Murder on Edisto (The Edisto Island Mysteries) (10 page)

She took the bent card. His company name, his name, and a phone number. No address, no website, no email. She held it up. “I don’t want to take your last card.”

“Got more in the truck. Don’t really give ’em out much.”

“Where’s your office?”

He pointed to the late nineties black Chevy pickup with a dented and scratched white aluminum shell on the back. “Office and home. All I need’s a phone.”

“You live in your truck?”

“Yes’m. Got a bed in the back that would rival anything in your place. But when it’s hot, I often nap where I’m working. Everybody’s got a porch ’round here with a hammock or chaise lounge. People leave me sandwiches and such, or I grab a bite at Whaley’s or McConkey’s. There’s always the beach. All these places have outdoor showers. And when somebody wants me, they run down my pickup.”

Why not? In a community this small, everybody would know a handyman. It wouldn’t surprise her if he had more money than half the residents. You couldn’t tell the rich from the have-littles on this narrow strip of sand. Shorts, tank tops, bathing suits, and sun dresses accented the tanned and sun-bleached on Edisto. The dress code applied to all.

And he’d dodged her question.

The first bead of sweat ran down her temple. “So how did you know about the Rosewoods?”

“Had a job across the street from them. Mission Accomplished,” he said.

She creased her brow. “Congratulations on finishing the job, but you still haven’t answered the question.”

“The Effington place. Used to be called Seaclusion, but they sold it two years ago. Bass family owns it now. They call it Mission Accomplished. He sold a patent or something.”

“Oh,” she said, then, “Oooh!” as she busted out laughing. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I know that house as Seaclusion. Guess I’ve been gone a while. Now, what about—”

“Your question.” He grinned and scratched his chin again. “They said you were a cop. Not that I mind.”

She enjoyed the exchange. Peters seemed like a decent type. “Come on up to the porch out of the sun. Want a water or Coke?”

“Water’s fine,” he said.

She retrieved the drink from the kitchen. Back outside, she gave a filled glass with ice to the handyman who’d already claimed one of her rattan chairs. She assumed a place on a matching love seat.

He chugged half the glass and rested it on his knee. “I was washing paintbrushes at the faucet off the corner of the house when I heard Ms. Rosewood scream. I ran over. Mr. Rosewood was inside on the phone calling Mike.”

“Mike Seabrook at the police department?”

“Yeah. While he was doing that, Ms. Rosewood asked me if I saw anybody go in or out of the house.” He drawled as he spoke, deadpan, as if burglaries happened daily on Jungle Road. “I said no, didn’t see anyone. Asked if I could help, then went back to my job. Finished cleaning up and got in my truck. That’s when Sophie flagged me down.” He finished his water and rubbed the cool glass across his brow. “That’s about it.”

“Anybody else hear her scream?” Callie asked.

Peters thought a second. “Don’t really know.”

“And you didn’t see anyone come or go? No car parked in the drive?” She studied his hands, his nails. Typical for a contractor. His laid-back nature was pure island, like nothing could upset him except rain on a day he planned to go fishing. If he’d done the deed, would he be dumb enough to keep evidence in his truck? But then, he could secret the coins away anywhere around Edisto. Him shooting Papa didn’t feel right, though.

“Miss Morgan, I was inside painting a bathroom. Cars don’t draw no attention anyway.” He looked down his nose. “Screams sure do, though.”

An SUV crunched gravel at the house directly across from Chelsea Morning. Peters leaped up. “Uh-oh. The boss lady’s home. Let me get back to work. Gotta install a hot water heater and a garbage disposal before I knock off for the day.” He danced down the steps and then turned at the bottom. “Appreciate the job. I’ll get with you on a date.”

A tiny young blonde came out of the house not smiling, shading her eyes in a search.

“Here I am, ma’am,” he yelled as he darted across the street. “Did a quick fix for your neighbor, but I’ll get right on that water heater.”

Callie watched him act all submissive, bowing before he entered the residence.

