Ghost Across the Water, page 24
“That’s a pretty drastic reaction. Did you tell this to the authorities?”
“Yes, but they didn’t believe me. I think they all knew about Angela and were covering for Ned. Then, she had left town. I didn’t even know what state she lived in until I read about the shooting in the cemetery.”
“I can’t imagine an entire police force covering up a love affair for one of their officers,” I said.
“Oh, it happens. Everyone liked Ned. They’d have done anything for him.”
“If Angela killed Ned, why would she risk coming back to Spearmint Lake?”
“Because she thought no one would still care about an old murder. There’s a whole new batch of policemen at the station now. When I met Mac, I asked him what he thought about Angela as Ned’s killer.”
“What did he say?”
“You know cops. They have to have evidence, and there wasn’t any. Someone got away with murder. I wanted it to be Angela.”
“I can understand that,” I said.
Even if the suspect was unlikely and the motive implausible, having someone to blame must have brought Clara comfort through the years. Strange, but I didn’t remember reading that Ned’s wife had come to visit her husband, only to find him already dead. That would have been a nice human-interest touch, the kind reporters love to include in their stories.
“Did you see anyone else in the woods that day?” I asked.
“Not a soul.”
“Weren’t you worried that the killer might still be around?”
“That didn’t occur to me until later,” she said.
“Do you remember what you did afterward?”
“I went home and waited for them to come tell me. It’s a little fuzzy. I was in shock.”
“But you did let the police know how you’d already found Ned, didn’t you?” I asked.
“Oh... well, sure. Eventually.”
“That would have helped in the investigation.”
“It didn’t. Nothing could bring Ned back. I knew that when I saw the blood.” She closed her eyes. “I can almost see it now. I’ll be glad when tomorrow is over with. Anniversaries make me nervous. Well... Are you going in the water, Joanna?”
“Not today. I just want to soak up some sun.”
“I’m going to swim across the lake. Will you be here when I get back?”
“I think I’ll head on home in a few minutes.”
“It’s bound to be cooler there. Thanks for listening to my ramblings. It’s good to confide in someone who cares.”
She rose from the beach chair, pushed back her blonde hair, and walked across the sand, moving with the grace of a sun goddess in a retro orange swimsuit. This was the kind of woman Mac liked, one who was radiant and gentle, slightly needy and pretty—very pretty.
My beach towel had bright colors and a marigold border, but I liked to wear pastels. A sea-green dress. Easter egg colors. I wasn’t gentle and would never let Mac see that sometimes I was needy, too.
Idly I trailed my finger through the sand, making a series of swirls, one for each problem that had haunted my summer. I vowed to find a way to solve all of them, except perhaps the ongoing menace of the road ragers who were as resilient as a pair of pesky bugs.
Not until I was truly free of the past would I be ready to explore a new relationship with Mac. I hoped by the time that happened he would still want me.
Thirty
On Wednesday the temperature soared to ninety-two degrees. North Port sweltered under a scorching sun, and the buildings on Main Street shimmered in haze. I bought a take-out salad for lunch at the grocery store and walked back to my car, wishing I’d worn a lighter dress. This was no day to linger outside, but I had one more stop to make.
Adjusting the ties of my straw hat, I entered the library and walked up to the circulation desk where all of my books occupied prime space next to a vase of garden flowers. Here the air was cool and filled with the smells of orange furniture polish and ink.
Ella MacLeod, crisp and slightly vintage in black and white, looked up from the paperbacks she was stamping. “Hi, Joanna. I have something for you, if you’re still interested.” She handed me an old manila folder with a bent and ink-smeared edge. “It’s the Seymour file.”
“Oh good! You found it.”
“The clerk from the Fairspring Motel brought it back this morning. It had been sitting in their lost-and-found.”
The Fairspring was Angela’s motel, and that the file had reappeared on the anniversary of Ned Seymour’s death was an eerie coincidence. A superstitious person would consider it a sign.
“May I have it now?” I asked.
“Certainly. If you need it longer than two weeks, just let me know.”
As I wrote my name on the card, I saw that the last person to take the file out officially had done so in August of 1990. That was a long time ago. Who had wanted it desperately enough to resort to theft?
My first thought was Angela. The file had disappeared around the time she learned about Ned’s ghost.
Slow down, Joanna, I told myself. Real sleuths don’t race ahead to their conclusions.
Anyone with an interest in Ned who regarded the library’s property as her own could have taken the Seymour File. The woman with the turquoise earrings browsing in the mystery section, for instance, or the jeans-clad girl at the paperback carousal. The thief would probably have some connection to the motel, though, which brought me back to Angela.
“There’s only one problem,” Ella said. “Whoever took the folder might have removed something. I have no idea what all was in here.”
That was a real possibility, but the file was still thick and filled with promise. “This is more than we had yesterday,” I said. “I’ll work with what’s here.”
I opened the folder to find a jumble of clippings, many of them yellow with age, a few underlined or marked with checks.
“I’ll handle them carefully,” I promised.
“I hope you find what you’re looking for,” Ella said.
“I’m just trying to absorb some local color.”
