Cape Refuge

by Terri Blackstock

  “Maybe it makes me wise,” Morgan said.

  Blair couldn’t entertain that possibility, but she was weary of the fight. “Maybe it does. And maybe if we put our strengths together, we can get through this. And maybe, if we leave our emotions out of it, we can figure out who did this.”

  “I can’t,” Morgan said. “I can’t leave my emotions out of anything.”

  “Well, I’m asking you to try. I’m asking you to give me your brain instead of your heart and see people through a filter of facts.”

  Morgan sniffed and wiped her eyes again. “All right, Blair. I’ll make a deal with you. I’ll give you my head with as little emotion as possible, if you’ll give me a hug every day like Mama did.”

  Blair just looked at her as if that was an uneven swap. It would cost her so much, and she wasn’t sure she had the deposits to cover it. But she saw no way out.

  She got up and pulled her sister into a hug. They clung to each other for a long moment, Morgan weeping into her shoulder, wetting her hair and her shirt. Blair’s mind started down a path of no return, a path toward the emotions taunting and luring her, daring her to step over the line.

  Finally, she let go and stepped back. “We have work to do, Morgan,” she said. “We need to get to it.”

  Morgan went back to the files she was working on. It took Blair a moment to gather her wits, but finally she went back to the computer to see if there had been any rap sheets sent on Rick Morrison and Mrs. Hern, or the Andersons, who had left right after the murders. There was nothing on Rick, since he had had no arrests. Mrs. Hern’s one conviction for embezzlement came up, and the Andersons each had several convictions for drug dealing.

  “What’s this?”

  Blair looked down at Morgan and saw her puzzling over a paper in her hand.

  “Looks like a death certificate,” Morgan said. “Only you’ll never believe whose name is on it.”

  Blair leaned over to see. “Whose?”

  Morgan pointed to the name. “Richard Morrison.”

  Blair’s mouth came open, and she gaped at her sister. “What does this mean?”

  Morgan shook her head. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s Rick’s father.”

  “But why would Mama and Pop have it?” Blair took the certificate out of Morgan’s hand. “Let’s think this through,” she said. “Mama and Pop have a tenant named Rick Morrison who claims his wife and daughter were killed in a drunk-driving accident. He’s steeped with grief so he comes to Cape Refuge. Now how do you explain Mama and Pop having a death certificate with his name on it? Okay, so it could be his father. Or someone else with the same name. But why?”

  “Maybe it’s fake,” Morgan said.

  Blair went back to the computer. “That would be pretty easy to check out.” She banged on the keys, found the public records that could tell her who had died and when. “Unless this person died in the last few weeks, it should be listed.”

  Morgan came to look over her shoulder as the answer came up on the screen. Four Rick Morrisons emerged with various middle names. Blair clicked down each one until she came to the one that matched the death certificate.

  “He was a real guy, Morgan,” Blair said. “Died at the age of fifty-eight.”

  Morgan frowned. “Can you find out things like where he went to high school, where he lived, what he died of? We need a picture.”

  “I’ll try,” Blair said. “Just give me a few minutes.”

  C H A P T E R

  31

  Blair and Morgan spent the entire night looking for information about the Richard Morrison who had died. They had compiled a dossier on the dead man, including a picture that looked nothing like their tenant. Now, mentally and physically exhausted, they vowed to finish it before they laid their heads down to sleep.

  Just after six-thirty in the morning, they drove to Hanover House, intent on getting in Rick’s room and finding what they could.

  “What if he’s still there?” Blair asked as they pulled into the driveway.

  Morgan shook her head. “He’s an early riser. He walks on the beach every morning. He does that every day before he showers for work.”

  “We can go in with a vacuum cleaner,” Blair said, “and pretend we’re vacuuming. Maybe something’s lying around.”

  “He’s pretty neat,” Morgan said. “Makes up his bed every morning, picks up after himself. But maybe there’ll be something. Do you even know what you’re looking for?”

