Dear Killer (Marley Clark Mysteries) (7 page)

“What?”

My head snapped back from its full-doze, chin-on-chest
position. My mouth felt like the Sahara during a sandstorm.

“We’re here,” Donna announced. Her head, with its dense crop
of gray curls, swiveled toward the backseat. “Ready to pop open a can of balls
and inhale the aroma of fresh rubber? Come on. Up and at ’em.”

“I snored, didn’t I?”

“So that’s what you call it?” Rita offered from the front
passenger seat. “We thought you were imitating a leaf blower.”

“Hey, I’m the one who deserves sympathy,” Julie put in. “I
had to share the back with Sleeping Beauty.”

“You sure you want to go through with this?” I asked. “I’ll
buy lunch if you’ll let Donna and me forfeit.” I snuggled deeper into my seat.

“No way, Jose,” Julie scolded as she reached over and
unlatched my seatbelt. “You gotta suffer with the rest of us.”

Though not a regular competitor on Dear’s senior—over
fifty—tennis team, I owed Donna, the captain, big time. Three days ago, she’d extracted
my promise to sub in the Hilton Head match. Had I known about my midnight to six a.m. shift, I’d have declined in a heartbeat. By the time Dixon switched
my schedule, it was too late to find a replacement, and I couldn’t disappoint
Donna.

She was a gem. The first to befriend me after I moved into
the house on Dear. My mother-in-law, Esther, willed the house to Jeff. Had she
dreamed her son would die so young and leave the abode to me, she’d have set
matches to the timbers. Her ashes were undoubtedly still a-whirl at my
occupancy.

Esther’s contempt for me poured as freely as vinegar. My
hair was too short; my running obsessive. I talked too much; my voice was too
loud. My failure to procreate was an affront to womanhood.

My first day as a bona fide island resident, Donna welcomed
me with a plate of warm brownies. “I know we’ll be friends,” she chuckled. “I
belonged to Esther’s bridge club. Anyone who could aggravate that woman as much
as you did must be good company.”

When the tennis match was over, it wasn’t clear I’d done
Donna a favor. We lost: 6-1, 6-1. Too many of my potential overhead smashes
found the net. Despite the doubles loss, our team won, which put my companions
in a celebratory mood.

“I just love it when we tromp those Sea Watch snobs,” Julie
crowed. “Let’s eat at Chez Azure, talk trash, and hope someone’s listening.”

About one, we claimed a patio table with a smashing view of
Calibogue Sound. I was salivating. The trendy bistro served the best shrimp
salad in the Lowcountry.

“Don’t forget, we have to leave by two-thirty,” I said. “I
promised Chief Dixon I’d be back for a conference, and I can’t show up in
sweaty tennis duds.”

My friends assumed the meeting had to do with Stew’s death,
and I didn’t contradict them. The Cuthbert family reunion wouldn’t be the high
point of my day.

The spring sunshine felt deliciously warm. While my
teammates nattered on about reaching the regional finals, I floated in that
drowsy zone where you hear every word of a conversation, yet the syllables
cascade by as a lulling waterfall of gibberish. Then, male voices poked through
the wool in my head. The men spoke Polish. The baritone conversationalists
occupied an adjacent table; our chairs less than a submarine sandwich apart.

Opportunities to use the language skills gained courtesy of
Uncle Sam are rare—not many Poles immigrate to Dear Island—so I deliberately
eavesdropped. I picked up random phrases and profanities—curses memorized in
the field from sheer repetition. While the gentleman seated at a forty-five degree
angle talked, his companion grunted replies. It was clearly a boss-underling
relationship. Boss Man barked
murder her
—well maybe he said s
he’s
murdering me,
then something, something
swindle,
and later
his
money goes up his nose.
In the next breath, he said
cops are so stupid
.

Was the man hashing over some made-for-TV movie plot?

Then Boss Man mentioned Hogsback Island. Unable to check the
impulse, I swiveled my head in the speaker’s direction. Our eyes locked. His
stare penetrated. It was anything but friendly.

I smiled briefly, plunged my fork into my salad, and focused
full attention on my greens. Something told me my best move would be to play
dumb. I shivered.

Did this guy sell Gator and Sally the island they planned
to market as Emerald Cay?
Before last night’s real estate banquet, I’d
never heard the Hogsback moniker. I didn’t even know Dear’s tiny island
neighbor had a name.

