Visions of Death

by B. T. Lord

  “You’re on a case. And when you’re on a case, you don’t eat. Or you eat what no self-respecting human being would consider healthy or edible.”

  He laughed as he watched her swing her hip to close the door behind her.

  Chandra was an attractive black woman in her late fifties, with closely cropped white hair, a figure that leaned towards a slight plumpness, and large green eyes inherited from an Irish ancestor. She’d been born and raised on Sarke Island, the latest generation in a family that stretched back to a group of black sailors who’d made a home there in the mid-eighteenth century. After spending many years successfully operating a tax practice in Boston, the death of her parents led her to take up the running of the hotel that had been in her family since the 1920s.

  “I made a chicken pot pie. Figured you’d like some.”

  “I would. Thank you.”

  As she placed it in the microwave to heat up, Dara’s words drifted back to him.

  One of these women cares and worries about you like a friend would. In fact, she’d make a terrific friend. Someone you can really depend on. If you’d let yourself be that open to her, that is.

  Watching Chandra bustle about his small kitchen as she set the table, it wasn’t hard to guess who Dara had been referring to.

  Chandra became an integral part of his last case, and he quickly realized what a valuable ally she was. No one knew the ways of these islands better than she did. Her advice on how to get along with the locals was unique and insightful, and he appreciated her efforts helping him to settle in.

  As he got up and plodded into the kitchen in his stocking feet, Ellis was grateful for her insistence in looking after him. If not for her kindness and wisdom, he’d probably be skin and bones by now and still flailing about trying to fit into the life of the Coffins. What he most appreciated about her was her innate sensitivity to his need for quiet solitude. She always seemed to know, before he did, when he was in need of food, advice or companionship. And when he needed to be left alone.

  He understood that Chandra considered him a dear friend. What did he consider her? A landlady? An acquaintance?

  As much as you try to convince yourself you don’t need people, she’s someone you’ve come to like. Respect. Care about. Can it be she’s become your friend without you even realizing it?

  “I was down at the grocery store this afternoon when Cordelia told me about the murder of the young woman over on Eagla,” Chandra said as the microwave dinged, and she took out the steaming pot pie. “I figured that’s where you were all day.” Ellis wearily nodded. She put the plate down on the table and gave him a shrewd look. “Something about this case is weighing heavily on you.”

  During his last case, he’d discovered that Chandra came from a long line of ancestors who exhibited the same type of abilities Dara claimed to have. Having witnessed Chandra’s accuracy firsthand, he’d come to accept her unnerving intuitiveness.

  As he sat down at the table, it suddenly occurred to him that if he could so readily accept Chandra’s abilities, why was he still grappling with Dara’s?

  “When I left Eagla, it hadn’t become public knowledge, though I’m sure by morning it will be all over the Coffins. The victim’s eyes and mouth were sewn shut with fishing line.”

  “Lord, what is this world coming to?” Chandra shook her head in disgust as she served him a large slice of the pot pie.

  “Do you know Dara Clemons?” Ellis abruptly asked.

  The woman caught her breath. “Don’t tell me she’s the one that got killed?”

  “No. The victim was Mallory Angleton.”

  “Mallory, Mallory. The name rings a bell.”

  Having noticed on more than one occasion how stylishly Chandra liked to dress, he had a feeling she’d visited the shop Mallory worked at. When he mentioned it, she nodded. “Ah, that’s right. Tall, beautiful, always dressed to the nines. Although she hid it well, at least when she was working, that girl had some major attitude.”

  “I thought as much. No one actually came out and said it, but I got the sense Mallory was a bit arrogant.”

  “I suppose she thought looking the way she did gave her the right to give herself airs. Still, that doesn’t give someone the right to take her life.” She took a bite of the pie. “What’s Dara’s part in all of this?”

  “She told me about the murder two days before it happened. She claims she’s psychic and she saw it all in a dream.”

  “Believe her.”

  “I’m not sure what to believe.”

