The Latvian Savant was awake and cranky. His Jell-O was green. His nurse was deaf. His gown was too small and his cheeks were catching cold. Though Pete’s carping was annoying, annoyance was a relief. My heart felt light. He was healing. Katy had called finally and I’d been able to assure her of her father’s imminent recovery.
Lily phoned Ryan late that afternoon. She was with friends in Montreal and wanted to see him. Ryan promised to be there by Friday. His vacation was over, he had to return to work on Monday. Leaving two days early meant he could spend the weekend with his daughter. He was grinning when he delivered the news. I hugged him. We held each other a very long time, each lost in thoughts of another. A nonsevered spouse. A newly realized child.
Ryan and I decided to splurge that night. My work in Charleston was done. Emma’s unknowns were ID’d, and Marshall was looking at a lot of hard time. Maybe worse. Pete was improving rapidly. Lily was reaching out. We dined on steak and lobster at 82 Queen.
Throughout dinner Ryan and I circled cautiously, stuck to neutral topics, restricted ourselves to present and past tense. He didn’t ask about the future. I didn’t offer reassurance. I couldn’t. I was still puzzled and confused by the strength of my reaction to Pete’s proximity. To his near brush with death.
There was a lot of self-congratulation, much laughter, frequent clinking of glasses. At times I wanted to reach out and take Ryan’s hand. I didn’t. In the time since, I’ve often wondered why.
Ryan left after breakfast on Thursday. We kissed good-bye. I waved until his Jeep disappeared, then went back into Anne’s house, empty again save for a dog and a cat. I was staying in Charleston until Pete could return to Charlotte. Beyond that, I had no plans.
* * *
Boyd and I spent Thursday afternoon with Emma. When she opened her front door, Boyd jumped up and nearly knocked her down. I felt like I’d taken a blow to the chest. All the sparkle was gone from Emma’s face. Her skin was pallid, and though the day was warm and moist, she wore a sweat suit and socks. I had to struggle to keep my smile pasted in place.
Gullet had already told Emma of Marshall’s arrest. Sitting in porch rockers, we reviewed my conversations with the doctor and his nurse. Her reaction was immediate and uncompromising.
“Daniels running an international organ ring and framing his boss? Give me a break. You’ve seen the evidence. Marshall is a turd and he’s guilty as hell.”
“Yeah.”
“What? You’re not convinced?” Emma’s skepticism ran planetary rings around Gullet’s.
“Of course I am. But there are a couple things that bother me.”
“For instance?”
“There wasn’t a single personal item in Marshall’s office. So why that one shell?”
“A million reasons. He meant to take it home but forgot about it. One escaped from a container, rolled out of sight in his desk drawer, and he never knew it was there.”
“Helms was killed in 2001. That shell was in Marshall’s drawer all that time?”
“We’re not talking conch shells, Tempe. The things are tiny.”
“True.”
Seeing a squirrel, Boyd shot to his feet. I put my hand on his head. He twirled the eyebrow hairs at me, but held.
I pressed my point. “But Marshall is smart. Why would he carry shells when burying a corpse?”
“Maybe the shell got wrapped up with Helms’s body and Marshall didn’t notice.”
Boyd’s head movement told me he was tracking the squirrel.
“Gullet said it himself,” I said. “Marshall is fastidious. It just doesn’t fit the guy’s personality.”
“Everyone slips up eventually.”
“Maybe.”
I tapped Boyd’s head and pointed to the floor. Reluctantly, he settled back down at my feet.
Emma got iced tea, then the two of us rocked in silence.
A man passed outside the fence, a woman with a stroller, two kids on bikes. Occasional chow whines suggested ongoing interest in Rocky.
“What do you think the final body count will be?” I asked.
“Who knows?”
I remembered some of the names in my spreadsheet. Parker Ethridge. Harmon Poe. Daniel Snype. Jimmie Ray Teal. Matthew Summerfield. Lonnie Aikman.
“Can I ask you something, Emma?”
“Sure.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about Susie Ruth Aikman?”
“Who?” Emma sounded genuinely baffled.
“Lonnie Aikman’s mother was discovered dead in her car last week. Wouldn’t that be considered a suspicious death?”
