Muddy Waters

by Ellis Quinn

  “I told you, she always talked about Brian. Said he was some engineering consultant, worked for the government. Maybe like Blackwater stuff,” he said in a spooky voice. Then continuing, “Whatever it was, it took him all over the world. Probably the Middle East, I would guess. Lots of contracts over there for him to sink his teeth into.”

  “That’s what she told you, though? Middle East?”

  He shrugged and took another bite. She waited for him to chew a bit and then he said, “I’m just guessing he traveled the world. That’s all I know. She never told me anything he did exactly, just that he was a consultant and he was always working, and it was government contracts. I’ll tell you what though, she was very happy to stay at home while he traveled. Brian indulged her. Brian was happy to keep her in this house in Chesapeake Cove, like she was all his own, and then he would come back and she would be wild for him. She had this dream, this crazy dream of being an artist, and she was pursuing it. Really pursuing it. She had Brian to thank for that, I mean it. But Brian himself, I never met him, never talked to him. I mean, I guess the relationship was good, I’m not going to say it wasn’t weird, but the important thing to know is that she never said a bad word about this guy.”

  The thought again came to her of Strangers On A Train. One man committing a murder for the other man. Neither of them having a motive, both of them would be free. But why the heck would they go to the trouble of doing something like this only to do it in the exact same town, staying two houses apart? If you went to the trouble of pulling a Strangers On A Train murder, wouldn’t you have thought it through enough to wait till you were cities apart? But not all criminals are masterminds.

  She pulled left into Julie and Brian’s home, drove the long gravel driveway through the gumdrop spruce trees to come to the wide gravel circle of the parking area out front of the garage. Buster sat up and watched between them to see what the destination would be—not knowing he’d not even get a chance to leave the Bronco.

  They sat in the car a moment so they could finish their hot drinks, the wax paper that had held Sam’s sandwich scrunched up in one of his fists. When they were done, they put their lids back on and plopped the empty cups in Pearl’s bolt-on cup holders.

  She turned to Buster and scratched his neck, thumbed his cheekbone and brushed cookie crumbs off his flews and lower lips while he narrowed his golden eyes sleepily. “You stay awake in here, okay? I’m entrusting the Bronco to you.”

  They got out of the vehicle together, and walked to the front door, Sam searching his pocket for the spare key to Julie’s house. She waited behind him at the front door as he unlocked it. He pushed it open and let her walk in ahead of him.

  Something about the action of Sam casually gesturing for her to step forward into the space suddenly made her shiver with the premonition this was a trap. Sam had lured her out to this house so she would be the next one strangled. And she’d left Buster in the truck. How could she be so stupid?

  But it was Sam behind her who gasped. She looked up and around.

  The house that had been so neat the last time she was here was in great disarray. At first a rage passed over her, a gauzy red film of anger. Did Marcus and his stupid police officers do this? Was it Jason Mitchum, so careless with his big giant frame?

  But then she realized this was no police search that had done this. It wasn’t like being on Donovan’s boat, the Miss Connie, with Troy that night after they’d picked it up from the police, where the cops hadn’t tidied up after they’d gone through the boat for evidence. No, Julie’s home had been ransacked. Tables up-ended, an upholstered chair knocked over. Glass smashed on the floor, knickknacks scattered everywhere, paintings knocked askew. Julie’s paints and easel knocked to the floor. She put both hands over her mouth, turned to see the horror on Sam’s face as well. Then felt guilty for ever thinking Sam would lure her to this place to murder her.

  “Who did this?” Sam said, voice tight, like he was injured seeing his good friend’s home devastated like this.

  Sam took a step forward, and she put out a hand to stop him short. “Wait,” she said, “don’t touch anything.” From a pocket she withdrew her phone and speed-dialed Marcus. She said, “Marcus, you need to get here immediately.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Where is here?”

  She was mad at him for not knowing where she was for a second, a bit irrational, and she palmed her forehead and said, “Oh yeah, I’m at Julie’s. The place has been ransacked.”

