Low, heavy clouds blanketed the sky, and the gentle hushing sound of the nearby ocean filled the air. As Lindsay approached the house, she could hear the high blue notes of Chet Baker’s trumpet pulsing out the front door. She raised her hand to knock, but before she could, the door was opened by a thin, elderly woman. Colorful, diaphanous scarves and flowing skirts seemed to radiate out from her slender body, giving her the appearance of a maypole. Her youthful white-blonde pixie cut came courtesy of an excellent wigmaker in Florida, and her cherry-red lips were painted with imported French lipstick. “Lindsay! Baby! You’re a sight for my sore old eyes.” She gathered Lindsay into her bony embrace.
“Hi, Simmy.”
During Lindsay’s years living with her aunt, Simmy Bennett had been a welcome presence in her life. She was among the very few people Aunt Harding socialized with, and Lindsay had idolized her. She was a god-awful cook, a hopeless housekeeper, and a spendthrift of epic proportions. Like all ‘Bankers, Simmy was a hard worker, but money seemed to flow through her hands like the outrushing tide. It was only due to the guaranteed income she took in from her several beachfront rental properties that she had been able to avoid bankruptcy.
To Lindsay, Simmy represented a lively contrast to the perpetually sour Aunt Harding. Lindsay had been raised to call adults Sir or Ma’am, not to speak unless spoken to, and to keep her eyes cast down around grownups to show them respect. But Simmy had always insisted that Lindsay call her by her first name. “If we’re gonna be friends, I can’t have you calling me ma’am. I’m not your school teacher, and I’m not your drill sergeant. I’m just plain old Simmy,” she’d told the six-year-old Lindsay the first time they met.
Lindsay and Simmy hadn’t kept in close touch over the years—Simmy never wrote letters, didn’t know the first thing about computers, and was notoriously bad at returning phone calls—but whenever they met, it was as if no time had passed.
Simmy was now in her mid-80s, and when she smiled at Lindsay, her face seemed to crack like an eggshell into a multitude of cross-hatched wrinkles and lines. “What brings you to my doorstep on Christmas Eve? No room at the inn?”
“I’m here for a few days to visit with Aunt Harding. Didn’t she mention I was coming?”
Simmy’s smile remained, but a shadow passed behind her eyes. “No, baby, she must’ve forgotten. Why don’t you come on inside out of the cold?” In truth, it was far from cold. The salty air was almost balmy, and thick with the promise of rain.
Lindsay entered the house and took in the familiar sights—a disused fireplace filled with half-melted pillar candles, a jumble of artwork covering every wall, scarves draped over the lamps, empty wine glasses on the floor. Lindsay shifted a pile of magazines and took a seat on the sofa. “Aunt Harding was supposed to meet me at the bait and tackle store, but she’s not there. I tried calling her, but there’s no answer.
Aunt Harding lived in the northernmost part of North Carolina’s Outer Banks, in the 12-mile long stretch of land between Corolla and the Virginia State line known as the 4x4 beaches. When Lindsay moved to the Outer Banks as a child, Highway 12, the main north-south artery, had just been extended from the town of Duck to Corolla. Until that time, there was no real road linking the northerly settlements with the larger enclaves of Nags Head and Kitty Hawk in the south. Before the highway came, Corolla could only be reached by a rutted, clay and sand track that ran parallel to Currituck Sound. The road became impassible in wet weather, and the sugar-fine sand that covered it during dry spells slowly tore apart any cars that it didn’t manage to trap outright.The areas to the north of Duck had been populated by hardy locals and intrepid tourists—all united in relishing the inaccessibility of the place. Once the road was completed, however, gargantuan wooden beach houses, strip malls, and real estate offices spread north like a tropical rash.
A number of real estate speculators had predicted that Highway 12 would eventually be continued up to the Virginia State line, and they laid out a grid of sand roads and housing sites in anticipation. However, the fragile geography and constant flood risk nixed the prospect of a road link once and for all, leaving the isolated northerly settlements accessible only on foot or by four-wheel-drive vehicle.
