“LET’S GO BACK TO THE people who had contact with Mrs. Jackson,” the sheriff said. “Do any of them cross-reference with friends or associates of Cal Jones or the church leaders?”
While the sheriff sat behind his desk, Tyler was wearing out the floor. “It might be easier to count people who don’t. More than half the people on the island attend St. Matthews.”
Rubbing his stubble-laden jaw, Sheriff Caldwell nodded. “True. We have a devout population.”
“And one bad egg.”
Again, the sheriff nodded. A man of few words.
With all his intimidating bluster, his boss and mentor had been really cool about the theft case. Though he’d come back from vacation early, he’d blamed the decision on too much sun and lousy fishing. Tyler was positive he was lying, but other than his opening dig, he hadn’t shown a moment of regret that he’d recommended Tyler for his job or disappointment in the way he’d handled the investigation so far.
“No leads from the pawnshops?” the sheriff asked.
“None. The stolen items haven’t shown up anywhere.”
“At least none you’ve been told about.”
The phone rang, interrupting Tyler’s reply. The calls came every few minutes—from city council members, concerned citizens, the mayor. They were never going to get the case solved if they were picking up the phone and calming everybody’s nerves every five minutes.
“The mayor again,” the sheriff said shortly as he hung up the phone.
“Maybe we’ll hear something later today from the faxes and e-mail alerts we sent out this morning,” Tyler said, getting back to the case details.
“I’m havin’ a hard time picturin’ the tea set or chalice turning up in the average pawnshop.”
“I have some unusual outlets covered, too.” As he’d sent messages to pawnshops, he’d also e-mailed Andrea to ask her to check in with her “friends.”
The sheriff raised his bushy eyebrows. “Such as?”
“A friend who’s a fraud specialist is checking with some of her acquaintances. They’re in the professional acquisitions industry, so they might have a lead.”
“Thieves, in other words.”
“Well…yes, sir.”
“And you don’t suspect this friend’s acquaintances in our case?”
“No, sir. I get the feeling we’re too small-time for them.”
“If the Hope diamond goes missing…”
“They’d be the first ones to call. But, thankfully, that wouldn’t be our jurisdiction.”
“True.” The sheriff leaned back in his chair. “But maybe there is a ring of thieves at work. A small-time one. There’s a lot of money on the island. Maybe they figure it’s a nice, quiet place to set up shop.”
“Could be, I guess,” Tyler said respectfully, even though he didn’t think that was the case. “They haven’t stolen much for a group.”
“They’re at three, and we got zip. I’d say they aren’t havin’ any trouble scoring.”
Tyler felt his face heat. “Good point.”
“We’ll catch up, Deputy. This community’s strong. We’ll pull together and find this creep. Or creeps.”
On that note, the phone rang again. Tyler tried to remember the support and understanding he’d seen in Andrea’s eyes the night before.
He needed her solace even more now.
ANDREA POLISHED OFF THE last of her cinnamon crumb cake and silently praised the mixture of butter, eggs, sugar and flour in the hands of a bakery master.
Maybe Gilda’s Gourmet Delights, with its confectionary bright-pink-and-silver decor, was an odd place for the discussion of a task force, but this was Palmer’s Island, after all.
“Are you sure they’re okay with this?” Andrea asked Sloan for what had to be the twentieth time.
“Stop worrying,” Sloan said, checking her makeup from a compact she’d pulled out of her purse. “Men always appreciate help.” She paused significantly. “As long as it’s accompanied by a good bribe.”
Andrea glanced across the table, meeting Sister Mary Katherine’s gaze.
“It’s fine,” the nun said reassuringly. “I can usually get Father Dominick to see my point more clearly when I bring a tin of cookies to the meeting.”
It was an odd task force—the fourth member of which was waiting at the police station—but Andrea was confident they could make a difference in solving the silver case.
She wasn’t, however, quite so sure the sheriff and his deputies would see things that way. Which was why they’d stopped by Gilda’s to strategize over coffee and cake, and, of course, bring the men a tasty bribe in their effort to persuade them they needed help on the case.
What lawman doesn’t crave peach pie after a long, hard day catching bad guys?
And if she felt silly about the strategy, she only had to glance at Sloan to know what she’d say.
“We’ve got to get you out of the insurance business,” she said. “It’s made you a worrier.”
“I’ve always been a worrier.”
Sloan shrugged even as her blue eyes gleamed. “I’ll handle everything.”
Somehow, Andrea wasn’t convinced.
They gathered their bags and the pie, waved goodbye to Gilda, then headed across the street to city hall, where Andrea’s concerns were realized. “Great,” she muttered, recognizing the beady eyes and moplike hair of the man loitering on the steps with another sleazy-looking guy. “The press has arrived.”
