Sand Sharks

by Margaret Maron

  “Actually,” said Bill, “we were in separate cars. Reid said he’d get the check and I needed to pick up some half-and-half for breakfast, so I left first and got here about thirty minutes before he did.”

  “Where were you parked?”

  “Up Ann Street, across from Jonah’s.”

  “Did you see Pete Jeffreys in the parking lot?”

  “No. When was he killed?”

  I had to admit that I didn’t know. The last time I’d noticed him was right after I came back from talking with Reid. My cousin’s hostility to Jeffreys had been enough to make me look around for him to see if he’d suddenly sprouted horns and a tail. I now realized that the sour look he’d given me was probably because he’d seen me at Bill Hasselberger’s table.

  As we ate, our talk turned from murder to gossip about mutual friends.

  “So ol’ Fitz is finally retiring?” Reid said.

  “And he’s being honored at a reception tomorrow night,” I told him. “Why don’t you come?”

  “Maybe I will,” he said and entered the information as to where and when on his BlackBerry.

  We’d finished eating and Reid began to make noises about getting down to Sunset Beach before lunch, so I thanked Bill for his hospitality and drove back to Wrightsville Beach.

  I was halfway there before it hit me. Why had it taken Reid so long to pay the check that he’d gotten back to Bill’s house a half hour after Bill?

  CHAPTER

  7

  The municipal laws of all well-regulated states have taken care to enforce this duty: though providence has done it more effectually than any laws, by implanting in the breast of every parent that insuperable degree of affection, which not even the deformity of person or mind, not even the wickedness, ingratitude, and rebellion of children, can totally suppress or extinguish.

  —Sir William Blackstone (1723–1780)

  The SandCastle Hotel is as friendly to children as it is to judges. The decor in the spacious lobby is vivid turquoise and coral with terra-cotta tiles and couches upholstered in soft sand-colored leather. Bowls of taffy wrapped in wax paper twists sit on the registration counter. A floor-to-ceiling saltwater aquarium filled with exotic and colorful sea creatures lines the wall of a hallway that leads to the restaurant. In the middle of the lobby itself, beneath the large circular skylight, is a round shallow tank that holds an inch or two of white sand and six or seven inches of water. It’s chest-high to a four-year-old and kids are encouraged to touch the living sand dollars, sea urchins, snails, and skates or watch a school of tiny minnows dart through the water.

  Adults can play there, too.

  When I returned to the hotel that morning, the first person I recognized was pudgy-faced Bernie Rawlings from Lafayette County, who stood by the tank running his fingertips through the wet sand with a dreamy expression on his face. He wore sandals and a white tennis shirt and his bald head was covered by a blue cotton hat that matched his blue shorts. He smiled when he saw me. “This reminds me of when I was a boy and we’d come down from the hills in the summer to rent a place on the beach. My dad would set up a small tank so we could catch fiddler crabs and snails and minnows. He had a shore guide to marine life and we’d spend the week trying to identify everything. It was always sad when we had to leave and put them back in the ocean.”

  “We must have had that same book,” I said. “My mother was always trying to get us interested in nature. Only instead of a tank, we used a plastic shower curtain.”

  “Shower curtain?”

  I nodded. “My brothers would scoop out a hole in the sand and we’d line it with an old shower curtain. That’s where we’d put the things we found. Like you did. Only we had to empty it out every evening so the tide wouldn’t take it away.”

  We were joined by a pudgy-faced child in shorts and tank top who looked exactly like Bernie except that he was only half as tall and he had a headful of hair that was cut in a modified mullet. He also had a clump of taffy in each hand and was busily stuffing his cheeks full.

  I was about to tell Bernie how much he and his son looked alike when he said, “Emily, this is Judge Knott.”

  The girl stared at me unblinkingly as Bernie finished the introduction, her mouth too full to speak.

  Bernie tried to interest her in the hermit crab that was moving its heavy whelk shell ponderously over the sandy floor of the tank, but she handed him a wad of wax paper wrappers to dispose of and said, “Can we go back upstairs now? I wanna watch SpongeBob.”

