Murder on Edisto (The Edisto Island Mysteries) (4 page)

Chapter 3

CALLIE NUDGED PAPA Beach’s door open with her toe. The familiar smell of old leather and cough medicine struck her nose.

“Papa, you there?” She stilled, listening. “It’s Callie.” Only the mantle clock ticked in response from the fake fireplace in the far corner.

A floor lamp had fallen, busted on the rug beside the bottomed-out corduroy recliner. She eased past them. Pictures of Papa’s wife and adult son hung askew on the paneled wall, and a photograph of an old naval ship lay on the floor, the glass shattered. Blood pounded in Callie’s ears at the thought of what she might find.

Papa’s framed silver dollar collection display was missing from over the sofa. She used to read aloud the years on the coins in order. Twenty-five of them.

His cozy, dated living room had served as her playhouse, reading room, and occasional naptime in her youth—a place to escape from parents who didn’t understand, and to fall into Papa’s sparkling blue eyes with their rascally tease. His place endured time in her mind as a bastion against change, a haven for comfort, and a getaway from a life that wasn’t fair.

She approached the kitchen. The back door gaped open, and the warm breeze wafted in, pushing a faint wisp of cordite through the room.

No, no, please don’t let it be.

She rounded the entryway and stiffened. Papa Beach sprawled across the linoleum, a leg caught in the rung of a chair beside his dinette table, a neat bullet hole in his temple.

Scanning the room and its exits warily, she stooped and checked the body for a pulse—nothing. She touched the man’s sleeve as her grief crept in.

Slowly rising, she took in her surroundings, so comfortable in this kitchen. Her breath caught. Two cups on the counter. One with a dry tea bag awaiting its hot water, the other next to a box of instant hot chocolate. Spoons set out. Napkins. A sleeve of cookies. He’d been expecting her.

The back porch screen slammed. Jerking around, weaponless, she snatched a knife out of a kitchen drawer and bolted in pursuit.

The porch was positioned twelve feet off the ground. Someone ran underneath, their feet crunching shells before they crashed the line of oleander bushes.

Adrenaline surged as it had in chases along Boston streets. After she scurried down the steps, she flattened against the house then waded into the tall bushes, checking low for waiting legs. She stopped beneath overhanging palmetto fronds to listen. Nothing.
Damn it!
She gazed up and down the deserted road running behind the string of houses, secluded from tourist traffic. Whoever it was moved fast and was armed. A knife was a poor defense against a gun. She could be just as dead as Papa Beach if she dared to follow.

What the hell was she even doing? She wasn’t a cop anymore. The locals should handle it now. Jeb didn’t need to lose another parent.

She returned to her place, dialing 9-1-1 as she ran up the stairs to retrieve her Glock 32. The son-of-a-bitch just might double back, thinking she identified him.

“9-1-1. What’s your emergency?”
said the operator as Callie dropped the knife on her coffee table and peered out her back door.

“My name is Callie Morgan, former Boston homicide detective. I’m at 18A Jungle Road with a GSW victim, deceased male approximately eighty years old. No perpetrator on site.”

A jogger approached up the secluded back road in shorts and microfiber shirt, panting, an iPod strapped to his deeply tanned arm. “Hey,” she called from her doorway, waving him toward her.

The man slowed then jogged in place as Callie trotted down her steps.

“I’ll be outside the crime scene address,” Callie told the protesting operator and then hung up. She turned her attention to the jogger and pointed up the road. “Did anyone run past you?”

The guy removed his ear buds, pushing dark hair from his eyes. “Pardon?”

“Did you see anybody running, acting oddly?”

The jogger stopped and raised a brow, devouring her with a long, lazy leer. “Why?”

Darn tourists. Callie rested her fist on a hip. “Did you or didn’t you see anyone?”

He reared back. “No, no. I didn’t see anyone, but I wasn’t really looking.”

“What’s your name?”

His snicker irritated her as he pointed south. “Mason Howard. I rent Water Spout, the house about ten blocks over. What’s your name, Miss Spitfire?”

