Murder Beach

by Rena Leith

  But I followed her quietly as we carried the quilts and bedspreads worth salvaging out to my car and put them into the back for a trip to the drycleaners…as soon as I found the local one.

  As we went back in, I stopped for a moment on the porch to enjoy the view—my view—again.

  Back in the bedroom I’d chosen, I pulled a cloth and several scarves from the mirror on the vanity. For a moment, I thought I was seeing things. The large, round mirror was tinged pale pink.

  Gillian followed me in. “That isn’t going to give you accuracy when applying your makeup.”

  “Maybe not,” I said, sitting gingerly on the stool. “But it might be nice to see the world through rose-colored glass.” I smiled up at her.

  “Ha ha. The curtains haven’t held up well,” she said, turning to the window.

  They’d shredded when I ran the upholstery tool over them. “My fault I’m afraid.”

  Gillian shook her head. “I suspect they were older than we thought and already decaying.”

  I stood. “I think we have enough floor space for the basic boxes and suitcases.”

  “As soon as Jack gets back, we should make a U-Haul run.”

  “I think he’s ditching his bathroom duties.”

  We continued to clean the nooks and crannies and fill the trash bags until we heard Jack’s car pull back in the drive.

  The front door banged, and Jack stuck his head around the corner. “Through with the vacuum? I’ve got to get the bathroom ready enough for tonight, and we need to get a move on if we’re sleeping here.”

  Gillian laughed. “As if we haven’t been working for the past hour and a half.”

  I rolled the vac over to him. “Should we call a junk dealer to get the mattresses?”

  “Let’s worry about that tomorrow,” Gillian said. “Jack’s right. We need to finish and get to the locker.”

  “We can lean them against the side of the house and throw a tarp over them,” Jack said.

  “They’ll get awfully damp from the fog,” I said.

  “Do you care?”

  I shrugged. “Guess not. Let’s get them out of here and have some lunch. The electrician will be here soon. Then we can make a locker run.” I scanned my list. The electrician was represented by a lightning bolt and the locker by a padlock with an “er” after it.

  Hours later as the fog rolled in, Jack and I backed the U-Haul into my drive. The sun was low on the horizon, but there would still be enough light to get the mattresses and boxes unloaded before dark.

  I hopped out and gestured to Jack to keep backing up toward the porch. I signaled stop when he got close enough.

  He joined me around the back of the truck just as Gillian came out the front door.

  “Lots has happened while you were gone. The good news is we can all plug our laptops in now, and your washer/dryer hookups are in. The bad news… You might want to have a look down toward the beach.”

  My gaze followed the line of her finger. Gathered on the beach in the incoming fog were half a dozen people in costume and what looked like an EMT team.

  “There’s an ambulance and a cop car parked down on the end of the lane,” Jack said.

  Chapter 3

  “Maybe we should see if we can help.”

  Gillian walked over to us. “They’ve been there a while. It looks like an accident or drowning.”

  “What’s with the costumes then?” Jack asked.

  I shivered as the temperature dropped. “No idea. But that sea foam green mid-calf afternoon dress is lovely.”

  Gillian frowned. “Wrong period, though. Everyone else is Victorian. Look at the fascinators and bustles. She’s more Twenties or Thirties.”

  “Costume party run amok?” I asked.

  “Maybe,” Gillian said.

  Jack unlatched the back of the U-Haul. “Are we sure the EMTs are really EMTs? Could be they’re in costume, too.”

  “With an officially marked ambulance?” Gillian asked. “Highly unlikely.”

  “Should we go down to find out?” I asked. My curiosity was peaked.

  “I think we’d just be in the way,” Gillian said. “I’ve got Thor in his carrier, so we can prop the door open and get this stuff inside before the sun goes down completely.”

  I’d left the king-sized bed in its place back in the master bedroom in Pleasanton. I tamped down the evil thoughts I was having about what my ex and his ‘friend’ might be doing on it as I helped Jack get the full-sized mattress from my former guest bedroom in place in what was now my room.

