Chapter 17
“I have such good news!” Liddy hollered as she burst through the back door and into the kitchen to find Hayley on her hands and knees sopping up cat urine from the hardwood floor in the hallway leading to the living room.
“I sure could use some right about now,” Hayley said, giving an icy stare to Blueberry, who squatted on the recliner, flapping his massively thick tail methodically up and down.
“You spill your cocktail?” Liddy asked sympathetically.
“I never had time to make one. Blueberry's been busy all day marking his territory.”
“Where's Leroy?”
“Wherever Blueberry isn't.”
“I don't know why you agreed to take in that demonic beast. He's just making your life miserable.”
“You know I've always been a bleeding heart.”
“Yes, but that cat isn't even grateful. Look at him perched on his throne like some spoiled king, as if it's his birthright to be here.”
“I'm hoping he's just misunderstood.”
“And I'm hoping when I get home I find Channing Tatum in my shower. They're both unattainable fantasies.”
Hayley finished wiping the floor and climbed to her feet. “So, what's your news?”
“Well, I happen to know for a fact that you are right.”
“About Bessie being murdered?”
“No. I don't care about that. I couldn't stand Bessie. She always made me so nervous. I hate it when I don't know what people are going to say next.”
“So, what am I right about?”
“That handsome, new vet is definitely married.”
“I thought you said you had good news.”
“I do. He's married, but he is separated and filing for divorce. That's a big reason why Dr. Palmer moved hereâto make a fresh start.”
“How do you know all this?” Hayley asked, mixing herself and Liddy a Jack and Coke. She had whiskey on her mind all afternoon after she gave up the bottle in the drawer to Sal.
“Well, my other good news is I've been dating someone new. A lawyer.”
“Ted Rivers, who has an office above yours? He's married, Liddy!”
“I'm not talking about Ted Rivers! I could never sleep with him. I saw him without his shirt on doing crunches at the gym once. He's got so many pimples on his back that it looks like the surface of Mars. Can you imagine running your hands on that? Yuck.”
Hayley handed Liddy her cocktail, and Liddy took a generous sip.
“Yummy. You sure do know how to make a cocktail, girlfriend. Anyway, I'm dating Ted's new big rival, Sonny Lipton. Just finished law school last year and opened up a practice in town. Ted's beside himself. He's never had any serious competition before.”
“Liddy, Sonny Lipton is something like twenty-five years old.”
“Twenty-six, to be precise. And it's wonderful. After that young bartender at the Beer 'n Bowl hit on me last Friday night, I decided to embrace my inner cougar. I picked him up in the produce section of the Shop 'n Save the next day. He was squeezing melons. I was buying bananas. It was all the imagery we needed to see before introducing ourselves and making a date for that night.”
“So he told you Aaron's filing for divorce?”
“Oh, is it Aaron already?”
“I mean Dr. Palmer.”
“Yes, Sonny's handling it for him. He needed a new lawyer because his wife is using his previous attorney. Sonny loves pillow talk.”
“Okay, you really don't need to give me any more details about you and Sonny. So, what am I supposed to do with this information?”
Liddy thought about this for a moment and then broke into a smile. She marched into the living room and pointed to Blueberry. “Your cat clearly has a bladder issue. He's peeing all over the house. You need to take him to the vet for a thorough examination.”
“I don't think it's a medical condition. I think it's more of a test of wills. He wants to see what it's going to take to make me crack.”
Liddy's finger pointing got a bit too close to Blueberry's face and he lashed out with his claws and slashed the tip of Liddy's index finger, drawing blood. Liddy howled in pain, retracting her finger to her chest as Blueberry hissed at her.
“Why, you fat, furry force of evil! Mess with me again and I'll dump you in a potato sack and drop you right off the Trenton Bridge!”
“Liddy, he doesn't understand a word you're saying.”
“No, he understands every word. And I don't think he's ever going to rest until we're all dead,” Liddy said, sucking the blood off her finger. “I'm going upstairs for a Band-Aid.”
“I don't feel comfortable using Blueberry as an excuse just to show up at Dr. Palmer's office again.”
