“Before you left Stella Maris, did you notice anyone else in the area near the boats?” I asked.
“Not then,” said Dwight. “Earlier, it was covered up with people getting off boats from the parade, heading downtown. By the time I was fixin’ to leave it was deserted.”
“And you didn’t speak to Mr. Bounetheau by phone after you left?” I asked.
“No.” Dwight shook his head. “I shoulda checked in. Shouldn’t a left him over there to begin with. Abigail is going to have me fed to the alligators, sure enough. Can’t say I blame her. I had one job. To look after C. C.”
“Do you suspect she’ll be overcome by grief?” I felt my left eyebrow going up.
“Hard to say,” said Dwight. “They had a complicated relationship. I think they cared for each other, in their way. But what I know, is she won’t like the terms of C. C.’s will.”
“You know what’s in his will?” Nate asked.
“I know one thing, that’s all. I know Abigail’s allowance is less than she’s used to. And I know that since C. C. didn’t die of natural causes, well, she might have a hard time collecting anything at all.”
“What do you mean by that?” asked Nate.
Dwight said, “C. C. told me once that if he died of anything other than old age, she’d have to prove she didn’t kill ’im. Coulda just been loose talk, I guess. We were drinking at the time.”
Dwight’s iPhone lay on the table between us. The music announcing the arrival of the Wicked Witch of the West rang out as the screen lit with the name of the caller. Abigail.
Dwight stared at it for a moment, seemed to steel himself. He picked it up, then laid it back down and looked at it grim-faced until it stopped ringing. “Lord, Lord.” He shook his head. “This is the awfullest mess.”
“We tried to tell her,” I said. “She didn’t believe us, or said she didn’t, anyway. Griffin was going to speak with her, let her know Mr. Bounetheau was…missing…when we left to come over here.”
Dwight nodded. “If she’s looking for him, I’d be the first call she’d make. I’ll have to tell her. Once she knows he’s gone, the first thing she’ll do is run me off. I need to think a minute.”
“You and Abigail don’t get along?” I asked.
He jerked in a bitter chuckle. “That’s putting it mildly. Abigail considers me white trash C. C. picked up somewhere and keeps around just to annoy her.”
“You’ll need to make a formal statement at the police department in Stella Maris. Would you be willing to identify Mr. Bounetheau while you’re on the island?” I asked.
“Least I can do,” said Dwight. “Might be the only chance I get to say goodbye to ’im. I wouldn’t put it past Abigail to try to bar me from the services. Probably not safe for me to stick around here anyway.”
I couldn’t let him leave. Best-case scenario, he was a material witness. He might well be a murderer. There was something he wasn’t telling me. I was certain of that. But I wasn’t ready to have Blake arrest him yet either. “You think Abigail means you harm?”
“If somebody runs across my body, talk to Abigail first, will you? She’s never had anything but contempt for me. And now…like I said, she’ll hold me responsible.”
“Are you planning to leave town?” I asked. “Where would you go? It would be best if you could stay here until we’ve arrested whoever shot Mr. Bounetheau. You’re a key witness—most likely the last person to see him alive.”
“Aside from the person who shot him you mean,” said Dwight. “Yeah, I’m leaving town as soon as I’ve seen about C. C. You’ve gotta understand…at the very least, I’m not welcome here anymore.”
“Do you need a place to stay for a few days?” I asked. “Just until you can make plans? Maybe give us a chance to find out what happened to Mr. Bounetheau?”
“Like where?” Dwight regarded me with suspicion.
“There’s a nice bed and breakfast on Stella Maris,” I said. “They’re amenable to hosting guests for the town when need be.”
“Sounds pricey,” he said.
“The town would cover your stay,” said Nate. “As a courtesy for the inconvenience of changing your plans.”
“We’d best get going then,” said Dwight. “I’ll pack a bag. The next thing that’s about to happen is Abigail will send Griffin over here to summon me for an audience with her majesty.”
“One more quick question,” I said. “Do you own a gun?”
Dwight gave a little indignant sniff. “As a matter of fact, I do.”
“Grab that, would you?” I offered him my sunniest smile. “It’s just a formality. We need to eliminate it.”
Dwight grumbled something under his breath and stood. Nate followed him out of the room. When they returned a few minutes later, Dwight carried a hard-shell pistol case. He set it on the table and went to open it.
“If you don’t mind,” said Nate. “Protocol.” He pulled a pair of nitrile gloves from his pocket and slipped then on.
Dwight rolled his eyes, gestured dramatically. “Help yourself.”
Nate opened the case. A Sig Sauer P220 lay in the cushioned interior. I opened a document on my iPhone and filled in a receipt, then handed it to Dwight to sign with his fingertip.
“It was last fired a week ago at the shooting range,” said Dwight. “It’s been cleaned, of course. I take care of what’s mine.”
FIVE
Nate dropped me and Dwight at the ferry dock and went to run his mysterious Christmas errands. We rode on the middle interior deck where it was warm and enjoyed the sunshine glistening on the deep blue water of Pearson Inlet and the Atlantic beyond. I stepped away to a far corner and called Blake, brought him up to speed.
