LOWCOUNTRY BOOK CLUB (9 page)

I wrote
“
Angry Shelter Husband” in the suspect column and
“
Revenge
” and “Prevent intervention” in the motive columns.
“
I think we have to check into it, but Clint was adamant Shelby wouldn't've let anyone connected to the shelter in the house.”

“
You mentioned that,” said Nate. “But you and I both know people do things you don't expect them to all the time.”

“
Agreed. We have to run it down. Did you sign up to volunteer again tomorrow at the shelter?”

“Yes, and Friday. I'm also having a late lunch with some of the other volunteers tomorrow.”

“Would you see what the folks at One80Place know about this Sonya and her daughter Kelly?”

“
Sure thing,” Nate said.
“
So, working from the people closest to her out, the people we know Shelby would've let in the door, but who have no known motive to kill her, are her parents, her brother or his wife…”

We batted names back and forth. Nate flipped through Shelby's address book and I listed her remaining friends and family on the board.

“I see the roommate—Lark Littleton,” said Nate. “If this is current, she's in San Francisco. But there are a few females I can't place. They could be college friends, local, or from anywhere Shelby's been her whole life.”

I sighed. “I need to go through that with her mother. I'd hoped we could leave Shelby's parents in peace. I'll put them on my priority list.”

When we thought we had everyone on the case board, I stepped back to review.

  

Suspect
Motives

Unknown Lover Crime of passion/Keep a secret

Charles Kinloch

Sonny Ravenel

Unknown Wannabe Lover Jealousy

Spouse of Lover/Wannabe Jealousy

Jane Kinloch

Girlfriend of Sonny's

Girlfriend of Unsub

Book Club Member Jealousy/Anger

Delta Tisdale

Mary Bernard

Mariel Camp

Anne Spence

Erin Guidici

Liz Bell

Evelyn Izard

Nine other members

Angry Shelter
Husband Revenge/
Prevent interference

Williams or Tallulah Poinsett

Thomas or Deirdre Poinsett

Cliff or Lisa Gerhardt

Bill or Brenda Gerhardt

Fraser or Constance Rutledge

Members of St. Michael's Church

Clint's army buddies

Evelyn or Edward Izard (Neighbors)

Nick or Margaret Venning (Neighbors)

Board, staff, volunteers, clients at One80Place

Resident of Tent City

Board, staff, members of Charleston Library Society

Board, staff of Charleston Animal Society

Lark Littleton

Other college friends

Anyone unaccounted for in address book

  

“Damnation,” I said. “That's crazy. I say we work the most unlikely ones first and eliminate them. Looking at that long list is making me itch. We need to erase some names fast.”

“Try not to look at it too much. I think we have to start with the most likely scenarios,” said Nate.

“You're right,” I said. “It just looks so overwhelming.”

“Most of these people we'll never even have to talk to,” said Nate. “How about this? You work from the inside out—the people closest to her—and I'll start at the outer edges, with the long shots and the folks associated with the shelter.”

“That sounds like a plan.”

“Who's Unsub?” asked Colleen.

“What, you don't watch
Law & Order
and whatnot?” asked Nate.

“It means ‘unknown subject,'” I said. “It's shorthand. The board's getting crowded. I didn't list out Clint's army buddies and their wives either, but I have their names and contact info.”

Nate said, “I'd say those are outliers. I'll take them. But…someone is notably missing.”

I glanced at Colleen. “My instincts tell me Clint is innocent.”

Nate grimaced. “I'm as big a fan of your instincts as Colleen here. But I'd prefer to have something a bit more concrete before we rule him out completely.”

“Fair enough.” I added Clint's name with “Jealousy,” “Money,” and “Freedom” as possible motives. “From a purely clinical standpoint, if Clint killed her, and I don't for a single moment believe he did, his motive could've been to be free of Shelby but keep her money. If he divorced her—no. Nate, her trust, the one her parents set up for her? He told me it was redone when they were married. He jointly owns it. In that case, if they divorced, he'd get half. Right?”

“That likely depends on the way the trust was set up,” Nate said. “That's a question for whoever modified it. Or her parents could tell you. But what if he wanted it all?”

I shook my head. “I think we're wasting time on Clint.”

“We need to keep him on the list until we can cross him off.” His expression changed. He stared into space for a moment. “Upon further reflection, our job—what we were hired to do—is to find alternate theories of the crime.”

I flinched. “I'm well aware of who's paying our bill and what he wants. But I will always see Shelby as the client. I want justice for her no matter what. But if looking at it that way makes you okay with crossing Clint off our list, then let's go with that.”

“As you wish,” said Nate. “But I don't like it. That's the one bad thing about working with attorneys. You're not necessarily hired to find the truth.”

