by Karen Harper
“Yeah, whose plan, that’s the question,” Nick was saying. His voice jolted her back to reality. “Hey, I see someone on the dock, staring at the yacht, looking in,” he said, ducking down to look up. He started away, tucking in his shirt. “I don’t recognize him so sit tight,” he said over his shoulder. “It’s not Jace. Lexi and Nita went ashore, right?”
“They said they wouldn’t go far. They’re feeding seagulls along the shore, and Bronco’s with them. I’ve checked on them twice, once just a few minutes ago.”
Claire had the urge to have him dry his wet hair, but that sounded—well, too wifely, and she wasn’t ready to really be a wife yet. Was she? And did they have to be on edge every time someone stared at their big boat? If so, maybe they should anchor out a ways, but then, they’d just lost the motor for the dinghy they would need to get to the dock.
She pulled on a Windbreaker and followed Nick partway out to see who the pair of designer jean legs and spotless white, designer running shoes belonged to. She could hear their voices from here.
“Can I help you?” Nick asked the man.
“If you are Nicholas Markwood, yes. I’m Thom Van Cleve, the Ames High rep for the fountain water here. I’ve been trying to phone you, but all I get is your voice mail.”
“And you knew to find me here?”
“Haze Hazelton told me. I’m his liaison, so to speak. I wanted to ask you and your wife to meet me at the Snook Inn on Marco, but now that I’m here, is there someplace we can eat in the area? I’m only here for a short time, as usual.”
“Sure. My phone isn’t working right now. Come aboard down there at the gangway, and we can eat here. I appreciate getting to meet one of the Ames High reps.”
Claire kept herself from making the gag-me-with-a-spoon gesture when Nick walked back toward her.
“So,” she said, keeping her voice down, “if he was trying to phone you, maybe he’s not behind our being dunked or he’d figure we might have lost our phones. Nick, we need cell replacements pronto. I told Nita and Bronco they could always reach me at my number, anytime and for anything at all.”
“Let’s feed this guy and hear him out. How about you walk down to get Lexi, Nita and Bronco back on board, then email Heck on your laptop and tell him we need cell replacements fast with the same phone numbers. Then join me and this Van Cleve guy. And I’m counting on you to listen to and psych out every word he says.”
* * *
Jace was frustrated. Claire was not answering her phone when he thought she’d understood he wanted to pick up Lexi soon for some private time with his daughter. If Claire thought not answering her phone was going to delay his request, that really upset him.
He drove to the Crayton Cove dock in Naples where the Sylph had been moored. Nothing at all in its spot. Gone. What if Claire and Lexi were in danger again?
He’d been told by Thom Van Cleve that he could phone him if there was any problem or change of schedule. He was supposed to fly him over to Miami this evening, evidently to meet a tanker truck of the so-called youth water that was being shipped over. But if he phoned him now, he could call in a favor. Since the guy worked for Ames, he probably knew exactly where Markwood had moved the big boat with his daughter on it. He didn’t want to have to tangle with attorney Markwood about visitation rights, but he would if he had to. He loved Lexi. Damn it, he might even still love Claire.
He scanned his phone for Van Cleve’s number and punched it in.
“Thom Van Cleve here.”
“It’s Jace, your pilot. Look, I need to know where Nick and Claire Markwood are now because they have my daughter. I mean, I—”
“Just a moment.”
Jace could hear muted words while he said to someone, “Excuse me, please, but I need to take this call.”
A moment more. “Yes, Jace. If I tell you, you will put off a visit until tomorrow. Understood?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“We all follow orders, you know.”
“I hear you.”
“And you will not divulge your source for that information. You can say you just checked area marinas.”
“Agreed.”
“They’re docked on Goodland at the south marina, not the one with the charter fishing boats. Keep calm. Actually, Markwood told me their phones fell in the water and are out of order right now. Not until tomorrow, Jace, and I’ll see you promptly at eight tonight for the Miami flight.”
