Ivy clapped me on the shoulder. “Now, don’t go all whiny on me. You’re smart and you’ll figure things out.”
“Oh, honey,” the young woman said. “You should have asked first.”
I whipped around. Her little honey had stuffed his mouth full of Kristen’s maple-flavored candies. Candies that had come out of the jar for the guessing contest.
My knee-jerk reaction, which was to shriek at the top of my lungs, warred with my training to take everything in stride. There was a short battle, but my training slid into the lead.
I took the jar out of the child’s hands. “Sorry,” I said politely but firmly, “this candy is for a contest.” I handed out the slips of paper. “Here’s a form for guessing the number of candies. If your guess is closest to the correct total, you win the candy and the bookmobile will come to your house.”
“But Charlie ate some of the candies,” one of his siblings said. “You don’t know the number anymore.”
“Yeah,” said the remaining sibling. “And maybe other people have taken candies, too. How are you going to pick a winner if you don’t have the right number?”
My smile grew more fixed. “We know the number of candies we started with. We’ll count them again and use the average for the winning number.” And after the recount, I’d tape the lid down with half a roll of duct tape.
The kids protested that it wasn’t fair. I nodded, agreeing that it probably wasn’t, introduced them to Eddie, and they immediately went into cat rapture.
I watched, shaking my head. Eddie had saved the day. Wonders truly never did cease.
• • •
“I can’t believe you talked me into this, Minnie-Ha-Ha.”
I looked over at Chris Ballou. We were about to walk through the front door of Crown Yachts, and Chris was still whining. “What I can’t believe,” I said, “is that you’re complaining about talking to some guys about boats.”
At lunchtime, I’d been thinking about what I knew and didn’t know about Greg Plassey and Trock Farrand and Hugo Edel. In pursuit of more information, I’d called Crown to ask Hugo if Carissa had said anything about a professional athlete. And if, during our conversation, he let something slip about the depth of his involvement with Carissa, well, that would be just a little bonus, wouldn’t it?
When I’d been told he was out for the day, I’d had the brilliant idea of getting Chris to come with me to Crown after work. It was my experience that every employee is more forthcoming when the boss isn’t around. Chris could legitimately talk to a salesguy about a boat for Greg, and while he was talking I could show the picture of Carissa around and see what I could see.
At the end of the bookmobile day, I’d dropped Eddie off at home and gone to the marina office to coerce Chris into helping. It had taken the promise of a six-pack of The Magician from Short’s Brewing Company in nearby Bellaire, but he’d eventually agreed.
“It’s not that,” Chris said now. “It’s that you didn’t give me time to get ready.”
“For what?”
“Asking about Crown boats. I got a reputation to keep up. Don’t want these guys thinking I don’t know what I’m talking about.”
I raised my eyebrows and opened the door for him. “A smart guy like you?” I asked. “I’m sure you’ll manage.”
“Yeah, well.” He grinned. “Whatever you got cooking, I can play along. You ever going to tell me what this is all about?”
I smiled but didn’t say a word. If you told Chris anything, it was best to assume the entire town of Chilson, half the county, and a hefty percentage of the region would have the same information within a day. Or faster.
“Good evening.” A middle-aged man came toward us, his hand outstretched. He wore a navy blue jacket, a white polo shirt, khaki pants and… I looked down… yes, deck shoes without socks. “How can I help you?” he asked.
In seconds, he and Chris were deep in a conversation about boats suitable for a former Major League Baseball pitching star, complete with pantomime of a curve ball delivery. At least that’s what Chris said to the guy, claiming he was taught the windup by Greg Plassey himself.
I glanced around the end of a monstrously sized boat and spotted a wall clock. Twenty to six. Thanks to my speedy parking of the bookmobile and a complete neglect of the usual vacuuming of Eddie hair, I had twenty minutes before the place shut down for the night. I eased away from Chris and the salesguy—neither one of them so much as flicked a look in my direction—and went off in search of a talkative employee.
“Hey there.” Another middle-aged guy approached, dressed in a navy blue jacket, red polo shirt, off-white pants, and penny loafers. Not quite twin clothing to the other guy, but close. “Is Rob helping you and your husband?” he asked.
I tried not to make a horrified face. The notion of being married to Chris Ballou made my head want to turn inside out. Nice enough guy, but not husband material. At least not for me. I pulled the obituary picture of Carissa out of my purse and held it out. “Do you remember seeing her in here?”
The guy looked at me. “What are you, some kind of cop?”
I babbled on about Carissa’s death, about being a friend of a friend, and about trying to help her family. When I saw him nodding agreement, I nodded back. “So, you can see what I’m doing here. Just trying to help, right?” I held the picture a little closer. “Have you seen her in here?”
He looked, frowned, then nodded. “Too bad about her being killed and all. I heard a girl died, but I didn’t know it was her.”
“So you knew Carissa?”
“Not by name,” he said, “but she’s a hard one to forget. One of those sparkly people. Shame that she was murdered.”
I slid the picture back into my purse with care. “Yes,” I said. “It’s a great shame.” I waited a moment, then asked, “Was she in here to buy a boat?”
“Now, that I don’t know.” He tipped his head in the direction of Hugo’s office. “She came in and talked to the boss. Not sure what that was all about,” he said, half grinning, “but Annelise didn’t like it at all.”
Annelise. Mrs. Edel. The co-owner of Crown Yachts. The woman who’d felt the need to primp before coming into her husband’s workplace. So Annelise didn’t like another woman talking to her husband. Yet the husband had said it was strictly business.
Hmm.
“So,” I said, “Annelise didn’t like Carissa?”
He was still grinning. “Annelise doesn’t like any female younger than eighty getting close to Hugo. The jealousy thing happens to women, sometimes,” he said seriously. “That change-of-life stuff.”
“Really?”
My sarcasm was clear, but the guy didn’t seem to notice. “Yeah. I can tell you stories.” He laughed, then said, “Of course, that boyfriend of hers didn’t like it, either.”
I frowned. “Annelise has a boyfriend?”
“Nah, that Carissa. He came in here all mad about Hugo taking his girl out to dinner, but he came in on a Saturday, and Hugo’s never here on the weekends.”
“What did the boyfriend look like?”
“Ah, I don’t know. Kind of scrawny, but not real scrawny. Had hair the color of a living room wall, if you know what I mean.”
A soft electronic ping went off. The guy looked toward the front door. “Excuse me,” he said, looking at an elderly couple who’d just walked in.
Timing is everything, and this was perfect. I said thank you and good-bye, yanked Chris out of a discussion of trout fishing, and headed home.
• • •
“Hey!” I called through the houseboat’s screen door. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Eddie looked at me. He was sitting exactly in the middle of yesterday’s local paper, which meant he was also sitting in the middle of the dining table, a place where he wasn’t allowed to set foot. At least when I was in the room. What he did when I wasn’t within scolding distance was something over which I had absolutely no control.