The Gift of Grift

by Dixie Davis

  “Yes, sir,” Doris replied.

  This was his chance. “Any word what’s happening on the beach?”

  “Oh, Beth and Heidi were walking this morning and found someone — er, something?”

  Ray was pretty sure if he were Katie, Doris probably would have spilled the beans without him even asking. But he wasn’t Katie, so he had to prompt her further. “Any word on who it was? Anyone we know?”

  “Oh, they haven’t released the name.”

  “Ah, I see,” Ray said. His mind raced to find the right way to cajole the information out of her. “I just thought they wouldn’t keep something like that from you.”

  “Oh, no, I know. I just can’t comment until they contact his family.”

  Ray thought again of the children Brian had mentioned the day before. He’d never bought them anything since he stormed out before he finished shopping.

  Doris finished taking his information for the police report. Ray hoped that wouldn’t come back to bite him.

  But how could it?

  It was the last hour of the following business day when the bell clanged and Ray looked up to find Chief Branson walking in. “Howdy, Chip,” Ray chirped.

  Chip’s responding smile was strained. “How’s it going, Ray?”

  “You know how it is.”

  Chip nodded absently and turned to the display closest to the door. “Heard you called the station?”

  “Yeah. Guess you’re kind of busy though.” Ray had purposefully avoided the gossip today, still trying to shield Katie from the reality of what was going on practically right outside their door. Of course, the police had finished up their business on the beach already, so at least it had become easier in that respect.

  “Know anything about that?”

  Ray rounded the counter, putting distance between himself and the vent that led up to Katie’s room. “Only rumors,” he admitted. “Second- and third-hand at best.”

  Chip eyed the vent in the ceiling above the register. Apparently his mind was headed the same direction as Ray’s. “How’s Miss Katie today?” Chip asked.

  “Tired,” Ray confessed. He’d known Chip too long to pretend, but admitting to being tired was still socially acceptable. At least she was off oxygen these days.

  “What did she say about all this?”

  “Nothing.”

  Chip glanced at the vent again. Obviously he knew that Katie would have had something to say if she knew what had allegedly happened, even if all they had to go on were rumors.

  Ray moved further from the checkout and the traitorous vent. “It’s too much right now.” Although her condition wasn’t any more tenuous than it had been the day or even the week before, the last nine months had been much harder than the previous year. Dropping the glass the other day wasn’t the first incident with her hands.

  Chip, of course, understood Katie’s deterioration and its cause better than anyone. Ray didn’t even have to mention Debra’s name for him to understand.

  “I really don’t want to lay this at your door,” Chip said gently. As if he didn’t want to even say it. “With the way Miss Katie’s been this year.”

  Ray could only nod. He had to admit that Chip had been nicer to them and closer to them than he had in years over these last nine months. Almost as if they had two former sons-in-law.

  They needed all the support they could get these days.

  Chip heaved a sigh, dragging Ray back into the present as well. He pulled out a notepad and gestured at the buoy display. “Tell me about these.”

  “Katie just came up with those.”

  “They new then?”

  “We started stocking them last month.”

  “How are they selling?” Chip asked.

  Ray frowned. What did that have to do with anything? “Pretty well. We just introduced them last month, so it’s only been during the off-season.”

  Chip nodded and made another note, but it didn’t seem as though he were writing quite as much as that information would take. “Are these pretty unique, then? Not something you could get over at Eagles?”

  Ray managed not to scowl at the mention of the competitor chain. “Definitely not. Katie designed these herself and found a guy out in Hinckley to make them special.”

  The V between Chip’s eyebrows grew deeper. “So this is the only place I could buy something like this?”

  “Yes, sir.” Ray puffed out his chest a little.

  But Chip didn’t seem proud of their local interior design genius. He seemed . . . concerned. “I don’t want to upset Miss Katie.”

  Ray nodded his thanks.

  “How has business been this week?”

  “Not bad for the off-season. Even had some tourists.”

