Murder at Beechwood

by Alyssa Maxwell

  He did and I leaned lower. On the lines indicating the helmsman and port trimmer, I ran my fingertip over the names, Virgil Monroe and Wyatt Monroe, respectively. The paper felt raised and hardened beneath the ink.

  “Do you have a pocketknife on you? Or anything with an edge?”

  Neily reached into a coat pocket and handed me his money clip. “Will this do?”

  “Let’s try it.”

  After handing him the bills, I placed the edge of the silver clip on the paper and carefully scraped back and forth. A few moments later, I’d collected a small pile of shavings in the crease of the book and uncovered two different names on the ledger lines.

  “They were reversed,” I said with a grim smile. “Whoever did it used paint the color of the paper to hide the fact.”

  “Clever,” Grace said with a hint of admiration.

  Neily looked over my shoulder at the page. “So Wyatt had originally registered as helmsman, and Virgil as port trimmer. I wonder why the change.”

  “More importantly,” I said, “whatever the reason for the switch, why hide it with paint?”

  “You’d be surprised.” Grace hovered at my other side. “Some of these older members are sticklers when it comes to the records. The very idea of scribbles and corrections makes their administrative skin crawl. It could simply have been an attempt to keep the ledger neat and tidy.”

  “I suppose . . .” I stared down at the names, my face tightening with concentration as I tried to make sense of this new information. “Who usually captained the Vigilant?”

  “Wyatt,” Neily said. “He’s considered an expert helmsman, has won loads of races. He might even have taken the America’s Cup last year if the winds hadn’t shifted and allowed Uncle Willie’s team to outmaneuver him on the last leg.”

  I gripped the book and lifted it off the counter. “Who initiated the switch—Wyatt or Virgil?” I didn’t expect an answer. As was my habit, I was merely voicing my thoughts out loud.

  Could Wyatt have convinced his brother to take the helm in order to stage the accident? It almost made sense . . . almost . . .

  I slapped the book back down. “I need to see the boat.”

  Neily gestured toward the main room and the door that led to the pier.

  Gaslit globes illuminated the area, each reflected in the black water like a shivering full moon. The men I’d seen earlier were gone, and the newly arrived yachts had been moved back out into the harbor for mooring. Only a dozen or so boats filled the slips along the pier and a few others were anchored close by—so close one might have leaped from deck to deck like steppingstones. A low hum of voices could be heard from inside, and farther out the buoys tolled and light waves slapped along hulls and pilings.

  The night watchman strolled around the corner of the building, whistling a tune. He saw us and touched his cap brim in greeting. “Good evening, Mr. Vanderbilt. Miss Wilson.” He offered me a polite smile before continuing his patrol.

  Grace had been right. The three of us together, specifically two ladies escorted by a gentleman, attracted less notice than if Neily and I had come alone. That might have raised questions in the watchman’s mind, but as we were, we formed a socially acceptable group of young people simply looking at the boats and enjoying the evening air.

  He disappeared around the far corner of the clubhouse. I set off at once down the pier with Neily and Grace following. The damaged sloop bobbed gently in its slip. The vessel sat low in the water, its broken mast a jagged shadow against the sky. The shattered boom lay lengthwise across the deck like a drunken sailor. I held my skirts and hopped down from the pier. Neily stepped down beside me. Grace stayed on the pier.

  “If you’d like to wait back at the clubhouse, it’s fine,” I whispered up to her. Why I whispered I couldn’t say, since we hadn’t tried to hide our presence from anyone. I suppose my clandestine reasons for being there made me feel suddenly shy of using my full voice.

  “No, that’s all right. I’ll wait here.” However, it wasn’t long before she crossed the pier to view the sleek ketch across the way. That was fine with me. Better Grace stayed occupied while I poked about.

  First, I went to examine the rigging on the main mast. With only one lantern mounted several pilings away, I struggled to make out the details clearly. I picked up the severed lines and slid them between my fingers, distinctly feeling where the hemp thinned and the fibers had snapped. I pointed this out to Neily.

