Murder at Moot Point (22 page)

“She just scalded herself in a vat of boiling water.”

Doc Withers went white—which with these people wasn't easy. “Did they call Paige?”

“She came with her spiky house plant and we all gooed Gladys. I thought it was odd they didn't call 911 and an ambulance. Gladys is badly burned, although Paige tried to convince her otherwise. They should even have called you in the interim. You would have known more about how to keep her skin on until they could get the poor thing to a burn center or something. But no, they call the local florist.”

Doc Withers had relaxed noticeably. “Sometimes when I get in trouble with the animals I call Paige too. Where is Mrs. Bergkvist now?”

“At home with Paige and Jack Monroe.”

“Oh, well, that's good.” He finished his wine casually and set the glass down on the hearth. “I better get back to the clinic. Eddie's having a little stomach trouble after his surgery today.” The holistic animal doctor disappeared down one of the tentacles—and not to the clinic, Charlie would have bet the Toyota, but to the home of Gladys and Olie Bergkvist.

“What did you do? Tell him his proposal stank?” Brother Dennis said behind her, and steadied her arm so she wouldn't spill the wine she wasn't drinking. He had a habit of sneaking up on people. “What did you think of my screenplay?”

“Well, it was certainly unusual.”

“I could flesh it out more for you if you're interested.”

“I'm sorry, Brother Dennis, the agency just doesn't handle screenwriters who don't live in LA.”

“But that's so unfair. You can write anywhere.”

A lady with tight gray curls and huge dangling earrings turned to give him a wine-loosened smile. “Serenity, brother, remember?”

“Did you hear what happened to Gladys?” Charlie changed the subject quickly. “She was scalded with hot water down at Rose's. Do you know of some way we could get in touch with Olie? He should know about this.”

“Who's with her now?” Brother Dennis's hair was done exceptionally well tonight, glossy and buoyant. But his face was greasy. Charlie suspected he was under more tension than he'd care to admit to his searchers.

“Jack, Paige, Rose—but not Olie. Where do you suppose he is?”

“Argentina, I think. Are they still at Rose's?” He started for the door.

Charlie set down her glass and followed him. “At Gladys's. Nobody even called a doctor.” When they were halfway down the drive, she said, “Looks like you have a good crowd, but I understand the institute's in financial trouble.”

Brother Dennis stopped suddenly and Charlie ran into him. “As a matter of fact,” he said, “the institute is remarkably solvent. I plan to begin a major expansion once the summer season is over.”

Chapter 24

Apparently satisfied he'd put a nosy agent in her place, Brother Dennis gave a little “huff” and marched off toward Gladys's house with Charlie tagging along behind uninvited. But not told outright to bugger off either. She reminded herself of what had happened to a nosy lady named Georgette Glick very recently in this village. Had Michael been nosy too?

They came upon the Bergkvist house the back way, from the stair-step street above and probably the way Doc Withers had come to visit. Official activity still bustled about the loft.

Charlie had hoped to follow Brother Dennis right into the house but they met Jack Monroe just coming out. Jack offered to take Charlie back to the Hide-a-bye and before she could change his mind the door to the Bergkvist house had closed on her.

Linda Tortle was climbing into her car when Charlie and Jack walked down the driveway. She paused to watch them, returning Charlie's friendly greeting with a tired grimace. Peety Tortle had just spent another evening with Grandma. With any luck so had Libby Greene.

Jack's idea of taking Charlie home was walking along the beach. “But what if the tide's up? I'm tired,” she protested. “Couldn't we drive?”

“My pickup's in the shop, as usual. But thanks to you, Charlie, and Morton and Fish, I'll soon have a new truck.” They were in front of Rose's about then and he picked her up and swung her around. He was a very strong person for someone his age. “I might even buy a computer to do my work on and build a second story on the Earth Spirit to live and write in. And hire a full-time clerk to watch the store in the summertime so I can spend more time writing. What do you think?”

“Do me one favor, Jack. Don't spend a penny of your newfound wealth until it's in the bank. Don't project ahead from what you think might be coming.”

