Dear Killer (Marley Clark Mysteries)

by Lovely, Linda

  Braden’s head was cocked at a neck-wrenching angle, but he slept, too. Dark circles shadowed his eyes. Otherwise he appeared none the worse for wear. In fact, the emerging stubble looked sexy, a dash of Miami Vice to flavor his rough-and-tumble good looks.

  Thank God. They’re both alive.

  I fumbled for my watch on the bedside table, and noticed Braden’s wallet, lying open. His young sons grinned at me. Was he studying their photos before he fell asleep, using the hospital’s tepid nightlights to memorize their happy faces? My watch clattered to the floor and woke Braden. Fortunately, Janie kept snoring.

  “Am I glad to see you,” I whispered. “Everything went okay last night?”

  He stood and leaned over my bed. He cupped my chin in his hand, and for a moment simply looked into my eyes. “Yeah. Good news.” He kissed my forehead. “We caught Hugh red-handed. And the sheriff arrested Gator and Sally. I’ll tell you everything but let’s not wake sleeping beauty.” He nodded toward Janie and awarded April a brief smile.

  “I’ll get a wheelchair and take you for a spin.”

  “I don’t need a wheelchair.” I flopped my legs over the side of the bed and prepared to stand.

  “You know that, and I know that,” he answered as he ran a playful finger down the drafty opening at the back of my hospital gown. “But it never pays to piss off a nurse. Besides I might get turned on if I walk behind you. Your bare ass hanging out for all to see, just asking to be grabbed.”

  He dashed off before I could clobber him. His absence gave me an opportunity to peek under the hem of my hospital sackcloth. Holy Toledo. My leg and side looked like a Jackson Pollack painting—massive blotches of purple shot through with a vile green. I twisted my arm to bring my elbow into view. More colors—bright red scrapes with contrasting brown scabs. I licked my dry and cracked lips.

  Oh my, I’m SO sexy.

  When Braden returned with a wheelchair, I eased onto the leather seat, more interested in hearing his story than winning a fight. We waved goodbye to April, and Braden rolled me down the hall to a tiny chapel. “It’s empty,” he said. “I checked.”

  “You said you caught Hugh. Did he confess? What about Kain?”

  Braden didn’t answer. The hospital setting apparently gave him an itch to play doctor, and the deputy concentrated on parts of my anatomy Dr. Danner had totally ignored. Now this is my idea of physical therapy. Yet I forced myself to swat his industrious hands away.

  “No fair,” I protested. “You brought me here under false pretenses. Talk. Besides I’m not sure I feel comfortable playing kissy-face in a chapel.”

  “God is love,” Braden murmured, his hands clasped in a prayerful pose.

  “Come on. Tell me what happened. Don’t tease.”

  Braden twirled one of the chapel’s padded folding chairs around and straddled it. “Okay, okay. I must say you’re a rather testy patient.”

  He kept his story short and sweet. In fact, I had to beg for every tidbit. Maybe he felt uncomfortable telling a story in which he starred as hero. Or perhaps he didn’t want my heart to fibrillate over dangers past. At any rate, I finally wrenched a barebones synopsis out of him.

  To disguise himself for the rendezvous, Braden donned a maintenance uniform and pulled a cap over his buzz cut. Then he’d skulked in the riprap shadows at the marshy intersection of Dear Island and Mad Inlet. A few minutes before five, a boat coughed to life and chugged down Dear’s manmade canal. When the skiff reached the inlet, the driver cut the engine and floated in the shallows. Figuring that was his cue, Braden hunched over to shrink his silhouette to the dead guy’s height and splashed ahead.

  “I heard a voice say, ‘Hurry up, will ya? We have to get out of here.’ I couldn’t believe our luck. Our water taxi driver turned out to be Hugh. By the time he realized I’d taken the place of Asshole Assassin, it was too late. The sheriff and Chief Dixon roared in like a Coast Guard SWAT team making a million-dollar drug bust.

  “Unfortunately the idiot ignored the sheriff’s order to put up his hands,” he added. “When Hugh reached in his jacket, Conroy shot him. He’s alive but in a coma. They took him to Charleston for surgery.”

  No real need to ask my next question. If Kain were in jail, Braden would have led with the headline. “You said you arrested Gator and Sally. What about Kain?”

