Life seemed effortless then. I could cheat death. No longer. The living slipped away.
I blinked away the vision to concentrate on Dixon’s monologue. “You know if someone hadn’t gotten cute, we might’ve figured he was an unlucky drunk who drowned ’cause he was three sheets to the wind.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Stew was known to knock back a few, and the hot tub sign is plastered with warnings for boozers. Guess the vegetables were meant to clue us in. Whoever killed Stew knew him, or at least his name.”
The churning murderer’s cauldron bubbled away without a conscience. How had the killer jimmied the timer to keep the Jacuzzi jets active? Tendrils of steam drifted from the super-sized hot tub.
“Jesus,” I muttered. “What kind of sicko would dream this up?”
Dixon shrugged. “I suppose those are Stew’s clothes. What possessed him to strip? Or do you think the killer undressed him?”
From our vantage point, we could see the clothing piled on the chair nearest his body. Car keys and a wallet sat atop Bermuda shorts.
“Say, is Stew’s car parked out front?” Dixon asked.
“I’ll go check.” An urge to escape the insanity for a moment drove me to volunteer. “There’s a tan Volvo parked on the far side of the lot. It could be Stew’s.”
***
After verifying the solitary car belonged to the victim, we cordoned off the crime scene and set up emergency floodlights to illuminate the area.
Three guards had joined Dixon and me. Two were fuzzy-cheeked youngsters, locals who wanted a job where they wouldn’t stink of fish or have to kowtow to tourists. Carrying a gun was a big bonus. I was the same age as their mommas so they ma’amed me to death. Dirty jokes tended to die on their lips as I approached. Tonight their nervous laughter teetered toward hysteria. Laughing at death is a reflex as well as a cliché.
Dixon grimaced when a cacophony of sirens announced the arrival of the Hollis County Sheriff and his mainland coterie. “Think they’d have more sense,” he mumbled. “Might as well have used a bullhorn. This racket is bound to bring out all the Nosey Parkers.”
Sure enough, lights clicked on in a smattering of the pricey homes hovering above the poolscape. Perched atop stilt-like piers, the silhouetted bungalows resembled scrawny cranes.
Chief Dixon swaggered over to greet Sheriff Winston Conroy and engaged in a ritual good ol’ boy greeting.
“Hey, Chief, hear you got something a tad more interesting than the usual heart attack,” said Sheriff Conroy. “Gives me a chance to show your raggedy-ass island to our new officer. Meet Deputy Braden Mann.”
The newcomer deputy appeared to be in his thirties. Old for a Lowcountry recruit. The lean, angular planes of his face were a bit weather-beaten, yet his limber physique spoke of resilient muscles and youthful energy. A straight back and commanding presence suggested he was used to giving the orders.
“Braden was a homicide cop in Atlanta,” said the sheriff. “Likes to fish and hunt though, so he can’t be all bad.” He motioned toward the road. “Coroner should pull in any minute. He was right behind us over the bridge. So what we got?”
As Dixon elaborated, the sheriff’s face clouded. “Well, I’ll be. How’d you find the body?”
Dixon nodded my way. “Marley here noticed the front gate unlocked and saw lights were out. Came round to investigate.”
The sheriff stole a sideways glance at me. His quizzical look took in my uniform and age—twenty-five years senior to Dear Island’s only other female officer, who was currently on maternity leave.
“Who do we have here, Chief, another city slicker in hiding? Don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure, ma’am.”
“Marley Clark. I work part-time for Chief Dixon.” We shook hands.
“Marley comes to us from the Pentagon, a colonel in Army Intelligence, no less.” The chief sounded as if he wanted to one-up the sheriff.
“Just a lieutenant colonel,” I corrected, not coveting a bogus promotion.
Dixon continued as though I hadn’t uttered a peep. “I told Marley she was too dang young to play retiree. Besides I like having someone my own age to talk to.”
The sheriff laughed. “Marley looks at least two decades younger than you, Dixon. Going to Clemson University did you in. You’ve aged like that bleu cheese the Ag school peddles.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Dixon harrumphed. “Let’s get on with it.”
