Cape Refuge

by Terri Blackstock

  She stared through her windshield, and focused on an azalea bush at the edge of the parking lot. The pink blooms had all wilted. Someone needed to pinch them off, so that new ones could grow back. She didn’t know why people left wilted blooms.

  She looked back up at the man. “I told you,” she said, her voice louder now. “I don’t want you to touch her. What about that don’t you understand?”

  “Ma’am, you’re upset.” He spoke like one would speak to a rabid tiger, circling and growling, waiting to pounce. “Maybe you’d like to come in and sit down, and I can explain the process to you.”

  “I told you, I have to get her some clothes. Him too.”

  “It’s no hurry. You can bring them later today or even tomorrow.”

  She couldn’t understand why the man was so obtuse. Her knuckles whitened as she clutched the steering wheel. “I will bring them today, and I will dress her myself, and if you so much as open a button on her shirt, I will get a lawyer and sue you for everything you’re worth!”

  He nodded then. “Yes, ma’am. We won’t touch her, then. We’ll just wait.”

  “Good.” She sat there staring at him for a moment, wondering where she would direct her anger now. She shifted into “drive.” “I’ll be back.”

  She didn’t wait for his response, just rolled up the window and pulled out of the parking lot.

  The drive home seemed longer than it ever had before, and when she finally crossed the bridge to take her back to Cape Refuge, she felt the sudden chilling sense that there was nothing here for her anymore. Still, she navigated her way through her town until she got to the little library. It was on the west side of the island, just north of the dock.

  Her home and her library sat side-by-side among pine trees and mimosas, across the street from the water.

  Next door, Sally Hanfield’s Marine Museum sat, sharing an empty parking lot. She hoped Sally wasn’t there . . . she couldn’t deal with questions and pity.

  She hurried to the library door. She had closed it a little early today so she could make the city council meeting, and she walked in and locked the door behind her. For a moment she stood there, breathing in the scent of the books and the dust.

  She shouldn’t have come here, she thought. She should have gone to Hanover House to get the clothes. She should have hurried back to the funeral home, as she had said she would, to attend to her mother’s body.

  She stood frozen, running faces through her mind, wondering who on this island had the potential for murder. Maybe Jonathan had done it. Maybe it was someone else running free on the island waiting to do it again. Maybe it was revenge, or just plain evil.

  She stood there a moment, staring into space, while all the questions reeled through her mind like microfiche from the back room. Anguish bled into trembling rage, bubbling up, boiling over, shaking her . . .

  Finally, she erupted. She grabbed the edge of the bookshelf in the center of the room—and pulled it over.

  The books hit the ground first, and then the wooden structure crashed to the floor. She grabbed another set of books, knocked them off the shelf. One shelf at a time, she pulled the books off, then kicked the shelves over. Rage played out of her in violent form, book after book, shelf after shelf, crashing on the hard floor, wreaking havoc on the little building she kept so carefully. Vintage books, antiques, out-of-print books that no one could ever find anyplace else, all went flying in clouds of dust. Shelf after shelf—books landing open, facedown, pages flapping. Every last one crashed and banged.

  It sounded like justice. Like broken dreams. Like flattened hopes.

  Like she was murdering that thief, Death, who had robbed her of her parents.

  She had to upend every one. Destroy them all. Every last one.

  Then maybe she could cry.

  C H A P T E R

  14

  Tammy took off her apron an hour later when her shift ended, freshened up her lipstick, then waved her long groomed fingernails at her boss before heading out. When she got to the parking lot, she looked around for any sign of the young girl who had been in there tonight. She hadn’t been able to forget that black eye or the way she cradled her arm. She reminded her of herself when she was that age. She wondered if she’d been beaten by a boyfriend—or worse, her father. She had no doubt the girl had fled for good reason.