  “Not a bad fit,” Jack said. “If you keep the bare springs that came with the bedstead, which fit perfectly in this frame, the mattress is a little larger than the three-quarter springs. I don’t think they make that size anymore, and your covered box springs won’t fit inside the three-quarter frame. What do you think, Gillian?” He turned to ask his wife only to discover that she wasn’t there.

  “She’s probably getting a box,” I said, “Maybe the linens. I’ll go help her.”

  She wasn’t in the house, so I stepped onto the porch. Gillian was down on the beach talking to a man. I let the door slam behind me.They both looked up, and I stopped in shock. Gillian gestured to me to come to her.

  I yelled to Jack. “I’ll just be a moment.” Hesitantly, I headed down to where they stood, feeling suddenly hyperaware.

  I saw a young woman with her sleek chestnut hair in a French braid circling the area, taking pictures, placing numbers, kneeling and leaning for different angles. Two others seemed to be moving along the beach, eyes intent on the ground. A white van with a black logo containing a caduceus on the side was parked next to the police car, and a woman in a white Tyvek suit knelt by what had to be a body. I guessed she was the medical examiner and that all this was real. I had a fight or flight moment but continued down toward the body as if I had no will of my own.

  “This is my sister-in-law, Cass Peake. She lives here. Just moving in,” Gillian said as I stopped next to her. “Cass, this is Detective—”

  “George Ho,” I said, my voice shaking slightly. “What are you doing here?”

  “You two know each other?” Gillian asked.

  A more distant door banged in its wooden frame. I turned my head, distracted again. Mina stood out on her porch, a long, gauzy dress swirled around her legs. She pulled a heavy woolen shawl tighter around her body and stared at us.

  “Cass?”

  I turned back at the sound of George’s well-remembered voice. “Sorry.”

  “I’m with the Las Lunas police. I investigate dead bodies.” His smile was easy, and I had the impression he was teasing me even though we hadn’t parted on the best of terms.

  I wasn’t as sanguine. “I just bought this place, and we’re moving stuff in today. We’ve been in and out. Gillian’s my sister-in-law. Jack’s here. Up at the house. You remember Jack? We did see some people in costume down here when we got back from the storage locker a little bit ago.”

  George pointed to a group of five of the people we’d seen earlier, the ones in the Victorian costumes. “That group?”

  I frowned. “I think there were six of them. I remember one young woman in a lovely sea foam green dress.”

  “I remember her,” Gillian said. “We commented that her dress was from the wrong period.”

  George frowned. “There were five when we arrived, and no one in a green dress. Are you sure?”

  “Absolutely,” I said. “It was a gorgeous dress. Had some beadwork on the bodice.”

  He made a note on an iPad mini. “Thank you. Anything else?”

  I shook my head again, my thoughts racing, wondering how he could be so detached. “Not that I can think of.”

  He handed me a card. “Please call me if you think of anything else.” And he winked at me.

  “Sure.” I took the card, nearly dropped it, stuck it in my jeans, and looked up to see the EMTs load the body on a gurney and take it to the ambulance. The woman in the white suit was pa
cking up a case. “Was it an accident?”

  But George was walking away. Just like that. I turned to walk back to the house. Looking up, I saw Mina go back inside her place.

  “Neighbor?” Gillian asked.

  “Yeah. She writes ghost stories.”

  “A corpse is right up her alley then.”

  Jack greeted us at the door. “What was that all about?”

  Gillian said, “Looks like someone may have drowned. The detective wasn’t giving much away. Seems like you and Cass know him.”

  “Really?” Jack raised an eyebrow.

  “George Ho,” I said, my voice breaking.

  Jack looked down toward the beach but George was gone. “Wow. Talk about coincidence.”

  “Somebody want to fill me in?” Gillian said, arms crossed.

  “It’s nothing really,” I said. “I used to date him. I had no idea he was here.”

  “You sure of that?” Jack asked.

  I gave him a dirty look. “A little freaky that it happened on my beach.”

  “Not technically your beach, Cass, but I get what you mean,” Jack said. “Let’s get the rest of the stuff in and lock up for the night. Maybe we should order pizza. We have beer.” He winked.

