Dear Killer (Marley Clark Mysteries) (15 page)

I didn’t mention my little side trip to Gedduh Place. While
not exactly off the beaten path, it sat on a road less traveled.

“You’ll come right back after lunch?” Braden asked.

“Promise. Just one stop at the grocery. What are you going
to do about the twins?”

“Ask Deputy Lewis to pick them up at their house and take them
to the Hollis County courthouse. Let a judge sort out that mess. Maybe they can
live with their father.”

When we pulled into the Dear Company parking lot, the scene
stunned me. Strangers stood ten-deep on the wraparound Lowcountry porch,
waiting for the office’s nine o’clock opening—ten minutes away. It was a wonder
the floorboards didn’t buckle. Dozens of golf carts crowded the pavement. It
looked like a gaggle of Shriners had abandoned their miniature vehicles in
fright.

My motor idled as I scanned the parking lot, searching for
an empty spot. A rap on the driver’s side window startled me. Dave Dougherty.
The retired salesman grinned ear to ear.

“It’s somethin’ else, ain’t it?” He chuckled. “I’m brokering
golf carts and making a killing. Those tabloids must hand out expense money
like toilet tissue. I know you don’t have a golf cart, Marley, but tell your
friends to call me. I have a waiting list for rentals.”

“Are those all reporters?” Braden sounded horrified.

“Maybe half of ’em. A real ferryboat captain agreed to moor
his thirty-footer here. He’s offerin’ a regular service from seven-thirty a.m.
to four p.m., weather permitting. The skipper’s charging six dollars a pop for
a five-minute ride. If he gets this many heads per trip, he can retire in a
month. Me? I doubled my Social Security check this morning. See ya’ll later.”

We parked catawampus in an empty niche and approached the
circus with trepidation. Bollocks. Joe Reddick stood a stone’s throw away,
talking loudly to a six-pack of reporters. Spotting me, he pointed an accusing
finger my way. A dozen vulture eyes sized me up like fresh road kill.

“Oh, no,” I muttered.

Reddick throttled up to full rant. “Some security guards are
using these murders as an excuse to bully residents. That
woman
could be
Gestapo. The night Stew Hartwell was murdered I was trying to, um…to ascertain
facts. The people of this island elected me to the Board and it’s my duty to
serve them. She practically decapitated me with some martial arts hocus pocus
she learned in the Army.”

Braden snuck a glance in my direction. If I’d expected
sympathy, I was sorely disappointed. Good God, he was laughing.
Maybe I
should
demonstrate my martial arts training
.

“Am I about to see how a woman performs in combat?” Braden
purred, egging me on.

“What’s her name?” a reporter asked. “Is she the guard who
tangled with the killer?”

Braden ceased to find the scene amusing. He grabbed my arm
to hustle me back to the car. That’s when Dave called out, “Marley, your
friend’s a wavin’ at you.”

The golf cart wheeler-dealer pointed at an office window.
Janie pantomimed energetically, motioning us to a back entrance. We made for
the emergency-exit door at a dead run and slipped through before any reporters
gave chase.

“That was too close,” I wheezed.

“Yeah, and you’re no longer incognito. Now we’ll have to
fend off the press as well as the killer.” I watched Janie relock the door.
“What are you going to do with those reporters? Sally must be beside herself.”

Janie grinned. “Nope. She found a silver lining. When our
doors open, we’ll offer reporters island tours and free lunch at the club. As
our vice president so eloquently put it: ‘Last week, I could have offered every
editor on the East Coast a blowjob and still not lured a single feature writer
to the island. Now they’re lined up like whores on a Saturday night.’”

I shook my head. “Surely she realizes they’re here to report
on murders, not vacation property. This can’t be good publicity.”

“Sally thinks she can win ’em over. Plus she says we’ve got
nothing to lose. They’re gonna stay regardless. Personally, I think Sally
celebrated with happy pills after she heard our pre-Easter bookings were
breaking records. Sure, a few tourists canceled when they heard about a psycho
killer at large, but the ghouls are lining up, ready to take their places.

