I was still staring at it and smiling like a goofy teen when the glass door leading into Bunky’s swung open. I looked up, expecting to see the man without the tweed hat exiting the store. But it wasn’t him. The woman hurrying out of the store nearly collided into me. She held two large paper shopping bags that were stuffed to the top with groceries.
“Bertie!” I should have known she’d go shopping. When she was upset, she cooked. Sometimes she cooked enough to feed the entire island.
“We need to talk,” I said to her. “I need to—”
“Not now,” she cut me off. She brushed past me. “I’m in a hurry, and these bags are heavy.”
“Well, you don’t have to do it alone.” I tried to take one of the overfilled bags from her, but she stubbornly hugged them both to her chest. “Don’t be foolish. Let me help you.”
“Don’t like how it feels, do you?” she asked as she nudged me out of the way with her hip.
Before I could stammer an answer, Bubba jumped out of a rusty red truck and hurried over to us. He relived Bertie of both grocery bags. Bertie, I noticed, readily released them for him. Then, while balancing the bags in his hands and against one hip, he managed to open the passenger-side door for her. He ran to the driver’s side and climbed in, nestling the shopping bags between them. The old engine grumbled and coughed and spit sooty black smoke from the tailpipe.
“Don’t move to Florida!” I finally managed to get out. I shouted it, actually, as the truck pulled out of the parking spot in front of the shop and jostled away down the road.
While the apology didn’t go nearly as well as I’d planned—as in, not at all—I took comfort in knowing Bertie was going to be at Bubba’s for the next several hours and not packing for Florida, which would buy me time to go running after Mr. Tweed Hat. The sooner I figured everything out and made sure there wasn’t a killer on the loose in Camellia Beach, the sooner everyone could go back to normal.
I marched into Bunky’s. By the time I’d gone up and down every aisle, the determination in my step had turned into a frustrated shuffle. The man was no longer there. He must have made his purchase and left when I wasn’t watching.
On the way out, I bought a bottle of chocolate milk. As I stood outside the grocery store, I took a long sip of the drink that tasted like chalk. (A hazard of working with fine chocolate was that all ordinary chocolates start to taste like chalk.)
Down the road, I spotted construction workers carrying a large window toward one of the older cottages. A man with a crazed look in his eye was attacking a downed tree with a chainsaw. And an older man was walking toward the beach with a shovel in one hand and a metal detector in the other. Everyone seemed to have a purpose. Everyone appeared busy. And there was no sign of my hatless stranger. But, I told myself, I now knew that he’d returned to the island. And that in itself was a valuable clue.
Chapter 13
After giving up on finding the tweed hat man, I spent several hours at the Chocolate Box working alongside Fletcher. Despite being short on chocolate inventory, absent of our regular shipment of morning pastries, and absolutely out of milk for our popular milkshakes, many of my regular customers returned after Sunday lunch, seemingly happy to order coffee and tea while waiting for any fresh gossip.
The Gray Lady had once again become the hot topic of conversation. As time passed, more and more people came into the shop, giving the copper bell over the door quite the workout. Mr. Tweed Hat didn’t return to the shop—not that I’d been expecting he would. The people coming into the shop weren’t residents of Camellia Beach. At first I assumed these new people were a fresh influx of construction workers. But then I overheard enough of the excited conversations to realize—much to my chagrin—the strangers were ghost hunters who’d come into town in hopes of catching a glimpse of what people were starting to call a killer ghost.
I suppose the black ball cap with Charleston Ghost Hunter stitched in white thread that half a dozen of them were wearing should have clued me in on that sooner. In my defense, I was distracted. As soon as there was a lull in the shop’s foot traffic, I planned to visit Bubba’s house to apologize properly to Bertie.
About an hour after I saw her at Bunky’s, she had called Fletcher to make sure he wasn’t swamped at the shop. She’d told him that she felt bad about running out on him since it was her afternoon to work. I took that as a good sign. But she’d also added that she wouldn’t have run off if I hadn’t driven her insane.
