Catastrophe Cliff Read online

“Did she bring it with her that morning?”

  “I don’t know.” Kyle’s response had an unnecessary edge to it.

  “Wouldn’t it have been quicker for you to go to the cliffs than to hike back to the parking lot?” Nell questioned. She watched as the yellow color coming off of Kyle turn to a flaming red.

  The muscles near Kyle’s jaw twitched. “I went to the lot. I thought I made a mistake about where we were supposed to meet. I didn’t think to go to the cliffs. Why would I?”

  “Maybe because your girlfriend wasn’t where she said she’d be and she wasn’t answering her phone.” Nell’s hands clenched by her sides. “That might indicate to someone that something was wrong.”

  Kyle defended himself. “You don’t know how you’d react until you’re actually in a situation.”

  “I know how I’d react if my sister wasn’t where she told me she’d be and wasn’t answering her phone.” Nell stormed away in disgust and stood near the trail ready to move to the next location.

  “Let’s go to the cliffs,” Peter told them.

  Kyle’s head snapped up. “You didn’t say we were going to the cliffs when we started out.”

  Peter looked dumbfounded. “It’s where the incident took place. It’s important to go to the scene of the fall.”

  “I don’t see why. You’ve been there several times already. Why is it necessary for me to go there? I wasn’t there that morning. I can’t tell you anything about Jen’s movements after we parted. I have no idea what she did up there. You and your assistant can go to the cliffs. I don’t have to join you. I’m going back to my car.” Kyle hurried away and left Nell and Peter standing together at the edge of the trees.

  “I guess he’s not coming with us,” Peter said with a raised eyebrow.

  “Well, it is all about Kyle, isn’t it?” Annoyed and flustered, Nell used the end of her t-shirt to wipe at her perspiration-covered face. “Every person we’ve talked with has described Kyle as self-absorbed. We just witnessed his self-centered behavior.”

  “What colors did you see on him?” Peter asked.

  “Pale yellow. The particles were faint. I think they might have been left behind on the day Jennifer fell. I think that shade of yellow represents deceit. Kyle was also colored in red … flaming red. That showed his anger.”

  A rumble could be heard off in the distance.

  Nell froze. “Was that thunder?”

  Peter noticed some dark clouds heading their way. “Maybe. I don’t think it’s supposed to storm. It must be miles away,” he said trying to keep Nell from worrying.

  A shiver ran over Nell’s skin. “I need to go back to the car. I can’t be out here in the woods if a storm hits. If you want to go to the cliffs, I’ll wait for you at the car. If you want me to come back some day, I will, but right now, I have to get out of here.”

  “Come on, let’s go. We did what we wanted to do. We can be done for the day. Let’s get back to the car in case it rains.” Peter gave his friend an encouraging nod.

  Nell breathed a sigh of relief. “Thanks. I know I’m a baby, but—”

  Peter cut her off. “You aren’t a baby. You suffered through a traumatic event and you bear the scars of that day in the tornado. You’re tough and brave.”

  Nell smiled gratefully. “If Jennifer Harding had someone like you with her the day she was on the cliffs, she might still be alive.”

  12

  Racing her sister, Nell rode the ocean wave on her boogie board reaching the water’s edge at the same time as Violet.

  “A dead heat.” Laughing, Nell rolled off her board and lay on her back in the shallow water looking up at the late afternoon sky as Iris and Oscar bounded over the waves towards the sisters.

  “We need a photo finish,” Violet said with a smile. “I’m sure I beat you by an inch.”

  “Let’s do it again.” Nell stood and wrung the water out of her long auburn hair.

  “I’m cold,” Violet told her sister. “Let’s warm up first. I’m turning into an icicle.”

  The two young women carried their boards to the blanket with the dogs racing ahead of them. They used their fluffy towels to dry off and then the dogs decided to shake the water from their fur sending a shower of drops all over Nell and Violet.

  The sisters shook their heads and laughed, and then dried themselves off once again.

