Dune to Death (20 page)

“Then,” said Judith, somewhat appeased, “your ballistics people haven't been able to determine what kind of gun or bullet killed Titus Teacher?”

Clooney shot Judith a wary look. “We found the bullet. Went right through the body and lodged in the wall between the front room and the kitchen. Full metal jacket, fired from a standard .45 automatic. No big mystery there.”

Except, Judith thought, as they left police headquarters, who had pulled the trigger. She was convinced that the same person who had strangled Leona Ogilvie had also shot the man known as Titus Teacher. And for the first time since the cousins had found Leona's body, Judith was almost certain she knew the answer.

 

Josh Eldritch was also in his office, having been called in to sort out a six-car pileup just south of town. The murder investigations seemed to have slipped a notch in the sheriff's priorities. Automobile crashes were more common, and thus, more in his area of expertise.

Compared with Clooney's reaction to the seat covers, the sheriff was impressed by the finding of the safety-deposit box key. “You think this will lead to the stolen money from the cheese factory?” he asked somewhat dubiously.

Judith inclined her head. “It'll lead to
something
,” she asserted. “Nobody buries a key in a strongbox two feet below the ground.”

Eldritch made a gesture of assent. “I can't check until Monday.”

“Naturally,” breathed Renie.

“It could be anywhere,” he noted.

“True,” said Judith.

“It might not even be around here,” Eldritch pointed out.

“I have a feeling it is—at least within a fifty-mile radius,” said Judith. Why else, she figured, had Alice Hoke returned to Buccaneer Beach? “How many banks are there in town?”

“Three,” the sheriff answered promptly. “But there are about ten times that many in Juniper County.”

Judith was satisfied. She and Renie had done all they could, as far as working through channels was concerned. Feeling virtuous, the cousins headed for Buccaneer Beach Community Hospital.

Joe was not in his room. Yet another nurse Judith had never seen before informed her that Mr. Flynn was in therapy, learning how to use crutches. Did that mean, Judith inquired with mixed emotions, that he would be discharged the following day? The nurse couldn't say; that would be up to Doctor. Noting that nurses often referred to the MD in charge by the generic title, she mused to Renie that she wondered if it were an exalted soubriquet like “Majesty” or merely a sign of poor memory.

Renie couldn't enlighten her cousin. “All I know is that when you get your teeth fixed, the hygienists never call their boss ‘Dentist.'” She cocked her head at Judith as they pulled out of the hospital parking lot. “You've got more on your mind than medical profession relationships. What gives, coz? Are you playing clam again?”

“Not intentionally,” replied Judith, pulling out onto Highway 101. “This whole thing is starting to come together for me, but I've got a serious problem.”

Renie gazed at Judith with a mixture of admiration and curiosity. “You mean you know who did it?”

“I'm close,” replied Judith.

“Who?”

“Let me make one more phone call when we get back to Pirate's Lair,” said Judith, stopping at a red light. “If my guess is on target, I'll tell you. Otherwise, you're going to think I'm nuts.”

Renie gave a little shrug. “It wouldn't be the first time. Didn't I stand up for you when you married Dan McMonigle?”

Judith turned to look at Renie. “You also stood up for me with Joe Flynn.”

“You heard me the first time,” said Renie.

 

Judith and Renie had decided to attend the six o'clock Saturday evening mass at St. Ethelburga of Barking Catholic Church instead of the Sunday service which was scheduled for ten. They couldn't make it to Salem in time to catch Renie's noon train if they went to the morning liturgy. As strangers in town, they hadn't expected to see anyone they knew, but three rows up, they spotted Terrence O'Toole. He spotted them coming back from Holy Communion.

After mass, he waylaid them in the parking lot. A faint breeze stirred the heavy air as Judith and Renie waited for Terrence to leapfrog between cars.

“Wowee!” he exclaimed under his breath so as not to attract the attention of the other parishioners. “Have I got news for our next edition! Two murders, the treasure hunt,
a big wreck out on the highway, and tomorrow, the parade! Want to go with me to the morgue?”

Judith made a grim face. “No thanks, Terrence. We've seen enough dead bodies.”

