Death by beach read, p.20
Death by Beach Read, page 20
If I waited for a break in the stream of talk, I’d never get out of here. I stood up. “Thank you for the lemonade. I don’t want to keep you any longer. Nice seeing you, Mr. Snyder.”
“Come back soon,” Ralph said, “and bring Mr. Mayor with you. Jo … she doesn’t say much sometimes … but Jo likes you.”
“Jo’s a lovely woman,” Mr. Snyder said. Ralph threw him a suspicious glance.
The woman under discussion was crouched next to Phoebe, cradling the burgeoning leaves of a variegated hosta in her hand, explaining how the roots could be divided to make a new plant.
“I will,” I said. “Please don’t get up. I’ll show myself out.”
I left through the garden gate and was almost at my car when Mrs. Peterson bustled across the street. “Lucy, good day. Paying a visit to the Harpers, are you?”
“I dropped in to say hi.”
“I heard what happened at your place. Dreadful business. Simply dreadful.” She peered into my face. “No harm done?”
“Not to me or Connor or Charles.”
“Glad to hear it. Loose wiring, I heard. You know, dear, sometimes it’s worth paying a bit extra to get a properly qualified electrician. I’m not saying Fred McNeil doesn’t know what he’s doing, but—”
“We’ll keep that in mind, thank you.” Fred might not care for the slight to his reputation, but I was pleased people thought the fire had been a construction accident. We didn’t need ideas getting into anyone’s heads.
I suspected Mrs. Peterson had been hovering at her windows, waiting for me to leave so she could waylay me for the gossip concerning our fire. Fortuitously, she might be aware of something I wanted to hear. “You know Ralph and Jo well, do you?”
“Not as well as I’d like. Jo keeps to herself, and Ralph …” She laughed awkwardly. “One does get rather tired hearing about the old days at sea. Jo was working in the front garden a month or so ago, cleaning up winter damage, and she tripped over a fallen branch and fell. My Phoebe saw it happen, and she ran over to help. Jo invited her in for lemonade and asked if Phoebe would be able to give her a hand in her garden.”
“It must be good for Jo to have the companionship as well as the help.”
“My husband made sure it was all on the up-and-up, of course. Although I still maintain that if Phoebe wants to put in a day’s work, she could help me around our house. Now, while I’ve got you here, Lucy, tell me what’s happening at the library. They say Diane’s scheming to get back on the board.”
I rummaged in my bag for my keys. “I don’t know about that.”
“Oh yes, she’s back in town, pretending that nothing happened. Bold as brass, that one.” Mrs. Peterson tapped her nose. “She got far less for her house than it was worth because she had to sell in such a hurry. That worked out to the better for us. We now have much nicer neighbors. I had nothing against Jonathan, mind, but Diane was always far too full of herself. The new people keep themselves to themselves.”
I glanced toward the properties. A fence had been newly constructed, dividing the former Uppiton home from the Petersons’. I couldn’t help but think that the new owners were desperate to keep themselves to themselves against the force of Mrs. Peterson’s verbal onslaughts.
“Oh yes, she’s trying to weasel her way back into the more important parts of the community, as though nothing had happened and she wasn’t run out of town in disgrace.” Mrs. Peterson sniffed. “I can’t say I expected anything better. The Klaus family never did think the rules applied to them.”
I flicked the fob on my keys to unlock my car and stepped to one side, intending to walk around Mrs. Peterson. I froze. Klaus. Where had I heard that name before? “What did you say? Who are the Klaus family?”
“Diane was a Klaus before she married Jonathan. My mother was friends with Diane’s sister when they were younger. Their father owned several fish plants, I believe. Important people around town at one time, or so Mother said. Father said Mr. Klaus was a crook. I think they all moved away long ago, except for Diane and Mrs. Klaus, their mother. She’s in a retirement home now, last I heard.”
“Diane Uppiton’s name was Diane Klaus?”
“That’s what I just said, Lucy.”
“How many Klaus daughters were there?”
“Diane and her sister, whose name escapes me. They had two brothers, I believe, but as I said, most of the family moved away long ago.”
