The Legend of Sleepy Harlow (13 page)

I didn’t argue. In fact, now that we had that much out in the open, I didn’t feel the least bit self-conscious when I asked, “After that knock-down-drag-out, you all came back here?”

“Absolutely. Except for Fiona. When we were leaving, I tried to tell them she was nowhere around, that we were leaving her behind, but Noreen was so steaming mad at that point, she didn’t listen. She didn’t care. She screamed at me, told me to get in the truck and start driving.”

“Did that make you mad?”

Oh, that smile of his was going to light up TV screens from coast to coast!

“Not mad enough to kill her,” David said.

At this point, I wasn’t sure if I believed this or not, but there was no use arguing. “When you left the winery, you came right back here?”

He nodded.

“And after you got back here, Noreen came inside with you?”

“She did.” There were still some cookies on a platter on the counter and, with a look, David asked if he could take one. When I said yes, he chose peanut butter. The man had good taste; peanut butter were my favorites, too.

“But Noreen left again.”

His shrug was barely perceptible and spoke to how much David really didn’t care. “She must have.”

“Did anyone else?”

Another look, and this time, I gave David permission to go to the fridge and get a glass of milk. While he drank it down, he finished off two more cookies.

“You know I can’t say anything with certainty . . .” David began, and I guess the way I stood up like I’d touched an electrical line made him think he better add a caveat. “Just because I couldn’t find him, it doesn’t mean anything.”

“Because you couldn’t find . . .” I leaned forward, hoping to egg him on.

“You might have noticed Dimitri was a little out of sorts on Wednesday. Turns out that was the day he got the newest issue of
Dead Time
.”

“I know. I heard him say something to Noreen about it. She said she had an article in the new issue, but whatever Dimitri had to say about it, she didn’t seem to think it was all that important.”

“Well, that’s just like her, isn’t it?” There was no amusement in David’s laugh. “Noreen wrote an article about curiosity cabinets. You know, collections that people used to keep. It was a big deal back in the day. They’d collect rocks or art or gems or bones. And they’d show off their collections to their friends.”

“Yes, Noreen mentioned that.”

“Well, a year or so ago, Dimitri started talking about how those sorts of collections must hang on to residual energy. You know, so that they attract entities. He did a whole lot of research on the subject on his own, and he was planning on publishing his own article about it.”

“And Noreen beat him to it. I get it, I really do. I see why Dimitri was so angry. That must have been a big disappointment.”

“What it really was, was a case of Noreen hacking into Dimitri’s computer.”

I swear, nothing should have surprised me. Not when it came to finding out what Noreen had been up to. Still, the news made my stomach turn cold. “She stole Dimitri’s research.”

“All the facts. All the figures. All the photographs. Never gave him a shred of credit. Claimed it all as her own and published it before he had a chance. He wasn’t just mad. He was mad enough to kill.”

That chill in my stomach turned into a block of ice. “You think he did it?”

“That’s just it, isn’t it?” David scraped his hands through his hair. “I don’t think Dimitri’s that kind of guy. Don’t get me wrong, he can be a jerk sometimes. But that doesn’t mean he’s a murderer. Except . . .” The pained expression on David’s face told me there was more to come.

He let out a long, slow breath. “I wanted to see the article for myself, so after we got back here from the winery, I went to Dimitri’s room. You know, to talk to him about it and to borrow the magazine so I could read it.”

“And?”

“And”—a muscle bunched at the base of his jaw—“he wasn’t there.”

“Not in his room?”

“Hey, I’m not accusing the man of anything. Maybe he was down here getting a midnight snack. Maybe he went out to one of the bars. All I can tell you is when I went looking for him, he wasn’t in his room.” David took his glass to the dishwasher. “I’m not a betting man, but my bet is that it doesn’t mean anything at all.”

With that, he disappeared upstairs.

My mind buzzing a mile a minute, I thought about everything I’d just heard. I had to agree with David: the fact that Dimitri wasn’t in his room probably didn’t mean anything at all.

That didn’t keep something that felt very much like hope from blossoming in my chest.

As much as I hated the thought of having a murderer staying at the B and B (it wouldn’t be a first, and believe me, I wouldn’t like it any more than I had back when I first arrived at the island and the Ladies and I solved a murder at the Orient Express restaurant), I could barely stand still thinking that maybe—just maybe—I’d found what I’d been looking for: a suspect with a strong motive, and along with him, the breakthrough that would finally prove Kate’s innocence.

  12  

I
t was bound to happen.

The next day, a Sunday, dawned chilly and gloomy. The sky was packed with low-hanging clouds as fat as German sausages, and the wind picked up. Across the street from the B and B, the lake churned, peaking into whitecaps that dotted the gray surface with foam. With more fish being brought to the surface by the waves, the flocks of local lake gulls were thrilled. They raced and dove and rose from the water with breakfast in their beaks, all the while calling out a high-pitched creaky chorus.

For the record, I was not nearly as excited.

