by Susan Boles
Dixie rushes over.
"What in the Sam hill are you doing?" She asks. However, once her eyes landed on the man's face she let loose a scream that outdid mine on the zip line.
Finally scrambling to my feet, I run to Dixie and clap a hand over her mouth, cutting off the siren sound.
"Holy cow, Dixie! Hush!" I yank my hand away when Dixie bites it. "Dang! That hurt!"
Dixie bends over, hands on knees, breathing as if she'd just finished a marathon. "That's your hatpin, isn't it?" She holds up a hand. "No. Don't answer that. I don't want to know anything so when the police show up I can tell them I don't know anything."
"You can't possibly think I had anything to do with this!"
"Of course I know you didn't do it. But, like usual, you've gotten yourself smack in the middle of a mess."
CHAPTER NINE
Dixie has surely hit the nail on the head. I've gotten myself into another big mess. Not only is Alex dead. The murder weapon is my hatpin through his eye.
I feel my gorge rise at the thought, but push it down. Who could have gotten close enough to Alex to do that? I know if someone came at me with a sharp object aimed at my face I wouldn’t care how long I’d known them. They’d be getting a hard right fist to their own face. Accompanied by a sharp kick where ever my foot could land in panic mode.
And why? Who could’ve had that big a grudge against Alex? And was it someone local? Or had someone followed him to Destin with murder on the agenda?
Maybe it was his sister? She’d seemed pretty mad at him the other day. And siblings did get rid of each other sometimes. There were all kinds of re-enactments of it on TV every day.
Goosebumps crawl up my arms and I glance around looking for anybody who might be watching us. A couple of runners pound the hard sand close to the waves in the distance, but this section of the beach is still deserted at this early hour.
Of course someone could be watching surreptitiously from one of the huge number of balconies overlooking the beach. The thought doesn’t set well with me. I’ve never before considered how exposed everyone on the beach was to total strangers observing their every move. Strangers who might have ulterior motives. And possibly binoculars.
Dragging my thoughts away from that direction, I follow Dixie’s move away from the crime scene. Oh lord. Crime scene. Ben will have a conniption fit when he finds out I’ve come five hundred miles to relax and landed slap in the middle of one.
Dixie and I sit on a couple of beach chairs as far from the body as we can get and still be on the property where the murder has happened. We've been told to wait for the local police to arrive and question us.
"Reckon you'll get hauled in to jail?" Dixie asks from the next chair over.
I skootch around to face her. "Why in the world would I get taken to jail?"
She squints at me. "It's your hatpin in his eye. How do you plan to explain that?"
"The wind pulled my hat off last night and it fell on the beach. I left it." I let some sand sift through my fingers and suddenly the theme from that old soap opera went through my mind. Like sands through the hour glass, so are the days of our lives. This would certainly make a good story line on that show. I shake off the irrelevant thoughts. "You know that's what happened.” I say to Dixie. “I had you down here at first light helping me try to find it. Why would I do that if I knew where it was?"
Dixie stretches her legs out, digging her bare toes into the sand. We'd both left our shoes at the steps to our condo. "To provide yourself with an alibi? Me, insisting that you didn’t know what had happened because you made me come out here at the crack of dawn to look for it? The police might not believe your story. And, you don't have any witnesses to the hat blowing off or that you left Alex alive on the beach."
"Are you trying to make it look like I did it?" I ask.
"Nope. Just playing the Devil's advocate."
Hmm. Maybe Dixie has a point. I should try to see it from their side and come up with answers. Surely once they canvased the condos in this building, and the one where Dixie and I are staying, they'll find witnesses to me leaving Alex alive and well on the beach in the dying light yesterday evening. It hadn't been dark yet when I'd left.
"So. Who do you think did it?" Dixie asks.
"Heck if I know." I say. "Maybe his sister?"
"Do you think Vlad did it?"
I look at her hard. "Why would Vlad do it?"
Dixie looks thoughtful. "You said Alex told you Vlad was sneaking around here spying on you. But what if he's actually here and was spying on Alex? And they had a confrontation on the beach and Vlad killed him in a fit of rage?"
My initial reaction to that scenario is to think, bull hockey! However, I'd experienced my own first time with blind rage last night, so who was I to say it couldn't have happened the way Dixie'd just described?
Alex had told me they had a big personal competition going on. What if Vlad had confronted Alex last night after I left. Maybe making accusations about the gene sequencing. Had Alex’s project been something related to Vlad's DNA testing for abnormalities?
All of these questions were related to Alex’s side of the story of his relationship with Vlad. I didn’t have Vlad’s side, but I knew he could be secretive. Look at what he’d pulled off on the whole town sneaking around taking DNA samples without peoples knowledge during his sleep study.
I scrub the heels of my hands over my tired eyes. I just want the police to get here, question me and let me go.
"Should we call Ben?" Dixie asks, interrupting my useless speculations.
"Lord, no." I tell her. "The last person we need here is Ben. He'd be getting his underwear in a twist and making things worse."
"He might be a big help to us." Dixie says quietly.
"Let's wait a bit and see what happens." I say and Dixie nods.
