by Sandra Brown
“How did they take the news? Never mind,” she said before Tucker could answer. “I know how they must have taken it.” She exhaled a long, sad sigh.
At the sound of footsteps on the porch, Dawson moved to the door and looked through a flanking window. “It’s Bernie.” He opened the door just as Bernie, arriving for breakfast, was raising his hand to knock. He was carrying a basket of citrus fruit. His face was creased with worry.
“What’s a sheriff’s car doing here?”
Dawson stood aside and motioned him in. He nodded to the young deputy, looked Tucker up and down, then his gaze moved to Amelia, and, seeing her tears, he asked, “What’s happened?”
She took a deep breath. “It’s Stef.” She told him as much as she could before emotion made speech impossible. At that point, Dawson finished imparting the terrible news.
Bernie’s mouth worked to form words, but he achieved none. Finally he was able to say, “She was a sweet young lady.”
Amelia hugged herself. “I feel responsible.”
“You’re not,” Dawson said brusquely.
“She was on an errand for me.”
“Don’t do that to yourself.”
She nodded, as though agreeing, but for as long as she lived, she would regret letting Stef go out into the storm on a mission that should have been hers.
Bernie asked, “Where are the boys?”
“They’re still sleeping.” Shakily, she stood up. “I’d better go wake them.”
“I’ll go up with you,” Dawson said. “Telling them won’t be easy.”
“I’m not going to tell them. Not right now. But I want to leave for Savannah as soon as we can. I want to be there with Stef at the…” Because of the images it conjured, she couldn’t bring herself to say the word morgue. “I want to be there when her parents arrive.”
“I’ll take you.” Dawson closed his hand around her elbow and together they turned toward the stairs.
“Uh, actually, Mr. Scott, I’d like you to ride with me back to the village.” The three of them looked at Deputy Tucker, who squared his shoulders and took a step toward Dawson. “Besides coming out here to inform Ms. Nolan of her nanny’s death, I was coming after you.”
“What for?”
The deputy gave Dawson a sly smile. “You’re leaving it to me to tell them?”
Dawson didn’t answer, not even when Amelia turned to him and spoke his name softly, with inquiry. “Tell us what?”
His jaw remained tightly clenched.
Tucker said, “Seems he was the last person seen talking to Miss DeMarco.”
* * *
Her mind in turmoil, Amelia switched onto autopilot. When she woke the boys, they were grumpy and out of sorts, especially when they learned that Dawson wasn’t there.
Along with Bernie, they trooped back to her house. The electricity was still out, so she fed the children a breakfast of cold Pop-Tarts and the oranges that Bernie had contributed. She herself couldn’t stomach the thought of food.
While her neighbor supervised the kids’ meal, she went upstairs and gave herself a cold sponge bath in the sink of the semidark bathroom. Once she was dressed, she summoned the boys up to change their clothes.
Hunter complained about the shirt she chose for him. “Not that one, Mom.”
“You can’t wear one of your beach shirts. We’re going to Savannah. You’ll be visiting Mr. and Mrs. Metcalf today.”
“Who’s that?”
“You know, the director of the museum. You like him. Remember, he does duck calls?”
With cell service restored, she’d been able to contact George. After learning of her emergency, he and his wife had agreed to watch the children for as long as she needed them to.
“They have grandsons near your age,” she added as she wrestled the disliked shirt over Hunter’s head. “They’ll be there to play with you.”
“Why can’t we stay here and play with Dawson?”
“Yeah? How come?” Grant whined.
“Because you’ll be playing with new friends today.” She injected false cheer into her tone. “The Metcalfs have a swimming pool, and there was mention of a cookout and s’mores.”
“I’ll bet they’re dorks,” Hunter mumbled.
Grant’s only concern was whether or not the other boys liked cars. “I don’t know,” she replied in exasperation when he asked her for the third time. “Put your shoes on.”
Then, in response to their crestfallen expressions, she gathered them into a group hug and held them tightly. “I’m sorry I’m so cross. I’m not mad at you, I promise. I just have a lot of grown-up things on my mind today. So, please, do as I ask without an argument, okay?”
Sullenly they promised to obey, but they persistently asked about Stef and Dawson’s absence. She realized that her vague answers would pacify them for only so long, and then she would have to tell them why Stef had left without saying good-bye and explain why she wasn’t coming back.
She would have to talk to them about death. Again. They weren’t strangers to it. First their grandfather’s. Then Jeremy’s. Now their nanny’s. It was a lot for their young minds to wrap themselves around. It was almost too much for hers.
Because her car was integral to the investigation, it had been impounded, so Bernie offered to drive them to the ferry dock. She settled the boys in the backseat with a portable DVD player between them and dual headsets.
Once under way, Bernie said, “What do you think happened?”
“I don’t know, Bernie. I really don’t want to talk about it.”
Her mind was still reeling over everything that had transpired since being awakened by Dawson in the throes of a nightmare. His angry rebuke, followed by that tender appeal for forgiveness, then the kiss. His fervency and her oh-so-eager response. The doorbell.
