Death by the Sea

by Kathleen Bridge

  The colors of yarn Betty used weren’t the avocado greens, golds, and burnt oranges from the granny-square heydays of the 1970s. These squares were made in neon colors that would keep you awake all night.

  “There were ten of us in the class,” Betty continued. “We’re supposed to meet in a week and bring in our squares. Francie will take everyone’s squares, mix them up, and make crazy mismatched blankets for the kids. Luckily, she’ll be doing the final step of sewing the squares together. I just like making them.”

  “Obviously,” Liz said with a laugh. She looked around at the Sea Breeze Suite. It was hard to believe Betty had been staying at the hotel for over twenty years. She’d moved in after her husband, a professor at Florida Tech, passed away.

  By the far wall was a bookcase filled with photos of her grandchildren and two different sets of Nancy Drew mysteries. The first set was from the thirties; all had their pristine dust jackets and were covered in clear plastic sleeves. The second set was from the mid-sixties to the early seventies, the time period when Betty had worked as a ghostwriter for the Nancy Drew line and a few other mystery series, including the Dana Girls and the Connie Blair mysteries. Having voraciously read all of Betty’s yellow-spined hardcover Nancy Drews as an adolescent, Liz thought she caught subtle differences in a few of the writing styles. No matter how hard she’d pleaded over the years, Betty stuck to her binding nondisclosure contract and was taking The Secret of the Ghostwriter Mysteries to her grave.

  Next to the Nancy Drew books was a set of twelve pale-lavender hardcovers that Betty had authored using her real name, Beatrice Lawson. The Island Girl Mysteries took place on a fictitious island off of Florida’s east coast, and featured a surfboard-wielding sleuth named Kit Sullivan and her plucky dolphin sidekick, Misty. The books were published in the mid-sixties and had a great following. Betty could have continued the series, but she’d run out of ideas for mysterious adventures involving a fifteen-year-old girl and her pet porpoise.

  Liz finished her tea and roused Killer, waiting a few minutes until the pins and needles in her feet subsided from the Great Dane’s weight. She stood and said, “I got up so early, it was too soon to go to the emporium to make sure everything was going according to plan.”

  Her alarm had gone off at seven. Liz had popped out of bed, taken a shower, dressed, chugged a cup of coffee, and was out of her beach house by seven thirty. The sun had still been low in the sky, and the water was glistening with lines of silver atop each gently rolling wave. She couldn’t have asked for a better day for the Spring Fling. The emporium doors opened at ten, and Liz wanted to make sure everything was ready. Instead of stopping by the Indialantic’s kitchen, like she usually did each morning, she’d gone directly to Aunt Amelia’s rooms to coordinate the day’s activities, and then to Betty’s.

  “You’ve always been a planner,” Betty said, starting a new square. “I remember you plotting out all your stories with meticulously detailed outlines. I am so happy it paid off with Let the Wind Roar.”

  “Thanks to your proofreading and editing. If it wasn’t for you, I probably wouldn’t have even found an agent.”

  “Oh, I’m sure you would have, you’re that good. How’s the next one coming?”

  Liz was saved by someone knocking on the suite door. Betty was tangled up in fuchsia yarn, so Liz answered.

  A dapper Captain Netherton stood in the hallway. Instead of a cane, he held a walking stick. “Liz, my dear. No need to answer the question I was about to ask. I see the big galoot lounging beyond you with his paramour, Caro.”

  “‘Big galoot’ is right,” Liz said. “Although he carries on like he’s a quarter of his size. A few minutes ago, Caro chased a ball of yarn under the coffee table and Killer followed her. When he tried to stand up, he looked like a giant tortoise with a coffee table shell.”

  Captain Netherton laughed.

  Killer glanced their way, his unclipped black ears rising to half-mast. “You talking about me?” they said.

  Liz turned to the captain. “I hope you got your fresh linens yesterday?”

  “I did, and thank you. You didn’t happen to see the nautical chart I had of the waters off the island, did you? I’d just ordered it, thought I’d left it on my desk. Now it’s missing.”

  “Yes. It was on your desk. I saw it there yesterday, around three o’clock.”

