The Haunted Beach (Tropical Breeze Cozy Mystery Book 4) (17 page)

When Teddy called to ask why Ed was late getting to Spuds for the shoot on Monday, he told him it was the twins’ day to clean and he had to wait until they were done.

“Oh, come on!” Teddy had said. “You trust them, don’t you?”

“Not for a minute. They wouldn’t steal anything, but they’re nosy. They’d go through everything in the house, and then run down the block telling everybody all about it. My office –“

“They won’t go in there and you know it. Now that you’ve trapped the ghost of Frieda in there, they wouldn’t go in there if you paid them. Actually, you do pay them,” Teddy said, frowning and working it out.

Lily grabbed the phone. “What did the twins bake today?” she asked wisely.

“That had nothing to do with it. Scones. Anyway, I’m on my way now, and by the time you get set up and ready to go, I’ll be there.”

He had tried everything he could think of to slow the twins down, but knowing Teddy needed him in Spuds, they were like greased lightning. For once he tried to chat with them, and they wouldn’t even gossip. At least they’d brought the scones.

So Ed arrived at the haunted warehouse in plenty of time, and when he got there Teddy was already glassy-eyed, exasperated and sweaty. He was one of those rare individuals who look even more attractive when they’re a mess, though, and the setting was perfect. Bars of filtered sunlight striped the interior of the dilapidated structure, and sprouts of ragged undergrowth crawled out of the floor and reached through the walls like grasping fingers. Sad-looking wooden furniture was deteriorating here and there, evoking broken homes and broken dreams. This episode was going to look great.

It was a rare daylight shoot. Teddy’s black jumpsuit was sleeveless, and his magnificent biceps gleamed. His wet hair hung in spikes over his forehead and stabbed down over his eyes. The camera loved him.

Ed came into the warehouse looking like a professor about to conduct a chemistry class. Then he stood still and frowned, looking around. It was worse than he had feared.

Purity was slowly pacing, an enraptured look on her face. She wore a virginal white dress and was clasping a small white book. Ignoring Ed, she trailed by chanting in Latin while Teddy brooded in the background, looking dangerous. Ed sighed. This already looked like one of those sex-and-death, forbidden ritual things, and he hoped the two of them weren’t going to get too worked up.

Lily called them together and reminded them of the sequences they’d mapped out, and then the chaos began.

As the shoot heated up, Purity erupted in terrifying visions and the book went flying. She started clutching at Teddy, first grabbing his arms, then his torso, and finally going after him from behind and putting him into a hammerlock. Once she was attached to him, she hung on like a barnacle, moaning into the back of his jumpsuit.

Ed could only lift an eyebrow and shake his head. The shot of him cynically observing the vertical coupling would be featured in the show for laughs. It was typical Ed, the Ed that America had come to love.

When Porter clamped his teeth into Purity’s floating hemline and began to pull, nobody tried to stop him, even when part of her dress ripped away. The incident where she kicked at Porter would be edited out, naturally. The part where Porter bit her on the ankle would also not appear in the show, but Ed suspected it would end up on the internet, being passed around for years to come.

It was about 104 degrees in the warehouse, the day was still and humid, and perspiration was rolling down all exposed skin. Purity’s hot breath must have felt like the kiss of the dragon on Teddy’s back, Ed mused as he watched them. Still, nobody tried to peel her off. At one point, Ed glanced at Lily, standing back with a headset and notebook computer, but she seemed content to let it play out. In fact, she seemed to be enjoying it.

Finally, Teddy managed to twist himself away from Purity, bouncing an elbow off her head, and they all went rolling down the warehouse – Teddy, Porter, Wyatt the videographer and Elliott with a boom mike – calling for Juniper, the purported name of the farmer’s daughter. Ed followed them sedately, coughing gently in the dust.

The only thing good about the debacle was that things got so overwrought that Ed didn’t have any time to think about Willa and Rod, flying back from Las Vegas with wedding pictures.

