Murder Comes Ashore Page 2

  Decision made. “I’d love to talk to Ander’s class.” I shook Cheerios off the corner of the flyer and folded it up to pocket size.

  “Thank you.” Melinda tugged Gigi away from the water again and spread a Tinker Bell towel out beside me. “Snack time.” She plopped Gigi on the cartoon fairy’s face and sighed. Gigi clapped and cooed in anticipation. Melinda produced a juice box from her bag, unwrapped a bendy straw and presented the drink to Gigi, who bounced beside me with outstretched arms.

  “You want one?” Melinda held a little pink box in my direction. “It’s organic.”

  “Sure.” She handed one juice box each to Gigi and me. What else did she have inside her magic mommy bag? I leaned over for a nosy peek. Toys. A paperback. Clothes. I craned my neck to read the piece on top. A red shirt with bold white letters protected snacks from flying sand. “Team Adrian.”

  Huh. The only Adrian I knew was Adrian Davis. Adrian was my high school sweetheart but we’d been on the outs for a decade, until I saved him from a murder charge this summer. Now, we were...figuring things out. He was ready to jump back into a friendship we’d started in pre-school. I was deciding how friendly friends had to be.

  She snapped the bag shut in a hurry and rubbed Gigi’s bright white arms with sunscreen. “Here, pumpkin.” She dumped rocks and shells from the pail between Gigi’s feet in the sand and sat beside her. “You play with your treasures and Mommy and Miss Patience will enjoy the view.” I followed Melinda’s gaze out to sea where a well-sculpted back pulled up on the nearest buoy.

  My swim partner, Special Agent Sebastian Clark, turned toward shore and swung an arm overhead. One thing more jaw dropping than his back? His chest.

  Melinda sucked the air out of her juice box. I agreed with the sentiment.

  “Bee-no-me-no-bah-shoo-eee.” Gigi stacked her shells in the sand while she sang. “Ee-aw. Ee-aw. Ee-aw.”

  “Sounds like she’s saying ear or impersonating a British police car.” I took another swig on the little straw and the box collapsed from the pressure. Sebastian planted his feet and stood as he neared the shore. Sunlight danced off the planes of his honey brown chest. Since moving to the island, he’d taken full advantage of the national seashore, swimming miles every morning before commuting to work at the FBI office in Norfolk. My mind glazed over when the water level dropped to his knees.

  “Patience.” Melinda stood, pulling Gigi onto one hip. I made note in my periphery but couldn’t look away from the Adonis headed my way.

  Sebastian stretched his arms across his chest and dipped to retrieve a towel and glasses from the sand nearby. He nodded and kept moving. My heart might have jumped when I saw his silver Range Rover in the lot behind my Prius, but the extra swipe of lip gloss in my rearview had been strictly for sun protection.

  My phone buzzed, breaking my concentration. I rocked on the sand to liberate the cell phone from a pocket in my cutoff shorts. Adrian Davis. I rolled my eyes.

  “Patience?” Melinda’s voice sounded farther away than before.

  I stood and dusted my palms against my backside. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have looked at my phone. Bad habit.” Boy, did that tell more than one story. “I think you should research the catering business. We have more events on this island than the entire eastern seaboard. Catering could be a perfect option.”

  My eyes jumped to Sebastian for one last ogle.

  “Ee-aw! Ee-aw! Ee-aw!” Gigi sang.

  I mentally checked back in and the horror-stricken expression on Melinda’s face confused me. I looked at the water, expecting a shark. Gigi bounced on Melinda’s hip, pointing and babbling. I followed her chubby little finger to a stack of shells and what looked like a human ear lying in the sand. My knees bent. My nose dove in for a closer look without thought to the possibility... Fascinating. It looked exactly like...I touched my ear.

  “Are they...do you...” Melinda’s words caught in her throat.

  I blinked. Pulling my cell phone out once more, I dialed Sebastian. The stringy white orb looked more like a thin sliced potato carved to resemble an ear at Halloween than an actual ear. The lobe was missing. The ghastly little piece of cartilage wore a scrap of ghostly white skin. Yep. An ear. I poked it with a chunk of driftwood and looked out into the water. What else was out there?

