by Joanne Pence
She couldn’t stop the grin that played on her lips. “I know.”
They continued in silence, poking under the few bushes and brush on the wind-swept coast, searching the landscape and ground for any footprints, any sign someone had been here recently.
“The brother-sister connection—Jack and Susannah, and now Finley and Moira—is an interesting twist,” Angie said. “Don’t you think?”
He stopped and picked up a coral-pink pebble, rubbed it clean with his fingers, and gave it to her. “It means no more than that families usually live together. Don’t let these people get to you, Angie. It can be dangerous.”
Angie held the pebble, warmed by his touch, tight in her hand a moment, then put it deep into her pocket. “You may be right. But there seems to be something peculiarly sad and lonely about this house and the lives of both the Semplers and the Tays, and now, Patsy Jeffers. Patsy was likening herself to Susannah the other day. I hope she never sees herself as Elise, the outsider who loves, but then is abandoned, and kills herself by jumping off these cliffs.”
“If she did, with these tides we may never find her body.”
Angie watched the tide pound the huge rocks offshore and shivered. “Don’t say that. I’m sorry I mentioned it.”
Paavo put his arm around her shoulders. Her arm circled his waist, and they held each other as close as their cumbersome rain slickers would allow as they walked along.
After a while, he said, “I think we should climb down to the beach to see what we can find or observe from that angle.”
“What beach? All I saw were rocks. Judging from the waterlines, they’re probably underwater when the tide comes in.”
“Come on.”
Continuing along the cliff tops, they came to a spot where the land was less formidable, and where rolling hillsides led down to the water. “Here’s a path,” Paavo said, starting down.
She didn’t relish trying to climb down hillsides on bright, sunny days; in the rain it seemed impossible. “It might not be a cliff, but it still looks plenty steep and much too slippery,” Angie said. “I don’t think this is such a good idea.”
He glanced down at her shoes. Colorful Nike pump-up sneakers. At least they weren’t her green clogs. “Don’t worry,” he said. “If you get stuck, pump up your shoes and pretend you’re Michael Jordan doing an alley-oop. You’ll spring right up the hill.”
“Michael Jordan doing a what?”
He took her hand. “Let’s go.”
She had to admit Paavo was a good person to hike with. Whenever she started to slip, his grip would tighten and she’d steady herself. He never let her fall once.
When they reached the beach, Paavo climbed out on a jumble of boulders jutting far into the ocean. He stood on the farthest point, staring out at the ocean like some old-time sea captain. Seeing him out there, alone on the slick rocks, made her more than a little nervous. The breeze from the ocean was strong and chilly.
“Be careful!” she called.
He glanced over his shoulder at her. “What?”
“I said, be careful. You scare me way out there. She felt foolish the moment she said it, considering the dangers inherent in his job. But her ever-present fear of losing him was even with her on this beach. It was, she supposed, the ghost she carried.
He was walking back to her, surefooted as he clamored over the rocks.
“I’m sorry,” she began, holding her hands out to his. “I don’t mean to be such a pest about—”
He kissed her. He’d taken her hands, leaned forward and astonished her in midsentence. “Don’t be sorry,” he said.
His words, his actions, told her how new it was for him to have someone worry and call out a simple warning, the kind mothers and wives and families say all the time. But he had had none in his life. She nodded, not trusting her voice just then.
She took his hand, and they continued along the beach.
At the end of the small beach area, they had to climb over some large boulders, then found another small, sandy cove. This series of coves and boulders continued until the shore suddenly became a long, sandy beach.
“This is beautiful!” Angie gasped.
“What a great place,” Paavo said. “A place to lose yourself, to lose all notion of time.”
His words surprised her. Despite her hope that he could come to Hill Haven Inn and do nothing but rest, the strange disappearances, Miss Greer’s death, and, she feared, the peculiar people staying with them, didn’t allow him to relax. The lines of tension and weariness that so often marred his expression because of the constant, often heart-wrenching pressures of his job had eased little.