  As was typical of Chandra, she bluntly got to the point. “That’s crap and you know it. As a matter of fact, I’ve heard of Dara. And of her people.”

  “What can you tell me about them?”

  “They came from Scotland, I believe, and settled on Eagla in the late 1700’s. I don’t know when or how the stories started. I just know the Clemons women were the type you didn’t associate with during the day. However, at night, when no one was looking, you quietly made your way over to their cottage.”

  He frowned. “You’re making them sound like prostitutes.”

  “Far from it, my friend. In centuries past, they would have been referred to as witches. They had the gift of sight and healing. As you’ve no doubt noticed, the islanders are, despite the passage of time, still superstitious people, even if they won’t come out and admit it. They wouldn’t want to be seen associating with folks like the Clemons. Yet at the first sign of trouble where they need guidance or healing, they always seem to find their way to the ramshackle hovel in the woods on the edge of town.”

  “What about Dara? Her hovel is a nice studio apartment above a cardshop on Harbor Street.”

  “I’ve heard her gifts surpass those of her mother and grandmother. And those two women were very, very good. She makes a pretty good living during the summer months giving readings to the tourists and day-trippers.”

  “Where is her mother and grandmother?”

  “The old lady died about ten years ago. Her mother passed last year from cancer. It must have been tragic for poor Dara. She nursed her mother through the last harrowing months as Thelma wasted away to skin and bones.”

  “What about Dara’s father?”

  “There have been rumors, though I don’t know if they’re true, that as soon as they served their purpose of continuing the family line by impregnating the Clemons women, they disappeared, never to be heard from again. Very Edgar Allen Poe-ish or HP Lovecraftian if you ask me. In each generation, the woman got pregnant, and she raised her child, which was always a daughter, with the help of the matriarch. Though now that I think about it, that pattern changed with Dara’s grandmother. She ended up having twin girls.”

  “Where is her aunt?”

  “She wanted nothing to do with the family’s, shall we say, business. As soon as she was able, she left Eagla for the mainland. That was about twenty years ago. No one’s heard from her since.”

  “That’s quite a brave thing to do.”

  “I’m sure she believed that was the only way to escape the Clemons’s legacy. In order to lead a normal life, she needed to put as much distance between herself and them and pretend they and their strange ways never existed.”

  “I wonder why Dara didn’t do the same thing. She’s obviously intelligent. She could be living with her aunt instead of alone in a tiny apartment over a card shop, treated like a leper by the islanders.”

  Chandra shrugged. “Could be the aunt doesn’t want to have anything to do with any member of the family. Or it could be a case of staying with what you know rather than facing the fear of what you don’t know.”

  “Why wasn’t your family ostracized? You said yourself you both have similar gifts.”

  “We always went out of our way to fit in. It was important for us to be a part of the community. Unfortunately, the Clemons took the opposite tack. They found it easier to keep themselves apart from everyone. Ultimately it backfired when people started treating them like pariahs
. You know the old saying, people fear what they don’t understand.”

  “So Dara is legit.”

  “She is.” Chandra lifted an eyebrow and quietly studied him. “She told you something, didn’t she? Something that has your shorts in a twist. That’s why you asked me about her. She uncovered something about you that’s blown your mind and you can’t figure out how she knew.” When Ellis didn’t respond, she added, “I don’t know if this will make you feel any better, but people like Dara and I only see things we’re meant to see. A legitimate psychic doesn’t go chasing information. They don’t need to. If they do, it tends to interfere with the reading and the message they’re supposed to get.” She raised a green eye and met Ellis’s gaze. “For whatever reason, she saw what she needed to see. So I’d believe her, if I were you.”

  “That’s your third cigarette in five minutes. You need to chill.”

  DeeDee gave her companion the finger but ended up tossing the cigarette into the sand.

  She and Tim walked along Pleasant Point beach, the sound of the gentle surf accompanying their steps. She’d insisted on going out there that evening in an effort to calm her nerves. The ocean usually had a soothing effect on her. However, after finding out about Mallory and especially after the interview with the deputy, she couldn’t rid herself of the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. Her incessant smoking was an indication of how stressed she still was.

