“Stick close to him. And stay away from Scott.”
“Hell’s bells. You and I have worked together for years. I expected better from you. I’m going to do my job, Nate.”
Silence. Then, “I’m on my way.”
I’d no sooner sat down in front of Blake’s desk to tell him what just happened at the hardware store, when Nell appeared in his office doorway looking like she knew something he didn’t. She usually did.
“Chief, Elvis is out front,” she said. “He’s been trying to get ahold of you all day.”
He closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. “Send him in.”
“Blake—” I grabbed the chair arms to keep from lunging at him.
He sighed. “I’m tired and ready to go home. But if I don’t talk to Elvis, he’ll just ride that bike of his over to Mom and Dad’s during dinner or out to the houseboat later on. Let me get this over with. Then we’ll talk.”
I was ready to throttle him, and might have, but in came Elvis. I hadn’t seen him in at least eight years, but he looked exactly the same as I remembered. I’d swear he was wearing the same baseball cap. And he had the same unmistakable childlike quality about him.
“Hey, Chief Blake. Hey, Miss Elizabeth.” John and Alma had instilled manners in Elvis from an early age, but he struggled with discerning different etiquette for different social situations. Although he was only two years younger than I was, he used the same formal manners with me as he did with Mamma.
“Busy day, huh?” Elvis didn’t sit in one of the office chairs. He roamed the room, looking at pictures, the calendar, Blake’s framed degree from the University of South Carolina, case notes on the dry erase board, and the view from the window as he spoke.
“It’s been a real hummer,” Blake said. “What’s up, Elvis?”
“Miss Grace says I should tell you about The Phantom. I was going to anyway, but she made me promise.”
Blake muttered something that sounded like not Grace for the love of Pete, and then spoke more clearly. “She wanted you to tell me about the what?”
“The Phantom.”
“Elvis, I don’t believe in phantoms. Or a lot of things Grace believes in, for that matter.”
Elvis stopped wandering around the room and looked at him ominously. “Well, I saw him, Chief, three times this week already. Twice yesterday and once today. And a bunch of times before then.” He lowered his voice and leaned towards Blake’s desk. “And there was that one time? He was at the graveyard.”
“What does this phantom took like?”
“I think he’s old. He looks kinda shriveled up and dried out. He wears regular pants and a shirt. He’s got a cool baseball cap with a red flag on it. I looked it up—it’s a scuba diving flag.”
“Okay,” Blake said.
“But I know he’s a phantom cause he disappears before I can get close enough to get a good look. He walks around in the shadows, so’s people he’s studying can’t see him. So far he’s been studying Adam Devlin. And you, Miss Elizabeth. I seen this phantom watching Miss Emma’s house. He maybe studies other folks, too, but I ain’t seen him.”
The back of my neck tingled. “When did you see him at Gram’s house, Elvis?”
“He’s been following Liz?” Elvis had Blake’s attention now, too.
“Yeah, he was in front of Miss Emma’s house watching Miss Elizabeth, but her dog scared him away. That’s a real pretty dog.”
“When?” I asked.
“When was this?” Blake spoke at the same time.
“Monday afternoon, right after she got there. I tried to stay with him, but he gave me the slip.”
That had been Elvis whizzing by on his bike while Rhett barked his head off at the end of the driveway. Was the man I’d seen Elvis’s phantom?
Elvis said, “He went into the hardware store just a little bit ago. But when I followed him in, he wasn’t there.”
“The hardware store?” I sat up straight.
“Yep.” Elvis nodded enthusiastically.
“Moves pretty fast for a guy so shriveled up,” Blake said. “Elvis, are you sure this isn’t Coy Watson, maybe, or Dan Gregory out exercising? Doc Harper has everybody on this island walking. And they both go in and out of the hardware store a couple times a week?”