  “What you mean ransacked? We moved some things around—”

  “No, Marcus, this couldn’t have been you guys. If it was, you’re in big trouble. The place is upside down, I’m telling you.”

  Sam padded ahead of her, moving like he didn’t want to disturb anything, walking on his tiptoes. He moved down the step to the lower level and got her attention. He jabbed a finger at an object on the floor and showed her a bewildered expression.

  She went to the handrail and leaned forward to look down to the lower level. She said to Marcus, “There’s a bottle here on the floor, Marcus. Looks like a wine bottle. It’s broken, and there’s blood on it . . .”

  HALF AN HOUR LATER

  Stacy was bent over a pile of magazines, framed pictures with the glass broken, books, hardcovers and paperbacks, and all spread out on the floor, some of them flattened with their covers spread out like wings. Marcus poked around as well, going through the disarray and taking photographs on his phone. Stacy stood up and held above her head a small square leather-bound notebook. She called out to Sam, “Is this it?”

  She and Sam were still congregated in the front foyer, not allowed to go down and interfere with the evidence until Marcus and Stacy got a chance to sort it out and make sense of it. Sam brightened, leaned forward with his hands on the railing to get a better look, squinting and saying, “I think that’s it. Yeah, that’s it!”

  Stacy seemed pleased, smiling, then stepping out and tiptoeing around the piles of books and knocked over items, but Marcus intercepted her. He took the square book from Stacy, looked up to Sam, then down at the book. He opened it and flipped through. Satisfied then, he nodded to Stacy, who returned to sorting through the items that had been knocked over.

  Marcus came up to the foyer, handed the notebook over to Sam. He took it, happy, flipping it open and going through the pages. He held it over his heart and said, “I’m glad it’s here. It’s my journal, I put in all my thoughts, the last couple years, everything I thought just driving around the country . . .”

  Bette patted his arm.

  Marcus asked Sam, “Do you know of anything Julie had that was of value? Something that someone would think was worth stealing?”

  Sam shook his head. “No, Julie wasn’t into things. Unless it was art supplies. She didn’t really care too much about having precious objects. I don’t think I could have got along with her if she was that type of person.”

  Marcus said, “How about any mementos? Maybe a family heirloom or anything?”

  Sam said, “No, nothing that I can think of at all.”

  Bette snapped her fingers suddenly, and it made Sam flinch. “Sorry,” she said to him, then to Marcus, “Sam was saying that Brian was an engineer.”

  “I know,” Marcus said.

  “Yeah, but Sam said Brian works for contractors. You know, like government contractors. Middle East stuff, Blackwater, he said.”

  “Well, not Blackwater anymore,” Sam said. “But those types . . .”

  Marcus frowned and said to Bette, “You think there might be something here in Julie’s house that had some governmental significance?”

  “Well, maybe not government, but those contracted companies overseas are doing all kinds of stuff. Could be corporate espionage, or yeah, maybe it’s—”

  “Like the Russkies or something?” Marcus raised an eyebrow.

  “What, you think that’s stupid?”

  He shook his head, now worried he’d offended her. “No, not at all. It’s an an
gle we should look at. If this Brian guy was an overseas consultant, he might be privy to information that somebody came here to find. Maybe they didn’t find it the first time they were here, and Julie got in the way.”

  “But Julie was on a boat,” Bette said.

  “That doesn’t mean it didn’t work out some way that we can’t figure right now,” Marcus said.

  Bette sighed, then looked around behind Marcus at the torn apart furnishings. She said, “Is it okay for me to take a look around now?”

  Marcus chewed his cheek, hands on his hips, then said, “Yeah. Okay. You’re gonna need some gloves though.” He pulled from his pocket a free pair. She made a face at him.

  “What?”

  “Are those ones yours?”

  He said, “They’re not dirty or anything, I haven’t worn them yet.”

  “It’s not whether they’re used, Marcus. If they’re yours, I might as well put my hands in shopping bags.”

