Lowcountry Seaside Mystery Box Set, page 14
part #1 of Lowcountry Seaside Mystery Series
Unable to free the knot left by his professor, Ryan pulled hard at the belt. He felt his muscles straining and the fibrous tissue surrounding them tearing until finally, the leather snapped. Flying backward, Ryan crashed hard against the boat’s stern as it quickly turned starboard, sending him flying out into the water.
Cold liquid filled his lungs and nostrils and salt burned his eyes as he sank under the water. The quick shock of a cold chill ran up his body, cutting into him like a thousand knives before he managed to make it above the surface, gasping for air. In the distance, he saw the white light of the boat vanish into the night sky. He’d managed to avoid the lighthouse, though he’d paid a price in the form of an elbow-to-wrist gash running along his forearm. Not to mention, he’d lost the professor.
Quickly taking stock of his surroundings, Ryan began the painful process of swimming back to shore. Salt burned his wound as the water around him filled red with blood. The swim was slow, and after a few strokes, his left arm became more dead weight than anything else until finally, he felt the sandy shore under his chest.
“Kit . . .” he said, bringing the phone to his ear. “Morris Island. I need a ride.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
“Is that really necessary?” Kit asked as she stepped into the living room.
“It’s a retirement dinner,” Ryan answered. “I want to look good for it. Did you get everything done?”
“Yes,” Kit replied. “We could have just arrested him, you know. Were the theatrics really needed?”
“After everything I’ve gone through to get this proof, I need them to see. It’s the only way they’ll understand. Besides, he was right about his reputation. Rufus is beloved around these parts. I can’t take the chance that the affection these people feel for him will result in an innocent verdict once it comes to that.”
“The citizens?” She raised an eyebrow in confusion. “They’ll understand if we arrest him.”
“No, they won’t,” Ryan answered. “You still don’t get it, Kit. This is the South, Lowcountry, below the Mason-Dixon . . . however you want to say it. But the point is that these people are different. Rufus Abernathy has been a prominent member of this society for years. The people in town, the ones with any power, half of them were once his students. If they don’t see it, if people don’t see them seeing it, then they won’t believe it. It has to be this way. And this is the perfect place to do it.”
“Fine,” she answered. “Have it your way.”
He’d heard about it weeks ago. The retirement dinner for his former professor was big news in the local Charleston scene. Rufus Abernathy was well-known around town, having mentored both a local judge and two police officers aside from Ryan. Everyone knew him, and as a result, the place would be packed. It was the perfect setting to reveal him for the murdering sicko he was.
“Let’s go,” Ryan said, stepping onto the dock with Kit right behind him. “It should be starting right about now.”
The two got into Ryan’s car with him behind the wheel and Kit at his side. He looked at her for a minute. He wanted to ask her about that kiss, the one they’d shared back at the station, but he held off, deciding that maybe that conversation would be better suited for another night. Ryan shifted the car into drive and sped away.
The retirement dinner was to be held in the ballroom of The Grand Tide, one of Charleston’s nicest beachside resorts. Once, about a year before, Ryan was called to the hotel after a bar fight got too out of hand. He hadn’t paid much attention to the place aside from thinking the massive crystal chandelier hanging in the lobby seemed a bit over-the-top for the area. This, after all, was the heart of Lowcountry, not Miami Beach.
Speeding down highway 171, the two were headed right for Folly Beach where Ryan had big plans for Mr. Abernathy, ones he was sure would make a splash with the people of Charleston County in a way they hadn’t seen coming.
As his car crossed the Folly River Bridge, the detective took note of the water, of how much calmer and brighter it seemed now that he was suspended above it as opposed to sinking beneath it. He looked at Kit, again almost mentioning the kiss but again holding back.
“What?” Kit asked, a half-smile stretching across her face.
“What?”
“You look like you want to say something. Or that you’re trying not to.”
“No,” he lied. “I was just looking. I meant to thank you for coming to get me and for tending to my arm.”
“We’re going to the hospital after this,” she answered. “That thing needs stitches.”
“Fine,” he replied. “After this asshole is behind bars, I’ll get stitches.”
Bringing his car to a stop a few feet away from the hotel doors, Ryan stepped out, followed closely by his partner. He wore a fitted navy suit and tie with shining black shoes. His hair was brushed back in a perfect wave, with a light spike peeking up from a cowlick he’d had since childhood. Kit stood next to him, her hair hanging straight and slick around her wonderfully proportioned face.
Stepping into the ballroom, Ryan felt two hundred pairs of eyes turn to him. He was late, yes, but it was something more than that. This was the direct result of everything he’d spent the last two weeks doing. The fight with Thomas, the explosion in the water, and the talk around town of the girl found dead. The same girl who’d stood him up for prom all those years ago. There were still people who believed Ryan was responsible, yes. But that was about to change.
“Ryan.” Rufus Abernathy’s eyes widened to the size of quarters. “Welcome.” A nervous fake smile painted itself across his face.
