Mermaids of Bodega Bay

by Mary Birk

  Reid gave a slight lift to the book in his hand. “Is there any particular part you think might be important?”

  “I don’t know. As I said, I never read it looking for anything like that—I was mostly trying to find places where she talked about us, for comfort, I guess. I never read it looking for anything pointing to me not being Lenore’s father, or that there may have been someone else, but I definitely never saw anything that made me think she had a lover. That I would have noticed.”

  Reid nodded. “I’ll take this and have someone see to getting a copy made. I’ll have someone get the original back to you. That way you can be certain nothing will happen to it, and it won’t get tied up in some evidence locker for years.”

  “I appreciate that. Thanks.”

  Reid rose to leave, but Grainger motioned for him to sit back down.

  “There’s one more thing. Earlier, the chief asked me to see if anything was missing from the house. If maybe something else had been taken when Lenore was taken. I didn’t notice anything but I asked Frank to check. He told me this morning that the Marisol sketches seem to have disappeared.”

  “The Marisol sketches?”

  Grainger nodded. “I do detailed sketches of my oil paintings before I actually start them. Saturday night at the party, I asked Frank to try to get the ones for the Marisol Series together and maybe put some feelers out to see what kind of price we could get for them with the Marisol Series being so hot right now. He printed out a copy of the inventory sheet today so I could give it to you.”

  Grainger handed him a sheaf of stapled together pages.

  “The sketches were kept in the vault, but he’d taken them out and put them in the house because he was thinking of putting them together for an exhibit.”

  “They were in the house when Lenore was taken?”

  He nodded. “That’s what Frank said.”

  “Where?”

  “There’s a big closet, almost a small room, off of the study that we use to store things when we’re getting an exhibit together. That’s where they were, but now they’re gone.”

  Finally, something in this case that’s not pointing to Grainger, and through him, to Anne. “Has anyone shown a particular interest in the sketches?”

  “Not really, but it’s safe to assume people would be interested in them.”

  “How would they know they even existed?”

  “It’s common for artists who paint in oils to do sketches first, and I’ve talked about my process for years. It’s no secret.”

  “I know the FBI already has all the details about the Japanese industrialist who bought the Marisol paintings. Any reason to think he might have gone after the sketches this way?” Reid knew that the FBI had also put together a list of all of the unsuccessful bidders for the Marisol Series, in case it was some sort of infatuation with the dead woman that had led to the kidnapping of the child that resembled her so much, but they’d all checked out as dead ends.

  “I don’t think so. We hadn’t put the sketches out there for people to consider, but they wouldn’t have brought in anything like what the paintings did.”

  “But they were valuable?”

  Grainger nodded. “Worth several million, maybe as much as ten, I’d guess.”

  “So, if the same person who kidnapped Lenore also took the sketches, they would have had to have known where they were.”

  “I guess they could have found them in the closet—not necessarily have been looking for them specifically. They would probably have been the easiest thing to take—the rest of the art is framed and bulky. These were in a portable portfolio, kind of a carrying case.”

  Reid’s mobile rang. “Sorry, Andrew. I have to take this. It’s Chief McLendon.” He stepped away, and as he listened to the chief’s request his stomach knotted. After he hung up, he asked Andrew Grainger the questions he’d been told to ask, careful not to reveal to Grainger the effect his answers had on him. Then, blessedly, the telephone on the desk rang, and Grainger excused himself to answer it.

  Reid quietly retreated from the study and went through the kitchen to speak to Charlotte Grainger.

  Chapter 57

  AT ABOUT FIVE O’CLOCK that afternoon, Anne drove over from the garden house to the big house, coming straight over when she had finished work for the day in the gardens. She was just approaching the house when she noticed Terrence pulling out in his SUV. He gave her a brief wave, his face showing no expression. She held up her hand in a little wave, not smiling at him either, and pulled her car around to the back of the house. Great. She would have to have to run into him now when she was already practically a puddle of nervousness thinking about what she was about to do. She got out of the car slowly, her anxiety almost overwhelming, then took a deep breath, went to the back door, and walked in.

  Martha Warren was chopping up vegetables on a large cutting board. Anne could smell something wonderful roasting in the oven. Lamb, she thought. She went over to Martha and embraced her.

  “I’m so sorry about Lucy. What a terrible thing.”

  The woman put down her knife and wiped her hands on her apron. “I can hardly believe it. I’m just trying to stay as busy as possible. Lenore’s funeral is tomorrow and now I have to plan Lucy’s. But hers won’t be until next week. The police aren’t releasing her body yet.”

  “Please let me know when the service is. I’d like to attend. Will it be in Santa Rosa?”

  “Yes, I think so. That’s where most the people she knows now are. I know you haven’t been close for the last few year, but I’d appreciate you coming.”

  “We never stopped being friends. Let me know if I can do anything to help.”

  “I was thinking I might ask you to help me go through her things once I get them.”

  “Of course. Just let me know when.”

  Anne could hear the voices of other people talking out in the great room, presumably Marisol’s family and others of the Grainger family members and friends. She didn’t want to talk to anyone right now except Andrew. “Is Andrew in his studio?”

