve’s boat and the blood on the bow when they met up with Charlie and the man he said could officiate their wedding at the Blue Anchor.
“I’ve officiated several weddings,” Marcus said. “Of course, they have all taken place in the sanctity of a church, and I am a stickler for the vows.”
“A stickler?” Lindsey asked. She forced herself to focus on the matter at hand, namely finding someone to marry them.
“I believe in the traditional service where a woman vows to obey her husband in all things,” he said.
“Obey?” Lindsey felt herself begin to choke.
“Yes.” Marcus pushed his glasses up on his nose. “I’m certain that’s why our Mr. Briggs met his unfortunate end. Clearly, he had little control over his wife. It’s being rumored that she had him killed.”
“Really?” Charlie asked. “I’d have thought it was his drunken business partner for sure.”
“No, it’s the wife,” Marcus said. “I’ve seen her about town, flaunting herself without respect for her husband. That’s why we have so many divorces these days. Women need a firm hand—”
“And we’re done,” Sully said. He sent Charlie a pointed look.
“So, this was really great,” Charlie said. He bounced up from his seat, grabbing Marcus by the elbow as he went, and physically hauling him toward the door. “We’ll be in touch if your services are required.”
“Oh, well, all right,” Marcus said. “Nice to meet you—”
Charlie didn’t slow down long enough for him to finish, which was all to the good in Lindsey’s opinion, because her vision had gone red and she’d started to see spots.
“You okay?” Sully asked her.
“Why? Do I look like I’m having an aneurysm?” she asked.
“You’re clenching your glass so hard, I’m afraid it might shatter,” he said. He reached over and began to pry her fingers off the glass. “Easy does it. There you go. Okay, shake it out.”
Lindsey shook her hand out, inviting the blood back into her fingertips.
“Didn’t you say we needed to keep an open mind?” he teased.
“I’m sorry. My mind is just not that open,” she retorted. “It slammed shut at the word obey.”
“I figured,” he said. “How do you suppose Charlie even knows that guy? They don’t even look like they’re from the same planet.”
Lindsey glanced at the doorway where Charlie stood with Marcus. Charlie was whip thin, wearing torn jeans and a Rolling Stones T-shirt over a thermal shirt. His long black hair flowed well below his shoulders and was parted in the middle in the way of the rock gods he emulated. Marcus, on the other hand, was clean-cut, bespectacled and looked like he was wrapped as tight as a ham sandwich in cellophane.
“No idea,” she said.
Marcus departed and Charlie returned to their table. “First, let me start with I’m sorry,” he said. “And second, let me add, I’m really, really sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Lindsey said. “I know you were trying to help, but I have to ask, how do you know him? It just doesn’t seem likely that your paths would cross . . . ever.”
Charlie grinned and tipped his head to the side. His long hair fell around his face, obscuring his features, but not before Lindsey noticed that he looked a teeny bit embarrassed.
“So, the music thing, you know, it’s like feast or starvation,” Charlie said. “And in winter, when the tour boat is docked, my income is even less dependable.”
“Charlie, you should have told me,” Sully said. “I can always put you to work in the office.”
Charlie looked pained. “I know, and I appreciate it.”
“Not your jam, eh?”
“Not even close,” he said. “But I was telling my sister about my lack of abundance, and she said I should share my knowledge about music, so I put out an offer of music lessons on the old social media waves, and what do you know? There are a lot of people like Marcus who want to rock.”
“So, he’s taking guitar lessons from you?” Lindsey asked.
“Yup,” Charlie said. “That dude is a Metallica freak.”
“No way,” Lindsey said.
“Way.”
“I have to say, I can’t see that,” Sully said.
“Me either,” Lindsey agreed.
“Yeah, for a guy with great taste in music, he sure doesn’t get women,” Charlie said. “Not surprised he’s single, you know?”
“Yeah, not a shock,” Sully agreed.
“I don’t think he’s alone in his opinion of Jamie Briggs, however,” Lindsey said. “It seems like the town is split in its opinion. Half the town thinks Tony Mancusi killed Steve, and the other half thinks it’s Jamie.”
“There are a few who think he fell off the wagon, drank too much and took off on his boat for a midnight joyride,” Sully said. “But I know that’s not true, because I did get Emma to admit that the medical examiner said his blood test was clean. No alcohol. And second, he knew the islands. There was no way he’d have crashed, even in the dark of night.”
“So it really comes down to which of them, his ex-partner or his wife, wanted him dead the most,” Charlie said. “Unless it was the mysterious woman in black.”
Despite the warmth of the restaurant, Lindsey felt her skin prickle.
How can there not be anyone who is not a Druid or a day-napper or a chauvinist available to perform a wedding ceremony?” Lindsey muttered to herself as she checked her voice mail for the umpteenth time that morning. “Are we really asking for so much?”