“Why? I mean if you sell so many books, you're going to make so much money, and—”

“Sometimes we overproject.” Charlie didn't know why she invariably got into this conversation. It never did any good. “There's money withheld for returns and things you can just never predict.” Modern accounting didn't help a lot either. “Just don't jump into any big spending until you've got the cash in hand.”

“Paige just told me the institute's expanding and you said it was bankrupt. Rose intends to build on an addition—”

“But rich Japanese own that.”

“I just found out tonight that Rose is going to try to buy back their shares. And Paige is even planning to expand the Emporium. Moot Point is blossoming, Charlie.”

At the mention of blossom, Charlie saw Gladys's burned thigh. “But the economy sucks here. It's so obvious, Jack.”

“You California types assume things that don't exist for the rest of the world,” he said in disgust.

“Just don't come carping to me when money you borrowed against doesn't materialize when you expect it to or at all.”

He stepped ahead of her down the wooden stairs to the beach, confident and surefooted in the dark. She followed unsteadily with her heart in her mouth. Funny, she hadn't noticed this problem the other day when she descended these same stairs with Wes Bennett.

“Acrophobia?” Jack asked and took her hand to help her down the last few steps.

“Yeah. It doesn't bother me unless I think about it, or unless I'm on top of a skyscraper or a mountain and can't not think about it.”

“You ought to talk to Paige. She's good at getting people to talk themselves out of phobias.”

“Is there anything she can't treat? Jack, Paige might have talked Gladys out of the pain of those burns with all that cooling chatter of streams and rocks, but the pain is going to come back when Gladys thinks about it, and she's going to wear disfiguring scars for the rest of her life, if not come down with some terrible infection right away. Why wouldn't anyone call 911 and get help for her? I know you people are into alternative ways of doing things here, and I respect that, but tonight was really irresponsible. The mind can do wonders, I know, but there are limits. I've heard of people dying from being scalded. Paige is a florist, not an MD. And shouldn't someone contact Gladys's husband?”

“Paige is also a psychology major and a trained herbalist,” Jack said as if that had anything to do with the price of pizza. “There's no reason to call Olie. Gladys will be fine. Aloe has proven itself in treating burns for hundreds of years.”

“Aloe? Is that what that thing was? Jack, Gladys was really scalded. Don't you think if it could help burns that serious they'd use it in hospitals?”

“Anybody can grow aloe,” he said patiently, as if finding her gullibility mind-boggling. “The pharmaceutical companies couldn't make any money off it. They certainly aren't going to test it and announce a lowly houseplant outperforms their expensive medicines. They use aloe as an ingredient in some of their salves and ointments. But nothing works as well as fresh-cut aloe applied immediately. By the time the emergency ‘experts' arrive with all their expensive junk it's too late. Rose really should have one growing in the restaurant and handy. Of course I don't suppose most of her help would let her use it on them if they were in flames.”

“Jack, if it was that great a cure-all, doctors would grow aloe among the ferns in their waiting rooms and run out and cut off a hunk when they needed it. Things aren't that simple.” This sounded like another loopy idea from the great minds offering to treat cancer with avocado pits.

“Doctors won't try anything that hasn't had big bucks spent on pharmacological testing, government approval, and approval in medical journals. And nobody's going to bother to test something so simple and natural as aloe.”

“I give up.”

“You stick to being a good agent and don't mess with things you know nothing about. Wouldn't hurt you to be a little less judgmental. Damned depressing to see someone as young as you are keeping such a closed mind.”

Properly reprimanded, Charlie slogged along beside him, surprised at how well she could see the sand when all else seemed so dark. It reflected a dull glow that cast shadows off the rocks at the end of the point and highlighted the surf suds to remind Charlie unpleasantly of Michael. But the wreck of the Ferrari had been hauled away and so had he. The tide covered all traces of the accident scene and she and Jack had to walk up tight against the cliff to round the point. He reached down to pick up something white caught in the rocks. Jack had pretty good eyesight for a man his age, too.

