Murder on the Rocks

by Karen MacInerney

  Charlene rolled her mascaraed eyes. “Nat, you’ve got to be kidding me. You haven’t noticed Katz Sr. starting to pant the moment Estelle steps into the room?” I remembered Katz’s behavior at breakfast this morning, and had to admit Charlene had a point.

  “I know they’ve been a bit flirtatious,” I said. “But Estelle’s married to Stanley.”

  “Maybe she’s discovered that Stanley’s small fry and she’s trying to get her hooks into a bigger fish.” Charlene took another bite of cookie. “After all, somebody’s got to fund her wardrobe.”

  By the time Charlene climbed into her rusty truck, it was already 11:00. I thanked her for the emergency rations—she’d brought three cartons of eggs and a gallon of milk—and called it a night. I had been planning on baking banana bread, but decided to make a batch of muffins in the morning instead.

  The storm howled outside as I curled up under my fluffy down comforter, watching the lightning flicker behind the curtains. Biscuit snuggled in beside me, and the inn felt warm and solid around me. It had withstood storms stronger than this during the 150 years it had clung to the island. I tried to push the possibility that the inn’s days were numbered out of my mind, and finally drifted off.

  The next morning dawned clear and rosy. The kitchen’s pine floors and warm yellow walls glowed in the early light, and the sea that yesterday had been leaden was flecked with peach and gold.

  I put a pot of coffee on and began cutting up a watermelon, trying hard not to fantasize about it being Katz’s head. I combined the crimson fruit with strawberries and blueberries and reminded myself that although Katz was odious, it was important not to let his presence undermine my professionalism. Besides, Barbara had said he might not be able to develop the preserve anyway.

  As I pulled a fresh carton of eggs out of the fridge, the refrigerator’s half-empty shelves reminded me that it was time to place another big grocery order. A quick mental calculation sent a wave of apprehension through me. Katz or no Katz, between the cost of food and my upcoming mortgage payment, I had to find some way to book more guests if the inn was to make it through the summer. I laid the eggs on the counter and started peeling bananas to mash for muffins. Rooms aren’t like bananas. If they’re not used, you can’t turn them into banana bread; they’re gone. I resolved to take a bunch of brochures over to Mount Desert Island that afternoon.

  By 8:30, the buffet table was spread with a lavish breakfast; ramekins of shirred eggs, sausages, fruit salad, and mounds of fragrant muffins. The couple from Alabama came down five minutes later and tucked in with relish. “Storms always make me hungry,” white-haired Mrs. Bittles informed me as she helped herself to three muffins and a stack of sausages. Ogden Wilson entered the dining room alone a little before nine.

  “Where’s Mr. Katz?” I asked as I poured him a cup of coffee.

  “I haven’t seen him. Maybe he went out for a morning stroll.” More like a morning troll, I thought, wondering if he’d decided to do a little nest removal before the evaluation began. Barbara came down a few minutes later looking fresh and cheerful, her hair wet again, but this time from the shower. She sat down at the farthest table from Ogden and turned her back to him. I walked over with a carafe of coffee.

  “Sleep well, Barbara?”

  “Like a rock.” She smiled. “I love being tucked in when there’s a storm outside. There’s nothing cozier.” She took a sip of the coffee I’d just poured. “Great coffee. You run a wonderful inn, Nat.”

  “Thanks. I’m just hoping I can keep doing it.” I told Barbara to help herself to breakfast and then headed back into the kitchen to replenish the butter. Mrs. Bittles had put quite a dent in the slab I had laid out next to the muffins.

  By 10:00, the Bittles, Ogden, and Barbara had headed back to their rooms, but Katz had yet to appear. I cleared the buffet table, threw the tablecloths into the washing machine, and headed upstairs to wake up Gwen. Katz would have to forage for himself.

  I knocked on my niece’s door and poked my head into her room. She sat up, looking disoriented. “Wow, that storm was noisy last night. I hardly slept.”

  “Noisy? I didn’t notice anything.”

  “How could you not hear the wind? It was screaming like a banshee the entire night.” She shook her head as if to clear it, then rubbed her eyes.

