From the Murky Deep

by Kerry J Charles

  Amelia looked dreamy. “And it wasn’t going to cost me a cent!”

  Nick looked disgusted. “This is where I lose your twisted logic, however. If it wasn’t going to cost you a cent, how would you convince Jennifer to hand it over to you?”

  Amelia turned to her son. “That’s where you come in, you worthless idiot.”

  “What?” Clark heard his voice nearly screech. “I had nothing to do with it!”

  “Yes you did, but you just didn’t know it. That night when you and Jennifer were having drinks? I saw you. I was there. And I saw you leave with her. I followed you, and watched you get on the boat. It didn’t take a genius to figure out why the two of you were out there. That’s why I planted the ketamine in your desk drawer, dear son. To teach you a lesson. I just thought Lydia would find it first and think you killed her sister. Stupid girl respects your privacy too much, evidently.”

  “So you used emotional blackmail on Jennifer. You threatened to tell Lydia that her dear sister had an affair with her husband,” Nick said.

  “I wasn’t her husband yet,” Clark muttered.

  “Tell that to Lydia,” Dulcie chimed in. She wanted to slap him.

  Nick stood and paced the room. “You must have gone diving with Jennifer, and that’s how you got the ketamine on her mouthpiece.”

  Ross snapped his head around to stare at his wife. “Wait a minute! You don’t dive! You hate swimming!”

  Amelia began laughing again. A shrieking, piercing laugh. “For a van Gogh? I’d do anything! Jennifer agreed to go fetch the painting in that tube underwater. She had to, of course, but she wouldn’t go alone. Do you know how easy it is to learn how to dive? I did it in a week. That’s when I knew what I would do. It would look like an accident.”

  “But how did you get the ketamine on her equipment?” asked Nick.

  “It was so easy! I distracted her, of course. I dropped my mask by the car. I made her go back and get it. Then I told her to check my equipment to make sure I’d done everything right. It was easy to drip the ketamine on anything her mouth would come into contact with, then just mold some of that wax over it to keep it there long enough. It worked so well!”

  “But then everything started to fall apart, right?” asked Nick.

  Amelia sneered. “She put one over on me. Or tried. I was going to follow her, let her get the painting, and when the drug started working, just take it and swim away. I stuck to her like glue while we swam out, but when she picked up that lobster trap and pulled out the tube she started kicking up sand and silt from the bottom. I couldn’t see her very well. The sun was going down too, so it was getting darker. I lost her. I was so mad. I swam around until I couldn’t see any more. Then I went in.”

  Ross looked horrified. “And left her out there to die in that cold, black water?”

  Amelia said nothing. She looked out the window at the ocean. It was a very dark night, no moon, just billions of stars piercing the sky. It reminded her of the other van Gogh, Starry Night, infinitely more famous than the one she had nearly managed to snare. Starry Night. She would love to have that one, too, if only….

  Suddenly, she knew that it would never be enough. She would never be able to stop her habit, never be satisfied with what she had. There would always be something else. Something unattainable. Something beyond impossible. And she had already killed for something far less worthy.

  Amelia bolted out the back door before anyone realized what she was doing. Nick thought she was heading for one of the cars, trying to escape. Then he realized that she was running toward the beach.

  Dulcie felt she could read Amelia’s mind. She knew instantly where Amelia was going. She raced after her but the woman had a large head start and was surprisingly agile for her age. She plunged into the water. Dulcie dove in after her.

  “No!” shouted Nick. He lunged after Dulcie. A wave caught them both and threw them off their feet. Dulcie felt it crash over her, dark, cold, clawing at her.

  A hand gripped her arm and yanked her up. An arm wrapped tightly around her. She heard Nick’s voice in her ear, “We’ve lost her already. It’s too dark. I won’t lose you, too! I won’t lose you!” His voice trailed off in a whisper.

  Dulcie coughed and gagged from the seawater she had nearly inhaled. Nick had her pressed against him, both arms around her, half dragging, half carrying her back onto the beach. At last he let her stand, but he did not let go.

