Murder on Edisto (The Edisto Island Mysteries) (22 page)

Sprite raised her hand. “I’ll be careful with him, Ms. Morgan.”

Callie grinned and raised a hand in return. “I’m sure you will, sweetheart.”

Chapter 17

CALLIE AWOKE replaying Beverly’s accusations about planting retirement into Lawton’s head. Give the man some credit. He’d served as mayor of Middleton for twenty-eight years. She shifted her attentions to more pleasing thoughts of newly painted steps.

The house seemed still in slumber. The surf’s whisper drifted ever so lightly through her locked window between the random traffic rumbling down Jungle Road. From the quiet, Jeb either slept late or fished with Zeus. She found his bed made and phone gone. Sprite jumped to mind, and Callie searched her memory. Yes, Jeb did come in last night, sometime around one. She scrunched her eyes shut. Was she seriously thinking about having an adult talk with her son about sex?

She dressed, drank a half glass of sweet tea, and headed to the beach for her run. Yesterday contained no crisis, except for the family kind, and for a change the concept of living at Edisto had palatability.

She needed to prioritize who to interview now that she’d handled Mason. Not that she’d handled him that well. He now knew more about her than vice versa. Mrs. Hanson seemed to like her. Maybe she’d start there.

She stared down the beach, the silhouette of Water Spout so obvious. Until Mason returned to Canada, she assumed he’d continue to watch for opportunities to woo her. His rental made for a suitable observation platform for a major section of the beach, especially with a telescope, which she wouldn’t be surprised existed the way he magically appeared when she ran.

Not ten minutes into her stride, he caught up with her. “Missed you yesterday,” he said. “I didn’t go too far with the grape sodas, did I? I’m still sorry about not taking you seriously about . . . you know.”

She pulled out her ear buds and tucked them into her shirt. Her opinions about the man swayed one way, then the other. Sophie had told him Callie was on a
diet
from booze, yet he’d slipped her those grape sodas. But the chivalry that followed, to include that delicate, sweet kiss, almost made up for his shenanigan. Frankly, the burden had been on her to not accept a drink.

“No apology necessary,” she said. “I’m having the stairs refinished. Repairman showed up early and I’d forgotten the paint. Had to forego the run.”

“Ah.” He jogged clean and steady, matching her. They paralleled the ebbing water, keeping on the moist part of the beach for ease. “You’re still using Peters, right?”

Callie tried to focus on her beat. “Yep.”

He rippled a brow. “I enjoyed our date, Ms. Morgan.”

“A light kiss, Mr. Howard. Nothing more.”

“A kiss is a kiss,” he said. “Anyway, let’s see what you got.” He picked up speed, and she let him take off ahead. Noticing her absence, he soon returned. “Not up to it?”

She put her buds in her ears. “I need to think, not compete. Go ahead.”

Instead, he slowed, staying in her blind spot one stride behind her. She almost felt bad not playing along with him, but she needed her thoughts. He’d probably peel off somewhere en route.

As she did in her Boston runs, she dissected the recent crimes in her head.

The amazing thing about this criminal was his appeal for daylight activity. Highly unusual. By day, beach activity and throngs of visitors absorbed the department’s attention, but more people could catch the thief in the act. He was street smart. He knew how to blend in. And he had a penchant for Jungle Road. Did he live there?

Was she so sure it was a man? Nothing required strength. No DNA, except maybe on the glasses the thief drank from at Mrs. Hanson’s and the Rosewoods’. But such a test was expensive. She couldn’t see Edisto Beach or Colleton County forking out money for DNA testing just to define male or female. Boston wouldn’t even bother.

Boston. If she were there, she’d have so many cases. Here she could easily fall into an obsession with just one. Not that she even had a case. She could have it if she took Seabrook up on his offer to help the PD, to work for the PD.

She still wished she’d taken him up on his dinner offer. And what was her abhorrence to calling him Mike?

She rounded the curve toward the sound. About three miles. Amazing progress with a clear head.

A family of four huddled around something. She slowed, pensive, hoping it wasn’t what she suspected. Tourists often caught sea life and held it, put it in cups, passed it around, studying nature up close, not realizing the damage they did.

