Beaches, Blogging, and Bodies Read online

  “Not such a shame anymore. I’m Georgina. But I prefer George.”

  “And how are you finding the festival, George?”

  I tried to be honest. “It’s all a little unexpected, to be honest,” I said. “I was in town for other business. I only just learned about it this morning. It has been… interesting, so far.”

  “Ah, so you’re in Sandy Point for more than just the festival then?” Mathew said, looking a little surprised.

  I nodded. “And perhaps a little longer afterward.” The festival only ran for two days. I had no idea what my plans would be after that, but I had a feeling that this mystery wasn’t going to be wrapped up in two days.

  Mathew smiled at me. “Well, I’d love to buy you dinner while you’re in town, George.”

  “Oh! I— Uh…” I struggled to form a response. I hadn’t been expecting that. Maybe part of me deep down had been kind of hoping for it, on some level, but it still caught me by surprise.

  Mathew nodded a little. “I see. You’ve got someone waiting for you at home?”

  “Kinda. No. Yes. Well, it’s complicated.”

  He nodded again. “I see.”

  But I was willing to be convinced. Honestly, a night away from the cottage sounded really tempting, and Mathew was a really good-looking guy. “But I could possibly consider it. If it really is just dinner, that is.”

  He laughed. “Honestly, no strings attached. Meet me at the newspaper’s office later this evening if you feel like it and I’ll show you around…”

  Chapter 5

  I was wearing a cute little black dress that Agatha had loaned to me. I hadn’t packed with any thoughts of going out; I’d just thrown a few pairs of jeans and a couple of t-shirts in my suitcase. I’d remembered a bathing suit at the last minute, but could hardly wear that out to dinner.

  In the mirror, I looked pretty good. My wild hair was tamed and I’d replaced my usually bright bangles with some silver jewelry that Agatha had also loaned me for the night.

  “Perfect for a date,” Agatha commented, telling me to spin around.

  “It’s not a date,” I said. “Believe me.”

  Agatha raised her eyebrows.

  “I just want to get some more info on Jason,” I said. Mathew was Jason’s boss and I would have the perfect opportunity to quiz him on just how long Jason had been in town and what his motives truly were. “I would have thought you’d be pleased with my plan, Agatha.”

  Agatha sat on the edge of the bed. “Why do you care so much about all of this, George?”

  I shrugged a little and tried not to give too much away. “I guess I just have a naturally inquisitive nature. I’m drawn to this kind of thing.” I double-checked the dress in the mirror. It was slightly loose on me, since Agatha did have a slightly larger figure, but I supposed that was probably a good thing, considering that this was a non-date date.

  I caught Agatha shaking her head in the reflection of the mirror. “It’s more than that,” she said, leaning back a little. “You don’t seem shaken by any of this at all.”

  I paused for a second, wondering how much I should tell her. “I guess you could say I have encountered similar situations before. To be honest, I only drove all this way to visit you because I was sure you had been the victim of foul play. And after the things I have seen, believe you me, you wouldn’t blame me for jumping to that conclusion.”

  “So, this isn’t the first time you’ve done something like this?” Agatha’s mouth dropped open. “Investigated a murder?”

  I shook my head lightly. “Not the first. It’s a fairly regular occurrence, actually.” I filled her in on a few brief details of some past cases.

  “Wow…” Agatha shook her head in disbelief, but there was something else there on her face. Admiration? Interest, definitely. Her eyes were dancing. She leaned forward. “This is what you should be writing about on your blog,” she said, her voice low with excitement as she raised her eyebrows.

  I scoffed and shook my head, then returned to the mirror to fasten my necklace. “Don’t be absurd. I couldn’t possibly write about any of this stuff. I keep it light and breezy, always. That’s what my readers like. I’m not Brenda.”

  “Well, I think people would be very interested.”

  I wondered, as I headed out into the cool evening air, whether Agatha was ever going to write again. She hadn’t gone anywhere near a computer, or a pen, since I’d been staying at the cottage.

