No Harm (The Kate Teague Mysteries Book 1)

by Wendy Hornsby

  “Let me see.” Kate took it from him. “It’s the grant deed for Grandpa Archie’s property.”

  “Six-point-seven-two beach-front acres.” He looked at her as if this had some heavy significance she should understand.

  “The lot is divided in three parts,” Kate said. “And unless every one of us agrees on something, nothing can be done with the land.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong, Kate. Read the deed.”

  She turned the first few pages of the thick document. “Why don’t you just tell me the good parts?”

  “Well.” He leaned forward, eyes glistening. “Actually, Archie kept title to the whole plot. Dolph and Miles have life-estates in their domiciles only. So you see, the land has a single owner.”

  “So as Archie’s heir…”

  “Right!” Ratcher clapped his hands together gleefully. “The land is all yours.”

  “I still can’t do anything with it,” she reminded him.

  “But you’re wrong.” He brought out a roll of blueprints and passed it lovingly to her. “Just look and see what a few good minds working together can come up with.”

  “Here, architect.” She handed the roll to Reece. “Be useful.”

  Reece cleared a space on the cocktail table in front of them and spread out the plans. The first sheet was a plot map showing an overview of the three existing houses and the compound. Reece groaned as he turned to the second sheet.

  In soft blue ink, sketched along the contour of the bluff was a solid wall of condominiums, extending like a cuboid-fungus over the land now occupied by Miles and Kate’s houses. Dolph’s house and terrace were left as an island and marked “Phase 3.”

  Sweat now ran down the sides of Sy’s face. “Think of it. Two hundred and eight luxury, ocean-view condos with a marina below. Unit prices from four hundred and fifty to nine hundred thousand dollars, more for customizing. Boat slips at forty thousand dollars a crack.”

  Kate wrapped an arm around Reece and rested her chin on his shoulder as she looked at the plans, disbelieving what she saw. She was glad Reece had stayed around for this, and not only because of his expertise. “What do you think?”

  “It’s Fantasyland, Sy,” Reece laughed harshly. “You can’t believe you could ever pull it off. In the first place, you’d never get zoning variances.”

  “That’s a problem, all right,” Sy nodded, slightly crestfallen. “Mrs. Byrd thought she could manage it, though. She had so many contacts.”

  “That’s not the only problem,” Kate said, rolling up the plans. “Mother couldn’t deliver the land. Even if she had managed to get Miles put away, I would never have agreed to this. And now, I’d laugh at the whole scheme if there weren’t some possibility it had something to do with Mother’s murder.”

  Sy visibly recoiled. “I would be the last person to want any harm to come to your mother. Like I said, we hadn’t gotten around to signatures, so without her I’m nowhere. I thought you might feel honor bound to respect her agreements.”

  “Honor bound?” Kate said. “Funny words for you to use.”

  “Sy,” Reece stood up and moved toward Ratcher. “I think it’s time for you to leave.”

  “All I can ask is that you give it some thought,” Sy said as he gathered his papers into his briefcase. He reached for the roll of plans, but Kate snatched it away.

  “I’ll hang on to this,” she said. “Police evidence, you know.”

  “Carl, you bum.” Kate held the telephone receiver between her chin and shoulder while she picked at the scab on her left elbow. “After last night I thought this conversation would be more fun. Some romantic you are.”

  Carl laughed into the phone. “We’ll talk about that later.”

  “Okay, so what did Dolph find out about Mother’s nefarious financial dealings?”

  “Not much,” Carl said. “He’s submitted her will for probate, but it doesn’t give many details.”

  “I didn’t even know Mother had a will. Does it say anything about Sy Ratcher?”

  “Not a thing. Dolph is bringing you a copy. The trust fund she was living on expired. Some of the capital was earmarked by Archie as a contribution to the annuity he set up for Esperanza. The remainder, and everything else she had, is yours.”

  “Everything else is probably just her personal things, jewelry mostly.”

