Murder on Edisto (The Edisto Island Mysteries) (34 page)

Callie shivered at the bastardized use of Lawton’s command. “What are you doing?” She tried to sound even-tempered, a farce after all that had been said.

With the cord wrapped around her hand repeatedly until it was contained, Beverly lifted the player and commanded, “Jeb, open the front door.”

He scrambled to do her bidding.

“Good boy,” she said. “Now, go retrieve my albums.”

Fear crossed his face, and he searched for an answer via a long, desperate stare at Callie.

“Jeb? Didn’t you hear me?” Beverly said from the porch. She made it down the first dozen steps to the landing.

Jeb studied the back of his grandmother, then swung around. “Mom? What am I supposed to do?”

“Mother,” shouted Callie. “Don’t put Jeb in this position. I’ll give you—”

Thuds and thumps rebounded from the stairs. A crack sounded, a smash. “Umph” and a long moaning “Oooh.”

Then silence.

“Oh no, Mother?”

Beverly lay sprawled at the bottom of the steps, face down, the turntable busted in pieces around her.

Chapter 26

JEB DASHED DOWN the stairs and knelt by his grandmother who sprawled belly flat across the shells and gravel. “Grandma, are you okay?” Jeb jerked around. “Mom!”

Callie hurried around the other side of him. “Mother, can you talk? Jeb, get me the phone.”

“No,” Beverly ordered. She pushed up, then rolled to her bottom.

At least she seemed okay. No blood except for her right palm. “Don’t move,” Callie said, feeling down the woman’s arm, then across her back. “Let a doctor go over you first.”

Beverly shrugged Callie away. “I said no. Give me a second to catch my wind.”

Callie plopped on the last step three feet away, watching as her mother inspected herself. Hopefully the hole in the side seam of her pants wouldn’t be discovered until she got home. Jeb gave his mother the phone and squatted, obviously lost as to what to do.

Sophie flew out of the house, the door slamming behind her. “Here’s a wet cloth.”

“Did you hit your head?” Callie asked Beverly. “Sophie, there’s a medical kit still on my coffee table.”

Sophie scampered back up the stairs, the door slamming again.

Beverly dabbed the rag to her face then felt her scalp, touching tenderly. “All right, I think. Nothing hurts.”

“Arms seem all right?” Callie had managed too many accidents in her job not to know that adrenaline disguised injuries, and this way she’d make Beverly concentrate on one body part at a time. Eventually, the verdict was Beverly suffered no more than scrapes, bumps, and bruises on her backside and legs, maybe her shoulders. Regardless, she’d be sore for a few days, especially at her age.

“You still need to go to the emergency room,” Callie said. “I’ll take you.”

“No, I most assuredly do not. Hopefully nobody wasted time with 9-1-1.”

“No, we didn’t, but I’m still not sure we shouldn’t. Let me at least bandage those cuts.” Callie took the medicine kit from Sophie.

Beverly reached for Jeb, who assisted her up. She slowly unfolded, trying to hide the fact she sensed for damage, then she shuffled a step, appearing able to manage herself. “I seem to recall that Cantrell women tend their own cuts.”

Touché, Mother
.

Sophie held up the record player’s broken arm. “I put the pieces in your back seat, Ms. Cantrell, but I’m pretty sure the player’s DOA.”

“What?” Beverly turned her head, as if listening from one ear.

Sophie held out the arm. “I mean it’s busted to hell.”

Beverly’s sigh could have blown the trees along Charleston harbor an hour away. “So be it,” she finally murmured. Callie spotted the hurt in her face as she turned away, and for the first time in a long while, she felt something for her mother. Beverly had fought to hold onto old comforts in the place of her husband. Callie now felt heartless.

Beverly snatched the arm from Sophie and owned it like a microphone, snapping Callie from her reverie. “I’m going home.”

Lips pressed tight, Callie nodded for Jeb to return inside. “Go get them.”

With youthful leaps, he ran up the two dozen steps. Gone only a moment, he treaded carefully down again, arms loaded. “Here, Grandma.” Carefully, he placed the LPs in the backseat.

“Thank you, sweetheart.”

Sophie held out the woman’s purse. “You’re still welcome to come to yoga. I can show you how to ease those muscles and—”

Beverly spun on her. “I don’t need your goddamn yoga, girl. How dense can you be?”

