A Poison Manicure & Peach Liqueur

by Traci Andrighetti

  Amy pointed to a dark spot below his collarbone. "Is that part of a tattoo?"

  I looked at the area. "It's hard to tell without color. It could be a birthmark or a shadow."

  She lowered her lenses and leaned close. "In the shape of a woman's hand?"

  I blinked and scrutinized the photo.

  Amy was right—a few inches below Jim's neck was a tiny hand. "We shouldn't get too excited." I spoke mainly to myself. "A lot of men in that era had tattoos of pinup girls."

  "But it could be a mermaid riding a seahorse." She leered and gave me a knowing nudge. "Like a bull rider with his arm in the air?"

  I looked again at the photo. My and Gia's futures were in the palm of that hand. I had to find out what it belonged to.

  And I knew exactly how to do it.

  * * *

  Charlotte rose from behind The Reverend's desk. "What is the meaning of this intrusion?" She was so enraged at my aunt and me for barging into the office that her neck wobbled like a turkey wattle. Then she gestured to The Reverend, who sat pucker-faced at her side, and her wing wobbled too. "My husband and I asked not to be disturbed."

  "I'll tell you the same thang I said to that surly secretary of yours." Magnolia raised her prairie skirt to reveal Tag the Taser strapped to her thigh. "Got any questions?"

  Charlotte collapsed into the chair beside The Reverend, who seemed to have turned into a pillar of salt.

  I kept my lips locked like my aunt had instructed. She was so fired up I feared she'd tase me if I talked.

  "Glad I made myself clear." My aunt took a seat in front of the not-so-pious pair. "Now my niece is gonna ask y'all about Jade and Sabine, and I expect the gospel truth. I've been in town nigh on a week, and my first and third husbands need me home."

  Charlotte started, no doubt more threatened by my aunt's marriages than by Tag, and gave a holy-roller hmpf. "What about your second husband?"

  "Earl died from a gunshot wound."

  The Reverend's face turned as white as his alb, and Charlotte's as gray as her bun.

  My ex-Uncle Earl was in Costa Rica making serious colones, i.e., cash, selling hot tubs, but I thought it best not to mention that.

  Magnolia smoothed her skirt. "Since we've gotten the pleasantries out of the way, let's git down to business. I imagine the living nativity is canceled for the season, but I expect my niece will be paid in full without any charge for those so-called expenses."

  Charlotte's wattle resumed its wobble. "I read that the Norwegians use the word texas to mean crazy, and now I know why."

  "Darlin', I'm crazier 'n a shot-at rat." Magnolia leaned toward Kitten like a polecat about to pounce. "And if Cassidi Lee doesn't git her check, you'll be in for a shock you won't never forgit." She tapped her Taser to clarify.

  The Reverend scolded his wife with a low-browed stare. "The lady doth protest too much, methinks."

  I gave a Shakespearean sigh. I didn't remember Hamlet from high school English class, but I was sure that was a quote.

  Magnolia knocked on the desk. "I got somethin' to quiet your other half's complainin'. My niece went down to the museum archives this mornin', and the director lady showed her a photo of your papa's tattoo."

  Charlotte shot from her seat like electrodes from a Taser gun. "I'll get the checkbook."

  That time the lady doth not protest at all.

  My aunt's gaze locked on her like a smart rifle. "Don't try pullin' a fast one on Magnolia Crabtree while you're gone. I'd hate for you to lose a husband too."

  The Reverend's clerical collar popped open, and Charlotte scuttled from the room.

  "How may I be of service, Cassidi?" He trembled as he removed his reading glasses.

  I was shaking too. Accusing a minister of murder wasn't an everyday event. "I need to know if you added Clark and Randall to the nativity because you and Sabine were blackmailing them."

  "Me?" His hand pressed against his heart. "Jade and Sabine were blackmailing the three of us."

  I'd suspected as much. "They were working together?"

  "No, it started with Jade." He collapsed onto his desk, hiding his face in his arms. "She sent me a letter saying she was my father's granddaughter. I met with her to see the proof, and she showed me a grammar book and demanded I give her money. She wrote Randall and Clark too, but I didn't know that until last night when Detective Marshall questioned us."

