Storm Season

by Charlotte Douglas

  Kim appeared to reconsider, then grimaced. “Poker debts.”

  “Steve owed money?”

  She nodded.

  “How much?”

  “Twenty-five thousand dollars.”

  “And you loaned it to him?” I asked.

  “Yes, so, you see, he had no reason to kill me. I gave him what he needed.”

  If twenty-five grand was all he needed. “But he still has to pay you back.”

  “I’ll deduct it from his paycheck over the next few years,” she said, “so it’s not a problem.”

  “Why would someone who’s up to his eyeballs in debt take a trip to Alaska?” I asked. “Airfare and accommodations aren’t cheap.”

  Kim shrugged. “Maybe he was stressed out. Or maybe he wanted to get away from the guys he owed money to.”

  “But you loaned him the money to pay them back. Things aren’t adding up for Mr. Haggerty.”

  Kim looked sick to her stomach, and I couldn’t blame her. The possibility of having a trusted employee and friend out to kill you would make anyone sick.

  “You’d better go upstairs and pack,” I said. “We’re moving you to a safer place as soon as you’re ready.”

  She pushed to her feet as if the world’s weight were on her shoulders. “Where?”

  I grinned. “It’s so secret, even I don’t know where it is yet.”

  My lame attempt at humor failed to cheer her, and she headed upstairs to pack.

  The phone rang and, expecting Adler, I picked up the handset. “What did you find out?”

  A long, cold silence greeted me.

  “Hello?” I said.

  The person on the other end sighed heavily. “Margaret, I would hope that after almost fifty years, I could have instilled some proper sense of telephone etiquette in you.”

  “Hello, Mother. You still in New York?”

  “I’ve been home for days, which you would know if you’d bothered to check on me.”

  My inner child winced with guilt, but I’d developed a tough outer shell over the years to protect myself from Mother’s barbs. “I called when the storm was coming to make sure you had a safe place to evacuate.” Which was more than she’d done for me. “Didn’t Estelle tell you?”

  “That was days ago.” What Mother didn’t want to talk about, she circumvented or ignored. “I’m calling about Sunday.”

  My gut clenched. “What about Sunday?”

  “I’ve made reservations at the club for noon. I’ll expect you and your Mr. Malcolm then.”

  I tried not to grind my teeth. “Mother, we’re in the middle of a murder investigation—”

  “You have to eat, Margaret, no matter what you’re doing. I’ll see you then.”

  Without giving me a chance to refuse, she hung up.

  Only then did I remember the weekend cruise Bill and I had planned. I hastily scribbled a reminder to call her back and cancel once Kim was moved to a safer place, and slapped the sticky note on the refrigerator.

  I dialed Abe Mackley’s house. Within minutes, I’d arranged for us to drop Kim at his place on our way to the airport. He would take her from there to his fishing cabin on the Rainbow River near Dunellon.

  I explained the plan to Kim when she carried her first load of belongings downstairs.

  “Does he have a phone line for my fax at his river place?” she asked.

  I nodded. “And good cell phone coverage. I checked. You should be able to keep in touch with your office without any trouble.”

  Kim rolled her eyes. “And the people who write to me think they’ve got problems.”

  She climbed the stairs for another load.

  My phone rang again.

  Learning from my recent mistake, I answered more decorously. “Hello.”

  “I called CENTCOM,” Adler said.

  “And?”

  “We may have a suspect.”

  “Tonya’s not there?”

  “Nope,” Adler said. “She called in sick today.”

  CHAPTER 21

  “Did you call McClain’s house, too?” I asked.

  “Yep,” Adler said. “No answer.”

  “I hate when that happens.” I had pretty much ruled out McClain as a suspect, but the fact that she hadn’t been at work when the break-in occurred raised serious red flags.

  “Ralph and I are going to drive over to her place now,” Adler said. “See if we can track her down.”

  “I guess that means the sheriff’s search turned up nada.”

  “I talked to Detective Keating,” Adler said. “The K-9 lost the scent on the street behind your house. Like you said, the intruder must have had a car.”

