Lady on the Edge

by Ray Flynt

  “There’s an adjoining bathroom.” Beth pointed. “It’s a Jack and Jill bath, but since no one is staying in the other bedroom, it’s all yours.”

  “Thanks.” I laid my travel case on a quilt covered chest at the foot of the bed.

  “Make yourself at home,” Beth added, without enthusiasm.

  What’s going on with you guys? I wanted to shout. Brad had ignored my question at the airport, but I could tell by the look on his face—both of their faces—that there was trouble in paradise.

  Beth left the room before I could ask.

  I’d seen Beth on and off during the several years that she and Brad had been together. While I hadn’t spent much time alone with her, she’d always struck me as smart with a genial personality. When I spoke with her by phone a few days earlier she seemed cheery and happy to talk with me. Beth usually had an admiring gaze in Brad’s presence, but I hadn’t witnessed it that day.

  On our trip back from the airport Brad asked Beth for directions to the real estate office and she said curtly, “Forget it, I’ve changed my mind.”

  After that exchange he clammed up. I tried, unsuccessfully, to engage him in small talk.

  We lunched on fajitas at Santa Fe Café, which is where I first spotted the rock on Beth’s left hand, but when I asked about it, she responded with a joyless, “We’re engaged.”

  “Congratulations,” I bubbled, and got stern bobs of heads I would’ve expected if I’d said, “My condolences.”

  I put two and two together and concluded that Brad had fucked-up—big time.

  Once we arrived at the beach house Brad didn’t even take time to fill me in on what he wanted me to do in South Carolina, but rather handed me an envelope and said, “Look at these, and we’ll talk.” Soon afterward he departed the beach house to “run errands.”

  I knew better; he was off doing penance.

  I sat on the edge of the bed and opened the envelope, which contained two items: a copy of a hand-written note torn from a ruled notebook, and a property inventory for Dana Carothers from the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office.

  Carothers I recognized as the name of the woman who’d contacted me in her efforts to reach Brad, wanting him to investigate her son’s death.

  The only item that leaped out at me from the property list is that Dana hadn’t been wearing any underwear when he died. I’ve known a lot of male friends who enjoyed going “commando” and so it didn’t mean much that Dana had.

  Armed with his name, I took out my iPad and searched for it. Almost immediately I found his obituary notice from four years ago last April:

  Dana Carothers, 20, of Bluffton, SC died Saturday, April 6th at his home. He was a graduate of Bluffton High School, where he lettered on the swim team, and attended the University of South Carolina, majoring in fine arts. He was preceded in death last year by his father, retired Marine Colonel Denton Carothers; survived by his mother, Amanda, and his brother Denton Jr. (Sarah) and two nieces. Friends will be received at Summerfield’s Funeral Home in Bluffton on Monday, April 8th from 2 – 4 and 7 – 9 p.m. Funeral service will be held on Tuesday, April 9th at 11 a.m. with Rev. Josiah Chase of the First Baptist Church officiating. Interment at Bluffton Cemetery.

  Then I found a much more revealing article about his death:

  TRAGEDY AFFLICTS FAMED ARTIST

  Police were summoned to the Bluffton home of well-known ceramic artist Amanda Carothers on Saturday afternoon and discovered the body of her son Dana inside the family garage. The coroner ruled his death a suicide from asphyxiation due to carbon monoxide.

  I stopped reading.

  Oh, shit! Brad hadn’t mentioned suicide, or I would have stayed in Philadelphia. I’d already wasted too many years of my life looking for unknowable answers on why people kill themselves.

  I didn’t bother to unpack my bag, deciding to wait until Brad returned from exile.

  Beth had instructed me to make myself at home, so I ambled downstairs, found a chilled bottle of piña colada mix in the refrigerator and rum in the well-stocked liquor cabinet. I filled a tumbler with ice, added the mix and a splash of rum, and stirred it with my finger—no use dirtying any silverware. I sampled the colada, decided another splash or two of rum was in order and then located the deck.

