She glanced over her shoulder and dropped her voice to a whisper. “Vivian would smack us good if she knew what we were saying.”
“So when we find her, we won’t let her know how worried we were.” Fisher grinned and gave a tug on the hand he still held. “And all because she got out of our sight in a big house on an isolated island.”
Jesse fell into step beside him, staying close. “A big house where we think someone was murdered two days ago.”
“No one has any reason to hurt Vivian.”
“Except that she’s poking around trying to prove it was murder. And to figure out who did it.”
“Point taken,” Fisher agreed. “Let’s go find Viv.”
Staying close, they retraced the way they had come through the house, this time aided by the low-wattage glow of early morning. In unspoken agreement, they made their way toward the back staircase leading up to Amanda’s room.
“If Vivian isn’t here, she could be anywhere,” Jesse said, unable to stop her nervous urge to hear a voice, even if it was her own. “She never wanders off like this, and to do it now, in this of all places…”
Fisher patted the arm that wound around his, but made no effort to stop her rambling.
“I know, I know. I’m worried about nothing.” Jesse’s chattering died in a gasp, and her heart leapt into her throat. She reached out blindly, her knees threatening to collapse under her. “Vivian!”
On the landing above them, Vivian’s inert body stretched almost exactly where Amanda’s must have been. One arm flung awkwardly above her head, Vivian lay with her torso twisted away from them. And if she was breathing, Jesse couldn’t see it.
Chapter Twenty-One
Without a word, Fisher charged up the stairs, Jesse’s hand still clutched in his. On the third step, the toe of her slipper caught on the tread, and her knees went out from under her. Her hand jerked free, but not in time to keep her from slamming her elbow into the stair tread that was now at eye level.
Fisher stopped and reached down to grasp her shoulders. “Are you all right?” he asked, guiding her to her feet again.
“Sort of.” Jesse bent to rub the knee she had banged and almost went down again. Fisher’s grip on her shoulders saved her elbow from another beating. “Graceless, as usual,” she muttered.
Vivian, who had rolled onto her back and was watching the proceedings from a prone position, said, “You two might as well still be seven years old for all the noise you make.”
Jesse laughed, swept by a tide of relief so strong it made her giddy, dizzy, and weepy all at the same time. “You scared me to death.” Her voice shook but she kept the tears locked inside.
“I’m reenacting the fall,” Vivian explained without rising.
“A little too realistically,” Fisher said.
Vivian lifted an arm and waved her hand in the air. “A little assistance here, if you please. This floor is getting hard.”
Jesse clung to the star railing, struggling to get her rioting emotions under control. Fisher leaned down and scooped Vivian up, cradling her in his arms.
He pressed his forehead to hers in his childhood sign of affection and said softly, “Seriously, please don’t do that again.”
“I can’t imagine what you mean.”
From her vantage point Jesse could tell that Vivian, who hated being corrected even more than she hated being watched over, had stiffened in his arms. Having committed the same offense too many times already, Jesse was determined to hold her tongue if it killed her, but she was hugely grateful to Fisher for speaking up.
“You ran off alone in a house where a murder may have been committed,” Fisher explained in a voice appropriate for soothing frightened children. “And when we found you, you were giving a good imitation of being unconscious or worse in the same spot where we think Amanda met her end.”
“Oh.” Vivian wrapped her arms around Fisher’s shoulders and gave him a hug. “I’m terribly sorry, dear. That was thoughtless of me.” Over his shoulder, her gaze found Jesse’s, and the corners of Vivian’s mouth lifted in a rare smile of apology. “It won’t happen again, I promise.”
Jesse blinked back tears and blew her dearest friend in the world a silent kiss.
Vivian slapped Fisher on the back with the flat of her palm. “Now put me down, and I’ll tell you what I learned.”
He did as requested, and Jesse hurried up the remaining stairs to join them on the landing. Her heart ached for a big, soothing, hug-it-out moment with Vivian, but that would be pushing her luck. Vivian had already apologized for something that was, in reality, completely normal behavior. Anything more and Jesse might begin to seem needy.
