Cora’s heart raced. What was going on? What had happened? Mathilde was falling apart right in front of them.
“There was a body found on the beach last night,” Mathilde said with a hushed tone.
“A body,” Jane said, her eyes wide. “What kind of body? What do you mean?”
“A human body,” Mathilde said.
They sat stunned.
“A drowning?” Cora managed to say.
“They’re not sure what happened,” Mathilde said, her voice cracking. “The poor woman was just married yesterday. The evidence suggests she died from a jellyfish sting.”
Cora coughed as she tried to swallow her coffee. “Was she married here? On the beach?”
Jane and Ruby turned to look at Cora.
“Yes,” Mathilde said. “Marcy grew up on the island and came back home to marry here. So sad.”
“Do you mean to tell me she was married yesterday and then murdered later the same day?” Ruby exclaimed. “How horrible!”
Mathilde nodded and took a sip of her cranberry juice before saying, “Tragic.”
Jane sat with her mouth hanging open, as if she wanted to find words but couldn’t.
The image of the beautiful bride still fresh in her mind, Cora’s appetite dwindled and she pushed away her plate.
Chapter 3
Cora tried to ignore the crime scene tape on the sectioned-off part of the beach. But she was a bit distracted by it as she, Jane, and Adrian walked around it. They didn’t speak about it, even as it flapped in the breeze, an unspoken pact among them.
“There!” Jane said, pointing to a cluster of sparkly sea glass caught in the sand.
Cora’s attention moved from ignoring the crime scene to the gleaming glass nuggets half buried in the sand.
“Ah-ha!” Cora said.
They crouched and scooped up the sea glass. Enamored, Cora had studied up on sea glass in preparation for the trip. After viewing Mathilde’s sea glass creations, she became even more thrilled about being here and trying her hand at crafting with the glass.
“So lovely.” Jane splayed her hand out, revealing her treasure. Aqua and cobalt glass stones tumbled around on her hand. “I’m going to use this in some of my pottery.” Her eyebrows lifted as she grinned. Jane’s deep blue eyes were filled with inspiration.
“This island is magical,” Cora said. “The way it attracts sea glass and seashells. It’s like a crafter’s fantasy come true.”
“Yeah,” Adrian said. “I’ve always found sea glass fascinating. It’s like a reverse gemstone.”
Jane laughed. “What do you mean?”
“Gemstones are made by nature and refined by people. Sea glass is made by people and refined by the sea. You know, after years of our discarded bottles and jars rolling around in the sea, we find these beautiful pieces of glass,” he said.
“Exactly,” Cora said, placing her glass treasures in her bag. “And Mathilde crafts some lovely jewelry from sea glass. She’s made quite a career from it.”
“I’m looking forward to her sea craft class,” Jane said after a moment. “Hey, your nose is getting pink.”
“Darn,” Cora said. She wore a big floppy hat and plenty of sunscreen and yet an hour on the beach gave her a pink nose. “I should be moving inside anyway. I need to check the classroom out and make sure they have enough outlets and so on. The last time I guested, the class had to share outlets and it was so disruptive.”
“I’ll go with you,” Jane said.
“Me too,” Adrian said. “I’m going to head back and get my book. I think I may sit on the beach for a while and read.”
A gentle, warm breeze blew up, ruffling Adrian’s dark hair. His sunglasses prevented Cora from seeing and admiring those jade eyes of his.
“Gee, sounds like fun,” Jane teased. “Sounds like something Cora would do. Go to the beach and read.”
“What’s wrong with that?” Cora asked as Jane walked off toward the resort. She looked at Adrian and pulled a face as they followed Jane.
“What time is our tour of the island scheduled?” Adrian asked, after they’d gotten to the vast lobby of the resort.
“We’ll see you at two,” Cora said, and kissed his cheek.
“You two are so much fun I can’t stand it,” Jane said, after he left them. “A kiss on the cheek?” She rolled her eyes. “You can do better than that.”
