Trouble at High Tide

by Jessica Fletcher Donald Bain

  “So they do,” he said.

  “Just the same, writing a judicial opinion is like running a short race,” I said. “Writing a book is more like a marathon. They take different skills.”

  “Well put,” he said. He cocked his head at me. “Why do I get the feeling that you didn’t climb on my porch to chat about writing or to discuss the publishing business?”

  “Because I didn’t.”

  “Thought so.”

  “Godfrey, you weren’t in the cottage when the police came the night of Alicia’s murder,” I said.

  “And where did you learn this little tidbit of information?”

  “From your wife.”

  He frowned and shook his head. “How indiscreet.”

  “Please don’t scold her,” I said. “I asked her why the police insisted you stay on the island and she confided in me. It’s not something I’ve discussed with anyone else.”

  “Thank you for that.”

  “You’re welcome. But I would like to know what you saw when you were supposedly ‘stretching your legs.’ I never saw you reading on your porch while I walked down to the beach and back. Had you been here, you surely would have seen me, likely heard me running up the gravel path. But you never mentioned that to the constables because, unlike what Daisy told me, you weren’t reading on your porch. Where did you go? And why?”

  He took a deep breath and let it out, obviously weighing what was safe to tell me.

  “I’m only asking so I can understand what happened that night. I think you must have seen something but you didn’t tell the police about it. I can’t help but wonder why.”

  “I didn’t tell the constables because I cannot afford to be stuck on Bermuda indefinitely,” he said with irritation, “or get called back here as a witness at a trial. That could tie me up for months and I simply cannot leave my business for that length of time.”

  “What did you see, Godfrey?” I pressed.

  He sat back and looked out over the water as though pondering how much to tell me. Finally he came forward and said, “I didn’t see anything at first, but then I heard that tidy package, Alicia, talking with someone. She’d swished her bottom in my direction all night, actually fell into my arms at one point, and I thought I’d go see who she was enticing now.”

  “And did you see who it was?”

  “No. When I went inside to get my torch, Daisy told me to mind my own affairs. We’d had a row about Tom’s niece. Daisy thought I’d been flirting with her and I probably had, but so what? I knew the young woman wasn’t about to take me up on any offer I might make. I told Daisy as much. She was furious. She told me to get out, and stubborn as I am, I stayed inside just to spite her.”

  He paused, annoyed with himself, or maybe with Daisy.

  “How long a time was it between when you heard Alicia’s voice and when you went outside again?”

  He shrugged. “An hour, maybe a little less.” He looked out to the ocean again and I had a feeling that he was retracing his steps that night.

  “Go on,” I said. “What did you see when you went outside?”

  “Actually, I saw you, Jessica. You went around the rocks. I crept forward and saw what you found. I have to admit I got a little sick to my stomach and retreated behind one of the boulders. When you ran back up the beach, I stayed hidden until you got to the gravel path.”

  “Then what did you do?”

  He raised a hand. “It’s not what I did—it’s what I saw.”

  “Which was?”

  “Tom’s manservant.”

  “His manservant? You mean Adam? Where did you see him?”

  “I spied him running up the stairs over there.” He gestured with his hand.

  “And did you follow him up the stairs?”

  He hung his head. “I did. To be truthful, I wanted to avoid you in the event you decided to return to the beach. I didn’t want you to see me there.”

  “So you followed Adam up the stairs to the Jamisons’ property, and both of you crossed their backyard to the Betterton house.”

  “I didn’t see him doing anything other than running away, mind you. I’m not accusing him of killing that poor girl. I figured that he was probably in the same position that I was, seeing you find the body and not wanting to get involved. If the police asked him, his story could be identical to mine.”

  “Is that what he told you?” I asked. I was guessing, of course, assuming that Adam would have looked around to see if he was being followed.

  Godfrey looked startled. “Yes. But how did you know that? I can’t imagine that he told you about it.”

  “There was a bright moon that night,” I said, “and I doubt very much whether you could have followed him that far without his having caught sight of you.”

  He smiled ruefully. “A woman’s intuition,” he said.

  “Just putting two and two together,” I said.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Adam had left the folded newspaper on my swing, secured with a rubber band so that the wind wouldn’t blow the pages away. I slipped off my sandy shoes at the door and tossed the paper on the bed, my mind preoccupied with all that Godfrey had told me.

  He was right. He and Adam could have told the same story to the police, each one pointing to the other and accusing him of having killed Alicia, or at least of having been at the scene of the crime.

  What a busy night it had been on the beach! And I had been completely unaware of all the company I was keeping other than the deceased. I wondered what George would make of it. Or if Freddie would say that one of these men surely must have killed Alicia. But, I reminded myself, Scotland Yard was no longer interested in her murder. Their center of focus was on the Jack the Ripper killer and she apparently was not considered one of his victims.

  I took a bottle of water from the tiny fridge, sipping a little before I changed out of my bathing suit, showered, and put on clothes more suitable for a trip into town. I was hoping to see George again; perhaps he would even have time to share another lunch where I could fill him in on what I’d discovered. I checked my cell phone. The message icon indicated voice mails, probably one from him.

