Out of habit, I checked the tag: 50CSOUL. I made a mental note to ask her what that meant. I had a lot more questions for Calista, but I needed to gather my thoughts and make a list. We’d made another appointment for Friday morning after she’d given me my standard retainer of five thousand dollars.
“Did she really move in a few weeks ago?” I asked.
“Yep.”
“Damnation. I haven’t even taken her a casserole yet.” I pulled back from the window and raised my left eyebrow at Colleen. “What do you know about this?”
She faded out of the foyer and reappeared perched on the railing at the top of the stairs. Since she’d died, Colleen favored sundresses. The one she wore today was green with little white flowers. She slid down the banister and dismounted gracefully onto the dark hardwood floor.
“Would you stop fooling around?” I asked.
“I don’t know anything you don’t. And I’m sorry, but I can’t help you with this one.” She drifted into the office.
“Then why exactly are you here?” I followed her. Colleen had dropped by only twice since we’d finished work on the case involving Gram’s death and a scheme to build a high-dollar resort on our pristine island home. Before that, I hadn’t laid eyes on her since the day we’d buried her.
Colleen flashed me a facial shrug. “Nothing in the rules that says I can’t drop by for a visit. No one is threatening the island just now, so I have some free time.”
“Whatever.” I blew wisps of hair from my face. I retrieved my pad and pen from the coffee table and sat down at my desk. “Typically, the person who wants a body dead is someone close to them. But she doesn’t seem to have anyone.”
Colleen stretched out on the sofa and propped her head on her hands. “If she told you everything.”
“I’ll have lunch with Blake at the Cracked Pot and talk to Moon Unit, see what she knows about our new neighbor.” Moon Unit Glendawn owned the town diner and functioned as our chief information officer. My brother, Blake, was the chief of police.
Colleen stared at the ceiling. “Shouldn’t you be guarding her if you’re going to keep her alive?”
“You heard her—she doesn’t think anyone will try to harm her until August fourth. I have until then to figure out who has motive.”
“And you’re willing to bet her life on that?”
“I just got this case. I’m going to do some investigating before I decide if she needs protection twenty-four-seven. Tonight I’ll find out what Michael knows about her,” I said. “It’s odd. I know he met with her while he was building the house. But he never mentioned she was a dead ringer for a dead movie star.”
“Looks like that would have come up,” Colleen said. “About Michael, how’s Nate?”
I didn’t look up from my notes. Michael and I had known each other all our lives. He was my brother, Blake’s, best friend. I’d tagged after them since I was five. Michael and I had dated in college, and would no doubt have married years ago, except for the intervention of my scheming cousin, Marci. She’d lied and seduced her way into a marriage with Michael that had recently ended. As Mamma would have put it, Marci had been called elsewhere.
“Nate’s fine.” Nate Andrews was my partner and my best living friend. We’d started our practice, Talbot and Andrews, in Greenville, in the South Carolina Upstate. He suffered the great misfortune of having my ex-husband, Scott the Scoundrel, for a brother.
“He still in Greenville?”
“Why do you ask me questions when you know full well the answers?”
“Okay, why did you let him go back to Greenville in April?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because he said, ‘Liz, I’m going back to Greenville,’ and kidnapping is against the law?” When all hell broke loose on the island and I’d moved home, Nate came charging down to watch my back. Around that same time, I’d noticed how big the hole in my life was when he was in Greenville and I was in Stella Maris.
“I’m sure there are things you could have said that would have incented him to stay.”
“You think I should have thrown myself at him?” Plenty of women threw themselves at Nate. He’s handsome enough to have been carved by Michelangelo, with all the trimmings statues lack—blond hair, blue eyes, tanned.
Being separated made me more aware of his many fine qualities. It felt mutual. Okay, it was definitely mutual. There were enough sparks flying around to ignite the whole town. Had one of us taken a single step in the other’s direction, we might have crossed into new territory in our relationship. This all happened at the same time Michael waltzed back into my life. The water was too murky to dive straight in, is what I’m saying.
Colleen rolled her eyes elaborately. “If throwing yourself at him was what it took, yeah. But trust me, you’re the only person in the great state of South Carolina who missed that Nate is crazy about you. Life’s short. You shouldn’t waste time chasing the wrong man.”
“I’m not chasing Michael. I’m not even dating Michael.”
“Didn’t you say you were seeing him tonight?”
“It’s not a date. We’re two old friends getting reacquainted. Lookit, this is what Nate wanted.”
“Nate wants you to date Michael?”
“It’s not a date. Nate wants me to be sure I’ve resolved all my Michael issues.”
Nate was painfully aware of the torch I’d carried for Michael Devlin for ten years. Michael had stormed back into my life with marriage and babies on his mind. I learned too late that pining for Michael was just a habit—one I easily kicked. But Nate was unconvinced of my certitude in the matter. He went back to Greenville. And now, Nate occupied my mind a great deal.
“Are you having dinner alone with Michael? Because if you are, it’s a date.”
“I don’t have time for this conversation.” I pulled a new file out of the drawer and made a label. “In case you didn’t hear, I have a new client who might be murdered in ten days.”
