The Haunted Beach (Tropical Breeze Cozy Mystery Book 4)

by Mary Bowers

  The unexpected show of warmth from a man they had always considered a kind of robot left the twins nearly weeping.

  But Lily had been working closely with Edson Darby-Deaver for months now, and she was touched, but not surprised.

  The detectives had left their cards on the table in the breakfast nook, and Ed found Parker there, staring at them blankly.

  When he noticed Ed, Parker looked up with a distant expression. “Have you heard?” he asked. “Willa and Rod eloped. Hell of a thing.”

  Ed was startled, but ready to let Parker talk. “I know.” He sat down.

  “Funny,” Parker said. “I always kind of hoped – I mean I kind of thought – you and Willa . . . .”

  “Seems like everybody did. Everybody except me and Willa. Everybody except Willa. Parker – what happened? To Peggy?”

  “She’s dead,” he said shortly.

  Ed waited, but he didn’t go on. Strange that a man who made his living by expressing himself in words couldn’t find words for what was most important right now. Or maybe not strange, Ed thought. Writers immersed themselves in their stories. They lived them. This was a story too painful for immersion; Parker couldn’t handle it, so he wanted to talk about something else.

  “Do they think it happened the same night as Dolores?”

  Parker silently nodded. “She looked bad,” he said shortly.

  “I see. So it was an accident.”

  “No. No accident. She was strangled.”

  For the next ten minutes, neither man spoke.

  They were on again, Detective Bruno thought. Back at the police station, he and his partner gathered their notes on Dolores Brinker’s death, conferred on strategy, and decided to do something they hadn’t bothered to do when the drowning had been ruled an accident: interview the cleaning ladies.

  In their condo at The Sand Castle complex, the twins sat the two detectives down, chattered nonstop so neither man could get a word in, gave them coffee and fresh apricot Danish they hadn’t asked for (but appreciated), and sat down across the table from them. Since this was official police business, the twins had put their nametags on.

  Rosie proceeded to hijack the investigation. “Well, we all know it was The Mister,” she said levelly. “The problem is how to prove it.”

  “’The Mister?’”

  “Mr. Brinker,” Rosie said. “I do think he loved her, but with the state she was in, he probably thought she’d be better off. Do you get time off if it was a mercy killing?”

  Bruno ignored the question. “What makes you think Mr. Brinker killed his wife? And why would he kill Mrs. Peavey too?”

  “Oh, because she was a witness,” Rosie said airily. “That’s obvious. The real question is, why did he kill his wife?”

  “I don’t think he did,” Poppy said. “He was so worried, and he was with Mr. D-D all night on the beach, so he couldn’t have done it.”

  “Well, that shoots that,” Rosie said. “So let’s see. It wasn’t Mr. Renter – Rod Johnson – he just ran away to get married. He had other fish to fry.”

  The detectives looked startled, but Poppy didn’t give them a chance to speak.

  “It mighta been,” she said. “Maybe he wanted to marry Miss Willa, and she wasn’t interest, and he went out on the beach and killed Dolores thinking she was Willa. You know, in a rage. Willa and Dolores look pretty much alike, especially in the dark. Then he had to kill Mrs. P too, because she was there. I saw this show on TV the other day where –“

  “Why do you think Mrs. Peavey was there?” Bruno asked quickly. “Why would she go to the beach at that time of night?”

  That stumped the twins, and before they could start spinning wild theories again, Bruno asked them to describe life as they saw it in the Brinker household in the weeks leading up to Dolores’s death. They got the same story Edson Darby-Deaver had gotten nearly three weeks before.

  When Bruno was satisfied, he asked, “Now, what’s this about Rod Johnson getting married?”

  “He ran away with Willa Garden this morning,” Rosie said. “They eloped to Las Vegas. Like a couple of kids.”

  “Did you know they were involved with one another?”

  “Yes, I think we did,” Rosie said, exchanging a glance with Poppy. “We’ve been observing.”

  “How long had it been going on?”

  “Oh, I think he was always kind of interested. But in the last couple of weeks, they’ve gotten closer. Tragedy does that, you know. You begin to realize that life is short and all that.”