See, I’d arranged with Luella to go out on the lake that day, and because of her charter schedule and a forecast that promised even worse weather the next day, I knew this was my one and only chance. I am not an especially queasy sailor, but neither am I thrilled with riding a watery roller coaster.
Too bad, so sad,
I told myself. I’d already made arrangements with Meg to come in and take care of breakfast for me. And I’d already taken advantage of Luella’s friendship and her skill as a boat captain, and I wouldn’t ask her to flip around her schedule to accommodate my whims.

It was now or never.

I pulled on warm clothes, packed an extra sweatshirt and a slicker just in case, and threw together the lunch I’d promised Luella, who’d refused any money for the use of her boat and had been about to refuse my offer of a meal, too, until I crooned the magic word:
caprese
.

Luella is a sucker for fresh mozzarella and tomatoes.

I assembled the ingredients I’d need for our salads, and in light of the weather and the distance we had to travel, added a couple thermoses of hot vegetable soup, too, and the makings for both turkey and ham sandwiches. Since I am a firm believer that, except in dire emergencies, sandwiches cannot be eaten without pickles and potato chips, I packed those, too. Before anyone else in the house was up and moving, I loaded everything into my SUV and headed downtown.

The
Miss Luella
, the thirty-foot fishing boat her late husband had christened in Luella’s honor, bobbed next to the dock. It was a gentle sort of seesawing motion. Up and down. Side to side.

I was hypnotized, and my stomach mimicked the rocking.

I told it to stop.

It might actually have listened and behaved if, when I got to the
Miss Luella
, Levi hadn’t hopped off the boat.

“Where’s Luella?” My gaze darted toward the boat. Up near the front, it had a roof over the spot where the controls were, and windows on three sides. Because of the day’s weather, a removable canvas curtain had been fitted and zipped at the back edge of the roof. I couldn’t see beyond it to where I assumed Luella was making last-minute preparations. “She’s getting everything ready, right?”

Levi grabbed the heavy carry bag I’d brought lunch in and swung it over the side of the boat to set it on deck. “Luella asked me to help her out.”

“She didn’t say anything about that to me last night when we carved pumpkins.” He grabbed for the sweatshirt and slicker in my arms and I had no choice but to hand them over. I followed my belongings onto the boat. It seemed awfully quiet beyond that zipped, canvas curtain. “Where is she?”

He unzipped the barrier and stowed my clothing inside, as well as lunch. No Luella. “Like I said, she asked me to help.”

“And she’ll be here in a couple minutes, right?”

“Maybe.” Levi started the engine and the boat motor roared to life. “But it won’t really matter, because in a couple minutes, we’ll be gone.”

“What do you mean?” I darted forward, a simple enough movement on solid land that turned out to be a little trickier when the deck beneath my sneakers rolled and bucked. I steadied myself, my arms held out from my sides, and took a few careful steps toward the controls. “Luella’s taking me to Canada today,” I told Levi.

He guided the boat out of its slip and ever-so-cautiously piloted it around the sign that warned,
Slow! No wake!

I watched the dock grow ever smaller. That’s when the reality of the situation hit and I turned to Levi.

“You’re taking me to Canada.”

For a few minutes, he didn’t answer. He was too busy getting us safely out of the harbor, and for those few minutes, I watched him handle the wheel as if he’d been born on the deck of the
Pequod
. Finally he glanced my way. “Luella—”

“Asked you to help. Yeah, I got that part. But that doesn’t explain where she is or why she asked for your help.”

He was dressed in jeans and a navy sweatshirt, and he wore a North Face jacket that was the mouse gray color of the lake. In answer to my question, he lifted a shoulder.

We were in more open water by then, and he nudged the boat to go a little faster.

“Do you even know how to operate a boat?” I asked him.

He flashed me a smile, and in that one instant, it wasn’t so chilly anymore. “I know how to do a whole lot of interesting things.”

My feet far enough apart to brace myself, I crossed my arms over my chest. “Not what I asked.”

He stepped away from the controls. “You want to drive?”

“No.” To prove it, I backed away. The boat bucked, and I threw out a hand and hung on to the side to keep from toppling over. By the time I got my sea legs, we were out of the harbor and on the open water.

He threw me a sidelong glance. “Canada, huh?”

“Luella didn’t tell you where we were going?”

“She did.” He checked a navigation chart and made the proper corrections. “She told me to head for Middle Island, the southernmost place in Canada. It’s a nature preserve, you know.”

“I know.”

“The place is completely deserted and boaters are discouraged from docking there. Plus, you need special permission from the Canadian parks people to stop and disembark.”

“I got it.”

“On a Saturday.”

“Today’s Sunday,” I reminded him.

“Yeah, but you didn’t decide to go to Middle Island this morning. You called Luella yesterday, which means—”

“I talked to the proper authorities yesterday. Sure. Okay. I admit it. It’s no big deal.”

“Bet they wouldn’t have talked to me on a weekend if I called them.”

I prayed my smile was as charming as I hoped. “Maybe you’re just not as persuasive as I am.”