  “Get her a blanket!” she heard him yell. Dulcie dropped to her knees and wretched on the sand, grateful that it was very dark and the waves were loud. She saw Clark running toward them with a blanket. Ross simply stood on the beach, staring out at the sea.

  “Is she gone?” he said at last. His lips barely moved. “Is she really gone?”

  Nick had wrapped the blanket around Dulcie and helped her to her feet. They stumbled toward the house. Clark put his arm around his father’s shoulders and guided him back. Nick heard him say, “Yes, Dad. I think she is. She’s finally gone.”

  #

  As he drove back to his apartment, still dripping from the unexpected dash into the ocean, Nick listened to the message that he had recorded from Clark’s cell phone one more time. Finally, this was it. This was what he had been waiting for, hoping to find, for nearly six years. It would put an end to everything holding him back. He had his proof. He could finally move on.

  #

  Lydia had made steady and rapid progress. Dulcie sat next to her in the hospital room, telling her about everything that had happened. When she finished, Lydia said, “There’s just one thing that I don’t understand. Why did Jennifer have your phone number written on her hand? She never called you, did she?”

  “No,” said Dulcie. “She didn’t. That was one of the most confusing parts of this whole ordeal. Finally I realized why. Remember when I asked you if she was dyslexic? It confirmed what I had guessed. The number she had meant to write was Amelia’s. Our phone numbers are very similar, they just have a couple of digits switched. She probably had written it down in case she needed to call Amelia at the last minute about the dive. I didn’t put it all together until someone at the museum asked me for my phone number. You never really think about your own. I just rattled it off, then I began to think that it sounded like another number I’d called recently. I was right.” Dulcie explained.

  “Why did Amelia plant the ketamine in Clark’s desk, though? He’s her only child. How could a mother do something like that?” Lydia asked.

  Dulcie sighed. “I think that Amelia was angry about a number of things. One of them was the mess her son had made of his life.”

  “Like marrying me,” Lydia said quietly.

  “Yes, that was one thing that annoyed Amelia, for sure, but there’s more. Lydia, what I’m about to tell you may not be easy to hear. Is that all right?”

  Lydia looked at her with concern but nodded.

  Dulcie continued. “Before you and Clark were married, he had a fling with Jennifer. Or I should say, he nearly had a fling with Jennifer. Evidently he was too drunk to do anything.”

  Lydia looked upset. “That can’t be true! Jennifer would never… would never hurt me like that!” She gulped loudly.

  Dulcie gently put her hand on Lydia’s arm. “We don’t know Jennifer’s reasoning. Maybe she was just testing him to see if he was worthy of you. Maybe she wanted to have something to hold over him if he ever tried to hurt you, or divorce you and leave you with nothing. Or maybe Jennifer was just being Jennifer and taking one of her risks. We simply don’t know. What we do know is that Amelia saw them and used that as blackmail to get Jennifer to go on that last dive. I also think that Clark’s indiscretion added to Amelia’s growing dislike for him.”

  Lydia looked out the window. “Yes, Jennifer must have had a good reason,” she whispered. “Jennifer would never hurt me.”

  Dulcie gave her a moment to process everything. “I’m sure you’re right. She wouldn’t. But it did give Amelia another reason to despise her
son. In the end she had only two choices. She could pin the blame on Clark, or on her husband. I’m sure she would have preferred blaming Ross but she didn’t have enough evidence against him. Besides, sending her son to prison would get you out of the picture too.”

  “What puzzles me,” Dulcie continued, “is how Jennifer got the tubes with the artworks under the lobster trap in the first place. You said that she never went diving alone. How could she have done that with no one seeing her?”

  Lydia laughed softly. “I had the same question. And of course, Jennifer always had an answer. She had worked off and on for a marine salvage company. When she went diving with a buddy and had to access a tube, she told them that the company was doing some testing of containers. She even offered the other divers something for ‘helping her with her work’ like filling up their air tank, just to make it seem legitimate. She thought of everything. Well, almost everything.” Lydia shivered and pulled the covers around her more tightly. “Do you really think that what happened to me was actually an accident?” she asked.

  “I’m sure of it.”

  “Then why did the detective put a guard at my door?”

