1 Lowcountry Boil (30 page)

FORTY-FOUR

“
I was remembering how partial you are to black lace,
” Merry mimicked, and burst into wild laughter for the umpteenth time since we’d peeled out of the hotel parking lot.

I glared at my sister and considered putting her out of the car. “This is the thanks I get for sacrificing myself to save your skinny hide. For all we know, that jackass is a murderer. He could have shot the both of us and thrown us in the marsh just like Adam.”

“Will you please watch where you’re going? If you drive us into the marsh, your Academy-Award-worthy performance will have been for nothing.”

I turned back to the road ahead. “I barely even crossed the line.”

“Whatever.”

I’d been driving without a destination in mind, intent on getting away from the hotel. “Let’s go by Gram’s for a while. If this Tom Davidson was so important that she wore a locket with his picture in it, there should be some other trace of him in her things.”

Of course. How had I been so dense? “That’s it!”

“What?” Merry asked.

“Gram’s beau was my prowler. He didn’t mean me or Rhett any harm. He just wanted to remove all traces of himself from Gram’s house before I stumbled onto evidence of their affair. And that’s why he said I reminded him of an old friend. He meant Gram.”

“You’re brilliant.” Merry grinned. “But then, you are my sister.”

I drove the short distance to Gram’s house and parked in the circle drive. Rhett came bounding from the backyard to greet us. We cooed at him, petted him, and scratched his tummy. The sun slipped behind a bank of towering cumulonimbus clouds. I squinted at the sky. “I think I’ll close the moonroof. Looks like a storm’s brewing. Maybe we should just check in with Blake.” I reached for my cell phone.

“All right, but my story is you made me come.”

“What?”

“Everybody knows how bossy you are.”

“And everybody also knows how devious you are.” I dialed Blake’s cell phone. After five rings, his voicemail picked up. “Hey, Blake. It’s Liz. Call me and give me an update. Please. Merry and I were going stir crazy, so we’ve gone out for a while. We’re fine. We’re at Gram’s.  It’s about two o’clock. Talk to you later. Oh. And whatever you do, make sure somebody keeps watching Deanna.”

Merry gave me a quizzical look. “Why does someone need to watch Deanna?”

Without missing a beat, I said, “She could be in danger.” I switched on the light in the foyer. Deanna. Something about the Xanax and the Ephedra nagged at me. I stepped towards my office. “I just want to check something before we get started. You want something to drink?”

“Yeah. Vodka maybe, after that scene at the hotel.”

“Whatever you want. Bring me a Diet Cheerwine, will you? In a glass?”

“Sure.”

“Hey—”

“I know. Wash off the top of the can before I pour it in the glass. Got it.” I could hear Merry rolling her eyes.

I sat at my desk and pulled out the plastic bag with the Xanax bottle and the Ephedra. I updated the label on the bag, indicating I had opened it with the date and time, and pulled on a pair of latex gloves. Doc Harper had prescribed the Xanax the week before. The bottle of Ephed-Dream had likely been purchased online, but that seemed very un-Deanna. She hated taking pills, and she wasn’t the type to order controversial items over the internet. I checked the FDA website and verified that Ephedra had been banned in 2004. There was a long list of side effects—including death. Hell of a side effect. Most of the problems appeared liver or heart-related. Then I Googled Ephedra and found that you could indeed still buy it online. Likely from suppliers in other countries, though the websites didn’t always indicate that. Like any illegal drug, you could probably buy it locally from a guy who knew a guy. Her recent out-of-character behavior notwithstanding, I couldn’t see Deanna buying this stuff. Maybe Adam bought it for her, as a not-so-subtle suggestion she lose a pound or two.

I opened the bottle. It must have been previously opened. It wasn’t sealed in any way and no cotton in the top. The label advertised 120 tablets. I peered inside, then dumped the contents onto my desk calendar. The caplets were white and oval. I flipped a few of them over and studied the markings. Odd. “M 447” was engraved on some, but not all of the pills. Using a pencil eraser, I counted them. Ninety of the pills had no markings. Thirty had the engraved code.

Merry came into the office and set a glass of Diet Cheerwine on a coaster on my desk. “What are you doing?” She reached for the Ephedra bottle.

“No.” I snatched it away.

She jerked her hand back. “What?”

“That’s evidence.”

“Of what?”

“I’m not sure yet. Thanks for the drink.” I picked up the glass and downed a third of it.

“You’re welcome.” Merry plopped onto the sofa, right where Marci sat Monday when she came by to try and sell me Michael.

“What is up with you?” Merry asked.