Scowling, she didn’t dare turn, or he’d see the gun tucked behind her. “Callie Morgan. Just moved in.”

“So, is there some sort of problem?” he asked with no identifying accent. “You’re flustered as hell.”

“No, no, it’s okay,” she lied and motioned toward the empty boxes piled near the trash can. “Some kid going through my stuff, I think.”

“Oh, well, I’ll be moving on then. Got another couple miles to go. Nice to meet you, Callie Morgan. Hope to see you again.” He replaced his ear buds and took off.

Rich, bubble-headed tourist
, she thought. Assuming he really rented the prestigious Water Spout.

She returned to the base of Papa Beach’s front stairs to wait.

And the world seemed to freeze. Standing alone in that vacuum where time had stopped, she fought to hold her despair at bay. Papa had been the sweetest person ever, a gentle soul who would’ve given a robber whatever he demanded. He was to be her foundation here, the person who’d let her cry in his arms against one of his favorite Hawaiian shirts. Papa never judged her. He always understood.

She hit the railing with the butt of her hand. There was no need to shoot an old man in cold blood.

The same Edisto PD unit she’d seen earlier braked to an abrupt stop in the sandy roadside. Rubbing her bruised hand, she walked toward the navy blue and gray uniformed officer as he exited. This was the beginning of the circus performance that comprised a murder investigation, and the man better give Papa’s death the proper respect.

“Callie Morgan?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said, reading M. Seabrook on his nametag. “I’m carrying, just to let you know.” She kept palms up in view and slightly turned to reveal her weapon. “Hasn’t been fired. I used to be a detective. I live right here.” She motioned to Chelsea Morning.

His green eyes studied her face. “I’ve seen you from a distance a time or two. You resemble your father.” He paid special attention to the gun. “May I?”

She placed the Glock in his huge, long-fingered hands. “Naturally I went and got my personal weapon.”

He smelled it, gave it a once over, to include the magazine, and gave it back. “Is the victim Henry Beechum?”

Papa’d hate being called a victim.
“Yes,” she replied, breaking eye contact to study the wood grain on the stairs, picking it once with her fingernail.

“Damn,” he said, glancing up at the house. “See how he was killed?”

“Single shot to the head.” She glanced toward the rear of the house. “I started to give chase but lost the perp.”

His frame filled out as he reached his full height of six foot plus, his right hand resting on the grip of his gun, his vest giving him an intimidating girth. “You gave chase? See anyone?”

Callie shook her head, frustrated she couldn’t add more.

“Stay right here, if you don’t mind.” Seabrook entered the home and exited barely a minute later. He took out a memo book as he clomped down the steps. “Appears he was killed by a .22.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought, too.”

“Run through it for me, Ms. Morgan.”

She related the events. “I was unarmed, so I retreated and called y’all.”

“But you took the time to take care of the unarmed issue,” he said without glancing up from his pad.

A cop shouldn’t say something so stupid. If someone murdered once, they’d murder again more easily, especially if he sensed eyes on him. “The only other person was a jogger, tanned real dark who said he currently rented Water Spout.” She gave his name and description.

“Mason, yeah, he’s harmless,” he said with a hint of disapproval.

Of course, a uniform would know the important vacationers. Water Spout was one of the most affluent homes on the water. However, Callie couldn’t care less where the attitude came from if the man did his job right and gave Papa his due attention.

“Do you have a current carry permit for that Glock?” Seabrook asked.

“Yes, I do.”

“I’ll need to see it at some point.”

“No problem.”

He tucked the memo book in his pocket. “You know we need you to stay right here, ma’am.”

“Of course.” Cops always spoke in the collective. She used to say
we
, too, even if she was the only badge on site.

He returned up the stairs, his black leather duty belt squeaking. Two more Edisto units arrived. One officer posed outside on guard; the other joined Seabrook. Probably the entire on-duty force.

She slumped on the bottom step, covering her mouth as men walked around her, pretending she wasn’t there. Someone needed to call his son . . . who’d post a For Sale sign in the yard by week’s end.