  A warm breeze from Daufuskie Sound wafted over my beach chair, and the piña colada slid gently down my throat. I thought about the thirty-nine degree temperature I’d left behind in Philadelphia that morning and decided I’d been premature in my desire to rush home. Perhaps I could find a local detective to help Brad, and supervise their efforts from the deck, drink in hand.

  I fell asleep, and when I awakened I was aware of Beth sitting on the reclining chaise next to me.

  I stretched, looked at my watch, and realized I’d dozed for almost two hours.

  “Guess I’m feeling relaxed.” I glanced at the nearly empty colada glass and smiled. “Or maybe it’s the booze.”

  “I’ll drink to that.” Beth held aloft a glass filled with red wine.

  A bird cawed in a nearby tree eliciting a response from another bird.

  At the risk of opening a sore subject, I asked, “Where’s Brad?”

  “Picking up supplies for dinner,” she said matter-of-factly. He’d been gone for more than two and one-half hours. How many people were they expecting for dinner?

  A horn sounded from a cargo ship bound for the Atlantic. I reached for my glass and downed the last of the now-melted ice lightly flavored with coconut, pineapple and rum. Beth sipped more of her wine, and then dropped her head back against the cushioned chaise.

  “Is everything okay with you guys?” I finally asked.

  Beth sighed. “I suppose. His case bothers me.”

  Me too!

  Before I could ask why, Beth said, “Have you ever known anyone who committed suicide?”

  Hadn’t expected that. I stared across the Sound at a row of trees. “I’ve known too many,” I began. “Back when I was a police dispatcher, I got a call one night about two a.m. The guy was drunk and said he had a gun and would shoot himself. We got crank calls occasionally, but were trained to take all the calls seriously. We traced the phone number, and I sent a cruiser out to the guy’s house while I kept him talking on the phone. He told me he was seventy-five years old, and that his wife had died two weeks earlier. While we were talking, I heard the doorbell in the background, and he said, ‘Wait a minute. No. No. Nobody’s talking me out of this.’ And then I heard the shot.”

  Beth winced. “It must have been awful for you.”

  I grunted. “I thought that was bad until, when I was a probation officer, a sixteen-year-old boy hung himself. An old man is one thing, but a sixteen-year-old kid? It was a bad scene. His parents went away for a long weekend. When they got back on Monday night they found him in the attic. I can still picture his mother wailing at the funeral; gives me the willies to think about it.”

  “God, I wouldn’t have the patience to work with people who had those kinds of problems.”

  “I was fresh out of college with high ideals and the notion that I could improve the world. Then I learned how little the textbooks prepare you for the realities of fieldwork. I wrapped myself in my clients’ lives, wanted to take half of them home with me and give them a hot meal. I’d take kids to the movies or out for pizza, and realized it was only making me feel better. It never seemed to make a lasting impression on them.” I glanced at Beth and hadn’t shocked her. “Why do any of us put ourselves through what we do?” I shrugged.

  Beth opened her mouth, but didn’t say anything. After another minute, she asked, “Were there others?”

  I realized that Brad must never have told her, and said, “My dad killed himself.”

  Beth sat upright. “Oh, Sharon. I’m so sorry.”

  “Those other suicides were in my professional life, where I could remain detached, almost clinical. I wasn’t prepared for how to cope with the personal loss. I’d moved in with my dad after my di
vorce. He’d been all alone since my mom died, and I figured I could help out.”

  “How long ago?”

  “Seven years. But the memory of it is so vivid it could have happened yesterday. My dad was a cop for almost thirty-five years. I always thought of suicide as an act of weakness. Dad was so strong, and I couldn’t imagine him doing anything like that.” I wiped a tear away from my eye. “I was the one who found him. I’d been invited out after work with a few friends, but I saw that my dad had tried to call me on my cell phone so I called him back—a couple of times. When I couldn’t get through I decided to go home.” I felt my chest getting heavy in the re-telling, and I gulped air. “I was worried as to why he’d called me. You know how it is?”

  Beth nodded.