“Where was she?”
“Highway 176, just northwest of Goose Creek.”
“Berkeley County. That’s not my jurisdiction. But I can find out about her.”
Of course it wasn’t. I felt like an idiot to have doubted my friend. Ask about the cruise ship incident Winborne had referenced in his article on Aikman? Forget it. None of my business.
By four thirty Emma was fading. We went inside, and I made spaghetti with sauce from her freezer. Boyd prowled the kitchen, getting in my way.
Watching Emma rearrange rather than eat her dinner, I remembered my call to her sister. I told her that Sarah would be returning from Italy in the next few days, and promised to try her again. Emma insisted I let it go.
At six Boyd and I headed home. While I drove, the chow worked a loop in the rear, moving from window to window, periodically stopping to lick my right ear and cheek.
Boyd was in midcircuit when I turned into the drive at “Sea for Miles.” Suddenly, he stopped, and a low growl rose from his throat.
My eyes jumped to the rearview mirror. An SUV was riding my bumper.
Fear rippled through me.
“Easy, boy.” Reaching back, I finger-wrapped Boyd’s collar.
Boyd tensed and gave a full-out bark.
Eyes on the rearview, I hit a button on the armrest. The automatic locks clicked shut.
The SUV driver’s door opened. I saw a logo.
Boyd barked again.
I let out my breath. “It’s OK, tough guy.”
It was. I recognized the figure barreling toward me.
For once, I could read the expression on Gullet’s face.
The sheriff wasn’t happy.
36
WORDLESSLY, GULLET HANDED ME A COPY OF today’s Post and Courier. I scanned the front page.
Winborne had struck again. Only this time the story wasn’t buried with the local news. Cruikshank, Helms, the clinic raid, Marshall’s arrest. The piece was accompanied by a photo of the Reverend Aubrey Herron, fist raised heavenward in his trademark gesture of petition. The story wrapped up with the usual titillating teases about possible leads, final body count, and danger to the public.
I felt momentary confusion, then my emotions distilled into a searing white anger.
“That slimy little worm!”
The sheriff watched me, face stony as one of the Battery statues. Sudden realization.
“You don’t seriously believe I tipped Winborne?”
“You told me you know him.” Gullet’s face deepened into a glower.
“You told me he’s harmless.” I glowered back.
“I don’t like my investigation hung out like some cheap episode of reality TV. Herron’s livid, the media are sharpening their knives and forks, and our phones are clamoring like church bells on Sunday.”
“Look in your own backyard.”
“You suggesting there’s a leak in my department?”
“I don’t know what to suggest. The story on the Cruikshank ID sure as hell didn’t come from me. Winborne’s been looking into Cruikshank’s disappearance for a couple of months.” I rolled the paper and thrust it at Gullet. “I never told him we had Cruikshank’s body.”
“Herron’s got powerful friends.”
“Of course he does. He’s best buddies with God.”
“With or without God he can make life hellacious for a local elected official
, including the county sheriff.”
Boyd’s muffled bark cut across our raised voices.
I crossed to my car and opened the door. Boyd shot out and ran from bush to bush, squirting and back-flinging dirt with his paws. Bounding back, he shoved his snout into Gullet’s crotch.
I wanted to high-five the dog.
Gullet chucked Boyd’s ears.
Boyd licked Gullet’s hand.
Traitor, I thought, turning my glare on the chow.
“Winborne had the vics and the arrest info, but nothing as to motive,” I said.
“Agreed.” Gullet rolled the paper and tapped it against one palm. “If he’d known about Rodriguez or the organ theft he’d have printed that.”
“How much could Winborne have gotten by scanning police frequencies?”
“Some.” Gullet did a slow eye crawl of my face. “But not all this. The radio traffic wouldn’t have told him we’d identified the forest hanger as Cruikshank. He got that some other way.”
* * *
As it turned out, there was a modest upside to Winborne breaking the Cruikshank story.