  “If I see his wallet left out I’m going to dig through for his driver’s license, credit cards, anything. Maybe a checkbook or some of his mail.”

  “This feels wrong, somehow,” Morgan said. “Mama was always real respectful of their privacy.”

  “It’s not snooping,” Blair said. “It’s an investigation. It could save people’s lives and might get your husband out of jail.”

  Morgan knew it was true. “Okay, so which do you want to do, make breakfast or vacuum?” Morgan asked.

  Blair looked at her like she was crazy. “I don’t intend to do either.”

  “Well, you have to do one or the other,” Morgan said. “I mean, if we walk in there after not being here for days and start vacuuming, it’s going to look awfully suspicious. Besides, it’s a bed-and-breakfast. We’re supposed to provide breakfast.”

  Blair grunted. “I think they understand why they haven’t been given breakfast. Besides, they have full run of the kitchen. They can get anything they want.”

  “I was just thinking that if we acted like things were normal, that we had come to make them breakfast, that would get Mrs. Hern and Gus out of their rooms, so they wouldn’t see what you were doing.”

  Blair sighed. “Well, okay, but you’ll have to cook.”

  “All right. But that means you have to be the one to go into his room.”

  “That’s fine,” Blair said. “Let me at it.”

  A while later, Blair smelled the scent of scrambled eggs and bacon and her mother’s favorite biscuits downstairs while she vacuumed the upstairs hall. The smell brought back a mourning so deep that it bypassed tears entirely.

  So did the house. She vacuumed around and under things, trying not to let the images bring back a flood of emotions—but it was hard to fight them off.

  When Rick finally opened the door, and yelled “Good morning” over the noise of the vacuum cleaner, she watched him head down the stairs. This was her chance, she thought. She vacuumed her way into his room, her eyes darting back and forth at the personal objects he had out.

  A Swiss army knife, a couple of keys on a key chain, his wallet—

  She grabbed it up and started going through it, looking for some kind of identification. There were no credit cards, no driver’s license, nothing with his name on it. She looked through the billfold for a receipt—anything . . .

  The vacuum cleaner shut off, and Blair swung around.

  Rick stood at the door, looking at her with somber eyes. “I didn’t want to scare you, so I turned it off.”

  She swallowed and dropped the wallet. “You didn’t scare me.”

  He bent down and picked it up, keeping his eyes on her. “Need a loan?” he asked.

  Her mind reeled for an explanation. “Of course not,” she said. “I was just dusting that table and it fell off.” She knew it was a lame explanation, and that he had seen her rifling through it. “I’m sorry. I was looking to see if you had pictures of your wife and daughter.”

  That seemed to satisfy him, and the suspicion on his face quickly melted away. He went to the bed table and picked up two framed pictures. “Here they are.”

  Right out in the open, she thought. She gazed down at them, feigning interest. “They were beautiful,” she said.

  He looked genuinely mournful as he set them back down. When he turned back to her, she saw a glimmer of tears in his eyes. “Well, thanks for vacuuming in here.”

  “Sure.”

  He shoved his wallet into his back pocket. “I’m going walking. I always s
top by Crickets for coffee. You want to come?”

  “No,” she said quickly. “Too much to do.”

  “Okay. See you later.”

  She turned the vacuum cleaner back on and watched him go down the stairs. When she was sure he was gone, she wilted on his bed. That had been too close. She would have to be more careful.

  She looked around again. His trash can had recently been emptied, his bed had been made. The only thing out of place was a lone water glass sitting beside his bed, next to the pictures. Fingerprints, she thought. Maybe she could take them to Cade and have him run them down to discover who he really was. She held it with two fingers, careful not to smear the prints, then pulled the vacuum cleaner out of the room and headed down the stairs.

  She could hear voices in the kitchen and knew that Gus and Mrs. Hern were there, helping with breakfast and reminiscing about Thelma and Wayne, but she headed out to the car, set the glass carefully on the floorboard, and drove off.

