Clammed Up by Barbara Ross Read Free Book Online Page B

minute drive south along Maine’s jagged coast.
    “Both Ray and I are. Were,” Tony replied. “We grew up together.”
    How could I not have known? I could’ve sworn when Tony introduced me to his parents on board the Jacquie II , he said they’d just flown up from Florida. Then again, that wasn’t an unusual migration for an older Maine couple.
    “That’s why we chose your place for the wedding,” Michaela said.
    “I thought it was because you knew me in New York.”
    Michaela shook her head. “No, no, no. Tony picked your place.”
    Tony signaled for the waitress and signed the bill for our coffee. “We’ve got to get going and pack the cars,” he said to Michaela.
    “Cars?” I said. “You didn’t ride up together?”
    “Michaela came up early to meet her family,” Tony answered. “I was supposed to drive up with Ray, but when he came to pick me up, he had a big camp trunk taking up the whole backseat of his Porsche. There was no way his little car was going to fit me, Ray, his luggage, and all my luggage for the wedding and the honeymoon. So I drove myself up.” Tony shook his head and smiled. “Freakin’ Ray.”
    Big camp trunk? Wasn’t that a little odd? “What did he say was in the trunk?”
    “He didn’t. Some stupid thing would be my guess.” Tony smiled again indulgently. “Some prop for the best man speech or some other prank.”
    “Did you tell the police about the trunk?”
    “They didn’t ask. But they took all the stuff from his hotel room into evidence and towed his car from the lot at the Lighthouse Inn, so I guess they’ve found the trunk by now.”

Chapter 11
    On my way back across the footbridge, I stopped halfway, took off my sweatshirt, and tied it around my waist. The day was still cool, but the sun was beginning to work its magic. A perfect day for a clambake. It was supposed to be our first day open to the general public for the season. I didn’t want to think about it.
    I put my elbows on the rough wooden handrail and stared across the harbor, past its little islands to its mouth. Ray was from Bath, Maine. That increased the odds tremendously that he had the skills to get himself out to Morrow Island in the dark. It also meant he knew people who lived not too far away from Busman’s Harbor. For the first time, I began to believe Ray’s murder was the result of some trouble that had followed him to Morrow Island.
    Even if some out-of-towner, whether from New York or Bath, had killed Ray, I still couldn’t imagine why the murder was committed on our island. And why had Ray’s body been left hanging in Windsholme?
    I looked out at the harbor. Over the last few months, it had come alive. When I arrived in March, there’d been no boats in the frozen water. By the end of April, most of the working lobster and fishing boats were out or at least being readied for the season. In May, the tour boats came—day boats and whale watchers, the ferries to Chipmunk Island, and our own Jacquie II . Now the pleasure boats were beginning to arrive—cabin cruisers, beautiful sailboats, catamarans, and the yachts. Some came from Florida or the Caribbean, others from just down the coast. It felt great to see the harbor bustling, and I stood for a moment and enjoyed it all—the sun, the salt air, the clang-clang of the warning buoys out on the water.
    On a map, Busman’s Harbor looked like the silhouette of the head and claws of a lobster dangling from the Maine coast into the sea. The residential part of town was built on the lobster’s head, my parents’ house sitting at its highest point. Off the lobster’s right shoulder was the inner harbor, lined with hotels and restaurants. On the other side, off the lobster’s left shoulder, was the back harbor where the working boats were anchored. The boatyard was there, with Gus’s restaurant nestled just beyond it. The points of land that made up the lobster’s claws surrounded the big outer harbor as if holding it in an embrace,