A Crabby Killer (2 page)

C
laire woke
up the next day to clear, blue skies. She stretched and climbed out of bed, thankful that she didn’t suffer from the aches and pains that many her age complained about. She attributed that to her strict health regimen and hurried downstairs where she measured out a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar and squeezed half a lemon into heated, purified water.

From her kitchen window up high on Israel Head Hill, she had a stunning, bird’s-eye-view of the Atlantic Ocean. The view drew her outside and she took her steaming mug into the large garden that encompassed the east side of the old, stone cottage in which she lived.

The cottage had been her parents’ house, the one she’d grown up in. She’d been raised on the island, then gone off to college in Boston and ended up spending most of her adult life down there. When her father took ill, she’d come back to Mooseamuck Island to care for him and, realizing this was her true home, had never left.

The garden had been her mother’s pride and joy. She’d designed the layout and planted the flowers. Her father had built the planters, installed the stone benches and made the sturdy fence at the east edge of the yard that kept one from falling down the steep cliff onto the scenic road that wound around directly below. Claire had spent the last two years restoring the garden, which had fallen into disrepair.

Claire perched on one of the stone benches, her lips puckering and her face scrunching up as she sipped her acidic elixir. Drinking the apple cider vinegar and lemon juice tea was an acquired taste and, after two years, Claire still hadn’t quite acquired it but the vile taste was a small price to pay for good health.

Claire tried to take her mind off the drink by focusing on the gorgeous view while the sun warmed her face. It was early morning and the strength of the sun promised a hot day—perfect for the Crab Festival. Claire shifted her view from the expansive sea of cobalt blue waves to the left where she could just see the edge of Crab Cove and a small section of the pier.

The view reminded her of the jam incident she’d witnessed the day before.

Who was the mysterious man?

Was Mae in some kind of trouble?

And what did Dom know about it?

None of it made any sense. If something was going on, surely she would have heard. But Dom had been preening his eyebrow—didn’t that mean something? Then again, maybe he just had an itch.

“Meow.”

Claire smiled at the fluffy Maine Coon she called Porch Cat as it wound its way through her garden. Claire didn't know much about that cat, though she thought Mae had told her once the big cat was a 'him'. All she knew was that he frequently showed up on the porches, decks and driveways of many of the homes in the area—thus the nickname ‘Porch Cat’.

Claire didn’t know if he had a home, but he looked to be well-fed and well-groomed. Of course, that didn’t stop her from putting the occasional plate of food out, just in case.

Claire reached down to pet him and was rewarded with a loud purr. The cat twitched his bushy tail several times, then wandered off toward a row of white impatiens. Porch Cat rubbed against the plant and a dead flower dropped to the ground, reminding Claire she needed to do some pruning and dead-heading.

She followed Porch Cat through a path of impatiens, petunias and geraniums, picking off dead leaves and flowers as they went. When they got to the fence at the edge of the yard, Porch Cat poked his head under the lowest railing and looked down at Crab Cove.

“
Meow!
”

Claire followed the cat’s gaze. Down below, she could make out the very edge of the pier where the activity was starting. “Yes, Porch Cat. There’s a festival in town today. Are you going?”

“
Meow!
”

“Oh, sure, there will be lots of crabs and fish for you to eat.”

Claire was too far up to see much of what was going on, but the activity told her she had better get a move-on and get down there to inspect the setup. So far, it was just the vendors on the pier. The festival didn’t start for another hour and a half. The parking lot was pretty much empty as the locals had all parked in back of the stores that lined the street across from the water so as to leave ample easy parking for money-paying tourists in the main lot.

Of course, there were a few locals who insisted on taking up a spot in the pier parking lot. Claire’s lips pursed as she noticed Brad Wellington’s station wagon and Mary O’Brien’s Toyota right in the front row. Those two always thought the rules didn’t apply to them.

Claire was thinking about whether or not she could have her nephew, Robby, the chief of police, give them some sort of ticket when another car caught her eye, one she was sure shouldn’t be there—a dark blue Mercedes.

C
laire parked her old
, brown Fiat behind the hair salon and crossed the street to the pier, glancing over at the blue Mercedes and then craning her neck to see if she could spot the tall, lanky man. She couldn’t.

The festival tents were set up in a row down the pier’s length and the rest of the committee was already standing at the entrance in a tight knot. Dom stood off to one side, next to Claire’s best friend and island postmistress, Jane Kuhn. Beside Jane stood Norma Hopper, the island’s resident artist and next to her was Tom Landry ,whose family farm abutted Mae Biddeford’s—who, Claire noticed, was strangely absent.

“About time you got here.” Norma scowled at Claire from under her wide-brimmed hat. Claire wasn’t offended by Norma’s brusque manner. The attitude was typical for the elderly artist and Claire knew her bark was worse than her bite.