  She got into her old Ford Escort, started it up, and pulled out into the traffic, but instead of starting home, she took off toward Highway 80, driving slowly and glancing at each side of the road for the girl with the backpack. She looked at her watch. Clarence, her boyfriend, would be expecting her any minute now, hungry and waiting for her to cook supper. But this seemed more important now than maintaining his paunch.

  She saw the girl crossing a street up ahead, trudging east as if she thought she could actually walk all the way to Cape Refuge before dark. Carefully, Tammy pulled up to the curb and leaned over the seat to roll down the window.

  “You ain’t gonna walk all the way, are you, honey?” Tammy asked.

  The girl swung around, startled. Then recognition flickered to her eyes. She stepped to the car window and leaned in. “I was going to hitchhike before it got dark.”

  “Scared, huh? Don’t blame you. You never know who’ll pick you up. Hop in,” Tammy said. “I’ll take you myself.”

  Sadie straightened. “You live on Cape Refuge?”

  “No, I live about three blocks from here,” Tammy said. “I would walk to work, but your dreadlocks friend has buddies, and sometimes they keep the streets from being all that safe. But I can’t abide the thought of you walking all the way or even hitchhiking with strangers. Didn’t your mama teach you better than that?”

  Sadie slid off her backpack and got in, slumping into the bucket seat.

  “I appreciate it, but if this is out of your way, really, I can—”

  “Honey, I wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight knowing you weren’t settled. It’ll be just fine. I’ll take you across the river and drop you right at the front door of Hanover House, then I can go on my merry way knowing you’ll be all right.”

  Sadie was quiet as they crossed the causeway onto Tybee Island. Tammy hoped Thelma and Wayne Owens were home and that they wouldn’t let Sadie down.

  “Do you know these people, Thelma and Wayne Owens?” Sadie asked her, as they drew closer to her destination.

  “No, not personally,” Tammy said, “but my sister lives on Cape Refuge and goes to church with them. I’d take you to her house, but her husband is mean as a snake, and it probably wouldn’t be any better than where you came from. And I couldn’t take you home with me, ‘cause Clarence likes blondes a little too much, and I’d be shooting myself in the foot, if you know what I mean.”

  The beach came into view, and Sadie’s eyes lit up as if she had just rounded a corner into some kind of glittering wonderland. The sun was going down over the horizon, and waves frothed and billowed as they hit against the shore. “It’s beautiful,” she said. “Just like I pictured it.”

  “Oh, honey, you should see it in the morning,” Tammy said. “It’s a right pretty little island, nice place to visit and all that. Not for me, though. Things move slower than I like.”

  Tammy drove along the beach, then crossed the bridge to Cape Refuge. She slowed the car as she got closer to the bed-and-breakfast, and she pulled onto the long graveled driveway in front of the yellow house with its massive front porch and huge yellow Victorian turret. A frilly little sign in the front yard said “HANOVER HOUSE.”

  “Well, here you are. This is it, the end of the line.”

  “It’s perfect,” Sadie whispered.

  Tammy looked around to the side of the house. “Doesn’t seem to be any cars here. We might have come at a bad time. ‘Course, somebody could be inside. If not, I guess I could take you on back with me—”

  “That’s okay,” Sadie said. “There are rocking chairs on the porch. I’ll just sit up there and wait until somebody gets home.”
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  “You’re sure now?” Tammy asked.

  Sadie nodded. “Thank you, Tammy. I really appreciate what you’ve done.”

  Tammy reached into her purse and pulled out a receipt, marked her phone number down on the back of it, then thrust it at the girl. “Now, if you find yourself in a jam, you give me a call, you hear? There might be something I can do.”

  “Okay,” Sadie said with a smile. She took the receipt, then grabbed her backpack and got out. “Thanks again.”

  She closed the door and started up to the porch. Tammy waited as she knocked on the door, but no one came. Finally, Sadie sat down in one of the rocking chairs and waved that it was all right for her to go on. Tammy felt a little better about herself as she pulled her car out of the graveled driveway and headed back home.