The first time she met him, his eyes had been hard as granite, cold as the north Pacific. But later, when he turned them on her with warmth, she’d lost her heart. The more she came to know him, the stronger and deeper the feeling grew. If she had to stay on an isolated beach on a rainy, gloomy day like this with him forever, she’d be happy.
They reached the end of the beach and faced a pile of rocks higher and larger than previous ones, separating this beach area from the next cove.
“Stop,” she said. “Let me catch my breath.”
“You need to exercise more,” he offered.
“Thank you, Richard Simmons. Look how far we’ve come…and how high up those rocks are.”
“They’re too high for you. Wait here. I want to go over one or two more of these rock faces before we turn back.”
She couldn’t imagine the need for that. “Why?”
“We’ve already come this far.”
“True, but Patsy’s a lot more delicate than I am. There’s no way she would have walked this far. Especially alone.”
“I know.”
“So why are you going farther to search for her?”
“Remember, she’s not the only one missing.”
He was right.
“This won’t take long,” he said. “Stay here.”
As she watched Paavo climb quickly over the tall, slick rocks, Angie knew there was no way she could have kept up with him. Hard as it was going up the rocks, she hated to think of how dangerous it would be going down the other side.
So she waited.
And waited.
She walked along the beach, back in the direction they’d come from. The cliffs loomed high above her, shrouded in fog and mist. She couldn’t remember ever feeling so alone. She was from a big family—four older sisters, a mother and father who were still married after forty-two years, a multitude of aunts, uncles and cousins up to four times removed. Whenever she went to do anything, there were always at minimum ten people there to do it with her. Being alone was a concept quite foreign to her. Looking around the quiet beach—without relatives, neighbors, cars, phones, or shops filled with people surrounding her—rather than seeing the beauty of it, she saw only the vulnerability of her isolation. Times like this, she found the city a much less frightening place than the country.
But then, she knew the city. Here life was alien.
She hadn’t thought much before about how narrow the beach was. She preferred the wide beaches of the Riviera and Tahiti. The ones you could get to by stepping out of your hotel room and walking a few feet. Those were proper beaches. She moved closer to the cliffs. Not these skinny, narrow…
She saw water in a crevice of the cliff about three feet up from the beach. Her mouth went dry. Surely it was rainwater. Wasn’t it? She watched a tall wave breaking on a boulder not far from shore. The spray shot high into the air, and when the wave hit the shore it flowed a lot closer to Angie than the last one had.
Oh, God, she thought. Was this low tide or high tide? She might not know much about nature, but she knew that when the tide came in, some of these coves were underwater. Well underwater. So if it was now low tide, how high would the water reach once it came in?
She looked at the water in the crevice. Did she want to stick around here to find out?
Paavo had told her to stay put be
cause he thought it would be too dangerous for her to climb over the rock face with him. Compared to a tide coming in and drowning her, not to mention sweeping her off her feet and dragging her into the undertow or smashing her up against the rocks before it drowned her, that rock face didn’t look very dangerous at all.
She ran back to the rocks Paavo had climbed over, shouting his name the whole time. She got no answer.
She climbed up onto the rocks a little way, but soon the rock became so slick and smooth she couldn’t go any higher.
She watched another wave hit the shore. How fast did the tide come in, anyway? She remembered something about six hours, but was that one way or round trip?
Why hadn’t she paid more attention to these things about life? What had she wasted her time on instead?
She noticed that closer to the cliffs the rock ledge was higher, but also a lot more jagged. She could probably find a better toehold there. Once at the top, she might even be able to see Paavo. How far could he have gone?
She glanced over her shoulder, then down. Then up. The silence was eerie.
She worked herself sideways, able to climb a bit higher on the rocks before, once again, the boulder turned smooth and steep. She clung to the rock, halfway up and halfway down.