  “Can you think of another reason anybody would have wanted to harm either Mrs. Brinker or Mrs. Peavey?”

  The twins visualized up and down the block, considering each resident of Santorini. “Well, it wasn’t Mr. Ryder,” Poppy said.

  “Why not?”

  “He’s not the type. Besides, other than saying hello and good-bye, he doesn’t have much to do with the neighbors. He’s a very private man. It wasn’t like he was having an affair with Mrs. P or anything.”

  “You’re sure about that?”

  The twins laughed. “Certain sure. If he was looking for romance, he wouldn’t be looking at Mrs. P. Have you seen Claire Ford?” Rosie asked, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively.

  “She’s attractive,” Detective Bruno said. “But she’s only been living in the neighborhood a little while. Maybe Ryder got interested in Mrs. Peavey before he ever met Ms. Ford. After all, Ryder seems to be pretty much the type of man her book’s heroes are modeled on – strong, silent, good-looking, sort of macho.”

  The twins looked startled. It was obviously a new idea to them. They looked at one another, then simultaneously said, “Nah.”

  “Although,” Rosie said. She abruptly stopped.

  “What?” Poppy asked her.

  “We’ve all been thinking The Missus drowned, and Mrs. P died trying to save her. Or maybe somebody killed The Missus and had to kill Mrs. P too, because she was a witness. But maybe it was the other way around. Maybe somebody killed Mrs. P, and The Missus was a witness. Which one died first?” she asked Bruno.

  “There’s no way to tell. The ME thinks they both died the same night, and since they both disappeared the same night, we’re working at it from that angle, but with the time Mrs. Peavey had been in the water, there’s really no way to tell now.”

  “Shoot,” Rosie said, disappointed. “So who else could’ve done it?”

  “Mr. D-D?” Poppy said, just throwing it out there.

  The twins laughed again.

  “That just leaves Miss Claire. She’s got such little hands. You said Mrs. P was strangled?”

  “We don’t suspect Claire Ford,” Bruno said. “Mrs. Peavey was manually strangled, and she was a bigger woman than Ms. Ford. Physically, it doesn’t make sense.”

  “Well, then, I guess it was nobody,” Rosie concluded. “Must have been an accident after all.”

  “Oh, it was somebody,” Bruno said, glancing at his partner to end the interview.

  “You noticed how they brushed off any suggestion that it was their hero, Dan Ryder?” Detective Carver said when he was driving away from Santorini.

  “Yep. And it makes so much sense. He was her kind of man. If he was having an affair with Peggy Peavey and then here came the divine Ms. Ford, he might have wanted to drop the married mistress for the one that was more available, and a knock-out to boot.”

  “And if the married mistress wouldn’t let go . . . . It would also give Parker Peavey motive, if he found out.”

  Bruno sighed heavily. “If only somebody living along the beach had had insomnia that night. You can’t sleep, you get your smokes, or a drink, or a slice of cold pizza –“

  “All of the above.”

  “—and you go sit out on the balcony and look at the ocean. You see somebody drowning a nice, little old lady and you call the police. Patrolman goes out and catches the murderer red-handed. The Sheriff has an office just about a mile from that spot, right?”

  “Less.
But we couldn’t be so lucky. We talked to everybody with a house on the beach who might have been able to see it happen. Nobody did. ”

  He fetched up another sigh. “I can dream, can’t I?”

  Smiling sardonically, Carver said, “Not while you’re on duty.”

  Bruno mulled it over. “I don’t know,” he said at last. “I still think it’s not that complicated. Brinker wants to get rid of his wife, but he doesn’t want to get shut out of the Strawbridge money, so he starts up the rumor mill that she’s losing her mind – that’d be easy enough with those two going up and down the block every week – but when he drowns his rich wife, a neighbor lady sees, and she has to go too. They were wrong about him not having opportunity. He could have killed them before Dooby-Deaver showed up on the beach, or after he left the old lady’s house. Deaver and the cat lady admitted there was at least 45 minutes where they weren’t looking out the window from the third floor. So it was the husband. Simple. Logical. Happens every day.”

