The Secret of Seaside

by Agatha Ball

  Nate didn't say anything. Instead, he picked up his sandwich and bit into it guiltily.

  "You mean, you might not?" I asked him.

  He chewed and then swallowed, I think trying to buy himself time. "I just don't know, Paige."

  "What do you mean you don't know?" I replied. "It seems like a really, really black-and-white issue of right and wrong."

  "I just mean... I don't know."

  I looked at Nate like I was seeing him for the very first time. "You know, you might have a little more of your uncle in you than I thought."

  "C'mon, Paige. Don't say that..."

  I got up. "I lost my appetite. I think I'm going to head on down to the beach and see what Johnny is up to."

  "I'll come with you," said Nate, standing to join me.

  I held up my hand. "No. I think you shouldn't. I'll talk to you later if I find out anything. You know, anything that won't cause you to lose a penny of your millions to the hardworking people of this town, who just happen to be the reason you have any money at all."

  "PAIGE!" Nate called out after me as I stormed out the door.

  I didn't care. I didn't care if everyone was staring at me. The fact he didn't categorically state that he was going to do everything in his power to set things right made me mad. Yes, I know he was in a complicated situation; but the more I thought about it, the more I wasn't cool with it. Did he think he could just walk into some shops and buy a couple presents and things would be fine? This was an entire town's livelihood his uncle had tried to screw up.

  I slowed down as I neared the beach.

  I had judged Jake for letting his feelings for Yvette get in the way of his objectivity. Was I guilty of the same thing? I mean, not that I thought Nate was a murderer. But maybe there were some other facets of his personality that his charm distracted me from noticing.

  I walked over to the sand dune to the little blue dive shop seated next to the walkway. It wasn't much more than a glorified garage with a cash register. It rented out bikes and boards, as well as snorkel equipment and fins.

  Johnny waved at me. "Yo! Paige!"

  I waved back as I tripped on the sand toward him. "Hey, Johnny! How's it going?"

  He shrugged, leaning against the counter. "Quiet."

  "Want to close up early?" I asked. "Maybe take a private client out for a tour of the island?"

  He looked around, mystified. "Who is the private client?"

  I cleared my throat and raised my hand.

  Johnny's face broke out into a wide grin. "Heck yeah!" He pulled the chain on the side of the wall that rolled down the front door and started locking up, securing the entire shop with a simple padlock. Anyone who might be interested in breaking in would have had no problem. But even if they did, they'd be stuck on the island, and it's hard to miss someone trying to pawn a bunch of used air tanks and flippers.

  I slid out of my Keds, using my toes to hold the heels down, and it felt so good to have my feet in the warm sand. Johnny hung the key around his neck. "Okay, so the boat is moored off of the dock. This is SO rad! We're like... skipping out... like school. Except, it's like... part of my job. Because you need a tour. Rad." He looked at me. "Why do you need a tour again? I mean... you like... live here and junk..."

  "So, we... I mean... I was talking with Georgia—-"

  "That woman is SUCH a bummer."

  "I know. But I talked to her—-"

  Johnny stopped me, folding up his arms and staring at me with intent focus. "Go on. I'm listening."

  I took a deep breath and continued. "So I TALKED to her and she said she didn't see the sailor come in on the ferry."

  Johnny's hands flew slowly from the side of his head as he mimed his brain exploding. "Oh man... you... like... you think he must have SAILED here? Whoa."

  "Right. I was thinking he might have sailed here, but there are no new boats moored at the pier, so I'd like you to take me around the island so that I can see if there is a boat somewhere else."

  "MAN, Paige. You are GOOD at this. I NEVER would have thought about doing something like that. Like... using a boat... to find a boat." Johnny stopped in his tracks to contemplate the enormity of it all. "It is, like, so meta..."

  I patted Johnny on the back. "I know. We will have plenty of time to think about it on the boat. As we look for a boat."

  "Riiiight," he said.

  We walked over to the dock and I slid my shoes back on my feet. No need to go catching tetanus from rusty nails. Johnny just had a little motor boat moored on the dock. It wasn't fancy. Pretty much a bathtub with an outboard attached, but it got him where he needed to go and, now, was going to get me where I needed to go, too.

