Murder Beach

by Rena Leith

  That was shocking. Two weeks in the cottage? Yikes! “Did he move for business?”

  “Don’t think so. I think he wanted to move to a location that wasn’t known for séances.” He coughed. “I saw you here yesterday, but you left before I could catch you.”

  I was having a little cognitive dissonance. Dave grinned in a slow, easy way—very non-threatening—and yet his comments seemed pointed. “Are you telling me they had séances here five years ago?”

  “Oh, yeah.” He nodded enthusiastically. “Just wanted to let you know that I’m up for it if you’re going to do the same thing.”

  There was a Golden Retriever quality to Dave that was at odds with his words.

  “Not having séances, Dave. I actually want to live here. In fact, I don’t have a choice. Every dime I had went into purchasing the place.”

  He frowned, clearly disappointed. “Oh. Well. If you need to, you can always crash on my couch. Too bad about the…” He waggled his fingers in the air. “They were wild. Charlie always had good food and beer.” He turned to walk out the door. Two steps out he stopped and waved goodbye.

  “Dave?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Who attended?”

  He thought for a moment. It looked like hard work.

  “Me, of course; Charlie; LaVerna, his wife; Alan, who owns a bookstore; Marcy, the vet; and Mina, the ghost writer. Sometimes a gamer would ask to join, but Charlie always said no.”

  “Gamer?”

  “LARP.”

  “LARP?”

  “Sorry. Live action role playing. Kind of like you’re the game pieces.”

  “I’ve met Mina. I can’t imagine her being a live game piece.”

  “Yeah, she told us all about you.” Dave grinned.

  “Who’s us? The gamers?”

  But he headed off to the beach cottage next door. Guess he hadn’t heard me. Or didn’t want to answer.

  “See you later,” I called out of habit and closed the door. Now I was seriously confused.

  I turned around and jumped. Jack and Gillian were standing in the kitchen doorway.

  “Who was that?” Jack said.

  “If he’s to be believed, he’s my neighbor, Dave. Apparently, he used to attend séances here that were held as a sort of a party or maybe a game of some sort by the former owner, who, again, if Dave’s to be believed, only spent two weeks in residence. Before I forget, I have something else to add to my list.” I tried to draw a doorbell, but it looked too much like a nipple. I settled for an old-fashioned maid’s bell. My ‘to-do’ list looked a lot like a rebus. “There.” I looked up.

  The air in the corner shimmered.

  “Did you see that?” I asked.

  Jack frowned. “See what?” He looked around.

  “The electricity might still be shaky,” I said.

  “The attic is filthy, but the antiques stashed up there are amazing,” Gillian said.

  That diverted me.

  Jack added, “It’s as though they stashed the good stuff up there and left the junkier stuff down here. Doesn’t make sense if they wanted to sell. In fact, they could have sold the Deco stuff for quite a bit on its own. Unless the owners didn’t know the stuff was up there.”

  “That would make sense if they really only lived here two weeks,” Gillian said.

  I could believe that. “We should leave everything where it is, take an inventory, and then call Goodwill or whoever picks up furniture for charity and get rid of the pieces that I don’t want.”

  “You’ll need paint pretty soon. You may want to hold off on bringing the antiques down until you decide what you want to do with the walls.”

  I was beginning to feel overwhelmed.

  “Jack,” Gillian said. “We should take pictures of the stuff upstairs. Look up the history of the pieces. Cass, if you want, we could do a little research on wall coverings for the same period.” She shrugged. “I guess it depends on how much you like Deco. There are places that sell reproduction papers. Do you want to keep the Deco flavor?”

  Good old Gillian. She had such a talent for organization. “Sounds good though I don’t really know that much about it.”

  “You will by the time we’re through. For example, look at this.” Gillian brushed off the grates in the wall and the fireplace surround.

  They were decorated with stunningly beautiful geometric patterns, but the brass was so dull that the patterns were barely visible.

  “We’ll need a lot of brass polish,” I said.

