Treasure Built of Sand (Palmyrton Estate Sale Mystery Series, #6)

by Hubbard, S. W.

  We pull sweatshirts from our suitcases and head right out the back door onto the dunes. Our toes sink in the deep, soft sand as we head toward the water. Once we reach the hard-packed sand where the surf comes in, it’s easier to walk. The sand feels cool on our feet, and the fresh salt breeze ruffles our hair. There’s not a manmade thing in sight on the horizon, just the vast ocean.

  We pause to watch a little boy digging in the sand with his father. The boy fills up a turret-shaped bucket then watches attentively as his dad flips it out of the mold for him.

  “You do the next one, Teddy,” the father says. “Pack the sand in real tight.”

  Teddy’s little, pink tongue peeks from the side of his mouth as he concentrates on his task. But when he flips the mold, some of the sand stays stuck in the bucket and the turret is missing one of its parapets.

  “It didn’t work right.” His lip trembles.

  “No need to cry, buddy,” his father says. “It still looks good.”

  But I can see Teddy is an architectural perfectionist. “You know what I do when that happens to me?” I crouch down beside him and offer him a shell. “I put a little decoration on the broken part and then it looks like I planned it that way.”

  Teddy takes the shell from me, still dubious about my advice. But when he’s placed the shell, his eyes light with satisfaction. “You’re right! That looks better than the other tower.” To complete the effect, he sticks a gull feather flag on top.

  The father smiles his thanks, and we continue walking.

  “You’ll be a great mom,” Sean whispers and hugs me close. The only other living creatures we encounter are a flock of tiny plovers pecking for food in the sand and a big ugly horseshoe crab. Most of the dune-top houses we pass are dark.

  “Wow, look at that one.” The other houses we’ve passed are relatively new, but this one is a giant shingled Queen Anne with a wrap-around porch painted in cheerful yellow and blue. “That looks like it was built in the late 19th century.”

  The wind whips a fine salt spray into our faces. “Must cost a bundle to keep that big pile painted and repaired in this climate,” Sean says.

  We venture a little closer to look up at it. The path leading to the house is marked with a series of stern No Trespassing and Private Property signs. “Guess they must get a lot of curiosity seekers. People probably think it’s a bed and breakfast.”

  I take Sean’s hand as the breeze gets stiffer, and the sunlight slips away. When we reach a long stone jetty, we turn around to come back. My husband pauses and looks out at the horizon. “In just four days, my parents will be on the other side of that ocean for the first time in their lives.”

  “Did I tell you your mom called me yesterday to ask if she’d be able to fit into the restroom on the plane?”

  Sean shakes his head. “She’s already asked Colleen and Deirdre that several times.”

  “I guess she figured her daughter-in-law was more likely to give her the unvarnished truth. I reassured her that she’s not even close to being the biggest person to fly coach to Ireland.”

  “Did you ever travel with your father when you were a kid?” Sean asks.

  “Never. He’d go off to math conferences, but he always went alone. Every summer my grandparents would rent the same house on Cape Cod for two weeks, and I’d go up there with them. They didn’t like change. The notion that you’d go on vacation to see sights you’d never seen before horrified them. Too stressful.”

  “Talk about stressful—you shoulda been on our family vacations. Every year we loaded up the station wagon to go camping. Every year, Terry threw up in the car. Every year, it rained, and our sleeping bags got soaked. Every year, we came home early. Brendan says the whole point of those vacations was to make us grateful for our bunkbeds and shared bathroom at home.”

  Sean eventually made it to Europe on a backpacking trip the summer after college, and I went during a semester abroad program, but we’ve never taken a long trip together. “Do you want to go to Ireland?”

  “Honestly, I’d rather go to Greece. It’s sunnier and the food’s better.” Sean puts his arm around me. “Someday you and I will go to Europe.”

  “Not if we have a baby.”

  “We’ll drag him with us and make him miserable looking at ancient ruins. Or we’ll leave him with my mom. She was just complaining the other day that Brendan’s kids are getting too big to need her anymore.” Sean pulls me around to face him and tilts up my chin with his index finger. “Stop worrying, Audrey. Life’s going to present us with obstacles. But you and I have the resources to overcome them.”

