Trouble at High Tide Read online

  “In that case, wouldn’t you be better off staying where you are? You can always go to another beach.”

  “If Godfrey cannot find us a suitable room, we may have to. I don’t mean to sound ungrateful. It was generous of Judge Betterton to offer the cottage, but this is the only time we could find to go on holiday. Britain has been so cold and rainy this year, and we were eager to find some sun. But a murder…” She shuddered. “If we weren’t required to stay, I would insist that we be on a plane to somewhere else by now, Miami perhaps or Key West, or one of the Caribbean islands.”

  “I understand why the police asked me not to leave, but what reason did they give for wanting you to stay?” I asked.

  Daisy rolled her eyes. “Oh, it was some such thing about Godfrey not being there when they knocked on the cottage door. It was four in the morning and I was so groggy, I’m not certain what answer I gave them.”

  At that my own eyebrows shot up. “If he wasn’t in the cabin with you, where was he?” I asked.

  “It sounds a lot worse than it is,” she said, peering out into the rain, which was coming down in sheets now, providing a curtain of privacy. She looked at me again, her eyes pleading. “Please don’t rush to judgment. He doesn’t sleep well, my husband, and tends to get up at night and read. But it’s a bit difficult in a one-room cottage. He didn’t want to wake me. He’s very considerate that way.” She put a hand on my arm as if to steady herself. “He simply took his book outside with a torch—you call it a flashlight. He said he read for an hour and had just gotten up to stretch his legs by walking about for a bit and that’s when the police came.”

  “Did he hear anything odd or see anyone else when he was walking around?”

  “No. And that’s what he told the constables, but they insisted we not leave, so here we are.”

  The door to the shop opened behind us, giving us both a start. A white-haired gentleman wearing a tartan vest and pale blue linen suit invited us in. “No use standing outside in the rain, ladies, even under the protection of my canopy. Others may wish to escape the rain, too. Please come in. I have an electric kettle if you’d care for some tea. Ah, Mrs. Reynolds, I didn’t realize it was you.”

  “Hello, Mr. Mann,” Daisy said, linking her arm in mine. “We didn’t mean to block your door. Tea would be wonderful. I was just telling Mrs. Fletcher what lovely landscapes you have in your shop. Jessica, this is Richard Mann, owner of this gallery.”

  Evidently Daisy didn’t want Richard Mann to know what we’d really been discussing.

  “We didn’t have an opportunity to say much to each other,” I said, “but you and I were introduced at Judge Betterton’s party.”

  “Yes, yes,” he said, ushering us inside. “I remember now. Poor fellow. What a sorry business.” His face took on a forlorn expression, then brightened. “We do indeed have some wonderful landscapes. I’ll be happy to show them to you. And we have some new pieces by an artist you ladies may be acquainted with—Stephen Betterton.”

  “I didn’t know that Stephen was an artist,” I said.

  “I don’t believe that painting is his occupation,” Mann said, “but it is certainly his preoccupation, if you will.” He closed the door behind us, tskING about the weather, and went to plug in his kettle.

  I took Daisy’s cue and began perusing the art on the walls. There were the to-be-expected beach scenes with turquoise water and pink sand and the views of the rocky remains of what had once been a natural stone arch on the shore. Several watercolors depicted a curved stone Moon Gate, a national symbol of good luck where honeymooners often posed for photographs.

  “I see you’re admiring the Moon Gate series. There must be at least a dozen Moon Gates on Bermuda,” the gallery owner said. “Very popular.”

  “What are they for?” Daisy asked.

  Mann shrugged. “A purely decorative gateway. They were brought to Bermuda by a sea captain in the 1860s. He’d seen one in China and had it copied for his garden. That’s where most people have theirs, if they have one. According to Chinese legend, if a couple walks through one hand in hand, they will have everlasting happiness. It’s a pretty story and has helped the island’s wedding industry. The lady who painted these lives over in Hamilton. I have other landscapes of hers if you’d like to see them.”

