Chris Rogers's Blog, page 5

Paradise Cursed, Chapter 24

They were cute, Dayna had to admit, their shells painted in bright primary colors and trimmed with flowers and squiggles. The dozen hermit crabs scrabbled around the bottom of a bucket much too small for their comfort, in her estimation.

“What do I do with them?” she asked Graham.

“You mean you’ve never managed a crab race?”

“Never even seen a crab race.”

After giving her one of his I-can’t-believe-I’m-stuck-with-this-dumbell look, the acting first mate, as she preferred to think of him, never mind that the real first mate was fighting the throes of some voodoo-hoodoo-wackadoo curse, pulled big poster-board signs from a supply closet.

“One poster for each crab,” he said. “Passengers team up by choosing their favorite to win and put their sticker on that poster.”

“Okay.” She could see where previous stickers had been pulled away leaving scuffed places.

He handed her a thick piece of white chalk. “Draw a circle in that big open area in front of the bar, about the size of the bucket. The crabs go in the circle, bucket over them so they can’t get away. That’s the starting position.”

“Okay, but why me? Isn’t there anyone here who’s done this before?” You, for instance? She had sense enough not to say it.

“You’re it, kid. Blame it on your good looks.”

“What?”

“You’ll look good in the photos and videos, which everyone will be taking to post to their friends back home.”

“No freakin way. I didn’t sign on for the nerdery or to be humiliated on YouTube.”

“You signed on to serve at the captain’s pleasure, didn’t you?”

She hated it when he smiled like that. The guy she’d thought was hot the first time they met now grinned like a smarmy know-it-all. “Yes, I did.”

“You may recall the captain saying that our first responsibility is to keep the passengers happy?”

Oh, yeah. That. “Okay, okay. Just tell me.”

“Draw another circle outside the smaller, this time make it more than six feet across.”

“How do I measure six feet? Is there a ruler in that closet?”

“Just do it. Collect shoes to outline the edge of the outer circle. The passengers feel they’re participating, and the crabs have to crawl over the barrier to get away—don’t let them get away.”

“Posters, stickers, circles, then…?”

“Once everyone has a favorite, start the race. Count down to ten—encourage the passengers to join—and lift the bucket. The first crab to reach the outer ring wins, and that team gets a special treat from the kitchen.”

“That’s it? All that buildup for a two-minute race?”

“The bar will be serving drinks. You do three to five races, whatever keeps everybody happy.” He looked over his shoulder at thunderclouds turning darker by the minute. “In case you hadn’t noticed, we’ve got weather coming.”

The captain’s Story Time awning would stave off a mild shower, but not a blowing rain. “They’ll be cooped up indoors if it rains hard,” Dayna said, softening to the crab-race idea. “Most people will scramble to the dining room and play cards or board games. After dinner, Cookie will think up some kind of indoor entertainment.”

“Okay.” Dayna could see the crew milling around the deck, ready to luff the sails if the wind continued piping up.

The clouds did look pretty ominous. She guessed the wind at about twenty-two knots, a strong breeze, nothing to worry about yet. But she recalled from her studies that wind force increases exponentially in comparison to its speed, so if it got up to forty knots, the force would be eight times what it was now. A chance to learn how to sail in heavy-weather survival conditions, and she’d miss it all.

She knelt beside the colorful little crabs trying to scramble up the side of the bucket.

“A suck-all situation, guys, but not your fault.” Picking up a particularly feisty one, Number 10, according to his blue-green shell, she placed her other hand just beneath his legs. She’d gotten a hermit for her tenth birthday, so she knew they didn’t like to dangle in mid air.

“Since you and your buddies are doing all the work in this race, I’ll make sure you get a kitchen treat, too.” When she returned Number 10 to the bucket and set off to round up passengers, Dayna saw Jase Graham standing in the shadows taking her picture.

What’s the deal with that guy?

*

The wind nipping up around the Sarah Jane didn’t worry me nearly as much as those thunderclouds on the northeastern front. They lay thick along the horizon like piles of moldy sour cream.

Late sunlight slanting low ignited the western side of a cloud column that reached high into a second cloud layer above, leaving the sky between deceptively clear—a beautiful photo op for my passengers on the party deck. By the time those clouds rolled over the ship and the rain started, everyone would be moderately soused and laughing as they dashed for cover.

Weather on a tall ship is a thing to talk about when the vacation ends, an experience unlike any other to be had. While the heavens pound you with rain, and wind blasts you fron side to side, your foundation gives way, becomes as unsteady as a rodeo ride, and you have nowhere safe to stand. As storms go, this one promised to be mild enough, however, and my men knew their assignments. While it’s a hassle to hire new seamen for every cruise, I hadn’t slighted us on skills.

I’d put a dinghy sailor on wheel duty, knowing he was likely to have more experience than most big-boat sailors. A wind of only fifteen knots can get the best of a dinghy, so keeping one upright was excellent training for handling a four-master at thirty knots.

Every man aboard knew how to work the sheets, depower the sails as needed, and if the sea became so rough that simple measures failed, they knew to cover the hatches and companionways. Having a hard wave or torrential rain fill the bilge was not only dangerous but demoralizing. All my men needed was a firm hand in command of when to do what, and if Jase Graham was half the sailor I thought him to be, this was his chance to prove it. He might be a sly bastard with something wily up his sleeve, but he knew his stuff, all right.

No, it wasn’t the ship’s or my passengers’ safety that put me on edge. At the moment, it was only fresh wind and distant clouds, and my vessel had weathered worse storms. We were making good time toward Roatan. I could put my mind to more pressing problems, the first being our patient.

Marisha was at her bedside while I met with Erin Kohl and Shaman Demarae.

“Our plan tomorrow,” I said, addressing Demarae, “is to meet with this master shaman you have such faith in. But what can we do to stall any furtherance of Ayanna’s symptoms until we arrive?”

He took a moment answering, staring down at the water as I often do when gathering my thoughts.

Finally, he said, “My hope is that we might speak with Shaman Shawnte by satellite phone to explain the problem, our need for an immediate audience with him, and to ask his advice on any preparations we could tend to in advance. In light of the recent changes in her condition, I believe the sooner we can open a communication with Shawnte, the better.”

“What can another shaman do that you can’t?” Erin asked.

Demarae smiled gently at her, then at me, his eyes glowing with a hint of reverence. “I only know that he is considered by many to be the most powerful and successful shaman in all of the Caribbean.”

“And you are measuring success by… what… exactly?” If it was the size of his bank account, my worry for Ayanna would jump a notch.

“By his ability to cure what others could not. I am not the only doctor who has sent incurables to him with happy outcomes.”

Demarae spoke with conviction, yet from his grave demeanor, I was convinced he had reservations.

“Let’s call him,” Erin said. “We have hours ahead of us. Maybe he can explain what to do differently. After the other passengers are asleep, we do another healing based on his advice.”

Demarae shook his head. “We certainly can make that request, but I do not believe a simple change in procedure will have the effect we need.”

Erin looked from Demarae to me. I could feel the frustration etched around her sharply focused eyes, but I had no idea how to ease that frustration. Having seen dramatic changes in Ayanna after only a few hours, I also felt an anxious need for an immediate remedy, if only for the short term.

“Captain, we almost had him this morning,” Erin said. “You made the Bokor vanish when you cut him. Afterward, Ayanna improved.”

“For a short time,” Demarae agreed. “It’s true, Erin, that with your help and the captain’s quick reflexes, we banished the Bokor. Briefly. He will be ready for our next attempt, however, and I fear not so easily dismissed.”

“Erin has a point, though,” I said. “Considering how much Ayanna’s condition has worsened since this morning, the hours ahead may aid the Bokor to continue gaining control. If another healing would again send him licking his wounds, she might recover strength, which could give Shawnte’s work a better chance to succeed in banishing the Bokor entirely.”

“This would be a good thing to ask when we communicate with him,” Demarae said.

Yes. Though we were no closer to a cure, merely having laid out a course of action felt like progress. The communications room was right behind the wheel house, so I might need to relieve the helmsman to avoid having Demarae’s conversation overheard.

Before I could relay this thought, I spied Marisha running toward us. The desperation I saw in her face told me she was not bringing good news.

 

*

Ayanna floated in yellow-green slime. Da slime slide down her troat, yeah, fill her insides with pain. Pushing, stretching her bones like a bitty girl stretching her chewing gum. Pain screaked in her head, screaking-screaking from inside where her brain is gone mush-cake and her thoughts dribble into da Bokor’s fire.

Ayanna fought da stretch, fought da screak, fought da dribble of her brains. Then evilous thoughts sizzle up from fire, from da cold fire. How can fire be so cold? Evilous thoughts open her mouth, open wide her mouth, stretch da bones to swallow dove-girl.

Ayanna not want dove-girl in her belly. Not want da girl more pain.

Ayanna floated, floated. Da slime, da dribble, da bones breaking, screaking.

Ayanna screamed.

 

*

I’d scarcely pushed the door open when the rank, swampy odor assailed us. Erin and Demarae crowded behind me as I gaped, stunned by what lay in Ayanna’s bed.

If I had not known Ayanna, had not experienced the apparitions of our earlier “healing” ceremony, no one could have convinced me that what lay in Ayanna’s bunk was in any way human. Her torso was longer, thicker, her head enlarged but also flattened. Nose and mouth protruded into a muzzle, and her eyes had slid toward the sides of her skull. Feet, wide like her hands and with long curved claws, had burst through her deck shoes.

My stomach heaved at the sight.

The twitching had worsened into spasms that jerked her entire body off the bed in an upward arch. Muffled grunts and squeals issued from her mouth.

“Bloody hell,” I muttered. “She is in agony.” Pure understatement on my part. She looked like an Inquisition victim being tortured and torn on the rack.

Erin knelt beside the bed and tried to take one of Ayanna’s horny hands, but the spasms were too strong. Demarae murmured words that sounded like a prayer.

“We can’t let this continue,” I said to Marisha. “Give her something for the pain!”

“Dilaudid will lessen her misery,” she said. “Knowing no health history, it is dangerous, perhaps making the seizures worse.”

“Will it ease her pain?” I demanded.

She hesitated. “Yes.”

“Then do it.”

“Yes, do it, if you dare,” Erin said, but the voice was not Erin’s.

She had succeeded in capturing one of the claw-like hands in both of her own, and Ayanna’s spasms had calmed. But Erin’s face was animated as no human face should be.

“Coo deh! Whaa gwaan yaah mi breddah?”

The gravelly voice coming from Erin’s twisted, snarling mouth was difficult to wrap my mind around, but roughly translated, she had said Look at that! What’s going on, my brother? in Jamaican patois.

“Let go of her hand!” I reached to pull Erin away.

A claw-filled deck shoe slammed into my chest, knocking me back with such force I fell against Demarae and would have fallen to the floor if not for his support.

“Cha! Ah weh eem tink eem ah guh duh?”

Darn! What’s does he think he going to do?

“Who are you?” I demanded.

“My good captain,” the voice said in ordinary English, “I am the one you seek to banish from your ship.”

I felt a strange relief. Confronting an enemy that exists only as a phantom, a vision, is frustration at its worst. “Slaying” the crocodile had brought satisfaction only briefly, because it was so ephemeral. It might merely have been a shared hallucination. This voice, coupled with the tangible changes in Ayanna, was solid confirmation that our enemy was human and therefore possessed human foibles.

“What do you want?” I said.