“What’s the matter, Mr. Abernathy?” The detective smiled wide. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Ryan walked toward him, knowing Kit had snuck off into the back room to lay the trap that was about to snare the revered professor.
“Do you know who you’re playing with?” Rufus asked.
“Of course, I do,” Ryan answered, shaking the man’s hand and squeezing it tightly. “You’re the man who tied me to a speeding boat and left me to die. You’re the man who murdered a man in the foyer of his home while his girlfriend watched. You’re the man who seduced a young girl who didn’t know any better and then killed her in cold blood. You destroy lives, Rufus Abernathy. You ruin families. You’re a menace, a murder, and an aberration before God and the people of Charleston County. But the question you should be asking is who you’re playing with. I’m the man who is going to put a stop to you. I’m the man who is going to expose you for the trash you are, and when it comes down to it, I’m the man who is going to slap cuffs on your ass and ensure that you spend the rest of your life in a dark, dank hole.”
“You’re a joke,” Rufus said. “No one in this room will believe a word you say, and should you actually turn out to be stupid enough to try and accuse me, I’ll turn it around on you.” He shook his head. “You were Haley’s boyfriend. You were the one who should have been with her the night she disappeared. Hell, half the people in this town think you’re guilty anyway. I’ll tell them you confessed the murder to me. I’ll swear it on a stack of Bibles. Then we’ll see who ends up in a hole.”
Suddenly, the lights went low.
“What the hell is this?” Rufus asked.
“It’s the truth, Professor Abernathy,” Ryan answered. “You see, I knew Haley. I knew all of her hiding places, even if it took me awhile to remember some of them. Turns out a textbook wasn’t the only memento of you she kept. Did you know Haley loved to record people, even when they didn’t know she was doing so?”
Rufus’s eyes went wide as a video of him kissing Haley started to play. You could hear the shock and disbelief run through the room like a tidal wave, one designed to destroy a man’s reputation and finally bring justice to a twenty-year-old murder.
“Damn it,” Rufus said.
As Ryan reached back to grab his cuffs, Rufus punched him in the face. He ran quickly, pushing a table over to block his path.
“No, you don’t!” Ryan said and darted after the man.
While half the town sat around the opulent ballroom with their jaws scraping the floor, Ryan and his former professor ran out the doors, finding themselves standing face to face on the sandy Carolina shores.
“Give up,” Ryan said. “It’s over.”
“You . . .” Rufus gritted his teeth. “You are nothing. You’ll always be nothing.”
“That may be,” Ryan said, seeing the beach fill with a dozen other officers. “But I’m still better than you.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
The warm South Carolina breeze glided across Ryan’s face. The soft chirping of a blue jay carried through the cemetery, ricocheting from one headstone to another. He’d only visited Haley’s grave a handful of times since her death, but after putting the man who’d ended her life behind bars, it only felt right to tell her in person.
The case was finally over and Haley’s memory could finally be at rest. Ryan Devereux was no longer suspended, and the people of Charleston, South Carolina could finally mourn the young girl the way she deserved. Rufus Abernathy was behind bars with his reputation destroyed. It took twenty years, twelve stitches, and a world’s worth of grief, but he’d managed to keep his promise.
“It’s done.” He knelt beside her grave even though he knew it was empty.
Ryan still remembered the day Haley’s parents decided to hold a burial for their daughter three years after she disappeared. In the beginning, he was upset, questioning how they could have given up so soon without knowing for sure. It took years for him to understand the truth. The King family simply didn’t know how else to deal with the grief and sadness tearing them apart. Perhaps they thought seeing her casket lower into the ground would help them deal with their emotions, that it would save the family. They were wrong.
Less than one year later, Haley’s father was gone. After that, there wasn’t much left of the Kings. Haley’s one-time party throwing, cotillion-loving, proud Southern mother crumbled into nothing more than a recluse, spending her days walking the shores of her island home until finally leaving the Lowcountry for good.
“Rufus Abernathy is behind bars, right where he belongs.” Ryan looked at the marble headstone near his feet. “I’m sorry it took so long.” He took a deep breath, his eyes beginning to well up. “I finally got to see you in that dress though.”
He spent the next few minutes just standing, listening to the world spin around him, listening to the air as it grew moist and dense with afternoon heat. He’d hoped maybe she’d speak to him. Maybe if he listened hard enough, he would hear her, but there was nothing, only the Carolina silence and his memories.
“Here you go,” Chief Evans said as the sun began to melt into the crisp Atlantic waters. “Your badge.”
“Thank you,” Ryan replied, sliding it into his pocket.
“You were right after all.” The chief smiled wide. “When I’m wrong, I say I’m wrong.”
It wasn’t at all necessary, but a few of his fellow officers had decided to throw a small beachside barbecue in honor of Ryan’s work on the case, likely at the behest of his partner, though she’d never admit it. The smell of sweet, slow-roasted pork wafted across the sand, wrapping Ryan in a fragrant cloud. His stomach panged with hunger and his mouth began to water.
