Linda Lovely - Marley Clark 02 - No Wake Zone (27 page)

“So you shot Kyle?”

“I didn’t mean to. The bullet hit his arm. All that blood
made me feel sick. I ran back through the kitchen. Then I came here.”

Eric hiccupped.

I was convinced the young man told the truth. He wasn’t a
killer though it would have been easy for Hamilton to convince a jury
otherwise. “Ladies and gentlemen, the boy is out of his skull. He shot his
uncle and two women during a black-out episode.” Given gunpowder on the young
man’s hands, and his verbal threats at the funeral parlor, a guilty verdict was
a slam-dunk. Not a living soul could have disputed Hamilton’s twisted version
of the facts.

The phone rang. I jumped a foot. Guess I was still wound a
tad tight. I looked over at the FBI agent. “Can I answer that?”

She nodded and I walked into May’s bedroom.

“May and Ross are awake,” Eunice reported. “Come on over. I
called Mrs. Lady’s and ordered takeout. Stop on your way and bring lunch. I
ordered hot tamales for you.”

“I’ll be along as soon as I can.”

Weaver herded Eric toward the living room. “I’m taking him
into custody,” she said. “I have to until we check out all the facts. He’ll be
under guard in a hospital. First job is getting him clean of whatever chemicals
they’ve been pumping into him.”

“You don’t need anything else from me now, right? That was
Eunice. Ross and May are awake. I want to go see them. Plus I’m hoping I can
convince May to stay at Ross’s house until I can get her condo looking like it
did when she last saw it.”

After Weaver gave me her blessing, I dressed and headed to
Mrs. Lady’s to pick up the lunches. I wasn’t quite sure how to tell them about
all the fun they’d missed while they slept. If they were up for a spicy lunch,
I’d deliver.

My relatives were all gathered around the kitchen table when
I arrived. I dished out our entrees and waited until everyone had dug in before
I began my tale.

I explained that Jake had been killed because he’d found out
that Dr. Glaston was going to sell Jolbiogen research to terrorists. Hamilton devised the plan to murder Jake—he knew about Jake’s medical condition from the
company doctor’s files—and Kyle arranged for his mistress, Vivian, to switch
out the eyedrop container during the wedding reception. 

“Hamilton and Kyle must have killed the others, too—Dr.
Glaston, Gina and Olivia. They were all killed using chemicals available at
Jolbiogen. But why would Hamilton murder Jake?” Ross asked.

“Hamilton wanted Glaston’s deal with the terrorists to go
through—he needed that money because his company hadn’t been doing well. Plus,
Dr. Glaston was blackmailing Kyle, threatening to reveal that Ansley Hamilton
had betrayed Jake and fathered a child out of wedlock. Hamilton cared too much
about status to allow that,” I said.

Then I told everyone about my early morning visitors. May
wasn’t exactly happy about losing a Tiffany lamp and the damage to her ceiling
and door. I didn’t even mention the blood on the rug. She agreed to stay at
Ross’s until her home was back in order.

After I burped my last tamale, Weaver called. “Thought you
might want to know how Hamilton planned to set up an alibi. You’ll love this.
He called the FBI just after he finished shooting Kyle, Vivian and Nancy. He
knew we’d triangulate the call to see where it originated.”

“So, wouldn’t it show he called from the murder scene?”

“No,” Weaver answered. “He used a two-way radio. Taped one
radio to his cell phone in a rental house across the lake from the murder
scene. He used a voice command to initiate the call. Then talking into his
radio, he carried on a conversation while he tidied up the crime scene.”

“Thank heaven, he didn’t get away with it,” I answered.

As soon as I hung up, I dialed my home on Dear Island. It was time to share some good news with Darlene and Julie.

“How can I thank you, Marley? Now we can come home. Now we
can come home and I can give Jake a proper farewell. I won’t feel right until
Reverend Schmidt says the final prayer.”

***

“Now my mother isn’t one to brag, but she’s quite the
baker.” Ross chuckled, a warm-up exercise for his audience. “A week after Mom
and Dad married, Mom was determined to bake an apple pie that compared
favorably with Grandma Carr’s famous pastries. So when the crust burnt on her
first attempt, she hid her disaster on the roof…”

Arms gesturing, Ross owned the dais, his grin broader than a
beaver prepared to smile down an oak. The audience loved his storytelling,
almost as much as May’s. There wasn’t a single frown among the kin gathered to
celebrate May’s entry into her ninth decade.