  “Just to be certain. At that point, he didn’t want to take chances. It also helped you to rest more easily so that you could heal.”

  “That is true, it did help.” She fingered the edge of the sheet lying over her. “I don’t ever want to see any of them again. I’m going to get a divorce, you know.”

  Dulcie nearly laughed. “I think that was pretty obvious! But what are you going to do after that?”

  Lydia looked away. “I was going to ask you the same question,” she said quietly.

  Dulcie was confused. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that you will probably have to turn me in. I stole from my mother-in-law. I stole from the family, basically. And I sold her artwork illegally.”

  “Does anyone else besides me know?” asked Dulcie.

  Lydia shook her head. “I didn’t tell anyone. I don’t think Jennifer did either. She wouldn’t, to protect me. I didn’t even know exactly where she hid the artworks. She told me that they were underwater and safe. I thought she was crazy to do that, but it worked.”

  “Lydia, the way I see it, you are part of the Davenport-Jones family, for a bit longer anyway. And your mother-in-law is most likely dead. You may not have obtained the artwork and carried out the sales in the most straightforward manner, but there doesn’t really seem to be a crime committed. Not as far as I’m concerned. I don’t see any reason why it shouldn’t just remain in the past, easily forgotten. I mean, you never misrepresented who the artists were, so no fraud was committed. The way I see it, you simply withheld provenance information. That could be corrected. I really don’t see Clark or Ross pressing charges against you at this point for theft, do you?”

  Lydia smiled. “No. No, I don’t.” She looked shyly at Dulcie. “It was wrong, I know. I shouldn’t have done it. I was so hurt and confused and depressed and….”

  “I know. We all can do strange things when we’re put in strange situations. I think you’ve suffered through enough, however.” Dulcie looked at her watch. “And now I have to go. I have to make one last stop this evening before it gets too late.”

  “Thanks for seeing me, Dulcie. Can we talk again sometime?”

  “Of course,” Dulcie smiled. “Any time.”

  #

  Dulcie knocked on the door of Nick’s apartment, a bottle of the pinot noir that she knew he liked cradled in her arm. She was looking forward to recapping the entire case with him and had decided to drop by. She wore jeans, espadrilles, an old cotton sweater. She was comfortable with Nick. She had been thinking about talking with him, hearing his voice, all day.

  She knocked on the door again. From the other side, she heard an odd clicking. What was that sound? She knew it. As the door opened she realized what it was. High heels. She stared at a pair of expensive stiletto pumps, then her eyes travelled up two long legs encased in a buttery leather pencil skirt, followed by a silk blouse, then blonde hair waving artfully. Alexia Kent smiled at her condescendingly.

  “Oh!” was all that Dulcie could say.

  “You didn’t expect me here, did you?” Lexi said, tossing her hair over her shoulder.

  “Well, no. But I know your family and Nick’s were friends, and you knew the Davenport-Joneses, so I guess…” Dulcie knew she was babbling.

  A haughty, superior laugh erupted from Lexi. “Friends? Is that what he told you? I suppose you could say that.”

  “Lexi, did I hear someone at the door?” Nick appeared behind her. When he saw Dulcie, his face fell. His mouth opened to speak but nothing came out.

  “Yes,” continued Lexi. “I suppose you could say we’re friends of sorts. You see, darling Dulcie,” she paused, “I’m his wife.”

  A wave of nausea flooded over Dulcie. She shoved the bottle of wine at Lexi and managed to blurt, “Enjoy.” Then she turned and walked away as quickly as possible, forcing herself not to run. Lexi’s arrogant laughter rang out behind her, taunting her.

  Dulcie thought she heard Nick call out her name, but she didn’t look back. She was not going to look back.

  The Dulcie Chambers Museum Mysteries – Book #3

  THE FRAGILE FLOWER

  CHAPTER 1

  “They call it Young Man’s Death.”

  The voice slid softly down the back of Dulcie’s neck. It wasn’t a whisper or a murmur, but the gentle melodious voice of a woman who had lived in Bermuda for a lifetime. Dulcie turned slowly and smiled. “Do you know why?”