The sheriff’s sole CSI practitioner and the coroner went to work. I stood off to the side, huddled beside a lifeguard stand. The sharpened wind knifed through my soggy shirt. Massaging my arms to knead in warmth, I tried to recall my last conversation with Stew. When hands grazed my neck, I whirled, startled.
“It’s Marley, right?” the deputy asked. “I’m Braden.” He’d draped a jacket around my shoulders. My jitters knocked it to the ground. “Didn’t mean to scare you.” He smiled. “You look like you’re freezing.”
Before I could respond, he retrieved the jacket and wrapped me in it. “Thanks, but I can’t take your coat.”
“Nonsense. I’m not wet—and bleeding. How bad are those cuts?” He motioned toward my bloody knees.
“It’s nothing.” I was surprised he’d noticed. In all the hubbub, no one else had. “A little alcohol and a few Band-aids and I’ll be fine.”
“Sit down and I’ll fetch a first-aid kit.” He vanished before I could object.
I’m not used to being fussed over, especially by a stranger. But arguing required too much energy. Besides, until the coroner finished, Braden and I had little to do beyond shivering. A poolside lounge chair beckoned, its cushions cold and wet with dew. I was too weary to be persnickety.
In a minute, Braden returned. He knelt and rolled up the legs of my trousers. Thankfully, I’d shaved my legs, a hit or miss proposition for a woman living alone. He bit open a wet gauze pack and daubed at the cuts with a square of white cotton. The alcohol stung, but his hands felt warm, his fingers gentle. Despite the pain and cold, I began to relax. By the time he pressed down the last bandage I almost wished there were more cuts for him to doctor.
Braden snapped the first-aid kit closed and stood.
“Thanks again.” I looked up and noticed Chief Dixon hovering. He dipped his chin toward Braden. “Sheriff wants you.”
Then Dixon inclined his head in the direction of several bathrobe-clad residents clustered at the clubhouse entrance. He shooed me their way. “Marley, go deal with ’em, will ya?”
I slipped my arms into the deputy’s loaner jacket and walked toward the residents. Recognizing the ringleader—Joe Reddick—I groaned inwardly. Recently elected to the board of the Dear Owners’ Association, the former schoolteacher was puffed up with self-importance. He’d retired early after a “pain-and-suffering” lawsuit yielded a hefty insurance settlement. My hunch was the little Napoleon had been unable to control his classroom and still itched to prove he could be boss.
“It’s four a.m. I demand to know what’s going on,” Reddick blustered, grandstanding for the gathered throng.
“There’s been a drowning.” My tone straddled the territory between icy and polite. “We don’t know what happened yet.”
Reddick stuck out his lower jaw and crossed his arms over a protruding gut. “Well, I plan to find out. That’s the sheriff, isn’t it? You can’t keep us in the dark. We’re entitled to hear what’s what. I’m going to talk to him.”
I stepped directly in the fifty-year-old’s path and tried reason. “This is police business. The coroner is here, and the area’s off-limits.”
“We’ll see.” Reddick attempted to dart around me.
My reaction was instantaneous and calamitous—for Reddick, that is. To counter his feint, I raised my arm like a traffic cop. He ran straight into it. His own momentum undid him. He stumbled and fell in a heap, clutching his throat as if he’d been garroted.
“Sorry,” I muttered and offered a hand up. He wheezed and waved me off.
“Did you see her?” he
stammered, showboating for his pajama-clad cohorts. “There’s no room on our security force for thugs.” His dentures lost their grip, and his attempts to click them back into place failed. “I’ll p-p-press charges.”
My initial chagrin at accidentally decking the guy turned to disgust. I thought of poor Stew lying dead and this jerk hoping to capitalize on the drama.
“That’s right, you’re the lawsuit king. Well, other folks work for a living, and that means the sheriff’s still too busy to talk to you.”
Reddick’s performance must have convinced the rest of the rabble-rousers I was a deadly Kung Fu master. Quaking, they backed away like Chihuahuas facing a pit bull.
“The excitement’s over for tonight. Go back to bed. That would help the authorities most.”
God knows we need all the help we can get.
TWO
The leftover coffee had sat long enough for evaporation to leave a crystalline bathtub-ring on the glass pot. Did I care? Nope. It was grade-A caffeine eligible to be nuked into service.