  “Someone just died, Jack. Have a little respect. According to the police, he was a local bookstore owner.”

  “Hardly likely to be the victim of murder then,” Jack said. “More likely a tragic accident.”

  The fog was coming in, but that’s not why I shivered.

  We unloaded the rest of the U-Haul, let an indignant Thor out of the cat carrier again, and returned the U-Haul to the lot. It was pretty dark by the time we got back. I was so tired that I nearly rolled into bed after I’d made it, but I joined Jack and Gillian in the kitchen.

  Jack was ending a call. “Dominos won’t deliver here. They hung up on me. Thought I was a kid playing a joke. They said they don’t deliver to ghosts.” He looked up. “Something you want to tell us?”

  I sighed. Time to come clean. “It’s the reason I got this place and everything in it so cheap. It has a reputation for being haunted.”

  Gillian nodded. “So buying a haunted house means it’s cheap but also means you can’t have pizza anymore.”

  Jack laughed.

  “Not funny, Jack.”

  Gillian snickered. “Actually, it is pretty funny. I grew up in Indiana in Tornado Alley. Dominos delivered to Purdue in the middle of a tornado.” She snorted. “And they won’t deliver here to a haunted house!”

  “Glad I could provide you two with so much entertainment.”

  “No, no. You don’t get off that easy. You bought it knowing it was haunted?” Jack asked.

  “No, I didn’t know when I bought it.”

  “You weren’t suspicious of the low price?”

  “I didn’t think about it too much although I figured I’d find some sort of serious problem. I just didn’t think it would be a supernatural one.”

  “We could bring in an exorcist or have a séance.”

  I shivered. “Don’t go there, Jack. They used to have séances here.”

  “Seriously?” Jack said.

  “You have to tell us the whole story,” Gillian said.

  “Over dinner,” I said. “I guess we’re going to have to go out if we want to eat.” I picked up my car keys.

  ****

  We slept like the dead that night. I awoke a bit muzzy headed. The whole house would need a good airing. We’d kicked up a lot of dust yesterday, and my allergies had started. I grabbed my brocade kimono, found my Crocs, and headed for the electric kettle in the kitchen. As I plugged it in, I looked out the window.

  There was a couple on the beach standing about where the body had been yesterday. They were only about fifteen yards away, but I couldn’t see details because of the fog. They looked up, saw me looking at them through the window, and then turned away. It looked as though the young woman was drying her eyes. As I pulled my kimono closer around me, they started up to the house. The young woman was a blonde dressed all in black.

  I opened the back door as they approached. “Hi, I’m Cassandra Peake. Cass. I’ve just moved in.”

  Up close I could see that the tall young man was about college age with long dark hair pulled back in a ponytail at the nape of his neck.

  The young man smiled a warm and welcoming smile. “Welcome to La Bahia de las Lunas or Las Lunas for short. I’m Ricardo Santiago. This is Mia Jamison.”

  “I’m pleased to meet you. Do you live around here?”

  Ricardo nodded his head. “My family lives in town.”

  “Are you aware of what happened yesterday right about where you were standing?”

  The girl with the platinum blonde hair that Ricardo had introduced as Mia looked as though she were going to cry.

  Ricardo spoke quickly. “All we know is that Alan Howland drowned yesterday. Did you know him?”

  I shook my head. “No, but I hardly know anyone here. This is my first night sleeping in my new place. I moved over here from Pleasanton.”

  Mia looked miserable, and that made me curious.

  “We’re students at Clouston College on the other side of the bay.” He hesitated. “Do you know about your house? I mean, the rumors?”

  “That it’s haunted, you mean?”

  He relaxed visibly. “Yes. He’s not the first to die here,” Ricardo said. “We know about the murders.”

  “Murders?” Suddenly my stomach hurt.

  “Yeah, we kinda call it Murder Beach.”

  Mia shivered. “We think there’s something here. Evil ley line. Evil presence.”

  “Given that I’ve just bought the place, I’m not thrilled with your repeated use of the word ‘evil.’” But Mia’s move from murder to the supernatural helped me regain perspective.

