Before I could answer Karen, someone tapped on the glass in the front door. Bluebeard squawked a greeting as I made my way to the door.
Out on the sidewalk, Linda stood with a fat paperback book tucked under her arm and a full cup of coffee, waiting for me to open the door.
I shook my head. I’d been played.
Linda grinned at me and gestured at the lock.
“All right, Freed. How soon will you be here?”
“I’m just pulling onto the highway,” Karen replied. Her voice held a barely concealed note of laughter. “Three minutes, unless there’s traffic.”
I punched the disconnect button on the phone and unlocked the door for Linda. She gave me a quick hug and made a beeline for the tall director’s-style chair behind the counter.
“I want to finish this book,” she said, setting her coffee on the counter. “If I’m babysitting Southern Treasures, Guy can’t interrupt me every five minutes.”
“And what if my customers interrupt you every five minutes? Did you think about that?” I asked.
She shrugged. “They’ll pay for the privilege. It all works out.” Pointing to the staircase in the back that led to my apartment over the store, she continued, “Better grab a bottle of water before you go. It’s gonna be hot out there.”
Good advice. I hurried up the stairs, grabbed a tote bag, and stuffed in the necessities for a day trip: sunglasses, purse, bottled water, cell phone, and checkbook. I ducked into the bathroom and quickly pulled my long, dark-blonde hair into an untidy knot to keep it off my neck.
At the last minute I remembered sunscreen. I didn’t mind when my pale complexion freckled with a little sun, but the difference between freckles and sunburn was about a nanosecond. I wasn’t taking any chances today.
I heard Karen’s SUV pull up outside as I headed back down.
One last detour. I opened the door of the heavy iron safe under the stairs and counted out eight hundred in cash. For some people, cash talks louder than a check, especially when you’re buying odds and ends out of their backyards. I’d closed a lot of deals by offering folding money.
“Thanks, Linda,” I said, stopping to give her another hug. “I owe you for this one.”
“Got my book and my coffee,” she said. “I’m good for the day.”
“Coffee?” Bluebeard said. He sounded hopeful. It was odd sometimes how human he seemed. Or maybe I was just spending too much time with him.
“No coffee,” I answered. I stopped to check his water dish and offered him a shredded-wheat biscuit from the canister under his cage. “You behave while I’m gone.”
Karen handed me a coffee when I slid into the front seat. “Twice in two days? I could get used to this,” I said as I fastened my seat belt.
“Don’t,” she answered, silencing the chatter of the police scanner next to her seat. “You’ve already used up your allotment for the month. Next time it’s your treat.”
We left the highway, heading north. Karen knew treasure hunting almost as well as I did by now.
Just south of Keyhole Bay, I-10 was a freeway across the southern states. Even the old highway that formed Keyhole Bay’s Main Street was heavily traveled. Everything there would be picked clean. We needed rural routes and county roads.
That was where we were headed—into the piney woods of Florida’s Panhandle, maybe up into southern Alabama. It was the long way around to get to DeFuniak Springs, but it took us through lots of places too small to be called towns and past a couple of my favorite quilt makers.
Five hours and several stops later, we hit I-10 just outside DeFuniak. Stowed in the back of the SUV were a pile of cast-iron bakeware from a company that went out of business in the 1950s, several new quilts, and an antique crazy quilt in silks and velvets that should bring at least a couple thousand dollars.
Fortunately for me, some of my suppliers hadn’t yet heard of eBay.
We grabbed a late lunch, and Karen dropped me in front of the library while she went to do her interview. Not that I intended to go inside, I just wanted to walk Circle Drive around the unusual, perfect circle that was Lake DeFuniak. I had spent too many hours indoors during the summer, and the walk would do me good. I just had to remember to pace myself.
As I strolled, stopping every few yards to admire the picturesque houses that ringed the lake, I thought about Uncle Louis. He never married, which I found curious. In a region where family was everything, he never had one of his own.
