Ornaments of Death

by Jane K. Cleland

  “So the maid was in here Sunday?” Ellis asked.

  “Right. Late morning.”

  A brown leather shaving kit hung from a towel bar in the bathroom. A large black hard-sided suitcase rested on a luggage rack. A pair of cordovan slip-on shoes stood neatly aligned under it. A laptop computer, with the lid closed, sat on the desk next to a stack of papers, including one I could identify from afar: the kind of paper sleeve car rental companies issue. The contract would be folded up inside.

  “I don’t see his wallet,” I said. “Or his cell phone.”

  “His car keys seem to be missing, too,” Ellis said.

  Ellis walked to the sliding glass doors that opened onto the balcony. He stood with his back to us while he made a phone call.

  The call lasted longer than I expected. Ellis was checking something, not merely reporting or issuing orders.

  “Two officers will be arriving shortly,” Ellis told Jonah as he swung around to face us. He surveyed the room as if he thought he might have missed something. “I’ve asked them to go through everything.” He shifted his eyes to my face. “Ian’s car hasn’t been returned to the rental company.”

  “Which means Ian left his room on Sunday,” I said, “under his own steam, drove off the property, and hasn’t been seen or heard from since.”

  “That about sums it up.”

  “Isn’t the car outfitted with GPS?”

  “So they say. But they need permission from higher-ups to track it. Once I get back to the station, I’ll fax them a copy of the court order, which has to be reviewed by their legal team.” He brushed it aside. “If we get lucky, it’ll be days, not weeks, before they respond.”

  My shoulders tensed. I understood the rental car company’s position. It was the same as the hotel’s. Privacy. I got it, but that didn’t mean I liked it.

  Jonah closed the door behind us, leaving the DO NOT DISTURB sign in place.

  Ellis thanked him, and we left.

  As we walked down the freshly shoveled pathway to the parking lot, I asked, “What do we do now?”

  Ellis double-clicked his remote, and the SUV’s lights flicked on and off.

  “We find him.”

  * * *

  Ty’s flight landed at Boston’s Logan Airport on time at six, and he got home just before eight thirty. After a late dinner, Ty and I went over to Zoë’s for dessert, Ellis’s brownies, warm from the oven. I sat on the floor by the fire, leaning against a pillow, braced against a club chair. Ty sat in the chair. If I leaned my head to the right, I could nuzzle his knee with my cheek.

  “There’s more than ninety-five thousand miles of shoreline in the country,” Ty said, “the overwhelming majority of it unmonitored. We want to set up trip wires, figuratively speaking. That’s why my boss formed this committee—to identify and implement tactics to spot breaches sooner, rather than later.”

  Ellis took a poker from the black metal hanging tool stand and flipped the top log in the smoldering pile. Orange and red flames flared for a few seconds. He balanced another log on top and the fire burst to life.

  “What’s an example of a trip wire?” Zoë asked.

  “A webcam configured to recognize heat or motion.”

  “Out in the middle of nowhere?” she asked, incredulous. “Can that really be done?”

  “Sure.”

  “We’re going to install security cameras along stretches of deserted shoreline?” I asked.

  “We might. Some communities already have. You sound surprised. How come?”

  “Because there aren’t any cameras installed in the corridor outside Ian’s room. We’re not even able to protect people where they sleep, let alone on tens of thousands of miles of unguarded coastline. It’s hopeless.”

  “It’s not hopeless,” Ty said. “It’s just deciding to do it. Like going to the moon. Once we put our collective mind on the problem, we solved it.”

  “I guess,” I said, my eyes on the fire.

  “We’re doing everything we can to find Ian, Josie,” Ellis said quietly. “We’ve sent out BOLOs for him and his car. We’ve got alerts on his credit cards. I have calls in to his daughter.”

  I watched flames touch the smoldering logs. I knew Ellis was doing his best. I also knew it wasn’t good enough.

  Later, when Ty and I were on my porch, Ty paused with the key in the lock.

  “I still think there’s a good chance Ian will resurface with one heck of a good story.”

