Murder on a Silver Sea (Myrtle Grove Garden Club Mystery Book 3)

by Loulou Harrington

  “Yes, she is.” Bethany took a sip of coffee and balanced her pastry plate on her knees. “She’s a Cavalier. A Cavalier King Charles. Lady Jane Grey is her full name, but we call her Lady.”

  “We?” Sophia asked with the sort of quiet encouragement that Jesse so admired in her mother.

  Being a naturally dominant person, as well as a prominent widow who sat on the board of her husband’s oil company, Vivian Windsor was a master at the art of disarming others when she chose. And being a nurturer at heart, Sophia could put a mouse at ease in a room full of cats. Jesse herself didn’t have any of these skills.

  Instead, she was a problem solver, an organizer, a cut-to-the-chaser and a defender of those born with a less prickly nature than she possessed. Jesse accepted that she intimidated without meaning to, sucked at backing down, and couldn’t seem to control her inclination to right other people’s wrongs with the slightest encouragement.

  Jesse had been watching the new arrival since the woman walked through the gate, and what she saw was a worried frown on an otherwise smooth brow, signaling a person with a recent problem. Nervous and hesitant in seeking the assistance of others, Bethany O’Connor obviously wasn’t comfortable in the role and didn’t do it on a regular basis.

  If Jesse were guessing, and she was, she would guess that Winnie had persuaded Bethany into doing something she didn’t want to do. Either that, or she was facing a situation she felt incapable of handling on her own. Either way, Jesse felt herself drawn to the newcomer and curious about the dilemma that brought her to them.

  “So, Ms. O’Connor.” Jesse offered a smile, hoping to make the other woman more comfortable and not less so. “Winnie told us that you had something you would like to talk to us about. If you’re wanting an opinion, we can probably offer one or two.”

  “Or more,” Vivian added. “We usually have several each.”

  A quick answering smile crinkled Bethany’s cheeks without chasing away her frown. “I hardly know where to start,” she answered quietly. “And I’m afraid I’ll only be a nuisance to you. It’s probably all in my head, anyway.”

  “Why don’t you just tell us what’s bothering you,” Sophia urged in a tone guaranteed to soothe.

  “Well, I don’t know how much Winnie told you, but I’m a companion to an older lady, a Mrs. Amanda Carmichael.”

  “Amanda Oglethorpe Carmichael?” Vivian asked with obvious interest. “Brandon Carmichael’s ex-wife? Of the Mayestown Oglethorpes?”

  “Why, yes. Do you know her?” Bethany leaned forward eagerly, no longer seeming quite so out of her element.

  “We were young brides coming out into oil society at the same time. She was a few years older than I was, and she came from money, whereas I didn’t. We were never what you would call close, and once she and Brandon divorced, she just seemed to disappear.”

  “It was shortly after the divorce that she hired me,” Bethany confided. “Amanda planned to travel abroad and needed an assistant and companion to travel with her. I was widowed, with no children, and was strapped for cash after settling my husband’s debts. I spoke a smattering of French and Spanish and had always dreamed of seeing Europe. So we decided we’d be a good fit. That was fifteen years ago.”

  “So you’ve been living abroad?” Sophia asked encouragingly.

  “Part of the time,” Bethany agreed with a nod. “Mrs. Carmichael also has a home here, just outside of Myrtle Grove. And lately we’ve been spending time at an estate she recently bought on a small island in the San Juan’s. Off the coast of Washington,” she explained, just as Jesse drew a breath to ask where.

  “It’s a big Queen Anne Victorian,” Bethany continued. “Mrs. Carmichael likes to escape the summer heat there.” Without warning, her shoulders twitched in a shiver that appeared to travel the length of her spine. “I’m not too fond of the place myself, especially now. It’s a grand old house, but very isolated. And there’s something sort of spooky about it, at least to me.”

  “Why do you say ‘especially now’?” Jesse asked.

  “What do you mean by ‘spooky’?” SueAnn said almost at the same time.

  “Spooky, I guess because it’s just her, me and Lady alone with a housekeeper I barely know, and a few distant relations of Mrs. Carmichael’s who work for her and sometimes travel with us.” Bethany shifted uncomfortably. “I hate to sound ungenerous, but entirely too many people seem to be hovering in the shadows waiting for her to die.”

