Murder on the Cape Fear

MURDER ON THE CAPE FEAR

By ELLEN ELIZABETH HUNTER

Published by: Magnolia Mysteries

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

This is a work of fiction.

Copyright 2007 by Ellen Elizabeth Hunter

Cover and book design by Tim Doby

Cover photo by John W. Golden

Books by Ellen Elizabeth Hunter

Magnolia Mysteries series:

Murder on the Ghost Walk

Murder on the Candlelight Tour

Murder at the Azalea Festival

Murder at Wrightsville Beach

Murder on the ICW

Murder on the Cape Fear

Christmas Wedding

Murder at the Bellamy Mansion

Murder at the Holiday Flotilla

Stand-alone suspense novels:

Lady Justice

Dead Ringer

www.ellenhunter.com

The Winds and the Sea Sing

Their Requiem

And shall

For ever more.

Inscription, Smithville Burying Ground

1

“
Why would anyone want to steal that battered old briefcase?” Aunt Ruby asked Binkie.

“
Well, I put it right there behind my chair so the customers wouldn’t trip over it and now it is gone,” Binkie declared, seemingly flummoxed at the disappearance of his decades-old briefcase. “What else am I to think?”

With a gleam in her eye, Aunt Ruby confided to me, “He’s always losing things, ‘specially his spectacles which most times sit perched atop his blessed head. I don’t know what that man would do without me.”

“
And you wouldn’t have it any other way,” I said, amused by the pair of them. They were in their seventies but so much in love you’d think they were teenagers. They had been childhood sweethearts who never married until they rediscovered each other just last year. Now they were grateful to be spending their golden years together as husband and wife.

Aunt Ruby is my deceased mother’s older sister. Binkie is Benjamin Higgins, History Professor Emeritus at UNCW. With both our parents gone, Ruby and Binkie have stepped in to become family for Melanie and me. I am Ashley Wilkes, historic preservationist and old-house restorer. My sister Melanie Wilkes is Wilmington’s star realtor. Our mama had been besotted by Gone With the Wind.

“
Help him look for the briefcase,” I told Aunt Ruby. “I’ll clean up the refreshments.”

Two hours earlier, I had arrived at the Cotton Exchange to find a crowd of people waiting to buy Binkie’s latest book, Lyrics and Lore of the Lower Cape Fear. I had squeezed through the open door at Two Sisters Bookery just as he was telling a circle of fans, “The very words ‘Cape of Fear’ were enough to strike terror in the hearts of eighteenth and nineteenth century sailors. In those days before radar and sonar, the Cape Fear with its shifting shoals and treacherous sandbars was navigable by only the most skilled and experienced pilots. Even then, a ship might strike a sandbar, the hull would sustain damage, causing the ship to flood and eventually sink. The Cape Fear River and the waters off Ft. Fisher and Frying Pan Shoals are a graveyard for a hundred sunken ships.”

Cathy Stanley, proprietor of the bookstore, was stationed inside the open doorway, greeting customers and directing them to the guest author’s table where Binkie was holding forth and in his element. Cathy has an open friendly face that makes customers feel at home. Reading glasses on a ribbon adorned her neck like a favorite necklace. “He’s been watching for you, Ashley,” she told me in a hushed voice.

Arms crossed in front of her chest - her customary pose - she smiled broadly as her gaze seized upon a group of tourists crossing Water Street from the Hilton. Business would be brisk today. This first Saturday in June was typical of the perfectly glorious weather that attracted visitors to our city. The sky was cloudless - the cerulean blue we North Carolinians call Carolina Blue. On the west side of the Hilton the mighty Cape Fear River flowed south to the Atlantic, sunbeams glittering on the ripples like handfuls of diamond dust.

“
Where should I put these?” I asked, offering a platter of fragrant cookies. Everyone who knows me knows my culinary skills are miniscule but I am working to improve this and that morning had baked Orange Coconut cookies.

“
There’s a refreshment table at the back of the store,” Cathy told me with the wave of a hand. “Your aunt Ruby is back there. She took charge of it the moment she arrived. Bless her heart, she brought her famous peach iced tea. I made lemonade. And Michelle baked chocolate chip cookies. Oh yum, yours smell divine. I must sample one later.”

The recipe for Orange Coconut Cookies* had been created by Dennis Madsen, innkeeper and chef of The Verandas, the Bed and Breakfast Inn just down the block from my house on Nun Street.

Cathy extended her friendly welcome to the tourists from the Hilton as I moved further inside the jumbled, cozy bookstore, a place as comfy as home. I squeezed past displays of bestsellers and racks of greeting cards, CDs, and pictures of guardian angels, and made my way to the rear of the store where Binkie was inscribing a book to one of the librarians at the New Hanover County Public Library. A stack of new books sat on the table to his right, and under the table stood a large box, flaps open.

The librarian looked up, saw me, and waved, but as she stepped away from the table she stumbled over Binkie’s briefcase and almost fell. Apologizing, he retrieved the briefcase and set it down in the corner under a book shelf where it would be out of the line of traffic.

Aunt Ruby took the plate of cookies from me and sniffed appreciatively. “I declare, Ashley, you’re becoming a regular Paula Deen! These look scrumptious. And we surely do need them, this crowd is ravenous. You know what I always say: You have to feed folks if you want them to buy books.”

We laughed. I slipped my arm around her slender waist. “I’m here to help,” I said.