Erin’s mouth stretched into a hideously wide grin. Her eyes bulged hungrily.

“Everything, my fine captain. I want it all.” The eyes shifted to Demarae. “Hello, Doctor. Or do you prefer the lesser designation of Shaman? Do your friends know you hold doctorates in both theology and psychology? I think you are too modest, but then those academic credits have no power in our craft, do they? No more power than your medical doctor’s tonics and potions. The lovely Ayanna is mine.”

“Let her go.” A lame retort, but my thoughts were hammering at those three words: tonics and potions. The Bokor had chosen to speak to us just as Marisha was about to administer Dilaudid, a painkiller.

“Do it, Marisha,” I said. “Give her the injection.” I prayed it was the right decision, that it wouldn’t dull her ability to fight off the Bokor and allow him to take her completely.

“Are you certain?” Demarae said. “Perhaps we can learn something helpful—”

“Not from him. His lies will tell us nothing.”

“Oh Captain, my captain, you are an idiot.” The claw-hand Erin was holding suddenly jerked upward and grabbed her throat.

As I sprang forward to pull it loose, Ayanna’s body began to arch and buck as it had before.

“Hold her down,” I told Demarae. Using both hands, I managed to release Erin.

She gulped air and her face relaxed into its normal appearance. Jumping from the chair, she backed away, pushing past all three of us to get away.

Ayanna sat up and struck Demarae, who was holding her feet down. I grabbed the offending claw-hand, captured the other one as it came at me, then climbed on Ayanna’s chest.

“Do it!” I shouted to Marisha, hoping the painkiller would also have a sedative effect.

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Bitch Factor, Chapter 18 – and a Free Book

Stupid mistake, Parker figured, tipping his hand like that. Should’ve kept his friggin mouth shut till Sparks knocked on the door. Then go into his act. Writhe around, eyes rolled back, legs jerking, head flopping like a chicken with a wrung neck, making a gurgling, choking noise in his throat. All the time rattling that handcuff. Sparks would’ve been suspicious of Flannigan right off. So would the sheriff, keeping a sick man chained up like that.

Parker flipped up a black nine to play on a red ten.

The cabin, with its morning muffler of snow, was as quiet as a cell in the dead of night. Parker shuddered. Worst combination he could think of, silence and isolation.

Funny he hadn’t heard that bathroom faucet dripping before. Must’ve left the cock open a bit. He slid off the bed and stretched around the door facing to the bathroom.

He’d never seen handcuffs like these, with chain between them. Leg irons, sure, but not cuffs. Must be some kind of special issue. Even with a foot of chain, though, he couldn’t quite reach the friggin faucet.

Moving the bed might help. It fell shy of the doorway by six or eight inches — could be exactly the inches he needed.

He eyed the curved iron headboard. His handcuff, attached to the outside, would slide down the curve as far as the mattress, where a horizontal bar stopped it, or up around the curve to the first vertical bar. Dann slid the cuff as far down as it would go, then squatted to lift the bed and scoot it over the wood floor.

Damn, it was heavy! Heaving and pulling, he finally moved the bed flush with the doorway. When he stood up again, he was breathing hard. Hadn’t realized he was so out of shape.

He slid the handcuff back up the rail and stretched toward the faucet. Still an inch short.

Studying the distance, he could see there was no way to get any closer. At least he could close the bathroom door, muffle the drip some.

Now it was really too friggin quiet. A radio would help. Understandable, a small-town motel not having television. Crap on TV wasn’t worth watching anyway, but a radio, what could that cost? Ten, fifteen bucks?

He sat down on the bed. At least he could see out the window from this new position, see where Sparks had cleared a path around the side of the motel office. Probably where Flannigan had gone for breakfast.

Somehow, he had to get her to unbend a little, let down her guard. She wasn’t the easy touch he’d expected. Those brown, velvety eyes looked soft and inviting, but the woman was hard as bedrock. “Though she be but little, she is fierce.” Shakespeare might’ve written more plays about women if he’d met the likes of Flannigan.

Parker turned up the ace of spades and played it beside the other two.

As good a salesman as he was, there had to be a way to convince Flannigan to cut him some slack. He’d sold everything from doorknobs to dump trucks, hair products to helicopters. Amount of money he’d made ought to be a sin. He was a charming, reasonable, agreeable fellow, wasn’t he? Nonthreatening. Friendly. Likable.

Lovable, even? Maybe he should romance her a little.

She was a good-looking woman. Dressed like a man, but that didn’t necessarily mean…

Hellfire, the way her jeans fit, the way she filled out a sweatshirt, could make a man crazy if he hadn’t more important things to worry about – like staying out of prison. Maybe women had taken a bottom run on his priority list, but Parker still knew the right moves. And Flannigan might not be the easy touch he’d first guessed, but she was still a woman.

Parker’s neighbor said he reminded her of Clark Gable – sometimes she said Burt Reynolds, her memory wasn’t the greatest – Gable, Reynolds, Tom Selleck. Couldn’t make his big voice go squeaky like Selleck’s, but he could wiggle his eyebrows. Wasn’t a woman alive could resist his boyish humor for long. He’d charm the pants off her, like Magnum, P.I.

Kind of funny, actually. Flannigan was the PI, so to speak. Parker was the bad guy. Never thought of himself as a bad guy. He was the “…man more sinned against than sinning.” At least that’s what he’d hoped the jury would believe.

Wouldn’t let them lock him up again. Those few days in jail had convinced him. But staying out of jail meant getting Flannigan to loosen up, drop her guard.

Information, that’s what he needed. Where were her soft spots? What made her happy? What excited her?

Learn what got a person excited and you could sell them anything. Problem was, Flannigan didn’t talk much.

Two things, then. Step one, find her talk button. Everybody had a button – he’d learned that as a rookie salesman – a passion that opened them up like turning on a faucet. Once folks opened up, they just naturally felt friendlier.

Parker played a red deuce on a black trey, and realized he was out of cards. Game over.

Out on the highway again, he could use what he learned about Flannigan for step two: romance her. Maybe he’d talk her into letting him sit up front. She’d already let him drive, hadn’t she? Eleven hundred miles – should be plenty of time to prove what a reasonable, charming, nonthreatening sort of guy he could be.

Join me right here next week for another Bitch Factor chapter.

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Here Lies a Wicked Man, Chapter 32 – and a Free Book

Carson Birdwell’s portrait, large, imposing and exquisitely framed, hung behind his massive baroque desk. The coroner himself appeared larger and more imposing in the comfortably masculine trappings of his office. Booker wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that Birdwell was descended from the visionary Grammon who’d founded the city.

Uncertain why he’d been included in the coroner’s discussion with Sheriff Ringhoffer, Booker relaxed in a plaid high-backed chair at the sheriff’s right, a position he considered least intrusive. Ringhoffer perched at the edge of a duplicate chair, rigidly erect and as tall as his five-foot-five stature would allow.

Birdwell folded his glasses on the desk.

“Sheriff, how did we come to this?”

“Sir?” Ringhoffer’s whispery voice barely carried to Booker’s ears.

“Grammon County is not a community of low-life, murdering blackguards. We’re law-abiding citizens. This hearing was intended as a formality to satisfy the court and the deceased’s family that misfortune had reached out its promiscuous claw and snatched up Charles Bailyn Fowler. How did we come to these accusations of adultery and murder?”

“Mr. Birdwell, you saw how those women are. They lied. I assure you—”

“Yes, they’re women, after all. I suppose we must consider the female propensity for prevarication.” The coroner skewered Booker with an admonishing glare. “You didn’t hear me say that, Mr. Krane.”

“No, of course not.”

“Sir, we still have no reason to believe Mr. Fowler’s death was anything but an accident,” Ringhoffer said softly. “Those women and their cat fight should not influence your decision. Sir.”

“Sheriff, Charles Fowler was a valued property owner and business investor in Grammon County. His wife and family will undoubtedly inherit his estate. They are valued property owners. Mrs. Fowler is a respected teacher, a mother to those two young men, and a faithful community volunteer at county events. Now that she has made her suspicions public, we cannot ignore them. We have to investigate.”

“Yes, sir, but you saw how they—”

“Lied. Yes. I sympathize with your situation. That’s why I’m going to prevail upon Mr. Krane to give you a hand as Coroner’s Investigator.”

“Why me?” Booker hadn’t intended to blurt it. “I mean, with all respect, Mr. Birdwell, how could I possibly help in a murder investigation?”

“There’s no need for modesty. The sheriff and I are both aware of your background and aware that you are a member of the American Society of Industrial Security. That’s the same organization that members of our Secret Service belong to, is it not?”

“Yes, but—”

“And you are retired, Mr. Krane, are you not?”

“Well, yes, but—”

“And as a resident of Grammon County, you have an interest in preserving the integrity of our community.”

“Of course I do, but—”

This time Birdwell didn’t interrupt. Instead, he sat waiting, his imposing physique and imperious gaze quietly compelling Booker to agree.

Booker swallowed and started over. “I have a project on my plate that needs my attention.”

“We all have obligations. That’s why it’s important to clear up this situation quickly. Forty-eight hours should be sufficient. You and the sheriff will use that time to erase once and for all any doubt surrounding Mr. Fowler’s demise. Then we will all be free to return to business as usual.”

A gavel’s rap couldn’t have sounded more final. Booker found himself rising, as if dismissed. The sheriff rose, too.

“We’ll start tonight, sir,” he said, shooting a glance at Booker.

Birdwell nodded. “Gentlemen, I’m counting on your speed and discretion.”

Five minutes later, feeling as if he’d been flattened by a loaded Tahoe, Booker sat with the sheriff over iced tea at a cafe across from the Administration Building.

“I know it looks as if I set you up in there,” Ringhoffer said.

“You’re damn right it does.”

“I may have told Coroner Birdwell that you were the most qualified man in the county, but I didn’t expect him to draft you into service.”

Truthfully, Booker wouldn’t have minded helping out if it weren’t for the new Southern Affairs commission. Considering the sheriff’s youth and inexperience, he might easily overlook important details and jump to another wrong conclusion. Now that Roxanna’s disagreement with Fowler was public knowledge, her talent with a bow would come under more scrutiny. But with the weather against him, and two days chopped out to help Ringhoffer, Booker honestly didn’t see how he could make the magazine’s deadline. Publishing was a tight industry, careers made and broken by editors comparing notes in their casual emails. Booker’s poor performance on this commission could prevent his working for any other publication.

He was trying to recall if he’d actually agreed to help the sheriff, when Ringhoffer said something intelligent.

“Maybe we should start by listing the people who had a reason to kill Fowler, then eliminating the ones who couldn’t have done it.”

Emaline, intruding as usual, plunked a glass of tea on the table.

“That’s where I can help.” She dragged a chair over from a table behind her and sat down. “There are planetary aspects that absolutely rule out any capacity for violence. All I need is a birth chart on each suspect and a computer printout of the transiting planets.”

“We don’t have time for silliness,” Ringhoffer whispered roughly. “Mr. Krane and I have a job to do and a short amount of time to do it.”

“Then you need all the help you can get.”

“Not your kind—”

“Wait a minute,” Booker said. “If anybody knows more than Emaline about what goes on at Lakeside Estates, or all of Grammon County, for that matter, I’ll stand on my head and bray like an ass. Sheriff, you made an excellent suggestion. We’ll start with a list of suspects.”

