Seaside Secrets

by Glen Ebisch

  She had just started to walk toward the back when she heard a chilling scream. She broke into a run, and as she came around to the back of the house, Clarissa saw a figure dressed in dark clothes running between the tall bushes at the back of the property. To her left, she saw a ladder on the ground near the back of the house, and an inert body lying next to it.

  She rushed up to the fallen figure. It was Jack Spurlock. Clarissa spoke his name softly, but his eyes didn’t open. Then she noticed that his neck was at an odd angle. Turning away and ordering herself to remain calm, Clarissa dialed 9-1-1 on her cell phone.

  The first officer on the scene was Officer Rudinski, the young man she had seen working at the desk in the station the other night. She stammered out the series of events as she understood them, from the time of her arrival in front of the house to finding the body. He walked over to look at Jack, and came back looking rather pale himself.

  “Let’s wait in front of the house,” he said, putting a comforting arm around her and directing her around to the front, where they sat next to each other on the dilapidated porch, neither one saying anything for a good few minutes.

  “I thought you were working evenings,” Clarissa eventually mumbled.

  “Detective Baker and I switched to days at the start of this week,” he said.

  A few minutes later, an unmarked car pulled up and Detective Baker got out. Following him was another squad car with two more officers. An ambulance arrived a moment later. The EMTs immediately got out and ran around the side of the house.

  Baker stood by the curb and crooked his finger at the officer sitting next to Clarissa. “Rudinski,” he said.

  The young man jumped to his feet and jogged over to stand in front of the detective. Clarissa couldn’t quite make out what was being said, but she guessed that Detective Baker was asking for a report of what had happened. When Officer Rudinski stopped talking, the two men walked around to the back of the house.

  As she pictured them standing over Jack Spurlock, the image of what she had seen flashed before her eyes. Clarissa now knew what people meant when they said there were some things that you couldn’t un-see. This was something she’d remember for the rest of her life. She shivered slightly even though the day was warm, and she wrapped her arms around herself.

  “Do you feel up to answering some questions?” Detective Baker said, taking a seat next to her on the step and looking at her with concern. She hadn’t even noticed he was back around on this side of the house. “You don’t have to do it now. I can have an officer take you home, and we can put all of this off until tomorrow.”

  “I’m okay,” Clarissa replied. “We may as well do it now.”

  “I know you’ve already told Officer Rudinski, but could you tell me what happened from the time you arrived here?”

  She repeated what she had seen.

  “Can you tell me any more about this dark figure you saw going through the bushes?” Detective Baker asked. “What he was wearing or how tall he was?”

  “He was dressed in dark colors, black or blue. But it could have been a man or a woman. From a distance, I couldn’t be sure. They were maybe around my height, five-nine or so. Like I said, they were moving fast, and I only caught a glimpse before I saw Jack.” She swallowed. “About Jack, is he . . ?”

  “Dead. I’m afraid so.” Detective Baker sighed deeply. “From the angle of his head, I’d say he broke his neck when he hit the ground. The medical examiner is on his way. Maybe he can tell us more. The forensics people will be here in a little while, as well.”

  They sat for a moment looking out toward the street, each of them lost in their own thoughts.

  Finally, the detective cleared his throat. “What were you doing here, Clarissa?” he asked.

  “I wanted to talk to Jack.”

  “Why?”

  Clarissa was momentarily tempted to make up some story about church business that she urgently needed to discuss with Jack, but she really didn’t want to lie. “When I spoke to Jack the other day about David Ames’ death being suspicious,” she said slowly, “he got belligerent, as if there were something he really didn’t want to tell me. I called him right after I spoke to you and said that I wanted to talk to him about it further. He told me to meet him here.”

  The detective sighed. “Even after I told you to stay out of this, Clarissa, you had to go talk to Spurlock.”

  “I need to know why David Ames died,” she protested. “If I’d been better at my job, he would have told me his story, and maybe he wouldn’t have been killed.” She could feel tears welling up in her eyes and fought to hold them back. This wasn’t a time to cry. “I owe it to David to find out who killed him.”

