Walking on My Grave

by Carolyn Hart

  “Cops like to tidy things up. Did Fred fall, did he jump, was he pushed?”

  Henny was firm. “You’ve read too many headlines. There’s no reason to believe Fred’s death wasn’t an accident. Is there?”

  Marian was equally firm. “The guy doesn’t have on boat clothes. Or a life vest. Dressy casual. That’s a tip-off he wasn’t out boating and toppled into the water. Besides, he didn’t fish or have a boat. I know because I talk to people everywhere from Parotti’s to the bank. It’s an occupational disease. If Fred boated I’d know about it. Fred hunted for gold. As in buried treasure, but he was otherwise rational. Anyway, he didn’t boat or fish. So what’s the occasion in February that he falls”—her tone put the verb in italics—“from Fish Haul Pier into the harbor? Did he climb up on the rail and sit there with his feet dangling, enjoying a February breeze? That’s an accident that smells like old fish to me. Or maybe he went down the ladder on the south side and jumped in.”

  Henny remembered the ladder and small landing on the south side of the pier.

  “I can see Fred doing a lot of things, grubbing around for gold, working in his yard, volunteering at the rec center. I don’t see him going out in a boat on a February night. Nix the idea of a boat. So he comes to the pier. How does he ‘accidentally’ fall in? If it wasn’t an accident, we have to assume he jumped. If so, why? If he didn’t willingly jump, somebody pushed him. Why would anyone kill Fred Butler?”

  Henny held her cell, stared out at the marsh, a vee of pelicans diving down to murky water seeking their breakfast. She didn’t believe in coincidence either. But Marian was right. No explanation made sense. If Fred went to the pier, and that seemed odd in itself, how could he have fallen? But the alternatives, suicide or murder, seemed utterly unlikely.

  Marian pounced. “Had you seen Fred lately?”

  “Not recently.” Henny hadn’t seen Fred in several weeks. It wasn’t her place to reveal Ves Roundtree’s near escape or to describe Annie’s talk with Fred or Max at Ves’s house with a walkie-talkie in place. There might be a good explanation for Fred’s drowning, and she had no reason to connect his death with Ves Roundtree’s danger, but just in case, the police should be informed. “Annie and Max Darling might know more.”

  • • •

  Annie pulled her peacoat tighter across her front. “Do you think Fred didn’t come to work because he was dead?” She and Max had been lighthearted yesterday. She had wanted to know why Fred lied about that Thursday but she never thought that Fred, mild-mannered, polite Fred, had entered Ves’s house and waxed a step high on her staircase. What should she think now?

  The breeze tugged at Max’s sweater. “It seems likely, doesn’t it? Especially if it turns out he didn’t ask for a day off.” He lifted binoculars. “I can see him—”

  Annie jammed her hands deep into the coat pockets and stared at water rippling under a stiff breeze, not at the clutch of uniforms standing in a semicircle.

  “—lying on the pier. They haven’t covered him yet. Doc Burford’s talking to Billy. I see Fred clearly. A tan pullover sweater, white shirt collar showing, dark slacks. That’s what he wore at Ves’s house.”

  Annie still didn’t look toward the pier. She didn’t want to see Fred’s body. If he was dressed as he had been at Ves’s house, did that mean he drowned Wednesday night? “If he died Wednesday night . . .” She trailed off.

  Max shot her an understanding glance. “Did he leave Ves’s and come to the pier? It could be. Doc will figure out whether he died Wednesday night or yesterday.”

  Annie was glad he didn’t go into details about stomach contents and digestion and rigor mortis and the effect of submersion in seawater.

  Brakes squealed.

  Annie turned. “Ves is here.”

  Marian Kenyon was at the end of the pier. She turned to look at the van at the curb. Marian’s red sweatshirt was ragged at the hem and her gray sweatpants baggy, her ankles bare above leather loafers. Obviously she’d rushed from her house sockless in whatever was handy in response to the alert about a drowning victim. The breeze roiled Marian’s short-cut dark hair. She held a pen in one hand, a notebook in the other. A Leica hung from a strap around her neck.

  The van door slammed. Ves came limping around the back, cane thumping.

  She, too, looked as if she’d thrown on the first clothes at hand, a gray pullover, black slacks. Since her fall, she’d worn dirt-stained sneakers, likely part of her gardening ensemble. Her tight red curls needed a comb. She was breathing jerkily when she came up to them. “Do they know when he drowned?”

