“Did you happen to see anything unusual in the weeks before the girl was found?” Jo asked.
“No one spends much time on the Pointe before May. I’ll fly in for a weekend here and there, but I usually spend the spring in the Caribbean.” Leonard stopped, and his impish smile returned. “So are you two going all Cagney and Lacey? Think you have a shot at solving the case?”
“Nope, just curious,” Jo said. “I’ve always been fascinated by serial killers.”
“Serial killers?” Leonard appeared to have lost his sense of humor. “I thought they said the young woman died of a drug overdose. What makes you think her death was the work of a serial killer?”
Harriett waved away the idea with a dismissive flip of her hand. “Don’t listen to her. That’s just what the ladies in town are saying. You know ladies—always looking for an excuse to get our panties in a twist.”
Leonard laughed. “Well, I certainly hope that’s all there is to it. I’d hate to think there’s a serial killer on the prowl in the area.”
“Isn’t that what Culling Pointe’s gate is for?” Harriett asked. “To keep bad guys out?”
“Yes, I suppose so.” The thought seemed to lift Leonard’s mood again. Shrieks of excitement came from the beach below. Something had washed up on the sand, and the children were calling for Leonard to come down.
“I think you’re being paged,” Jo said.
Leonard offered a theatrical sigh. “The work of a retiree is never done. Enjoy the party, ladies!”
Jo scanned the crowd as Leonard jogged back to the water. “So what should we do now? If everyone down on the beach is a guest, they won’t know anything about the murder.”
“How about a walk?” Harriett replied. “I’d love a look at the local flora—and the south side of the Pointe should offer a good view of Danskammer Beach. And who knows? Maybe we’ll even meet a few locals.”
Jo kept her eyes peeled as they strolled along the water’s edge past the sunbathers and children. Once they’d rounded the tip of the point, the shrieks and shouts of the kids died away. A long, empty beach stretched ahead of them and the only sound was the rhythmic lapping of waves. The first mansion they passed was set back from the sand. A traditional beauty, it featured a wraparound porch that looked out over the scrub. The chaise longues at its pool sat empty and the sand on the beach appeared undisturbed.
“Where is everyone?” Jo asked.
“Watching,” Harriett replied. “There’s a man with a pair of binoculars pointed at us right now.”
“Shit!” Jo didn’t dare turn to look.
“Don’t be nervous.” Harriett’s soothing tone was half hypnotist, half Jedi knight. “We’re not trespassing. The key to getting away with anything is convincing yourself that you’ve done nothing wrong. We left the party so we could have a private conversation, nothing more.”
They passed over the property line and the scenery abruptly changed. A starkly modern house, its exterior walls clad in black-stained cedar, hovered over the dunes. The island’s native vegetation had been shorn and a perfect green carpet of grass laid out in its place. A long concrete planter ran along the lot line to the beach. Corralled inside were hundreds of green stalks rising four feet high, each crowded with pale yellow flowers. The transition from one property to the next was so abrupt, it was hard to imagine their owners could have anything in common.
“Interesting landscaping,” Harriett mused, but Jo wasn’t listening. Her attention had been drawn to a woman in a white bathing suit sitting alone on the deck that stretched out over the lawn, her blond hair wafting in the wind and her mirrored glasses reflecting the sun. A bowl of brightly colored fruit and a carafe of water rested on a table beside her. She was so still that Jo assumed she was sleeping. In the house behind her, a painting loomed over the living room furniture. In it, a young woman in her underwear stared out at the ocean. Her eyes seemed to warily follow her viewer as if watching to see what their next move would be. A white medical mask hid the rest of her face, and an old-fashioned nurse’s cap was pinned in place atop a sixties-style bouffant.