From the Murky Deep

by Kerry J Charles

  Dulcie squinted at him. “My number?”

  “Yes,” said Nick, “and I’m afraid, if you don’t mind, I need to take your cell phone to check all incoming and outgoing calls.” He looked slightly embarrassed.

  Dulcie sat back in the booth and scrutinized him for a moment. Then she took a deep breath and shook her head slightly as if to clear away confusion. “Of course,” she said and pulled the phone out of her pocket. “How long will you have it?”

  “We’ll try to finish with it quickly. I’m sorry. Do you have any idea who this woman could be?” Nick asked.

  “No, but I might have a better idea if I knew what she looked like, perhaps.”

  Nick pulled out his own cell phone. He looked up at her. “Can you handle this? Pictures of a dead person?”

  Dulcie swallowed hard. “Yes, I think so, if they aren’t too graphic.”

  “No, mostly she looks like she’s asleep.” He handed the phone to her with a picture of a woman’s face on the screen. Dulcie studied it. “Are there more?” she asked without looking up.

  “Yes, you can scroll through.”

  Dulcie flicked through the images. Something looked familiar about the woman. She was probably about Dulcie’s age. Had she been in the museum recently? Perhaps.

  Dulcie took a long pull on the straw and gulped her coffee. Then she looked up at Nick. “She looks familiar. I can’t place her, but I’m pretty sure that I’ve seen her before. Maybe at the museum?”

  “That might explain the phone number. Do many people know your cell number?”

  “It isn’t public, but it certainly has been circulated enough. Quite a few people have it at this point.”

  “All right. Well, if you could just keep thinking and let me know if you remember anything else about her. I’ll get your phone back to you as quickly as I can, hopefully by tomorrow morning.”

  “Thanks, I appreciate that. It’s my lifeline, unfortunately.” She looked at Nick curiously. “Is there anything else? It seems like I don’t have quite the whole story.”

  He’d forgotten how quick and intuitive she was, and for a moment it caught him off guard. “Nothing that I can tell you right now,” he said.

  “Well then,” she replied. She took one last sip of cold coffee and slid out of the booth. “I’ll wait for you to get in touch? You can call me at the museum.” He nodded. “Nick, there’s nothing else you can tell me? It could help me remember something.”

  “I’m sorry, but I really can’t say anything else right now. We’re in the early stages.”

  “I understand. I’ll just do my best,” Dulcie replied. “I’ll talk with you soon.” She picked up her jacket and bag, and quickly left.

  Nicholas Black had stood as she was leaving. He had been bred to stand when a lady entered or left the room, and it was now a mechanical instinct. He slowly sat again and took a deep breath, looking down at her cell phone. He had not told her the most critical piece of information. Along with the body of the woman, they had found a watertight tube. Rolled up in the tube was what appeared to be an incredibly valuable van Gogh painting which, he had just learned, had been stolen from a private collection the year before.

  Dulcie was at the top of the suspect list.

  Nick didn’t like it.

  The aim of art is to represent not

  the outward appearance of things,

  but their inward significance.

  ― Aristotle

  CHAPTER 2

  Dulcie walked slowly down the busy, hot street without seeing anything. Her mind was focused on the photograph of the dead woman. The sudden blast of a car horn made her look up and she realized she was at the waterfront, near the berth of her brother’s boat. ‘Maybe I’ll see if he’s around,’ she thought. ‘He might be able to jar my memory.’

  Dan Chambers ran a relatively lucrative business taking tourists on rides around the bay. Several months earlier Dulcie had unexpectedly inherited a large sum of money. She had decided to become a silent partner with Dan in his business, and had invested in a moderately sized yacht that included a small but quite comfortable cabin where Dan now lived. Previously he had run the business from an old, ramshackle fishing boat while he lived in an apartment. He had played up the hokey coastal Mainer image for the business. This persona was gone now, however. Dan had discovered that having a higher end vessel not only allowed him to charge more per passenger, but also brought in more people who wanted a taste of what they believed was the good life. His best moneymakers were the champagne and caviar sunset cruises.

