Caught Dead Handed

by Lyndsey Cole

  “Probably. The guy has an ego bigger than this ocean from the little bit I’ve interacted with him. Besides, you’re probably stronger than he is. His body is a far cry from the sleek toned bodies that his models have.”

  Samantha headed toward the parking lot. She waved to Harold. “Yoo-hoo, Harold. Do you need some help?”

  He opened the back door and pointed inside. Hannah couldn’t hear their conversation but Samantha reached inside and slid out a huge suitcase that almost ripped her arm from its socket when it slammed to the ground. Harold was already on his way to the office with Gwen tiptoeing behind. Hannah shook her head. Gwen balanced on one foot to shake sand from her other sandal after each step. It was a hopeless endeavor, of course.

  Hannah waited for Harold to disappear inside the office. Let him wait, she thought. His room wasn’t ready for several hours anyway. Did he think she’d magically find another cottage just because he needed one? She helped Samantha with the suitcase instead, wheeling it through the sand and parking it outside the office.

  “There you are.” He stood on the porch, looking down at Hannah. “No one is in the office,” Harold stated as if he had just announced an amazing and unbelievable fact.

  Hannah bit her tongue, stopping a rude comment from slipping out that would have been inappropriate to say to her guest. Instead, she tried for congenial with an overtone of helpful. “I explained over the phone that your cottage wouldn’t be ready until three. You can leave your suitcase here if you’d like. Our snack bar is open and, of course, the beach,” Hannah waved her hand to include the incredible view, “is always open.”

  “Harold.” Gwen’s nasally, whiney, drawn out word must not have endeared her to Harold. Hannah saw his jaw muscles tighten. “I’ve got sand stuck in between my toes.”

  “It’s the beach, Gwen. Of course you’ll have sand between your toes and probably other places too, if you’re not careful. Get your bikini on, and I’ll use this time to get some photos. The light is good, at least.”

  “Change? Where?” Gwen glanced back into the office. “And I’m hungry.”

  Hannah pointed toward The Fishy Dish. “You can use the bathroom inside the snack bar to change.”

  “I’ll order food and meet you at one of the tables. Don’t tie up the bathroom all afternoon.”

  Gwen stayed rooted to the spot on the porch. “I’ll have to open my suitcase to find my bikini.” She stared at the enormous suitcase as if she expected it to jump up next to her like an obedient puppy.

  Hannah started to walk away and leave Gwen to solve her own problem but, instead, she decided to use the opportunity for some information gathering. “Gwen, it must be difficult for you to leave the Paradise Inn. You don’t seem to be accustomed to this…ah…sandy environment.”

  “Oh, I’m so glad you understand. I loved Harold’s indoor studio at the Paradise Inn. And the pool was simply divine. No sand…or bugs.” She swatted at something that buzzed around her face. “I wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for that bossy policewoman telling us we couldn’t leave town.”

  Hannah heaved the suitcase next to Gwen and gritted her teeth at the lie she was about to say. “I know how you must feel. Were you and Monique close? Did working together make you feel like, you know…you had a sort of comradery with her?”

  “Are you kidding me? Monique had an agenda and it didn’t include me hanging around Harold. She had her claws in him so far, he didn’t have a chance. It was all, ‘How’s this, Harold?’, and, ‘Does my skin sparkle enough, Harold?’” Gwen’s voice took on a fake high-pitched tone. “At least now, with Monique out of the way, I might get more exposure from this photoshoot.”

  “Really.” Hannah couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Since when did murder equal out of the way? Was Gwen so dumb she didn’t even know she just admitted to having a motive to kill her rival with talk like that? Or was she playing an act to make others think she would never expose herself if she was the killer?

  Gwen lowered her voice as she rummaged through her suitcase. “Ya know what I think?”

  Hannah couldn’t imagine what Gwen was thinking about anything. She blinked and waited.

  “When I went on my break about a half hour before Monique was found at the bottom of the pool, I saw Harold near the back entrance to the pool area. I think Monique drove Harold crazy with all her demands and in a fit of anger, he tripped her as she walked near the pool.” Gwen wiped her hands. “Problem solved.”