  “So if it was Tonya,” I said, “she’d have had plenty of time to return home by now.”

  “Probably,” Adler said, “but we have to interview her. She’s the only lead we’ve got.”

  “Not anymore.” I filled him in on Steve Haggerty and my suspicions.

  “I’ll contact the Omaha PD,” he said. “Ask them to give us a hand in locating Haggerty.”

  “Keep me informed, okay?”

  “Will do.”

  I heard the rattle of paper right before he hung up and knew he was either unwrapping a candy bar or opening a bag of chips. When a case got tough, I developed hives. Adler ate, even more than usual. It was a wonder that I had any skin left or that Adler didn’t weigh 500 pounds.

  BY THE TIME BILL arrived, Kim and I had her belongings packed and stacked just inside the front entrance. When I opened the door for Bill, I could see Trish, slumped in the passenger seat, head back, eyes closed.

  “Did you give her a tranquilizer?” I asked him.

  He straightened from greeting Roger with a pat. “Didn’t have to. I thought she was packing in the guest room. I didn’t realize until too late that she’d taken the brandy with her. She polished off the whole bottle.”

  “You may have to carry her onto the plane,” I said.

  “I’m sure she won’t be the first passenger to board drunk,” he said. “Lots of people drown their fear of flying in alcohol.”

  “With luck, she’ll sleep it off before she reaches Seattle.”

  “I hope so,” he said, “for Melanie’s sake.”

  We kept Kim inside, out of sight, while Bill stowed her luggage in the back of his SUV next to Trish’s. Kim remained remarkably calm. Either she had the greatest trust in Bill and me to keep her safe, or she was becoming hardened to life on the run. Or maybe between Sister Mary Theresa’s murder and the near-miss hurricane, Kim was merely blissfully numb. While Bill kept a wary eye for anyone who might be lurking, I hurried her and Roger into the backseat.

  With the car packed to the brim and me sitting in the rear with Kim and Roger, I flashed back to the summers of my childhood when Mother had stitched name labels in my clothing before packing it in a steamer trunk. Dad had then loaded it into the station wagon. Then my parents had driven me to camp in the North Carolina mountains.

  “Do I have to go?” I’d cried.

  Daddy had cast sympathetic glances in the rearview mirror, but Mother had been adamant.

  “You’re nothing but a recluse, Margaret,” she’d scolded. “You stay in your room all day, reading. Such isolation is not healthy for a growing child. You need fresh air and the company of friends.”

  “But I don’t know anybody at camp. My friends are here. And I don’t stay all day in my room. Patty and I play tennis, and Ruth Anne swims with me at the club.” At six years old, I was terrified at the prospect of being left alone in an unfamiliar place among strangers.

  “You should be more like Caroline,” Mother had said, apparently oblivious to my distress. “She has dozens of friends.”

  “Is that why she doesn’t have to go to camp?” I’d asked.

  “She’s off on a cruise with the Hendersons,” Mother had said. “With both our girls having fun, your father and I will have some time to ourselves.”

  Me, having fun? I’d rather have had all my
teeth pulled.

  “Don’t you want to go, pumpkin?” Daddy had said with a worried frown.

  “Of course, she does,” Mother had replied before I could answer. “She’s a lucky young lady to have such a privilege. It’s a very exclusive and expensive camp. She’d have to be extremely ungrateful not to appreciate this opportunity.”

  I was ungrateful, I’d thought rebelliously, but I’d felt ashamed for my father to know it, so I’d mumbled something about looking forward to the trip.

  I’d spent a miserable six weeks, sleeping in a cabin that was no more than a wooden floor with screen walls and a leaky roof, using an outdoor latrine, weaving tacky pot holders and constructing substandard birdhouses from twigs and glue. I wasn’t the only camper who’d cried myself to sleep at night, but I’d buried my face in my pillow so the others wouldn’t hear. I’d lain awake for hours wondering what I’d done to deserve exile to the wilderness.

