Murder, She Floats Read online

  I stifled my giggle. “Nice meeting you,” I said to Samantha as she chased after him. So Ben was in town with a Walton and looking for rocks. Hmm. There was definitely a story here.

  On the way home, I stopped at the Boho Burger Hut for takeout. I ordered double of everything and headed for Rebel’s house.

  Chapter Ten

  _____________

  R ebel was still wearing her scrubs when I climbed the steps to her farm house porch. She looked exhausted but happy to see me as she opened the screen door wide for a hug.

  “I come bearing food–but there’s only enough for you and I, so Leif is gonna have to slap some peanut butter to bread.”

  Rebel snickered and took the bag from me. “Oh, it’s just us. Not that I’d share with him, anyway.” She set the greasy brown bag on the kitchen island and pulled out a burger.

  “Nice. Where’s Leif?”

  “Probably fishing.”

  “On a Thursday night?”

  “I’m pretty sure the fish don’t care what day it is.”

  Rebel’s husband was the typical Bohemian Lake District man. He was tall, whiskery, and sported a beer belly. When he wasn’t moose, deer, or duck hunting, he was fishing.

  “Don’t you get sick of him being gone all the time?”

  “Hah!” She took a seat on the stool and patted the one next to her. “You clearly aren’t married. Alone time is precious time. Besides, I’m hoping he’s just hiding a second job–maybe he’s saving up to take me on a trip somewhere tropical. I could use a midnight margarita. Hell, I could use a 7 a.m. margarita most days.” She bit a hunk out of the burger and chewed as she spoke, but luckily I knew how to translate Rebel’s muffled garb. “Holy cow, this was the longest day at work ever! Two female clients snuck out again.”

  “Really? Is it that bad in there?”

  “Hell, no.” She swallowed the bite. “They love the place. They just wanted to go skinny dipping, and I was the lucky one who had to chase the old birds down.”

  I couldn’t help but chuckle at the image. “Yeah, but how hard is it to catch a couple of old ladies?”

  “Well, that’s what you’d think, but try chasing someone who’s high as a kite and buck naked and see if you can catch ‘em. I think one of them even greased up beforehand ‘cause she was slippery as all get out. I’m gonna hide the damn coconut oil next time I’m there. My boss thinks its Eve who’s supplying them with psychedelic mushrooms, but he can’t prove it.”

  My sides hurt from laughing. “Of course Eve is involved.”

  “Right?” She twisted the cork on our fancy bottle of ten dollar wine and poured us each a glass. “Oh, but Pen, you should see these old girls giggling and tumbling across the lawn. Man, they were having fun. I couldn’t help but picture us doing that one day.”

  I smiled. “Mrs. Berns is sort of my hero. She might be a pain in the ass but she’s all heart.”

  She passed me a glass and I raised it to hers. “To misfits, rebels and—”

  “...and trouble makers,” Rebel finished. “Anyway, aside from today’s laughs, I feel like all I do is go to work, come home, eat, watch some TV, and go to bed. And they pay me just enough to get up the next day and do it all over again. You gonna eat all that gravy?”

  I passed her the gravy container and poured another glass of wine. “You do look tired. I guess you don’t want to go out for a night on the town tomorrow night, huh?”

  “I wish. The most exciting thing I do these days is watch Game of Thrones and go to bed. But actually I have to work tomorrow night.”

  “What’s this?” I asked, picking up a folder.

  “Oh, that’s Leif’s Grandma’s stuff. She died a couple of months ago. We inherited all her junk. Leif’s been pretty attached to the idea of going through everything–I guess it’s just part of the grieving process, right?”

  “Is this her?” I asked, pulling out an old photo of the beach at Caravan Manor.

  Rebel wiped a droplet of wine from her chin and set down her glass. “Sorry, I’m dribbling like a child now. Apparently, I’m more tired than I thought. Yes, that’s his Gramma in the frilly polka dot two-piece. Wasn’t she a hottie? I used to tease her–called her Bridget Bardot. That’s Leif’s dad playing in the sand–he would have been four or five there. You know his grandfather actually worked at the Manor?”

