Murder On the Rocks (20 page)

The power was still out when we got back to the inn, but fortunately my hot water heater ran on propane. I lit candles and drew a hot bath for Gwen, then left her with a plate of cookies and a glass of milk. I wished her good night, and for the first time in a week, curled up under the covers and slept without waking up once.

UNTIL THE ALARM WENT off three hours later, that is. I pried open an eyelid and slammed my hand down on the alarm clock, praying that the power was restored. I flicked the switch of my bedside light.

It wasn’t.

I staggered down the stairs in a daze, racking my brain for a way to cook breakfast without the benefit of my stovetop or oven. I fumbled for the coffee scoop, realizing the magnitude of the problem only when my finger pressed the button of the coffee grinder and nothing happened.

No power meant no coffee. Short of building a fire out in the backyard, there was no way to cook anything. I glanced outside. The rain had abated, but the world still looked pretty soggy.

I sat down at the kitchen table and stared at the freezer. Was there anything in there that I could use for breakfast? I knew I had tossed some extra blueberry muffins in a few weeks ago, and there were a few dozen bagels and some smoked salmon from Charlene. I could lay out lox and bagels with blueberry muffins, and maybe make a fruit salad with fresh whipped cream. The absence of coffee or tea would be a problem-at least for me-but there was plenty of milk and orange juice. It wouldn’t be perfect, but it would be passable. If the power came on, I could whip up eggs and sausage or bacon.

I dug what I needed out of the freezer and set to work cutting up melon and strawberries. I’d whip the cream later; maybe the power would be back on and I wouldn’t have to whisk it by hand.

I was no more awake when 8:30 rolled around. The power wasn’t back yet, and neither was the phone. My bleary eyes turned to the kitchen window. The waves had calmed, and the clouds were breaking up; now that the storm had passed, with any luck they’d get the repair crews out fast. I remembered the fierce waters of last night and said a quick prayer of thanks that Gwen was safe, sleeping upstairs in her bed.

As I laid out a cold buffet, I reflected that if power outages were going to be a regular occurrence, I’d have to either switch the appliances to gas or invest in a camp stove. Fortunately, all of my guests-even Ogden-were understanding. “Lox and bagels?” Mrs. Bittles exclaimed when she came into the dining room. “How lovely! I haven’t had that in ages!” The Bittles were leaving the next day, and as I stopped by their table to see how they’d fared last night, Mrs. Bittles asked if I’d been by to see her paintings.

“No,” I said, “but since you’re leaving tomorrow, I’ll have to get down there today!”

Fernand’s studio was at the end of Seal Point Road, in a yellow wood-frame house with lavender shutters and pale blue trim. Lots of people on the island painted their houses bright colors, but Fernand was the only person to include lavender in his palette. The first floor of the two-story house had been converted into a studio with a commanding view of the lighthouse and the ocean. I glanced at the beach beyond Fernand’s house; the ground was littered with egg-shaped granite rocks. I wondered if the rock that had come through my window had originated on this part of the island.

When I rapped at the pale purple door, I was relieved to hear movement from inside the house. I had walked instead of riding my bike, and didn’t relish the thought of making the long trek home without having seen Fernand.

The door swung open to reveal a short, trim man with a neatly kept brown beard and small, wire-rimmed glasses. His eyes were a piercing blue behind the glass lenses.

“Natalie Barnes,” he said in a clipped Canadian accent. “Come in, come in.” I walked into his studio, which was empty of furniture save for an easel set up by the wall of windows overlooking the ocean. The walls were hung with canvases, mostly oils of boats and houses, with neon blue and pink skies, and stacks of canvases leaned up against the walls. I walked closer to inspect a huge oil of a purple-orange sunset, and noticed the flourish of Fernand’s signature on the bottom right-hand corner. I looked at Fernand in his creased khakis and button-down blue plaid shirt, amazed that someone so neat and tidy was the creator of such wild explosions of color.

“What brings you to this part of the island?” Fernand asked.

“Gwen and the Bittles asked me to come by and have a look at their work.”

He nodded. “Your niece is a talented artist. Come on back, I’ll show you some of her paintings.”

“What about the Bittles?” I asked as we walked toward the back corner of the studio.

Fernand looked at me for a moment, then gave me a brittle smile. “They’re having a good time.”