  But the worst of the experience had been the counselor we nicknamed the Iron Mistress, a high school gym teacher hired by the camp to oversee our physical activities. She had run us up mountain trails so steep we had to use our hands as well as feet for climbing. She’d forced us to plunge into icy lakes for early morning swims and lifesaving classes. Then she’d made us perform calisthenics until our muscles had screamed in protest and our lungs had heaved, gasping for air.

  We dreaded the end of each day’s session. The Iron Mistress had erected bars eight feet off the ground in one of the picnic shelters. When we’d finished our exercises for the day, she’d had us leap from the picnic benches, grab hold of the bars and hang by our hands until she told us to drop or until gravity had prevailed. We had been supposed to build up to suspending ourselves for five minutes at a time before we finished camp. She had this crazy theory that people caught in house or hotel fires died because they couldn’t hang on to a window ledge long enough for firemen to get a net under them. She’d been determined that if any of “her girls” were ever caught in such a situation, they would survive. We’d all sworn our arms grew inches from her torture and that if summer didn’t end soon, our knuckles would drag the ground when we walked.

  Still, the Iron Mistress’s lessons had had a lasting impact on me. She’d prepared me well for the rigors of physical training at the police academy, an area where most women washed out from the physical and mental stress. And she’d insured that I never booked a hotel room above the second floor for the rest of my life.

  Until I was seventeen, I’d been banished to camp every year. I’d never understood my mother’s triumphant expression as she and Daddy drove away each time, not until earlier this year, when a longtime family friend had explained how jealous my mother had always been of my father’s unconditional affection for me. Because of her insecurities, Mother had been convinced that he’d loved me more than her and had resented my existence.

  As a six-year-old, I hadn’t understood, and even well into adulthood, I’d puzzled over my mother’s animosity until the recent revelations about my parents’ marriage had solved the mystery. Now I accepted the fact that my mother had never really loved me. I hated the knowledge, but had learned to live with it.

  “Margaret?”

  I’d been so lost in memory, for a moment I mistook the male voice from the driver’s seat as my late father’s.

  “Did you pack a bag for yourself?” Bill asked.

  “No.”

  “You can’t stay at your place,” he said. “It’s too dangerous.”

  “I’ll pick up some clothes later,” I said.

  “I’m really sorry,” Kim spoke beside me. “I didn’t mean to place others in danger, too.”

  Hearing the dismay in her voice, Roger snuggled against her and placed his head on her lap.

  “It’s not your fault,” I assured her. “You didn’t ask to be stalked. Once you’re in a safe spot, we’ll lay a trap for your hunter and put an end to this madness.”

  Kim reached over and squeezed my hand, apparently satisfied by my reply, not knowing that I hadn’t a clue yet how we’d manage to catch her pursuer, especially since we didn’t know who the enemy was.

  Bill’s cell phone rang, and he answered. After listening a few minutes, he hung up. “That was Abe. He offered to have us leave Roger with him since Darcy’s with her mother. You’ll enjoy the river, won’t you, boy?”

  Roger, perpetually game for anything, wagged his tail and woofed his approval. We stopped at the first Publix we spotted and bought dog food and dishes before dropping Kim and Roger off at Mackley’s in Tampa. Abe placed Kim’s luggage and Roger’s supplies in his car, Roger trotted happily after Kim without a backward glance and the trio climbed into the car and headed north toward Dunellon.

  Through all of this, Trish dozed in the front seat of the SUV, probably just as well after the scare she’d suffered earlier in the afternoon.

  Once Kim was safely on her way, Bill and I drove Trish to the airport. Between the two of us and the help of a friendly skycap with a wheelchair, we saw Trish safely boarded onto her flight.

  She disappeared down the Jetway, and Bill turned to me and grinned. “I feel as if I’ve been rescued from beneath a ten-ton rock slide. After dealing with Trish and her emotional ups and downs the past few days, catching a killer will seem like a picnic.”

  I couldn’t have agreed more. Trish’s unexpected visit, a blast from the past that I could have done without, had proved several things: I wanted to live the rest of my life with Bill, his love for me was unshakable and he was a man I could trust with my heart. I was one lucky woman to have him. I wouldn’t make Trish’s mistakes when it came to marriage, although I’d probably come up with some originals of my own. And with a love like ours, Bill and I would survive them all.