  “He did?” My interest was now officially piqued–someone else to interview. “Can I talk to him? I’m working this story on the coin and today I found bones in Bohemian Lake.”

  “Shut the front door! Bones, for real? In Bohemian? That’s gonna haunt me the next time I go swimming. But no, sorry, Gramma Rouse was his last living relative. Leif never knew his grandfather. He died in a car crash in ’63. Leif’s dad was just a baby at the time.” Her eyes focused on me, and her voice softened from complaining to curious. “I think that’s why he’s so obsessed with all this stuff. His parents died last year, right, so I think he feels like an orphan now. But, enough rambling, tell me about these bones.”

  “I don’t know much yet. I left before they pulled them up but I did get to meet Detective Lumos.”

  “He’s a handsome lad, now, isn’t he?”

  “And some. I was over to your work to interview Joe Tate Sr. as well and he mentioned the bones might belong to Ben’s grandfather, Benjamin. He told me all about how they were best friends and how he never believed that Benjamin would have run off, even if he had stolen anything.”

  “Yeah, Joe is such a softie. He mentions him now and then. I know he misses him. Hey, why didn’t you say hi to me if you were at my work today? I could have used a dose of sanity.”

  “Oh well, I ran into Leif just outside Mr. Tate’s door and he said you were too busy to take to lunch so I just figured you were also too busy to chat with me.” Rebel’s forehead creased as I spoke and I wondered if I’d said something wrong. “That was probably about the time you were chasing the wild ones, right?”

  She shook her head. “I didn’t see Leif today, and no one mentioned that he’d even asked after me. That is so weird. Anyway, enough about my dreary life, tell me what’s been happening with you? You and jerk face still in splitsville?”

  I nodded. “Lucas is now living with the actress he left me for. I’m sure she’ll tire of him soon but he’s not welcome back into my life, regardless.”

  “What about that guy you were dating from the travel magazine?”

  “Blake? He was just a work booty call–nothing serious. I’m sure he’s already moved on now that I’m home.” I finished filling her in on my interview with Joe Sr. and the questions it raised and then I moved on to my subsequent eavesdropping session on Ben and his girl at the Manor.

  “You know how you told me that Ben’s mom was complaining about his new girlfriend and how she wouldn’t stay at the house. I don’t suppose she mentioned where that girl was from, did she?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “It was a long shot. Mind if I use your laptop for a minute?”

  “Nope.” She pushed the open computer across the counter and I went through several newspaper archives before I found what I was looking for. “That’s what I thought.”

  “What did you think?” Rebel asked from the other room.

  “That the girl is related to the coin collector,” I called back. “What are you doing in there, anyway?” She’d been gone a long time and she sounded half-asleep.

  “I’m relaxing on the couch,” she responded.

  Okay. I cleared my throat so I could speak loudly. “Samantha’s last name, Walton, is the same as the coin collector that died, but if he died and he wasn’t married, then how could he have children.”

  Rebel didn’t respond, so I kept looking. I pulled up a family tree on the Waltons. Then it dawned on me. “The woman who found the coin–Vera–she must have married George’s brother after she divorced the actor.”

  I pulled the obituary back up:

  Vera Walton, aged 80, died of heart
failure in her home in Montreal. Her husband, Bill Walton, preceded Mrs. Walton in death. She will be missed by her beloved daughter Georgina and her granddaughter Samantha.

  I snapped a photo of the obituary with my phone and walked out to find Rebel snoring on the couch, the corners of her mouth still greasy from the food. I pulled off her shoes and covered her with an afghan.

  On my way out the door I noticed a book on rare coins on the counter. Rebel must have been looking up the nickel. I bet she wanted to find the coin so she could quit her job. Poor girl. Too bad she couldn’t dive–maybe I’d find that coin for her.

  Chapter Eleven

  _____________

  T he streets were pretty busy for a Thursday night, which meant all of two cars drove by and there were actually people walking toward me. We were on the same block before I realized it was Nana, Mallory and Dani. Nana and Mallory were petite women like me, but Dani stood out. She was the youngest but tallest of the family. She was pushing five-eight, with wild and edgy hair a shade of pink pastel.

