The only answer was the clatter of steps in the hallway and the slam of the front door.
Darwyn Jack straightened the collar of the green polo. His fingers luxuriated in the crinkly feel of the cotton mesh. His thick, sensuous lips curled in the half smile that made women his for the taking. Women couldn’t resist his tangle of thick chestnut curls and sloe-brown eyes that held a reckless glint. He felt on top of the world, invincible.
He looked around the dim, small room, seeing only its cramped lack of space and shabby furnishings, blind to its scrubbed cleanliness and the lovingly hand-pieced quilt on the bed.
He gave a final approving glance at the mirror and moved into the hall. He was tall, muscular, and well built, but he walked with a slight limp. He’d been the best running back in the state when he was a junior and there was already talk of how he’d have his pick of colleges when he graduated. An accident while mowing a hayfield ended his football dreams and his college hopes. He’d never bothered much about grades. Who needed them if you could run like the wind?
In the kitchen, he walked to the old oak table, pulled out a chair. This room, too, was clean and bright with daffodil-yellow curtains at the windows.
Bella Mae Jack’s cotton housedress was crisp and starched. A big woman, she moved slowly now that she’d reached her seventies. She no longer cleaned homes for a living but she baked and cooked for the weekly farmers’ market that was held every Saturday in the park near the harbor. She was careful with her money, always frugal, unfailingly honest. She turned, a plate in her hand. “Sausage patties and dilly bread.” She stopped, peered nearsightedly, her pale worn face folding into a frown. “You march back to your room and take that nice shirt off. You have work clothes. Wear them.” Her voice was stern.
Darwyn hesitated for only a fraction, then, with a shrug, he came to his feet. When he’d played football, he liked to hurt opposing players. Darwyn had a cold, dark core, the product of abusive years before his drug-ridden parents died and he came, a withdrawn and wary seven-year-old, to live with his grandmother. Only for Bella Mae would he ever be meek.
In his room, he shrugged and carefully pulled off the polo. Soon he would wear fine clothes whenever he liked.
Pat Merridew walked back and forth across her small living room, too angry to sit and try to relax. Finally she stopped at the closet, reached for her light jacket. Even though it was summer, the nights were cool in the woods. She slid a small flashlight into her pocket and retrieved her BlackBerry from her purse. She didn’t need a BlackBerry now, not since she’d lost her job. But she always carried a phone in the woods in case of an accident.
She edged out of the back door, careful to keep Gertrude from following. “Not safe for you, sweetie.” Gertrude was only permitted outside on a leash and their walks avoided the lagoon with its leathery black king, a nine-foot alligator who would see Gertrude as an hors d’oeuvre. “You stay inside.” The door shut, muffling the disappointed whine of the elderly dachshund. Pat walked swiftly, the way familiar now. She’d begun her late-night forays when she found it hard to sleep after she was fired.
Pushed by hatred, she walked the half mile to the Jamison property and stood in the shadows of an old live oak, glaring at the dark windows. Long ago, the land had been home to one of the island plantations. There were stories of a ghostly little girl wandering on summer nights, looking for her father, who had been killed in the Battle of Honey Hill. What if a ghost began to haunt the house? Or maybe a poltergeist might make its presence known by little destructive acts.
She stood in the shadows and hugged ideas of revenge.
Oyster shells crackled. She was alert, wary. It was past midnight. Pat watched a dimly seen figure slip through the moonlit garden to the gazebo. Footsteps sounded on the gazebo steps. A flashlight flared, illuminating the interior. The beam settled on a wooden bench. The shadow behind the light knelt for a few minutes, then rose. The light was turned off. Footsteps again thudded softly on the wooden steps. Pat watched the swift, confident return toward the house until the visitor to the gazebo was out of sight behind shrubbery.
Pat waited a few minutes. No one stirred in the garden. She walked swiftly to the gazebo and edged up the steps. She bent and used her pencil flash for a quick flicker. A rolled-up brown towel was taped beneath the bench. She knelt and touched the towel. Oh. She took a quick breath. She didn’t need to remove and unroll the lumpy towel to know what it covered. She thought for a moment, then smiled grimly as she reached in her other pocket.
A moment later she moved swiftly along the path in the woods, using the pocket flash to light her way. A thought darted as swiftly as a minnow: knowledge was power.
Henny Brawley sat on her verandah overlooking the marsh. The spartina grass glimmered gold in the morning sun, rippling in a light breeze. Fiddler crabs skittered on the mudflats as the tide ebbed. She took a sip of rich, black Sumatra coffee and breathed deeply of the distinctive marsh scent. All would be well in her sea island world except, of course, for the challenge of personalities. But Henny wasn’t irritated. Detecting motives, choosing the right word at the right time to achieve a desired effect, provided a never-ending challenge in her role as a volunteer, and was almost as much fun as reading clever, multilayered mysteries.
Henny laughed aloud. As soon as she identified one more of the paintings hanging this month in the Death on Demand mystery bookstore, she would break a current tie with Emma Clyde. Emma, the island’s famed mystery author, was also—Henny was willing to give credit where credit was due—an omnivorous mystery reader and a worthy opponent in the contest. Each painting represented a particular mystery novel. The first viewer to identify titles and authors would win free coffee for a month and a new book. She would choose the latest by either Jasper Fforde or Rosemary Harris.
Henny could almost recall the book depicted in the third painting, but not quite. Browsing the store’s shelves this afternoon, she was certain something would nudge her memory. However, first she needed to help her old friend Pat Merridew, who had applied for the paid manager’s job at the Helping Hands Center, a private charity that threw out lifelines to the sick, the old, the troubled.
There was a fly in the ointment. One of the board members was a stickler for checking references, which seemed a trifle absurd on an island the size of Broward’s Rock. All of them knew Pat Merridew, admittedly a bit quirky and sometimes fractious, but whatever her shortcomings, Pat exuded energy and she knew everyone in town.
Of course, there had to be a reason why Pat had lost her job at the law firm. That was the point made by Rachel Thompson in her brusque way. “Depend on it, Henny, there’s a story there. We can’t hire Pat until we know what’s what.”
Henny had made no headway when she’d suggested that Pat was simply another casualty of Cleo Jamison’s remake of her husband’s life and office. Rachel had insisted, “We must know the truth of the matter.”
