Murder in Mystic Cove

by Daryl Anderson

  “All Mel cared about was his story,” Rand whispered. “That damned newspaper story. If Mel had done as I asked, he’d still be alive.”

  I sensed Rand was telling the truth, but it still didn’t feel right. His distress didn’t fit the cause. Why was he so upset about the exposé? It wasn’t Rand’s fat in the fire, and he didn’t give a damn about Barracas. So what was it? “Why didn’t Mel report the criminal activity to the police?”

  Alan Rand laughed, a short, raucous bark. “Mel would bring the police into it only after the article was published. He didn’t dare risk sharing the spotlight, not even with the police. I thought it reckless, but my opinion counted for nothing.”

  “When did you last see Mel?”

  Rand took a sip of coffee. “Tally and I were at the Grub and Grog the other night—Mel’s last night. We both saw him then. For the last time.”

  “And before that?”

  “I can’t recall. Mel’s insistence on going ahead with the prostitution story drove a wedge between us. In the last weeks of his life Tally and I avoided him.”

  “But you saw enough of him to see the change in your old friend.”

  Another appalling smile. “Mel stumbled about like a blind beggar in those last days, his mind going inch by inch.”

  “Dementia?”

  “No, it was madness, a madness peculiar to Mel.”

  “What does that mean?”

  A long pause. Rand glanced at the staircase and sighed. “I’ve answered your questions. If you’ll excuse me, I must attend to my wife.”

  As I watched him leave, I wondered how to tease the truth from this pack of liars.

  José had sworn he was leveling with me, but maybe more skeletons rattled around in that sodden brain. And Gigi’s sudden anger suggested that she had a secret or two of her own to tell. As for Rand? I wasn’t sure where the truth ended and the lie began.

  I’d learned a lot, but not enough. Still more puzzle pieces to gather.

  * * *

  Back at my office, I called Spooner, but when the call went to voice mail, I lost it. I didn’t know why the sheriff had suddenly declared me persona non grata, but I wasn’t going to play his game. I left a detailed message summarizing the dirt I’d dug up. If my information on José’s extracurricular activities didn’t earn a callback, nothing would.

  A couple hours later I got a call, but not from Spooner.

  “GCSO cruisers on Admiral Street, Chief,” Billy Blake said, a little breathlessly. “They just passed the guardhouse.”

  When I arrived I found a second search of the Dick house seemingly in progress. I ran up to my old friend Deputy Berry, who was apparently guarding Anita Dick’s garbage can, while uniforms swarmed around the house. “Berry?”

  The deputy deliberately pulled off mirrored sunglasses and gave me the once-over. Then he frowned at Jinks, who was whimpering. Berry replaced the sunglasses. “Gorsky.”

  “I talked with Spooner earlier, but he didn’t mention anything about another search.”

  A smile twitched on Berry’s lips. “It just went down.”

  “What went down?”

  Berry hitched his fingers in his belt. “I got the perp.”

  “Congratulations, Deputy.” I managed a smile and stuck out my hand. After a beat Berry shook it. I asked the deputy how this came about.

  “We didn’t find bullcrap in the first search, but my gut told me we’d missed something.”

  “I guess the...uh...gut knows best,” I said.

  “So today I came back today for another go at Mrs. Dick. She wasn’t home, but my gut told me something wasn’t right. As I was leaving I noticed all the garbage cans on the curb.” Berry’s astute observation was correct. It was garbage day. The whole of Admiral Street was lined with cans. “You know what I did?”

  I shook my head while my own gut took a tumble.

  “I looked inside the can and right on top was a brown paper bag. I opened the bag and there it was—a Smith and Wesson thirty-eight. The murder weapon.”

  “Alleged murder weapon,” I muttered as a uniform scrambled over.

  “Still no sign of Anita Dick,” the deputy told Berry.

  “Calm down, son,” Berry said, though the deputy was Berry’s age and far from upset. “My gut tells me we’ll have her in custody before the day is over.”

  “Good police work,” I told Berry, who puffed like a bullfrog in heat. I gestured at the garbage truck that had just turned into Admiral Street. “I guess you were lucky pick-up was late today.”