  “Clark.” Sebastian’s low voice barked into the phone. The roar of his engine told me he was no longer in the parking lot.

  “Um. There’s an ear here.”

  Pause.

  A chorus of laughter in the distance drew my attention. I jumped to my feet and positioned myself between our incoming guests and the ear. A group of people with binoculars around their necks and matching orange T-shirts lumbered up the beach in our direction. Birders.

  “Excuse me?” Sebastian sounded confused. His engine quieted in the background.

  “Gigi found something on the beach that bears a striking resemblance to a human ear. I might be wrong. I’m not, but I could be.” I looked at the sand-dusted specimen. “She collected a bunch of shells, rocks and apparently one ear.”

  “Did you say an ear?”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “Give me five.” Sebastian disconnected. I stuffed the phone in my pocket.

  The birders reached a bloodless version of Melinda and stopped to chat. Her grip on Gigi looked uncomfortable for both of them. She hadn’t blinked or spoken coherently in several minutes.

  “Look at this little princess!” Helena Flick took Gigi’s tiny hand and swung it between them. “May I hold her?”

  Melinda nodded and I stepped up to steady her. Seeing the little girl cling to Helena creeped me out. Mrs. Flick and her late husband ran the local funeral home. They weren’t social people and the nature of their business kept them stone-faced and a little too Munsters for my liking. Who chose that as their life’s work? What motivation on earth made a sane, happy person choose to surround themselves with grief and death? Maybe I needed to call my counselor. I was either really narrow-minded or hung up on a childhood fear I’d since forgotten. Funny how those things surfaced with little to no provocation. Maybe it was the ear.

  Gigi held onto Helena, babbling and cooing under the watch of milky-eyed, orange-shirted birders. Geriatric fun on the island was admittedly limited. The shirts had big white clip art binoculars on the front and words along the hemline, “Birders see everything.” How icky was that? Like a peeping proclamation. Birders came to town every fall as part of a global run in the birding community to see who could spot the most species of bird. Steve Martin even made a movie about it. The number of birders had doubled every year since the movie’s release. Seeing so many strangers with binoculars bothered me. Then, to wear shirts saying they saw everything?

  Melinda settled back onto the sand, pulling in long, slow breaths.

  “Seen any good birds today?” Small talk wasn’t my forte, but they were birders. Play to your audience came to mind.

  “Only island birds today.” Helena lowered Gigi to her feet. “How about you? What did you find today, little one?”

  Melinda made a strangled sound. Her gaze flicked from me to the shells behind my feet.

  “Ee-aw!” Gigi grabbed her pink pail and pointed wildly around the beach, explaining her day in full detail. “Dee doo bee um dee. Ee-aw!”

  “Ear?” Helena eyeballed me before moving past my human barricade. She gasped.

  Her crew encircled us, snapping pictures of the ear and yammering to one another at top speed. Melinda stood on shaky legs and inched away. She tossed her bag over one shoulder and hoisted Gigi back onto her hip. She shouldn’t leave a potential crime scene but, then again, who could blame her? We knew where to find her. Likely she’d be puffing into a paper bag on her back deck until sundown.

  Sebastian’s Range Rover pulled onto the beach and moved through the sand toward us. Beneath
the shiny silver grill flashed red and blue lights. His headlights blinked a steady rhythm of “Watch out.” Birder cameras disappeared into pockets on elastic waist shorts when he slammed his door and jogged across the sand.

  The look in his eyes told me he was in agent mode. “I’m going to need statements.” He poked the ear with a pen and turned to the birders. “I’d appreciate it if you’d wait near my truck. I want to talk to each of you individually. If you have to leave, let me know and I’ll stop by and talk with you at home later today.”

  They weren’t going anywhere. This was the scoop of the century. They might’ve only seen a handful of humdrum island birds this morning, but it wasn’t everyday a person saw an ear not attached to someone’s head. It was all very Van Gogh.

