The Clam Bake Murder: A Windward Bay Mystery

The Clam Bake Murder

A Windward Bay Mystery

Samantha Doyle

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Recipe for Devonshire Cut Rounds

Chapter One

The hour of the clam bake was fast approaching and my nerves, like the halibut and redfish in the kitchen next door, were fried. I’d worked myself into a lather this past week, trying every flavor I could think of, every possible combination and permutation of ingredients known to man in my quest to create the perfect dessert for the clam bake. If people liked it, if it caught on in Windward Bay, the Regional Manager might find out and, if I was really, really lucky, option it for state-wide Ainscough Bakery distribution, as part of their esteemed franchise menu.

“They’re called Cut Rounds,” I explained to Gabe Solinski, my boss and the manager of the Windward bakery, whose unimpressed gaze was already flitting away to the chocolate éclairs. “It’s an old recipe from Devonshire, England,” I added. That intrigued him to a closer inspection, as I knew it would. Gabe had a deep respect for all things traditional, and he liked to say the best way to create a new taste was to resurrect an old one today’s generation hadn’t had chance to experience.

Unfortunately, he was a recovering chocoholic, and the pull of the éclairs was strong. He kept glancing askance at them, licking his lips. “While I admire your creativity, Sylvia, don’t you think Cut Rounds bear an uncanny resemblance to bread rolls?”

My heart sank, but I’d come too far to give up without a fight. “There’s traditional buttermilk in them, and a little castor sugar. They’re a bit like scones, but way tastier, man. You eat them with jam and clotted cream. The people in Devon practically live on them.” Okay, so that last part was a stretch, but damn it, I was desperate. Two other employees from this branch had received promotions to Ainscough’s Hub Bakery in Portland, by doing exactly what I was attempting, though they’d done it through doughnuts. Literally. The chocolate-coated ring variety. On their first attempts.
And
they’d both been a lot younger then me, fresh out of college. I was beginning to think I’d never get out of here, that the only way to escape the Windward bakery would be to dress up as an éclair and get eaten by Gabe Solinski.

“Let me try one,” he said.

“Sure thing.” While applying the strawberry jam and clotted cream, I maneuvered myself so that I obscured his view of the infernal éclairs. No way were they queering my pitch today. “There you go, Gabe.
Enjoy
!
”
I didn’t mean
it to sound like a threat—that’s just how it came out as I held the plate under his nose.

He took a sniff, and his eyes met ecstatically in the middle. And even before he took a bite, I knew—I had him.

One empty plate and a cream moustache later, and the gig was mine. Just for the clam bake, mind, to see if customers reacted the same way Gabe had. “You baked up a storm there, Sylvia,” he said, glancing at my fresh batch all laid out, ready to be wrapped. “Confident, were we?”

“Only in your good taste, man.” A little flattery never hurt Gabe, who, as a father of six precocious daughters, had imposed his will on the running of the bakery almost as an act of survival. At home, he had practically no say in anything, and was henpecked morning and night. This shop was pretty much his only lifeline to a semblance of order and sanity. Buttering him up now and then kept him in good spirits.

“Desi can pick them up when he arrives,” he said. “It’s his turn in the van today.”

“What about Peter?”

“Day off. They swapped shifts.”

“Oh.” Not that I had anything personal against Desi Pastorelli, who was a good, diligent worker, and had kindly covered for me in the past; but I had this sneak suspicion that the kid wasn’t quite what he seemed. Three of my recipes this past year had been given the green light by Gabe, only to crash and burn when the public had finally got to sample them. And each time, Desi had either delivered them to Bronwyn’s Cafe or served them himself out of our van at the beach. Some of the comments left by customers in Bronwyn’s had made for...interesting reading.

Clams and corn dinner delish—would recommend to anyone. Egg custard tasted like floor of men’s toilets after closing—would recommend to bin.

Exactly when that commenter had tasted the floor of a men’s toilets remains a mystery best not dwelled on, but he made his point. And his was one of the kinder ones.

Demanded a refund on that revolting rhubarb and custard. Waitress pointed out that I hadn’t even touched it. No, I replied, and I’ve never touched elephant diarrhoea either, and my nostrils were right about that, too.

Bronwyn’s egg custard—the only thing I’ve ever eaten that smelled better AFTER I’d barfed it up. Congrats!

Die Bronwyn ur rubarb sux I hope u drown in ur own custard & it turns to cement so I can dance all over ur grave u evil Nazi turd-cook

Good service. Lobster a triumph. Plum-duff the ickiest icking icker I’ve ever tasted. Ick!

Egg custard last time. Plum-duff this time. Next time...? You’ve got to be duffing kidding!

And so it seemed to go for my attempts at a culinary breakthrough. But this time, I was convinced they’d like it. So sure, in fact, that I was going to buy several of my own Cut Rounds and hand them out personally to people whose opinions I knew mattered in Windward. Chief of Police Warren Mattson was one, his deputy, Jerry-Lee Kramer was another, and if any of the Town Selectmen were there, they’d have to be strategically plied with jam and cream as well. Nothing could be left to chance.

Anyone else? Oh, heck yes, I’d forgotten all about Cousin Alice being back in town for the clam bake, with her husband, Gordo McNair. I was supposed to meet them in, what, just over forty minutes. Alice and I had been very close as kids in Windward, but she’d grown up far more attractive and wilful than me. Around the time she’d had that affair with her sailing instructor—she was sixteen, he was twenty-seven—we’d just stopped hanging out altogether, had gone our separate ways. But there was never any animosity between us. We’d chat during family get-togethers, and she’d given me permission to take her dad’s rowboat out in the bay whenever I wanted, seeing as she didn’t really do the whole ‘getting wet thing’ anymore.