While the microwave zapped the sludge, I retrieved a Diet Coke, flipped the tab, and sighed at the energizing fizz. Pop and coffee are my two-fisted breakfast drinks. Army friends accused me of pumping caffeine to scare newcomers to my command. Truth is, my caffeine immunity is genetic. Mom drank it right before bed—to relax.
My mug tipped on its way out of the microwave. Hot coffee sloshed over the rim. “Ouch. Dammit.”
Already swearing. Not a promising start to the day. My reflection in a glass cabinet door agreed. Auburn curls askew, my eyes cloaked in shadows like a cruelly aged Orphan Annie. I glanced at the clock. Ten minutes until my meeting with Deputy Braden Mann.
Crapola. No time for breakfast. I opened a jar of Jif and drubbed out a finger-full of peanut butter. Living alone had done wonders for my social graces.
Again, I mulled over my assignment as Braden’s island guide. Dixon claimed my understanding of Dear’s social terrain made me the logical pick. Younger officers, who couldn’t afford to live on the island, were clueless. The chief also knew Dear’s power structure didn’t awe me. I’d taken a security job for my sanity, not to keep the wolf from my door.
Dixon had his reasons. But why had I accepted?
Catching the son-of-a-bitch who killed Stew was well worth losing a little shuteye. If local knowledge of our Mayberry by-the-sea could give Braden a head start on nailing the bastard, I was all for it.
But I had to admit there was more. The prospect of spending time with an intelligent, good-looking male wasn’t repugnant. Especially since Braden was neither young enough to be my son nor old enough to recite cholesterol counts. Conversations with fellow guards were often predictable. The men typecast me as Ann Landers with a holster.
I slurped down a final swallow of coffee, topped it with a pop chaser and hustled outside. Movement across the street snagged my attention as my neighbor Janie opened her living room blinds. Had news of Stew’s murder reached her?
Janie briefly dated Stew. Then one night, he’d attempted romance and found farce. Poured wine and lit a dozen candles prearranged to surround his waterbed. The ambiance disintegrated when his wispy hair fanned out and caught fire. To extinguish the flames, Janie doused Stew with water from a handy bud base. A single rose stuck in his singed hair. Additional dates seemed out of the question.
Why Stew? I wondered for the umpteenth time. He was middle-aged and affable. As a real estate appraiser, he made a decent living. Yet he wasn’t wealthy enough to be knocked off for money. For the life of me, I couldn’t conjure up motives of passion or revenge. He’d routinely hit on women from the age of thirty to AARP cardholders. Yet his survival instincts were strong—married ladies remained off limits.
Though Stew was divorced, he was a proud dad who enthusiastically squired his twenty-year-old daughter around the island on every college break. Was her name Sharon? I said a silent prayer for the young woman.
Only five cars were parked in the paved lot adjacent to the Dear Owners’ Association building. Whoever named the quasi-governmental body hadn’t thought much about its DOA acronym, which prompted some employees to refer to it as the Deads. DOA oversees island necessities such as roads, the swing bridge that links us to our nearest island neighbor, and security. Much to his chagrin, the chief occupied an office plunked smack in the middle of the Deads’ administrative fiefdom. I ran up the stairs and entered the reception area slightly out of breath.
I truly looked forward to spending time with Braden. His soft voice, calloused fingers and boyish grin exerted a magnetic pull. The single aesthetic flaw was a slightly crooked front tooth. The fact that he’d not spent money to cap it told me he wasn’t obsessed with his appearance—or he had credit card debt.
I found him sitting on a cheery chintz sofa, reading an Audubon-blessed brochure on nature sanctuaries, a designation Dear began to tout shortly after its first developer shot the last wild boar. The officer looked almost preppy and seemed absorbed in his reading and courtesy coffee.
“Ready for the grand tour, Deputy Mann?”
He stood and smiled. Tan skin bunched around his brown—no, hazel—eyes. His gaze seemed both appraising and friendly. “I’m all yours, ma’am.” He captured my hand in a snug grip.
“Well, call me anything but ma’am.” My own smile matched his.
