Dearly Beloved (25 page)

Pat hesitates in the doorway. “Any word from Carly?”

“Nope.” Sherm shrugs, as though it doesn’t matter that his wife of thirty years hasn’t called or written in months.

“Any idea where she is?”

“Nope. But I can tell you one thing. She sure as hell isn’t on an island,” he says on a bitter laugh.

She never liked it out here in the first place, even though she’d grown up a Tide Islander just as he had. She hated the island as much as he loved it and had married him despite knowing he never wanted to leave. Then she’d complained and pestered him about it for the next three decades.

Finally, last fall, she’d left with the last of the tourists, telling Sherm she wanted out for a while. “I’ll be back,” she’d promised as he’d stood with her on the ferry dock that rainy September morning.

“For good?” he’d asked hopefully. “Or just to pick up the rest of your stuff?”

“I’m not sure.”

Carly is nothing if not honest. Brutally so, sometimes. He still vividly remembers the day she told him that the doctor had called with results of the tests they had both undergone after trying unsuccessfully to have a baby.

“I’m fine. It’s you. You’re sterile,” she’d said flatly, as though informing him that he had ketchup on his chin. No beating around the bush, ever—not with Carly.

“So Sherm, I’ll see you in a little while, okay?” Pat asks from the doorway now.

“No problem.” He watches Pat head out into the storm again. The room seems quieter than ever when the door closes behind him, shutting out the howling wind.

Sherm leans back in his seat, stretches, and reaches for the paperback detective novel that’s opened face-down on the desk. He tries to get back into the story, but he can’t seem to concentrate.

He’s read the same sentence five times without comprehending it when the sudden shrill ringing of the telephone shatters the silence.

Sherm grabs for it immediately. “Tide Island Police.”

Maybe it’s Carly,
he tells himself, feeling a flutter of excitement in the vicinity of his heart.

He thinks that every time a phone rings anywhere. And it’s never her.

“Uh, yes. I, uh, have a missing person to report.”

“Excuse me?” Sherm puts down his novel and sits up straighter in his chair.

“At least, I
think
she’s missing.”

“Who is she?”

“My sister. She’s spending the weekend on the island, and she supposedly left on the late afternoon ferry; but I just called the ferry office in Crosswind Bay, and according to the schedule on the recording I heard, there’s no late ferry on Saturdays.”

“No, there isn’t.” Sherm picks up a pen and grabs the pad he uses to take notes in situations like this—which, on Tide Island, occur once in a blue moon. Usually, when someone calls the police department out here, it’s to report a missing dog or cat.

“She’s in trouble,” says the man on the phone. “She called me a little while ago, and someone was doing something to her—some guy. She screamed, and—”

“Whoa, hang on,” Sherm cuts in. “I need you to backtrack and start at the beginning. What’s your name?”

The caller sighs. “Danny Cavelli. And my sister’s name is Sandy. She was staying at the Bramble Rose Inn.”

There’s a coincidence,
Sherm thinks, writing it down.
That’s the second time in five minutes that someone’s mentioned the place.

“And you don’t know where she is now?”

“Missing!” Danny Cavelli practically shouts into the phone. “Aren’t you listening to what I’m saying? I can’t find my sister. Do you know what it’s like to have no idea where to find someone you care about?”

Sherm’s eyes fall on the framed photograph of Carly that sits on his desk.

You bet I do,
he thinks grimly.

Aloud, he says only, “Please go on with your story, Mr. Cavelli.”

S
tephen is methodically washing his hands with strong, anti-bacterial soap, watching Sandy’s blood mix with water in the kitchen drain, when a sudden, shrill, ringing sound shatters the silence.

His eyebrows shoot up and he turns to look at the old-fashioned black telephone on the desk by the window. Only one person has the number here: Jasper. Well, that’s not entirely true. Father has it, of course—but considering where Andrew Gilbrooke is, he’s not likely to be making phone calls.

Frowning, Stephen hurriedly turns off the faucet and dries his hands on a paper towel instead of the dish towel, just in case there are still telltale remnants of blood on his fingers. Then he picks up the phone.

“Yes?” he asks cautiously.

“Stephen, it’s me.”

