by Patti Larsen
***
Chapter Eighteen
I was in time to grab a fast shower, though the three new sets of guests had to deal with my damp hair in a messy bun. Not that they seemed to mind, or even notice. I left the last couple, a lovely pair of middle-aged women from Connecticut, to settle into their third floor suite and hustled back down to the foyer to finish their paperwork.
Mom was right, no sign of Daisy, not even when I called over to the annex to see if she was there. Weird for her to disappear like this. I texted her briefly, but when I didn’t get an answer I shrugged it off. We all had our moments and our issues. I was just out for a run at probably a terrible time, wasn’t I? Daisy had the right to vanish now and then just like I did. Still, she loved being here to greet new guests. That and party planning were her favorite parts of being at Petunia’s. I hated to think she was off somewhere with Rose and that the creepy step-sister of hers was filling my bestie’s head with more crap about her not being good enough.
Not much I could do about family, though. At least, not until Mom and I managed to corner Daisy and smack some sense into her.
I took two seconds to dial Dr. Aberstock, though when he answered he sounded reluctant enough I suspected my long stretch of good luck with him might be coming to an end. The kindly older doctor who always resembled Santa Claus and of whom I carried many happy childhood memories had treated me almost like I was supposed to be investigating murders since I stumbled on the body of Pete Wilkins in my koi pond. Obviously someone got to him, though, because he sighed over the phone, sounding tired.
“I was wondering if I was going to hear from you,” he said, the rattle of something metallic in the background ending in a faint crash. “Be more careful, please, Mr. Jones. Sorry, new intern.”
“I can have Dad call if you’d rather,” I said. “I don’t want to put you in a bad position, Dr. Aberstock.”
When he grunted faintly, I wasn’t sure if it was at me or his clumsy helper. Until he spoke again, anger in his normally level voice. “I’ve been informed I’ve been speaking out of turn,” he said, “and that my position as county medical examiner might be at risk if I share information again.”
I figured as much. “Got it,” I said. “And that makes sense. Thanks anyway.”
“I’m not done, young lady.” Wow, he was pissed. I pictured his round cheeks pinked with irritation, though it was hard to imagine the normally jovial doctor as anything but his typical cheerful self. “If for one second I thought you or John Fleming weren’t helpful in every case you’ve gone and solved, I’d have kept my observations to myself. As things stand, if that young idiot who calls himself acting sheriff comes into my office one more time, I’m going to be the one you’re investigating because he’ll be meeting an untimely end.”
Robert was making friends again, was he? “Did you find anything?”
Dr. Aberstock paused a moment, taking a deep breath. “You’re working the case with your father?” He asked in a rush, as if making a decision he would never let himself regret. I assured him I was. Seemed to be good enough for him. “I’m telling you to pass on to him.”
“Since Olivia hired him to investigate,” I said, “and I’m a partner in Fleming Investigations, you’re within your rights to tell me what I need to know.” So there, Robert.
Dr. Aberstock fell silent before breaking into a belly laugh that made me grin. “Something Acting Sheriff Carlisle clearly doesn’t know, is that right?”
I guess he didn’t. But at least it absolved Dr. Aberstock from wrongdoing, so I was happy about that. “Time and cause of death, Doc?”
“About 9PM,” he said.
“Drowning?” I’d assumed as much, but it would be nice to have confirmation.
“Actually,” Dr. Aberstock cleared his throat then, exhaled. “No. There was water in his trachea and lungs, and I supposed technically he died from inhaling water.”
Odd. “So what caused his death?”
“There was no sign of a source,” he said, “but I’ve seen cases like this before, where underwater lines are broken and victims succumb to the effects the closer they get to the source.”
Source of what?
“Electrocution,” he said then, brusque and all business again. “Lester Patterson’s heart stopped before he could drown.”
Grunt. “So no proof it was murder.” Damn it.