Early Friday a call came in to the sheriff’s switchboard. Barry Lunaretti owned a King Street dive named Little Luna’s. Reading Winborne’s article, the name “Cruikshank” triggered an itch in Lunaretti’s head. Hours later the synapse fired. Searching his lost-and-found, Lunaretti came up with a jacket holding a wallet belonging to Noble Cruikshank.
When Gullet called I did a little synapsing of my own.
“Is Little Luna’s ever called the Double L?”
“Believe it is.”
“That was the one bar Pinckney remembered. Cruikshank must have mistakenly grabbed Pinckney’s jacket and left his own. Pinckney was undoubtedly drunk that night, hungover the next morning. He forgot about his outerwear and focused on his wallet. Does Lunaretti remember when the jacket was left?”
“Says it’s been a couple of months.”
Beyond satisfying my curiosity and tying off a loose end, the information didn’t seem particularly dramatic. We already believed Cruikshank had been alive until a couple of months ago.
Gullet also had a progress report on the phone record dumps at Marshall’s house and the GMC clinic.
“Over the past three months, calls to and from Marshall’s home involved the exotica of car repairs, haircuts, and dental appointments.”
“Popular guy.”
“Got a little problem at the clinic, however.”
I didn’t interrupt.
“It’ll take a while to work through all the numbers, but one pattern is clear. As a rule no one phoned in or out after closing. Four thirty, five o’clock, the place went dark.” I heard Gullet’s breath on the mouthpiece. “One odd one, though. On March twenty-fourth at seven oh two P.M. a ninety-second call was made to Noble Cruikshank’s home.”
“No! Marshall?”
“Call was dialed from his office.”
“So what’s the problem?”
“On March twenty-fourth Marshall was at a muscular dystrophy fund-raiser in Summerville. Witnesses confirm his presence from six thirty until ten.”
My fingers tightened on the handset as a dark suspicion began to emerge.
So who called Cruikshank?
A murderer luring his victim to a rendezvous?
Wait. Think. Follow the chain. Where’s it going? The call. Cruikshank’s death.
“Everything points to late March for Cruikshank’s DOD,” I said. “He never cashed Flynn’s February check. Credit card action ended around that time. Winborne saw Cruikshank on March nineteenth. I’m thinking Cruikshank died before noticing he had the wrong jacket, otherwise he’d have retrieved his wallet. He was probably killed the same night he and Pinckney crossed paths at Little Luna’s. Pinckney filed a police report. Can you pull it?”
“I’ll get on it.”
Gullet called back in twenty minutes.
“Pinckney reported his wallet stolen on March twenty-sixth. Said it was swiped the night before.”
“Someone phones Cruikshank from the GMC clinic on March twenty-fourth. Cruikshank’s probably dead on March twenty-fifth. That can’t be coincidence.”
“So who made the call? An informant? The cleaning person?”
“What if Marshall is telling the truth? What if someone is framing him?”
“Daniels?” Gullet sounded like I’d said Milosevic had been nominated for a peace prize.
“I know it sounds nuts. A lot of signs point toward Marshall, and we followed them, but some of what he’s saying is true. The surgery, the noose, the victims being patients. That’s all circumstantial. Daniels worked at that clinic, too. What do we know about him?”
“Daniels doesn’t explain Marshall’s ties to Rodriguez. Or Marshall dumping his boat. Marshall was a shell collector. A shell from his desk matched a shell found with Willie Helms’s body. Let’s not waste our time. Marshall’s dirty and that lash will prove it. Good thinking on this Pinckney thing, but I’ve got to go deal with an army of journalists camped on my doorstep.”
“Any news on Rodriguez?”
“No.”
“Found any connection to a pilot or plane?”
“No. It’s the DA’s baby now. Your job’s done.”
Gullet left me listening to dead air.
* * *
At nine o’clock Friday morning Lester Marshall and Walter Tuckerman appeared before a judge. Tuckerman argued that his client was a physician and a respected member of the community. The prosecution argued that he was a flight risk. The judge ordered Marshall to turn in his passport and set bail at one million dollars. Tuckerman was arranging bond. Marshall would be out before nightfall.