  “Wasn’t Monique his girlfriend?”

  “That’s what she thought, but Harold was definitely flirting with me behind her back.”

  “There’s something I can’t figure out,” Hannah said. “Why would Monique even go near the pool if she didn’t know how to swim and was scared of deep water?”

  “She told me she was working on that. She said that Harold insisted she get over her phobia. Someone was helping her. She wouldn’t have gone near the pool by herself.” Gwen shrugged. “How can you be a swimsuit model and not go in the water some of the time? I think the best shots are when my skin is all shimmery from the water.”

  “Gwen!”

  “Oops. I’d better get over to Harold. He hates to be kept waiting.” Monique held two tiny bits of fabric that barely passed for a bikini as she carefully picked her way through the sand.

  With everyone who had a motive and an opportunity to be the killer and each one pointing a finger at someone else, Hannah couldn’t help but be more than curious to find out how Monique ended up in the pool.

  Did Harold give her a little nudge as Gwen suggested? Did Juliette shove her in to get rid of the dog-napper? How about Colin trying to help Gwen become the number one model? Which left Vanessa looking for revenge for her friend’s killer.

  And all the players were about to clash under Hannah’s nose. Someone was bound to say more than they should.

  Keeping her eyes and ears open became a necessity now, or another body might turn up.

  Chapter 11

  Meg, true to her word, knocked on Hannah’s cottage, Slo N’ EZ, at four on the dot.

  “Be right with you,” Hannah called from her bedroom. Her head was partly under her bed while she searched for the mate to the one flip-flop on her foot. Somehow it had rested against the wall, along with the dust bunnies. With a grunt and a stretch, her fingers managed to wrap around one of the thongs and slide it out.

  With both flip-flops in place, Hannah found Meg sitting on the floor while Nellie licked her cheek and Patches plopped down between her legs. “These two give me a better greeting than anyone else in my life. Let’s bring them along.”

  Hannah grabbed two leashes and wrapped the arms of her cotton sweater around her waist. She closed and locked the door.

  “Does Michael have any idea what he wants to do with his cottage redecorating? Or do I get to have free reign?” Hannah asked on the way to Meg’s truck.

  “The cottage came with some stuff left by the previous owner. My guess is a few additions here and there will suit him just fine.”

  The dogs jumped into the back seat and Hannah carefully found a safe, spring-free spot on the front seat. The door creaked and squeaked as she yanked hard, finally winning the tug-of-war to close the door.

  “What made Michael decide to buy a cottage?”

  Meg shrugged. “An investment, I guess.”

  Hannah was surprised when Meg turned into a driveway after only about ten minutes. “This is it.”

  A small, cedar-shingled cottage aged to a silvery grey was almost hidden by trees and blueberry bushes. A sliver of ocean was visible beyond the tidy structure.

  “Ocean front? How’d Michael ever afford this?” Hannah asked. She knew the value of anything with ocean frontage, and it didn’t come cheap.

  “I thought you’d be surprised. That Pub and Pool Hall of his is a gold mine and no one suspects how much money he’s been stashing away over the years. Plus, he really doesn’t spend much so when he found this deal, he figure
d it was as good a place as any to put his money.”

  “Wow!” Hannah sat in the truck, waiting to get over the shock of Michael’s wealth. “Wow,” she repeated.

  Meg let the dogs out. “Come on. The view out front is spectacular.”

  The two dogs raced toward the water. Hannah jogged to catch up. White rocks sloped to the cold ocean, creating a buffer between the deck on the front of the cottage and the water’s edge.

  “This is so much more private than my ocean front beach,” Hannah said. “Michael found a gem.”

  “And you haven’t seen the inside yet,” Meg answered. She opened the door from the deck into a bright living room.

  Hannah’s jaw dropped. “You tricked me, Meg Holmes.” Nellie squeezed past Hannah’s legs to greet the person resting in a recliner that faced the ocean view.

  “Hello, Hannah. Meg only did what I asked.”