“No, no,” said Terrence, moving closer to the cousins and taking on an air of intrigue. “I mean the newspaper morgue, on microfilm. You've been very good to me, giving out that interview and all. And you act interested in the investigation. I thought you might want to be in on it when I crack the case.”

“What?” Judith was startled as much by his pronouncement as his self-confidence. “Gee, Terrence, do you have some…ah, leads?”

“You bet,” Terrence replied promptly. He steered the cousins behind the church's wooden sign proclaiming the daily and Sunday mass times. “Leona Ogilvie inherited the beach cottage. Alice Hoke got everything else, including a lot of debts. The two women looked a lot alike, and I figure the people who were never paid the money that was owed them got fed up and came looking for revenge. But they didn't know the difference between the two sisters' physical appearance, so they killed the wrong woman.” He hooked his thumbs in his suspenders, flashed his gap-toothed grin in self-satisfaction, and awaited the cousins' reaction.

“That's…remarkable,” Judith said at last. “However did you come to such a conclusion?”

“Well…” Terrence simpered a bit. “I do my homework. I read up about the cheese factory. I need to read more. That's why I thought you might want to go to the morgue with me.”

“How,” Judith asked, “do you explain Titus Teacher's death?”

“Simple,” said Terrence. “Bernard Hoke owed a lot of people money.” He ticked them off on his fingers—employees, suppliers, lenders. Some, Terrence said, had been paid off by Alice Hoke after she sold the factory site to the outlet mall developers. But others had not. That, explained Terrence, was where Titus Teacher came in. “They
owed him money, so Alice had to kill him after he killed Leona by mistake.”

“No,” asserted Renie. “Alice couldn't have killed Titus Teacher. She was in our carport at the time.”

Terrence was unfazed by the argument. “Then one of her children did it. It had to be an Ogilvie or a Hoke.”

“I tell you what, Terrence,” said Judith, “you go ahead without us. It sounds as if you're doing good work. If you find out anything new, give us a call, okay?”

Terrence's freckled face was wreathed with disappointment, but he gave in. The cousins headed out for their last dinner together in Buccaneer Beach. As it was well after seven o'clock and the town was jammed with tourists, they realized after their first three stops that they should have made reservations. None of the restaurants they tried had less than an hour's wait. Discouraged, they scouted a couple of the more modest eateries, but even those were doing a land-office holiday business.

“I'm afraid,” Judith said to a downcast Renie, “we may have to go back to the cottage and clean out the refrigerator.”

Since it was now after eight o'clock, Renie was too famished to argue. The cousins drove back to Pirate's Lair. While Renie prepared open-faced crab and cheddar sandwiches to put under the broiler, Judith made the phone call she'd planned for that evening. To her relief, the voice at the other end in Malibu was not a recording.

“Mr. Fleetwood,” said Judith, at her most effusive. “I'm so glad you got home safely. I wanted to apologize for acting like a pest yesterday outside of Brent Doyle's law office.” Darren Fleetwood did not sound pleased to hear from Judith. It was clear he was anxious to get her off the line. “I won't keep you,” Judith promised, “but since you now own Pirate's Lair, something has happened that I think you should know about.”

“Yes?” Darren's voice was tense.

Judith glanced at Renie who was cutting up cucumbers. “There's been another murder. Titus Teacher was shot last night down at the boat…”

“Who?” Darren sounded uncertain.

Judith repeated the name. “You sat next to him at the funeral.”

There was a slight pause. “I did? Oh—that's too bad. That he got killed, I mean.” Another pause. “I sure hope everything gets…straightened out up there. This has been the weirdest experience in my entire life.”

“I'm sure it has,” said Judith, not without sympathy. “I felt you ought to know. We're very sorry about your father's death.” She exchanged meaningful looks with Renie.

“What?” Darren Fleetwood made an odd noise into the phone. “Well, yes, it was a tragedy, I suppose. But that happened a long time ago.”

It was Judith's turn to pause. She held out the receiver, staring at the earpiece. Renie stared at Judith. “Excuse me,” said Judith at last, putting the phone back in place. “I was referring to your natural father. Race Doyle.”

A faint chuckle came across the line. “I never heard of him. My real father's been dead for years. Actually, I never met the man, but his name was Bernard Hoke.”

