Burial at sea.
How fitting.
Chapter 18
Sunday morning I woke with Jo’s head on my feet. I propped myself up and glanced out the balcony window and saw clear blue sky and calm seas.
Hallelujah! The fog had lifted.
My first thought was what a beautiful day for the opening of the showhouse. Then I recalled my nightmare having to do with corpses and Cole. The two Cs. Maybe I should have swiped one of Jenna’s sleeping pills. Luckily for me, Jo wouldn’t let me wallow. I had to get food in her belly tout de suite.
Sundays were usually my lazy days, when I read the newspaper from front to back, either on my screened porch with a French press of dark roast by my side or in my comfy reading chair by the fire. There was no time for that today. I was too anxious about what had gone down at Enderly and needed to clear my tangled emotions by chatting with an old friend—the Atlantic Ocean.
After showering, dressing, adding minimal makeup and doing a quick check that Jenna was okay, I went down to the beach. Not only was the sky clear, but the temperature was near sixty. If only everything was as clear as the sky in front of me. Like who had killed Roland Cahill and why.
I hadn’t called Morgana, wanting to stick to our pact of pretending we weren’t anything but casual acquaintances, but she had texted me late last night from her sister-in-law’s phone that Roland’s time of death was sometime between ten and noon. That meant Roland had been killed soon after I’d been to the pavilion to make sure everything was status quo for the cocktail party. It also meant everyone involved with the showhouse had been there at the time. No one had an alibi. Including myself.
The confusing thing was, whoever sent the text to Jenna, pretending to be Roland, had to have gone back to the scene of their crime. Is that when they’d thrown the extension cord into the ocean? That meant there was another time everyone needed to be accounted for. Kuri is the one who said Jenna got the text around four thirty.
Last night when I got back from the yacht club, Elle had also sent me a text message with a link that led to a photo from Dave’s Papers showing Freya Rittenhouse and Jenna’s husband with their heads close together, all smiles, at Thursday evening’s Guild Hall Gala. Thursday was the same day Jenna claimed Roland tried to run her over. That explained why Jenna wasn’t by his side and Freya was. What kind of husband would leave his wife at home after what had happened to her? Even if Jenna overexaggerated her injuries, it seemed callous of Roland to go without her. I enlarged the photo and saw Freya’s hand had been companionably on top of Roland’s. He looked at her with admiration. Were Freya and Roland having an affair? Or was Freya just buttering up Roland because he’d allowed her to be one of the decorators for the showhouse? I’d suspected Jenna and Nate of the same thing, and they’d turned out to be cousins.
I needed to stay out of it. If Jenna was arrested, that would be a different story. Then, nothing would hold me back from getting involved.
Now, as I looked out over the water, I was determined to forget about the murder and instead concentrate on the clear, unfogged beauty that surrounded me. I strolled over to my usual flat-topped boulder and sat. A scruffy-looking seagull landed next to me, carrying what looked like a french fry in his mouth. “Fried foods aren’t good for you, buddy, and I don’t have anything with me as a healthy substitute. Can’t eat a thing after what happened yesterday.”
A male voice loud enough to drown out the sound of the crashing waves startled me.
“Do you always talk to seabirds?” Standing over my right shoulder was Patrick Seaton and his dog Charlie.
“As a matter of fact, all the time,” I answered, laughing. “Don’t you?”
Patrick tossed the piece of driftwood in his hand toward the narrow strip of sand at the ocean’s edge. Charlie happily charged after it, then Patrick took a seat on a smooth boulder next to me and for a few minutes we silently watched Charlie play in the surf. Eventually he asked, “Everything okay? I heard you tell Jonathan Livingston Seagull over there that you had a bad day yesterday. Want to share?”
What came out of my mouth was almost like a vomitous explosion of words, Mt. Vesuvius spewing trapped molten lava, my voice rising and falling, depending on which tale I was telling. I told him everything, not just about Roland Cahill’s murder, but also about Cole and the rescue photo with Cole’s chief mate.