The librarian sailed off with a friendly goodbye as Binkie looked up, spotted me, and motioned for me to draw near. “Can you believe this turn out, Ashley dear? It does my heart good to see so many of our townsfolk taking an interest in the history of this old port city.”

His lively blue eyes sparkled with excitement and good cheer, and the hands that enfolded mine were worn with age. He was wearing his favorite summer sports jacket with soft khakis and brown suede Hush Puppies. Binkie has been a boxer all of his life and the sport has kept him hale and hearty. After my daddy died when I was a freshman at Parsons School of Design, Binkie stepped in to become a surrogate uncle to me. Not that anyone could replace my wonderful father, and Binkie never tried, settling instead for friendship and offering unconditional support in everything I undertook. He was particularly delighted about my upcoming marriage to my partner Jon.

“
I’d better let you get to your fans,” I said, “and help Aunt Ruby ‘feed folks’ as she likes to say.” I rejoined Aunt Ruby and together we offered cookies and filled paper cups with lemonade or iced tea.

“
Is Jon coming?” she asked.

“
Jon and Cam went diving this morning but he promised to be here. He asked us to wait for him.”

“
And of course we shall,” Aunt Ruby said. “I adore that man of yours.”

I do too, I thought with a soft flutter of my heart. How often does a girl get to fall in love with her best friend, with a man who is truly special by every standard. And who is romantic and sexy too.

As I offered cold drinks and cookies, I surveyed the crowd: students and senior citizens, society matrons and store clerks. The store was mobbed. One of the firemen came, and a clerk I had seen behind the counter at the post office. These were people from all walks of life who shared a fascination with local history.

Cathy Stanley drew near. “I’m worried that we’re going to run out of books,” she confided.

“
Sold out! Now wouldn’t that be grand,” Aunt Ruby cried, clasping her hands together prayer-like.

Cathy hurried off to the front door again, greeting a steady stream of incoming customers. The crush around Binkie’s table continued for two hours. Just when the activity slowed, another round of patrons would enter the bookshop. And a grateful Binkie greeted each of them warmly, answered questions, and signed books, even though it was well after four and the book signing was slated to end at four.

Where is Jon, I asked myself, and watched the door for him to enter. But then I got so busy serving tea and cookies, I lost track of time.

Finally, things got quiet. Binkie stood and stretched. “I think that about wraps it up. I wish Jon had made it. And Melanie,” he said, disappointed. “Now where is my briefcase? I thought I put it right there in the corner. I’m getting so forgetful, I don’t know what day of the week it is anymore.”

With a puzzled expression, he scanned the corner behind his chair a second time, then the floor under the table. “You’d think that briefcase of mine had grown legs and got up and walked away by itself. Ruby, my love, have you seen it?”

“
You two search for it,” I said. “I’ll clean up here. I’ll just take these pitchers back to the bathroom and empty them in the sink. I’ll rinse them too so they won’t get your car seat sticky.”

I moved past a rack of greeting cards and went through the children’s book section to a screen door that led to Cathy’s storage room and a bathroom. Clever lady! She had lined the screen door with a lace panel which emitted light and air, yet effectively blocked the clutter that filled the tiny storage space to overflowing. Behind me I could hear Aunt Ruby telling Binkie, “Let’s look around. It’s got to be here somewhere. Go ask Cathy if she’s seen it. Maybe she stowed it at the cash register for safe keeping. I’ll check the area up by the sofa.”

With a pitcher in each hand, I bumped the screen door with my hip. The storage room was dark although I remembered a bright light shining out earlier. I pushed the door again but it would not budge. Something was holding it fast. Book boxes, I assumed. I set both pitchers on a bookcase, then gave the screen door a firm shove with both hands. Feeling it yield, I edged the door open wide enough to squeeze through. Cathy has too much stuff back here, I thought to myself as I lifted the pitchers and stepped into the gloomy storage room. Light from the bookstore filtered through the lace panel. Shelves and a filing cabinet formed a short narrow corridor that twisted around to the right to the bathroom.

On the right a tiny niche served as an office. I tripped over something on the floor and went reeling into a stack of boxes which mercifully broke my fall. What in the world? I set the pitchers down on top of the nearest box and fumbled around on the wall beside the screen door until I located the light switch. A bright white florescent light flickered to life on the ceiling. Looking down, my first thought was that I had found Binkie’s briefcase.

The briefcase lay overturned on top of a landslide of papers. White papers covered the floor and the man who was sprawled beneath them. He was turned on his side, knees drawn up. I realized I must have shoved his legs when I pushed the screen door open. Papers from Binkie’s briefcase were strewn about and plastered up against the boxes. One covered the man’s face.

Clumsily I dropped to my knees by his side, gently shaking his shoulder. The movement caused the paper to fall away from his face, revealing a man a little older than I with eyes wide open. “Are you OK? Can you speak?”

He did not respond. He did not move. Was he unconscious? Injured? Had he tripped over a box and knocked himself out?

“
Help! Somebody help us!” I shouted, not yet willing to leave his side, silently urging him to react, to blink his open eyes and focus them on me.

I leaned forward for a better look. He was perhaps in his mid-thirties, clean shaven, with light brown hair and brown eyes. He wore dress slacks and a boldly-patterned shirt. For a moment the bold pattern and the papers concealed the splotch of blood that had spread across his middle. As I pushed the papers aside, I saw that a knife had been thrust into his abdomen directly up and under his sternum. His right hand gripped the handle, looking almost as if he had stabbed himself.