  He said, “That’s strange. A mystery is a-brewin’. I might need the assistance of a mystery writer to help me go on The Quest of the Missing Map. Liz, do you know anyone?” He looked at Betty and winked.

  “Can’t think of a one,” Liz said, then winked back.

  Betty pretended to be crocheting, but Liz saw the corners of her mouth turn up.

  “I really appreciate that you’re working the raffle table,” Liz said to the captain. “I hope you got the box of brochures I left outside your door yesterday for Queen of the Seas?” Pictured on the front of the brochure was a photo of Queen of the Seas and a distinguished Captain Netherton, with his dark gray eyes and white-toothed smile. He wore a navy blazer and white pants with a sharp crease. His cap sat at a jaunty angle, and he had one hand on the wheel in a relaxed fashion, instilling confidence and an air of experience. In bold-faced letters below his photo was printed: Indialantic by the Sea Hotel and Emporium Invites You to Join Captain Clyde B. Netherton for a River Cruise on Queen of the Seas to Tour the Barrier Island’s Riches. You Will See Dolphins, Bald Eagles, Manatees, Birds from the Nearby Bird Sanctuary, and Even the Occasional Alligator, While the Captain Fills Your Head with Natural History Lessons and Tales from the Old Days of Pirating and Sunken Treasure Ships.

  “No problem, my dear.” He gave Liz a small salute. “Anything to help out your darling Aunt Amelia.”

  If Liz wasn’t mistaken, he added the “darling” to make Betty jealous.

  “Although the Worths have asked me to leave all of next week open in case they want to use Queen of the Seas to check out Castlemara again,” he said, as he reached into his left pocket and withdrew a treat for Killer, then reached into his other pocket and took one out for Caro. “Apparently, there’s no access from the highway, because it’s cordoned off with a chain-link fence topped with razor wire. Someone’s been breaking in, even though Regina said there’s nothing left inside.”

  Regina? Liz and Betty exchanged glances. Regina Harrington-Worth and Captain Netherton were on a first-name basis?

  Liz left Betty and the captain and went in search of Iris. She and Aunt Amelia needed Iris’s help while they played hostess at the Spring Fling. And Iris needed to make sure the Worths remained in their suite. No one needed Regina hobbling out into the emporium, shouting and making a scene.

  Earlier, Aunt Amelia had told Liz that when she’d brought up the Worths’ breakfast, Regina had told her she still planned to go to the Treasure Coast Spring Ball—even if she had to be pushed in a wheelchair. She wouldn’t let her minions down, and she planned to wear a floor-length dress that would hide her swollen knee. The same knee that had been expertly wrapped by Ryan. Aunt Amelia said the dress had been special-ordered by Brittany from one of her designer contacts. Liz hoped Brittany paid the vendor and didn’t write a bounced check like she’d done for Minna’s mixed-media piece. Aunt Amelia had also been tasked with finding a hairstylist and makeup artist who was up to Regina’s rigorous standards. She’d finally located a duo from West Palm Beach who had a few celebrities as clients. They’d assured Aunt Amelia over the phone that they could camouflage Regina’s swollen nose and black eye. Revenge-minded, Liz thought about going to the Oceana Suite and asking if Regina wanted to borrow Liz’s concealer.

  Liz followed the second-floor hallway until she reached the Indian River Lagoon Suite. She knocked on the door, and Iris answered, looking like she’d had a sleepless night.

  “What time is it?” Iris asked, rubbing her eyes as she tried to focus on Liz.

 
“Eight thirty. Can I come in?” She didn’t say yes, and she didn’t say no, so Liz walked inside. The room looked the same as it had before Iris moved in. There were barely any personal touches, unless you counted a bottle of champagne and two glasses on the table in the sitting room. Liz wondered what celebration could warrant champagne, then she thought of Captain Netherton, who was now courting Betty. Could he be sneaking down the hallway for a secret assignation with the housekeeper? She didn’t see a framed photo of Iris’s ailing mother or any children. The woman was becoming an enigma, and Liz was determined to find out more about her.

  “Did Amelia send you?” she asked. Even for being so short, Iris stood with military posture. Her plain face, hazel eyes, and hair, the color of wet sand, didn’t meld with her wide, expressive mouth, which was now turned down in a frown.