“These articles should help. Newspaper stories capture the heart of a community, especially in a time of tragedy.” She slipped the sign-out sheet into a drawer. “Will your new book be out soon?”
I spared a rueful thought for my long-suffering heroine who was still lost in time. “Probably not until next year. I’m working on the ending now. It’s been a distracting summer.”
“I know just what you mean,” she said with a smile that transported me back to the night of the Grand Opening. “It’s vacation time. Everyone needs a little fun in the sun.”
Or a little dalliance in a rose garden. Even a librarian and her gentleman farmer suitor. I could build a plot around Ella and Ira, but I’d need a chilling Gothic mystery to go along with it. This town should provide ample inspiration.
“Do you have time to sign your books?” Ella asked.
“I’d love to. I came by today to thank you for ordering them.”
“It’s my pleasure. They’re very popular with our readers.”
Ella gathered the library’s Joanna Larne collection and deposited them on a long table under the window. For the next several minutes, I felt like a celebrity as I answered questions and talked about my work in progress. It was good to remember that I was an author and not an amateur sleuth.
Still, I could hardly wait to take the folder home and start reading. No matter how unlikely it seemed, one of the clippings might hold a clue to the murder mystery, giving me the information Angela had previously discovered.
It would be something others had missed, although it wasn’t particularly hidden from view. Something that perhaps I’d registered in a far corner of my mind. Figuring out who had murdered Ned and why would be like reading a mystery story—recognizing clues, separating red herrings, and eventually finding the solution.
I hoped I could do it before attending Damson Brewster’s party tonight.
IN THE COTTAGE, I SPREAD the contents of the library file on the kitchen table and settled back to delve into the Ned Seymour story. As I skimmed through the papers, the old tragedy seemed immediate and familiar. Although I’d previously read some of the articles on microfilm, this time I knew more about the people and their background.
Officer Found Slain in Woods. The Times had devoted the entire front page to the murder. From under the headline, Ned’s handsome face looked up at me, his expression grave and humorless. He seemed to challenge me. “I took my secret to the grave, but left behind a clue. Find it if you can.”
“Nothing could bring Ned back,” Clara had said.
She was wrong. In a sense, he had never left. His spirit would hover over Spearmint Lake until the killer paid for his crime.
I unfolded the page and smoothed the creases, looking for that elusive, significant detail. The forecast for the day Ned died was “Hot with Storms.”
“It was so hot,” Clara had said.
Had the weather played a part in Ned’s demise? Often oppressive temperatures fueled anger and magnified injustices, and Clara’s grievance had already been giant-sized.
Aware of the warm, motionless air in the kitchen, I turned the fan up a notch and raised the windows higher. There was no breeze today, nothing stirred on Shore Road, and no scent of water or mint moved through the thick, humid air.
I liked Clara, but did I really know her?
None of the accounts contained a reference to Clara’s presence at the crime scene. That was strange, unless she hadn’t told anyone else about it. If Clara wanted to keep this a secret, however, why confide in me now?
Once I had suspected Clara of murdering her husband. What if her wish for Ned’s death hadn’t been so fleeting? Suppose that, miserable in the heat, brooding on his betrayal, she’d gathered Ned’s favorite foods for his lunch. At the last minute, she slipped a gun into the basket, not actually planning to use it, only wanting the power it gave her.
She found Ned on White Pine Road, sitting in his cruiser. Suspecting that he was waiting for Angela, she changed her mind. Somehow she lured him into the woods and shot him. Then, she drove home and waited for his fellow officers to bring her the news of his death.
And twenty years later she told a stranger what she’d fantasized about doing? That didn’t make sense. This was a sad chapter in a woman’s life. I shouldn’t treat it as fiction. Still, I felt that I was close to an answer. I kept reading, arranging the articles in chronological order, looking for facts that might have strayed, but at the end of an hour, I hadn’t learned anything new.
The articles grew progressively shorter. Leads fizzled and suspects melted away into obscurity. The reward increased, but the case remained stalled. On the first anniversary of the murder, a front-page story noted that the killer was still at large and the Seymour Summer Fund, established in Ned’s memory, had sent five disadvantaged young people to camp for two weeks. That was the last of the clippings.
While a long silence settled around the facts of the tragedy, whispers of a ghost story began, but the papers wouldn’t print Spearmint Lake lore. Or maybe they had in the Feature section, but by then whoever maintained the library’s pictorial file had found a more modern method of preserving material.
About an hour had passed since I’d begun reading. The temperature appeared to climb another notch with every revolution of the clock’s minute hand. I sat back and undid the top two buttons of my shirt. Waves of heat washed over me, leaving my throat and chest damp and my throat dry. It was almost too hot to think. Moving closer to the fan, I took a few bites of my now-warm salad and drank a little iced tea.
Wondering if I’d missed something, I started going through the material again, paying special attention to the backs of the clippings. The other side of a Times page contained additional coverage of the murder and a feature story with an attention-catching headline: “White Pine Site of Earlier Tragedy”. A quick glance at the lead confirmed my suspicion that this article recalled the death of the child killed in a hit-and-run accident a few weeks before the Seymour murder.
