The mole crab is an egg-shaped commonality on the beaches of North Carolina. These finger-sized crustaceans burrow into the beach and poke their antennae through the sand’s surface, so they can filter feed on plankton as the swash rolls over the shore. The mole crab can hide itself in record time, making it a perfect little spy.
I was good at hiding myself, too, but real spy work wasn’t my thing. I didn’t want to be a mole, creepily erecting my antennae so I could pick people apart. The DVD rested on my coffee table. I’d spent the lonely evening watching funny cat videos on YouTube, much to Willie’s dismay, but now the security footage called to me like a neighbor kid wanting to play.
“So, what’s the big emergency?” Raina questioned. She’d arrived at my apartment five minutes ago, twenty minutes after I called her, and she’d brought two ready-to-microwave bags of popcorn.
“Thanks for coming,” I said, taking the popcorn and popping the first bag into the microwave. “I need your help with something, and quite honestly I didn’t want to do it alone and Sam’s busy.” Actually, I hadn’t heard from Sam all day, and our conversations since our almost-night-together had been short and awkward. As much as I loved him, I didn’t know how to get over these blights in our relationship: him wanting to play Dr. Phil to my crazy and simultaneously making me more crazy because he wouldn’t be with me.
But, tonight wasn’t about that.
Raina plopped down on my cushy white sofa, and propped her feet up on my coffee table. “So, what’s the hubbub, Bub?”
I held up the disc. “This is the security footage from the Peacock party. Thought you might watch it with me.”
Raina nodded enthusiastically. “What are we lookin’ for?”
“Anything,” I returned. I placed two sweet iced teas on the coffee table, and cued the disc on my laptop.
Raina tossed some popcorn in her mouth, and said, “It ain’t exactly a Hallmark Channel Original, but I’m game anyway.”
The enthusiasm swan-dived into tedium. The disc showed six cameras at once, each screen in a small box lined up like a tic-tac-toe board. Kitchen. Lobby. Bar. Hallway leading to the elevators, bathrooms, offices, and study. And then two cameras on the ballroom and dining area. My eyes strained to scan each box every few seconds for the fear that I’d miss something crucial, although I could never keep up. I could only hope that Raina might see what I didn’t. At one point, we divided the boxes between us, but that didn’t work for long. My eyes would inevitably drift over to her side, and vice versa. The only thing that broke up the scenes of nothing was Raina’s occasional gossip sharing.
“That’s Lucy Monroe,” Raina said, pointing to a perky blond in her thirties. “Town librarian, but not for long. Heard Mama say town’s thinkin’ of doin’ away with that library since no one really uses it.” She then pointed to the bulky Hulk near the orchestra. “Ed Wakefield’s been in some trouble with the law. Used to beat his wife. ‘Course, now that I think of it, Lucius Kayne defended him at trial, got him off with barely any sentence at all, and that poor wife of his had to disappear. Maybe that’s why he’d be invited.”
“He’s the groundsman, but he seems more like the security guard.”
“Eww, look! There’s you!” Raina grinned. “Don’t you look pretty! Bored, but pretty.”
“Thanks.” The camera captured me for just a moment, sitting down at the rejects’ table for dinner.
Raina perked up again, and pointed to Ricky Wakefield, who had just come in the ballroom. “Now there’s a blast from the past.”
“Rachel told me all about him,” I said. “That fire at your school’s lab must have been a big deal at the time.”
Raina nodded. “Ricky was a jerk. What he did to Rachel, showing off her bummer to the whole school, well, that was mean. That Chris Kayne is a cutie.” Chris had come on the scene near the orchestra, late to his own party and surrounded by well-wishers immediately. He checked his phone often.
“There’s Mama,” Raina shook her head, “always on the prowl.” Clara eased her way over to Lucius Kayne, entourage in tow. “That woman drives me bonkers.”
I chuckled. “You and me both.”
“My babies got her in a tizzy,” Raina explained, our eyes glued.
“She’s excited?”
“No, she’s bitter,” Raina replied. “The first couple a’weeks she was real sweet and sympathetic. But, then I suppose she figured my grievin’ period was over, ‘cause now she’s just mean as a snake.”
“What does she do?”
“Let’s see. Jumps down my throat every second,” Raina reported. “This mornin’ I said I was feelin’ tired, and she said, ‘Well, that’s whatcha get when you’re knocked up.’ When she took me to the doctor last week, she said, ‘Look at Dr. Jenkins and Nurse Jones. These are people who went to college, who ain’t have no babies when they were teenagers’.”
“Holy Moses, were they in the room?”
