Shroud of Fog: (A Cape Trouble Romantic Suspense Novel) (3 page)

“All right,” he said.  “See what kind of inventory you do
have, too.”  He stared at the daunting contents of the storage locker.  “Do me
a favor, though.  Please don’t call any of the other volunteers or accept any
calls.  In fact, don’t talk to anyone, okay?  I’ll want to give each of them
the news myself.”

Still remarkably composed, she nodded.  “I wonder what
happened to the lock.”

“I think the fact that the lock was replaced suggests the
killing of your aunt was thoroughly premeditated.  He – or she – came
prepared.  The replaced lock was likely intended to slow down the discovery of
the body.  Any volunteers who came out here would be puzzled and possibly
annoyed because their keys didn’t work, but most of them wouldn’t have demanded
Marge cut the lock off.”  Which, the more he thought about it, made Ms. Thomsen
an unlikely killer.  Why would she put the damn lock on, then immediately
insist Marge cut it off?

“No.  No, I suppose not.”  She hugged herself.  “No.”  She
stole a look toward the cluster of people now waiting for him outside the space
and the grim sight past them, then hurried the rest of the way to her Prius. 

A moment later, she drove around the corner of the building
without looking back.

The cottage her aunt had rented for Sophie for the month was
a perfect dollhouse.  It probably dated to more like the 1940s than the
turn-of-the-century, but the lavender paint job with trim in deep purple, white
and sunny yellow gave it a Victorian feel.  The yard wasn’t big, but the garden
was beautiful and at its most glorious right now with antique roses,
delphiniums, foxgloves and poppies in bloom.  A white picket fence bounded the
front yard, the walkway from the street entering beneath an arch covered by a
pale pink, single-petaled climbing rose tangled with a clematis that had
dinner-plate sized sky-blue flowers.  Sophie wasn’t a gardener – she lived in a
condo in Portland – but even she could appreciate the beauty of this yard,
maintained by the owner.

At first she huddled inside, sipping tea to combat the chill
that had settled inside her, but eventually the sun did come out and she took
her third cup of tea out onto the tiny brick patio in back.  It was soothing
listening to bees hum gently as they moved from bloom to bloom.  Even more
powerful than the fragrance of the roses was the smell of the ocean, salty and
slightly fishy.  The muted roar of the surf was constant, too, part of life here. 
She remembered how, after each summer spent here, she’d had trouble sleeping
when they went home after Labor Day weekend.  She’d felt the absence of the
ocean’s rhythm as if some essential function of her own body had ceased.

But after that summer – yes, After – she would forever find
the sound to be ominous rather than soothing.

The cottage was situated closer to the river than Sophie
liked, and she’d been relieved to discover there was no view that direction. 
Coming and going, she wouldn’t have to look across the river at the row of
cabins on the other side.  She had become quite good on her occasional visits
here to Cape Trouble at not seeing the old resort, the pier, the
driftwood-tumbled banks of the river or the roll of sand dunes that, who knows
why, had been formed by the Pacific ocean only on the south side of the river. 
Tourists, of course, made their way onto the dunes even though the land was
marked No Trespassing out by the highway, but when had that ever stopped
anyone?  These were puny compared to the  magnificent dunes by Florence, but
were fun nonetheless for kids to slide down on pieces of cardboard or plastic
disks.  According to Aunt Doreen, the dunes and the native reeds that grew
around them were sometimes torn up by ATVs.  Sophie doubted the Cape Trouble
patrol officers paid much attention to the long-abandoned resort, cut off as it
was by the river from the rest of the town.

Another of those shivers rattled Sophie’s teeth and she rose
to get a sweater.  She’d forgotten how cold the ocean air was.  Ninety degree
days in Portland were likely to be seventy here on the coast.

She’d already pored over the file of information Doreen had
given her last night.  She’d have liked to have gone by her aunt’s cottage to
see what else she could find, but suspected Chief Colburn wouldn’t appreciate
her using the key Doreen kept under a plant pot.

When she kept shivering even after she’d pulled the sweater
over her long-sleeved T-shirt, Sophie realized she was in shock.  That must be
why she felt so peculiar.  Or, more accurately, why she didn’t feel what she
knew she should be.

Her mind shied from remembering her aunt’s body, the pool of
congealed blood, or the one, awful glimpse she’d had of Aunt Doreen’s staring
eyes.  It didn’t shy quite fast enough, though, and her teeth gave a quick
clatter.

She was the only person in the world I truly loved.  The
only person who truly loved me.

The knowledge was stark, too big for her to face yet.  She’d
never let herself think about what it would be like when Doreen was gone.  How
could she, without accepting how alone she was?

