Trouble at High Tide (25 page)

“Was this before or after the police came?” I asked.

“Let me see,” she said, putting down her drink. “I’m not real sure. I’d been sound asleep when Tom came into my room and woke me up, so I was a little foggy. But the next thing I know, the police are asking me all these questions and I don’t know the answers to any of them. Eventually, I just started to cry and they left me alone. Tears almost always work, you know, especially if you’re dealing with a man. Besides, what did I know? I’d been asleep when she was killed.”

“Had Tom been asleep, too?”

“You mean with me?”

I nodded.

“Uh-uh. We don’t share a room when his kids are around. He thinks it gives them the wrong impression. I told him that none of them are babies anymore, but he still insists. Frankly, that’s why I’d just as soon not come to Bermuda so much. But I can’t take the chance of Claudia getting her claws in him again.”

“Do you think she really wants him back?” I asked.

“I think she liked the life she had here. Really, who can blame her? But he’s not hers anymore, and I’d like to keep it that way.”

“I understand.”

“I almost forgot,” she said, popping up from her seat on the sofa. “Let me tell Norlene you’re bringing a guest for dinner. That’s what a good hostess should do. Right?”

“Yes. I can tell her if you’d like.”

“No. No. I like being the hostess. I’ll tell her.”

When Margo went into the kitchen to talk with Norlene,
I called George on my cell phone and left a message for him to return at six and to meet me at my cottage. Dinner would likely be later, but with a storm coming in, I wanted to be certain he was able to make it to the Betterton property from Hamilton before it broke. He had said he wanted to be present when I gave Tom the papers in the envelope. I only hoped his arrival wouldn’t set off another barrage from the paparazzi, but apparently it was a risk he was willing to take. The press didn’t know that Scotland Yard wasn’t pursuing Alicia’s killer. Perhaps he could claim the need to speak with Judge Betterton if a reporter cornered him.

Restless, I stood and gazed at my surroundings. I remembered the first time I’d walked into the room to see a pretty girl curled up in a chair next to the telescope reading her book on Jack the Ripper. I recalled how she’d slid that book onto the dining room table to show me, and quickly hid it in her pocket again. I pictured her at the party, dressed up and carefree, concealing her plans, yet teasing those around her with hints that she was up to something. She had joked with Agnes’s nephew Charles about her plans to “blow them all out of the water.” She must have provoked the one person who took her gay spirits seriously, who saw her actions as a threat and not merely another one of her girlish pranks. And now that girl was dead.

“Do you see what’s going on out there?” Margo said, coming into the room and interrupting my reverie. “Tom had better get back here soon or they’ll get stuck in that storm.” She shivered. “I’m glad I’m not on that boat, but I wish they weren’t either.”

I looked out through the picture window at the expanse
of water as far as the eye could see. The clouds that had been a gray strip on the horizon were approaching. Billows of dark gray were climbing high in the sky, forming towers, and winds menaced the ocean, pulling up whitecaps and making the surface of the sea choppy. A dark shadow moved across the water toward the island. It was as if the uneasy weather echoed my mood.

A
fter talking with Margo, I walked down to my cottage to wait for George and to retrieve the golf umbrella that I’d seen propped up in one corner, hoping it would be large enough to shield both of us from the expected downpour on our way back to the house. But my plans had to be changed. The first drops of rain pelted me just as I reached the porch, and George called while I was drying my hair with a towel to say that he’d be late and that I should go ahead without him; he would arrive as soon as he could.

I waited in my room as long as possible, hoping for a break in the weather, watching rivulets stream down the windows, listening to drum rolls of thunder, and seeing the lightning blaze down to the horizon in zigzagging streaks. By the time I braved the storm, umbrella in hand, and climbed up the gravel path to the house, gullies had formed by the side of the walkway, sending the water in rushing torrents down the hill and into the sea.

I was the last to arrive, aside from George, who I assumed would show up at any moment.

“Ah, Jessica is here,” Tom said when I entered the living room from the breezeway where I had left my dripping umbrella. “Where is your boyfriend?”

I detected a note in his tone that I hadn’t heard before, and wondered if I had finally outstayed my welcome, or if my request to have George as my dinner partner hadn’t sat well with him.