“Roger that. All of that.”
Jace punched off. It made him feel better that Claire, Nick too, had lost their phones, so it wasn’t that they were just avoiding him, keeping him away. He knew they were under pressure to work for Ames to keep themselves and Lexi safe, but he was also in danger. He had to hang on and pretend to play along until he could find a way to stop that monster too, but, above all else, he wanted to see Lexi.
* * *
“Quite frankly,” Van Cleve told them over crab po’boy sandwiches and lemonade in the dining room of the yacht, “our mutual friend wants to know if you need any assistance on setting up the case to defend Hazelton or prepare promotion for the fountain water.”
Claire thought this man spoke with a Boston accent. Besides, his word choice and allusions suggested an East Coast education. Then too, only she and Darcy would pick up on the Charles Dickens allusion, since “our mutual friend” was the title of a Dickens novel. Funny, Claire thought, but that book was all about money and what it could do for and to people. And it opened with a body being found in the Thames.
But this stranger couldn’t mean any of that. Here their mother had read to them all the time, and Claire realized she hadn’t read Lexi a book since they’d been on board. But she and Nick were going to take her to see the burrowing owl colony on Marco tomorrow and then to Tigertail Beach for a swim. She just had to get her mind back on this visitor and off worrying about Lexi. But the child had suffered another bad dream last night, one in which she was taken in a boat and was drowning. Now that Lexi had heard about a boat almost hitting theirs and that they had gone in the water, would that produce more shrieking nightmares tonight? Claire tried to force her mind off her fears, but her own childhood with dreadful dreams haunted her yet.
“We are laying the groundwork for a trial if it comes to that,” Nick told Van Cleve.
Their guest was, Claire thought, elegant-looking, too well-dressed for around here, and his manners, even eating a sandwich with chunks of crab, were impeccable. Ames managed to find people, anyone he needed, she thought. But why send this man as Haze’s contact instead of some good old boy or “Bubba” who would fit right in around here? This guy stood out like a manicured sore thumb.
“And it should, it must, come to a trial, one you will win,” Van Cleve said, wiping his mouth with his napkin. “Of course, I can see why you’d investigate other locals who hated Mark Stirling, as it may help you defend Haze. But this information will give you a platform we can expand through the media. Since I’m sure you are also preparing your very public defense of the Youth products, I’ve brought you some statistics and strategies that may help when you have the floor in the trial.”
From the inner pocket of his sport coat, he removed a thin packet of papers and slid them across the table to Nick. “Of course, any testimonials you have at the time will be invaluable also. Take a close look at that Seminole woman who has, perhaps unwittingly, used the water for years.”
Claire gave a little gasp, but Van Cleve kept up his staring match with Nick and didn’t seem to notice.
“You know,” their guest said, with a quick glance at Claire too, “that Las Vegas and TV magician David Copperfield claims to have discovered the fountain of youth in a cluster of four islands in the Bahamas that he recently purchased for fifty million dollars. He insists dead leaves become full of life again when they come in contact with the water. He
says bugs or insects that are nearly dead will fly away. Now, if someone like a performer, an entertainer and illusionist can tout his phony fountain, I’m sure a clever lawyer can promote our real one here.
“And I do owe you two dinner on Marco or in Naples next time I’m here,” he said, laying his folded napkin next to his plate and rising. “Maybe something with French or Italian ambiance instead of South Shores, eh?”
Claire sensed Nick bristle, but he hid it well. Was this man alluding to Nick’s private endeavor to help those who might be accused of suicide but had actually met an accident or been murdered? If Thom Van Cleve was lying, she couldn’t pick up on verbal or body language signs. She only sensed his superior attitude and subtle do-it-or-else demeanor that reeked of Clayton Ames himself.
