Madison Westin 02-Deception in Paradise

by Deborah Brown

  “Why?” Cruz countered.

  Harder pulled a folder from under his legal pad. “I have a subpoena to pick it up and impound it as evidence.” Harder handed Cruz the paperwork. “If Miss Westin doesn’t have anything to hide, she’ll cooperate.”

  “Of course she’ll cooperate,” Cruz assured him. “Where’s the boat, Madison?”

  “It’s at Marone’s boatyard in The Cove,” I informed them.

  “Has he started work on the boat?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I’ll call Marone and tell him to stop any work. The boat will be picked up within the hour.” Harder picked up his phone and called to give the order to execute two warrants.

  “It’ll be towed to the police storage yard today,” Harder told us.

  “When do I get it back?” I asked. What did he mean by two?

  “When the case is over. It could be a year or more; your lawyer knows how cases can linger on the court docket.”

  I wanted to slap the smile off his face. How would I explain that to Brad?

  “And here’s a copy of the search warrant for Ms. Westin’s house.” He handed another piece of paper to Cruz. “They’re being executed as we speak. The searches should be over by the time she gets home.” He looked at me. “Sorry for any mess.”

  “So that’s why you had us come to your office. You’re a real bastard. But then, you know that,” Cruz said.

  “You’re having my house ransacked?” I screeched. “What about my cat? He’s old.” I picked up my phone and called Fab.

  “You can’t use your phone in here.” Harder motioned for me to put it away.

  “Where are you?” I asked Fab.

  “On my way back to the Cove.”

  “I said put it away,” Harder yelled.

  “Harder is having my house searched, and I’m worried about Jazz.”

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  I pressed End. “Look.” I held up my phone. “I’m putting it away.”

  “You hang out with the cream of the crap, and you want people to believe you’re Snow White. It doesn’t work that way. In my experience, you’re no better than the people you associate with.”

  “Do you have any more relevant questions?” Cruz asked. “If that’s all, I have another meeting.” Cruz slammed the lid of his briefcase, snapping the locks.

  “Sweetie, you’ll be hearing from me again. You can count on that,” Harder told me.

  “You know Ms. Westin has counsel. Contact my office, and I’ll make her available.”

  “You and I both know I don’t have to go through you. I can do what I want and inform you afterward.”

  “I’m playing golf with the chief tomorrow. I’ll inform him of your unprofessional behavior,” Cruz said.

  “Go ahead. He already knows I’m an unrelenting bastard. What’s he going to do about it? I’m good at my job, and I put killers behind bars. I don’t have a single unsolved case in my file.” He stood up. “Sweetie.” He nodded at me and walked out of the conference room.

  “Where’s Devereaux?” Cruz whispered. “At your house?”

  “He might still be at Marone’s, helping with the boat. My mother relocated him to The Cottages.”

  “I’m surprised Harder didn’t ask about his whereabouts.” He pulled on my arm. “Listen to me. Stay away from your ex, and then you won’t be put in any awkward situations.”

  “Don’t worry.”

  “Another thing, don’t go playing Nancy Drew with Fab. Don’t get me wrong. I like Fab, but she’s crazy all day long.”

  I nodded. I couldn’t promise that with a straight face.

  “Don’t give Harder any reason to harass you. Look, I know Harder, and you’re not a serious suspect. This was a jerk-around session so he could execute the warrants without any interference.”

  “I’m hoping once this is all over, Jax packs up and leaves town.” I told him.

  “These kinds of meetings are a waste of my time and your money.” Cruz snapped his briefcase shut.

  CHAPTER 18

  “What are you doing?” I asked Fab. She was sitting on the floor with Jazz, rolling a ball at him. He looked bored.

  “I thought it would be fun to play catch.”

  I laughed so hard I thought I’d fall off the stool. “That’s the best laugh I’ve had all week.”

  “It has catnip,” she said. “The guy at the pet store picked it out.”

  “If you get Jazz to play catch, fetch, or whatever, I’ll buy dinner for a week.”

