Murder on a Silver Sea (Myrtle Grove Garden Club Mystery Book 3)

by Loulou Harrington

“Journals. Calendars. Anything like that,” Vivian said. “I think we need to know why Amanda decided so suddenly to make this trip. But first, how did you figure out which room was hers?”

  “When we were walking toward the house, I noticed that the room at the end of this wing had a balcony on the back of it. And when Bethany’s room turned out to be the one just to the side of it, I knew that the end one had to be Amanda’s. Now let’s just hope she didn’t keep her important papers downstairs in a desk somewhere.”

  “She wouldn’t. Too many other people around. This bedroom is probably the only really private place she had.” Vivian pulled open the top drawer of the dresser and carefully turned over a stack of lingerie to check the bottom of the drawer.

  “I’ll start with the bedside tables,” Jesse said. “And let’s remember to whisper. We don’t want to get busted in here. One hour and we’re out. It’s 4:15 already.”

  “Are you that bossy with men, dear?” Vivian whispered back. “Because if you are, I can see where that might be a problem.”

  Jesse opened the top drawer of the nightstand nearest her and repeated, “4:15, Viv.”

  Vivian smothered what sounded like a giggle and worked her way quietly through the rest of the drawer while Jesse checked out the nightstand thoroughly before moving to the one on the other side of the bed.

  The quiet was broken only by Vivian’s murmurings to herself—a “Hmm-m-m” here and a “No” there and finally, “Yes! A diary!” in whispered triumph.

  At almost the same time, Jesse withdrew what looked like a journal from the top drawer of the second nightstand. Opened, it turned out to be a day timer for the current year with no notes entered for the last week.

  “Darn,” Jesse said. “I found a calendar, but she apparently didn’t have time to make any notations about this trip. Any luck with yours?”

  Vivian flipped through the pages as she walked over to the bed and sat down next to Jesse. “Not a very dedicated diary keeper apparently. This thing started three years ago, and there are months with no entries at all.” Vivian continued to scan the pages while she talked, and her voice suddenly grew excited. “Aha! Two entries this week and nothing for a month before that. The first is from two nights before they left. Listen to this…”

  Dear Diary, I feel silly making this entry. A grown woman running in fear from shadows. My dreams have been terrible. Haunted. I’m an old woman who just wants to live out her last days in peace, and yet my waking hours are spent dreading sleep and my dreams give me no rest. I almost fear the sleeping pills. They only seem to make it worse. Could Bethany be right? Could someone be causing this? But how? When it all seems to come from my own mind?

  Vivian stopped reading and stared at the book in her hand.

  “That’s it?” Jesse asked.

  “That’s it for the last week before they came here.”

  “It doesn’t sound like she’s running from anyone but herself. She must have made her decision to leave for Washington after she wrote that. And she certainly doesn’t sound threatened by anyone in particular.”

  “The next one is written the night she died. But it doesn’t say much more,” Vivian warned. “Poor thing.”

  “Well, let’s hear it. Maybe it will give us something to go on.”

  Vivian began to read again.

  I thought this would be better. But it’s not. It’s worse. I close my eyes, and there’s someone chasing me. If I knew what they wanted, I would give it to them. Just to have some peace. But they are shadows and never speak. And so I have no rest. I don’t know what I ever did to bring this down on myself. Is it Helen’s secret? How could that be? I did nothing but help. Gordon’s? Or Nettie? I will talk to her later, and that will be over. Maybe Bobby Don? Not Celeste, at least. That is done. So many secrets. And I keep them all. But I did nothing. The arrangements I made are fair. God help me. Will there be no peace even now?

  Vivian closed the book. “Well, we know Gordon’s secret. And unless he killed that man on purpose, he’s done his time and that one doesn’t matter anymore. Do you suppose SueAnn could dig up any secrets in Bobby Don’s past? Helen’s is probably the identity of her children’s father. So that leaves Celeste and Nettie.”

  “Maybe we can get Nettie to open up,” Jesse said. “Or Fisher could know something, since he’s the one who showed this place to Amanda in the first place. We still don’t know if Nettie came with it or was hired afterward.”

