Death by beach read, p.12
Death by Beach Read, page 12
“Not that I recall,” he said.
I filled him in on what was general knowledge about Jo Harper and why she hadn’t set foot in her family home in more than forty years. “She firmly believes, and has for all these years, that the ghost of her grandfather not only threatened her the night in question but continued to do so for a long time after.”
“Latte and muffin for you, Lucy?” Blair, one of the café assistants, said. I leaned back, and he put my order in front of me. “And a breakfast sandwich with all the works. Is that for you, Detective?”
“Thanks.” When Blair had gone, Watson took a sip of his coffee and said, “What does that mean, he ‘continued to do so’?”
“She claims he could reach into her mind and speak to her that way, even when she wasn’t in the house.”
One eyebrow rose. “Isn’t that taking things a bit far?”
“That’s what she says, and I believe she believes it. From what I gather, she’d been sheltered as a child and teen. She was seventeen when the incident happened, and her parents should have made some attempt to get her psychological help, but it appears they didn’t. Relatives took her in, and then she moved in with Ralph, and that seems to have been good enough for the parents. As for the ghostly grandfather—I suspect he hadn’t been a nice person when he was alive. Not toward Jo, anyway. Ralph admitted that old Ezekiel had no time for him, but Ralph was older and a boy. He could get away, and he did so as soon as he was able.”
“Go on.”
“Essentially, that one incident ruined Jo’s life. Last night I wanted to tell her about the secret entrance, because we think that’s how whoever pretended to be the ghost—Ralph says it was likely Jimmy—got into the house without being seen. But Ralph told me not to bother. That Jo wouldn’t believe it.”
“I fail to see where you’re going with this, Lucy.”
“I don’t like where I’m going. But I have to wonder if Ralph was wrong. Is it possible Jo finally realized Jimmy had been the one pretending to be their grandfather that night? Maybe she saw him going into our house via the secret entrance. Maybe he told her about it, thinking it was some big joke. Did she finally understand what had happened and finally get her revenge?”
“Anything’s possible. But she hasn’t been placed anywhere near the scene.”
“Okay. The same’s true for Ralph, isn’t it? Ralph’s always suspected it was Jimmy who scared Jo, but he didn’t know for sure. He seemed to be surprised to see the secret entrance when we showed it to him, but was he really? Had Jimmy told him about it when he decided for whatever reason he needed to get into our house? Ralph’s life has also been affected by the events of that night long ago. His sister was never able to live on her own, to have a life, a career, a family. He’s cared for her all this time.”
“More like she’s looked after him,” Watson said. “Okay, Lucy. As always, I appreciate your attention to detail, and I know you’ve got a good mind for these things.”
I took a sip of my latte and allowed myself a moment to bask in the praise.
“I’ve been looking into the relationship between the Harper siblings. No one has ever heard Ralph express a word of resentment toward his sister. It’s more that he likes having a wife without the bother of being married. By “wife,” I mean in the housekeeper and cook sense. Seeing as to how Ralph never married because, as he always says—”
“The sea is a hard mistress.”
Watson chuckled. “I hauled Ralph down to the station last night because we’d had a credible report of Jimmy being seen on their street in the nights before he died. Not only on their street but watching their house. That wasn’t news, we learned that early on, but one of their neighbors had been away and didn’t get back until yesterday, meaning we hadn’t talked to him in the initial canvass of the street.”
“This person said they’d been arguing?”
“Yes. He didn’t hear what was said, but the voices were loud enough and the gestures on the part of both men so aggressive he told them he’d call the police if they kept it up. That was early Friday evening.”
“Not long before Jimmy died. Is this neighbor positive it was Ralph and Jimmy he saw?”
“Ralph for sure, who he knows. He described the other man as a carbon copy of Ralph who looked like he’d been left out in the rain even more than Ralph has.”
“Have you arrested Ralph?”
