Murder on Edisto (The Edisto Island Mysteries) (28 page)

Arms crossed on the steering wheel, Callie rested her forehead on them. Inhale. Exhale. Count it out.

She thought she’d made progress with this shit.

This was regression. And she was driving back to a serial criminal. A murderer. But heaven help her, she preferred the beach and its calamities to the echoes of her mother’s mini-mansion.

The hammering in her chest settled back into a lesser degree of somersaulting thump and bump. She didn’t expect calm for quite some time to come, but for now she was sane.

Callie checked her mirror again. What the—

A red smear swished across her brow. She licked her fingers and rubbed, licked them and rubbed the spot again, this time recognizing the telltale copper taste. Studying her face, then the rest of her, she was surprised, then wasn’t.

Somewhere between Middleton and an almost-disastrous halt at Highway 17, when her brain tore her sensibilities to pieces in a maelstrom of bass drum and steel guitar, she’d clawed at the scar on her arm. Irregular maroon shapes dotted her linen shirtsleeve, the material now ruined with blood. She gingerly pushed the sleeve up to her elbow. Shallow scratched wounds oozed blood in a dozen places.

She didn’t even remember digging fingernails into the scar.

A waiting car honked.

Accelerating, her car barely missed a truck veering out of her way. She pulled into the traffic pattern, pulse revved again.

She didn’t crave a drink this time. She wanted the whole bottle.

WEAK-KNEED BUT in better control of her car, Callie slowed as Chelsea Morning came into view. A rented white Taurus sat in the driveway.

Parking on the other side of her stairs, up under the house, she tucked her Glock in her jeans waistband and slung her purse over her shoulder. Peters was nowhere around. She sure would appreciate his presence now with a stranger on her property.

One hand on the refurbished outdoor banister, the other reaching behind to her belt, Callie stepped on the bottom riser, staring up, giving time for the visitor to show himself before she committed too far.

“Chicklet!” growled Stan Waltham with a Chuck Norris grin, rising from one of her rattan chairs.

“Stan!”

Callie sprinted up the stairs and tackled the huge man so eagerly that even her tiny frame moved him back a half step. Then she leaned back to take full gander of her old boss.

“How long have you been here?” she asked breathlessly. “How did you know to come to Edisto? How long can you stay?”

“First get me out of this steam bath,” he said. “Damn, it’s hot!”

She giggled irregularly, excitement ruling. “Of course.” Fumbling in her purse, she found her keys, then scratched the doorknob trying to enter. “I can’t tell you how happy I am to see you,” she said, stopping once to wipe joyful tears away. “Was your flight okay?”

Stan laughed at her childish excitement, but then concern etched his expression, turning down the corners of his mouth. “Flight was fine. They gave me three days off. Everyone sends their best, by the way.”

“Tell them thanks. I so miss them.”

Callie ignored his expression and let her old friend in. She locked the door, glanced out the oval window, and hauled Stan by the hand to the living room.

She hugged him again, arms barely meeting around the bulk, the squeeze tight enough to draw a grunt from him. Stan pried her off. “Got something cold to drink?”

“It’ll have to be a soft drink or water. I just got back in from . . . well, anyway, I can make iced tea if you don’t mind waiting a few minutes. Or I might have bourbon.”

“Cola’s fine, if you got it,” he said, sitting on the sofa.

Ice clinked in the glasses. The pure delight of seeing her boss shot her spirits through-the-clouds high, as if God decided to intervene. This was Stan, the man who understood her and remembered what she used to be.

Drinks on coasters, she sat on the sofa, two feet between them, stroking his sleeve briefly once.

His smile fell away. “I’m sorry about your father.”

Her smile vanished as well. “Thanks. Got your voice mail, but, you know, we were so scattered for several days. I’m not sure it’s sunk in yet. There’s just this big hole. Daddy was like, immortal in a Dick Van Dyke kinda way.”

His glass seemed so tiny as the big man took a drink and set it back. “Flew in when I could. Your phone must be turned off, so I had to call your mom. She told me you were headed here.”

“So you just arrived.” Callie leaned over to the end table and retrieved her cell phone. The screen wouldn’t even light up. She plugged it in and set it back down. Two dings rang out as texts came in from Jeb. She returned to her seat, still giddy.

Then it hit her that Stan had come alone. “How’re you holding up without Mindy?”

