The Boathouse (A Pelican Pointe Novel Book 14)

by Vickie McKeehan

“I’m not sure I like the sound of that.”

  “You need a dog. And I know just the one, too.”

  Bodie shook her head. “You do realize we’ve talked about this a couple of times. I’m never here, Ellie. I work all the time. I get one day off every two weeks. How would a poor dog make it being left alone for such long periods of time?”

  “Hmm. You could get a dog walker.”

  “No. I’m not getting a dog.”

  “Fine. How about a kitty?”

  “No.”

  “Fine. Then I’ll take her home myself.”

  Knowing Ellie’s affection for animals, Bodie narrowed her eyes. “Wait a minute. Is that the real reason you stopped by at midnight to ask me about a dog?”

  “Who me? No way. I just needed some advice. I gotta go.” Ellie gulped down her tea and got up to set the mug in the sink.

  The two women said their goodbyes, but as Bodie made her way back to bed, she had a hunch. She detoured back to the front window and watched Ellie get into her car. The streetlight helped illuminate the inside of Ellie’s Chevy. Sure enough, Bodie spotted a brown and white ball of fur nestled in the front passenger seat.

  “Good one, Ellie,” Bodie murmured. “You sneaky…you’re a lot sneakier than I gave you credit for.”

  Six

  To Tucker, the lobby of the police station seemed cramped. He didn’t often enter this domain. But this Monday morning, he was on a mission.

  Colt Del Rio was on duty behind the desk. The cop looked up when Tucker entered, gave him a nod. “What’s up? Read the call sheet from Saturday night. Your place get hit again since then? Damn kids. I bet I know who did it. That Tremaine boy is at the top of my list. Kid’s in Tibby’s class at school. He’s a troublemaker, a bully who picks on the younger kids. Girl or boy makes no difference to Oliver, who he leans on and slaps around. Don’t envy the uncle none.”

  Tucker let him finish his rant but realized Oliver might not be fooling anyone. Everyone seemed to have figured out the kid was bad news. He cleared his throat. “No, no, the store’s fine. That’s not why I’m here. If it’s possible, I’d like to see Brent. It’s important.”

  “Always is. Chief’s on the phone. Gladys Hargitay thinks someone’s been peeking into her windows at night. Chief’s trying to calm her down.” Colt shifted in his chair and pulled a Tupperware container out of his desk drawer. He popped off the lid and held the contents out to Tucker. “Want a Girl Scout cookie? Naomi and I have a huge stash leftover from March. They’re snickerdoodles. They’re good. Go ahead, take a couple.”

  Tucker reached in and grabbed two.

  “Have a few more. We’ve got plenty.”

  The phone on the desk rang, and Colt picked it up, began jotting down information on an official-looking notepad.

  Tucker shifted his feet while he waited. The minute Brent’s voice echoed out into the lobby, hollering for Colt, Tucker made his move, stepping inside the Chief’s office. “Got a minute?”

  “Sure. Is Colt on the phone?”

  “He’s taking a report from Murphy. I think someone tried to break in.”

  “Damn. It’s a crime wave around here. What can I do you for?”

  Tucker went into his spill, explaining about Tessie’s drowning and the questions he had about her death.

  Brent sat back in his chair. “Wait a minute. You want to see the death certificate from an incident that occurred twenty-seven years ago? Why don’t you just ask ol’ Joe for it?”

  “Old Joe won’t even take my calls. And that incident was a supposed drowning that involved my sister, a supposed accidental death. But here’s the deal. I tried to request a copy last night online from Sacramento, but the software couldn’t locate the file. I kept getting a popup message that said the record didn’t exist. First thing this morning I called the Registrar’s office. Some lady answered, told me she’d look it up, then came back on the line to tell me there was no such record of a Teresa Ferguson ever having died. It was August 1993, Brent. I was seven. I don’t have the date wrong. Don’t you think it’s odd no one seems to be able to locate Tessie’s death certificate? Do you see the problem here?”

  “And you want me to do what exactly?”