After two days of lake jollity, this was our final evening
bash. The banquet at Village West. What a grand night. May preened like a
peacock at a table with her three sons. The roast couldn’t have pleased her
more. My cousins Ed and Woods already had done their shtick to heavy applause.
May’s daughters-in-law laughed their heads off.

May beamed and wagged a scolding finger at Ross. My aunt
could dish it out, but she could take it, too—especially since adulation so
clearly laced the ribbing.

Our large table accommodated my sister, brother-in-law,
nephew and nieces and their spouses. Duncan had earned an honorary slot by my
side. That ensured I’d be grilled about our intentions. Was our romance
serious?

At the moment, I didn’t care. In fact, I was carefree.

I looked at the table next to us, delighted that Darlene,
Julie, General Irvine and Agent Weaver had joined in the merriment. Darlene and
Julie, returned from their unscheduled vacation at my island home, had bravely
soldiered through Jake’s memorial. Their lives were returning to normal.

To her credit, Darlene arranged and attended the funerals
for Kyle and Olivia Olsen, Robert and Gina Glaston, and Vivian Riley. She paid
for Nancy’s funeral, too—somewhere in Texas—but opted not to attend.

Of course, the expense didn’t really matter. In good taste,
I never mentioned how the terms of her husband’s will and the deaths of Gina
and Kyle made Darlene richer than Midas.

Since May’s kidnapping, there’d been more unexpected—and
beneficial—fallout. In response to emails from Ross, wooden boat lovers around
the country had sent contributions to replace the antique boats lost in the
shootout. My cousin found two replacement antiques that could be restored to
the same pristine condition. He’d also organized a fall boating
extravaganza-tribute. He expected it to bring wooden boat lovers from around
the U.S. to the unveiling of Gus and Harry’s born-again boats.

I tuned back into Ross’s familiar story just as he regaled
the audience with Uncle John’s climb onto the roof as he followed the apple pie
scent.

Peals of laughter echoed through the banquet hall as Ross
delivered his punch line. I joined in. She who laughs last…

Under the tablecloth, Duncan’s hand crept over and his
fingers began a merry tap-dance on my thigh.

Life is full of surprises. Ain’t it grand?

***

Marley Clark Mystery Series

Dear Killer ©2011

No Wake Zone ©2012

Romantic Suspense

Final Accounting ©2012

Don’t miss Marley’s third adventure to be released Fall,
2013, when Marley returns to the South Carolina Lowcountry.

Marley Clark’s free-spirited friend Janie has gone
entrepreneur, launching Helping Hollis HOAs, a Lowcountry management company
that serves homeowner associations (HOAs) throughout Hollis County, South
Carolina. Unfortunately, DOA—dead on arrival—threatens to become the acronym
most associated with Janie’s start-up firm as neighborhood fights turn lethal
and Board members wind up wearing toe tags.

Braden Mann, Marley’s former flame, is back in the
Lowcountry and eager to stoke their relationship fire. But there are
complications (of course).

Marley answers Janie’s plea to help end the mayhem and finds
a link between the neighborhood bloodbaths and one person’s crusade to seek
revenge for a decades’ old murder.

If you didn’t read Marley’s first outing, it’s a
crackling good read, the first chapter follows.

The wrought-iron gates stood open—again. The college kids
assigned to lock up were zero for three this week. I sighed, switched on my
flashlight, and walked toward the swimming pools. One more chink in the
resort’s security armor for vandals to exploit.

I noticed a smudge of light on the horizon and a twinge of
unease crept over me. Hilton Head Island snaked into the ocean about twenty
miles south, as a pelican flies, and its neon glitz cast a yellow pall over the
velvet blackness. Normally our resort has too many competing halogens to detect
a neighbor’s light pollution.

Three lights in the Dolphin Club were out. It was too dark.
Goose bumps raced up my arms. Something was hinky. Frozen in a cabana archway,
I listened for any sound, some hint an intruder lurked in the shadows. Only gurgling
water and a chorus of tree frogs broke the silence.

