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Chapter Six

The Cutthroats of Tillamook Bay

T he local supporters of the festival arrived first, ahead of the authors. Happy Rock’s stammering attorney Atticus Lawson, with his crippling fear of public speaking, was there, as was Doc Meadows, the imaginatively nicknamed town doctor.

Unreasonably tall and impossibly handsome, Doc was wearing a dress shirt with a vest embroidered in an intricate Salish n?ty?tyix salmon pattern.

His hair was beautifully braided. The men were so neatly turned out, thought Miranda.

Tanvir in his dastār and Doc in his braids.

Even Atticus had made an effort, his usual clip-on necktie having been replaced with a knotted polka-dot bow tie.

But Edgar? Same ol’ flannel and jeans. He wasn’t even wearing his good hiking boots, she noted.

She smiled. “Hello, Doc.”

“Hey there, Miranda. Lookin’ good.”

A little part of her heart always melted when Doc smiled at her. An ever-so-slightly sardonic twinkle, gentle and teasing, it was everything you could want in a smile. If only he wasn’t married...

She caught herself. She was also married.

But was she, though?

“Psst, Miranda? Is Captain Fantastic around?”

It was Officer Holly Hinton, the second half of Happy Rock’s finest. She was on duty and in uniform, and was looking around furtively, trying her best to avoid her boss (aka Ned).

“I’m on call at the station, but thought I’d slip out. Has she arrived yet?”

“Who?”

“Who else, Einstein? Wanda Stobol, that’s who.

The greatest author who ever lived. The woman who created Compendium Cathy.

She’s the reason I became a police officer.

Because of her, I thought solving crimes would involve knowing the median buoyancy of coconuts and the relative position of constellations in the southern hemisphere vs.

the northern, instead of, y’know, writing traffic tickets and investigating missing bits of rope from behind Owen’s garage. ”

Although she was roughly the same height as Miranda (which is to say, short), Officer Holly seemed much taller, much bigger, more daunting.

Hair pulled back, she was a robust presence in her police blues and duty belt: handcuffs and holster, sidearm and taser.

She was carrying a canvas bag filled with. .. books?

“Okay, Big Eyes,” said Officer Holly when she caught Miranda trying to take a peek.

“You got me.” Officer Holly pulled out a stack of well-thumbed, well-read, and much loved children’s books from her youth.

The titles were punctuated with exclamation points: Compendium Cathy: Girl Detective!

Compendium Cathy Solves the Case! Compendium Cathy to the Rescue!

Compendium Cathy Discovers the Median Buoyancy of Coconuts!

Each cover featured an illustration of the plucky, befreckled nine-year-old sleuth.

Officer Holly had twins—ankle biters that were the terror of Happy Rock—whom she’d named George and Nancy after the leads in the Nancy Drew series.

If they’d been triplets, the next name in line was Cathy.

“How are the kids?” Miranda asked.

“Grandma Moses is watching them,” Holly said, meaning her mom, who was neither an artist nor named Moses, but was a grandma, so that was enough in Holly’s mind to justify the nickname.

“She’s the one who bought me these books when I was little, so she’s at least partly to blame.

” Officer Holly looked past Miranda to the front hall.

“Ms. Stobol hasn’t arrived yet? I thought maybe she could sign these for my kids.

When they get older, I figured I’d— Dammit! ” She ducked down, but it was too late.

“Officer Holly? What are you doing here?” It was Chief Buckley (aka Captain Fantastic). Wide of girth, warm of eyes, stern of face. “You’re supposed to be on duty.”

“I am, sir. Securing the perimeter, sir.”

“ Perimeter means ‘outer edge.’ You’re inside.”

“Yes, sir. I’m securing it from the inside.”

He frowned. “You’re supposed to be at the station.”

She dropped any pretense of deferring. “Relax, Ned. I hung a Back in Five Minutes sign. I won’t stay long, I promise. Toss that coin of yours if you like, see if I can stay.”

Andrew, passing by with a laden tray, overheard this. “The coin? You mean the quarter, right? The one you always carry with you?”

“I’m not tossing a coin, Holly. You can stay, for now, but keep your radio on. Okay?”

“Aye, aye, Captain Ahab.”