A sudden flash of lightning, followed by the crash of thunder, broke the connection.

W
HAT IRONY
,
THOUGHT
Judith, that her wrongheaded permise and Terrence O'Toole's misguided deductions had finally put all the pieces into place. The storm had ended the hot spell, and with it had come the solution. As rain pelted Pirate's Lair and wind whipped through the pines, Judith and Renie sat in the dark and rehashed the Ogilvie-Hoke murder case.

“You may know who and why, but you still don't know how,” Renie argued. “Really, it's not impossible.”

“Logically, no,” agreed Judith as more lightning flashed and thunder rolled. “Or, yes—it
has
to be logical. We just can't see it yet.”

“We can't see anything until the power goes back on,” said Renie. Outside, virtually the entire town was dark, with only an occasional glimmer of light from an auxiliary system. “It's a good thing I'd already put the sandwiches under the broiler.”

“As soon as this storm lets up, we're going to see the sheriff. Or the police chief,” said Judith. She cocked an ear, noting that the lightning and thunder were growing farther apart. The storm was beginning to pass, though
the jagged bursts of lightning that filled the sky over the water were still spectacular. The sea had grown choppy, rough whitecaps tossed high on murky gray waves.

“You'll have to go to their houses,” said Renie. “They sure won't be at work.”

“They might be at the rodeo,” allowed Judith. “Unless it got rained out.”

“Delayed, I'll bet. It was probably already under way.” Renie made a couple of attempts to find her can of Pepsi. “Dark or not, I've got to go pack, coz. Bill has trained me not to wait until morning.”

Judith watched Renie's dim outline move cautiously from the living room. “I still can't believe you're deserting me,” she called after her cousin.

“The monks and the symphony cannot go on without me,” Renie shouted back. “And Bill cannot go on without clean laundry.”

“I wish I could call Joe,” said Judith, more to herself than to Renie. “I suppose the phone company and the power people around here don't consider this an emergency.”

Outside, the wind blew over what sounded like a garbage can. Judith could see branches swaying in front of the picture window. The rain was coming down so hard that it spattered the bricks inside the fireplace. Getting up, Judith picked her way to the kitchen.

“I wish I had Jake Beezle's big flashlight. There's got to be one around here someplace,” she said, again mostly to herself. “I thought I saw it a couple of days ago.”

“What?” Renie's voice emanated from the guest bedroom. “What about San Diego?”

Toward the back of the second drawer next to the sink, Judith found the flashlight. Its batteries worked, if not quite at full force. “San Diego?” said Judith in a louder voice, clicking off the flashlight to conserve its power. “I didn't say anything.” She headed for the hallway.

Renie's shadowy form was dancing around the bedroom. “San Diego—it made me think of something I learned from the background on that Franciscan calendar.”
Her voice was excited as she moved toward Judith. “Those Spaniards—Junipero Serra and Company—they were Franciscans!” Renie tripped over the strongbox. Judith could have sworn her cousin was airborne for at least ten seconds. She came down with a crash, right at Judith's feet.

“Coz!” Judith bent down. Renie was groaning. “Speak to me! Are you okay?”

There was an ominous silence, except for Renie's gasps and moans. Frantic, Judith switched on the flashlight. Renie's eyes rolled up at her. “I think I broke my stupid ankle.”

Judith couldn't believe her ears. She couldn't call for help; the phone was still out. She couldn't risk hauling Renie out to the car and driving to the hospital. The most she could do was get her cousin onto the bed. Gingerly, Judith tried to hoist Renie, who seemed to have become a deadweight. At last, Renie regained her breath and volunteered to crawl to the bed. With Judith's help, she climbed on top of the down comforter and gave her cousin a weak smile.

“What a clumsy ox! I didn't see that wretched strongbox.”

“That's okay, coz.” Judith was smiling, too, but also feebly. “I'll call somebody as soon as the phone service is restored.”

Renie was cautiously testing her right ankle. “I don't really think it's broken. But it sure as hell is sprained.” She gave an annoyed shake of her head. “Let me finish what I was saying before I did my imitation of a 747 crash landing. About the missionaries. They didn't come to California until the last half of the eighteenth century. There were no missions on the West Coast until the 1760s.”

