Lowcountry Seaside Mystery Box Set, page 38
part #1 of Lowcountry Seaside Mystery Series
The address on the back of the prayer card given to him by mother superior pointed to a location about fifteen miles outside of Charleston, deep in the lush marshland surrounding Wadmalaw Island. It wasn’t a location the detective frequented much, especially given the fact that he lived nearer the east side of Charleston. He couldn’t help but remark to his partner how he often wished he took more time to explore the endless waterways surrounding his home.
While Kit didn’t seem to share his enthusiasm for all things Southern, she was warming up a bit to the slower-paced lifestyle of her new home a little more each day. Though he was pretty sure he’d mentioned that to her too.
“What about Jackson?” Ryan spoke up. “How are things going?”
Kit smiled. “You haven’t asked him?”
“I’m asking you,” Ryan replied. “I don’t go around repeating things. You know that.”
“Well enough.” She smiled. “He’s sweet. He’s also pretty hot, so that helps.”
“I’m sure . . .”
“He doesn’t talk much though.”
“What do you mean?” Ryan asked, thinking back on the endless hours of conversation he’d had with the man over the years.
“As in . . . I don’t know much about him. About his past. He doesn’t talk a lot about feelings or anything either.”
“Sounds a lot like you,” Ryan quipped.
“Yeah, actually. That’s why I noticed, I guess. I hadn’t realized how much I’d gotten used to being the quiet one in a relationship. I keep finding myself having to start the conversation. I guess I’m just not used to it.”
“Tell him,” Ryan replied. “He’s always been really open to listening to that kind of thing.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean like . . . if he’s doing something that bugs you. Or if he said something that maybe rubbed you the wrong way. Just tell him. He usually doesn’t realize he’s doing it. If you tell him you’d like him to share more, I’m sure he’ll do it.”
“I’m not trying to change him,” Kit said. “I like him.”
“Then what?”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” she said. “I think this is a me thing. I think maybe I’d just never realized how closed off I’d been.”
“I just always assumed it’s because of where you’re from. No one is as open and talkative as a Southerner. You know that,” Ryan said.
“I know. But still . . . I think it might be nice to talk to someone a little more. You know?”
“I do.”
Ryan knew exactly what his partner was talking about. It was the kind of thing most detectives had issue with, or at least the ones Ryan had known. Perhaps it was due to how much talking they had to do for the job. Maybe by the time their day was over, they’d already said everything there was to say. Or maybe it was just a personality trait, something that existed deep within the kind of people that law enforcement attracted. Either way, Ryan felt his partner’s pain.
“Talk to him,” he repeated. “You know as well as I do what happens when you don’t.”
Kit sighed. “Yeah.”
The bright Carolina sun hung low in the sky by the time the two detectives arrived at the address printed on the card. Ryan’s cruiser moved slowly down the long narrow driveway. Thick vegetation lined either side of his car, brushing against the glass like watchful eyes peering through the windows. At the end sat a small cabin resting high on stilts above open water.
“What is this place?” Kit asked.
“Just a house,” Ryan said. “People have them out here like this sometimes. It’s not all that uncommon. We just usually don’t get called to them, that’s all.”
“Still . . . it just looks really unsettling. I don’t think I could sleep out here. How could you feel safe?”
“Most of these folks are heavily armed,” Ryan replied. “I doubt they get many visitors.”
“Do you think anyone lives here?”
“Doesn’t look like it,” he said. “I don’t see a car or a boat.” He pulled the car to a stop and stepped out. The thick scent of wet grass and swamp filled the air around them, seeping into Ryan’s lungs as it had so many countless times before. Kit coughed hard for a moment, still not fully used to the smell and the sensation of the swampy landscape. “You all right?”
“Fine,” Kit said, coughing one final time into the sleeve of her shirt. “What are we looking for?”
“No idea,” Ryan said. “Like I said, Mother Superior just said she felt like it was meant for me.”
“Makes sense . . .” Kit looked around. “If you were the last one to speak with her before she . . . do you think this was her home?”
“What?”
“Her home,” Kit repeated. “Look at these vines. They’re growing over the door. No one has opened them in a long time. Do you think she lived here before she became a nun?”
“I guess,” Ryan replied. “I mean, it makes sense. The driveway doesn’t look like it’s seen a car in a while. And like I said, no boat.”
“This was her home before she was a nun. It had to be.”
The two detectives headed up the old creaky steps toward the door. Turning the handle, Ryan found it locked. Using a small flowerpot he found sitting just left of the door, the detective slammed it hard into the glass, shattering both the small window and the pot. His hands were covered in old, dry soil.
