The rest of us politely waited until both Caldwells were absent to hurl our epithets. However, wishful thinking and acting on homicidal fantasies were two different matters.
The minutes in my solo vigil stretched on, leaving time to puzzle over the murderer’s choice of victims. Stew was as well liked as Bea was reviled. Stew was male. Bea, female. Stew worked as an appraiser. Bea’s sole job was pampering Gator and Feng Shui’ing corporate digs. Stew and Bea didn’t move in the same social circles, and I’d wager there were no amorous ties. Bea wouldn’t risk her princess status, and Stew had better taste.
Yet the crime scenes shared the same nightmarish signature. Some sort of stunner to cripple victims. Smart-alecky messages printed in capital letters.
While repulsed, I was also intrigued by the killer’s M.O. Why stun the victims? His methods were indirect, time-consuming, risky. The killer had to work fast to hogtie his prey before the initial jolt of electricity wore off. Then he had to wait around long enough to make certain there was a final curtain call. That upped the threat of discovery. Did it also give him an adrenaline rush? Who knew?
I cringed, thinking of Stew and Bea waiting to die. Unable to move or scream, trapped inside their paralyzed bodies while their killer manhandled them. It was beyond hideous. Beyond bizarre—it was evil. Who could do this? And why? What did the killer plan next?
A sense of determination gripped me. Since Jeff’s death, I’d been floating. The sight of Bea’s grotesque face filled me with righteous anger and a surge of energy. No one deserved to die like this. Not nice guy Stew and not even poor, stupid Bea—their lives reduced to freakish jokes.
We had to catch this sick bastard before he killed again.
SEVEN
The lonely vigil with Bea’s remains lasted less than ten minutes but felt like an hour. Bill O’Brien, the former Army medic who served as our fire department’s Emergency Medical Service guru, kept his first-to-arrive honors.
Seconds later, Chief Dixon’s four-wheel drive Cherokee followed the ruts left by the EMS truck and churned to a stop in the spongy marsh mud. Braden rode shotgun. My reaction surprised me.
Too bad I have my own coat tonight. I need you to wrap those arms around me.
O’Brien pronounced Bea dead and speculated about the foreign object visible on her tongue. Using a sheet of plastic to shield himself from the ants, the medic almost rubbed noses with the corpse as he maneuvered for a closer look. “God, it looks like a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. My kids eat enough of them. D’you suppose the killer gave her candy? Or maybe she popped it in her mouth right before she got zapped.”
I groaned. “Bea was allergic to peanuts. The candy was insurance—just in case her allergy to fire ants didn’t provoke a fatal attack.”
The chief produced a sound between a retch and a cough. “Jesus H. Christ on a crutch.”
We established a perimeter around Bea’s corpse though I seriously doubted the forensic whiz kids could uncover usable evidence. The lane we’d traveled provided the only motor access to Beach West. Since noon, probably thirty trucks, SUVs, and cars had boogied in and out, carrying surveyors, DHEC inspectors, workers, gung-ho real estate agents and curious islanders. In high spots, traffic pulverized the sandy soil into shifting dunes, while the muddy low spots boasted more elasticity than Play-Doh. The ooze reclaimed even a heavy vehicle’s tire tread in minutes.
The fire ant mound sat atop a hillock, which rose above a bog-like depression bordering the dirt road. An exceptionally high spring tide had already liquefied the impressions my shoes made when I approached Bea and retreated. If the murderer left prints, they’d long since vanished. Bea might as well have been beamed to the spot.
As we waited for Braden to finish his call to the sheriff, Dixon kept muttering. “Dammit all to hell. Pluck a dang duck. How in tarnation did someone coax Bea here in the middle of the night? I sure as hell don’t want to be around when Gator learns some sicko offed his wife. Unless, of course, he did it himself.”
My jaw dropped. Gator’s name didn’t appear on my most-admired list, but this was beyond the pale. “Jesus, you can’t seriously think Gator could have done this?”
The chief hawked up some phlegm and walked a few paces away before pulling the eject button. “Never know. If it weren’t for the murder method and smart-ass note, he’d be suspect number one. I’ve never struck a woman, but if Bea’d been my old lady, I’d have been sorely tempted. ’Course I hear Bea was a regular Jekyll and Heidi—lovey-dovey and sweeter than molasses at home but a bitch on wheels out of Gator’s sight.”
