Cape Refuge

by Terri Blackstock

  “Where’s your faith, little gal?” Wayne asked her. “The Lord didn’t bring us this far to abandon us now.”

  “Hanover House Ministries was his idea, not ours,” Thelma said. “It’s been his all along, and he’ll take care of it. Those folks at the city council aren’t putting one over on God. He’s still in control.”

  “But things do happen, Mama. Sometimes people like that win.”

  “Well, the Lord would have a purpose for that too. We have to trust him, honey. He does have a plan.”

  Wayne got up and stretched out his stiffness. “We’d better run if we’re going to get these to the post office before it closes. Then we can go by the church for our meeting before we head over to City Hall.”

  “What meeting?” Morgan asked.

  Her mother grabbed her purse off of the hook on the wall. “We’ll tell you about it later. We’d better run now. Be praying.”

  That was it. No good-bye, no farewell hug, no premonition that she would never see them alive again. Now she pressed her forehead against the hot steering wheel, groping for the tissue she had dropped on the seat next to her. She blew her nose, wondering when—and if—there would be an end to these tears.

  She had sometimes wondered whether people who died suddenly left clues. Whether there was some subconscious preparation, some hastily scrawled note, a conversation that, when remembered, gave peace and comfort to those left behind.

  But there had been nothing like that this morning. Just another few moments in their busy lives, a frustrated exchange, a rushing out the door.

  And there was so much unfinished business. Didn’t God know that? Didn’t he understand?

  She forced herself out of the car. Wiping her face, she tried to summon some strength, but she found she was still shaking. If she could just get Jonathan released, she could lean on him—and then she could fall apart, knowing that he would be there to help gather the scattered pieces.

  She stepped in the front door and felt the whish of air-conditioning blowing her hair back from her face. She didn’t know why they kept it so cold in here. It wasn’t as if the police department on Cape Refuge had that much to do. There weren’t car chases, foot pursuits, or adrenaline jolts keeping them hot. Not until today.

  The few other times she had come in here she had seen police officers with feet propped up on their desks, reading the newspaper. Today, however, every police officer on the island had been called in, and she knew that most of them were working the scene. This would go down as one of the busiest days in Cape Refuge police history.

  The day Thelma and Wayne Owens were murdered.

  She imagined the residents using this day as a marker. Where were you when you heard about the murders? They would each have their own story. The trauma would spread over the island and linger for years.

  Her parents never did anything small.

  She swallowed a lump in her throat and let the glass door close behind her. She saw Cade standing over a fax machine.

  “Where’s my husband?” she demanded.

  He looked up at her, and she saw the strain on his face. “We’re about to question him,” Cade said. “You can’t go in.”

  “This is cruel!” she managed to say. “They’re my parents, Cade. He is my husband. Why in the world would he want to kill them? You’re wasting time when you could be out there looking for the person who did it.”

  His face changed, and for a moment he was the man who sat on the second row, middle pew, every Sunday, sometimes shedding tears as he praised the Lord. “Morgan, I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you for the world. I loved your parents too. You know that.”

  “Then let their son-in-law go!” she said, surprised at the volume and force behind her words. “Let him out so he can help me get through this. Don’t you understand? I’m afraid to go home. I don’t think I can do this alone.” She covered her mouth and collapsed into a chair. “I’m afraid to do anything, Cade. What if they’re after me too? And Blair? What if they’re after Jonathan and he’s sitting in there like a target?”

  “He’s not a target,” Cade said. “There’s nobody in here but us.”

  “And that’s supposed to make me feel better?” Morgan asked. “Who’s in there with him?”

  “Joe McCormick,” he said.

  “I went to high school with Joe McCormick,” she said. “He has more skeletons in his closet than the tenants at Hanover House. Why does he have the right and I don’t?”

  “He’s got the right because he’s a police officer,” Cade said calmly. “Morgan, you can sit here and wait. I’ll get you something to drink. You can put your feet up.”