She suppressed an inward shudder at the thought and focused on what Vivian was saying.
“Running down those steps…” Vivian’s hand waved behind her toward the series of stairs that ascended to the second floor and Amanda’s bedroom. “…I practically hurled myself from the bottom rung to the opposite wall, and I couldn’t even come near that mark.”
She indicated the apparent impact point on the back wall of the landing. All eyes went to the innocuous dark smear that was almost certainly blood—Amanda’s blood.
“And taking into consideration that I am both taller and more physically fit than Amanda was,” Vivian continued, “if I couldn’t manage to pull it off on purpose, then Amanda could never have done it by tripping accidentally. Not without sacrificing half of her rib cage to the newel post.”
Vivian rested her hand on the broad, flat cap of the post that anchored the bottom step to the landing. Her hand looked small sitting there, and Jesse could see there was no diagonal route past the post. It was out and around, or nothing.
”And in order to go from these stairs to there…” Vivian pointed to where she had been when they had stumbled onto her reenactment. “We were correct in our earlier assumption that you would have to be on the landing already to avoid this post, which, as you can see, protrudes several inches from the base of the stairs. There is simply no way to go in a straight line from those stairs…”
Like a showcase model, Vivian’s hand gracefully indicated the base of the staircase before sweeping, ballerina-like, toward the stained wall. “…to bounce off that wall and then collapse straight down onto the landing.” Her gesture ended palm up, index finger extended elegantly toward Amanda’s final resting place almost directly below the blood stain on the wall.
“I will admit to being tired and possibly a bit slow witted.” Fisher rubbed the back of his neck and looked from one woman to the other. “But what the heck does that tell us? Because you both look like you know something I don’t.”
Vivian tipped her head toward Jesse, giving her the floor. And as eager as the child in the classroom who knows the answer and really, really wants to be called on—which she did, on both counts—Jesse said, “It wasn’t an accident!”
“Exactly,” Vivian agreed. “In order to have cleared the newel post and hit that wall…” Again, she indicated the spot on the landing’s back wall. “…at that height and with sufficient force to leave a blood smear and become stunned, at the least…” She pointed accusingly toward the landing in front of her. “To do that, Amanda must have been standing about where I am now, the middle of the landing and well away from the stairs. And there is nothing here for her to trip on and no reason for her to hit the wall at all, especially with any force.”
“Oh, my God.” Fisher’s voice was quiet, but his face shone with the glow of enlightenment. “Someone pushed her.”
“Hard,” Jesse agreed.
For now, she would ignore the signs of Fisher’s budding enthusiasm. If Vivian noticed, she would be inviting him to join the Garden Club before anyone could blink. Which wasn’t such a bad idea, since he’d be one of the few members who actually was a gardener.
“From behind, I would say,” Vivian added, jerking Jesse away from her mental wandering. “That means whoever did it, caught her on the landing. And in my opinion,
it wasn’t someone Amanda felt threatened by.”
“Which would be anyone in residence,” Fisher said.
“And the dog was with her when Amanda was found. So was the dog with her when Amanda was attacked?” Jesse sighed. “Good grief, we don’t even know if Lady slept in the room with Amanda or with Bethany at night. And we still have no idea why anyone would want to hurt Amanda. Her death honestly seems to be messing up everyone’s lives.”
“Except for Bethany,” Vivian pointed out. “Her life stays pretty much the same, and she doesn’t have to hide her relationship with Gordon anymore. Of course, she’s the one who got us involved in the first place.”
“Which means nothing,” Jesse said. “Anyone who’s ever watched a detective show on TV knows that. Wait!” A new thought leapt off the pages of a TV script and into her brain. But once the idea was fully formed, it just seemed silly.
“What?” Fisher asked.
“No.” Jesse shook her head. “No, it’s nothing. Not worth saying out loud.”
“You have to, dear,” Vivian said. “We’re still saying anything that pops into our heads because we have no idea what actually happened. So spit it out.”
