I Love You More: A Novel (3 page)

“What’s taking her so long?” Bert asked.

“You know Diana,” Jewels said. “She’s probably perfecting her makeup.”

“You should talk,” Bert said.

“I don’t wear that much makeup.”

“You wear enough.”

“I didn’t used to.”

“You mean when you were three?”

In the distance, I heard a house door slam, then heels clicking in my direction. It was Mama, which confused me. She wasn’t even dressed when I saw her last. She passed by my hiding spot and got into the backseat of the blue car, I saw that she was wearing
a red head scarf and blouse too. Rather than turn to greet her, Jewels simply nodded as she repositioned the rearview mirror. Even though she wasn’t looking in the mirror, Bert nodded too. The car backed out of its parking space and drove away, the tires screeching. Within moments all I could see were three sets of blond hair flapping in the wind like wings, and then they were gone.

My first thought was: God, she was beautiful. It wasn’t just her flawless features; it was also her elegance, fragility. Later, I wondered whether she always exuded that sense of vulnerability, or if its presence was a response to the situation. But I didn’t think about that then. My second thought was: Lucky bastard. My third was: Sorry bastard. I’d always counted out my thoughts like that when I arrived at a murder scene. After the day was long over, I’d sit down at the rickety wood dining table in my small, sparsely furnished apartment with my nightly three fingers of Redbreast, and write each word on an index card. Then I shuffled them, laid all but the last facedown, and one by one turned them upright. With my practiced poker face, I challenged myself, attempted to solve the crime over and over, from different angles and varied perspectives. Although it had been awhile since I’d worked a murder case, the word list flew through my mind like a banner behind a plane.

Beautiful, lucky, sorry
.

It was the Fourth of July weekend. The temperature, in the upper nineties and climbing, was the highest in recent history. Good for tourism but challenging for suit coats and ties. Mack and I had rolled down all the unmarked Buick’s windows before
we braved its scorching black leather seats, but that hadn’t helped much. Even the wind was hot. We were complaining about the car’s broken air conditioner when the call first came in. I thought we’d be responding to another drunken teenage party. We’d already answered six the night before and one that morning. Then the dispatcher gave the response code.

“Did she say 187?” Mack asked.

“Sure sounded like it,” I said. I stuck the flasher on the roof, turned on the siren, and hit the gas.

We don’t have many murders in the Outer Banks, and even less on Cooper’s Island. A domestic disturbance or two, a barroom brawl, a cat caught up a tree is about the extent of it, except from mid-March to mid-April when high school and college kids head our way for their spring breaks, or during the holidays inside and around the lazy heat of summer: Memorial Day, Fourth of July, and Labor Day. The island itself is roughly eight square miles of sand and wild “brownery” interrupted by a small business district, clusters of houses and trees, and the occasional touristy gift shop. Driving can be a challenge. Most of the roads are ancillary, narrow passageways that accommodate only one car at a time, some paved, some dirt. Luckily Mack and I had been driving along Route 122. Paved and even partially striped, it runs through town and continues in one big circle around the island.

It had been two years since I’d been back and I can’t say I’d missed working murder cases, but I did get that old rush. There’s a smell to fear and blood. A stale, sour stench that doesn’t only soak your nostrils; it gets into your skin, hair, clothing, and mind like bar smoke, and not even a change of clothes, shower, or solving a case will wipe it completely away. I used to hate that smell, but not that day. The minute I got that first whiff, I felt like I’d come home.

We parked. A steep sandy embankment covered with smatterings of tall grasses and weeds led down to one of the more
deserted stretches of beach on the island. Less than ten feet of grade separated the dirt driveway from the edge of the drop-off. There was no guardrail and no streetlights, a standard characteristic of our eastern shores. Although it didn’t happen often, an impaired driver or an accidental push of the gas pedal instead of the brake had led to more than a few cliff-hangers. Seagulls circled low over the shallow mid-tide water searching for small fish or crustaceans that might have washed ashore, their high-pitched squawks a battle song. The usual breeze off the ocean was noticeably absent, the air eerily still. The only sign of human life was a sand castle in the making and a child’s red plastic pail.