  “No, that’s my job, not yours,” the detective said sternly. “You are just going to foul up our investigation, and maybe end up the same way as Ames and Spurlock.”

  “I’m not fouling up your investigation. If I hadn’t been here, you would never have known that someone pushed that ladder over. You’d have thought it was just a tragic accident,” Clarissa retorted.

  Baker stared down at his hands. “Maybe you’re right about that, but you’re still putting your life in danger. I can’t arrest you or put you in protective custody, but I can ask you as a friend not to take risks.”

  Clarissa gave him a small smile. “And as a friend, I appreciate that. I can promise you that I will be careful.”

  “Do you need a ride home?” he asked.

  “I’m fine to drive.”

  “Okay. For now, we’re going to be putting out that Jack’s death was an accident. As I told you, we haven’t publicized that Ames was murdered, so we’ll keep both of these deaths under wraps. There’s no sense creating a panic at the start of tourist season.”

  “Okay. I won’t tell anyone,” she promised, standing up.

  She nodded to Detective Baker and waved to Officer Rudinski. Then she got in her car, pulled out from the curb, and headed back the way she had come.

  Before she reached the end of the block, though, she could feel her hands shaking on the wheel. They continued to do so all the way back to the parsonage.

  She had never been so sorry to have been right.

  Chapter Ten

  Clarissa returned to the parsonage, washed her face, and put on different clothes. For some reason, she felt better after she had changed, as if putting on a new outfit helped the image of Jack’s death fade a little from her memory. She sat for a while and prayed for Jack, then read her daily meditation.

  When she was done, she went down to the kitchen. Fortunately, Mrs. Gunn had left for the day, so Clarissa didn’t have to answer any questions. She was certain that the woman would have known something was wrong simply by looking at her. She smiled to herself when she saw the directions for the pork chops printed on a yellow pad. They were written in large block letters, as if Mrs. Gunn were giving guidance to a young child, not a twenty-seven-year-old.

  Clarissa took the path across to the office and unlocked the door, which was locked because Ashley had also left. Just as well—Clarissa really didn’t want to talk to anyone right now.

  She sat in her office, stunned by the events of the early afternoon. The dark, paneled walls felt consoling, like a wooden cocoon—or a coffin?—and she gently closed her eyes.

  Although she had sounded defiant when speaking to Detective Baker about the case, she was very uncertain whether to continue her investigation. With both David Ames and Jack Spurlock murdered, she had double the reason to want to find out the identity of the killer, but she also felt that she had no viable suspects.

  Doris Llewellyn might have murdered her husband fifty years ago because of his philandering, but she was in her late eighties and hardly strong enough to suffocate even a weakened David Ames, let alone be capable of pushing over a heavy ladder with Jack Spurlock on it and running off through the bushes.

  Even though Maggie Preston was in her seventies, she was vigorous and strong enough to have killed the tw
o men, but did she really shoot Royce Llewellyn because he was going to drop her? It seemed to Clarissa that even after fifty years, she still spoke of Royce with love and affection, convinced that he would have left his wife for her if only he had lived. She could be lying, but Clarissa didn’t think so.

  With Doris Llewellyn incapable of the recent murders and Maggie Preston with no motive, neither of them was a likely suspect for the deaths of Ames and Spurlock.

  Then who, Clarissa asked herself, was out there killing people?

  Her cell phone rang. She answered and was greeted by the voice of Pat Orwell, her professor from seminary who was now a close personal friend. Pat had been a pastor for many years before becoming a professor, and her course on women in the ministry had been formative for Clarissa.

  “How’s it going in your new ministry?” Pat asked after a few moments of small talk.

  “Oh, you know, adjusting to a new place is always difficult,” Clarissa replied.

  “Of course, and it takes a while to get accustomed to all the new personalities, as well.”

  “That it does.”

