1 Lowcountry Boil (3 page)

Robert prompted Daddy. “Frank, you may want to expound a little on the contents of Emma’s will. I know y’all discussed the family holdings and how they would be distributed.”

Daddy leaned forward on the sofa, his face sagging, eyes bloodshot. He was normally so young looking that strangers couldn’t believe he was my daddy. His sandy blond hair was the exact same color as mine before I got my multi-toned highlights—not a speck of gray on his head. I couldn’t believe how much the last few days had aged him. Mamma sat close beside him, one hand protectively on his leg.

Daddy coerced air into his lungs. “Your Grandmamma’s property—the house and the land it’s on—that’s Simmons land. When my daddy died, I inherited the Talbot family land, acreage roughly double that of the Simmons tract. When the time comes, the Talbot land will be divided between Blake and Esmerelda, giving the three of you equal holdings.” More often than not, Daddy calls Merry by her given name—Esmerelda.

Merry shifted beside me. Righteous indignation made it through her raw throat and swollen sinuses. “Marci gets nothing?”

I stiffened. Any sympathy for Marci the Schemer felt like a betrayal. Coming from my sister it was especially brutal. Merry was given to making allowances for Marci on account of her unfortunate childhood. I was not.

Robert glanced at Daddy. “This kind of thing is not unusual here, you know that. It’s not about making anybody rich. It’s about conservation.” He cleared his throat again, his voice turning hoarse. “From what I gathered, Emma Rae felt that you, Liz, would be a good steward of the land.”

“But I don’t even live here, haven’t in years,” I protested. “Blake’s the oldest…he lives on a
houseboat
…” Okay, it’s a very nice houseboat. But at the time, I reasoned he could use a house.

Blake shot me a look that did not convey brotherly love. He is quite fond of his simple life on a houseboat moored at the local marina, and although he frequently meddles in my affairs, he is not a believer in reciprocity.

Daddy’s devastated expression, so out of place on a face that seldom took life seriously, asked things of me I was unprepared to give. “Things have changed,” he said. “You have responsibilities.”

“I need air.” I sprang up from the sofa and bolted across the room. Through the dining room, into the kitchen, and out the back door, I made my way to the screened porch and collapsed on the swing.

It was too much to absorb. Gram’s death had hit me like a battering ram to the stomach. How could I not have known this could happen? I hadn’t spent nearly enough time with her in recent years. The guilt was thick on my tongue.

I was busy loathing myself when Colleen materialized beside me on the swing.

“Stay,” she whispered. Since she died, Colleen didn’t have much to say, but what she said swelled ripe with import.

“I can’t,” I told her. “My life’s in Greenville now. I have clients. Friends. A renovated loft.”

“
Important
.” Colleen had an urgent look in her saucer-shaped green eyes.

It hit me then that I had business with Colleen. “Have you seen Gram…on the Other Side?”

She shook her head slowly.

This alarmed me for reasons I couldn’t parse at the time. “You’ve got to find her. Tell her… Can I see her? The way I see you?”

She shrugged and gave me an apologetic look. “Stay.”

A tear slipped down my cheek. “I can’t make any decisions today. Don’t ask me to.” I shut my eyes, shut her out, and just sat there, rocking slowly back and forth, holding myself.

I heard the back door open and close. When I opened my eyes, she was gone and Blake stood in front of the door, hands in his pockets.

“I need to talk to you.” He sat beside me on the swing, right where Colleen had been seconds before, and loosened his tie.

“Blake, I can’t stay here.” I shook my head. “I love this place as much as you do…”

He turned to look at me.

“…but I can’t make a living—”

The intensity in his eyes cut me off.

“Gram was murdered,” he said.

Less than two weeks later, against Nate’s vehement objections, my condo was on the market and my kiwi-green Escape hybrid stuffed with luggage and boxes of essentials. Rhett, my golden retriever, rode shotgun as I quitclaim to my life in Greenville. Marci the Schemer ceased being a force strong enough to keep me away from Stella Maris the minute Blake uttered those words.

I traded poor Nate for a ghost of a partner and moved home.

THREE

There are two ways to get to Stella Maris: by private boat or by taking the ferry from the Isle of Palms, our neighbor to the south. The ferry ride takes twenty minutes. Every time I make the trip, I get out of the car and watch as the town comes into focus. The old Beauthorpe homeplace sits at the corner of Main and Simmons, and in the backyard there’s a silver maple with a tire swing I’ve swung on a million times. When I see it, I know I’m home.

