The Precipice

by Penny Goetjen

  She returned to her seat and looked up to see her friend frowning. Elizabeth feared she had taken offense at her comment.

  “Oh Shelle! This has nothing to do with you. I just get so nervous when I talk to him. He is such a huge client of Loran Design. Extremely successful with his real estate empire. If his name is associated with a project, it seems as though it is an instant success, or at least a guaranteed success. He has a way of making things happen…”

  Elizabeth recalled a phone conversation that she inadvertently overheard, not long after she had first met him, during which Drescher yelled quite loudly at the person on the other end of the line. She didn’t intend to eavesdrop but she just happened to be walking near an office in Loran Design that he was using while he was there. He tended to move in and make himself at home. The volume of his voice made her stop in her tracks and pause for a moment. Clearly he was not someone you wanted to be in disagreement with and certainly not someone you wanted to cross.

  Returning her focus to Rashelle, “Probably travels to exotic places and has vacation homes all over. He lives a life that you and I probably can’t imagine and certainly can’t relate to. Nothing I say could possibly sound very interesting to him. All I do is work. I don’t have much of a life outside of it.”

  A smirk spread across Rashelle’s face. “Maybe you should do something about that.”

  Lizzi opened her mouth to respond but closed it again.

  “Interesting that he wants to speak to you about his project, not Vera.”

  Elizabeth studied her face to see if she could decipher what she meant.

  “I just mean that speaks well for you. Obviously, you are a very talented designer and he recognizes that.” She could tell that Elizabeth was shrugging off her compliment. “You are, Lizzi. Think about it. You have seven years of incredible experience at one of the top design firms in the city. This major client wants to discuss his project directly with you. I wouldn’t be surprised if Vera feels a little inadequate around you. At this point in her career, she probably finds it more difficult to come up with fresh, new design ideas and to stay on top of the latest trends in the industry than she did when she was your age. Her energy is waning and she has to try to keep up with the likes of you.”

  “Oh, Shelle. You exaggerate so!”

  “Don’t believe that for a minute! I’m serious. Don’t sell yourself short. And if this guy is so influential, he could be a big help to you when you decide to break out on your own, leave Vera behind and start your own design firm. I bet he would jump ship and give his business to you.”

  Elizabeth’s eyes widened. “Vera would have my head if that happened. Oh my God.” She cringed at the thought. “Besides, he scares me a little bit. I’m not sure I want to be alone in the same room with him when the day comes that he doesn’t get his way.”

  “Doesn’t sound like that should be a problem for you.” Rashelle had a twinkle in her eye.

  Elizabeth sighed. Her friend had no idea what the man was like and she really wanted to put him out of her thoughts for the time being. She would deal with him when she returned to the city. That would have to be soon enough. “Well at the moment, we’ve got more important issues to worry—”

  From their left, the screen door squeaked on its hinges. Someone entered the porch and quietly passed next to their table. It was a young man in his twenties who appeared to have a bit of a Latino background. Elizabeth and Rashelle didn’t pay much attention to him until he reached down and picked up Elizabeth’s napkin off the floor. He placed it quietly onto the table, to the right of her dish, between the two of them. “Excuse me, ladies.” He looked directly at Elizabeth. “You dropped this.” His interruption startled her. She had been completely engrossed in her thoughts and their discussion of Drescher.

  “Oh! Oh, thank you,” she stammered, slightly embarrassed. He turned and headed for the door into the lobby. Once he had cleared the porch, she leaned over to Rashelle, “Who is that?” She hadn’t recognized him and she thought she knew everyone on the staff.

  “…That must be the new guy—” Rashelle looked as though she was trying to recall the details surrounding this new character.

  “Another new guy? I thought Kurt was the only one.”

  “Oh, well, this guy—I think his name is Armand—is a kind of an all-around guy. He goes where he is needed. He is a friend of Slater’s. Tony must have needed his help with the clambake tonight.”

  Rashelle didn’t seem to know Armand that well. Elizabeth thought that was a bit odd.

  Slater was a local fisherman who would take guests of the inn out on his lobster boat, teaching them about lobstering, while pulling up traps on an abbreviated version of his regular route. Although only in his thirties, he was a seasoned fisherman. He was the son of a retired fisherman who now captained a very successful tour boat company further north in Boothbay Harbor. Slater kept to the lobstering. It wasn’t as seasonal as the tour boat business and he was comfortable with it; he had grown up around it. Around the bend from the Pennington Point Beach, further to the east, was a quiet little cove that boasted a small dock where Slater kept his boat. He would take out small groups from the inn on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

  Elizabeth picked up the ivory cotton napkin Armand, or whatever his name was, had placed next to her plate. She slid it across her lap. Something fell to the floor that caught Rashelle’s eye. “Liz, you dropped something.” She leaned over and picked up a folded piece of paper and handed it to her friend.

  Elizabeth had a puzzled expression on her face and slowly opened it, holding it so that Rashelle could see, too. There was a brief note scrawled in grease pencil. It wasn’t directed specifically to any one person. It was very blunt.

  Where’s the girl? do you want to know?