  “The front door was unlocked when I got home,” I continued. “That was unusual—I mean he was a cop for God’s sake. I called out his name, and when I didn’t get a response I went searching, finally going down to the basement.” The image materialized in my mind and the words caught in my throat. “He used a shotgun. Put the barrel in his mouth.”

  Beth shuddered. “Sharon, you don’t have to talk about it.”

  “No. It’s okay. Even now, all these years later, I reach the point where I have to talk. It happened in January. During the funeral I kept all of my emotions contained, but… every hour of every single day for more than a year… the events played out in my mind. Then at Christmas time, my friend Marge invited me to a party. I sat next to Marge’s mom at the party. I forget how the conversation got started, but for the next three hours all I talked about was Dad and everything that had happened—in graphic detail.” I laughed grimly. “God only knows what that woman thought about me, but afterward I realized it was my first chance for catharsis.”

  “Does Brad know?” Beth said, quickly adding, “I won’t tell him.”

  “Brad knows. We’ve talked about it, and he’d met my dad once.”

  “The toughest part about my dad’s suicide was that I didn’t know why—still don’t. His fellow officers speculated that he couldn’t face retirement, but that never made sense to me.”

  Beth didn’t react. She’d raised the subject of suicide with me, and there had to be a reason. I glanced over and her eyes were closed. She looked like she was processing what I’d said.

  Finally, I asked, “What about you, Beth? You know anybody who—”

  She looked grim. “I think so.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There was a woman, Alice Gunderson, who served as a receptionist in our office. She was killed in a one-car accident, smashing into a tree along a rural road on Long Island on the way to visit her parents. When we heard she died, we just assumed it was a tragic accident. But a couple months later an insurance investigator visited the office and was asking questions about her mental state. The investigator implied that perhaps she’d killed herself. I wasn’t close to Alice, but had had lunch with her the day before she died so they wanted to interview me. I had to admit that Alice seemed distant during that lunch, but she’d complained about a stomach ache and we didn’t think anything about it. She’d also broken up with her boyfriend that same week. I wondered if she had killed herself.”

  “Would you have thought that if the investigator hadn’t planted that seed?” I asked.

  “Probably not,” Beth admitted.

  I gazed at her sympathetically. “You’ll never know.”

  Beth sighed.

  I looked at my watch, and asked, “Should we be worried about Brad?” just as the slider opened behind us.

  Brad walked onto the deck carrying a large manila envelope and announced, “No worries.”

  He leaned over and kissed Beth, then said, “I have news. Sharon, would you mind giving us a few minutes? I need to speak with Beth.”

  “No problem.” I bounded out of my chair. “Can I do anything to help with dinner?”

  “Dinner is covered. Fresh shrimp and veggies.”

  “Great!” I re-entered the air-conditioned house which felt chilly compared to the warm moist air of the deck. As I pulled the slider shut I saw Brad ease into the chaise I’d just vacated. I saw him reach over and hold Beth’s hand.

  I expected he was working his way out of the doghouse.

  Chapter Eleven

  “I don’t want you to ever think that I’m taking you for granted,” Brad began as he slid onto the chaise Sharon had just vacated, and gazed into Beth’s eyes. “I apologize for not telling you about Sharon’s visit and for presuming that she could stay here.”

  Beth matched his gaze, and he saw her eyes soften.

  “I picked up fresh shrimp and veggies for dinner,” he continued, “but I also stopped by to see Diane at the real estate office.”

  “How did you find it?”

  “I’m a detective remember.”

  She smiled, and Brad knew that things between them would be okay.

  “I told her that we wanted to make an offer at market value, and that the deed would be in your name.” When Beth looked surprised, he added, “Think of it as an early wedding present.”

  Handing her the manila envelope, Brad said, “Here are papers you need to sign. We can drop them off at her office tomorrow. If your brothers agree to accept the offer, we might be able to settle by the end of next week.”

  Beth opened the envelope. Worry lines formed between her eyebrows.

  “That’s not a foregone conclusion. Daniel expects a lot more for the house.”