“He sends his apologies for being late,” I said. “He should be here any minute.”

The living room lights were on to counter the storm-darkened skies and someone had lit the logs in the fireplace for the first time since I’d arrived. It added a welcome coziness to the white room, which tended to look cold when the spectacular ocean view wasn’t serving as a distraction. Most of the guests were grouped around the hearth on chairs and sofas in that part of the room.

Margo escorted me to a glass-topped cart where Adam stood ready to fix me a cocktail, but I declined. “Nothing to drink?” he asked.

“Ginger ale would be wonderful,” I replied.

Stephen, who’d been standing next to the fireplace in a studied pose, his elbow on the mantle, cleared his throat. “Now that we’re all here, I have an announcement to make,” he said, stepping forward.

“But we’re still missing Jessica’s friend,” Daisy Reynolds pointed out. “Perhaps you should wait for him to give us your news.”

“I don’t even know the gentleman,” Stephen replied, “so I doubt if he would be interested.”

“Go ahead,” Tom said. “I’m sure the inspector won’t mind. Right, Jessica?”

“Please don’t wait for George,” I said, taking my ginger ale to the sofa and sitting next to Daisy. “I’ll be happy to fill him in when he arrives.”

“All right, then,” Stephen said, rubbing his hands together.

Everyone looked at him expectantly.

“I sold a painting today, or I should say, Dick Mann sold one of my paintings.” He paused for the round of congratulations before adding, “And, even better, I received my first commission.”

“Are you going into the army?” Margo asked.

“Gawd, Margo, sometimes you can be so dense,” Madeline said.

“Don’t talk that way to her,” Tom said, frowning at Madeline. “Remember your manners.”

“It means that someone wants Stephen to paint a picture for them,” Daisy said, coming to Margo’s rescue. “And they’re willing to pay for it. Isn’t that right, Stephen?”

Stephen nodded. “In advance, as a matter of fact.”

“Which painting sold?” I asked, wondering if the gallery owner had changed his mind about keeping Alicia’s portrait in the show.

“The portrait of Madeline,” Stephen said, bowing in his sister’s direction.

“Oh, I was hoping you’d keep that one,” she said, pouting.

“I’ll paint you another,” he replied, “but in the meantime,
a portrait commission is a piece of luck I don’t take lightly.” He looked at Tom. “It could be the beginning of a profitable career, something I’m sure that you’ll appreciate.”

“Then we’d better get that studio built for you when the Jamisons aren’t looking,” his stepfather said, eliciting laughter. He stood and clapped Stephen on the back. “Looks as though we’ll have our own Picasso in the family.”

There was a knock on the door, and I sighed in relief. George had finally arrived.

“I’ll get it,” Margo said to me, smiling as she headed for the breezeway. “You keep your seat.” When she returned, the expression on her face was distressed. The visitor was not George.

Claudia walked past Margo and said, “Oh, I see you’re having another party. I’ve always been known to have good timing. Sorry to intrude, but I was hoping to pick up the sweater I left the last time I was here.”

“We never found any sweater,” Margo said. “You must have left it somewhere else.”

“I’m sure it’ll turn up,” Claudia said, coming into the room and handing her raincoat to Adam. “How nice to see you again, Jessica.”

“Thank you, Claudia. How are you?”

“Just fine.” She waved at Stephen and Madeline, and introduced herself to the Reynoldses.

“As long as you’re here, Claudia, I suppose you’d like to join us for dinner?” Tom said, sighing.

“I’d be delighted,” she answered. “I’d hate to go out in that storm again. It’s a mess out there. The roads are flooded. I might even have to sleep on your couch.”

I glanced at Margo, who was working to hide her misery. “I’ll go tell Norlene to set another place for dinner,” she said and hurried toward the kitchen.

“Stephen was just telling us that he’s sold a painting,” Tom said to Claudia.

“And received a commission for a portrait,” Stephen added.

“How lucky for you,” Claudia said to him.

“It’s not luck—it’s talent,” Madeline said brusquely.

“Of course,” Claudia said smoothly. “Who gave you the commission?”

“Charles Davis,” Stephen said. “He wants a portrait of his Aunt Agnes before she… well, he wants a portrait of her. I’m going over there tomorrow to start making sketches.”