My mind raced. I’d estimate Diane to be in her midsixties. Ralph and Jimmy were sixty-five. Had Diane Klaus been Jimmy’s girlfriend long ago? Was she the “nasty little thing” Jo’d mentioned?
I got into my car in a daze.
“Lucy,” Mrs. Peterson said. “I haven’t finished. We don’t want Diane back on the library board. What are you and Bertie going to do about it?”
I drove home.
Chapter Eighteen
Klaus isn’t a common name, but it’s not rare either. And Diane did have a sister.
I couldn’t be positive Diane Uppiton had once been Jimmy Harper’s girlfriend, the one his grandfather didn’t like, who supposedly told him to steal for her and then stood back when he was caught and went to jail for it. When he got out, Jimmy had left Nags Head and Diane had stayed.
Did that mean anything?
I had to find out.
“Anything special planned for today?” Connor asked me.
“No! I mean, no.”
“Lucy?”
“Wedding planning. House decorating. You know that big furniture store in Kill Devil Hills, the one with all the flags out front?”
“What of it?”
“I’m thinking of shopping there for our things.”
Connor raised one eyebrow. “Good place to go if you want appliances that fell off the back of a truck.”
“Oh. Louise Jane’s uncle owns it.”
“Half the people in the Outer Banks are Louise Jane’s uncles.” Connor chuckled. “Come to think of it, the other half are her aunts. And if they aren’t, she claims they are and the relationship is so complicated they can’t make head nor tail out of it, so they agree out of politeness.”
He got to his feet, finished his coffee, and closed his iPad. “I’d better be off.” He kissed the top of my head and said, “I love you.”
I stood up and put my arms around him. “I love you too.”
Charles yawned.
When Connor had left, I put the breakfast dishes—nothing more exciting than cereal and toast today—in the dishwasher and made my plans. I had another day off work. The library’s open six days a week, and we work five. My regular day is Monday, but I’d filled in for Ronald a couple of times over the winter when he had appointments, so he was filling in for me today. I hadn’t planned it that way, but it worked out well for what I had in mind.
I fussed about the house, unable to settle on anything, until I thought it a reasonable time. I picked up my phone, took a deep breath, and called the number Diane Klaus Uppiton had insisted on giving me.
“Lucy,” she said, after I’d introduced myself. “What can I do for you?” Her voice was tinged with suspicion, as well it should be.
“I ran into Mrs. Peterson yesterday. She told me you’re thinking of applying for a position on the library board.”
“What of it? I wouldn’t listen to a word she has to say, Lucy. You might not be aware that when my Jonathan was alive, he and the Petersons had some, shall we say, minor disagreements concerning the line between our properties and their children’s tendency to ignore it. Nothing to do with me, of course. The little darlings”—she almost choked on the words—“were more than welcome to chase their ball into our yard, but dear Jonathan had his standards. It was only because I was unable to keep the garden up to those standards after he passed, I reluctantly decided it would be best to sell the house.”
“She said she thought you’d be an excellent addition to the board.”
“She did?”
“With your experience and position in the wider community, plus all the knowledge you got from Jonathan.”
Diane was stunned into silence.
“Now, Bertie might not be so sure,” I continued. “She’s happy with the new board the way it is, but I’ve heard … just between you and me …”
“My lips are sealed.”
“Dissent is building on the board, and some of the members are not happy with the way Bertie runs things.”
“Meow.”
I glanced down to see Charles staring up at me with a highly disapproving expression on his face. I lifted my right hand to show him crossed fingers. “Mrs. Peterson and I thought you might be willing to step in.”
“Why, Lucy, I’m so pleased to hear that. Not that there’s dissent, I mean, certainly not, but that you’d like my help.”
“I’m off work today. Why don’t you come around to my house and we can talk it over?”
“I can do that.”
“It’s ten now. Shall we say eleven?”
“That’ll work.” She hung up.
I looked at Charles. He looked at me. “Be on your guard,” I said.
He nodded.