  “The reason I called is that I’m coming down to Rutgers University to give a talk the day after tomorrow,” Pat said. “It’s a sudden thing. Their original speaker canceled. I know it’s short notice, but I wondered if we could get together. I know you’ll have almost a two-hour trip to get up here, but I thought we could meet at a halfway point for lunch—maybe that fish restaurant we went to once in Belmar. I know it’s the last minute, so if you can’t make it, I’ll understand.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll fit it into my schedule. I need to talk to you,” Clarissa admitted.

  “You do sound stressed.”

  “There have been some strange things happening here. But I’ll explain when I see you.”

  After setting a time to meet and hanging up, Clarissa called Ramona Russell to tell her about her meeting with Andrew Corrigan concerning the sale of the church property.

  “I was going to call you later this week to set up a time to talk about that,” Ramona said after Clarissa had described her conversation with Andrew. “This is a pretty contentious issue. Reverend Hollingsworth was a golf buddy of Kenneth Rogers, the developer who wants to purchase the land, and some members of the board implied rather strongly to him that he had a conflict of interest in suggesting the church vote for the sale. In fact, several members strongly suggested to the Reverend that it might be time for him to retire before he was ousted by a church vote.”

  “And I thought he was running away from Mrs. Dalrymple,” Clarissa remarked.

  Ramona laughed. “There was that, too. It’s hard to tell which one influenced him more. How about we get together tomorrow at nine-thirty? Does that work for you?”

  “Fine,” Clarissa agreed. “By the way, Jack Spurlock died today.” She figured it was best that Ramona know as soon as possible, being head of the church board.

  “Oh, my! How did that happen?” Ramona gasped.

  “Apparently a fall from a ladder at a house he was working on,” Clarissa said, remembering what Detective Baker told her about not spilling the beans. “I got there right after he fell.”

  “How horrible! Are you okay?”

  “A little shaken up, but I’ll be fine.”

  “Marcie will be devastated,” said Ramona. “I’ll give her a call. If she wants, I’ll gather together a couple of other women and go visit her later on this evening.”

  “I’m sure she’ll appreciate that,” Clarissa said. “And I’ll see you tomorrow morning. Is there anything I should read to get up to speed on this swamp matter?”

  “No. I’ll fill you in on all the details,” Ramona promised.

  They then said goodbye and hung up.

  After sitting in silence for a few moments to compose her thoughts, Clarissa went back to the parsonage. In the quiet of her study, she prayed for Jack Spurlock and his wife. Then she also prayed for herself—that she’d do the right thing.

  Chapter Eleven

  The next morning, Clarissa went down to breakfast after a restless night. She’d had trouble getting to sleep and had awakened at four, only to fall asleep again and oversleep. By the time she got downstairs, Mrs. Gunn had already started cleaning the dining room.

  “I almost went upstairs to see if you were all right. It’s not like you to sleep past eight,” she commented.

  “I had a restless night.”

  “Did you hear about Jack Spurlock?”

  Clarissa nodded.

  “A terrible thing,” Mrs. Gunn said. “You don’t always think about it, but construction can be a dangerous line of work.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Would you like me to scramble a couple of eggs for you?”

  “No, thanks. I think I’ll just have some cereal and coffee.”

  “It’s no trouble,” Mrs. Gunn insisted.

  “That’s okay, I’m fine,” Clarissa said with a wan smile. “I guess I’ll call Marcie Spurlock later this morning and set up a visit. We can talk about the funeral arrangements.”

  “She’ll have the wake at Zeloniks,” Mrs. Gunn said. “That’s really the only place in town. But I’m sure you’ll want to find out the special details about Jack’s life that she’d like you to mention in your eulogy.”

  Clarissa nodded and went into the kitchen. She felt even worse about Jack’s death today than she had yesterday. If only she had found out what David Ames was keeping secret, Jack might still be alive. Even though she knew it wasn’t completely rational, Clarissa still felt responsible for the way things had turned out.

