On Deadly Tides (A Wendover House Mystery Book 3) (2 page)

I sank to the ground and put my head on my knees. I felt like an idiot for pulling a Brandy, but Ben’s words had brought me to the edge of a blackout. Could my great-grandfather have been alive all this time?

“Cheer up, Tess. Maybe Harris and Bryson between them can make it all go away.”

“How?”

“A few rocks in the pockets and the storm dragging the corpse back out to sea. With any luck it would never be seen again.…”

I didn’t hear the rest. My brain decided it had learned enough and sent me sliding into the dark.

Our bare little island sculpted by the sea doesn’t look like a place of secrets, but it most definitely is. Some of those secrets are benign, some are less so, but very old and too distant to be of concern to the living. However, the body on the beach was another matter.

Though I half expected to awake from my faint and discover that Ben had been right about Bryson and Harris letting the body
wash
out to sea, it proved to be wrong. That didn’t mean that they were trumpeting their find to the wider world. For the time being we had a John Doe in a freezer drawer at the funeral parlor which was also the coroner’s office—the islands being in dispute with Canada and the US both claiming ownership, the body was being kept locally—and no one was saying anything about the man possibly being my great-grandfather.

That did not mean that Harris and Bryson were being idle. DNA was being compared both with a hair sample from my great-grandfather’s brush and also against a swab that some thorough technician had taken from the corpse already resting in the family mausoleum. The process was slow and also hampered by the fact that both bodies were not … uncontaminated. We would have to see if the samples were too degraded to be viable.

Jack had stayed another two days, but finally had needed to get back to work. I was not sorry to see him go. Really, I wasn’t much of anything. I’d gone into shock and the only living being I wanted to see was Kelvin.
The cat, not my great-grandfather.

Then one day Ben brought me a puppy. We had discussed my getting a dog after the Twelfth Night party, but the notion had slipped my mind in the horrible days that followed.
The puppy, in the way that puppies so often do, stole my heart and I found myself beginning to feel the stirrings of pleasure.
He was a pug mix and I called him Barney after Barney Fife because there was a strong resemblance.

It would not have surprised me if Kelvin had rejected the young canine,
who
was all paws and sharp puppy teeth, but the cat seemed merely amused by the interloper and undertook to educate the dog about proper civilized practices. A week after Barney moved in with us, I found him out in the yard burying his doggie business while Kelvin looked on approvingly. It was the first laugh I’d had in days.

Once my emotions came out of deep freeze, I found myself more curious than horrified by what had happened. The thought of more idleness did not commend itself to me and I decided to undertake some investigating of my own.

The first question was who was on the beach. Was it Kelvin or not? Discovering the identity might take a while. Disinterment usually takes time because the courts have to order an exhumation. The public health is always a concern, you see, and rotting bodies are full of germs. But the first sample hadn’t been viable so we needed to try again.

And this was Goose Haven, the judge was Harris’s uncle, and we were only talking about opening an above ground crypt to obtain a better DNA sample from a corpse that the doctor certified had no obvious infectious diseases.

So, what would be easier to investigate? Could I more quickly prove the identity of a known person with known routines, contacts, and habits, or a total stranger who might not blend into the area and therefore have been noticed? It was a crapshoot. I decided that I would begin with the premise that the body really was Kelvin.

If I were my great-grandfather and intent on running away from my gilded prison, I would move inland, as far from the ocean as possible. Heck, I’d even stay away from large lakes just in case the watery curse could follow me.

Unless I truly believed that leaving the area would cause a watery cataclysm for the islands. Then I might stay long enough to make sure that a relative was installed in my place. But if he planned to remain near the islands for the public well-being, why not live at the house and have the use of the family money until a replacement was found? And why not leave the area once Harris had discovered me and I was safely in residence?

And what of the man who had first washed up on the beach? Who was he?
Had that been arranged—a murder?
Or had Kelvin just taken advantage of an accident? Maybe he found the body one morning and seeing a chance, stuffed it in his clothes and popped his own dentures in its mouth?

