A Crossword to Die For (7 page)

Belle nodded.
As opposed to Woody?
she wanted to interject but didn't.

“… So he buys the boat, and Woody pays him back … Or some such scheme … 'Cause otherwise why would Woody be beboppin' around in the Hatteras without your dad? I mean, everyone around about here
assumes
that boat belongs to Woody … And I've got to admit, before you came waltzin' in here, I'd plumb forgot the whole transaction … Except the cash part.” He beamed again, the expression benign and smug. “That was sweet.”

“You wouldn't happen to know Woody's last name, would you?”

The happy smile turned thoughtful. “Come to think on it, no … Woody's just Woody … like I'm Jimbo … Last names don't always stick with us boat crowd. Woody must be short for something … Woodson, Woodburn … Heck, I'd call myself Woody, too, if I was stuck with a mouthful like that …” Jimbo let out a small harumph and said, “Heck, maybe he plays the clarinet, and somebody made a joke …”

A thousand additional questions peppered Belle's brain, but she'd begun to intuit that Big Jim Case was not the man to answer them. She returned the purchase papers to her purse, then stood, a polite smile affixed to her face. “You wouldn't happen to know where the boat is moored, Mr. … Jimbo?”

The sunny expression returned to Case's wide face. “There you go, little lady. You're getting the hang of it …” He stood, extended his hand, and shook Belle's while exuding the steady charm of a person adept at selling things. “Sure, I know where she's moored. She's at the Anchorage Marina … A nice setup. A real class act.” Then his eyes and mouth turned genuinely sad. “Sorry about your dad, little lady. I'm sure he'll be powerful missed …”

Belle produced another falsely hearty smile. “Thank you … Jimbo.” Then she turned toward the door.

“Aren't you forgetting something, little lady?”

“I put the bill of sale back in my purse—”

“Like, maybe the name of the boat? The Anchorage is a real big facility. Hunting up a no-name Hatteras is gonna be tough.”

Belle nodded and smiled again. By now she recognized how this game was played. “You wouldn't happen to remember it, would you?”

“Why, sure I do! It's
Wooden Shoe …
Like in the kiddies' poem … ‘sailed off in a wooden shoe' …”

Belle finished the line in her head:
“into a sea of blue.”

The Anchorage was a marina, resort, and upscale shopping complex rolled into one: a miniuniverse of verdantly landscaped walkways, tile-roofed buildings, and palm trees threading their spiky leaves against an azure sky. Oversized terra-cotta pots of pink and coral geraniums clustered at every turning; thatched gazebos invited sitting, and bike stands stood at the ready, sporting not racing machines but giant three-wheelers for relaxed and leisurely pedaling. Belle studied the scene; she couldn't imagine her father comfortable in such a Sybarite's paradise, but then she hadn't pictured her father as a yacht owner, either.

A teenaged attendant in khaki shorts and a blue polo shirt emblazoned with white scroll letters announcing
The Anchorage
was busy sweeping a single fallen geranium leaf into a pristine metal canister. When Belle asked directions to the marina, he looked at her as if she'd lost her marbles.

“You mean, by the water?” he asked.

Belle didn't retort that marinas—given the origin of the appellation—were always on the water. After all, she was the one who'd asked the stupid question. She hurried down the walkway toward the shore.

But there, as Big Jim Case had suggested, a sea of large—and larger—boats greeted her: hundreds upon hundreds, so it seemed. Where
Wooden Shoe
floated among them, Belle didn't have a clue.

She found the marina office, where another remarkably easygoing and unrepentantly male greeted her. “Hey there, young lady.”

“I'm looking for
Wooden Shoe
—”

“Woody's boat?”

“Mmmm.” Belle nodded.

“You just missed him, pretty lady. Sorry to say.”

Belle pasted on what she imagined resembled a disappointed but hopeful smile. “I'll be on the island another day or two, so I can stop by—”

“Oh, you won't find him coming back by then … When ole Woody heads out, he's gone a couple of weeks or more … sometimes upward of a month or two. The man's what they call a free spirit—”

“Was his friend Ted usually on those trips?”