  “Honey, you watched that thing three times on the drive down. Look! These are live ocean animals. Starfish! Horseshoe crabs!”

  She scowled. “You promised! Momma said.”

  Bernie sighed. “Okay, okay. Go ring for the elevator.” He gave me a sheepish smile. “What can you do with ’em at this age? And I did promise my wife that I’d amuse Emily so that she could have the day to herself to shop and go out with some of the other wives.”

  “You’re a good husband,” I said, feeling charitable.

  He beamed and hurried after his bratty daughter while the pragmatist whispered in my ear, “Good husband, stupid dad.”

  Some of my brothers claim that I was spoiled, being the only girl and the youngest after a string of eleven boys, but no way would my parents have let me program their free hours like that.

  I lifted a scallop from the shallow tank and waited till it slowly, cautiously opened a narrow crack to reveal a ring of shiny blue metallic eyes.

  My earliest memory of the beach was of sitting in the gentle waves at Harkers Island. I was probably three or four at the time, so the older boys were either married or working summer jobs. The younger ones were there, though—Zach and his twin Adam, and Will, the oldest of my mother’s four children. If Jack was there that week, I can’t remember, but Seth, who’s five up from me, was my protector when the others wanted to dunk me or hog the inner tubes we used as floats. Ben was there, too, but he was always pestering Daddy for the car keys so he and Seth could go juking at Atlantic Beach.

  If Mother had hoped to turn any of us into marine biologists with her shower curtain aquarium and the Golden Guide to Seashores, it didn’t work. I doubt if any of my brothers could tell a lettered olive from a tulip shell anymore, but when it was time for the hermit crab races, Will had an unerring knack for finding the fastest.

  Check out all the whorled shells in a tidal pool till you find one inhabited by a hermit crab. Draw a big circle in the sand, put your crab in the center, ante in a dime. If your crab makes it out of the circle first, you take the pot. Losers go back in the water, winners are kept until deposed.

  At five or six, I looked for crabs with the biggest, prettiest shells and usually came in last, but Will always put his money on one that had taken over the shell of a lightweight moon snail. One summer he found a crab that won so consistently that we stopped racing with him. Next day, he made a big show of throwing his champion back into the water and hunting for another. We lost two rounds to his new contender before it dawned on us that it was a ringer he’d thrown back, not the champ. Daddy made him give our money back, but I overheard him tell Mother, “Takes after his daddy, don’t he?”

  “I don’t know that the world’s ready for another Kezzie Knott,” Mother had laughed.

  Will still plays the angles whenever he can get away with it. I wondered how things were going up in Virginia and if he was on his way back yet. I also wondered if Dwight had made an inventory of whatever Will had loaded onto his truck. Not my worry though. Dwight’s known my brother longer than I have and he’s well aware that Will’s moral compass is a few degrees off true north.

  But thinking of them only reminded me that Dwight still hadn’t called.

  I put the scallop back in the tank and watched it jet away, then stepped into a waiting elevator and mashed the button for my floor. As the doors were closing, I saw a cute little girl dart across the terra-cotta tiles to the touching tank. She was trailed by a smaller boy and the b
earded man I’d seen Jeffreys talking to at the restaurant last night. There was something teasingly familiar about the man, but I couldn’t think where, if ever, we’d met before.

  Up in the room, the telephone on the desk was flashing its message light. The first message was from Chelsea Ann at 9:45. Her breakfast meeting had ended early and if I hadn’t had breakfast yet, come on down. The second, at 10:12, was from a local newspaper reporter who hoped to catch me around the hotel before he left. The third was Detective Gary Edwards only fifteen minutes earlier, asking me to return his call.

  Too late for breakfast and no, I didn’t want to talk to a reporter. Nor did I particularly want to talk to Detective Edwards. How about I went to the beach instead and pretended I didn’t get his message?

  “You’re an officer of the court,” scolded the preacher, “and it behooves you to cooperate.”

