Mariner's Compass Read online

  Mariner's Compass

  Fowler, Earlene

  Penguin (2000)

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  Jacob Chandler knew everything about Benni Harper, and in his house were pieces of her life: a hand-carved statue of her childhood horse and a scrapbook of newspaper clippings that covered her work, her marriages, and the death of her first husband. And when Jacob Chandler died, he left his home in Morro Bay and all its contents to Benni - the only stipulation being that Benni had to stay in the house, alone, for two weeks before the inheritance became hers. But Benni Harper has never even heard of Jacob Chandler. Now she has two weeks to follow his scavenger-hunt set of clues to discover whether he is her guardian angel or personal demon. The waters are rough and the direction unclear as she finds herself setting a course to a time and a place in her own past - a place Benni Harper and Jacob Chandler both knew as home...

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Praise for Earlene Fowler’s

  Benni Harper Mysteries

  DOVE IN THE WINDOW

  Nominated for an Agatha Award for Best Novel

  “Excellent . . . While the characters are perhaps the most vivid feature, setting nearly edges them out. Best of all is Benni’s sharp, sassy voice.”

  —Booknews

  “Fowler writes beautifully about the picturesque Central Coast, ranching, and local cuisine.”

  —Booklist

  GOOSE IN THE POND

  Nominated for an Agatha Award for Best Novel

  “Engaging.”

  —Booklist

  “Brilliantly crafted romantic suspense ... waiting to be devoured by the reader.”

  —The Mystery Zone

  “A fast, fun read that jumps into the action right from the get-go.”

  —Telegram-Tribune, San Luis Obispo, California

  KANSAS TROUBLES

  Nominated for an Agatha Award for Best Novel

  “Mayhem, murder, chaos, and romance ... well-paced mystery ... fun reading.”

  —The Derby (KS) Daily Reporter

  “Fowler’s story about a sassy ex-cowgirl and quilter who loves to solve crimes . . . is a lot of fun to read. Fowler has a deft touch.”

  —The Wichita (KS) Eagle

  IRISH CHAIN

  “A terrific whodunit! The dialogue is intelligent and witty, the characters intensely human, and the tantalizing puzzle keeps the pages turning.”

  —Jean Hager, auhor of Bride and Doom

  “A blue-ribbon cozy . . . This well-textured sequel to Fool’s Puzzle . .. intricately blends social history and modern mystery.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Charming, beguiling, and entrancing . . . Irish Chain is a total joy.”

  —Jackson (MS) Clarion-Ledger

  “A delightful and witty mystery full of endearing characters. It offers insights into quilts . . . folk art, and historical events that add depth to its multi-layered history.”

  —Gothic Journal

  FOOL’S PUZZLE

  Nominated for an Agatha Award for Best First Mystery

  “Characters come to full three-dimensional life, and her plot is satisfyingly complex.”

  —Jackson (MS) Clarion-Ledger

  “Breezy, humorous dialogue of the first order . . . Quilt patterns provide a real and metaphorical background.”

  —Chicago Sun-Times

  “I loved Fool’s Puzzle . . . [Earlene Fowler] made me laugh out loud on one page and brought tears to my eyes the next . . . I can’t wait to read more.”

  —Margaret Maron, auhor of Rituals of the Season

  “A crackerjack debut.”

  —I Love a Mystery

  “A ripping read. It’s smart, vigorous, and more than funny: Within its humor is wrenching insight.”

  —Noreen Ayres, auhor of The Juan Doe Murders

  “I thoroughly enjoyed Fool’s Puzzle ... Fowler’s characters are terrific . . . a super job.”

  —Eve K. Sandstrom, auhor of The Smoking Gun

  “A neat little mystery . . . her plot is compeling.”

  —Booklist

  Berkley Prime Crime Books by Earlene Fowler

  THE SADDLEMAKER’S WIFE

  The Benni Harper Mysteries

  FOOL’S PUZZLE

  IRISH CHAIN

  KANSAS TROUBLES

  GOOSE IN THE POND

  DOVE IN THE WINDOW

  MARINER’S COMPASS

  SEVEN SISTERS

  ARKANSAS TRAVELER

  STEPS TO THE ALTAR

  SUNSHINE AND SHADOW

  BROKEN DISHES

  DELECTABLE MOUNTAINS

  TUMBLING BLOCKS

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada

  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

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  (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)

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  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

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  SouthAfrica

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  MARINER’S COMPASS

  A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the author

  Copyright © 1999 by Earlene Fowler.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form

  without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in

  violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-50124-5

  BERKLEY®PRIME CRIME

  Berkley Prime Crime Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME and the PRIME CRIME logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  http://us.penguingroup.comr />
  For

  Karen Gray

  Christine “Nini” Nybak Hill

  Jo-Ann Mapson

  whose love, encouragement, and friendship

  supported and sustained me through

  the writing of this book.

