Sandrift: A Lin Hanna Mystery
Read Sandrift: A Lin Hanna Mystery Online
Authors: Sharon Canipe
Sandrift
Lin Hanna Mysteries: Book 2
By
Sharon Canipe
Cover Design by
Steve Canipe
Copyright 2014 Sharon W.
Canipe
All Rights Reserved
Other works in the
Lin Hanna Mystery Series
Earthcrack
This novel is a work of fiction.
All names, places, characters, and incidents
are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Any resemblance to actual persons,
places, or events living or dead is entirely coincidental.
Dedication
This book is dedicated to my
sister-in-law Carolyn Canipe Parker, who passed away in
January,
2014.
Carolyn was an avid reader
and a great supporter of my writing efforts.
She enjoyed the first book in this
series,
Earthcrack
,
and
urged me to complete this second book.
Thanks Carolyn for your support and friendship over the years.
May you rest in
peace
.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to my friends who have
supported and encouraged me in my writing.
My family has been a great help, especially my husband Steve who
provides editorial advice and worked on the cover design.
My daughter Marti provides technical
support and help with my website, as well as help with issues related to
formatting and publication.
Thanks
also to son David and his wife Amber for support and encouragement.
November,
2000
Liz Frazier let
the door to Tim’s bar slam behind her stumbling awkwardly as she went down the
steps.
She was angry that Tim had
taken her car keys from her claiming that she was too drunk to drive home.
“You’ll get
caught,” Tim had insisted, “don’t need a DUI.
Go on and walk.
It
ain’t
far
and, besides, the air might do you good—sober you up a bit.
Carrying on with all your crazy talk.
Some of these yokels will knock you
senseless for that so-called treasure of yours—if it’s real!”
Tim’s doubting
her story sent Liz into a rage causing him to grab her keys and shove her more
or less gently out the door.
Now
she stumbled lazily through the sandy parking lot heading toward the highway
and the dirt road on the other side that led to her small frame house.
It was just a short walk and maybe she
could work off some of her anger. She’d show them all—thinking she was
lying about finding the diamond jewelry.
The stiff ocean
breeze hit Liz in the face as she walked down the highway’s edge toward the
dirt road.
The fresh air felt good
and seemed to clear her head a bit.
Maybe she had drunk too much to drive home. Whatever, Tim would take
care of her car—battered old heap that it was.
She could get her keys tomorrow.
Tomorrow would be a better day.
Tomorrow she would take her treasure to
town and find someone to appraise it and tell her what it was really
worth.
That was what her friend
Billy at Island Pawn had told her to do.
He said it was really good stuff—too rich for his blood.
Liz trusted Billy.
He always helped her out with her
treasure hunting finds—a lost watch or ring here and there, sometimes a
piece of silver flatware off a fancy wreck—but he refused to touch this jewelry
she’d found saying it was far too valuable for his small pawn shop.
Mark, Liz’s
sometimes boyfriend, had also looked at the jewelry.
Liz could still recall the greedy look
in his eye when he offered to take it back to his art gallery in Manteo and do
some research for her.
He thought
it might be worth about twenty-five thousand, give or take, but something about
the way he said this made alarms go off in Liz’s head and she refused to let
him take the stuff back with him at that time.
He had argued with her about it insisting
the jewelry would be safer with him.
“I’ll bring it
in myself,” she’d told him,
“maybe
we can go together to one of your jeweler friends and have him look at
it.”
Liz knew that Mark dealt
mostly in art objects so what did he really know about the value of this
jewelry?
As she
approached the end of the road where her house was located she thought to
herself, that’s exactly what I will do—tomorrow.
Mark might not be a jeweler, but he did
know a lot of other businessmen in Manteo where his own shop was located.
That was probably what he had planned to
do anyway; maybe she shouldn’t have been so distrustful.
Anyway, tomorrow would be soon
enough.
She would call Mark first
thing in the morning and make the arrangements.
