Bonbon With the Wind

by Dorothy St. James

  My chuckle turned into a laugh. “He’s pulling my leg, isn’t he?” I asked Bertie.

  She shook her head. “‘Judge not, lest you be judged.’” She often quoted the Bible on Sundays. Attending church services did that to her.

  “Camellia Beach is packed full of the biggest, busybodies I’ve ever met,” I said. “The entire town has this unquenchable need to know everything about everyone.”

  “You’re one to talk.” Bertie tsked.

  “Perhaps that’s why I feel so at home here. I fit in.” I found it easy to admit. “So, Bubba, tell me the truth instead of feeding me one of the business association’s slogans. Did you ever suspect that the story Joe was telling you about his fisherman past wasn’t on the up and up?”

  Bubba thought about it for a minute. “He talked and talked and talked so much about Blackbeard’s treasure, I suppose he never gave me the chance to think about anything else when we were around him.”

  “He seemed a little scattered at times,” Bertie said. “He’d forget things. Sometimes, important things. We’ve had enough people on the island with early stages of dementia that one starts to recognize the symptoms. I wonder if he didn’t suffer some kind of mental breakdown at some point and simply forgot who he was and where he lived. I spent some time with his wife this morning. Delilah seems like a lovely woman. Why would he run away from her?”

  Both Bertie and I looked at Bubba.

  “Ah, is that how it’s going to be?” he said. “Y’all are all looking at me, the dedicated bachelor, and start wondering why a man would leave his wife. I ain’t never had a wife, mind you. So how in blue blazes should I know?”

  Bertie crossed her arms over her chest. I followed suit.

  “A man runs when he’s under too much pressure,” he finally said. “Delilah might seem friendly, but who knows what pressures she put on Joe or what she’d say to him when they were behind closed doors. We all wear different faces when we’re around different people.”

  “That’s the truth. Joe’s daughter told me that Delilah married him for the inheritance he’d gotten after his first wife died.”

  “He had a daughter as well?” Bertie cried.

  “Didn’t I mention it?” I explained how I’d happened to meet Mary at Joe’s burned-out shell of a house. “She is not friendly with her stepmother.”

  “Clearly, Penn, you need to work on sharing information with others,” Bertie admonished.

  Since she was correct, I practiced sharing by telling Bertie and Bubba everything I knew about Joe Davies—AKA John Fenton—including how I’d felt a kinship with Mary Fenton and how I’d promised to help her. Opening up to the ones I loved was the first important step toward solving Joe’s murder. It also, ultimately, led to one of the worst mistakes in my life.

  Chapter 14

  Chocolate takes on the flavors around it. Which is a wonderful thing if you set a chocolate bar next to an orange or fragrant lavender flowers. It’s not quite so wonderful if you accidentally place a chocolate bar in the refrigerator next to a clove of garlic.

  My customers had shown me that people were also like chocolate. They take on the flavors of the place where they live.

  Island life here on Camellia Beach must have changed Joe Davies. It had changed me. I don’t think I ever knew what inner peace felt like before moving to Camellia Beach. Had Joe found peace here? Or had his relentless search for pirate gold made him even more nervous and anxious? He didn’t strike me as one of the relaxed residents. He certainly wasn’t like Bubba, with his easygoing take-life-as-it-comes attitude. So, I wondered, as I walked Stella along a trail that wove its way along the marsh that Sunday evening—how had Camellia changed Joe?

  The trail Stella and I were following had been battered by the storm. We both had to step over—and in some cases, climb over—fallen trees and an assortment of beach debris. With a happy bark, she scurried under a piece of wood siding tilted up against a rusty freezer.

  The sun was just beginning to set over the marsh and the river beyond, turning the sky a rich red that deepened until it disappeared into the distant tree line. As I crouched down to lure Stella out from her impromptu den, a chilly breeze rose up from nowhere. It felt like icy fingers had tiptoed down my spine. I shivered.

  This was my first fall in the South, and I was starting to think the autumn season was no different that the Lowcountry’s hot and humid summers. Scratch that, fall seemed to be more humid. So where had the cold breeze come from?