  “Besides,” said the pragmatist, guiding my fingers to the dial pad, “you know you want to hear what’s happening with his investigation.”

  So I called his number and learned that he was in the hotel, too, in one of the small conference rooms off the main ballroom, and would I join him for a cup of coffee?

  Thinking I might still get in some pool time before lunch, I changed into my red swimsuit, topped it with a jungle print skirt and matching shirt, and made sure I had sunscreen in my raffia tote bag before heading out.

  Down in the lobby, I ran into Chelsea Ann, who was drifting back from breakfast with the Sunday paper under her arm. She wore a peach-colored knit shirt that flattered her golden hair, gold hoop earrings, and a short white skirt that showed off her long tanned legs.

  “You were up and out early,” she said. “Or were you in the shower when I called?”

  “I had breakfast with Reid and his friend over in Wilmington,” I said. When I told her that I was on my way to meet with Detective Edwards, she immediately invited herself to come with me.

  “Only let’s duck into the ladies’ room first and let me put on fresh lipstick.”

  Why was I not surprised?

  Edwards on the other hand was surprised. Pleasantly, if I could judge by his big smile when he saw my friend as we came down the hall to where he stood in the doorway. “I see you got my message after all.”

  “Message?” Chelsea Ann said.

  “That I wanted to see you again.”

  She wasn’t quite twinkling at him, but a mischievous smile curved her lips as her big green eyes met his. “In your official capacity, Detective Edwards?”

  “Of course, Your Honor.” He tried for deadpan and missed by a nautical mile.

  “Should I come back later?” I asked with mock irritation.

  He laughed and ushered us into the conference room. It was small and windowless but vivid seascapes brightened the sand-colored walls, the chairs were upholstered in a flame pattern of aquamarine, yellow, and coral, and the long rectangular table was bleached oak.

  There was a coffee station just outside the door and Edwards made sure we were both well supplied before we sat down across from him. Instead of asking us to repeat last night’s account of finding the body, he gave us each a sheet of paper printed with blank round circles meant to represent the porch tables at Jonah’s.

  “We’re trying to get a snapshot of the evening,” he said, “so if you would, try to remember as many people as you can and write down where they were seated. Also the approximate time as closely as you can where Jeffreys was the last time you saw him.”

  “Does this mean you don’t think it was a random act of violence?” I asked.

  “Well, robbery doesn’t seem to be a motive,” said Edwards. “His wallet was in his pocket with over two hundred dollars in cash and a credit card in every slot. His car keys were on the ground next to the driver’s side.”

  “Like someone came up from behind him with that dog leash as he was about to unlock his car?”

  “That’s what it looks like. The parking lot isn’t brightly lit. Lots of deep shadows under those trees, but still enough to recognize faces, so we don’t think this was a stranger killing. Whoever did it had to know it was Jeffreys.”

  I soon saw that the diagram did not include the restaurant next door. I briefly considered not mentioning it. What the hell though? Reid couldn’t have had anything to do with the murder and Bill Hasselberger might not have been the only one at their table with a reason to hate Jeffreys. So I drew a right angle to indicate the adjoining porch and wrote in the names of the four lawyers I had recognized.

  “I saw Jeffreys twice with a man at this table,” I said, touching a circle that was somewhat removed from the area we had occupied. “Did you know him, Chelsea Ann?”

  She looked up from her own diagram and frowned. “Describe him.”

  “Late forties, early fifties. Dark hair, a little longer than most. Short beard, bushy mustache. Had a little girl and a smaller boy with him.”

  “Oh, yeah. I saw them when they came in. Don’t know him though.”

  “You say Jeffreys went up to him twice?” asked Edwards.

  I nodded. “The first time he was by himself. A little later, I saw him introducing Judge Blankenthorpe.”

  “Really?” Edwards leafed through several sheets of paper that were already covered with scribbled names. “That’s odd. You’re sure that’s the table?”

  “Pretty sure,” I said and Chelsea Ann agreed.

  He pulled one from the sheaf and laid it on the table between us. It carried Judge Cynthia Blankenthorpe’s name and today’s date. The circle in question was blank.