  I rubbed his cheek, knowing he was only saying it to bolster me, and I was grateful. It allowed me to hold on to a glimmer of hope, and sometimes a glimmer is enough to be able to navigate your way out of despair.

  Upstairs, I switched off my lamp and closed my eyes and surrendered myself to the dark.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Just before ten next morning, Wednesday, I sat in my office, staring out the window, trying to talk myself out of my funk. There was no news of Ian, and Becca hadn’t called back.

  “Get to work,” I said aloud.

  I didn’t move. The snow had stopped overnight, and the temperature had warmed to heat wave status, forty-five degrees. Mica embedded in the granite boulders that dotted the woods twinkled like faraway stars. A small bird, black with white tips on some of its feathers, caught my eye as it fluttered through the thick green branches of a pine tree. I wondered why, speculating that it might have built a nest on a protected branch.

  A buzz from the intercom startled me. It was Cara calling to tell me Lia was on line one. I grabbed the phone.

  “Lia!” I said. “Tell me you have news.”

  “No. But I need to talk. Can you have lunch?”

  “Of course,” I said.

  We arranged to meet at twelve thirty at the Portsmouth Diner. I stared at the receiver for a moment before placing it in the cradle. She sounded both morose and agitated. Something was up.

  * * *

  Lia was in a booth toward the back when I arrived at the diner.

  “Thank you for coming on such short notice,” she said.

  I slid onto the bench across from her. “You seem upset.”

  “I am.” She shook her head and sighed. “I’m a mess.”

  The waitress appeared. I ordered a grilled cheese sandwich, a random decision. Lia ordered a Caesar salad, no meat.

  As soon as the waitress stepped away, Lia said, “I’m not on such solid ground as I thought I was. I’m so ashamed of myself.”

  “I don’t understand. Why?”

  She looked down and began twirling a gold bangle. On the one hand, she looked the same as always, her hair perfectly coiffed, her makeup subtle and elegant, her cherry red silk blouse fitted by an expert. On the other hand, I could see the tension along her jaw and neck, and when she raised her eyes again to mine, there was a sorrowfulness in them that I couldn’t miss. I recognized it. I’d felt it. It was the look of grief.

  “I know how I sound most of the time—at least lately. Cynical. Jaded. Bitter. I’m sorry.”

  “You have nothing to apologize for, Lia. Anyone in your situation would feel horrible, and many of us would act way worse than you have.”

  She straightened her knife, moving it a micro-smidge, then lined up the spoon. “He’s moved a girl into his condo—the condo I’m paying for.”

  “Your ex?”

  “The jerk.”

  “Awful. How do you know?”

  “Missy told me this morning.”

  “Missy?” I asked in disbelief.

  Lia snorted. “Everyone wants to be the first to deliver bad news. That way they get to watch.”

  “That doesn’t sound like Missy.”

  The waitress appeared with food. We didn’t speak until she left.

  “She’s eighteen,” Lia said, stabbing a lettuce leaf with a fork. “Her name is Tiffany. He’ll live with her, but they’ll never marry because that would end my obligation to pay spousal support.”

  I nibbled at my sandwich, not tasting it. I didn’t know what t
o say.

  Lia’s story was up there with most women’s worst nightmares. Twenty years after her jock-hunky high school boyfriend ditched her for a girl he met on a field trip to the United Nations, he friended her on Facebook. A whirlwind romance ensued, with all her friends singing, “Fairy tales do come true … it can happen to you…” A month later, she married him, and learned the truth. He was a helluva good talker who couldn’t hold a job and had a disastrously wandering eye. I wished I could do more to help Lia recover from the wounds her pride and pocketbook had endured.

  She kept talking, expanding on her ex-husband’s flaws, her comments becoming more personal and snarkier. When she started in about his bald spot, I stopped listening. I kept my eyes on her face, watching her expression harden, feeling disloyal and guilty in wishing I were anywhere but listening to her repetitive and acerbic rant.

  She didn’t pause to eat.