Her father was alive, but he’d abandoned her emotionally
from the moment her mother died.  If it had only been grief, she might have
forgiven him later, but then he’d remarried less than a year later.  Julie, the
woman he married, hadn’t displayed any interest in mothering the shocked,
withdrawn little girl Sophie had been.  The only positive of acquiring a
stepmother was Julie’s sister, brisk, brusque, odd but somehow comforting.

And now Doreen was gone.  And so horribly.

What she ought to do, Sophie thought, was head straight back
to Portland, as soon as that police officer said she could go.  Let the land be
sold to developers.  Let their bulldozers smash down the cabins and the lodge, obliterate
the landscape Sophie remembered in her dreams, tinted sepia.  Let two-hundred
room resorts with concrete balconies rise in place of the grass and wildflowers
and shrubby coastal growth that had, so long ago, been Sophie’s playground.

But however powerful the yearning, she realized she couldn’t
do that.  She’d meant what she said to the police chief.  She owed more to
Doreen Stedmann than she could ever repay, but this would be a start. 
Besides…once she saved Misty Beach, she never had to see it again.

In the meantime – she picked up the inadequate listing of
donated items – she was going to have to work harder than she’d ever worked in
her life to pull off this auction, scheduled for the second Saturday in July.

Chief Colburn didn’t show up until two o’clock.  Not until
she opened the door to him did Sophie realize she’d been a little bit nervous
about his reappearance.  Even through her shock and nausea that morning, she
had felt a startled moment of awareness that left her unnerved.

He was maybe six feet, not enormous but a great deal taller
than her own five foot four.  Broad-shouldered, narrow-hipped, rangy in build
with the kind of saunter that was unconscious to men who had the “it” factor. 
He was a guy who knew where he was going and how to get there.  Why
there
happened to be Cape Trouble was a mystery, but it might be merely a way station
on his journey to bigger and better things.  Or she supposed he could be a
local boy for whom this was home, although she didn’t remember him from her long-ago
summers or, more recently, from her visits here.

He had dark hair, shaggy and a little wavy, and eyes of such
a dark blue she’d first thought they were brown.  His nose was a little too big
for a long, lean face, his mouth wide.  It was hard to estimate his age, given
the lines permanently carved in his forehead.

And for some reason, he made her body hum.

He looked her over when she let him in, a frown deepening
some of those lines on his forehead.  “You okay?”

“Yes, of course I am.”  Lying about her feelings was
instinctive, but unnecessary at the moment, she realized.  Probably not even
smart.  He’d wonder if he didn’t see grief.  “Coping,” she said more honestly. 
She studied him.  “Are you done out there?”

“Done?” he said wryly.  “We’ve hardly begun.  But yes, we
photographed, fingerprinted and removed your aunt’s body.”  He hesitated. 
“There’ll be an autopsy.”

“I assumed so.  Where was she taken?”

The nearest decent sized hospital, apparently, was in
Tillamook.  She nodded at that news.

“It’ll be a week or more before we can release the body, but
you can start thinking about where you want to bury her and planning a
service.”

Oh, God.  For some reason, she’d blanked her mind to all of
that.  She knew why, of course – she hated funerals with a passion.  But,
heaven help her, Aunt Doreen would want one.  She was a church-goer and had so
many friends.

“I’ll talk to Doreen’s pastor,” she said.

“I notice you don’t always say ‘aunt’.”  The question – and
it was a question – might sound casual, but she doubted it really was.  He was
a cop investigating a death.

“The relationship, as I told you, was a little more tenuous
than that.  Saying it always felt awkward to me.  She said she was just Doreen,
so mostly that’s what I called her.”

“Your stepmom alive?”

Oh, dear God, Sophie thought, appalled.  “Yes.  I’ll have to
call her.  They weren’t close, but still…  Um, can I get you a cup of tea?  I’m
afraid I’m not a coffee drinker, so I don’t have any.”

“What I’d really appreciate is a sandwich, if there’s any chance
you have the makings.  I should have grabbed some lunch on the way, but I
didn’t.”

“No problem.  Aunt Doreen…” the pause was infinitesimal,
“stocked the kitchen for me.”  She led the way to the tiny kitchen, and took
out croissants and French rolls, cheese, turkey, tomatoes and lettuce.  She
tried not to let herself think about Doreen carrying the grocery bags in,
filling the refrigerator and cupboards in anticipation of Sophie’s arrival.

When Chief Colburn asked if she’d eaten, Sophie realized it
hadn’t even occurred to her to do so.

