Annie starts down the steps. “Charlotte’s house is just a block this way, so let’s walk.” We pass through the driveway gate, which Craig and I always leave standing open, and turn right onto the sidewalk. Small patches of late afternoon sunshine provide a little warmth, but this is not so in the deep shade of the arching tree limbs and Spanish moss, where the chill is deep. My feet are cold, and I wish I’d changed out of my sandals.
“Do all six of your children live in the area?”
“Yes. Their daddy died when the oldest ones were in high school, so as soon as they graduated high school, they got jobs in the area or went to college around here before settling down. My Abbie, the lawyer, she went off for law school and talked about staying up in Georgia, but then wouldn’t you know it, she fell in love with a man whose one great goal in life was living at the beach although he’d never even seen the ocean. And I’m not being cute about this being his one goal. She’s as driven as they come, but…” She looks sideways at me and rolls her eyes. “He hangs out down at the beach and bartends, sometimes, and that’s it.”
I match her sigh with a shrug and add, “Sorry about your husband. That must’ve been hard.”
“It was, but it was a long time ago. How many kids do you have? Where do they live?”
“We have four. Twin girls are the oldest, then two boys—not twins. Most of Craig’s career we moved around the Midwest, and that’s where they’ve all settled. Chicago and St. Louis for the girls, and both boys are in Wisconsin.” I pause as my voice catches. “Long way from Florida.”
She smiles and pats my upper arm, then waves her hand to my right. “Here we are.”
The sign on the sidewalk reads “Bellington Manor Inn.”
“Oh!” I exclaim. “I didn’t even put the name together. This place is beautiful.”
Annie holds an open hand up to me. “No. Do not mention the inn to Charlotte. Her daughter-in-law and son run it, and Charlotte hates everything about it. She pretends it doesn’t exist.” She points to the side of the property and straight ahead of us. As we continue for a few yards along the thick bushes and trees, there is a small path cutting off at an angle from the sidewalk. The path is obviously in the backyard of the inn, meandering away from the big house. As we walk down it, the air grows stiller and darker as we head right into the low, thick limbs of the trees. The massive limbs swoop almost to the ground. The path ends at an adorable little house, like something out of a fairy tale. However, before I can ooh and ahh, Annie shushes me and shakes her head sternly. “No, none of that. She hates this, too.”
Charlotte opens the door. “Thought I heard someone making their way through the woods,” she says from inside the darkened doorway. “Good afternoon, Annie. Good afternoon, Mrs. Mantelle.”
With a smile I step forward. “Please, call me Jewel.”
She sniffs. “I hardly know you well enough for that sort of familiarity. I suppose you should come in before the bugs and mosquitos back in this swamp carry us all away. Annie, you can serve us tea. The water is ready. Mrs. Mantelle, welcome to my home.”
She said ‘home,’ but her tone says she clearly meant ‘cell.’ “Thank you.” I follow her inside and try not to appear interested in the adorable place. So clean and open, it feels more spacious than my huge home, which is stuffed with dark, dust, and junk. I’m free to look and enjoy since Annie is keeping up a loud stream of conversation all by herself from the kitchen. There’s never a lapse in conversation with Annie around, I’m discovering.
Charlotte settles herself in a dusty-rose, high-backed chair. I sit in a chair across from her, with a back and seat cushion covered in the same dusty-rose silk fabric. A vase of cream roses scents the cool air, and it’s hard to shake the fairy tale feel. Annie bustles in with the tea service. She sits down on the sofa with the empty table in front of it, which was obviously just waiting for tea to arrive.
“Charlotte, had you ever met this Pierson Mantelle?” Annie asks. “I’ve racked my brain but can’t remember ever meeting him.” She doesn’t wait for an answer but continues jabbering on about town politics and gossip, which I know nothing about, as she pours hot tea into beautiful china cups. Seriously, it’s hard to keep my swooning to myself.
