Red Julie (An Olivia Miller Mystery Book 2) (2 page)

“Reh,” he mumbled. “Reh…oo…ee.” The man pulled at Olivia to draw her closer. She leaned down and put her ear near to his mouth.

“Reh…oo…ee,” he managed between ragged breaths. “Oo…ee.”

Olivia strained to understand him. “Julie? Are you asking for Julie?” She peered into the vehicle. She hadn’t even thought to look inside the car for anyone else.

“It’s empty. I don’t see anyone,” Olivia told him.

The man shook his head and repeated, “reh…oo…ee.” He turned his face to the side as he coughed up blood.

Olivia heard sirens. “I hear them. They’re coming. Help’s coming.” She gave the man a thin smile.

The man looked over Olivia’s shoulder and horrible noises let loose from his throat. His eyes were frantic and he grabbed at her wildly, his shoulders rocking from side to side. Olivia turned her head to her right. She startled. A man in a dark suit stood just behind her. He stared down at the man on the road.

“I didn’t hear you come up. The ambulance is coming,” she told the man. He did not look at her, only down at the man. His eyes were like cold steel. His right hand was in the pocket of his suit jacket. The man on the ground contorted trying to free himself from the wreckage. Roaring noises ripped from his throat.

Olivia looked from the man on the ground to the standing man. A chill ran down her back. Her heart thudded against her chest. “Step back,” Olivia told the man standing over them. He didn’t look at her. He didn’t move. Olivia raised her voice and glared at him. “I said step back.” The man took a step closer and Olivia noticed that his pant leg was wet. There was a tiny puddle that looked sticky and wet on the street where he had stood a moment before. The man shifted his steely gaze to Olivia. Her heart stopped. As the man’s right hand twitched in his pocket, a car heading down the ramp skidded to a stop and a young man and woman jumped out and raced towards them.

The man turned his head to look at the couple. His face was calm, expressionless, but the muscles of his jaw twitched. A police car, siren screaming, shot up the street to the ramp from the direction of Route 1 with two ambulances chasing behind.

Olivia turned back to the man on the ground. His eyes were wide but now they were transfixed. His hands had dropped by his sides. He was still.

A paramedic ran to them carrying his medical bag and crouched down. His gloved hand reached for the man’s neck to check for a pulse. Olivia stepped back, her arms wrapped tightly around her body. Tears gathered in her eyes. She was trembling. A police officer was at her side.

“Were you in the car, Miss?”

Olivia blinked at him and shook her head. “No, no. I was driving down the ramp.” She pointed back to her car. “It was like this already.” She gestured to the over-turned car.

The paramedics were covering the man from head to toe with a sheet. Olivia’s throat constricted. She blinked to keep her tears from spilling. Three or four people had gathered and stood off to the side of the exit ramp watching. Someone handed Olivia some alcohol moistened towels to wipe the blood from her hands.

“I’d like to take your statement, Miss,” the officer told her and nodded to his car parked at the end of the ramp. Olivia walked with him to his cruiser. Her body seemed filled with ice and her hands felt numb. As she walked to the police cruiser, she scanned the people who had gathered to watch. The man in the suit was not among them.

Olivia gave her statement to the police officer. Other officers arrived and flares were placed on the ramp. The few cars exiting the highway were instructed to travel onto the grass just off the road shoulder in order to get around the accident scene.

Back in her car, Olivia inched down the street, weaving around the safety personnel and the gawkers who had assembled. She glanced at the ambulance as she passed. Her hands twitched on the steering wheel.

Olivia was only seven miles from reaching her house but she was still shaking and the road seemed to swim before her. She removed one hand from the steering wheel and shook it, then did the same with her other hand. Olivia approached a roadside café that was open twenty-four hours. She pulled into the parking lot and parked near the front entrance. Images of the accident scene flashed in her mind and she swallowed hard. She rummaged in her bag for tissues.
He died. I couldn’t help him.
She sat for a few minutes trying to calm herself.
What did he say? Where’s Julie? Red Julie?

Olivia could see some teenagers in one of the booths near the window, laughing and talking. She sighed, got out of the car, and walked into the café, where she ordered a takeout coffee from the girl behind the counter.

The girl stared at Olivia’s jacket. Olivia looked down and saw that blood was smeared over the front of the tan blazer. Handprints were outlined in blood on the fabric of the arms.

