The Chocolate Pirate Plot (7 page)

And who was this other guy, the one whose body
had
turned up? Losing Jeremy at Beech Tree Public Access Area and finding a completely different person was weird. Hogan was going to be looking for a logical explanation for that, too.

The whole thing was strange. I did think that Jill had deliberately come to Joe and me for help. Our house was too far from the beach for her simply to stumble over us. In the winter, when most of the houses along Lake Shore Drive are empty—maybe it made sense. You could walk a mile, knocking on every door, and not find anybody home. But in the summer, on a weekend, when all the cottages were rented to summer people or occupied by their owners—it just wasn't likely.

I needed to talk to Hogan about it. And he was too busy to talk.

I also needed to discuss the situation with Joe. Maybe he'd see some logical reason for Jill to have approached us.

I hoped so. But for the moment, I thought I was right. And if I was right, the next person to talk to was Max Morgan. After all, both Jill and Jeremy worked for him. He should know something about them.

And Max might be in Chicago for the day, but I had his cell phone number. He'd called me from it repeatedly during the time he was frantically trying to find the pirates, so I had finally stored it in my cell phone so I could call him back easily.

Of course, Max's phone number was no use to me at the beach. The lakeshore is out of reach of all cell phone towers. I'd have to go to the house, where I could look the phone number up on my cell phone, then use our landline to call him. I resolved to do that ASAP.

I looked around the beach. Jill and Maggie had left. There were plenty of people around to keep an eye on the police department's cooler. I could go home.

I stood and folded up the big umbrella. I shook the sand out of the two beach towels we'd laid out; then I rolled them up. I stuffed them and the beach cover-up Jill had worn into my tote bag. I was folding up one of the squatty beach chairs when Hogan called to me.

He'd been near the body of the unknown man while the EMTs loaded it into a body bag. Now he walked across the sand toward me.

“Lee, would you mind hanging around a few more minutes?”

“Of course, Hogan. I'll stay all day, if you need me. But after Jill left . . .”

Hogan nodded. “I know. I appreciated your sitting with her. But there's one other thing I wanted to ask you and Joe about.”

“What's that?”

“Let's wait until Joe is out of the water.”

The line of searchers was nearing the water's edge again. Joe looked grim. He loves swimming, but this wasn't swimming. It's no fun to feel around—well, it's no fun. He wore a T-shirt, a ball cap, and sunglasses, but his arms still looked as if he'd gotten too much sun. All the volunteers looked equally tired.

Suddenly I could have wrung Jill's neck. If Jeremy hadn't drowned, if this was some sort of stunt, if she'd put those volunteers and Hogan and his officers and the sheriff's deputies through a miserable day . . . I growled.

Hogan motioned Joe over.

“Listen,” he said, “I want you and Lee to check something out before they take this body away.”

A little shiver went down my back. I guess it was visible, because Joe reached over and took my hand. “Lee might not want to do that,” he said.

“I'm tough enough to take it,” I said. “I know Hogan has a good reason or he wouldn't ask.”

“It's not gruesome,” Hogan said.

He led us over to the body bag and unzipped it so that it uncovered the shoulder of the drowned man. The man wore a short-sleeved blue T-shirt.

Hogan pushed the sleeve back and pointed at what was underneath.

“Does that seem familiar?”

On the man's upper arm was a tattoo—a tattoo of a skull and crossbones.

Joe gasped, but I was the one who spoke.

“Oh, my gosh!” I said. “He must be one of the pirates!”

J
oe reached down and unzipped the body bag to reveal the entire length of the drowned man.

“I guess I'd better look at him more carefully,” he said.

I decided I'd better be brave and look, too, but the effort turned out not to require much courage. He didn't look shocking.

“How tall would you say he is?” I said.

“Over six feet,” Hogan answered. “We don't have an exact measurement yet.”

Joe frowned. “I guess he could have been the larger pirate, the one who came aboard first.”

“The pirate's beard, of course, was obviously fake,” I said. “But I doubt he would have pasted on extra chest hair. Is his chest furry?”

Hogan peeked under the blue tee and nodded.

“His hair is the right color,” I said. “Or at least it's the color of the hair we could see peeking out from under that bandana. Are his hands callused?”

“Like an acrobat?” Joe checked. “Well, he has calluses, but he might be a ditch digger.”

I stepped back, suddenly remembering my suspicion about Jill, the idea I'd had that she had deliberately sought Joe and me out after Jeremy disappeared. Maybe this was the time to talk to Joe and Hogan about that, if I could get their attention. They were still staring at the dead man.

“Okay, y'all,” I said. “I have a strange idea, and I want to lay it on the two of you.”

They listened to my deductions without comment, allowing me to come to the end and sum up.

“I think Jill deliberately ran down Lake Shore Drive and intercepted me,” I said. “I don't know if she would have run up to the house to find Joe or me, or if somebody gave her a signal, so she could run up at exactly the moment when I walked out to the road to get the paper. But I'm convinced that she came to Joe and me on purpose.”

Neither Joe nor Hogan told me my idea was a dumb one, so I took it one step further. “What I don't understand is why. Why would Jill want to come to us rather than any of our neighbors?”

I gestured toward the body bag. “And if this guy was one of the pirates, why was Joe's boat the first one boarded? Could that be a coincidence? It doesn't sound likely to me.”

I turned to Hogan. “So please don't try to tell me this guy—Captain Blood or whoever he is—just
happened
to drown right off our beach.”

Joe spoke then. “Did he drown at all?”

