The Fear Hunter

by Elise Sax

  Even so, I realized that my desire to solve the mystery was still there. An obsession, not a desire.

  I wanted to know whodunit.

  I wanted to solve the mystery, and now I also wanted to get justice for Felicia.

  “No, don’t call the paramedics,” I told Remington after a moment. “And I don’t want to go home. I want to find out what happened to her.”

  “Okay. The medical examiner is coming this way. Keep quiet, and he won’t pay you any attention.”

  The medical examiner walked down the pier toward us. He was accompanied by a morgue worker, who was pushing a stretcher. An older police officer was with them. Unlike Remington, he was wearing a uniform.

  “The chief of police,” Remington told me under his breath. “He won’t pay you any attention, either.”

  He was right on both counts. The two men talked to Remington without noticing me at all.

  “What do you think, Cumberbatch?” the chief asked Remington.

  “I’m thinking she died last night, and I’m wondering how the hell no one noticed this scene this morning.”

  “I can answer that one,” the chief said. “There was a tarp over the body and the shark and a pile of netting on top of the tarp.” He pointed behind us, and sure enough, there was a mountain of netting that had been tossed aside. “Some woman tripped over it when she was doing a selfie, and the rest was history. How do you know she died last night?”

  “I think she died last night, too,” the medical examiner said. He ordered his assistant to help him take Felicia’s head out of the shark’s mouth. Felicia’s face was almost unrecognizable. It was a bloody heap. This was the first time I had seen a shark attack victim, and I was amazed and sickened by the damage a shark could do.

  Remington took a couple of latex gloves out of his pocket and put them on. Kneeling down, he inspected Felicia’s body. “No purse, obviously,” he said. “And no wallet or jewelry.” He dug in her pants pockets and came out with little balls. “I have no idea what these are.”

  He handed them to the morgue worker, who put them in a plastic baggie and jotted notes on the bag. “Looks like drugs to me,” the chief said.

  “Probably some form of meth,” the medical examiner said. “It’s always some form of meth.”

  “Mothballs,” I interrupted, and Remington shot me one of his lopsided smiles.

  “Excuse me? Who are you?” the chief asked, like he had just noticed that I was standing there.

  “She’s with me,” Remington told him. “Are you sure that they’re mothballs?” he asked me.

  I nodded. “Oh, yes. One thing Bright women know about are mothballs. That and Irish whiskey. We’re very familiar with Irish whiskey, too.”

  The chief rubbed the back of his neck. “The world is getting too crazy for me. First, there was a naked man running down the street, lit up like a Christmas ornament. And now there’s a dead woman with her head in a shark’s mouth, and for some weird reason, she’s got mothballs in her pocket. You can handle this without me, right, Cumberbatch? I got a headache coming on and a doozy case of acid reflux. My wife says it’s from pizza rolls, but I’m pretty sure it’s this stuff that does it.”

  “No sweat, Chief. I got an iron stomach,” Remington said and tossed me another of his smiles.

  “Ma’am,” the chief said to me, tipping his hat, and walked away.

  “This doesn’t look like a shark bite to me,” the medical examiner said to Remington, once the chief was gone. He was examining Felicia’s head with some kind of medical tool. Remington crouched down next to him. Felicia’s head was a gory mess. I was surprised that I could look at it without getting sick. Instead, the detective came out of me, and I tried to memorize the details and glean some clues from the crime scene.

  Felicia was fully dressed except for the one missing shoe. The shark had taken a big chunk of her face off, along with a big patch of hair and scalp. On the other hand, the shark looked fine, but dead. Peaceful. It was almost as if the shark had seen Felicia on the pier, jumped up and bit her, and simultaneously had a massive stroke that made him drop dead right there and then.

  It was weird, to say the least.

  “Are you sure?” Remington asked the medical examiner.

  “Well, there’s only been seventeen shark attacks in these waters in the past hundred years, but there’s been plenty of dog bites. I’m not seeing anything consistent with a bite. And you’re right. She’s been dead about twelve hours. I need to get her back to the office to see if there’s water in her lungs and do a proper postmortem. You got a humdinger of a death here, young man.”