“Have you been waiting long?” Claire asked.

“No.” Jane glared at Norma. “Norma is just being impatient.”

“Well, I don’t have all day to sit around doing nothing. I’m not retired like you folks. I work for a living in order to pay the rent.” Norma thumped her cane on the wooden planks. “So if everyone is here, then let’s get a move on.”

Claire twisted around, squinting down the road to see if a car was coming. “Mae isn’t here yet. Should we wait for her?”

Dom made a show of looking at his watch. “It’s eight ten. I don’t think we have time to wait. Let’s start our inspection and she can jump in when she comes down.”

The dark purple stain on the dock that ran at a right angle to the pier they were standing on caught Claire’s eye and her stomach roiled uneasily. “Okay. I guess that makes sense.”

They proceeded down the pier. Their job was to make sure the tents were set up properly and there were no safety issues, such as tent poles or ties people could trip over, as well as make sure the tents with food had adequate refrigeration and storage facilities and food wasn’t left out in the open to spoil in the August heat.

The sun grew hotter as they walked along their inspection route. The seagulls must have sensed the opportunity for stealing food and they flocked around, perching on the pylons at the end of the docks that stretched out from the main pier. Their cries echoed across the water.

Tom carried the clipboard with their ‘punch list’. In each tent, he went through the list of items they were tasked to inspect. Norma made sarcastic remarks. Jane tempered Norma’s remarks by saying something positive about each vendor’s display. Dom took it all in with watchful eyes and thoughtful silence.

Claire kept her eyes peeled for the tall, lanky man. She figured he must be setting up in one of the tents. Was he a vendor? Most likely. Maybe he was up to something shady and that’s why he and Mae were fighting. If he was up to something, the committee might discover it. Claire wondered what they should do if they did discover it—no one had told them how far they should go to wield their power and she began to worry about just how much authority they had, if any.

Luckily, no wielding of power was necessary. Claire wasn’t actually sure what they were supposed to do in the event they found an ‘infraction’, but all the tents were set up properly, so she needn't have worried.

She enjoyed getting a preview of what was going to be in the festival. She made a mental note of some of the booths she planned on returning to, like the Dunbartons’ local honey stand and Ina’s tie-dyed scarfs. She also wanted to check out the tent that had some fantastic-looking cookies from the new bakery in town. She never saw the tall, lanky man.

At the end of the line was the main attraction—the big crab boil. Crab Cove didn’t get its name by accident. The cove was loaded with several varieties of ocean crabs. People came to the island specifically to taste the crab salad, crab legs, crab dinners, crab rolls and stuffed crab. The islanders had found a way to capitalize on that by having the largest crab boil on the East Coast and tourists came to see and taste it.

The ‘largest’ crab boil included a gigantic, cast iron pot which must have been about five feet across.

Claire had no idea where they’d even acquired such a pot. The darn thing took ten men to carry to the fire pit that had been dug in the grassy section of land next to the very end of the pier. Right now, the pot sat atop stacks of wood, which would be lit on fire to create the boil. Claire shuddered to think of how many crabs would give their lives to provide the festival-goers with a tasty lunch.

Norma scowled at the pot, whose lid was tilted up an inch on the right instead of sitting level in the grooves. “Idiots don’t even know how to put the cover on right.”

“Wait a minute.” Dom stepped closer to the side of the pot, his boots scuffing the two-foot dirt ring that surrounded the fire pit. “That must mean there’s something in it.”

“I thought they didn’t put the crabs in until noon,” Jane said.

“That’s right,” Norma huffed. “And it’s up to us to make sure this pot is clean which it looks to me like it might not be.” She whipped her cane up and hooked it under the lid, then tugged with a strength that should have been impossible for a bent-over lady of her age. The lid slid aside about six inches.

They all stepped forward and looked into the pot.

Claire felt the blood rush to her head. Her wide eyes battled with her brain, which refused to believe what they saw inside.

The clipboard slipped from Tom’s hand and clattered on the ground.

The gull’s cries faded away and then disappeared altogether, drowned out by the screams of Jane who was standing beside her.

Inside the pot was the tall, lanky man who drove the blue Mercedes, and he was undoubtedly dead.

“
W
ho the heck is that
?” Norma demanded after Jane stopped screaming.

Claire was wondering the same thing. She glanced over at Dom and caught him looking at her out of the corner of his eye. Did he think
she
knew who the man was? Maybe
he
knew and was looking to see if she recognized the body.

Apparently, Jane’s screams had summoned everyone within hearing distance and before anyone could answer Norma’s question, a crowd was rushing down the pier toward them.

Dom turned around, holding his hands up to stop them from coming onto the dirt area. “Don’t come any further. This is a crime scene now.” Dom turned back to face Claire and the others. “Let’s try to get onto the pier without disturbing too much.”