  I took my phone, the newspaper, and the bottle of water and went outside to sit in the swing. I pulled the rubber band off the paper and let it flop open on my lap as I dialed in for my message.

  “Oh, no,” I gasped, hanging up on my voice mail. The headline in huge letters went across the entire front page: “Business or Pleasure?” Underneath, the subhead asked: “What is Scotland Yard’s chief inspector doing here?” And below it was a large photograph of George and me sitting on the step, George with his arm around my shoulder. The caption read: “Cuddling at the scene of the crime.”

  I groaned.

  The article that accompanied the photograph was filled with innuendo, suggesting that the Scotland Yard team was merely enjoying an extended vacation at the expense of the Bermudian government, given their usual inability to actually solve any crimes. Not surprisingly, there were no details about what they had already uncovered since that information had been withheld from the press. Instead, the reporter took George to task for using the occasion to meet his “sweetheart” when he should have been exhorting his team to accomplish something, anything.

  I could feel my face flooding with a combination of fury and mortification. I’d had a hunch there was something odd about that boat that kept traversing the same area of the ocean in front of us. George had kidded that the people aboard were spying on us, but that was precisely what they had done. We were victims of the paparazzi.

  Clearly the Bettertons had read this article and perhaps even hesitated about letting me see it. But it would have been hard to keep it from me for long.

  I looked at my cell phone and dialed voice mail again to get my messages. There were three. The first one was from a reporter who wanted a comment. I don’t know how he got my number, but I quickly erased his request.

  The second call was from Seth Hazlitt
back home: “Hate to tell you this, but a picture of you and Sutherland was in the Bangor paper this morning. The article was none too flattering. Sorry about that. Send my regards to the inspector. Hope you’re planning to come home soon.”

  The third call was from George. I listened with trepidation. “You were right about that boat, lass. I have an appointment with the commissioner at noon to ‘explain myself’—his words. I knew I was taking a chance coming here, but I never believed it would involve you in this nasty business. Terribly, terribly sorry.”

  Oh, George, I thought. It’s not your fault some reporter starved for news would twist our meeting into something ugly.

  Adam was in the kitchen with Norlene when I went up to the main house. The cook gave me a sympathetic look. Adam’s expression was unreadable.

  “Adam, I need to get to headquarters for a meeting,” I said. “Is there any chance you can give me a lift?”

  “I’m busy right now,” he said, looking down at a catalogue that was open on the counter. He turned a page.

  “Can you call a taxi for me, then?”

  “I can try, but I doubt they’d be able to get through all the reporters out front. Take a look.” He cocked his head at the window that overlooked the front of the property.

  I went to the window and carefully lifted the curtain. All the press that had deserted the Bettertons’ house the day before were back again, and more, including the television truck with its satellite pole.

  “Norlene, do you have the Jamisons’ number?” I asked.

  “I’ll call them for you,” she said. “You go over there by the beach and I’ll have a taxi waiting for you in front of their house.”

  “Thank you so much,” I said, giving her a fast hug.

  I left the kitchen without saying goodbye to Adam, who refused to look at me again as he continued turning the pages of his catalogue. He must have been reflecting the family’s annoyance with me, and I couldn’t blame him—or them—yet the situation had not been created by me but by a reporter stretching the truth beyond recognition. Nevertheless, it was the second time the family’s problems had been complicated by my presence, both times via a photograph of me in their local newspaper. I wondered how long it would be before Tom withdrew his offer of hospitality and asked me to leave. And when he did, what would I do?

  Chapter Twenty

  Whatever members of the press weren’t loitering in front of Tom’s house were milling about headquarters when I arrived. Sunglasses firmly in place, I walked swiftly through the crowd, hoping to reach the duty desk before I was recognized.

  “Hello, Mrs. Fletcher.” It was Larry Terhaar, the reporter from the Associated Press. He’d spoken my name softly, perhaps in hopes of keeping me to himself before the other reporters got wind of my presence. But the moment he turned my way, his colleagues pursued me as well.

  “Who’s that?”

  “Is that the writer?”

  “Mrs. Fletcher, just a minute.”

  “Did you come to Bermuda to have a tryst with your lover from Scotland Yard?”

  “What do you have to say for yourself?”

  My face was flaming by the time an officer in the front room of headquarters grabbed me by the elbow and used his ID card to open the door to the corridor inside. “I don’t know who you are,” he said, chuckling, “but if those hounds are after you, you need our protection.”

  “Thank you so much, Constable—?”

  “Andrews,” he replied.

  I brushed imaginary dust off my skirt and tugged at the hem of my jacket. “I’ll have a lot more sympathy from now on for those pursued by the press,” I said, forcing a laugh.

  “As I tell my wife, everyone’s got a job to do, not all of them with clean hands and shiny shoes. Now, who are you looking for?”

  I debated asking to see the Scotland Yard team first, but decided to address the commissioner directly, hoping to head off any misplaced anger at George.

  “I’d like to see Commissioner Hanover,” I said.

  “Do you have an appointment?”

  “He’s not expecting me, but I believe he’ll be willing to see me.”