  “Yes. He said you would be over, and to tell you to go on up.” She gestured to the back stairs.

  “Thanks.” Anne’s stomach was turning over. Walking along the open hallway on the second floor, Anne could see, as she had many times, the paintings of Marisol that led the way up the front stairway from below. Marisol had been so beautiful, and Andrew’s paintings of her so poignant. What must it have been like for Lenore to see her dead mother all over the walls, never aging, never returning? Anne thought it almost felt like the house was haunted by Marisol’s ghost. So sad that ghost couldn’t have protected her little girl.

  Funny, but for the first time she realized that Andrew had never asked to paint her. Maybe that meant something. Something prophetic about their relationship? She went down the quiet hall. The second floor seemed deserted. Everyone but Andrew must be downstairs. She went past Lenore’s door. Then she stopped and went back. Turning the handle, she pulled open the door and looked inside. The bed was made up and Lenore’s stuffed animals rested against the pillows. It hadn’t been even a week since she’d been taken. Anne went inside the room and sat on the bed. How was Andrew enduring this? And how could she tell him now with his world falling apart, that it was over between them?

  Going over to the dresser, she saw that someone had framed the photograph Anne had taken on her cell phone of Andrew and Lenore dancing on Valentine’s Day. She was so glad she’d thought to take that picture. The image of the happy child dancing in her fairy costume came back to her mind. She had been laughing and happy. Anne put the photograph up to her lips and kissed the image of the child. Be with your mother, sweet little girl. She couldn’t let herself cry. She had to finish this.

  Gently closing the door to the child’s room, Anne went down to where Andrew’s door was ajar. She went into his bedroom. On the table next to his bed, sat a book. Marisol’s diary. He must be reading through it, torturing himself.

&nbs
p; She walked up the spiral stairs to Andrew’s studio. He was sitting in front of his easel on a tall stool. He had designed this oversized easel to handle the large canvases he liked to work on, and had a local craftsman build it for him. He was gazing out towards the window that faced the sea. He turned when he saw her come in.

  “Anne.” His face showed how glad he was to see her.

  “Hi. Not painting?”

  “No, I can’t seem to get myself to do any work. It will come, I know, but not right now. But this is a good place for me to get away from everyone.” He motioned downstairs.

  “Would you rather I left you alone?”

  He smiled at her. “Not you. I’m not hiding from you. I’m glad to see you. I thought maybe you were hiding from me.”

  She shook her head. Gesturing to the canvas, she asked, “Can I see?”

  He motioned her over, and she went around to where she could see what he had been painting. She knew he liked working with large scale paintings—liked the power and the impact that came with the size. Stepping back to get a better look at it, she caught her breath. This painting was a departure for him. It was a seascape, but not just a seascape. One that pummeled the viewer’s senses, and captured the magnificent power of the sea off Bodega Head. Usually people were the main subject of his paintings, people set off against a background landscape. She knew he had done some smaller seascapes and landscapes, but she had never seen him do anything quite like this.

  “Wow.” She said, meaning it. “Is it finished?”

  “No, not yet.” He turned to look at her. “There’s something about it that just isn’t feeling right to me yet, something missing.”

  “It will come.”

  He nodded.

  She looked down. “I went to Lenore’s room.”

  “I go there a lot. It’s almost like she’s still there. But, then, I have a lot of experience living with ghosts.”

  “Marisol.”

  “Yes. And now, Lenore.”

  She looked at him, hoping she could keep the tears back. “Andrew, I hope you can forgive me. The alarm would have been on if I hadn’t been here and none of this would have happened.”

  “Anne, we don’t know that would have made any difference. You can’t imagine how many things I think of that if I’d done differently might have stopped this from happening. We just can’t think like that. There’s nothing we can do about it now.”

  “It’s so terrible.”

  He came over to her and put his arms around her. They just stood holding each other for a long time.

  Then he spoke. “You seemed distracted last night. And I could tell it would have done no good to ask you to spend the night, so I didn’t ask.”

  She said nothing.

  “Anne, you don’t believe I was involved in Lenore’s death, do you? Or the other thing?” She could tell he couldn’t bring himself to name the other crime that had been inflicted on Lenore.

  “No, of course not. I know you would never do anything like that.”

  “Then tell me why you’ve stayed away.” He took her hand and touched her wedding ring. “I noticed this last night.” His tone changed, became more severe. “This was supposed to be the finger I was going to put my ring on.”

  “I know.”

  “It’s Reid, then? Does he want you back?”

  She bit her lip, nodded. “He says he does.”

  “I don’t know what to say.” He took her face in his hands and looked into her eyes. “How about me? How do you feel about me? If it weren’t for him?”

  She looked up at him, knowing what she was going to tell him was the truth, even if it was painful. “If it weren’t for him, I’d have said yes to you.”

  He nodded. “That’s some consolation, I guess.” He held her close and stroked her hair.

  “I don’t know that it will work out.”

  “I was afraid this might happen when you told me he was coming here.”

