A Man for Clair: Secret of the Widow Mulvane (Mystery loves Romance Book 2)

by G. S. Bailey

  Clair’s map had her sneaking around the edge of the suburbs and again hugging the mountains, only on the eastern side that time. She passed the expansive water storage dam for the city and stopped to snap some more tourist shots. Eloisa had made her promise to bring back pictures, as the elderly woman had never been anywhere really and lived for television documentaries and the like.

  Clair followed her map and the small roads winding through lush pasture and massive mansions set back on hills. She re-joined an expressway headed south from the city at a place called Camden, and she stopped at a roadhouse for an early lunch. She came across a sign shortly after that, which pointed to Moss Vale. It was a detour from her plan, but she took the turn-off and, feeling fully confident after a few days on the road, she zoomed off up into the hills again and got pulled up at a speed trap by a Tidy Town sign.

  “Drive carefully, ma’am,” the cop told her in parting. He was pretty cute, Clair noticed, and she gave him a smile. She was feeling kind of proud of herself for having earned her first speeding ticket.

  She cruised on through that little village, and half an hour later she came across a sign advertising the Winter Wedding Festival of Flowers. She found the festival sprawling all over the town showgrounds, and after wandering around for a while, she came across her dinner companion from the previous night up a ladder fixing the canvas roof of one of the flower stalls.

  “This is amazing,” she said to him. “There are contacts here for absolutely everything!”

  “Hey, fantasy chick! What’s happening?” he shot back at her.

  “Nothing much, peddler.”

  He was down from the ladder, standing close. He smelled sweaty.

  Chapter 5

  Clair spent the day wandering around the festival with the guy she had met. Late in the afternoon she was approached by his mother and had certain facts pointed out, not too subtly—facts he had neglected to mention.

  “Have dinner with me?”

  The offer was made as Clair walked toward her car.

  “Or you could have dinner with your mum, then give your wife a call—maybe say goodnight to your kids.”

  “Oh…” He was blushing.

  She kind of smiled and shrugged and gave a little wave, all as she was backing away. “I have to go, Josh. It was nice to meet you.”

  She was actually exhausted from all the driving, and she found a roadside motel and was asleep by seven PM. She was then back on the road by seven the next morning, with a large packet of business cards from the various stalls at the festival. There were suppliers of everything from wire to ribbons and tape, to silk flowers, foliage and every imaginable fresh flower, with contacts throughout the country detailing where to get whatever you wanted and when.

  Travelling further south from Moss Vale was by way of a broad, open expressway that covered the kilometres with ease. Clair had reached her previously intended destination of Canberra by lunch time, but instead of checking it out she stayed on the highway and skirted by. It was of course the National Capital City, so she would need to take some pictures for Eloisa, particularly of the War Museum and Parliament House, but she could do that on the way back, she decided.

  Beyond that new looking, free-flowing city, the Great Dividing Range lifted another thousand metres into the clouds, and the mountains there were snow covered throughout the winter. To Clair’s relief the highway she was on swept east of the range and avoided the snow and ice. It did however plunge her into deep forest where the road wound this way and that and the townships became smaller and more sparsely distributed.

  Clair ended up driving well into the night before giving up on finding a motel open. She pulled up in front of a police station house in a tiny mountain village and spent a few hours shivering in her car and resting her eyes. She had been afraid to stop just anywhere and figured the police sign would offer some protection from being harassed in the night.

  The policeman woke her in the morning, knocking on her window.

  “Oh, hi, Officer. I’m fine. I was just tired and had to pull over. Is there coffee around here somewhere?”

  He directed her to the local café, which was just opening. It served a big grilled breakfast, which she ate heartily.

  She had pulled up in the small township of Ruxby. There was the café, which was in the petrol station where she filled up after eating. There were a few old shops offering some basic groceries and arts and crafts. The town was a tiny clearing in a towering forest. No cars passed in the hour or so Clair spent there that morning.

  “Everly Cove’s about a two hour drive,” the boy who had waited on her explained in answer to her question. It seemed she was not far from the ocean and her destination.

  She continued on her road trip, excited it was almost complete. She had actually been to Everly Cove before. Her parents were from there and used to send Clair to spend school summer holidays with her grandparents. She had been three times, at age five, six and seven, but had absolutely no recollection of any of the trips, other than some vague pictures in her mind. Her grandparents had moved into Melbourne before she turned eight, so the Everly Cove visits ended. The Mulvane murder having taken place there attracted her attention when searching for unsolved murders on-line. And there was something familiar about the name Mulvane.

  After two hours driving through the forest, the trees parted to a magnificent sky-blue ocean. It was a clear, sunny day, and the water was glistening. The road swept around a headland and revealed a busy looking community camped around a small beach. There were a hundred or more boats in the cove. Amongst the trees were lots of roofs. The town seemed to spread right back to the base of the surrounding mountains. It was bigger than Clair expected.