More hesitation. “He doesn’t have any definitive marks on him, no defensive wounds, no head trauma. There are faint bruises on the backs of his thighs as if he hit the rail before going over.” Dr. Aberstock didn’t sound like he was convinced it was accidental, though. “And more bruising with what looks like a friction burn on his wrist, but not from ligature. More like whatever was around his wrist pulled free when he fell. He might have simply slipped overboard and whatever electrocuted him shorted out or was shut off.”
“Could he have been electrocuted on land and fallen in the water?” That might have been accidental, too.
“No,” he said. “His heart was still beating when he entered the water. He took a final breath. If he’d been dead before he went in his lungs would be empty.”
“So he fell in, was electrocuted and drowned while his heart stopped.” Still sounding like maybe a terrible twist of fate and not intentional death. Well, for once it might be nice if it wasn’t murder and someone actually died due to bad luck. If anything was nice about death, I mean.
“Another boat in the harbor could have had an electrical issue and, after Lester fell in, they left, taking the danger with them.”
I thought about the dead fish, Wanda’s trout, and nodded to myself. “Thanks for the help,” I said. “I’ll pass this information along legal channels to the head of Fleming Investigations.” I couldn’t help grinning at the receiver as I heard Dr. Aberstock chuckle in response.
“Have a great day, Fee,” he said, cheerful as always. “Say hello to your mom for me.” And, with that, he hung up. I might not have had the answers I was looking for, but I had at least thwarted Robert’s attempt to bully someone I liked and trusted. Score for the Fleming team.
I was still grinning, just hanging up, when the front door opened and Pamela and Aundrea stepped through. The happily married newlyweds waved and smiled in return, though the narrow eyed look Pamela gave me told me she knew I wasn’t just happy to see them. She leaned over the short counter that served as a desk and winked.
“Murder in the air again, Fee?”
I shrugged. “Not sure,” I said. “Might want to ask Acting Sheriff Carlisle about that.”
She rolled her eyes at me, Aundrea making a soft sound of amusement she hid behind one hand, eyes sparkling. “Don’t mention him to my darling Pam,” she said, her formerly pretentious tone long gone in the wake of the happiness she and her long-lost love rekindled. I found I liked her more and more as I got to know her, though she was still a Patterson at heart. I really had to sit down with Aundrea at some point and ask her pointed questions about her family. And if she knew anything about the mysterious Blackstone Corporation that troubled us not so long ago. “He’s been nothing but a thorn in her side since he took Crew Turner’s desk.”
“Temporarily,” I said, about as firmly as I could manage without being cranky.
Pamela’s eyes didn’t leave me, her gaze as watchful and careful as ever though her lips twisted into a grin. I couldn’t forget she wasn’t a small town newspaper woman at all, though she filled that role since I moved home. She’d been an award-winning investigative journalist at the Boston Globe for years and her sense of curiosity was even stronger than mine. “Hopefully,” she said. “Regardless, I know I can count on you to fill me in, right?” She flashed her teeth in a feral smile. “One busybody to another?”
“We’re here for dinner,” Aundrea said, hooking her arm through her wife’s, pulling Pamela away. “Not work.”
I nodded, though I felt it was proper to at least offer condolences, remembering in the last second who Lester w
as to her. “I’m so sorry about your loss, Aundrea.” Yes, he’d been her first cousin, but still.
She didn’t look all that broken up about his death, though, waving off my offer of commiseration. “I’m surprised the reprobate didn’t keel over years ago,” she said, sniffing like he offended her just by existing. There was the Patterson in her showing through. “And you won’t find one person in the family sorry to see him go, either.” She patted Pamela’s hand where it rested on her elbow. “Pretentious old windbag.”
Okay then. “I take it no one in the family had motive?”
Aundrea looked startled. “You mean he was murdered?” She met her wife’s gaze before turning back to me, free hand now pressed to her heart. “I’d heard he’d had a heart attack and fell into the water.”
Interesting. “Still not sure what happened,” I said. “But no love lost?”
