by Meryl Sawyer
“Jurisdiction. We’re in the sheriff’s jurisdiction.”
From the search for Holly Block, Jennifer remembered Sheriff Prichett, the redneck who despised her. An inexplicable feeling of dread waltzed down her spine.
They trailed along behind Kyle down the stairs and into the large drawing room where guests gathered. It was a room filled with comfortable wicker furniture, but everyone sat on the edge of their seats while Kyle made the call, and they waited for the sheriff to arrive.
Kyle hung up and came over to sit beside her. “You okay?” he whispered. When she nodded, he asked, “Why were you so upset?”
“I’ll explain later. It has nothing to do with this. It’s about us.”
He squeezed her hand and smiled. Her heart did a lazy backflip. She’d spent half the night walking the shoreline, thinking about her life, and finally coming to a decision about her future. She knew what she wanted—finally.
But did she and Kyle want the same thing?
“Help! Help!” a guest she didn’t know rushed into the room, waving her arms and screaming. “I think she’s dead.”
Everyone jumped up asking, “Who?”
“The lady who runs this place.”
They all ran out of the house to the beach where they’d last seen Thelma Mae. Her prone body was on the shore just beyond the surf. Two of the hotel guests were with her. From the looks of his clothes, one of the men had gone into the water to get her.
“W-we tried to save her but—but we couldn’t.”
Kyle kneeled beside the lifeless form and tried CPR. Jennifer waited with the others, silently wondering how all of this fit together. It was obvious Thelma Mae had ended her life by drowning.
Finally, Kyle rocked back on his heels and shook his head. “It’s no use.”
Plotzy stumbled forward, wailing, “Thelma Mae said she just wanted to avoid the curse. I knew she couldn’t swim, but I let her go into the water anyway. Avoiding the curse is so important, you know.”
“You said the curse strikes at sundown,” Raven pointed out. “This is sunrise.”
Plotzy turned red and shrugged. “I was confused.”
To say Plotzy was intellectually challenged would be an understatement, Jennifer decided. Either that or he was a terrific actor.
Chapter 28
Jennifer couldn’t help saying, “Plotzy, how could you leave Thelma Mae alone? You saw how upset she was.”
“How was I to know?” Plotzy whined.
Jennifer turned her back on the whole scene, sickened by the dreadful sight. What a waste! She hadn’t known Thelma Mae well and Jennifer had thought the woman was odd, but to end her life this way was beyond depressing.
She gazed up at the widow’s walk and the secret room. What had gone on up there to drive a woman to suicide?
Behind her Plotzy said, “She told me the whole story.”
Jennifer spun around as Raven said, “Really?” with a fair amount of disbelief.
“Yes. Chad was her son. She’d given him up for adoption at birth. He tracked her down about four years ago.”
Everyone had gathered around Plotzy, listening intently. In the distance the wail of police sirens pierced the dawn air.
“Why didn’t she tell anyone this?” Kyle asked.
“I didn’t think to ask her that.”
Jennifer doubted the story. Plotzy lived in some sort of twilight world halfway between fantasy and reality. Considering the state Thelma Mae had been in when they’d last seen her, Jennifer couldn’t imagine the woman having much of a conversation with anyone let alone Plotzy.
Still, what if he was telling the truth? Biting her lip, she looked away to hide the ache in her heart. Giving up a child was the most emotionally distressing decision a woman could face. She tried to imagine what it would be like to wonder about your child for years, then find him late in life. Losing him again would be devastating.
“Why didn’t she tell people he was her son?” Raven wanted to know.
“That I asked,” Plotzy replied, obviously pleased with himself. “Chad wouldn’t let her. He was afraid the drug lords would kill her if they knew she was his mother.”
This was the same explanation Chad had given her for not making their engagement public. She couldn’t tell what Kyle was thinking, but Raven seemed skeptical. It sounded like Chad’s pat excuse.
“What’s going on?” yelled someone from the terrace.
Jennifer turned and saw Sheriff Prichett and two of his deputies. They spotted Thelma Mae’s body and hurried down to the beach.
