Lowcountry Boneyard (15 page)

“At which point they’ll get a search warrant, and go over his house with a fine-tooth comb. Best we not disturb anything there.”

“Agreed.”

“I think it’s time for me to talk to Ansley.” I looked at Colleen. I could use her help with Ansley.

“And we need to make an appointment to speak with Colton Heyward tomorrow morning if possible,” said Nate. “That’s as long as we can put off telling him about the baby. We’ve sat on that for nearly two days already.”

“All right. I’ll make the call.”

“Meantime, I’ll get the documentation ready for Sonny. That will take most of today.”

“I know that’s a lot, but do you think you could squeeze in talking to the other artists who were with Evan Ingle that Friday night at Bin 152? I haven’t had a chance to verify his story.” I flashed him my best pretty-please look.

He gave me a look that said he knew what I was up to. “As I am not immune to your feminine wiles, I will find a way to work it in, provided they are available and willing. Names and contact info in the file?”

“Yeah.” I grinned a silly grin. He was not immune to my feminine wiles. That was welcome news, since he hadn’t exactly jumped all over my earlier offer to live in Greenville part-time. “Thank you so much.”

“My pleasure to assist,” he said in a tone that suggested other things he might assist me with.  

Moon Unit arrived with a to-go bag and our ticket. “Here you go.”

Nate paid at the register, good-naturedly parrying all attempts from Moon Unit to discuss his residency status. He might not want to live full time in Stella Maris, but he could never claim he wasn’t welcome.

I waved the bag of biscuits at Colleen. If she wanted what was inside them, she was going to have to help me out with Ansley.

Fourteen

My Escape was parked on the street a few doors down from The Cracked Pot. Before I had my seat belt buckled, Colleen faded into the passenger seat. “Okay, watch this.”

I cocked my head at her and waited. At first I couldn’t tell a difference. Then gradually, she appeared denser, until she looked just like any mortal human.

“Wow,” I said. “That’s what you mean by solidifying?”

“Yep.” She grinned. “It’s an advanced skill. Takes tons of practice. What did you do with the biscuits?” She looked around the car.

“I have them in my bag.”

She looked past me, to where my purse was wedged between me and the door. “Let me have them.”

“In a little while. First we need to talk about what you have up your sleeve relative to where I’m going to reside. Then I need your help with Ansley.”

“Really? You’re holding my biscuits hostage? After I saved your hide yet again just a few days ago?
Really
?”

I sighed, cut my eyes heavenward, pulled the biscuits out and handed her the bag.

She held it like it was a precious butterfly that might float away if she moved suddenly. “Oh. I’m so hungry.”

I was having a hard time processing ghosts—whatever—with an appetite. “Seriously? Do guardian spirits get hungry?”

She gave in and tore open the bag and unwrapped one of the biscuits. She rolled her eyes and moaned when she took the first bite. The look of sheer ecstasy on her face called to mind a whole nother experience—something I liked even better than biscuits.

I said, “I’m guessing that’s a yes.”

She swallowed. “We crave things that we miss from when we were human, but we don’t actually feel hunger, or any kind of pain. The next world is infinitely better than this one. But they don’t have biscuits.”

“Can other people see you now—when you’re solid?”

“They can. Except most people see what they expect to see, and hardly anyone would recognize me anyway.” Posthumous Colleen was a perfect version of mortal Colleen. Her skin was clear and luminous, her red curls long and shiny. Her figure was lean, her movements lithe. And she was right in that no one in town would be expecting to see her. She’d been gone quite a spell.

“Enjoy your biscuits. I need to take care of something right quick.”

I texted Ansley: Need to talk ASAP. How quick can you meet me at Lighthouse Park?

It was a few minutes after nine on Sunday morning. I’d expected Ansley to be with her parents, in a pew a few rows behind Mamma and Daddy at St. Francis Episcopal. Surprisingly, she texted me back right away: See you in ten
.

I started the car and headed towards the city park just south of Devlin’s Point. “Help me out here. What is the tactical advantage for a guardian spirit in solidifying? Like you once told me, your most reliable skill is eavesdropping without being seen.”

“I can talk to humans this way—aside from you. In my normal state, I can only see and talk to you.”

“Who do you need to talk to?”

