“Your friend has been assigned by the sheriff to find some rich man’s missing brother,” he said. “I’m the one the Sheriff has assigned to figure out what’s really going on out here in Camellia Beach. Good thing, too. I pulled several cases Detective Gibbons has worked on lately—all out here on this beach of yours. It’s interesting how there have been so many murders on such a small island in the past year. Very interesting. And somewhat troubling, don’t you agree?”
He stared as if expecting me to confess to something. Since I had nothing to confess, I kept my mouth shut.
“You and Detective Gibbons have developed a friendship, haven’t you?” The way he said it made our relationship sound suspect.
“I consider nearly everyone who comes to my shop a friend,” I said stiffly. “That’s the kind of community Camellia Beach is. Friendly.”
“But you’re new to the area. You moved to town less than a year ago and then a friend of yours was murdered.”
“No. I moved to town after my friend was murdered.”
He didn’t say anything for quite a long time. Was he waiting for me to say something else? Well, if that was the case, I hoped he was prepared to wait forever.
Finally, he said, “Interesting.”
No, it’s not interesting, I wanted to tell him. It was sad and tragic, and I still blamed myself for my friend’s death. But I didn’t say any of that since none of it was related to the murdered man lying not ten feet away, and I didn’t want him to think it was.
“Why would you want to move here? This town must hold bad memories for you considering how one of Camellia Beach’s residents killed a friend of yours.”
“My grandmother left me the family chocolate shop in her will,” I ground out. “And if you know everything else about me—as it seems you do—you must know that as well.”
A muscle in Prioleau’s jaw twitched. He looked down at his notebook again. I wondered what he had in there that he found so fascinating. “I’ve heard that there has been a sharp increase in suspicious deaths since you’ve moved to Camellia Beach. I wonder why.”
“You’ve been talking to Police Chief Byrd?” I asked.
“Perhaps. I’ve also heard that you’ve been asking around about Sammy Duncan. Why?”
“Because Sammy was searching for Joe Davies before the hurricane, and I was the unlucky one to find Joe after the hurricane,” I said, working extremely hard at keeping my anger from flaring. “I feel like you’re trying to goad me into saying something that would prove to you that I had a beef against Sammy and killed him.”
“Did you?” he jumped in and asked. His eyes glittered with that hunger I’d noticed earlier.
“I called the police about his death. I wasn’t the one who found him in the marsh. Delilah Fenton found him. She called Fletcher, who called me. And for your information, I want to find out why Joe was murdered and do whatever I can to keep anyone else from getting hurt. Yes, I wanted to talk to Sammy. I wanted to know why the first thing he did after getting out of jail for robbing the bank where he’d worked was to drive to Camellia Beach in search of someone he supposedly didn’t know that well. And yes, when I called the police, I called thinking I was going to cooperate and share everything I knew. But the way you’ve been talking to me, I wonder if I shouldn’t shut up now and call my lawyer.”
He flipped through his notebook some more, jotting notes down here and there. Once he was done, he looked up at me again. “Yes, now would be a good time to call your lawyer.”
~~
“He was trying to rattle you,” Harley said.
“Well, it worked.” I sipped the glass of buttery smooth merlot wine Harley had ordered. After I’d called him from the crime scene, he’d directed his secretary, Miss Bunny, to cancel his afternoon schedule. He’d then met me at the Southern end of the island. After having a few words with Hank Byrd and then with the unfriendly Detective Prioleau, he took me to the Low Tide Bar and Grill. On the way, he’d called everyone in our little posse, telling them that we needed to talk about what had happened.
“Before we talk about that,” I said. “I need you to tell me what happened between you and Gibbons.”
“I told Gibbons everything,” Harley admitted. “I told him that Big Dog had been staying in Gavin’s room. I told him about the stolen money and Big Dog’s plea deal. And I told him that Big Dog has been missing since last night.”
“Big Dog is still missing?” That wasn’t good news. “How did Gibbons react?”
