“I’m assuming that you’ll allow me to give you a tip to show my appreciation for your friendship,” Chas smiled, pulling out his billfold.
“What are friends for?” Andrew replied, pushing himself up out of the chair to accept a more than generous wad of bills.
**
Detective Chas Beckett brought his boat alongside the one owned by Timothy Eckels. Tim kept his boat in a marina that was about an hour away from Calgon. No one knew about his hobby, and he liked it that way. Chas dropped anchor, and tossed a rope across to Tim so that he could hold the boat steady while the detective stepped across.
“What’s up?” he asked the M.E. who smelled strongly of extra-strength sunscreen.
“She’s not Amber Jones.”
“I know, I just spoke with Amber Jones. Who is she?”
“Her name is Sheila Martin. Oh, and there’s one other thing that I neglected to tell you before. She was pregnant.”
Chas raised his eyebrows.
“How do you know that, and does Rackett know?”
“There were cuts on her abdomen to indicate that the child had been removed, but the placenta remained. The size of it would point toward about a four month gestational life,” he reported. “And no, I did not mention this particular detail to the Investigator, but I did keep a “Jane Doe” sample of the placental tissue.
“Good work,” Chas nodded, saddened at the tragedy that had befallen Sheila Martin, whoever she might be.
“One other thing to keep in mind…” Tim said, staring into the distance.
“What’s that?”
“This corpse was more than a decade old.”
“So the barrel really was in the crawl space before Arnold Shelby ever even considered buying that house,” Chas mused.
“That would be the logical conclusion, yes,” the M.E. agreed.
“Is all of the evidence that you’ve gathered in this case in a safe place?” the detective asked, piecing things together.
“Of course,” Tim replied with a swift glance to the cargo hold, which, on this boat happened to have separate, temperature controlled compartments.
Chas smiled, impressed.
“I’ll be getting back now. Thanks for your help – I owe you.”
“Okay,” Tim replied mildly, reaching for a can of soda.
CHAPTER 18
Missy, Echo and Marilyn were all at the newly-restored Inn, waiting for Spencer to bring the car around to take them to the gubernatorial debate.
“I wonder what’s taking Chas so long,” Missy commented, glancing at her diamond watch, a gift from her husband.
Spencer came in the front door, just as Chas entered the foyer from the Owner’s Quarters, dressed in jeans and a polo shirt.
“Sweetheart, why aren’t you dressed?” Missy asked, concerned. “We have front row seats waiting for us – Tom’s aide came over and delivered VIP tickets today.”
Chas glanced quickly at Spencer.
“I’m sorry, love. I just feel awful. I think I may be coming down with something, so I think I’m going to have to sit this one out,” he said, kissing her forehead.
She placed her hand on his cheek. “You do feel a bit warm,” she bit her lip. “Are you going to be okay? Should I stay home with you?”
“No, go to the event – it’s an important moment in history. I’m just going to be resting and watching TV anyway. I’ll be fine,” he promised.
“Alright, sweetie. Feel better,” she kissed his cheek.
“I must have the same bug,” Spencer confessed. “I just came over here to tell you that I’m not up to going either,” he put a hand on his stomach, wincing slightly. “Can you call a driver?”
“Of course, darlin’, don’t you worry,” Missy assured him. “You go get some rest.”
“We can call Kel’s driver,” Echo chimed in, pulling her phone out of her purse. “Kel’s not using him, so he should be available.”
“Thank you ma’am,” Spencer said to Missy, looking a bit pale.
“No thanks necessary, you just get better, okay?”
“Will do,” he replied gratefully, heading for the door.
“I hope we don’t catch whatever it is,” Marilyn remarked.
“Somehow I don’t think we will,” Missy murmured, biting her lower lip.
**
When the long, black limousine carried the women away, Spencer stationed himself in the shadows, watching, waiting. Every nerve ending in his body throbbed with awareness, and suddenly he turned, taking the man behind him by the throat, his razor sharp knife resting just above the Adam’s apple.