  C H A P T E R

  15

  Morgan found the judge on the soccer field, but she couldn’t make herself get out of the car and walk through the spectators who were all probably buzzing about the murders. “Did you hear that Jonathan Cleary did it? I always said that boy was trouble. . . .”

  Those who had counted him the town hero as a quarterback when he led the high school team to a state championship would swear that they had always known he had violence in him.

  Judge Simmons ran along the field, yelling at the teenage boys as they kicked the ball toward the goal. Morgan wondered if Nancy had reached him yet. If she had, why hadn’t he already gone to the police station?

  Someone knocked on her window. She jumped. It was Hattie Brumfield, motioning for her to roll her window down. Morgan did and looked up with dull eyes.

  “Darlin’, I’m so sorry about your folks,” she said. “How did it happen? They know who did it?”

  That lump of emotion blocked her throat. “No.” She swallowed and drew in a deep breath. “Hattie . . . would you please . . . go tell the judge I need to speak to him? I just can’t get out of this car and . . . walk through all those people.”

  “Well, of course I will. But, honey, how did they die? Were they shot or beaten . . . ?”

  “Hattie, please.” She opened her car door. “Never mind, I’ll do it myself.”

  “No, no, honey. I’ll do it. Just get back in.”

  Slowly, Morgan got back into the car. “Hattie, it’s real important. Please. I need to talk to him right now.”

  “I’m going.” The woman left the car and waddled down to the soccer field.

  Morgan watched her approach the coach, and he turned back, looking for her. Hattie pointed toward her car, and several heads turned her way. She absently locked her door, as if that would protect her from their curiosity.

  Finally, the judge barked a few more orders at the team, then headed toward the car.

  He was sweating when he reached her, and his gray ponytail looked as if it hadn’t been washed in days. “Hey, Morgan. Nancy came by and told me you needed to talk. I was gon’ call you soon as the game was over. You okay?”

  She didn’t want to answer that question. “Randy, I know you’re aware of . . . what happened to . . . my parents. Cade arrested Jonathan. I need for you to do something. Set bail or whatever . . . so I can get him out.”

  “Why Jonathan?”

  “Someone took his speargun and . . . killed them. . . . ” She stopped and took a deep breath. “That’s all. Circumstantial evidence. Please, Randy . . .”

  He straightened and set his hands on his hips. “I’ll go right down to the station, but I can’t promise anything.”

  “Why not?” she asked. “You’re the judge! You can promise whatever you want.”

  “I don’t like to interfere with Cade’s investigations. If Jonathan owned the murder weapon—”

  “He is not a murderer!”

  “I’ll see what I can do, Morgan.”

  She started her car and jerked it in reverse. “I’ll see you at the station.”

  “No, Morgan. You don’t need to be there while I’m reviewing the case.”

  “Reviewing the case?” she asked. “Randy, the case is about two hours old, and you probably heard through the grapevine everything Cade knows about it. What’s to review?”

  “I have to take Cade’s opinion under advisement. I can’t just let people out on the street because their wives don’t want them in jail.”

  “They were my parents! Why would I want him released if I thought for a minute that he did it?”

  “Go home, Morgan. Take care of yourself. I’ll have Cade call you when I’ve finished.” He started back to the game, dismissing the discussion.

  Morgan tried to pull herself together. What was she going to do? She thought of going home, walking into that big house with her parents’ things everywhere, right where they had left them. And the tenants . . . and the friends who would start coming by, meaning well . . .

  She couldn’t go home just yet. She needed to be with Blair, who understood the storm in her heart and needed shelter from it too.

  She saw Blair’s car parked on the gravel parking lot in front of the library next to her house. She got out and went to the library door. It was locked, so she knocked and waited. Blair didn’t come, so she knocked again, harder this time. Still no answer. She stood there, bewildered by the peaceful serenity of the shade trees and the blooming crepe myrtle and the sound of the water washing against the river wall just across the street. You would never know someone had been murdered just a couple of miles from here, that her family had been destroyed, that nothing would ever be the same again.

