Playing with Bonbon Fire

by Dorothy St. James

  “Gibbons,” I said.

  “You shouldn’t give him such a hard time. He’s a good man. I have total faith that he’ll be able to do the job,” Ezell said.

  “I do, too,” I agreed. “I just wish he’d catch whoever has been terrorizing our town a little quicker.”

  “Yesterday couldn’t be soon enough for me,” he agreed. “I feel as if we’re all standing around holding our breath while waiting for the next attack. You and I really should put our heads together. I might be able to help you put your thoughts in order. We could sit down somewhere right now and work through what we know.”

  “As a matter of fact, we were about to get some lunch and talk about how we can try to fill in the gaps of what we know,” Tina said. “We’d love for you to join us.”

  I glared at Tina. That wasn’t what we were doing. We were heading to the pier to check in on the festival. And why would she invite someone neither of us really knew that well to be part of something I wasn’t planning on doing in the first place?

  She smiled sheepishly. “We do need to eat.”

  Ezell readily agreed to join us for lunch. “I think if we talk things through, we might be able to come up with something to tell the detective. He’s not a local, so he doesn’t know the history as well as a native, such as I, would.”

  Since the Dog-Eared Café was one of my favorite lunch spots on the island, that’s where we headed. The café was located in a newly renovated one-story building in the middle of the island about a half-block off Main Street. The bright blue concrete-block structure with equally bright green trim had once served as the island’s Laundromat. A small sign beside the door featured a silhouette of a howling dog.

  After we all perused the menu, I ordered my usual, a Thai shrimp wrap. Tina ordered Bertie’s favorite, the crab cake sandwich. And Ezell ordered a coffee. “I don’t have time to stay too long,” he explained. “I still need to find Tom before the photo shoot.”

  “We understand,” Tina said with a kind smile. “We’ll take whatever time you can spare.”

  “First off, I want to hear your thoughts on what’s going on, Penn. Did I hear you tell Gibbons that she didn’t think Candy was behind yesterday’s shooting? Everyone else on the island believes otherwise. I heard she was in the shop threatening you and then ran into the same vacant lot where the shots came from. Sounds like she’s the one to me.”

  “That’s what the real shooter wants everyone to think,” Tina declared. She leaned forward and whispered, “Penn is certain Candy was set up.”

  “Really? Why?” Ezell’s eyes lit up. His voice matched Tina’s level of excitement. They both sounded eager to go chasing after a deadly killer with no regard for their own safety.

  “It all goes back to something that happened more than forty years ago,” Tina said. “At the last Summer Solstice Beach Music Festival, in fact.”

  Ezell’s brows rose. “Really?”

  “The congressman was good friends with Stan Frasier,” I warned Tina. I didn’t want her to inadvertently say something insensitive. “They’d been friends since childhood.”

  It was her turn to say “Really?” She latched onto the congressman’s arm. “Then you are exactly who we need to be talking to. You must know what happened back then.”

  The waitress interrupted whatever Ezell was about to tell us when she arrived with our drinks. She stayed to chat a bit about the warm weather and to talk about how great the festival had been for business.

  Tina, who looked as if she was about to burst from anticipation, took a sip of her sweet tea and then insisted the waitress go and brew her a fresh cup of unsweetened tea, providing specific instructions on how the freshly brewed tea should be poured into a pre-iced glass before adding ice.

  “That should keep her occupied for a while,” Tina declared after making the poor waitress promise to do every step in the process with great care.

  “You had better give her a huge tip,” I said. “That was cruel.”

  “No, it was necessary. We need privacy,” Tina countered. “And you already know I’m a generous tipper.”

  Ezell shook his head. “If you hadn’t already told me the two of you were sisters, I would know it now.”

  “Sorry about that.” I pressed my hands to my heated cheeks, but inside I was smiling. This was the first time in my life I truly felt as if I had a sister. Not a half sister who was raised to compete with the other half siblings for the scarce attentions our father afforded all his children, but a full-blooded, love-her-no-matter-how-crazy-she-makes-me sister. It felt good. Really good.