Janie turned to Braden. “If you want to powwow with Sally,
you better get in her office and close the door quick. All hell’s about to
break loose. Marley, you’re here to see Woody, right? He’s upstairs. His office
is one door down from mine.”

Braden and I parted in the upstairs hallway. “Call the chief
when you’re ready to leave,” I reminded. “He’ll bring a car over. I’ll park
mine at the marina so I have a ride home whenever I get off the ferry. See you
tonight.”

I wanted to kiss Braden and hug that delicious body. I
settled for a discreet wink.

Woody Nickel’s office door was closed. I knocked briskly.
“Who is it?” he asked.

“Marley,” I answered.

The door swung open. The speed indicated he was standing
with his mitt on the doorknob. “Have a seat. I don’t have much time. Sally
expects me to greet the press. Janie says you’re representing a potential
buyer?”

“My aunt,” I lied, and spun my tale. “After the real estate
banquet, I told Aunt May about Emerald Cay. She’s been thinking of buying
property in the area, and she’s a real environmental maven. I’d love to have
her nearby. Anyway I wanted to ask a few questions, pick up some literature for
her.”

Woody sucked on his teeth, then exposed them like a flasher.
“These homesites are very special. I’m afraid they are beyond the budget of
most seniors.”

Too bad Aunt May wasn’t representing herself in person.
She’d eat this guy for lunch.
“Oh, well then. Maybe it isn’t the right
thing. May didn’t want to spend more than a million on a lot. She put a
three-million dollar ceiling on her vacation home budget—construction and all.”

Woody’s Adams apple waggled up and down. He’d swallowed
hook, line and fish pole.
Now you’ll be a polite little suck-up and answer
my questions. Hand over everything I want.

“That’s wonderful,” Woody hedged. “I have complete
confidence Emerald Cay will meet her expectations. But as Sally explained at
the banquet, we can’t put the horse before the cart. Our documents aren’t
ready. We have to dot all the i’s…”

Having run out of hackneyed phrases, the smiling salesman
spread his hands wide in a helpless gesture. “Can I call you next week?”

“Of course.” I smiled back.

Woody’s door practically hit me in the butt. Janie’s
instincts were sound. Something wasn’t kosher. I’d picked up a few skills
working Army intelligence, including the ability to read documents upside down.
Two sales contracts sat on the corner of Woody’s desk. Both for Emerald Cay
homesites. The selling prices were $500,000 and $600,000. The contracts listed
the buyers as Anthony Watson of Columbia, S.C., and John Beck of New York, N.Y.

How in hell could he write contracts if they hadn’t
completed the offering paperwork?

I stopped by Janie’s office. She put a finger to her lips. A
signal to keep my mouth shut.

“We’ll talk tonight,” I said. “Now how do I run your media
gauntlet?”

Janie motioned me to her window. “Piece of cake. Most of the
reporters are taking Sally’s tour, and your friend is entertaining the rest.”

Below, Dr. Bride, the ecological evangelist, stood next to
his golf cart. He appeared near rapture as he handed out flyers and quoted
selectively from the Bible. “Because they have forsaken me, and have burned
incense unto other gods, that they might provoke me to anger with all the works
of their hands…”

“Hey, get your fanny in gear,” Janie said. “The going won’t
get any better. I’ll let you out the emergency exit.”

As I tiptoed to my car, Dr. Bride’s quavering baritone
followed me. “…therefore my wrath shall be poured out upon this place, and shall
not be quenched.”

A barter system had evolved between Dear Island’s two
camps—folks with cars off island when the bridge failed, and those with cars
garaged on Dear. Since I knew Donna’s Lexus to be part of the off-island fleet,
I called to beg wheels, offering to shop for her as payment in kind. She
snapped up the deal, and handed me a lengthy grocery list when I picked up her
keys.

On the ferry ride, I fiddled with the taped shoebox on my
lap, unsure if portaging my handgun in the closed container violated South
Carolina law. Braden insisted I stash my gun in the car’s glove box during my
Beaufort excursion.