  So the letter Zac mentioned probably was from Jade. "When did Sabine start blackmailing you?"

  "When she burst into my office before the show. She said she could prove I was the killer based on a detail about my father that wasn't mentioned in the book, and if I didn't pay her, she'd go to the police." He looked up and swallowed a sob. "A reverend of my standing. Can you imagine?"

  Given his and Charlotte's behavior, I could. "If she didn't start blackmailing you until yesterday, what were you doing at her house on Thursday night?"

  "Trying to get proof my father wasn't Jade's grandfather." He raised his arms as though appealing to the heavens. "I'm a minister of God, for crikey's sake. I can't be the son of a whoremonger."

  Personally, I would've been more worried about the cross-dressing—and the euphemism for Christ. "What did Sabine tell you?"

  He wiped away a tear, and then his sad frown deepened into a scowl. "I never saw her because you pulled up in that wretched cattle car."

  Magnolia slid up her skirt. "Watch what you call my Cadillac, son."

  He shrunk from her—make that Tag—like a sinner from a saint.

  If The Reverend could be believed, Sabine had been honest about not having seen him. But that still didn't explain the substitutions he'd made to the living nativity. "If you didn't know Clark and Randall were being blackmailed, how did you happen to cast the two of them?"

  "Olivia recruited them after I fired Jesse and James Dooney." He gripped the edges of his desk like he was preaching from the pulpit. "Have you seen those two crypt keepers act? They have the emotional range of corpses."

  "Judge not, Reverend…" My aunt let her implication about his acting skills lie and bounced her Taser leg.

  Because he'd brought up bodies, I decided to bring up a couple too. "Did you murder Jade and Sabine?"

  "Josie Cripes, no." He leapt from his chair like the fires of hell had burnt his behind, which was possible given his penchant for quasi-cursing. "But what are the odds? What are the odds?"

  Magnolia stomped her foot. "What're you goin' on about, Reverend?"

  "I told you. I'm innocent." He wrung his hands and oh-woe-is-me wailed. "So how is it possible that the killer's father also had a drag queen tattoo?"

  "A drag queen?" Magnolia glanced from side to side like one had entered the room.

  "Tell her, Cassidi." He gestured at my aunt and covered his eyes with his forearm.

  It took a moment to sort through my surprise and my inability to describe a tattoo I hadn't seen. "She was, uh—"

  "Oh, I'll spare you the embarrassment." The Reverend removed his arm from his face with a flourish. "That damned queen was exposing herself, and she hadn't tucked her tallywhacker."

  My aunt stayed silent and fanned her flaming face.

  But I had to resolve the mermaid issue. "Did Sabine actually say it was a drag queen?"

  "She didn't need to." He returned to his chair and slouched his shoulders, exhausted from his theatrical efforts. "I saw my father's tattoo, and that Jezebel kept a secret file on all the brothel customers, from their birthmarks and scars to the kind of underwear they wore."

  Sabine must have consulted her file after we left and discovered that Joe, John, and Jim had chest tattoos. To blackmail all three of them, she would've needed to be vague about the specifics. But had she lied to me when she'd said it was a mermaid on a seahorse?

  Because she was dead, there was only one way to know. Something told me it wasn't safe to delve into that water.

  I might not swim out again.

  * * *

  "That detective fella's
likely to put you in the pokey if you mosey in to talk to him alone." Magnolia steered Carlene into The Clip and Sip parking lot. "You need Tag and me to go along."

  My aunt and Tag were precisely what I didn't need. The police had already confiscated her guns, so I couldn't let her storm into the station with a Taser strapped to her leg. "Don't worry, Aunt M. I'm not going to tell Detective Marshall about the tattoos. I'm going to ask for Detective Ohlsen. It's only ten thirty, so he should be in."

  She turned right toward the garage and ran over a parking stop. The glove compartment opened, and a gossip rag fell out. I retrieved it from the floorboard, and my aunt shut off the engine.

  Banging noises came from inside the house.