  “Penelope! How’re you doing?” Mallory held out her arms for a hug and smiled warmly at me. Nana did the same.

  I suddenly felt personally responsible for the existence of a dead body in front of their resort and lowered my head. “I’m good. I stopped by the resort looking for you this afternoon but you weren’t there.” I wondered if they knew yet. “How’s your day been?”

  They looked at each other and chuckled. “Good enough to raise the dead,” Nana said with a wink.

  I recoiled. “You heard?”

  “About the remains?”

  “Yes. Oh my god... you’re not upset?”

  “Why would we be upset?”

  “Because someone was either murdered or died in the lake your guests swim in and boat on. Don’t you think that will scare them away?”

  “Oh, honey, murder doesn’t scare people away. There are more curious and morbid people out there than not. If someone was murdered, I guarantee our place would be filled with looky-loo’s.”

  “What do you mean, if? Don’t you believe I found someone’s bones today?”

  “That was you, dear? Oh, we didn’t know. They just told us a diver came across what she thought was a dead body in Bohemian Lake early this afternoon, right out front of our beach.”

  “They said that? They said, ‘what she thought was a dead body?’”

  Mallory reached out and took my hand. “No one told you, yet?”

  “Told me what?” I was beginning to feel crazy. “Will someone just tell me what the hell is going on?”

  “You found the bones of a caribou.”

  My eyes went wide, and I had a genuine coughing fit. I had almost drowned over a dead deer? Jeez.

  “A caribou? Are you sure? I mean, it was muddy, and I didn’t stick around long, but it didn’t look like an animal’s skeleton. I didn’t see antlers or anything. I wonder if they looked in the right spot.”

  Mallory screwed up her face, her green eyes twinkling. “Don’t worry, Pen. Even if it wasn’t an animal, it was probably some attention-getting prank related to the contest. No one’s been reported missing, so it’s not like it’s a real dead body.”

  I smiled and nodded. “So, I guess this means I’m the joke of the town at the moment? The girl who cried bones.”

  Nana took a step forward and placed her hand on my back. “You want me to streak through the streets in my underwear?”

  “God, Nana. No!” Dani blurted out. “For the love of all that is decent, why would you do that?”

  I covered my mouth with my hands and stifled a giggle.

  “Because, dear, until someone provides a diversion people will keep wagging their tongues. The trick is to give them something more interesting to focus their attention on, and I don’t mind helping out... in my opinion not enough people talk about my backside anymore.”

  “Yeah, for good reason,” Dani mumbled.

  “What was that, girlie? You sayin’ there’s somethin’ wrong with my backside?”

  “Here we go. You’ve done it now,” Mallory said, laughing.

  “I’ll have you know most men in this town have chased after this backside at one point or another.”

  “Oh lord.” Dani rolled her eyes.

  “Thank you, Nana. That is an intriguing offer and you certainly have a lovely body, but I’ll just wait it out.” I said.

  “Yeah, fair enough, maybe someone really will get murdered or something. Helen is certainly high on my list.”

  “Nana!” Mallory scolded.

  “What? I’m just saying, if we’re lucky it’ll be someone we don’t like.”

  Mallory cut in. “Why don’t you come to the resort tomorrow night? The Gypsy Carnival Band has agreed to give an outdoor performance, weather permitting. There’s going to be a macabre carnival theme happening with magic, tarot cards and cotton candy. It’s going to be fun.”

  Nana reached out and patted my hand. “That’s a great idea, and just the thing to take your mind off this.”

  “Okay. I’ll see you there.” I did my best to forget about my deadly dive as I entered Cookies & Corsets. The shop was two stores operating out of one space, just as the name suggested. The café side was jammed with tables, booths and baked goods and separated by a beaded curtain where all the vintage goods were displayed. Both the café owner Pike and the shop keeper Lulu were lovely. Pike was young, with blonde bobbed hair and a preference for silk slip dresses with chucks, even in the winter, and Lulu had flowing hippy-like brown hair that she pulled back with flamboyant barrettes. The place smelled like a combination of fresh laundry, coffee and vanilla bean.