  “I’ve got to head down to the mainland with some brochures, but I’ve left breakfast on the kitchen table for you; would you mind taking care of the rooms for me?”

  “No problem.” She fell back against the pillow. “Is it okay if I sleep a bit more and do the rooms later? I’m wiped.”

  “As long as they’re done by three.” She grunted as the door closed behind me. Maybe I’d call from the mainland to make sure she’d gotten up.

  I stuffed a stack of brochures into a backpack and headed out the door. It was wonderful to have an excuse to be out and about; the morning was gorgeous. Instead of taking the road to the pier, I had decided to walk the footpath that wound through the preserve and check the nests on my way to catch the mail boat. Even if I couldn’t find the nests, I thought with a pang, I should enjoy the path while I could. As my feet negotiated the rocky, narrow trail, my eyes drifted across the water toward the mainland. Mount Cadillac and Mount Pemetic rose like craggy beasts in the distance, and white gulls soared and wheeled in the crisp air.

  The waves that had crashed with such violence yesterday now caressed the rocky shoreline, and a few fishing boats chugged across the blue-green water. Like living in a postcard, I thought, clambering onto a slab of granite and turning to look back at the inn.

  The Gray Whale nestled into a craggy hill, its weathered gray shingles and blue trim soft against the vivid green of the landscape. The meadow below it was awash in the pink and purple of lupines, and the magenta roses climbing up the trellis on the side of the inn blazed in the morning light. The blue window boxes overflowed with pale pink petunias and vibrant fuchsia geraniums, with little pockets of deep purple lobelia and snow-white verbena. Above them, white-curtained windows sparkled in the sunlight. I couldn’t believe the inn was mine. Mine for now, anyway, I thought with a wrench as I climbed off the lichened rock and made my way back down to the path. I glanced at my watch; it was time to pick up the pace if I was going to make the noon mail boat.

  The path was clearly not a major thoroughfare. Several clumps of beach roses had grown across it, and as I made my way up toward the cliffs that overlooked the terns’ nests I found myself wishing I’d brought hedge clippers, or maybe a machete. The flowers were a beautiful deep pink, but the thorns were merciless; scratches soon crisscrossed my arms from pushing branches out of the way. A few broken branches dangled from some of the bushes; the leaves were wilted, but still green. It looked as if someone else had been on the path recently; someone coming to vandalize the nests? Bernard Katz? But Katz had just found out about the evaluation last night, and not even the Katzes were dumb—or desperate—enough to be out in a nor’easter.

  As the path rose higher, I wondered what Barbara was planning to do if the evaluation didn’t protect the preserve from development. She’d mentioned alternate tactics, but I couldn’t think of any, unless she managed to come up with an extra half-million dollars. I skirted a patch of blueberry bushes in full bloom, their little white bell-shaped flowers hanging from upright branches. If Barbara did manage to keep the Katzes from flattening the area, this would be a great place to come berry picking.

  I finally reached the cliff overlooking the terns’ nesting area, a narrow strip of light-brown sand that stretched only a hundred yards or so along the base of an almost sheer drop-off. The terns wheeled about over the beach, their wings snowy in the sunlight, but the nests were so well camouflaged I couldn’t make them out. How the heck did Claudette know they were being vandalized? I couldn’t even see them.

  I eased my backpack onto the ground and edge
d off the path a little ways down the steep slope, hoping to get at least a glimpse of what Claudette was talking about. I fumbled for a handhold and tried to crawl crabwise down the sharp rocks. I soon gave up. How could someone destroy the nests? I couldn’t even get to them.

  I was scooting back up toward the path when a loose rock shifted under my left foot. My stomach lurched as I started to slide down the cliff’s rocky face. My toe caught a clump of something growing out of a crack, steadying me for a moment, but whatever it was gave way, and my whole body began to slip downward. I scrabbled for a foot-hold, but my body was sliding faster now, my shirt rode up, and the lichen-covered rock scraped my stomach as I flailed for something to hold onto.

