Dear Killer (Marley Clark Mysteries)

by Lovely, Linda

  “And condition three?” I asked.

  Braden paused and smiled, “You protect my virtue if any strippers wiggle my way for a lap dance.”

  I laughed. How I wished we could retire on this note. Sadly, I needed to tell him about Sharlana’s disappearance and its possible tie to Bea’s murder. Too much coincidence. I also reminded Braden that Eastern Europeans had a booming market in long-range ECDs that lacked the Taser’s telltale confetti. “Kain’s from Poland. It could be another link.”

  Braden promised to fold Sharlana’s investigation into his double-murder probe.

  One other thing weighed on my mind—Dear Island’s real estate irregularities. Though sorely tempted to break my promise to Janie, I had no right to play know-it-all parent. Janie was an adult. Besides, I felt confident my friend would come clean tomorrow. Of course, a little nudge from me wouldn’t be out of line.

  SEVENTEEN

  At seven a.m. my alarm buzzed like a horsefly. I groaned and swatted it off. My body ached from the self-inflicted thrashing on the lighthouse stairs, and my head throbbed from multiple nightcaps. It had been years since I’d imbibed beyond a single drink, and Braden poured with a heavy hand. His loud groan implied he was equally groggy.

  I made coffee while he showered, then followed him into the steamy bath and showered while he shaved. I’d known the man less than a week, and we acted like an old married couple. The sight of a nude man in my bathroom wasn’t the least bit jarring. It seemed…natural.

  I raised my voice over the drum of water. “I forgot to ask, what happened with the Cuthbert twins?” I caught Braden studying my reflection in the steamy mirror.

  “The lady of the house showed for court yesterday, relatively sober. The judge released the twins into Grace’s custody pending a hearing next week.”

  Braden vacated the bathroom as I climbed out of the shower. “Want to bet how long Henry and Jared stay out of trouble?” I asked. “Think we can get the father involved?”

  “Hope so. Those boys are in a bad place.” Braden sat on the bed to pull on his socks while I toweled dry. “What are you doing today?”

  “The police artist, then a meeting with Hank Jones. He runs Camp Dear. We’re scouting kayaking points of interest for teens. We set up the excursion last week before the first murder.”

  Braden’s look telegraphed his opinion: I was bonkers. It killed him not to say so.

  I smiled. “Hank was Special Ops. He can handle himself. And, yes, we’ll both be carrying. He called while you were in the shower. But the precautions are just that. We’re just paddling around the local creeks.”

  I threw on a robe and we wandered out to the kitchen. Braden poured coffee and I pulled a six-pack of plastic-encased blueberry muffins from the bread drawer. The muffins had survived yesterday’s kamikaze ride unscathed.

  Braden sighed. “I’ll meet you and Janie here at four-thirty so we can catch the last ferry. My car’s parked at the boat landing so we can take it to Hilton Head. I’ll make a hotel reservation.”

  I watched enviously as Braden slathered butter on his muffin. “Sound’s good. Mind if I talk to folks in housekeeping about Sharlana? After my mother-in-law died, I hired one of the housekeeping supervisors to clean the house. We hit it off. Diana might open up to me.”

  “Diana? She’s yours. You’ve got my cell phone number, right? Call if you get a lead—or need me.”

  Butter migrated to Braden’s fingers, and his tongue snaked out for a final lick before he carried his plate to the sink. “Be careful.” He leaned over to kiss me goodbye.

  “I will. Have to live long enough to see if those exotic dancers crank your engine.” I winked.

  “Yeah? What’ll you do if I get excited?” He waggled his eyebrows and exited.

  I phoned housekeeping. Diana’s crew had already left to clean a group of villas. I asked for a call back when she broke for lunch—about two p.m. according to the message taker.

  Finally, I closed my eyes and pictured Underling’s face. A disturbing way to begin the day, but I wanted a clear picture in my head when the police artist arrived.

  Ten minutes later I answered the doorbell and greeted a dead ringer for Mr. Magoo. The elfin man in rumpled duds wore Coke-bottle glasses. His eyes, magnified to fried-egg dimensions, bespoke vision in the legally-blind realm. How does this guy tell a cauliflower from a kumquat, let alone suspect A from suspect B?

