Death by Beach Read, page 11
“I bet she and that boyfriend of hers were fooling around with drugs,” Mrs. Peterson said. “I’ve told my girls, over and over, to stay away from drugs. Bad things can happen to innocent girls. Why, I’ve heard—”
“You ladies are not helping,” Mr. Snyder said in the tone of voice he must have used to control rebellious high school students. “Joanna’s telling us about an event that had a powerful influence on her, and you have no business dismissing her.”
Diane smirked, but Mrs. Peterson had the grace to look embarrassed.
“I agree,” Louise Jane said. “Don’t be so hasty to dismiss Jo’s experience. Old houses can have powerful spirits in them, and I’ve heard of cases in which the spirits are possessive about—”
“Not now, Louise Jane,” I said.
She ignored me. “Aunt Jo, you said something about how he hasn’t spoken to you for a long time. You mean this continued to happen after the night in question?”
“Yes.” Tears streamed down Jo Harper’s face. Mr. Snyder stroked her arm with a stricken expression on his own face. Ralph stared at the floor beneath his boots. Butch watched Ralph.
“For years,” Jo said, “I heard his voice in my head. Telling me, over and over, never to go into his house again or I’d regret it.”
“Ralph,” I said. “Tell her what we know. About how someone got into the house that night.”
“Won’t do no good, Miss Lucy,” he said. “I always suspected it was Jimmy that night. She never believed me. She won’t now. Come on, Jo, let’s go home.”
Butch cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, Mr. Harper, but you can’t leave. Detective Watson’s on his way here. He intends to arrest you for the murder of James Harper.”
Chapter Ten
The rest of the book club members had sat quietly while the Harper family drama played out, but at Butch’s words, everyone started talking at once.
Ralph simply looked stunned. Butch put his hand on Ralph’s arm and said, “Let’s wait for the detective downstairs.” He turned to me and jerked his head toward Jo.
I nodded, letting him know I’d look after her, and they left the room. Ralph didn’t say a word.
“Meeting’s over,” I said. “Everyone, time to leave. Louise Jane, will you please escort people downstairs and see them out. Louise Jane!”
“What?”
“Show people out, please.”
“Okay. Aunt Jo, are you ready to go?”
The older woman was huddled in on herself, weeping softly, while Mr. Snyder attempted to comfort her. “Perhaps Jo would prefer to rest for a few minutes,” I said. “I’ll wait with her.”
“Okay. Mrs. Peterson, how are … uh … your children? What are their names again?” Louise Jane edged toward the door, and Mrs. Peterson, who never could pass up the chance to brag about her daughters, followed.
“Diane,” Theodore said. “I haven’t had a chance to say welcome home. What are your plans going forward?” He guided her out. Josie and Steph widened their eyes at me as they passed, and the rest of the club followed them.
Footsteps clattered on the stairs, accompanied by excited voices. Soon, only Jo, Mr. Snyder, and I were left in the meeting room. I poured the last of the tea into a fresh glass and put it in the woman’s shaking hands. She lifted it to her lips and took a long drink. When she handed me the empty glass, she said, “Where’s Ralph gotten to?”
“He … uh … is needed to help the police with their inquiries.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Are you ready to leave? Ralph will … uh … be getting a lift into town. Can you drive yourself home? Do you have a driver’s license?”
She shook her head.
“I’ll take you, then, why don’t I?”
“Let me, Lucy,” Mr. Snyder said. “It would be my pleasure to offer Jo a ride.”
“Is that all right with you, Jo?” I asked.
“Yes.”
Mr. Snyder picked up his cane in one hand and took Jo’s arm in the other. I didn’t quite trust him to maneuver both of them successfully down the twisting stairs, so I took her other arm.
Ralph was sitting quietly in the dim light near the magazine rack while Butch stood over him. Ralph’s head was down, his shoulders slumped. He didn’t look up as his sister stepped off the bottom step, and I don’t think she noticed him.