His reaction to the deputy’s bombshell had been stoicism that bordered on surliness. Before they left, Tucker had allowed him to go upstairs to change clothes, accompanied by the uniformed officer. While Dawson was out of earshot, the deputy asked Amelia about the sequence of events that had taken place the night before.
“What time did Mr. Scott arrive at your house?”
“Eight thirty. Nine possibly.”
Bernie chimed in. “That’s right. They stopped at my place. Woke me up, actually. I automatically checked the time. It was eight fifty-two.”
Tucker took notes. He asked Amelia if Dawson had been in the house all night.
“Yes.”
“Can you swear to that?”
“He and I went upstairs around eleven. We parted at the bedroom door where my sons and I were supposed to sleep. I didn’t see him again until shortly before you arrived.” She hoped that neither man detected the heat that rushed to her face. “If he left the house during the night, I was unaware of it.” Realizing why the time line was important, she asked, “How long had Stef been…”
Inferring the question she was unable to ask, Tucker told them that the time of Stef’s death hadn’t been firmly established.
At that point, Dawson had appeared on the stairs, trailed by the young deputy. As he walked to the front door, Dawson had asked, rather sarcastically, if the deputy wanted to handcuff him.
“That won’t be necessary, Mr. Scott. This isn’t an arrest. We just want to talk to you.”
“Right.” He’d then turned to look at Amelia, but she had difficulty holding his gaze. She heard him mutter something she didn’t catch, then he pulled open the front door and went out ahead of the two deputies.
Now as Bernie, his hands at ten and two on the steering wheel, dodged flooded areas of the road, she contradicted herself about not wanting to talk about it. “For the past week or so Stef had been seeing someone.”
“Dirk.”
“She told you about him?”
“Not much. He works on boats.”
“I know little more than that. I urged her to invite him to the house, but she seemed reluctant to introduce us. I wish now that I�
�d pressed her for more information about him, but she was a grown woman. I didn’t feel it was my place to interfere.”
“I know exactly what you mean.”
His tone suggested an unspoken footnote. So did the discomfiture in his expression. “Bernie, do you know something that you’re not telling? Whatever it is, you should share it with the authorities.”
He shifted in his seat, glanced into the rearview mirror to make certain the boys weren’t listening, then gave her an uneasy glance. “I saw them together.”
“Her and Dirk?”
Looking miserable, he shook his head.
Her heart began a dull, hard thudding. “Dawson?”
He nodded.
“When?”
He screwed up his face in thought. “Thursday?”
“You must have the day wrong.” She’d caught Dawson spying on Friday, and Stef hadn’t met him until that evening at Mickey’s.
“No, I’m certain it was Thursday, because that was the day I was packing up and my hip started giving me fits.”
Without interrupting him, she listened carefully as he described to her the encounter he’d seen.
When he finished, he paused, and added awkwardly, “It wasn’t anything. Not really. But when I teased her about it later, warning her that he looked too old for her, she just laughed and asked me not to say anything to you about seeing them together.”
“Why did she care if I knew?”
“She didn’t. He did. He’d told her not to tell you that they’d met.”
Amelia was too heartsick to respond.
Bernie pulled up to one of the village’s few stop signs and looked across at her. “I hate now that I told you.”
“I needed to know.”
“It’s not my place to butt in.”
“You didn’t butt in. I pried it out of you.”
“Who you spend time with is your business.”
“It was only circumstances that brought Dawson and me together.”
“That may be,” Bernie said, “but I think you like him.”
She turned her head aside so he couldn’t see her face. “We’d better hurry or we’ll miss the ferry.”
Chapter 13
Dawson left the interior of the sheriff’s administrative offices through a doorway that opened into a small lobby. He was shocked to see Amelia there alone. She was sitting in one of a row of preformed plastic chairs lined up against the wall. She seemed just as surprised to see him. Her eyes widened fractionally, then she looked away.
He walked over and sat down in the chair next to hers. “Are you all right?”
She turned her head and gave him a droll look. “I can’t remember a Labor Day I’ve enjoyed more.”
For asking such a stupid question, he figured he deserved the putdown. “Hunter and Grant?”
“They’re with George Metcalf and his wife. I talked to them on the phone a few minutes ago. They’ve had fun, but they’re ready for me to come get them.” She glanced toward the door through which he’d emerged. “I don’t know when I’ll be free to do that. And maybe it would be better if I left them there overnight. I have to be in court early tomorrow morning.”
“I’m sure Lem Jackson would speak to the judge on your behalf.”
“When he heard about Stef on the news, he called and offered to ask for a postponement, but I told him not to.”
“Can you bear up to a cross-examination?”
“I’m tired of dreading it, and want to get it over with as soon as possible.”
He understood her wanting to have the court appearance behind her, but he questioned the wisdom of her decision. She looked completely wrung out. “Have you told Hunter and Grant about Stef?”
“I don’t know how to tell them when I can’t believe it myself.”
He waited for a moment. Then, “You know her death wasn’t caused by flying debris.”
She swallowed hard before murmuring yes.
While being “interviewed” by Deputy Tucker and his partner detective, the ME’s initial finding had been reported to Dawson: Stef was killed by a blow to the back of her head. It had fractured her skull. The depression indicated that brute force had been applied.