“Nothing.” I pulled out my phone and loaded the Pill Id application. I took a photo of the pills with the markings. Seconds later, the image of the caplet appeared on the screen with the message “identified.” Below the picture of the pill was the text “Benazepril 40 mg.” I tapped the information button.

Well, well. Benazepril was an ACE inhibitor used to treat high blood pressure.

I took a photo of the plain caplets and sent it to Pill ID. After analyzing for maybe twenty seconds, the screen displayed the message “unable to identify.”

I sat back in my chair and took another long drink of Cheerwine. Merry stared at me with a less-than-patient look.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Just let me get this put away.” With the pencil, I scraped the pills back into the bottle.

“What’s with the pills?”

“That’s what I’d like to know.”

“You’re not going to tell me, are you?”

“Not until I know if they’re important.” I returned both bottles to the evidence bag, and locked it in my desk.

“Fine.” Merry sipped her drink. “Where should we start looking for evidence of the man in the locket?”

“Well, whatever this relationship was, it was a secret. We won’t find pictures of him in her albums or on the wall in the sunroom. So I guess we start in her room.”

We finished our drinks and started up the stairs. I didn’t tell Merry I’d already searched most of Gram’s room. There was a chance I’d missed something. Two sets of eyes and all that. “I’ll take the closet.”

“I’ll take the dresser.” Merry spoke in a near whisper.

“This the first time you’ve been in here?”

She nodded.

I hugged her and rubbed her arms. Then we went to work.

We searched in silence, each alone with our own memories. The closet was a large walk-in affair, roughly the size of a studio apartment. There were built-in drawers and shelves, along with several hanging bars of various heights and lengths. I started at the front left, and was halfway down that side, examining every bag, box, basket and drawer for anything that might provide a clue when I noticed several hatboxes on the top shelf, pushed to the back. I used a small stepstool and climbed up to examine them. The first two had, of all things, hats. The third proved much more interesting.

I carried the box back into the bedroom and settled into one of the comfortable chairs in front of the fireplace. “Come check this out.”

“What did you find?”

“Letters.”

Merry abandoned the dressing table. “From who?” She sat down in the matching chair across from me and reached into the hatbox to see for herself.

I had been scanning the first letter I pulled out. I gasped and lowered the letter to meet Merry’s gaze. “Stuart Devlin.”

FORTY-FIVE

I swung open the door to The Cracked Pot with more than customary urgency, sending the doorbells into a fierce clanging. Both Moon Unit and Alma Glendawn nearly jumped a foot straight up from their perches on opposite sides of the counter.

“Hey, y’all—” Moon Unit started towards us.

“Hey, Moon Unit, Alma. Listen, we’d just like to look at your pictures for a minute if that’s okay.” I eased past them to the photo collage. Merry smiled, waved, and followed.

“Well, sure. You looking for anybody in particular?” Moon Unit asked. She and her mamma followed us to the back wall.

“Stuart Devlin. The most recent picture you have.”

“Well, honey, that would be close to twenty-five years old. You remember Stuart passed on a while back?” Moon Unit looked at me like maybe I was Not Quite Right.

“I was only six at the time, so I don’t remember what he looked like. Do you have a picture of him up here?” I asked.

“Oh, my yes. Several.” Moon Unit studied the floor-to-ceiling photo array of decades of island life. “I guess this is probably the last one taken of him.” She pointed to a picture of three men and three women dressed in evening attire, and posing for the picture in front of what appeared to be the Devlin home. “That was taken the night of the Rose Ball in 1986. I was too young to remember it, of course, but I believe this was only a week or two before he died, right, Mamma?”

Alma looked at the photograph that Moon Unit was pointing to. She smiled wistfully. “We danced until after one in the morning. The Rose Ball is one of Charleston’s most ritzy annual charity events.”

She stepped closer to the picture, and touched the Plexiglas. “We rode back to the island in Stuart’s speedboat, flying across the moonlit water, laughing as the salt spray hit us in our faces. That night we felt like teenagers again. Afterward we walked up the beach to The Pirates’ Den. John opened the kitchen and fixed breakfast for us in his tuxedo. It was one of the happiest times of my life.

“We all looked quite spiffy, didn’t we?” For a moment she was lost in the memory, and no one disturbed her reverie. Smiling through the unshed tears, she continued. “That’s Stuart,” she pointed to the tall dark-haired man on the far left of the picture, “and Kate, of course, and Ben and Emma Rae, and that’s John and me. Two weeks later, Stuart was dead.”

“Do you think that’s him?” Merry asked.

I studied the picture carefully. “Yes, I’m almost positive. Can we borrow this for a little while?” I asked Moon Unit.

