by Tom Shepherd
“Me, too,” I said.
“Straight down the hall, bedrooms left and right.”
When I finished washing up, Tanella waited at the opposite doorway.
“Shhhh—come here!” She grabbed my wrist and yanked me across the corridor into the master suite.
Olivia’s closets were open, and I ran my hand down a row of silks, summer cottons, and high quality synthetic blends. Bright yellows for early morning, lime and rose pastels for afternoon heat, wine reds for formal dinners. Above the salt and seaweed smell, French perfume and the scent of new leather filled my nose. Sweet, tempting aromas, fragrances that whispered, “Stay awhile...”
“Look!” Tanella pointed to a battery of nighties, maybe twenty of them. Black, red and pale blue, thin as mist. Even draped over wire coat hangers, they looked sexy.
“God, this woman is hot. We should research her, Tanella.”
“She’s under a lot of stress. Did you see the ashtray? She refused a cigarette from Carsten O’Malley at the gazebo. Now, she’s chain smoking.” Tanella slipped into the bathroom.
“Hey, where you going?” I said.
“Looking for clues.”
“Don’t do this. I like her.”
I poked my head into the restroom. It was three paces across and thickly carpeted, so the floor squished when I stepped inside. A fan-shaped mirror hung above brass water faucets, and in its reflection I saw Tanella run her fingers along the black marble sink.
“Maybe I missed something,” she said quietly.
“Whoa—there’s a real heavy clue,” I said. “Two brands of toothpaste! Half-used tube of Crest, fresh box of Winterwhite powder. Very suspicious.”
She crossed her arms and glared at me. “Let’s go back.”
Our host was sipping a milky drink when Tanella and I sat at the bar again. “Mrs. Bennett—” Tanella began.
“Call me Olivia, please.”
“Why did you want to meet us?”
She shrugged. “You brought a note from my husband.”
Tanella pointed at a smartphone, plugged in and charging at the end of the bar. “He could have called.”
“You’re right. I called Hector and asked him to send you two.”
“And he got Uncle Bob to have me deliver the note. Why?” I sipped my Diet Coke.
“You know, I rarely get to speak with teenage girls. My first love was teaching. Taught three years at a private girls’ school. I miss talking to kids your age.”
Well, that sounded logical to me. But Tanella shook her head.
“Excuse me, Mrs. Bennett, but the Island Club Hotel is ordinarily packed with couples and their teenage daughters. The lifeguard at the pool was telling me he loved his job because—”
“You were making a play for the lifeguard?” I said.
“He’s too old for you.”
“Oh, yeah, like you’re a whole three months older.”
“Right again,” Mrs. Bennett said. “You’re an exceptional kid.”
“Too smart for her own good.” I was still miffed about Tanella sneaking off to cozy up to the hot guy at the pool.
“Hector said you were playing detective. I wanted to learn how much you knew.” Mrs. Bennett lit a fresh cigarette, and Tanella leaned on an elbow, cupping her nose. “I know who killed Carsten,” Olivia said.
Tanella inched toward her, ignoring the smoke. “Did you tell the police?”
“I will. After the negotiations are over.”
“Why?” I said, my eyebrows quivering.
She looked at me. “Because it was your boyfriend, Prince Ahmad.”
“I don’t believe it!”
“What happened last night?” Tanella said.
Olivia stepped around the far end of the bar and sat in a black leather chair, blowing smoke in short bursts. “I quit until this morning. Smoked twenty-six years, and I quit cold turkey on my birthday last year.”
“What happened?”
“Promise to keep it confidential?”
“Sure!” I said.
“Not necessarily,” Tanella said. “We can’t promise that.”
“There’s nothing to gain by telling the police. You’ll just scuttle the negotiations. All the Arabs and Israelis have diplomatic immunity. Do you know what that means?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Cops can’t arrest them, no matter what they’ve done.”
Tanella nodded. “Very good, Sally Ann. You read a book.”
“I watched Blue Bloods.”
“It feels better to talk,” Olivia Bennett said. “God, I’ve felt so wretched over this!” She closed her eyes and leaned back.
“Please, take your time,” Tanella said.