“That was already broken, right?” Kit asked.
“Yeah,” he replied, sticking his hand through and unlocking the door. “Of course.”
The interior was dark and still with no sound and only thin rays of evening light shining through the wooden frame. It was like time stood still, as if Kate Sanders had just gotten up and left, never to return without even a single thought. Stacks of mail still sat on the table, and there were cups in the sink and blankets on the dust-covered sofa.
The two looked around, lifting papers and opening drawers, some crumbling with the movement, turning to dust in their hands then falling to the ground. Ryan stepped into the bedroom. A thick blanket lay messily across the bed as if someone had slept there just before leaving the house for good without even a thought of tidying up.
After a while of searching, the detective felt the floor under his foot give way. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to let him know where to look. Getting to his knees and pulling up the loose floorboard, Ryan found a small metal box. Its faded red paint was covered with a thin layer of dust thanks to years of sitting in the same place. He lifted it, noticing a small lock, then turned to his partner.
“Look,” he said. “I think this is what she wanted me to find.”
“Is it locked?” Kit stepped closer, the aged floor buckling under her foot before giving way again, only this time in a much larger and more violent fashion. In a flash, she was gone, her body falling to the water below.
“Kit!” Ryan yelled, tossing the small box out the door then running to his partner. “Kit!”
“Ryan!” she yelled, splashing in the dark marsh below. “Help! Something . . . it bit me!”
Ryan dropped to the floor, extending his arm and grabbing hold of his partner’s hand. “Hold on!”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Panic washed over Kit’s face, her voice loud and screechy as she called out for help. Something was biting her, though through the splashing water, Ryan couldn’t see anything. There were no signs of a gator, no signs of anything other than Kit. He grabbed hold of her hand, pulling her back up through the broken floorboards.
“What happened?” he asked as she lay down on the old porch.
“A snake!” she said, struggling to unbutton her pants. “It bit my leg!”
Ryan grabbed hold of Kit’s waistband and shimmied her pants down her legs, tossing them to the side. He scanned her body until finally finding a series of small bites near the top of her leg. He ran his fingers across them, counting. One, two, three, four . . .
“I think you were bitten twice,” he said. “Be still. You don’t need your blood pumping any more than it has to. Did you see the snake?”
“I think . . .” Kit tried her best to slow her breath. “Red and black, I think . . .”
“Red and black, or red, black, and yellow?” Ryan asked.
“I don’t know. Why?”
“Red next to yellow kills a fellow. Red next to black is a friend to Jack,” Ryan said.
“What?”
“It’s an old rhyme about poisonous snakes. I doubt it was a coral snake.”
“Just suck the poison out! Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do?”
“I don’t know that it was poisonous . . .”
“Just do it!” she snapped.
Ryan pressed his lips against the soft, supple skin of Kit’s thigh and began to suck, softly at first, then harder and faster. He wasn’t sure if it was necessary, but better safe than sorry. Besides, he could see how frightened his friend was, and if it made her feel better, then he would do everything he could. Ryan pulled back, spitting onto the aged wooden floor, then brought his lips back down. He repeated the process three more times, each time sucking at his partner’s flesh harder and harder.
“If there was anything, it has to be gone now,” he said. “Look at the blood.”
Beside him lay a small pile of blood mixed with saliva. Kit leaned in, and looking into his eyes, she paused for a moment. Ryan looked back down at her exposed lower body. Her underwear was light pink, with lace trim and a small emblem in the upper-right corner. He was struck by how ornate they were, how sexual. It was something he hadn’t thought about much when it came to Kit. Nearly every time he’d seen her, she was dressed for work, very professional, just as she was now.
Looking at them and seeing the soft skin of her legs made Ryan see her in a different light, a softer, more human light. It would take him the rest of the day to understand exactly what it was he’d realized. She was more than just his partner, more than just her job, and more than a past she was running away from. She was a woman, one likely looking for the same things as him, for companionship, comfort, and security.
“Thank you,” she said, standing to her feet and sliding her pants back on. “What was the rhyme? Red next to black?”
“Red next to yellow kills a fellow. Red next to black is a friend to Jack.” Ryan stood. “It’s how you identify a coral snake. They’re poisonous but rarely seen. I doubt it was one of those guys. How do you feel?”
“Fine.” She smiled. “Mostly just sore. That’s quite a powerful set of jaws you’ve got there, partner.”
“Thanks?” Ryan raised an eyebrow.
“What about the box? Where is it?”
“I threw it out.” Ryan pointed out into the small yard. There, lying upside down in the tall grass, was the faded red metal box. “Come on. We’ll get in the car and see if we can pry it open.”