“Chief Blake, I been patrolling this island my whole life. There ain’t many people live here that I don’t know. And it for sure wasn’t Coy Watson, nor Dan Gregory, neither. It’s a phantom, I tell you, a phantom.” Nothing upset Elvis more than people not taking him seriously.
Blake leaned forward. “Okay, okay. I tell you what. I’ll keep an eye out for anybody who looks suspicious, and you call me next time you see this guy, so I can get a look at him, all right?”
“Okay.” Elvis started towards the door, then stopped. “But you be careful, Chief. ’Cause he is a phantom.”
“I’ll be careful. Hey, what was he doing when you saw him at the graveyard? Are you sure this was the same guy?”
“Oh, it was him all right.” Elvis nodded. “He was praying.”
“Praying? Where was he exactly?”
“Up on that little hill by the big old oak tree. The one that got its picture in the magazine? You know, right by where Miss Emma is restin’. Bye now.” Having told us everything he knew about The Phantom, Elvis had fulfilled his duty and was out the door.
Blake stared after him. “I don’t know who Elvis’s phantom is, but anyone who was praying at Gram’s grave is more likely friend than foe, and almost certainly someone we know.”
“Someone she knew. I wonder if Elvis’s phantom looks anything like the picture in the locket.”
“Maybe I’ll have him take a look.” He shook his head. “Elvis is sounding more like Grace all the time. Not everything that happens on this island is some sort of supernatural mystery.”
If he only knew.
I filled him in on what had happened in the hardware store—well, most of it. I left out the Colleen parts, which maybe made things sound slightly off. About halfway into the story, he reached into his bottom desk drawer and got out his old baseball glove and a battered baseball—one he knocked over a fence when he was eighteen. Whenever Blake was deep in thought, he tossed the baseball into the air and caught it, over and over, in some sort of rhythmic mind massage.
“What possessed you to get in the car with Deanna to begin with?” he asked.
“Will you focus on the big picture here? Scott and Adam are conspiring to kill somebody and get me off this island. They want control of the town council so they can build some kind of resort. One of them killed Gram for her land.”
Blake consulted the ceiling for a moment. The ball went up…down. Up…down. “Do you think Scott somehow knew you’d inherit? Maybe planned a reconciliation so he could get his hands on Gram’s land?”
“No, they were not happy I showed up.”
“You own the land whether you live here or not.”
“True.”
“And how else would they get the land with Gram dead? You remarry Scott, and if you don’t agree to his plans for the land, he could arrange an accident.” Blake’s eyes were hard with suspicion. “Then he’d inherit.”
This hadn’t occurred to me. Scott’s involvement was still new, and I hadn’t had time to noodle it over. Six months into our marriage, I knew Scott had character issues. But I hadn’t figured him for a murderer. Now that the idea was settling in, I shuddered. “So you agree? One of them killed Gram?”
“Liz, I have no doubt Scott would kill anyone who stood between him and a pile of money. Or hire someone to do it, anyway. And Adam? Sure, I can see that. But unfortunately, there is zero evidence linking them to Gram’s murder. None.”
“Do you honestly think it’s a coincidence they are conspiring to kill
town council members to get this resort approved and Gram gets killed?” I came up out of my chair.
“Of course not. But the only evidence we have that Adam—not Scott—is planning to kill someone—and we don’t know who—is one end of a telephone conversation you overheard while trespassing. Given the animosity you—and I—have for Scott, I’m gonna need a little more than that to arrest them.”
“I wasn’t trespassing. I was in a business accompanied by one of its owners.”
“And you think Deanna will admit that?”
I huffed out an exasperated sigh. Scott told Adam to get the votes. The only mention of murder Scott made was Adam shouldn’t try to kill Daddy. The context made it crystal clear they previously discussed killing folks. But context wasn’t the kind of evidence you could take to a judge. “Well…you can haul Adam and Scott in for questioning. I’d like to question those two scum-sucking—”
“And let them know we’re on to them? Then we’ll never get the evidence to convict them. Sis, maybe one day you’ll tell me the stuff you left out of that story. When we get to court, trust me, it will come up.” He eyed me suspiciously. “We’ve got to get evidence. But…” He caught the baseball one last time. “We have a lot more than we had this morning. We have suspects.”
