Sweet Tea and Secrets

by Joy Avon

  “I see. Well, then I’ll have to come up with something else. They were sorry to see me leave, so I’m still trying to remain part of things from a distance.”

  “It can be hard to break away from your life and just start over. Especially if you liked what you did.” Elvira picked up another skein of wool. “Did you like what you did?”

  “Yes, very much. Still I felt like I had found something here that meant even more to me.”

  Elvira nodded as if she completely understood.

  “What did you do before you married Dave?” Callie asked her.

  “I worked in a coffee bar. Dave stopped in on a trip abroad.”

  “Where exactly?”

  “Copenhagen.”

  “Oh, how lovely. Which street was your coffee bar on? I might have been there or, in any case, near there.”

  “I can’t remember. It was a long time ago.”

  Callie surveyed the woman. Was she even telling the truth? “Did you ever go to Moderna Museet, the museum of modern art? The location on a little island is worth seeing in itself, apart from their collection.”

  “No. I must have really missed something. I like modern art. Preferably a little realistic, though, not those paintings where you can’t recognize anything.”

  Callie nodded slowly. “I see.” She checked her watch. “That late already? Iphy must be waiting for me. Good luck with your crochet project. I’ll let myself out.”

  She rushed to the door, opened it, and stepped into the evening air. She pulled the door shut behind her and used her phone to light her way as she hurried to her car.

  While walking, her neck prickled as if she could feel eyes glaring at her. She listened for footsteps, waited for a whoosh of cold air as someone struck her. Her heart was pounding, and her palms were covered in sweat. She was so sure Elvira knew she had tried to lure her into a trap. The museum she had referred to, Moderna Museet, was located in Stockholm, not in Copenhagen.

  Had Elvira ever actually worked in a coffee bar in Denmark? Had she met Dave there? Or was she lying because she had something to hide?

  Something like a criminal past? Why else was Dave so protective of her? So worried she would learn about certain things?

  Did Elvira have a record, for assault for instance, of a woman she considered a threat?

  Was that why Dave hadn’t wanted her to know about his meeting with Monica Walker?

  Nothing stirred behind her. She reached her car without incident, got in, and drove off.

  Half a mile away, she pulled onto the shoulder and placed a call to the police station. Falk had just come in with Dave Riggs. She told the deputy she needed to tell Falk something before he talked to Dave. He came to the phone and she told him what had happened between Elvira and her.

  Falk said, “Hmm, thanks for telling me that. And keep away from that woman. She could be dangerous. Good night.”

  Callie put the phone away and looked into her rearview mirror. She saw the headlights of another car in the distance. Her heart skipped a beat, and she clenched the wheel, suddenly eager to get moving. But she kept looking at the lights, as if mesmerized. They didn’t come any closer.

  The car was also on the side of the road. A distance away from her. Parked.

  Waiting?

  She turned the ignition and started driving again. The lights followed her. At the same distance. Not coming closer, not intending to pass, even though Callie was driving too slowly for the speed allowed on the road.

  Her breathing was ragged now and her hands shaky on the wheel. She expected any moment that the car following her would suddenly accelerate, come up around her, and try to run her off the road. What would she do then? How would she defend herself?

  But nothing happened. Just those lights teasing her from the darkness.

  Telling her she wasn’t alone.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “I can’t believe this.” Quinn sat on the floor of Callie’s cottage, with his legs crossed, his hands fidgeting with the sandpaper he was using to smooth patches on the window frame before painting it. He had probably started early, as the other window in the room was already finished. Callie had driven out first thing after breakfast to tell him what Falk had told her the previous night. She had a vague hope he would know something about his mother, anything that might have seemed irrelevant before that might now help them to work out who she was.

  He stared up at her, his eyes wide with shock. “The woman who died on that boat all those years ago was my mother, but she was not Monica Walker?”