Karen returned as I was completing my second leisurely lap around the mile-long path surrounding the lake. The long walk in the afternoon sun had left me pleasantly worn out.
We left DeFuniak on I-10, heading west into the sunset. Karen regaled me with the story of her interview; an hour with a retired chorus girl who had become a volunteer dance coach with a high school drill team.
“She’s a real character,” Karen laughed. “She showed me pictures of her in Las Vegas and Atlantic City. I had to keep reminding myself that I couldn’t put them on radio. But I got a couple, anyway. We can post them on the station website when the story runs.”
Taking the freeway, we would be home in just over an hour. Plenty of time to tidy up for tomorrow night, finish the book I was reading, and get a good night’s sleep.
I’d be up late tomorrow. No matter how hard we tried, how often we promised ourselves we’d break up early, dinner with Felipe and Ernie always ended after midnight, and Friday morning always came too soon.
As we crossed the line back into Escambia County, Karen kicked the volume up on the scanner. She kept it on whenever she was in range, just in case.
It immediately crackled to life with heavy traffic. The voices of local police, many of them men and women we knew well, filled the car.
“Patrol 15, this is Dispatch. Repeat, please.”
“Traffic accident. County Road 198, milepost 27. Single car.” Tension crackled in the officer’s voice. “Need rescue unit and paramedics.”
Karen stepped hard on the brakes, cutting across two lanes of traffic and speeding down the exit ramp. She hung a right at the end of the ramp, heading north.
“Hope you don’t mind a little detour,” she said. It wasn’t a question; she was going to the scene. My agreement wasn’t a consideration.
Karen drove fast, with an assurance that came from familiarity and experience. The location was north of Keyhole Bay on a lightly traveled county road, and she didn’t need to consult a map or GPS to find her way.
The radio crackled again. “Patrol 15, Dispatch. Rescue and medics on the way. ETA six minutes.”
“Copy that, Dispatch. Where’s my backup?” Urgency pushed his voice up an octave.
“Right here, Patrol,” a third voice answered. “FSP unit 47, about one minute away.”
“Thanks, FSP.” The patrol officer paused for a few seconds, his silence as tense as his voice had been. “Think I hear your siren.”
Karen roared down the country road as I listened to the scanner. The patrol officer was joined by two state patrol officers, and the rescue unit reported that they were only two minutes away.
“Vehicle is off the road about twenty yards,” one of the state officers reported. “On its roof in a field. Driver still in the vehicle. We are attempting to extricate, but it looks like we’ll need hydraulics.”
“Roger that,” the rescue unit replied.
For the next few minutes, there was constant chatter as official vehicles and equipment arrived on-scene. Orders were radioed from one crew to another as the dispatcher tried to direct traffic between the crews.
Then the radio went quiet. No one spoke. No chatter or requests. No orders.
“Patrol 15, this is Dispatch. Do you read?”
Silence.
“FSP 47?”
No response.
“Rescue 19. Respond.”
A pause.
“Somebody respond!” The dispatcher yelled, but he got no reply.
“FSP 24 here, Dispatch. We’re al
most on-scene.” In the background, we could hear the patrol car’s siren.
“Update me when you arrive, 24. Seems like everyone out there’s gone tunnel vision. I need to know what’s happening.”
“Will do.”
Tunnel vision. It was a phrase Karen had explained to me several months back. Something—something bad—had so consumed the crew’s attention that they no longer responded to the dispatcher’s calls. Focused on the problem in front of them, they couldn’t hear, or respond to, the voices on the radio.
We drove in silence for a couple minutes, waiting for the second state car to arrive and hoping to hear their report to the dispatcher.
Karen’s face was grim.
Her hands wrapped around the wheel so tightly that her knuckles gleamed as white as bone as she glared at the road ahead.
Karen spun the SUV around a tight left turn, heading west and south. In the distance, we could hear the faint wail of a siren. A minute later, we caught sight of red and blue strobes cutting through the growing dusk. Karen tapped the brakes, slowing down as we approached the scene.