“Okay, but… Oh, what the heck—maybe it really was an accident, and the person who shoved her didn’t mean to hurt her and now is afraid to say anything.”
“Accident like clumsy and just fell into her? Or accident like didn’t mean to shove her hard enough to kill her?” Fisher asked.
Jesse shrugged. “Who knows? I certainly don’t. Anyway, I said it wasn’t worth mentioning.”
“Of course it is,” Vivian said. “It’s even possible. Right now, anything is possible, and we’re just grasping at straws.”
“Cheer up, everybody,” Fisher said. He swept them both into a one-armed bear hug. “Let’s all go up and get changed into real clothes. We should know a lot more after my meeting with the beneficiaries. And since everyone needs to be there, I don’t see any reason why you two shouldn’t be included. Jesse, do you think you could take some sort of notes? Someone needs to, and I can’t while I’m conducting the meeting.”
“Real notes?” Jesse asked. “Like meeting minutes?”
“No, just jot down notes. Things like who asked a question and maybe a summary of the answer. Or if someone is really unhappy, or if we actually make some progress toward working out a plan, or if someone decides to chuck it all and leave the island. Stuff like that.”
“Or if anyone says anything incriminating,” Vivian added. “I’ll take notes, too, just so we don’t miss anything important.”
“Sometime today we need to find out what everyone else knows about Amanda’s accident.” Jesse made quotation signs in the air around the last word. “It’s possible somebody heard or saw something they haven’t mentioned. And we’re past due for a little sit down with Bethany to find out everything she knows. No more crying, fainting, or running away. She’s got to talk to us.”
“It’s going to be a busy day,” Fisher said. “Is Lawrence Hardy still here?”
“I think he was waiting for you to arrive. But I know he’s planning to leave soon.” Jesse started up the stairs. “I need to find a note pad.”
“Me, too,” Vivian said from right behind her.
“Just in case, I think I’ll use the voice recording app on my phone as a backup,” Fisher offered, bringing up the rear. “That will leave you two ladies to concentrate on the juicy stuff.”
“Presuming there is juicy stuff.”
“Oh, there’ll be juicy stuff, Viv,” Jesse assured her. “These people haven’t gotten through a conversation yet without someone becoming completely unhinged.”
“But is one of them a murderer?” Vivian asked. “We need a Perry Mason moment badly. And soon.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Are you wearing a watch?” Jesse asked.
“Yes, dear. I don’t have your Bohemian spirit.” Vivian touched her wrist with her fingertips, as if reassuring herself. “I can’t imagine never knowing what time it is.”
“I know what time it is. Just not on a constant basis.” Jesse glanced toward the sun, which was still well off to the east. They had just enough time for a brisk walk before the ten o’clock meeting with Fisher and the local group of heirs.
“You don’t have to come you know.” She looked around the grounds of the estate she was eager to explore. “I just wanted to see a little more of this place before we have to sit through all the bickering and whining that Fisher’s little get-together is going to set off.”
“I’m just as eager as you to see every inch of this place,” Vivian said. “And it’s Fisher’s duty as executor to…”
“I know,” Jesse quickly acknowledged. “He’s got to do it, and we should be grateful for the opportunity to study our pool of suspects while they’re all stuck in one room together.”
“And distracted. It’s an excellent opportunity for someone to say something they shouldn’t. So, which way are we heading?” Vivian asked.
“Well, we know what’s down in that direction.” Jesse pointed toward the expanse of open water visible from the front of the house. That was the cove where Gordon’s snazzy, red boat was docked, hidden from view by a forest of evergreens.
This morning they had exited from the back of the house into a formal garden of boxwoods bordering a few straggly perennials that had been long neglected. They now stood outside the wing that housed Amanda’s bedroom. Jesse indicated a path leading straight out from that wing.
“I think I can see water in the distance. I’m sure when they built this house, it had an excellent view of the sea from at least two sides.” She turned back to Vivian, grinning. “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we found a beach through all those trees?”
