I parked the car in the municipal lot and took the splintered walkway to the beach. Distractions abounded at the water’s edge—the boats docked at the marina to the north, the faint glimpse of Staten Island in the distance, and the hideous, coppery horseshoe crabs that crawled across the sand on invisible legs. The beach was littered with interesting shells. I picked up a few and rubbed off the wet sand. The undersides of the shells looked like mother-of-pearl, yet they weren’t worth the effort of bending down to retrieve them.
I wondered how things could get so crazy in such a short time. I’d led such a normal life only a few short months ago, until suddenly everything had crashed and burned. Had someone put the evil eye on me—the old Italian malocchio my grandmother had warned me about when I was a kid? Was God punishing me for something I did—like being too content with my life or maybe too comfortable?
It didn’t matter why. I had to find a way to get back on track. Jason Whitley’s body had been the catalyst for much of the bad luck that had befallen me. I thought he might also be my ticket back to normalcy.
I plopped down on the cold sand and considered my options. Nothing in the world would change my life more dramatically than becoming the best reporter in the county. Yet at present, with Jason Whitley’s murder off-limits for me, my writing career was going nowhere fast.
I got up and walked two miles down the beach, kicking up sand and sulking. My flimsy jacket did nothing to keep me warm.
The kids were eating dinner at my mother’s house, and I knew she would make sure they finished their homework. My own mothering skills had suffered since Neil had walked out on me.
I paused at a construction site not far from Ken Rhodes’s condo tower on Bay Boulevard. Someone thought building a restaurant close to the beach would be a good idea. From the looks of the foundation, it would be a big one. Another thumbs-up for Tranquil Harbor’s zoning board. I wondered which of the illustrious board members would get a kickback for bending the various ordinances meant to preserve the waterfront. Single-family homeowners along Bay Boulevard would no longer have the spectacular view. The light that filled their windows at dawn would be blocked by yet another tacky eatery with a name like Fish Out of Water or something equally repugnant.
I continued to walk until the sky grew dark and cloudy, then I turned around to go home. With the exception of one other person off in the distance, I was completely alone on the beach and happy to keep it that way. I mentally ticked off the chores that awaited me later on my way back to the parking lot, and paid no attention to the gull that swooped directly above me. I did stop and take notice when something warm and wet splattered on my head. I reached up and scooped the white-green mess from my hair.
“Oh my God!” I yelled, though it shouldn’t have surprised me one bit. The whole world had done the very same thing to me. The only difference was the bird could physically achieve it.
My mother would say I should buy a lottery ticket right away, because Italians considered this a lucky sign. I looked around, self-conscious about being blessed by the bird’s good fortune. A man in a baseball cap carrying a bundle turned to look in my direction, then ran toward his car at the far end of the expansive lot.
When I reached the Escort, I dove into the car and dug in my purse for used tissues to wipe my fingers and blot my hair. Satisfied I had done my best to clean up, I rolled down the window and tossed out the tissues. I waited for a cop, possibly young Officer O’Reilly, to come by and issue me a summons for littering. No one came.
I buckled my seat belt and waited for another car to exit the lot before starting for home. There were no good shopping malls in the area, and traffic wasn’t a problem out on the highway. It was after nine o’clock, and there was only one other car on the road in front of me—the car that had just left the municipal lot. I thanked God for small favors.
Cold air hit my face. I left the window down to clear my head and switched on the radio, but found it had died. For the tenth time that day, I cursed Neil and his Lexus.
The car in front of me pulled over to the shoulder. I had the highway all to myself, or thought I did, until the driver came back on the road and flashed his headlights in my rearview mirror. I stuck my arm out the window and waved for the driver to pass me.
The driver, infatuated with my rear bumper, refused the invitation.
I looked in my side mirror to get a better look at the car—light colored, possibly a four door.
