Ellery sighed. He considered himself a reasonably optimistic and resilient person, but maybe he should have stayed in the Big Apple.
Where he belonged?
Yeah, maybe. Maybe Trevor had been right about that. Studying the noisy and crowded pub, where everyone but himself appeared to be clad in full swashbuckler regalia, he couldn’t help feeling like a fish out of water.
Before he could get too downhearted, Libby, pert and ginger-haired, appeared with a frosty mug of “grog,” and recited the evening specials: shepherd’s pie, meatloaf dinner, and baked mac-and-cheese casserole. In other words, the same specials as every other night. Ellery gave in to the call of carbs and opted for the mac and cheese.
The blend of soft lights, grog (rum—a lot of rum—lime, sugar, and beer) and the jolly soundtrack to Pirates of the Caribbean gradually eased his tension.
He could probably hold out for another two months, and by then it would be tourist season and perhaps business would pick up. It could hardly get worse.
His dismal reflections were interrupted by Libby, who finally placed his mac-and-cheese casserole on the table before him.
“Bon appétit!” Libby said.
“Merci,” Ellery replied.
Libby snickered as though this were a great witticism, and he grinned. Over her shoulder he spied Police Chief Jack Carson being led to his regular table on the opposite side of the pub, and he felt an instant and unwilling leap of interest.
Partly that was because Carson was a ruggedly handsome six foot, one hundred and ninety-plus pounds of gainfully employed eligible male. He wore a wedding ring—he might even be married—but from the moment Ellery’s gaze had first tangled with the police chief’s piercing green-blue one, he had been pretty sure Carson had a secret that would deeply disappoint the ladies of Pirate’s Cove. That was speculation on Ellery’s part. He certainly had nothing more than a certain gut instinct—his interactions with the chief had been minimal at most—but yeah. He couldn’t help hoping he was right. Not because he had a personal interest in Carson—after Todd, he was through with all that—but because as far as Ellery could tell, he was the only LGBTQ person on all of Buck Island. It would be nice to have some company, even if the company was not of the socializing variety. Initially, he’d thought Dylan Carter, who owned the toy shop next door to the Crow’s Nest, was of the same orientation, but it turned out Dylan was just a flamboyant guy with a slightly effeminate manner. Which was a good lesson about judging people based on appearances.
Anyway, Carson was in his late thirties, had sun-streaked brown hair and eyes the changeful color of sunlight on restless water. His voice was surprisingly pleasant for a guy who never smiled and seemed to live for handing out construction-code violations.
Ellery watched the chief—clad in his usual navy uniform and not pirate garb—nodding politely to the local wives and wenches bidding him good evening. He picked up his menu, putting an end to the pleasantries. That had to be deliberate, because as often as the chief ate at the Salty Dog, he surely knew the entire menu by heart. Ellery did, and he’d only been in Pirate’s Cove three months.
Ellery gave the Ritz-cracker crust of his mac and cheese a tentative poke. Frankly, the casserole could have been topped with Oreos for all he cared. He was too hungry to be picky. He couldn’t afford to hire any help at the bookstore, so lunch usually consisted of whatever he could eat at the front desk. Today’s fare had been a bag of granola and a Kona Blend Monster Energy drink.
The door to the pub opened on a blustery gust of salt-laced night air. A group of pirates carrying guitar and mandolin cases pushed their way through the crowd, which greeted them with song requests and offers to buy drinks. The piped-in music cut off mid-ballad.
My heart, my heart, my drowning heart…
Ellery glanced over at Chief Carson’s table and found the chief studying him with his usual unsmiling appraisal. His face warmed, his heart jumped—that was guilty conscience over the fact that he still hadn’t fixed the ceiling vents in the customers’ bathroom—and he nodded politely.
Carson nodded grimly back and returned to frowning over the menu.
Yep, that was one steely jawline Carson sported. Smoke-detector violations were probably a hanging offense in his book.
Ellery picked up his fork. His gaze wandered again to the mostly empty street outside the pub. A couple of pickup trucks tooled past in the glimmery lamplight, and occasionally, he caught a glimpse of a bustling petticoat or a plumed hat disappearing around a corner. But for the most part, everyone in Pirate’s Cove seemed to be crammed inside the Salty Dog.
Happily, that did not include Trevor Maples, though he was usually present most evenings. In fact, the last time he’d been there, he’d once again tried to convince Ellery to sell him the Crow’s Nest. No did not seem to be in Trevor’s vocabulary.
Ellery swallowed the last mouthful of grog, finished his casserole, paid his bill, and rose to leave.
By then the band—the Fish and Chippies—had broken into a lively version of “Eddystone Light.”
He glanced automatically toward Chief Carson’s corner and, aggravatingly, Carson, engaged in conversation with Tom Tulley, seemed to feel the weight of his gaze and glanced over at him.
Hastily, Ellery shrugged into his jacket and headed for the door.
Chapter Four
A few hours later…
“I don’t know how he got inside or what he was doing in the bookshop.”
Ellery was seated in his back office, trying to cover up the fact that he was completely and totally freaked out by recent events. Not that being freaked out wasn’t a normal reaction, but something about Police Chief Carson brought out a previously undiscovered need to appear cool in a crisis. Frankly, he was not really a cool-in-a-crisis kind of guy. He was the kind of guy who yelled, “Help! Murder!” when he found a body.
“How did you know Maples had been murdered?” had been one of Chief Carson’s first questions.
“Possibly the pool of blood was a clue?” Ellery had snapped.
“Maybe he committed suicide. Maybe he tripped over the doorstop I asked you to remove two weeks ago.”
Ellery managed to swallow his retort.
So yeah, he was that kind of guy. The kind who got sarcastic when put on the defensive, the kind who felt queasy and a little light-headed in the presence of dead bodies and had to be told by Chief Carson not to faint or throw up on the crime scene.
Speaking of which—or whom—Ellery was quickly getting over his slight and very brief interest in Chief Carson. Chief Carson had turned out to be an insensitive, unimaginative jerk.
Anyway. It had been hours since Ellery had first crept into the Crow’s Nest and found Trevor Maples, clad in pirate costume, dead on his floor. Chief Carson had been first on the scene, but to Ellery’s relief, the chief was not the only law-enforcement officer in Pirate’s Cove. He actually had several trained officers in his teeny-tiny police department and access to the full resources of the Rhode Island State Police. In fact, Ellery had assumed the State Police would take over the investigation, but no. It seemed that at least for now, Chief Carson was still in charge.
And covering the same ground over and over. For example, this was the second time they’d been over the subject of how and why Trevor had decided to turn up dead in Ellery’s bookshop. What else was there to say beyond I. Don’t. Know?