Fourth Victim (Writers Retreat Southern Seashore Mystery Book 4)

by Kathi Daley

  “It does sound wonderful. Where are those houses now?”

  Clara frowned. “I’m not sure. When my mother passed, my sister took them, but I’m not sure what happened to them after that.”

  “You have a sister? You’ve never mentioned her. Or any family, for that matter.”

  “I had a sister. She’s gone now. They all are. I’m afraid it’s just me.”

  “I’m so sorry.” I squeezed Clara’s hand. “You have us now.”

  “I do, and I’m very happy to be here and to help you bring some Christmas cheer to the place. Do you have decorations?”

  “I moved boxes of stuff from the attic to the small bedroom at the end of the hall when I remodeled. I remember seeing some decorations. I thought I’d start there and then maybe head into town to get whatever else I need. I need to meet Jack at noon, though, so I don’t have a lot of time, but this morning seems like as good a time as any to get started.”

  “It would be nice to bring some Christmas cheer to the place. Not that the house isn’t perfectly lovely the way it is, but it’s been a while since I’ve had a tree.”

  “Will you be here for Christmas?” I asked.

  “I have nowhere else to be.”

  “George and Brit are going to Brit’s parents’ house for the holiday and Alex is taking his model of the moment to the Bahamas, but none of them leave until the twenty-third, so I thought we’d have a big dinner here on the twenty-second, after Brit’s play.”

  “That sounds nice. I do so enjoy it when we all get together. If Garrett is coming home, I assume you won’t be traveling over the holiday?”

  I shook my head. “Jack is going to stay here for the long weekend, so it will be him, Garrett, and us for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.”

  Agatha got up from her spot by the fire, crossed the room, and jumped into Clara’s lap. “And Victoria?” Clara asked.

  “She’s spending Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with Rick and his family. Let’s take a look at those boxes. I usually don’t bother to decorate for Christmas, but this year I can’t wait to get started.”

  When I moved into this house at the resort I’d decided I wanted to convert the large, airy attic into a private suite, so I’d moved everything stored there into one of the smaller bedrooms. I hadn’t touched anything since, so when we entered the room I had to take a moment to try to remember where I’d seen the decorations.

  “I think they might be on that back wall, but I’m not sure,” I said as I made my way across the room, lifting the lids of boxes as I passed to take peeks inside. “Why don’t you look in the boxes near the closet? One of us will come across the items we’re looking for.”

  While some of the boxes contained old clothing and discarded household items, others contained mementos gathered and stored away by past residents of the large house. The property on which the resort had been built had been in Garrett’s family for several generations, and as far as I knew, the main house had been in the family for several generations as well. It would be interesting to really search through the boxes at some point. I was sure there was a lot of junk, but it seemed possible there were hidden treasures as well.

  “This rocking chair looks really old,” Clara commented. “In fact, if I had to guess, I’d say it was homemade, not the sort of thing you could buy in a furniture store.”

  I glanced at the chair Clara was referring to. “I seem to remember Garrett mentioning once that his great-grandfather was a carpenter. He made that big hutch in the dining room as well as the large chest in the living room.”

  “Furniture that’s been hand carved with love really is the best kind,” Clara said.

  I paused in my search when I got to a box of old documents. On the surface, it looked like it contained important papers: birth certificates, deeds, and stock certificates. I wasn’t sure how much of it would still need to be kept, but I made a mental note to speak to Garrett about moving these things somewhere safer, like a safety deposit box.

  “Oh, look,” Clara said from across the room. “This box has photos.” She held up a handful. “They look fairly old. I think the little boy standing in front of the Christmas tree must be Garrett.”

  I crossed the room and looked at the photos Clara had found. I picked up the one of the boy in front of the tree and took a closer look. “I do think this is Garrett. He must be four or five.”

  “He was such a handsome young man. Still is.”

  I glanced at Clara, who appeared to be blushing. Garrett and Clara? Clara was a bit older, but they were close to the same age. I’d noticed the two of them chatting at Thanksgiving, and she’d asked about him at least a half-dozen times since. I knew Clara had come to Turtle Cove to find her soul mate. Could the man she was looking for be the one who’d owned the place all along?

  “I wonder if there are any photos of Frannie,” I mused. “Garrett would have been three or four when she lived here, so if there are photos of him at four or five there might be some from a few years earlier.”

  “Do you know what she looked like?” Clara asked.

  “Yes, I do. There was a photo of her in Ned’s file.”

  I picked up a handful of photos and began to sort through them, looking for the dark-haired woman with haunted eyes and a friendly smile. The ones on the top of the box looked as if they were probably a couple of years after Frannie was murdered. It seemed someone—perhaps Garrett’s mother—had been something of a photography buff; there were photos of all the important moments in Garrett’s life. I realized if I looked back far enough I might even find photos of my father when he was a young man.

  “Oh, look at this.” Clara’s eyes gleamed. “This looks like Garrett’s very first Christmas. Isn’t he adorable in the little red Santa suit?”