“There’s another body upstairs,” Chuck said.
Lisa was quick to add, “This one’s suicide. The other one’s murder.”
The beefy sheriff came to a halt near them. “Son of a bitch!” His hominy and grits accent made it sound like Sum’ bitch. He turned to one of his deputies. “Git on the horn and roust the boys.”
Jennifer listened as Kyle explained what had happened. She hadn’t heard the details concerning the broken glass and the napkin on the staircase.
“Sheriff,” she said when Kyle finished, “I have an idea.”
The sheriff’s steely gaze shifted to her. Judging from his expression, she decided he hadn’t realized she was among the group gathered on the beach. And she was about as welcome as a blizzard in Key West.
“My bloodhound’s upstairs.” She couldn’t resist adding, “You remember Sadie, don’t you?”
The sheriff let loose with something that sounded suspiciously like a snort. “Yeah, I remember.”
Despite his honeyed drawl, the sheriff’s tone indicated he was still fried about losing face. Jennifer ignored his attitude. “Sadie could sniff the napkin on the stairs and lead you right to whoever dropped it.”
“Then you’d have the killer,” Raven said.
The sheriff took his sweet time, considering his options or something, then nodded. Jennifer raced ahead of the group to get Sadie.
The deputies were hanging yellow and black crime scene tape along the stairs, cordoning off the upper floor of the guest house. She told them what she was doing, and they allowed her to go to her room with a deputy to accompany her.
“Sadie, girl,” she said as she came through the door. “We have work to do.” She started to open the closet where she kept Sadie’s lead and choke chain, but the deputy stopped her. “I have to get Sadie’s things or she won’t be able to work.”
He nodded, and she opened the door, then pulled Sadie’s choke chain off the hook. Hearing the noise, Sadie clumsily lurched to her feet, tail whipping the air. Jennifer slipped the chain around her neck. Back in the hall, Sheriff Prichett and Kyle were waiting for her along with the deputies.
“Evver’un’s dunstars.” Everyone’s downstairs.
The sheriff’s gruff tone told her evver’un was a suspect at this point. Jennifer decided on the spot the sheriff was in over his head. There weren’t many homicides in Key West. How many cases had the sheriff solved?
“I’ll show you the napkin,” Kyle said as he stood near the open panel that led to the secret room.
He pointed to a small cocktail size napkin barely visible at the top of the stairs. Wearing crime scene booties, one of the deputies went up the stairs and placed the napkin in an evidence bag.
“Sadie will need to take a whiff—”
Sheriff Prichett cut her off. “I know all ’bout these dawgs.”
The deputy with the bagged napkin had rejoined them on the landing. He looked to the sheriff for instructions, and his boss told him to let the “dawg” sniff inside the bag. He leaned down, and Sadie stuck her nose into the opened bag.
“Seek, Sadie, seek,” Jennifer told her, then turned to Kyle. “She’ll need help with the stairs.”
They were halfway between the first and second floor. Depending on what her keen sense of smell told her, Sadie would opt to go up to one of the bedrooms on the second level, or she would go downstairs where the residents were gathered and where the other b
edrooms were located.
Sadie circled, her nose twitching in the air, and banged her cast against the stair railing. Sheriff Prichett gave his deputies one of those man-to-man looks that said this was a waste of his valuable time.
“How do we know the killer dropped the napkin?” asked one of the deputies.
“We don’t,” she replied professionally despite the obnoxious sheriff’s attitude, “but we already know Chad’s scent isn’t on it strongly enough for Sadie to lead us upstairs to Chad.”
Sadie was pointing up the stairs, her head bobbing in the air as she sniffed. Kyle stood nearby, waiting to help Sadie. The dog was standing in one spot, but she kept turning to sniff over her shoulder, then swiveling around to smell the air coming from the second floor.
Jennifer told the group. “Sadie has detected the same smell that’s on the napkin. The person may recently have been upstairs on the second floor or may live downstairs. She’s evaluating the scents to decide which is the freshest and strongest.”
“The dawg’s sump’m else,” said the sheriff with a smirk.
