by Kris Pearson
Her eyebrows drew together. “He knows you’re living here – alone?”
Oh for heaven’s sake… I didn’t want to get into half-naked surfing and cups of tea at sunset. I probably should have, but hoping it wouldn’t come back to bite me on the bum I simply nodded and tried to look mysterious.
“Riiiight…” she said on a long exhale. “John.” I wondered what she meant by that as the dogs and I led them to the gate. It sounded as though she knew him. Not in a personal capacity, I hoped.
Then, public duty done, I decided to have a proper prowl around Isobel’s property before setting off to the Burkeville Bar and Grill. I hadn’t seen much of the garden the previous evening, having been scared half out of my wits by John’s sudden and silent arrival up the cliff path.
There proved to be quite a lot of land – maybe half an acre – with the old separate garage, a garden shed, the fruit and vegie plot close to the house, extensive flower borders and a big bumpy lawn that ended in rough beachy vegetation. The plot dived down the small incline toward the ocean, and apart from the piece of front fence with the gate there was only saggy post-and-wire farm fencing around the other boundaries. The dogs must have been trained to stick close to home because they could easily have squeezed their way through that. In fact everything was threadbare and run-down and needed paint or repairs. Plainly Isobel lived on the smell of an oily rag, unlike her bejeweled sister, but someone had to be helping her keep this much garden up to scratch. Maybe she traded labor for vegies?
I picked my way down to the damp, hard-packed sand for a few minutes’ walk. After scrambling through yellow lupins and lots of that low-growing sand coprosma with all the crazy tangled twigs, the teddies and I made good progress. Itsy clamped his little teeth around a smooth grey stick of driftwood and proudly carried it with him. Fluffy made half-hearted attempts to share it but was warned off with fierce growls and had to find a stick of his own. Or her own? I knew there was one of each, but wasn’t entirely sure yet who was who.
The tide was way out. No waves for John. Which reminded me I should be sitting at the Burkeville, trying to get some work done.
As I strode along, I decided to swing by the Alsops’ home after that to see how extreme the comparison was between Isobel and Margaret’s houses. Maybe it was a case of the spinster sister being expected to look after the parents, who must have been pretty elderly because Isobel had to have been around seventy. That would make sense. Everything here was old – older in many ways than I’d expect for someone of her age. Those awful armchairs in the sitting room… the barely serviceable bed-linens… the ancient gas-stove… the lack of a computer. Had she been trapped here with them? It was easy to think so.
So why on earth would anyone kill her? She didn’t appear to have two pennies to rub together.
Did she really own the old cottage? Maybe it had been left to both sisters jointly on the death of their parents? Was poor old Isobel unable to progress her life at all? And if so, did John know? Maybe she hadn’t been free to sell it to him? I’d definitely be asking about that when I saw him a little later.
Conversely, was Margaret sick of waiting to inherit it? No – terrible thought! They were sisters. She wouldn’t have killed Isobel to get it. Would she?
I could ask Paul McCreagh. He seemed to have his finger on the pulse of his parishioners, dead and alive. And there was always my brother, lawyer Graham. Older than me, staid and rule-bound. The soul of discretion. But he might slip his baby sister a tiny morsel of information about one of his clients. Just a sliver. Like did Isobel own her home outright?
There was probably some sort on online register of home-owners, too. I’d have a look once I was comfortably settled at John’s, dogs tied to my chair-legs, flat white and Danish pastry waiting to be enjoyed, with the world at my fingertips again.
I heaved a deep sigh and turned back. It would have been nice to walk further but I hadn’t locked the cottage up. Not that there was a living soul in sight to steal anything – or much to steal. The sheep on Jim Drizzle’s nearby farm added the odd ‘baaa’ to the gentle wash of the waves, and something that sounded like a tree-shredder roared away intermittently, but that was it.
