Dune to Death

by Mary Daheim

  “Huh?” Renie was caught off-guard by Judith’s comment.

  Judith’s expression grew quite earnest. “Don’t you see what that sly devil is up to? He’s trying to divert us with this treasure hunt. He’s lying there in bed, worrying, afraid we’ll get ourselves into serious trouble. So to prevent us from tracking down the murderer, he’s pretending the treasure map could be the motive. It doesn’t wash.”

  “But it is possible,” countered Renie. “Face it, coz, you were pretty excited about that map at first.”

  “That’s true,” Judith admitted. “But the more I think about it, the less enthusiastic I am. There’s something wrong about the whole thing. Still, the only way to prove the point would be to take a stab at finding the treasure.” She made a face. “Joe knows that, too. Damn his Irish hide.”

  Renie burst into laughter. Judith stared at her cousin. “What on earth’s the matter with you?”

  “Congratulations!” Renie reached across the table and slapped Judith’s hand. “After twenty-five years, we’re done with Dream World! You sound as if you’re really married!”

  The color rose in Judith’s cheeks. But she laughed, too. Sort of.

  TWELVE

  AFTER JUDITH AND Renie had lunched on rare roast beef dip sandwiches, french fries, and green salad, they stopped off at Pirate’s Lair to change out of their funeral attire. When they got to the motor inn around two-thirty, there was no sign of Darren Fleetwood’s red sports car. With a sinking feeling, Judith approached the front desk.

  “Is Mr. Fleetwood still registered?” she asked the ponytailed clerk whose name tag read Kari Ritchard.

  Kari checked her computer. “Mr. Fleetwood left about an hour ago. We have a noon checkout time, but he was a bit late. I think he’d been to a funeral.” Her smile was sympathetic, showing a perfect set of dimples.

  Judith glanced at Renie. “He left town?”

  Kari blinked. The question obviously struck her as odd. “Yes. I suppose so. That’s what most guests do when they check out. At least in this kind of motel.” Her tone seemed to imply that Judith must be used to a different sort of establishment.

  “It’s just that I didn’t expect him to head back to Malibu so soon,” explained Judith, trying to bail herself out. “We were at the funeral, too, but I didn’t get a chance to talk to him then.”

  Kari seemed placated by Judith’s words. “Oh. I see. Well, he did say something about being late for an appointment. Perhaps you could still catch him.”

  “Ah. Okay, we’ll try. Thanks.” Judith all but knocked Renie over in her haste to get out of the lobby.

  “What the hell are we doing?” panted Renie, running to catch up.

  Judith was already in the cul-de-sac, headed for the carport. “We’re going to find Darren Fleetwood. My guess is that he’s gone to see Brent Doyle. Who else would he have an appointment with?”

  Sure enough, the sleek red sports car with its California plates was pulled up in front of the building that housed Brent’s law office. Renie started to get out of the MG, but Judith stopped her. “Let’s wait here.”

  “As Grandma used to say, it’s hotter than Dutch love in this sun,” complained Renie. “Why isn’t this heap air-conditioned?”

  “Because it’s old,” retorted Judith. “Like us. Now stop bitching.” The weather was making both cousins cranky.

  “I’ll stop bitching when the temperature gets below seventy-five. It’s not supposed to get hot at the ocean. What happened to the breeze and all that nice fog?”

  “It’s almost July. If you were back home, you’d be whining about how insufferably stuffy your upstairs bedroom gets at night. At least it cools off a little down here.”

  “I went to San Francisco once on business this time of year and had to buy a coat. The fog was so thick I couldn’t see the step on the cable car until I got on board. Then the wind came up off the bay and I was practically blown right off Nob Hill…”

  “Hold it.” Judith was gazing through the windscreen at the curly-haired young man who had come out through the entrance to the office building. His chiseled good looks made it easy for Judith to see how a woman such as Leona Ogilvie could behave in a foolish, adolescent manner. “Come on, coz,” said Judith, “let’s strut our stuff.”

  “What stuff?” muttered Renie, but she joined Judith in getting out of the car.

  “Hi, Darren,” Judith called with a friendly wave. “Are you coming back to Pirate’s Lair with us?”

  The young man stopped, stared, and tried to speak. On the second attempt, he got out two words. “No. Why?”