“Not well.” Harley grimaced. “I kept my head, though, and reminded him that Big Dog wasn’t formally wanted by the police. He wasn’t breaking any laws by avoiding his brother.”
“Poor Gibbons. The sheriff has put him in a difficult spot. I wished he’d assigned Prioleau to search for Big Dog so Gibbons was free to investigate Sammy’s murder.”
“I suspect Gibbons would agree with you about that. He was eating those chocolates from your shop like an ex-smoker chews gum. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so jittery.”
“I just hate that he’s upset with us. He’s our friend. I hope you didn’t overdo your lawyer voice. I know it can drive me crazy when you use that tone on me.”
Harley smiled wanly at that. “It’s not like he could disagree with me. But don’t worry. I didn’t push things too far. I even promised him that I’d give him a call the minute I heard from Big Dog.”
“You did?” That both pleased and surprised me.
“I did. This farce has gotten too dangerous. We need to get everyone together and talking.”
I agreed.
“Wait. Something just occurred to me that doesn’t make any sense,” I said. “Gibbons said someone saw Big Dog coming up the back stairs toward your apartment last night.”
“He told me that as well,” Harley said, shaking his head. “I tried to get him to tell me who told him that. It can’t be right. Big Dog didn’t sleep in Gavin’s bed. And I’m a light sleeper. I would have heard him come in.”
“You don’t think your friend is responsible for what happened to Sammy?” I asked.
“No,” he answered without thinking about it. “No. He wouldn’t kill anyone. That’s just not who he is.”
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“Yes.” Again, he answered very quickly. “What would killing Sammy do for him? He’s in town to prove his innocence. Killing the only man who might be able to do that would be insane.”
“I’ve always thought revenge often came from a kind insanity. Isn’t that what writers such as Edger Allen Poe and Stephen King have taught us?”
“That’s fiction, Penn. Not reality,” he countered. But I’d made him smile. Seeing it made my stomach feel all fluttery. Gracious. This love thing felt awfully like coming down with the flu.
“Still…” Even though Harley trusted his friend completely, I wasn’t ready to blindly accept Big Dog’s innocence. I also didn’t want to argue with Harley about it, so while I kept Big Dog at the top of my suspect list, I quickly changed the subject. “Why couldn’t Gibbons be the detective investigating Sammy’s murder? I thought he was kind of like the sheriff’s department’s permanent liaison with Camellia Beach.”
“It doesn’t work that way. Investigations generally get assigned on a rotating basis,” Harley explained. “It’s been our luck that Hank trusts Gibbons and requests for him by name. But with Gibbons being subbed out to do Silas Piper’s bidding, the sheriff assigned the first available detective.”
Bertie and Bubba joined us at the table.
“So that’s how we got stuck with Detective Friendly-Pants?” I asked.
“I’m afraid so,” Harley said.
“Stuck with who?” Bubba asked as he took the chair next to mine.
We told Bubba and Bertie about Detective Prioleau and how he’d interrogated me.
“Who is Jerome Prioleau?” Bertie asked as she squinted at the card the detective had given me.
I’d lived in Camellia Beach long enoug
h to know she wasn’t asking us to explain again that he was the detective heading up the murder investigation. She was asking about his family. She wanted to know where he came from. Was he from the Charleston area? Or had he moved here from off? Who were his kin?
“Never heard of the guy,” Bubba said with a shrug.
“I wasn’t asking you.” Bertie swatted him on his arm.
“Hank said he’s new,” Harley said. “From what I can tell, he’s ambitious. A real go-getter. I’ve never worked with him personally.”
“Who’s his mamma?” Bertie asked somewhat sharply. I imagined she’d taken that tone since the others at the table had apparently missed the point of her original question.
“I can try and find out,” Harley offered. “As I said, I’ve never worked with him and only met him when I drove out to make sure he didn’t hold Penn any longer than he needed to.”
Bertie nodded seemingly pleased to know we’d all soon know about Prioleau’s family history, which in the Lowcountry could be an amazingly powerful tool.