Booker plucked a napkin from a metal dispenser and began making notes. The first two people on the list were Sarabelle and Melinda, then Aaron, Jeremy, and Gary Spiner.

“What about the fellow Ms. McCray came to the funeral with?” Ringhoffer asked. “Ramsey Crawford.”

Booker wrote it down. “He looks mean enough to do it, but what’s his motive.”

“Jealousy!” Emaline waved the waitress over for more tea. “Melinda and Crawford were thick before she set her hooks for bigger fish. And Ramsey’s got that Venus in Scorpio—”

“Now stop that!” Ringhoffer went red in the face, his voice booming across the room.

Emaline squinted down her nose at him.

“Don’t bust a lung on my account. And don’t say later that I withheld information.” She turned to Booker and muttered, “Write down ‘Venus in Scorpio.’”

“Why don’t we stick with earthly information,” Booker suggested. “Aaron told me his father had several dust-ups with Crawford. Maybe the mechanic was holding out hope that

Melinda would come back to him. Then Fowler got serious about divorcing Sarabelle, and Crawford saw he might lose out for good.”

The sheriff frowned around the thought.

“I can see everything you’re saying, Mr. Krane. But when I picture Crawford killing anybody, I see those big fists or, considering his skills with automobiles, a punctured brake line.

What does he know about archery?”

Booker explained his theory about using the arrow like a spear. “A tornado can pierce a tree trunk with a straw. An arrow thrust with enough anger behind it would easily pierce a man’s chest.”

The sheriff’s russet eyebrows knitted. “That’s something I can have one of my deputies check out.”

Booker turned to Emaline, who had sat quiet longer than he would’ve thought possible.

“What’s your take on Crawford?”

“I’m not sure Ramsey wanted Melinda exclusively. That would mean commitment. After all, Chuck only came to town on weekends. Ramsey had Melinda to himself during the week, with no pressure to make it permanent. If Melinda married Chuck, she’d still be free during the week, and with more money to spend.”

“Ms. Peters, you’re talking about premeditated adultery.” Ringhoffer sounded incredulous. “I realize the woman’s a schemer, but you’re suggesting she only wanted Mr. Fowler for his money and he was too dumb to realize it.”

“Nope! Chuck Fowler was a self-made man, pulled himself up by working hard and working smart. He was too smart to marry Melinda. Besides, I think his sexual divining rod was already pointing toward new game.” She gave Booker a level stare fraught with meaning.

Booker felt a stab of discomfort. “You think he was hitting on Roxanna.”

Emaline snatched the napkin list and added the innkeeper’s name.

“Ask her if Chuck ever suggested alternative methods for paying off that ten-thousand dollars other than her friends in Houston.” She looked down her nose again at Ringhoffer.

“Chuck didn’t have Pluto in the eighth house of lust for nothing.”

Come back next Monday for the next chapter in Here Lies a Wicked Man.

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Paradise Cursed, Snippet 27 – and get a Free Book

CHAPTER 23

“Out!” I gripped the redheaded twerp by the shirt collar and attempted to tug her away from the bed. “Everybody out!”

“No!” She grabbed her sister’s arm and entwined it with her own, refusing to budge.

Bollocks! I’d have panic aboard if Ayanna’s condition became known. Visions of the yellow flag for quarantine filled my head—the yellow-black, actually, which had taken its place a hundred years ago. Seeing it aloft, passengers had jumped overboard to get away. If our guests thought we had a disease aboard, an affliction that could turn a healthy young woman into a reptile, their scurry to flee the ship would set a world record.

I let go of Dayna’s shirt collar. What’s done was done, and the girl was so enamored with sailing she would surely keep mum once she understood our situation.

Now that I saw the sisters together, though, I wondered what was up with them. Jase Graham had orders to sail as soon as Burke checked all the staff and passengers against the manifest, and judging by the Sarah Jane‘s mildly increased motion, we were launched.

We weren’t so far at sea, that I couldn’t haul up and call a water taxi to take the sisters ashore, if Erin was still intent on leaving. I’d rather they stay. Aside from any personal desire for Erin’s company, we needed her to help send the Bokor and his bloody curse back where they came from.

“As you can see, ” I said, placing a hand each on the sisters’ shoulders, “despite our best efforts, our patient has taken a traumatic turn.”

Indeed, Ayanna’s agitated spasms had quieted a bit, but her hands and features still twitched periodically as with pain or discomfort.

“What’s wrong with her?” Dayna said again, softly.

For a moment, no one answered.

“A diabolical curse has been placed upon this woman,” Demarae explained. “Sadly, we failed in our attempt to break the Bokor’s hold. Twice, we failed. Now the Bokor has gained even more control.”

Erin knelt beside the bed. Timidly, she took one monstrous claw-like hand into both of hers. Ayanna jerked her head toward Erin. Her eyelids briefly fluttered.

Erin placed her forehead against their paired hands. Her shoulders began to tremble. Hearing a sob, I realized she was crying.

“Erin!” Dayna reached out, but I grasped her arm before she could touch her sister and possibly experience the same pain.

“It’s all right,” I said. “Why don’t we step out. Marisha will take good care of your sister.”

“How can I believe that? You guys aren’t winning any trophies at this curse-breaking business. Do you even know what you’re doing? How do you know whatever Ayanna has won’t infect my sister?”

Ah, precisely the reaction I could expect from every passenger aboard. Instinctively, I looked to Demarae for an answer. His solemn gaze held mine for a moment.

“Two minutes,” he said to Dayna. “No longer. You go ahead, and I will bring Erin.”

I nodded approval and herded Dayna toward the door.

“She was so beautiful,” the girl murmured. “Was that just last night?”

Mentally, I fumbled for the right words. I’m not particularly brilliant with teenagers, not having much opportunity for practice. Young people come every summer to sign up for crew, but those we hire are experienced in being at sea, working sails, and usually somewhat older than the youngster who stood with me in the passageway.

At the moment, she looked twelve years old and frightened. She’d traded her audacious hot-lips t-shirt for the shorts and loose fitting shirt most of the crew wore, yet she wanted to be bold and smart and older than her years. At sixteen, wouldn’t each of us have given our grandest treasure just to be grown up? There’s no true shortcut. We must experience those ghastly years, earn appropriate nicks and scars and learn more from our failures than from any success.

Should I sympathize, give Dayna a pat-pat-you’ll-be-okay and send her off to lick her wounds? Or should—

“How did you rope my sister into this black-magic voodoo crap?” she asked before I could finish my thought.

“She wanted to help,” I said lamely.

“She wanted to go home. She’s been wanting to go home since before we boarded. I’m the one who talked her into staying. Then you asked her to read the cards, and I begged her to say yes, because I wanted to spend the summer learning to sail. It’s all about what you wanted and what I wanted, not at all what Erin wanted.”

All right, then, sixteen going on twenty-five. A crewman passed us sketching a quick salute, then Shaman Demarae came with Erin, and I was saved from further thrashing.

Mascara ran from Erin’s damp, red eyes and streaked down her cheeks. Demarae had a protective arm around her.

“Let’s go up to the main foredeck,” I said. “Passengers will be crowding round the bar, so we should have a bit of privacy.”

The wind had freshened to about twenty knots, north-northeast, and the sky loomed gray and turbulent in that direction. But Dayna’s mood seemed lighter than when we were below. She indeed was a sailor at heart.

Erin frowned at the sails and glanced toward the island, as if startled to see we’d weighed anchor.

Her brow remained knitted for a moment, then she looked at Demarae, straightened her shoulders as if shrugging off a difficult decision to deal with even heavier thoughts.

My own thoughts returned to our primary problem, and as I regarded Erin’s misery I decided that Dayna deserved to know what was happening. The prospect of losing her sister in this battle was not entirely unfeasible. Losing Erin would make Dayna an orphan.

“How bad is she?” I asked, directing my question at Erin but including Demarae in my glance.

The shaman looked at Erin without comment.

“The Bokor has filled Ayanna’s mind with fear and hatred,” Erin said. “She sees him stalking her at every turn, sees his yellow eyes and laughing red mouth, although sometimes the eyes are black or blood red, and sometimes the mouth is all teeth.”

“You could read her mind?” Demarae’s eyes widened in what I took as hopeful astonishment.

Erin shook her head. “I could see what she saw. I felt her fear. If she had any logical thoughts, I couldn’t read them. It was all emotion and visual… assault, that’s the only way I can describe it.”

“You said fear and hatred,’” I prompted.

“Her hatred is for me, at least I felt it was aimed at me, but the vision was a dove. She was grabbing and choking it, then swallowing it whole, but it wasn’t Ayanna, it was the snake. I think it was the snake. Or the Bokor. These visions are—”

“Are not logical, my dear,” Demarae said mildly. “Emotions are not logical, and if you attempt to take them literally, they will only prove more confusing. Also heartbreaking, because you like this woman and you want to help her. Feeling hatred from her is the Bokor’s way of breaking your spirit so that he can find a way in. He wants Ayanna, but I believe he also wants you.”

“Wants her for what?” Dayna said.

I’d forgotten she was listening. She deserved the truth, yes, but not to be scared senseless.

“He wants to steal Erin’s magic,” I said, trying to desensitize it. “Let’s remember that this man, this Bokor, is not on the ship. He’s miles away in Jamaica. It’s only his spell that’s influencing Ayanna’s mind.”

“Not just her mind!” Dayna argued. “She grew snakeskin. And claws! That happened overnight, so how long before she’s no longer human?”

“The mind is more powerful than anyone fully understands,” Demarae said. “In the medical profession is something called a placebo effect. You’ve heard of it?”

“Sure.” Dayna shrugged impatiently. “Doctors give you fake pills and tell you they’re real. Sometimes you get better, but it’s all in your head.”

“Hmmmm, yes, you have the basic idea. A counter-point to that treatment is called the nocebo effect. In one study, volunteers allergic to poison ivy and poison oak were rubbed with a leaf they believed to be toxic. It was visually quite similar to poison ivy but entirely benign. Nevertheless, nearly all the volunteers broke out in a rash where the plant touched them. The Bokor has convinced some part of Ayanna’s mind that she is developing reptilian strengths and abilities, and those beliefs are manifesting outwardly.”

I wondered at Demarae’s wisdom in using this analogy, but Dayna seemed to take it quite well.

“If it’s all in her head,” she posited, “then my sister can look in, find that boker-jerk and kick his ass back to Jamaica.”

“Dayna!” Erin appeared to be holding back a smile. “Your language, please?”

My own laugh busted loose. “I believe she summed it up quite eloquently.”

We were all loosening up with a bit of a chuckle when Jase Graham came fore and summoned Dayna away to help with the crab races. Then I noticed the darkening sky, and for me the atmosphere turned solemn again.

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Bitch Factor, Chapter 17 – and a Free Book

Friday, December 25, Sisseton, South Dakota

Dixie wiped condensation from the window glass to watch the sun’s first rays turn the pristine landscape from blue-white to ivory. Minutes later, Buck Sparks made his appearance.

A tall, gray-bearded man, he wore square eyeglasses and a navy-blue overcoat with a matching cap. Wisps of pale smoke rose from his curved-stem pipe. A red hunting dog sniffed a his heels.

Dixie watched him shovel a path from the back of the main house to the front door of the first cabin. The task took less than ten minutes, and amazed at the old man’s energy, Dixie immediately felt better about not being out there to help. He cleared the entrance of snow, then knocked on the door, the sound carrying clear and loud in the early hours.