The house was your typical Cooper’s Island rental, a one-story shingled box, this one a shit-brown color, with a wraparound wood deck that had weathered to a silver gray. Three long flights of stairs, also weathered wood, separated by bench-lined landings led from the back deck down to the beach. Although I couldn’t see it from where I stood, I imagined sliding glass doors opening onto the deck. A short set of stairs led to the house’s side-entry door.

The door was wide open.

“I’ll secure the perimeter,” Mack said. Mack and I had been together since my return to the island. When I first laid eyes on him, I swore he’d just graduated from Cooper’s High, not to detective third grade. He is boyishly handsome, with bushy dark hair and a well-earned six-pack. I’d just transferred from Detroit PD. When he asked me why I’d traded Motor City for Podunk, I told him I wanted to spend quality time with my ailing mother. That’s been my story.

I knocked on the doorframe before I walked in. The swamp cooler drummed loudly; the heat pouring in through the open door had no doubt put it into overdrive. In addition to the vic, I counted three people in the tight space: a middle-aged woman with fiery red hair, a bald-headed man wearing a Cubs baseball hat, and
her
. She sat on the sofa wearing a red one-piece swimsuit,
white towel held tightly over her shoulders, blond hair matted to her head and neck, her piercing blue eyes seemingly fixated on the picture above the fireplace directly opposite her, a cheesy deserted beach scene with a lone seagull flying in the sky. Like one of those replicants in
Blade Runner
, her profile was perfectly chiseled, her posture proud. I could’ve stood there looking at her forever. I’ve always been a sucker for a thing of beauty, and not just women. A Vermeer painting, Brioni suit, Aston Martin sports car.

The body was lying prone in front of a white-brick fireplace, head turned toward me, eyes open, right arm tucked beneath the stomach as if cupping it, the location and size of the blood pool suggesting a gunshot to the abdomen. The place was tidy, no obvious signs of a struggle. Like many of its kind, it was a mishmash of tacky and tasteful. Eating bar and wicker stools sporting pink-and-blue shell-patterned cushions immediately to my right. Small kitchen beyond it. White appliances. Bleached-wood cabinets. Gray laminate countertops with chipped corners. Hallway straight ahead, bathroom door open, probably bedrooms either side of it. Living room to my left. Surprisingly clean transition from the kitchen and entryway linoleum to Berber carpeting. Fireplace on the wall opposite the side entrance. Bookcases either side of it. Just as I thought, sliding glass doors—why were they closed?—leading out to the deck. Two chairs upholstered in the same shell fabric as the barstools, one in the far corner opposite the fireplace and one almost blocking the side-entrance door. Coffee table and woven taupe sofa between them.

The red-haired woman spoke up first. Your usual beach retiree type. Expensive salon hairdo and manicure. Sixtyish. Too-tan skin. Floral swimsuit cover-up. Bright pink lipstick. Plump around the middle, but otherwise well kept.

“I’m Clara Butterworth,” she said. “My husband and I were first on the scene.” She looked over her shoulder. Mr. Cubs leaned back against the kitchen cabinet, his arms crossed, eyes closed
like he was napping. In addition to the hat, he wore a short-sleeved plaid shirt and just-over-the-knee-length khaki shorts, making him appear shorter and rounder than he probably was. “And before you ask, yes, just like the syrup.” She let out a little laugh, but caught herself. “Oh, I am so sorry. This isn’t any time for jokes, is it?”

“Detective Kyle Kennedy.” I reached into my breast pocket, took out my notebook, handed her my card, extended one toward the wife (at least I thought it was the wife). “Ma’am?” She didn’t acknowledge me.

“Oh, she hasn’t said a word since we got here, Detective,” Mrs. Butterworth said.

“You say you arrived first Mrs.—um—ma’am. How long ago was that?”

“Fifteen minutes? It was seven forty-five, right Melvin?” Melvin was as unresponsive as the woman on the sofa. “Well, anyway, you could probably verify that. I called 911 the minute we walked through the door.”