A bold knock sent Kinder bounding out of one of the back rooms. She raced to the door, barking furiously at the noise. I set the paper down, checked the window, and saw a police car. Mac’s cruiser! An interruption by my favorite law enforcer was exactly what I needed.
Holding on to Kinder’s collar, I opened the door. She tried to lunge at Mac, tail wagging, eager to embrace a new diversion. “Kinder likes company,” I said, pulling her away from his uniform trousers.
He gave Kinder a rough pat on the head. “Are you busy, Joanna?”
“I’m just going through some old papers. Come in.”
Mac’s eyes were the color of blue steel, his features etched in taut angles. I didn’t think he’d stopped by to remind me of our date tomorrow.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“I have some bad news. Angela Carenton has been found.”
“But that’s good. Isn’t it?”
“Not exactly. A boater sighted her body on the beach this morning. It looks like a swimming accident.”
I backed up into the kitchen, hearing the words, but not quite comprehending them. Swallowing the sudden lump in my throat, I sank into a chair. Mac followed me and laid his hand heavily on my shoulder.
“Are they sure it was Angela?” I asked. “There’s more than one red-haired woman in town.”
“They’re sure.”
The drowning story sounded wrong. In all our conversations about Spearmint Lake and vacationing, Angela had never mentioned swimming.
“All this time, she was in the lake,” I said.
“It looks like the body was in the water for about four days.”
“Where was she the rest of the time?”
“No one knows,” he said. “They’re treating the death as an accident.”
“That’s a mistake. I’d call it homicide. Or at least suspicious.”
“We’ll know more when the coroner’s report is in.”
“But we won’t know where she’s been. Damson says Angela went back to Ohio. Ira isn’t sure now that the woman he saw was Angela. Where in all this muddle is the truth?”
“Someone is mistaken or lying.”
“What happened to her car—the black Buick? After she left the motel, where did she go?”
“I wish I could answer your questions,” Mac said. “Her cousin in Spearmint Lake saw her once, a few weeks ago.”
“Angela was murdered because she found out who killed Ned,” I said.
“As far as we know, she went for a solitary swim and something happened,” Mac said, his gaze riveted on the pitcher of iced tea. “Maybe she had an existing medical condition that she didn’t talk about. She could have had a sudden attack or blacked out.”
I nodded. “Some after-effect of the shooting.”
Mac had merely stopped by to deliver a grim message in person. Instead of grilling the messenger, I should offer him refreshment.
“How about a cold drink?” I asked. “I’ve hardly made a dent in the iced tea.”
“I could accept that. It’s a scorcher out there.”
It was hot in the kitchen too, so close and uncomfortable that I felt a little weak. Clara’s theory about my interfering in Death’s plan for Angela slipped back into my mind. That was only another one of Clara’s ill wishes, but again it had come true.
I emptied a tray of ice cubes into the pitcher and focused on slicing an orange and remembering. “The first time I saw Angela, she was wearing black, a long dress and a hat. It was in the cemetery. I was driving by and she looked out toward the road. It seems prophetic now—that first sighting.”
“A lot of people visit that cemetery and are still walking around,” Mac said.
“I wonder if she ever saw Ned’s ghost.”
“Why would you wonder that?”
“Because she wanted to see him again. Ira Jenson told her about the stories. Angela thought if other people saw Ned, maybe she could, too.”
“That sounds crazy,” Mac said.
“I guess it does—a little.” I filled two glasses with iced tea, gave one to Mac, and drank too quickly. A sharp pain speared my left temple. “I only met Angela a month ago—not even that—but I feel as if I lost an old and dear friend. I have to know why this happened to her.”
“She died in the water,” Mac said.
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
I had small snippets of information that possibly no one else possessed. Now that Angela was gone, what did it matter if I revealed her secret? She was beyond caring. Somehow, in some way, it might help.
“One weekend twenty years ago, Angela was supposed to meet Ned, but he didn’t show up,” I said. “She went on home and later read that he’d been killed.”
“What does that have to do with seeing a ghost?”
“She wanted to know why. Angela believed that if she saw Ned in spirit form, he’d tell her.”
“Like I said, Joanna, that’s plain crazy. Confronting a ghost to ask why he broke a date with you?”
“Well, now, you make it sound crazy,” I said. “This entire affair, past and present, is a convoluted tangle.”
“I look on it as a simple, unsolved murder.”
“Two murders.”
Mac picked up one of the clippings and frowned. “Please tell me you’re not researching the Seymour case, Joanna.”
I considered giving him my searching for local color story but decided on the truth, or a small portion of it. “I am. The folder was lost for a while. Suddenly it became available. I’m reading quickly before it disappears again.”
Mac’s frown deepened, and an official edge sharpened his voice. “Why?”
“I’m looking for Angela’s clue. I think she had this file.”
“That’s a dangerous pursuit if she was killed because of something she knew.”
“You just said it was an accident.”
“Accident or homicide—we don’t know yet. We will. Give it time.” He set the clipping down and picked up a photograph of Ned’s mourners. Shaking his head slowly, he said, “That was a bad day when Seymour was killed. Have you learned anything?”
