Playing with Bonbon Fire

by Dorothy St. James

  “Green will be all the rage this fall. The softest mossy green you’ve ever seen. I’m pairing it with light tans and … Wait a blasted minute. You’re deflecting, silly bean,” Tina said. She’d joined me at the sink and had taken control of the scrub brush. “You have a knack for changing the subject when you don’t want to open up about something.”

  She stood back and looked at me. Water from the soapy brush she held dripped all over the floor.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I wasn’t deflecting.” I grabbed the brush from her. I didn’t need a large puddle to mop up in addition to the pile of dirty kitchen equipment sitting in the sink. I put some muscle into scrubbing dried chocolate from the double boiler.

  “Don’t play stupid with me. You know exactly what I mean. I’m just wondering what you’re trying to hide from me.”

  I loved Tina. If not for the dangerous situation here in Camellia Beach, I would have enjoyed sitting down with her and unloading all of my troubles. But there was a killer loose on the island, and I didn’t want to see her get hurt.

  Undeterred by my silence, she pressed on. “Could it be that you don’t want to talk about how Bixby and that surfing lawyer of yours are both sweet on you? I still can’t believe that lawyer of yours brought over that delicious mole poblano sauce on a whim last night.”

  “He said he made too much, and he knows I like anything with chocolate in it,” I said, trying to suppress a smile. I was sure he’d brought over that flavorful sauce because he knew I’d still be upset over what Florence had revealed to me and he knew I liked to drown my worries in food. It was a decent thing for him to do.

  “Riiiiight. He made too much. Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad he brought it. It was luscious drizzled over the fish and rice you and Bertie cooked. Oh … you’re distracting me from the point I’m trying to make again. Where was I? Oh, yes, you don’t want to talk about your love life—or rather lack of love life. Or perhaps you don’t want to talk about yesterday’s shooting. Or maybe you don’t want to talk about that mysterious meeting you had up in your apartment yesterday.” She looked at me with a smirk. “I know you, silly bean. You don’t want to talk about any of it. But what, I wonder, scares you most?”

  My cheeks burned. When had Tina gotten to know me this well? Could the rest of my family read me this easily? Was that why they were so adept at getting under my skin?

  “I don’t have time for these games.” I dropped the scrub brush into the sink with such a splash that soapsuds splattered on my face. I wiped them off with my sleeve. “I have to help Bertie open up the shop.”

  Tina trailed behind me. “Something happened yesterday that spooked you. And, curiously, it wasn’t that someone shot at you. I’m here because you need me. Lean on me, Penn. For once in your life, don’t shut everyone out.”

  I stopped in the middle of the hallway. “Give me time. I’ll …” I had no idea what I would do if given the time to think about it, so I didn’t finish that thought. I simply needed time to figure it all out.

  With a sharp nod, she let the matter drop.

  We found Bertie in the front, sliding a tray of chocolates into the display case. Because I’d closed myself into the kitchen super early that morning to work on my experimental bonbon fires and Bertie always attended early-morning church services on Sundays, this was the first I’d seen her since the previous night. It looked as if she hadn’t slept well. Her eyes were bloodshot. She emptied her coffee mug in just a few sips before going back for another.

  She kept shooting glances in my direction as if worried I might hound her for information.

  That was a fair worry. After we’d enjoyed our delicious fish dinner with its dark chocolate tones last night, I had pressed her to tell us where she’d gone the day before. I had pressed her to tell me about the threatening note Althea had shown me. And when she’d stayed stubbornly tight-lipped about both of those things, I had pressed her to tell us what had happened to make her quit singing with The Embers. It was important that she talked with us. I wanted to help. It could save her life and Bixby’s.

  Unfortunately, I’d hounded her to the point of aggravation. Soon after supper, she had bid Tina and me good-night and closed herself and Troubadour into her bedroom. A moment later the TV in her room was turned on. The muffled sound of canned laughter from old sitcoms carried through the walls. It continued as background noise in the rest of the apartment all night.

