Trouble at High Tide

by Jessica Fletcher Donald Bain

  “What happened to her parents?” I asked.

  “They were killed in a train wreck when she was still a kid. She’s been with me on and off ever since, except when she was away at school, and for the last few years.”

  “Where has she been the last few years?”

  “It’s not important,” he said, striding across the room.

  The window coverings facing the street had been drawn to prevent anyone from seeing in. Tom parted the drapes with one hand and peeked through the slit he had created, then dropped his hand with disgust. “The press jackals are already circling their prey. I’ve been through this before and I’m not of a mind to accommodate them.”

  “Adam seems to have them under control,” I said.

  “He’s a handy man to have around,” Tom said. He stopped pacing to take a sip of his Scotch. “But this is a small island with few places to escape to. I don’t want to feel like a prisoner in my own house. At least if I go back to the States I have the whole wide country and can disappear at will.”

  He seemed to be thinking out loud.

  “Wouldn’t your professional obligations keep you closer to home?”

  “I can take time off, or if not, I can make sure the courthouse is so secure a mouse can’t get in. I’m not about to let those vultures get near me or mine.” His grief of this morning seemed to have transformed into anger at the press. I didn’t know Tom well enough to determine if this was his way of dealing with a traumatic event, or if it was a more normal part of his personality.

  “Where are Madeline and Stephen?” I asked.

  “Maddy is upstairs sleeping. She’s been sleeping all day. That’s the way she deals with anything unpleasant. Margo drove Stephen into town with a grocery list from Norlene. We can’t have delivery trucks coming to the house, not while those… those—” He broke off. “I’m trying not to use foul language in front of you.”

  “I understand,” I said. “You think the press would use a delivery truck as a ruse to gain entry into the house?”

  “I know they would,” he said, pounding his right fist into the palm of his other hand. “I’m not letting them in. I’m not talking to them. And as soon as I feel comfortable getting out of here, I’m leaving.”

  “Tell me more about Alicia, Tom,” I said, hoping to draw him away from this rant about the fourth estate.

  “She was such a cute little girl,” he said, smiling at the memory. “Blond curls bouncing up and down. She was never still, never walking if she could run, never sitting if she could stand. A real pistol, that one.”

  “And as an adult? Was she just as active?”

  “After my brother and his wife were killed, she was a bit of a wild one. Never totally outgrew that. Recently, she discovered her own beauty as a woman and the image she projected. I used to tell her to tone it down a bit. I didn’t like all those men panting after her. You lead a man on and turn him down, you never know what can happen. You saw that dress she had on last night?”

  I nodded.

  “I made her go get a sweater, but she left it in the kitchen when I wasn’t looking.”

  “Do you think it’s possible that some man she’d rejected became violent?”

  He sighed. “It’s not out of the realm of possibility. Back in Newark, when I was coming up, people got killed for a dirty look. You can’t play games with people’s emotions. I tried to tell her that, tried to get her to listen to the wisdom I’ve accumulated after all these years on the bench, dealing with the lowlifes, dealing with life in general. But young people don’t pay any attention. They all think they know more than you do.”

  “Then you don’t think her death is related to the Jack the Ripper murders—for want of a better phrase—on the island?”

  Tom took a gulp of Scotch and sank down into a chair. “I don’t know, but who else would do such a thing? This weirdo must have been stalking around the beach and come upon her out for a midnight stroll. Crimes of opportunity, they call them.” He paused. “She didn’t fit his MO,” he said, referring to the police term modus operandi or “method of operation.” “Never would have happened if she wasn’t in the wrong place at the wrong time,” he concluded sadly.

  There was a knock at the front door. Tom looked in its direction but kept his seat. The knocking became more insistent, but he sat unmoving, staring at the door.

  Norlene emerged from the kitchen and hurried to the edge of the breezeway. She leaned over and cocked her head so she could see through the glass panels to the front of the house. “Oh, for goodness’ sakes,” she cried and opened the door.