  I spun around, expecting to see…

  I don’t know what I expected to see.

  Mr. Tweed Hat?

  Big Dog?

  A mad killer frothing at the mouth?

  Or the translucent Gray Lady?

  Stella, who was still hiding in her makeshift den, growled.

  A light flickered between the tangle of broken trees a few hundred feet away.

  “Hello?” I called.

  The chill I’d felt earlier crawled up the back of my neck.

  “Hello?” I called louder this time.

  Only the distant sound of crashing waves answered me. The trail seemed eerily still. Stella had stopped growling. She’d crawled out of her den with her tail tucked between her legs. She crouched low and tilted her head to one side, her large ears like radar discs turning this way and that.

  I held my breath, listening.

  The light in the bushes wavered again. That’s when I heard it—a soft scrape. Like the sound of someone digging.

  “Is someone there?” I called.

  “Just me,” came the answer from behind.

  I spun around to find a shadowy figure walking toward me. Stella started barking like a maniac.

  “Harley. Thank goodness, it’s you.” The tension coiled in my shoulders relaxed at the sight of him. “Do you see it?”

  “See what?” He had to shout the question to be heard over Stella’s barking.

  “Hush, Stella. That’s Harley.”

  “I think that’s why she’s barking like that. Your little dog doesn’t like me.”

  “Nonsense.” Ignoring my dog trainer’s advice, I tossed her a piece of bacon, just to get her attention. “She’s simply excited to see you.”

  “Yeah, excited to get her teeth into my ankle.”

  I tossed her another piece of bacon, which she quickly gobbled down between barks.

  “Do you see that light?” I asked. While trying to get my naughty pup to calm down, I pointed to where the vaporous light had been floating around several hundred yards away.

  Harley stopped just out of nipping range and peered into the wooded area. “Sorry. Do you still see it?”

  I gave up on trying to calm Stella’s snapping jaws and looked for myself. Other than the slight glow of the crescent moon far above our heads, the area was dark.

  “There was something there. Someone, I think. Someone digging.”

  He was quiet for a long moment. “It could have been the moon reflecting in a marshy area.” He paused and then turned his face up at the sky. A crisp breeze rushed by us. “Let’s get back inside.”

  With a shiver, I agreed.

  “Is a cold front coming in?” I asked as we made our way down the pathway.

  “Not until next week,” Harley said.

  “Maybe it came early.” I rubbed my arms. “I’m cold.”

  “Really? It’s probably still close to eighty degrees out. I hope you’re not getting sick.”

  “I never get sick,” I announced.

  By the time we reached the back steps that led to the second-floor apartments above the Chocolate Box the chill had vanished.

  The lamp at the top of the stairs had been blown off by the hurricane. Replacing it was on my to-do list. The recessed lights in the covered second-story porch’s ceiling provided a soft welcoming glow as we climbed up to our apartments.

  “Your place or mine,” I asked as we reached my apartment door. I could hear Trixie and Barbie arguing about whether to watch Matlock
or NCIS.

  “Definitely mine,” Harley said. Was it my imagination or had his voice suddenly tightened? “We need to talk.”

  His door wasn’t locked, which was odd. He always locked his door. Even if Gavin was home, he would lock the door. But Gavin was at his mother’s house for the rest of the week.

  “What’s going on?” I followed him inside his place. Stella pulled the leash out of my hands to charge into the apartment, barking like a vicious attack dog.

  “I have an unexpected guest,” he said with a nod to the man sitting at Harley’s old wooden kitchen table. The man barely glanced in our direction. He was too engrossed in peeling shrimp.

  “Big Dog,” I said, immediately recognizing the bearded surfer. He still looked like a rogue pirate. “Your brother is looking for you.”

  “So are the police,” Big Dog said right before dredging the shrimp he’d just eased from its shell through a deep red cocktail sauce. He chewed before adding, “And I can’t let them find me.”

  Chapter 15

  “You can’t harbor him, Harley. You’re a lawyer and an officer of the court,” I whispered after I’d pulled him to the far side of the living room. But Harley’s apartment was as small as mine, and there was nothing wrong with Big Dog’s hearing.

