Death at a Premium (11 page)

Island Hardware was an institution. So far it had managed to fend off competition from the massive chain store that was located less than a mile from the north bridge, attracting customers with its huge selection and discount prices. Josie had sworn to herself that Island Contracting would continue to support local businesses, although she knew her profit margin suffered as a result. On the other hand, she always got extra attention at the store. That night the attention included a mug of coffee and the best coconut cupcakes she had ever tasted.

“My niece is visiting for the summer and she likes to bake,” Steve Bradley, the store’s owner, explained as he passed Josie another cake.

“She’s good—these are wonderful.”

“That’s what your son seemed to think. I believe he ate an even dozen this afternoon.”

“Tyler was here?”

“Yup. Kathy—that’s my niece—and he are going out for pizza tonight. She just got back from a trip up to Boston with her parents to check out possible colleges, and they say they’re going to be exchanging information. I think your son has a crush on her—which is fine with the wife and me. We’ve always said Tyler’s one of the nicest young men on the island.”

“He’s never disappointed me,” Josie said. She didn’t add that he frequently surprised her. She never knew what he was going to do or where he was going to turn up. On the other hand, the same could be said of Mike Rodney. Not all surprises are good ones, she thought as the police officer marched down the store’s aisle.

“Josie Pigeon, I need to talk to you,” he announced so loudly that everyone in the store could hear.

“I’m not running away from you,” she pointed out.

“I need to talk to you down at the station.”

“Mike, I’m busy. I have a large home to remodel and . . .”

“You’re gonna be remodeling that building from a jail cell unless you come with me.”

Josie was startled by his vehemence. “I have to check the status of my order here,” she explained, trying to be reasonable. “It won’t take more than fifteen minutes.”

“I’ll give you ten. And I’ll be waiting for you in my car out front. I’m parked right next to your truck, so don’t think you can sneak off.”

Josie didn’t bother to ask why she would do that. She turned her back on Mike and returned to her examination of Island Contracting’s orders. She heard footsteps and the door swing shut as he left the store. “He’s gone,” Steve Bradley told her.

“Thank God. I don’t know why I let him get to me like that. I don’t mind answering questions . . . most of the time,” she added. “I don’t even know what he needs to ask me about.”

“The dead man. Or maybe the fact that the dead man was dressed up as the ghost or the bride or whatever spirit is supposed to haunt the Bride’s Secret Bed and Breakfast. The fact that he was carrying the identification papers of one of your new crew members.”

Josie, not surprised by the island’s strong grapevine, sighed. “Yeah. All that. I guess I may as well forget getting a good night’s sleep.”

“Look, we’ll double-check your order and leave a message at your office if we find a problem. You get over to the police station.”

Josie grinned. This was the best reason she could think of to deal with independent local stores. “That would be great. The sooner I get over there, the sooner I’ll get home—I hope. Thanks.”

“No problem,” he answered as the door of his store closed behind her.

Mike Rodney was leaning against his cruiser, smoking a cigarette.

“I thought you quit,” Josie commented, heading toward her truck.

“Scientists have discovered that an addiction to nicotine is just as strong as an addiction to heroin,” he announced, tossing the butt on the ground and stomping on it.

Josie decided this was no time to bring up the island’s anti-littering campaign. “Do you trust me to get to the station on my own or do I have to come in your car?”

She hadn’t expected him to take her question seriously, but he actually considered for a moment. “You can take your truck and I’ll follow you. No way you can escape that way—your old thing can’t outrun me.”

Josie, who hadn’t even considered escaping, wondered if she should have called Sam before leaving the hardware store. “I’ll be sure to stay under the speed limit” was her only statement—said a bit sarcastically— before climbing up into her truck and starting off down the street. Mike Rodney, as promised, followed close behind, lights on the police cruiser pulsing. Despite not looking in her rearview mirror, Josie felt a headache coming on.

Mike’s father and Officer Petric were in the lobby, hanging around the dispatcher’s desk, seemingly waiting for Josie and her escort to appear.

“I found her,” Mike announced loudly.

Josie glanced over at him wondering exactly what was going on. “I wasn’t hiding,” she explained.

