Nineteen
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
—Hamlet, Shakespeare
Bree punched the “parking” button on the panel in the elevator. She’d avoid the obnoxiously hearty Calvin by sneaking out that way. She’d go into the Angelus office, track down Hunter, and feel him out about protecting Chastity before she dropped her bomb. And Liz Overshaw! There was another phone call she couldn’t wait to make.
The car clattered down and bumped to a stop.
She stepped out into the garage. The breeze was gusting stronger now. The rain was back. The parking area was below grade, and ribbons of rainwater ran onto the asphalt and curled into puddles where the surface wasn’t completely even. She hugged herself and shivered; it was getting cooler. Her raincoat didn’t give her a lot of protection against the cold.
A curbed lane led from the elevator to the ramp that led outside, and she picked her way along it past a large pile of construction debris. The choice parking spots were located here. The spaces nearest the elevator bore “reserved for” signs. There was one for D. Fairchild, one for E. C. Tiptree—and what kind of first name did Calvin have that he preferred Calvin?—and one for B. Skinner. As she walked past, she reached out and traced his name with her forefinger.
Something bit her upper arm. Puzzled, she ran her hand over her sleeve—
And the pain was like a booted foot in her chest. She staggered, gasping for breath. Her throat squeezed shut. She fell and shouted for help. Her/his voice was a hoarse and raspy whisper.
Footsteps. Then two hands on her/his shoulders. Bree lost herself in the Other’s body. A voice in his ear. He sagged back into somebody’s arms. A sharp, tearing pain in his throat, a bitter taste, and a terrible, squeezing pain in his chest.
He was drowning. The seawater flooded his mouth, his eyes, his lungs. He fought his way upward out of the dark, choking, gasping for air. Then the light whirled toward him, white light, bright light...
Bree staggered up the ramp out into the open air, fighting to stay on her feet. The possession left her as suddenly as it had come. She turned, shakily, and looked down the ramp to the shadows below.
Go back to the place where he died, they’d said.
And she had.
Bree ran up the ramp and stood in the lee of the parking garage at Island Dream with the rain dripping from her nose and her back to the parking space with Benjamin Skinner’s name on it. He’d been murdered in there. She was sure of it, although the how and the why remained a mystery. She took a deep breath, turned around, and went back into the shadowy garage.
The sign didn’t look any different from the others. It was about twenty-four inches square, of white PVC plastic, with letters etched in dark green. It was attached to the concrete block wall with Phillips head screws.
She walked up and down the sidewalk between the asphalt and the wall, turning over the piles of Sheetrock, discarded insulation, metal boxes, and wastepaper with her toe. She peered intently at the concrete walkway, and then walked carefully around the parking spot itself. She wasn’t sure what she was looking for, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
She stopped in front of the sign and hesitated. Then with a mental “what the hell,” she lightly tapped Skinner’s name.
She wasn’t sure what to expect; moans, a pale and ghostly apparition, a sudden wave of cold, or eerie lights. What did happen was weird enough. A few minutes passed and then a barely recognizable Benjamin Skinner took shape in front of her. His shade was exactly that: shades of transparent gray and white. The image rippled and fragmented.
Except for the eyes. The eyes were ice blue, piercing, and horribly human.
It was as if she saw him on an ancient piece of movie film. His voice came through a strange-echoed static, in fits and starts so that she only caught a repeated phrase or two.
Drowned ... drowned ... drowned ... murdered me ... murdered me.
Bree took a moment to catch her breath. She was afraid to blink, afraid to move, in case the fragile image shattered and disappeared. “Do you know ...” she began in a croaky whisper. She cleared her throat several times, and said in a dismayingly small voice, “Do you know who killed you, Mr. Skinner?”
A hideous shriek echoed around the parking garage. Bree clapped her hands to her ears, and stepped back into the heap of construction debris piled next to the elevator. A short piece of white plastic pipe rolled free and came to rest on her shoe.
Save her ... save her ... save me ... please ... save ...
The image winked out, as if a door had slammed shut.
Bree stared as hard as she could at the spot on the wall where Skinner had begged her to save him, but the image didn’t return. She shoved aside the piece of pipe, tapped the sign, and then placed the flat of her hand against it.
Nothing.
Did she only get one interview with her client? And why hadn’t he saved her a pile of time and trouble and told her who the murderer was? How could he drown when the ocean was almost a half a mile away? How come the finger-tapping trick didn’t work anymore? This business of communicating with ghosts was quite frustrating.
