Murder is Dicey

by Gail Oust

  No fancy speech from Bill, just a plain old Midwestern perfunctory response. Seems like simple and practical could describe more than ceiling fans.

  Connie Sue turned her attention back to me. “I thought I’d surprise Thacker and make his favorite dessert—praline cheesecake.”

  I glanced pointedly at the kitchen clock. At this rate I’d never get in a word or two with Bill before he finished installing the fan. “Isn’t it rather late to start making a cheesecake?”

  “Of course it is, silly. I’ll make it first thing tomorrow morning, right after tennis.”

  Of course, I thought, as I started rummaging through a cabinet for my springform pan. Don’t use the darn thing much anymore. Maybe I should just give it to Connie Sue in case she’s tempted to show up next time I entertain a blue-eyed devil.

  “I could swear you had one of these,” I said when I finally extracted the pan from the bottom of a stack of baking tins of various shapes and sizes.

  “I do, sugar, and I looked high and low for it. For some strange reason, I can’t seem to find it.”

  I set the pan on the counter. “Shouldn’t you be home tending Thacker’s dinner?”

  “You’re a sweetie to worry about Thacker, but never you mind, I turned the oven down low before coming over. I thought it’d be nice to sit a spell.”

  I listened to Connie Sue ramble on with half an ear. Trying not to be too obvious, I kept shooting glances in Bill’s direction. He had the old fan down and was getting ready to put the new one up.

  The doorbell rang again. “S’cuse me,” I muttered as I rose to answer the door.

  “Rita!” Who next? A vacuum cleaner salesman?

  Rita held up a brown paper bag. “Surprise!”

  “It certainly is,” I said, making no move to stand aside. Rude, I know, but I felt as if my foyer had suddenly become Grand Central Station.

  “Mind if I come in for a minute?”

  “No, of course not.” With a sigh of surrender, I stepped aside. Where were my manners? Usually I’m pleased as punch when one of my friends happens to drop by. But not today. Today I needed to be available—in case Bill needed my help.

  I led the way into the kitchen. Connie Sue stood the minute she spied Rita. “Well, sugar,” she said to me, “gotta run. I need to check on that nice pork loin I’m fixing. Thacker complains if it gets too dry.”

  Connie Sue departed as abruptly as she had arrived. It wasn’t until I heard her pull out of the drive that I noticed the springform pan still sitting on the table. I shook my head and reached for the pitcher of tea.

  “Care for some?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

  “You never asked what’s in the bag,” Rita scolded.

  “I haven’t a clue.”

  “Rhizomes.”

  “What am I supposed to do with rhizomes?” I asked. “Eat them?”

  “No, no, you plant them.” She reached into the bag and pulled out a brown thing. “Next spring, you’ll have beautiful iris growing in your flower beds.”

  I took a sip of my tea, noting as I did so that all the ice had melted. “Thanks, Rita, but you know I don’t exactly have a green thumb.” By this time, I didn’t care whether Bill knew that. My thumb wasn’t green. It was brown. Brown, brown, brown!

  “Nothing to it, Kate. September or October are the best months to plant here in the South.”

  Rita was on a roll. Along with bridge, gardening was her passion. It didn’t seem to bother her that it wasn’t mine. She talked nonstop for the next half hour. Bill seemed to tune out the sound of Rita droning on and on and just went about his task.

  Rhizome became a new word in my vocabulary. I learned gypsum is an excellent soil conditioner and improves clay soil such as we have here in South Carolina. Rita also introduced the term vernalization. I promised myself I’d try to use it next time I played Scrabble with the grandkids. Rita also warned me against the dangers of overwatering, and cautioned against the common mistake of planting irises too deeply.

  By the time she finished, or perhaps ran out of breath—I’m not sure which—the new ceiling far had been installed, and the old one hauled out to the trash. I watched in dismay as Bill gathered up his tools. We had barely exchanged a handful of words.

  He snapped his giant tool chest shut. “All done,” he said. “This ought to last a good long time, but call me if you have any problems.”