  Chip lowered his notepad. “How about Brian McMurray?”

  “Yes, he did come in.” Ray couldn’t keep the grim tone from his voice.

  “Sounds like there’s a story there.”

  “Well, he and this blonde young lady might have tricked me out of thirty dollars.”

  “What? Brian McMurray did? You’re sure he was involved?”

  “Unfortunately. They tried to double down and make it more, but — well, Katie said, ‘You can’t con an honest man.’”

  Chip gave a weak smile. “No, sir. Tell me what they did.”

  Ray recounted the two con jobs Brian and Judy had run. He even still had the notepad Judy had left her number on — upstairs with Katie.

  Chip barely wrote down a word. “Does Judy have a last name?”

  “Smith.” That wasn’t all that helpful. “She’s got short, blonde hair and big eyes. Like a young Sandy Duncan. And you know Brian.”

  “Yes,” Chip said slowly. “Did Brian or Judy buy any buoys?”

  “Yes, Judy bought one.”

  Chip wrote that down, too. “You said they’re selling well?”

  “Yes. Pam was in that morning and bought three, and I sold another yesterday to a tourist.”

  Chip also saw fit to write that down. That didn’t seem pertinent, unless that ruled out the people who’d bought buoys as thieves. You could only use so many in decorating one house, after all.

  “How about before this week? Anyone else you might have sold them to?”

  Ray held out helpless hands. “I don’t have those kinds of records, sorry.” And he certainly couldn’t remember everyone who’d been through in the last month.

  Chip accepted that with a nod and turned back to the display. “Made out of a four by four, are they?”

  “Yes.”

  “Solid wood?”

  “Yep.”

  Chip lifted one by the rope as if calculating its weight. “Some good heft on them. They all use this rope?”

  “Uh huh.”

  Chip grimaced and finally replaced the buoy he was examining.

  “Is that a problem, officer?” Ray teased.

  Chip didn’t return the grin. “I hope not.”

  Something about Chip’s expression sent Ray’s stomach toward his knees. “You . . . hope not?”

  Chip shifted his weight, drawing himself up taller. Ray couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but something about his stance definitely changed this from a casual visit to see about these stolen buoys to official police business. “Yesterday, we found a body on the beach.”

  “So I saw.”

  “When?”

  Ray shrugged. “I was there when you talked to the crowd and sent them away.”

  Chip nodded.

  “Rumor seemed to say it was Brian McMurray.”

  Chip winced, and Ray sensed that Chip didn’t want to give out that information. Or rather, Ray sensed he was right about the victim’s ID, but Chip didn’t want to confirm it.

  “I’m sorry to hear about it if it is.”

  Chip’s nod was almost imperceptible. “The victim was beaten with a blunt object.”

  Ray’s heart fell. “Murder, then?”

  “So it would seem. Unless he beat himself to death.”<
br />
  Yes, that was pretty unlikely. “Do you have the murderer yet?” Ray tried very hard to keep his focus on Chip and not glance toward the door or the window that faced the Mayweather House across the street. Lori wasn’t there anyway. Chief Branson was the best they had.

  Chip looked away, his lips pressed together as though every word pained him. “I really didn’t want to do this, not now, not with Miss Katie. I know everything to do with me is kind of a tough topic these days.”

  “It’s nothing personal. We’re . . . we’ll come around.”

  Chip gave him a pained smile. “I’m afraid I don’t have any good news for you today.”

  “News?” Surely they couldn’t have found the stolen buoys yet. “About what?”

  Chip’s smile grew more pained and less smiley.

  Ray folded his arms and frowned at Chip like the chief of police was a misbehaving teenager. “You might as well come right out and tell me what the problem is, son.”

  “Ray,” Chip said, fully leveling with him. “The medical examiner says the blunt object was a four by four. And they found fibers from a jute rope.”

  Ray found himself swallowing very hard. “Like one of our buoys, you’re saying.”

  “There was also paint transfer on the victim.” After a long moment, Chip finished, “The same colors as these.”