“No place to hide on an island,” Chief Rodney explained to his new officer.

“Do you think we could get on with all this?” Josie asked impatiently. “I have a business to run, a child to raise, and . . . a wedding to plan.”

“Yeah. Well, we won’t keep you longer than absolutely necessary,” the chief said. “We need some information about your workers. We coulda gotten a search warrant and just gone into your office files, you know.”

Josie, aware of what sort of order her files were in, knew they were unlikely to learn much there. “Are we going to talk here?” she asked after greeting the summer dispatcher. The lobby was the busiest spot in the police station. When the dispatcher wasn’t answering calls from residents worried that the smoke billowing from a neighbor’s Weber grill was the sign of a house fire, she directed visitors to the booth where beach passes were sold, distributed tide tables, explained fishing regulations, and accepted checks for the numerous speeding tickets the Rodneys issued to drivers going five miles an hour over the island speed limit. The revenues from the latter more than paid her salary.

“We’ll go into my office,” the Chief announced as though Josie had suggested something else.

Josie was surprised to discover that everyone except for the dispatcher was included. The three officers crowded into Chief Rodney’s office. Josie was familiar with the room. Island Contracting had built it after Hurricane Agatha destroyed the municipal center the summer before. Instead of the fake wood paneling that covered the cinder-block walls in the rest of the building, this room had cherry walls and built-in bookshelves wide enough to hold the large flat-screen television the Chief claimed to find essential to his work. Josie noticed a second television monitor, now turned off, and wondered if the department was paying large cable bills. One wall was lined with oak filing cabinets. Three chairs sat in front of the big oak partners’ desk placed in the middle of the room. The only other furniture was the expensive ergonomically designed desk chair in which the Chief sat. He pointed to the chair directly in front of him, which Josie interpreted as an order. Becoming more and more anxious to get this over with, she sat. The two officers sat on either side, Trish Petric pulling a notebook from her back pocket and flipping it open, apparently prepared to take notes.

“You act as a secretary as well as a police officer?” Josie asked.

“She does what I ask her to do,” Chief Rodney growled, but Trish glanced over at her, and Josie thought she saw a smile flash across the woman officer’s face.

“Oh.”

“Suppose you pay attention to your situation and forget about women’s lib and solidarity and such shit,” Mike Rodney suggested.

“I don’t know what my situation is,” Josie pointed out.

“You are here to help the police investigate the murder of an unknown man,” Mike explained.

“You told me I was here to answer questions about my crew,” she reminded him.

“There’s no difference between the two things. To our way of thinking someone on your crew probably killed the guy, stuffed him behind the wall, then found him, pretending to be all innocent.” Chief Rodney was glaring at Josie in a way that made her appreciate the wide table between them.

“Why?” she asked quietly.

“Why what?” he growled back.

“Why would anyone on my crew kill someone then stuff them in the wall and then pretend to find them? Why not just kill them and dump them in a Dumpster, or in the ocean, or in a house a different company is remodeling? You would never connect the murder with anyone working for Island Contracting if the body had been found somewhere else.” She realized the flaw in her thinking as soon as the words were out of her mouth.

“But the body was found with the driver’s license of a man named Leslie Coyne. The same Leslie Coyne who is working for you. So there’s that connection,” Trish pointed out quietly.

“Yeah, I’d forgotten about that for a sec,” Josie admitted.

“You had, had you?” Mike leaned down at her.

“Yes, I had! It’s been a difficult few days, and I have a lot on my mind,” she ended weakly.

“Yeah. Well, we do, too,” Chief Rodney said. “And we’re busy here, so why don’t you tell us how you came to hire the people on your crew.”

“Well, I didn’t actually hire them. Not this time,” Josie admitted.

“Not this time?” Trish looked up from her note-taking to ask the question.

“No, I usually do, of course. Sometimes I put ads in the trade papers, but mostly I just run a local ad. And people come to me, of course. Island Contracting is well known. I’ve never had trouble finding workers.”

“Yeah, yeah. So everyone wants to work for you. So why didn’t you hire the people working for you this summer?” Mike Rodney asked.

“Because Nic did . . . I hired Nic though,” Josie pointed out.

