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Rosie smiled, revealing a mouthful of perfect white teeth, and tossed her enviable hair back over her shoulder. “You know Auntie collected his work,” she said, referring to Virginia Van Vorst, her great-aunt, who had left the shorefront estate to Rosie’s cousin, the supermodel Juliette Duff. “Juliette, too. She’s bought a lot of his work, but mostly donates it to good causes. She said one or two pieces made a statement, but after that it got to be too much.”
Aha, thought Lucy, suspecting that Juliette was the mysterious anonymous donor of the purloined egg.
“Well, his new interest is bones.”
“Perfect!” exclaimed Rosie. “We’re working on skeletons for a Halloween event next fall!”
“Serendipity, I guess,” said Lucy, smiling. “Bob Goodman is working on the legal stuff, so I guess everything is working out.”
“It usually does,” said Rosie, waving goodbye.
Lucy felt a huge sense of relief as she left the estate, but a glance at her phone revealed a number of texts from Ted, reminding her that he needed the Chamber story.
“Never heard of the weekend, Ted?” she muttered to herself as she started her car. She had a big list of errands, but instead of stocking up on groceries she had a different list, a list of interview subjects. Glancing at it, she decided to talk to Nate Macdonald first, at his farm stand. That way she could also get the hyacinths that Bill wanted.
Nate was a fourth-generation farmer who had seized opportunity and turned the family’s pick-your-own apple orchard into a seasonal bazaar that became a must-do for folks enjoying a weekend in the country. Fall was huge as leaf-peepers crowded in to buy cider and donuts, come Christmas they returned for festive greens and hiked out to the woods to choose and cut the perfect tree, in spring the greenhouse overflowed with colorful blooming bulbs, and in summer no cookout was considered complete without a platter of Macdonald’s fresh corn on the cob.
It was true, Lucy reminded herself, that she could buy hyacinths for less money at the IGA, but she knew the quality was better at Macdonald’s and since Bill had requested them, she felt justified in the extra expense. Nate himself was manning the register when she chose two pots of hyacinths, one featuring pink and white, another all blue, which she planned to display in her favorite blue-and-white bowl.
“It’s not spring without hyacinths,” said Nate, carefully tucking the pots into paper cones. “These are Van Zandts, imported from Holland.”
“They’re lovely and I’m glad you’ve still got some. Somehow it skipped my mind until Bill reminded me.”
“Are you collecting the stickers?” he asked, as she handed over twenty dollars.
“Oh, yes.” She produced the card and he added her second sticker.
“This promo’s been pretty good,” he said. “Everybody wants the stickers, if their total isn’t quite ten dollars they’ll add a candy bar or something just to get one.”
“So you’re not one of the Chamber’s critics?” she said, seizing the opening he’d given her. “I’m actually doing a story about dissension at the Chamber.”
“Me? No way. I think Corney’s doing a great job, and you can quote me. She knows Tinker’s Cove and folks here don’t like change, and neither do the tourists. They like the image of this sweet, old-fashioned town with the American flags flying and the white-steepled churches. The harbor and the lobster boats, that’s what they come for. We ham it up a bit, Country Cousins is a lot more than that quaint old-fashioned country store on Main Street, their IT and logistics are cutting edge, but families from Brooklyn can still find penny candy for the kids and get a wedge of cheddar from the big wheel on the counter.”
“And that candy costs a lot more than a penny,” said Lucy.
Nate shrugged. “They don’t mind. They’re paying for the experience of choosing Mary Janes and Fireballs from those big old glass jars.”
“So true.” She picked up her potted flowers, then paused. “So the fact that the Klaus egg was stolen hasn’t dampened enthusiasm for the stickers?”
“Not at all. It’s kind of childish but they seem to get a lot of satisfaction from filling in those blanks. Who knew?”
“Corney, I guess,” said Lucy, laughing. “Any idea who might’ve taken the egg?”
Nate lowered his voice. “Don’t quote me on this, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was Zach Starr.”
Lucy pictured Zach, who she’d often seen riding around town on his Harley, blasting out hard rock music, and shook her head. “What would he want with a gold egg? He’s super macho, no? I bet he’s never even been in an art museum or even a gallery.”
“He doesn’t care about the artistic value. Zach’s a rebel who likes to be outrageous. Taking the egg is exactly the sort of thing he’d do, just to make trouble and embarrass all the uptight old Maine Yankees. Once the fuss dies down, I bet the egg will magically reappear.”
“Sooner would be better than later,” said Lucy, leaving with a pot of flowers in each arm, and a second sticker on her Easter card.
Zach was also on her list, so she decided to interview him next, following up on Nate’s accusation. So she drove on into town, where she found a free parking space right in front of Sea Smoke and marched herself in under the billowing cloud of smoke, feeling a bit as if she was entering the dragon’s cave. If Zach was indeed a dragon, he was a very tame one indeed as she found him hunkered down at the store’s counter over a steaming bowl of oatmeal. He looked up as she entered and put his spoon down. “Don’t mind me. I’m just having some breakfast. Are you looking for anything in particular?”
“No, not really,” said Lucy, taking in Zach’s bald head and bushy beard, the tattoos on his beringed fingers, not to mention the rings in his ears and one dangling from his nose. He was wearing a fringed black leather vest over a long-sleeved T-shirt with a picture of a pit bull on the front. She was about to introduce herself when he pointed the spoon toward a display of CBD oil.
“Just got a shipment,” he said, scooping up a load of oatmeal. “Great stuff for those aches and pains of aging.”
Lucy found this to be a bit of a blow, she wasn’t old and she didn’t suffer from aches and pains. Well, sometimes, but just normal stuff, like after working in the garden. She straightened her shoulders and stepped up to the counter, facing him. “I’m not here for CBD oil,” she said, all business. “I’m Lucy Stone from The Courier and I’m here to get your reaction as a member of the Chamber of Commerce to the theft of the Klaus Easter egg.”
