Smile Beach Murder, page 21
Glancing upward, she shook her head. Then she stepped aside, sweeping an arm toward the kitchen. “Two minutes.”
* * *
• • •
I entered the cottage.
I wished I hadn’t glimpsed Gwen’s face. Wished her hair was strewn across it, blocking the miscomprehending expression, bloodshot eyes, parted lips, as if she were about to ask a question. Her pallor reminded me of the sky before a storm.
Turning away, I found Reedley Anderson in the kitchen, slumped in a vinyl-and-chrome chair, fiddling with his leather bracelets. He was dressed for his pottery gig in a clay-stained but otherwise clean T-shirt.
He half stood when I entered. He introduced himself, even though he seemed to know who I was. He must have recognized me from his make-out sesh with Gwen on Wednesday night. That Reedley had been suave and triumphant. This Reedley was anything but. His eyes were puffy and his cheeks were streaky and he didn’t make eye contact.
“I’m so sorry,” I said, taking a seat at the table. On it were two take-out cups stained with sloshed-over coffee and a bunch of black-eyed Susans tied with string.
He eyed the flowers and nodded.
“Gwen and I were sort of friends,” I said. “If you want to talk about it, I’m a good listener.”
“I parked right there.” He pointed out the window at his Fiat. I must have been so anxious when I pulled up to the cottage that I didn’t even notice it. “I was going to surprise her with coffee before she had to go to work,” he said.
“And flowers.”
“Yes, ma’am. Picked them on the side of the road. When I pulled up, something didn’t feel right. The screen door was banging open. I knocked on it and when she didn’t come to the door, I let myself in and . . .” He shielded his face with a hand.
“Did you see anyone else?”
His Adam’s apple bobbed a few times before he said, “No, ma’am.”
Behind me came the sound of someone clearing her throat. Then I heard Fusco’s voice. “Time’s up.”
* * *
• • •
Back outside, an ambulance was pulling up. Two EMTs got out and angled a gurney up the cottage steps.
I leaned against my car, my hands shaking.
Gwen Montgomery. If there were any witnesses to what happened to Eva, who more likely than the lighthouse keeper? Gwen must have known something. Something someone didn’t want her to know.
I remembered the photo of her and Mack. The letters peake on the sign.
On my phone, I punched Mack + Chesapeake into the search window.
The first hit was a church. I tried the number. “Virginia Beach Evangelical Church of the Chesapeake,” answered a chipper woman.
“I’m not sure I’ve got the right place, but I’m looking for someone named Mack. Could you help me?”
“Sure can. Mack’s just leaving. Let me see if I can catch her.”
Another woman, even more chipper, said, “This is Mack. May I help you?”
“Oh,” I said. “I think I have the wrong Mack.”
“This is Sally MacLennan. I go by Mack. I’m the administrative assistant.”
“The Mack I need to speak with is a man, possibly in his fifties. He may have been photographed outside your church not long ago, at some sort of gathering. An Alcoholics Anonymous meeting?”
“I see. There’s a local AA chapter that uses our pavilion and grounds from time to time, but beyond that, we don’t have much interaction with them.”
“I’m trying to inform him of—I don’t suppose you could give me a contact name?”
“What is this in reference to, sweetheart? I’m not sure I caught your name.”
“I’m on the Outer Banks, and there’s been a death.”
“I’m so sorry to hear that. I wish I could put my finger on the information you’re looking for, but I’m afraid I’m not going to be much help to you.” She took my number and promised to pass it along if the opportunity arose.
I scrolled through the remaining results for Mack + Chesapeake. Nothing caught my eye—until the fifth or sixth listing. Mack’s Appliance Repair and Handyman Services. I clicked it, and right on the home page was a photograph of the owner and operator, Mack Abruzzi, posing next to a cube truck. The same square-jawed, twinkle-eyed man from Gwen’s bedside photograph.
