Storm Season

by Charlotte Douglas

  “There is one thing you could do,” I said.

  Her scowl disappeared and her expression brightened.

  “Ask Estelle to bake our wedding cake,” I said.

  Mother smiled. “I know just the thing, a Lady Baltimore cake. Estelle makes such a luscious filling. But what size? And how do you want it decorated?”

  “I’ll leave that up to you and Estelle,” I said. “You have such wonderful taste, Mother, I know whatever you choose will be stunning.”

  “How many guests are you expecting?” Mother asked.

  “Just you, Estelle, Caroline and Hunt,” I said, “and the notary who’ll do the ceremony and our friends Dave and Sharon Adler and their daughter. We want a simple wedding with just family and our closest friends.”

  Having been given a role, no matter how small, appeared to mollify Mother, and she was charming for the rest of the luncheon.

  After the meal, Bill and I left the clubhouse. I was filled with elation at having survived the occasion with minimum friction.

  “Margaret, wait!”

  My luck had changed. I turned to see Caroline, hurrying across the parking lot as fast as her new pair of Prada stilettos would allow. With a sigh, I waited for her to catch up.

  “I brought you something from New York,” she said breathlessly.

  “You did?” Her hands were empty. I glanced at the expensive bag that matched her shoes and was slung across her shoulder. If her gift was in there, it was tiny.

  “I don’t have it with me, silly. It’s way too big to carry around.”

  I was afraid to ask but plunged ahead and bit the bullet. “What is it?”

  “Why, your wedding dress, of course. And accessories, shoes, stockings and all. I can’t let you get married in just any old thing.”

  Visions of plum-colored ruffles and lacy froufrou danced in my head, and I felt slightly nauseous. I should have known the luncheon had gone too well, that there had to have been a catch.

  “You’ll love it.” Caroline gave me a hug. “I’ll bring it by your place next week, so you’ll have plenty of time for alterations.

  I was considering how I might persuade Roger to alter it beyond repair when she released me. Tears glistened in her eyes.

  “I can’t believe it. My baby sister getting married.”

  Caroline fumbled in her purse for a tissue, blew her nose and returned to the club’s entrance, where the valet was delivering their Town Car to a waiting Hunt.

  I experienced a sudden surge of affection for my bossy older sister.

  But then I hadn’t seen the dress yet.

  TWO DAYS LATER, I sat belowdecks on the boat in the slip across from the Ten-Ninety-Eight and moved closer to the porthole, trying to balance my desperate need for fresh air with the necessity of remaining out of sight. Blair Sisco, the boat’s owner, had agreed to let Bill and me set up a stakeout on his Morgan sailboat in our trap for Kim’s assailant.

  Keeping watch on the divorced banker’s boat had seemed like a good idea—until Bill had taken me below. The cabin smelled like a high school locker room with an added overlay of stale cigar smoke and the stench of stale beer. The Risky Business was obviously a floating party pad, one that hadn’t been cleaned since the last orgy. While its exterior was shipshape, the inside resembled a frat house at the end of the semester. Bill and I had come aboard before dawn, and my stomach couldn’t take much more of the oppressive atmosphere.

  After briefing Kim early yesterday on what to tell her staff and making sure that Adler had informed Tonya McClain of Kim’s alleged whereabouts, Bill and I had delivered groceries, mail and office supplies to the Ten-Ninety-Eight at odd hours, calling out greetings to an imaginary Kim as we entered. On Sunday, Bill had closed the curtains and set the lights on timers. Throughout the next day and Monday night, Adler, Porter and Keating and a couple of sheriff’s deputies, all dressed as boaters, had kept watch aboard the Risky Business and a cabin cruiser, Dad’s Obsession, docked in the slip alongside Bill’s boat. Bill and I had relieved the sheriff’s deputies on the Morgan before daylight this morning. To my relief, Keating had decided to keep watch with Adler and Porter. Having Bill around apparently took all the detective’s fun out of flirting with me.

