Murder, Mayhem and Bliss (Myrtle Grove Garden Club Mystery Book 1)

by Loulou Harrington

  “I hadn’t looked at it that close. Not sure I’d have recognized it anyway.”

  “So either she set the camera up to film them…” Joe’s mind raced ahead, building a bridge between the two deaths. “Or somebody else took the picture.”

  “See?” Arnie turned back to the waiting body on the autopsy table. “It’s sounding less and less like a coincidence all the time.”

  “Especially since our dead man apparently had this picture with him when he died,” Joe agreed.

  “Or someone else did.”

  “You’re reading my mind, my friend.” The sheriff returned the photo to the desk and started toward the door. “We’re still dealing with smoke and mirrors here. If that body doesn’t give you some hard evidence, we’re looking at the thinnest of circumstantial right now, and that’s just not going to get it.”

  Arnie stopped working, his lined face set in a somber expression. “We may have already missed one murder with that girl. If there’s anything here, I’ll find it. We’re not going to let another one slip by.”

  “No. We’re not,” Joe agreed.

  He left with his mind churning at a stew of facts, suspicions, and things that were just downright hard to believe. This whole thing was taking on tones of something deeper, more slippery and farther reaching than one not-so-simple death.

  Damn it all!

  ∙∙∙•••●●●•••∙∙∙

  “Was that as weird for you as it was for me?” Vivian asked.

  “Yes,” Jesse agreed, relieved that Vivian had spoken first. “Unfortunately.”

  After Bliss and Bill Marshall found them on the terrace, Cindilee Marshall had greeted her old friend with warmth, consoling Bliss for her loss with a sincerity that belied Cindilee’s earlier words. There was no hint of unease or distance for the gulf that had separated them in recent years. The past fell away, ignored, and the calf eyes Bill Marshall continued to cast in Bliss’s direction were ignored as if they, too, didn’t exist.

  Jesse found herself with the beginnings of a serious headache brought on by the effort of ignoring quite so much. She was relieved when the Marshalls excused themselves for an imminent departure. But before they could leave, Deputy Marla Murphy presented herself where they all still gathered on the side terrace between the kitchen and the herb garden.

  Surprise and speculation flitted briefly across the deputy’s face at the accumulated group before she caught herself and donned a strictly professional mask. After a few minutes of overly polite conversation and leave taking, the Marshalls left, and Bliss and Deputy Murphy withdrew on their heels to visit the Kerr home, now a possible crime scene that Bliss wasn’t allowed into without a guard.

  Alone finally, Jesse and Vivian sat across from each other on the terrace, soaking up the silence and the first absence of intruders, save for Jesse herself, since the earliest hours of the day.

  “It’s not my imagination, is it?” Vivian asked, continuing her opening thought. “He is in love with her, isn’t he?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Jesse agreed. “He’s in love with her. The question is, do any of them realize it?”

  Vivian huffed and rolled her eyes, a familiar gesture when facing something she didn’t like. Then she sighed. “I think his wife does.”

  “If I had to guess, I would say that, too,” Jesse agreed. “I would also say that she realizes that the other two aren’t really aware of their feelings.”

  “The other two?” Vivian echoed, looking stricken. “Oh, good grief, are you saying that Bliss is in love with him, too? We have enough on our plate as it is, Jesselyn.” Stricken had quickly been replaced with irate. “We do not need the two most likely suspects in love with each other.”

  “Suspects?” It was Jesse’s turn to be stricken, and a little panicked. “What do you mean suspects?”

  “The man is dead, Jesselyn.” Vivian leaned in and tapped the glass top of the table with a red-lacquered fingertip. “What are the chances that that despicable bastard died of natural causes? Huh? What are the chances?”

  Jesse stared at her, open-mouthed, while the headache she had almost escaped slammed into the back of her neck and clamped down. “What?” she finally managed. The word sounded as breathless as she felt. Surely, Vivian couldn’t be saying what it sounded like she was saying.

  Evil men could die of natural causes. Accidents happened to anyone. It had to be one or the other. It had to be.