  Anne remembered Terrence’s questions. He’d implied that Andrew’s possible motive for getting rid of Lenore was tied up in the timing of Reid’s coming to town, and Anne’s own misgivings about becoming a mother. But she knew Terrence was wrong. She knew Andrew had not killed his daughter.

  She touched his cheek gently. “I didn’t know this was going to happen.”

  “I know.”

  “I don’t want to hurt you, but I have to give it another chance with him. He’s my husband.”

  Andrew caught her wrist, took her hand from his face and kissed it. “I understand, or at least I’m trying to. I won’t say it’s going to be easy for me if I lose you, too. I‘ve wanted you in bed with me every night since this happened, to hold you, to get through this. I still want you. And if you decide it’s not going to work with him, I’m still here. And I love you.” He let go of her hand, opened his arms to release her, but then closed his arms around her. “Can you just hold me for a moment? I am so tired of trying to be strong.”

  She held him as tightly as she could and felt tears falling down her face. “Oh, Andrew, I’m so sorry.”

  Chapter 58

  AT SIX O’CLOCK, the FBI’s investigation team met at McLendon’s house for a working dinner. The chief had offered to host them, as his younger children had Friday off, the elementary school being closed for the day for Lenore’s funeral, and, he said, his wife insisted. Reid knew that the FBI agents and technicians were sick of the windowless conference room at the police station and of their little motel cabins. Reid himself was sick of eating in restaurants and trying to avoid running into Anne at the Mermaids or anywhere else. Reid had been surprised but pleased to be included. Shelton’s semi-inclusion of Reid in the investigation seemed to be enough to convince the other FBI agents and techs to accept his presence without comment.

  Reid had brought the wine. He’d picked up several bottles, some whites, some reds, at a quaint gourmet wine store a little north of town that Jeanne had told him about. The place boasted an incredible selection of wines, and he’d had no trouble finding what he wanted. He was impressed that such a relatively out of the way area would support that kind of store, but, after all, they were on the edge of California wine country.

  In the dining room, Shelton had already set out the map of the Bodega Bay area along with a stack of copies of the witness interview reports they had collected so far. There was a large pot of cioppino on the kitchen stove, and Reid could see a big wooden bowl of salad and two loaves of what looked to be sourdough bread on a large cutting board.

  The chief’s wife, Susan McLendon, greeted them graciously. She was a thin, pale woman, with the too uniformly smooth and thick hair that signaled an inexpensive wig. Chemotherapy, Reid guessed. After saying hello to everyone, she and their younger children left to have pizza and watch a DVD at a friend’s house.

  The chief turned his attention to his guests. “Help yourselves to the food in the kitchen, and bring it out here where we can talk while we eat. Terrence, would you be good enough to open some of that wine you brought? If anyone would prefer beer, it’s in the fridge—help yourselves.”

  When they had their food, McLendon asked, “Jack, what happened with the Stanford doctor?” Reid knew that Shelton had come directly to the chief’s house on his way back from the city.

  Shelton gave Reid a don’t-think-you’re-putting-anything-over-on-me-by-being-here look, before he spoke. “In a nutshell, Dr. Noring said that the kid was extremely sick, probably was going to need a kidney transplant, and soon. The interesting thing is that she probably would not have been in such dire condition except the local doctor didn’t seem to know what he was doing and managed to do almost everything wrong.”

  “Kempton? Does Andrew Grainger know that?” Reid took a piece of sourdough bread. He wasn’t hungry, but he was going to at least try to go through the motions. He didn’t want Shelton or anyone else to guess how he was feeling. He’d agreed with Anne that he’d stay through Sunday, and with her polygraph test results so definitive, th
ere was no reason for him to stay any longer than that.

  “I don’t think so. Dr. Noring hadn’t had the chance to tell him yet. I don’t know if he’ll be talking to Grainger about it now. With Lenore murdered, it doesn’t make much difference that her doctor didn’t do a good job.”

  Shaking his head in disgust, the chief took a drink of his beer. “But Kempton could do it again. If he’s that much of a quack, it’s just a matter of time before he screws up with another patient. Won’t Noring report this or take some action?”

  Shelton shrugged. “We’ll see. If not, after this is all over, I’ll see if I can put a word or two in the right ear.” He picked up his fork and directed his attention to one of the younger agents. “Dan? You talked with Marisol Grainger’s family—the Echeverrias, right? They have any suspicions, anything to say?”

  Dan Hart, a young African American agent, didn’t seem to hear, his face intent on his cell phone screen. Sitting next to him, Reid gave him the young man a nudge and motioned to Shelton.

  Shelton said, “Dan, you with us? Did the Echeverrias have anything interesting to say?”

  Flustered, the agent hurriedly put his cell phone away. “No, nothing. They said they don’t have any idea who Lenore’s father could be if it’s not Grainger. And they don’t believe he molested her or had anything to do with her death.”

  “Her sister didn’t know anyone she was seeing on the side?”

  “She said no.”

  Shelton frowned. “What happened with the nurse, Martha Warren’s niece, Chief? Any news there?”

  They waited for McLendon’s answer until he returned from getting more beer from the refrigerator. He handed one bottle to Reid, another to one of the technicians, and twisted the top off of his own before recounting in detail what he had learned.