  Curiosity tingled in my pores. Five million questions circled my head. Gorgeous white frothy waves delivered all sorts of things to the beach every day. Shells, crabs and the occasional piece of trash. I once found a class ring from a high school in another state. I’d never given any thought to what else the tide might deliver.

  Sebastian ran through a list of standard witness questions while I stared out to sea.

  What else was out there? Where’d the ear come from, and what else was headed our way?

  Chapter Two

  The Chincoteague police station looked more like a Miami strip mall than a jail. White stucco walls and a pink tile roof beckoned tourists like a welcome center, driving the poor receptionist bonkers. Frankie complained she spent half her day redirecting tourists to the mini model lighthouse a few blocks down, where the actual welcome center was located.

  Aside from confusing tourists, the police station didn’t do a lot of business. The island crime rate was close to zero. Except for a couple murders back in July, but those were unprecedented and not related to my return. Much.

  News of a disembodied ear spread like wildfire and a crowd formed on the sidewalk. Frankie leaned as far away from her desk as possible in her rolling chair. The little red cooler beside her phone held two things. Ice and the ear. She turned down Sebastian’s offer for a peek when we arrived.

  “I’ve seen it. The picture was forwarded to me three times before you called it in.”

  I’d called ahead to warn Deputy Doofus, known by his mother and limited others as Maxwell Fargas. After our last sheriff was arrested, Deputy Doofus got a pay increase and a temporary title change. He compensated for his lack of experience with extreme enthusiasm. Until Election Day, he wore a bright lopsided smile and the big gold star. Sheriff Doofus.

  “I need to bleach my desk.” Frankie turned in her seat.

  “What do you think happens next?” I chewed the inside of my lip. Ideas ran wild in my head. The longer I looked at the little red cooler, the more I wanted to go back to the beach and look for more parts. Like a head. My knee bounced faster. A head!

  Frankie held her nose, though all I smelled was burnt coffee and brine. The sheer volume of fisherman and seafood on the island left a similar scent over everything. Ah, the stale but comforting scents of home.

  “I called the hospital pathologist to pick it up for testing.” Sebastian appeared in the hallway, moving our way. “After what happened this summer, and since I live here now, I’ll keep an eye on this case.”

  The day I moved home Adrian had been on the lam for murder. Eventually the true killer was brought to justice, but there were more murders in July than in island history.

  “It’s an FBI case now?” The FBI didn’t get involved unless they suspected a serial killer or a connection to some other open case. Did Sebastian think the ear was connected to the mob boss hunting him? Or maybe the evil ex-sheriff had more secrets to uncover. Curiosity coiled around me like a boa.

  “Will there be more—” Frankie jabbed a finger toward the cooler, “—parts?”

  Yep. That was my first question too. We stared at Sebastian. He looked unbelievable in his black cotton T-shirt. It clung to his chest and gripped his biceps. Man, I had fantasies about being that shirt.

  “There’s no reason to think so at this time.”

  I scoffed. A line out of the FBI handbook. Nothing to see here. Move along.

  Frankie scrunched her nose at Sebastian. “What about the head this goes on?”

  He maintained his blank special agent expression. “It may be just an ear.”

  “But the FBI is looking into it? They think it’s related to something they would investigate?” I raised an eyebrow. Which was it? A serial killer or the mob boss who wanted Sebastian punished? Sebastian had played uncover goon in Jimmy the Judge’s crime family for months before executing a raid that went sour. Five members of the family were killed and Jimmy escaped. Jimmy wasn’t likely to let a traitor like Sebastian get away with a betrayal of that magnitude. That fiasco was a big part of why Sebastian had moved to Chincoteague and commuted two hours to work. I liked to think the other part was me.

  He dipped his chin in one stern nod. “Possibly.”

  The door swung wide and a threesome of women waddled in, red from the sun and a little light on their feet by the looks of them. Probably from a liquid lunch. “We have reservations for three.” The woman with a sunglass-shaped sunburn leaned onto Frankie’s desk.

  “This is the police station.” Frankie pasted a warning smile on her lips. The cooler on her desk had put a storm cloud on her sunny disposition.

