Clammed Up: A Maine Clambake Mystery Part 7

After dessert, most of the guests drifted off to the point on the west side of the island to watch the sunset. You don't get many over-ocean sunsets on the East Coast of the United States and Morrow Island's was spectacular. Tonight, the sun was like a giant fireball sinking into the sea. The clouds above echoed bright pinks and blues onto the water below. Couples who probably rarely had time to watch sunsets held each other, and a man hoisted a sleepy toddler onto his shoulders. Sometimes I just loved what we did.

Around me, the staff cleaned up quickly. Most of us would leave with the guests on the Jacquie II as soon as the sun was down. I noticed Lieutenant Binder hadn't gone over to the point with the other guests, but lingered at his picnic table. I couldn't resist approaching him. "How's the case going?"

"Fine."

I smiled. "You're going to have to give me more than that."

Binder smiled back. Lobster and beer will do that for your mood. But before he could say anything, I heard a shout and saw Etienne pointing at something behind me. I whirled around. The side porch that ran the length of the Windsholme was engulfed in roaring flames.

Chapter 20.

"Move guests to the boat!" I yelled to Captain George, but he and some of the more experienced staff were already herding our customers toward the Jacquie II. It was the safest place for them, and if the fire spread, Captain George could pull away from the dock and be out in open ocean in minutes. A few people protested or lagged behind to watch, but most of the guests were models of calm cooperation.

I sprinted for the fire hose and picked up the nozzle. We practiced with the hose when we drilled the staff every summer, but far as I knew, it had never actually been used on a fire. It was kept near the pavilion because the commercial kitchen was the most likely starting point for a fire. Supposedly there was enough hose to get up the hill to Windsholme. I ran with the hose toward the mansion, while Sonny and Etienne struggled to open the big valve. The expression, "No man is an island," was ironically never truer than when you were actually on an island. We all had to depend on one another. It would be a long time before help arrived.

About ten feet from the flames, I stopped and waited, desperately hoping there was enough water pressure to get up the hill. Windsholme's side porch was completely consumed by the fire. I backed up a foot or two because my cheeks and the end of my nose felt like they were burning. Smoke clogged my nose and mouth and I coughed and sputtered. I tried to steady my hands.

The water came with such force I staggered backward and almost dropped the hose. I felt strong arms at my back and Jamie's voice shouting, "I got you." I trained the water toward the fire, desperately wis.h.i.+ng I knew what I was doing. Do you aim toward the center of the fire, or work your way from the outside in? How could I not know?

The fire roared. With a crash, part of the side porch roof plummeted onto the burning deck. The French doors to the dining room began to burn. Soon, the fire would be inside the house.

I rushed forward, aiming a torrent of water on the doors, but quickly fell back, half pulled by Jamie, half driven by the heat. Around us, burning embers filled the air and I could feel Jamie behind me beating them off my shoulders and back. The fire blazed on, impervious to the water I directed at it.

"Jamie, what should I do?" I shouted.

"Rockland Fire Department. Let me take it." The man who'd had the boy on his shoulders reached in and took the hose with such authority I immediately handed it over. "Count the guests and employees. Make sure everyone's accounted for," he shouted.

Oh, my G.o.d. "Do you think someone could be inside?" It hadn't occurred to me.

The man didn't answer. He was completely focused on the fire, which was already responding to his expertise.

I ran to the Jacquie II to make sure all the guests were onboard. Along the way, I directed every employee I pa.s.sed to get on the boat. They all wanted to help, to do anything they could to save Windsholme. Gabrielle outright refused to go aboard. I understood her refusal. Unlike all the others, the island was her home. In the end, all the other employees did as I asked. The Jacquie II pulled out of our dock with everyone on board except Sonny, Etienne, Gabrielle, Jamie, Lieutenant Binder, Detective Flynn, the firefighter, and me.

The Coast Guard fireboat and the harbormaster's boat carrying the Busman's Harbor Fire department arrived at the same time. Sonny had reached them on the radio. By then, the fire was under control. Two men in full fire gear finally took the hose from the exhausted Rockland firefighter.

"Thank you!" Without thinking I embraced him.

He smiled wearily. "I wanted to show my in-laws a real Maine clambake. I didn't count on the after-dinner show."

"You and your family have free pa.s.ses to the clambake for life. We were so lucky you were here."

