A cold wave swept over Blanche, even as she sweat in the glaring heat. It was a strange disassociation, like she was untethered and floating. The whiff of a ghost brushed past. When she looked around, she was alone.
She searched the faces again. Ernie at the IGA, a couple of waiters, Buzz, the manager at the bait and tackle. All long-time residents. Dwayne from the 307 Pine Deli and Wendy from Hairs to You. Michelle from Soap-a-Pooch.
At a murder scene? She knew these people well. All of them.
Except for the fellow standing next to a white van on the edge of the lot.
She didn’t recognize him or the van, and his whole getup sent needles down her spine. He was slick, a cagey look about him. He didn’t fit. He didn’t look delivery, and he didn’t look tourist. That was it. That’s what threw her off.
He couldn’t be a snowbird. Too early for them. Island traffic was up, but the post-hurricane season rush hadn’t started yet—not until after November 30. This guy was not here for a frolic on the beach, all alone, lounging with a boot up against the passenger door. He shifted his head from side to side like he had ants running up and down his neck.
Her arms and feet were toasting, and she would just have to take it. She clutched the pen and notebook and kept writing.
She crept over to the shade of an awning at a marina kiosk that sold short walking tours to Gull Egg Key. She stood in the shadow and studied him. He didn’t glance her way, and he didn’t talk to anyone. He observed. He smoked. She wrote it down: long brown hair pulled back, hooded eyes darting over the crowd. He wore an immaculate white t-shirt and jeans. One very smooth dude.
Not a single person in the crowd seemed to notice him.
So maybe I’m nuts.
A few people meandered off and began disappearing into their cars and back to business. But suspicion held her like an anchor, and she had no one to tell.
She was alone with him.
Would anyone think this odd? Much less, would anyone hear me out?
Duncan was still MIA. Some of the officers were trying to keep the last of the onlookers at bay. Most weren’t sticking around. Doors slammed. Officer Buck put two feet on the ground but that was as far as he got. He never looked up, and then he tucked back into the patrol car and drove away.
Her mind raced. She dropped back, and wrote furiously.
He was young, probably in his late twenties. Short, five foot eight, maybe, not more than 150 pounds. Easily, he pushed off the van with a boot, swung his arms, sinewy with muscle. A tattoo? A vine of thorns, or letters? He was wiry but his movements were graceful. Careful.
He opened the passenger door, reached in the glove box, and pulled out a pack of smokes. He tamped it against the palm of his hand, unwrapped it, and rolled the pack into a shirt sleeve after he withdrew a cigarette. He rubbed his forearm, shifted from one boot to the other, and still, he gazed at the crowd. Smoke curled from the cigarette in his fingers. He walked around the front of the van, each boot landing hard and sure.
She looked down at the scribbled mess in her notebook. You never know when a mess will come in handy.
The guy was rubbing his arm again. The tattoo of … a snake? The boots with silver buckles. The dent in the side of the van, the skull and flag on the rear window.
She needed his license number. The description alone wouldn’t get it. Who would believe her without that number? Who is going to believe me anyway?
She bent to her pages. A loud splat—the thrust of an engine—drew her attention, and she looked up just as the van roared out of the parking lot. He’d been lounging around a minute before. Now he was gone. Just like that. She sprinted from her hiding place, but she couldn’t make out the license number. Tires skidded around the curve toward the bridge. Soon all she saw was a white speck against the blue water of the bay. She tripped in her sandals and again made a mental note about her deficient wardrobe. She needed those running shoes.
She looked down at the tire marks he left. Wide bald tires and a wiggle in the sand. She wrote a few more words, thumbed through the two pages of detailed scribbling that she could barely read, and she started filling in her notes. She was disappointed that it was all she had, but baking in the sun had not been a complete bust. She had a very good description and a buzzing in her brain that said something wasn’t right about the guy and the van.
She was still flipping through the pages when she saw it. The sun glinted off the crushed shell and sand at her feet. A piece of cellophane.
She picked it up using the tips of her nails and hesitated, held it up to the light. Fresh and new. Of course, that’s all she could tell, but the thought struck: Oh, my. Fingerprints? She placed the cellophane carefully in a tissue and put it in a side pocket of her bag. She turned back to search the ground for cigarette butts. There wasn’t a single one. What? Field stripping his cigarettes and pocketing the butts? Like the military. They don’t leave a trace.
But he had dropped that cellophane. It was something. Blanche pushed the damp curls off her forehead, and wondered. It didn’t hurt to wonder.
She’d show Duncan the evidence. The thought of it made her wince. She’d have to face the gruff old police chief without the license number. If he scoffed, she’d have to go to plan B. What’s Plan A? With Duncan, it was hard to plan anything. All she had was a tiny piece of cellophane and a description. And not much else.
Bob’s Mercedes was still parked in the lot between white lines. There it sat, and the loss hit her again. The car was a large, boxy model, polished and shiny, in top shape—old-school vintage with a touch of class. One more thing that reminded her of Bob. It just wasn’t fair, and she began to miss him all over again.
