by Sarah Fox
“Oh, no you don’t!”
I threw myself toward the kelp, swimming as hard as I could to reach it first, but Brett had the same goal. He snatched up the kelp and pulled it out of my reach before flinging it toward me. I managed to get my hands up in front of my face to deflect it before the soggy seaweed got into my hair. I tried to throw it back his way, but the clump fell apart and dropped into the water between us.
Brett dove under the water, grabbing me around the waist as he surfaced. I moved in closer and looped my arms around his neck. With the water up to his chest, he planted his feet on the sandy bottom, anchoring us in place.
“Just like old times,” he said, resting his forehead against mine. “Well, except for this part.”
He kissed me, and I kissed him back. His lips tasted of sea salt and summer, and I wanted the kiss, the moment, to last forever. The ocean had other ideas though. A big wave knocked Brett off balance, breaking us apart. When he’d regained his footing, I wound my arms around his neck again.
“I wanted you to do that back in the day,” I said, thinking back to the intense crush I’d had on him that summer when I was fifteen.
“I thought about it many times, believe me.”
“Really? Then why didn’t you?”
“I was too shy.”
“I don’t remember you being shy.”
“With that sort of thing I was.”
I ran my fingers through his wet hair. “I’m glad you aren’t now.”
He grinned and kissed me again before saying, “So am I.”
We swam for a while longer before heading up to the beach and lying in the sun to dry off. Later on we returned to the Victorian and changed out of our swimsuits before grilling up some dinner on the back porch. After eating we relaxed in our porch chairs, holding hands and talking as we looked out over the ocean. As the light slowly started to fade from the sky, I said a reluctant good night to Brett, watching him drive off toward Wildwood Road.
The late afternoon and evening had provided a great end to an otherwise not-so-great day, and I hoped that my current mood of contentment would set the tone for the rest of the week.
—
I woke up the next morning still happy from my time spent with Brett. I hummed as I picked a graphic tee from my collection to wear with my jeans, and I gave Flapjack extra snuggles before feeding him and leaving the house. It wasn’t until I reached the promenade on my way to The Flip Side that tension crept back into my muscles. I held my breath as I approached the pancake house, letting it out with a rush of relief when I saw that there was no sign of vandalism on the front of the building. In fact, even the smears of dried red paint that Tommy and I hadn’t been able to remove were now gone.
With my fingers crossed, I made a quick circuit around the building, checking for any signs that Ida had returned during the night. Fortunately, not a single stroke of paint marred any of the walls or windows, and I was able to enter the restaurant with my cheery mood intact.
I stopped by the kitchen to say good morning to Tommy and Ivan, and then asked the younger man, “Tommy, did you do more work on the front windows?”
“Yep. I came in a bit early to do it. Some soapy water and a razor blade did the trick.”
I thanked him, truly grateful for the help, and left the two men to their work. I retreated to the office, thankful many times over that the young man had applied for the job of Ivan’s assistant back in March. He not only got along with Ivan and eased the chef’s workload, he was also a joy to have around.
My good mood persisted through the breakfast rush and into mid-morning. That was when the phone calls started up again. After the third call without a word spoken from the other end of the line, I unplugged the phone, irritation crackling through my bloodstream like an electric current.
Taking a steadying breath to calm myself, I surveyed the restaurant. Diners currently occupied only four of the tables, and I knew Leigh and Sienna could easily manage without me for a while.
Untying my apron, I intercepted Leigh as she came out of the kitchen. “I’m going out for a bit. Hopefully I won’t be too long, but you can reach me on my cell if you need me.”
“Take your time,” Leigh said. “We’ve got everything under control.”
I made a quick stop in the office to grab my phone and look up the address that went with Ida’s phone number. I memorized the house number and then set off with my tote bag over my shoulder.
The day was already warm, but pleasantly so, not yet so hot as to leave me sweltering in my jeans. I questioned the wisdom of what I was doing as I walked along Main Street, but I never once slowed my steps. I hadn’t yet received word from the sheriff’s department about any action taken with respect to Ida, and I couldn’t wait around any longer, hoping someone else would take care of the issue for me.
I didn’t have a whole lot of faith that I could talk sense into Ida, but it was worth a try, especially if I stressed the fact that the sheriff was now getting involved. If nothing else, maybe the prospect of serving another jail sentence for theft would get her to rethink her actions. Although I didn’t really want to see the woman get locked away in prison, I did want her out of my hair. At the moment, she was the only less-than-perfect part of my new life in Wildwood Cove.
Leaving Main Street, I followed a side road to Clement Street, where Ida lived. I’d never ventured into this part of town before and I could tell right away that the neighborhood was newer than my own beachfront one. The two-story houses lining the street appeared to have been built a few decades later than the Victorian homes in my part of town. Most were well kept, with tidy green lawns that hadn’t yet been too scorched by the summer sun.
One front yard halfway up the street didn’t quite fit in with the others, however. The grass needed cutting and a rusty bicycle frame lay abandoned near the side gate leading to the backyard, along with several old bicycle wheels and piles of newspapers and magazines. When I paused at the end of the cracked cement walkway, it didn’t surprise me to see that the number of the neglected house matched the one I’d memorized before leaving The Flip Side.
