Lowcountry Bombshell (A Liz Talbot Mystery) (3 page)

“Ahh.” She held up an index finger and took a sip of her tea. “You’re wondering about the money. Not everything is about money, you know. But you should know about it, if for no other reason than you can quickly eliminate it as a motive.”

She rubbed her lips together and sighed. “I’ve paid a series of attorneys a lot of money to keep this quiet. I need to know that you’ll be discreet.”

“I can’t conceal a crime, or evidence relevant to a crime.”

“I haven’t broken any laws. And if there’s an investigation, it will be into my death, in which case you can tell anything you need to tell from the rooftop.”

“Okay then, you have my word.”

“The night Joe died, he didn’t know it, but he’d already won the biggest single-winner Powerball jackpot in history. Seven hundred million dollars.”

I’d just taken a big gulp of tea and narrowly avoided snorting it through my nose. As it was, some of it went down the wrong way and sent me into a coughing fit. Calista jumped up and patted me on the back.

“That kind of money does tend to choke people up,” she said.

I wheezed and sputtered for a minute and finally regained my composure. “So, he won with a ticket he’d already bought?”

“The last draw on the last ticket he bought. He was killed on a Thursday, but he’d won the drawing the night before. He never even checked the numbers. Joey, he wasn’t thinking, ‘Maybe I won.’ He was thinking, ‘I need to buy a new ticket.’ It was just something he did. He bet on us, you know?”

“You’re afraid someone will kill you for the money?”

She sat back down on the sofa and crossed her legs. “I doubt that will be it,” she said. “The only people who know about the money have nothing to gain from my death. I’ve seen to that.”

“Who are your heirs?” I asked.

“I’ve created a foundation and several trusts that will continue to support the charities I contribute to now. A homeless shelter, an orphanage, a children’s hospital, mental illness research, several others, but no one benefits personally.”

I combed my fingers through my hair just above my temples and stopped when my fingers touched in the middle. I held my head for a moment. “If not for the money, then why would someone want to kill you?”

“I’m sure I don’t know,” she said. “But unless you stop them, someone will kill me, and they’ll do a fine job of making it look like suicide.”

“And you know this…how?”

She uncrossed her legs and leaned forward, enunciating precisely, as if I were dimwitted. “Because that’s what happened to her. I’m thirty-six years old. Today is July twenty-fifth. Unless you help me, I will be dead in ten days, on August fourth.”

“I see,” I said, but I so did not see at all.

From the other side of the room came Colleen’s laugh. It’s a distinctive laugh. I’ve often told her it reminded me of a donkey crossbred with a pig:
braay, snort-snort, braay
.  She bray-snorted exuberantly from her perch on my desk. As always, my friend looked fantastic for someone who’d been dead fourteen years. Her pale skin was luminous, her long, curly red hair molten. Big green eyes sparkled with mischief. Thankfully, no one could hear her except me. But she was a distraction I did not need just then. I sent her my most threatening scowl.

Calista drew back with a stunned look on her face.

I faked a sneeze. “Excuse me.”

“Take the case, already,” Colleen said. “It’s not like you’re overbooked right now.”

Colleen often offered me unsolicited advice. She professes to be a guardian spirit, as opposed to a guardian angel. According to Colleen, guardian spirits are sent back to earth with smaller-scale missions. Her mission is to guard Stella Maris. I’m her sole human contact. Sometimes she needs my help. Sometimes she thinks I need hers. The jury’s still out.

I squared my shoulders, smiled at Calista, and commenced asking the same questions I asked every new client, even the ones who appeared completely stable.

“Calista,” I said. “Are you taking any illegal drugs?”

She drew her hand to her face as if I’d slapped her. “That’s the last thing I would ever, ever do. And just so you know, I don’t drink hard liquor, either.”

“No, no…” Of all the stupid things for me to say. Of course she’d be sensitive to drug use. Marilyn had died of an overdose. “What I meant to say is there are three questions I always ask new clients. It’s just a formality, really. Nothing personal.”