  “We have a situation on our hands,” Vivian said, tapping the tabletop again. “And we can’t wait until it lands in our laps before we start doing something about it.”

  “We?” Jesse echoed in a voice that sounded more like a wheeze. If she weren’t a grown woman looking fifty in the eye, she would be squeezing her eyes closed, sticking her fingers in her ears and singing la-la-la-la-la. She did not want to hear this. But she couldn’t stop herself. “What do you mean?”

  “We might as well face it.” Vivian relaxed in her chair and crossed her arms in front of her. “The first person they are coming after is Bliss. Why else have they been circling around here the entire day? The spouse is always the first suspect.”

  A ferocity was creeping into the older woman’s demeanor that did not bode well for anyone, Jesse included. Vivian was an almost unstoppable force once she got going, and Jesse was always drafted as her primary partner in crime. And Jesse hated to prove Joe Tyler right, especially when she had just almost made peace with him. And, even more especially, so soon after she had almost made peace with him.

  “Let’s not go off half-cocked here,” she urged. “There is no indication that this was anything other than natural causes or accidental.”

  “And did you see that female deputy’s face?” Vivian demanded as if Jesse hadn’t spoken. “You think she doesn’t know who Bill Marshall is? You think she wasn’t wondering what he was doing here? Him and that butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-her-mouth wife of his.” Vivian punctuated her point with a disgusted huff and another roll of her eyes.

  Jesse tried again for a voice of reason, ignored though it might be. “In my opinion, getting all excited is not going to do anything but raise suspicions where there don’t need to be any.”

  Vivian shoved back her chair and rose to her feet. “We need to get busy before this thing gets away from us.” She sailed past Jesse, heading into the house, her determined voice carrying behind her. “We can’t just stand still while Bliss ends up in jail for something she didn’t do.”

  “You need a tranquilizer,” Jesse called after her. By the time she reached the kitchen doorway, Vivian was disappearing into the dining room.

  “That’s a good idea.” Vivian’s voice floated from the next room. “Bliss will need one, too, I’m sure. They’re upstairs in my bathroom medicine cabinet.”

  Hurrying to catch up, Jesse practically trotted through the kitchen. “Don’t you think we should all get some rest and then take a fresh look at this tomorrow?” she said hopefully, her words sounding breathless.

  “Jesselyn, a man has been murdered.” Vivian stopped in her march through the house and turned to wait for Jesse at the edge of the foyer. “And it’s about to be laid at our doorstep.”

  “Don’t say that!” Jesse recoiled at the word “murder.” “Really, Vivian, don’t. That doesn’t sound good.” Jesse’s hands fluttered in the air between them, as if she could shove the words back into where they came from, and her voice dropped to a whisper. “That sounds as if you know something. And you don’t want to do that.”

  “Denying the truth doesn’t accomplish a thing. And the chances of a man who was that despised dying of natural causes are too slim even to contemplate.”

  “Okay, fine. Just quit saying it out loud,” Jesse insisted. “There are too many people popping up out of nowhere for you to be talking about murder where you might be overheard.”

  “This is my own house!” Vivian cried indignantly.

  “Fat lot of good that’s done you today,” Jesse shot back. “It’s b
een a long day, Viv. Everybody’s exhausted, especially you and Bliss.”

  “I can’t help that,” the older woman insisted. “We’ve got a problem that’s only getting bigger, and we’ve got to deal with it before it gets out of hand.”

  “Okay.” Jesse didn’t like it, but she knew she had no choice but to accept it for Vivian’s sake. Further arguing wasn’t going to accomplish anything. “I just think we can deal with it better after some sleep,” she suggested grudgingly.

  Vivian nodded, taking the word “okay” as capitulation. “I’ll get the pills. I’m sure Bliss is going to need one whether she wants it or not. You get some more champagne from the fridge. We’ll kick our shoes off, put our feet up and try to find a sense of humor in all of this.”

  Jesse sighed and accepted the only compromise she would get from her companion. After all, the only real difference between sleeping and passing out was the hangover the next morning. “I may have to sleep on your sofa.”

