Riptide

by Debbi Mack

  “Okay, I lied,” I said. “Sorry.”

  The young man shook his head. “Forget it. She’s just playing her usual games. She’ll come around after she’s had a few …” He did this thing with his thumb and pinkie. Holding them up to his mouth, he tipped them like a drinking glass. Didn’t look a bit like a drinking glass, but I got the idea.

  “I’m looking for Marshall Bower, Jr.,” I said.

  The young man grinned. He had sky-blue eyes, tan skin and Robert Redford blond hair. “After you lied to me, you’re asking for my help?”

  “Now you’re just teasing.” Shameless flirt. Jesus. My breakfast would come up if things continued in this vein.

  “Well.” The blue eyes glimmered. “I could arrange an introduction.”

  “Really?” I feigned excitement.

  He stuck out his hand. “Hi. I’m Marshall Bower, Jr. Who are you and where have you been all my life?”

  I paused a moment, then said, “Sam. My name is Sam McRae.”

  The pause was to contemplate the pickup line, which was as corny as Kansas in August, as well as the bulge in Junior’s swimming trunks.

  I left my scooter near the garage. Junior escorted me to the party, in full swing. Young adults in various stages of undress ran around the rear of the house near the pool and tennis court. Music thumped nonstop from oversized speakers.

  I leaned toward Junior and yelled into his ear, “I was hoping to talk to you about your dad’s business, if I could.”

  “Business?” He looked at me with a mixture of alarm and cluelessness that signified stupidity. Then, he snapped back into savoir-faire mode. “Hey, sweetheart. Lighten up. This is a party. Have fun.” He grabbed my chin with one hand and squeezed it like a favorite uncle. Yuck.

  I wandered through the crowd, taking in all the sights. Boy, these people knew how to party considering it was barely afternoon.

  A hog turned on a spit over an open fire pit. The crowd pressed in on me. Drinks were being served from a fake tiki hut by white-jacketed black men. A brunette in a bikini drank a radioactive orange concoction and swayed dangerously close to a koi pond. Silicon melons poured from her top. One woman lit up a joint and offered it to me. Mighty tempting, but I declined. My grip on reality was tenuous enough as it was. I didn’t need drugs to loosen my hold.

  In all the hubbub, I lost Junior and had to hunt for him. I found him with a group hunched over a rattan table snorting a line of what looked like cocaine. I didn’t know people did cocaine anymore.

  Although I stood about twenty or thirty feet away, Junior spotted me. “Hey, there you are!” He jumped up and bounced to my side in two leaps.

  “About your dad’s business,” I started.

  Suddenly, his arms wrapped around me.

  “Now I’ve got you,” he shouted.

  “I don’t think so,” I yelled back.

  He pressed his erection against my leg. “Don’t you want some of this, baby?”

  “Not really, no.”

  “Oh, c’mon.” His voice became whiny. “Don’t be a tease, mama.”

  He thrust himself repeatedly against me.

  “I said no.”

  “You don’t mean it.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  He kept thrusting.

  “Don’t. I’m warning you.”

  “C’mon, mama. Give it up.”

  He held me with both hands and was humping my leg now. The party continued around us. No one seemed to care. Or notice.

  “For the last time. Stop doing that.”

  “Please, baby. Please …”

  I reared my leg back and kneed him in the groin. He shuddered and sank to the ground. Tears sprang to his eyes.

  The music continued to thump. People ran around heedless.

  I squatted beside him and knelt down to holler into his ear. “I’m not your baby or your mama. And you should’ve stopped the first time I said no.”

  He lay curled in a fetal position and gazed at me with hurt puppy-dog eyes, trying to catch his breath. The music pounded mercilessly. Guests rushed past the fallen form, as if he were a broken and forgotten toy.

  Above the din, I heard a sharp clapping behind me. Against the rhythm of the music. I turned to see a woman applauding. Tall, blonde, a looker, boobs out to here.

  I stood and raised my voice to address her. “I take it you approve?”

  “I want to thank you. You saved me the trouble.”

  “Oh. And you are?”

  “Lisa Fennimore. Junior’s fiancé.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  For a moment, words failed. I stuck my hand out. “Sam McRae. It’s nice to meet you.” Your fiancé is an idiot.

