Romeow and Juliet (3 page)

“If you can do those two things you’ll be given the run of the property. If not, I’m afraid you’ll be required to spend your time with us in one of the cat rooms. Don’t worry; if that should occur, the rooms are very comfortable. Each one has soft bedding, an indoor and outdoor play area, and other cats to hang out with.”

Romeo just stared at me as I rambled on. Did I mention that I tend to ramble? I had a litter box and some dry cat food from a prior visitor, so I got Romeo set up on the closed-in back porch before Max and I set off for town and the meeting that could very well change the course of our lives.

The old cannery that Tara and I hoped to convert was located at the end of the wharf, near the dock where the ferry loaded and unloaded. I glanced inside through the dirty window as I waited for Tara to arrive. The building was large, and once remodeled it would serve Tara and me and the people of the community quite well.

“Sorry I’m late. Keith Weaver, the Realtor I was supposed to meet, never showed up, even though I waited at his office for over half an hour. I called the bank and was told it was okay for us to go ahead and check out the building ourselves.”

“Do you have a key?” I asked.

“There’s a lockbox. I have the combination.” Tara and I walked toward the entry. Tara had started to type in the combo she’d been provided with when I noticed the door was open.

“Don’t bother,” I told her. “It looks like the last person out forgot to lock the door.”

Tara frowned and then shrugged. She opened the door and stepped inside.

It was an excellent location, but it really did need a
lot
of work. There was dirt and dust covering everything, and several of the windows were cracked.

I bent over and picked up a yellow flyer someone had left on the floor. “It looks like Bill Powell is having a seminar on his new condos this evening, if you’re in the market for a new residence,” I joked. “It says there’ll be doughnuts and coffee.”

“Thanks but no thanks,” Tara emphasized. “The project he has planned is so commercial. It’s going to stand out like a sore thumb on the island.”

I wadded up the flyer and tossed it on the floor. Normally I’m not one to litter, but one more piece of paper in a sea of debris wasn’t going to make much difference. “It seems a bit ballsy for Powell to have a seminar to market the condos when his project has yet to be approved by the island council.”

“Yeah, well, Bill is a ballsy sort of guy, but I heard Keith Weaver has partnered up with him to get the project approved at the next council meeting.”

I paused. “Really? I thought Keith was worried about the effect of the condos on the island’s water supply.”

Tara shrugged. “He was, but I guess Powell got to him. I chatted with Kim for a bit while I waited for Keith to show up this morning. She said he’s demonstrated a complete change of heart.”

I knew Kim Darby worked in Keith Weaver’s real estate office. If Keith had teamed up with Bill, Kim could very well have overheard their conversation.

“I’m surprised Maggie hasn’t said anything. If Powell can swing Keith’s vote the project might actually get approved.”

“Maybe she doesn’t know. The men seem to have been keeping their alliance quiet. I think they plan to spring it on everyone at the next meeting.”

“I really need to tell her. This is something she’ll want to prepare for. Remind me to call her when we’re done here.”

Tara took a notepad and pencil from her shoulder bag. I noticed she didn’t have to fish around or dump out her bag to find the items she was looking for, as I always seemed to need to. Of course, Tara has been a list maker since birth, while I’m a newbie to the art. The thing is, Tara and I are different. She likes to approach a project in a very methodical manner. Me, I’m fine with looking around and making a decision based on a glance. Now my glance confirmed what I already knew: the building would be perfect for Coffee Cat Books. I was good to go, but I knew that once Tara took out her notepad we’d be there for a while.

“We need to measure the walls on these two sides,” she announced. “Hold the tape measure so I can get an accurate distance between the storage room and the space where we plan to put the seating area.”

I held the tape measure while Tara measured and remeasured several times. Each time she completed a measurement she’d jot down a note in her little book.

“I thought we could put the wall to divide the two areas about here.” She indicated a location in the large room. “We can put the coffee bar on that wall and then put tables and chairs roughly in front of it.” She turned and considered the rest of the space. “I want to have a cute display near the entrance from the wharf, and then we can build shelves in this larger space.” She waved her arm in a sweeping gesture.

“And the cat lounge?”

Tara walked to the far end of the building, which hung out over the water.

“We’ll set up sofas near the old stone fireplace and comfortable chairs in the center of the room. This will be a good area to glass off and use as a reading room,” Tara commented as I followed her around. “Chances are people will strike up conversations in the less formal seating area, so those who want quiet to study can sit at one of the individual tables in the reading room.”

Tara walked across the space toward the far wall. “I think we should replace all of this siding with windows looking out into the harbor.”

The view really was spectacular. To the east was the marina, filled with boats both large and small, and to the west was unobstructed shoreline.