“A lot of people thought Marilyn Monroe was murdered,” Colleen said.
“Yeah,” I said slowly. “And a lot of people think the British royal family is a cell of shape-shifting, reptilian aliens from the constellation Draco.”
“True,” Colleen allowed.
“On the outside chance what happened to her is relevant, could you talk to her. I mean, since you have time on your hands and all?”
“We’ve covered this,” she said. “Calista isn’t part of my assignment.” Colleen was tight-lipped about most things related to eternity, claimed it was part of the rules.
I looked up from Calista’s contract. “So you say.”
“Whether she died accidentally, was murdered, or,” Colleen sighed, “committed suicide, she died before her time. She’s probably on assignment somewhere herself.”
Colleen had committed suicide when we were seventeen. She’d tried to make it look like an accident, but everyone who cared to face the truth knew that she knew better than to drink tequila and go for a dip in Breach Inlet.
“Better let Rhett out of your bedroom. He was chewing on one of your Kate Spade sandals when I went to quiet him down.”
“You went to quiet him down? Can Rhett see you? Not my blue sandals.” I jumped up and ran for the stairs.
“See you later,” Colleen said. And she was gone.
THREE
The doorbells jangled a welcome as I stepped inside the Cracked Pot. Somehow, Moon Unit had achieved a light and airy, yet cozy ambiance. The mix of an old-fashioned counter lined with swivel stools, an eclectic group of tables, tropical plants, and a wall-sized collage of island residents provided the perfect setting for one of our town’s primary hangouts.
I scanned the dining room for my brother and found him in the back booth.
He looked up from his cheeseburger as I approa
ched. I slid in across from him and waved to Moon Unit.
Blake was the stuff single women closing in on thirty dream about. Early thirties, fit, tanned, never been married, and has a job. His medium-brown hair was perhaps a little longer than your typical law enforcement style. Like Merry and me, he had inherited our mamma’s cobalt blue eyes.
“What are you into today,” he asked in his big brother voice. Blake was only one year older than me, but he subscribed to the notion that this gave him sacred rights and responsibilities concerning my welfare. It was sweet, on days when it didn’t drive me crazy.
“Not much.”
Sometimes Blake was happier not knowing the details of my cases. To say that he was not pleased with my career choice would be an understatement. He didn’t like it one bit when I lived in Greenville. His angst had doubled since I moved home. He didn’t care for having a private investigator—any private investigator—on his island. We’d worked out an arrangement. If I ran across something he needed to know about, I found a way to tell him without violating my client’s trust. If I needed backup, I called him, although sometimes not soon enough to suit him. Because our small town’s law enforcement budget did not allow him to have dedicated detectives, if he needed one, which was rare, he would bring me in as a consultant. So far, so good.
“You finish that S.O.B. divorce case?”
I nodded. “Thank heavens.” Clients from old-money Charleston, many of whom lived south of Broad Street—S.O.B.—on the peninsula, made up most of my growing client base. They liked hiring an investigator who was once removed from their world, but spoke the same language and knew the unwritten rules.
Moon Unit arrived with my iced tea. “Hey Sweetie.” Moon Unit Glendawn and I had been friends forever. We graduated from Stella Maris High the same year. Her wavy, honey-colored hair was pulled high into a ponytail, her hazel eyes warm.
“Hey Moon.”
“What chu want for lunch?” She didn’t bother with a menu. I knew what was on it. And she knew that I took that list as more of a suggestion—sort of an inventory of what was available in the kitchen.
“You know that Southwestern chicken salad you had last week on special?”
“Uh-huh.” She scribbled on her pad.
“Could you make me one of those, only add some avocado, hold the corn, and bring me some salsa on the side instead of the dressing?”
“Sure thing.”
“And no corn chips.”
“Got it.” She spun off before I could modify her recipe further.
Blake shook his head and picked up his cheeseburger.
“Have you met the woman who just moved into that new house in the bay?” I pulled out my hand sanitizer.
“The McQueen woman? Drives that fifty-nine Eldorado Biarritz?”
“Yeah.”
“She came in Monday to report a B and E.”
“Say what?”
“Yeah—wanted to talk to me. Wouldn’t talk to Clay or Sam. Even Nell.” He shrugged. “It was a slow day. She’s new in town. Thought it’d be good for public relations.”
“What was taken?” I asked.
“That’s the screwy part,” Blake said. “Nothing was taken, but she says someone broke in and left a bottle of sleeping pills on her bedside table.”
“Sleeping pills?” Hells bells. There was something she left out?
“Yeah, they were capsules, labeled Nembutal. Warren says you can’t even get that stuff in capsules legally anymore, in this country. The liquid is used in hospitals, and hell, they use the stuff for lethal injections.”
Warren Harper was our town physician, and, when necessary, the coroner.
“Were they in a prescription bottle?”
Blake nodded and raised his eyebrows as he finished chewing a bite of cheeseburger. “Yeah, but get this. The doctor on the label doesn’t exist. Somebody went to a lot of trouble to dummy-up a prescription label.”
“Have you had the drug tested?”
