Beyond a Doubt

  Bree brightened. “Hey, would you mind watching Davy for me then? I’d like to check the old papers upstairs, then maybe run across to Susan Hamel’s shop if I have time.”

  “Just make sure you’re back in an hour. I promised Mother I’d come by for coffee.”

  Bree nodded then went up the steps to the main library. The reference librarian helped her search for information about the Seawind.

  All she knew was that it had gone down in the same November storm that had carried the Edmund Fitzgerald to the bottom of Lake Superior as well. The pair scrolled through old microfiche until Bree found what she was looking for. Argie Hamel, the captain of the ship, had been the only crew member to survive the storm, but he died of his injuries a few days later. Not much new information there. What role did Peter play in Argie’s rescue? Was there any connection between Argie’s death and Peter’s?

  “Hey, I had no idea I’d find a pretty lady at the library.”

  Bree swiveled in her chair and stared into the face of Nick Fletcher, the new fireman. He wore a grin that brought an answering smile to her face. The admiration in his gaze warmed her.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  “What’s the matter, didn’t you know firemen like to read too?”

  Rob never had. He’d rather take a beating than read a book. “I thought you guys were too macho to read.” She looked him over and liked what she saw. Slim but muscular, he leaned against the bookshelf and stared down at her with a lazy smile.

  “I’m the studious kind.” He thumbed in the direction of the exit. “I feel a chocolate craving coming on. Want some homemade fudge from the Suomi?” he asked with a smile that brought a light to his eyes.

  He must have had a lot of experience with women. He seemed the type. She opened her mouth to turn him down as politely as she could when Davy came running up the steps with Samson on his heels. He skidded to a stop and his eyes widened when he saw Nick.

  “Daddy?” he quavered. He ran full tilt at Nick, and the fireman scooped him up a bit awkwardly.

  Daddy? Why had Davy said something like that? She studied Nick again. Though he had Rob’s coloring, Rob’s shoulders had been wider, and he had deep dimples. She didn’t see any obvious resemblance.

  Bree managed a smile. “This is Mr. Fletcher, Davy. It’s not Daddy. Daddy’s in heaven, remember? Where’s your Aunt Hilary?”

  Davy was paying no attention to her. He was staring up at the fireman with a fascinated expression. Samson broke the no-barking rule in a volley of excited yips.

  The librarian scowled. Bree hastily grabbed Nick’s arm. “Let’s go for now.” Trying to hide her anger and discomfiture, she hurried out the front door into the spring sunshine.

  She snapped her fingers at Samson and he trotted at her heels, glancing back at Davy and Nick with obvious longing. With Davy on his shoulder, Nick hurried down the street after her. Her son’s giggles were music to her ears and a torture as well. She sensed Nick had no thought for what grief his actions might cause. And even if he did, she thought it wouldn’t matter to him. He seemed to know what he wanted, and right now, she seemed to be it. She had to admit his pursuit gave her a heady feeling.

  She reached the Suomi Café and held open the door for Nick, still carrying her son. Davy couldn’t take his eyes off Nick as they browsed the confectionary display. Samson flopped at Davy’s feet and lay his head on the floor.

  Molly hurried to the counter. “Hey, Bree, got a sweet tooth today, eh?”

  “Always, Molly. I’ll have a cashew pasty.” All the Suomi chocolates were called some kind of pasty.

  “Give me the same,” Nick said. “I think this young man looks like he needs one of the peanut-butter pasties.”

  Davy was staring at Nick. “I ’member now. You’re not my daddy,” he told Nick.

  “Nope, but I’d like to be your friend. Is that okay?”

  “Can we go fishing?”

  Bree’s gut twisted. Rob and Davy had fished together. It was their special time. “Kade said he’d take you too,” she blurted out before she could help herself.

  “I want to go with Mr. Fletcher,” Davy said, his chin thrust out.

  “Hey, pardner, I don’t fish, but we could go to the zoo sometime. If your mom says she’ll come along too.” Nick glanced at her with a smile that reached his eyes.

  Bree had to smile back. He really was smooth. “We’ll see,” she said.