  He rolled his eyes and put the gloves in his pocket again. He called down to Stacy, “You have any spare gloves?”

  Stacy jumped up again and trotted over broken pottery to come to the bottom of the stairs. She passed up a pair of her extra gloves to Bette and she snapped them on.

  Marcus joined her now in the lower level while Sam stayed up in the foyer, leaning on the railing and going through his journal. Marcus led her to the broken wine bottle.

  He said, “At first I thought it was wine, but it’s blood.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “White wine. Red blood.”

  “Can you read the label?”

  She squatted and angled her head to read it.

  Cheers To

  Brian and Julie

  On Their Wedding Anniversary

  She said, “A custom wedding anniversary bottle.”

  Marcus said, “It wasn’t here when we searched the place before.”

  “What do you think, then?” she said, looking up at him. “It was Brian, wasn’t it?”

  “Must be, right? What do you think?”

  “He’s been here. I think you’re right.”

  “Brian is now suspect number one,” Marcus said.

  Bette got up and poked around without Marcus, keeping her arms folded and trying not to disturb anything, going into Julie’s bedroom now. It had been a pretty room, lots of pinks. Paisley on the walls, a fourposter bed in white, pink bedding. The bedding was whipped away, and it looked like someone had lain there. The drawers had been yanked open on the white furniture, and clothing pulled out.

  What if it wasn’t someone searching for something, but maybe just flat out rage? Was that possible?

  The closet door was open, and she made her way in there. Julie wasn’t a woman who prized precious things, but her clothing was good quality. Not ostentatious, not anything that Charlotte Dawson would be caught dead in, but items of good value. Expensive, probably, but well-made, durable, and utilitarian. It was sad to think that that woman she’d seen in Cherry’s café was now gone. One day she was happy in this home, looking forward to her husband coming home, walking around in those beautiful brown leather boots, and an hour later someone strangled her to death on her boat. It was tragic. She hated to think how fragile life could be.

  She stooped again, saw more upended books, spread open and face down. Only these weren’t, they were leather bound photo albums. Pages had been torn from them, and photos lay scattered on the floor.

  With the gloves on, she flipped over each photo so it was face up. Lots of pictures of Julie with various people she didn’t recognize. Then a picture of Julie and Sam, the two of them in front of a table outdoors, one of those pop-up commercial tents. An art show—in the background were easels with Julie’s work for sale. They had their arms around each other, and they looked happy together. More pictures, Julie painting, some landscape photos, no people in them, maybe taken for reference. Another one now, of a man with Julie, the man in three-quarter profile. He looked familiar, but didn’t face the camera. She sighed then, going through all the pictures and not finding anything with a great revelation that would break this thing wide open.

  She padded out to the bedroom again and looked around. Out the French doors that led to a small deck out back, she could see now a man walk into view. She gasped and jumped. The man turned and got her attention by waving frantically, but hunched as though he’d been sneaking around the house. It was Pete Headley. He wore cotton khaki pants, a rumpled polo shirt, untucked and hanging around his hips. There were bags under his eyes, and he looked harried. But there was urgency in his eyes. She moved closer and made eye contact with him. His eyes darted to the left and the right, and he moved a little aside so he couldn’t be seen by anyone else, only her. He mouthed to her, “Come outside, come out, please,” his expression pleading with her; a man who desperately needed her.

  Now he mouthed, “It’s important, I’m serious, Bette, please, come out, don’t let them see you.”

  Pete looked to the left again and ducked a little like he was trying to avoid being seen. Was it Sam? Was it Sam that he was afraid of? “Please,” he mouthed again, and pointed to his right, before slipping out view.

  Bette frowned and contemplated. She looked down again at all the photos spread out from the closet and tried to think what Pete needed her for. She returned to the picture with the man in three-quarter profile and picked it up. She looked at it again, studied it. Then went back out to the main room.

  Marcus was talking with Sam, the two of them close together, elbows on the railing, Marcus offering this poor young man some support in this terrible time. She approached them from behind, and then they turned to face her. Marcus looked happy, or at least content, and he said, “What’s up?”