“Are you sure we can afford this?” I asked as Max trotted over to sniff at whatever had scurried under a long counter, which, like the rest of the building, was in pretty bad shape.

“It’s going to be tight,” she admitted. “And we’ll need to get the full amount of the loan I applied for, but I’ve gone over the numbers and I think we can make it work. The terms of the purchase of the property are reasonable, but there’s one small problem.”

“Problem?” I asked as I watched the ferry pull in across the way.

“We need to not only fill out the loan application but complete an interview with a representative from the district office.”

“Not Camden Bradford?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“There’s no way I’m going to have a meeting with Camden Bradford. You know what happened last time.”

“I do.” Tara sighed. She walked across the room in her pink and purple flip-flops and looped her arm through mine. “I know that you were embarrassed by what happened, but it was several months ago and I doubt he remembers.”

“Oh, he remembers all right.”

“How do you know? He’s a busy man with a lot of contacts.”

I leaned against the window. The room was filled with old equipment but not a single place to sit. “I ran into Mr. Bradford on the ferry,” I said.

“Really? When?”

“Saturday. I was going to tell you about it, but this is the first time I’ve seen you since it happened.”

“Tell me exactly what happened.”

I turned so that I was looking out the window and my back was to Tara. “He snuck up on me from behind. I was already jittery because I’d seen him earlier, and when he stuck his head into the van and said hi I screamed and dumped my soda all over the front of his very expensive white shirt. It was grape soda. I’m sure he had to throw the shirt away.”

“Oh, Cait, you didn’t.” Tara groaned.

“’Fraid so.”

“Was he mad?”

I thought about it. “Actually, he was surprisingly not mad. He laughed and apologized for sneaking up on me.”

“And then?”

“And then the ferry docked, and he told me that next time he would make more noise if he was going to approach me from behind. He even suggested that he might take up whistling when I was in the area. Then he went to his car, which, by the way, probably cost more than a bank manager makes in a year. You don’t think maybe he launders money for the mob, do you?”

“Launders money for the mob? You’ve been watching too many movies.”

“He has a Mercedes that must have set him back a pretty penny. At the time I was so freaked out about running into him that I didn’t think about the fact that it made no sense that he could afford a car like that. If he isn’t laundering money, maybe he deals drugs or works for a hit man.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Tara snapped. “He might have family money, or maybe he won the lottery or has a rich wife. I doubt he’s a thug.”

Tara bit the nail on her left thumb, a nervous habit she’d had since we were in preschool. I could tell she was annoyed with me, and to be honest, I didn’t blame her. I’d probably ruined any chance we had of buying our dream location because I couldn’t control my tendency toward skittishness.

“Maybe we can meet with someone assigned to the island branch,” I suggested. The bank on the island is small, with just three full-time employees, none of whom I’d humiliated myself in front of.

“It’s going to take approval from the main office for a loan the size we need,” Tara countered.

“Maybe you can see Bradford alone,” I proposed.

“The woman I spoke to specifically asked that we both be there. I’m sure we both need to go over the terms, and we both have to sign the loan documents.”

I sighed. “Okay.”

Tara hugged me. “Don’t worry; it’ll be fine. We have an appointment at three. I need to do,” Tara looked at her notebook, switched to another page, and counted, “seven errands before our meeting. Each one shouldn’t take more than twenty minutes. Why don’t you plan to meet me in front of the bank at 2:45?”

“Yeah, okay.”

“And Cait . . . no low-cut tops and no open cans of soda.”

I was about to make a joke about both when I noticed that Max had left the room while we’d been talking. “Max,” I called.

He barked from somewhere in the distance. The only other room was the enclosed area at the end of the building, which had been used for storage. That was where we planned to build an office and locate the litter boxes for the cats. There were no windows in that room, which made it dark. There was an overhead light, but the electricity was turned off. I slowly entered the dark and dusty room that still held boxes of someone’s stuff.

“Max,” I called again. He whimpered but didn’t move. I walked across the space to see what he’d been so mesmerized by. Someone probably had left garbage for my dog to find, which wasn’t going to make me happy at all. The last time he’d gotten into a garbage can he’d puked all night. I was still trying to get the smell out of the carpet.

I jumped as I bumped into something, which turned out to be an abandoned piece of machinery. I was about to turn around when I remembered that my phone had a flashlight. I pulled it from my pocket and turned it on. The room really was a mess.

“What did you find?” I asked as I peered over Max’s furry shoulder.

Max looked up just about the time I let out a bloodcurdling scream.