  She heard something crash inside and ran to the front window to peer in through the glass. The shelves were on the floor and there were books everywhere. Alarms went off in her head. She ran around to the back of the building, feeling for the brick that Blair kept there with a key underneath. She scraped her fingers trying to pull it off, then found the key and bolted back to the door.

  By the time she got the door open another shelf was flying over and books were catapulting down. She looked around for the culprit, for anyone who might be hurting her sister, when she saw Blair reach for the next bookshelf and pull it over. The books flew out and the shelf smashed to the ground.

  “Blair!” she shouted, and Blair spun around. Her face was raging red and wet, and her eyes had a wild, desperate look. The scars on the right side of her face were crimson.

  “Blair, stop it!” Morgan ran to her as Blair reached for the next shelf. She pulled her away and pushed her against the wall where she couldn’t do further harm.

  “Let go of me,” Blair cried. “Let go of me now!”

  “You’re going to hurt yourself,” Morgan cried. “You need to calm down.”

  “Who did it, Morgan?” Blair screamed. “Who murdered them?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “They won’t get away with it.” She started to weep and put her arms around Morgan, and they held each other for a long time, standing against the wall, surrounded by books lying open and facedown beneath heavy bookshelves.

  “How can you not suspect everybody on the face of this island?” she cried. “How can you walk into that bed-and-breakfast and look in anybody’s eye and not suspect them? They shot them in the throats, Morgan! Mama and Pop must have looked the killer in the eye and feared for their lives. One of them saw the other one die! The horror they must have felt!”

  Morgan couldn’t speak. She just clung to her sister and cried, hating where this day had brought them, hating the uncertainty, hating what lay ahead. “What are we going to do?” she asked.

  “That’s easy,” Blair said. “We’re going to find the killers. And when we do, I’m going to kill them myself.

  C H A P T E R

  16

  An hour later, Morgan paced Blair’s office, clutching her cordless phone to her ear. She had finally gotten the judge on the telephone at the police station, but he wasn’t cooperating. “What do you mean, you can’t release him?” she asked him.

  “I’m sorry, Morgan. But Cade had good reason to ar
rest him, and for a murder case like this, I think it’s appropriate to keep him in custody. If I were you, I’d get a lawyer as soon as possible.”

  Morgan clung to the phone, speechless, then finally set it back in its cradle without another word. She stepped back into the library with its toppled shelves and books scattered like debris from some kind of explosion. Blair still sat on the floor among the fallout. “I’ve got to get a lawyer,” Morgan told her in a dull voice. “I don’t even know where to look.”

  “What about the lawyers who were advising Mama and Pop about Hanover House?” Blair’s voice was quiet and without inflection. “We could use them.”

  “Are they criminal lawyers?” Morgan asked. The words seemed to stick in her throat. It was absurd that she needed a criminal lawyer for her husband.

  “No, they’re not criminal, but maybe they could recommend somebody.”

  Morgan called the law firm but got a recorded message that they were closed for the day. She hung up and rubbed her face. “Guess I’ll have to wait until morning.”

  “You can stay with me tonight,” Blair said. “I’ve got the guest room, and I don’t think either of us should be alone.”

  Morgan just looked at her. “You have a queen size, don’t you?”

  “Yeah,” Blair whispered.

  “I’m too scared to sleep alone in the guest room. They’re out there somewhere, Blair, laughing because the keystone cops in this town have the wrong guy locked up.”

  Blair swallowed. “Yeah, we can share.”

  “Just like when we were kids,” Morgan managed to get out. “We would sleep together, all huddled up. Two peas in a pod, Mama called us.”

  Blair stared off into the air, as if she saw something there that Morgan couldn’t see. “I have to go back to the funeral home. I have to get Mama out of those clothes, and Pop—”

  “Blair, let them do that. That’s what they do.”

  “No, I’m doing it. You don’t have to come.”