  “We still need to ask Gordon about her.”

  Jesse checked her watch. “Almost time to go, and for what it’s worth, it would appear that we found what we came for.”

  Vivian laid a hand over the diary she held in her lap. “Should I put it back, or would it be safe for us to keep it?”

  “We should probably put it back, but…” Jesse looked around as if someone might be watching. “I think we should read the whole thing just to be safe. The police either didn’t find it, or didn’t think it was worth taking into evidence.”

  “So, we can keep it?” Vivian asked. Her whole face brightened with anticipation. “There’s none of that yellow police tape on anything we’ve seen so far and…”

  Her voice died with a strangled sound as the door behind them opened. They whipped around to find Fisher, clad in pajamas and robe, quietly closing the door from the inside.

  “I’m very disappointed in you, ladies,” he said in a deep, hushed voice. “I see you’ve started the pajama party without me.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  “We’re snooping,” Vivian confessed and held up the diary to illustrate.

  “Really? Found anything?” He crossed the room toward them.

  “Not much of any value,” Jesse said. “What do you know about Nettie Shoemacher? We all know about Gordon Pitts. But Amanda’s last diary entry indicates there may be a secret in Ms. Shoemacher’s past.”

  “Amanda’s last diary entry indicates there’s a secret in practically everyone’s past,” Vivian amended. “But we’re concentrating on Nettie Shoemacher first because we know so little about her. We don’t even know if she was working here when Amanda bought the house.”

  “Yes, she was,” Fisher confirmed. “And I did the background check for Amanda.” Then he laughed when Jesse and Vivian, as one, leaned toward him in anticipation. “I hope you two are more subtle when you’re around people who don’t know you so well.”

  The women exchanged a guilty glance. “Mother is subtle,” Jesse said after a pause.

  Fisher laughed again. “Sophia would be. So let me guess. You…” He pointed to Jesse. “…are battering ram number one.” Then he pointed to Vivian. “And you are battering ram number two.”

  “It has been suggested that we, well, that I, at least, lack a certain delicacy in my approach,” Jesse admitted.

  “But she’s very effective,” Vivian said. “And I’m just beginning at this, but I see no reason to modify my behavior at my age. So, what do you know about this Nettie person?”

  “Does that diary say anything about anyone trying to kill Amanda?” Fisher asked.

  “It says something about a tormented woman who didn’t know what was happening to her or why,” Vivian said. “Or what to do about it.”

  “She was having terrible dreams and feeling haunted,” Jesse added. “She was wondering if it could be her medicine but didn’t know how it could be. Although some drugs will give you nightmares, and there’s no indication that she ever discussed it with her doctor. Now what do you know about Nettie?”

  “She grew up on this island. There’s a village down the coast a bit. Did you know that?”

  Jesse and Vivian shook their heads no, and Fisher continued, “Her father worked for the family that owned this house. Nettie went to work here eventually, married a local boy, had an affair with the owner of this estate and had a son by him. When the man and his wife weren’t able to have children, they paid Nettie and her husband a large sum to adopt the boy with the provision that Nettie would leave
the island and have no future contact with the child, which she did. Eventually, everyone died but Nettie and her son, who had become the owner. Her father was old and ill, and Nettie came back to care for him. After her father’s death, she returned here as the housekeeper, with her son never knowing who she was. Not too long after that, he died in a boating accident. When the estate was sold to Amanda, Nettie stayed on as the housekeeper.”

  “Wow,” Jesse said, “that’s an incredibly gothic tale. Her son never had a family?”

  “He drank like a fish, apparently, and imported an occasional woman to keep him company. He never married. Except for drinking and going out on his fishing boat, he didn’t seem to do much of anything.”

  “That would be hard for a mother to watch,” Vivian said quietly. “Does she seem to be a terribly unhappy woman? Or has she found other things to live for?”

  “Nettie Shoemacher seems very normal. Which, under the circumstances, doesn’t seem quite right to me.” Fisher shrugged. “Maybe she gave up her child because she thought it was best for him. But he didn’t die well, and I have no idea how she feels about any of it. Do I think she could have pushed Amanda down the stairs? I, quite frankly, don’t know. Do I think she had any reason to? No. She had nothing to gain from it, and that would appear to be an important motivation for Ms. Shoemacher.”