“You were right,” Kit said, handing him an ice-cold drink. “You said you’d figure it out and you were right.”
“What kind of cold-case detective would I be if I couldn’t keep my promise?” he asked, watching the fading sun cast shadows across her sweet face.
“You’re a damn good detective. Cold-case or any other.”
In the distance, rising high out of the endless ocean, stood the Morris Island Lighthouse, the one he’d almost been driven into. The one intended to be an instrument of his death. Though he’d lived in Charleston his whole life, Ryan had never given much thought to the structure. He’d never really looked at it for longer than a few seconds.
Now that he had, though, he noticed just how weathered it looked, how tattered and worn with age. Looking at it, he couldn’t help but see himself. That was just the way of things down here. Time changed you, the ocean, the heat, and the people. Each one had an impact on a man that was as inescapable as the Spanish moss, each one leaving its mark on you forever.
But most of all, it was the land itself, the feeling, the ambience, and the raw history of pride scattered over nearly every inch of his coastal home. It was that pride that was his driving force for all these years, and just like the lighthouse, he stood tall on that beach, having served his purpose and been proud to do so.
“What about later?” Ryan asked his partner, not sure what answer he was hoping for. “What are you doing later?”
“Me?” She gave a coy smile. “I’m not sure. But I know what you’ll be doing.”
“Really?” Ryan asked. “And what is that?”
Kit stepped closer, placing her hand on his chin. Squeezing it tightly, she slowly turned his head toward the coastline. “Her.” He saw Michelle Myers standing at the edge of the sand. “Go on,” Kit said. “She’s waiting for you.”
----------THE END----------
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PALMETTO GONE
THE LOWCOUNTRY MYSTERY SERIES: BOOK TWO
David Banner
Published by Golden Pineapple Publishing.
Copyright 2017 by David Banner.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance or similarity to any person, place, or event is purely coincidental. While I try my best to keep the geography of the beautiful state of South Carolina correct, some of the places in this work are fictional. No part of this book is to be reproduced without author consent.
Chapter One
Cold cases were, as Ryan Devereux had come to learn, the strangest things. They just seemed to have a mind of their own, suddenly springing to life with no more warning than a snake in the grass. That’s just the way it happened, too, suddenly and from right under his nose. Little more than the breeze was moving in Charleston County when a local news alert popped across his phone’s screen.
A Twitter account, of all things. That’s what got this particular ball rolling again. And once the news of the account spread through town, Ryan knew it would change the course of this cold case, one he’d read about but hadn’t really studied.
It seems a local prisoner saw the news too, then decided now was about as good a time as any to grow a conscience and come clean about information that, according to him, would blow the lid right off a sixteen-year-old cold case involving a young woman. She’d been found dead in her small café just along the edge of town late one night after a witness noticed the most peculiar of things.
“Yes,” Ida Taylor said, nodding her head. “I’m telling you, he just leapt right out the window, falling on the ground and stumbling to high heaven.”
“And did you make eye contact with the man?” Ryan asked.
Ida Taylor was the one and only witness to the sixteen-year-old case, but something told the detective she had little to do with the fresh new social media account that had spurred this whole thing into action. She’d been walking her border collie through the steamy July night when a sound caught her attention. There, just out of the corner of her eye, was a tall, slender man leaping from the side window of a small café and running away into the darkness.
“Yes.” She pursed her lips. “He looked right at me. At least, I think he did.”
“What do you mean?” Ryan asked.
“Well, it was dark, you see, with not enough moonlight to catch a cat. I looked at him, and he looked at me, but I can’t say the man actually saw me.” Ida took a sip of her iced tea. “But I saw him. Yes, I did. And I still remember that face.”
Ryan first took note of the Karen Wyler case just a few days into his cold-case position. But with no new evidence in the last few years, he’d decided to skip it and move on to more pressing matters, such as the body of his childhood sweetheart he’d found a few weeks before. But after an unexpected phone call from the Big River Correctional Institute up in the state capital brought new leads to the old case, he had no choice but to follow them, especially given the town’s newfound interest in Mrs. Wyler.
Ida Taylor was in her early forties when she’d witnessed the crime, though the time away seemed to have done little to weaken her memories of the night. “He wore tattered jeans and a white T-shirt. Looked like one of them hoodlums my daddy used to warn me about. The ones with the slicked-back hair and shiny cars,” she said. “I headed right home and called the sheriff!”
What to Ida must have seemed like an instant reaction would in today’s standards likely be seen as a glacial pace. “Where did you place the call from?” Ryan asked.
“My home!” she said, pointing to an old eggshell-colored landline. “That same phone you see sitting right there.”
“Thank God for cellphones,” Ryan muttered to himself, thinking about how much slower investigating had once moved. “And after you placed the call, did you return to the crime scene?”
“Why, yes.” Ida’s eyes grew wide. “I went back there to show them where I’d seen the man.”
“Of course.” Ryan smiled. He’d already read the case file, but due to the less-than-detailed way Lowcountry law used to work, some things weren’t as clear as he’d have liked.
