“This is just unbelievable,” Lizzie said, slapping the tabletop for emphasis. “But it doesn’t really solve the big mysteries of the night. What happened to Russell Strickland’s body? Was it ever discovered? Granny’s scrapbooks just covered the year he disappeared. And it was a huge story at the time.”
“To my knowledge, the body was never found,” Josephine said.
32
October 1941
Harley Shaddix’s shoulders sagged as he parked the rusted pickup in front of Shellhaven. Samuel Bettendorf had been waiting for him, nervously pacing back and forth in front of the house, wearing a path in the lush green grass.
Dusk was approaching. Most of their houseguests had departed on the four o’clock ferry, including Millie Everhart’s mother and grandmother, but it had been hours since anyone had seen or heard from Russell Strickland. The knot of worry burned in his gut.
The hound tethered to a cleat in the bed of the pickup truck hung his head over the side, panting heavily.
“Anything?” Bettendorf asked.
“No, sir,” Harley said. He pointed at his dog. “Butch, he picked up a scent out in that dove field and followed it right close to the deer stand. Then, coming back down the road, he acted like he picked it up again, but I couldn’t find no sign of Mr. Strickland.”
“His kit and all his clothes and suitcases are still in his room,” Bettendorf said. “I can’t tell what’s missing, other than his shotgun. Poor Millie is so upset, I hate to ask her to look through his things. Josephine and Ruth are with her now, trying to keep her calm.”
“I talked to my boys,” Harley said. “Homer said he showed Mr. Russell the spot where we seen that big ol’ buck Mr. Gardiner’s been tracking. And Friday, he talked about he was gonna bag him a trophy while he was on the island.” Harley winced as he tried to take the weight off his bad leg. “I got Omar and Otis out in the bateau, looking in the creek in case he decided to go fishing.”
“Good idea,” Bettendorf said. “I wish to God Gardiner were here right now. He’d know where to look.”
“Varina tells me your boy’s gone off to fight in the war,” Harley said.
Bettendorf’s posture stiffened. “He’s a goddamn fool. What happens in Europe is not this country’s concern. But I couldn’t talk him out of it. Couldn’t stop him from going.”
“He’s a grown man,” Harley said. “My boys, they say they’re gonna sign up first chance they get.” He sighed. “I can’t talk no sense into them neither.”
The two men, one black, one white, leaned against the bed of the truck, gazing up at the sky, where the last orange streaks of sunlight were visible through the tree line.
“Getting dark,” Harley said, scratching at the stubble of beard on his chin. “City boy like that, how’s he gonna do alone at night in a place like this?”
* * *
Ruth peered out the window at the scene below. “Your father’s back with the truck,” she told Varina, who crouched uneasily on the chair at the dressing table. “He’s got a huge dog with him. I’ve never seen a dog like that.”
Varina craned her neck to see. “That’s Butch. My brothers take him coon hunting. He can scent anything. Daddy must have been out looking for that bad man.” She wouldn’t say his name out loud. She would never say his name.
Millie sat on the bed, her knees drawn up tightly against her chest. “What if they find where we put Russell? What if the dog finds that place and they dig him up?”
Josephine stood by the window now, looking down at the two men. “They won’t go near that oyster mound. It’s a special Indian place for the Geechees. Right, Varina?”
“Mmm-hmm.” Varina nodded agreement. “Supposed to be evil haints there.”
“But you’re Geechee, aren’t you?” Ruth asked. “And you were right there with us.”
“Dead Indians don’t scare me,” Varina said. “And I don’t believe in haints. Anyway, I’m not gonna be afraid anymore.”
“I’m not going to be afraid either,” Millie said, lifting her chin. “I’m going to be like you girls.”
“The High Tide Club,” Josephine said. “We’re like the Three Musketeers, plus one.”
“All for one, and one for all,” Ruth said.
Millie clapped a hand to her mouth and jumped up from the bed. She scrabbled in her suitcase, spilling slips and stockings and dresses onto the carpet. “Oh my gosh! I almost forgot.”