  I walk the rest of the way back to Brielle’s house thinking about what Sean said. He’s right: no one’s life is devoid of problems. But we’re both smart and healthy and we love each other. We have all we need to make our life together successful.

  Sean and I share a bottle of wine and the gourmet carry-out feast we brought here from Palmyrton. Then we make love in Brielle’s luxurious guest room. The rhythmic sound of the waves crashing against the shore plays constantly in the background.

  “Isn’t that relaxing? How could anyone be tense here with that sound lulling you, sleeping or waking?”

  “Mmmm.” I stretch my naked legs against the cool, satiny sheets and in minutes, we’re both asleep.

  IN THE MIDDLE OF THE night, I jolt awake. An unfamiliar hulk at the end of the bed stimulates my heart into overdrive.

  Where am I?

  Then I remember. Sean and I are at Brielle Gardner’s house. That shape across the room is a tall chest of drawers. My heart quiets.

  But what woke me?

  I hear Sean’s steady breathing beside me. Through the open window, I hear the sound that surrounds this house: the distant whoosh of the waves hitting the shore.

  And then I hear voices. Shouting.

  That’s what woke me. Someone is down on the beach.

  I slip from underneath the covers and pad to the open window.

  The moon illuminates the whitecaps of the ocean. Where the waves stop, I see the beams from several flashlights crisscrossing. Borne on the ocean breeze, men’s voices float up to me.

  “We shouldn’t move him.”

  “We have to. The tide will carry him away.”

  The tide will carry who away? “Sean, come here. Something’s happening down on the beach.”

  A light sleeper, Sean is at my side before the words are out of my mouth. “I think they found someone hurt on the beach.” I shiver in the fresh breeze. “They’re worried the tide will sweep him out to sea.”

  Sean peers over my shoulder. “I’d better go out there and see if I can help.”

  I grab his strong forearm. “Wait. You don’t know who they are. Maybe the guys with flashlights are the ones who hurt the other person.”

  Sean slips away from me and heads into the bathroom attached to our room. The window there faces the house next door. He pulls up the shade. “There are three police cars parked on the road. Those guys on the beach are cops.”

  Now I know Sean won’t be left out of this action. I pull on some clothes and follow him downstairs, determined to watch from the deck. The clock on the oven reads 3:35 AM.

  A few minutes after Sean disappears through the dunes, an ambulance pulls up on the street. Two men carry a stretcher down the path between Brielle’s house and the neighbor’s.

  I see lights come on in that house as they are awakened too. With the balmy days and cool nights, every house that’s occupied has its windows open. Out on the deck, I can hear the neighbors’ voices.

  “What’s going on? Why are there cop cars here?” The female voice sounds young, a little whiny—maybe a teenager.

  “How should I know?” Another female voice, but lower-pitched. “My god, I have an important conference call at nine. I’ll never get back to sleep now.”

  Their back door opens and a girl in droopy flannel pants and a ratty t-shirt comes out onto the deck. Her hair stands up in tufts. In the moonlig
ht, it appears to be pink. She pads over to the deck railing and cranes to see what’s happening on the beach below. “They’re putting someone on a stretcher,” she calls out to her mother. “I’m going down there.”

  The door flies open and bangs against the house. A heavy-set woman in a clingy nightgown charges out. “Sophia, don’t you dare leave this house!”

  But the girl is already halfway down the tall deck staircase. I see her plowing recklessly through the deep sand.

  “Sophia!” The mother shouts from the deck, hugging herself in the cool breeze. But she may as well save her breath. Sophia is on her way, and the mother clearly has no intention of running after her.

  I feel like an eavesdropper, but I’m certainly not hiding standing here on Brielle’s deck not fifty feet away. The woman turns back to the house with an exasperated shrug and lets out a shriek when she notices me. “Who are you?”

  “Hi. My name’s Audrey Nealon. My husband and I are staying here for the weekend.”

  She squints her eyes suspiciously. “Brielle never rents out her house.”

