Cape Refuge

by Terri Blackstock

  “Read the article,” Morgan said. “What does it say?”

  “ ‘Rick Morrison is not who he says he is,’ “ Blair read. “ ‘In fact, sources tell us that is not even his real name. The supposedly grieving man living at Hanover House, the place where ex-cons and criminals like to live, is really Rick Dugan.’ “

  “Ex-cons and criminals?” Morgan asked. “Give me a break!”

  “ ‘But according to police, Rick Dugan is not a suspect in the murders of Thelma and Wayne Owens. Two other residents of that home are, and they are currently in police custody. But should Rick Dugan be free to roam around Cape Refuge at will?

  “ ‘Cape Refuge News has recently uncovered information that Rick Dugan is already a convicted killer, who has been serving time at Angola for the murder of Rick Morrison. He escaped while on a work detail last year, and has never been apprehended.’ “

  “This can’t be right,” Blair said. “Cade would have told me.”

  “Mama and Pop would have known,” Morgan said. “They would have checked out his story. They knew about the name change.”

  “Where did Nancy get this information?” Blair turned to Sadie. “Sadie, do you know who her sources were?”

  “No, ma’am,” Sadie said. “I didn’t even know she was working on this story. We were working on things about the Tybee Beach Bums Parade and a groundbreaking for a new hotel and a grand opening for a new souvenir shop near the pier.”

  Blair slapped the paper down and stood up. “Well, there’s only one thing to do. I’m going to ask him how much of this is true. And I’m going to ask him about the money Mama and Pop gave him. Something’s not adding up here, Morgan.”

  She headed up the stairs, and Morgan followed.

  “I shouldn’t have brought that home,” Sadie told Mrs. Hern. “It was stupid. I should have looked at it first.”

  “It’s all right, dear,” Mrs. Hern said, peering up the stairs. “Let’s just stay down here and let them handle it.”

  Sadie was glad to do that, for she didn’t want to be in the middle of a confrontation with a killer.

  Blair got to the top of the stairs and felt for the gun in her pocket. She stormed across the floor to Rick’s room and banged on it.

  “Rick? Rick, it’s Blair. I need to talk to you.” Her voice left no room for debate.

  But there was no answer.

  “Rick, open the door!” she said. When there was still no answer, she turned the knob and saw that it was unlocked. She pulled the gun out of her pocket and slowly pushed the door open.

  The room was spotless, and the bed was made up. His family picture still sat on the bed table, next to his clock and a notepad.

  He had scrawled a note there.

  “What does it say?” Morgan asked.

  “It says, ‘Dear Morgan, I know I’m not supposed to leave town with the investigation going on, but I just found out my mother’s in the hospital, and I have to go see her. I’ll be back when I can. Rick.’ “

  The scar on her face burned as she turned back to Morgan. “He’s gone,” she said.

  Morgan tried to think. “Maybe he knew the article was coming out. It shouldn’t be that hard to verify that his mother is in the hospital.”

  “I don’t think she is,” Blair said. “I think he dreaded being exposed and skipped town.”

  “You don’t think he’s the killer, do you?” Morgan asked. “All this time, living in this house? Acting all grief-stricken about his wife and child?”

  “It sure does look suspicious,” Blair said. “He got ten thousand dollars out of Mama and Pop. Maybe they found out about his background, so he killed them.”

  “Why would he leave us a note if he was running from the law?”

  “To throw us off. To give him a head start.”

  Morgan brought a trembling hand to her forehead, and her eyes darted back and forth across the room as she tried to sort through the evidence. “That does it,” she said. “I’m going to the police station. I’m going to tell them that Rick left and make them let my husband go.”

  C H A P T E R

  57

  Morgan and Blair flew to the police station, and Morgan shivered with determination and anxiety as she marched into Cade’s office and dropped the newspaper down in front of him.

  “I thought you were looking into this,” she said. “I thought you said you hadn’t found an arrest record on Rick.”

