Murder, When One Isn’t Enough

By Karla Stover

When Mercedes Mackaill has a month off work in which to house and dog sit at a waterfront home, she soon finds that too much of her own company palls. Then the body of an old woman is pulled from the water in front of where she’s staying and Mercedes discovers she’d talked to the woman just days before the drowning. An unexpected meeting with Dorsey Finch, the victim’s tenant, leads to discovering the woman’s strange past—a story reaching back to 1940s Hollywood and a well-known house on Nob Hill in San Francisco.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BWL Publishing Inc.
• Release date: Aug 7, 2015
• ISBN: 9781771453400

Karla Stover

Karla Stover graduated from the University of Washington in 1995 with honors in history. She has been writing for more than twenty years. Locally, her credits include the Tacoma News Tribune, the Tacoma Weekly, the Tacoma Reporter, and the Puget Sound Business Journal. Nationally, she has published in Ruralite, Chronicle of the Old West, and Birds and Blooms. Internationally, she was a regular contributor to the European Crown and the Imperial Russian Journal. In addition, she writes monthly magazine columns, “Walk Abouts” for Senior Scene and “The Weekender” for Country Pleasures. In 2008, she won the Chistell Prize for a short story entitled “One Day at Appomattox.” Weekly she is the host of “Local History With Karla Stover” on KLAY AM 1180, and she is the advertising voice for three local businesses. Her books, Let’s Go Walk About in Tacoma came out in August 2009 and Hidden History of Tacoma: Little Known Stories From the City of Destiny, in March 2012.

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Murder, When One Isn’t Enough

by

Karla Stover

ISBN: 978-1-77145-340-0

http://bookswelove.com

Copyright 2014 by Karla Stover.

Cover Art Copyright 2014 by Michelle Lee.

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

Chapter One

The day I saw Alice Thorndyke’s body pulled from Hood Canal was the day I gave up eating crab. I knew what they ate. Dungeness and Red Rock crab soft-shell season had just started, and I shuddered at the thought of a chilled crab cocktail.

I wasn’t thinking about death and dying as I walked Rufus down the canal’s North Shore Road in late-afternoon, middle-of-the-week, July quiet. I was thinking about exercising Cocker Spaniel-energy before it started to rain. The wind no longer blew from the north as it had for the past week. It came from the south, a sure sign of a weather change. On the beach, the tide quit nibbling at the gravel and oyster shell-strewn shore and began to froth. Seagulls loudly protested the change. Driven from floats and pilings, they headed inland to look for shelter. As I stopped to let Rufus sniff, I looked southeast across the water toward the Skokomish Indian Reservation where the sky was filling ominously with gray, swollen clouds.

Like the suddenly boiling clouds, I had been restless myself most of the day. Perhaps it was the sudden change in barometric pressure. Perhaps it was the week-and-a-half of self-imposed isolation. Maybe I should have stayed in town after all, I thought. However, the opportunity to enjoy a month’s leave of absence from my job at my parents’ Hood Canal beach home seemed too good to pass up. All I had to do was dog sit and rest while they were away. I may be a little Rock and Roll but I guess I’m not as much Country as I thought I was, I decided, and immediately cheered myself up with the old Donny and Marie Osmond song.

Rufus quit tugging on his leash and paused to stick his nose in a varmint-made tunnel hidden in the wild berry bushes. While he did, I watched two boys shove a skiff into the water and point it toward a red and white buoy bouncing in the chop. Within seconds their little Evinrude motor sputtered into action. The boat rode the waves well, but I was glad both boys wore life vests. One way or another, since my family moved to the canal in the 1950s, we had become acquainted with several accidental drowning.

I watched the boat’s progress while Rufus charged ahead to a new sniff. The buoy the boys aimed for was several hundred feet offshore. The crab trap it was attached to would be about forty feet down. July was breeding season, and regular wire-sided, square crab pots were illegal. I knew they would be using a ring trap which lay flat on the sand and sea grass. As the boys gaffed the buoy and began pulling on the rope, I pictured the sides closing up around its catch like a Venus flytrap.