Here was a guy who moved around the beach unnoticed, yet under everyone’s nose. She’d get to know him better when he fixed her steps, a safe outside job that still allowed her to study him. She’d never heard of Jackson Peters, but then her family never had to use him. She itched to ask where he was the evening Papa died, but that was Seabrook’s job.

The corner of her mouth curled at her curiosity reflex. Maybe Papa Beach had reached out from the grave to stir her subconscious—or warn her to watch her back. Either way, she welcomed the nudge. Sorting ideas was proactive, perhaps protective, and it sure beat doing nothing.

She just couldn’t see herself as a detective anymore. A female PI might work. That definitely would rock the gossip hotline of Edisto, but PI work seemed so amateur. And just how much PI work would there be in this tiny community anyway?

Sophie’s vintage powder blue early nineties model Mercedes convertible slowed into her drive and stopped under the wraparound porch. With the houses on pilings, residents parked under the houses.

Callie grabbed her keys to lock up, threw on sneakers, and jogged the thirty yards to Sophie’s. She fast-rapped the intricate floral stained glass window in the front entrance. Before Callie met with Seabrook, she wanted to find out how Papa’s coin came to be in Sophie’s house.

She’d dance carefully. There wasn’t enough sage to purge all the negative of Callie’s theory that a stranger entered Sophie’s home and deposited the token. At a minimum, Callie hoped the petite yoga instructor would feel the need to use her house key now.

“Hey! I’m so happy to see you!” Sophie squealed and drew Callie inside.

“You act like it’s been months.” Callie followed Sophie’s tight posterior to the kitchen bar, impressed not a single body part jiggled when she moved.

Sophie reached for the refrigerator door, the sole of one foot flat against the inside thigh of the leg she balanced on—tree pose. “I need a drink first,” she said, studying her shelves. “Had twenty people at yoga this morning, and the air conditioning went out. Threw open every window and door.” She shut the refrigerator, carrot juice at the ready. “The waves make great background noise, but I prefer AC to sweating like a whore on a Miami street corner.” She plopped a water bottle in front of Callie without asking. “Told Thad he better get that damn machine fixed before my next lesson.”

Callie was mesmerized as Sophie flitted around like a hummingbird on speed. “I thought yoga made you calm and harmonious with the world.”

“Honey.” Sophie hopped up on a barstool. “We all stress. At this very moment I’m seeking the calm.” She closed her eyes, raised her legs in Indian style, and laid palms up on her knees. She shifted her toned butt cheeks until she reached a comfortable place.

Who the hell crossed their legs like that atop a barstool?

“I need to ask you a question, Sophie. Can you do whatever that is you’re doing and listen?”

“Uh-hmm.”

Callie pulled the Morgan dollar out of her pocket. “Do you recognize this?”

Sophie opened an eye. “Not really.”

“Study it again. Zeus found it on your kitchen table this morning.”

“Maybe it’s his.” She shut her eye. “He gets paid all sorts of ways. Cash, check, bartering. Someone gave him one of those orange-stamped two dollar bills one time. The kind Clemson University fans leave wherever they go.” Her fingertips came together. “Spends like anything else.”

“He says the coin must be yours.”

“Well, it’s not.”

“Sophie—”

She lost her pose and held up a finger. “Don’t.”

Callie leaned her elbow on the counter. “Don’t what?”

Sophie unwound faster than a rattlesnake, her finger now in Callie’s face. “Don’t get all detective on me and bring those bad vibes into this house. I don’t know where that damn coin came from. Nothing is stolen. My house wasn’t broken into. Nobody was . . . Nothing happened.”

Callie held up the dollar again, positive Sophie lied. “Do you collect these?”

“No.”

“Did Papa Beach give you this?”

“No,” she said louder.

“Have you had a house guest recently who might—”

Sophie dropped off her stool, snatched the coin from Callie’s fingers, ran to the back door, and yanked it open. She wound up and hurled the silver dollar toward the marsh.

Callie bolted toward the rail. “I was taking that to the police! Where’d you throw it?”