“Jasper, what the hell are you doing, calling me out here? I told you only in an emergency—”

“I know, and I’m sorry—” Stephen curls his lip in distaste at the near sob in the fool’s voice. “—but this
is
an emergency.”

“What do you mean?” Stephen’s stomach churns slightly, and he looks back in the direction of the drawing room, where Sandy Cavelli’s bloodied body lies in a heap on the floor.

“She called her brother,” Jasper says in a near-whisper.

“Who called her brother? What are you talking about?”

“That Cavelli girl. She got to a phone and called her brother, Stephen, and now he’s worried about her.”

Stephen frowns, thinking back to when he cornered Sandy in the upstairs study. Everything was a blur.... But she
had
been holding the telephone, he realizes now, his heart dropping with a sickening thud. At the time, he’d been too frenzied to realize that she might have actually made a call.

“How do you know this?” he asks Jasper urgently.

“Her brother called here looking for her a few minutes ago.”

“What did you tell him?”

“Just what I’ve been telling the other two guests . . . that she left the island on the late ferry.”

“You idiot! There
is
no late ferry today.”

“I know, Stephen, but I got so confused and I didn’t know what else to say . . .”

“You were supposed to say that she checked out early and you saw her leaving with her date!” Stephen rakes his fingers through his hair, trying to think straight.

“I know, I . . . I forgot. Please don’t be mad at me, Stephen. I’m sorry. I just got nervous, and—”

“Shut up so I can figure this out!” he barks into the phone and is met by instant silence.

After a moment, he asks, “Did you get rid of her stuff, like I told you?”

“Yes, I buried it out in the dunes, just where you said,” Jasper replies quickly.

“And what about the other two? Where are they?”

“Upstairs. When I went out to get rid of Sandy’s bags, they were having dessert and tea in the parlor; and when I came back, they were already up in their rooms.”

“Thanks to the sleeping pills you tucked into their dessert . . . right?”

Is it his imagination or does Jasper hesitate slightly before answering, “Of course, Stephen.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure. Everything is under control. Don’t worry about anything.”

“Then don’t give me any reason to.”

Stephen hangs up and examines his short fingernails for traces of blood. Nothing. Good.

Reaching into a kitchen drawer, he pulls out a pair of gardening gloves and slips them on. Then he returns to the drawing room and stands over Sandy’s body, clad in the red-stained white wedding gown.

Just like Lorraine,
he thinks, pleased, remembering that day in the suite at the Waldorf-Astoria.

Getting rid of her had been surprisingly simple, though, thanks to that fancy brass-trimmed steamer trunk he’d bought her for their honeymoon.

A smile curls his lips as he remembers how he’d tipped the eager-to-please bellhop fifty dollars to bring the pile of luggage to the lobby for him.

At first, the guy had looked perplexed when Stephen had opened the door of the suite. “I was just up here a little while ago,” he’d said. “Miss LaCroix called the concierge and asked for someone to bring her bags down. But no one answered the door when I knocked.”

Stephen had thought rapidly and pasted a sly smile on his face. “Oh, well, we, uh . . . you know, we’re about to be married and we, uh . . .”

“Gotcha,” the bellhop had said with a wink. “Say no more, sir.”

With that, he had carted the bags, including the trunk and its macabre cargo, down to the lobby. Stephen had met him there and stood by as the luggage was loaded into the trunk of a yellow cab. He’d instructed the driver to take him to the Connecticut estate that had been deserted ever since his father had been committed to a mental hospital a few years before.

That night, by the light of a full February moon, Stephen had buried his unfortunate bride deep in the barren, sandy soil of what had once been his mother’s herb garden . . . a few feet from the decaying corpse that had once been his mother.

Now, he sighs and eyes Sandy. Too bad he can’t just bury her on the cliff behind the house and have it over with. But what with the erosion that plagues the coast of the island, he can’t take any chances. Especially since this time, he’s going to have three bodies to worry about.

No, he’ll have to go along with his original plan. That means stowing her body on board his yacht, which is moored in the water behind the house. Then, when he’s left Tide Island for good, he’ll simply toss Sandy Cavelli—and Liza Danning, and Laura Towne—overboard and let the shark-infested waters of the Atlantic destroy the evidence.

