I cleared my throat. “Gram, what do you know about the Swift family?”
“What do you want to know?” she asked. I pictured her leaning forward, propping her elbows on her knees. “You’re thinking about Caleb Swift, I’m guessing.”
Elvis had started to purr. “Charlotte gave me the bare bones. And I seem to remember you mentioning it when Caleb went missing.”
“He seemed to just vanish off the face of the earth,” Gram said. “They found his sailboat drifting just past the mouth of the harbor the next day.”
“Liz said that Daniel Swift believed Lily knew more than she was telling.”
She sighed softly. “The Swifts founded this town. They’re old money, and sometimes with old money there’s a certain sense of entitlement. Or maybe ‘arrogance’ would be a better word.”
“Elspeth called Caleb a jerk,” I said. I started scratching behind Elvis’s other ear. There wasn’t even a momentary break in the purring soundtrack.
“I can’t really say about Caleb,” she said. “But his grandfather, Daniel, he’s an arrogant, entitled man.”
I’d seen Daniel Swift over the years. He was a tall, imposing man with a lined face from years of being out on the water and a deep voice. I knew his son and daughter-in-law had been killed in a plane crash years ago. Caleb was his only grandchild.
“Daniel couldn’t accept the fact that the police weren’t able to figure out what had happened to Caleb. He hired his own investigators, but they didn’t turn up anything either. He refused to even entertain the idea that Caleb had staged the whole thing and just walked away from his life, which was the speculation around town. Daniel was certain there was some kind of foul play.”
“Do you think he was right?”
She hesitated. “I don’t know,” she finally said. “I don’t buy the idea that Caleb got bored with the money and the influence being a Swift gave him. I think it’s possible he was drinking and fell off the boat, but Daniel wouldn’t even think about that possibility. He’d always had blinders when it came to that boy. Understandable, I guess. Caleb was all he had left.
“Lily was one of the last people to see Caleb, and Daniel became obsessed with the idea that she knew something she wasn’t telling. He kept pushing the police to search her bakery. Finally, one day Lily just got fed up. She stopped Daniel on the street, probably much the way I hear she did with Liz, and told him he could search the building anytime he wanted to because she had nothing to hide.”
I remembered the anger in Lily’s voice when she’d accosted Liz. I wonder what it had been like when she’d confronted Daniel Swift.
“Did he?” I asked.
“He had the good sense not to,” Gram said. I could picture her ruefully shaking her head. “But that didn’t mean he let it go, either.”
I talked to Gram for a few more minutes and then we said good-bye. “Stay safe, my darling,” she said.
“I will,” I said. Just because the Angels were still in the private detective business didn’t mean I still was.
I took my floor-plan drawings to the shop with me in the morning. Mac had only a couple of tweaks. “Want me to start pricing materials?” he asked.
I nodded. “I’ll go down after lunch and do the paperwork for the building permit. Do you have any plans for Friday night?”
“Are you asking me out?” he said, the beginning of a smile playing across his face.
“No,” I said. “I’m asking you in. Do you want to start moving things out of the space upstairs?”
“You mean you don’t have a date?” he teased.
“Only with a furry guy whose idea of a good time is getting scratched under his chin while watching Jeopardy!.” Elvis was sitting in the middle of the love seat, working on a knot in the fur on his tail. He paused long enough to meow his acknowledgment that it was him I was talking about and went back to it.
Jess and I had agreed to meet at her shop after work and walk over to Thursday-night jam together. She was just finishing a display in the tiny front window when I walked in. I waved at Elin, one of her two partners, who was behind the cash register. Jess hugged me, and I began peeling off my outdoor things. “How was your day?” I asked.
“Very good,” she said. “I started a quilt with those vintage rocker tees from that last box I got from you guys. Come take a look.”
I followed her into her sewing space, which was a small room off the main store. The quilt she had started piecing was spread over her worktable. “Oh, that’s nice,” I said.
She grinned. “I think so. Will you tell Mac thanks for me? He’s the one who found the shirts.”
I nodded. “I have some news that involves Mac.”
“What is it?” she asked, leaning back against the table.
“He’s going to move in to the shop. We’re going to make an apartment on the second floor.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
“What prompted that?” Jess asked.
I explained about the building where Mac was living being sold and how Avery had suggested we turn the storage room into a small apartment.
“I think that’s a great idea, having Mr. Tall, Dark and Mysterious living above the shop,” Jess said, resting her hands on either side of the table. “You won’t have to worry about security, and the rent will help you get the building paid off faster.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “He is paying rent, right?”
I nodded. “Yes, Mac is paying rent. We’re being very professional about the whole thing.”
She gave me a saucy grin. “Would it be a bad thing to get a little unprofessional with Mac? Since you don’t want to start something with Nick.”
“You’re incorrigible,” I said.
She flipped her long hair over her shoulder. “Yeah, that’s part of my charm.”
I looked at my watch. “We should probably get going if we want to get a decent table.”
“Do you know if Nick is coming?” Jess asked as she pulled on her coat.
“He said he is,” I said. “Oh, and he said to tell you the nachos and salsa are on him.”
She clasped both hands under her chin and gave me a moony, love-struck look. “I love it when a guy buys me things to impress you. You think I could convince him that buying me a pair of diamond earrings is the way to your heart?”
“No,” I said, feeling in my pocket to make sure I had my phone. “And Nick isn’t buying nachos to impress me. He’s buying them because you bought them last time.”
Jess laced her fingers together and rested her hands on top of her head. “Yeah, you just keep telling yourself that.”
I was out of witty comebacks. I stuck my tongue out at her.
Nick showed up just before Sam came out for the jam, sliding onto a chair between us that Jess had been guarding for the previous half hour.
“Tortilla chips and salsa are on the way,” he said.
“Nicolas Elliot, I may love you,” Jess said with mock seriousness, one hand pressed to her chest with her usual melodramatic flair.
“Are you sure it’s not just my hot salsa you love?” he asked, drawing out the word “salsa” and making it sound a little risqué.
“It is spicy,” Jess crooned, winking at him.
I rolled my eyes at them. “Will you two knock it off?” I said.
The waiter came to the table then and set the food between Nick and Jess.
Jess propped one elbow on the table and rested her chin on her hand. “Ignore her,” she said to Nick. “She’s just jealous because there’s a little heat between us.”
I covered my face with both hands and shook my head while the two of them laughed. I was saved from any more of their wit by Sam slipping onto a stool onstage and starting on the intro to Clapton’s “Wonderful Tonight.”