Rafe didn’t come back for hours.
I had finally fallen asleep, after spending what felt like an eternity fretting and wondering whether he’d come back at all, or whether I’d get a phone call telling me I had to arrange for bail. But then I woke up an hour later to the feeling of something heavy descending on the side of the bed, and a pair of lips fitting themselves over mine.
It’s a nice way to wake up. I stretched luxuriously, at the same time as I reached up and wrapped my arms around his neck, all of it without opening my eyes. I knew it was him, from the scent and the taste and the feel of him, achingly familiar by now.
One thing led to another, and it was thirty minutes later that I finally got around to asking, “How did it go at the sheriff’s office?”
By now, Rafe was naked and next to me on the bed, flopped on his back catching his breath. It took him a moment to answer. “I’m here.”
“I noticed. So at least they didn’t arrest you. Is that what you’re saying?”
He shrugged. Not an easy thing to do, lying down.
“Was there a chance they would?”
“Seemed like it for a bit.”
“That’s not good,” I said.
He shook his head. “I’m sick of this prison record coming back to bite my ass. Wish I woulda never touched Billy Scruggs.”
I wished he hadn’t, too. If anything should have the right to bite his posterior, it should be me. And the conviction would probably dog him for the rest of his life. Never mind that it was one single stupid mistake made by an eighteen-year-old kid whose mother had been beaten black and blue by her boyfriend, and that he had spent the past ten years risking his life every day to make up for it. As long as it was on his record, people wouldn’t allow him to forget.
“Maybe I shouldn’t forget,” he told me when I said so. “I almost killed the bastard.”
“And he killed your mother.”
He had no answer for that. Just kept looking at the ceiling. I turned over on my stomach—harder to do these days; a little bit like trying to get comfortable balanced on top of a beach ball—and leaned on his chest. “I love you.”
He glanced at me. “I love you, too.”
“I’m glad they didn’t keep you.”
He nodded. “Me, too.”
“Did it really look like they might?”
“It might could,” Rafe said. “Whoever finds the body is always a suspect. Add in two years for assault and battery, and I’m sure they were prepping the handcuffs.”
“So what happened?”
“We talked,” Rafe said. “I had’em call Wendell, but since it’s the weekend, ain’t like there’s anybody at the TBI who could verify that I work for them. And Wendell could be anybody.”
“We could ask Grimaldi to go to the house and find your ID and scan it here. She’s able to get in. She packed our bags.”
“I’m sure Tammy’s still in Sweetwater,” Rafe said. “And I ain’t calling her to save my butt. Anyway, they let me go.”
“No evidence?”
“That,” Rafe said. “And they got a phone call.”
“What kind of phone call?”
“From somebody saying that Nina Hickman had been arguing with Frenetta yesterday morning.”
Looked like Hildy and Gloria had come through. I smiled.
Rafe eyed me. “You know something about that?”
“I might. Hildy and Gloria were sitting on the porch when I came back here after lunch. I stopped to talk to them.” I told him what they had told me. “I advised them to call the cops.”
“Thanks.”
“I didn’t do it just for you,” I told him. “If Nina killed Frenetta, she wouldn’t be above killing Gloria and Hildy, too.” Or any of the rest of us.
“Big step from arguing with somebody to killing them.”
Sure. But— “I just wanted to give the cops another suspect to concentrate on. Someone actually viable. It’s stupid for them to focus on you. We weren’t even here until ten o’clock last night. We never met Frenetta. They need to look at people with a reason to want her dead.”
Rafe nodded.
“And as long as they were wasting time on you, they weren’t looking at anyone else.”
Rafe shook his head.
“Out of curiosity, did they determine that it was murder? That she didn’t just die in her sleep?”
“They think she was asphyxiated,” Rafe said. “Maybe with something in the wine first, to knock her out and make her sleep. And then someone walked right in and smothered her.”
I suppressed a shudder. I’d just been in here, sleeping, dead to the world, until he walked in. Someone—someone else—could have come in and asphyxiated me, as well. “That’s horrible. But at least she didn’t know it was happening.”
“Not sure that makes it any better,” Rafe said, and I guess that was true. He’d certainly want a chance to fight back when it was his turn. Me, I thought I might just want to sleep through it.