  “I want you to find the death certificate. Teresa Ferguson, Brent. My five-year-old kid sister drowned in that creek behind the house, a creek that’s barely two feet deep. She lived. She died. And I’d like to read her death certificate for myself. Is that so hard to understand?”

  “Of course not. I see your point. I’ll check into it. Give me a couple of days. Okay? It’s probably a simple case of filing in the wrong place. Or maybe the coroner misspelled the name. Believe it or not, but I’ve seen that happen.”

  Tucker stared at Brent. “The medical examiner gets the name wrong? Are you kidding? Talk about bureaucratic screw-ups.”

  After Brent assured him he’d figure out the problem, Tucker left the station unsatisfied with how the whole thing had taken a wrong turn. He just wanted to see the cause of death for himself in black and white, to verify what his parents had told him. But after getting the runaround, he doubted he’d ever known the truth—and that was on his parents. His mother might not have been around to confront. But his father was alive and kicking—just refusing to take his calls.

  For Bodie, she used yoga as more of a mental Zen than a workout on the muscles. Exercise yes, stretching for sure, but over the last year and a half, she’d learned to use it to achieve a more tranquil state of mind. Yoga wasn’t just for toning the muscles but calming the brain, adjusting the attitude.

  Bodie credited yoga with helping her to get her mind straight these past eighteen months. She often found herself waking up at five just to get in twenty minutes of meditation and exercise out in the stone-tiled courtyard that was her backyard. But she didn’t push yoga down anyone else’s throat. Her group of female friends never seemed to have the time to commit to it regularly, too busy with kids and husbands and work to bother. Which meant she left them alone to deal with stress whichever way they preferred while she focused on her own issues.

  She no longer believed she needed to become a master at the art, though. She accepted that sometimes she couldn’t quite get her body to cooperate, couldn’t quite pull off the crow pose or even the pigeon. Still, she could enjoy the way yoga made her feel without becoming a perfectionist at it—and stressing about getting it right every time seemed counterproductive. These days, she had more important things to worry about.

  Fortunately for Bodie, Ophelia had shared a passion for it and turned one of the Sunday school classrooms into a beginner’s startup group. On a rare day off, five women had come together to start their Monday morning stretched out on a yoga mat. The atmosphere here was undoubtedly different than the solitude working out alone at home. There was the camaraderie, the friendship, and the willingness to help each other get whatever they needed out of it.

  She knew most everyone who’d shown up. Abby Bonner was here because the Snip N Curl wasn’t open on Mondays. Jordan Harris had slipped away from the B&B to get in some mommy time away from the grind. And Keva had opted to start her week with a little exercise to decompress before heading to Reclaimed Treasures.

  Bodie curled out of the warrior pose and glanced up, spotting Kinsey Donnelly waiting for a chance to talk to her near the doorway. Grabbing a towel off the rack, she dabbed at the sweat on her forehead. “What’s up?”

  “Good news. Bad news. Which one do you want first?”

  “Coming from my lawyer, I’d say hit me with the good, gives me time to brace for the bad.”

  “Alex doesn’t want a court battle. So, his lawyers brokered a settlement with you at sixty-percent of what he took.”

  Bodie did a quick calculation in her head. “Okay. Sixty percent is better than nothing. What’s the bad news?”

  “He’ll give you twenty-five percent of what you expected to get from the IPO. And he wants you to sign a nondisclosure deal that says you’ll never come aft
er him again for more money.”

  “But I earned that money!” Bodie shouted, garnering a few stares from the members of the class. For more privacy, Bodie nudged Kinsey out into the hallway and lowered her voice. “Let me understand this. You’re telling me I’m getting a fraction of what I deserved from the IPO. Is that right?”

  “I’m afraid so. Alex is claiming he broke it off months earlier and moved out before the IPO was on the table, and that makes you entitled to a lot less.”

  Bodie tightened her jaw, beginning to lose whatever Zen yoga had provided a few minutes earlier. “You do know I can prove he moved out two days before the IPO, right?” She walked off to pace and then marched back. “Okay, fine, forget it. What do you recommend I do?”