I shivered.

Perhaps I couldn’t know the answer to this. And maybe it didn’t matter. What I could discover was where Kelvin or his doppelganger had been staying all these months. It couldn’t have been anywhere on the islands themselves or he would have been recognized, I was sure. It was still rather new and sometimes uncomfortable, but there was no denying that I had moved into someone else’s life, one that supplied an identity and a family history that everyone knew better than I did. Wendovers could not hide in the islands.

“So, he went to the mainland?”

Barney barked agreement, causing ghostly musical echoes in the old piano.

“Let’s look at a map.”

*
 
*
 
*

Maine actually has more miles of coastline than California, a dismaying fact that soon became apparent when I mapped out my search grid. Most of it is quite beautiful and absolutely encrusted with little tourist towns where someone might well hide.

I decided to begin my enquiries at the nearest village, which had a large pier, a maritime museum, and a foghorn so loud it knocked seagulls out of the air. I would start my search on Tuesday.

The town, which I prefer not to name, also houses our family cemetery, though that wasn’t on my to-do list for the day. Eventually I needed to visit, but I didn’t see how looking at the grave would help me in my quest to find Kelvin’s hideaway.

I disembarked the ferry and was met with a large sign warning me to avoid the accidental spread of eastern dwarf mistletoe. I hadn’t planned on picking up any parasitic invaders but I made note of the plant’s general outlines before hurrying for the nearest coffee shop in the hope of getting both hot coffee and perhaps a lead.

The slouching wharf seemed to catch the wind and still it when it met up with the sheds, making the salt smell more concentrated than it was on the ferry, and I found it oddly unpleasant.

The snow, mostly melted, left the empty wooden buildings looking dull and dreary. The whole town felt rather defeated. In summer, when there were flowers in the window boxes and some fresh whitewash was applied to the almost naked fences and railing, things would be more cheerful. I tried to keep that image in mind and not feel depressed and lethargic.

Barney was spending the day with Ben, sleeping by my neighbor’s warm fire, which was a whole lot nicer than where I was and I had a small pang of envy for the pair. The coffee shop was a typical greasy spoon with a plastic-encased menu, sticky with ketchup and lard which I’d prefer to avoid, but where there was usually good pie and coffee.

Wilbur—if the mustard-smudged name tag was correct—was working behind the counter, if working could be construed to involve reading the local paper and slurping noisily at a mug of tea. I didn’t complain about the slow service and smiled nicely when I placed my order. Nor did I rush right in with a bunch of questions, but rather waited until he had put the paper away and finally took note of me as something other than a body on a stool.

Since I was waiting for it, I saw the moment that he figured out who I was. We were alone in the shop or I think he might have hurried away to wait on other tables.

“So,” I said, opting for bluntness. “I don’t suppose that you’ve seen Kelvin lately.”

His eyes went wide and his mouth snapped shut and, as expected, I was met with the reflexive stubbornness shown to all outsiders. Tupperware didn’t seal up as tight as some of these inbred communities. But there was residual respect and fear for the Wendover name even on the mainland so I waited silently, forcing him to make some sort of reply.

“Kelvin didn’t come here much. Usually he went straight to the bookstore,” Wilbur said at last.

I nodded, wishing to appear informed of my great-grandfather’s habits. It was a small town so there was probably only one. And the bookstore made sense. My great-grandfather had been a book collector.

When it was clear that Wilbur had nothing else to offer, I paid for my pie and left a generous but not preposterous tip. I didn’t ask for directions since it would ruin my family’s reputation for omniscience. There was really only one main street in town and it seemed to be where the businesses were located. The bookstore was about half a block up and easy to spot because it had a large hanging sign that said BOOKS.

The building was old, mostly Victorian in style, and leaning just enough to the west to shift the narrow, display-cluttered windows and door into obvious parallelograms that had probably leaked badly until someone without much experience had caulked them. On the north corner the Wedgwood blue paint was peeling away from a pitted cornice and revealing that the store had at one time been painted barn red.

