Carol Higgins Clark Boxed Set - Volume 1: This eBook collection contains Zapped, Cursed, and Wrecked. (45 page)

“What a weekend to be at the Cape!” Dorie blurted.

That’s the understatement of the year, Jack thought. “Yes, this weather is something. Dorie, I’m afraid I have some bad news about the woman who’s been renting your house.”

Dorie’s heart sank. “What?” she asked as her yellow slicker dripped water on her kitchen floor.

“This morning our caretaker Skip went down our staircase to the beach to see if there was any damage from the storm,” he began, then filled her in on the demise of her tenant.

“Oh, no!” Dorie cried. “Mrs. Hopkins floated away! Why did he leave her there? If he wasn’t sure she was dead he should have—”

Jack winced. Poor Skip was going to be dealing with those questions forever. “I can assure you he’s very upset,” Jack said. “He obviously wishes he hadn’t left her there. But he felt fairly certain that she was already dead.”

“Fairly certain? She wasn’t a big woman, Jack! If he had at least tried to move her—”

“Dorie,” Jack interrupted. “I think he was in shock. He said that her face was bloody.”

“I’m sorry. I just feel terrible. If we hadn’t rented the house to her, this wouldn’t have happened.”

“It’s not your fault,” Jack assured her. “She must have slipped and fallen down the stairs. We’re guessing that she was checking to make sure her rowboat was secure.”

“She had a rowboat?”

“Yes.”

“That’s news to me.”

“I saw it this morning. Apparently she was frequently on the water, even when it was freezing outside. She kept the boat tied at the bottom of your staircase.” Jack then explained about going into her house with Regan and the police.

“My goodness, why was she sending out all those apology cards? She seemed like a nice, quiet, private woman. I can’t imagine why she felt the need to apologize to so many people. What could she have done that was so bad?”

Oh, great, Jack thought. Dorie is supposed to be the one giving the answers, not asking the questions. “We were wondering the same thing. It could just be imagined offenses that kept her awake at night. There were also several self-help books lying around.”

“Ah,” Dorie said, her eyes welling with tears. “She was trying to become a better person. What kind of self-help? Do you remember any of the titles?”

“One of them was something like
WAS I BORN RUDE?
”

Dorie gasped. “I didn’t find her rude at all. You see? She was probably overly critical of herself and didn’t need to apologize to anyone.”

“Hard to say at this point,” Jack commented. “Right now we need to notify her next-of-kin. Did she put names and numbers of people to notify in case of emergency on her rental application?”

“Rental application?” Dorie asked.

“Yes. Didn’t she fill out paperwork with the real estate agent?”

There was a moment of silence.

“Dorie?”

“We didn’t use a real estate agent.”

“Then how did you meet her?”

“This isn’t going to sound good.”

“Try me,” Jack said, trying to lighten the tone.

“Dan and I went down to the Cape for a weekend in November. On Sunday morning we had breakfast at Fern’s coffee shop. We were talking about money. The kids are both in college now and there are so many expenses. Dan said that we should probably rent out the house for at least a month during the summer. I almost choked. With our jobs we’re able to go down for
long weekends in June and July and then take our vacation in August. I look forward to it all year. I suggested to Dan that we register the house with a real estate agent after breakfast and try to rent it out until Memorial Day.”

“What did Dan say?”

“He told me I was crazy. He said that in this economy people have a hard enough time renting their houses out in the summer. Who would we possibly get to rent our house in the winter? Well, guess what, Jack? Turns out she was sitting at the next table.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I kid you not. It was an unbelievable stroke of luck. At least I thought so at the time. This woman Adele Hopkins overheard us. She came over, introduced herself, and said she’d just arrived on the Cape. She’d recently gotten divorced and was looking to rent a house for several months. She was a sweet woman with such sadness in her eyes. You can just imagine what happened next. Dan didn’t even finish his pancakes—and the man never leaves food on his plate. We paid the bill as fast as possible and she followed us home. We couldn’t believe what she offered us to stay there until May. As you know, our house is not a candidate for
Architectural Digest
. It’s got a great view, but the interior has never been updated since it was built. When we have extra money, which will probably be never, we’ll do it. But that doesn’t matter. We have always felt incredibly blessed to have found a waterfront place at the Cape for such a steal, and to think it’s worth ten times more than that now . . .”

If my mother hears that story from you one more time, Jack thought, she might resort to violence.

“. . . so just like when we bought the house, we made the deal
lickety-split. The next morning Mrs. Hopkins had twenty-five thousand dollars wired into our account. We were delirious. The holidays were coming and it relieved some of the pressure from all the bills that pile up. She drove over to our house and we gave her the new keys. The only thing she’d wanted was to have the locks changed, which I don’t blame her for. The locksmith was there first thing in the morning.”

Somehow Jack knew the answer to his next question before asking it. “Did you check her references?”

“Who wants to look for trouble when someone is handing you that kind of money?”

“I understand.”

“You do?”

“Not really. But let me ask you this. Did you even ask her for references?”

“It would have been so awkward. The whole situation just felt so right, like when we bought the house. The owner had a good feeling about us when we showed up unexpectedly on his doorstep. That’s how we felt about Adele Hopkins. She just appeared in our lives and we trusted her. By the way, Jack, she’s not on trial, she’s dead. She didn’t do anything wrong. And another thing. I find it hard to believe that she fell down the steps.”

“Why?”

“When we showed her around, which didn’t take long because she obviously wasn’t fussy, she said she was looking forward to spending time alone because her divorce had been so bitter. To live on the water would be so soothing. I asked if she had children and she said no. When we walked down the steps to the beach she had a firm grip on the railing and was very careful. She said she’d gone tumbling down a flight of steps
once and was never going to let that happen again. Just the way she said it. I don’t know. Maybe her ex-husband got sick of paying alimony and decided to track her down and push her down the steps again!”

