Mother-Daughter Murder Night
Nina Simon
Dedication
To my mother,
who reviewed every page of this book except this one.
Which allows her to stay humble while I tell you the truth:
she is simply the best.
Prologue
Beth knew she couldn’t leave for work until she dealt with the dead body on the beach.
She gathered her breath and the supplies she’d need. Jacket. Boots. Rubber gloves from under the sink. She stepped outside, grabbed the shovel leaning up against her makeshift potting table, then looked down to the slough below. The salt marsh was choked in early-morning fog, and she could barely see anything. But Beth wasn’t worried. She’d spent fifteen years picking her way down the steep, scraggly hillside to the water. And the stink of death told her exactly where she needed to go.
She clambered down to the bank by feel, and smell, letting the cool October mist wrap itself around her and tug her toward the dead body. Most carcasses that washed up were swept back into the water or eaten quickly by scavengers. But this harbor seal had been here almost a week. It was a big one, speckled brown, with a ragged hole in its side and pale patches where strips of skin were peeling away. Turkey vultures had pecked out its eyes and pulled a wet, maggoty trail of innards onto the beach. Beth grimaced. As a geriatric nurse, she’d seen her share of death, had seen it respected, welcomed even. Evisceration was another matter. She moved away from the seal and found a quiet spot by the underbrush. She began to dig.
Beth was still digging when Jack paddled up, her pink board carving a bright path through the fog. Her daughter was a cloud of dark hair and brown skin, her compact body swallowed in her red life jacket.
“Mom?”
Such a small word, but it never failed to warm her.
“I decided to bury it.”
Jack wrinkled her nose at the smell. “Need help?”
“I don’t think we have a tarp.” Beth straightened up. She was taller than her daughter, and paler, her freckled arms strong from helping thousands of patients in and out of hospital beds. “But in the Prima box in the garage, there might be a tablecloth. Grab a trash bag too.”
Jack nodded, then whipped her paddleboard on top of her head and carried it up the hillside.
Ten minutes later, she bounded back down to the narrow beach holding a shimmery white bundle in her arms.
“You sure you want to use this? It says it’s from Italy.” The fabric was thick and buttery, with an intricate pattern of silver vines snaking across it.
Beth snorted. “When exactly are we going to use a damask tablecloth?”
“I mean . . . Prima gave it to us—”
“Exactly.” Beth’s mother, Lana—or “Prima” to Jack—had never visited them in Elkhorn Slough. But every year for Chanukah, she shipped them ostentatious presents that belied her total lack of understanding of, or interest in, their lives. “Help me spread it out.”
They unfurled the pristine tablecloth over the weeds and sand. Beth put on the rubber gloves and closed her eyes for a moment. Then, with sure, steady movements, she rolled the dead seal onto the fabric, folded it in, and dragged it to the hole she’d dug.
Jack stood there, hopping from foot to foot, while her mother buried the seal deep under the sand and brush, then shoved the now-putrid tablecloth into the trash bag.
“So, first Wednesday in October . . .” Jack said.
Beth held her breath. The day was coming when Jack wouldn’t want to go out with her mother for a foot-long at the Hot Diggity and a movie at the bootleg drive-in a farmer in Salinas set up behind his barn. Jack was fifteen now. She had a job. Soon she’d have boyfriends and car loans and a life that didn’t revolve around their little house by the slough. Beth knew how good it felt to break from your parents and make your own way. She just didn’t want it for Jack. Not yet.
“It’s sci-fi slasher night.” Jack grinned. “You’ll get home on time?”
“Of course.” Beth had been pulling extra shifts at the nursing home, trying to save up for Jack’s college tuition. But she wouldn’t miss one of their drive-in nights.
Jack charged back up the hillside to gather her stuff and bike to school. But something held Beth to the spot on the beach. She looked down at the freshly piled sand beside her, then out to the fog blanketing the slough. She realized she was looking for a disturbance, a ripple in the water, someone to bear witness alongside her.
But that was foolish. With her jacket sleeve, Beth wiped a smudge of dried river mud off her face, then ran a hand through her short, sun-streaked hair. There were no mourners in Elkhorn Slough. No murderers either. Only death, natural and brutal, every minute of the day. Leopard sharks hunted flatfish in the muddy depths. Otters cracked open crabs. Even the algae, blooming green and full of life, sucked the pickle grass dry beneath the water’s surface.
Beth picked up a moon-shaped piece of sea glass from the beach and placed it carefully on top of the mound. A pelican dive-bombed into the slough in front of her, resurfacing with a fish wriggling in its gullet. Beth was inexplicably reminded of her mother: Lana’s sharp beauty, her biting tongue, her relentless hunger to swallow life whole, bones and all.
Her mother had never visited Elkhorn Slough. And no one had ever been murdered there.
But there was a first time for everything.
Chapter One
Three hundred miles south, Lana Rubicon lay sprawled on the dark slate floor of her kitchen, wondering how she got there.
Her interest was not philosophical. She didn’t want to know how she’d arrived on this planet or which of her Greek ancestors had blessed her with wrinkle-proof olive skin. She wanted to know why she’d collapsed, what was making her feel like a drunk at the carnival on a Wednesday at 7 a.m., and whether she could still make her 8 a.m. investor meeting.
She turned her head in small, careful increments, trying to get her bearings. Her briefcase and snakeskin heels were waiting for her in the front hallway to the left. To the right, the stainless steel door of the fridge was wide open, bottles of mineral water and premade salads lit from within as if they’d come from heaven instead of the Gelson’s delivery boy. A gooey liquid streaked across the floor from the bottom of the refrigerator to the side of Lana’s head. Lana put one hand to the matted hair at her temple and pulled it back for inspection. Her French-tipped fingernails were sticky and pink.
Not blood. Yogurt.
Lana decided it was a sign the day could only get better.
After five failed attempts to lift herself off the floor, Lana slid her phone out of her jacket pocket. She wavered for a moment over who to call. Her daughter was a nurse. Could be useful. But Beth was five hours away, and Lana wasn’t about to beg her own child for help.
She dialed the first number on her Favorites list instead.
Her assistant picked up on the first ring. “I know, I’m sorry, I’ll be in the office at seven fifteen. Some idiot set fire to the hillside by the Getty again and the 405 is—”
“Janie, I need you to . . .” Lana squinted up at the ceiling. Needed her to what? Scrape her off the floor? Stop the world from spinning? “I need you to reschedule my morning meetings.”
“But the Hacienda Lofts investors—”
“Tell them we’re adding sixty more units. Very exciting. Have to rework the plans. Champagne for everyone.”
“But—”
“Handle it. I’ll check in later.”
Lana closed her eyes for a moment, enjoying the feeling of cool tile against her cheek. Then she picked up her phone again and dialed 911.