Dear Killer (Marley Clark Mysteries)

by Lovely, Linda

  I didn’t want to take that bet. I seized the loose, nail-studded board at my feet. It would have to do. I tightened my grip on my makeshift club and let out a war whoop. A second later I dropped onto Kain. His body cushioned my fall. He screamed and staggered to his feet. The collision had ripped the gun from his grasp.

  Now I had the only weapon. Batter up. The floorboard with its rusty nails found its mark, and Kain fell to the ground, shrieking. Only this time he rolled down the incline, headed directly to the waiting alligators.

  An animal roar filled the air, followed by an unearthly scream. “Help me. God, help me,” Kain pleaded. Was he talking to me or God?

  Was it a trap? What would happen if I went closer to the lagoon? Had he recovered his gun?

  I thought of Braden. The deadline. I turned my back on his screams and ran. I checked my GPS. The logger’s lane entered nearby. I sprinted, ignoring the jarring pain in my twisted angle. Yet every woodland rustle prompted a backward glance. I’d watched too many flicks where the heroine assumes the villain’s down only to have him materialize with an axe.

  Kain didn’t materialize.

  At eleven p.m., I streaked out of the woods and almost collided with a security patrol car. I pounded on the window with my fists. For a moment, I feared Chip would shoot before he recognized me. My lip was swollen and bleeding. My wet hair matted to my skull. Mud caked my ripped clothes. Panic drove my screams toward a glass-shattering pitch.

  “There’s a bomb. He locked Braden in a house with a bomb.”

  Chip radioed for help as we sped to Blue Crab Point. The next few minutes vanished in a blur. Chip beat me to the villa’s door and raced up the stairs. I heard Braden’s voice before I saw him. “Where’s Marley? Kain took her,” he yelled. “You have to find her.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m here.” I panted as I fell into the room. “Oh, thank God. You’re okay.”

  With Chip’s help, Braden shed the last of his ropes, and we held each other. I cried as Braden muttered, “Thank God. Thank God.”

  After a minute, Chip cleared his throat. “Folks, didn’t you say that’s a bomb?” He pointed at Kain’s handiwork. “What in blazes do we do?”

  “Get the hell out of here,” I answered. “Do either of you know squat about bombs? I don’t. Try to disarm it and we may set it off. This place could use a little redecorating.”

  The chief’s booming voice startled me. “Damn straight. Let’s go. Nothing here worth risking lives. We may not know about bombs on Dear, but we know plenty about evacuations.”

  I didn’t see the explosion. But the firemen, who waited half a mile away, weren’t impressed. They doused the flames inside an hour. Of course, the villa was toast.

  The chief, Braden and I had unfinished business, finding Kain.

  The alligators did not eat him. Even they had better taste. But one of them, startled or aggravated by his uninvited drop in, had chomped through an artery in Kain’s leg.

  Occasionally I wondered what Kain’s last thoughts were as he bled out. I hoped he died cursing me.

  When we found his body, my wicked mind thought of a fitting epitaph: Kain wasn’t Abel.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  When did I last attend an Easter sunrise service? I couldn’t remember. This year it felt essential. Braden groused about setting the alarm, but sensed the celebration’s importance. As we stood on a sandy rise, he leaned down to whisper in my ear. “You warm enough? Want my jacket?”

  An ocean breeze rustled the dune grasses in the damp pre-dawn. The air held a chill. “I’m fine.” I wrapped my arm around his waist and burrowed into his sweet warmth.

  Two weeks had passed since Kain bled to death.

  Thank God, the killer told me of his decision to spare Sharlana. Before carting Kain’s body away, the coroner emptied his pockets and found a slip of paper with a Miami address. When police searched the address, they found Sharlana. A pimp was softening her up with drugs before putting her on the street. Doctors thought she’d make a full recovery.

  The rescued flash drive proved a bonanza. Loaded with data about Kain’s criminal enterprise, it sparked dozens of arrests up and down the East Coast. It would be years before Sheriff Conroy collected all the favors law enforcement officers now owed him. The only puzzle was why Kain had entrusted the data to Hugh. Was Hugh acting as a courier, taking the data to another lieutenant? Or was it insurance—a way to keep potential traitors in line? No one knew. Hugh never came out of his coma before he died.