  “Mommy! Say yes,” Davy commanded.

  “Say yes, Mommy,” Nick mocked softly.

  The gleam in his eye told her he knew he had her over a barrel. “I’ll have to check our schedule,” she said firmly.

  Kade had been there for her when no one else was around. He’d rushed to her side and protected her for months, giving her space when she needed it but remaining steadfast. He was no flash in the pan, no good-time Charlie. But maybe Nick wasn’t either. She didn’t know him well enough to say. But watching him with her son, she realized Nick possessed something very important nonetheless: the ability to make Davy forget the dark days behind him. That was something she couldn’t discount easily. His well-being was more important than her own. Even if Nick wasn’t what she needed, he just might be what Davy needed.

  The door to the café opened, and Hilary rushed in. “There you are, Davy. My goodness, you scared me. I took Meredith to the door to meet her mother, and when I got back, he was gone.” Her smile faltered as her gaze traveled to Nick.

  Guilt made Bree glance down; then she told herself she was being silly. She was free to see whomever she wanted. It had taken weeks for Hilary to accept the fact that Bree was seeing Kade.

  “When I couldn’t find you at the library, I started combing the stores. Your Jeep was still parked outside, so I knew you couldn’t be far.” Her smile seemed forced as she eyed Nick from the corner of her eye.

  Bree cleared her throat. “I’m sorry I didn’t come find you before we left. Hilary, this is Nick Fletcher. He’s a new fireman here in town, and he helped save the lighthouse. Nick, our mayor, Hilary Kaleva.”

  Hilary shook Nick’s hand but asked no questions, which was quite unlike her. After a tight nod, she turned her attention to Davy. “You know better than to run off, young man! You scared me half to death.”

  Davy’s mouth was rimmed in chocolate. “I wanted Mommy.”

  Hilary tousled his hair, then turned to Bree. “Can we talk a minute?” she asked in a low voice with a glance toward Davy.

  “Sure.” Bree put down her spoon and got up. “Stay here with Mr. Fletcher a minute, Davy. Mommy will be right back.” Bree followed Hilary to the door. Stepping into the sunshine, she linked arms with her sister-in-law. “You’re looking wonderful, Hilary. Pregnancy must agree with you.”

  The smile that lit Hilary’s face blazed with joy. “I’ve only had a little morning sickness, and it’s gone by ten. I never realized what fun it was to pick out baby things. I think poor Mason is quite bewildered by the way his high-powered wife has been replaced by a little housewife with a Penney’s catalog.”

  Bree burst out laughing. “He’ll think he’s been transplanted to Stepford.” She hummed the tune to The Twilight Zone.

  Hilary’s chuckle was a bit shamefaced. “I’m so happy I can hardly stand it. I keep thinking life can’t stay this wonderful.”

  Bree hugged her. “I pray for only the best for you.”

  “Thanks.” Hilary released her and stepped back. “Mason wants to know if it’s all right to poke around in your basement some more. He’d like your permission to take out a wall he noticed the other day too.”

  “I’m fine with that. When?”

  Hilary glanced at her watch. “In about an hour.”

  “Fine. Hey, would you want to take Davy with you to your mom’s? I’d like to go see Susan Hamel.”

  “Sure. I’m heading over to the store now.”

  “You’re sure you don’t mind?”

  “Are you kidding? I love to be around my neph
ew.” Her smile faltered. “What about that fireman?” She hesitated. “He sort of reminds me of . . . Rob.”

  Hilary too? Bree just didn’t see it. “Davy too.” Bree told her about Davy calling Nick “Daddy” and running into his arms.

  Hilary’s face went white. “No one can take Rob’s place,” she snapped, very much the old Hilary.

  “No one is trying to,” Bree assured her. “He’s nothing like Rob really. He’s much more devil-may-care.” She laughed to show Hilary she had nothing to worry about in regard to the fireman.

  Hilary’s rigid posture eased. “That’s fine then,” she said finally. “I’ll leave Davy and Samson with Mother. When do you get to move back to the lighthouse?”

  “Now they’re saying this weekend. Anu is gracious, but it has to be stressful having a houseful when she’s used to time alone.”

