Happy Homicides 4: Fall Into Crime: Includes Happy Homicides 3: Summertime Crimes Read online

  Trust MJ to be precise about the proverbial fly in the ointment. She looks like a 60s pinup girl and is plainspoken to the point of being rude. With one manicured hand, MJ fluffed her blond hair as she narrowed her eyes to challenge Honora.

  “That’s why I’d like Cara to go and personally take photos of the interior. If she can pick up postcards, all the better. A picture of the manifest would be useful, too. Different nationalities favored different handicrafts. I read in a newspaper account that the crew of the Georges Valentine came from all over the world,” Honora said.

  That was news to me.

  “Of course,” Honora continued with a sly grin, “if Cara can get a photo of the resident ghost, all the better. He might be making an appearance. Especially with Halloween coming up.”

  Chapter 3

  Back in the House of Refuge gift shop, the banging around overhead continued. Was it possible that the famous ghost was kicking up a storm? If I captured the ghost on my iPhone, wouldn’t that make a wonderful scene for Honora to capture in miniature?

  You betcha!

  From the road, the House of Refuge looks like any old home on Hutchinson Island. The white clapboard siding, the shingled roof, and the broad expanse of porches are all standard features in South Florida. Of course, the historical designation sign and gravel parking lot do suggest this place is special.

  In 1872, our government directed that ten “houses of refuge” be built along the Florida coast for the purpose of rescuing and housing shipwrecked sailors. The houses were all very similar. Two stories high, with no glass windows, only wire-gauze mosquito netting and shutters. The first floor consisted of four rooms, all set aside for the keeper and his family. The upstairs was a dormitory with cots that could hold up to 25 persons.

  Keepers were hired to patrol beaches and rescue people out at sea. It’s hard to fathom how important these services were, but they must be taken in perspective. The town of Stuart wasn’t even settled until the 1870s. A shipwreck victim who made it to shore would die of starvation, thirst or injuries before finding anyone who could help him.

  The work of the keeper would always be needed because of the Anastasia Rock formation that runs alongside the Treasure Coast. Until better navigational systems became standard equipment, ships following the Gulf Stream were especially at risk if they wandered off course.

  The House of Refuge museum gives you a wonderful sense of the environment that welcomed shipwrecked sailors. Using the camera on my iPhone, I took pictures of the interior, including the strangely beautiful human hair wreath crafted by Mrs. Rea, the wife of one of the Keepers. How Honora might replicate that in miniature was beyond me!

  To supplement my photos, I bought postcards at the gift shop. These had been photographed under the best lighting situations.

  “If that man from Eye-taly has fallen, maybe Mr. Haines can’t help him up. He likes to strut around like a fancy rooster, but he’s more like a scrawny chicken. I better go have a look.” With that, the docent slammed the cash register drawer shut and locked it.

  “Would you like for me to go with you?”

  “How could you help? You aren’t bigger than a minute.” Over the top of her cheater-readers, she studied me. “Wait a sec. You’re Dick Potter’s granddaughter, aren’t you? The nice one?”

  “That’s me.” I hoped my brisk response would deter a conversational side trip into the Land of Bad Behavior currently inhabited by my sister, Jodi. She is, to put it kindly, a bit of a wild child. Although that’s the understatement of the decade.

  “I’m Adeline Herman. Your granddad and I go way back. He used to fix the engine on our old Ford Pinto. Kept it running for years. Yes, sirree, Dick Potter’s a real hero to most of us. Any grandbaby of Dick’s can probably take care of herself. If you don’t mind coming with me, I’d be glad of the company. Might be that John’s got himself in a pickle. Once in a full moon we get a know-it-all who can’t stand to climb back in his car and head for his hotel room. There was that time I found a college football team taking turns trying to see the ghost.”

  “Lead the way.” As I stepped aside, I had a hunch that trouble was brewing.

  Really, I should turn around and go.

  But that wasn’t in my nature.

  Chapter 4

  “Is that your red Mercedes Roadster?” I asked the docent. My old Camry was one of only two vehicles in the lot.

