Dear Killer (Marley Clark Mysteries) (16 page)

“Jacobs comes from Columbia so Ned called buddies there. Few
months back, the guy got slapped on the wrist for ethics violations. The Alliance
is probably better off without him.”

Tammy looked my way. “Marley, I can’t believe I’m blowing
off steam when I haven’t asked how you feel. The sheriff said you ‘scuffled’
with a killer. What the hell does that mean?”

Our food arrived, giving me a short reprieve. Between
spoonfuls of she-crab soup, I dished out a subtly shaded version of the truth.
Yes, I’d been attacked but I now felt hunky-dory. Yes, I remembered seeing the
killer, but his facial features were still fogged by my mental mist.

“I’m sure our killer’s moved on,” I lied. “Let’s talk about
something more cheerful. Who starts?”

For our once-a-month luncheons, each of us prepared a
mini-lecture. Five minutes—or less—on a topic the others weren’t likely to know
beans about. Tammy usually enlightened us on finance. Brenda offered up
colorful local histories. I talked about the military and weaponry.

“I’ll go first.” Tammy opened her briefcase. “I even brought
handouts. My topic? Estate planning.”

Brenda protested. “Our friend just pulled one foot from the
grave and you want to speculate on how they’ll divvy up her jewelry?”

I laughed at the interplay. “Don’t get your undies in a
twist, Brenda. Retired military broads don’t have jewelry.”

Tammy cleared her throat to quell further rebellion. “As I
was saying…”

I half listened. Couldn’t quit mulling over Tammy’s
brush-offs—first by a shady appraiser, then by a mortgage broker with an
Eastern European name. Luckily Tammy didn’t quiz me on her info. A waitress
brought coffee, and it was Brenda’s turn.

“Okay, I’m going to educate you Yankees on how the Turners
regained their fortune after the War Between the States. Notice the name:
nothing ‘civil’ about that war.”

Since Brenda’s mom had been a Turner, she swore her tale of
a prodigal son, a mad-as-a-hatter grandmother, a randy papa, and a sprinkling
of out-of-wedlock offspring was the absolute truth. When she finished, I teased
her. “You sure you didn’t add a little southern seasoning to
Days of Our
Lives
?”

“You want off the hook today?” Tammy asked. “Don’t imagine
you had time to prepare anything.”

“
Au contraire
. Given recent, uh, events, I had a
strong incentive to bone up on what’s known in the trade as ECDs—electronic
control devices. Nothing like first-hand experience to sharpen your thirst for
knowledge.”

During my ferry ride to the mainland, I’d culled tidbits
from my friend Steve’s emails to create a short op-ed. I began with
definitions. “All ECDs, including stun guns and Tasers, use electricity—up to
fifty-thousand volts—to stun and incapacitate. That’s enough to reduce a
three-hundred-pound gorilla to a quivering pile of misfired neurons.”

Tammy interrupted. “God, can you electrocute someone with an
ECD?”

I shook my head. “Nope. Legit models limit dosage. Once the
probes make contact, the ECD sends impulses in pre-set waves. In fact, the
Taser I carry at work is preset to deliver a five-second jolt.

“The ECDs won’t kill, even if the perp is standing in three
feet of water. Some deaths have been reported, but they’ve mostly been tied to
drug overdoses or extenuating circumstances. As a multiple jolt recipient, I’m
happy to report studies have found no long-lasting side effects.”

Brenda waggled her fingers, signaling a question. “What if
the bad guy’s a biker dude in a thick leather jacket?”

“No problemo. The probes will zap through two inches of
clothing. Tasers have plenty of law enforcement fans. I’m one. Suppose some
sky-high PCP addict is about to attack. Shoot the guy with a pistol and you’d
better hit a vital organ or it’s like popping a bear with a BB gun. These guys
can be hemorrhaging and feel no pain.”

Tammy cleared her throat. “I’m all for cops having ECDs. But
what about bad guys? Can anyone buy one?”

“’Fraid so. Order one over the Internet and UPS will deliver
it to your door. But reputable providers do background checks. Plus, in theory,
owners are easy to trace. The guns eject a kind of confetti when they’re fired,
littering the crime scene with tiny shards that identify the gun and original
purchaser.”

Tammy cut in. “Hey, does that mean the sheriff can track the
weapon used on you?”

We’d come to the crux of my research. Steve had reached the
same conclusion as Braden. “No. An East European manufacturer is producing an
ECD for police and military that can be fired from twenty feet. It doesn’t
eject any confetti. Somehow our killer got his hands on one.”

“Well that sucks,” Tammy said.

My sentiment exactly. It meant our killer was no
run-of-the-mill psychopath. He had international connections. That convinced me
Stew’s and Bea’s deaths weren’t part of a random killing spree. But where was
the motive? The pattern?