  Brad realized that might be the case. “I asked Diane to include a clause saying that if the house appraised at a higher figure we would match that price.”

  “He can’t ask for more than that,” Beth said matter-of-factly. “I’ll call my brothers tonight to let them know.”

  “Great!” Beth’s body language already signaled her feelings, but her next move confirmed them. She rose from her chaise, grinned widely and flung her arms around his neck.

  While Beth and Sharon relaxed in the lounge chairs and sipped Bloody Marys, Brad fired up the gas grill. The air was heavy with humidity, but the trees above responded to the gentle nudge of the wind, and the receding sun cast shadows from the surrounding foliage across the patio.

  It was a pleasant evening for a picnic supper, and they dined heartily on the freshly grilled shrimp. Whatever hostility Beth might have harbored about Sharon’s visit had disappeared, with the two of them acting like sorority sisters at times.

  Brad cleared the table, and when he returned to the patio to pick up the remaining items, Beth pushed her chair back and said, “I’ll load the dishwasher while you two catch up on your case.”

  Brad took a few minutes to bring Sharon up to speed on his visit with Amanda, as well as his trip to the funeral home, the unwelcome encounter with Jim Westin and the conversation with the gossipy guidance counselor.

  Sharon asked, “So when are we going to break the news to Mrs. Carothers that there’s been no murder? I hate to see this vacation come to an end, but it looks like suicide to me.”

  “I’m not sure,” Brad said, picking up a folder of documents.

  “You’re not sure when you’re going to tell her, or you’re not sure about the suicide?”

  “Both.”

  Sharon sat upright. “Surely you don’t think there’s anything to the murder theory, do you?”

  “Something’s not right.” Brad ruminated over the papers in his hand.

  Handing Sharon the property receipt, Brad said, “Take a look at this. Do you see anything unusual?”

  Sharon sighed and shoved the paper back at him. “I looked at this earlier. So the guy wasn’t wearing any underwear. That’s no big deal,” Sharon said. “I’ve known guys who go commando.”

  Brad refused to take the paper. “Keep looking.”

  Sharon pulled out her smartphone and used it as a flashlight to examine the document more closely.

  The air seemed to shift, and Brad no longer felt a breeze from Calibogue Sound. A mosquito
landed on his bare arm and he brushed it away, then stood and lit several bug repellent torches at the edge of the patio.

  Finally Sharon said, “He wasn’t wearing shoes or socks either.”

  “Come on,” Brad goaded her, “what else do you see that’s unusual?”

  Sharon sighed her irritation, but kept looking. A minute later she asked, “Was he right-handed?”

  Brad nodded. “You’re getting warm.”

  “If so, his keys are in the wrong pocket. With a right-handed person you’d expect to find the keys in his right pocket.”

  “He was right-handed,” Brad said, confidently.

  “Mrs. Carothers told you that?”

  Brad shook his head. “Dana’s signature on his artwork in Mrs. Carothers living room, and his writing on the so-called suicide note, had the slant of a right-handed person.”

  Sharon pursed her lips.

  “Remember the body was found lying on its right side. Someone could have shoved those keys in the only pocket available.”

  “Well, if it wasn’t suicide and you’re not sure whether it was murder, then what could it have been?” Sharon asked.

  “Let me give you a possible scenario,” Brad said, using his hands as he talked. “Suppose Dana died as a result of a two-person suicide pact, but the other person bailed out before it was too late. Picture this: Dana and X go into the garage. Dana hands X his keys, and says, ‘Here, start the car.’ X takes the ignition key off the ring, uses it to start the engine, and locks the car door as they have previously arranged. Then they begin the wait for the fumes to do their work.” Brad added, “Carbon monoxide isn’t the fastest way to kill yourself.”

  Sharon listened intently.

  Brad continued, “Now, let’s speculate Dana loses consciousness first. This prompts X to panic—shoves the keys in Dana’s pocket and runs into the house. X can’t come forth and tell what he knows because he’d look like a skunk. X leaves the premises and lives with it for the rest of his life.” Brad concluded, “What do you think?”