“By the way, Ed,” Lily said as they headed back to the vehicles after wrapping up, “I talked to Taylor Verone today. She’s coming over tonight.”

“How nice,” he said. Then, when he reached the door of his little green car, he looked over at her and stiffly asked, “Did she ask about Willa and Rod?”

“Only about when they were expected back in town,” she said. Her nonchalance was unconvincing. Ed nodded curtly, got into the Geo Metro and turned the ignition key.

As usual, his car came to life like a drunken beast, shaking, growling and wanting to know where she was. Once she settled into a gentle
ta-tappita-tappita-tappita
, Ed patted the steering wheel and drove away. She backfired once at the end of a quarter-mile, then carried him quietly home.

Ed dreaded the sympathy and covert glances he was going to be getting from Taylor, but it had to be faced. In his young days, his pedantic manner and small size had delighted the neighborhood bullies, and social encounters of any kind (with the living) were uncomfortable for him, but Ed could face derision, insults, or even a punch more easily than pity.

She was lounging in the living room when he got home, and she came and waited while he unlocked his office door, then followed him in.

“Been trick-or-treating?” she said, smirking at his
Haunt or Hoax?
jumpsuit.

He gave her a flat stare, then continued booting up his computer.

“You know,” she said, gazing at one of the ghost portraits, “the more I look at the Frieda pictures, the less creepy they look to me. There’s actually a sort of beauty to them, a grace, a rhythm. You know how she’s been moving, and how she’s going to move next.”

“And sometimes, you can hear her laughter. It’s silver,” he added, without knowing why.

“Silver? Your ears are better than mine. Still – I see your point. Where there is dancing, there must be music and laughter too.”

He sighed heavily. “You’re a very nice lady, Taylor.”

“No I’m not. I’m a pushy broad. If I wasn’t, I’d never have been able to keep my animal shelter going all these years.”

“I’ll grant the pushy broadedness, but you’re also a nice lady. You’re here for moral support. I appreciate it. Thank you. You can go home now. I’m fine.”

She smiled. “That’s the Edson Darby-Deaver I know. Now. Let’s go congratulate the happy couple.”

“Doesn’t one leave happy couples alone so they can wallow around in their new-found happiness?”

“Now, Ed, don’t be bitter. I saw Willa when I got here. Since you weren’t home yet, I took a stroll down to the walkover to see if the ocean was still there, and Willa came out to tell me the good news, which I already knew, of course. She invited us down to her house for cocktails tonight. She wants everybody in Santorini to come.” Leveling a steady eye at him, she said, “We are going. Together. You may drink yourself under the coffee table if you like, but we are going. If you start to really make a fool of yourself, I’ll get you out of there. I promise.”

By that time, they could hear Lily’s car arriving, and Porter exiting the car, barking.

Within a couple of minutes, Teddy came into the office and said, “Hi, honey, I’m home. Oh. Hi, Taylor.”

“Hi, Teddy. Rough day at the office?”

Teddy was streaked with dust, perspiration and pale pink lipstick. There was a long red scratch down one of his arms, and a side-seam of his skin-tight jumpsuit had ripped open. His hair hung down in stringy locks. “About average.”

Lily came in behind Teddy, and Porter pushed through both of them and dove at Taylor. Then the dog noticed the cat. Abruptly, he calmed down and sat before Bastet, who didn’t even bother to look at him.

“Weird,” Taylor said, watching the animals.

“He always does that,” Lily told her.

Teddy took a seat.

“Listen, little buddy, we’re going to have to go over the material we got today. I’m still not sure we have a handle on the narrative here. I want something compelling so we can promote this episode. It’s hot. We should do more daylight shoots, man; the raw footage looks great. The thing with Purity worked. This is Season Two, Episode One, definitely. I love it. So we gotta juice up the story. You know, broken hearts and shattered dreams, potatoes rotting in the field as daddy grieves, yadda, yadda.”

