The Haunted Beach (Tropical Breeze Cozy Mystery Book 4) (20 page)

Cat husbandry turned out to be easier and less emotionally ravaging than Ed had anticipated. Seeing how Lily kept screaming “NO!” and “STOP THAT!” at Porter, Ed had expected the worst. But no, cats turned out to be delightfully placid and easy to please compared to dogs, or at least compared to Porter.

Bastet required food and water. If Ed forgot, she would remind him. Bastet seemed to enjoy his company without demanding to be fawned over. Her toilet habits were cleverly self-contained and easy to arrange. He had done his due diligence on the internet and found vague references to something called “hairballs” that sounded unpleasant, but so far, Bastet hadn’t produced one. And he found he could trust her not to run away. She was a sensible creature. After all, with someone willing to feed her, keep her comfortable and chat with her, why run away?

Porter had all that and more, and he needed to be watched constantly or he’d drown in the river, run into traffic and chase a squirrel until he couldn’t find the way home again, all on the same afternoon.

Yes, Ed thought with satisfaction, cats were just right.

Ed had spent the day making notes on the events in Frieda’s bedroom the night before. He doubted he could use it for publication, having failed to record any proof. No, this report would be locked up in his files, and only used for reference.

Taylor hadn’t called, and he could see no point in calling her. Once he had finished off The Beach Haunting file and put it away, he went back to the computer and continued his researches of the day before.

By the time he felt confident of his results, dusk was coming down Santorini Drive on velvet paws, throwing long shadows before it. As he digested the information he’d gleaned and collated, he found himself gazing into Bastet’s eyes like a man who’d been hypnotized.

The wheels in his brain had stopped turning long ago, he suddenly realized, and he came to as if he’d fallen asleep sitting upright at his desk with his eyes wide open. Ed felt released.

“My goodness,” he said to Bastet. “How long have I been sitting here like this? You must be famished. Why didn’t you remind me it was dinner time?”

He got up, and Bastet stretched and prepared to remove herself to the kitchen at her usual regal pace. Ed remembered to feed the cat but forgot to feed himself. As Bastet ate, he wandered out the back door for no particular reason.

It was beyond dusk now. It was dark. Lights began to appear in his neighbors’ windows, and stars looked down from above, cold and bright. The ocean lay breathing beside the land like an invisible creature stirring in its sleep.

It occurred to him that he never went into his back yard at night. Ants, you know, and even snakes and things. He didn’t have a motion-sensor light at the back of his house, because his bedroom was there, and he was such a light sleeper any passing raccoon would have triggered the light and awakened him. So he was standing in his yard in the dark, and suddenly he wondered what the heck he was doing there.

Then the light from the bay window in Parker Peavey’s breakfast nook drew his attention, and he began to walk slowly toward the fence between their yards, never giving a thought to what he might step on in the dark.

Parker had dark hair, yet at the table he could see a man with short, whitish hair, looking over a manuscript. As Edson watched, the man used the pen in his hand to write something on the page, then turned to the next page.

It was Dan.

“Of course,” Edson said to himself in the dark. “It’s a natural. Why didn’t it occur to me before? And why keep it a secret?”

He went back into his house, picked up some papers from his desk, went out the front door, then crossed the driveway and rang the doorbell to Parker Peavey’s house.

“Oh. Ed. It’s you.”

“Yes. May I come in?”

“Well, I’m kind of busy right now,” Parker said, a bit stressed.

“Yes. I see you’re working with your collaborator. Or is he the author? Are you his ghost-writer?”

“He’s my consultant!” Parker said, flaming up suddenly. “Ghost writer my ass.”

“Yes. My apologies to your, um, ass. May I come in?” he asked again.

“Oh, hell, why not?”

He widened the door, and by now, Dan Ryder was standing behind him.

Once inside, Ed addressed Dan formally. “Your secret is safe with me, sir. I can see that with your personality – the strong, silent type who values his privacy, needs his space, broods a lot, and so on – you wouldn’t want to do something that would thrust you into the public spotlight. Yes. I can see that you’re the type who would not want to be known as a writer of militaristic space fantasies. Sagas,” he corrected hurriedly. “Militaristic sagas. Fans and things. So public.”

