1 Lowcountry Boil (8 page)

“
My
home,” I ground out through squared jaw. “
I’ll
take the seat,” I said. “I own property here. And I moved in yesterday.”

Without a backward glance to either of them, I stalked down the hall, knocked twice on the conference room door, and let myself in without waiting for an invitation.

“…we have to seat a volunteer from the Simmons—” Lincoln stopped talking and they all stared at me.

“Well, now you have two volunteers,” I said.

Lincoln, Michael, Robert, John, and Grace all turned to Daddy.

Daddy sat there for a minute, staring at nothing in particular, doing this thing with his hand that he always does when he’s considering something real carefully. He held his palm at a right angle and made a chopping motion on the table. Right, left, right left. Back and forth. Finally he looked at Lincoln. “Liz is older, and she inherited the Simmons estate. I move that we fill Mamma’s council seat by appointing Elizabeth to her unexpired term.”

Robert nodded. “I second the motion.”

“Any discussion?” Lincoln asked.

No one said a word.

“Well, then,” Lincoln said, “all in favor?”

By unanimous vote, I became a council member. I took a seat at the table. “I’d like to make a motion myself.”

Lincoln gestured for me to proceed.

“I move we table the rest of tonight’s business and adjourn so that I can educate myself on other matters before the council.”

Daddy seconded my motion, and it also passed unanimously. No one, it seemed, was eager to discuss fellowship halls, orphanages, or jails. I braced myself to face my sister as we filed out of the conference room.

But the lobby was deserted.

TEN

After throwing the first Tuesday of every month on the bonfire of my sister’s insanity, I was starving. I zipped over to The Pirates’ Den
—
the restaurant John and Alma Glendawn owned on the north shore of the island. Since I was dining alone, I climbed into one of the high-backed stools at the mammoth mahogany bar that took up the entire street-side wall. I settled into the tropical print cushions and looked around in appreciation. I had missed this place.

It looked like the inside of an old ship—all varnished wood and portholes. The glass wall to my back featured several sets of french doors that led out onto an oceanfront deck. Saltwater aquariums containing a variety of tropical fish lined the left wall. And everywhere you looked, parrots—stuffed, wood-carved, ceramic, you name it. Steel-drum music wafted through the restaurant. The rich aromas of Jamaican spices and grilled meats and vegetables infused the air. My stomach growled.

John had arrived from the council meeting just in front of me. His coming back to the restaurant rather than going home was an added bonus to a great dinner. I pulled out my hand sanitizer while I mulled how to approach the subject of who HC and SD were, and what their relationship to John Glendawn might be. That connection should tell me what Gram’s list meant. He puttered behind the bar and kept me company while I sipped a margarita and waited for my cheeseburger. He had the look of an ancient sailor, with sun-leathered skin and bright blue eyes. Gray hair curled out from under the well-worn captain’s hat that was pulled down low and cocked slightly to one side. 

Maybe I was biased, or maybe it was the salt air, but my taste buds insisted the cheeseburgers at The Pirates’ Den were the best to be found. I devoured the three-napkin masterpiece John put in front of me.

“Can I get you anything else?” He smiled at me from across the bar as I popped the last french fry into my mouth. Without waiting for my response, he continued in a more somber tone. “I don’t know if I ever got the chance to tell you how sorry I am about Emma. She was a fine woman.”

Since I had food in my mouth, I nodded my thanks.

John polished a spot on the bar. “A dear friend. Did a lot for this town. Spunky, too.” He smiled but didn’t quite manage to erase the sadness in his eyes. “You and your sister are a lot like her.”

I smiled at the compliment. “How’s Alma doing?”

He shook his head. “Eh law, she’s caught herself a bug.”

“I hope she feels better soon.”

“Fact is, she hasn’t felt like herself since Emma Rae passed. Alma’s the one found her, you know.”

“Blake told me.”

“Hated to leave her home by herself tonight, but my regular bartender had to go see about his sister up in West Virginia. I had to get Moon Unit to hold down the fort long enough for me to go to the council meeting. How about some key lime pie?”

“Sounds great.” I watched his calloused hands slice and plate the pie and set it in front of me.

I took a bite of my pie, letting the cool, tart sweetness melt on my tongue. “Mmmm. Delicious.” I smiled. “I hear Gram had a Roaring Twenties party last month. You and Alma make it?”

John laughed. “We wouldn’t have missed that. Alma made a right smart flapper.”

“I think Gram was already planning her next soiree. I found the guest list she was working on at the house. Who knows what her next theme would have been?”

He chuckled. “Hard to say.”

“I declare, so many new people have moved to Stella Maris over the last few years, it’s going to take me a while to get to know everyone. Gram had names on that list I didn’t recognize.”

John looked at me quizzically. “Most of the folks that came to Emma’s parties are old friends. There’ve been a few new faces, I guess.”

I shrugged, put a finger to my temple, and offered him my Ditzy-Blonde Look. I practice this look in front of the mirror. It doesn’t come naturally, but it serves me well. “Some of the names were in, like, shorthand or something—just initials. Who are ‘HC’ and ‘SD?’”