“Last night, a little after one o’clock, I was lying here alone with the windows open to let in the sea breeze. Prince Ahmad and Carsten O’Malley came stumbling down the pier. They were both tipsy. Carsten was a heavy drinker, but the boy obviously was not. He threw up—I heard vomit splashing in the water under the dock. Ahmad must have stuffed himself at dinner.”
I swallowed, saying nothing.
“O’Malley berated him mercilessly. Called him a slew of ugly names.”
“Attacking his masculinity?” Tanella said.
Olivia nodded. “When Carsten drank, he became quite derisive.”
I leaned toward Tanella. “What does that—?”
“Ridiculing, mocking.”
“Thank you.”
“Ahmad got angry,” Olivia continued. “They fought. O’Malley lunged at the Prince but missed, smashed into the piling at the end of the pier, fell in the water. Ahmad ran back and forth, calling for him desperately. The Arab kid thrashed around in the dark for a life preserver to throw, but Carsten never surfaced.”
“Why didn't you telephone for help?” Tanella said.
“I was naked in bed! That was the Prince of Utaybah out there, not some college kid. Call the police on him, and you’ve got an international incident on your hands.” She took a deep drag, as if sucking the smoke somehow gave her courage to continue. I’ve never understood why people smoke. It’s like huffing dirt.
“What did you do?” Tanella said.
“By the time I threw on a robe and got up on deck, Ahmad was gone. The water was so dark! I called O’Malley’s name for maybe twenty minutes, crawling back and forth over the bow of this boat, but. I never saw him.” She snuffed out the cigarette. “Look, maybe I should have called the cops. But I figured it would destroy Nate’s negotiations, and for what? With diplomatic immunity, all they’ll do is send the kid home.”
“So, he didn't push O’Malley into the water?” My heart was leaping, cartwheeling.
“They were fighting, but O’Malley’s death was accidental. Maybe he’s guilty of involuntary manslaughter or something.”
“What was he doing on the pier, a man with such a dread of deep water?” Tanella said.
She shrugged. “Carsten feared nothing when he drank. That’s what killed him.”
“What about the drug dealers?” I said.
Olivia shrugged. “I still think something funny is going on at night on the beaches. I asked Norm Borkowski, but he just brushed me aside. Said he’s got enough worries with petty thieves and meth dealers from the mainland.”
Mrs. Bennett stood, and we slid off the bar stools. “Will you go to the police?”
“Not now,” Tanella said.
She smiled and hugged us both. "After Ahmad goes home, I’ll make a full statement.” Olivia told us she had some work to do, to prepare the Tropical Snow in case the approaching storm required all boats to return to mainland harbors.
Tanella and I strolled under magnolia trees on our way back to the hotel. I was jumping around, full of energy, but my friend plodded along, squinting in the afternoon light. The sun was intense, but not bright enough to screw her face into the Halloween mask she wore.
“Did you see her body?” I said. “God! I want boobs like that someday.” I held both my meager knobs, jiggling. The
impossible dream. “Tanella, what’s the big deal about boobs? All women got them. Even the Virgin Mary. Eric says I’m going to hell for saying Jesus’ mom had boobs. I go, ‘How did she feed the baby Jesus, if Mary didn’t have boobs?’ He goes, ‘Jesus was a bottle baby!’ But I don’t believe it. How does he know? He’s a Protestant! What do you think?”
“That’s interesting,” she said, never looking my way. Now, Tanella never lets me swear or talk about sex without making some snide remark, so I knew her brain was definitely out to lunch.
I grabbed her shirt sleeve. “Tell me!”
“Olivia is lying.”
I released my grasp. “How do you know?”
“Eric said Ahmad came home around midnight. She said he was on the pier at one o’clock.”
“So? Eric could be wrong. He’s a fool.”
“Eric was watching Dick Tracy. Your drunken Prince appeared when Tracy escapes the exploding boiler. The movie was on the Classics Channel again this morning. The boiler blows exactly forty-two minutes into the movie, which started at eleven on the night of the murder.”
“Ahmad couldn’t be on the pier at one A.M.!”
“Right. He was home by eleven forty-two. Eric misjudged by a few minutes. Mrs. Bennett missed by an hour-plus.”