In our state, it’s perfectly legal for anyone with a
registered gun to keep it fully loaded in a closed glove compartment—a scary
thought given increased road rage. However, it’s illegal to carry concealed
weapons without a special permit, and I’d had no reason to obtain one—prior to
my electrifying meeting with our killer.

The gun I kept holstered on my hip while on-duty was a
different matter. As SLED-certified crime fighters, all Dear Island Security
Officers were authorized to carry on the job.

No gun did much to bolster my sense of security. In the Army
I had to qualify annually with a pistol. Basically that meant I could hit a
paper target under ideal conditions. Until this past week, I’d never drawn my
gun for real.

Inside Donna’s Lexus, I dutifully unwrapped my gun and
tucked it into its cubbyhole. It seemed silly. No one would attack me in my
loaner car, and I wouldn’t tote the gun to lunch. Thankfully, even people with
concealed weapon permits aren’t allowed to pack heat when they enter
establishments that serve liquor.

The car ride seemed far more sedate than when my Mustang met
the gopher-sized potholes on Sea Island back roads. Several weeks had passed
since I’d visited Gedduh Place, and I felt guilty. I hadn’t signed up to tutor
new students since my last two “graduated.” Both could now read what mattered
to them. In Alycia’s case, that meant tackling schoolbooks with her young children.
Willard, in his late eighties, wanted to read the Bible for himself “before he
passed.” I made a mental note to tell Leyla I’d take on new pupils come May.
If
I’m still alive.

Two years ago, Dr. Leyla Clark had traded a cushy faculty
post at a Midwest university for Gedduh’s lower pay. After we got to know each
other, I asked what brought her here.

“I grew up a thousand miles from the Sea Islands, but my
roots are here,” she said. “First time we visited, my cousins taught me to cast
a shrimp net, and Gran cut me raw pieces of cane. I knew I’d come home. I love
the Gullah people, the language. It’s unique, you know? My ancestors were
isolated here. I want to preserve their culture.”

Turning onto one of Gedduh’s hard-packed dirt drives, I felt
the familiar time warp. A former plantation housed Gedduh Place, and many of
the original buildings remained—a touchstone for a disappearing way of life.

Shade from overarching live oaks swallowed my car on the
winding corridor. The trees had withstood centuries of hurricane winds in
gnarled dignity. And the old buildings evoked a time-capsule sensation. Their
thick walls filtered the outside noise and Lowcountry heat, giving the
interiors a church-like serenity.

I parked, entered a building that had been partitioned into
offices and started down the hall. Today, the cool quiet triggered goose bumps,
not meditation. The center had a small fulltime staff. When there were no
classes, it seemed downright spooky. I paused to make certain the echoing
footsteps were mine alone.

Leyla’s office door stood open. She frowned at a large stack
of papers as I crossed the threshold. When she saw me, her handsome face failed
to light with the usual smile. “Oh, Marley, I’m glad you came. I’m scared
something horrible has happened to Sharlana.”

I’d met Sharlana once. Leyla’s sister, Rena, had married a
Gullah native and moved to the island years before Leyla accepted the Gedduh
job. Sharlana was Rena’s youngest child. My friend came around her desk and we
hugged. “Let’s walk. I’m so freaking frustrated I feel like a caged animal.”

She led me outside. “When did your niece go missing?”

“About six o’clock Tuesday evening.” Leyla turned and
clutched my arm, her grip as tight as her voice. “Now it’s Thursday and no
one’s seen her. I’m sick with worry.”

I matched Leyla’s pace as she headed toward a sandy lane
that ended at a rickety crabbing dock.

Her voice trembled. “Rena—Sharlana’s mom—called the
sheriff’s department at midnight when my niece wasn’t home yet. She’d already
phoned all of her friends.”

“What did the sheriff say?”

Leyla dabbed at perspiration on her mahogany forehead. She
looked ill. “A deputy came, talked with the family. He suggested Sharlana’s
disappearance was likely teenage rebellion. But, Marley, she’s not the type to
hook up with some boy and leave her parents frantic. Do you have contacts in
the sheriff’s department? Someone you could convince to take this seriously?”