Sure enough, a child about six years old held up an eight-inch baby hammerhead shark by the tail. The dad stepped back with a camera. “Smile and hold it up high,” he said, the mother and younger sister enthralled at the pose.

Callie slowed to a walk, and still panting heavily, she detoured toward their Kodak moment. “Please don’t do that,” she told the dad.

The thirty-year-old man eyed her up and down. “It’s a damn shark.”

“That animal’s part of this eco-system, a living creature. That shark probably won’t live as it is, but at least give it a chance.” She turned to the mother. “If nothing else, don’t teach your child to kill. Would you let him suffocate a kitten or a puppy?”

Sheepish, the mother went to her son, and holding his shoulders, directed him toward the water. The child threw the shark back in the surf, not as gently as Callie would have done, but at least it was back in its environment.

“Thank you,” Callie said, then promptly turned on her heel to avoid a scene. Time to head toward home.

Twenty yards later, a voice said, “Impressive. Touching, even.”

Callie about jumped out of her sneakers. “Oh geez, Mason, I practically forgot about you.”

He laughed loud and easy. “Nothing
practically
about it. You did forget. Thought you cops had this super sense about you.”

“Out of practice,” she said, her heart a tad faster than she liked to admit. She
had
forgotten he was there.

He escorted her back to the sidewalk on Palmetto Boulevard, going past his rental. Conversation danced from sharks to wildlife to what they loved about the beach. Soon Chelsea Morning
appeared a block down.

“You didn’t have to walk me home,” she said, her shirt drenched, hair matted to her sweaty temples. They crossed the road to her house. Peters’ truck sat in the drive.

Huge wet splotches saturated the shirt under Mason’s arms, and across his chest, down his back. But his odor measured little more than that of warm aftershave. “I don’t have to escort you, but in case you haven’t heard, there’s a killer on the loose. Besides, I want to talk to this guy doing your repair work. See if he’s okay.”

“He’s fine, Mason. And don’t touch the new paint.” She took his arm and steered him away from the front steps with their yellow caution tape tied around the railings.

Mason smiled. She let him go, awkward at his enjoyment of her touch. “He’d be around back,” she said. “What do you think of what’s done already?”

Mason felt the smooth rail. “Decent job. Good price? The owners of my place do a helluva job keeping me happy, so I might do a few minor repairs as thanks.”

“I guess they do want you happy with what you’re paying for
that place
.” Water Spout
stood in a rental class all its own with fame and notoriety often accompanying each tenant. She scouted for Peters. “He charges a very reasonable price. But you have to provide dinner.”

Peters’ tools sprawled random across her back step, the toolbox open, but no sign of recent work.

“Well, another time,” she said, a foot on the bottom step. “He must be checking out a different house. I think he juggles several jobs at one time.”

Mason leaned over for a kiss, and she held him at bay with a hand to the chest, feeling much more in control in the daylight. “Not this time, Mr. Howard.”

“You’re going to make us fight over you, huh?” He leaned against her, not yet persuaded to fall back.

“Us?”

“Mike and me.”

She outstared him, not falling prey to his ribbing. “I need a shower, and you need to go find another flirt. You want a water before you go?”

“In the shower?”

She mildly shoved him and headed up the steps. “See you later, Mason.” She glanced back as she locked the door, and he was gone.

Once in her shower, warm water rolled over her, but she couldn’t place herself back into the sensual mood of the previous morning. She dressed, grabbed a banana, and went outside. Peters sanded away at the top steps.

“Where you been?” she asked. “Someone was interested in hiring you.”

Peters wiped his forehead with his free hand, the other resting on the sander. “I ran across the street. Got into my toolbox and realized I left a couple things at the water heater job. People just leave my belongings on their porches when I do that, so I was checking the last two places I worked.” He ran a leathered palm across the freshly sanded wood. “Okay for you?”

She swallowed the last of her breakfast. “You do wonderful work, Peters. No wonder people use you so much.”

He gave her a lopsided grin, lowered protective glasses over his eyes, and resumed sanding, the electric tool rotating under his careful guidance.