I laughed. “That bad?”

“You can see for yourself,” he said, pointing to a group of blotchy watercolors featuring crudely rendered boats and some grayish blobs that might or might not have been birds.

I bent down to inspect them, wincing as I flipped through the paintings to a particularly painful rendering of the Gray Whale Inn. “I was going to ask you if you’d be interested in putting together an artists’ retreat package with me, but I’m afraid the Bittles might have put you off the idea.”

He laughed. “They’re very nice people, and they’re having a good time. Anything I can do to help fund my life here on the island, I’m happy to do. And besides,” he said, pointing to a small but exquisite watercolor of a lobster boat, “students like Gwen make dealing with the Bittles worthwhile.” I walked over to the painting and squatted down for a closer look. The green-gray humps of the mountains on the mainland framed a solitary lobster boat steaming across the deep blue water. A gull wheeled behind the boat, tipping its wings in the breeze, and the man at the wheel wore a jaunty red cap. I’d seen many paintings of similar subjects, but this one was so crisp I could almost hear the slap of the water on the bow of the boat.

“Wow,” I breathed. “She is good. I had no idea.”

Fernand leafed through a folder and pulled out another one. “She did this one of your inn,” he said, and I sucked in my breath at the golden light reflected from the windows, and the vibrant spill of the roses against the weathered gray shingles. I could definitely put that on a brochure. The drawing I had commissioned for the first one was child’s play compared to this. He handed me the folder, and I leafed through scene after vivid scene of Cranberry Island. “If she’s interested in staying on, I’d love to have her,” Fernand said as I picked up a watercolor of one of the island’s lupine fields. It looked like the one near the cranberry bog, but I wasn’t sure; wherever it was, she had captured the beautiful blues and purples of the majestic spikes perfectly, as well as the tender green of their leaves. “She’s mainly done watercolors,” Fernand continued, “but she’s interested in trying out oil and acrylic.”

“It’s fine with me; I’d love it if she stayed. It’s up to her, though … and to her mother.” I handed him the folder. “She really is an artist.” “

I hear she had a close call last night,” Fernand said, his clear eyes clouded with concern. “Is she going to be all right?”

“She did, but thank God she’s okay. I’m not sure the same can be said for Adam’s boat, though.” “

I ran into Tom down the road this morning.” Fernand smoothed his beard with his hand. “He said they’ll tow her in today, and that she’ll probably be back in the water in no time.” “

I hope so. As long as Gwen isn’t with him.” Fernand’s mention of running into Tom reminded me of something. “Tom saw somebody out with a flashlight the night Bernard Katz was killed” I said. “I’ve been meaning to ask you; did you notice anything unusual that night?”

His face remained expressionless as he shook his head. “No, I didn’t, but then I wasn’t really paying attention; I was touching up one of my canvases. Besides,” he said, “I’m at the end of the road.”

I decided to push a little further. “What do you think of the whole business with Bernard Katz?”

He paused for a moment before answering. “Well, they say things like this are usually family affairs.”

“I’ve thought about that. I wonder if maybe Stanley was jealous of Estelle and his father? They seemed pretty chummy.”

Fernand snorted. “I don’t think that was the motivation.”

“What do you mean?”

Fernand cocked an eyebrow at me. “You mean it isn’t obvious?” I shook my head, and he sighed. “Let’s just say that I don’t think Stanley would be jealous of any woman”

It took a moment for it to dawn on me what Fernand meant. “Wait a second. Do you mean Stanley is gay?”

Fernand put up his hands. “You didn’t hear it from me.”

“Why do you think he’s gay?”

“I visit the mainland from time to time,” Fernand said, “and I’ve run into him in the company of someone other than Estelle.”

“Who?”

“Let’s just say it wasn’t a woman.” He looked at me over rims of his glasses. “And they were awfully friendly for just friends.”

I stood with my mouth hanging open. Who could it have been? Unfortunately, it looked like Fernand wasn’t going to tell me. I looked at his startling blue eyes and pressed blue shirt. He was an attractive man. Was this his way of telling me that Stanley had been with him?

I dismissed the thought as soon as it came to me; a man as good-looking as Fernand couldn’t possibly be attracted to Stanley. “Well,” I said, “that would explain why when every other man in the room has his tongue hanging out when Estelle walks in, he hardly notices her. I just put it down to being married for a long time”

Fernand rolled his eyes. “Oh, please. They haven’t been married that long.”