“And you said the door was open when you arrived?” Deputy Ryan Finnegan—Finn to his friends—asked us. Finn was the resident deputy on Madrona Island and my older sister Siobhan’s ex-fiancé. When Siobhan was offered a job in Seattle she’d broken her promise to Finn and headed east without a second thought. I knew for a fact that Siobhan had moved on, but at times I wasn’t certain Finn ever would.

“Yes, the door was unlocked,” I answered. “Tara had the code to get into the lockbox where the key was stored, but I noticed the door was ajar before she even finished putting it in. We figured the last person to access the property had probably forgotten to lock up.”

Finn walked across the room to the front door, where the lockbox was located, and, using a rag so as not to leave any fingerprints, removed the key. “Did either of you touch the key?” he asked.

Tara and I both said we hadn’t.

“It’s a long shot, but I might be able to get a print off the key or the box. So, you arrived and began to look around. What made you decide to go into the back room where Mr. Weaver’s body was found?”

“Max wandered into the room and found the body,” I answered. “If he hadn’t gone sniffing around, we most likely would have left without ever finding the body. How long do you think he’s been dead?”

“I’ll need to wait for the medical examiner to arrive from the mainland, but I’m going to guess around twelve hours. Did either of you see anyone else in the area when you arrived?”

I looked at Tara.

“I didn’t,” she said.

“Yeah, me neither.”

“Okay. I’ll need you to walk me through your movements from the moment you got here until I arrived.”

Tara and I filled Finn in the best we could. Finn is a good guy, and I was sure he’d get to the bottom of Keith Weaver’s murder. Sometimes I find myself mourning the fact that he’ll never be an official part of our family. I know he was devastated when Siobhan left the island, and as strange as this may sound, I’m fairly certain I took Siobhan’s breakup with Finn harder than she did. They’d dated since their sophomore year of high school, and he’d been a daily part of our lives for a lot of years. In many ways he was like a brother to me.

“If one of the deputies from the main office comes around to investigate, it’s important that you stick to the facts and only answer what’s asked,” Finn cautioned me. He knows I tend to ramble, and I’m sure he doesn’t want the woman who is akin to a little sister to him behind bars for saying the wrong thing to the wrong person.

“I’ll let Tara do all the talking,” I said.

Finn seemed satisfied with that response.

When Finn told us we were free to go I headed home to drop off Max and check on Romeo. I really wasn’t looking forward to my meeting with Camden Bradford, but I’d promised Tara I’d be there and so I would. I knew Tara’s schedule was going to be off, which would toss her into a bit of a frenzy, but I also knew she’d show up at the bank looking cool, calm, and collected. Tara was one of those unique individuals who always seemed to know what needed to be done and exactly how to do it.

“How was your morning in your new home?” I picked up Romeo and gave him a warm cuddle. The large cat began to purr as I rubbed my cheek against his soft fur. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to leave you again, but we’ll try spending some time outdoors when I get back.”

Romeo dug his head into my neck as I scratched his back. I doubt he’d been on the street long to be this affectionate. He buried his head under my thick, long hair as I hugged him one final time before setting him on the floor. I checked his food and water, topped off Max’s water, grabbed my backpack, and headed out the door.

It was a nice day and I was tempted to ride my bike into Pelican Bay, but I hated to show up all sweaty. On the other hand, I didn’t want to waste even one minute of sunshine, so the bike won out over my twenty-year-old car.

The ride along the seashore was breathtaking. There was a dirt path that hugged the coastline all the way to the harbor. Once I reached the wharf I headed to the far end, where the one and only bank that served the island was located. I wished I could say I felt brave and confident as I locked up my two-wheeled, human-propelled mode of transportation, but the truth of the matter was, I was terrified. I walked slowly along the boardwalk toward the entrance, where I had arranged to meet Tara. I know this is going to sound crazy, but I felt like a prisoner on her way to execution, as if the long walk up the wooden walkway would be my last.

“Ready?” Tara, dressed in a bright sundress topped with a practical cardigan, asked.

“Not really. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’m going to lose the lunch I didn’t have in the hedge.”

“It’ll be fine,” Tara assured me. “I’ll do the talking. You just need to sit there and look beautiful. Although,” Tara looked me up and down, “you might have driven so you would have avoided the inevitable dusty shin syndrome you get when you ride on that old dirt trail.”

I looked down. Tara was right; from my knees down, my legs were covered with a thin layer of silt. “It was such a nice day,” I explained.

Tara wiped cat hair from the shoulder of my blouse. My clothes are always covered in cat hair—an occupational hazard from running a cat sanctuary, I suppose.

“Run this through your hair.” Tara handed me a brush.

I did as instructed and then turned around for inspection. “Better?”

“Marginally.” She looked me over, biting her lip, as if trying to decide if there was anything else to be done. “What’s wrong with your neck?”