  “Yes. We need to make sure that you cater to the Worths today while Auntie and I oversee everything at the emporium. I hope she can count on you?”

  “Of course she can depend on me. Why would there be any question of that?”

  Liz wanted to say, Because we haven’t seen you in the last two days and Aunt Amelia is eighty years old. Instead she said, “There is no question. I just wanted to touch base.”

  They stood looking at each other for a moment, like gunslingers at the O.K. Corral. Liz blinked and lost. She turned and walked away.

  Later, after Liz said good-bye to Pierre, she left the hotel through the revolving door in the lobby. The possibility of thundershowers had been forecasted for the afternoon, but for now, Liz couldn’t have asked for a more glorious day. She took a golf cart to the emporium’s parking lot. She tried to use the Indialantic’s golf carts as little as possible, preferring to walk, especially during the spring when Florida’s weather was an eleven out of ten. No need for a gym membership when you lived in the tropics. But today Liz needed to zip around as quickly as possible. She didn’t own a car, as she hadn’t needed one in Manhattan. But Betty had given Liz the keys to her 1970 baby-blue two-door Cadillac DeVille convertible. It was the same color as Aunt Amelia’s trademark eyeshadow. Liz kept it parked at her beach house because Betty rarely drove it. She’d told Liz that living at the Indialantic was like living in your own ecosystem; everything you needed was right within reach. Every fall, when Betty taught her writing classes at the Melbourne Beach Community Center, Betty preferred taking one of the hotel’s golf carts, only driving the Caddy in foul weather. Liz doubted she even had a driver’s license and made a mental note to offer her chauffeur services come September.

  Although she’d lived in New York City for a long time, Liz realized she had no burning desire to go back. Sure, there were things she missed, but for now she was content with her life in the bosom of a loving family, which included her father, Betty, and Pierre—together they were the Four Musketeers. And if she was, indeed, a writer, there was no better place to write than by the sea.

  Chapter 15

  When Liz reached the emporium’s parking lot, she was happy to see a white van with a black logo of a huge violin, followed by the words Strings on Wheels. Check.

  A flamingo-pink camper was parked near the entrance to the emporium. Painted on the side of the camper, airbrushed in turquoise daisy-chain letters, was Josie’s Traveling Flower Shop. Check.

  One six-foot folding table was stationed on each side of the huge double doors. Check.

  Relieved that everything seemed on point, she parked the golf cart and got out.

  Kate pulled up next to her on her bike—not a motorcycle bike, but a bike-bike. She took off her helmet and hung it on the handlebars. “You sure picked an awesome day. I wanted to walk here, but I stepped on a shard of glass from a broken beer bottle on my morning beach run. It went clean through the sole of my Nikes.”

  Liz winced at the mention of a broken beer bottle and her hand went to her scar. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine, just a small wound. It won’t stop me from enjoying the day.”

  “You sure?” Liz asked.

  “Of course I’m sure. Let me know what you need. Francie and Minna will take turns at the Barrier Island Historical Society table.”

  As they walked, Liz said, “Captain Netherton will be at the other table handling the raffles for the Barrier Island Sanctuary and handing out brochures for Queen of the Seas.”

  “Sounds like you have everything under control. Let’s get some java.”

  Liz wanted to avoid Ryan. But if she was going to help Pops at twelve with the wine-and-cheese table, then what would it matter if she stopped in now for a coffee? Maybe Ryan would be more cordial in front of his grandfather.

  Kate opened the emporium door and ushered Liz through it. “Age before beauty.”

  Before the scar, Liz had taken her looks for granted. This morning, she’d thought of concealing the scar with makeup for the Spring Fling, then decided against it. Her surgeon had told her she should wait before applying anything topical that wasn’t from a prescription until after her next appointment, because the last graft needed time to heal.

  Liz said, “I’m only older than you by one month, young’un.”