  Cade picked up the newspaper and frowned as he skimmed the article. “I hadn’t,” he said. “They didn’t get this information from me.”

  “Well, it’s too late to do anything about it because Rick—whatever his name is—has already left town.”

  Cade stood up. “How do you know that?”

  “Because he left us a note that he was going to visit his mother in the hospital. He’s gone.”

  Cade pushed past them into the squad room. “Livvie,” he said to the dispatcher. “Put out an all points bulletin for Rick Dugan, alias Rick Morrison. Six feet tall, blond hair, 175 pounds. Driving a white Honda Civic, ‘95 or ‘96 model.”

  “You have to let Jonathan out,” Morgan said. “It’s madness to keep him in here when you know he’s not the killer. Rick has money that my parents gave him for no explicable reason. He had access to the speargun. Mama and Pop may have discovered he was a fugitive and threatened to turn him in. You have all the evidence you need. Now this is coming out, and he’s disappeared. Instead of sitting here twiddling your thumbs—”

  “I’m not twiddling my thumbs,” Cade said over her ranting.

  “—you should be out looking for him, tracking him down, and bringing him in, putting him in the cell where my husband is right now.” She slammed her hand down on the table. “Let Jonathan out, Cade!”

  “No, Morgan,” he yelled back. “The district attorney is working on it now and the judge doesn’t want to release him.”

  She wanted to scream, break a chair over Cade’s head, make him listen to her. She had never felt such rabid rage before. “Well, I want to see him. Now!” she cried. “Let me see my husband!”

  Blair touched her arm to calm her, but she jerked away.

  Cade nodded to J.J. Clyde, sitting behind a desk. J.J. got up and escorted her to the back. She knew she was in no shape to feign strength for Jonathan today. He would have to take her as she was—shaken, frightened, and as angry as she had ever been in her life.

  Cade was visibly shaken as he turned back to Blair.

  “I know how it looks, like I’ve got some grudge against Jonathan and I’m trying to get even. But it’s nothing like that. If I had it my way, I’d let him out. But I don’t.”

  “Get real, Cade,” Blair said. “If you told Randy Simmons that his own wife’s article pointed to the killer, you know he would let Jonathan out.”

  “Maybe he will,” Cade said. “But unless he does, I have to keep him here.”

  His face softened as he looked down at her. “Sit down, Blair,” he said. “You look pale.”

  Slowly, she did. Her mind raced with the new facts whirling around looking for a place to fit. She remembered the night she had sat outside with Rick, and he had explained his past to her. She had foolishly believed every word. She had even defended him to Morgan and Cade.

  “They’ll catch him,” he said. “They’ll bring him back.”

  She swallowed and set her chin on her palm. “I got to tell you. He was good. He sure had me going,” she said. “I thought he was a decent man. I liked him. I should have known it was an act.”

  Cade stared at her for a long moment, the concern in his eyes making her want to run away.

  Finally, he slid his hands into his pockets and jingled his keys. “We’re going to catch Rick Dugan and bring him in. You have to know, though, that I didn’t discover the same information about him that was in the paper. I’ll have to find out what their sources were and why it didn’t come up on my search. Mine didn’t show any past convictions, nothing out of the ordinary, e
xcept for his changed name. He explained that. I did find evidence of his wife and daughter being killed. Everything I found went right along with his story. He even told me about the money.”

  “Yeah, well, he explained a lot of things to me too,” Blair said. “Apparently none of them were true.”

  She couldn’t sit there and do nothing, she thought. She had to get home and do her own computer search, see what had failed in her attempts to learn about him. She wanted to see his police record for herself. She got up. “Tell Morgan that I’ve decided to walk home.”

  Not waiting for Cade’s response, she took off across the parking lot and across the busy street to the beach.

  C H A P T E R

  58

  Cade double-checked his databases that night and the next morning, trying to find the information Nancy Simmons had cited in her article, but he could verify none of it. Angola had no one by the name of Rick Dugan who had escaped. He couldn’t even find evidence that Rick Morrison had been murdered. His sources said that the man had died of a heart attack, just as Rick alleged.