  “This is a crime scene, Gorsky—authorized personnel only.”

  Jinks and I slunk back to security headquarters, tails tucked between our legs. It looked as if I was wrong again. I had not thought Anita capable of murdering her husband, but I couldn’t deny the evidence. Perhaps my detective instincts had vanished after all, along with so much else.

  I should be pleased that the case was about to be successfully concluded, but I wasn’t. I had enjoyed the chase, the excitement of the puzzle, and now it was over. But the worst part was that I had been dead wrong about almost everything, especially Anita Dick. The thirty-eight in the trash can was damning evidence. It was easy to imagine how it went down. Something had broken in Anita Dick that night at the Grub and Grog. As she had so many times before, Anita had returned to her lonely house to wait for her husband.

  Only this time she’d waited with a gun.

  * * *

  At the office I found Tyler waiting for me.

  “Don’t tell me you already know about the gun.”

  “What gun? I just wanted to invite you to have a drink with me.”

  I told him about the thirty-eight Berry had found in Anita’s garbage.

  “Let’s celebrate the successful conclusion of your investigation at Eddie’s.”

  I stared at Tyler, trying to decide if he was being sarcastic. “No, thanks,” I said at last, “and as far as I know, the case isn’t officially closed.”

  “Once the cops find the old lady, it will be. Come on, Addie, let me buy you a drink.”

  “I’d be lousy company,” I said. Tyler was on my last nerve. He had never learned when to leave me alone.

  “How’s Stan the Man doing these days?”

  I took a deep breath. “Pop’s okay.”

  “What’s wrong, Addie? I know something is.”

  “Nothing’s wrong,” I said, turning my face away. “It’s just that Pop’s going into hospice care.” Treasonous tears filled my eyes.

  “That’s...that’s tough. I hope everything works out for your dad.”

  “That’s highly unlikely.” I flicked a tear from my cheek. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to snipe. Thanks for your concern, and you’re right—things will work out.” They always did, only not in the way we wanted.

  Tyler gave me a funny look and left. I should have followed, but I didn’t want to go home. I didn’t want to be around anyone right now—especially not Pop, who’d be bursting with questions about the case. I called home and Pop picked up on the first ring.

  “I called Uncle Otto.”

  “Pop!” I saw where this was going.

  “I was sure you wouldn’t mind so I called Otto and got his opinion on the autopsy.” Otto Rider was a former pathologist at Johns Hopkins and wasn’t a real uncle but an eternal bachelor who became connected to my mother’s family by dating Mom’s sister Ethel. Even though the love affair didn’t last, Otto Rider remained, eventually becoming enshrined as Uncle Otto.

  “That’s confidential information, and Uncle Otto must be a hundred by now.”

  “Don’t be a smart-ass, Adelajda. He’s only ten years older than me and sharp as a tack. Frankie faxed the papers to him in Baltimore.”

  “Frankie’s involved?” F
rankie Buchanan was our neighbor across the hall. He’d been on the job in Miami, and a couple times a week he and Pop got together to trade war stories.

  “Frankie thinks it’s a great idea. He thought the autopsy was fishy too.”

  “I wish you’d checked with me first. You could get us both in a lot of trouble.” And by us, I meant me. Now I had two nosey former cops involved in this muddle.

  “Don’t worry, I blacked out Mel Dick’s name and Frankie can keep his mouth shut.”

  “So what did Otto say?”

  “Like us, Otto was confused over the two bullets. The first shot barely glanced the left arm, causing minimal damage, minimal bleeding. Otto says the second supposedly deadly bullet was positively the second gunshot.”

  “Positively?” I could hear Frankie putting in his two cents in the background.

  “Blanding wrote that he observed no marked hemorrhage along the bullet track. If he’s right, the head wound had to come second.”

  “Shit,” I said, feeling stupid not to have seen it earlier.

  “That’s right, Adelajda. Mel Dick was already dead when the second bullet was fired.”

  I was no forensics expert, but even I knew that dead men don’t bleed.