  After a momentary muscle-freeze, Hannah remembered how to make her legs work and she moved toward the silver-haired person. She leaned over the recliner, embracing her Great Aunt Caroline. Caroline’s long fingers stroked her hair.

  “I know it’s risky but I had to see you.” She held Hannah’s arms and studied her face. “Jack has been acting odd lately.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’s avoiding me; not returning my calls. I’m concerned. Have you noticed anything?”

  Hannah shook her head. “No.”

  “Of course not. You see him every day and he wouldn’t want you to worry if something was going on. Watch him more carefully, okay?”

  “Of course.” Great, one more worry on Hannah’s plate. She looked around the completely furnished living room. “Michael has good taste and I have to say, I’m relieved he actually doesn’t need any help from me to decorate this place.”

  Meg shrugged. “It was all I could come up with when you grilled me on the favor I needed from you. It worked.”

  Hannah pulled a chair closer to Caroline. “How have you been?”

  Caroline flicked her bony wrist. “I’m fine.” She grinned. “For a dead person.”

  She leaned back, the expression on her face telling Hannah that something wasn’t fine. “Can you keep a close eye on Jack? Maybe find him a nice quiet job in your office, with Olivia as a responsibility?”

  Hannah considered Caroline’s request. “I’m not sure a nice quiet job exists at my office at the moment.”

  “Oh?”

  “Maybe you didn’t hear about the murder at the Paradise Inn.”

  “I did, but how does that affect you?”

  Hannah laid out the short version surrounding the murder. She explained that two cottages were rented to suspects and another one was staying down the road with Ruby. “I see lots of drama ahead as these people bump into each other. They’ve already pointed fingers at each other and it’s not going to be pretty.”

  Meg carried a tray into the living room with three glasses of iced tea and a bowl of nuts. “This is all I could scrounge up.”

  “What about Jack coming here with Olivia?” Hannah asked. “It’s private enough and you could put your worries about him to rest.” She had trouble figuring out how she would keep an eye on all the suspects, run her business, and mother Jack, who would no doubt not enjoy the extra attention.

  “No. I can’t risk having Olivia talk about the old lady at the cottage. People would wonder who she’s talking about. I’m already taking a big risk by being here. Besides, since he’s avoiding me, he probably wouldn’t agree to come.”

  “So, you’ll be living here?”

  “For a bit,” Caroline said. She sipped the iced tea. “I was missing my ocean view so I convinced Meg to let me enjoy this scenery and ocean air for a week or two.”

  “Michael won’t come out here. It’s really an investment for him and he told me to take care of the place.” Meg scrunched her mouth and twisted her hands up. “What’s a girl to do?” She laughed. “Not a bad responsibility and if he does show up, I’ll tell him I let a friend in.”

  Nellie rested her head on Caroline’s lap. The old woman stroked the silky fur. “You need to take care of Jack for a while, okay Nellie?”

  Nellie’s tail thumped on the floor. “She’s overprotective of Olivia so it should be easy to get her to stay with Jack when he’s helping with her,” Hannah said.

  “Tell me more about this murder.” Caroline let her head relax against the back of the recliner and she closed her eyes. “I promise I won’t fall asleep.”

  “There’s not too much more to tell. Juliette, Ruby’s friend, is going through a messy divorce and her dog, Maisy, is caught in the middle. Harold has a photography business—”

  Caroline’s eyes popped open. “Are you talking about Harold Chandler III?”

  “Yes, that would be the almost-ex-husband. Do you know him?”

  “He and a beautiful model stayed at the cottages a few years ago, I would say it was six years ago. He was shooting a swimsuit calendar.” Caroline put her finger to her lips. “I think the model’s name was Juliette.”

  “Juliette is Ruby’s friend. They must be the couple that you met, but they got married at some point after you met them and now they’re splitting up,” Hannah explained to Caroline.

  “Look into their background. I have a vague memory that one of the models left suddenly. I don’t remember the details. How long has Ruby known Juliette?”

  “A year or two maybe. I’m really not sure and I have no idea how they met. I’ll have to do some digging.”