But hopefully it would be a lot of years before either of us had to worry about that.
Fat chance, my subconscious told me. I ignored it. Or tried to.
“Do you think Nina killed Frenetta?”
“Dunno,” Rafe said. “They coulda been arguing about the mattress. Or the towels. Or something else that don’t mean nothing.”
Of course they could have. Maybe the mattress had aggravated Chip’s lumbago, and Nina wanted a discount on the room rate to make up for it.
Or they could have argued about something important. But there was no way to know, and no way to find out. If we asked, Nina probably wouldn’t tell us. Especially if she really had killed Frenetta.
“I’m hungry,” I said.
“We just had lunch,” Rafe answered.
“We had lunch five hours ago. You’ve just been so busy you haven’t noticed. And I just worked out hard.”
“Then let’s go get you food.” He rolled over to the edge of the bed and sat up. I watched for a second—there were no scars on his back; just beautiful smooth skin over hard muscles, and two dimples above his butt—and then I rolled on my side, too, and sat up.
Five minutes later we were on our way down the stairs to the foyer.
“You know,” I told Rafe, “I feel really weird about being here. It’s like we’re just carrying right on with our honeymoon, but our hostess is dead.”
He glanced at me, one hand under my elbow to make sure I didn’t slip on the steps. “The sheriff told me not to leave, darlin’. And we don’t have nowhere else to go in a town this size.”
No. Unlike many of the Gulf Coast communities, Davenport hadn’t succumbed to the highrise-condo-building-on-the-beach craze. There might be another motel or B and B somewhere in town, but I hadn’t noticed one. If we had to stay in Davenport, we might as well stay where we were. However— “As soon as we can, I’d like to go home. I don’t care if Catherine paid for our stay up front. Frenetta’s dead. I would prefer not to stay here any longer than we have to.”
He shrugged, and let go of my arm as we hit the downstairs foyer. “Works for me.”
“I’d rather just go home and have my way with you in the privacy of our own house. Where nobody’s knocking the bed against the wall all night.” Except the two of us.
His lips quirked. “Maybe they’ll be too overcome by guilt to do that tonight.”
“We weren’t,” I said.
“We didn’t kill her, darlin’.”
Well, no. But— “They may not have, either. You don’t kill somebody over towels or cinnamon rolls.”
“Some people kill other people over fifty cents,” Rafe said, as we passed through the foyer.
“Well, if they didn’t, who d’you think did?”
He shrugged.
“It had to be someone with a motive. Maybe one of the townspeople. They’d know her better than a guest. The better you know someone, the more likely you’ll be to want to kill them, right?”
“Not sure I like the sound of that, darlin’,” Rafe told me, as he closed the door behind him.
I stuck my hand through his arm and rubbed my cheek on his shoulder as we headed down the stairs. “I’m sure I’ll end up wanting to kill you at some point. Although I haven’t yet. From where I’m standing, you’re pretty much perfect.”
“Awww.”
“I love you,” I said.
“I love you, too. And I promise I won’t ever kill you.”
“I didn’t think you would. Like I said, you’re perfect.”
“Not hardly,” Rafe said, as we approached the white picket fence. “But hold that thought.”
He opened the gate and waited for me to pass through before closing it behind me. Then he offered his arm again, with a little bow. “Ma’am.”
“Don’t mind if I do,” I said, hooking on. “So what kind of food are you in the mood for?”
“We’re by the ocean. We should probably look for seafood.”
“I suppose.” I wrinkled my nose. I’m not terribly fond of seafood, to be honest. It smells fishy, and sometimes it has an unpleasantly rubbery consistency, too.
“Burger?” Rafe said. “I’m sure there’s a McDonald’s around. There are McDonald’s everywhere.”
“No, thank you.” To the burger and to McDonald’s. Neither sounded appetizing in my current condition, either.
“Pizza parlor for another salad?”
It was nice of him to offer. However—“If you want seafood, we’ll get you seafood. I’m sure I can find something to eat.”
“There’s a place a couple blocks down I heard good things about.”
“That’s fine. Who told you good things about it?”
“The sheriff,” Rafe said.
I arched my brows. “You and the sheriff got to a point where you were friendly enough to exchange restaurant recommendations?”
