Seaside Secrets

by Glen Ebisch

  Clarissa returned to the parsonage. After having a small portion of the gigantic casserole Mrs. Gunn had left for her, she spent an extended time in meditation and prayer, hoping to bring clarity to her mind and serenity to her soul before turning in for the night.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The first thing Clarissa noticed the next morning as she entered the kitchen was a loaf of just the kind of dark rye that she liked most sitting in the middle of the table.

  “Good morning,” Mrs. Gunn said. Seeing Clarissa staring at the bread, she smiled. “He said you would be impressed.”

  “Who did?” Clarissa asked.

  “The young man who brought it to the door a few minutes ago,” Mrs. Gunn answered. “He said his name was Tyler and that you were old friends. He also said that the bread was a peace offering because you’d had some kind of disagreement.”

  Clarissa struggled to keep her expression bland, although inside she was seething. Here was Tyler intruding into her life again, this time by coming right to the parsonage and telling Mrs. Gunn personal things.

  “He seems like a nice boy,” Mrs. Gunn said cautiously.

  “He has his moments.”

  Mrs. Gunn gave her a quizzical look that Clarissa didn’t respond to. Finally, realizing that the story would eventually come out and Mrs. Gunn would be hurt if she were the last to know, Clarissa decided to say something.

  “We used to be engaged, but it didn’t work out,” she said flatly.

  “Oh, I see. Well, that must have been very upsetting for both of you,” Mrs. Gunn commented.

  “It was, but I’ve moved on. Tyler apparently hasn’t,” Clarissa said. “He left his church job in northern New Jersey to move down here so he could be closer to me. I know it sounds very romantic, but . . .”

  “You wish he would move on the same way you have.”

  Clarissa shrugged. She took two pieces of bread from the loaf and popped them in the toaster on the counter.

  “In my experience, people very seldom agree on when a relationship started or when it should end. Often one person wants to cut the tie, while the other wants to have it remain in place,” Mrs. Gunn said.

  Clarissa leaned against the counter. “I’m not certain what I want. We had something wonderful once, but I’m not sure it can be brought back to life. I certainly don’t like being pressured to move things along faster than I’m comfortable doing.”

  “Yes, the young man did have a kind of desperate optimism about him.”

  “I think he’s convinced himself that, with a little effort, things are magically going to go back to the way they were.” Clarissa shook her head. “That’s not going to happen. If we even should get together again, it will have to be different than it was before.”

  “He is not going to be happy to hear that you’re going out with that lawyer fellow,” Mrs. Gunn observed.

  “He already isn’t. I warned him that I wasn’t going to be exclusively seeing him, and he agreed. But when I told him I had a date, he got pretty huffy,” Clarissa complained. “That’s why he brought the loaf of bread—to make up. Why did he agree to my terms in the first place, if he was just going to get bent out of shape by my dating other people?”

  Mrs. Gunn laughed. “He probably would have agreed to cut off a finger to keep going out with you. But that doesn’t mean he would have done it when the time came. Men always want to sound reasonable, but when push comes to shove, they’re more emotional than we are. It’s got something to do with hormones.”

  Clarissa grinned and began buttering her toast.

  “Would you like an egg to go with that?” Mrs. Gunn asked.

  “No, thanks. I think this will be enough this morning.”

  Mrs. Gunn frowned, but said nothing.

  The Ames investigation pressed on Clarissa's mind. “Do you happen to know if there were any other members of the Llewellyn family living in town back when Royce was murdered?” she asked.

  Mrs. Gunn stared across the kitchen. “I don’t remember hearing about any. Elise was the only Llewellyn in the school at the time as far as I know. Why do you ask?”

  Clarissa didn’t want to tell Mrs. Gunn about the extent of her involvement in the murder investigation, so she said, “I just heard about how badly off Elise is mentally, and I was wondering if there were any other family members to give Doris support.”