Braden ended his call and pocketed the cell phone. “Since the winds are down, the sheriff is going to helicopter over with the coroner and land at the marina helipad. Want me to pick them up?”
Dixon sighed. “No, I’ll roust one of the security officers sleeping at the fire station.”
In the half hour since my grisly discovery, the water level had crept higher and higher. Soon the marshy off-road area where we stood would be submerged. The encroaching tide would rinse away the murderer’s “TO BEA OR NOT TO BE” calling card and any other meager evidence. A nightmare vision of the eddying water lifting Bea’s limbs and reanimating her corpse fired goose bumps up my arms.
“Chief, the tide’s going to inundate this area—it might even float the body.” I glanced at my watch. “The tide tables predicted ten point two feet in Mad Inlet an hour from now. Want me to get my camera and take a few shots?”
“You better,” Dixon agreed. “Dammit. If she starts to float before the coroner gets here, we’ll just have to grab her.”
Braden’s frown knit his thick brows into a furry question mark. “Jeez, if the water gets that high, won’t it flood the island?” He stood next to me. I ignored my impulse to grab his arm, lean into his body.
“They don’t call this the Lowcountry for nothing,” I answered. “Dear Drive will have patches of standing water. It’ll be up to our hubcaps in the DOA parking lot. With just the right conditions, acres of land you see every day—even at high tide—are swallowed whole. Makes you think about building an ark.”
I retrieved the camera stored in the patrol car to document run-of-the-mill problems—like raccoons strewing garbage from the marina to Timbuktu when club trashcans weren’t emptied. While snapping away, I provided the chief and Braden a synopsis of the real estate dinner party, including Bea and Gator’s seemingly cordial couplet appearance, the lady’s loud-mouthed soliloquy on insects and allergies, and her golf course run-in with the Cuthbert twins.
Braden tapped his index finger against his lower lip as he listened. “Can you give me a list of the folks at your table? We’ll need to check alibis.”
“Good luck. Everyone who lives or works on the island wished Bea dead at least once,” Dixon added. “But this is screwy enough to be a teen’s wet dream. Maybe those Cuthbert kooks think they can get themselves on primetime TV. Who knows how their hopped-up little brains work.”
Dixon appeared ready to launch into a full-fledged diatribe. “Hold on, Chief, you said Hugh and the Cuthbert twins didn’t make the last ferry. If so, they’re in the clear.”
“Maybe.” He scowled. “Or maybe they bribed some druggies to do their dirty work.”
We all knew the boys—following in mother Grace’s footsteps—habitually used alcohol and occasionally tossed marijuana into the mix. We suspected the twins pilfered Grace’s feel-good cornucopia and acted as penny ante suppliers to impress other kids.
Dixon’s eyes narrowed and his jaw clenched. How much might hatred color his judgment?
“I seriously doubt Henry and Jared could lay hands on enough booze or Mary Jane to buy a murder hit. And if they could, they’d get rid of Hugh, not Bea.”
A change of subject seemed prudent. “What do you think the killer used for a writing instrument this time? I’m thinking rebar.”
“Yeah.” Braden nodded in agreement. “I noticed the corkscrew impression in the mud.”
W
e lapsed into another silence. My wet feet cramped, and I stamped them to restore circulation.
Before the lurking tide could float Bea’s arms and legs, we shifted her body. Braden also bagged her hands to preserve any trace evidence that might be washed away.
“How in Sam Hill did the murderer get Stew and Bea to drive themselves to his kill zones?” Dixon wondered aloud as he stared at the corpse. “The victims must have known him. Would Bea have agreed to meet here if she’d been afraid?”
The questions went unanswered as we completed our gruesome tasks. Then we sheltered in the back of the EMS unit until the welcome slam of a car door signaled the arrival of the sheriff and coroner.
“Sorry it took so long.” Sheriff Conroy shook hands with Dixon and nodded toward Braden and me. “Our pilot will hustle for medivac runs, but saw no call to put himself in high gear for us to commune with a dead body.”