  She had booked a room at a Bed & Breakfast, which showed up on her GPS navigator flashing away. It was the first establishment on the right as the road eased from the headland and levelled out. She pulled in behind a utility and trailer. There were gardening tools and equipment in the back of the utility. There was a shirtless guy on a ride-on mower who had seemingly stopped for a break. He was drinking from a water bottle. He looked hot in the sun with his skin glistening.

  Clair glanced at him as she walked past carrying her bags. He smiled at her and nodded. She smiled back and said hi.

  “Hello. You must be Candy,” an elderly woman greeted her cheerily at the door. “David, bring her bags would you, dear? I’ll make you an ice tea… Young David will get those,” she said to Clair, waving her bags away.

  She took Clair’s hand and led her through a quaintly decorated living and dining room where there were some excellent satin flower arrangements about the walls and on mantles and tables, along with lovely paintings and shelves of books and figurines. There was a sunny, glassed-in veranda overlooking the cove that was so bright it made Clair squint as she walked through. She was introduced to an expansive kitchen that she would have full use of.

  The woman, Marion Reeves, stopped in the kitchen to pour Clair an ice tea, and another for the gardener it seemed. She took that glass and showed Clair the bathroom that she would be sharing with the other female guests. There was an additional bathroom out the back for men.

  “There, thank you, David,” she offered busily when they encountered the gardener guy, with his shirt back on, waiting with Clair’s bags in the living room. He sculled the ice tea and handed the glass back, wiping his mouth on his arm and glancing at Clair quickly.

  He was hustled along, and Clair was shown to her bedroom, which was palatial with a lush looking four-poster bed and tasselled lace canopy. There was a full-length, gilded, oval-shaped mirror and an intricately carved, stained wooden dresser.

  “Oh, shit!” Clair exclaimed, looking about herself as she stood there in the middle of the room.

  “Oh, shit indeed,” the older woman replied with a laugh. “Now, you can park your car around back and see me tonight about breakfast or anything you need, my dear.”

  Clair thanked her and flopped on the bed.
It was soft. The quilt cuddled her. She was tired but needed a shower first, so she dragged her bags into the room and sought the bathroom to soak in the bath.

  Mid-afternoon she woke refreshed and ready to explore Everly Cove. There were two middle aged couples having drinks on the veranda, and she met them briefly and exchanged hellos. They were travelling together and only passing through. They didn’t know of anywhere to recommend Clair might find a nice meal, and Mrs Reeves was apparently up the street, so Clair parked her car around back and strolled on toward town to find a café or something as her first order of business.

  The Cove Bed & Breakfast was across the road from a footpath that skirted a ledge of rock forming a small cliff face with a rocky shoreline below. At the point of the B&B the cliff was only around ten metres above the waves rumbling ashore. It lifted sharply to the headland Clair had driven from. That rock formation speared out into the ocean some distance and had a lighthouse mounted on the end. It was a large, white building that Clair would need to investigate at some point. It looked old.

  Behind the B&B a housing area of perhaps a few hundred homes extended back into the shelter of the overlooking mountain rim. There was also a sporting field and what looked like a school.

  Clair strolled past a service station and news agency facing the waterfront. Beyond them more businesses crowded a narrow, tree-lined street. There appeared to be some offices back there, along with a bank and the blue Police sign.

  The next business along the main street was a Chinese restaurant, and across the road, built on a pier above the water, was the Everly Cove Bar & Grill. Next to the butcher was a takeaway shop where Clair bought a sandwich and coffee, which she ate sitting on a bench facing the water.

  Not far along from the pub was a big old wooden building advertising a fish market, and beyond that and mostly obscured by it were lines of small fishing boats tied to several long jetties. The smell of fish was strong in the cool air, along with the smell of salt and diesel fumes. There was a lot of activity along the piers with heavily coated, scruffily bearded men crawling all over the fishing boats.

  Clair finished her snack and continued on. There was another street with furniture, hair dressing and clothing shops. There was a shopping centre opposite with a Woolworths sign. Along the shoreline a little further, beyond two bait shops and another small pub, was another street that extended past a church and cemetery, and there was a Hospital sign pointing in behind the supermarket. There were more houses in and around there and another fifty or so scattered into the base of the mountain on that end of town.

  The main road left the shoreline there and disappeared up into the mountain as well. The signpost indicated it was the way to Melbourne. A smaller road branched off and climbed up into another headland where Clair could see only one house towering above the trees.

  “The Mulvane Mansion,” someone said to her. It was an old man she had just strolled past. He was sitting on a bench gazing out at the ocean but had turned to smile up at her.

  Clair had stopped there and must have looked like a tourist, she imagined.

  “You’d be the young lass come to investigate the Mulvanes?” the old man went on easily.

  His hair was wavy and white. He had whiskers as thick as darning needles. His eyes were glassy blue and dancing with mirth.

  “Would I?” Clair challenged with mock indignation. “And how would you know who I am?”

  He chuckled. “Small town, love… And a word to live by—if you want everyone in town to know your business, tell Marion Reeves.”

  “Oh.” Clair offered her hand. “I’m Candy Weston.”

  “Morgan Oldfield. Pleased to meet you,” the old man returned with a gentle squeeze of his weathered hand. “And they said it was a pretty lass, so I figured it was you walking up the hill there.”

