Late Rain (17 page)

Balen said he’d look into the matter, and if the police showed up again, not to talk to them unless he was there.

Corrine had not liked the sound of that.

She told Balen she wanted him to do more than look into it. She wanted him to shut the thing down completely.

Balen had again told her to calm down and said he’d get back to her.

That left the rest of the afternoon.

Corrine had learned to watch her liquor intake, and except for a couple of bad stretches in Phoenix, she stuck to social drinking and usually confined it to nothing stronger than wine, but after talking to Raychard Balen, she’d spent the rest of the afternoon fighting the urge to sandblast her anxiety with the bottle of Beam in Buddy’s liquor cabinet, going so far on two occasions as to pour the drinks, Corrine smelling the malt whiskey’s sweet promises of escape, however temporary, before she dumped them down the sink.

It felt as if Stanley Tedros had followed her around the house all afternoon.

Buddy was putting in long hours at the Stanco plant since Stanley’s death, and when he finally got home, he drove them to a barbecue place outside town. The Pig’s Skin that was touted for its mustard-based sauce and Low Country hospitality, all of which translated, as Corrine had correctly assumed, into an unpainted building with all the charm of a shack, rows of rough-hewn picnic tables, plastic silverware and paper plates overflowing with greasy shredded meat, rice, cole slaw, and slabs of white bread, gallons of over-sweetened iced tea, and a clientele comprised of locals who rubbernecked and stage-whispered when she and Buddy entered and took their seats. Buddy, between bantering with the waitress, had run through his plate and most of Corrine’s.

He’d waited until the drive back before he mentioned that James Restan had called and reinstated his offer to buy out Stanco Beverages and the rights to Julep.

“And you’re just getting around to telling me about it
now
?

” He downshifted for a sharp curve and added, “I wish I’d never mentioned it at all.”

“You mean keep it a secret?” Corrine said. “That’s what you want our marriage to run on?”

Buddy took the curve and shifted up, the engine missing a little on the acceleration. “No, that’s not what I meant,” he said. “I wish I’d waited to bring it up, that’s all. You’re upset now. It’s been a nice evening.”

“What did you tell Restan exactly?” Corrine could feel the missing beat in the car’s engine through the floorboards. It was like a mangled bar of music in a favorite song.

“I told him I wasn’t ready to make a decision right now. I owe that much to the employees, but mostly to Uncle Stanley.”

“But we talked about this, Buddy. The offer, it’s good and might not be around for long.”

Buddy nodded. “I know. I’ve been thinking about some things though, and I told Restan it didn’t feel right to decide anything one way or another until Uncle Stanley’s murderer has been brought to justice.”

Corrine momentarily closed her eyes. “What did Restan say to that?”

“He wished me luck.”

They followed the lines of the coast, and Corrine watched the ocean break in and out of view, the waters dark and wrinkled by lines of waves, a pale moon riding the horizon. The air coming through the vents was warm and swampy. A sharp pain moved high into Corrine’s chest.

“I’ll admit James Restan’s offer is attractive,” Buddy said carefully, “but you know, I’ve been looking over Stanley’s plans to keep Julep within Stanco and to expand operations and distribution, and they have some merit too. He may have been on to something.”

Corrine pounded her fist on the dash. “You’re serious? You mean you’re going to run Stanco yourself? You never said anything about this to me.”

“Calm down,” Buddy said. “I said I was considering keeping Stanco and Julep in the family. I was going to talk to you about it.”

The sharp pain in Corrine’s chest blunted and then broke down and reappeared in her stomach. She rested her head against the passenger window.

“What about our plans?” she asked after a moment. “Everything we talked about?”

No strings. That was the whole point of the buyout. No strings. They were going to travel. Go wherever and do whatever they wanted. The money would be there. Stanley wouldn’t. They’d return to Magnolia Beach a couple times a year. There’d be nothing to hold them to one place.

Corrine wanted Paris first.

That’s what they’d talked about after Buddy had formally announced their engagement.

“It’s not like we’re going to give them up,” Buddy said. “We have our whole lives. There’ll be time.”

Buddy shifted and then reached over and rested his hand on her shoulder. It took all of Corrine’s willpower not to flinch.

“He raised me,” Buddy said and let his hand fall. “Whatever you might have thought of him, Stanley took me in and gave me a good life. It doesn’t feel right to move on the buy-out right now.”