I continued to listen, albeit more discreetly. A sentence or
two later, the Pole declared
that’s Hugh’s problem
. Chairs scraped on
the patio’s stone pavers. Though dying of curiosity, I ordered myself to keep
my head down.

A hand rested lightly on my shoulder. I jumped as if shocked
by a live wire.

“Excuse me, miss,” Boss Man said in Polish. The broad smile
didn’t reach his eyes.

“Yes?” I replied in English, trying to sound pleasant but
confused by a foreign language.

He switched to English. “Sorry. I had the impression you
understood Polish. I simply wanted to introduce myself.”

Blue eyes searched my face. They were simultaneously cold
and hot, like frostbite. Blond streaks, expertly applied, shot through his
thick brown hair. A Roman nose and chiseled chin defined his strong face,
making his small rosebud mouth look misplaced.

“Oh Marley, here’s a chance to practice your Polish,” Donna
piped up before I had a chance to avow ignorance. “She once worked as a Polish
linguist.”

Crap
.

I spoke in purposely halting Polish.
“I apologize for
my half-forgotten Polish—it’s been twenty years. My skills are quite rusty. You
speak much faster than I can process.”

Boss Man’s laser eyes skewered me. He was perhaps forty.
Big, well over six feet tall, broad in the shoulders, muscular. He wore an
expensive silk shirt and carried the sort of leather satchel European men
favor. He held the silence a moment, tempting me to blather.

“I’m sure you shortchange your skills.” He switched back to
perfect English. “Where did you say you learned Polish?”

“Oh, in school,” I answered, not about to tell him the
school was the Army’s Defense Language Institute.

My fake smile faltered when my gaze flitted to Underling. A
prizefighter? He looked like someone had used Silly Putty to push his features
into temporary lumps, then tired of the face-making game and quit. His
complexion had a grayish cast as if the dough hadn’t been fired. The man was
about my height, five-nine, though he must have outweighed me by a hundred
pounds. Not someone I’d care to bump into on Dear’s dark roads at night.

“Are you vacationing on Hilton Head?” Boss Man asked.
“Perhaps you might join me for dinner?”

“You’re very kind, but I’m only here for the afternoon.” I
didn’t offer my name. Exchanging Christmas cards with the man wasn’t on my
agenda.

“How unfortunate. Who knows, maybe we’ll meet again? It’s
nice to encounter an American who’s made an effort to learn another language. I
hope you and your friends enjoy lunch. Good day.”

Boss Man and Underling retreated with double-time dispatch.

I sank back in my chair with relief.

“I can’t believe you turned down a date,” Rita said. “He’s
very handsome, quite suave.”

“Not my type.”

“Boy are you picky,” Donna complained. “It’s time you
started dating, you know?”

Rita interrupted. “You speak Polish? Wow. Was it your
college major? How’d you get from Northwestern to the Army?”

How to answer? What had possessed me to join the Army? Life
insurance, that’s what.

On that fateful day, I reached my quota of slammed doors. I
got to ten and quit. I knew eleven insulting rebuffs would send me over the
edge. Especially in my hometown, Keokuk, Iowa, where selling meant pestering my
mom’s hairdresser and my old homeroom teacher. Turndowns from strangers were
easier to handle.

I headed to the Chuckwagon to sip a Coke and feel sorry for
myself in air-conditioned comfort. En route, I peered at the posters in the
window of an Army recruiting station, a storefront that hadn’t been there the
week before. A soldier dressed in crisp khakis walked outside and stood beside
me.

Half an hour later, the papers were signed. He’d promised me
a year at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey. What can I say? My
defenses were lowered. I’d never seen the Pacific Ocean.

Now I sat beside another ocean. I grinned at my audience,
parsed the story, and skimmed over my transition from linguist to MI—military
intelligence.

“When I finally figured out that working in intelligence
might be reducing my I.Q., I retired,” I quipped. “Actually I’m joking. I
enjoyed my work, if not the bureaucracy.”

“Your work on Dear is undoubtedly duller, but you look dead
on your feet,” Donna commented. “We’d better get you home so you can go to bed.
I hope you have the night off.”

As the ladies calculated tips, I excused myself, letting my
friends assume the restroom was my destination. Instead I hustled to the
bistro’s entry foyer.

