Part 3 (2/2)
”State cops. They don't know this harbor.” In Gus's opinion n.o.body from out of town knew much of anything, but he had a point. Busman's residents knew how hard it would be to take someone out to Morrow in the dark, but would state cops know?
”I think this murder will finally bankrupt the Snowden Family Clambake,” I said. ”And the worst part is, there is not one thing I can do about it.”
That did seem like the absolutely worst part. I'd put my career and my life in New York on hold. I'd worked like a dog all spring and battled with Sonny. And none of it was going to matter. We were going to succ.u.mb to something completely beyond my control.
Gus wasn't having any of it. ”Now Julia Snowden, I don't want to hear you talk that way. Your business is too important to this town. We can't be losing any more employers. You say there's not a thing you can do? Do you know these people who hired you to do the wedding, the ones from New York?”
”Vaguely.”
”Do you know them better than the state cops do?”
”Maybe, but-”
”And do you know Morrow Island better than the state cops do, and who might have business there?”
”Of course, but-”
”And aside from the dead man's family, is there anyone who has more interest in getting this murder solved than you do?”
”Probably no, but-”
Gus wagged a finger at me. ”'Not a thing you can do about it.' We don't talk that way in Busman's Harbor, Maine, missy. I'm sure you if think about it, you'll know exactly what you have to do.”
Chapter 10.
I climbed the steps from Gus's restaurant to the street. Gus was right. n.o.body in town cared as much about solving the murder of Ray Wilson as I did. But that didn't mean I knew what to do.
I did absolutely know what I didn't want to do. Yet, inescapably, it was the thing I had to do next.
A couple months earlier when they booked the reception, Michaela and Tony had given me a deposit for half the wedding costs. Yesterday morning, before the whole day exploded, they'd given me a check for the balance. Depositing the second check would be wrong. Our contract gave me the right to, but Michaela and Tony hadn't, at the end of the day, had a wedding. The circ.u.mstances were so extraordinary I didn't think it was the right time to be a stickler for legalities. But I was already out of pocket for more than the original deposit check covered.
I needed to have a conversation with Tony and Michaela about money, and much as I didn't want to have it on the day after their best man was found murdered and their wedding spoiled, I did want to have it in person. That meant catching them while they were still in town.
I dialed their hotel room from my cell.
Michaela picked up and told me they'd just returned from another interview with the state police. They'd meet me in the hotel dining room for coffee.
Michaela and Tony had stayed overnight in the honeymoon suite at the Bellevue Inn, a rambling wooden structure on the other side of the harbor from the hotels and B&Bs where their guests were staying. I'm sure the isolation had seemed like a great idea when they made their reservation, though I wondered how they were feeling about it now.
The breakfast crowd had almost cleared out of the dining room by the time I got to the Bellevue. I spotted Michaela and Tony in a quiet corner and rushed toward Michaela to give her a hug. She stood and returned it. Even more than I had with Chris, I felt like she and I were comrades who'd been to war together, and talking about money seemed even more uncomfortable. But once I'd sat down and poured a cup of coffee from the carafe on the table, Tony leveled his gaze at me and said, ”You're here about the bill.”
I knew they were paying for the wedding themselves, and I'm not sure why, but I had the impression Tony was the source of most of the funds. I nodded, indicating I was, indeed, there to talk about the money.
”How much are you out of pocket over and above our original deposit?” Tony asked.
”The lobsters are alive, stored under our dock,” I said. ”If the police give us permission to open tomorrow, I can use them. And I can resell the liquor. But the rest of the food, the flowers, and the fuel for one roundtrip on the Jacquie II . . .”
I gave a figure and, to his credit, Tony didn't flinch. Across the table, Michaela remained silent, though she did sigh softly when I mentioned the flowers. I was sure she was thinking about her hopes for a beautiful day and all she'd lost.
”And the labor cost?” Tony prompted.
That was the part of the conversation I dreaded. People were the biggest expense of running the clambake. True, most of the employees hadn't actually worked. But they'd lost the day and most couldn't afford to lose the wages. I gave Tony the amount.
”And the gratuity?”
A service charge would have been added to the bill to be pooled and split by the employees. But that was the problem. There had been no service. I hesitated.
”Just tell me how much.” Tony sat, pencil poised over the paper napkin he'd been taking notes on. ”I want to pay it all. There's no reason for your employees to suffer because of what happened.”
I named another figure. Tony wrote it down. As he added up the numbers, I studied him and Michaela. If long-term couples grow to look alike, they had a significant head start. Both were dark-haired and dark-eyed, and each possessed a pair of perfectly arched eyebrows. His were not in the least feminine, and hers were not at all masculine, but both pairs were striking in their shape. Each had a gender-appropriate version of the same long-limbed body, and they moved with the kind of casual grace the rest of us noticed and envied. As I watched them, Tony reached across the table without even looking at Michaela and grabbed her hand as if he always knew by some sort of built-in sonar where every part of her body was in relation to his own.
I genuinely liked Michaela, but something about Tony caused me to keep my guard up. I was relieved he was willing to pay the employees. It would be much harder to manage the clambake if word got around we'd stiffed people. But he was being too agreeable. Too generous. Why? Did he want to get this sad business over and done? Or did he have some other reason to care whether the citizens of Busman's Harbor thought well of him?
”What are you planning for the rest of your day?” I asked.
”The police said we could leave, so we're headed to Bath to spend time with Tony's parents.” Michaela's dabbed at her eyes with her napkin.
I looked at Tony. ”You're from Bath?” That was a surprise. Bath was just a twenty-five minute drive south along Maine's jagged coast.
”Both Ray and I are. Were,” Tony replied. ”We grew up together.”
How could I not have known? I could've sworn when Tony introduced me to his parents on board the Jacquie II, he said they'd just flown up from Florida. Then again, that wasn't an unusual migration for an older Maine couple.
”That's why we chose your place for the wedding,” Michaela said.
”I thought it was because you knew me in New York.”
Michaela shook her head. ”No, no, no. Tony picked your place.”
Tony signaled for the waitress and signed the bill for our coffee. ”We've got to get going and pack the cars,” he said to Michaela.
”Cars?” I said. ”You didn't ride up together?”
”Michaela came up early to meet her family,” Tony answered. ”I was supposed to drive up with Ray, but when he came to pick me up, he had a big camp trunk taking up the whole backseat of his Porsche. There was no way his little car was going to fit me, Ray, his luggage, and all my luggage for the wedding and the honeymoon. So I drove myself up.” Tony shook his head and smiled. ”Freakin' Ray.”
Big camp trunk? Wasn't that a little odd? ”What did he say was in the trunk?”
”He didn't. Some stupid thing would be my guess.” Tony smiled again indulgently. ”Some prop for the best man speech or some other prank.”
”Did you tell the police about the trunk?”
”They didn't ask. But they took all the stuff from his hotel room into evidence and towed his car from the lot at the Lighthouse Inn, so I guess they've found the trunk by now.”
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