  Annie understood Ves’s unspoken fear. Had Fred Butler come to her house and left it to deliberately die? She reached out, touched a tense arm. “No one knows yet. If it happened after he left your home, it could mean he was the guilty one.” Was Fred a failed murderer afraid he was going to be accused? She remembered an entry in Emma’s Detecting Wisdom from Inspector Houlihan, When a perp panics, anything can happen.

  “He looked scared Wednesday night. But I can’t believe Fred tried to kill me.” Her tone was incredulous. “He looked absolutely sick when I told about how I fell. Then I warned them with the gun. I thought the gun upset him.”

  The sound of footsteps, men’s deep voices.

  Max looked at the pier. “Here they come.”

  Billy Cameron was in a brisk conversation with Sergeant Lou Pirelli when they reached the steps. The police chief’s short-cut fair hair with a sprinkling of silver was bright in the morning sunlight. A big man, he carried his heft with ease. A pullover sweater emphasized broad shoulders. His navy slacks were freshly pressed. Stocky Lou Pirelli, a good five inches shorter, hurried a little to keep pace. Lou was darkly handsome, a superb swimmer, and a regular at Death on Demand. He loved to reread Ed McBain’s 87th Precinct books. Hyla Harrison, ginger hair pulled back in a bun, carried a notebook, made notes as Billy spoke.

  Billy’s tenor voice carried. “. . . billfold contained a fair amount of cash. Put a call out for his car.”

  Lou responded. “I already looked it up. A 2006 Camry.” He rattled off the license plate.

  “Find out who talked to him last, state of mind, could he swim—” Billy saw Annie, Max, and Ves. He paused, studied them intently, then thudded down the pier steps, Lou and Hyla close behind. Billy stopped in front of them. “Are you here because of Fred Butler?” He saw their faces, jerked a big thumb. “I’ll see you at the station.”

  • • •

  Billy Cameron stood at the end of the stained Formica-topped table in the break room, which was much larger than his office. Lou Pirelli was to his right. Lou held a pen poised over a notebook. Hyla Harrison was to his left. She’d already clicked on the tape recorder. Annie was next to Hyla, then Max. Across the table, Ves Roundtree sat next to Lou.

  Billy kept his expression pleasant, nonthreatening, but he was highly attuned to the faces turned toward him, Annie Darling with sadness and uncertainty in her eyes, Max Darling frowning thoughtfully, always-on-the-move Ves Roundtree oddly subdued. He knew Annie and Max well, had risked his own career to help Annie prove Max’s innocence when a young woman was found dead with Max’s bloodied tire tool next to her. He liked them. Admired them. Trusted them. Normally Ves Roundtree exuded the fizz of a just-uncapped soda. Not today. That the three of them arrived at Fish Haul Pier in response to news of Fred Butler’s death aroused his intense interest. Drownings were usually accidental, a slip on slick wood perhaps compounded by an inability to swim well, or the result of carelessness, venturing into a riptide or not wearing a life preserver out on a boat or too much alcohol. That was his expectation when he arrived at Fish Haul Pier. Now he wondered.

  He looked at Annie. “Why did you come to the pier?”

  “Marian Kenyon called Henny Brawley. Henny called me.”

  Another familiar name. Henny Brawley was one of the island’s most respected residen
ts.

  “Your connection to Fred Butler? Henny’s connection?”

  Ves clawed through her frizzy hair. “The connection is actually mine. Wednesday night he was at my house. I’ll tell you everything.” She explained about the brother’s estate. Lou interrupted, got the names, repeated them, “Bob and Katherine Farley, Jane Wilson, Adam Nash, Fred Butler, Curt Roundtree.”

  Ves described the dinner she held to share an account of the estate. “I also invited Gretchen Roundtree and Jane’s boyfriend, Tim Holt.” She told how she went to the kitchen for the dessert. “When I came in the dining room, it was like teetering on the edge of a cliff. I was terrified. I knew one of them wanted me dead.”

  Lou held up a hand. “Let me get the dates. The dinner where you brought the heirs up to date on the estate was Friday, February fifth. You fell the following Thursday, February eleventh. You invited those you suspected to your house Wednesday, February seventeenth.”

