Nogged Off Read online

  PRAISE FOR BARBARA ROSS AND THE MAINE CLAMBAKE MYSTERIES

  “This cozy series continues to stand out with its exceptional plotting, intriguing storylines and authentic detailing of the lobstering life.”

  —RT Book Reviews on Musseled Out

  “Readers can enjoy both figuring out the mystery and taking an armchair visit to coastal Maine.”

  —Library Journal on Boiled Over

  Books by Barbara Ross

  Main Clambake Mysteries

  CLAMMED UP

  BOILED OVER

  MUSSELED OUT

  FOGGED INN

  ICED UNDER

  STOWED AWAY

  STEAMED OPEN

  SEALED OFF

  EGGNOG MURDER

  (with Leslie Meier and Lee Hollis)

  YULE LOG MURDER

  (with Leslie Meier and Lee Hollis)

  HAUNTED HOUSE MURDER

  (with Leslie Meier and Lee Hollis)

  Jane Darrowfield Mysteries

  JANE DARROWFIELD, PROFESSIONAL BUSYBODY

  Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation

  NOGGED OFF

  Barbara Ross

  KENSINGTON BOOKS

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  “Nogged Off” copyright © 2016 by Barbara Ross

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the Publisher and neither the Author nor the Publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  All Kensington titles, imprints and distributed lines are available at special quantity discounts for bulk purchases for sales promotion, premiums, fund-raising, educational or institutional use.

  Special book excerpts or customized printings can also be created to fit specific needs. For details, write or phone the office of the Kensington Special Sales Manager: Kensington Publishing Corp., 119 West 40th Street, New York, NY, 10018. Attn. Special Sales Department. Phone: 1-800-221-2647.

  Kensington and the K logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

  eISBN-13: 978-14967-2670-4

  eISBN-10: 1-4967-2670-7

  Kensington Electronic Edition: November 2019

  Table of Contents

  Books by Barbara Ross

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  NOGGED OFF

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  NOGGED OFF

  Barbara Ross

  Chapter One

  I breezed onto the Acela at South Station in Boston and took a seat in first class. From my road warrior days working in venture capital, I had enough Amtrak points to take a train to the moon and back, should such a trip be offered, and I was determined to burn as many as possible before they expired. This was the last time I’d be making the trek to New York City for a good long time.

  I snuggled into the comfy seat and closed my eyes. It had already been a long day. I’d left my apartment in Busman’s Harbor, Maine, at four in the morning so my boyfriend, Chris, could drop me at the train station in Portland in time to catch the five-twenty. If all went according to plan, I’d be at Penn Station in Manhattan by lunchtime and at my apartment in Tribeca not long after that. Then, using the key I still had, with the permission of my subtenant, I’d take the few personal items I wanted from my soon-to-be-former apartment to UPS for shipping and be on my way back to Maine by early evening. Down and back in one day. If everything went perfectly, maybe I’d even have time to do a little Christmas shopping and drink in the glory of Manhattan during the holidays.

  The young woman I’d sublet to, Imogen Geinkes, was not only taking over my lease when it was up on January 1, she had also agreed to buy most of my furniture. In addition, I’d soon be getting a check from the building management company refunding my security deposit, a little boost to the coffers that couldn’t come too soon. The change in my life from my Manhattan job in the financial industry to managing my family’s struggling clambake business in Maine had meant a considerable change in my finances as well.

  Down and back in one day. I couldn’t believe how perfectly the plan had come together.

  * * *

  I jiggled my key in the lock of my old apartment on North Moore Street. Manuel, the quasi-security guard, quasi-doorman, had made me sign in at the front desk, but he’d let me go straight up without calling ahead. Whether it was because he remembered me, or because Imogen had told him about our arrangement, I didn’t know. The lock had always been a little reluctant, and I was relieved when at last the tumblers turned and the door to the apartment swung open.

  I stepped into the dark living room. One of the best things about the apartment was its view across the Hudson, and I was surprised Imogen kept the blinds closed. I turned on the lights and stepped into the kitchen area. I wasn’t planning on taking much, just some dishes, three oil paintings that had been my grandfather’s, and, the real reason for the trip, my books.

  I piled my dishes on the breakfast bar. I needed to get my stuff together to calculate how many boxes to buy on my first visit to the shipping store. That’s when I heard it.

  Sniff.

  “Hello?” I called. I waited, counting to ten. No response. I shrugged and reached for the dinner plates. I loved the apartment, but I had to admit it was entirely possible the sniff had traveled through the paper-thin walls from one of the adjoining units.

  Sniff.

  “Hello?” I said again. The sniff was louder that time, and seemed to come from close by. The bedroom door was closed. I started toward it. “Imogen?”

  On my way through the living room, it happened again. Sniff. Right next to me. “Imogen!” She sat, hidden in a large, upholstered armchair that had been my grandfather’s.

  “Julia?”

  “Imogen. I thought you were at work.”

