by Karen Harper
“So won’t that scare the animals away?”
“We’ll slow down or stop to see them.”
As Lexi nodded and finally kept still to look around at the passing Everglades scenery, Jace’s last words stuck in his throat and his brain. He had to stop agonizing over Claire and Markwood. And, whatever benefits fell his way, he had to stop trusting a dangerous man like Clayton Ames to run his life, because that could cost his life—and theirs too.
* * *
The Burrowing Owl newspaper had a small space above a dentist’s office on Bald Eagle Drive not far from San Marco, the main road with the bridge onto Marco Island. How Claire wished, as she parked her car, that she’d be interviewing Mark Stirling today instead of his protégé Wes Ringold.
Are you suicidal? she’d ask. If not, who has threatened you besides Haze and Fin Taylor? Has Maggie Hazelton confronted you? Have you ever been warned to lay off attacking the Fountain of Youth products like Fresh Dew and Youth Do?
Though she’d hardly slept at all last night in Nick’s—now their—bed, she felt alive and alert, so she took the stairs instead of the elevator and knocked on the door. It had frosted glass and a simple sign, The Burrowing Owl, Founded 2013, Ed. Mark Stirling.
It said something, didn’t it, she thought, that Wes had not been in a big hurry to put his own name in place of Mark’s? She’d Googled Wes and found he was quite young—twenty-five, a two-year graduate in journalism from Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. He was a Fort Myers, Florida, native and had interned briefly at the Fort Myers News-Press. His parents were divorced, mother in Fort Myers, father in Conifer, Colorado, grandparents in Ohio. He was a young man on the rise, so she needed to watch for signs he was in too much of a hurry and, perhaps had taken a shortcut by dispatching his aggressive, ambitious boss, Mark Stirling. But in the brief meeting they’d had yesterday, she hadn’t sensed the slightest hint of that.
She also wanted to hear his so-called hint about something Irish, because, if he was alluding to Colleen’s shop, he’d have to really explain himself. She had liked the woman, had even felt sorry for her evidently unhappy state.
She knocked on the door. A shadow loomed on the other side of the glass, and Wes opened the door, smiling.
“Welcome and thanks,” he said and motioned her in. “I didn’t want to go out on my rounds, hoping you would drop by. Have a seat, as limited as they are.”
She sat in one of the two leather-upholstered chairs on this side of the messy, big desk, which sported two laptops. Nick had said the police had Mark’s so who knew why Wes needed two. He sat in the facing chair, sitting slightly forward, as if in anticipation.
“I hope,” he said, “you didn’t come today just because I offered you a hint with an Irish flavor.”
“That did intrigue me, but, frankly, so does anyone who knew Mark Stirling up close and personal. My husband and I are intent on finding the cause of his death, and I don’t mean a bullet in the forehead. I mean the motive behind it. Wes, could he have been suicidal? You knew him well.”
“Suicidal, no. Hell-on-wheels ambitious, yes. I saw no sign of self-destructiveness in Mark Stirling. It’s pretty obvious he had people who resented his—our—investigative journalism though.”
“Enough that someone would have killed him for that—enough that you fear for your life if you continue that cause?”
“I don’t write with the edge he did, and I triple-check facts and cite all sources.”
“And he didn’t?”
“He couldn’t or some people would not have talked to give him the slants he wanted and needed. Take the illegal shark fishing issue, for example, not to mention the Fountain of Youth water. That’s a whole other shark tank, if you know what I mean. Listen, Claire. I’m holding you to your promise to do an interview—not one focused on Mark’s death, but about how forensic psychologists work. But I see it like this. First of all, I’m aware the police looked at me briefly—briefly—to see if Mark and I got along, if I lusted for his position, this paper, so to speak. Second, because I’m black—yes, I’m going to say this, the three-hundred-pound gorilla in the room—people think I won’t turn over as many beehives as he did. Maybe they think I’m not up to it, not as smart, more careful, I don’t know. Maybe they expect my only cause to be black rights. This is still the Deep South, and, yeah, I’m ambitious, but I’m not brutal, and Mark could be brutal—in print, I mean.”