“We need to watch that detective,” Fletcher interjected from across the room. “He’s a treasure hunter.”
Instead of joining us at our table, Fletcher went straight to the bar and ordered a shot of whiskey. He swallowed the shot, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and then tapped the bar top, signaling he wanted another. The bartender refilled his cup.
“How do you know he’s a treasure hunter?” I called to him.
He drained the glass a second time before answering. “He kept asking me about what I knew about Blackbeard’s treasure. L-l-like a d-d-dog with a bone, he was. He kept pressing me about the treasure instead of asking me about Sammy. It was unnerving. Oh, he also asked quite a lot about you. Sounded to me like he thought you had a reason to want Sammy dead, like he thought you went around killing people in the town.”
“And exactly what did you tell him, young man?” Bertie stood and propped her fists on her hips.
Fletcher snorted. “I told him the truth—that P-P-Penn has a temper.”
I wanted to scream at him that I didn’t have a temper. But that would have been counterproductive. “I now know why this detective thinks I’m guilty. Thanks for that, Fletcher.”
“I only t-t-told him the t-t-truth.”
“You made our girl here look guilty as sin,” Bubba said.
“I told the t-t-truth.” Fletcher growled. “Wh-wh-what else d-d-d-do you think I’d do?”
“You know Penn would never hurt anyone,” Bertie said.
Fletcher shrugged. “Do I know that?”
Harley squeezed my hand. It was a gentle reminder to not make a scene in such a public place. I nodded in agreement.
Fletcher was the best employee I’d ever hired, but he’d come to work for me with a massive chip on his shoulder. While he often did things before I needed to tell him what to do, he acted offended whenever I’d tell him to do something around the shop. Bertie had suggested that he behaved that way because he was young and still thought he knew more than the rest of the world.
He certainly thought he knew more about sleuthing than anyone else.
Was that the problem? Had I offended him when I’d suggested Delilah Fenton might be guilty of murder? He’s been spending quite a lot of time with Delilah lately. And I’d all but accused her of hitting Sammy on the back of the head and killing him in a fit of anger.
“We’ve been both working on this problem from different angles,” I said to Fletcher. “Perhaps it’s time we pooled our knowledge so we can figure out what’s really going on.”
Fletcher downed another shot of whiskey. “Y-y-you chased h-h-her away. And n-n-now you n-n-need me to f-f-find her. I-I’ll n-not let you u-u-use me like that.” He slammed the glass down. Without even glancing in our direction, he marched out of the bar.
“Delilah is an interesting piece of the puzzle,” Harley said, as he frowned at the closed door.
“She’s an interesting piece of something else to Fletch.” Bertie touched the side of her nose. “But if you ask me, I think she’s using him for something other than his youth.”
“You don’t actually mean they’re romantically involved?” How had I missed that?
“When Bubba was driving me home Sunday evening, we saw her step outside of Fletch’s cottage dressed in nothing but one of his Chocolate Box T-shirts.”
“Don’t know why the cub would be interested in an old woman like that.” Bubba shook his big head with dismay until Bertie smacked him on the arm. “I mean, it’s not my place to judge.” She smacked him on the arm again. He turned to look directly at Bertie. His mouth spread into such an alluring smile that even my stomach flipped. “I mean, my love, that woman has to be at least twenty years older than you.”
Bertie harrumphed. At the same time, the corner of her mouth turned up just enough to show she wasn’t immune to his charms.
If I had to guess, Delilah was in her early fifties. Bertie, on the other hand, was somewhere in her mid-seventies. Like many women in the South, her exact age was a closely guarded secret.
It wasn’t Delilah’s age that got me wondering, though. What I wanted to know was what she was doing with Fletcher. Was she honestly attracted to him? Despite his prickly nature, I supposed he wasn’t a bad catch. It was Delilah’s timing—so soon after learning of her husband’s death—that made me think she might be using him. But for what purpose?
