Mermaids of Bodega Bay

by Mary Birk

  Shelton whistled. “Too much of a coincidence. Do we know where Grainger was last night?”

  Here it comes, Reid thought. He fished a shrimp out of his bowl with his fork and made his mouth close around it, trying, and he hoped, succeeding, in treating this question as if the answer didn’t rip his heart out. He finished chewing, then answered. “I asked him. He and Anne went upstairs to his bedroom right after dinner, about half seven. At nine, he took a couple of sleeping pills. He says Anne can vouch for him falling asleep about that time. She left after he fell asleep, but he doesn’t know when exactly. He didn’t get up until morning and didn’t see anyone else all night.”

  Reid was careful not to show how heartsick the news had made him. As he’d feared, she had not been able to stay out of the other man’s bed.

  “Did you ask Anne to confirm?”

  “I didn’t need to. I checked with Charlotte Grainger who told me that Anne went upstairs with Grainger right after dinner, about half seven, and came downstairs shortly after nine.”

  Shelton mused, taking a drink of his wine. “He still could have driven to Santa Rosa after she left. He could have pretended to take the pills, and pretended to go to sleep. Anything else?”

  Reid nodded. “Grainger gave me Marisol’s diary from her last year just in case there was anything that would help on the paternity question. We made a copy and got the original back to him.”

  Shelton raised his eyebrows. “Interesting. Anything in it?”

  Reid shook his head. “Nothing that points to another man in the right time period. But who knows? Maybe she was careful in case her husband read her diary. I’ll go over it again tonight.”

  “Leigh, anything else?” This time Shelton directed his question to Leigh Chu Fong, the only female agent in the group.

  “Not really. We heard back from the Questioned Documents Unit on the ransom note. They gave it a thorough going-over, but they didn’t find anything helpful. The paper is the same stuff everyone uses for computer printers, regular copy paper—something most people have in their homes and offices. No way of telling where it came from. The Grainger house and office have similar paper, but there is no way to say this particular paper came from the same paper that was in the house or Colony office. No matches on the handwriting samples, but the writing was so contrived and such a short sample, there wasn’t much to work with.”

  “Too bad.” Shelton looked at McLendon. “Anything else from the coroner? Tests back?”

  “Yes. There were traces of chloroform in the girl’s blood.”

  “They sure?” Shelton looked troubled.

  “Yes.” McLendon made a face. “Unusual to get proof of that, but the stars were in our favor this time.”

  “So whoever took her, knocked her out first.” Shelton sat back, thinking.

  “How hard is it to get chloroform in the States?” Reid directed his question to Shelton.

  “Not too hard. It’s supposed to be limited as far as who can buy it—medical facilities, research companies, places like that. But it’s easy to buy over the internet, and not too hard to make.”

  McLendon interjected thoughtfully, “Lucy Shearling was also chloroformed.”

  Shelton grunted, obviously displeased that the chief hadn’t mentioned the chloroform before. But the police chief shrugged and pointed to a stack of papers.

  “The police report is there along with the autopsy report. I had copies made for everyone.”

  “I’ll look them over tonight. Chief, can you summarize for us what you learned from the Coast Guard on your trip around Bodega Head?”

  “Sure, from the tides and where the body washed up, the most likely scenario is that the kid was taken on a boat and dumped in the ocean a little southwest of Horseshoe Cove. The body was light, and got caught up in the tides, then washed on to the beach.”

  Reid was examining the map. “Correct me if I’m wrong, Dougal, but it looks like the boat that dumped Lenore’s body had to come from the marina.”

  “From there or at least somewhere in the harbor. The water is too rough most places on the sea side of Bodega Head for small boats to be housed, and large vessels can’t come too close without the risk of being torn up by the rocks. Whoever took Lenore had to leave from the harbor and go around to the sea side of Bodega Head to toss the body or else come all the way down or up the coast, which wouldn’t make much sense considering where she was abducted.”