But before Ned could move on, Andrew cut in, asking way too eagerly, “Can you tell me about it? The story behind your quarter?”

“What’s to tell? Lucky coin.” And, as gruffly as he could, Ned left.

Miranda gave Andrew a dour look. “You shouldn’t pester Ned like that. Luck is two sides of the same coin,” she reminded him. And the damnedest thing was, it sort of made sense...

* * *

T HE POLICE CHIEF and his officer, a former TV star, the town doctor. The only thing missing was—

“Uh-oh. Paparazzi,” Miranda warned, sotto voce. “Nine o’clock.”

Confused, Andrew checked his watch. “But it’s only...”

“Hi, Miranda! Hi, Andrew. Are the authors here yet?”

It was Jane “Scoop” Bannister, crack reporter with The Weekly Picayune.

Young and dogged, dogged and young, Scoop was, as per her beat, on assignment to confirm whether or not—this was the crucial part— a good time was had by all .

This was the heartbeat of local news reporting.

Be it bake sales, high-school art shows, town picnics, or the annual Snow Fest, it wasn’t enough that a reasonably good time was had.

And it wouldn’t do that a good time was had by most or by many.

No, it had to be by all. Anything less would be a scandal.

Wary of the press, Miranda deflected Scoop Bannister’s question. “The authors? I have no comment on that.”

“They’re still taking a tour of the town,” said Andrew, “last I heard.”

“Loose lips,” Miranda hissed under her breath.

Her assistant could be so indiscreet when it came to journalists.

True, Miranda herself had once given a forty-five-minute interview with Barbara Walters outlining in exact detail every single thing the producers of Pastor Fran Investigates were doing wrong, which did not endear her to them and may have been a deciding factor when they chose to cancel her show as soon as the ratings faltered—but that was different!

Not that it mattered, because Scoop’s question was answered a moment later when the front door opened and a subtle waft of manure appeared. The school bus had rolled up outside.

The authors had arrived!

Melvin’s Manure Transport & Tour Company dumped them off unceremoniously at the front of the bookstore, and they filed in, dazed and nauseous from their exhaustive—and exhausting—tour of the local sites.

They’d been to see the historic grandfather clock in the historic lighthouse keeper’s historic quarters, a clock that didn’t even work and had remained inside the lighthouse mainly because it was too big to move.

As Melvin had pointed out, “No historical significance, but it is big. Fourth biggest grandfather clock in the Greater Tri-Rock Area,” he’d added with pride.

He had then proceeded to spend forty minutes explaining the history and inner workings of the clock.

But when asked about the actual light on the actual lighthouse, he said, “Not sure. Automated, I think?”

The authors entered the bookstore on a tumult of complaints: “I swear to god, he was trying to hit every pothole.” “That smell is never coming out of my clothes.” “I’ll tell you one thing, I owe Virginia Woolf an apology.

There is something more tedious and mind-numbing than a hypothetical journey to a lighthouse: an actual journey to a lighthouse.

” “And how the hell does a converted school bus manage to go sooo slow—and yet so fast, at the same time! ”

Coming as she did from the livelier performative arts, Miranda Abbott had been expecting a star-studded gallery of literary celebrities to swan in.

She was greeted instead by a disheveled, disgruntled mob of chronic complainers.

Authors, in other words. Lawrence Block, meanwhile, had last been seen near Gladstone, Nebraska (pop: 8).

But the rest were mostly on hand, and among the first to enter was Ray Valentine, Prince of the Police Procedural.

Studious-looking, with salt-and-pepper hair and rimless glasses, Ray Valentine could have been a mildly engaging college professor from a mid-size city, except he also wore Under Armour tactical police boots under his Dockers.

He was a Cop, with a capital C, and he greeted Ned with a brothers-in-arms salute.

“Officer,” he said.

“An honor to meet you, Mr. Valentine,” said Ned. “I’ve read quite a few of your books. I’m Chief of Police here in Happy Rock, though that doesn’t really compare with your time at the LAPD.”

“We’re both part of the same Blue Brick Wall,” Ray said, deftly referencing the title of his best-known work.

“I wondered about that. Bricks aren’t usually blue, are they?”

“Thank you for your service,” said Ray, and he moved on.