  I felt a moment’s panic as he started to leave. I might only see him again across a crowded golf course. I needed to say something before he walked out of my life, maybe for good. Needed to say something preferably witty or clever. “How much do I owe you?” I asked.

  I groaned inwardly. Witty and clever, I wasn’t.

  “Don’t worry about it. Glad to be of help.” He nodded to Rita, then left.

  Rita waited until the sound of Bill’s pickup truck faded, then calmly finished her tea and rose to her feet. “Guess you know all you need to about irises.”

  “Rita, would you kindly explain what the heck is going on,” I demanded. “First Pam tries to return a book that doesn’t belong to me. Next Connie Sue asks to borrow a springform pan, but leaves without taking it with her. And last but not least, you show up on my doorstep to give me a tutorial on growing iris.”

  Rita pursed her lips. “Kate, you’re forgetting what the sheriff said earlier about power tools.”

  “What has that got to do with it?”

  “Everything. Sheriff Wiggins said the killer has access to power tools. Bill Lewis has more power tools than all the rest of the men in Serenity Cove Estates put together. And don’t totally disregard Earl Brubaker’s accusations that Bill and Rosalie might have been an item.”

  Appalled, I stared at her. “Surely you aren’t suggesting . . .”

  Rita shrugged. “A woman can’t be too careful.”

  Long after Rita left, I sat at the kitchen table idly watching the blades of my new fan whirl around and around. I didn’t know whether to be angry with my friends or to hug them. In the end, hugs won out. Instead of me rallying the troops, they had rallied around me in an all-out, albeit misguided, attempt to protect me from Bill, the nicest and best-looking tool guy in Serenity Cove.

  Chapter 21

  I sat bolt upright in bed. My heart pounded like a jackhammer inside my chest. Had I been dreaming? Or had it been real? Had a shrill bloodcurdling scream awakened me from a dead sleep?

  Then I heard it again.

  An unmistakable cry of pain. An eerie, high-pitched howl that made the tiny hairs at the nape of my neck stand at attention. A sound that filled me with terror. And seemed to be coming from just outside my bedroom.

  What was it? Who was it?

  Not stopping to weigh the consequences, I bounded out of bed and flung open the French doors that opened onto the deck that ran along the back of the house. I stood there in my nightclothes, shivering in the chill night air, trying to see through the murky darkness into the fringe of woods beyond. The only sound I could hear now was the rustle of wind through the boughs of the trees.

  I took a half step forward and recoiled when my bare foot encountered something hard and cold. I peered down at it—and sucked in a breath. Not believing what I was seeing, I stooped down to examine the object more closely.

  A bone.

  Long, pale, and undeniably a bone.

  Part of a leg? Part of an . . . it? My mind refused to go there. I stared at the object as though it might disappear if I as much as blinked. I stretched out a hand to touch it, but stopped myself in time. Who had brought this grisly offering to my doorstep? And why?

  Even more important, who had screamed in such anguish?

  The thought sent goose bumps chasing up and down my spine. What if the person who brought the bone was still present, watching, hidden deep in the woods? I straightened slowly, wrapping my arms around my body for warmth. Keeping my eyes fastened on the woods beyond, I retreated backward step by cautious step until my feet were firmly planted on thic
k carpet. My hands shook as I turned the lock. I rattled the door a final time to make sure it was securely fastened, then reached for the phone and punched in 911.

  My teeth were chattering so hard I had to repeat myself twice but finally managed to stammer the words scream and bone. The person on the other end of the line promised to dispatch an officer to the scene.

  “H-hurry,” I stuttered.

  “Do you want me to stay on the line until someone gets there?” the disembodied voice inquired.

  I thought of how I had charged out of the bedroom barefoot and in my nightgown without a thought to my own safety. How dumb can you get? I asked myself. Staying on the line now with the dispatcher would be a little like closing the barn door after the horse ran off. “Thank you, but no. I’ll be fine,” I said, then hung up.