At first, he didn’t respond. And I was glad because I was truly embarrassed by my outburst. At least I hadn’t cried, and the strangest thing of all, the Barrett blotches hadn’t reared their ugly red welts. Was it a sign that I felt comfortable with Patrick?
There wasn’t time to ponder things because Charlie ran up to us with a crab carcass in her mouth, which for some reason reminded me of Enderly’s attic. I realized I’d forgotten to tell Patrick about the polar bear head or how Jenna’s grandfather had been found dead on the beach with bills in his mouth.
After I did, he said, “Sounds like quite a day. And quite a story. If this was one of my thrillers, or even a movie script, I would say it’s too far-fetched to believe. Even the part about your ex’s chief mate’s name. But then Charlie is a guy’s name and she’s a girl.”
“Stranger than fiction,” I added, thinking, Wow! Patrick was right, Cole was an ex.
Charlie’s ears had twitched when she’d heard her name. Glancing down at the decaying crab she’d dropped in front of him, Patrick praised her by saying, “Thanks for the present, gal,” then petted the back of the dog’s neck. She stood panting, waiting for him to throw another piece of driftwood, which he did. But Charlie didn’t move; instead she kept her gaze on Patrick’s right jean pocket. “My apologies,” he said, “of course you deserve a reward for leaving me such a wonderful and odorous present.” He reached into his pocket, withdrew a treat and held it in his open palm. Charlie lapped it up in a very ladylike manner. My fat cat could have used a few lessons from her.
Patrick tossed another piece of driftwood and Charlie took off in a gallop. He said, “I think the first thing you should do is nothing.”
“But, I . . .”
“Aha!” he said, narrowing his gorgeous eyes. “I see how your mind works, rushing in where angels fear to tread.”
“Not exactly. But seeing it’s such a clear day and I didn’t find Frank the paranormal investigator’s phone, if I went back over to Enderly . . .”
“What’s the rush?” he asked thoughtfully. “I know when I plot a thriller or a murder mystery, as in my Mr. & Mrs. Winslow screenplay, you don’t want to tip off the murderer you’re on to them until you have everything in place. Including backup. As Tolstoy said in War and Peace, ‘The strongest of all warriors are these two—time and patience.’”
“Hmm, Tolstoy,” I mused, “not one of our dead poets?”
“No. Just a dead author who thought and wrote like a poet.”
“Okay. I have one: ‘Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there someday.’”
He scratched at the stubble on his chin. “You’ve got me. A dead poet?”
“Nope. Winnie-the-Pooh.”
Patrick grinned, the lines by his eyes crinkling in amusement. He was older than me, probably in his late thirties, but when smiling he looked like a little boy.
“Do you think your friend Jenna will be arrested?” he asked.
I thought for a moment before answering. “Well, I know for a fact that Roland wasn’t shot, so Jenna’s gun wouldn’t come into play. And there’s no proof that she strangled him with the extension cord. Before I threw it under the stairs, it was floating in the surf.” Realizing what I’d just confessed, I put my hand to my mouth and said, “Oopsie.”
Amused, Patrick laughed. “Oopsie? Seems you better be careful and keep all your tampering with evidence to yourself or I’ll have to bail you out of jail.”
He would? My heart hiccupped, and there they were—I felt the Barret blotches warm my neck.
The wind started howling, causing whitecaps on the ocean. Typi
cal, changeable beachside weather in Montauk. Unless Patrick faced me, I had a hard time hearing him. And I wanted to hear every word.
Before asking him to turn his head when he spoke, I admired his profile. His nose was perfect and straight, almost noble, his strong jawline had just the right amount of stubble. His dark blond hair, which in the summer would be streaked with gold from his time surfing in the sun, fell at the back of his neck in short layers. Just to confirm it was as soft as it looked, I had an urge to run my fingers through it.
Get a of grip, Meg! Feeling tongue-tied and out of sorts at all the emotions filling my addled brain, I placed my hand on his arm. He turned to me. This morning the color of his blue-green eyes was more blue than green. “I’m sorry, but between the surf and the wind, I’m having a hard time hearing you. Do you mind repeating what you just said?” Then I pointed to my ears, reminding him about my hearing aids. Full disclosure: I had heard everything he’d said, I just wanted him to repeat the part about bailing me out of jail that had made my heart leap.