Sweeping my beam over the three-pool terrain, I strained to
catch any movement. All was still. A second pass spotlighted an anomaly:
clothing piled on a chair beside the Jacuzzi.

I walked closer, then paused as a shadowy blot rippled the
surface of the water. It took a second to grasp someone floated face down. I
sprinted. My feet made crunching noises as my shoes pulverized glass from the
broken lamps.

No, no, no. Please don’t let him be dead.

I thought “him” even though it was impossible to tell if the
body belonged to a man or woman. A shock of hair streamed from the submerged
head. Pale bony shoulders gleamed in the moonlight. When I grabbed the body
under the armpits and hoisted it over the hot tub’s lip, the man’s head lolled
backward.

Oh, God.

Stew Hartwell’s gray eyes were wide open, though sightless.
I felt for a pulse. Nothing. I went on autopilot, pinching his nostrils shut,
using two fingers to feel for any obstructions in his mouth.

I put my lips to his. They were warm. The Jacuzzi’s
one-hundred-four-degree water had left them soft and yielding. I blew, paused,
blew. A rhythm.
Breathe, dammit, breathe, dammit, breathe.

Nothing. My heart raced.

I rolled Stew on his stomach and pounded his back to expel
water in his lungs. I flipped him and attacked his chest with my fist, trying
to kick-start his heart. I put my lips to his once more. His mouth felt clammy
now. Still, I tried to force more of my ragged gasps into his unresponsive
lungs.

Come on, breathe.

Nothing. After five minutes, I gave up. Sweat trickled down
my back. My face was damp and I realized I was crying. My breath came in
labored pants.
Oh, Stew. I’m sorry.

Years ago, my husband, Jeff, struck up a friendship with
Stew. Whenever we visited the island, the two got together—poker, golf, Sunday
football on Stew’s big-screen. He was one of the good guys.

Now he’s dead. Like Jeff.

My hot breath—wasted breath—rose in white puffs and mingled
with the steam escaping the bubbling cauldron. The cool ocean breeze quickly
wicked all warmth away.

I pulled a radio from my pocket and called Gary, the
security guard on the front gate. “It’s Marley Clark. I’m at the Dolphin. We
have a drowning. I tried to revive him, but he’s gone. Call EMS anyway.”

“Who drowned?” Gary asked. “Is it a kid?”

I didn’t answer. Though it was three in the morning, some
sleepless codger might be amusing himself, listening to a police scanner. It
wasn’t rational, but I hesitated to say Stew’s name aloud. If I kept quiet, maybe
he wouldn’t be dead.

“Sorry, Gary. I can’t talk now. Get someone to wake up Chief
Dixon. The front entrance is wide open. I’ll stay with the body.”

Before Gary could ask more questions, I clicked the radio
off.

Enough questions assaulted my brain. Stew was totally nude.
What a way for your dead body to be discovered.

Of course, he was long past caring about decorum. That made
the plume of sandy hair drifting from his head seem even sadder. The man let
the baby-fine hair on one temple grow long for a classic comb-over. The result,
like every comb-over, made me wonder if men who favored this camouflage
technique shared a vampire’s aversion to mirrors.

What possessed you to go skinny-dipping alone in the
middle of the night?

During my resuscitation attempts, I’d dragged Stew most of
the way out of the hot tub. However, his hips still rested on the Jacuzzi’s
curved ledge, and his legs dangled in the swirling water, giving them an eerie
animation. His limp penis, withered from its extended submersion, showed no
such life. It looked forlorn nested in its mat of brown pubic hair.

I was tempted to cover Stew. Provide him with some final
dignity. But I knew better than to mess further with the scene. My attempts to
resuscitate Stew had mucked things up enough. The unusual circumstances would
certainly qualify the drowning as a suspicious death.

I looked away from Stew’s torso. His feet continued to bob
and the obscene jig drew my attention to the hot tub’s water.

What the hell?
I saw a carrot first. Orange and large,
it bobbed to the surface by his toes. I watched in disbelief as the roiling
water spit up celery stalks, whole onions and what looked like bay leaves.
Gradually I realized a potpourri of vegetables simmered in the bubbling pot.