  Kinsey let out a sound that fell somewhere between a low groan and a sigh. “I think you should take the offer or prepare for a long, drawn-out legal battle that could take years to get to court. And even then, you risk that a judge might throw out your claim at any time.”

  “Well, Alex isn’t an asshole for nothing. Okay, I’ll settle for the sixty percent and whatever amount he delegates to me for the IPO. I’ll consider the loss of my entire savings a valuable lesson learned.”

  “I really am sorry.”

  “No, it’s okay. You did great. I’m relieved it’s over, and that he’s out of my life for good. Now I can move on. After this, I don’t want to hear the name Alex Davison ever again, though.”

  “Can’t say I blame you. There will be paperwork to sign, and then you’re done with it. Him. Stop by my house sometime tomorrow. That will give his lawyers time to email me the documents. We can go over it all then. Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. Better than. Thanks, Kinsey. You’ve made my day. I’m so glad Gilly suggested I start over here.”

  “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t see you working as a nurse.”

  Bodie sputtered with laughter. “That’s because I can’t stand the sight of blood. I lasted for two semesters of classes before we moved into putting nursing skills into practice. It didn’t go well. The day they asked me to draw blood, I decided to pack it in and leave school.”

  “But didn’t you have an inkling before that?”

  Again, Bodie found the question amusing. “Let’s just say I didn’t have Gilly’s talent and leave it at that. She tried to help me. She did everything she could. But in the end, I wasn’t cut out for the medical field. I chucked school, packed up and moved to San Jose, got a job as Mr. Asshole’s right hand helping him get his company off the ground, and here we are. While I blew it, Gilly hung in there and look at her now.”

  “I suppose this goes without saying, but next time, get a written financial agreement before lending a guy money, any guy.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ve been listening to ‘I told you so’ from my mother long enough, and she won’t let me forget about my idiocy.”

  Kinsey laid a hand on her arm. “We all make mistakes. Don’t let this sour you on relationships.”

  “I was, letting it. But now I realize Alex and I were all wrong for each other. We had zilch in common. It was an error in judgment on so many levels.”

  “You do seem better. Glad I could help.”

  “I am. I’ll be fine.”

  “Good. Enjoy your day off.”

  “I will. Even better now.”

  Bodie took the news and went back inside to pack up her stuff. The class had finished, so she rolled up her mat and stuck it down in the huge bag she carried. The others were gathering up their belongings when they heard a rumble and a roar coming from outside.

  It had taken Bodie several years to get used to California’s earthquakes. But when she felt this roll coming from the ground, this tremor seemed different.

  “That’s not an earthquake,” Jordan pointed out as she darted to the window.

  Bodie followed. “It sounded like something collapsed.” She thought about the boathouse.

  “Yeah,” Keva put in, moving to stand behind Jordan at the window. “But I don’t see anything that could’ve made that kind of noise.”

  “It must be coming from the wharf,” Abby stated. “Could a boat have hit the pier?”

  Bodie cut her eyes to Jordan. “I don’t think so. Isn’t today when the engineers were starting work on the boathouse?”

  Jordan’s eyes widened. Yeah. We’d better get down there and find out what happened.”

  By the time all five women reached the docks, they could see the problem. It might as well have been a six-point-oh quake. The boathouse tipped at a slight angle in a southern direction. The wrecking crew stood to one side, peering down at the destruction. Work had come to a standstill while several engineers made their way closer into a mass of crumbled concrete. One support had broken free of the old, rusted-out rebar, leaving a pile of calcified, gray rubble in its place.

  “Go get the cops,” one of the engineers yelled. “I see bones down here.”

  “Don’t touch anything,” another man called out. “There’s also a skull.”

  Bodie traded looks with Jordan. “Did he just say bones as in remains?”

  “That’s what it sounded like to me. I distinctly heard the word skull, too. I’m gonna run and get Nick.”

  “I’m texting Seth right now,” Ophelia said, taking out her cell phone. “He’ll want to know what’s going on.”

  Bodie spotted Caleb and wandered over to where he stood. His face looked like he’d seen a ghost. “What exactly happened here?”