“Sorry,” Ed said, perking up for the first time. “Taylor and I have a party to attend tonight. Willa and Rod are home, and they’ve invited us for cocktails. You, of course, don’t know them, so you won’t be going.”

“Oh, I’d love to congratulate them –“

“You don’t know them,” Ed said firmly. “You’re not going to know them. You will not be coming.”

Lily tapped Teddy’s shoulder as she walked behind him toward the door. “Come on, Tedders. Let’s throw you into the shower. I’ve got laundry to do, and there’s a John Wayne marathon on one of the movie channels tonight.”

“Rio Bravo?”

“I think that one starts at eight. I’ll make popcorn.”

“All right!”

After Lily and Teddy were out of the office and down the hall, Taylor asked, “Have you gotten them a wedding gift yet?”

Ed looked startled. “Are those two actually getting married?”

“Not them. Willa and Rod.”

“Oh. Is a gift required?”

“It’s customary. Don’t worry, I’ve got you covered. I’m giving them a bottle of champagne – it’s keeping cold in your fridge – and you’re giving them two crystal toasting flutes.”

“Oh, thank you.”

“That’ll be sixty-one dollars and forty-eight cents, including tax. If you think that’s too much –“

“No, no,” he said. “I’m sure you’ve found something appropriate. Will you take a check?”

“Natch.”

As he handed the check to her, he said, “I’m giving them
flutes?”

“They’re stemware. You know. For the wine? Oh, forget it. Just get showered. You look like you’ve been running around an abandoned building all day.”

He opened his mouth to tell her that’s exactly what he had been doing, but caught himself in time. “Ah. A joke. Yes. Well. Shower.”

He left.

Ed came out of the guest bathroom a new man, with his wet hair neatly combed and his glasses shining, wearing khakis and a white shirt. Taylor had been sitting in the living room with Teddy and Lily, idly watching a shoot-‘em-up without really paying attention to it.

“My, you clean up pretty,” she said.

“Don’t be silly,” he murmured, and they headed out of the house with the gifts Taylor had bought.

When they got out to Santorini Drive, Daniel Ryder came out of his house carrying a bottle of wine in a gift bag. As if everybody had been watching from their windows, Claire and Ben came out of their own houses on cue, each also carrying a bottle of wine.

Ed gave a silent backward glance to Parker’s house. There was a light on in the back of the house, where Parker’s office was. Perhaps he was distracting himself by writing. Ed wondered vaguely if he should check in on him after the cocktail party, then decided not to. Hearing about other peoples’ happiness wasn’t going to cheer him up, and might get him even more depressed.

Claire lifted her bottle and laughed when she saw the other bottles. “You didn’t know what to get either, huh? At least Ed came up with something else. What’s in the box, Ed?”

“Flutes,” he answered, looking doubtful. Taylor had brought them gift-wrapped, and Ed hadn’t seen them yet. He still didn’t have a clear idea why you’d give musical instruments to newlyweds. He was interested to see these wedding flutes, and try to discern their traditional roots in tribal mating rituals.

“Nice,” Claire said.

“Taylor chose them,” Ed said, giving credit where it was due, and prearranging the blame if they turned out to be weird.

“I’m sure they’re lovely,” Claire said.

By then they were at the door to Willa’s house.

“I guess Rod’s going to be living with Willa now,” Ben said as they waited. “The Greenes are going to have to look for another renter.”

“Maybe next time they’ll find somebody for Claire,” Taylor said impishly. She watched to see how Dan and Claire would take it, and then nodded smugly to herself. She tried to wiggle her eyebrows at Ed, but as usual, he was oblivious.

Willa and Rod opened the door together, expressed delight at the gifts, and welcomed their neighbors inside.

The “flutes” turned out to be wineglasses, to Ed’s astonishment. Why couldn’t Taylor have just said so? He looked askance at her, then tried to look as if he’d known all along when Willa thanked him.

“At least we’ve got plenty of wine to pour into them,” Rod said too loudly, grinning and looking around.

