A Ghost in Time (Destiny Bay Cozy Mysteries Book 3) (6 page)

“I applaud you for that.”

“Do you?” His gaze narrowed as though seeing a side of me I didn’t even know existed. “I’m glad to hear it. Then we shouldn’t have any problems. Right?”

“Right.”

A half-smile lingered on his lips. He nodded and turned away, going for his car, and I still didn’t know why he hated me.
 

I got into my car and went back home, still mulling over his ambiguous answer. But I forgot all that once I could see that Bebe’s car was missing. I pulled up to the house and I groaned.

Chapter Seven

“No, Bebe! You didn’t! Did you
?”

I went in and sure enough, there was a note pinned to the refrigerator door with a magnet.
 

“Sorry honey. Star called and said some horrible things to me. I can’t just turn the other cheek. I have to go set her straight—or maybe just run her over with my car. Don’t worry. I’ll be back in no time.”

I had to get over there, fast. There was no telling what that crazy woman might do to Bebe. I looked around, collecting items I might need, but then the front door bell rang and there was the kid who delivered the paper, wanting to collect for the month, and once I found some money for him, Suzy Alman was at the door, looking for Bebe. It turned out they had a tennis date tonight and Bebe seemed to have forgotten. Suzy was a talker. It took a good ten minutes to get rid of her, and by then I was going crazy. I had to get to Bebe to back her up against Star!
 

Okay, I had extra clothes and a jacket and even the food—I was ready. I started toward the car and the phone rang. I stopped and looked at it, then spun back to pick it up. It was Bebe.
 

“Mele? Is that you?”

“Of course. What do you need? I’m on my way over. Listen, do I take the turnoff to the country club or do I go on to the next exit?”

“Mele. The next exit. Please.”
 

She sounded very strange.
 

“Bebe, what’s wrong?”

“I… I think I… “

“What?” I was getting frantic by now. “Are you okay?”

“No. I mean… oh Mele! I think I killed her.”

“What? Who?”

“Starflower. She isn’t breathing. The blood…I’m pretty sure I killed her.”

My own blood was running cold.
 

“Where are you?”

“The driveway to Star’s house. The long, winding road. I came around the corner too fast. Oh Mele. Oh my God. I called 911 already. The paramedics are coming. You’ve got to get me a lawyer. Call Reid Carrington in Destiny Bay. I need someone…. .”

I was racing now, going as fast as I could, trying to keep my head steady, trying to keep my mind from blowing into smithereens as I dashed out to find Bebe. I had to be calm. I had to keep my wits about me. I had to ignore the horror that just made me want to sink to my knees and scream as loud and as long as I could.
 

I came in right behind the paramedics. They went right for Star’s body but I went for Bebe. She was standing there looking like tragedy on wheels, trying to hold it all together.
 

“Bebe!”

“Oh, Mele!” Her pretty face crumpled and the tears burst from her eyes. I held her and crooned to her as she cried on my shoulder. She tried to say something but it didn’t come out in any form I could understand, so I just held her.

I didn’t look at Star. I already understood what had happened. Bebe came roaring up the winding road to Star’s beautiful hilltop home, angry over something the woman had told her, and she took a curve too fast and suddenly, Star was in the middle of the road and she couldn’t avoid hitting her.
 

It was simple, really. An accident. Bebe would go through hell because of it, but it was still just an accident. They happened every day.
 

The police arrived and that reminded me that I still hadn’t called Reid Carrington to see if he would come represent Bebe. I hoped he could—or if not, could recommend someone who could do a good job of this. She needed strength and competence right now. I only hoped Reid had both of those qualities.
 

Roy pulled up. I wished with all my heart that I wasn’t there to greet him. He didn’t look surprised, but there was coldness in his eyes and a twist to his mouth that I didn’t like. Oh well. Nothing I could do about that right now.

I called Reid. He answered and promised to go straight to the station house and be there for when Bebe made her statement. That came as a relief.
 

