Murder on Edisto (The Edisto Island Mysteries) (24 page)

It wasn’t Callie’s business how Papa Beach took care of his assets, but the whole life-estate deal felt sad. The old Papa she envisioned was too full of life to be planning his end. And she thought she couldn’t feel worse today.

“Pauley’s in town?” Callie asked.

“Yes,” the agent replied. “I haven’t seen him today, though. Not that I want to.”

So she knew Pauley’s charm, or lack thereof, but then anyone who knew Papa understood how completely opposite Pauley was from his father.

“Are you allowed to tell me the plans for the personal belongings still inside?” Callie whispered, anxious for a token remembrance. She should have just slipped into the house and taken a memory to keep. Not like Pauley would want any of it. He couldn’t spell sentimental, much less define it.

“No secret there,” the agent said. “Pauley’s certain that every hatpin and ashtray has antique value since Henry was in his eighties.” She waggled her chest and shoulders, assuming a droll, sarcastic voice. “He warned us that he’d file charges if he found anything missing. We suggested he clean out the place first, but oh no. Guy wants this house sold, like by tomorrow.”

Callie’s dander rose. “Bastard only showed at Christmas, barely slowing down long enough to grab his check.”

The made-up agent nodded rapidly. “Sweetheart, you know it, I know it. Everybody out here knows it. Pure A-hole material. He’s talking to an auctioneer in Walterboro about selling the contents.”

“Auction!” Callie exclaimed. “The house contains vinyl-covered chairs and pressboard end tables. Pauley’s better off donating it and taking the tax break.”

The real estate lady threw her head back. “Huh. You can’t get a refund on what you don’t pay. Guy makes his living on eBay. He went on a tirade, fussing at us for being money-mongers and people-users because we charged him our standard commission.”

Callie’s mouth fell open. “So, if everything doesn’t sell?”

“Then he
gives us permission
to call a thrift store, the Baptist church, and the island museum to clear out the place. Of course, that was only after we taught him about tax breaks, which he’d need once he sold the house.”

Callie felt almost numb.

Rhonda shoved a few more flyers in the box. “Well, maybe we’ll get a better owner out here.”

“Damn it,” Callie said, irate and down at the same time. How had a man’s eighty years come to this? Her bottom lip quivered. An urgency to salvage it all surged through her, then quickly dissolved as she saw she couldn’t stash all his belongings in her place. But somebody had to keep . . . something. Who would retain his legacy?

She had so painfully little of John. Not even a sweatshirt left with his scent to take to bed. All she had was his grandfather’s watch, luckily kept in a fireproof safe in the closet, three dress shirts sent out to the cleaners, and pictures from his desk at work. The watch would pass on to Jeb once he graduated from college, the shirts were sterilized, and the pictures duplicates.

Callie had nothing other than her wedding ring.

“Your family knew Henry well,” the blonde agent said, a silver fingernail tapping the sign. “I saw you around quite often years back.”

Callie forced a grin at the memory, then had an idea. “I’m going to ask a favor, and you don’t have to do it, but—”

“Spit it out, sugar. You can’t trump the crazy-ass stuff I’ve heard in this job.”

“Um, would you mind if I went inside and took a memento? Maybe his Christmas tie I gave him in sixth grade? I’m not talking anything big. Just small tokens to remember Papa, um, Henry by?”

The smile belied her Botox as Rhonda softened. “Come on, hon. I’d be honored to let Lawton’s daughter in. Just lock up when you leave. Anybody asks, you’re an interested buyer.” She hooked her arm in Callie’s and leaned her head closer as they approached the steps to the door. “I know we’re in the business to sell houses, but poor Henry’s body wasn’t even cold before Pauley called for an estimate. He’s having Henry cremated. No urn, no service, nothing, can you believe that? Dumping the ashes in the ocean. Pointless spending money on dead people, he says.”

“What?”

“Yeah, seriously. I mean, damn, who does that? There were enough people here to make for an honorable funeral service.”

After unlocking the door, the agent patted Callie on the shoulder. “Don’t take too long.” She turned and tiptoed down the steps, a hand lifted in the air as if protecting her nails from damage.

