Death by the Sea

by Kathleen Bridge

  Liz couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “You’re not thinking of razing that beautiful mansion, are you? Didn’t Ponce de León land on the beach near Castlemara? I thought it was about to get historical status?”

  Regina said, “Not anymore, thanks to a fabulous stable of New York City lawyers. Now, get on your way. I am having a private conversation with my husband.” Regina looked at Aunt Amelia. “If we must stay here, I will make up a list of things I need. Also, do you have a girl you could loan me for our stay?” She glanced around the room, then stopped on Liz’s face. “And I don’t want her.”

  Liz turned and walked through the open door and into the hallway before saying, “Good. Because you couldn’t afford me!”

  Chapter 4

  Liz waited for Aunt Amelia near the staircase going down to the lobby. When her great-aunt finally appeared, her cheeks were the same shade as her hair. “That woman! I’m so sorry I got you involved, my pet. Iris should have been there instead.”

  “Auntie, why are you letting them stay? Since you’ve been collecting rent on the emporium shops, I thought you were okay for the time being. It’s too much work for you now that you’re…”

  “Now that I’m what?” Aunt Amelia put her hands on her wide hips, made famous by a Hula-Hoop commercial she’d starred in that had all the women in the sixties Hula-Hooping to create trim waistlines above their wide, baby-boomer-bearing hips. “Don’t even go there. I feel as good as I did forty years ago. As Wayne Dyer once said, ‘If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.’”

  “How does that apply to your age?”

  “I don’t look at things as an eighty-year-old. I look at them as a forty-something.”

  “Well, you’ll always be eternally young in my book. Can I make you a sandwich from the leftover prime rib?”

  “No, no, dear. Think I’ll turn in. I wish I knew what happened to Iris. Maybe you can ask your father if he’s seen her before you head home?”

  “Will do. Sweet dreams, Auntie.” Liz kissed her soft, powdery cheek.

  Aunt Amelia put a hand on either side of Liz’s face. “Listen to me, young lady. Don’t you ever let anyone make you feel less than the wonderful, giving, precious child I see by pointing out superficial flaws. When you are ready to talk, you know I’m here.”

  “Of course, I know that. We’ll talk soon. I promise. Now, give me the list Regina gave you and I’ll take care of things until we find Iris.”

  Aunt Amelia handed her the list. “It’s a doozy. Maybe they’ll find a place tomorrow. I thought having a Harrington stay here might bolster our popularity rating a bit. Regina’s father, Percival, was the nicest man. He did so many wonderful things for our little barrier island. Also, I feel sorry for the poor wee thing.”

  Liz said, “I know Regina’s father died recently. He died of natural causes. Right?”

  “Elizabeth Holt, what are you implying?”

  “Oh, nothing. But I wouldn’t feel sorry for her. Regina’s not ‘wee.’ She could trample us both in her six-inch heels and keep on walking.”

  “I was talking about Venus.”

  “What is Venus, anyway? Cat? Dog?”

  “Not sure yet. But why should it suffer? Every creature needs shelter.”

  “Okay, what television character were you thinking for David Worth?”

  Aunt Amelia fingered one of her curls and looked up at the ceiling, “That’s a hard one. There’s something familiar about him. I feel like I’ve met him before, just can’t remember where. Maybe the actor Jack Webb, who played Sergeant Joe Friday on Dragnet? I’ll have to sleep on it. You?”

  “I’m not sure about him, but her, it’s as clear as day—Joan Collins with long hair.”

  “Hmm...maybe. I was thinking Regina looks like Morticia from The Addams Family.”

  “She does resemble Carolyn Jones.”

  “Did I ever tell you about The Addams Family…?”

  “Yes, you did. It was the episode called, ‘Cupid Aims for Fester,’ and you played Miss Carson, the Avon lady whom Uncle Fester mistook for his dating penpal. Now, get to bed, Auntie. It’s getting late.”

  Aunt Amelia shuffled down the hallway toward her four-room suite in kitten heels affixed with lilac feathered pom-poms. Liz wouldn’t have been surprised to hear a scream when her great-aunt looked in the mirror and realized she was wearing only half of her eye makeup.

