Death by the Sea

by Kathleen Bridge

  “A concert of conch,” Liz said, laughing.

  “Or like a murder of crows, a murder of conch,” Kate added.

  Ryan turned to Liz. “Speaking of murder, your great-aunt called. She asked me to come to dinner. Apparently, David Worth has just arrived and insists on eating dinner in the dining room. She wants me there as backup in case he faints or needs help because of his wound. Not that I’m a paramedic, but I’ve had some training.”

  Liz said, “I was going to eat at home, but I think I’ve changed my mind. I’ll make something, and give Pierre the night off.”

  “Good, as long as it’s not seashell innards,” Ryan said.

  Liz smiled. “Someday, I’ll make you try some of my conch ceviche.”

  “Ugh,” he said. “Raw conch!”

  “I bet you’ve eaten the worm at the bottom of a bottle of tequila before,” Kate said.

  Ryan answered, “Yeah, in college, but that was on a fraternity dare.”

  Liz handed him back the recipe. “‘Ceviche’ means that the raw seafood is placed in a bowl and marinated in lime juice. The acid in the lime cooks it, so it’s not actually raw.”

  The rain on the terra-cotta roof was relentless; the wind so fierce, it sounded like a Black Hawk from Patrick Air Force Base was trying to land on the emporium. Ryan got off the stool and said, “I better get back in the kitchen to put things away. There’s no sense in making anything in this weather. If someone does come in, they can have their choice of anything except Granddad’s salads. Kate, did you tell your friend about our other visitor, Agent Pearson?”

  “She was looking for Francie,” Kate said.

  Liz was relieved the detective wasn’t looking for her. “Ryan, before you go, I wanted to ask if you’ve ever talked to Edward or Nick at Gold Coast by the Sea? They might be more apt to share something with another guy.”

  “I’ve only been here since Thursday, but I’ll try to strike up a bro-convo with them.” He flexed his upper arms in an attempt to look manly. It worked. Then he looked down at Liz’s feet. “Hey, you’ve got an admirer.”

  She thought for a minute he meant himself, then she heard a soft mewing. “Bronte!” Liz hopped off the bar stool and scooped her up. “What are you doing here? I thought you were shy? You want some conch? I’m sure Ryan has some to spare.”

  Ryan laughed.

  Kate sneezed and tickled the kitten under her white chin. “That’s it, Liz! You’re adopting Bronte. Come by tomorrow to pick her up.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Liz held Bronte close to her chest and the kitten closed her eyes.

  “Good. I’ll catch you guys later. I have some new-old Hemingways to unpack and the perfect vintage safari helmet to place on top of them.”

  Liz glanced at Bronte. “Do you want to take her with you?”

  “No, she’ll find her way back to the stacks,” Kate said, as she practically skipped out of Deli-casies. Liz felt lucky to have such a perennially upbeat best friend.

  Ryan made sure Kate was out of sight before he said, “You know tiny kittens grow into big cats. They’re not as cute then.”

  “You’re not an animal lover?” Liz knew there was something off about him. Now she’d found it.

  “I’m more of a dog person,” he said, as he scratched behind Bronte’s ear. The kitten didn’t even wake up. “Cats are too standoffish. With a dog, you know where they’re coming from, always happy to see you and ready for a good time.”

  For a dog lover, it sure looked like he’d fallen under Bronte’s spell. His description of a dog reminded Liz of Kate. She had missed her friend when she lived in Manhattan, even though Kate came to visit every few months. Kate, who was the friendliest of people, hadn’t liked Travis from the get-go. How had Liz been so blinded by Travis’s fame, then her own?

  Liz left Deli-casies and joined Minna at one of the burnished-aluminum tables in Home Arts by the Sea. Minna had her feet up and was reading the magazine Vero Beach Living.

  “No customers?” Liz asked.

  “Nope.”

  “I heard about Francie. I hope she’ll be okay?”

  “Oh, she’ll be fine. I think she’s just traumatized from Regina Harrington-Worth’s murder. Francie thinks someone put a voodoo curse on the treasure from the San Carlos and Regina Harrington-Worth was collateral damage. She’ll rally.”