After the coroner did his thing, the men wrestled Bea into a body bag. Less than anxious to touch her again, I didn’t complain about the Lowcountry’s rampant male chauvinism. The coroner borrowed a shovel from the sheriff’s trunk, scooped up a generous portion of the ant hill, and sealed the teeming mass in an oversized baggie. Could the ants chew through their plastic prison? Based on the carnage they’d already wrought, it seemed plausible.
The coroner and sheriff walked to a patch of high ground and conferred.
“The coroner’s flying back with the body,” Sheriff Conroy reported when he rejoined our group. “That means I’m stuck breaking the news to Gator. Thank God telling family isn’t part of my usual job. Braden, you’re coming with me. I know Gator’s an excitable bastard. Chief, how about joining us?”
“Not on your life.” Dixon chewed on an unlit stogie. He’d quit smoking, but still teethed on a soggy cigar when agitated. Bits of tobacco clung to his plump lips.
“Ol’ Gator and me aren’t exactly bosom buddies. Better if I’m not along.” The chief pointed his shredded nicotine pacifier at me. “Take Marley. The man’s four-year-old grandson—name of Teddy—is visiting. It’d be good to have a woman along to look after the boy if he wakes.”
I considered protesting. In principle, I liked children but lacked practical experience. No kids of my own and, even as a teen, I steered clear of babysitting, preferring to earn my money lifeguarding, waitressing or flipping pancakes. Still, curiosity got the better of me.
How much trouble could a four-year-old be?
***
I sat shotgun. Braden drove and Sheriff Conroy took the back seat. With sections of the road flooded, we adopted a funereal pace. No need for sirens or speed. Braden did a slow head roll and cast a weary look my way. “Thought you said nothing happened on Dear after midnight.”
The sheriff wasn’t talking. Maybe he was rehearsing his lines for Gator.
“It seems unreal,” I said. “Less than forty-eight hours ago, I sat at a table with Bea eating crème brûlée on bone china. Now she’s dead. I can’t wrap my mind around the fact that someone on Dear did this. I may not know every resident, but I’ve met most. When these people fight, it’s a snit fit over a neighbor’s untidy lawn. They get revenge by removing offenders from their party lists. They don’t paralyze people on fire ant hills.”
Braden looked at me. “You said it yourself, it doesn’t take a magician to get past the gate. Why assume our killer’s a resident? Maybe it’s some homicidal tourist.”
I shook my head. “Wish I believed that. But whoever killed Bea knew about her allergies, plus he was able to lure—or trick—her into visiting a swamp, alone, in the middle of the night. The woman was no Einstein, but she wasn’t a complete imbecile.”
“There are other possibilities,” Braden said. “She wore an allergy-alert bracelet. Maybe someone kidnapped Bea at gunpoint, forced her to drive there.”
The prospect of a kidnapping never occurred to me. “A lot of islanders never lock their doors—it’s some sort of we-live-in-paradise badge of honor. At Gator’s house, you might try the front latch; see if it’s locked. It’s conceivable someone just walked in.”
“It’s also possible that Bea’s murder is a copycat killing,” Braden added. “Maybe hubby seized a golden opportunity to offload his wife without alimony.”
The sheriff shifted in his seat and snapped out of his reverie. “At least we know where our killer is, what with the bridge blockade. He has to be on this island. That narrows things down, gives us a starting point.”
Picturing the killer trapped on the island offered cold comfort. “Yeah, it does remove a few suspects,” I said. “Everyone in the Cuthbert household is off-island. Of course, if you made it over in a helicopter, a boat could have slipped across, too, once the winds died down.”
The scary face glimpsed on the docks—Underling or his look-alike—flashed through my mind. I couldn’t fathom a connection with Bea but wondered if all of yesterday’s itinerant boats remained snugged in their assigned slips. The marina might be worth a gander after our call on Gator.
We pulled into the Caldwells’ circular drive. Nary a light inside or out. Like most island abodes, the home featured a two-car garage and storage space at ground level with the main living areas on second and third floors. Insurance requirements now dictated the live-in portion of coastal homes be at least fourteen feet above sea level. However, older homes—including my low-slung ranch—had been grandfathered. I was thankful for the reprieve since it would have cost a fortune to separate my house from its foundation and jack it up on stilts.