I erased Clint and all his possible motives.

“What if it was an accident?” asked Colleen.

“That's just not possible,” I said. “Her injuries are inconsistent with an accidental fall.”

Colleen persisted. “But what if someone was arguing with her and in the heat of the argument, they backed her up against the rail and she tripped?”

I pointed to “Anger.” “Then whoever that was can tell it to the judge, but they're still responsible to some degree for Shelby's death.”

“Gotta go,” said Colleen. She faded out.

“What does she need to do at…” I looked at my watch. “Nine fifteen at night?”

Nate's expression said,
You can't seriously be asking me that
. “We need to talk about money. Shelby had a lot of it.”

“That is one of the more common motives for dispatching someone to the hereafter,” I said. “But Clint was very clear that he was the only one who benefitted financially from her death.”

Nate rolled his lips inward, tilted his head, raised an eyebrow. He wanted Clint's name on that board, no doubt. “Well, all right, then.”

“All right then. Our plan of attack is this: I'm chasing down the uncorroborated affair with improbable or unknown subjects, and you're looking for Sonya's husband, sussing out if anyone at the shelter had a motive, and clearing some of the improbable names off our board.”

“Looks like,” said Nate.

We both stared at the board for a few moments gathering our thoughts.

“
Here's the thing,” I said. “Paul Baker. Something's not right there.”

“
What do you mean?” said Nate.

“
We know him by reputation, right?”

“
Right.”

“
But he's always had a good reputation. Why all of a sudden is he taking ridiculous trips to London and spending four months spinning his wheels?”

Nate was quiet for a moment.
“
You're thinking someone paid him to find nothing. He took Fraser's money and someone else's as well.”

“
All I'm doing right now is wondering.”

“
Fair enough. Maybe we should investigate the investigator.”

“This feels like a lead,” I said. “Everything on this board, it's the result of starting from nothing and puzzling out possibilities. But this feels like a thread we can pull. Maybe Paul Baker can be persuaded or tricked into pointing us in the right direction. I think I'll talk to him after the book club meeting tomorrow.”

“And
I
think we've done enough for tonight. We were up 'til the wee hours last night going through those files. What say we turn in early?” His eyes told me exactly what was on his mind, and it wasn't sleep. He stood, set his wineglass on the coffee table, and walked towards me with intentions.

“I need to type up my interview notes while they're fresh. So do you.”

He was standing in front of me. He touched my face, his eyes claiming mine. For a long moment, we stood drinking each other in. “That'll keep 'til tomorrow.” He leaned down and kissed me so sweet, I lost all inclination to press my case.

  

Rain hammered the roof. Wind tore at the windows. I sat up in bed. What time was it? The room was dark. No glowing numbers on the alarm clock.

“We have to go.” Nate, fully dressed and wearing his raincoat, strode towards the bedroom door.

“What do you mean?”

“The storm changed path. All the forecasts were wrong. It's gaining strength. Nearly a hundred and sixty mile-an-hour winds now. Category Five. This island will be underwater in a few hours. Storm's gonna make landfall at high tide. I'll get the kids. Get dressed and meet me downstairs. Hurry.”

“Kids?”

“Hurry, Liz.”

I threw on jeans and a t-shirt, grabbed a jacket.

I dashed to the bottom of the stairs.

Nate waited with two children I'd never seen before. A boy maybe five, a girl about three.

“Nate…”

“Let's go.”

He opened the door, picked up both children, and dashed for the car.

I followed him into the jowls of a great howling monster of a storm, the likes of which I'd never seen. Trees were down, others bending near to breaking in the wind. I could barely walk against it. Rain pummeled us.

“Get in.” Nate yelled over the wind. He put one child down to pry a back door open.

I tugged at the passenger door. When I got it open a crack, the wind caught it and flung it all the way open so hard I thought for a second it had blown off.

Nate was in the driver's seat, his door closed. “Can you get it?”

“I think so.” I climbed out and pulled it with me as I climbed back in.

As soon as the door was shut, Nate hit the gas. The car flew out the driveway. Nate dodged downed trees and branches.

“Rhett!” I screamed. “Where's Rhett?”

Nate cast me an astonished look. “You're not good and awake yet.”

I turned to the children in the backseat who couldn't possibly be mine, no matter how groggy I was. I wasn't able to have children.

Their bright eyes were round with fright, but they were silent.

“You must be right,” I said.

Nate turned right on Ocean Boulevard and drove hell-bent around the north point of the island.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“The ferry went down in the channel. It was overloaded. Everyone's trying to get off the island. We're going to have to take our boat.”

“We have a boat?”

Nate kept his eyes on the road. We plowed through debris in the road, and more of it flying at the car.

A lawn chair hit the windshield.