  Lisa smiled, but without mirth. “I know what you’re thinking. You must think I’m some kind of sap to put up with Junior’s shit.”

  “That wasn’t what I was thinking.” Not in those exact words.

  Lisa drew in a long breath as if poised to dive underwater. She closed her eyes and blew the breath out through pursed lips. She looked at Junior, on the ground still clutching his crotch, and shook her head.

  “C’mon,” she said. “There’s someone who’d like to meet you.”

  Lisa led me past a small rose garden through a side door into a kitchen larger than my entire apartment. We walked into another room and I realized that the kitchen had two parts. A room where things were cooked and one where the cooked things were consumed: like a breakfast nook, only really big. A nook should be small, right? Whoever heard of a huge nook?

  From there, she led me through the dining room with its mahogany table long enough for roughly a thousand people. The walls must have been mighty thick and the windows well insulated, because the noise from the orgy had been reduced to a low rhythmic murmur. Chandeliers dripped with crystals, throwing off flashes of color in the milky light seeping in between the maroon velvet drapes. Lisa stopped and drew them shut with a snap, plunging the room in shadow. Much better.

  We marched on in silence. Lisa proceeded toward the stairs and began to climb. I followed her up the zig-zag staircase. When we reached the top, Lisa turned right and headed down the hall. The door at the end was shut. She knocked on it.

  “Yes?” A muffled voice came from within.

  Lisa opened the door and entered, ushering me in with her.

  My first impression was that of a library or den. The walls were almost completely lined with books. My idea of heaven. The floor was covered with a Persian carpet of salmon pink, gray, and turquoise. A dark brown leather chair sat in one corner, a tall lamp behind it.

  “Ms. McRae, this is Marshall Bower, Sr.”

  Lisa’s words snapped me from my reverie. I focused on the man sitting at the desk before me. Late fifties or early sixties. Broad shoulders. Thickening a bit in the middle, perhaps? Graying, but still handsome. The suggestion of Redford looks buried under middle age and too much drink and responsibility. On the desk, a neat stack of papers sat to one side, anchored by a pair of reading glasses. Must have caught him working at home. Bower scrutinized me. Not looking friendly, but not unfriendly either.

  “How do you do, sir,” I said, attempting a quick recovery. This was a lot to absorb in one morning.

  I walked up to the desk and extended a hand. He rose and shook it, giving it a good squeeze. I gave as good as I got. I think it surprised him.

  “To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?” he asked, nodding an invitation to sit. I took him up on it. Lisa took the other vacant chair.

  On one of the bookshelves, I saw a framed family photo. A casual group shot with everyone all smiles. Bower, Sr., in younger days with a dark-haired, brown-eyed woman. A beauty. Two children. A girl around eight or nine who resembled her mother and tow-headed toddler who must have been Junior.

  “Sir, as you probably know, I’m assisting—”

  “Ms. McRae.” Bower waved his hands. “I know who you represent. You came by my office
at one point.”

  Right. You wouldn’t see me without a lawyer. Guess you changed your mind.

  “I’ll admit I was reluctant to talk to you at first,” he continued. “However, now that I’ve thought it over, I see no harm in doing so. I’m just not sure how I can help you.”

  Yeah, I’ll bet you wouldn’t mind knowing what I’m trying to find out, huh? And I have no idea how you can help me, either.

  “I just wanted to ask you a few questions,” I said.

  “Okay. Fire away.”

  I was trying to think of the nicest possible way to put this. But there wasn’t one.

  “Sir, may I ask, why did you decide to let your stepson run your business instead of your son?”

  Lisa barked a laugh. “Oh, Jesus! You’re kidding, right?”

  Bower held up a hand. “Now, Lisa. Let’s be fair.”

  Lisa could barely contain herself.

  “Ms. McRae. You may have noticed that my son isn’t exactly the most responsible person,” Bower said. “I love him dearly and want to see him do well, but he is not capable of handling great responsibility.”

  Lisa’s expression was contorting as Bower spoke.