  Callie nodded. “Falk explained to me that the experts are pretty certain about it. They can still deduce a lot from the remains apparently. And the woman who died on the boat was not in good health, had been addicted to drugs for quite some time. That doesn’t fit with Monica Walker.”

  Quinn clenched his hands together. “When I set out to look for Monica Walker, of course I realized in the back of my mind that she might be dead. I mean, come on, vanished, never to be heard of again? How is that possible? So I did accept that maybe she had died in an accident while fleeing or maybe even been killed by someone who didn’t want her to leave. But this … another woman. Taking her place. I mean, the sequined top, the high heels. That dead woman was wearing Monica Walker’s clothes! Clothes she wore on that same evening of her disappearance, so she couldn’t have given them away to a homeless person or something. The other woman couldn’t have stolen them from her either. No, Monica must have given her clothes to this woman and asked her to leave on the stolen boat. For what purpose? I mean, who actually saw her leave? Why did it matter?”

  “Maybe the boat was supposed to have been seen. With the woman in the golden top aboard it. Maybe she was supposed to lay a false trail while Monica herself left in another direction. But it didn’t work. It went wrong. And we can only guess as to how and because of whom.”

  Quinn asked, “Was the woman on the boat murdered?”

  Callie pursed her lips. “They’re still looking into that. It seems someone struck her on the head. But whether that was fatal … maybe she was only unconscious. The boat’s malfunctioning may have caused the woman’s actual death.”

  “You mean, an explosion maybe, a fire on board?”

  Callie nodded. “If she inhaled a lot of smoke, for instance.”

  Quinn banged the floor with a fist. “Now I want to find Monica Walker even more. I mean, I need to know how my mother got caught up in this disappearance with her. I need to know if Monica realized she was in danger when she sent my mother out on that boat. I need to know if she cared so little for my mother’s life that she just gambled it away. After all, the woman was a drug addict, right? Probably homeless at that. Something far different from the successful, rich, and beautiful woman Monica Walker was. She might have looked down on her and figured she was the perfect victim.”

  “It wasn’t like that at all,” a calm voice said from the door.

  Quinn and Callie turned their heads to look at the person who had come in without them noticing. Elvira Riggs looked at them with a vaguely worried expression. She said, “Deputy Falk called me. He’s holding Dave. He’s convinced Dave killed Jamison.”

  Callie frowned. “Why? What evidence does he have against Dave? Except for Jamison’s call to him, of course.”

  “He found Dave’s fingerprints in Jamison’s office.”

  “He also found mine there because I had been there,” Quinn said. “So that doesn’t say much.”

  Elvira swallowed. “He claims he found the murder weapon. And he can tie it to Dave. I don’t know why. He didn’t want to tell me. He just said Dave wouldn’t be coming home.” She raised her hands to her pale face and swallowed convulsively.

  Callie said, “Do you think Dave has anything to do with Jamison’s death?”

  “Of course not. What on earth for?”

  “Dave came to me the night Jamison was murdered. He showed up at Book Tea to talk about Monica Walker. I’m sorry, Elvira, but it s
eems he knew her. That he met her before she disappeared. He was nervous about it, furtive. Maybe he did know something, and Jamison knew or suspected that and confronted him about it. Maybe Dave panicked and struggled with Jamison to convince him to keep his mouth shut. He might not have intended to kill him but—”

  “Dave did no such thing. He’s not the sort of person who’d ever hurt anybody.”

  “You don’t know what people are like when they’re cornered.” Quinn pushed himself up from the floor. “I’ve got work to do.”

  “Falk won’t let Dave go,” Elvira said with emphasis, “unless we can prove that he didn’t do it. That someone else did it.”

  “I have no interest in that.” Quinn picked up a paint brush and leaned over to the window frame.

  Callie said to Elvira, “This is just a very difficult time for …”

  She fell silent and then asked, “Why did you just say that it wasn’t like that at all? When you came in? We were talking about the dead woman on the boat. How can you know anything about her?”

  Quinn now turned back to Elvira. “You know something about her?”