"You were lucky in a lot of ways. Lucky this happened during a damp spring instead of a dry fall. Lucky for those thick stone walls and slate roof. If that structure had been wood, the whole thing would have gone up."

Windsholme's stone walls and slate roof. I'd never felt lucky about them before. I'd felt only their crus.h.i.+ng financial burden. I'd always seen the house as an albatross. But in that moment, I realized losing Windsholme would leave a mansion-sized hole in my heart. Behind us, Detective Flynn unlocked Windsholme's front doors and firefighters wearing flashlights on their heads tromped inside.

About 3:00 A.M. we all climbed the Boston Whaler to head back to the harbor. Binder finished up a whispered conversation with Sergeant Flynn, the Busman's Harbor fire chief, and my hero firefighter, then touched my arm. "You're closed down again until we can determine if this is another crime scene."

I'd known right along we wouldn't be open tomorrow. We'd need to get the building inspector out to the island to a.s.sess the damage. Best-case scenario, if there were no structural problems inside Windsholme, we could get the porch secured so it wasn't a safety hazard for the clambake guests and be open the following day. The crime scene issue could cause a further delay. "You think the fire was set?"

"That's what I'm about to find out," Binder answered.

"How long will it take?"

His mouth was set in a grim line. "As long as it takes."

More devastating than the fire itself was what it represented. I'd been happy all day believing Ray Wilson was murdered by a stranger, his body strung up to scare or intimate Michaela. Morrow Island was barely involved.

Clearly, Binder was no longer sure about that scenario. The fire caused him to take a second look at our island. If it was set, who could have set it? Was there a stranger lurking on our island even now? Whatever had happened, we were closed for business again. And ever closer to financial ruin.

I sat in the Whaler, looked up at the beautiful stars, and tried to absorb the blow.

Chapter 21.

When daylight crept into my room the next morning, I wanted to cover my head. What was there to do, now that the clambake was shut down for a second time?

The answer was there was so, so much to do. I had to contact the town offices to arrange for the building inspector to go out to the island and tell us what to do about the ruined porch. Most important, I had to talk to my favorite banker, Robert Forman Ditzy. I wanted to call him first thing, before he called me.

I got cleaned up, dressed, and took my coffee upstairs to my office to wait for Sonny. On the long boat ride home, we'd agreed to do the call together. Sonny was the "good cop," or should I say "good old boy," who'd originally put the loan together with Bob the Banker. I was the "bad cop" who'd charged in from out of town at the eleventh hour, demanding that the loan be renegotiated and hammering out the agreement we were operating under now. The phone call required both cops to get through it.

I looked at the clock. Still way too early to call the bank or the town. The minutes ticked slowly by. The office where I sat was originally my dad's. I hadn't changed it much since I took it over. For one thing, I hadn't had time. For another, sitting in the same room where he'd run the Snowden Family Clambake, with its familiar piles of paper and metal filing cabinets, made it feel like Dad was watching over me. "What would you have done?" I'd asked the air so many times that spring, longing for my father.

His big oak desk sat in a rectangular bay of windows at the front of the house. From it, I could see the full expanse of the inner harbor where the Jacquie II was bobbing quietly in her berth. Bobbing quietly, instead of being cleaned and prepped for the clambake.

I read through a few e-mails, most from suppliers confirming we'd canceled our orders-again-and expressing sympathy or shock we'd had such a run of bad luck. I stood up from the desk and stretched. Craning my neck, I peered down the steep hill at our ticket kiosk on the dock. If Livvie was there, it would mean Sonny had dropped her off and would be at the office any minute. It was empty.

The New York Times Quentin Tupper had dropped off for me sat on a pile of invoices, forgotten where I'd left it Sunday night. I stared at it, longing to sit in the coffee shop around the corner from my old apartment in Soho and read the paper. Or even to be back at my job in venture capital, when the businesses I worked with weren't my own with the exhausting emotional cost that involved. I had to admit if I'd been brought in as a consultant to a.s.sess the Snowden Family Clambake, I would've advised shutting it down.

I picked up the Times and shuffled through it. The fat paper even included the New York area local sections we normally don't get in Maine. How had Tupper gotten his hands on it?

I pulled out the real estate section. It wouldn't hurt to look. A girl could dream. I'd given up my expensive Manhattan lease back in March. I stole another look at our ticket booth. Still no Livvie. I had time. I opened up the paper and started fantasizing about New York City apartments.