When Rufus decided to hone his tracking ability by going over the side of the bank from the road to the beach, I let his leash go. He picked a path carefully down the ten foot embankment to a fine-pebbled shingle, and I followed, making my way gingerly through berry bushes and Nooksa roses. The little isolated strip we ended up on had been created decades previously, when bulkheads protruding into the water blocked larger debris while letting small stones wash around their corners. Generally, we wore Aqua Socks to walk on the canal’s beaches, but here the shore was made up of an expanse of smooth pebbles that had built up, until swimming in that particular spot was easy on the feet. I worked my sneaker-shod feet down among the stones until I felt the cool damp.

Rufus, who in spite of four summers on the canal, wasn’t overly encumbered with brains, bit at the incoming foam of water and shook his head in surprise at the salty taste. I continued to watch the boys, both pulling hand over hand on the slimy rope. Either they were extremely weak, or the trap was exceptionally full and heavy, because one reasonably fit person could have brought it up in less time and with minimal effort.

In the way unusual outdoor activity had of attracting people, gawkers came out of their houses or gathered at the edges of their decks to watch the action. For mid-week, there was quite a crowd—nearly a dozen. I saw hands holding a few cans of beer, but more cups of coffee. Most everyone was still in shorts, but with the change in weather, nearly all had donned sweatshirts. The murmur of voices and laughter drifted toward me. In our corner of the canal, crabbing, shrimping, and clamming, attracted people to watch, weigh in on, and discuss the catch. I knew when-I-was-a-kid stories would be going around.

I was alone only briefly on my stretch of beach, because watchers attract additional watchers, and others like me, stopped to see what was going on.

Octopus? Someone guessed.

Could be. Won’t be the first time one has gotten tangled in a crab pot.

The tide’s coming in good. Pot probably shifted. Maybe it hooked up on one of the old pilings.

Or got tangled up in another rope.

Speculation went up and down the line of people as the wind grew stronger, the temperature colder, and the waves higher. There was a pause in the activity around the skiff and then we heard exclamations that turned into shrieks.

Shit! It’s a person! One of the boys yelled. Somehow, they managed to wave their arms while at the same time holding onto the rope. Get a boat out here quick! It’s a body!

They no doubt shouted more of the same, but a slew of activity drowned out the words. After a frozen moment, two men ran toward the finger pier which extended from the top of the embankment to docks that floated just beyond the mean low tide line. In a matter of minutes, they piled into an indoor-outdoor Bayliner moored in one of the float’s four slips, started the engine, and took off. The distance was short, but they were going against the elements. It was easiest for them to go out and around where the pram and the boys bobbed up and down, and then circle back with the waves. As they approached, the man at the wheel reduced the engine to idle while another hung protective bumpers over the sides and pulled the little skiff fast.

Call the sheriff, one of them yelled, repeating what the boys had already said. We got a dead body here.

What to do when the crime scene’s a couple a hundred feet or so from shore? I sure didn’t know. However, amazingly, both boats stayed put, with the four taking turns holding the rope. Since the sheriff’s office was in Belfair, eighteen or so miles south of our Tahuya community, and the road is a winding two-laner, I was surprised to hear the siren’s wail in a matter of minutes. Apparently, a car had been in the area. At the Tahuya Fire Hall/Community Center, I guessed, since a Medic One vehicle followed it.

In the interim, some people hurried home to count heads, while others of us made useless speculations. Rufus ventured further and further into the water, chasing whatever moved. I called him back and snapped his leash on, walked him to a place where the bank was low and easy to climb, and started back to my parents’ house. While I did, more boats unnecessarily joined the original two at the buoy where they all bounced around in the increasingly hostile waves.

When a sheriff’s car and the Medic One pulled up, one of the boats bobbing near the buoy returned to the dock and ferried the occupants out to the scene. As they worked, we were able to see the body for the first time—female with long white hair, wearing what was left of a pink dress, sandals, and a sweater. Drifting sea weed clung to her clothing, on her extremities, and on the crab trap as the tangled mass surfaced.