  Ray took a step back, as if he could distance himself from the truth. “So you think someone who bought a buoy here killed Brian McMurray?”

  Chip started to answer but caught himself. Ray realized his mistake — he wasn’t trying to get more information out of Chip or trick him into admitting it was Brian out there on the beach. “We just want to know if anyone else bought buoys.”

  Ray tried to recall the sales figures on the buoy. They’d sold dozens over the last month, but at least half of them had been to people who had just been passing through. He had no hope of recalling their names or even faces.

  Worse yet, the other half were to people he did know well. Some of them had been around long enough to remember before Brian left. Could one of them actually murder the man?

  And why? Ray wasn’t much for gossip, but he didn’t know of any whispers around Brian over the last few decades, and he usually caught wind of all the major goings on.

  Wait, hadn’t there been one rumor about Brian dying, years ago?

  Chip was still staring at him, but Ray had nothing else to offer him. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Ray,” Chip said, treading as carefully as if he were walking on quicksand. “But where were you yesterday from about six a.m. to eleven a.m.?”

  “Here. I opened the shop at ten.”

  “Can anyone vouch for you?”

  “Katie and I had breakfast at eight, and a couple of tourists were in shopping first thing.”

  Chip furrowed his brow. “Before that? After?”

  Ray glanced at the ceiling. “Can’t say exactly.” Katie had heard him around the shop, probably, but unless he’d been talking to himself, she couldn’t have been sure whether it was him or someone else, or even a wild animal in the shop below her. “You’re not saying I’m a suspect, are you?”

  Chip looked fully chagrinned now. “Not really, no. I mean, I know you wouldn’t do this, not in a million years. But you do have the means.”

  Of course he had access to the buoys. Dozens of them. Maybe hundreds.

  “And the opportunity.”

  Because he couldn’t back up his alibi.

  “And the motive.”

  Because Brian had run one-and-a-half cons on him, an old family friend.

  As Ray filled in each blank, nausea filled in his middle. Chip couldn’t possibly see him as a murder suspect, could he? After all he’d forgiven Chip for, after all Katie had been through over the last decade? How dare he. How dare Chip come in here and say anything of the kind.

  “Chip,” Ray said in a voice coated in ice. “You of all people should know how I handle conflicts. Did I beat you to death thirty-six years ago?”

  Chip’s cheeks colored and his gaze immediately fell. He didn’t have to answer.

  Ray was not placated. “Brian stole thirty dollars from me. That’s hardly worth killing someone over. I’ve lost a lot more than that over the years and managed not to murder anybody.”

  “I know,” Chip said, his voice barely a whisper.

  Ray’s anger cooled quickly at seeing the chief of police reduced to a penitent teenager, just like he had looked all those years ago.

  “If it means anything — although I’m sure it probably doesn’t,” Chip began, “I don’t actually think you did it. It’s just procedure.”

  “Hm.” That was a small consolation. If any at all.

  “But —” Chip took a deep breath and Ray braced himself for Chip to finish. “It would be best if you didn’t leave town any time soon.”

  Ray scoffed. Between caring for Katie, running the shop and watching over the bed and breakfast across the street, he hardly had any designs on a vacation. “Are you finished?”

  “Yes. Sorry.” Chip shuffled for the door.

  A pang of guilt struck Ray’s gut, but he wasn’t sure Chip deserved an apology yet. He could only hope they were far enough away from the vent that Katie hadn’t heard all this.

  By the time Chip left, it was nearly closing. Ray spent the last few minutes of the business day pacing the sales floor, neurotically straightening the same displays over and over again, even though not a one of them needed it.

  Their buoys used in a murder.

  Chip accusing him.

  Brian conning them.

  Brian murdered.

  Any one of those thoughts was enough to overwhelm him, so he kept moving forward. Or, rather, in circles around the small room that held all their merchandise.

  He counted the buoys on display again. How many had they sold altogether. Forty?