  I’d fretted for naught. The artist played his laptop like a Stradivarius. With a symphony of keystrokes, he built a frightening likeness of Underling. The details chilled me. Tufts of black hair sprouted from his oversized ears. The smashed nose made breathing look like a snorkeling exercise.

  The artist cocked his head. “Ugly sucker, isn’t he? Don’t worry. Soon he won’t be able to show his face. You have a wireless net, right? Can I use it to transmit?”

  “Anything to help put that SOB in jail.” Goose flesh crept up my arms as I stared at the cartoonish yet evil face projected on the computer screen.

  ***

  I changed into grungy shorts and a ragged, long-sleeved tee, a souvenir from the Beaufort Shrimp Festival’s 5K Run. I also donned a pair of ancient sneakers in case we ran aground on a mud flat. Razor-sharp oyster shells slice neatly through bare feet.

  Hank beat me to the friend’s dock where I store my kayak. He’d been busy. Both our oceangoing kayaks sat in the water ready to shove off.

  “Sure you want a human bulls-eye as a traveling companion?” I asked.

  He grinned. “Hey, I survived Afghanistan. I think I can handle Dear. But let’s try to avoid tipping over. Don’t know if my pistolo fires as well wet.”

  After seeing my GPS, Hank bought an identical model, and this was its maiden voyage. I showed him how to set trip functions to track distance and speed. “Teens can use the speed calculations to see how tidal pulls influence their paddling pace.”

  With high tide seventy minutes away, we had a perfect two-hour window to poke around the meandering ocean creeks. As we paddled, I told Hank how I’d been stranded between two muddy humps on my first-ever kayak outing. While waiting for the water to inch high enough to escape, a handful of shrimp and one small fish imprisoned in the same landlocked puddle flopped into my kayak. Hank rolled his eyes. No one ever believed me. I should have snapped pictures.

  Five minutes out, I realized my neck muscles had relaxed. I needed this. Exercise—especially in the great outdoors—was my Prozac. It calmed me, renewed my optimism. What a grand day. An egret soared in the Carolina blue sky. As sunlight pierced its white feathers, the translucent wings glowed. Only the soothing metronome of gentle surf and the calls of quarrelling seagulls broke the silence.

  The peaceful illusion shattered when a motor starter coughed downwind. In the lee of tall marsh grass, we were invisible to the frustrated boater. We paddled to a spot that offered a view of the portion of Flying Fish Creek that wound past the Cuthberts’ dock to Mad Inlet.

  Hugh Wells was the boat’s sole occupant. Once the motor caught, he headed out the inlet toward the ocean. Impossible to follow him in a kayak. Still we paddled in his wake. Hugh’s skiff bucked over the breakers near the mouth of the inlet, then skimmed smoothly across a calm ocean on course to Hilton Head. Of course, he could be angling toward one of the many tiny islands between Dear and Hilton Head. Or maybe he had no destination, just out for a pleasant spin.

  A dolphin surfaced four feet from my kayak. Its black eyes seemed to lock on mine. Oxygen whistled through its air hole and the mammal gracefully dived. When I once again looked toward Hugh’s boat, a small craft covered with camouflage paint shot out of the shallows near Sunrise Island. Had it lain in wait? Two heads bobbed above the chase boat as it crossed the breakers. Did Hugh have a tail?

  It was a mystery I couldn’t solve. Rip tides swirled the waters of Mad Inlet.

  “Hey, aren’t we going to stay in the creeks?” Hank asked. “The water here looks like a wicked witches’ cauldron.”

&n
bsp; “Yeah, just wanted to take a quick look-see.” With a few swift strokes, we returned to the tranquility of the creeks.

  We glided beyond the Cuthberts’ dock and set a cross-island course for the marina. Soon our rhythmic strokes built to a soothing cadence. Rounding a bend where the wandering waterway sliced into the new Beach West development, I pointed out an osprey nest and showed Hank how to mark it as a fun GPS waypoint for summer campers.

  Further along, we locked in GPS coordinates for another waypoint, a fork in the creek that ended just short of an artesian-fed pool. Winter and spring, it served as an alligator spa. The Beach West logging road skirted the inland lagoon, and I drove by often. If temperatures dipped into the forties, clouds of steam hovered as the earth belched heated water from its belly. Two weeks ago, I counted the snouts of fifteen alligators luxuriating in the spa’s warmth. Using the location as a turnaround point, we headed back to my friend’s dock.