  Stephen came stumbling in holding a carton piled high with groceries. “I thought you were going to leave me out there forever,” he said. “I had a devil of a time convincing the cops I live here. The press is everywhere.” He cocked his head toward the door. “There’s another one like this one in the car.” He strode across the living room toward the kitchen. “Thanks for your help,” he said sarcastically, flashing Tom and me a grim smile.

  Norlene went outside to retrieve the second carton and returned, her arms full. “No, no. I have it,” she said when Adam followed her into the house. She closed the door with her back, giving it a kick to make certain the latch connected.

  Adam ran ahead and held open the door to the kitchen, then returned to where Tom and I were sitting.

  “Anything you need right now, your honor?” Adam asked.

  Tom shook his head. “No. Just keep those mangy animals outside away from me. If you do that, you’ve more than earned your money. I left you an envelope in the library.”

  “I’ll make sure you’re not disturbed,” Adam said. He looked at me. “I just can’t believe it. Can you?”

  “What can’t you believe?” I said.

  “That Jack the Ripper would dare to come here.” His eyes roamed the room. “Look at this place. If you can’t be safe here, where can you?” He exhaled noisily and let himself out the French doors leading to the terrace.

  “Good man,” Tom said. “I never had a personal assistant before. Now I think everyone should have one, everyone who’s in the public eye anyway.”

  “He told me he was replacing your law clerk,” I said.

  “He did?”

  “I would think they have very different duties.”

  “They certainly do. He has it wrong. Just a coincidence I hired Adam when I let one of my clerks go. I must have a thousand applicants to fill that position. All tops in their classes. You need these people to research case law, check citations, write your bench memos. I keep two law clerks and sometimes they have interns working for them.”

  I didn’t want to get Adam into trouble, so I decided not to mention that he had suggested the judge was upset when he’d learned his law clerk was copying documents and taking them home, or that Tom had given Adam the excuse that he liked to do his own research for why he had fired the clerk.

  Stephen wandered into the living room and flopped down on the sofa across from me. He was very pale, had dark circles under his eyes, and there was a white bandage on his right hand.

  “Where’s Margo?” Tom asked.

  “She decided to drive over to Hamilton. Something about a necklace, but I think she just doesn’t want to hang around with us. Too gloomy here.”

  “Can’t blame her,” Tom said. “What happened to your hand?”

  Stephen looked down at his palm. “Cut it trying to open a box.”

  I didn’t recall seeing a bandage on Stephen’s hand the night before when we were in the library. Was the injury recent? Or just the bandage?

  Stephen sat up. “Oh good, you’ve got food,” he said as he reached over and helped himself to a handful of canapés from the plate Norlene had left us. “I’m starving.”

  “You just left the kitchen,” Tom said. “Why didn’t you get yourself something to eat in there?”

  “Norlene is putting away the groceries and she’s angry as a bear. I wanted to get out of her way.”

&nb
sp; “What’s her problem?” Tom said. “She didn’t know Alicia all that well.”

  “It’s still upsetting,” I said in Norlene’s defense.

  “That’s not it,” Stephen said. “She says she doesn’t know how she’s supposed to make dinner without any knives.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  Stephen took another canapé before replying. “Between the cops and Claudia, the kitchen doesn’t have any knives. Completely wiped out.” He held up his bandaged hand. “That’s why I got this. No knife to open the box.”

  “What does Claudia have to do with it?” Tom asked.

  “Oh, you missed that little contretemps last night, did you?” Stephen said. “Claudia came in the kitchen and claimed the box of Wusthof knives were a gift from some member of her family, and she walked out with them. Adam tried to stop her, but she was too fast for him.”

  “Where was I when this happened?” Tom asked, clearly irritated.

  Stephen shrugged.

  “Do the police know about that?” I asked.