  Chapter Eleven

  Betrayal Is the Only Truth

  After Pop’s bombshell I opened the bottle of bourbon I’d been saving for a rainy day and poured a healthy shot. When that was gone, I poured another. I guess I could have headed to Eddie’s, but my mood was too foul to inflict on others. Tonight I would drink alone.

  Now I understood Spooner’s earlier disengagement. Mel Dick’s death was no longer a murder. I wondered how hard GCSO was looking for Anita. It was a crime to shoot a dead man—desecration of a corpse?—but it wasn’t murder. I refilled my glass. I supposed it was possible that Uncle Otto was wrong, but I thought not. The sheriff’s sudden silence told me that something had gone desperately wrong at the coroner’s office. But how could Blanding make such a glaring error? And if the bullet didn’t kill Mel, what did?

  I refilled my glass and stretched the desk chair all the way back. I patted my lap and Jinks hopped up. Since tripping across Mel’s body, I had been burning it on both ends and was nearly out of wick. Outside the night fell, but it was always night in here. The wall clock ticked off the time, an ominous metronome, and my eyes fluttered shut. Every so often my hand would find the glass of bourbon. It was pleasant to let go, to drift in and out of twilight sleep, aware of my surroundings yet not part of them.

  Images from the past days swirled around, like leaves in a tornado. In a waking dream I saw Anita sitting on the concrete bench in Fairley Sable’s backyard. A forlorn statue. And where was she now? An irony—they called Anita a dim bulb, a slow cow. But she had been smart enough to slip away, again and again.

  Didn’t she know this game of hide-and-seek was dangerous?

  Again I saw Anita on that cold bench. If I’d only had more time I’d have pried her secret loose. She was ready to talk. A few more minutes would have done it. But fate had not given me those minutes.

  Wait a second. Wasn’t fate a bullshit word for coincidence? And I didn’t believe in coincidence. Something had conspired to keep me from Anita and it wasn’t fate or coincidence. I pushed Jinks to the floor and grabbed my cell.

  “Admiral Street Guardhouse,” Billy answered.

  “Is GCSO still out at the Dick house?”

  “Yeah, they left a cruiser there in case Mrs. Dick returned. Why?”

  I disconnected, my unease deepening. If I was right, Anita was in mortal danger. Even though Mel was dead when somebody plugged that extra hole in his head, the shooter didn’t know this. In his mind he was a murderer. The game was still on and the danger as deep as ever. There was a murderer among us, and it wasn’t Anita Dick.

  I threw on my jacket, hooked Jinks’s leash and set out into the night. It was already after six. I had wasted precious time crying in my bourbon when I should have been hitting the pavement. I wasn’t surprised GCSO hadn’t found Anita, since so much of Mystic Cove was inaccessible by car. But I knew the Cove as well as anyone. I would find her. I procured a golf cart and set off.

  Outside the sky was a bruised purple. Night was falling fast and hard. My plan was simple. I would start out on the same path through Birnam Wood that I’d taken the morning I’d found Dick’s body. After that I’d cover Windbound Harbor and then Founder’s Centre. If Anita Dick was hiding in Mystic Cove, I would find her.

  But in my heart of hearts, I didn’t think she was hiding. Oh God, I didn’t think that at all.

  * * *

  Two hours later I sat on the bench I had shared with Fairley Sable earlier. Anita Dick was further from me than ever. There was no place left to look. I pulled my jacket tight. A breeze was picking up, rippling the waters of Mystic Bay. Jinks panted from our walk up and down the boardwalk, one of the few passageways in Mystic Cove that prohibited golf carts.

  The lights from the parade of shops selling ice cream and useless fodder made in China bounced off the still face of Mystic Bay. Long Pier stretched into the fetid bay, its sides adorned with twinkly lights. To the right of the pier’s terminus the stout lighthouse stood in its postage-stamp patch of dirt and concrete. The tower and dome were encircled with red lights, like the ribbons of a candy cane. Of course the fake lighthouse had no lens, dooming any wayward ships, and the lights twinkled prettily enough, but I preferred my fictions with more bite—give me the horrors of Innsmouth over this bland artifice. I noticed that the ground beneath the lighthouse undulated, like sand shifting in the wind.