A gust of wind slams into the house as Stephen bends over Sandy’s body, and he remembers the storm that’s raging outside. No, he can’t bring her out to the boat now. He’ll have to find someplace inside to keep her until the weather dies down.

He’s dragging her across the floor when a sudden ringing sound makes him stop short.

He mentally curses Jasper again.

Then he realizes, with a chill, that it isn’t the phone after all.

It’s the doorbell.

Chapter 10

S
herm Crandall waits until nearly midnight for Pat to return to the police station.

Finally, yawning and closing the still-unfinished detective novel, he stands and goes over to look out the window. From here, across the wide main street, he can see the waves slamming fiercely into the deserted ferry dock. The storm is gaining momentum, and if he doesn’t start boarding up windows now, it might be too late.

Reluctantly, he reaches for his coat on the hook behind his desk.

He wonders idly whether Danny Cavelli’s sister Sandy is out somewhere in this weather, maybe lost or disoriented . . . or worse.

But there’s not much he can do at this point. He’s already called the Bramble Rose and spoken to Jasper Hammel, the manager. The man confirmed what Cavelli said—that the sister had checked out earlier.

“Do you know where she was going?” Sherm had asked, his pen poised over the pad on his desk.

“She said she was leaving on the late ferry, but of course, there is no late ferry on Saturdays,” Hammel had told him. “I didn’t let on that I knew that, though, because I assumed there was a reason she was lying to me. I seem to remember that she had earlier said something about meeting a date here on the island . . . a blind date. Maybe—and this is indelicate, I know—but I got the impression that she didn’t want me to suspect she might plan on spending the, er,
evening
with the man.”

“I see. Is there anything else you think might be helpful?”

“No. There was no reason for me to think anything unusual was going on, so I didn’t pay much attention to Miss Cavelli while she was here. Do you . . . you don’t think something happened to her, do you?”

“I hope not,” Sherm had said, thinking not just of her worried brother but of the negative publicity it would bring to Tide Island—and its police department.

“It would be a shame . . . such a nice, cheerful girl. If I think of anything else, Lieutenant Crandall, should I call you?”

“Please.”

After Sherm hung up, he’d made a mental note to stop by the Bramble Rose as soon as he got a chance, to check it out. It was probably less expensive than the other island hotels that were open during the off-season. His sister Michelle and her husband had wanted to come out and visit him over Easter, and Sherm didn’t have room to put them up at his place.

No, it’s not that you don’t have room. . . . It’s that you’ve let the place go to hell ever since Carly left. Cleaning, cooking, laundry . . . that was all her department. Now it’s barely fit for you, let alone company.

With a sigh, Sherm glances again at the pad where he jotted down the notes about the Cavelli girl. Since she hasn’t been missing for twenty-four hours yet, his hands are tied— something her brother failed to understand.

“But what about that phone call?” he kept asking Sherm, a note of desperation in his voice. “She sounded so scared . . .”

“It could have been a joke,” Sherm had told him, hating himself for the cold efficiency in his own voice. But it was his job to handle this by the book. It wouldn’t be the first time that some young girl had taken off with a guy and made her family crazy with worry.

“And even if it weren’t a joke,” he’d added, “I have no way of finding your sister without a trail to follow.”

“Can’t you just go out and
look
for her?”

“Where do you suggest I start?”

“I don’t know. . . . Isn’t it a small island?”

“Everything’s relative, Mr. Cavelli. We’re in the middle of a nasty storm out here; and anyway, I can’t just go driving around aimlessly, looking for your sister. At least, not at this stage.” With exaggerated patience, he repeated, “She’s not officially a missing person until she’s been gone—”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Twenty-four hours.” Danny Cavelli’s voice had an edge, and he said curtly, “I’ll be in touch again before that, believe me.”

And with that, he had hung up with a sharp click.

Now, zipping his coat up to his throat and pulling the hood snugly over what’s left of his graying hair, Sherm puts Cavelli and his sister out of his head.

As he heads for the door, his thoughts return to Pat. It isn’t like him to say he’ll do something and then not do it. But then again, the poor kid’s not even supposed to be on duty in the off-season, and here he is, going out of his way to make sure everyone on the island knows where to go if they need to evacuate.