“Last year at the National Police Academy’s Extreme Bloodhound Trials, Sadie finished first,” Kyle told them.
The sheriff grunted, but the deputies had the good sense to look impressed. Sadie turned, bumped into the sheriff’s leg with her cast, then lurched toward the stairs going down.
“Here, girl,” Kyle said. “Let me help.”
He scooped up the dog and carried her to the bottom of the stairs. The deputies followed Jennifer down. Behind them lumbered Sheriff Prichett. Sadie was circling in the figure eight pattern she’d been taught. The dog whined and looked over her shoulder at Jennifer.
“She’s locked on to the scent,” Jennifer said as she took the leash from Kyle.
Excited, Sadie lunged forward, almost tripping over her cast.
“Whoa, girl. Slow down.” Jennifer jerked on the choke chain.
“She’s heading toward the great room where everyone is supposed to be waiting,” Kyle said.
“The killer is one of us?” Jennifer said before she could stop herself. To be professional, she should keep her mouth shut and let Sadie do her job. Jennifer assumed Chad’s death was related to his drug work.
Sadie lurched into the great room, pulling Jennifer behind her. The people gathered were the same group that had been on the beach earlier. They looked startled to see the bloodhound charging at them.
“What’s going on?” Chuck asked.
Before Jennifer could answer, Sadie staggered across the room. She lurched to a halt in front of Lisa. Sadie threw back her head and bayed loud enough to be heard in Miami.
Lisa jumped up. “Help! The crazy dog is going to bite me.”
“Tale her ta shuddup,” bellowed the sheriff. Tell her to shut up.
Sadie kept howling, thoroughly pleased with herself. Jennifer looked at Kyle, who had moved up beside her, then said, “Sadie, quiet,” as she petted her dog.
Chuck rose from a nearby sofa where he’d been with Raven to stand by his sister. Plotzy was sitting cross-legged on the floor. He put his hands together and closed his eyes. Presumably he was praying.
Jennifer turned to Sheriff Prichett. “Sadie bays because it’s the way she gets rewarded for her work.”
“What do you mean?” Tyler asked.
Jennifer kept looking at the sheriff. “The scent on the napkin is Lisa’s.”
The sheriff stood there, obviously not knowing how to proceed.
One of the deputies, who should have known better, waved the plastic bag with the cocktail napkin even though evidence shouldn’t be shown to a suspect. This was not a crack homicide team.
“Of course, that’s my napkin. I had a glass of wine on the terrace with Chad after Trevor’s party. I didn’t finish mine. Chad took it with him, and he must have picked up the napkin at the same time.”
“A-ah,” the sheriff said, “That’z sump’m.”
That’s something? Check it out, Jennifer said under her breath.
Lisa was one step ahead of her. “Look in the book for Lisa, if you don’t believe me.”
“Book?” asked one of the deputies.
Plotzy’s head came up from his prayer. “The honor book we all sign for our drinks. It’s outside on the bar.”
“Check it out,” Sheriff Prichett told a deputy.
Kyle spoke up. “Use gloves. You may want to dust the bar for Chad’s prints.”
The deputy shuffled off, and Lisa cast a quick sideways glance at her brother. He immediately spoke up.
“After Lisa left Chad, she came to my room. We were together until we heard Thelma Mae down on the beach crying,” Chuck told the sheriff.
Jennifer quickly looked at Raven. The brunette’s expression didn’t register any shock. Somehow Jennifer had assumed Raven would have spent the night in Chuck’s bed and would know if he was lying.
An oddly primitive warning sounded in her brain. Her eyes shifted to Tyler. The handsome man’s face was closed, his eyes expressionless, as if he was guarding a secret.
“She’s telling the truth,” announced the deputy, walking back into the room. “Her name is the last one in the book. She signed for one glass of chardonnay.”
Sheriff Prichett rocked back on his heels, arms crossed across his chest and regarded the group with narrowed eyes. “This joint’s a crime scene. Evver’un stay put. No un goez to their rooms.”
“May we go outside?” Raven asked.
The sheriff thought about it for a moment, then nodded. “Stay off the beach.”