  Tina didn’t notice me hugging myself or the goofy smile I was now wearing as I watched her. She pressed on with questioning Ezell as if the waitress had never interrupted her. “Congressman, what can you tell us about Bubba’s relationship with Carolina Maybank?”

  “Please, when I’m on the island, I’m just Trey,” he said as he sat back in his chair. His eyes softened as he looked past the both of us. It appeared as if his intense gaze had transported him back in time. “Carolina Maybank. I haven’t thought about her in ages. She was a spirited girl who loved this island. She loved everything it had to offer—swimming in the ocean, fishing off the pier, walking along the sandy beach in the moonlight, boating through the marshes. She painted. Did you know that? Her landscapes were the best. Even all these years after she ran away, I still have one of her paintings hanging in my office. It depicts the marsh at sunset. A shrimp boat is making its way up the river to its home dock as bold streaks of red, bright yellow, and dark purple color everything in the scene. Whenever I look at it, I’m home.”

  The goofy smile plastered on my lips grew larger as I listened. This was my mother he was talking about. And she was talented and sporty and—I sighed—someone I would have loved to have in my life.

  She wasn’t a con artist who professed to be magical.

  She wasn’t a parasite who had taken advantage of a naïve college boy.

  And she wasn’t my mother.

  Florence had stepped up and claimed that honor.

  That last thought sobered the smile right off my face. Ah, well. Whether Carolina was my mother or not didn’t matter. I needed to find out more about her and if her disappearance had anything to do with Stan’s murder. “Do you know why she left the island?” I asked.

  “Sadly, no,” Ezell said. “If I remember correctly, it seems she just packed up and left one day. Maybe your family can help you answer that question. Maybe one of them even knows where she went.”

  “I have asked. Her siblings all say they haven’t heard from her since the day she left town.” I tapped my fingers on the table. “I heard she left because the man she was dating at the time treated her poorly. Do you know anything about that?”

  He chuckled. “Is that old rumor still going around? It was all a lie, you know. Vicious, really.” He looked around before lowering his voice. “I hate to speak ill of the dead, especially when the dead man was my friend, but it was Stan who started that rumor. He told everyone that Bubba was stepping out on Carolina, which was ridiculous. Bubba had bought a diamond ring for her and was on the verge of proposing. I have firsthand knowledge of it since I’m the one who drove him into the City of Charleston to the most respected jewelry store on King Street.”

  “What happened?” Tina leaned forward and asked.

  Ezell shook his head. “Carolina left. But don’t you believe for a minute that was the outcome Stan wanted. He’d started the lie because he hoped Carolina would fall into his outstretched arms. He wanted to console her and … more.”

  “Why? Why would he sabotage a close friend’s relationship for a woman who hadn’t expressed any romantic interest in him?” Tina asked.

  Ezell checked his watch and told us that he needed to run. He hoped we could get together again soon to finish our brainstorming. As he stood, he dropped a few dollars on the table to cover the cost of his coffee. I thought he was going to leave without answering us.


  But I was wrong. Before walking away, Ezell lowered his voice and said, “Bubba and Stan may have played in the same band, but they were never friends.”

  Chapter 30

  “Again, I have to say it. It looks like Bubba is guilty of murder,” Tina leaned across the café table and whispered.

  I’d been pushing my coleslaw around my plate while thinking about how Stan had sabotaged Carolina and Bubba’s relationship. Could a bad breakup really be the reason Carolina had disappeared without a trace for over forty years? “I can’t imagine Bubba holding onto a grudge for that long. It all seems unbelievable.”

  “Did he ever marry?” she asked.

  “Who? Stan? I don’t know.” I gave a piece of mayonnaise-drenched cabbage another push with my fork. Because of Stan’s meddling, Carolina had moved away and changed her identity? That didn’t make sense.

  “Are you paying attention to me? I’m asking about Bubba. Has he ever been married?”

  I had to stop and think about that. “I don’t know. We’ll have to ask Bertie.”

  “I know he’s your friend and all, but you need to consider the possibility that he’s responsible for the murder and mayhem happening on this island. If he never married, perhaps it’s a sign he’s been pining for Carolina all this time.”

