Red Rum: A Rosie Casket Mystery by R.M. Wild (top 100 novels of all time .TXT) 📕

“Right,” I said.

We stopped at my car. I thumbed my keychain to unlock the door.

“Let me get that for you,” he said and opened my door.

“Thank you for stepping in,” I said. “I felt better knowing you were on the other side of the mirror.”

“I wasn’t,” Mettle said. “I had to beg them to let me deliver the monitor.”

“Regardless, thank you.”

“When I heard what happened, I couldn’t stay away,” Mettle said.

“Are you really mad at me for going to see Phyllis?”

“A little bit,” Mettle said. “But you had your reasons.”

“You don’t actually believe I had anything to do with her death, do you?”

Mettle let out a long sigh. “I’ll admit, the whole thing has left me a bit uneasy. Every time you bat your eyelashes, I get a hot flash.”

“Not funny.”

“Not even a little?”

“No,” I said. I slid into the driver’s seat and he closed my door. Then he leaned over and tapped on the glass.

I turned the ignition key and rolled down the window.

“So where are you headed now?”

“Back to work,” I said. “I have to make sure Herrick isn’t passed out on the dock.”

Mettle groaned. “I told you not to work with that flagrant moron.”

“I know. I know. But I’m working on another plan.”

“What?”

“I’ll let you know if it pans out.”

“And what about our date?”

“Right now, I’m just trying to keep my head above water. But we will. I promise. Soon.”

“If you want me to do some poking around, let me know,” he said and flashed a skeevy grin.

His face was so stupid, so inappropriate, I couldn’t help but smile. “You’re impossible.”

“I can’t help it. You’ve put a spell on me, Casket.”

I shook my head, reversed from my spot, gave him a dismissive wave, and then pulled onto the highway.

8

On my way back to the inn, I couldn’t help myself and pulled into the alley beside the Gold Bug Tavern. I parked beside the harbor, not twenty feet from the bulldozer sitting on the edge of the wharf like a lion waiting in the weeds.

I had no idea what I was going to say to him, but was so keyed up by Phyllis’s death that it didn’t matter. Whatever happened, happened.

I got out, crossed the wet, reflective lot, and opened the heavy Tudor-style door.

The insides were brightly lit, the bottles of soda sparkling on the shelf behind the bar. I had never seen the tavern so clean before; I supposed this was what happened when you had no customers—but if that were the case, then why couldn’t I keep the spiders out of my place?

Fitzgerald was standing behind the now-defunct draft handles and playing a game on his phone.

“I need to see Peter,” I said, my voice shaking.

He looked up, the blue light from his phone showing not a single wrinkle on the underside of his chin. “He ain’t here.”

“Where is he?”

Fitzgerald returned to his game. “I got no idea.”

“When will he be back?”

He shrugged. “Beats me. He didn’t tell me nothin.”

I stood for a moment, wavering. “Did you know?”

“Know what?”

“Never mind,” I said and headed back outside.

By the time I made it back to the inn, the harbor was black, the night hovering above it purple, the electric lighthouse winking in the distance and dying the crusty foam on the rocks pink. There was no time to eat. I unlocked the front door, tidied up the pillows on the couch, straightened the chairs at the kitchen table, and then hurried outside to meet Captain Herrick on the dock.

As I walked the planks, The Moaning Lisa chugged through the pink white caps. For once, Captain Unreliable was on time. I carried the step stool over to the edge of the dock and waited for the boat to tap its rub rail against the piling.

But as Captain Herrick swung the bow around, my insides quivered. There were only two Q-tips on board, two heads of pure white. It might as well have been a ghost ship.

Captain Herrick jumped over the gunwale and tied the boat to the cleats. He clenched a bottle of Red Rum between his thighs, the neck protruding as if he were overly excited to be on time.

I resisted getting close enough to smell him, figuring that if he were drunk, I didn’t want to know about it. If I knew about it, I’d have to do something about it—or at least say something—and I had already experienced enough drama today to last me until the end of days.

“Only two guests tonight?”

“I didn’t see any others on the wharf,” Captain Herrick said.

“You didn’t see them? Or they weren’t there?”

“You don’t trust me?”

I didn’t answer. No wonder he was on time. With only two guests, they could both sit on the far side of the bench while he throttled up and spewed smoke to his heart’s content and neither would get black lungs.

I pulled out my phone and checked my reservation app. “It says here we had five reservations tonight.”

Captain Herrick shrugged. “I dunno what to tell you. I been on my boat all day. These two were the only ones waitin.”

My patience had run thin. I didn’t even bother to have this conversation away from earshot of my guests. “Don’t lie to me, Captain. How many did you leave back at the pier?”

“None. Chill out, Rosie the Righteous.”

I eyed the bottle between his legs. “I thought we had this conversation. Multiple times. You’re drunk again.”

“I ain’t drunk. My crack’s on the line here too, Missy. I put all my roe in this pot. I want to see this business succeed as much as you do.”

“Says the guy who inherited a boat from his father and doesn’t have any debt.”

“Says the gal who inherited a mansion from her mother and doesn’t have a sense of humor.”

I steamed and turned toward the guests. “Has your Captain been drinking tonight?”

Wide-eyed, the two shook their heads.

“The bottle’s for you,” Captain Herrick said and shoved it at my chest.

“Watch it,” I said. I snatched the bottle out