A Death in Duck: Lindsay Harding Cozy Mystery Series (Reverend Lindsay Harding Mystery Book 2) (15 page)

Lindsay couldn’t help but be struck by the complete lack of emotion in her mother’s voice. Sarabelle might just as easily have been describing a particularly dull section of the IRS tax code. While her mother had been talking, an idea began taking shape in Lindsay’s mind.

“How old was your mother when she died?” Lindsay asked.

“Thirty seven. Why?”

“And she died in a car wreck near the bridge, right?”

“Yep. Wrapped her Buick around a tree after a night out on the town. Why are you so interested in her all of a sudden?”

“Does the name Rita Lutz mean anything to you?”

Sarabelle looked at her blankly. “Rita who?”

“Rita Lutz. There was an old newspaper clipping in Aunt Harding’s about a car wreck. Did you put it in there?”

“Un-uh. You know as well as I do that Patty never let anybody touch that safe. She wanted me to hand over the ashes for her to put them in there herself. I only caught glimpses of what all she had in there. You should’a seen the shenanigans I had to go through to get that gun out without her noticing.”

“The description of the wreck in the article is the same as how your mother died,” Lindsay continued. “The woman was 37, and it was a single-car accident near the bridge. But her name was Rita Lutz, not Nancy Mix.”

“Reporters get things wrong sometimes.” Sarabelle paused and wrinkled her brow in perplexity. “Still, I don’t know why Patty would’ve had something like that in the safe. Far as I know, she and my mama never met. Mama stayed mostly up around Virginia Beach. Sometimes she’d come out to the Banks in the tourist season if there was work, but I highly doubt their paths would’ve crossed. And I don’t remember there being any reports in the paper about my mama. Then again, I don’t remember much about that time. I had a boyfriend who was really into psychedelics. He was in a band, or said he was. He never did have any paying gigs. Looking back on it now, I suppose he was just a junkie who liked to play guitar.”

“All right,” Lindsay said, sensing that this line of questioning wasn’t likely to be particularly illuminating. “Why did you steal my ex-boyfriend’s sister’s dog?”

While Sarabelle had remained pokerfaced when talking about her mother’s remains, the mention of Kipper caused her to explode with emotion. “I didn’t steal anybody’s dog!” She covered Kipper’s ears, as if she wanted to protect him against this slander.

“Kipper is actually Paul. He has a family waiting for him back in New Albany.”

“I saved this dog’s life! The night of the hurricane, the night you and your daddy kicked me out, I was headed out of town. I was walking to the Greyhound station, because, if you’ll recollect, that boyfriend of yours impounded mine and Leander’s SUV. Couldn’t get a taxi for love or money. Anyways, along the roadside, I saw this dog. Thought he was dead at first. He looked like nothing more than a pile of wet fur. But when I got closer, I saw that he was breathing. I used some of Leander’s money to put me and Kipper up in a hotel. I fed him chicken soup and cans of tuna. I nursed him back to health with my own two hands.” She held her hands up as if they proved her story. “After that, we bounced from place to place until I ran outta money. Then we ended up at Patty’s.”

              “Well, I’m sorry, but we’re going to need to give him back. His owners are heartbroken. They think he’s dead.”

“Kipper loves me,” Sarabelle said, flinging her arms around the dog’s neck.

“Be that as it may, you can’t steal somebody’s dog.”

Sarabelle looked hard at her daughter. “That reminds me of something my mama said to me not long before she got herself killed. When I started dating your daddy, he was seeing somebody else. This skinny little string bean hippie named Yolanda something or other. Well, he threw her over for me just about the second we clapped eyes on each other. My mama said that it wasn’t right for me to steal him. But she was dead wrong. He wanted to be stolen. I couldn’a given him back to that girl even if I’d’a wanted to. Same goes for Kipper. He never left my side from the minute I found him, and he didn’t once try to find his way back to those other people. I love him more than they ever could and he knows it. We made our choice, and we chose each other.”

A new possibility crept into the corners of Lindsay’s consciousness. She hadn’t really spoken to Sarabelle in years, and when they had spoken, it had always been either an argument or a trivial conversation. For her whole adult life, she had seen her mother as a sort of emotional vacuum, sucking up other people’s goodness to fill the empty void within her own soul. Now here was this other Sarabelle, desperate to give and receive love, and willing to fight for it. Could it be that Lindsay had been wrong? That Sarabelle deserved her pity? That she deserved something better than her daughter’s disdain?

