by Karen Harper
“Not sure if you got my message—we’re at the boat dock at Crayton Cove,” Nick said into the phone, his voice trembling. “Came to see a potential client of mine, a charter fishing boat captain. We found him here—at least we think it’s him, but he’s dead, caught in his own net, maybe drowned... Yeah, yeah, I know, but no way we could just sit home waiting... Okay, send the ME. If you don’t want a crowd, better not use your sirens... What?”
Nick frowned. Claire could hear Ken’s voice raised, but with sounds of the wind and waves, couldn’t tell what he was saying. Still, she could guess.
“No, we’re not taking over your case, Detective. Of course we’re being careful,” he said with a shake of his head at Claire as she leaned closer to hear. “It’s just we are even more desperate than you to find Darcy and we couldn’t just sit there... Right... Yes. Okay, we’ll just sit here now until you arrive.”
* * *
Nick saw Ken was more than upset; he was furious. The three of them and two uniformed officers waited on the dock for the ME and the forensic team to arrive. So far they hadn’t even tried to retrieve the body Nick had hooked into the net.
“You went inside, too?” Ken demanded, gesturing at the Down Under when Nick explained what had happened and how they had known to try to talk to Ralston. “And you’re one of the top criminal defense lawyers in South Florida? And Claire a forensic psych? You two are going to end up persons of interest with this if you don’t stay home, damn it.”
Claire decided to speak up, though he was glaring mostly at Nick. “Captain Ralston was going to be Nick’s client,” she said. “And we are absolutely desperate to find any lead from anyone who might know something about Darcy, since nothing official seems to be forthcoming!”
“I got that, Claire. But Nick’s the one who should have known better. I don’t care if it was raining. You actually went inside and found signs of a struggle? And here I’m waiting for a warrant to check this boat out.”
Nick said, “At least we found a body before it drifts away or something down there eats it. And there’s probably going to be hell to pay, not for us, but for you, because evidently Captain Larry here is well connected in this town, so good luck with that!”
“And not hell to pay for you two?” Ken flared back. “Are you kidding? You not only found a body but probably have your DNA all over the crime scene. As for good luck, you got that right,” he muttered. His anger seemed to deflate a bit. “Look, the ME has arrived and their gurney’s drawing a parade of onlookers. Got to have my officers get the crime scene tape up. You two, wait down the dock a ways and do nothing until I’m ready for complete statements, understand?”
Claire said, “I’d like to get home to my daughter and son.”
“Not yet. You know that,” Ken said, his voice quiet now as he moved away to meet the ME’s people.
The two of them went down to the end of the arm of the dock. Claire’s legs were shaking so badly she sat down on the edge, dangling her feet. Nick sat beside her and put his arm around her.
“Good thing we didn’t touch that phone in the stern,” he said. “Truth is, I don’t think we touched one damn thing inside the boat, either, since the door was opened by the wind and is still that way. We’ve been totally honest with Ken. Just remember, never lie to the police and never lie to your attorney.”
“Is that a joke to obey my husband or are we going to need one?”
“If Larry Ralston didn’t kill himself—accident or intentional—someone did.”
They looked down the dock. The ME’s people were holding up a tarp so the gathering crowd, which two officers were holding back, could not see the body brought up, but she and Nick could see. A man wearing jeans. Barefoot. Buzz haircut like Jace and Mitch still wore.
Ken came toward them. “Can you two ID him before next of kin arrives?” he asked. “If not, I’ll ask people on the dock. He has no ID on him.”
“Never met him before,” Nick said. “But there are some pictures online, advertising charter fishing, if you don’t want to start asking around in the crowd.”
Ken grabbed his phone from his pants pocket. “Hate to do it this way, but I don’t want to call next of kin—his father and brother—if it’s not Larry. Yeah, I know about the family. I’m still mad as hell at both of you, but we’re now unofficially working together on two cases—only one murder case, Claire,” he added hastily. “The other strictly a missing person.”