  “It is my sincere hope that with their impending marriage,” Bower continued, “Lisa will have a steadying influence on Junior. That their love and partnership through life will have a salutary effect on him and make him stronger and more capable as a man.”

  At this point, Lisa lost it. She snickered loudly, then collapsed into guffaws, nearly falling out of the chair.

  Bower glared at her.

  Pulling herself upright, Lisa faced me.

  “Enough of the bullshit. Junior knocked me up. Now he’s marrying me. He’ll work for my father’s business. And we’ll babysit him.”.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Junior chose this moment to wander in and cross the room. Still in his blue trunks, sans erection.

  “Hi, honey,” he mumbled, sinking into the reading chair.

  “Hi, stupid.”

  How delightful.

  “I don’t get it,” I said.

  “How do you mean?” Lisa asked.

  “It’s not like you’re showing. You could get an abortion. Or give the child up for adoption. Or are you keeping the child as a matter of principle?”

  Lisa smiled. The expression didn’t reach her eyes. In fact, it seemed to take effort. She crossed her legs and folded her hands in her lap.

  “What we have here is a business arrangement,” she said.

  “Oh, really?” Bower, Sr., smirked. “Was it business you were conducting when you seduced him?”

  “Seduced him? Have you seen that guy go to work? Jesus, Daddy-O, he makes the average rabbit look like a fucking monk.”

  “How dare you use profanity—”

  “Oh, can it! I’ll use whatever words I want.” Lisa was in high dudgeon. “Remember, my father has agreed to take him off your hands. He’s giving him a job in his firm.”

  Bower, Sr., looked at me. “Fennimore Real Estate is one of the biggest realtors and developers on the Eastern Shore. You could say we have mutually agreeable interests. See, Junior didn’t exactly graduate magna cum anything.”

  “He flunked out,” Lisa explained.

  Bower grimaced. “Anyway. This opportunity arose for Lisa’s father to do me the favor of providing Junior with a job. And Lisa’s father is a bit old-fashioned.”

  “He doesn’t believe in abortion,” I ventured.

  Lisa pouted. “He doesn’t believe in giving his daughter free access to money without a husband. In order to tap into my trust fund, I have to marry. Since I succumbed to Junior’s charms in a moment of weakness.” She actually blushed, then recovered. “Anyhow, looks like I have more than one reason to marry now.”

  My mind reeled. Yeah, and probably more than one trust fund to bleed.

  “Sooo … ” I said. “When’s the wedding?”

  “In a couple of weeks. A small private ceremony.” Lisa smiled, demurely. “Can’t wait. Right, hon?”

  She’d directed her words to the reading chair, but no response was forthcoming.

  “I’ve told Lisa and Junior I’ll cover their honeymoon to Tuscany or the Riviera or Acapulco,” Bower, Sr., stated. “A cruise. Whatever they want. When they get back, Junior will start his new job as a real estate agent with Fennimore Realty. A job where he can learn to handle responsibility.”

  “And make a pile of dough,” Lisa added.

  Bower Sr., shot me a pained smile. “Junior needs discipline. He needs structure. He needs a guiding hand, a mentor. Fennimore will serve him well in that role. He’ll teach him the real estate business, inside and out.”

  Lisa coughed. “My father and I will provide babysitting services.” She snickered again.

  Bower’s face darkened. He looked sidewise at Lisa, but he didn’t argue. “I know I’ll be able to count on Lisa to keep Junior straight.”

  “Oh, I will,” Lisa chimed in. “I’ll make sure he wears a suit and tie, drag him to all the right parties and keep him from getting arrested.”

  She turned in her seat and narrowed her eyes at the man in the blue swim trunks shrinking into the corner chair.

  “Um, this has been very interesting,” I said, struggling to control my gag reflex. “But I still have a few more questions.”

  Bower folded his hands on the desk and leaned forward, looking expectant. Lisa looked wary. Junior could have been a potted plant.

  “Now that Billy Ray is dead, who’s next in line to take charge of the poultry business?”

  Bower’s face took on a ponderous look. He stared at the bookcase behind me. Searching for a title? This stretched on for half a day or so.

  “Mr. Bower?” I prompted. “Are you refusing to answer?”

  “No. Just thinking about it.”