“Terrific,” I mumbled and stepped on the gas. My ailing Escort refused to cooperate. The only thing I could do was try to attract the attention of somebody who would hopefully call the police. I slammed my palm to blast the horn—which was as dead as the radio.
“I hate you, Neil!” I cried out.
Where were all the fine, upstanding citizens? The weather was good. It wasn’t that late. Why weren’t people driving on the road, on their way home from working late shifts or whatever else people with dependable cars did on spring weeknights in Tranquil Harbor?
I was afraid I’d end up in the morgue if I didn’t lose the car on my tail. I gave a brief thought to hunting through my purse for my cell phone, but I didn’t dare take my eyes off the road.
An exit came up fast on my right. I switched off my lights and took the turn without stepping on the brakes. It wasn’t one of my brighter ideas. The turnoff was dark in front of me and the maniac in the car behind me still clung to my bumper. I put the pedal to the metal and hoped for the best. The Escort maintained a steady forty miles per hour. Luckily, the car behind me began to slow.
I couldn’t let the opportunity slip by. I drove on, oblivious to where I was going. The headlights from the sedan became two small disks of light in my rearview mirror. I had no idea where I was, nor did I care, until I recognized the ka-thunk ka-thunk ka-thunk sound my tires were making and switched on the headlights. I was riding on wood planks, and it was too late to stop.
The Escort sailed off the end of the pier and into Raritan Bay.
12
At first, I thought I’d be okay. The car seemed to float on the black water and drift away from the shore like a clunky metal raft. My headlights stayed on. There were gentle ripples on the bay, but the water was calm.
“You’re okay. You’re fine,” I told myself. My white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel said otherwise.
My seaworthy craft floated in suspended animation for a short time, until the trunk, heavy with the four bags of rock salt I had bought way back in January, began to take on water. The headlights no longer skimmed the bay’s surface. They began to tilt upward, like searchlights at a store opening. I panicked and tried the door. It wouldn’t budge.
“Calm down!” I ordered myself. “Think, Colleen!”
Nothing much came to me except that I had to get the door open and it wouldn’t give. The pressure of the water wouldn’t allow it. I reached through the open window and tugged at the outside handle. That didn’t work either.
Fishy-smelling water filled up the back seat. I struggled, unable to move an inch.
“Dear God, help me!” I screamed.
Then I realized there was no earthly reason to be trapped in the driver’s seat—except for the seat belt.
I pressed the button to release the belt as the water crept up to my thighs and back. The Escort began sinking fast. Upended, I caught a glimpse of the starless night sky and the cloud-covered moon.
I reached out the window and tried the door handle again, without any luck. I nearly panicked, but my brain finally kicked in.
“The window!”
I pulled my legs up on the passenger seat and turned over to crawl. The water line now reached the steering wheel, but my own buoyancy kept me afloat. I pushed off the dashboard and scrambled out the open window.
Just before the entire car went under.
The Escort’s headlights flickered and died beneath me. Across the bay, the lights from Staten Island never looked so good. I kicked my legs and turned toward the New Jersey
shoreline. Two police cars and an ambulance drove right up onto the beach. I spotted the beams of several high-powered flashlights on the pier where my Escort took flight. Some men jumped into a speedboat; the roar of an outboard motor carried out onto the bay. I treaded water until they reached me—not grown men at all but three teenage boys. I gave them fierce hugs when they finally managed to drag me aboard, and held on to one of the kids like I’d never let him go.
“You’re choking me, lady,” the boy complained. “You gotta let go or I’ll suffocate. You’re okay, trust me. You’re gonna live.”
I let go and sat down. The cold set into my bones and I began to shiver. One of the kids threw a dry, itchy blanket over my shoulders and we started in. The lights on the beach came closer and closer.
The boys docked the boat and helped me climb the weathered ladder onto the pier. A young man with an all-too-familiar face reached down and hoisted me up the rest of the way.
“Hi, Mrs. Caruso!”
“Officer O’Reilly!” I said, relieved.
“Are you hurt?”