  “Could one of the crew have weakened the line, planning to sever it completely at the right moment during the race?”

  He squinted a bit as he fingered the rope as I had done. “It’s possible. He’d have to wait until everyone else was occupied, though, or someone would have noticed.”

  “Perhaps while maneuvering through one of the turns in the course,” I suggested.

  “Possibly.”

  “Who in the crew would be in the most likely position to accomplish this while the others were busy?”

  He considered, then said, “The main trimmer, actually.”

  “Lawrence?” My pulse gave a little leap. Virgil refused to allow him to marry Daphne. Did Lawrence love the girl enough to commit patricide?

  I didn’t want to believe it, nor did it fit with the conclusions I had thus far drawn about the young man. True, on the night of the ball he had revealed an angrier, darker side, but only momentarily. The hours I had spent this afternoon with him and Daphne had been pleasant ones. Despite the obvious pall hanging over the day, Lawrence—and Daphne, too, now that her doldrums seemed to have passed—had been cordial, accommodating, and intelligent, and had even shown a quiet sense of humor.

  Or had I simply resolved to pin my suspicions on Wyatt and ignore other potential suspects? His anger toward his brother had been clear and palpable, even from down a hallway and around a corner the night of the ball. Wyatt had also been too quick to implicate Derrick, as if to cast suspicion away from himself.

  “Can you show me exactly where each man would have been positioned, and what his duties were?”

  To demonstrate, Neily moved around the deck, from port to starboard, stem to stern, carrying out a pantomime as he explained the various functions of the crew.

  “And so when the boom swung around to port side,” he said as he concluded his tutelage, “Wyatt could easily have been slammed in the chest or back or even the head. In that event, he wouldn’t likely have been able to overpower his brother.”

  I sighed. “So my theory would make a lot more sense if Wyatt had captained the sloop, instead of Virgil.”

  “There’s another possibility. Wyatt might have been the intended victim.”

  “Then how is it his brother is dead?”

  “That would be the whim of storm and sea. Nothing is ever certain out there, Emmaline. But do you really wish to know what I think?”

  I regarded my cousin in the darkness. The beard he had grown in recent months, shaped to a dapper point beneath his chin, wasn’t all that made him seem years older than a summer ago. Neily had matured, grown wiser and more seasoned, no longer merely the pampered son of a millionaire, but a man in his own right who did as he saw fit, who deserved respect.

  “I’d very much like to hear what you think,” I said fondly.

  “I think Virgil’s death was an accident. I think the frayed ropes are merely a coincidence, somehow overlooked during the inspection. Yes, I know—” He spoke over me when I began to protest. “To miss something as important as frayed ropes is unconscionable, and yes, Wyatt is an expert sailor. But that doesn’t mean he never makes a mistake. Or that he didn’t rush the inspection. As it is, the boom did fall during the storm—a combination of failed rigging and heavy wind and seas. But again, an accident.”

  “I don’t believe that.” I glanced around at the damaged vessel. “Even Wyatt and Virgil’s sons don’t believe it was an accident. And I will not stop probing until I find the truth.”

  Turning away, I moved to the helm and placed both hands
on the wheel. One question I hadn’t asked yet was if Virgil had been holding on with two hands, how much force it would have taken to dislodge his grip and send him overboard. My back still to Neily, I started to do just that when I heard a grunt and a thud.

  “Neily?” Before I could turn around, hands encircled my neck. Fingers wrapped around my throat, followed by something rougher, harsher.

  Rope. Tightening, squeezing. I flailed my arms, trying to reach behind me. My throat closed and the night turned blacker. Screams ripped through the air, not my own but from somewhere far off, strange and echoing....

  Consciousness exploded into a thousand watery shards. Bitter salt flowed into my mouth, my throat; I bobbed and coughed and thrashed. The salty sting blinded me as a shattered blur of dim light and inky blackness shot terror through me. My ears filled and the brine enveloped me whole. I kicked and struggled, my body weighted, legs tangling, arms grasping at nothing. The world slipped around me as I sank....

