Murder in Mystic Cove

by Daryl Anderson

  “Exactly.”

  That morning I had been puzzled by Spooner’s intensity. It appeared the sheriff had more than a professional interest in Mel’s murder, or else why would he show at a call outside his jurisdiction. “Did you ask Spooner why he was there?”

  Tyler pushed away the plate of neon-red crumbs and wiped his mouth with the napkin. “Hell no—I worked for that man, and the less I have to do with him, the better. Spooner is a—”

  “Can we refocus?” I didn’t need to hear a litany of Sheriff Spooner’s shortcomings. I knew that gospel by heart.

  Tyler grinned sheepishly. “After Spooner talked to OCSO, he cornered me, but I didn’t tell him shit, only pointed out that he was out of his jurisdiction. He tried talking to the witnesses, but I made sure everybody knew that they didn’t have to talk to him.”

  “Bubba Spooner is a law enforcement officer.” Tyler’s dislike of his former boss could get tiresome.

  “Spooner is not worthy of the uniform and he had no business being here last night. If you ask me, Spooner popping up like that is damned suspicious.”

  I had to laugh. “Are seriously suggesting that Spooner is a suspect?”

  “I know for a fact Dick supported Spooner’s opponent in the last election.”

  I let Tyler rant. I’d gotten what I’d wanted. The chronology of last night’s events at the G and G was clearer, but it was like looking at the bleached bones of a skeleton. Helpful, but only to a point. I needed details to bring flesh to the skeleton, but how and where to find them? Surprisingly Tyler supplied me with the answer.

  “You should stop by Eddie’s Dive tonight. The guys might have some answers for you. That is, if you’re sure you want to go down this road. It might get a little rocky.”

  Not a bad idea. I could talk with my guards, get a feel for what was up with Mel and his friends, maybe get a handle on whatever was going on in Mystic Cove.

  And something was going on, of that I was certain.

  I took my time walking back to my office. Paradise looked the same as it had before—people walked the sidewalks, golf carts buzzed and the sunlight dazzled. But appearances deceived. There was a serpent in paradise and last night it had slithered from its hidden place and struck, bringing death to Mel Dick.

  Back at the Financial Building, I entered through the basement garage, where Mystic Cove Security stored its fleet of golf carts. It was a lot quicker than the elevator—just one short flight of stairs to the first floor. But when I got there, I found a petite woman with cropped silver hair in the hallway, just outside the door to security headquarters.

  Hearing my approach, she spun round. Silvery blue eyes fixed on me and quickly filled with tears. She pulled her brick-red pashmina tight and grasped my arm. The flowery scent of L’air du Temps was almost overpowering.

  “Chief Gorsky, thank God.” The high-pitched voice trembled, a rolling vibrato. “I’m Fairley Sable and I need your help.”

  Chapter Four

  The Lady in Red

  “Thank you,” Fairley Sable said as she accepted the mug of coffee. “Do you remember me?”

  I nodded. We had only met once, but it was a memorable meeting, on the day of her husband’s death. Harry Sable had surprised all of Mystic Cove when he returned from his brother’s funeral with a new wife on his arm. But the fairy-tale ending didn’t pan out. At a backyard barbeque at the Sable house Harry had a fatal heart attack, only six weeks into the marriage. I remembered the smell of grilled chicken and Fairley Sable’s pale, tearstained face.

  “How can I help?”

  Fairley took a deep breath. “I wasn’t sure where to go and so I came here. I hope I’m doing the right thing. Sometimes it’s hard to know what the right thing is.” She looked at me, as if for an answer. When none came, she sighed and continued. “I’m friends to both Dicks, but I’m particularly close to Anita. When she called last night, I had to help her.”

  I put down my coffee cup and reached for my cell. “This sounds like a police matter, Mrs. Sable.”

  Fairley Sable touched my arm. “Please let me tell my story first—it won’t take long—and then if you think I should call the police, I will.”

  “Mrs. Sable...”

  “I’m not like the other people in this place. I don’t betray my friends so easily. Please!” Fairley’s voice cracked and her eyes filled with tears. I handed her a box of tissues. She tore off several sheets, dabbed her eyes, blew her nose.