Trish was frowning. “You allowed someone else to hire your summer crew?” she asked.

“Sort of.”

Trish asked a follow-up question. “Is that usual for Island Contracting?”

“Definitely not,” Josie answered.

“Then why . . . ?”

Josie didn’t allow her to ask another question. It was time for this to end. The Rodneys were grinning at her obvious discomfort. “Island Contracting is not like other companies,” she began, ignoring something that sounded like “no shit” from one of the men. “I try to hire people who need a second chance in life. Nic belongs to an organization of women who work in my business— contractors, owners, carpenters, electricians, everything. And they held a convention in Washington DC a few weeks ago. She met Leslie, Mary Ann, and Vicki there, and offered them jobs with Island Contracting. I knew about it and had given her permission to do so, as long as the people she offered jobs to understood that I have the last word.”

“Why don’t you belong to this organization?” Trish asked.

“I’m not much of a joiner. And although I had read about it in a few trade mags, I didn’t really pay attention. I didn’t realize how important the work they’re doing is until I met Nic.”

“That’s interesting,” Trish commented.

“You know what’s interesting to me?” Chief Rodney asked.

“What, Dad?” his son asked on cue.

“I’m real interested in knowing what a man—what one Leslie Coyne in particular—was doing at a convention of women workers.”

The three officers looked at Josie, but she didn’t say anything. The same question had occurred to her.

FOURTEEN

J
UST WHEN JOSIE thought her summer couldn’t get more complicated, Tilly Higgins arrived on the island.

A silver BMW convertible was parked by the curb in front of Island Contractings’s office when Josie arrived the next morning. It had been past midnight when Josie finally left the police station, she hadn’t slept well, and she was exhausted. Despite the early hour, Tilly Higgins appeared well-rested and full of energy as she leaped out of her car, bounded up the walkway, and started talking before Josie had unlocked her office door.

“You must be Josie Pigeon. Christopher described you, but he didn’t mention you were so young!”

Josie suspected that Christopher didn’t think of her as young, but she only smiled and offered a conventional greeting.

Mrs. Higgins didn’t seem to detect any lack of enthusiasm on Josie’s part. “The weather has gotten warm so early this year. New York was absolutely stifling, so I decided I had no choice but to come down here! Besides, I was dying to see how you’re getting along. Owning a big family home by the shore has always been one of my dreams. And that it would be designed by my grandson . . . Well, I can’t imagine anything better.” She stopped, and for a minute a serious expression appeared on her face. “How is dear Christopher working out? I know he has tons of talent,” she continued without waiting for an answer to her question. “Dear Christopher has had a bit of trouble in college. He’s been known to drink too much and Seymour was very worried last year, but as I told my husband, drinking is so common on college campuses these days and all Christopher needed was something to do. This project has been a godsend,” she continued. As Josie fit the key into the lock, Tilly fiddled with the half-dozen gold bangles dangling from each wrist. Tilly was also wearing tight cropped white linen pants, a tiny plaid halter top, and silver sandals. She looked, Josie thought, as though she patronized the same stores as Sam’s mother.

“It’s so much cooler here. I cannot wait for our new home to be finished so we can move right in.”

“There’s a lot to be done before that can happen,” Josie was quick to point out.

“And that’s why I’m here! Dear Christopher said you needed me to make some decisions about kitchen appliances, or cupboards, or something similar,” she added.

“I do, but . . .”

“He said you told him you wanted to place orders for these things ASAP.”

“Yes, of course. It’s just that . . .” Josie stopped and took a deep breath. Her life and this project would be much easier if this woman made these decisions early— and stuck with them. And, fortunately, she didn’t seem to know about the murder.

“Of course, I’m sure you’re extra busy, what with these terrible bodies turning up and all, so maybe you could just give me the brochures or Websites or whatever and leave me here to make up my mind. If we’re both lucky, I should be done before noon. I have a date for lunch,” she explained. Josie, surprised by this development, didn’t know what to say. Tilly hadn’t finished. “I can assure you that I really do know how to use the Internet,” she continued. “My grandchildren made sure of that years ago. And Christopher tells me that the most up-to-date information—catalogues and such—is on line. You do have a high-speed connection, don’t you?”