* * *
Nick drove into the office again the next morning, while Claire worked on the yacht. She’d read Lexi a bedtime story last night, and the girl had slept well, though Claire had tossed and turned. Why hadn’t her narcolepsy med knocked her out so she could sleep? Her mind had been working overtime... Nick was right down the hall and she could go to him... Someone had tried to make them leave the area... Van Cleve with ice water in his veins had tried to imply something that had certainly crossed her mind: Wasn’t Ada Cypress a lot older than she looked? Claire would have to revisit her soon.
But this morning, though loggy and drowsy, Claire had managed to do some work on the new cell phone Heck had brought and programmed for her so it matched her other. She had phoned the Conservancy of Southwest Florida in Naples, an institution that protected and rehabilitated injured wildlife, to ask about Maggie Hazelton’s visit with them the day Mark Stirling died. It was a simple piece to the puzzle she hoped to find: Had Maggie, who obviously hated Stirling as much as her husband did, had time to slip away from her talk there? Could she have driven back to Goodland or at least partway, got her hands on a boat and had time to confront and maybe kill Mark? But how had she lured him out into the remote Ten Thousand Islands?
“Oh, no, Maggie Hazelton didn’t drive away for any length of time on that afternoon she spent with us,” the lady from the conservancy told her over the phone.
Well, there went that theory, Claire thought, until the woman added, “She didn’t drive at all, you see, but came by boat and left by boat—had someone pick her up in the Gordon River to leave us, rather in a rush too, something about someone bothering the owl colony on Marco, the very one she showed us photos of.”
So Maggie was a possible suspect! Or maybe she’d worked with Haze to get rid of Mark.
Claire couldn’t wait to tell Nick. And here Lexi was so excited to see those very owls and go swimming at Tigertail Beach. But Claire didn’t want to dump that on him the moment he came back to the yacht, which should be any minute now. Claire decided she would just keep the new perp possibility ready to share with Nick tonight when she told him she also intended to revisit Ada Cypress.
* * *
As soon as Nick returned, Nita, as everyone aboard called her now, was going to have some time off, but Lexi was with her nanny right now, learning some Spanish words. So Claire, ready to head out with a sundress on over her bathing suit, sat up on the deck by the gangway, waiting for Nick. But it was another tall man, a good-looking African American, who came walking up the marina dock.
“Knock, knock,” the stranger called out to her. “Mrs. Nick Markwood, I presume?”
Claire stood and looked over the rail to where the man waited on the dock several feet below her. For one moment she hesitated to say who she was. Neither she nor Nick had managed a decent look at the person who had nearly hit them with the WaveRunner yesterday.
But before she could answer, he said, “I’m Wes Ringold, the new editor of The Burrowing Owl. Of dire, sad necessity, I took over for Mark Stirling. I would have asked for an interview sooner, but I had a death in the family—my father out in Colorado—and just got back. I’m writing a memorial article about my dad as well as one about Mark.” His voice broke and he made what seemed a sincere effort to get his emotions back in check.
She gave him a moment to compose himself. Before she could speak, he went on, “You are one half of the team on the Mangrove Murder investigation, aren’t you? You look like your photos from the courthouse tragedy a few weeks ago.”
“Yes, I’m Claire Markwood, but my husband’s not here right now, and I’m sure you’d rather talk to him.” She felt instantly grieved for the man’s losing his father as well as Mark Stirling. Wes seemed clever and friendly. He was loose-limbed and lanky with close-cut hair and sharp eyes once he whipped his sunglasses off to look up at her.
“I’d love to interview him also,” he told her, “but, in my book—well, now in my paper—a forensic psychologist interview would make for a better read than one with a lawyer. I mean, are you here to do what they call psychological autopsies on Mark or interviews on those of us who knew him? You see, I do my homework.”
“I’m sorry you lost your boss and, no doubt, mentor—and your father.”
He sighed. “Yes. Thanks. Too many losses of men I looked up to in too short a time. So how about an interview?”
“I’m leaving for the afternoon soon. Perhaps at a later time?”
“Name it. And you’re not the only one around here no doubt looking for answers, so I’ll trade you a half-hour interview tomorrow for a piece of advice where to look.”