  “Oh, dear.” Sophia’s soft words were followed by a tsk-tsk that was barely audible.

  “And what do you mean by ‘especially now’?” Jesse asked again.

  “Especially now, because I think somebody is tired of waiting.” Bethany leaned forward, her face drawn with tension. “I don’t have any proof, and Mrs. Carmichael won’t hear a word about it, but I think somebody’s trying to kill her.”

  Chapter Two

  There was a gasp from Sophia and SueAnn. Jesse refused to show her reaction because she frankly didn’t know what to think. A glance toward Vivian revealed a glow of triumph radiating from her, unvoiced. Catching Jesse’s eye, Vivian allowed herself one quirked brow and a regal nod of acknowledgement.

  “Is there anything specific that’s happened, dear?” Vivian asked, graciously turning her attention back to their guest. “You say you can’t prove it, but I’m assuming something has occurred to arouse your suspicions.”

  “A stomach upset after something as simple as soup,” Bethany responded with a shrug. “A bout of lethargy for no good reason, and then one morning I couldn’t wake her. Not at all, so I called an ambulance—thankfully we were at the Myrtle Grove house and not on that island in the middle of nowhere—anyway, they found almost triple the normal amount of her sleeping prescription in her system. She’s convinced she just took too much, but I help lay out her medicine, and I don’t believe that.”

  Sophia frowned, and Jesse worked to keep her own expression blank even though she was thinking that as people grew older, things happened. People, including Ms. O’Connor, became more forgetful. Digestive systems became more temperamental. People took too much medicine by accident. It was routine, not nefarious.

  “That’s it?” SueAnn asked. “If that happened to me, I wouldn’t think anything of it, and I’m nineteen.”

  “It is a bit thin, dear,” Vivian said with all the encouragement she could muster. “Is there anything more?”

  “I said it wasn’t much, and I didn’t have any proof.” Bethany O’Connor sounded despondent, with a hint of desperation. “But I know what I know, and there’s something not right. It would be so easy for Amanda to be nudged over the edge and to have it ruled accidental or natural causes. And no one seems to care. It’s not fair to write someone off just because they’ve gotten a little older.”

  “Well, I certainly would agree with that,” Vivian said.

  “Count me in,” Sophia added.

  “Oh, good grief, stop it.” Jesse hoped she hadn’t sounded snappish, but really… Vivian was in her seventies, and Sophia was sixty-nine, and no one was nudging them toward any edge. “No one is doing that,” she said.

  “The people surrounding Amanda are,” Bethany insisted with a lot more spunk that she had shown only moments earlier. “She just turned eighty, and all of a sudden, they’re hovering like vultures. Well…” Bethany gave an emphatic bob of her head. “If they succeed in killing her, they’ve got a surprise coming, I’ll tell you that.”

  “Wait a minute. I’m afraid I’m getting confused.” SueAnn’s hands went up to halt the conversation, while her voice sounded almost as peevish as Jesse’s had. “The woman ate something that didn’t agree with her and took an extra sleeping pill, which is easy to do if you’re taking sleeping pills. And now her greedy family—employees, whatever—are going to be disappointed if she does die. That means you know something you’re not telling us. So how are we supposed to offer you any kind of advice that means anything if we only know a part of what’s goin
g on?”

  Jesse felt like a proud mother. Those criminology classes of SueAnn’s were obviously starting to have an effect, and the point she just made was one everyone else had missed.

  Bethany looked stunned, then sheepish. “Gosh, I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. You’re absolutely right, and that’s the real reason I’m here.”

  “Oh, my heavens, that’s right!” Winnie exclaimed, breaking the silence she had maintained. “The dog!”

  Despite her intentions to let Bethany tell the story her own way, Jesse just couldn’t resist. “Dog?” she asked. “That dog?”

  She pointed to Lady, chin on paws, big eyes staring up, with her fluffy, fur-dripped tail gently tapping the ground.

  “Yes. Lady,” Bethany answered. “If anything happens to Amanda, everything is in a trust, and it all goes to Lady. She inherits everything.”