Charlotte seems to settle even further into the cocoon of her tall chair once she has her cup of tea in hand. She answers Annie as she waits for it to cool. “Oh, I’m sure at some point I met Mr. Mantelle. The Bellingtons and Mantelles go back many years as founding families. Seems a shame for things to be so peaceful here on Sophia and then be disrupted by something as horrific as murder. I blame so many new people moving in.” After a daggered look at me, she drops her focus to the rim of her cup, takes a sip, then places her cup back in the saucer. She locks her eyes back on me with laser focus, but speaks to Annie. “I suppose you’ve brought her here to find out what I told the police that sent them back to her doorstep.”
Annie laughs a bit. “Oh, is that what happened? I wasn’t sure.”
That got the Throned One’s attention. She slides her eyes to Annie, who looks so awkward on the little couch. She’s not only heavy, she’s tall. Big-boned. Her knees are as high as the sweet little table in front of her, and the armrests are way too low for her arms to rest on them. But she smiles and sips; only her rapidly blinking eyes give away that she is being visually gored by the queen.
“Of course that’s what you’re doing here.” Charlotte swings her eyes back to me. “Tell me, Mrs. Mantelle, why did you not tell us at lunch exactly who your husband was? What are you hiding?”
“Nothing. I didn’t even know he was this C. J. We never talked about his time here on Sophia Island.”
She sniffs and stares at me. “So. He’s a secret keeper. Not enough of those left in my opinion.” She actually relaxes her shoulders as she continues. “All this talk about sharing everything and communication in a relationship. Bah.”
She lifts her cup and says, “I’ll tell you what I told the police because it is neither here nor there to me. It’s just a fact, and I believe in facts. I saw a man on the docks while we were eating lunch. He looked out of place. He also appeared as if he wasn’t sure what he was looking for. I’d grown bored with the conversation and found watching the man more interesting than hearing another story about someone’s adorable grandchild or dog.” She takes another sip, rests her cup back in its saucer, and then sets the saucer on her side table.
Annie’s eyes are turned down, like she’s staring at her cup and saucer, which she has balancing on her knee. Her phone is buzzing away in her pocket, but I don’t believe she’ll take it out in front of Mrs. Bellington. Annie won’t even look up to meet my eyes. Why isn’t she asking Charlotte about this man? Finally, I break away from looking at her and ask the question myself. “Why would the police be interested in this man? What else did you see?”
Our hostess tilts her head to the side, away from Annie, and she squints at me. “Tell me, Mrs. Mantelle, what was your husband wearing today?”
I open my mouth, and it fills with the scent of roses and hot tea. The charming room suddenly feels too close. “He had on a white dress shirt and dark blue pants.”
She smiles, and I honestly prefer her sneer. “Ah, well, that happens to be what the man I saw was wearing. Tell me, does your husband have dark hair with just a touch of gray? Is he in decent shape for his age, and does he have a dark, full beard?”
My chest lightens. “No—I mean yes, he has dark hair and is in good shape, but, no, he doesn’t have a beard. Not even a mustache.” I grin at her and bring my cup to my lips as she leans forward.
“Ah, this gentleman also didn’t have a beard. He was clean-shaven.” She leans back and smiles like the spider feeling the tug on her web. “Hmm, sounds very much like your husband was on the docks today. Headed to his cousin’s boat, perhaps? His dead cousin’s, that is.”
When I look at Annie, she’s pulled her phone out of her pocket and is reading it. She looks up at me and nods.
I never realized sand had a smell until we moved here. The sand I’m talking about is not the sand pushed around on the beach, cleaned by the tides and the ocean winds, but the gray sand that makes up the yards and driveways in the old part of town. This sand is old. Old and fine. As I look down, I grimace at the layer of gray on my feet and sandals. As a mom, and chief laundress in our home, I know about dirt from all around the country.
Black dirt from the Midwest agricultural areas that leaves dark, almost black stains on a toddler’s pants. Red from the South, and from baseball diamonds, which makes red-orange rings on white socks and the knees of uniforms. Sand from the beach, which always came home from vacation with us by the buckets, but was very forgiving in the stain department.