The lot of them fell silent, chastised like children as Beverly strode to her car with nary a limp.

Jeb leaned against Callie. “Mom . . .”

Callie walked toward the car. “Mother, let Jeb or me take you home and help put you to bed. We’ll be happy to stay with you.”

Beverly looked back from the driver’s door. “I’m not ancient and definitely not some old woman needing your pity.”

Jeb moved a step forward then checked himself. “We didn’t say you were, Grandma.”

Beverly wanly smiled. “You’re a good boy. Come see your Grandma once in a while, would you?” She eased into her seat and shut the door, then winced wrapping her seatbelt around her.

The BMW cranked up, and it seemed to drive away slower, as if achy itself. The three of them stood stoic, still stunned, as the vehicle disappeared up Jungle Road.

“Should I follow her?” Jeb asked.

“Yes,” Callie replied. “Call me when you get there. Need gas?”

“No, ma’am, I’m fine. I’ll go get my keys.”

As he drove out, Callie plopped on the bottom step again, too exhausted to climb back inside. No sleep, Stan, Peters, Seabrook, hidden cams, and now this. Thank heaven there wasn’t more than twenty-four hours in a day.

Sophie joined her. “Wow, your mother’s worse than my ex-husband.”

“Hmmm,” was all Callie could say.

“You okay?” Sophie asked.

“No. And I’m sorry you had to see that.” Callie tried to rub the edge of a headache out of her temple.

“Where’s that man you were with yesterday?”

Callie moaned. “So not a good time for that question, Sophie.”

Sophie reared away. “Okay, okay.”

Time ticked by. Then the yoga teacher brushed off her behind and took steps toward her house. “Want me to bring you anything?”

“No, thanks.”

“Well, you know where I am.” She hesitated to leave. “I do want to thank you. You know, for taking charge when I freaked about Peters being in my house. You were awesome, Callie Jean Morgan.”

Callie smiled.

Sophie returned one of her own. “Do try to relax. As spacey as you may think I am, I do worry about you.”

“Sophie—” Callie didn’t need girl talk right now.

The neighbor zippered her mouth shut with pinched fingers. “See you later. Be happy.”

As the sun sank, Callie escaped back inside, spent and mentally comatose. She had no gin to dull her thoughts of regret and missed opportunity. The bourbon was her father’s, and for some reason, she wanted the last quarter of that bottle to remain untouched, in remembrance. Too tired to drive to the liquor store, she remained sober by default.

No record player. No music. Yet plenty of noise galloped in her head.

And she still had to search for cams.

A half hour later, she’d combed every nook and cranny in her room, the kitchen, Jeb’s room, and the living area. Her eyelids weighed like fishing lead, her feet like anchors. With an iced tea, she retreated with notepad to an Adirondack on the screen porch, in an attempt to regroup and refocus on whom she wanted to interview, and in what order. She read her old notes, but the words blurred. She avoided thinking about Beverly.

About someone maybe running her off a highway, too.

Callie jerked awake and put down the notebook that had tried to slip from her fingers.

Her mother would want little to do with her for at least for a week or two. To think that before today, Callie would have relished that thought, like she had in Boston. Lawton’s absence, however, made a difference. He’d expect more of his daughter. Guilt had her gut in knots, but she hadn’t pushed her mother down the stairs. She’d simply denied her the albums, which in hindsight seemed dense.

She took a sip of tea. Stan probably walked in Mindy’s door about now.

A shiver rolled over her at the memory of his hand on her belly. She dropped her own across her front, as if to emulate the warm touch.

Work. Think work.
Use your skills
. Doing nothing was like allowing the situation to worsen.

She glanced up at the window in the Beechum house where the sign had appeared, then disappeared. No light.

That one word:
Whore
. A word to tease her reaction? Pauley came across as a dufus, but would he dare plant cameras? She shivered at how much of her the creep might have seen.

But was it even Pauley? Her cup had been stolen before Pauley returned to Edisto. Or had he been here and not made his presence known?

She ran the cold, dripping glass across her face to wake up. Then she wrote interview questions, asking the various players to describe what they saw or heard and whom they considered guilty. Why they might have been chosen as targets. Geez, she wished she could interview Pauley. No chance of that happening.