Instinctively, I held up my arms.

Nate drove on.

We pulled into the marina parking lot. It was so crowded with cars I couldn't even see the docks.

Hundreds of people were fighting against the wind to reach boats.

“Where did all these people come from?” I asked.

“Can you take Emma Rae?”

The girl was named for my grandmother—for Gram.

I nodded, tears in my eyes. I had no idea who this child was.

I somehow managed to get out of the car, open the door, and gather her in my arms. Nate appeared at my side with the little boy without a name. “Link your arm through mine.”

I did as he said, then clutched Emma Rae to me. We moved forward, locked together against the storm.

After what felt like hours, we made it to what I supposed was our boat slip. We boarded a thirty-foot cabin cruiser. The wind and the waves pounded and tore at us. The boat bobbed, slammed against the dock.

Nate said, “Take the kids below. I'll get us underway.” He sat the boy on the deck and the boy wrapped his arms around my legs.

Then people I've never seen before started pouring onto the boat.

On all sides, every boat I could see was being rushed by throngs of people.

“The boat will sink,” Nate hollered. “It can't hold all of us.”

A wall of water surged over the deck and we started to sink.

Then Nate was gone.

Had he washed overboard?

The children screamed.

“Nate!” I howled. “Nate!”

“Slugger. What is it?”

I was sitting in our bed, Nate beside me. I gulped in great lungfuls of air, clutched at him.

“You must've had a doozy of a dream,” Nate said gently. “Are you awake now?”

“I know. I know.”

“What, sweetheart?”

“I know why she's here.”

“Who?”

“Colleen. I know why she's here. It's nothing to do with the environment. It never has been. There's no bridge. How will we all get off the island in a storm if there are too many of us?”

SEVEN

  

Thursday morning came early. I hadn't slept well at all after the nightmare woke me. I was quiet during our run. Nate waited patiently for me to be ready to talk about it. Normally this time of year I'd grab a quick swim. But I was shaken in a way I've seldom been. I looked at the ocean with suspicion, reluctant to get in. I'd always loved the water. As a child I fantasized about being a mermaid.

I wanted to dismiss the dream as simply a garden-variety nightmare. But the truth was, all my life I'd had dreams that foreshadowed the future. Not all of them, of course. But I'd learned to tell the difference. This was one of those dreams. It meant something. I needed to talk to Colleen.

While I washed my hair, I gave myself a talking to. I had to shake off this funk and get to work. I stepped out of the shower and wrapped up in a towel. “I think I'll eat breakfast at The Cracked Pot this morning.”

Nate stood in front of his mirror, shaving. “You got a hankering for country ham and grits?”

“Always. But I want to talk to Blake.” I'd feel better if I talked to my brother. He was the police chief of Stella Maris. Evacuations were somewhere in his job description.

“You figure he'd tell you if he knew Sonny was having an affair?”

I startled. How had that not occurred to me? “Never,” I said. “The two of them, everything goes into the vault. But I can read my brother like a neon billboard.”

“I'm just going to grab something here and head into Charleston quick as I get the paperwork caught up.”

“Blake may be more forthcoming if I'm alone. Doubtful, but possible.”

After I dressed, I went down to the office and typed up my interview notes from the day before. I wouldn't be right all day if I didn't get that done. Nate worked on his notes in his office, then came by the living room on his way out.

“Are you all right?” He set down his backpack and came over to the desk.

“I'll be fine.” I stood, the better to hug him goodbye.

“You're sure looking fine.”

“Well, thank you, sir.” I'd chosen a black linen jacket and pencil skirt with a polka-dot shell and my Kate Spade black wedge-heel sandals. They were perhaps a bit racy for this book club crowd, with their gold studs on the straps. My toe nail polish offered a pop of pink to the ensemble.

“Don't work too late, hear? Let's get takeout tonight, get you to bed early. You need some rest.”

“Sounds good.” I looked up and he leaned in to kiss me. It was a sound kiss, one that testified to a deep bond.

“I love you,” he said.

I smiled up at him. “I love you too.” An ache crept into my heart, echoes of the panic from last night's dream. I couldn't imagine my life without Nate.

  

As reliable as sunup, my brother walked under the pink striped awning and into The Cracked Pot at eight.

I caught up to him just inside. “Let's get a booth in the back.”

He looked me up and down. “You're dressed awful fancy for breakfast here.”

Moon Unit Glendawn, the owner of the diner, whose father had an unfortunate fondness for Frank Zappa, breezed out from behind the counter. We'd been friends our entire lives—she'd been one of my bridesmaids. It was a mystery to me why my brother hadn't married her long ago. It was common knowledge she had a crush on him. Moon Unit was a beautiful woman, inside and out. She also manned the control tower for the island's gossip network.