She brought out a small package. “Here!” She opened the wrapping and brought out three small black velvet boxes, which she passed around to each of the girls. “These were to have been your bridesmaids’ gifts,” she said.
Josephine was the first to open the box. She held up the tiny brooch, squinting at it and then laughing delightedly. “Millie, you scamp! She’s naked!”
Ruth clapped her hands. “Mildred Everhart, this is the most perfect gift anybody has ever given me. And I will treasure it always.”
Varina stared down at the pin nested in its white satin wrapping. “But I’m not a bridesmaid.”
“Neither are we. Now,” Ruth drawled.
“You’re better than a bridesmaid,” Millie said, hugging the younger girl. “You went skinny-dipping with us last night, didn’t you?”
“And helped us bury you-know-who this morning,” Josephine pointed out. “I’d say you’ve paid your initiation fees in full.”
Varina lifted the pin from the box and held it up to the light. “That ain’t a real diamond, is it?”
“They’re just chips, but they’re real. Granny gave me a pair of her earrings, and I had the jeweler use them for the pins.”
From outside, they heard an engine starting, then backfiring. Ruth parted the curtains again. “Your father is leaving, Varina. And, Josephine, your father is in the truck with him.”
“Maybe they’re going for the sheriff,” Millie fretted. “Maybe they’ll bring more dogs and men who aren’t afraid of dead Indians and haints. And they’ll figure it out and we’ll all be arrested.”
“It won’t matter. They won’t find Russell. As long as we stick together, nobody will ever know what happened to him,” Josephine said.
33
“No, the body was never found,” Josephine said.
“And the family never did anything about that?” Lizzie persisted. “They didn’t, I don’t know, hire a private detective or try to call in the FBI?”
“Russell Strickland’s parents were both killed in a car wreck when he was a boy. He was raised by his grandparents, who were old and ill at the time. They did send somebody down to conduct an investigation, but you have to understand, the sheriff in this county at that time was part of a political dynasty who’d run things here for generations. He didn’t appreciate having a Boston lawyer question his methods and practices.”
“And I’d venture a guess that your father, being the wealthiest taxpayer in these parts, probably had some political sway with the sheriff and his cronies,” Gabe said.
“Papa believed in being generous to this community. Among other things, he paid for two new squad cars, and he built the high school football field. The sheriff was … grateful,” Josephine said.
“So the investigation never went anywhere,” Felicia said.
“The war started, and people had bigger things to worry about,” Josephine said. She pushed her chair back and stood with great effort. “And now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I really must go to bed.” She snapped her fingers at the dogs, asleep on the carpet. “Come along, girls.”
The old woman took one faltering, wobbly step.
Gabe jumped up and offered her his arm. “May I assist you?”
She shrugged. “If you must.”
34
“Miss Brooke, Miss Brooke.” Someone was knocking on the bedroom door. She sat up in bed, awakened from a deep, dreamless sleep. She looked around the room, disoriented. Her mother was in bed beside her. Where was she? And then the knock again. She saw the wallpaper, the blurry green tangled vines and crea
tures, and it came to her. She was in a bedroom at Shellhaven. She reached for her phone on the nightstand and glanced at the digital time readout. 7:15 A.M.
She jumped out of bed and opened the door. Louette stood in the hallway, barefoot and wild-eyed, with a cotton bathrobe cinched loosely around her waist. Brooke stepped into the hallway and gently closed the door to keep from waking her mother.
“What’s wrong, Louette?”
“It’s Josephine. I think she’s dead. I need you to come downstairs and see about her.”
Brooke felt as though she’d just touched a live wire. “What happened?” She was already moving down the hallway toward the stairs with Louette in tow.
“I don’t know. I found her on the bathroom floor. She must have fallen. There’s blood. And she’s not moving, and she’s not breathing.”
They’d reached the door to the library-turned-bedroom, which was closed, but Brooke could already hear the dogs inside, whining and scratching at the door.