Sweet Jesus.
What is this—a sick joke?

I looked wildly about to make sure I was alone. I’d been
kneeling, and as I stumbled to my feet, I saw blood on the concrete. My own.
Shards of broken glass protruded from my knees and blood soaked the khaki
slacks of my guard uniform.

That’s when I noticed the towels, folded to form an arrow.
It pointed to a patch of sand.

The Dolphin’s designers had inserted sand and palm oases to
break up the sea of concrete that cradled the complex’s swimming pools. A crude
message was scratched in the nearest greenery-and-dune pod.

Just one word: “STEWED.”

My mind went numb. Nothing made sense. Had some psycho
drowned Stew just to make a gruesome pun?

I remembered angry-looking punctures on Stew’s back when I
rolled him. Seizing his left shoulder, I eased his body up. Four marks embossed
his pale back. Two close together, another two six inches away.

“Goddammit.”

Nausea swept over me. I could barely imagine Stew’s terror
if my hunch proved correct. The crimson pricks looked like fresh stun jabs. I’d
seen similar marks on my own body. When the Dear Island security officers were
issued Tasers, our training required a demonstration. I’d been “volunteered”
and knew firsthand the pole-axed feeling of having my limbs turn to jelly, of
being aware of everything yet having a total disconnect between mind and body.
I shivered, wondering if Stew had been fully cognizant of his fate, his brain
frantically screaming at unresponsive muscles as his killer prepared to drown
him.

I lowered Stew’s shoulder, backed out of the crime scene
along my original entry route, and prepared to intercept Chief Dixon and the EMS paramedics. They needed to understand the circumstances to avoid adding contaminants.

The wait would be brief. Dear Island’s only five miles long
and one and one-half miles wide. It took less than ten minutes to drive between
any two points. And, yes, Dear Island is spelled D-E-A-R. Pre-1970 maps showed
it as Deer Island. That was before it succumbed to a developer’s spelling
disorder or cuteness fetish. Having met my share of Lowcountry developers,
either theory seemed plausible.

My manhandling of Stew’s body had drenched me. My teeth
clattered like castanets, and my knees throbbed. Congealed blood plastered my
trousers to my legs. I plucked slivers of broken glass from the fabric.
Anything to keep from looking at Stew. I fast-walked in tight circles, rubbing
my hands to conjure up heat.

Paramedic Bill O’Brien was the first to charge on the scene.
“Where’s the victim?” he yelled as he hustled in my direction.

“He’s dead,” I answered. “No pulse. I tried mouth-to-mouth.
Nothing.”

“I’ll give it a go anyway. Lead the way.”

“Okay but this isn’t a routine drowning. Stew Hartwell’s
been murdered. We need to think about the crime scene.”

“Murdered? Are you sure?”

Bill’s tone telegraphed skepticism. Residents took smug
pride in the fact that Dear Island didn’t have enough crime to warrant keeping
statistics. There was the occasional theft as well as a smattering of
complaints about inebriated idiots, usually vacationers or “tourons” in island
speak. But a murder? Never.

Chief Dixon arrived in time to hear our exchange. “What in
hell are you saying, Marley?” Dixon demanded.

We stood under the nearest functioning lamppost about twenty
feet from Stew’s body. The pooled light haloed Dixon’s frizzy white hair,
making him look like Ronald McDonald’s grizzled grandpa.

While I summed up the situation, Bill tiptoed to the steamy
six-person Jacuzzi. As a paramedic, he was qualified to pronounce Stew dead.
After doing so, he studied the body and pointed out some bruising around Stew’s
wrists.

“Zip ties?” the chief wondered. “D’you suppose the killer
tied his wrists while he was out for the count and cut ’em loose once he was
dead?”

Bill nodded. “That’s my guess.”

Dixon rang the Hollis County Sheriff’s Department to say we
needed help pronto.

The chief’s ruddy face looked more mottled than usual, hinting
at a bout of drinking or elevated blood pressure. He shook his head, hawked one
up, and started to spit before he thought better of it. “Jesus H. Christ, you
think someone fried Stew with a stunner in order to drown him? That’s just
dandy. Suppose that’ll make all our boys prime suspects.”