  “Don’t coddle me,” she bit out. “I have things to do. My parents are dead.” Her voice broke off, and grief assaulted her again. She hated to cry in front of other people.

  Cade reached out to comfort her. She shook him off.

  “Morgan,” he said in a quiet voice. “I can promise you we won’t hold him any longer than we have to. It made me sick to my stomach when I had to put those cuffs on him. He’s the last person in the world I’d want to arrest. But there are two people I cared a lot about who are dead, and somebody murdered them. And he had a fight with them this morning . . . a real public fight. It was his gun that killed them. Can you explain that?”

  “No, I can’t explain it,” she cried. “I can’t explain anything. My head feels like it’s just been clobbered with a baseball bat. You want me to explain things? Then let me explain what it feels like to know that my parents were the two most cherished people on this island, that they did something for just about everybody who lives here. People loved them. And I can’t imagine why anyone would want to see them dead.”

  Cade straightened up, raked his fingers through his hair. He seemed to struggle with his own pain. Then that hard, professional look returned to his face. He went to the watercooler, got her a cone-shaped cup of water, and brought it back to her.

  Staring down at it, she said, “I want to see my husband, Cade.”

  “Later, Morgan. But I can’t let you right now.” He backed away and started toward the interview room, which she knew was a converted broom closet. No two-way mirrors, no hidden microphones. This was definitely a no-frills police department. How would they ever be able to find the real killer?

  When Cade opened the door, Morgan saw her husband sitting behind the table, hands over his face. Joe McCormick stood in front of him, foot propped on a chair like some television cop.

  Jonathan caught her eye and got up. “Honey, are you okay?” he called.

  “I’m fine. Just go ahead. Answer their stupid questions so you can get out of here.”

  The door closed behind Cade, and Morgan sank back into her chair. Anguish overtook her as she recalled the sight of her parents, covered with white sheets, being carried out to the hearse.

  People had warned them to be more careful in their ministry, but they had always been completely sold out to Christ, going where others feared to go, loving those who were patently unlovable.

  In God I have put my trust, they’d always quoted. I shall not be afraid. What can man do to me?

  Yet man had killed them . . . brutally, horribly . . .

  She grabbed two Kleenexes from a box on someone’s desk, wadded them, and pressed them against her eyes. Where are you, God?

  The question drilled through her soul, leaving a void that she doubted would ever be filled again.

  C H A P T E R

  10

  Sadie made her way up West Oglethorpe, then crossed the street at Montgomery, and walked the block to Liberty Square. It was a charming little park in the middle of the city, one with a statue of someone she didn’t know in the center of it, and little park benches placed here and there under massive oaks. She smiled in spite of herself. It was just as she had pictured it.

  She adjusted her backpack and headed up West York Street past a parking garage and groomed strips of grass until she reached another park. She had heard that Sa
vannah had been designed and built around parks, each representing some famous part of their history. She had always wanted to visit this city and see for herself, but today she was tired and hungry. She could come back and see it another day. Right now she had to find a place to stay before dark. On thirty-three dollars, it wouldn’t be easy.

  She saw a diner across from Telfair Square and started toward it. She hadn’t eaten since yesterday, before Jack had come home and blown a gasket. She had wound up spending the night in her neighbor’s car, hunkered down so he couldn’t find her. This morning there hadn’t been time to eat. She shoved back her blonde hair and went into the old diner.

  She took a stool at the bar and set her backpack down on the one next to her.

  “Can I help you, honey?”

  A waitress stood across the bar from her. The woman’s blonde hair was a little too teased, and she desperately needed to have her roots done. But she had kind eyes even if they were caked with eyeliner and half a tube of mascara. Her lips were red and outlined a little bigger than they really were. Her fingernails, tapping nervously on the Formica countertop, were painted bright red too, with little stars embedded in the center of each. She popped on a piece of gum. “Want to hear the special?”

  Sadie shook her head and absently brought her right hand to cradle her left, still tucked under her shirt.

