Southern Poison (17 page)

He slurped something. “Lady Lizzy had a nail and hair appointment this morning.”

“So?”

“She has her nails done every other Monday. She has a standing hair appointment the first Tuesday of each month. Today was not her regular appointment day for either one.”

“I’m listening.”

“I called the salon, pretending to be her assistant. Told them I was confirming an appointment. They said she’d already been in and left. They did a wash and set on her.”

I rolled my head in slow circles to stretch my neck. A mere hint of concussion headache lingered. “Maybe she has a hot date.”

“Not according to the nail place. Lizzy told them she was attending a big event tonight. Wouldn’t say what, but according to the nail guy, she was all atwitter. His exact words. And I’d imagine that Lady Lizzy wouldn’t get all atwitter unless it was a big deal.”

Two jet skis zipped by the marina, faster than they should have, and
Incognito
rocked slightly from the wakes. “Any thoughts on where she’s going?”

“Guess you’re going to have to get that direct from Lizzy’s atwittering mouth.”

“You have a—”

Soup rattled off Lady Lizzy’s cell phone number. And then he gave me another useful morsel—of the cosmetic surgery variety—in case I may need it for persuasion purposes.

“Thanks, I—”

He cut me off again. “Yeah, yeah. You owe me. You always owe me.” He hung up.

When I reached the gossip columnist, she was baffled. “I don’t recall giving you this number, Miss Barnes!”

“You didn’t. But you
did
hold out on me, Lady Lizzy. We had a deal, remember?”

“Yes, and I e-mailed you my calendar of happenings as agreed!”

“I hear there’s a big shindig tonight.”

Traffic noises sounded in the background. “Well, ah, yes. There’s a wedding tonight, but I didn’t think it’s anything you’d be interested in.”

I kept quiet, to let her imagine that I knew much more than I really did.

“Okay, okay. Lots of heavy-hitters attending. But, look. It’s too late for you to get any bodyguard work out of it now.”

I usually don’t resort to threats but in this case, I didn’t have time to be my usual sweet and cunning self. “Here’s the deal, Elizabeth. You’re going to tell me everything about tonight’s event. VIPs, location, everything. And don’t even ask, because I’m not going to tell you why I need it. If you’re a good girl and cooperate, then I won’t leak it that your last vacation—the one to help vaccinate Third World children—was really a trip to Thailand for a breast lift and eye job.”

She gasped.

“You remember the trip, right? It’s the alleged missionary work you wrote a column about. You told readers how rewarding it is to help make a difference in the world.”

Her voice lost its endless supply of exclamation points as she pulled off the road and gave me the rundown on the wedding. Of particular interest was the Bald Head Island location and the fact that the bride’s father was also the United States secretary of Defense. The news made goose bumps pop out on my skin. Ignoring a lone seagull that begged for food from its perch on an outrigger, I called Ashton, who should have already known about the Sec Def’s presence in North Carolina.

“Is there a container ship going out of Sunny Point tonight?” I said after he verified that I was not under the influence of coercion with his silly secret questions.

He cleared his throat. “Jersey, I’m not going to tell you again. You are off—”

“Ashton, please. I don’t care if you load up my file with demerits or play the threaten-to-withhold-my-pension card. Is there a boat going out?”

He put me on hold and came back in seconds. “Scheduled to depart at seventeen hundred hours.”

I told him about the wedding, the VIPs, and my theory that there was something on the container ship scheduled to blow up as it passed the wedding party. John had access to the container loads of munitions and, if he sought revenge for his brother’s death, who better to go after than the Sec Def?

“Give me something concrete, Jersey. I can’t stop a shipment based on a hunch from a single agent who is recovering from a concussion. There are people on the receiving end of the shipment who need those supplies.”

“Can’t you prevaricate?” I said. “Stall until your explosives people examine every container?”

“Do you know how long that would take? Not going to happen. For some reason, you’re convinced our bad guy is John, when he keeps coming up clean.” He paused to sneeze, a deviation from his usual throat clearing when dealing with me. “One, we’ve just decoded some intel that may discredit our earlier information, so the whole Sunny Point thing might have been a false alarm to begin with. Two, we’ve thoroughly vetted John Mason. We’ve searched his house and his property. We’ve spoken with his superiors. Nothing.”