Vivian glanced at her watch. “We have exactly 40 minutes to find whatever we can and get back to the house. Lead on.”
They set off at a brisk pace down a walkway of crushed white stone, across a broad green lawn and within minutes found themselves at the edge of a dense, old-growth forest of cedar, spruce and redwood. Remnants of fallen trees slowly decayed back into the earth. Ferns grew thick along their edges and across the moss-carpeted forest floor.
Almost as soon as they entered the lush quiet of the ancient wood, Jesse began to hear the rhythmic brush of the sea against the shore. Like a breeze rustling in the still branches, the sound whispered in the distance.
“Is that water I hear?” Vivian’s voice was hushed as she glanced at her watch. “We have plenty of time, and it doesn’t sound very far away.”
“Maybe there will be a bench.” Jesse’s own muted tones were just above a whisper. “Someplace to just sit and stare out over the water. Wait, is that a motor?”
She stopped and closed her eyes to listen while her mind separated the sounds from the silence. “I think that’s a boat going by.” She frowned. “Or maybe starting up. Listen, it’s moving away now.”
“A fisherman?” Vivian suggested. “If there’s good fishing just off shore, it would be a plus for the bed and breakfast. Fresh fish for dinner and something for the men to do while the women are having afternoon tea.”
“I think I hear footsteps coming this way,” Jesse whispered and automatically checked the area for somewhere to hide.
“Where?” Vivian moved closer, looking both directions.
“That way.” Jesse pointed toward the sound of water just ahead, and in that moment it occurred to her that they didn’t need to hide.
They weren’t sneaking around, and they weren’t in any danger. Best of all, there was no Sheriff Tyler here to demand that she get her nose out of his investigation.
Oh, no—Sheriff Tyler! What day was it? Jesse felt her world stand still an instant before her mind starting racing like a squirrel in a cage.
She grabbed Vivian’s wrist, practically shaking it in her panic. “What day is it?”
“Day?” Vivian looked from Jesse’s face to the hand clutching her wrist like a
vise grip and back to Jesse’s face. “Whatever has gotten into you?”
“This is what day? Wednesday? Thursday?” Jesse struggled to focus, but the drama of recent events had shoved everything else into the background. Far into the background.
Saturday, that was it. Saturday was when she had a date… no, not a date, a whatever. Saturday was when she had a whatever with Sheriff Tyler. But what day had Amanda died? And when had they left Myrtle Grove?
“Friday.” Vivian tapped her watch. “It’s Friday. We went to Amanda’s on Tuesday afternoon, the same day she and half of her staff had left without warning. Then you called me the next day to say she had died, and we flew out immediately and spent that night, which was Wednesday, in that lovely little town. What was the name of it?”
“Friday Harbor,” Jesse supplied, feeling less panicked.
Today was Friday. That gave her a whole day until Saturday. One whole day to solve a murder, get off of an isolated island in the middle of the Salish Sea, get back to the mainland, and then fly halfway across the United States. Piece of cake.
“That’s right, Friday Harbor. And then we got here yesterday evening, and Fisher got here last night. My goodness, this has been a busy week. But why were you asking? You seemed upset.”
“Oh, it’s nothing. I had just forgotten about…”
It was then that Jesse remembered that she had never told Vivian about her appointment with Joe Tyler. And that she didn’t want to tell Vivian about her appointment with Joe Tyler. And that if she didn’t tell Vivian soon, Vivian would have a fit of seismic proportions when she found out.
“Jesselyn.” Vivian’s tone carried a warning. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were hiding something. But you would never do that. Not from me. Would you? Jesselyn?” The warning seemed to be edging toward threat. One eyebrow was arched as high as Jesse had ever seen it, and Vivian’s lips were compressed into a thin, steely line.
Left with no choice, Jesse spilled her guts. “I’m supposed to have dinner with…” she began in a rapid-fire confession that stopped when Nettie Shoemacher walked round a bend in the path and out of the trees straight toward them.
Murder on a Silver Sea (Myrtle Grove Garden Club Mystery Book 3) Page 16