Louise Jane stood on the front steps, waving everyone off. No one had lingered in hopes of finding out more about what was going on with Ralph or Jo, but I had no doubt the phone lines would be burning up shortly.
“Aunt Jo,” Louise Jane said. “Are you okay?”
Jo blinked. “I’m sorry. Who are you?”
“Louise Jane McKaughnan. I’m a great-niece of Ethel Harper Murray.”
“Ethel Murray? Is she still alive?”
“Probably. Last I heard anyway. About that ride home?”
“I’ll be fine. Thank you. Mr. Snyder has offered me a lift.”
“Call me Tony,” he said. “I’m not your teacher any longer.”
They slowly walked up the path together.
“When it comes to high drama,” Louise Jane said when they were out of hearing range, “that book has nothing on Jo and her story.”
“It’s tragic. All these years she’s believed her grandfather was talking to her from beyond the grave—and that he kept talking to her.”
“As you know, Lucy, I have made the study of the paranormal my life’s work.” I was about to rudely cut her off—I was running out of patience for Louise Jane’s ghost stories—when she added, “In this case, however, the tragedy is that she never saw a therapist.”
“I agree.”
“It wasn’t all that long ago, but back then families like the Harpers, like most families around these parts, would never have sent a son or daughter for therapy. ‘Get over it’ would have been the advice Jo got. She never did. Something terrified her that night, and from then on she heard her grandfather’s voice in her head.”
“So it would seem.”
“He must have been a heck of a horrid man in life for her to think he was cursing her after his death—and for nothing more shocking than dancing to modern music with a boy her own age. I knew the outlines of the story, but no one knew all the details or what she believed she’d seen. Not until tonight. I didn’t know Fred McNeil was there that night. And then Jimmy Harper up and died in the house after you and Connor bought it. Isn’t that a coincidence.”
I said nothing. Louise Jane’s eyes lit up as she had an idea. “You don’t think the real ghost of Ezekiel Froomer did Jimmy in? Scared him to death?”
“I do not, and don’t you go around telling people that.”
“How’d Jimmy die, anyway?” she asked casually.
Lights turned into the lighthouse lane, heading our way. “The police have ordered us not to talk about it. You can go on up; I’ll lock up once Butch and Ralph have left.”
“And now they’re arresting Ralph! Do you think someone saw the ghost of his grandfather and mistook it for Ralph?”
“Good night, Louise Jane.”
“I don’t mind staying with you.”
“No need. Here’s Detective Watson now.”
The car pulled to a stop at the top of the path, and Watson got out and approached us. “Evening, Lucy, Louise Jane.”
“Butch and Mr. Harper are waiting for you inside,” I said.
“Thanks. I won’t need you anymore tonight.”
“I need to lock up after you,” I said.
“Okay. Louise Jane, you can go off home.”
“I am home,” she said.
“What?”
“I live here.”
“Here? You live on this front step?”
“Well, no. Upstairs. In what used to be Lucy’s apartment.”
“You can be off home then, like I told you.”
“Okay. I guess. If you don’t need me anymore, Lucy?”
“I don’t,” I said.
We went inside. Louise Jane called a cheery good-night and headed for the stairs. She didn’t get far, and I could see the bottoms of her shoes lingering at the first bend.
Ralph lifted his head when Watson stood next to him. “Evening, Detective.”
“Mr. Harper. I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to come into town with me.”
Ralph stood up. “This young fellow says you’re arresting me for killing my brother. You’ve got it wrong.”
“You are not under arrest at this time, but I do have some questions for you. Let’s go. Thanks, Butch.”
Butch nodded.
“Steph got a lift home with Josie,” I said. “So your car’s still here.”
We left the library together. Once we were all outside, I locked the front door behind us. Watson and Ralph walked down the path, but Butch waited to escort me to my car. The moon was bright, and the night was quiet. Frogs and insects called from the depths of the marsh. High above us, the thousand-watt light flashed.