Claire nodded. Exhaustion and grief swept through her. Her body felt wooden, yet her mind surged like the sea. They watched as Ken kept sliding his finger across the screen, obviously looking at several pictures.
“It’s him,” he told them. “Now I’ve got to make that phone call. His father’s a wealthy funeral director and friend of the mayor’s and who knows who else?”
As he walked away, Nick muttered, “And just in case Ralston knew anything at all about Fly Safe and Darcy, there goes our lead!”
* * *
A good hour later, with a finally delivered search warrant in hand—actually on his cell phone—Detective Jensen was preparing to go on board the Down Under with a forensic team. Nick and Claire both shook his hand after their separate statements to him on a nearby yacht, which the police had been given for a temporary office. He had spent about half an hour with each of them. His demeanor and questions had been professional and calm, not angry like earlier.
They were about to get off the yacht and head home when three men came nearly running down the deck toward where an officer had pointed out Detective Jensen. The two men in front greatly resembled each other. The other man was tall and thin with silver blond hair.
“The first two resemble the deceased,” Ken said the obvious. “Next of kin. Here we go. Stay here until I have them make an ID, then you can head out, and I’ll talk to them here on the yacht. So, Nick, you think they brought a lawyer?”
When Claire got a closer view of the men, she was content not to pass them on the dock right now. It was understandable, of course, that family and perhaps a friend would be distraught.
All three looked furious, the first two men panicked while the blond man emanated rigid control. Perhaps because the day was still cloudy from the rain, none of them wore sunglasses. And yes, two of them must be family of the deceased, especially the younger one, perhaps a brother. Those two were very tanned with dark hair and similar stocky builds. All three were dressed well in slacks and golf shirts. The older man evidently had on golf shoes because she could see the cleats, so they were probably tearing up the wooden dock. From the looks of them, they planned to tear up Ken, as if this were his fault. So would they blame her and Nick, too?
“Aaron and Clinton Ralston,” the older man introduced them as they stopped in front of Ken. Both nodded; neither shook his hand.
With a quick look at the blond man behind them, the younger Ralston added, “And my associate Jedi Brown.”
“You’re sure it’s Larry?” the older man interrupted. “I’m his father. I need to see him, claim the body.”
Ken said, “We are very sorry for your loss and would appreciate an identification. But this is a police matter, possibly foul play, so the body will need to be autop—”
“Look here, we understand you have a job to do,” the older man went on. “But you said he was submerged, so it’s possible he fell in—no foul play. He’s been under duress for something he didn’t do, something not his fault, this harmful dolphin charade.”
“Sir, I’m certain you realize you cannot just claim a body involved in a police investigation even if you are next of kin.”
“He has—had no wife. Divorced. No children. Just me and his brother here,” he added with a nod, “and I’m sure you can make an exception for family. If not, I will have to go over your head.”
“If there was a murder here—” Ken’s rising voice floated to them, even though he was facing away, “—you certainly want it investigated and someone brought to justice. We are about to exami
ne the interior of his boat, and we have taken possession of his cell phone, which was found on the back deck, so all that may throw light on whether this is an accident, murder or suicide—”
“Look.” The young man—Clinton—spoke. “If you cannot release him to his family at this time, I have a legal document here, a living will so to speak, in which my brother claims that whenever and wherever his death occurs, his body be immediately given into my possession. Time is of the essence. It may help that he was in the water, but—”
The father interrupted. “Not released to you, Clinton, I don’t care what that document says you two kept secret from me. He’s going to be properly buried!”
“Now they are going to turn on each other,” Claire told Nick. “So much family volatility. Ken will have to look into that. I should tell him their body language shows—”
“You need to stay way out of this,” Nick interrupted, gripping her wrist. “You are not working for the police, so you should tell him nothing.”
“What is this?” Ken demanded as he bent his head to read what Clinton had thrust at him.