  “No, thank you,” I said, “but I would like to see Stephen Betterton’s work.”

  “Most are in the back room,” Mann said, leading us around a square pillar with narrow shelves on three sides holding small framed artwork. “This is where we have our one-man shows, or one-woman shows, as the case may be,” he said, indicating the space with an open arm.

  Seven of Stephen’s paintings were hung on the walls, four Impressionistic depictions of Bermuda street scenes, one portrait and two still lifes.

  “He works in acrylics, which many modern artists do,” Mann said. “It lacks the subtleties and the richness of color you can achieve with oils, but it dries faster, making it a better medium for the prolific—and the impatient.” He chuckled at his own joke.

  “He’s very talented,” I said as I paused in front of the portrait. It was a three-quarter view of a woman gazing off into the distance, the blues of the background suggesting that she was looking at the sea. There was a large empty space on the wall next to the portrait and I wondered if the gallery owner had already sold the painting that had hung there. Probably not, however. Most galleries indicated that a work had been sold by placing a red dot on the frame, not by taking it out of the show.

  “It looks like Madeline, doesn’t it?” Daisy said, coming next to me.

  “Yes,” I said. “I like this work the best of what’s here. It has the most feeling.”

  “I have another of his portraits I can show you, but I can’t sell it to you,” Mann said.

  “Is it the one that used to hang beside this one?” I asked.

  “Yes. Would you like to see it?”

  “Very much.”

  “Do you suppose it’s Alicia?” Daisy whispered to me when Mann left to find the painting.

  “We’ll find out,” I replied. “If it is, Mr. Mann might have taken it out of the exhibit after her death.”

  “I’m not sure I want to see it.”

  “Why? It’s only a painting,” I said.

  “Stephen probably wants it back as a remembrance,” she said.

  Mann returned a moment later, holding a small portrait. He placed it on an easel and the three of us stepped back to view it. Alicia had been a pretty girl, but the woman in the portrait was remarkably beautiful, eyes slightly downcast and pensive, expression serene.

  “I didn’t know the girl very well,” Daisy said. “It certainly looks like Alicia, only different. I can’t put my finger on why.”

  “Perhaps it’s what he wanted her to look like,” I said.

  “Interesting observation,” Mann said. “It is a bit idealized. When he brought it in, I told Stephen I’d never seen that expression on her face. He said it’s what she was inside, a part of her that she didn’t show to everyone. It’s not for sale. I thought it wise to take it out of the show.”

  “That was sensitive,” I said. “I’m sure the family will appreciate it.”

  “Oh, it wasn’t done for them,” Mann said. “Word would have gotten around and I don’t want people coming in, wasting my time just to ogle the painting. Frankly, at this point, I would have found it distasteful had someone wanted to buy it.”

  I was tempted to take exception to his comment. The portrait of Alicia was an intriguing painting even without knowing the fate of its subject. That Stephen had painted his cousin with such sympathy made me wonder just how rancorous their relationship actually was. He’d been impatient with her bad behavior, yes, but he’d also seen beneath the facade she presented to the world. What did he really think about Alicia?

  Daisy and I spent another fifteen minutes in Mann’s gallery politely sipping tea that he’d gone to the trouble to make. Daisy had already bought
a painting from him and weighed the purchase of another, finally promising to bring Godfrey with her for the final decision. We parted ways outside the shop. The rain had stopped, the skies were clear, and the puddles were drying in the sun.

  “I hope I’ll see you again before we leave,” Daisy said, giving me a hug, “but if not, give us a call the next time you’re in London. You do come to London every now and then, don’t you?”

  I told her that I did, and said I would call, but I wasn’t sure that I would. My list of friends in the English capital had grown considerably over time and I invariably found myself torn when it came to making dates while there, an enviable but sometimes frustrating situation.