We signaled for our checks. As we waited, a man walked by
our table, nodded to Brenda and murmured, “Nice to see you.”

“Wasn’t that Michael Beech, Esquire?” Tammy asked.

Unable to keep all the elite Beaufortonians straight, I
chuckled. “You two could publish your own newspaper. I’ve never heard of
Beech.”

Brenda arched an eyebrow. “You’ve never heard of anyone.
He’s an attorney, but unlike hubby dear, he concentrates on nonprofit and
corporate work. You know, setting up C corps and LLCs. His family came here
when Robert E. Lee was in short pants. His daddy and granddaddy were attorneys,
so he inherited their client base.”

She sipped her drink before she continued. “A few months
back, he got caught engaging in Superman accounting. He billed a hospital for
sixty hours of his time and a local business owner for seventy hours over the
same three days. It was his misfortune the business owner joined the hospital
board and noticed the double billing. Hearsay has it Beech needed the money to
pay a gambling debt.”

“Was he disbarred?” I asked.

Brenda shook her head. “He tore up the invoices. Claimed
he’d fallen victim to an accounting glitch. My husband’s angry. Says he should
be penalized for violating ethics. Me? I wonder how Beech paid his bookie. He
didn’t hit the lottery.”

We left the restaurant and hugged before trotting off to
far-flung parking spaces. With Beaufort’s azaleas in bloom, parking was at a
premium. April was the peak month for empty-nester tourists to ooh-and-ah over
the quaint downtown and enjoy horse-drawn carriage rides through a historic
district made famous by movies like
The Big Chill
and
The Prince of
Tides
.

As I walked toward Donna’s car, I wondered how long it would
be before beachcombing tourists swarmed Dear. This year I’d welcome any
visitors with only sun and surf on their minds. They beat hell out of reporters
with an insatiable appetite for blood.

By the time I bought everything on my dual grocery lists, my
cart overflowed, and my checking account had taken a three-hundred-dollar hit.
To dazzle Braden with my culinary skills, I’d splurged. The entrée would be
filet mignon topped with steamed crabmeat, lobster, shrimp and white asparagus,
all slathered in homemade Béarnaise sauce.

I glanced at my watch. Crapola, 3:15. I wasn’t used to timing excursions to make a four o’clock ferry. One open bridge could wreck
my timetable.

Donna’s oversized trunk accommodated the purchases with
ease, and I marveled once more at its pristine condition. Though I loved my
vintage Mustang, my adoration fell short of a slavish devotion to auto hygiene.
If I borrowed her car again, I’d spring for the deluxe package at the Carteret
Street car wash where humans actually vacuumed, scrubbed and buffed.

Before I left the parking lot, I witnessed a near collision
in my rearview mirror. A green SUV cut off a dawdling oldster to claim a space
two cars behind me. It was a wonder the old lady didn’t keel over dead. The
ranks of belligerent drivers seemed to swell by the day.

Or was someone following me? The thought flickered in and
out. Who could know I was driving this car?

Frequent journeys to and from Dear Island meant I could
navigate by rote. This freed me to daydream about Braden and obsess on the
luncheon gossip. How did a new appraiser steal Dear’s business from Stew? What
brought an East European mortgage broker to Beaufort? It seemed weird that two
newbies turned up their noses at an offer to tap into the local business
pipeline.

Did any of this connect to Janie’s worries about real estate
fraud? I tried to picture the documents strewn across Woody’s desk. Had the
newcomers’ names—Jacobs or Antolak—appeared on them?

A red light blinked ahead. I eased off the gas. The swing
bridge had opened for two shrimp boats. They’d already run the steel gauntlet
to head up river. Only four cars idled ahead of me. Curtailed travel to and
from Dear had definitely taken a bite out of inter-island traffic flow.

I slid to a stop. Donna’s well-tuned Lexus purred so quietly
I almost thought it had stalled. The wait would be short. I rolled down my
passenger-side window to reduce the glare and leaned out to see if one of the
homecoming captains was Janie’s most recent conquest. The boats moved at too
fast a clip to decipher the names painted on the prows.

With shrimping season weeks away, the skippers had probably
been after tuna, drum fish or snapper. In the wake of the vessels, sea gulls
squawked and dived, quarreling over gutted remains. The scene is picturesque
afar, just plain smelly and gory up close and personal.

Glancing in my rearview mirror, I noticed the rude SUV from
the grocery had maneuvered directly behind me. The behemoth left a huge gap
between our bumpers. That seemed out of character, given the driver’s parking
lot aggression. The hairs on my neck saluted.

I studied the driver’s silhouetted head. Dark-tinted windows
obscured all facial details. When the man looked left, my stomach lurched. God
help me, in profile, he was a dead ringer for Underling.

Could it really be Kain’s lackey? If so, would he dare mount
an attack on a public highway?