“Looks like one of those boxes Rose packs for tourist picnics,” he said. “People come here for the scenery and leave trash and don't see the dichotomy. I could live to be a hundred and never understand that way of thinking.”

“This is where Michael died.” Charlie shivered and he put an arm around her shoulders. “He was half out of the car and his eyes were open and the ocean sort of snuck up and left foam in his hair.”

“Why didn't Wes leave you up in the parking lot?”

“He did. I just didn't stay put.”

The birds out on the rookery rocks were quiet now. Jack and Charlie walked quietly too. Until Jack asked, “Find your contact lenses?”

“Yes, and right where you put them when you snuck into my cabin while I was gone. Then you call me up and expect me to believe you did it when you and your body had temporarily parted. Jack, I may be younger than you are, but I wasn't born yesterday.”

“All right then, tell me how you liked Brother Dennis's screenplay? And Paige's
Death of a Grandmother?
”

“If I was as gullible as you think I am I would suddenly realize you couldn't have known Linda and I were reading them shortly before you called. But, since both authors are friends of yours, you could have read both offerings before I did and have been aware that somebody left them on my doorstep. And you could also easily have known enough about Linda and Doc Withers, and that relationship, and the ducks too, to have guessed what she might have told me of them. You didn't have to crawl out of your body for any of that information, Jack. I'm your agent, we're supposed to be on the same side, remember?”

When Charlie entered cabin three the phone was ringing. It was Wes.

“Just checking to be sure you're in and safe.”

“Thanks again for the steamers and beer.”

“My pleasure, lady.” There was a new intimacy in his voice.

“Where are you?”

“Home finally, and too old and tired to gaze into those big eyes of yours, let me tell you. See you for breakfast. And Charlie, lock your door tonight?”

“I thought you were worried about me wandering around outside, not about somebody wandering in. What's up?”

“I don't know. That's what worries me. There's bad stuff going down at Moot Point, and I don't have a clue as to what it is. Now you know how tired I am to even be admitting that.”

“Michael's death wasn't accidental, was it, Wes?”

“No lab reports in yet, but it doesn't look like it. We may have an extremely clever murderer operating here. Then again we may have an amateur so dumb he can fool you just because you can't imagine anybody that stupid still up and walking.”

“See you for breakfast,” Charlie said and growled.

She hung up on his groaning. And realized it was too late to call home again. “Edwina and Libby Greene, I'm counting on you both. Don't let me down now.”

Charlie stopped soaring and began to fall. She'd done this before and hated it more each time. She felt weak with nausea and sweat, terrified at breathing that wouldn't regulate, and panicked by adrenaline that rushed to push her into action while total helplessness clamped over her like a body cast.

This time it would be a relief to arrive at the
Peter Iredale
and come so unglued she'd wake up screaming at the Hide-a-bye.

“I can't take much more of this. Let's just get it over with.” And the body cast tightened. “It can't get any worse than this.”

But it did.

This time she wasn't alone. There were “things” out here with her. Charlie had lost control of her body, her dignity, her breathing, and for all she knew her bladder. But she could lift her eyelids. The black was pitch. But the things were here. And they were megatimes worse than anything she'd even imagined before. They reveled in her terror, their glee silent but pervasive in the dark. The more delighted and victorious they became, the stronger they reeked.

Charlie couldn't see a thing. But she almost knew what they looked like. They just didn't look like anything she knew, so they didn't relate to anything. She couldn't explain them even to herself—amorphous, omniscient, so dangerous it was incomprehensible. She'd be a fool not to struggle to escape them, and a worse one to even try.

The word “evil” kept popping up in Charlie's brain with the adrenaline bubbles.

Charlie sat in the recliner rocker wrapped in the god-awful Hide-a-bye quilt that passed for a bedspread and stared into the fire of the day's pressed log. Her stomach hurt as it always did when she went on vacation longer than a weekend. Charlie had been born with a man's stomach. It liked the routine of a regular job, a little good sex didn't detract, and a home with the regular perks—cleanliness, orderliness, happy children, patio barbecue, and all the rest—but not a lot of surprises.