Snow had melted off the roof enough to reveal the skeletons of thorny weeds grown last summer in the porch gutter. The tenant, and perhaps owner, was obviously more passionate about books than home maintenance. Looking around, that seemed typical of the town.

There was also something that looked a lot like a hex sign over the door mantel and I wondered if he also was “from away.”

The posted hours on the small plaque on the slender door were from ten until four so I took the sign at its word and tried the tarnished brass knob. The door opened with a jangling of sleigh bells that would summon even the hard of hearing from anywhere in the three-story building, though no one immediately appeared.

“Hello?” I called, staying a moment on the dirty doormat so that any water on my boots would drain off before I ventured inside.

The wood of the floors and walls had warped and darkened from its younger days, and smoke from the central fireplace had done its worst and turned the ceiling into a dark canopy near the chimney. Though the shelves were dust free, I noticed cobwebs hiding in the corners of the main room. The books were loved, but not the house.

It was an enjoyable place for all its being somewhat unkempt, especially with a fire in the grate and a large orange cat curled up in a Morris chair near the fireplace. My nose began to run as it often does when I come in out of the cold and I sniffed in annoyance as I hunted up a tissue.

I like bookstores and libraries, but I also have come to feel the weight of accumulated knowledge and opinion in places where old books gather. Books are compressed thoughts and some of those ideas are still dangerous. There didn’t seem to be many frivolous titles to lighten the gloom either. No romance, no thrillers, little fiction of any kind, at least on the first floor. Maybe all the Barbara
Cartland
paperbacks were upstairs.

“Hullo,” a quiet,
accentless
voice said and I turned to look at a man who was the embodiment of Ichabod Crane had Ichabod worn blue, rubber-soled shoes.

We studied each other for a moment and then he said, “I’m Percival Henry. You must be Kelvin’s granddaughter.”

As I have mentioned, the family features breed true and are quite identifiable.

“Great-granddaughter,” I clarified. “And please call me Tess.”

“I’m so glad that you’ve come,” Percival said. “Kelvin assured me that you eventually would, but I had begun to worry that you wouldn’t make it after all.”

I tried not to stare. Kelvin had known I was coming? He had known he had a great-granddaughter? Or was he talking about my mother? Had he known that his daughter was pregnant when she left the island and assumed my mother still lived? My heart began to thud.

“When did—when did you last see Kelvin?” I asked.

“Let’s see. It wouldn’t have been in the early spring. It was the week before.…” Percival trailed off.

The orange cat stirred and poured himself off the chair. He sauntered over to rub himself on my slacks and then slouch off somewhere, perhaps the kitchen.

“The week before he disappeared,” I finished for him.

“Yes,” Ichabod sounded relieved. “He was with his lawyer and stopped in for a visit while Harris was seeing a client.”

“And that’s when he asked you to give me something?”

“Yes. He had been on the lookout for a rare first edition of collected letters—local history and a lot of nonsense about regional legends and boogiemen.” Ichabod colored. His pale skin mottled unattractively and turned so violent a shade that I thought it must hurt. “I—I glanced at the book when it arrived. Making sure it was in good condition.”

More likely he had read it cover to cover. Being a true bibliophile he probably couldn’t help himself.

“Kelvin collected a lot of local history books,” I said calmly though I very much wanted to read this book about local legends and boogiemen. “Did Kelvin actually see the book that day, or did he just know that it was coming?”

“He saw it.
But it is rather large and he said that he and Harris weren’t going straight back to the island and could I keep it here—and that if he didn’t come to get it the next week, his granddaughter would.
He didn’t want me to send it to the island like I usually do.”

“Granddaughter?”
I asked.
“Or great-granddaughter?”

“Um…. I don’t really recall.”

That was a shame. Because it would have indeed been a curious fact had he known about me even before Harris
did.