  “Penelope! We’d heard you were back in town. Welcome home,” Lulu commented, walking out from behind her counter.

  “Thanks Lou, it’s nice to see a friendly face. I’ve had a hell of a day. I thought I found a person’s remains in the lake earlier but turns out that it was a deer.”

  “That was you?” Lulu turned, then hollered: “Pike! The bones in Bohemian–guess who cried dead body!”

  Pike showed up at the front counter wiping her flour-covered hands on a rainbow-colored apron. She grinned broadly when she saw me. “Well, well, well, if it ain’t Trubble. Oh, how I’ve missed you, girl. This town is all abuzz about you coming back.”

  Without meaning to, I grimaced.

  “You’re not so happy about that, huh?” She placed her hands on her slender hips.

  I fished in the pockets of my cutoffs for money. “Why am I the last one to know that the remains weren’t human?” I asked.

  “That’s a good question. You just showed up in town and this is the first we’ve seen your pretty face, so I’m gonna assume you’ve been hiding out.” Lulu walked across the store and put her hand on mine and gave it a pat.

  Pike nodded. “It’ll get better. You’ll get used to the Bohemian Lake gossip wheel again.”

  “Fair enough. Can I get a cappuccino?”

  Pike operated the gurgling machine and winked at me as she slid it across the counter. “This one’s on the house. Anything else?”

  “No, thanks.” I sipped gingerly at the creamy hot coffee, “Call me if you hear something that sounds like news. I’m supposed to be a reporter.”

  “Will do.” Pike said with a wink.

  I went back to the cabin and found Guinness curled up in her favorite spot. I fed her and let her out, and with both our tummies full I filled up my water bottle and passed out on my bed, too tired to undress or even crawl under the blankets. Most likely because of this, I slept fitfully that night and woke at least three times.

  Every time I woke my mind hovered over the bones I’d found in Bohemian Lake. Were they even real, or was Mallory right? Had someone planted them in the hopes of scaring people off?

  Chapter Twelve

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  O n the fourth wake-up, I gave up on wrestling the sandman and moved to the couch. There was nothing on Netflix so I put in one of Olivia’s discs: Pract
ical Magic. It was a favorite of mine but it just wasn’t the same watching it without Rebel. I shut it off before our favorite part and decided what I needed to do was kick the crap out of something. Thankfully I’d toted my trusty old punching bag along with me.

  I changed into some shorts and pulled a light sweater over my tank. Guinness didn’t know what to make of my being up, so she followed me as I stepped out onto the front deck. The air was cool, the leftovers of a ninety-degree day losing out to the quiet morning chill. I closed my eyes so I could better hear the rustlings in the woods and smell the mystery of Bohemian Lake. My punching bag was hanging from the tree out front, where I’d secured its chain around one of the larger tree limbs when I’d first arrived.

  I quickly got down to business throwing jabs and slipping out of the way. It would have been nice to have my bolo bag too but that would require a more permanent arrangement than I had right now. I continued slipping punches until I began to sweat. Meanwhile my mind was working through my problems. Ben was back in town, and he had brought with him Samantha Walton, a quirky hipster who was likely related to the man who owned the coin in Bohemian Lake decades ago. I was sure there was more to the original story than simply a lost coin, and overhearing Ben at Gypsy Caravan Manor had confirmed my hunch that there was something hidden in the manor. Maybe it was the missing coin, or maybe it was the stolen jewels.

  I worked my legs while bobbing and weaving about the ground. Once I was warmed up, I stepped forward on the ball of my left foot, pivoting as I moved, and my right leg swung up, bent at the knee. My foot lashed out. The black punching bag rocked on its chain. My right foot touched down, and I pivoted lightly on the ball of that foot, my body oriented this time to face the bag. I continued the kicking, the pivoting, alternating the side kicks with the front kicks, practicing my weaker back kicks, my breathing growing deeper but never losing its rhythm — exploding out with the kick, coming in deep with the retraction. The bag danced on the end of its chain, swinging back and forth, requiring more and more of my concentration to plant the next kick accurately. I was tiring.