I put my arm around her shoulders, and gave her an
encouraging squeeze. “I know one deputy. I’ll do what I can. Sharlana graduated
high school last year, right? Didn’t her boyfriend start college at Georgia
Tech?”

We reached the dock and stopped. Too many sagging sections
to advance any farther. Near the bank a fallen tree provided a makeshift bench.
Leyla sat and patted the space beside her.

“We hoped Sharlana would head to college, too, but she argued
it was a waste until she decided on a career. Claimed she needed to live a
little first. My sister tried a carrot-and-stick approach. Told Sharlana she’d
foot the bill for college. But if she didn’t go to school, she had to pay room
and board.”

Leyla stared out at the water. The sun’s reflection hurt my
eyes. “I’ll give my niece her due. Sharlana didn’t bitch and moan. Got a job
and paid rent. Of course, that sent my sister round the bend, too. The idea of
her bright daughter cleaning toilets for—now don’t take offense—some lazy-ass
honkies.”

I laughed. “No offense taken. Where’s Sharlana working?”

She looked surprised. “I figured you knew. Dear Island
housekeeping. Told her mom she was doing graduate studies in racism on an
honest-to-God twenty-first-century plantation. Said the lady of the house—Bea
Caldwell—was a real witch.”

A chill of foreboding swept over me. Bea was killed Tuesday
night, the same night Sharlana vanished.

I suddenly remembered four-year-old Teddy’s innocent replay
of Bea’s last phone call: “You believed Adam…Adam Spate.” With a sinking
feeling, I wondered if Bea, with her affinity for horrid racial slurs, had said
something quite different: “You believed a damn spade.”

Leyla’s head dropped into her hands. “Do you think that
woman’s killer murdered Sharlana, too?”

Yes, that’s precisely what I think.
Of course, I
didn’t admit it. Hope is a powerful weapon, and I wanted to leave my friend
armed for the days of waiting.

“Perhaps there’s a connection. That doesn’t mean Sharlana’s
dead. You said your niece came home from work, then left again about six?”

“Yes. She changed clothes and tacked a note on the
refrigerator, telling her mom not to wait supper. She was headed to town and
would be back by nine. Sharlana wrote it, my sister knows her handwriting.”

No wonder these folks are terrified
.

“Did she drive herself to town?”

“No, she doesn’t have a car. Rena assumed a friend picked
her up. But she called everyone she could think of. None of her friends saw her
that day.”

Her eyes brimmed with tears. I helped her up from the stump
and hugged her before we began to retrace our route. Leyla moved slowly, as if
she dreaded what waited.

Halfway between the crabbing dock and the center’s main
building, a loud snap startled me. Someone stepping on a twig? The sound came
from my right. The woods were thick, choked with underbrush. Leaves rustled and
my breathing quickened. I thought I heard a whisper. Who was out there?

“Something wrong?” Leyla stared at me.

I’d stopped dead behind her. “I’m just jumpy. Thought I
heard something.”

She shrugged. “Probably deer. Sooner or later the developers
will replace them, too. Find a breed that poses for pictures.”

We walked the rest of the way in silence. I felt edgy as if
the woods hid a predator. Were we being watched?
Enough paranoia. Leyla has
real problems. Don’t project your personal terrors.
It’s easy to ridicule
hunches, harder to shake them.

When we reached her office, I bid Leyla good-bye. “I’ll do
everything I can. I know some ladies in housekeeping. I’ll talk to them. Did
Sharlana have any special friends at work?”

Leyla smiled through her tears. “Yeah, a young girl. Sofia,
I think. From Croatia. Her town never recovered from the civil war. Sharlana
was teaching her English. Poor girl knew about eight words when she arrived.”

Croatia
? Another connection to
Eastern
Europe
?
The coincidences were piling up.

Leyla walked me to my car. “Sometimes I despair. Did you know
the Dear Company let a bunch of housekeepers go? Replaced ’em with a boatload
of refugees. I never dreamed people would be elbowing Sea Islanders out of the
way to scrub floors.”

Leyla’s contagious misery fed my certainty that Kain
Dzandrek was involved. God, I wanted a go at him.