"I guess the sister is going to be a suspect. Right?” Dixie comments. “You heard them arguing in the lobby and Alex was pretty unhappy she showed up here."
I twist around, looking back toward the condo in the hope that the police have arrived. But no luck. "I think it had to be someone Alex knew." I tell Dixie. "It'd be pretty hard for someone to sneak up on him out here in the open."
"Someone could hide up there by that shed thingy where they store the umbrellas." Dixie points out.
The vague memory of movement next to that very shed last night returns to me. However, I can't grab onto any solid picture of what I'd seen. The memory remains a vague shadow of movement and nothing else."
An older couple comes walking along the beach from the direction of our condo building. As they cut upward toward us, I think they must be some thrill seekers trying to get a look at the body. It wouldn't surprise me a bit if word has leaked all along this stretch about the body. There has to be unknown watchers up on those balconies who’d seen something by now.
The couple walks directly up to me, surprising me. Both are dressed in Bermuda shorts and Destin tee shirts. Both have short gray hair. Kind of like Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, I think to myself. I raise my eyebrows but don't speak, as I’m not in the mood to answer a bunch of silly questions.
"We heard you down here on the beach last night with that man." The woman says to me, her cold green eyes staring a hole through me. I’m not getting a good vibe off her. However, Dixie must have missed the silent messages. She jumps from her chair and rushes the woman.
"Thank you so much for coming forward." She gushes. "I'm so happy to know that there are witnesses that Lily Gayle didn't do anything wrong."
I stand to meet the ugly look in the woman's eyes. "I don't think they're here to help me, Dixie."
The man steps up closer. "You're smarter than we thought. So you'll understand how important it is to do what we say."
The woman steps closer to me. "We want five thousand dollars in small bills delivered to us by tomorrow afternoon or we'll tell the police we heard you threaten to kill that man."
Dixie gasps as the two turn a
nd walk back the way they'd come.
She turns to me and says. "How can you just sit there?"
"They're tellin' the truth." I say. "I did threaten to kill Alex last night."
"Have mercy!” Dixie says. “You're in some deep trouble now."
"I know. I don't have five thousand dollars to give those people."
CHAPTER TEN
After the police finally show up and taken our statements, Dixie and I walk slowly back toward our condo building. I've been mostly truthful with the police.
I've told them I had a conversation with Alex on the beach the evening before and that the hatpin was mine. And, that I'd lost the hatpin on the beach and had no idea how it ended up in Alex's eye.
I left out the part about threatening to kill him. I hadn't really meant it and, since I hadn't committed the crime, I felt okay about leaving that part out. I'd also left out the part about the couple trying to get money from me in exchange for their silence. I hoped Dixie did, too.
"Let's stop and talk to the guy in charge of renting chairs and umbrellas." I say to Dixie as we walk up the beach. "I want to find out if that shed is locked every night. If it's not, maybe someone was hiding in there and attacked Alex."
“Would it make the tiniest bit of difference for me to point out that you are already a suspect in this case and running around asking a bunch of questions is not what you should be doing at this point?” Asks Dixie.
“Not even a little bit. I know I didn’t do this and I’m going to find out who did.” I told her in a firm voice.
She gives a deep sigh and shakes her head.
As we approach the hut where the eye candy boy collects rent money and charts everything, I see another eye candy boy holding something in his hand and raising his voice to the rent control guy. Picking up my pace, I manage to arrive while the discussion was still going on. Dixie pants up behind me just as I see the broken lock in eye candy number two's hand.
Both of them look up at Dixie and me standing there. "Excuse us." I comment. "I don't know if y'all have heard, but there was a murder next door sometime last night."
They both look big-eyed from me to Dixie and back.
"And I was wondering if those shed thingies where you store umbrellas are locked at night or not."
The boy with the broken lock in his hand turns to the other boy. "Oh, wow! I found this broken lock this morning on our storage shed. I wonder if it means something important."
"You should go next door and let the police know what happened." I tell him. "It might be important."
And hopefully distract their attention from me.
As Dixie and I make our way along the wooden walkway to the condo, a pair of teenagers meet us from the other direction.
"We saw all the activity next door." The girl says.
I sigh wondering if there’s a point to this encounter and if I'll ever get any breakfast. By this time my belly has started stickin' to my backbone I’m so hungry.
"Yes." Dixie answers for both of us. "It's pretty bad. If you saw anything last night you should go over there and tell the police."
They look startled.
"Um. Well." The boy says. "We were just wondering if you were in big trouble with the police."
I see he’s looking straight at me. "Not really. The police had a lot of questions for me because I knew the man and I was talking to him on the beach last night. But I didn't kill him." I assure them.
"So you're not under house arrest or anything?" Asks the girl. "Like, you're free to go back to where you live and everything?"
These two have more questions than you can shake a stick at. "They told me not to leave town until they had solved the crime. It's pretty inconvenient."
They look at each other, and then back at me. "Do you think they'll lock you up in jail?"
Coming to the end of my patience, I snap at them. "Not if I have anything to do with it. Now, if the two of you will excuse us, we haven't had any breakfast and we're starving."