  “No, ma’am. It’s John Haines’s sports car. Don’t know how that young man from Eye-taly got here. Funny, ain’t it? Don’t see any vehicle. Maybe he used oobbie-do. That thing on your phone that calls people to come fetch you.”

  I figured she meant Uber, but I didn’t need to respond because she kept talking.

  “My husband, Sam, dropped me off. He should be here any minute. He’s retired military. You can set your watch by him.”

  A soft ocean breeze lifted my curls as we stepped outside. The smell suggested a low tide had stranded Sargassum, and along with the seaweed came a few straggling minnows. Mrs. Herman and I took our time walking around the building to the steps that led to the first floor. I glanced up at what I had originally assumed was a water tower, only to realize it was the look-out tower. Of course. The station keeper had climbed those stairs to watch the ocean for ships.

  Well, duh.

  How could I have been so stupid? Since moving here from St. Louis, I had a lot to learn. Even though my family had vacationed on the Treasure Coast every summer for most of my life, I hadn’t absorbed key aspects of the coastal lifestyle. Almost every day I made a new discovery.

  For the sake of historic preservation, all foot traffic had been diverted along a pathway to the outside of the house. The rerouting was intended to keep wear and tear on the interior to a minimum.

  On tiptoes, I glanced through the wavering glass window panes. I couldn’t see anyone inside the house, although any visitors should be clearly apparent. Where was the young man from Italy? Better yet, where was John Haines? When we reached the door in the center of the building, Mrs. Herman yanked hard, but it resisted.

  “John? Open up!”

  She banged on it with her fists. No one answered.

  “I’ll go around and unlock the front door,” she said. “What a load of malarkey. Could be that ghost acting up. He loves playing tricks.”

  “Ah,” I said. Everybody had a story about the House of Refuge ghost. Skye said she could feel cold air when she crossed from the parlor into the kitchen. MJ swore that on one visit she smelled beef stew cooking. Honora told us she once saw faint outlines of a humanoid form in the hallway.

  “This, er, ghost is a trickster?” I asked Mrs. Herman.

  “You betcha,” she said with a snicker. “Always locking and unlocking doors. Slamming pots around. Cooking food. Moving furniture. That’s how come I didn’t worry when I heard that loud thump. If I chased down every strange whomp and thump, I’d never get anything done around here. Nah, you get used to it after a while. But his favorite trick is closing up when he doesn’t like the weather. They say it’s because he drowned during a storm. The moment the wind shifts, he’s all for sealing the place tighter than a drumhead. No help for it but unlocking the front door.”

  I followed her to the front door where she tried one key after another in the lock. “Never can remember which is which. Use ‘em so rarely.”

  A car pulled into the lot.

  “Sam?” She waved to the white-haired man who unfolded himself from the driver’s seat of a gray Hyundai SUV. After explaining what we were about and introducing me, Mrs. Herman handed the keys over to her husband. He unlocked the door. “John?” he yelled. No response.

  “John, are you in there?” Sam Herman paused, turned toward us, and surveyed the parking lot. “That is his fancy red car, isn’t it, Adeline?”

  “Yes.”

  He took the keys from his wife and quickly opened the front door.

  The wind shifted. Grit blew up and stung my skin. My mouth went dry and my lips
stuck to my teeth. The hairs on my arms stood at attention. In all of us, there’s an animalistic sense of danger that, once activated, pricks up its ears and coils in readiness.

  “Mrs. Herman, I have a bad feeling about this,” I said. “Should I phone 911?”

  “You ought as well call me Adeline,” she said. “Sam can be bossy as an old general, because that’s exactly what he is. I’m sure he’s got everything under control. No reason to get an ambulance until he takes a gander at the situation.”

  No sooner were the words out of her mouth than her husband hollered back at us, “Adeline, dial 911. Tell ‘em to hurry.”

  Chapter 5

  Adeline stepped to one side and shouted directions into her phone.

  “Hey, girl. You get queasy at the sight of blood?” Sam yelled at me through the doorway.

  “No, sir.”

  Adeline covered her phone with her palm barely long enough to deliver my bona fides. “I meant to tell you this here’s Dick Potter’s youngest grandchild. She can handle whatever you toss her way, I’ll wager.”

