Claire might believe Michael had only done it to have a vehicle for his article about Celine, but Vicky didn’t believe that. Michael loved what he did and the idea of this old paper just dying had been unacceptable to him.
The door under the lintel engraved with 1908 stood open invitingly. Inside a phone rang, and keyboards rattled. Michael stood in the back, leaned over the desk of a young man, a college student apparently, to explain something to him that they were looking at on-screen. As he heard her footfalls, he looked up and smiled. “Vicky! Just the person I need to talk to. Come on in.” He gestured in the direction of his private office, grabbing his coffee mug.
She followed him and watched as he shut the door. He looked serious, almost worried.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
Michael clanked the mug on his desk. “I’ve phoned Cash Rowland twice today to make sure he is looking into the possibility of arson. He is stonewalling me with blablabla about an ongoing police investigation and not being able to share information with the press. In the meantime I’m worried important traces will be lost or even deliberately erased.”
Vicky frowned. “I was at the scene this morning. The area is sealed off with tape and there is a team looking through the rubble. It looked pretty serious and professional. They were actually gathering items that they felt were out of place. Perkins is upset about it, but that hasn’t slowed them down. Why would you think Cash is erasing traces?”
Michael looked her over as if considering how much he could share with her. “Remember Cash said he was late to the action because he had helped out at a bad bar fight in another town?”
Vicky nodded. A cold feeling ran up her back as she remembered her own skepticism about bar fights early in the evening. Cash’s excuse just hadn’t seemed to add up.
Michael said, “Well, I rang around. There were no bar fights anywhere last night. And no police station called for assistance from Glen Cove. Our good sheriff lied about it. And I wonder why.”
Vicky stood motionless. If the police, the people you’d turn to for help, could not to be trusted, what could you do?
She tried to laugh it off. “Marge suggested Cash didn’t want to admit he had been playing cards with his deputy. Maybe it was something innocent like that?”
“No, absolutely not. I called the sheriff’s office and asked the dispatcher if she could confirm the sheriff and his deputy were there, at the station, when the fire was reported. They were not. They were out and they arrived much later on the scene than should be warranted from their approximate location at the moment they were informed about the fire. I bet they were someplace else. I wonder why they kept that fact from their own dispatcher.”
Vicky frowned. She had to admit it was odd, and worrying, but she didn’t want to jump to conclusions about Cash right away. “The best way to find out would be to ask Cash about it.”
“Cash wouldn’t give me the time of day.” Michael turned his back on her, taking a few deep breaths. The tightness in his stance made her heart clench.
Michael said, softer, “Why are you here anyway?”
“I’m having some trouble with Mortimer Gill.”
“I told you not to hire him.”
Vicky sighed. “Well, yes, I let Everett talk me into it. And Marge also said Mortimer was a good guy. She called him pretty solid.”
Michael made a disbelieving sound.
Vicky hurried on, “He did a good job at first, working fast and neat. I don’t know what suddenly came over him. He just walked out on me while he was only halfway done with the fireplace. He had some lame excuse about needing some part from the hardware store, but he never went there. He made a call and then he vanished. Mrs. Jones thinks he went to his house to feed his birds. Said he’s pretty obsessed with them. I just want to go see him at his home and ask him if he intends to come back tomorrow and finish the job. To be perfectly honest, I could use some support to convince him that he has to do it. He’s rather pigheaded, it seems.”
She hoped Michael would want to help her. He had warned her about Mortimer and she had not listened, so maybe he would just refuse?
“Sure I can drive you out to his place,” Michael offered at once, “on the condition you’ll come to dinner with me afterwards. You’re working way too hard for that store, and I could also use some downtime.”
Vicky exhaled with relief that he didn’t blame her for getting herself into this trouble with Mortimer. And dinner sounded wonderful. Just what she needed to get her mind off the store’s many challenges.
Michael checked his watch. “I have a kid here whom I’m showing the ropes. He is in charge of the front page tomorrow, so I’d better make sure it looks half decent. But that should be done in about an hour. What do you say I pick you up at…six-thirty?”
“Fine.” Vicky smiled. “But make that seven. I’m still waiting for a furniture delivery.”
Michael arrived at seven on the dot, tapping on the glass pane in her door. Vicky was just through admiring her newly delivered shiny cherrywood sideboards and cozy leather armchairs. She ran for the door.
Michael had slipped into a black leather jacket over his white shirt. He had taken off his tie, and three buttons of the shirt were undone at the top. He looked younger and ready for a nice evening out.
Vicky gestured at her new purchases. “How do you like it? I’m really happy with the warm color of the sideboards. And the chairs are just the right size—don’t take up too much space. I intend to bring a few items from my own cottage over here tomorrow to create atmosphere. Over time I collected quite a few typically British items. They won’t be for sale of course, just to dress up the place.”
“You’re really excited about this, aren’t you?” Michael’s eyes were soft. “I wondered when you first told me if it would work. If the reporter inside you would really like this sudden change.”
Vicky looked down to avoid his probing gaze. She enjoyed working on the store, but it was true she kept thinking about stories like she had for so many years. She forced herself to say lightly, “The reporter inside me has had her chance to shine for ten years. It’s time for something new.”
Michael smiled. “Looks like you’re off to a great start. Now all we have to do is get this unpleasant business with Mortimer out of the way and then we can enjoy a nice quiet dinner. You have to tell me all about your London years.”
“And you will tell me something about what you’ve been up to?” she queried.
He held her gaze. “I thought you knew all about that.”
Her cheeks grew hot as if he had been able to see inside her shoe box with clippings. “I just heard something about prizes you won here and there. It’s not like I had a window on your life or something.”
She brushed a bit of imaginary dust off the gleaming sideboard. “Shall we go now?”
Mortimer Gill’s house, five miles away from town, was surrounded by an unruly patch with tall weeds and several wooden sheds with attached chain-link fenced cages that housed his precious birds. It all looked rather shabby. Mortimer’s old van, rusty and dented in the back, was in the driveway, suggesting he was indeed home.
The ocean wind tore through the group of trees at the back, and the rub of the branches against each other sent shivers over Vicky’s spine. Something about the desertedness of this place gave her the creeps.
She inched closer to Michael and put her hand on his arm. “It’s dinnertime so he’s probably in his kitchen. What do we do? Knock at the front door or go round back and surprise him?”
“Offense is always the best defense, I say. So go for it.”
Michael