  I lowered my sandwich onto my plate, my appetite gone. I hoped venting was good for her, suspecting, though, that it would only serve to stir up all the spiteful negativity that surged around her like a maelstrom.

  Finally, after ten minutes or more, she stopped. She dropped her fork and it clinked against the bowl. She slid toward the booth opening.

  “Oh, God. I’m sorry, Josie. I don’t know why I asked you to meet me. I thought I needed to talk. I don’t. There’s nothing to say and nothing to do, and the more I talk the worse I feel. Forgive me.” She stood up. “I’ll settle the bill on the way out.”

  She walked out, her chin up, her back straight. I felt battered.

  The waitress hurried over, thinking she was dissatisfied with something. “Is something wrong?”

  “Not a bit,” I said, forcing a smile. “Could I have some more water, please?”

  I pecked away at my sandwich for a few minutes before giving up. I pushed it aside, left a big tip, and fled.

  * * *

  Wes called just as I reached my car.

  “You were in Ian’s hotel room and you didn’t call me afterward,” he said.

  “Hi, Wes. I’m fine. How are you?”

  “Good, good, so did you get any photos?”

  “Of course not!”

  He sighed, letting me know he was disappointed in me. “I have an info-bomb, but I’m all give and you’re all take.”

  “You know I tell you everything I can, Wes. What’s your news?”

  “The police have cordoned off Cable Road.”

  “Why?”

  “A couple walking their dog found a man’s body.”

  My heart stopped. I knew the street. Cable Road dead-ended at the ocean. It wasn’t the kind of place anyone went in December.

  “Tell me,” I whispered.

  His tone softened, more kid brother than tough-nosed reporter. “I’m sorry, Josie. It’s all I know. I’m en route now.”

  * * *

  While I waited for the engine to warm up, I called Ty. I got his voice mail.

  “They found a man’s body, Ty.” I paused, thinking of what else to add, but there was nothing. “I’ll talk to you later. I love you.”

  I couldn’t think where to go or what to do. I felt muddled, as if I’d just awakened from a drug-induced sleep. I needed more information, but I couldn’t think of how to get it. Ellis never opened up. Wes had already told me the little that he knew.

  I turned on the radio to the local station, thinking maybe they’d have early details. They didn’t. I listened to the host of a local politically themed talk show discuss the need to expand library hours. The host’s name was Al Thornton. His guest, Cherie Hubbard, was a member of the school board.

  I decided to drive to my office. I knew myself: Working always helped me cope with life’s worst disappointments and losses.

  I wasn’t even out of the diner parking lot when Al interrupted Cherie, announcing that Wes Smith was on the phone with breaking news. I pulled into a parking spot and set the emergency brake.

  Listening to Wes announce that a body had been found, I understood that in all probability Ian was dead, but somehow I couldn’t process the information. I was shocked, but at the same time, I wasn’t surprised. I’d been braced for bad news for days.

  “Who discovered the body, Wes?” Al asked, following up on Wes’s announcement with an off-the-cuff interview.

  “A local couple—John and Wendy Anderson. They took their dog on a long walk because of the warm weather. If it hadn’t been such a nice day, they wouldn’t have turned onto Cable Road to look at the water, and who knows when the body would have been found.”

  “How did he die, Wes?”

  “It looks like he was hit by a car.”

  “I always think hit-and-run accidents are among the most cowardly of acts. It’s bad enough to hit someone—but to leave the scene. Come on.”

  “I agree,” Wes said, “but to be fair, we need to stress that the police haven’t yet revealed the cause of death.”

  “Do we have a time of death?”

  “Not yet. There are so many variables in making that determination—outside temperature, the fact that it snowed yesterday, what the person was wearing, to name a few.”

  “Do you know who it is?”

  I held my breath, waiting for Wes’s reply. Every muscle tensed. I clutched the steering wheel as if I hoped to break it, bracing myself.

  “No,” Wes said. “Not yet. A British tourist named Ian Bennington was reported missing yesterday, though.”

  His reply wasn’t the least bit reassuring.

  “Do we know what Ian Bennington was doing in Rocky Point?”