  “If they only knew the reality,” Dan would say as he looked around his small cabin. But then he would grin and think, ‘I wouldn’t trade it for the world!’

  Dulcie made her way down the wharf and saw a group of people walking toward her from the direction of Dan’s boat. ‘Just in,’ she thought, hoping it was his last run of the day. She wanted to simply float on the water for a while feeling the boat gently bob up and down as she turned over her thoughts. She saw Dan on the deck talking to his part-time first mate Freddie. “Hey, you guys know how to navigate this thing?” she yelled. The both looked up and laughed.

  Freddie stepped over to the gangplank and held her arm carefully while she walked on board. ‘Ever the gentleman,’ thought Dulcie. She smiled at him.

  Freddie was a gem for sure although he had his quirks, as Dan was rapidly discovering. He had struck up a conversation with Freddie two months earlier on one of the bay tours. Freddie was retired and was looking for a part-time job. Or rather, his wife was looking for a part-time job for him. It seemed that she was on the verge of losing her mind with him at home and constantly underfoot. Dan always laughed when he remembered the conversation, because he thought Freddie’s wife would even suggest that she could pay Freddie’s wages. In the end, Freddie was hired and had learned quickly. Dan had found an excellent first mate at a very low hourly rate.

  “You guys in for the day?” Dulcie asked.

  “Ayuh,” Freddy said wistfully. “Gotta take the wife to the Mall. She says she needs shoes.” He looked at Dulcie thoughtfully, then down at her feet. Her black pumps were scuffed and had certainly seen better days. “No offense Miss, but how many pairs of shoes does a woman actually need?” he asked without looking up.

  “Depends on the woman I suppose, Freddie,” she replied, trying hard to sound serious. “In your case, I’d say the answer is always, ‘One more’.”

  Freddie sighed. “That’s what I was afraid of. Guess I’ll see you tomorrow then?” he asked Dan.

  “Yep. Nine work for you? We’ve got a tour at ten o’clock,” said Dan.

  Freddie nodded, turning around to straighten the rack of life vests that were already in perfect order. He gave them a final satisfied pat and continued onto the gangplank. “Afternoon, Miss” he said to Dulcie as he turned and stepped onto the dock.

  “Bye Freddie! Good luck with the shoes!”

  Reminded of his grim task ahead, Freddie walked back up the dock shaking his head slowly.

  Dulcie turned to her brother. “Who is happier now that he’s with you, Freddie or his wife?” she grinned.

  Dan chuckled, “I’d say on any given day it’s an even bet.”

  Dulcie looked around the deck. Every rope and line was perfectly coiled and in place. All of the striped seat cushions were positioned exactly the same distance apart. Even the little bags of potato chips in the snack basket for the passengers were perfectly ordered according to flavor with the labels facing in the same direction. Dulcie smiled. “He does keep things ship-shape, doesn’t he? So different from your usual, let’s call it casual, organization around here.”

  “Oh yes. Very ship-shape. Maybe that’s one of the things sending the wife over the edge?”

  Dulcie nodded. “If he does this at home it must drive her crazy! I wonder what she’ll do this winter when he’s not working?”

  “Freddie says they just bought a place in Florida. That’ll keep both of them occupied for a
while. Plus, there are grandchildren down there too. Freddie’s good with the kids so he’ll keep busy.” Dan looked back at Dulcie. “But, on a totally different subject, guess what I just got on email.”

  “I have absolutely no idea,” Dulcie said, sinking into a seat cushion, marring its perfect alignment.

  “An invitation to my high school reunion.”

  Dulcie made a gagging sound. “Tell me you aren’t going,” she said.

  “Of course I’m going! I’m highly successful and,” he puffed out his chest, “incredibly good looking! Why should I let all this go to waste if I can gloat about it?”

  Dulcie smiled. Of course he would go. Dan was the easy-going fun guy in school that everyone liked. He could walk into any room and instantly start chatting regardless of whether he knew anyone or not. She had seen it hundreds of times. Dulcie did not have the same abilities. She had watched him carefully on many occasions, trying to learn how he did it but never could seem to adopt his calm, friendly manner completely.

