1 Lowcountry Boil (28 page)

On the front porch of Deanna’s two-story Victorian, I took a moment to smooth my hair and wipe my hands on my black Lycra capris. My reflection in the window confirmed what I already knew—I looked a sight. I rang the doorbell.

After a full two minutes, I rang again, and then knocked.

No response.

I cupped my hands and put my face to the window. No sign of anyone. Also no signs of violence, which was good. But Deanna had been home when she took Troy’s call earlier. Or had she? He could have called her on a cell, though I hadn’t seen her with one.

I ran around back and looked through the window in the back door. The alarm system was armed. Okay, maybe Deanna hadn’t been at home, or, if she had, maybe Troy had scared her and she’d taken the girls and left. Either way, the alarm system wouldn’t be armed if Troy had broken in.

I trotted down the block to the phone junction box, where I’d hidden the recorder the day before. A quick glace up and down the street confirmed that I was still alone. I knelt, pushed back the pampas grass, and disconnected the equipment. Cramming it my backpack, I hit the sidewalk.

It was almost noon. Mamma would be knocking on my bedroom door with a chicken salad sandwich and iced tea any minute. I broke into a run.

FORTY

A block from Mamma and Daddy’s, I pulled out my iPhone and called Merry on hers. “Get Mamma and Daddy into the kitchen and distract them while I slip in the front.”

“You owe me. I’ve been in the kitchen for the past two hours. Shredding chicken.”

“Anything you want.” I was not climbing another tree that day.

“I’ll text you when it’s clear.”

“I love you.”

I waited behind a weeping willow in the front yard. Seconds later I received a one-word text. “Go.”

I slipped in the front door and tiptoed up the stairs. Straight to the shower I went. Never had water and soap felt so good. I scrubbed like I was washing snake off of me along with the sand and sweat. I pulled on a pair of navy capris, a lacy green tank, and a sheer white blouse. Then, I suspended my primping to see if I had snagged anything useful with my phone tap.

There were four calls on the recorder. The first was date-time stamped 8:08 p.m. from the night before.

“Hello?” Deanna said.

“I won’t be home for dinner. I’m going into Charleston.” Adam’s voice made me queasy after seeing his body in the marsh only hours before.

“Where are you having dinner?”

“None of your damn business, that’s where.”

“When should I expect you?”

“When you see me. And if you have any more questions, you’d better keep them to yourself unless you want a taste of my belt when I get home.”

I recoiled from the digital recorder. For the first time I wondered if Deanna could possibly have killed him herself.

Deanna didn’t respond.

“Kiss the girls goodnight for me. You hear?” His voice still had a threat in it.

“I will,” she said, in the vocal equivalent of a poker face.

A click ended the call.

The second call was date-time stamped at 10:13 the night before.

“Hello?” Deanna answered.

“Sweetheart, are you feeling any better?” A female voice.

“Yes, Mamma, I’m fine,” Deanna said. “Really. Please don’t worry about me.”

“You’re just so keyed up. I wish you’d reconsider and take the medication the doctor gave you.”

“Mamma, I flushed those things down the toilet. I can’t believe I even had that prescription filled. You know I don’t like to take pills.”

Her mother sighed. “Never could get you to even take an aspirin.”

“No telling what that stuff does to your kidneys.”

“Well, you just call me if you need me. Hear?”

“Mmm-kay. Love you.”

“Love you too, sweetheart. Bye now.”

“Bye bye.”

Click.

Huh. So she hadn’t taken the Xanax. She’d flushed it. Did she buy the Ephedra and toss it as well? But why flush one and throw the other in the trash?

The next call was the one I overheard Troy make that morning. Deanna’s side of the call consisted of her sobbing and hanging up on Troy in mid-sentence. So she had been at home when she spoke to him.

The fourth call was also from Troy. He must have called her back after he left the campsite. I must have missed her at her house by seconds.

“Hello?” Deanna said, her voice now slightly slurred. Odds were, someone medicated her against her will and the drugs were kicking in.

“Lady, if you know whass good for you, you won’t hang up on me this time,” Troy said.

“Just a moment, please.” She must have covered the phone, because her voice was muffled. She was speaking to someone else. “I’ll be right there.”

She spoke into the phone again. “Does your mamma know how you speak to ladies?”

