Mortar and Murder (32 page)

“
You’re
here. Don’t people follow you around? You’re famous, aren’t you?”

Gert looked at me like I’d lost my mind.

“You did say you had a stalker,” I pointed out.

“In Florida. Not here. That’s what I like about Maine. Nobody knows me, and nobody cares. And other than the occasional nutjob, readers don’t tend to go on pilgrimages to their favorite authors’ homes, anyway. We’re not rock stars, you know.”

I nodded. So Gert wasn’t a big enough draw to bring tourists to Rowanberry Island. And there was nothing else here that would interest anyone. No museum or important historic building, no ancient battlefields, no bird sanctuary, no artist colony . . . What
did
bring people out here? In enough numbers to support a guest house?

“Maybe the owner keeps the sign out in case someone happens to come by needing a room,” Irina suggested. “Like, if the ferry stops running and they can’t get back to the mainland until the next day.”

Maybe. “I saw it in the window last week. It was gone yesterday, though.”

“So maybe someone rented the room. Or maybe family came in to visit or something. For the holiday.”

I blinked. “Holiday?”

Irina nodded. “Sure. It’s Palm Sunday. The beginning of Easter.”

“Oh.” I bit my lip. I should have known that. “Speaking of Easter, that Ukrainian Easter egg of yours . . . where is it?”

It was Irina’s turn to blink. “The paperweight? Isn’t it on the coffee table? I didn’t take it anywhere.”

“Maybe it is.” Probably just my imagination gone hay-wire. It does that sometimes. “Back when I thought you’d killed Agent Trent, it was the murder weapon.”

Irina looked at me.

“Sorry,” I added. “It made sense at the time.”

She nodded. “I liked her. She said she’d find Svetlana and make sure that the people who have her go to jail for a long time. I didn’t want her dead.”

“I’m sure you didn’t. You know, that’s something that maybe we should talk about.”

“What?”

“Agent Trent. You said you told her everything, right? About coming here three years ago and everything that happened to you? And you told her to go to Rowanberry Island. Because you thought you recognized Gert’s voice that day in Shaw’s Supermarket?”

Irina nodded. “Except it wasn’t Mr. . . . Gert’s voice. It was someone else’s.”

“Right. But you thought it was Gert’s, so you sent Agent Trent out here to talk to him. Except she never arrived.”

I looked at Gert for confirmation. He shook his head.

“So somewhere between Irina’s office in Portland and Gert’s house on Rowanberry Island, Agent Trent was killed.”

“It happened in the harbor, don’t you think? Wasn’t that where you found her?” Gert looked at me.

I nodded. “We did find her there. But not until yesterday morning. And it was Friday afternoon when she left Irina’s office. It was still daylight. I don’t think she could have been floating in the Waterfield harbor that whole time without someone noticing her. Do you?”

Gert admitted that I had a point. “So what do you think happened?”

It was Irina who answered. “Maybe she got on the ferry to go to Rowanberry Island. And when she got here, she asked someone for directions to Mr. . . . Gert’s house, and that person killed her.”

I nodded. “Or maybe she never even made it this far. Maybe someone on the ferry realized who she was and killed her.”

Like cute little Ned Schachenger. Maybe he was working as a ticket taker on the ferry because he helped smuggle Russian women into the country every winter and it let him keep up with anything that went on around the islands, including anyone coming and going. Like ICE agent Lori Trent. Ned could have met her on the ferry; he looked so sweet and innocent that she wouldn’t have thought twice about asking him questions about the Russian women.
I
had asked him questions about the Russian women. Of course, he hadn’t killed
me
. Then again, I wasn’t an agent with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

So maybe Lori Trent had buttonholed Ned on the ferry, and maybe Ned had gotten spooked. Maybe he had admitted something he shouldn’t have, and maybe he had realized it and had whacked Agent Trent over the head with something—surely there were plenty of smooth, round objects on board the ferry that he could have used—and then he had stashed the body somewhere and waited until the ferry got back to Waterfield late Friday night, before he heaved the body over the railing and into the water. He wouldn’t necessarily realize that Waterfield wasn’t where she belonged. Or maybe it even happened on Saturday morning; Agent Trent’s body could have been kept on the ferry, docked in Boothbay Harbor, all night, until the first run the next day. Where Waterfield was the first stop.