  When they stepped inside, the foyer looked fun and festive. Josie had filled the space with flowering tropical plants and potted palms. The plants were for sale, along with the ones in her traveling flower shop camper, now stationed in the emporium’s parking lot. Pops, or Ryan, had relocated six iron bistro tables and twelve chairs from Deli-casies by the Sea into the foyer, to make room for the wine-and-cheese tasting table. They gave Liz the great idea to have Aunt Amelia buy similar tables and chairs for the entrance, where people could relax while their significant others shopped till they dropped. In the corner, against the back wall, were four musicians practicing on their stringed instruments—Liz had thought it would be nice to have live music instead of canned. At two o’clock, they would be replaced with calypso/reggae musicians.

  Everyone was busy getting ready for the opening, including Brittany. Before Liz could ask if Brittany’s models had arrived, she saw two long-legged twin amazons seated at the counter of Deli-casies by the Sea, being catered to by an attentive Ryan Stone.

  Six weeks ago, when she’d first walked into Deli-casies, Liz thought she was back in SoHo at her favorite Parisian brasserie, Balthazar. The shop floor had small white tiles interspersed with an occasional black tile, forming a honeycomb effect. The iron bistro tables and cushioned iron chairs were set inside three rough-hewn wood partitions, making the space appear like a separate café. Across from the café section was the barista counter, also constructed of wood and topped with an old-fashioned glass confectioners’ case. It was filled with sweets, some of which Pierre had contributed. Pops was a great cook, but he wasn’t much of a baker.

  She looked toward Ryan. He wore a black form-fitting T-shirt and jeans, very New York, not at all Melbourne Beach. Of course, the black suited him and gave him that bad-boy vibe many women seemed attracted to.

  Kate noticed her looking Ryan’s way. “You have to admit, he is one tall, cool drink of water.”

  “And so are those two models who should be dressed in Sirens by the Sea clothing with price tags dangling from their armpits.”

  Kate gave Liz her coffee order, then left Liz in order to get her shop in shape and feed Bronte. Liz strode toward Ryan and the models. “Sorry to interrupt, but I think it’s time you ladies went and changed into your first outfits. We open soon.”

  Ryan said, “You’d better listen to Bossy Pants, girls. Let me transfer your macchiatos into to-go cups. And don’t forget to text your friends about the wine-and-cheese tasting from noon to five.”

  “That’s if they’re twenty-one?” Liz added.

  “Yes, Debbie Downer.” Then Ryan handed the “girls” their cups, and they strode away on their giraffe legs toward Sirens by the Sea.

  After an awkward pause, Liz said, “Where’s Pops?�
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  “He’ll be here at eleven. He had a rough night’s sleep.”

  “It must be a relief having you here.”

  Ryan turned his dark-eyed gaze on Liz’s face. He looked puzzled by her compliment. “Well, if you have nothing else to do, princess, why don’t you help me cut up some of the cheese.”

  “Don’t call me ‘princess’—and cut the cheese yourself!” Suddenly realizing how that sounded, she turned and stomped away. “And I have plenty to do,” she called back over her shoulder.

  At the thought of the word “princess,” Liz felt her temperature rise. The 911 tape from that night long ago had become public. Liz could still hear it playing in her head, with Travis’s voice, “Princess. My princess. How could you do this to me?” followed by some indistinct garbling, then Liz’s voice, “Help! Please help! He’s out of control!” Followed by crying—Travis Osterman’s—the macho Pulitzer Prize–winning author of the best war novel in the last hundred years, sobbing like an infant. The nightly news had played the tape repeatedly. She’d first heard it in her hospital room, before her father had had a chance to jump up and turn off the TV. But it was too late. Until she’d heard her voice on the recording, Liz barely had any memory of what had gone down. But once she heard it, it had all come rushing back in vivid 3-D IMAX detail.

  Ryan wasn’t playing fair. Liz would make it her mission to pay him back one way or another.

  As she walked out of Deli-casies, she realized she’d forgotten to get coffee for her and Kate. She did an about face and stomped toward the barista counter. “Two dark roasts. One milk and sugar. One black.”

  “Yes, ma’am, Bossy Pants. Let me guess, Kate is cream and sugar and you’re…”

  “Wrong again,” she said.

  “You wake up on the wrong side of the bed?” he asked.

  “None of your business what I do in bed.” She realized how ridiculous that sounded and took the tray with the coffees from his outstretched hand.