  I stepped in first, then Johnny untied the line and hopped in, too. We were at low tide and the weather was nice enough that the ride wasn't too choppy. We began puttering along the coast and, without being able to help himself, Johnny launched into his sightseeing spiel that he usually reserved for tourists.

  "And you can see from here the main street where the majority of our businesses are located."

  "Johnny," I said, interrupting him. "I live here. You don't need to tell me the story."

  Johnny nodded in understanding but then explained, "It helps me not get lost."

  "Ah," I said, realizing that this was a valid argument for a guy like my friend. "Then, by all means, have at it."

  Johnny launched back into his tour. He pointed up the bluffs at Byron's house. "And there is our founder's house. The family first arrived in 1866 and helped to settle our island."

  "Stop just a second, Johnny!" I said.

  "Okay," he replied, cutting off the motor. "But I may need to repeat that sentence, otherwise I'll forget."

  "That's fine," I replied. "I just wanted to get a look at the bluff." I looked up at it. There were trees and scrub all along the top of the cliff. And at the base, were some massive rocks. "Johnny, do those rocks get submerged during high tide?" I asked.

  "No," he replied. "I mean, you get some tidal pools and some wash, but most of the waves break much farther out."

  I realized there was something fishy going on with the sea. "Johnny, if I pushed a body onto those rocks from above, the body would have stayed caught on the rocks, right? Because the water would have never reached it. But it didn't. Byron floated ashore."

  "Huh," he said, looking up at the bluff. "Yeah. And, like, the tides probably wouldn't have carried it toward us anyway."

  "What?" I asked.

  "Yeah, the time of day when we found him? He would have gone that direction." He pointed in the opposite direction of where the beach was that we found Byron's body.

  "Which means..." I mused, "that he wasn't pushed off that bluff."

  Johnny stared at the cliff. "Whoa."

  "So, why did they assume that he fell off the bluff and then drowned?" I wondered.

  "Well, if someone beat him, it could have been like he had been dropped on the rocks," mused Johnny. "Or Stan and Fred just guessed. They do that sometimes."

  "They won't figure out what killed Byron until the autopsy comes back," I replied, knowing pretty much for sure that Stan and Fred were making things up as they went along. "But there's no way he could have fallen from there."

  "What do you think it all means?" asked Johnny.

  "I think it means that someone took him somewhere else, and then tried to make it look like he fell from the bluff. But why would they do that?" I mused. "Why hide the murder site?"

  "No, I meant, what do you think it all means?" He stared at the bluff, a faraway look in his eyes. "Death and life and us in the grand scheme of the cosmos?"

  I did not have an answer for him.

  "Johnny?" I said, pulling him back to the moment. "I think I'm ready for the rest of the tour."

  "RIGHT!" he said. He fired the motor back up, settled into his seat, and got focused. "And there is our founder's house. The family first arrived in 1866 and helped to settle our island...."

  As Johnny's voice dr
oned on, my brain started churning through the implications if someone killed Byron and then moved the body to make it look like a potential accident. It could have happened anywhere. But wherever it actually took place, it meant that there was some sort of clue linking the murder to the murderer. Something that the murderer did not want anyone to know about or see.

  We turned the corner and there was a boat sitting in the inlet. I couldn't believe that it was just sitting there. But then a movement on the shore caught my attention, and I tapped Johnny's arm. "Keep going."

  "WHOA! NO! Isn't that, like, the boat you were looking for?" Johnny asked. "Shouldn't we, like, check it out or something?"

  What I didn't want to tell Johnny was that I had seen a man who looked suspiciously like Tim, the keeper of the bait shop, step out onto the beach and then, as soon as he saw our boat, go back into the tree line.

  "I'll explain later," I said. "Just keep going. But keep the boat in sight for as long as you can. I'd even really like to see who gets on the boat if possible."

  "Right," said Johnny. "You know. We could, like, moor our boat on the beach and then, like, sneak up and see if something's there. You know, like Navy Seals."

  "I think that's a great idea," I said. "Let's go do that."

