Dear Killer (Marley Clark Mysteries)

by Lovely, Linda

“Mind if I come along? I’d like to see your security setup.”

  “Not at all, but there’s not much to see. It’s all form, no function. Something tangible to foster a private island cachet. Mom used to say we had a one-butt kitchen. Our guardhouse qualifies as a two-butt affair.”

  Braden laughed. I opened a side door facing the exit-the-island lane and spoke to the young guard on duty as we squeezed inside. “Hey, Joey. Don’t mind us.”

  Joey stood facing incoming traffic, the top half of his Dutch door open to dole out visitor passes.

  A computer console corralled Braden and me on our side of the gatehouse. Our bodies touched. His breath warmed the back of my neck. He placed his hands on my shoulders, stroked down with his thumbs. “In quarters this tight, I figured you’d want to know where my hands are,” he whispered, giving my shoulders a squeeze.

  The contact triggered decidedly impure thoughts. Hope he isn’t a mind reader. Braden didn’t seem to notice my quickened pulse.

  “How hard is it to get onto this island?” Braden shuffled through a stack of car passes waiting to be filled out. “How private is private?”

  “Not very,” I admitted. “In theory, only homeowners with auto decals, their guests, and renters with resort passes can enter. No deterrent for a smart thief—or murderer. If I wanted in, I’d pick a name and address out of the phone book. Then I’d call security saying I was Jill Schmo of 544 Turtle Cay, expecting my aunt, Dana Schmo. An hour later I’d drive up, flash a grin, and claim to be Dana Schmo. The guard would smile, hand over a pass, and wish me a nice visit.”

  To make my point, Joey sang out “Have a nice day” and waved on a carload of tourists.

  “Here’s yesterday’s log.” I held out the book. “Dixon said he’d fax a copy of the paperwork to the sheriff. We’ll canvass every owner who supposedly called in guests. Of course, dozens of folks come on island every day in vans with contractor decals. Guards just wave them through. No one pays attention to the working blokes inside. Someone could even sneak in by boat. Our security sieve has too many leaks to narrow your suspect list.”

  Braden glanced at his watch. “Shoot. I need to be in Charleston by two for the autopsy. I’d better scoot.”

  We bid Joey goodbye and filed outside. I drove Braden back to his car. He thanked me for the tour and asked for my cell number in case he had questions.

  “I’m one of North America’s last holdouts—no cell.” I scribbled my landline home number on the back of a security office business card.

  “Will you be home tonight?” he asked.

  I hesitated. “A friend asked me to attend a real estate banquet. But I’m in no mood.”

  “Real estate? Bet they’ll talk plenty about Stew.”

  “I guess. Developers, agents, bankers, Dear’s financial backers—they all knew him.”

  “Then you should go. You might hear something. Unlike me, you’ll blend in. I could call tomorrow, see if you picked up any interesting tidbits.”

  Janie, you’ve got a date. My sudden change of heart would delight my neighbor, who didn’t need to know the reason for my three-sixty.

  Braden was pleasant company despite the somber circumstances. The contrast between his lazy accent and no-nonsense manner intrigued me. He was a straight shooter. He told you what he was thinking, and expected you to do the same. An admirable trait.

  I tried not to think about his clean leather scent, those strong hands, or whether he was always so quick on the draw.

  THREE

  With more than an hour to kill before my next official duty, I headed home to grab a Diet Coke. The nearness of home—always right around the corner—was one of Dear Island’s nicest features.

  En route, I noticed the island’s oversized flag hanging at half-staff in Stew’s honor. Security lowered the flag whenever an islander died. Then residents stopped at the guard gate to learn the identity of the Dear departed. Given the island’s geriatric profile, the flag languished in a mourning slump far too often. Today’s tribute made me especially sad. By island standards, fifty-five-year-old Stew had been a mere youngster, way too young to die.

  A ringing telephone prompted me to unlock my door in a hurry. A click sounded and the line went dead. I tightened my grip, strangling the silent plastic. The flag. All those deaths. The white noise pulled me back to another phone call. Another empty silence.

  “Hello, who’s speaking, please? Is this Mrs. Sherman?”

  “No,” I answered, annoyed. I figured the solicitous voice wanted to sell me a time-share. Friends and family knew I’d kept my maiden name.