  Maybe I could speak to Matthew about getting her some work at the paper. Anything to get her out of the funk she was in.

  He’d told me he would have to work late to catch up on the work he’d missed thanks to the literary festival. The sun was still up at the time I left the cottage, but it had set by the time I reached the newspaper office at the top of the hill. I had decided to walk, partly for the fresh air and partly because I was scared the truck wouldn’t make it all the way up the hill.

  I knocked on the glass door and called out a hello to Mathew.

  “George! I’m happy to see you here,” he said with a wide smile, welcoming me inside. There was the sound of computers humming that hadn’t been turned off overnight, even though the desks were mostly empty. “I was hoping that you would decide to turn up,” he said with a laugh, walking around the newsroom and turning the monsters off.

  “It’s nice to have some friendly company,” I commented in return.

  The newsroom was still noisy even with the computers off. Mathew explained that he was printing out the proofs. “Just getting prepared for the next edition due out in three days,” Mathew explained. “We’re only a weekly paper, but the deadline seems to come around as often as if we were a daily.”

  “It must be exciting, being the editor of a paper,” I commented, following him out the door and into the street.

  Mathew laughed. “Maybe at a big paper in the city,” he said, shrugging a little. “But news moves pretty slowly around these parts.”

  “Not so true the past couple of days,” I commented.

  “No, unfortunately not.”

  We found ourselves back in the same cafe I’d been at for lunch with Agatha. It seemed like there was a lack of options in Sandy Point, and this was the premier spot in town. Unfortunately, they weren’t still serving breakfast at 8:00pm, so I had to go with a plate of creamy pasta instead.

  I wondered how much the paper would be reporting about Matilda’s death. I hadn’t asked back in the newsroom, but I had wanted to. It just wasn’t the kind of thing you could bring up easily.

  We thanked the waiter after our food arrived. Mathew had chosen the salmon and cut into it, taking a bite. “You have an interesting job yourself, George, running your own craft shop.”

  I nodded. “Life sure can be interesting, yes.”

  “Has it been something you’ve done your entire life?”

  I let out a loud laugh. “I’ve done a lot of things in my lifetime. Far too many to fit into one conversation, I’m afraid.”

  He laughed in return and smiled at me over his salmon. “Then perhaps we will have to have more than one conversation, George.”

  He was being very sweet, the way he kept wanting to talk about me and kept asking me questions, but I just wanted to talk about Jason.

  “So, you’ve got a new employee starting tomorrow?” I asked, sticking my fork into my plate of pasta. “Jason, right?”

  Mathew paused for a second before answering. “Uh, yes, that’s right. How did you know about that?” He frowned.

  I shrugged and twirled the long stands of pasta until they were a tight ball around my fork. “I spoke to him a little at the festival today. He seems like a very nice young man.”

  Mathew frowned a little more, and his eyes suddenly looked distant. “Yes, well, I suppose he is.”

  “Do you know him very well?” I asked. The pasta was delicious—creamy, smooth and perfectly seasoned. There were a lot of other happy, laughing faces in the cafe as well. Now that it was completely dark
out, the waitress came by and lit all the fairy candles on the tables. Uh-oh. Now it really was getting a little too romantic.

  Mathew nodded. “Sure. We all know Jason.”

  But how well, though? I wasn’t getting very far with my line of inquiry.

  “He said he worked at the paper when he was a college student? Were you the editor then?”

  “Well, yes, I was. Before he moved away and he got his job at the daily paper. George, why all the questions about Jason?”

  “I was just wondering. It seems a little unusual that someone who is so young and talented, with a job at a paper in the city, would move back to the small town where they grew up, when they are still so young.”

  “Yes, he is rather young, I suppose.”

  “Yes, young, and attractive…” I said with an absentminded shrug as I placed my fork down. I didn’t even notice the look on Mathew’s face. I was lost in my own thoughts. “Seems strange that he would come back to a small town like this…I wonder what happened…”

  I heard Mathew clear his throat from the other side of the table. He had finished his salmon and set his knife and fork down on his empty plate.