  Billy sorted times and dates in his mind, the dinner, the slick step the following Thursday, her return from the hospital and a clean step, her visit Monday to Death on Demand, Annie going to Ves’s house and seeing the dining room where Ves claimed someone walked on her grave, Annie enlisting Max, his mother, Emma Clyde, and Henny Brawley to find out where the dinner guests were at five P.M. Thursday, February 11, their lack of success, Ves’s decision to summon the dinner guests to her house on Wednesday, Fred’s body found Friday.

  Billy wanted clarity. “They came to your house Wednesday, February seventeenth.”

  “Yes.” Ves spoke rapidly. “I also asked Max to come. I told the guests one of them was a murderer and I didn’t intend to die. I have a Colt .45. I showed my gun to them.”

  Billy felt his face tighten. “Attempted murder, but not one of you”—he looked at each in turn—“informed the police.”

  Ves said wearily, “What could you have done?”

  “Quite a bit. We would have investigated. Looked for forensic evidence. Talked to those you suspected.” He was brusque. “Fred Butler was one of the suspects. Now he’s dead. We don’t know how or why he drowned. He may accidentally have fallen from the dock. He may have chosen to die. He may have been killed. If we had been called in to seek the facts about the slick step, it’s possible the outcome may have been different.” He realized his tone was harsh, regretted his momentary anger, said quickly in a milder voice, “Or possibly not.” He looked at Ves. “You have a license for that .45?”

  “Yes.”

  “Very well. Is there any other information that might relate to Fred Butler?”

  Annie leaned forward. “Fred claimed he’d gone to the dentist the afternoon Ves fell. But he looked so scared and uneasy that I checked with the dentist’s office. Fred lied. He isn’t a patient of the dentist he said he was seeing. I went to the bank yesterday morning.” Annie’s voice was thin. “He wasn’t there. I wanted to ask him why he’d lied.”

  Billy was grim. “We’ll find out.”

  • • •

  Marian Kenyon still wore the red sweatshirt and baggy sweatpants. “I came straight from the newsroom. I am starving. Do you have anything but those croissants dabbed with chicken salad that you give to old ladies wearing purple hats?” She stood by the coffee bar, looked hopeful, aggravated, pitiful.

  Annie was defensive. “They’re great croissants. I get them from a French bakery in Savannah.”

  Marian flung herself into a chair at the nearest table. “Okay, if that’s all you can offer, I’ll take it.”

  “I can do better.” Annie hurried behind the coffee bar, bent to the small refrigerator, rose with two foil-wrapped oblongs. “Miss Jolene has a special today on pulled pork sandwiches, crusty buns, and mustard BBQ sauce. I bought two of them.” She didn’t add that she’d intended to ring Max and invite him to join her in sybaritic indulgence, but Marian was in need of sustenance. Annie unwrapped the sandwiches, placed them on a paper plate. “I’ll pop them in the microwave.”

  Annie fixed Marian an espresso, always her jolt of choice, and herself a glass of unsweetened iced tea, added, true to her Texas roots, a basket of corn chips and green chili salsa. The microwave pinged. She served the sandwiches on cheerful yellow plates.

  Marian sighed happily. As she ate, she complained. “Henny Brawley is like somebody in witness protection who won’t give out a peep unless the DOJ signs on.” Another big bite. “Apparently you are the DOJ. When I tracked down Henny, she said to ask you, it wasn’t her place to say anything. Something funny, as in peculiar not humorous, is going on and I want to know the link between now-deceased Fred Butler and the other people Henny asked about. I smell a story like Agatha”—a nod at the black cat regarding them steadily from the counter of the coffee bar—“smells pulled pork.” She attacked the remainder of the sandwich. Marian was a dog with a bone and she didn’t intend to let go.

  Annie cut her sandwich in half, scooped salsa with a chip.

  Marian devoured the last of her sandwich, still looked pitiful. “I don’t suppose you have another sandwich.”

  Wiry, bony, fast-moving Marian never gained an ounce, and she was always munching on something. Annie used her knife to slide her untouched half onto Marian’s plate.

  “Thanks.” Another mumble. “Why is Henny mum and what’s up? Obviously Henny alerted you to the gathering on Fish Haul Pier unless you have a scanner at your bedside. You must have more than a passing interest in Fred’s demise since you and Max showed up this morning.”

  Annie knew Marian well. Marian could be trusted. “It all started . . .”

