Muddy Waters

by Ellis Quinn

  She stepped forward, undid the second button on his black cop shirt.

  “What are you doing?” he said, irritated, putting his big hands on hers, doing this weird thing where he gripped them lightly, but she felt how strong they were, and he slid his thumb into her grip. She clutched his thumbs and looked in his eyes. “I just don’t want you to scare him,” she whispered.

  “Bette, I won’t. I trust you,” he said.

  They stood looking at each other for a long time, and she realized he meant it. They’d been through a great deal together, and their coming back together twenty-five years later—her divorced and ruined, thrust back into the home of her youth after the death of her grandmother—had been a strange reunion. The first days back, her old friend had considered her a possible murder suspect. But they’d got past it all, and those soft tendrils that had held them together in their youth began to work their way through each other once more.

  It was nice holding his hands, it was nice looking up into his eyes, and she could see that Marcus appreciated it, too. Twenty minutes ago, they were standing together in the spot where they’d first kissed. A dozen feet away from that old crabber boat pilot house where they’d stuffed inside so she could be told how her behavior was ruining her life. Her friend looking out for her, her friend wanting the best for her. But where Marcus was officious and a lover of rules, seventeen-year-old Bette liked to challenge them. Seventeen-year-old Bette had a whole different perspective on life, given the tragedy that had taken her mother.

  But she didn’t rebel against Marcus that night. She listened to him, listened and watched as even he realized he was getting through to her. And she remembered her heart racing when his mouth moved closer to hers . . .

  He said, “So, would you just put on a kettle?”

  “Put on a what now?” She shook her head, coming out of her reverie.

  Marcus lowered his hands, still holding hers, then let them go. He said, “Put on a kettle. You said Sam likes to drink tea. Make him his favorite tea.” He unbuttoned his shirt, then his cuffs, and she watched him roll up his sleeves, the blades of muscle in his forearms working.

  “Okay,” she said, “right. I’ll do that.”

  She pulled her hair back from her face, moved to the kitchen counter and filled the kettle, set it in its stand and clicked it on.

  * * *

  With the afternoon sunlight filtering in through the kitchen sitting room’s side window, all three of them gathered now on the couches, Sam still huddled in the corner of the loveseat, arms still hugging tightly on the oriole pillow. Marcus sat in the leather armchair where Pris normally sat, sinking deep into it, leaning back from Sam to look less imposing. He’d unbuttoned his cop shirt to show off the white T-shirt underneath and rolled up his sleeves. He’d been kind enough—though it took a lot of prodding—to remove his gun belt, which now sat on the kitchen island with the cop hat. His police issue pistol was hidden in a drawer. It was kind of him, and her measure of respect for the man grew. He’d even taken off his shiny black cop boots, and she smiled seeing his long feet with the pointy toes in the black nylon; one sock with blue stitching across the toes, the other with red stitching. Mismatched. Mr. Perfect not so perfect.

  She’d assumed a spot on the love seat at the opposite end of Sam, her body posture open and comforting, one knee sidled up on the couch seat, one foot on the floor, body turned toward him. There was a pot of tea on the table next to the brass cannon, and three cups filled. For some reason, when she was nervous in the kitchen encouraging Marcus to tone down the authority a little, she’d begun whipping up a cookie batter, threw some chocolate chips in it, and now the sitting room was redolent with the heavenly spell of baking cookies.

  She said to Sam, “Tell us anything you want to tell us, soon as you’re ready. We want to listen.”

  The sadness seemed to have ebbed from Sam, and now he looked empty, like a husk, like if she opened the kitchen side door and also the Fortune’s front door, the cross current would break his shell apart and he would blow away like embers. When he spoke, even his voice was hollow.

  He said, “Pete Headley is the brother of the love of my life.”

  His opening statement chilled, and her eyes drifted toward Marcus to see what he thought. She could see a certain amount of dread in her old friend’s eyes, knowing the story would not end well.

  Sam continued, “Jamie. Jamie Headley.”