  Judith had strolled over to the red sports car, neatly blocking the driver’s door. “I heard you inherited the beach cottage. We’re staying there. I thought you might want to see it before you drove back to California. You’re more than welcome to give it the once-over.”

  Under his tan, Darren had grown pale. “No. No, thanks,” he said on a softer note. “Another time, maybe. I want to get home by tomorrow. I didn’t plan on staying this long in the first place. Anyway, I’ve been inside the house once. It’s very nice. Great view.”

  “Oh—of course,” said Judith, with a catch of her breath. “Monday night, right? You and Leona were at the beach cottage while I was picking my cousin up in Salem.”

  Darren gave a vague nod of assent. He didn’t seem particularly distressed by the revelation. The hot sun was beating down on Judith, making it hard for her to think on her feet. She was trying to assess Darren Fleetwood, to gauge the emotions that rippled in his dark eyes. Fear? Anxiety? Grief? Judith couldn’t be sure. The uncertainty clouded her approach.

  “I’m sorry about your loss,” she said, finally relying on a platitude. “Actually, we’ve never officially met.” She introduced herself and Renie. Darren Fleetwood accepted their hands with a trace of suspicion. “The family told us about you,” Judith said truthfully. “I hope you and Leona were able to have a happy…reunion.”

  “We were,” said Darren, faintly bitter. “If you want to call it that.” He edged toward the sports car, apparently trying to figure out a way to dislodge Judith without resorting to a body block.

  Renie had come around the front of the car, and perched herself on the hood. Darren winced. “Did you meet her in California?” inquired Renie. “Or up here, on a previous vacation?”

  Darren’s face twisted in puzzlement. “I’d never met her before in my life. What are you talking about?”

  Taken aback, Renie stammered slightly. “I—I thought Amy Hoke said you knew Leona from…That is, there’d been…”

  “Letters,” Judith supplied, taking a wild, if logical, guess. The conversation didn’t seem to be running at all along the lines the cousins had expected.

  “Yes, we’d written.” Darren frowned, then took his keys out of his back pocket, and swung them meaningfully at Judith. “That’s why I came to Buccaneer Beach.”

  Darren Fleetwood was only about two feet away. Judith had no choice but to move. Perspiration trickled down her back. There were sun spots in front of her eyes. This was probably her only chance to nail Darren Fleetwood, and it was rapidly slipping away. Or was it melting, like she was?…

  “She must have thought a lot of you,” Judith hazarded, as Darren opened the car door. Renie jumped off the hood.

  He swung his long legs across the leather seat. An ironic expression crossed his face as he looked up at Judith. “I should hope so. After all, she was my mother.”

  He started up the engine and backed quickly out of the parking lot. Judith and Renie stared speechless as the red sports car became a blur on Highway 101.

  “Oh, brother!” Judith flopped onto the blanket she and Renie had put on the sand for their postswim enjoyment. Or at least that had been their plan the previous day. Unfortunately, such simple pleasures could become complicated. Renie didn’t know how to swim, so she was forced to paddle around in the water like an awkward spaniel. Judith discovered that her back, which had seemed to have got
ten much better, did not do well fighting the waves. And most of all, there was the matter of Darren Fleetwood, son of Leona Ogilvie. The announcement had rocked the cousins down to their summer sandals.

  “At least the water is pretty cold,” Renie allowed, taking a sip of Pepsi from the hamper they’d brought with them to the beach. “We should have done this before. I mean, we are staying at the sea, aren’t we?”

  Trying to ease her back, Judith rolled over onto her stomach. “We haven’t had time,” she groaned. “We’ve been too busy playing detective.”

  “Which is what you’d still be doing if I hadn’t been on the verge of heatstroke,” said Renie. “I’ll bet Brent Doyle wouldn’t have told us anything anyway.”

  “Maybe not.” In truth, Judith hadn’t argued very hard when Renie had insisted on returning to Pirate’s Lair instead of rushing into Brent’s law office to verify Darren Fleetwood’s claim. Doyle, Renie argued, wouldn’t cooperate, given client confidentiality. And Renie, near heat prostration, didn’t want to hear it anyway. Since Judith was also undone by the weather, a dip in the ocean sounded like the only thing that would revive her flagging mind and body. “Somebody else may know the background on Darren and Leona. We’ll assume he’s illegitimate. We can also assume the family doesn’t know about him. Amy and Augie didn’t, so my guess is that neither do Larissa and Donn Bobb.”

