Murder by the Sea

by Beth Byers

  “Vi!”

  She turned, making a face. “It’s too thick to hear through. I remember what that feels like, so I suppose I should accept that I shouldn’t be listening.”

  Jack’s eyes glinted with humor and his telling glance to the door she couldn’t hear through was pointed. But he only said, “Were we so bad?”

  “We were close.”

  Violet let go of the leashes and jumped into his arms, wrapping her own around his neck. “I am so glad we’re on this side of things.”

  The breath-stealing kiss he gave her was all the answer she got.

  “Surely you have a bedroom,” Martha said from the stairs in disgust. “Wait until I write to my mother. She’ll be appalled.”

  “Oh my goodness,” Violet groaned into Jack’s neck where she was hiding her blush. “If we keep tripping over each other at the worst possible moment, someone is sure to break something.”

  “I vote we start with her.”

  They both looked at Martha who held up her hands and muttered, “I just wanted to eat. But who can eat after that? A virtuous woman. I hardly think so.”

  Violet bit down on her bottom lip to hold back the shout of laughter. Her laughter couldn’t be stopped, so she muffled it against Jack’s chest, finally muttering, “She’s ruining all my fun.”

  “Mine too,” Jack said to the top of Violet’s head as he dropped a kiss in her hair.

  “I meant with my joke,” Violet said catching something in his tone.

  “I didn’t,” Jack told her.

  She smacked his arm and started up the stairs calling, “I’m going to hold a baby or two.”

  “We’re leaving in an hour to go riding, Vi. Don’t forget to change.”

  “Not nearly enough time to change and snuggle,” she called back, “but I shall endeavor to persevere.”

  Chapter 9

  The stable willing to let them take a horse for the morning had enough for them all, but both Martha and Denny ended up with ancient beasts while Jack and Ham had near-wild monsters.

  Violet laughed at all four of them as they led the horses away from the stable. Only Lila had refused to go riding, but the disgusted look she’d given Denny had said it was his worries for the baby that was holding her back.

  “How do you feel?” Vi asked Kate.

  “I feel like a cold and cruel mother who abandoned her children on the garbage heap.”

  Violet snorted as she amended, “I believe you mean with two well-qualified, well-researched, well-respected nannies who will probably watch them sleep and be paid top dollar to do so.”

  “Or that,” Kate muttered ungraciously. She pulled on her sleeves and rubbed the back of her neck as though she didn’t know what to do with her hands when she wasn’t holding a baby. Vi didn’t disguise her grin when she saw Kate’s subtle, baby-soothing sway. It seemed she didn’t have her not-holding-a-baby legs.

  “Or that,” Rita repeated. She followed Vi’s gaze to the swaying Kate and grinned as widely at Vi.

  They were all wearing riding garb. Kate was in a classic black jacket, black riding pants, and black riding boots. She looked amazing even though her jacket was open and her pants were a bit snugger than usual. She had nearly recovered her pre-baby form.

  Violet, on the other hand, had selected a deep purple jacket and black pants when she’d acquired her riding gear. She’d done it with about as much subtle irony as a sledgehammer. Especially when she’d had her sleeves embroidered with ivy and she wore a grey shirt underneath complete with violets on each collar.

  Rita’s jacket was blue sapphire with quite a lovely large button at her narrow waist. The fabric had probably been purchased to draw attention to her large blue eyes. However, after what had clearly been a good cry, it drew attention to the redness in her eyes, the puffy dark circles underneath, and set off her general paleness. She probably should have napped the late morning away with Lila, but something had her refusing to stay behind.

  She was putting on a good show. Without the crying evidence, Violet would have assumed that Rita was as fine as usual. The rest of them were pretending that Rita hadn’t wept after her talk with Ham, except for poor Ham who had a clench to his jaw that said he was about one breath from thrusting his fist through a wall.

  “I’ve never gone riding on the shore,” Kate muttered. “It would be nice to not feel like such a monster while doing it. Why do I feel bad for leaving the babies?”

  “Darling Kate,” Victor said, “Breathe in slowly, let it out slowly. Think of the girls in a wonderland of clouds and fairies. That was how I got through last night.”

