The Clam Bake Murder: A Windward Bay Mystery

  The Clam Bake Murder

  A Windward Bay Mystery

  Samantha Doyle

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Recipe for Devonshire Cut Rounds

  Chapter One

  The hour of the clam bake was fast approaching and my nerves, like the halibut and redfish in the kitchen next door, were fried. I’d worked myself into a lather this past week, trying every flavor I could think of, every possible combination and permutation of ingredients known to man in my quest to create the perfect dessert for the clam bake. If people liked it, if it caught on in Windward Bay, the Regional Manager might find out and, if I was really, really lucky, option it for state-wide Ainscough Bakery distribution, as part of their esteemed franchise menu.

  “They’re called Cut Rounds,” I explained to Gabe Solinski, my boss and the manager of the Windward bakery, whose unimpressed gaze was already flitting away to the chocolate éclairs. “It’s an old recipe from Devonshire, England,” I added. That intrigued him to a closer inspection, as I knew it would. Gabe had a deep respect for all things traditional, and he liked to say the best way to create a new taste was to resurrect an old one today’s generation hadn’t had chance to experience.

  Unfortunately, he was a recovering chocoholic, and the pull of the éclairs was strong. He kept glancing askance at them, licking his lips. “While I admire your creativity, Sylvia, don’t you think Cut Rounds bear an uncanny resemblance to bread rolls?”

  My heart sank, but I’d come too far to give up without a fight. “There’s traditional buttermilk in them, and a little castor sugar. They’re a bit like scones, but way tastier, man. You eat them with jam and clotted cream. The people in Devon practically live on them.” Okay, so that last part was a stretch, but damn it, I was desperate. Two other employees from this branch had received promotions to Ainscough’s Hub Bakery in Portland, by doing exactly what I was attempting, though they’d done it through doughnuts. Literally. The chocolate-coated ring variety. On their first attempts. And they’d both been a lot younger then me, fresh out of college. I was beginning to think I’d never get out of here, that the only way to escape the Windward bakery would be to dress up as an éclair and get eaten by Gabe Solinski.

  “Let me try one,” he said.

  “Sure thing.” While applying the strawberry jam and clotted cream, I maneuvered myself so that I obscured his view of the infernal éclairs. No way were they queering my pitch today. “There you go, Gabe. Enjoy!” I didn’t mean it to sound like a threat—that’s just how it came out as I held the plate under his nose.

  He took a sniff, and his eyes met ecstatically in the middle. And even before he took a bite, I knew—I had him.

  One empty plate and a cream moustache later, and the gig was mine. Just for the clam bake, mind, to see if customers reacted the same way Gabe had. “You baked up a storm there, Sylvia,” he said, glancing at my fresh batch all laid out, ready to be wrapped. “Confident, were we?”

  “Only in your good taste, man.” A little flattery never hurt Gabe, who, as a father of six precocious daughters, had imposed his will on the running of the bakery almost as an act of survival. At home, he had practically no say in anything, and was henpecked morning and night. This shop was pretty much his only lifeline to a semblance of order and sanity. Buttering him up now and then kept him in good spirits.

  “Desi can pick them up when he arrives,” he said. “It’s his turn in the van today.”

  “What about Peter?”

  “Day off. They swapped shifts.”

  “Oh.” Not that I had anything personal against Desi Pastorelli, who was a good, diligent worker, and had kindly covered for me in the past; but I had this sneak suspicion that the kid wasn’t quite what he seemed. Three of my recipes this past year had been given the green light by Gabe, only to crash and burn when the public had finally got to sample them. And each time, Desi had either delivered them to Bronwyn’s Cafe or served them himself out of our van at the beach. Some of the comments left by customers in Bronwyn’s had made for...interesting reading.

  Clams and corn dinner delish—would recommend to anyone. Egg custard tasted like floor of men’s toilets after closing—would recommend to bin.

  Exactly when that commenter had tasted the floor of a men’s toilets remains a mystery best not dwelled on, but he made his point. And his was one of the kinder ones.

