Chapter Thirty
Stonefish
Stonefish are the most poisonous in the world. They camouflage themselves easily amid coral beds, await their prey, and strike quicker than a breath. But, they can get you without even trying. Just touching them can send their poisons coursing through your bloodstream. Stonefish don’t have to be hurled like stones to cause damage.
“Delilah Duffy, you are in a world of trouble!” Grandma Betty belted out as she slid out of the front seat of her car. She held up a copy of the newspaper. My seductive picture graced the front page. My world stopped, like God hit the pause button.
Now, all of Tipee had seen my best bedroom eyes and come-and-get-me-nightie.
Next to my lovely portrait was Clark’s headline: Murderer?
“You want to explain to me why my granddaughter is half-naked on the cover of our Gazette?” she demanded. “A dozen people come up to me in the grocery store! I about had a heart attack when I saw it! Your grandfather – well, thank goodness he’s out fishing because if he – when he sees this, well, I don’t know what he’ll do.”
“I can explain,” I stammered.
“Oh, I can’t wait to hear this,” Grandma Betty replied, angrily. “Oh, I didn’t realize we had company.” Teague had been standing behind the car, but eased out in front so she could see him clearly.
“Can I bring in some groceries for you, Mrs. Duffy?” Teague asked.
“That’d be nice, Sam,” she returned. “But, I’m not sugarcoating because you’re around. I’m pretty peeved, and I don’t mind showing it.” I raced over to help Teague with the bags.
Grandma mumbled as we followed her into the house. She slapped the paper on the counter, and waited, hand on hip, for me to address her questions. Teague busied himself by putting the groceries away. In a small way, I was glad he stayed.
“Grandma, I trusted the wrong man,” I said flatly. “I loved him. I thought he’d ask me to marry him soon. He took this picture of me one evening after I’d had a little too much wine. A few of my students got a hold of it and plastered it all over their blogs. It’s part of the reason why I left Durham.”
“You should’ve told me,” Betty complained.
“I didn’t want to tell anyone,” I countered. “Can you imagine how embarrassing this is?”
Grandma lectured me about using good sense, not jumping into bed with every ‘Joe’ that happens along (nerve hit, considering the whole “warm body, cold regret” thing), and if I should stoop to having sex before marriage (clearly living up to my name), not allowing cameras in the bedroom.
“For goodness sakes, Delilah! You know all about the internet!” she chided.
The speech lasted a good ten minutes, during which she cited Oprah, Dateline, and the Bible several times, in that order. Remembering Grandpa Charlie’s scolding in the car, I kept my mouth shut.
“Cursing in church and now naughty pictures, what’s next? You gonna start workin’ at Via’s? You’re not the young lady I remember or that my son raised you to be,” she tacked on the end of her speech. Her words hit me like stones.
The phone rang to stop her. I ducked out of the kitchen to the back deck. Tears slipped down my cheeks. Teague opened the sliding glass door next, letting Willie slip passed his legs to go digging in the sand. I wiped my eyes quickly.
“She’s just angry,” Teague said. “She’ll get over it.”
“I won’t,” I countered, tears streaming. “How could Clark do that? I’m doomed. She’s right. I was stupid, completely stupid.” My new deal with Jonathan made my stomach queasy. I leaned over, placing my hands on my knees.
“You okay?”
“No.”
“Delilah, it’s just an article,” Teague tried, “read today, forgotten tomorrow.” He put his hand on my back and rubbed in gentle circles. I took deep breaths.
“It’s not your picture plastered all over town,” I bit back.
“You’ll get through this,” he insisted. “I know it seems bad right-”
“Bad?” I questioned. “It’s like I’ve landed on one of the circles of hell.”
Grandma Betty opened the sliding glass door, and peeked out. “Delilah, Mike Ancellotti left you a message. He has to cancel for tomorrow night.” She threw the message at me, happy to have something else to throw. I sank to the sand.
