Playing with Bonbon Fire

by Dorothy St. James

  He rubbed his stubbly chin. “I heard that, too. But Stan swore he hadn’t.”

  “He loved Carolina,” Tina said.

  “Half the men on the island did. You should have seen them go after her like hound dogs chasing a bone. It was ugly. But this song is about Stan’s girlfriend.”

  “Who was Stan dating?” Tina asked.

  “Some groupie from Charleston. Oh, what was her name? Sandy? Lisa? Something like that.”

  “And Stan took her out on a boat and returned without her?” I was surprised how calm I sounded. My heart was hammering in my chest harder than the band’s racing drums. “Didn’t that raise an eyebrow or two?”

  “Metaphorically, Penn. He was upset as all get out. He wrote a song about losing a woman, not a song about killing one.”

  “Are you sure?” I sure wasn’t.

  I needed to think.

  Still clutching the lyrics of the song in my hand, I stumbled away from Bubba and Tina. None of this made sense. If Stan had killed someone, why would he write a song about it? And, more important, why would someone kill him over that song more than forty years later?

  And then I remembered what Bubba had said about Stan always angling for ways to make money. Had he been blackmailing someone because of this song, someone with political connections? Bubba might not have had money, but his family—like Ezell’s—had been politically active and well connected at the time.

  But if Bubba had killed Carolina, why would he willingly hand over these lyrics to anyone?

  Chapter 38

  “Three times three, that’s all there was left on the sea on that steamy Carolina night,” Bubba noted that the ending chorus line repeated over and over at the end of the song. Was that a clue?

  After Bubba left to get ready for the concert, I dialed Gibbons’s number. He answered on the third ring by grumbling, “You promised you wouldn’t meddle—”

  “I know, I know. My sister is a bad influence. Have you located Candy?”

  “She’s being transported to the county hospital as we speak. Thanks for the tip. You may well have saved her life.”

  “So you believe her when she says someone was trying to kill her?”

  “One of my officers pulled her out of the water. The girl was trying to swim off the island and got caught up in a deadly undertow. She’s lucky to be alive.”

  “Well, I’m glad she’s safe. But I have to ask you,” I quickly added before he could disconnect the call, “did she give a description of the man who was chasing her?”

  “Why are you asking him that?” Tina poked me sharply on my arm. “Ask him if she mentioned the sheet music.”

  “You already know I can’t discuss the case, Penn.” The detective’s voice felt as sharp as my sister’s jabs. “You worry about the festival and leave the police work to the police.”

  “But I—” I started to say. He disconnected the call before I could finish. “What?” I snapped at Tina who was still poking my arm.

  “You should have asked him about the sheet music and if they saw any boys in the woods when they were searching.”

  Tina was right, but not for the reason she was thinking. Yes, we needed to focus on finding the missing sheet music because it was the key to discovering who killed Stan. It was also the key to figuring out what had happened to Carolina Maybank, the woman I still considered my mother.

  “Penn! Penn!” I heard someone calling over the swinging sounds of the second opening act.

  I turned around and spotted Harley and Althea. With the deep reds of the sunset at their back, their bodies were in silhouette. They were running toward us as if the devil were chasing them.

  All the blood started to rush out of my head. “What … what’s happened? Is Bertie—?”

  Althea reached me first. “She’s fine,” she assured me. “She’s sleeping comfortably.”

  “Then what’s wrong?” I asked, because something was definitely wrong. Even in the dim twilight, Harley looked pale.

  “It’s Gavin,” he croaked. “He’s missing.”

  “Oh, no. Have you asked Jody if she’s seen him?” I said.

  Harley nodded. “That was the first call I made. After she accused me of parental neglect and told me she’d see me back in court, she admitted she hadn’t seen him today.”

  Tina wrapped her arms around Althea, who was starting to cry. “When was the last time you heard from him?” she asked Harley.