  Thank you cannot cover it all.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Most especially for this one, thank you, Lord God Jehovah.

  With much thanks to:

  Ben Nixon, Division Chief, Phoenix Fire Department (with a special award for being such a smart and handsome cousin), and his beautiful wife, Linda, for her support and for putting up with him; Art Nuñez, Captain, Phoenix Fire Department—for being so open and honest to a stranger about your work experiences; Jim Gardiner, Chief of Police, San Luis Obispo; Sergeant Pete Bayer, Chief Deputy Coroner, San Luis Obispo; Dennis Schloss, Deputy District Attorney, San Luis Obispo; Clare Bazley, Tina Davis, and Elaine Gardiner for good friendship and support; Joe and Leslie Patronik, Morro Bay, for all their enthusiastic help; Sue Morrison—for your friendship and pronto Spanish translation; Judith Palais and Deborah Schneider—for a job always well done; my husband, Allen, because just like rhythm and blues, we were meant to be together.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Although San Celina County is a fictional county, there is an actual town of Morro Bay on the Central Coast of California. Though I have borrowed from the town liberally, I have also changed streets, places of business, and other points of interest. Morro Rock does exist and is exactly as I described. All characters and incidents in this novel are purely from my imagination, and any resemblance to a person or persons residing in Morro Bay is strictly coincidental. I thank the good people of Morro Bay for allowing me to borrow their town for my creative purposes.

  MARINER’S COMPASS

  Mariner’s Compass is an Old English pattern that can be traced back as far as the 1700s. The design, taken from the wind roses found on ships’ compasses and sea charts, was a favorite of nineteenth-century quilt makers living on the Eastern Seaboard. With its bold mixture of curves and narrow, radiating points, always in multiples of eight, it requires many hours of patient piecing and is often attempted only by advanced quilters. Other names include Sunburst, Rising Sun, and Chips & Whetstones. It is to be noted that a compass is not only meant to point the way to our destination, but its function is also to show us the way home.

  PROLOGUE

  WHEN I LOOK back now, these long years later, when age has taught me that the word family is much more complex than I ever imagined, what happened to me all seems so magnified, dramatic in that way things can only be when you’re young and your blood flows hot and fast, and tears seem to coat the world, blurring it like dime-store eyeglasses. You’re certain that if life doesn’t work out exactly how you planned, all nice and neat with tucked-in corners, then you will most certainly die, or worse, keep living with the disappointment stuck in your throat like a peach pit, all rough and jagged and bitter as dirt.

  I am here to tell you the pivotal moments in our lives often do not come with any sort of fanfare. Rarely are there snapping flags or warning trumpets or foghorns informing us of changes. They usually come, to quote a wiser source, like thieves in the night—a postcard from the lab: “Please contact your physician”—an intersection at the wrong moment, an egg colliding with a sperm in a miniature cosmic explosion, a quarter in a slot machine, the turn of a steering wheel, a trigger pulled, a lover saying no, a child walking away, a voice over the phone—“I’m sorry to inform you . . .” In an instant, your life is forever altered and you think the rest of your days will become an agonizing before-and-after until you realize from the measured, thoughtful perch of old age that life is simply a series of befores and afters, a long line of them, and each one can either harden your heart to sunbaked leather or turn it pliable and welcoming, into an organ of infinite capabilities, a dwelling place for compassion, a vehicle for grace.

  I have had my moments. My mother died when I was six, which I don’t much remember. My first husband, the love of my youth, died when I was thirty-four, which I still recall at certain moments with a clarity that can shatter my heart like frozen glass. Since then I have lost many people I’ve loved. But they remain solid and real in my heart, and I believe with a conviction as fixed as the hills I watch every morning from my front porch that I will see them all again one day, and it will be a glorious time of rejoicing.