Maybe if she turned around and sat on the rocks she could sort of scoot upward? She tried it, feeling like a klutz; but at least she was making progress. All of a sudden, the ground beneath her bottom began to slide. Wet earth, sand, and small rocks turned into an oozing mud that whooshed her along right to a ledge near the foot of the cliff.
There she sat, her heart still up on the rock face while she thanked God that she was alive and, from all she could tell, hadn’t even bloodied herself.
Looking up, she realized she’d slid only about six or seven feet. No wonder nothing was broken. It had only felt like a plunge off the Empire State Building.
She crawled forward. She was on a kind of ledge, like a horizontal tuck in the hillside. The beach was still a few feet below her—straight down. She looked upward. The top of the cliff was so high, she could scarcely see it.
Well, she couldn’t sit here forever. She had to go up and over the rocks Paavo had climbed, or back down to the beach. Since down meant the tide, one way or another she had to go up.
To stand up, she put her hand down a little behind her to brace herself. But the loose, wet sand crumbled beneath her fingers and slid away. She moved her hand back a bit more and tried again, but this time the ground felt smooth, and soft, and mushy. Yanking her hand away, she turned and looked at what she’d touched.
A creeping horror filled her for a long moment before she turned and scrambled up the rock face, screaming Paavo’s name and climbing so fast she didn’t have time to worry about falling or how steep the rocks were or anything else but how to get far, far away from the rotting mass that Finley Tay’s face had become.
12
Reaching the top of the ledge, she looked at the long drop to the next beach and stopped. “Paavo!” She called his name over and over.
Silence.
She didn’t have to be a medical examiner to know Tay was dead, and had been for several days. It was good, in retrospect, that she hadn’t eaten lunch. She’d never have been able to hold it down.
Slowly, she rose to her feet. How had she gotten up here, anyway? Maybe she could make it down to the beach to find Paavo. Or she might be better off going upward to the top of the cliff. All she needed was a rope or a hanging vine. Of course there were no hanging vines in California, and no one had left a rope hanging around, either. But even thoughts of playing Tarzan couldn’t shake the memory of Finley’s face. She shuddered. She could still feel the spongy mass under her palm, between her fingers.
Making the sign of the cross, she took a tentative step down the far side of the rock face. A loose rock bounced all the way down to the beach. With shaking legs, she sat again. Just as she mustered the courage to try once more, she saw Paavo ambling over some rocks and heading toward her.
She waved her arms, calling his name as loudly as she could.
He ran over and stood on the beach, looking up at her on the ledge. “What are you doing?” he demanded, his face pale and tight, his breath coming in quick, short spurts.
She started to stand, but couldn’t.
“Don’t move!” He began to climb up the rocks.
“I found Finley Tay.” May as well sound like I planned it, she thought.
He stopped. “You found Tay?”
“He’s dead.”
“Wait.”
As if I have a choice, she thought. In no time, he was by her side, his intense gaze reflecting his concern for her and her finding. She reached up and lightly touched his shoulder, his wet hair, not realizing until he was with her how badly shaken she was by her gruesome discovery.
His hands gripped hers. “Are you all right?” His deep voice was like music to her.
“Yes.”
“Your hands are cold.” As if not trusting his eyes or her answers, he swept his hands urgently over her.
“I’m all right.” She stilled his hands, and her voice grew soft, hushed. “He’s down there.”
Paavo left her to climb down to Finley’s body alone.
Finley lay on his stomach, his face turned sideways, facing outward. Paavo carefully brushed aside some of the sand.
Finley’s thin, angular face was bloated. Maggots and beetles crawled amid the dirt-filled orifices.
Paavo stared at the matted blood on the back of Finley’s head, and at its peculiar concave shape. The skull had been crushed. He’d never seen an accident or a fall do anything like that. Unless something fell on him from a high distance—a tree limb, or large rock from a rock slide—whatever hit him had been hurled down with a great deal of force. The kind of force that means murder.