  “That and cocktails,” Kate muttered.

  “Cocktails did help. Shall we stop and have some?”

  “No! Let’s go riding. I can have fun still.”

  Violet grinned at the two of them. Victor had never lost that half-besotted, half-shocked by his good fortune look as he gazed at her with love. He grinned, kissed her soundly, and lifted her onto her horse.

  She scowled down at him, but he just winked and rubbed her thigh before mounting his own horse.

  “You know what you’re missing to truly enjoy yourself?” Violet asked Kate.

  “What?” Her scowl told Violet that Kate expected a sarcastic answer.

  “Some sort of treatise.”

  “Oh good idea,” Victor said. He adjusted the leather satchel he was carrying. “It turns out that I have champagne, a blanket for the sand, and a treatise on The Sea Creatures of the Caribbean. What do you say, Kate? We’ll learn about these creatures and then take the girls to meet them. I can just see them dabbling their toes in perfectly blue water, can’t you?”

  Kate frowned at Victor, but Violet had little doubt Kate was intrigued. She’d lost the look of carrying a mountain of guilt and her head cocked as she imagined it.

  “I bet they have rum there,” Violet added. “I bet he only wants to go because of the rum.”

  “We are running low from our trip to Cuba and my friend, Javier, has proven to be unreliable. I have sent him money four times, and he’s never sent me a bottle.”

  “Darling,” Kate said, patting his cheek from the back of her horse, “that’s because he is stealing from you.”

  Victor had to know it was true, but hearing it said aloud seemed to deflate his happiness. It took Kate a few minutes of murmured promises about the Caribbean, blue seas, dipping the twins’ toes in the water, and the general happiness it would give her to study something new for Victor to have his cheery outlook again.

  “How much of that was an act?” Rita asked Vi.

  “Oh, all of it.” Vi patted the neck of her dappled mare. “I am ready to fly on this lady. How about you?”

  “I believe if we don’t take off immediately,” Ham said, “Jack and I might be thrown and trampled.”

  With a whoop, Denny heeled his horse. She turned back to him and seemed to scowl before taking one slow step forward. Rita choked on her laugh but Violet didn’t bother to hold hers back. She circled Denny as Jack and Ham rode ahead.

  “Come along, lovey,” she called to Denny, letting her horse hurry ahead before she guided her back to circle Denny again.

  Denny attempted another jolly whoop in attempt to energize his horse. It didn’t work. Violet was crying she was laughing so hard. Kate and Victor had looked back at Denny and left him behind without an ounce of regret.

  “This isn’t fair,” Denny said, but he noted Rita’s grin and the fading of her whiteness and tried another jolly whoop.

  “Maybe if you get off and push her along?” Rita called.

  “Oh,” Denny groaned. He pushed up on his stirrups to see Jack and Ham, who had gone far ahead with their wilder mounts. The pier was barely a half-kilometer from where they were, and Jack and Ham would be there long before the rest of them made it.

  Denny tried again. Martha’s horse was just behind Denny’s, and if anything Martha’s mount made Denny’s look speedy. Martha, however, yawned, shaded her gaze, and th
en half-closed her eyes as though a nap version of a morning ride was just what she needed.

  Unlike Rita, Martha seemed unaffected by the day previous. Her gaze was clear, even with a bit of swelling on her face from where she was slapped.

  Violet felt that the rest of her friends might be more bothered by the slap than Martha herself was. In fact, Violet thought that they might be even more bothered by the fact that Martha seemed to think that being slapped by a man of her acquaintance didn’t need to cause more of a reaction than fake tears.

  The ride would have been agonizing if Denny didn’t embrace the absurdity of his mount. Eventually Rita and Violet raced each other around Denny until he called, “Oh-ho.”

  Jack had raced back towards them. The furious gallop was different than when he’d been letting his horse have its head.

  Violet pulled up, knowing without question that something was wrong. She looked beyond Jack to see Ham had dismounted. Perhaps he’d fallen? But, no. He was dismounted, but he was bending over an object in the water. Ignoring the lap of the waves against his boots wasn’t something he’d do as easily as the rest of them.