She thought about her cousin Alice and the apology she would have to make in order to get her here for the wedding. Nope. She wasn’t going to apologize for something she hadn’t done. Alice had swiped her book, Anne of Green Gables, right out of her hands while she’d been reading by the creek that flowed through her parents’ backyard. The banks of the creek had been slippery, and Alice had windmilled her arms a bit, almost flinging Lindsey’s book into the water, but Lindsey had made a dive and caught the book, saving it from ruin. She had not bothered to save Alice, however, who had landed on her bum in the icy cold foot-deep water. Nope, she still didn’t feel bad about it either.
She was not going to apologize to Alice. Period.
“The bride is talking to herself,” a voice said from her doorway. “That can’t be good.”
Lindsey glanced up to see Robbie standing there. He was bundled up in a long wool coat with a plaid scarf wrapped around his neck.
“The bride doesn’t have a person to marry her to her groom yet,” Lindsey said. “And we’re down to the final hours. It’s making her crazed.”
“And she’s talking about herself in third person, which is never a good sign. You know you’re overlooking a solution that’s right in front of you,” he said.
Lindsey sank back into her chair with a groan. “Probably. But I can’t think about it anymore or I’m going to have a mental episode.”
“Okay,” he said. He gave her a reassuring smile. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”
Lindsey frowned at him. Was he being sarcastic? It was not appreciated.
“So I’ve been thinking since the tree-lighting ceremony that the key to Briggs’s murder must be the identity of the woman in black,” Robbie said.
There she was again. Lindsey didn’t know whether it was because her identity was unknown or because she was a woman, but it felt as if everyone was obsessed with the woman in black. Did the idea of a female murderer appeal that much? Why weren’t they as obsessed with Jamie Briggs then? She was the spouse. She seemed the most likely, but she didn’t have the alluring element of wearing a long black veil and being a mystery.
“Maybe,” Lindsey said. “She could have just been some crazy relative who likes to dress all in black.”
“Nate and Steve didn’t have any other relatives,” Robbie said. “And Jamie didn’t have anyone visiting either.”
“You’ve been busy,” Lindsey said.
He shrugged. “I don’t have much else going on other than rehearsals at the community theater for A Christmas Carol, which I have to leave for in a few minutes.”
“Well, how do you propose we go about unveiling the woman in black?”
“I see what you did there,” he said.
Lindsey smiled.
“It seems to me, she would have chosen a black wig and veil because her hair is a different color,” Robbie said. “Maybe it’s red or blond.”
“Short?” Lindsey suggested. “Making it different from the long black wig?”
“Precisely,” he said. “We don’t know her height or build, do we?”
“No one has mentioned anything that stands out,” Lindsey said. “I’m assuming average height and weight.”
“Hmm,” Robbie hummed.
“It’s all just speculation,” Lindsey said. “We don’t even know if she ever saw Steve. Molly said that Steve looked excited and went to find her, but we don’t know if they ever caught up to each other.”
“Oh, we know,” Robbie said. He leaned back, looking very self-satisfied. “I happened to overhear Emma talking to the medical examiner, and he pulled a long black hair off Steve’s body that matches the wig.”
“No.” Lindsey gasped.
“Yes,” he said. “I think Steve was having an affair, and this was a rendezvous gone bad.”
“You think he went out on the boat with the woman in black and she killed him?”
“Maybe they got into a fight and she pushed him,” he said. “Emma did admit that there was blood found on the boat. No idea if it matches Steve’s yet, but it seems likely.”
“But that leaves a million more questions,” Lindsey said. “Steve was hit in the head with something, but what was it? How did he end up on the island? Why was his boat adrift? If she killed him and pushed him overboard with a head injury, he would have drowned, don’t you think? But cause of death was from the head injury. Also, I saw the wig and veil recovered from the garbage can. They didn’t look wet. They looked dry. If this woman jumped from the boat and swam for it, the wig and veil would have been wet, and they wouldn’t have had time to dry out before they were found.”
“Maybe she hit him before they left the dock. Sully verified that Steve’s boat was still being kept at his private boathouse. It could be that she pushed a wounded Steve onto his boat and took him for a ride. While out there, maybe he fell overboard and swam to Bell Island,” he said.
“It just seems so unlikely,” Lindsey said. “Sully could look at the charts and tell us if that was even possible. I’m not sure the currents would have brought Steve to Bell Island. And with a head injury, would he have been strong enough to swim that far in the cold? There are other islands closer to his house than Bell Island.”
“You still think someone else killed him?” Robbie asked.
“Mancusi is still missing,” she said. “From what I saw, he had the strongest motive to murder Steve, or at least he thought he did.”
Robbie glanced at his watch and sighed. “I have to go. I’ll look for you later, and we can discuss it more. In the meantime, keep an eye out for any shifty-looking women with short hair who have a penchant for wearing black.”