Liddy stopped halfway up the stairs. “Do what you want, Hayley. But there are a lot of single women and divorcées who have their eye on any new man in town who doesn't smell of salt water and gutted fish. I'm just saying, snooze and you lose.”
Liddy, of course, was right.
But Hayley had vowed never to be one of those opportunistic, desperate women who sought out a man like it was some sort of competition.
And it seemed a little sad and pathetic to use an obviously disturbed animal as a way to get close to him again.
No.
Absolutely not.
She would not stoop to such tactics.
Still, she couldn't shake the image of those dreamy green bedroom eyes.
Blueberry jumped down off the recliner, marched right back to where Hayley had just cleaned up the cat urine, and peed again. All the while he kept one eye on Hayley, his whiskers lifting upward as he formed an insidious smile on his face.
On second thought, Hayley considered, maybe Dr. Palmer might actually have something to help Blueberry stop peeing so much.
Or just something to calm him down.
Or better yet, something to knock him into a kitty coma.
For years to come.
Chapter 18
“I'm sorry, Dr. Palmer is out of the office right now. How can I help you?” Marla, the vet's assistant, said. She was wearing a pink smock, with blue Smurf characters all over it. She put down her
People
magazine on top of a whole stack that included such gossipy rags as
US, In Touch,
and
Star.
“You may remember he treated my dog, Leroy, and now I'm hoping he might be able to help me with my cat. Well, he's not really
my
cat. I'm just looking after him until we can find him a permanent home. Actually, it's an interesting story. . . .”
Marla did not seem the least bit interested in hearing Hayley's interesting story, so Hayley just lifted up the pet carrier she was holding and set it down on the desk.
Marla peeked through the cage door. “Who do we have here?”
“Don't get too close. He's a mean one. Hates everybody. I don't want you getting scratched.”
Surprisingly, Blueberry wasn't hissing. He just sat in the carrier; his fat, furry body took up most of the space.
“What's his name?”
“Blueberry.”
“Hello, Blueberry. I'm Marla,” she said, sticking a finger through the metal wire and petting the cat's wet nose.
“No, don't! I'm warning you, he's dangerous and unpredictable!”
But Blueberry didn't go on the attack.
Instead, he stuck his sandpaper-like tongue out and licked Marla's finger.
And he wasn't hissing.
He was purring.
Yes, purring!
A sound Hayley had never heard come out of him.
The sign of a contented cat.
This was unbelievable.
“He doesn't seem so bad,” Marla said, pressing her face up against the cage door and pursing her lips to make a series of kissing sounds.
Hayley stood in front of her, flabbergasted. Then she poked her head around to check the carrier and see if she had accidentally brought the wrong cat.
No, it was definitely Blueberry.
Purring and licking.
Like a normal cat.
Hayley was starting to suspect this was all a plot by Blueberry to make her look crazy.
He was
that
diabolical.
Marla unlatched the door and reached in to pull Blueberry out. She held him close to her bosom and gently stroked his back.
Hayley's mouth just hung open.
Blueberry rubbed his face against Marla's chest.
The purring was almost deafening.
“You certainly have a way with animals,” Hayley said, still not quite believing her eyes.
“I know. I thought about being a vet when I was a kid. For about half a minute. What I really want to do is to move to Hollywood and become an actress. I did high-school plays, so I know I have the talent.”
“Well, good luck.”
“I don't need luck. I know it's going to happen. I'm going to star in big movies and marry a famous actor or maybe just a handsome professional, like Dr. Palmer.”
There was a gleam in her eye when she spoke of the good doctor.
Hayley wasn't the only one who had a slight crush on the new vet in town.
“Will the doctor be back soon?” Hayley asked.
Still cradling Blueberry, Marla leaned forward in her chair and clicked a button on her computer bringing up Dr. Palmer's calendar.
“I keep track of his schedule, so I know where he is at all times,” Marla said with a self-satisfied smile, almost bragging. Marla clearly liked to think of herself as the most important woman in the doctor's life now that he was divorcing his wife.