Dang, he hadn’t used the “m” word once last night. One demerit. Perhaps it’s an age-culture-geography thing, but most Midwesterners in my age group tend to prefer the screech of fingernails on a blackboard to a lazy chorus of ma’ams.
Braden correctly interpreted my unspoken subtext and laughed. “No more ma’ams, I promise. You clearly don’t hail from these parts.”
“Iowa,” I answered. “One of those square states in the middle.”
I pointed through the spotless window to my red Mustang. “We’ll be less conspicuous if we’re not tooling around in one of Dear’s bubble tops. If it’s okay with you, I’ll drive.”
“Very nice.” Braden nodded admiringly at my ’77 classic. “Do you let your husband drive it?”
I startled. Let my husband drive?
Oh, his gaze had settled on my plain gold wedding band.
“My husband died more than a year ago. A car accident.” I never could call myself a widow. The word conjured up images of withered husks, women waiting to die.
“I’m sorry,” Braden said. “I noticed your ring…”
“I should take it off. But I broke that finger. They’ll have to cut the ring.”
Why hadn’t I bothered? Plain old inertia or something else?
When we reached the car, Braden caressed the shiny hood. “Dad bought a ’77 Mustang when I was in first grade. We had that car for ten years. My father loved her.”
Jeez, this guy was learning his ABCs when I was heading to college.
I’d purchased the used Mustang—in cherry condition—early in my military stint. The impulse buy spent most of its pampered life in an Iowa barn while I bounced from Augsburg to Fort Bragg and from Turkey to the Pentagon. The odometer had less than twenty thousand miles.
As my key slid into the ignition, I glanced at the deputy. He resembled a folded accordion, his knees practically tickling his chin. The seat wasn’t set for his rugged, six-foot-four frame.
“Sorry.” I grinned. “My last passenger was an ailing computer wedged against the dash for a ride to a repair shop. Adjust the seat any way you’d like.”
Braden fiddled with a lever, stretched back, and sighed in relief. Given the comment about his dad’s car, I recalculated my estimate of his age. Last night I’d pegged him as mid-thirties. Now my guess ratcheted slightly upward to early forties. He just looked younger. Athletic, trim. He even smelled good. Like a new leather purse.
He appeared to take his workouts seriously. However, they’d been powerless to halt the march of one age-related enemy—hair loss. Braden’s black hair had thinned. A fact he didn’t try to hide. His brush cut looked surprisi
ngly good. Hey, spend enough time in the Army and men with long hair look a bit prissy. Jude Law excepted.
Once we reached the scene of last night’s murder, I parked directly in front of the Dolphin entrance, disregarding the diminutive parking lines that decreed I was hogging two golf cart slots. While I pulled out keys to open the decorative wrought-iron grill that served as an admission gate, Braden read the posted hours.
“Is this the only way in?” he asked.
“No. It would be easy to slip in from the beach at low tide though we’re talking pluff mud rather than sand for maybe three hundred feet. That muck can suck the paint right off your toenails. So Stew and the killer probably entered this way. The gate was open when I arrived.
“The young lady scheduled to lock up thought she’d done so. No guarantee there. Facilities are left unlocked all the time. Then again someone could have opened the gate later. Lots of people have keys.”
“Including Stew?”
“No, but he knew plenty of folks who did. The fire station has a complete set of keys and another set hangs at the real estate office so agents can show off club facilities if they’re closed. Dozens of club employees and all the security guards have keys, too. Helpful, huh? A list of the keyless might be shorter.”
In the sparkling sunlight, the Dolphin, with its cheerful Caribbean face paint of banana yellow and hibiscus pink, looked an unlikely spot for murder. An open breezeway bisected the first floor of the two-story clubhouse, pulling visitors through to a smashing view of Mad Inlet and the Atlantic beyond. Sunrise Island lay to the right, its sugar-white beaches accessorized with the bleached bones of storm-felled trees. With the sensuous beauty of driftwood, the giant oak carcasses guarded the lush subtropical greenery to their back.
“What a view. Anyone live over there?” Braden nodded at Sunrise.
“No. It’s uninhabited. The University of South Carolina owns it and uses it primarily for sea turtle research. Sunrise was part of Dear Island before it broke in two.”
Dear Killer (Marley Clark Mysteries) Page 2