  She presented the photo to them both and then held it out for Sam to see. She said to Sam, “Pete Headley. You know him, know his family.”

  Some sadness returned to his face. He nodded.

  “You said Pete was Jamie’s older brother. Did she have another brother?”

  Sam said, “She had two brothers. Pete and Brian.”

  Marcus stood up straighter, and she looked at him. Both of them were bug-eyed. Sam still continued, “Yeah, Pete was a good brother, and Brian was too. They both loved their little sister.” He was lost again, his eyes going far away. He didn’t recognize the significance of what he’d said.

  She said to Marcus now, “I’m going to head out for a little walk, okay?”

  Marcus frowned and looked at her strangely.

  “I just need to take a little break, okay, take a walk around, see? But if I’m not back in five minutes, come and look for me.”

  A MINUTE LATER

  Out the front door of the bungalow, she stuffed her hands in the pockets of her jacket and looked around. No sign of Pete. He’d be expecting her to come around back where she’d seen him.

  She walked past the bumpers of Marcus’s police SUV and her Bronco, going beyond the garages, and then down the side gravel path that led to the back. The backyard wasn’t an open clearing. Julie’s house didn’t have a lake view, though her house property touched the water’s edge. There might be a boathouse, or at least a jetty where she stored her boat in summer, and she figured that’s where Pete would’ve gone.

  But round back, she could see him now. He was standing at the edge of the woods that surrounded the home, far off to the left, past the edge of the bedroom, hiding where no one would see him. He waved for her to come over, and she gritted her teeth, wondering about her sanity, but trudging forth nonetheless.

  She crossed the grass behind the deck, above her at waist height, all cedar, two tiers, fancy barbecue and smoker, glass and steel table with a pretty umbrella above. She could see into the family room, Marcus standing with Stacy amidst the mess. Sam still stood in the foyer, leafing through his journal. No one spotted her, and she crossed to the bedroom deck, then went to Pete.

  She said, “What’s up, what’s so urgent?” keeping her voice low, mimicking his indicate
d need for secrecy.

  The needfulness she’d seen in him from the bedroom seemed now to have been replaced with a heavy glumness. Pete didn’t exactly have a fit figure to begin with, but now his narrow shoulders sloped in round curves. His arms hung down at his sides, even his neck too weak to support the weight of his head. The bags under his eyes were intense, and his neat hairdo looked uncombed, as if he’d slept and just woken. “Come with me,” he said, “there’s something you need to see.”

  “Why can’t I tell anyone?”

  “Please, Bette,” he said, closing his eyes like he was at the end of his rope. “I just need you to come with me and see something.”

  If Pete was the strangler, this would be the biggest mistake of her life. It would be the end of her life. Why not end it with a big old mistake? But Marcus would come for her. If there was one thing she could bet everything on, it was that Marcus would come for her. She took a deep breath, let it out. “Why is it something that no one else can see?”

  Pete said, “You’re the only one I trust. And I guarantee you, you’re the only one who will get it.” His voice was thin and weightless, and when he spoke he still kept his eyes closed, giving her the impression of a man trying to remember the words to an old song, the forgotten lyrics coming out in a dull monotone.

  That was when she noticed the humped out shape in his untucked polo shirt. Right at the belt line, a pistol grip—was it a pistol grip?—poking out the black cotton fabric. A sudden icy shiver wormed its way down the nape of her neck to the back of her thighs. Her knees weakened and her stomach rolled over. “What are you going to do?”

  “Bette, I’m telling you you need to come with me. Would you please just do it?”

  She put it flatly: “Do you have a gun?” Now it was her voice that was thin and monotone, and very, very far away.

  He shook his head no, but it seemed more out of regret for what he must do. Because he did indeed have a gun, reaching now to the hem of his shirt and raising it, letting it fall between the gun butt and his stomach. There, sticking out above his braided brown leather belt, was the black handle of a pistol.