“No one right now. But you never know when I might need to distract someone while you’re someplace you’re not supposed to be.”

“Hmm…I can use you for diversions now?” I parked near the lighthouse, rolled down the windows, and opened the moonroof.

“Sometimes. Depending on what you decide.” She bit into the biscuit.

“About that.”

She was inhaling the biscuit, eyes closed. “Can you hear me?”

She nodded, but kept eating.

“It seems to me if the goal is to keep someone in my town council seat who will protect the island, several other candidates could do this as easily as me. Candidates with no desire to live anywhere else.”

Colleen swallowed a bite. “The problem is that nearly everyone is persuadable with the right argument. Sometimes people think they’re doing the right thing, when they’re really being manipulated. You’re stubborn.”

“I have to say, no one has ever appreciated that quality in me before.”

“I have a thought. And really, it’s good to have a couple possibilities in reserve. Things happen. Your Gram should have held that seat another ten years at least.”

“Who is your other thought?”

“Calista.”

“Oooh! She’d be perfect. And trust me, she has stubborn down.” Calista McQueen was a former client, now a friend, who lived just down the beach from me. She bore an uncanny resemblance to Marilyn Monroe, which had caused more than her share of grief in the past. But she’d settled into Stella Maris life as if she’d been born there. Lately she’d taken up teaching Mamma’s Jazzercise class.

“Still,” Colleen said. “I worry about you. Calista doesn’t have the same risk factors. I can only protect the council members who I can depend on to serve the best interests of the island.”

I tilted my head at her. “You watch out after Daddy, too?”

“Among others.”

“I would have thought everyone serving now would be dependable: me, Daddy, John Glendawn, Grace Sullivan, Michael Devlin, and Robert Pearson. Even the mayor, Lincoln Sullivan—and I’m likely not his favorite person, which goes both ways—but I’d still say he’d always put the town first.”

“It’s complicated,” Colleen said. “Some of them are vulnerable to persuasion. It’s important to keep a majority who are not.”

That made me wonder a great many things. I’d long suspected Robert Pearson had secrets. And were there yet more developers who had the island in their sights? I thought about the two men I’d seen on the ferry Friday morning. I filed all of that under “things to ponder when I get time.” “Okay, so, we replace me with Calista, and I can be a part-time resident.”

Colleen unwrapped her second biscuit slowly.

“I will only be able to help you very sporadically—when it doesn’t interfere with my other duties. Think about it. This impacts both you and Nate.”

I couldn’t live with myself if Nate were hurt—or worse—and it could have been avoided.

“How about this?” I said. “I mean, it’s not like the other council members never leave the island, right? They travel all the time. As long as I own a house here and it’s my primary residence, I qualify as a resident of Stella Maris. Isn’t the real issue showing up for council meetings? As long as I do that and am here part of the time…who’s keeping island attendance?”

Colleen thought and chewed for an eternity. Finally, she said, “You’ll get away with that for a while. At some point, your residency will be challenged.”

“Well, maybe I’ll just cross that bridge when I get there. And who’s to say a challenge would be successful? The remaining council members would decide, right?”

“Except that you have to run for office every four years. If folks notice you’re not here much, it will be easy for someone else to win over enough votes to beat you.”

“I need to mull this over. But I can get away with being in Greenville part-time for a while, right?”

“Yes.”

“So, when it looks like I’m getting into trouble, you let me know, and I’ll spend more time here. If it becomes impossible to balance, then we recruit Calista. Now. If you’re through devouring those biscuits, I could use your help with Ansley.”

Ansley parked her Z4 in the space beside me and got out. I could see why Wendy Ryan had noticed the car—and why she wanted one.

To Colleen, I said, “You’ll need to get in the back. See if you can read her mind. Get me anything to do with Matt Thomas or Kent Heyward.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Colleen said, slightly miffed. She liked to call the shots, not take requests. She faded, disappeared, and popped into the backseat.

Ansley climbed into the passenger seat. “Did you find something?” she asked. Her face told me she was excited and eager, hoping I had good news.

She was so…kittenish with her big innocent eyes, shiny blonde hair, and petite build. I sighed and used my stern voice. “Yes, as a matter of fact I did. I found out that your car was parked overnight in front of Matt’s house the night Kent disappeared.”