  “You’re probably right,” Carver said noncommittally as he drove down A1A.

  “You notice how they didn’t even bother to mention Miss Willa?” Rosie said as they were cleaning the table after the detectives left.

  They gave one another wiseguy looks, then burst out laughing.

  “Although . . . .” Rosie stopped.

  “What?”

  “Wasn’t it Miss Willa who found Miss Frieda dead in her bed one morning? That’s where all this really started – when Miss Frieda died. What if her death wasn’t natural? What if –?”

  The twins mulled it over. Then they shook their heads.

  “Too complicated,” Poppy said, loading the dishwasher. “Maybe in a book, but not in real life.”

  Rosie paused to chuckle again. “Miss Willa Garden, mass murderer of Santorini.”

  They laughed, and forgot about it.

  Chapter 20

  In the early evening, when it was cooling down outside, Dan Ryder came out of his house and jogged down Santorini Drive toward the beach. The tide was coming in, and he wanted to get out there for a run before it got any higher. He glanced at Edson Darby-Deaver’s house and saw that the car belonging to the gang from the reality show was still there. The poor man must be miserable. He tried to picture his own house filled with uninvited guests – and their dog – and smiled at the thought of how fast he’d throw them all out. But Dan Ryder knew he was nothing like Edson Darby-Deaver. Poor Ed couldn’t defend himself.

  That’s why Dan had let the twins know about the elopement to Las Vegas. The last thing he wanted to do was encourage the cleaning ladies with gossip, but this time they were useful. He had the feeling that Ed wouldn’t like hearing that Willa was getting married, and this way the twins would run right over and tell him and he, Dan, wouldn’t have to. By the time he saw Ed again, the man would have gotten used to the idea, and Dan could steer the conversation toward the things he wanted to talk about, instead of Willa’s love life. Dan didn’t want to have to explain what he knew and how he knew it, and maybe make a slip.

  He bounded up the stairs of the walkover then paused, looking up to his left. Claire wasn’t on her balcony. He’d take a quick shower when he got home, and maybe they’d meet somewhere for dinner. Saturday night the restaurants downtown would be packed, and there wasn’t a chance in hell anybody would recognize them, or could follow them off the island without him noticing. Claire was still worried about that detective. If he ever saw the guy, she wouldn’t have to worry about him anymore.

  When he got to the other end of the walkover, there was a small, white-haired man sitting on the steps gazing out to sea. Since it was a private walkover, chances were it was one of his neighbors, and it was. He turned to look, said, “Hi, Ed,” and sat down on the step next to him.

  “Rough day,” he said.

  Ed just nodded. The poor man looked spent.

  “I was sorry to hear about Peggy Peavey. How’s Parker taking it?”

  “Hard.”

  Dan nodded. It wasn’t like Ed to be so quiet. Usually he was rattling on, telling you things you didn’t care about, and you couldn’t get away from him. Now, when Dan wanted him to talk, to tell him everything he knew, the man clammed up. It didn’t really matter. Dan never had trouble finding out things he wanted to know. Ed just wasn’t making it easy.

  “Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help,” Dan said. “I like Parker.”

  Ed nodded.

  He let a few moments go by, then assumed his most confiding manner. “What the hell happened, Ed?”

  The other man sighed, sagged a little, and murmured, “I don’t know.”

  “The maids told me you were going to try to sort it all out. Investigate. You know, from the paranormal angle. Did you find out anything?”

  “Nothing important.” Then, pulling himself together a little, Ed said, “I haven’t confirmed a haunting, if that’s what you’re asking me. But off the record, I believe there was a haunting. I’m just not sure that explains everything. Have you heard about Willa and Rod? Oh, sorry,” he said, remembering. “You’re the one who told the twins, aren’t you?”

  “Yeah, that was me. Sorry. I found out at the crack of dawn when I went out for my early run. Claire told me. She was sitting where you are now, watching the sunrise, and dying to tell somebody the big news. Now with Peggy being found – it kind of puts it off to the side, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes. No. I guess I’m taking both things hard.”