“What? Right here in the lobby? I don’t think so,” Cora said.
“Let’s find our classrooms,” Jane said.
Cora pulled out her map and instruction sheet. “Okay. It looks like we are down this hallway. Over there.” She pointed. “And out that door.”
“A separate building?”
“Attached by a long hallway.”
“I haven’t been over there yet. C’mon, let’s go.”
They walked past the main indoor fountain and down one of the many long corridors, called Mermaid Hall, for obvious reasons. There were mermaid paintings, mermaids on the carpet, and even mermaids drawn on the ceiling. Cora and Jane stopped in front of the centrally located stained-glass window of a mermaid. The color of the mermaid’s dress was the exact shade of blue the bride had worn the day before.
“I’m trying not to think of that poor woman,” Cora said.
“Who?” Jane asked.
“Marcy, the woman who died on the beach last night,” Cora said. “Adrian and I saw her wedding. It was so gorgeous. She wore a dress just this color.”
“London calls it mermaid blue,” Jane said.
“But isn’t it more of a green?”
Jane stood back and considered it. “I think it’s a blue-green.”
“What do you think happened to her?” Cora said after a minute.
“Who? Oh. Marcy? Who knows? It’s devastating. She was just married yesterday and then died,” Jane said, and walked over to a mermaid painting. “I love this. It’s sort of Pre-Raphaelite with the color choices.”
“I see what you mean,” Cora said.
They continued walking down the hallway.
“I think it’s kind of suspicious—what happened to Marcy. You know?” Cora said after a few moments.
“Don’t become involved, Cora. You have no reason to. You didn’t know her. We are guests of this resort and island. We don’t know any of these people,” Jane said.
“I don’t plan on getting involved,” Cora said.
“How many times have I heard that before?”
“I’m observing the curious circumstances. That’s all,” Cora said. After all, what could she do? She planned to be busy with her classes. And Jane was right; she didn’t know any of these people. It wasn’t anything like recent situations back home in Indigo Gap, where she was compelled to involve herself in police business.
When she thought about Indigo Gap, a surprising wave of homesickness rolled through her. She’d been there less than a year and already thinking of it as home, which was a good sign.
“Well, isn’t this grand?” Jane said as she stood in front of a new section of hallway—smaller and all glass. As they strolled, it felt almost as if they were outside.
“This must be built on the the tiny peninsula Ruby told us tabout,” Cora said.
“It feels kind of more private here. I like it,” Jane said. They walked into a round room with several smaller rooms jutting off.
WELCOME TO THE BIG ISLAND CRAFT RETREAT, a sign proclaimed.
Everything looked lovely. Everything seemed right. But Cora couldn’t shake her ominous feelings about the bride who’d died. Was it because she had glimpsed a part of the wedding? She tried to ignore the creeping sensation along her spine and resolved to set her emotions aside. She was here to teach everything she had learned and practiced about craft blogging. She needed to be on top of it. When she found the room where she’d be teaching, she saw that everything was in perfect order.
So why did that make her so nervous?
Chapter 4
Cora’s group gathered
together for the 2:00 P.M.—Cora, Jane, Ruby, her son, Cashel, and Adrian. Cora was surprised Cashel had come along for the retreat. He was a busy attorney, one of the few in Indigo Gap. But he had mentioned that another lawyer had been recently hired at his practice and he needed a break. So he joined his mother. Ruby was only too happy to spend time with him.
“I can’t believe all the beautiful shells and sea glass I found this morning,” Ruby said.
Their guide smiled, fiddling with his name tag. His hair was silver blond and face rugged with lines that spoke of years in the sun. “Do we have everybody?”
“I think so.” Cora checked the group. “All here.”
“Follow me,” he said, and led them to his truck. Or was it a Jeep? Or some kind of strange combination of the two? They filed into the back of the vehicle, like an old-fashioned hayride.
“This ought to be fun,” Jane muttered.