  One part of Violet’s mind told her to buy him new boots for some random holiday. The other noted the heap that Ham was looking at. Black mound. Was it garbage? But no, even from the distance and without seeing clearly, she knew what it was.

  Jack’s intent expression had told her, she just hadn’t wanted to believe it. Jack wouldn’t have left Ham if he were hurt. Jack wouldn’t come racing back towards them for a mound of garbage. If he was bothered, he’d just have someone clean it up. Then when you added in Ham letting his boots be ruined?

  There was a body in the water being lapped by the waves near the pier.

  Denny’s horse slowed as it reached her, then stopped. His comic whooping had come to an end, and his gaze was fixed upon Ham.

  Denny glanced sideways at Vi. He had lost the humor in his gaze too. “Do you see what I see?”

  “What is taking so long?” Martha snapped. “If you stop for every random shell, these old things will never live long enough to get back, and I don’t want to walk in my riding boots. They pinch.”

  Neither of them answered. Rita had raced towards Kate and Victor who had taken a wider path, but when she noticed that Denny and Vi stopped, she circled back to them. When she arrived, she took in their expressions and followed their gazes to the intently approaching Jack and Ham in the distance. Ham’s horse had been let loose and started slowly walking back towards his stable without a reaction from Ham.

  Rita’s gaze widened. “No.”

  “I think so,” Violet said.

  “You think what?” Martha demanded. “My goodness, do we go or go back? Sitting here isn’t fun.”

  “Be quiet,” Denny ordered with unaccustomed seriousness.

  “Why are you always so mean?”

  Denny looked at Violet. “She needs to go home now. Her mother will never forgive Lila and me.”

  “You have a baby coming,” Rita told him comfortingly. “Until Martha can say the same, you’ll slide past this one.”

  “This what? Mama will believe Lila over me when it comes to my engagement. I think we should just all forget it.”

  “Oh, she’s dim,” Denny told Rita. “I forget between visits.”

  “She’s not dim,” Rita told Denny. “She’s just so self-absorbed that she doesn’t see anything that doesn’t affect her.”

  Denny shrugged as though it were the same. Jack was nearly back to them, and Violet had gone from sure to convinced. She felt the darkness pressing, and she tried to focus on the good.

  Vi closed her eyes and muttered to herself. “Rita is back. Ham and Jack will do what needs to be done. Vivi and Agatha are in the world. Puppy breath. Warm chocolate.”

  “I brought the ingredients for that chocolate cocktail,” Denny told her gently. “And I have ginger wine too. I might have also smuggled a few boxes of chocolates.”

  “Why are we suddenly babying Vi?” Martha asked with a scowl.

  “She doesn’t respond well to dead bodies. Her soul isn’t as cold as mine.”

  Martha gaped.

  Violet pressed her fingers to her forehead. “It could have been an accident. Maybe some drunk went walking on the pier and slipped in.”

  Jack finally reached them. His gaze was already fixed on Vi. “We need to head back and get a doctor as quickly as possible.”

  “What’s happening?” Rita asked. She was staring at Ham, who had pulled the body from the water.

  Jack’s gaze was steady on Vi, full of love and concern, as he carefully said, “There’s been a murder.”

  Chapter 10

  “Surely it could be an accident.” Violet knew she was begging, but she really needed it to be an accident.

  The chances of an accident when Jack had declared it a murder were highly unlikely. He didn’t want her to deal with the effects of a murder any more than she did. Possibly more given how he was inclined to protect her.

  Jack shook his head.

  “Was he shot?”

  Jack shook his head.

  “Knife in the back?” Denny asked. He was sliding back into his lazy humor, but it seemed his somewhat disgusting joke was in fact a very good guess.

  Violet groaned, imagining it already.

  “Who is the dead guy?” Martha sounded bored and she had already turned her horse back to the stable.

  Jack paused. “It’s Samuel Richards.”

  Violet’s mouth dropped open but Martha screamed dramatically sending her lazy horse trotting sideways and tossing her head.