*
This time I took the right road. Drizzle Bay Road and not Drizzle Beach Road. It was a much shorter trip. Past the big brick gateposts of Drizzle Farm where someone was indeed forcing branches down a shredder. I slowed for a few seconds and gave Lord Drizzle a wave. The actual labor was being done by a stringy youth in droopy jeans. Then I passed Lisa the vet’s old house and clinic. Lisa often pours out her troubles to me when she’s treating the animals at the shelter where I volunteer as a dog walker. Most of her troubles are to do with her ex-husband, Ten Ton – a mountain of a man who’s as tall and broad as she is short and slim. How they ever got together is a mystery, but they produced three children before they split up, so they must have been okay once. And in no time I’d reached the village outskirts. Mindful I was looking fairly casual I ducked into home, changed my shoes, and swapped my jeans for a skirt. I was onto the main road and then the new expressway only minutes later.
“So,” John said as I arrived with my laptop in one hand and pink and blue leashes in the other. The little white teddies bounced around, enjoying somewhere new to explore. No doubt their doggie perfume drifted sideways because bone-shaking barks soon rent the air from somewhere behind the back fence. Itsy and Fluffy seriously tried to sound intimidating in return.
“Cool it!” John yelled, and Fire and Ice did.
“Quiet, darlings,” I implored the teddies. This had no effect at all, but it did earn me an eyebrow lift and a glance of total amusement from John’s startling blue eyes.
“They’re not mine,” I protested. “I need to earn my authority yet.”
He bent. He placed a forefinger on each nose. The dogs both went cross-eyed. “Shut it,” he said softly, keeping his fingers there. Itsy and Fluffy’s noses twitched, sampling the smell of this stranger who dared to try and control them, but they held still and quiet.
What would I do if John tried something like that on me? Probably cave right in. He’d said he was used to getting things done, and I was kind of hoping I might be one of the things he’d like to get done. Unless he was already getting PC Wick done, which would really get on my wick.
Within a couple more minutes John had me organized. Me in a chair in the shade so I could see my screen. Itsy and Fluffy tied to a table leg so they could choose sun or shade according to their taste. Me with a flat white, him with a pineapple juice, and his dad, Erik, skulking around sending us suspicious glances.
Suspicion seemed to lurk in the family. John had been full of suspicion the previous evening. He’d thought maybe I’d bought Isobel’s house out from under him. Or that perhaps she’d left it to the church. Then he’d assumed the house had been broken into when he saw the fingerprint powder (which I suppose was fair enough.) He didn’t seem to believe the vicar had been in Afghanistan. Didn’t believe Tom Alsop was necessarily honest.
He probably didn’t believe I was there to look after the dogs, either.
I have to say although I’d enjoyed the surfer version of him with all the flowing hair, the tidied-up-for-work edition was almost better. Long legs in black jeans, grey T-shirt stretched snugly around his big shoulders and chest, and his hair pulled back and wound up. I could see now that the sides of his head were shaved almost down to his scalp. The blond bristles of his undercut shone in the sun. If he hadn’t had that, his mop of hair would have been even more spectacular. And what girl doesn’t enjoy running her fingers through a decent head of masculine waves?
Erik the dad was something else. Not quite as tall. More heavily built, although most of it looked like muscle. And with a shock of short, pure white hair that seemed at odds with his alert dark eyes and unlined face. I assumed John was closing in on forty, so Erik must be sixtyish, minimum. He looked sensational for that, despite the old-man hair.
“I’ve just had the Police at the cottage,” I said once Erik was busy with the hissing coffee machine. I’m sure John sat up a little straighter.
“Any theories? Do they know who killed her?”
“Not that they’d tell me. And I’m sure they wouldn’t keep running over the same facts if they did.” I looked at him very closely as I added, “I passed on your opinion of Tom Alsop being less than honest.”
To his credit, not a muscle moved in his chiseled face. Maybe his hand tightened around his glass though – or maybe he’d been ready to lift it for another sip. I watched as his mouth pursed around the rim. Imagined what it would feel like to kiss. Then wondered if Detective Wick had any first-hand experience of that.
He didn’t even ask if I’d mentioned his name. To be honest I found that surprising. Wouldn’t you want to know?
“Tom Alsop’s a slime-ball,” was all he said. And that was after a silent gap long enough for me to take a bite of my Danish and chew for a while.