Other officers were arriving and two of them had Bebe off to the side, asking questions. I began to look around the area. There had been nobody but the paramedics and Bebe when I’d first arrived—now the onlookers were beginning to gather. I saw Fred and a few other growers, but I didn’t want to talk to anyone.
 

It occurred to me I ought to take pictures. I pulled out my phone and began, starting at one side of the scene, taking one after another until I’d made a wide panoramic study.
 

“What are you doing?” Roy asked me, looking angry.
 

“Taking pictures,” I said, avoiding his gaze. “I want to make sure no one changes things before I can document the truth.”

He looked at me as if he thought I was crazy, but he didn’t stop me. I knew I sounded paranoid to him, but the way things kept happening, I didn’t trust luck to guide us. Things always turned out to be very different from what they seemed at first. I wanted to stick as close to the truth of things as possible. So I took more pictures.

When I finished, Bebe was sitting in Roy’s patrol car. Minutes later, he was backing up, starting to take her off to the station house. I knew I should follow. I should be with her. But I didn’t go. I waited until he was out of sight, then I turned and began the climb up to Star’s house. As long as my battery held out, I was going to take pictures of everything.

The house was beautiful and stood all alone on the hilltop. There wasn’t another house in sight, and the country club was off in the far distance. I approached cautiously.
 

It didn’t seem like any of the police had gone up to the house yet. Lights were blazing inside, and when I rounded the last bend and could see it better, I swear I saw a man ducking out the door and heading for the bushes. It was just a flash, just an impression, but I was so sure….

When I reached the front stairs, I looked up again. No sign of life. Hmm, that was an unfortunate way of putting it. The front door was ajar.
 

“Hello,” I called. “Anyone here?”

No response. Gingerly, I let myself in.
 

The house was a gorgeous mass of redwood and tinted glass with a spectacular view of the lights in the valley. The interior looked like something in a designer magazine. There was no hint of the hippie tendencies of its late owner. I snapped pictures in every room, hardly aiming, just taking whatever I could get. When I saw the flashlights coming up the hill, I quickly went back out and met the police as they arrived. I didn’t know any of them and just nodded as though I knew what I was doing and went on my way, my cellphone/camera out of sight. I didn’t feel the need to give excuses for where I’d been and I got a few strange looks but nobody asked. It’s possible they’d noticed me with Roy in the past and thought I was allowed to investigate. And why not?

I walked back down to my car, but it felt like moving in a dream. Someone had been killed here just a short time ago. It didn’t matter that she was someone I couldn’t stand. What did matter was that a human life had been snuffed out, and that Bebe’s life would be forever changed from this time on. A part of me was trembling and troubled. If only I could think of something to do or say that would make this all go away. If only…

It was obvious neither one of us had slept at all as we sat at the kitchen table the next morning, both staring at each other, hollow-eyed, both unable to find the right words to say. There were so many things I wanted to tell her. So many things I could see roiling inside Bebe’s tortured mind. But neither of us said a word. We both sat and stared and hoped the horror would begin to fade away, just a little bit.
 

Michael came by. He’d heard about what had happened but there didn’t seem to be much he could say either. And he had to get to work at the high school, so he didn’t stay long.
 

Finally I couldn’t stand the awful silence any longer.
 

“Come on,” I said. “Let’s go do what Ginny Genera would do.”

Bebe tried to smile but it looked painful. “Why? What would Ginny do?”

“Ginny would run and run and run until there was nothing left but running. Let’s do it.”

She resisted at first, but I wore her down, and little by little she began to see the wisdom in my advice.
 

“We can run until we’re so tired, we can’t help but sleep,” I said.
 

She finally managed a real smile. We put on running clothes, but we didn’t have anything like the togs Ginny ran in. No electric neon green. We ran in plain black lycra running shorts and white cotton t-shirts.
 

“If we really get into this, we’ll have to find out where Ginny buys her running clothes,” I noted. “We wouldn’t want to let her outshine us, would we?”

We threaded our way through the vineyards and then headed up the hill toward the winery where Bebe’s best friend Caroline used to live with her wealthy husband—the one who got himself killed in Bebe’s front yard.