  I don’t owe her an explanation, but I don’t want any trouble. “I’m getting Brielle’s house ready for a contents sale. She’s redecorating. Brielle’s letting me stay here while I organize the sale.”

  The neighbor crosses to the side railing of her deck to get a closer look at me. Her arms are crossed over large, pendulous breasts, and her shoulder length hair whips in the breeze. “Oh, you’re the one. Brielle did mention you’d be coming. I’m Jane Peterman and that was my daughter, Sophia. We live here full-time.”

  As soon as she introduces herself, a scream pierces the night. Then we hear Sophia’s high-pitched voice. “Oh. My. Ga-a-a-wd! It’s Trevor!”

  Jane’s attention swivels toward the dark beach. “Sophia? Sophia! Come back here now.”

  A cop appears out of the darkness supporting a weeping girl who keeps looking over her shoulder.

  They are followed by the EMT workers making the return trip toward their ambulance.

  The form on the stretcher is covered from head to toe.

  Chapter 5

  “Late night dog walker found the body. It was pretty badly decomposed. Fish got to it.”

  The horizon is beginning to brighten when Sean takes a seat across from me in Brielle’s pristine kitchen. Contrary to my belief, she does actually keep food products in the house, and I’ve made us both a mug of coffee as Sean tells me about the scene on the beach. “But the local police think from the clothing that it’s this teenager who’s been missing for a week. Trevor Finlayson. Apparently, he left a suicide note. And the pants on the body had rocks in the pockets.”

  I put my hand over my mouth. “How horrible! So he just walked into the ocean and waited to sink? That’s an awful way to die.”

  Sean stares into his coffee cup. “Sure wouldn’t be my top choice.”

  “What about our neighbor, Sophia—she knew the boy?”

  “Yeah, that was a bad scene. The girl came charging up. I grabbed her arm, but not before she got an eyeful of that corpse. The local cops were already speculating that the body was Trevor since that was the only missing person they had, but Sophia recognized his sweatshirt. Bumford-Stanley School Lacrosse.”

  I clunk my coffee mug down. “Bumford-Stanley is in Palmyrton.”

  “Yeah, according to the local cops, the family has a vacation home here in Sea Chapel, and this is where Trevor was last seen, but Trevor is from Palmyrton, and that’s where he went to school.”

  I tilt my head toward Jane and Sophia Peterman’s house. “The neighbors live here full time, so Sophia must go to the local high school, but she and Trevor were friends.”

  “The town of Sea Chapel is less than two miles long. The cops told me there are fewer than one hundred houses that front the ocean, and a thousand more inland. The off-season population is about two thousand people. That swells to ten thousand in the summer. So I’m sure all the rich regulars know each other.”

  Sean gets up and paces around the kitchen. “What could possibly be so bad in a seventeen-year-old’s life to make him do that? The cops said he’s from one of these wealthy families with the big houses.” Sean shakes his head. “Probably thought his life was ruined because he didn’t get into Harvard or something.”

  “I read that suicide is one of the leading causes of death among people ten to twenty-five.” I didn’t have a sunny childhood, but I sure don’t recall feeling that kind of despair.

  Sean stares out the window at the beach. “Seventeen years ago, the Finlaysons were posing their son for adorable baby pictures. Today they’re planning his funeral, and they don’t even have an intact body to bury.”

  THE BODY ON THE BEACH has cast a pall over our romantic getaway. Sean has gone into the small study to read in a space where he doesn’t have to see the waving yellow crime scene tape. I go upstairs to do some pricing. After all, this weekend wasn’t meant to be all play and no work.

  In the upstairs hallway, I hesitate. What shall I tackle first, the master suite or Brielle’s son’s room? Perhaps if I start with the smaller room, I’ll get my mojo back and feel more energy to tackle the huge master bedroom.

  As I enter Austin Gardner’s room, I’m struck again by its impersonality. No teenage boy would have chosen that soft watercolor seascape or that shelf filled with model antique cars. Does his mother impose her formidable taste on his room in Palmyrton, too? Or is the kid allowed to have a few tacky posters of sports heroes and music icons there?