“You should have something.  You need to work on a full
stomach.”

Work?  She hadn’t thought of it that way, and supposed she
should be grateful he hadn’t said, If you’re going to be grilled, it should be
on a full stomach.  After all, weren’t relatives the first suspects?  He had to
be intrigued by the fact that Doreen had died barely twelve hours after Sophie
had arrived in town.  Or…had she died last night, after leaving Sophie here?

The hand holding the bread knife went still.  “Had she been
dead long?”

“About two hours, is the medical examiner’s best guess so
far.”  His deep voice was kind, his eyes searching.

After a moment she nodded and went back to slicing.

He settled down with what she thought was a contented sigh on
one of the pair of chairs on the patio, a whopping big sandwich on his plate.

They ate without much conversation.  He made a few comments,
including, “Marge is taking this hard.”

“Were they good friends?”

“I don’t know about that.”  He seemed to consider it.  “Not
friends, I don’t think.  She’s feeling responsible.  It was her place.  There
are a few video cameras monitoring activity, but your aunt’s unit is in one of
the blind spots.  Turns out the camera that records arrivals and departures was
conveniently damaged, too.  One camera shows your aunt’s car when she arrived,
but the angle and quality is too lousy to let us get much of a look.  I’ve got
someone working on it in hopes we can see if she had a passenger.”

“Either way, I don’t suppose it’s a stranger,” Sophie
commented.  “I mean, there are tourists in town, but how would any of them know
Doreen or the storage facility?”

“There are fliers up all over town trumpeting the Save the
Misty Beach campaign and asking for donations,” Chief Colburn pointed out.

“But…we talked last night.  She didn’t say anything about
getting together with someone this morning.  Why wouldn’t she have?”

“Because it wasn’t planned?  Maybe she got a call late last
night or this morning.  Or somebody could have stopped by.”

“I suppose so.”  Sophie set down the remains of her own
croissant sandwich.  “Am I a suspect?”

“Not at this time.”  His eyes were keen on her face. 
“You’re one of the few people whose movements seem to have been monitored
rather closely.  I made a couple of calls, found out what time Doreen left you
here last night, when your light went out, when you were first spotted stirring
this morning.  Neighbors noted you departing, I know you stopped at Mist River
Coffee for a
grande
chai tea, and exactly what time you let yourself
through the gate at the storage place.”

Sophie had been listening to this in alarm.  “People are
watching
me?”

“Small town.”

“God.  That’s creepy.”

He only grinned.  The effect with that sexy mouth and the
crinkles beside his eyes made her heart bump uncomfortably.  “That’s Cape
Trouble.”

“Yes, I know, but still…”

“It is creepy,” he agreed.  “I’m getting used to it, but I
can’t say I much like knowing people are keeping an eye on me at all times.”

“You haven’t been here forever?”

“Less than a year.”  He eyed her.  “Came from California. 
San Francisco P.D.  I read about the job opening, thought this sounded like a
peaceful place.”

Sophie looked down at her sandwich.  “I suppose it is, most
of the time.”  Although not in her experience.

“Yeah.”  He reached across the wrought iron table and
removed the now mangled remnant of her croissant from her hand.  “I need your
help, Ms. Thomsen.”

“Sophie,” she said.  “Nobody else is a stranger around here,
so we might as well not be either.”

That mobile mouth smiled.  “Good.  I’m Daniel.”

“Not Dan?”

“No.”  A ghost of some emotion passed through his eyes
before he blanked it.  “Full name’s Patrick Daniel.  Daniel was my father’s
name, too.”

“Was?” she asked, made careful by what his voice didn’t
reveal as much as by what it did.

“He died when I was a kid.  After that, I decided I’d rather
be Daniel than Patrick.  How about you?”  Clearly, he didn’t want to talk about
his dad or the significance of him appropriating the name.  “Family name?”

“I think my mother just thought Sophie was pretty.”

“It is pretty.”  His voice came out husky.

Their gazes caught.  Sophie held herself very still.  Then
he cleared his throat.  “About that help.”

“Tell me what you need,” she said simply.

*****

He hadn’t been one hundred percent honest, of course.  She
seemed pretty unlikely as the killer to him, but he couldn’t be sure yet. 
Getting from this cottage out to the storage facility, then back here without a
soul seeing her would have been quite a challenge in a place as nosy as Cape
Trouble, fog or no.  In asking for her help, he was putting his money on the
accuracy of all those busybodies.  Which wasn’t to say that if this murder had
been planned by Ms. Thomsen, for some as yet unknowable reason, she couldn’t
have found a way to slip out there and return unseen.