She lowered her hand. “Okay.”

“So—no liquor, no drugs, got it.” I took a deep breath and leaned closer to Calista, taking her hand. “Do you own any firearms?”

“Yes, actually, I have a pearl-handled revolver.” She leaned in towards me. “For protection.”

I nodded. “Good to know. And… now remember, this is a routine question which I always ask, right?”

“Sure,” she said. She looked at me with such complete, child-like trust, I had to wonder if she trusted everyone she met so easily.

I was now holding both her hands in mine, and our faces were maybe a foot apart. “Have you ever been treated for mental illness?”

“Several times,” she said. “But not with much success.” She smiled this little enigmatic smile that left me wondering if she was joking or not. It gave me pause.

But I was fascinated by this woman’s story. And, it’s like Colleen said, my dance card wasn’t full just then. I’d wrapped up the latest in a swarm of cases from new clients in old Charleston the day before. “I’ll need to copy a photo ID.” I patted her hand. “I’ll get the contract.”

TWO

I closed the front door behind Calista, slid to a window, and peered through the slats in the plantation shutter while Colleen watched through the window on the opposite side of the door. Calista walked down the wide steps to the driveway. She climbed into what must have been Joe’s old Cadillac. It was a cherry-red convertible, the kind with the big fins, meticulously restored. Apparently, Calista had been unable to part with it. The blonde made quite a picture in the vintage car. We watched as she looped around the wide circle, then headed down the long, palm-tree-lined drive.

Out of habit, I checked the tag: 50CSOUL. I made a mental note to ask her what that meant. I had a lot more questions for Calista, but I needed to gather my thoughts and make a list. We’d made another appointment for Friday morning after she’d given me my standard retainer of five thousand dollars.

“Did she really move in a few weeks ago?” I asked.

“Yep.”

“Damnation. I haven’t even taken her a casserole yet.” I pulled back from the window and raised my left eyebrow at Colleen. “What do you know about this?”

She faded out of the foyer and reappeared perched on the railing at the top of the stairs. Since she’d died, Colleen favored sundresses. The one she wore today was green with little white flowers. She slid down the banister and dismounted gracefully onto the dark hardwood floor.

“Would you stop fooling around?” I asked.

“I don’t know anything you don’t. And I’m sorry, but I can’t help you with this one.” She drifted into the office.

“Then why exactly are you here?” I followed her. Colleen had dropped by only twice since we’d finished work on the case involving Gram’s death and a scheme to build a high-dollar resort on our pristine island home. Before that, I hadn’t laid eyes on her since the day we’d buried her.

Colleen flashed me a facial shrug. “Nothing in the rules that says I can’t drop by for a visit. No one is threatening the island just now, so I have some free time.”

“Whatever.” I blew wisps of hair from my face. I retrieved my pad and pen from the coffee table and sat down at my desk. “Typically, the person who wants a body dead is someone close to them. But she doesn’t seem to have anyone.”

Colleen stretched out on the sofa and propped her head on her hands. “If she told you everything.”

“I’ll have lunch with Blake at the Cracked Pot and talk to Moon Unit, see what she knows about our new neighbor.” Moon Unit Glendawn owned the town diner and functioned as our chief information officer. My brother, Blake, was the chief of police.

Colleen stared at the ceiling. “Shouldn’t you be guarding her if you’re going to keep her alive?”

“You heard her—she doesn’t think anyone will try to harm her until August fourth. I have until then to figure out who has motive.”

“And you’re willing to bet her life on that?”

“I just got this case. I’m going to do some investigating before I decide if she needs protection twenty-four-seven. Tonight I’ll find out what Michael knows about her,” I said. “It’s odd. I know he met with her while he was building the house. But he never mentioned she was a dead ringer for a dead movie star.”

“Looks like that would have come up,” Colleen said. “About Michael, how’s Nate?”