  “Could I please speak to Mrs. Sherman?” the voice persisted.

  “There is no Mrs. Sherman, but I’m Jeff Sherman’s wife, who’s calling?” My tone was ice-cold. Intended to freeze any salesman’s zeal.

  “I’m sorry. Your husband’s been in an accident. Could you please come to St. Mark’s hospital?”

  “Accident? Jeff’s hurt? What happened?”

  “I’m sorry I don’t have details. Please come to the hospital,” the monotone voice continued.

  “Wait, just tell me. How badly is Jeff hurt?”

  My heart raced. I heard a click. The bastard never said goodbye. Just hung up.

  “Goddammit!” I screamed into the silence.

  I realized the phone in my death grip was hundreds of miles and thirteen months removed from the one in Virginia. My stomach did a flip and cold sweat beaded my forehead. I breathed deeply remembering the call’s aftermath. The nurse shepherded me into the hospital’s family room. When the doctor walked in, he didn’t need to say a word.

  I chalked up the flashback to stress, lack of sleep, and another death picking at the scab of my memory. Sitting on my bed, I rolled my neck to unkink tight muscles. Then I phoned Janie and told her she had a “date” for the evening’s banquet.

  On Dear, most social activities came with implied Noah’s Ark invites: you were expected to arrive in twos. So, as uncoupled women, Janie and I often served as ersatz dates for each other when we couldn’t squirm out of obligatory appearances. Janie had no shot at wiggling out of tonight’s bash. As Gator’s right hand, she’d planned this soiree.

  With my evening plans cemented, I headed to the fire station and found the training room packed. I sank into a folding chair at the back as my boss stomped to the podium.

  “Listen up,” Chief Dixon began. “I’ve been locked up all morning with Gator, Sally and the DOA board. Miracle of miracles, they agree. They want security beefed up till the sheriff figures out if Stew’s death is some isolated incident or if we’ve got some weirdo stalking islanders. Until further notice, all days off are canceled.”

  Moans and groans floated up from the audience.

  “Yeah, yeah. But you’ll get double pay for overtime.”

  An audible sigh greeted the news.

  “Gator and the Deads agree on something else,” he added. “We’re gonna zipper up on this murder. Not one word to an islander, not a peep to outsiders. Stew’s death happened too late to make today’s Hollis Times, but you can bet half the island already knows.”

  Half? I’d have wagered more like ninety percent, given the breathless news report on WGCO, a golden oldies station with a loyal island following.

  “Sheriff Conroy doesn’t want details of the murder to become public,” the chief added. “So if anyone asks, Stew drowned, period. Say the investigating ball’s in the sheriff’s court. Tell anyone who asks that we’re adding patrols. Hell, tell ’em even if they don’t ask. Okay, that’s it. New shifts are posted.”

  I stood. The chief foiled my attempt at a fast getaway. “Hey, Marley, wait up.”

  Drat. He probably wanted to chat about Joe Reddick’s knockdown. At the time of our little set-to, Dixon was huddled with Sheriff Conroy and missed the theatrics.

  “How did things go with the detective? Does the guy know what he’s doing?”

  I gave a short, positive report on Braden, then tried once more to vamoo
se.

  “Not so fast. What in Sam Hill did you do to Reddick? The idiot came by this morning with his throat swathed in so many bandages I thought he was wearing a neck brace. Swears you beat up on him.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Oh, for Pete’s sake. I stuck out my arm and the imbecile stormed into it. I was trying to keep him out of a roped-off crime scene.”

  “Well, Reddick claims he suffered public humiliation. Wants you to write an apology and get anger management counseling. Says if you don’t, he’ll sue.”

  “Do you really think he’d stand up in court and say a woman beat the crap out of him? His testimony would be a lot more humiliating than falling on his behind. But maybe I do need anger management ’cause I’m sure as hell teed-off now.” I took a deep breath. “I don’t need this, and neither do you. I’ll resign.”

  “Oh, no, you won’t,” Dixon snapped. “If you quit, Reddick wins. This’ll blow over. Just stay out of his way. I can’t afford to lose you.”

  “Okay. I’ll play it by ear. But make no mistake: I’ll resign before I’ll kowtow to that blowhard.”