  “Anyone else want some coffee?” Jesse was done with her search and ready to move on. Coffee sounded like something they could all use.

  “Can we go in our jammies?” Fisher asked.

  While Vivian’s peignoir set hardly qualified as “jammies,” Jesse’s flannel pajamas covered with pink flamingos and her matching robe certainly did. And technically so did Fisher’s tailored silk lounging pajamas and burgundy velvet smoking jacket, both suitable, Jesse assumed, for evacuating a cruise ship in the middle of the night if need be.

  “Yes,” Vivian said, already moving toward the door. “Supper was long ago and far away. I want some food to go with my coffee. How well do you know your way around the kitchen, Fisher?”

  “Well enough to find eggs.”

  “We found the wine. We can find the coffee.” Jesse opened the door and held her finger to her lips. “Let’s remember to use our sneaking-around-in-the-middle-of-the-night voices.”

  Outside the doorway, Jesse stopped abruptly and whispered, “Hey!” She pointed to the simple, carpeted staircase that went down to a landing and then doubled back to the first floor. “Let’s go this way.”

  “Where are the stairs that go up?” Vivian asked as they began to tiptoe down the creaking stairs.

  “At the other end of the hall,” Fisher said. “Apparently, there is only one complete set that is open to the hallway. Although I believe that one of the doors along the corridor opens to a second staircase going up. It’s hidden for aesthetics, I guess. It used to be strictly servants’ quarters up there.”

  “Probably still is servants’ quarters,” Vivian said. “I’ll bet you this second floor was nothing but Amanda’s room, Bethany’s and empty guest rooms.”

  “You’re probably…” Jesse’s answer died in a gasp as she noticed the dark smear on the wall of the landing across from the bottom stair.

  Waist high, it was thin and maybe six inches long. Close to the baseboard and beneath the mark on the wall was a dark, round stain on the landing’s carpet, about the size of a human head.

  Slightly dizzy from the sight, Jesse couldn’t help thinking that this staircase had been a bad idea. Then she reminded herself that she was here to find out what had happened to Amanda. Death was never pleasant, even accidental death, and certainly never murder, so she would just have to suck it up if she was going to do what she came for.

  “What is it, dear?” Vivian’s hands settled on Jesse’s shoulders and moved her several inches to the side. “Oh my.” The words sounded breathless, then returned to normal as Vivian continued, “It would appear we’ve found where Amanda fell. We’ll have to come back when it’s daylight and check it all more closely. And we need to get some flashlights if we’re going to go creeping around in the night.”

  “Please tell me you did that by accident, Jesse,” Fisher said. “And that you didn’t come down this way because you thought this is where she fell. Can we move along, ladies? I think I’m losing my appetite for breakfast, and I don’t want to do that.”

  “Sorry, Fisher.” Jesse held onto the railing and started down the second half of the stairs. She knew how he felt. She really hated this part of their investigating. Reality bites, and right now she couldn’t believe that anyone could have done that to Amanda on purpose.

  But this was such a small area, and the handrail was so easy to grab hold of, how could anyone have taken that tumble without catching themselves? The newel post at the turn was big enough to wrap an arm around, and it was rock solid. Did Amanda’s head start bleeding when she hit the wall? Or did someone hit her in the head and then shove her into the wall?

  “Are you okay?” Vivian asked from behind Jesse. “I forget sometimes that you are so much more sensitive than you seem.”

  Jesse winced inwardly. The last thing in the world she wanted to be was sensitive. Sensitive, to her, was weak. Sensitive meant needing someone else to take care of you. Sensitive was something she wouldn’t allow herself to be ever since Michael had died in that car crash their senior year, leaving her to go on living without him.

  She had done it with the help of Vivian and Fisher, the other two people learning to do the same thing. Vivian lost her only child the night Michael died; Jesse lost her best friend and the love of her life; and Fisher lost the third member of the inseparable trio he, Jesse, and Michael had formed their first day of grade school.