“The recommendations only went one way. Sheriff Engebretsen wants people to have a good time in town. And spend money.”
“Isn’t that the mayor?”
“They all do,” Rafe said and pointed. “There it is.”
I followed the direction of his finger. “Where?”
“There. On the beach.”
I looked again, but all I saw was a driftwood shack on stilts, up above the sand, with a neon sign in the window blinking on and off.
Actually, two neon signs. One said OPEN, and didn’t blink. The blinking one said Corona, with an image of a parrot.
“That’s the restaurant the sheriff recommended?”
It looked like a low-end biker bar. In fact, there was a handful of bikes parked outside, that looked very much like the one parked in our driveway at home. Big, beefy Harley-Davidsons with lots of chrome and fancy handlebars.
The first time I’d seen Rafe astride the beast, in Mrs. Jenkins’s driveway the morning Brenda Puckett died, I’d been attracted and appalled in about equal measure. Big, noisy, masculine, and so uncouth.
Needless to say, he’d changed my mind later.
“The shrimp po’boys are supposed to be great.”
Of course.
“And they have alligator tail. Have you ever had gator tail?”
I hadn’t. “I bet it tastes just like chicken.” That’s what they say about anything out of the ordinary. Frog legs? Tastes just like chicken. Rattlesnake? Tastes just like chicken. Pigeon? Tastes just like chicken. Iguana? You got it. Tastes like chicken.
Rafe grinned. “Now that you mention it.”
“If you want to have alligator tail, I won’t stop you. And I’d be willing to try a shrimp po’boy.” Which—for those of you born north of the Mason-Dixon line—is a sandwich. A Louisiana hoagie.
“That’s all right,” Rafe told me, as we left the road and wandered into the parking lot of the Sandbar. “I’m sure we can find something that isn’t seafood. If they have shrimp po’boys, they might have roast beef ones, too.”
“A roast beef sandwich would be OK.”
“Then let’s see what we’ve got,” Rafe said, and opened the door.
The interior of the Sandbar looked about like I had expected. Not like I had wanted—it was my honeymoon, and I had envisioned eating gourmet seafood in a dining room with white tablecloths and stemware—but like I figured it would. A long, low, dark room with exposed wood beams in the ceiling, a rustic, sandy floor, no AC, and rough wooden tables with benches around them. The drinks came in cans, bottles, and red plastic cups, and the food arrived on paper plates or in little plastic baskets lined with fake newsprint. A nod to the old way of serving fish and chips, I guess.
But the Sandbar was hopping. Burly bikers in wife-beater shirts and suspenders rubbed elbows with sunburned kids and their exhausted parents. One TV was tuned to NASCAR, while the other showed an episode of SpongeBob SquarePants. It was hot and airless—the fans didn’t do near enough to move the air through the open windows onto the deck overlooking the beach and ocean—but nobody seemed to care. People were laughing and chattering and obviously having a ball.
Rafe grinned. It was his kind of place. It wasn’t mine, although I’m getting better about slumming. Mother would have had a conniption, but all I said was, “Can we see if there are any empty seats outside?”
“Sure.” Rafe took my hand and pulled me after him through the room and out on the other side. It was much easier to breathe out on the deck, and a bit less crowded.
And there was Nina and Chip, over at a table in the corner, each with a liter glass of beer in front of them.
“Look.” I nodded in that direction. “Let’s go join them.”
“They might not wanna be joined, darlin’.” But he went. “Evening.”
They both looked up. Chip grumbled something and Nina smiled. Widely. “Well, hello, there.”
I resisted the temptation to roll my eyes. “Mind if we join you? This place is pretty busy.”
There was a pause, while they tried to think of a way to say no without sounding rude. They couldn’t, so they ended up allowing it. Rudely. Chip muttered under his breath as he moved over to make room for me, while Nina scooted aside just far enough to let Rafe sit down next to her. The better to press her naked thigh up against his, I assume.
It’s a good thing I’m not the jealous type.
He gave her a cheerful grin as he sat down. I gave Chip a tight smile. He grumbled and took a swig of beer.
“Fancy meeting you here,” Nina said brightly. She was dressed in the same—or a similar—white tank top as this morning, and her skin was the color of a walnut. By the time she reached forty, she’d be as leathery as a mummy.