  ****

  My second night at the B&B was as delightful as the first. There was a skin-cooling chill in the air that made the Jacuzzi such a treat. This time I was relaxed, knowing that Jack and Gillian would be there in the morning.

  Before bed, I stepped out onto the balcony and yawned into the sharp night air. I hadn’t seen much of the “June gloom” the realtor had mentioned. The sea was relatively calm, but it was 57 degrees Fahrenheit. The down duvet was getting more attractive by the minute.

  ****

  True to his word, in the morning Jack and Gillian arrived at my bungalow with a lovely breakfast and their cat, or rather now my new cat.

  “Hi.” I walked down the steps. “I see you’ve brought my new roommate.”

  “Thanks again for taking Thor, Cass,” Jack said without preamble.

  “My pleasure…I think.” I eyed the large black ball of amber-eyed fur jammed into the soft-sided cat carrier strapped into the back seat of their car. Twenty-five pounds if he was an ounce.

  Jack unstrapped the seat belt from around the carrier. “Thor moaned for two hours straight.”

  “Must have seemed like a long drive.”

  Jack muttered something unintelligible. Then he hoisted the cat carrier. I revised my estimate of Thor’s weight upwards.

  “I’ll get the door.” I ran up the steps and held the battered old screen door open and wondered briefly if I should get a security door.

  As Jack crossed the threshold, a low grumble issued from the carrier. It wasn’t friendly.

  “You two are going to get along really well.” He set the carrier down on the carpet.

  Gillian followed us in and carried the food into the kitchen.

  Although Jack and Gillian hadn’t lived far from us in the East Bay, somehow they always seemed to come down to our house. We hadn’t been to their place since… Well, I’d have to think about when that’d been, and I was pretty darn sure this cat hadn’t been around then.

  Thor was wedged in the cat carrier so tightly that Jack had to shake him out by turning it upside down. Either that or Thor was digging in. All I could see at first was a mound of black fur slowly distending from the open carrier. Then he fell in slow motion, hind legs first. His amber eyes met mine.

  Gravity is amazing. I said, “That’s not a cat; that’s a dog!”

  Jack sighed. “We’ve heard that one before. His size is the source of our problems with keeping him.”

  “Here, pretty kitty, kitty,” I called.

  Thor shot me a dirty look.

  I was having second thoughts. “Jack, I don’t know. This cat seems…well…angry.”

  “Cass, if you don’t take him, you could be condemning him to death at the pound,” Jack pleaded.

  Gillian watched me.

  Blatant emotional manipulation. But who would adopt him? I could tell by Jack’s voice that giving Thor up was hard to do, and Jack was my baby brother, after all.

  “All right,” I said, giving in.

  “Thanks. It’ll work. You’ll see.”

  I shook my head, but Jack’s relief made me smile. That was Jack all over. Do the deed and ask forgiveness later. His boyish charm had gotten him out of a lot of pickles.

  I looked at Thor. Jack had a point about the pound. Thor wasn’t the kind of cuddly kitty most people were looking for when they went to adopt. I understood loving a pet this much. When I was younger, I’d had an Irish Setter mix named Rufus who had seemed to understand what
I was saying to him. We’d shared many secrets over the years. I sighed.

  “We brought you some supplies,” Gillian said. “Maine Coons and other breeds with furry paws need grain-based litter so when they clean their paws, what they swallow is digestible and doesn’t form a clay bolus in their stomachs that has to be removed surgically.”

  “Yuck,” I said, putting a hand to my stomach.

  “I’ll go get the rest of the stuff. Cats are obligate carnivores. There’s special food.” The door banged shut behind him as he made a quick exit.

  “Yeah, you’d better run,” I said to his back. What was it about little brothers? Then I turned to Gillian. “Special food?”

  She nodded. “Prescription. You can get it from your vet. Thor seems to have a bit of a delicate stomach. He’s turned down most of what we’ve offered him.”

  Judging by his size, I didn’t think Thor had many issues with food. “Yesterday my next door neighbor mentioned a vet who used to attend séances here. I’ll get the name, and maybe I can do a little sleuthing and find out some more stuff about the house while I’m at it.”