  Ricardo stepped in. “We’re part of a steampunk cosplay group, and the reputation of this place enhances our game. I’m sure you must have told ghost stories when you were young.”

  I wasn’t sure I liked his implication that I was old, but I knew where he was going. “Sure, and apparently I now live next to a ghost story writer.”

  Ricardo smiled. “That would be Mad Mina.”

  “Mad Mina?” Despite my attempts to be stern, I smiled. It was a pretty apt description.

  Ricardo smiled back. “Look, we don’t want to upset you. There was a murder on this beach in the Twenties. A notorious bootlegger’s daughter. Then my boss at Crystalline got engaged, and shortly afterward, her fiancé was murdered here. Now Alan…dying.”

  A sob escaped Mia.

  “Is she all right?” I asked.

  Ricardo put an arm around her. “Mia used to work for Alan.”

  She buried her face in his shoulder and cried softly.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “Not your fault,” he said.

  “I’m fine with your continuing to use the beach for…gaming, you said? What kind of game? It’ll be nice to know someone around here.”

  “Have you heard of steampunk?”

  I must have looked blank again.

  Ricardo grinned. “It’s related to Victorian. We’ll show you our costumes sometime. We have to go now. We just came by this early to pay our respects to Alan, but I’d be happy to fill you in some other time. You might even want to join us one evening.” He winked.

  From the way he said it I knew he was teasing. I watched as they returned to the beach. I was snapped back to reality when I heard a meow-howl and realized that I’d been standing in the doorway while I talked to them and Thor had simply walked out between my ankles. I was so not used to having a cat.

  The meow-howl sounded again, and I looked around for Thor. He wasn’t on the beach, so I looked up toward the dark windows of Mina’s house. He was nowhere to be seen.

  Dave, my next-door neighbor, stood on his deck, waving at me. I waved back, torn as to whether to look for Thor or go over and say hi. The conundrum was resolved when Thor appea
red at Dave’s feet, winding his longhaired body around Dave’s ankles. I smiled and walked over.

  “I see you’ve met my cat.”

  Dave smiled. “I wondered who he belonged to.” He bent and scratched Thor’s head.

  Thor purred. I gaped in amazement.

  “He’s really friendly.” Dave ran his fingers down Thor’s back and up his tail.

  Thor, you traitor. “Did you see the cops yesterday on the beach, Dave?”

  Dave frowned. “No, I was up in the City with friends. Just got back after sleeping off a pub crawl.”

  “A body washed up on the beach right in front of my place. I’m told it was someone named Alan Howland. Did you know him?”

  “No shit! Alan?” He shook his head. “He used to come to the séances. Did I mention? I went to his shop a couple of times. I liked it. Neat, orderly place. I picked up a great book on the history of surfboards. C’mon up.”

  Dave stepped back, and I walked up the two steps. His deck was primarily designed to give him a relatively sand-free place to sit and sun.

  “I can’t believe it. What happened?”

  “Don’t know. I’m hoping an accident.” Alan had been in my house. At a séance. I needed to process that.

  “Guess so.” He shook his head again and conversation died.

  Looking for something to talk about, I pointed to his grill with all of the utensils hanging from hooks on both sides. “Do you like cooking outside?”

  He glanced around. “Yeah. Alan and I were always saying we were going to have a barbeque, but it never happened.”

  “Where’s Thor?” I looked around for the beast, who, of course, had already vanished again. “Great.”

  “Don’t worry about him. He seems pretty self-sufficient.”

  “I’m more of a dog person. I think that cat hates me.”

  “The thing about cats is you can’t control them. You have to just take them the way God made them.”

  “He’s originally a pound kitty. My brother can’t keep him any longer, so he’s mine now. If he went back to the pound, I doubt he’d be adopted at his age.”

  The wind picked up, blowing my hair around my face.

  “You’re right about that. During kitten season, many pounds won’t even take older cats. I used to volunteer when I was in high school. I thought about being a vet.” Dave laughed as if dismissing the idea as absurd. “My cousin’s studying to be a doctor. I barely see him; he’s too busy.” He said it as if it were a bad thing.