Speak No Evil (18 page)

T
he lemon-yellow vintage Town Car was the first thing they all agreed must go. In pristine condition, the 1978 edition car their mother had cherished had already caught the eye of nearly every local auto collector in town, but as beautiful as the car’s condition might be, none of the sisters could picture herself behind the wheel. Better to let someone have it who might actually appreciate it.

Pulling the auction together was becoming primarily an effort for Augusta and Savannah, because Caroline had her hands full with the paper.

They ran the first story about Patterson a few days after his release, and continued with periodic updates as new material emerged. Right now, with the intense spotlight on his life, Caroline would hate to be standing in his shoes. She almost felt sorry for him—almost, but not quite. It was difficult to find any sympathy for a man surrounded by so much suspicion and she was a firm believer that “where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”

Sitting at her desk, she picked up the morning’s edition to read over Pam’s handiwork. With Brad as a tutor, and Frank overseeing both, Pam was quickly learning to be an ace reporter.

This morning’s article was completely unbiased—although Caroline noticed Frank had allowed her to slip in a pat on the back for the
Tribune
.

The article read:

The article didn’t say the two missing persons were connected. In fact, Pam pointed out they were not . . . yet, it left one wondering. She was doing well, Caroline thought.

Bonneau had also talked Caroline into moving the paper’s bedtime back to midnight, despite the extra cost in man-hours. He insisted it was the only way to remain relevant, and having their editors break away from brushing their teeth to tweet sound bites wasn’t going to get them the increased distribution they needed to stay afloat. The
Tribune
needed to get and publish news first. Caroline realized that now more than ever.

Although the mellow competition with the
Post
continued, winning took on a new meaning. Winning was all about persevering. And although Caroline still wanted to bring the
Tribune
into the new millennium, she didn’t intend to do it by sacrificing trust. There was something very noble about reporting the news the old-fashioned way.

It was four-fifteen. She had about an hour and a half before the City Market closed.

Setting down her copy of the day’s paper, she packed up her laptop and gathered a few documents. She had begun to work from home in the evenings, where Bonneau could reach her if necessary. Today, she was beyond tired after spending half the day at the hospital with Savannah and she wanted to run by the City Market to see if she could pick up a gift for Sadie—as a thank you for the constant care she provided. She stopped by Frank’s desk to tell him she was leaving, and then headed out the door, dropping her briefcase off at her car in the garage. The City Market was a few blocks away, and it was too beautiful not to walk. Besides, the streets were always crowded with tourists at this time of the year.

Charleston’s City Market sat on a strip of land between Meeting and East Bay Streets. She began shopping at the Meeting Street end, walking past the Greek Revival Market Hall that housed the Daughters of the Confederacy Museum, skipping the indoor market. She worked her way down the vendor sheds, where descendents of West African slaves gathered with their expensive sweetgrass baskets alongside T-shirt salesmen and Lowcountry photographers. Charles Pinckney had ceded this land to the City of Charleston back in the 1700s with the stipulation that a public market be built on the site. In those days, vendors sold meat, vegetables and fish, along with another more lucrative Southern commodity—slaves. These days, no one liked to think of it in terms of its original name, but locals sometimes still referred to it as the slave market.

On the streets parallel to the market, horse-drawn carriages trotted by. Tourists flashed photos of daughters and mothers and wives along the arched brick ways and the weavers sat weaving their baskets at the end of each walkway while tourists watched. Caroline wove in and out of the vendor sheds, searching for something Sadie might appreciate. She had no idea what to get her, but there was nowhere else in the city to find more creative gifts, all lovingly made by local artisans.

She stopped at a table with pie tins. Right next to the tins sat beautiful, hand-painted porcelain cake pedestals and Caroline fingered one with sweetgrass blooms, admiring the artwork. She didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but she caught snippets of the conversation between the two women standing next to her.

“It
is
him. I think he’s looking at us!”

“That man is beautiful!”

Beautiful wasn’t a description attributed to many men and Caroline was reminded of Augusta’s fervent declaration about Patterson.

“Do you think he’s guilty?”

Caroline’s attention perked. Peering up, she looked around to see who it was they were speaking about.

“Don’t you think if they had something on him, they would have arrested him by now?” one woman asked.

“Well, he’s guilty if you believe the
Tribune
! ”

Caroline’s breath caught as she spotted the figure standing on the other side of South Market Street, watching through the wide brick arches. Her heart tripped. She backed away from the table, automatically slipping into the crowd. She made her way quickly out of the pavilion, peering through passersby to see if he was following. He was. He kept pace with her, walking along the street, watching her. Caroline walked faster, her skin prickling with fear.

Those assurances didn’t stop her heart from pounding frantically.

Suddenly realizing she was going the wrong way—away from Meeting Street and away from her car—she doubled back, ducking through the mass of shoppers, peering over the shoulders of people she passed.