A woman in a woolly robe stuck her head out, long hennaed hair a tangled mass, as if she’d just awakened. She seemed surprised at the amount of snowfall. A man in overalls, pulling on a coat, squeezed past her through the door, but Buck Sparks waved him back.

They talked for a minute, Sparks pointing with his pipe toward the main house. Then Sparks moved on, wide shovel clearing a path for his heavy boots. Apparently, the old man didn’t want any help, which was fine with Dixie; she had other things to worry about. In thirty minutes or so he’d knock on their own door, the last of the four cabins, and she hadn’t yet decided what to do with Dann.

“Be real handy if you took sick all of a sudden,” she muttered.

“Sick? I feel fine.”

“No, you don’t. You don’t feel fine at all. Fact is, you’ve caught a humdinger of a cold, and much as you’d like to join everybody if we’re invited for breakfast, you’re worried about spreading germs around.”

Dann lowered his eyebrows.

“You must think I’m a friggin Eskimo. Why would I try to escape in the middle of nowhere before the roads are even clear?”

“I don’t know what you’ll try, Dann, but why risk it?”

“So now I’m supposed to make like an invalid while you go up to the main house and chow down, is that it?”

“We haven’t been asked, yet, but I expect our hosts will arrange a meal of some sort.”

He was sitting on one of the wooden chairs pulled close to the bed. Now he stood abruptly, knocking the chair to the floor. Snatching his pillow, he plumped it hard against the headboard, but made no move to slide under the covers.

“Suppose I don’t feel much like an invalid?”

Dixie leafed through packets of cocoa mix and tea bags that Emma Sparks had left in a straw basket beside the coffeepot. If Dann was already getting cabin fever, he was looking at a long, hard time ahead, cooped up in a cell. But telling him so wasn’t likely to calm him down. Finding a packet of instant hot lemonade, she fished it out of the basket.

“Here’s the ticket. A cup of this and you’ll feel as fine as frog’s hair.”

“I’m not sick!”

“You look peaked to me.” She ran fresh water in the coffeemaker.

Dann glowered at her silently for a long moment. Then he crossed his arms, leaned languidly against the wall, and cocked an insolent eyebrow.

“On second thought, maybe I’m not feeling so good. Maybe I’m sick enough you should call the sheriff, have him take me to the hospital.” Dann smiled, but there was no humor in the defiance that sparked in his eyes.

Dixie studied him as water dripped into the glass pot. The possibility of being holed up together for another day and night was likely grating on Dann as much as it was on her. After ten hours of sleep and two hours of gin rummy, she was ready to crawl out of her skin. No reason for him to handle the stress any better.

“Is that what you want me to do, call the sheriff?”

“It’d get me off your hands,” he said. “I spend a couple days in a warm bed with three squares, TV, and cute nurses, then the sheriff ships me off to Houston. You still collect your fee, but with only half the work.”

He had no way of knowing that such a plan wouldn’t fit the arrangement she’d made with Belle Richards.

“You want to take your chances with the locals?”

He hesitated, then his lips twisted in a sour smile. “Small-town cops aren’t too chummy with bounty hunters, are they? Might look the other way while I slip out the hospital door.”

“And they might not.” But hospitals were notoriously easy to escape from.

“So what do you think, Flannigan? Do we call a truce until the roads clear? Maybe cut me a little slack while we’re stuck here in this room? Or do I have a convulsion when Sparks knocks on the door, get myself some emergency treatment? My convulsions are Academy Award material — have a brother who suffers Grand Mal seizures, and I’ve seen all the moves.”

Dixie didn’t like being backed into corners. If she told him the deal she’d struck with Belle, he might not be so eager to broadcast his whereabouts. On the other hand, it was his own goose he’d be cooking if the sheriff turned out sharper than Dann expected and delivered him straight into the hands of the prosecuting attorney in Houston.

But it was Dixie’s ten thousand dollars he’d be pissing away.

“Choose your own poison,” she said at last. “You may be right about small-town cops not liking hunters. I hear they’re not too keen on child killers, either.”

She poured steaming water over the lemon crystals and watched them burst, filling the cup with a tangy aroma. Dann stood very still, studying her. She could almost see the dilemma behind his blue eyes, and she gave him some space to make his decision. Of course, if he made the wrong decision, there wasn’t a handier tranquilizer in the world than the butt of a .45.

“All right, I’ll drink the friggin lemonade.” He took the cup and sniffed it. “Don’t suppose you have a shot of brandy to give it some character. My mother’s hot toddies included a healthy measure of spirits.”

“Which is probably what started you down the road to dipsomania- “

“I’m not a goddamn alcoholic!”

“No? Then you must be an ordinary drunk.”

“Well, yeah… I mean, sometimes I get drunk, but I don’t have to drink. I can leave the stuff alone if I want to.”

Dixie had heard that before. She reached into the bathroom for one of the yellow-flowered towels.

“Just look miserable and cover that handcuff when Sparks gets here.” That made twice he’d backed down. Next time wouldn’t be as easy. She wrapped the towel around his throat like a muffler.

“Hellfire, woman, you’re choking me!” Dann yanked the cloth away from his neck. “Next you’ll be smearing me with Vicks VapoRub.”

“Too bad we don’t have any. The fumes alone would convince Sparks.” Dixie replaced the towel, leaving it slightly looser.

Minutes later they heard a shovel scrape the walk outside the door. She finger-combed her hair, smoothed her rumpled clothes, and tried to look domestic. When a loud knock sounded, she opened the door.

“Morning, Miz Flannigan. Buck Sparks. Hope you folks slept well. Emma sends an invite to come eat breakfast with us up at the house. Plenty of food, plenty of room.”

“Those ham sandwiches were about the best I’ve ever had.”

Sparks gave a stiff little nod and puffed on his pipe. “There’s more ham to go with your eggs, and I think Emma’s cooked up some sausage. There’ll be plenty.”

Dixie opened the door wider so Sparks could see Dann propped up in bed, wool blanket tucked snugly around his makeshift muffler, lemonade steaming in his cup.

“I’m afraid he’s coming down with something,” Dixie said, adopting Sparks’ speech rhythms. “Been sneezing all night, barking something fierce. Wouldn’t want other folks catching the misery.”

Parker Dann obliged with a halfhearted cough.

“Think we oughta fetch the doctor?” Sparks asked.

“Not yet. But a dose of aspirin and some cough syrup would help, if you think Emma might have some.”

“Sure she will. You come when you’re ready, get whatever you need.” He started down the walk, the shovel slung over one shoulder.

Dixie shut the door and picked up Dan’s heavy coat.

“I’m going to make this as fast as possible,” she told him. “As you reminded me earlier, there’s no point in your trying to get away, since you don’t have a dog sled. So relax and play another hand of solitaire.

She removed the magazine from the .45, studied the room, and decided the best place for the gun was on the closet shelf, under the blanket from her cot, far enough away that Dann couldn’t reach it wearing the handcuffs. Shoving the magazine in her jeans pocket, she picked up Dann’s white running shoes, which she’d unpacked for him to wear from the car to the motel room, tied the laces together, and carried them along to hide in a snowdrift. Even if he did manage to free himself, he wouldn’t get far in his stocking feet.

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Bitch Factor – Chapter 16 – and a Free Book

CHAPTER 16

Saturday, August 1, Camp Cade, Texas

“I heard it again,” Courtney whispered.

“Heard what?” Her bunk mate’s voice, thick with sleep, rose from the darkness.

“Lisa, someone’s creeping around outside.” Courtney held her breath in the muggy dawn, listening for skulking noises. At dinnertime around the campfire, and later, walking back to the cabin, she’d gotten a feeling – a scary feeling.

“It’s probably someone going to the latrine.”

“The latrine’s not around here.” In fact, it stood in the middle of camp, near the counselors’ quarters. Their own cabin lay farthest out, farthest from the lake.

“It’s nobody. Go back to sleep.”

But Courtney knew she hadn’t imagined it. In nearly two weeks at Camp Cade, nothing like this had happened. She wasn’t in the habit of imagining things.

“I heard someone – or something – creeping around. There it is again. Listen!”

Outside the window, something rustled, like dead leaves. The cabin sat in a clearing, away from the jutting pines and dense underbrush of the woods, but dry bark had been spread in the flower beds as mulch. Someone must be standing in the flower bed, trying to look in.

Courtney peered hard at the window nearest her bunk. Had the shadow shifted outside the pale curtain?

“Probably a raccoon.” Her bunk mate’s voice sounded more alert. “Who would be creeping around this late?”

“A chain-saw killer.” Courtney watched the shadow, waiting to see if it moved.

“There’s no such thing as a chain-saw killer, except in the movies.”

Maybe. But other kinds of killers were real enough. Like Mr. Parker Dann. Out on bail, Daddy Travis had said, not locked up like murderers ought to be.

Courtney’s eyes felt gritty. She needed to blink, but she didn’t want to miss –

There! The shadow moved. Didn’t it?

“I’m going to wake up Miss Bryant.” Bryant was the nicest of their three counselors, the one least likely to get mad at being awakened before reveille.

Slipping over the side of the bunk, Courtney dropped quietly to the bare wooden floor.

“Courtney, you’re not going out there? Suppose it really is someone?”

“Shhhh. If you keep quiet, maybe I’ll find out.”

She sounded bolder than she felt. She didn’t want to go out there like some dumb chucklehead in a TV movie. When told NOT TO GO IN THE ATTIC, where did they always go? To the attic, of course, to get beheaded by the Rhinestone Ripper or gutted by the Shadylane Stabber.

Somebody had to go out there, though. Some had to alert a counselor.

“But, Courtney—”

“I don’t want to lay awake till breakfast worrying about someone chopping us up in our sleep.” She shuddered at the thought and glanced back at the curtain swaying gently in the breeze of the ceiling fan. Was the shadow still there? Maybe she had imagined it. Or maybe the killer had moved on to chop up someone in another cabin. These girls were all her friends.

She pulled on her bathing suit, then her T-shirt and shorts. She’d planned to get in a few early laps anyway.

“You… um… want me to go with you?”

Courtney sat on the lower bunk to put on her shoes. Lisa’s round brown eyes and chubby cheeks reminded her of Ellie.

“No, stay here. If I don’t show up for chow,” she made her voice spooky, “send someone to look for my mangled, beheaded body.”

“Courtney! I don’t think you should—”

“Shhhh! Like you said, it’s probably just a raccoon.”

She slipped out the door. The sultry darkness enveloped her as she turned toward the window where she’d seen the shadow. The rustling came again, then footsteps sounded in the dirt.

Rounding the corner, Courtney saw white running shoes flash in the moonlight as someone darted behind the next cabin in the clearing. Something about the person’s shape looked familiar. Willing her feet to hit the ground softly, Courtney followed the muted footsteps… away from the cabin… into the thicket surrounding the lake.

Then she slowed down.

It was dark under the trees, and the footsteps had stopped.

In the overlapping shadows, someone could be hiding, ready to pounce as she walked past.

Courtney waited, holding her breath again, listening.

Behind her something shifted in the grass. She whirled, her throat tight with fear; but it was only a frog.

All right, ‘fraidy-cat, why did you come out here if you were just going to freak out when you got to the scary part? Now suck it in and get MOVING… moving… moving…

Slowly, she edged forward toward the lake, peering around each tree as she passed it, casting frequent glances over her shoulder.