“We don't know yet,” Hogan said. “I'm not guessing until after the autopsy.”

“I wasn't at the end of the line where they found him,” Joe said. “But it looked as if he was—well, caught on the bottom in some way.”

Hogan nodded. “A log was holding him down.”

“It could have been an accident, then.”

“Right.”

“But nobody else has been reported missing?”

“Nope. No other drownings have been reported anywhere on the lake this week. And that doesn't necessarily have any meaning either.”

Joe nodded. “Right. If the guy was out by himself, it's all too easy for a boat to go down and not be missed. Same deal with a lone swimmer. But the members of this rescue team are the kind of people who hang out around the beaches and marinas, and none of them seemed to recognize this guy.”

“Nope. But he might not be from Warner Pier.”

I jumped back into the conversation. “You've been around a lot of drowning cases, Hogan. How long do you think he had been in the water?”

“I'm not an expert, but I'd guess ten or twelve hours. Maybe a little longer.”

“Since last night?”

“I could be completely wrong.” Hogan motioned to the ambulance crew. “I guess that's all we can do until the autopsy. And until he's identified.”

The ambulance took the unknown man's body away, and Hogan called the searchers out of the water. If Jeremy Mattox was in the water in that area, he would stay there until he floated up. That could happen anywhere up and down the lakeshore, but I decided I wouldn't be doing any swimming at Beech Tree Public Access Area for a few days. In fact, I went home and took a shower, and I hadn't even been in the water.

I had to spend some time on the phone, of course. Aunt Nettie wanted to know what was going on, and so did Brenda, though I could tell Tracy had put her up to calling. Brenda simply isn't a professional gossip, compared to Tracy. At least Brenda had learned that. She was still being closemouthed about how her romance with Will was going. Tracy kept trying to pump
me
to find out.

After lunch—we didn't eat until after one thirty—Joe went out, saying he was going to do some errands.

As soon as he left, I dug out my cell phone and found Max Morgan's cell phone number. Then I sat down with a yellow pad and made some notes about what to ask him.

Who was Jeremy? Where had he come from? Why had he been hired?

Plus, what did he have to do with Joe and me?

I also gave some thought to the fact that I hadn't told Hogan I was planning to call Max. But why should he care? No crime appeared to have been committed, unless Jill could be charged with making a false report of a drowning. I wasn't sure what crime that would be, but it sounded illegal.

With my thoughts organized, I punched in Max's number.

I didn't really expect him to answer. After all, he was supposedly in Chicago. He was probably in a meeting. If he was smart, he'd have his phone turned off. I'd have to leave a number.

But the phone rang only once before Max's voice resonated in my ear.

“Lee?”

I felt a bit surprised at his greeting, even though I knew his cell phone would tell him who was calling.

“Max, I have a couple of questions for you. Is this a bad time?”

“No, it's fine. What can I do for you?”

“I guess you've heard about Jeremy Mattox.”

“Have they found him?”

“They gave up about an hour and a half ago.”

Max answered, but his words seemed to be meant more for himself than for me. “Seems like they didn't try too long.”

“I don't know what the rules are, Max. But when a victim isn't in the immediate area where he went down, they wait a day or two and start a different sort of search.”

“Yeah, I get it. How's Jill? They said you were with her.”

“She went home.”

“What about this guy they did find?”

I described the man with the tattoo. “Does he sound familiar?” I said.

“No. Believe me, if I'd noticed a skull and crossbones tattoo on anybody, I'd have gotten acquainted with him.”

Max kept talking, but this time I shut him up. “Max! I called because I have a few questions for you.”

“Oh?”

“Tell me about Jeremy.”

“What's to tell? He's a great tech. I was lucky to get him. Losing him would be a serious matter.”

“How did you find him?”

“Through the grapevine. I put out the word in the Chicago theater crowd, and he called me. His résumé looked good. He needed work for the summer. I hired him.”

“Was he easy to work with? Popular with the rest of your people?”

Max gave a short laugh. “Apparently he was popular with Jill. But, yeah, he seemed to get along with everybody.”

“He's not from around here originally, is he?”

“Not that I know of. Actually, I don't know where he grew up. Why?”

“I just wondered whether he was local. Has he shown any particular interest in Joe and me?”

“In Joe and you? Why would he do that?”

“That's what I'm trying to figure out. Did he?”

“Not in my hearing.”

This wasn't leading anywhere. I thought a moment.

Max spoke again. “Why do you want to know all this?”

“It's hard to explain. What do you think of Jeremy?”

“I don't think anything much of him. He's just a tech, Lee! I've got twenty-five people to handle over there at the Showboat.”

“So he didn't stand out in any way?”

“Not to me. He did his job. Seemed to know his business. What did you think of him?”

“I've never met him.”

“Sure you have. He came in the shop with me.”

“He did?” I quit talking and thought for a moment. “Not that—that blond guy!”

“That's him.”

When I heard that, I nearly hung up. I wanted to sink through the floor. Jeremy Mattox, I realized, had been a witness to one of my most embarrassing moments. Remembering it, I was again filled with extreme humiliation.

I've always been afflicted with malapropism. Malapropism is named for Mrs. Malaprop, a character in an eighteenth-century play by Richard Brinsley Sheridan. She is famous, according to
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations
, for saying things such as, “As headstrong as an allegory on the banks of the Nile.” Like her, I use the wrong word, usually one that sounds like the correct word, though I don't think I've ever mixed up “allegory” and “alligator.” In fact, I can usually remember that they have crocodiles on the Nile, and alligators in the Everglades.