A Twist In The Tail

Oh no. The Oyster Cove rumor mill was in full force and I was the subject. I shouldn’t have been surprised, I knew from past experience that all the good gossip was gleaned down at the post office. All the more reason to help Sheriff Chamberlain along with his investigation. I strode into the post office with dogged determination.

Inside, Jen was standing at the counter, a two-foot-high pile of envelopes on her left, a large round stamper on her right and an angry look on her face.

Stamp. Stamp. Stamp.

She plucked envelopes from the top of the stack and hammered the stamper down on them, then piled them on her right.

‘What are you doing?’ I asked.

She blew a bang out of her eyes. ‘Stupid postmarking machine broke. I have to do these by hand.’

‘Can I help?’

She paused the stamping and smiled at me. ‘No. Thanks for the offer, but I only have one stamper. I could use the company though, this is boring.’

Stamp. Stamp.

‘I have some news that will liven things up.’

She looked up at me, barely stopping the stamping rhythm. ‘Oh? Did you figure out who the killer is?’

‘Sort of. Remember how I told you about the footprint and the bad review that Charles wrote on the Marinara Mariner?’

‘Yep.’ Stamp. Stamp.

‘Well, I was partially right.’

The stamping stopped and she looked up at me. ‘Tony really was the killer?’

‘No. But it was his footprint.’

The stamping resumed. ‘But he wasn’t the killer? What was he doing there?’

I told her about Tony’s visit and his and Tina’s confession. ‘I have new suspects now though. I think it might be the old couple staying at the guesthouse,’ I said.

‘The birdwatchers? Why?’

‘According to Flora, they had feathers and straw all over the room. You know. like from birds’ nests,’ I said.

Stamp.

‘Flora doesn’t see too well and she’s been known to exaggerate.’ Jen punctuated her words with more stamping.

‘Well, they were seen up at the gulls’ nests.’

‘Why is that unusual? They are birdwatchers, right?’

Stamp. Stamp.

Hmm… she had a point. Maybe I was seeing malice where there was none. But they were my only suspects. ‘Mike said they didn’t know the details about one of the cameras they used. That seems odd to me if they are such avid bird watchers.’

Jen stopped stamping and looked up at me with a sly smile. ‘So you are hanging around with Mike.’

‘No!’ Judging by the knowing look Jen gave me, the protest might have been too forceful. I tempered my voice and said matter of factly, ‘He only saw the camera because he’s working there and hopefully not for long.’

‘Uh-huh. Come on, I know you were crushing on him in high school. Admit it. You like having him around.’

‘That was more than twenty years ago. I’ve been married since. Who lingers on their high school crush anyway?’

She looked at me skeptically then went back to stamping. ‘Just because you were married to a jerk, shouldn’t sour you on men. Look at all the jerks I dated before I found the right guy.’

Jen wasn’t joking, she had dated a lot of jerks, but now she was with her soulmate. I was a little envious of their wedded bliss, but also doubtful that would happen for me. I was no spring chicken. ‘I don’t think I’m ready for dating.’

‘Ohhh so there’s a chance you might be someday. Good, I’ll keep that in mind.’

‘Great. So back to the case...’

‘Right’ She made a face as if trying to remember the specifics. ‘What about the sabotage? Could Ron have done that?’

I’d wondered that myself, but it wasn’t like it took a lot of strength or skill to do that sawing. One would have to know just where to make the cuts, but it wasn’t rocket science. ‘Maybe Ron was a carpenter before. I mean he certainly could have sabotaged the room and he made a remark about small-town police not following up thoroughly, so I wonder if he was banking on the fact that Seth Chamberlain might not even notice the sabotage and rule it an accident.’

Jen stopped stamping and thought about it. ‘I guess that is a lot of counts against them. I just can’t believe those nice people could be killers. The Wessons were so nice.’

‘Wessons? You mean Weatherbys.’

She scrunched her face up. ‘No. Wesson. They came in to pick up a package the other day and I’m certain that was the name on it.’

‘No. They signed in as Weatherby. It was on his license.’

Jen’s brows shot up. ‘What if they have a fake identity? If they are the killers, they might be pretending to be someone else.’

‘Why? I doubt they came here knowing they would kill someone.’ Then again, if they came knowing they were going to poison the gulls, maybe they did use a fake identity.

‘Serial seagull killers? Who knows. With fake names they can kill off whole colonies of gulls and then disappear and no one can trace it back to them.’

That made sense to me. ‘You could be on to something. There is definitely something suspicious about the old couple.’

‘There’s only one way to find out what it is.’

‘What’s that?’