  He looked a little sad as he glanced up and waved for the waitress to bring him the check. “You know, if you wanted to come on a date with Jason, you should have just asked him along.”

  I was taken aback. “No—no, that’s not what I meant to imply at all…”

  I gulped. Only that was exactly what I had implied. I’d agreed to come out with Mathew, and then spent the entire dinner fishing for info about another man.

  I felt dreadful. I had hurt his feelings.

  “Mathew, I’m sorry,” I said. “We don’t have to end our night, do we? We can get dessert.”

  He stopped for a second and offered me a smile, and I thought for a moment he was going to change his mind and sit down again. “I’m not much in the mood for dessert tonight, George. Don’t worry. I will pass along your number to Jason.”

  It took a long time for the one cab in town to make its way to the cafe door. Matthew had offered to drive me—insisted, really, in the end—but I’d already felt like I’d inconvenienced him enough for the evening. I didn’t feel right about accepting a lift home.

  My phone started buzzing. It was a call, not a text, and Brenda’s name popped up on the screen. I checked the time. After 9:00. Pretty late for an emergency at the store. I hurried to answer it. There was no way that Brenda would just be calling me for a casual, friendly chat to see how my vacation was going.

  “What is it, Brenda?” I asked, holding out my arm to make sure the approaching cab actually saw me. There were not many streetlights and I was wearing a black dress. It was driving so quickly I feared it might drive right past me. Finally, it slowed down and I stepped toward it.

  “Brenda?” I asked again once I had climbed in. It was not like her to be lost for words. She usually told me precisely what she was thinking.

  Her voice was heavy with what sounded like remorse.

  “I’m sorry to have to call you about this, George… I debated it, really, I did…”

  It only took a few minutes for the cab to find its way down the hill back to Agatha’s cottage. I would have walked if it hadn’t been so late.

  “I’m only telling you now so you can’t say I didn’t do the right thing,” Brenda said.

  I was trying not to panic, growing increasingly frustrated with her.

  “Whatever it is, Brenda, please just spit it out,” I said, fumbling with the money in my purse as I tried to pay the driver.

  “It’s Casper,” she said worriedly. “She’s gotten awfully ill, I’m afraid.”

  I paced across the floorboards of my room while Agatha tried to calm me down with some tea. “I’ve really got to get back to Pottsville,” I said, piling all my clothes back into my small suitcase. I fumbled with the zip of Agatha’s dress. “Sorry. I won’t have time to get this dry cleaned, I’m afraid.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about that now,” Agatha said. “George, please. Can you just stop and breathe for a second?”

  Brenda told me that she thought Casper had gotten into the laundry room where her cat Banana slept and had eaten all of the cat’s food. Casper was a small dog with a sensitive stomach, so a drastic change in diet could quite possibly be the reason she was so ill. I always fed her the same brand of dog food, and that was the brand I had left with Brenda, along with careful instructions. I didn’t blame her, though; dogs would eat whatever they could find.

  “No time for breathing. I’ll have to get the truck packed up now, I’m afraid.” It had been acting up a bit—one of the reasons I hadn’t driven into town that evening—but I didn’t want to tell Agatha that.

  “But what can you do right now?” Agatha asked. “Your friend told you that she was taking Casper to the emergency after hours vet, right?”

  I slowed down a little and nodded. Brenda had assured me she would be on her way as soon as the phone call ended. She’d warned me that the bill wouldn’t be cheap, seeing as the vet would have to travel an hour and open the practice far past closing time. I didn’t care about the money, though. Brenda had done her best to assure me everything would be fine. It wasn’t like her to be maternal or comforting, which was how I knew it was serious.

  “So by the time you get there—which will take hours, by the way—they’ll already be back home and Casper will probably be feeling a lot better,” Agatha said.

