Murder Beach

by Rena Leith

  We’d all forgotten about Thor until he landed in the middle of the table, sending the magazines flying and making us all jump.

  I grabbed him before his jaws could close on the ham. “Nice try, furball.” I set him on the floor.

  “Thor!” Jack yelled.

  “Doris?” Gillian called.

  “Not me.” Doris materialized over by the circular stairs.

  Thor jumped to a chair but didn’t make another move to get on the table.

  “Good choice. If you behave yourself, I’ll give you the scraps.” Thor leaped down and followed me into the kitchen, so I put the bits in a saucer for him, glancing at the wound on his head. It was healing nicely.

  Thor ran his pink tongue over his nose and around his mouth.

  “Trust me. It’s delicious.”

  He only looked at me for a moment before digging in.

  Jack watched the entire proceedings in stunned silence. “I guess I don’t have to worry about leaving Thor with you.” There was a touch of hurt in his voice.

  My cell rang. “Hello? Oh, hi, Ricardo.” I caught Jack’s eye. “Mm hmm. Yes. Really? Okay. What’s the URL?” I jotted it down. “Thanks.” I disconnected and turned to Jack. “Mia created a web site for Samantha. Not for her store, but for her photography project. It’s linked to a bunch of other sites he thought I’d be interested in and,” I paused for dramatic effect, “Samantha wants her vids accessible online when she starts her Kickstarter campaign. For now, this is all private.” I grabbed my MacBook Air and sat in the glider.

  Sure enough. The site reflected Samantha’s personality—larger than life. Lots of links went to like-minded sites, but I wanted the one to her videos. I wasn’t convinced that it was a good sales point to make her videos available. And there they were. In a moment, I was looking at a video listing of films taken with her special camera. Jack pulled up a chair and leaned over my right shoulder. Doris hovered at my left.

  The first two were labeled Alan’s Book Shoppe and dated the day before Alan’s murder and the day after. Why was Samantha taping Alan’s store the day before he was murdered? One was labeled vampire gamers, and another was shot on my beach the night before Alan was found there.

  The opening image showed the front of Alan’s store at twilight. It looked as though it had been shot from the alley across from the entrance to the bookstore. The brightly lit storefront made the surrounding sidewalk and street seem murky and threatening, ominous. I was able to make out Alan moving around inside, waiting on a middle-aged man that I didn’t recognize. Then out of the surrounding darkness, a slight figure approached the store.

  As soon as she stepped through the door and into the light, I saw that it was Mia. She walked straight back to Alan, who looked up and jerked, apparently startled. He finished his business with his customer quickly and then escorted him out the front door, locking it, and flipped the sign to ‘Closed’. Then he grabbed Mia by the upper arm and practically dragged her into the back of the store. I watched until the end but only saw the blurred forms of pedestrians as they crossed in front of the camera, hurrying about their business.

  The scene disturbed me because of its implication of violence. Alan was not gentle when he grabbed Mia; it was not a loving father’s embrace. Was there something between them that might be a motive for murder? I shook my head. Mia had set this up, but she wouldn’t have posted this if it implicated her in her father’s murder. It wasn’t just that I trusted my new partner, but I respected her intellect. Regardless of what it looked like, it must be harmless.

  “I’m not sure there’s any value to using these videos to demonstrate her camera’s capabilities. She should rethink that plan,” I said.

  “Agreed,” Jack said.

  The second video, labeled two nights later, was taken from almost the same position. The storefront, dark by comparison, was clearer for not being backlit. I was able to read the name of the store and see the pedestrians a bit better. Traffic in front of the store had picked up from two nights previous, and I wondered how many had heard by then and were rubbernecking.

  There she was again: a pale white ghost against the blackness. She seemed terribly thin. Then I realized that her black velvet cape swirled around her as she moved, truncating her form. Mia stopped at the door and leaned her head against the framework. Her shoulders shook as if she were crying. The scene lasted only a few minutes before she looked up as if startled, turned, and ran off camera. It said something about Mia’s character that she would put these out there for anyone to see her grief.