“Can you handle getting Dwight’s statement and the identification?” I asked.
“Where are you headed?” he asked.
“I need to talk to Calista.”
“Calista?” I could see my brother’s face screwing up in bewilderment. “What’s she got to do with this?”
Calista McQueen was a dear friend, a former client, and one of Blake’s many former girlfriends. She was also Marilyn Monroe’s doppelgänger, but that was a story unto itself.
“She was the parade coordinator,” I said. “Maybe she knows something about why C. C. Bounetheau was in it to begin with. It’s a place to start.”
“Fine,” said Blake. “I’ll get the paperwork handled.”
“Also, I have Dwight’s gun for ballistics,” I said. “But he handed it over far too easily for it to be the murder weapon.”
“Roger that,” said Blake. “I’ll have it tested just to be sure.”
“One more thing,” I said. “I need you to put Dwight up at the bed and breakfast for a few days.”
“Where am I supposed to get the budget for that?” Blake sounded testy. “Why?”
“Because it’s Christmas, and I seriously don’t think he killed C. C. Bounetheau, so I don’t want you to arrest him, but we need to keep him close by for two reasons. One, I could be wrong, and two, Abigail may try to have him killed out of pure-T spite.”
“So we’re going to put Grace in danger?” Grace Sullivan, my godmother, owned the bed and breakfast.
“There’s no way Abigail will know where he is. Lookit, Blake, he was planning to leave town. We need to keep him here and keep him safe and under wraps for now. You know Grace will give you a discount on the room. Charge it to the Talbot & Andrews account with the town as an expense item.”
“Oh, you can count on that,” said Blake.
Next, I called my friend Calista. If I was right, and C. C. Bounetheau was the Santa who’d run into me in the park, there’d been two other Santas chasing him within an hour of when he’d been killed. Maybe she had a master list of Santa Clauses somewhere.
“Hey Calista, have you got a few minutes? I need t
o run something by you,” I said when she answered.
“Darius and I are on our way to The Cracked Pot for lunch,” she said in her signature smokey voice. Darius and Calista had been a hot item for a few months now. “Why don’t you meet us there?”
“Sounds good,” I said. “I’ll see you in about fifteen minutes.”
Blake parked out front at The Cracked Pot, and I ran in and picked up lunch for him, Dwight, Nell, and Clay Cooper and delivered it to his Tahoe. Then I negotiated my way back through the lunch crowd and found Darius and Calista in the back booth. We said hey and all that.
I slid in beside Calista. “Have y’all ordered?” I asked.
“No, we waited for you,” said Calista. “Is it just me, or is it really crowded in here today?”
“I think everybody in town is here,” I said. “The line out the door is halfway down the block.”
“It’s that dead Santa Claus on the beach,” said Darius.
“Well, it is Sunday,” I said. “The Cracked Pot always has a big after church crowd. Then again, it’s also the nerve center of the island. Folks come here to see what gossip they can pick up. This is a perfect storm, I guess.”
Moon Unit appeared at the edge of the table. “I hear you had an unpleasant surprise on your morning run. Is it true? Is it C. C. Bounetheau?”
I sighed. There was no point in trying to keep it quiet. Vern Waters would print it in the police blotter in The Citizen soon enough. “Yep. It’s C. C.”
“Did you know he and his wife were third cousins?” Moon asked.
Did I know that? I’d dug into the family on a couple of occasions now, but I hadn’t made the connection.
Moon consulted the ceiling. “Or is it second cousins once removed? I get all that mixed up. They say that’s actually ideal, you know, from a genetic standpoint and all that. Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip are third cousins. Of course you wouldn’t want to marry your first cousin. Second cousins might be a bit risky. But third cousins…that’s absolutely fine. In fact, I hear it’s supposed to be better than marrying someone you have no relation to at all. I guess that makes sense, when you think about it. It’s all about breeding.”
“Moon,” I said, “what is that wonderful smell? I’m positively starving.”
“The special today is homemade vegetable soup and meatloaf sandwiches. I made the meatloaf myself, you know, the peppered kind? I serve it with pepper jack cheese, pepper jelly, and mayo on sourdough.”
“Yeah, that sounds good to me.” Darius glanced out the window, distracted, then back. “With some fries.”
Calista cast him a questioning glance. “Sounds yummy. I’ll have that too.”
“Make it three, please, Moon,” I said.
“Allrighty,” said Moon. “Two unsweets and a sweet tea?”
We all confirmed our usual drink order and Moon spun away.
Darius stared out the window. He was unusually quiet. I glanced at Calista, gave her an inquiring look. She dismissed whatever was up with Darius with a little wave.
“What did you need to talk to me about?” she asked.
“First, I wanted to congratulate you on the Christmas parade. It turned out really well, I thought. You did such a great job.”
She squinted at me. “Thank you. That’s very kind of you to say. Of course, the dead body on the beach tends to cast a pall on the whole event.”
“Why that has nothing to do with the parade, which was lovely, I thought.”
Darius muttered something, made a loud hummmpf noise.
I said, “I think that’s the most boats we’ve ever had—and the most Santa Clauses.”