Wasting no time, I marched along the walkway and up the steps to the front porch. I hopped aside when a board sagged beneath my weight, threatening to give way. When I felt sure I’d found a safe place to stand, I knocked hard on the front door.
As I waited for a response, I studied the front porch. The rotting boards weren’t the only sign of neglect. The peeling dark red paint on the front door cried out for attention and a crack in the window to the right of the entrance had been sealed with duct tape. If Ida had spent as much time maintaining her home as she did harassing me, she probably would have had the nicest property on the block. As it was, her place stood out like a sore thumb, and I wondered what her neighbors thought of that.
Several seconds passed in silence. I tried again, rapping my knuckles hard against the wood. I noticed a doorbell off to the side and pressed that as well. Raising myself on tiptoe, I peered through the semicircular window near the top of the door, but I couldn’t see much more than shadows.
While it was possible that Ida wasn’t home, I also thought it likely that she wouldn’t bother to answer the door even if she was inside, especially if she figured out that I was the one on the porch trying to get her attention. I pressed the bell again, knocking as well, before leaning closer to the door.
“Ida!” I called out. “I want to talk to you!”
When I still received no response, I let out a frustrated breath and gave up on that approach. Careful to avoid the rotting boards, I picked my way down the front steps.
“Ida Winkler’s in high demand today.”
I nearly jumped out of my skin at the sound of the voice. It took me a second, but when I spotted a woman descending the front steps of the next house over, I realized she was the one who’d spoken. Dressed in a knee-length skirt and a sleeveless top, the woman had straight dark hair that reached down to the middle of her back. She ca
rried a large handbag and a pair of sunglasses, which she set on the top of her head as she crossed her lawn toward me.
“You’re not the first person today to knock on her door and shout at her.”
I winced. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to make a racket.”
She waved off my apology. “Trust me, you were as quiet as a mouse compared to the last round.”
“Oh?”
“Melinda Haynes.”
For a second I thought she was introducing herself, but then she flicked her hand toward the house on the other side of Ida’s.
“She’s the daughter of the owner of the next house over. Couldn’t have been more than twenty minutes ago that she was up there on Ida’s porch, screaming like a banshee. Her mother had to come over and drag her away. And thank goodness she did. I was about to call the sheriff. Juliette Tran, by the way,” she said, and this time I figured she really was introducing herself.
“Marley McKinney,” I returned before trying to steer the conversation in a more helpful direction. “Did she get any response from Ida?”
“Not a peep, as far as I know. Not that I could blame her, for once. Who’d want to open their door to all that screeching?”
I took a step back, planning to excuse myself, not wanting to end up standing there for the rest of the morning listening to all the neighborhood gossip.
“Anyway,” Juliette went on before I had a chance to say anything, “you can always try around back if you’re really anxious to talk with the woman. Not that talking to her ever does any sort of good.” She shook her head and glanced at the slim silver watch on her wrist. “I’ve got to be off, but good luck to you.”
“Thank you,” I said to her retreating back as she walked briskly to a red convertible parked at the curb.
As Juliette climbed into the car and drove off, I turned back to Ida’s house, my eyes wandering from the front door to the side gate. I decided to act on Juliette’s advice and check around back for Ida. If she was lurking out of sight, hoping I’d go away, she’d soon find out that I wouldn’t give up so easily.
I unlatched the gate and it swung open with a squeak and a groan. Worried that the noise might have alerted Ida to my approach, I hurried along a cement path that was as cracked and choked with weeds as the one out front. I rounded the corner of the house and paused.
The back grass was as much in need of a trim as the front lawn, and even more junk had been piled here and there, rusting pieces of things I couldn’t identify heaped on top of each other, weeds growing up through the metallic trash. A gnarled old apple tree grew in one corner of the yard, near the carport. Parked beneath the sagging roof of the carport was the old brown car I’d seen Ida driving right after the theft of my lamp base. There was, however, no sign of the woman herself.
I was about to climb my way up a rickety set of steps to the back porch when I spotted a shed almost completely surrounded by a jumble of prickly blackberry bushes in desperate need of pruning and taming. The door to the shed stood open, and I decided to have a peek inside before risking the stairs.
Carefully picking my way through the long grass, I approached the shed.
“Ida?” I called out as I got closer.
As I expected, I received no response, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t hiding in the shed. When I reached the door, I grabbed it and pulled it open wider. Although I was about to say Ida’s name once again, the syllables died away in my throat before I could get them out.
Ida was indeed in the garden shed.
But she was sprawled out on the dirty floor, as still as a corpse.
Chapter 4
“Ida?” I finally managed to choke her name out after another second or two.
She still didn’t stir, and an ominous weight sank in my stomach.
Carefully, I entered the shed and stepped around Ida so I could crouch down near her head. Her chest wasn’t rising and falling, and when I pressed two fingers to her throat, no pulse beat beneath my touch. My eyes traveled from her throat to the side of her head, where dark blood had matted her hair against her scalp.