  “I’d just like a hamburger,” she said, “and a glass of water.”

  The waitress pulled the pencil from its place over her ear and, chomping on her gum, wrote on a slip of paper as if she couldn’t remember the order. “Anything else, honey? A piece of pie maybe?”

  “No, thank you,” she said.

  The woman went on her way and in a few moments came back with a plate bearing an open hamburger and a tall glass of water.

  She set the check down next to the plate. Sadie picked it up. “I’ll pay now, if that’s all right,” she said.

  “Sure, honey. I’ll take it.”

  Awkwardly, Sadie reached into her backpack with that one good hand and groped around until she came to her wallet again. She pulled out a five-dollar bill and laid it on the counter.

  “Who won?” the waitress asked. “If you don’t mind my asking.”

  Sadie glanced up at her. “Won what?”

  “The fight you were in, honey.” The waitress leaned down conspiratorially on the counter. “That’s an impressive-looking shiner, if you don’t mind my saying so. And it looks like your arm might be even worse. So who won?”

  Sadie lowered her gaze to the countertop. “I fell,” she said.

  “Fell.” The waitress laughed. “Yeah, I’ve heard that before. Said it myself.” Again she bent across the counter and whispered. “Never met a girl yet who fell on her eye. So what’s the matter with the arm? Is it broke?”

  Sadie cradled it again. “I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t think so. Probably just bruised.” She knew better. She could see where the bone had separated, and the pain had been unbearable all night and most of the day.

  The waitress came around the counter. “Let me see, hon,” she said.

  “I’m okay,” Sadie said. “Really.”

  The waitress drew a deep, laborious sigh, then straightened up. “Okay, I got you. All you have to say is, ‘Tammy, mind your own business.’ They say it around here all the time. Never hurt me yet.”

  Sadie smiled.

  “Eat your hamburger,” the woman said, “and if you’re still hungry after, I’ll throw in a piece of pie, no charge.”

  Sadie watched her as she pranced away, her too-tight waitress uniform straining to cover her hips. Sadie devoured the hamburger and felt the energy seeping back into her.

  Tammy put a piece of pie in front of her as the door jingled. Still on the alert for Jack, Sadie glanced back. It was the man with the dreadlocks who had been waiting at the bus station, the one who had offered her money and a place to live. He spotted Sadie and smiled. She hadn’t seen him following her from the bus station, but surely it was no coincidence that he had shown up here. She quickly turned away, but he came and took the stool next to her backpack.

  “You again,” he said with a smile. “Thought you said you had a ride and a place to stay.”

  She tried to ignore him and turned her body away. Tammy was there in a moment, popping on her gum and pulling that pencil out from behind her ear.

  “May I help you?”

  “Just coffee,” he said, then he turned back to Sadie. “You don’t have to be afraid of me, you know. I saw you get off that bus and look around like you didn’t know a soul in town. And you wouldn’t be eating in a diner if you had any place to go.”

  “Slick, you’re not trying to bother my cousin, are you?” Tammy asked, leaning on the counter. “Because I get real protective when men come around here hitting on her.”

  He looked up at her, surprised. “Your cousin?”

  “Yeah, my cousin,” she said. “You got a problem with that?”

  He looked slowly from Tammy to Sadie a time or two, then got back to his feet. “Cancel the coffee,” he said. He strolled to the door, glancing one last time at Sadie as he started out.

  “Come again,” Tammy shouted cheerfully across the room.

  Sadie grinned up at her when he was gone. “Thank you. I appreciate it. I don’t know him, and he keeps trying to get me to go home with him.”

  “He wants you to do more than go home with him,” Tammy said. “He wants to put you to work. He spends a lot of time over at the bus station waiting for runaways. You ain’t a runaway, are you?”

  Sadie shook her head hard. “No. Of course not. I’m eighteen. I can go anywhere I want.”

  Tammy nodded. “Eighteen, huh? Yeah, and I’m twenty-two.”