  Hank thanked me for the GPS lesson and offered to serve as bodyguard any time I wanted to escape the house.

  His throwaway comment reminded me a killer was still on the loose. Damn.

  EIGHTEEN

  I foraged for food, showered, changed clothes, and packed my overnight bag. Camped on the sofa, I’d just lost my battle to prop my eyes open when Diana returned my call. After stifling a yawn, I explained my friendship with Sharlana’s aunt and my promise to help gather information about the missing teen.

  “Come on over,” Diana said. “Sharlana’s a nice kid. We’re all worried. Look for me in the break room.”

  Dear’s housekeeping building isn’t on any sightseeing tour. Tucked behind trees on a piece of swampland, the prefab metal affair offers no redeeming vistas. With my entry, I traveled from spring to summer in the space of two feet. Hot, humid air blasted from long rows of laundry machines, heating the interior more efficiently than a furnace.

  Wandering down the center aisle, I soon spied the break room. Near the entrance four men played cards as they wolfed down brown-bag lunches. Across the room, Diana and two companions sat at a scarred table beside ancient vending machines.

  “Hi, Marley,” Diana greeted. “This is Gina, Sharlana’s supervisor, and Sofia, one of the girl’s friends. I’m afraid Sofia doesn’t speak much English.”

  Gina was a middle-aged black woman. Sofia was a blonde waif who looked all of fourteen. I shook hands with Gina. Sofia dipped her head in a quasi greeting, but didn’t lift her eyes.

  “I explained you wanted to chat,” Diana said. “See if we could come up with anything to help the sheriff.”

  “I appreciate your time.” I paused. “Sharlana’s last few days at work—did she appear worried, scared, upset? Did she mention any trouble?”

  Gina, a talkative Gullah native, needed no additional conversational lubricant. She confirmed Sharlana got the short end of the stick—a one-week assignment at the Caldwells, dusting, vacuuming, ironing and polishing silver while Bea carped. Gina described the missing teen as a happy-go-lucky girl who hadn’t confided any fears, although she was counting the days until she served out her sentence at the Caldwells.

  “I don’t mean no disrespect to the dead,” Gina added, “but no one wanted to work in Miss Bea’s house if’n there was some way around it. I didn’t see Sharlana that last day. My boy, he took sickly with the flu bug that’s flyin’ round.”

  The supervisor looked up, her eyes sad behind thick glasses. “Sharlana’s a worker bee. I started frettin’ when she didn’t come or call Wednesday. Then her momma phoned to say she’d gone missing. I prayed real hard Sunday for God to lift the evil that’s done got Dear by the throat. I’m downright spooked to walk ’round this island by my lonesome nowadays.”

  Diana cleared her throat. “’Fraid I have nothing to add. I didn’t see Sharlana till quittin’ time that last day. Since the bridge was out, our boss hauled us to the marina in batches to be ferried across. Last I saw, Sharlana was huddled with Sofia on Cap’n Hook’s boat.”

  Sofia hadn’t uttered a peep. “What did you and Sharlana talk about?” I asked.

  The girl didn’t speak. She twirled her straight blonde hair, her eyes glued to the table.

  “You’re not in trouble. No need to be afraid. Don’t you want to help us find your friend?”

  “No can help. Know nothing.” She looked up with tears in her eyes. “English not good.”

  Though she wasn’t facile with English, I figured her understanding went beyond her speaking ability. Her accent sounded familiar. On a hunch, I addressed her in Polish. She flinched as if she’d been slapped.

  “You speak Polish.” Her response—also in Polish—sounded like an accusation, not a compliment.

  “Yes, I studied it in school. Are you from Poland?” We were both rusty in our common-denominator language and spoke haltingly.

  “No, my mother’s mother teach me. She lived with us in Croatia. My sponsor…he’s Polish.”

  Kain Dzandrek? I bit my tongue to keep from asking. I couldn’t afford for her to clam up before I found out if Sharlana had confided in her. The language shift seemed to put Sofia more at ease. The comfort might have come from increased privacy. Our tablemates couldn’t understand a word.

  “I hope you’ll excuse us for leaving you out of the conversation,” I apologized in English to Gina and Diana.

  Diana stood. “Sure. Nice seeing you. Hope the sheriff finds Sharlana safe.” Though Gina seemed miffed to be missing out on potential gossip, she took the hint. “Already clocked out. Guess I’ll head home.”