  “Poor Elise is a sad case. She’s never been completely right since she came back to town. But I never heard about her having any other family.” Mrs. Gunn poured herself a cup of coffee. “But—wait a minute, someone did tell me that the new owners of the Italian restaurant on the west side of town are named Llewellyn. I remember wondering if they were somehow related. It’s not that common a name.”

  “What’s the name of the restaurant?”

  “The Florentina. It’s on Sitwell, just inside the town line.”

  “That’s quite interesting,” Clarissa said. She was definitely going to visit the restaurant this afternoon.

  “So, you have a date with Andrew the lawyer tomorrow evening,” Mrs. Gunn said, turning the conversation back to Clarissa's love life. “Are you going to tell him about your ex-fiancé being back in town?”

  Clarissa thought about it. “I guess it would only be fair to tell him. Since Tyler knows about him, I guess he should know about Tyler. Today that’s what they call transparency.”

  “Sounds like a situation that could lead to a confrontation.”

  “That’s what Ashley thought. She figured it would be like two rams butting heads.”

  A sly look came into Mrs. Gunn’s eyes. “I don’t think we’ve ever had two men fighting over who’s going to date the pastor.”

  “How about two older women fighting over the handsome Reverend Hollingsworth?” Clarissa asked with a grin.

  “Ah, now that’s a different matter,” Mrs. Gunn said. “I’ll have to tell you about that some time.”

  After finishing breakfast, Clarissa went over to her office. She read through her sermon again in the cold light of morning to see whether it was actually as good as it had seemed the day before. Aware that sometimes what she considered to be her more brilliant sermons fell flat, while her less skillfully crafted ones were a big hit, she tried not to get too enthused over her work until it had actually been presented.

  She heard the outer door open, and went into the outer office just as Ashley entered. She was wearing a black blouse and black jeans with black running shoes. Clarissa hoped Ashley didn’t go walking like that at night; an inattentive driver could easily hit her crossing the street—if the police didn’t pick her up first.

  This morning, though, her expression was as dark as her clothes.

  “What’s wrong?” Clarissa asked. “Did your aunt make you eat bacon and eggs for breakfast?”

  Her attempt at humor fell on deaf ears; Ashley didn’t crack a smile. “I’m afraid our investigation has hit a major dead end.”

  “How’s that?”

  “My aunt got in touch with Agnes Coleman last night, and she checked her calendar of driving assignments for last month,” Ashley said. “Apparently she's a stickler for keeping records; it’s her only way of being certain she gets paid. And on the afternoon that David Ames was murdered, Agnes took Elise and her mother to Philadelphia for Elise’s monthly visit with her psychiatrist. They left town at two o’clock and didn’t get back until after eight. There was an accident on the road on the way back, and they got delayed. Do you know when someone last saw Ames alive?”

  “Let me call Detective Baker,” Clarissa said. “He’s checking up on something else for me anyway.”

  Clarissa called the police station and quickly got through to the detective.

  “I was going to call you in about ten minutes,” he said on the other end of the line. “I didn’t know what time you started work.”

  “Before you tell me about Officer Rudinski’s search, could you tell me when David Ames was last seen alive?” Clarissa asked.
>
  “Let me check; it’s in the file.”

  While Clarissa waited, Ashley whispered, “Any time after two o’clock is going to be too late.”

  Detective Baker was back. “Nurse Bascomb checked on David at three-thirty,” he said, “and he was doing okay. When she came in at four-thirty with his supper, he was gone.”

  Clarissa sighed. “Well, we can write off Elise and Doris Llewellyn as the killers, then, because according to Agnes Coleman, their driver, they were on their way to Philadelphia at the time of his death.”

  “Okay. I’ll go talk to Agnes just to make sure that there isn’t any mistake. And I’m afraid the news on this end isn’t any better,” Baker said. “Rudinski showed Elise’s picture around the lobby of the hospital, on the floor Ames was on, and on both the floors above and below. He checked with the staff and any patients who were in that area of the hospital at the time of the killing. No one remembered seeing her. The hospital has a surveillance camera in the lobby and one in the back parking lot, so Rudinski went through the tapes for the day of the murder, starting at two o’clock and going all the way to five. There was no sign of Elise. Now, the cameras aren’t complete in their coverage, but it does suggest along with everything else that she wasn’t there.”