  I stepped inside and let my eyes adjust to the dark interior of the building. “Do you need help?”

  “Yup. Get on over here.” Sam was leaning over John Haines’ prone body.

  Sam’s broad fingertips pressed against a bubbling geyser. I expected that he’d move aside and let me take his place, but he didn’t seem in any big hurry. I took my place next to Adeline’s husband.

  “My fingers are going numb. Arthritis.”

  Waiting for him to yield, I planted my knees in a puddle of blood. Adeline’s husband turned to stare at me.

  “You’re the spitting image of your grandmother, Josephina, don’t you know? Funny how that’ll happen. It can skip a generation. But you, your ma, and your sister, it’s like you were cut from the same bolt of cloth. I’m supposing you’ve got their gumption, too.” With a nod, he directed my attention to the wound. “We need to swap places real fast, so get ready. On the count of three. One, two, three.”

  I pressed my hand over a ragged hole in a clean shaven neck. The ebb and flow of blood left a clear outline of the puncture wound. Only when I was positioned properly did I take time to look the victim over carefully. I guessed John Haines to be in his seventies. He was expensively dressed in a light blue Oxford cloth shirt and gray gabardine slacks. His brown leather topsiders appeared to be brand new. Of course, his skin was pale as a sheet of copier paper, but he might have once sported a nice tan. It was really hard to tell. The smell of copper and other body fluids was cloyingly sweet, disgustingly so. I swallowed hard and concentrated on keeping my fingers clamped together to use them as a barrier. No matter how I positioned the digits, blood leaked from between them. Looking up at Sam, I said, “I can’t stop the gushes. I mean, I’m trying, but I can’t do anything more. I even adjusted the placement of my hand to close it off, but it doesn’t seem to help.”

  “I couldn’t stop it either.” He shook his head. “I figured my crippled old fingers weren’t up to the job. But I guess it’s just the way he got himself poked. Took one right in the jugular, didn’t he? See over yonder?” His knotty index finger pointed to an awl that had rolled against the baseboard. A spotty route of blood indicated its route.

  A leather strap rested on the floor, not far from the awl.

  Sam explained, “See that? It’s called a sailor’s palm. They used it to cushion the awl when they punched holes in the canvas sails. If John had left it in his throat, rather than yanking it out, he wouldn’t be bleeding like a stuck pig. Probably not much we can do for him. Not now. He’s like one of them jugs with the cork pulled out of it.”

  I wasn’t sure how much longer I could hold my position. Folded up as I was in an uncomfortable position, my calves and feet were going numb. The needle and pins feeling in my toes forced me to shift my weight as I tried to relieve the pain.

  Mr. Haines’s eyes fluttered open. They fixated on me.

  I stared down at him and realized that my face might be the last one he’d see. Fleetingly—and stupidly—I wished I’d worn more makeup. Hadn’t my mother always warned me about leaving the house without putting on my face? Despite the desperate circumstances, I did my best to smile at John Haines and look calm.

  “It’s going to be okay,” I said.

  “No, it’s not. I’m dying.”

  My heart plummeted in my chest. I chided myself for being shallow. How could I worry about makeup? A man was dying beneath my fingertips.

  There was so little I could do but pray. My Roman Catholic upbringing served me well, as I had an entire catalog of prayers to choose from.

  “Hang in there,” I urged the man whose blood was thrumming between my fingers. “Hang on. Help is coming.”

  “My granddaddy warned me not to tell…I knew better… should never have opened my big mouth,” and with a hiss, his soul leaked out of him.

  Chapter 6

  I had to repeat what had happened to the authorities several times over. Two hours later, I marched up the two steps at the back door of the Treasure Chest.

  “My word. Just look at you. There’s blood all over you. Cara darling, what happened? Are you hurt?”

  “No.”

  Honora took me by the elbow to one of the chairs around our break table. “Sit right here. I’ll brew you a nice cup of tea.”

  The clicketty-clack-clicketty-clack of MJ’s kitten heels came to an abrupt halt behind me. “Good grief! Forget the tea. Grab the brandy. Lower cabinet. Right side.”