“No. When I told him what his neighbor had to say, he admitted to seeing Jimmy last Wednesday evening hanging around outside watching his house. He says he came out but Jimmy had gone. He saw Jimmy again on Friday, and this time he confronted his brother, and the two men started arguing. When the neighbor warned them off, Ralph says Jimmy left and he went inside.”
“Wednesday. Connor was away and I thought I heard something moving around upstairs. And then Friday was the night Jimmy died. Has Jo confirmed this?”
“I sent Officer Rankin to her house last night to speak to her again. Rankin asked no leading questions, just asked Jo what she and Ralph had been doing Friday evening before I sent an officer around to their house. She repeated what she told us earlier: she was watching TV, and she can’t say if her brother was at home or not. They ate dinner together around five, as they usually do, and then went their separate ways. They have different tastes in TV so often spend their evenings in their own spaces. They each have their own living area.”
“If Jo can’t provide an alibi for Ralph, then …”
Watson finished the sentence. “Ralph can’t provide an alibi for Jo.”
“Did Rankin ask Jo if she’d seen Jimmy hanging around?”
Watson nodded. “As before, she maintains she hasn’t seen or spoken to or communicated in any way with that brother for many years.” He let out a long breath. “Jo Harper, as you know, doesn’t get out much.”
“To put it mildly.”
“Right. Which means she has little contact with people. I gather the Harpers never entertain, and the neighbors maintain that the only time they’ve ever seen vehicles in front of their house is if it’s a plumber’s van or the like. One of the local children has been hired to help Jo in the garden, but the parents say that was arranged over the phone and they themselves have never been inside the Harper house.”
“Phoebe Peterson,” I said. “I know her from the library.”
“Jo Harper isn’t playing at being a recluse. She is one, no doubt about it. During the canvass, everyone my officers spoke to said they’d never seen her set foot off her property in daylight. She sometimes goes for walks after dark, but they’ve learned not to do anything more than give her a polite nod good evening and continue on their way.”
“You mean she’s aggressive to them?”
“Nothing like that. She makes it obvious she doesn’t want to engage in conversation, so people keep their distance. They’ve never seen her so much as coming out of the house to get into Ralph’s truck. She spends a lot of time in her yard and will exchange a wave with anyone who waves at her, but that’s about it. For that reason, I scarcely considered her to be a suspect. In light of what you told me and the sighting of Jimmy outside their house, she’s now, as we say, a person of interest.”
I thought of Jo’s delight in her garden and her chickens. I thought of the anguish in her eyes when she remembered what had happened to her when she was seventeen. “I hate to think it.”
“Ralph’s in and out of the house all the time. He has his boat and his charter fishing trips to take. He does all the shopping and is known in some bars and restaurants around town. Meaning Jo’s alone much of the time. Did Jimmy pay a call on her when Ralph was out? She says not. Perhaps it doesn’t matter, not if Ralph thought Jimmy was bothering her.”
“Did Ralph tell you why he initially lied to you about not seeing his brother?”
“People lie to us for all sorts of reasons, Lucy, and sometimes for no reason at all. Sometimes they lie because they think they know better than I do what’s relevant and what’s not. He claimed he didn’t follow Jimmy that evening and he didn’t kill him, so he didn’t want to muddy the waters of the investigation.” Watson shrugged. “Instead, as usually happens, all he accomplished was to muddy them more. Jo Harper’s a recluse and Ralph is not, but he’s still an odd one.”
I nibbled on my muffin. Watson chewed his sandwich and stared over my shoulder.
“You didn’t arrest Ralph,” I said.
“No. It doesn’t look good that he openly lied to me when I asked him when he last saw his brother, but as proof of guilt, it’s not much. He said problems in his family aren’t the business of anyone else, and that includes the Nags Head Police. Ralph’s fingerprints were found in your house, but as he’s the previous owner and he was regularly in the house to do minor maintenance, that means little. The lab says, from what they can tell, the prints weren’t laid down recently.”