  Elvira stood and looked at them, not speaking.

  Callie said, “Dave claimed you married abroad and you came over here after the disappearance.”

  “In a way, yes.”

  “Don’t talk in riddles,” Quinn yelled. Paint dripped from his brush to the floor. “I can’t stand it. My mother died on that boat. I want to know why and who did it.”

  Elvira swallowed again. “I can’t tell you who did it. But I can tell you why. Because it should have been me who died there.”

  Callie blinked. “I don’t follow. So you were here in town on the night Monica Walker vanished?”

  “Yes. Dave and I had been preparing it for weeks. Ever since we married. It was the only way.”

  Quinn said, “You planned the murder?”

  “No, you don’t understand. We planned the disappearance of Monica Walker.” Elvira stood very still. “And the appearance of Elvira Riggs.”

  Callie stared at the woman. In her mind she reproduced the pictures of Monica Walker that she had seen in the newspaper and online. She tried to superimpose those pictures over Elvira Riggs’s face. Of course her hair color was different, her haircut, and her face seemed broader, and …

  “You’re Monica Walker?” Callie asked in a whisper.

  Elvira nodded. “I met Dave in Bretagne when he was visiting lighthouses and I was on vacation. All the tables at the small café in the village square were taken, but Dave invited me to sit at his. I was afraid for a moment he would know who I was, but it soon turned out he had no idea. We got to talking, about the nearby chateau, lighthouses, our childhood memories—just about anything you can think of. It was so natural and it felt so right. We just kept on sitting there, ordering more cheese and wine, and we fell in love. Dave was different from all the men I had met before. Solid, dependable. And he hated the limelight. I was the last woman in the world who should have been with him. But I wanted out. Out of the series, out of the suffocating attention from my ex.”

  “Roger Aames, who wouldn’t let you go.”

  Monica nodded. “He was hounding me, on set and off. I was desperate. I told Dave. He came up with the plan. Dave was lighthouse keeper in Heart’s Harbor. A colleague of mine had a house here and had recommended the place to me. To everyone who wanted to hear about it.”

  “Otto Ralston,” Callie said.

  Monica nodded. “Dear Otto. He told me the Cliff Hotel would be perfect for me as it had this vintage feel. So I would visit for an innocent vacation. Then, during my stay, I would vanish. A boat would disappear with me on it and be recovered hundreds of miles away.”

  “With a dead body on board?” Quinn asked in a disgusted tone. “Where did you find this woman? On the street? Perfect for your purpose?”

  “No, she was never part of our plan!” Monica spread both hands in a placating gesture. “I hadn’t been in touch with my sister since she ran away from home as a teen. We all thought she was dead. It was such a shock to me when she turned up here.”

  “Your sister?” Quinn echoed.

  “Yes. Muriel turned up here and asked me for money. I was upset and unsure what to do. Dave said she could be part of the plan. She would wear my clothes and take the boat out and make sure she was seen. Then she could earn the money she wanted. I agreed to it. I doubted that she would be true to her word, in the end, but she knew nothing about Dave. She had never met him, and she only knew what I told her: that I was going to leave the States and start a new life abroad. Dave said that if she started talking, the press would look for me far from where I really was. The beauty of our plan was that I would never leave Heart’s Harbor. I would live here under my new identity, and nobody would even look at me. It worked perfectly.”

  “Until I came to town,” Quinn said with a bitter smile. “Asking questions, upsetting Jamison. Did he know? Did he inform you that I was dangerous? Did you kill him?”

  Monica shook her head. “Jamison didn’t know anything. He investigated my disappearance while he sat at a table a few feet away from where Dave and I were sitting having coffee. It was nerve-wracking, but it worked. The more we just went about our normal business, the less suspicious we were. Jamison never knew it was me. Listen, even Otto Ralston never knew it was me. He has a cottage here, and he comes here every year. He worked with me on the series, and he’s never recognized me.”