***

I was late for my lunch date and surprised to find only one
of my friends on Plums’ patio. Brenda Gerton held down a prime table for four,
ignoring the evil eye from people waiting to be seated.

The restaurant overlooks Beaufort’s Waterfront Park. As I
walked onto the back porch, a sleek thirty-foot ketch gracefully docked under
sail at the downtown marina. On terra firma, kids swarmed over the play fort
that anchors one edge of the village green. They giggled with delight in the
mild sunshine. An added bonus was the breeze—stiff enough to keep no-see-ums,
the insect scourge of a Lowcountry spring, at bay.

“It’s about time somebody joined me,” Brenda sniffed. “I
went ahead and ordered for you. Now don’t be difficult and make this the first
time you study the menu.”

I pulled out a chair. “Nope. I’m content with my rut.” Lunch
at Plums meant a cup of she-crab soup, a chicken-salad sandwich, and
unsweetened tea—a nod to my Yankee heritage.

Brenda frowned. “You okay? When the sheriff announced his
murder witness was a security officer and referred to ‘her,’ I knew it was you.
If memory serves, Dear’s only other female officer is on maternity leave. Did
some nutcase really attack you?”

“Yeah, but I’m fine.”

Brenda snorted. “Fine? You had a concussion, right? Don’t
rush things.”

“I’m not.”

“You shouldn’t be traipsing all over creation on your own. I
thought the sheriff had more sense. You’re the number one topic for Beaufort
gossip. If that maniac eavesdrops on the right conversation, he’ll know more
about you than your own momma.”

I laughed at Brenda’s colorful phrasing. “Hey, where’s
Tammy?”

“Beating the bushes for the Hollis County Alliance. Called
to say she’s running late.”

I’d met Brenda and Tammy in a history course on the University
of South Carolina-Beaufort campus. We had little in common beyond our age.
Brenda, a career wife and mother, had never worked outside the home. She was
born-and-bred Beaufort aristocracy. In contrast, Tammy was a private banker on
Wall Street who relocated when her much older husband retired. Neither woman
had any interest in military matters. Maybe it was our differences—plus a
quirky sense of humor—that bound us as friends.

“Well, are you going to tell me about the attack?” Brenda
probed.

“Nope. I’d just have to repeat everything once Tammy
arrives.”

“Speak of the she-devil.” Brenda nodded at Tammy bulling her
way toward our table. Her pleasantly plump face was flushed, her eyes stormy.
She slammed her briefcase on the table then muttered, “Sorry.”

Tammy took a deep breath. “Couple more weeks like this and I
quit. I used to close multi-million dollar deals, and the A-holes here treat me
like pond scum. I need a drink.” She snagged a passing waitress and ordered a
gin and tonic.

When Tammy arrived in the Lowcountry, she decided her I.Q.
would drop faster than her golf handicap if she didn’t find something to occupy
her mind. She signed on as membership director for the Hollis County Alliance,
a private-public partnership aimed at economic development. The area’s volatile
mix of seat-of-your-pants entrepreneurs, landed gentry and nouveau rich
carpetbaggers intrigued her.

“What’s got you so riled?” Brenda asked.

“I called on two new businesses, and you’d have thought I
gargled with garlic juice. A polite no thank you is one thing, rude and crude
another. Zach Antolak—he opened a mortgage brokerage six weeks ago—told me how
he preferred to be welcomed.”

The waitress slid a gin-and-tonic in front of Tammy and she
took a long swallow. “Then I called on Clay Jacobs. He wasn’t lewd, just said
he had no time for small-town ass kissing. Claimed he had more business than he
could handle. Good God, he’s an appraiser who hung out a shingle a month ago.
With that attitude, how’s he getting customers?”

I raised an eyebrow at Brenda. Her hubby was one of the
county’s leading real estate attorneys. “Has real estate made that big of a
rebound? Can any dipwad make it?”

Brenda shook her head. “No way. Ned says the second-home
market is improving but not what you’d call robust. Banks are still skittish
about exposure to developers. But Ned did check out that Jacobs fellow for
Stew, who couldn’t fathom how the newcomer had stolen all his Dear business.”

Stew’s name piqued my interest.