  Tim walked beside her, his body shaking from the wintry chill coming up off the water, but he knew better than to complain. When DeeDee was in one of her moods, she was capable of biting his head off in one swift and caustic lop. It was easier just to go along with her. Particularly if he had any hopes of ending the evening with a quick tumble in the back seat of his truck.

  Pulling his coat tighter around himself, he wondered if it was the great sex that kept him from walking away, especially when she went postal. There was no reasoning with her when she climbed up on her high drama queen pedestal, dramatizing everything to the nth degree. She was doing it more and more lately and it was becoming very tiresome. Especially for a man like him who loathed drama. Or did he stay because he loved her? Despite a year of dating, he still wasn’t sure.

  “You make it sound so easy,” she said as she unconsciously reached for the pack and started to withdraw another cigarette. Catching the look on his face, she rolled her eyes and shoved it back into her coat pocket.

  “Look, I know Mal was your friend—”

  “It’s more than that, Tim,” she mumbled under her breath.

  “Then suppose you tell me what’s eating away at you. Are you afraid we have some sort of serial killer on the island? You know I’ll protect you if Jack the Ripper comes calling at your door at night.”

  He playfully grabbed her around the waist. Instead of laughing, she violently pulled away.

  “You can be such an ass, you know that?” she retorted angrily.

  “Then talk to me, Dee. I’m not a mind reader.”

  “I – I don’t know if I can,” she stammered.

  “What? You suddenly don’t trust me?” he replied, offended by her insinuation.

  She threw her hands up in the air. “Damn it, Tim, it’s always about you, isn’t it?”

  He watched, helpless and frustrated as she stomped off down the beach. Resisting the urge to go back to his truck and leave her there, he hurried to where she stood and took her in his arms.

  “I’m sorry, Dee. I want to help, but I don’t know what to do. Please don’t be mad.”

  He expected her to disentangle herself from his grasp. When she didn’t, he breathed a sigh of relief.

  “I’m sorry. I’m just – I don’t know.”

  He led her over to a sand dune where they could get out of the wind. They sat down side by side and he threw his arm around her. She snuggled up and leaned her head against his shoulder.

  “Are you upset because you think you could have saved Mallory?” She nodded her head. “How? You asked her several times if she wanted us to drive her home, but she said no. I even asked her myself, but you know how stubborn she could get. Short of tying her up and throwing her into the truck bed, there’s nothing either one of us could have done to convince her to let us drive her home.”

  She remained silent for a long moment. Then she pulled away and wiped a tear from her cheek.

  “It’s not that. It’s…”

  “What?”

  She paused for dramatic effect and he suddenly wanted to choke her. “I was at her house earlier that day,” she finally sighed. “I went to the bathroom and when I came out, she was on the phone. I overheard part of her conversation.”

  “Who was she talking to?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What did she say?”

  “At first it didn’t make any sense. I mean, I –” She shook her head. “I suppose it doesn’t matter anymore. She’s gone and her secret went with her.”

  “What secret?”

  “She was pregnant.”

  She felt Tim stiffen. “What the –? Did she tell you that?”

  “No. That’s the crappy part. She didn’t tell me. The deputy did when he came to interview me today.”

  “I thought you and Mal shared everything.”

  “I thought we did too. But apparently she didn’t trust me enough to tell me.” She clicked her tongue in disgust. “Can you believe that?”

  “Do they know who the father is?”

  “The deputy was hoping I could tell him.”

  Tim fell silent, struggling to digest what DeeDee had just told him. His girlfriend, oblivious to his reaction, continued. “Ever since I found out she was dead, I’ve gone over what I heard her say on the phone.” When there was no response, she turned and gave him a punch in the arm. “You’re not listening to me.”

  “Oh, sorry. I’m just – anyway, what did you hear her say?”