“Just what I said,” he insisted. “A legal document ordering his body be immediately transferred into my possession.”
“No way!” his father burst out. “That is not what I have planned. You two went behind my back?”
Claire did not have to strain to hear. Even if water carried sound, both men were almost shouting and at each other.
“You know,” Nick said only to her, “I just remembered my father was buried by Ralston’s Funeral Home, but I’ve never seen the son. Sorry to put it this way, but the senior Ralston is very hands-on.”
“And wants to control both his sons. They must know they can’t have the body right now, if there was a possible murder.”
“Even suicide—I hope not,” Nick said, and she put her arm around his waist as they stayed back on the end of the dock.
“I’ll need to call a judge on this,” Ken said.
“It’s not to be made public,” the dead man’s brother insisted. “Absolutely private information. Call it classified. I’ll sue you if your holding him makes a difference in terms of proper timing. Read that third paragraph.”
“Since you two cannot even agree on where the body is going and what is going to happen to it,” Ken told them, finally putting the paper he was skimming down to his side, “I’m telling you, we need an autopsy.”
“Then let me have his head first!” the brother insisted, pointing at the paper again.
The older Clinton looked aghast, but the Jedi guy only nodded.
“Did I just hear that?” Nick whispered. “What in the world...?”
Claire pulled her phone out of her purse and checked information on Clinton Ralston of Naples, Florida. Amazingly, nothing came up. Did he just live off his wealthy father? Work at one of the Ralston funeral homes? He was as good as a ghost. There was plenty about Aaron Ralston, though, and really, that blond guy hovering seemed like more of a bodyguard than an associate, whatever that meant. And was his name really Jedi?
That reminded her of The Last Jedi movie she and Darcy had finally agreed to watch with Lexi and Jilly last year. She even remembered the lines from the trailer she and Darcy had watched several times while agonizing over whether the kids would get nightmares from the film. But it was Carrie Fisher’s last movie, so she and Darcy had wanted to see it, too—and then Carrie had died and where was Darcy?
Strange but she recalled the scary voice narrating the teaser with the young female character who wanted to learn the ways of the wise Jedi, something about I need help... You have untamed power...
“Anything about him online?” Nick interrupted her memory.
“No, but maybe if we get out of here, Ken can talk more to them and then talk to us about what he learned.”
“Their family mess—I can’t see how it links to Darcy, and tracing her has to be our first priority.”
“I just wish Larry Ralston had actually become your client, so you could have some say in this—a right to know what they’re arguing about at least. Let’s go now before these men link us to finding the body, even though I suppose they’ll find out eventually. We’ve been gone too long from Lexi and even from Steve.”
“Yeah, okay.”
Ken was still arguing, but at least the men were walking away to where the body was covered by a tarp. That gave her and Nick a chance to leave without being part of a confrontation. And, she thought as they turned away, the emotions she had seen displayed by the dead man’s relatives puzzled her. Not grief or even shock, really. Anger, yes, but at Ken and at each other—so strange for family members just learning their brother and son was dead, maybe even murdered.
A little ways down the main dock, Claire turned back for one last glimpse. Clinton Ralston turned his head to look at them and her eyes locked with his steady stare for a moment. He did resemble his dead brother quite a bit. Were they twins? But the dead one’s picture was easy to find on the internet and this man’s was not. And what had he planned to do with his brother’s body—or, for heaven’s sake, his head?
When she glanced back once more, the blond man named Jedi Brown had turned to watch them.
The Star Wars movie darted through her mind again: I need help... You have untamed power.
14
When Claire and Nick finally got home, there were hugs all around. Jace even gave her a quick shoulder hug after he shook hands with Nick. Nita was beaming to see her back—and, probably, to finally get away from Lexi’s and Jilly’s questions—and go home to Bronco. But where was Steve?