“Agnes will be delighted. She loves the attention,” Claudia said, crossing to the bar cart and fixing herself a drink.

There was another knock on the door and I hoped that this time it was George. “I’ll get it,” I said.

But as I stood to go to the door, leaving my soda on the coffee table, Adam walked in with George in tow.

I went to greet him. “I’m so glad you made it,” I said in a low voice.

“What’s going on?” he whispered back.

“I’ll tell you later,” I said.

I introduced George around. Tom and Adam had already met him briefly. Godfrey was pleased to meet another British citizen, and said that he’d never met a real, live Scotland Yard inspector before. “You probably have and just didn’t know it,” George replied pleasantly. Godfrey’s wife, Daisy, was delighted and gushed over him. Stephen and
Madeline were appropriately polite, and Claudia gave him her best energetic, bone-crushing handshake. I was proud that George didn’t wince.

Margo returned to the living room to announce that dinner was served, and we made our way to the dining room.

We were ten at the table. Judge Thomas Betterton; his girlfriend, Margo Silvestry; his ex-wife, Claudia Betterton; his stepchildren, Madeline and Stephen. Daisy and Godfrey Reynolds. Adam Wyse. Chief Inspector George Sutherland. And me.

Margo had briefly debated where to sit and I could see her thinking it through. Should she be opposite Tom as a wife might, or sit next to him as she’d originally planned? As hostess, she chose to take the seat opposite Tom, but her expression said that she regretted her decision when Claudia neatly slid into the chair next to him.

Norlene had outdone herself, creating a feast with plenty for everyone. We started with corn and fontina-cheese ravioli in brown butter, followed by pan roasted rockfish, garnished with seared scallops, and accompanied by truffled risotto, and spinach with sautéed Bermuda onions.

The conversation was subdued, and mostly about the food, which was exceptional; there were kudos around the table for Norlene. The nasty weather naturally became a topic of discussion, and Tom recounted how his boat had made it back to the safety of the harbor just ahead of the storm. “I frankly wondered whether we’d get there,” Tom said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a storm quite this bad before on Bermuda. I hear that all flights have been cancelled until further notice.”

“The weather reports say it will last at least until tomorrow night,” Stephen said.

“Well,” Tom said, “we
did
make it back, thanks to Adam’s piloting skills, and by the way, we have him to thank for our meal tonight. He caught and cleaned these rockfish before the foul weather hit. Nothing like fresh-caught fish.”

“And Norlene cooked them perfectly,” I said, hoping that she could hear from the kitchen all the praise being heaped upon her. I also wondered whether Adam’s fishing success had caused her to change her menu at the last minute. If so, my admiration for her culinary skills was heightened even further.

“Right. Right,” Tom said, raising his glass. “To Norlene, best cook on the island.”

We all joined in the toast. I was surprised at the good mood Tom seemed to be in considering the tragedy that had befallen him and the family just days earlier. I’m not sure whether I could have hosted yet another dinner party under those circumstances, or would even try. Margo had said he was “an awful mess” but that he hid it well. Perhaps he was a man capable of compartmentalizing his emotions, which would have stood him in good stead on the bench during a difficult trial.

“We were lucky not to lose the fish,” Stephen said. “The boat was rocking so hard in the chop that I was sure we were going to capsize.”

“At least the storm has accomplished one thing,” Adam said, grinning.

“What’s that?” Margo asked.

“It got rid of the press. You should have seen them scurrying
for cover when the rains came, like the rats that they are.” He laughed.

A clap of thunder made everyone jump and the lights flickered.

“I hope it subsides before midnight,” Daisy said nervously. “I don’t relish walking back to the cottage in that deluge. My shoes were soaked by the time we arrived up here at the house.”

“You brought an extra pair,” her husband said. “No real harm.”

Over a dessert of banana bread pudding with chocolate sauce and crème anglaise, Tom tapped his wineglass with his knife. “Stephen isn’t the only one with good news,” he said. “You’ll be pleased to know that the Bermuda Police Service has released all of us from its demands that we remain on the island. We are free to go at any time.”

“Oh, thank goodness,” Daisy said, before realizing that her comment might not be appropriate. “Not that it hasn’t been lovely here, Tom. I mean, it’s a beautiful island and all but we really must get home to London.”