  I was beginning to believe that the intruder who’d been looking for Kim was neither Tonya nor Haggerty. So far, the person whom Trish had described, tall and gangly with loose-fitting clothes, hadn’t made an appearance. I hoped whoever it was showed up soon, because with the rising sun came more heat, and the increased temperature accentuated the stench below deck. Between the malodorous surroundings and the gentle rocking of the boat as other vessels came and went in the marina, I was ready to toss my breakfast.

  “Breathe through your mouth.” Bill reminded me of the technique we’d used at ripening crime scenes and autopsies.

  “Any Vaseline in the medicine cabinet in the head?” Stuffing my nostrils with the lubricant, another handy method from my police days, would block the stench.

  “I’ll check.”

  Bill rose from the bunk across from mine, but I grabbed his hand to stop him.

  “Listen,” I whispered.

  I could hear the thrum of approaching footsteps on the dock.

  Bill knelt on the bunk beside me, and we stared out the porthole at an oblique angle that gave us a view of the Ten-Ninety-Eight’s stern without divulging our presence.

  The footsteps sounded louder. Their producer came into view and stopped at the back of Bill’s boat, as if reading the name emblazoned on the stern. Wearing loose slacks, deck shoes, a long-sleeve safari-style shirt, sunglasses and a ball cap pulled low over the forehead, the person could have been a man or a large woman. After a pause and a glance around as if checking to see if he—or she—were being watched, he stepped to the catwalk that ran alongside the Ten-Ninety-Eight and from there jumped quickly to the stern. Again he looked over his shoulder, then raised the hem of his shirt and removed a large hunting knife from a scabbard at his belt. With his other hand, he slid open the door to the lounge and disappeared inside.

  Bill and I leaped from the bunk, raced topside and climbed onto the dock at the rear of Bill’s boat. Adler, Porter and Keating, guns drawn, piled out of Dad’s Obsession and joined us. Because Bill and I were along only as extra surveillance, we left the firepower to law enforcement. When our suspect exited the Ten-Ninety-Eight, whose slip was at the end of the dock, he’d find himself blocked by three armed cops and two determined P.I.s and nowhere else to go.

  Or so I thought.

  The suspect, apparently aware that he’d been duped, slammed open the slider and leaped to the dock before noticing he had company. With a flinch of surprise, he dropped his knife when he spotted us arrayed against him, blocking his escape. I expected him to surrender in the face of overwhelming odds. Instead, he pivoted, leaped from the boat to the dock and dived into the deep channel that led to the sound.

  My response was automatic. I jumped in and landed on him coming up as I was going down. He grabbed me and dragged me deeper. My lungs were screaming for air, but I couldn’t have breathed, even if I hadn’t been underwater, because of his arm tightening around my neck.

  I was in trouble and knew it, but my whole life didn’t flash before my eyes. Only childhood memories of lifesaving lessons from the Iron Mistress in the freezing mountain lakes and recollections of my hand-to-hand training from the police academy. With a jam of a well-placed elbow, I forced the air from my attacker’s lungs and caused him to loosen his grip. I kicked my way to the surface for a deep breath and found myself face-to-face with Bill.

  “He’s no match for two of us,” I gasped, drew in another deep breath and joined Bill in a dive through the murky water. Each of us grabbed one of the suspect’s arms and pulled him, kicking and struggling, to the surface. Adler and Porter were waiting with gaff hooks. Bill and I grabbed the handles they lowered toward us and dragged the man—his hat and sunglasses had been lost in the water, so we could see he
was obviously male—choking and swearing, toward the dock.

  Keating stepped forward to help haul the man onto the dock and cuff him. Bill and I swam to the nearest ladder, climbed out of the water and joined the others on the dock.

  “Police brutality,” the man snarled. “I wasn’t doing anything wrong. Just a little sightseeing.”

  “Then why did you run?” Adler asked.

  “You startled me.”

  “You got a name?” Porter asked.

  With no authority to make an arrest, Bill and I stood to the side, wringing water from our clothes.

  “I don’t have to tell you anything,” the man said with a smirk. “Like I said, I haven’t done anything.”

  “Book him for trespassing,” Bill suggested. “He was all over my boat. I’m pressing charges.”

  “That’ll work for starters,” Adler said.

  “I’ll take him in,” Keating insisted.