“I think champagne is called for,” Willa said. Then, a bit shyly, she said to her new husband, “Honey, will you open the bottle?”

“Of course, darling.” He went about popping the cork and filling the wineglasses on the kitchen counter.

Ed became very sad. Later, he would try to be happy for them, but right now it was too soon.

While they were still standing in the kitchen, Ben grabbed a glass and proposed a toast. They all drank, including Ed, but he didn’t listen to the toast, and he avoided looking at Willa.

“Well, it looks like you’re going to be moving up the block,” Ben said to Rod, after emptying his glass in one gulp. Then he gazed at Willa. “Have you heard from the estate lawyers yet? Because they’re making a hell of a fandango about settling the estate. Something about separating the Strawbridge money from Frieda’s own corporations, or whatever. I still don’t know the status of this house, believe it or not.” As the others cringed, he added, “I’m sure it passes to me next, right? Frieda must’ve left it to Dolores.”

“I’ve owned it outright for years,” Willa said frostily. Then trying to close the subject, she added, “Frieda
gave
it to my mother, and she left it to me.”

“Oh, I don’t think so,” Ben said, putting his empty glass down on the counter. “Hit me again,” he said to Rod.

“It looks to me like you’d had enough already when you got here,” Rod said, putting the bottle out of reach on the back counter.

Ben went to the bottle of red wine he’d brought himself and began to open it. “I can’t stand that soda-pop shit anyway,” he muttered.

“Now, Willa,” Claire said loudly and brightly, “I want to hear all about the wedding. Where are your pictures?”

Everybody else began to speak at once, and Willa gazed around with troubled eyes, her face getting red.

Rod stood beside her and put his arm around her waist. “Well, for starters, we were
not
married by Elvis!” he said.

There was too much laughter, and everybody was nervously watching Ben. Dan Ryder began to quietly edge toward the drunken older man.

“We’ll just see about who owns this house,” Ben said, filling his glass after bumbling for minutes trying to get the bottle open. “We’ll just see about that.”

“I think you’ve had enough, sir,” Dan said quietly.

“Who asked you?” Ben snapped.

Dan was an inch or two shorter than Ben, but he was younger and more physically fit. Something about his stillness and air of command finally got through to Ben, and he stopped the glass halfway to his lips and stared at Dan.

Dan reached out and easily lifted the wineglass out of Ben’s hand, setting it aside while maintaining eye contact with Ben.

“Well,” Dan said, not looking away, “we’ve toasted the newlyweds. Maybe we’ll be leaving now, Ben. Shall we?”

“Throw people out of your own house, pal,” Ben snarled. “This one belongs to me, or it will pretty soon.”

Rod stepped across the room, blocking Ben in beside Dan. “If that turns out to be the case, I’m sure we can work out a deal with you. Willa doesn’t have much money, but I do. I’ll buy it. Just name your price.”

“Three million,” Ben said immediately. “Three million and it’s yours. I’ll even throw the lady in for free.”

“You won’t throw anything anywhere,” Willa said, suddenly furious. “You don’t own this house.
I
do, and it’s belonged to me since the moment it was built. My aunt gave it to me.”

“Your . . . ? What are you talking about?” Ed said, but the light was beginning to dawn for him, and suddenly he found it hard to breathe.

Ben pushed Rod aside and yelled, “What aunt? You don’t have an aunt. You were illegitimate. Frieda built this house, and a miser like Frieda Strawbridge would never
give
a house to a housemaid and her little bastard.”

“She gave it to me because I’m her niece,” Willa said. “I’m a Strawbridge, just like your wife was. Dolores was my cousin. That’s why Frieda gave us this house. When her brother, Winston, got my mother pregnant, the Strawbridges hushed it up and moved us out here to Frieda’s property so we could be hidden away. I may be a bastard, but I’m a Strawbridge bastard, and this is
my
house, and half of Dolores’s money is going to come to
me
. You may not know the terms of the trust, but Dolores knew, and so did I. Frieda kept everything secret during her lifetime, but after she died, the trustees explained everything to Dolores and me.”

