51 pages • 1 hour read
Nina SimonMother Daughter Murder Night
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2022A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 10-19Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 10 Summary
Beth goes to work at Bayshore Oaks, a residential facility where she is a nurse, and learns that a patient, Mr. Hal Rhoads, died overnight. He was a favorite of Beth’s, and he had been at the facility since having a third stroke. During one conversation, she explained to Mr. Rhoads that she and Jack live on the South side of the slough and that Jack started paddleboarding in it three years ago. He tells her that he lived on the North bank for over 80 years.
Beth remembers that Mr. Rhoads’s son, Martin, was at the facility on Saturday, and his daughter, Diana, usually comes both on Tuesdays and on Thursdays. Beth sees a picture of the Rhoads family standing near some cattle, but while Mrs. Rhodes appears in another picture, she is not in the family photo. Beth notices something peeking out from the frame, and it is another photo, this one containing Hal and a woman with a toddler.
Chapter 11 Summary
Jack tells her mother that the sloughs will open again the next day, and she wants permission to go back to work. Her mother is hesitant both because of the detectives and because of the possible danger, but Jack feels like she is being punished when she did not do anything wrong. Jack is insistent though because she is afraid that if she stays away, it will be harder to ever go back. Meanwhile, Lana is at the table feeling left out as Beth and Jack hug. Lana plans to be prepared for the detectives when they come again.
Chapter 12 Summary
Lana begins to make a list of everything she knows about the case, but all she really knows is Ricardo’s name, that he made the kayak booking, and that he died between Friday night and Sunday when Jack found his body. She also considers the man with the wheelbarrow, and she thinks about other ways Ricardo may have died. She writes down her many questions. Lana calls the land trust but does not get any information from the woman who answers the phone, and the director is not available to speak with her. Nobody answers when she tries to call the detectives.
Chapter 13 Summary
Paul calls for Jack, but she is at school, and Lana insists on knowing why he is calling her. Lana gets him to agree to meet her at the yacht club.
Chapter 14 Summary
Lana dresses well for the appointment, as she usually is. She refuses to come to Paul’s car until he comes to get her. They arrive at the club and order their food, but Lana has difficulty eating because of the chemo. Paul asks Lana what Jack told the police, and he says that he was not at the Shack the day the body was found. He seems relieved when Lana tells him that the detectives were only interested in Jack, not in him. He tells Lana that the slough is like the Wild West, and he works with Scotty O’Dell to keep peace out there. Paul wants Jack back at work because she is his best employee and because the murder was a crime of passion, leaving Jack safe. Paul is intrigued when he hears that Ricardo was a naturalist.
Chapter 15 Summary
Paul and Lana head to the parking lot, where the two detectives are looking inside Paul’s car. Lana notes that Detective Ramirez is wearing a very bright, colorful blazer. The last time anybody heard from Ricardo is when he made the appointment with the Kayak Shack. Paul, looking nervous, says he will only speak to the detectives if Lana is with him.
The detectives ask why Ricardo was wearing a lifejacket from the Kayak Shack when he died and where Paul was the night of the murder. Paul tells them that he has loaned out around 50 lifejackets to various people. His alibi is that he was with a woman the night of the murder. Lana suggests that the detectives shadow Jack on Saturday, so they can see how safe she is at work.
Chapter 16 Summary
Lana tells Beth that she had lunch with Paul and that she arranged a police escort for Jack the next time she has to work. She adds that this will help prove Jack’s innocence. Beth is unsure of how innocent and safe Paul is. Lana thinks that having a police officer on the tour is a good idea, but Beth worries the officer will trick Jack into revealing something that could hurt her in the long run.
Afterward, Beth and Lana argue about the past. Lana’s nickname “Prima” stands for Prima Donna, and Beth tells Lana that Lana is not always the star. Beth then goes on to say that Lana was not helpful when Jack was a baby. Lana tells Beth that Beth is scared of Jack wanting to spend her life in some other town. She tells Beth that Beth used to be a good girl before she got pregnant, and Beth responds by saying that Jack saved her life because it got her away from Lana.
Helping with the investigation makes Lana feel alive again. That night, she again sees someone out by the water in the dark, but she does not call the police; they do not take her seriously, and she does not want to be humiliated by their response.
Chapter 17 Summary
Lana, Beth, and Jack go to Mr. Rhoads’s funeral. When they get there, they meet Diana Whitacre, Mr. Rhoads’s daughter. During the ceremony, Victor Morales, a conservationist with the Central Coast Land Trust, talks about the support Rhoads gave to the organization. After the ceremony, Lana talks to Victor, who explains that the purpose of a land trust is to make sure the land is preserved. The trust works with landowners to ensure this preservation. He tells her that Ricardo Cruz had been working with Mr. Rhoads to finalize the details of a partnership that would make the Rhoads property “the largest conserved wetland in the western US, saved forever from development and extractive practices” (96). He does not know if the project will be able to continue, but he hopes that the Rhoads heirs will honor their father’s wishes to work with the trust. Lana talks to Diana about high fashion and spas, and Diana tells her that Ricardo’s parents used to work for Mr. Rhoads.