  “I don’t think you understand, Kate,” Carl spoke very slowly, as if to a dull-witted child. “When your mother died you fell heir to your grandfather’s entire estate. You’re, well, independent now. You can quit your job and do anything you want. For the rest of your life.”

  “I know all that. What I want to do is exactly what I am doing. Why would I want to quit my job? School starts Monday.”

  “Exactly,” Carl replied in the controlled voice with the patronizing edge that always made her boil. “With everything that has happened I don’t see how you can make it.”

  “I won’t leave the department in the lurch.”

  “The department chair can cover the classes with staff and part-timers.”

  “No.”

  “Kate, be reasonable. You don’t need the money, for God’s sake.”

  “Money has nothing to do with it. If I were in this for money I wouldn’t be teaching.” But she knew he wasn’t listening. As committed as he was to his career, he never understood that her work was more to her than a source of income, however meager. It was who she was: Professor Kate Teague. She looked around the room, her grandfather’s study—wood and leather and brass all polished to a rich patina. There was comfort here, and a self-assurance that derived from the power of its original owner, not her. Her place was a grubby little cubicle with gray, state-issued furniture. And she wasn’t ready to give it up.

  “Will you think about it?” Carl was still arguing, trying to bend her to his will.

  Kate heard the urgency in his voice, but the words slid right by her like so much water slapping against a dam. The issue wasn’t important to Carl anymore, she knew. He just wanted to win the argument. It had always been so much easier to give in than to assert herself. But things were different now and she didn’t have to listen anymore. For the first time she realized how complete their breakup was, how clean the cut. It left her feeling as if something had been ripped out of her core. But there was a new sense of peace sliding into the void.

  “Ask Dolph to keep checking, please,” she interrupted the flow of words. There was a steely edge on her voice. “Remind him to meet Mina at the hospital. Talk to you later.”

  “Kate! Wait.”

  Even holding the receiver at arm’s length, she could hear Carl, sounding tinny like an old recording. She put the receiver back to her ear but said nothing.

  “I love you,” he said. “I only want what’s best for you, for us.”

  It was a familiar refrain; she’d heard it a hundred times. She hung up, holding down the receiver for a while, as if it might leap up with the force of Carl’s anger.

  Feeling a strong surge of energy, born from her own anger, Kate went upstairs to her study. Half her files and books were still in big cartons, just as the moving company had left them when she moved in at the beginning of summer, when she’d left Carl. The cartons had been packed in a hurry, so their contents were in no particular order. Finding the materials she would need for the first two weeks of school meant hours of digging and sorting.

  She turned on her tapedeck and, humming to Vivaldi, she started making three piles on the floor, one for each different preparation she would be teaching. Everything that didn’t pertain to her class load was left to be dealt with later, when she had more time. Christmas vacation, she thought. With five classes and three preparations to keep her busy, the week after Christmas would be soon enough to sort through everything else.

  The remainder of the morning passed quickly. The work refreshed her because it was a diversion from Carl and Miles and everything else.

  Shuffling together the drafts for her course outl
ines she swiveled her chair around in the oriel and looked out toward the beach. A strong wind brushed the cypresses against the windows of “safe harbor” with a familiar dog-scratching sound. It was a beautiful day, swept clean of the smoke and ash that had soiled the sky for the past week. Pushing open the casement windows she leaned against the sill, resting her chin in her palms to let the crisp sea air rush against her face. Lazily, she turned her wrist and looked at her watch.

  “Two o’clock. Damn,” she muttered. She had invited Helga to lunch. She dialed downstairs on the house line. It was busy. Esperanza had probably unplugged the phone to nap, she thought. Putting her outlines on top of her word processor, she got up and went quietly downstairs to see if Helga still needed feeding. As she passed the kitchen, she heard Esperanza speaking in a low voice.

  “Si.” Esperanza faced away from the door, hunched low over the counter to speak on the telephone.

  Thinking the call might be from the hospital, Kate waited in the doorway, watching the starched white back.

  “Si, Mrs. Ratcher. Tell Sy thank you.”

