Sinking Ships: An Abishag's First Mystery (The Abishag Mysteries Book 1) Read online

  I ejected the video from my laptop and inserted the oldest finance disk, clearly labeled with 1950s start and stop dates. The first file began in the mid 50s and contained scanned ledger accounts. Apparently, he and Carol had lived on a small house on this property, which had belonged to Carol’s parents. When Thomas’s business prospered in the late ‘70s, he tore down the house and built the mansion. Tina’s birthday party had been held in the side yard, facing Pacific Coast Highway to the north, where Thomas’s study stood today.

  “I didn’t know babies could be so expensive, Thomas, even in the ‘50s.” I studied entries detailing the dress for Tina’s christening, pediatrician bills, costs for diapers, a crib, blankets, sleepers, toys and medicine.

  I heard Mrs. Timmons’ slow stomping up the stairs, and I hastily closed the computer and pushed it, the photo album and CD files under Thomas’s bed. Holding my breath, I crossed my fingers and hoped she wouldn’t enter. She seemed to hover outside the door for ages. Finally I heard the creaking and huffing as she picked up the tray and the receding clatter of china as she stumped down the stairs.

  Retrieving my laptop, I exhaled. “Shame on you, Thomas, if you broke her heart, but she is a scary woman. You’re better off with me.”

  I almost missed it, straining through the entries for familiar names, hospital bills for the baby, but froze on the items scrupulously recorded on the gain side—salvage from the wreck of the Portuguese freighter Isabelle.

  My fingers tingled. Was it legal salvage? I’d ask Kat. When Tina told me that they lived near the wreck, I’d Googled it and found a brief article from the LA Times and a longer one from the Daily Breeze. The pilot had been drinking. In a fit of cowardice, the captain had been the first off the ship, followed by his crew. Three drowned—the pilot, a baby and its young father—the latter two not on any list as the Isabelle hadn’t been a passenger ship. The coast guard hadn’t found the bodies of the baby and its father; no one would have known about them if a crewmember hadn’t reported it. The captain, already in grave trouble, insisted they’d taken the two on in San Francisco and dropped them off at Moro Bay, but the Port Authority hadn’t recorded their boarding or departure.

  I couldn’t remember if the captain had been held accountable for the deaths. Maybe I should wiki it.

  The iron ship had been too large to haul away, so it had been left to time and the sea to dismantle.

  “So you saw the shipwreck, Thomas, while you and Carol lived on the hill. Did you hear it run aground on the rocks? Did you help with the rescue? When did you go treasure hunting, and what did you find?” Thomas’s eyelids fluttered and then went still. Dog said that was normal—the last signs of life were the body’s bio-electrical responses.

  I touched his cheek. “Did you see the ones lost? The pilot drowned at the wheel; that poor man and his baby washed out to sea? How horrid to know that they died within sight of your house.”

  How horrid that Hillary had been killed in his kitchen too. I shook myself. I should be focusing on later accounts that might have something to do with Hillary and not an ancient shipwreck.

  Still Thomas’s Isabelle entries were curious. If only the accounts listed what had been salvaged.

  “Miss?” A light tap at the door, and Vicky peeked in. I hastily closed my laptop.

  “It’s been an hour. I should check Mr. Crowder, if you don’t mind.”

  “Of course.” I stuffed the CDs into my computer bag.

  She eased into the room, staring at the photo album at my feet, and then checked the monitors around the bed, her gaze straying to the computer bag.

  Irritated at her nosiness, I said pointedly, “My husband’s been quiet, although I saw a tremor on his neck earlier, and his eyelids moved just a few moments ago.”

  “Everything’s reading normal, Miss. I need a few minutes. When would you like to sit with him again?”

  Really? It seemed to me that I shouldn’t have to make an appointment to sit with my brain-dead husband. Even with a stirring of rebellion, I said meekly, “I thought I’d return in 90 minutes if that would be all right?”

  “I’ll have him ready.” She laid out fresh bags of fluids for hanging and a syringe. I balanced my bowl of custard on the heavy photo album. With the heavy computer bag bouncing against my hip, I moved to the spare bedroom.