Yellow police tape flapped in the breeze. Two officers chatted, their backs to her. She lifted the tape gingerly, bracing for a reprimand from at least one of them. She was, in fact, breaching a crime scene. But the cops ignored her. She peeked inside the car, and, sure enough, the coffee was in the holder. Undisturbed, with the lid on it. Bob’s tie, a blue silk with tiny fish, was on the passenger seat, bunched and wrinkled. Bob wouldn’t have been caught dead without his tie. He wouldn’t have removed it…willingly. He sometimes even wore one when he coached Little League. Why was the tie wadded up, thrown aside on the seat like that?
There were indications that his neck had been broken. Someone strong had gotten to him. Or someone just awfully good at killing. And somehow that tie had been removed.
Lost in thought, she didn’t hear the grunting at first—like an old motor being dragged over concrete. Jess Blythe’s work boots stuck out from under the rear bumper of the Mercedes. “Drat this tow!”
“Hey, Jess!” She bent down to take a look. He slid out from under the car. “Blanche!” He dropped the wrench into his bag, sat back on his haunches. “Stinks, don’t it.”
“I’ll say.”
“Who’d want to kill our Bobby?” There it was again. That’s how they all thought of him: “Our Bobby.” The island stuck together, thick as a patch of mangrove, reliable as the sunset.
“Jess, I don’t have any idea. I just saw Liza. She’s torn up. It makes me sick.” Blanche peered into the car window again, stood back with her hands on her waist. “So, why do you suppose his tie is on the seat. Can’t imagine Bob would take it off.”
“I haven’t got one idea.”
“I’m stunned.”
“That about says it.” He was still sitting back on his heels, squinting up at her. He took off his hat and slapped it over his knee.
“Were you here when they took him away?”
“Yeah, but they whisked him out of here pretty fast. Looked like there’d been a struggle ‘cause that shirt was mighty rumpled. That sure ain’t Bob. I didn’t see much more than that.”
“I hope he gave whoever did this a good one.” Maybe he’d left a mark. She was thinking skin under the finger nails, a hair left behind. Something left behind.
“You betcha.” As if he read her mind, he added, “They went over this here car worsin’ you do on a dog with ticks, and that investigator is comin’ around again to bag some things. Hope they find somethin’.”
Blanche went off to peek again. Jess said, “They gets pinchy when you stands too close now. They says to me, be quick. Not to touch nothin’, ‘cept under.”
“Got it.”
She backed away. A couple more notes on the pad. The coffee cup, the tie, nothing much else. No stains, tools, ropes. Nothing. The back seat was clean. It must have happened from the back seat. The guy hiding, reaching up and forward. Or just getting into the Mercedes casually, greeting Bob. Bob, so friendly, wondering, what property the guy was interested in seeing. And then, whammo!
She held the notebook over her eyes, crouched down out of the officers’ sight. Jess finished the clanging and wrenching, and it jangled a string of thoughts that popped and scattered. First, this business with Langstrom, then the murder. Now the stranger and the white van. Her fingers sifted through the broken shell, her knees weak and wobbly.
She longed to put it all back together and make it right again. She needed solid facts. Maybe she had at least one or two, the guy, the cellophane—maybe not. She had this, and an awful feeling, this uncanny sense of connection and absolutely not one iota of proof. Facts and feelings.
Jess was standing now, wiping the grease off his hands. Blanche brushed her shorts off. She stood, scanning the parking lot one more time. “Jess, you notice any strangers around here?”
“Nope.” He jammed his cap down squarely, picked up his bag. “Not really. It’s all pretty strange though.”
“Hmmm. You didn’t notice a guy and a white van? Didn’t seem to fit?”
“Why, Blanche, there’s so much comin’ and goin’, who’d know? An awful lot of white vans out there.” He mumbled, shuffling up to the rear door of his truck. He shook his head. “Why you ask?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I saw this guy…”
“Oh, Blanche, now, you let Duncan and the boys take care of all that. That business of lookin’ here and yonder.”
Blanche smiled. “I hear you, Jess, but you know, I’m just asking. You know me.”
“I sure do. We can’t know where all this is headed, but I can say this, Blanche, and you hear me good. You take care now. I mean it.”
“I will, Jess. You, too.”
She watched him hoist his tools into the cab, mumbling to himself, and slam the door.
Blanche’s stomach growled. She was disgusted—and starving. The whiskey had been a bad idea. She was sweating like crazy and in need of food and shelter. Naturally, she thought of Cap, grilling fish and frying potatoes, but, best of all, they would talk. If anyone could bring some calm and perspective to the day, it would be Cap. Surely, he’d know about Bob because he stopped by the police station almost every day to gossip and see Aloysius Duncan and bring him soup, or something more nutritious than his usual diet of pizza and Chinese.
She didn’t have one worthwhile thing to report to Liza. What could she tell her? I just saw the murderer driving away in a white van! Blanche was loath to offer some half-baked theory and risk further upsetting her. Wouldn’t do any good to go blabbing about a guy and a white van because he had now dissolved into a sea of white vans cruising around Florida. He and his license number were long gone, and the more she thought about it, the less likely it seemed anything would come of trying to find him. Unless he showed up again. Oh, what if he shows up!
Her sandals dragged across the lot. An investigator arrived, snapping on the gloves, frowning in Blanche’s direction. Jess sat in his cab, the motor running. She waved, listlessly. She couldn’t believe it. She’d started the day angry over the planned destruction of the island, and now she was sadder than hell.
How are we going to fix this?
We can’t get Bob back. That’s really the worst of it.
She was afraid to think of how it would end—and what needed to happen to end it.