  I gulped. And there was the issue of taking the truck on a three-hour drive. Oh, but what did any of that matter?

  I shook my head. “I should go anyway.”

  “You shouldn’t drive so far at this time of night,” Agatha said sensibly. “Especially when you’re upset. Try to at least get some sleep here and you can drive back in the morning.”

  I didn’t sleep well, but I had finally fallen into a deep sleep in the early hours of the morning. I was awoken by a phone call from Brenda. Fearing the worst, I grabbed for it on the beside table with such vigor that I immediately dropped it on the hard floorboards.

  I fumbled for it again, answering the phone call just before it rang out.

  “Brenda? What is it? How’s Casper?” I could barely get the words out, I was tripping over them because I was speaking so quickly.

  “She’s doing much better this morning,” Brenda replied. She sounded far calmer and more collected than she had the night before. “I thought you would want to know.”

  I sighed with overwhelming relief. “Thank you, Brenda. Thank you so much for taking her to the midnight vet. Don’t worry, I will reimburse you for the bill.”

  “Oh, of course you will,” Brenda replied. “I’ve got the receipt right here and I won’t be misplacing it.”

  I rolled my eyes a little.

  “What did the vet say?”

  “The vet gave her some medication for her upset stomach and a sedative to calm her down.”

  I gulped again. Oh gosh, it all sounded so serious. I really wanted to be at home.

  “And she is handling it all right, is she?” I could hear the worry in my voice. If her stomach was so sensitive that it was upset after eating cat food, how well would it handle new medication?

  “She’s handling it perfectly well,” Brenda said. “She’s very sleepy, but she’s fine.”

  But I still wasn’t sure. “So she is still a bit tired?”

  “Well, yes, but I think that is to be expected, given the painkillers. And the sedative.”

  “I think I should come home.”

  “Oh, nonsense, there is really no need for that!” She was firm. I knew that it was probably mostly due to the fact that she would be enjoying running the shop by herself. She wouldn’t want me to return any time soon. I said I’d think things over and hung up.

  Agatha was the brightest I had seen her during my entire stay. She greeted me in the kitchen and told me that there had been some good developments in the Matilda case and she had received an interesting
visit that morning. “We might be close to finding out who did this,” she said, flipping over pancakes when I walked in.

  “Oh,” I said. To be honest, that had been the furthest thing from my mind that morning.

  Agatha must have seen that I was still distracted.

  “And how is your little doggie doing this morning?” She placed a pile of pancakes in front of me and poured maple syrup over them, the real stuff.

  I sighed and poured myself a cup of coffee while I dug a spoonful of pancake into the syrup. There was a warm breeze coming through the open windows; perfect weather for a day at the beach. “She’s much better. But I feel so guilty for leaving her. I think I should go back, Agatha.”

  I stopped when I saw the box sitting on the other end of the kitchen table. “What is that?” I asked.

  Agatha shook her head. “It’s a box of Matilda’s items from the newspaper’s office. None of it was thought to be of any interest to the police. It’s just her personal items. She doesn’t have any family in Sandy Point and she lived alone, so they dropped them off here…”

  I pushed my stack of pancakes aside and stood up, walking over to the box and looking through the items. There were a few framed photographs and a potted plant that was losing soil in the box so I pulled it out. Then I saw something flat and heavy underneath it.

  “Her laptop?” I asked, surprised. Huh. That was interesting. Why would her laptop have been left out of evidence? “Should we take a look at it?”

  Agatha stopped drinking her coffee and stared at me over the top of her cup. “I was wondering that myself. I’m not sure, though. Should we?”

  My answer was yes. I sat down and flipped up the screen while Agatha watched. But I was locked out.

  “Shoot, there’s a password to get in.”

  “Hmm,” Agatha said, pondering. “Try needles.”

  “Really? She loved knitting that much?”

  “It was her cat’s name.”

  “Oh.” I typed it in, but no luck.

  “Okay, then, try needles1234.”