“Will do,” Lindsey said. “And you look out for any enraged ex-lawyers who might have killed their former partner.”
“One thing,” Robbie said as he stood and moved toward the doorway. “If the woman in black wasn’t guilty of something, why did she hide her wig and veil in the park? She could have left them in her house under a floorboard, burned them in her barbecue or taken them to the town dump. Why put them in a public trash bin where one of the biggest events of the season was about to take place? Did she really think hiding them in plain sight was a great idea?”
Lindsey blinked at him. “You do what you have to do for your babies.”
“That makes no sense,” he said.
Lindsey glanced up at him and forced herself to smile even as she heard Naomi Briggs’s voice in her head after Lindsey had seen her hide the dreidel in plain sight for her daughter. She was freaking out, but she contained it, not wanting to say anything until she knew for certain.
“Sorry. I think I’ve strained my brain,” she said.
Robbie seemed satisfied. He gave her a small bow and said, “Let me know when you’ve figured out who the perfect person is to marry you and sailor boy.”
“You’ll be the first,” she said.
He grinned at that and disappeared through her door and out into the library. Lindsey reached for her phone. She wanted to call Sully and get his opinion. Okay, no, what she wanted was to call Sully and tell him the crazy thought she was having about Naomi being the woman in black, and then she wanted him to talk her out of it. Completely out of it. With logic and reason.
She was about to press call when she stopped herself. They were getting married in just a few days. She did not need to be thinking about who murdered Steve, but rather about who was going to marry them. She knew that Sully wanted to find Steve’s murderer. She did, too. But did she really want to bring Naomi into it? Hadn’t Nate suffered enough by losing his brother? To have his wife tied to his brother’s death, even peripherally? No, she couldn’t do that to them. If Naomi was the woman in black, it was up to Emma to figure that out.
At least that’s what she told herself. Lindsey had the afternoon off, and she was headed over to the town hall to see if the woman who worked in the mayor’s office who acted as the town’s notary was willing to marry her and Sully. It was a last-ditch idea that she was hoping would work out. She didn’t know Ellen Stein very well, but she thought if they offered to pay her, she’d be willing to give up a portion of her Saturday to go out to Bell Island and officiate.
She bundled up in her long wool coat, hat, scarf and gloves. She stopped by the circulation desk to let Ms. Cole know that she was taking her break and going to the town hall but that she’d be back. Ms. Cole smiled and said, “Say hi to the mayor for me.”
Lindsey grinned. Deciding to run for mayor had really channeled the lemon’s spunk. She wondered what the next year would look like when the campaigns took on heat. Things could get pretty dicey between the library and the town hall. No matter. She was firmly Team Lemon—or, rather, Team Cole.
“Will do,” she said. She crossed the lobby and stepped on the mat that activated the automatic doors. A blast of cold hit her as she stepped outside, and she huddled into her coat.
The town hall was just down the street, and she walked briskly, hoping that it would keep her warm. It wouldn’t. She’d lived in New England long enough to know that she’d shiver all the way to the town hall, and then once she stepped inside, she’d start sweating profusely. And when she pulled off her hat, her hair would have a static festival, making it stick to her face and fly up in the air, giving her the very chic recently electrocuted look. The joys of winter.
She was just rounding the corner when she saw Nate Briggs’s tow truck parked on the far side of the road. He was loading a BMW onto the back while the owner watched. The owner looked underdressed and half-frozen, while Nate had on insulated coveralls and a wool cap.
Lindsey raised her hand in greeting, and Nate waved back. She was about to keep going when a squad car pulled up behind Nate. She paused, knowing it was none of her business but wanting to see what happened anyway. While she watched, Emma Plewicki and Officer Kirkland got out of the car. Emma approached Nate with a stride that was all business, and the next thing Lindsey knew, Nate had his hands in the air while Emma patted him down. In seconds, she had his hands behind his back, and he was cuffed.
Shock had Lindsey rooted to the spot. She wanted to yell “Hey!” but no words came out.
Instead, the owner of the BMW started to shout. “Wait! You can’t arrest him now! What about my car?”
Emma shrugged as she led Nate to the police car and protected his head while she helped him into the back seat.
The owner of the BMW started to pitch a real fit. He kicked the ground, demanded Emma’s badge number and swore that he was going to sue. Emma stood with her arms folded, looking singularly unimpressed.
Lindsey used the ruckus as an opportunity to cross the street. She approached the police car casually, as if she’d just been out walking and come upon the scene. Not a total lie. She sidled up to Kirkland and asked the big redhead, “What’s going on?”
He glanced down at her with a look of gentle patience that she would have found patronizing in anyone else, but they had a history, so she let it slide.
“If the chief wants you to know, she’ll tell you,” he said.