  The women roared with laughter. The shorter two took a seat in a set of plastic chairs by the door. “This town is a riot.”

  Frankie frowned.

  “Scoot over.” The spokeswoman went to take a seat with her friends.

  “I can’t. The chairs are bolted down.”

  “What?” They fell forward in laughter again.

  “Can you arrest them for public drunkenness?” Frankie turned to Sebastian with an imploring kill-me-now look.

  “Nope.”

  “What are your appointments for?” I couldn’t help it. The threesome behaved like spring breakers who’d missed their spring break window by about three decades. I smiled as they elbowed one another and wiped tears from their sunburned cheeks.

  “Sea salt body scrub. Hot stone massage. Facial.” The leader pointed to her friends, one by one, then to herself. The thought of a facial on the burn she had made me cringe. As soon as the alcohol wore off, she’d agree. Sunburns were the worst. Forget the hot stone massage. They’d all regret today in the morning.

  “Next door. Go out, turn right and you’ll see it. The door’s purple and there’s a moon in the window.”

  The women erupted in laughter again. “I haven’t mooned in anyone’s window all summer.”

  “Yuck.” Sebastian coughed to cover his comment. The corners of his lips pulled down.

  If I concentrated, I could count his abs through that shirt.

  “I need to file a complaint!” Karen Holsten, my high school nemesis, burst through the glass doorway, whacking the lady in the nearest chair. Her platinum blonde hair curled into a style appropriate for a proper southern belle or a lady of high regard. She was neither, though I regarded her as highly annoying. Her pale yellow sundress enhanced her flawless skin and pink lips. A white handbag hung in the crook of her arm. “Where’s Deputy Fargas? Fargas!”

  Frankie heaved a sigh and addressed the intoxicated ladies. “I’m sorry to disappoint y’all, but this is the police department.” They turned to look outside in unison. I imagined a shared lightbulb flickering over them.

  “You.” Frankie stood, capturing Karen’s attention. She loomed six inches over Karen’s small frame. Frankie had played college basketball. She was tall, lean and out of patience. Her sun-streaked hair was pulled securely into a uniform bun. “You need to settle down. This here’s a police station not a circus. I don’t know how you manage Beau’s office, but this ain’t how I manag
e mine.”

  Beau Thompson, Karen’s unfortunate fiancé, was running against Adrian Davis in the mayoral election. Her mouth popped open at the insulting tone of Frankie’s voice. “Have you seen the size of Adrian’s campaign sign? It’s blocking the view for traffic on his street. He needs to take it down for the safety of our citizens.”

  Karen had taunted me through grade school because my parents weren’t like hers. My parents read palms and tea leaves while hers read the New York Times and dabbled in politics. She didn’t like the clothes I wore or the way I pretended not to see or hear her no matter how close she stood to me. Then came high school and I recognized a new look in her eye, envy. She wanted Adrian Davis, but he was mine. The island loser with crazy parents and a subpar wardrobe had something Karen wanted. Imagine. She bided her time, waiting for him to come to his senses, but Adrian and I were in the all-encompassing kind of high school love where there were only two people in the world. She went to prom with her “college boyfriend,” but I made sure everyone knew he was her cousin from Roanoke. I was mean back then.

  Karen stamped her three-inch heel and growled at the clipboard and pen Frankie shoved her way.

  “You know the drill,” Frankie told her.

  Yeesh. How many reports had Karen filled out?

  The trio of giggling women squeezed behind Karen and out the door.

  “Hope none of them are driving.” Sebastian mumbled.

  “Yeah, they might not be able to see around Adrian’s sign.” I rolled my eyes. What a ridiculous reason to file a complaint.

  Karen’s eyes narrowed. I did a little finger wave.

  “Blown anything up lately, Price?”

  Her sneer took me back a dozen years. I wanted to pants her, but I settled for a wide, innocent smile.

  My track record involving explosions was on the high side since I moved home. None of them were my fault, but so far my car and office had been shot at, the car fixed and then bombed, and most recently an explosion had reduced my office to sticks.