“Who?”

“Ted Graham … Theodore Graham … Did he ordinarily accompany Woody—”

“You mean, ship out with him?”

Belle nodded again.

“With Woody?”

Belle felt as though she'd been trapped in an endless game of twenty questions. “That's right.”

“I never heard of anyone named Ted Graham … But I'll tell you right now, Woody never takes anyone on that boat of his. Oh, an occasional fishing buddy for a day, but never for an extended stay … Like I said, he's a free spirit … Goes where the breezes flow.”

Belle considered the information. “You wouldn't happen to know his full name, would you?”

The man studied her, his expression suddenly less friendly. “Sure I do,” he answered, although the information wasn't forthcoming.

“I guess I should fess up,” Belle admitted. “Woody and my dad are old friends … army buddies, in fact … if it
is
the same Woody … Ted Graham was
… is
another pal … Anyway, since I was passing through Sanibel, I thought I should say ‘Hi.' Dad would be furious if I didn't … In fact … in fact, he gave me some personal papers to pass along should I happen to run into him …” Even as she spun out the story, she realized it had a major hole. If she knew the name of the boat, why wouldn't she also know the true identity of its owner? Belle's smile grew brighter and broader in the hopes her interrogator wouldn't notice the flaws. And she was in luck.

“Horace Llewellen, of course. Least that's what's printed on the Hatteras's Coast Guard documentation. But I'll betcha he doesn't let your dad or this Ted Graham character ever call him Horace.”

Belle grinned. “I guess not … So, you'll tell Woody I was asking for him?”

“When—and if—I see him.”

“When you see him, of course … Nothing urgent … But I do want to pass along the information from my dad.” Belle produced a business card from her purse. “He can contact me here.”

The man took the card, peered at it, and cocked his head to one side. “Crossword puzzle editor, huh?”

“That's right.”

“In Massachusetts …”

“Yup.” Belle felt her smile muscles growing weary.

“You should move down here, pretty lady. I read somewhere that Sarasota County—that's north of here—is the crossword capital of the country … maybe even the world.”

“Is that so?” Belle considered this reply less than stellar, but it was all she seemed able to muster.

“You have to be pretty brainy to do those things, don'tcha?”

“Well, it takes a certain—”

“Me? I can't even remember that rule about ‘i' and ‘e' and ‘c.' But I know P-O-S-H: Port out, starboard home.” He tucked Belle's card in his wallet. “I'll be sure to tell ole Woody to give you a jingle … but it may be some time.”

Strolling back through the marina toward her car, Belle experienced a combination of relief and dissatisfaction. Jim Case's breezy assumption that her father had purchased Wooden Shoe and then transferred the title to a friend who lacked a retired professor's stable financial history seemed not only reasonable but a foregone conclusion—which made Horace Llewellen merely another unsolved mystery in the larger unknown that had been her father's existence.

Belle considered how little she knew of the Theodore Graham who'd bought boats and formed friendships—and who'd also apparently inspired a good deal of fond admiration. She sighed, and as she sighed, her eyes strayed to the ground, causing her to run almost square into a man hurrying along the marina walk toward her.

“Excuse me, miss.”

“Oh!” Belle jumped. What she saw as she glanced up was a dark suit, a starched white shirt, a hat shaped like a fedora held formally in one hand. In the near distance behind the man's back idled a motor yacht of voluptuous size and sparkle. It looked newly minted, and its crew, busy attaching docking lines, looked freshly equipped, too.

“Excuse me, miss,” this impeccably accoutered specimen repeated. “I have just come from Europe—directly.”

Belle turned around, imagining he was addressing someone else. No one was nearby, and it dawned on her that he'd mistaken her for someone else. But before she could rectify the situation, he continued. “I have been gone a good while. Can you tell me the name of the bartender in this establishment?”