  I threw on a pair of sweats while waiting for a deputy to arrive. For good measure I pulled a pair of woolen socks over feet that felt like blocks of ice. I’m not a particularly patient person. The minutes ticked by with frustrating slowness. I went about the house turning on every light in every room, and when the house blazed like a Christmas tree, I put on the kettle for tea. After what I had just been through, there was no chance in hell I was going to get any more sleep tonight.

  A cruiser from the Brookdale County Sheriff’s Department arrived within ten minutes. Ten minutes that seemed more like an hour. I recognized Deputy Preston from our encounter at the campground the moment he stepped out of the car. I was disappointed he hadn’t deemed lights and siren appropriate for the occasion. I thought sadly of Law & Order and my beloved CSI, and realized life doesn’t often imitate art.

  I watched from the kitchen window as he walked toward the house, and answered the door before he had a chance to ring the bell. “Did you bring backup?” I asked, looking up and down the street for reinforcements.

  “Ah . . . no, ma’am,” he replied. “This is a Code Two.”

  I stared at him uncomprehendingly. Obviously I was the one who wasn’t up to code. Something else I’d have to look up in The Complete Idiots Guide to Forensics. “Did the dispatcher tell you I heard someone scream?” I shuddered at the memory of that horrible sound.

  Preston scratched his head. “Didn’t say anything about a scream. Said the caller mumbled something about being out of cream and claimed she found a bone. Told me I better come check things out.”

  “I’m not out of cream—in fact, I never use cream. Too many calories.” I digressed, but who could blame me after what I’d just been through? “I called because I heard a scream.”

  “Did you see anyone?”

  “No, I went outside for a look around, but it’s too dark to see much.”

  Preston’s thick black brows drew together in a frown. “Let me warn you, ma’am, going out like that probably wasn’t a good idea. There’s a killer on the loose, you know.”

  As if I needed a reminder. I was, after all, one of the original discoverers of that sad fact.

  Excusing himself, he switched on the industrial-size Maglite he carried and proceeded to inspect the premises. I could hear his radio crackle as he made his way around the perimeter of the house, and felt comforted he could call for backup if need be. His inspection finally over, he returned to the door where I stood waiting.

  “Didn’t find anything that looked suspicious, ma’am. Whoever, or whatever, didn’t leave any trace behind. Now show me this bone you found.”

  I led the way. French doors opened onto the deck from both the master bedroom as well as the great room. Since the great room was closer, I chose those. “There,” I said, pointing to the offending discovery I’d made earlier.

  “It’s a bone all right,” he agreed, squatting down on his haunches much as I’d done earlier to examine it.

  Duh! I didn’t need an anthropology degree to know a bone when I saw one. I kept my comments to myself, saying instead, “Well, aren’t you going to photograph it?”

  He looked at me blankly.

  “You know, snap pictures like they always do on TV.”

  “Yeah, sure, I was just about to do that.” He left and returned with a camera, then took a photo from two different angles.

  “Good,” I said, nodding approval. “What’s next?”

  “I’ll take it back and have it sent to the lab in Columbia for proper identification.” He started to reach for it, but froze when he heard my sharp intake of breath.

  “You can’t do that!” I cried, aghast at his technique—or lack thereof. “Where are your latex gloves? Where’s the evidence bag?”

  “Right,” he muttered. “Be back in a flash.”

  Good as his word, he returned promptly, snapped on a pair of gloves, and dropped the bone into a bag marked Evidence. “Guess that about does it.”

  “Guess so.” I rubbed my arms, feeling a bit let down now that the adrenaline rush had subsided. I trailed after him through the house.

  His studied me with kind, dark eyes before he turned to go. “Go back to bed, ma’am. Try to get some sleep.”

  Fat chance of that happening, I wanted to snap. Instead, I mustered a smile and thanked him.

  • • •

  “You did what?”

  “Kate McCall, what were you thinking?”

  “You could have been killed!”

  “Weren’t you scared?”

  I was being bombarded with questions after telling my friends about my latest escapade. The four of us, Connie Sue, Pam, Monica, and me, were gathered around our usual table at the Cove Café. Pam and I had just finished Tai Chi; Connie Sue and Monica had come straight from land aerobics.