She expected no answers of substance from these people. Everyone ignorant or oblivious. It would take someone like her to sift their remarks for clues. But not tonight. She threw down the pen, lifted the tea, then thought about the liquor store barely a mile away.

No, Callie. Besides, the store’s closed.

Eyes closed, she designed a mental map. All the victims lived on Jungle Road. All were permanent residents. A fortyish couple, a young family of three, a middle-aged woman. Sophie, Papa, and her. The Rosewoods had lived on Edisto for twenty plus years. Mrs. Hanson the same. The Maxwells two years. Papa for fifty. Sophie three. Callie, not quite two weeks.

Wait. She rubbed her stinging eyes. She could call Rhonda Benson, the real estate agent, and obtain a layout of the area, lot by lot. How many residents had been overlooked? Or rather, who hadn’t he burgled
yet
?

Why hadn’t she come at it from this angle before? Why hadn’t Seabrook?

And why hadn’t there been another break-in while she was in Middleton for four days?

She heard a car turn into her drive and park under the house. She recognized his footfalls on the stairs.

“Mom?” Jeb called. “You on the porch?”

How well he knew her. “Yeah.”

Jeb gave her a once over as he ventured onto the porch. Pleased, he smiled and sat across from her. “Grandma took a sleeping pill and went to bed. I called that lady from the mayor’s office she seems to like and told her about the fall. She’ll check on her tomorrow morning. I started to stay, but she acted all embarrassed.” He leaned on his knees. “That was just crazy.”

“Yes, your grandmother is a breed all her own.” Callie smiled at all that was right with her son. “In case I haven’t told you lately, I’m so proud of you.”

“Let’s hope you still think so after I tell you something.”

“Great,” she whispered, as the back of her head hit the wooden chair. “What else can happen today?”

“You haven’t had a drink. That’s what happened today, and I can’t explain how happy that makes me, Mom. Especially with all that went down around here.”

She laughed. He had no idea. “Guess that proves I’m not a drunk, don’t you think?”

“Don’t ask me a question like that.” His seriousness made him sound ten years older.

“Is that all you wanted to tell me? You scared me for a moment.”“No.” His elbows bore into his legs as he peered down, then up. “This is.”

She laid both arms atop the Adirondack chair’s arms and sank into her seat, full attention on her son.

“I postponed college for now.”

She jumped upright. “Oh no, Jeb, don’t.” The entire day’s drama, all of it piled together, now seemed mild compared to this. “Please don’t do this.” Tears streamed down her face unchecked. The day had gone on too long, and her exhaustion consumed her.

Jeb lunged over to sit at her feet and peered up at her eyes. “Mom, stop crying. Remember all you’ve done for me. You moved. You left your career. You took care of me after Dad died though I saw how much you were hurting.” His own eyes moistened. “Now you need somebody. And who else will take care of you better than me?”

She held his blurry face. “But if you don’t go to college, I’ve failed. Your father—”

“Would accept what I’m doing in light of everything.” He gave her that Johnish half-smile. “Maybe I’ll go next semester. Or a year from now. But you gave me that lecture about civilians needing to take care of their family, avoid danger, secure the home. Go ahead, nod, you know what I’m talking about.”

She sniffled, that speech still fresh. As a civilian, she couldn’t do much. If anything happened in her house now, all she could do was call 9-1-1 or shoot. Callie stroked her son’s shoulder. “How do you feel?”

He raised a brow. “About college? I’m good. I have years ahead of me. Besides, I still haven’t decided what courses to take, so maybe this is good in several ways.”

With a flat palm, she wiped her face. Lawton had been on his way to talk to Jeb about this very issue. How was she to interpret fate’s role in that?

Jeb leaned over and hugged her, and she kissed the side of his head. “I love you, Jeb.”

“Love you too, Mom.” He straightened. “Don’t take this wrong . . .”

“Again? What else is there?”

“You need to take better care of yourself,” he said. “Cut the booze, go back to exercise, get some friggin’ fresh air, and try to sleep. You look like hell. You’re prettier than this.”

“Oh.” Her cheeks warmed at the compliment. She chuckled, sniffling again. “Yes, sir. I’ll try.”

“And I think I know what to give you for Christmases and birthdays for a while.”

Her dulled head soon caught on at the unspoken reference to Neil Diamond records. “I guess you do,” she said. “Listen, it’s after eleven. I assume you’re going out fishing again early tomorrow?”