  Oscar and Iris trotted off down the beach to sniff and investigate. Both dogs were well-trained and knew not to go into the dunes and not to pester the wildlife.

  “Are you ready to talk about your trip to the state park with Peter and Kyle?” Violet asked as the they rested on their backs on the blanket.

  When Nell arrived back at the store after the hike in the park, she was hot and mentally worn out so they put off the discussion until after the work day ended. With a sigh, Nell gave her sister a long summary of what went on.

  “Kyle didn’t think to go check on Jennifer even though he was closer to the cliffs than he was to the parking lot?” Violet shook her head in disgust. “I’d be worried sick if you were somewhere in the park alone, didn’t meet me when we’d arranged to, and wasn’t answering texts or calls.”

  “My exact thoughts,” Nell groaned.

  “It makes Kyle look guilty,” Violet said.

  “Or it makes him look ignorant, oblivious, and self-centered.” Nell sat up, rubbed her hair with the towel, and put on a sweatshirt. “He’s so lackadaisical. It’s not a great idea for people to be hiking alone in that isolated area of the state park. Maybe Jennifer carried pepper spray so Kyle brushed off any danger to her, but there are other worries like tripping and breaking an ankle, coming down with heat stroke, or running into a bear or a coyote.”

  “Or,” Violet added, “falling off a cliff and needing immediate medical attention.”

  “Or that, yeah.” Nell sighed.

  “Oblivious and self-centered or not, Kyle needs to go to the top of the suspect list,” Violet said firmly.

  “I agree. He was so belligerent and sour. He was rude to Peter practically every step of the way. Wouldn’t you be eager to help find out what killed your future spouse? Not Kyle. He didn’t want to be there at all. Maybe it was hard for him to retrace the hike they’d taken that morning. Maybe he couldn’t face seeing the spot where his girlfriend was killed.” Nell shook her head. “I don’t know. The colors I saw on Kyle reflected deceit and rage. I didn’t see anything from him that would indicate sorrow or loss or grief. I don’t trust him, and I certainly don’t respect him.”

  “Are there other reasons he might be so angry and unhelpful?” Violet pondered.

  Nell turned to her sister. “Like what? Can you think of any?”

  “What if he knows who pushed Jennifer from the cliff.”

  Her eyes widening, Nell said, “If he knew, why wouldn’t he say something to Peter?”

  “What if he’s afraid of the person? What if the killer threatened to kill Kyle, too?”

  Nell looked out over the ocean. “I guess that’s possible. But is it likely?”

  “Is it likely that Jennifer went for a hike and ended up murdered?” Violet asked.

  “We need to tell Peter what you think. It’s an angle that needs to be investigated.”

  Violet checked the time on her phone. “Speaking of Peter, we’d better head home. He’s meeting us in an hour and a half.”

  “Okay. Let’s sit for a few more minutes. I could use a little more time on the beach.”

  Nell loved the soothing colors of nature, the perfect greens and blues, the golden light, the puffy white clouds she saw in millions of colors. The sand wasn’t just tan or beige … it was a mixture of pinks, reds, yellows, amber, and violet. The sky wasn’t just blue, but a hundred shades of blue, green, and purple. And the water … depending on the day and the weather conditions, the ocean could be blues, pinks, and silver … or greens, red, purple, and gold. Wherever she was, the world was a riot of color, sometimes it was an overwhelming tirade of competing
shades like inside of grocery stores and malls that made her eyes hurt, her stomach wrench, and her head spin, but when she was in nature, she experienced an incredible array of calming and soothing complementary hues and colors. In parks, the woods, at the mountains, ponds, lakes, oceans, or in meadows, Nell could feel her whole body relax in one long, peaceful exhale.

  Back at home, the sisters washed the sand and sea water off the dogs and dried them with soft towels. They showered and changed and warmed some leftovers for a quick dinner before Peter and Dani arrived for the meeting.

  The four young adults sat in the screened room with drinks and dessert and Peter removed a folder from his briefcase and placed it on the table next to his dessert plate.