  Demanded a refund on that revolting rhubarb and custard. Waitress pointed out that I hadn’t even touched it. No, I replied, and I’ve never touched elephant diarrhoea either, and my nostrils were right about that, too.

  Bronwyn’s egg custard—the only thing I’ve ever eaten that smelled better AFTER I’d barfed it up. Congrats!

  Die Bronwyn ur rubarb sux I hope u drown in ur own custard & it turns to cement so I can dance all over ur grave u evil Nazi turd-cook

  Good service. Lobster a triumph. Plum-duff the ickiest icking icker I’ve ever tasted. Ick!

  Egg custard last time. Plum-duff this time. Next time...? You’ve got to be duffing kidding!

  And so it seemed to go for my attempts at a culinary breakthrough. But this time, I was convinced they’d like it. So sure, in fact, that I was going to buy several of my own Cut Rounds and hand them out personally to people whose opinions I knew mattered in Windward. Chief of Police Warren Mattson was one, his deputy, Jerry-Lee Kramer was another, and if any of the Town Selectmen were there, they’d have to be strategically plied with jam and cream as well. Nothing could be left to chance.

  Anyone else? Oh, heck yes, I’d forgotten all about Cousin Alice being back in town for the clam bake, with her husband, Gordo McNair. I was supposed to meet them in, what, just over forty minutes. Alice and I had been very close as kids in Windward, but she’d grown up far more attractive and wilful than me. Around the time she’d had that affair with her sailing instructor—she was sixteen, he was twenty-seven—we’d just stopped hanging out altogether, had gone our separate ways. But there was never any animosity between us. We’d chat during family get-togethers, and she’d given me permission to take her dad’s rowboat out in the bay whenever I wanted, seeing as she didn’t really do the whole ‘getting wet thing’ anymore.

  At nineteen, she’d married Gordo, a young rancher and ambitious realtor from Kentucky who’d come to Windward hoping to scrounge up enough land to build high-priced condos—a very unpopular move at the time, and I wasn’t sure the villagers would ever forgive him for attempting it. The Town Select Committee had nixed the deal unanimously. Ever since then, poor Alice had become persona non grata in Windward, purely because of who she was married to. I don’t think she gave a hoot, to be honest, and was probably glad to be ranchward from Windward.

  In any event, I was looking forward to seeing her.

  When I got home from the bakery, Manuka, my tortoiseshell cat, was prancing around on the front lawn, pawing at a sugar-stealer the breeze kept whisking just out of his reach. When he saw me, the little devil ran up to me, rubbed against my leg, then arched his back and stuck his tail in the air, ready to be stroked. I indulged him. Not quite satisfied, he looked up with that sad, innocent face of his and began to cry expectantly.

  “What is it, boy? What can I—” As soon as I crouched to fuss him properly, he let his mask slip and revealed the real reason he wanted me so close—the clotted cream in my bag. The beggar scratched at the plastic, poked his nose in, pretty much climbed in until I said enough was enough and that he’d have to wait his turn like the rest of
us.

  How dare you, peon, his appalled look seemed to say. I give you the pleasure of my company and you can’t even give me what’s owed.

  But his haughtiness didn’t stop him from stalking me inside and shadowing my every move until he finally got his tribute—a few generous lumps of Devonshire style clotted cream he polished off in record time.

  “Let’s hope you’re right,” I told him. “Let’s hope it goes down like that at the clam bake.”

  Purring like an engine, Manuka licked the empty bowl, then his lips, and then he washed himself all over. Now that His Highness was satisfied, it was time for my shower. I also had to decide what to wear, because the clam bake usually brought every eligible bachelor out to the beach, and every bachelorette; with all that competition, I had to at least make an effort. My athletic, slightly gawky, flat-as-a-board figure looked best in either a wetsuit or yoga pants and a hoodie—in my not altogether fashion-savvy opinion, that was—but even I realised I would have to dress up a little, be a tad more adventurous today.