  TEN

  “HI JA!” Esperanza bumped the counter and spun around to face Kate. The telephone receiver bounced in its cradle. “You startled me.”

  “Sorry. Was that Susan Ratcher?”

  “Yes, big ears. She wanted to know about Mr. Miles.”

  “How strange.”

  “No, it is not strange. She was his wife once, remember. Is it strange that she still cares for him?”

  “Guess not,” Kate shrugged. “Unless she was calling on behalf of her stepson. Were there any other calls? And where is Helga? I was going to feed her lunch.”

  “Three calls. Number one was Carl who invited his mother out to lunch. You were invited too but I told him you were indisposed.” She folded her arms across her ample chest and smiled at Kate. “You are not the only one with big ears. I did not tell him you were here.”

  “I love you, you know.”

  “You should.” Esperanza tried to make a cross face. “Number three call was that handsome policeman. He wants to talk to you. I told him you would be at the hospital with time on your hands at eight o’clock.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because call number two was Mr. Dolph. He wants you to keep your aunt’s seat warm while he takes her out for something to eat, maybe to sneak a tranquilizer in her soup so she will come home and go to bed.”

  “Did Dolph say anything about Uncle Miles?”

  “He seems better. But he’s still out of this world.” Esperanza brushed her hands to show she was finished.

  “That’s it for the telephone,” Kate said. “Now you go take a nap.”

  “I will after one more thing. You didn’t eat the dinner I made you last night and Helga says you had no breakfast. I made you a nice quiche and you will come and eat it before you get sick and your aunt starts sitting outside your room at the hospital which would do her health no good.” She drew a deep breath.

  “Okay, okay.” Kate smiled at Esperanza. “For Mina’s sake I’ll eat.”

  Kate sat down at the kitchen table and devoured the quiche as if she hadn’t eaten in weeks. When she finished she stretched, lazily pulling out the muscles stiff from sitting all morning. “Esperanza, did Lieutenant Tejeda tell you about the burglary at Miles’s last night?”

  “Si. He asked what was in the drawer, but I don’t know. Mr. Miles is a good boy. He does his own room.”

  “Unlike me, huh?” Kate laughed. “What do you keep by your bed?”

  “Me?” Esperanza shrugged. “In one I keep stockings. In the other just things.”

  “Like what things?”

  “Like your baby pictures,” she smiled. “And the little things you used to make me, you know, the embroidered hankies and things.”

  “Hardly worth burglarizing.”

  “To me they are priceless.” Esperanza snatched the plates off the table. “You going to work some more?”

  “No. I think I’ll go down for a swim. Get the kinks out.” She kissed Esperanza on the cheek. “Thanks. Lunch was great. Now, go rest.”

  Upstairs in her dressing room, Kate pulled on a one-piece swimsuit, feeling her bony rib-section as she pulled it up. She looked at herself in the long mirror on the back of the door and shook her head. “Scrawny broad,” she muttered, patting her narow hips and flat belly. Poor Carl worked so hard to stay trim. She wouldn’t mind having some of his voluptuousness. She hurried downstairs and out of the house.

  Coming around the corner of the house, she caught a fleeting glimpse of the brown-suited Sergeant Green and wondered if he were pulling surveillance duty or looking for Helga. He was gone from view before she had a chance to ask him.

  “Kate!” Lydia, the narrowest string bikini bisecting her hard, brown torso, jogged across the lawn from Dolph’s house. “Going swimming?”

  “Yes.” Kate waited for her to catch up. “Come with me?”

  “I was going to run, but, hell, why not? Be a lot cooler.”

  At the top of the beach stairs, Lydia stopped and looked around. “This is the place, right?”

  “Where I fell? Yes.”

  “Doesn’t it spook you to be here?”

  “A little,” Kate nodded, leading the way down the stairs.

  At the landing Lydia stopped and looked up toward the bluff. “Where was he standing?”

  “I don’t know. Because of the overhang, you can’t see the top from here.”

