Walking on My Grave Read online

  This fact, and she trusted Estelle’s judgment, went a long way toward confirming Fred’s decision to jump from the pier resulted from the confrontation at Ves’s house Wednesday night. She tucked away the knowledge that didn’t fit, Fred’s false claim to be excused from work on previous Thursdays.

  She lifted her hand, pulled open the heavy front door of Parotti’s Bar and Grill. She was just inside when Ben came bustling toward her. Of course, he was on his way to the ferry for the afternoon run to the mainland. She’d arrived just in time. “Ben, I have a quick question.”

  “Fire away.” He teetered on his feet, like a boxer ready for the bell.

  She grinned at him. “You love running the Miss Jolene better than anything, don’t you?”

  His leprechaun face crinkled. “Reminds me of the days when I was a young man on freighters. What can I do for you?”

  Ben kept his ferry punctual. Annie talked fast. She had a little speech prepared. “I’m putting together a memory book about Fred Butler for Estelle Parker, and I want to talk to some people who knew him well. He played dominoes here, and I wondered if you can give me the names of some of his friends.”

  “Nice thing to do.” Ben patted her shoulder. “Talk to Bill Hogan at Gas ’n Go. He works the afternoon shift.” Ben rocked back and forth faster, a man with a job to do. “You can include a tribute from me. Fred ate chili and corn bread here Tuesday nights and we had a right good talk last week. He said he had about decided to run for mayor. He was going to talk to folks, see if he could get support. I told him I’d back him. You know the trouble we have with Cosgrove.”

  Everyone dislikes somebody, and the penguin-shaped mayor topped Annie’s list.

  “Fred wanted the town to get behind new basketball courts at the Island Rec Center. Cosgrove opposes it. Fred was a good man and he loved this island and he had lots of hopes and plans for it.”

  • • •

  Annie pulled up to the service pump. Gas ’n Go, which belonged to Ben, had two pumps, one self-serve, the other attended. She rolled down her window.

  A tall lanky man in overalls approached. “Fill ’er up?”

  “With regular. And please check the oil and tires. Are you Bill Hogan?”

  “At your service, ma’am.”

  “Ben Parotti tells me Fred Butler was a friend of yours.” She saw acceptance on the long lean face. Ben’s name was about the best recommendation she could have. “I’m gathering remembrances about Fred for a friend and I’m hoping you will share some memories.”

  “Well.” He drawled out the word, bushy eyebrows bunched in concentration. “You could count on Fred. When my boy Rick was hurt in a cycle crash, Fred was at the hospital soon as he heard to give blood, and he went out and fed the chickens and took care of my horses while me and my wife was at the hospital.”

  “Had you seen Fred recently?”

  “Saw him every Saturday, rain or shine. We play dominoes at Parotti’s.”

  “Was he cheerful?”

  Bill didn’t seem to think her question odd. “Yeah.” He sounded sad. “We had a beer after we finished. He was in a great mood. He was always nuts about pirate stuff. I don’t know how a grown man could believe in old pirate maps. But he did. I never saw it but he used to talk about this yellowed crumbly parchment map and how he’d found it in the bottom of a trunk he picked up at a flea market. I could’ve told him they churn those out in prints shops and peddle them to suckers. But I never did. Hell, it made him happy, gave him something to think about. I figure everybody has to have something to hope for. Saturday he said he’d figured out what he needed to do, he’d been counting all wrong. Something about so many paces this way, so many that way. He said it was like having a big lightbulb go off in his brain but it was brighter than any old lightbulb, more like a spotlight. He was sure he’d figured everything out, and it depended on where the arrow would land. I don’t know what that had to do with pirates, but he was real excited, said he was going to be rich and maybe he’d take a trip to Paris, he’d always wanted to go to Paris.” Bill pressed his lips together for an instant. “Anyway”—his voice was gruff—“I’m glad he was happy.”