  “Once your kids find out what you’ve been up to, they’ll have you out of here in a New York minute,” Pam cautioned. “It’ll be Assisted Living ‘R Us.”

  Monica shuddered. “What if you had found a . . . a . . . ?”

  “But I didn’t.” I said. “What I did find, however, was a new theory. A really scary new theory.”

  Connie Sue speared the remaining grape at the bottom of her fruit cup. “Sugar, I’m not sure I want to hear this.”

  I glanced around the restaurant, but no one seemed to be paying us any mind. “I think there’s a serial killer on the loose.”

  My announcement was met with stunned silence.

  Pam was the first to regain her speech. She leaned closer and lowered her voice, “Surely, Kate, you can’t be serious.”

  “I’m dead serious.” I winced at the poor choice of words, but continued undaunted. “We still have no clue where Vera and Claudia have disappeared. What about the scream I heard last night? What about the bone I found literally on my doorstep? What if the killer is escalating?”

  “Escalating? What the devil does that mean?” Monica looked more angry than confused.

  “They use that term on that TV show, Criminal Minds, all the time,” Pam said, taking pity on her. “It means things are speeding up.”

  “Ohh.”

  “It means we have to speed things up. We can’t just sit back and wait for the sheriff to figure out who killed Rosalie. We need to think about Vera and Claudia. What if the sheriff is so focused on Rosalie’s murder he isn’t trying to find them. What if that bone I found is theirs?” I paused, waiting for this to sink in.

  Monica’s face took on a mulish expression. “Things like that just don’t happen here in Serenity Cove Estates.”

  Connie Sue shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t cotton to the notion of a serial killer right here in our own backyards.”

  “Then prove me wrong.” I tossed my napkin down, a symbolic gesture, since gauntlets were scarce here at the Cove Café. “Let’s find Vera and Claudia and show the sheriff what the Bunco Babes can do.”

  Chapter 22

  SERIAL KILLER STALKS SERENITY. Or perhaps KILLER IN THE COVE. I could see the lurid headlines already. Granted, a serial killer here in Serenity Cove was simply a theory, but with two women still unaccounted for, in my mind at least, it was a very plausible one. I’d been awake
ned from a deep sleep by a scream that sounded human. If that weren’t bad enough, someone had left a bone—a bone—on my doorstep!

  I had been sorely tempted to call the sheriff and discuss my serial-killer theory with him. My fingers had actually been poised to dial his number when I’d changed my mind. Though it had taken a while to get it through my thick skull, I finally accepted the fact that the sheriff preferred to work alone. He obviously didn’t appreciate the insights that I’d so generously provided. He had offered nothing in return. No, Sheriff Sumter Wiggins didn’t strike me as the sharing sort. Maybe he had been an only child. I decided I’d keep my theories to myself for the time being.

  And the first order of business was to show the man the Babes could triumph where he faltered. We’d launch a no-holds-barred search for our friends. If this failed to produce results, we’d raise a hue and cry the likes of which had never been heard in Serenity Cove and vicinity.

  With this at the top of my to-do list, I called Diane. She said she had a lead on contacting Claudia’s sons, but needed a more time. Next I talked to Tara, who had been trying to find out anything she could about Vera’s daughter, hoping it would lead to Vera’s whereabouts. Nancy Drew wouldn’t sit around and twiddle her thumbs. And neither would I.

  I took it upon myself to do a little sleuthing. And I’d start at the Cove Café.

  This would be a perfect time to kill two birds, so to speak, with one stone. I’d have dinner there and, at the same time, do some investigating. With a bit of luck, I’d be able to wheedle more information out of Beverly. Hopefully she’d be feeling chatty after the generous tip I’d left on my last visit.

  The café was busy, but not too busy. Only about a third of the tables were occupied. A chalkboard announced liver and onions as the night’s early-bird special. I know liver is good for you. Monica, or maybe it was Connie Sue, had lectured me on its benefits. She stressed how it was a good source of iron and loaded with B vitamins. Onions aside, my observation is that a person either loves or hates liver and onions. File me in the latter category.