  The paper’s sources were wrong.

  He was about to pay Nancy Simmons a visit, when he got a phone call. The city council had scheduled an emergency meeting for that night. They wanted to discuss Hanover House in light of the news that day.

  “Here we go,” he whispered under his breath. They were going to use this article to put a scare into the people of Cape Refuge so they would want to close Hanover House. He hoped Morgan and Blair were strong enough to withstand it.

  He headed over to the newspaper and found Sadie sitting at the front desk. She looked well groomed and energetic, like any other teenager on the island. Morgan had done wonders with her.

  “Chief Cade,” she said, coming to attention. “Is something wrong?”

  He smiled at her and tipped his hat. “No, Sadie. Everything’s fine. I just came to ask Nancy something.”

  She seemed relieved and wilted back into her chair. “Oh, good. I thought I was in trouble again.”

  He smiled and glanced around the desk that she had made her own. She had brought some fresh flowers from Morgan’s garden and put them in a Coke bottle; a framed picture sat on the corner of the desk. It was a snapshot of a baby.

  “Nancy’s in the back,” she said, “in the printing room. Want me to show you?”

  “I know where it is.” As he headed to the back, the sound of the printers grew louder. From the hallway, he saw Nancy standing in the hot room.

  “Nancy,” he said, “I need to talk to you.”

  She looked up. A thin film of perspiration covered her face. “Now, Cade? I’m kind of busy.”

  “It’s police business,” he said.

  She sighed as if she wasn’t impressed and stepped out of the room. “Okay,” she said, leading him into her cluttered office. “What is it?”

  He cleaned a few papers off of a chair and sat down. “That article in the paper this morning. I want to know where you got that information.”

  “What? About the beauty pageant?” she asked.

  He didn’t find that amusing. “You know very well what I’m talking about.”

  “Oh. Rick Morrison,” she said with a grin. “Yes, the killer. Must be frustrating when the local paper solves the murder before you do.”

  “Where did you get the information about him being a convict?”

  “I have my sources,” she said. “I can’t reveal them.”

  “Well, does it matter to you if they’re false? I checked with the prison you mentioned and they’ve never had a Rick Dugan there. I ran that picture through my database and it didn’t come up. I’ve even run his fingerprints through my database, and from the looks of things, he’s never even been arrested.”

  She didn’t seem too concerned. “Well, I can double-check it.”

  “That’s it?” he asked. “You’re not upset that you slandered a citizen who’s done nothing wrong? That you cast fear into the hearts of the islanders, and that the city council has new ammunition to close Hanover House down? They’ve called a meeting tonight to discuss it.”

  “Really?” She grabbed the pencil from behind her ear and starting to take a note. “What time is that meeting? Where?”

  “It’s at the City Hall where it always is,” he said, “at seven. Surely your ‘sources’ could tell you that.”

  “Look, I’m busy,” she said, getting to her feet. “If you don’t have anything else to say—”

  He stood, appalled at her attitude. “You’re not the least bit worried that the front page article in your paper today might be a bunch of lies?”

  “I’m upset about it, okay?” she said. “I’m going to check with my sources. I’m going to find out what’s going on.”

  “You need to ask your husband about slander and libel,” he said.

  She rolled her eyes.

  “Show some judgment in your reporting, Nancy, or I’ll make sure that every resident of Cape Refuge knows that they can’t trust the Cape Refuge News anymore. You’ll be out of business in two weeks. And when I find Rick Dugan, I’m going to encourage him to sue you for so much that you won’t be able to keep it running anyway.”

  She gaped up at him. “What do you want from me, Cade?”

  “A retraction would be nice. Something that tells the townspeople that you lied about this story, that you created a panic unnecessarily.”