  Braden frowned. “Gone. His house was empty. The sheriff found nothing—until he looked in the freezer. Your Mr. Underling was inside, a bullet hole in place of his left eye. Kain wrapped butcher paper around the head and printed a note: ‘One Polesicle. Employees should aim to please.’ Guess he was unhappy his hit man missed you.”

  Bile rose in my throat. “He killed his own man? And left him where it would incriminate him? That makes no sense. He’s been super careful to make sure evidence points away from him.”

  Braden shrugged. “We figure he’s disappeared for good—at least in his Kain Dzandrek incarnation. Gator and Sally were no help. Lawyered up and didn’t admit a thing. Said they’d never met anyone named Kain.

  “Sheriff Conroy wants Kain real bad. We heard a man fitting his description chartered a private jet to Miami. Conroy must have made twenty calls to friends in Florida. And, just in case that plane was a decoy, he phoned every law enforcement buddy up and down I-95. He has folks looking high and low, covering boats, airports, train stations. No one has a clue.”

  I read the verdict in his face. “You don’t expect anyone to find him, do you?”

  “No. He probably called in some chips of his own. It’s tough to catch homegrown mobsters, especially rich ones. With Kain’s international connections, it’s worse. From Miami, he could have flown anywhere in a private jet. He could be drinking vodka martinis in Chechnya or Uzbekistan.”

  I hesitated to ask my last question—unsure I wanted an answer. “Will Kain come back?”

  “Not if he’s smart. Looks like he had a big operation. In all probability Dear was one of several money-laundering options. He can afford to leave some money on the table. I think it’s safe to say we’ve seen the last of that monster.”

  Neither of us spoke for a minute. Braden sighed, and I reached out to touch his cheek. The bristles were softer than I expected.

  “Thank you,” I said softly. “I know you’re exhausted. The last thing you needed was to doze in a hospital chair. Why don’t we see about springing me? Who knows, maybe we can engage in some physical therapy—the mutual kind?”

  “Now you’re talking.” A slow smile rekindled the warmth in his eyes.

  ***

  At the nurse’s station, we badgered a young woman into phoning Dr. Ernie Danner. He was not only ex-Army, but the big brother of my Beaufort-bred friend Brenda. Small-town living has its privileges, and despite the county’s rapid expansion, Beaufort still functioned as an upscale village. I unabashedly exploited my connections.

  It was early Sunday morning, and the hospital was as quiet as a morgue. That made Janie’s scream sound like a tornado-warning siren.

  Braden drew his gun, and I kicked aside my wheelchair for a sprint to her room. A trailing nurse came in dead last in our heat.

  As we burst through the door, I scanned the room for danger. The stark white cubicle offered no hiding places for a new hit man. Janie and April were the sole occupants.

  Sobs racked Janie’s body.

  Her sister rhythmically patted her back. “You’re okay, Janie. You’re okay.”

  When my neighbor looked up and saw Braden and me, her agitation intensified. “He tried to kill me. Did you catch him? Oh please tell me you caught him. And Gator—that pile of manure—he lent him my spare set of keys.”

  Realizing her patient was in no immediate danger, the nurse turned a withering scowl on Braden and his gun. “You should all leave.” She wrestled a blood pressure cuff on her patient. “She doesn’t need this excitement.”

  Braden peered at her nametag. “Ms. Johnson,” he began, his tone even icier than the nurse’s. “This is police b
usiness. We’ll leave if a doctor tells us to.”

  He turned to Janie, and his voice softened. “You can stop worrying. Your attacker’s dead. Marley made sure he won’t hurt anyone ever again. Gator and Sally are in jail, and Hugh’s in a coma, locked in a prison hospital ward.”

  Nurse Johnson glared at us while she timed her patient’s pulse.

  “Thank God,” Janie muttered with an involuntary shudder.

  Braden eyed her carefully. “You up to telling us what happened? Or do you want to rest? This can wait.”

  Janie shook off the nurse. “I want to talk.” She bit off her words as she pushed herself upright. “I know I should have returned your call, Marley, but I figured it’d be almost as quick to drive to your house. That cocksucker was hiding in the back seat of my car. He put a gun to my head and told me to drive to the golf maintenance shed. Once the car was hidden by the building, he clubbed me.” She cast a surly look at the nurse. “How do you crank this bed up? I want to sit.”