  “He was here to meet Josie Prescott, the owner of Prescott’s Antiques and Auctions, who, it turns out, is a distant cousin.”

  “So sad,” Al said. “If it’s him—and let’s repeat for our listeners who might just be turning in—we have no reason to think the corpse found today on Cable Road is Ian Bennington, the missing British tourist, but if it is, it’s a real blow. He comes to connect with family and ends up dead.”

  After Wes’s report was finished, I sat in my car for a long time, not crying, exactly, but with tears streaming down my cheeks.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “I can’t let you in,” Officer F. Meade said. “It’s an active crime scene.”

  I’d run into Officer Meade for years, and I’d always wondered what the F stood for, but I’d never asked. She didn’t encourage chitchat. She was a tall ice blond, with a no-nonsense demeanor and unexpressive eyes. Her hair was pulled back into a tight bun. She was thin, more scrawny than willowy. I had nothing against her, but I didn’t know anything in her favor either.

  “I just want to take a quick look,” I said, knowing she’d refuse.

  “I’m sorry, Josie.”

  We stood on the Ocean Avenue side of the yellow crime scene tape that stretched across the entry to Cable Road. Ellis’s SUV was parked three cars back from the intersection of Cable and Ocean, on Ocean, behind a patrol car and a CSI van. A vehicle that could be Ian’s Taurus was parked at the ocean end of Cable. I couldn’t see the tags. A man wearing an orange CSI safety vest over a heavy blue parka was on his hands and knees, video-recording the street where it abutted the curb, his camera barely moving. Branches from a scraggly bush hung low, nearly touching the asphalt where he was working. A white van with ROCKY POINT MEDICAL EXAMINER’S OFFICE stenciled on the side was parked sideways across the street, blocking most of the ocean view. I squatted to look under it and saw a mélange of legs and feet. I stood up.

  “Is that where the body was found?” I asked, my eyes on the technician.

  “Yes.”

  I glanced around. “I don’t see Chief Hunter.”

  “He’s here.”

  “Was he able to make an identification?”

  “You’ll need to ask him.”

  My eyes on the technician, I asked, “What’s he recording?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I heard on the news,” I said, “that the body was found
by a couple walking their dog.”

  She shot a sidewise glance at me. “What else did you hear?”

  “That it was Ian Bennington.”

  “That’s what I heard, too,” she said.

  My throat closed unexpectedly; I swallowed hard to quell my spiking emotion. My chest heaved, and I shut my eyes for a moment.

  “Did you know him?” she asked, her tone softer, kinder.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  We both focused on the technician.

  “Can’t you tell me anything?” I asked. “Ian was my cousin.”

  She shook her head.

  I pointed at the Taurus. “Is that Ian’s car?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I spotted black tire marks near the technician’s knees and traced them backward to where they started, near where I stood. I looked back at the technician. I could see Officer Meade’s face out of the corner of my eye.

  “Ian was murdered, wasn’t he?” I asked, aiming for a neutral, casual tone.

  She nodded, one nod, unaware that I saw her reaction.

  “They’re considering all possibilities,” she said, revealing nothing, a trick she must have learned from Ellis.

  “I ask because these tire tracks start here,” I said, pointing, “and go all the way to where the technician is working. Someone spun off Ocean going fast. Do you see how they get darker and darker, then swerve to the right, then stop altogether? The car must have sped up along Cable, only stopping when it hit Ian.”

  “The technician will record everything,” Officer Meade said.

  “This wasn’t an accident,” I said. “This was murder.”

  I dug around in my tote bag for my phone and texted Ellis: I’m here. Can I help w/ the ID?

  I kept my eyes on my phone, waiting for his reply, looking up every few seconds in case he responded in person. A minute after I hit the SEND button, Ellis’s head appeared at the front of the van. He saw me and strode in my direction.

  He was wearing an anorak open to show a navy blue blazer, gray slacks, and a pale blue shirt. His tie was blue with small gray dots. In the unforgiving daylight, his scar looked dark and glossy.