  "What in tarnation?" My aunt kicked open Carlene and reached under her skirt.

  "No need to involve Tag." I slammed the car door behind me. "It's just Gia working off some Donatello steam. She's probably breaking her bottle or looking for Uncle Vinnie's cash, either of which is good for me."

  "Then I'll leave her be." Magnolia shook a sapling at me. "But if you don't give me a holler within the hour, I'm gonna show the Danger Cove PD what-for."

  "I'll call. I promise." I entered the garage and reached for my car keys, but I was still holding the magazine. I moved it to my left hand, and the lead story caught my eye.

  "Juliana Johnson Marries in Lavish Kennebunkport Ceremony," I read aloud.

  Kennebunkport.

  A wave of unease washed over me. How had Randall described the wedding he and Olivia attended?

  The Johnson-Koch merger.

  I flipped to the article to find out whether it was about the same wedding. The name of the groom was Brandon Koch, so I figured it had to be the right couple. I turned the page, and my theory was confirmed—a shot of the bride and groom with Randall and Olivia.

  But the Olcotts weren't what got my attention.

  It was the location. The young couple held their reception at the Luxury Paradise resort owned by the former senator from Maine, Landon Parks.

  The name of the place and the person started with the same letters.

  LP.

  The very letters on the watermark on the killer's note, and the ones Barry had spelled on the Ouija board.

  The Kennebunkport wedding was the "Weekend in New England."

  My head tingled like my hair stood on end—big beehive style. After talking to Amy, I understood that my aunt's subconscious moved the Ouija planchette. And since Magnolia was the one who'd found the threatening note, it followed that she would imprint on the LP.

  But "Weekend in New England"? Where would she have gotten that?

  Could it be?

  My message tone beeped, startling me to my senses. It couldn't be magic. There was no such thing.

  "It's a Miracle" infiltrated my mind.

  Oh no. A Barry Manilow song. Was I channeling him now too?

  I closed my eyes and squeezed my temples. There was no magic and no miracle. Mr. Manilow was my Aunt Magnolia, and for my sanity's sake I couldn't question that.

  Not ever again.

  I pulled my phone from my purse. Zac had sent a text.

  Cassidi, I found something in the smugglers' caves, and I want you to be the first to see it. Come quick before Clark calls the paper.

  Excitement flooded my chest like a dam had burst. Was this it? Had he found the treasure Bart Coffyn had stolen from Sir Francis Drake?

  * * *

  I parked in the lot at Two Mile Beach. Images of pesos and pearls danced in my head.

  Then Detective Marshall's irate face cut in.

  He was a harsh reminder from my guilty conscience that I needed to confess what I knew about the tattoos. But that could wait an hour. After The Reverend's drag queen revelation, I was no longer sure Sabine's information was true. And I'd let Zac down so many times in recent days that I couldn't disappoint him again.

  Remembering what Zac had said about caving safety and three sources of light, I grabbed a flashlight from the glove compartment to supplement the one on my phone. Two sources would have to do.

  I zipped my coat and locked the car. Then I headed north past the Shoreline Café. I set out along the waterline to the smugglers' caves rather than trudge through the sand in my boots. The temperature was in the low 30s, and the sky was overcast, so the only occupants of the beach were some seagulls picking at a foul-smelling dead fish.

  I walked about a mile to where the beach tapered off. Then I slipped between a crevice in the rock of the cliffs and went another five or so yards to the caves' entrance.

  A wave washed up, and frigid water rose to my ankles.

  I turned and glanced at the ocean. The tide was coming in, and it could rise as much as three feet, which meant Zac didn't have much time to show me his discovery.

  I hurried into the musty cave and squinted in the dim light.

  "Zac?"

  His name echoed, but there was no response.

  With my flashlight I scanned the interior for the hole in the back wall that led to the other caves and for the rope lead Zac had mentioned.

  "Hello?"

  "Back here." His voice was distant and muffled, in part by the rumbling of the waves outside.

  I made my way along the slippery rock to the inner cavern.

  A wave broke against the mouth of the cave with such force that I jumped and dropped my flashlight. Water rushed over it, and the light went out.

