by Mel McCoy
“You’ll never believe this. The yellow Beetle belongs to Marigold.”
“Marigold Dunham?”
“Yeah.”
“I knew it. So I was right about her after all.”
Sarah pulled the phone away to save her eardrums. “I was going to talk to Marigold,” Sarah said, “but she sped off before I could pick my jaw up off the sidewalk.”
“Hold on,” Emma said. “Grandpa’s calling me on the other line. Hopefully he’s not broken down again.”
Sarah rose from the bench and started off into the parking lot.
“I’m on my way back. I’ll talk to you then.”
They hung up and she hurried through the parking lot, along a side road, and found herself back on the main strip. It only took another five minutes before she reached the boutique.
Inside, Sarah saw Emma still sitting at the counter.
“Is Grandpa okay?” Sarah asked.
Emma nodded. “Yeah, he just got back and is in the office finishing up some paperwork. Just needed me to remind him what the password is to get into the admin for the website. Anyway, that’s crazy about Marigold. I knew she’d be up to no good.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Didn’t you know? She’s the town debutante. Born with a silver spoon in her mouth.”
“I kind of gathered that. But she’s nice.”
“Yeah, well, you know that her family owns the vineyard, the ranch…”
Sarah nodded.
“That was all passed down to her, but—”
A light went on in Sarah’s head. “The soil contamination.”
“Bingo. So now she’s struggling.”
“But what does that have to do with Mr. Jacobs?”
“Let me finish,” Emma said, rising from her stool. Sarah noted how chipper Emma now was, like when she’d first seen her upon arriving to Cascade Cove.
“Okay.”
“Let’s just say ‘Marigold-digger’ didn’t get that nickname on a whim. She’s known to chase after wealthy men. And as we know, Jacobs was a wealthy man.”
“But he’s old enough to be her father…” Sarah paused. “Or grandfather, for that matter.”
“Your point?”
“So you think her possible motive is financial gain?”
Emma nodded. “Born rich, and now gradually losing her wealth…It’s a great setup for her to dig some wealth out of the ole Jacobs coffers.”
“Okay, that’s an interesting theory and all, but it begs the question, why would she want him dead? It doesn’t make sense.”
Scratching her cheek, Emma pondered the question. Then her face lit up. “I think Jacobs was married.”
“Really? Who?”
“Oh, I can’t remember her name,” she said, snapping her fingers. Then she turned toward the office. “Grandpa!”
Larry’s head popped out from around the door frame of his office. “What’s up, Emma?”
“What’s Jacob’s wife’s name?”
“Charlotte. What a sweet, sweet woman. I wonder how she’s holding up…I heard she’s been so upset.”
Emma yelled back to their grandpa, “Yeah, you should probably send her flowers or a card or something.”
“Oh, dear heavens! You’re right.” Larry disappeared into his office. “I should call a florist or something. What an awful neighbor I am.”
Emma looked at Sarah, seemingly proud of herself.
Sarah narrowed her eyes at her cousin. “How come I haven’t heard of Charlotte?”
“I don't know. They’ve been married for a few years now. Maybe if you visited more…”
Sarah rolled her eyes. “You couldn’t remember her name!”
“That’s because she’s very private. Of what I heard, she only runs with her own crowd.”
“What crowd is that?”
“The rich kind, and just like her husband, she’s hardly seen on the boardwalk, especially in the summer when it’s crowded with tourists.”
“So wouldn’t Marigold want Charlotte out of the picture if she wanted to get to Jacobs and his money? Why murder Jacobs?”
Emma grimaced. “Hmm. Good point. Maybe she was mad because Jacobs wouldn’t leave his wife, and so she killed him? Or maybe she was trying to kill Charlotte to get her out of the picture, and instead, accidentally killed Jacobs…”
“Sounds like an episode of Murder, She Wrote.”
Emma furrowed her brows. “What’s that?”