After they were situated, Frank, the tour guide, went over the rules. This island is full of rules, mused Cora.
“As you know, you’re officially in Low County,” he said. “Sea Glass Island is the smallest of the islands. When folks think of our islands, they usually think of Edisto or Hilton Head. We are barely a blip on the map compared to them. But because of the geography of our island and the way the currents enter, we have an unusual amount of driftwood, sea glass, and seashells.”
“Hence the name Sea Glass Island,” Cashel said with a sarcastic note.
Adrian looked at Cora as if to say “Didn’t everybody know that?”
A grinning Cashel winked at Cora. She made a mental note to ask him to stop winking at her. It was something he did frequently. Once or twice was one thing, but now he was coming off like an old, creepy uncle.
She didn’t quite understand Cashel. He was GQ gorgeous and when she first met him she was quite attracted to him—but his mother worked for her. She made it a policy to not date her employee’s sons. Her policies were in flux, admittedly. But just now, in her head, it became a policy. She created policies as the business went along.
No male teachers.
No sleeping with retreaters.
No dating the sons of mothers who worked for her.
Always do background checks of her guest teachers.
The guide, Frank, explained about Sea Glass Island’s booming tourism industry, but said that it was experiencing difficulties staying afloat during the off season. Plus, it was dealing with some damage from recent hurricanes, which had destroyed part of a public beach. He stopped the truck.
“Over there,” he said. “It used to be a huge beach.” He pointed to a small beach, full of huge rocks. “It’s an area designated as unsafe for visitors, which on a small island like this, is too bad.”
“Are there any restoration efforts in place?” Adrian asked.
“There’s a group here trying to raise awareness and money. I can give you their card at the end of the tour.”
Adrian nodded. “Sounds good.”
Not only was Adrian attractive and smart, but he was just plain nice. You had to like that in a man. Some women, of course, didn’t like nice guys, which was something Cora had never understood. Many of the women she used to work with at the Sunny Street Women’s Shelter in Pittsburgh fell only for “bad” guys—and it never led to anything good.
She turned her face as she adjusted her hat and saw Cashel peering at her. He looked away.
“From this angle,” Frank said, after driving further into the island forest and explaining about the plants and trees around them, “you can see our famous hook.”
A piece of the island jutted out, forming a hook shape, and part of the resort was built onto it. The Mermaid Hall was built on it, connecting the crafting area attached to the older resort with the new crafting area.
“Wow,” Jane said. “We were right there, almost at the tip of the hook this morning, right?”
Cora nodded. From here they viewed the long Mermaid Hall from a different vantage point.
“What’s that?” Ruby said, pointing to a huge building on the side of one of the hills.
“That would be the home of one the island’s biggest families, the Grimms,” he said. “You’ll see roads named after them and so on.”
Adrian coughed.
“They were one of the founding families. Recently, they’ve been fighting to keep their property, though,” he said, and drove off.
“What do you mean?” Ruby said.
“Well, developers are always wanting a piece of them. We hope they never sell. Of course the other big family on the island did sell, which is how the resort started. But it’s never enough, you know?”
Ruby grunted. “One resort on this beautiful island is enough.”
“I’d have to agree,” Jane said.
Cora kept her opinion to herself. Of course she agreed with them. But she realized several sides to stories like this existed.
They turned a corner and the landscape changed. Smaller, tidy homes painted in bright colors sat clustered together in a straight line.
“This is Gator Corner,” he said, laughing a little when Ruby gasped. “We don’t have alligators anymore, but we used to. Behind that clump of trees is the swamp. I’ll drive over there. But be prepared. It’s different.”
Different it was. Gone were the tidy homes. The places lining the swamps resembled nothing more than shacks. A glittering mobile or chime hung in the window of one of the homes. It caught Cora’s eye.
“Don’t be fooled,” Frank said. “Some of these folks have more money than God. They just like to keep it simple.”