“How did you find out?” he asked Amelia.
She folded her arms across her midriff and tucked her hands against her sides. “When I got to the morgue, I was asked to positively identify her. The autopsy won’t be performed until her parents have seen her, but the medical examiner has examined the wound. He told me what killed her.”
“Have her parents arrived?”
“A short while ago. They were brought straight to the morgue. I talked to them. They’re devastated. I left them to grieve.”
“That’s where I would expect you to be,” he said. “Somewhere grieving.”
“Now that homicide has been confirmed, Deputy Tucker called and asked if I would come here and answer some questions. When I arrived, I was told to wait.” She nodded toward a uniformed officer who was manning the reception desk from behind a window. “That was half an hour ago.”
The crime scene on Saint Nelda’s Island was still cordoned off, but it had been determined by someone in charge that, due to the serious nature of the crime, the investigation be conducted from the main sheriff’s office rather than from the precinct that served Saint Nelda’s.
The headquarters shared a campus with the county jail, a sprawling, industrial-looking complex wrapped in concertina wire. Maybe the decision to center the case here was an intimidation tactic.
Dawson had spent the entire day there, being questioned off and on by the pair of detectives. It was getting dark outside, and he had only now been released, with the stipulation that he keep himself available for further questioning.
To bring Amelia up to date, he told her all that. “Tucker and his partner, a guy named Wills—‘Tucker and Wills’ sounds like a magic act, doesn’t it? Anyway, when they weren’t questioning me, singly or together, they left me alone in the interrogation room. I guess I’m a person of interest. They did the whole bad-cop/good-cop routine, which might have been scary if it hadn’t been so obvious. Bad cop, Tucker, told me that they got a search warrant for the beach house.”
She looked at him with concern. “They’re that serious about you?”
“They won’t find a murder weapon. I just hate that the rental company had to notify the home owner that his house was about to be turned inside out. I doubt they’ll provide good references if I ever want to rent again.”
“How can you joke?”
He raked his fingers through his hair. “Because if I don’t, I’ll get really pissed off for even being considered a suspect. You’ve got to know that I had nothing to do with it.”
She searched his eyes, finally saying, “The estimated time of her death coincides with when you were seen talking to her in the village.”
“True. Which sucks. But I’ve explained to the detectives how that came about. Stef and I bumped into each other in the general store. She had bags. They were heavy because she’d bought extra bottled water. It was raining buckets. I offered to carry her purchases to the car for her. Which I did.
“I left her there and drove over to the dock to fill up my car with gas. Then I headed back to the beach. I expected her to be ahead of me and was surprised when I reached your house and saw that your car wasn’t there. I figured she’d ducked into Mickey’s, as she’d said she might, to see if he had any carry-out food. You know the rest.”
“This encounter with Stef slipped your mind? Even though we talked at length about the unlikelihood of her returning soon, you forgot to tell me that you’d just seen her?” He was about to reply, when she stopped him. “Don’t bother inventing an explanation. I know why you didn’t tell me. You didn’t want me to know that you and Stef were…friendly.”
“‘Friendly,’ spoken in that tone, sounds like a euphemism.”
“Bernie saw the two of you together.”
Bloody hell. He co
uld kick himself for not telling her before. The omission made him look as guilty as her glare indicated he was. “It was innocent.”
His disclaimer made it sound anything but innocent and did nothing to assuage her suspicion.
He drew in a long breath. “Thursday, the day after my arrival, I had gone for a run and was on my way back to the house. Stef was on her bicycle, returning from the store. We crossed paths, exchanged names. She asked where I was staying, and when I told her, she remarked that we were neighbors and told me not to be a stranger. She said, ‘Maybe we’ll catch each other on the beach tomorrow.’ We parted.”
“You helped her with her bicycle basket.”
“That’s right. The clamp was loose. She was afraid the basket was going to shake free of the mounting and dump her purchases. So, yeah, I tightened the clamp for her. It took thirty seconds, max. That was it.”
“If that was ‘it,’ why did the two of you pretend that you hadn’t met? When I caught you spying Friday afternoon, you asked me who she was, when you already knew. Friday night at Mickey’s, when she brought you over from the bar to our table, she didn’t say, ‘This is our neighbor, who was kind enough to help me with my bicycle basket yesterday.’”
“I asked you who she was because when we met, she hadn’t specifically explained her position in your household. I didn’t know that she wasn’t a relative. At Mickey’s, I suppose she was sensitive to the tidal waves of hostility you were radiating. I can only guess, but I guess she didn’t want to rile you.”
“You took your cue from her and went along with the pretense of never having met.”
“Something like that.” She continued to look at him, making him wonder if she also knew about that other time. Whether or not she did, it would be better to come clean about it now. “I was alone with her one other time.”
“When?”
“Also on Thursday.”
“The same day you met?”
“Late that night. I went over to leave your wristwatch on the porch railing. As I was skirting around the back of your house, Stef drove up in your car and caught me in the headlights. I had no choice except to brazen it out. I told her that I’d heard something and had come to check for an intruder. Which wasn’t such a stretch of the truth. I’d been keeping an eye on your house, particularly late at night, for reasons you know.”