She looked like she’d been sucker-punched. “I—oh no.” She put one hand over her mouth and furiously fumbled with the other to get the door open. She did, just before she started retching. Then she sobbed and retched alternately for a while. She was all tore up, is what I’m saying.

When she was finished, I handed her the tissue box. She took a few and dabbled at her mouth and eyes. “It’s not what it looks like.”

Colleen said, “She’s genuinely upset.”

I threw her a look over my shoulder that telegraphed,
ya think
?

“Ansley.”

She sobbed on.

“Ansley. Tell. Me. What. It.
Is
. Now, please.”

She nodded, sobbed a few more times for good measure. “I didn’t want to say anything because it looks bad.”

“That’s the understatement of the century.”

“Matt and I are friends. I told you that. He was upset—really, really upset. He loves Kent, but with the baby—”

“I thought you didn’t know about the baby?”

She started crying again.

“Would you stop that and talk to me?”

She sniffled and then quieted and nodded. “I knew about the baby. I knew that was causing most of their problems. I went there that night because he needed a friend. Kent had other plans. He just wanted someone to talk to who knew them both—knew the situation.”

“And you thought Kent would be okay with you spending the night?”

“He didn’t get off until one in the morning. There was no way I could go home. The last ferry left at eleven-thirty.”

“Why were you there before he got off work?”

“I had to come over while the ferry was still running. I just came early, hung out, watched TV.”

I had a sinking suspicion Ansley harbored feelings for Matt she’d had from the get-go. “You like being in his house.”

She nodded, looked out the window.

“You have a thing for him still, don’t you?”

“Okay, yes. I’m crazy about him. But Kent is my best friend and I have
never
done anything but be a friend to both of them. Never.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this to begin with? I gotta tell you, Ansley, you’re making it hard for me to believe anything you say. This is the second—no, third—time you have either lied to me or left things out. It makes me wonder if you talked Colton Heyward into hiring me so you could feed me the information you wanted me to have and try to keep me from finding out the truth.”

“
No, no, no
. That’s not it at all. I only wanted to protect Matt. This just looks bad.”

“Ansley, do you know what Luminol is?”

“No.”

“It’s a chemical you spray on things—floors, walls, pretty much everything. Then you turn out the lights. If there’s any blood at all, even a speck—people always think they can clean it all up, but they really can’t—the Luminol lights up. The police use it to solve crimes. Sometimes Nate and I use it. What do you think we’ll find in Matt’s house?” I hadn’t changed my mind about tampering with a potential crime scene, but I wanted to see her reaction.

“How should I know? No one’s ever been bleeding when I was there.”

I studied her for a long moment. She seemed not to connect my question to Kent at all. But Ansley had gotten an “A” in lying these past few days. “So that wouldn’t trouble you? Us performing a Luminol test?”

“Of course not. But that house is like almost a hundred years old. Matt’s only owned it for a couple of years. Who knows what happened there before he bought it?”

She was awfully quick with that. Then again, she did work for an attorney. How much did she know about crime scenes? “That’s the beautiful thing about blood types. Kent’s is on file.” Of course it must be, but Luminol wouldn’t give us a blood type. Maybe Ansley didn’t know that.

“You will not find Kent’s blood in that house unless it’s a drop from a nosebleed or something. Matt would never, ever hurt her.”

“How about you?”

“
What
?” Her face froze, mouth open, eyes wide with indignation. 

I shrugged, kept my voice casual. “She was getting ready to move in with the man you love.”

“
Oh
. I can’t
believe
you would think such a thing. How could you?” The sobbing commenced again.

“Ansley, I have to look at every possibility. That’s what I get paid for. I’m sorry if you thought I would do anything less. But here we are. Tell me why I shouldn’t think you got rid of your competition?”

She cowered against the passenger door and stared at me like I’d beaten her down to a pulpy mess. “Because I’m not capable of hurting anyone, much less Kent, who I love like a sister.”

“I don’t think you have murder in you. I don’t. My problem is I believed everything you said the first time we talked about this case. And the second time. Now, you’re a habitual liar. And you’re good at it. Really good.”

“But I’m helping you.”

“Really? Aside from feeding me half-truths and outright lies, how are you helping me?”