He rose to his feet, leaving his half full glass on the table. A slime-ball? It sounded like he knew more than he’d told me the previous evening, and now it seemed I’d offended him and he’d sloped off. I took another bite.
He returned perhaps thirty seconds later, setting a small casserole of fresh water under the table for the dogs. “Don’t kick it,” he said. “Have fun. Lauren will get you anything else you want.” He picked up his glass and disappeared for good. Huh! He was kind to the dogs, but didn’t want any more of me.
I checked my emails and sent a few brief replies. Then got down to the current manuscript. Goodness, the poor woman had no idea. Who was telling the story? The ditzy heroine or the muscle-bound hero?
Occasionally both in the same paragraph.
Sometimes the hero’s housekeeper got a look in, too – carefully explaining things in case we hadn’t already got the point. This was going to take quite some time to work through. Never mind – money in the bank at the end of it.
After about twenty minutes my bottom had had enough of the hard metal chair. I pushed it back from the table and stretched, standing so I could flex my legs and clench my bum-cheeks together a few times. The dogs scrambled to their feet, instantly awake and ready for walkies, even though they’d been sound asleep and gently snoring seconds earlier.
“Lie down,” I commanded. A lot of good that did.
“Right on time,” Erik said, arriving with a cushion and a grin that showed a lot of teeth.
I must have cocked an eyebrow at him because he said, “Twenty minutes is about as long as most people can last in these chairs. So they stand up and stretch, and then think they may as well wander as far as the bar for another beer or coffee. Works almost every time.”
I accepted the cushion with thanks. And pulled out my purse and ordered another flat white – to be delivered in fifteen minutes or so. I didn’t want to end up so wired I couldn’t sleep for another night.
“It’s awn the house,” he said, waving my money away. “I’ll take it out of Jawn’s wages.” He flashed all those teeth as he strode off again. His accent sounded quite different to John’s. Jawn versus Jaarn. Something for me to think about another time…
The shadows were moving with the sun. I shuffled around to the adjacent chair, taking my cushion with me and continuing with the ill-written romance I’d been paid to edit. But I was fooling myself if I thought I was here for anything except to see John. I’d be more comfortable at home in my own study. He’d disappeared and was showing no signs of coming back; should I ask Erik if he expected him to return anytime soon? No – that smacked of stalking and desperation so held my tongue. After drinking my second flat white and ordering a ham-and-cheese filled croissant ‘to go’ from Lauren, the pretty waitress who collected my cup, I closed the laptop, untangled the teddies, and set off to check out the Alsops’ Drizzle Bay residence instead.
Stalking? Who – me?
*
As luck would have it I’d spotted their address on the list held to Isobel’s fridge door with a Leaning Tower of Pisa magnet. Presumably a souvenir from her well-traveled sister.
Sandalwood Grove. It sounded expensive, and it certainly was. Holy Moly – six big houses that can’t have been much more than a year old. The trees were all new, too, plainly trucked in after they’d grown at least twenty feet tall in some upmarket plant nursery. Everything was carefully positioned to preserve the ocean views. Tom and Margaret were definitely doing well for themselves.
Not an ideal neighborhood to be seen hanging about in, I reminded myself, so I snapped a couple of quick photos of their house for no good reason at all and then drove home. Our parents’ old place was gracious enough, but bore all the marks of a lawn-mowing service instead of a family of keen gardeners. Things were… neat. It’s just easier not to have flower beds with two enthusiastic spaniels dashing about. Graham had insisted they have as much room as possible to run free so apart from the driveway the land was all one big fenced area with a few trees around the edges. ‘My’ area was a terracotta pot either side of the garage door. Right now the pansies in them were at the ‘dangling over the edge and not flowering much’ stage.
Get something else for summer, Merry…
What was I going to do with the teddies for the next couple of hours? I needn’t have worried. The moment I opened the gate the dogs did another big sniff at each other and showed no agro so I took the leads off the teddies and they all gamboled around in an excited pack, staged a few mock-attacks with no real savagery, and were soon having the time of their lives. The spaniels might have been bigger, but the teddies were really fast. I left the door to the kitchen open in case anyone wanted to bolt in to safety.