  “There’s not a warrant out for my arrest,” the surfer answered before Harley could. Big Dog tossed Stella an oversized shrimp and instantly won my dog’s admiration. The little traitor was wagging her tail at one of my main suspects for Joe’s murder and flirting with him with her big brown eyes.

  “You do know that Detective Gibbons is looking for him?” I asked Harley.

  “Yeah, I know. I talked with Frank this afternoon.” He then quickly added, “But Big Dog is correct. A person has every legal right to go missing from their family. There’s no reason I should feel compelled to hand him over to the authorities. He’s not wanted for any crime. Joe’s death is still classified as accidental.”

  “Why would you mention Joe?” I demanded. With my hands on my hips, I spun to toward the surfer as he dipped another freshly peeled shrimp into a cocktail sauce that smelled like Heaven. “What have you done?”

  “Nothing!” Big Dog said. “Honest.”

  “Well, that’s not exactly true,” Harley said with a sigh. “Why don’t we sit down and have some dinner while we get everything out in the open?”

  Dinner consisted of a large bowl of boiled shrimp in the middle of the kitchen table next to an equally large bowl for the shrimp shells, and a roll of paper towels. No side dishes. No plates. At least Harley provided me with my own soup bowl filled with cocktail sauce. He opened three Palmetto Ale beers and handed one to Big Dog and one to me.

  Harley was such a bachelor. When his son wasn’t around, his dinners were often simple affairs like this one-bowl wonder. And because of my fondness for shrimp, I peeled one and nearly swooned at the sweet and spicy flavor of the cocktail sauce before demanding Harley explain why he was hiding Big Dog in his apartment.

  “It’s good, isn’t it?” Harley said as he watched me with a warm smile.

  “It was your Granny’s recipe,” Big Dog told me. “She shared it with me the last time I visited.” He leaned toward me and whispered, “The secret ingredient is chocolate.”

  My eyes widened. Chocolate? I ate several more shrimp while Big Dog told me about the fresh tomatoes, the brown sugar, fat cloves of garlic, the chili powder, and of course the cocoa powder that went into the recipe.

  I’d peeled another shrimp when Harley cleared his throat. “I hate to interrupt when you’re obviously enjoying the dinner I’ve prepared.” His friendly eyes sparkled with pleasure. “But we do need to talk.”

  “About keeping the other person in the loop about what’s going on?” I asked as I pulled the tail off the shrimp. “I saw your office today. Or perhaps I should say I saw where your office used to be. You should have told me.”

  His tanned cheeks darkened. “Yeah, about that. I didn’t want to worry you. It’s not like I was keeping information about a potential murder to myself.”

  “Perhaps I didn’t want to worry you,” I said.

  “Do the two of you need a moment alone?” Big Dog pushed his chair away from the table and began to rise.

  “No,” both Harley and I said.

  Stella yipped until Big Dog sat. He handed her another piece of shrimp. I shook my head at how quickly she’d trained the tall surfer.

  “We need to talk about why you’re here in town,” I said to Big Dog. “I know you and Joe are both from Cedar’s Hill in Virginia.”

  “Yeah, I lived in Cedar’s Hill for a time.” Harley’s surfing buddy no longer looked so friendly. He glared in my direction. I didn’t let it rattle me. After all, I’d been glared at by Chicago society matrons who had honed the art of the fierce stare into a finely sharpened weapon.

  “So you knew Joe when he was John Fenton.” Not a question, but a statement I was pretty sure was correct.

  “No,” he snapped. “I didn’t know him.”

  “Really? You didn’t know him?” I found that hard to believe. “But you came to Camellia Beach because of him.”

  Big Dog’s hard gaze remained locked on me as he sipped his beer.

  “If you want to stay here, you need to be honest with Penn,” Harley told his friend. “This apartment has now become an honesty zone. For all of us.” He winked at me. “You told me you came to Camellia Beach to clear your name. You said you sent that letter to your brother because you thought your life might be in danger. Tell Penn how this involves Joe Davies.”

  “It’s a long story,” Big Dog said. He took another long drink of his beer. Stella barked for him to give her another shrimp.