“Thanks a bunch,” Callie called after her.

The agent wriggled her fingers in goodbye and took great effort folding her unfoldable middle into the low-riding BMW Z-4.

Callie pushed the door open. She inhaled and tentatively took it all in. In another day or two, people would disrupt this aura and remove belongings that meant nothing to them yet had meant everything at one time to Henry and his wife.

A small lump formed in her chest, daring to rise and burst into tears. She’d kill to have something that smelled like John.

She glanced up at the ceiling and took a breath for control. Then her eyes scanned over items, trying not to attach history. If too many mental images slipped into her head, she’d find herself needing a storage unit.

Locating an empty shoebox, she started in the bedroom. She kept a handkerchief smelling of Papa. Moving to the living room, she lifted a pipe and a doily. Three photographs of Papa B: in Korea, with his wife on vacation, on the beach fishing. In the kitchen, she found his favorite coffee mug, an old, scratched spatula they’d used for cookies, and finally, a pair of chipped hen and rooster salt and pepper shakers. He used to cluck from behind the rooster, making it dance toward the hen in Callie’s child-sized grasp. She’d laugh at his antics until her belly hurt.

Each item choked her up in a different way. She wandered back around the house again, touching curtains, recalling the old man’s scent. Her face now wet, she rubbed her nose across her shirtsleeve and stopped at the front window staring at nothing outside, regretting how time moved, often leaving so little behind.

Movement flitted behind a window in the unoccupied house directly across the street. No vehicles parked in the drive, no towels hung off railings to dry, no blown up sharks and porpoises on the porch. Her family knew the owners; they visited their home in the off season. However, being several rows back from the water, the house wasn’t necessarily rented each week, so seeing it vacant wasn’t unusual. The For Rent sign confirmed it.

Callie backed away from the window then nudged aside the curtain. For ten minutes she remained there, frozen. There, another movement.

He’d blinked first.

A murderer/burglar could easily stow away in empty rental properties. Hiding in plain sight. He could be from out of town, mingling with beachcombers until he spotted a vacancy. Or he might get to know people locally, to better forecast the houses to use. Regardless, he wasn’t a local if he needed a place to stay.

A new theory.

She set down the box and lifted her cell, then stopped. She’d sworn off detective work, telling Mike . . . no, Seabrook . . . to do his own sleuthing. Tough. She’d told Jeb just last night that as a civilian parent, she had to do what she could to keep her family safe. She dialed Seabrook’s number. To pass on the information. That’s all.

“Hello,” he answered.

“I think there’s a trespasser across the street,” she said, ignoring salutations.

“Which address?”

“13A Jungle Road,” she whispered, then checked herself. Nobody could hear her.

“Go on home,” he said.

“Aren’t you coming . . . wait. How do you know I’m not at home?”

Seabrook hesitated. “Just go back to your place.”

Callie waved. Seabrook waved back.

“What are you doing over there?” she asked, then opened the door, squinting from the midday sun.

“Quit trying to attract attention. Go home before you burn me.”

She retrieved her box and clumsily tucked it under her arm, set the lock on the door, drew it tight, and returned toward Chelsea Morning, the phone still to her ear. “You surveilling me?”

“No,” he said. “I’m keeping watch on the street.”

She received her hourly text from Jeb.
Still breathing. Still with Zeus. Why don’t you LoJack my butt?
Smart aleck. She’d call her father to discuss attitude when he picked up Jeb for their chat.

She put the phone back to her ear.

“I’m going to catch this bastard,” Seabrook said. “Don’t tell anybody, please.”

“Don’t let people know you want to catch the bad guy?”

“No. That I’m staking out the street.”

A gung-ho effort. Maybe. But then a mild irritation came over her as she reached her porch. What if Mason’s suspicions weren’t so far off? What if Seabrook was the one watching residents, waiting for the perfect opportunity, able to justify getting caught by the pure nature of his job? Protecting residents, checking homes, making sure everyone was safe. Much like how she’d doubted Raysor.

But she couldn’t quite figure the payoff.

Or was Seabrook that dedicated, doing exactly what he professed, just a little misguided in his tactics? A one-man stakeout with visual on only six or seven houses at best. Four of them already broken into. The effort was long on odds, reeking novice and desperation, in her opinion.