  The chief’s shoulders slumped. “All right, all right.”

  I turned and walked to the posted assignment roster. My next shift began at midnight. Whoopee. Now that I had a dinner date, I had just enough time for a short run and a catnap.

  ***

  Ladies over fifty get horny.

  I don’t recall this topic being covered in Biology 101. Of course, at age sixteen, such news would have had the same relevance as learning that Martians eat tacos. Back then who dreamt we’d ever reach our dotage, living more than four decades?

  I was having a hard time shaking my naptime vision. It had been quite real and Braden’s role disturbingly vivid. He sat on the side of the Jacuzzi, just like Stew might have before he got zapped. Like Stew, Braden was buck-naked.

  But the rangy detective of my dreams was very much alive when he stood and beckoned me with an enticing smile and something grander south of the border.

  Get a grip, girlfriend. Braden undoubtedly thinks of you as an island geezer. This is strictly business. Of course, a little fantasy never hurt a soul.

  I turned the shower on full force and waited until steam wafted around the curtain. Standing beneath the spray, I didn’t hear the doorbell if, indeed, it sounded. The creaking bathroom door scared me silly.

  “Hey, it’s me,” Janie called. “How long till you’re ready?”

  My D.C.-area habit of bolting all doors had not lost its grip. That meant Janie had let herself in, using a key provided for emergencies. For a moment, the temptation to snatch it away made my fingers twitch. But my annoyance dissolved quickly. My neighbor was too good-hearted. I couldn’t stay mad at her.

  “You about gave me cardiac arrest. Never sneak up on a lady in the shower. Hitchcock’s Psycho, remember? Don’t you suffer from the showerus-interruptus syndrome?”

  “Not me,” Janie chirped and tossed her hair—a tawny gold following this week’s beauty parlor consult. “I’m constantly hoping someone will join me in the shower.”

  She had to be the most cheerful fifty-something on the planet. She’d married disastrously in her twenties. After two years of wedlock, she found her husband in bed with her younger sister. Since then, Janie had courted an image as a carefree vamp who preferred independence and her cat to any permanent live-in male.

  The gossip she’d endured as a result of her family’s predilections—her older sister ran a “gentleman’s club”—inoculated her against the vicissitudes of public opinion. She didn’t give an eyelash what anyone said about her lifestyle or appearance.

  While Janie took great care with makeup and clothes, the results often appeared chaotic. With her current retro-fifties/sixties look, she sported a June Allyson-style pageboy and wore shirtwaists to the office and hot pink palazzo pants out on the town.

  “Go away,” I ordered. “I’ll be out of the shower in two shakes of my booty.”

  Ten minutes later, I joined my friend in the living room. She sat in my recliner, feet up, sorting my mail. Initially Janie’s brashness grated. But I’d gotten past it. We were fellow island outcasts and nearly the same age. More importantly, she was my one and only Dear confidant. She was more than a poster child for individuality; she was nonjudgmental. A rare treasure.

  “Want to pay my bills, too?” I asked.

  “You ought to see my stack.” She looked up and voiced a good-natured harrumph. “It’s not fair. You look like a million with no makeup. Sigourney Weaver, eat your heart out.”

  Ever since the first Alien movie, I’ve been kidded about being Sigourney’s look-alike. I’m tallish—five-foot-nine—with curly, okay unruly, auburn hair and dark brown eyes. More importantly, Sigourney and I both know how to hold a big-ass gun—a resemblance my Intel compatriots chortled over.

  Janie Spark managed the real estate office, figured commissions, kept Gator’s calendar, wrote his letters and performed—with apparent good cheer—chores that would have steamed me. I mean, who shops for the boss’s wife in this day? Who shrugs off pats on the rump? Janie, that’s who.

  Whenever I mouthed off about Gator’s male chauvinism, she reminded, “Hey, it pays the bills and I get a piece of the action.”

  For her duties, she claimed one-quarter of a percent of all real estate commissions—a chunk of change growing into a plump nest egg as selling prices for Dear homes rebounded after the last mortgage implosion. Many properties were once again stickered with million-dollar-plus price tags.

  “I came early so you could fill me in. I’m sick about Stew. He wasn’t my type, but I really liked him. Does the sheriff have any idea who killed him?”