Fletcher had needled me and needled me for details about what I’d done to upset Bertie this time. I would have told him what had happened if he hadn’t added the “this time” dig.
“You know I-I’ll f-f-find out,” he stuttered and pointed to his deer hunter hat.
Yes, I did know that. He was a clever guy.
By about four o’clock that afternoon, the traffic in and out of the shop had slowed down. We were out of chocolate and running low on coffee. The ghost hunters, however, appeared rooted to their chairs. Their voices vibrated with the excitement of their hunt.
Fletcher offered to close up. He made a few of his trademark snide remarks after I’d reminded him of the things that needed to be done before he left for the day. “J-just go f-f-fix things with Bertie.”
“Sure. Fine,” I said as I hung up my apron. I then hurried out the back door, then hopped into my Fiat. Its small engine roared to life.
I was glad to get out of the Chocolate Box. Listening to the ghost hunters’ nonsensical musings about how a ghost could cause a man’s death—and why a ghost would bother to kill anyone in the first place—had been making me crazy.
“The Gray Lady didn’t kill Joe,” I shouted as I drove over to Bubba’s. I hit the steering wheel with my palm for added emphasis. “Everyone in town has lost their ever-loving minds, that’s what’s happening here. Island-wide insanity.” Having voiced it out loud made me feel better.
It took no more than five minutes to get to Bubba’s house, even with having to swerve around the piles of storm debris that lined the road. The debris would remain there until a dump truck came to haul it away.
Bubba lived on the southern tip of the island. To the left of the road, the vacation homes lining the beach were still tightly boarded up. Roofs were missing shingles. A few had been covered with blue tarps. It’d take a while for the absentee owners to receive the insurance money needed to fix them. In the meantime, they sat there—their beautiful landscaping wiped away by the waves—like lonely echoes of happy summer vacations from bygone days.
To my right, on the marsh side of the island, development was sparse. The land was low and swampy. It looked even swampier after the hurricane’s flooding. Actually, this part of the island looked quite different than it had before the storm. Once, there had been a thick arching canopy over the road. It was gone. Leaves and branches had been violently snapped off the live oak trees. Pools of water encircled ancient scrubby oaks twisted into strange shapes from years of unrelenting wind. Several Palmetto trees were bent over.
I came upon a narrow dirt driveway that met the main road. I stopped the car and stared at the deeply rutted drive for several minutes before I recognized it as the path that led to Bubba’s place.
His small house sat atop tall wooden stilts, giving it the look of a boathouse in search of a river. The house’s blue paint had peeled off here and there revealing a bright yellow hue underneath. The storm had hacked away at the long wooden dock behind the house that snaked through the marsh and all the way to the salty river beyond it. Huge sections were now missing. It would take quite a bit of work and money to make it safe to walk on again. But everyone in town knew how much Bubba loved that dock. He’d get it fixed before he did anything about the blue tarp covering the rusty metal roof on his house.
I climbed the narrow steps up to his whitewashed front door. Like the dock, the treads needed work. I skipped a few that looked like they wouldn’t support my weight while keeping a tight grip on the handrail.
&nbs
p; I’d texted Bertie and Bubba to warn them that I was coming over, so I wasn’t at all surprised when the door opened before I reached the front porch. Bubba came out. His smile, wide as always, made me feel welcome.
The inside of his house smelled damp—everybody’s home smelled damp since the hurricane—but the air was warmed with the savory scents of roast beef and potatoes and all sorts of seasonings that were unique to Bertie’s delicious cooking palette. My mouth watered.
Bubba led me to the kitchen where Bertie was standing at the sink, scrubbing a pan. I jammed my hands into the pockets of my shorts and stared at the floor a moment before saying, “I came to apologize. I’m an idiot. I say and do stupid things. You already know that. So please, I beg you, please stay. Don’t move to Florida. You know the shop needs you. But that’s not the only reason I want you to stay. I’d miss you. I’d miss having you as my roommate.”
“Move to Florida?” Bubba howled. “What’s this nonsense about moving to Florida?” He stomped around the house—making the entire structure shimmy and shake. The glass stemware in an overstuffed china cabinet next to me clinked and tinkled as if alarmed.
