Crab Outta Luck Page 9

  Then she’d question herself: was she happy? Sometimes, alone in the house, she’d stand and look in the mirror and wonder what she was doing to Roman. Sure, things weren’t like they were, but they weren’t twenty anymore. They had a big house in Bethesda, Roman worked as an actuary and was moving up, and Vance was out of the house, about to graduate from college. Vance was young, happy, well-adjusted. His GPA was 4.0, and he’d just told them he was entering the Master’s program. She was happy.

  Roman would get home and she would try harder to please him. Went to lengths to rekindle what they had. There were times she thought it was working. One night Roman says, “You should get a hobby. Something active.” And what did that mean? Active? Was there subtext?

  But she thought about it and decided that, yeah, it was a good idea. Get outside, get fresh air. She already had social activities and her Bethesda friends—all those big city hoity-toities loved her country way of talking—and they’d had school things to organize, but once Vance went to college it was mostly only book club where she met up with them.

  She tried golf. Two weeks of lessons at the Silver Spring Golf & Country Club, and on the tenth and final lesson, a Friday before lunch, she said Thank you very much, and left there knowing golf wasn’t her thing. But you know what? Roman was right. She did need a hobby. And she liked getting outside and using her body a little. She was only forty-one years old.

  So she picked up all of Roman’s favorite cold cuts from the deli in town, his fancy pastrami, his Virginia ham, black forest turkey; got maple mustard, some fruit, sweet things from the bakery he liked, and even a bottle of white wine. It was a Friday before a long weekend and she was going to surprise Roman, take him out for a picnic lunch, maybe down at the Glen Echo Park, and when they were done eating, who knows what they might do. She was going to show Roman she was happy.

  She showed up unannounced at his office on the 14th floor of the Huntington Tower, and that was how she learned Roman was having an affair with Stick-legs.

  THAT AFTERNOON

  At the end of a grocery aisle, she ran into Marcus Seabolt. Literally.

  Her startled quip, looking up at him, into his blue eyes, both of them half-smiling? “Hey, you got chocolate in my peanut butter.”

  The two of them’d come around the bulb-nose end of the aisle, each with just a hand basket, eyes down, and bumped into each other, her shoulder into his chest.

  Marcus frowned, said, “What? . . .”

  She’d come into the village to get some food and supplies, stopped into the Cove Grocer, walking around remarking to herself how it was like the same shop as when she left just a little fancier. Now here she was in front of the big side window, all the bounty of fall beginning to appear on the nursery racks outside; mums in oranges and yellows and deep roses, anemones, sunflowers, gourds, and even the first pumpkins.

  A blush came to her cheeks from the flopped quip and she ran hair from her face saying, “Oh, uh, just . . . sorry—don’t you remember that old commercial? We used to say that, you and me.”

  Marcus laughed, his head gently cocking in an unexpected way that relieved her. He said, “Yeah, you just . . . caught me off guard.”

  “Cop like you’s not always at the ready?”

  “Only for the bad guys, Bette. You a bad guy?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, “I mighta scuffed your shoe.”

  They both looked down at their feet. Marcus wore nicer off-duty boots in a soft brown leather, pair of jeans that fit him really well, worn-in work jacket over a flannel. Interesting—no wedding ring.

  “I’m not a bad guy, you know,” she said when they looked up again.

  “S’why I’m glad I ran into you—I was going to come by the Fortune in the morning, let you know some good news . . .”

  “Are you serious? . . .”

  “I crossed you off my list, Bette. You’re no longer a suspect in the murder of Royce Murdoch.”

  She knew it’d bothered her, but not how much till he’d said she was off the hook; the relief was palpable, like a nasty old spirit lifting out her body and floating up into the rafters of the old grocer’s. She slumped, sagged, leaned a shoulder against the shelving, bumping jars of pickles and letting out a whisking exhale, chuckling, laying a palm on her forehead; playing it up a little for her friend, but also kind of meaning it, too.

  “That a relief?” he said, smiling warmly for the first time since she’d come back to the Cove, showing a hidden facet of the old Marcus she’d hung with. It’d been a long time since seeing him, and though Marcus’d become a man in that time, here on his day off with a shade of stubble on his hard jaw, traces of squinting lines at his eyes, he still could somehow seem boyish—but only like you could see it now if you’d seen it in the past.