Lindsey realized Kirkland was going to keep up his fair impression of a brick wall, so she left him and moved in closer to Emma and the stranded driver until she was just within eavesdropping range.
“Your car is being towed because it’s not working, right?” Emma asked.
“Yes.” The car owner said. He was a cranky middle-aged man, looking as if he couldn’t believe the run of bad luck that was happening to him. How dare his car break down and his mechanic get arrested?
“Then what difference does it make if it sits on the side of the road or on the back of a tow truck?” Emma asked. “I’m sure one of Mr. Briggs’s mechanics will come by to collect it as soon as they can. In the meantime, why don’t you go have a cup of chowder at the Blue Anchor, because it’s not like you’re going anywhere anytime soon.”
With that, Emma turned away from the angry little rooster and approached the car. She saw Lindsey and sighed as if she was the last thing she wanted to deal with.
“Lindsey,” she said. She didn’t stop moving, like if she stayed in motion, similar to a shark, it would keep Lindsey at bay. Yeah, no such luck.
“Emma,” she said. “What’s going on?”
“You don’t really think I’m going to tell you, do you?”
“Can I at least ask Nate if he needs anything?” Lindsey said. “Come on, have a heart. It’s almost Christmas, and he’s got a wife and kids.”
“I’d like to have a heart, but I’m too busy running a murder investigation,” Emma snapped.
Lindsey didn’t say anything. She just stood there, not moving, like Dickens’s Ghost of Christmas Present.
“All right, fine,” Emma said. “Ask him if he needs anything, and you might suggest that he use his one phone call to get in touch with the lawyer Sully recommended instead of his wife, since I’m quite sure you’ll be in touch with Naomi in a matter of minutes.”
Lindsey nodded. That had been her plan. “Thanks.”
She opened the back door, where Nate sat looking miserable.
“Hey,” she said. “What can I do?”
“Bust me out?” he asked.
“Besides that,” she said.
“Tell Naomi not to worry,” he said. “Do not tell her that Emma has arrested me for Steve’s murder. It’ll just upset her. Tell her I’m being questioned and that I’ll call the lawyer Sully recommended and I’ll be home in time for dinner.”
Lindsey nodded. So he had been arrested for Steve’s murder. It made no sense. “I thought you had an alibi. You were driving the baby around.”
Nate nodded. “I was, I swear I was, but I can’t prove it. And it looks like they found one of my tools on Steve’s boat, and it was covered in his blood. Probably the murder weapon.”
“That doesn’t mean it was you,” Lindsey said.
Nate shrugged. “I know. Every now and then, he’d show up to borrow a tool of mine. I always felt like it was an excuse he made just to touch base and ease his conscience for not being around. I mean, come on, it’s not like he had the time, skill or interest to do any manual labor he could easily hire someone else to do. Which makes this look especially bad.”
“I’ll call Sully,” she said. “We’ll figure this out.”
“Thanks.” He bowed his head, and Lindsey felt as if she was watching a man slowly being broken by one horrible event after another.
She closed the door and turned to find Emma standing there while Kirkland was on the phone with Nate’s Garage, asking one of the mechanics to come and collect the tow truck.
“Doesn’t this seem a bit convenient?” Lindsey asked.
Emma’s lips tightened. “I’m just following the evidence.”
“Nate says Steve borrowed his tools all the time and that there are more at Steve’s house,” Lindsey said. “The only thing finding the murder weapon proves—assuming it is—is that someone used a tool from Nate’s Garage. It could have been anyone. Heck, Kerry Tomlinson was in Nate’s auto shop the other day, looking none too happy about what her son did to their car.”
“So you’re saying Kerry stole a tool from Nate and clobbered Steve with it?” Emma asked, being deliberately obtuse.
“No, I’m saying everyone goes to Nate’s for car repairs, and it could have been anyone who took the . . . I’m sorry, what item was it?” Lindsey asked.
“Nice try,” Emma said. “You already know more than I’d like, so you won’t be getting any more information from me.”
“Even so, my point holds,” Lindsey insisted. “It could have been anyone.”
“I know,” Emma said. “I’ve already thought of that, but this is how we start weeding out suspects. You bring them in and question them. I know you know this is how this works, and right now I need to bring him in and get some fingerprints and see if they match what’s on the murder weapon.”
Lindsey felt her stomach lurch. Fingerprints? They had fingerprints?
“Lindsey, I don’t like it any more than you do,” Emma said. “But my job doesn’t allow me to play favorites. Nate is a suspect. Full stop.”
Emma glanced over at Kirkland, who had ended his call, and jerked her head in the direction of the car. With two pats on the roof, she climbed into the driver’s seat while Kirkland got into the passenger side, wrapping himself around the computer monitor and all the gear attached to the dashboard.
Lindsey watched as they drove off, realizing only when they disappeared from sight that she’d lost the feeling in her toes.