  Jack came back in laden down with the last of the supplies and dumped them on the trestle table.

  Then he turned to stare at Thor, who was standing in the middle of the living room, hissing. Every bit of fur on his body was standing on end as he arched his back and danced sideways. He struck out with his big paw full of sharp talons…at nothing.

  Then he ran off and hid while we all stared after him.

  “That was really weird!” Jack said. “He’s never done that before.”

  “It’s the house,” I said. If he’d met the bootlegger’s daughter, it hadn’t gone well. There went my plan to be reassured by Thor’s presence.

  Gillian said, “No, Thor’s just annoyed about the trip. Cass, you might expect him to either hide or act out a bit after we leave.”

  That made a lot more sense than thinking that Thor had encountered a ghost. “Come into the kitchen and eat. I’ve got the quiche warming in the oven.”

  We ate croissants and quiche at the trestle table in the kitchen, silently at first while I added to the list, which had already rolled over to a second page. Then we all started talking over each other but stopped and laughed.

  “Go ahead,” Gillian said.

  “The electrician will be by at two. He’ll check the service and bring along what he needs to add another line or two. I want a washer and dryer hooked up soon, but that’ll have to wait a day or two.”

  Jack said, “Are you taking the washer and dryer from your old place?”

  “No, those are staying with Phil. I have to buy new appliances. I’m looking for sales, discounts, floor models, anything to save a dime.”

  “We’ll keep an eye out,” Jack said.

  “Yeah, well. C’mon, slackers. Let’s get busy.” I wiped my mouth, got up, and chucked the napkin in the garbage. “Everything needs to be cleaned, but I suspect we’re going to run into a lot of stuff that’s just trash. I’ve got large trash bags so that we can just move stuff outside. There are two bins, and trash pickup is Tuesday morning, but I suspect we’re going to need a junk hauler. I think we should start on the bedrooms. I have a couple of mattress sets in the locker. I’m hoping we can get two rooms done and usable by nightfall.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Jack said.

  Gillian pulled out the architectural drawings again. “The bedroom on the other side of the living room toward the back looks like it might be the master.”

  “They didn’t have dens or family rooms back in the day, at least not the way we know them. But it looks like there’s another bedroom at the back with the bathroom in between the two. Frankly, I’d like a clean bathroom about now.”

  “Good thought,” Jack said. “I volunteer for the bathroom if you two want to scout the bedrooms.”

  “I’ve trained him well,” Gillian said.

  “Good job, Gillian. Works for me,” I agreed.

  With a flick of the switch, I discovered that the hall light outside the bathroom didn’t work. “There’s a pad and pen on the trestle table. Let’s start a list of what we’re going to need. Light bulbs for starters and maybe a couple of LED lanterns. I suspect there’s a lot of stuff around here that doesn’t work.” I turned on the light in the second bedroom and the bathroom and was stunned by the piles.

  Gillian came up next to me, carrying Clorox wipes. “I’ll do this bedroom. Think of it as a treasure hunt.”

  Jack joined us, carrying a stepladder. “I’m going to check out light bulbs, toilet paper, paper towels, and so on because I’m going to need to make a beer run here pretty quick.”

  “Before the bathroom?” Gillian raised an eyebrow.

  “Sustenance, Sweet Pea, sustenance.”

  Gillian just shook her head.

  “The fridge works, so we should lay in some cold cuts and drinks while you’re at it. Don’t use anything in the pantry. I picked up some stuff on my way back this morning.” I turned to the master bedroom door, opened it, turned on the bed lamp, and screamed.

  There was a dead squirrel in the middle of the bed.

  Jack and Gillian were next to me in an instant.

  Jack asked, “Do you want that bedspread?”

  “No!”

  “Good. I’ll go get a trash bag.”

  Gillian put her arm on my shoulder. “The dead can’t hurt you.”

  I shivered. “I like the bedstead, but that mattress is going out.”

  Gillian chuckled. “Gotcha. We can scrub the wood.”