  Miffed at her rebellious patient, the nurse plunked the motorized control in Janie’s hand, turned on her heel and stomped out. “I’ll give you five minutes,” she called over her shoulder.

  Janie took a deep breath. “When I came to, it was dark. I was naked, tied to my own bed, and scared spitless. He told me I had a choice. I could drink some nasty concoction or he’d slit my throat. The miscreant said he’d prefer the latter. The way he licked his lips, I believed him.

  “So I drank the crap. He’d poured it into my ‘I may rise, but I refuse to shine’ mug. It tasted like boiled manure. It was so hot I scalded my throat.”

  She swallowed hard and pulled the blankets tighter around her.

  April interrupted. “Sis, you don’t need to talk about this. It’s upsetting you.”

  “Upsetting me?” she exploded. “Talking about it is nothing. I can still see his freakin’ yellow teeth, grinning while he tightened the scarves around my wrists and stared at my boobs. I kept asking what he wanted, what he was doing. He just smiled.”

  She shuddered. I walked to the bed and squeezed her hand. When she looked up, her face communicated rage and terror. The kind that washes over you in uncontrollable tremors after you realize that tractor-trailer missed flattening you by an inch.

  “I was certain he’d rape me. All I could think about was staying alive.” She spoke in little more than a whisper. “Once I was bound, he took out a knife. He slid it over my skin like he was imagining carving me up. He kept smiling. Oh, man, he enjoyed me being helpless. I’m glad he’s dead.”

  Janie stopped. She gave her head a tiny shake as if that might dislodge her hellish memories. “I’m not sure what happened after that. It’s muddled. Next thing I remember is waking here, and April saying, ‘You’re okay. No one can hurt you.’ Then some doctor took my pulse and told me I was a lucky, young lady. I thought ‘yeah, right.’ But I guess I am.”

  When she paused, April poured her some water. “Sis, come stay with me for a few days. My manager can run the club. Hell, it runs itself. I’ll keep you company.”

  She gave her sister a wan smile. “Why not?”

  Perhaps it was Janie’s window-rattling scream or maybe it was Braden’s fast draw with a gun, but the staff at Beaufort Memorial seemed eager to expel us. Dr. Danner gave a special dispensation to hasten our departure. Of course, we still had to sign stacks of disclaimers reproduced in seven-point-type.

  Midway through the paperwork, Janie let out another anguished yelp. “Oh my God. I just remembered my attacker booted Pussy outside. She must be frantic. I have to get to Dear.”

  “No you don’t,” I said. “Go home with April. We’ll find Pussy and take care of her.”

  “That’s a promise,” Braden added. “Let April look after you. The sheriff’s going to need an official statement, and the logistics will be easier if you’re not marooned on Dear.”

  He paused a beat. “I do have one question though, why did Kain decide you needed killing?”

  Janie barked a short laugh. “I was so intent on snooping it never dawned on me that someone might poke around my office. I’d doodled questions about Kain, Gator and Sally. Drew little arrows between victims and my suspects. And I made a list of real estate documents to dredge up and study. Gator found the notes tucked under my blotter. He wasn’t amused.

  “The creep who attacked me did pass along my boss’s regrets,” she added. “I hope Gator rots in jail. I’ll send the bastard notes once a month, saying how I regret that he’s a slimy son of a bitch and that Ralph Lauren doesn’t do prison stripes.”

  Braden’s question prompted one of my own. “You told me Kain paid off Hugh’s gambling debt in exchange for ammunition to blackmail Sally and Gator. What terrible secrets did Hugh know about your bosses?”

  Janie smiled. “Hugh and Gator were fishing buddies…and you know how Gator likes to play big shot. While they trolled for drum fish, my old boss yakked about his wheeler-dealer doings. He told Hugh how he and Sally bumped up property values, using employees as shills. Worse, he spilled the beans that he and Sally were set to bail out of their real estate investment trust before other investors realized it was in the toilet.”

  She shrugged. “Gator and Sally knew they’d go bankrupt if word got out. They’d lose Dear and a chance that the Beach West profits might make them whole again. Based on what I overheard, Kain roped them in gradually. First with the guest worker gig, then money laundering and the land flip. He promised millions in profits and Woody as an expendable scapegoat when the mortgages proved bogus.”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Braden and I caught the eleven-thirty ferry to Dear. The passenger seated across from us seemed engrossed in a tabloid story. I read the headline—“Widowed Granny Steals Bobcat, Beheads Killer”—and groaned.