  "Super."

  I grabbed around in the water until I found it. And I tried to revive the light, but it had shorted out. I pulled my phone from my coat pocket and turned on the flashlight feature.

  The cave branched off into three directions, and I wasn't sure which one to take.

  "Zac, water's coming in. Which cave?"

  "First right." The voice was clearer, but it didn't sound like Zac's.

  I hesitated because I thought it might be Clark. But I was being silly. Even if it was him, it didn't matter. It wasn't like I was meeting him alone.

  I entered the cave and followed the equivalent of a hallway. I went straight for about fifteen feet, and then I veered left into a small cavern.

  My anxiety rose like the tide, and I dropped my phone.

  "Randall."

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  "My name is Mr. Olcott. You and that cousin of yours need to learn some respect." He aimed his gun between my eyes and rotated the flashlight in his other hand. "Now turn around and walk."

  Gripped by panic, I glanced at my cell on the cave floor.

  The heel of his boot covered the phone and ground the display into the rock. The breaking glass reflected my emotional state and any hope I had of calling for help—shattered. "But…I got a text from Zac."

  "I asked if I could use his phone to search for a yacht I wanted to show him. He didn't have a clue I'd texted you."

  "What?" The question was pointless, as was the mention of that text, but my mind wasn't working right. "Wasn't your meeting with Zac tonight?"

  "I rescheduled for early this morning." His gaze was as cold and unforgiving as the cave. "That way he and Clark would cancel the search, and I could get you here before the tide came in at noon."

  Anxiety coursed through my body like the water around my ankles.

  Randall was going to leave me to drown.

  A wave surged, and so did my fear. The level had risen to midcalf.

  He shined the flashlight on the path ahead of me. "Move it. I don't have much time."

  I turned and put one foot in front of the other like I was walking a tightrope. I hoped that by moving slowly enough, the water would rise to the point that Randall would have to bail.

  "Don't try to stall."

  "I'm not," I lied. "It's slippery."

  His laugh reverberated throughout the cave like a villain's in a horror film. "You're about to die, and you're worried about falling? That's a new one."

  My temper spiked at his ridicule. "Because you're in the habit of killing people, right?" />
  "Careful, Cassidi." The laughter in his voice had been replaced by loathing. "Ivy killed Jade Liu."

  "After you put cyanide in our products."

  "I figured you'd poison one of your clients and wind up in prison. I didn't expect to see Ivy come in and steal them."

  Surprise caught me off guard, and I slipped. But I caught my balance. "You were there?"

  "On the stairs."

  I reentered the inner cavern and stopped.

  The water lapped at my knees.

  Randall stuck the gun barrel between my shoulder blades. "Go to the far left cave, and if you take so much as a step toward that exit, I'll blow your heart from your chest."

  My heart pounded so hard I thought it would burst from my body on its own. Harvey had warned Zac and me about that cave. The entrance was a low, narrow hole, and the floor was at least four feet below sea level, which meant there was an icy pool of water that would deepen as the tide came in.

  "Get going." He kicked me in the behind.

  I gritted my teeth, wishing I could slap him. Instead, I grasped the wall to brace myself against the force of the water.

  He prodded me along with the pistol. "You know, I'd planned on stealing the products from Ivy, but before I could she'd scheduled that appointment with Jade." He chuckled, apparently amused by the irony. "What a lucky break that turned out to be. Jade had threatened to go to the press if I didn't cough up a hundred grand."

  I considered telling him Jade was a fraud, but with bullets at my back, I didn't want to rile him. "Why didn't you report her to the police? Was your pride worth killing for?"

  "Pride?" His volume went up an octave, as though he were the one who should be outraged. "This was politics. Influential people in Seattle and Kennebunkport believe I've got a shot at state representative. They've invested hundreds of thousands in my campaign, and I'm not going to disappoint them." He paused. "And Olivia couldn't have handled the scandal."

  Because the news would put her LaSalle roots in the national spotlight. As soon as the thought came to me, I wished it hadn't. The spotlight reminded me of Sabine illuminated above the living nativity—dead, like I was about to be.