  The woman was at least thirty-five.

  “Eat your pie,” she said. “It’s on me.”

  “I can pay,” Sadie said.

  “I know you can, honey, but if my intuition is telling me right, you need to keep every penny you got. Just accept it as a goodwill offering welcoming you to the big city of Savannah.”

  Sadie buried her fork into it. “I’m actually not staying here,” she said. “It’s just as far as Greyhound would take me. I’m headed east.”

  Tammy laughed. “Well, not far east. Tybee Island is only fifteen minutes away, and then you’re right smack-dab at the Atlantic Ocean. No farther east to go unless you get on a boat or swim. Few minutes south of that and you’re on Cape Refuge.”

  “Cape Refuge?” Sadie asked. The name sounded inviting. “How do you get there?”

  “Out Highway 80,” she said, “on the Island Expressway. It takes you to the bridge that goes to the Cape.”

  Sadie had pictured herself at the Atlantic Ocean, sleeping on the beach where no one would bother her, listening to the sound of the waves against the shore. She had only seen that on television, had never experienced it for herself. It sounded romantic and hopeful. How could anyone ever be unsafe on a peaceful beach? And in a beach town she could probably find a job working in a restaurant or a deli or in a souvenir shop of some kind. No high school diploma needed. No college degree.

  “Honey, level with me,” Tammy said, meeting her eyes across the counter. “It’s one thing to lie to old Dreadlocks about having a place to stay, but give it to me straight. You’re on your own, aren’t you? You don’t know the slightest soul here, do you?”

  Sadie averted her eyes again.

  “That’s what I thought,” Tammy said. She pulled out her writing pad, jotted something down, then tore off the page and handed it to Sadie.

  Sadie looked at the piece of paper Tammy had given her. “ ‘Thelma and Wayne Owens,’ ” she read aloud. “ ‘Hanover House.’ Who’re these people?”

  “People who’ll take you in,” Tammy said. “They’re known around this area for collecting strays, if you know what I mean.”

  Sadie didn’t like the sound of that. She wasn’t a stray. She had a purpose, even though she didn’t know wha
t it was.

  “They put people up all the time. Mostly, they take people just out of jail, who don’t have jobs or places to live, and they help them get on their feet. They have this real cute little bed-and-breakfast on the island. They’ll take you in, all right, if you can get there. And let me tell you something. You could do worse than hooking up with Thelma and Wayne Owens and sleeping in that precious place.”

  Sadie sat straighter. “But I don’t have enough money for a bed-and-breakfast.”

  “You find Thelma and Wayne and you don’t have to worry about the money, at least not for a while. They’ll give you time to get a job and get set up. Yes, sir, if I had just blown into town on a Greyhound bus, that’s the first place I’d go.”

  Sadie felt a faint sense of hope. “Okay,” she said, “I’ll look into it. Thanks.”

  She finished the pie, then got to her feet and slid the backpack onto one shoulder. Reluctantly, she started out of the diner, wishing she didn’t have to leave her new friend, but knowing that she had to get wherever she was going before it got dark, so that neither Jack nor Dreadlocks could catch up to her.

  C H A P T E R

  11

  So tell me again why you were at the dock this morning fighting with your in-laws?” Joe McCormick asked Jonathan when the door closed.

  Jonathan watched the detective smooth his hand over his shaved head. He had his foot propped on a chair and was looking down his nose at him. A little power was a dangerous thing, Jonathan thought.

  “I told you,” he said. “We’ve been all through this. Melinda Jane can read it back to you.”

  Melinda Jane wiped her nose with a wadded tissue. “Want me to, Joe?”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Cade said.

  “The rumor is that you gave them an ultimatum,” McCormick said, dropping his foot to the floor and pacing to the window. “What was that ultimatum?”

  “I told them that either Gus had to go or Morgan was quitting and we were moving out.”

  Cade, who sat on a folding chair in the corner of the room, lifted one eyebrow. “Would she have done that?”