  Saying her name seemed to have an effect on him, and she watched his lower lip tremble for a second. His eyes were lost, staring at the tea set on the coffee table. “Jamie Headley and I were high school sweethearts. I loved her so much.” His voice shook slightly as he spoke. “Jamie was Pete’s younger sister, and he cared for her about as much as I did. I respected Pete. He was a good big brother.” He took a long breath again; she watched his chest rise, then fall. “One night, we were nineteen, we were driving home from a party out in the suburbs of Baltimore.”

  She shifted closer to him, cocked her head sympathetically.

  He admitted the worst. His voice faltered at first, but then he continued. “I’d been drinking. I knew . . . I shouldn’t have been driving. I wasn’t drunk, but I should not have been behind the wheel. Then in the car . . . In the car, she and I bickered. About something stupid. Just something she had said at the party to this other guy that I didn’t like. Just dumb, jealous stuff. Jamie defended herself, and the next thing I know we’re arguing. Not fighting, but arguing. Jamie could get mad. She was cute when she was mad.” Now he almost smiled, and his eyebrows raised high like he was remembering the personality of the girl he loved. “She was mad that night,” he said. “She demanded I pull over and let her out, but I wasn’t going to do that. She opens the door while I’m driving, and now I have to pull over. It’s winter, there’s snow on the sides of the road and the pavement’s all slick. I pull over and let her out, and she’s marching down the street, you know, walking on the shoulder with her arms crossed. I’m driving with her ahead, my headlights lighting her up. I’m talking out the window, soothing her. And now it’s starting to snow, I tell her I’m really sorry, and finally she stops, lets me pull up next to her and she gets back in.”

  The hug he had on her oriole pillow tightened, cinched the pillow like a girdle. Now she could see him shaking, his lost eyes reliving the moment, not seeing what his eyes registered, only what his memory did, the awfulness playing out on some big screen in his head.

  “She’s back in the car with me, and we’re fine now. She’s still mad at me, she kind of smirking—once I’d let her know I’m sorry, I figured we’re going to get through this, laugh about it when we get home. It was my fault, I was being dumb and jealous, and I’m trying to get her laughing . . . We’re going up this curve, uphill, the grade isn’t steep, but there’s this rocky outcrop on the right side, and these headlights come around that corner now, a big rig descending too fast. It took the corner way too tight. Way too tight. Edging into my lane. I scooted off to the right as far as I could without going into the snow bank, and I’m all adrenaline, I am electric . . .” His eyes open wide, then he shakes his head. He closed his eyes. “So the semi comes barreling down too fast, didn’t hit us head on, but he . . . the back bumper clips my old car at the back and whips us around. Jamie’s screaming, the car’s spinning . . . my axle breaks. I can’t even drive. We go through the guard rail on the opposite side of the road, and down this hill. We went straight into . . .”

  Marcus nodded, laced his fingers together, got them up to his mouth. His expression was compassionate.

  Sam looked straight up to the ceiling, the iron chandelier hanging above the coffee table and the rough sawn timber framing that supported the floorboards above their head. His Adam’s apple jumped up and down and it took a long moment before he said, “A tree. Right into a tree.” He chewed his lower lip, said, “I had my seatbelt on, but . . . Jamie . . .”

  Bette said, “When she got back in your car, she didn’t have time to
put it back on.”

  Sam shook his head no, and hugged the pillow even tighter, tucking his chin into it and breathing through his mouth.

  Her eyes went to Marcus, and he showed her a pained expression. She scooted closer to Sam and gently lay an arm around him. His breathing was shaky, like he fought breaking down in sobs in front of them. A light tremble, like he was cold, seized him.

  He said now, “After the funeral, I just . . . went for a drive. I kept driving. I never stopped. I bought that old clunker of a truck, put a cap on the back, and I left town. No college, no nothing.”

  Marcus said, “There weren’t any charges?” Always business.

  Sam said, “No. I . . . was over the limit, you know, blood alcohol, but . . . the evidence showed my car was struck. Pete blamed me. I blame me.”

  “You were struck,” she said.