* * *
Gullet was right. I was through. What remained was detective work and assembling the pieces for a prosecution. It was up to deputies, the crime lab, and the DA. Phone records. Patient files. Hard drives. Time lines. Flight plans. Witness accounts. Television portrays police investigation and criminal prosecution as métiers of heart-stopping exhilaration, joie de vivre glamour, and slicker-than-snot technology. They’re not. Solid cases are built upon hours and hours of mind-numbing thoroughness. Follow every angle. Sift through mounds of data. Miss nothing.
My contribution had been made. Nevertheless, I couldn’t let it rest. The same thought kept winging through my brain: What if Marshall was on the level? What if we had the wrong man?
I should have been happy that the murders had stopped, more relaxed than I’d been in weeks. Instead, I was wired as a hophead on a full load. I couldn’t read, nap, sit still. The same doubts kept slamming me again and again. What if Marshall is telling the truth? Is there a killer still at large and planning a sudden holiday in Mexico?
I ran Boyd on the beach. Showered. Made a sandwich. Ate a bowl of Chunky Monkey. Turned on the news. Listened to an anchorman breathlessly report Marshall’s bail hearing.
Agitated, I clicked off and tossed the remote onto the couch. Dear God! What if we’d made a mistake?
At one, I gave up. After rechecking Daniels’s address in the white pages, I grabbed my keys and was out the door. I didn’t know what I expected to learn. Something from his manner, something from his expression?
Apparently Daniels wasn’t into sand and surf. His condo was in a golf course complex complete with overgroomed foliage, tennis courts, lagoon, and pool. Each unit looked like its roof had been sliced lengthwise, with the surviving half left pointing skyward. Trés avant-garde.
Daniels lived in 4-B. Leaving my car, I slipped on shades and a sun hat. Now who’d seen too many Columbo episodes?
I checked a few numbers, decided I was headed for a cluster of villas to my left. The path wound through beds mounded with pine needles and planted with marigolds and crepe myrtle bushes that would one day be trees. Water sprayed from unseen spigots, sparking sunlight and magnifying the scent of flowers and earth.
Traversing the grounds, I noticed Beemers, Benzes, and high-end SUVs nosed
up to individual units. Oiled bodies tanned on poolside chaises. Though not oceanfront, Daniels obviously wasn’t sitting in the cheap seats. My reaction was the same as when I’d first found Daniels’s Seabrook address in the telephone directory. How does a poverty clinic nurse afford such digs?
I had no plan. When I found Daniels’s unit I would do what felt right.
What felt right was to knock. So much for Columbo.
No answer.
I tried again, with the same result. Leaning in, I peeked through a tall, thin window paralleling the door.
Daniels liked white. White walls, white wicker mirror, white bar stools, white kitchen cabinets and countertops. A white staircase shotgunned straight to a second floor. That’s all I could see.
“Looking for Corey?”
I spun at the sound of the voice.
Red suspenders. Straw hat. Bermuda shorts. U.S. Postal Service shirt.
“Didn’t mean to startle you, ma’am.”
“No,” I said, my heart settling back down. “I mean yes. Is Corey here?”
“Pretty predictable, that one. If he’s not working, he’s out fishing.” The postman smiled up at me, one hand on his pouch, the other holding a folded magazine. “You a friend?”
“Mmm.” Fishing? Boat? I did a little fishing of my own. “Corey does love his boat.”
“Man’s got to get away sometimes. Funny world, isn’t it? Big boy like that’s a nurse while tiny little girls are fighting in Iraq.”
“Funny world,” I agreed, my mind fixing on what I’d just learned. Daniels owned a boat!
Climbing three steps, the postman held up the magazine bundle. “Stick that in the slot?”
“Sure.”
“Good day, ma’am.”
I waited until the postman was moving down the path, then re-crossed the porch and rifled through Daniel’s mail. Boating magazine. PowerBoat. The rest of the stack consisted of envelopes and fliers, all addressed to Corey R. Daniels. With one exception. A standard white envelope with a frosty little window. Probably a bill. The addressee was Corey Reynolds Daniels.
Shoving the mail into the slot, I headed back to the car.
The boat slips nearest to Daniels’s condo were at Bohicket Marina, just past the entrance to Seabrook Island. Seemed like a good place to start.