She leaned against the railing, enjoying the lukewarm breeze off the marsh, observing a couple walking their Water Spaniel down Jungle Shores’ silt-based road. One would think living at an address where the front and back of a house exited on roads would make the noise factor an issue, but the beach was several blocks away, as was the main road. She preferred the peace of a silent marsh to the raucous pounding of the ocean anyway. The two-way drive was just convenience.

The sander droned, but Callie thought she heard someone approaching during its pauses. Sophie soon appeared in cargo pants that molded around her buns just so, and a tank top that accented upper assets Callie suspected were augmented by her ex-husband’s pocketbook.

“Zucchini muffins,” Sophie exclaimed, lofting a picnic basket in the air. “With flaxseed.”

“You must own stock in the flax industry,” Callie said, accepting the muffins. She opened an edge of the cover and held it out to Peters, who wasted no time taking the warm treat and forcing himself to take a break. Sophie’s tightly-toned hip backed up to sit atop the picnic table.

Callie opened the back door. “Be back in a sec with some tea. Or does anyone want coffee? Water?”

In the kitchen, she pulled out tea glasses per everyone’s request and opened the refrigerator. Grabbing the pitcher, she shut the fridge and scanned outside the front window as she passed, forever scouting for anything amiss.

“Oh my gosh,” she exclaimed, setting the pitcher on her counter, tea sloshing out, and grabbed her cell phone.

A young adult man held onto a porch post at his house across the street and one address down to the right. His other hand pressed against his head. Re-gripping the post, as if about to lose his bearing, he yelled meekly for help.

She dashed out the front, ripped the yellow tape loose, and leaped down the freshly repaired staircase. At the bottom, as she waited for three cars to pass, she dialed 9-1-1.

As she reached the place, Seabrook came running up from her left, no siren, no lights, no uniform. Not even a cruiser.

“Sit,” she said, assisting the injured man to a chaise.

“9-1-1. How may I assist you?”

Callie tossed her cell to Seabrook as he reached her side. He’d know dispatch and get things going quicker.

“What’s your name?” she asked, studying the guy’s curly brown hair, trying to analyze a wound that didn’t seem to have a source. Blood ran from above and behind his ear, a trickle down his neck. At first glance not severe, but head wounds were deceiving and unpredictable.

“Steve . . . Maxwell.”

He tried to feel his head, and Callie lightly blocked him. “Don’t touch. Medical attention’s on its way. What happened?”

“Don’t know,” he said, shaking his head, then stopping as a wave of dizziness obviously disturbed the effort. “Somebody please get my wife.”

Callie stooped in front of him. “Where is she?”

Seabrook, no longer occupied with dispatch, leaned over beside her, radio at the ready. “I’ll send a unit to get her. Where?”

“On the beach with our son. He’s three. Near entrance eighteen. Both are blond.”

“Good,” Callie said. “You just worry about you now.”

“Guess I’m the next robbery on y’all’s list,” he said with a wince.

Seabrook lowered his radio. “Come again, sir?”

“I think I must have walked in on the guy.” Steve squinted, peering up at the tall officer. “Saw the coin on the table next to a glass. Went closer, then found myself waking up from kissing the floor.”

“Stay here,” Seabrook told Callie, then he disappeared inside.

“Is this your home?” she asked the man. “You’re a resident here?”

He started to nod and remembered not to. “Yes. Watched you move in. Been meaning to come over and welcome you to the street.”

Before Seabrook returned, an ambulance pulled up, two EMTs soon reaching Maxwell’s side. Callie left them to their business and entered the house. Seabrook sniffed the goblet at the table without touching, a 1972 Eisenhower silver dollar smiling back from a prominent place beside it.

“Mimosa,” Seabrook said.

“He drinks whatever’s handy,” she said. “It’s more statement than drinking style.” The glass was half empty. He’d enjoyed his drink, taking too much time, apparently, since the owner came home before the intruder could leave.

“No pitcher in the refrigerator, so nothing handy about it,” Seabrook said. “He mixed himself one drink after opening a bottle of champagne. The foil’s next to the sink, some of the champagne spewed on the counter. I’ll ask them later if they opened a bottle before they headed to the beach, but I doubt it. This is the only used glass.”