Crowned and Moldering

“But where did you see them sleeping together?” I asked, trying to divert him.

He flashed me another derisive look. “I saw them at the lighthouse mansion.”

I exchanged a quick look with Eric, who took another step closer to Dismal Dain. “Did you follow them out to the lighthouse mansion, Mr. Dain?”

Dain whipped around, saw Eric standing there, and seemed to realize his mistake. “No. No, of course not.”

“Liar.” Denise pointed at Dain. “You did. You followed them and you watched them. You’re nothing but a pervert.”

“Why would I care about either of them?” he said scornfully. “They were both beneath contempt, especially the girl.”

“You’re the contemptible one,” Denise said. “If I find out you had anything to do with Lily’s death, I’ll make sure you suffer the same way she did.”

Dain turned to Eric, cutting her off. “I don’t have to stand here and listen to this drivel.”

But Denise wasn’t finished. “As soon as the police find Lily’s diary, we’ll know who killed her.”

Dain frowned, then waved his hand brusquely, dismissing her. “I have work to do.” He began to walk away toward the main building.

“Mr. Dain,” Eric said sharply. “Stop right where you are. I’m taking you in for questioning in the murders of Lily Brogan and Cliff Hogarth.”

Before Dain knew what was happening, Tommy circled around and grabbed his arm.

“This is an outrage,” Dain said, as sweat began to bead on his forehead. “I demand to see my lawyer.”

“No problem,” Eric said. “Tell him to meet you at the police station.”

*   *   *

Eric and his team questioned Dismal Dain for hours that night, but his lawyer insisted they couldn’t hold him unless they had enough evidence to support their claims that he had something to do with Lily’s death. They didn’t. Not yet, anyway. So Dain was let go.

Denise was also sent home after a few hours, but Brad was held for two long days before they allowed him to leave. Basically his lawyers argued that Lily’s flowery words about Brad in her notebook did not constitute enough evidence to hold him. Faced with the team of expensive attorneys Denise had hired to defend her husband, Eric had no choice but to let Brad go with a warning not to leave town.

A few days later, I called Denise to check in, see how she was doing, and ask if she wanted to get a cup of coffee sometime.

“Let’s meet this afternoon,” she said. “I owe you for helping me tag team Dismal Dain the other day at school. That little rodent.”

“I didn’t do much, but I was glad to see Eric drag him off to the police station.”

“Me, too.”

She had already ordered me a café latte and was waiting at a table when I walked into the coffeehouse.

“Thanks,” I said, joining her. “How are you doing?”

“A little better than when I last saw you,” she said. “I can’t stay long. I have a doctor’s appointment this afternoon.”

“Hope it’s nothing serious,” I said, attempting to keep things light.

“It’s a fertility specialist,” she confessed. “I told you we’ve been trying to have kids, right? But after all these years of putting it off, I’m concerned I might’ve waited too long.”

I grabbed her hand. “You’re still really young, so I hope not. I’ll keep a good thought for you.”

“Thanks.”

I took a sip of my latte. “Did you hear whether Mr. Dain confessed or not?”

She waved away the question. “He’ll never confess, but I would bet a million dollars he killed Lily. I could see it on his face.”

“I could, too. He was so contemptuous of everyone, but especially Lily.” I contemplated my coffee cup. “For a while, I thought maybe Cliff had done it. He was so awful.”

“You’re right.” She scowled. “Between Cliff Hogarth and Dismal Dain, it’s hard to say who was worse.”

We sipped our drinks for a full minute before I said, “Did you ever consider that Mr. Brogan might’ve done it?”

She pressed her lips together in frustration. “Yes. Hugh Brogan was completely capable of killing Lily. When she disappeared, I wondered if he knew she’d been hiding from him at the mansion. I mean, if Cliff and Dain could follow her out there, Mr. Brogan could’ve, too.”

“Do you think we’ll ever know the truth?”

“I hope so. I’d like someone to pay for killing my friend.”

We sipped our coffees in silence for a moment, and then I ventured a question. “How did Lily and Brad get together in the first place?”

There were tears in her eyes, but she began to smile as she told the complete story, filling in some of the blanks for me.

Lily had been desperate to get away from her parents, and Mr. Jones had been a sympathetic listener. Lily confided that she wanted to try for a scholarship, and Brad did everything he could to encourage her.

“I knew the exact day when Lily and Brad fell in love,” Denise said. “By then the three of us were best friends. I loved them both so much.”

Lily was vulnerable and so beautiful, and she and Brad grew very close, very fast. The pregnancy took them off guard. But they were both thrilled and pla

“I was going to be the godmother,” Denise said with a sad smile.

“Did the three of you start going to the lighthouse mansion together?” I asked.

“Not exactly. I’d heard about it from one of the old hippies that used to come to the Gardens,” Denise explained. “It had been used as a crash pad back in the sixties. So I told Lily about it, and sometimes I would drive her out there so she could hide from her father. Usually after he’d beaten her silly.”

I shivered. “What a horrible man.”

“He really was,” Denise said. “When she disappeared, Brad and I both thought her father had done something to her. Brad went out to the mansion to look for her, but didn’t find her. I thought maybe her father had hurt her so badly that she’d finally run away. I thought I would hear from her eventually.” She shook her head in helpless frustration.

“When Brad and I heard that Lily’s remains had been discovered, we wondered if maybe she died from a fall.” Denise gripped her coffee cup. “We never imagined that someone had followed one of us out there and then waited for his chance.”

“It’s too terrible to contemplate,” I said. “And I hate to say it, but it’s starting to sound like her father might have been the one who killed her.”

“She must’ve been so frightened,” Denise murmured, her cheeks damp with tears.

Clearly we were both struck by the horror of what Lily had gone through in the last minutes of her life. We continued drinking our lattes in silence.

“Just one more question,” I said, breaking the quiet. “You told Dain that Lily had a diary. Was that true?”

She grimaced. “I didn’t realize the police had already found her notebook. That’s where she wrote down all of her thoughts.”

I didn’t have the heart to tell her that the notebook had given the police all the evidence they needed to take her husband in for questioning. I doubted there was anything in the book that would incriminate Dain, but I prayed there was nothing else that would further condemn Brad Jones.

*   *   *

I had a crew of six working on the lighthouse mansion the next day. I wanted to do a big push to finish up the kitchen demo and start work on the basement beams. When Mac and Wade and I finally got the chance to walk through the basement for the first time, we were surprised to find many of the crossbeams and posts were in fairly good shape, despite years of abuse from ocean spray, offshore breezes, and the usual termite infestation that occurred in houses built near water. Despite their decent shape, though, Mac and I decided to replace all of the crossbeams and the posts, not only to give his new house a fresh start, but also to guarantee that those crucial load-bearing beams had a long, healthy life. They would be supporting the weight of the entire house, after all.