I turned to Irina. “Who was the conductor on the ferry when you came over on Friday night?”

She blinked. “No idea. I wasn’t paying attention.”

“Young kid? Blond hair? Sweet smile?”

“I really couldn’t say. Sorry, Avery.”

“No problem.” It didn’t really prove anything either way. But if I was right—and it did all hang together, including the fact that Ned had been at Shaw’s Supermarket the night Irina and I had seen Gert there—then maybe the thick fog was a good thing, because it kept the ferry away and Ned off Rowanberry Island tonight. He probably had an accomplice, but with Ned gone, at least we wouldn’t have to worry about both of them.

“Maybe she asked for directions at the store,” Gert suggested. “If I came here for the first time, that’s where I’d start.”

I nodded. “Me, too. Derek and I were in there yesterday, though, to buy cat food for the kitten, and the owner said he hadn’t seen a visitor since August. I guess you”—I turned to Irina—“haven’t stopped in?”

She shook her head. “Should I have?”

“Not necessarily. It isn’t very nice. Dust all over everything except the floor, and canned goods that looked like they’d been sitting in the same spot on the shelves for a year, at least. I made sure Derek checked the expiration dates on everything we bought. Although . . .” I trailed off.

“What?” Gert said.

“Nothing. Just . . . he said he hadn’t seen anyone new since last summer, but someone must have bought a snow globe recently. You know, one of those touristy things with a scene inside that says ‘Memories of Maine’ or ‘Greetings from Rowanberry Island’ on the base? When you shake it, fake glittery snow falls on everything.”

They both nodded.

“There was a thick layer of dust all over everything, and I could see where there had been a snow globe until recently. There was a hole in the dust, you know, next to the others? So if there haven’t been any tourists around for six months at least, who’d have bought a souvenir snow globe? Surely none of the locals.”

Gert and Irina looked at one another. “Maybe it fell?” Irina suggested. “And broke? When he was . . .” She broke off.

“What?”

“I was going to say when he dusted, but he didn’t dust, if you could still see where the snow globe had been sitting.”

I shook my head. “Other than the floor, no one’s cleaned that place for months. Someone could have picked it up and dropped it, though. And then he had to mop. It would explain the clean floor, when everything else was so dusty. And”—I thought back—“that actually makes a lot of sense, because the floor wasn’t just clean, it sparkled. Like there were tiny specks of something on it, between the floorboards maybe. Like the sparkly silver snow inside the globe.”

“It couldn’t be very well made,” Gert opined, “if accidentally dropping it would make it break open.”

“They’re souvenirs. You know, made in China. So no, probably not. Although I picked one up, and it was actually a lot heavier than I thought it would be. Not as heavy as Irina’s Easter egg, but not a lot lighter, either. The glass must be really thick. And they’re big, too.”

“As big as the Easter egg?” Irina wanted to know.

I thought back. “A little bigger, actually. With a heavy base. Maybe it’s something the guy makes himself—or someone on the island does—because I haven’t seen anything like it anywhere else. We can go take a look if you want. If the store’s open. There were several others still left on the shelf.”

“No,” Irina said, “I don’t think I want to do that.”

“Why not?” Gert and I both turned to look at her.

“Because”—she hesitated—“well, what if Agent Trent did make it all the way to Rowanberry Island, and she did stop at the store to ask directions . . .”

“And she picked up a snow globe and accidentally dropped it?”

Irina shook her head. “And the snow globe didn’t fall, but someone used it to hit her on the back of the head?”

Gert blinked. So did I. It was one of those
ding-dingding
lightbulb moments when you realize that—duh!—maybe you’ve been looking at things wrong.

I found my voice. “That’s . . . interesting.”

“It would explain a number of things,” Gert said. He looked at Irina. “You know, Hal was in Shaw’s Supermarket that night when you thought you recognized my voice. I saw him and ducked out of the way so he wouldn’t see me, since I go into the general store all the time in the summer, and I didn’t want him to recognize me and realize I was still around.”