Sarah shook her head. “Never mind. So, you’re thinking maybe Marigold and Jacobs were having an affair?”
“Yeah, it’s certainly possible. And she has a motive, since he’s wealthy…”
Sarah considered that, then said, “Wouldn’t the rumor mill churn with that juicy tidbit? If they were having an affair, wouldn’t that be the talk of the town?”
“I suppose so. I don’t know, then.”
Sarah shrugged. “We’ll have to go talk to Marigold.”
“Then why don’t you go over and see if she’s there at her wine shop?”
“It’s down almost to the other end of the boardwalk,” Sarah said. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I have to watch the front of the store while grandpa finishes up stuff in his office and I can’t wait.”
“Alright then.” Sarah exited the store and walked briskly down the main road toward the Dunham Vineyards outlet. It was a small hole-in-the-wall place that served merely as a front for the vast operation that was inland, an hour drive or so.
Once at the wine outlet, Sarah saw the CLOSED sign.
“Closed for the season.”
Perhaps it would open up sooner than later, with the summer months nearly upon them. Surely Marigold wouldn’t miss those prime months if she were struggling with money. Or, perhaps, the contaminated soil issue devastated their crop so much that there wouldn’t be any product to sell this year.
Either way, she’d have to figure out another way to find Marigold and her bright yellow Beetle again.
As she walked back to the store, she scanned the street. Down the main strip, she saw a yellow vehicle roar toward her, but frowned when she saw it wasn’t a Beetle.
“Where are you, Marigold?”
Across the street, she hurried along the sidewalk and back to her grandpa’s.
Emma was straightening up when she entered.
“That was fast,” Emma said. “I take it she wasn’t there.”
“Nope. Closed for the season.”
“So now what?”
“I don’t know. Do you know her number?”
Emma chortled.
“Well then,” Sarah continued, “I guess we just cross our fingers we’ll spot her car—or maybe she’ll come in here to shop.”
Later that night, Sarah sat in the recliner in her grandpa’s apartment. She couldn’t stop her mind from reeling about Marigold and the yellow Beetle. The rest of the day had been a bust, as far as spotting Marigold was concerned.
Emma was on the couch in her usual spot.
“Is that a new book?” Sarah asked.
“Yeah.”
“How was the other one you just read?”
“Good. The murderer ended up being the last person I expected.”
Sarah nodded and heard Rugby and Winston rush from the bedroom, Misty chasing after them. She went to the floor and sat with legs crossed. Petting the dogs, a thought suddenly struck her.
“Least-likely suspect?”
“Yeah, at least it was the person I suspected the least. Kept me guessing till the end. Gotta love a good page-turner like that.”
“Hmm…” Sarah started.
“What?” Emma asked, eyeing up Sarah. She sat up and placed the book on the coffee table.
“Right now, it seems that Marigold doesn’t have much of a motive.”
“Not unless—”
“Unless she had something going on behind the scenes with Jacobs.”
“She’s a gold-digger,” Emma said. “There’s her motive
. Money. Clear as day.”
“But we don’t know that she and Jacobs had a thing, much less knew each other.”
“Everyone knows everyone else in this town. I guarantee she knew him. Besides, remember when we saw her at Patricia’s Tea Room?”
“Yeah.”
“She was the one who brought up Jacobs.”
“That’s right. She was pretty blunt in saying Jacobs drowned. I didn’t think of it at the time, but looking back, that was rather odd.”
“Misdirection,” Emma said. “She was trying to plant something in our heads, and saying it was a drowning, she’d let us fill in the blanks and assume it was an accident.”
“And don’t forget—when we asked about when it happened, she left quickly to some appointment she said she was going to be late for.”
“Didn’t want to talk about Jacobs…just wanted to plant a seed that he drowned, accidentally, and let us stoke the rumor mill, helping her to cover up what really happened.”
“But the rumor mill is saying it’s a murder now…”
Emma scoffed. “That sneaky woman is clearly confident that nobody suspects her. By skipping town, she would probably figure that would make her look even more suspicious. She’s a master of deception, don’t forget that.”