  “Write your name and direction on this page,” he said, giving me a notebook.

  I did as instructed.

  “I’ll have to call his office. You wait here. Don’t go anywhere else, or I’ll be in a lot of trouble for letting you fend for yourself.”

  “I promise I won’t move,” I said.

  Constable Andrews trotted down the hall and turned the corner.

  I leaned against the wall, listening to the shouts and arguments outside in the front hall, and caught my breath for the first time since I exited the taxi. How can I make this right? I wondered. Was I even wise to come here? I asked myself. George might be upset to find me defending him when he’d done nothing wrong. And he hadn’t. Neither had I. But we both knew that the appearance of wrongdoing was every bit as damaging as the actual act. How did we end up in this thorny situation?

  Constable Andrews returned, waving a paper name tag at me. “Here, wear this,” he said, handing me the badge, which I stuck on my jacket. I followed him to the stairs and climbed to the second floor, passing the large room where the press conference had taken place. “The commissioner is in a briefing room right now, but he said you could come up.”

  The constable opened the door to a small conference room where three men sat around the table with Hanover. It was obvious to me, judging by their dress uniforms, that they were all senior management in the police service.

  “Good afternoon, Mrs. Fletcher,” Commissioner Hanover said, rising. “Come in. These men are part of the team working on the cases.” He didn’t need to specify that the cases were the Jack the Ripper murders. He introduced me to Superintendent Jonathan Bird, Deputy Commissioner Allan Mumford, and Chief Inspector A. M. Tedeschi. “Is there something that we can do for you?” he asked, holding out the chair next to him.

  I had been hoping to speak with the commissioner privately, but it seemed he was not going to allow that to happen. I took the seat and composed myself.

  “I appreciate you gentlemen seeing me on such short notice,” I began.

  “On no notice at all, you mean,” Hanover said. “One caveat for our courtesy, Mrs. Fletcher. What gets said in this room stays in this room. Understood?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Please proceed.”

  “I asked to see you, Commissioner Hanover,” I said, “in hopes I could set the record straight before this story—and that’s what it is, just a made-up story—before this story gets blown so far out of proportion that the real focus of the investigation gets lost.”

  Hanover sat back in his chair and smiled. “You’re referring to the headline and picture in today’s newspaper, I presume.”

  “Yes! It’s terribly embarrassing but completely without merit. Chief Inspector Sutherland and I are old friends, it’s true, but we were not ‘cuddling’ on the beach. In fact, I had brought him down to show him where I had found the body, and we had been discussing the investigation.”

  “Didn’t you see the photographer?” Deputy Commissioner Mumford asked. He was a large white man with a bushy mustache and black hair combed straight back.

  “I did notice the boat passing by us several times,” I replied, “but unfortunately, at the time I didn’t realize what those on board intended.”

  Superintendent Bird laughed. “Sneaky curs, aren’t they?” he said to his colleagues. He removed his glasses and polished them with the hem of his white shirt.

  “We’re sorry you had to go through this, Mrs. Fletcher, but there really isn’t anything we can do for you,” Commissioner Hanover said.

  “You could voice your support for Scotland Yard, and specifically for Chief Inspector Sutherland, who doesn’t deserve the drubbing he’s taking in the press.”

  “I’m sure the Chief Inspector can fend for himself,” Mumford said. “He’s hardly a novice at dealing with th
e media.”

  Chief Inspector Tedeschi raised his hand. “‘You lie in your throat if you say I am any other than an honest man,’” he said. “Henry the Fourth, Part Two.”

  His colleagues groaned.

  The officers seemed to be in a relaxed and cheerful mood. They certainly didn’t appear to be upset with me, nor with George. If anything, they were sympathetic. It occurred to me that by drawing the focus of the press to George and me, we had taken pressure off the police department. So long as the reporters had something they considered scandalous to pursue, no matter how false the accusation, attention was taken away from those on the Bermuda Police Service, who continued to work on the investigation.

  “I’m sorry for interrupting your meeting,” I said. “I thought you were angry with us about the article, although we had no control over how the newspaper portrayed us.”

  “We’re not angry with either of you,” the commissioner said. “We wish the Yard would make more progress in helping to solve these cases, but our expectations are not high, given London’s lack of familiarity with the island.”

  “Not to mention its utter failure in prior cases,” Superintendent Bird put in. He made no effort to suppress a smile.

  “We fully expect that the Bermuda Police Service will find the perpetrator or perpetrators, as we have in the past,” Hanover said to me.

  “Then why bother to call in Scotland Yard at all?” I asked.

  Hanover looked around the table as if seeking the answer.

  “Frankly, it was a public relations move,” Deputy Commissioner Mumford said.

  The others nodded.

  “The government was getting a lot of pressure from the hospitality industry. They worried about losing business, that the tourists would cancel reservations. They wanted to see progress. We gave them Scotland Yard,” he said.

  “Not our fault if the Yard are no more successful than our boys,” Superintendent Bird added. “Gives us a bit of wiggle room to run our investigation with less pressure.”

  “Of course, if you tell the press we said this, we’ll deny it,” Chief Inspector Tedeschi added.