At least until she moved to Hollywood and married Ryan Gosling.
Blueberry was now on his back in Marla's arms like a newborn baby, looking euphoric as she scratched his belly. She was scanning the calendar on her computer screen.
“He won't be back in the office until tomorrow morning around seven. I can put you in the book if you'd like to come back.”
“Does that mean I have to attempt to put Blueberry back in the carrier? He's not very cooperative.”
Marla stood up from her desk and effortlessly set Blueberry down in the carrier and shut the door, locking the latch again.
“I . . . I've never seen him like this,” Hayley said, shaking her head.
“You just have to know how to handle them,” Marla said. “Now, your cat seems perfectly healthy to me. What seems to be the problem?”
“He's having bladder issues,” Hayley said.
“I see, well, that might be something more psychological,” Marla said, an accusing look in her eye. “Is everything okay at home?”
Hayley didn't like the idea of a girl who wasn't even interested in going to vet school insinuating it was somehow Hayley's fault that Blueberry was peeing all over her house.
But Hayley held her tongue.
“Everything's fine at home.”
Why mention her depressed daughter, her rattled Shih Tzu, and her double workload at the office? No way was she going to give this girl any ammunition to use against her.
“Okay, then. The doctor will see you and Blueberry tomorrow morning. He will be in at seven.”
“In the morning?”
“Yes. He's a morning person. And a very hard worker. Just be sure to give us twenty-four hours' notice if you need to cancel. Otherwise, we charge you half the normal fee for a consultation.”
“But it's already close to six-thirty. The appointment is in twelve and a half hours.”
“I guess you should really try to be here on time, then,” Marla said with a sweet, insincere smile.
Hayley returned an equally sweet and insincere smile and lifted the carrier.
As she turned to leave, Blueberry hissed and took a swipe at her through the cage with his claws.
Hayley glanced back at Marla, who raised one eyebrow, her face full of judgment.
Chapter 19
Hayley kept her promise to meet Sabrina at Drinks Like A Fish that evening. She was well aware that the tension between them would be palpable, given the fact she had forced Sal to post her story online that afternoon, and Sabrina would no doubt have seen it. And even if she hadn't, someone would have read it and called or e-mailed her.
Sure enough.
When Hayley walked through the door, she spotted Sabrina sitting atop a bar stool, nursing a gin and tonic, furiously shaking her straw up and down in the ice, grimacing.
No one was tending bar.
Hayley assumed Randy and his bartender, Michelle, were hiding in the back office to avoid Sabrina's wrath.
Hayley bravely marched forward, steeling herself for the inevitable confrontation.
When out of the corner of her eye Sabrina caught sight of Hayley approaching, she whipped around on the stool to face her.
“What a pretty blouse,” Hayley said, hoping a simple, innocent compliment might defuse the tension.
No such luck.
“Are you trying to ruin me, Hayley? Is that it? Are you still jealous of me, like you were in high school?”
Hayley couldn't remember ever being jealous of Sabrina, but there was no sense in arguing with her.
“Is this about the column I wrote regarding Bessie Winthrop's death?”
“No, Hayley, this is about you borrowing my Backstreet Boys CD and not returning it! Of course this is about the damn column you wrote! You have compromised my professional reputation!”
“I think that may be an overstatement, don't you think, Sabrina?”
“You basically called me incompetent for not conducting an autopsy on Bessie Winthrop!”
“I did no such thing. I merely suggested that in order for her friends and family to get absolute closure, an autopsy might not be a bad idea.”
“What friends and family? Everybody hated her!”
“Not me. I liked Bessie,” Hayley said, feeling someone needed to stand up for Bessie.
Sabrina jumped off the bar stool and got right up into Hayley's face. She was almost a foot taller, but Hayley wasn't worried. She had always been a scrappy fighter. She knew she could take her if it came to that.
“Well, for your information, Hayley, I spent my entire afternoon having Bessie's body transferred back to me from the funeral home and spending county funds my department doesn't have conducting a preliminary autopsy on her.”