  “Yeah, I’d say it’s a relief. You put it on some flyers for me, official Chesapeake Cove Police letterhead? I’d like to tuck em under the wipers of all the cars in the parking lot; here, the Crab, find out where Pris’s walking ladies live . . .”

  “Word’ll get around, trust me,” he said, laughing with her. “I guess you didn’t get the best welcome coming back to the Cove. You here to stay?”

  Hefted off the pickles, she stood straighter, nodding. “Yeah. Here to stay.” She straightened the jars she’d jostled. “Don’t know what I’m doing yet, but it’ll be here.”

  “Pris’s glad you’re back. Woman’s practically giddy.”

  They began to walk to the next aisle over together.

  “Yeah, even if I wanted to leave the Cove, Pris’d probably lay down in front of my car.”

  “She usually gets her way. I think it’s good you’re back.”

  “Aw, thanks, Marcus. It’s . . . it’s not like how it was when I left,” she said, pointing out brands of coffee beans at fifteen-bucks a pound, “and yet, I sure do feel like I came home.”

  “Most of the changes round here have been for the better. And, Bette, this is your home.”

  They paused, facing each other in the narrow aisle. “I’ll find my place here, it’ll just take some time. Hey, how’re your folks?—I hope they’re okay.”

  “Yup,” he said, nodding, smiling like he appreciated the question. “Dad’s retired, spends his mornings fishing, and my mom’s writing romance novels out in the sunroom with a teapot every day from nine till noon. Bodice rippers she calls em.”

  “Oh, yeah—they any good?”

  “She won’t let me read them.”

  She chuckled, picturing his mom how she used to know her, but now hunched over a typewriter, fingers clacking furiously. Low and lusty, she said, “Probably means they’re pretty good.”

  Marcus’s face transformed to pure disgust, and out of the blue, she snorted. Her hand shot up quick to cover her mouth and nose, cheeks burning red. The sound’d been loud in the small shop and even Marcus began to laugh, hunching his shoulders up, trying not to make a spectacle, and for one fun moment it was like they were sixteen again, snickering at something that was just between them.

  Marcus said, “What a terrible thing to make me think of.”

  In her hand basket she’d plopped in two bottles of beer, a bottle of wine, some oysters, a flounder fillet, herbs and some produce—also a toy she’d picked up for Ripken. She produced the toy now, a foil pinwheel on a stick, waved it around like a wand, and touched one of the metallic star points to Marcus’s nose, saying, “Poof—thoughts begone . . .”

  He laughed softly, eyes narrowing, their gazes connecting for a moment, and she wondered if he’d felt that nostalgic tug like she had, and if he did, if he liked it as much as she.

  He said, “Let’s hope that works.”

  She said, “It’s a new wand, and my magic’s a little rusty. There’s no guarantee.”

  He said, “I’m glad Mom’s happy. They’re both happy.”

  “I’m glad for them too. I always loved them.”

  He said, “They wouldn’t hate it if you came by said hey.”

&nbs
p; “I should do that. You’re right. I will do that—they in the same place?”

  “They are,” then nodding his chin toward her basket: “Hey, I see a couple Blackwaters in that hand basket there.”

  “Yeah,” she said, “had it at the Crab. September Ale.”

  “It was good?”

  “Don’t you see me buying the home version?”

  Marcus said, “You know it’s Jonas runs it?”

  “What?—your brother?”

  “Yeah-yeah. Couple years now. I help out when I have time.”

  “You a detective, a beat cop, Pris said Fire and Rescue, and you work at a brewery?”

  “I don’t like to sit.”

  “I’ll say—where’s this brewery at?”

  “Over on Madsen.”

  “Where on Madsen?”

  “The old auto shop; converted it into a brewery and tavern—man, we gutted that joint, me and Jonas did all the tavern interior, plumbing, too, electric—”

  “Across and down from the Steaming Bean?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “Blackwater, huh? Why didn’t he call it Seabolt? Now that’s a name.”