Slowly the bridge pirouetted to close the yawning chasm
between its stationary sections. I was shaken—literally—out of my macabre
musings when the bridge clanged shut, and the structure shimmied in momentary
aftershock.
Thank goodness, I’d still make the ferry.

The cars ahead coughed to life and crept forward. I inched
along behind them. The SUV maintained its wary distance. Not a good sign. My
fingers tensed on the steering wheel.

Just beyond the bridge, three of the lead cars turned into
the first gated enclave. The remaining auto, a black Firebird, tore off like an
entry in the Indy 500. He had to be doing eighty—at least twenty-five miles
over the speed limit.
Where are the cops when you need them?

I was now quite alone with the green SUV, which practically
kissed my bumper as soon as the other vehicles in our motorcade split.
Coincidence? Not bloody likely.

With my speed pegged to the fifty-five-miles-per-hour limit,
I ticked off my suspicious tail’s options. He could try to muscle me off the
road and into the marsh where I’d be a mired duck. Or he could pull alongside
and shoot.

Either way I needed to keep him behind me
.
Returning
fire wasn’t an option. Hell, I couldn’t even reach the glove box to retrieve my
gun—not if I wanted to keep the car under control.

Beyond the next curve, the snaking road briefly righted itself
into a straightaway. Afraid the man might put on a burst of speed, pull
parallel, and shoot, I straddled the centerline, leaving his giant boat of a
vehicle no room to pass.

To my surprise, he didn’t speed up. Why? Memories of that
Kentucky Fried Colonel message stiffened my resolve. If paranoia had gotten the
better of me, no harm done. The fellow on my tail could just write me off as
another crazy woman driver. If I was right, well, I had to protect my back.

The straightaway section ended. Rounding a bend, I spotted a
black Firebird several hundred yards ahead. Slewed sideways, it blocked both
lanes of traffic. It was the same car that zoomed away from the bridge like a
scalded cat. A body sprawled on the pavement beside it.

Hell and damnation.
Normally I’d play Good Samaritan
and stop to help anyone lying face-down on concrete. But the off-kilter scene
smelled of setup, a classic pincer movement to trap me. If I stopped, I’d be at
their mercy.

I glimpsed Wilderness State Park’s homey welcome sign carved
into a large wooden plank nailed to two sawed-off tree trunks. I waited as long
as I could then stomped on the gas and swerved onto the entrance road.
Groceries thudded in the trunk as I fishtailed on gravel. A stray thought
wicked its way front and center.
Donna would have a cow if she could see me
mistreating her Lexus.

Another set of tires squealed, and all extraneous thoughts
fled my brain.
He’s right behind me.
I sped toward the interior entry
gate a football field ahead. The wooden traffic arm was hoisted in an open
position. In season, a park employee always sits in the booth and collects
admission fees. Today it was abandoned. Until the vacationing hordes descended
for Easter, there wasn’t enough patronage to justify a gatekeeper’s salary.

Wilderness Park had been preserved in its natural state. One
minute you were in civilization, the next, jungle. As I zoomed through the
gate, towering oaks and battered palms crowded the sliver of blacktop. I felt
hemmed in, claustrophobic. The State of South Carolina had adhered to a
low-environmental impact policy. No wide, two-lane roads. Traffic was one-way,
a single-lane asphalt ribbon wound through the wilderness until it exited back
onto the highway. Swinging around and flying past Underling wasn’t an option.
At least there’d be no danger of collision with an oncoming car while I played
stock car driver.

As the SUV towered menacingly behind me, the forest canopy
plunged me into early twilight. Temperatures dropped to the shiver point.

What could I do?

I had an annual state park pass and visited Wilderness
often. I knew the park’s points of interest by heart. If my attackers kept in
contact by cell phone, the Firebird was either right behind the SUV or—scary
thought—coming in the exit to create a new roadblock. If that happened, I’d be
squeezed between them.

Note to self: when—or if—you get out of this mess, buy a
cell phone.

At the turn-off to the welcome center, I didn’t hesitate.
Please, please, let a park ranger be on duty. Actually, any witness would do.

I swung onto a side spur and caught a glimpse of the welcome
center and its front pond covered with duckweed. Tourists usually congregated
on a footbridge over the pond, peering into the ghastly green scum in hopes of
glimpsing an alligator. Today there was nary a loiterer.
What is going on?

The parking lot had not yet come into view. I turned the
corner, my speed too high for the twisting road. I caromed forward, roughly
jostling bordering underbrush. The sharp fronds of scrub palms scraped the
chassis. Brittle vegetation met metal with a sickening screech.

A heavy chain stretched across the parking lot entrance. Red
lettering flashed an explanation:
Closed for repairs. Reopening April 15.

Were folks inside working on repairs? Should I slam into the
chain? That was likely to put my car out of commission. A gamble I couldn’t
afford. The land was too swampy here to risk running to ground.