  As Liz walked down the curving, wrought-iron staircase, she worried about her great-aunt. No matter what “psychological age” she was, Liz couldn’t help but think of her advancing chronological age and all the financial worries that seemed constant when running—yes—a run-down hotel. On top of that, Liz knew her aunt worried about her even more than the Indialantic. What would she and her father do if anything happened to Aunt Amelia? She pushed the thought aside, placing it next to all her other worries, and went into the kitchen.

  The terra-cotta floor gleamed in the low light. It amazed Liz that this was the same kitchen where only hours before she had helped Pierre prepare dinner. She thought she heard a sigh, but it was just the wind. The kitchen seemed a lonely place without Pierre’s bustling presence. Pierre had been working at the Indialantic since before Liz was born. He’d gone to the same French cooking school as Julia Child and he’d given Liz her first cooking lesson when she was only six years old. He’d even had a stool made for her with her name painted on it so she could reach the counter and be his “sous-chef.” The stool still stood in the corner of the Indialantic’s huge original Spanish-style kitchen, now updated with stainless steel appliances.

  Another thing Pierre and Liz shared, besides a passion for cooking, was a love of mysteries. Her first Agatha Christie, And Then There Were None, had come from Pierre, its pages well-worn and dog-eared. The book still held a place of honor on Liz’s bedroom bookshelf.

  Pierre was the same age as Aunt Amelia, and since she’d come back to Melbourne Beach, Liz had noticed him forgetting to add key ingredients to the dishes he’d been making for decades. She tried to make it a point to go to the kitchen during the prep stage and taste everything before it was served, adding any missing items when Pierre’s back was turned. When she had confided in her father and Aunt Amelia about her suspicions of Pierre’s memory loss, they’d tried to get him to see a doctor, but he refused to go. Pierre was proud of the fact that, in eighty years, he’d never been to a doctor—not even when he cut off the tip of his pinkie finger while deboning a chicken. Luckily, one of the hotel’s guests at the time was a retired nurse. She’d stitched it back on, as good as new.

  Homeopathic remedies were Pierre’s go-to cure for a myriad of ailments. He used herbs from his kitchen garden years before they came into vogue. Instead of Neosporin and a Band-Aid, Pierre had applied aloe and a mystery poultice to Liz’s childhood boo-boos, then, as a distraction, they continued to bake gooey cinnamon buns or letter-shaped sugar cookies that spelled new words for Liz to learn. She wished she could return the favor and restore Pierre’s memory, and she made it a point to look up what herbs might improve his memory loss.

  Liz exited the kitchen via the door leading outside to the south garden. A heady scent of mint and rosemary rose from the ground as she passed Pierre’s herb garden. In the distance, a light mist hovered over the ocean.

  She took a path west toward the outside entrance of her father’s apartment. Through the panes of glass in the arched Spanish Revival window was the welcoming glow of her father’s desk lamp. He was at his desk in his usual, hunched-over position, pouring over an open law book. Since she’d been back, Liz had acted as his sounding board. Her father rehearsed closing arguments in front of Liz to see if she thought they needed tweaking from a stylistic writer’s point of view. They never did. Many a time, Liz sat in the back of the courtroom, watching her father in action. His lean, six-foot-two frame, graying hair at the temples, and
green eyes that matched Aunt Amelia’s, made him an impressive figure, but it was when he opened his mouth to defend a client that he truly shined. Her father was on heart medication, which was the reason he’d retired as the county’s leading public defender. She had tried to get him to lighten his caseload, but he was a sucker for a good sob story, occasionally getting hoodwinked by a bad guy or gal. In his estimation, if he could save one innocent person from jail, then he’d done a good job.

  Aunt Amelia had encouraged her nephew to hang his shingle on the side entrance of the Indialantic—Fenton Holt, Esquire—reassuring Liz that the best thing for a strong heart was a passion for living.

  Originally, she and her father had lived in the caretaker’s cottage on the part of the Indialantic’s property that faced the Indian River Lagoon. When Liz left for college, her father moved from the caretaker’s cottage into the hotel to be closer to Aunt Amelia. The cottage was then rented to one of Aunt Amelia’s fellow actresses from Dark Shadows, Millicent Morgan, who played the spunky, gap-toothed barmaid at Collinsport’s Blue Whale Tavern. Sadly, Millicent had recently passed away and now the cottage remained vacant.