While Bubba stomped and grumbled and sometimes bellowed, Bertie set the pan she’d been scrubbing in the sink. She methodically dried her hands on a dishtowel before turning around. Her lips pressed into a thin line that made her look like a stern schoolteacher. The hard look in her dark brown eyes made me shiver.
“Bubba stop fussing so,” she snapped. “And stand still already. I feel like I’m rocking around on a sinking ship.”
With her expression still angry, she took a step toward me. Instinctively, I shrank back. “I’m really sorry,” I said, holding my hands out in front of me. “Really.”
“Honey.” Bertie lunged for me and pulled me into the circle of her arms. “You know I was just blowing off steam. This business with the hurricane and the seemingly insurmountable task of getting everything fixed up has been a terrible ordeal. More than half the time, I feel like exploding.”
Her arms tightened around me in a great big motherly hug.
While hugs nearly always make me feel awkward and vulnerable—I never know where to put my arms—Bertie’s hug felt safe. I held onto her far longer than I think she’d expected. I ate up our body-to-body contact like a starving person who’d just taken a seat at a banquet.
“Does this mean you’re not leaving Camellia Beach?” I asked though my face was still pressed into her shoulder.
“Of course I’m not going anywhere, child.” She patted my back. She then added sharply, “Bubba, please hush for a moment.” Her voice softened again. “For one thing, Penn, I have to get that building of mine fixed. Althea texted that you’d stopped by and saw the damage. I’ve been calling contractor after contractor. Nary a one has made it out to the building to look things over to give me a quote. They’re already swamped with work. I’m just about ready to pull my hair out. It’s maddening.”
“Someone should have told me about the tornado. I’ll be more than happy to make some phone calls. I’m sure I can get someone out there to fix the building right up. You know I know some people. After all, I’ve been having work done at the Chocolate Box for months now. I’m sure I can hire someone to start next week.”
“Oh, no!” Bertie nearly shouted. She jumped out of the hug that had gone on for too long anyhow. “You don’t need to do that. Really. I appreciate it, but no. Please, just, no.”
Her reaction startled me.
“I—um—okay. I just thought—”
“Have you eaten lunch?” Bertie blurted, speaking much faster than her usual controlled cadence. “Let me fix you a plate. Sit down. Heavens, Bubba, don’t just stand there. Show her where to sit down.”
Instead of following Bubba to his dining table, I stood there staring at my friend while she piled food on a white china plate. I couldn’t help but wonder why in the world she was refusing my offer to help her find workers who could fix up Althea’s and Harley’s businesses. Did she not trust that I’d help? Did she think I’d use this act of kindness as some sort of leverage against her? My family often did that, but I never would.
Bubba came back over to me. He bent down and whispered, “You’d better do as she asks, you know what I’m saying?”
I knew. You didn’t cross Bertie when she was offering up food. I followed him to the table. Like a true Southern gentleman, he pulled out a chair for me to take. As I sat, he said, “While you eat, you can tell us how you’re going to solve Joe’s murder.”
I nearly fell out of my chair.
The mere mention about solving Joe’s murder was what had caused the trouble between Bertie and me in the first place. I glanced in her direction. Her hand, gripping a spoon heavy with mashed potatoes, had stopped moving.
“I don’t think—” I started to say.
Bertie’s eyebrows inched up a notch.
I squinted at her, as if squinting would help me see into her mind and know what she was thinking. Of course I didn’t have to do that.
I already knew how she felt about my not telling them that I was investigating Joe’s murder. They had to be experiencing the same painful feelings that had hit me like a freight train when I learned that none of them had told me how badly their building had been damaged. The realization that they hadn’t trusted me—didn’t trust me—to help them had hurt like a punch to the gut.
My gut grumbled, interrupting those thoughts. The food Bertie had cooked smelled wonderful.
My stomach rumbled even louder. “If you bring that plate over here, I’ll tell you everything I know.”
