Death on the Coast, M Comley [book club books TXT] 📗

the ladies at a table closer to the door on his way out. The door caught in the growing wind as he left, slamming hard in its weathered frame.

“Well, my, my… ask and you shall receive,” Lucy teased.

“Can you believe it? And me looking like this?”

Lucy didn’t want to burst her bubble, but felt it was incumbent on her to issue a word of caution. “Kathy, you know what they say about sailors…”

“Yes, yes, a woman in every port blah blah blah. That’s fine. I’m not looking for anything serious,” she stuttered and quickly threw the rest of her coffee down her throat. She glanced at her watch. “Well, I’m off. I have a ton of chores to do before tonight,” she gushed and picked up her things. “Thank you for the introduction, Lucy. You’re a doll!”

Lucy watched her almost dance out of the bakery and strained long enough to see Kathy cross the street and enter Hair by the Sea, Angie’s former competitor. It seemed a trim and a style would be her first task of the day. Lucy smiled to herself and gathered her things together. She had a little research she wanted to do before she came up with something suitable to write for that day’s paper. She waved goodbye to Sal and called out, “Let me know when the first special doggie biscuit day will be.”

Sal waved back and nodded, arguing with someone with practiced skill over her phone. Yes, it was definitely one of her daughters. Even with Sal’s obvious consternation, Lucy found herself feeling a tad envious.

8

As an afterthought, Lucy stopped by to see Christine on her way home.

“You back again?” Christine sounded less hospitable than she had on her previous visit.

“I’m sorry, but I’m trying to help.”

Christine put one hand on her hip and layered one foot atop the other, and leaned against the doorway. “You’re also a reporter, and I’m not thrilled about having my family history trumpeted all over the village.”

Lucy was a little taken aback by Christine’s hostility and she couldn’t help but wonder what the heck was going on. “May I come in for a minute?”

“For…?”

“I wanted to talk to you.”

“Talk.”

Lucy peered around at the houses nearby, many with their windows open and white curtains billowing in the breeze. “It’s not terribly private out here.”

“That…coming from a reporter. What is it you want to know this time?” Christine glanced over her shoulder quickly, allowing Lucy the time to look as well. The house was quiet, but Lucy sensed Christine was hiding something.

“Okay,” Lucy gave in and settled on saying what she had to say on the doorstep. “Did your mother ever seek therapy?”

“Therapy?”

Lucy nodded, pointing to her own head. “You know, for possible mental difficulties.”

The oddest expression appeared on Christine’s face. “Well, yes, she did. He was down in Waverly. I don’t know what they talked about, but she seemed to be in brighter spirits when she came back.”

“Did she ever tell you that she was depressed? Or maybe even desperate enough that she didn’t want to live?”

“No!” Christine sounded highly irritated in her denial. Then, as though she had rethought her outburst, she added, “But then, she was in the habit of drinking a lot, and you know what that can do to people.”

“Huh. I never knew that about Angie,” Lucy said.

“She was one of those closet drinkers. Half the time she was on the couch, sleeping off an overindulgence. She was going to lose her salon, you know.”

Lucy nodded, but didn’t go along with Christine’s theory and wondered again why she was so embittered. When Lucy expected spasms of tears, she found anger instead.

“Mind if I ask the doctor’s name?”

“Can’t remember, and if I did, they wouldn’t talk to you. Doctor/patient confidentiality doesn’t end with the patient’s death from what I can gather. I guess you’ll just have to take my word for it.”

“That’s okay, and thank you again for talking with me,” Lucy told her.

As she left, she sneaked a look back at the house and swore a curtain moved on the second floor. She tried to recall the layout and plumped for the room being Angie’s bedroom. She shrugged it off as a figment of her imagination and then tried to rationalize Christine’s behavior. If the mother and daughter fell out regularly, her attitude could be classified as normal, couldn’t it? And Christine’s admittance that Angie had been seeing a therapist and there would be a confidentiality aspect would be considered valid by default. That wasn’t fair, and it made Lucy all the more motivated to find out what had truly happened to her friend.

The question was whether Angie had been desperate enough to take her own life. That would be exceedingly hard to do with the manner in which she’d died, but that didn’t rule out that she could have set out on the walk intending to throw herself off the cliff into the ocean. It wouldn’t be the first time someone had done that in the area. Lucy knew from research that emotionally distraught people could resort to dramatic attempts at suicide; it was an eloquence of their statement in physical terms.

Could Angie have just learned of the pregnancy, and without the father on board, decided it was more than she could handle? Could she have possibly decided the only solution was to end it all?

What about the rope, though? She couldn’t have done it on her own. She would have needed help.

Was it possible someone didn’t murder her, but that it was an assisted suicide?

Lucy made a quick turn to her right, away from the office. She dropped in to Bob’s Hardware. Bob was standing at the paint counter, loading the vibrating can shakers with two fresh cans of mint green. Lucy didn’t recognize the customer he was serving, she waited patiently until Bob had finished dealing with the woman.

“What can I do for you, Lucy?” Bob said cheerfully. He was well liked by the women in the village. Everyone