  “We’ll all rally when we catch the person who did it.”

  “Amen.”

  “How late did you and Francie stay on Saturday?”

  “Francie left around six. I left around six thirty. Francie set us up with another of her blind dates that she found on a Melbourne-members-only dating site.”

  Liz felt relieved they both had an alibi.

  Minna continued, “I told Francie I wouldn’t go unless she checked the guys out before I got in the car and drove over there. I always take my own wheels when Francie sets me up on one of her blind dates. I’ve been burned too many times. I said I wouldn’t succumb to one more of her attempts at online dating—she had one last shot at redemption.”

  “How did it go?”

  “After I went home and changed, then got in the car at seven to go to the Sebastian Beach Inn, Francie texted me the date was off. She’d gotten there ahead of me and looked in the window of the restaurant to see two dorks sitting at the bar drinking Shirley Temples topped with paper umbrellas. She knew it would be a waste of an evening, so she took off.”

  “Saved by an umbrella,” Liz said. “What did you do?”

  “I went to François Farrant’s opening, Bruised Shells, at the Sun Gallery in Vero Beach. And guess what? I met a guy!”

  Liz clapped her hands.

  “Francie says even though I met someone, I still owe her one more blind date. I think she needs the moral support. You and Kate could join us on the next one. An eightsome. We can invite Pops’s grandson. At least that way we could play musical chairs and let any attraction come what may. Speaking of attractions, what are your thoughts on Ryan? He seems a bit moody, but gorgeous. He might be too young for me or Francie, but he’s perfect for one of you. So, what do you think? You up for a quadruple double date?”

  “Yes. Let me look at my calendar.” Liz took out her phone from her front pocket and tapped the screen. “Oh good, I see an opening. The twelfth of...never.”

  Minna laughed. “Well, you can’t say I didn’t try. Misery loves company.”

  Liz got up and said, “I’d better get going.”

  Kate entered Home Arts, her formerly white T-shirt black with soot. “Guess what, Minna? We finally found a kitten to adopt Liz.”

  “Don’t you mean that the other way around?” Minna asked.

  “Not in this case,” Kate said.

  Chapter 27

  Liz drove to the hotel and parked in the rear. Her father’s car was missing, so she decided to take advantage of his absence and use his laptop for a little sleuthing. Before getting out of the car, Liz texted Betty that Minna had an alibi; Francie, not so much. Then Liz asked Betty to tell Pierre that she would be making dinner tonight and that David Worth and Ryan would be in attendance.

  A lightning bolt stabbed the ground next to the gazebo, and thunder rattled the car windows. Liz bolted out of the car and fought her way to the door, worried she might get zapped, or have one of the many palm trees swaying near the ground, fall on her. For the first time in Liz’s memory, her father’s door was locked. She ran back to the car, got her keys from her handbag, and sprinted back. She opened the door and stepped inside, leaving her raincoat and shoes on the inside area rug, then she sat at the desk and fired up the laptop.

  After typing in her mother’s maiden name and birthdate, Liz clicked on the icon for Treasure Coast Security. She spent the next hour reviewing the footage from the camera outside the emporium, along with the camera outside the main entrance to the lobby o
n the evening of Regina’s murder. If Agent Pearson was any kind of homicide detective, then Liz was sure she already had the Indialantic’s camera footage from the security company. But Liz wanted to see for herself the comings and goings on that fateful day.

  Liz was disappointed. The footage from the front of the emporium didn’t show anything unusual. As Minna had said, Francie had left around six-ish and Minna at six thirty. Brittany and Nick left together at around six twenty. Edward must have been gone already, leaving Nick to close their shop, as was their usual routine; father and son must have called a truce. At six forty-five, Josie had loaded the plants from inside the emporium into her flower truck, then drove away. Once Liz saw the footage of Agent Pearson walking into the emporium, she switched over to the footage from outside the hotel. Around six, she saw the hair and makeup team leave, carrying large suitcases and a canvas director’s chair like what was used on movie sets. An hour later, a white limo pulled up. She then fast-forwarded to seven forty, when the first fire truck arrived, followed by a Brevard County Sheriff’s car. The footage was grainy and in black and white, but she could picture everything in vivid color, including the inky mass staining the area beneath the right shoulder blade of David Worth’s white tuxedo shirt as he was carried out, lying on his side. After the ambulance pulled away, one of the officers could be seen talking to the limo driver, then the limo pulled away. Ryan looked calm and in charge as he walked up to one of the first responders. And handsome.