  “I’m supposed to be.” A solitary tear squeezed from the corner of her eye and tracked down her cheek.

  Ho, boy. What is this about? I knelt beside the chair. “What’s happened?” The waterworks turned on full force. I waited while she pulled herself together.

  Imogen worked at a small advertising firm on Hudson Street, an easy walk from the apartment. I’d spoken with her boss-to-be when I’d checked her references before subletting to her. He’d said she was a new hire, but he expected great things. That had only been nine months ago. What had gone wrong?

  “There . . . there . . . there was a holiday party,” Imogen stuttered out.

  Oh no. She was twenty-two, eight years younger than me, and the same age I’d been when I’d arrived in New York. People can be awfully foolish at that age. I dreaded what might come next.

  “It was just a little gathering. At the office, on Friday night.”

  I counted backward. Today was Wednesday. Only three workdays later. Perhaps the damage, whatever it was, could still be undone.

  “They asked each of us to bring something. For the celebration.” Imogen broke down and sobbed again. I
moved to the matching chair opposite, waiting for the rest of the story.

  “My mama makes a killer eggnog,” Imogen said. “It’s the best. At home, in Buckhead, Atlanta, we have an open house every year on New Year’s Day. People rave about Mama’s eggnog. So I made it. But, Julia, something was wrong with the eggs. I food-poisoned every one of my coworkers and their guests!”

  “Oh my gosh!” I’d been expecting a tale of disaster, but not exactly this one.

  “People were throwing up, and worse, Julia, much worse. We all ended up in the ER with salmonella poisoning.”

  “Were you fired?”

  In the deep chair, Imogen shook her head. “No, but I can’t go back there. I just can’t. Once you’ve been in an emergency room, hooked up to an IV, being rehydrated, next to your boss and your boss’s boss . . .” The tears returned. “I can never see any of those people again.”

  “So, you’ve quit?” No severance, no unemployment compensation. I braced myself for what was coming next.

  “Uh-huh.” Imogen nodded, tears sliding down her cheeks. “So I won’t be able to take the apartment.”

  Chapter Two

  Even though I’d seen it coming, the news felt like a blow. Drat! The best-laid plans . . .

  If I had any hope of getting my security deposit back, I had to get the apartment cleared out. Pronto. I was in New York on a Wednesday because I had it off from work at the restaurant I ran with my boyfriend, Chris, during the winter. I pulled up the calendar on my phone and saw nothing but a solid block of work and holiday obligations running until New Year’s Day. I had to act.

  I supposed I could donate most of the furniture to charity, but it was too late in the day to arrange for a pickup. I could follow the time-honored New York tradition of “donating” it to the passing crowd by leaving it on the sidewalk. But whatever I did, no one would take my mattress and box spring, or the upholstered furniture, due to the pervasive fear of bedbugs.

  I looked around the apartment. So much of the furniture had come from my mother’s father, who had spent the long years of his widowerhood in an apartment on Riverside Drive. He’d died shortly after I arrived in the city, and it had seemed to everyone the perfect solution for me to take most of his furniture. The pieces were old and unfashionable, but I was getting my MBA and hardly in a position to argue. Looking at it now, the overstuffed couch, the straight-backed chair where Imogen sat huddled, its twin where I sat across from her, the mahogany bed and bureau in the bedroom, I wondered how much of the furniture my mother had grown up with. Was she sentimentally attached to any of it? We had a bunch of photos of her at several ages sitting on that sofa.

  My mother lived in closer communion with her family’s past than most people. Morrow Island, where we ran the Snowden Family Clambake in the summer, had been in her family for five generations. But by the time she’d come along, the money was long gone and the family dispersed. Mom had some heirloom china and crystal in our dining room back in Busman’s Harbor, but not much else.

  It was one thing to sell my grandfather’s possessions to Imogen, who could genuinely use them. It was another to abandon them. I couldn’t do that. I was going to have to cart it all back to Busman’s Harbor.

  While I worked my way toward this conclusion, I tried to ignore the steady snuffling from Imogen. But, of course, that was impossible.

  “Do you have a place to stay while you look for another job?” She’d been new to the city when I’d sublet to her, but perhaps since then, she’d made a good friend, the kind who would offer a couch to crash on.

  “No,” Imogen wailed. “I could have gone to my boyfriend’s, but we just broke up.”

  Her nose was red, eyes swollen. Something that looked suspiciously like snot covered her upper lip. She was smaller than me, and at five-two, I’m considered short. Scrunched in my grandfather’s armchair, her feet didn’t quite touch the floor. Her long hair was pulled back in a high ponytail. A few dark brown hairs had escaped and curled around her face in a way that would have been charming had they not been soaked in tears. Her skin was pale, her big eyes brown and, at that moment, wet. To go with her little-girl size, she had a little-girl voice. High-pitched and breathy.