  She glared at me. “I ate your salmon, enjoyed every bite.”

  “Zach cooked dinner for me.”

  “Ah, lovebirds!”

  “I know you’re making fun of me.” I made a face at her. “But it was nice to spend a quiet evening together. I did suffer momentary guilt over turning off my phone, but who can relax and have spontaneous sex if she’s thinking the phone might ring?”

  “Eww. I arrived as Kevin and his posse were leaving. Kev said Jazz didn’t get off the chair.”

  “Probably resting up for his play date with you.”

  She glared at me and fed Jazz one of her leftover peas. He spit it back at her.

  “How bad does the upstairs look? Down here, it doesn’t look like they were even here.”

  “Kev was the lead. He wouldn’t tell me what they were looking for. He did ask where Boner was.”

  “You’re not funny,” I said. “I’m just going to ignore you. Did the police take anything with them?”

  “No, and I was surprised. They did ask where Mr. Sir slept.”

  “Thank heaven for Kevin. That’s why my house wasn’t tumbled. Nothing in this house belongs to Jax. I got rid of all his stuff the other day.”

  “Where is he?”

  “My mother relocated him to The Cottages.”

  “I love your mother.”

  “Wait until she decides to manage your life and you’ll rethink that thought.”

  When the doorbell rang, Fab asked, “Who’s that?”

  I looked out the window. “Dickie.”

  “The creepy funeral guy?”

  “Yes.” I started for the door. “You stay right there and don’t even think about sneaking out the back. Sit back down.” I pointed to the stool.

  Fab made a face. “Why didn’t you give me a heads-up?”

  “Didn’t you have a big funeral today?” I asked Dickie as he walked in.

  Dickie saw Fab sitting in the kitchen. “She scares me,” he whined.

  “You’re not wanted, are you?”

  Fear crossed his face. “No.”

  “Then you don’t have anything to worry about.”

  “Pavel’s memorial service was earlier,” Dickie said. “Afterward, Mr. Byce catered lunch. Turned out larger than your Aunt Elizabeth’s funeral, but everyone there knew her. Most of the people who came today didn’t have a clue.”

  “Word flew around town that Sid Byce was catering from The Wharf,” I said. “No one around here passes up good food that’s free. Funeral or no.”

  “A reporter from the local paper was there, and she told me I gave her good quotes,” he said with excitement. “I’ll be at the newsstand first thing in the morning to get all the copies.”

  Fab snorted and shook her head.

  “The girlfriend blew up two pictures of Pavel to poster size. She had them framed and sitting on easels up on the podium in place of where the coffin would’ve been. I had the urn displayed on a smaller table with the flowers.”

  “Her name is Kym,” I said.

  “Crazy girl all strung out, hanging onto another girl. She told me she was poly something, and I think she meant lesbian.”

  I shrugged. “I haven’t met her.”

  “I felt sorry for the dogs,” Dickie said.

  “What dogs?”

  “Kym brought Pavel’s dogs, and they sat in front of the pictures of him and howled, very sad. The noise they made was pitiful. Raul and I wanted to take them outsi
de and play with them, but we had to wait until after the service was over.”

  “What kind of dogs?”

  “Two Golden Retrievers.”

  Nothing good ever came of drunks having pets. At some point, the pets always ended up neglected.

  “You shipping Pavel’s ashes to his mother?” I asked.

  “His mother gave permission to split the ashes. Kym took her half; she originally wanted to sprinkle them where they pulled him from the water, but instead headed to the Gulf. I told them they needed to go out past the mouth of the inlet and one of her friends, rail thin, jittery guy, told me I was stupid. The other half I’m shipping to the Czech Republic. Mr. Byce picked out a beautiful urn.”

  “That was generous of Pavel’s mother.” It saddened me to think about a mother mourning the loss of a son or daughter.

  Dickie nodded. “Cremation was a good choice; he was in bad shape with half his head missing, and a few places on his body were pretty well gnawed, where some kind of fish had chewed on him.”

  “Dickie, we don’t need the details.”