By this time, I stood on the edge of the bulkhead between my parent’s place and the house next door. A pair of binoculars was making its way down the line of people. When it was my turn, I saw the effects of the water and the crabs on the exposed parts of the body—blue-black or red-black, and chewed-looking. While those around me either averted their gaze or watched with avid curiosity, I found myself thinking about the dress. Long years of painting had left me knowledgeable about color variations. I often saw things in terms of what to blend with what in order to achieve a particular shade. It also taught me how to appreciate Jackson Pollock’s artwork, but that’s another story. The pink of her dress reminded me of the color of Indian Feather blossoms, I thought, a pale alizarin crimson. Good grief. I sound like a Sunday morning artist on PBS. Nevertheless, the color seemed familiar.

I watched the deputy and paramedics don latex gloves. Of course they have, you dolt, I told myself. They wear them now for every investigation—to protect themselves and the crime scene. You’ve read enough crime books to know that. After the deputy took a bunch of photographs, he and the medics loaded the body onto the Bayliner and someone started the engine. I guessed the crime scene had been secured.

Since my parents were co-owners of the finger pier and boat slips, I had every legal right to try to get closer to where the paramedics wrestled with their equipment. Sensitivity to the deceased was something I ignored. I wondered if, when the men put the body on the gurney, they’d include the crab pot so as not to disturb any possible evidence. If it contained crabs, would they return them to the water?

Just as I anticipated earlier, raindrops began to race-walk across the water toward us. The cold, damp weather, and Rufus’s pulling and lunging, had given me a backache. Instead of heading straight for the dock, I went home first. I give Rufus a hasty rubdown with the kitchen towel, grabbed a hooded sweatshirt, and closed the dog inside. Back outside, I joined in the commentary with a few of the neighbors I knew.

This is the first drowning since we’ve been here, said Rebecca Reeves. She crossed her arms over her chest in a defensive gesture. Rebecca and Ray, who were fortyish and seemed to have a gaggle of teenagers, had invested some inheritance money in their waterfront property a year ago. Throughout the summer, vibrant colored beach towels and drying swimsuits covered their yard like a confetti explosion. I could have shown the Reeves a well-diversified portfolio of stocks and bonds, I thought reverting, for a moment, to my working self, but real estate was currently a better bet than CDs, and beachfront real estate was a lot more fun.

Everyone present and accounted for? I asked.

Yeah, best friends, girlfriends, boyfriends, and family pets, said Rebecca. This is one of the few times I can say, ‘Thank God for TV.’ They’re all inside.

I’m surprised they’re not out here now taking in the action.

I didn’t give them details. They think it’s a heart attack—some dull thing having to do with old people, that plus the weather, apathy, and cartoons, have them occupied.

Rebecca and I stood quietly for a moment and watched the other boats return to the dock. I wished I had the binoculars again, but didn’t want to miss anything while I went inside and hunted up a pair. And, I didn’t want to show my prurient interest to the neighbors. I did see that the body went into a bag and it, plus the rope and the crab pot, were on the gurney. The pot looked empty. With one paramedic facing the gurney and walking backwards and the other frontward at the foot, they maneuvered the gurney up the swaying ramp. As they came closer, I found myself looking, not at their cargo, but at the scene behind them. I realized I didn’t like the fact there wasn’t a TV screen between me and a dead body.

Behind the paramedics, came the two boys and the men who had gone out to help. Some were silent, others talked and gestured. At the top, they separated and headed in different directions. Ray came up the stairs and joined Rebecca and me.

Rebecca opened the sliding glass door that connected their living room with their deck. Jason, get your dad some coffee, she yelled. Then she turned toward her husband.

God, he said as he rubbed both hands across his head. Water flew into the air, mingled with the rain, and splattered us.

I wondered what I could ask: Anyone we know? How long did it look like the body had been out there? Any obvious signs of murder? Were the crabs males or females? However, before I could think of a sufficiently sensitive question he said, At least it wasn’t anyone we know—knew. Then after a pause he added, That is, I don’t think so.

Maybe you didn’t know them, I thought. You’re newcomers, but how about me? However, what I said was, It was a woman, wasn’t it? I thought I saw a skirt.

Yeah, and a pretty old woman, too, if her hair was anything to go by. He stopped when Jason slid open the door far enough to hand out a mug of coffee.

We could see the hair was white.

Plenty of it, too.

Like the color of the dress, his comment about a lot of white hair also rang a bell, but before I could catch the memory, he was saying, She was so little. She’d barely have made a splash when she fell in. Arms and legs like twigs. She still had her watch on, and gold earrings. Maybe they can identify her through them.