Flipping her hair over her shoulder, Sloan snorted. “Some press. Jerry Mescle and his cousin Clyde.”
“Oh, my,” Sister Mary Katherine said. “That poor boy always did make unfortunate choices in apparel.”
As Andrea climbed from the car, she studied the men and presumed the sister was referring to Clyde, who was wearing a white T-shirt with dirt-brown polyester pants.
“Is there a Patron Saint of Polyester, Sister?” Sloan asked as they started up the stone stairs.
She shook her head. “I always defer to Jude in these situations.”
“Lost causes,” Andrea said. “Appropriate.”
The two men rushed them, Jerry shoving a tape recorder in Andrea’s face and Clyde holding up his cell phone, presumably to take a picture. “What do you know about the maniac on the loose on our island?” Jerry shouted.
“I’m ready to call a cop,” Sloan said, shifting her stiletto sandal dangerously close to Jerry’s beat-up tennis shoes. “Especially since the maniac’s standing right in front of me.”
“Don’t you feel that law enforcement has aggressively failed us in—”
“I think you need to take a giant step backward,” Andrea warned, shifting her body in front of Sister Mary Katherine. “We’re here on a spiritual mission.”
“Sister.” Jerry pushed the tape recorder over Andrea’s shoulder. “How do you feel about the missing chalice? Are you here to take the sheriff and his incompetent staff to task for their failure of civic duty?”
Sister Mary Katherine’s voice was scalding. “I’m here, young man, to bring peach pie to our hardworking civil servants.”
Jerry obviously wanted to say more, but the sister in her traditional habit was a pretty intimidating sight, so he stepped aside.
“Can I go back and stomp him?” Sloan asked as they made their way to the door.
“Later,” Andrea muttered. “Let’s not cause a bigger scene. Anything we do or say will wind up in the paper.”
“With Jerry’s personal spin.” Sloan nodded. “I get it. The election is twelve days away.”
Once they were inside, the waiting area was deserted. Aqua, who completed their double-X-chromosome task force, waved to them from her glassed-in office. “Are they busy?” Andrea asked.
Aqua rolled her black-rimmed eyes. “Still yammering. I thought lawmen were supposed to be the strong, silent type. But those dudes can talk.”
As she rose—barefoot—to lead them back to the sheriff’s office, Andrea noticed both her fingernails and toes were painted a shade of electric-green. With her long, multicolored bohemian skirt and skimpy white tank, which revealed a dangling belly-button ring, she wasn’t the average person’s idea of a police dispatcher, but Andrea admired her funky, uninhibited style.
Andrea’s own wardrobe seemed boring by comparison. Like the night of the costume ball, she felt the unfamiliar call of daring. She’d been responsible and conservative her whole life. It had led to plenty of professional success, but not so much in the personal arena.
Giving in to boldness had led to a relationship with Tyler. With him, she was pretending to be the woman she’d longed to turn into. If she continued on that road, would she be adventurous permanently? Would forbidden fantasies be a regular occurrence?
Shaking her head at her crazy ideas, at thinking she could turn a wild fling into something more, she followed Aqua, Sloan and Sister Mary Katherine down the hall. After a brief knock on the door, Aqua strode into the office.
The two men inside, faced with a nun, a librarian, a historian, a dispatcher and a peach pie, had the only legitimate reaction available. They dropped their jaws.
Sloan propped her hand on her shapely hip. “Easy, boys. The Calvary is here.”
“And we brought pie,” Andrea added lamely.
To her surprise, Tyler moved toward her and folded her into his arms. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
He really was amazing.
It seemed impossible they’d been together less than a week. The distant fantasy she’d had in high school felt like another life, another guy. She knew Tyler inside now, and she liked him more as each layer was revealed. He wasn’t perfect, yet he was.
But she worried she’d never be enough for him. Until recently, she never would have had the courage to live out her sensual fantasies. She lived in the past much of the time. She plodded along, watching, cataloging, assessing the treasures of others.
With a thief on the loose and an election hanging in the balance, though, her self-evaluation would have to wait. “You guys might want to know that the press corps is gathered outside.”
Sloan examined her nails. “Jerry Mescle and Clyde do not make a corps.”
“I’ll have a talk with them later,” the sheriff said, then smiled fiercely.
Andrea doubted the sheriff would have to say a word. That intense, blue-eyed stare would be enough to scare off the National Guard.
“Besides,” Tyler began, “we have bigger issues to deal with. Namely, the city council’s office, the mayor’s office, community safety groups, neighborhood watch leaders and randomly annoyed islanders, all of whom have expressed concern about our ability to maintain law and order.”