“Relax, man,” Janssen whispered mildly.
Spencer released him and re-sheathed his knife. “You gotta work on your stealth, Marine,” he advised his buddy, as they both settled into a hidden position.
“I saw the ladies head out and figured it’d be now or never,” Janssen ignored the insult.
Spencer nodded.
“Did he stay behind on purpose, trying to draw them out?”
“I don’t know. I think he suspects that someone may be after him, so it’s possible,” he shrugged. “Do we have backup?”
Janssen shook his head.
“Nope, just you and me. There are some guys in place at the event, protecting the others.”
Spencer put a finger to his lips, pointing to a shadow that was moving toward the Inn. Janssen raised his crossbow, and his buddy put a hand on it to keep him from firing. When Janssen frowned at him, wondering why he wouldn’t allow him to take the shot, the Marine merely shook his head and pointed in the direction of the intruder. There were now two dark figures moving in toward their target.
“Now,” Spencer mouthed, and the two Marines moved with the stealth of jungle cats, taking out the trespassers without a sound, but keeping them alive for interrogation.
**
Chas Beckett sat at his desk, wrapping up his research after his wife and friends left for the debate. He had a cold feeling creep up the back of his neck, but shook the feeling off, focusing on the task at hand.
Sheila Martin seemed to have been a normal twenty-something at the time of her death. She’d graduated from Calgon High School and had gone on to a state university, where she’d majored in Archeology and had dropped out in her senior year. The detective had found an online college yearbook, and was following up on all of the references to Sheila in it, when he saw a photo that suddenly made his blood run cold. There was a photo of Sheila on an archeological dig in Arizona, and there was a young man with his arm slung around her neck, grinning. He looked eerily familiar, and when Chas read the names of the students in the picture, he knew he’d found her killer.
CHAPTER 19
The debate had been fantastic. Tom Chase had been more than impressive, and Missy, Echo and Marilyn joined the enthusiastic throng of folks waiting to shake his hand.
“Well, hello ladies, it’s great to see you again,” the candidate smiled when he finally worked his way through the first wave of supporters.
“Congratulations on a resounding win,” Missy beamed.
“Why, thank you, Melissa. Say, where’s that husband of yours? I’d like to get his take on the debate,” Tom replied.
“Oh, he really wanted to be here, but he was a bit under the weather.”
“Really?” a strange look passed over the candidate’s face, which disappeared almost instantly. “Well, I’ll have to catch up with him later then,” he smiled smoothly. “Won’t you excuse me?”
With a wave to the rest of the crowd, the candidate beckoned to his staffers and had a quick, stern word with a couple of them, who immediately turned and left the building.
**
Chas Beckett sat across from the Mayor and the Chief of Police, spelling out in elaborate detail what he had discovered.
“Gentlemen, our perpetrator majored in Political Science, but minored in Ancient Studies, and went on an archeological dig in Arizona with the victim, Sheila Martin. Miss Martin�
��s corpse was disemboweled and wrapped in a manner that was very similar to the methods that were used in ancient Egypt,” Chas explained, his manner somber.
“And you have this evidence?” the Mayor asked, appearing shaken.
“Yes.”
“And why would he have done that? Why would a young man with such a promising future have murdered his young, ambitious girlfriend, who was also from a fine family? It doesn’t make sense,” the Chief shook his head.
“Because the young woman was pregnant,” Chas replied, giving it a moment for the information to hit home.
“Why would he have stashed the barrel in a stranger’s house?” the Mayor raised a skeptical eyebrow, grasping at straws.
“Because it wasn’t a stranger’s house, it was his stepfather’s house, which is why the owner had a different last name than the perpetrator,” the detective explained.
The Mayor deflated. “You realize that this is going to create a public relations nightmare, and that if you’re wrong, it will cost all of us our careers,” he leaned forward, staring into the unrelenting eyes of the detective.