  All right. It was personal information, after all. He had no obligation to tell me.

  Finally, he unfolded his hands, lifted one and slapped it on the desk blotter. Lisa and I jumped. I think Junior may have twitched a little.

  “Forgive my reluctance to tell you personal financial details,” Bower said. “But I tend to be very close-mouthed about such things. However, since I have nothing to hide and you are trying to find my stepson’s killer, I want to help you. So, unless I change my will, my daughter Marsha will inherit the business.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  “So, your wife won’t take over?” I asked.

  “My wife will benefit from a trust fund I’ve established that will protect my assets from estate taxes. I’m sure, as an attorney, you’re familiar with such things.”

  I was, indeed, familiar with such things. I just didn’t do that kind of work. I found it intensely boring, for one thing. For another, I had no clients with the kind of moolah Bower had in abundance.

  “Yes, I am,” I said. I kept my response short, the way they teach you in law school.

  “My wife is anything but a business woman. My daughter, on the other hand—”

  He stopped short as the door swung open. A brassy blonde pushing her mid forties sashayed in. Her tight purple Capri pants hugged ample hips; a red, purple, and yellow Hawaiian shirt completed the ensemble. With every step, a festive orange drink in her hand sloshed over the rim of its glass, leaving a dark trail on the Persian carpet. Circling the desk, she draped herself over Bower’s shoulders.

  “Whatcha doing in here, baby?” She slurred. “We gotta party going on.”

  “Ms. McRae,” Bower said. “This is my wife, Georgia Lee.”

  I rose and extended my hand. “How do you do?”

  “Oh, sweetie, I’m doing great. Can’tcha tell?” She managed to push herself upright, wiped a hand on her shirt and thrust it my way. We shook hands. Hers was sticky.

  I resumed my seat, wiping my hand discreetly on the seat back as I did so.

  “Okay, so your daughter—”

 
Bower cut me off with a raised hand—and eyebrows. He turned to his wife, putting a hand on each of her cheeks.

  “Honey, we’re talking business, okay? I’ll be down in just a bit.”

  Then he made smootchie noises, like you would to a baby. My gag reflex flared up again.

  Georgia Lee looked like she’d just lost her best friend. “Okay, Daddy. But, hurry up. I’m lonely. And you know how I get when I’m lonely.”

  In a multicolored blur, she left. No one spoke. Silence pressed in on my ears.

  Bower looked paralyzed, then let out a breath. “Yeah.”

  “So, your daughter would own the business?” I said.

  “Yes, yes. Can we make this quick?” Bower was fidgeting, lines creasing his brow. Due to Georgia Lee’s randiness? Was that how they met?

  “I understand Marsha’s gone. Do you still intend to leave her the business?”

  “Frankly, I’m … at a loss. She’s my only other heir. I want to keep the business in the family. Junior, well … you’ve seen for yourself. Marsha’s got the smarts. I tried to be a mentor to her. I tried to help her get into the right university. I tried to get her onto the right career path. But ever since her mother died, she wouldn’t listen to me. She’s hated me ever since.”

  “Do you have any idea where she is?”

  Bower shook his head, eyes glistening.

  “Marsha’s an idiot,” Lisa said. “She could have it all.” She waved a hand around the room. “But she took her trust fund money and split.”

  “You wouldn’t know where she is, would you?”

  “No, and I couldn’t care less.”

  I nodded and stood. I handed each of them a card, including Junior.

  I leaned over the slumped figure in the chair, tossed him the card and murmured, “How about it, Junior. Any idea where your sister went?”

  For a moment, his eyes flickered with an unidentifiable emotion. But he said nothing.

  I rose, turned, and addressed the room. “I think I’ve heard enough for now.”

  *****

  I left the three of them, closing the door and fleeing down the hall. You’d have thought I was being pursued by monsters or evil spirits. In a sense, I believed this to be true. I hit the zig-zag stairway, bounding downward two steps at a time. Evil pervaded these people, I could feel it emanating from Lisa’s cold smile. From her calculating eyes. I could feel it in Bower’s lack of empathy for his own son. In his lack of willingness to listen to what his own daughter wanted. In his need to shape everyone and everything into what he wanted them to be.