I left the house via the kitchen door and went around to the front. It was the first time I’d ventured out since the night of the fire, and I stood on the beach, swallowing heavily as I studied the damage. A section of the railing was gone, ash and burned lumber tumbled onto the sand below. Some of the deck flooring was blackened and twisted, and a section of the wall of the house was charred. If the wind hadn’t been blowing offshore … Did the person who started the fire know that, or was it luck on our part? Before going inside, I scooped up two big handfuls of sand.
I sprinkled a light coating of sand on the living room floor and then, carefully keeping myself out of it, dragged two plastic chairs onto the unscathed section of deck. If I was going to question Diane about the death of Jimmy Harper and the attempt on me, I should do it in a reasonably public place. I’m not a total idiot. I hope. I considered phoning Sam Watson and telling him what I knew, but I didn’t actually know anything. I guessed quite a bit, starting with the fact that Diane had dated Jimmy Harper a long, long time ago.
Diane had never liked me. The first time I met her, she accused me of having designs on her husband (shudder). She and Curtis Gardner had clashed with me many times as they’d tried their best to destroy the library. And then there were the incidents leading up to the Settlers’ Day fiasco, after which she’d wisely decided to skip town. I’d never done anything to hurt Diane, I’d never even wanted to, but her resentment against me ran deep.
Diane had suddenly popped up back in Nags Head, all ready to make nice. Her return had coincided, apparently, with that of Jimmy Harper. Coincidence? Or had they run into each other somewhere else and come back together? Diane was single again, down on her luck. Jimmy hadn’t had much success in life; he had nothing to brag about. Would he brag to an old girlfriend that he was about to get his hands on his family’s treasure? Very possibly.
It was also possible that when he mentioned, if he did, who was now living in the house where his grandfather’s supposed treasure was, Diane had leapt at the chance to be involved in any scheme that would have the added benefit of annoying me (to say the least).
On the surface of it, the two incidents—the murder of Jimmy Harper and the fire—should be completely separate. But if they weren’t, and that was a big if, then I had to find a common denominator, and I believed I’d found it in Diane.
Because I was certain that the fire was connected to the person watching me when I’d walked on the beach and then staring into our bedroom window. The only reason anyone would do that would be to frighten me specifically. None of Jimmy’s criminal contacts who might have followed him to Nags Head and killed him would have had any interest in doing that. Someone had to dislike me intently to go to that much trouble. The only person I could think of was Diane Uppiton.
If Diane Uppiton had been involved in one or all of those incidents, I was confident she’d be so eager to tell me how clever she’d been that with the tiniest of nudges, she’d blurt it all out. If not, then no harm done, and we could pretend we liked each other after all.
I checked my phone was in my pocket and ready to record, and then I went into the house and laid tea and cookies on a tray.
The doorbell rang at five to eleven. Diane was eager. I switched on my recorder, plastered on a smile, wiped my sweaty palms on my jeans, and admitted her to my house.
She settled her sunglasses on the top of her head and said, “So nice of you to invite me, Lucy.” I mumbled some sort of greeting as I watched the way she looked around her, clearly remembering the way the house used to be. When she’d come here with Louise Jane, supposedly to offer her interior decorating advice, she’d said the kitchen was an improvement.
I’d not thought anything of the comment at the time, but when I realized that Diane was around the same age as Fred and the Harper brothers, I was reminded of how Fred had also reacted to the house, falling into memories of when he’d last been here, so long ago.
“It’s a nice day,” I said. “I thought we could sit out.” She was in jeans again today, with a scooped-necked T-shirt and pink linen jacket. Sparkly pink running shoes were on her feet.
“Sit out? On your deck? You had a fire there. That’s what everyone says,” she added quickly.
“A small thing of no consequence. The fire inspector said whoever started it wasn’t very smart and didn’t know what they were doing. Stupid kids, probably.”
Her lips tightened, and then she remembered she was here to be friendly and she broke into a smile. A speck of red lipstick clung to a front tooth. “So lucky for you.”