  Sharing Bill’s buoyancy, I followed him to his car. We’d just left short-term parking when his cell phone rang again.

  “Adler,” Bill said with a glance at the caller ID.

  We were approaching the toll gate, so he handed me the phone before pulling out his wallet to pay the parking fee.

  I flipped open the cell and placed it to my ear. “What’s up?”

  “Ralph and I have spent the past few hours staking out Tonya McClain’s condo. Her car’s there, but there’s no sign of her. She’s not answering her door or her phone.”

  “CENTCOM said she called in sick. Did you try the hospitals?” I asked.

  Bill paid the parking attendant, the barrier lifted and we drove out of the airport.

  “Ralph called them all,” Adler said. “Even her doctor, whose name CENTCOM gave us. No luck.”

  “We’re on our way back across the causeway,” I said. “Give us time to stop for takeout, and we’ll meet you at Tonya’s place. We’ll take over the stakeout, and you can go home to a late supper.”

  Ever since Jessica’s close call and the damage to their house during the recent storm, Sharon had been a bundle of nerves. Having her husband home for the evening would be good for her.

  “You sure?” Adler asked.

  I threw Bill a questioning glance and he nodded in agreement.

  “No problem. See you soon.”

  CHAPTER 22

  Bill and I took up surveillance in a parking lot across from Tonya’s condo, a complex similar to most other condominiums in the area, multiple two-story buildings with covered carports out front and walkways on each floor that connected the units. They reminded me of mausoleums, and I often wondered why, when the owners died, the units weren’t simply sealed and a personalized marker with R.I.P. affixed to the door.

  The sun had set, but the temperature was in the high eighties and the humidity even higher, so we kept the SUV windows up and the motor running for the air-conditioning. Even if the weather had been cooler, we’d have needed the windows closed. The parking lot bordered wetlands, and salt marsh mosquitoes were swarming in clouds and throwing themselves against the windows as if aware blood and sustenance lay on the other side of the glass.

 
; I thought of the idealized versions of Florida propagated by tourist bureaus and chambers of commerce throughout the state. Reading a colorful brochure or watching a television ad was conveniently deceptive, causing tourists and new residents to descend on the state in droves thicker than the flying insects outside my window. What the ads didn’t reveal was the saunalike humidity, the bugs, the traffic and wall-to-wall people. I was pondering where shots of long stretches of deserted beaches had been found for the misleading ads when a car pulled in to Tonya’s reserved parking space across the street.

  “That’s her,” Bill said after a tall woman, dressed in denim shorts, flip-flops and a form-fitting T-shirt, climbed from the car.

  He put the SUV in Drive, crossed the road and eased into a visitor’s slot. We hurried from the car, followed Tonya up the stairs and approached her as she was unlocking her door.

  “Ms. McClain?” Bill called before she could step inside.

  Startled, the woman turned to face us.

  I’d never met Tonya, so I was surprised when Bill added, “Sorry, I thought you were Tonya McClain.”

  The woman smiled and shrugged her shoulders. “No problem. I get that a lot. I’m Candace, her younger sister.”

  If this woman was younger, Tonya was definitely no spring chicken. Her sister’s face, deeply tanned with wrinkles at the corners of her eyes and bracketing her mouth, wore the harried expression of someone overwhelmed and in a hurry.

  Bill introduced us. “We need to speak to Tonya.”

  Candace shook her head. “She’s not here. She’s at my house.”

  “Her office said she called in sick,” I said. “Has she been with you all day?”

  “Only since mid-afternoon. I came and picked her up after she twisted her ankle. What’s this all about?”

  “Someone tried to kill her former boss this afternoon,” Bill said.

  Candace’s eyes widened. “Kimberly Ross?”

  Bill nodded. “We thought Tonya could help us narrow down some suspects.”

  She looked at me and back to Bill. “You’re cops?”

  “Private investigators,” I said. “We’re working for Ms. Ross.”