Despite this, the area continued to be developed in the intervening decades, and hundreds of houses now dotted the strange, roadless landscape. Aunt Harding’s house, squatting behind a row of dunes in the 4x4 area north of the disused lifesaving station at Penny’s Hill, predated the road and the new developments. Her family had been duck hunting guides in Corolla since at least the early 1900s. As far as Lindsay knew, Aunt Harding and her little weather-beaten house had emerged fully formed from the primordial ooze.
Lindsay had waited for Aunt Harding at their accustomed meeting place, the little fishing shop on the edge of town. Her battered Toyota Tercel had met an untimely end the previous summer, and she was now driving an equally ancient Honda Civic that she’d bought from one of her father’s elderly parishioners. Neither car had the capacity to traverse the sand roads in the 4x4 area, so on the rare occasions when Lindsay visited, she either hitched a ride with a passing tourist or waited for her aunt to pick her up in her battered Chevy Silverado. When Aunt Harding still hadn’t appeared more than an hour after their arranged meeting time, Lindsay decided to drop in on Simmy.
“Can I get you anything? I was just having my Christmas Eve dinner,” Simmy said indicating a bottle of wine on the floor.
Lindsay lifted the bottle and saw that it was half empty. “Hmm...Well, I was going to ask you to drive me to Aunt Harding’s in your pickup, but judging by this, I think I might be better off walking.”
Simmy dismissed her objection with a pert wave of her hand. “Oh please, honey. You know that I could perform open heart surgery this very minute.”
Lindsay had to admit that Simmy had an amazing tolerance for alcohol. She had seen the woman out-drink a group of UNC football players who’d rented one of her beach houses one summer. While they were all splayed out on the patio furniture the next morning, Simmy was up at dawn doing calisthenics on the beach.
“Why don’t I make us a pot of coffee?” Lindsay offered. “And we can break into the Christmas cookies I brought.”
“Did you bake them?” Simmy eyed her suspiciously. “No offense, honey, but I still have all my own teeth and I’d like to keep them intact.”
Lindsay accepted the truth of the statement. She had followed her father’s walnut crescent cookie recipe exactly, but she’d still ended up having to scrape burnt bits off the bottoms. “I also made some Jell-O,” she offered. It had required no baking, and was therefore immune to accidental charbroiling. “It’s red and green and in the shape of Christmas bells. It just needs to be chilled for a few minutes before I take it out of the mold.”
“I don’t want to spoil your Jell-O mold, honey. Let’s just have ourselves some coffee.”
After trying and failing to locate coffee filters, or indeed the coffee pot, Lindsay opted to make two strong cups of Earl Grey tea. Simmy floated around beside her, rearranging a vase of half-dead Gerbera daisies that stood in the middle of the stovetop. “So, how have you been, honey? Are you seeing anyone?”
“I’m still dating that police officer. Didn’t Aunt Harding tell you?”
“A police officer? That’s wonderful! How’s the sex? Does he use handcuffs?”
Lindsay furrowed her brow. “Hold on. When was the last time you spoke to Aunt Harding?”
“Why are you avoiding my question about the handcuffs?”
“Why are you avoiding my question about Aunt Harding? Is everything okay?”
Simmy stared into her teacup, as if an answer might swirl up out of the steam. “To be honest, honey, I don’t think so. Patty is hardly seen in the village these days. She’s almost a recluse. It started at the end of last summer. She always hunkers down during the tourist season, you know, so I didn’t think anything of it at first. She just stocks up on provisions and hides in her
house. But even now that the season is over, she rarely surfaces.”
“But you must see her? You two are like sisters.” Lindsay couldn’t believe her ears. Simmy had been a frequent visitor at Aunt Harding’s house for as long as anyone could remember. They had been among the handful of children to attend the old one-room schoolhouse in Corolla village. As teenagers, they had braved World War II together, when the whole North Carolina coast was under threat from the German U-boats that menaced the nearby shipping lanes. They had stayed on the island in the war’s aftermath, even as the population of the northern Outer Banks dwindled to almost nothing, and they staunchly remained even after the wild spree of beachfront development took hold. Neither woman had any close family, but they’d always had each other. They represented the old guard, a permanent and inseparable pair. Only, apparently, they weren’t.