  She knocked on her father’s door, then walked in. He never locked it.

  “Lizzy, you’re a sight for sore eyes.” Fenton rose and took five long-legged strides, then embraced Liz like he hadn’t seen her in years, let alone a few hours. It reminded Liz of the panic her father must have felt when she’d called him from the hospital in Manhattan.

  “What are you doing still working? Thought you’d have your feet up, watching reruns of Law and Order,” she said, glancing at the tower of papers ready to spill off his desk.

  “About to close up shop. I have a new case I might need your help with, but you’ll have to go undercover.”

  Liz laughed. “I’m game.”

  “And why are you still hanging around the hotel? Shouldn’t you be home with your feet up, or better yet, at your desk with your feet on the floor, writing your next blockbuster? You have a gift, Lizzy—you shouldn’t squander it.”

  “Can’t seem to get on track. I do have a title now, though. What do you think? Read This and Do the Complete Opposite of What I Did for a Happy, Guilt-free Life.”

  “Catchy. I do like the last four words...‘happy, guilt-free life.’”

  “Auntie wanted me to ask if you’ve seen Iris. She’s disappeared.”

  “No, sorry. I haven’t seen her.”

  She and her father talked for a few minutes longer about her new covert assignment. After saying good night and shutting the door, Liz burst out laughing. She could only imagine what the tabloids would say if they ever got a photo of her doing what her father had just asked her to do. Liz took out her penlight and followed the cement sidewalk until she met the sandy path leading to the ocean. The moon peeked out from behind the clouds and helped to light her way. This stretch of the island was wild and untamed, backing up to the thirty-four-acre Barrier Island Sanctuary Center. On any given day, you might see huge blue crabs side-winding their way along the shoreline, endangered turtles laying eggs, snakes, owls, bobcats, and even the occasional panther on the prowl. Luckily, tonight the only creature she encountered was a screech owl with a pair of beaming yellow eyes. It whinnied and trilled as she passed.

  Chapter 5

  Before taking the crushed-shell path to her beach house, Liz stepped onto the sandy trail leading to the hotel’s planked boardwalk that overlooked the ocean. At one time, the boardwalk followed the shore for the entire width of the original Indialantic by the Sea resort, but after decades of storms and hurricanes, the boardwalk had been reduced to a tenth of its original size. She stood at the railing and looked out across the dark ocean, the sound of the waves soothing and tranquil. She reveled in the sensation of the gentle wind caressing her face and felt a trickling of the desire to write. Maybe she’d write something less heavy than Let the Wind Roar, something with humor and a touch of romance—but just a touch.

  April in Florida was Liz’s favorite time of year, and she felt happy to be home and at peace with her surroundings. Through the mist, a ghostly lit cruise ship headed southeast toward the Bahamas. Liz had grown up with stories of sunken ships filled with treasure, none of which were fairy tales. In 1715, an entire fleet of Spanish ships carrying gold, silver, and decorative pottery sank in a storm off the Sebastian Inlet, ten miles south of where Liz stood, close to Regina’s father’s estate, Castlemara. A hurricane hit the shoreline in the mid-1950s, exposing a survivors’ camp from the ship El Capitana. Soon after, a large cache of treasure was discovered. To this day, usually after a hurricane or storm, salvagers could be seen excavating odd pieces from El Capitana and other lost-at-sea vessels.

  On Liz’s tenth birthday, Aunt Amelia had given her a metal detector. The morning after a tropical storm slammed the island, Liz and her great-aunt hurried to the beach where the El Capitana survivor camp had been discovered, pretending they were shipwrecked from the S.S. Minnow. While they sat on the beach drinking Pierre’s lemon-limeade and eating peanut butter and mango sandwiches, Aunt Amelia reminisced about her days on the set of the television show Gilligan’s Island, where she’d met Mel Blanc, the man of a thousand voices. Mr. Blanc had been doing the voice-over for Gilligan’s parrot and had given Aunt Amelia an unprompted montage of his most famous cartoon voices, including Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Tweety, Sylvester, and Liz’s favorite, Yosemite Sam. He’d ended his performance with a Bugs Bunny, “Eh, what’s up, Doc?”