  Together Jesse, Vivian and Fisher had grieved and learned to go on. In the process, they had formed a bond that spanned their lifetime. But sensitive? No. Sensitive was something Jesse could never allow herself to be, not again.

  “I just need some coffee,” she said.

  “That always does it for me,” Fisher agreed.

  “All right. Just forget I said anything. I don’t know what I could have been thinking. You’re both pillars of strength, and I’m just a silly old woman.”

  “Okay, fine. You win.” For Vivian’s sake, Jesse was willing to concede, but only a little and only to end the guilt trip. “In moments of extreme hunger and fatigue, I might become just the tiniest bit sensitive. But only due to low blood sugar. One candy bar and I’m fine.”

  “Protein works for me,” Fisher said.

  “Well, protein would work for me, too, but on the rare occasions when I’m feeling sensitive, I want candy, and I want it now.”

  “And if I promise never to say the word sensitive again,” Vivian asked, “can we just pretend I never said it in the first place? Please?”

  “That’s a deal,” Jesse agreed. “How about you, Fisher?”

  “What word?”

  “Fisher says it’s a deal. Does anyone have any idea where we are?” Jesse asked.

  She looked around her at the dark void the staircase had brought them to. Nothing more than a weak glow filtered down from the hallway one story above. As her eyes adjusted to the lack of light, she could make out a room with large, heavy pieces of furniture and windows with narrow strips of moonlight bleeding through a gap in the drawn curtains.

  “I believe this is a small, ladies’ parlor that leads to the main, formal living room just off the entry hall,” Fisher said. “Amanda used this as her study when she was in residence.”

  The three of them stood unmoving at the base of the staircase. “You mean she worked in here?” Vivian asked, remaining shoulder to shoulder with the other two.

  “And do you happen to remember where the door is?” Jesse hated to seem impatient, but the darkness was becoming oppressive. “Or a light switch?”

  Without answering, Fisher moved away. Vivian immediately edged closer, both of her hands gripping Jesse’s forearm. Jesse squinted in the directi
on Fisher had disappeared. She could see a shadow shifting against darker shadows until heavy draperies were pulled aside, and moonlight flooded in through the windows. From there Fisher turned and crossed the room in front of them toward the doorway.

  Aided by the moonlight, Jesse fell in behind him and Vivian, still attached, followed.

  “Tomorrow I’m going to see to it that all these drapes get drawn,” Vivian said. “Apparently, they keep most of the rooms shut off when no one else is staying here. But if there are going to be paying guests, every room needs a good dose of sunshine and a thorough dusting.”

  Fisher threw open the doors to the main parlor, which Jesse immediately recognized as the room where she and Vivian had shared a bottle of wine in a cozy corner by an unlit fireplace. A single table lamp radiated a weak glow of light from the entry hall, but it was enough to guide their way around the numerous furniture arrangements in the oversized room.

  “Good,” Jesse said as they all relaxed and no longer felt the need to stay clumped together. “We know where we are and can see again.”

  In this house, as in the Victorian Jesse inherited from her grandfather, the path to the kitchen was through a doorway at the back of the main entry. Here a servants’ hall connected with a butler’s pantry and then the kitchen.

  In this larger house, another doorway off the kitchen opened into a breakfast room on the front of the house. From there, French doors led onto a side terrace while windows on the two outside walls bathed the room with the first light of dawn.

  The trio gathered around a small table in the alcove of a bay window to enjoy a meal of coffee, poached eggs and English muffins with lemon curd.

  “What about the people back in Oklahoma?” Fisher had swallowed a bite of egg and was about to follow it with the lemon-curd slathered muffin in his hand, poised mere inches from consumption.

  “Do you mean have we talked to them? Or do we suspect any of them?” Jesse asked.

  “Both. Either,” he mumbled around the bite he had just taken.

  “We’ve talked to them,” Vivian said. “Except for Trisha, who was in class at the time. We were there just hours after Amanda and the others left for here. Quite an uproar, apparently, since the trip was a complete surprise.”