  • • •

  Annie stepped inside Trinkets ’n Treasures. She liked the way Ves had divided the shop. One side was pricey: the gleam of fine porcelain birds, figurines, and plates, a Sheffield silver tea urn, an antique derringer pistol, Chinese plates, an Egyptian chess set in ivory, two Sevres figurines of Napoleonic soldiers. A comfortable sofa faced the display. The other side was for budget shoppers: cookie cutters shaped like starfish, conch shells, salt water taffy, plastic beach buckets and trowels, kites, flip-flops, sunblock lotion, T-shirts with a T ’n T logo in bright pink, synthetic shell necklaces, a manually propelled scooter, an electric-powered scooter, skateboards, foam boogie boards, plastic beach umbrellas.

  Ves came around the desk at the back. She moved slowly, but she was no longer using the cane. “Hi, Annie.” She smiled but there were dark patches beneath her eyes.

  “I have good news.” Annie knew she sounded ebullient. She felt ebullient. She was about to give Ves her life back.

  Ves gestured at the sofa. “I’m all in for good news. Are politicians being quarantined in Antarctica? Has the state decided to give a sales tax holiday for the summer? Is Jordan Spieth buying a house on the island?”

  “I wish.” Annie laughed as she settled on the sofa and turned to face Ves. “It’s better than all three combined. You don’t have to be frightened anymore. Fred Butler was a happy man. There was nothing wrong in his life. He wasn’t sick. He wasn’t depressed. He had no worries. He was happy and positive Wednesday. Everything in his life was good until he came to your house Wednesday night.”

  Ves stared, disbelief mixed with the beginnings of hope. “How can you be certain?”

  Annie told her about Ben Parotti and Fred’s plans to maybe run for mayor and campaign for basketball courts at the Island Rec Center, his announcement to Bill Hogan on Saturday that he’d soon be rich, his promise to Estelle Parker that he’d see her the next day and they would soon go for a celebratory dinner in Savannah.

  Ves pounced. “He said he was going to be rich.”

  “Pirate gold. Nothing to do with you.”

  “Pirate gold?” Ves spoke as if the words made no sense.

  “He believed in pirates.” That didn’t sound quite right. “He was into hunting for buried treasure.” Ves would be well aware the Low Country had seen plenty of pirates in the early 1800s, and there were many tales of hidden loot, including a stash by Blackbeard. “Apparently Fred had a parchment map and he hadn’t been following the directions properly and he’d figured out where an arrow would land and all he had to do was dig. He was really upbeat Saturday.”

  Ves gestured toward the tacky side of her store. “I have an assortment of parchment maps, all printed this year. I could have given him a half dozen different ones. You say he was happy Saturday. Maybe something happened between Saturday and Wednesday.”

  “He was happy Wednesday.” Annie was emphatic. “He was fine.” She frowned. “The only thing I can’t pin down was why he lied about going to the dentist on Thursday. That was the first thing that made me think he might have been at your house, then Estelle said he’d been going to the dentist for several Thursdays in a row. He lied about the dentist. I don’t know where he was the other times unless he was at your house for several Thursdays but didn’t nerve himself up to set the trap until that last Thursday.”

  Ves pressed her fingertips against her cheeks. “Nerve himself up? That wasn’t how I felt at the dinner. Whoever wanted me dead wanted it quick, without hesitation. But maybe he was like me. I have a gun. I talk tough. But the idea of shooting anyone scares me. Maybe he came a few times before he waxed the step. I guess he wanted me out of the way so he could really make a search for that treasure.”

  Annie f
elt certain that was what happened. All the ends might not be tidily tied, but Ves saw now that there could be only one reason for Fred’s death Wednesday night. He went to the pier and jumped in the water because of what he learned at her house.

  • • •

  Annie sniffed appreciatively. “Mmmm.”

  Max turned from the pot on the stove. “Coming up soon. Will you check the corn bread?”

  She moved to the oven, pulled down the door. The corn bread had a golden crust on top. She used a mitt, set the pan on the granite counter. “Perfection.”

  Max stirred with a wooden spoon. “I put in lump crabmeat as well as the crab claws.” He put down the spoon, picked up a ladle, transferred steaming gumbo to pottery bowls.

  The phone rang.

  Annie had the corn bread loose and turned it onto a rack.