  Johnny swung the boat around, and as soon as we were out of sight, he cut off the motor and let the boat drift toward shore. We dragged it up the sand and then ran through the trees back to the beach. Just as I suspected. Tim was in a boat, heading toward the sailboat.

  "What is he up to?" I mused.

  "Who? Tim? Maybe someone forgot their fishing tackle and he is delivering it. A man's gotta eat," he commented, as if that explained everything.

  A familiar face stepped onto the deck of the boat. "That's the sailor!" I hissed. "That's the one who threatened me!"

  "WHOA! THAT guy?" asked Johnny.

  The wheels in my brain started whirling. I sat back as I tried to sort everything out.

  "Careful, hoss," Johnny said. "You look like you're about to break something." He poked my forehead. "And by 'something', I mean your brain."

  I pushed his finger away. "Give me a second." The picture was starting to form. "Listen, what if Tim did it?"

  "Tim? Naw, he's a good guy. He cuts off the lock to the dive shop all the time, for free, when I lose my keys."

  "RIGHT! He's an expert at opening locks!"

  "I dunno, Paige," Johnny replied, his voice full of doubt.

  "He cuts padlocks. With his own two hands. He's SUPER strong. He doesn't even have a motor on his rowboat, Johnny. He rowed all the way out from shore. He could TOTALLY lift Byron's body and dump it somewhere."

  "WHOA!" said Johnny.

  "And then there is that whole deal with the sailor," I added. "That sailor threatened me. Why would he threaten me if he was here for good reasons? And the moment I mentioned the sailor to Tim, he freaked out and came here. Those two are up to SOMETHING and they don't want anyone to know about it. Otherwise, they wouldn't have met here in secret, and the sailor would have moored at the pier. Something is really, really wrong Johnny. I feel like maybe we should let Stan know."

  Johnny ran his two hands through his hair as he considered my words. "You think you got enough for the police?"

  "Well..." I hemmed. "Not a ton, but maybe just enough to help them out, you know? Like, not enough to make an arrest, but if the autopsy comes back showing that Byron was beaten before he died, they'll have something to go on. At least enough to clear Nate's name and mine."

  "I dunno..." said Johnny. "It seems like a mighty big stretch to me."

  "I'm not saying that Tim did it. I'm just saying that he was acting really suspicious, and now he is out here with a guy who threatened me. That's not cool, Johnny. If there is a completely reasonable explanation, they can tell it to Stan." I got up and started walking back down toward the beach where we left the boat.

  Johnny ran after me. "Wait up, Paige! Come on!"

  My feet slid on the sand dunes as I hurried along, feeling an urgency. "Johnny, we need to get back to the village to talk to Stan and Fred."

  He gave out a great big sigh. "But I didn't even get halfway through my tour before you decided you were done. If I don't give you the whole tour, my boss is gonna be pissed."

  "Johnny, your boss is your dad and he's passed out on his couch right now."

  "True," said Johnny. "But he is gonna be pissed."

  "He's pissed no matter what you do, and he's probably going to be more upset that you DIDN'T get back sooner. He doesn't care if you finish or not."

  Johnny ran his fingers through his hair nervously. "I dunno, Paige. He's always going on at me about not finishing what I started. And this is definitely not finishing what I started."

  I reached out and grabbed Johnny's hand. "Listen, how about this. I'm not feeling well and need to go back to the village. Can you give me the rest of the tour later this week?"

  "OH!" said Johnny. "So, I wouldn't be... like... not completing it. I would just be like... completing it later."

  "EXACTLY!" I replied.

  "Oh! Yeah. That should be fine!"

  I let out a huge sigh of relief that I had been able to get Johnny's brain around my idea. Listen, Johnny was my best friend on the island. Always would be. But he sometimes had a rough time figuring things out.

  We got back into the boat and pushed it out to sea. Had to go over a couple waves, but we made it. Johnny turned on the motor and we were off. By the time we got back to the village, it was nearly dinner time. I hoped that Stan or Fred were still in the police station. Sometimes they would just forward all the lines to their house phones and go home for the evening. I walked up to the front door, though, and it was unlocked. Stan was sitting at the front desk, spinning in circles. He took one look at me and pushed back in his rolling chair, dread covering his entire face.

