A Family of Strangers

by Emilie Richards

  Today he didn’t keep me waiting long enough to finish plotting my crime. He joined me from some room beyond the foyer and came to stand beside me. He’s a head taller than I am, and as physically fit as any man in his income bracket who golfs and works out with a personal trainer. He was wearing khaki slacks and a pale yellow sport shirt, along with a vintage Patek Philippe watch with a brown leather strap. One of two ex-wives had given it to him, and he’d kept it after the divorce because, as he’d told me, unlike the marriage, the watch would hold its value forever.

  “Good to see you,” he said, although he, too, was staring at his foyer art collection.

  “I’m plotting a heist.”

  He played along. “Great idea. I’d rather have the insurance than the art. Some dark night I’ll slip you inside and help you load the truck.”

  “It would be boring that way. I couldn’t get one good podcast episode out of that.”

  “So now you’re planning to provide your own material?”

  “No need, I guess. There’s such a wealth of it out there.”

  “You’ve chosen something to work on?” He held up his hand to stop me. “I thought we’d talk onboard. It’s a beautiful day to be out on the water. You’re game?”

  I had been on Sebastian’s yacht one time, a long day with people I had little in common with, although the food and liquor had been spectacular. Of course if Sebastian wanted me out on the water, out we’d go.

  I followed him to the lagoon side of the property where a long dock extended into the water. The yacht was nowhere in sight, but several smaller crafts were.

  “We’ll take the runabout.” He pointed to the end of the dock.

  I was relieved this was not a party, but surprised at his preference, a small red bowrider comfortable for only a few people. I shouldn’t have been. Sebastian does what he wants, and not to impress others. It was a perfect day for cruising slowly along the lagoon.

  At the end of the dock I stepped in, and after he cast off, he followed, motioning to the swivel deck chair beside his in the cockpit. The bowrider had a wraparound windshield, and bench seating in the helm. I stowed my handbag in a mesh net against the side that was nearest me and settled in to enjoy.

  At first, as we cruised slowly along a shore dotted with spectacular homes, Sebastian acted as tour guide. I learned that the lagoon was twenty-one miles long, with two inlets to the ocean, so what had once been fresh water had turned brackish, creating an estuary favorable to the growth of sea life. Although the lagoon had been polluted and abused through the centuries, now both the government, private citizens and environmental groups had come together to restore what they could. Oysters, birds and fish in abundance had followed.

  He pulled farther away from shore, out of a no wake zone and into a channel where he could crank up the outboard engine. I was enjoying the sun on my head and shoulders, the gentle motion of the boat and whatever cool spray dared to breach the windshield. When Sebastian asked me to tell him about the case we wanted to explore, I was happy to do it. As always, he asked insightful questions, but my answers seemed to satisfy him.

  “Send me what you have, but so far, so good,” he said.

  Pleased, I told him about another idea for a short series on Florida’s Stand Your Ground law. I wanted to keep listeners tuning in while we tackled our new cold case idea. I’d already done the footwork, taking suggestions from my former journalism professors for students who might like the job of researching and writing scripts.

  “Still a work in progress,” I said, “but I think we could have something to start with in six months or so.”

  He seemed interested in that, too, and again, I promised to send him everything I’d done so far. We chatted casually and after a while, he made a wide circle, and we started back the way we’d come.

  “You’re able to work while you’re in Seabank?” he asked.

  The question was only fair. I wasn’t making a fortune, but I was getting paid. “To be honest, not as much as I want.”

  “Why don’t you tell me what’s really going on.”

  I didn’t know what to say. Sebastian is both astute and crafty. He also has long arms that can reach into every corner of somebody’s life and extract whatever he needs. On the plus side, he’s also capable of absolute silence when it’s called for. Sebastian really doesn’t answer to anybody.

  “My sister’s disappeared.” I glanced at him. He wasn’t watching me, but he sure was listening.

  “Why and where?”

  This was a man who could help or destroy me. I knew if I equivocated, or worse, lied, he would probably know. From that point on he would never trust me again.

  “This is in confidence, Sebastian. Is that okay?”

  “Off the record then.”

  One journalist to another I told him about Wendy, from her first phone call all the way to Friday night’s visit to Against the Wind.

  “I know it sounds bad,” I said, finishing my explanation. “But you’d have to know Wendy to realize how impossible this is. She’s got everything going for her. She’s beautiful, kind, thoughtful—” I nearly stumbled over that remembering how little thought she’d put into what her absence might be doing to our parents or her daughters. “She’s smart and savvy, and she always plays by the rules,” I finished.

  “Then this is particularly hard for you, isn’t it? Because you know her so well, and you’re afraid for her.”

  I was grateful he understood. “I feel helpless, along with wishing I could shed some light on whatever’s going on.”

  He asked a few more questions, but my explanation seemed to satisfy him. “Do what you can on the podcast. You’re making headway even if you can’t work as hard as you want right now. Just keep me up to date.”

  I was happy when he changed the subject, happier still that he hadn’t offered to help find Wendy. Having Sebastian involved would focus attention where I didn’t want it.

