Arsenic with Austen (6 page)

Evans shot her a shrewd glance. “How well'd you know your aunt?”

“We were pretty close years ago. I hadn't seen her for a long time.”

“Well, you should know Beatrice only dealt with the best. When she bought a place, she had it fixed up and kept up, and everything she owned brought top dollar. If a place couldn't pull its own weight…” He slashed his forefinger across his throat and made a
pffft
sound through his teeth.

“That would certainly be my expectation. Windy Corner is in excellent shape. I just thought it possible that with so many properties and her getting older, things might have started to slip a little.”

“No way. She didn't do it all herself, mind. She used a property management firm here in Tillamook. Practically kept them in business single-handed. But she made sure they did their job right.”

“I see.” Emily didn't know how to ask her most pressing question, which was why Aunt Beatrice had chosen to employ Evans, who was now leaning back in his chair again and trying to balance a pencil eraser-down on the tip of his finger. Neither he nor his surroundings exuded professional efficiency. But on the other hand, he did seem straightforward—not the type to try siphoning Beatrice's money into a cozy retreat in the Caymans.

“I can give you a thumb drive with all Beatrice's records if you want to have a look-see.”

Emily swallowed. That at least sounded efficient. But although she knew what a thumb drive was—only just—she had no way to make use of one nor any clue how. “I—don't have a computer with me.” She held her breath, hoping not to be informed she could just use Beatrice's. She hadn't seen a computer in the house, but neither had she toured every room.

Evans raised one eyebrow and his mouth quirked. “Chip off the old Luddite block, eh? No prob. I've got old-fashioned files too.” He pushed out of his chair and reached the file cabinet in two long strides. With no fumbling, he pulled out a fat but perfectly neat accordion file envelope and placed it in her lap. “That's everything but the kitchen sink. No mortgage on the sink, I promise.” He winked and returned to his chair.

Emily decided Beatrice's employing Evans had not been the first sign of senile dementia after all. In fact, she might be able to trust him to give her an informed opinion on the development issue.

“I would like your advice about something. I've been approached by a couple of people who are anxious for me to either sell some properties or use them to help Stony Beach grow. I know Beatrice was dead against it, and I can't say I'm thrilled by the prospect either. What's your perspective?”

Evans leaned forward on his elbows, and his bushy brows drew together. “
Dead
against it. Funny you should say it just like that.”

An invisible caterpillar crawled up Emily's spine. “Do you mean…” Her mouth went dry. She couldn't say the words.

“I mean, those people who've been pestering you might've taken it into their heads to put Beatrice out of the picture. Beatrice die of acute gastroenteritis? Yeah, and my prize stallion might get up and fly.”

Emily swallowed. “Agnes Beech said the same thing. I thought it was just an old woman's delusion.”

He shook his head. “Not much gets past Agnes Beech. Ask me, that doctor and that sheriff up there're either blind, lazy, or in the mayor's pocket. I'd bet a hundred to one your aunt was murdered.”

 

seven

He was not altered, or not for the worse.… The years which had destroyed her youth and bloom had only given him a more glowing, manly, open look, in no respect lessening his personal advantages. She had seen the same Frederick Wentworth.

—
Persuasion

Emily left Evans's office in a daze. She hadn't met the doctor—Sam Griffiths, Evans said his name was—but “blind, lazy, or in the mayor's pocket” certainly didn't describe the Luke she used to know. Could thirty-five years have changed him so fundamentally?

Maybe it was time to find out.

She drove back to Stony Beach and wove through the streets uphill from the highway, her memory betraying her as to the precise location of the sheriff's office. At last she spotted a black-and-white SUV parked in front of a building that looked like an ordinary small house. But a demure sign half hidden by a bush said
COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE
.

She sat in the car for a few minutes, composing herself. Luke had made it clear yesterday he had something to say to her—some lame apology, no doubt, for abandoning her all those years ago. She wasn't at all sure she wanted to hear it. Nor did she want to be lured into confessing why his betrayal had mattered so much to her. She was here on business, and she would have to keep the meeting on that footing. Now that the first shock of seeing him was past, surely she could manage that.