"Oh. I'm so sorry!" The girl pulls the boy by the hand and they move along past us.
"That was pretty mean of you." Dixie comments as we made our way inside.
"Well, for Heaven's sake. I've got better things to do than answer a bunch of questions from some teenagers."
I rummage through the kitchen cabinets and come up with a carton of donuts that I proceed to open and scarf down.
"I think it's time we called Ben." Dixie says right when I have my mouth full of donut. Smart girl. No way can I talk right now, but I roll my eyes at her to let her know my opinion of that comment.
When she picks up her phone and chooses the first number, I remember the last number that had been dialed on her phone was Ben.
Well, crap. Now I'd have to deal with Ben on top of everything else. I stuff another donut in my mouth to make myself feel better. And I’m secretly glad Dixie is insisting on getting Ben involved. I have a gut feeling that I’ll need all the help I can get in the days to come.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
When Ben showed up at the condo door in record time, I felt a sense of relief run though me. He must’ve run way above the speed limit to get here so fast. And he’s such a stickler for the rules I knew he must be worried sick about what I’d gotten myself into this time.
As much as I resent him trying to run my life all the time, I really appreciate his sense of family. Times like this it meant the world to me.
I've begun to get a little scared. By this point I've run out of bravado. There doesn't seem to be anyone who'd been out on the beach last night and it looks pretty bad for me.
Ben slung his duffle bag into a corner and hugged us both.
"Now." He says, eyeing both of us with stern eyes. "One of you tell me what's happened here."
"A man named Alex Landers is dead and it looks like Lily Gayle did it." States Dixie.
"For cryin' out loud, Dixie." I protest. "You sound like you think I actually did do it."
"Of course not." Dixie answers. "I'm just tellin' Ben what it looks like at this point."
I shut up, because she’s right. It does look bad for me.
"Dixie's right. It does look bad for me. And the police don't even know everything."
Ben raises his eyebrows at that.
"I told Alex I'd kill him dead." I admit. "Actually I shouted it. On the beach. More than once."
Ben groans. “Do the police know this?”
I shake my head.
"How is it that the police don't know about it?"
"Well, I certainly didn't tell them." I say indignantly. "I mean, what was I supposed to do? There he is dead as a doornail with my hatpin stickin' out of his eye. It already looked really bad for me. I didn't want to add any fuel to the fire, so to speak, since I didn't murder him."
Ben rolls his eyes "Don't you think with about a hundred condos within hearing distance that someone did hear you? And that the police will find this out soon? And then it’ll look twice as bad for you?"
Dixie nods in agreement. "And there's the matter of that couple that wants five thousand dollars to keep quiet about hearing you say it."
I shoot her a glare.
"What?!" Ben says.
"And Vlad and Alex are 'frenemies' from all the way back in med school is what Alex told me." I add. "And, also according to Alex, Vlad is here in Destin spying on me...or maybe him. I'm not real clear on that part."
"And we’ve been trying to call Vlad and he’s not answering or returning our phone calls." Dixie throws in. "So we don't know if he's actually here or not."
Pulling his phone from his pocket, Ben chooses a number and waits as it rings. Then he says, "Vlad. It's Ben. Call me as soon as you get this message."
He puts the phone back in his pocket and frowns. "How much worse can this get?" Scraping his hand over his five o'clock shadow, he mutters. "Don't answer that. It was a rhetorical question."
He looks up at the two of us. "Who is this couple that's trying to extort money from you?"
"I have no idea. They just came up to Dixie and me on the beach, made their demand and left. I assume they know where to find me and will be back tomorrow for their money. Which I don't have."
"Oh and don't forget about those weird teenagers." Dixie prompts.
"I don't think there's anything to that." I answer. "Just a couple of curious kids."
"They sure seemed anxious to be assured you aren't going to jail. That was pretty odd."
"Okay." Ben interrupts. "Let's circle back to Vlad. If he's actually here and spying on you or this other guy, he might be a witness that could put you in the clear, Lily Gayle."
I hadn't thought of that. An urge to jump up and go find Vlad surges through me. However, I have no idea where to look. Destin is full of hotels and condos. He could be anywhere.
"I wonder if he knows Alex is dead." I say. "And if he does, why isn't he contacting us?"
"Maybe he's the killer and is on the run?" Dixie asks.
Ben and I both make rude noises, but in the back of my mind, I wonder. We'd all known Vlad well as children. However, his family had moved away when we were all in junior high school. The man who'd come back to Mercy was very different from the child who'd left. Had we all been duped about his character?
Our silent contemplation is interrupted by pounding on the door.
CHAPTER TWELVE
With a concerned look on his face, Ben escorts two of Destin's finest into the living area of the condo.
"We have some more questions for you, Ms. Lambert." Says the officer with Sgt. Wilder on his nameplate.
I nod. "Can my cousin and my friend stay here while you ask your questions?"
"We actually want you to come to the station for questioning this time."
A small tic begins jumping just under my right eye. Something that happens to me when my stress level gets high. And today it's gotten higher than it has in a lot of years. I reach up, pressing against it to try and get it to stop. Knowing from past experience that it’s futile. The tic will go away when it’s ready and not before.