  “Be my guest.” Adler looked over at me and grinned.

  I knew how my former partner’s mind worked. He’d let Keating hold the suspect on trespassing offenses till Adler was ready to press charges of his own. First, he had to find out the identity of our suspect.

  “Hey, Steve,” I called.

  The man turned and looked at me.

  “Haggerty, isn’t it?” I guessed.

  The man didn’t answer.

  “You don’t have to tell me,” I said. “Detective Keating will print you when he books you for kidnapping. We’ll know your true identity soon enough.”

  “We don’t have to wait for AFIS,” Adler said, referring to the Automated Fingerprinting Identification System. “The Omaha police sent us Haggerty’s photo from DMV. Aside from the wet hair, this guy matches Haggerty’s photo.”

  Haggerty squared his dripping shoulders. “Okay, I’m Steve Haggerty. So what?”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be in Alaska?” I asked.

  “I heard my boss was in trouble,” he said. “I flew here to check on her.”

  I looked to Bill. “Sounds plausible.”

  Bill grinned and nodded. “Absolutely. Then Mr. Haggerty won’t mind if the police search his car and luggage.”

  Haggerty stiffened, then winced when the movement caused the cuffs to pinch his wrists. “I sure as hell do mind.”

  “Again,” Adler said. “Not a problem. We’ll get a warrant, a handy little thing that removes all kinds of obstacles.”

  Keating led a glowering Haggerty off the dock. Adler and Porter followed.

  Bill looked at me. “We’d better get into dry clothes. Your bag’s still on the Ten-Ninety-Eight.”

  I nodded and stepped onto the boat’s stern.

  Bill didn’t move. “You scared the crap out of me, Margaret, diving after that perp like a bloody Amazon.”

  I thought of all the miserable childhood summers spent under the obsessive tutelage of the Iron Mistress.

  “Blame it on Mother,” I said.

  He cocked an eyebrow. “You didn’t learn that kind of behavior from Priscilla.”

  “Not directly. It’s a long story.”

  He grinned. “You can tell me in the shower while we wash off all this bay water.”

  CHAPTER 25

  Two days later, I grabbed a carton of Kim’s belongings from the trunk of my Volvo and followed her into her condo building and the elevator. She punched in the code for the penthouse floor.

  “Must feel good to be going home,” I said.

  “Mixed emotions,” she admitted. “I still can’t get over Steve’s trying to kill me. You’re sure his arrest isn’t a mistake?”

  I felt sorry for her. She’d trusted Haggerty, counted him as a friend and named him as her successor. His treachery had cut deeply.

  “There’s no mistake,” I said. “Detective Adler found the rifle that killed Sister Mary Theresa in the trunk of Haggerty’s rental car.”

  “Steve’s too smart to leave incriminating evidence lying around. Maybe someone put it there to frame him.”

  She was grasping at straws. Conspiracy theories were easier to handle than the truth.

  “Steve confessed,” I reminded her gently. “He kept the gun in case he needed it again, for you. But if it’s any comfort, he is filled with remorse. He said he didn’t have a choice. It was either kill you for the key man insurance policy to pay off the loan shark he owed or be killed himself.”

  The elevator doors slid open. Kim crossed the foyer, set down the luggage she was carrying and fumbled in her purse for her keys. She opened the door, dragged her bags inside, entered the living room and collapsed into the nearest chair. I followed and deposited the carton I was carrying on the coffee table.

  “On the positive side,” I reminded her, “you won’t have to live the rest of your life looking over your shoulder.”

  Kim managed a weak grin. “Assuming all the wackos who pen death threats leave me alone.”

  I took a deep breath and let it out. “This might sound presumptuous, me giving Wynona Wisdom advice, but here’s my best shot: life doesn’t come with guarantees. Every cop knows that, down to the marrow in his bones. I’ve seen too many people who were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time and got their ticket punched early, when they should have led long, happy lives. Doesn’t matter if you’re Wynona Wisdom or an average Jill with nutcase neighbors. You never know what life’s going to throw at you. So you can spend what time you have, cowering with your head down, or you can treat life like the adventure it is, sucking up every drop of happiness while you have the chance.”