Sarah pondered this. Usually this was one of those times when Sarah would tell Emma not to jump to conclusions, but they had to be on to something. They had an idea of what her motive would be, considering her history and the fact she was gradually losing her wealth.
They were also almost certain that she knew Jacobs, and, according to Orloff, her car had been parked outside of Jacobs Manor only hours before the reported time-of-death.
So she most certainly had the opportunity to kill the old man, and the means.
But still, Sarah had to confirm the fact that she’d indeed known Jacobs. Right now, they were trying to connect dots without solid evidence. Some digging around town was in order.
“Tomorrow,” Sarah said, “you and I will go around town and get to the bottom of this.”
Emma’s eyes lit up. “And with any luck, we’ll find Marigold Dunham.”
Sarah’s eyes flew open, and she reached for her phone. It lay face-down on the nightstand by her bed. The glow of the screen nearly blinded her, and it took a second for her eyes to adjust.
“Two o’clock,” she said, groggily.
Almost the witching hour.
Her throat was dry and so she stumbled out of bed and shuffled across the bedroom. Out in the kitchen, she got a glass from the cupboard and ran the tap for a moment, then swung her glass underneath.
Once full, she took a gulp of water and sighed.
She carried her glass into the living room. A single lamp was on in the corner of the room. Off somewhere in the house, she heard someone snoring softly.
She sat on the recliner and placed the cup of water on the table next to the chair.
Why had she awoken so suddenly?
Perhaps her subconscious was trying to work through the problem again.
She took another sip of water, then rose from the chair and walked over to her grandpa’s bookshelf. She ran her fingers along the spines of the scrapbooks and chose one.
“This should help put me to sleep.”
She carried one of the scrapbooks over to the chair and sat down. Paging through, she looked at one old picture after another. Then she saw a few pictures that were actually in color. There were some pictures of the ocean and a couple of the pier. They looked to be more recent.
Turning the page, she froze.
She saw a woman’s smiling face below a brimmed hat, the pier behind her.
Maybe that was the same pier behind Jacobs Manor…
To the woman’s left, she saw a man who looked to be at least thirty years the woman’s senior. He looked pensively into the camera, his lips straight across like he was on the verge of frowning.
Sarah leaned closer to the picture and studied it.
Beneath the picture, she saw her grandma’s cursive writing. It took her a moment to decipher it.
“My goodness,” Sarah said, then read the caption aloud: “John Jacobs and Marigold Dunham.”
Chapter 15
The next morning, Sarah awoke to an alarm she had set on her phone. It took her about an hour to get showered and ready for her day, and once finished, she came out and smelled the sweet aroma of French toast. Larry’s famous French toast was made with a fresh French bread loaf with cinnamon, powdered sugar, maple syrup, and usually pecans or walnuts. Regardless of the type of nut he decided to garnish it with this morning, she couldn’t wait to dig in.
Emma was already up and at the table, nibbling on her breakfast.
Larry was bright-eyed, wearing one of his Hawaiian shirts. “Fresh off the griddle,” he said. “And there’s pure maple syrup over there.”
Sarah got a few pieces of French toast and drizzled maple syrup on top.
“Emma,” Sarah said between bites. “When will you be ready to go?”
“Where are you two going?” Larry asked.
Sarah looked over to her grandpa. “To talk to someone.”
“Ah,” Larry said. He flipped a few pieces of French toast on the griddle and smiled at the sizzling sound they made.
“Will you be okay at the shop while we’re gone?” Emma asked.
“Should be fine.”
“If not,” Emma said, chewing, “just let us know.”
“Sounds good. So, any word on Winston’s owner?” Larry asked.
Sarah shook her head. “Haven’t gotten a single call about it. I’m thinking of putting an ad in the local gazette, as well as the newspapers of the neighboring towns.”