  I walked back to King’s Square where many of the tourists took pictures of the replica of the ship Deliverance while they waited to reboard their cruise ship. St. George’s is a town steeped in history, and every few steps brought to life another piece of times gone by. According to the guidebook I’d just bought, the first Deliverance had been built on Bermuda by the shipwrecked survivors of another vessel bound for the Virginia colony in 1609. It took almost a year, but using salvaged materials from their original ship along with the natural resources provided by what was then an uninhabited island, they cobbled together an eighty-ton ship. After fourteen days at sea, they reached Chesapeake Bay.

  Two of the shipwrecked survivors had elected to stay on in Bermuda rather than set sail. Since they were disreputable fellows—one was a murderer—the ship’s company was probably happy to be rid of them. But ironically, they were the first inhabitants of Bermuda, and had the island all to themselves for two years before more settlers arrived to establish the town of St. George, named for the patron saint of England. William Shakespeare’s play The Tempest is reputed to have been inspired by accounts of the shipwreck and the settlers’ ordeal before they reached Virginia.

  Beyond the Deliverance and King’s Square was the ferry terminal that plied the waters between St. George and Hamilton. I would have enjoyed a ride on the ferry but Hamilton wasn’t my destination, at least not that day. I needed a taxi or some other form of ground transportation to return me to Tucker’s Town and my beachfront cottage. I saw where taxis were lined up and headed in that direction. It had been an interesting, yet relaxing day, a nice break from the turmoil in the Betterton household, although Alicia’s murder had never been far from my mind.

  The ferry was preparing to leave as I crossed the large car parking area toward the taxi line. Passengers had already boarded and crew members were starting to release the heavy ropes that tethered the boat to the dock. People leaned on the ship’s railings on the open top deck and waved goodbye to friends and family below.

  The ferry captain gave a loud blast on the ship’s horn, alerting latecomers of its imminent departure. I covered my ears and laughed as the last two stragglers ran up the ramp to the ship. One of the latecomers wheeled his scooter onto the ferry. But it was the second one who gave me a start, the one person I had vowed to confront as soon as I had the chance. It was the redheaded man, hauling his heavy suitcase and still in his strange old-fashioned attire.

  I hurried forward, not stopping to think how I would get on the ferry without a ticket and where it would leave me if I were successful in boarding. But I was too late. The lines were released, the ramp pulled back, and the ferry backed out of the dock and began its trip along Bermuda’s north shore toward Hamilton, the capital.

  Chapter Nine

  Adam answered my knock at the Betterton house when I returned from St. George’s. “Two people were here from Scotland Yard today, and they asked about you,” he said.

  “Did they leave their names and how I can reach them?”

  “Yes. The judge has their cards in the library. He wants to see you.” He hesitated. “Mrs. Fletcher, I want to apologize for my behavior this morning. I know I upset you. I didn’t mean to do that.”

  “Why don’t we forget about this morning,” I said. “No harm done.”

  “Thanks.” He looked relieved. “I was out of line.”

  “Tell me about the people from Scotland Yard. You say that there were two?”

  “Yes. A woman inspector, a real doll. I never met a cop that good-looking before. I’d sure remember if I did. And a guy. I didn’t get their names. The judge spoke with them.”

  “Did they question you?”

  “Not today. The police asked me a lot of questions the night Alicia was killed, but I had nothing to offer,” he said, as he led me toward the library. “I’m not important enough to be grilled again.”

  “You sound disappointed. Do you want to speak with them again?”

  “No way! I’m just the PA. I’m not a member of the family. Anyway, how would I know anything about this Jack the Ripper guy?”

  I stopped in front of the closed door to the library and turned to him. “But you certainly knew Alicia,” I said.

  “Yeah, but I didn’t know her well.”

  “You knew her well enough to dislike her.”

  Adam’s head snapped up. “Why do you say that?”

  “Just a feeling,” I said. “You didn’t acknowledge her when we came in the other day. In fact, it appeared to me that you were deliberately ignoring her.”

  “Not any more than she ignored me all the time,” he said, sounding annoyed.

  “Why would she do that?”