  I clapped my hands together. “A humdinger of a death,” I repeated. My skin prickled, and my heart raced. It was one death, but there were at least five mysteries surrounding it.

  Remington and the medical examiner investigated the crime scene for another hour before wheeling Felicia away into the medical examiner’s van. They came back with another stretcher for the shark, which caused a stir with the owner of the tackle shop, who wanted to use the shark’s jaws as a decoration for his store. After they cleared the scene, they removed the police tape, and the locals surged onto the pier to see what was what.

  “We need to autopsy the shark too, bro,” Remington told the tackle shop owner, slapping his back in a congenial way. “I’ll see if we can save you the jaws after, but it might take a while to get them to you. You get me?”

  “Gee, thanks,” he said, pacified.

  “Man, it’s all good,” Remington said, smiling.

  He put his arm around my waist, and we walked back across the pier. “What do you think?” I asked him.

  “I think I like my arm around you.”

  “Oh,” I said, inhaling sharply. I liked his arm around my waist, too. It was the first arm around my waist in my life. What was I supposed to do in this situation? Could I get pregnant from an arm around my waist? I was pretty sure I could.

  I definitely could have gotten pregnant from the thoughts swirling around my mind. Lots of naughty thoughts that I had only heard about from others with a lot more experience than I had with this sort of thing. Remington’s hand was large, and his forearm was knotted with muscles. When we walked, he guided me with his strong arm. I really liked being guided.

  Before we got on the topic of his arm and my waist, I had been thinking of something. It was something important. What was it? My brain was so full of thinking about his arm and my waist, that I couldn’t remember. Was it about Remington’s handsome face? His amazing body? Yes, I often thought of both of those things, but this was something else. Something more important. What had I been thinking about? Oh, yeah. Felicia.

  “What do you think about Felicia?” I managed, finally.

  “I think she died at least twelve hours ago. At least. Maybe fifteen. And I’d bet you a romantic dinner that the shark was there for decoration. The doc thinks she was killed with some sort of large hook.”

  “A large hook?” I asked. “What kind of large hook?”

  Remington pulled me closer to his side. “A kind with a sharp end that can tear a woman’s face off. So, how about that dinner?”

  He stopped at the beginning of the pier and turned me to face him. He oozed testosterone, like he was a testosterone vending machine, and I had exact change. It was hard to look at him in the eyes because I was sure my face would give away the fact that I was head over heels gaga attracted to him. My throat was thick with arousal, and it was all I could do to get words out.

  “I like dinner,” I croaked, looking back at the end of the pier, where lookie-loos were taking selfies where Felicia had been discovered, now that the police tape had been removed.

  “After I finish this investigation?” he asked. “Somewhere romantic with dim lighting and walking distance to my crib.”

  His crib? Did that mean that he had more in mind than just dinner? I was pretty sure it meant he wanted dessert. Carnal dessert. Oh, wow. This was moving fast. Faster than I was comf
ortable with.

  “How long will the investigation take?” I asked him, wondering how much time I had before the carnal dessert.

  “More often than not, the husband is the killer. So, I’m guessing that it won’t take long.”

  “Wow, Donald hooked his wife’s face off?”

  Remington shrugged. “Whatcha gonna do? It’s a crazy time. Naked men in the street, glowing, and now this.”

  “I think it’s just like it was when Grant was president,” I said.

  “Grant? How do you know that?”

  “Lucky guess.”

  The rest of the day was a whirlwind of activity. Since the shop was across the street from the pier, it became rumor central about all things Felicia and sharks with a lot more emphasis on the sharks than Felicia.

  Word hadn’t gotten out yet that the shark was a patsy and that some lunatic with a giant hook was wandering around ripping off women’s faces. So, I decided to keep that nugget of information to myself until Remington and the police released the real story and let everyone think for now that a shark killed Felicia. Besides, I was learning all kinds of things about sharks.