Darius jerked his gaze from the window, gave me an indignant look. “A few too many if you ask me. One in particular. And I’m not talking about the dead one neither.”
“Darius,” said Calista. “Let it go. Please.”
He rolled his lips out and in, shook his head, and returned his gaze to whatever outside the window captured his attention.
“I was afraid it might confuse the children,” said Calista. “But we just announced that many of Santa’s helpers were in town, helping him check in on good little boys and girls. The parents reinforced it. I thought it worked out fine.”
“It came off better than any parade in memory,” I said.
Darius looked at me like perhaps I was Not Quite Right.
I carried on. “Calista, do you happen to have a list of all the entrants?”
“Well, sure,” she said.
“I wonder if I might get a look at that,” I said.
Her eyes widened. “Oh my. You’re investigating the death of that poor man on the beach, aren’t you?”
“Actually, yes. Nate and I handle cases for Blake that require a great deal of investigative time and effort.”
Moon Unit set down our tea glasses, and I took a sip of mine.
“You know who he is, right? I mean, I thought you just said you did,” said Calista.
“That’s right,” I said. “But last night at the gazebo, there was an incident. Two of the Santas were chasing another. I thought there might be a connection, so I wanted to see the Santa roll.”
Calista said, “I have a list of everyone in the parade, naturally. However, not all the Santas were in the parade. One was having his picture made with children at the hardware store. I think they had one at The Book Nook too. And of course the one from The Salvation Army in front of Edward’s Grocery ringing the bell.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Daddy spent a few hours at the church having pictures made too. I bet the other churches did the same thing.”
Calista nodded. “They did. And then there were the unaffiliated Santas. I have no idea how many of those there were.”
“Unaffiliated?” I scrunched my face at her.
Calista shrugged. “They just dressed up for their own kids or grandkids. I know there were a few of those, mostly with younger kids.”
Moon Unit delivered our lunch, and for a few minutes, we all focused on our food. The meatloaf sandwiches, one of Moon Unit’s house specialties, were savory, the combination of flavors delectable as always. But the undisputed star of lunch hour was the vegetable soup. It was rich and bright with a thick broth and all manner of vegetables—it was truly remarkable.
Finally, Darius’s mood brightened. “Now that’s some fine soup right there, umm hmmm.”
“It’s delicious.” Calista searched her bowl, moving vegetables from one side to the other with her spoon. “I wonder what she put in it. I’ve never tasted vegetable soup this good.”
I’d never admit this to anyone out loud, but it was better than Mamma’s homemade vegetable soup. I spooned another bite, savored it, trying to isolate what set it apart.
Darius focused on his lunch, occasionally glancing out the window. He still didn’t have much to say, which was unusual. What was up with him? Surely his nose wouldn’t stay out of joint over Daddy’s Santa costume.
Finally, I looked at Calista and said, “How do you know there were unaffiliated Santas? It looks to me like they’d all run together. How could you tell your parade Santas from the others?”
“The ones in the parade all had stickers on their suits that said, ‘Stella Maris Christmas Parade,’” said Calista. “Besides that, you could see there were Santas watching the parade with their families, then riding the trolley back to town. I was on the trolley with a family who had two Santas plus a crasher Santa. I bet those were the ones chasing each other, come to think of it.”
“A crasher Santa?” I asked.
“Yes,” said Calista. “He had a sticker on, but I saw him take it off. The family with the two Santas had the most adorable little girls. Twins.”
“Long curly blonde hair?” I asked.
“That’s right,” said Calista. “They were with their mother and both grand
mothers. That was my guess anyway. I think the grandfathers were in the Santa costumes. On the trolley, the Santa from the parade was talking to the little girls. The grandfathers didn’t care for that at all. I think they thought he was a child snatcher or something. Poor guy was probably just trying to participate. Anyway, the grandfather Santas had the girls move so that each of them sat next to one of them.”
“Do you have any idea who the family was?” I asked.
Calista shook her head. “I don’t remember ever seeing them before. I wondered if they were new here. There were two younger men with them.”
“One blond, one with red hair?” I asked.
“Yes, as a matter of fact,” said Calista. “There was definitely tension there.”
“What about the crasher Santa?” I asked. “Was he by himself or with someone?”
“The trolley was stuffed full of people,” said Calista, “so it’s hard to say. But I did see him talking to another man. He was grandpa-aged too. They might’ve been together.”
I was betting C. C. was crasher Santa, and that was Dwight Goodnight with him. What had C. C. said or done that the girls’ grandfathers interpreted as threatening?
“Calista,” I said, “do you recall speaking to C. C. Bounetheau? When he signed up?”
“No,” said Calista. “His assistant called and signed him up over the phone.”
“A man?” I asked.
“That’s right. Older if I had my guess.”
Dwight Goodnight, no doubt. “Did he mention anything at all about what prompted them to join the parade here? In Stella Maris?” I asked.
“Least he didn’t have a damn-fool reindeer with him,” said Darius.
“Darius.” Calista lowered her chin, eyed him from underneath her dramatic eyebrows. “That’s enough.”
LOWCOUNTRY BOUGHS OF HOLLY Page 5