Ben was stunned, open-mouthed. After taking a moment to digest it, he shouted,
“Liar!
My wife wouldn’t have kept a secret like that from me. If that was true, she would have told me.”

“She couldn’t,” Willa said, quiet now, and looking like she was sorry she’d blurted out her secret. “Her mother wouldn’t let her, even after she was dead. The trustees explained that her condition that we never let anyone know I was a Strawbridge wasn’t legal, and we could talk about it if we wanted to. But Dolores and I discussed it, and in the end we decided to honor Frieda’s wishes. I know now it was just Frieda reaching out from the grave to keep her hold over us. Dolores never escaped her, but I’m going to. I have. I have my own life now, and she can’t control me anymore.”

Willa had been gripping her wine flute in both hands, and as she finished speaking, the crystal shattered. Ed moved quickly to take the broken glass away from her and looked at her hands for cuts. Miraculously, she wasn’t hurt. She was looking at the shattered pieces that Ed and Taylor were collecting on the kitchen counter. “My wedding present,” she said in a tiny voice.

“I’ll get you another one,” Ed promised. “I’ll get you a whole set.”

Willa stood gazing at the broken glass. “Everything had to be
her
way, but I got married, and now look what she’s done. My wedding present is broken. She broke it, didn’t she? It’s a bad omen, isn’t it?”

“Of course it isn’t,” Taylor said quickly. “Come on, Willa, why don’t you sit down?”

Willa ignored her and kept speaking, her face a blank, her voice a monotone. “She used money, she used houses, and she used shame, always reminding me I was not as good, even with my Strawbridge blood. Her brother would never have married my mother, even if he’d lived. But when he died and the family found out his only child was about to be born, they sent my mother away. They kept it quiet. Aunt Frieda hid us. She always took care of us, but she kept a tight hold over us, too. And she still had a hold on Dolores, even from the grave. She killed her. Unless you did,” she said, still quiet, still calm, turning to look directly at Ben. “Did you kill her?”

Ben gathered himself for a bull-headed charge and was easily held back by Rod and Dan.

“Stop it!”

Everybody turned to stare at Ed. “Stop it. Willa, don’t you see that if you go on like this, you’re going to go crazy? Please stop.”

“Crazy?” she said. “Like Dolores? Frieda drove her crazy. I’m next, aren’t I?”

“Nobody’s ever going to harm you,” Ed said gently. “Nobody’s going to drive you crazy. Now please, everybody, just stop it. What we say here isn’t going to change things. Personally I believe that what Willa is saying is true. It explains everything – this whole sick situation at the end of Santorini Drive. But that doesn’t matter either. All that matters is what the lawyers and the trustees say. They’ll prove one way or another who owns this house, and who Willa is. So everybody calm down, and Ben, you behave yourself.”

“Mr. Brinker and I are leaving,” Dan announced, still looking straight into Ben’s face. “Aren’t we?”

In a miracle of control and leverage, Dan took Ben by the arm, turned him in sync with his own body, and marched him to the stairs and out of the house. In a state of shock, Ben went along with staring eyes.

They left a vacuum behind, and bewildered and silent people stood rigidly, not looking at one another for a few minutes. Taylor suddenly realized there was a small cut on Willa’s hand after all, and she tended to it, washing it in the kitchen sink and then asking for bandages. When Willa didn’t respond, she said, “Never mind, I’ve got some in my purse. Claire, do you mind? In the little zipper bag. I’m always getting scratched by the animals, so I carry them with me.”

It seemed to calm them down, having something useful to do, and when Willa’s hand was bandaged, Taylor found the garbage can and swept the shards of glass into it with a paper towel.

“There,” she said.

As if that had been a cue, Edson Darby-Deaver walked across the kitchen and shook Rod Johnson’s hand. Rod looked at him blankly as Ed said, “Congratulations. You take good care of her, or you’ll answer to me.”