  “Heavens above.” Skye came racing in and knelt beside me. She took both my hands in hers. “Are you all right? Honora, pour lots of brandy into the tea. Cara needs a double dose.”

  “Y-yes.” I sighed. It had been a long, long afternoon. My clothes stuck to me where the blood had soaked in. I didn’t like the smell. Fortunately, the EMTs and the Sheriff’s police knew Sam Herman and my grandfather. The reputation of both men went a long way toward confirming nothing fishy had happened, no pun intended.

  Well, that wasn’t exactly true.

  It was definitely weird that John Haines had been stabbed to death.

  Adeline and I assumed the killer was the guy from Italy, but as Sam put it, “Good luck hunting him down. For all we know, he’s halfway to Miami and boarding a flight back to Europe. Can’t even read his name on the guest register. If he’s not local, his fingerprints won’t be in the system. It’s a non-starter.”

  Obviously, the stabbing had been planned. After all, who shows up at a historical site carrying a vintage sailor’s awl and sailor’s palm? But why did John let the man get so close without shouting for help? Or had he and we hadn’t heard him? And how come the assailant had left on foot? Or did he? We assumed the killer was the visitor from Italy, but was it possible someone else had been hiding upstairs in the building? Had John run into that person, quarreled with him, and sealed his fate?

  Where did the awl and sailor’s palm come from? The museum did not own those particular artifacts. “I wish we did, because they’re beautiful for what they are. We don’t, even though they fit into our narrative, but I haven’t ever seen them before.”

  My arms were sore from the awkward position I’d taken while applying pressure to John Haines’s wound. My head began to throb. I get migraines when I’m stressed, and I could feel one coming on. My teeth started to chatter.

  “She’s going into shock,” MJ said. “I’ll grab a blanket.”

  Skye also got up and disappeared. I knew where she’d gone. She was fetching my migraine medicine. Honora handed over the mug. “No brandy. It wouldn’t mix well with your migraine pills.” MJ tucked a blanket around me, and Skye handed me two orange pills.

  I babbled, telling the story in a non-linear way.

  “To recap,” MJ said, “John Haines, the rich real estate developer, is presumably dead. You and Adeline Herman heard him hit the floor. John was in the ground floor near the area where people report seeing the ghost. Adeline’s husband, Sam,
showed up in time to try to keep John from bleeding to death. He’d been stabbed. In the throat? Is that right? And you helped him apply pressure.”

  “Right. Sam Herman said the killer used an awl. Sam also said something about a sailor’s palm, whatever that is.”

  “It’s the nautical equivalent of a thimble,” Honora explained. “Awls would dig into the crew members’ palms as they sewed the canvas sails. A leather strap was used to protect their hands and give them more leverage.”

  “Sam Herman showed me an awl and the sailor’s palm on the floor next to Mr. Haines. Adeline Herman told the authorities their collection didn’t include those items.”

  “That means the murderer planned the crime.” Skye wrapped an arm around my shoulders.

  “It could mean that John had them on his person, and the killer used them on John.” MJ pulled out a chair and sank down. “But I’m betting the killer brought them. John wouldn’t have wanted them to weigh down his pockets. That would ruin the look of his pants.”

  When we all turned to her with quizzical expresses, MJ shrugged lightly. “I dated John Haines for a while. He asked me to marry him, but I said no.”

  That figured. She’d dated and/or married every man on the Treasure Coast.

  Honora sank into the seat beside me. “Did John say anything right before he died?”

  Chapter 7

  Revisiting the bloody scene provoked a shudder. Through chattering teeth, I said, “John Haines said something like, ‘Granddaddy told me not to tell… I knew better… I shouldn’t have opened my big mouth.’ None of it makes any sense. Not to me at least.”

  “But it does.” Honora smiled. “This must have something to do with his grandfather.”

  “And what might that be?”

  “You’ll figure it out.” Honora patted my hand. “Your grandfather is a wonderful resource, Cara dear. He might have an idea. At the risk of sounding calloused, did you take any photos like I asked? May I see them?”