“Whatever happened to Caroline?” I asked as we skimmed by the beautiful home that looked sadly empty now.
 

“I haven’t heard a word from her,” Bebe said. “The winery is still operational, along with the tasting room, but the house is sitting in moth balls, waiting for someone to come back and live in it again.”

That made me think and even to cringe a little. That was what happened when people in your life died. Everything changed, even if you weren’t close to them before the death. Everything changed—where you lived, how you lived, who you saw, what you thought about things. I could just barely remember how it had been when my mother disappeared.
 

I didn’t like changes much.
 

On we ran. It seemed like we’d been running for hours, but we’d barely covered the valley yet. We headed uphill and it was a pretty steep climb, but we made it and we went on, into the fields of Miyake flowers. It was glorious, so beautiful. Everything was just beginning to bloom—tulips and ranunculas and wildflowers—a visual assault of color after color to that made you gasp.
 

And seeing it seemed to help lift Bebe’s spirits. After all, this was what she was all about, and to see how beautiful her fields were was a real thrill.
 

She was trying out a new foreman, Manny Gomez. He seemed like a nice guy. We saw him in his little electric cart, scooting up into the fields. He waved and we waved back. From the way he acted, just driving on, I assumed he hadn’t heard about the accident yet. It was eerie to think that most of the town probably didn’t know about what had happened. And yet, to us it was as though a virtual atom bomb had exploded in our lives.
 

We stopped at the viewing station on the overlook. In one direction, you could see the ocean. In the other, the mountains with their snow-capped peaks. And here, finally, we rested.
 

I waited, staring out at the beautiful scene and hoping Bebe would talk to me. I knew she needed to unburden herself of some of that awful guilt that was filling her with angst and horror. She needed to let some of that out, air her feelings, try to begin to heal.
 

“
Just talk to me, Bebe
,” I thought will all my might. “
Just talk
.”

And finally, she did.

Chapter Eight

“Mele, this is such a nightmare. I keep going over it again and again in my mind. I keep remembering all the times in my life when I’ve almost slipped, or I almost fell or almost slammed my hand into the car door—and I thought, ‘uh oh, Bebe—better be more careful! Go slower. Don’t risk an accident.’” Her voice was trembling. She shook her head and she looked so lost. “Life has harsh consequences for carelessness.”
 

I grabbed her hand and held it. “Bebe, Bebe, it’s not your fault.”

She looked at me, her eyes dull. “Then whose fault is it? I’m the one who caused the death. Why is that not my fault?” She grimaced and took a deep breath. “If I’d been driving slower, if I’d been watching better…”

“She was in the middle of the road, right? You hit her before you even saw her, right?”

She hesitated. “I don’t know about that. It’s such a blur. I just don’t remember.”

“Did you…did you give a complete statement at the station house last night? Were they satisfied?”

She looked at me, her eyes so troubled. “Were they satisfied? I don’t know. I don’t think so. They kept saying there was a mirror on that turn. Why didn’t I see it? It was a clear night. The mirror is set at the side of the road and angled so that I should have been able to see the middle of the road around the bend in front of me. I should have seen her.” She shook her head slowly. “And I know that. I’ve driven up there before. But I didn’t see her. I didn’t see the mirror. I just…I don’t know. Maybe I was so mad at the things she’d said to me on the phone I just wasn’t seeing anything. Or maybe I did see her and…”
 
Her voice broke. “And maybe I wanted to hit her.”

“What?” That horrified me. “No! Never! I don’t believe it.”

She shrugged and her eyes filled with tears. “I was pretty angry,” she said simply, her voice shaking. “I just don’t know.”

We talked a bit more and then began the run home. We ran back through more of the Miyaki fields, all gorgeous and fresh. The colors were blinding and the scent was intoxicating. For just a second or two, I wondered if this was what heaven smelled like.
 

But still, I was sick at heart. For some reason, I’d known this wasn’t going to be as cut and dried as it had seemed at first. There had been a sense of unreality from the beginning. I didn’t believe Bebe had hit Star on purpose, not for a moment. But I did wish she had a clearer memory on just what happened.