  Suddenly my feet hit something solid. I flailed to keep my balance, swinging over the teeth of the rocks below; after a heart-stopping moment, my hand somehow found a tuft of grass and pulled my body back over the narrow ledge that had broken my fall. I stood frozen, afraid to move, while my ragged breath slowed. The skin on my stomach felt like it was on fire, and my knees and palms were raw. I looked back up the cliff; I had slid only fifteen feet, but it felt more like five hundred. Maybe it would be a good idea to tell the evaluators to approach the terns’ nests by boat.

  I looked down toward my feet. The ledge I had landed on was about five feet long and two feet wide at its broadest point. I stood on the narrowest part, at the very end; six inches farther to the right, and I would have kept sliding. I shuffled over toward the middle, then turned gingerly and eased my aching body down onto the shelf.

  Great job, Nat. Not only had I gotten myself stuck hanging on a ledge halfway down a sheer cliff under an infrequently traveled path, nobody knew I was taking the path. My battered body wasn’t up to climbing back up the cliff, and I wondered how long it would be before someone figured out I was gone. With any luck it would be sometime before breakfast tomorrow.

  I glanced down at the beach to see if the extra fifteen feet had improved my visibility. It hadn’t. The terns were clustered a little farther down the rocky cliff, diving down and then soaring back up, not far from my narrow perch. I leaned over slightly, and caught a glimpse of something gold flashing under the flurry of wings. I craned to get a better look, then sucked in my breath.

  The gold thing was a Rolex watch. I knew it was a Rolex because it was attached to Bernard Katz’s arm.

  I closed my eyes for a moment, and then forced myself to look again. The sunlight gleamed on Katz’s bald head, which hung from his body at an impossible angle. His limp arm, clad in the sleeve of a button-down shirt, was draped over a rock. He looked like an oversized doll that had been flung down by an angry child.

  I leaned back against the rocks, fighting the urge to vomit. Katz looked as if he were beyond help. In a way, that was a good thing, because I couldn’t see any way to get down to help him. In fact, I was in need of a little assistance myself.

  A shiver passed through me. If it hadn’t been for the ledge, it might have been me on the rocks next to him. I massaged my aching hands and stared out to sea, trying not to look at the body askew on the rocks. It didn’t seem possible that Bernard Katz, who had been alive and boisterous and planning to ruin my inn just last night, was dead. I didn’t like Katz, but I didn’t wish this on him.

  As the buoys bobbed up and down on the blue waves, I wondered why Katz had been out on the cliffs. Maybe Claudette had been right���he was destroying the nests, and had slipped and fallen on the rocks. That didn’t seem right, though; nest removal seemed more like a task Katz would delegate. I couldn’t imagine him willing to get his clothes dirty—or risk his neck—by climbing around on a cliff.

  How Katz had ended up dead on a cliff was one question. What I really needed to worry about was getting myself off a cliff—preferably alive. Unfortunately, my perch was out of view of anything on the island, so my best hope was that a passing boat would notice me. I glanced down at my camouflaging gray T-shirt and khaki shorts. Had I known I’d end up on a cliff, I would have borrowed something a bit more colorful from Estelle. My eyes squinted down at the empty blue water, searching for a boat to flag down.

  Despite the horror on the rocks below, the view was breathtaking. The waves glittered in the sunlight, and hundreds of buoys floated among the whitecaps, but no boats turned up to haul the traps that lurked under each of the brightly colored buoys. They looked like children’s tops. As my eyes searched the water, I noticed that the red and green buoys that had plagued the island’s lobster fleet for weeks were gone. Maybe the mainland folks had given up. On the other hand, maybe the locals had cut the long lines linking the buoys to the traps in an effort to discourage the invader.

  I shifted on my narrow ledge, trying to find a more comfortable position, and avoided looking over toward where the terns were still fluttering and diving. For the first time since I’d moved to Maine, I found myself wishing for a cell phone. Since I would have stowed it in my backpack, though, the phone wouldn’t have helped—my backpack lay at the top of the cliff.