  “I don’t remember the exact words, but it was something like, ‘I shouldn’t have gone. I wish I hadn’t.’

  Tim frowned. “What do you think that means?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe she was talking about Dr. Rhys. I remember she said something about not feeling well and planning on making an appointment to see him. You gotta figure, if she was three months along like the deputy said, she had to know she was pregnant.”

  “Wouldn’t she have bought one of those home pregnancy tests to confirm if she was going to have a baby?” Tim questioned.

  DeeDee gave him an impatient look. “Yeah, right. Annie Sue is the last person who should be working at the pharmacy. She couldn’t keep her mouth shut if her life depended on it. As soon as she saw that Mal was buying a home pregnancy test, she would have broadcast it to the world. Obviously, Mal didn’t want anyone to know she was pregnant.”

  “Okay, so you overheard her on the phone. What she said doesn’t sound that bad.”

  She tossed her head. “You don’t get it, do you?”

  He swallowed his irritation. “I guess I don’t.”

  She let out an exaggerated sigh. “What if she was talking to whoever got her pregnant? What if she was telling him that he was going to be a daddy?”

  “So what if she did?”

  “What if he wasn’t happy about it? What if that’s the last thing he wanted? What if he killed her so he wouldn’t have to marry her or, at the very least, support the baby?”

  “Come on, Dee. You honestly think Mal would have kept the baby? The only person she ever cared about was herself.”

  “Do you remember how she was at the bonfire? She was all happy and giddy. She promised to call me the next morning to tell me what was going on. If she was going to get rid of the baby, I doubt she would have said anything. I mean, she didn’t even say a word about the pregnancy. She would have gone to the mainland, do whatever she was going to do, and no one would be the wiser. Yet she was planning to call me. I guarantee you it was because she was going to keep the baby. And that was one thing the baby daddy couldn’t a
llow her to do.”

  Tim sat back against the sand with a thud. “I didn’t think of that.”

  “Maybe I should have told Deputy Martin about the conversation. I honestly don’t know why I didn’t.”

  “What did he ask you?”

  “The usual stuff. Wanted to know about my friendship with Mallory. What I thought of her. What others thought of her. If I knew of anyone who would want to hurt her. It was like the questions you see the TV police asking on those crime shows that Mom and Dad love to watch.”

  “Sounds like the same questions he asked me.”

  “He seemed as surprised as I was that I didn’t know about Mal’s baby. We were supposed to be best friends, so of course he’d assume she would have shared her secret with me. Which is what makes all of this so much worse.”

  “In what way?”

  To his surprise, she burst into tears. “What if the baby daddy is the one who killed her? It’s got to be someone we know. Since I was her best friend, he’d assume, like the deputy did, she told me, even though she didn’t.”

  “Dee, I don’t understand why this is upsetting you so much.”

  She grabbed Tim’s jacket. “What if he tries to kill me to make sure I don’t reveal his identity? What if he’s out there right now, planning to shut me up forever?”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “Dee, no one is going to kill you.”

  “You don’t know that.” She abruptly scrambled to her feet. “I need to call that deputy. I need to tell him what’s going on. I don’t want to end up like Mallory.”

  Seeing her teetering on the brink of hysteria, Tim got up and gathered her in his arms. “Dee, it’s going to be alright. Nothing is going to happen to you. I’ll put the word out that Mal never told you she was pregnant.”

  She shook her head from side to side. “No one’s going to believe you. They’ll think you’re just trying to protect me.”

  As he tried his best to reassure her, a thousand thoughts ran through DeeDee’s terrified mind. Short of him sleeping in her room with her – a situation her parents would never allow – there was no way Tim could protect her. Her safest bet was to contact the deputy and tell him what she knew. Not that she knew much. Damn Mallory for being so discreet. She’d never been discreet in her entire life! How could she not tell her best friend she was pregnant? After all the things DeeDee put up with, all the situations she’d ignored. To now be faced with someone possibly murdering her? Over Mallory? This was so screwed.