What about fingerprints? I asked.

"I can’t remember her hands. Her eyes were gone and her nose. Crabs, bottom

fish . . ." It was a vague unfinished statement. A shudder shook the mug in his hand sloshing coffee from side to side.

Well, dental records might help. I sighed.

Before Ray could answer, Rebecca asked if it looked like an accident.

I haven’t a clue.

The deputy?

Your typical Saw-Wood-And-Say-Nothing. There was sand and seaweed and bits of rope and I don’t know what all clinging everywhere, and all he would say was, ‘Be careful not to disturb any evidence.’

Well, we don’t get many drownings around here, I said, and when we do it’s usually kids fooling around. I remember the last one happened about 15 years ago. Some people down by the slough had out-of-state friends staying. It was just before my aunt and uncle closed their fishing resort that used to be down the beach a ways, and retired. Uncle Bill had a friend, an old retired logger who used to hang around—guy about 80. He warned the kids about the tide, but they wouldn’t listen. When the youngest boy went down and no one could get to him in time, Duke told the divers where the body would drift, ‘right over there by those old logging-bridge pilings coming out of Dry Creek,’ he said, but the divers wouldn’t listen to that either. Two hours later, they found the kid right where Duke said he would be.

Is that what those pilings coming down Dry Creek are, part of an old logging bridge? asked Rebecca. I’ve wondered.

Originally, the land on both sides of the canal was pretty much exclusively part of the logging industry, I answered. The hills were dotted with logging camps. At Dry Creek, a railroad spur brought the logs down to the water, where men like Duke and his brother, Hulbert, loaded them on boats for shipment to local mills, or to California, or wherever.

You’d think, with all the jet skis and stuff, that there’d be more accidents than there are, said Ray.

Wouldn’t you, though?

The conversation died and Ray sneezed, and then sneezed again. Rebecca took the mug from his hand and pushed him toward the door. A hot show er for you. As the door opened and they went in, I heard a chorus of, When are we going home? There’s nothing to do here when it rains.

My own greeting at home was considerably warmer. Though Porch Cat, a big old tom who’d hung around the porch of my apartment until I let him adopt me, was napping and saw no need to disturb himself, and Jose, the little parrot I’d taken on after the death of a friend, was cracking birdseeds from his dish, Rufus was all wiggles and licks. I saw by the smears on the door that he had spent his time with his nose pressed to the glass staring outside.

It was close enough to his dinner time for me to mix him a bowl of kibbles and canned food. Then, while he chowed down, I got the heating pad and snuggled down on the couch to consider my own situation.

I had gone on a month’s leave after I was attacked at work. At the time, my plan had been to retreat to a place where I could heal and, not incidentally, start on my long-delayed Great American Novel. To that effect, I’d even purchased a computer—not a casual expense on my income, and not realizing I’d also need to buy a word processing program. I’d violated my own personal rule: when something is new on the market, such as computers, wait until they’ve been around a while. The idea was to stay at my folk’s place at the canal and take care of it while they were out of the country, instead of hanging around in my apartment. It would eliminate interruptions from friends in the building, and phone calls from work, plus, I could take care of Rufus. It was to be a writer’s retreat. The book would be an insightful coming-of-age—historical—mystery— something-or-other. Unfortunately, in the few days I had been retreating, so to speak, it appeared I apparently lacked the willpower to start. Well, that and some expertise. I wasn’t particularly insightful about anything. All I knew about the much-ballyhooed ’60s when I was born was what I’d read, or seen on the History Channel. The Russian Romanovs, the only historical dynasty I knew inside and out from excessive reading, had been researched and written about to death all ready. A mystery? I knew nothing of how the cops worked; I didn’t even know law enforcement jargon. Was the local term perp for perpetrator, or suspect, or just plain bad guy? The little details were important, because avid mystery readers were smart. I did read mysteries, though. And now I even had a corpse—so to speak. Could I build something around an old woman who’d drowned?

In the kitchen, Rufus pushed his dish across the floor and then came to lie beside me. He settled his head on his paws with a sigh and closed his eyes. I knew from