  Dani had heard about Kyle’s behavior in the park. “He acts very suspicious. If he isn’t guilty, he might want to give some thought to how he behaves in light of the fact his girlfriend was probably a murder victim.”

  Violet shared her thoughts that Kyle might have been threatened by Jennifer’s killer and that could be the reason behind his unhelpful ways.

  “Good thinking. Maybe you need to join the police department,” Peter nodded. “We’ve considered the possibility. It’s not something that happens very often, but it’s not out of the realm of feasibility. We need to keep our eyes open.”

  When dessert was finished, coffee and tea were served, and Peter removed the photographs from the folder.

  “These are the photos taken from Jennifer’s phone on the morning of the hike.” Peter spread them over the tabletop in chronological order. “She took quite a few pictures of nature, landscapes, birds, and the pond. There are some selfies mixed in.”

  Nell and Violet stood up to get a better look as they bent over the table.

  “Jennifer didn’t take any photos of Kyle,” Nell noted. “Just nature shots and the selfies.”

  “You can see where she traveled that day by looking at these pictures,” Violet pointed out. “With the date and time stamps, it’s a visual trail of her movements.”

  “It’s hard to tell where she was in some of them,” Dani said. “Some are only trees in the background with no marker that’s recognizable like the kettle pond, or the cliffs, or the duck pond.”

  “These must have been taken at the base of the cliffs before she hiked up,” Violet pointed to the photos she was considering.

  “And these were taken at the top.” Nell lifted two of the pictures. “Jennifer looks tired in this one.”

  “Let’s see.” Peter took the photo and had a good look at it. “I don’t see a difference between the earlier selfies and this one.”

  Nell used her index finger to point a few things out. “Jennifer seems to have more energy at the bottom. Her smile is happy, her eyes are wide open, her shoulders are straight. In this one at the top, she isn’t smiling, her eyelids seem heavy, her posture is more slumped.”

  “Hmm.” Peter nodded. “I guess I can see it, but I would never have realized the difference if you hadn’t pointed it out. It’s subtle. Maybe she got tired on the hike up the cliffs. The trail is steep and there’s a lot of gravel to slip on. She’d already been hiking for more than two hours before she decided to hike up to the top.”

  Nell kept her eyes on that one photo of Jennifer. She didn’t know why, but something seemed off. Suddenly, the photo of the young woman turned a deep red. Everything else in the picture retained its natural color except for Jennifer. From head to toe, she was awash in red.

  Nell took a step back, and her sister noticed her discomfort.

  “What’s wrong?” Violet put her hand on Nell’s shoulder.

  “Does the picture look odd to you?”

  Violet took a quick glance at it. “It looks normal.”

  “To me, too,” Peter chimed in, and then he asked Nell, “What does it look like to you?”

  “Jennifer is awash in red.” Nell’s voice came out like a whisper. “It’s the color of fear.”

  “What could she be afraid of?” Dani asked, her long blond hair hanging forward as she squinted at the picture.

  Oscar and Iris whined at the same time.

  “Whereabouts is she standing on the cliff?” Peter asked as Nell handed the photo to him. “Can we get a sense of where she is in relation to the edge of the cliff?”

  “The vista is behind her,” Nell pointed at the background of the photo.

  “She must be standing with her back to the edge so she could take the photo of herself with the beautiful view behind her,” Violet said.

  “She was alone up there,” Dani said. “Kyle stayed at the duck pond while she headed for the cliffs.”

  “Maybe he didn’t stay at the pond,” Violet speculated. “Maybe Jennifer spotted him at the tree line just as she took the selfie.”

  “But what made her afraid?” Violet asked. “Kyle was her boyfriend. If she saw him coming towards her, why would she be frightened?”

  “Maybe it wasn’t Kyle who was coming towards her,” Nell said. “Maybe it was someone else.”

  13

  Mari Harding arrived at the police station wearing shorts and a tank top and dripping sweat. “I ended my training run here. It was convenient to do it that way. Do you have a towel I can borrow?”