  "What do you want this time?" he asked.

  "What I want," I informed him, "is to clear my name and Nate's name from all wrongdoing."

  He folded his arms across his chest. "Oh? So you think that the best way to solve a murder is for the accused murderer to go out and provide an answer to the problem that doesn't involve her."

  "Um... A) You're accusing me of murder so it does involve me. And B), look at me, Stan," I said, motioning to my scrawny legs hanging out of my cutoff shorts. "REALLY look at me. Do I really look like someone who could have killed that man I found?"

  Stan shrugged. "Once you eliminate the probable, whatever is left, no matter how ludicrous, has to be the truth."

  "But you haven't even eliminated the probable," I pointed out.

  "Well, that's what I'm trying to do, but you keep riding my tail!" he grumbled at me.

  "That's because you've accused me OF MURDERING SOMEONE." I took a deep breath. "Listen, I was in my shop, and this sailor came in."

  "Ah! The mysterious sailor! A stranger from another land who is guilty of EVERYTHING," said Stan, waving his fingers as if I had suggested that the murders had happened because of magic.

  "NO!" I replied. "Except that he came in and threatened me. And then when I mentioned it to Tim, Tim got super weird. And when I was talking to Jake about it at the bar, he said that the only person who would have been strong enough to carry Byron's body would have been someone like Tim, who regularly wrestles in massive fish from the bottom of the ocean."

  Stan rubbed his lower lip. "Huh. Jake said that."

  I almost rolled my eyes that it took a guy like Jake to endorse what I had been trying to say since day one before Stan would consider taking it seriously. "Yeah. Jake said that. And then we talked to Georgia, and she said that no one by the sailor's description left by ferry. So, Johnny and I took out the boat and sure enough, there was a strange sailboat moored over near the rocks where Byron's body supposedly was pushed. But we looked, and there is no WAY his body would have been carried out to where Johnny and I were. That body was moved, Stan. It was moved to protect someone."

 
"Huh," said Stan. He stood up. "Well, if Georgia and Jake said that it is what happened..." He seemed to be thinking it through a bit. "Well, maybe I'll just bring Tim and this sailor in for questioning. Just to see what they have to say about things. The truth will always come out."

  "That's ALL I'm asking," I replied. "Just talk to them."

  "Right." He put his keys onto his belt loop. "But if I find out you're wasting my time..."

  "Just talk to them, okay?"

  "Johnny can show me this boat?"

  "Yeah. He just took me there."

  "Okay. I'll check it out." He looked at me, and there was this energy in the air. I couldn't quite figure out what it was. Was he going to thank me or something?

  Turns out it was nothing.

  He just leaned across the table and talked to me like I was an idiot. "You need to leave before I can go. I gotta lock up."

  "Right," I said, heading for the door. "You're welcome, too."

  I headed down to the coffee shop to take over Granny's shift. Even Captain could tell something wasn't right. I'm not sure who paces the shop more, me or the cat. I perched on a stool and stared out at the street, my leg bobbing up and down with nervous energy. What was going on?

  I didn't have to wait too long, though, to get the answer.

  Granny's friends Marnie and Wanda came scooching in just about an hour later.

  "Is your Granny here?" asked Wanda. She was wearing a t-shirt that said, "If you can't say something nice, sit next to me," which seemed appropriate. Her eyes were lit up with the gossip she was holding in.

  "She is!" I replied, standing up and walking over to the stairs leading up to Granny's apartment. I opened up the door and shouted up. "Granny! You have some visitors!"

  I went back to mind the counter and pretend like I wasn't eavesdropping on the conversation.

  Granny came down, dressed in a blue t-shirt that she had tied in the back to show off her figure. Coincidentally, it matched Wanda's hair almost perfectly. Granny's hair, however, was in rollers underneath a scarf, and she was filing away a rough edge from a red fingernail.

  Marnie waved her over and leaned in, her gray braid falling over her shoulder and into her tea. "Did you hear?"