  “Can’t tell you a thing you don’t already know. First, because the chief would kill me. Second, because you undoubtedly know more than I do. It’s a safe bet you eavesdropped on every word of your boss’s powwow with security and the cops.”

  Janie winked. “Closed doors mean diddly if you know your air ducts. Mostly Gator shouted about the need to restore calm before the Easter holiday. He tongue-lashed Chief Dixon pretty good. Told him to do whatever it took to make people feel safe. ’Course, Gator’s got reason to be testy. Easter week is a rental sellout and a real estate bonanza, and my bosses have piles of unpaid bills.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Unfortunately that harangue by your boss means I have to make it an early and utterly sober evening. I go on patrol at midnight.”

  “Yeah, what a hardship for a boozer like you. When you’re feeling frisky, you knock back a light beer. Good thing I can drink for the both of us.”

  Janie stopped in front of my hallway mirror to poof up her hair.

  “Keep those Vulcan ears of yours cocked tonight,” I said. “Let’s see if anyone mentions Stew arguing with an irate client. I promised Braden to play detective and pass along any clues.”

  Janie chuckled. “Ah, Braden is it? I heard the deputy’s a hunk. You calling dibs?”

  I shook my head dismissively, but the id component of my brain waffled.

  Yeah, maybe I am.

  ***

  When we ventured outside, an impenetrable, white fog blinded us. In the spring, chilly ocean currents and warm, fragrant air often skirmished over the season, cloaking many evenings in a white shroud.

  “Let’s take my golf cart,” Janie suggested. “We won’t be moving as fast if we hit something.”

  “Yeah, and we won’t have seat belts either.”

  Like many islanders, Janie put more miles on her golf cart than her car. Not me. I was able-bodied enough to walk anywhere on the island in daylight and less than keen about after-dark golf cart rambles. I always fretted that the SUV riding my bumper would squash me like one of the island’s million-plus palmetto bugs—cockroaches to a native Iowan.

  “It’ll be easier to find parking,” she persisted.

  “You’ve just forgotten how to parallel park your Caddy,” I accused.

  Resigned, I followed her to a golf
cart that boasted a Mercedes-style hood ornament and—to my Yankee consternation—a horn that blared the opening bars of “Dixie.”

  As we doddered down the curbless roads, ocean breezes crocheted the mist, yielding startling black holes that defined the fog’s lacework. The result seemed both fragile and menacing. We inched ahead in the amber cocoon created by our headlights. Mist dampened the normal April symphony of tiny tree frogs, each one smaller than a thumbnail.

  A deep-throated roar penetrated the gloom—the primeval mating call of a bull alligator.

  “You hear that?” I shuddered. As temperatures warmed, so did the blood and appetites of alligators, creatures that abstained from sex as well as food during winter. Come spring they were horny and voracious.

  “Yeah, I heard an alligator provided a floor show for that law enforcement hunk you squired around today.” She tented an eyebrow. “Of course, I’ve always suspected you see the alligators as a help in enforcing leash laws.”

  “Hey, I’m not that callous,” I objected, shuddering as I imagined the terror Mrs. Barnwell’s poodle felt when it was hauled beneath the green ooze.

  It was unfair to label me as anti-pooch. I reserved my ire for owners who let their petite Fidos or jumbo Plutos poop on sand dunes, stick wet noses in my crotch, or make a growling charge at me with teeth bared. Twice canines sank teeth into my ankles while I ran on the beach.

  “If only people would keep dogs on leashes at the beach. Maybe we should advertise that alligators sometimes lurk in the surf.”

  My first sighting of an alligator out for an ocean dip shocked me. I’d thought the prehistoric reptiles confined themselves to fresh water. I even asked a ranger at Wilderness Point Park if I’d hallucinated. He said alligators aren’t crazy about saltwater and have no salt glands for prolonged stays, but will take the plunge to shed parasites, heal wounds, or simply travel from point A to point B.

  “Great, Marley, spread tales about surfing gators and I’ll never retire. This is paradise. We don’t mention alligators, flesh-eating no-see-ums or palmetto bugs big enough to saddle.”

  “Don’t lecture me, friend. You started this with your crack about a gator floor show.”