  “He wanted it to be about the region, not about him. But he has a lager called Seabolt.”

  She said, “That what kind of beer you are, a lager?”

  “The beer’s not called ‘Marcus Seabolt,’ just ‘Seabolt.’ What kind of beer do you think I am?”

  “You ever do those things on Facebook? The click here to find out what kind of dog you are, or handbag, or flavor of Slushy?”

  “You know they’re just trying to find out your personal information. Banking info, trying to suss your passwords and all; it goes to Russia or China.”

  “Well, I know what kind of beer you are.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Bitter. No, Sour. Or is there a beer called cynical? maybe that’s it.”

  “There’s not a type of beer called cynical, and I’m just relating to you plain old facts.”

  “Hey, tell me something . . .”

  “What kind of beer you are?”

  “What kin—hey, yeah, what kind of beer am I to you?”

  “I don’t know, I’m not good at this sort of thing. . . . Maybe, maybe a red?”

  “My hair? It’s supposed to be my personality, Marcus, my hair’s not my personality.”

  “It’s close,” he said.

  “Fiery? Hot-tempered? Those stereotypes?” Drolly: “Marcus, please . . .”

  “You did throw a drink in Royce Murdoch’s face.”

  Almost another snort. She showed him her offended face saying, “Oh, you . . .”

  He said, “I mean, that right there, that’s redheaded fire. I feel the heat standing in the store too close to you.”

  Now she went up on her tip-toes like she was trying to get eye-to-eye with him, squinting and tight-lipped, trying to look mean with a fake scowl; teeth gritted, she said, “Maybe you’re getting me hot right now . . .”

  The line hung in the air like a bad smell no one wanted to acknowledge, and her scalp prickled. She sagged down so her feet were flat and tried not to look too embarrassed. Marcus smirked but made no joke. What an unfortunate double entendre. She’d meant angry. It was unaddressable; the act of addressing it would only make it worse, so she cleared her throat, said, “Anyway—”

  The loud burr of the grocer’s commercial coffee grinder rattled behind them, and she turned to see a customer leaning against the machine and holding a paper bag beneath the chute to collect the grounds. He nodded apologetically, knowing he was drowning out their conversation, but his hands were tied; they were standing next to the darn machine.

  She faced Marcus again and they looked at each other, smirking, mocking patience while the machine still clunked and clattered. Marcus bounced his eyebrows. She laughed. The machine stopped. She said, "Anyway,” again and the machine started up all over. Marcus led her by the arm out of the aisle and they walked to the next one over together, both of them enjoying a chuckle.

  When they stopped, she ran her hair from her face and said, “As I was saying . . . I wonder if you found that boat where I said it was.”

  “We did.”

  “That’s it? That’s all you have to say?”

  He thought a moment. She reminded him she wasn’t a suspect. He said, “It looks like there was a fight on board.”

  “See?”

  “Yeah. So we’re trying to locate Donovan since he’s the owner.”

  “And he had a reason to be upset with Royce.”

  Marcus agreed, saying reluctantly, “And he had a reason to be upset with Royce.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “For what?”

  She feigned offense. “For Pris and me and Cherry going out and finding the crime scene for you. You’re welcome.”

  He squinted, mouth fidgeting. “We woulda found it eventually.”

  “Sure-sure,” she chided.

  “You’re incorrigible.”

  She shrugged like she knew she was but didn’t care. She asked: “Is there going to be a service for Royce?”

  “Yeah, of course.”

  “I wonder what that’s going to be like—it’s at the funeral home?”

  “Uh-huh. Bucky’s handling the particulars.”

  “Bucky Snead?”

  “The one and only. Royce’s son isn’t in town anymore, and he and Royce weren’t on the best of terms—”

  “That’s weird. Bucky was my very next question.”

  “What about Bucky?”

  “He catch up with you and say he was the one on the boat?”

  “What boat?”

  She shifted the weight of her basket to the other arm. “The Miss Connie. He didn’t come to you, tell you it was him on it the night Pris went for a dip outside my jon.”

  “Your flashlight man?”

  “Bucky didn’t tell you that?”

  “No, ma’am, and I did see him. Just this morning. Didn’t mention it at all.”