“I’m well aware of that, sir, and I’ll just point out that I was no part of the charade that passed for an investigation conducted by a man that you personally approved,” Chas quirked an eyebrow.
“Get the warrant, Chief,” the Mayor ordered, standing to indicate that the meeting was over. “And Beckett…if you’re even slightly wrong on this, I’ll hang you out to dry without a second thought,” he growled.
Chas stared him down until the Mayor averted his gaze, then turned on his heel and left the room closely behind the Chief.
“Good work, Beckett,” the Chief said quietly, once they were outside.
“Thank you,” Chas nodded and headed for his car.
CHAPTER 20
Spencer looked up when Janssen got back to the cabin. It had been a long night.
“Where did you drop them off?” he asked his scarred buddy.
“In the Mayor’s back yard. That dude really should get better security. The stuff that you gave them will wear off in a bit, so things should get pretty interesting in about an hour or so,” Janssen chuckled. “How’s the cop?”
“He got to the right people in time. Everything should be wrapped up neatly. Chalmers’ guys on the inside recorded enough stuff on the two that we incapacitated that they’ll be going away for quite some time,” Spencer replied.
“That one was too close, man,” Janssen pointed out, raising his eyebrows.
“I’m aware,” Spencer’s reply was terse.
“Maybe if your attention wasn’t divided…” the Marine began.
“Don’t,” Spencer barked. “Izzy had nothing to do with this. I haven’t even seen her in days. My concentration and focus were just fine,” he insisted.
“Really? Then why did they get that close?” Janssen badgered.
“I don’t have to share my strategy with you,” the Marine sulked.
“Strategy, huh? Alright, sir,” Janssen gave a mock salute. “Next time your strategy gets you trapped in a corner, where your assignment may not live to see another day, you let me know.”
He stuffed his toothpick in his pocket and slipped into the woods without a sound. Spencer sat on the porch for quite a while, pondering what his fellow Marine had said. Failure wasn’t an option, and he’d almost failed, putting his assignment at grave risk. Disgusted with himself, he got to his feet and jogged through the swamp, headed for his car.
**
Marilyn picked the morning paper up from Echo’s porch, and was so stunned at the headline, that she sank into the porch swing in a daze, to read the article. Tom Chase had been arrested for the murder of his high school sweetheart, Sheila Martin, who turned out to be the woman in the barrel that had been stashed, for more than a decade under Ed Jabrowski’s house.
Forensic evidence had determined that what looked like Arnold Shelby’s suicide had actually been staged, and two of the candidate’s staffers’ fingerprints, along with other evidence which pointed to them, had been found when police went back to the scene. When Chas had shown the photos of the “suicide scene,” to M.E., Timothy Eckels, he had immediately noted that the angle of impact made it impossible for the mortal wound to have been self-inflicted, which was supported by spatter patterns as well.
Amber Jones, the late Mr. Shelby’s ex-girlfriend, was on her way back to Calgon, after having been moved, under a fabricated threat of incarceration made by Tom Chase’s staffers, to an undisclosed location, which she had been told was a safe house. The staffers had made a concerted effort to erase all evidence of Amber’s existence, but had missed some key pieces of information, which Chas later found on the “deep Web.” Amber, while being watched 24/7 in her “safe house,” had ordered a pizza, and when the delivery boy came inside, she’d given him a huge tip and begged to use his phone to call Chas.
The detective had gone back over to the home of Arnold Shelby’s ex-wife Jen, and had convinced her to admit that she’d accepted bribe money from the staffers to implicate Arnie in the murder of Amber Jones when being interviewed by the police, hence the new car and diamond rings. The detective had run the plate, and done some more digging, finding that the car had been recently purchased, with cash, by Jen herself, not a rich, benevolent uncle.
An investigation into Merrill Rackett’s involvement in the scheme was currently underway, and agents were currently searching his home and office for evidence that he’d been working on behalf of the aspiring governor.