He probably wouldn’t want her to come to
town for fear his wife might find out about her, but Liz didn’t care.
She was tired of just being his “beach
playgirl.”
Let him worry about his
reputation.
She had every right to
show up in town anyway.
Rounding the
curve through the dark pine trees that grew thickly around her small home, Liz
saw what she thought might be a light in one of her back rooms.
That’s strange she thought; I know I
turned all the lights off when I left.
Maybe Dorrie has come home.
A brief feeling of panic moved through her body, and she felt herself
sobering as she quickened her step.
Dorrie had seen
that jewelry too, Liz thought.
Liz
showed it to her when she first found it after last week’s storm uncovered that
old wreck of a yacht.
Liz recalled
the wide-eyed stare Dorrie had when she saw the shiny pendant, ring, and
earrings in the small tin box where they had been sealed for, most likely,
decades.
Dorrie had been gone for a couple of
days—probably on a bender.
The young college dropout kept promising to stop her partying and go
back to school but nothing had happened so far.
Would Dorrie come back to steal her find?
Liz didn’t think so, but then one never
knew.
Liz knew Dorrie was broke.
She owed two- month’s rent money at least.
Liz stepped up her pace toward the house
inwardly cursing herself for her own loose tongue and her drunken bragging to
others about how she was going to get money and use it to do something with her
sorry life.
She should’ve kept her
mouth shut until she had found a safe place for her find.
That had been Mark’s argument for taking
the jewelry to his store and locking it up for her.
Perhaps she’d been foolish not to listen
to him.
Now, thinking
much more clearly as she opened her own front door, Liz called out, “Dorrie, is
that you?
Where have you been?”
There was no
answer.
The house was totally quiet
and there was only one small light leaking from the door to the back
bedroom—Liz’s room.
She
carefully approached the bedroom door flicking the switch to illuminate the
living room as she went.
Calling
out for Dorrie once more, she cautiously pushed the bedroom door open.
A gloved hand
grabbed her from behind as she entered the room grasping her firmly across the
mouth and stifling the scream that tried to come out.
She tried to slip away, but her
assailant had a firm grasp on her head.
Liz felt a knee in the small of her back; she was shoved face first to
the floor—her assailant landing full weight on her back, twisting her arm
behind her.
Again she tried to
scream—knowing full well there was no one close by to hear her.
This time a heavy object smashed into
the side of her head momentarily stunning her.
Liz tried to shake off the blow.
She twisted violently trying to shift
the weight from her back and catch her breath.
Just as she thought she might be gaining
on her attacker, she felt a sharp stabbing pain between her shoulder
blades.
She could almost hear the
air seep from her lungs as she lost consciousness.
She was totally unaware of the warmth of
her blood gushing from the wound onto the pale gray carpet.
***
Deputy Pete
Midgett picked up the phone in his Manteo office.
It was after midnight, almost one,
couldn’t be anything good at this hour.
The caller id indicated it was the deputy out in Kill Devil Hills.
He probably had drunks fighting after
the beach bars closed down.
Pete
spoke sleepily, “Midgett here, what do you need Mike?”
“Better get a
team out here,” Mike drawled. “Liz Frazier’s house is on fire and we think Liz
might be in it. Tim saw the blaze from across the highway and called it
in.
Says Liz was so drunk he took
her keys and sent her walking home.
Looks like she might have been smoking or something and started a fire.”
“Be there in a
few,” Pete responded, now wide-awake.
He quickly called the other deputy
on patrol to meet him out at Kill Devil Hills.
Gathering up a crime scene kit just in
case, Pete headed for his patrol car while alerting the night dispatcher at the
desk as to his destination.
No need to wake
everybody up with lights and sirens Pete thought as he left town heading for the
Baum Bridge.
This is a fire; whatever
has happened has happened already.
Traffic was light enough given the late hour.
His speeding toward the beach on the
mostly deserted highway was not really a concern.