“What did he and Jimmy argue about? Did he say?”
“According to Ralph, Jimmy wanted a share of the money from the sale of the house. He was cut out of their mother’s will when he went to prison for the first time because she considered it a disgrace to the family.”
“Fair enough,” I said. “Black sheep and all that.”
“Jimmy wanted a full half of what they got for the house.”
“Half, not third?”
“Half, because Jo and Ralph live together, so they count as one. According to Jimmy.”
“I hate to say it,” I admitted, “but that sounds like another reason for Ralph to want to get rid of his errant brother. Jo too.”
“Jo doesn’t have a driver’s license and never has. Doesn’t mean she can’t drive, of course; Ralph might have taught her. It’s what, six or seven miles from the Harper house to yours? That would take about two hours to walk one way, four hours return. Not an excessive amount for a sixty-year-old woman who’s known to go for long, solitary walks at night.”
“Meaning you think it possible Jo’s been to our house?”
“Possible is the word. We also canvassed your neighbors and asked if they’d seen anyone watching your house at night. Nothing, but that doesn’t always mean much. People close their curtains, watch TV, read a good book. They aren’t keeping an eye on the neighbors.”
“And that,” I said, “is usually a good thing.”
Watson crumpled his sandwich wrappings. “Let’s hope the Raleigh police come up with something. I’m not forgetting Jimmy Harper had a lot of shady contacts and a pretty long rap sheet. In the meantime, I’m going to have a nose around about what actually happened all those years ago. Did anyone else know about that secret entrance to the house?”
I bit my tongue and didn’t say the words: Fred McNeil.
Chapter Eleven
By the time Watson and I left the bakery, I was running late for work. I took the time to rush home and pick up Charles and, not incidentally, slap some makeup on my face and retie my hair.
I wrestled with my conscience as I drove toward the lighthouse. I should have told Watson about Connor’s dad being on the scene all those years ago, but I told myself he’d hear about it soon enough. The reappearance and death of Jimmy Harper, combined with Jo’s outburst last night, would have the whole town talking about it again.
Louise Jane certainly was. I arrived seconds before opening time and found her telling Ronald and Denise the story. “Before you tell me not to gossip about our patrons,” she said to me, “I consider this to be important historical information. The Froomer House—”
“Now the McNeil-Richardson House—”
“Is an important part of Nags Head history, as are all the unpainted aristocracy. If you want to live in a historically significant building, Lucy, you have to respect that history.”
“I do respect that history, but the Harper family drama isn’t something we should be talking about.”
Louise Jane snuffled in disapproval. Denise said, “That brings up a good point. When does history begin? At what point does a historian—or an academic librarian—legitimately have an interest in what people did in the past?”
“When they’re dead,” Ronald said.
“Plenty of people still alive who were around in World War II,” she said. “That’s a valid area of study. The social history of World War II—rationing, women working in munitions factories, the internment of Japanese Americans—is heavily studied.”
“The Harper family story’s personal,” I said.
“I know what you’re getting at, Lucy, and I agree with you. But it could also be argued that the family is a representation of the changing social standards of the times. The ghost of the disapproving ancestor, supposedly venting his wrath on a female descendent attempting to express her late-twentieth-century independence.”
“There’s a thought,” Louise Jane said. “You and Connor aren’t married, Lucy. Has Ezekiel Froomer begun haunting you, or does the fact that you’re engaged make it okay with him?”
I turned on her. “Louise Jane, don’t you dare—” I read the amusement in her eyes and closed my mouth.
“When she offered me this job,” Louise Jane said, “Bertie made it clear that I’m not to do any paranormal investigating at work or in the library, and I intend to follow those instructions to the letter. Doesn’t mean I can’t come around to your house in my own time and see if I can make contact with Ezekiel.”
“No,” I said, “you cannot.”
The door opened and a woman came in, laden with book bags. “Morning, all,” she called.