“Did Detective Watson say what happened?” I asked. “Why Ralph is—or isn’t—under arrest.”
“He went around to Harper’s house,” Butch said in a low voice. “No one was home, so he sent an alert for us to be on the lookout for Ralph. As it happens, I was sitting in the same room with the guy when I got the text, so I called it in. It seems Ralph wasn’t being entirely honest when he says he hadn’t had any contact with his brother for years. Someone reported seeing them together not long ago, and having a mighty loud argument to boot.”
* * *
When I arrived home, I found Connor at the kitchen island with his laptop open and a stack of work papers and a bottle of beer in front of him. He looked up with a smile when he heard me come in. “How was the meeting?”
I dropped onto the stool opposite him. “Anything but dull. Jo Harper broke down and told everyone that her grandfather had appeared in front of her when she was a teenager and ordered her to never step foot in his house again or he’d haunt her forever.”
“Wow! I can’t even get past the idea that Jo came to your meeting. She never leaves the house.”
“She read the book, and the discussion struck something very powerful in her. Once she started to talk, it was as though she couldn’t stop. Connor, I have to ask you something. Everyone heard her, and you can be sure the story is spreading far and wide as we speak. Did you know your dad and Jo were dating in high school?”
“What?”
“Yup. According to Ralph, they were, and according to what Jo told us tonight, your dad was in the house that night and that’s what threw the ghost of Ezekiel into a rage.”
Connor closed his laptop. “I had no idea. My parents married not long after they graduated high school. Natural enough they’d have dated other kids before then. Jo’s the right age to have been a classmate of Dad’s.”
“Jo hasn’t, shall we say, entirely forgiven him.”
“What does that mean? It happened so long ago. A lifetime ago. More than my lifetime ago. More than yours.”
“The events of that night in 1978 were the defining incidents of Jo Harper’s entire life. She never moved on from it.”
“That is so incredibly sad.”
“It is. She’s not happy that we bought this house. I should say that you bought this house. She likes me okay. But …” I shifted in my seat. I felt awkward and foolish simply saying the words. “She warned me off marrying you. She told me the McNeil family has bad blood.”
“Okay”—Connor stood up—“I’m getting another beer. Would you like a glass of wine?”
“After the night I’ve had, yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this earlier, Lucy?”
“I should have, but to be honest, I didn’t know how to take it. At first I thought she might be thinking of someone else, or that there was some ancient Harper McNeil family feud no one remembers but Jo. When I met Ralph at his breakfast place the other morning, he told me your dad had been Jo’s mysterious boyfriend. I didn’t mention it to you because it’s Fred’s business, and if he hasn’t told you …”
“You’d be right not to spread rumors, except that we seem to be caught up in all this ancient drama, whether we want to know about it or not.”
“Ralph and Jo owned the house jointly following the death of their mother, but we dealt strictly with Ralph. It’s likely he told Jo where to sign and she did so without reading the documents over, so she didn’t know the names of the buyers. One more thing: she says Jimmy died in this house because we … I mean you … live here now.” Involuntarily, I glanced down at the floor. I’d bought a colorful hand-woven rug to throw over the spot where we’d found Jimmy.
Connor put a glass of white wine in front of me. “Jimmy Harper died in this house because he broke in looking for something and one of his partners in crime wanted whatever it was for himself. That’s if something was here, waiting to be found, which I doubt. And that’s the end of that.” He began gathering his papers. “I’ve done enough work for tonight. I want to catch the local news before turning in.”
“About the local news …”
“Don’t tell me there’s more?”
“Sadly, yes. Sam Watson has taken Ralph in for questioning in the matter of the murder of his brother.” I went on to tell Connor what little I’d heard from Butch.
Connor dropped onto his stool with a groan. “For once, I dared to hope this had nothing to do with us or with anyone we know.”
“It still might turn out that way. If Ralph did see Jimmy recently and they did argue, he might have perfectly innocent reasons for not telling the police. But …”
“But?”