  A floral summer dress and an elegant blue-and-pink wrap seemed about right. I didn’t have time to straighten my hair the way I’d have liked, so a covered it with a headscarf instead, a nice summery one. Junior Police Deputy Billy Langdale had complimented it once, during a hiking trip we’d be on, and ever since then it had become my default choice for what to wear when I couldn’t decide. When in doubt, go with what’s worked before. That it was pretty much the only fashion compliment I’d ever received didn’t faze me—I cherished that scarf.

  As usual, the beachside parking was chock-a-block, so I pulled my old jeep up into the side street behind Dooley’s fishing tackle store. The clam bake had already started. First that overpowering seaweed smell, then the smoke rising from the bake site itself, told me exactly where to head for. Now, it was against the law to have an open fire on the beach, but Windward’s Town Selectmen and the bake organisers had compromised on a sheltered venue sufficiently far from the shoreline but still on the sand itself, behind a series of very high dunes. The site was called The Cache, after a local legend that claimed an 18th Century American privateer had buried a vast horde of its plunder there. Many a Goomba with his metal detector had tried and failed to hit pay dirt over the years, and The Cache had become better known as a make-out spot for teenagers in their cars. I ought to have known. The first boy I ever dated kissed me pretty much on the spot where, a decade later, the corn cobs were being buttered and handed out.

  That boy’s name was Billy Langdale. And he was here again, this time as the Junior Deputy charged with keeping the festivities just this side of raucous. Not an easy task in Windward, on Clam Bake Day.

  “Hey, Billy.”

  “Hey, Sylvia.” He glanced at my headscarf, gave me one of those sweet, guileless smiles I’d fallen for in a big way back in high school. “I think I saw your cousin earlier. Alice, right?”

  “Yes, she’s visiting for a few days, husband in tow. Should be fun.”

  “Old times, huh?”

  “Just like.”

  Yeah, and a part of me had always wondered what would have happened if our old times hadn’t ended so abruptly, if Billy hadn’t enrolled in the US Coast Guard Academy (USCGA) in Connecticut; if we’d stayed together, if he hadn’t gotten married out there and started a family, only to get divorced and move right back to the same place he’d started, having never achieved his dream of being a Coast Guard Rescue Swimmer. Funny, or maybe not so funny, how life turned out.

  “Well, have fun catching up,” he said. “If you get bored later, come find me, maybe bring along a couple of Cherry Cokes?”

  “And if I happen to slip a little Bacardi in there?” I teased.

  “Then you’ll have the right to remain silent, Miss Blalock.” He threw me a wink that made my stomach flutter. Before I could think of a clever retort, raised voices called his attention away to the mobile bar and grill. In his khaki shorts and white polo shirt, he looked almost exactly the way he did back in high school. The only difference was he’d put on a bit of weight, mostly in the shoulders, and his blond hair was a lot shorter. Oh, and he had this slightly grizzled—no, seasoned—look around the eyes; not quite crow’s feet, but sure chapters of a weary tale behind him.

  He was sooo getting a Cut Round to go with that Cherry Coke later. I secretly rubbed my hands together in anticipation.

  “Well, well, look who can’t say no to the five-oh.”

  The voice I recognised instantly, but when I spun round, the woman standing before me did not appear to match it. Not even close.

  “Alice?”

  “Sylvia, looking good.”

  “You look...”

  “A million bucks? Almost human? Animal, vegetable or mineral?”

  “You look amazing!” I couldn’t stop staring. Computer programs had all sorts of sophisticated facial recognition software, allowing you to instantly find one photo out of a million with the face you were looking for. But I could have sworn, right then, that the face I was looking at would not have jived with Cousin Alice’s face from a decade ago, not with any software. It was spooky, how much she’d changed. It was also difficult to discern exactly how she’d changed, a specific feature or characteristic you could point to and say, I see you’ve had some work done there. The transformation was more subtle than that, and more puzzling, almost as if she’d changed from the inside out, in ways only known to the humors within her.

  “Thanks, doll. It’s good to be back. Way too many Cache memories swirling around, but it’s all good. Anything new with you?”

  I told her about the Cut Rounds and my previous thwarted attempts to dazzle the higher-ups in Ainscough’s. She had to decline a sample, though, because her New Year’s resolution had been to cut all sugar out of her diet.