He wasn’t there. She didn’t see him any longer. Now was the time to make a run for it. She took off her heels, placing one in each hand. She raced toward Meeting Street.

The sound of idle chatter was a roar in her ears and the echo of a thousand footsteps was magnified in the pavilion. Just before reaching the last section, the indoor market, she slipped out onto North Market Street, shrieking as she ran directly into Patterson.

“Ms. Aldridge,” he said in greeting.

Caroline swallowed convulsively. They were surrounded by people, she reminded herself. He wouldn’t dare hurt her here. Still, she backed away, keeping a safe distance. “Why are you following me?”

His brows drew together as though he were genuinely confused, but he was mocking her, she realized by the gleam in his eye. “Oh, I’m sorry, you don’t you like being singled out and hassled?” he asked easily. He placed his hands into his pockets and leaned backward in a non-confrontational stance, but Caroline felt anything but reassured.

Their proximity to so many people gave her more bravado than she felt. “If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about.”

“You are making it very difficult for me to do my job,” he complained.

“And what exactly is your job, Mr. Patterson?”

He eyed her shrewdly, blue eyes piercing. “You have no idea what you’re getting into,
Ms. Aldridge.”

Caroline straightened her spine, automatically turning the shoe in her right hand so she could use the heel as a weapon if it came down to it. “Is that a threat?”

He shook his head. “No, ma’am. You have nothing to fear from me, but I’d say it is a warning. There is a difference, you know?”

“I don’t need a lesson in the meaning of words, Mr. Patterson! Though apparently, you do. This is harassment!”

“No, ma’am. This is a simple conversation,” he argued. “
One conversation
. But I can see how you might have trouble with the concept of one. However, if you think this is harassment, I guess we’re even because I would say your paper is harassing me.” He smiled thinly. “I’m just here asking you nicely to stop.”

“Is that all you have to say?”

He nodded. “Pretty much.”

“Then I guess we’re done,” Caroline said, and walked away.

He didn’t move to follow and Caroline hurried toward the corner of Meeting Street, where she turned again to see that he was still standing exactly where she’d left him. She fished her phone out of her purse, but even as she crossed the street he made no move to follow, just watched her go. Caroline resisted the urge to dial Jack’s number, remembering the women’s conversation in the market. Anyway, Jack hadn’t called her. What was she going to do? Go running to him every time she had a problem? He wasn’t her husband, or her boyfriend, and right now, she wondered if he were even a friend. The problem was that she couldn’t shake the desire—or the need—to hear his voice. Even more than her sisters, he was the one she instinctively turned to.

Still, all Patterson had done was scare the shit out of her. He wasn’t following her any longer; he had simply taken advantage of their proximity. In his position, Caroline might have done the same. In fact, he was a hell of a lot less angry about the whole ordeal than Caroline might have been in his shoes. She dropped her phone back into her purse and resolved to—what? Stay away from everyone she managed to piss off?

W
hatever Caroline’s personal feelings about Patterson, the conversation between the two women in the market struck a chord. She urged Frank to back off on the stories—or at least give the topic of Patterson a break. There was more than enough fear permeating the city already. You could smell it in the air—a muggy, lung-filled breath of reeking sweat and humidity.

That was the thing about serial murders and rapists: everyone became a victim. While the physical victims were no doubt the ones to suffer the worst, the psychological effects of the crime were perpetrated upon thousands. Every alley held threatening shadows and every dark corner hid gruesome possibilities. Caroline doubted there was a female in the city right now who wasn’t looking over her shoulder—if there was, she was stupid.

On the other hand, through Augusta’s auction, Caroline also witnessed some of the best efforts of the city at work. Many of the local charities had already offered to assist and the Aquarium was going to donate its facilities for the actual event. Sometime this week, her sister planned to come into the office to start an inventory there as well; Caroline had never seen her in such good spirits.

Caroline purposely didn’t intend to bring up her encounter with Patterson to Augusta, because she sensed Augusta would just champion him.

She left work a little later than usual because yesterday she’d spent her entire morning at the hospital and then left early to go the market—where she didn’t even accomplish her task. Trying to think of another place she might find something suitable for Sadie, she noticed the bulbs in the garage’s overhead lights were brighter than usual—that was good. Still, she felt compelled to hold her keys in her hand the way Jack had taught her to hold them long ago—with the sharp nose of the key nudged out between her fingers while she made a fist—an unlikely weapon to be used in the unlikely event she was attacked. The idea of carrying mace or pepper spray had never appealed to her, but right now, she wished she had some.

Most of the cars had already cleared out. She’d parked within sight of the attendant’s booth, which was now being manned in the evenings since her ordeal with the obscenity on her car door. She noticed, however, that the girl who took their tokens was not in the booth. The light was on, but the booth appeared empty.