  “I understand cremations, but I prefer a traditional burial. I’m the artist, and Raul is the businessman. That’s one of the reasons why we’re so good together. My favorite part is the dressing, the hair, and makeup. I do my best to make everyone look natural. This one would’ve been difficult.”

  “Any talk about who might’ve killed Pavel?” Fab asked.

  “No one even whispered the word murder. They all acted like they do when an old person dies of natural causes.”

  “Where was he shot?” Fab asked.

  “In the back of the head.”

  “Someone shot him from behind?” Fab murmured. “That’s cowardly.”

  “Mr. Byce is convinced that your ex-husband is the guilty party. I saw Byce yelling at Kym and her girlfriend, and Kym started crying. Right after that, the two girls stuffed sandwiches and cookies in their purses and snuck out the side door. I watched from the window. They went the wrong way and had to cut through the tattoo parlor parking lot.”

  “Did Jax show up?” I asked.

  “Because I didn’t know who he was, I asked around and was told he wasn’t there. A good thing, in my opinion. It would’ve been ugly between him and Mr. Byce. Mr. Westin needs to watch his back.”

  “Brad?” I asked.

  “Jax,” Fab said.

  “Oh!” I almost laughed. Jax hated it when people called him by my last name. “Did you just come by to tell me about the funeral?” I asked Dickie.

  “I came to say thank you for all your help.” He fiddled with the button on his shirt. It popped off and rolled across the floor, landing at Fab’s feet. “Mr. Campion got my charges reduced. I had to pay a fine and do community service, but in one year, it’s erased from my record.”

  Fab handed him his button. “What about thanking me?”

  He looked totally confused.

  “For what?” I asked.

  “I got Brick to agree to let him turn himself in.” Fab smiled. She loved that she made Dickie uncomfortable. I rolled my eyes and shook my head.

  “Thank you,” Dickie said, unable to make eye contact with Fab.

  “How are you and Raul doing?” I asked.

  “We’re doing good. I took your advice and came clean about everything. Raul agreed to give me another chance if I agreed to couples counseling. He won’t be sorry.”

  “I’m happy for the two of you,” I said with sincerity. I found Dickie to be unpretentious and genuinely nice, and I’d never heard him say a bad word about anyone. In spite of that, most people joked about him behind his back, and he had to know.

  “Anything I can ever do for you, I will,” he told me.

  “And me, too,” Fab added.

  “I have to go. Raul and I are going to dinner.” He ran for the door.

  I whirled around. “You should be ashamed of yourself, Fabiana Merceau, for intimidating that poor man. I heard his car squeal out of the driveway.”

  “Why do you get all the credit? I was nice to him, too.”

  “You sound as whiny as Dickie.”

  “That’s uncalled for,” she said huffily.

  “Did you forget you beat him up? Which I had to hear from him.”

  “He exaggerates, slapping him is not the same as beating him up.”

  CHAPTER 19

  I came back from a walk on the beach, my buckets filled to the brim with seashells. Leaning against my front door was a large manila envelope. Anoui had finally sent over the reports. Her business card stapled to the front said she was an Information Specialist.

  I started with the report on Pavel. It didn’t contain anything I didn’t already know, never in trouble with the law, no known enemies, a regular guy who went to work every day on the docks, never without a girlfriend. In his off time, he stayed drunk and hung out at the beach. Nothing in the report answered the question of why he had ended up with a bullet in his head. She included the photo from his driver’s license, which was dark and could be half a dozen other people.

  The report on Jackson Devereaux, aka Jax, aka Dickhead, started with his previous DUI conviction, relating how he had jumped South Carolina jurisdiction and had a warrant out for his arrest. All old news. There was no mention of what he’d been doing from the time of the divorce until his arrest. Anoui did note that once he’d left South Carolina, he’d gone off the grid and managed to lie low until the night of the boat accident. That surprised me. An anonymous lifestyle required cash, and he didn’t have any.