  “Be careful. If my memory is right about them, you could be jumping into a hornet’s nest.”

  “Harold definitely has an ego the size of the ocean, but Juliette struck me as a decent person.”

  “I bet he’s never wrong and it’s always someone else’s fault.”

  Hannah chuckled. Caroline was correct. “The drama escalated when Monique tried to kidnap Juliette’s dog, Maisy. I wonder if Harold told her to do it to make Juliette look irresponsible but whatever the motivation was, Monique mucked it all up and the dog bit her. If Harold is the killer, he had to get rid of Monique before she exposed his stupid plan. I’m sure the judge wouldn’t have looked favorably on Harold for a stunt like that, and Juliette would have gotten custody of Maisy.”

  “He killed her because of a dog custody battle?” Meg asked.

  “Maybe. If he killed her,” Hannah corrected.

  “The guy is a definite whack-a-doo, if that’s the case. I have an idea,” Meg said with a sly grin on her face. “He has ordered the fried fish platter twice now, maybe I should sprinkle something extra on his next order.”

  “What are you suggesting, Meg?”

  “A little arsenic to clean up the gene pool?” Meg laughed. “Oh Hannah, don’t look so worried. I’m only kidding. Although the idea is quite tempting.”

  “I’ll give you that. Here’s the rest of the story that puts Ruby’s friend smack at the head of the suspect list. Juliette had a big fight with Monique about the dog-napping attempt and there were plenty of witnesses.” Hannah held up her finger before Caroline or Meg could interrupt. “And, she was near the pool area at the Inn where Monique’s body was found while Harold and Monique argued. If Harold knew that Juliette was close to the murder scene, it made it easy for him to implicate her.”

  “A convenient set of circumstances for Mr. Harold Chandler III,” Meg said.

  “But maybe it was an accident; Monique slid on a wet tile and fell in the pool,” Caroline suggested.

  “Monique didn’t know how to swim and had a phobia of deep water, according to what another model told me. Her phobia was no secret.”

  “Somehow, you have to figure out who was with Monique when she went near the pool. Before someone else who might know something disappears,” Caroline said. “I’m starting to think that he might have been behind that other model’s quick disappearance all those years ago.”

  “That will be easier said than done,” Hannah muttered more to hersel
f than to the two women looking at her. And now the stakes were higher if another murder could be a possibility.

  Chapter 12

  By the time the rich coffee aroma seeped into Hannah’s barely-awake brain, her first reaction was, this is exactly what I need.

  Her second reaction made the hair on her neck stand up at the thought of an intruder in her cottage.

  Her third reaction put a smile on her face when she saw that both Nellie and Patches stood at her bedroom door, wagging their tails happily.

  She let her muscles relax as she waited for what she expected to arrive momentarily.

  She wasn’t disappointed.

  Cal quietly pushed her door a bit and peeked through the opening. “Are you awake?” He tried to pat each dog with his free hand as the tray wobbled while he balanced it with his other hand. “Ready for coffee?”

  “Is that all you have?” Hannah kept her gaze on Cal’s blue eyes that always made her heart beat faster than normal and his grin that warmed that beating heart.

  “Well,” Cal pushed through the door and sat at the edge of her bed, “I’ve got two dog bones, a sprig of wild aster I found blooming on my way over, and—”

  Hannah tried to kick him through the blankets but only managed to get Cal laughing. “If you can manage to drag yourself out of bed, I’ll cook you up a couple of eggs in a hole. It’s one of my breakfast specialties.”

  “I think it’s your only breakfast specialty but I’m not complaining. Better to have one perfected item than many mediocre ones.”

  Cal forced his lips into a frown before he couldn’t hold back any longer and he burst out laughing. “I’ll take that as a compliment.” He threw a dog bone to each dog and handed Hannah her coffee. “I’ll have your eggs cooked to perfection by the time you join me in your kitchen.”

  “Before you go, how was your fishing trip?” Hannah sipped the coffee and closed her eyes for a couple of seconds to be better able to focus on the deliciousness.