  “I was just the hired help to her—that’s why. She considered me a servant. She never had a good word to say to me. Did I say good word? She never had a word of any kind to say to me. She was nicer to Norlene than she was to me.”

  “Norlene is also ‘hired help,’ as you put it, so I doubt that was Alicia’s reasoning. Perhaps Norlene was nicer to her than you were.”

  “I was always nice to her. When I first came, I tried to do everything for her, but she wouldn’t give me the time of day. She could flirt and laugh with every man around, but not me. I couldn’t even get a smile.”

  “Maybe she was sensitive to your working relationship with her uncle and didn’t want to create the wrong impression.”

  “You can make all the excuses for her you want, but the reality is, she was just a nasty b—”

  Tom’s booming voice interrupted our conversation as he opened the door from inside the library. “I thought I heard you come in, Jessica,” he said, stepping into the hall. “Would you like some tea or a cocktail?” He looked at his watch. “The sun is officially over the yardarm. Adam’s going to bring me something. Right, Adam? Can he get you some refreshments to tide you over until dinner?”

  “Actually, I had tea less than an hour ago, but thank you all the same,” I said, realizing that I was not going to get out of dinner as easily as I had gotten out of lunch.

  “Adam, please let Norlene know that Jessica will join us for dinner.”

  “Sure,” Adam said sourly.

  “I invited the Reynoldses,” Tom said. “Wasn’t sure if they could make it, but they accepted. They’ve been so busy since they came. Don’t know how they managed to meet so many people on the island in such a short time.”

  “You introduced them to all your friends at the party,” I said, deciding Tom’s publisher had probably not yet found a hotel to move to.

  “Yes, you’re right, of course. Would you mind coming into the library for a moment? I won’t keep you long.”

  “I’m not in a hurry,” I said and followed him into the room.

  The library looked as it had the first time I’d been there, the night Alicia was killed, the furniture grouped around the fireplace, the flowering plant in front of the hearth. But Tom’s desk at the far end painted a different picture. Instead of the perfect still life it had been with pads and pens lined up just so, it was now covered with stacks of papers and files. More papers littered the floor around it, and the top drawer of a filing cabinet hung open, folders spilling out as if someone had roughly gone through its contents. I noticed several books had been removed from the shelves and put back but no
t in the perfectly neat alignment they had been in before.

  “Excuse the mess,” Tom said, waving me into a seat. “I’ve lost some important papers, probably left them home in Jersey, but I was sure I’d brought them here. They’ll turn up. It’s just that my mind is all a jumble since Alicia. I can’t remember things…” He trailed off.

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself,” I said. “You’ve had a great loss. And it’s been such a short time.”

  “Yes, but—Did I tell you I received a condolence call from the White House?”

  “No! When?”

  “Today. The president was a classmate of mine in law school, but we haven’t really been close since then. He was very gracious, very gracious indeed. His wife, too. She got on the phone to express her condolences. Just amazing! I don’t know whether you’re aware that I’m being considered for a higher office.”

  “I didn’t know. That’s wonderful. What position are you up for?”

  “The truth is, Jessica, there’s a possibility—and I stress that it’s only a possibility—that the president will nominate me to fill a vacancy on the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.” He crossed his fingers. “From there, the next step could be the U.S. Supreme Court. What an opportunity!”

  “That’s—that’s big news indeed, Tom. Congratulations!”

  “Don’t congratulate me yet. It’s not a given,” he said. “It’s been pretty hush-hush. There are others under consideration, obvious choices, but the president’s staff responsible for vetting candidates recently contacted me.” He laughed. “Of course, moving up from the appellate court to the Supreme Court is just a pipe dream. Too many things working against me, I think, starting with the fact that I’ve had four wives and been divorced three times. But hell, you never know. Reagan was divorced and he became the president.”

  But only divorced once, I thought.

  “Like I said, it’s not a sure thing. I’m not counting on it happening, but I’d be less than honest to say that I’m not flattered by the possibility.”