I scratched the right side just under my ear. “Just a little itch. It’ll be fine. Let’s get this over with.”

Luckily, Mr. Bradford didn’t keep us waiting. We were shown into his office and instructed to take seats across from his desk. I tried to make my way across the room, sit down where I was told, and avoid tripping, all while never looking up or making eye contact of any type.

“Ms. O’Brian, Ms. Hart, thank you for coming in today,” Mr. Bradford began. “I wasn’t certain you’d make it after the incident this morning.”

“There didn’t seem to be any more we could do at this point,” Tara said. “I imagine you’ve been interviewed by the sheriff’s office?”

“I just finished up with them. The building has been cordoned off for now, but I’ve been assured that once the investigation has been completed I’ll be free to sell the space as planned. My question to you now is whether you’re still interested.”

“We are,” Tara answered for both of us. “Did the sheriff give you an idea of when they might complete their investigation?”

“He wouldn’t say. I suppose it depends on how long it takes to figure out who killed the guy.”

“I understand. We’re still interested,” Tara repeated.

“Very well, then. Let’s discuss the funding you propose.”

I tuned out while Tara droned on about the estimated cost to complete the remodel and the projected cost to maintain the facility once it opened. I’d always been good in math and had helped to develop the projections, but I have a curious mind that’s easily distracted and tends not to want to focus on any one thing for too long.

The warmer weather served as a reminder of the busy summer season that was just around the corner. Living on the island was like living in two completely different cultures at the same time. During the off-season, which spanned October through May, there were very few visitors, and many of the touristy type shops on the island shut down for the season. I enjoyed that time of the year, when the pace was slower and good friends could gather for a meal and not have to compete with guests from the mainland for a table near the window of restaurants.

And then there was the summer season, when the population of the island nearly tripled on the weekends. Businesses that had been closed since October began to open and seasonal workers began to arrive. With the arrival of the masses came a certain energy that felt akin to the island coming to life after a long and peaceful hibernation. Most years by the end of the summer I was ready for the slower pace of winter, and likewise, most winters when spring arrived I was ready for the energy of summer.

Tara nudged my leg, which brought me back to the conversation going on around me. “I guess that’s true,” she was admitting. “Might I ask . . .”

Tara’s words were cut off by the ringing of the phone on Mr. Bradford’s desk.

“I’m sorry; I really need to take this,” Bradford said.

“Certainly. No problem,” Tara assured him.

I sat up a bit straighter while the man was otherwise occupied and looked out the window toward the blue water and white sails in the harbor. It really was a beautiful day. I was about to say as much when Tara kicked the side of my leg, harder this time.

I glanced at her.

She gave me a look that let me know she wasn’t happy with me.

“What?” I mouthed without making a sound.

“Stop scratching,” she mouthed back.

Suddenly I realized that I’d been scratching the entire time we’d been in the office. I looked down at my arms, which were red with welts from my nails.

“Dammit,” I said aloud just as Mr. Bradford hung up.

“Is there a problem?” he asked.

“No, not at all,” I lied, though it was apparent to me that my little Romeo had fleas that he’d kindly transferred to me when I’d cuddled with him before coming into town.

“You were saying?” Mr. Bradford asked Tara as I used every ounce of willpower I possessed to sit still and not scratch.

“I wanted to ask about the timeline for the loan approval process,” Tara answered. “I’ve already begun lining up contractors so we can get started as soon as the money is available.”

“Once everything is in order loan approval should only take a few days. I like what I see; however, I’d like the two of you to rework your proposal so that the concerns I’ve outlined are addressed. Now that the building is quarantined and we’re in a waiting pattern, the urgency to get the space sold has lessened considerably.”

I began to squirm around in my chair.

“Is everything okay?” Mr. Bradford asked me.

“Everything is perfect.” I smiled in return.

“I’d like to set up another meeting to discuss your ideas further once you’ve had the chance to think about the things we’ve discussed today.”

“That’s acceptable to me. Caitlin?” Tara turned to look at me. I was scratching like crazy by this point. She pleaded with her eyes for me to get it under control.

I jumped up. “I have to go. I’ll talk to you later,” I said to Tara as I ran out the office door and out of the building. I simply couldn’t sit there one more minute while the tiny aliens that had invaded my body snacked on my flesh.

The thought of riding all the way home with the fleas nipping at my skin was more than I could take, so I slipped off my shoes and dove into the harbor. I submerged myself until I was certain the little buggers that had been biting me had drowned. When I resurfaced I looked back toward the building I had just escaped. Mr. Bradford and Tara were looking out the window. Apparently, Caitlin Hart had managed to make another memorable impression.