I was staring in shock at the phone in my hand when Watson ran out of the library, Butch hot on his heels. Watson was good at hiding his feelings, but Butch wasn’t. The look he threw me was positively stricken.
Whatever they’d found upstairs had to do with my mom. I ran after Watson. “What’s going on? You have to tell me what’s happened. I know it’s about my mother.”
Butch got into the driver’s seat of the cruiser. Watson stopped, his hand on the door. “There’s been a development. Your mother’s not under arrest at this time, but she is being brought into the station. You might want to alert Amos O’Malley. I’m going there now. You can follow us if you want.”
He got into the car and they sped away.
I ran back into the library. “What on earth?” Bertie said as I charged past her. I dashed down the hall and into the break room, where my purse and car keys were. Good thing I had the SLK; if any cop dared to try to pull me over, I’d just lead him to the police station.
“Gotta go,” I yelled to Bertie.
I leapt into the SLK and tore down the lighthouse road in a spray of gravel. I sped down Highway 12 to the Croatan Highway. I didn’t put the top down, and I didn’t notice the scenery. I am well aware that it’s highly dangerous to phone and drive at the same time, but I threw caution to the wind and called Uncle Amos. I told him what I knew—precious little—and he said he was on his way. I threw the phone onto the seat beside me. There’d been an accident on the Croatan by the outlet shops, and traffic slowed to a crawl. Up ahead I could see the red top of a fire truck and numerous flashing red lights. I pounded the dash in frustration. I inched the car forward and, when I figured I could make it, swung onto the verge of the road, squeezed past a van piled high with camping equipment and kids, and pulled into a driveway. I made a U-turn and edged back onto the highway, trying to squeeze the SLK through the double row of cars. If the SLK had been an inch longer, I wouldn’t have made it, but eventually I was through. Taking my life in my hands, I shot into the briefest gap in the southbound traffic, speeding up as it escaped the bottleneck. Back toward the lighthouse, and then a sharp left into Virginia Dare Trail, and heading north again. Traffic was heavy as everyone tried to avoid the accident, but at least it was moving.
I can’t say why I was in such a mad rush. It was unlikely that a mob of irate townsfolk had gathered outside the Nags Head police station with torches and pitchforks, intent on dragging Suzanne Wyatt Richardson off to an impromptu hanging. I shook away an image of Detective Watson standing on the steps, shotgun balanced loosely in his arms, pushing the brim of his hat back and telling them to “go off home now, folks.”
Whatever they’d found upstairs had to have been about Mom, but I couldn’t imagine what it could possibly have been and what was so important about it that Watson immediately sent people around to arrest her (sorry—take her in for questioning). It all happened so fast; there must have been cops at the hotel. I’d seen an officer there earlier, talking to Dowager Countess Wannabe who was missing her granddaughter’s birthday present. Had that officer then gone to talk to Mom? Had he been asking her about book club last night, and had Mom said something so stupid and condescending he thought she was confessing?
I pounded the dashboard once again.
It seemed like years, but was probably only ten minutes before I pulled into the Nags Head police station. If Butch and Watson got stuck on the Croatan, I might even be here ahead of them.
I ran into the building and demanded to see Detective Watson immediately.
All my hurrying had been for naught, as I was politely, yet firmly, told to take a seat. I then sat worrying and fuming for a good fifteen minutes until Uncle Amos strolled in. Tall and lanky and slow-moving with a deep Louisiana accent, he always reminded me of Gregory Peck in To Kill a Mockingbird. I had as much confidence in my uncle Amos as I did in Atticus Finch. And that was a comforting thought.
He said nothing to me but gave me a nod before speaking to the receptionist. He was told to come on in. I was not.
More worrying. More fuming.