The pipe rolled against her shoe again as if someone had kicked it. It was about an inch wide and perhaps two feet long. It was scrap, probably from a plumbing installation. Bree picked it up. That bright white light flashed through her like a sudden yell. She shuddered. Someone had used this on Benjamin Skinner.
Trembling a little, she put it into the pocket of her raincoat, and knelt by the pile of trash: bits and pieces of Sheetrock, insulation, more pieces of pipe. Gently, she moved the stuff aside.
She uncovered an air compressor.
Bree sat back on her heels, her mind racing. It looked undamaged, and perfectly operable. The flexible rubber hose that shot air into whatever air needed shooting into was neatly coiled and looped over the top.
With a sense of dread, she reached out and touched the hose.
NO!
A bitter taste flooded her mouth. Her heart beat frantically, as if a bird were trapped in her chest.
She jerked back, as if stung.
Seawater? Had the killer forced seawater down Skinner’s throat?
She had a small tool kit in her car with a Phillips head screwdriver. Maybe she should remove the sign, pack up the coiled hose and the half-inch pipe, and take it all home with her. On the other hand, maybe she shouldn’t touch any of it. An unbroken chain of evidence was vitally important in any criminal case; she knew that as well she knew her own name. But she didn’t have to guess what Hunter’s reaction would be if she told him why she wanted the sign and the pipe and the rubber hose tested for fingerprints and maybe even blood. And how definitive would the evidence be, anyway?
It took her only a few moments to run to the car and come back with the tool kit. She started with the sign. She knelt down to get a better angle on the bottom screws.
Then everything went black.
“How many fingers do you see?”
Calvin Tiptree’s voice was naturally high-pitched; anxiety raised it to a squeak. Bree blinked at him. She sat in a comfortable armchair in an unfamiliar office. Sasha whined at her feet. Calvin hovered on the outer range of her vision. He clutched a damp towel in his left hand. He held his right up in the air and wiggled two fingers.
Bree put her hand to the back of her head and winced. “Ouch.”
“I told Mr. Fairchild that we needed gutters on the outside of that parking garage,” Calvin fussed. “Now look what’s happened. You slipped in all that water and banged yourself on the noggin.” He bent closer and peered into her eyes. “It’s one heck of a lump. Do you I think I should call the EMTs?”
Bree looked down at her knees. Her jeans were dry. Her feet were dry, too. A dusting of concrete covered both knees. “The sign?” she said.
“What sign?”
“Mr. Skinner’s parking sign. Is it still on the wall?”
Calvin threw his hands in the air. “For heaven’s sake. I have no idea.”
“My raincoat?”
“You’re wearing it,” Calvin said worriedly. “Can’t you tell?”
She patted her pockets. The pipe was still there. She took a long breath. Then she eased herself to her feet. Her head hurt like billy-be-damned. But the rest of her seemed to be in working order. “I don’t need an ambulance. But I do want the police.”
“The police!” Calvin turned pale. “Oh, my God. You’re a lawyer, aren’t you? We’re going to be sued. Oh, my God. Look, forget what I said about the gutters, will you?”
“I didn’t fall down,” Bree said patiently, “and I’m not a litigious person, Calvin. Somebody hit me over the head.”
“Nonsense,” Calvin said briskly.
Sasha pawed gently at her knee.
She patted him. “I’m just fine, boy. But I’d sure like to know what happened to me.”
“Well, it was your dog that raised the alarm.” Calvin folded the towel and draped it over the back of his desk chair. “I was waiting in the foyer to see if any buyers might be showing up and he started to howl. And I mean howl. I ran out to your car and he was pawing at the window so I opened the door and let him out. I thought maybe he had to wee, you know? I have two dogs of my own, and they’d rather die than mess where they aren’t supposed to. As soon as I let him out, he took off across the parking lot like a banshee was after him, broken leg and all.”
Bree took Sasha’s head in her hands and looked deep into his golden eyes. “Did you see who hit me, Sash?”
Men. There were two men.
“Two men,” she said aloud.
“I just don’t believe it,” Calvin said. “Oh! Of course, I believe you. I mean I just don’t believe it could happen here! I mean, this is an island, for goodness sake. Where would they go? Did you actually see them? Do you think you can identify them?”
“No,” Bree said. “I haven’t a clue about what they look like.” She remembered the Montifiore Construction vans in the back of the building. “You had workmen here today?”