  I fought back, and a burst of air knifed my lungs. I tried to scream, but only a rusty groan emerged through the sandpaper coating my throat. I went under again, knowing I must make myself heard; knowing I’d die otherwise.

  Something solid struck my shoulder. Immediately I twisted and found it with my hands. A piling. I wrapped both arms around it and tipped my head back as far as it would go, until my lips and nose inched above the waterline. The air stung going in, but I sucked greedily, desperately, and clung to a single thought, only one: Stay alive.

  Those screams I had heard reached my ears again. Now they formed my name and I recognized Grace’s voice. Footsteps shook the pier. Two pairs, one clattering and light, the other heavy, clunking over the boards and making the piling tremble against my ribs. I tried to call out but again my voice emerged like an unused hinge.

  A pair of hands thrust beneath my shoulders and tugged, hurting me, threatening to rip my arms from their sockets. I didn’t resist but kicked against the water to propel myself upward. The harbor and my soaked skirts warred with our efforts, but those determined hands won out, hauling me up and over the side of the pier. The rough edges of the boards scraped cruelly against my hip bones, thighs, and knees, but again I didn’t resist, almost welcomed the pain as a sign I lived, that my end would not come at the bottom of the bay.

  My body convulsed, sending me onto my side in a fit of coughing and retching that purged the water from my body. The force of it all but turned me inside out, rent me in two, and seemed to go on forever.

  And then I lay on my back with the night sky arcing above me and the water pouring from my clothes to soak the boards beneath me. My lungs heaved and clawed with every breath. My mouth and throat burned. Beyond that, numbness claimed me, and even my brain swam in a sea so devoid of thought even my terror flowed gently away. That was, until Grace sank to her knees beside me and seized my hand. Her cheek fell against my shoulder, and she sobbed and shook and for some reason repeated over and over again how sorry she was. Her own horror filled me, reminding me how close I had come to never gazing up at the stars again.

  It was the night watchman who finally lifted Grace from me. His concerned face blocked the sky from my vision, and he asked me if I knew my name.

  As good a question as any, I supposed, in the process of reclaiming one’s life.

  “I’m Emmaline Cross,” I rasped out. “Emma.”

  “Oh, thank God above.” Still kneeling on the pier, Grace lifted her hands to her face and cried into her palms. Neily crouched beside her and reached for my hand.

  “Emmaline . . . Are you all right? Can you sit up?” His words slurred slightly, and suddenly I remembered the thud I had heard right before the rope—or whatever it had been—tightened around my throat.

  I freed my hand from his and pushed against the pier in an effort to sit up. Water poured off me in rivulets. “I believe so. . . .”

  Neily gently grasped both my hands. In a moment I was upright. Boats, sky, and water tipped dizzily, then righted themselves. My hand went to my throat as I tried to swallow away the lingering pain. “What happened?”

  “As near as I can tell, someone crept out of the hold and knocked me on the head from behind.” As he spoke Neily shrugged out of his suit coat and wrapped it around my shoulders. I shivered violently, though not so much from cold as from shock and fright.

  “Neily was coming to as the watchman and I came running back down the pier,” Grace blurted. “Oh, Emma, I’m so sorry!”

  I shook my head, as much to clear it of its remaining fog as to show my puzzlement. “Why do you keep saying that?”

  “Because I walked away.” Her eyes glittered with tears. “I grew bored while you and Neily examined the Vigilant. I was looking at the other boats closer to the clubhouse. If not for that . . .”

  “If not for that, you might not have brought the watchman . . . Mr. . . . ?”

  “Dawson,” the man supplied.

  “You wouldn’t have brought Mr. Dawson as quickly as you did, Grace. And then I might be—”

  “Don’t say it.” She clenched her fists. “Do not!”

  “Let’s get Emmaline inside,” Neily suggested, and helped me to stand. My legs shook and threatened to give way. Neily held me about the waist while Grace moved to my other side and did likewise. With the two of them supporting me and Mr. Dawson taking up the rear, we made our way down the pier and into the clubhouse.