Right – a cup of jasmine and mango tea to go with my croissant! Then I settled down to work for another couple of hours without the distraction of an athletic American hovering anywhere nearby. Or indeed, not hovering. I kept comparing poor Isobel’s disintegrating cottage to her sister’s gross but no doubt glorious mansion. If Graham and I had been living in such unequal circumstances I’d have been hopping mad. Probably mad enough to point out that the sibling with all the advantages should be kind enough to even things up somewhat.
In Isobel’s case might she have demanded Margaret slip her poor dutiful sister some cash for looking after the old parents? (If indeed that was the situation, and if she was expected to share the eventual house sale proceeds with wealthy Margaret.) Could she have tried blackmail? Would that be enough to set either of the Alsops off on a murderous rampage?
I let out a frustrated groan. A rampage sounded like multiple murders and there was only one, thank heavens. And really – what might she have known she could blackmail them for? Being a mean sister wouldn’t be enough.
I needed Graham to come home, relax with his predictable Scotch on the rocks, and lose his customary caution. Then I could start the process of getting him to spill the details about who owned the old cottage and who stood to benefit. Sadly though, tonight was his Rotary meeting and he’d be off with the cream of the local business world discussing projects that might improve the district. I’d have to phone him from Isobel’s once he was home because I knew disturbing him at work would get me nowhere.
Chapter 4 – Lurline and Lisa
At four-thirty I closed my laptop. I’d wrangled the reluctant lovers into better shape – or at least given the hopeful author plenty to think about – so I clipped the leads onto the teddies’ collars again, bundled them into the car, and headed for the Drizzle Bay Animal Shelter. That’s a very hopeful description for the large sunny shed behind Lurline Lawrence’s old house, but it’s what the brown and gold sign on the front fence says. Someone had taken a Sharpie to the sign since I’d last been there and drawn mustaches on the cat and dog. I couldn’t help but smirk, even though it was total vandalism. The cat now looked rather like Hercule Poirot from the TV programs.
Mindful it was a warmish day and that pets shouldn’t be left in cars, the three of us
trotted up the side path, two of us with hairy white legs going a mile a minute, one of us with lightly tanned legs strolling much more slowly in the high-heeled red sandals I’d put on to impress John. Fat chance that had worked! The door to the animal shelter was open so we walked in.
Lurline was attempting to clip the knots out of a large and snarly Persian. The poor cat was trussed up in the loops of a dog grooming table and wasn’t enjoying the process. To judge from Lurline’s flushed face and pinched mouth, neither was she. A sudden storm of yaps from the teddies as they scented prey did nothing to help the situation.
The cat increased its hissing and struggling, doing its best to escape from the harness.
Lurline glanced sideways at the excited Bichons and yelled, “Get them out, for heaven’s sake!”
I was trying to! Small dogs who weigh no more than cats can get very heavy when they’re determined. Finally I managed to drag them, protesting and lunging back on their leads, out into the garden. There was a timber seat at the far end, so I staggered across the bumpy lawn toward it, avoiding the patches where a rabbit hutch had plainly been because the grass was nibbled down to nothing, and sprinklings of tiny turds remained. The rabbit in question – an enormous grey thing – dived into the straw-filled bedroom end of the hutch, now positioned under a tree dripping with small green peaches. I clung onto the teddy’s leads with grim determination to get them away from the rabbit droppings and they finally went off the boil.
Phew – this pet-minding was really taking it out of me. I sat and recovered in the sun for a few minutes until Lurline appeared.
“Lovely to see you,” she called, bustling across the lawn. Her face was still red with exertion, and her patchwork skirt swirled and flapped around her ankles. “Poor old Prince Albert,” she added. “Someone who had better remain nameless reported him squeezing through their cat door and pinching their own cat’s food. No mention of the sad condition he was in, and no concern that maybe the owner was in bad health and couldn’t care for him properly.” She rolled her big brown eyes. “Some people!” Her indignation practically exploded out of her ears.