The Haunted Beach (Tropical Breeze Cozy Mystery Book 4) (10 page)

Ben answered the door looking like he’d just been thrown from a moving vehicle. He hadn’t changed clothes or showered, and he smelled like he’d slept in the woods. His thick white hair was disarranged for the first time Ed could remember. He wasn’t wearing his glasses, and his brown eyes were bleary.

“Well, you were right,” he said in a gravelly voice. Then he turned his back on them, leaving the door open, and went back upstairs.

By the time they came in, he was halfway up the stairs, but before he could get to the top, he stumbled. Ed quickly went to him, bending down to help him up, but instead Ben turned around and sat down on the stair, burying his face in his hands. Ed looked at Taylor wide-eyed, and she closed the door, came up the stairs, squeezed by them and said, “I’ll make coffee.”

Ben didn’t respond in any way.

At the top of the stairs, Taylor turned and looked down. “Or would you rather have a beer?”

She asked it in a dead, almost disgusted voice, and Ed looked shocked.

Through his fingers Ben said, “I’ve had too much coffee, I’ve had too much beer, and I don’t want anything. But I’m glad you came,” he said, his voice thinning until it was almost inaudible. Suddenly he took his hands away from his face and looked at Ed with teary eyes. “Do the police think I did it?”

“Oh, no. No no.”

“They will. They do. And they’ll keep believing it, because I did all the wrong things leading up to this. I don’t have an alibi, and I’m inheriting a fortune. I’m dead. I may as well go hang myself, because if I don’t I’ll just spend the rest of my life in jail.”

“None of us have alibis, if it comes to that,” Ed pointed out. “Her whole world was here in Santorini. She didn’t know anybody who wasn’t from Santorini, that I know of, and anybody here could have done it.”

“I vote for the wandering maniac on the beach,” Taylor said drily. “Well, if nobody else wants breakfast, I do. I’ll be in the kitchen.”

“Come on, Ben. Let’s go sit down.”

“Ben, would you like me to cook you some breakfast?” Taylor called from the kitchen.

When he didn’t answer, Ed suggested Taylor just make toast. Then he guided Ben toward the living room sofa.

After fifteen minutes Taylor came and put a tray down on the coffee table. From the tray she placed a glass of orange juice and a plate of toast in front of Ben. She gave Ed a cup of coffee and set a plate of scrambled eggs and another cup of coffee on the table for herself. Ed looked down into his cup and suddenly felt sick. He could barely stand the smell of coffee now.

“Is there anybody we can call?” Taylor asked. “Somebody who can come and stay with you?”

Ben laughed bitterly. “How about a lawyer?”

Taylor hesitated, then said, “Seriously?”

Ben waved a hand dismissively. “There isn’t anybody. I’ve got a grown son, but he won’t have anything to do with me. His mother was my first wife. I drank myself out of that marriage and when I sobered up, she wouldn’t have me back. I’d put them all through too much, I guess. I was alone after that for fifteen years. Then I met Dolores. One of the few times her mother let her off the leash, and what does she do but meet a guy like me and end up married to him. We both volunteered at some event downtown, and I didn’t have any idea she was rich. She didn’t look rich. She was just nice. Shy. Quiet. I couldn’t believe she wasn’t married with five kids and twenty grandkids. She looked like one of those women who stay home and knit afghans. I took her out for dinner after the event and one thing led to another. Frieda never even knew about me until we decided to get married. That’s when I found out Dolores was an heiress, with a character straight out of a Greek tragedy for a mother.”

They let him talk because he seemed to need to. Ed knew part of the story of the Brinker marriage, but Taylor had always wondered how Dolores had managed to get away from Frieda long enough to find a man. Ben didn’t look like a gold-digger, but they came in all varieties, and Dolores would have been easy prey. The few times Frieda had mentioned her son-in-law, it had been obvious she didn’t like him. Ben went on and on in an even tone of voice, and gradually he wound down and seemed to get sleepy.