  Hilary smiled. “She’s reveling in it. You know how Mother is.” She went toward the door. “I’ll give the overeager fireman your regrets,” she said with obvious relish.

  Bree bit the inside of her mouth to keep from laughing. Hilary would take great delight in squashing Nick’s enthusiasm. She glanced at her watch. There was just enough time to finish checking out the library microfiche.

  “I’d better say my goodbyes myself,” she said.

  Someone was sitting at the microfiche machine when she entered, and Bree rolled her eyes in frustration. She browsed through the bookcases until the woman left, then hurried to take her place. She popped the proper film back in the machine, then began to scroll through it to see if she could find anything else about the shipwreck.

  There it was, dated two weeks after the storm. She scanned the article hurriedly. It spoke of the severity of the storm and how several other ships were lost that night. The cargo was mentioned as being copper ore, which was what Bree had heard before. Still nothing surprising that she could see, but she would read the article more closely when she had time. She printed a copy.

  She scanned ahead a few days and found the obituary for Argie Hamel. The article was stark with the barest of information. No help there. It was getting late. She printed that too, then stuffed it into her backpack and exited the library. She hurried across the street. Susan Hamel was first on her list. She grabbed a mocha, then cut across the yard behind the jail to Jack Pine Lane. Now to ask Susan a few questions.

  23

  Ducks in a Row was a small shop tucked between Rock Harbor Decor & Picture Framing and Maronen Women’s Apparel. The name had been coined from a picture of baby ducks Susan Hamel had taken at sunset. Numbered prints of the famous photo now graced hundreds of homes across the country.

  Bree thought Susan took her duck fetish to new heights of the ridiculous. Bree never saw her around town but that she was wearing some kind of clothing with ducks on it. But the promotion had paid off, and her photos of pampered pets, wildlife habitats, and landscapes had gained wide renown in the U.P. and beyond.

  Her shop boasted a wild extravaganza of the duck theme. The sign itself was shaped like a duck, and various duck decoys, plush ducks, and duck figurines filled the display windows. As Bree pushed open the door to the shop, a duck sound emanated from somewhere above her head, startling her so badly that she nearly dropped the iced mocha.

  “Welcome!” Susan was arranging landscape photos on a display wall of dark-blue cloth on the east side of the shop. Tall and rangy, she wore her dusty-blond hair in an array of careless curls. Today she sported a lime-green pantsuit with a black duck trim.

  Bree was thankful to see the shop was empty except for Susan and a salesclerk. Bree walked toward her. “Hi, Susan. I don’t know if you remember me, but we met at one of Hilary Kaleva’s campaign dinners. I’m Bree Nicholls.”

  “Of course, the search-and-rescue wonder woman.” Susan’s smile was genuine, and she held out her hand in a lady-of-the-manor way.

  Bree wasn’t sure if she should curtsy or genuflect. She settled for a firm handshake. “I wonder if I might ask you some questions?”

  “Me?” Susan’s laugh was light. “What have I done now?”

  “Nothing,” Bree assured her. “It’s about your brother.”

  “Argie?” Susan’s smile twisted in a wry line. “No one has been interested in him for years now. I saw in the paper that they found the body of that lighthouse keeper who rescued him after the storm though. The body was found in your basement, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes. About your brother—can you tell me what you know about the shipwreck and subsequent events?” Bree took a small notebook from her backpack and rummaged for a pen, then waited to hear the story. She looked for a place to set her mocha.

  “You’ve got one of those fancy espresso drinks. I never did understand why anyone would pay four dollars for one of them when they could have a cup of java for fifty cents.” She gestured to two chairs clustered around a small table in the back corner. “Come sit down and I’ll have a cup of coffee with you. Only I’ll have the real thing.”

  Bree followed her to the table. “Your brother died just a few weeks before Peter Thorrington disappeared. What can you tell me about the shipwreck?”

  Susan poured herself a cup of coffee. “The ship owners blamed Argie and kept saying they needed the cargo from the ship, whatever that was.”

  “Let’s go back to the beginning. Tell me what you heard.”