My wheels touched the ferry dock just before noon that sunny Monday in early April. I called Mamma to let her know I was home.

“
E-liz-a-beth Su-zanne Tal-bot.
” Whenever Mamma’s upset with one of us, she trots out all three names and enunciates each syllable. “Did your brother not tell you to stay in Greenville until he’s caught your grandmamma’s killer?”

“Yes, Mamma, he did.”
Frank-lin Blake Tal-bot
apparently believed his dual status as my big brother and chief of police gave him two reasons to mind my business. I have never suffered his intervention a moment my entire life.

Mamma was silent, perhaps reflecting on how middle children were often difficult. Finally she said, “I’ll change your sheets and air out your room.”

“Mamma,” I said, “I’m going to Gram’s.”

More silence.

“I need to be close to her.”

She sighed. “I’ve got book club tonight, and a church meeting tomorrow. You’ll come for dinner Wednesday?”

“Of course.”

“I’ll call Blake and Esmerelda.”

I needed to call Esmerelda myself. I hadn’t spoken to her in several days. And I’d have to call my brother. “Let me talk to Blake first.”

“That’s perfectly fine with me.”

I ended the call after Mamma sufficiently admonished me to be careful. I knew she was rattled. Stella Maris was one of those small towns where you could leave the door unlocked for the plumber and not think twice about it. Our island home was unacquainted with violence.

As I drove with the moonroof open, windows down, through the streets of my hometown, the island reclaimed me. I slipped the clip out of my hair and let it tumble to my shoulders and whip in the wind. Rhett hung his head out the passenger window. The thick breeze was laden with the pungent scent of salt marsh, spiced with pine, and sweetened with magnolia blossoms.

Stella Maris is a sultry, windswept Eden. Blake, Merry, and I grew up here on clay-colored beaches with the salt air sticking to our suntans. Blake’s toy soldiers defended our sand castles, and we learned to surf the foam-laced waves of the Atlantic that alternately caressed and pounded our playground. The island both nurtured and seduced us. My family’s roots sank deep into the sand and anchored us here. Our souls are salt-water cured.

The island is roughly star-shaped, with the ferry dock at the south end of Main, between South Point and Marsh Point. The remaining three points of the star are Pearson’s Point, Devlin’s Point, and North Point. Two main roads crisscross the island—Main Street and Palmetto Boulevard.

I drove down Main past The Stella Maris Hotel and The Cracked Pot, the island’s diner. Trees with border beds were wove into the sidewalk—even the main business district was green and lush. I bore right around the traffic circle bordering the park, made a three-quarter loop, and headed north on Palmetto Boulevard.

A few blocks down Palmetto Boulevard, businesses gave way to churches, then homes. Ancient, sprawling live oaks dripped Spanish moss and shaded neighborhoods. At the end of Palmetto, I turned right on Ocean Boulevard. A couple hundred feet later, I made a left into Gram’s driveway. Palm trees lined the oyster-shell-and-gravel lane that approached the house and ended in a wide circle. I parked the Escape and stared at the life Gram had left me.

The house was architecturally schizophrenic. When Gram and Granddad first built it in the sixties, it was likely considered a craftsman-style beach cottage. But they’d added on several times. The result was a sprawling yellow house with teak trim flanked by an assortment of porches. Elevated to protect it from storm surge, the house roosted on a four-car garage. A wide staircase lined with potted gardens beckoned me to the deep front porch where Adirondack chairs, a swing, and a hammock waited. As it had my whole life, the house utterly charmed me, spoke to me of rain on the tin roof and starry nights on the deck.

I let Rhett out of the car. He had bushes to water. I needed to see the ocean. Two acres of lawn surrounded the house that now belonged to me. At the edge of the lawn on both sides of the house was a maritime forest—nearly three hundred acres total. I owned the northeast point of the island. It was just sinking in, the responsibility of it. For the first time since Robert Pearson read the will, I wondered how I would pay the taxes and insurance, let alone maintain a fifty-year-old house. I had a little in savings. I could pad that when the condo sold, but I needed to scare up some clients—soon.