Lindsay shook her head involuntarily, trying to derail this disturbing train of thoughts. No. This woman had used up all her chances. Not believing Sarabelle could be a cold-blooded killer wasn’t the same as believing she could become a good person. Sarabelle Harding was nothing more than a manipulative, shallow user, with all the self-awareness of a powdered donut. She had proven again and again that she couldn’t be trusted. The sooner she was out of Lindsay’s life, the better, but for the time being, they were tied together by two as-yet unsolved murders. Until Leander Swoopes was behind bars, Lindsay would be bound irrevocably to her mother.

Lindsay inhaled. “All right. Last question. Were you watching me on the beach earlier, when the sun was setting?”

“No, baby. I hid out at Simmy’s until after dark. I was afraid I’d get spotted. Why? Was somebody out there? Do you think it was Leander?” Panic crept into Sarabelle’s voice. “Did he try to hurt you?”

“He’d have no reason to hurt me,” Lindsay said.

“Trust me, honey, that man doesn’t need a reason.”

Chapter 16

Lindsay had been trying to contact Simmy ever since the day of the murder, but her phone calls all went unanswered. More than once, she had picked up the phone to call Warren and ask him to check up on her. But every time, her finger hovered over his name on the screen without dialing. When she picked up her phone that morning, however, she noticed an unopened voicemail—from Warren. She hadn’t spoken to him since the break up. Claire had mentioned him a few times when she’d called with questions and updates on the murder investigation, but otherwise, Lindsay had no idea where he was or what he was doing. For six months, she and Warren had moved through life side by side. Even on busy days, they usually exchanged at least a quick call or text. Now they circled each other like planets whose orbits would never cross. With a knot in her stomach, Lindsay pressed the button to play the message.

“Hi. I wanted to tell you that the CSI boys are done out at your aunt’s house. We looked into the angle about Patricia Harding being Leander’s mother, but it didn’t fit. His mother is alive and well and living in Texas. I thought you’d want to know. Anyway, we took all the guns out of the safe as evidence and locked up the house. We left the ashes, in case you wanted them. I also wanted to say...” The message thus far had been fluid and to-the-point, just Warren’s usual calm voice, peppered with his gentle Piedmont twang. But now he paused. “I wanted to tell you that we think Leander Swoopes might be staying somewhere on the Outer Banks. A clerk at a convenience store in Kitty Hawk made an ID. I know you won’t like me saying it, but please be careful, okay? If you hear from your mother, tell her we need to talk to her. Until we find out what she knows, we can’t know for sure if she had a hand in any of this.” Another short pause, and then a rushed ending: “When this is over, we should maybe get together. I mean, there’s some of your stuff at my place that I should probably give back.”

The message finished and Lindsay put the phone down. In that moment, she missed Warren intensely. He understood her need to know the truth about her aunt’s murder—a need that eclipsed everything. Like her, he had an unquenchable drive to find solutions, to solve puzzles, to open the doors that people kept locked.

Lindsay turned to Kipper with a sigh. “So, my friend, Aunt Harding wasn’t Leander’s mother. Why did she pretend to be?”

Kipper just stared at her with his small, round eyes and licked her face.

###

After listening to the message from Warren, Lindsay tried again, unsuccessfully, to call Simmy. The game of hiding Sarabelle had gone on long enough. It was time for her to come out in the open. Still carless, Lindsay decided to make the 11-mile run to Corolla so she could see for herself what was going on. She supposed she could have asked for a ride from Anna’s mother, but the prospect of running an exhausting half-marathon distance struck her as vastly preferable to a 15-minute car ride alongside that woman’s unrelenting laugh.

She set off up Highway 12, choosing to stick to the well-travelled main road, though she would normally have chosen a quieter route. It felt strange and slightly disconcerting to go out alone. Since the day of the murder, she’d gotten into the habit of taking Kipper with her everywhere—she thought of him as her bodyguard. However, she knew that the distance was likely to be too much for him. If Simmy wasn’t home, they’d have to jog all the way back, too. As she made her way up the road, she was immensely grateful that running still had the ability to flip the “off” switch in the constantly-spinning carousel of her thoughts. Breathe in. Breathe out. Shoes thumping against the pavement. Heart banging away in her ribcage. Arms swinging back and forth like a hypnotist’s watch.