  “Are we sure her body wasn’t on the beach Sunday?”

  McLendon nodded. “One of their guys had circled the beach right before it got dark.”

  Reid asked, “So when do they think the body was dumped?”

  “They’re guessing early Sunday morning. It would have taken that long for the body to make its way in and end up on the beach Monday.”

  Reid said, “And that conforms with the length of time the coroner said the body was in the water.”

  “So she was taken and dumped the same night,” Shelton said. “What about the marina? Did anyone see anything there? Maybe see a boat go out late Saturday night or early Sunday morning?”

  The chief shook his head. “Not that we can find. It was raining hard most of the night, at least from midnight on. Not the kind of night where people want to be out on their boats. And not a night where people might be around watching boats go out. But there were two boats broken into and burglarized that night. We don’t know what time the burglaries happened, but there’s a chance that the guy or guys who did them might have seen something that could help. We’ve heard some rumors that Gus Warren might have been involved in the burglaries. We’ll need to talk to him as soon as possible.”

  Shelton pursed his lips. “What about the loot from the burglaries?”

  “Nothing so far, but I’ve got feelers out. If we can find where the stuff’s been unloaded, it might lead us back to whoever took the stuff and was in the marina that night.”

  “Maybe something there will pay off. Leigh, anything on the search results from Andrew Grainger’s boat?”

  Reid remembered the photograph of Anne on a boat sitting beside Grainger’s bed. She’d probably been on Grainger’s boat when the photograph had been taken. Reid and Anne had never been on a boat together. There was so much they had never done together. He was starting to keep a list in his head—never been on a boat together, never spent Christmas together, never had a family photo taken together. On and on he could think of things for that list. There was so much that he would never get to do with her now. He tried to focus his thoughts back on the discussion.

  The female agent shook her head. “Same basic problem as we have with the family cars. Lenore’s prints, hair, etcetera, are all there, but it’s her father’s boat. Nothing to tie it to her death. A dead end.”

  “And what about the rest of the boats of our possibles?”

  The chief shook his head. “Nothing. But Lenore’s been on all of them for legitimate reasons, not as often as on Andrew’s, but often enough.”

  Dan Hart, apparently back from his preoccupation with his mobile, said, “You think we can rule out the kid being killed by a stranger?”

  Shelton nodded. “Probably. I guess it’s possible that a kid being molested by one person is then kidnapped, molested, and killed by another, but the odds are against it.”

  “And you’ve completely ruled out the artists that were at the conference?” Reid knew that Shelton had been having someone check to make sure none of them had been in the area before the conference.

  “We went through all the results of those inquiries. What we know about the artists that were at the conference just doesn’t support their involvement. Although they were there at the compound, as far as we know, there was no interaction between them and the child and also, no opportunity for the earlier molestation. And they each had someone with them the entire night that Lenore disappeared. So unless their alibi witnesses are in collusion with them, they’re in the clear.”

  Reid considered. “You con
firmed Kempton’s alibi?” He knew Shelton was still embarrassed about not checking into Graham Grainger’s story that he’d been with Meg all night. The agent who’d been assigned to the task of confirming the relatively easy alibis wouldn’t soon forget Shelton’s fury, Reid knew.

  “Kempton’s story checked out, as far as it can with a wife.” Shelton made a face. “I hate wife alibis. Wife and mother alibis are the worst. But Rita Kempton says he came home with her and was with her all night.”

  “And the night Lucy Shearling was killed?”

  Shelton shrugged. “Wife alibi. Graham Grainger has a girlfriend alibi, and Andrew Grainger has a sleeping pill alibi. All crap.”

  Reid thought about the men who had access to Lenore Grainger. “Frank Bolton have an alibi for Lucy’s murder? Meg says he used to date her.”

  Shelton motioned to Dan Hart. “Check it out.”

  The young man nodded, made a note.

  The chief got up and went into the kitchen and came back holding a pie. “So now what?”