“Yes, we did. Do you think that they . . . ? No. I can’t believe it. They were here to redo some of the Sheetrock in the condos just under the penthouse. A bit of a leak. Nothing serious. They skedaddled out of here way before I heard the elevator come down from the penthouse.”
“Are you sure?”
“Very sure,” Calvin nodded. He tugged nervously at his earlobe. “So do you want me to call the Tybee sheriff’s office? The state troopers?”
Bree thought a minute, then went through her purse. Everything seemed to be there.
“Has anything been taken?” Calvin asked. “This is just terrible. An assault and robbery right in our parking garage. If word of this gets out, it’s not going to be good for business.” He groped for his cell phone. “Do you think I should give Mr. Fairchild a call? I’m sure we can handle this without calling the police.”
“I’d like to speak to Mr. Fairchild, yes.” She’d tucked Hunter’s card behind her Neiman-Marcus charge card. “And I’ll call the police.” She squinted at the number—her vision was a bit blurry—and tapped it into her cell phone. He picked up on the third ring. It didn’t take long to bring Sam into the picture. He suggested an ambulance; she turned it down in no uncertain terms.
“You’re sure?” The concern in his voice warmed her. “Concussion can be tricky.”
“Positive.” She blinked the room into focus. The walls and the hunter green carpeting were a little blurry around the edges, but the ache in her head ebbed a bit and she felt more clearheaded by the minute. “It’s just a bump. But whoever hit me on the head was after something specific. I want to show you where it was.”
“Where it was, and not what it was?”
“It was the place Benjamin Skinner died.”
There was a long pause. Then he said, “Give me twenty minutes.”
Bree clicked off and put her cell phone back into her purse.
“Mr. Fairchild’s on his way. He won’t be more than a few minutes. I caught him at the clubhouse marina.” Calvin walked up and down the carpeting, wringing his hands. “He has Sunday brunch there, most weekends, when he’s not out of town on business.”
Fairchild. She had more than a few questions for the man. “Good,” Bree said grimly. Calvin made a small whimpering sound. The last thing she needed right now was a hysterical male. She interrupted him briskly. “Could we have some coffee, do you think?”
Calvin looked around the office in a bewildered way. Bree pointed at the Mr. Coffee sitting on the credenza behind the desk. “Right,” Calvin said. “Right.”
“I’m sure Doug Fairchild would like a cup,” she added for encouragement.
“Water,” Calvin said. “I’ll just pop into the bathroom for it, shall I?” He picked up the carafe and wandered out the door. As soon as he disappeared into the lobby, Bree got up, went to the desk, and opened the drawers one by one. The upper drawer contained a lot of glossy brochures, a thick stack of sales contracts, and some bills from a waste management company for Dumpster rentals. The bills were marked “Past Due.” Bree noted the initial invoice date was almost eight months ago. Quite a long time to let a relatively small amount remain unpaid. She made a mental note to have either Ron or Petru check out the company’s credit-worthiness. She leafed through the brochures, and paused at the description of the swimming pool. “Completely free of chlorine and other chemicals, the lodge’s Olympic-size saltwater swimming pool demonstrates our commitment to an eco-friendly environment.”
“Well, well,” she said. “The picture’s becoming a little clearer, Sash.”
Sasha lifted his head, stared at the office door, and growled a warning at the sound of voices in the hall. Bree slipped back into her chair and folded her hands in her lap.
“You let her call the cops?” somebody snapped. “You goddamn fool.”
Her parents knew the Fairchilds, but Bree herself had never met Douglas. He walked into the office with his hand held out in welcome, and a big smile on his face. Sasha got up, sniffed the cuffs of his trousers without interest, and lay down at Bree’s feet again. Bree frowned at the dog. She had a half-formed theory of the crime in her head, and Douglas Fairchild featured prominently in it. “Well, here’s the little lady,” he said heartily. “I hear you had a small accident in my parking garage.”
“Somebody hit me over the head,” Bree said bluntly. “It wasn’t an accident. It was an attack.”
He clasped her two hands between his own. He was a large man with scant brown hair and a soft, round belly that strained the cloth of his short-sleeved Izod shirt. He smelled like gin. “I’m truly sorry to hear that, Bree.” His smile widened. “You don’t mind if I presume on an old family acquaintance and call you Bree? Your daddy and I go way back. As a matter of fact, I’m looking forward to seeing him and your lovely mother at your open house tomorrow night. They were kind enough to send me an invitation. Now, little lady.” He released her hands, pulled a chair away from the wall, and sat down next to her. “Tell me what happened.”