By now Dan had a one-sided smile, and as Ed shuffled his feet, Dan’s smile worked its way up to his eyes.

“How long have you known?”

Ed began to consult his watch, but Dan said, “Never mind. Come in. Let’s talk.”

“At first, when I saw you through the window, I thought Parker was showing you one of his wife’s manuscripts.” He looked at Parker in a shifty-eyed way, wondering if he was still keeping secrets.

“He knows,” Parker said. “Nobody else does. I showed him Peggy’s book right after I showed it to you. We figured . . . .” He glanced at Dan.

“We figured that’s how it happened. Peggy was either investigating what Dolores was up to on the beach, or even impersonating Frieda.”

“Oh, I’m sure she wouldn’t have done that,” Ed said with a glance at Parker, even though he had considered just exactly that.

“She might have,” Parker said wearily. “I don’t think she would have deliberately deceived Dolores to get material for her book. But I think she was intrigued by the situation, and once she was on the beach with Dolores, she realized how much she missed her mother. I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and with all the emotional damage Frieda left behind her, it would have been just like my wife to try to heal some wounds, even to the point of deception. That could have put her in a dangerous situation.”

Ed nodded, admiring Parker’s loyalty, and also his ability to invent a more pleasant reality for himself.

“You’d better know the whole story behind my work with Parker,” Dan said. “It all started six years ago, when I met him by accident. I had read one of his books, and when I was introduced to him by a friend, I began to tell him why his books were all wrong. His descriptions of military tactics were way off, and his weaponry was straight out of Flash Gordon.”

“I was impressed by his knowledge,” Parker continued, “and he was at a loose end, so I hired him as a consultant. The books we collaborated on became instant bestsellers, but Dan didn’t want to have to deal with the public, and he wasn’t interested in consulting for other authors. He was happy working with me on the
Stormchildren
series. Together, we’ve taken it in a lot of new directions. I respected his need for privacy, and as we got to know one another better, we became good friends. When the house across the street went up for sale, I told him about it, and he bought it so we could work together more conveniently. The books are still published under my name, but we have a partnership agreement, and we share the royalties. We write the books together, then I deal with book signings, interviews, podcasts and social media.”

“I get to keep my privacy,” Dan said.

“And I get a harder edge to my books. A sense of gritty realism.”

“Ah, yes, gritty. Very nice. That’s not what I want to talk about, though,” Ed said.

Both men stared at him.

“Then what
do
you want?” Parker said, with a glance at Dan that plainly said, “I told you he was nuts.”

In answer, Ed placed the papers he’d brought with him onto the table and pushed them across.

After glancing at one another, Dan and Parker pulled the material toward themselves and read it. Then they sat back and stared at Ed, dumbfounded.

“So you see,” Ed said, adjusting his glasses, “they’ve been deceiving us. They’ve been married all along.”

“What do you want us to do?” Dan said.

“I was wondering what kind of weapons you have,” Ed said. “We may have to confront them. They’re killers, you know.”

“I – I can’t quite grasp all this,” Parker said. “What are we going to do about it?”

“I plan on informing the police, perhaps anonymously,” Ed said. “I obtained this information in . . . various ways. But in the meantime, we need to keep a sharp eye on the other end of Santorini Drive. I don’t see them making a move any time soon. In fact, as things have developed, I don’t see why they need to make any move at all. They probably think they’re going to get away with it.”

Parker looked from Dan to Ed, then took another look at his writing partner. “What is it?”

Dan’s face had darkened, and as he held Ed’s research in his hand, the papers trembled.

“Oh, they’re going to make a move, all right, and soon. Oh my God, I think I may just have pushed somebody into committing a murder.”

Beyond that, Dan refused to explain. He got up from the table and moved toward the front of the house, startling Parker and Ed. They looked at one another, then followed the other man, who was leaving the house with a sense of determination.

Following Dan into his house, Ed took a step back when Dan came out of a back room checking a handgun, then securing it in a shoulder holster he’d put on over his tee shirt.

“May I ask what you’re doing?” Ed said as lightly as he could.

“Call the police,” Dan growled as he brushed past Ed on his way out the door again.

Ed looked at Parker wide-eyed and said, “What should I do?”

“Do as he says,” Parker told him, and he turned to follow Dan.