  “Bad time to call. Let it go.” Max held a bowl in each hand.

  Annie pulled the cell from the pocket of her cardigan and checked caller ID. “It’s Ves Roundtree. I better answer.”

  “Sure.” He turned and poured the brown gumbo with crab claws, shrimp, lump crab, sausage, and okra back into the pot.

  Annie perched on a stool by the center island, swiped to answer, punched Speakerphone. “Hi, Ves.”

  Ves’s voice was low and hoarse. “It wasn’t Fred.”

  Annie felt as if she’d been struck unexpectedly between her shoulder blades. “Not Fred?” Of course it was Fred who’d jumped from the pier. There was no question about that. Annie said firmly, “Of course it was Fred.”

  “Fred didn’t try to kill me.” The words came fast. “I started thinking about what Bill Hogan said. And then it hit me, Fred was going to dig where the arrow landed. I went out in the backyard, and there’s Diana in the fountain. A long time ago the arrow broke off but that’s the arrow Fred meant. I’m sure that’s right because I tracked down Bill Hogan. I asked if he knew the name of the pirate Fred talked about and he said yes.” A ragged breath. “Fred was looking for treasure buried by Black Jack MacDougal. I know a lot about Black Jack. Our house was owned by Jeremiah Jemson, and he had this beautiful daughter, Isabel. Black Jack was the second son of some English lord. He had no money but was highborn. Anyway, he had good manners and was a regular at grand dinners and dances in Charleston. Isabel visited some cousins there and she met John, as she called him, at a dance. They fell in love. Supposedly he visited the island several times. He roamed up and down the coast near here in the 1820s. I don’t know if the romance really happened. Isabel died of the fever when she was nineteen. Black Jack came to see her before she got sick, and legend says he buried a trunk full of gold in the backyard, but when she died he went off to Barbados and was killed in a duel there. So Fred was looking for treasure in my backyard. The past few weeks I found some odd places in the yard where the dirt was soft and had odd lumps. I couldn’t figure out what could have caused it.”

  Max was standing next to Annie at the island. He silently mouthed, “Gophers.”

  Annie put a finger to her lips.

  Ves barreled ahead. “That explains his lying at work. Fred was coming here on Thursday afternoons before I got home from the shop and digging around in my backyard. I think he was here the Thursday someone came here to set a trap for me. Fred had no right to be here. As soon as he saw someone arrive, he slipped away. He might not have known the person who came inside the house. Don’t you see, Fred had no idea what had happened to me, that the step was waxed and I fell, until he came here with the others Wednesday night. That’s why he was scared. I told them someone had tried to kill me. Fred looked at someone and he was terrified. He knew who the murderer was. Maybe Fred thought about speaking up but he would have to admit he’d been there. Whomever he accused could say Oh, I dropped by that afternoon to talk to Ves and I saw Fred and he was on the porch. There must have been an instant when he almost spoke up, but he was too frightened.” Her voice was low. “God, yes, he was right to be frightened.”

  Annie saw the connections, an arrow, Black Jack MacDougal, lying about Thursdays, lumps in the backyard. Fred could have meant Ves’s house when he exulted about buried gold. She wasn’t convinced. “Maybe that’s true but maybe he decided to try and get rid of you and then he’d inherit from Rufus and he’d have the money to buy your house and it would be hard to sell a house where someone had just died, especially if anyone figured out your fall wasn’t an accident.”

  “I told you how I felt at the dinner, the threat was cold, dangerous, hard. Not Fred.”

  Annie was skeptical. “Why would he meekly agree to meet this scary person at the end of Fish Haul Pier? In the dark. By himself. If he was scared in your living room, how do you think he’d have felt about meeting a murderer?”

  Her answer was slow in coming and her tone sad. “Fred would be afraid no one would believe he was innocent if he admitted he’d been in my yard. Maybe the murderer told him since he hadn’t spoken up, he was part of a conspiracy, told him to come to the pier around ten o’clock. Maybe Fred refused and the murderer said Unless you come, I’ll go to the police tomorrow and tell them I thought it over and decided I had to report I’d seen you in Ves’s backyard, but if you cooperate no one will ever know. Maybe the murderer told him all he had to do was sign a paper admitting he was in the yard at that time, and the murderer would keep it as insurance that Fred would keep quiet.”