“How about going to bed, Ben?” Ed said when he finally stopped talking. “We were up all night, and you’ve had a terrible shock.”

Ben was staring at the empty plate on the coffee table as if he couldn’t remember eating. “Okay,” he said, suddenly docile.

With a backward glance at Taylor, Ed led the older man away. As they climbed the stairs, Taylor heard Ed say, “Would it be all right with you if we took a peek at the paintings your wife did?”

Ben mumbled something Taylor didn’t catch.

The bedroom at the Brinkley house was similar to the one at Frieda’s. It comprised the entire third floor, with wide views of the ocean. Typically, Frieda had made her wedding gift a slightly lesser house than her own: though nearly identical, it lacked the decorative balcony off the side, and there was no massive wooden screen in front of the elevator doors.

Ben walked straight across the room and fell onto the bed, almost going down flat on his face.

Ed removed Ben’s sandals. Then, instead of dropping them on the floor and pushing them out of the way, he trotted to the closet, confident that there would be a neat little space where they belonged. But he was not in his own house, looking into his own precisely arranged closet, and it pained him to have to set the sandals down beside a pile of shoes of all varieties that were tumbled together on the right side of the closet. Ed set them side by side, nice and even, closed the door, closed his eyes, shook his head and went back to check on Ben.

He appeared to be asleep.

Ed closed the curtains, straightened the covers as best he could with Ben on top of them, and plumped the only pillow he could pick up without disturbing the other man. He did all these things automatically, preparing to leave, but as he held the pillow between his hands it hit him that it had been Dolores’s. Her head had rested here, in the space between his hands. Frozen in the act of replacing it, he held on a moment longer, gazing at it. Then he tenderly put it back next to Ben’s and patted it.

Unable to make himself leave without some sort of formality, he stood at the side of the bed closest to Ben and whispered, “I’m going now.”

Ben immediately opened his eyes and grabbed Ed’s wrist.

“You know, don’t you?” Ben said.

This is it, Ed thought, he’s going to confess. Ed wanted to run away. He didn’t want to hear a confession. He was a spirit chaser, not a cop. He knew just what to do about the anguish of the dead; the living had always confounded him. They were somebody else’s job.

“Ben,” he said warningly.

“You know how it happened, don’t you?
You’ll
believe me. You knew her. You knew Frieda, didn’t you?”

Ed stared down squeamishly. “I wouldn’t say I
knew
Frieda, but I did interview her, as far as she’d let me.”

“That’s just it! You could only do what she’d let you do. She was always in control. You
do
understand.”

“Ben, I’m not quite sure what you’re getting at.”

“You know why I didn’t call the police. They couldn’t have helped us anyway.”

Suddenly Ed understood exactly what Ben was trying to say.

Ben was still holding his wrist, and with a wild burst of energy, he sat up, pulling on Ed until he sat down.

“I couldn’t tell the cops that! I couldn’t tell them they couldn’t help me because my wife was possessed by an evil woman who wouldn’t die and go away and leave us alone! They would have thought I was crazy, or lying. But you believe me, don’t you? You know I’m not crazy! You see these things all the time, right? You’ve seen evil spirits before.” He was shaking all over and still clamped onto Ed’s wrist.

“I didn’t think you believed –“ Ed began.

“Do
you
believe?” he demanded, thrusting his face close to Ed’s.

“Yes. I do.”

Ben let go of Ed and closed his eyes. The tears that had been swimming on the edges of his lids dropped onto his cheeks. He fell back onto the bed, turning his head away.

“She killed her,” Ben said. “The selfish bitch kept coming until she finally got her. And if I end up taking the blame, she’ll laugh all the way down to hell and beyond, happy to get her revenge on me at last.”

It wasn’t an act. Ben was in a state of nervous collapse. Ed didn’t believe he was strong enough or clear-headed enough to put on an act. The man really believed it.