“Well, sure, I guess, but what in the world…” Moon Unit opened the hinged Plexiglas panel that helped preserve her pictorial island history and removed the picture.

“I’ll explain it to you later. Right now we’ve got to find Blake.”

“He’s over at the station,” Alma offered. “He was walking in over there with Michael Devlin when I passed by on my way here.”

“Thank you so much, both of you.” I smiled at them as I moved towards the door. Merry was already three steps in front of me.

Distant thunder rolled across the sky.

FORTY-SIX

Colleen waited for us in the backseat of the Escape. When I climbed into the driver’s seat, she put her hand on my shoulder. I couldn’t exactly feel it, but I saw her through the corner of my eye, and I was becoming more in tune to her presence. Merry slid in on the passenger side.

I’d been so excited to discover who Elvis’s phantom, my prowler, and Gram’s beau actually was, that at first, it hadn’t hit me what that meant. I sat there behind the wheel thinking about Michael.

Merry tapped the dash with her palm. “Liz? Let’s go talk to Blake. What are you waiting for?”

“You heard what Alma said. Michael’s with him.”

Merry started to say something, then bit back whatever it was. “Oh.” She sat back in her seat. “Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“I need to think about how to handle this. The bottom line is, who killed Gram? I don’t want to cause unnecessary pain. Stuart
seems
like a great guy. Elvis said he was praying at Gram’s grave. Either he’s a complete psychopath or he’s completely innocent. Then, there’s Kate and Michael to consider. They just lost Adam. They’ve thought Stuart was dead for twenty-five years. I don’t know what the story is there, but unless it connects to Gram’s death, we’ve got no business meddling in it.”

“What a hot mess.”

It was indeed that. And it reminded me of another touchy area I wasn’t sure I should wade into. Merry’s name on Gram’s list. I looked down at my hands. “Merry?”

“What?”

“Don’t take this wrong, okay?”

“O-
kaaaay
.”

“Remember last night, when we were talking about how Adam would need leverage with at least four town council members after they found out about the resort?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Can you think of
anything
they could have used against Daddy?”

Merry turned to stare out the passenger window. After a moment, she said, “I can think of something they might have tried to blackmail him with.”

“Something I don’t know about?” I’d been so sure Merry and I didn’t have any secrets from each other.

“Some things you don’t talk about over the phone. Or bring up when you only have a few hours together.”

I waited.

“Six months ago, one of my kids got into trouble. Serious trouble. His name was Jeremy. He was a sad case, been from one foster home to another most of his life. Abused, neglected. But such a sweet kid, you know? And smart. One day his latest foster mother ties up one of the younger kids, a seven-year-old girl, and puts her in a closet. The little girl cries. The bitch stuffs a rag in her mouth and shoves her back in the closet. She’s afraid of the dark.” Tears rolled down Merry’s cheeks. “Jeremy was twelve. He’d been in that closet before. When he tried to let her out, the foster mother starts beating him with a cane. Jeremy snapped. He fought back, took the cane away from her. She ended up dead from a crushed larynx. Jeremy caught a ride over to Isle of Palms, took the ferry and came to me. The police were looking for him everywhere. It was all over the news. You probably heard about it.”

“I did, but I had no idea he was one of your kids.”

“I couldn’t turn him in. He’d been in trouble before. They were talking about trying him as an adult. He hid out at my place for three days. I was harboring a fugitive. Probably could be charged with aiding and abetting and who knows what all.”

“But he turned himself in, right? I read about it in the paper.”

“I was desperate. I went to Daddy and asked him for the money to hire Jeremy a lawyer—a good one. A public defender would’ve talked him into pleading out.”

“And?”

“Daddy made a donation to Teen Council for Jeremy’s defense.” Merry turned to look at me. “Then Daddy hid Jeremy under a tarp in the back of his pickup and drove him back to Charleston and dropped him off at the lawyer’s. They arranged for Jeremy to turn himself in.”

“Has he gone to trial?”

“No.” Merry smiled. “Those lawyers earned their fee. They raised all hell with DSS. By the time they were through, the District Attorney’s Office looked like they were abusing kids, too. All charges were dropped. Jeremy’s in a good home now, and so are the four other kids that were living with that monster. But Adam could have threatened to go to the authorities and tell them Jeremy was with me for three days. I could’ve been in real trouble.”

“How would he have known?”

“Kristen.” Both of us spoke at the same time.

“She acted cool about it at the time,” Merry said. “I never told her Jeremy was the kid in the news, just that he was one of my kids. But his picture was everywhere.”