I dialed. It rang. A click, followed by a smooth male voice. “Hello.” I took a breath—and the voice continued. “Thanks for contacting Mack’s. Please leave a detailed message after the beep and I’ll get back to ya posthaste. Have a good one.” B-e-e-e-e-e-e-p.
“Hello, Mr. Abruzzi. My name is Callie Padget, and I’m on the Outer Banks. I’m calling because you and I know someone in common. Gwen Montgomery? And unfortunately, I’m afraid there’s some—some very awful news. Could you please call me back as soon as you get the chance?”
I hung up with a sigh, and the thought that Cattail had failed Gwen Montgomery. But she’d died believing it was the other way around—that Cattail was going to be her fresh start.
A fresh start.
Her sobriety date.
That was it. The password.
“Officer?” I called.
A second later Fusco’s dark uniform filled the doorway. “Unbelievable. You’re still here?”
“Six-two-two.” She gave me a blank look. “The code to Gwen’s phone,” I said.
“It’s six digits.”
“Try oh-six, two-two, one-nine. And one other thing. Mack’s last name is Abruzzi.”
It was hard to tell if she was squinting or scowling as she gazed past me. The TV news van was crunching toward the cottage. I’d figured they would make an appearance. One death might not make for big news, but a second death, six days later, in the same location? Different story.
Fusco muttered something that sounded like parasites before ducking back inside. She reemerged a minute later, shaking her head and holding Gwen’s still-locked phone. “Bad guess.”
The television reporter—the same pastel wonder I’d seen at the lighthouse—rushed toward the porch, cameraman in tow. Fusco blocked their path. “Hold it right there, ma’am. Sir.”
The reporter lifted her microphone. “Have you identified the body? Do you suspect foul play? Does—”
“You can direct all your questions to the chief after he comes back. In the meantime, please get back inside your vehicle.” When the reporter hesitated, Fusco lifted her arm. “Go.” Then she turned to me. “You too. I’ve asked you how many times now?”
“Please just listen?” I waited until the news crew had turned away before continuing. “Gwen very well might have a tattoo. On her right collarbone. The reverse image of some numbers.” On Smile Beach, Gwen had said she would get her new sobriety date tattooed in reverse image on her left collarbone, so that when she looked in the mirror . . . My right collarbone’s already occupied, she’d said.
What if it was occupied by a tattoo of her first sobriety date?
Fusco stuck her free thumb through a belt loop. “And these back-assward numbers will just so happen to be the passcode to her phone?”
Coming out of the officer’s mouth, it sounded preposterous. But what if? “How long would it take to get into that phone if you had to send it away to some lab?” I asked. “Or wait around for a technician, or whatever your process is? Versus having a quick peek underneath Gwen’s top, right now.”
“I did notice some ink. When I was assisting the ME with the Breathalyzer.”
I raised both hands. “I’m not telling you what to do, but isn’t it worth a shot?”
* * *
• • •
A minute later, holding Gwen’s phone, I hovered in the cramped living room. Fusco approached the gurney as a pudgy EMT with long sideburns unzipped the bag. He handed Fusco a pair of gloves, which she snapped on. Without touching her own skin or uniform, she made the sign of the cross. Her hands disappeared inside the bag.
“Well?” I said.
“There are backward numbers tattooed on the right collarbone. Looks like . . . oh-one, one-oh, one-seven.”
I punched them into the phone. No go. I thought for a second. “Read them to me backward.”
“Seven-one, oh-one, one-oh.”
I punched them in again. Then I held up the phone. “You’re in.”
56
If Cattail Island had been on edge the past few days, now it was going to become downright panicked.
Driving, I couldn’t stop thinking about Gwen.
And then my thoughts shifted to Summer.