The smile vanished from John’s eyes and the corners of his mouth lowered by degrees. He busied himself wiping up the bar. “The only person I’ve ever heard called HC was Hayden Causby, and you wouldn’t a been likely to’ve run across him at a party of Emma Rae’s.”

“The shrimper from over in Mount Pleasant?”

Mount Pleasant is a fishing and shrimping hub situated across the Intracoastal Waterway.  The Causby family had been prominent in the shrimping industry for generations. Last I’d heard, Merry had been dating Hayden Causby’s grandson, Troy.

John took a moment to answer. “Yep. But she musta meant someone else.”

“Did Gram know Hayden Causby well?”

John kept wiping. “I reckon she did. He ran with me an’ Stuart an’ them for a while when we were kids. ’Bout the time Emma and Stuart were dating.” John’s tone and expression suggested he’d taken a bite of something spoiled.

“Stuart?” I knew exactly who John must have meant, but I needed to hear him say it.

“Stuart Devlin.”

Stuart Devlin was Michael’s father, the town’s mayor for years, and architect of the zoning laws that protected the island to this day. I vaguely recalled he and Gram had dated in high school. But Stuart had been killed in a sailing accident when Michael was in second grade. He had to be the SD Gram referred to, but what could a man twenty-five years dead have to do with Gram’s death two weeks ago?

I flashed my ditzy-blonde look. “All y’all were friends?”

“I never said that.” He reached for the portable phone. “Think I’ll call and check on Alma.”

“But if she’s sleeping, the phone will disturb her,” I said. I was feeling plenty guilty for dredging up memories John wanted left buried. If my hunch was right, Hayden Causby figured into John’s ancient marijuana arrest. John Glendawn was a dear soul, and I had played him. “Why don’t you let me watch the bar for you for a few minutes?”

“I don’t know…” He considered my offer. “It’s easy enough to take a beer out of the cooler or pour a glass of wine, but what if somebody wants a drink?”

I grinned. “Fix you a ’rita?”

“Huh?  Well, okay, that’s what we sell the most of, I guess.” He opened the gate at the end of the bar and stepped back to let me in. He moved to the other side of the bar and took my place on the stool, watching as I mixed the tequila, lime juice, and Grand Marnier. I wet the outside of the glass rim, salted it, and garnished the result with a slice of lime. With a flourish, I placed the drink on the cocktail napkin in front of him.

John looked at me through squinted eyes as he tasted the concoction.

“Perfect,” he declared. “I don’t say that about anybody’s ’ritas but my own. Where’d you learn to do that?”

“I tended bar for two years during college to help with expenses. Don’t mention it in front of my mamma—she prefers to let it slip her mind.”

He took another sip with a big smile on his face, the past filed neatly back in the past. “Why didn’t you say so? I’ll be back quick as I can.”

“Take your time.”

“Thanks.” John waved and was out the french doors.

Business was slow that night at The Pirates’ Den. A few couples lingered over dinner. Zeke Lyerly and three of his cronies occupied the front corner table closest to the bar. They were working on a pitcher of margaritas. Maybe not their first.

When I heard the words “sexy French missionary,” “anaconda,” and “nuclear missile,” I chuckled. Zeke’s exploits were legendary, although the more colorful tales were the ones he told himself—the ones no one could confirm. Zeke could entertain you with vivid accounts of his years as an Army Ranger, his adventures as a prize-winning bull rider, and his heyday as an almost-famous NASCAR driver. According to Blake’s calculations, if everything Zeke said were true, he’d have been two hundred thirty-five years old.

John was gone less than five minutes when I heard the front door open and close. I turned to see Michael coming around the end of the bar. I felt myself flush. We hadn’t spent five minutes alone since the day he married Marci.

“Hi,” he said, with a confused look. “Where’s John?”

“He’ll be right back. Can I get you something?” I offered him my brightest smile.

He grinned as he slid onto the barstool in front of me. “Are you taking over here, too?”

“Just helping out a friend,” I said. “John was short a bartender and needed to check on Alma.”

“Bud Light, please.”

I reached for the beer and a frosted mug, grateful for something to do with my hands.  

“I didn’t realize you were in town until you showed up at the council meeting.” Those dark-chocolate eyes found mine. Time shifted, and I was back on campus and in love for the first and only time in my life. I’d known Michael growing up, of course. He was Blake’s best friend. But my sophomore year at Clemson, he became much more.

“I didn’t think it would be appropriate to come to call.” This was the feeling—this ache for him coated with anger—that made being back home so hard.

“Liz—” He was going to apologize again. I could still read him as well as I could ten years ago.

“Don’t.” I hated that my eyes watered. “I don’t ever want to talk about it. It’s done.”

Irritation crept into his voice. “
You
decided we should see other people.
You
started seeing Scott.” Now his eyes had that dangerous look—the one that made my insides go all liquid.

“I had been out with him
once
.” I hated myself for the quiver in my voice. “And only because of that stupid fight.”

“That’s not the way he told it.”

“He’s a liar.”