Fortunately, I always have a book buried somewhere in the depths of my bag. When I calmed down enough to realize that all I could do was wait, I pulled it out. I hadn’t yet started The Haunting of Maddy Clare by Simone St. James. A good ghost story seemed to be exactly what I needed right now. I’d been carrying the book around for a while. I wasn’t superstitious, not in the least, but Louise Jane’s stories of the lighthouse’s history of hauntings had put me in the mood to not want to delve into a tale of the wandering undead before falling asleep. Even with the mighty Charles to protect me.
I hadn’t phoned my dad. I probably should, but I figured I’d wait until I found out what was going on. It might be better if Uncle Amos called him, lawyer to lawyer. Although Dad was a corporate lawyer, and I didn’t think he’d stepped foot in a courtroom since articling, he’d still know all the jargon and get mad at me because I didn’t.
A steady stream of people came in and out of the police station. Feeling like a high school girl hoping for a date, I kept checking my iPhone, thinking that I might not hear it ring if Mom got the chance to make another call. Nothing. No encouraging text messages, either. Finally, the door to the inner sanctum opened. Out came Uncle Amos and my mom, followed by Detective Watson. I leapt to my feet.
Mom was pale and her face drawn into dark lines, but her Ralph Lauren jacket and pants were as immaculate as they had been this morning and scarcely a hair was out of place. She said not a word to me, but marched out of the police station, head high and back straight. Uncle Amos jerked his head in my direction, telling me to follow. I ran after them into the hot, bright sunlight. I couldn’t have been in the police station as long as I thought I had.
“I came in the SLK,” I said. “Do you want it?”
“Yes.” Mom dug in her bag and brought out an enormous pair of Armani sunglasses. “That was quite the most embarrassing experience of my life. One I hope never to repeat. Thank you, Amos, for coming down. Can you take Lucy home?”
“This isn’t over, Suzanne,” Uncle Amos said.
She shrugged. “It is for now. I need to go back to the hotel and lie down. What time is our dinner reservation, Lucy?”
“Dinner?”
“You made the reservation, didn’t you?”
“Yes, but . . .”
“Dinner’s a good idea,” Uncle Amos said. “We need to talk this over.”
Mom held out her hand. “Keys.”
I gave them to her. “Seven o’clock at Jake’s. I’ll pick you up at ten of.”
“I’ll drive myself.”
“I’ll pick you up.”
“If you must.” She headed toward her car. Then she stopped and turned around. “Did you call your father?”
“Not yet. I thought I’d wait until I could tell him what was happening.”
“Good. Don’t bother him with this.”
“I still think—” Uncle Amos said, but Mom was walking away.
Amos and I exchanged glances, and then we walked to his car.
“I’ve just remembered,” I said. “My car’s at the hotel. Can you drop me there instead of at the lighthouse?”
“Of course,” he said.
“What happened?” I asked once we were seated in Uncle Amos’s comfortable Camry.
He pulled into traffic. “We’ll talk about it at dinner, but it doesn’t look good. I don’t know if your mother’s putting up a brave front—the Wyatt girls are good at that—or if she genuinely doesn’t understand. I wish I could call your dad, but she ordered me not to.”
“They didn’t charge her with anything, did they? She wouldn’t be out this fast, not for a murder, if they had.”
“She’s not to leave Dare County.”
“Why? What could they possibly have on Mom for the death of Karen? The very idea’s preposterous.”
“We’ll discuss it at dinner,” Uncle Amos said. “When Suzanne can give me a full explanation. At this time, she’s not been accused of murder. Only of theft.”
For a moment I thought he was joking. But there was no smile on his face or twinkle in his eyes. “You can’t be serious.”
“Your mother owns a beach bag? A big white canvas one with a blue sailing ship on it?”
“Yes.”
“Have you seen it recently?”
“Last night. She brought it to the library in case she wanted to select some books for the rest of her vacation.”
“Did she take it with her when she left?”
“I don’t know.” I thought. “Now that you’re asking, I don’t remember seeing it again.”
“It was found in the third-floor room of the library. On the floor behind a pile of chairs.”
“Karen folded the chairs and stacked them. Maybe she pushed them against the wall and didn’t notice the bag was still there. Why does this matter, Uncle Amos?”