At nineteen, she’d married Gordo, a young rancher and ambitious realtor from Kentucky who’d come to Windward hoping to scrounge up enough land to build high-priced condos—a very unpopular move at the time, and I wasn’t sure the villagers would ever forgive him for attempting it. The Town Select Committee had nixed the deal unanimously. Ever since then, poor Alice had become
persona non grata
in Windward, purely because of who she was married to. I don’t think she gave a hoot, to be honest, and was probably glad to be ranchward from Windward.

In any event, I was looking forward to seeing her.

When I got home from the bakery, Manuka, my tortoiseshell cat, was prancing around on the front lawn, pawing at a sugar-stealer the breeze kept whisking just out of his reach. When he saw me, the little devil ran up to me, rubbed against my leg, then arched his back and stuck his tail in the air, ready to be stroked. I indulged him. Not quite satisfied, he looked up with that sad, innocent face of his and began to cry expectantly.

“What is it, boy? What can I—” As soon as I crouched to fuss him properly, he let his mask slip and revealed the real reason he wanted me so close—the clotted cream in my bag. The beggar scratched at the plastic, poked his nose in, pretty much
climbed in
until I said enough was enough and that he’d have to wait his turn like the rest of us.

How dare you, peon,
his appalled look seemed to say.
I give you the pleasure of my company and you can’t even give me what’s owed.

But his haughtiness didn’t stop him from stalking me inside and shadowing my every move until he finally got his tribute—a few generous lumps of Devonshire style clotted cream he polished off in record time.

“Let’s hope you’re right,” I told him. “Let’s hope it goes down like that at the clam bake.”

Purring like an engine, Manuka licked the empty bowl, then his lips, and then he washed himself all over. Now that His Highness was satisfied, it was time for my shower. I also had to decide what to wear, because the clam bake usually brought every eligible bachelor out to the beach, and every bachelorette; with all that competition, I had to at least make an effort. My athletic, slightly gawky, flat-as-a-board figure looked best in either a wetsuit or yoga pants and a hoodie—in
my
not altogether fashion-savvy opinion, that was—but even I realised I would have to dress up a little, be a tad more adventurous today.

A floral summer dress and an elegant blue-and-pink wrap seemed about right. I didn’t have time to straighten my hair the way I’d have liked, so a covered it with a headscarf instead, a nice summery one. Junior Police Deputy Billy Langdale had complimented it once, during a hiking trip we’d be on, and ever since then it had become my default choice for what to wear when I couldn’t decide. When in doubt, go with what’s worked before. That it was pretty much the only fashion compliment I’d ever received didn’t faze me—I cherished that scarf.

As usual, the beachside parking was chock-a-block, so I pulled my old jeep up into the side street behind Dooley’s fishing tackle store. The clam bake had already started. First that overpowering seaweed smell, then the smoke rising from the bake site itself, told me exactly where to head for. Now, it was against the law to have an open fire on the beach, but Windward’s Town Selectmen and the bake organisers had compromised on a sheltered venue sufficiently far from the shoreline but still on the sand itself, behind a series of very high dunes. The site was called The Cache, after a local legend that claimed an 18
^th
Century American privateer had buried a vast horde of its plunder there. Many a Goomba with his metal detector had tried and failed to hit pay dirt over the years, and The Cache had become better known as a make-out spot for teenagers in their cars. I ought to have known. The first boy I ever dated kissed me pretty much on the spot where, a decade later, the corn cobs were being buttered and handed out.

That boy’s name was Billy Langdale. And he was here again, this time as the Junior Deputy charged with keeping the festivities just this side of raucous. Not an easy task in Windward, on Clam Bake Day.

“Hey, Billy.”

“Hey, Sylvia.” He glanced at my headscarf, gave me one of those sweet, guileless smiles I’d fallen for in a big way back in high school. “I think I saw your cousin earlier. Alice, right?”

“Yes, she’s visiting for a few days, husband in tow. Should be fun.”

“Old times, huh?”

“Just like.”

Yeah, and a part of me had always wondered what would have happened if
our
old times hadn’t ended so abruptly, if Billy hadn’t enrolled in the US Coast Guard Academy (USCGA) in Connecticut; if we’d stayed together, if he hadn’t gotten married out there and started a family, only to get divorced and move right back to the same place he’d started, having never achieved his dream of being a Coast Guard Rescue Swimmer. Funny, or maybe not so funny, how life turned out.

“Well, have fun catching up,” he said. “If you get bored later, come find me, maybe bring along a couple of Cherry Cokes?”

“And if I happen to slip a little Bacardi in there?” I teased.

“Then you’ll have the right to remain silent, Miss Blalock.” He threw me a wink that made my stomach flutter. Before I could think of a clever retort, raised voices called his attention away to the mobile bar and grill. In his khaki shorts and white polo shirt, he looked almost exactly the way he did back in high school. The only difference was he’d put on a bit of weight, mostly in the shoulders, and his blond hair was a lot shorter. Oh, and he had this slightly grizzled—no, seasoned—look around the eyes; not quite crow’s feet, but sure chapters of a weary tale behind him.

He was sooo getting a Cut Round to go with that Cherry Coke later. I secretly rubbed my hands together in anticipation.

“Well, well, look who can’t say no to the five-oh.”

The voice I recognised instantly, but when I spun round, the woman standing before me did not appear to match it. Not even close.

“Alice?”

“Sylvia, looking good.”