Belle stared at the suit, at the hat, at leather shoes so polished their reflection stung the eye. “I'm sorry. I've never been here before … But you might inquire at the marina office … or in the restaurant …”

It was only after she returned to her father's apartment that she considered how odd the exchange had been. And what an unfamiliar accent the man had had.
It wasn't Western European
, she thought.
Maybe from the East? A Slavic language perhaps? Or Israeli? Or maybe Russian or Ukrainian with an overlay of British schooling?
The only certainty was that it seemed entirely too exotic to encounter in a quintessentially American resort like the Anchorage on Sanibel.

Belle continued sorting through books and belongings as she pondered this newest curiosity. Gradually she became aware of a voice talking into a phone next door. Angry and insistent words stabbed their way through the open veranda door. Belle walked outside; the voice hissed and growled in the air, but its owner was invisible behind the dividing wall that separated one veranda from another.
“Nyet,”
she heard, and then a string of loud sounds whose meaning she couldn't remotely fathom.

“Excuse me?” she called. “Do you mind not shouting so much?”

The voice fell abruptly silent, so quiescent, in fact, that Belle almost believed she'd imagined the noise.

“Thanks!” she sang out, but there was no response. She shrugged her shoulders and returned to the task of packing her father's possessions. A Russian neighbor, a multimillion-dollar yacht whose owner was clearly an international tycoon. Obviously, she'd been vastly mistaken about what life as a Florida retiree entailed.

CHAPTER 9

“I don't know, Belle … That sounds like a pickup line. And a pretty clever one, to boot.” Rosco chuckled as he spoke. “Did the guy happen to invite you aboard his floating palace? Or did he just use the ‘I'm new in town, and you look like a woman who knows her way around, so what's the name of the bartender' routine?”

“Very funny …” Belle couldn't help joining in Rosco's amusement, however; she laughed as she gazed through the windshield at the serious-looking edifices of granite and steel lining the Massachusetts highway.
Palm trees are for swizzle sticks
, their dour demeanors seemed to say. She chortled again. “It did strike me as a strange—”

“Tommy Lipton had a nice yacht, too.”

“Who?”

Maneuvering his aging and beloved Jeep into the Sumner Tunnel and away from Boston's Logan Airport, Rosco glanced sideways at Belle. He loved it when he discovered information she lacked—although not as much as he loved her. “The late nineteenth-century tea king—and confirmed ladies' man—”

“I'm impressed! Mr. Historical Research … I never know what you'll surprise me with next.” Belle's laughter grew. “Is that what you think I was doing in Florida? Being wooed by international business tycoons?”

“Old Tommy owned a gargantuan yacht, too; not many gents were invited to join their ladies out on the briny.”

Belle chuckled again, then moved close, and leaned her head on his shoulder. “The bizarre facts you can pull out of your hat … I missed you, Rosco—”

“I should have gone down there with you, Belle.”

“To protect me from handsome yachtsmen?”

“You never said the guy was handsome! How handsome?”

“Nothing compared to you … Anyway he was wearing socks, and shoes—with laces … Definitely not your style. Or mine.” She sighed contentedly while Rosco continued in a more serious vein.

“I should have been there to help sort through your dad's stuff … all those memories.”

“There were no memories, Rosco. That's what felt so weird … None connected to me, at any rate; aside from the crossword Father had framed.” Belle paused. “That was a nice find … odd, but nice … and rather sad, too …” She remained silent a moment, then continued talking. “I told you I tried to toss out a number of the photos—at least, the ones whose subjects I didn't recognize, but I found I couldn't do it … I don't know, I guess I'll end up storing them in the attic until I'm ninety-five … And I didn't take time to sort his papers. I simply stuffed them in boxes, along with his financial material. Then I lugged them to the local Global Delivery office and sent them hurrying north. I was told the shipment might even beat me home.”

“I should have been there,” Rosco repeated.

“I'm a big girl. I'll tell you when I'm in trouble.”

“That's exactly what bothers me.”

Belle squeezed his arm. “Which means you don't trust me to know when I'm getting into difficult terrain—”

“Which means you don't have to pretend to be brave … I know it was tough encountering this Deborah person, and tough just being in your dad's apartment.”

Belle didn't answer; after a moment Rosco continued. “So, what happens to
Mrs
. Hurley now?”