  As Liz went to turn off the laptop, she hesitated. She rewound the hotel feed to the beginning of the day on Saturday to see if any of the people on their suspect list might have entered the hotel; they could possibly have hidden in one of its many rooms. She saw herself leaving in the morning; Aunt Amelia, shortly after; followed by David Worth. David returned a half hour later. Liz guessed that was just after she’d seen him in the emporium at Gold Coast looking for the “trinket” to give to Regina to get him “out of the doghouse.” In the early afternoon, she watched footage of David leaving the hotel again. A few minutes later, an obviously perturbed David returned. He marched into the hotel, holding something in his hand, most likely the rock with the note. The time stamp on the video said three forty-five. Captain Netherton left around ten in the morning and returned to the hotel around five fifteen. No one else had left or entered the hotel the rest of the day from the front entrance. She knew Betty and Pierre always used the kitchen exit. That meant the only way the killer could have come inside was by way of her father’s office, through his apartment, and into the hallway with the dumbwaiter. It was unlikely that the killer would have used the exterior kitchen door, since Iris and Captain Netherton were eating dinner in the dining room and would have been in and out of the kitchen. She postulated that the killer would have entered between five and seven thirty, because her father had said he’d left his office at five to go to the emporium, leaving the door, as always, unlocked. Unfortunately, the only footage from the hotel camera was the one she’d viewed at the lobby entrance.

  Liz powered down the laptop, collected her things, and went back out the door. She would have liked to have had lunch with Pierre, Betty, and Aunt Amelia, but first she wanted to go home and print out the canceled rent checks from the emporium so she could give them to Betty at dinner—the same dinner Liz planned to prepare to also knock Ryan’s socks off.

  The first thing she did when she got home was change into her robe. On the short walk from the Caddy to her door, she’d gotten soaked. When she went into the laundry room, she spotted Ryan’s neatly folded T-shirt and shorts. She’d forgotten to return them. Perhaps that was a good thing. Liz didn’t want Kate inferring anything untoward about this morning. She held up Ryan’s shirt and stuck her nose into the collar area, inhaling the lingering scent of his clean-smelling aftershave. “What’s up with you and this Ryan guy, Elizabeth Holt?” she said out loud. She put Ryan’s clothing in a bag and left them by the door. She would give them to him later when he came to the hotel for dinner.

  At the thought of dinner, she shook her head. She still couldn’t wrap her head around the fact that David Worth wanted to return to the hotel after being released from the hospital.

  Liz made a late lunch of grapes, Pops’s homemade country pâté, and rice crackers. She brought the plate into her office and opened her laptop, putting in her and her father’s shared password, then logged in to the Indialantic’s online banking website. She printed out the previous month’s rent checks from the emporium, feeling lucky that Francie had signed Home Arts by the Sea’s check, not Minna. Betty had checked Minna’s alibi at the gallery, and the owner had said she’d been there at the time of the murder. Francie didn’t have an alibi. If it did turn out that Francie threw the rock at the Worths’ car, it didn’t mean she’d murdered Regina or stabbed David. Nick Goren’s was another signature she needed, because his father had signed the rent check for Gold Coast by the Sea. For Brittany’s check, Liz had to go back two months. What a surprise, she thought sarcastically.

  Liz jotted down a note as a reminder to tell Aunt Amelia that Brittany still owed rent for March and April. Brittany also needed to take down the ridiculous sign in her shop that said By Chance or Appointment.

  Before going to the Indialantic to prepare dinner, Liz took a long, second shower and went through ten different outfits to wear before she settled on a simple sleeveless turquoise dress and gold flat sandals with straps that crisscrossed around her ankles. She added gold hoop earrings and a long vintage necklace with several gold charms that represented good luck and good health: an elephant with its trunk in the upright position, a wishbone, and a four-leaf clover. Kate had given her the necklace for her twenty-eighth birthday. It wasn’t worth much compared to the necklace stolen from around Regina Harrington-Worth’s neck, but to Liz it was priceless.