  “Go on then.” No harm in giving the old woman a few minutes.

  “Last night Anita phoned me. It was late and so I knew it was bad news. No one calls in the middle of the night with good news.”

  “What time was the call?”

  “A little past midnight, I believe,” Fairley said. “Anita was hysterical. All she would say was that she and Mel had just had a terrible argument, and she didn’t want to be alone.”

  “Where was Mel?”

  “After the argument he’d driven away in his golf cart—his usual way of dealing with unpleasantness.”

  “For the second time that night,” I murmured.

  Fairley smiled with relief. “You know about the incident at the G and G then?”

  “What did you do then?” I asked, ignoring the question.

  “I went straight to my friend of course. Ten minutes later I was at Anita’s.”

  “That was quick.”

  “Don’t you remember? I live on Azimuth Circle.” Of course, the Sables and Dicks had been neighbors—Azimuth Circle was a stubby cul-de-sac that jutted off of Admiral Street.

  “Anita was in a state—her hair a bird’s nest, clothes mussed, even her shoes caked with dirt. My heart sank when she told me that she and Mel had argued over Gigi.” Fairley shot a pointed look my way.

  “I’ve...heard the rumors.”

  “Sadly, the rumors are true.” Fairley picked up her coffee mug, peered at the liquid, then set it down without drinking. “Why is it that the wife is always the last to know? My first thought was that it might be a good thing for Anita to know the truth about Mel and Gigi. If I were in her place, I would prefer the truth to a lie. Wouldn’t you?” Fairley wiped her eyes and folded the tissue into a perfect square.

  “The truth is always better.”

  “That’s just what I told Anita last night, but she wouldn’t have it. In a strange way, ignorance suits Anita.” Fairley took another swipe at her eyes with the tissue, then looked around for a place to dump it.

  I pushed a wastepaper basket toward her. “Anita’s no different from anyone else. We all see the things we want to see.”

  “I suppose so.” Fairley held the neatly folded tissue over the container and let it fall. “Well, once I saw the state Anita was in, I knew I had to get her out of that house. I packed a few of her things and brought her home with me. I gave her a nice cup of chamomile tea and put her to bed.”

  I put down my mug. “Is that where Mrs. Dick is now?”

  Something flashed in those ice-blue eyes. Fear? Regret? Or just a trick of the light? “I’m...I’m not sure. When I left the house Anita was still snoring away in the guest room.”

  “You left her alone?”

  “Well, yes,” Fairley cried, hands twisting in her lap. “I feel awful about it now, but I didn’t know about Mel! I had an appointment with my financial advisor, you see. I left a note for Anita and went to my meeting with Jeremy. If I’d known about Mel, I would have never left my friend.”

  “Calm down, Mrs. Sable, it’s not your fault.”

  “When Jeremy told me that Mel had been murdered, I broke off the meeting at once. I called my house, but no one answered. So you see, I don’t know if Anita is still there or not. I didn’t know what to do, and then I remembered security headquarters was in this very building. I came here
straightaway.”

  “And exactly what do you want me to do?”

  “Come back with me to my house. It’s possible Anita is still there. She might be still asleep for all I know or perhaps she felt odd answering my phone—she can be silly that way. But come back to my house with me. I’m afraid to go home alone.”

  Against my better judgment I agreed. “But when we get to your house, I’m calling the police, regardless of Mrs. Dick’s whereabouts. I’ll follow you in my cart.”

  “But I walked here.”

  I managed to hide my surprise. “No problem. It’ll take me a minute to sign out a golf cart.”

  Fairley balked again. “I’ve never felt safe in those kiddie cars.”

  Really? A Mystic Cove resident who didn’t like golf carts? So we wound up taking my current ride, my father’s vintage Crown Vic.

  When I pulled into Fairley Sable’s driveway, she bolted from the Vic like a Baptist out of a bar. I wasn’t sure how many years beyond fifty-five—the minimum age for Mystic Covians—the woman was, but she could move. At the front door, she rummaged in her purse for several seconds, then threw it to the ground. “Come with me. I keep an extra key beneath a flowerpot.”

  “Not a safe practice,” I said, following Fairley to the backyard. “That’s the first place a burglar would look.”