  Clair accepted that compliment with a smile.

  “So, who should I ask about the Charles Mulvane murder, Mr Oldfield? Is there a friendly policeman in town?”

  “There is—my boy Brent—my grandson. He’s a policeman and friendly enough. Though it depends on whether you want the official version or the truth,” the old man added with a grin.

  “Oh, well, I’ll be needing both. And any other theories,” Clair shot right back. “I bet there’s more than one version of what happened.”

  “Yes—there’s a few. But only one true account, Lass.” The old man winked that time. He obviously believed his was the story to go with.

  Clair was excited to get started. She had a notebook in her shoulder bag. She sat down on the bench with the old man and looked to him expectantly.

  Chapter 6

  “So, who is she?” Amanda asked her brother.

  “Don’t know. Just some college chick doing a report or something, Mrs Reeves said.”

  David had just arrived home from work. He and Amanda shared a house. It was their original family home, with their parents having moved closer to Melbourne. David paid the rates and utilities and Amanda did the housework. She served him dinner.

  “I wonder if Susan knows,” Amanda mused, referring to the widow, Susan Mulvane.

  “Yeah, Mrs Reeves has been going on about it for weeks. Susan would have to know, and John… But it’s no big deal. She looks alright. It’s just a stupid college paper or something.”

  “What, you saw her?”

  “Yeah. I was mowing when she showed up. She’s just some girl.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Amanda liked teasing her big brother. “Some girl, huh?”

  David was blushing. He did often.

  “Anyway, the guys are coming over tonight. I think Brent’s coming. If he’s not on duty.”

  “What—tonight?”

  David checked his watch. “In, like, twenty minutes.”

  Amanda was the one blushing at that point. She had to think quickly. She knew Brent was not on duty.

  “You could have said,” she tossed at her brother.

  He smiled back over his shoulder at her. He had a mouthful of food. “Could have, I guess.”

  Amanda scowled at him. “Who else?”

  “Don’t know. Just the guys—Michael and Justin. I think Nev’s got training.”

  It was nothing unusual for David to have a card night with his mates. They did it at least once a week, at different venues. They sometimes played in the garage where David had a pool table set up.

  “Are you playing in here?” Amanda tried to disguise the hope in her tone.

  She failed. Her brother chuckled.

  “I’ll make him sit right there so he’ll see you every time you walk past, sis.”

  He caught Amanda and drew her close with an arm around her waist. She mussed his hair and kissed his forehead. The other night he had found out his girlfriend, Cassie, was sleeping with her boss.

  “You okay?” she asked warmly.

  He shrugged and half smiled.

  “You ought to wear something sexy. Tease the hell out of him.” He grinned at her. “Don’t worry about the others. That’ll just make him jealous with them looking.”

  Amanda giggled. “Like, how sexy?”

  “I don’t know… Actually, not sexy—something really cute would work better. Hide in your bedroom for a while and come out in your pyjamas.”

  “Yeah, I could do that. Do you need the shower? I want a bath.”

  “Yeah, two minutes!” David shovelled the last of his food and got up.

  Amanda took his plate and tidied the kitchen. She set the dining table up with chips, nuts and crackers for the boys’ card game then closed her bedroom door before any of them turned up. She had the master bedroom with an en-suite. David used the main bathroom. They just had to share the use of the hot water. It was a trickle at best and only serviced one tap at a time.

  David had finished his shower, so Amanda drew her bath. She perfumed the water and lit her candles. She listened through the thin walls to the guys laughing and carrying on. She was thrilled with her sense of vulnerability in a ho
use full of men, coupled with the sense of security her big brother provided. Their deep voices were vibrating through her bath water—through her.

  She soaked for ages and got out wrinkly then put on warm winter pyjamas—her pink, brushed cotton ones with flowers. She tied her white flannelette dressing-gown at her waist and combed out her long, dark hair. She put on her glasses and took a book into the lounge room, claiming a recliner in the corner, just out of sight of the men around the edge of the wall.

  The lounge and dining rooms were adjoined in an L-shape. From the dining table the entire lounge area was visible, except for where Amanda was sitting with her legs tucked up, looking at the words on the pages but not really reading.

  The guys at the dining table were talking and playing their card game. Amanda didn’t realize it, but they could all smell the scent from her bath in the air, and they could also see her reflection in the blank television screen.

  Her brother called to her. “Hey, Mandy?”

  She got up and approached the corner of the wall. She peered around, taking in all the faces and smiling.

  “Have we got any more of that cheese?” her brother asked.

  “Yeah—in the fridge,” she replied, catching Brent’s glance and slight blush as he looked back down at his cards.

  “Could you make some more, please? It’s better the way you cut it.” David grinned at her.

  She rolled her eyes at him. She had to edge past his chair, and he smiled back up at her. The empty cheese plate was on the table, and she leaned in to collect it, daring to glance at Brent again and biting down on her smile as she felt her cheeks heat and tingle.

  “You just cut it with a potato peeler,” she said to her brother, yet she directed her comment to them all. “How hard is that..?”