  “I have seven bedrooms,” Vivian pointed out with mild indignation.

  “They’re all upstairs, and I’m not counting on being able to climb that far.”

  “Ah.” Vivian grinned, recognizing true surrender when she heard it. “That sounds like fun. We haven’t had a slumber party in years.” She turned and headed toward the sweeping staircase that dominated the foyer and flowed into an upstairs landing that spanned the two bedroom wings. “You might want to lock the front door on your way into the library,” she called over her shoulder.

  “Good idea,” Jesse answered from the kitchen doorway. “I’ll catch it on my way back.”

  “Uh, excuse me,” a female voice said softly. “But the door was open.”

  “Who the hell are you?” Vivian demanded. Brought to a halt on the staircase, she squinted into the shadows of the foyer below.

  Recognizing her mother’s voice, Jesse whirled around and headed back across the dining room at a run.

  “It’s me, Vivian. Sophia.”

  “Oh, well then, come on in,” Vivian called gaily as she once again proceeded up the staircase. “We’re about to have a party. I’ll be back down in a minute.”

  “Mother?” Jesse whispered. She was staring past her mother to the other person standing in the shadows just inside the front door and wondering if they could hustle that person back out before Vivian returned.

  “Hi, dear,” Sophia said softly. She stepped aside and motioned her companion forward. “I, uh, found this young lady outside about to knock. Dear, this is my daughter, Jesse. And this is Mr. Kerr’s assistant, Maria Ortiz. She was hoping to be able to talk to Bliss, I believe.”

  Jesse pressed both hands to her pounding temples. Of course, this was Maria. It wasn’t even that surprising that she would show up here. Why not? Everybody else had.

  With a wave of her hand, Jesse motioned toward the door to Malcolm’s study. “Take her into the library. I’ll bring the champagne, and a few more glasses. Oh, and Mother, would you lock the door while you’re there? Bliss has a key, and I believe everyone else on the guest list has arrived.”

  Chapter Nine

  “This is who?” Vivian demanded, holding aloft the pill bottle she had brought with her. Head thrown back, poised in mid-stride, she looked like nothing less than a thoroughbred who had just scented danger on the wind.

  “Maria Ortiz,” Jesse repeated. “Harry’s assistant. Bliss apparently asked to meet her here.”

  Vivian lowered her head, narrowed her eyes and fixed a speculative gaze on the newest unknown to enter her world. Then she set the pill bottle on Malcolm’s desk and moved closer. “So,” she said softly, “you were the keeper of Harold’s secrets.”

  “I was his assistant,” Maria answered carefully. “And, yes, part of that was honoring confidences. If your boss says he’s in a meeting because he doesn’t want to talk to someone, then you say he’s in a meeting.”

  Vivian smiled with the look of someone who’d just been given a present as she crossed the distance to her favorite wingback next to the fireplace. “I see you have a glass of champagne in front of you. I hope you don’t have any place you need to be anytime soon.”

  Maria shrugged. “I’m a little at loose ends right now. We’ll be closed tomorrow, and no one knows what will happen after that.”

  “Well,” Vivian said, rubbing her hands together, “the doors are locked and the bar’s open. Welcome to the war room.”

  Sophia gasped and pressed a palm to her ample breast, a sure sign of distress. Jesse lifted a glass of champagne and slipped it into her mother’s free hand. “Vivian thinks things are about to get serious,” she explained quietly into Sophia’s ear.

  “They are,” Vivian confirmed, while exhibiting truly excellent hearing. “And we need to be prepared.” She leaned slightly toward Maria. “It’s a personal thing with me. I absolutely hate to be caught flatfooted. I hope you don’t mind being dragooned into this planning session.”

  Maria’s young, pretty face looked slightly bewildered as she slowly shook her head. “No. I…this…” She shrugged. “It’s all just so awful. He wasn’t always the nicest man, but this is so…awful.” Maria leaned toward Vivian and dropped her voice. “What do you think is going to happen?”

  “Well…” Vivian smiled and swept her hand toward Jesse, who sat on the sofa between the other two women. “I’ll let Jesselyn explain it.”