I ended up at the hardware store and had to park a block away. Meeks’s wasn’t yet open, but the street parking was already taken, and tourists crowded the sidewalk. They were buzzing. Did you hear someone else died? I’m not sure I feel safe here in Cattail anymore. I made my way to the front of the line, where Georgia crouched, replacing the tea lights around Eva’s memorial. She was dressed elegantly, burnout top, hi-lo skirt, looking more ready for a night at the theater than a shift at the hardware store.
“Have you heard?” I asked.
She straightened up, a lighter torch in her hands. “The Crier’s all over it. Listen to Trish’s latest gem.” She produced her phone. “ ‘The most recent keeper of Cattail Lighthouse was young, fresh from a master’s program and bursting with ideas for bringing the 140-year-old beacon into the twenty-first century. Now she’s dead. Is she the latest victim of the Cattail curse?’ ”
I stepped closer. “Were you able to ask your parents about Bo Beauchamp?”
“They both agreed he wouldn’t hurt a fly. My dad said, ‘The past is the past.’ And Mom said, ‘Just because someone’s rough around the edges doesn’t make him rough around the heart.’ That’s my parents for you. They were unconvinced that the wheelbarrow incident was something to worry about.” She stooped to light the last tea light.
“If there’s anything I can do . . .” I faltered, and Georgia said nothing more. I was about to turn and go, not wanting to add to her distress. But once she got the flame flickering, she glanced up at me.
“Summer will want to see you,” she said. “Wait here while I go get her.”
* * *
• • •
A moment later, Summer came out. Kneepads dwarfed her skinny legs. A pencil was tucked behind her ear, and the kangaroo pocket of her sweatshirt sagged with weight. She propped the door open and shoppers filed inside. When it was just her and me on the sidewalk, she pulled out While My Pretty One Sleeps. “This is really good.”
“I’m glad you like it.” I retrieved the second scroll from my bag. “I’ve been hoping for a chance to tell you about this.”
Studying the words, Summer was silent. Finally, she looked up. “My mom . . .”
“You were right, Summer. She was looking for something on Saturday night. But it wasn’t at the top of the lighthouse. It was at the halfway point.”
“ ‘Climb through blue and into white.’ Just into it. Not through it.”
“Exactly.”
“Slipper Truman?”
“That’s the million-dollar question.” I explained the lemon juice. The hidden sight. Chip deSilva, who back in the day defied the Tourism Task Force. “He probably figured the clues he planted got washed away in the storm, along with everything else in town,” I said. “And that was that.”
“Where is he now?”
“I’m trying to find out. I will find out.”
“What if Slipper Truman is an anagram for something?”
Sudden understanding splashed me like ice water. An anagram! “Like when the letters in a word are all scrambled up, right?” I asked.
“Yeah. And you have to put them in the right order. Unscramble them to form a word.” She reached into her pocket again, this time pulling out a grimy softcover book, which she handed to me. “They’re addicting,” she said.
The book contained page after page of anagrams, each one associated with a cartoonish riddle. In order to solve the riddle, you had to unscramble the letters of four words, sometimes six.
That explained the pencil perpetually resting behind Summer’s ear.
I flipped through the book. She had solved about two-thirds. “Do you think you could solve Slipper Truman?” I asked.
“It’s out of context. The anagrams in that book are all part of larger pieces. You have hints. Themes.” Her eyes filled with tears.
My intention had been to make her feel better. Useful. To give her the Camp Cottontown Funbook and ask if she knew anything about it. But I’d gone and screwed that up, and now the sight of Summer’s crumpling face sent a fresh ripple of determination through me.
“You don’t have to solve anything,” I said. “You don’t have to do anything. I’m going to set everything straight. I promise.”
57
I put in a few hours at the MotherVine. After Daisy left, only a handful of her books remained—one happy outcome in an otherwise dreadful day. I was in Antoinette’s office, opening a can of chicken pâté for the drooling Tin Man when my phone buzzed. A call from Virginia Beach.
I answered. “Is this Mack Abruzzi?”
“I saw it on the news.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Abruzzi. You two must have been close.”