“I have to talk to Sam about what happened at book club tonight. It’s possible the origins of this murder go back a lot of years.”
* * *
Sam Watson would be occupied questioning Ralph tonight, and I decided my information could wait until the morning.
I slept well, undisturbed by creaking floorboards or other strange noises in the night. I was also undisturbed by a big cat until minutes before the alarm went off. Charles had decided that discretion was the better part of valor, and when Connor was back in the bed, he spent his nights elsewhere.
While Connor used the shower, I put the coffee on before calling Detective Watson. Because of past involvement in other cases, I have his personal cell phone number in my contact list.
He’d been working late last night and I hoped I wasn’t bothering him too early, but when he answered, I could hear the low buzz of a busy office in the background. “Good morning, Lucy.”
“Detective. I’m calling about the Harper case. CeeCee left our book club meeting early last night, so you might not have heard what happened, and I thought you should know.”
“Something happened at your book club that’s pertinent to the case?”
“It might be. Jo and Ralph Harper came to the meeting.”
“I am aware of that, Lucy. I was there, remember. I was surprised to see Jo, though. I’d been told she never leaves the property except for solitary nightly walks. Is that not true?”
“She made an exception last night because of the book we’d chosen. What I have to tell you is going to sound like common gossip, which I suppose it is, but it might be important.”
“I’ve just gotten in. Haven’t even had a cup of coffee yet. Josie’s, fifteen minutes?”
“I’ll be there.” I hung up the phone and dashed into the bedroom. The shower was free, so I leapt in for all of ten seconds. I dragged a brush through my hair, decided that it had looked worse (although not often), grabbed the nearest clean dress out of the closet, and stuffed my feet into the first pair of shoes I saw. “Gotta run,” I said to a startled Connor as he emerged from the pantry with a container of cereal. I grabbed the doorknob, then swung around, ran back, and gave him a quick kiss. “I’ll be by to get you later,” I called to Charles as I threw open the door.
If Sam Watson said fifteen minutes, he meant fifteen minutes. If I showed up at the sixteen-minute mark, he might well have left without me.
It was early enough that traffic heading into town was light, and I made it to Josie’s Cozy Bakery in time to pull up next to Sam as he was getting out of his car.
“Lovely day,” I said as we walked into the bakery together.
“CeeCee’s daring to hope spring has arrived at last, but I always say don’t get your hopes up too soon.”
The line waiting to be served was long, but it moved quickly. Espresso machines hissed and emitted fragrant steam, the scent of warm baking and spices drifted out of the back, the customers chatted to each other or on their phones, and the baristas cheerfully called out orders.
“Morning, Lucy, Detective,” Alison said when it was our turn. “What can I get you?”
I knew by now that Watson wouldn’t let me pay for as much as a cup of coffee for him, so I gave Alison my order. “A low-fat latte and a blueberry muffin, please.”
“Coming up. Josie’s in the back. Do you want me to let her know you’re here?”
“No thanks; she’ll be busy at this time of the morning. I’ll stick my head into the kitchen before I leave.”
Most of the customers were grabbing their orders to take to the office, so plenty of seats were free. While my drink was being made, I snagged us a table in a quiet corner, beneath a photograph of the Bodie Island Lighthouse taken on a snowy night. The picture had been taken by a local photographer and was for sale, as was all the art Josie had hung on her walls. Our table had been made out of a reclaimed wooden ship’s barrel, like much of the furniture in the otherwise ultramodern coffeehouse.
Watson joined me, holding his regular extra-large black coffee, and he swung his right leg over the stool. “What’s up?”
“You’re a Banker,” I said, referring to the nickname for longtime Outer Banks people. Sam had been raised in Nags Head, but he’d spent most of his career with the NYPD, returning to his hometown a few years ago to spend the last few years until his retirement. “Did you know anything about the Froomer and Harper family story before the recent events?”