  “I touched base with him as soon as I got to the hospital to let him know where I was. He said he was with Tom and Tom’s uncle. I talked with him again at six. He told me he’d meet me at the apartment at seven. He told me not to worry because he was eating dinner with Tom and Ezell.”

  “He was lying to you,” I said.

  “My boy doesn’t lie,” Harley snapped. He stepped away from us and dragged his hand through his hair several times before coming back. “Why do you say he was lying?”

  “I saw the congressman around seven. He was furious that Tom hadn’t returned to help out at the booth. He said he hadn’t seen the boy all afternoon. I, however, saw Tom right after you left for the hospital. He was upset because he’d let the chocolates Bertie and I had made for the congressman melt. Gavin wasn’t with him.”

  “He wasn’t?” Harley punched at his phone’s screen. “I’m calling the police.”

  “While you do that, let’s go talk to Ezell,” I said. “He might have seen them.”

  Ezell’s booth was still empty, and the congressman wasn’t answering his phone. I wasn’t surprised. With the music blaring through the oversized speakers, I couldn’t imagine how anyone could hear their phone’s ringer.

  On the first night of the festival, Ezell and Tom had watched the concert from the VIP area. But since the police had taken over use of the VIP area, we knew he wouldn’t be there. Althea, Tina, and I did a quick run through the crowd. We didn’t see Ezell, Tom, or Gavin. I also didn’t see half the people I knew were attending that night. The crowd was that large.

  The boys aren’t here, a nagging voice in the back of my head kept telling me. I stopped in the middle of the pier so I could think. And then I remembered something important.

  Harley had told me earlier in the day that Tom and Gavin had been working on a super-secret project. “You don’t suppose Tom and Gavin are the boys Arthur heard singing near the lighthouse?” I shouted the question to Tina and Althea as we made our way back to the pier’s steps.

  “What did you say?” Althea shouted over the music.

  “The boys—” I shouted.

  “What?” Tina shouted.

  I grabbed my sister’s arm with one hand and Althea’s arm with the other and led the way off the pier.

  “Tom was there with his uncle at Bubba’s house around the time the sheet music for ‘Camellia Nights’ went missing,” I said. “It’s possible that he took it.”

  “Why would he do that?” Althea asked. “He’s a good kid.”

  “Even good kids do stupid things,” Tina pointed out. “They’re kids.”

  “But what would he want with it?” Althea asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  Harley came jogging down the pier’s steps. “Chief Byrd has his hands full with concert security. They can’t send anyone out to search for my boy until the festival is over.”

  “That won’t be for hours,” Tina cried.

  “We’ll help you find him,” I said.

  “Of course we will,” Althea said.

  Someone decided that it would be best if we split up into two teams. One team would search the east end of the island while the other team would search the west.

  “Are you sure Gavin’s not at the concert?” I asked. The pier was wall-to-wall people, as was the beach below.

  “I can’t be sure of anything,” Harley said. “I texted Jody again. She texted back that she has some friends helping her search the crowd down on the beach.”

  “That’s surprising,” Althea said.
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br />   “You shouldn’t be surprised she’d help search for Gavin.” Harley started pacing. “Despite how she acts toward me, she loves her son.”

  “No, I’m surprised she has any friends,” Althea said.

  Harley shrugged. “Hank promised he’d have his men on the pier keep an eye out for the boys.”

  “Okay, since Jody and the police have the festival covered, let’s get going.” I grabbed hold of my sister’s arm.

  “I’ll take Tina with me.” Althea looked determined. “We’ll search the east end.”

  Both Althea and Tina pushed me so hard, I fell face-first into Harley’s side. Even during a crisis, those two were incorrigible.

  Embarrassed, I apologized to Harley and focused on straightening my skirt. The last thing I wanted to do was see the look on Harley’s face. Was he glad they’d pushed me in his direction? Or was he annoyed?

  If I were in his shoes, I’d be annoyed. Our focus needed to be on finding his son.

  “Let’s get going.” And then I saw it. Just a flicker. At first I thought it was distant lightning. But then there it was again. Steadier this time. An ethereal white light glowed as if powered by the ghost from a bygone era in the spot where a powerful lamp had once shone out to sea.