He sat back and took a deep breath, then went on, “I see that one thing about forensic psychologists is they are good listeners. I had to get that off my chest, clear the air—and I don’t usually use clichés.”
He smiled at her. “Tell you what,” he said, “just to show I bargain in good faith, here’s the Irish clue—Mark spent a lot of time, and free advertising, in and on Colleen Taylor’s shop in town. Enough said, at least by me. You look surprised, though you’re pretty good at keeping a poker face—oops, another cliché.”
“I am surprised. I just met her yesterday and liked her.”
“You two resemble each other—go figure. The point is, Mark liked her too. I’ll let you take it from there without citing your source. So what made you decide to get into the psychology major of forensics?” he asked, reaching back to his desk to pull one of the laptops onto his lap. “And, yes, I realize you don’t do actual autopsies, just ones on people’s lives—dead people. You know, here’s the headline I’m going to use for this interview—The Dead Still Speak, If You Know How To Listen. And I think you know how to hear the living too, Claire Markwood, so I appreciate your listening to me just now, like I was on a psychiatrist’s couch. I know the difference between psychologist and psychiatrist, believe me.”
“I appreciate your calm demeanor and up-front honesty,” she told him, though she’d seen liars, guilty ones, come off as helpful and apparently generous—and overly talkative and ingratiating. “And thanks for your Irish clue, even though I doubt—I hope—it won’t lead anywhere but to a marriage problem with a woman whose husband is gone a lot.”
He gave a huge shrug, but his expression was intent, not dismissive. “Probably not,” he told her.
Even as she began to answer his interview questions—blessedly, as he’d promised, not focusing on the Mangrove Murder case—she remembered something else she’d done recently and not shared with Nick. Trying to lessen her unease about the woman who was strangled on the Sylph in the lounge, more than once she’d Googled newspaper articles on that trial with the accused Dylan Carnahan, who had loaned them the yacht. And she’d become almost as obsessed with that murder as she was with this case.
20
Nick said he had several surprises for Claire when she got back—though for the first time, she thought of it as when she got home.
“But you didn’t have to get me anything,” she told him. “Last night was enough.”
“Not for me, it wasn’t,” he said with a devilish grin. “Here, sit down.” He tugged her down next to him on the couch in the lounge. Maybe, she thought, their growing, mutual happiness could dispel the feelings she always got in this room in which she knew what had happened.
“First of all,” Nick told her, seeming as excited as Lexi for once, “I’ve invited your sister and family to come take a cruise with us on Saturday.”
“Oh, that’s great!” she cried and threw her arms around him. “I know Lexi’s been missing Jilly, and I still need to patch things up with Darcy. You’ll like Steve. Hardworking, salt-of-the-earth kind of guy.”
“We can take a little jaunt out past the Naples pier or to Fort Myers. I hate to use the crew and fuel on this big baby for pure pleasure, but I’ll insist on reimbursing Dylan for the day. I was going to surprise you when your family arrived, but I thought I’d better tell you and Lexi ahead of time.”
“Nick, that’s a wonderful gift!”
“Okay, so
far, definitely, so good,” he said. “That’s for Saturday. Monday afternoon, 4:30 p.m., you are invited to a post-wedding reception to meet the others at the firm. I can’t wait to show you off, but we were so busy when we got back. After all, here I am using you not on a South Shores assignment this time, but as full-firm consultant, so you’re one of the adjunct staff now.”
“Oh, that’s lovely too. I can’t wait to meet them.”
“Lastly...” He cleared his throat, suddenly looking nervous and intent. “Claire, if you’d like us to take out a United States wedding license and get married here too, we can do that, though the Grand Cayman document and service were completely legal. I checked.”
“You know, I would like that, and my family would appreciate it too. But let’s do it when we have the time—and peace of mind—to really enjoy it, when all this is over.”
She could tell he was thinking about Clayton Ames’s hold on them again. Funny, but once she’d shared her body with him, did that mean she also shared his thoughts? It was more than just her skills as a psychologist kicking in. Was she more mentally in tune with Nick than she had been with Jace?