I rounded the front corner of the house and crossed the side yard. On the beachfront side of the house, sea oats and palm trees created the natural landscape that led out to the Atlantic. I couldn’t see the ocean over the sand dunes, but the music of the surf and the warm salty breeze called to me.

As I reached the back corner of the house, something yellow fluttered in my peripheral vision. I glanced left and gasped. Crime scene tape outlined the back deck, stairs, and a large rectangle of sand.

How had I forgotten the house was a crime scene?

Someone murdered Gram here, in the place she loved most. I stumbled backwards, tears brimming in my eyes. Those horrid yellow streamers were a stark reminder: My home was forever changed. I swiped at my eyes with the back of my hand. All I could do for Gram now was find her killer.

I pulled out my phone and tapped Blake’s name. “I’m at Gram’s,” I said when he answered. “Are you guys finished here? Can I take down the crime scene tape?”

He made a noise that was part growl, part roar. “I’ll be right there.”

I waited in the hammock on the front porch.

FOUR

Blake parked his Tahoe in the drive less than ten minutes later. Rhett came barreling across the yard to greet him. Blake, already in mid-rant when he climbed out of the SUV, stopped and stared at the dog. Rhett sat on his haunches, tongue hanging out of a sloppy grin.

“Hey buddy.” Blake scratched him behind the ear. It’s hard to hold onto anger when faced with a dog who’s happy to see you. “Good thing Liz has you for a butler, isn’t it?” Blake patted him on the side, and Rhett romped off to explore the yard.

Blake started towards the steps. “I should’ve known better than to’ve expected common sense from you.”

“You should’ve known I’d never stay away.”

One foot on the first step, he stared up at me. My brother’s only two inches taller than me—he’s about five-ten—but he works out. Edges of medium-brown hair peeked out from under his Boston Red Sox cap. His uniform consisted of a golf shirt, jeans, and leather boat shoes, no socks.

“Let’s talk out back.” He turned and headed around the house.

By the time I’d rolled out of the hammock and caught up to him, he’d ripped down the crime scene tape and wadded it into a ball. We climbed the deck steps and settled into Adirondack chairs. From here I could see over the dunes. Waves meandered in, toppled over themselves, and rippled towards the beach.

Not taking my eyes off the surf, I said, “At the funeral, all I could think was that she was gone.”

Blake looked up the beach, away from me.

“She was still doing the Cooper River Run,” I said.

Blake jerked with a half-chuckle. “And throwing themed cocktail parties. Last month it was Roaring Twenties. She was a flapper
.
”

Tears raced down my cheeks. “She wasn’t finished living yet.”

Blake put his arm around me and squeezed me tight. “I know.”

“When you told me her fall wasn’t an accident—I don’t think I really accepted it until I saw the crime scene tape.”

“It’s hard to credit.”

I straightened in my chair. “I want to know how it happened.” My grief fueled my resolve for justice.

“When I know something, I’ll tell you.”

“So, you don’t have any leads?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Blake, let me help.”

“
Hell
no.”

“I’m a trained investigator—”

“Who may be the next target,” he said. “I can’t make you leave, but I will not allow you to participate in this investigation. For Pete’s sake, Liz,
I
probably shouldn’t be working this case. We can’t turn this into a family affair.”

“It is a family affair.”

“It’s also an open police investigation.” He took off his cap and ran his fingers through his hair. “This is hard enough as it is.” Blake looked more stressed than I’d ever seen him. I felt awful that I’d added to his burden.

Then he switched gears. “You need to get a security system installed.”

“I bet not a soul on this island has a security system.”

“Some do.  We’re not as isolated as we used to be—lot more marina traffic.”

“I’ll look into it.” I tried to appear cooperative. “I understand you don’t have much to work with, but you know how she was killed. You’d tell any victim’s family that much.”

He shook his head in exasperation. “Look. Very few people outside the department know she was murdered. The dunes hid the crime scene tape from the beach. Everyone thinks she fell down the steps.”

I squinched my face in one of those expressions Mamma is forever telling me causes wrinkles.

Blake continued. “Someone hit Gram over the head with a blunt instrument and placed her at the bottom of the steps to make us
think
she fell.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because it’s my job to be suspicious.”

He picked up a seashell lying on the deck. “I thought it was odd there was blood on her head but not a trace on the steps. The head wound was the only mark on her. If she’d fallen down the steps, she’d have had other injuries. The autopsy confirmed it.”