I crossed the lawn without seeing anyone. A smart new automobile was standing outside the house, presumably belonging to Chief Prescott as I had seen no auto the evening before. But of the chief himself there was still no evidence. As I came toward the clifftop, the wind picked up in force, almost snatching the hat from my head, and I could taste the salt of sea spray on my lips. The ocean was angry today, slapping in over rocks and sending up sheets of spray. If there had been any clues to what happened to Brian Hannan, then they would have been surely destroyed or washed away by now. I looked down at the shore below. The body was gone and the police with it. There was no indication as to where it had been lying. Rocks, seaweed, tide pools glinted in the morning sunlight.
I continued along the edge, taking care that I was not close enough that a sudden swirling gust of wind could send me over too. As I walked I checked the ground at my feet. It was all manicured lawn, right up to where it dropped away and I wondered how the gardeners managed to maneuver their lawn mowers in a spot like this. Perhaps they clipped the very edge by hand. Disappointingly there were no muddy patches revealing a clear, condemning footprint. Nor was there any sign of the turf being disturbed in a struggle, nor of the cliff edge having recently collapsed, thus sending Brian Hannan hurtling to his death. In fact the whole scene was peaceful and serene—a gentleman’s manicured country estate as one might see in a picture postcard.
I thought about the man I had seen leaving through the French doors the evening before and striding out into the darkness. If that person had been Terrence, and it certainly was someone of his build and height, then where could he have been going in this direction, away from the main gate and the bright lights of the bars in town. I looked around the grounds. On this side of the house were the formal gardens—the fountain and the tennis court. Among the trees I caught a glimpse of a gazebo and then the estate became a wilderness of shrubs and bushes. Nothing to entice a young buck like Terrence Hannan. I wondered if I’d be reckless enough to ask him about it, if I got the chance.
“There’s nothing you can do, Molly Murphy,” said the small, warning voice in my head. “It is not your case. You just mind your own business, look after your husband, and stay away from the Hannans.” I had felt that the house hadn’t wanted us when we arrived. Now a great tragedy had occurred but it was nothing to do with us and the best thing we could do would be to leave these people to their grieving. Maybe Daniel and I had only stirred things up and given more grief by even suggesting that Brian Hannan’s death was more than an accident.
I stood examining the clifftop, where the trees came close to the cliff edge. Why would Mr. Hannan ever have wanted to come here in the dark? Unless—another disturbing thought crossed my mind—unless he had wanted to do away with himself. I had heard how he grieved for his beloved granddaughter. Maybe he held himself somehow responsible for her death and had decided he could no longer live with the guilt, so he flung himself from the cliffs in the same spot that she had plunged to her death. Only that didn’t concur with what I had heard about Brian Hannan. He was an egotist who thought highly of himself, who liked to play the benevolent dictator, the puppet master who pulled the strings. Described as kind and fair and yet with enough power over his family to know that they would make the uncomfortable journey from New York to Rhode Island at this strange, unfashionable time of year when he summoned them. Such men usually believe that they are always right and would not consider killing themselves. But then he had said to Daniel, “I might have got it wrong.”
What might he have got wrong? And did it have anything to do with his family?
I looked down at the crashing waves. No, I couldn’t see a man like Brian Hannan had been described flinging himself over that cliff. It would not have been guaranteed death and more likely would have resulted in messy maiming. From everything I’d heard about him, he would not have wanted to survive as a cripple. If he was going to kill himself he’d have done it efficiently and neatly—a shot through the head in his own New York house, along with a written note explaining his actions.