“So, like some kid, I couldn’t wait to spring all that on you,” he said, smiling again. “How did it go with Wes Ringold? Did he stick to a straight interview, or was he actually fishing for inside info on this case? Did he look guilty at all?”
“Negative on any guilt vibes, at least for now, and he did stick to a straight interview. But I’m going to have to go back to visit Colleen Taylor again, as well as Ada. Wes implied Colleen was having an affair with Mark Stirling—another red alert for a possible motive if something blew up between them—or if Fin found out and wanted revenge. If Mark and Colleen were involved, maybe that would explain the distant meeting spot where he was killed. But, Nick, every instinct I have tells me Colleen didn’t do it,” she said with a sigh that seemed to deflate her earlier joy.
“I’m sorry. I know you like her, but I’m glad you’re willing to check it out. Since ‘us fellas’ are going out fishing with Fin this afternoon, it would be the perfect time for you to see her again, but be careful. You said she gave hints of being unstable.”
“No, of being upset, and aren’t we all at times? You’re starting to sound like a forensic psychologist, looking at all the angles, Mr. Defense Attorney. But you’re right. Who knows, especially sitting here in this room, where a person was murdered? You cleared Dylan Carnahan, so the killer of the woman on this boat is still out there too.”
* * *
Nick had to admit it was a beautiful day for offshore fishing. At least they weren’t going way out to deep sea, though he felt he was adrift in his own deep seas half the time now. He’d thought at first to ask for an inshore trip, but what good would it do to try to get Fin close to the murder site? If he was at all guilty—and now, with his wife’s possible relationship to the victim—Nick would only tip the guy off if he asked to fish near No Name Key.
Nick had thought of bringing Haze today, but decided he didn’t want him spending time with another “suspect” so he’d only brought Bronco and Heck. Nick could tell Heck was the most excited of them all, much more than he was, as fishing wasn’t really his thing, and Bronco preferred airboats and shallow water to the Gulf of Mexico.
As they got aboard, Heck said, “My grandfather, he went fishing with Hemingway in Cuba, knew him.”
“Cool. Hemingway was a real macho man and great fisherman, I heard,” Fin said and went back to the wheelhouse to pilot them away from the dock.
“Was he an old-time actor?” Bronco asked, sitting already in the stern of the boat. Maybe, Nick thought, he shouldn’t have brought Bronco, but he’d dropped Nita and Lexi at the library on the East Trail for story time so they didn’t need him watching over them. Darcy and Jilly were there too.
“He means Ernest Hemingway, the great American writer,” Heck told Bronco. “He lived in Florida, but also in Cuba for about twenty years. You ever read The Old Man and the Sea, Nick?” he said, turning away from Bronco.
“Back in high school. That’s interesting about your grandfather, Heck. I know he was like a father to you after yours died young. I’ll bet you’d love to visit there, see your family’s hacienda.”
“Not only see it. Get it back. Castro good as stole it. Anyway, my grandfather, he used to drink daiquiris with him—Hemingway, not Castro—in his favorite bar La Floridita in Havana. Love to see that place too, and someday, I will. I’ll go in from Canada, get there somehow.”
Nick squeezed his friend’s shoulder. “Let’s have a few drinks on the yacht, and you can reminisce about his stories. Claire would love to hear them too.”
Heck nodded and wiped his eyes behind his sunglasses. It was the one thing Nick had seen that could get his tech guru emotional.
“So, all right,” Fin called from the wheelhouse. “Here we go to look for ‘thar she blows!’”
He started the motor, let it idle, then came back to cast off the ropes. He’d already showed Nick his so-called ‘plotter’s screen,’ which looked like a video monitor. Their boat on it was a blinking dot, but Fin said he did things his own way and never looked at it. He’d claimed he had the real nautical depth charts in his head.
For sure, Nick observed, the guy prided himself in doing things his own way. If Claire was here, she’d jump right in with more questions, but he didn’t want to tip him off. Yet had their captain not only eliminated a man who was threatening to expose an illegal shark fishing business, but one who also was sleeping with his wife?