“Dorie, you’re jumping to wild conclusions. There is no reason to believe that something like that happened. The weather is terrible and those stairs are slippery. She shouldn’t have been outside. Like I said before, we need to contact her family. Even if you didn’t ask for references, surely she must have given you the name of someone to contact in case of emergency.”

Again there was silence.

“Dorie?” Jack asked.

“When we gave her the keys, I asked her about who we should call if we needed to get in touch with someone on her behalf. I tried to sound delicate. But she knew exactly what I meant and joked that she didn’t plan to get sick or die. She then said her best friend was moving and getting a new home number and cell phone number and she’d give them to me as soon as she had them. I called her every month to make sure that everything was okay. The first time I called I asked her for her friend’s number and she said she was late for an appointment and didn’t have the numbers in front of her. She wasn’t much for chatting. So I didn’t bother her about it again. She gave us no trouble . . .”

“So you’re saying you have no contact information.”

“I guess so.”

“Did she use your phone? Were there any numbers on your bill?”

“No. She didn’t make any calls and only answered when she could tell from the caller ID that it was me calling.”

“We found no ID in the house, but her car is in the garage,
which is locked. If I can get in there and see the license plate, my office can trace it,” Jack explained.

Dorie took a deep breath. “We have a key. Dan and I are coming down,” she said with determination. “As soon as he gets back from the gym.”

“Be careful. The driving isn’t going to be easy.”

“I don’t care. Adele Hopkins was our tenant. She paid us fair and square and now she’s dead. We have to find out who this woman was. Jack, can we pay you and Regan?”

“You don’t have to pay us. We want to help. Actually, Regan and I were just heading over to the shop where she bought all the pillows to see if anyone there knows anything about her.”

“Oh, great. And don’t forget, we met her at Fern’s. She said the breakfast had been delicious. Maybe she went back. Fern knows everything that’s going on around town. Which reminds me of Fran and Ginnie. If you talk to them—”

“Believe me, we have. A branch crashed through their front window this morning. They came over and plan to stay indefinitely.”

“You poor dears.”

“That’s for sure.”

“That’s another thing. With those two living on the block, I knew I’d hear from them if Mrs. Hopkins was doing anything crazy. They’re like our own neighborhood watch.”

“That they are,” Jack agreed.

“Jack, thank you for all your help. We’re so lucky to have you and Regan down there. I don’t know what we’d do without you. We’ll see you as soon as we can.”

Jack hung up the phone. By now, Regan was standing next to him. He’d been holding the phone out so she could hear the conversation.

“You were right, Regan. There’s no simple explanation for who that woman was.”

Regan smiled. “Yes, but I didn’t expect there’d be
no
explanation. Let’s go. Something tells me that anyone on the Cape who had fleeting contact with Adele Hopkins knows more about her than Dorie.”

Aren’t we lucky to have found such a wonderful spot for breakfast?” Devon asked as he and five of his six actors piled into a minibus outside Fern’s. “We all need to start the day with a hearty, healthy breakfast. From this moment on we’re going to need every ounce of energy!”

“Um-hmm,” the others grumbled. Being theater people, they didn’t relish the morning.

Devon turned on the ignition and pulled out of Fern’s parking lot onto a narrow, slick road. A mile later, as their home away from home—a magnificent white mansion perched on a slope overlooking the sea—came into view, Devon outstretched his right arm. “How can we be this lucky?” he asked dramatically. “Before long we’ll be entertaining theatergoers on that sprawling lawn. They’ll be sitting in seats under an open-air tent, sniffing the sea air . . .”

“In weather like this, they’re especially going to love it,” one of his actors remarked.

“Oh, Brandon”—Devon chuckled—“we’ll pull down the flaps. Our audiences will be so transfixed, they won’t care where they are.”

“The lodging is what I like,” Martha commented. “I’ve performed in places where they put us up in school dormitories that should have been shut down by the board of health.”

“Haven’t we all?” Annie, the rep’s ingenue, agreed. She winked conspiratorially at Martha. “Living in that mansion is great, but I’d really like my own house.”

“Me, too!” Martha exclaimed.

Devon gasped. He knew that his cast loved to tease him. Naturally he loved the attention.

The traveling theater company was his baby. Over the years he’d written plays that had been produced but never made a lasting impression. This last year, though, he’d written a play that had been well received at readings for investors in New York City. Devon glowingly described his creation as a comedy about a typical dysfunctional family weekend in the country. His goal, of course, was to have the play produced on Broadway. But first it would have to be tested on out-of-town audiences. No doubt the script would have to be tweaked here and there along the way.

Devon raised enough money from investors to cover the cost of producing his play in three locations over the summer. First stop Cape Cod, then the Berkshires, and finally the Hamptons. In each place Devon had managed to find a welcoming spot to pitch his tent. He’d auditioned hundreds of actors, finally coming up with a cast that he felt was perfect to fill the roles he created—a mother and father in their mid-forties; their son and daughter, both in their early twenties; the daughter’s troublesome boyfriend; and the pivotal role of the nutty grandpa who comes to visit.

He was wild with anticipation to get started with the rehearsals. Tomorrow night’s cocktail party would be fun, but after that
they’d get down to business, doing what they all loved best. The rehearsal process was a period of discovery that was most exciting. He couldn’t wait to guide the actors, desperately hoping that they’d mine every ounce of gold out of every brilliant line of his play.

Only one thing made him nervous—the thought of directing Floyd Wellington, the actor who was playing Grandpa. Floyd was a star of the theater world who had strong opinions about every aspect of every production he’d ever been a part of.