  “But how would he get there? Anyone coming across the lawn would have been too exposed. Unless he was lying in wait under the oleander hedge.” Lydia leaned forward over the banister to get a better view of the ledge. “Stuff’s poisonous, oleander. Unhealthy place for a skulker to hide.”

  “Skulker? How could anyone be skulking for me? No one knew I would be down here.” Kate looked up, her eyes following the eroded bank above. Lydia was right, the only possible cover for someone sneaking up on the stairs was the oleander hedge that grew along the edge of the bluff. Even then, there were long gaps where chunks of the eroded bluff had given way, taking railing and plants with it. But the biggest problem would be getting across the broad lawn undetected.

  Hot sun bore into her bare back. She slung her towel over her shoulder and started down the rough wooden steps to the beach. “Are we swimming, or what?”

  “The gazebo,” Lydia shouted after her. “It had to be the gazebo.”

  Kate stopped at the bottom, digging her toes into the hot white sand as she looked up at the gazebo perched at the edge of the bluff, a thick stand of unbroken oleander hedge stretching from its doorway thirty feet to the stairs.

  A little breathless, Lydia put a moist hand on her arm. “What if someone were in the gazebo and simply took advantage of the opportunity to get you.”

  “Me in particular,” Kate said, “or would just any passerby have done?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “Very comforting,” Kate said. Sergeant Green’s head appeared by the gazebo, watching the women below. Kate wasn’t sure how secure his watchfulness made her feel. She turned to Lydia. “Hey, my feet are burning up. Let’s go.”

  With Lydia close beside her, Kate ran across the beach and plunged into the gentle surf. Chilling water sluiced over her as she swam with powerful strokes parallel to the surf line, quickly outdistancing Lydia. At first, the salt water stung her skinned knees and made her bruised muscles ache. But the cold, faintly oil-scented water sharpened her senses, drawing tension from her, she thought, like good sex.

  Exhausted but exhilarated after twenty minutes, she pulled herself, shivering, onto the sand. A lovely cool, moist breeze blew in across the water, providing relief from the dry Santa Ana winds that gathered heat as they passed across the land. Chest still heaving, Kate luxuriated in the radiated heat from the sand, lifting her face to the breeze as she waited for Lydia.

  “What do you think?” Reece dropped to the sand behind her. “She drowning out there?”
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  “Who, Lydia?” Kate panted.

  “She’s muscle-bound, you know. Tends to sink.”

  “You can go in after her if you want to. I couldn’t make it. Where did you come from, anyway?”

  “I saw you two come down here.” He yawned and scratched his belly, salting the coiled red hair with sand. “Just watching you is enough exercise for me.”

  “You lazy bum.” Kate leaned back, using him as a backrest.

  Reece squinted off toward the water. “Great place for a marina, don’t you think?”

  “Shut up,” she laughed.

  Lydia emerged from the water a few yards down the beach. Kate’s wave caught her eye, and she slogged tiredly through the swash toward them.

  “’Lo,” she said, shaking her dripping hands over Reece.

  “Cut it out,” he protested.

  “Go ahead,” Kate laughed. “He deserves worse.”

  She leaned back against her elbows. “The way I feel right now, I could stay right here forever. Do what old Carl says and quit the job. Be a beach bum.”

  “Great idea,” Lydia smiled. “You quit and I’ll have a shot at an honest-to-God, full-time tenured teaching position.”

  “Don’t do it, Kate,” Reece warned. “She earns a real salary and I’ll have to think up a new excuse for not marrying her.”

  Lydia punched at his shoulder. “You watch it or I’ll find myself someone with a little more meat on his bones. And a little less meat between his ears.”

  “Sounds like Carl.” Reece rolled over until his face was close to Kate’s, their noses almost touching. “Is he available?”

  “Who’s interested, you or her?”

  “All right.” Lydia bolted to her feet. “You two aren’t funny anymore. I’m going. I have things to do.”

  “What are you, everyone’s conscience?” Reece gripped her sandy ankle. “Sit down.”

  “Yeah. Sit,” Kate said. “I want to ask you something.”

  “Better be important.”