  Katie would know. If she was up to it, she’d go through the invoices, and he’d count inventory, and they’d figure out exactly how many they’d sold. Together, they could try to figure out everyone from town who’d bought a buoy.

  But did knowing who bought them matter when he’d had five of them stolen right off his porch right about the time the murder was committed?

  Finally, his watch beeped to remind him of closing. Ray immediately flipped the sign to CLOSED and locked up, switching off the lights on the sales floor.

  He busied himself in the kitchen, but their supply of wedding leftovers had finally begun to run thin. Unless Katie — or Ray himself, for that matter — wanted a dinner composed completely of sides, he was going to have to figure something else out. He hadn’t taken the time to run to the store yet. But maybe he should now.

  Anything if it meant not facing Katie’s inscrutable stare. She’d known something was up yesterday, and today she’d wheedle the story out of him, no matter what.

  A banging at the shop’s front door broke Ray’s concentration. He poked his head out of the kitchen. Through the glass shop door, he could see Kim Yates holding a large Styrofoam container.

  The owner of the Mimosa Café bearing gifts? The perfect distraction, hopefully with a bonus of dinner.

  Ray had had a decade of cooking dinner for himself and Katie, and he could make do every night of the week. But it was still much better when he didn’t have to.

  Ray hurried across the sales floor to unlock the door for Kim. She stepped into the shop and handed over the Styrofoam cylinder that was still radiating heat. “Loaded baked potato soup. Your favorite, right?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Ray chirped. It was a bit rich for Katie, but a few spoonfuls would round out the rest of their vegetable dinner nicely. “Thank you very much.”

  “Of course.” Kim glanced over her shoulder out the window into the dark beyond his porch. “You heard what happened on the beach yesterday, right?”

  Ray could only nod. Exactly the news he was trying to avoid. The Dusky Chronicle only came out three times a week. In the meantime, Kim
Yates singlehandedly spread the town’s news, it seemed. “Did you hear who it was?”

  “Possibly,” Ray said. “Mostly rumors, though.” Although Chip had all but confirmed those rumors just moments before.

  “Do you remember Brian McMurray?”

  “Sure. He was friends with Debbie and her crowd.”

  “Ah.” Kim nodded. They were a good ten years before her time — but, then, Kim had grown up on the other side of the county, so they would have been rivals anyway.

  “Did you know him?” Ray asked.

  “I knew his little sister.”

  Ray cringed. He’d forgotten there was more family than just Rita. “How’s she holding up?”

  “I haven’t heard yet, but I’ll find out.”

  He offered her a smile. “You’re sweet to take care of them.”

  Kim blushed slightly, her gaze on the floorboards. “Brian came into the café on Monday,” she said.

  “Oh, really?” Ray held off on mentioning his own visits from Brian.

  “Yeah. He asked for change for a twenty and somehow ended up conning me out of ten bucks.”

  Ray flinched. He hadn’t dared to hope he’d been the only victim of Brian’s con game. But if he’d gone all the way to the next block with his tricks . . . though that sounded like a different one than he’d tried at Ray’s. “What happened?”

  “I’m not totally sure, but I handed him his change, and he handed some of it back to get it in smaller bills, and somehow, he just kept talking and I got confused about how much I’d given him. He was gone before I realized half the money I’d just made change for was actually mine in the first place.”

  That trick sounded familiar. Slowly the recognition kicked in — wasn’t that what Ryan O’Neal pulled in Paper Moon?

  “Well, we both got taken in,” Ray confessed. “He recognized me, knew who I was, and still tricked me out of thirty dollars with the help of a blonde young lady. Would have been more, too, if he’d had his way.”

  Kim shook her head in wonder. “He knew I was one of Marie’s friends, and then stole money right out of my hands. Part of me isn’t even sorry something happened to him.”

  They both looked around as if suddenly worried the walls had grown ears.

  Kim gave voice to the next question that was nagging at Ray’s mind. “If he came all the way to the café to run his scams, do you think he hit the businesses in between?”