  Janie landed on her feet. Grace Cuthbert’s lawyer, who headed the creditor delegation rushing to Dear’s rescue, named her Managing Director. Now Janie had her chance to be the head cheese.

  Braden ran his hands up and down my arms to keep me warm. His touch thrilled me. I couldn’t wait for our vacation to begin. We both had a week off, starting tomorrow. We planned to explore the Lowcountry in style. Carriage rides through Beaufort’s historic neighborhoods. A boat cruise to Fort Sumter. A day poking around sprawling Middleton Place. Candlelight dinners in Savannah and Charleston. Lots of time in bed.

  I felt happy. We’d barely begun to share our pasts—bedtime stories told a little at a time. The future? Who knew? We agreed it would take care of itself.

  But, ah, the present was magic. Our deep affection eroded the guilt we’d each stockpiled. I helped Braden realize he shouldn’t be bullied by his ex-wife’s blame-game. He’d come to a decision. He would not let regret strip his sons of their birthright: a father’s love.

  In turn, Braden urged me toward my own absolution. My husband was dead. That didn’t make my desire wrong. With words and touches, we reassured each other: we were worthy of love. I closed my eyes to say a little prayer.

  Braden nudged me. “Hey you’re not going to sleep, are you?”

  “No, I just remembered the Gullah word for dawn. Do you know it?”

  “No, but I’m sure you’ll enlighten me.”

  “It’s dayclean,” I said. “A wonderful image. A fresh start.”

  Bright reds and oranges danced in the clouds as the sun inched over the horizon. The choir began to sing. It would be a beautiful day at the beach.

  ***

  Don’t miss Marley’s next adventure, NO WAKE ZONE. The first chapter follows.

  NO WAKE ZONE

  ONE

  “Miss, Miss—are the crab puffs all gone?”

  I tightened my grip on the tray, wishing I held my Glock instead of a platter of tricked-out wieners. At the rate these folks snarfed hors d’oeuvres and champagne, they’d empty the galley before the midpoint in our afternoon lake cruise.

  “I’ll check, sir.”

  While answering the portly merrymaker, I spotted my cousin Ross in his crisp captain whites. His blue eyes twinkled, and his moustache quivered like a frightened chinchilla. What nerve. I’d tell him where to stuff his chuckle—and my frilly apron—the minute we docked.

  Ross grinned. He’d shanghaied a junior helmsman for backup so he could kibitz now and again with the well-heeled guests. “Having fun, Marley?” he whispered as he slid by me.

  He tossed off a two-finger salute and headed back to the wheelhouse. While Ross only pilots the Queen on special outings, today qualified. Jake Olsen, a tycoon the locals claim as one of their own, had chartered the double-decker excursion boat for a post-wedding reception.

  When a waiter called in sick at the last minute, I agreed to fill in, never dreaming Olsen’s newest wife—number three—would turn out to be Darlene Sherbert, an old college friend.

  As I trotted down the metal stairs to restock my tray a blur of red and black snagged my attention. Windmilling arms. Splayed legs. A body thudded against the lower deck railing a few feet to my left and ricocheted. My mind flashed on the image of a limp rag doll. A geyser sprayed me with cold rain as the body tumbled into the lake.

  Sweet Jesus. How long would it take Ross to stop the Queen?

  Please, God. Not another drowning. Could I save him?

  I threw
down my tray, toed off my deck shoes, and clambered over the railing. The water rushed by three feet below. I pushed hard with my feet for distance and dove.

  Knifing into what felt like an ice bath, I gasped. Big mistake. Water flooded my throat. I fought to the surface, and coughed up some of the inhaled water. Tremors shook my body. Screams from the Queen’s passengers blended with the seagulls’ raucous cries.

  I scanned the churning lake for a head breaking the surface, for a body, for anything human. Sunlight sparkling on the water blinded me. Was it a man or woman? The Queen’s wake flung me upward, and I spotted the victim a few yards away. The floater vanished as I descended into the wave’s trough. Head down, I swam toward the spot where a flash of red clothing last appeared.

  When my hand touched skin, I stopped mid-crawl and raised my head. The Queen’s wake made it tough to tread water. Had I gotten turned around? No. There he was. The man floated face down and bobbled like a cork. Well-toned arms stretched wide. A red silk shirt clung to his back, as revealing as plastic wrap. A swell flung him against me, and I seized a thick mat of white hair. My desperate yank flipped the body.