Emma looked up from her plate. “You think he wandered from another town? They are miles away…”
“Wouldn’t hurt to try.”
“The newspapers sell advertising space through their web sites now, so you can pay right online,” Larry said. “What will they think of next?”
Emma rolled her eyes. “Yeah, but I think the gazette here in town hasn’t jumped on the technological bandwagon yet.”
Sarah looked at her cousin. “We’ll have to stop by their office in town.”
Emma pressed her fork down into her final piece of French toast and popped it into her mouth, smiling. “Roger that.”
“So, Emma,” Sarah said. “You’ve got to see this…”
Sarah walked over to the bookshelf and grabbed the scrapbook. She carried it over to the table and opened it to the photo of Marigold and John Jacobs.
Pointing at the photo, Sarah said, “Check this out.”
Emma looked down at the photo and gasped. “So she did know him. Maybe our ‘affair’ theory is true after all.”
“Is that who you’re going to talk to today? That woman?” Larry asked.
Sarah hesitated, then nodded.
Larry ate his food, not speaking his mind, though Sarah could tell he was piecing things together. “Just be careful,” was all he said. “Stay in public places.”
“We will,” Sarah said.
“Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s go track her down and fill in some of the blanks.” Emma reached over to the scrapbook and peeled the picture of Marigold and Jacobs out from the old scrapbook. “And we’ll take this with us, just in case.”
After breakfast, Larry took Rugby, Winston, and Misty down to the boutique to get settled in before opening the store, and Sarah and Emma started off for a day on the town to search for Marigold Dunham.
They stopped at the local gazette’s office, and Sarah filled out the requisite information and paid the fee for the ad. Only time would tell if Winston’s rightful owners came forward to claim him. Afterward, they wandered about, asking any friendly face they stumbled upon if they’d seen Marigold.
They stopped in to see Gordy, getting some free slices of meat and cheese. He said he’d seen Marigold the previous day, but hadn’t seen her since.
At Surf�
�s Up, Isabella and Faye were working the shop as usual, their mother out sick due to feeling under the weather. Both said Marigold hadn’t stepped foot in their establishment in months. “Not her cup of tea,” they said. It was probably true—none of the accessories nor attire appeared to be her style.
And at the Banana Hammock Bar and Grill, Kacey told them it had been at least a few days since she’d seen her.
Outside the Bar and Grill, Sarah saw a yellow Beetle pulling in to the parking lot.
Emma smiled. “Well, who do we have here…”
“Let me do the talking,” Sarah said.
Emma shrugged.
They strode down into the parking lot, and Sarah saw that the driver had parked. Out stepped Marigold, and she sauntered toward the restaurant.
“Hi, Marigold,” Sarah said.
Emma waved but said nothing.
Marigold’s smile looked plastic. “Good afternoon, ladies.”
“Another nice day, isn’t it?” Sarah said, trying to make small talk before she started her digging.
“Beautiful. I almost feel guilty sitting in a restaurant for an hour.”
“Yeah,” Sarah said.
Emma stayed quiet. Good.
Sarah quickly filled in the silence: “So have you heard anything else about what happened to Jacobs?”
“Nothing new. Apparently, it was a drowning. An accident. Open-and-shut case.”
Sarah eyed Emma for a brief moment. The whole talk of the town was that this was now considered a homicide with a killer on the loose. She wondered how Marigold still considered it a case of accidental drowning.
“That’s not what I heard,” Sarah said. “Apparently, they’re saying there was foul play. They even took Orloff Minsky in for questioning. He had a solid alibi, but—”
“Listen, I don’t want to talk about this,” Marigold spat.
“Do you—”
“I said, I don’t have anything to say to you about this. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I—”
Emma cut in, “Orloff said he saw your car parked outside Jacobs Manor the night of the murder and—”
“Emma, stop,” Sarah said, shooting her cousin a look.
So much for charm and discretion…
Marigold’s face turned beet red. “I don’t have to stand for these accusations—”