“Jesus! Let’s go back and—”
“Don’t swear.” Tanella grabbed my arm. “She’ll just deny it. She’ll claim she was mistaken. Confused, scared.” Tanella unzipped her belt bag and flattened the curled photograph of O’Malley’s corpse. “I’m not seeing the whole picture. Something is missing.”
“A finger ring is missing,” I said.
“I know that. Hmmmm. Take a look, Sally Ann. From the shape of the ring shadow, the missing ring could be another cartouche.”
“We’re like bloodhounds, hot on the trail! What’s next?”
She rolled up the picture and tucked it in her belt bag. “Lecture tonight. Dad will be speaking on John Singleton Mosby.”
“Tanella…”
She laughed. “Back to the original plan: After the lecture, we hit the beach. Plenty of time until sunset. Want to swim? I’ll introduce you to the lifeguard.”
“Let’s go!”
But the cool, blue pool was closed and the hot, tanned guy had gone home. By now the wind had shifted and dropped to about half its normal intensity. The air felt thick and humid, and wisps of clouds appeared over the ocean to the southeast. We marched across the island and tried to swim in the surf, but the breakers were too heavy, thudding hard against the white sand. Long, low rolls, ending with an explosion of white foam. We gave up and trudged home. When I asked why the pool was closed, the desk clerk said the lifeguard left for Coast Guard duty.
Failing to find game-sized guys to flirt with or safe water to play in, we decided to eat. Tanella and I wandered down the long porch to the Bakery Cafe and sat by a window, listening to the clatter of plates in the main kitchen, which shared a service hall with this coffee shop.
“They’d have to shut off swimming soon anyway,” a fat lady in a dough speckled apron said as she flopped a slice of Key Lime Pie in front of me. “Ain’tcha heard, honey? Hurricane’s a-coming.”
In the distance I heard hammers tapping.
Nine
At eight o’clock that night, Tanella’s dad gave the keynote lecture for the Hochberg Institute’s Civil War Conference. He spoke for an hour about John Singleton Mosby, the Gray Ghost of the Confederacy. Instead of boring me to dreamland, like Mr. Lambert’s Georgia History class at Spirit Creek, Dr. Blake told Mosby’s story through letters written to his wife, Pauline. Even Eric paid attention.
Dr. Blake began his talk with a question. “You might wonder, ‘Why does a black man give a lecture about a Confederate hero? What abnormal psychology provokes a descendent of slaves to say good things about a man who fought for slavery?’
“Good question. Let me answer it directly: Certainly, the Confederacy fought to preserve slavery. But first and foremost, most Confederates, like most Yankees, fought for their homes and families. That was John Singleton Mosby. In the bloody, shameful history of human warfare, here was a man who took excruciating care to avoid unnecessary enemy casualties. He did not love war. He did not love slavery. He loved Virginia. He fought in her defense.”
The audience roared when Dr. Blake read the letter about the time Mosby’s horse threw him and proceeded downslope, without a rider, to spook a whole company of Union soldiers. But I laughed loudest about Mosby’s raid on Fairfax Courthouse.
It was the night of March 8, 1863. Mosby and twenty-nine men rode through the entire Union army in the dead of night, right up to the headquarters of General Edwin Stoughton. Mosby awakened the enemy commander with the words, “General, did you ever hear of Mosby?” The sleepy officer said, “Yes, have you caught him?” And Mosby said, “No... he has caught you.”
The Confederates carried the Union general, several staff officers and 56 horses away into the night. President Lincoln’s reaction to Mosby’s raid was a hoot. Ol’ Abe said he was really upset about losing the horses, because he could make a new general in five minutes, but he couldn’t make new horses!
But it wasn’t all humor. Dr. Blake read letters about the end of the war. Legless soldiers, hobbling on sticks, trailing blood, weeping as they retreated. I tasted tears at the corner of my mouth, even though those soldiers suffered long ago.
When the lecture ended the room exploded in cheers. I clapped and whistled so loudly a historian with thick glasses turned and glared at me. But I didn’t care.
“I didn’t know your dad is a Civil War historian.”
Tanella was applauding beside me. “He isn’t. His field is Southwest Asia. He does this for fun.”