“But—”

“You’ve obviously stumbled into something. The close call in your car. Mama Jean and the body from the shrimp boat—both with similar markings on their necks. Rest assured that we’re staying with it until we figure out what’s going on.”

“So you won’t—”

“They’d have my ass if I intercept a munitions shipment based on a damn hunch. Get some rest, Jersey.”

I tried again. “The container ship—”

“Is moving out as scheduled. Security inside MOTSU is so damn tight right now, a mosquito couldn’t get through without a security clearance.”

He hung up before I could say anything else and I wanted to throw my fancy satellite phone in the air and shoot it like a clay pigeon. I had to get to the wedding, but then what? I picked up Mama Jean’s autopsy photographs and studied the purplish markings on both sides of her neck. What had Ashton just said about the other body, the floater? That it had the same markings on the neck as Mama Jean.

“Holy crap,” I said to the seagull, which had moved to perch on the bow rail. A vivid memory of John Mason fighting in the parking lot at Elijah’s restaurant replayed in my head. He had grabbed the remaining drunk with one huge hand and all but lifted the fisherman off the ground. It was his left hand with the stubby ring finger—the one that got mangled in a corn chopper. The neck bruises seen in Mama Jean’s death photos perfectly matched my recall of the one-handed choke hold John had on the fisherman: thumb on the left side of the throat, up under the jaw, and the other thick fingers on the right, all exerting enough inward pressure to asphyxiate somebody. But the ring finger was too short to leave a bruise. There were only four marks instead of five, as would be left from a normal hand. John was the killer and the photographs would prove it.

I redialed Ashton’s private number, but he didn’t answer. Frantically, I called the main number, gave my identification code, and asked for Ashton. They said he was unavailable. My handler had blown me off. It would be fruitless to keep trying.

My next call was to Ox’s cell phone. “Look, I know you’re busy with Louise and I’m sorry to bother you,” I rushed when he answered on the first ring, “but I have a quick question. If you
planned to blow up a container ship that was loaded with munitions, how would you do it? Obviously with a detonator of some sort, planted in one of the containers. But would it be on a timer, or what?”

“Does it need to blow at a specific time? Or anytime the ship is out in open seas?”

“A specific time. At the exact time it passes by a house.”

“I’d use command detonation, then, like what was used on your car. The remote would need to be within signal range to the receiver, or detonator, and the user would need to have a visual on both the boat and the house.”

“How far of a range, generally speaking?”

“Depends on the equipment. The remote could easily be a kilometer away from the receiver. Or more. What location are we talking about?”

“Bald Head Island and the shipping channel.”

“Remote detonation could take place from the beach or a building with an unobstructed view. Even from the air in a chopper or small plane. Keep in mind that if a container ship of munitions blows, it could take out an untold number of houses and nearby people, including the person who detonated it. That’s a lot of juice, Jersey.”

“Well, maybe John Mason is a die-for-the-cause kind of guy.” I disconnected and dialed JJ. I needed a sharpshooter, I told her, and explained that the job could be dangerous. Or to be more accurate, deadly.

“Aren’t they all?” she said. “What type of rifle do I need?”

“One that will shoot somebody.”

“C’mon, Jersey. Help me out a little bit here.”

“We’re going to Bald Head for an outdoor wedding. You’ll have to figure out where the bad guy has hunkered down. He’ll be someplace where he can watch the shipping channel and see the house. If
I’m right, he’s going to send a wireless signal that will detonate a bomb on a passing container ship. The ship, by the way, is loaded with forty-foot box loads of explosives and ammunition. Hundreds of them. Thousands, actually.”

“Aren’t you retired?” JJ said.

“All you have to do is find the bad guy and shoot him before he has a chance to push the button.”

She laughed. “Remind me to never retire.”

I told JJ to watch for me at the Southport Marina. She said that she and her.416 Barrett rifle would be waiting with bated breath.

“Ready to crash
a wedding?” I said, angling
Incognito
close enough to the fuel dock for the Barnes Agency’s newest partner to pull off her heeled sandals and jump aboard.

JJ smiled. “Sure. Maybe I’ll catch the bouquet.”