  Geesh. My Bobcat assault didn’t sever the guy’s head, and “widowed granny?”—puh-leese. Though happy to claim Jeff’s grandchildren as my own, the verbal packaging suggested a frail old lady with loose dentures and a walker.

  Since it was Sunday, I half expected the island to be quiet. Unfortunately, word of our return had drawn out the reporter vultures. To save our carcasses, we literally ran for our car, and barricaded ourselves in my house.

  While I exchanged my bloodied uniform for jeans and a sweatshirt, Braden gave the heave-ho to a brazen hussy who pressed her nose against a windowpane on my back deck. Next he called Chief Dixon, who took pity and ordered security to chase away stalkers. The deputy also taped “Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted” warnings to the front and back doors.

  Once the reporters slunk away, we tiptoed outside to look for Pussy Galore. Janie’s cat snoozed in a patch of sunlight on my neighbor’s stoop. The Persian eyed me suspiciously when I opened Janie’s door and shooed her inside. But she purred approval once I perfumed the air with tuna treats.

  I immediately rang Janie to say her kitty was safe. My friend appeared on the rebound. Though seventy miles from Dear, she’d begun orchestrating the island’s resurrection. “I had our Sunday receptionist post a sign that our real estate office will reopen tomorrow,” she told me. “I also asked our resort manager to pretend it’s business as usual. Renters need to check in and out no matter who’s in the pokey. I’ll drive to Dear tomorrow to help sort things out.”

  I laughed. “You’re a marvel. Just don’t overdo it.”

  “Hey, I have an ulterior motive. I’ve seen developers go under before. Some creditor eventually stakes a claim, and the guy who’s put in charge is always clueless. I plan to make sure the bumpkin realizes I’m indispensable. By the by, our resort manager says the bridge is opening to one-lane traffic tomorrow. Life is returning to normal.”

  With Pussy safe, Braden and I returned to our hermitage. I turned off the telephone ringer and set the answering machine to pick up first ring. Then we closed every drape, reluctantly shutting out the comforting warmth of the April sun.

  I felt tired and sore, a little closer to that little old widder lady than I
wanted to admit. Braden was on his cell phone tying up loose investigative ends.

  He smiled when he hung up from his last call. “They served search warrants on all the suspected off-island crooks—appraiser Clay Jacobs, mortgage broker Zach Antolak, and Michael Beech, Esq., attorney at law—and they even found a paper trail. Best of all, Beech played the fool and acted as his own counsel. He sold out his co-conspirators.”

  “Terrific,” I replied. “But still no promising leads on Kain?”

  “No.” He shook his head.

  I tried to keep my expression neutral. No need for him to see the fear mixed with my disappointment. “I’m going to soak in the tub. Try to work out some stiffness.”

  “I have to make one more call,” Braden said. “Then I hope to get rid of a little stiffness myself. How about we meet between the sheets in, say, fifteen minutes?”

  I slipped out of the bath and gingerly patted myself dry. Having caught another glimpse of my multicolored hyena hide in the mirror, I avoided further scrutiny and hurried to my horizontal refuge. I’d stripped the bed yesterday and now reaped my reward. When I purchased Egyptian cotton sheets, I felt a twinge of guilt about the extravagance, despite the eighty percent off price. Today the cool caress felt worth every penny. Braden’s voice floated in and I smiled, thinking delicious thoughts about his mischievous grin, sexy hint of a beard and bedroom eyes.

  That’s how I fell asleep, and Braden, a gentleman through and through, didn’t wake me. I had no such compunction when I crawled to consciousness and realized I was as randy as an eighteen-year-old. Naturally, it was the deputy’s fault. We were tucked in a lover’s spoon, nude, of course. His arm draped across my waist, and my bottom snugged against his body. His dream had to be erotic. Unconsciously the deputy pressed me tighter against a silken hardness each time he drew breath. If he was having one of those dreams, we might as well both enjoy it.

  Slowly I lifted his arm and shifted to face him. I keep my fingernails neatly trimmed, but they’re plenty long enough to skip tauntingly over warm flesh. I hop scotched a wicked little tap dance down his chest and continued the sensory wake-up call along his thighs. Meanwhile I used my tongue to dash out an added SOS on one of his nipples.