“Do you think he fell and the fall killed him?” Angie called from above.
“I’m not sure what the exact cause of death was, but it was more than a fall. Given the lack of blood here, I’d say he was killed elsewhere, then most likely pushed over the cliff to this ledge and covered with sand. In this spot, his body was impossible to see from the top of the cliff or from the beach.”
“Can we get away from here, Paavo?” Angie asked in a tremulous voice. “This gives me the willies.”
Paavo climbed back up to her side. “Just one question.”
“Yes?” She took hold of his hand, feeling secure now only when holding onto him.
“What made you climb up here in the first place?”
“I grew worried about the tide coming in. That beach is awfully narrow.”
“That’s because the tide is in.”
“Oh.”
Angie went with Paavo to tell Moira that they had found her brother. As a cop, Paavo had given bad news like this to people before, but Angie had never needed to. It wasn’t a duty she ever wanted to repeat.
They left Moira alone with her sorrow. Paavo needed to find a tarp or something similar to cover Tay’s body. He planned to do as thorough a review of the surroundings as possible before anyone else went out there. No way would he allow Finley’s body to be moved the way Miss Greer’s had been. He’d keep the crime scene as secure as possible until the sheriff could reopen the road and get some of his own men up here.
Before leaving, Paavo walked with Angie up to their room.
“I want you to stay here,” he said, “and keep the door locked. I’ll leave my gun with you on this nightstand.”
“I can’t imagine I’m in danger. It had to have been a personal thing against Finley. He had enough enemies. In town as well as among these investors.”
He thought of Miss Greer’s body. “Until we know why Finley and Miss Greer are dead, any of us could be in danger. Including you.”
“Miss Greer? I thought she had a heart attack?”
“No. I suspect she was murdered. And she was the cook here. Now you are. Or were.”
“I
still am. It’s my job—”
“Humor me.”
“Yes, Inspector. Anything you say, Inspector.”
He knew that tone only too well. Frowning, he left.
Alone once more, Angie took a hot shower to rid herself of the chill from the outdoors as well as the smell and spongy feeling of Finley Tay’s face. No amount of soap seemed to help, though. And the chill she felt was from a lot more than a cold rain.
Frightening memories of the beach kept flashing before her. Finally, unable to bear it any longer, she went to Chelsea’s room and knocked on the door.
Chelsea opened it, a bright, expectant smile on her face. She wore a cherry-colored velvet housecoat and a large black plastic butterfly barrette in her hair. Despite her outfit and her smudged eyeliner, Angie thought the woman’s smile made her look almost pretty. But her smile faded when she saw Angie. “Yes?”
“I’m sorry to bother you,” Angie said, realizing that Chelsea must have been expecting Jack Sempler to knock at her door. All the ghosts Angie had ever heard about would have just walked through it. “I wanted to tell you we found Finley Tay. He’s dead.”
Chelsea looked horrified. “Oh, my God! Come inside. Where was he?”
Angie walked into the room and sat down on the bed. “At the foot of some cliffs. Paavo and I were looking for Patsy, and instead found him. I put my hand on some sand. It slid away and there he was.” She shivered.
“You poor thing! And poor Finley. Did he fall?”
“We don’t know. Paavo doesn’t think so, though.”
Now it was Chelsea’s turn to tremble. “Let’s talk about something else. This is too horrible for me.”
“Was Finley a good friend of yours?” Angie asked.
“No. I scarcely knew him.” She bit her bottom lip. “I don’t mean to speak badly of the dead, but he used to scare me. Just a little.”
“Really? Yet you invested in his inn?”
Chelsea played with a button on her housecoat. “It was all because of Jack Sempler,” she said quietly.
“Sempler?”
She looked ready to cry. “Finley and Moira said Jack Sempler was here. Then last night the cards told me he would come to me. I’ve been waiting, but he hasn’t shown up yet.”