  “If Leona was a mother, there’s got to be a father somewhere,” said Renie, untangling the straps of her red and black bathing suit. “Any candidates?”

  Judith had already given the matter some thought. “Not really. Darren must be midtwenties, maybe even close to thirty. What we need is somebody who’s been around this town forever.”

  “What about Jake?”

  Judith shook her head. “My choice would be a gabby old lady who can remember all the gossip. Jake knows the male-type stuff, like who worked as what, and which buildings went up and came down, and all that factual information. I’m thinking of female-oriented data. You know—like dirt.”

  Briefly, the cousins fell silent. The beach was very crowded, the town overflowing with visitors for the Freebooters’ Festival. Among the would-be kiteflyers, joggers, suntanners, surfers, bikeriders, strollers, swimmers, and picnickers were a good many people with copies of the place mat treasure map. Even though the hunt didn’t officially kick off until Saturday, some of the more eager seekers were getting a sneak preview.

  “An old lady with a long memory and a loose lip,” murmured Renie. She shot Judith a sidelong glance. “Are we going back to the hospital this afternoon?”

  Judith’s closed eyelids flickered. “Do dogs bite mail-men?”

  Renie nodded. “Mrs. Wampole, Jake’s Love Goddess in D-208?”

  “You got it,” said Judith.

  “No,” smiled Renie. “You do. I already did Mrs. Wampole when I borrowed her magnifying glass and got the family history. She’s all yours, coz.”

  Mrs. Wampole was every bit as cute as Jake Beezle had reported. A small sparrow of a woman close to eighty, she had fluffy white hair and an enchanting smile. Her bright, birdlike blue eyes might cause her problems up close, but Judith felt she didn’t miss a trick. A blockage in her colon, she confided to Judith, that had been the problem, but there was no malignancy. Wasn’t that wonderful? Judith agreed that it was indeed.

  It took over a quarter of an hour to steer Mrs. Wampole onto the Ogilvie-Hoke ménage. Once started, however, there was almost no stopping her. Leone Ogilvie’s death was, after all, a sort of triumph for a woman of Mrs. Wampole’s age. It struck Judith that with the demise of other, especially younger, people, the elderly often considered their own survival a personal victory over the Grim Reaper. She remembered Grandpa Grover, reading the daily obituaries, and always concluding, “Well, I’m not in there. Again.”

  Mrs. Wampole adjusted the frilly pink bed jacket that rested on her slim shoulders. “Poor Leona! Not much over fifty! Tsk-tsk!” She shook her head. “A violent end, at that. How very sad. But you might have seen it coming. That family has a penchant for trouble.”

  “You mean Race Doyle and the cheese factory?” Judith offered.

  “Oh, that, of course, but even earlier. Angus Ogilvie and Dorothy Metz. Mrs. Ogilvie, that is, but not after a lot of bother. Dr. and Mrs. Metz—he was an old-fashioned country practitioner, very strict with his girls—didn’t approve of Angus. He was right off the farm, and it wasn’t a very prosperous one in those days. The Depression, you know. But they ran off and got married, and Angus worked so very hard. He had an unpleasant temper, but there wasn’t a lazy bone in his body. The next thing you know, he started a creamery. Then it grew into the cheese factory, right after the war. The Second World War, I mean. Angus’s father had been crippled in the Great War, you know. I think that may have been what turned Angus away from God. He had to be the man of the family while his father sat around and stared at his military souvenirs. Alice and Leona were born during the last war, about a year apart. Homely little pieces, but then you shouldn’t judge by looks alone, should you?” Mrs. Wampole gave Judith the complacent smile of a woman who could have gotten by on looks alone, thank you very much.

  “There were beaux, of course. The Ogilvies had made quite a bit of money off that cheese. Alice wanted to go away to college, but her father wouldn’t hear of it. Worse yet, Leona felt the call to be a missionary. Angus was up in arms, I’ll tell you. He was an irreligious sort, and at one point I think he tried to get the City Council to leave out the part about ‘under God’ in the Pledge of Allegiance. Naturally, they voted him down.”