Something about the shadowy scene seemed out of kilter. “If Bea left of her own accord, she didn’t want to advertise it. Otherwise she’d have left a porch light burning.”
“Or she left in a panic—or a huff—and didn’t think about turning on lights,” Braden said.
Together, we trooped up the curving grand staircase to double doors. The etched glass panels featured a pair of egrets, wings unfolded and eternally poised for flight. Braden tugged on a plastic glove and thumbed the latch on the active door. It clicked open.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Sheriff Conroy hissed. He’d been zoned out when I suggested testing the lock. “We don’t have a search warrant. You want to be charged with breaking and entering?”
“Just checking Marley’s theory that a kidnapper could have waltzed in through an unlocked door.” Braden gently pulled the door shut. “I wasn’t planning to enter uninvited.”
The sheriff dismounted his high horse. “Sorry. I’m uptight. You know what they say about bearers of bad tidings.”
Braden pushed the bell. A stately chime echoed inside. After the third singsong chorus, we heard Gator hollering. “Bea, Bea. Where are you? If you’re downstairs, get the damn door.”
Braden tapped the bell again, triggering more trills. A minute later, Gator yanked the door open. “What in blazes do you want? Do you know what time it is?”
The sheriff exhaled deeply as if he’d been holding his breath. “I’m Sheriff Conroy.” He used his conciliatory politician’s voice. “We met at Jess Hamrick’s fundraiser. Sorry to wake you, but we need to talk. Can we come inside? It’s about your wife.”
“I can’t imagine where she’s got to. Bea?” Gator bellowed. “Get yourself down here.” He turned back to us. “What’s so all-fired important it couldn’t wait until morning?”
If Gator knew his wife was dead, he was one hell of an actor. He’d thrown on a silk kimono. While a belt cinched it at the waist, it bared a wide fissure of chest above the tie. The developer wore pajama bottoms, but no top. Wiry white chest hairs sprang through the kimono breach. For some reason, I found myself staring at Gator’s bare feet. His stubby toes were exceptionally hairy, and the hairs were charcoal black—a striking contrast to his chest’s white steel wool. I wondered at what anatomical point Gator’s body hair changed color, then shuddered as I decided I really didn’t want to know.
“Sir, we need to check on your grandson, make sure he’s tucked safely i
n bed,” Braden said. “Could you tell me where he’s sleeping?”
“What the hell is this about? My grandson’s fine. Don’t go bothering him.”
Though polite, Braden didn’t waver. “Sorry but we must, sir. Sheriff Conroy will explain everything. Now where can I find your grandson?”
Gator directed Braden up the staircase. “First room on the left. But you’ll answer to me if you wake that boy.”
As the deputy hustled up the stairs, Sheriff Conroy gravely announced Bea’s death.
Confusion clouded Gator’s meaty face. “What do you mean dead? Like she’s lying dead somewhere in our house? How the hell would you know? Man, you’ve got your wires crossed.”
Braden slipped back into the room and gave a discreet thumbs-up as Sheriff Conroy walked Gator through the nightmare. No, there was no mistake. Yes, Mrs. Caldwell was dead. Her body had been found in a deserted site in Beach West. Yes, her Mercedes was parked there. No, the death did not appear accidental.
Gator appeared angry, but not disconsolate. No tears, no anguished shrieks. Was it shock? Or maybe Gator couldn’t decide on the proper manly response. He didn’t ask to see Bea. He kept shaking his head, alternately muttering “that son-of-a-bitch” and “the bastard.”
“You came home from dinner at the clubhouse just before nine?” the sheriff probed.
“Yeah, had to get home to tuck Teddy in,” Gator answered. “That’s my grandson.”
“And you never left again?”
“Well, obviously my wife did. I didn’t. Never heard Bea take off.”
“You had a babysitter tonight?” the sheriff continued.
“Yeah, Mrs. Pope. She left as soon as we came home.”
Braden held up a hand as he inserted himself into the interrogation. “Mr. Caldwell, sir. We can’t rule out the possibility that someone abducted your wife. Do you lock your doors?”
“No need,” he replied gruffly. Gator’s mouth had started running before his brain engaged.
Dear Killer (Marley Clark Mysteries) Page 9