I didn’t look up from my notes.  Michael and I had known each other all our lives. He was my brother, Blake’s, best friend. I’d tagged after them since I was five. Michael and I had dated in college, and would no doubt have married years ago, except for the intervention of my scheming cousin, Marci. She’d lied and seduced her way into a marriage with Michael that had recently ended.  As Mamma would have put it, Marci had been called elsewhere.

“Nate’s fine.” Nate Andrews was my partner and my best living friend. We’d started our practice, Talbot and Andrews, in Greenville, in the South Carolina Upstate. He suffered the great misfortune of having my ex-husband, Scott the Scoundrel, for a brother.

“He still in Greenville?”

“Why do you ask me questions when you know full well the answers?”

“Okay,
why
did you let him go back to Greenville in April?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because he said, ‘Liz, I’m going back to Greenville,’ and kidnapping is against the law?” When all hell broke loose on the island and I’d moved home, Nate came charging down to watch my back. Around that same time, I’d noticed how big the hole in my life was when he was in Greenville and I was in Stella Maris.

“I’m sure there are things you could have said that would have incented him to stay.”

“You think I should have thrown myself at him?” Plenty of women threw themselves at Nate. He’s handsome enough to have been carved by Michelangelo, with all the trimmings statues lack—blond hair, blue eyes, tanned.

Being separated made me more aware of his many fine qualities. It felt mutual. Okay, it was definitely mutual. There were enough sparks flying around to ignite the whole town. Had one of us taken a single step in the other’s direction, we might have crossed into new territory in our relationship. This all happened at the same time Michael waltzed back into my life. The water was too murky to dive straight in, is what I’m saying.

Colleen rolled her eyes elaborately. “If throwing yourself at him was what it took, yeah. But trust me, you’re the only person in the great state of South Carolina who missed that Nate is crazy about you. Life’s short. You shouldn’t waste time chasing the wrong man.”

“I’m not chasing Michael. I’m not even dating Michael.”

“Didn’t you say you were seeing him tonight?”

“It’s not a date. We’re two old friends getting reacquainted. Lookit, this is what Nate wanted.”

“Nate wants you to date Michael?”

“It’s
not
a date. Nate wants me to be sure I’ve resolved all my Michael issues.”

Nate was painfully aware of the torch I’d carried for Michael Devlin for ten years. Michael had stormed back into my life with marriage and babies on his mind. I learned too late that pining for Michael was just a habit—one I easily kicked. But Nate was unconvinced of my certitude in the matter. He went back to Greenville. And now, Nate occupied my mind a great deal.

“Are you having dinner alone with Michael? Because if you are, it’s a date.”

“I don’t have time for this conversation.” I pulled a new file out of the drawer and made a label. “In case you didn’t hear, I have a new client who might be murdered in ten days.”

“A lot of people thought Marilyn Monroe was murdered,” Colleen said.

“Yeah,” I said slowly. “And a lot of people think the British royal family is a cell of shape-shifting, reptilian aliens from the constellation Draco.”

“True,” Colleen allowed.

“On the outside chance what happened to her is relevant, could you talk to her. I mean, since you have time on your hands and all?”

“We’ve covered this,” she said. “Calista isn’t part of my assignment.” Colleen was tight-lipped about most things related to eternity, claimed it was part of the rules.

I looked up from Calista’s contract. “So you say.”

“Whether she died accidentally, was murdered, or,” Colleen sighed, “committed suicide, she died before her time. She’s probably on assignment somewhere herself.”

Colleen had committed suicide when we were seventeen. She’d tried to make it look like an accident, but everyone who cared to face the truth knew that she knew better than to drink tequila and go for a dip in Breach Inlet.

“Better let Rhett out of your bedroom. He was chewing on one of your Kate Spade sandals when I went to quiet him down.”

“You went to quiet him down? Can Rhett see you? Not my blue sandals.” I jumped up and ran for the stairs.

“See you later,” Colleen said. And she was gone.