“Inside the bag, they found a necklace. A diamond-and-gold necklace.”
“So, my mother owns lots of nice things.”
“Unfortunately, the necklace didn’t belong to her. It had been reported stolen from the Ocean Side Hotel just a few hours earlier. Your mother insisted she’d never seen it before.”
* * *
I drove back to the library in a daze. Bertie was in the break room, pouring herself a drink of water. She took one look at my face and handed the glass to me. I downed it in one go. “What’s happening, honey? Here, sit down.”
I dropped into a chair. Charles leapt into my lap. He rubbed his big white-and-tan head against my chest. I scratched his throat and felt some of the tension dissolving from my shoulders. “What a mess.”
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, Lucy. Do you need to take some time off?”
“No. I mean, I don’t know. I might have to, although I’d prefer to keep working.”
Bertie was my aunt Ellen’s closest friend. I’d quit my job at Harvard and fled Boston after turning down Ricky’s marriage proposal. I’d come to the Outer Banks, wanting to be cosseted and pampered by my family while I decided what I was going to do with my life. Instead, Ellen had invited her best friend to tea, and by the time tea was over, I had a job at the Lighthouse Library. “I simply don’t know what’s going on,” I said to Bertie now. “Karen’s dead. And my mom’s been questioned about, of all things, theft.”
Bertie’s eyebrows twitched, but she made no comment.
“That’s all I know. We’re having dinner at Jake’s tonight, so I’m hoping to hear more. Mom doesn’t seem to be worried, but Uncle Amos is.”
“It’s almost three. Why don’t you take the rest of the afternoon off?”
“Thanks, Bertie, but work is always better than worry.” I gave the cat a scratch behind the ears. “Isn’t that right, old boy?”
Charles purred in agreement. I reluctantly lifted him off me and set him on the floor.
“In that case,” Bertie said, “stay in the main room. I want to be sure that one of us has an eye on the Austen collection at all times.”
“You can’t think the cops are going to take the opportunity to snatch a book.” I said, shocked. “Anyway, isn’t the cabinet locked?”
“They took all my keys. Who can say in what heart lurks a ruthless bibliophile?”
She wasn’t joking.
“We have a bit of financial leeway, Lucy. If you need some time to look after your mother, I can afford to ask Louise Jane to fill in temporarily.”
I left without commenting on that. No way was I was prepared to let Louise Jane get another crack at replacing me.
If I hadn’t been worried about my mom and upset over the death of one of our patrons, I would have enjoyed the rest of the workday. Nothing like an empty library to allow one to work in peace. The police had told Bertie and me that as long as we stayed away from the third floor, we could go about our business.
Watson and Butch did not return, but other officers and various personnel kept coming and going throughout the afternoon. Around five o’clock, a dark van pulled up and a stretcher was unloaded. Bertie and I stood at the window and watched as Karen Kivas’s body was taken away. A woman I didn’t know, identifiable by the badge pinned to the belt beside her holster, came in and told us they were finished. She handed Bertie her keys.
“Can we open the library?” Bertie asked.
“Detective Watson sees no reason why you can’t get back to business tomorrow. We’ve marked off the side of the building and don’t want anyone venturing there.” She gave me a steely-eyed stare.
No worries there. I had no interest in going back to that spot.
Bertie called Ronald and Charlene to tell them to come in tomorrow. She took the opportunity to get to her yoga studio early, and left me browsing publishers’ catalogs, checking out what was new for the winter.
By six fifteen Charles was leading the way, tail held high, up to our lighthouse aerie. What a day, and it wasn’t over yet. My book nook beneath the window looked mighty inviting, but instead I attacked my closet. I’d planned on wearing my new yellow dress, bright and light and flowing. Something fun yet suitable for dinner with the family. But now it didn’t seem as though summer fun was going to be the tone of the evening.