  Within seconds, a portly figure entered the frame from the other direction. I recognized Brendan. He stared in the direction that Mia had run. I assumed he was watching her flee although I couldn’t be sure.

  Then he removed a key ring from his pocket, opened the door to the shop, and went in, carefully locking the door behind him. The store remained dark. A couple of minutes later, through the front window I saw a rim of light that appeared around the door to the rear storage room that I had looked at the day I’d helped Sara do inventory.

  Why did Brendan have a key to Alan’s store? “Oh, I definitely think we don’t want to make some of these videos public.”

  The two of them were rivals, friendly rivals, but rivals and competitors nonetheless. I assumed they jealously guarded the secrets of their businesses and that each would have died before giving the other access to his business. Poor choice of words.

  Did he get the key from Sara? Was there some business that she needed him to take care of as a professional? Or had I misunderstood the nature of their relationship? I doubted that Sara had sent him, based on the way Sara had acted when we were doing inventory at the store. She hadn’t hovered over the papers and the desk as though something important were going on. Quite the opposite. She had seemed to be uninterested in anything that the laptop contained.

  Then I looked at the video Samantha had made on my beach. It contained some lovely footage of the ocean, the hill, and the graceful line of gamers, but no undead companions to the vampire gamers. I thought about downloading this one. “Now this one is lovely although I still don’t see any ghosts.”

  “I’m tellin’ ya. No ghosts on the beach, and I should know,” Doris said.

  Gillian came through the door with a bag of groceries that she carried into the kitchen. She started removing groceries and setting them on the counter. “What am I missing?”

  Without looking at her, I said, “Mia set up Samantha’s camera web site with links to her videos.” There was a good shot of the woods on the tape. The gamers looked even more ethereal on tape than they had in person. “I like this one. These are the local gamers, and this was shot on my beach. Some or all of them game online as well. They’re probably the people that George suspects…after Sara, of course.” I turned back to the screen and counted. “Nine.”

  Jack laughed. “The nine walkers.”

  “Boo,” I said.

  “Lighten up.”

  I leaned, closer, looking for Ricardo. “That’s funny. Samantha said that Ricardo begged off tending the store for her, that he was with the gamers the night before Alan was killed. I don’t see Mia, either. So much for the whole vampire initiation thing.”

  “Better question,” Gillian said, “is who was minding the store if it wasn’t Ricardo or Samantha, who was clearly filming?”

  “Interesting thought,” I said. “But I’m guessing she has other part-time help. Probably another student.”

  “And that’s the second time you’ve mentioned a vampire initiation,” Jack said.

  “That was one of Samantha’s speculations about why Alan was killed. And before you ask, no, the gamers don’t hold blood sacrifices on my beach. There seems to be some cross-pollination among the various gaming and cosplay groups.”

  Jack relaxed.

  “That I know of.”

  He stiffened again.

  “Kidding. I recognize a few of the others in the group, but some are strangers.�
�

  Their figures in the reddish glow of the fading sun, moved rhythmically among the trees, seemingly performing a ritual or dance.

  As I squinted at the screen, I saw something that caught my attention. “Do you see that?” I pointed at the screen.

  There was someone else up among the trees, perhaps a latecomer who didn’t descend all the way because the group was retreating. The figure was slightly built and short. It could have been either a small man or a woman. Whoever it was turned toward the camera for just a few frames but was too far away to make out clearly, and the resolution was rotten. Then the figure stepped back into the trees as the gamers retreated back up the hill.

  After the gamers had gone, the figure followed their trail up the hill and over the other side into Las Lunas State Park. All I could tell was that he or she was dressed in dark clothing and had short hair or was wearing a cap. He or she had made no attempt to get their attention or join them. Just the opposite. As they had retraced their steps through the woods, the figure had stepped deeper behind the trees to avoid being seen.

  “Probably nothing,” Jack said. “Makes you wonder what she’s videoed over the years.”