  “But if the motive for murder is revenge for breaking up a relationship, why wait forty years?”

  Tina shrugged. “Isn’t this the first time Stan has returned to Camellia Beach?”

  “That would make Bubba an awfully lazy murderer. He waited forty years for the man he wanted to kill to come back to the island? That doesn’t make sense. Why wouldn’t he simply travel to where Stan was singing and kill him there?”

  “Don’t forget how Stan vowed to stop The Embers from selling their songs to Bixby. That last argument might have caused Bubba to snap and commit what they call a crime of passion.” Her voice dipped into a lower, more dramatic register as she said “crime of passion.”

  “You really need to lay off watching all of those crime dramas on TV.” I poked at a raisin with a fork tine. The café added them to the coleslaw to make it taste extra sweet.

  “Think about it, Penn. Even if you like the guy, you have to agree that his alibi for the night of the murder is weak. Does he really expect us to believe that someone hit him on the head and set him adrift on a boat?”

  I set my fork down on my plate. “He didn’t do it.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Bertie.” I wasn’t going to finish my lunch, which was a mini-tragedy in itself. The food here was always amazing. I waved for the waitress.

  “Bertie? Are you serious?”

  “I am. She trusts Bubba. And I trust her.”

  I worried about Bertie. I worried about what she was doing and where she was going. But deep in my heart, I trusted her.

  Tina shook her head but didn’t say anything because the waitress had just arrived with the bill. After chatting with us for a while about the food, the server carried off our plates.

  “You’re crazy,” Tina whispered as soon as we were alone again.

  “Crazy? Because I believe Bertie? Perhaps you’re right. I do have a bad track record when it comes to trusting the wrong people.”

  “Oh, Penn, I didn’t mean it that way,” she said gently. She placed a more than generous tip on the table. “There’s nothing wrong with trusting the people in your life. I know that’s been hard for you. And I’m so happy that you’ve finally started to feel confident enough to let people who love you get close to you. You’re finally letting me get close to you. But you also need to realize that some of the people you love might be wrong.”

  Some of them might even have been dead wrong.

  * * *

  On the pier, many of the concert vendors had decided to keep their booths open during the day, which was a smart move. Tourists flocked to the pop-up shops, voraciously buying everything from concert T-shirts to beach music CDs to silly hats. As Tina and I passed a booth selling Beach Boys bobbleheads, a tourist started feeding popcorn to the seagulls. Dozens of the large white birds gathered and, shouting at each other, began fighting for prime positions, which appeared to be directly above Tina’s and my heads.

  The seagulls seemed to echo the frustration of the angry voice in my head. “If the killer isn’t Candy,” I asked, “why would someone want to shoot me? What threat would I pose to anyone on this island? No matter what you think, Bubba wouldn’t shoot at me, especially not with his bandmates standing right next to me in hitting range.”

  “Does that mean you’ve changed your mind? Do you think Candy is responsible for the shooting?” Tina put a hand over her sunhat and hurried me away from the growing flock of noisy birds.

  Had I changed my mind? “You have to admit it would simplify things, wouldn’t it? If we believe Candy is guilty, all the pieces kind of fall into place. She killed Stan by accident, thinking she was killing her unrequited love. She then rigged the grill to explode, damaging Bixby’s perfect brows. Finally, she shoots at me. And in the middle of all this, she breaks into my shop and tries to set it on fire. Every piece of the puzzle gets wrapped up quite nicely in a pretty bow—Candy’s demented pretty bow, but a bow nonetheless.”

  “But she didn’t do it.” Tina turned around abruptly, just as a gust of wind blew her sunhat from her head. Long strands of her brown hair pulled loose from their bobby pins and whipped in the wind like Medusa’s snakes. She grabbed at her unruly hair and tried to tuck it back into place with no luck. The wind was too strong.

  “Here.” I handed her the sunhat I’d managed to catch before it sailed over the pier’s railing and into the sea.

  Congressman Ezell’s booth was a few yards away. I spotted the congressman right away. He was talking with a woman holding an expensive-looking camera. Several of the residents from the Pink Pelican Inn were gathered around him like he was a rock star. A man with a walker reached out and started to vigorously shake his hand.