With my options shrinking, I circled back to the main road
and sped toward the lighthouse. The jungle beyond it was dense. With a head
start, I could disappear. The footing would be surer on higher ground.

Trying to think while maneuvering the serpentine roads had
me panting.
One way in one way out.
Wasn’t that the motto for those old
roach motel ads:
They check in, but they don’t check out.
Not a positive
train of thought.

I glanced in my side mirror. Crapola. My racecar maneuvers
had opened up a measly hundred-foot lead. To calm myself, I listed my
advantages.
A gun. Knowledge of park geography. Good conditioning.
I
could hide in the dense foliage before Underling had a clue. But I needed a few
more seconds’ lead.

I prayed the black Firebird wouldn’t sneak in the exit and
cut me off before I performed my vanishing act. My only question was where to
jump ship—and how. Leaping from a moving car looks good in movies, but I
couldn’t risk breaking an ankle. Or worse.

My best bet: stop in the middle of the road, just around a
bend. Then dash into the jungle. With any luck, Underling would smash into the
abandoned Lexus. A fatal crash would be peachy.

I reached the parking area used by tourists who visit the
park’s lighthouse. As the white tower leapt into view, I noticed a lone car in
the lot. The nearby picnic area and a boardwalk leading to the sandy beach were
empty. No sign of life at the base of the lighthouse either. I’d have to follow
through on my hide-in-the-jungle strategy.

I heard a loud pop and the car shimmied as if I’d run across
a patch of ice. A blown rear tire. Impossible to make the next bend and my
planned exit. What now?

I slammed on the brakes, and opened the glove compartment to
grab my gun. Empty. My gun was gone.
Damn.

A minute ago, I was scared. Now I was terrified. I practiced
Tae Bo and knew some nifty little kicks and thrusts, but such antics were no
match for a bullet.

I took off at a dead run. In a nod to visiting picnickers,
rangers had cleared this section of subtropical underbrush. Cover was
nonexistent. The trees left standing were mostly palms, too skinny to hide
anyone with hips wider than Olive Oyl’s.

Weave. Don’t be predictable.

I glanced over my shoulder. Two men in pursuit. The driver
of the black Firebird had joined forces with his buddy in the green SUV.
Firebird’s angled trajectory cut me off from the beach.

Nowhere to go. Except the lighthouse. I conjured up old
military training protocol.
Seek high ground—easier to defend. Always leave
a back door.
Unfortunately, while the lighthouse offered high ground, it
was also a trap. No back door.

Flouting tactical wisdom, I scrambled toward the lighthouse.
The upside was a single entry. No surprise attack. Constructed of bricks
covered with cast iron plates, the lighthouse was designed to be disassembled
and moved whenever tides ate too greedily at the eroding shoreline. If the
gunmen could be kept outside, the armor would stop any bullet.

I had little hope of transforming the lighthouse into a
personal fortress. The door could only be locked from the outside—a bulky
padlock arrangement. Within a few feet of my goal, I noticed that a two-by-six
wedged open the structure’s stout wooden door. This time spring-cleaning worked
to my advantage. Yellow caution tape festooned the entry. A sign read:
Caution
Wet Paint.
I hurtled through the tape like a mad marathoner using her last
burst of energy to punch through the finish line.

Turning, I squandered a second on a visual check of
Underling’s progress. I’d been right: the portly thug had been the SUV’s
driver. His black shirt shimmered in the sun and his shoes gleamed with a
spit-and-polish shine. He resembled a fat, glistening cockroach. One I had no
way to squash. Though I couldn’t see his hands, I felt certain he was
armed—gun, stunner or both. My back burned in recalled pain. The lighthouse
blocked any view of Firebird.

I dashed inside and shivered in the dank base of the tower.
Could I jam the door shut? I dismissed the possibility as soon as it crossed my
mind. The door swung out.
Forget it. Find a weapon.

The packed dirt floor was empty except for a few moldy
bricks, crumbling mortar still attached. Better than nothing. I hefted one and
balanced it on my shoulder. I considered picking up another, but I needed to
keep a hand free for the railing.

Staring up at the spiral staircase, I swallowed hard. The
stairs and rails were metal, the steps a see-through mesh. A friend in the
construction trade had counted the steps—176—and tried to calculate the rise.
How
on earth had I remembered that?

I’d climbed to the top twice. What I remembered best about
my last visit was my mistake: looking down as I began my descent, an
excruciatingly slow and queasy one.

I’m not a total acrophobe. Whisk me to the top of a
skyscraper in a glass-enclosed elevator, and I’ll marvel at the scenery. Take
me up in an Army helicopter, and I’m okay. The need to upchuck isn’t triggered
until I look down a shaft, or find myself perilously close to a ledge with
nothing substantial between me and a yawning chasm.