  Peter asked someone at the front desk if they’d mind bringing a towel out for Mari, and when one was retrieved from the shower room, Peter led the woman to the small conference room where Nell was waiting.

  “Why do you want to talk to me again? Is Jen’s body ready to be released?”

  “Not quite yet,” Peter said. “We have some additional questions.”

  Mari seemed to sigh as she leaned back in the wooden chair. “Ask.”

  “You told us previously that you were in the state park on the morning of the accident.”

  “I was running.”

  “What time were you there?”

  Mari told the detective. “I have to get my training in early. I need to get to work.”

  “Did you see your sister there?”

  “No. I told you that before.”

  Nell watched tiny red particles swirl around the woman … the shade of red indicated annoyance.

  “The time you and Jennifer were in the park probably overlapped slightly,” Peter said.

  “I suppose.”

  “Did you see Kyle at the park?”

  Mari shook her head. “I was focused on my running.”

  “You also told us you knew who Lindsey Horn and Joel Bishop are. Did you happen to see them running in the park?”

  Mari used the towel to run it across her sweaty forehead. “I didn’t see anyone I knew. I did my loop and left.”

  Nell said, “We heard you were at Jennifer’s and Kyle’s house early on that morning.”

  Mari gave a little shrug. “So?”

  “Did Jennifer seem like anything was bothering her?”

  “She seemed normal. She was getting ready to go for a hike. Jen was a little annoyed that they had to wait for Lindsey and Joel to arrive. Kyle had offered them a ride to the park. It was going to be hot and Jen wanted to get going.”

  “Why were you at the house that morning?” Nell questioned.

  “Just about every morning, I run to the park from my place. The route I take runs close to Jen’s house. I had a blister developing on my foot. I knew Jen was always up early so I swung by to get a blister bandage.”

  Nell nodded at the explanation.

  “We’ve recently learned that you had a life insurance policy on your sister.” Peter’s face was serious.

  One of Mari’s eyebrows went up. “So?”

  Mary gave off a darker red color. Anger and annoyance.

  “Have you begun the claim process?”

  “I need a death certificate with a cause of death on it. Right now, it says pending.”

  “So you contacted the insurance company about initiating a claim?”

  Mari leaned forward with a combative look on her face. “Yes, I did. I could use the money
and it would be stupid not to claim it.”

  “How much is the policy worth?”

  Mari folded her hands in her lap. “Four hundred thousand dollars.”

  “That’s a lot of money,” Peter noted.

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Jennifer held a life insurance policy on you, as well?”

  “She did.”

  “For what amount?”

  “The same amount.”

  “When did you take out the policies?”

  “About three years ago.”

  “What prompted the idea to get policies?” Peter questioned.

  “We’re both on the board of our parents’ company. When they pass, we inherit the business. Since we have a financial interest in the company, we thought it best to insure our lives.”

  “You and Jennifer lived together for a year?”

  “That’s right. I separated from my husband for a year. During that time, Jen and I shared the house. That was another reason to insure each other.” Mari tilted her head and stared at the detective. “I’ve been waiting for you to tell me I’m a suspect in the case.”

  Nell watched the colors Mari was giving off turn to orange and black. Death, mystery, warning.

  “Why would you think that?” Peter questioned.

  Mari shrugged. “I knew Jen’s schedule, I was in the park that morning, I hold a life insurance policy on her. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to add things up. You have suspicions about me.”

  “Do you think we should have suspicions about you?”

  “That’s your business, not mine. I still don’t know what happened to my sister.”

  “We continue to look for the answer to that question.” Peter glanced at Nell. “Ms. Harding, after your run, did you return to your home?”

  “I did.”

  “What time was that?”

  Mari told him.

  “Did anyone see you returning home?”

  “Not that I know of. I live alone. I drove home, showered, and dressed for work. I got my lunch and left.”

  “What time did you get to work?”

  Mari told Peter the time. “It’s the same time I start work every day.”