“Oh, I’m sure of that!” Levi grinned. He set
Miss Luella’s
autopilot and, arms braced behind him, he leaned back and studied me. “That still doesn’t tell me why we’re going to Middle Island.”

I let go of my hold on the boat and faced forward. It was better than meeting that very level, very intense, very blue gaze of his straight on.

Left, right, and dead ahead, all I could see was an endless expanse of gray, roiling water. Now and then, the sun poked through the clouds and gilded the waves.

Though I had been sure I wouldn’t need them when I left the house, I was glad I had brought along my sunglasses. I got them out of my pocket and slipped them on.

“This has something to do with Sleepy Harlow, right?” Levi asked.

“Exactly. See, back in the nineteen twenties, Middle Island was owned by a big-time mobster. He built a clubhouse there, and that’s where he and his gang lived. Pretty clever, huh? Just inside Canada, where there was no law against producing or selling liquor. And just close enough to the US to be a great distribution point. This mobster, he even had a casino in the basement of his clubhouse, carved out of the limestone bedrock. Middle Island is where Sleepy picked up his Canadian liquor.”

“So you’re looking for atmosphere again, like you were when you checked out my apartment. You want to get into Sleepy’s head and get to know him better.”

“That’s right.”

“Because you’re helping out Marianne.”

I hadn’t had the nerve to tell him the truth before, but there was something about being alone out on the water that invited confidences. I made a face. “More like because I
was
helping Marianne by reading her manuscript. Until Chandra’s cat visited and peed on it. It’s completely destroyed and Marianne’s computer crashed and she didn’t have a backup, and she’s expecting to get the manuscript back when she returns from the mainland and she needs to get it to her publisher so I’m redoing it, rewriting it. Or at least I’m trying. I’m checking out any of the facts that I can find, and I’m trying to fill in the blanks and—”

I’ll give him points for trying to control a smile.

No points for bursting into laughter anyway.

“That’s why you’re doing this? You’re trying to re-create Marianne’s book?”

I was the one working with the stinky manuscript, so of course I knew there was nothing to laugh about. “Before she gets back from the mainland.”

“Because Marianne’s mad about what happened and insists you help.”

I bit my lower lip. “Marianne doesn’t know about it. She’s not going to know about it,” I added as a way of warning him that he
would
keep his mouth shut. “I’m going to put the whole thing back together just the way she gave it to me. She’ll never know.”

“Uh-huh.” At least he wasn’t laughing anymore. He was, however, smiling when he said, “I wonder if that’s how real authors write books. You know, go to the places where their subjects lived so they can soak in the atmosphere and see what that person saw. Unless they’re writing fiction, of course. Then I guess anything goes. Take that FX O’Grady guy. You know, I was reading over one of his old books last night and thinking that he must have one heck of a warped imagination. The book was all about vampires and werewolves. So how do you suppose he gets into their heads?”

Even with the canvas curtain zipped, it was cold out on the water. I reached for my sweatshirt and tugged it on. “I have no idea, but I guess he’d just sort of, you know, play a sort of game of
what if.
What if vampires showed up in modern-day Scotland? What if they won a war with humans and became the governing force of the country? What if someone opposed them?”

“Sounds like you read
Imperfect Creatures
.”

I shook off the thought. “I think I saw the movie once. I didn’t like it very much.”

“Too scary for you?”

“The world’s a scary enough place without vampires and werewolves to worry about. Especially when Jerry Garcia’s running around ruining manuscripts.”

My strategy was to deflect the subject in another direction, and it worked. Levi’s smile settled into a grin that reminded me of the glowing embers left after a roaring fire. “At least if you’re writing a book, you don’t have time to go messing with Noreen’s murder investigation.”

A chill snaked up my back. It had nothing to do with the weather. To prove it, I pulled back my shoulders. “As a matter of fact, Hank asked for my help.”

I had hoped for some sort of reaction that was a little more dramatic than the no-reaction I got.

Which kind of surprised me. That is, until the truth hit. “You knew that.” I pointed an accusatory finger in his direction. “You knew Hank asked for my help. That’s why you talked Luella into taking her place today. You didn’t know the trip to Middle Island had anything to do with Marianne’s book. You thought I was going over there as part of the investigation, and you wanted to keep an eye on me.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

Yeah, like that was going to convince me.

“What makes you think you have the right to follow me around like you’re some kind of watchdog?” I demanded, right before I thought about telling him to turn right around and head back to Put-in-Bay. I would have, too, except that I knew we’d nearly arrived at our destination. Middle Island is only about seven miles from South Bass, and already I could see the jagged branches of trees etched against the horizon.

“I don’t need this,” I grumbled. “I don’t need you to—”

“You don’t.” I wasn’t sure he believed it, but at least he gave the words a try. “But when Hank told me you were poking around, I thought—whoa!”

Whatever he had been going to say, Levi’s words dissolved in the exclamation, and I could see why. Up ahead on Middle Island, thousands of birds rose into the sky like a plume of black smoke.

“Cormorants,” I said, as awed as Levi. “They nest on the island.”