  “Bloody hell.” Denny’s disgusted look towards Martha summed up all of their reactions. It was bad enough that someone they knew had died, but Martha—who had pretended to love him—was going to beat this dead horse. “I’ll go for the constables.”

  Denny actually got off his horse, handed Vi the reins, and started to jog towards the stable, but Rita said, “Take my horse.”

  By the time Denny had taken off and Jack had returned to Ham, Victor and Kate had joined them. “What’s happening?”

  Martha wailed in reply. Violet looked at Rita and jerked her head towards Martha. Rita shook hers in refusal. Victor groaned and lifted Martha down, but Kate had dismounted as well and he shoved Martha at Kate.

  It wasn’t who Martha wanted, and she cast her tear-filled eyes towards Victor, who backed up. Violet wanted to smirk as Martha stomped her foot, but she was still reeling.

  They must have had a telephone at the stables because in the minutes since they’d been watching from a distance, Jack had made it back to Ham, and the autos were beginning to arrive.

  They had all dismounted to watch, and when Denny returned, he joined in the distant viewing of the crime scene. The last thing Vi wanted was a closer look to add her to personal album of horrible things. Instead she focused on the official-looking types with uniforms and a stretcher. They were approaching Ham. Vi and Rita stood side-by-side as they watched Ham shake the fellows’ hands.

  “He must be telling them who he is,” Rita murmured. “He’s going to get pulled into this case.”

  “The local boys would be stupid to not use Jack and Ham. They discovered the body, they’re Yard men. These fellows can’t have the same experience.” Victor’s reasoning was sound and unnecessary. Violet and Rita would have said the same thing.

  “Maybe they won’t ask for help,” Rita said quietly.

  She knew it wasn’t likely, so did Violet. But Vi didn’t want to get involved in another case. She was still dealing with the nightmares from the last one. They all centered on Kate giving birth in prison and no one helping the babies.

  Violet pressed her face into Rita’s shoulder. “Kate’s not in prison.”

  Kate looked down at Violet and then patted her head. “I’m not. I’m not going either, love.”

  “I’d break you out and rescue the babies.”

  Victor groaned. “Is that what you’re dreaming
about now? Didn’t your friends say that the aunt was going to take that woman’s baby?”

  Violet nodded. It didn’t matter that the baby that spurred Violet’s dreams was going to be all right, her sleeping mind didn’t care about that. Her sleeping mind tortured her regardless of the realities.

  Violet took in a deep breath and slowly let it out.

  “You need to write a story where that baby is somehow benefited by what happened.”

  Violet’s scoffing look was enough for Victor to grab Vi, hug her tightly, and say, “Kate is fine. The twins are fine. I’m fine. Jack is fine. You are not fine. Stretch your mind, Vi. Write the story, give the money to a new charity you make for prison babies. Somehow make it better if you can.”

  Violet shoved Victor even if he was probably right. “Well, I suppose we could interfere again.”

  “Yes,” Denny said. “Can we have the chalkboards back?”

  “I was trying to pretend my life wouldn’t be like that anymore.”

  “Vi, darling,” Denny said in a gentle voice, “that last round with Jovie and too much alcohol only worked because Pammy was drunk and actually loved her baby. If she was one of those infanticide women, it never would have happened.” Violet sighed and Denny grinned in victory. “Yes! The chalkboards are back.”

  “This is where you contain your enthusiasm so you aren’t the next victim,” Rita advised dryly.

  Denny buttoned his mouth shut and Martha tried wailing again to get their attention. Denny told her dryly, “You should be careful, love. You have to be Ham’s first suspect.”

  “But I was already a murder suspect,” Martha whined as though that somehow prevented her from being one again.

  Denny looked at Violet as if to ask if she’d heard what he’d heard. “That doesn’t exclude you now,” he told the girl.

  “But we weren’t even engaged anymore,” Martha snapped. Her tears had stopped and Violet took a moment to admire the acting that had created such believable, and yet still pretty, tears.

  “You were engaged, however, and you threw him over.” Denny’s mouth was twitching.