This gray sand also doesn’t leave stains; it’s ghost dirt, so fine, so silky that it’s not noticeable at first. Now I’m choking on it. I miss my kids, especially our first grandchild, Carver. In Illinois we didn’t live in the same city as Carver and his parents, but it was less than an hour’s drive. When I come to our black, iron fence I grab hold of it and look up. So many times through the years, Craig came in from work and told me where we’d be moving next. There were no discussions; it was part of his job. Like my brother in the military, we went where we were sent and asked no questions. When this move came up and retirement was an option, there was discussion, but looking back, I don’t think it was that helpful. Being grandparents was so new that I don’t think I even thought about what all we’d be missing. And what about the new baby our other daughter will be having at the end of the year? No, we didn’t talk about missing the grandbabies.
I know I never thought of how odd or how different Florida would be. How much of a challenge this house would be. No, our discussion didn’t include any of those things. Matter of fact, when any of the kids brought up any concerns, I laughed and brushed them aside. Can’t worry the kids with my problems—not Sadie, who’s a new mom, or Erin, who was correctly preoccupied with being newly pregnant and moving to a new town. The boys were always busy with college things and their own plans for the future. I would never saddle them with our concerns.
Letting my hand run along the black, iron bars, I walk toward our home. I remember the pastor who married us and his premarital counseling long ago. One warning he gave us seems to have finally come true: “Neither of you are talkers, and neither one of you likes confrontation. You both actively work to avoid conflict. You are going to have to force communication, I believe, or end up at a distance from each other.”
Well, chalk one up for the preacher.
Chapter 8
“Mrs. Mantelle?” The young lady standing in our front porch’s shadows startles me as I approach our house. She steps out into the late afternoon sunshine. “I’m Abigale Bryant. My mom, Annie, sent me over.”
She waits at the top of the steps. Her long, black hair hangs in a thick braid over one shoulder of her light blue skirt suit. She holds out her hand when I finally step up onto the top step. I’d taken my time, a bit stunned and not sure what to say. Annie really thinks we need a lawyer?
After a swallow I say, “I’m not sure we need a lawyer, Miss Bryant. Your mother may be jumping the gun.” I shove open the door. “But I guess you can come in. I need to start supper.”
The young woman follows me in, and her eyes dart around like everyone else’s. She stops just inside the front door, both hands in front of her holding her shiny, new-looking briefcase. Both of our heads jerk toward the back of the house when we heard a door slam.
“Jewel?” Craig yells. “I’m home. Going to walk around the backyard for a minute with a Gatorade.” I hold up a finger to the lawyer, then dash into the kitchen where my sweaty husband is closing the refrigerator while twisting the orange cap off his drink. “Oh, you are home,” he says before he takes his first long drink.
I follow him out the back passage, past the butler’s pantry, and toward the back door. “Craig,” I demand to his back, although in a whisper. “Craig, we have to talk. Annie’s daughter, the lawyer, is here. Were you at the marina today?”
He swallows as he pushes open the back door and jogs down the back steps into our own personal jungle.
“I’m trying to breathe here, Jewel. Give me a minute.”
I also descend the few stairs but stop on the uneven brick patio and cross my arms, waiting for him to talk.
From behind us, Abigale says, “Here you are.” She dashes down the steps. “Mr. Mantelle, come over here. Hurry!” She says all this in a stern whisper. “My mother isn’t the only one that thinks you need a lawyer. My brother does, too. Aiden? I believe you met him and his partner, Officer Greyson, earlier today?”
“The policeman?” Craig asks.
She nods. “He gave me a heads-up that they are on their way back over here and won’t be going back to the station alone.”
Craig wipes his face with his hand and jerks around toward me. “Jewel? What’s going on? You said you only saw the body!”
“Me? I’m not the one telling lies about where I was this afternoon. And it was your cousin that was murdered. By the way, how did you even know he was murdered? Were you eavesdropping on me and Annie?”
Abigale steps between us, waving her hand toward the front of the house. “Stop. A police car just pulled up. They’re here. Don’t say anything about anything, okay?” She prods me up the stairs, then opens the door at the top for me to walk through in front of her. She holds it open insistently until Craig walks back into the house. In single file we march to the front door. When Abigale reaches for it, I brush her off and try to work my magic. “Hello, officers.”