  “You sound like Harry.” She stopped at a faux-terracotta pot of pink impatiens. I picked up the pot while Fairley scooped the key. I had just replaced the flowerpot when Fairley’s face drained of color.

  Anita Dick, a blocky shadow, sat on a stone bench that overlooked the small pond in Mrs. Sable’s backyard. She stared at the water as if it were a crystal ball, staring at the fat koi just beneath the surface. I started to call GCSO. My mind knew it was the right thing to do, but my heart was elsewhere. And the heart always won, didn’t it? Why not have a few words with Anita before calling Spooner? I turned to speak to Fairley, but she was gone.

  “Mrs. Dick?” My voice was barely a whisper, but even so, Anita Dick started. She was a large woman, which somehow made her more vulnerable. She wore navy polyester pants and a shapeless beige tunic that fluttered slightly in the breeze. Her short chestnut-brown hair was teased and sprayed into an immoveable helmet.

  I touched her arm. “Are you all right?”

  She looked at me, her eyes clouded. She supported her large body on the bench with her arms, but even so, she trembled.

  “It’s me, Addie Gorsky.”

  The lidded eyes struggled to focus. Slowly recognition dawned and she said, “Addie? Isn’t it a nice day?”

  I took her hand in mine and was shocked as its coldness. True, Anita sat in the shadows of Fairley’s lush vegetation, but the day was warm.

  “You’re freezing, Mrs. Dick. Let’s go inside. Fairley will fix you some tea.” Something was terribly wrong with this woman. Was it shock?

  Anita pulled her hand from mine. “Octobers were nice in Ohio. Pumpkins and burning leaves. Not like this jungle.” She blinked at the tiny yard that Fairley had packed with foliage. A rapacious flowering vine climbed the arbor behind the koi pond, thyme crept between the brickwork at our feet, and mounds of nose-itching herbs rose from moss-covered pots. “Why do we leave our homes and come to places like Mystic Cove?”

  “I don’t know, but you need to get inside.”

  “I’m here because Mel wanted to be here, but I miss my little girl. Julie. Mel was my husband and I obeyed.”

  “Mrs. Dick, please!” I had to get her inside now and call GCSO—usually wives with living husbands didn’t refer to them in the past tense. I tugged her arm, but she pulled away.

  “I made a mistake, and now I have to tell Julie that her father is gone.”

  There was no doubt. Anita Dick knew her husband was dead.

  “Let’s go, Mrs. Dick.” This time she did not resist. Once I had Anita safely inside Fairley’s house, I’d call Sheriff Spooner, confess all, and step away from this pile of shit. I didn’t know I’d already stepped in it.

  We had taken a few steps when Anita stopped cold, her eyes bulging with fear. Across the lawn Sheriff Spooner and Deputy Berry ran toward us like hounds with a noseful. Anita slipped my grasp and stumbled backward.

  “I didn’t kill my husband but God help me, I wanted to. I wanted to!”

  “Anita!” I cried out.

  The poor woman whimpered as Spooner grabbed one arm and Deputy Berry the other. As they led her away she spoke the awful words that could not be taken back.

  “No one can blame me, Addie. No one! What wife hasn’t wanted to shoot her husband?”

  * * *

  Back at the office, I splashed water on my face and ran a comb through my cropped black hair. It helped, but not much. I still looked like I’d been ridden hard and put up wet, which wasn’t far from the truth. My mind swam and my stomach ached. Too much coffee and too little food. I put a prepackaged cup of tomato soup in the microwave and scrounged a packet of saltine crackers. The soup was paste and the crackers stale, but I didn’t care. I ate mindlessly, not tasting anything, which was probably a good thing.

  With Mrs. Dick safely tucked in a GCSO cruiser, Spooner had cornered me on Fairley’s front yard, dark and threatening as a storm cloud. “I can’t believe you would interview a person of interest in a murder investigation.”

  I tried to explain, but Spooner was beyond listening. In fact, Bubba Spooner looked like a man about to commit murder himself, with yours truly as the victim.

  “I don’t think Anita Dick is well,” I said when he’d stopped to take in oxygen. “I think she might be in shock or something.”