“Oh, yeah. My CSI lab got right on it.”
“Sarcasm does not become you.”
“Listen. That woman has a screw loose. Five will get you ten there’s nothing in those capsules but powdered sugar.”
“Was there evidence of a break in?”
“None. My opinion? She typed that thing up herself.”
“But why would she do that?”
“Who knows? Maybe she just wanted an excuse to talk to somebody—get some attention.”
Coming from Blake, this position didn’t surprise me. Women had done all manner of kooky things to get his attention.
“I don’t think so,” I said. “She hired me this morning. Paid my retainer. She thinks someone is going to try to kill her.”
Blake set down his tea glass. “Five thousand dollars?”
“Yep.”
“That’s a lot of money to pay for a joke.”
“Did anything strike you about the way she looks?”
“I’m used to all that crap.”
I wrinkled my face at him.
“Blue stripe in her hair, fourteen piercings, tattoos. I hardly even notice that mess anymore.”
I smiled and nodded. “Me either.”
What did this woman really look like? Had she worn a Marilyn costume when she came to see me? Or was she tired of going around looking like a pinup poster, so she’d gone to see Blake incognito?
Likely, she’d worn the same getup to meet with Michael, which was why he hadn’t mentioned he was building a house for a dead movie star.
Moon Unit delivered my lunch. “Here you go.” She drug out ‘go’ into five syllables. “Can I get you anything else?”
“Not right now, thank you, Moon,” I said. “Hey, have you met Calista McQueen?”
“Mousey little thing that drives that big red convertible?”
Blake and I looked at each other.
“Sure,” Moon said. “She comes in a couple-three times a week. I declare, that girl needs to get in to see Phoebe. I bet you with some highlights and different makeup she’d be a looker.”
“I bet you’re right,” I said. “Have you talked to her much?”
Moon Unit raised a perfectly arched eyebrow. “Well, sure. I talk to all my customers.”
Blake rolled his eyes and looked over his shoulder. Moon Unit saying she talked to all her customers was like Paula Deen saying she put a little butter in all her recipes.
“What exactly was that look for?” Moon demanded.
“Not a thing.” Blake dug back into his cheeseburger.
“Michael just finished her house, down from the Pirates’ Den,” I said. Usually, if you gave Moon Unit a prompt, she’d take it and run. Her parents, John and Alma Glendawn, owned the Pirates’ Den, a popular restaurant and bar.
“Yeah, Mamma and Daddy sold her that three acres. She gave her word it would be built to environmentally friendly standards, and, you know, they knew Michael was going to build it and they trusted him. They still have more than a hundred acres. What were they ever going to do with all that land?”
Moon Unit, and everyone else on the island, sang a different tune if the topic was commercial development. We loved our small beach town just as it was.
We were not in need of condos, time shares, or resorts of any kind. Land was usually a very serious topic. Several bodies had piled up in the war over protecting the land on Stella Maris back in April.
“Moon, does she come in by herself?” I asked.
“Always. Bless her heart, I don’t think I’ve ever seen the poor little thing with anybody else. We need to introduce her around. I don’t think she knows a soul except me, Michael, Mamma and Daddy, and Robert Pearson.”
“Robert?” I asked.
“Well, yeah. He han
dled the closing on the land. She asked me about attorneys and I gave her his name. I don’t know if he handles other business for her or not.” Moon laid a ticket on the table. “Y’all holler if you need more tea.”
Blake flashed me a stern look. “There is not one mousey thing about the woman I met who drives a red Cadillac. What have you not told me?”
I sat back in the booth. “When she came to see me, she looked just like Marilyn Monroe.”
“How do you know we’re all talking about the same woman?”
“Same name, same Cadillac.”
“I told you she was crazy. Maybe some kind of con artist. Apparently, she has nothing better to do with her time than play dress up. She’s just trying to get attention. End of story.”
“We’ll see.” I had a bad feeling Calista’s story was about to take an even more bizarre turn.
As soon as I started the car after lunch, I pressed the voice command button. “Shuffle, artist, Kenny Chesney.” “Sherry’s Living in Paradise” floated through the speakers. I rolled down the windows. I could deal with the heat. Like Sherry, the salty air soothed my soul.
FOUR
Back at the house, I got busy building Calista’s case file. I entered everything she’d told me into the standard interview form Nate and I used.
“The following interview was conducted by Elizabeth S. Talbot, of Talbot & Andrews Investigations, on Wednesday, July 25, 2012, at Stella Maris, SC. On this date…”
The form is a clone of the FBI’s FD 302, chosen for its popularity with judges and attorneys, who become familiar with the form in law school. I can’t prove it, but I hold the belief that they consider anything typed in this particular format to have a better pedigree than ordinary case notes. I printed out the form, dated and signed the page, and placed it in the folder I’d created earlier along with Calista’s contract.
Next, I started creating electronic profiles for Calista and everyone who touched her life in any significant way. For every case, I construct a basic time line for a subject’s life, then fill in the blanks using a variety of public databases and paid subscription services. I like having the whole of a person’s life in front of me—you never know what might turn out to be important. Each fact could be a piece to the puzzle.
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