“Good mornin', y'all!” Moon Unit's long, wavy golden hair was pulled back into a ponytail. Her smile, as always, was lit from within.

“Hey, Moon,” I said. “Could we have the booth in the back?”

“Sure thing. You both want the usual?” she asked.

“Please.” There was no need to verify this with Blake. We both had country ham and grits with red eye gravy, eggs, and biscuits. The only difference in our orders was that I had scrambled eggs with cheese and his eggs were over medium. Always.

“Y'all have a seat. I'll get your coffee.” Moon Unit whirled away.

We slid into the corner booth.

“Interesting,” I said.

“What?” Blake turned over his coffee cup.

“She didn't even speak to you.”

“Sure she did. She said good morning to both of us.”

I squinted. “Yeah, but—” Normally she chatted Blake up as much as possible.

Moon Unit approached with the coffee carafe. She filled our cups.

“You doing alright today, Moony?” Blake asked.

She gave him a thin little smile, a far cry from the mega-watt one we'd both received moments ago. “I'm doing fine, Blake. Thank you so much for asking.” And she was gone again.

“See?” I said.

Blake grimaced. “Maybe it's her time—”

“
Don't
you even dare.” I gave him The Look. The one our mamma had used on all of us our entire lives.

He rolled his eyes. “Did you want to talk to me about something besides Moon Unit's bad mood?”

“She is not in a bad mood. She—” The dream came back to me. The wind. The waves. The people. “Yes. Yes, I did.”

He stirred sugar and cream into his coffee, looked at me from under a lowered brow. “What's up with you? You look…shook up.”

“I am. This will sound crazy—from nowhere—but we have evacuation procedures, right? For the island? There are plans, I know there are. Town Council has discussed them. To be honest, I didn't focus that much on the specifics. But your department. You monitor these things…storms. It's your job to make sure everyone leaves in time, right?”

“Of course. We have procedures, and we get updates on any threat from the National Hurricane Center. Where is this coming from? There're no storms in the Atlantic.”

“It's just on my mind, with all the crazy weather this year. The past couple years, really.”

He gave me a look that said he knew that wasn't the whole story.

I said, “But how many people can we evacuate in a day?”

“We typically have more than a day's notice, but if we had to, we could get everyone off the island in twenty-four hours. But you know as well as I do, some folks aren't going to evacuate. Most people here have ridden out a tropical storm or two.”

Moon Unit set our plates in front of us. “Y'all enjoy.” She turned around and walked away.

“Did you see that?” I said.

“What?”

“When is the last time she brought us food and only said two words? That has never happened. Never.”

Blake shrugged. “Are you going to tell me why you're all of a sudden concerned about our evacuation procedures?”

I sighed. “I had a nightmare. A very vivid one. It started me thinking how crazy it is we've all fought against a bridge for years because we love our splendid isolation. People could get hurt—killed, even—if we couldn't get everyone to the mainland.”

“Seriously? I know you think you could do my job better than me—”

“That's not true at all.”

“Yeah. It is. But nothing about my evacuation plan needs investigating. You just keep on chasing down adulterers and harassing Sonny about his cases.
This
falls under the category of things you don't need to worry about. I worry for all of us. I've got this.”

I watched him for a moment. I knew how much Blake loved this island. “Have you ever thought we ought to cap our population?”

“No. I've never thought that. Are you nuts? Don't answer that. How would you even do that?”

“Ordinances. Hell's bells. I don't know. But I think we need to start figuring out how we avoid reaching the tipping point where we can no longer evacuate everyone in twenty-four hours.”

He paused, biscuit halfway to his mouth. “That would sure address development once and for all. You're on the Town Council. Make a motion.”

“I need to look into that very thing.” I dug into my grits, which had waited far too long for my fork. I savored the thick, creamy, buttery comfort food of my people.

Blake shook his head, muttered something, and sliced off a bite of country ham. We ate in companionable silence for a few moments.

Then I asked, “Do you know if Sonny is seeing anyone?”

Blake seemed to choke just a bit. He washed down whatever he had lodged in his throat with a few gulps of coffee. “Why do you ask?”

“Just curious. I remember him bringing that girl from Folly Beach over to The Pirates' Den a few Fridays ago. She was cute. He seeing anyone else?”

Blake studied his plate.

That was a surefire tell. Something was up.

He said, “You know Sonny.”

I did indeed. I also knew my brother.

After we'd finished eating, we took the check to the cash register. One of the waitresses rang us up. I looked around for Moon Unit. From the window to the kitchen she caught my eye and flashed me a mischievous grin. What game was she playing with Blake? Changing tactics? I hadn't spoken to Moon at any length in a while. Maybe we needed to have lunch.