  I took the photo from Clara. Not only was Garrett wearing a red suit and hat but he was being held by someone I recognized as my own father. My heart bled as I studied the look of complete fascination and adoration on the man’s face. I was pretty sure my very unsentimental mother hadn’t taken a single photo of me on my first Christmas, and if she’d ever had any photos of my father, she’d long since burned them. I’d have to ask Garrett if it was all right for me to make copies of whatever photos he had of the man who had fathered us both but neither of us really knew.

  I continued to flip through the photos, pausing on one I was certain was of Frannie. She was sitting on a blanket on the lawn with a toddler who must have been Garrett. She had a huge smile on her face and appeared to be laughing at something the baby had said or done. Garrett said he didn’t remember her, but I figured he couldn’t have been more than three in this picture. I didn’t think I remembered anything from that early in my life either.

  I set the photo aside. Bringing along a few photos of Frannie when Jack and I conducted our interviews could help to refresh memories. I found two more of Frannie holding Garrett before coming across one that gave me pause.

  “What is it, dear?” Clara asked. She must have noticed my frown.

  “This photo of Frannie is different from the others. It looks like whoever took it did it without her being aware of it.” I took a couple of steps toward Clara, so we were standing side by side and could look at it at the same time. “She looks so sad. One might even say haunted.”

  “She does appear to have something heavy on her mind,” Clara agreed. “I wonder what she was looking at.”

  It did seem Frannie was looking at something in the distance, not at the photographer. Frannie was a beautiful woman and I could see why people might want to photograph her, but I couldn’t figure out why anyone who lived at the resort would be following her around with a camera. Of course, the photo could have been taken by someone other than a Hanford, but if that were true, how did the photo get in the box?

  “She almost looks frightened,” Clara added. “Or nervous at the very least.”

  “Let’s keep looking for photos of Frannie.” I set the one I was holding on to the pile with the ot
hers. “I know we’re supposed to be looking for Christmas decorations, but I have a feeling about these photos. I think they might provide us with a clue as to what led to Frannie’s death.”

  “I believe you’re correct.” Clara nodded. “I’ve found photographs, especially those caught of unsuspecting subjects at random moments, to be quite informative. Like this one here.” Clara held up another one.

  I took the photo and looked at it. Frannie was standing on the porch of one of the cabins with her hand on the doorknob, as if she was preparing to enter. She’d paused to look over her shoulder and it seemed, based on the expression on her face, she wasn’t happy about whatever or whoever she’d found behind her. “I wonder if she was being stalked.”

  “By whom?” Clara asked. “The fact that there are quite a few photos of Frannie that appear to capture moments when she most likely didn’t realize she was being photographed might suggest a stalker, but the fact that the photos were kept here, along with Garrett’s photos, indicates to me that whoever took them would most likely have been a resident of this house.”

  “I was just thinking the same thing. I suppose the photos could have been taken by Garrett’s mother.”

  “Or his father. Do you know if anyone else lived here when Garrett was a baby?”

  “Not as far as I know,” I answered. “At least not in the main house. The resort, of course, had guests throughout the year. Let’s keep looking to see if anything really pops as being a clue.”

  We worked side by side, going through the box a photo at a time. Photos of Frannie we set aside for further consideration; those of Garrett and others we set in another pile to be returned to the box when we were done. A lot of the photos of Frannie were posed, and most showed her with Garrett. Based on the look of adoration on her face, I thought it was safe to assume she was completely enamored with her landlord’s baby and, judging by the smiles on Garrett’s face, he was equally enamored with the young woman who, apparently, spent a lot of time playing with him. I wondered if seeing these photos would spark a memory in Garrett. Perhaps I’d take a few with me when Blackbeard and I visited him later in the week.

  “Oh, dear,” Clara said.

  I paused and looked at her. If I didn’t know better, I’d say she was scandalized. “What is it?”

  Clara passed the photo she was looking at to me. I couldn’t help but gasp as I took in the image of Frannie locked in an intimate embrace with a man whose face I couldn’t see. From his hair color and body build, he could very well have been my father. “This looks like Frannie with my father.”

  “There are a lot of men with a similar build and coloring,” Clara reminded me. “There’s no way to know for certain who Frannie was with from this angle. It’s apparent, however, that she was involved with someone who either lived at or was visiting the resort. I imagine that would eliminate both her husband Tom and the man who sent her the letters we found.”

  “While it’s true we can’t concretely identify the man in the photo, I wonder if the reason Garrett’s mother kicked our dad off the island and out of my brother’s life had more to do with an affair he was having with a young tenant than it did with his treasure hunting.”

  Chapter 3

  Jack and I decided to have lunch at Gertie’s on the Wharf. I hoped to chat with Gertie and maybe pick her brain about the photographs Clara and I had found, but the waitress informed us that Gertie had taken a trip into Charleston with the new man in her life and wouldn’t be back until Thursday. Gertie was dating a retired coroner she’d recently met and I was happy she’d decided to take some time off, but I was a bit bummed she wasn’t available to chat. She had a unique and usually helpful way of looking at things.

  At least the restaurant wasn’t crowded on this rainy Tuesday, so we managed to get a cozy table tucked into a nook where a wall of windows looked out over the marina. The rain Clara had predicted had arrived in sheets, so we decided on hot bowls of clam chowder and freshly baked bread still warm from the oven.