I pulled clothes off hangers, held them up against me, and then tossed them onto the bed. Josie would be wearing something perfect for the occasion, yet drop-dead sexy at the same time. I’d learned long ago not to even try to compete with Josie, and had been much happier for it. Just as well I was the librarian and she the baker. She could tell whether the dough needed more salt by a look, but whenever I cooked, I had to taste everything. I could only imagine what I’d weigh if I worked in a bakery.
With that cheerful thought, I selected a plain black linen dress and a navy blue scarf.
Mom, as could be expected, was flawlessly turned out in an oatmeal pantsuit with a bright pop of color provided by a red shirt and ruby earrings. She climbed into the Yaris and gave me a peck on the cheek. Then she pulled back and studied my dress. “Is that the best you could do for dinner out? We’re not going to a librarians’ convention, dear.”
“Yes, Mom.”
At the restaurant the hostess showed us to a table on the deck where Josie, Aunt Ellen, and Uncle Amos were already seated. They got to their feet as Mom and I approached. Ellen gave her sister a hug and Mom briefly allowed herself to be enfolded before pulling away.
The restaurant faced west, overlooking Roanoke Sound, boats bobbing on the dark water, the bright lights of Manteo, and the rhythmic flashing of the fourth-order Fresnel lens on the reproduction Roanoke Marshes Lighthouse. A light breeze ruffled the warm night air. The restaurant was full, inside and out, but the seating was spaced well enough apart that we could talk in privacy.
The unpleasant matter of murder and theft squatted on the table like an unwelcome toad while we exchanged greetings, ordered drinks, and consulted the menu.
“I popped into the kitchen when we arrived,” Josie said, “to check what Jake’s cooking. The flounder’s super fresh and he recommends it. He says he’ll send out an extra-large plate of hush puppies, soon as we’re ready, because he knows how much you love them, Lucy. He has a few bottles left of that Merlot you like, Dad. He’s been saving one for you.”
“I’m afraid he’ll have to keep saving it,” Uncle Amos said. “This isn’t a night for drinking.”
“Well, it is for me. As I’m not driving, I’ll have a martini to begin.” Mom handed the waiter her menu without even glancing at it. “Whatever you suggest for dinner will be fine.”
“Now that we’re here,” Uncle Amos said once the waiter had gone in pursuit of drinks, “and out of the police station, do you want to tell us about that necklace, Suzanne?”
“I have absolutely no idea what that thing was doing in my bag. Obviously someone stole it and then tried to ditch it by putting it in the first available container.”
“I think I overheard something about that,” I said. “When I left the hotel this morning, an old lady was in the lobby, saying her granddaughter’s birthday present had been stolen. A cop was with her, and George, the manager, was trying to get them out of the lobby. He can’t have been happy at her broadcasting it all over the hotel.”
“Where was your bag yesterday?” Uncle Amos said.
Mom shrugged. “I took it with me down to the pool.”
“Did you look in the bag?”
“I told you and the police all this,” she said.
“Indulge me, Suzanne. I’d like to go over it again. See if you can remember anything else.”
“Very well. I might have tossed a towel inside without checking it first. When I got back from the pool, I took out my towel, beach wrap, and book. It’s possible I could have missed seeing the necklace. I put a scarf in the bag in case it was cool later. I dressed for dinner, and dined early so as to go to Lucy’s book club.”
“Did you eat in the hotel restaurant?”
“Yes.”
“Did you bring the beach bag with you?”
“No.”
Uncle Amos stopped talking when the waiter returned with the drinks. Mom practically snatched her martini out of his hand. She took a long gulp. “Really, Amos. I do not know how it got there.”
“Can you take a guess?”
“Hold on,” I said. “You’re going too fast. Has Mom been charged with stealing this necklace? You said it was expensive. Like really, really expensive or sorta expensive?”
“Really, really,” Amos said. “Diamonds, of a good size.”
“Oh. Is it big?”