“I didn’t expect to run into you here,” I told Chip, since Nina was busy exerting her charms on Rafe.
He slanted a grumpy glance at me. “Why?”
“We heard you had to go to the sheriff’s office to talk about Frenetta’s murder.”
It could have been my imagination—it was dark out here—but I thought he turned a shade paler. “Murder?”
“They wouldn’t interview suspects in a natural death,” I said, and smiled at the waitress who stopped next to the table. “I’d like a glass of ginger ale, please.”
Chip sniffed.
“And a menu.”
The girl nodded and turned to Rafe, who said, “Draft.”
The waitress sauntered off, and I turned back to Chip. “When they spoke to you this afternoon, didn’t you get the impression that they were investigating a suspicious death?”
He didn’t answer, just gave me a sullen look. It was Nina who spoke, from across the table. “Somebody told them that I’d been arguing with Frenetta yesterday morning. Like it was any of their business.” She flipped her hair.
“I guess they figured, since she ended up dead, they’d make it their business.”
It was Nina’s turn to give me a look. “Not the cops. I understand that they have to figure out who killed her. We want them to figure out who killed her.” She glanced at Chip and then back to me. “I was talking about those two biddies.”
“Gloria and Hildy?”
She nodded. “I should have known they overheard me. I didn’t hear them coming down the stairs, but then they were there in the dining room.” She shook her head. “I don’t understand why people just can’t mind their own business.”
Chip snorted. “Just trying to make themselves look less bad.”
“What do you mean?”
For a second I wasn’t sure he’d answer—I don’t think he liked me much—but then he said, “Nina wasn’t the only one who argued with the old... with Frenetta yesterday.”
“Gloria and Hildy did, too? About what?”
“Something about the house,” Chip said. “I think they expected her to sell it to them.”
“And she didn’t want to?”
He shrugged.
I glanced at Rafe, who shrugged, too.
“I don’t see how killing her would get them the house,” I said. “Not unless they think they’ll inherit.” And unless they were related to Frenetta, I didn’t see how they would.
Chip snorted. “I didn’t say they killed her. I just said they argued with her.”
“So who do you think killed her?”
He glanced at Nina. “It wasn’t us.”
“I didn’t say it was,” I said. “I just thought you might have some idea. You spent a couple days with her. We never even met her.”
“You could have killed her before you knocked on the door last night,” Chip said.
I stared at him. “Excuse me?”
“We heard your car drive into the lot and park. And then we heard your voices. And it was at least five minutes after that, that you knocked on the door and Nina went down and let you in. You had time to go up the stairs to the garage and smother the old lady, and then come back down.”
“That’s crazy. We never even met her. Why would we kill her?”
“Why would anyone?” Chip said. “And I didn’t say you did. I just said you could have. You did something during that time. And I don’t think you were standing in the parking lot.”
“We went to look at the ocean,” I said.
“It was dark,” Chip answered.
“I know it was dark. We couldn’t actually see it. But we didn’t know that until we tried.”
“So you say,” Chip said and drained his beer. “But you can’t prove it, can you?”
“We didn’t meet anybody, if that’s what you mean. But we were together. Can you prove where you were?”
“With Nina,” Chip said, with a glance at her.
“Except for when Nina was downstairs letting us in.”
“There wasn’t enough time to run downstairs and out the front door and around the house and up the stairs to the apartment to smother the old lady and get back to bed before Nina got back upstairs,” Chip said, in the tone of one who had tried it and failed.
Grudgingly, I had to admit he had a point. We hadn’t spent that much time talking to Nina. And we’d heard the bedsprings squeak when we reached the second floor, so they’d been back at it by then.
Then again, it’s possible for a single person to make bedsprings squeak, and make the bed knock against the wall. Granted, I was pretty sure we’d heard two voices, but I was willing to give that the benefit of the doubt, since I didn’t like Chip. If I had to pin the murder on someone in the B and B, I’d rather have it be Chip than anyone else. I didn’t know Vonnie and Groot very well, although I didn’t dislike them, and I liked Gloria and Hildy well enough. If anyone in the house had murdered Frenetta, I wanted it to be Chip.