Pete thought
about Liz Frazier as he crossed the moonlit sound toward the beach towns of the
Outer Banks.
A pretty girl, just
behind him in school, but Liz was always looking for the next party.
She had quite a reputation for taking up
with almost any man who would buy her dinner and drinks, and, even though she
was no dummy, she seemed to never be able to find more than seasonal work at
the beach—waiting tables, cleaning motel rooms, and the like.
Liz spent most of her off time treasure
hunting, always dreaming of finding something really valuable from one of the
many wrecks that dotted the area and were frequently uncovered in the shifting
beach sands after storms.
Lots of
folks did that, but only a few found anything of real value.
Most of those only earned a few hundred
dollars a year selling what they managed to salvage.
Beach treasure hunting was generally
just a fun pastime for residents and tourists alike.
Looks like this
time Liz had had one drink too many and maybe had a terrible accident.
Pete felt sorry at this thought. He
always liked Liz when they were growing up, but we reap what we sow he reasoned.
As he
approached the sandy road that led through the woods to the house where Liz
lived, Pete noticed a crowd of folks gathered at Tim’s bar across the
highway.
He pulled in.
Maybe some of these folks saw
something.
Better ask some
questions before they all left.
Pete quickly
spotted Tim, the bar owner.
At more
than six feet tall and pushing three hundred pounds Tim was hard to miss.
Pete was a big guy himself.
The two of them had played football
together in high school.
“Hi Tim, you
call this in?” Pete asked.
“Sure did,” Tim
responded, pointing toward the slight glow visible through the woods on the
other side of the road. “Blaze looks like it’s almost out now but it was a
humdinger!
Heard a big “swoosh” and
there it was.
Had to be Liz’s
place,” Tim hesitated, his voice cracking, “…and I had just sent her
packing—made her walk home.
Her car is still right over there.”
Tim pointed to a battered old Ford at the end of the parking lot.
“I’m sure you
did the right thing Tim,” Pete was reassuring, “not to let her drive
drunk.
It was just a short walk.”
“I’m just
afraid she was in that house,” Tim said quietly. “ One group of firefighters
just left, said they didn’t see anyone outside and it was too hot to go in when
they arrived.”
Pete nodded,
“Well, I’m sure they’ll check when it cools a bit.”
They could hope that maybe she hadn’t
gone straight home, but where else would she go on foot at this late hour?
Pete remembered her folks lived down in
Nags Head.
Noticing that
the crowd was beginning to break up and drift away, Pete hastily called to a
few of the onlookers.
He got some
names and phone numbers and asked what they had seen, but no one had seen more
than the view of the fire through the woods—no cars coming from the dirt
road, no walkers other than Liz. At least, no one admitted to knowing more. A
couple of the guys had seen her leave the bar apparently heading toward her
home.
“Liz was pretty
drunk,” one of the
locals
said. “ She was carrying on
about finding some jewelry in an old wreck—said she was going to get some
real money for a change.
Drunk as
she was, that might have been just braggin’ though.”
Or it might
have been a good reason to rob her, Pete thought to himself.
Leaving the
bar, Pete headed down the dirt road toward the fire scene.
There were still a few flames coming
from the back of the house, but the roof was already partially caved in.
The small place was definitely a total
loss, Pete realized.
If Liz was in
there… he didn’t finish his own thought.
The remaining
fire crew was busy dousing the few flames at the back.
One of the crew was talking to Mike, the
deputy who had called for Pete.
As
Pete approached them, he noticed another patrol car pulling into the driveway.
That was probably Jerry, the deputy he
had called to meet him there.
“It’ll be
morning before this mess is really cooled enough to sort through,” the fire
team captain was saying.
It was
Dick Taylor, another of Pete’s school classmates.
“Hi Pete,” Dick
greeted the deputy, “ I hate to say it but we are pretty sure there’s a body in
the back bedroom.
Hard to see for
sure but looks that way.”