  “You’re right. It does sound pretty conclusive. Unfortunately, it leaves us without any suspects,” Clarissa sighed. “Thank Officer Rudinski for me. It sounds like he went above and beyond the call to do a thorough job.”

  “Yeah, he’s got the kind of persistence needed to be a detective. Of course, in this case he knew it was something you were interested in, so he went all out. I think you’ve got a fan there.”

  Clarissa suppressed another sigh. All she needed was a third guy interested in her.

  “Oh, by the way,” she said. “Mrs. Gunn mentioned that someone named Llewellyn just opened up an Italian restaurant in town.”

  Ashley waved her hand to catch Clarissa’s attention and whispered, “My aunt says he’s the grandson of Royce Llewellyn’s brother.”

  Clarissa passed the news along to Detective Baker. “I thought I’d stop in there today to see if he knew anything,” she told him.

  “All right,” Baker said doubtfully, “but be careful. Don’t make any accusations. Just find out if he’s had any contact with the rest of his family. If he has, I’ll take it from there. In fact, why don’t you take Ashley along with you? She looks fierce enough to put the fear of God into any felon.”

  “Okay, I’ll do that,” Clarissa said, barely keeping a straight face.

  After she hung up, Clarissa told Ashley what the detective had said, leaving out the part about her threatening appearance.

  “Sounds good,” Ashley said enthusiastically. “Let me call the restaurant and see if they’re open for lunch. If they are, we might be able to talk to the owner then.”

  “If not, we’ll make an appointment,” Clarissa said. “I’m going to go into my office and sketch out a few questions I want to ask the two families I’m visiting this afternoon. I’ll show them to you after I’m done to make sure they’ll give us the kind of information we need to do the church history.”

  Ashley nodded, already punching numbers on the phone.

  For the next hour, Clarissa tried to clarify in her mind exactly what she wanted the church history to be. Rather than a dry recital of statistics and official events, she thought it would be more valuable to have church members recount events from the past that stood out in their own minds, preferably events that were in some way relevant to the church. But she didn’t want only good memories—conflicts, disagreements, and arguments were just as meaningful a part of the church’s life.

  The phone rang. When she picked it up, Ashley said, “Andrew Corrigan is on the line for you.” Clarissa thought she detected a note of humor in Ashley’s voice.

  Ashley put him through and Clarissa greeted him: “Hi, Andrew, how are you?”

  “Fine,” he replied. “I just called to tell you how much I’m looking forward to our going out to dinner tomorrow night.”

  “So am I. You didn’t think you had to call to remind me, did you?”

  “No, of course not.” Andrew chuckled. “Well, maybe I wanted to check that you really had forgiven me for that last fiasco, and weren’t already regretting having agreed to go out with me again.”

  “Not at all. I’m a great believer in new beginnings.” Saying those words reminded her of what she had said to Mrs. Gunn about being fair to Andrew by telling him about Tyler. “I’m glad you called, because I wanted to let you know that my former fiancé has moved to the area.”

  “I didn’t know you’d had a fiancé,” Andrew said, startled.

  “Well, we didn’t exactly have an opportunity to talk much about our pasts last time.” Although to be honest with herself, Clarissa wasn’t completely sure she would have told him about Tyler on a first date anyway.

  “Is he definitely a former fiancé?”

  “Oh, yes. But he still wants us to see each other.”

  “So he hasn’t given up?”

  Clarissa frowned. That was a blunt—but accurate—way to put it. “I guess you could say that.”

  “He isn’t going to shoot me in a jealous rage, is he?” Andrew said.

  “He’s a minister.”

  “That doesn’t answer the question.”

  “No, he’s not a violent person, so you don’t have to worry.”