  “You a doctor now?”

  “Sarcasm doesn’t suit you.” I turned my back on him, but before I reached the Vic a hand gripped my wrist. “Jesus Christ,” I yelped, jerking free and facing Spooner.

  “You just calm down, lady.”

  “Don’t call me lady.” I let these Florida assholes call me ma’am, but drew the line at lady.

  “Sheriff, we’re ready to go here,” Deputy Berry, all grins, called from the cruiser. Spooner and I both gave him a dirty look. The sheriff’s dark brown eyes bore into mine. “It’s damn lucky for you Mrs. Dick is willing to talk to us, Gorsky. But you and I need to get some things straight before this day is done. I’ll be in touch.”

  Spooner was right of course. I’d been a first-class asshole. In my defense all I could say was that the whole thing had been bad timing, like so many of life’s tragedies. If the sheriff had arrived five minutes later, everything would have been fine. An unfortunate coincidence, that was all. But then I wondered.

  What if someone tipped off the sheriff? A nosey neighbor—plenty of those in Mystic Cove—had spotted Anita in Fairley’s backyard and called GCSO. It was a small thing, but in a murder investigation the small things were important. I made a mental note to ask Spooner—once he’d calmed down of course—how it turned out he and Berry showed up when they did.

  The door sprang open and Tyler stuck his head inside. “Come on in,” I said, relieved to see a friendly face for a change.

  “How’s the murder investigation going?”

  “Don’t joke.”

  “Wanna talk?”

  I did. I told Tyler about Fairley’s visit and the subsequent debacle. “The last thing the sheriff said to me was that we ‘needed to get some things straight,’” I said, giving it my best Southern drawl, which was awful.

  “My advice is that you blow Spooner off. If he wants to talk, let him come to you. Whatever you decide, just be careful. Spooner’s ambitious and ambitious men are dangerous.”

  “He’s investigating Dick’s murder, and I’ll help him, if I can.”

  Tyler cocked his head and smiled. “Damn, you’re already in this up to your neck, aren’t you, Addie?”

&nb
sp; I put a hand above my head.

  “You better think this through before you get in any deeper.”

  There was an uncharacteristic seriousness in his voice. Tyler was right; I hadn’t thought that far ahead. Since stumbling over the body in Birnam Wood I had let the day’s events carry me along, like a raft in white water. So far the ride had gotten a little bumpy, but the real danger lay around the bend—logjams, undercut rocks, souse holes. Did I really need this headache? Maybe I should let it go. Step slowly away from the body. I needed to talk this over with Pop. “Tyler, would you mind holding down the fort while I cut out early? I’ve had enough fun for one day.”

  “Uh sure, but what about the meeting with Busy Rhodes?”

  “Shit, is that today?” I’d asked Tyler to sit in on the meeting; when dealing with Busy it was always smart to have a witness.

  “Yup, that’s why I’m here. Busy wants to discuss the golf cart situation.” Tyler shoved a folded newspaper at me, a dog-eared copy of the Cove Commentator. The front page displayed a color picture of a butter-yellow golf cart, a stunning facsimile of a 1969 Mustang. Above the photo a headline shouted They Will Take Our Carts from Our Cold Dead Hands

  I scanned the screed. Most of the writer’s venom was directed at Busy Rhodes, the “enemy of the people” who wanted to limit golf carts to golf courses. Sometimes Mystic Cove was like fucking high school, with its bullies, toadies and countless victims. Disgusted, I crumpled the paper and tossed it.

  Mystic Cove was represented by two opposing homeowners’ associations that got along like the Montagues and Capulets, only without the love story. The Cove Homeowners’ Association, of which Mel Dick was president, purported a laissez-faire toward most things, especially golf carts. But if a resident painted his McMansion an unauthorized shade of pink, he would soon feel the full and righteous wrath of the CHA. The Homeowners’ Association of the Cove advocated what its newly elected president Busy Rhodes called common-sense regulations. Almost single-handedly Busy had breathed new life into the moribund organization, but with her latest campaign to limit golf carts in Mystic Cove, she might have inadvertently grabbed a tiger by the tail and now didn’t dare let go.