The queasiness Corrine felt was warm and thick, and the motion of the car and the spill of its headlights intensified it. She fought back the urge to take off her seatbelt.

The reward Buddy had posted.

The tape recorder he’d bought and left at Jack Carson’s.

And now this.

She glanced over at her husband.

Must be nice, Corrine thought, to be able to afford a conscience, to have a past and a life you’d want to call your own. Her husband would never understand that there were lives that left no room for anything but themselves, just as he would never understand how far someone would be willing to go to leave them behind.

BEN DECOVIC PARKED THE CRUISER in the lot adjacent to the tennis courts at the south entrance of the city park, then got out, taking a path along the treeline to a small clearing that held a cast-iron barbecue grill, a dark green metal trash container, and three pre-cast concrete picnic tables.

Leon Douglas showed up ten minutes later. He was wearing a bright orange Clemson T-shirt, a large white tiger paw imprinted on each shoulder, and he had shaved his head. He also wore a pair of wire frame glasses Ben didn’t remember seeing on him before. He figured Leon was practicing passing himself off as a college student since the first wave of spring break was officially starting, and there would be untold opportunities for separating the students from their cash and credit cards and sundry vacation possessions.

Leon plopped down across from Ben at one of the concrete tables and opened the paper bag Ben had set in its center.

Leon immediately began shaking his head. He held up a long tube of Sweet Tarts. “How many time I be telling you it Shock Tart I like? Make me wonder what you hearing when I tell you anything.” Leon cracked the top on the soda.

“Ok, Shock Tarts,” Ben said. “Check.” He leaned back and waited.

“An old pocketwatch,” Leon said, unwrapping one end of the candy, “a gold one. That’s what I’ve been hearing around.”

Ben shrugged. He was surprised it had taken this long for the word to get out. The Department had withheld the detail of the killer taking Stanley’s pocketwatch after Buddy Tedros had verified that Stanley always wore it.

“You get cops popping up at every pawn and fence in town,” Leon said, “all of them asking did anyone try to lay off a watch, and after a while, the word, it get out. Lot of people wouldn’t mind tapping that reward.”

“Anyone or anything credible concerning that?” Ben asked. “

Man, if there was,” Leon said, “I’m on my own way straight to Mr. Buddy Tedros.”

Ben asked if Leon had dug up anything on his missing Glock. He’d expected, by now, that Leon would have turned up something or that the semi-automatic would have been confiscated after some standard-brand Saturday night mayhem.

“Nothing yet,” Leon said. He took a lime Sweet Tart and threw it at a blue jay perched on the lip of the trash container.

“Sonny Gramm then,” Ben said.

“Heard Mr. Sonny got a rodent problem and got a new alarm system install at his home.”

“Old news,” Ben said. “Unless you know who did it.”

Leon shook his head no, then thumbed a pink Sweet Tart into his mouth. “There was some action two night ago, the Passion Palace though.”

“What kind?”

“Mr. Sonny out of town few days on business,” Leon said, “and this guy Wayne LaVell stop by the Palace and spread the green around, buying all the dancer drinks and tipping large. LaVell stay til closing. He be everybody’s friend. Mr. Sonny, he lose it when he hear about LaVell.”

“You know this for a fact?”

Leon nodded. “One of the dancer told me.”

“Why would she do something like that, Leon?”

He sighed and shook his head. “‘Cause dancing be high-stress, long hours, and this girl maybe she need get behind a little recreational weed to unwind the end of the day. That straight enough for you?”

A gust of wind burst around them. It smelled of salt. Ben waited a moment before nodding. He asked if there were anything else.

“Only if you want to talk about no rain,” Leon said. “That’s mostly what I keep hearing, people all the time talking about the weather, how hot and where the rain be. There a preacher over by Old Marketplace set up a tent and calling it End Times.”

Leon slipped the envelope Ben handed over in his back pocket and adjusted the fit of his wire frames, then stood up. He tossed the empty soda can in the direction of the trash. “See you,” he said.

“Be careful, Leon,” Ben said, “in case you decide to help some of the students on break unwind like your dancer friend. A lot of cops know you.”

“Hold that tiger,” Leon said, slapping the front of his Clemson shirt, and walked off in the direction he’d come in earlier.

