Nine Lives(34)

She arrived at the cottage on the St. George Peninsula just after dusk. The thin rain had turned into driving sheets and high winds. She pulled the car as close as possible to the front door of the shingled cottage, but it took her five minutes to find the key that was hidden under the heart-shaped rock along the front garden. By the time she was inside with her box of clothes, she was soaked through and shivering. Before exploring the house, she stripped out of her clothes and took a long hot shower in the downstairs bathroom. Afterward she got into her flannel pajamas, unpacked her box, and went and looked through the kitchen for something to eat. The refrigerator was filled with mostly condiments, although there was one bottle of beer that turned out, after she’d taken a shockingly unpleasant sip, to be a hard cider. In one of the cabinets there was a can of Italian wedding soup, and she heated it up in a pan. That and the cider would have to be her dinner.

The two-bedroom cottage was small, with exposed ceiling beams that had been painted white, and lots of abstract paintings on the wall that on closer inspection all seemed to be seascapes. Jessica unpacked her things in the larger of the two bedrooms, then went and checked the bookshelf in the upstairs hall for something to read. She normally liked thrillers, but most of Gwen’s books were contemporary literary fiction. She plucked out a book with an interesting title called Started Early, Took My Dog and decided to give it a shot. She read a quarter of the book tucked up in the unfamiliar bed, then turned out the bedside lamp, and listened to the wind for the hour it took her to fall into a shallow, nervous sleep.





5





MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 3:33 P.M.


Hey, detective,” Clara said.

Sam Hamilton had been surprised to see her behind the front desk of the Windward Resort. Last time he’d run into Clara she’d been waitressing at the Kennewick Harbor Inn.

“You’re back here now, Clara?” he said.

“I’m just filling in because Karen’s on vacation. I’m still at the Inn as well.”

“Busy over there?”

“At the inn? It’s been crazy. Here, not so much.”

Sam had noticed the slightly musty smell of the Windward as he’d walked across the worn linoleum to reach the front desk. He assumed that the only thing keeping the old hotel in business was the persistence of its owner. Now that he was gone, he doubted the Windward would stay open for a year.

Sam knew most of the year-round residents of Kennewick, at least by sight, if not by name, but he knew Clara particularly well because she’d shadowed him for a couple of days about eight years ago, back when she’d been a reporter on the Kennewick High School newspaper her senior year. He knew she’d gone to Boston University to study journalism, but a couple of years ago she’d returned to town and gotten work first at the Windward and then as a waitress at the Kennewick Harbor Inn. Rumor was that she’d come back to Kennewick because of Brad Romer, another local who was nowhere near good enough for her.

“Clara, do you think I could take a look at Frank’s office? I’m sure the state police have been through it, but I thought I’d take a look-see myself.”

She shrugged. “It’s fine with me. You know where it is, right? I don’t think it’ll be locked.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Sam began to walk in the direction of the hallway that led to Frank’s back office, but stopped, and said, “Any gossip around here? About Frank’s death?”

Clara frowned while she thought about the question, and Frank thought how much she looked like her mother, June, one of the circle of Kennewick residents who took turns being the town’s problematic drunk. “You mean, like who might have wanted to kill him?”

“That’s a good place to start.”

“No one, I think. Everyone liked Frank.”

“Okay,” Sam said.

Clara looked as though she were still thinking, so Sam said, “What about romances?”

“Frank?” she said and grimaced a little. “I don’t think so. He had a crush on Shelly, but that was a one-way affair, for sure. No, sorry, Sam, I don’t think I can help you.”

“You’ll let me know if you hear anything.”

“I will, but the only rumors that go around aren’t ones you’d be interested in.”

“What do you mean?” Sam said.

“Oh, the big rumor is that the Windward is haunted. You didn’t know that.”

“No.”

“Well, that’s what the staff says. There’s phantom smells up on the second floor of the annex, you know where I’m talking about, and apparently two of the cleaning ladies claim there’s a ghost in the old ballroom.”

“Hmm.”

“Yeah, I didn’t think you’d be too interested,” Clara said. She was now leaning back in the high swivel chair behind the desk. Her face looked a little puffy, Sam thought.

“What do these ghost rumors have to do with Frank getting killed on the beach?”

“Do you know Milana? She’s one of the cleaners. She said he was haunted by the ghosts and they made him go down there and drown himself.” Clara did some approximation of an Eastern European accent.

“Not unless that ghost grabbed him from behind and pushed him into the water.”