And that was also interesting.

“He was one of the people you said you spoke to last summer about the smuggling, right?”

Gert nodded, and I could see the same dawning realization in his eyes that I figured was in my own.

“Maybe we need to see if Irina recognizes
his
voice,” I suggested. “I know that you two both have good reasons for why you don’t want him to see you, but maybe I could just open the door and stick my head in, you know, and just ask sort of offhandedly if he knows whether the ferry is still running. If I keep the door open, maybe you’d be able to hear his answer.”

Gert and Irina exchanged a look. “Fine with me,” Gert said. Irina nodded.

“Just be sure to stay back far enough that he won’t see you. Or lurk over to the side, or something.”

They both nodded.

“I think it should be a little farther down this way.” I started making my way carefully down the cobblestoned street.

The lights were on inside the store now, making it easier to find in the fog. Irina and Gert faded to one side, while I tried the knob. It didn’t budge. But the light was on, so although the sign in the window was still turned to Closed, I knocked. If I’d truly wanted to ask whether the ferry was still running, that’s what I’d do.

The first couple of knocks didn’t produce any result, so I knocked again, harder. After a moment, the store owner’s face appeared behind the counter, popping up like a jack-in-the-box. What the heck had he been doing back there; taking a nap on the floor?

I put an ingratiating smile on my face and waved. He glanced over his shoulder before he came out from behind the counter and started walking toward me. Slowly, like he hoped that if he took too long, I might give up and disappear.

Fat chance. I waited, that same big-eyed, apologetic grin on my face, until he’d woven his way between the shelves and over to the door and had unlocked it. He pulled it open just far enough to speak to me through the crack.

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry to bother you,” I said. “Remember me? My boyfriend and I stopped by yesterday to pick up some cat food? We’re renovating the old Colonial on the other side of the island?”

He nodded. So much for trying to get a few words out of him for Irina to hear.

“I came out this morning, you know, to make sure the kitten was OK. And then the fog came in, and now I’ve been waiting for the ferry for a while, but it’s not coming, and I was wondering, you know, how long it’s gonna be before I can get off the island and back to the mainland.”

He looked at me in silence as the seconds ticked by. I started to worry that he wouldn’t answer when he finally opened his mouth. “Ferry gets canceled when the fog’s this bad. Won’t run till morning.”

“Seriously?” I made a face, trying to make it look like I hadn’t already heard this information.

He nodded.

“What am I supposed to do?”

He shrugged. “Can’t do nothing but wait.”

“Do you have a phone that can reach the mainland? Or a computer?”

He shook his head.

“Does anyone else? How about that lady who has the rooms for rent? Mrs. Harris? I met her yesterday. D’you think she might rent me a room for the night? I’m not sure I want to spend the night sleeping on the floor back at the house.”

“Glenda’s off the island for the day,” Hal said. “Went to church on the mainland this morning and can’t get back with the ferry not running. Only Calvin’s home.”

The implication was that I wouldn’t want to ask Calvin to rent me a room and risk being stuck in an empty house with him overnight. Which was absolutely correct. I had a sort of
a-ha
moment when I realized that that’s why the name Harris had sounded familiar; it was Calvin’s name, as well. Glenda must be Calvin’s mother.

“Can I at least buy something to eat from you? If I’m going to be stuck here overnight?”

He hesitated. “Whatcha want?”

“How about a jar of peanut butter and a loaf of bread and maybe a bottle of Diet Coke? Oh, and a candy bar.”

I expected him to open the door for me, but instead he told me to wait. And locked the door while he gathered the things I’d asked for. While I waited, I made sure not to look to my left, where Irina and Gert were skulking.

“Ten bucks.” He handed me the brown bag. I dug in my wallet and produced a ten. The price was outrageous, but this wasn’t the time to haggle. “Thank you. Guess I’ll just head on back to the house now. If you’re sure about the ferry?”

He nodded. I turned on my heel and walked away. And kept walking, even after I heard the door close and the lock catch. And then I kept walking some more, just in case he had followed me to make sure I was actually going back to the house.