  Alone with the hair-twisting teen, I asked more direct questions. She volunteered nothing. Each question coaxed forth a barebones reply. I learned Sofia was an orphan. She’d seen a sign at a shelter offering passage to the promised land—America. If I understood correctly, she was a modern-day indentured servant. She lived with other immigrants in a collection of shacks on Sands Island. She never saw a paycheck and believed she’d “earn” her freedom in five years. Her wages were held to repay her boat steerage and sponsorship fees.

  The girl and fifteen fellow workers were assigned to Dear Island. Dozens more shipmates from savaged communities like Chechnya had been placed with cruise ships or other resorts needing menial labor. When I asked her age, she mumbled “eighteen.” A practiced lie. My guess of fourteen hadn’t changed.

  “Sharlana is your friend?” I asked.

  Sofia nodded. “Yes, very nice. Teaches me ten English words a day. And brings gifts…foods I never tasted, like sweet potato pie. I miss her.”

  “Do you know what happened to her?”

  A tear dribbled down her cheek. “My fault,” she whispered. “I promised Sharlana I wouldn’t tell, but I did. She was afraid. I wanted to help. She heard Miss Bea argue with her husband about the man who drowned. Miss Bea said she didn’t buy pearls to wear in prison. Begged her husband to pack up and leave before his killer friend murdered them, too.”

  “Did Bea identify this killer friend? Did Sharlana hear his name?”

  “I don’t know.” Sofia’s hands shook. The child had reason to be scared.

  “Who did you tell about Sharlana’s eavesdropping?”

  Sofia shook her head. “No. I can’t. Please leave me alone.”

  “Is your sponsor Kain Dzandrek?” I held my breath.

  The waif bolted. I didn’t run after her. For long minutes I stared into the dank, overheated room. What could I do beyond sharing Sofia’s story with Braden?

  Except for Sharlana, only one living person knew what Bea said, and that man, Gator, was in Beaufort burying his wife. If Sofia’s hearsay was true, Gator had to suspect his “killer friend” arranged Bea’s murder. So why didn’t he give the guy up? Was he afraid? Or had he given his wife’s killer the all clear?

  ***

  I rushed home and found Braden packing an overnight bag. He glanced up as I walked into the bedroom. “I’ve been running all day,” he said. “No lunch, no breaks. Thought I’d pack and spend the next hour returning ph
one calls.”

  “First, let me tell you what I’ve learned.”

  “Okay, but let’s talk in the kitchen.”

  He opened the refrigerator and retrieved a hunk of cheese and an apple. While he munched, I filled him in on my conversation with Sofia.

  “I fear Sharlana’s dead,” I began. “She overheard Bea and Gator arguing. Sounds like Bea blurted out the killer’s name. Instead of calling the cops, Sharlana confided in Sofia, who blabbed to a woman she called her ‘housemother.’ Anyway, the news got relayed to the girl’s so-called sponsor. A hundred to one, it’s Kain.”

  Braden put down his half-eaten apple. “You’re tossing out a lot of conjecture. Any facts?”

  “No, but that doesn’t mean I’m wrong. I figure Bea’s outburst prompted Kain to contract her murder, psycho-style, to keep cops looking for a madman. He probably arranged a less spectacular end for Sharlana. Bizarre murders on two islands the same night would puncture his single-madman smokescreen. Especially if anyone connected Bea’s death with her maid’s. I’ll bet Sharlana’s body is never found.”

  Braden hoisted his eyebrows to mid-forehead. “Let me make sure I understand. You’re saying the Dear murders are tied to modern-day slavery? And Kain Dzandrek is your candidate for a Polish Simon Legree?”

  “Yes.” I ignored his mocking skepticism.

  He shrugged. “Your so-called slavery may be legit. Think about it: your version of reality comes courtesy of a naive orphan speaking pidgin Polish, and Kain Dzandrek isn’t the only Pole on the East Coast.”

  I tried to interrupt. “But…”

  He held up a hand. “Don’t get me wrong. I’ll grant you that Kain’s bent. But I don’t buy imported ‘guest workers’ as a credible motive for murder. Let’s say Kain furnished Dear with a dozen workers at less than minimum wage. Profits on a transaction like that wouldn’t pay the monthly electric bill on his mansion.”