  I’d lain in bed listening to the bursts of laughter from her TV while thinking there was nothing funny about this situation.

  As we moved around the shop this morning, Bertie kept her distance. She took another sip from her newly freshened cup of coffee and went back to getting the shop ready for customers. She seemed determined to ignore me.

  I raised my brows at that and shot a glance in Tina’s direction. “You wanted to know what upset me the most yesterday? You’re right that it wasn’t Crazy Candy shooting at me. It was my three o’clock meeting,” I said to Tina. “The meeting was about the Maybank family, specifically about my mother.”

  “Really?” Tina nearly pounced on me from across the room. She held onto my arm as she waited for me to tell her more. “Have you learned anything new?”

  This tidbit of information had also gained Bertie’s interest. She put down the tray of freshly baked croissants that had just come off the delivery truck and wiped her hands on her apron as she turned toward me. A look of compassion softened her hard expression.

  Bertie had dearly loved Mabel. They’d supported each other both with this shop and also emotionally. Losing her had left a gaping hole in Bertie’s life. These past several months, she’d floundered as if unsure how to move forward. Thankfully, my own floundering in the shop’s kitchen had kept her mostly busy. Her love for Mabel had clearly spilled over onto me. I loved her too. And I was grateful for everything she did for me. It was time I did something for her.

  I glanced down at my hands. They shook just a bit while I decided exactly how to proceed. I didn’t want to say anything that would hurt Bertie. But if I wanted to help her, I needed to do this. “I have learned a few things about my mother. But there are still several questions I need answered.”

  “Questions about Carolina?” Tina asked.

  I smiled and nodded. “Yes, about Carolina.”

  Bertie wouldn’t talk to me about her past? She wouldn’t talk to me about what had been going on between her and Bubba this past week? She wouldn’t tell me why she was carrying a threatening note around in her purse? Things were at an impasse. But Granny Mae, with that clever mind of hers, had inadvertently given me the key to get Bertie back on my side with this investigation.

  My mother.

  “I know Carolina ran away from home. But what I don’t understand is why. Learning the answer to that might be crucial to finding out what happened to her and where she went.”

  “Shouldn’t the private investigator you’ve hired be able to answer that question for you?” Tina asked.

  I shrugged. “He’s more focused on finding where she lives now, and not with much luck.” I turned to Bertie. “Did Mabel ever tell you why Carolina ran away? Was it really because she didn’t want to run the Chocolate Box? You were living here at the time, weren’t you? Do you know what happened?”

  Bertie closed her eyes. “Lots of things were happening on Camellia Beach around that time.”

  “When did she run away from home?” Tina, bless her, asked.

  Bertie, her eyes still closed, furrowed her brows with distress. “It was the summer of 1975.”

  I held my breath, hoping she’d tell me something that would help me connect the dots between Stan’s murder and the mysterious occurrence that had happened in the days leading up to the last Summer Solstice Beach Music Festival that had apparently affected so many lives.

  When Bertie opened her eyes, she looked at me as if her heart was breaking for me. “Mabel didn’t like to talk about it,” she said softly, “but she be
lieved Carolina was involved with a man who didn’t treat her right.”

  “How old would she have been at the time?” Tina asked.

  Bertie thought for a moment. “She had to have been in her mid-twenties. She’d graduated from the College of Charleston a few years earlier and had been working with Mabel in the shop. Everything seemed to be going smoothly. But there was talk on the island that Carolina wasn’t happy.”

  “Because of her man trouble?” I asked. “Do you know who she was dating?”

  “I remember it like it was yesterday,” Bertie said. Her lips twisted into a tight frown.

  “Who?” Tina pressed.

  “Who?” I begged.

  She kept her silence for so long that I started to doubt she’d answer.

  “Bubba,” she said finally.