“So?” Judith stared at Renie as if the fall had made her delirious.

“So that tourist brochure stuff about English pirates chasing Spanish ships back to safety at the missions is pure myth—or Chamber of Commerce ballyhoo.” Renie shifted about on the bed, trying to arrange herself more
comfortably. “Can I have an ice pack, or has everything melted in the freezer?”

“Not this soon,” replied Judith, a bit vaguely. “Sorry, coz, I still don't get it. What's your point?”

“I'm not sure,” said Renie, a bit fretfully. “But all the hoopla about the pirates and buried treasure and secret passages and such is just a lot of promotional baloney. Lord knows I've designed enough of those pieces to realize how little store you can set by the copy.” She stopped to flex her ankle again and winced. “How about some aspirin?”

Judith went to fetch both ice and aspirin. “There must have been pirates around here somewhere or else they wouldn't have named it Buccaneer Beach,” she pointed out to Renie.

“Maybe.” Renie allowed Judith to minister to her, then lay back against the pillows. “I don't know—it was just a thought. You're the one who always sees the light at the end of the tunnel.” Renie closed her eyes.

The wind was dying down a bit, but the rain had not let up. Judith sat very still. Renie was right. She
had
seen the light at the end of the tunnel. Almost literally.

Judith jumped up. “I'm going down to the boathouse,” she announced. “Will you be all right?”

Renie's eyes flew open. “
I'll
be fine. Coz, don't be a sap! You're asking for trouble! What would Joe think?”

“I don't know,” said Judith blithely. “Why don't you ask him when you get to the hospital?”

 

Wearing a light jacket and carrying the flashlight, Judith walked carefully down the long staircase. The rain and wind buffeted her so she clung to the handrail. Below, the storm had swept the beach clear of other human beings. The ocean was obscured from her vision, but she could hear the waves crashing against the shore.

Judith approached the boathouse warily. As she had hoped, the door opened at a touch. Perhaps the lock had been broken in the aftermath of Titus Teacher's murder. She crept inside, shining the flashlight around the small,
disordered living room. Obviously, no one had made any attempt to straighten up after the police and sheriff had finished their official business. With a grimace, she passed the bloodstained couch with its grotesque outline of Titus Teacher's sprawled body. On the threshold of the kitchen, she pried up the starfish-patterned linoleum. Sure enough, newspaper lined the floor: the
Bugler
, dated a week after the issue she and Renie had found under the rug in the beach cottage. Judith nodded to herself.

The sound of the wind and the surf muffled the newcomer's approach, but the blinding flash tore a scream from Judith's throat. Kneeling on the floor, she froze in place, not daring to move a muscle. Another flash lit up the boathouse. With her heart pounding, Judith risked raising her head just enough to peek over the top of the couch. With her vision still blurred, she tried to make out the form that stood just inside the doorway.

“Terrence!” she cried. “What are you doing here?” Judith staggered to her feet.

“Taking pictures,” said Terrence, a bit sulkily. “My editor told me to get an interior. All the power went out at the morgue, so I decided to come over here and do it now. Are you okay?”

Still shaken, Judith leaned against the doorjamb. “Yes, but you scared the wits out of me. Gosh, Terrence, you must be the only person who works weekends on Buccaneer Beach.”

“You're right,” he replied in a put-upon voice. “No overtime, either.”

“Cheer up,” said Judith, going into the kitchen. “Maybe I can help you get a real scoop.” She played the flashlight around the room, noting that a chair had been overturned, a portable mixer lay on the floor, and a saucer had been smashed in the sink. No doubt this damage, as well as the chaos in the living room, had been caused by the people who had charged the boathouse after Titus Teacher's body had been discovered.

“I've got a theory,” Judith explained, knocking on the wall behind the stove. “For a long time, there has been a
story about secret passages supposedly made by pirates in the Buccaneer Beach area. But that's probably not true. At least about the pirates. I suspect any underground tunnels were dug by bootleggers during Prohibition. If so, one of them might have led up to an old speakeasy called Pirate's Lair.”