  We were not far from his dock when he cut the motor, and we drifted as waves lapped gently on the sides of the boat. “Our neighborhood blight,” he said, pointing at a house set back from the water with only a roof visible through the trees.

  I saw peaks and spires that reminded me of Hogwarts Castle. “Kind of creepy. What’s it like in full view?”

  “Creepier. And there’s a story to go with it. Want to hear it?”

  “You’re asking a journalist if she wants to hear a story?”

  Sebastian has a nice laugh, deep and round. It’s rare and nicer because of it.

  “There was a murder there in the 1950s. The house isn’t actually too much older than that. It was built by an Englishman named Jonathan Peele, the youngest son of an earl, who wanted to re-create the manor house where he was raised. Rumor says he was chased out of England by older brothers and told never to return.”

  I was sorry we couldn’t get close enough to see it better. “What did people think of Peele and his little castle?”

  “I’m told they didn’t think well. He was haughty and something of a recluse and when he came out of hiding, he insisted everyone call him the Honourable Jonathan Peele. He married a young woman from New York, and then, mysteriously, she simply disappeared. Nobody knew what had happened to her, but years later, another wife took her place. And when he decided to introduce her to local society, that’s when the murder occurred.”

  Having grown up in Florida, I was surprised I’d never heard this tale. “This sounds like a lurid gothic novel. Or something very Agatha Christie.”

  “It does, doesn’t it? A huge party was staged, and everyone of note was invited. Most likely every guest wanted to see the new wife and learn what had happened to the old one. But the night of the party, they were greeted by security guards who turned them away. It seems Mrs. Peele—or would she be ‘Honourable,’ too? Anyway, she’d taken sick, and the master of the ho
use was at her bedside with a local doctor and didn’t wish to be disturbed.”

  I was entranced. The story was fascinating, and Sebastian told it well. “I assume she died?”

  “Unfortunately, yes. And when her body was carried out, the police went straight in and arrested Jonathan Peele. Eventually he was convicted of her murder, later ruled a death by arsenic. The house was abandoned for years, then sold and nearly demolished until it was saved and turned into a small hotel by a young couple from California.”

  “What happened to Peele?”

  “He died in prison, but five years ago, the maid who had attended both wives, admitted that she had poisoned them. She’d been hopelessly in love with Peele and wanted him for herself. Everything had worked against him, of course. He was unsympathetic. He had isolated himself, and there were stories about his past in England, along with the house itself, which everyone believed was a hopeless eyesore. He was tried in the public eye and convicted long before any court heard his case.”

  I digested everything, hypnotized by what had the makings of a great PBS series. “What a story, Sebastian. I can’t believe I haven’t heard it before this.”

  He was silent so long I thought he was finished. Then he turned to me. “You haven’t heard it because I just made the whole thing up.”

  I stared at him.

  “You believed every ridiculous word I told you, because it came from me. It never occurred to you I might lie. Maybe eventually you would have questioned it, looked it up and found no mention of the Honourable Jonathan Peele anywhere on Wikipedia or beyond, but for the moment, I had you hook, line and sinker.”

  I didn’t answer, so he went on. “Did the details make sense? If we got closer to shore, you’d see the house is actually fairly ordinary, once the trees aren’t blocking it. Ostentatious, yes, but what isn’t in this neighborhood? Would you have gotten closer just to check my story? I don’t think you would have made the effort. You wanted to go with the easiest explanation. And you thought you could, because you trust me. You can’t imagine why I might lie to you.”

  “There’s got to be a point to this,” I said, but I already knew what it was.

  “You don’t take anything with the podcast at face value, Ryan. You’re relentless and thorough, and you question everything. That’s why the first season of Out in the Cold did so well. Between you and Sophie, everything is examined, even when you’re leaning a different way. So why did your guard slip today? Why did you absorb my story without questioning anything I said?”

  Of course we were no longer talking about the youngest son of an earl, nor had we ever been. We were talking about the younger daughter of Dale and Arlie Gracey, and the older one, too.

  I heard myself repeat what I’d said to Sophie. “She’s my sister.”

  He started the motor again and angled his way down the lagoon. Only when we pulled up to his dock did he reply. “Those are not words to live by, Ryan. You know that, don’t you?”

  He was right, and worse? I was afraid putting family ties aside might be the hardest thing I would ever have to do.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  On the way back to Seabank I didn’t listen to podcasts. I had plenty of noise in my own head to keep me company.

  Sebastian hadn’t told his bogus fairy tale to ridicule me. He’d wanted to teach me a valuable lesson, and it had worked. Sophie had tried, too. But even though most of the time my family values privacy over intimacy and evasion over candor, we are still a family. Could I be the one who destroyed it?

  By the time I pulled into the town house garage, I could no longer pretend that Wendy’s virtues, the same ones I’d listed for Sebastian, were anything other than a younger sister’s illusions. I had always seen Wendy from a distance, even when we were standing next to each other. I had assembled my view of her from occasional thoughtful moments and gifts, and from my parents’ accounts. I knew about her achievements. I knew how many people admired her. But did I know her heart?