  Chapter 29

  I knew it! It was all connected. Stan’s leaving the band and my mother’s … er … Carolina’s disappearance. They had both happened around the time of the Summer Solstice Beach Music Festival. Carolina had disappeared shortly after the festival. Stan had quit the band. His leaving had caused The Embers to break up. This had also happened shortly after the festival.

  And Bertie had quit the band a few days before The Embers were scheduled to play at the festival.

  “Did something happen between Bubba and Carolina? Is that why she left?” I asked Bertie.

  “Some say he was the reason. Others say Carolina was unhappy working for her mother,” was all she’d tell us.

  Several hours later, Tina came along as I walked toward the pier. “Did you hear how Bertie answered your question this morning?” she asked. She’d added a straw sunhat and a pair of oversized sunglasses to her flowers–and–panda bear ensemble. I owned a similar pair of sunglasses. On her, they looked perfectly normal. On me, they looked ridiculous. “Obviously, she knows what happened. What do you think she meant when she said Bubba didn’t treat Carolina right? Was he abusive? Did he cheat on her? Did he use her for her money?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  The street was unusually crowded with beachgoers and beach music fans. I had to step into the road to get around a family window shopping at Althea’s crystal shop.

  “Bertie knows why Carolina left,” Tina whispered as she stuck close to me. “She has to. So why won’t she tell you?”

  “Probably because it involves her,” I said with a sigh. In Althea’s window display was a geode. The purple crystals encased in stone sparkled in the bright sunlight. “I think that’s why she’s acting so … oddly. And I suspect whatever happened all those years ago between her and Bubba and Carolina is also why she stopped singing with the band.”

  “But why would it matter now? And why would Bubba’s idea to bring the band back together get Stan killed?” she asked.

  “I don’t know.” I stared at the geode in the window, thinking how kind it was for Ezell to buy his nephew a thank-you gift for his help this weekend. The fact that Ezell had even known that Tom liked rocks spoke volumes about his temperament. He’d make a good senator. I hoped I would be able to help him find his friend’s killer. “Maybe if they sang, someone might remember the past and the killer didn’t want that to happen?”

  “Stan didn’t even want to sing with The Embers. You’d already convinced Bixby to take his place.”

  “And Bixby was excited to do it. He loved the songs, especially ‘Camellia Nights,’ which was the last song Stan wrote before leaving to make a name for himself on the national stage.”

  “Bixby told me about that song. He sang a bit of the refrain, ‘Three times three, he took her out to sea … under a Carolina moon on a Camellia night.’ It’s catchy.”

  “But now the sheet music for the song is missing.” Just like Carolina went missing forty years ago. “Stan left the band before they could sing ‘Camellia Nights.’ Is that important?”

  “I hate to say it, Penn. But everything you’ve told me so far makes your friend Bubba look guilty. He’s the one with the grudge against Stan. He’s the one whose bad behavior might have chased Carolina Maybank from the island.” She grabbed my arm. “We need to find out what Bubba did to Bertie to chase her away from singing with the band.”

  “I don’t think he did anything. Bertie has been defending his innocence,” I reminded her. “She told us herself that she wouldn’t stand by and let an innocent man be accused of something he didn’t do.”

  “She does seem very passionate about him,” Tina agreed, just as her cell phone chimed. She looked at the readout, smiled, and then sent the call to voicemail.

  “Who was that?” I asked.

  “Oh, that? One of the editors from Vogue. The magazine wants to do an interview. I’m supposed to set up something for this coming week at my studio.”

  “What an opportunity. And you’re getting calls from the editor on a Sunday? They must really want to talk with you. You should have taken the call.” This was the perfect reason for Tina to pack up and go back to Chicago where the streets weren’t crowded with killers. Well, it was Chicago. But you get my meaning.

  “You’re not getting rid of me that easily. We have a mystery to solve and a murderer to catch. So what do we do next?” Her smile grew by mammoth proportions.

  “We don’t do anything.” I certainly wasn’t going to do anything with her following along like a baby duckling. “I promised Detective Gibbons I wouldn’t investigate.”