  I lifted my arm and pointed to the crumbling lighthouse that rose up on the distant horizon. “I think I know where the boys are.”

  Chapter 39

  The boards over the lighthouse entrance had been pulled away. The door itself swung with each gust of wind, its rusty hinges crying out as if the movement caused the building pain.

  “Lord, I hope they’re not up there,” Harley whispered as he directed his flashlight to the waterlogged and rotting wooden steps beyond the door. “The place is on the verge of collapse.”

  We climbed single file, taking each step gingerly, testing the wood, testing whether the tread would bear the weight of one more person. The wind outside picked up. It howled as it whirled around the curving stairs. Finally, we reached the top where a light had once sat. Most of the windows were missing. A light rain came in on the wind and cooled our faces just as thunder crackled in the distance.

  “Daddy!” Gavin cried out in fear and relief. He was wet and at the moment looked much younger than his eleven years. He ran and threw himself into his father’s arms.

  “What’s going on here?” Harley demanded. He wrapped his arms protectively around his son’s thin frame and held him close.

  I took control of the flashlight and saw right away that we weren’t the first ones to find the boys. Congressman Ezell stood in the middle of the room with his hands on his hips, looking as if he wanted to strangle his nephew.

  Tom huddled against the far wall. His lips started quivering. “I didn’t mean to do any harm.”

  “While everyone was busy with the concert, the boys thought they’d do a little vandalism,” Ezell said.

  “We didn’t—” Gavin protested.

  “Don’t sass me!” Ezell barked. “You’re already in enough trouble as it is.”

  Harley didn’t say anything, but I noticed his expression had hardened.

  Tom straightened his slumping shoulders and cleared his throat. The voice that came out of his mouth sounded nearly identical to his uncle’s. “I take full responsibility.”

  “You’re lucky you didn’t fall over the edge up here and die,” Ezell scolded.

  Tom lowered his head. “I stole the sheet music. Gavin didn’t—”

  “This is your doing?” Ezell reared forward and grabbed his nephew by his shoulders and shook him.

  “Mr. Bixby Lewis said all a singer needed was one good song to make it into the big time,” Tom sobbed. I could hear Gavin behind me sobbing as well. “And then … and then Mr. Lewis kept going on and on about how great ‘Camellia Nights’ was. So when we were at Mr. Bubba’s house, I took it.”

  Ezell shook his nephew again.

  “Go easy on the boy,” Harley said, just as Althea, Tina, and I moved to intervene. “Let’s get out of here before the floor falls out from beneath us.”

  Ezell didn’t move, but he let his hands fall away from Tom’s shoulders.

  The boy trembled as he backed away from his uncle. “I don’t want to major in political science. I don’t want to run for office. I’m not interested in politics. I keep telling you that I’m a rock fan.”

  “Yes, yes. You like rocks. That’s a hobby, not a career,” Ezell roared.

  “No, uncle. Not rocks. While I appreciate the gesture, I’m not interested in those geodes you keep buying for me. I like to sing. Why do you refuse to hear me? I don’t want the life you have. I want to sing.”

  “You stole ‘Camellia Nights’ because you picture yourself becoming some kind of scheming pop star?” A vein on Ezell’s reddening temple started dancing. “You stupid, stupid boy. Do you know what you’ve done?”

  I stepped in front of Ezell, blocking his path to his nephew, and held up my hands. “We can talk about what he did and why once we’re out of this deathtrap.”

  Three times three, the song’s chorus clamored in my head. Three times three.

  Stan had been adamant about keeping anyone from ever hearing that song. He’d quit the band and took what he’d thought was the only copy with him when he left the beach. Soon after, things started happening for him. Good things. And when his time in the spotlight had passed, though he struggled and played with his band for very little money, every couple of years he always bought a new flashy car.

  Arthur Jenkins had wondered who Stan was blackmailing. How else could he be getting that kind of money?