  Under Mrs. Gunn’s disapproving eye, she threw most of her cereal away and drank half a cup of coffee before going across to her office to work on her sermon for Sunday. She had decided to make it a sermon about coping with loss.

  Right at nine o’clock, Ashley came bursting in with the news about Jack.

  “I’ve already heard about it. In fact, I was the one who found the body,” Clarissa told her.

  Ashley’s eyes widened. “The first thing I thought when I heard about it is that the killer had struck again.”

  “You didn’t say anything about Ames being murdered, did you?”

  “Of course not. So you never got a chance to talk to Jack before he died?” Ashley asked.

  Clarissa shook her head. “He’d already fallen from the ladder when I got there.”

  She spent a moment debating whether to tell Ashley what had happened, given her promise to Detective Baker, but since she’d already told her about Ames’ death, she thought she might as well keep her informed. She needed a discreet confidant. Clarissa once again swore Ashley to secrecy, and then told her everything she knew about Jack Spurlock’s death.

  “You saw someone running away who could have been the same person who was at the hospital?” Ashley asked after she was finished.

  “The clothing was similar to what Wanda Bascom, the nurse, saw the intruder wearing.”

  “Do you think the killer saw you?”

  Clarissa paused. She hadn’t thought about that. “I don’t know,” she answered. “If he ran off right away, then probably not. But if he hid somewhere and watched me, of course he would know who I am.”

  “Aren’t you worried about being the next victim?”

  Clarissa shook her head. “Whoever is doing this is trying to prevent David Ames’ secret from getting out. The killer must realize that if I knew, I’d already have told the police, so I think I’m safe.”

  “Not if you keep poking around,” Ashley pointed out.

  “I’ll just have to be careful.”

  “So the killer must have thought that Jack Spurlock knew the secret?”

  “Or knew enough to figure it out.”

  “How are you going to find out this secret now that Ames and Spurlock are both gone?” Ashley asked.

  “Whom does a man tell his deepest secrets to?” Clarissa replied.

  “A bartender?”

  Cl
arissa smiled. “I suppose that’s true, but I was thinking more of his wife. When I speak with Marcie Spurlock it will be primarily to comfort her, but I’m also going to try to find out if Jack mentioned anything about David Ames’ secret.”

  With that, Clarissa went into her office and called Marcie Spurlock. One of her grown daughters answered and said she couldn’t come to the phone right now, but that she was sure her mother would be happy to see the pastor around two in the afternoon. The daughter explained that she and her sister were taking turns being with their mother. They lived in the area and fortunately had flexible work schedules.

  When Clarissa hung up, she heard Ashley greeting Ramona Russell in the outer office, and went out to join them.

  Ramona was smiling at Ashley, who was wearing a black jumper that was actually quite mainstream, given her normal wardrobe. Ramona, a woman in her fifties, was perfectly made up as usual: her brown hair had just the right blond highlights and her fit body was complemented by a dark red sundress. She looked every inch a fashionable lady of the beach—very unlike the stereotypical image of the dowdy churchwoman.

  Clarissa brought Ramona into the office, closed the door, and pulled her chair around the desk so they could sit directly across from each other.

  “I can’t get over the terrible news about Jack,” Ramona sighed.

  “Yes, I’m going to visit Marcie this afternoon,” Clarissa said.

  “After all his years in construction, it’s hard to imagine something like this happening, but I suppose accidents do occur. One moment of inattention can be fatal.” Ramona paused. “I know this sounds rather cold-blooded, but we really should give some thought to replacing him as sacristan.”

  “Is it really that urgent?” Clarissa asked.

  “When things go wrong in the church or the parsonage during tourist season, it can be almost impossible to get a handyman because they’re all busy working on rental properties,” Ramona explained. “And we start our Friday night dinners for the public in another two weeks, which means we need someone to set up and take down the tables. That was another of Jack’s jobs, in addition to cleaning the church. Yes, we definitely need someone right away.”