  Morgan would wonder where she had gone, but she couldn’t stop now. She headed to the police station. It was only seven-thirty; she hoped Cade had made it in by now.

  Carefully carrying the glass, she pushed through the door and crossed the room to Cade’s office. He sat at his desk, studying something on his computer with a cup of coffee in his hand. He looked as if he had been going without sleep too.

  Blair didn’t knock. She just bolted in and leaned over his desk. “I want you to get the fingerprints off this glass,” she said. “I want you to tell me whose they are.”

  He looked down at the glass. “Where’d you get that?”

  She reached into her pocket and pulled out the death certificate with Rick Morrison’s name on it and slapped it down in front of him. “One of my parents’ tenants, Rick Morrison. It’s his glass. And last night as we were going through my parents’ . . . ,” she hesitated, avoiding the words “file cabinet.” She didn’t want to give him the idea to confiscate it. “We were going through some of their things, and we found this.”

  He looked at it. “A death certificate.”

  “With his name on it. Only he doesn’t look that dead to me. He also doesn’t look fifty-eight years old.”

  Cade sat back hard in his chair. “Interesting . . .”

  “I found out that the Richard Morrison of the death certificate had a heart attack, had three grown daughters, two married, and worked as a banker in Atlanta. He left behind a wife who’s already remarried.”

  “And the one staying at Hanover House claims to be here after losing his wife and child in a drunk-driving accident.” He nodded, as if this was pertinent information. “We’ll run the prints on the glass, Blair. I’ll let you know what we find out.”

  Blair straightened. “Will you, Cade? You promise?”

  “I said I would, didn’t I? I always keep my word.”

  That had to be good enough for Blair. She followed him out of his office. “Do it quickly, Cade. Don’t waste any time. If this guy’s a murderer, we need to know. Morgan’s served the guy breakfast this morning.”

  “I’m aware of the urgency. I’ll take care of it, Blair.”

  Feeling as if she had left her firstborn in the hands of a stranger, she hurried back to Hanover House to tell her sister.

  C H A P T E R

  32

  Debilitating fatigue was setting in by the time Blair got back to Hanover House. “Where did you go?” Morgan asked, keeping her voice low.

  “The police station. I had to talk to Cade.” They glanced back at Mrs. Hern, knowing she could hear every word. Morgan held her hand up to silence Blair, and Blair nodded that she would wait until later.

  When the kitchen was as clean as Thelma would have left it, they got back into the car. “Rick came in while I was going through his wallet,” Blair said.

  “Oh, no. I thought he went out to walk.”

  “He needed his wallet for Crickets. I told him I was looking for a picture of his wife and daughter,” Blair said. “The fact that there were two framed pictures next to his bed didn’t help my story. But I guess he bought it.”

  “Oh, thank goodness. I wouldn’t have thought of that. I probably would have broken down and spilled my guts and told him I was looking for his identification.”

  “There wasn’t any. But when he left, I found a glass, and I figured it had fingerprints. I didn’t really know what to do with it. I mean, when police take evidence from a crime scene, they usually have a paper sack to put it in, and I didn’t have anything. I knew if I came in the kitchen I would call attention to myself, so I just got in the car and took it over to Cade’s office.”

  “Was he interested?” Morgan asked.

  “Yeah, he was real interested. I showed him the death certificate. He’s going to run the prints and get back to us.”

  “Okay, that’s good,” Morgan said. “Did you see Jonathan while you were there?”

  “No, I didn’t take the time to.”

  “Maybe they’ll decide Rick is the prime suspect, and let Jonathan out today,” Morgan said.

  Blair looked at her with tired eyes. “Why are you so much more willing to have it be Rick Morrison than Gus Hampton?”

  Morgan shrugged. “We didn’t find a death certificate for Gus. It’s made me real suspicious. When does Cade think he’ll have the prints identified?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I didn’t ask. But I know he’ll get it as fast as he can. I’m thinking sometime this morning. Meanwhile, we can go back home and lie down, maybe get a couple of hours’ sleep before we hear from him.”