“I’m fine. We’re fine.” He took her hand, then with his other, pushed up her sleeve now dried with blood. “What’s this?”

She drew back, but he held firm. “Nothing,” she said. “Scratched myself without thinking.”

“The hell you say.” He rose to his feet. “Where’s your medicine cabinet?”

“The bathroom,” she said, pointing.

Stan returned with the supplies. He laid a towel on his knee and tugged her arm over, causing her to scoot closer. Cotton balls dabbed peroxide on her cuts, teasing the clots away, prepping the small wounds for a bandage. “I remember when this thing was a mess,” he said.

“Yeah.”

“I remember when you were a mess.”

She gave him a half smile. “Yeah, that too.”

They sat in silence as he taped the gauze, maybe overdoing it, but she knew the slow actions were his way of leading into something. Stan never was one to leap into what he had to say.

A new text dinged on Callie’s phone.

“Your mother?” Stan asked, applying the last piece of tape and lowering her sleeve. “I imagine you two are close these days.”

“Jeb,” she replied. “I make him keep me posted each hour he’s away from me.”

His brow raised, giving his old supervisory expression. She’d joke about her being a civilian now, but the time didn’t seem right.

She pushed the first aid supplies to the center of the coffee table, her way of changing the subject. “These break-ins bother me.” She gestured toward the entryway. “A little over a week ago, someone came in while I was gone. I found the front door unlocked. I
never
leave a door unlocked.”

Stan’s button-down tropical shirt over khakis and loafers gave him a CEO-on-vacation appearance, especially with the salt and pepper, tightly-groomed hair. He reared back on the sofa, arm draped over the cushion, one ankle over the other knee. The man projected a huge presence, commanding police troops like a two-star general, but those near to him knew his personal side more resembled a gruff linebacker cradling a puppy with a few baby-talk words.

“See the gray house over there?” Callie nodded toward the porch.

He leaned forward and peered outside.

“That’s where someone set me up. Put a lamp in the window and a radio on a table. Then in the kitchen they placed a coffee cup John gave me, with hot chocolate in it!”

“So you said. Sounds like pranks, Morgan.”

She huffed, irritated, desperate to make him see. “Except for coming in my house and stealing the cup to do it. Then placing it in a house where my friend was murdered. That’s more than a prank.”

“I know, I know. Just taking it in. Don’t get your hackles up.”

“Male animals have hackles.”

He grunted. “What are hackles anyway?”

“Stan.”

Unfolding his legs, he rested elbows on his knees. “What do you shore people do for dinner down here? Is it the same? Crabs and lobster? Can I take you out someplace? And I didn’t see a hotel. Do I go further down the road or what? This place is in the middle of nowhere.”

“More like shrimp, snapper, tuna, mahi mahi, sea bass, flounder, grouper.”

“Hmph, listen to you. A shore native already.”

“It’s beach, not shore. I told you that. And we aren’t going anywhere. I have the fixings for a shrimp dinner right here. You can stay in Jeb’s room or upstairs in the guestroom, assuming you don’t mind pastels and a twin bed.”

“Don’t want to put you out,” Stan said from his seat as Callie went to the freezer and set two pounds of shrimp on the counter.

Peering around the open refrigerator door, she shook her head at the man. “You’re the best thing that could have happened to me at this moment. I’m not letting you out of my sight.” She drank in the crisp coldness of the appliance. “Damn, it’s good to see you.”

The doorbell rang.

“Want me to get that?” Stan asked.

She hesitated, and he noticed. Before she decided whether the local crowd needed to know about Stan, or whether she wanted to start accepting their condolences, he took charge and strolled to the door.

“May I help you?” she heard him say.

“Colleton Deputy Don Raysor.”

“Hey, Don. Stan Waltham. Come on in. Nice to finally meet you.”

Callie stiffly entered the foyer, noting that the men greeted each other like college buddies. “What do you want,
Don
?”

The ruddy-faced deputy held his cap. “Came to tell you I’m sorry for your loss, Callie. And to see if that rental belonged to who I thought it did.” He turned to Stan. “How was the trip, my man?”

“Good, good,” Stan said.

Callie sensed a set up, and the fact Stan was involved cut into her gut. “What the hell is this?”

Raysor smirked.

Stan, however, stepped toward Callie and took her arm. “He contacted me about your daddy, Callie.”

“Whatever.”

He avoided taking sides. “I know, but he at least showed concern.”