“If we don’t do something quick, we’re going to have another dead body. We don’t know who to protect, and we don’t know who the hit man is. We both know the trace on that phone number will come back to a disposable cell phone. There are ways to track where it was bought, and if we’re lucky, who bought it. But that will take days at a minimum.”
“We have to protect the whole island until we figure it out,” Blake said. “If I arrest Adam and Scott, it’s not like they’re going to just say, ‘Oh, right, we have a contract out on Joe Blow.’ And even if we make sure it’s in tomorrow’s paper they’ve been arrested, how likely is it that a hired gun will read the Stella Maris newspaper? We can’t be sure the hit wouldn’t still go down.”
“So what do we do?”
“We make sure everyone knows Gram was murdered. Tell them the culprit is still on the island and dangerous.”
“Bedlam by the Sea,” I said.
“Yep. Our best defense. I’ll call Vern Waters at The Citizen and give him tomorrow’s headline.”
“And when you go into The Cracked Pot for breakfast, make sure Moon Unit has read the paper. I’ll drop by Phoebe’s Day Spa in the morning, the other hotbed of information.”
Blake called a meeting of his entire staff of three patrol officers. I sat quietly in the corner with Nell while Blake briefed Clay “Coop” Cooper, Sam Manigault, and Rodney Murphy. Days off were canceled, and everyone would work double shifts, with patrols concentrated on council members.
It was getting close to dinnertime, and Mamma and Daddy were expecting us. I doubt Blake would have gone if our family wasn’t in the high-risk group. Even though Scott told Adam to leave Daddy and me alone, there was no reason to think he would do as he was told.
“Head on over to the house,” Blake said. “I’m going to take a quick spin around town. Maybe I’ll spot Elvis’s phantom. Once in a while, Elvis sees things before I do. His phantom could be our hit man.”
It was a deceptively peaceful spring evening. The air was warm and clear with a slight breeze blowing off the ocean. “I’ll just take that spin around town with you,” I said. “It’s a nice evening for a walk.”
He grimaced. “Fine.”
We strolled down Main Street, past the courthouse and the professional building, and then crossed the street and came back up the other side. We rounded the corner and headed down Palmetto Boulevard. Blake checked doors as he went. Everything seemed to be in order. “No sign of any phantoms.”
Nate called to let me know the best flight he could get had an overnight layover in Chicago. Calm Nate had been replaced by tense Nate, whom I’d never met before. He wouldn’t be in Charleston until nine the next morning.
As we passed Island Hardware, Blake stopped short. “Normally, Adam and Deanna pull the big shade down on the front door.”
“Yeah, well, today wasn’t a normal day at the hardware store.”
Blake tried the door and found it securely locked. He peered through one of the large storefront windows. All the lights were off inside, no signs of life. “No phantoms here either.”
We continued to the next stop, Ferguson’s Flowers and Gifts.
The sound of shattering glass and splintering wood tore through the evening.
We both spun around. The noise had come from behind the hardware store.
Blake bolted back down the street and cut through the alley between the hardware store and the dress shop.
I grabbed Sig from my purse, dropped the handbag, and took off after him.
Someone was running along the back of the building.
“Stay put.” Blake shouted at me.
I ignored him and tried my best to keep up, but my Kate Spade sandals weren’t designed for sprinting. As I rounded the back corner, I caught a glimpse of a darkly clad figure disappearing around the front of the Stella Maris Baptist Church.
Blake dashed after him, pushing himself to a speed I’d bet he hadn’t run since high school. I stopped long enough to pull off my shoes, then made up some ground. Rounding the front of the church, I pulled up short. Blake was poised on the church’s front lawn, scanning the grounds in a slow circle. “Where the hell did he go?”