“Just my pride. There was a car following me, and I tried to outrun it. He held back at the turnoff. No wonder. I didn’t even know I was on the pier until I took the plunge.”
“You must have really been flying. You landed on the other side of the sandbar.”
“Yeah, well, if you’re gonna mess up, you might as well do it right,” I told him.
“Did you get a good look at that other car?”
“Not really. I think I saw the driver at the beach—a guy, or maybe even a tall woman, in a baseball cap. The car left the lot first, so it was in front of me. After a minute it coasted onto the shoulder. When I passed, the car came back on the road and rode my bumper. I was too busy trying to outrun it to pay attention to details. It looked like a sedan. Light colored.”
“A lady going south saw you drive off the pier,” O’Reilly said. “She called 9–1–1 from her cell phone.”
Two EMTs came over with a stretcher. I assured them I was fine and thanked the boys who rescued me.
“You should let the EMTs check you out, Mrs. Caruso. You probably lost body heat. That water’s cold.”
“Two cups of coffee will fix me up just fine, Officer O’Reilly.”
“Is there someone I can call for you?” he asked.
I gave a brief thought to calling Ken Rhodes but dismissed the idea. I didn’t need to hear I told you so from him. I got enough of that from my mother.
“Actually, I’d rather nobody knows about this. Does the car stay in the bay, or is it brought to the surface or what? I’ve never done this before.”
“You could have fooled me. You did it like a pro,” the young officer told me.
I shrugged.
“I have to write up an accident report. We’ll have the car fished out in the morning, no pun intended. I’ll make sure you get your belongings back, for what they’re worth. The car’s a goner though. You know that, right?”
“The car was a goner before it sank,” I said.
“I’ll be glad to take you home. As far as nobody finding out about your twilight dip, you know the whole town’s gonna know all about it by morning anyway.”
“You can call my mother to warn her,” I told him. “Tell her we’re on our way.”
O’Reilly drove me home, and my mother and the kids were all over me two seconds after I stepped through the door. We had a group hug, a sort of Hallmark moment that was rare in our family. My mother’s comment broke the mood: “I swear, Colleen, you’re turning my hair white!”
The kids stepped back and took in the sight of me.
“Boy, you’re wet!” Bobby said. “You even left footprints on the carpet.”
“Yuck! You smell like fish, Mom, and your hair looks like a wet poodle,” Sara informed me.
My mother put her hand on my forehead. “You want to change out of those clothes before you catch a cold. Do you ever have a normal day anymore? Someday you’re going to come home dead.”
“Uh-huh,” I said, ignoring her logic.
“The phone’s been ringing off the hook for the past twenty minutes,” she told me. “Ron Haver called. I guess the police called him.”
“Figures,” I said, guessing Officer O’Reilly had filled him in. “Who else knows?”
“Well, Kate called, and that little editor of yours, Meredith Mancini. So did a guy from the paper named Rhodes. He said he was your editor. I thought Meredith was your editor.”
“Ken Rhodes called here?” I asked.
“He sounded concerned. Maybe even a little mad. I hope you won’t lose your job over this, Colleen. You need the money.”
“I was run off the road, Ma!” I said. “I wasn’t working at the time. You didn’t happen to get his number, did you?”
“He said you have it.”
“I did,” I told her. “It’s at the bottom of the bay.”
“Oh, well. I’m sure he’ll call back. Go change, and I’ll make you a hot cup of coffee.”
Ken Rhodes called about an hour after my mother left for the night. He ranted and raved and reminded me that Jason Whitley’s murder was off-limits. I wholeheartedly agreed. My life wasn’t worth much, but it was certainly worth a whole lot more than a ten-year-old Escort.
13
Officer O’Reilly brought my water-logged purse to the house the next morning. I spilled the contents out on the picnic table in the backyard to let everything dry in the sun. While I waited, I downloaded background information from The Grand Duchess Hotel’s website.