  Anoui also included a copy of the sheriff’s initial accident report, which showed me what a lying bastard my ex still was. He knew two of the people on the boat that night. Hell, I knew them, too. His cousin Robert Devereaux had been there, along with Apple Manning, the same girl I’d caught him rolling around on the floor with in a drunken romp at the end of our marriage. That scene was forever burned in my mind.

  If those two were in town, and I’d bet Jax’s right nut they were, the three of them had moved into The Cottages. That was why I hadn’t heard from Jax. I was always the boring one; I never wanted to party with him and his friends. He was always the leader of his band of lowlifes, and somehow that fulfilled him.

  My favorite part of the report was when Apple told the Coast Guard she’d been at the Jumpin’ Croc all afternoon with Pavel and Kym. The three of them chased their beers with rum shooters, and Pavel and Kym had fought all day. Apple called Jax and told him that her friends needed a break from fighting and to pick them up at the restaurant dock. There was no Mary on the boat. The whole time it had been train-wreck Apple. His evasiveness made sense. The report said she and Kym had sat on the bench at the back of the boat, facing one another and talking. Kym turned to tell Pavel a joke, noticed he was gone, and screamed. No mention of any makeout session between the women. Jax turned the boat around, and the four of them searched the water. There was nothing about them hitting a buoy or anything else. Kym’s version was basically the same. Robert and Jax had nothing to contribute as they had been in the front of the boat with their backs turned.

  I was underwhelmed by the content of the reports put together by Anoui and happy the package hadn’t included an invoice. With the exception of the accident report, the other reports said nothing. Anoui had been overhyped. I flung the reports across the room, mad at Jax for not being truthful about all the details. I picked up my keys, deciding to take a trip to The Cottages and find out what was going on for myself.

  * * *

  I saw Mac sitting in the office. “What’s going on?” I asked, opening the door.

  “I picked up the phone to call you several times today and set it back down every time.”

  She looked nervous, which put me on alert. “Sounds like great news. What didn’t you want to tell me?”

  “Two sheriff’s cars pulled in a little while ago. The cops walked up front and came back with Jax in handcuffs.”

  “At least I know where to find him. Wait. Up front?
Was he out on the beach?”

  Mac looked down at her paperwork. “When your mother brought him here, I put him in unit ten. By the next morning, he’d moved his things into a waterfront unit.”

  I tried not to yell. “You should’ve called me right away.”

  “My daughter Candy filled in for me and she didn’t know there was a possible problem. She gave him the key after he told her he lost his. I’m really sorry about this.”

  Mac had once told me she and her husband gave their kids names with special meanings. They had joked about Coors, and a coin toss later, they named her Candy. I was happy for her daughter. Candy Lane was a stripper name, but not as bad as Coors Lane, which sounded like a street name.

  “It’s not your fault or your daughter’s.” I knew if Jax hadn’t been able to get a key, he would’ve broken in, and then changed the locks. “Who else is staying there with him?”

  “Two people, Robert and Apple.” Mac sighed.

  “Where are they now?”

  “Apple’s still in the cottage. She sleeps all day and comes out late in the afternoons. I saw Robert walking down the street when the cops pulled in. He stopped at the yellow house across the street and sat on the patio, feet up like he lived there, until after they left. Then he walked up the drive just before you got here.”

  “I’d like to kick those two over the state line while Jax is in jail.” I simmered with pent-up anger.

  “They know a free ride when they see one,” Mac said. “Asking won’t get rid of them. Death threats would work with Apple. I’m not sure about Robert.”

  “This is ridiculous.” I stood up. “This is not a redo of the past.”

  “Sit down.” Mac motioned to my chair. “There’s more. The sheriff was summoned for noise complaints and a fight. They threw a huge party; add liquor and drugs and you get irate neighbors blowing up the phones to the sheriff.”

  “I’m going to go have a talk with them.” I held out my hand. “Give me a key in case they don’t open the door.”

  I walked outside and called Fab. I got her answering machine, so I left a message. “Can you find out why Jax was arrested and how long he’ll be in jail and get back to me?”