“My apologies,” he said sincerely, then repeated himself, omitting the best part.
Had I been hallucinating? “No reason to apologize,” I said, getting up from my boulder.
The tide was approaching. Soon the shoreline would be swallowed by the mighty Atlantic, along with the rocks we were sitting on. Patrick also stood, and we watched Charlie. The scars since her mistreatment as a racetrack dog were still visible on her flank, but she’d gained weight from the first time I’d met her, and her coat had a luxurious shine to it. Even Charlie’s eyes looked healthy and alert as she came tail-wagging toward us, the stick making the corners of her mouth turn up like she was smiling. She stopped in front of Patrick and dropped the piece of driftwood in a puddle, then gazed up at her master with love.
“Wow!” I said. “She’s a pro at fetching.”
Patrick hesitated at putting his hand in the seaweedy pool to retrieve the stick, so I picked up a similar-sized stick and waved it in the air. “Here, Charlie. Look at this luscious specimen of a stick.” I tossed it and she leapt after it.
Suddenly I thought of another dog, Cole’s huge three-legged dog that we used to take with us on long beach walks toward the Montauk Point Lighthouse.
Tripod! If Cole’s relationship with his Billie got serious, what would become of Tripod? Cole told me that his chief mate was allergic to dogs. At the time, I thought Billie was a man, not a female—and certainly not a love interest. As I watched Charlie frolic in the water, I worried about Tripod’s future. His long shaggy coat was almost as hard to clean off my cushions as my mangy Maine coon Jo’s. I could only imagine the dander.
“I think Charlie is part fish. She really loves the water,” Patrick said, interrupting my thoughts about flying down to North Carolina and kidnapping Tripod.
Charlie came prancing back to us, lithely maneuvering over the stones and boulders. Patrick reached into his pocket and took out another treat. Charlie waited in a sitting position until Patrick placed the treat in his palm and held it toward her. Jo would have bitten off one of his fingertips, or scratched it away with her sharp claws, leaving a trail of blood. Patience was not one of Josephine Eater Barrett’s virtues.
“She looks as happy as I am that the fog has finally lifted,” I said. “‘Keep your face always toward the sunshine and shadows will fall behind you . . .’”
“Whitman. How true. It’s amazing how the weather can affect your mood.” He looked pensive as he stared toward the lighthouse, reminding me of when we were neighbors and Patrick would pace the ocean at nightfall, looking forlorn and lonely. What was he thinking of? The people he’d lost? His wife and young daughter? A tragedy I couldn’t even imagine.
He wasn’t wearing a jacket. His black T-shirt fit his lean frame like a second skin, and so did his jeans. I couldn’t help but compare him to Cole. Cole was also a fan of black T-shirts. Both men were about the same height. Both extremely attractive. But in different ways. Right now, I found myself being more attracted to Patrick than Cole. I realized why. I knew Patrick on a more intimate level than Cole. Not physically, mentally. I knew Patrick through the lines of poetry he left in the sand and the words he’d penned in his books. A portal into his soul, so to speak.
Like Patrick, Cole had had his own share of tragedy, but he never shared his feelings with me. His mother’s murder was something that troubled him because of the unresolved issues they’d had before her death. I’d often wondered if the fact that I’d helped find her killer, and saw him at his most vulnerable, could have been the reason he had been so closed off emotionally. Why was I comparing the two men? Cole was out of my life. It was as clear as the brilliant sun in front of me.
Patrick tapped me on the shoulder. I turned toward him. He said, “Have you had breakfast? I make a mean eggs Benedict.”
He had me at, I make . . .
Chapter 19
It seemed very irresponsible that I hadn’t run up to my cottage to get my phone. I’d been too giddy from the fact that I would finally see the interior of Patrick’s cottage. On my nightly beach strolls, I couldn’t count all the times I’d looked up and pictured him sitting at a desk behind the lamp with the green-glass lampshade that glowed like a beacon in the twilight, while woodsmoke rose from his stone chimney, mixing with the salty evening air. Or other times, when there was only a faint glow in the front downstairs window, and I imagined him in front of a cozy fire, reading a worn book of classical poetry by Keats or Lord Byron—or some other dead or live poet.