  Kim cocked her head and peered at me through her wire-framed glasses. “That’s a great philosophy of yours.”

  I shook my head. “Not mine. It took me years to learn it.”

  “Where? In a book?”

  I smiled. “Better. From the man I’m going to marry. And he practices what he preaches.”

  Kim pushed to her feet and hugged me. “Thanks, Maggie, for everything. I don’t know how I can repay you.”

  I laughed. “By promising to counsel me if my matrimonial road gets rocky.”

  She walked me to the door. “Doesn’t matter how rocky the road is, as long as you and Bill walk it together.”

  I DROVE FROM SAND KEY to Pelican Bay and the Lassiter house on Tangerine Street. Violet welcomed me at the door and led me to the back porch, where Bessie sat, knitting what looked like a sweater. In the sweltering heat of late September, I couldn’t imagine anyone needing such a heavy garment.

  “It’s for J.D.,” Bessie explained. “Father Tom. It gets cold in New York, you know.”

  Violet sighed. “Such a dear man. We really miss him.”

  “Father Tom is the reason I’m here,” I said.

  “You’ve heard from him?” Bessie asked.

  I nodded. “Indirectly. When he went missing, his children put up the money for a reward. Because you both were so kind to him, they wanted you to have it.”

  The white lie glided easily off my tongue. The check, made out to me, had arrived this morning from the Rochester police department. I’d taken it to the bank and had a cashier’s check made out to Violet and Bessie. I handed Violet the envelope.

  When she opened it and removed the check, she sank into a chair beside Bessie. For once, the loquacious older sister was speechless.

  “Let me see.” Bessie leaned over and took the paper from her sister’s hand. “Twenty-five thousand dollars! Why, we’re rich.”

  “We can’t take it.” Violet snatched the check from Bessie and thrust it toward me. “Not for merely doing our Christian duty.”

  I ignored the check in her outstretched hand. “Not many others would have been as kind as you were to a homeless stranger. Besides, Father Tom’s children have done well for themselves. They can afford to be generous. And they’re delighted to have their father back healthy and whole.”

  “Let’s keep it, Violet.” Bessie clapped her hands in excitement. “We can get our telephone back. And maybe even buy a car.�
�

  “Don’t be silly,” Violet snapped. “If we do keep it, we’ll do something responsible with it.”

  Bessie narrowed her eyes at her sibling. “Like what?”

  “Like putting it in the bank for our old age, that’s what!”

  I slipped out the screen door and headed to my car, while the sisters were still arguing over a use for their windfall. I couldn’t help smiling. In spite of their feisty discussions, Violet and Bessie were devoted to each other, and the reward money from Father Tom’s children had provided a sorely needed financial cushion for the elderly women.

  The tears in my eyes surprised me. As a cop, I’d witnessed too many crimes against humanity and too few happy endings. But, in this case, I should have expected otherwise. Father Tom, after all, had friends in high places.

  EPILOGUE

  The signs for my wedding day were auspicious. I awoke without prenuptial jitters or misgivings—until I remembered that Mother would be attending the ceremony. I hadn’t seen or heard from her since our luncheon at the club, but, knowing her need for control, I shuddered to think what she’d planned behind the scenes, ready to spring on me when I least expected it.

  Caroline, however, had shown up at my condo the day after I’d last visited the Lassiters. I opened the door to find her juggling shopping bags and dress boxes.

  “We’ve got work to do.” She breezed down the hallway and into the living room and deposited her packages onto the sofa.

  Roger, at the sound of Caroline’s voice, abandoned his welcoming happy dance, hightailed it to the kitchen and hid beneath the table.

  My stomach knotted as I watched the flurry of tissue paper through which Caroline dug like a diver plunging for pearls. From the names of the shops and designers on the bags and boxes, I could tell my sister had spent a small fortune. And from past experience, I knew I was going to hate whatever she’d chosen. However, faced with the choice of having the wedding I wanted or hurting my sister’s feelings, I’d choose the latter. I intended to marry only once, and I wouldn’t allow family pressures, guilty conscience or insecurities to spoil the occasion.