“How do you know the victim?”

“I don’t, Detective. He was lying there like that”—she pointed at the body—“when we came in. We’re staying down the street. Same place we stay every summer. We’re from Lake Forest.” She looked at me as if she wanted acknowledgment. “Illinois?”

I walked past her to get a closer look at the vic’s body.

“He’s dead, Detective,” Mrs. Butterworth said. “I already checked.”

“You touched the body?” It was always the well-meaning witnesses that contaminated crime scenes.

“Just his wrist,” she said.

Since the right arm wasn’t exposed, Mrs. Butterworth would’ve had to walk around the body. I noted her shoes. Gold lamé slides with a short stacked heel. No apparent blood transfer or impressions on the tightly looped carpet.

“Did you touch anything else?”

“I don’t think so, Detective. Did we, Melvin?”

Mack came through the door carrying the crime scene kit that we kept in the trunk of the Buick. “Brass and CSIs are on the way.”

“How far out?”

“Depends how backed up the ferries are. Thirty minutes max I should think.”

“Half an hour?” Mrs. Butterworth asked. “That seems awfully excessive, Detective, don’t you think? Even for here.”

I stood, cleared my throat. “Detective Jones, this is Clara Butterworth. She and her husband were first on the scene.”

“Ma’am,” Mack said and nodded, then headed to the body.

“I’ll need to ask you a few questions if that’s okay, ma’am,” I said. In Detroit, I would have ushered her to a private room and questioned her after the scene was properly secured—body inspected and outlined, evidence bagged, photos taken, site sketched—but this wasn’t Detroit. This was Cooper’s Island where the homicide division boiled down to Mack and me, and proper procedure was a luxury.

“Of course, Detective.” Before I’d even crossed the room the woman’s tongue launched into motion. She and her husband had just sat down to breakfast when she heard the shot. Quarter after seven, she said. No she didn’t check the time on the clock because she didn’t think much of it. Thought it was fireworks. But she and her husband always ate breakfast at seven fifteen. “My husband is very punctual.”

“What made you come over if you thought it was just fireworks?”

“We went to get the paper after breakfast like we always do—the doctor says Melvin needs his exercise—and we saw that the door was open.” She leaned through the doorframe, pointed. “Everyone within a quarter mile of here gets their mail and paper from that same bank of mailboxes across the street. If Melvin had
his druthers we’d get the paper before breakfast, but it doesn’t get delivered until—”

I interrupted. “Did you say the door was open?” I’d just assumed it was left open by the Butterworths.

“Yes. Very open.”

“Go on,” I said.

“Well, as I was saying, the paperboy like everyone else on this island, including your crime scene investigators I should say, is slow as molasses. At home our paper is on our stoop by five thirty; that’s when Melvin rises. He prefers to do his exercise and shower before breakfast, but here he has to wait until after. Anyway, we were almost to the box when I saw the open door. I asked Melvin if we ought to check it out, and he said we should go right over. Didn’t you, Melvin?”

Not even a cursory nod.

“There was this odd smell as we approached. I can’t quite say why, but I had this strange feeling that something was wrong, and I must say I was a little scared of what I might find, but I said to myself, Clara, you need to get over your fears and get in that house, now.”

“You said it was seven forty-five when you arrived. You sure about that?”

“On the nose,” she said. “It takes us twenty minutes to eat, another five for me to clear the table and rinse off the dishes, and five to walk to the mailboxes. I do the dishes when we get back while Melvin reads the paper. He likes to sit out on our deck with his second cup of coffee. Two’s the limit, you know.”

“Do you remember seeing anything or anyone out of the ordinary either on your walk over or when you arrived at the scene?”

“Do you mean like someone leaving the scene or sniffing around the house?” she asked. “Like an intruder? I don’t think so. But maybe it’ll come back to me later, you know like those witnesses on TV. Do you want me to close my eyes and recount
my entire morning? What I heard and smelled and all that? I’d be happy to do that.”