The same notion had crossed my mind—though I didn’t think of
Dear’s security force as “our boys.” It was no secret the chief preferred to
hire men. Yet he figured my military career trumped my gender, so he overlooked
my inability to scratch my nuts with the rest of his boys.

I paced off fifteen feet and circled the Jacuzzi, scanning
the barren concrete. “Chief, the killer didn’t use a Taser. Even civilian
models eject those confetti-like markers that I.D. each weapon. Our murderer
couldn’t have picked them all up. Fortunately, that rules our weapons out.”

“Eh? Speak up, will you?” An ex-Marine, Dixon blamed his
poor hearing on close encounters with exploding shells. The counterfeit
waterfall’s gurgling wasn’t helping him. “Who else packs stunners—just other
cops, right?”

I raised my voice a notch. “Anyone willing to part with a
few hundred bucks can buy stun guns or Tasers on the Internet. But I haven’t a
clue about all the options.”

Dixon looked back at the body and cracked his knuckles.
“Stew Hartwell. Who on earth would want to kill him?” The chief’s interest in
the body seemed strictly clinical; someone else would have to mourn the loss.

Poor Stew. My stomach did another samba. Then a white-hot
anger flared in my gut. Stew didn’t deserve to die like this—a gothic comic
book ending.

“If only I’d patrolled this area sooner…”

“Forget it, Marley, you couldn’t have saved him,” the chief
said. “If you’d come earlier, you might be dead, too.”

Until the chief answered, I hadn’t realized I’d spoken
aloud.

“You may have been one hot shot Army colonel, but even you
can’t bring back the dead.”

Well, yes, once I could.

I was sixteen, a lifeguard. The boy was nine, chubby. When I
hauled him from the depths, his lips were tinged with blue, as if the aqua
water had dyed them. I breathed life into him. His fat cheeks turned from blue
to pink like Mom’s hydrangeas after she added lime.

Life seemed effortless then. I could cheat death. No longer.
The living slipped away.

I blinked away the vision to concentrate on Dixon’s monologue. “You know if someone hadn’t gotten cute, we might’ve figured he was an
unlucky drunk who drowned ’cause he was three sheets to the wind.” He ran a
hand through his hair. “Stew was known to knock back a few, and the hot tub
sign is plastered with warnings for boozers. Guess the vegetables were meant to
clue us in. Whoever killed Stew knew him, or at least his name.”

The churning murderer’s cauldron bubbled away without a
conscience. How had the killer jimmied the timer to keep the Jacuzzi jets
active? Tendrils of steam drifted from the super-sized hot tub.

“Jesus,” I muttered. “What kind of sicko would dream this
up?”

Dixon shrugged. “I suppose those are Stew’s clothes. What
possessed him to strip? Or do you think the killer undressed him?”

From our vantage point, we could see the clothing piled on
the chair nearest his body. Car keys and a wallet sat atop Bermuda shorts.

“Say, is Stew’s car parked out front?” Dixon asked.

“I’ll go check.” An urge to escape the insanity for a moment
drove me to volunteer. “There’s a tan Volvo parked on the far side of the lot.
It could be Stew’s.”

***

After verifying the solitary car belonged to the victim, we
cordoned off the crime scene and set up emergency floodlights to illuminate the
area.

Three guards had joined Dixon and me. Two were fuzzy-cheeked
youngsters, locals who wanted a job where they wouldn’t stink of fish or have
to kowtow to tourists. Carrying a gun was a big bonus. I was the same age as
their mommas so they ma’amed me to death. Dirty jokes tended to die on their
lips as I approached. Tonight their nervous laughter teetered toward hysteria.
Laughing at death is a reflex as well as a cliché.

Dixon grimaced when a cacophony of sirens announced the
arrival of the Hollis County Sheriff and his mainland coterie. “Think they’d
have more sense,” he mumbled. “Might as well have used a bullhorn. This racket
is bound to bring out all the Nosey Parkers.”

Sure enough, lights clicked on in a smattering of the pricey
homes hovering above the poolscape. Perched atop stilt-like piers, the
silhouetted bungalows resembled scrawny cranes.