She’d taken it easy, but by the time she arrived, she was panting from exertion, her blonde curls brined to her forehead. From outside “Sailor Girl” nothing seemed amiss. Simmy’s truck and her own Honda Civic were parked side by side in front of the house.

Lindsay’s first knocks were met with no response, but when she pressed her ear to the door, she could hear the muffled sounds of Billie Holliday. “Simmy?” she called. “Are you in there? It’s Lindsay.”

There followed a scurrying and a slamming of doors, and after a few moments, Simmy cracked open the front door. Her face slowly filled the opening—first the top of her wig, then her deeply-lined forehead, an arched eyebrow, and finally one cornflower blue eye. Simmy peered around to ensure that no one else was lurking nearby and then pulled Lindsay inside.

“I’m so glad to see you, honey. I’m so sorry I haven’t been in touch.” Simmy said, drawing Lindsay into a bony embrace. “Things got a bit crazy around here, what with the police calling in and me aiding and abetting a fugitive and all. I know that’s no excuse. I should’ve called you right away to make sure you were okay. You must’ve gone through absolute H-E-double hockey sticks the other morning. I know you’re a tough cookie, but still.”

“It was pretty awful. I still can’t believe it happened, but now that I’m over the initial shock, I’m a lot better.”

Simmy stepped back and cast a sharp eye over Lindsay. “You look tired. You’re all sweaty.”

“I jogged here.”

“Goodness, child. Here, have some orange juice.” Simmy pulled a small carton of juice from under a flower-patterned armchair like a magician pulling a coin out of a child’s ear. She handed the carton to Lindsay along with a straw that she retrieved from inside a Japanese vase that stood on the windowsill.

Although the juice was unpleasantly warm and of very uncertain provenance, Lindsay accepted it gratefully. “How are
you
?” she asked Simmy. “I know you and Aunt Harding had a falling out, but I know how much she meant to you. It must have been such a shock.”

Simmy frowned thoughtfully. “She was a difficult woman. Always her own worst enemy.” She inhaled with a shuddery breath, and for a moment the twinkle in her bright blue eyes seemed to have been extinguished. Instead of crying, though, she flashed Lindsay a tight-lipped smile and clapped her hands together as if to reignite the pilot light of her habitual good cheer.

“You know, it does genuinely break my heart that we parted on such bad terms, but I suppose when you get to be as old as I am, you’ll find that you begin to have difficulty even pretending to be shocked by anything,” she said. “Life has a limited menu of what it can throw at you. Friends dying are friends dying, no matter how it happens, and heaven knows at my age I’ve seen enough of that. You’re such a sweetheart to even be concerned about me. You got the best parts of both your parents, you know that?”

Once again, Simmy looked like she might cry, but once again, she banished the gathering tears with a sharp clap. “I’ll just be grateful when this investigation is all behind us.”

“Have the police been by?” Lindsay asked. The investigation had dominated her thoughts for the past few days, and it was a relief to be able to talk about it with someone.

“Twice. I’m afraid I couldn’t tell them much that they didn’t already know. They haven’t given me too many details about what’s going on, but I don’t get the impression that they’re any closer to finding this fellow.”

“It sounds like Aunt Harding might have gotten herself mixed up with Swoopes. Did you know anything about that?”

“Swoopes? Lord, no! Like I said, Patty hasn’t wanted anything to do with me for months. Your mama says that this Swoopes guy’s a real nasty piece of work.”

“Where is she now?”

“Sarabelle? She was going to take a shower and then we were gonna have a little spa day,” Simmy smiled.

“Simmy,” Lindsay said, “Did you know that Sarabelle came to see me last night?”

“Yes. I warned her not to go. The police are combing the island for Swoopes. She could easily have been picked up.”

“I’m not sure that would’ve been a bad thing.”

“What do you mean?” Simmy asked, looking stunned.

“I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and I really think we need to tell the police about Sarabelle. She says she doesn’t know anything about the murders, but even if that’s true, she may know something about Swoopes. Who he hangs out with. Where he’s likely to be.”

Simmy reached out for Lindsay’s hands and held on to them like a drowning woman clinging to a life preserver. “You can’t! Please. Do this for me.”

“Why?”

“I can’t explain now. Once they’ve caught Swoopes, we can all sit down together and talk it through. Just swear that you won’t. Please.”