  The handwriting was fairly neat with random capitalization throughout. Elizabeth’s heart skipped a beat. She looked at her friend. “Who could have written this?” she whispered. “This is the second one I have seen today.” They were so absorbed by the note that they didn’t notice Amelia approaching from behind.

  “Hey, girls. I see you found something to eat.”

  They jumped and spun around to face her. Elizabeth scrunched the note into the palm of her hand.

  “Oh! Nana, hi! Uh…I’m sorry. I know we were supposed to have dinner together tonight—”

  “Don’t give it another thought, Hun. I’m the one who should apologize. I totally forgot, what with all that is going on around here. I’m glad you were resourceful and got some food for yourselves.”

  “Well, what about you Nana? Have you eaten?” A twinge of guilt pinched her stomach. She had never checked up on her grandmother to see if she had taken time for food. She really should be keeping a better eye on her.

  “Oh, I grabbed a bite already. I was with the police officers when Tony brought them dinner earlier.”

  Elizabeth really wanted to believe her grandmother, but something told her she was covering up so that her little Lizzi wouldn’t worry and wouldn’t feel guilty about standing her up for dinner.

  “Girls…I’m afraid I have more bad news.” She moved right on to the business at hand. “Lt. Perkins just told me that things are going to be going from bad to worse. There is a hurricane that they’ve been watching down the coast and it looks like it is heading our way. At first, it looked like it was going out to sea, but it hasn’t taken the right turn that they expected it to take. It’s barreling right up the eastern seaboard on its way here.”

  The girls’ mouths hung open. Elizabeth was the first to regain her voice. “That’s awful, Nana! Now what do we do?”

  “Well, there’s not much we can do.” She looked like she was struggling to keep her composure. “They will keep monitoring the storm while they continue their investigation which they hope to complete by the time the hurricane arr
ives. All the guests will have to evacuate by then.”

  “When do they expect it to hit?” Rashelle had found her voice.

  “Well, it’s hard to say exactly, seems to change by the hour. It’s a rather volatile storm. Could be sometime Labor Day or Tuesday morning or as early as Sunday evening.”

  The girls gasped at the thought.

  “In the meantime, we need to assist in any way we can with the investigation. Hopefully we will find the girl safe and sound somewhere. Maybe she’s just playing a teenage prank on her parents and it will all be over soon.

  “Wouldn’t that be nice?” Elizabeth joined her grandmother’s daydream.

  Rashelle decided to play devil’s advocate again. “Of course, if she has caught wind of the commotion she has caused here, she may not surface for quite some time.”

  Amelia looked at Rashelle and seemed to be considering her point. “Well, I just hope it all turns out alright. We just have to keep believing it will…praying it will. It’s so unproductive to think otherwise.” The tone of Amelia’s voice seemed to reprimand Rashelle for not being optimistic.

  Elizabeth knew her grandmother believed in the power of positive thinking, but she thought this situation was going to take a lot more than the three of them sitting around saying “everything will be alright…” And she didn’t dare tell Amelia about the note she held crumpled up in the palm of her hand or the one shoved deep into her pants pocket.

  “Nana, do you happen to know where Kurt is? We haven’t seen him around in a quite a while.”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” She sounded disgusted. “He may be helping the chief with something. I know he has his hands full. Slater didn’t return from his lobstering trip this afternoon when he was supposed to. Chief was looking into it.”

  “He didn’t come back yet?!” Rashelle quickly glanced at her watch and slid to the edge of her chair, anxious to hear more.

  Lt. Perkins appeared in the doorway. “Ladies.” His voice was firm. He was the man in command. “I need to have a word with you.”

  “All of us?” Amelia queried.

  “That would be fine.” Steady as he goes. He paused for effect or just to gather his thoughts and then continued. “Miss Pennington, first of all, we analyzed the contents of your car. We found a necklace that we have determined to belong to the missing girl.”

  “What!” There was a collective gasp among the three women.

  “Yes, ma’am.” He was looking right at Elizabeth.

  What is he talking about? How is this possible? Elizabeth felt herself scarcely able to breathe. Nana jumped in to her rescue.

  “Officer, there must be some mistake. That can’t be possible.”

  “Well, ma’am. I’m afraid it is.” His voice was deep and firm.

  “She didn’t even know the girl. None of us met her.” Amelia’s mind was racing.

  “Is that so?” He was just as calm and collected as at the start of the conversation. This guy definitely did not have much of a sense of humor.

  “As a matter of fact, it is. And Elizabeth didn’t arrive here until late Friday evening because I called and asked her to come. She wouldn’t have had the opportunity to even meet the guest who is missing. She couldn’t possibly have any connection.”

  “Well, ma’am, I understand what you’re saying, but it does appear there is a connection.”

  There was no swaying him. He turned to leave the back porch and stopped just short of the doorway. He turned and looked right at Elizabeth again. “I don’t think I need to remind you what that means…stay in sight.” He spun back around and left the ladies alone with their mouths hanging open.

  Rashelle turned to Elizabeth. “What the hell is that supposed to mean! He can’t be serious, Lizzi!” Her voice was loud and demanding.