Dom was right. Claire looked down. There could be footprints or other evidence in the dirt and they’d just trampled most of it. Tom gingerly picked up the clipboard and they all tip-toed onto the wooden boards of the pier.

“Yoo hoo! Sorry I’m late.” Claire whipped around to see Mae bustling down the pier. She stopped short about ten feet from them. “What?”

Tom stepped toward Mae. “We’ve had a little incident,” he said soothingly.

Claire caught the look of surprise on Mae’s face at Tom’s gentle tone. But Claire was not surprised. Tom and Mae lived on abutting farms that their families had owned for generations. Tom’s was a goat and dairy farm and Mae’s was a fruit farm. The two families had had an ongoing feud since Tom and Mae had been in kindergarten. No one remembered what the feud was about, but that didn’t stop them from acting antagonisticly toward each other.

Claire suspected the reason for the way they acted had less to do with the feud and more to do with their inner feelings. Feelings that maybe the two of them didn’t care to admit they had because they were too invested in their family feud.

Mae scowled at Tom. “What do you mean an ‘incident’? I wasn’t that late.”

“It’s not about you being late,” Jane cut in. She took a deep breath and Claire figured she was trying to find the words to tell Mae about their discovery.

“Oh, for crying out loud, just tell her. She’s a big girl,” Norma huffed at Jane, then turned to Mae. “We found a body in the crab kettle.”

Mae gasped. “A body? You mean a dead person?”

Norma rolled her eyes. “Yes. A dead person. And I’d still like to know who it is.”

Claire noticed Dom preening his brows while he watched Mae’s reaction. Did he know something about Mae and the dead man? Surely he didn’t suspect her of killing the guy. How would she get him in the pot? And she looked so surprised that Claire was sure she didn’t already know a body was in there.

No one killed someone over spilled jam and besides, if Mae had killed him, she wouldn’t just come sauntering down the pier toward them—and the body—would she? Claire’s mind flashed on some of her old cases where that was exactly what the killer had done—blend into the crowd of on-lookers because it was the last thing the investigator would expect.

“Step aside.” Claire’s nephew and Mooseamuck Island chief of police, Robby Skinner, pushed his way through the gathering crowd. “Whats going on?”

Claire pointed to the kettle and he stepped over and looked in, his face sagging. “Oh, no, not another one.”

Claire grimaced. Mooseamuck Island hadn’t had a murder in over a hundred years, and now there had been two in one year ... and the year wasn't even over yet.

“What do you know about this?” Robby looked at her.

“What do you mean? Why would I know anything?” Claire said defensively.

“Well you
are
here …”

Claire sighed. “I don’t know anything about it. I’m here because I’m on the festival committee and we were down here doing our inspection when we found him like that.”

“Was he boiled?” Norma cut in.

Robby peered into the pot again. “I don’t think so. There’s no water and he doesn’t look … um … cooked.”

“Yech,” the crowd said.

“Okay, I need you all to stay where you are,” Robby commanded. “I’m going to have to call the mainland and get a homicide detective over here.”

Claire’s heart pinched at the look on Robby’s face. His experience with homicide investigation was limited to the one murder they’d had several months earlier. He’d done a good job then, but he still wasn’t trained in homicide detecting.

Claire could tell he wanted to be in charge, but murder was serious business and Robby knew they needed an experienced detective. Hopefully, the one they sent from the mainland would give Robby leeway to do a lot of the work … and hopefully, Claire could help him. She just hoped they didn’t send that annoying Frank Zambuco again.

“How do you know it’s a homicide?” Norma interrupted Claire’s train of thought.

Robby’s brow ticked up. “What? You think he just fell into the pot and died on his own?”

Norma shrugged. “Stranger things have happened. Besides, who would want to kill someone in the middle of the Crab Festival?”

“That’s a good question.” Robby surveyed the crowd. “We’ll need to find out just when the time of death was and then we’ll need to know where all of you were at that time.”

“Well, it couldn’t have been any of us,” Floyd Farner piped in from the back.

Robby squinted in his direction. “Why not?”

Floyd flapped his hands against his sides. “Any one of us would have to be out of our mind to kill someone and put them in the crab kettle. That’s gonna put a real dampener on the festival and we all depend on the money.”

“That’s right,” Lula Delgatto added. “The killer has to be an outsider.”

“Not to mention that the crab kettle is a pretty dumb place to hide a body,” Gus Weimar said. “Ain’t none of us that dumb.”

“Yeah, that’s right,” the crowd chorused.

“Sure. It wouldn’t be an islander. We’re smarter than that” Norma said quietly. “Unless whoever put it there wanted it to be found.”

D
om noticed
Claire shooting strange looks in his direction while they waited for the mainland police to show up. Or maybe his guilty conscience imagined it. He probably
should
have mentioned that he recognized the dead guy, but he didn’t want to tie the man to Sarah.