“The beach cottage?” said Terrence, who was watching Judith's flashlight roam over the nautical charts on the far wall. “But that's the house you rented.”

“It was once the site of a tavern,” Judith went on. “An old guy named Jake Beezle told me how the smugglers used to bring liquor down from Canada and unload it on the beach. My guess is that they took it up through a secret passage. But,” Judith asked, puzzled, “where?”

“Wowee!” cried Terrence. “I need to know more about this town. I'm really going to spend a lot of time at the morgue doing research.” In the semidarkness, he bumped into the little refrigerator and fell against the nautical charts. “Ooops!” cried Terrence. “What a klutz!”

His elbow had gone right through one of the charts. There was a space immediately behind it. Judith and Terrence stared. “Bless you, Terrence!” exulted Judith, giving the startled young man a hug. “You're no ordinary klutz—you've found the passage!” Ripping away the charts, they discovered a door set about three inches into the framework. There was no lock. The hinges opened without a squeak. “Those have been oiled recently,” said Judith. “Come on, Terrence, are you game?”

Terrence was. Carefully, they entered the narrow opening in the ground. Both Judith and Terrence had to crouch and walk single file. The air smelled stale and damp. With the flashlight beam wavering before them, they began to make their ascent through the hill that rose above the beach. Judith worried about bats. She feared getting trapped. She was certain Terrence would fall down. She realized there was danger of a cave-in, especially in the wake of the storm.

“It shouldn't be far,” she said, as much to reassure herself as Terrence.

“It's spooky in here,” said Terrence in a nervous voice.

“Very spooky,” Judith agreed, feeling the earth shift under her feet. She felt as if they'd been walking for miles. Yet if her guess was accurate, they had only about two hundred feet to cover.

The silence was overwhelming, like being in a tomb. Judith tried not to shiver. At last they came to the end of the passage. Shining the flashlight directly overhead, Judith saw the trapdoor that was set in the ground above them. She gave the splintered wood an experimental nudge. Nothing happened.

“Let me,” offered Terrence.

Judith stepped aside, her back flat against the hard, damp wall of earth. With a mighty heave, Terrence opened the trapdoor. Gallantly, he gave Judith a boost. With a sigh of relief, she climbed out into the cool, fresh air.

“Where are we?” called Terrence, still in the nether world.

Judith grinned. “In front of my MG. We're in the carport, Terrence.”

 

The telephones, if not the lights, had been put back in service. With a hasty explanation for Renie, Judith left Terrence in the beach cottage to call the sheriff and the police. But not before she had made a phone call of her own. Judith had a message for a murderer.

“I still say you're nuts,” Renie shouted from the bedroom. “When you get yourself killed, don't come bitching to me.”

Arming herself with a clamgun as well as the flashlight, Judith returned to the boathouse by the conventional route of the staircase. Terrence was having trouble getting through. It appeared that most of Buccaneer Beach was trying to call one or the other of the law enforcement agencies to report some sort of problem.

Judith did not go inside the boathouse. Rather, she ducked behind a log on the far side of the little building and crouched low to wait. The rain had dwindled to a heavy mist, though the wind was still brisk. Judith rested
the clamgun against the log, wishing it were a real firearm instead of just a fancy shovel made for chasing clams through the sand. She held onto the flashlight, but kept it turned off to save the batteries.

Five minutes passed. Then ten. Judith heard no sign of anyone approaching. Perhaps she wouldn't. She'd told Terrence to ask the police and the sheriff not to use their sirens. Surprise was an important element in the trap she'd set.

She clicked the flashlight on to check the time. Her watch showed 10:14. Judith turned the flashlight off. The town was still wrapped in darkness, though farther up, where the highway curved close to the beach, she could see the occasional amber glow of headlights. Clooney, maybe. Or Eldritch. It could even be the killer, moving inexorably into Judith's snare. She couldn't resist a little smile of satisfaction.

Somehow, it hadn't occurred to her that her prey would arrive via the road that led to the beach. Judith had assumed that the killer would march boldly through the yard of Pirate's Lair and straight down the long flight of steps. Thus, she was startled when she heard not soft footsteps in the sand, but the flapping of fabric as Alice Hoke approached, wearing a raincoat and carrying a gun.