  Dulcie’s job required her to attend many events, usually involving some sort of fundraising. Over the years she had learned to pretend that she actually was Dan during the first ten minutes when she felt the most uneasy, so that she could mimic his manner. She went straight home immediately after every event exhausted, whereas Dan would have been ready for the next venue on the evening’s agenda. It was the one part of her job that she truly disliked.

  “Well then, have fun. Give everyone my best.” She yawned. Even the thought of it made her tired.

  Dan just shook his head. They were so different. He changed the subject. “So what’s new with you lately?”

  She immediately sat up straight and swung her legs around off the seat to face him. “You’ll never believe this. Remember the police guy, Detective Black?”

  “The one who had a crush on you?” Dan grinned.

  “Stop it, he did not. Okay, maybe he did. But nothing came of it. Anyway, I just saw him.”

  “You bumped into him?”

  “Nope. He called me. And get this! He showed me a picture of a dead woman who washed up on the beach in Cape Elizabeth, and she had my cell phone number written on her hand!”

  Dan’s eyes widened. He sat down heavily on the seat beside her. “What?”

  “Yup, you heard me. Nick... I mean Detective Black... stop laughing! He told me to call him Nick!” She swatted her brother. “He asked me if I knew her.”

  “Do you?”

  “Well, it’s strange. She looks familiar. I know I’ve seen her before, but I can’t think where. She was in diving gear and her hair was wet which made it look dark so I couldn’t really tell what color it was.”

  “You should call and ask him. Bet he’d know by now. Or they could get a blow-dryer at the morgue if it isn’t quite dry yet.” He smiled at his own ingenuity.

  Dulcie stared at him. “I can’t believe you just said that. But actually, I guess they probably would have hair dryers there.” She shook her head vigorously in an attempt to remove the image of a hair dryer being used in the morgue, but wasn’t successful. Her own dark hair began to spill out of the silver barrette that held it back. “I’m totally off subject here. The point is that I’m trying to figure out where I’ve seen her.”

  “You have about a billion events a year, so maybe one of those? I know that really narrows it down.”

  Dulcie looked rueful. “That and the fact that I see tons of people coming and going from the museum every day. Nope, I’ll have to stew on this one.”

  “But what about your phone number on her hand? That’s weird. Which hand was it?”

  Dulcie’s eyes narrowed as she glanced over at her brother. “Does it matter?”

  “Well, it’d tell you if she’s left handed or right handed.”

  “And how would that help me remember who she is?”

  Dan tried to appear serious. It didn’t work. He burst out laughing. “It’s what they always do on those cop shows! You know, it turns into one of those critical pieces of information that totally solves the case and nobody thought of it until the very end when it’s some kid who says it or the detective’s wife who just makes an off-handed comment. I’ll bet your Nicky Boy…”

  “Detective Black to you, sir,” she interjected.

  “Oh, sorry, your Detective Black hasn’t even thought of it yet!”

  Dulcie rolled her eyes. “Dan, did you ever think that someone else might have written that number on her hand?”

  He leaned back in his seat. “Oh yeah. I guess that could have happened.”

  Dulcie stood up and yawned again. “Well, I should get home. I’ve got a ton of stuff that I have to read which I really don’t want to deal with, but I have no choice. Keep me posted on your exciting life?”

  Dan smiled and nodded. “You too. I can barely keep up with you!”

  She rolled her eyes again at him and climbed onto the gangplank, not an easy maneuver in a dress and high-heels.

  If a man devotes himself to art,

  much evil is avoided that

  happens otherwise if one is idle.

  ― Albrecht Durer

  CHAPTER 3

  Lydia Davenport-Jones stepped out onto the front deck of her new home and smiled. The beach stretched out in front of her on both sides and the Atlantic was an endless body of blue marred only by the occasional foaming surf. Yes, this would certainly do for now, she thought.