“Mrs. Mantelle. Mr. Mantelle. Abigale.” Officer Greyson looks over his shoulder at his partner. “Suppose your mother sent your sister scurrying over here?”
Aiden lowers his face and mumbles, “Suppose so.”
Greyson steps toward Craig. “Mr. Mantelle. We need your fingerprints and to ask you a couple more questions.”
“Why? It was my wife at the marina, not me.”
“Craig!” I choke out, but once again, the lawyer interrupts.
“Hush, both of you. Is Mr. Mantelle under arrest?”
“We just need to verify the fingerprints on the scene are not his. That’s all,” Officer Greyson says. I start to breathe more easily, but then after a pause he adds, “For now.”
Craig folds his arms across his chest, his eyes closed. Then they pop open. “Sure. I’ll go with you. Why not? I’ve got nothing to hide, right? I wouldn’t know anything about this if my wife hadn’t come home talking about it all. Let me wash my face and change my shirt.”
With that Craig turns and heads up the main staircase, taking the steps two at a time.
I lay my hand on Abigale’s arm. “Will you go with him to the, to be fingerprinted? Should I go with him?” A knock at the door causes us all to look that way. “Excuse me,” I say, as I weave between them and open the door.
There stands Annie with four of the ladies from lunch today. Officer Greyson groans, but Annie ignores him. The ladies swarm in, surrounding me.
“We’re here to support our dear, dear friend,” Annie explains in the midst of snippets of support from the other ladies. Snippets said while their necks nearly break from whiplash. They try to look at me, but how can I compete with the Mantelle house? “You go right on and take Mr. Mantelle down to the station,” Annie continues. “Jewel will be just fine here with us.”
Aiden and Abigale hiss at the same time, “Momma!”
Greyson folds his arms. “Miss Annie, exactly how in the world would you know where we’re taking Mr. Mantelle?”
“Why, Officer Greyson, I assume that since our community has been rocked by this awful murder, you would be leaving not one stone unturned in exonerating the innocent. Right? Yo
u wouldn’t be wasting valuable time on a wild goose chase, would you?”
Her blazing eyes are on level with the officer’s, and he swallows as he takes a step back. “No, ma’am. Just, just, oh, never mind.” He turns and shouts, “Mr. Mantelle, let’s go!”
Craig strides out of our bedroom and down the stairs. He brushes by us all, ignoring me, the women, even the officers, to stride out the door, which is still standing open. “I’m ready. Let’s get this over so I can get back for dinner.”
The officers and Abigale hurry after him. Abigale waves at her mother and gives me a wink as she pulls the door closed.
Annie takes charge. “Jewel, you remember Tamela and Cherry, who were with us at the marina when we saw the body.”
I nod to Cherry, the tall, athletic nurse, and Tamela, the short teacher who had given Charlotte a ride.
“And then Lucy, who is our lunch group organizer.”
“Oh, Jewel, I’m so sorry about all this, but we’re going to fix it right up!” Lucy’s blonde hair is styled perfectly. She’s wearing a stiff khaki skirt and white golf shirt with Sophia Island’s logo on the breast pocket. From the talk at lunch today, I recall she’s on a lot of committees in town.
“Would you ladies like to sit down?” I ask.
Annie objects. “Oh no! We don’t have time for that. I’ve been busy since I left Charlotte’s.”
Tamela, the retired teacher, steps forward to lay a hand on my arm. “I couldn’t believe it when Annie said she took you to Charlotte’s. Oh my, she can be such a crotchety old woman! I consider carting her around my community service. Plus, she’s my landlord, so staying on her good side is a good idea, even if it’s darn near impossible.”
“Enough of that right now, Tamela. We don’t have long.” Annie pauses and turns to me. “Now, Jewel, I know you don’t know us that well, but we think we can help. You know. Help figure all this out. What did happen on the dock today?”
The Manatee Did It Page 4