Andrea wanted to say something to comfort him, mostly private things. She settled with the reason for their visit. “Then it’s probably good we’ve formed a task force.”
Tyler grinned.
The sheriff groaned.
“Unofficially,” Andrea added, casting a look at Sloan.
Sloan simply stared at her father.
After a moment or two of this silent battle, he sighed. “We might as well go into the break room. There’s a conference table in there.”
Sister Mary Katherine, still holding the pie, smiled benignly and led the way.
Gathered with coffee and pie, Tyler brought everybody up to date on the case developments, including Dwayne finally locating Mrs. Jackson’s pool boy, who he was interviewing now. Nobody seemed to think the easygoing surfer would have anything to add, though.
The boot print found at the church seemed likely to belong to the custodian, who admitted he owned a pair of work boots and had been fixing a crack in the sidewalk near the garden, likely the source of the mud.
There were no leads at the pawnshops, no witnesses coming forward. Tyler and the sheriff were both puzzled about the lack of evidence in all three cases. Even on such a small, close-knit island, nobody saw anything, heard anything or seemed to know anything about the thefts. The state crime lab was still working on fingerprint and fiber evidence from the church, so they were hopeful they’d have some leads next week.
“Of course by that time he might have already stolen the mayor’s silverware right out of his hand during dinner,” Tyler said.
“He’s fast,” Sloan said, drumming her fingernails on the table. “I’ll give him that.”
“What does the mayor say when he calls?” Andrea asked.
“It’s not content,” Tyler returned. “It’s quantity. He calls about once an hour for updates.”
The sheriff polished off his pie and leaned back in his chair. “The mayor needs to go back to the golf course where he belongs and let us do our jobs.”
Tyler nodded. “He did. He called last hour from the fifth tee.”
Sloan looked annoyed. “He could at least answer some of the panicked calls and reassure people.”
“Everyone serves to their strengths,” Sister Mary Katherine said with quiet authority.
“No disrespect, Sister,” the sheriff put in, “but you haven’t seen the mayor’s lousy putting.”
Andrea rose to refill everyone’s coffee cups. “So, it’s up to us.”
“Any new developments on your end?” Tyler asked her.
“I put out the alert for the chalice, and my friends, even with their—” she sent a cautious look at the sister “—flexible moral codes, were very disturbed by a stolen church relic.”
The sheriff studied her. “You’re the fraud specialist?”
Andrea returned to her seat. “Yes, sir.” Clearly, she’d surprised the sheriff. He only knew her as Sloan’s quiet, nerdy friend, after all. “If any of the stolen items are sold, I’ll hear about it.”
“What if they’re not sold?” Sloan asked.
Tyler shrugged. “Why steal if you’re not going to profit?”
“There are people who just like to take things,” Sister Mary Katherine pointed out. “Lost souls.”
Aqua, who’d silently been taking notes on her laptop the entire time, stopped typing. “You might take something for revenge. When I caught my ex with another chick at a nightclub in Charleston, I stole the tires off his car.”
The room went silent.
“I’m not sure I remember that on your résumé,” the sheriff said, rubbing his chin.
Nonchalantly, Aqua resumed typing. “I gave them back. I just put them on his porch instead of on his car.”
The sister clicked her tongue in admonishment. “Aqua, don’t you think you could have come up with a more peaceful solution?”
“That was peaceful, Sister. I wanted to shoot the tires. And him.”
“Aqua has a point,” Andrea said, trying to shift the focus back to the case. If the good sister launched into one of her “do unto others” lessons, the meeting was going to run a little long. “Maybe the thief has somehow been wronged by the victims?”
“That brings us back to the sheriff’s idea that we need to find a connection between the victims,” Tyler said.
The sheriff lifted his mug. “It makes sense in a serial case.”
“They all attend the church,” the sister said.
“Like most of the island,” Tyler reminded her.
Unfortunately, nobody could think of another commonality between the stolen pieces or their owners, except that the items were all silver—if only in color in the case of the trophy—and all gone without a trace.
The tea set and chalice were priceless and had historical significance to the island. The trophy worthless except as a symbol of victory.
Symbols? Did all three of the items represent some as yet unknown desire? History? Faith? Cups to drink out of?
And the victims. What about them?
They were a rich elderly lady, a maniac volleyball captain and the church. How did they—
Andrea halted her thoughts. Hang on. Two rich, elderly ladies’ homes had been broken into. The trophy belonged to Cal Wells, but the house was owned by his mother.
So how did the church fit? Other than being the ladies’ choice of worship, it didn’t. The property and buildings were owned by the Catholic Church, not one individual.
Still, the Church itself was well-off. It seemed disrespectful to say “rich,” since their budget was reserved for worship and community service, but there were those who might resent the power and money. Hadn’t arguments over faith toppled governments, aristocracies and led to long, bloody wars throughout history?