“It breaks my heart, but it’s true. I almost called you and your dad a hundred times to tell you what was going on, but I’m not sure there’s anything anyone can do. At first she told me that I should stay away because she was sick, but when I drove out there to check on her, she seemed fit as a fiddle. Matter of fact, she looked positively perky when she shut the door in my face. I even offered to have her move in here, though I know we’d probably murder each other within the week if that were to happen.” She sighed. “You know Patty. Mules cower in the presence of her stubbornness.”
“When’s the last time you saw her?”
Simmy looked into her cup again, concentrating intently. “Oh, I expect it’s been a good long while now.”
“What do you think is going on? She was acting a little cagey when I talked to her on the phone last week, but that’s pretty normal for her. Could she really be sick or something? Maybe dementia?” Lindsay wracked her brain to find an explanation for her aunt’s troubling behavior.
“I don’t think that’s what’s going on,” Simmy said, her expression darkening. “Her mind seemed as sharp as ever.” Simmy paused and looked intently at Lindsay. “She hasn’t said anything to you? Nothing at all about what’s going on?”
“Not a word. I need to get out there. Are you okay to drive?” Although Lindsay didn’t relish the prospect of trekking two miles in the sand with a large travel backpack, she wasn’t about to get in the car with a tipsy octogenarian.
Simmy proceeded to walk straight ahead along one of the wooden floorboards, her steps unwavering. She then held out her arms and touched her nose with the tips of her fingers. “I can say my alphabet backwards, too, if it’ll satisfy you.”
“No need. Let me just put my stuff in the truck.” Outside, a steady rain had started to fall. Lindsay heaved her backpack into the extended cab of Simmy’s ancient Toyota pickup. She grabbed the tire pressure gauge and flashlight from her car and squatted down alongside the truck. Regular visitors to the 4x4 beaches got used to the constant inflating and deflating of tires; only underinflated tires could be counted on to traverse the sand roads. Lindsay was surprised to find that the pressure of Simmy’s tires was already lowered to the requisite 18 psi. She called out to her, “Simmy! You’ve been driving around on low tires. Didn’t you notice?”
Simmy walked down the front porch steps and climbed into the driver’s seat. “Goodness me! I must’ve forgotten after I came back from beachcombing the other day. Well, it’s handy that they’re already ready to go, I suppose.”
They drove along Highway 12 through Corolla until the road dead-ended. A fence bisected the island at that point, running from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Currituck Sound in the west. To the north of the fence lay a wilderness of sand, where wild horses that were thought to be descended from Spanish mustangs roamed among the sand dunes, nature preserves, and scattered vacation homes. Before the fence was completed, the horses had been in constant danger of injury from careless drivers and harassment from overly-friendly sightseers, but the barrier now offered them some measure of protection.
Lindsay and Simmy continued through the open gate onto the sand, the noise from the tires changing from a crunch to a shushing. The land north of the fence presented an extreme contrast to the southerly beaches. In places like Kitty Hawk, every buildable lot had been developed. An array of grocery stores, liquor stores, and restaurants catered to the tourists’ every whim. Out here, though, the land maintained a wildness—a covering of live oaks and hardy shrubs shot through with tidal marshes. The island was wider here, more than a mile wide in some places, with little fingers of land stretching out into the Currituck Sound. In the darkness, the road seemed to merge with the gray clouds.
The rain steadily increased, and the pickup’s windshield wipers began to struggle to keep up with the downpour. As they approached the turn off for Aunt Harding’s house, Lindsay saw the headlights of a fast-approaching truck. The 4x4 custom dictated that, where the sand road narrowed, the car with more room to pull off should yield the right of way. This avoided the very real possibility of forcing a fellow traveler into the soft sand at the shoulder. “What does this dingbatter think he’s doing?” Simmy mumbled to herself, using the Outer Banks slang that described fools and mainland dwellers. “Probably one of these numbskulls who thinks that just because there’s no pavement out here that there’s no rules about how to drive.” She shifted into a lower gear. The other driver sped past several easy pull-off points and continued to bear down on them.
