Fowl Prey (25 page)

“Auntie Vance insists the boat's not seaworthy,” Judith said as they started up the stairs leading to the house's main floor. She paused to sniff the air. “It does feel different, doesn't it?”

Renie nodded. “There's a saltwater tang to it. Fresh and yet sort of pungent. You got the key?”

Judith stared at Renie. “No. I thought Auntie Vance gave it to you. She was at your place after she left Hillside Manor.”

“She never mentioned a key to me.”

“Damn!” Judith scrutinized the twenty-foot-long deck where Renie was already making a search. “Any luck?” she asked.

Renie shook her head as she peered into various seashells, under the doormat, and between pieces of driftwood. “You're stuck relying on the lockpicking skills you honed while married to Dan.”

“I'm rusty,” Judith admitted, digging in her purse for an item that would trip the lock. “I haven't done this in ages, unlike when I had to open Dan's safe every week to see if there was money for food.”

“I've got my trusty nail scissors,” Renie volunteered.

“I can't seem to find anything that will do the job. Give me the ...”

Renie turned the knob. The door opened. “Voilà!” she exclaimed.

Judith stared. “How'd you know it was open?”

“I didn't. But it never hurts to try.”

The cousins entered the big paneled room that served as kitchen, dining room, and living room. The house plan was simple: the master bedroom off the living room section, a half bath, and a hallway with a guest room at one end and the laundry room at the other. The main bath was in the middle. There was also a partial basement that was entered from the garage, but had no access from the main floor. The furnishings were comfortable and solid. Auntie Vance wasn't one for flash and dash. Uncle Vince could go to sleep anywhere.

Judith espied a note on the kitchen counter.
Hi, Idiots,
their aunt had scrawled.
We took off this morning at five and figured nobody would bother robbing us because we don't have anything worth taking, so we left the door unlocked. If we gave you two boobs a key, you'd probably lose it. Have fun and stay out of trouble. XXX OOO, Auntie Vance.

“Typical,” Judith said, laughing. “I don't think I've ever heard of a break-in around here.”

“It's a small community,” Renie noted, setting her overnight case, tote bag, and purse on the floor. “Maybe fifty houses, and some aren't occupied all year. I never heard of a neighborhood watch, but they probably don't need one. Obsession Shores is off the beaten track.”

Judith gazed through the big window that faced Worthless Bay, the Sound, and the mountains over on the Peninsula. “From what I can tell, the tide's either almost in or starting to go back out.”

“Check the bulletin board,” Renie said, opening the fridge. “There should be a tide table there some place. Oh, wow! Auntie Vance made us her clam chowder. A green salad to go with it. Let's eat.”

Judith found the side table in plain sight while Renie put a kettle on the stove to heat the chowder. “Low tide is at ten to two.”

“We can walk the beach later on,” Renie suggested, finding a box of crackers in the cupboard by the stove. “The tide won't come all the way in again until this evening. Of course, you'll want to start meeting and greeting the suspects. I mean,
neighbors
.”

“Don't say things like that,” Judith said sharply. “Are you looking for trouble?”

Renie shrugged. “We do have a way of finding it. Sometimes.”

“For once, let's not,” Judith said in her normal voice. “The last thing I want is a dead body to spoil my improving mood.”

Renie was putting bowls and silverware on the table in the dining area. “You're rarely in a funk. What set you off besides the normal postholiday blues? Joe? Your mother? Do you feel okay otherwise, aside from your artificial hip sometimes bothering you?”

Judith sat down, but waited for Renie to take her own place at the big pine table. “Well ... physically, I feel okay. The last few days getting Joe ready for the trip have been hectic. I admit I was kind of jealous of him going off without me. Did it bother you to have Bill take such a big vacation while you stayed home?”

Renie shook her head. “Heck no. It's good for him to get away from me once in a while. Sometimes I drive him nuts and vice versa. You and Joe haven't been married for almost forty years. We have. I miss Bill, and I'll be glad when he gets back. An occasional break does us both good.” She glanced at the stove. “Let me get the chowder.”

