Murder On the Rocks by Karen MacInerney Read Free Book Online

job, Nat. Not only had I gotten myself stuck hanging on a ledge halfway down a sheer cliff under an infrequently traveled path, nobody knew I was taking the path. My battered body wasn’t up to climbing back up the cliff, and I wondered how long it would be before someone figured out I was gone. With any luck it would be sometime before breakfast tomorrow.
    I glanced down at the beach to see if the extra fifteen feet had improved my visibility. It hadn’t. The terns were clustered a little farther down the rocky cliff, diving down and then soaring back up, not far from my narrow perch. I leaned over slightly, and caught a glimpse of something gold flashing under the flurry of wings. I craned to get a better look, then sucked in my breath.
    The gold thing was a Rolex watch. I knew it was a Rolex because it was attached to Bernard Katz’s arm.

     

FOUR
    I CLOSED MY EYES for a moment, and then forced myself to look again. The sunlight gleamed on Katz’s bald head, which hung from his body at an impossible angle. His limp arm, clad in the sleeve of a button-down shirt, was draped over a rock. He looked like an oversized doll that had been flung down by an angry child.
    I leaned back against the rocks, fighting the urge to vomit. Katz looked as if he were beyond help. In a way, that was a good thing, because I couldn’t see any way to get down to help him. In fact, I was in need of a little assistance myself.
    A shiver passed through me. If it hadn’t been for the ledge, it might have been me on the rocks next to him. I massaged my aching hands and stared out to sea, trying not to look at the body askew on the rocks. It didn’t seem possible that Bernard Katz, who had been alive and boisterous and planning to ruin my inn just last night, was dead. I didn’t like Katz, but I didn’t wish this on him.
    As the buoys bobbed up and down on the blue waves, I wondered why Katz had been out on the cliffs. Maybe Claudette had been right-he was destroying the nests, and had slipped and fallen on the rocks. That didn’t seem right, though; nest removal seemed more like a task Katz would delegate. I couldn’t imagine him willing to get his clothes dirty-or risk his neck-by climbing around on a cliff.

    How Katz had ended up dead on a cliff was one question. What I really needed to worry about was getting myself off a cliff-preferably alive. Unfortunately, my perch was out of view of anything on the island, so my best hope was that a passing boat would notice me. I glanced down at my camouflaging gray T-shirt and khaki shorts. Had I known I’d end up on a cliff, I would have borrowed something a bit more colorful from Estelle. My eyes squinted down at the empty blue water, searching for a boat to flag down.
    Despite the horror on the rocks below, the view was breathtaking. The waves glittered in the sunlight, and hundreds of buoys floated among the whitecaps, but no boats turned up to haul the traps that lurked under each of the brightly colored buoys. They looked like children’s tops. As my eyes searched the water, I noticed that the red and green buoys that had plagued the island’s lobster fleet for weeks were gone. Maybe the mainland folks had given up. On the other hand, maybe the locals had cut the long lines linking the buoys to the traps in an effort to discourage the invader.
    I shifted on my narrow ledge, trying to find a more comfortable position, and avoided looking over toward where the terns were still fluttering and diving. For the first time since I’d moved to Maine, I found myself wishing for a cell phone. Since I would have stowed it in my backpack, though, the phone wouldn’t have helped-my backpack lay at the top of the cliff.

    As my back sagged against the rough cliff wall, the sound of a boat’s engine floated to my ears. I climbed to my feet, prepared to yell and wave, but the engine’s sound faded as the boat changed course. I slumped back down onto my rocky seat, trying to find a comfortable