Bertie set her hands on her hips. “I’m not your waitress. You can come over here and get it yourself.” Although she sounded fierce, I noticed right away the sparkle had returned to her eyes.
“You did tell Bubba to make sure I sat down,” I countered, but I got up and fetched the plate myself. I found a knife, fork, and spoon in a drawer and helped myself to some sweet tea while I was in the kitchen.
In addition to the perfectly seasoned roast beef, Bertie had added collard greens, butter beans, mashed potatoes, and biscuits. Everything was drowning in thick gravy.
“My word, this is good,” I said after I’d taken the first bite of the collard greens. No one made collard greens like Bertie.
Bertie took the seat next to me. Bubba sat across from me. He popped open a beer, gave me a salute, and then drained half the bottle. Bertie tapped impatiently on the tabletop.
“It’s not the Gray Lady,” I said after finishing off the biscuit.
“Of course not,” Bertie agreed.
“We don’t know that,” Bubba said. “They say she’s a protector of the island.”
“Ghosts don’t kill people,” Bertie argued. “Least, not so directly.”
“Ghosts don’t kill because they don’t exist,” I corrected.
“Then who do you suspect?” Bubba asked.
I cut into the roast beef. “Too soon to tell. Bubba, you knew Joe, didn’t you?”
“I hunted the beach with him a time or two,” Bubba admitted. “He mostly discouraged anyone from treasure hunting with him. I think he did it because he was afraid that if he found something, he’d have to share it. We’d meet up at the Low Tide Bar and Grill sometimes. He would drink bourbon. I would have a beer. He’d ask me about island lore. He sometimes wanted to know about anyone new who’d moved to the island. He seemed especially worried about you, Penn.”
“He did?” That surprised me. “Why?”
Bubba drained the rest of his beer. “I always assumed he was worried that someone else would take up an interest in treasure hunting. He seemed to think that he earned the right to be the man who searched the beach for pirate gold.”
“He couldn’t have been that protective,” Bertie said. “He talked and talked and talked with me about Blackbeard and his treasure whenever he came into the shop.”
“Sure, he would talk to everyone about the treasure, but he never said
anything of substance,” Bubba said.
“That’s true. Every time I talked with him, it was the same thing. Blackbeard’s treasure was hidden somewhere on Camellia Beach,” I said.
Bubba nodded. “He never told anyone anything new. And what he did tell us was information anyone could find on Wikipedia. He’d added that little part that he thought the treasure was on Camellia Beach. Yet, he claimed to have reams and reams of research in his house. Why was that? Perhaps it was because he’d found something important. Perhaps he was afraid someone else might discover whatever secret he was holding onto, so he only told people what they could find for themselves with a simple Google search.”
“Wow. You’ve thought about his treasure hunting far more than I have,” I said. “I had assumed it was simply Joe’s hobby.”
“I suspect it was much more than a hobby with him. Like I said, he questioned me about everyone who came to town. He acted worried that someone else would start sniffing around Camellia Beach. He seemed especially worried about people like you, Penn, who ferreted out people’s secrets.”
“That’s why you can’t lock us out, Penn,” Bertie said. “We each knew Joe in different ways. We each hold a unique piece of the puzzle.”
I shoveled some mashed potatoes in my mouth, so I wouldn’t have to immediately say anything, like, “Dang it, you’re right.” When I’d first come to the island, I hadn’t trusted anyone and had tried to investigate a murder on my own. That’s how I’d learned—the hard way—that I needed help.
But this time around I wasn’t locking them out because of a lack of trust, I was locking them out because I loved them.
“Did you ever suspect he was lying about, well, everything?” I asked once I’d finished chewing.
Bubba shook his head. “People come to Camellia Beach for many reasons. We’re accepting of everyone regardless of why they chose our island. We’ve learned not to ask too many questions. Or think about their reasons for being here too hard.”
I chuckled. “You’re kidding, right?”
He shrugged. “It’s a live-and-let-live island. We’re friendly. We’re easygoing. We make living here a pleasure.”
Bonbon With the Wind Page 10