“I understand that,” Judith said. “I resented the money Joe spent at the auction, but given the actual cost of the trip, it was insignificant. Now that he's gone and I'm not in my usual B&B whirl, I'm happy for him. Except for a long weekend up in Vancouver, we haven't had a real vacation since we all went to Scotland almost two years ago.”

“So,” Renie said, her brown eyes probing as she sat down after pouring the chowder, “what is it that set you off?”

“Ohhh ...” Judith ran a hand through her shoulder-length dark hair with its pale gold highlights. “This sounds stupid, but I think I'm still mad at myself for flubbing that cold case and fingering the wrong killer. I've never made a mistake like that in all my years of accidentally getting mixed up in murder.”

Renie looked as if she were trying not to laugh. “No kidding. Gosh, coz, you only missed by choosing one prime suspect over the other. Your usual logic and keen people skills made the solution fit perfectly. Both of those two people had motive, opportunity, and not quite airtight alibis.”

“I still got it wrong,” Judith asserted. “I should've stayed retired. I've gone out a loser.”

Renie held her head. “That's about the dopiest thing I've heard from you. Unless I count saying yes to Dan when he proposed.”

“It galls me to screw up a murder investigation.”

“Please. You're ruining my taste buds for Auntie Vance's chowder.”

“Nothing could do that. Skip it. If I remember, Dick and Jane Sedgewick live in the second house down on the right as you enter Obsession Shores. I mean, if we walk up there, they'd be on the left.”

“That sounds right,” Renie said, brushing cracker crumbs off her nubby green, gold, and bronze sweater. “Or left, I mean.”

Judith got up to go to the counter that divided part of the kitchen from the rest of the larger room. “Auntie Vance keeps all her important stuff here with the phone books and catalogs and ... ah! Here's a list of homeowners in the development. And,” she went on with a hint of triumph, “I found a copy of the measure we're voting on.”

“Spare me,” Renie said. “All I need is to know is no.”

Judith sat down again. “Don't you want to be informed?”

“No. No, no, no.” Renie viciously speared a lettuce leaf with her fork. “You think I haven't had to work on designs for conning people into voting whatever way I was dragooned by earning big bucks from whichever civic or public utility outfit hired me?”

“Fine.
I'd
like to know the details.” Judith downed more chowder while reading through the proposal. “It sounds clear to me. This measure is to establish a private nonprofit sewer system to serve the—”

Renie held up a hand. “Serves them right if it's passed. I get it.”

Judith put the single sheet of paper aside. “Has it occurred to you that this could be a
good
thing?”

“No. You want Auntie Vance to kill us for treason? If she and Uncle Vince are against it, I'm with them.”

“I'm considering the opposition,” Judith said reasonably. “Some of these other people might really prefer sewer lines. Not to mention the properties that don't percolate, so that a septic tank isn't an option. Over the years the forest has reclaimed the land they couldn't sell. You may recall that when the Webers were talking about building up here, my parents considered buying in, too. But the site they were looking at didn't perc. Then my father died and Mother lost heart in the idea.”

“Your mother had a heart back then? I always wondered where it went. And no, I don't remember that. I was in high school at the time.”

“No, you weren't. You'd graduated from college.”

“So I was too caught up making serious money by creating graphic designs for brain-dead corner-office types.”

“That sounds right. Are you finished with your latest foray into piggery?”

“Hey, I didn't spill much.” Renie stood up. “Let's go be neighborly.”

“At least you didn't dress in your usual nonprofessional bumlike wardrobe,” Judith noted as they cleared the table.

“I figured we were going public,” Renie said, opening the dishwasher. “A lot of these people must be really old. I don't want to scare them.”

“Sometimes your bummy outfits scare
me
.”

Renie made no comment. The cousins put on their jackets and headed outside. After closing the door, Judith grimaced. “I don't like not locking up. But we have no key. Does that bother you?”

“Kind of,” Renie admitted. “But if that's how the locals live, I guess it shouldn't worry us. We're used to living in a big city, surrounded by the everyday threat of criminal activity. It keeps us alert.”