Simple or not, the chimes currently catching her attention were gorgeous. Cora wanted to exit the car and find out who had crafted them. Who lived in such a place, with such beautiful chimes in the window?
But Frank kept moving.
When they returned to the main resort, the island police surrounded the area. They appeared to be waiting for them. Odd.
As they exited the van, the police took a special interest, watching each person. Several officers came up to the group.
“We’re looking for Adrian Brisbane.”
“Um, yeah, that’s me,” Adrian said.
“Please come with us to the station,” one of the cops said.
“What? What for?”
“We need to ask you some questions about Marcy Grimm.”
Adrian’s face reddened.
“Adrian? What’s going on?” Cora said. “Who’s Marcy Grimm?”
“Marcy Grimm is the woman whose body was found last night,” Ruby said.
“I thought her last name was Dupres,” Cora said.
“Not officially yet,” Ruby said. “According to the paper.”
“Can you please come with us?” The officer held out his arm and gestured for Adrian to follow him.
Cora’s heart thudded against her ribs. What was going on here?
Adrian began to follow the police and then turned around. “Cora, we’ll talk about this later. I—”
She held up her hand. “Okay,” she found the courage to say.
As he left, she caught Cashel’s smirk.
“Don’t just stand there,” Ruby said to him. “Follow him. I didn’t put you through law school for you to stand around with that stupid look on your face.”
Chapter 5
Jane grabbed Cora’s hand.
“I don’t know what’s going on, but I can tell you Adrian had nothing to do with any of it,” Jane said, trying to reassure Cora. It had been a long time since Cora was interested in anybody, and Jane herself had brought them together, thinking they were perfect for one another.
Cora paled and sucked in air. Jane hoped she wasn’t having a panic attack—they were one of the main reasons they’d created their new life together. Cora couldn’t handle her social work in a women’s shelter in Pittsburgh.
“It must be some kind of mistake,” Ruby said, coming alongside them. “Cashel will get to the bottom of it.”
Co
ra said nothing, just squeezed Jane’s hand.
“What do they want with him?” Jane said almost to herself.
“They’re probably asking him the usual questions,” Ruby said. “Who knows? Cops! Anyway, we’ll find out the scoop when my Cashel returns.”
Her belief in her son bordered on either sweet or ridiculous. Jane couldn’t decide which right at this moment.
“Cora! Jane! Ruby!” A voice startled all three of them. It was Mathilde, the woman in charge of the retreat. “There you are!”
Mathilde came racing over to them, with a small woman next to her.
“Yes,” Jane said, forcing cheerfulness. “We’ve just returned from our tour of Sea Glass Island. What a lovely place!”
“Stunning,” Ruby said.
“I want to introduce you to Sherry Miller,” Mathilde said. “She came all the way from California to take your class, Cora.”
Cora perked up and smiled. She held out her hand. “Lovely to meet you, Sherry.”
“Thanks,” Sherry said. “I’ve been a big fan of your blog for such a long time. I can’t wait for your class.”
“What’s your craft?” Ruby said.
“A little of everything,” she replied. “But basically I love to crochet. I was thrilled to see Ryan Anderson is teaching here and I’ll be able to take your class and his.”
“Well,” Mathilde interrupted. “We were on our way for drinks over at the café. Care to join us?”
“I don’t know about anybody else, but the tour wore me out. I’m going to take a nap,” Ruby said.
Jane agreed, but she was more worried about Cora than she was tired herself.
“I need a bit of a rest, too,” Cora said. “We’ll catch you later.”
After the three of them entered the elevator and went up to their floor, they stood in awkward silence. Jane shifted her weight. Ruby cleared her throat.
“How could the island police possibly think Adrian had anything to do with Marcy’s murder?” Cora finally said.
“It’s bizarre,” Jane said. “He’s one of the nicest guys I ever met.”
Ruby harrumphed. “He’s a man, ain’t he?”
Macramé Murder Page 2