  “The left rear support just buckled when the first jackhammer hit it.”

  Bodie swallowed hard. “Okay. But what else is wrong?”

  “I’m getting a sick sense of déja vu. Maybe like I’ve been through this same thing before.”

  “What? Why?”

  “If you haven’t heard the sordid details about how my mother murdered my father, then you haven’t been paying attention.”

  “But…”

  Caleb went on, ignoring Bodie as if she wasn’t even there. “I’m just saying, if there are remains in that concrete pillar, it has to be foul play, homicide. How else would bodies end up in cement? When I was down there, I spotted two skulls. That means there are at least two people down there. Two, crammed into that support column, or what used to a column.”

  Colt Del Rio arrived first in his patrol car with the lights flashing. Then Eastlyn pulled up, followed by Brent, who had walked over from his house across the street.

  Caleb and Bodie watched as the three cops made their way down the beach to get a look at the remains, which were now within full view of the public.

  For the first time, Bodie could make out bones. The sight of human remains had her stomach lurching into a knot.

  Tucker came up behind her. “What’s going on down here? After I heard the loud boom, it seemed like the entire town ran past my window, heading to the beach.”

  Because she felt sick, Bodie let Caleb explain the gritty details.

  Tucker’s face contorted in a sickening realization. “Any idea how long they’ve been down there?”

  Caleb shook his head. “No idea. But here comes Colt to clear us out.”

  Sure enough, Colt began to string yellow crime scene tape along the pathway, cordoning off the perimeter. In a commanding tone, he announced, “Okay, people, Brent wants everybody gone. Everybody, no exceptions, off the pier. The coroner is on his way. And yes, before you ask, those bones are human. Now that you know that, no need to gawk. Go back to whatever you were doing. Just get off the pier.”

  Bodie watched the engineers and work crew abandon the site and stream along the dunes to where they’d left their vehicles in the hospital parking lot.

  “Who do you think they were?” Bodie said in a weak voice. “The victims?”

  “And how long have they been there?” Caleb added. “I’ll have to ask Landon about it, but my first question would be how long has it been since anyone touched that boathouse to do any work on it?”

 
“I sat on the planning committee for this project. There hasn’t been any work on the boathouse since 1985,” Tucker noted. “There are records that show the mayor brought in a crew to shore up the pilings then and poured new concrete. That was thirty-five years ago.”

  “Any missing persons not accounted for from that far back?” Bodie wondered aloud.

  “Not that I know of,” Caleb stated, turning to Tucker. “You?”

  Tucker lifted a shoulder. “Don’t ask me. I wasn’t even born yet, not for another year. But look at this place.” Another County squad car pulled up and parked at the end of the pier, screeching to a stop like it was an emergency. “It’s erupting into a scene we’ll likely see on the six o’clock news tonight.”

  Bodie felt a sudden chill off the ocean. “Poor souls. How long do you think before we find out who they were?”

  “Could be weeks, maybe months,” Tucker returned, a distinct sadness in his tone.

  “Enough of this,” Bodie said, looping her arm through Tucker’s. “If I’m not mistaken, I owe you lunch.”

  “It’s not even eleven o’clock yet.”

  “Even better. I have time to go home and make something special, get my mind off this.”

  For the first time since getting to the pier, he took a good look at the woman on his arm. Dressed in a strawberry-colored ribbed tank top that showed off her belly button and matching pants, she looked sexy as hell. How had he missed that? “You just came from yoga.” It wasn’t a question.

  “What gave it away?”

  He ignored the sarcasm. “You look cold.”

  “I wasn’t before I got here, but I am now.” She hefted her bag and pulled out a sweat top then yanked it down over her head. “There. That’s better.”

  “Lunch, huh? Do you cook?”

  “I make a mean tuna fish sandwich.” She elbowed him in the ribs. “I’m kidding. Do you trust me, foodwise?”

  “Sure. You trusted me with kabobs.”

  “Then, be surprised. I’ll be at the store at noon sharp. How does that sound?”