  The woman laughed, a beautiful, low sound like the turquoise waves rushing against the shore nearby. “It is a name from the old country. My grandmother was English. I visited her in Cornwall when I was a very little girl. Once, I picked this flower,” she gestured toward the painting on the wall behind Dulcie. “My grandmother, she gasped and said, ‘Cassandra, do you have a boyfriend? Because if you do, he is in big trouble now!’ Of course then I made her explain it all. They say that if a girl picks this flower, her lover will die.”

  “Did you believe it?” Dulcie asked.

  The woman shook her head gently. “Of course not! First, I did not have a boyfriend. Second, I was born too practical, an old woman even at a young age. I had no time for nonsense. And third,” the woman leaned closer to Dulcie and said sotto voce, “she was crazy as a bat!”

  Dulcie burst out laughing. The sound rang in the otherwise silent room. She held out her hand. “I’m Dulcie Chambers. I’m here from the States.”

  The woman held out her hand as well, beautifully dark with a simple yet perfect sapphire and gold ring on it. She shook Dulcie’s hand. “I am Cassandra Watts, a volunteer here at the Bermuda National Gallery. However, I believe that you are more than just from the States Ms. Chambers? You see, I’ve always kept up with my studies. Dr. Dulcinea Chambers is the director of the Maine Museum of Art. Would you be the same Dr. Chambers, or is this an amazing coincidence of mistaken identity?”

  “You’re right, I confess. No coincidence. I’m going a bit incognito at the moment as a quick break.” Dulcie sighed, trying to put thoughts of her situation at home out of her mind. “As you must know, however, if this,” she waved toward the paintings, “is in your blood, it’s impossible to take even a quick break.”

  Cassandra smiled. “You are right. When I travel I must see the museums wherever I go. But tell me, does this exhibit interest you, or simply the museum in general?”

  “I’ll be diplomatic and say ‘the museum’ but between the two of us, I’m very interested in this exhibit. Botanicals have always fascinated me. I think it’s the cross between science and art, and possibly even a bit of historical witchcraft thrown in for good measure.” Dulcie looked back at the painting on the wall. Convolvulus. Morning glory. She had seen variations of them so many times growing wild back in Maine.

  Cassandra looked over at the painting as well. “Yes, the balms and teas of herbal heal
ers long ago. I think that with all of our pills and shots today, we have lost the effect of a good healing.” Her blue eyes were the same color as her ring and sparkled equally as much. Dulcie could imagine Cassandra living centuries earlier, mixing potions and healing people with ‘mystical powers.’ As if reading Dulcie’s mind, Cassandra leaned toward her and whispered, “My Aunties told me that I have witches in my ancestry!”

  Dulcie’s eyes were wide. “Do you think that’s true?” she asked.

  Cassandra shrugged her shoulders. “First one must believe in witchcraft. As for me, I believe in science,” she smiled, then nodded toward the paintings, “and art.”

  Dulcie understood. Art. It was her salvation. The constant in a life that kept changing. She could always find herself again, stay centered in the confusion, when she walked into a museum and simply wandered through the quiet galleries. Sometimes she wondered if it was that feeling, more than any interest in history or the artwork itself, that drew her to the career she had chosen. She pulled herself from her thoughts realizing that Cassandra was speaking again.

  “The artist here was a woman. I find that interesting. Lady Charlotte Anna LeFroy. Her husband was the Governor of Bermuda in the 1870s, and a scientist. She must have enjoyed science too, as these works are only a few of her botanicals. She did many paintings in Tasmania where they also lived. India as well, where she travelled with her first husband.” Cassandra turned to Dulcie. “Don’t you find it unfortunate that women of the past often led such exciting lives, yet it is the men that we hear stories of? We know little of Lady LeFroy. We must try to learn about her from her work.”

  Dulcie nodded in agreement. The morning glory vines curled and spiraled around each other like miniature corkscrews. They were so delicate. Dulcie could imagine Lady LeFroy concentrating hard, pushing aside the rest of the world, and using a tiny brush to create them. She would have been completely focused on her work, oblivious to anything happening around her.