A look into Tom Chase’s stepfather explained where the plastic barrel had come from. The man was a dealer of fertilizer pellets, and used plastic drums to ship the pellets – which explained where some of Timothy Eckels’ strange findings of random chemicals in the barrel had come from. Tom had worked summers for his stepfather, and the summer that he’d killed Sheila, he merely brought one of the barrels home in the back of his pickup truck.
Marilyn read through the entire article twice, making sure that she absorbed every detail, thinking that this sounded more like a darn good movie rather than something that had happened in real life. And to think that she knew and had met many of the key people involved! She shook her head in wonder. For what was supposed to have been a relaxing vacation in a sleepy town, she’d had quite an eventful and exciting time.
“Uh, hello,” a timid voice interrupted her thoughts, and she glanced up to see Tim standing at the bottom of the porch steps, holding another pie.
“Good morning, Tim,” she said warily, pasting a faint smile on her face.
“May I?” he asked, gesturing at the top step.
She sighed inwardly, but wasn’t feeling inclined to be rude, so she nodded.
“Sure, have a seat.”
“You gave him your pie,” he noted, glancing over toward Loud Steve’s house.
“I thought that it might have laxatives in it,” Marilyn shrugged, figuring that she might as well be honest.
“I didn’t do that last time. I’m sorry for whatever happened to you, but it wasn’t my pie,” he insisted dully, staring at the ground in front of him.
“Water under the bridge, Tim,” Marilyn waved off his reply. “I was rude to you, I probably deserved it.”
“But I would never…” he began to protest, and she interrupted.
“It’s okay, I get it,” she managed an actual smile this time. “And I’m sorry for the way that I treated you. You just had some behaviors that I considered strange, so I reacted by being rude. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that. I mean, I was dealing with some things, but that’s no excuse.”
“There were murders,” Tim nodded, pleased that she had apologized.
“Yes, there were,” Marilyn shuddered, remembering. “So, are you enjoying your new job?” she asked, trying to be polite.
“It feels right,” he admitted. “Can I say something?”
Marilyn’s heart dropped a bit, but she swallowed bravely. “Of course.”
/> “The way I was…in Key West…I just,” he broke off, seeming embarrassed.
“Just what? What about Key West?” she prompted, feeling sorry for the strange little man, who was clearly uncomfortable.
“I sounded stupid, slow, and I’m not,” Tim said quietly, the tips of his ears reddening.
“Oh, Tim, I never thought…” Marilyn began, her heart going out to him and her conscience staring at her accusingly.
“I liked you,” he blurted suddenly. “You’re so beautiful I can’t look at you for more than two seconds, and I can’t speak and I feel clumsy,” Timothy Eckels revealed his feelings for Marilyn, all the while staring at Echo’s rose bushes.
The object of his affections sat open-mouthed, having no idea how to respond. This was not at all what she’d expected.
“I was married once. She loved me…and then she died,” he said sadly, his shoulders slumped.
Tim stood suddenly and placed the pie on the porch in front of Marilyn’s feet, then turned to go.
“Tim?” she called out, finding her voice again.
He stopped, but didn’t turn around to look at her.
“Will you come have a slice of pie with me?” she invited. “I’ll make coffee.”
The pale, shy Medical Examiner turned slowly and gazed at her for a moment, blinking, as though her invitation had been too good to be true.
“No, thank you,” he said quietly, then headed for home, leaving a stunned Marilyn staring after him.
CHAPTER 21
“You two are not going to believe the cupcakes that I invented this morning,” Missy greeted Echo and Marilyn enthusiastically, presenting a tray filled with tasty-looking cakes. “I figured since this was your last morning with us, I’d make something special,” she told Marilyn.
“Yum!” Marilyn gazed at the tray with longing. “What are they?”
“Taste,” Missy encouraged her. “Echo, honey, the ones with the basil leaf on top are the vegan ones.”
“Basil on a cupcake?” her friend wondered.
Peaches and Creme Killer: Book 6 in The INNcredibly Sweet Series Page 7