Kyle led Jennifer out the door, and Sadie hobbled along beside them. They walked out into the pool area where they found chaises. Jennifer sat down, then took off Sadie’s choke chain to let the dog know she was no longer expected to work.
“What do you think?” she asked Kyle as she stroked Sadie’s head.
“Gut reaction. The twins are covering for each other. How else do you account for Lisa’s scent being on the napkin and not Chad’s?”
“That can be explained. Sadie picks up numerous scents, but she’s trained to follow the strongest scent. Chad may have touched the napkin. Lisa left more scent on it. That’s not uncommon. There are no oil or sweat glands in our hands.
“People wouldn’t leave fingerprints except that they touch their hair or face or some other part of their body and pick up a substance, which leaves a print. I read a study that shows women are three times as likely to fiddle with their hair or touch their faces than men. That could account for why Sadie went directly for Lisa rather than head up the stairs to where Chad is.”
Kyle looked at her for a moment. The sun had crept over the horizon, its early morning light stealing through the trees surrounding the pool. The golden-pink glow made him look healthy, yet his face was drawn, tired. She could only imagine how she looked after her crying jag.
“Okay, so there’s an explanation,” he said. “What do you think?”
“I’m not sure. It’s possible Lisa covered her tracks. We were all standing at the bottom of the stairs when you went up. Tyler asked what the white thing was at the top of the stairs. Raven said it looked like Kleenex. No one said anything else about it.”
“Did Lisa or Chuck leave the group? Could they have had time to sign the book and make it appear that she’d had a drink?”
“No, not while you were up there, but one of them could have done it while we were working with Sadie.”
“U-u-um.” Kyle nodded. “There’s something strange going on, and I’m not sure if Prichett can figure it out.”
“That’s what I was thinking.”
“But he’ll be hard pressed to solve the case. There’s one thing everyone in Key West dreads. Crime. They won’t want people thinking a killer is on the loose in paradise.”
She leaned back on the chaise and studied the mirrorlike surface of the swimming pool and let one hand drop down to touch Sadie’s back. The bloodhound was on her side, the leg with the cast outstretched.<
br />
“Jen,” Kyle said quietly from the chaise next to hers. He wasn’t stretching out. He was sitting, facing her, arms resting on his knees. His eyes captured hers, intense green and calculating. “Why were you so upset earlier? What made you cry?”
Chapter 29
Jennifer intended to tell Kyle the whole truth about the past. She’d walked the beach for half the night, thinking about it, agonizing over what had happened. Tears had fallen, the way she knew they would, accompanying them was the bleak agony of despair that comes when someone you love with all your heart dies … unexpectedly.
But now, with Thelma Mae’s apparent suicide and Chad’s killer still on the loose, it didn’t seem as if it were the appropriate time to discuss her problems. An inner voice, the one she usually tuned out, delivered a message. You’re going into a denial mode again. Not talking about it won’t make it go away.
She sat up and swung around, facing him, careful not to hit Sadie with her feet. Knees touching, she gazed across the short space into his eyes.
“My mother’s death was hard on me for several reasons,” she began. “I was in a strange place, a farm outside of Macon, Georgia. The man my mother had married so hastily didn’t give a hoot about me, and I knew it. I was baggage who came with my mother. With her gone, I was absolutely terrified about what would become of me.”
She paused, bracing herself for the rest of the story, and Kyle said, “I know how you felt. I recall arriving at my cousin’s house with the social worker. I’d never met my second cousin and barely remembered Dad mentioning her. Then there I was at her door. I questioned if she would want me. As it turned out, she didn’t.”
There was a ring in his voice that sounded achingly familiar. She knew he’d endured unimaginable hardships during those years when their parents’ deaths had separated them. What had happened to her didn’t mean he hadn’t suffered as well.
“Go on,” he eagerly prompted when she didn’t continue.
“I was frightened,” she confessed, “although there was no reason to be. Hiram Whitmore was a very special man. When he died, I found a quote from Louis L’Amour in his wallet: ‘Sometimes the most important things in a man’s life are the ones he talks about least.’”