  Caught by surprise, and just the tiniest bit peeved at having to justify someone else’s paranoia for an audience, Jesse took the time to down half of her champagne flute before speaking. Then she set her glass on the coffee table, cleared her throat and dove in, having decided that she might as well get some things out of the way before Bliss got back.

  “Before we get to that,” Jesse said gently. “Could you tell me what happened at work today? Was it the police who informed you about Harry?”

  Maria nodded, her curly dark hair shifting softly with the movement. “They came by late in the morning. We had heard rumors by then. You know, people driving by his house and seeing all the cars. But we didn’t know for certain until a couple of deputies came into the dealership. They examined Harry’s office and took statements from everyone. Then the salesmen went home, and I stayed around to answer the phones.” She shuddered and dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief she held in her free hand.

  “I hate to make you talk about this,” Jesse said, pulling a tissue box to within easy reach. “I know it has to have been an awful day, but we can’t expect the police to confide in us, and we need to know what’s going on.”

  “And a lot of this, I don’t think Bliss needs to hear,” Vivian added, just in case anyone thought she wasn’t listening to every word.

  “There is that,” Jesse agreed. “What were some of the questions the deputies asked you?”

  “Oh, things like, was he upset, did he have any plans for the evening, was he arguing with anyone, was there anything out of the ordinary that happened on Friday, anything out of place on Saturday morning. After they left, we all stood around talking about what they had asked and what we had said and was there anything we hadn’t told them.”

  “And was there?” Jesse asked, feeling a pique of personal curiosity.

  “Sure.” Maria looked at her. “Harry lived a complicated life. We all knew things we didn’t talk about. That was nothing new, and just because he died, that wasn’t going to change. He wasn’t a perfect man, but he had something about him that could be kind of loveable, you know?”

  She waited for a response, then went on without it. “He had a lot of loyalty from his people. Just ‘cause he drowned in his pool, doesn’t mean his life has to suddenly be put out on the streets for everybody to pick through. That wouldn’t be right for Mrs. Kerr, either. She deserves more respect than that.”

  Maria’s voice warbled, and she paused to draw in a deep, shuddering breath before continuing. “Harry always insisted on that. He wanted his wife respected.”

  Jesse grabbed a tissue from the
box and handed it to the girl, who was clearly starting to crumble. Maria sniffled, dabbed and slowly regained herself.

  “So,” Jesse prodded gently. “You yourself had a personal history with Harry, at one point?”

  “How did you know that?” Maria looked stunned, telling Jesse that this quite probably was one of the secrets Harry’s assistant had kept from the police.

  “Bliss.”

  “Oh, my God!” The girl’s dark chocolate eyes were saucers, and she looked ready to bolt.

  Jesse laid a calming hand on her arm. “It’s all right. Bliss said it was a long time ago. She said that the two of you had become friends, and that your relationship with Harry was strictly professional these days.”

  “She said that?” Hope warred with doubt in the plaintive question.

  “Yes.”

  “I heard her say it, too,” Vivian agreed.

  “And she’s not mad?” Maria asked, still worried.

  “Bliss was actually very grateful to have someone else to confide in this morning. Someone who knew Harry and cared about him,” Jesse assured her. “You were the only other person who believed that something had happened, and it helped Bliss to have you to talk to.”

  “Really? Because I hate that she knows about the…other.” The last word came out in a whisper. Maria wadded the tissues in her hands, frowning. “It’s going to be really hard to face her.”

  “I think at this point, that’s all just water under the bridge,” Jesse assured her.

  Sophia leaned around her daughter and refilled Maria’s glass. “Have another,” she urged. “It really does help.”

  Jesse looked over her shoulder and smiled at her mother, mouthing the words “thank you.” Sophia smiled back and kissed her on the cheek, then withdrew to her corner of the sofa and resumed her role as a fly on the wall, which apparently seemed the safest option to her at the moment.

  “So, what else did you hold back from the police?” Jesse asked.

  “Girls, mainly,” Maria said with a shrug. “They wanted to know of any recent relationships, and I said I would get back with them if I could remember any names.”