She nosed the SUV to the shoulder and cut the engine. Just as she reached for her digital recorder, the radio sputtered to life again.
“Dispatch, this is FSP 24. Stand down medical. We need Doctor Frazier, and transport.” The officer’s tone was flat and matter-of-fact as he called for Doctor Marlon Frazier, the county medical examiner.
The coroner.
In the distance, the siren faded and choked into silence. Nobody was in a hurry, not anymore.
I looked over at Karen. She stared into the distance, where a knot of blue and khaki uniforms surrounded the overturned vehicle.
She gasped, and I followed her gaze.
The car was instantly recognizable. A fully restored baby-blue muscle car rested on its top, the window openings mashed to only a few inches high.
A crumpled echo of its former glory as the pampered baby of its teenage owner, the car belonged to Kevin Stanley.
Kevin, the hero of the local football team. The quarterback who was scouted by college teams two years ago, as a sophomore, and was expected to lead the locals to a state championship this fall.
Kevin, the golden boy of Keyhole Bay High School.
KAREN DREW A SHARP BREATH AND SHUDDERED slightly before squaring her shoulders and climbing out of the SUV. She had been on-scene at accidents before, her posture said; this was just another one.
Except.
Except we all knew Kevin. We knew his parents and his grandparents. We had watched him grow up in Keyhole Bay. This time it wasn’t some anonymous tourist, speeding by on the old highway.
I climbed out of the SUV and walked with her along the ditch toward the cluster of police and rescue vehicles a few yards ahead of us. As we got close, Police Chief Barclay “Boomer” Hardy walked back to meet us.
Boomer shook his head. “You don’t want to see this, ladies.”
I felt Karen stiffen beside me. She was a bit prickly about any attempt to “protect” her, and I knew this wasn’t her first encounter with Boomer.
“Chief Hardy,” I said, stepping in front of Karen, “I don’t think we want to see what happened, but we heard the call—”
“And my listeners will want to hear about what happened,” Karen interrupted, clicking the record button on the digital recorder she carried with her everywhere.
At least I had managed to draw her attention away from Boomer’s remark and focus her back on the accident.
“We’re investigating,” Chief Hardy replied, aware of the recorder. He chose his words carefully. “For now, all we know is that there appears to have been a single-car rollover accident.”
“Injuries?” Karen asked.
She didn’t need to. From where we stood, even with Boomer Hardy trying to shield our view, we could see that someone had draped a dark-blue blanket over a body on the ground.
“I can’t release any more information, Ms. Freed—”
The chief’s careful voice was interrupted by chatter from the radio hanging on his Sam Browne belt. He stepped away without hesitation, keying the radio and responding to the call.
Karen and I waited, straining to hear at least the chief’s side of the conversation. He kept his voice and the radio low, but an occasional word could be discerned.
“Thompson’s Corner.”
“Underage.”
“Kegger.”
The chief walked a few steps farther away, and Karen tugged on my sleeve.
“Let’s go,” she whispered, pulling me toward her SUV.
I could guess where she was headed, and I knew it would be useless to argue. We were going to Thompson’s Corner, to check out the kegger.
I called Linda and told her to close up and go home. I wasn’t likely to get back to town any time soon.
As we left the accident scene and headed for Thompson’s Corner, we passed the tow truck from Fowler’s Auto Sales, headed toward the accident site.
I had the ugly feeling I knew how Kevin Stanley’s car had ended up on its roof in the cornfield.
BY THE TIME WE PULLED UP IN FRONT OF SOUTHERN Treasures, the streetlights had flickered to life. Inside the store, night-lights glowed dimly.
The events of the afternoon had unsettled us both, and I invited Karen in for a cup of tea. I don’t think either one of us really wanted to be alone with our thoughts.
We’d seen the aftermath of the kegger. A couple dozen local kids carted off to the police station, their cars impounded.
Usually these things resulted in a flurry of calls to parents, who retrieved sheepish—and tipsy—teenagers from a gathering in the backwoods of the Panhandle. And usually the parents ferried the kids home, while other relatives retrieved the cars from wherever they were parked.