Hayley was thrilled. Her column did the trick. It forced Sabrina to get off her butt and take Bessie's death seriously.
“And?”
“And you were right. Somebody did kill Bessie.”
Hayley gasped.
She was right.
Finally.
Sabrina was confirming her suspicions.
“I knew it!”
“And I know who did it,” Sabrina said, taking a step back from Hayley, grabbing her drink off the bar and downing it.
“Who?”
“Bessie. Bessie killed herself, but it wasn't a suicide. No, Bessie's own bad choices killed her. She didn't take care of herself. She didn't exercise. She ate way too many fats and sugar and processed foods.”
Hayley frowned.
“She had a heart attack, Hayley. I knew it from the moment I opened her up. You should have seen how clogged her arteries were. It was disgusting.”
“But Bessie wrote me a note. She was afraid someone was trying to kill her.”
“Maybe that's true, but he or she didn't have the chance to get the job done before Bessie's body gave out. I'm sorry to disappoint you, Hayley, but there is absolutely no foul play involved here.”
“I'm sorry I doubted you, Sabrina,” Hayley said, waving at Randy, who poked his head out the swinging kitchen doors to see if Sabrina was still in the bar.
“I used to think it was cute that you fancied yourself some kind of amateur sleuth, investigating local murders, but let me tell you something. It stopped being cute the minute your shenanigans put my reputation as a county official on the line. From here on in, please leave the crime scenes to the professionals. Are we clear?”
Hayley nodded.
“Really, Hayley, I know you looked up to me and all my accomplishments in high school. Cheerleader, drama club, student council vice president, fluent in five different languages, and third runner-up in the Miss Maine Teen USA Pageant. And I am acutely aware that some of that acclaim may have rubbed you the wrong way. I saw that resentful look in your eye as you watched me being crowned prom queen in that Christian Dior dress my gay uncle sent to me from New York as my graduation present. But seriously, honey, it's time to let go.”
And with that, Sabrina grabbed Hayley by the arm, pulled her close, and planted a kiss on her cheek. “Call me when you've gotten over all this and we can try to be friends again. I still think the world of you.”
Sabrina spun around and sashayed out the door.
There was a lot Hayley wanted to tell her. Like she wasn't even in the school gym when Sabrina was crowned prom queen. She was outside on the athletic field doing tequila shots with Mona and Liddy and their dates.
But why stain Sabrina's obviously happy, totally skewed memories of how Hayley lived in her shadow?
Hayley was more interested in proving Sabrina wrong. It would be an uphill battle. An autopsy was certainly conclusive evidence. However, a voice inside Hayley kept screaming at her that there was more to Bessie's death than heart disease.
And now she was more determined than ever to get to the bottom of it.
Island Food & Spirits by Hayley Powell
Last night I was rifling through my old recipe file and I came across one that made me smile. Or at least it does now. Last summer . . . not so much.
It was right during the middle of tourist season on the island, and I read in the paper that one of my all-time favorite chefs from the Food Network was actually coming to Bar Harbor to hold a one-day cooking class. Well, needless to say, I immediately registered online for the class. There was no way I was going to miss an opportunity to meet my favorite kitchen master up close and personal.
Chef Carlos Ferucci was a guest chef on TV all the time and his handsome Italian good looks and sizzling sex appeal made him a favorite among women from all over the world. Many times I fell asleep on the couch while watching one of his shows, dreaming of the two of us cooking up a storm together . . . among other things.
Chef Carlos also owned a five-star restaurant in Portland, Maine, named L'aragosta (which sounds so sexy when he says it, but it really only means “lobster” in Italian). Everyone on the island who made the trip to Portland always tried to secure reservations and dine in his posh restaurant, which had become famous for the surprise twists in his Italian dishes.
There was no menu when dining at L'aragosta. You were served whatever original dish Chef Carlos created specially for that evening, which just added to the excitement. Well, that and watching him glide around the restaurant making sure all the diners were enjoying their mouthwatering meals.
The girls and I were lucky enough to get a table one night about a year ago during a shopping trip to Portland. I must admit when I saw him in person, I was a goner. He was even more handsome in person than on television!