  Heaven almighty. Jake Olsen.

  Empty eyes told me I was too late. The man’s eyelids drooped at half-mast as though he could no longer resist sleep. A thin rim of faded china blue circled dilated pupils—black, lifeless holes. Disconcertingly the eyes had pinballed in opposite directions. It didn’t matter. Jake’s vision of this world was gone.

  With an arm tucked across his chest, I cradled his head to keep his lips above water. Lifesaving 101. Though I hadn’t been a lifeguard for thirty-plus years, it’s something you don’t forget.

  Wasted effort. Jake wouldn’t be organizing any more cruises or have a chance to introduce wife number four.

  My scissor kicks and feeble one-armed sidestroke kept us afloat. I pivoted to keep an eye on the Queen. A low growl escaped the engines. How long would it take Ross to slow and make the seventy-five-ton vessel heel?

  A lifeline buoy shot across the waves and skipped over the surface just out of reach. I kicked harder. Though I wore only thin slacks, a blouse and that damnable apron, the waterlogged apparel felt like chain mail. A desperate lunge brought the nautical ring within inches. Once my fingers snagged the rope netting, I looped my free arm through the buoy.

  Now I simply needed to hang on and prop up Jake’s head until help arrived. The frantic crew lowered a lifeboat. The dinghy swayed several feet above the lake’s surface before it plopped down with a theatrical splash. After what seemed an hour, but was more likely two minutes, the lifeboat pulled alongside.

  “We’ll take him, Marley,” shouted Carlos, a carnival roustabout Ross befriended years before.

  “Are you okay?” he asked as he hoisted the body. “We’ll pull you in next.”

  “I’m fine.” My teeth clattered like castanets. I clung to the gunnels while Carlos and another crewman checked Jake’s pulse and attempted to revive him. No dice. Carlos shook his head, then grabbed me under the armpits and hefted my body like a sack of potatoes.

  Panting. I collapsed. As the rescuers rowed, I managed a final look at Jake’s haunting visage before shifting my gaze to the idling Queen. A knot of nattily attired partygoers crowded the lower railing, while a parallel flock of wealthy gawkers elbowed each other for good balcony seats. Cell phones bristled like antlers among the herd.

  Who are they calling—their brokers?

  Then the realization hit—they were using the phones as cameras. I turned away. But not before I spotted my friend Darlene. Standing alone. Arms crossed as she hugged herself.

  My God. Her marriage had lasted one whole week. A sob caught in my throat. I knew too well how it felt to lose a husband. At least, I’d had sixteen years with Jeff.

  I’m so sorry, Darlene.

  As soon as the crew hoisted my soggy butt aboard the Queen, May claimed jurisdiction.

  “You’re a damned fool.” May shook her head as she tightened the blanket around my quivering body. “Only an idiot would do a swan dive off the Queen. What if you’d hit the side of the boat or a log? We’d have two corpses instead of one. Damned fool.”

  My seventy-nine-year-old aunt talked tough, but after decades on the receiving end, I knew her fierce bark to be colorful bluff. The tremble in her fingers and warble in her voice said fear for my safety, not pique over my idiocy, prompted her latest tirade.

  She loved me like a daughter. When Mom was alive, May offered to swap one of her three sons for my sister or me. That was Irish bluster. May Carr would do anything for her “boys”—now men creeping up on Social Security eligibility.

  May shepherded me to the wheelhouse, away from the morbid circus surrounding Jake. I let my aunt fuss. Arguing took too much energy, though I didn’t feel especially traumatized. Sitting around in wet clothes seemed a cakewalk compared to all too many of my experiences in the Army.

  Though I’d retired from the military, I still worked, sort of. My part-time gig as a security officer let me travel when the spirit moved me. This tenth day of June, the spirit—an impressive one in the form of Aunt May—had moved me to Iowa and the haunts of my youth to help arrange a combo birthday party/family reunion. May took the opportunity to observe that I’d had ample time to recuperate from my tangle with Dear Island’s psycho killer and my backside would spread to the size of Alaska, if I didn’t get off it and do something.

  When asked so sweetly, how could I refuse?