  “I wouldn’t know. But if other people know she’s filming them…” I let my voice trail off.

  “Wouldn’t make her too popular.”

  After dinner as I put the dishes in the dishwasher, I looked out over the bay and saw the lights twinkling on the boats in the harbor.

  “Just right,” Jack said, looking out the window over my shoulder. “Let’s go for a walk.”

  The sky was clear but for a few wisps of softly curling fog that played around the edges of the treetops.

  “It’s a beautiful night,” Gillian said. “Chilly but beautiful.”

  We walked down the beach. Ahead of us the moonbeams glittered off the water at the point, and we finally saw the illusion of the moons. Watching the moonlight on the breaking waves, I felt like an eavesdropper, listening to the shushing of the ocean on the beach like two old friends sharing a secret. The smell of wood smoke reminded me of summer campfires when Jack and I were children. “This place is magical. I’ll be sad when you two leave.”

  “Cass, we’re across the Bay. What? An hour away?”

  “Wish that were true. I cannot believe how bad the traffic’s gotten.”

  “You were in a bubble over in Pleasanton. Hey, Gill, you’re awfully quiet.”

  She turned a thoughtful gaze to us. “There’s been so much going on. I was taking a quiet moment to reflect. We’ve accomplished a lot. Got Cass moved in. Cass even has a job.”

  “Now I just have to make some money.”

  “True, but one step at a time. I…my world has been changed by your change, Cass. I’ve always enjoyed a good fantasy, but never in my wildest dreams…I mean, ghosts.”

  Jack put his arm around her shoulders. “But haven’t you always believed they were real? I mean, you always want me to turn on the lights. You sleep with a night light—”

  “Oh, there you go, revealing my deepest, darkest secrets.” She pulled away and punched his arm softly.

  “Seriously, don’t most people believe in ghosts somewhere deep down? Otherwise, why are we afraid of the dark?”

  “Maybe that’s the real reason I don’t want you to leave.”

  Jack snorted. “Somehow I think you’re actually safer with Doris around.”

  Gillian stopped walking. “OMG. I never thought I would hear something like that from you.”

  Jack turned to face her. “What? I always believe the evidence of my own eyes. In fact, I’m believing it now.” He pointed. “Although I’m not sure what it means.”

  Gillian and I turned to see what he was pointing at. The hillside glittered with tiny lights like a million fairy lanterns.

  “Fireflies?”

  I shook my head. “No fireflies in California.”

  “Not strictly true,” Gillian said very slowly as she continued to watch the lights. “Some aren’t bioluminescent. Some are dim. But there are fewer fireflies here because it’s so dry and even drier than usual during this drought.”

  “Then what…?”

  I really had no idea, so I went with my initial impression. “Fairy lanterns? I don’t know if I’m scared or enchanted.”

  A voice out of the dark made me jump and scream. “I hope you’re enchanted.”

  All the little lights went out at once.

  “Too bad.” Dave looked up the hill. “Fear drives away the light and allows the dark to move in.”

  “Dave, you scared the wits out of me.” I clutched my chest, wishing he’d be less cryptic.

  Maybe it was a trick of the shadows, but he looked sad in the moonlight. His eyes were hooded, and the corners of his mouth turned down. Even his voice sounded melancholy almost toneless.

  “I had hoped you’d be enchanted by our little community on the coast. Its old name is Finisterre or earth’s end. Many of us were outcast elsewhere but have found community here. I’m so sorry that you’re frightened.”

  “Dave, I didn’t mean—”

  He cut me off. “It’s okay. After all, you’re only human.” He turned and walked back to his deck.

  Jack watched him go. “What did he mean by that?”

  Gillian tucked her arm in his. “I think he was sitting there all the time, watching us.”

  “That’s a bit creepy.”

  “He seems so sad. I feel as though I hurt him somehow.” The magic had gone out of the night. “Let’s head back. I’m cold.”

  Chapter 14

  Early the next morning Samantha stood on my stoop, unbidden, looking stunning in emerald green gypsy gear with brass bangles hanging from her ear lobes that set off her red hair perfectly.