  At the town house I showered and changed before I left for Gulf Sands to pick up my nieces. Just in case my mother hadn’t fed them, I stopped by the grocery store on the way.

  Fifteen minutes later I was heading for the checkout line when I saw Ella Cramer, dressed casually today. I decided she must live in the neighborhood, too, and unless one of us wanted to change grocers, we had to clear the air.

  She started down the pet food aisle when she saw me, and not far from the cat litter I caught up to her. “Ella?”

  She turned, one hand still on the handle of the shopping cart. “Yes?”

  “I feel bad about the last time I saw you. I had no idea you weren’t at Gracey Group now, but you’ve always been one of my favorite people. I just wondered if we could maybe heal the tension and share a cup of coffee? My treat?” I nodded to the market café by the deli.

  “I’m sorry, I have other things I have to do.”

  I figured those other things were in the same category as untangling yarn or clipping toenails. “We don’t have to linger. You could give me your recipe for your wonderful turtle cookies.” I smiled, but she didn’t. “Or maybe you could just be honest with me and tell me what in the hell happened.”

  “So you can go straight back to your father and tell him I’m complaining about the way I was treated?”

  “He just had bypass surgery. We’re going out of our way not to upset him.”

  “And your sister?”

  “She’s out of town, and by the time she gets back, this will be old news.” I paused. “Old news I don’t plan to recount to anyone in my family.”

  “I still don’t see the point.”

  “Please?”

  As I was growing up, Ella kept a supply of Tootsie Pops in the bottom drawer of her desk, just for me. They had been our secret, but she’d never been able to deny me if I asked nicely. Apparently the habit had held.

  She sighed. “All right.”

  She didn’t speak again until I was sitting across from her at the café. I watched her carefully doctor her coffee. One packet of sweetener, one thimbleful of cream. She stirred so hard I was afraid I might get sucked into the whirlpool.

  I started, hoping to get her talking. “I can’t help thinking there must have been a big misunderstanding. My father valued you above all his employees.”

  “Not above your sister.”

  I nodded, as if that made sense. “So Wendy was part of the problem?”

  “Part?” Her laugh was humorless. “Your sister claimed I made a mistake, a huge mistake, one guaranteed to cost Gracey Group a small fortune. She told me the due date on a project had been changed, so I had more time to complete my part. Of course when the project wasn’t finished by the real due date, she went to your father with evidence that I’d screwed up the timing for everyone.”

  “She had evidence?”

  “I don’t have to tell you that evidence can be misinterpreted.” She paused, and then she leaned forward. “Or manufactured.”

  I nodded again. I was beginning to feel like a bobblehead doll. “So it was just one incident?”

  “Heavens, no.”

  I waited, hopeful she’d continue without prodding, and boy, did she. First a whirlpool, and now, a tidal wave.

  “Wendy wanted your father to think I was slowing down, or worse. To be blunt, she wanted Dale to think my mind was failing. For a while, even I began to wonder. Paperwork disappeared off my desk, documents I was sure I’d left there, correspondence I had to answer. Computer files were erased or damaged. Once a set of figures I had taken an entire morning to gather ended up in the recycling bin. Even worse, not everything I’d accessed to assemble them was still on my computer. So I had to reconstruct and print out the entire document again, while your father and several valuable clients were waiting.”

  “That must have been awful.”

  “I
wasn’t the one who finally located the original. Another employee found it and handed it over to Wendy. Of course she couldn’t have been sweeter or more helpful. I must have had a late night, she said, or I’d been working too hard. She certainly wasn’t going to tell Dale what had happened.”

  Ella’s job at Gracey Group had been complex, with many different facets. My father had always said she did the work of three people, and he couldn’t begin to imagine how she kept everything so neatly compartmentalized in her head. Maybe Ella’s position really had become too complicated, and she hadn’t wanted to complain. Or maybe the constant changes in technology had finally gotten to her, and she hadn’t kept up with the best ways to proceed.

  But worse than a simple age-related slowdown? Maybe my sister had discovered a good reason to send Ella on her way. And that’s what I needed to know.

  “Did you and Wendy have disagreements? Did she have a reason to want you out of the office?”

  She looked at me as if I were a stranger. “Are you asking if there’s a possibility your sister might have had a good reason to want me gone, something that has to do with her and not me? Or are you trying to find an excuse for what she did?”

  “I’m just trying to get to the truth.”

  She reached for her purse. “It’s over and done with.”

  “Ella, it’s not really over and done with.” I struggled with the best way to phrase the next part. “Will you tell me if Wendy directly influenced Dad to get rid of you? My mother told me the opposite.”

  “Your sister is very good at saying one thing and meaning something different.”

  “You have no reason to help me, but I’m trying to figure out a few things. I need to know if you think Wendy set you up or had reason to.”

  She got to her feet. “There wasn’t and isn’t anything wrong with my mind, Ryan. You and Wendy have a special relationship. You think I haven’t always known what you are to each other? I’d really be a fool to think you want to discover the truth. No matter what your father or anybody else thinks, I’m not now nor have I ever been one.”