  “You’re taking a marriage the same way you’re taking a death?”

  “No. No no. I didn’t mean it that way. It’s just that . . . .” He turned to look at Dan for the first time. “What do we know about this guy Rod Johnson? He could be anybody.”

  “You mean like a lonely-hearts con man?” Dan tried not to smile. “After Willa Garden? What does she have that’s worth stealing? The way I understood it, she was basically Frieda Strawbridge’s servant, or Dolores’s paid companion or something. Does she even own her own house?”

  “I don’t know. Frieda must have left her with something.”

  “Anyway, now she’s got a husband to take care of her. According to Claire, he told Willa he wanted to be her sugar daddy.”

  Ed slowly turned his head to look at Dan again. “You like Claire.” It wasn’t a question.

  “Oh, yeah, sure. I like her. She’s a neighbor. I pass right by her house once or twice a day when I go to the beach. And that day she found Dolores’s body – well, we got to know one another a little better.”

  Ed nodded, looking back at the ocean. He remembered his speculation about the way Dan might be consoling Claire – and for how long. Then he dismissed it. There was enough wild gossip going around. He simply didn’t care.

  “There is one thing you can do,” he said quietly after several minutes had passed.

  “Name it,” Dan said.

  “I have to go out to Spuds the day after tomorrow. We’re doing an investigation there. You know, that blasted reality show. Teddy found something in a warehouse, and we’re shooting on Monday. Could you keep an eye on Parker that day? Maybe drop in on him?”

  “That I can do,” Dan said firmly. “It doesn’t seem like much, though.”

  “It’s important. Parker is taking his wife’s death . . .”

  “. . . hard. You said that.”

  “No, what I was going to say was ‘oddly.’ Of course he’s taking it hard, but the way he is grieving seems strange to me.”

  “In what way?”

  “He’s almost ignoring it. He won’t talk about it.”

  Dan nodded wisely. “It’s called denial. I don’t think that’s strange.”

  “Well, maybe you’re right. He just seems . . . off. Out there. Did Claire tell you when Willa and Rod are coming back?”

  “Monday.”

  “Ah. I’ll be in Spuds. Good.”

  Dan looked at Ed speculatively. Then he got up and said, “Well, I’d better get out there.”


  “Yes. The tide’s coming in fast.”

  “Nice seeing you, Ed.”

  Ed waved a hand and gave Dan a feeble smile.

  When he was alone, Ed indulged himself in a huge, heaving sigh. Having spent almost the entire day with one widower-neighbor, he decided he’d better go check on the other one. He hadn’t seen Ben Brinker since the uncomfortable pizza party after the memorial service.

  He got up and trudged back across the walkover to Santorini Drive, dreading his next neighborly visit.

  But Ben seemed to be getting over his tragedy very nicely. He welcomed Ed in, but only because he wanted somebody to watch the Stanley Cup game with him.

  Throughout the evening, as Ed watched hockey players slamming around the ice in a way that made him cringe, he couldn’t help but think that Ben was not only coming out of mourning rather quickly, but that he was actually doing just fine. Better than ever. Of course, he’d never watched a game with Ben before. Some men became very enthusiastic indeed, forgetting about everything else for a while. Maybe that was the attraction of sports. Ed had always wondered.

  When the Blackhawks won the game, Ben nearly hit the ceiling shooting out of his chair with a war whoop.

  “Take that, Bolts!” he screamed. “We eat Tampa Bay!”

  Really, Ed thought. It was difficult to understand how sports fans felt a sense of personal victory when a team comprised of players from all over the world won a game on behalf of a city that was alien to them. And shouldn’t Ben be rooting for a Florida team? Very disconcerting.

  When he finally got outside again, he decided Ben didn’t need any more consoling. He was already over it.

  As he walked back down the drive, he realized that Taylor might not know that Peggy had been found. He walked into his house and ignored Teddy when he asked where he’d been all this time. Going straight into his office, he closed the door and locked it.

  “I saw it on the news,” Taylor said.

  Ed eased back into his seat. It was good to hear her voice again. Bastet was in her usual spot on the window seat, gazing at Ed benignly.