“What were you doing in Beechum’s place?” he asked.

“You saw the real estate agent.”

“Rhonda Benson,” he said.

Callie felt through her pockets for her house key. “She said I could take a memento from the house before they cleared it out.”

“Fine. Gotta go.” Seabrook hung up before she could.

She set the box on her rattan settee. Where the hell were her keys?

Oh, double damn. Had she set them on the kitchen table? She rummaged the box, thinking maybe they got caught up in the paper towels she used to wrap the salt and pepper shakers. She checked her pockets again. Zilch.

She left the box on her porch and returned to Papa’s front stoop. She shook the knob. Of course she’d secured the door tight. She ran around to the back and tried that door. Same story.

Her gaze wandered to Seabrook’s clandestine hidey-hole across the street. She eased out her cell.

“What are you doing?” he answered, mildly bothered.

“Locked my keys in Papa’s house. Do you have the key on you by any chance?”

“Nope, it’s at the station.”

No offer to go get it. Either he took this surveillance gig way too seriously, or he still held his childish grudge over her dining with Mason. If it was the latter, this man was forever off her dance card.

“Call Rhonda back,” he finally said and hung up.

Callie ran down to the sign in the yard to retrieve Rhonda’s number. The agent asked for fifteen minutes. She was showing a house to potential renters a block over.

Thank heaven for front porch shade. Callie leaned against the door, checking the weather on her phone when an old model green hatchback drove up to the house.

Pauley stepped out of the car, wearing knockoff shades probably bought from the rear end of someone’s pickup. He tensed as he spotted her. Hair unkempt and draping down to the neck of his T-shirt, Papa’s son grinned and moved to block the stairway so she couldn’t get by.

“Hey, Callie. Thought I told you not to touch my house.”

She started down the stairs.

He matched a step to each of hers, grinning with sour mischief. His thin frame would be no match for Seabrook or Raysor, but he still stood six inches taller and fifty pounds heavier than Callie.

“Pauley. I was just waiting—”

“For the cops?” he said, stopping three steps up to dial his phone. “What’re you doing up here? Picking the lock? Detectives know how to do that. That’s how they plant evidence and get into places without warrants.” He put the phone to his ear. “Yes, I’m at 18A Jungle Road. There’s a trespasser here, trying to break in. No, I don’t believe I’m in danger. Please send the police as quickly as you can. I don’t know what she’ll do next.”

Chapter 19

CALLIE MOVED DOWN two more of Papa’s steps. Pauley climbed two, his grin widening. The son held none of the humor or manners of the father, but something about his wide face and rounded features reminded Callie of the senior Beechum. She’d always felt sorry for Papa living alone, his son never visiting. Maybe that’s why Papa had shared so much of his love with her.

She cursed herself about the keys. “Let me pass, Pauley.”

“Nope, I’m holding you at bay,” he said.

At bay? “Let me by, I said.”

“Don’t even try it. Hold it right there, or I’ll have to pin you down until the authorities arrive.”

Callie sized him up. Pauley wasn’t a young man, maybe early-fifties. Scrawny. She held onto the railing and came down another riser in the fifteen or so that led to his landing, the wood smooth and sanded from Papa’s attentive carpentry. Glancing down, she counted five steps between her and Pauley.

Then she took them fast.

He grabbed her arm as she tried to pass. She welcomed it.

Controlling his fall as he stumbled backwards down the steps in her grasp, she reached bottom and torqued his wrist to put him down. His scream seemed over the top, but she didn’t care, because it stopped as soon as his face hit the sandy ground.

A county patrol car pulled into the drive behind Pauley’s dated green Mazda.
Great
. It had to be Raysor. The chunky deputy got out, donned his hat, and strode over to them, fisting a hickory billystick with a leather binding. She hadn’t seen one of those since Boston’s police museum. Why was she not surprised?

Callie tightened her hold as Pauley writhed.

“Arrest her!” Pauley yelled, squirming. “She’s trespassing! And she attacked me.”

Raysor studied the predicament. “Ms. Morgan, don’t make me yank you off him.”