“Where to look? You do know how to bait a hook.”
“You’re a poet and don’t know it.”
He was clever and somehow instantly likable, so different from Thom Van Cleve. And he offered a hint about where to look? To look for a murderer?
“Well, then,” she told him, “I’ll drop by your office on Bald Eagle tomorrow morning, over on Marco. I do my research too, you see.”
“I’m honored. The hint—follow the path to the pot of gold and remember the luck of the Irish.”
“What?” she asked, wondering why he’d mention the Irish, of all things.
“I’ll explain it tomorrow when you drop by. See you then,” he said with a grin and went off whistling a tune she thought was “It’s A Great Day For The Irish.”
She stood there, leaning on the railing, racking her brain. The only Irish connection she could think of around here was Fin Taylor’s wife’s shop, so had Mark Stirling attacked that too? But someone had mentioned that the woman got discount ads in their paper.
Then she saw Nick coming with a huge bouquet of roses in his hands and forgot everything but being relieved and glad he was home—and that they were going out with Lexi for the afternoon, like a family.
17
“Oh, look at those little owls, Mommy and Nick!” Lexi’s high-pitched voice rang out. Claire put her finger to her lips to quiet the child.
They stood outside the ropes looking at a burrowing owl colony on Marco, one of many small ones scattered through the island. Two other families and a man with binoculars around his neck were already standing nearby as well as a woman speaking, who had introduced herself as a volunteer wildlife docent.
She was here, she said, to answer questions, but she seemed to talk all the time in a deep, scratchy voice. No doubt, she also guarded the site from trespass. She stood just inside the short wire fence, giving facts about the owls. Even as he listened, Nick’s mind wandered.
He supposed that Maggie Hazelton had assigned volunteers at many of the sites, especially those near high-traffic areas like this one. Though Maggie seemed admirable and altruistic, and Claire had said she didn’t want to ruin their day, she’d blurted out the fact that Maggie could have had time to meet and murder Mark. And that Wes Ringold, who’d inherited Mark Stirling’s newspaper, had dropped by. She was going to follow up on that by giving him an interview that, she promised, would also be an interview of him, whether he realized it or not. Real
ly, what a deal, Nick told himself, glancing at her sideways. A wife he loved and desired, and a forensic psychologist he needed, all in one beautiful package.
And he’d been amazed at how excited Lexi had been to be going to see birds and a beach. He’d forgotten the simple joys of childhood—except when he thought about the early days with his dad.
He rededicated himself again to somehow stopping Clayton Ames and bringing him to justice. Not only would his dad never have killed himself, but Nick was convinced Ames had killed him personally since he’d been with just him that night. Dad had died, like Mark Stirling, with a close-contact bullet to the brain, though not one in the middle of his forehead. Ames had hardly pulled the trigger on Stirling, because he had the best alibi in the world—he was in Grand Cayman, and Nick could vouch for that. But just like the most evil mafia godfather, he could so easily have ordered it done.
The docent’s voice jerked him back to reality. “The average adult bird is nine inches tall and, unlike most owls, they are active both day and night. As you may know, the owl used to be the symbol of wisdom with their wide, all-seeing eyes and rotating necks. Sadly, the number of burrowing owls is declining.”
“They sure are cute,” Claire whispered to Lexi. “Maybe we can find you a stuffed owl instead of that turtle from Grand Cayman.”
“But I like him too! Look! I see little babies peeking out. Can we go closer?”
Nick said, “The fence is here to protect them. Only the lady talking can go inside. As a matter of fact, they are called protected animals since people keep moving closer to their homes and they have to move to find safety.”
“Kind of like us, right?” Lexi asked, looking up at him.
Nick squatted and put an arm around the child’s shoulders and whispered, “We’ll get us a real home, honey, a house as soon as we can. But right now, with your mom and me, Nita and Bronco too, we are safe. Now, those babies peeking out of the burrows are called chicks.”