Something splashed in the water.

Probably just a fish, she thought. Just a fish… a fish… a fish…

When she emerged into the moonlight, Courtney quietly exhaled and looked out over the inky lake, shrouded now in fog. Nothing moved, not a sound, not a fish, not even a breeze.

But there, in the soft dirt beside the pier – a shoe print.

She crept closer, squatting for a better look. A heel print, under the sign announcing today’s swim meet: SATURDAY, 1:00 P.M., VISITORS WELCOME. All week Courtney had been swimming laps before breakfast, out to the diving platform and back. The counselors would croak if they knew she swam alone, but how else could she get enough practice? In the afternoon race she planned to knock Queen Toad off her pedestal.

The person she chased must have stopped beside the pier. To read the sign? Or was it one of the other girls, trying to spook her?

Courtney stood up and carefully fitted her sneaker into the heel print. It was too big to be one of the girls’.

Yet the shadow had seemed vaguely familiar.

The sky was already turning from black to gray. Soon there’d be fingers of pink jutting above the trees. Courtney walked to the end of the pier and sat down to wait for sunrise.

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Here Lies a Wicked Man, Chapter 31 – and A Free Book

CHAPTER 31

THE FIRST TIME BOOKER SAW the Grammon County Administration Building, he knew someone a hundred-odd years ago had envisioned an impressive city. The twenty-mile stretch from Lakeside traveled a blacktop highway winding through a variety of cedar, sycamore and oak. Near town, the road climbed gently uphill, and the building came into view, an elaborate structure of red sandstone and granite built in 1845.

It jutted out of nowhere, at the top of a hill, commanding the view for miles. According to a plaque at the entrance, the exterior stone was carved by Italian artisans. Booker couldn’t help wondering what had possessed those long-ago Texas visionaries to haul rock carvers all the way from Italy to do a job any Texas mason would’ve been proud to tackle. More money than brains was at work, he decided, the day that bill was passed.

Unfortunately, the city of Grammon never grew beyond a twelve-block city square, nor the entire county population beyond four thousand.

One thing Grammon continued to attract, however, was wealth. Nearly a fourth of its population were millionaires, another half were their progeny, and the remainder were visitors who’d settled in the county thinking the wealth might rub off.

The inquest for Charles Bailyn Fowler was held in a high-ceilinged room with tall windows and hundred-year-old pews, Coroner Carson Birdwell presiding. In Texas, Sheriff Ringhoffer had explained earlier, a coroner can hold an inquest anytime he questioned a cause of death. Coroner Birdwell, apparently, was an old Southern gentleman who rarely questioned anything and hated troubling people, but in Fowler’s case, Sarabelle had demanded it.



Square tortoiseshell glasses perched on Birdwell’s bulbous nose above a generous mouth and gently receding chin. Nobody’s heartthrob, but then looks wouldn’t count for much in his business.

Since Booker was expected to present evidence, he took a seat near the front. Testifying in court was something he’d done many times, though only once for a wrongful death. His shoulder still twinged when he thought about that one.

He was glad Roxanna decided not to attend. If the relationship between her and Fowler had extended beyond mortgagor and mortgagee, the fact wasn’t common knowledge.

Booker would rather keep it that way. Roxanna might be eccentric, moody, an excellent bowman, and mad as hell at Fowler for reneging on their contract, but Booker refused to believe she had engineered his death. No need to start anyone else thinking in that direction.

Melinda, sexy as ever in a gray suit, marched in and sat down beside him, as if he’d saved the seat expressly for her. Booker wondered where her dark and dangerous escort was today.

His own part in the inquest came early. First, Sheriff Ringhoffer explained arriving at Turtle Lake to find a body on the bank, then directing Booker to take photographs. Booker’s color prints were presented as evidence, and he was called to verify that he was unaware of the body snagged beneath his pier until Pup dragged it ashore, that he had not handled the body in any way and had prevented the dog from further abusing it. After the sheriff arrived, Booker had taken photographs as instructed then later developed and printed them.

Nobody asked his opinion of anything, which was okay by him. After his testimony, the coroner recalled the sheriff to describe how the investigation proceeded, the collecting of evidence, specifically a tan fabric scrap matching the trousers found on the body, a thirty-three-inch arrow shaft discovered nearby, identification by next of kin, and delivery of the body to the Harris County Medical Examiner’s Office. Ringhoffer also presented the ME’s written report, which included the discovery of a broadhead arrow point imbedded in Fowler’s heart.

“While this was taking place,” Ringhoffer said, “my deputies searched the woods surrounding Turtle Lake and found a hunting target strung between two trees. The target had been pierced repeatedly.”

The arrow shaft, the broad point, and the target, cut from several layers of corrugated cardboard in the shape of a wild turkey, were introduced as evidence.

“Because of rain damage,” the sheriff explained, “the type of arrow point used to pierce the target could not be determined.”

Although Booker already knew most of this, hearing it laid out in precise and in chronological order impressed him. He liked facts presented without dressing.

The sheriff’s next commentary retraced Fowler’s movements during the twenty-four hours preceding what the medical examiner had determined was the time of death. Shortly after noon on Saturday, August fifth, Fowler arrived at the Gilded Trout to review the accounting records, so Gary Spiner was called next to testify.

Spiner’s beard was coming along, Booker noticed. He bet it itched like a case of poison ivy about now.

“Mr. Spiner,” the coroner said, “did anything unusual occur during the time Mr. Fowler was at the store that afternoon?”

“Nothing unusual. Chuck always took an hour on Saturdays to come in and look at sales figures for the month. Jeremy, his son, helps out at the counter, see, while we get the paperwork and planning done. But that day, Chuck wanted to come on in and go over the inventory records. He said we needed to move out the old stock, recover our investment to order newer merchandise.” Spiner cleared his throat and took a drink of water. “We went over the list of items to put on sale and finished up about five o’clock.”

“Did Mr. Fowler seem unduly upset about any of this paperwork?”

“Not, I would say, unduly upset.” Gary wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. “Chuck tended to get vocal about sales quotas, see, and come out with off-color words when he thought merchandise didn’t move fast enough. Can’t say he was any more concerned than normal.”

“And after you finished the inventory?”

“Chuck paid the bills, went through the mail…oh…. Later, a package came for him by special delivery. I phoned him at home, left a message, and he called back, told me to go on and open it. Turned out to be a shirt. I asked what was the occasion. He said somebody must be apologizing for being bitchy lately.” Spiner leered at Melinda, showing his wide yellow teeth.

“Mr. Spiner, did you see Charles Fowler again after he left the store that afternoon?”

“No. He must’ve picked up the package, ‘cause it was gone next morning. He never called during the week, which he usually did along about Wednesday. Next I heard, he was dead.”

Jeremy Fowler was next to give his account. Booker looked around to see if Bradley had ridden in with him. Sure enough, his son sat in the fourth row, back of the room.

“Do you recall anything unusual about that Saturday, Mr. Fowler?” Birdwell asked.

Jeremy stared off into a corner, as if drawing on memory.

“I guess Pop might’ve been shouting more than usual going over the sales quotas with Gary. I shut the door, so customers wouldn’t overhear, but he was loud, like it was Gary’s fault people prefer to buy their equipment in the city at discount prices. The Gilded Trout is a small-town store, can’t compete with the big chains, but Pop didn’t want to hear that.

He said no customer should walk out with a can of golf balls when Gary could sell them a new club or a ball retriever.”

“Have you heard your father and Mr. Spiner having similar conversations in the past?”

“Every Saturday.”

“But you’re saying this one was unusually intense.”

Jeremy hesitated. “There’s that word unusual again. I’d say Pop had been on Gary’s case about it lately. When I started working there last spring, I didn’t have to close the door so customers wouldn’t hear Pop shouting.”

“Did you see your father again after he left the store that day?”

“We had a golf game that Sunday morning. Teed off at seven, finished about eleven, ate lunch at the lodge.”

Birdwell referred to some papers on his desk. “This game took place at the Lakeside Estates golf course?”

“Yes, sir. I’m not much of a golfer, but Pop was, and he often said Lakeside had a ball-breaker course.”

“Son, did your father seem distressed in any way?”

When Jeremy paused to mull that over, Melinda turned in her seat and smiled at Booker. He expected her to say something, smiling at him like that. Instead, she straightened his tie, then looked back at Jeremy.

“Pop seemed preoccupied, and that threw his game off. Luther hadn’t shown up to carry Pop’s clubs, which made him irritable, so he didn’t shoot as well as usual. Didn’t keep him from winning or telling me how to correct my swing.”

Booker recalled that Fowler had fired Luther Niles. If Luther had been rehired, Emaline hadn’t known about it. That in itself seemed impossible.

“Did you and your father play golf together often?” Birdwell asked.

“It’s one of the few things we did together. Pop was interested in all kinds of sports, but golf’s the only one where I come close to keeping up.”

“You went to lunch after the game. Did anything happen there to upset your father?”

“I don’t know that he was upset. We talked about hunting season coming up. He said he wanted to get some practice in, that I should, too. We always enter the Grammon Turkey Shoot as a family. I wanted to pass this season, invest the time in other things. Pop didn’t agree. He said the turkey shoot was family tradition.” Jeremy shrugged. “I couldn’t argue with tradition.”

“Did your father say what he planned to do that afternoon?”

“No. He asked where I was headed. We were about to open a new play, and I wanted to work on some of the sets before rehearsal that night.”

Birdwell glanced at his notes again, then excused Jeremy and called Aaron, who testified that he hadn’t seen or talked to his father at all that day. He’d been at the dealership in

Bryan until four o’clock, then driven to Lowetta to deliver a child’s car seat that had come in for one of his customers.

“Can you recall the last time you saw your father, Mr. Fowler?”

“A couple of weeks ago, at the lodge.”

“Did he seem upset? Or distracted?”

“Yeah, well…we had some words, I guess.”

Birdwell’s questions brought out the fact that Chuck Fowler refused to front the money Aaron needed to invest in the dealership. As he talked, Aaron’s face flushed, whether with anger or embarrassment, Booker wasn’t sure.

“And this heated conversation,” Birdwell said, “was the last you and your father had?”

Aaron looked away from the coroner. “Yes.”

When Birdwell called on Sarabelle, he took off his glasses and regarded her with an apologetic set to his generous mouth. “Mrs. Fowler, this imposition in your time of mourning is unspeakable. I’ll try to be brief.”

“That’s all right, Mr. Birdwell. I want to do everything I can to see my husband’s killer brought to justice.” She stared fiercely at Melinda.

Melinda met the stare without a flinch.

The coroner glanced curiously at the real estate agent then leaned closer to Sarabelle and spoke distinctly.

“Now, Mrs. Fowler, you do realize, don’t you, that all we’re deciding here today is whether your husband’s death occurred by misadventure or if there’s reason to believe he was killed deliberately by person or persons unknown?”

“My husband was murdered, Mr. Birdwell. I know you’ll reach the right decision, and the person responsible will pay in the end.” The granite eyes, which had not left Melinda’s face, were so cold Booker had to resist glancing at the real estate agent to see if she was turning to ice beside him.

Birdwell cleared his throat. “Would you tell us, then, when you last saw your husband alive?”

“Sunday afternoon, August sixth. After his golf game with Jeremy. Charles came home, said he had eaten at the club and wouldn’t be hungry for lunch. Then he took a nap. After an hour, he rose, showered, dressed, and said he was going into town.”