  “I think I’m going to have to have some of whatever smells so good for dessert,” I said to Jack as he studied the stack of photos I’d brought with me.

  “I was just thinking the same thing. It smells like ginger cake, or maybe ginger cookies.” Jack paused and looked up from the photos.

  “I’m picking up a hint of pumpkin as well.”

  “I suppose it could be pumpkin spice bread. I guess we’ll ask the waitress when she comes back.” Jack looked back down at the photo in his hand. “I understand your concern about the photo, but the man with Frannie has his back to the camera. You really can’t make out any of his features. Is there any particular reason you think he could be your father?”

  “Not really,” I admitted. “I’ve spent quite some time looking at the photo since Clara found it and I haven’t been able to pick out a single detail that should convince me the man is Max Hanford. To be honest, from the back, he doesn’t look all that much like the man I saw in the other photos of him.” I reached across the table and took the photo from Jack. “This man looks to be in his twenties. That’s how old Max was when he was married to Garrett’s mother, and he was tall and lanky, with blond hair when he was younger. I have the photos of him and Garrett for comparison, and it’s possible the man holding Garrett and the one embracing Frannie could be the same person. Of course, by the time Max met and married my mother, he was twenty years older and his hair had thinned and his waistline had thickened.”

  “Do you think it would do any good to show Max the photo?”

  “No. Garrett’s told me he’s basically stopped speaking, and when he does say something, it’s total gibberish. The doctor says it’s doubtful he’ll regain the ability to communicate.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. I’d hoped you’d have more time.”

  “Yeah, me too, but I guess the time we did have was its own kind of miracle.”

  “What about showing the photo to Garrett?” Jack suggested. “I know he was very young when his father left, but maybe the photo will trigger a memory.”

  “I thought about doing that, but I don’t want to inadvertently cause Garrett any distress. I’m hoping one of the people we speak to during our investigation will be able to shed some light on who Frannie was locking lips with.”

  Jack continued to thumb through the photos. “I know it appears Frannie was this young girl who loved kids and waited patiently for her husband to return from the war, but given the fact that she was married and was receiving love letters from a man who may have been her brother-in-law, and she was involved in some sort of a romantic relationship here, don’t you think it’s possible she wasn’t the sweet thing she appeared to be?”

  “The thought has crossed my mind,” I said. “When we first found the letters, I got wrapped up in the romance of the whole thing. Admittedly, we don’t know how Frannie felt about Paul because we only have his letters to her as an indication they even had a relationship, but the man who wrote the letters seemed to be deeply in love, so I guess I just assumed the recipient of the letters was worthy of that love. I’m less sure of that now.”

  “Do you want to continue with the investigation? This may be one of those cases where we find answers to questions we might end up wishing we hadn’t asked.”

  I glanced out the window at the pouring rain as I thought about that. Things had changed for me when I’d found the photo in the attic. Garrett had loved his mother, and he’d only recently made peace with his dying father. How would he feel if he found out the reason his mother had banished his father from his life had more to do with infidelity than treasure hunting?

  But I was still intrigued. It was sort of like I’d opened Pandora’s box. Now that it was open, I felt an obligation to see things through.

  “I guess I’d like to go on with the interviews we’ve set up. I’d like to leave Garrett out of this, though, until we see where they take us. I’m intrigued by the idea that Frannie may have been killed by someone who knew her,
not the Strangler. I’m not sure if that’s something that can be proven even if it’s true, but I’m interested enough to try to find out.”

  “Okay; if you’re in, I am too. We can reevaluate as we go and stop what we’re doing at any point if we realize we’re uncovering secrets best left buried.”

  “I agree. Plus, interviewing longtime residents about Frannie will give me an opening to slip in a few questions about Secret Santa.”

  “You aren’t really going to pursue that idea?”

  “I am. I have a major magazine interested in an article, but only if I can reveal the real hero behind the legend.”

  “Has it ever occurred to you that the reason Secret Santa is so secretive is because he or she doesn’t want their identity revealed?”

  “It has, but the person or persons who have done so many wonderful things deserve to get credit for these kind acts.”

  “And if they don’t want it?” Jack asked.

  I took a deep breath. The reporter in me wanted to care more about landing the story than keeping some random person’s secret, but my time on Gull Island had softened me, and while I’d accepted the terms the magazine had insisted on, I was having second thoughts. “How about we find the person responsible for all the good deeds, and if they really don’t want to be named, I’ll drop the whole thing? But if they aren’t adamant about not having their identity revealed, I’ll have my story and they’ll get the credit they deserve.”

  “I guess that sounds fair. But remember, the decision is theirs to make.”

  “Agreed.”

  ******

  By the time we finished lunch it was time to see Ned Colton. While he’d been retired for quite some time, he’d been the deputy in charge on the island when Frannie was murdered, and he seemed to have a good grasp on the overall situation.

  “When we spoke last week, you indicated it was your opinion Frannie was killed by a copycat, not the Strangler himself,” I began after we were seated in the dining area of the man’s small home.