I even knew how many wooden steps there were leading up to his cottage. Twenty-eight.
Did that make me a stalker?
Maybe.
“Grab my hand,” Patrick shouted over the gale-force wind coming from the north. It whistled in and out of my hearing aids like the sound you got when holding a conch shell to your ear, only amplified by a hundred. I extended my arm, and when his hand grasped mine, it sent shock waves up my spine.
We walked west toward his cottage, and even when boulders turned to rocks, then small stones, and finally pure white sand, he still held tight to my hand.
I wasn’t complaining.
Had I stepped onto the pages of a Nicholas Sparks book? All the components were there—two lonely people who meet by chance, one with a tragic past, one deceived by the person she loved, or thought she loved. Then throw in a romantic setting like the tremulous, whitecapped Atlantic to our left and there you had it—a possible recipe for disaster, especially if Patrick was already in a relationship with his publicist, Ashley.
When we passed the bluff where at one time my old four-room rental cottage stood, I paused.
“Sad, isn’t it,” Patrick said, following my gaze.
“Extremely,” I answered. A huge modern beach house in the last stages of construction had replaced my former rental. After I’d fled Manhattan and a cheating fiancé, the tiny cottage had been my refuge and safe port in the storm. There it was again. A cheating male. But in all fairness, Cole and I had already broken up before he’d left for Portugal. But as my father always told me, if there’s even a wisp of smoke, you can be sure a flame will follow. My father had been referring to one of his murder cases, but I was sure his maxim could also be a reference to my love life. Cheated on once, shame on them. Cheated on twice, shame on me.
We continued on, passing in front of the nature preserve, where I’d first found Patrick’s writing in the sand. Charlie waited for us at the bottom of Patrick’s steps, yelping a few short barks to hurry us along.
When we reached Charlie, Patrick let go of my hand and patted the dog on top of her pale gray head. “You know the drill, young lady. First, shower, then breakfast.”
“Hope that doesn’t apply to me, I’ve already showered.” There was an awkward pause after my ridiculous comment, and rightly so. As Charlie bounded up the stairs, I took a step to follow her, feeling like an imbecile, my mouth too full of my oversized foot to utter any more quips. Patrick said somethi
ng from behind, but the raging wind made it impossible for me to hear. I looked back and saw that he wore a smile, no doubt from my creepy shower statement. He repeated what he’d said, and I read his lips, “I’ll follow you up. I’ve been meaning to replace the rope handrails with wood but haven’t been able to get a contractor to commit to a date.”
His comment about a contractor reminded me of Roland Cahill’s murder, and I felt guilt over not being with Jenna, holding her hand instead of Patrick’s.
As we reached the wooden platform at the top of the steps, I paused and looked ahead. It was everything I’d pictured. And more. Larger than my cottage, but nowhere near as big as the beach houses surrounding it. It was built in a Cape Cod shingle-style, the shingles left in their natural woodgrain. Weathered with age and storms. I would guess it dated from the 1940s.
Patrick made sure I was looking at him before he spoke. “Believe it or not, this originally was what they called an Abercrombie and Fitch kit house, the original structure didn’t use one nail.”
“Like Lincoln Logs,” I added.
“Exactly. Of course, over the years nails were added, either that or the cottage might have ended up in the ocean or on Block Island. I’ve tried to keep it in its original state.
Ahh, a purist. My kind of guy. “That’s amazing. Need any help with Charlie’s shower?” Not that I’d ever showered a dog before, but it would be fun to watch.
“I’ll handle Charlie if you can go inside and pour us a couple cups of Joe? Fresh coffee’s in the carafe on the kitchen counter. Mugs on the shelves to the right of the sink. I hope you like it strong.”
“Only way I drink it.” Could I get any luckier? Now I’d be able to mentally catalog every feature of Patrick’s cottage without him glancing over my shoulder. I always said, you can learn a lot about a person by their home environment. Every item gave insight to the person that lived there.
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