“By town, do you mean Masonville?”

“Actually, he didn’t say, but Masonville is the closest town to Lakeside Estates. My husband had several…business…interests there.”

“Yes, ma’am. Now, I’m sorry to ask this, but did you and your husband have…uhm…strong words before he left that afternoon? Was he upset?”

Sarabelle looked down at her hands clasped in front of her. She twisted her wedding ring. “I asked him not to go.”

Birdwell waited for more. When it didn’t come, he said, “Did you have a particular reason for wanting him to stay at home?”

“He’d been gone all morning. Charles traveled during the week, so weekends were our only time together. I wanted to drive into Bryan for dinner and a movie.”

The coroner repositioned his glasses. “Did your husband take anything with him when he left?”

“His bow and some archery tackle. I didn’t see the equipment, but I saw the bag he always carried it in.”

“Mrs. Fowler, do you recognize this arrow as one your husband may have taken?” He indicated the arrow shaft presented as evidence.

“That’s the turkey fletching he used.”

“And this target, do you recognize this as your husband’s?”

“Charles had all sorts of targets, mostly for the boys to practice on. He rarely used one himself, except airborne.”

“By airborne, you mean a target that’s tossed in the air to be shot down?”

“My husband was a fine marksman. He considered it wasted time to shoot anything that didn’t move.”

“When he left that day, was that the last time you saw him?” This time the coroner neglected to add the word “alive,” Booker noticed.

Sarabelle hesitated, doing the ring-twisting bit again.

“Yes.”

Birdwell watched her for a moment. “Mrs. Fowler, if there’s something you want to say, anything that might help us discover the truth, now is the time.”

“Well.” She heaved a huge sigh, as if shrugging off a weight. “I overheard him call someone and say he’d be there in ten minutes. It didn’t sound like a business call. It sounded personal. We have one of those telephones with lots of features, and I was upset. After Charles left, I punched the redial button to see who he had called.”

“Did you recognize the phone number?”

“It was the Masonville Bed and Brunch. Roxanna Larkspur.”

Booker clamped his jaw tight to keep it from dropping.

The coroner’s eyebrows danced toward his hairline. He studied his notes for a few seconds, dismissed Sarabelle, then glared at the sheriff, who looked as hot as a teakettle about to blow its whistle.

“Ms. Roxanna Larkspur, would you kindly come forward.”

Booker jolted to attention. He hadn’t seen her arrive, but there she was in the back row, not at all old fashioned in a knee-length summer dress the color of new grass.

“Did you know the deceased, Charles Bailyn Fowler?”

“Yes, I did. He sold me the house that I turned into an inn.”

“You received a phone call from Mr. Fowler on Sunday, August sixth, did you not?”

“Yes, I did.”

“What was he calling about, Ms. Larkspur?”

“He asked when I would be paying the ten-thousand-dollar balance of my down-payment, which I understood was deferred until after the inn turned a profit.”

Birdwell’s eyebrows knitted. “The essence of a down-payment is that it’s a singular sum paid in advance of any long-term financing. Deferring half is an unusual arrangement.”

“Chuck knew I couldn’t buy the house any other way.”

“And now that your inn is profitable, he—”

“It’s not profitable. Chuck knew that I’d only gotten my first room reservations.”

“Yet he wanted the down-payment balance. What did you tell him?”

“That I didn’t have it.”

“And his response?”

“Chuck said he was coming over to discuss options.”

Uh-oh. Roxanna had never mentioned seeing Fowler on the day he was killed. Booker tensed for Birdwell’s next question.

“And did he come to your inn that same day?”

“Yes. At two-thirty.”

“Ms. Larkspur, would you tell us what transpired?” Birdwell’s tone had turned harsh.

“Chuck said…well…he said I probably had really good friends in Houston and I should ask them to help me resolve my balance. I told him that wasn’t part of our deal. He smiled, a wicked sort of smile, and said, ‘What deal?’ Then he laughed and walked out.”

Birdwell’s face had turned nearly as russet as Roxanna’s hair. “Did he say where he was going?”

“No. But I watched him walk down the street to Melinda’s real estate agency.”

“That would be Ms. Melinda McCray?”

“Yes.”

Melinda took the hot seat next, trim in her gray suit, smoothing her yellow hair. Birdwell regarded her warily. Booker wondered if he could take another surprise without losing his Southern temper.

“Ms. Mcray, you heard Ms. Larkspur testify that Charles Fowler came to your agency at approximately two-forty-five on Sunday, August sixth. Is this a true account?”

Melinda dipped her blond head and looked up at Birdwell through her lashes. “I can’t say what Ms. Larkspur saw, or thought she saw, now can I?”

Birdwell pursed his lips hard and jutted his head toward Melinda. “Did you or did you not see Mr. Fowler that afternoon?”

Melinda backed away. “Well, yes, I guess I did.”

“And yet you told the sheriff…” He put on his glasses to consult his notes, “…that ‘Chuck left my house at three o’clock Sunday morning to go home to that witch, and I never saw him again.’” He glared at her. “That was your statement?”

“It may be. Can I remember every word? The sheriff confused me.”

Booker glanced at Ringhoffer, who looked ready to whip out his silver pointer and whack the witness.

“How did the sheriff confuse you?”

“Well, he asked me all those questions, didn’t he? How could I think of answers that fast?”

Birdwell sighed loudly. “Why don’t you tell us now, Ms. McCray, exactly what occurred when Mr. Fowler stopped at the real estate agency that afternoon?”

She squirmed in her chair, crossed her legs with a flash of thigh, and adjusted her expression to one of thoughtful innocence.

“Chuck and I had a row the night before, and when he came to the agency I thought he was there to apologize. So when he suggested we go to my place for a…little while…I closed the office blinds. Later, I realized he thought I had sent him a gift, this ugly yellow shirt he was wearing. ‘I can’t believe you think I have such awful taste,’ I told him. What I wanted to know was who did send it. He said never mind about the shirt, so long as I had come to my senses. I said it was him who needed to come to his senses, wasn’t it? His wife had threatened me that very morning, so I knew he had asked her for a divorce.”

“Was Mr. Fowler surprised his wife had been to see you?”

Melinda looked at Sarabelle. “He was surprised all right. I don’t think he expected his wife to have that much venom in her.”

“Venom, Ms. McCray?” Birdwell shook his head. “Let’s stick to the facts without interpretation, shall we?”

“You should have been there!” Melinda described Sarabelle’s visit, including the statement about seeing Melinda and her husband both dead before she’d see them together.

Birdwell looked at Sarabelle sitting in the second row, his expression less compassionate than earlier. After a moment, he turned his gaze back to Melinda.

“When did Mr. Fowler leave your office?”

“He didn’t stay long after we…well! How was I to know he hadn’t come to apologize? That was silly, wasn’t it? All that stuff about him not marrying again. Why would he ask

Sarabelle for a divorce if he didn’t plan to marry me?”

“Your conversation that afternoon involved his divorcing his wife to marry you?”

“I told him I’d waited all these months, and now that he was going to be free, did he think I was planning to wait any longer? He stormed out the door, saying I could wait until hell froze over before he’d get stuck with another mean-spirited harpy.”

“What time was this?”

“I’m not mean-spirited, am I?”

“The time, Ms. McCray.”

“About four o’clock, I guess.”

Birdwell made a note, then peered at her over the top of his glasses. “And you did not see him again?”

“No.”

Booker reckoned that was the shortest answer Melinda had ever given.

“Did he say where he was going?”

“He didn’t say.” Melinda’s eyes flashed defiantly at Sarabelle. “But his wife knows where he went, doesn’t she? She followed him.”

Another flush rose up the coroner’s neck and infused his face. He spoke to Melinda but speared Sarabelle with a stare.

“How do you know Mrs. Fowler followed her husband?”

“I saw her, didn’t I? In that blue Mercedes of hers? I watched Chuck out the window, hoping he’d turn around and come back. He got in his car and drove off. Sarabelle was parked across the street. She pulled out behind him.”

The courtroom buzzed with speculative whispers. Calm as a stone, Sarabelle stood and regarded Birdwell.

“She’s lying. I don’t understand why you’re listening to this woman. She’s a confessed adulteress, liar, and cheat. My husband never intended to marry her, but she cannot accept the truth. She’s making all this up to cover the fact that she was the last person to see my husband alive and deserves full responsibility for his death.”

A vein in Birdwell’s temple stood out like a night-crawler as he studied Melinda. Except for the hard set of her mouth, she looked as calm as ever. Booker was glad not to be the one who’d have to figure out which woman was lying.

Birdwell cleared his throat. “Ms. McCray, you’re excused. This hearing is adjourned. Sheriff, would you and Mr. Krane meet me in my office?”

Come back next Monday for the next chapter in Here Lies a Wicked Man.

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Paradise Cursed – Snippet 26

CHAPTER 22

As the last passenger stepped from the motor-launch to the gangway, Dayna followed behind lugging the woman’s packages. The ship felt good beneath her feet. She was grateful to leave Grand Cayman behind, but even better would be to dump all the passengers on the island and sail away without them.

You’re thinking mean thoughts, Dayna, mean, mean, mean—but she couldn’t help wondering if the captain ever sailed the Sarah Jane without passengers. Just the crew, sea and wind—Dayna knew she’d be one cloud away from heaven.

Party music drifted from the upper deck, not a live band but still the island sound of steel drums. With her smile pasted firmly in place, she handed the woman her packages.

“Don’t forget to join everyone on the party deck for Five o’clock Swizzelers!” She’d never known smiling could be so painful.

Free at last, she hurried to the cabin hoping Erin wasn’t in the head. It’d been hours since she’d had a chance to pee. Keying the lock and shoving the door all in one motion, she found the room empty. Erin’s suitcase was open on the lower bunk—hadn’t she unpacked their first night aboard?

By the time she washed her hands and came out of the head, Erin was taking clothes from their shared chest of drawers. She turned and placed them in the suitcase.

“What are you doing?” Dayna asked.

“Did you have fun going ashore today?”

“Not particularly. I’d rather have been running the launch than directing passengers to tourist traps. Where were you all day?”

“Helping the captain with… a problem.”

“Didn’t I say he had his eye on you?” Surprised to see her sister actually blush, Dayna watched her refold a pair of shorts to fit the suitcase. “Erin, what are you doing?”

“We’re leaving the ship and taking the next flight home.”

“Why? Jase Graham said something about repairs being done while we were gone. What did they find? Isn’t she seaworthy?”

“The ship is fine, but we’re not staying.”

Now she got it. Once again, Erin was bailing out of their summer vacation. The flame of heat that rose up the back of Dayna’s neck threatened to rush out her mouth in a roar of fury. She clamped her lips tight, took a breath, and mentally counted to seven before she couldn’t hold back any longer.

“Okay. You can go, but I’m staying.”

Erin looked up from her packing. “Dayna, we’re leaving. I don’t want to argue about it. Please don’t make a fuss.”

“A fuss? Don’t worry, sis, no fuss. I won’t say another word, but I’m not leaving the ship.”

She shoved past her sister and yanked open the door.

Erin’s frustrated command, “Dayna! Don’t walk—” came just before the door closed.

*

I stepped aside so Demarae could shine a penlight on Ayanna’s neck. The number seventeen impressed on her rough skin was small, perhaps three-quarters of an inch, but quite clearly intentional.

“Captain, did she have such a mark before her skin turned?” he asked. “A faded tattoo, possibly?”