  As my back sagged against the rough cliff wall, the sound of a boat’s engine floated to my ears. I climbed to my feet, prepared to yell and wave, but the engine’s sound faded as the boat changed course. I slumped back down onto my rocky seat, trying to find a comfortable position and fighting back the panic that had begun to well in my throat. From my vantage point at the inn, boats always seemed to be coming and going. Today, the water remained maddeningly empty.

  My eyes avoided the fluttering terns, but their calls echoed in my ears, and my thoughts returned to Bernard Katz, and whether the resort would go through without him. As much as I didn’t like to admit it, Katz’s death, while horrible, might provide a solution to my predicament. I was mulling over options for persuading Stanley not to build the resort when the thrum of an engine reverberated below me.

  The sound grew louder, and the Island Queen—the mail boat—inched into view. I waved my arms and yelled, gluing my eyes to the six people sitting in the back of the little ferry and willing them to look up at the cliff. Just before the gray and white boat disappeared beyond the horn of the island, a person in a white shirt waved back. I threw my arms about, hoping that the people on the boat would figure out that I was in trouble. The boat slowed for a moment—its engine thrummed lower, idling—then revved up again and kept going. I kept waving until the boat slipped out of sight, then sagged back against the wall.

  It must have been twenty minutes later when my name floated down on the wind. I craned my neck toward the top of the cliff to see John’s brown face grinning down at me. “Looks like you got yourself into a tight spot there, Miss Natalie.” He dangled my green backpack from one finger. “Good thing you left this up here. Made it easy to find you.”

  My heart surged with joy and relief—and perhaps a little of something else—before I remembered the body on the cliff.

  “Thank God you’re here,” I gushed. “But it’s not just me. Katz is down here, too.”

  John’s bushy eyebrows shot up. “Bernard Katz is down there with you?”

  “Yeah.” My voice caught. “I think he’s dead.”

  John blanched beneath his summer tan. “Nat—what happened? Are you okay?”

  “Get me out of here and I’ll tell you everything.”

  “Hold on while I tie the rope to something. I’ll have you up and out in a minute.” He disappeared. A few moments later, a rope slithered down the rock face. I winced as my hands closed around the rough hemp, and my body screeched in protest as I worked my way up the cliff toward John. My palms were on fire by the time I reached the top. John reached out and helped me up over the edge with a warm, calloused hand. The heat of his touch ran up my arm like an electrical current.

  John’s eyes darted from my raw hands to my bloodied knees as I brushed myself off. “Are you sure you’re okay? What happened? Where’s Katz?”

  I pointed b
ack toward the cliff. “Over where the terns are.” He moved toward the edge and peered down. “How did you know I was here?” I asked.

  “George McLeod radioed from the Island Queen. Said you looked stuck.”

  “Thank God. I worried that he thought I was just a friendly hiker.”

  “Most hikers are smart enough to stay on the path.” His green eyes glinted at me. “What were you doing, anyway? Trying to body-surf on the rocks?”

  I shook my head. “No, I was headed to the mail boat. I decided to come this way so I could see if Claudette was right about the nests being damaged. I was trying to get a closer look when I slipped and found . . . that.” I jerked a thumb toward the cliff.

  John leaned over the edge, steadying himself on a rock, and I admired the play of muscles in his calves as he moved. The sun gleamed on his sand-colored hair as he turned toward me. “I see the terns, but I don’t see Katz. Are you sure he’s dead?”

  I told him about the angle of Katz’s neck, and his eyes darkened with worry. “Can you make it back to the inn?”

  I nodded.

  “I need you to call the mainland police. Tell the dispatcher that we’ll need both the police and the paramedics. They might want to send a helicopter, if there’s one available.”

  “I thought you were the police.”

  “I am, but the state police handle homicide cases.”

  My heart raced. “Homicide?”

  “Things have been a bit tense around here lately, and this is kind of an unusual circumstance. I don’t think we can rule it out.”

  I nodded and had started shuffling down the path to the inn when John caught my shoulder. The hard lines of his face softened. “Don’t worry, Nat. I’m sure everything will be fine; I’m just glad you’re okay.” I tried to smile, but the muscles of my face were frozen. Instead, I grunted and limped back down the path toward home.