  “I didn’t tell them,” Stephen said. “Frankly, I didn’t think of it until now. Every time Claudia comes to the house, something else goes missing. Makes Claudia a prime suspect, doesn’t it? She wasn’t any too fond of Alicia.”

  “Neither were you,” Tom said. “And I’ll thank you not to speak ill of the dead.”

  “I’m not speaking ill of her,” Stephen replied hotly. “I didn’t hate her. I… well… I just thought she was a spoiled brat. She was. And I didn’t kill her, if that’s what you’re suggesting.”

  “I’m not suggesting any such thing. I know you didn’t kill her,” the judge said wearily. “We’ll have to let the police know about the knives. What a stupid, selfish thing Claudia did. I shouldn’t be surprised.”

  “Yeah,” Stephen said. “You were married to her.”

  “She wasn’t so bad at first.”

  “She was always awful,” Stephen said. “You just didn’t recognize it.”

  “Maybe.”

  “No one was ever as good as my mother.”

  Tom heaved a sigh. “Your mother was one of a kind,” Betterton said. He shook his head. “But she died and left me with her children to raise.”

  “C’mon. What do you mean, “RAISE”? I was practically in college. Just about.”

  “Well, your sister, Madeline, wasn’t, and Alicia was just a kid.”

  “Are you telling me that you married all those women just to get us another mother? You would have been better off hiring nannies. At least you wouldn’t lose half of what you have every time they walk out the door.”

  “We’ve been over all this before. I’m sorry they didn’t work out. But you don’t appear to be scarred by the experience.”

  “You have no idea what scars I have.”

  Tom looked up at Stephen from beneath his frowning brows. “Go wake up your sister,” he growled. “I don’t want her to sleep all day.”

  “Let her sleep. She’s only going to fight with me.”

  “No. She needs to get up.”

  Tom started to heave himself out of his chair, then fell back into it, his eyes wet.

  “Why don’t I go wake Madeline,” I said. “I’ll try to coax her downstairs. Maybe she’ll be more willing to listen to someone she doesn’t know well.”

  “Thank you, Jessica,” Tom said, shaking out a white handkerchief, wiping his eyes and blowing his nose. “She’s in the second bedroom on the right at the top of the stairs.”

  The staircase was on the other side of the house, and I took a quick look out the windows of the glass front door as I crossed the breezeway’s tile floor. Reporters were still camped out in front of the house, and there were policemen on the road directing traffic. I moved away from the door, wary of attracting attention, and climbed the stairs to the second floor. A long carpeted corridor linked both sides of the house. I followed Tom’s instructions and found the second bedroom on the right. The door was open and I walked in.

  It was a bright, airy room, obviously decorated by a professional in a yellow cotton print with large tropical leaves, but the room held few personal touches, apart from the clothing that had been draped over a chair at the dressing table or carelessly tossed across a turquoise chaise. On the left wall were two doors, side by side, and an unmade canopy bed. I opened the first door to find a large walk-in closet filled with clothing. The second door turned out to be the entrance to a Jack-and-Jill bathroom tiled in white with a narrow stripe in aqua running its length. On the other side was an open door, which led to the next bedroom. I walked through the bathroom and stood at the threshold.

  Madeline sat in a chair by the bed, legs crossed on an ottoman, her arms wrapped around a pillow, her eyes focused on the view outside the window.

  “It’s her room,” she said, without averting her gaze.

  “Alicia’s?”

  She nodded, sighed, and slowly turned her head toward me. “Did they send you up to find me?”

  “Tom did, yes. He doesn’t want—”

  “Me to sleep the day away. I know. It’s a familiar refrain.”

  “May I sit down?”

  “Sure,” she said. She took her legs off the ottoman and kicked it in my direction. It rolled across the room.

  I stopped it, moved it closer to Madeline, and sat on it. “I’m so sorry for your loss,” I said.

  She gave me a wry look. “You didn’t know her at all.”

  “I know,” I said, “but you did, and you’re hurting. I’m sorry for that.”