He searched the area surrounding the church, but there was no sign of anyone. We tried all the doors to the church, but they were all locked except the front doors. No one was inside the sanctuary. Whoever we were chasing had disappeared into thin air.
Blake grabbed his cell phone/radio. “Coop?” He let go of the button and spoke to me. “He’s at The Pirates’ Den. Alma’s Wednesday night special is Shrimp and Sausage. He was on his way there when he left the office.”
After a long pause, his reply came back. “Yeah, Blake.”
“Get over to the Baptist Church quick as you can. And have John call Adam Devlin and tell him to meet me at the hardware store.”
I grabbed his arm and pointed to the cars in the parking lot of the fellowship hall.
Blake pressed the talk button again. “Never mind that. Adam’s not home.”
“On my way,” Clay said. “What’s up?”
Across the churchyard, a motion-activated light on the back of the hardware store illuminated the area. The window at the top of the steps was completely torn out of the wall. Shattered glass and splintered pieces of wood covered the ground below. “I’m still working on that,” Blake said. “If you see anybody along the way dressed all in black, pick ’em up and bring ’em with you.” He holstered his cell phone.
“One thing’s for sure,” Blake said to me. “That wasn’t a phantom. Phantoms don’t generally have to burst through windows—frame and all—to get out of places.”
EIGHTEEN
I retrieved my shoes and purse. Then I let Blake convince me to go on over to Mamma and Daddy’s. I was exhausted, and Blake and three patrol officers were looking for the phantom, who might also be a hit man. As luck would have it, I pulled into the driveway right behind Merry. We hadn’t spoken since the council meeting, and the evening ahead loomed full of the promise of a tension headache.
Ignoring me, Merry slammed her car door and strode towards the front door. My sister radar clicked on. There was something a shade too dramatic, almost scripted, in Merry’s clearly demonstrated rage.
“Merry, will you wait up?” I wanted to negotiate a truce before we went inside. I crossed the front yard at a run and caught up with her just as Mamma opened the front door and took us in with her quelling gaze.
Mamma was five-feet-four of no-nonsense. Not a hair in her auburn bob was out of place, and her ma
keup was skillfully applied. “Leave your situations at the door,” she said. Her tone, along with the fire in her eyes, told me she’d heard all the details of last night’s skirmish. She didn’t favor us with a backward glance as she returned to the kitchen.
It was a long-standing rule in our mother’s house that nothing controversial be discussed at the dinner table. But the Mary J. Blige lyrics Mamma used to remind us of the moratorium on brawling in the house—and her bizarre attire—took us both aback.
The animal print exercise tank top and black Lycra capri pants were so far removed from anything Mamma ever wore that we were both struck dumb. We glanced at each other, and then looked to Daddy for an explanation.
“Your mamma’s been taking Jazzercise classes,” he explained. “Says it’s a good outlet. Helps her cope. It’s got Chumley all upset. His dinner’s been late every night this week, and she’s started talking like one of those rappers.”
I looked from Daddy to the latest in a long line of sad-sack basset hounds that had occupied the spot by his recliner since I was a child. This one was not even two years old, but the folds of loose skin and big droopy eyes made him look as ancient as his predecessors. Chumley gave a loud woof to emphasize his distress.
“More likely you’re upset because your dinner’s been late,” Merry said. “And Mary J. Blige is rhythm and blues, not rap.”
“It wouldn’t hurt you to cook every now and then, you know,” I informed him. “You could broaden your horizons.”
“Girls, come set the table,” Mamma called.
I stepped over to the sink to wash my hands. I let the water run until it steamed, then I reached for the soap. “I don’t know who’s more spoiled, Daddy or that dog,” I declared.
“You’re all ruined,” Mamma retorted. “Blake called. He’s going to be late. We’ll start without him, but set him a place.”
“What’s going on?” Merry asked.
I kept scrubbing and played innocent.
“He said he’d tell us about it later,” Mamma said.
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