“That’s what woke me up,” Louette said as they slipped into the library, quickly closing the door behind them. “Since I been sleeping in the house, I usually get up at six, because she’s up by then, needing her medicine and such, but today when she wasn’t up, I thought that was a good sign. Maybe she was sleeping late. I went back to sleep, but then I heard Teeny and Tiny barking and carrying on, so I went to check, and that’s when I found her.”
The dogs were in a state of frenzy, barking, jumping at their heels. Brooke saw puddles of urine on the carpet. “Better grab them, Louette, before they wake up the whole house. I’ll see about Josephine.”
Louette nodded, scooping up a dog with each hand.
Brooke walked toward the bathroom door, but as she got nearer, she saw a ghostly white foot, turned at an odd angle, and then the pale, blue-veined leg belonging to the foot and then the other foot, and then, finally, Josephine Bettendorf Warrick.
There could be no doubt she was dead. The body was sprawled on the tiled floor. She was dressed in a moth-eaten gray sweater over a pale yellow cotton nightgown, her body awkwardly twisted, faceup on the tile floor, in a pool of blood.
Brooke swallowed hard, once, twice, and clenched her jaws, fighting the wave of nausea that swept over her. She knelt beside the old woman and tentatively touched the side of her neck. It was cool to the touch, and there was no sign of a pulse.
She heard the library door open and looked over her shoulder. Louette stood motionless in the doorway, a dog tucked under each arm. “I was right. She’s dead, isn’t she?”
“I’m afraid so,” Brooke said, standing and backing out of the bathroom.
“That poor old thing,” Louette said. “It’s all my fault. I never should have given her that wine last night. Not when she was taking that medicine. She hadn’t had no wine since she got sick, so she wasn’t used to it. Mixing it with those pills, that’s what killed her.”
Louette began to cry, and to her surprise, Brooke felt tears streaming down her own face. Louette set the Chihuahuas gently onto the floor, reached out, folded Brooke into her arms, and they stood like that, quietly crying. Teeny and Tiny sat on their haunches, their ears pricked up, small bodies trembling, attuned to the emotions unfolding before them.
Brooke finally pulled away and wiped her eyes with the sleeve of the man’s cotton pajama top she’d found neatly folded in the master bedroom upstairs.
“What should we do?” Louette asked, wringing her hands. “Should I go get Shug?”
“Let me think,” Brooke said, taking a deep breath. But her mind was a whirl of emotions. Panic, dread, grief, confusion. Josephine was dead. What happens next?
“Look here,” Louette said, pointing down at the top of one of the dog’s heads. “Is that blood?”
Brooke scooped up the dog and examined her head. Sure enough, there were several droplets of dried blood on the dog’s face and muzzle, but as she searched the dog’s body, she could find no obvious wounds.
“I bet I know what happened,” Louette said. “Josephine probably got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, and it woke up these dogs. They followed her wherever she went. She wasn’t right last night, doped up on those pills and all that wine. Probably she tripped over Teeny, or maybe Tiny. And that’s how she fell and hit her head.”
“You’re probably right,” Brooke said. “I guess you’d better go get Shug. In the meantime, I’ll use the house phone to call the sheriff.”
“Sheriff?” Louette stiffened at the word.
“I think that’s the correct procedure,” Brooke said. “But before you fetch Shug, I think we’re going to need a big pot of coffee ready before I wake the others.”
35
“Carter County Sheriff’s Office. Is this a life-threatening emergency?” The dispatcher’s voice was calm and detached, the exact opposite of how Brooke was feeling at that moment.
“Er, no—that is, the person is already dead,” Brooke replied.
She could hear the tapping of computer keys on the other end of the line.
“Ma’am, can you tell me the manner of death?”
“She’s, uh, ninety-nine years old, and I believe she fell and hit her head.”
“Accidental, then. I see you’re calling from over there on Talisa Island?”
“That’s right.”
“Name of deceased?” More tapping.
“Josephine Bettendorf Warrick,” Brooke said.
“Ohhhhh,” the dispatcher said. “That’s so sad, and I’m very sorry to hear it. Miss Josephine did a lot of good things for this community.”