  Jack shoveled the bedding into the bag and took it out. Then he and Gillian wrestled the mattress out. Sitting on the slats across a three-quarter frame was a set of exposed metal springs. I could put my mattress on top of the springs plus my bedding and sleep here tonight. I started cleaning up the springs and making sure that the slats weren’t broken or weak. The carpet under the bed was a Persian area rug that needed cleaning, but I was willing to settle for vacuuming for the time being. For the first time since opening the door with my own keys, I felt as though this space was mine. I really hoped the other bedroom would be as easy to set up for the night.

  “Going now,” Jack called down the hall.

  “Hang on. Can you pick up some of those little carrots and cherry tomatoes?”

  “Yogurt,” Gillian called from the other bedroom. “And a bottle of wine. Do you have any idea where you’re going?”

  “Nice combination, Sweet Pea. And yes. We passed a few stores on the way in. I was paying attention.”

  “Check my list in the kitchen for any food items. We can go out to dinner tonight,” I said. “I just want some munchy food in here for now to keep us going. It’ll be my treat because you all are helping me out.”

  “Sounds good.” Jack was back in a moment, holding my pad. “Is this what you think of my cat?” He waved it an inch from my nose.

  “Oops.” I had drawn a mean-looking cat with bared teeth and a pile of food next to him. My version of “buy cat food.”

  “Yeah, oops.” He turned and left the room. The front door slammed behind him.

  I poked my head into the other bedroom. “How’s it look in here?”

  “Don’t mind Jack. He loves Thor.” She pointed to a stack of linens. “I’ve set aside two quilts that are stunning and look handmade. I get ditching the bedding in your room, but we should keep on the lookout for embroidery with cutwork. Even stained, we can save it. Also, weavings, quilts, doilies, hair jewelry although that would probably have been out of fashion by the time of this house, there still might have been some from ancestors. You might be able to make a little money off some of this stuff. There’s a gorgeous secretary in here that’s solid oak.”

  I stuck my head in further. “That’s beautiful! I’m keeping that.”

  “I thought you might. By the way, I think your bedstead is walnut. I don’t know what the other owners had problems with, but to me it looks like you got a smoking deal.” Gi
llian pulled open a drawer in the secretary. “Full of papers. Once we get the basics done, it could be a lot of fun to go through some of this.”

  I nodded. “I’m not going to throw any personal papers away. At least not right away. I want to learn about the history of this house.” I looked around. “Have you seen Thor? I’m afraid I forgot about him.”

  “Come here.” Gillian beckoned me further into the bedroom and pulled the open door to the armoire wider. Thor was sound asleep on a pile of quilts that were stacked inside.

  “Guess there aren’t any mice in there! Do you think you and Jack will be able to sleep here tonight?”

  She scanned the room. “Yeah, I think so. It’s stuffy. I’ve got the window open. I think our next trip out—maybe after lunch—should be to your locker for the mattresses, linens, and anything else we can fit in for the first trip.”

  I sighed heavily.

  She put a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t worry. We’ll take it in stages and won’t leave until you have what you need set up to handle daily living. Are you planning to get a job?”

  “Yeah, I have to. I don’t have any laurels to rest on. I’ll take anything I can get. I have a degree in international business from San Jose State, and I was a program manager until I married Phil. But since then I’ve only volunteered for nonprofits doing their web sites. I don’t really want to do a commute again so I’m hoping to use my web skills to start a business I could run out of here creating and maintaining web sites for small businesses.”

  “It’ll take a while to get a business going, establish a reputation. It might be easier to get a regular paycheck that you can count on.”

  “I know, and I will if I have to. But from the time I saw this house, I’ve been thinking about new beginnings.”

  Gillian put a hand on my arm.

  “When life as you know it ends…” Unexpectedly, a tear ran down my cheek. “I really really liked my life.”

  “I know you did, but now you get to try something new.”

  I knew she didn’t understand. She’d never dealt with the fear that sits like a rock in your stomach all the time. I had no idea what to do next. I’d had my whole life planned out, including retirement with Phil. All that was gone now. I had no idea if I could even get a job. I might end up a bag lady on the streets.