  “But he’s chasing after Candy while the real perpetrator is walking around with no one the wiser,” Tina said.

  “Perpetrator? Are you trying to sound like a dime-store detective?” I asked with a chuckle.

  “One of us needs to start acting like an investigator.” She gave her hips a sassy swish. “They haven’t caught Candy yet, have they?”

  “I don’t know.” I dialed Detective Gibbons’s number.

  He picked up almost immediately. “Please tell me you’ve been keeping yourself out of trouble.”

  “I’ve been trying to. Do you have Candy in custody yet? Or do I still need to keep the glass replacement company on speed dial?” I spotted Congressman Trey Ezell walking down the street. He was dressed in khaki shorts and a white lawn cotton button-up shirt. I’d never seen him look so casual. It was a good look for him. When he saw me watching him, he raised an arm and waved.

  “Candy has so far eluded us,” the detective grumbled after a lengthy pause.

  “How can that be? This is a small island,” I demanded.

  “It is,” he agreed. “And my team has scoured every inch searching for her. They’ve done it multiple times now. She must have taken a boat to the mainland.”

  “Penn!” The congressman started hurrying toward us.

  “And have you reviewed the evidence? Do you now think she’s the one who killed Stan?” I asked the detective, hoping he’d say no.

  “She’s a likely contender,” he said, as if he was leaving several important details out of that answer.

  “I don’t think she shot at me.”

  The congressman had reached us. He raised a brow when he heard me say that.

  “I think someone set her up to make her look guilty,” I said, which made the congressman’s jaw drop.

  “You promised you wouldn’t get involved,” Gibbons said.

  “I’m not getting involved! I’ve just been doing a little thinking. And while nothing is really clear in my head, I can’t come up with a reason why Candy would kill Stan.”

  “You told me you thought Candy killed Stan by accident and that Bixby was her intended victim,” Gibbons reminded me.

  “Yes, but why would she want to kill the man she’s been following around the country for years? Is she looking to retire? No, she still loves him. And what’s her motive to shoot at me from a distance after standing not more than a few feet from me? She’s a stalker, not a killer.”

  Gibbons huffed. “Why are you parroting back to me everything I’ve been telling you?”

  “Because you’ve b
een right all along,” I had no trouble admitting.

  He huffed again. “We still need to find Candy.”

  “That’s true. Please let me know when you do. And detective?”

  “Yes, Penn?” he growled my name as if he wanted to reach through the phone and shake me.

  “While I promise not to investigate, I will be keeping an eye out for anyone who wants to shoot me, because someone did shoot at me yesterday, and I have no idea why. Plus, I have a festival to run. And I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure everyone stays safe.”

  “We have an ongoing investigation. You must know by now, I’m not at liberty to tell you everything we know. But I can tell you that we’re doing our best to keep you and everyone else in Camellia Beach safe,” he said brusquely. “So please, keep your wandering eye from wandering to places where it ends up putting you in any further danger.”

  By the time I disconnected the call, Congressman Ezell’s mouth was hanging open. He quickly snapped it closed.

  “You haven’t seen Tom around, have you?” he asked once his jaw was back in working order.

  “No, why?” I hoped nothing was wrong.

  “He was supposed to meet with me on the pier half an hour ago to prepare for a photo shoot the newspaper scheduled for this afternoon, and he’s not shown up.”

  “Have you tried calling him?” Tina asked.

  “I have, with no luck.” He looked at her and smiled. I quickly introduced the two. He turned on his polished politician charm as he shook her hand while boldly declaring himself to be South Carolina’s next U.S. senator.

  “That’s impressive,” she said.

  “It would be even more impressive if I knew where my nephew went.”

  “I heard he’s been hanging out with Harley’s son Gavin,” I said. “You might want to try calling over there.”

  He thanked us and started to walk away. But then he suddenly stopped and doubled back. “Not to intrude, Penn, but I couldn’t help but listen in on your phone conversation. Were you talking with Chief Byrd or Detective Gibbons?”