  Marian’s dark eyes widened as she listened. At Annie’s conclusion, she immediately fastened on the salient facts. “Fred lied about the afternoon somebody greased a step, and Wednesday night Ves waggled a gun at her chosen suspects.” The reporter’s gamine face drooped with regret. “I could write a hell of a story about Rufus’s estate and the dinner party and the slick step and Ves confronting the heirs, but I can’t use any of it, not even as deep background. Not unless I want to see the Gazette sued for libel. I can’t name people as possible murderers without one of them scurrying to a lawyer, even though it looks like Fred was the perp. You’ve squelched my hopes for a scoop, but Fred’s flop in the harbor may make sense.” She wiped a smear of mustard sauce from her chin, leaned back in the chair. “Re: Fred, accident doesn’t seem likely. There’s no reason to suspect murder. Looks to me like he jumped. The autopsy report won’t be out for a couple of days but Doc Burford told Billy unofficially that he estimated the body had been in the water between thirty to thirty-six hours. That puts him in the drink Wednesday night. Do you know what time the confab at Ves’s broke up?”

  “Max got home about nine twenty.”

  Marian finished her espresso. “That works for Fred to be at the pier by half past nine. Maybe he hung out there for a while, nerving himself up to take the plunge.” Her expressive face was somber. “Jeez. Can you imagine . . . I don’t want to imagine. We cling to life like barnacles to a boat bottom. Doesn’t matter how rough the water gets, how dirty.” A pause. “Most of us.”

  Annie felt a wash of sadness. What a way for a life to end. “He must have felt pretty desperate.”

  Marian’s eyes narrowed. “I guess he was. Ves confronts the heirs. Fred jumps. Cause and effect. Who goes to the end of Fish Haul Pier on a cold February night? Maybe a hot couple not worried about the weather. Not a middle-aged bank teller fully dressed in casual clothes, no fishing rod, not that people fish there after dark anyway. He had no reason to be on the pier. He either climbed over the railing or he went down that ladder on the south side of the pier. Why? To stick a toe in the water? Not likely. Billy figures he climbed up on the railing at the end of the pier. He had on leather loafers with pretty worn soles and Billy thinks he got up on the railing, teetered there, slipped, and fell to his right.”

  Annie stared at Marian. “What crystal b
all was our police chief consulting?”

  Marian gurgled. “I’ll share that with him. Actually, it’s good old-fashioned cop think. There’s a contusion on the right side of Fred’s head and that fits with standing on the railing and falling to the right.”

  Annie was startled. “Maybe somebody hit him and dumped him over the railing.”

  Marian was dismissive. “Who wanted to kill Fred? A jealous husband? An aggrieved bank customer? Did Fred have a secret life unknown to others? Was Fred a sleeper agent for Red China and he’d decided to turn in his chopsticks? Murder requires a motive.”

  Annie knew Marian was right. Domino-playing Fred Butler was not a likely candidate for a lurid love affair or nefarious activities. But it was possible there was more to Fred’s life than Saturdays at Parotti’s and working in a bank.

  Marian lifted bony shoulders, let them fall. “I asked, pretty pro forma at this point, but I get paid to ask questions, was it maybe a mugging gone wrong? But who gets mugged at the end of a fishing pier? Billfold was in his back pocket. Forty-two dollars in cash, one credit card. Car keys in left front trouser pocket. Car parked in the Fish Haul Pier, nicely locked, no evidence of any damage.” Marian arranged her knife and fork at the side of the empty plate. “Thanks for a lunch befitting a foraging reporter. And now I know a lot more about certain people’s financial prospects than they’ll ever dream. But hey, I don’t gossip. Just for my own enjoyment. As for Fred, people will wonder why he jumped, and only a few of us will ever know.”

  • • •

  Annie tried to concentrate on the chapbooks. Maybe an inner chant would get her in the groove. Chapbooks, chapbooks, chapbooks. She knew she was guilty of undisciplined thoughts. She could start off wondering about goldfish and pop to the name of Wiley Post’s monoplane the Winnie Mae to wondering if panda fur smelled as sweet as a cat’s to a passionate diatribe against rosemary as a seasoning ever for anything. At the moment, despite her best effort to focus on Henny’s copy: Juanita Sheridan was as adventurous as any of her fictional heroines . . . Now her mind tugged at Fred’s lie about Thursday. He could have been at Ves’s house and when Ves warned them, did he think she would find out and did he decide to jump at that moment?