Gorgeous in a flowing sundress and floppy hat, she certainly didn’t look deadly, even though I knew her bag contained a sniper rifle and a few other lethal toys. And I knew for a fact that she had no desire to get married, caught flower bouquet or not.

“What would you do with it if you were to catch it?” I asked.

“Give it to you, so you’ll be ready when Ox proposes.”

“Yeah, right.” Neither Rita nor JJ knew I’d been to bed with Ox. But everyone thinks we’d be perfect together, as a couple. Of course, that was before Louise blew into town and started building a nest at Ox’s place.

“Sizzling duds, by the way,” she said. “When Ox sees you in that dress, he just might come up with a proposal, if you know what I mean.”

My dress was black and satiny and sleeveless with white piping around the waist. Respectably knee length, but invitingly low cut. If we were going to disrupt a wedding, at least we’d look good doing it. Plus, it’s the only dress I had in the stateroom closet and it perfectly concealed my backup weapon—a Sig-Sauer P232—in a thigh holster. The Glock, a much bigger and heavier piece, would have to stay in the boat. It was either that, or walk bowlegged.

“Ox is busy with his ex-wife, who’s apparently in town for an extended stay. So he’s obviously not going to see me in this dress, at least not today.”

“You never know,” JJ said.

As I pushed the throttle forward to pull away from the dock, Ox stepped aboard with one long stride. Like JJ and me, he was dressed for an outdoor summer wedding in lightweight slacks and a short-sleeved white silk tee.

“You know how I hate to miss a good party-crashing,” he said and I wondered if he’d been close enough to hear any of our conversation. JJ’s face registered guilt when I gave her a look. She must’ve called him, although I couldn’t say I was mad about it. He climbed to the flybridge. I stood at the console and when he moved behind me, the back of my neck tingled. He radiated a physical energy that reached through the empty space between our bodies. I thought about throwing myself into his arms, but asked him to take the wheel instead. As we cruised to the Bald Head Island marina at twenty-five knots, I gave him an update, admiring his relaxed and capable stance at the helm of
Incognito.

“Nice dress,” he said when I finished with the briefing. “You look beautiful.”

“Thanks,” I said, noticing his recent haircut. “You look pretty good yourself.”

“Want me to run the boat so you two kids can go below and play?” JJ said.

“Hey, I’d be game,” I quipped, “but Ox has been busy playing house with somebody else.”

I knew the comment sounded petty and I immediately felt small for saying it. But I felt even worse when Ox didn’t say anything to correct my assumption.

A
reception tent was set up in the marina’s parking area and, using fake press passes JJ brought, we pretended to be photographers taking pictures for Lady Lizzy. After a list was consulted, the three of us and our bags of gear were whisked via electric golf cart to the site of the wedding, a lovely home on the southwestern point of the island. We backtracked a few houses, cut through to the beach, and walked back along the water’s edge, deciding on a plan of action.

“If our man must see the house from his vantage point,” JJ said when we reached the wedding area, “it makes sense that I’ll be able to find his location from the house.”

“Might could use the sundeck,” Ox suggested. We looked up from the beach to spot a wooden platform built over one section of the roof, on the third story. Stairs zigzagged down from the deck to a second-floor balcony. Enclosed with a decorative wrought-iron fence, the sundeck held a variety of large tropical plants in clay pots. There were also lounge chairs, small tables, and a mini refrigerator.

JJ’s eyes swept the deck, checked out the rest of the house, and ended up back on the deck. “Probably the best place to station myself, considering that I don’t know who I’m looking for or where they’ll be.”

“Take a camera and tripod, in case anybody asks what you’re doing up there,” I suggested.

She stuck out a hip. “Well, duh.”

“You don’t have to be snippy just because I’ll be down here,
mingling with the guests and eating caviar-covered brie cheese while you’re up there, boiling in this heat.”

We tuned our miniature two-way radios to the same channel. Ox left to scout the area, JJ headed off to infiltrate the sundeck, and I strolled up a pathway from the sandy beach to the rear lawn. I flashed a press pass to get by a guard and only had to wait ten minutes before I saw movement on the roof deck. JJ had made it and, from what I could tell through the plants, was fishing around in the small refrigerator.