She claimed she wanted justice, but she was acting more like a jilted lover than a woman mourning a man she’d loved and genuinely missed. And I couldn’t help but think about what Joe’s daughter had said about Delilah. Mary had painted her stepmother as a cold-hearted, money-hungry harpy.
“Delilah is the Gray Lady,” I told them.
“What?” All three of them asked at once. Harley grabbed my hand.
“Are you…feeling okay?” he asked gently.
“I’m not losing my mind,” I assured them. “More like coming back into my right mind. It was Delilah I saw talking with Joe on the beach that last day anyone saw him alive. I’m sure of it. Which means she’s been lying to us. She knew her husband had changed his name and moved to Camellia Beach. And she spoke to him before he was killed.”
Did she kill him? As I sipped my wine, I had to admit that it would be wrong to jump to conclusions. During my childhood, my father had gone through a succession of wives. Some of them had been horrible. One, I’m still convinced was the devil herself. But most of his ex-wives had been vilified mainly because it was easier to blame them for the failed marriage than my father, who we’d all still had to live with and love—kind of. Had Mary done something similar to her stepmother?
“Delilah told me she followed Sammy out to the marsh,” I told my friends. I ran my finger along the edge of the wineglass, making it sing. “I bet she was hoping he’d lead her to the treasure.”
“Or perhaps she simply wanted to hit Sammy over the head with a metal pipe,” Bubba said.
“A blow to the head—that’s also how Joe died,” Harley mused aloud.
I turned to him. “You’re right! The two men died the same way. And I suspect after we find either Delilah or Big Dog, we’ll learn enough about the events leading up to the murders to be able to prove which one is a killer.”
Chapter 21
“It’s not safe out here for me. It’s not safe for anyone,” Joe had warned. Althea and I had thought he’d been talking about the hurricane. But what if he’d been talking about something else?
Delilah had claimed she didn’t know where Joe had been living until she saw the photograph that ran with his obituary in the local newspaper. At the time I’d believed her. But now I was convinced that she had confronted Joe on the beach the morning of the hurricane.
Why had she lied about it? And what did she tell him that had upset him so much that he was shaking by the time he’d reached us? Was it about the map?
Delilah had also claimed she didn’t know Sammy. Another lie.
“Where is Althea?” I asked. Had no one invited her?
“She had her hands full at the shop this morning. I didn’t want to disturb her,” Bertie said.
“I’ll have to go talk with her this afternoon. She might have some insights about things that we’re not seeing,” I said.
Bertie smiled at that. “Child, that would make her day.”
After eating a hearty po’ boy sandwich that was overflowing with tangy coleslaw and fat pieces of fried shrimp and talking through everything we knew about Joe’s death and Sammy’s murder, I felt drained. Coming across dead bodies still upset me. I don’t think I would ever get used to the shock of it. I needed time alone to pull myself together. I needed to smell the sweet scents that I could only find in the Chocolate Box’s kitchen.
Harley understood. He drove me back to the shop. Before we parted, he gave me a long kiss. “I’ll be upstairs working on my computer. In shouting distance, if need be.”
Bertie had offered to join me in the kitchen. While I appreciated the offer—we did have an entire inventory of chocolates to make before tomorrow—and I did need all the help I could get, I asked her to wait a few hours. She hurried off to help Althea with the hurricane clean up. Bubba went with her.
Trixie and Barbie had told me not to worry about taking them shopping for clothes today. They’d even volunteered to walk Stella. Though discovering dead bodies wasn’t something many people had experienced in a lifetime, everyone around me seemed to understand that I needed time and solitude to recover from the shock.
Since we’d sold out of inventory that morning, Bertie had closed the Chocolate Box shortly after I’d left with Fletcher. The lights were off. I moved quickly through the back hallway, heading straight for the kitchen, where I turned on every light. The overhead florescent lights hummed loudly. The background noise drowned out the imaginary ghosts whispering in my ears about murder and treasures and to watch out.
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