"That's right. Leave when the going gets tough. Like you always do." Sonny stood in the open doorway to the office, his red brows set in a scowl over his deep-set blue eyes.

I frowned. What on earth is he referring to? "Oh, the real estate section," I mumbled, setting down the paper. I let it go. I didn't need to explain or apologize. And there was no advantage to getting into an argument. We had to save our fighting spirit for the phone call.

"Let's get this over with," he said.

I pulled the speaker phone forward on the desk and punched in the bank's number, including Bob Ditzy's extension, which I'd memorized during our almost daily phone calls when I'd first arrived in the harbor.

Ditzy answered on the first ring.

"Bob? Julia Snowden and Sonny Ramsey here."

"Julia. Sonny. I was just about to call."

I bet you were.

"I'm sorry for your trouble-"

"Thanks." I wanted to underline any goodwill or pity he felt.

"-but I think we need to discuss practically what this means for the business."

I was prepared. "I don't know what you've heard, Bob, but the fire was confined to Windsholme's side porch. I'll get a building inspector out today. Then we'll just have to do a little demolition and we're good to go. A day or two at most."

"That sounds awfully optimistic."

It was. For one thing, demolition and disposal would be complicated on the island. More important, it was actually Lieutenant Binder who had shut us down, in addition to the town. But I wasn't telling Bob Ditzy unless he asked. My only interest was in buying time, so I rea.s.sured him.

He wasn't convinced. "Still. You lost Sunday and now you're saying you'll be closed today and probably tomorrow. At some point, your projections go right out the window."

"Our plan allowed for five lost days," I said.

When I'd gotten Livvie's panic-call, Sonny had already renegotiated our loan once and the bank was threatening to call it again. I'd stopped them, or rather stalled them, by presenting a business plan that projected how much we'd make-revenue and profits-every day from mid-June to Columbus Day. My plan said we'd be current with our loan payments by the end of the summer. The business plan and the renegotiation with the bank were the reasons Sonny suffered my being there. I was the perfect person to do it. Like me, Sonny and Livvie knew the clambake business, but my venture capital training meant I could build spreadsheets and business plans in my sleep.

Fortunately, I had not only Sonny's rather slipshod records from the last five years, but all my father's ledgers as well. I'd studied them with the fervor of a pirate looking at a treasure map and could tell pretty much to the person how many people would be on each run of the Jacquie II every single day during the season. I knew it mattered how many snow days there had been over the winter, which affected when school got out and family vacations began. It mattered what day of the week Fourth of July was and what date in September Labor Day fell on. I had factored all of that and more into the elaborate projections I'd given Ditzy. I'd thought to dazzle him with detail.

But I couldn't control the one thing every Mainer wishes they could-the weather. Even with the pavilion to shelter the guests and the enclosed lower deck on the Jacquie II, I wasn't crazy enough to a.s.sume we would run the clambake every day of the summer. Based on historical averages, I'd included three days of no revenue to allow for a nor'easter or hurricane and then added two more as a contingency. Five lost days.

I wasn't sure Ditzy really understood the business plan. I thought, in retrospect, maybe I'd gone over the top and made it too complex, too clever. I'd coached Ditzy on it endlessly, because he was the one who had to sell it to his superiors at the bank. He'd succeeded in doing that somehow. Unfortunately, the one thing he did understand, and fixated on, was my calculation about the number of days we'd be closed.

"Five days for the whole season," Bob said. "It's the third day of the season and you've already lost two-and you're telling me you're going to lose another."

I glared at Sonny. It was time for him to come in with the "good cop" sentiments, reminding Ditzy we were long-term, loyal customers, important to the town, and so on. But Sonny sat slumped in the guest chair.

"I'm sure we can do it, Bob," I rea.s.sured the banker.

"Three days, Julia. Your plan says you can lose three days after today. If we go past that, I'll have to go back to the loan committee. I've been clear with you. This was your last chance."

What could I do? I thanked him and said we'd stay in close touch. After saying good-bye, I stared at Sonny who mumbled something that may have been "good-bye," and hung up the phone.

"What the h.e.l.l was that?" I snapped. "You were supposed to support me."

"What's the use?" Sonny shambled toward the door. "We're done."

"Not on my watch."

Chapter 22.