If so, it explained a lot. Why Ben hadn’t asked anybody for help. Why he hadn’t called the police. Why he’d been drinking so much. Why he’d taken it upon himself to go out and find Dolores, even if it meant coming face-to-face with a spectral Frieda.

“You do believe me, don’t you, Ed?” Ben’s voice was weak.

“Yes. I believe you.”

Ben closed his eyes and immediately began to breathe like a sleeping man.

Ed got up and slowly went down the stairs.

Once the men had been all the way up the stairs, Taylor had gone quietly down. According to what Ed had told her, the twins had said Dolores’s studio was on the ground floor on the north side. Taylor found it easily.

When Ed joined her, she was staring at a deep blue canvas depicting an ethereal figure that seemed to be melting in and out of the paint. He turned slowly and looked at the canvases leaning against all four walls of the room. They were all similar. Some were stacked in front of other paintings, and there was a studio easel next to the work table with a blank canvas in it. On the table itself was a jumble of oil paint tubes, dirty brushes, clean brushes and turpsy rags.

Ed went to some of the canvases and looked behind the “Frieda” paintings. He found still lifes of teapots and cups, wine bottles and fruit, and a charming little study of a pot of red primroses. The older paintings were bright and cheerful, with satisfyingly rounded shapes and glossy reflections. It was hard to believe that the later ones were painted by the same artist. It made Ed wonder if Dolores hadn’t had a stroke. Her very mind must have undergone a change. Her eyes took in the world differently. The draftsmanship of the new paintings was different, the lines skewed and twisted, and her old, precise brushstrokes had changed into almost wild streaks and dashes. The color palette had changed completely.

Taylor was kneeling, gazing intently at one of the few figures that showed a face. The features of it were dreamy, the pose elusive – that last glance before turning away and pulling the veil across.

He gazed at the painting. This was the murderous spirit Ben had been describing.

“Ben thinks Frieda came and took Dolores away,” he said. “He really believes it.”

Taylor looked up at him sourly. “Yeah. I’m sure that’s what he wants you to think.”

She went back to her silent study of the painting, and he decided not to argue with her.

“What are you thinking?” he said, squatting beside her. The blurry suggestion of eyes in the painted face made him uneasy. But at the same time, the exuberance of the swirling figure made it seem about to burst forth from the canvas, like a thing released from bondage at last. It was terrible and wonderful at the same time.

Taylor shook her head. “I don’t know.” She gave a sudden shudder, looked sideways at him and stood up. “Well, one thing I can say: that creature is saying something to me, but it’s not saying the same thing as the portrait in the bedroom across the street.”

“No. She’s changed. That Frieda was full of anger. This one is full of . . . of life,” he said, surprising himself. “Turning and prancing like an exuberant animal. In death, she’s more alive. She’s stronger. But how can that be?”

“In the old portrait, she was wearing a ridiculous costume and being forced to waste her time posing for an artist who didn’t like her. In these, she’s free. She’s dancing. She’s with Dolores, and she’s happy.”

“But they’re so manic. Is that happiness?” Ed frowned and turned to look at her profile. “How do you know the artist didn’t like Frieda?”

She widened her eyes and thought for a moment. “You could see it in her face, couldn’t you? She looked hard, mean. The artist made her look like that. He couldn’t have liked her.”

“I suppose you’re right.”

Ed took a careful look around, then bent down and picked up the painting they’d been looking at. Then he selected two others.

“What are you doing?” Taylor asked sharply.

“Ben said he didn’t want them. I asked if I could have one, and he said I could take them all. I’ll just take these for now. Do you want one?”

She looked around, shivered, and said, “No thanks. I wouldn’t mind having one of the old ones, though. Maybe the little red flowers, but I bet Ben won’t want to give that one up.”

“No, probably not.”

“It’s the
old
Dolores. How long were they married?”

“Ten years.”

“That’s all?”

Ed smiled sadly. “It’s a wonder they found one another at all. At least they had that much time together.”