“None that I saw.” The dress she’d worn that first day, when she came to apply for a job, had shown a great deal of neck and shoulders. I’d have noticed a tattoo marring the beauty of her burnished black-gold skin, no matter how faint or small.

“What does it mean?” Marisha asked.

“Fate.” Demarae spoke the word in a hushed tone, his face drawn into troubled lines as he gently turned Ayanna’s head to study the other side of her neck and her shoulders. “In its more fortunate significance, seventeen indicates strength, compassion and self-discipline.”

The shaman’s words painted an optimistic picture, I noted, while his voice held a solemn note of defeat. I commended him for holding on to that optimism. Having come upon this number before, however, I knew its darker meaning.

“Another interpretation is immortality,” he said. “If Ayanna had placed this mark upon her own body, we could assume it holds significance in her life, perhaps as a birth or name number. Or it might have appeared to her repeatedly in small ways until she claimed it for the significance of spiritual consciousness, the ability to see beyond to hidden truth.”

“Shaman!” My tone was harsher than I intended, but this was not a time for false optimism. “Since Ayanna did not lay claim to this number herself, we know it’s the Bokor’s work.”

Marisha placed her hand protectively on Demarae’s pale arm, the first overt sign I’d noticed that their relationship was more than professional. He acknowledged the gesture by patting her hand before gently removing it.

“The dark arts gain their power,” he said, “from the most combustible of human emotions. Anger, hatred, greed, lust—we like to believe love conquers all, but in truth these darker feelings might create more brute energy than an entire ship of angels could neutralize.”

“But this is only a number,” Marisha insisted. “A number cannot produce emotion. What difference can it make?”

As Demarae nodded thoughtfully, I noticed his hand now seeking hers, clasping it. “You are right, my dear. Yet do we not use numbers in our prayers? Do we not place three cowries’ shells in an oricha’s offering because that number compels the saints to manifest and draws upon their qualities of kindness and compassion? Numbers are not only great significators but are also potent in their own right.”

“Which takes us right back to what Marisha asked you.” Again, my alarm hardened my voice. “What does it mean?”

With Marisha’s hand in his and his gaze locked on Ayanna’s grotesquely altered appearance, Demarae drew a breath so deep it seemed to come from the soles of his feet. He held it until my own lungs ached then blew the air out slowly through pursed lips.

“The Bokor’s use of the number seventeen suggests he seeks everlasting life and god-like power. To that end, he will absorb Ayanna’s life force into his own.”

“And where does that leave her?” I whispered, wondering suddenly how much she could hear and understand. “Alive? Dead? Deranged?”

Without speaking, Demarae turned those solemn brown eyes on me for a long frustrating moment. Then slowly he nodded just once.

*

Why wasn’t Captain Cord ordering the crew to make ready for castoff? Dayna glanced toward the upper deck. Jase Graham had said they planned to sail once everyone was aboard and the party started. Judging by the laughter floating from above, the party seemed well underway. If Erin wasn’t aware they’d be leaving so soon, maybe there was hope.

So get off your lazy butts and weigh anchor!

Having a main-deck cabin was pretty cool at times, right in the middle of everything important happening on the ship. As she hurried from the door, Dayna had only to look fore and aft to see the crew—maybe not so lazy after all—working the rigging even while Cookie and his helpers were taking snacks up to the bar. She felt a moderate wind, probably fifteen or sixteen knots, and saw a few whitecaps rolling in, three to four feet high. Good sailing conditions, and they were anchored on the leeward side of the pier, so maneuvering out of the harbor wouldn’t take long. If she could distract her sister, keep her in the cabin long enough, maybe they’d be at sea before Erin realized she’d missed her chance to escape.

Nothing distracted Erin better than arguing. She could find six-trillion ways to hammer a point home. Doing a quick one-eighty, Dayna headed back to pick up where they’d leftoff, but hadn’t gone ten steps when Erin emerged from their room.

Dayna stopped just short of stamping her foot in defeat. Freackin hateration!

No suitcases in hand, though, so maybe Erin had changed her mind again. Or maybe she was looking for one of the crew to help her carry the bags. Dayna ran to head her off.

“Erin, did something happen when you went ashore? You didn’t say where you were going, and I was so busy escorting passengers here and there.”

Erin simply looked at her and started walking. Dayna followed.

“What did you do ashore? I heard there were some great shops.”

“I didn’t go ashore, Dayna.”

“Of course you did. Everybody went ashore, Captain’s orders. Unless… hey, did you and Captain Cord hook up after I saw you together at breakfast? No, that would mellow you out, wouldn’t it? What, then? Did you argue, is that why you’re so ticked-off? Or… uh-oh… did you see him with someone else? Every single woman on the ship melts when he aims those blue eyes. You can’t blame him for—”

“The captain and I didn’t argue, Dayna. There’s nothing between us, nothing to argue about.”

“Then what is it? This morning you were fine. Now you’re all squirmy to leave, never mind that we can sail the Sarah Jane all summer, if we want. What the heck else do you have to do all summer? Except sit nursing your wounded heart. Why would you want to go back home, where you might run into the jerk and his new girl on any corner in town? The sea, the clean fresh air, they’re great for healing mind and heart, Erin, and—where the frack are you going?”

Erin had started down the companionway to the crew deck.

“I want to look in on Ayanna before we leave. She wasn’t feeling well earlier.”

“Oh.” It hadn’t occurred to Dayna the first mate might really be sick. With a glance at the masts and what she could see of the sails, she anxiously willed them to unfurl as she followed Erin below.

Apparently, her sister had been to Ayanna’s cabin before. She seemed to know where to go. She stopped at a door and, after only a light knock, turned the knob and went in.

Dayna caught up and stepped in behind her before realizing the room was already crowded. The captain was there and two people she’d never seen before. “What’s going on?”

No one answered, but they parted slightly to let Erin nearer the bunk.

“Oh!” Erin gasped. “What happened? She was so much better.”

Dayna pushed through to see. “Jeez! Is that Ayanna? What’s wrong with her? What have y’all done?”

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Here Lies a Wicked Man – Snippet 29

CHAPTER 30

A CANOPY ERECTED OVER THE OPEN grave kept it from filling with water, but the soggy ground swallowed up Booker’s shoe soles and seeped inside to dampen his socks. Fewer than half the mourners from the church had ventured to the cemetery, the rain providing a handy excuse. Booker figured that if Melinda chose to attend, the whole mob would’ve tramped through a monsoon to see what new excitement might unfold.

He was glad now that he hadn’t offered to take photographs. Against the gray landscape, the transported flowers looked absurdly brilliant, and people wore impatient expressions under their umbrellas. He had, in fact, considered skipping the graveside service altogether and use the time for his indoor shots, since the rain looked like settling in awhile. But then Roxanna mentioned that her twelve-year-old Mustang stalled out in wet weather, and Booker had hustled her into his Tahoe. All things considered, the preacher would likely cut the service short.

The preacher hadn’t yet arrived, however, when Booker, Bradley, and Roxanna slogged across the soggy grass. Bradley veered away to find Jeremy, hoping to cheer him up. A brisk wind slanted the rain in hard, soaking their clothes and creating a clamor on the tent roof. As Booker and Roxanna approached the grave site, his mind wrestled with possible indoor scenes he could shoot. Roxanna’s dining room should be full tonight with townspeople gathering to gossip about the funeral.

“Booker Krane!” Emaline squeezed in beside them. “Ringhoffer wants to see you when this is over.”

That didn’t bode well. “What about?”

“Just said to hang around after the service. What was Melinda up to creating that scene at the church?”

How would he know? “Validation, maybe? She didn’t get the man, so she claimed the satisfaction of telling everyone how important she was in his life.”

“That woman sure enjoys being the center of attention.”

“You think anybody believes he was going to marry her?” Roxanna asked.

“Do you?” Booker wondered what was holding up the eulogy. Over the clatter of the wind and rain on the canopy, he couldn’t hear a thing up front.

“Chuck was ready to make a big change in his life.” Roxanna nodded vaguely. “Melinda was just about the opposite of what he already had.”

“For a man married thirty years,” Emaline said, “a bigger change would be staying single.”

Booker had to agree. He hadn’t been married nearly that long but could vouch for the need to be alone in his own universe for a while. After Lauren filed, he’d spent a crazy year hitting on every woman remotely interesting, but never had the urge to find the next Mrs. Krane.

“Divorce is a time to pull in your oars and coast,” he said.

Roxanna frowned. “You think he would’ve divorced Sarabelle and not marry Melinda?”

“Melinda was likely the only one talking about marriage,” Emaline said. “If Chuck turned her down, you can bet she’d be mad enough—”

“To reason with him,” Booker interjected hurriedly. At the sound of Melinda’s name shouted, people in the next row had cocked their heads around. Useless asking Emaline to lower her voice, so Booker drew her and Roxanna toward the rear of the tent.

He wished he could see what was going on up front. A speaker was mounted on one of the tent poles, but so far he’d heard no announcements over the drumming rain and flapping canopy.

“Melinda would never have let Chuck coast,” Roxanna commented.

No, she wouldn’t, Booker had to admit. “Let’s look at that. Say Chuck told Melinda he’d changed his mind about marrying. She knew he planned to practice in the woods that day, so she drives out to reason with him—”

“Reason? With a double Capricorn? Hah!”

“Chuck wasn’t a man who listened to reason,” Roxanna agreed.

“And once Melinda set her hooks,” Emaline added, “you can bet she wouldn’t let go of her big fish without a fight. I say the sheriff ought to investigate Melinda’s whereabouts when Chuck was murdered.”

“You mean, Chuck’s accident,” Booker insisted lamely. Emaline was only voicing what he, too, had come to believe.

“If Melinda killed him,” Roxanna whispered, “why would she stir up trouble at the funeral?”

A good question. Say she knew Fowler was practicing in the woods, went out to talk to him, and they argued. In a fit of rage, or maybe even self-defense, she grabs one of his arrows and stabs him with it. She should be glad the sheriff declared it an accident.

“I’m not sure Melinda thinks before she speaks or acts,” he said.

“On the other hand, what better way to avert suspicion from herself,” Emaline said, “than to stand in front of Chuck’s family and friends and declare vengeance on his killer?”

“Vengeance? Emaline, I didn’t hear—”

“Got to admire her guts, though, Booker. I’m surprised Sarabelle or the boys didn’t attack her right there in church.”

Feeling antsy in his soggy shoes, with rain peppering his backside, Booker peeked around a hefty woman in gray paisley to glimpse how the Fowler family was handling the delay. He could see Aaron silently staring down at the ground, but no one else. Then he noticed a familiar figure standing several paces outside the canopy, a small dark-haired man with weathered skin, baggy clothes, and a wooden expression. A steady barrage of gusty rain threatened to sweep him sideways across the lawn.

“Emaline, is that Luther Niles, your groundskeeper, over there?”

“Always said that boy didn’t have sense enough to come in out of the rain.”

That boy had to be close to forty, Booker figured. “Doesn’t he caddy for some of your golfers?”

“Until a couple of weeks ago, Chuck Fowler was Luther’s best customer, if that’s what you’re getting at. Chuck fired him.”

“Why?”

“Chuck was hard on anybody who worked for him,” Roxanna put in. “Just ask Gary Spiner.”