But usually no one died.
Especially not the hometown hero.
The chatter on the scanner was subdued as the local and state police rounded up the partiers and questioned them. Although no one actually said so, the assumption was clear: Kevin Stanley, his celebrated reflexes and physical conditioning impaired by alcohol, had left the kegger in a high-powered vehicle and ended up dead in the middle of a cornfield.
A horrible accident.
In a town as small as Keyhole Bay, everyone would know the details by morning. And by the day after, he would be a tragic figure cut down in the prime of his youth. The sordid details would be whispered from one gossip to another, but publicly he would be remembered only for his promise and talent.
It’s how small towns hold themselves together.
Karen and I dragged ourselves from the SUV and retrieved my treasures.
I stacked the bakeware on the sidewalk while I wrestled the front door open. I carried the heavy box into the dimly lit store, intending to deposit it on the counter.
I was too drained to deal with the new merchandise tonight. I could process it into inventory in the morning.
Karen didn’t know the store as well as I did, so I reached out with my elbow and flipped the light switch inside the door. Overhead fluorescents flickered for a second—I needed to replace one of the tubes—then came on bright and clear.
The shop was trashed.
The vintage magazine rack lay on its side, blocking the path to the counter. A quilt, fallen off the wall, draped across the jewelry display case. Antique newspapers covered the counter, their pages spread open as though someone had been interrupted while reading.
Behind me I heard Karen’s soft, “Oh no!”
I set the box of bakeware on the floor and turned to take the quilts from Karen, placing them on top of the box before I picked up the magazine rack.
Bluebeard woke up from his nap, glaring at me as though I were the intruder. He muttered something cranky and spread his wings to their full width before settling back down. He fixed his eyes on me and ruffled his feathers, then he spoke again. This time his voice was clear and precise.
“It wasn’t an accident.”
KAREN TURNED TO ME, HER MOUTH OPEN, BUT NO words came out. For the first time ever, the “Voice of the Shores” was speechless.
Not that I was doing any better.
I tripped over the box I’d just set down, catching myself on the magazine rack and nearly toppling it back over.
Karen grabbed my arm, whether to stop my fall or to steady herself, I wasn’t sure.
Silence stretched for seconds that felt like hours. Karen’s voice was a barely controlled croak when she finally managed to speak. “Did you hear that?”
I nodded, still not trusting my mouth to work.
Bluebeard’s pronouncement was unsettling, but I knew something Karen didn’t. I recognized the voice that had come so clearly from his beak.
A vague memory from childhood, a man I never really knew.
Uncle Louis.
I clenched my teeth to stop them from chattering. Of course he sounded like Uncle Louis. Who taught him to talk, after all? That’s all it was.
Nothing spooky, or ghostly. No reason to fall apart.
And, of course, the chaos in the shop wasn’t an accident. It looked as if someone had been searching through old newspapers. Seemed pretty deliberate to me.
I pulled in a deep breath, then let it out slowly, forcing away my suspicions.
“I can clean this up in the morning,” I said to Karen. “Bluebeard’s sick idea of a joke, but I’m too damned tired to deal with it tonight.”
Karen didn’t buy that Bluebeard was responsible for the chaos in the store. She offered to help me clean up, even suggested she should stay the night so I wasn’t alone in the shop.
“At least call the police and make a report,” she said.
I shook my head. “They have bigger problems than my parrot trashing the store while I was gone. I’ll talk to Boomer in the morning, I promise.”
She still wasn’t convinced, but she accepted my promise to call the police in the morning. One thing she could count on—I always kept my promises.
“If you’re really sure?” she asked, blocking the doorway as I tried to get her out onto the sidewalk.
“Absolutely.” I nodded firmly and gave her a push. “I’ll call Boomer in the morning, and I’ll see you for dinner tomorrow night and give you a full report.”
Murder Buys a T-Shirt Page 2