  When I study the weathered and still handsome face of the man I have loved now for forty years, this second and unexpected gift from God, I am thankful that we do not know the future. I have come to understand that if we could, it would alter life’s rhythm in such a way that the song would never be the same; it would never have the same magic, the same joy. And, oh, the joy this man has brought me. I could not tell of it in a multitude of Sundays.

  This story is only one of my afters. I thought at the time my heart would break. I know now that human hearts don’t break, they either stretch or turn to stone. I’ve learned it is not the afters themselves but how we handle them that shapes us, that decides our happiness. I discovered that we all hold the key to joy in our own free will. My journey to that discovery wasn’t easy, but every heartrending step was worth the pain.

  1

  “I HAVE NO idea who he is,” I said. “Are you sure it’s me?”

  “Honey, unless there’s another Albenia Louise Harper living in San Celina, California, I’m sure it’s you,” Amanda Landry said in her pecan-pie-for-breakfast Alabama drawl. Besides being my good friend and an extraordinary quilter, she was also the volunteer legal counsel for the Josiah Sinclair Folk Art Museum and artists’ co-op where I was curator. “You are, without a doubt, an heiress.”

  “What do I inherit?” In the background, I heard another phone ring. She must have been calling from her office above the new Ross store downtown. “Do you want me to hold?”

  “No, ma’am. I know who it is and I’m a-tryin’ to hide from him.”

  I laughed and asked, “Who is it this time?” Amanda’s love life was the only place in her life where her sharp intelligence and good sense completely and utterly failed her. Her wisest move so far was she had never married any of her unique and varied suitors. Yet.

  “This plumb crazy public defender I went on one lousy date with, and now he thinks he’s in love. Lordy, he showed up wearin’ white socks with coral Hushpuppies. Coral! It looked like a couple of lobsters died on his feet. What was I thinking?”

  “You weren’t. That’s the whole problem with you and men. But we’ll dissect your love life later. Are you sure this is for real?”

  “As real as your cattle brand, babydoll.”

  “Who is this Jacob Chandler? I’ve never heard of him.”

  “Look, I was just notified by the deputy coroner early this morning myself. Too early. He interrupted an extremely pleasant interlude with Mel Gibson. At any rate, this poor old Mr. Chandler had a heart attack last night, that’s all I know. Why don’t you meet me at Liddie’s around noon and we’ll do this all official-like? Since you’re the heiress, you can buy me lunch.”

  “Is there money involved?” Thoughts of the new one-ton truck I’d been eyeing at the Chevy dealership danced in my head. I’d given away my old Harper ranch truck to my brother-in-law last November and had been driving Gabe’s restored 1950 Chevy pickup for the last five months. Being curator of the folk art museum as well as still working occasionally at my dad’s ranch, I needed a vehicle I could use without worrying about scratching the paint. Not to mention one with a decent radio. Gabe and I had talked about buying another truck, and he was ready to write the check, but I’d wanted to buy it myself since he already carried more of the financial burden in our new marriage than felt comfortable to me. A sudden stream of guilt and shame washed over me. Someone had died, perhaps someone I knew, and the only thing on my mind was what I was going to get.

  “There’s a bank account,” Amanda continued, “but I have no idea how much i
s in it. I drew up the will a few years ago and don’t really remember how much this guy is worth. Don’t get rid of that handsome hunk of Latino chauvinism yet. See you at noon.”

  When Gabe came in from his morning jog, he found me staring at the kitchen floor.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, cocking his head and zeroing in with that pervasive gaze many cops pick up during their careers.

  I looked up at him and smiled. “How was your run?”

  He glanced at the cow-shaped kitchen clock. “Took a half hour longer than usual because Mrs. Potter down the street wanted to talk about whether or not we’re going to have Mardi Gras next year and what was I going to do about the naked woman she saw at the last one.”

  “Naked woman? I don’t remember any naked woman.”

  “I think she saw someone wearing one of those thong bathing suits as part of her costume and was duly shocked.”

  “Those things are gross, but are they actually against the law?”

  He grinned. “Not in any place I want to live.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I’m assuming you didn’t tell Mrs. Potter that.”

  “No, I told her I’d look into it and get back to her, though I don’t even know yet myself if we’re going to have Mardi Gras next year. All depends on whether the city council agrees to pay the overtime for my officers and reserves. I can’t possibly squeeze the cost out of our budget, but they want both the city and the crowds downtown protected.” He shrugged and dried his sweating brown face on a kitchen towel.