But the way Claire was looking at him made him wonder if she had already made the connection. Then again, it could just be her zeal for investigating kicking in. Maybe she was sizing him up, trying to figure out his intentions. Perhaps she planned to help her nephew investigate the murder. It would be just like her to try to ‘one-up’ him and reveal the identity of the killer before he did.

Before he did?
The thought made Dom realize that his subconscious had already been busy deciding that he was going to do his own investigation. He couldn’t help it—investigating murder was in his blood. And the last investigation had made him feel so alive—it was the only thing that had made him feel that way since Sophia’s death.

A large crowd had gathered by the time the police boat pulled up on the dock. Dom’s stomach soured when he recognized the tall detective as the same one who had investigated the previous murder—Detective Frank Zambuco.

It wasn’t that there was anything wrong with Zambuco. He was a good detective, in Dom’s opinion, but he didn’t like other people getting in on his investigation. Dom couldn’t really fault him for that. After all, he’d been the same way when he was officially investigating. Still, it would be a lot more fun if they’d send someone more willing to listen to Dom’s expert opinion, even if Dom was ‘retired’ now.

He watched Zambuco step off the boat, catching the toe of his size thirteen shoes on the edge of the dock and stumbling, then righting himself and spinning around toward the crowd. He whirled toward them, barking instructions to the three underlings he’d brought with him. Dom could almost feel the energy pouring off Zambuco, who seemed to possess an excess of it, especially for a guy who looked to be pushing sixty.

Zambuco looked at Robby. “What have we got?”

Robby nodded toward the kettle. “The festival committee found him when they did their inspection.

Zambuco walked to the edge of the grass and peered into the kettle. He snapped his sausage-like fingers in the direction of his underlings, who sprang into action taking out cameras and yellow folded plastic cards with numbers on them. He turned back to Robby. “Festival committee?”

Robby nodded in the direction of Dom, Claire, Tom, Norma, Jane and Mae.

Zambuco’s narrowed eyes darted between Dom and Claire. “You two, again?”

Dom shrugged. “We like to keep active.”

“Let’s just make sure you don’t keep active by butting in on my investigation.” Zambuco gave them a warning glare then turned his attention back to Robby. “So who is the vic?”

“I wish I knew.” Robby turned to the committee. “Do any of you recognize him?”

“No,” they all said at once.

“Well, first thing we need to do is figure out how he died, and when. Then we gotta figure out who he is. Then maybe it will be clear who killed him.” Zambuco snapped his head around to one of the docks where another boat was pulling up. “Oh, good. There’s the medical examiner now. We can get this investigation rolling.”

“Ahem.” Someone cleared their throat and Zambuco cast an angry glare at the crowd. “Did someone want to say something?”

“Umm, well, we were just wondering if we can go on with the Crab Festival.” Gus gestured toward all the tents. “We’re all setup for it and everything.”

Zambuco's eyes slid toward the tents. “You got hot dogs up there?”

“Yes.”

Zambuco pivoted on his heels and looked at the crab kettle, then back at the tents.

“The crime scene is at the end of the pier here. I want to secure the last ten feet, but the rest of the tents can stay open as usual. You can have your festival, just don’t let anyone past this point.” He drew an imaginary line on the dock with his foot.

The medical examiner made her way up the doc and Zambuco greeted her, then handed her off to Robby. He looked over at Gus. “I guess I have time for a hot dog while Gladys does her job.”

While Zambuco trotted off with Gus, Dom watched the police process the scene, paying particular attention to the clues they marked off and mentally gathering a few clues of his own. The medical examiner got right into the kettle to do her poking and prodding. By the time she was done, Zambuco had returned with a fresh mustard stain on his shirt.

Zambuco peered into the kettle and grimaced. “Did you find anything?”

“He’s been dead about six hours. I’ll have to get him back to the lab to know the exact time of death.” Gladys signaled two other policemen who brought over a stretcher.

Dom glanced at his watch. Six hours put the time of death around two a.m., a fact which he filed away for later use.

“Well, how did he die?” Norma demanded.

Gladys gestured to the kettle. “Lucky for him, he wasn’t boiled.”

“Was he battered?” someone from the crowd asked.

“No.”

“Bludgeoned?”

“No.”

“Bullet wound?”

“None of the above.” Gladys stepped out of the kettle and let the two policemen in. They raised the body to hoist it out of the kettle and onto the stretcher.

“He was strangled.” Gladys reached over and held up a piece of brown twine that dangled from the victim’s neck.

Dom’s heart skipped a beat. He tried to keep his face impassive so as not to let on that he recognized the twine as the same twine that Sarah had a ball of behind her counter back at
Chowders
… or at least he hoped she still had a ball of it back there.

He glanced over at Claire to see her mouth in a tight line. Her cheek twitched. He knew that look—Claire recognized the twine, too.