“He kept Luther hopping to chase balls, run after drinks, carry messages, especially when showing off for his golf buddies.” The overhead speaker squawked, and Emaline cocked an ear. When no message emerged, she continued. “Chuck treated Luther like dirt. Ask for a club, then ridicule the boy for picking the wrong one. Slice a ball, then rail at Luther for distracting him.”

“Why did Luther put up with it?” Booker wondered if he was mentally challenged.

“Said Chuck paid too well to take offense. And when Chuck was really showing off, he’d toss Luther a fat tip.” She shook her head. “One day, in a particularly foul mood, Chuck accused him of kicking his ball deeper into the rough. Fired him on the spot.”

“You think Luther did kick the ball?” Booker had known secretaries who spit in their boss’s coffee and clerks who hooked their boss’s paper clips together.

“Probably.” Emaline craned to see over the crowd. “I think the service is over.”

“Over?” Booker glared at the silent speaker. “We missed it?”

As congregants started walking to their cars, Roxanna moved toward the grave. “I’ll just be a minute.”

Booker followed, Emaline’s umbrella bumping his as they slogged along. He was glad the minister kept the service blessedly short, even though they hadn’t heard it. His pants were no less tight than they’d been earlier.

Roxanna glanced at the casket, ready to be lowered, then looked down into the empty grave. She opened her purse, removed a plastic bag filled with leaves, and sprinkled the contents to the dirt below.

“What’s that?” Booker said.

“Herbs. To ease his travel.” She paused. “Whichever way he goes.”

“Hah!” Emaline hooted. “We should toss his checkbook in, too. Chuck said he’d never seen a hole it couldn’t get him out of.”

Booker smiled at Emaline’s coarse humor, but his mind was still wrapped around Roxanna’s words. Why would she want to “ease” Fowler’s passage, unless they were better friends than she let on? Or fiercer enemies.

“Mr. Krane?”

Hearing the sheriff’s soft voice, Booker turned, glad for the distraction. “Afternoon, Sheriff. Mrs. Ringhoffer.”

Cora Lee dimpled at Booker and waggled her fingers in greeting.

“Lucky I caught you,” Ringhoffer said. “Coroner Birdwell has decided to hold an inquest first thing tomorrow. Seems some folks are not convinced Charles Fowler’s death was accidental. Stories are spreading faster than crab grass. The coroner wants to review the evidence and put the subject to rest once and for all, so we’ll need those photographs you took for us.”

That would mean spending the whole evening sorting and printing. Booker felt relief, actually, that someone besides himself and Emaline questioned the circumstances of Fowler’s death. On the other hand, he could scratch shooting the dining room scene tonight.

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Paradise Cursed – Snippet 25 – and a Free Book

CHAPTER 22

As the last passenger stepped from the motor-launch to the gangway, Dayna followed behind lugging the woman’s packages. The ship felt good beneath her feet. She was grateful to leave Grand Cayman behind, but even better would be to dump all the passengers on the island and sail away without them.

You’re thinking mean thoughts, Dayna, mean, mean, mean—but she couldn’t help wondering if the captain ever sailed the Sarah Jane without passengers. Just the crew, sea and wind—Dayna knew she’d be one cloud away from heaven.

Party music drifted from the upper deck, not a live band but still the island sound of steel drums. With her smile pasted firmly in place, she handed the woman her packages.

“Don’t forget to join everyone on the party deck for Five o’clock Swizzelers!” She’d never known smiling could be so painful.

Free at last, she hurried to the cabin hoping Erin wasn’t in the head. It’d been hours since she’d had a chance to pee. Keying the lock and shoving the door all in one motion, she found the room empty. Erin’s suitcase was open on the lower bunk—hadn’t she unpacked their first night aboard?

By the time she washed her hands and came out of the head, Erin was taking clothes from their shared chest of drawers. She turned and placed them in the suitcase.

“What are you doing?” Dayna asked.

“Did you have fun going ashore today?”

“Not particularly. I’d rather have been running the launch than directing passengers to tourist traps. Where were you all day?”

“Helping the captain with… a problem.”

“Didn’t I say he had his eye on you?” Surprised to see her sister actually blush, Dayna watched her refold a pair of shorts to fit the suitcase. “Erin, what are you doing?”

“We’re leaving the ship and taking the next flight home.”

“Why? Jase Graham said something about repairs being done while we were gone. What did they find? Isn’t she seaworthy?”

“The ship is fine, but we’re not staying.”

Now she got it. Once again, Erin was bailing out of their summer vacation. The flame of heat that rose up the back of Dayna’s neck threatened to rush out her mouth in a roar of fury. She clamped her lips tight, took a breath, and mentally counted to seven before she couldn’t hold back any longer.

“Okay. You can go, but I’m staying.”

Erin looked up from her packing. “Dayna, we’re leaving. I don’t want to argue about it. Please don’t make a fuss.”

“A fuss? Don’t worry, sis, no fuss. I won’t say another word, but I’m not leaving the ship.”

She shoved past her sister and yanked open the door.

Erin’s frustrated command, “Dayna! Don’t walk—” came just before the door closed.

*

I stepped aside so Demarae could shine a penlight on Ayanna’s neck. The number seventeen impressed on her rough skin was small, perhaps three-quarters of an inch, but quite clearly intentional.

“Captain, did she have such a mark before her skin turned?” he asked. “A faded tattoo, possibly?”

“None that I saw.” The dress she’d worn that first day, when she came to apply for a job, had shown a great deal of neck and shoulders. I’d have noticed a tattoo marring the beauty of her burnished black-gold skin, no matter how faint or small.

“What does it mean?” Marisha asked.

“Fate.” Demarae spoke the word in a hushed tone, his face drawn into troubled lines as he gently turned Ayanna’s head to study the other side of her neck and her shoulders. “In its more fortunate significance, seventeen indicates strength, compassion and self-discipline.”

The shaman’s words painted an optimistic picture, I noted, while his voice held a solemn note of defeat. I commended him for holding on to that optimism. Having come upon this number before, however, I knew its darker meaning.

“Another interpretation is immortality,” he said. “If Ayanna had placed this mark upon her own body, we could assume it holds significance in her life, perhaps as a birth or name number. Or it might have appeared to her repeatedly in small ways until she claimed it for the significance of spiritual consciousness, the ability to see beyond to hidden truth.”

“Shaman!” My tone was harsher than I intended, but this was not a time for false optimism. “Since Ayanna did not lay claim to this number herself, we know it’s the Bokor’s work.”

Marisha placed her hand protectively on Demarae’s pale arm, the first overt sign I’d noticed that their relationship was more than professional. He acknowledged the gesture by patting her hand before gently removing it.

“The dark arts gain their power,” he said, “from the most combustible of human emotions. Anger, hatred, greed, lust—we like to believe love conquers all, but in truth these darker feelings might create more brute energy than an entire ship of angels could neutralize.”

“But this is only a number,” Marisha insisted. “A number cannot produce emotion. What difference can it make?”

As Demarae nodded thoughtfully, I noticed his hand now seeking hers, clasping it. “You are right, my dear. Yet do we not use numbers in our prayers? Do we not place three cowries’ shells in an oricha’s offering because that number compels the saints to manifest and draws upon their qualities of kindness and compassion? Numbers are not only great significators but are also potent in their own right.”

“Which takes us right back to what Marisha asked you.” Again, my alarm hardened my voice. “What does it mean?”

With Marisha’s hand in his and his gaze locked on Ayanna’s grotesquely altered appearance, Demarae drew a breath so deep it seemed to come from the soles of his feet. He held it until my own lungs ached then blew the air out slowly through pursed lips.

“The Bokor’s use of the number seventeen suggests he seeks everlasting life and god-like power. To that end, he will absorb Ayanna’s life force into his own.”

“And where does that leave her?” I whispered, wondering suddenly how much she could hear and understand. “Alive? Dead? Deranged?”

Without speaking, Demarae turned those solemn brown eyes on me for a long frustrating moment. Then slowly he nodded just once.

*

Why wasn’t Captain Cord ordering the crew to make ready for castoff? Dayna glanced toward the upper deck. Jase Graham had said they planned to sail once everyone was aboard and the party started. Judging by the laughter floating from above, the party seemed well underway. If Erin wasn’t aware they’d be leaving so soon, maybe there was hope.

So get off your lazy butts and weigh anchor!

Having a main-deck cabin was pretty cool at times, right in the middle of everything important happening on the ship. As she hurried from the door, Dayna had only to look fore and aft to see the crew—maybe not so lazy after all—working the rigging even while Cookie and his helpers were taking snacks up to the bar. She felt a moderate wind, probably fifteen or sixteen knots, and saw a few whitecaps rolling in, three to four feet high. Good sailing conditions, and they were anchored on the leeward side of the pier, so maneuvering out of the harbor wouldn’t take long. If she could distract her sister, keep her in the cabin long enough, maybe they’d be at sea before Erin realized she’d missed her chance to escape.

Nothing distracted Erin better than arguing. She could find six-trillion ways to hammer a point home. Doing a quick one-eighty, Dayna headed back to pick up where they’d left off, but hadn’t gone ten steps when Erin emerged from their room.

Dayna stopped just short of stamping her foot in defeat. Freackin hateration!

No suitcases in hand, though, so maybe Erin had changed her mind again. Or maybe she was looking for one of the crew to help her carry the bags. Dayna ran to head her off.

“Erin, did something happen when you went ashore? You didn’t say where you were going, and I was so busy escorting passengers here and there.”

Erin simply looked at her and started walking. Dayna followed.

“What did you do ashore? I heard there were some great shops.”

“I didn’t go ashore, Dayna.”

“Of course you did. Everybody went ashore, Captain’s orders. Unless… hey, did you and Captain Cord hook up after I saw you together at breakfast? No, that would mellow you out, wouldn’t it? What, then? Did you argue, is that why you’re so ticked-off? Or… uh-oh… did you see him with someone else? Every single woman on the ship melts when he aims those blue eyes. You can’t blame him for—”

“The captain and I didn’t argue, Dayna. There’s nothing between us, nothing to argue about.”

“Then what is it? This morning you were fine. Now you’re all squirmy to leave, never mind that we can sail the Sarah Jane all summer, if we want. What the heck else do you have to do all summer? Except sit nursing your wounded heart. Why would you want to go back home, where you might run into the jerk and his new girl on any corner in town? The sea, the clean fresh air, they’re great for healing mind and heart, Erin, and—where the frack are you going?”

Erin had started down the companionway to the crew deck.

“I want to look in on Ayanna before we leave. She wasn’t feeling well earlier.”

“Oh.” It hadn’t occurred to Dayna the first mate might really be sick. With a glance at the masts and what she could see of the sails, she anxiously willed them to unfurl as she followed Erin below.

Apparently, her sister had been to Ayanna’s cabin before. She seemed to know where to go. She stopped at a door and, after only a light knock, turned the knob and went in.

Dayna caught up and stepped in behind her before realizing the room was already crowded. The captain was there and two people she’d never seen before. “What’s going on?”

No one answered, but they parted slightly to let Erin nearer the bunk.

“Oh!” Erin gasped. “What happened? She was so much better.”

Dayna pushed through to see. “Jeez! Is that Ayanna? What’s wrong with her? What have y’all done?”

Join me next week, same time, same place, for the next Paradise Cursed chapter.

Meanwhile, grab your Free Copy of Here Lies a Wicked Man, a traditional mystery, featuring Booker Krane. You can get a quick, fun preview from the video below:

 

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