Ed ran down Santorini drive to catch up with them, holding his cell phone to his ear and trying to keep his voice steady as he ran.

“Yes, this is Edson Darby-Deaver, citizen of St. Augustine Beach. May I please speak to Detective Burton Bruno? Yes, I know 911 is the emergency line. This is indeed an emergency. Would you please connect me with the detective? Quickly, please.”

He listened, first blinking, then frowning, then saying, “Madam, there is no need to take that tone with me. As I told you, this is, in fact, an emergency. What kind of emergency? As to that, I’m not quite sure yet . . .
really
, madam, I see that I’m going to have to take direct action myself. Thank you for your help,” he said perfunctorily, though she’d been no help at all. “Good night.”

She was still talking when he hung up.

He stopped in the driveway and scrolled down his Contacts to the number from Detective Bruno’s card, which he had entered into his phone, for the sake of completeness, as he did all things.

“Ah, detective,” he said, walking again, “this is Edson Darby-Deaver speaking. You probably don’t remember me. It’s been a few weeks.”

He had reached the entry to Willa’s house, and the other two men were standing there waiting for him. He stopped, holding up a hand for patience. As he watched, Dan inspected the door and found it not only unlocked, but slightly open. He pushed the door until it was open a few inches and inclined his head, listening.

“Oh, I remember you, Mr. Deaver,” Bruno said with a touch of irony. “What can I do for you?”

“We have a dangerous situation here at Santorini. I’m afraid there may be violence tonight. Could you come over here immediately, please?”

“Violence? Why is that?”

As briefly as he could, Ed explained. After he stopped, there was a long silence at the other end of the line. “Detective? Are you there?”

“Still here. Where did you get this information?”

“Oh, the internet, you know,” he said vaguely. “And of course, I’ve been bruiting it about with the neighbors. Two of them are here with me now. The point is, I think we’ve reached the crisis stage here, and considering some of the unstable personalities involved, I’d like your assistance.”

“Well, I appreciate you coming to me with this information,” Bruno said in a changed, more brisk tone of voice. “I’ll check it out. Are you available tomorrow morning? Say ten o’clock?”

Ed was nonplussed. “Are you giving me the brush-off?”

At the other end of the line, Detective Bruno’s voice became weary. ”Mr. Deaver, I’m going to have to ask you to stay out of this. We’ll take it from here. Now I want you to come to my office tomorrow morning at ten o’clock, and in the meantime, I don’t want you to talk to anybody about this, am I making myself clear? I don’t want to have to charge you with obstruction.”

“You don’t understand,” Ed said, getting desperate. “I’ve found the ghost.”

Gathering what little patience he had left, the detective kept his voice level. “Ten o’clock tomorrow morning. My office. And remember what I said: do not discuss this with anyone. Thank you so much, Mr. Deaver.”

He hung up, leaving Ed staring at the phone. “He wants us to stand down,” he told Dan.

“He doesn’t know all the facts.”

“I just told him I found the ghost. What more does he need to know?”

“That Claire Ford is in love with me, and I today I asked her to marry me.”

“Oh,” Ed said. “Well, that changes everything.”

“Shut up,” Dan said. He leaned closer to the open door.

Ed blinked.

“You hear that?” Dan was straining.

Suddenly, Ed and Parker did hear – raised voices on the main floor upstairs. A violent argument was escalating, and Ed recognized Willa’s voice rising, going up into a register of terror until it ended in a scream and a gunshot. Another shot followed, and Dan burst through the door and pelted up the stairs with Parker and Ed close behind him.

“She killed him,” Claire said, looking at the gun in her hand with horror. “I heard the shot and came in. She just looked at me and told me he was a con man, that he knew about her money all along, and that was all he wanted. He never loved her. She’d shot him. Then she looked me in the eye and shot herself. They’re both dead.”

Rod Johnson lay face-up on the floor with blood spreading out quickly from a black hole in his white shirt. There was a sharp smell in the air from the gunfire. Willa lay crumpled beside Rod, face-down. Ed stared at her in horror, trying to see signs of life. He thought he saw her move once, but he couldn’t be sure.

“It’s all right, Claire,” Dan said. “Put the gun down. It’s over.”

Looking disoriented, she swung around to directly face the three men, still holding the gun. Dan stopped walking toward her and started to talk in a low, even voice.