“Wow.”
I followed Tanella through the crowds to the foot of the podium and we waited for her dad to collect compliments and answer questions. Uncle Bob and Dr. Blake were chatting with two men who looked Mexican or maybe Puerto Rican, you know, dark mustaches and tanned skin. One had silver hair. Cute, for an old guy.
When most of the conference attendees filed out of the lecture hall, Hector Bennett swept down the aisle of folding chairs. Nodding satisfactorily, he shook the keynote speaker’s hand.
“Inspiring talk, Nathaniel. Never knew Mosby was such a colorful character, and I grew up in the Shenandoah Valley.”
“Thank you, Hector,” Dr. Blake said. “Where’s Olivia?”
“The boat. Preparing to evacuate up river in case Hagar the Horrible comes ashore.” Mr. Bennett sighed. “She pitched a fit when I suggested somebody else for this year’s keynote, but she doesn’t attend. How about making next year’s theme—Women: Our Crosses to Bear?”
Dr. Blake chuckled. “Too theological.”
“Walk down to the boat for a drink with me, see Olivia?”
“Thanks, but I’ve got a briefcase stuffed with monographs.”
“You’re a workaholic, like me.”
“I am disappointed Clancey Beaumont didn’t show. His book on Mosby was one of my secondary sources. I’d like to see him again.”
“You know Clancey?”
“Met him years ago. He autographed my copy.” Dr. Blake held up a jacketless hardback. “Brother Beaumont can really write.”
“May I see it, please?”
He leaned over the edge of the platform and handed the volume to Tanella. “I want it back, Tee.”
“Clancey has a scholarly background?” Hector Bennett said.
Dr. Blake gathered his notes. “I only know one book, published twenty years ago by the University of Virginia.”
“Guess he still has a thing for Mosby,” Uncle Bob said as we drifted up the aisle toward the door, “or he wouldn’t have named his resort The Gray Ghost of the Islands.”
“Never made the connection before,” Mr. Bennett said. “Clancey opened his hotel during the late 90’s, but as far as I know he never visited before last year. Now he lives here.”
“Quite a
n honor to have a scholar of Clancey Beaumont’s caliber on Barrier Island,” Dr. Blake said.
Hector Bennett snorted. “Well, he keeps his keen intellect cleverly disguised.”
The adults and Tanella laughed, but I didn't get the punch line.
We emerged in the lobby. Little knots of men and women were chatting beside potted palms, over brass rails and across glass-top coffee tables. I loved the feel of the plush beige rug, the way it mushed underfoot.
“Daddy, did you decide about our request to camp out?”
He frowned, glancing at Uncle Bob. “Tee, I’m apprehensive about the idea of three kids alone on the beach overnight.”
“What can we do to widen your comfort zone?” she said.
Dr. Blake tried to suppress a laugh, but it leaked. “Hector, see what I’m up against?”
“They’ll be safe. Glynn County PD keeps drifters and strange cars away from the beaches after sunset. She has a cell phone. Any problems, they can buzz for help.”
Dr. Blake looked each of us kids in the eyes. “Listen to me carefully. Good chance we'll have to evacuate tomorrow. Hurricane Hagar is inbound and might hit land nearby.”
“Or anywhere from St. Augustine to Cape Hatteras,” Tanella said.
“Okay, okay! If you get wet, pack up and come home.”
“Yes, Daddy. We have our phones—”
Crash! Every head snapped to the sound of a glass coffee table shattering. Two men sprawled across it. One big fellow in a white robe was choking a smaller guy in a light blue suit, and when the legs of the table buckled under their weight, the big man and his prey crashed through the glass to the rug. I expected serious blood loss with all the splattered crystal, but they rolled over the broken shards without showing any red.
Hotel security dragged them apart, wrenching the fingers of the big dude from the throat of the smaller man. That’s when I recognized them both, though I only knew Abdu’l by name. The other man was one of the guys I took for a Mexican. He looked tiny when Abdu’l had him on the floor, but when he stood beside Hector Bennett he transformed like Clark Kent into Superman, small/puny to slim/muscular.
Dr. Blake rushed to him. “Sol! Are you all right?”