  I open a dresser drawer, and I’m surprised to find clothes inside. A few well-worn sweat shirts and pairs of basketball shorts—the kind of basic clothes you’d leave at a vacation house so you don’t have to pack them every time you come. I make a note to ask Brielle if she wants them returned or if, like everything else, they should go into the sale. As I take a quick picture to send to her, I notice the sweatshirts are emblazoned with a school name: the Bumford-Stanley Academy, Palmyrton’s premier private school. No surprise that Austin would go there. So he too must know Trevor Finlayson.

  The closet and other drawers are empty. I guess Brielle just overlooked this one.

  I know that all the sheets and towels in the linen closets are to be sold. I check Austin’s bed to see if it’s been stripped. No, there are blue striped sheets under the duvet that will have to come off. I pull the pillowcases off the fluffy pillows, then pull the fitted sheet off the mattress. Naturally, Brielle has the highest thread count, deepest pocket sheets, so I really have to tug to get the far fitted corner out from under the mattress. It resists my efforts, so I slide the mattress slightly off the box spring. When I do, a folded 9 x 12 business envelope falls to the floor.

  I pick it up and scan the front: it’s addressed to Austin Gardner at a post office box in Palmyrton. The company name printed in the return address is AG Solutions, Boulder CO. On the back of the envelope is a list of seven names written in extremely precise block printing:

  Brenna

  Mason

  Graydon

  Ava

  Trevor

  Clark

  Sienna

  Prep school teenager names, for sure. Kids Austin wanted to invite to his next party? Kids he had a grudge against? Kids in the running to be valedictorian?

  None of my business.

  I put the envelope in the drawer with the forgotten clothes and continue with my work.

  Half an hour later, Sean appears in the doorway to the bedroom with a sly smile on his face. “Our sleep was interrupted last night. Can I interest you in a nap?”

  I grin and drop my iPad.

  No doubt about it: sex is more interesting in a new setting. The fresh sea breeze, the call of the gulls, the steady rhythm of the waves all contribute to a very enjoyable romp. Still, I have a hard time staying totally focused on the matter at hand. Is this the encounter when we’ll finally achieve our goal?

  Sean pauses. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. Everyth
ing’s great.”

  His eyes narrow suspiciously, but I pull him into a tighter embrace and push images of madly swimming sperm out of my mind.

  Afterwards, Sean dozes off, but I remain awake. I raise my knees on the off chance that this old wives’ tale really might help the swimmers find their mark. I feel so powerless. The more I read medical articles about conception, the more extraordinary it seems that anyone ever gets pregnant. So many challenges to overcome to create a new life. And the whole battle plays out deep inside me.

  It’s a fight on my turf, yet there’s nothing I can do to affect the outcome.

  Oh I know—eat healthy, get plenty of rest, blah, blah, blah. I’m talking about a true intervention. I don’t like being a passive bystander, sitting back and waiting for the magic to happen.

  Why haven’t I gotten pregnant yet? I’ve never had any of the diseases or conditions that can limit fertility. My sisters-in-law all conceived in two months. Hell, Deirdre got pregnant the fourth time when she was using an IUD!

  The only strike against me is my age. Thirty-six.

  I think about my lady parts shriveling up inside of me, and a tiny hiccup of a sob escapes my mouth. Sean’s eyes flip open.

  It never ceases to amaze me how he can move from asleep to totally alert in a blink.

  “There is something wrong. You’re crying.” He smooths back my hair and brushes a tear off my lashes.

  I bury my head in his shoulder, so he doesn’t watch me when I say the words. “I’m letting you down because I can’t get pregnant. You should have married someone younger. I’m probably all dried up.”

  “Audrey, Audrey. What would I do with a young girl?” Sean nuzzles my ear. “She wouldn’t know who Monica Lewinsky is. She wouldn’t remember episodes of Third Rock from the Sun. She wouldn’t want to listen to Weezer.”

  “What if I’m too old to get pregnant? What will we do?”

  “We’ll adopt. But it’s too early to consider that. We haven’t even been trying for a year yet.”