  “The dog,” Jesse said again, expecting to be corrected.

  “Inherits everything,” Bethany confirmed with a nod.

  “Well, I’ll be,” Sophia murmured. She stared down at the dog, who had returned to napping. “Is that legal?”

  “Oh, yes,” Vivian answered, not waiting for Bethany. “I had a friend who set up a trust fund for each of her four pets—two dogs, a cat, and a hamster. The living arrangements were very complicated between the cat and the hamster, as you might imagine. But the trust funds for the pets were in addition to the arrangements for her human relations. Do I understand you to say, Bethany, dear, that Amanda is leaving nothing to any of her surviving relatives? And no one is aware of that?”

  “They were never in her will, specifically. All of her brothers and sisters and their children have predeceased her. The people who work for her are distant relations at best. And they seem to spend half their time wandering around the house doing a mental inventory when they think no one’s watching.”

  “Still,” Jesse said, “they sound more unpleasant than dangerous.”

  “But they’ve become dependent on her, and by giving them jobs, I’m afraid she’s given some of them aspirations as well.”

  “And you’re sure she doesn’t plan to leave anything to any of them?” Jesse asked again.

  She still didn’t see any hint of danger in anything she had heard. And while Bethany O’Connor might be a bit high strung, she didn’t seem to be a terribly imaginative person, either. Certainly not someone who saw bogey men where there were none.

  “Mrs. Carmichael is painfully blunt about such things,” Bethany said, giving a sniff and a toss of her head. “I have been with her for fifteen years. Her companion virtually day and night. I have seen her through some of her darkest hours. And I will receive the same salary and benefits to be companion and guardian to Lady Jane Grey after Mrs. Carmichael’s demise as I earn now.”

  Back ramrod stiff, hands cupped in her lap, Bethany might have been reciting a grocery list for all the emotion she showed. “When Lady is gone, the entire remaining estate goes to charity, and I receive a sum equivalent to five years’ salary to tide me over while I seek other employment. Mrs. Carmichael is not a sentimental person, nor a particularly generous person. But she is usually even tempered and fair, and I don’t have any complaints.”

  Jesse felt as if she had just witnessed a repressed performance straight out of a Jane Austin novel. She didn’t know whether to be suspicious or just feel sorry for someone who could put the last fifteen years of her life into such a small, sterile box. And was that a tiny bit of self-pity that she detected toward the end?

  Then Jesse looked over and saw the worry on Winnie’s face. The last thing Winnie needed right now was to be taking on Bethany O’Conner’s problems in addition to her own, which meant that Jesse would have to do it instead.

  “Well, all right then,” she said, suppressing the sigh that screamed inside her. “I think that what we need to start with is a list of the people who work for Amanda Carmichael.”

  “And some background on them,” Vivian added.

  “Also, anything suspicious you might have noticed.” Jesse offered a smile of encouragement to the woman who still sat stiff and straight with her hands clenched in her lap. “Do you think you could do that within the next couple of days?”

  Bethany jerked her head in a nod. “Yes. Yes, I could. So you believe me then?” She scooted forward in her chair by several inches. “It’s just that, if I can’t keep a grown woman safe, what chance have I got to keep this poor, innocent animal safe?”

  As she talked, her hand left her lap and dropped down to cup Lady’s head and jostle her ears lovingly before sweeping further down the dog’s neck to pet the soft fur across her shoulders.

  Turning toward the hand that petted it, the little spaniel licked the inside of Bethany’s wrist, nuzzling its head into its master’s palm.

  And that was when Jesse finally understood. Amanda Carmichael was an employer, and Bethany felt loyalty to the person and the job. But Lady Jane Grey was something else entirely. Somewhere along the way, she had become Bethany O’Connor’s dog, and the care and protection involved there was mutual and born of love.

  While Bethany cared what happened to her employer, she was desperate to keep her dog safe, no matter what.

  “I understand.” Jesse rose to extend her hand, committing herself in that moment to doing all she could, little though it might be. “We will do what we can to help you.”