  “Good heavens!” a man bellowed at our entrance. Other voices chimed in. There were gasps and soft cries from the women. “Did the lady fall in?”

  Grace waved away the questions as she pulled out a chair for me at the nearest table. Neily carefully lowered me into it and sat beside me, scraping his chair closer as if to catch me should I begin to fall over. Grace sat at my other side, the two of them like flanking sentinels. Someone—I didn’t see who—draped a blanket across my sodden shoulders.

  “Did you see what happened?” Neily asked Grace. “Did you see who it was?”

  “No.” Grace’s face went taut. “I heard a strange sound and looked over to see you fall. Someone stood behind you, and he was holding . . . I don’t know . . . a pipe or club or something. But it was dark and he had his collar turned up. Then he lunged for Emma and I . . . I just ran to find Mr. . . .”

  “Dawson,” the man said again.

  “It was horrible,” Grace went on, and part of me thought she had no idea just how horrible. “I heard the splash, but I had rounded the corner of the building by then. I didn’t know which of you had fallen into the water until we came running back and I—I couldn’t see you anywhere, Emma. Then I knew. Oh, how awful. You poor, poor dear—”

  “Grace,” I interrupted with a rasp, then stopped to swallow and clear my throat again. “Did you see the person leave? Which way he went? How could he have gotten away without passing you on the pier?”

  A woman brought a steaming cup of tea and placed it in front of me. I thanked her, but my hands trembled so hard I feared spilling the hot liquid down my front.

  “Maybe he dove into the water and swam,” Mr. Dawson said.

  “Or he leaped from boat to boat.” Neily winced, and Grace reached across the table to press a hand to his cheek. “Are you all right? Does your head hurt terribly?”

  “Like the dickens,” he said, “but that doesn’t matter at the moment. Mr. Dawson, please use the telephone to summon the police and the hospital. My cousin needs an ambulance—”

  “No, I don’t! No ambulance. Please just call the police station and specifically ask for Jesse Whyte. If he’s not there, tell them it’s imperative he be notified.” The watchman nodded and set off into the records office to use the telephone there. I turned back to my cousin. “Neily, what do you mean he could have leaped from boat to boat? Is that how he got to us?”

  “It’s possible, but I believe he was on the Vigilant when we arrived. He must have heard us coming and hid below. After he heard Grace shouting for Mr. Dawson, he tossed you overboard and leaped from d
eck to deck.” He stood up. Through the windows he surveyed the moored vessels. He pointed toward the dock that ran parallel to the seawall. “The boats are close enough to each other that, if he were athletic enough to jump the distance between each one, he might have made his way right to the seawall without needing to use the pier. While getting you out of the water kept us busy, he could have climbed the fence and kept going, with no one inside the clubhouse any the wiser.”

  “Someone athletic, and with a keen knowledge of boats and this yacht club.” In my mind, the clues all led in one direction. “Wyatt Monroe. Oh, he’s frightfully clever, isn’t he?”

  But perhaps not clever enough.

  “I wish you’d stop looking at me that way,” I said to Jesse some thirty minutes later. Despite my objections, he’d brought me to Newport Hospital to be sure my attacker did no lasting damage. I had swallowed a bit of water, to be sure, but not enough to warrant admitting me for observations. I had gone into the water unconscious, but the shock of hitting the waves had revived me immediately. My swimming instincts, weak though they were, had kept me from submerging for long and the doctor declared my lungs clear.

  “I regret ever involving you in this investigation.” Jesse showed me his fiercest policeman’s scowl, but I refused to cringe.

  Sitting on the examining table brought me on a level with his height, and I met his gaze steadily. “I became involved the moment someone dropped off an infant on my doorstep. It would have been ill-advised not to tell me of the carriage driver killed out by Brenton Point. If little Robbie or any member of my household is in danger, I need to know about it.”

  “Well and good, but I asked you to investigate the mother, not the murderer.”

  His voice rose in exasperation on that last word, and in the same moment Neily and Grace entered the examining room from the hallway. Grace stepped between Jesse and me like an avenging warrior.