“Mrs. Covington, good morning,” I said.
“I owe, I owe,” Ronald sang, “so it’s off to work I go.” He headed for the stairs and the children’s library.
“I hope we can continue this conversation another time,” Denise said. “Not about anyone in particular, but about what history means and when an individual’s life story becomes history. The historical society are coming in at eleven to talk about this year’s Settlers’ Day activities. Bertie’s off today, so she asked me to meet with them, and as I wasn’t here last year for that, can you join us, please, Lucy?”
“Happy to,” I said.
“Louise Jane, I’m hoping you can finish that inventory of the maps the people at Duke are wanting a look at.”
I took my purse into the break room and poured myself a cup of coffee. Back out front, I settled behind the circulation desk for another day at the Bodie Island Lighthouse Library.
* * *
At eleven o’clock I was showing a patron how to access the internet from one of our public computers when the members of the Bodie Island Historical Society arrived for their meeting. Last July they’d held their first annual Settlers’ Day fair on the lighthouse grounds. The day had been an enormous success, and they were hoping to repeat it this year.
An enormous success, except for the attack on my life by a deranged killer.
Louise Jane and Denise clattered down the stairs. I glanced at Louise Jane. Whenever she started annoying me, which was often, I reminded myself that the deranged killer failed to achieve their aims only because of the timely intervention of Louise Jane in full historical costume.
I introduced Denise to Phil Cahill and Mabel Eastland from the historical society. Phil was the author of children’s and young adult nonfiction books about the Outer Banks.
“Before you get very far with your planning,” Louise Jane said, “I’ll be available to put on a lecture once again. I’ve been giving it a lot of thought, and I’m thinking of a more up-to-date time period this year. How about the historical architecture of Nags Head and the families who built them?”
“Hey!” I protested.
“That’s an excellent idea,” Mrs. Eastland said. “I’ll bear that in mind when we start hammering out the fine details.”
I’d earlier told Denise how it had gone last year—leaving out the trying-to-kill-me part—to bring her up to speed. We had the approval of Bertie and the library board to let the historical society use our lawn once again. The purpose of this meeting was to go over the big picture: to decide on the date and the time, the overall format of the day, and who was to be responsible for what.
That didn’t take long. We set a date for the next meeting, and then Denise capped her fountain pen and put away her notebook and left me to show our guests out.
Phil started to stand, but Mrs. Eastland leaned over the table and said, “So, Lucy, you and Mayor McNeil bought the Froomer house.”
“That’s right,” I said.
“Plenty of historical interest in that house,” she said.
“So we’re finding out,” I said.
“And then that man died there.” She folded her face into sad lines. “Such a tragedy.”
“A tragic family, the Froomers and the Harpers.” Phil sat back down.
“I wouldn’t say that,” I said. “Ralph Harper’s still around and doing well. Jo’s happy enough in her garden.”
“Ralph’s a good man,” Mrs. Eastland agreed. “The influence of his father went a long way to keeping him on the straight and narrow, despite Ezekiel’s best efforts. Ezekiel Froomer was a bitter, bitter man who never got over losing what he considered his place at the top of Nags Head society. That James, on the other hand, was a Froomer through and through.”
“It’s believed old Ezekiel Froomer, Ralph and Jo’s grandfather, was a rumrunner,” Phil said. “He got a mention in my book Pirates and Prohibitionists. The library has that book in stock. It’s one of my biggest sellers.”
I stood up. “Thanks for coming. I’m excited about the fair.”
“A lecture on the unpainted aristocracy would be fascinating,” Mrs. Eastland said. “Don’t you agree, Phil? Perhaps we could combine that with something on the history of smuggling along the coast.”
“One of my main areas of interest,” Phil said. “Although all the history of the Outer Banks is my interest.”
“Settlers’ Day is to celebrate the ancestors of the people who live here now,” I said. “Do we want to mention that some of them weren’t exactly on the right side of the law?”