  Shelton pushed his empty bowl away. “Right now, with what we’ve learned about Lucy Shearling’s murder and the other information we’ve gotten about Gus Warren, I think we need to talk to him again. Chief, can you send someone to bring him in?”

  “Sure. I’ll make a call to my officer on duty to go by his house. You want to talk to him tonight?”

  “I don’t think we have any time to waste. Let’s do it.”

  McLendon went to the telephone and made the call. He hung up after a brief exchange. “Colin will call after he checks the Warren house. If Gus is there, he’ll pick him up and we can meet them at the station.”

  While they waited to hear back, the chief cut a pie and handed plates around to the waiting group. Reid shook his head when McLendon tried to put one in front of him.

  “I can’t eat another bite.” Reid took his bowl to the kitchen so no one would notice that he’d hardly touched his food. Having everyone know that your wife was sleeping with another man, especially if the man was the chief suspect in a child’s murder, was humiliation enough to ruin his appetite for life. And everyone knew by now; it was all over the news and the true crime shows. His colleagues back home most definitely knew by now, as did his family. To preserve what little dignity he had left, he needed to go on with the pretense that it didn’t bother him. The last thing he wanted was for anyone to suspect the depth of his pain over losing Anne.

  Reid poured himself a cup of coffee. “So, Dougal, with what you know about Gus Warren, do you really think he could have done this? Granted, it didn’t work out, but a ransom kidnapping is a complicated undertaking.”

  “He’s been in trouble periodically, but always small time. Kind of easy picking thefts that we could never quite pin on him. He’s not known for putting much effort into anything—his fishing business has been marginal for years—probably because he’s lazy and he drinks too much.” McLendon shook his head. “I’d say if he did this, he’d have to have had help.”

  The phone rang. The chief held one hand up to the group to stop the conversation before he answered. After he hung up, Shelton looked at him inquiringly.

  The chief shook his head. “Martha says he’s been out all evening. She promised to tell him to call as soon as he comes home. Colin told her it had something to do with Gus’s boat, so maybe that will interest him enough so that he’ll actually call back. Colin’s going to sit around the corner and wait to see if Gus comes back. I don’t have a lot of confidence that Gus will call when Martha tells him to, even if he falls for the story that it’s about his boat, so Colin will just pick him up whenever he comes home. I’ll let you know when I hear something.”

  “If he doesn’t come home before eleven, let’s try again in the morning. I expect he’ll be at the funeral. We can pick him up there. You’re going, Reid?”

  “I’ll be there.”

  Shelton said, “I’ll try to get there, too.”

  Reid, keeping his voice casual, asked, “By the way, what were the results of the polygraph tests?” Sooner or later, he was going to have to officially be put in the picture. He didn’t want Shelton to somehow find out he already knew and get McLendon in trouble.

  Shelton eyed him, obviously not liking being put on the spot in front of the whole group. “Not much help.” He took a sip of his wine. “Anne passed, Grainger’s results were inconclusive.”

  “You going to tell them?”

  “I guess it won’t hurt anything. Why don’t you go ahead and tell Anne, Reid? Chief, you want to break the news to Grainger that his test didn’t eliminate him?”

  Or implicate him, either, thought Reid, but he just looked at Shelton. “I’ll let Anne know.”

  McLendon nodded. “I’ll talk to Andrew tomorrow.”

  Shelton leaned back in his chair. “By the way, Reid, during Anne’s polygraph test, she pretty much gave us a motive for Andrew Grainger to get rid of his daughter.”

  Reid arched his eyebrows, asked the obvious question. “And that was?”

  “Just what we thought. Anne.”

  Chapter 59

  REID SAT IN A BOOTH at the back of the almost deserted café, his long legs extended in an angle, drinking tea and reading. He didn’t want to go back to the Mermaids until he was so tired that he wouldn’t lay there awake and wait to hear when Anne came home.