“It’s not a coincidence that he breaks a date the same day this trash comes out in the paper,” Grandma Betty added, holding up the picture again. She said what I was thinking, but I couldn’t bring myself to agree. Teague walked over to the door, and asked her for the paper. She handed it over and slipped back inside.
“Delilah, this isn’t so bad,” Teague reported, many of my deep breaths later. He sat down next to me in the sand. “He basically says they have nothing on you. Lewis is under pressure to move the case forward.”
“It doesn’t matter what it says,” I returned. “All people will see is my slutty picture with murderer beside it.”
“Don’t give up.”
“That’s what everyone wants,” I countered. “Maybe-”
“You’re not a quitter.”
I huffed. “What do you-”
“Remember surfing?” he asked with a smile. “At the beginning of the day, you were the most ungraceful, uncoordinated person I’d ever seen. You were so stiff, and nervous, I guess, it was like trying to teach a tree trunk to surf. The board was more pliable.” He laughed, and I couldn’t help but chuckle in spite of myself. He was right. That day, I felt completely out of my element, at least at the beginning.
Teague smiled widely, and said, “I never thought you’d be able to pop up, let alone surf, but you did it and when you were up there, you were stunning.”
I wiped another tear away, but smiled. “I had a good teacher.”
“Maybe,” he grinned, “but, I can’t take credit. What I saw in you that day, and still holds true, is that you have this luminous, unbreakable spirit.”
“Feels fairly broken right now.” I let my head fall against his shoulder and his arm slipped around my back. And in the midst of all that newspaper drama, something akin to peace settled over me – at least for the moment.
“No, not broken,” he corrected. “Scarred maybe, but never broken.” Teague tossed the paper to the sand like a Frisbee. Grains scattered over its surface. “This isn’t you.”
I breathed out heavily. Willie barked at a couple of passing seagulls. A breeze whipped up. And hope managed to squeak back in and fill me up again.
“It’ll be okay,” Teague whispered after a few moments.
I smiled. “When you say it, sounds believable.” Teague pulled me closer, and rested his head against mine.
“Delilah, does this count?” Teague whispered. His lips were touching my forehead.
“Count?”
I felt him smile. “Intimacy?”
“Seems like every-”
Grandma Betty yanked the sliding glass door open, and ordered me back inside, I suspect because she thought Teague and I were getting too cozy. “I’m not done talkin’ to you, missy!”
Whatever the moment was, it ended, and I became irritated at it being ruined. I jumped out of Teague’s arms, up off the sand, and strode over to the door, while Teague collected Willie.
“I’m not talking about this anymore,” I told Grandma Betty, as sternly as I dared. “Am I still welcome here or do I need to make other arrangements?” This time, I put my hand on my hip and stared her down. It took her by surprise.
“Delilah, you’re my granddaughter,” she said, “of course, you’re welcome here.”
“Good. Thank you,” I said. “I’m leaving. I’ll be back later.” And without any further explanation, I grabbed my purse and keys and headed for the door.
Chapter Thirty-One
Locks
“It was very becoming,” Milo cooed, “like a yearbook picture.”
“Most likely to get fifty to life?” Baby Chris asked with a laugh. “Well
, if Ms. Duffy’s lookin’ to drum up business, she might succeed.”
“What kind of business is she trying to drum up exactly?” Milo asked, “because I’m interested in becoming a client.” His words were echoed with hoots and whistles.
“Not everyone agrees with you,” Baby Chris explained, “The phones have been lit up over this article in the paper this morning. One mom called up to say that she found the picture in her 13-year-old’s bedroom-”
I flipped the radio off, and vowed not to listen again.
If the embarrassing picture wasn’t enough to make my head spin with regrets, the word murderer ran through my head like a bad song. I had to prove it wasn’t me if I ever expected to make a life here. At the same time, I wondered if that’s what I really wanted. Could it already be too late? And who was I to figure out anything so complicated as a murder? I pushed the accelerator down further.