  Amelia jumped in. “Alright, Rashelle. Calm down. This whole thing will get sorted out and everything will be alright.” She seemed to be trying to convince herself as she spoke. “I’m sure this is just one big misunderstanding.” Without another word from any of them, she turned and exited the porch for an unknown destination. The two friends were left alone with their dinners.

  They ate in silence. The food didn’t taste quite as good as it had when they first sat down. It was getting late into the evening and it had been a very long day. Both of their heads were spinning. Lt. Perkins’ comments didn’t make any sense. Elizabeth felt anger rising up inside of her. She wasn’t going to take this sitting down. She needed to do something. The trained professionals had to be missing a key piece of information. She knew these grounds and the people that worked here better than they did. “C’mon, Shelle. Let’s get rid of these dishes.” It was time to make themselves scarce. As an afterthought, she added, “Want to grab a glass of wine? I think better with one.” The girls shared a nervous giggle, gathered their dirty plates, and headed toward the door to the kitchen that led from the porch. It was a hinged door without a window and tended to be more stubborn than the swinging door from the main dining room into the kitchen. Elizabeth turned sideways to use her shoulder to get better leverage. She gave the door a firm jolt with her entire body behind it. The door flew open so unexpectedly that she lurched into the kitchen nearly tripping over her own two feet. She struggled to hold onto her plate and keep her feet on the floor. The door thudded against something behind it and then swung back out toward Rashelle, who was standing in the doorway watching the whole thing unfold. Just as she reached out to stop the door from swinging any further toward her, Elizabeth let out a blood curdling scream.

  Chapter 14

  Rashelle couldn’t get through the kitchen door fast enough. “What, Lizzi? What!” With her dirty dishes in her right hand, she pulled the swinging door back with her left to see what Elizabeth was looking at behind the door. Her eyes grew wide. “What happened?” Rashelle’s mouth gaped open and her eyes were open wide.

  There, in a heap on the floor, was the body of a middle-aged man wearing a crisp, white chef’s jacket with black and white hounds tooth check pants. His jacket was stained with blood oozing from the wound caused by the chef’s knife sticking out of his chest. Rashelle looked from the body to her friend and back again. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Elizabeth had the same look of shock on her face.

  Rashelle tried again. “What the hell happened?”

  “I just opened the door!”

  “Was he standing behind the door?” her voice had quieted to a whisper.

  “I have no idea! I just pushed the door open and it hit something!”

  Rashelle cupped her full hand across her mouth as if stifling a shriek. She was trying hard to comprehend the bloody mess on the kitchen floor.

  “I don’t think I did anything but this looks terrible!” Anger was rising inside of her. Her voice was getting louder and starting to sound desperate. She wasn’t sure what to think. Her first instinct, as irrational as it was, was to run and get out of there. The lieutenant just accused her of having a connection with the missing girl and now she was standing over the body of a dead cook. She didn’t even recognize him. This was not good. Could he be a guest? She took a closer look at the knife sticking out of the body and thought it looked at lot like Tony’s new knife.

  “Liz, let’s get out of here!” Shelle yelled in a whisper. Fortunately no one was in the kitchen, but at any moment, someone could come bursting through the door and find them in a very incriminating situation.

  “Shelle, we can’t just walk out of here. We need to let someone know—”

  “NO, WE DON’T! The next person through the doors will just have to handle it. It doesn’t have to be you. He is obviously dead. He can wait. You can’t do anything for him.” She gestured toward the bloody man on the floor behind the door. “If Lt. Perkins sees us here, he won’t waste any more time. He’ll just cuff you and take you away.
One way or another, you’ll end up being charged. They will probably charge you with the disappearance of the Hutchins’ girl, too. You have got to get outta here!” She grabbed Elizabeth with her free hand, still holding her plate and silverware, and led her back out onto the porch. They put their plates back on the table where they were sitting, exactly as they had been arranged before, as if they had just got up and walked out, never entering the kitchen. Both girls felt an awful twisting sensation in their stomachs. They knew what they had just done was not right, but neither could come up with a better idea. Stepping into the foyer they watched in horror just as Lt. Perkins was entering the dining room from the foyer. They hurried to the doorway of the dining room to see him heading straight for the kitchen door. They both gasped. “Oh, no!” one of them murmured softly. This can’t be happening. What they did next was a split second decision, but one that they both made simultaneously.

  “Lieutenant!” they shrieked in unison as he lifted his hand to push open the kitchen door. He stopped in mid-stride and turned his head to respond to the girls. The look on his face told him they had startled him.

  Not trusting what Rashelle was going to blurt out next, Elizabeth did the talking. “Lt. Perkins, if you are looking for Tony, he is down at the beach.” She tried to make her voice sound calmer than she felt. Hopefully her face did not have a look of terror on it.

  Rashelle couldn’t resist chiming in as well, “And if you are looking for coffee, Tony set up a beverage station in the sitting room.” She motioned across the foyer.

  Perkins paused for a moment and examined the girls’ faces for a hint of ulterior motive. His hand was still poised near the door. He considered their suggestions, turned the rest of his body toward them, and lowered his hand. “Thank you, ladies.” His voice was low and steady. He headed back across the dining room, the sound of his firm footsteps on the old wooden floor echoed in the empty room.