“That much we agree on.”  He studied his untouched beer for a moment. “Scott Andrews gets what he wants, one way or another. I never even went on a date with Marci. She came up to visit you just before Christmas break.”

“That was the last thing I ever invited her to do, besides take a running leap off the Cooper River Bridge.” Marci and I had never been friends, but when I was young, idealistic, and ignorant of the ways of sociopaths, I tried to be nice to her—she was family, and Mamma encouraged it. Hence, Marci’s visit to Clemson that had brought me so much grief.

“I saw you with him…” Michael ran his hand through his hair. “I’d had too much to drink, and she was all comfort and joy.”

“I’ll just bet she was.”

“The next day she was gone, and six weeks later I got the phone call. What was I supposed to do? She was carrying my child.”

“You did exactly what she knew you would do—the honorable thing.” I tasted the bitterness on my tongue.

“And then, she was so broken up when she lost the baby…”

“Did it ever occur to you that there might not have
been
a baby?” You can bet the family silver on that one.

“Not at the time.” He picked up the beer and downed a third of it.

“So when you figured it out, why did you stay married to her?”

“By that time, you were engaged to Scott.” He took another long swallow of the beer. “What difference did it make?”

We looked at each other far longer than could be considered appropriate. Everything that might have been ran through my head. I wanted to shout at him that I was divorced now, and he knew this full well, so why, exactly, was he still married to that devious little witch? But pride held my tongue. If he didn’t want me enough to fight for me, I didn’t want him either. The steel slid back into my spine.

“Look,” I said, in a tone that masked what I felt, “this is ancient history. We’re going to have to get used to living in the same town. It’s good we cleared the air.”

I saw the wall go up in his eyes. He finished his beer and slid the mug towards me. “I’d like another.”

I reached for the beer. “So, Marci’s pretty pissed off about Gram’s will.”

“That’s a fair assessment. What Emma Rae had was hers to do with as she damn well pleased. Besides, it’s not like anyone expected her to die. To hear Marci talk, you’d think she was expecting fast cash and had already written checks against it.”

I wasn’t a bit surprised. Marci had always been a greedy, grasping little bitch. I studied Michael. He didn’t talk like a happily married man. I should’ve been ashamed of the joyous backflip my heart took. Why the hell had he stayed married to her? A neon light in my brain flashed “tell him the bitch tried to swap him for some land.” If he’d said one thing I could have latched on to, and somehow interpreted to mean he still loved me, I would have told him.

A tall waitress with very red hair stepped up to the end of the bar. “I need a pitcher of margaritas and a couple of Mich Lights.” If she was surprised to see me behind the bar instead of John, she didn’t comment on it.

I filled her drink order while Michael sipped his beer. He watched her walk away and then turned to me. “So. What became of Scott?” The wall was still there, but there was a challenge in his eyes.

“The liar worked seventy hours a week, played golf with his business associates, and dragged me to an endless parade of social occasions where all the
right
people were networking. And he slept with his secretaries, the wives of the men he screwed over in business deals, and a few of my so-called friends.”

“He stayed busy.”

“I should never have married him.” I was on the rebound. Thank God I didn’t say that out loud. I rediscovered the key lime pie in front of me. I put some pie on my fork and then rested the fork on my plate. “So you’re in construction, right?”

“Residential, mostly, but sometimes I do small commercial projects. That’s what I wanted to talk to John about. He wants me to enclose his deck.”

“Why didn’t you finish school? Being an architect was your dream.”

He looked away. “Never had the time. I like being a contractor just fine,” he said. “Does that amuse you?”

“Why would it?”

He shrugged and drank deeply from his beer mug.

We both looked up as John came back through the french doors. “She was sleeping like a baby,” he announced. “Everything okay in here?”

“Just fine,” Michael answered. “Got yourself a new bartender, I see.”

“You didn’t have one of her margaritas, did you?” he asked, eying the beer mug on the bar.  “You must notta, or you wouldn’t be drinking that. You want to take a look at this deck with me?”

“Sure thing.” Michael hesitated. “I guess I’ll see you around.”

I nodded. “See you around.”

I picked up my fork to commence stress eating as I watched them disappear onto the deck. A large bite of key lime pie missed my mouth and slid down the front of my suit. “Shit.”

It served me right. Mamma raised me better than to ogle someone else’s husband. But in my heart, he would never belong to anyone but me.

By the time I left The Pirates’ Den, it was after nine. There were maybe eight cars in the oyster-shell parking lot. Two of them, a Lexus and a Camry, sat side by side in the corner of the lot, near the road, with the Camry on the far side of the Lexus. One of the motors was running, but it was hard to tell which. As I walked towards the Escape, David Morehead, Merry’s embellished cohort, slid out of the passenger side of the Lexus. I only saw his silhouette, and might not have recognized him except for the man purse. He moved in a stealthy posture, not standing to his full height, around the back of the Lexus to the Camry. Before he even opened the door, the Lexus pulled out of the lot.

I hopped into the Escape and pulled onto Ocean Boulevard behind the Lexus. Within a half mile I’d caught up with it. I didn’t follow it long. Better not to make the driver suspicious.

All I needed was the license plate.