Willie and I headed toward the Tipee Island Ferry on the north side of the island. The ferry capped the island at the other end and transported cars and people across the Cape Fear River to the nearest ‘city’ of Shawsburg. Shawsburg had the closest hospital, Wal-Mart, and public schools, making it a metropolis compared to Tipee Island.
I stopped for directions only once and found Shawsburg High School after three turns down residential streets. The Home of the Pirates was a massive three-story building with four decorative towers perched on the rooftop like widow’s peaks. Even though school was out for summer, the lot was filled with cars. I tied Willie’s leash to the Jeep’s roll bar, gave him some pats, and went inside.
The office directed me to the English department, three stories up, where I could find the department head, Mrs. Trojak, in room 323.The halls were barren, but filled with that typical school smell I’d grown so accustomed to, but didn’t realize I missed. A strange mix of cleaner, school supplies, old books, and teenagers. It wafted through the air like ghosts.
I knocked on Mrs. Trojak’s door. A woman in her mid-fifties looked up from a stack of papers on her desk. I smiled.
“Sorry to bother you. Are you Mrs. Trojak?” I asked. She nodded and waved for me to enter. She pulled off her reading glasses and stood up from her desk. I extended my hand, and she shook it warmly.
“I’m Delilah Duffy,” I said, “I hope it’s okay that I’ve popped in on you like this.”
“Any relation to the Duffy-Saintly’s? Rachel and Raina?” she asked.
“They are my cousins,” I said.
Mrs. Trojak nodded, “Wonderful girls. What can I do for you?”
“I’m about to reopen a bookstore on the island,” I explained, “I was hoping to get a copy of your summer reading lists. I want to stock copies of each title in the store.”
“What a wonderful idea,” Mrs. Trojak returned, rummaging through her desk. “I’ll give you our summer reading lists for the school and our list for the year. Most students order their books online or through the school. But, some still buy them the ol’ fashioned way. You may also want to check with the middle school because they have a short summer reading list as well.”
“Thank you,” I replied as she searched for the list.
“Sounds like you were a teacher?” She smiled, and I nodded. “What did you teach?”
“AP seniors.” I grinned.
“Ah, me too. They keep me young,” she mused. “They cannot graduate without getting through me first.”
“Oh, did you have Darryl Chambers?” The question sputtered out.
“I taught both the Chambers boys,” she replied distastefully. “Ronald was only in my classroom a few times before he dropped out of school. Darryl lasted most of his senior year, thanks entirely to football, but dropped out after the season ended.”
“Difficult students, I take it?”
Mrs. Trojak raised her eyebrows. “I’m saddened about what happened to Darryl. I didn’t know Ronald long enough to be able to classify him as anything, except to say that he slouched in class and I don’t approve of slouching. On the other hand, Darryl was no slouch.”
Mrs. Trojak found the summer reading list and scribbled some other titles on it as she spoke. “Darryl was best known for football. He produced little for me. I suspected that he charmed young ladies to help him with the work he did turn in. I only recall one instance where he turned in anything of merit. He was a teacher’s nightmare, able but unwilling.”
“I’ve had a few of those myself,” I returned. She handed me the list of books, and I thanked her. “I heard he had some colleges interested in him.”
“I’m not sure,” Mrs. Trojak replied, “You should ask Coach Tucker. He’s here, downstairs in the gym. He probably knew him best.”
I thanked her again for her time, and turned to leave. “Oh, Mrs. Trojak, do you remember what the one thing was?” I asked. “The thing he turned in that had merit?”
She pulled the reading glasses off her nose again thoughtfully. “Oh, yes. It was the first and only time in my twenty-five years of teaching that I’d ever seen this topic. He wrote on the history of locks.”
“Locks?”
“Yes, he was very specific,” she said. “Pin locks, warded locks, lock puzzles, and pin tumbler locks. It was quite fascinating material.”
“Sounds like an in-depth research paper for a slacker,” I added.