Rod made an unintelligible sound in his throat and watched as Ed walked out.

Taylor and Claire looked at one another and quickly followed suit, congratulating Willa and Rod and getting themselves out of there.

They found Ed hovering around in front of Ben’s house, looking like he itched, but didn’t know where to scratch.

“Should I go in and help Dan with Ben? He might have become combative.”

It was the moment of comic relief that they needed, and the women almost laughed, but managed to control themselves.

“I’m guessing Dan Ryder can handle any number of drunks, combative or friendly,” Taylor said.

“Um hmm,” Claire agreed with a little nod, as if she were afraid to open her lips.

“Well, in that case, I’ll go on home. Terrible scene over there, wasn’t it? I don’t mind saying that I feel quite shaken.”

“We all are,” Taylor said. She gazed at Claire in a forlorn way, and Claire did the only thing she could do. “Won’t you two come in for a bit? If I have to sit alone in my house after all that, I think I’ll go crazy.”

“Us too,” Taylor said quickly. “Thanks.”

It did not escape Taylor that as she let them into her house, Claire glanced across the way at Ben’s house as if she’d rather discuss the fiasco with Dan.

Ed had never been in Claire’s house before, but he wasn’t particularly curious about her décor or the house’s layout. Taylor made a few complimentary remarks about the cool, pale blue-and-white color scheme, but since she didn’t like the ultra-modern furniture, she didn’t comment on it. Claire didn’t offer to show them around. Instead, she took them upstairs to her living room and out onto the balcony.

“We can be comfortable out here in the ocean breeze,” she said.

Taylor nodded, thinking that they could also watch for Dan to come out of Ben’s house from this vantage point.

“I’ve never seen Ben like that before,” Claire said. “When I first moved in, he and Dolores threw a little dinner party for me, and he seemed like such a nice man. We haven’t been really close, but he’s always been so nice before.”

“I think he drinks too much,” Ed said briefly. “He’s had a lot on his mind lately.”

“Did he get drunk at that dinner party you mentioned?” Taylor asked.

“Just a little tipsy, but he didn’t act anything like the way he was acting tonight! I spent most of that evening talking to Willa, actually.” She laughed in wonderment. “Can you imagine? She had all that on her mind, and all she talked about that night was the early days with Frieda and her mother, growing up here on the beach, living a sheltered life. Nothing about being the love-child of a millionaire!”

“Keeping secrets must have become a habit. What a life she must have lived,” Taylor said. “Held down and taught to be ashamed of herself by that monster. Did you ever meet Frieda Strawbridge?”

Claire shook her head. “By the time I bought this house, she was dead. You met her, though, didn’t you? What was she like?”

Taylor thought it over. “Strong. Determined. Manipulative. And very, very intelligent. I actually liked her, in spite of the fact that she treated her daughter like a servant. I guess that’s because I figured I was strong enough to hold my own with her. Willa wasn’t there; I didn’t meet her until months later. All this time, Dolores was her cousin. Well, now that she’s got a husband, I hope she’ll be happy.”

Claire snorted.

“What?” Taylor said. “Don’t you like Rod?”

“I really don’t know him,” Claire said quickly. “But I didn’t think he looked like a hero tonight when Ben started attacking his new bride.”

“I noticed that, too,” Ed said. “But to be fair, Dan really didn’t give him a chance. He seems to have an instinct for trouble, and to know how to deal with it, doesn’t he? Do you know anything about him, Claire?”

“Dan?” She darted her eyes around. “Oh, not much. He doesn’t like to talk about himself. But he was very kind to me when I found Dolores on the beach that morning. Very – you know – capable. He knows how to handle a crisis.”

“He sure does,” Taylor said with emphasis.

“And Rod does not,” Claire said, redirecting the conversation away from Dan. “Willa came to me for advice when he asked her to marry him, you know.”