  Annie remembered Fred’s tension when the bank manager kidded him about the dentist. What would happen to his job if the bank learned he’d lied about dental appointments to dig for gold? “He’d be scared he’d lose his job.”

  “Fred didn’t jump.” Ves’s voice was shaky. “He was stunned, thrown over the railing.”

  Annie felt breathless. “We need to tell Billy.”

  “He’ll come back at me with all the objections you had. He won’t say so publicly but he thinks Fred committed suicide. Billy will say that now there’s a reason why Fred was in my yard. Billy will say Fred had no luck digging and thought it would be easier if I died and the house would be vacant. He could search without worrying about me, plus he’d inherit from Rufus. And I brought out a gun and told them I was ready for a killer, and Fred was afraid I’d hear about Black Jack MacDougal and know he was guilty.”

  “Billy will listen.” Annie knew this was true. “I’ll talk to him. I’ll call him right now.”

  “It’s after hours. I’ll go see him in the morning. I want to think about Wednesday night. I want to remember where Fred sat and where he looked. I haven’t had time to really concentrate. Something may come to me. I’ll meet you in the morning. Nine o’clock.”

  Annie spoke quickly before the call could end. “Maybe you should go to the inn to spend the night.”

  “Don’t worry. I have my gun. And believe me, I’ll use it now. I liked Fred.”

  9

  Annie parked in the lot north of the police station, rolled down the windows. She breathed deeply, enjoying the faint tang from the sea. The Sound was placid this morning. Puffy white clouds floated in a bright blue sky. She glanced at her watch. Almost nine. Ves didn’t think Billy would be impressed that Fred was happy until he came to her house Wednesday evening. Billy could point out that suicides often mask their feelings. Annie intended to insist that Fred’s death wasn’t suicide. Fred was frightened after he learned of Ves’s injury. Why? It was logical to assume he was in Ves’s backyard on the Thursday she fell. He was looking for treasure in her yard, had likely been doing so for several Thursdays. He was there and saw someone approach the house. Annie hoped Billy would reopen the inquiry into Fred’s death. Billy was painstaking, careful. Even if he wasn’t persuaded by Ves’s argument, he would surely try to find out where Ves’s guests were Wednesday night. Doc Burford estimated Fred had been in the water thirty to thirty-five hours when he was found early Friday morning. Fred was last seen leaving Ves’s house shortly after nine. Between then and eigh
t the next morning he went into the water.

  A deep throaty whistle announced the nine A.M. departure of the Miss Jolene for the mainland. Annie enjoyed the ferry, loved to stand on the upper deck, lean on the railing, and watch passing sailboats and shrimp trawlers and the occasional passenger ship.

  Annie twisted to look at the street. Several cars, no familiar van. She hesitated, then fished out her cell, texted Ves: Waiting for you at the station. She opened the passenger door, climbed out, walked slowly toward the front steps of the one-story brick building that housed the Broward’s Rock Police Station. She reached the steps, yanked out her cell. There had been no ping, no reply to her text. Annie found the number for Trinkets ’n Treasures. After several peals, Ves’s voice: We are sorry to have missed your call. If you’ll— Annie clicked off, tried the home number. The phone rang until it switched to voice mail. Annie clicked off. She hurried up the short flight of steps.

  • • •

  Billy didn’t turn on the siren. “Ves Roundtree is all right. Or she’s not.”

  Annie sat tensely in the passenger seat of Billy’s Ford sedan. He didn’t drive a police car. Maybe most police chiefs used their own cars. She knew she was fastening on an irrelevancy to try and push away fear. Billy had listened to her scrappy recital of what she’d said and what Ves said and responded calmly that more than likely Ves had changed her mind and decided not to show up. Annie knew Ves wasn’t eager to talk to the police. She didn’t see any point in doing so. “Wouldn’t she have called and told me she wasn’t coming?”