  “That’s fine, then. Let the best man win.”

  “Yes, I suppose so,” Clarissa said, not sure she liked being depicted as a prize at a sporting event. “I’ll see you Wednesday evening.”

  “Looking forward to it, and now I’ll definitely be bringing my ‘A’ game,” he said.

  Clarissa hung up, wondering whether there was ever a time when men stopped being boys.

  Ashley opened the door. “I got in touch with someone at the Florentina. They serve lunch and open at eleven-thirty. The owner, Noah Llewellyn, will be there, and is looking forward to seeing us.”

  “What reason did you give him for our visit?” Clarissa asked.

  Ashley’s eyes got a bit shifty. “I may have mentioned that the women’s group is looking for a place to have their luncheon meeting next month.”

  “Is that true?”

  “Well, they’ve been going to the same place for years, and my aunt mentioned that there’s a significant faction that would like to have the meetings move around so they get to sample a variety of restaurants. Since she’s in charge of organizing the luncheons, I could have significant input in the decision.”

  “So it’s sort of true.”

  “If you come at it the right way.”

  Clarissa glanced at the clock on the wall. “We have an hour before we have to leave to see Llewellyn. Let me go over my visitation questions and talk a little about my concept of this history.”

  “Are you sure you want to do this history thing?”

  The pastor gave her a level stare.

  “Okay, Boss,” Ashley replied, putting her hands up. “I give up.”

  Clarissa chuckled; she wasn’t sure if Ashley ever gave up.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The Florentina looked like it was made out of plastic stucco. The outside was garishly shaped and decorated to resemble an Italianate palace. Clarissa had been to Italy on a tour with her parents back when she was in high school, and this looked like something you’d see along the Grand Canal in Venice—if you didn’t look very hard.

  “It’s a bit tacky,” Ashley said, “but you can’t go just by that. Maybe the food is good.”

  They walked through the front double doors and into a large bar area. The carpeting underfoot was thick enough to slow them down, and overhead, the chandeliers were large enough to feel oppressive.

  A young man working behind the bar spotted them. “Unless you’re here for a drink, you took a wrong turn. The restaurant is to the left as you come in the door,” he informed them.

  �
��We have an appointment with Noah Llewellyn,” Clarissa said in a crisp voice.

  “I’ll get him for you.”

  The bartender returned a couple of minutes later with a tall, thin man in his early thirties.

  “I’m Noah Llewellyn,” he said to Clarissa. “Are you Reverend Abbot?”

  She nodded. “Clarissa will be fine.”

  The man smiled and took a longer look at Ashley.

  “I’m Ashley Reynolds. The office manager,” she said.

  Llewellyn nodded and gave a slight smile, as if bemused by the incongruous couple. “Your message said that you’re looking for a venue for a luncheon that the church’s women’s club is holding,” he said.

  “That’s right,” Clarissa said.

  “How many would be attending?” he asked.

  Not sure of the answer, Clarissa glanced over at Ashley.

  “Twenty-five to thirty,” Ashley said quickly.

  “We have a private room that will hold that many,” Llewellyn said. “If you’ll come with me, I’ll show it to you.”

  He turned and quickly led them through the bar, around a corner, and across the back of the dining room. Although she didn’t have much time to look around, Clarissa had a sense of a certain uniformity of excess. Their motto in decorating seemed to be if a little is good, more is better.

  Finally, Llewellyn stopped before a heavy door and shoved it open to reveal a spacious room with a dining table down the center that looked like it could easily hold forty people.

  “This should be just fine,” Clarissa said. She looked at Ashley for confirmation; she nodded.

  “Here’s a menu to take with you,” Llewellyn offered. “I know how these things work. There’s probably a committee that makes the decision, and they might like to see what we have to offer. We have all the usual Italian red sauce dishes, but for those who want something different, we have several northern Italian items and a few southern German selections.”

  “Thank you very much. We’ll let you know soon.” Clarissa glanced at Ashley.

  “Within a week,” her assistant added.