“Simmy, I think you’d better pull off. He’s not slowing down.”
“Thank you for that helpful observation, honey. But as you can see, there’s no place to pull off unless you want to hit a tree or end up boob-deep in sand and mud.”
The approaching headlights became ever larger, filling Lindsay’s vision like twin suns on a black horizon. It was clear that the truck was going to run straight into them or run them off the road. At the last possible moment, Simmy managed to wrench the truck into a little spit of sandy shoulder. A red Ford truck roared past them, seemingly heedless of the near collision.
“Flippin’ flapjacks!” Simmy cried. She tried to rock the truck free, gunning the engine and shifting through the gears. “I think we’re stuck. And look at this. My hair’s gone all whomperjawed.” Her wig had tipped backwards, revealing the thin wisps of gray hair underneath. She pulled it back into place and clicked her tongue. They hopped out of the truck and discovered that they were indeed deeply mired in a bank of soft, wet sand. Simmy climbed back into the cab and tried rocking the car back and forth again, but the pickup was tipped forward at an odd angle, preventing it from gaining enough purchase to extract itself.
“I’ll try to push it,” Lindsay offered.
“No offense, baby, but you and I together weigh about as much as a swallow’s nest. I don’t think we’re going to budge this thing.”
“Well, maybe we should just walk the rest of the way. It’s only another half mile. Aunt Harding can pull us out with her truck.”
Simmy sighed. “I guess we don’t have a choice. Not likely that there’s gonna be much passing traffic tonight.”
“Did you recognize the truck?” Lindsay asked. Most of the locals, especially old-timers like Simmy, knew each other’s vehicles.
“Nope. Must’ve been one of the renters from further up the beach. They come out here for the solitude, but then half the time, they’ll run outta beer mid-party and have to make an emergency run down to the liquor store,” she frowned with disdain and continued to comb through her wig with her thin fingers. “That maniac must have been going 50 miles an hour. In a storm like this, he must have been trying to commit suicide.”
“Or homicide,” Lindsay whispered, the words so quiet that Simmy didn’t hear her above the sound of the rain.
Chapter 7
Aunt Harding’s weather-beaten little house looked the same as it had when Lindsay first arrived, in the back of a stranger’s Land Rover, 25 years before. After her parents’ arrest, the six-year-old Lindsay had been driven from Mount Moriah to Corolla by the social worker who had been assigned to
her case. The trip was long and tedious, and in a time before GPS and Google maps, the road’s abrupt end took the poor woman by surprise. The social worker had climbed out of her old Buick, leaned against the hood, and lit up a Virginia Slim. Lindsay had sat silently in the backseat, staring with wide eyes.
At last, a wizened old ‘Banker had pulled up, listened to their plight, and offered to deliver the little girl to Patricia Harding’s doorstep. He was going hunting up that way anyway, he reckoned. Without hesitation, the social worker loaded the two plastic garbage bags filled with Lindsay’s things into the man’s vehicle and drove off. No paperwork. No home check. Just up and left. In hindsight, Lindsay could hardly believe that such a thing was possible, but she’d checked her version of events with Aunt Harding, who had confirmed it to be true.
As they trudged toward the house, Simmy hesitated. “I think I’ll just wait by the truck, honey. You can come out and meet me.”
“Don’t be silly, Simmy. Your hands are still shaking after that drive, and the weather’s only getting worse. The temperature’s dropping fast, and you’re not dressed for it.”
“I’m not sure Patty wants me there. We didn’t part on the best of terms last time I saw her.” Simmy looked genuinely nervous about going inside.
“It’s Christmas Eve. Even Scrooge has a soft spot for Christmas.”
Simmy and Lindsay sloshed up the front steps to the covered porch. Although Aunt Harding had the house painted regularly, the elements were always one step ahead of any maintenance regimen. Over time, the front door had taken on the weathered appearance of driftwood. The narrow covered porch that wrapped around the house on two sides did little to shield them from the pelting rain.
A Death in Duck: Lindsay Harding Cozy Mystery Series (Reverend Lindsay Harding Mystery Book 2) Page 6