  She looked impossibly young. We hadn’t met when I’d sublet the apartment. She was still in Atlanta, and I’d done my due diligence over the phone, interviewing her, her landlord, and her current and future employers. She’d had an internship in Atlanta, but her job in New York was her first real post-college employment. The age gap between her fresh-out-of-college twenty-two and my almost thirty-one felt like an eternity.

  “Are you going home to Georgia for the holidays?” Christmas and New Year’s would make a Swiss cheese of the next two weeks. No corporate hiring would get done. Imogen might as well go home to Atlanta and come back after the first. When no answer came but sniffles, I prodded, “When do you leave?” I’d have to leave enough furniture to crutch her over until her departure, whenever that was. I had an old card table and chairs stashed in the hall closet along with an air mattress. She could put them on the street when she left the apartment for good.

  My inquiries about her Christmas plans brought on a new set of wails. “I met my ex-boyfriend Wade online, on a matchmaking site. He was the best, the dreamiest, the nicest man I’ve ever known. He came to Atlanta for ten days and it was heaven. We were so in love. He lived here in New York, so when my internship in Atlanta ended, I moved up. But my parents said we hadn’t known each other long enough for me to make such big life decisions. We had a huge fight. My parents and I have never gotten over it.”

  “Really?” My apartment wasn’t cheap. It had taken me years of living with roommates and working to get a place of my own. Imogen had paid her rent right on time every month. I’d assumed she was getting some help from home. If her parents were subsidizing her living expenses, how mad could they be?

  “Imogen, I’m sure they’ll understand. You’ve just had some bad luck.” And bad eggs. “Besides, your boyfriend—Wade was it?—is gone now. They’ll forgive and forget.”

  “But that’s it.” She punched her tiny fist into the arm of the chair. “I am not going home with my tail between my legs.” She stuck out her jaw.

  “That’s great,” I said. “But you realize, you can’t stay here. At least not after New Year’s Eve. Have you made any good girlfriends since you moved to New York?”

  “Not really. None of the women at work are friendly. For some reason, they don’t like me.”

  You mean, before you poisoned them?

  Imogen burst into energetic tears once again.

  * * *

  The great thing about New York City is that, for a price, you can get pretty much anything you want or need at any hour of the day or night. In my case, that included a yellow rental truck and two big guys, Julio and Mike, to load it. I found the guys on Craigslist. Julio said they were just finishing another job and could be at my place by 8:00 PM. That gave me six hours to pack up everything and clean the apartment. More than enough time. Besides, I wasn’t in a position to argue.

  By the time I was done with the calls, Imogen was done crying, at least for the moment. She wandered into the kitchen area and got a glass of ice water.

  “Where will you take the furniture?” she asked.

  “Home, to Busman’s Harbor, Maine.”

  “That sounds wonderful. Do you have a town green with a Christmas tree and a skating pond?” She rattled off the features of a Currier and Ives print.

  “Yes,” I admitted.

  “And do you have presents under the tree and dinner with family and friends?”

  “Er, yes.” Where was this going?

  “And will you have a white Christmas?”

  “No way to know. There wasn’t any snow on the ground when I left this morning, but we’ve got a week until the big day.” I answered in a “just the facts, ma’am” tone I hoped would discourage the question I feared was coming next.

  “I have a gre
at idea!” Imogen exclaimed, as if the thought had just occurred to her that second. “Why don’t I come home in the truck with you for the holidays? I’ve always wanted to see a real New England Christmas. And that way we can clean out the apartment together today.”

  I began to understand her parents’ concern about her impulsivity. On the other hand, what she was proposing wasn’t completely crazy. If she left with me, I’d be the last person in the apartment and could make sure it was cleaned up to my specifications and ensure I’d get my security deposit back.

  Besides, my family had a long history of taking in strays for holidays. Foreign students at my boarding school for Thanksgiving. Itinerant sternmen who worked on Grandpa Snowden’s lobster boat for Easter. My mom would be fine with me bringing Imogen home. Besides, I didn’t think she’d last the whole week in Maine until Christmas. Once she was over the shock of the whole mess—food-poisoning her colleagues, quitting her job, breaking up with her boyfriend, and ending up in a little harbor town in Maine where she didn’t know a soul—I figured she’d get homesick and be on a plane to Atlanta ASAP.

  “Okay,” I said. “You can come. I have to leave now to pick up the truck. You pack your stuff and start cleaning. I’ll buy boxes at the truck rental place and be back as fast as I can.”

  * * *

  During the cab ride over to the truck place, I called my mom and then Chris. Mom, the product of generations of good breeding, was as gracious about the unanticipated holiday guest as I’d expected she would be.

  Chris was more skeptical. “Julia, you just met this person.”

  “I know, but I checked her out before I sublet to her. She’s a perfectly nice person.” Somehow, his doubts made me all the more certain.

  He, apparently, wasn’t opposed enough to argue. “Safe travels. See you tonight,” he said. “Love you.”

  “Love you, too.”