  After unloading everything but the custard onto the bed, I flung open the curtains and cracked a window. Thomas’s bedroom windows faced the eastern peninsula hills and canyons. Even his study didn’t have an ocean view. Except for the three bedrooms on this side of the house and the sitting room off the front door, no windows faced the ocean, which seemed peculiar. I wondered if the first house, the small one Carol’s parents built, had overlooked the cove. Maybe the view of the shipwreck bothered him. Or maybe Carol preferred garden and canyon views. Maybe she made all the decisions about the house.

  Tina had said her mother died of cancer more than twenty years earlier, a long time for Thomas to be alone. Had Carol been the love of his life? Maybe she couldn’t be replaced.

  “Till me.” My cheeks warmed when I realized I’d spoken aloud. Staring out the window, I finished the custard and watched the white-capped waves slam against the mast of the Isabelle.

  Checking my phone, I found a message from Kat saying she’d left the grounds early and would be meeting one of her Westwood Irregulars in Santa Monica. She said she had some bank information and would call me later.

  I checked the message time and shook my head, grinning. Her first day working at the mansion, and she’d cut out two hours early.

  I dithered by the bed, wishing I had time to nap, but I’d be sitting with Thomas again in an hour. Then I could take a longer nap, have a light dinner, and freshen up for sleeping with Thomas. In the meantime, I’d call Tina.

  Since I couldn’t stop yawning, I ran down the stairs and fired up the Keurig in Thomas’s study. Espresso should liven me up. I thought about leaving the custard bowl in the dining room but decided that would be too cowardly for a homicide investigator. I pushed open the kitchen door, prepared to face Mrs. Timmons with my chin held high. She wasn’t there. I furtively put the bowl in the dishwasher and tiptoed back to the study.

  Retrieving the coffee, its heady aroma already energizing me, I turned to find Mrs. Timmons standing at the study door. I managed not to scream, the coffee sloshing high in its cup.

  “Would you like me to bring sugar and cream for that, Miss Greene?”

  “I prefer black.” I meant to sound polite, but the words echoed woodenly in my ears.

  She nodded and moved aside to let me by. Maybe because she’d startled me or maybe because she wouldn’t acknowledge me as Thomas’s wife, I said pointedly, “Thank you for bringing my lunch to Thomas’s room. I know we’ve little time left, and I want to spend as much as I can with him.”

  I was appalled as soon as I said it. My feelings for Thomas weren’t that deep. If she did have a secret love for him, I’d said about the unkindest thing I could. That wasn’t me. I wasn’t a mean person.

  To her blank face, I stuttered, “I meant to say that I think me being with Thomas is making him better. Not better, but more comfortable. So I should spend more time with him.” She blinked at me, so I added lamely, wallowing in embarrassment, “Don’t you think so?”

  “I think you have bags under your eyes and are so tired you’re talking nonsense. Shouldn’t you take a nap?”

  I nodded dumbly. “Yes, ma’am, but I promised Thomas I’d be back in an hour.” Then for no reason at all, I burst into tears.

  She took my coffee and with her other arm around me, steered me into the kitchen. Settling me at a small table there, in a chair with a gingham plaid cushion, she set the coffee before me with a box of tissues.

  I managed to gasp, “I’m sorry, Mrs. Timmons.”

  “You sit there quiet till you’ve had a good cry.” Through a curtain of tears, I saw her shake her head. “What’s the world coming to, marrying old men t
o little girls, just so their last days aren’t lonesome before they get to heaven.”

  “I’m not a little girl.” I sniffed, sipping at the coffee.

  “Of course you are,” she said. “Blow your nose. Not that I believe Mister Crowder’s going to heaven. The angels are probably still arguing that case. Good for him that I don’t get a vote.”

  “But Mrs. Timmons.” I wiped my nose hastily. “Thomas was a good man. Tina told me so. I saw the family videos.”

  She shook her head. “Daughters hardly ever see the truth about their dads, only wrap them up in fairy stories till God Himself wouldn’t recognize them. I know I did, and I bet you did too.”

  Why did everyone think I believed in fairy stories? “I don’t know my dad at all.” Of all the horrible or merely strange things that had happened to me since I’d married Thomas, this conversation broke through my defenses.