  Lydia’s life had not always been quite so grand. Growing up inland, well inland, she had dreamed of the beach, the house on the ocean, the sailboat, and of course the handsome husband complete with docksiders and Ray-Bans. She had managed to acquire all of the above in a very short period of time.

  And now she frowned. Was she truly happy? No. Despite the luxury surrounding her, she was not.

  Clark Davenport-Jones was an idiot. She knew that. He carelessly spent the family money. His mother was furious with him perpetually. She disapproved of Lydia, seeing her as a gold-digger. Maybe she was. But Lydia didn’t really care about what Clark’s mother thought. Lydia knew that she was much smarter, much more worthy, much more cautious then her husband. All that wealth was wasted on him. She sighed, staring out at the blue waves constantly rolling toward her.

  Her plan was simple. Ignore the parents. The opinion of her in-laws really didn’t matter in the end. Instead of trying to prove herself to them, she would take a much quicker route. She would get her hands on a large portion of money, invest it wisely, watch it grow as quickly as possible, then divorce Clark and his pretentious parents. The only difficult part had been the first bit. How could she siphon off money without anyone knowing about it?

  A chance newspaper article provided the perfect solution. The art. Her mother-in-law was an avid collector, to the point where Lydia knew that she had forgotten about many of the pieces stuffed in their various houses. Why not simply slip some away, ever so slowly, and sell them? Who would know? And if they noticed them missing, they could have simply been lost in one of their many moves to a new property. That’s what insurance was for after all, right?

  Lydia had moved quickly. Her first piece was a 19th century miniature portrait. It wasn’t really worth a huge amount, just a few thousand dollars. She had found a private collector in California and sold it to him under a false name. No one had even noticed. It was easy, and she had found it exciting compared with the endless boredom of life as Clark Davenport-Jones’s wife.

  Next she chose a sketch done by the fashion illustrator René Bouché. Again, nothing major, certainly not his best. She’d held her breath on that one. The buyer wanted authentication. She’d managed to find enough background information from the Internet to pacify him and had surreptitiously photocopied a file from her mother-in-law’s desk that contained the work’s provenance.

  It had turned out to be surprisingly straightforward. No one knew except her sister, Jennifer. It had actually been Jennifer’s idea originally - she had seen the article and shared it with Lydi
a. Lydia did the background work, while Jennifer was the front person. She was the older sister and always more daring than Lydia. Jennifer was also a bit of a black sheep; save for Lydia’s wedding, her in-laws barely knew she existed. Or cared.

  Lydia’s frown deepened. She hadn’t heard from Jennifer, and that was unusual. They typically communicated about the art by coded email. Jen would send a message to Lydia and ask her to meet somewhere. Usually this happened every three or four days. It had been a week now, and Lydia still hadn’t heard anything. A chilly breeze blew over her and she shivered once, quickly. ‘No,’ she thought. ‘It’s fine. Jen’s just doing her thing, as always. The semi-lone wolf. She’ll get in touch.’ But it was always Jen who emailed Lydia with their next meeting place, not the other way around. Jen insisted on that. She was very protective of her little sister.

  ‘I’ll wait one more day,’ thought Lydia. ‘That’ll be a full week. Seven days. Then I’ll send a quick text and see what’s up.’ She nodded, as if to convince herself that all was well. Then she shivered once more and went inside.

  #

  “Oh Clark, really! Why do you have to be so bothersome?” Alexia Kent rolled over on the bed, the sheet wrapping tightly around the sinuous curves of her body. “I mean, I know you just married her, but you don’t have to go running back just yet. She’s such an annoying little thing. Looks like a frightened puppy half the time. How long before you leave her?”

  Clark Davenport-Jones was brushing his teeth. He spit into the sink and looked at Lexi in the mirror. She knew that look. She had just crossed the line.

  “I think, my darling Lexi, that you and I need to take a little break for a while.” He continued to stare at her reflection in the mirror until she cringed inwardly and looked away. Damn him. He always had the upper hand. Why did her parents have to be so damned old-money? What that really meant was, they had beautiful houses and antique furnishings, but no cash on hand. Who cared about having four houses if you couldn’t buy Prada when you felt like it?