“No idea. But now that ugliness is out of my life.”

“Damn it, Sophie,” Callie said.

“Damn is right,” Sophie echoed. “Now I’ve got to cleanse my house, and I think I’m out of sage.”

Chapter 9

CALLIE RESISTED THE urge to throttle the woman. “That coin was evidence.”

Sophie raised her chin. “It was negative energy.”

“How’d it get in your house? Think. It’s important.”

“The answer’s the same no matter how many times you ask. No idea.”

Callie acknowledged the dead end and left, still riled at Sophie’s obstinacy. With the dollar gone and Sophie in outer space, Callie needed to tell Seabrook about Sophie’s house being violated. Nothing stolen, the evidence in the marsh, but still . . . the burglar had struck again.

She started her car engine and sat outside Chelsea Morning, still angry about losing a vital piece of evidence. She glanced next door at Papa’s empty gray house, recalling such a contrast in personality compared to her kooky neighbor on the other side.

Inside the fabric of Papa’s place, she’d spent weekends at the kitchen table eating peanut butter cookies. He’d planted sea tales in her head by day, which later morphed into mermaid dreams at night. He’d attended John’s funeral.

She’d only been yards away when he died alone, his assassin vanishing just out of her reach. She owed Papa. He’d done more for her than she could ever repay. She had the skills. He’d expect her to use them.

There’d be other clues; she was sure of it. This burglar’s propensity to taunt the authorities would be the hallmark that would cause him to slip up. She’d seen it before.

She drove down Jungle Road, uncertain. Her sleuthing had led to her husband’s death, so getting involved in a case now put her on edge. Her frenzied investigation after the fire had gotten her nowhere except burned out and broken. Then, when she’d found herself unable to juggle vengeance and tending a child, she’d quit . . . quit to raise John’s son safely.

But Jeb wasn’t safe with this creep on the loose.

The Edisto Police Station sat on a cramped triangular patch of land containing the station, town hall, fire department, and public works. A free water station filled jugs for those who couldn’t stand the salty tap water. A fire truck parked outside, wet from a wash. The whole place sported brick and beige vinyl siding, with a gray tin roof. An ancient oak reached seventy feet up, a canopy almost as wide, surrounded by a three-foot retaining wall.

As she opened the glass front door, air conditioning sucked her in. Crisp, clean, quiet. Her sneakers squeaked against linoleum. Seabrook, leaning over the largest of three desks, looked up.

The room was barely larger than Callie’s living room and kitchen. A laminated Edisto map swallowed up an entire wall. A bulletin board, commendations, and festival posters hung on the other walls along with the town seal and pictures of hand-shaking politicians and council members. Two full-size wall safes, one slate-colored and one black, sat in a vigil behind the desks. Space, technology, and furniture, but not people. Something unbalanced about that budget, in her opinion.

A receptionist greeted her. “What can we do for you?”

“I got this, Marie. This is Callie Morgan, from the Cantrell house.” Seabrook walked over. “What brings the big city detective to our beachfront Mayberry?”

“Can we talk?” Callie asked. “And I’d like my Glock back, please.”

He held open the small swinging door. She followed him past the only private office, most likely the ex-chief’s.

He motioned her to a simple metal chair in front of his spartan desk. A nameplate, but no family photos. No second grader-designed paperweights or crayon pictures. The closest thing to a personal touch was a plastic cup from a real estate agent on the beach, the one who claimed to be the best on the Carolina coast. Bright red with a gold wave, it was stuffed with pens from what appeared to be every commercial interest on Edisto.

“So,” he said, sitting. “What’s up?”

She still loved his calm. “Several thoughts. Might mean nothing. One is a definite problem. I don’t know these people like you do. And I’m not trying to do your job . . .”

He rocked his chair forward, those green eyes concentrating on her. “You’re not pissing in my sandbox, Callie. Just tell me what you think. We gathered fingerprints from Rosewood, but they don’t match anything in the systems we can access. And we talked to most of the people around you.”