“I was you, I’d shut the fuck up. Me, I’ve had a couple a really bad days, and I’ve got no patience whatsoever with any a your la-tee-da bullshit. I did the job. I want my money
right now
.”

“Why that’s absurd, I never asked you to do a single thing except follow my husband and find out who he was sleeping with. As a matter of fact, I vividly remember telling you not to hurt anyone
.
” The word “vividly” came out mangled. Deanna was definitely on something.

“I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing, but we both know what you meant. Trust me, it’s in your best interest to bring me my money so I can get the hell out of Dodge.”

“I don’t know what kind of drugs
you’re
taking, Mr. Exterminator, but everybody knows I would never consort with criminals, let alone hire someone to kill my husband. The idea is ridiculous.”

“Shut up. Bring the money over to White Point Gardens, to the place we met before. It shouldn’t take you more than an hour to get there. I’ll be waiting. If you don’t show up, I’ll be coming after my money. If you make me do that, somebody else is going to get hurt.
Got it
?”

What was it with Troy and White Point Gardens? Why wouldn’t he just come get the money? He was already on Stella Maris. But he’d know Deanna would be surrounded by family and friends. She’d be hard to get to without him being seen, and arrested.

Deanna said, “Why don’t I bring a picnic along? I’ve got a lovely shrimp salad in the refrigerator that Mrs. Smithers brought over. That’s one thing you have to say about Mrs. Smithers, she is always prompt with food for the bereaved. I bet she keeps things made up just in case someone keels over. Why, if you hadn’t knocked off my Adam, someone else might have ended up with this shrimp salad, so, I guess, in a way, I really owe you some of it. Do you prefer yours on the little croissants or toast points?”

“Lady, you are seriously disturbed. Just get my money over here. And if you know what’s good for you, you won’t bring along
shrimp
of any kind.”

Click.

Great. By now Troy was back on the other side of the Cooper River. At least Deanna was safe, for now. Whoever she’d been speaking to when she put her hand over the phone must have taken her and the girls somewhere else. But I needed to make sure she didn’t go to meet Troy. That way, he’d come back to Stella Maris to get his money, and we’d have him.

I finished my hair and makeup, and was just about to head downstairs when Nate called.

“Hey. You get some rest?” I asked.

“Some. What have I missed?” Calm Nate was back this morning.

“Willa Butler found Adam Devlin dead in the salt marsh this morning. And someone found Merry’s roommate’s body in Charleston.”

“What the hell? Is there a serial killer in Charleston County?”

“It’s beginning to look that way.”

“Have you seen any more of Scott?”

“No.”

“Well, there’s one good thing,” Nate said. “Unless there are more delays, I should be in Stella Maris around nine-thirty. Should I go to your parent’s house?”

If Nate were here, no one could object to my staying at Gram’s. “No. Come to Gram’s house. You remember how to get there?” We’d driven by when he came home with me for the funeral.

“I can find it. See you soon.”

Merry was in the kitchen, nibbling on a chicken salad croissant. “You won’t believe this, but I saw a rat in here earlier.”

“Thanks again. If I’d had to climb in my bedroom window, I’d probably have broken my neck. It’s been a rough morning. I’ll fill you in later.” I reached in the refrigerator and pulled out the chicken salad and a plate of deviled eggs topped with olives. “Do these have cream cheese in them?”

“Of course.”

“Yum. I’m starved.” I made myself a sandwich and added three deviled eggs to my plate. “Where are Mamma and Daddy?”

“After the rat incident, Mamma needed to lie down. Daddy’s on the front porch standing guard.”

“Heard from Blake?”

“No.”

I poured myself some tea and perched on a bar-height chair at the opposite end of the butcher-block work island from Merry. I propped my pink-tipped toes on the chair between us, beside her red ones. Then, I pulled out my iPhone and called Blake.

For once, he answered when I called. “What fresh hell is this?”

“If that’s the way you feel about it, I won’t bother checking in anymore.”

“Tell me you’re still at Mom and Dad’s.”

“I am. I’m sitting in the kitchen, eating a chicken salad sandwich. Oh, man this is good chicken salad. Mamma just made it.” Okay, that was mean. He probably hadn’t had a chance to eat lunch.