  I tucked an unruly strand of my own hair behind one ear. “Hi, Samantha, come on in.” I yawned and waved her in.

  Jack poked his head out of the kitchen. “Oh, hello.”

  Gillian’s smile was early-morning, pre-coffee brittle. “So what are you filming today?”

  Before she could answer, the phone rang.

  I pushed past Jack and Gillian and answered, “Hello?”

  “Hi, Cass. This is Brendan. How are you?”

  “I’m fine, Brendan. Thanks.”

  “I called to see if you wanted to go to dinner tonight?”

  “Oh, you know, I’d love to under ordinary circumstances, but Samantha and Jack and Gillian are here and we have plans for tonight.”

  “Sounds crowded. Maybe another time.” The disappointment in his voice preened my ego. “I was hoping for a little company after visiting my father at Brindale Nursing Home today. It’s always a rough visit. They treat their patients pretty well there though he complains about not being home.” He paused. “I think he’s more annoyed that I moved into his house. We were always at sixes and sevens with each other.”

  “Maybe he’s glad that someone is looking after his house.”

  “I tell him about every improvement I make. You should come over to see it. It’s an old Queen Anne house that I’m restoring. I’ve really been getting into it. I ordered reproduction Victorian frieze papers and medallions for the ceiling.”

  “It sounds lovely, and I would like to see it sometime.”

  “Then we’ll have to find time for you to come over. Feel free to bring your brother and sister-in-law. Say hi to everybody. I’ll call you later.” Brendan hung up.

  As I hung up, I thought that Brendan might be a good source of historical information about the town and perhaps also about Doris and the photos in Alan’s file. Clearly, his family had been here for at least a couple of generations. “That was Brendan. He’d like to show us his house before you guys leave the area.”

  Jack rolled his eyes and turned to Samantha. “I keep telling her that it’s not as though we live across the country. Just Berkeley.”

  Samantha smiled. “In a way, Berkeley is another country.”

  “Not you, too!” Jack said. “And
don’t start with Berserk-ly, either.”

  “Well—”

  Jack held up a finger and frowned.

  Samantha let loose with a serious belly laugh that was contagious because Jack joined in after an initial reluctance.

  “Okay, I guess Berkeley is unique.”

  Samantha snorted.

  “I’m just worried you won’t come visit,” I said.

  “Oh, don’t worry, Cass. We’ll lure them back.”

  “Can we help you with something, Samantha?” I asked.

  “Oh, no. I thought I’d let you know that I’ll be prowling around outside. With everything that’s been going on, I didn’t want to spook you.”

  I saw Jack bite his tongue rather than pun, but he was having a hard time of it.

  “Thanks, Samantha. I appreciate it.”

  “Well, I’ll just go film then.” She turned and headed down the steps to the beach.

  Then Jack said, “Nice of Brendan to think of us.”

  “Yes, it was. Ricardo mentioned the gossip that Brendan threw his dad into a nursing home so that he could take the house away from him. I think that alienated him from people who liked his dad. Folks assumed that he hated his dad. But Ricardo said that it was Brendan’s pride that had kept him away from home, seeking his fortune, and when he returned, he found his dad in a sorry state and near death. He put him into the nursing home for the nursing part.”

  “Don’t let him know that you know all that stuff. Let him tell you.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s a guy thing. Seriously. He’ll think you were snooping.”

  “Okay.” I hoped I wouldn’t slip up.

  Jack poured himself another cup.

  “Can I have some of that?” I held out my mug.

  Jack filled it. “I haven’t figured her out.”

  “If you mean Samantha, I think something else is going on. Ricardo really cares about her, and he has good instincts. She’s a bit sad, but I don’t know why. Is she really looking for ghosts? Perhaps a specific ghost? I don’t know her history, so I have no idea. Except for her eccentric vampire theories, she doesn’t really seem to be connected to the murder at all. The thing is, nobody seems to be connected to the murder. I don’t really see any suspects.”