“If Stanley’s gay, why would he have gotten married in the first place?”

Fernand shrugged. “Lots of gay men do. They do it thinking it’ll `cure’ them, or to appease their families.”

I thought about that for a moment. Had Stanley married Estelle to ensure his inheritance? “That’s a terrible reason to get married,” I said.

“Isn’t it?” Fernand smiled at me. “Well, I hate to run, but I’ve got to get out before the light changes. Let me think about that retreat program; we probably can’t get it going until all of this stuff with the development blows over, but it’s a good idea.”

“Do you think the resort will go through?”

Fernand grimaced. “If Murray Selfridge has anything to say about it, it will. Do you think the Gray Whale Inn would survive a big resort next door?”

“I don’t know. I’m still hoping the evaluators will decide it can’t be built. How about you?”

Fernand gazed out the wall of windows at the sweeping view of the open ocean. “Of course I don’t want it to be built. As for the studio … I don’t know either.” He sighed. “I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”

The clouds continued to break apart into clots as I walked back toward the inn, and I wondered if the evaluators were back on the island. When I came to the path that led off the main road up to the cliffs, on an impulse I decided to take the rough way home. Maybe I could catch a glimpse of the evaluators.

As the rocky path wound around Cliffside, I glanced up at the blank windows and the copper-clad turret that rose like a lighthouse from the back of the imposing house, and my mind turned over the conversation at the studio. I wondered if Fernand was right, and Stanley or Estelle had murdered Bernard Katz. I wasn’t so sure about Estelle; she had seemed genuinely distressed by her father-in-law’s death, and her comment about bad timing made me think she didn’t view his murder as a benefit.

I stepped over a clump of low-bush blueberries. Stanley had looked pretty shaken up when I told him Katz had been murdered. Maybe Stanley had killed his father, and had counted on it looking like an accident. I wondered why-and how-he had had his father’s personal papers with him at breakfast. Had Stanley been the late-night intruder in his father’s room? I’d always assumed that my arrival had interrupted the intruder before he or she found what they were looking for. Maybe I was wrong, and whoever had knocked me out had continued to search.

There was a lull in the rush of waves against the rocks, and I heard footsteps ahead of me on the path. A moment later, Estelle rounded the bend wearing pink lycra shorts and a matching crop top. She had done a better job of her hair and makeup today; like Charlene, her lipstick and nails matched her outfit perfectly. She pulled up short when she saw me, blinking her blue-lined eyes in surprise. “What are you doing here?”

“Heading home,” I said. “I thought I’d come this way and see if the evaluators had finished.” My eyebrows crept up a few millimeters as I took in Estelle’s skimpy outfit. The weather was warm, but not that warm. Her arms were covered in goose pimples, and despite her fancy workout clothes, she hadn’t been straining that hard; her powdered skin was unmarred by perspiration. “How about you?” I asked.

“I’m exercising.” “

I thought you and Stanley had a personal gym.” I remembered the weight machines coming over on the mail boat. The crew of the island Queen had complained about lugging them over to the island for days.

“Of course we do,” she huffed. “Since when is it a crime to get a little fresh air?” She glanced at her watch. “I don’t have time for this.” She pushed past me on her way back toward Cliffside.

“See you later, Estelle,” I said to the cloud of perfume that hovered in her wake. And you’re welcome for the cookies.

I started walking again, wondering why Estelle had suddenly decided to take up hiking. It seemed out of character. The path veered closer to the steep drop-off, and I moved over toward the edge of the cliff to look for the evaluators, but the rocks jutting out beneath the path eclipsed the view of the beach. As I turned back toward the main track, my sneaker caught a rock, and I sprawled onto the rock-studded path.

My battered body yammered in protest as I pushed myself up and brushed the dirt off my clothes and my knees. My fingers were disentangling a twig from my hair when a break in the ferns alongside the trail caught my eye. I peered through the trees; it was a trail, and it wound through the underbrush a good way before it disappeared. I bent down and fingered a few broken green fern fronds at the entrance; someone had been on this path recently. Estelle? I ducked under a low-hanging branch and followed the narrow track.