  “Gordo kind of insisted,” she said with an attempt at wistfulness so fake it made me cringe for her. “And I was getting a bit hefty. He said his clients were starting to notice.”

  And there it was—the puzzle of her changed appearance solved, at least in part. Alice had lost a frightening amount of weight, but you couldn’t really tell how much just by looking at her figure, which had always been petite. No, it had sharpened her facial features instead, so much so that her beauty took my breath away. And not only mine. The number of gazes she attracted in the first five minutes of our chat would have been enough to sell tickets.

  “Well, I’d say his clients won’t be able to help but notice you now,” I replied.

  That seemed to cheer her up a little, but only for a moment. “Their wives are always so...glamorous. Gordo’s been patient with me, though. You should see the stuff he buys me—top of the range, always the best. He’s there at every fitting, chooses most of it himself. I feel like his own personal runway model sometimes. And when he’s pleased, he sure knows how to show it.”

  Yes, and when he’s displeased, I bet he knows how to show that, too.

  “He’s been good to me, Syl. He really has. I just hope his deal goes through this time. He’s got everything riding on it.”

  “Oh? What deal is that?”

  She scrunched her face into a dotty frown. “Did I say something I shouldn’t have? I get confused sometimes.” Her hands started to shake, so I held them like I had when we’d been kids, when we’d been best friends and could tell each other anything. “Mmm, something smells good,” she said, pulling away. “Maybe the clams are ready. Should we go see?”

  “Yes, let’s.”

  “And you really like my new look?”

  “Absolutely. Just make sure you don’t run into any of your old boyfriends, or you’ll be spending the next week fighting them off.”

  She stretched the end of her wrap so that it covered both of us while we walked. “Sylvia, you’ll always be the sweetest person I know. I mean it. Don’t let anyone change you. Stay just the way you are. Promise me you’ll stay sweet, and I’ll promise to try one of your cakes.”

  “I’ll change my name
to Mary Poppins if I can shift a few of those babies,” I said pathetically.

  “I hope everything works out for you,” she said. “Cousin Sylvia. You deserve it.”

  “Thanks. And for you, Cuz. Now, about those clams.” I tried my best to steer the conversation away from Maudlinsville—it was frankly freaking me out, Alice being this sentimental—but whatever shadow had come over her was not going to be shrugged off by light banter alone. I was certain Gordo was at the back of it. That controlling POS had done a number on my cousin, had all but squeezed the light out of her, but I wasn’t about to give up just yet.

  “Please don’t tell Gordo I mentioned his deal,” she pleaded. “He might not like it.”

  I zipped my mouth shut, locked it and dropped the key down the front of my dress. She laughed at that, and we headed for the smoldering bake. On the way, I bought us an appletini each. We both downed it in one go, so she bought us another round. After devouring the clams and corn, and a Cut Round apiece—which she declared a triumph of evil genius—we went back for more appletinis, and more...and more.

  By the time The Cache reached full capacity, with pretty much the entire town joining in, Alice and I had appled more ’tinis (or ’tini’d more apples) than we could handle. And bit by bit, the old Cousin Alice began to emerge, in ways the Cache knew well. First she kicked off her sandals, then tossed her wrap. Next, her inhibitions...

  Trouble soon followed.

  His name was Ray Moreno. Three years older than Alice, he’d been one of her first and proudest conquests back when she’d graduated from stringing along high school jocks to seducing men who “worked with their hands”—that was how she put it; something in that combination of strength, knowhow, and manly grime turned her on big time. And Ray, who mended boats in his grandpa’s workshop over at the Duke’s Ferry slipway, had supplied all three, plus uncommonly hunky good looks, with no questions asked. He and Alice had been the talk of Windward for a while, but had almost never been seen together away from the Cache. I’d never found out why they split, but Ray had by all accounts gone completely off the rails because of it. He’d driven to Bangor one night, and by the time he got back, a couple of months or so later, he’d gotten two separate girls pregnant, racked up a casino debt that would give Danny Ocean an ulcer, and dyed his hair peroxide blond. Not bad for one break-up.