“Yep. And just tonight at the dinner table, Rachel and I were talkin’ about maternity clothes, and Mama said, ‘We ain’t goin’ need maternity clothes. We’ll just buy a couple a’tents ‘cause that’s how big you’re goin’ get, Raina’.”
I rolled my eyes. “You are not.”
“I know,” she said, “and I get that she’s still dealin’ with me and all this.”
“But, that’s no excuse to be an asshole about it,” I puttered out. Raina’s eyes grew. “Oh, come on. It’s just one little bad word.” I gave her a playful punch on the leg, and she smirked. “You’re always welcome here if you ever need a place, you and the babies. I know it’s not much, but my door’s always open.”
Raina laughed. “Wouldn’t that just frost Mama’s cookies? Me living with you at Beach Read. Might do that just for fun.”
“There’s Delores Kenning, off to check on her cats,” I mentioned, as she and her mink left the lobby.
While it was difficult seeing so much at once, some things were clear. People gravitated easily toward the Kaynes. Boobs were, in fact, everywhere (especially from this angle). And not everyone was in a party mood.
“Oh, there goes my shoe.” We watched my high-heeled shoe slide from the bar camera and into the main dining room, where it stopped at Chris Kayne’s feet.
We stopped chatting to focus. Chris, Rachel, and I chatted at the bar, before she waved me off to the bathroom. Delores Kenning came back into the lobby, and headed toward the ladies’ room.
“Who are those two women?” I asked Raina. They came around the corner from the bathroom, laughing animatedly.
“Oh, those hussies?” Raina scoffed, and then recanted. “Forgive me. That wasn’t nice.”
“You know them?” I urged again.
Raina shrugged. “Every town’s got a couple of those women who ain’t get snatched up outta high school or college like all their friends, and spend every wakin’ minute tryin’ to snag themselves a man. Rachel’ll be like that one day if she don’t get attached soon. I call ‘em hubby hunters. That’s Louise Barnhart and Ruby McQueen. They’re both beauticians at Sweetum’s Hair Salon. Perfect place for ‘em for all the gossipin’ they do-”
“Are they reliable gossips?” I tried.
Raina shrugged. “I don’t know. Don’t listen to ‘em most of the time. Look, there’s you again.”
I stepped into the lobby from the hallway, bothered by what I’d heard in the bathroom and the events unfolded as I remembered them: Clara and her gang cornered me; Delores Kenning moved from the bathroom, back to the lobby, and out the door; Valerie and Jason Kent engaged in their heated discussion; Hugh Huntley offered me a second drink; Jason Kent took a shot and drifted back into the crowd, leaving his angry wife alone at the bar; in the far right corner of the room, David Love confronted Lucius Kayne; then, Valerie Kent dashed through the lobby; David Love became more agitated, and the crowd shifted away from their confrontation; Hugh Huntley grabbed my hand and asked me if I was okay; Wake escorted Love out; then, me, sliding off my barstool, and giving Clara and her cohorts some parting thoughts; Lucius Kayne left the building; then, I dashed out of the ballroom, through the lobby (almost falling on my bottom); moments later, Delores re-entered the lobby, looking over her shoulder as if the demons had followed her inside.
“Gosh, sorry I missed this party,” Raina lamented. “Wish we had audio.”
“The next couple of minutes are very important,” I told her.
“What are we lookin’ for exactly?”
“We are looking for what, or rather who, we don’t see,” I explained.
Raina gasped. “Well, I’ll be!”
“What?”
“Looky there,” she said, pointing to the very top of the bar frame. A smiling Lucy Monroe was edging her way into the hallway. “She’s givin’ somebody the come-and-get-me look.” I ogled the bubbly blond as she winked at someone across the room. She disappeared down the hallway, and Jason Kent followed her. The two waited until the coast was clear, and slipped into the room at the end of the hall.
Raina and I gawked at each other.
“I can’t believe it!” I spouted.
“Honey, men cheat on their wives all the time,” Raina reported.
“I know, but you didn’t see him, how upset he was when Valerie was robbed,” I tried to convince. “It was like his whole world had just been rocked off its foundation. Made me tear up to see a man that affected.”
Raina shrugged. “The only thing ‘ffecting him at that party is Lucy Monroe.”
“When I was out on the deck, a light flicked on and off in that room.”
“Well, you know those two weren’t outside,” Raina reasoned.
“Yes, but they could have seen something,” I replied, “and just couldn’t admit it. Now I know why Kent didn’t want anyone watching the footage. So, while I was encountering the woman, a few people were missing from the party. The Hulk, Ed Wakefield.”
“And Ricky,” Raina pointed out. “He ain’t been there for awhile.”