Caroline picked up her pace, keenly aware of her surroundings, every creak of the garage’s foundation, every whiz of cars passing on the street. One of the halogen lights flickered, and she held her breath, repeatedly pushing the button to unlock her car door. Lately, it had begun to stick, and she needed to get that fixed.

She thought she heard footsteps, and grabbed the car door handle, lifting it quickly and jerking open the door. Her heart thumped wildly as she slid into the driver’s seat, slamming the door shut and hitting the lock button immediately. She couldn’t wait to get out of here and on the road home.

Putting the car in reverse, she started to back out, then noticed the folded slip under her wiper and stopped abruptly.

She sure as hell wasn’t getting out to snatch it off the window. Right now, she just wanted to go home. She drove to the booth and a head popped up from below, scaring the crap out of her. She rolled down the window.

The girl grinned sheepishly. “Sorry ’bout that! I was talking to my boyfriend—didn’t want anyone to see me on the phone.”

At least she was honest, if stupid—on multiple counts. Caroline guessed the girl didn’t care much about her job or her life. “You ought to pay attention,” Caroline advised her, and suddenly felt guilty for insisting the booth be manned at this hour of the night. The girl was just a kid. Caroline was going to have to talk to the building managers again and work out a better solution. It seemed you couldn’t make one simple decision without considering all the consequences. No wonder her mother had shut down emotionally.

“Oh, look!” the girl exclaimed, completely ignoring Caroline’s rebuke. “You have a love note under your wiper!”

Caroline sighed. Oh to be young and in love, she thought, and gave the girl a wry smile. “I was going to grab it when I got home.”

“Oh, no!” the girl exclaimed. “You’ll lose it when you get on the road. Let me get it for you!” She stretched out across the booth’s window and plucked it out from under the wiper, reading it first—rather rudely, Caroline thought—before handing it to Caroline with furrowed brows. “It’s just church people,” she said, sounding thoroughly disappointed.

Caroline took the piece of paper from her, straightened it and squinted to read the computer-generated type in the dim interior of her car.

Caroline automatically looked around the garage, her gaze skidding to a halt at a shadowy corner, where Brad Bessett stood smoking a cigarette in the dim light. The look he gave her—a half smirk—sent a chill down her spine, but then . . . she was starting to see everything as nefarious. He hitched his chin at her, acknowledging her, and then tossed down his cigarette, tamped it out and got into the little smoke gray Honda S2000 that was parked in the corner where he stood.

 

Jack’s cell phone rang as he was tugging off his T-shirt. He struggled out of it, glancing at the clock. It was nine-thirty. Who the hell would be calling at this hour?

He hoped to hell it wasn’t Kelly, and, at the moment, he was on the fence about Caroline. Every time they talked, it seemed there was another battle.

Maybe that was never going to change, and the idea dismayed him. If he were a praying man, he would have predicted all his prayers would be answered by her return to Charleston. But that was not the way it had turned out; he was on the verge of wishing she would just go back to Dallas.

His mood soured with his thoughts. It took him a minute to muster up the will to go after the phone, but it stopped ringing so he sat back on the bed, trying to figure out where the muffled ring had come from. More to the point, was there anyone he wanted to talk to badly enough to expend the effort to find it?

But he was in the middle of an investigation that wasn’t exactly yielding results so he supposed he was obligated.

It rang again.

He couldn’t remember.

He got up, staring at the pile of dirty laundry near his bed, resolved to find the phone. He bent, scattering a week’s worth of dirty clothes, but it stopped ringing for a second time.

Now he was annoyed. Mostly at himself. But he was determined to find the goddamned phone, even if he told himself he didn’t give a damn who was calling. It was a matter of principle now. His house was a pit stop. The dishes stank. His clothes weren’t laundered. His face wasn’t shaved. His life was a wreck. And he really needed to find a killer before anyone else got hurt. The thing was . . . as determined as Caroline seemed to be to pin Amy Jones’s murder on Patterson, Jack was equally sure the guy was innocent.

But he was starting to wonder about a connection to Amanda Hutto’s disappearance. After weeks of searching for the little girl without any leads, she was presumed dead, even if that wasn’t the official story. No body had been recovered. And that was the point . . .

When his phone rang for a third time, he dove into the pile of clothes, locating the phone in the pocket of a pair of jeans he didn’t remember wearing. He dug it out, using words that would have made his mother proud, and finally answered.

“Bad mood?”

It was Caroline.

“Slightly.”

“Sorry to bother you at this hour . . . are you dressed?”

Jack cracked a wry smile, his mood somewhere just south of reckless. “You’re either fishing for phone sex, or you’re on the way over. I’m guessing you’re on the way over.”

“I have something to show you,” she said. “It’s probably nothing, though I called Josh because I thought it was odd . . . he thought I should show you.”