  “So if you didn’t kill Jamison and Dave didn’t, then who did?”

  Monica shrugged. “I don’t know. If I knew, I would have told the police. Instead, I’m telling you that I’m Monica Walker. Dave will be furious because we vowed to each other that we’d never tell. But I want to get him out of the cell. You have to help me.”

  “Why would we?” Quinn said. “You didn’t care for the fate of your own sister.”

  “I didn’t know she died. I heard today that the boat was found and that there was a dead body on board. I suspected it had to be my sister.”

  Monica knotted her fingers. “It was a terrible shock to me. For all that time I believed that she got away and sold the boat and lived off that money. I was worried for her, because I knew she had been using drugs, and I was pretty sure that if she kept doing that, she wouldn’t see old age, but my sister had always been on the wild side. Nobody had been able to change her. How could I, from so far away? I had no idea where she was.”

  Monica looked Quinn straight in the eye. “I never knew she was followed to the boat and killed. If I had known that my plan would put her in any danger, I would never have asked her to do it. I certainly didn’t know she had a son.”

  “I didn’t know I was her son until the DNA test just now,” Quinn said. “I only knew that my birth certificate listed an M. Walker.”

  “I can’t remember reading anywhere that you had a sister,” Callie said.

  “Like I said, she ran away from home when she was a teen. She never showed up anywhere with me. I think the press simply didn’t think about her existence. It didn’t matter to them. They were more interested in my boyfriends.”

  “You had a string of them,” Quinn said.

  Monica didn’t flinch. “I always chose the wrong men. I was looking for security, but I chose men who were adventurous and fun. It always brought me heartache. When I met Dave, I was tired of that life. The series was wearing me out, Roger’s relentless attentions were driving me crazy, and to be honest, I was done with it. I told Dave that for all I knew, I would rather not be alive at all anymore. He was concerned for me and tried to cheer me up. He showed me the stars at night and took me out onto the water so I could experience the quietness and power of the sea.

  “Before Dave, I thought everybody lived like me, running from one empty party to another, trying to forget how hard life was by taking another drink or finding another way to spend money. He showed me that he didn’t care for what people thought of him, for what he owned or how he would b
e remembered when he died. He just wanted to live a full life. He convinced me in a few short days that what he had was everything I had always been looking for.”

  She looked at Quinn. “I don’t blame my sister for getting addicted. I was addicted as well. To fame and applause, the fans who adored me. I couldn’t live without that, I believed. But Dave showed me that I was everything without those things. He changed my life. For him I wanted to give up everything I had. Because it didn’t really matter.”

  “Couldn’t you have just quit the series?”

  “I talked about it once. They responded fiercely, saying I had signed on for two more years and I had to complete those. They were worried about losing money if I quit, so they raised my salary. Just more money to spend, but I was sick of spending. I had to run.”

  Monica smiled sadly. “It sounds so selfish now, but I was at a breaking point. Either run and save myself, or die.”

  “Instead, your sister died.” Quinn still sounded grim. “We assume that whoever killed her meant to kill you. But what if that’s not what happened? What if you realized that she was a threat to your perfect plan? Dave might have killed her to make sure she could never talk.”

  “No!” Monica cried.

  “Or you.”

  She turned a deathly pale. “Me? Kill my own sister?”

  Quinn pressed, “She knew you were here in town. She could have given you away.”

  “How? She didn’t know I was going to stay here or that I would turn into Elvira Riggs. She believed I wanted to leave the States and go to Europe. She even said she wanted that for herself too and would go if she had the money. I gave her that money. I believed she had done that, left to start over.”

  “You say that now, but how can we be sure? Your sister popped up unexpectedly—she was a problem, a danger to your plan. She was unreliable.”

  “She knew nothing to give away.” Monica stood firmly, her feet planted, her hands on her hips. “I would never have killed anyone for my escape. I wanted to start over, make things better. How could I have made anything better if I had started my new life with blood on my hands?”