At that moment, Ed saw Willa take a ragged breath, and he went toward the gun that was still aimed in his direction. While Claire was distracted, Dan covered the distance between himself and the shocked woman and took the gun from her hand, cradling her in his arms.

“How could you?” he said against her smooth, pale hair. “Why did you kill them?”

She pulled away and stared at him.

Ed was on the floor by Willa, and Parker was close behind Dan, listening to everything he and Claire were saying.

“What do you mean?” Claire said. “I told you, Willa did it. I was walking back from the beach and heard the shot. I came in to see what was going on, and she just looked at me and shot herself. I don’t know why I picked up the gun. I just did.”

“You haven’t had time to think through your story yet, have you?” Dan said, almost tenderly. “You couldn’t have come up here after the first gunshot, and then watched Willa commit suicide. We were standing downstairs just outside the door and heard both shots, one right after the other. You would have had to run right through us.”

She took a smooth step back from him, holding the gun from his holster and aiming it at his chest.

Dan indicated the dead man on the floor at their feet. “That’s your husband, isn’t it? Why did you kill him? You could have just left him. I wouldn’t have cared about your past.”

“He wasn’t going to let me go,” she spat. “He would have tracked us down. He was good at things like that. Things have been rocky, but I always stayed true to him. We were a good team. But he didn’t think we could fool the Strawbridge lawyers. Once we found out she was going to inherit big-time, he figured they’d investigate and find out who he was. Who
we
were. He wanted to take what we could and pull out, and I wasn’t going anywhere with him anymore. I was tired. I wanted out. And I wanted you.”

“I want you, too.”

“Do you? You said you loved me. Will you still come away with me?” She looked around uneasily; there were so many of them. They’d have to kill them all.

Dan still had the gun he’d taken away from Claire, and she still had the gun she’d taken from Dan’s holster as he held her. They talked intimately to one another, all the time holding guns on one another.

“Can I trust you?” she said, her voice wavering. The gun began to tremble. “Put your gun down.”

“You could have trusted me,” Dan said softly. “I would have gone anywhere with you. But this . . . .”

As they stared at one another, Willa groaned.

Claire whipped around and aimed the gun at Willa, as Ed threw himself between the woman on the floor and the gun.

A shot rang out, and Ed knew he was going to die. But it was all right. He was going to die beside Willa. A worthy death.

He waited for the pain, but it didn’t come. He looked down at his shirt, and it remained crisp and clean.

When he heard Claire fall, he looked up and couldn’t believe his eyes.

Dan was standing over her in a daze, still holding the gun.

In the silence that followed, a silvery voice said, “Are they dead? They are, aren’t they? Both of them. I’m glad.”

They all turned and saw a pretty blond girl of about twenty, standing at the top of the stairs. She looked uncannily like Claire.

Parker Peavey, who was closest to her, said, “Who are you?”

She smiled impishly and said, “I’m the ghost of Frieda Strawbridge.”

“Ah,” Ed said quietly. “Youth Dew.”

“You what?” she asked.

“Youth Dew. Frieda’s perfume.”

She looked puzzled. “I never used Frieda’s perfume. What are you talking about? Oh! You’re
that
guy. Mommy told us not to worry about you. You’re crazy.”

In that surreal moment, as they all stared, Ed said, “Um, yes, everybody, I believe this is the daughter of Rod and Claire, or as they are known to law enforcement, Jerry and Elvira Stancel. If I’m not mistaken, your name is Sylvie Stancel?”

“That’s right. But you can call me Frieda. I like that better.” She strolled past a dazed Parker, and looked down at the bodies of her parents dispassionately. “So they killed that lady after all. She turned out to be rich, did you know that? But Daddy said we had to split, because we’d never get away with it. Mommy told him to just stay here and live the life. He’d won the lottery, she said. He’d be rich, and Mommy wanted to be free. But Daddy wouldn’t let her go,” she added wistfully.

“Willa is not dead,” Ed announced.

Immediately, Dan went to the floor and began rescue measures. Claire’s body lay beside him, and he only looked at it once.

“And will somebody please call 911 now?” Ed said, standing up and looking down helplessly. “I’d do it myself, but they never pay any attention to me.”