“Then how, exactly, do you happen to know that Troy Causby is driving a burgundy Honda Accord and may be heading towards Deanna’s? Or that he was camping in this tent over on Devlin’s Point that I’m standing next to? Nell was a little fuzzy on the details. She said the call broke up.” Blake’s tone indicated his familiarity with my vagary/dropped call technique.

“Well, I did pop out for a bit. But Mamma thinks I was napping, so don’t tell.”

“If you were close enough to hear where he was headed, why didn’t you shoot him in the kneecap or something until I could get here?”

“Well, I tried. It’s a long story. Anyway, where’s Deanna?”

“At Kate’s,” he said. “With Sam in a squad car out front. Grace is over there, too, to answer the phone and handle food drop-offs. Works out. We can watch her and Deanna with one unit.”

“Let Sam know Deanna might try to slip out.”

“Why would she do that?”

“To meet Troy and pay him. He wants her to come over to White Point Gardens and bring the money.”

“Why would she even consider doing that?”

Hell’s bells. I kept forgetting what I had and hadn’t told Blake. Lying to subjects and witnesses had become second nature over the years. Lying to my family was altogether different. “He threatened her. He knows Adam had the money to pay him. He told Deanna if she didn’t bring it to him, someone else would get hurt.” That was the truth, just not the whole truth.

“I’ll alert Sam, but she’s asleep. Doc Harper gave her something. She was loopy for a while. Then she crashed. Look, I gotta go. Stay put.” He hung up before I had to answer that.

Merry had finished her croissant and started into the cookies. I ate my sandwich, relishing every savory flaky bite. Nobody makes better chicken salad than Mamma. Then I downed the three cream-cheese-and-olive deviled eggs. Finally, I reached for the cookie jar and extracted two of Mamma’s homemade double-chocolate-chunk delights.

Merry and I sat silently munching. After the fourth time I sought comfort in the cookie jar, Merry raised her eyebrows. “You’re stress-eating,” she informed me.

“And?”

“You’re going to scarf them all down. Pass that cookie jar over here.”

I complied. “This is infuriating.” I had reached the limit of my patience with being babysat, which, admittedly, I had only suffered long enough to eat my lunch.

“It seems to me we’d be safer if we weren’t just sitting here in the most likely place Troy would come looking,” Merry mused.

“Exactly.” I pointed my cookie at her. “Adam’s dead, Scott, so far, is trying to seduce me, not kill me, and Troy is in Charleston.”

“Really?” Merry tilted her head. “How do you know that?”

I shrugged. “I ran across that information while I was out. The less you know, the less you’ll have to remember to forget.”

“
Liz.
”

“I’ll tell you everything later. Right now, why are we sitting here packing on the pounds?”

“We’re humoring your brother and your father.” Merry took another bite of cookie.

“I’m all done humoring them. Let’s get out of here.” I stood, ready to make a break.

“And go where? What scheme lurks in that devious mind of yours?”

“Me devious?” My eyes went wide with innocence.

“Spare me.”

“Fine.” I chewed my last bite of cookie as I concocted a plan. “I’d like to know how Adam and Scott got mixed up with each other.”

“Why don’t you call Scott up and ask him?”

“Like he’d just tell me. That snake is at the bottom of this whole mess. Come on.” I stood up, slid into my sandals, and grabbed my purse. “We’re going to hunt him down.”

Colleen appeared, sprawled across the work island, one hand propping up her head.

I closed my eyes and huffed my exasperation.

“What?” Merry asked.

“Nothing.” I made for the door.

Her timing always impeccable, Mamma entered the kitchen just in time to catch me with one hand on the doorknob. “
E-liz-a-beth.
Where do you girls think you’re going?”

I said, “Mamma, I can’t possibly sit still another second. We’re going shopping. We’ll be fine, for heaven’s sake. It’s broad daylight. There are too many people out on Main Street this time of day for Troy to abduct us. Besides, I’ve got a pistol in my purse.”

“Oh, I feel much better now.” Mamma took a step towards us, hands on her hips, fire in her eyes. Then, she seemed to deflate. “I am just too undone to argue with you. Please be careful.”

“We will, Mamma. Please don’t worry. Back soon.” I called over my shoulder as we hurried out the door.

“Love you,” Merry added.

“Put on some lipstick,” Mamma called after us.