Bree looked at her watch. Sam would be here in less than five minutes, if he was as good as his word. She didn’t trust Fairchild as far as she could throw him. “I’d like to show you where it happened, if I may. I think I may have discovered something relevant to Benjamin Skinner’s death.”
Doug Fairchild’s smile stiffened. “Okey-dokey. Anything for an old family friend.” Keeping his eyes locked on hers, he barked at Calvin, “Get hold of John Stubblefield, Tiptree.” He patted Bree’s knee a little too hard. “If she’s half the lawyer her daddy is, I might just need a little legal advice myself.”
“Gotcha, Mr. Fairchild.” Calvin began a flurried search of the credenza.
“What the hell are you doing, Tiptree? If there’s no goddamn phone book call the goddamn operator.” He turned his attention to Bree and switched his smile back on. “We’ll take the elevator. You look a bit woozy.” He put his hand under her elbow. Short of kicking him loose, Bree couldn’t see a way to disengage, so she allowed herself to be directed. Sasha followed them with the same unconcern he’d shown before.
The elevator bumped to a halt at the parking level. Bree flinched from the sudden stabbing pain in her head.
“You might think about having that bump checked out, Bree. You’re looking a bit pasty, if you don’t mind my saying so.”
Bree took a long step out of the elevator and Fairchild finally freed her arm. “What were you poking around here for, anyway?” he asked genially. “You thinking maybe of buying one of the units? We could probably come up with a pretty fair price, seeing as how you’re an old ...”
“I‘m sure neither one of us would want to presume on friendship,” Bree said tartly, “as real or imagined as it might be. I was taking a look at the wall here, when somebody—actually I believe there was more than one—came up from behind and slammed me over the head.” Bree walked over to Skinner’s parking space and stopped short. The sign was still there. So was the air compressor. So whoever had hit her hadn’t been after the evidence. She closed her eyes against another attack of dizziness.
She could be absolutely wrong.
“Did you actually see these guys?” Fairchild stood well away from her and from the spot where Skinner’s ghost still lurked, for all that Bree knew. “Did they snatch your purse? Go through your wallet? Take your credit cards and such?” He ran his eyes over her raincoat, T-shirt, and jeans, and asked doubtfully, “Did they take any jewelry?”
“It wasn’t a robbery.” Bree frowned at the sign. Somebody—she suspected Fairchild himself, who had only been five minutes away at the marina—had hit her over the head to keep her from collecting the evidence. And yet here it all was.
“You’re looking a bit peaked, Bree.” Sam Hunter strolled down the ramp. Rain glistened in his hair. He walked with the easy confidence of a man who knew where he was going and where he had been. He smiled at her. Bree’s world tilted a little, and she swayed on her feet. He caught her arm, and in direct contrast to Fairchild’s clammy grasp, his hand was warm and strong. He touched her head lightly. “That looks pretty nasty.”
“I am absolutely fine.” She jerked her arm free of his grasp and stood upright.
“Is that a fact. But as soon as we’re through here, I’m taking you in to get checked out. Now. What happened?”
Bree walked to the parking space, then turned and faced them both. “I’m convinced that Benjamin Skinner was killed right here.”
“That’s insane,” Fairchild said. “You’re out of your cotton-pickin’ mind. I saw Bennie Skinner die.” He jerked his chin in Sam’s direction. “He’ll tell you. I spent this morning giving an eyewitness account to the police. I was out in my boat, not six hundred yards from the Sea Mew, and I saw Bennie jerk back and go over the side as clear as daylight.”
“You saw Bennie Skinner’s corpse fall over the side, if you actually saw anything at all,” Bree said stubbornly. “I think he was killed here, and his lungs filled with seawater from your saltwater swimming pool.”
“You think somebody drowned him in my swimming pool?” He hawked and spat on the sidewalk. “I’ve never heard such bull crap in my life.”
Bree shook her head. “He had a heart attack. I’m pretty sure it was induced. He fell here”—she stood on the spot where Skinner’s ghost had called to her—“and when he was dead, the killer brought a gallon of seawater from the pool, stuck this piece of PVC pipe down his throat, and forced the water into his lungs with that.” She pointed to the air compressor. She looked at Sam. “I’ve got fifty bucks that you find Benjamin Skinner’s blood and lung tissue on this pipe, and another fifty that says you find seawater in the compressor hose.”