  According to Shelton, who’d talked to her after he’d gotten the polygraph test results, Anne admitted she and Grainger had a fight after the Valentine’s Day gala. He wanted her to marry him right away, and she’d told him no. She didn’t feel ready to be a mother, and if she married Grainger, she’d have become an instant mother.

  Shelton said Anne was adamant that the argument hadn’t been that serious, that she was on edge because Reid was coming and didn’t want to talk about getting married right then, so she’d said something she didn’t mean. She said Andrew knew she loved Lenore and that he understood that she was just nervous about seeing her estranged husband. It was all about timing. Timing, Reid realized, that he’d had a lot to do with.

  He needed to talk to Anne, convince her that she could still be in danger. But he’d already tried that and she wouldn’t listen. Nothing he could say to Anne would keep her away from Andrew Grainger. She was convinced of his innocence, convinced enough to have gone back to his bed.

  He tried to push Anne and Grainger out of his mind and opened the diary, thumbing the edges of the copy he’d clamped together with a big black clip. He was determined to get through it one more time tonight.

  Marisol seemed to write at least a page in her diary every day. At first he’d had to read each page slowly, but once he got used to the young woman’s handwriting, the reading went faster. What dedication to write every day. Or maybe it was just habit, like brushing her teeth—or for a dancer, like practicing her steps.

  Knowing Lenore was born in January and that she was supposed to have been about six weeks premature, Reid calculated that Marisol would have gotten pregnant in about mid-May. He went through his task, becoming totally immersed and feeling as though he was getting to know the dead woman. He could almost hear her voice.

  She started each entry with the heartbreakingly youthful salutation, Querido Diario—Dear Diary. He tried to imagine what Marisol’s life must have been like. Used to living in Madrid, and then in San Francisco, it must have been strange to be transplanted to the somewhat remote Bodega Bay, isolated by logistics from most of her family and friends, and married to an older man who traveled a lot, often leaving her alone at the Grainger Colony.

  Her diary must have been a kind of friend, an anchor to her day. The pages were full of what she was learning about married life, her husband, and the people around them. Frank Bolton would have just started at the Colony, but she did not mention him at all. Frank’s predecessor was an older man, and his name, Arthur Polson, came up in the diary pages occasionally. Marisol didn’t appear to have much interaction with him, or at least not much that she repor
ted in her diary. They’d had many visitors and her friends from the city had come to stay often. Sometimes she talked about staying with her sister in San Francisco when Andrew was out of town, but that seemed to happen less and less as Reid went through the diary.

  One thing that came across loud and clear was that Marisol was very much in love with her husband. She sometimes expressed her boredom with posing for him, but her admiration for the finished product seemed to make it worth it for her. She was proud that her husband never seemed to tire of painting her. It was hard to read these pages and not think about Anne being with the man now, and wondering if her thoughts about Andrew Grainger were similar to what Marisol’s had been.

  Marisol wrote of her plans to do things to please her husband such as planning special dinners for him, picking out dresses he would like, and her fervent belief in the importance of keeping herself in shape to be attractive to him. She practiced her dancing to keep herself lithe and fit and she watched what she ate. In late January, she raved about a French vitamin supplement that was supposed to assist her in “slimming.” Although she didn’t think she’d gained any weight since her marriage, she intended to be vigilant to make sure she didn’t turn into a matronly mama and lose her husband’s admiration.

  As time went on, the diary started to include the beginning of Marisol’s illness. She also began to be troubled by bad dreams. She described the dreams as a feeling that she was being pressed down by something heavy and couldn’t get up. She would wake up in a panic, she reported to her diary, and then felt troubled by the dreams through the day. Grainger was traveling a great deal during this time, away for weeks at a time. She started to take sleeping pills, which she said seemed to help.

  Then, in April she thought she was pregnant, but the pregnancy test was negative. The entries in the diary went on with Marisol becoming sicker, then better for a short time. Her husband curtailed his travel plans to be near her, which according to her diary entries, pleased her. She wanted to have a baby, to start their family. Then she actually did get pregnant—something that made her very happy.