The cousins took their time walking alongside the road. Overhead, the clouds were getting lower and darker. Accustomed to the gray of winter, neither Judith nor Renie paid much attention. The old joke was that the standard forecast was “overcast with a high of fifty-five, a low of forty-three, and a ninety percent chance of rain.” It was more of as truism than a joke during much of the year.

As they turned to follow the stone walkway to the front door, Judith glanced back to take in the view. “Maybe a storm is coming this way,” she noted. Moving figures crossing the main road halfway to the beach caught her eye. “Some clam diggers are out. A couple of people are pushing somebody in a wheelchair. Do you recognize them?”

Renie made a face. “From here? I'm farsighted, but they look like blobs to me.”

Judith shrugged and kept going. Dick and Jane Sedgewick were out on their deck, arguing about something. “Hey,” Dick called, waving at the cousins, “button it up, Jane. We've got company. It looks like the Webers' nieces. I'll be damned.”

“You probably will be,” Jane said with a cutting glance at her husband. “Hi, girls! Come on up. It's almost cocktail time.”

“At one thirty?” Renie called back as they approached the staircase. “Isn't that kind of early?”

“Not at Obsession Shores,” Dick shot back with a grin. He was a big, hearty man with a full head of steel-gray hair. “We figure anytime is cocktail time during the winter.”

Jane took what Judith hoped was a playful punch at her husband's midsection. “Don't listen to my bitter half. He wishes we could drink a lot more, but his ulcer and my high blood pressure have short-circuited our former party days. Come on in. We're trying to decide if this piece of so-called driftwood he picked up this morning is a coiled cobra or a worn-out tire. Dick doesn't see so well anymore, but I figure the Firestone imprint gives it away.”

“Damn!” Dick exclaimed. “I should wear my trifocals when I go for a morning stroll, but they get blurred when it's foggy.”

“
You're
foggy, Lover Boy,” Jane said, taking Dick's arm as they ushered their guests inside. “Vance told us you were going to stand in for them at the meeting tonight. I just hope you can stand the meeting. It's going to get ugly.”

Judith smiled.
Ugly
was not a word that would describe Jane Sedgewick. Age had not diminished her tall, voluptuous figure or her auburn-haired beauty. The silver streaks among her natural curls only emphasized the sparkle in her hazel eyes.

“Come into the nook,” Dick said, leading the way past the kitchen with its gleaming black appliances. “We call it our 'love nest,' but,” he added, “sometimes with my wife, it's more like a 'crow's nest.' Either way works with me.” He slapped Jane's rear.

“Just don't say
Old
Crow,” she murmured. “I make a mean hot toddy. Real rum for this occasion. How about it, girls?”

“Sure,” Judith said. “Can I help?”

Jane looked askance, but her hazel eyes danced. “You think I'm doddering?”

“I probably dodder more than you do,” Judith replied. “Hip replacement, you know.”

“Oh, yeah, I remember Vance telling me about that. Dick got a new knee last year. Go ahead, you can help carry the mugs,” she continued as they backtracked into the kitchen. “Renie will entertain Dick. She's a sport, as I remember.”

“She is that,” Judith agreed. “Speaking of sports, she and I should probably know who to watch out for as the enemy tonight.”

“Oh, they'll be hard to miss,” Jane said, turning on the teakettle. “Of course, we don't know how everybody will vote. Some of these people are virtual strangers. That is, they're mostly a younger crowd, second generation of the original owners, or newcomers. They tend to keep to themselves.”

Judith nodded. “Typical, I imagine. Are there many children living here these days? In the early years after Auntie Vance and Uncle Vince moved up here, there weren't any young families.”

“It's like everywhere else in this part of the country—lots of newcomers moving in from all over the place.” She paused to get a bottle of rum from a well-stocked liquor cabinet. “As time went on, more people with children inherited or bought in. The school bus stops here now. There are about two dozen kids who ride it. That's quite a change in the last six, seven years. Until then, the only children we saw were usually just visiting.”

The teakettle whistled. Jane made the drinks while telling Judith to grab a notepad from the kitchen drawer near the phone. “You'll want to write down the names,” she said. “I don't know everybody, but I can at least identify some of the players, both pro and con sewers.”