She straightened her cardigan, patted her hair, and walked up to the door. It looked so much like the door of a private home, she hesitated, wondering if she ought to knock. No, one didn't knock at a public office. She turned the handle and went in.

She expected a receptionist or junior officer, but once again was caught off guard. Luke himself sat at the desk before her. And his effect on her was no less powerful than it had been yesterday. She kept her hand on the doorknob to steady herself.

“Emily!” He shot out of his chair and around the desk to greet her, then stopped short a couple of feet away. Confusion hung in the air between them. Another handshake would be a travesty of what they'd once felt for each other, a hug far too intimate for where they stood now.

They hesitated a fraction too long, so that contact of any kind became impossible. He opened his mouth to speak, but she forestalled him. “I want to talk to you about Beatrice's death.”

His eyebrows rose halfway to where his hairline used to be. “You better sit down.” She braced herself, let go of the knob, and managed the few steps to the single, cracked-vinyl visitor chair. He returned to his seat behind the desk.

“Somebody been spreading rumors?” His normally smooth voice held a hint of a growl.

“You might say that. Two people, quite separately, have told me—they don't believe her death was natural.”

He gave a low whistle and leaned back in his chair. “That's a tough one. To tell you the absolute truth, I had a hard time believing it myself. But Doc Griffiths signed the certificate, no qualms, and I had nothing to go on.” He leaned forward again and met her eyes. “Far as I could tell, the symptoms might have been consistent with some kind of poisoning. But they were just as consistent with acute gastroenteritis, like the doc said. And by the time she died—it took about twenty-four hours—”

Emily winced, and he stretched a hand toward her, but she was out of his reach. “By the time I started looking for evidence, there wasn't any evidence to find. She'd eaten in a restaurant that night. Everything she'd eaten out of had been washed, the whole place scrubbed to a squeak. She had lobster, which always disagreed with her, but other people at the restaurant had it too and they didn't get sick, so it wasn't the lobster's fault.”

“What about…” Emily swallowed, ghastly images sticking in her throat. “What about a postmortem?”

“I wanted one, but the chief over in Tillamook wouldn't hear of it. Budget's tight this year. Doctor gave a certificate; that was enough for him.”

Emily struggled to absorb this information, filtered as it was by her acute awareness of Luke himself. Every gesture, every turn of phrase, every inflection of his voice echoed within her memory, stirring up the same old maelstrom of physical and emotional response.

Doctor. Certificate. Poison. Evidence.
She fastened onto those words. “Is the doctor honest? Competent?”

“Normally, I'd say both. Totally. No real reason to think otherwise in this case.”

She peered at him. “But you do.”

“I do.” He gripped a pencil so hard, it snapped. “But I can't prove a dadgum thing.”

Emily stood. “Where do I find Doctor Griffiths?”

“Clinic over on Fifth.” He checked his watch. “But it'll be closed for lunch now. Fact, I was just about to head out for a bite when you came in.” He shot her a look as tentative as a junior high boy getting up his nerve to ask for a dance. “Want to come with me?”

That look slipped under her defenses, such as they were. “Sure.”

He opened the door for her, then locked it behind him. “I usually walk—okay by you?”

She nodded. He hadn't said where they were going, but nothing in Stony Beach was more than a few blocks away.

He strode down the walk and turned toward the highway, then checked himself and waited for her to catch up. “Oh yeah,” he said with a lopsided smile. “Forgot. I always did have to slow down for you.”

“I can't help it if your legs are six inches longer than mine.” Her old riposte.

His laugh should have diffused the rising tension between them, but it only heightened it. Walking beside him, it was all she could do not to let her hand slip into his. She remembered so well how sheltered it had felt there. But that was the hand that had failed to answer her letters—had possibly crumpled them unread. How could she ever trust it again?