  “Why are you so interested?”

  “I want to make sure the danger to my son is past. Some strange things have been happening lately.” The next thing Bree knew, she was relating the stalker at the house, the gunshots, all of it. “I think it might be Quentin Siller, but maybe this old murder is connected to him somehow. I need to pursue all avenues.”

  “All right, let’s see. I heard about the shipwreck on TV. I was living in Milwaukee at the time and came right away, but Argie was dead by the time I got here. No one could really say what happened to him. He’d been found onshore alive but with a broken leg and seemed to be recovering nicely. He was out of the hospital and in high spirits from what I’ve heard. Then a couple of days after the wreck, he was found dead on the beach. He hadn’t drowned, but no one could say what had killed him other than maybe internal bleeding from the trauma of the shipwreck. After the funeral the ship owners seemed suspicious of Argie. They began to say he’d scuttled his own ship to take the cargo for himself. Like he could steal copper ore! I got mad. I went back to Milwaukee, packed up my belongings, and moved here to find the truth. Thirty years later I’m no closer to solving the mystery of what happened to my brother than we are to having a world free of war.”

  “You don’t think he really died from injuries he sustained in the shipwreck?”

  “Nope.” Susan took a sip of coffee. “Several things don’t add up for me. For one thing, wouldn’t the doctors have been able to tell he was bleeding internally by blood tests or something? And the fact that there seemed to be a cargo the owners were concerned about just sent off flags in my head. I talked to Argie briefly on the phone right after the shipwreck, and he seemed almost euphoric. He was normally quiet and almost morose. There was something going on, but I’ve never been able to figure out what it was.”

  Bree considered Susan’s position. What if Argie Hamel had been killed just like Peter Thorrington? She sipped on her iced mocha and tried to make sense of this new possibility.

  “Any idea at all why the owners were so worried about the ore?”

  Susan shrugged. “No, but they were so insistent that I wondered for a time whether they were really after something else. Something smaller. Maybe something Argie could have carried on his person.”

  Bree pondered this. “Drugs?”

  “Never in a million years,” Susan said. “Argie and drugs were light-years apart. Maybe some illegal import.”

  “Documents maybe?” Bree brainstormed. “Money? Jewels?”

  Susan shrugged again. “Whatever it was, we’re right back to where we started. I know of no reason why anyone would want to hur
t him.”

  The web of mysterious disappearances just kept getting stranger and stranger. Since they were so long ago, they shouldn’t matter, but Bree had the distinct feeling that they did matter, that things were heating up and beginning to spin out of control.

  You Bree Nicholls?” Ted Kemppa’s scowl matched his voice.

  The reception room at the paper mill was crowded with men and women walking through on their way home. Bree stood and held out her hand. “Yes. Thanks for seeing me, Mr. Kemppa. I’d like to ask you a few questions about Peter Thorrington.”

  He snorted. “Figured that’s what it was about. Saw the newspaper report. We can talk on the way to my truck; then I’m out of here. What do you want to know?” He turned and stalked to the door.

  The paper mill had been in business over a hundred years. It had grown in fits and spurts over the years and was the largest industry in Rock Harbor, employing eight hundred workers and stretching its tentacles of influence as far away as Copper Harbor and Marquette. Ted walked as though he wanted to get as far away from the mill as he could.

  Bree hurried to keep up with him. “Were you shocked when your stepbrother’s body was discovered? What had you thought happened to him?”

  “I can’t say I’m too surprised. Peter was a couple of fries short of a Happy Meal. I could see where he might get sideways with someone and be disposed of. He was an annoying S.O.B. too. Always trying some new scheme and wanting everyone else to jump on the bandwagon with him.”

  “You sound as though you didn’t much like him,” she observed.

  “I didn’t. He and me were like oil and water.” He stopped and Bree almost barreled into him. “I can see the wheels turning in that pretty head of yours. And the answer is no. I didn’t have anything to do with his murder.”

  “His body was found in my basement. Where did you think he was all these years?”

  “Off with another woman. I’d run as fast as I could if I was saddled with someone like Beulah.”