“Right, Ricky, the volcano,” I decided. “He has an anger problem. David Love. Valerie Kent. Lucius Kayne.”
“And the love birds, but we know where they are,” Raina added. “Chances are that none of them had anything to do with your missin’ woman, though.”
“That’s true, but anyone absent from the party before or during my run-in with the woman could have seen something.”
“You’re gonna talk to all those people?”
I shrugged. I didn’t want to. The mole crab hides and lets the information filter in. Seeking it out was a whole different ballgame. “I don’t know.”
Back in the ballroom, Chris eyeballed his phone, slid his finger against the screen a few times. Rachel yammered on, gesticulating and laughing, while her group of busty friends grimaced near the fireplace. Clara and her group had just received a new round of drinks, and toasted, probably to the demise of Beach Read.
Then, I appeared at the sliding glass doors. The party blinked out like a lightbulb. Hugh Huntley got to me first, followed quickly by Chris, Rachel, and Clara. Chris led the group to the back deck while Hugh Huntley went to the bar to call the police.
Much of the crowd stayed behind, giving each other confused looks. I was led back into the ballroom by Hugh Huntley, followed by Chris, Clara and others who had gone outside. Lucius Kayne was with us and Jason Kent quickly joined, like he was just coming back from the bathroom. His mistress snuck out of the party through the lobby, bypassing the ballroom altogether.
Wake showed up in the lobby several minutes later. He breezed passed the valets, and headed to the back hallway like a man on a mission.
“His knuckles are dirty,” I observed. Raina and I watched as he pushed the button for the elevator. “Where is he going?”
The police arrived. Detective Lewis looked smug and annoyed as he made his way to the complaining witness, and even moreso when he realized it was me.
“Holy cow!” I belted out. I stopped the disc and set it back a few seconds. “Check that out!” I pointed to the elevator where Wake had just gotten inside. “Did you see that?”
“See what?”
I played it for her again. She shook her head. “I don’t see nothin’ but an elevator.”
“Watch the floors change.”
We eyeballed it again and watched as L flashed suddenly to 5. “The video skipped.”
“You sure?” Raina asked. “Didn’t seem like it skipped.”
“When I watched the elevator earlier, it showed each floor as it passed – L, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. I’m sure of it. Wake’s elevator went from L to 5,” I explained.
Raina nodded. “Okay, well do the other cameras skip?”
We repeated the footage over and over, painstakingly eyeing each screen for abrupt changes.
“Ah, check out the lobby,” I instructed, backing the recording up once more. The grand clock over the front desk – a gorgeous gold, blue, and black peacock, of course – went instantly from 11:37 to 11:41.
“So, there’s four minutes of video missin’ from the lobby and the hall,” Raina decided sitting back in her seat. “Can’t do much of anythin’ in four minutes.”
“It’s long enough to hide something,” I replied.
“Ain’t like they could slip that redhead in through the front door with all those people ‘round,” Raina pointed out.
“You’re right. Seems improbable that someone would go to the trouble of erasing four minutes of recording in the lobby being that there are at least fifteen witnesses standing around there.”
“Hallway, too, for that matter,” Raina added. “It’s not as crowded as the lobby but bein’ that the bathrooms are back there, there’s been a steady back and forth of people all night.”
“The four minutes could just have been a technical glitch.”
“Unless, they’re coverin’ up somethin’ that wouldn’t be obvious to people in the room,” Raina considered slowly, “but might be obvious durin’ a double-take.”
I considered what she said, but sighed after a minute. “Fact is, this has only posed more questions, and hasn’t led to any concrete evidence that the woman was there at all.”
Raina shrugged. “Least you know that it wasn’t no run-’a-the-mill party. You got weird stuff comin’ outta the woodwork. Anythin’ coulda happened and probably did.”
Viewing the footage had only made this whole situation worse. I should’ve left it alone, should have just stopped pursuing it, but no. Once again my stupid curiosity had wasted my time, efforts, and energies, not to mention made me look like an idiot.
But, still.
Raina left for home not long after we finished watching, leaving me to pace the apartment. It was after 11:00. The streets were starting their eerie fade with only a few stragglers spilling out of bars or loitering outside of restaurants. A mountain of work awaited me at the store. Work could have been perfect therapy right now – a chore for my nervous energy.
But, no. I didn’t pick up my computer to work on Frankenstein conversation starters. I didn’t start framing the creepy images I’d printed off the Internet of Shelley, her family, and gothic cemeteries and old mansions. I didn’t even pick up the copy of the book to finish my re-read.
No, not me. Not Delilah Duffy, expert mistake maker bordering on lunatic. I grabbed my keys and rushed to the Jeep.