Aundrea looked distant, suddenly, musing as she tapped her long, manicured fingertips against her collarbone. “He lorded over everyone,” she said, “and was only ever home summers, like most of the cousins.” That sounded like she judged them for not living fulltime in Reading. “And that son of his, Luke, is it?” She turned to Pamela who nodded like it was her job to keep track of Aundrea’s family, not hers. “Troublemaker from the start.” The family seemed to breed them. I thought about Mason Patterson and wondered if that was the road the young man I met was heading down, though Luke hadn’t seemed as arrogant as Mason the night the young Patterson heir died in his chocolate cake.
“I hear he’s been kicked out of a number of private schools,” Pamela said, casually, like she had to tread carefully with her wife when it came to family. But Aundrea seemed enthusiastic enough as she nodded in answer, voice dropping to a gossiping whisper.
“Born late, to that third wife Lester married. The one who left him to live with her bodyguard in California.” So not a suspect unless she figured out how to murder Lester from the other coast. “Left to run wild, from what I hear.”
But would he have motive to kill his own father? I remembered then Kiera begging me not to tell her dad, that David Campbell and Lester weren’t exactly friends to begin with. Which made me wonder what David had against the deceased that kept the two young lovers apart. Another motive, perhaps? For a death I still didn’t have confirmation was murder in the first place.
I waved Pamela and Aundrea on to dinner, finishing up my paperwork for the day and doing a quick run around both locations to make sure everything was running on schedule and without hiccups. I caught distant sight of Daisy in the dining room at the annex, though she avoided me, hustling back across the bridge to Petunia’s when I tried to corner her. Fine, whatever. I let her have her space, spending the remainder of the evening answering emails until I shut my laptop at 8PM, my mind prodding me instantly, unwilling to let go of the conversation I’d had with Aundrea.
Impulse control never one of my strong suits, I left Petunia’s, my pug staying behind once more—no way I was letting her near the docks again—as I took a quick spin out to the club to look for Luke, to ask him about his father’s conflict with David, to feel him out for possible conflict with his own dad. Yes, I was chasing my tail and clutching straws and all those terrible clichés that nosy girls like me used as taglines. And I’d tried not to let my mind get away with me. I’d lasted a whole five minutes on the couch, staring at nothing and my brain buzzing. But when my thoughts spun sideways and crashed into Crew Turner’s missing in action act, evening phone call once again a victim of his disappearance, I found myself behind the wheel and driving to the lake, if only to keep from making myself crazy.
***
Chapter Nineteen
I shouldn’t have been surprised, I guess, to catch the handsome young Patterson sneaking over the side of David Campbell’s boat, considering the embrace I’d caught Luke and Keira in the day of the yacht club party. Though the audacity of the kid to be stealing time with his girlfriend under her father’s nose like that? Yeah, either he was a thrill seeker with a death wish or just had a cast-iron pair born of being a Patterson who got away with everything. Not that I cared, though I couldn’t stop the grin that crossed my face as the erstwhile young Romeo landed softly on the dock only to turn, shock registering, to find me standing there watching his exit.
“Nice night,” I said. “How’s Keira?”
Luke stammered something, cheeks pink, the recently refreshed lighting of the dock doing nothing to hide his embarrassment at getting caught. Even more daring of him to risk slipping on and off board without the cover of darkness to keep him safe. And now I was just judging him as a dumb kid with a terrible sense of entitlement or the sense Mother Nature gave him not to put his own life in danger.
And when the cabin door of the boat beside us banged open, a large and angry man emerging, I choked on my amusement while David stormed out into the open, roaring the kid’s name.
I hooked Luke’s t-shirt with one hand, though he didn’t seem ready to run just yet, sullen scowl settling over his face while he glared at the boat owner. Keira emerged behind her father, grabbing his arm, weeping. She at least didn’t seem adverse to begging him to back off, her words barely comprehensible beyond, “Dad, don’t!” and “Please!” while Luke just stood there beside me, like he’d resigned himself to whatever was coming.