  “That happens too,” she said comfortably. “Would you like a cookie? I made oatmeal butterscotch.”

  I nodded dumbly.

  “No, I don’t think Thomas Crowder was a good man. A man, yes.”

  “What did he do?” I fingered the plate of cookies she set before me. Did she really think I was going to eat fourteen cookies? As she settled her girth into the other chair, her faded eyes studied me sadly.

  “Some men are bad because of the things they do. Some for the things they don’t. Eat a cookie.”

  Obediently I took a bite. “Thomas didn’t do something he should have?”

  “He loved his wife, I’ll say that for him. Maybe too much. If the angels give him points for that, he’ll get past those pearly gates lickety-split. But not for what he’d done for her.”

  “So he did something bad for her?”

  She’d been staring off into space, but now her gaze sharpened on me. “I blame him for letting you find Hillary dead in my kitchen.”

  “But Mrs. Timmons, he didn’t kill her. He hasn’t moved since his stroke six months ago.”

  “The bad that men do—or don’t do—lives long after them. Says so in the Bible. Or maybe was Oprah who said it. Don’t matter. Whoever said it knew men like Thomas Crowder.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Mrs. Timmons wouldn’t say another word about Thomas. Carrying my lukewarm espresso and the plate of cookies to the patio off the dining room, she left me in mid-afternoon dappled sunlight and early summer breeze.

  I wondered if I could get her to tell me more at dinner. She’d known Thomas and Carol for fifty-seven years, so she must know what kind of man he was. I remembered the entries about shipwreck salvage, the deaths behind the numbers, and shivered in the sun-warmed chair.

  Maybe she thought me too tired to hear the truth, and maybe she was right. If that earlier Thomas turned out to be a criminal, the housemates would say “we told you so.”

  Too bad my parents were American Presbyterians. A different culture, a different religion, and someone smarter than me would have arranged my marriage—marriage to someone who hadn’t pillaged a sinking ship with dead people aboard, someone who didn’t have a blackmailing niece murdered in his kitchen.

  The sugar and caffeine weren’t doing their job keeping me alert and thinking straight. My eyes drooped, and my thoughts spun in ellipses. Abandoning the snack, I trudged up the stairs.

  “Vicky?” I peeked into Thomas’s bedroom, and the aide stifled a gasp. She’d been leaning over my husband, peering into his face.

  “Dear me, miss. You startled me.”

  I took a step into the bedroom. “Is Thomas okay?”

  “Of course, Miss. I was checking his color.”

  I exhaled in relief. From her intent look, I thought he’d stopped breathing. I tried to rally myself. Remain calm. Thomas’s death was expected. I should be prepared for it and be able to respond with dignity and grace. For a moment, I’d almost turned hysterical. I needed to practice serenity.

  “With everything that happened last night, I’m more tired than expected. I won’t be sitting with Thomas again this afternoon. Please tell Mister Kovic that I’ll see him at 10.”

  Again, that avid look of curiosity, but she only nodded. “Of course, miss. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “Thank you, Vicky.” I raised my voice slightly. “Till later, Thomas.”

  I felt suddenly lighter as I headed back to the bedroom. I needed time away from Thomas to discover the truth. If I sat with him now, my uncertainty about him, my visions of him hauling treasures off the ship while bodies floated around him, would dry up any calm, soothing words I should be saying. Could I even hold that frail hand knowing it may have pushed aside a dead baby to grab a box of gold?

  My imagination circled the drain. I had no idea if he’d salvaged gold. I needed to get my head straight and then a nap before I lay with him. I couldn’t even trust myself to speak clearly to Tina.

  The walls closed in, the medical equipment in the room next door pinged loudly, the dying man’s breathing weighed on me—all seemed to broadcast prison bars.

  The hospice aides, Mrs. Timmons, and Kat had time off, other places they called home. I only had this—a husk of a husband and a house that smelled of dank sorrow.

  For a microsecond, I thought about calling Jen but stuck with my first resolve. I needed to figure out how to be an Abishag on my terms not Jen’s, not Donovan’s, and not Florence Harcourt’s. Or I should quit.