  “She was the biggest pain in my a—in my neck,” she said. “She was self-centered, spoiled, forever in trouble, which we had to bail her out of. I couldn’t stand her. But she was my little sister, sort of, and I loved her in spite of it.”

  “Of course you did.”

  “Don’t say ‘of course.’ Stephen hates her. Or hated her. They were always arguing. Not that I didn’t fight with her, too. He wanted her to grow up and be responsible instead of living off Tom and whoever else she could wheedle something out of. She was a taker and Stephen’s a giver.” She gave a soft snort. “They weren’t talking to each other recently. He had finally lost all patience with her. But I really think he loved her more than any of us.”

  “Did she have any friends here in Bermuda, anyone she might have been meeting last night?” I asked.

  “You mean other than us?”

  I nodded.

  “Not that I know of. She was only down for the week. Oh wait. There’s Agnes’s nephew, Charles. They were pretty close. At least he wanted to be. Alicia was very good at attracting men and then dropping them. Even the older ones, Tom’s friends. She would bat her eyes at them, and then tell them they were too old when they made a play for her.”

  “Why would she do that?” I asked.

  “I think she enjoyed the game. For so long she was the baby, kind of the also-ran to Stephen and me. When she found herself grown up and suddenly the center of attention, she wanted to test her powers. Stupid! If that’s what she was up to last night, it got her a terrible result.” Madeline shivered. “I almost hope it was the Jack the Ripper killer.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “At least if it was him, killing her was always part of his plan, not something she brought on herself.” She started to cry, but rubbed the tears from under her eyes and blotted her nose with a tissue.

  “Did the police examine this room?” I asked.

  “Top to bottom, I understand. I wasn’t here at the time. I was being questioned.”

  “Do you know if they took anything?”

  She shook her head. “Doesn’t look like it. But Alicia didn’t have much here other than her warm-weather clothes and a couple of books. Don’t know why they would want any of those.”

  “Did she carry a handbag? Have a cell phone?”

  Madeline straightened up and glanced around the room. “Now that you mention it, I haven’t seen her bag. And of course she had a cell
phone. The police must have confiscated them.” She slumped down again.

  “What about the book she was reading?”

  “You mean this?” She reached behind her back and pulled out the paperback Alicia had shown me at lunch. “She had it hidden in this pillowcase. The police must not have found it, or if they did, they left it where it was.”

  “May I see it?”

  “Sure.” She handed it to me. “Ironic, isn’t it? Her fascination with this monster, and then—” She broke off, unable to complete the sentence.

  “Was she always interested in Jack the Ripper, or in true crime in general?”

  “Yeah. She loved reading about crime. Never missed the police bulletin in our local paper. Used to pepper Tom with questions until he was ready to kill her. Oh God, I shouldn’t say that.”

  “It’s just an expression. I know you didn’t mean it the way it sounds.”

  I paged through the book. Alicia had underlined or highlighted certain passages halfway through; it appeared as if she’d never finished reading it.

  “May I keep this for a few days?” I asked.

  “You can keep it forever,” Madeline replied. “I was going to throw it out.”

  “Tom said Alicia lived with you on and off after her folks died. How old was she when they were killed?”

  “I think she was ten. It’s hard to remember because she was our cousin and she was pretty much always around. My mother was the one who insisted we take her in when Uncle Mickey and Aunt Joanna died. Uncle Mickey was Tom’s youngest brother.”

  “There were other brothers?”

  “Yes. Two. Uncle Lee and Uncle Frank. I don’t think they or their wives wanted to take in Alicia, but my mother wasn’t about to let anyone reject her. She said that as the eldest Tom was the right person to raise her. I don’t remember any hands going up in protest.”

  “That must have been a traumatic time for a little girl.”

  “I guess. But my mother felt so sorry for her that she spoiled her terribly. You can imagine how that sat with Stephen and me. We were not fans.”