The sweeping Victorian mansion was built by a local doctor in 1885, and had been kept in the family for years until they let it fall into disrepair and vacated the premises in the 1970s. It remained abandoned until Greg and Patrice Milner bought the property and embarked on a two-year restoration which returned the mansion to its former grandeur. Presently, The Grand Duchess served as an upscale bed-and-breakfast inn, with packages touting rejuvenating massage, aromatherapy, sauna, facials, and a hydrotherapy spa. The pampering aspect appealed to the area’s wealthier residents.
I phoned Patrice Milner to set up the interview and asked Bevin to drive me the next day. In return, I promised to treat her to lunch.
* * *
“That’s the place down there on the right,” I said, spotting the inn from blocks away.
“Your assignment is The Grand Duchess?” Bev asked. “I thought you said it was a spa.”
“It is a spa. It’s also an inn.”
Bevin pulled over to the curb and stopped in front of the building.
“You can’t park here, Bev,” I told her. “There’s a lot on the side street.”
“I’m not parking. I’m dropping you off.”
“You’re not coming inside?” I asked.
“You’re working, and I’ll just get in the way. I’ll ditch the car in the municipal lot and window shop until you’re done.”
There were a few stores—a pharmacy, a vintage record place, and six antique shops. They weren’t exactly Bevin’s style. “Are you kidding? There isn’t a Saks or a Nordstrom within miles of this place,” I told her.
Bev squinted through the window. “There might be some interesting boutiques past the railroad tracks.”
“The train station and the parkway entrance are the only things past the tracks. Be a sport, Bev. Come inside with me. You’re more familiar with this self-indulgent garbage than I am. I’ll need a translator if the Milner woman is even half as snooty as she sounds on the phone.”
Passing traffic came dangerously close to Bev’s silver Mercedes. A cruiser pulled up behind us and the policeman inside blasted an order over the loudspeaker to move the vehicle. Bev glanced in the rearview mirror and appeared to think the matter over.
“Bev! Are you crazy? What’s with you today? Park the car!”
“Okay!” she snapped.
She put the car in drive and turned the corner. Six cars occupied diagonal spaces in the lot. Bev pulled into
an empty slot near a walkway that led around the building to the front entrance. She brooded on the way to the lobby, a disposition I was getting used to from Sara’s attitude at home.
I left Bev browsing through a rack of postcards and went to the registration desk. A young girl with dyed black hair and the dewy-moist skin of one accustomed to twice-weekly facials greeted me.
“Are you Colleen Caruso from the Crier?” She made it sound like the Washington Post.
“I’m here to interview Patrice Milner,” I told her.
The girl picked up the phone and buzzed her employer.
“Patrice will be with you soon, Miss Caruso,” she said when she hung up. “You can have a seat, or maybe you’d like to look around at the renovations. Your photographer came by yesterday to take pictures. He seemed very interested in the architecture.”
The Victorian exterior of The Grand Duchess had not been compromised during the reconstruction, but the lobby had been modernized and furnished accordingly. I had hoped for authentic nineteenth-century charm. What I saw was stark Swedish-modern that reminded me of IKEA.
Patrice Milner emerged from a doorway across the lobby. “I am so pleased to finally meet you, Miss Caruso,” she said.
The statuesque brunette in a long, coral skirt and matching eyelet jacket drifted toward me. Patrice clasped my hand and nearly lobbed off a few of my fingers with her five-carat, pear-shaped diamond ring.
“Nice bling,” I said.
“My engagement ring.”
My own engagement ring, a half-carat number that, with my luck, was cubic zirconia, sat in the bottom of my jewelry box.
“Where should we begin, Miss Caruso?” Patrice asked.
“You can call me Colleen, and I’d like to begin with a tour and end with the spa treatments.”
“We can visit the guest suites first and then the aromatherapy steam chambers, massage rooms … did I mention we also cater to men during our phone conversation?”
“No kidding? Men go in for this stuff?” I asked.
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