“No, it wasn’t a research paper,” she corrected. “It was an in-class free write. That’s how I know he did it himself. I asked the class to write a descriptive essay on any topic of their choice, something they knew about, and Darryl chose the history of locks.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Football
The gymnasium smelled less like cleaner and more like teenager, but was open and empty. Light filtered in beams through high windows. Championship banners hung from the rafters. I found the hallway that led both to the boys’ locker room and Coach Tucker’s office. Coach Tucker wore a Red Sox T-shirt and a sour expression.
“Coach Tucker?” I asked gingerly. “I hope I’m not disturbing you.” He was staring at a computer screen, what appeared to be financial records, which he quickly minimized. “I was just hoping for a minute of your time.”
“Will it cost me any money?” he asked.
“No, not at all.”
“Then, sure,” he smiled. “Come on in.” He pointed to the chair in front of his desk and I sat down. “What can I do for you?”
“Mrs. Trojak said you knew Darryl Chambers?” I replied, feeling awkward.
“Mmm, Darryl,” he repeated sadly. “Yeah, we were close, once upon a time. Darryl was a good kid. An excellent football player. Quarterback, first string for two years. That boy had an amazing arm. Could land a throw like he was shooting a gun. Had speed and bulk to him, too. Three colleges were fighting for him his senior year, and each one was offering a full ride. For a kid like him, that was a sweet deal. He never had a daddy, you know. And his mom, well, she was a character.”
“So, what happened?” I prodded.
Coach Tucker shrugged. “The season ended, and Chambers let it all go. Grades fell. Stopped coming to school. The offers were rescinded. I spoke to him about it, and he gave me a story about not being able to cut it. I didn’t believe it for a second. He could do the work. I think he was having family issues. Either way, he never explained and dropped out of school not long after the incident with Mr. Ellis.”
“What incident?”
“Oh, the Ellis incident,” Coach Tucker chuckled. “Well, that’s sort of Pirate lore around here, but I reckon at least some of it’s got to be true. When Chambers was a senior, our assistant principal was Logan Ellis. He’s since gone on to work at the school board office. Anyway, Chambers and Ellis hated each other. Nothing made Ellis happier than nailing Chambers on violations, and early in the season, Ellis benched Chambers for a game because he had acquired too many tardies or some other nonsense.”
“He could do that?”
Tucker nodded. “Oh, yeah. He could do anything, or at least
he thought he could. Chambers sat out the game and we lost. So everyone was angry at Ellis after that, even some of his higher ups. Anyway, Ellis came into his office on Monday morning to find that his prized stuffed marlin had been stolen.”
I nodded. “It was gone?”
“The rest of the office was untouched,” Tucker replied, “but the fish was gone. Ellis was devastated. He said that he’d caught that fish himself on a charter cruise with his father. The school was searched top to bottom. Ellis was certain that Chambers had done it.”
“Did he call the police?”
“He did, but they didn’t have anything to go on,” Tucker explained, leaning back in his rolling chair with a squeak. “I think they were amused at the call. The whole town was angry at Ellis for costing the game, so no one really cared if he got his dang fish back. Besides, Chambers couldn’t have done it.”
“Why not?”
“Are you kidding me? This place was locked up tighter than Fort Knox. He would’ve had to get in the front doors, the office door, the inner office door, and then Ellis’ door – all locked with different keys. The outer door had one of those electronic locks on it, too. No way a teenager could do that,” Tucker folded his arms over his chest. “Nope, no way. I’m not sure what happened to Ellis’ stupid fish, but there’s no way a kid could’ve stolen it.”
“I guess not,” I said, though I wasn’t so sure.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Pirates
Pirates weren’t always unwelcome off the East Coast. In fact, for a time in their early beginnings, they were good for business. They would pilfer goods off merchant ships and sell them to colonists for a cheaper rate. Such supply and demand was good for the economy, at least in the short-run. In the long term, the pirates grew uncontrollable. Ports closed. Everyone suffered, and the navy had to take action against them.
Sea-Devil: A Delilah Duffy Mystery Page 14