  Mrs. Wampole’s spate of recollections halted long enough for the surly nurse’s replacement, also stout but not nearly as surly, to deliver dinner. “Oh, my!” smiled Mrs. Wampole. “How lovely! Chicken croquettes! Or is it meat loaf?”

  Whatever it was, Mrs. Wampole ate with appetite. Judith took the opportunity to ask a direct question, “Wasn’t Race Doyle one of those young fellows who dated Alice? Or was it Leona?”

  “Alice,” said Mrs. Wampole. “She turned him down for Bernard Hoke. Race was considered ‘fast.’ He sold used cars. Then he did something with freezers. And real estate. Angus and Dorothy weren’t at all pleased about Bernard, but he was a better catch than Race. To this day, I think that after Angus passed on, Bernard gave Race that job managing the cheese factory as a sort of consolation prize. It wasn’t wise, Race being such a rogue, but I’ve always wondered if Bernard didn’t feel just a little guilty about stealing Alice. The marriage turned out well, I suppose, since Bernard made quite a bit of money in construction. At least in the good times. It’s an unpredictable business, you know.”

  “So Leona never married?”

  “No, she was devoted to her missionary work. I don’t believe she ever dated much. The boys who asked her out never got very far. Her reputation was spotless.” Mrs. Wampole spooned up some nasty-looking red Jello with green lumps. “Except for that New Year’s Eve incident.” She gave a little shrug. “Just talk, I’m sure. You know what small towns are like.”

  “What was the talk?” Judith noted that Mrs. Wampole didn’t seem the least bit surprised at her probing questions. No doubt the old lady was only too pleased to have an audience. In a similar situation, Gertrude would have told her interrogator to take a hike.

  Mrs. Wampole cocked her head to one side. “Oh—let me see…It was back in 1960, the year Mr. Kennedy was elected. I remember, because Angus Ogilvie made such a fuss about a Catholic getting into the White House.” She gave Judith her enchanting smile. “I’m Jewish, you know, but I certainly didn’t think there was anything wrong in electing a Catholic. Did you?”

  “No, not at all,” answered Judith, automatically fingering the Miraculous Medal she wore under her green cotton top.

  “Really, people get so upset about the Pope! You’d think he was some sort of spiritual molester!” Sadly, she shook her head. “But I mustn’t lose track of what I was saying. What was I saying?” Briefly, she l
ooked muddled, then snapped her fingers. “Oh, yes, about Angus and Mr. Kennedy. The Ogilvies had a party on New Year’s Eve to announce Alice’s engagement to Bernard Hoke. Race Doyle showed up drunk.” She clucked her tongue once more. “He made a scene, and Leona tried to calm him. Finally, she got him out of the house, but she didn’t show up again until Bernard brought her home the next morning. Everybody in town said he’d found her with Race Doyle, but that was just gossip, I’m sure. It all died down a few weeks later when Alice and Bernard were married on Valentine’s Day, and Leona went off to learn how to be a missionary. Angus Ogilvie wasn’t at all happy about it, but he couldn’t stop her, could he?”

  Judith conceded that he probably couldn’t. Her brain was working swiftly, calculating dates and other possibilities. Would Race Doyle have taken his revenge on Alice by seducing her sister? Perhaps. Could he be Darren Fleetwood’s father? Maybe. Had Leona Ogilvie left town because she was pregnant? It was a plausible theory.

  It took Judith a few moments to tune back into Mrs. Wampole’s ongoing saga. “…with a background like that,” Mrs. Wampole was saying. Judith focused on the old lady, who was happily chasing boiled peas around her plate. “You just knew he’d end up in jail. He would have, too, if he’d been caught.”

  Judith realized Mrs. Wampole had been talking about Race Doyle. “You blame his parents?” It was a guess, but a logical one.

  “Well, yes, isn’t that what I just said?” She gave Judith a faint look of reproof. “Really, Mrs. Doyle had no morals whatsoever. Loose, that’s what she was. And Mr. Doyle, running that speakeasy…Oh, it had supposedly become respectable by the time Race was born, since Prohibition was over. But it was still frequented by a very question able element. I never wish bad luck on anyone, but I was just as well-pleased when it went out of business.”