Swallowing hard, I stood up and took a cautious step backward, trying to disturb the scene as little as possible. I wanted to clutch on to the possibility that Ida had simply fallen and struck her head on the way down, but the likelihood of that scenario evaporated when I spotted the antique lamp base I’d purchased the other day. It was lying on its side on the dirty floorboards of the shed, and when I leaned in for a closer look, I noticed a smear of blood on the edge of the base.
My stomach turning, I stumbled out of the shed, nearly tripping in my haste. I bumped against the door and it flew wide open, hitting the outer wall of the shed with a thump. Casting a glance at Ida’s body, I dug through my tote bag, searching for my phone. My fingers closed around the device and I pulled it from the depths of my bag.
“Is that you, Ms. Winkler?”
My phone slipped from my fingers and hit the grass. I spun around, my heart thudding, but I couldn’t spot the owner of the voice.
“Hello?” I said the word tentatively, not knowing where to direct it.
“Ms. Winkler?”
The woman’s voice sounded more uncertain this time. It had come from the other side of the tall fence, almost hidden by the same blackberry bushes that threatened to swallow up the shed.
“No, my name’s Marley,” I said as I retrieved my fallen phone from the grass. “I stopped by to speak with Ms. Winkler.”
“Is she there? Because I need to have a word with her too. And if she thinks she can ignore me and my daughter, she’s got another think coming.”
“Um…” I wasn’t quite sure what to say. “She is here, but…” I swallowed again as I glanced Ida’s way. “I’m afraid she’s dead.”
A lengthy pause followed my words.
“Dead?” The woman echoed eventually. “My word!”
“I’m just about to call 911.”
I punched the numbers into my phone and drew in a shaky breath before reporting the situation to the dispatcher. I had just assured the dispatcher that I’d stay put until the authorities arrived when a gate leading to the alleyway creaked open.
A fifty-something woman wearing a white blouse with navy-blue walking shorts entered the yard, picking her way through the tall grass in her high-heeled sandals. As I ended my phone call, the woman reached my side. I looked toward the shed, and the woman followed my line of sight. Her eyes widened and she pressed a hand to her chest.
“Oh, my heavens! She really is dead?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Oh dear.” The woman patted her perfectly styled golden hair and turned away from the garden shed. “How terrible.”
I decided it would be best not to mention what I strongly suspected—that Ida’s death wasn’t accidental or natural. Not sure that we should be lingering so close to the scene of what I believed was a crime, I moved toward the back steps of the house, hoping the woman would follow my lead.
“You live next door?” I said as we neared the house.
“Yes. Forgive me. My name is Sheryl Haynes. When I heard someone moving about, I thought it must be Ms. Winkler, and I was hoping to have a word with her.” She put a hand to her chest again. “Heavens. I guess that won’t be happening.”
“Do you need to sit down?” I asked.
Sheryl eyed the grimy, rickety steps with distaste before shifting her gaze up to the back porch, where two folding chairs sat on either side of a small round table. “Yes. Yes, I suppose that would be a good idea.”
Fervently hoping the stairs would support our weight, I followed Sheryl up to the porch. She carefully lowered herself into one of the chairs and I took the other, hoping Sheriff Georgeson and his deputies wouldn’t object to us settling in this spot. I didn’t want to mess up their investigation in any way, but I also didn’t want Sheryl to faint on me. Although I didn’t know what the woman normally looked like, she seemed a bit pale to me and I figured it was safer to have her s
itting than standing.
“I should tell my daughter where I am.” Sheryl patted the pockets of her shorts. “But I didn’t bring my phone with me.”
“You can borrow mine, if you’d like.” I held the device out to her.
“Thank you, but that’s all right. I’ll just wait until the shakes subside and then I’ll go back home.”
“Are you feeling faint?” I asked, hoping she wasn’t still at risk of passing out even while sitting.
“Oh, goodness, no. I’m just feeling a bit unsteady, that’s all. It’s a…a shock, you see.”
“It is,” I agreed. “Did you know Ms. Winkler well?”
“Not really. We’ve lived next door to each other for several years, but we…well, we didn’t really mix, if you know what I mean. She wasn’t particularly…sociable.”
I gathered that was a polite way of saying Ida was unpleasant and in no way someone Sheryl would have spent time with by choice. I remembered what she’d said when I’d spoken to her through the fence. “But you wanted to talk to her today.”
Sheryl swallowed. “Yes. Now it all seems so unimportant, but there’s been an issue with the fence between our yards. It’s a bit of a wreck in places and I was planning to have it replaced. Naturally, I was hoping Ms. Winkler would pay half the cost, but she refused and also took issue with having anyone come onto her property to do the work.”
There would be no more objections from Ida, I noted silently, but I didn’t read too much into that since I thought it highly unlikely that anyone would kill another person over a fence dispute. Still, Juliette Tran had said that Sheryl’s daughter was pounding on Ida’s door earlier.
“Is that what your daughter was upset about?” I asked, trying to keep the question casual. “The problem with the fence?”
Sheryl’s eyes widened with surprise. “My daughter?”
“Maybe I have the wrong person,” I said, although I doubted that was the case. “Juliette Tran mentioned that a neighbor’s daughter was on Ms. Winkler’s front porch earlier, upset.”