“Maybe it’s about money,” she found herself saying.
“So why take Cal’s worthless volleyball trophy?” Sloan asked reasonably.
“Maybe it isn’t the items but the victims,” Andrea said. “They all have money. Maybe the thief resents power and wealth.”
Tyler cleared his throat. “There’s certainly a link between the women and the church.”
“It seems to be the only link,” the sheriff said, clearly frustrated.
Andrea swallowed, knowing only too well about a link between Mrs. Jackson and Mrs. Wells. “They both get meals delivered a couple times a week from the church.”
Sitting beside Andrea, Sloan linked their hands. “Nobody thinks Finn is responsible for this.”
Both Tyler and Sister Mary Katherine smiled confidently.
“But we have to add Finn to the mix,” Aqua said, ever blunt. “The thief wanted him to get blamed. So the thief has to know him.”
“Or at least know of him,” Tyler added.
“And if this guy resents money, he’s on the wrong island,” Sloan said, frowning. “We barely have property that isn’t beachfront.”
“It could be an outsider,” Aqua said.
“Who knew about the sacraments closet at the church?” Tyler shook his head. “Not likely.”
“So it’s an islander who’s taking the symbols of wealth?” Andrea ventured. “What about Lester Cradock?” She’d long been concerned about the timing and the election. “He’s an activist. You said so yourself, Tyler.”
“He certainly wouldn’t mind disrupting the election,” Sloan said in agreement.
“But the trophy still doesn’t fit,” Aqua argued.
Tyler and the sheriff exchanged a look. “We could run him, just in case. Especially since nothing seems to fit all the facts.”
“But something does,” the sheriff said, rising.
His height and imposing presence always commanded a room. Today, Andrea felt his comfort. And his determination.
This was the man Tyler would be. Not the same, since Tyler was more easygoing. His strength was more understated, his fierceness usually covered with charm. But the respect and confidence was the same. The islanders would value him, and he would always present himself with self-assurance.
Between Tyler, the sheriff and the task force, this thief didn’t stand a chance.
“Let’s draw up a plan for dealing with the immediate issues,” the sheriff continued. “The evidence is still comin’ in. We’re bound to get a break.”
There was a rushed but decisive discussion on holding a town hall meeting to answer questions and calm the residents’ fears.
The sheriff nodded. “Excellent idea. Tyler, you’ll take the lead.”
“I—” A rapid battle of pleasure and panic crossed Tyler’s face, one Andrea was sure only she understood the full depths of. “I’d be honored,” he said finally.
As the summit ended, everyone was given an area of responsibility to deal with and report back on.
Sister Mary Katherine was in charge of organizing the neighborhood watch groups. Sloan and her historical society members were going house to house to warn owners of other island treasures that might be at risk and offer to store the items in the bank’s vault. Aqua offered to go through the call log over the last few months to see if anyone had called with a complaint about seeing anything or anyone out of place in the weeks leading up to each theft.
Andrea was asked to research the stolen items, where and when they were made, who’d owned them, their insurance policies and estimate a current dollar value.
In absentia, Dwayne was put in charge of documentation, and Tyler and Sheriff Caldwell vowed to handle strategy and were cocaptains of the investigation. So as everyone trickled out, and the sheriff left to “talk” to the press—after which he was going to Mabel’s to thank her for the pie—Andrea found herself alone with Tyler.
He sat on the conference table and drew her between his legs. His thoughts had to be on the case, but his eyes burned with an intensity that jumped into a more personal area.
“It’s a good plan,” she said, still unsure of his mood.
“Mmm.” He tugged her closer, kissing the side of her neck. “We’ll find the guy.”
“So you’re not worried about closing the case?”
His lips trailed toward her ear. “No.”
“Or the election?”
He flicked his tongue against her earlobe. “No way.”
Desire shot through her body.
Maybe she didn’t have to plod today. Enjoying him before she left for London, and he simply lost interest in her, was important.
So, outside the commitment of a belly-button ring like Aqua’s, but somewhere near the concept of sex in a squad car, she could be a bit wild. For now.
She laid her hands on his shoulders, reconsidered, but then sent one of them southward.
Hardening instantly, he sucked in a breath.
“I’ve been thinking about fantasies,” she said softly, stroking him.
“Yeah?” His voice was little more than a squeak.
“Remember how we broke several traffic laws in the squad car last night?”
His erection pulsed. “Vividly.”
“Well, there’s another one where I get naked in the sheriff’s office.”
“We’re not in the sheriff’s office.”
She grabbed the hem of her sundress and lifted it over her head. “Then we’ll have to make do with what we’ve got.”