“I just came from an accident,” Olivia hurriedly explained.

The lights seemed too bright and hurt her eyes, and the cooking smells of the greasy late night breakfasts turned her stomach. The waitress returned, snapped the plastic lid over the coffee cup, placed it in front of Olivia, and turned to the cash register to ring in the sale. Olivia reached into her jacket pocket for the twenty dollar bill she had put there before she left her Medford apartment earlier that night. Her fingers bumped something small and hard.

She pulled her hand from her pocket and her eyes went wide. She was holding a thick gold cross attached to a heavy gold chain. The cross was elaborately carved and had a sunburst design in the center of it. In the middle of the sunburst was a small silver skull with a large diamond embedded in each of the eye sockets. The sunburst’s rays radiated in gold and silver from the center skull and were decorated with diamonds of varying sizes. The initial “S” was engraved on the back. The clasp was broken off. There were tiny splotches of blood on the cross and chain.

Olivia gaped at the necklace in her hand like she had never encountered a piece of jewelry.
What the hell?
Reacting to instinct, she clenched her fingers over the cross to hide it from anyone who might be looking her way and shoved it back into her pocket.
The man from the accident must have put it in my pocket.
Her eyes darted around the room to see if anyone had noticed what she was holding. No one was looking at her. She paid for the coffee and hurried back to her car, wiping the specks of blood from her fingers against her jeans.

It was two in the morning when Olivia turned onto Obed’s Lane and drove slowly down to Whitney Way. The land in this area of Ogunquit had been owned by Aggie’s husband’s family for over one hundred years. In the early 1900s, parcels had gradually been sold off to other people.

Olivia’s house was a three bedroom brick ranch. Its lot was small, but it sat overlooking the ocean, affording a magnificent view from almost every window. The Marginal Way edged along the front of Olivia’s property. The Way was a mile and a quarter paved public foot path which wound along the cliffs and rocky shoreline of the Atlantic Ocean meandering between shrubs of rosa rugosa and bayberry. The path extended from Shore Road to Perkin’s Cove.

Olivia turned into her driveway and parked in front of the one car garage. She walked around to the back lawn. There was a small stone patio with pots of red geraniums and pink and white impatiens scattered around. The moon lit up the night and made a path of silver across the ocean. Olivia took a deep breath of the sea air and stood for a long time, still, quiet, and alone, looking out over the Atlantic.

She shifted her gaze to her neighbor’s backyard and smiled at the manicured lawn and the borders of flowers edging his property. Joe was a master gardener whose yard was always bursting with blooms in spring, summer, and fall. Tourists walking by on the Way often stopped to admire Joe’s gardens, and if he happened to be out trimming or deadheading, people would engage him in discussions about what he had planted and how he cared for them. Joe was always eager to help and he patiently and good-naturedly answered the same questions over and over. Joe had lived in the house next to Olivia’s for over twenty years. Joe had been Aggie’s best friend…more than best friends, and he had been like a father to Olivia since she was a year old.

Olivia returned to her car and took out a small suitcase. She turned the key in the lock of the house. Her house. She wandered from quiet room to quiet room without turning on lights. The kitchen where she and Aggie had cooked pancakes together. The dining room with the cut glass bowl in the center of the old oak table where they had played cards and board games and had done messy crafts that left glue residue and glitter all over the place. The living room where the afternoon light would spread over the puzzle table set up in front of the bay window. The oak bookcases that displayed photographs that Aggie had taken over the years.

Olivia walked down the hallway and into the bedroom that used to be Aggie’s room. The moonlight cast a glow across the floorboards and over the double bed covered by the quilt that Aggie had stitched by hand. Each square had some importance. There was a square cut from the satin lining of Aggie’s wedding dress, a fabric patch from the dress Olivia had worn on her first day of school. Aggie had embroidered dates and descriptions on some of the pieces. Olivia sat on the bed and ran her hand over the different colored squares.

She reached into her pocket and took out the cross necklace. She thought about how the accident victim had clutched at her, pulling on her jacket, and she shuddered.
Red Julie. What does it mean? Why did you put this in my pocket? Is it for someone named Julie?
The necklace looked old, maybe antique. Olivia wished she could show it to Aggie. Aggie was a lawyer by profession, but she knew all about antiques and, in retirement, ran a small, busy shop near Perkin’s Cove. Aggie would go to Europe once a year and on road trips all over New England, Canada, the south, the Midwest, scouring yard sales, flea markets, and estate sales for treasures to sell in her shop.