  Bethany took Jesse’s hand and gripped it with fervor as hope appeared on her face for the first time. “Thank you.” All the emotion she had been hiding flooded to the surface, and tears shone in her eyes. “Thank you.”

  “Get us that list,” Jesse said, feeling her own emotions surge and hoping no one else noticed.

  “You’ll have it tomorrow.” Bethany smiled, a beautiful smile that lit her face and lifted her bowed spirit. “Thank you.”

  Lady Jane Grey rose, wagged her tail to the assembled group, and then fell into step beside her human as they found their way back through the gate and out of sight.

  “What in the world are we supposed to do?” Sophia whispered.

  “Are we out of our minds?” Vivian’s question couldn’t be called a whisper, but at least she appeared to be trying. “You know I love this detective stuff, but there’s nothing here.”

  “It’s…” was all Jesse got out before Winnie interrupted.

  “I’m so-o-o sorry. She seemed so upset. I thought she had more than that…”

  Jesse held up her hands to stop them all. “It’s okay!” she insisted. “The woman is worried about her dog. I will do what I can to help her, and since there’s probably no real danger to Amanda Carmichael in the first place, then there’s no danger to the dog, either.

  “The dog?” Vivian asked, nonplussed. “That’s what this is all about? The dog?”

  “I believe so,” Jesse said.

  “But you told her we would do something, and you’re not actually planning to do anything,” SueAnn protested.

  “Of course I am, sweetie,” Jesse assured her. “We just need more than smoke and mirrors and things that go bump in the night.”

  “Which she is providing with the list,” Sophia said. “Do you really think we’ll learn anything from that?”

  “If there’s anything to learn, I think it will help.”

  SueAnn frowned, still not sure. “That’s not very promising, Jesse. You do realize that, don’t you?” Then, growing thoughtful, she asked, “And how are we supposed to help her, if all we’ve got is vague suspicions that don’t point to anyone?”

  “Good question, grasshopper.” Jesse reached over and tousled SueAnn’s curly, red hair. “Too bad I don’t have an answer.”

  Chapter Three

  The next day the staff was wrapping up the last of the lunch run at The Gilded Lily Tea Room and Coffee House when Winnie marched through the private kitchen entry and headed straight toward Jesse.

  “Look!” Winnie extended a cell phone, face screen out as she neared her target. “Just look at th
is.”

  “What?” Jesse paused in the middle of assembling a plate with half an egg salad sandwich on home-baked bread, sweet potato fries, and a tomato, basil, and feta salad. “Just tell me. That’s too small for me to see from here.”

  SueAnn stopped beside the tray that already held a plate of vintage English china. Covering the design of pink roses was a grilled three-cheese sandwich and a spinach, kale, and mango salad.

  “They’ve already got their tea,” she said. “I just need that plate.” She grasped the tray by both handles and looked expectantly toward Jesse, who finished quickly and had barely released the plate before SueAnn whisked the tray away and headed back out into the dining room.

  “It’s lunch time, Winnie. What’s so important?” Jesse squinted toward the phone’s face screen. “Is that an attachment of some sort? Who’s Ladyjane5?” She crinkled her nose and leaned closer. “The dog? You have an email from a dog?”

  “It’s from Bethany. The attachment is the list you asked for. But that’s not the important part. The important part is that they’re leaving.”

  “Leaving?” Sophia moved closer. The baking dish of freshly roasted vegetables she had just taken from the oven was forgotten on the counter. “Bethany and Mrs. Carmichael? Leaving for where?”

  Winnie turned the phone to where she could read the message aloud. “List is attached. Hope it helps. Are in a frenzy of packing for surprise trip to the house on Annalise Island. Don’t know why. Amanda being secretive. Hate this. Will let you know more when I do. Thanks for help. Don’t forget me.”

  “Annalise Island? What’s Annalise Island?” Jesse asked.

  “The island in Washington?” Sophia guessed. “Poor Bethany sounds so distraught.”

  “I guess it must be that island,” Jesse said. “Must be frustrating to be dragged around by someone else’s whims.”

  “Except that Bethany spent almost ten years following Amanda around the European countryside,” Winnie pointed out. “And the letters I got from her then sounded pretty darned happy.”