  “Three times three,” Stan had written those lines after Carolina disappeared. Was the song a confession? Or had he used the song to accuse someone else of the crime? Someone like—

  “Trey,” I said and shone the light in his face. “Three times three. That’s the catchy refrain in the song your nephew took. You’ve heard those lines. Stan showed you the song shortly after he wrote it all those years ago, didn’t he? And then he threatened to do what? Did he threaten to sing it with The Embers in front of a big crowd?”

  The congressman shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Let’s get out of here,” Harley said.

  I motioned to Tina to get Tom.

  The rain was coming down harder now. I wondered briefly if the concert had been canceled. From the corner of my eye, I saw that Tina had Tom’s hand and was leading him to the steps. Harley followed with Gavin.

  “Let’s go,” Althea said. I held my ground. They didn’t understand the danger the congressman was to the boys. They didn’t understand that the congressman had never intended to let Gavin and Tom leave the lighthouse alive.

  I doubted the boys had even come up here alone. After all, Ezell was the only one with a flashlight. I suspected he’d brought them up here to make their deaths look like a terrible accident. I needed to keep Ezell as far away from those boys as possible.

  “You tell everyone to call you Trey, but that isn’t your real name, is it? It’s a nickname. Trey is what people call someone who is the third person in a family with the same name. In your case, you’re also the third politician in your family with the same name, aren’t you? You’re actually Thomas Ezell.”

  “My name isn’t a secret. I’m Thomas Ezell the third. It’s a good name. A historic name.”

  “ ‘Three times three,’ Stan’s song goes.” I gave the small circular room a pass with the light of my flashlight. Harley, Gavin, Tina, and Tom were gone. Althea stood at the steps, waving at me to go with her. I moved to go, but Ezell produced a gun from inside his coat pocket. He pointed it directly toward my chest.

  “You’re not going anywhere,” he said, using the same tone he used when trying to convince voters to cast their ballot with his name on it.

  I raised my arms in surrender. “You loved Carolina Maybank. You told me yourself that you have the picture she painted hanging in your office.”


  “Everyone loved her.” The wind had picked up. It was hard to hear Ezell’s voice above it and the sound of the waves crashing below. “But I knew she was Bubba’s girl.”

  “You hated that,” I said, since he obviously had no plans to let me leave. “You hated that she’d fallen for an impoverished island boy instead of someone like you, someone in her family’s economic bracket.”

  He shrugged. “She was slumming. Men do it too. It didn’t mean anything.”

  “But Bubba had bought a ring. You told me that yourself.”

  Rain splattered against my face. I could feel rather than see Althea as she came up behind me. She squeezed my hand.

  “What did you do to Carolina?” I shouted over the howling wind. “Did you hurt her?”

  Ezell looked older, grayer as he stood in the drenching storm. His silver suit molded against his skin. His hand shook as he pointed the gun at me.

  I knew if I ran, he’d shoot me in the back. He couldn’t let me get away, not now, not after I’d figured out the puzzle in the song, the puzzle that had broken up The Embers and had kept Stan Frasier away from Camellia Beach for decades.

  Heck, I suspected he planned to shoot me no matter what. That’s why I didn’t feel as if my actions were reckless. Instead of playing it safe, I felt duty-bound to press him for the truth.

  Someone needed to hear the truth.

  “Did you hurt Carolina?” I asked again.

  “Shut up!” he shouted.

  “She was my mother!” I shouted back. “I have a right to know what happened to her!”

  That bit of news seemed to take him by surprise. “She told me …” The dratted wind stole the words that emerged from his lips and tossed them into the turbulent waves.

  “What?” I shouted.

  He shook his head and yelled, “Impossible!”

  “What’s impossible?” Although I suspected what he was implying, I needed to hear him say it. Unfortunately, he wasn’t willing to confess to murder. At least, not to my mother’s.

  “You should have listened to the detective—he’s a good man. You should have never stuck your nose into Stan’s death. It had nothing to do with you,” he said instead of admitting to anything.