Charles didn’t bother to be friendly. He hissed at Diane and then stalked off, clearly disapproving of my choice of company.
We went into the kitchen, and I picked up the tray. I gestured for Diane to precede me into the living room. “The deck’s not finished yet and some of it’s damaged, but we can still enjoy the beach and the view.” I followed her and studied the imprints her shoes made in the light coating of sand I’d scattered across the floor. She had big feet for a woman of her height, and she might well have made the prints the first night I’d heard something moving around in the house and discovered the sliding door left open.
As I was holding the tray, I indicated for my guest to open the door. She braced herself to give it a hard yank and fell off-balance when it slid smoothly open. She’d been expecting it to need a solid pull, but Connor had fixed the runners since the night someone had been in the house. Until now, I hadn’t been entirely sure that person was Diane. My heart pounded, and I tried to control my anger. If she knew what I was thinking, she’d simply walk away.
She stepped tentatively outside, testing the deck with her foot. She tried to keep her head turned from the burned and warped section but couldn’t resist sneaking a peek. Satisfaction crossed her face before she dropped her sunglasses into place.
I put the tray on the floor. “Sorry we don’t have nicer chairs. Or a table. All in good time. Don’t go near the edge. The railings look as though they’re in place, but the supports aren’t finished yet, Connor tells me.”
Diane lowered herself carefully into a chair. “Isn’t this nice?”
“Tea?” I said.
“Yes, please.”
I poured two glasses, handed her one, and sat next to her. The sun was strong overhead, and I was hot in my jeans and long-sleeved shirt.
We watched people strolling along the beach and sandpipers darting through the surf as gulls swooped and soared overhead.
Diane popped a cookie into her mouth, cleared her throat, and said, “My position at the library—”
“To be totally honest, Diane,” I interrupted, “I don’t care one whit about your position at the library, or lack thereof, and I have to tell you there’s no dissent on the board. I lied.”
She turned to face me. I couldn’t read her eyes through the dark glasses, but her eyebrows drew together and her jaw was clenched tight. “Why would you do that?”
“I know you’ve been watching my house. I know you set the fire. So I have to ask, what else that’s happened here lately are you responsible for?”
She leaned over and put her glass on the tray. “What a silly girl you are, Lucy. If that’s the way this conversation is going to go, I’ll be on my way.”
“Don’t play the innocent with me, Diane. I know you’ve been in my house. You came with Jimmy Harper, didn’t you? After he died, you haven’t been able to get back in, but you’ve still been watching me. You and Jimmy knew each other in your youth. Did you come back to Nags Head together or just meet up here?”
Her face tightened further, but she made no move to stand up. “Jimmy and I were a couple, yes. That’s no secret. It was a long time ago. Longer than I like to remember.”
“So it was. He got into trouble, went to jail, and then he left town. You stayed. You married Jonathan. Jonathan died. You left and then you came back. Jimmy came back. And then Jimmy died.”
“I had nothing to do with Jonathan’s death. The police found the person responsible. You know that.”
“I do. You haven’t said you had nothing to do with Jimmy Harper’s death.”
“I don’t have to explain myself to you.”
“No, you don’t. You should, but at the moment, I’m interested in something other than his death. You’ve been in this house at night, trying to frighten me. You lurked outside the windows. You watched me walk on the beach, pretending to be all threatening and mysterious. And then you set the deck on fire. Why?”
She leapt to her feet. She whipped off the sunglasses, and her eyes were wild. She stabbed a finger at me, and I braced myself for her to attack. “You stupid little girl. You horrid little girl. That person might have killed Jonathan, but my husband wouldn’t have died if it wasn’t for you and your interference.”
“Diane, surely you don’t blame me for that.” I’d only just arrived at the library to take my new position when the board threw a party to celebrate the opening of a Jane Austen exhibit. The chair of the board, Jonathan Uppiton, was murdered at that party. The Uppiton marriage had been falling apart, as I recalled, and for some reason, that night Diane had chosen me as the focus for her bitterness. I’d only “interfered,” as she put it, when the police accused the wrong person of the murder.