It was getting dark. Fireflies lit the lawn and twinkled through the patio window to make the reflections of everyone gathered around seem to sparkle. In her continued fear and grief, Claire hoped, wherever Darcy was now, that she might be comforted by memories of happier times like when they used to catch what they then called lighting bugs. As girls, they used to put them in a jar and they would light up their room at night...
“Mommy, did you hear what Cindy just said?” Lexi’s high voice broke her reverie.
“No, I’m surprised I didn’t. What did she say?”
As Jilly hovered close, Lexi said to the doll in her arms, “Can you say that again, Cindy?”
“I am glad you are home, Mommy. Tell us where you have been,” the doll said—no, actually commanded. So did this little robot give Lexi stern orders sometimes, too?
That’s all she needed, Claire fumed, to be ordered around by that doll. And since Jilly was here, she wanted to ask her where her daddy was. Perhaps exhausted, lying down at last.
“Mommy,” Lexi repeated as if she were the interactive doll, “where have you been?”
Darned if she or Nick were telling these kids they’d found a body, so Claire said to her daughter, not to the doll, “Dad and I have been to the beach and talked to some people we saw there.”
But the doll answered. “Oh, that’s nice. But Lexi is sad, even though we took a plane trip. Where is her aunt Marcy?”
Lexi said, “It’s not Marcy, Cindy, but Darcy, with a D.”
“Oh, sorry,” the doll said. “Tell me more about Aunt Darcy.”
“Well, that thing made one mistake at least!” Steve’s voice came from across the room. “I swear, it’s smarter than me.”
Everyone looked his way. Claire gasped, and Nick asked, “What in the world happened to you?”
“Gotta admit I had a couple of brews at the sports bar and fell going out to the car. Hit my head, got scratched up.”
A moment of silence followed as everyone stared at him, and Jilly went over to take his hand to comfort him. He had a bump on his forehead slowly turning brownish blue. Claire noted the beginning of a black half-moon under his left eye and a swollen lower lip as well as a few cuts on the backs of his hands and arms. So he fell on the backs of his knuckles, not put his palms out to catch himself?
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Steve said in the awkward silence. �
�My mistake. Yeah, okay, I got into it with a guy there who asked if the little lady ran off with someone else—you know,” he added with an I-don’t-want-to-say-more look at the girls. “He was no one I know. After our disagreement, he left. I bribed the manager not to call the cops. So, if everyone would please stop staring, let’s figure out our next move.”
Claire put the girls to bed—including the walking-talking marvel doll—then hurried back to the Florida room. Nita had left a hefty tray of snacks and a pitcher of iced tea; Claire and Nick were famished. Nick had Heck on speaker phone so he could explain his latest research. Steve, looking sheepish for once, didn’t take any food and kept fingering a tooth that looked to Claire like it might have come loose.
“We could try another public plea,” Nick was saying, “but that means letting the media mavens poke around again. It could help, but they could get in our way if we do more investigating on our own.”
“And then,” Claire said, “Detective Jensen might lock us up just to shut us up. He’s already ticked off at us for overstepping. Here’s the full story of what Nick and I did today.”
They explained their attempts to question two members of the possibly militant Fly Safe pro-butterfly protection group, Linc Yost and Larry Ralston. Everyone was aghast at their retelling of finding the body in the net and the arrival of the dead man’s next of kin. Nick concluded things with, “So the one guy clams up and changes the topic from butterflies to dolphins, and the other ends up dead before we can talk to him. Just the sort of puzzle my private business, South Shores, looks into. Was Captain Larry Ralston’s death natural, accidental, suicide or murder?”
Nick’s investigation and support outreach was known to those present, so he didn’t say more. Those closest to him knew the reason he tried to help families whose loved ones had committed suicide—or was it suicide? His own father had been murdered but the scene was staged to make it look as if he had killed himself. Nick had finally tracked down the murderer. Then, through investigation and legal support, his South Shores project became his way of helping others who had gone through the hell that he had faced.