“All right.” Jack ignored the little victory dance his heart did between his ribs. It was tackled immediately by his concern. “Come at your own risk,” he warned.

“Funny.”

He wasn’t remotely kidding. “You know how to get here?”

“East Ashley, right?”

“Past the Washout. Look for the naked yard with the unused kayak hanging out of the bushes and the half-built motorcycle in the carport.”

She laughed. “I’ll be there in a sec. I’m just around the corner.”

“See you then.”

Jack hung up, and despite the warning he’d issued, he scurried to straighten up, shoving laundry into his closet and throwing away PowerBar wrappers.

 

Caroline found the house easily enough, but as always, she thought Jack was too hard on himself. Many of the houses on this street were summer rentals. Mottled with beach scrub, it wasn’t as though any of them were Yard of the Month candidates. The residents here were mostly low key, preferring bare feet over designer shoes—except in the intensity of summer, when the sand was so blistering hot that even sandpipers hopped about nervously along the white-hot sand.

The lights were on inside his house, but the blinds were down, offering just the faintest glow. Along the beachfront, lights burned behind the heavy blinds of a long row of houses—like a train of luminaries.

Caroline wondered which house was Karen Hutto’s, and felt a twinge of guilt for not calling to check on the woman. The longer her daughter remained missing, the deeper the despair she was bound to fall into, and Caroline could scarcely bear the thought of looking into her eyes. It was like watching her mother all over again—her inner fire burning a little colder every day, until it finally sputtered out.

She parked her car next to Jack’s kayak-sprouting bush and made her way up the rail-tie path. He opened the door before she got the chance to knock and stood there, silhouetted by the soft amber light inside, his shirt buttoned haphazardly and one side tucked into his jeans.

A shiver swept through her.

She told herself it was the damp night air, but it was too hot for shivers.

“Come on in.”

She wasn’t ready for the memories that accosted her at the sight of Jack half dressed. He no longer had the lanky body of his youth. His arms were well defined and his chest sculpted—not like the muscleheads she often saw in the gyms in Dallas, just well defined, like a guy who wasn’t afraid of work or sunshine.

Caroline stepped in around him, careful not to touch him, and peered around his humble house, catching sight of familiar items—the soft doe-colored leather couch he had bought for his first apartment—their first apartment—a red paisley sixties-era lamp he had pilfered from his mother’s house before she was locked up and the rent had gone unpaid long enough for the landlord to padlock the house and seize her belongings. Jack had realized it was inevitable. He had bailed her out too many times, so he’d let them box up his baby photos and auction off the valuables before tossing out the trash—the mementos of his life. Later, after his mother was released, her body had been discovered in an alley downtown, in a condition no son should ever have to bear witness to—even if he was her only next of kin. He had refused any help from Caroline and he had never really talked about it much afterward.

Caroline felt a twinge of regret for the way she’d treated him when she’d first come home. Dissing his mother was a low blow, and she had only done so because she was hurting. She realized that now.

Jack was right. She was still mad at him for waking up in another woman’s bed thirteen days before their wedding—even though he had sworn he hadn’t had sex with her. It hadn’t mattered. She’d been furious at her mother for sending him home with Claire—angry at Jack for taking her in the first place—and even angrier at him for not calling to tell her that her best friend had nearly O.D.’d on her mother’s pills. To make matters worse, some part of Caroline suspected her mother had set the entire thing up to keep Caroline from marrying Jack.

Well, it worked.

She tamped down a sense of indignation over the memory.

He was staring at her, eyes gleaming slightly, studying her reaction to his home. “Want something to drink?”

Caroline lifted her brows, taking in the glasses strewn about—all bar steins. “Are there any clean glasses left?”

He shrugged.

Caroline smiled wanly. “Really, I only came to show you this.” She opened her purse and fished around for the slip. “At first, I thought it was a parking ticket. . . .” She handed the piece of paper to him.

Jack took it and moved closer to the lamp, unfolding it.

His eyes grew wide, and she saw something register there—for just an instant; then he shuttered his gaze, and looked up with a tight smile. “Where did you get this?”

He was hiding something.

“On my car. Under the wiper.”

“When?” Even the single word sounded strained.

“Tonight. When I was leaving work.”

“In the garage?”

“Yeah.”

He nodded, his eyes shifting back and forth between Caroline and the piece of paper, and he suddenly seemed on edge in a way he wasn’t previously. Caroline knew instinctively that whatever he keeping from her was something important, but she also realized that he wasn’t going to tell her anything after she’d broadcast his last disclosure to the entire city.

“Was it there during lunch?”

Caroline shrugged. “I don’t know.”

She could see the wheels turning behind his ocean-blue eyes. “Do you mind if I keep it?”

She met his eyes, unblinking, trying to read him. “Do you think it means something?”