  Quitting wasn’t an option. Even without my Abishag contract, I wouldn’t abandon Thomas, especially with a killer still loose.

  Needing fresh air and open spaces, I grabbed a sweater, keys, and my phone. The front door slammed heavily behind me, echoing across the yard.

  At the end of the driveway, the iron front gates felt cold and heavy in my hands. In my desperate need to flee, the key shook in the lock as it had when I let in the police.

  Traffic was light. I ran across the road and down the winding path, halfway to the beach before the heels and the sand stopped me.

  In the middle of the ice-plant carpeting the cliff, I found a smooth boulder and perched. The shipwreck lay in shambles below, waves crashing against its remains and the rocky beach. The relief of not hearing the relentless beeping of monitors washed over me.

  After a few minutes of deep breathing and scraping wind-blown hair from my eyes, I checked my phone and found four messages from Kat. While I listened to the first, I began defining the variables.

  Kat’s first data dump detailed Hillary’s financial records for the past thirty-seven years. Best not to ask how she’d mined those, but I figured she’d probably used a bookkeeper that worked for an art trafficker in Belmont Shore and did accounting forensics on the side. Of course. Seems Hillary Lattimer had collected substantial sums from a short list of people. Kat’s forensics guy said the payment trends suggested blackmail.

  My heart sank on hearing that her biggest contributor was Thomas Crowder. He’d provided her funds since the early ‘70s. As his income rose, so did his quarterly payments. They stopped after his second stroke, the one that had rendered him brain dead.

  I did a quick calculation. Hillary was a year older than Tina. She would have been younger than me when Thomas started paying her off. Assuming she was blackmailing him.

  More bad news—Kat found another family member paying Hillary. Since a third of the Abishag rules directly related to protecting the family, how could I protect Thomas’s family, if the murderer was family?

  From the photo album, I remembered Ray Jeppers was married to Hillary’s estranged sister, Susanne. Beginning December 1993 and every December thereafter, Kat reported that Ray made sizable payments to Hillary.

  Steel drums pounding in the background, Kat said, “Jeppers doesn’t appear to be on the police radar. Don’t know why, but they must have a good reason, maybe a solid alibi. So let’s rank Jeppers as only third most likely to have killed Hillary.”

  I wondered how she knew what the police were thinking. My mind shouldn’t go there.

  Kat fin
ished the message by saying Hillary later diversified to two victims outside the family. In the late ‘90s, an executive in an investment firm started making monthly payments, not sizable, but certainly enough to cover Hillary’s utility bills. I wondered how she’d uncovered whatever secrets he had been paying to keep hidden.

  Hillary’s final alleged victim was a neighbor in Torrance who’d started transferring quarterly funds, smaller than the executive’s payments, six years earlier. Kat ended the message growling that living next to Hillary would have been worse than living next to a minefield.

  I had a splitting headache, felt guilt for abandoning my duties to Thomas, and still had Kat’s three other messages in the queue. She collected intel faster than the CIA.

  In her second message, she said she’d collected specific information about Thomas and wanted to know if it was okay to delve deeper. She wouldn’t investigate Thomas unless I agreed. Half-heartedly she added that the police didn’t seem to be considering Thomas. Hearing her reluctance and knowing her rabid curiosity, I felt suddenly misty eyed at her generosity. I considered the ledger and salvage entries—I probably had all the data I needed. I’d tell her later what I uncovered, but not over the phone.

  She finished the second message with new information about Brad Jeppers, Hillary’s sister’s husband, the one of the December payments. Apparently, he was an upstanding citizen, ran and lost an election as a city councilman. (I wondered which city and if my father knew him.) He’d run a studio that edited and captioned films until the early ‘90s. The FBI busted one of his employees for selling pirated videos; he’d used Jeppers’ company premises to edit, copy, and distribute the films. Jeppers’ business fell under close scrutiny for months—the bad publicity it had generated, Brad Jeppers having to testify against the employee—-apparently crushed Hillary’s brother-in-law. He closed the business, resigned as councilman and took an accounting job at a small firm in the valley.