When the day of the class finally arrived, I was the first to show up at the local Bar Harbor restaurant hosting his class. Eventually the other five women who also signed up arrived. I didn't know any of them. They were all summer residents, and much older than me. When Chef Carlos breezed through the door and said in his deep, sexy, Italian-accented voice,
“Buongiorno,”
I batted my eyes like a schoolgirl with a big crush. That was the moment I became determined to get this big hunk of beef to notice me with my cool attitude and mad cooking skills.
Chef Carlos got right down to business and requested that we all choose four ingredients that we felt did not go together and bring them back to our respective stations. I very carefully chose anchovies, bread crumbs, dried chili peppers, and chocolate.
Chef Carlos then surprised us. He ordered everyone to prepare a dish for him in sixty minutes. We were allowed to use other ingredients from the kitchen, but the four items we chose were mandatory for our dish. My eyes bugged out of my head! This was just like that Food Network show
Chopped,
and I definitely had not signed up for that at all! I never saw this coming! I glanced over at the other women, who had sly smiles on their faces. All of them suspected what the chef was up to, so they managed to pick predictable items such as canned tomato sauce, onions, green peppers, chicken. Everything to prepare the perfect pasta meal!
Chef Carlos yelled, “Go!” The other ladies scrambled off, giggling and laughing, to fetch whatever else would complement their dish. I just stared miserably at my chosen ingredients. This was going to be a disaster! I had no chance of winning!
I wish I could tell you I was the underdog who came up from behind to win the contest with my unique pasta creation! Sadly, however, it was not meant to be. When Chef Carlos got to my chocolate pasta with anchovies dish, he carefully took a bite, chewed, and looked deep into my eyes. I wanted to melt, but not in a good way. I wanted to melt and disappear into the floor. He then placed his fork down and, without a word, moved on to the next person, ultimately declaring Muffy's chicken artichoke pasta the winner.
Well, a few months later while I was preparing dinner, I was half listening to the television, which, of course, was tuned to the Food Network. As I was getting ready to place the meat loaf on the counter to cool, I heard a familiar, sexy, Italian-accented voice say, “This week I want to prepare âChef Carlos's Chocolate Pasta with Anchovies,' which is the number one best-selling dish in my restaurant.” I let out a scream so loud that poor Leroy jumped down from the couch and raced out of the room. I dropped the meat loaf on the floor and ran to stand in front of the television, staring in disbelief as I watched Chef Carlos add all of the ingredients I had used that day to make my own chocolate pasta dish.
Now, I understand if you don't believe me, but I swear it's true. I guess I should just be flattered that a famous chef thought my culinary disaster was such a tasty dish that it is now the most popular item on the menu in his world-famous restaurant.
If ever there was a time for something to calm the nerves, this was it. I retrieved my new bottle of Marenco Pineto Bra-chetto d'Acqui, a sweet, sparkling red wine from Piedmont, which I had picked up at House Wine on Main Street on my way home that evening. I popped the cork and poured myself a glass. Raising it high into the air, I said, “
Salute,
Chef Ferucci! Until we meet again!”
Â
Â
Chef Carlos's Chocolate
Pasta with Anchovies
Ingredients
1 pound penne pasta (or your
favorite pasta)
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 cloves garlic, chopped
2 dried chili peppers, chopped
8 anchovies, minced
2 cups good dark chocolate (at
least 70%), chopped
½ cup fine bread crumbs
Fresh parsley, chopped for garnish
Â
In a large pot of salted boiling water, cook your penne. While pasta is cooking, in another saucepan, heat the olive oil on medium. Reduce to medium-low heat and add your garlic, being careful not to burn it. Sauté your garlic, add the chili peppers and anchovies. Cook until the garlic is golden and anchovies have almost dissolved. Add your chocolate. Stir until melted, then add the bread crumbs.
Â
Just before your pasta is al dente, drain and add to the saucepan. Stir it all together, until mixed very well. Serve, topping with the fresh parsley.
Â
As they say in Italy,
“Mangia!”