  “My question is how did that shark jump onto the pier?” Mouse asked a customer.

  “Sharks are known for jumping,” Irving answered her from another table. “I saw two sharks jump onto the pier in San Diego once. They could have gotten silver in synchronized swimming at the Olympics.”

  “If there are jumping sharks, they need to close the pier,” Mouse said with a touch of panic in her voice.

  The panic was contagious. The shop erupted into urgent conversations about closing the pier because of jumping killer sharks. Then, the conversations turned to the loss of business in Sea Breeze because of such a closure. Although, no one came to Sea Breeze to walk on the pier. Tourism was dead because of the sewage in the water. Only locals used the pier.

  I was tempted to calm the customers’ fears about jumping, killer sharks, but that would start another long conversation, and I wanted to close the shop on time at four o’clock. In any case, if Remington was right, Donald would be arrested by the morning, and there would be no more talk about sharks.

  At four o’clock, I had to shoo the customers out, and I locked the door. After walking a block toward home, I realized that if Felicia had died at around midnight, that meant that Donald had an airtight alibi. He had been at a prayer meeting with a pastor and a bunch of casserole stalkers. That meant that Remington was wrong and there was a crazy hook killer out there somewhere, who wasn’t Donald White.

  The epiphany spurred me into a desire for action. I walked home as quickly as I could so that I could dig into the mystery books. The answer must be in there, I thought.

  John was waiting for me when I opened the door and walked into the house. We had known each other so long that I was sure he could look into my soul. Guilt ran through me and over me like water. I worried that John could read my thoughts and knew about Remington’s arm around my waist, about the flirting and the promised romantic dinner near Remington’s “crib.” I was sorry that I had betrayed John, but I didn’t regret flirting with Remington. It had made me feel alive for the first time in years.

  “Your aunts got word that there was a shark attack in town. That a woman was found dead. I was…concerned,” John said.

  He was a man of few emotions. He was born and bred into the religion of the stiff upper lip. He wouldn’t dream of showing me any anger. But he couldn’t hide the fact that he was worried. His ever-changing eyes were heavy-lidded, and his body was tense, probably from the effort of burying his emotions.

  “The missing woman showed up with her head in a shark’s mouth, but the shark didn’t kill her,” I said, taking my shoes off.

  “Perhaps you should stay in the house until the wind changes again. This is very serious business, Agatha. And I would like to remind you that I cannot leave the house.”

  We locked eyes. The message was clear. He wanted to protect me, but even if he could leave the house, he couldn’t protect me. We both knew that.

  “I will cut you!” Auntie Tilly shouted from the kitchen.

  “I will peel you to death with the potato peeler!” Auntie Ida also shouted from the kitchen.

  “I’d like to see you try! Your peeler ain’t gonna do shit against my butcher cleaver!” Auntie Tilly yelled.

  “Oh, no. They’re fighting again?” I asked John.

  “All day. It’s a war of attrition over infinitesimal territories. I thought they were going to draw blood over the placement of the dishtowels.”

  “I better go in there and break them up before they burn the house down,” I said. “We don’t want to go through that again.”

  “Agatha, we’ve not finished our discussion,” John said, sadly.

  “You un-alphabetized the spices!” Auntie Ida yelled from the kitchen. “You’re a monster!”

  “Salt belongs in the front. Not allspice!” Auntie Tilly yelled.

  “I’m going to peel your ass off, old woman!” Auntie Ida screeched.

  “You’re older than I am!” Auntie Tilly yelled.

  “I have to go in there, John. I promise I’ll be careful in town,” I said and went into the kitchen to break up my aunts’ fight before real blood was spilled.

  The next morning, I arrived early at the shop, an hour before Irving and Doris. I was so eager to learn more about Felicia’s demise that I barely slept and was full of energy off of no sleep at all. I started making the soups of the day when it was still pitch black outside and deathly silent inside.