  I glanced at my aunt. White hair as wispy as cotton candy and deep crinkles around her blue eyes reminded me she’d turn eighty in two weeks. That fact dismayed me as much as it amused her. A two-time veteran of open-heart surgery, she’d outlived four siblings and her own longevity expectations.

  “Hell, people have tried to kiss me goodbye so often, they’ve got chapped lips,” she quipped.

  A cold bead of water meandered from my hairline down my back. I used the towel May had commandeered to give my short hair a vigorous scrub.

  Jeez. My mind pattered about like an insomniac tap dancer. Guess it balked at focusing on the present. Who wouldn’t want to block out Jake Olsen’s walleyed death mask or Darlene’s sobs? Yet Jake’s death hadn’t brought on the bone-rattling shakes I’d experienced two months before when I’d found a friend dead in a Jacuzzi.

  Two big differences between the corpses. It appeared the Grim Reaper claimed Jake without a killer’s helping hand, and the tycoon was almost a stranger. We’d shared one quick handshake at a gala event at the Iowa Great Lakes Maritime Museum after Jake praised Ross as the nonprofit’s amiable leader. I’d instantly liked the philanthropist for that.

  Still the image of Darlene standing alone at the Queen’s railing made me shudder. Once we reached port I’d ask how I could help. We hadn’t spoken since our brief reunion at the start of the cruise. After whooping with delight at seeing me, she’d whispered, “Some wedding reception. These people are all Jake’s business cronies. You’re my only friend here.”

  With a shake of my head, I tuned back into the conversations swirling around me. Radio in hand, Ross alerted various authorities about the accident. May pasted her cell phone to her ear and issued marching orders to her daughter-in-law, Eunice.

  “Find some dry clothes, too,” she suggested. “Marley looks like a drowned squirrel. Maybe sweats from Ross’s locker. She’d never fit in your clothes.”

  Unfortunately, May was right. She called them like she saw them.

  My aunt toyed with a clip-on pearl earring as she talked. “We need to keep the bulls separated from the cows. Let’s set up the museum theater for Jake’s guests and try to corral the reporters in the museum proper until we see what’s what.”

  She paused, her forehead wrinkled in concentration. “Imagine the authorities will need a space, too. Maybe the boardroom? Oh, better order sandwiches from Yesterdays, and start some coffee.”

  May stuffed her cell phone back in a pocketbook large enough to double as a body bag and pa
tted my hand as the Queen made stately progress across a six-mile stretch of West Okoboji. High speed isn’t an option for a double-decker tour boat ferrying more than a hundred passengers.

  “Do you honestly expect a reporter stampede?” I asked. “The local paper has what, a five-person staff?”

  She speared me with a look. “You didn’t see the vultures descend when that plane crashed over in Clear Lake with Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper aboard. I was visiting folks over there at the time. Believe me, reporters will swarm out of the woodwork like termites. Jake’s worth a billion.”

  I choked. “Holy kamole.” I tried to watch my language around May. “After I met the man at that museum benefit, Ross told me Jake was wealthy. But he never mentioned Jake’s bank account boasted that many zeroes.”

  Having set foot in Iowa twenty-four hours ago, I was way behind on lake gossip.

  “Jake founded Jolbiogen and made fifty million when he took it public,” May said. “Just the beginning.”

  I slipped off my wet socks and wrung them, creating a miniature waterfall. “A billion dollars. Wow. I’d be hard-pressed to spend a million.”

  “Well, kid, I hear Jake’s family rolls up their sleeves to help.”

  My aunt often calls me “kid.” While it may not be the most accurate handle for a Midwestern-bred baby boomer, May’s use of the moniker makes me smile.

  When Ross put down his radio, my aunt tapped him on the shoulder. “D’you hear me talking with your bride? You need to radio Carlos. Tell the sheriff, we’ll shepherd the passengers into the theater and attempt to bottle the reporter vultures in the museum proper.”

  “Already done,” Ross said. “I also told Sheriff Delaney the boardroom was his. He wants to hold our passengers until he can get statements from everyone.”

  Beyond the wheelhouse window, Arnolds Park’s signature roller coaster steadily grew taller. The amusement complex over a century old provided a home to both the Maritime Museum and the Queen II, a replica of a famed steamboat that plied the lake in the 1800s.