  “And then I’ll go see Jonathan.”

  Blair was quiet as they got back to the house. She wanted Morgan to think she was settling down to sleep, but she merely waited in her bedroom until she knew that Morgan was sleeping, and then she got up and sneaked through the door. As tired as she was, she couldn’t turn things off just yet.

  There had been many nights in her life when she had stayed awake all night researching a topic that interested her, then spent the next day following up on the things she had learned. How could anyone sleep when they were waiting for the fingerprints of the person who may have killed her parents?

  She went into the kitchen and called Cade. When he came to the phone she said simply, “Anything yet?”

  “Blair?” he asked.

  “Yes. Have you gotten the fingerprint report?”

  “Not yet,” he said. “I’m still working on it. I told you I’d call you as soon as I have something.”

  She sighed. “All right. How long do you think it will be?”

  “Two or three hours,” he said. “Not before that. I dusted the prints and sent them in, and now the computer has to do a search through every fingerprint on file. It takes a while. Why don’t you get some sleep? You didn’t look like you had had any.”

  “Neither did you,” she said.

  “I’ll call you, I promise.”

  She hung up and sat for a moment, staring at the telephone. She should sleep or eat, she realized, but her mind was still racing, and she had no appetite. The normal body functions like sleeping or eating or crying seemed like weaknesses she couldn’t entertain.

  But she wasn’t sure what to do with herself.

  Finally, she stepped out the front door and stood in the shade of the warm breeze coming from the water. The sun was already bright in the sky, and though it was only eight-thirty, it was already hot and humid. The trees around the house whispered and rustled, and birds squawked and cooed overhead. She slid her hands into her jeans pockets and crossed the street to the water’s edge.

  It was low tide. She could walk way out into the place where, later today, the water would be knee deep. She looked to her right and saw the dock about a mile up the road, right next to the building where worship and murder happened under the same roof. The beach was no more than four miles around, and from where she stood, she could see this side of the Cape clearly. In front of her and to the left was the Wassaw Sound. Across
it was Cabbage Island, a marshy place full of marine animals and rabid raccoons that wreaked havoc on the island pets.

  The ocean sounds calmed her nerves, made her feel that maybe there was some peace in the world. Desperate to soak up more of that peace, she started walking the island’s perimeter, back toward Hanover House.

  The wind picked up her hair and feathered it across her face. She pulled it back and slipped it behind her ears, then pulled it out again, trying to make it cover her scar. As she walked, a plan began to form in her mind. It wasn’t much after nine. Most of the establishments on the island didn’t open until nine. She would hide and watch both Gus and Rick as they left for work. Even though they had cars, both men worked within walking distance of the house. Maybe she would have the opportunity to see what Rick did in the mornings.

  She reached the part of the beach across from Hanover House and stepped back behind a magnolia tree near the street. Rick Morrison was already taking his garbage out to the street. She watched as he closed the garbage can carefully, then went back for a few more bags. She wished she had her car with her so she could grab those bags and go through the trash to see if she could find any clues.

  When he had finished, he dusted off his hands and started across the street toward her. She let him get a safe distance ahead, then she followed. He didn’t go far, just walked along the shore for about a mile or so, to the dock near where her parents had been killed, past the church warehouse and to the Madison Boat Shop, where he worked.

  He didn’t go right in but went to the boardwalk skirting the bay side of the island, and he stood there, quiet and mysterious, his hands in his pockets, his face somber. She didn’t know what she hoped to see in him. A nervous twitch maybe, or a gun packed beneath his shirt. Maybe a bloodstain on his clothes. But she saw nothing except a man who seemed as pensive and troubled as she.

  She watched until he went in. Then she turned around and started back. Her eyes strayed to the few people already on the beach. The lifeguards were distributing the chairs they rented in neat little rows on the sand. City workers picked up trash left behind from the night before. A few residents walked at the water’s edge, getting their morning exercise.