  “My judgment would have been better. I wouldn’t have been jealous, I wouldn’t have argued, would never have let my Jamie set foot out of the car in the cold and the snow. . . . Would’ve made sure she put her seatbelt on . . .”

  She rubbed Sam’s back and looked at Marcus. They said things to each other through their eyes, and she understood Marcus was coming around to her way of seeing things, at least when it came to Sam.

  Sam sat straighter now, and she returned her hands to her lap and waited for him. He said, “It’s why I’m here in Chesapeake Cove.”

  Marcus asked, “Why’s that?”

  Sam said, “I met Julie at an art festival in Delaware and we’ve been friendly ever since. I see her a few times a year. She invited me up to stay with her. She knows the anniversary of Jamie’s death’s coming up, near the end of the month.”

  Marcus looked at her, then his eyes darted away again.

  Sam said, “She said stay a couple weeks, hang out, we’ll paint and draw, she might be in Seattle for a thing but I can still crash at her place. She’d be with me on the 25th for sure, she said.”

  “That’s the date?”

  Sam nodded, and she looked to Marcus again. He met her eyes and cocked his head.

  Sam sighed, then looked her way, his face drawn, his eyes harrowed. “Now she’s gone. Gone and, like, what if it’s my fault, you know? What if I’m cursed?”

  THE NEXT MORNING

  Each time her phone buzzed in her pocket with an incoming text, she jumped. Each buzz brought the dread that the text she would read would report a third murder in her hometown. But as she made her way through the happy festival-goers flooding the Cove’s streets, she read texts from Pris; she read a text from Joy Kim, and she got an update from Cherry on their mid-morning date for coffee. Not once was there a text from Marcus saying Were you with Sam all night?

  Approaching Madsen Street along Main, she dipped down the alley next to the flower shop, and walked to the secret gate that led to the Steaming Bean’s garden—the one Charlotte had used that day to get back to them all where they were hiding and wouldn’t answer the café door for her.

  She strolled through the garden, past the raised chicken coop, saw the back patio teaming with customers, stopped to kneel and attract some chickens who came to her thinking she might have some corn or some scratch for them, but she had nothing. They departed, and she brought out her phone and texted Cherry that she was here.

  She sat then at the long wooden slat bench with its green ends made of scrolling iron vines. In less than a minute, Cherry was coming out the back door from the screened in patio, stepping down with a coffee cup in each hand.

  They sat together and chatted for a while, and she kept Cherry up to date with what had happened yesterday, the terrible tragedy Sam had told her about. The news devastated Cherry, who spent most of the time listening and holding onto her neck or covering her mouth at the awfulness of losing someone you loved in such a terrible way.

  “That poor guy,” she said.

  “I know,” Bette said, “my heart goes out to him.”

  “And what happened to the guy who hit him, Miranda’s husband?”

  “Pete. He’s out, no charges pressed, they didn’t even take him in. His little boy’s fine, happy to be reunited with his dad.”

  “So, who do you think strangled Julie, then?”

  “I’m not sure. Look at your place”—she nodded her chin to the back patio, people standing up, bringing trays to tables, every seat taken—“and the whole town’s like that. So many people here, thousands and thousands more. It could be anybody.”

  “Or it could be Pete.”

  “I don’t think it’s Pete,” she said. “I don’t know why . . .”

  “What’s the connection between Julie Hartsfield and Miranda Headley?”

  She shrugged. “Sam is the only connection. Sam knew Julie, and Sam knew Miranda’s husband Pete.”

  “I know you don’t think it’s him, either.”

  Bette said, “It’s got to be Brian. Right? Why would Pete want Julie dead?”

  “What if it’s two different killers? You ever think of that?”

  Bette raised her eyebrows and smirked. She looked at Cherry and said, “You ever see Strangers On A Train?”

  Cherry smiled. “Alfred Hitchcock.”

  “You kill my wife, I’ll kill yours.”

  “You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.”

  “Tit for tat.”

  Cherry said, “If Pete killed Julie, who killed Miranda? Brian?”