  “I learned from Frank just this afternoon that Big Dog is Silas Piper’s missing brother. But you already knew that, Penn,” Harley said when his friend didn’t start talking. “You should have told me.”

  I bit my lower lip. He was right. I should have told him. “I didn’t want you to get involved. You have a son to think about. And”—I spread my hands—“these kinds of things have a way of turning dangerous.”

  “Which is why you should have—” he blurted. He then shook his head. “Big Dog is here. And there’s trouble aplenty that we need to sort out before we start picking apart what’s wrong with this part of our relationship. But right now and from here on out, no secrets. No lies.”

  “I have never lied to you,” I protested.

  He raised his eyebrows. “Omission can be considered a kind of a—”

  “Okay, okay. You didn’t tell me about the damage to your office and Althea’s shop. I didn’t tell you about recognizing Big Dog in the picture Piper had sent me. We both were wrong.”

  “I agree.”

  “Good.” I didn’t like that Big Dog was sitting in Harley’s apartment. I didn’t like that I felt guilty for trying to protect Harley. And I certainly didn’t like this feeling that I needed to apologize for it.

  Harley frowned at me for a long moment. It looked as if he wanted me to say something. When I didn’t, he sighed. He then turned to Big Dog, who was watching us and smirking. “Tell us what happened to make you tell your brother that you thought your life was in danger.”

  The surfer grunted. He didn’t make any effort to hide the resentment in his voice. “My perfect older brother—the brother with the good half of the genes—thought I was wasting my life as a professional surfer. He never approved of anything I did, and that included my birth. My mother had me after she left Silas’ dad. She ran off with the Piper estate gardener. But after a year living off a gardener’s income, she returned to her marriage. Silas and I never did get along. I was the gardener’s son and a bastard.” He slumped down as he said it. “But his dad, out of love for my mom or guilt or an old-fashioned sense of duty, provided for me. I lived off a generous allowance. Not that he ever let me forget I wasn’t a Piper. The old man denied me the family name. After he died, Silas told me he’d stop send
ing my allowance if I didn’t do his bidding. That’s how I ended up taking a break from the surfing circuit and going to work—in a suit—as bank manager for the Consolidated Bank of Cedar’s Hill. Worst. Job. Ever. Everyone around me was so mind-numbingly dull.”

  “You stuck with it, though,” Harley said with an encouraging nod to his friend.

  Big Dog gave a long, slow sigh. “I admit I wasn’t paying that much attention. As I said, it was the worst job. But it was my job, so in a way, I guess it was my fault when assets went missing.”

  “Someone was embezzling at the bank?” I asked.

  Big Dog shrugged as he opened another Palmetto Pale Ale. He then handed Stella another shrimp.

  “Big Dog served five years in prison for the crime,” Harley said.

  “Silas assumed I was guilty. He didn’t come and talk to me. He told my dad, who still works as a gardener at the estate, that he’d expected something like this would happen. Blamed it on my bad breeding. Breeding? Like people are dogs?” He sucked in a deep breath. “Without consulting with me or letting me try and figure out what had happened, Silas deposited enough money into the bank to cover the millions in losses and then hired lawyers who railroaded me into taking a plea deal. It was his way of sweeping the scandal under the rug before the media got whiff of any of it. Google it and you won’t find anything anywhere about my going to jail. Ever.”

  “Big Dog hasn’t seen Silas since this happened,” Harley added. “Isn’t that right?”

  Big Dog nodded. “I didn’t see Big Bro while it was happening. He couldn’t be bothered. So why should I reach out to him now? I got out of prison and decided to never go crawling back to him for anything. He didn’t ask me if I was innocent. He’d assumed that since I was a world-class screw-up, I must also be an embezzler. Oh no, I don’t need that in my life. I’d starve on the street before accepting a dime from him.”

  Clearly, Big Dog wasn’t starving. He sat at Harley’s table dressed in a Brooks Brothers polo shirt and Tommy Bahama khaki shorts. Not the most expensive clothes, but not cheap either. This guy wasn’t living on a shoestring, which meant he had money stashed away somewhere. Embezzled money?