  They began to stroll the aisle together. She said, “Bucky showed up at the Fortune last night to talk to me. Said he was on the Miss Connie and he wanted to apologize for scaring us.”

  “What was he doing on there?”

  “Said he was . . . I don’t know, looking for something or other, said it was innocent and—”

  “You didn’t ask him what he was doing there?” He eyed her suspiciously.

  “Course I did, he’ll tell you—”

  “Or won’t. He didn’t say a thing about it.”

  “Gosh, that Bucky,” she said. “Shows up in a pumpout; he’s been drinking. I sent him home in a cab and when I woke up this morning, his pumpout’s gone from my jetty.”

  “So he was your flashlight man.”

  “I’m sure of it.” Across from her, Cap’n Crunch stared and she snagged a box of the cereal from the shelf and tossed it into Marcus’s basket.

  He looked at it, then to her. “I’m forty-two. You think I still eat sugary cereal for breakfast?”

  “Put it back you don’t want it,” she said.

  He sucked his teeth a second, secured the box of cereal in his basket, saying, “Seems I’m all set.”

  “Me too,” she said, and they walked to the end of the aisle together and got in the lone line at the cash register behind three others.

  “Looks like I’m going to have to track down Bucky,” he said.

  “Sorry to wreck your day off.”

  “I’m on shift later.”

  “I can’t believe that old rascal,” Bette said, “he swore to me he’d tell you he was on the Miss Connie.”

  “I’m going to—”

  Another cashier showed up and opened the next register over and called out she’d take who was next. Marcus told Bette to go on, and they checked out separately but met together again at the grocer’s doorway.

  Marcus jabbed a thumb over his shoulder, saying, “I’m out the other side.”

 
“Well, I guess I’ll see you around. You let me know when you see that Bucky and let him know I’m disappointed in him.”

  THE NEXT MORNING

  Haunted Hill’s this half-mile stretch of cobblestone road, Vine Road, running north-south in the old heart of the village, not far from the roundabout circling the Isaac Crockett statue. In her post trick-or-treating teenage Halloweens, she and Marcus would meet at the top of the Hill at the stroke of midnight on their bicycles to match nerves in their annual downhill Ghost Slalom. During the Civil War, a dozen Confederate prisoners with smallpox had been brought to a field hospital on top of the Hill, then Holloway Hill, but only a half dozen were really sick. The other half dozen plotted an escape, but by the time they’d enacted their scheme, they’d really contracted the smallpox. Their escape was short-lived and all six of them were shot down in the street. The legend goes that on some dark nights, especially Hallowe’en, you can smell the rot and mildew and gunpowder, and the ghosts of those old soldiers lurk in the shadows, their eyes glowing with fire.

  Now, the winner of the Marcus vs. Bette Ghost Slalom was not the first one to cross the finish line (the antique shop on Melchoir and Vine), but the last. Because it took nerve to roll down the cobblestone on Hallowe’en at midnight, slaloming and switchbacking in slow motion and tempting all those Hallowe’en-hungry specters—so the one who could endure the fright the longest was the victor. There were rules, of course: no sneakers left pedals—if you put a foot down, you were out; no speeding ahead through the ghost zone only to bunny-hop outside the Antique Store a foot away from the finish, waiting for the other person to fall off their bike or put a foot down—this was known as hopping, and there was to be no dirty hopping (Marcus was better at hopping, but he’d been a good sport); no dirty play which could entail anything from sabotaging equipment to bumping wheels or greasing your opponent’s pedals; and, of course, you must abide by the wager of the game, and the loser takes his punishment like a man. Or a woman. Before she left the Cove, they’d been tied 2-2.

  This bright, sunny morning she was racing up Haunted Hill, and the winner would be the first to the top, not the last. The rule of today’s race was simple: no running. Because while this was a race—and you better believe it was—it wasn’t supposed to be a race. It was her and chunky glasses Margaret, tête-à-tête, speed-walking up Haunted Hill, both of them with arms pumping and hips swaying wildly, hipbones making protracted rotations as they both powered up the hill, huffing and puffing, the rest of Pris’s walking group spread out in their wake in a staggered line behind them.