They headed south on the highway, a couple of blocks beyond the main downtown section of which she was now the primary landlady, and stopped in front of a shabby, shingled building, hardly more than a shack, with a crooked, inexpertly painted sign above the door:
THE CRAB POT
.

Luke must have read the dismay on her face. “I know it doesn't look like much, but it's clean and the food is great.” He grinned. “You'll meet the Crab in a minute.”

Emily was reminded of the Red Queen's sage advice to Alice:
Never eat anything you've been introduced to.
Too bad, because crab was her favorite seafood.

He pushed open the door, which creaked loudly enough to make a bell unnecessary. Over half the rickety vinyl-topped tables and most of the seats at the back counter were full, some with faces that looked vaguely familiar from the funeral. Luke stopped to greet several people and waved at others on his way to a table near the back.

They sat, and he handed her a laminated menu card from the condiment rack. “Everything's good, but the crab melt is famous.”

The smells wafting from the kitchen tended to confirm Luke's assurances. Breakfast suddenly seemed days in the past. She skimmed the menu, but saw nothing to tempt her away from the crab melt.

No waiter had yet appeared. Luke, who was facing the counter, called out, “Hey, Sunny! Can we get some water over here?”

Emily heard a low grumbling, the slosh of water, then a slow, heavy shuffle approaching. The hairiest hand she'd ever seen slammed two plastic glasses onto the middle of the table. She looked up to see a wizened gnome with Einstein-like hair jutting out on either side of a weather-beaten bald stripe. The gnome's left arm, half the size of its brother, hung useless at his side, and his badly shaven face bore the unfriendliest scowl she'd ever seen outside of a gangster movie.

The gnome turned back toward the counter, but Luke stopped him with a tug on his ancient, food-stained overalls. “We're ready to order, Sunny. If it's not too much trouble.” He winked at Emily.

The astonishingly named Sunny turned back with an audible growl. The scowl, impossibly, deepened. “Whaddaya want?”

Luke gestured to Emily.

“I'd like the crab melt, please.” She'd intended to ask for fruit instead of the standard French fries, but her imagination quailed at the thought of how Sunny might react.

“Make that two.” Luke gathered the menus and stuck them back in their place. “And a Coke for me.” He raised his eyebrows in Emily's direction.

“Iced tea?”

Sunny shuffled off, trailing a pungent odor behind him.

“Good heavens! What hole did he climb out of?” she said in a low voice when he was gone.

Luke grinned. “Used to be a fisherman till he wrecked his arm. His sister owns the place, does the cooking. She gave him a job—no one else would—but he hates it, obviously. Been here twenty years, getting sourer by the day.”

She shuddered, in pity as well as revulsion. “I'm surprised people still come here. He's enough to sour the food.”

“We're used to him. Besides, this is the only place in town stays open all winter. We don't send tourists here, though. We want people to like Stony Beach.”

Emily chuckled, then sobered, the mention of tourists reminding her of her day's mission. “Where do you stand on this whole development thing?”

Luke choked on his water. “Good Lord, don't tell me they're after you already?”

“Both the real estate agent and the mayor interrupted my breakfast this morning.”

“Holy cow. Listen, if you want a restraining order or something, just say the word. Those two are a one-two punch.”

“I take it you're not in sympathy with their goals, then?”

“Hell no. I like Stony Beach just the way it is. Way it's been all my life. Only thing could've made it better is you coming back—and now you're here.” He gave her the full wattage of his smile.

She bit back the words,
I could have been here all along.
She'd better stick to business—she didn't want to break down in front of all these people, most of whom were already staring at the two of them with undisguised curiosity.

She lowered her voice. “You don't think those two want progress enough to…” When it came to the point, the idea seemed too outlandish to put into words.

“To kill for it? Don't think it hasn't crossed my mind. She had dinner with them the night before she died. I doubt they'd have the guts to kill her face-to-face. But a poison that doesn't act right away—a guy can kinda distance himself from that, y' know? Rationalize it might not work. And you don't have to be there to see the consequences. I wouldn't rule those two out.” He took a long drink of water. “That is, if it was murder at all.”