  “Okay,” she said. “I’ll print it right underneath the article about how Rick Dugan extorted money from Thelma and Wayne before their deaths, how he skipped town the day my article came out, how he’s still at large, how our pitiful police force wasn’t able to catch up with him yet—”

  “You’re walking on thin ice, Nancy.”

  “Fine,” she said. “Arrest me. See how long my husband leaves me locked up.”

  Cade’s jaw popped. “If I could lock you up even for an hour, Nancy, it’d be worth it.”

  As he stormed out into the hall, he heard Sadie talking on the telephone. He stopped and tried to calm himself, taking a deep breath. Sadie’s voice was low, as if she didn’t want anyone to hear. “Atlanta, please. Miss Tina’s Day Care?”

  He looked up at her from his place in the hall. There was a pause as she got the number and dialed. “Uh, yes. I just want to check on Caleb Caruso,” she said. “He’s in Miss Jane’s room. Nine months. Could you check on him for me? Tell her it’s Sadie calling.” Her voice broke, and he saw the tears on her face.

  “I just want to know that he’s all right,” she said into the phone, “that he’s not sick or anything, that maybe he doesn’t have any bruises or cuts. Yes. So—has he been there every day?”

  He saw her listening, her eyes intense as she took in every word.

  “You’re sure? I appreciate that. No, that’s all right. Thank you.” She hung up the phone and dropped her face into her hands.

  Cade stepped out of the hall. “You okay?” he asked.

  She wiped her face quickly. “Sure. I was just working on a story for Nancy.”

  “A story,” he said. “It didn’t sound like a story.”

  “I know,” she said. “It’s kind of silly. I get all emotional over nothing.”

  “She has you writing stories?” he asked. “How long have you been here, a couple of days?”

  She straightened and lifted her chin. “I’m a good writer. I made straight A’s in English.”

  “Journalism major?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “No. But Nancy didn’t ask for that.”

  “Yeah, she doesn’t have real high standards, does she? You didn’t by any chance write the article on Rick Dugan, did you?”

  “No, of course not.”

  He knew she hadn’t, but he was still angry. He nodded to Nancy’s office. “Keep an eye on her, Sadie. She’s ruthless.”

  Sadie looked at him as if she didn’t know what he was talking about.

  Sighing, he went back to his car and told himself that he needed to do som
e digging into the girl’s past. She was calling about a baby named Caleb Caruso. Maybe he was her own child. Maybe her name was really Caruso too.

  As soon as he had a moment to breathe, he would see what he could find out.

  C H A P T E R

  59

  Jonathan sat up late in his cell, studying his Bible with a zeal he hadn’t had many times in his life. He had convinced Cade not to turn off the light yet, and Gus hadn’t made any protest. He read with a new hungriness, searching for something, though he didn’t know what. Finally, he heard Gus moving around in the cell next to him.

  “Hey, mon,” Gus said through the bars.

  Jonathan looked up at him. “What?”

  “We both be Christians, mon, am I right?”

  “I know I am,” Jonathan said.

  “Well, I guess you don’t be trusting that I am. I was thinking maybe we could pray together. “

  Jonathan turned back to his Bible and stared down at the page. Had someone he considered an enemy really asked him to pray with him? The thought sent a cold chill through him. Then, suddenly, he was ashamed of himself. He set the Bible down and put his hands on his knees, staring at the concrete floor. Finally he turned around.

  “You want to pray with me?”

  “The Bible, it says whenever two or more—”

  “Yeah, I know what the Bible says,” Jonathan threw back.

  “I heard Cade tell you about that city council meeting tonight,” he said. “We need to pray on that.”

  Jonathan only looked at him for a moment. The gulf between them seemed as big as the lake out on his granddaddy’s farm. He didn’t want to do it, but he was supposed to be the big Christian. And Gus, well, what was he? Jonathan wondered. Another ex-con? A threat to his wife? A beloved man Thelma and Wayne had taken under their wings? Had he been the one to try to break into Blair’s house when Morgan was there, or had he really been set up as he claimed?