“Yes, it is a shame.”
“All right, hon. I’m gonna call Sheriff Goolsby, because he was a personal friend of Miss Josephine’s, and I’ll ask him to call you right back. Is this a good number?”
“It’s the only number,” Brooke said. “My cell doesn’t have good reception here.”
“Okay, well, you sit tight while I get ahold of the sheriff. What’s your name, hon?”
Brooke told her.
“I know you!” The dispatcher’s voice warmed. “My niece Farrah works for you. This is her aunt Jodee. Now, you being a lawyer and all, you probably already know this, but y’all just leave Miss Josephine right where she’s at. Don’t try moving her or nothing like that.”
“I promise you, nobody is going to move her body.”
After she’d hung up, Brooke took a few more sips of coffee and waited. She really wanted to call Farrah and check on Henry, but she also didn’t want to miss the sheriff’s call.
She paced around the kitchen, looking out the window for the return of Louette and Shug, trying not to think of Josephine’s lifeless body stretched out on the bathroom floor. Ten minutes later the phone rang, and she grabbed it.
“Sheriff Goolsby here. Is this Brooke Trappnell?”
“This is she.”
“Jodee tells me Miss Josephine has taken a fall and died?”
“Yes. We think she got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and perhaps tripped over one of her dogs and hit her head when she fell. There’s quite a bit of blood.”
“Don’t touch a thing,” the sheriff said sternly. “At all. Are you able to close off that bathroom?”
“Yes.”
“Do that. I’ll call the funeral home and try to raise the coroner, and we’ll be over there ASAP. Don’t touch anything. Understand?”
Brooke rolled her eyes. “Yes, I’ve got the message. If you’ll call this number when you’re close to the Shellhaven dock, somebody will come down and bring you up to the house.”
She glanced over at the kitchen clock. Just past eight. Henry would have been up for at least two hours by now. She dialed her babysitter’s number, crossing her fingers that all would be well. One crisis per morning was all she was equipped to handle.
“Farrah? How’s it going?”
“Oh, Brooke, hey. Everything’s cool. Henry’s being a really good boy. Aren’t you, Henry?”
; She could hear the tinny theme song of her son’s favorite cartoon show. Then her son’s voice. “Yes! I’m good boy.”
“He really has been pretty good,” Farrah said. “I got him to sleep almost the whole night in his new bed. He’s had breakfast, and now we’re just chilling with some Caillou.”
Brooke smiled despite herself. “Ugh. I hate that show.”
“For real. Whatever happened to Barney the purple dinosaur like I used to watch?”
“Dunno. Listen, Farrah. Would it be possible for you to stay ’til later in the day?”
“I guess. I mean, it’s not like I’ve got anything else to do since me and Jaxson are broken up. How late are we talking about?”
“Not sure yet.”
“Is everything okay? You sound kind of stressed.”
“Yeah, well, stressed is putting it mildly. The thing is, Josephine is dead.”
“What! For real? What happened?”
Brooke described the scene she’d found in the bathroom.
“Oh, man. That really sucks. What happens now, with the island and everything?”
“It’s way too soon to tell. I’ve called the sheriff’s office, and he’ll be over pretty soon. In the meantime, I’ve got to deal with things here, which could get complicated. Which is why I’d really, really appreciate it if you could keep watching Henry. I’ll pay extra, of course.”
“No problem. It’ll be fun. Maybe we’ll head over to the park in a little while.”
“Good idea,” Brooke said. “I can’t thank you enough, Farrah. Can you put Henry on the phone?”
“Sure thing,” she said. “Henry!” the babysitter called. “Hey, Henry, come here. Your mama’s on the phone. She wants to talk to you.”
“No!”
“Come on, buddy,” Farrah coaxed. “Don’t you want to tell Mama about the awesome thing you did last night?”
“No!”
“Never mind,” Brooke said, sighing. “I’ll get home as soon as I can. Give him a kiss for me, okay?”
“All day long,” Farrah promised.
“Just out of curiosity, what did he do last night?”
The High Tide Club Page 22