* * *
Once they got several miles out into the Gulf from Goodland, Nick tried to keep his mind on Fin’s explanation of what to do if a fish hit one of their three lines. Bronco was still sitting on a cushion in the stern while Nick and Heck sat in the fighting chairs on the deck. But Nick reminded himself again that he wasn’t just here to fish—at least not for fish.
“You often see sharks out here?” he asked Fin when the guy finally took a breath from explaining how to land a fish.
Fin frowned at him then looked away. “Oh, sure. They’ll come to the chum I use to entice other fish. That chum hides the human scent, works like a charm. They love the squid parts I mix with canned cat food to draw fish, a secret recipe.”
“Ick,” Bronco said.
Speaking of fish, Nick thought, the big guy was looking a little green around the gills as the waves picked up a bit. Here was a man who caught gators and pythons but got squeamish over waves. It said a lot that he’d readily agreed to come along anyway.
“In that Hemingway story I mentioned,” Heck put in, “sharks ate a huge marlin carcass strapped to a small boat and—”
“Hang on, Heck! Oh, boy, look at that!” Fin shouted when something hit hard on Heck’s line. “Let it run before you reel in! A sword! I swear that’s a swordfish, and they usually lie deep this time of day.”
Fin was right. A swordfish! Even Bronco got excited to see the huge fish clear the water in a spray-flinging arch, then tear away. The fish shimmered in purple, blue and silver colors. Nick could hear Heck’s line spooling out fast.
“That baby’s over nine feet if he’s an inch!” Fin shouted, now back at the helm to maneuver the boat. “And his sword’s a good three feet long! They don’t stab with it but slice at their pray. I’ve seen sharks come to that blood in the water. Swordfish make good eating at restaurants—pricey—tastes better if you caught it. Maybe that stupid Owl paper can take a pic of that and give me some good publicity for once. Yowsa! Hang on, Heck! He’s gonna run again.”
“They endangered?” Bronco asked.
“Threatened!” Fin yelled over the noise of the motor and their voices. “Their stock’s been rebuilt in the Atlantic, so don’t worry none about that. Don’t worry about nothing—that’s my motto,” he added with a scowl Nick’s way.
A
fter an hour battle, when the big fish finally managed to break the line by swimming under the boat, Nick did not feel one bit bad for a deflated Fin, only for Heck. And he realized without even tipping Fin off about suspecting him of possible illegal shark hunting for rich charters—friends of Ames, like Thom Van Cleve?—the man had shown his antagonism for the The Burrowing Owl. He’d just wait and see if Claire turned up the other motive for murder.
* * *
“I’m back again,” Claire greeted Colleen when she opened the shop door. “I thought I’d buy myself a ring like my daughter’s and see if I could get you to reconsider lunch with me on the Sylph today.”
“Oh, you’re so kind. And I don’t want you to think I’m not grateful.”
She led Claire over to the counter with the claddagh rings and unlocked the glass case. “Listen,” Colleen said in a rush, “why don’t we have some tea first? I was just going to fill the pot straightaway.”
“All right. That sounds lovely.”
“I can ice yours if you’d rather. South Florida and not Ireland, I know. I realize you Americans like your coffee. That’s one thing I’ve not adapted to.”
“I’ll take tea the way you do.”
“With a spot of milk then. I’d love to show you my new Royal Tara bone china I just got in. The plates have the Irish blessing right on them. You know, the one that starts ‘May the road rise up to meet you,’ and ends ‘Until we meet again, may God hold you in the hollow of his hands.’”
Her voice quavered on that last line. Claire followed Colleen out of the shop and into her house, but, even walking behind her, she could tell the woman had started to cry. She tried to stifle a sob, and her shoulders shook. Colleen swiped at her eyes before she turned around.
“I can see you’re distressed,” Claire said. “Let’s sit down. I can fix the tea if you show me where it is.”
“I’m all right. Just—on edge lately. Fin’s so busy, of course. So much local upheaval for such a little place.”