“Watson showed us a picture. It’s quite small, and probably very light. A gold chain, of a size that would fit snugly around a woman’s neck, with five diamonds, each of which is a carat or more. Suzanne has not been charged with the theft. The bag was left, unattended, in her hotel room for an hour at least while she was at dinner, and the necklace might have even been there earlier, as she didn’t empty it during the day. I reminded Watson that a hotel room is not a secure place. Staff come and go all day long. Management, maintenance, and housekeeping have master keys. Pretty much anyone who works there can get access to a room if they want.”
“That’s a comforting thought,” Aunt Ellen said.
“Guests can slip in and out of someone else’s room while a housemaid’s back’s turned. Watson had to agree, reluctantly, that any number of people could have put the item in Suzanne’s bag.”
“Why would someone do that? And what do you think this has to do with Karen’s death?” I asked.
“The necklace might have nothing to do with the killing. Not directly, anyway. I also pointed out to Watson that it’s entirely possible the thief feared he or she was about to be discovered yesterday, and for some reason he or she decided they had to get rid of it, and fast.”
I didn’t say that in that case we were talking about a pretty incompetent thief. Why not stick the darn thing in the depths of a plant pot or something and come back for it later? Not hide it where it was certain to be found, and very soon.
Almost anything might have happened, but the only thing that made any sense at all was that someone was trying to frame my mom. I couldn’t see that this was a coincidence, particularly after Karen had said, in front of a roomful of witnesses, that Mom had been called a thief in school. The idea was ridiculous. I knew my mom. If she wanted something, she bought it. I know there are those to whom thievery is a compulsion, the act an end in itself, but if my mother were a kleptomaniac, she—and my father—wouldn’t have been able to keep it a secret all these years.
If someone was trying to frame Mom, the only person I could think of with a motive, as well as the meanness to do it, had to be Karen. Who was no longer around to be questioned about it.
“It’s perfectly obvious to me,” Aunt Ellen said. “That’s exactly what happened. Suzanne’s bag was nothing but a convenient depository. I trust they will be fingerprinting this necklace?”
“It’s been sent to the lab.”
“And we all know how long it will take to get those results back,” Aunt Ellen said.
“It might be faster than usual,” Uncle Amos said, “if Watson makes the case that the necklace is tied up in the murder.”
“But Lucy overheard the owner reporting it missing this morning,” Josie said. “Not yesterday.”
“The woman says she saw it last when she checked into the hotel and unpacked on Sunday. She’s visiting for the birthday of her great-granddaughter. The necklace was to be her gift. When she went to get it this morning to take to the birthday lunch, she found it missing and called the police.”
“I don’t see what it can possibly have to do with Karen,” I said. “The necklace was stolen at the hotel. Karen was killed at the lighthouse.” I stopped talking. Karen. Had Karen stolen the necklace and hidden it in Mom’s bag to get it out of the hotel, planning to retrieve it later at book club?
If so, had someone killed Karen for the necklace? Without realizing that she didn’t have it on her?
The expression on Uncle Amos’s face indicated that he was thinking the same thing. “We can’t forget that those two incidents happened around the same time. You can be sure Watson isn’t forgetting it.”
“I thought him perfectly capable of forgetting his head if it wasn’t attached,” Mom said, as she signaled the waiter to bring her another martini. We hadn’t even had time to order food yet. I buried my head in the menu, trying to unobtrusively eye my mother at the same time. She looked as she always did, perfectly dressed, perfectly groomed, perfectly composed. But there were fissures beneath that composure. I could tell, by the way Ellen threw worried glances her way, that my aunt noticed them also.
“Do you have something wrong with your eyes, Lucille?” Mom asked.
“No.”
“I ask because you seem to be staring. I do not need to explain my behavior to you, but I will anyway. I have had a most trying day.”
“I know that, Mom.”
“I wonder if you do.”
“Don’t mistake Sam Watson for a fool, Suzanne,” Uncle Amos said. “Or for a small-town, hick cop. He spent years with the NYPD. Homicide.”
Mom sniffed, not impressed.