  I chopped vegetables, barely aware of what I was doing because my mind was focused only on Felicia. The image of her dead body next to the shark was seared into my brain. Remington’s words about Donald’s guilt were next to the image in my brain. But I knew that Donald had a rock-solid alibi. At least, he said he did. If Donald didn’t kill Felicia, who did? I was down to the same suspects I had when Felicia was only missing and no proof of anything.

  By the time that Irving and Doris walked into the shop, I had the four soups of the day simmering in the four cauldrons in the fireplaces.

  “You probably heard, but that shark was wrongly accused,” Doris told me, as she and her husband took their seats at the center table.

  “Just like that Philip Seymour Hoffman. He didn’t kill Kennedy,” Irving said.

  “You mean Lee Harvey Oswald didn’t kill Kennedy,” Doris corrected him.

  “I mean the skinny guy with the shotgun. Philip Seymour Hoffman.”

  “Philip Seymour Hoffman is an actor,” Doris said.

  “The man who shot Kennedy was not an actor,” Irving insisted.

  “No, Philip Seymour Hoffman didn’t kill Kennedy. He played Truman Capote in the movies,” Doris said, exasperated.

  “Then, who the hell is Lee Harvey Oswald?” Irving asked.

  “He killed Kennedy.”

  “I told you, Philip Seymour Hoffman did not kill Kennedy!” Irving said, raising his voice.

  Doris patted his hand. “You’re right, dear. Philip Seymour Hoffman did not kill Kennedy. But now we’re talking about Felicia White.”

  “I still think the shark did it. Have you seen that Jaws movie? A shark like that can do all kinds of mischief. Jumping on a pier and biting off a woman’s face would be nothing for a shark like that,” Irving said.

  “They’re saying it wasn’t the shark,” Doris said. “Isn’t that true, Agatha?”

  “Yes,” I said. Now that the cat was out of the bag, I figured it was safe to say that.

  “What do you have good for breakfast?” Irving asked me. “Any more of those muffins I like?”

  “No, but Auntie Ida made fresh scones, and I’ve got clotted cream from England to go with them,” I said.

  “Do I have to drink tea with it? I can’t abide tea. It’s a cowardly drink,” Irving said. “If you’re going to drink a caffeinated beverage, you need to go all the way. I like my coffee.”

  “Irving, you o
nly drink decaf coffee,” Doris pointed out.

  “What the dickens are you talking about?” Irving demanded.

  “We’ll take a bunch of those scones with clotted cream,” Doris told me. “And coffee.”

  When I returned with their order, they were still talking about Felicia. I kept my ears open, listening for any clues.

  “They’re going to lose their house for sure, now,” Doris said, spreading cream onto a scone. “I heard they’re upside down on it, and Felicia brought home the bacon in that marriage. With her gone, Donald has bubkes.”

  Irving poured sugar into his coffee. “Oh, please, Doris. That house is going to sell fast. I heard that the Manson Family almost killed someone in that house.”

  “Who’s Manson?” I asked.

  “Ha. Ha. Funny one, Agatha,” Doris said.

  Irving took a big sip of his coffee. “Maybe that Manson fellow was the one who killed Felicia. Maybe it wasn’t the shark, after all.”

  “Manson’s dead,” Doris said.

  “He’s not dead,” Irving insisted.

  “Yes, he is. Dead. Dead. Dead.”

  “No, he’s not. Next thing, you’ll be telling me that Doris Day is dead,” Irving said.

  “I’ve got news for you, Irving…” Doris began.

  The door opened, and a group of Saturday regulars came in and sat at a table next to Doris and Irving. “Today’s soups are tomato, creamy leek, Tuscan white bean, and Irish stew. But we’re not serving lunch until eleven o’clock,” I told them.

  “We’re here for coffee and knitting,” one of the women explained. They each carried a bag, in addition to their purses. They opened their bags in unison and pulled out yarn and knitting needles.

  “We’re practicing for the Knitting Championship,” another of the women explained. “You got any more of those biscuits that Doris is eating?”

  The shop was soon full of early bird diners. They were almost all women, and each and every one was knitting. They were also all talking about Felicia’s death, which they were now calling a murder.