Four Blind Mice

Chapter Forty-Nine

Meanwhile, the murder investigation continued on another front. John Sampson turned his black Mercury Cougar off Route 35 in Mantoloking on the Jersey Shore and headed in the general direction of the ocean. Point Pleasant, Bay Head and Mantoloking were connecting beach communities and, since it was October, they were fairly deserted.

He parked on East Avenue and decided to stretch his legs after the drive up from Washington.

“Jesus, what a beach,” he muttered under his breath as he walked up a public access stairway and reached the crest of the dunes. The ocean was right there, less than forty yards away, if that.

The day was just about perfect. Low seventies, sunny, cloudless blue sky, the air unbelievably clear and clean. Actually, he thought, it was a better beach day than people got for most of the summer, when all these shore towns were probably jammed full of beachgoers and their transportation.

He liked the scene stretching out before him a lot. The quiet, pretty beach town made him feel relaxed. Hard to explain, but recently his days on the job in DC seemed tougher and more gruesome than usual. He was obsessing about Ellis Cooper's death, his murder. His head was in a real bad place lately. That wasn't true here, and it had happened instantly. He felt that he could hear and see things with unusual clarity.

He figured he better get to work, though. It was almost three-thirty, and he had promised to meet Billie Houston at her house at that time. Mrs. Houston's husband had allegedly killed another soldier at nearby Fort Monmouth. The victim's face had been painted white and blue.

Let's do it, he told himself as he opened a slatted gate and walked toward a large, brown-shingled house on a path strewn with seashells. The beach house and the setting seemed too good to be true. He even liked the sign: Paradise Found.

Mrs. Houston must have been watching for him from inside the beach house. As soon as his foot touched down on the stairs, the screen door swung open and she stepped outside to meet him.

She was a small African-American woman, and more attractive than he'd expected. Not movie-star beautiful, but there was something about her that drew his attention and held it. She was wearing baggy khaki shorts with a black tee-shirt, and was bare-footed.

“Well, you certainly picked a nice day for a visit,” she said, and smiled. Nice smile, too. She was tiny, though, probably only five feet tall, and he doubted that she weighed much more than a hundred pounds.

“Oh, it isn't like this every day?” Sampson asked, and managed a smile himself. He was still recovering from his surprise at Mrs. Houston as he mounted her creaking, wooden porch steps.

“Actually,” she said, 'there are a lot of days like this one here. I'm Billie Houston. But of course you knew that." She put out her hand. It was warm and soft in his, and so small.

He held her hand a little longer than he'd meant to. Now why had he done that? He supposed it was partly because of what she'd been through. Mrs. Houston's husband had been executed nearly two years earlier, and she'd proclaimed his innocence loudly and clearly until the end, and then some. The story felt familiar. Or maybe it was because there was something about the woman's ready smile that made him feel comfortable. She impressed him about as much as the town and the fine weather had. He liked her immediately. Nothing not to like. Not so far anyway.

“Why don't we walk and talk on the beach,” she suggested. “You might want to take off your shoes and socks first. You're a city boy, right?”