Lindsay wavered for a long moment. Simmy’s blue eyes looked almost liquid as she implored Lindsay to hide Sarabelle. Finally, Lindsay spoke. “I’m so sorry, Simmy, but I can’t. If they’re going to find Swoopes, she has to come forward. I don’t understand what’s going on. Why are you so desperate to help her? First Aunt Harding hides her for months and now you’re doing the same thing! And Sarabelle told me that you knew she was there all along and didn’t say anything to me!”

Simmy seemed shocked for a moment, and then bowed her head. “I’m so sorry I lied to you, honey. That was wrong.”

“How long have you known she was there?”

“A few weeks. What I said about your aunt was true. For months, she’s been acting all cagey. Even as we’ve gotten older, I’ve always seen her at least once a week. But then, like I told you, she just dropped out of sight. At first she said she was sick, and didn’t want any company. You probably remember that she was like that when she got sick—she’d just curl up in bed like an injured dog and snarl if anybody came too close. I gave her a wide berth.

“But then one day a few weeks ago, I saw this blonde woman at Food Lion getting out of Patty’s truck, and I thought maybe she was the victim of one of those cons on the elderly that you see on
Dateline NBC
where somebody moves in and steals their Social Security checks. I went over to confront her, but when I got closer, I saw that it was Sarabelle. I hadn’t seen her in years and years, but I still remembered her. She told me that she’d had a little trouble with an ex-boyfriend and had moved in with Patty to put it behind her. From what I’d heard from Patty and Jonah over the years, it didn’t surprise me that she’d run out of better options. I asked after Patty’s health and Sarabelle said she was fit as a fiddle.

“I went over to Patty’s house again. Having your mama as a visitor just didn’t seem to account for why she was being so sneaky and standoffish. Well, Patty told me in no uncertain terms to stay away from her and Sarabelle. When I wouldn’t leave, she tried to sic that dog on me! It was all I could do to make it back to my truck without him ripping me to shreds.”

“Why didn’t you just tell me when you found out she was hiding there?” Lindsay asked. “You could’ve called. Or at least told me when I showed up on Christmas Eve.”

“I didn’t feel like it was my place. Patty obviously felt very strongly that it wasn’t any of my business. And then on Christmas Eve, I thought if you went there you’d finally be able to get to the bottom of everything. If I’d told you then, I was afraid you wouldn’t go.”

Sarabelle entered with her hair wrapped up in a white towel. She was carrying a small ceramic pot, which she set on the coffee table with a thump. “Oh, hey, baby,” she said, matching Simmy’s bright tone. “I’m getting ready to do Simmy’s mustache. The wax just came up to temperature. You need anything waxed?”

“Um, no thanks.” Lindsay said.

“How’s my little Kipper?” Sarabelle asked. “You tell him his mama’s comin’ for him just as soon as she can, okay?”

“He’s fine,” Lindsay said. Indeed, the dog was on extraordinarily good terms with most of the hotel staff and guests. Everyone, in fact, except Big Lindsey, whom he still greeted with low growls and bared teeth.

Sarabelle started to cross back out of the room, but then turned around and snapped her fingers, as if a thought had just popped into her head. “Oh! Before I forget to tell you, Simmy’s truck has been on the fritz ever since Christmas Eve, so I had to use your car last night when I came to see you at the hotel.” She walked out of the room before Lindsay could reply.

“How’d she get it started?” Lindsay asked, turning to Simmy. “I have the keys with me.”

Simmy smiled affectionately at the door that Sarabelle had just passed through. “Well, turns out that your mama got a bit of education over the years. I guess the older Honda Civics are a car thief’s dream. She said she just went out there with a screwdriver and bam! Ten minutes later we had ignition and blast off!”

Lindsay was deeply annoyed with her mother’s nonchalance and typical careless disregard for other people’s property.

Simmy, however, seemed delighted by Sarabelle’s antics. “She’s been an absolute peach,” Simmy gushed. “It’s just like I’ve known her my whole life. That’s why I want to wait until they find this fellow and get this all settled. Then you can come over here and have supper with us. There’s so much we all need to catch up on. Sarabelle’ll have to cook, of course. You know I practically burn the house down every time I even go within 20 yards of the oven.”

“You can’t let Sarabelle stay.” Lindsay was growing increasingly disturbed by Simmy’s seeming desire that the murder of her best friend would be a passing cloud in an otherwise blue-sky future. Even more disturbing was the suggestion that Sarabelle could form a permanent fixture in that future.

Sarabelle came back into the room carrying several strips of white paper. “Sure I can’t interest you? We’re gonna do mud masks after this.”