Pauley Beechum saw his father no more than once a year, at Christmas, to collect a check and drop his annual guilt trip on Papa for not moving down to Florida to save him the trip to South Carolina. Papa always feared his son would eventually force him to move out of his cherished beach home. But Papa had died here, like he planned. Not exactly like he planned, but . . . shit. None of that mattered.

A couple in their late-twenties watched from their screened porch across the street. Nobody she knew. In the house on the other side of Chelsea Morning, a petite woman in black yoga pants and a lime green gauze shirt peered over. Wouldn’t take long for a dozen more to emerge and gawk. How many of these people even knew this jewel of a man? He’d resided on the island longer than most of them had lived.

If she were still a detective, she’d be all over them, asking what they heard, saw, leaning on them when they claimed to know nothing. She despised it when people played ignorant after hearing a gunshot or an abused wife’s screams in the apartment next door.

But she wasn’t a detective. Elbows resting on her knees, palms covering her eyes, she blocked out the sunshine as melancholy slipped over her like a sleeve. Papa B would be the last person to drag her back into police work after all she’d endured. She had planned long chats with the old man to redefine her direction of a life torn asunder by the law enforcement environment.

Papa had been murdered for a few coins . . . with a .22 in the temple.

Like John.

On Bonnie’s birthday.

Her old horrors burst vividly in her mind, laced with Zubov’s sarcastic scowl and threat to take her down. She and the rest of the Boston PD believed his family had made good on that threat killing John, miscalculating their arrival such that they missed Callie. All Jeb knew about was the fire, and Callie’s resignation and relocation removed her and Jeb from the Russian family’s purview. However, the mafia had a long reach and longer memory. They were never totally out of her thoughts.

Her eyes shot wide.
Jeb
.
Alone on the beach
.

Callie jumped up as a Colleton County Sheriff’s Department cruiser stopped with its nose against a copse of palmetto trees to the right of Papa’s place. Two deputies exited the vehicle and approached. She, however, took off running toward the beach.

“Ma’am?” yelled one of them. “Hey! We need to talk to you.”

“I have to find my son!” Callie sprinted toward the ocean, panic driving every muscle. No time to explain about explosions, Russians, and a vendetta she couldn’t afford to forget.

Jeb would freak having his mother search for him, but he’d get over it. At Palmetto Boulevard, she dodged traffic like a soccer player, finally reaching the sand on the other side of the four-lane.

Fear brought her breaths fast and shallow. If anything happened to Jeb . . .

The tide was out, and sun worshipers
en masse
sprawled across the wide span of sand. She yelled Jeb’s name, then held a hand above her eyes to cut the sun’s glare.

Teens everywhere. Left toward the Pavilion Restaurant. Right toward the south. Dozens in the water.

She ran close to the dunes to avoid climbing and jumping across the piers, and she called every few strides. Her legs pumped, feet pushing deep in the loose sand. Sweat soaked her shirt and stung her eyes. Jeb would be near girls, closer to the gift shop, a game room.

She paused, scanning the surf as she reached a group of young people fifty feet out in the water. The wind was strong, and it blew under her shirt, lifting its hem.

“She’s got a gun!” someone yelled.

Families scattered, snatching up children.

Shit!
She spun and ran, frustrated by the attention. But there was no tactful, methodical way to search. Time was too precious. And she might need the gun.

“Jeb!”
Where the hell was he?

Tourists darted away as she zigzagged, the balls of her feet digging deeper. She halted here and there, double-checking every tall blond-headed boy.

She must’ve sprinted a half mile before she stopped to scream his name again. “Jeb!”

Her heart thundered against her ribs. Losing Jeb would finish her. The pain would be too much. She snatched a glance behind her, the beach now deserted, except for towels and shoes left by the chaos she’d caused. Before her, crowds watched warily, pondering which way to run.

A police officer ran from around a dune, his boots kicking up sand. “Wait up, Ms. Morgan.”