Bullshit.
“He also accused me of interfering with their police work and fraternizing with an officer.” Her voice had escalated, and she fought it. The last thing she wanted to do was demonstrate weakness in front of Raysor. “He cornered and threatened me.”

Stan peered at Raysor who lightly shrugged.

She surprisingly thought of having to re-sage her house with this sleaze under her roof. For the first time, Chelsea Morning took on a sense of refuge, and she wasn’t having that fragile retreat violated.

“Get out,” she ordered in a voice once reserved for arrests.

“Fine,” Raysor said, backing up, as if innocently accused but too polite to cause a scene.

“Okay, well, thanks for checking on me, Don.” Stan took the man to the porch for another handshake then returned inside.

Callie waited beside the hallway credenza, seething.

Betrayed.

She shrugged off Stan’s touch once he came back in. The fire in her chest grew, and if she didn’t contain it, it would turn cold, then into a full-bore anxiety attack. She counted in her head.

“Chicklet,” he said. “Jesus Christ, what’s going on with you? You’ve been scattered since I arrived.”

She pivoted back toward the kitchen. Banging and clanging, she set a boiling pot on the stove for the shrimp. Stan watched from the edge of her bar as she began peeling potatoes.

What else, what else?
She shoved aside mayonnaise, milk, pickles. She needed groceries. No coleslaw. No corn. Nothing else went with shrimp. Slamming the refrigerator shut, she threw fists on hips, lost what to do next, muscles twitching.

Stan slowly walked in and placed the shrimp back in the freezer. “Come on. I’m taking you out. Wining and dining, remember?”

She turned on him like a provoked dog. “These people don’t need to know about you. I don’t like them knowing anything about me. And Don doesn’t need to be in my business.”

Stan waved his arms out. “Fuck ’em! What difference does it make?”

The Stan she knew was smarter than this. “It gives them more targets, Stan! The more they know about me and mine, the more damage they can do. Somebody out there is messing with me, can’t you see that? Who says it’s not Raysor?”

By now her entire body shivered.

He came over and embraced her, rubbing up and down her back. “Shhh. Settle down. We’ll sort this all out. And I’m a big boy, in case you hadn’t noticed. Let me decide if I can handle being the talk of the shore.”

Callie wanted to correct his
shore
to
beach
again, but instead grit her teeth. Stan rocked with her. For long, slow minutes they let time pass with no noise except the occasional sound of tires on asphalt as tourists drove down Jungle Road and birdsong in the palmettos growing outside her kitchen window.

She ate up the hug, his breath in her hair, and the slow movement of his massive palm on her back as if he offered her water after two parched days in the desert. She couldn’t help but drink it in.

Chapter 22

ONCE CALLIE CHANGED into fresh clothes, Stan drove her to seek dinner. Three p.m. She directed him toward the Wyndham, hunkered in her seat, still pondering the tete-a-tete between him and Raysor. The deputy’s past behavior didn’t jibe with what had happened on her step. Stan, her last bastion of strength, chummy with the man who hated her most on Edisto.

They wound up at Grover’s, the most discrete eatery on the beach. Soft jazz played in the background. Few people populated the higher-end golf-resort bar and restaurant, since most tourists preferred the sandwich and pizza places.

Stan crossed the hardwood floor to the bar that bordered the empty dining room, and Callie hung back, not wanting to appear needy for a drink. Stan spoke to the waiter, then came back to escort Callie to a bistro table off in a corner. He held out the tall chair as she hopped up, then he settled into his own. Meal order placed, they sat silent.

The waiter arrived and placed a gin and tonic before her and a Scotch and water in front of Stan. Flashing back to her date with Mason, she hesitated at the thought of yet another man pushing a drink at her. She reached inside herself for a reason not to drink it . . . or a better reason to chug it down. She didn’t order a drink on purpose, but once it was there, she justified its existence. Her life was a mess . . . amen.

Then she sat there, not speaking a word, wringing the empty glass.

Stan studied her a second, then waved at the waiter for a refill.

“Go over this entire situation, Morgan. From the day you arrived to the day I got here. The crazies, the straights, the situations, the clues the PD don’t take seriously, and your gut. Throw it all on the table. I take it you got no place better to be?”

Callie shook her head. “Nope. I’m unemployed, uprooted to a new place, and have no connections to anybody, no goals, no future whatsoever.”

“I get it, Chicklet.”