  Young Tom, dressed as if he should be heading to church instead of sitting in the heat hours before a beach music concert, wandered past us. He dragged his feet with every step.

  “I’m glad to see your uncle found you. He was worried,” I said to Tom.

  “Oh, hi, Miss Penn,” he said. “There are so many people out today, I didn’t see you. Uncle Trey wanted me to take some pictures for some newspaper, and I’d spilled ketchup on my suit. I had to go home and change. Have you talked with Bixby Lewis lately?”

  I hadn’t, which worried me. Candy was still on the loose. And, despite my doubts about her guilt in Stan’s murder, she could be dangerous. I raised my brows in Tina’s direction. She shrugged and said, “After yesterday, I can understand why he’d want to keep his distance from the shop. He texted this morning to say he was planning to spend the day practicing with The Embers.”

  “They’re playing tonight?” Tom asked.

  I nodded. “It’s the last night of the festival. Bubba had said he wanted the festival to go out with a splash from the past with the Embers reunion.”

  “And Bixby will be playing with them?” Tom asked with the first bit of excitement creeping into his preteen ennui.

  “He is.” I pressed a finger to my lips. “But it’s a secret, okay?”

  “Are you a big fan, Tom?” Tina asked.

  The boy nodded. “Oh, yes. Bixby is the greatest. Don’t you think so?”

  “He’s pretty great,” she agreed. “Be sure to come to the VIP area so you can get a good view tonight.”

  “If Uncle Trey lets me, I’ll be there. Thank you.” With a little more bounce in his step, he started to walk away. “Don’t forget to vote Ezell in next week’s primary,” he called to us as if reciting a line in an amateur play. “Every vote counts.”

  “I’m sure your uncle will do a great job,” I called back. As Tina and I continued down the pier, my cell phone buzzed.

  I checked my phone’s screen. “It’s Althea,” I said
as I answered the phone.

  Without much of a greeting, Althea told me she had some new information about her mother. I agreed to meet with her at her house right away.

  After I disconnected the call, Tina glared at me. “I’m not going to let you ditch me.”

  “I wasn’t going to—”

  She didn’t let me finish. “Whether you want me to or not, I’m coming with you to hear what Althea has to say. End of story. Okay?”

  “Okay.” I noticed the congressman had left his booth. Bags of bonbons sat out in the hot sun on his display table. If he didn’t put them away soon, they’d melt.

  “No, you can’t talk me out of it,” Tina argued. “Wait … did you say okay?”

  “Afterward, if there’s time, I want to try my hand at making bonbon fires again. I could use a taste tester.” I smiled.

  “Ohhhh … you’re not going to get me to do that again.” She trotted alongside me as I hurried down the steps of the pier.

  I was anxious to hear what Althea had learned.

  Thankfully, Althea’s house was only a few blocks away.

  “I’m sure this next batch won’t be nearly as hot,” I said, pumping my arms and stretching my long legs as we made our way down one of the streets that ran parallel to Main Street.

  “I’m not going to risk it,” Tina said. “You need to be your own taste tester.”

  “But where’s the fun in that?” I laughed.

  “It wasn’t fun the first time.”

  “It was for me. Okay. Okay.” I held up my hands in surrender. “You win. I’ll taste them first. But when I’m in the kitchen, it would be a huge help to me if you could run by Bunky’s Corner Store. With everything that’s been happening as well as the work we’ve been doing with the festival, neither Bertie nor I have made it to the grocery store in ages. The fridge is empty. And then afterward could you work the front of the shop for me?”

  “Why does it feel like you’re trying to ditch me?” Tina asked, sounding suspicious.

  “I do want to work in the kitchen. And if we don’t want to eat chocolate for every meal, we need to put some food in the fridge. And if you could lend a hand in the shop, it would be a big help to me.” None of that was a lie. But I also wanted to do one other thing, something I didn’t want to discuss with anyone. Something that just thinking about doing made me feel as antsy as Stella after she’d spotted a squirrel in a tree.