“How dare you, you little punk?” David roared over the side but made no effort to come down to the dock, heavy forehead pinched, broad shoulders looming. Keira looked like a scrap of fluff compared to her tall, broad father, more than a match for the lean young man who stood at my side. If I was Luke I’d be hoofing as fast as I could, not lingering with what could barely be called the hold I had on him by the hem of the thin cotton of his shirt. I released him and still the young Patterson made no move to leave while Keira burst into fresh tears.
“Leave him alone, Daddy!” She wailed, hanging off his forearm. “I love him!”
I almost sighed. Almost eye rolled. Almost. Ah, young love. Barf.
“Stay away from my daughter,” David snarled while Luke gave him an extremely rude gesture in return involving the middle fingers of both his hands. The big man roared something I can’t repeat while the young Patterson smirked at me before spinning and finally running off, his sneakers thudding on the dock as he disappeared into the evening. I found myself turning back just as David leaped down to follow and, to my own shock at my bravery, stepped in front of the juggernaut of angry father. Maybe I surprised him as much as myself because he stopped, staring down at me from the foot or so he had on me, though he seemed to relent instead of his anger increasing which helped ease my tension and the fear I might have gotten between a charging bull and his target.
“Fiona Fleming,” David grunted at me. “Sorry to hear about you finding Lester like that. Hell of a way to go, heart attack and all. At least he went quick.” For once, it seemed like the people I encountered actually felt badly for me uncovering a dead body. Maybe because everyone was assuming his death was an accident or even natural causes. Did that mean I was wasting my time?
“I understand there was conflict between you and the deceased.” If he was going to play the sympathy card I was happy to ask questions.
David shrugged, brow darkening, thick eyebrows pulling together. He had the kind of heavy dark beard and mustache that made him look like maybe there was a bear or two in his lineage. Never mind the beefiness of his big hands or the way his barrel chest expanded as he inhaled, like he wasn’t above intimidation if necessary.
“Not sure why that’s your business,” he said.
I could have thrown the Fleming Investigations thing at him, but instead I went for innocent bystander just worried about a fellow business owner. “I hope he wasn’t making trouble for your hardware store.” Campbell’s was a staple in town, had been around as long as Petunia’s.
David appeared to soften somewhat. “Listen, Lester and I were friends.” Why did it sound like that friendship wasn’t valid any lo
nger? “We had a falling out, that’s all.” Now he seemed uncomfortable.
“That’s never easy,” I said. “Do you know of anyone who would want to hurt him?”
David flinched. “You think he was murdered?” He glanced back over his shoulder at the boat behind him. But why? What was he thinking? When he turned back to face me, his expression was dark, troubled. “You might want to talk to a few people,” he said, voice low. “Like maybe the woman I bought the Keira Sky from.”
I remembered seeing her yesterday in Lester’s office, sneaking out, looking guilty. What was her tie to the dead man? “Heather Parborough?”
David shrugged his big shoulders. “Lester had issues with her.” He seemed hesitant to say anything but sighed at last, anger leaving him. “And she had issues with him.”
“No idea what those issues might be?” What else was he hiding?
David growled, voice even deeper than Dad’s or Crew’s, enough gravel in it he might as well have been crunching rocks right then and there. “I told you, you should talk to her.” He glared at me like it was my fault Lester was dead. “What’s it to you, anyway?”
I didn’t have an answer for him, no proof Lester was murdered. “Just wondering,” I said.
“I heard you were as nosy as your dad,” he grumbled, turning to go back on board his boat. He shot one last angry look back the way Luke had retreated before finishing his thought. “Maybe you’d like to mind your own business.” The cabin door slammed shut behind him while I turned slowly on my heel and followed the young man he’d let get away.
I was getting really tired of people telling me that.
But when I entered the club, instead of finding Luke, I instead stumbled into Doreen and, with a soft inhale of worry, hugged her immediately. She looked terrible, dark circles under her eyes, her normally prim hair disheveled. I led her through the entry into the empty bar, seating her beside me on a stool and holding her hand. She hiccupped, fishing tissues out of her pocket and dabbing at her nose and eyes, distress so obvious I wondered why she was here at all and not at home.