“Call me Mack. I can’t believe it. I really can’t. I’m gutted. Just gutted.”
“I met up with her a few times this week. We’d gotten together over a news event that’s happened here.”
“The death at the lighthouse. She told me all about it.” From Mack’s end came the slow, steady sound of footfalls. He must have been strolling. “She told you about me?” he asked.
“She had your picture in a frame beside her bed.”
“Did she?”
“Mack, thanks for getting back to me. I know this is very difficult, but I was wondering if you might be able to meet me. If you’re feeling up to it.”
“Couldn’t we just talk now, on the phone?”
We could. But I felt the strong need to behold Mack Abruzzi in the flesh. If there was one thing I knew from working as a reporter, it was that in-person interviews were dramatically more valuable than phone interviews. Nothing like soaking up someone’s presence, observing their facial expressions and body language, their tics and reactions and humanness. “It’s probably a conversation we should have in person,” I said. “This is hard to explain, but something’s not sitting right with me. Something’s off. And you’re one of the few people Gwen seemed to have trusted. If I could just speak with you about it all . . .” I bit my lip, hoping he would get it and relieve me of my rambling. Hoping he wouldn’t consider me needy or crazy.
“I’m not about to drive to the Outer Banks on a Friday afternoon during high season,” he said.
“Oh. Right. I understand—”
“But if you want to come up here, you’re welcome to.”
* * *
• • •
I had to wait for the next ferry.
After that, it was a ninety-minute drive to Virginia Beach.
It was going to be a long evening.
* * *
• • •
Mack Abruzzi wasn’t hard to spot. The restaurant lounge was more or less empty, and the only guy at the bar reminded me of a workaday George Clooney, eating Beer Nuts and nursing Coke from a glass. For a handyman, he had an overall smooth appearance, one that matched his voice.
I had no reason to implicitly trust this man. But what was the alternative? Believing everyone I met could have killed Eva Meeks? And Gwen Montgomery?
Besides, we were in a public place. “Mack?” I said, approaching.
He gripped my hand in a manly shake, then gestured to a second soda fizzing on the bar. “Took the liberty.”
I so seldom drank Coke that the sweetness exploded inside my mouth, coating my tongue, my palate, my brain, in chemical sugar.
“The cops from your town left me a message,” he said as I tried to wrangle my face into a normal expression. “Gwen said she liked you—that is, until she didn’t. But she didn’t have any compliments for the cops down in Cattail.” He drained his drink, tipping the glass until the ice crashed against his lips. “You ever just feel an instant connection to somebody? Gwen and me were like that. Am I babbling? I’m not sure it’s sunk in yet. All this.”
“Me neither.”
“I was fond of the kid, you know? I have a son her age.”
I felt suddenly restless—no doubt a result of the long drive, the Coke, and the subject matter. “Any chance you’d rather go for a walk?”
“Bars haven’t been my scene since the nineties.” He hopped off the stool. “And from the looks of it, Coke isn’t your drink.”
* * *
• • •
A light rain misted the street. We strolled past a church that had been converted into a club. A line of twenty-somethings extended out front.
“When’s the last time you saw her?” Mack asked.
“Wednesday night,” I said. “We’d had an argument, actually. A misunderstanding. Last night, I texted her an olive branch. But she didn’t text back. And then this morning . . . How long have you known Gwen?”
“Couple years. Became her sponsor more recently. I’d never sponsored anyone before, so she had to work on me. You did know about that, right? That she was an alcoholic?”
“Yes. I’d like to know more about her background. Her family situation, for example.”
“Her parents and a couple brothers are up in New Jersey. She’s the youngest of five or six kids, all of them mega successful. That was her phrase for it. They’re doctors and lawyers. One of her sisters is literally a rocket scientist in Texas. Has the highest security clearance at NASA. Gwen just didn’t get those same genes. Didn’t have that killer instinct. That’s not to say she wasn’t ambitious. Quite the contrary.”