  Aunt Amelia had also confided in Liz that the actress Tina Louise, aka Ginger, wasn’t anything like the ditzy character she played on the show. Soon after her guest appearance, her great-aunt dyed her hair what she now called Tina Louise Red. It was no wonder Liz had become a writer. There was so much rich material to draw from, living with Aunt Amelia.

  Liz did find treasure that day on the beach, not a gold coin from a shipwrecked Spanish galleon, but a 1926 Morgan silver dollar—from the same year the Indialantic by the Sea Hotel had been built. Liz still had the coin in a small trunk at the foot of her bed, where she kept her childhood keepsakes, including things that had belonged to her mother.

  Regina Harrington-Worth’s father had also found treasure near where the El Capitana was shipwrecked, reminding Liz about their irritating new guest. Regina’s mother had died decades ago, and now, with her father’s recent death, Liz wondered why Regina wasn’t staying on her daddy’s yacht while waiting for Castlemara to be torn down. Anywhere but the Indialantic.

  The fog off the ocean was getting thicker, but Liz could still see the light of the moon reflected off the rolling waves. It was low tide. Soon that would change and the water would reach the bottom step, sometimes going farther inland, right up to the cyclone barrier fence that protected the twenty-foot dune. Down the shoreline, she observed two figures; one short, one tall.

  Liz crept down the steps, then shined her tiny light on the damp sand. It was unusual for someone to be out on this stretch of the beach so late at night. She continued toward the couple, who seemed to be arguing about something, their voices carried on the wind in angry, broken syllables. She couldn’t see their faces in the mist. The smaller female pushed against the man; he pushed back. As Liz reached in her pocket to dial 911, the man pulled the woman into an embrace and they fell to the sand. Liz turned, embarrassed by the passionate scene. She headed back up the steps, then hurried to her beach house. She retrieved the key from under an orchid pot, opened the French doors, and stepped inside her cozy haven.

  Six weeks ago, when Liz had come home to Melbourne Beach from Manhattan, her father and great-aunt had surprised her with the beach house—they’d even taped a huge, pale aqua bow on the front door. Not only had her father invested money into the Indialantic, but he’d also paid to have the falling-into-ruin beach pavilion restored into a home for Liz—the perfect place to refocus on what was important and hopefully a serene environment to get her
“writing mojo” back on track. Bestie Kate and the ladies from Home Arts by the Sea had helped with the interior design of the cottage, adding one-of-a-kind vintage items, hand-blown glass bowls, paintings by local artists, and fluffy, lightweight throws made from raw silk yarns in shades of aqua, coral, and cream.

  The beach house had an open floor plan. The great room and kitchen were separated by a long counter with six bar stools and an open pass-through, making it easy for Liz to chat with guests while cooking in her dream kitchen, which Chef Pierre had designed as part of her homecoming surprise. She went to the fridge, grabbed a bottle of water, and headed to the bedroom. As she passed her office, she glanced inside. Her desk mocked her from its lack of use; her open laptop, a mere prop in case someone dropped by unexpectedly. Her favorite good-luck writing mug sat on the table next to the printer. Since her move back, it hadn’t rekindled her desire to write, but she liked that it waited patiently for her, like an old friend. She felt a familiar tingle in her fingers.

  Perhaps it was time?

  Then she shook her head and continued to the bedroom, then into the bathroom, where she quickly performed her bedtime routine. It only took her about ten minutes, compared to her great-aunt’s sixty. She looked in the mirror at her fair skin and blue eyes the color of bleached denim. A pale face that wasn’t allowed to tan because of the scar. She wanted to surf, feel the elements, feel alive. She wasn’t a great surfer; she was actually pretty mediocre compared to Kate and Kate’s older brother, Skylar. When Liz went down to the beach, she looked like Norma Desmond from Sunset Boulevard, wearing a humongous floppy hat, hiding from the sun under a huge umbrella, while staring out to sea or reading an Agatha Christie novel.