  “Wonder why she didn’t list him?”

  CHAPTER

  8

  Not cohabitation but consent makes a marriage.

  —Ulpian (ca. AD 170–228)

  By the time Chelsea Ann and I finished comparing diagrams and prodding each other’s memory, we had managed to name nineteen judges and their spouses plus several attorneys that we’d seen the night before. “What about Judge Henshaw?” Edwards asked.

  Chelsea Ann wrinkled her nicely arched brows. “Who?”

  “I don’t know him and you probably don’t either,” I said. “He’s finishing out Judge Dunlap’s term.”

  “Never met him,” she agreed.

  “Steve Shaber said he didn’t see him either.”

  We also agreed that Pete Jeffreys had been seated two tables away from ours, yet neither of us had noticed when he left.

  “Judge Blankenthorpe drove over with him,” I said. “What does she say?”

  “That he called for the check and before it came, he got up and left the table. She says she thought he was going to the restroom, but he never came back. She wound up paying his share of the tab and hitched a ride back here with—” He paused to decipher his notes. “With Judge Fitzhume and his wife. Do you know if they’re staying here at the SandCastle?”

  “They are,” I said. “And for what it’s worth, that bearded man may be, too. I saw him and the two children out in the lobby about a half-hour ago.”

  We finished up and signed our sheets, during which time Chelsea Ann and Edwards seemed to find it necessary to exchange phone numbers.

  “Just in case you remember something,” he said, “or I think of something else I need to ask you.”

  Like whether or not she was in a relationship? Or whether she would go out with him after this investigation was over? I was the one who had found Jeffreys’s body and he didn’t bother to ask for my number. On the other hand, he was a detective and had probably detected that Chelsea Ann’s left hand was free of rings.

  As we walked back down the hall, I reached over and brushed her cheek.

  “What?” she said, pausing to look into a nearby mirror. “Something on my face?”

  “Just getting rid of the little yellow feathers,” I told her.

  She grinned. “Am I looking like the cat that ate the canary?”

  “And washed it down with cream,” I said.

  “So? I’m forty-one years o
ld. Don’t I have a right?”

  “Absolutely. And speaking for every woman who’s going to turn thirty-nine this summer, we do appreciate what a role model you are for the rest of us.”

  She smoothed her blonde curls complacently. “Thank you, thank you.”

  “C’mon, ol’ lady,” I said. “Let’s go find you a rocking chair.”

  We put on our sunglasses and went out onto the terrace where indeed there was a long row of high-backed white wooden rockers. We dragged two of them down to the far end where we would be in the shade and out of the way of casual passersby. With a nice wind coming off the ocean, the air was hot but not oppressively muggy. The terrace overlooked the pool area with its many coral-colored umbrellas and coral lounge chairs, yet it was high enough to let us see over the umbrellas to the beach where gentle waves chased and were chased by squealing toddlers. A group of small boys worked at building an ambitious sand castle almost as tall as they were.

  Maybe I should have let Cal come with me instead of going to Virginia, I thought. Maybe a few days of one-onone without Dwight to complicate things would have let us work out our relationship and reinforce the ground rules.

  I sighed and leaned back in the chair.

  Unfortunately, Chelsea Ann heard my sigh. “How’s being a stepmother working out?”

  “Great,” I said, rummaging in my tote for sunscreen. “In fact I was just thinking how much Cal would love this.”

  “And you and Dwight are really okay?”

  “Sure.” I slipped off my shirt and smoothed sunscreen on my face, arms, and shoulders. “We’re fine.”

  “So what was last night about?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You don’t remember getting maudlin about that couple in the corner when we left?”

  I shook my head.

  “You wanted to go over and give them your blessings.”

  I flushed. “Must have been the tequila.”

  “And that’s another thing. I’ve never seen you so completely hammered.”

  “Dwight and I are just fine,” I said again, unhappily aware that he still hadn’t called. I offered my sunscreen and asked, “But what’s with Rosemary and Dave?”