Ben finished his shift, signed out, and headed for the lot at the rear of the county complex building. Ed Hatch, from Homicide, was leaning against the trunk of Ben’s car, stork-like, one foot raised and resting on the rear bumper. He sipped from a white Styrofoam cup as he watched Ben approach.

“Here we go,” Hatch said. His partner, Bill Gramble, was sitting on the passenger side of the unmarked parked across from Hatch. Gramble nodded at Ben and went back to the fast food supper, soft drink, fries, and lopsided burger, that he’d set out on the dash.

“A word,” Hatch said when Ben stepped up. He set the cup on the trunk and dusted off his hands. “You seem a little confused, Patrolman Decovic,” he began, “about your job description. That or maybe you got a promotion to Homicide I haven’t heard about yet.”

“I left a message on your voice mail,” Ben said. “I wasn’t trying to hide anything.”

“Oh, I got your message all right,” Hatch said, “along with another from the esteemed barrister Raychard Balen.”

Didn’t take Corrine Tedros or her husband long to get in touch with Balen, Ben thought.

He explained that he’d been on patrol and spotted Corrine Tedros out in the front yard with the movers. He’d taken advantage of the opportunity to do some follow-up, fully intending to hunt down Hatch afterwards and pass on anything he’d found. He brought up the voice mail message again.

“And Corrine Tedros just happened to get the impression you were working the homicide with me all by herself?” Hatch said.

Ben slowly let out his breath. “I never directly said I was.”

“But you didn’t disabuse her of the notion either,” Hatch said.

Gramble laughed and then swiveled the passenger side mirror and picked at a piece of burger caught in his teeth.

“I got something though,” Ben said. “That’s why I called you.”

Hatch raised his eyebrows. “Really? Something to support your Washer Theory? Maybe Corrine Tedros jiggling a fistful of heavy-gauge washers while she tried to resist confessing to the murder of Stanley Tedros under your expert interrogation techniques?”

“A lie,” Ben said. “I caught her in a lie when there was no reason or need for one.” For now, Ben decided not to mention to Hatch that he’d also talked to Terri Illes.

“Hell,” Hatch said, uncrossing his arms and picking up the cup from the trunk. “I’d lie to you too, Decovic, just on principle, if you showed up and tried to pass yourself off as part of a homicide investigation.”

“The tips are going nowhere,” Ben said. “I think you need to take a closer look at Corrine Tedros and her husband.”

“And I think you need to reread your job description,” Hatch said, “and start following it.”

“That’s it, then?” Ben asked.

“Not quite,” Hatch said, crumbling the Styrofoam cup. “I don’t appreciate getting phone calls at home from shitbags like Raychard Balen. I have a family, Decovic. I make it a rule to keep work and my home life separate.”

“What did Balen threaten you with?”

Hatch bounced the crumpled Styrofoam cup off Ben’s chest. “I’m getting mightily pissed here, Decovic. Let me clear up any misconceptions on your part. For one, Balen did not threaten me. He knew I was running lead on the Tedros case. Balen could have gone to the media or the chief or the damn mayor. You, not Corrine Tedros, would have been in deep shit then, Decovic.” Hatch paused and pointed. “I’m no fan of Raychard Balen by any stretch, but he gave me the chance to settle this quietly and off the books. You want, I’ll go to my division head right now and write up the incident. Make it official. It doesn’t matter to me.”

Ben didn’t say anything.

“Ok,” Hatch said. “And before I go, there’s another misconception needs clarified. Anything that you or anyone else gets from the reward tips or anything I turn up on my own that points to Corrine Tedros, I will go after her. Have no doubts whatsoever about that. I will go after her.”

Hatch looked down, crushed the Styrofoam cup with his shoe, and then looked back at Ben. “Understand this too. I will not go after Corrine Tedros based on evidence or hunches tied to irregularities in procedure,” he said. “I will not walk there.”

Hatch brushed by Ben and crossed to the unmarked. Before he pulled away, Bill Gramble stuck his head out the passenger window and said, “Hey Decovic, what did the blind man tell his wife after he shaved her cat?”

BEN DECOVIC HAPPILY WATCHED the life he’d made—or tried to make—at the White Palms Apartments disappear little by little. He’d quit stocking the kitchen cabinets and refrigerator with anything but the barest of basics. The drawers in the bedroom dresser were steadily emptying, ebbing like a waterline each time he packed. The center of the dining room table held piles of unsorted mail. The air, itself, in the apartment had come to feel thin and underused.