The house was so quiet. A weight seemed to be pressing down on Olivia’s chest as she sat on Aggie’s bed alone in the darkness. Her lower lip quivered. She lifted a pillow from under the covers and rested her face against the soft cotton pillowcase. She caught the faint smell of Aggie’s perfume.

Tears tumbled from her eyes and she sobbed.

Olivia couldn’t sleep and after three hours of tossing and turning, she decided to get up and go for a jog. She did four painful miles through the sleepy, early morning streets and as she turned the corner to her house, she saw Joe Hansen returning from his walk from the other direction. Joe had turned seventy-two around Christmas time, but was still active and strong from years of working in construction. He was just over six feet, lean, with a full head of silver grey hair and light blue eyes. Olivia smiled and waved and jogged to meet him.

“Liv!” Joe’s face was bright and happy. They hugged. “You made it. Get in late?”

“I got in around two,” Olivia said. “But I couldn’t sleep at all. I got up at six and went for a run.” They walked back to their houses together, Olivia’s arm linked through Joe’s.

“Thanks for stocking the fridge for me,” Olivia told him. “And for taking care of the flowers.”

“Any time,” Joe replied.

“You took your walk already?”

“I try to do my six mile loop early every day. Get it done before I head out to work. Oh, I got a new bike.” He chuckled. “It’s a tricycle.”

Olivia laughed. “A what?”

“You need to see it. It’s an adult bike but it has three wheels like a kid’s tricycle. It’s great for people with balance problems. Or for people who can’t ride a regular bike.” Joe smiled. “My sister sent it to me. She said I was getting too old to ride a regular bike. She worries about me. For no reason,” he added. Olivia knew that Joe’s sister must have sent him the bike because Aggie had died riding a bicycle, but she didn’t mention it.

“You’re in great shape,” Olivia told him. “You don’t need a bike like that.”

“Yeah, well. I kept it. It makes her happy. She doesn’t know I don’t use it.” His eyes twinkled.

“How’s the project going?” Olivia asked.

“That one’s done. Sold right away. But I have a new one. Got a beauty up in Wells. It’s not a beauty yet, but it will be. It’s right on the water.”

“I’d like to see it,” Olivia told him.

After graduating from college with a degree in history, Joe realized that historical renovation and restoration of older homes was how he wanted to spend his working life. He established his own company and, over the years, built a reputation for knowledgeable, high quality work. He was in demand all over the United States and Canada. He had written several books on the subject. In retirement, Joe had taken up buying, renovating, and selling properties along the Maine coast and he was often invited to speak at historical societies and conventions. He had even been a guest lecturer at Yale and MIT. He said that he was busier now than he had ever been in his life.

“Oh, by the way, there’s a new store in the center,” Joe said. “A book shop and it has a little café in it too.”

“Sounds nice,” Olivia said.

“It is. And an old friend of yours is working there,” Joe said.

“Really? Who is it?”

“You’ll just have to go to the center and check it out one day.”

“Joe, come on, tell me.”

“Nope.”

They reached their houses and stood at the end of Olivia’s driveway. “How about I treat you to dinner?” Joe asked. “We never got to have a proper graduation celebration, with Aggie passing and all.”

Olivia had graduated from Tufts University a few weeks after Aggie passed away. She had stayed in Medford for two extra weeks to finish some research she had worked on with one of the Tufts professors, to clean up her apartment and close out her lease. “I’d like that. Where should we eat?”

“Your choice. Where would you like to go?”

“Let’s go down to Perkins Cove. Let’s go early,” Olivia said. “Before the crowd shows up. Want to leave around five?”

“Sounds like tradition.” Joe smiled, but his eyes got all watery. Aggie, Joe, and Olivia always went early to dinner and sat outside on the patio of their favorite restaurant, surrounded by flowers, overlooking the harbor. Joe swallowed hard trying to clear the grief out of his throat. “I’ll be back at five. We can walk down to the cove on the Marginal Way.” Joe stared at Olivia for a few seconds. “I’m glad you’re back, Liv.” He hugged her.