  Bette rolled her eyes up to look at the overhanging canopy, the leaves yellowing. She folded her arms, made a frustrated sound. “Every time I think like this, I just get in the weeds. Maybe the answer is right in front of us.”

  “Marcus has nothing to say?”

  She shook her head no. “No leads. Least none he’ll tell me about.”

  “I think your Marcus trusts you enough to let you in.”

  She looked at Cherry hopefully. “You think so?”

  “I think so, Bette.”

  Her phone rang, and she leaned into Cherry to pull it from her pocket. She said, “It’s Sam.”

  Before she clicked the green button to answer, her stomach squirmed at the thought that it would be something terrible. There’s been another murder, and I found the body . . . How would Sam explain it if he was involved in yet another murder?

  She answered.

  Sam said, “I’m so sorry to bug you, Bette.”

  “Don’t worry about it, pal. You want me to bring you back a coffee or something?”

  “You’re coming home now?”

  “Soon,” she said.

  He said, “I’ve been looking for a couple of things. A notebook, and one of my scratch pens. It’s not a big deal—well, the notebook is—but I was wondering if you’d take me over to Julie’s sometime this afternoon.”

  “You think you left your stuff there?”

  “I looked everywhere,” he said. “It’s not in my truck or anything. The journal means something to me. I can always buy other pens . . .”

  She looked at Cherry, smiled and said, “No problem, Sam. I’m on my way. You want coffee or tea?”

  * * *

  There was something that tickled her about being good to Sam, especially when she fed him. He was in the front seat of the Bronco now, and they were driving around the outskirts of Chesapeake Cove, going the long way around to Julie’s place, which would be quicker during the festival. There were no cup holders in the Bronco, not when it was new, but Pearl had a set installed just under the flat metal dashboard. Two cups were in it, hers a coffee with cream and sugar, Sam’s an Earl Grey tea with honey. Behind them, Buster Crab lay content on a dog bed she’d stuffed into the Bronco’s cargo space, eating another of Cherry’s special Buster cookies.

  Sam ate wolfishly the sandwich Cherry had prepared for him. A few layers of turkey, a few layers of ham, some cave-aged cheddar, mayo, and a homemade jelly, all on one of her home-boiled Everything bagels. Sam made soft satisfied noises with each chomp, then chewed and breathed through his nose that had a slight whistl
e since Pete had punched him in the face yesterday. His cheek was mildly swollen still, but it was hard to notice. But on the bright side, her houseguest had shaved after a long hot shower last night. He looked good clean, and perhaps uplifted. She hoped that spilling his guts to her and Marcus yesterday had helped him in some way. Maybe he’d been unburdened, offloading all this guilt he carried and cleaning his conscience a little. He’d never be free of it, she was sure of that. But at least she hoped he felt good enough to stand straighter. He certainly looked much happier with his cheeks were cleaned, all the scruff gone, his skin clear and soft underneath. His hair had been washed free of the grime, and it bounced when they drove on the rougher roads. It shone gold like a halo when they would pass by bodies of water, the sun reflecting off the waves.

  He stretched back now, straightening his legs, making those satisfied sounds you usually only heard in cartoons when enormous hunger was sated.

  “This is incredible,” he said, his puffy cheek puffed out further with a bite of sandwich.

  “Cherry doesn’t make anything that’s not amazing. You ask her to boil an egg and it’s going to come back to you painted with stripes or something, maybe caramel in the center, you just never know. You do know you’re going to be wowed somehow.”

  “And your son’s dating her?”

  “He is,” she said in a soft singsong, and the idea of it prompting a smile she couldn’t help. “They’re getting along quite well.”

  Sam beamed and sighed, “Young love.”

  “You’re still young yourself,” she said, “you know, like the same age as my son.”

  As they turned on to Rothman where Julie’s house was, and Pete’s, too, the conversation came around to Julie again. Sam had told her and Marcus he’d never met the man, though he was good friends with Julie. She said, “You know we were talking about Brian?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Did Julie ever talk about him? Like, what did she ever say?”