After Sonny left, I called the town offices and setup an appointment for the building inspector to go out to the island in the afternoon with Sonny and me. Then I sat at Dad's desk listening to the tick of his father's mantel clock. Every minute seemed to count down the amount of time we had to save the business. I meant what I'd said to Sonny. I'd sacrificed too much to see it go down. And for such an irrelevant reason. A murder and a fire didn't mean the business wasn't viable. It was just bad luck.

Gus's lecture on Sunday still rang in my ears. He'd told me not to be a victim, not to let my business be pulled under by this mess. But what could I do?

Before the fire, Lieutenant Binder said the murder probably had nothing to do with Morrow Island. What if that was true? What if the fire was a coincidence or even a planned distraction, intended to take the police in the wrong direction?

While the state police investigated the fire at Windsholme and tried to tie it to the murder, I decided to follow up on their original theory-that the body had been left hanging from the staircase to upset Michaela.

But who would want to upset Michaela? And in such a horrible way? Someone who knew her, clearly. Someone who had reason to hate her. Someone very close. They say hate is the flip side of love. There has to be great pa.s.sion to hate.

Who would feel so pa.s.sionate about Michaela? Tony was at the top of the list. Lynn, the maid of honor, implied Michaela cared more for Ray than she did for Tony. Could Tony have been jealous of Ray? When we met at the Bellevue to review the wedding costs, there'd been something about Tony I distrusted. Some hidden agenda. But I had no idea what it was. If Ray and Michaela were lovers, that might explain why Ray had gotten so drunk the night before her wedding.

I had to find out more about the wedding party-what they'd done and where they'd been on the night Ray Wilson was murdered.

My eye fell on a box of brochures in the corner of the office. They'd come from the printer just a couple days earlier. I needed to deliver them to the hotels in the area. Hotel guests frequently asked about lobsters, harbor cruises, and authentic Maine experiences, and of course, we offered them all. We wanted the Snowden Family Clambake to be the first thing the desk clerk recommended. In all the craziness, the brochures hadn't been delivered. I filled a tote bag with them, figuring I could drop them off at the hotels where Michaela and Tony's wedding party had stayed and ask a few questions at the same time.

The first place I planned to hit was the Lighthouse Inn. It was an important hotel in the harbor and the last place Ray Wilson was seen alive. Chris Durand had told me he watched Ray walk through the doors to the hotel at a little after 1:00 on the morning he died.

As I walked toward the inn, I pa.s.sed the entrance to the town dock. I glanced at our ticket booth where Livvie was talking to a small crowd. No doubt people who'd been booked for the clambake who were seeking refunds. I sighed and kept moving. I was on a mission.

When I got to the Lighthouse, I hit gold. Clarice Kemp was at the front desk. What luck. That woman was the biggest gossip in town. Rumor had it she didn't even need to work. She probably would have hung around in the lobby of the Lighthouse with her ears open and her mouth flapping for free. But for decorum's sake, she answered the phone and took the occasional reservation for pay.

"Julia!" she cried, as thrilled to see me no doubt, as I was to see her. Clarice had her sources and I had to be one of the hottest ones in town at the moment.

Clarice had a thin face and a beak nose. She wore her brown hair (Clairol Nice'n Easy 115, I'd been told) in tight waves that framed her face and jaw. It had been the same style since I was a child-or maybe even since she was.

"Clarice!" I returned her enthusiasm. "I just came to drop off these brochures. We hope you'll recommend us to your guests."

Clarice took the pile of brochures I handed her, staring at them dubiously. "But I thought you were closed. The murder? The fire?"

"A couple days at most," I a.s.sured her breezily. "The fire damaged only the side porch of Windsholme. Nothing to do with the clambake business." While I was there, I intended to get positive information flowing through the town's channels. Before she could ask anything else, I said, "I hear the Lighthouse has its own connection to the murder. Ray Wilson stayed here the night he was killed."

Clarice settled her elbows on the front desk for a long natter. "He was supposed to." She straightened up and looked from side to side to make sure no one was listening. "But, he didn't. The maid said his luggage was in the room, tux hanging in the closet, but his suitcase was never unpacked, the bed never slept in."

"Really?" Interesting news. "I wonder where he could have gone that night?"

"You wonder. We wonder. The state police definitely wonder. They've been here more than once, I can tell you that. The maid, she's a Russian girl on a student visa, you understand."

Oh, I did. By high summer about half the workers in the harbor would be foreign "students."

Clarice continued. "She's terrified."