  She was tempted to put some bronzer on her pale face, but she stuck to her usual routine of mascara, blush, and lip gloss. Her scar looked a thousand times better than it had after the first skin graft. Liz rarely held her own gaze in the mirror for more than a few seconds. When a child or someone walked by her and did a double take, she never got angry, but their actions always reminded her of that night. Days would go by when she wouldn’t even think about the scar, forgetting it was there at all. Liz was never vain. When she’d modeled to help pay for her tuition at Columbia, she hadn’t gotten caught up in the superficiality of it all. But when she’d won the PEN/Faulkner Award, that was another story. Her success went to her head, and when the dollars started rolling in, the reason she’d started writing in the first place—for the delight of her readers—got buried under the glitter and accolades. The night it all fell apart, Liz didn’t really blame Travis; she was his enabler, like he’d been hers. Their life together wasn’t real, just their fall from grace.

  An hour later, Liz pulled the Caddy under the hotel’s canopy. The sheriff’s car she’d seen earlier that morning was parked in the same spot. Liz wondered why it was still there. Waiting for a return visit from Regina’s killer, or was an arrest imminent? Aunt Amelia planned to sleep in her own bed tonight. Maybe Liz should talk her out of it? She parked the car a few feet from the revolving door to the lobby and got out. The storm hadn’t let up, and per the weather report, it wouldn’t until tomorrow.

  Chapter 28

  When Liz walked into the Indialantic’s kitchen, her jaw literally dropped. Pierre was next to the center island with his toque askew, holding a scoop of flour, half of which had fallen onto the floor, making for a dangerous work space. Liz rushed over and took the scoop out of his hand. He looked disoriented, but his gaze cleared when he focused on Liz’s face. “Surprise. I almost have dinner ready, although I seem to have misplaced the main protein.” He went from counter to counter, searching behind canisters and bags of cornmeal. It seemed that everything that had filled the shelves in the butler’s pantry had been brought into the kitchen.

  She took Pierre’s elbow and
guided him toward the farm table. “Sit for a minute. I’ll look for it.” But Liz didn’t have to look long, because she smelled it. “Pierre, was your ‘protein’ lobster?”

  “Yes, Lizzy dear. Did you find it?”

  Liz moved toward the double wall oven and opened the top oven door. Inside were the lobster tails she’d planned to use in the meal meant to impress Ryan. The spiny Florida lobster tails had been just one of the seafood components she had planned to use. She certainly hadn’t meant to use all twenty-four on the tray in front of her. The lobster tails were charred on top, one second away from bursting in flames. A bottle of brandy sat on the counter next to the oven—Pierre must have intended on creating one of his famous flambés. She got an oven mitt and pulled out the tray.

  Aunt Amelia charged into the kitchen, out of breath. “What’s that smell?”

  Pierre twirled the ends of his mustache, then said, “Surprise dinner!” He took off his toque and reached inside. His hand came out empty. “Have one more step to finish, just need to find the damn recipe. Where did I put it? Lizzy? Amelia? Do you see it?”

  Aunt Amelia walked toward him. “Pierre, Betty told you that Liz—”

  Liz gave her great-aunt the “shush” sign. Aunt Amelia understood that Pierre had forgotten what Betty had told him about Liz making tonight’s dinner.

  “Come, Pierre,” Aunt Amelia said. “Let’s get cleaned up. Liz will look for your recipe and finish it for you. You know how much she adores your…uh…”

  “Lobster Louis,” Liz said.

  “Of course. Of course,” he said, blinking a few times. “I think I might lie down a bit before our meal.” Pierre got up and Aunt Amelia followed him to the left of the butler’s pantry and into the hallway, toward the service elevator.

  A tear coursed down Liz’s cheek, causing a stinging sensation when it met her scar. No matter how much Pierre protested, Liz, her father, and Aunt Amelia would have to convince him to see a doctor.