But I was. “Oh,” I said.
“Homicide,” Josie said. “We seem to almost be forgetting about Karen’s death.”
“Karen and Mom were in high school together,” I said. “Did you know her, too, Aunt Ellen?” Ellen was the older of the sisters.
Aunt Ellen’s lips pinched together. “She was in your mom’s year, so I didn’t have anything do with her at school, but Sue brought her around to the house sometimes.”
“Rarely,” Mom said.
“Quite often in junior year, as I recall. Then, when you were both seniors, you had other things on your mind than your school friends.” Meaning my dad and getting out of Nags Head. “After we left school, I’d see her around town and we’d say hello, but that was about it. She had children and the children got bigger, and then she was with little children again. Her grandchildren. Must be nice to have grandchildren.”
“Yes, Mom.” Josie rolled her eyes at me.
My mom could usually be persuaded to pull out pictures of my brothers’ children at even the slightest mention of offspring. That she didn’t take this opportunity, presented to her on a silver platter, showed me how preoccupied she must have been.
“I’ll admit that I didn’t like Karen, not in school or after,” Aunt Ellen said. “She was always—I don’t know— ‘manipulative’ might be the word. But I did feel sorry for her. She seemed to be steadily going down in the world as the years passed.”
“She made sure everyone knew how hard done by she was.” Josie sipped at her glass of white wine. It looked delicious, but I was sticking to iced tea tonight.
“You’re right about that, honey,” Aunt Ellen said. “But still, things were hard for her.”
“Speaking of Karen Kivas’s hard knocks, folks,” Josie said. “Don’t turn around, but look who just walked in.”
Is there any phrase in the English language more designed to make one look than “don’t turn around”? As one, my mother, Aunt Ellen, and I swiveled. The hostess was showing a couple to seats at the bar. The man half tripped over his own feet and grabbed the back of a chair to save himself. The woman seated there gave him a look that would curdle milk.
Aunt Ellen sucked in a breath. “I can’t believe it.”
So much for looking: I didn’t recognize either of them. The man was about my parents’ age, with a more-than-adequate beer belly, a few strands of gray hair, and a goatee streaked gray and brown. He was dressed in jeans that needed a good wash and a flannel shirt worn open over a gray T-shirt advertising a trucking company. The woman was young enough to be his daughter. She was painfully thin in distressed skinny jeans, a tight blue tank top, and sky-high stilettos. Bleached-blond hair cascaded around her shoulders. He climbed onto a barstool and she wiggled her bony behind to get comfortable on hers.
The bartender slapped cocktail napkins on the counter in front of them and asked what they wanted.
We were momentarily distracted as our waiter placed an overflowing plate in the center of the table. “Compliments of the chef,” he said with a grin at Josie. Hush puppies, plump and perfectly crisp. Yum. “Are you folks ready to order?”
Uncle Amos had the clam chowder, which would be made in the traditional Outer Banks style as a clear broth, followed by the rib eye, rare. Aunt Ellen ordered two crab cakes, and Mom said, “Same for me.” Josie asked for a burger with a side of sweet potato fries. She glanced at me apologetically. “I get all the seafood I want. Tonight I’m in the mood for something different.” I was most definitely not in the mood for anything different. Nothing I love more than real Outer Banks cooking. “Crab and flounder, please. And the littleneck clams to start.”
We handed our menus to the waiter before returning to the matter at hand. “I can’t believe he’s here. Tonight of all nights,” Aunt Ellen said.
“I can’t believe he’s here any night,” Josie said.
The restaurant was full of the sound of conversation and laughter. Lamps hanging above the bar and along the railing cast long shadows. While the thin woman studied the menu, her companion glanced around. He gave our table a long, hard look and his eyes settled on Josie. Now, men always look at Josie. But not usually in that way. As though they’re going to spit on the floor. She did not look away, and the man broke eye contact first.
“Who’s that?” I asked.
“Norm Kivas. Karen’s husband.”