The sharp, searing pain in his throat.
The rhythmic rush of water into his lungs.
Skinner didn’t die in the sea.
Hunter’s expression was a study. Skepticism, irritation, and a faint, very faint interest warred with each other. The interest won. “That’s quite a story.”
“I know.” She smiled at him. “I wouldn’t believe a word I said, if I were you.”
He didn’t smile back. “You have an eyewitness you aren’t telling me about?”
“No, sir.”
“Did you kill Skinner?” His tone was urgent, commanding, and angry.
“I did not. I’ve never met the man. At the time he was killed, I had an appointment with my landlady to rent my current office space. I wasn’t anywhere near Island Dream.”
Although, if what she was beginning to suspect was true, he wouldn’t be able to find her office space, much less interview Lavinia Mather. A stab of irrational fear hit her. She had a brief, horrible vision of herself in hand-cuffs. “After I saw my landlady, I took my dog Sasha to the vet.” She shut up, aware that she was babbling.
Hunter walked carefully around the humped debris that covered the air compressor. Then, to Bree’s infinite relief, he took out his cell phone and called for a crime team. He flipped the cell phone shut and shoved it into the pocket of his anorak. “Where did you find the pipe?”
“I came by this way to get to my car. I was in a bit of a hurry, because of the rain, and I sideswiped the pile of junk. That dislodged the pipe. It rolled onto the sidewalk and I picked it up ...” She paused, knowing that she had to leave out her encounter with Skinner’s ghost. She cleared her throat. “And I picked it up so somebody else wouldn’t trip over it. Then, it just sort of hit me. Chastity said Skinner left her around ten thirty. He parked right here, as he always did, so he must have come down here to his car. I don’t think Chastity’s lying.” Her gaze swept over Fairchild, who was grimly silent. “I know you are, Mr. Fairchild, and I’m pretty sure Jennifer Skinner is, too.”
Fairchild opened his mouth to speak. Hunter held his hand up, forestalling him. “You think Mr. Fairchild here killed him?” Hunter asked.
Bree shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“What you don’t know, young lady, is what your future’s going to be like here in Savannah.” Fairchild was so angry that he only managed a whisper. “We’ll run you right back to North Carolina.”
“Take it easy, Mr. Fairchild.” Hunter’s voice was a whiplash. “Miss McFarland’s statement directly contradicts yours about Skinner’s whereabouts.”
“Chastity’s a lying little whore,” Fairchild said contemptuously.
“She also has independent verification of her story,” Bree said mildly.
Fairchild backed up until he hit the garage wall. “That’s a lie, too.”
Bree shook her head. “’Fraid not. They were both on the phone with her mother in Arkansas. Making plans for their wedding, as a matter of fact. The phone company records will bear out the phone call. And there were two people in on the conversation from the Arkansas end.”
“I want a lawyer,” Fairchild said. “This is a load of crap.”
“Your need for a lawyer depends on what you were doing that morning,” Hunter said. He gave Fairchild a reassuring smile. To Bree, who was beginning to know Hunter pretty well, the smile was as reassuring as the grin of a shark in shallow water. “Were you down here in the parking garage the morning of Mr. Skinner’s death?”
Fairchild swallowed, and then muttered, “I was in Savannah. In a meeting with two bankers and a goddamn lawyer. I left the meeting about eleven, and came down to the marina to take my boat out. I was never near this place that day.”
Hunter looked at him, his gaze steady and unrelenting. “Did you see Skinner at all that morning?”
“No.”
“And the phone call to Grainger Skinner? Was that a lie, too?”
Fairchild tightened his lips. Hunter kept it up, his questions a barrage. “The eyewitness account you gave the police—that you saw Skinner alive in the Sea Mew at noon—was that a lie?”
Fairchild took out his handkerchief and patted the sweat from his forehead. “I’m done here, Hunter. You want to talk to me, you talk to John Stubblefield first.” He ran his hand nervously over his tie. “You putting me under arrest?”
A clatter of sound outside the parking garage heralded the arrival of the forensics team. Hunter turned to meet them and said over his shoulder. “Not yet, Mr. Fairchild. But you’ll make yourself available.”
With a final glare in Bree’s direction, Fairchild scurried up the ramp. In a few moments, she heard the roar of his Mercedes.
She patted her pocket to make sure the pipe was still there, then leaned against the wall and waited for Hunter to come back to her.