Chapter 18 Summary
Beth talks to Martin Rhoads, Hal’s son, at the funeral, and he explains that his father did not have much interest in Martin’s college degree because he believed he did not have enough farm skills. He asks to meet Beth again to hear more stories about his father. Meanwhile, Jack wanders around the property, wondering what it would have been like to be raised by a dad. She only met hers once, and she remembers his dark skin and mustache. She wanders into the barn and sees a kayak from the Shack. She wonders why it is there.
Back in the car, Jack argues with her mother because she wants to go back to work. Exasperated, Beth tells both her mother and her daughter that they can do whatever they want.
Chapter 19 Summary
Beth tells Jack that Jack does not have to do something just because Lana wants her to. She warns Jack that Lana tends to use people, but Jack assures her that she is helping her grandmother with the case because she wants to. It is Lana’s day for chemotherapy, and Beth drops her off but tells her that she cannot stay.
At the docks, Detective Ramirez rides with Jack on her first tour of the day. Later, she asks Jack how they could have ended up in the location where the body was found, and Jack explains that the changing tides alter the location of the tours. She further explains that they might not have even found the body if the tide was not low that day. The detective then asks how far an object could float in a day and then goes on to tell her that Cruz was murdered on Friday afternoon and was in slough water for at least 24 hours. Jack wonders why the detective is telling her all of this, and the detective tells her that she believes she has a right to know.
Chapters 10-19 Analysis
Mr. Rhoads’s death is the second to occur in the novel, and at this point it appears to be of natural causes, but his pictures provide clues that it is not. While he was alive, he was friendly with Beth but did not share much about his family. She knew who came to visit him but not who was in the hidden photo. This leaves her with questions, and they are significant enough that they give her pause. This will not be the last time in the novel that a clue is given through a photograph although this clue is not referred to again until much later. Through these photographs, people learn about the lives of the deceased even when they are no longer able to tell their story.
One trait that Jack, Beth, and Lana all have in common is their bravery. This is first demonstrated through Jack, as she confronts her mother about returning to work. At this point, nobody knows any possible motive for Ricardo’s death, and since they have neither a motive nor a suspect, anyone could be in danger. This does not stop Jack from wanting to go back to work in the water. She loves her job, and she fears that staying away will only make it harder to go back. Because of this and because she does not want to appear suspicious, she desperately wants to go back to work. She stands up to her mother and tries to, and eventually succeeds in, getting her mother to let her return to work. While the three women do not always recognize what they have in common, the novel provides enough insight into their personalities for readers to recognize these similarities before the women themselves do.
Lana is determined to help the police with the investigation, but she is thwarted by the detectives who do not take her seriously. This has two main effects: first it hinders the investigation, and second it makes Lana feel humiliated. As will later be established, Ramirez and Nicoletti have different reasons for wanting Lana to stay out of the investigation, but regardless of their motives, they both refuse to work with her despite the information she can give them. After she sits down and makes a list of what she knows and what questions she has, she cannot get a hold of the detectives on the phone. This hampers their investigation because frequently, Lana has information that they do not, but she avoids contacting them because they treat her rudely. In this way, the detectives’ dismissive attitude toward Lana actually proves detrimental to them as is yet another example of Abuse of Power by Law Enforcement.
Just as the details about the deaths are slowly revealed throughout numerous chapters, so is the background of Beth and Lana’s relationship. The novel builds suspense by slowly revealing key details. When Lana and Beth talk after Lana has gotten Jack a police escort on her tour, the two reveal bits of their past that form the basis of their ongoing battles. The first of these has to do with Jack herself, as Lana says that Beth was a “good girl” before she got pregnant, implying that the pregnancy ruined her good reputation and behavior. Further, Beth’s resentment toward her mother is revealed to be partly due to Lana’s unrealistic standards. The two also have very different values and priorities: Lana tried to help Beth after Jack was born by sending them expensive gifts, but Beth needed more practical hands-on help during her daughter’s infancy. It is evident that the two still love each other because they hold on to their resentment but still try to help each other. Because they are both insistent on living their lives their own ways, however, this help often goes unappreciated, highlighting The Limits of Family Bonds.
This tension that exists between Lana and Beth mirrors what Beth learns about Hal and Martin. Just as Lana and Beth do not agree about what is important in life, neither did Martin and his family. Martin values education and worked hard to earn his degrees. These achievements were never respected by his father, who valued practical, hands-on work like farming. Just as the women cannot understand each other’s perspective, the men could not either, and this caused a similar rift in their relationship.
