Nowadays…
Even if extreme housekeeping had been in Ellery’s wheelhouse, the place was falling down around his ears. Literally around his ears. Two nights earlier an ornate lantern-shaped sconce had fallen off his bedroom wall and nearly knocked him out while he stood brushing his teeth in front of the life-sized portrait of his distant ancestor.
The mansion was full of charming, murderous decor. Like the chipped and peeling mermaid figurehead dangling over the mile-long dining-room table, or the banisters built to look like the row of cannons on the broadside of a warship, or the gigantic bronze shell that had once decorated the stern of a French frigate but now hung over the fireplace in the “great hall.”
The roof leaked, windowpanes fell like rotting teeth, and some of the floorboards were see-through. The entire place smelled of must, dust, and rust.
Okay, so maybe it wasn’t that bad. Or rather, it was that bad, but it was also undeniably the coolest house he’d ever been in. There was a trapdoor in his bedroom, for heaven’s sake! It just didn’t get better than that. If he’d had unlimited time and a couple of extra million dollars, there was nothing Ellery would have enjoyed more than restoring Captain’s Seat to its original manic glory. As it was, he had one day a week—Sunday—a cordless drill, and his trusty hammer.
He was not making a lot of headway, although he had managed to get the master bedroom into reasonable shape—barring the occasional outbreak of homicidal lighting fixtures. Actually, he was pretty happy with the way his bedroom had turned out. The large corner room overlooked both the wide, overgrown meadows behind the house and the green and rocky ocean cliffs in the front. In the morning, buttery sunshine warmed the polished oak panels and brass fixtures, turning the room as gold as pirates’ bounty. In the evening, he could see the stars and hear the distant crash of waves and the call of the owl that lived in the garret.
Anyway, after the horror of Saturday, it was a relief to stick close to home and hearth. Ellery tried to focus on the job at hand—removing the ghastly mid-century green vinyl tile in the kitchen—but despite his best efforts, he couldn’t help brooding over the previous day’s events.
The shock of being suspected of murder—and the fear of being arrested for that crime—had initially so overwhelmed him that it wasn’t until Sunday morning that it occurred to him a murderer was loose in Pirate’s Cove.
And the more he thought about it, the more convinced he was that murderous someone had deliberately tried to frame him.
Why else would Trevor’s body have been dumped in his shop? (Or had Trevor been killed in the Crow’s Nest?) Either way, why? What was there to gain by framing him?
And if he wasn’t being framed, what was the point of all this? Had there been some pressing need to get rid of Trevor’s body and Ellery’s shop happened to be handy?
And why was Chief Carson so eager to pin this crime on him? Couldn’t he see how obviously flimsy Ellery’s supposed motivation was? Even Ellery knew the evidence against him was entirely circumstantial. Had the chief taken some kind of instantaneous dislike to him? Or was it simply Ellery’s outsider status that made him the prime suspect? Because wasn’t the victim’s spouse or partner supposed to be the main suspect? Or was that only in movies and books?
Maybe Trevor hadn’t had a spouse or partner. (In fact, all things considered, maybe that was a given.)
More to the point, how was it that no one had seen anything?
Sunset was around seven thirty, but yesterday had been the start of Buccaneer Days, so regardless of the time, someone would surely have been wandering the streets. Although, thinking back, yesterday had been pretty quiet. (If the goal of yesterday’s exercise in wardrobe malfunction had been to attract tourists to Pirate’s Cove, the Visitors Bureau needed to up their game.)
He used his utility knife to cut another six-inch-wide parallel strip of vinyl flooring. His hand slipped as he remembered the blood seeping into the floorboards at the Crow’s Nest, and he banged his knuckles on the tile. Oh God. He was going to have to find a company that did crime-scene cleanup before he could reopen.
Ellery rose, went to the sink to run cold water over his hand, and through the window noticed a figure walking up the gravel pathway toward the front door. A woman in a blue skirt and brown jacket. He didn’t recognize her.
Turning off the sink taps, he grabbed the towel on the counter and wiped his hands. He started for the front door and heard the doorbell chiming slowly, sonorously through the house.
He wasn’t expecting visitors, and it was kind of a weird day for company. Maybe she was selling magazine subscriptions. Or maybe she’d been passing by and her car had a flat tire.
He reached the front door with its weathered planks and porthole, slid the metal bars, and opened it.
“Hi. Can I help you?”
“Ellery Page?”
“That’s right.” He had the sudden, uneasy feeling she was about to serve him with a court summons. There was something about her…
“Hi, I’m Sue Lewis.”
“Right,” he said blankly.
It surprised him that in a village the size of Pirate’s Cove there were still so many new faces, so many people he had yet to meet. She was about his age, pretty and petite. Her blond hair was long and straight, her brown eyes and olive complexion perfectly made up in flattering nude tones, her clothes fashionable business. She smiled, offering a glimpse of very white teeth.
“Sue Lewis,” she prompted. “Editor in chief for the Scuttlebutt Weekly. Our local paper?”
“Oh,” he said in a very different tone of voice.
Sue’s smile widened with determination. “I can’t believe we haven’t met before now.” She held out her hand.
Okay. He did not subscribe to the Scuttlebutt Weekly, but he did let them sell the paper in his shop. Ellery automatically shook hands. Sue had a very firm grip and did not immediately let go of him.
“I was hoping to ask you a few—” she began.
At the same time, Ellery said, “If you’re here to ask about what happened last night—”
“You mean the murder in your bookstore of one of our most prominent citizens?” Sue was still smiling, but her eyes were a lot harder than he had initially thought. Not a woman used to taking no for an answer.
He dropped Sue’s hand and stepped back. “I don’t know anything about it,” he said.
That seemed to amuse Sue. She said almost teasingly, “You must know something about it. Police Chief Carson interviewed you for over an hour last night.”
Her comment landed like a brick in his belly. Apparently, it was true about no secrets in a small town. Was it now common knowledge that he was a suspect in Trevor Maples’s murder? Were all his friends and neighbors—okay, all his neighbors—openly speculating about whether he’d actually killed Trevor? And did no one have any boundaries? Why was this woman on his doorstep, accosting him in his own home? On a Sunday no less. Wasn’t church-going supposed to be a thing in villages?
“No. Sorry. I’m not giving any interviews to anyone.” Ellery was firm. He reached for the door, started to close it—pausing in astonishment as Sue stepped forward, blocking him.
“What can you tell me about the fight you and Trevor had yesterday afternoon?”