  I stood, rubbed my eyes, looked again. Another flutter of movement. Night birds? Foraging crabs? Or perhaps my inclination had come true and the deep ones of Innsmouth had risen from their silent depths. Be careful what you wish for, Addie Gorsky.

  I went for a closer look, but Jinks kept putting on the brakes. Tired of the game, I cradled him in my arms and walked briskly to the pier’s end. I didn’t have my flashlight with me but the ambient light was sufficient.

  She lay face down at the base of the lighthouse. The lower half of her body was immersed in the rank water, but her torso had somehow landed on the scrap of dirt and concrete on which the lighthouse stood. The wind whipped her voluminous white tunic, thus accounting for the illusion of movement.

  I had found Anita Dick.

  * * *

  Once more I stood at the scene of death, and as before, the circus came to town, but this was a different party altogether, as if Anita Dick’s death was the coda to Mel Dick’s murder. Even the sheriff wasn’t immune.

  “This might wrap it up,” he said.

  “Isn’t that premature?”

  Spooner sighed. “I’m just saying it might be suicide. You got to admit, it ties things up nicely.”

  “A little too nicely.”

  Spooner shrugged. “Wife shoots cheating husband. Consumed by guilt, she takes her own life.”

  “Consumed by guilt? For shooting a dead man?”

  Spooner did a double take and said in a low voice, “So you know about that?”

  “I wasn’t absolutely certain, until now.”

  “It could have been a lot worse. If Dolores Rio hadn’t caught the mistake when she did, we would have been up the creek without a paddle. Blanding’s been hitting the sauce pretty heavy lately. When he took on Mel’s autopsy I guess he cracked under the strain.”

  “Hell of a crackup,” I said, and then, “Any word on a suicide note?”

  Spooner shook his head. “We’re still checking the house. She might have left it there.”

  Or maybe Anita figured her corpse would tell it all. I asked Spooner if Rio had a time of death yet.

  Another head shake. “Dolores says the body hadn’t been in the water too long, which is lucky.
Damn, I hate drownings.” Spooner rubbed his face, looked out on Mystic Bay. “By the way, I got your message about Barracas. Did you have any idea that he was serving up more than burgers and beer at the G and G?”

  “Not a clue,” I said, staring out at the water. The Mystic Cove I’d thought I’d known had never really existed.

  “Berry’s gonna talk to Barracas and Rand, but I doubt Barracas’s illegal activities are relevant.”

  I startled, feeling Spooner’s cold hand on mine.

  “Go home and get some rest, Addie. It’s all over.”

  Spooner was right. I wasn’t needed here and hadn’t been for some time. The detectives had finished with me an hour ago. Walking away, I felt the sheriff’s eyes boring into my back. Did he see me as I saw myself? A failure.

  Whatever little I’d learned, I’d learned too late. The full truth of this mystery had died with this woman. Anita might very well have murdered her husband, but that didn’t absolve me. I had played my little game of detection, and now a woman was dead. I pulled out my cell. My hands shook so that it took me two tries to get through, but he answered on the second ring.

  “Tyler, can I still take you up on that drink?”

  * * *

  Jinks and I got home at just past two. I’d almost forgotten how nice it was to be with Tyler. As long as it didn’t concern money or prestige, Tyler was a fun companion. When he saw Jinks was with me, he just shrugged and put out a bowl of water.

  That night I slept better than I had in days—nothing like a good fuck to get your head straight—and I dreamed.

  In my dream I woke in darkness and a woman’s voice called my name. “Adelajda.” I recognized the voice and, in the way of dreams, found myself sitting next to Anita on the stone bench in Fairley Sable’s backyard.

  “How do you know my real name, Anita? I thought the dead know nothing.”

  Anita was a horror—covered in gooseflesh, her skin macerated, swollen and wrinkled as prickly pear, her sodden clothes dripping stinking water into the koi pond. Yet I wasn’t afraid.