“Excuse me.” I touched the maître d’s sleeve. “The two gentlemen
who sat next to us—do you know their names?”

The maître  d’ laughed. “I should collect matchmaker fees.
Mr. Dzandrek, the tall, distinguished looking fellow, asked if I knew
your
name. Even asked which car you came in. Want to leave a card? I can pass it
along. He eats here two, three times a week.”

“No, thanks.” I mustered a coy smile to mask my discomfort.
“What’s his full name? Do you know how to spell it? Maybe we have mutual
friends who could introduce us.”

I tried to be discreet as I slipped the man a twenty.

He palmed the bill with aplomb. “I’ve seen the spelling on
his charge slip. The first name’s Kain—spelled with a K not a C—and Dzandrek
starts with a D. Fooled me, I was sure it started with a Z. He just bought that
baby blue mansion, the first one on the water after you enter our gate.”

The matchmaker paused and winked. “He’s loaded, lady. Sure
you don’t want to leave a card?”

Dead certain.
I shuddered.

The ladies joined me at the entrance, and we walked to Donna’s
car. As we approached, sun sparkled on the windshield, spotlighting the
distinctive Dear Island decal.

Had Kain Dzandrek seen it?

***

While Dear and Hilton Head are maybe fifteen minutes apart
in a fast boat, the land route is eighty miles plus and can take two hours.
Long fingers of water curling inland dictate the serpentine route. In the
Lowcountry, it’s nigh impossible to get from point A to point B without taking
two steps back to cross bridge C.

Awake for our return ride, I enjoyed my car mates’ easy
banter though my contributions to the conversation seemed sparse. I wasn’t
married and didn’t golf in a couples’ league. Never had a facial or a pedicure.
My skill at Texas Hold ’Em didn’t translate to bridge. I wouldn’t know a
two-club bid if it clubbed me. I was a decade younger. Never had a child.

While living in the D.C. area was no picnic, I missed the
buddies left behind. Women who’d been officers like me. Civilian contractors
for the military. Wives of the men who’d served with Jeff and me. Our chatter
would have been alien to my new friends. Talk of Army posts, PX sales, VA
hospitals, military strategies—a different frame of reference.

Was moving to Dear a mistake? My sister had invited me to
settle in her new hometown. But I knew no one there. Maryanne had her own life,
thirty years of homesteading. I’d be a squatter.

When we were five miles from home, the radio announcer broke
in with a news bulletin. “The Dear Island Bridge is closed to both vehicle and
pedestrian traffic. At approximately three o’clock, people near the bridge
heard a thunderous roar. Occupants in the sole car traveling the bridge at the
time felt their rear tires drop as a hundred-foot span of the suspended roadbed
sank six inches below the adjoining concrete segments. Authorities say the
bridge will remain closed until engineers can inspect the damage.”

“That’s just great,” Rita huffed. “What in blazes are we
supposed to do? Book a room at some high-priced B-and-B like visiting movie
stars? I have chicken breasts thawing and a husband laid up from hip surgery. I
have to do everything but hold his peewee for him.”

“You think there’s a chance the bridge’ll collapse?” Donna
wondered. “I bet it’ll take months to repair the blasted thing.”

“Who has a cell phone?” I asked. “I’ll call security. Maybe
I can get some answers.”

Julie handed over her cellular toy and I punched in the main
security number. I got a steady busy signal. No surprise. I tapped in the
chief’s unpublished mobile number.

When Dixon heard my voice and location, he tossed off a
string of curses and gave me my marching orders. He hung up before I could get
a word in edgewise. I hoped the man didn’t pop an artery, what with Stew’s
murder, his granddaughter’s hijinks, and an honest-to-God island crisis.
Good
thing Dear has a helipad for medical emergencies
.

“Well, ladies, here’s the deal. The powerboat squadron is
organizing a ferry service. We’re to leave our car near the bridge, roll up our
knickers and wade to the end of the boat ramp. The first pleasure boat that comes
our way will give us a ride.”

Julie’s stricken face telegraphed her horror. “Heavens to
Murgatroyd. Not me. I can’t swim, and just look at the water.”

Our vantage point from the bridge connecting the mainland to
Wilderness Point Park offered a scary view of the roiling bay. The park’s
flag lanyard snapped rhythmically against its pole. Though the sky was crystal
clear, winds had to be gusting at thirty to forty miles per hour. Our ferry
ride would be raucous.