It was a little later than Ryan generally cared to be working, but after opening the box and finding a small stack of love letters from Mary Kate Sanders, the now-dead nun, both Ryan and his partner thought they’d give the day just a little longer.
“These just look so old,” Kit said, scanning the letters. “I haven’t seen paper like this in . . . I don’t even know when.”
“Yeah,” Ryan said. “She must have written them when she was a teenager or something. Just look at the handwriting. No one writes like that anymore.”
“Listen to this . . .” Kit said, holding the letter up and reading aloud.
“My dearest John, I cannot wait until next week when school is finally over and I can be your bride. Even though it is only a short time away, I long for the nights when we watch the sunset together as husband and wife. The thought of slipping away into the night by your side is all I need to get me through these next cruel days. I love you. Kate.”
“They were planning to run away together,” Ryan said. “The nun and her boyfriend.”
“Looks like it,” Kit said. “There are more like this too. They all just talk about spending their lives together. How she couldn’t imagine being with anyone else. Makes you think . . .”
“What do you mean?”
“I knew she wasn’t always a nun, but I hadn’t thought about her having relationships or anything. About her falling in love. Like . . . how suddenly, you can see someone in a different light. You know?”
“I do,” Ryan said, thinking back to the small house and how something as simple as seeing her legs and her underwear could shine light on another side of his partner. “I know exactly what you mean.” He turned from her and began typing.
Surely, the house belonged to Kate Sanders. He typed the address into the computer. A few seconds later, a name popped up, letting him know he was wrong. “Abigail Spencer . . .” he muttered.
“What?” Kit asked.
“Abigail Spencer,” he repeated. “That’s the woman who vanished on her way to the cruise. She’s the entire reason we were looking into this case in the first place. The Chief said there was a letter. A love letter, I think . . .”
“Did it look like these?” Kit asked.
“I don’t know. I never actually got to see it,” Ryan replied. “William woke up and I went to the hospital. But I’d bet it has something to do with these.”
“We need to see that letter,” Kit said. “And we also need to look more into Abigail. If she owned this house and Kate sent us there to find her love letters, then the two must have known one another.”
“Makes sense.” Ryan sighed. “Alessandro Serenelli . . .”
“Come again?”
“That’s the guy on the back of the prayer card. He killed someone then spent his life seeking forgiveness. Maybe Kate killed Abigail. Maybe she was jealous of her or something.”
“You think so?” Kit asked.
“I don’t know,” Ryan said. “This just keeps getting more and more complicated.”
The two detectives spent the next hour looking through the letters, through property records, and through anything else they could find linking Abigail to Kate.
“Here’s something,” Kit said. “It’s from a newspaper article about a local book club. The picture is old. That’s Abigail in the front, but look behind her. Doesn’t that look like . . . ?”
“Kate,” Ryan said, seeing her familiar face in the aged photo. “So they were friends after all.”
“Seems like it,” Kit replied.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Ryan rubbed his temples, his fingers trying their best to gently massage away the stress he’d been feeling over the last few days. Detective work, much like everything else in law enforcement, was a difficult thing. Add to that a dead nun, a pre-teen daughter, and his ex-wife’s wedding just around the corner, and the man couldn’t help but throw back a few extra shots of tequila.
“You look . . .” Jake said.
Ryan knew the end of that sentence. He’d heard it before. Hell, he’d even said it a few times, always letting the end trail away in that same manner. It was the kind of thing you said to someone when they had begun to wear their stress like an extra layer of clothing. His mind flashed to Uncle Pauley.
It seemed everyday brought Ryan another step closer to becoming more and more like the man who’d raised him from a small boy. He turned his eyes up to meet Jake’s. There was something familiar there too. In a way, it was almost the same worry that he’d been feeling. It was understandable, though. Jake’s father had been in prison for a crime that with each passing day seemed he was less likely to have committed.
“Bad.” Ryan sighed. “I know. I’ve just been a little busy lately. That’s all.”
“I know the feeling,” Jake replied. “I just got back a few hours ago.”
“From where?”
“Went up to Virginia to see my little boy.” Jake gave a tired, weighted smile.
“You have a son?”
“Yeah . . . he’s with his momma up in Richmond. I drive up there every other weekend to spend time with him. It gets hard and tiring. I don’t want him to forget me, though, to think I’m just some guy who didn’t never want nuthin’ to do with him. You know?”
Ryan knew exactly what he was talking about. He felt the same way about his daughter. The thought of Thomas Kent living with her was bad, but at least she was old enough to understand what was happening. At least she knew her daddy cared about her and that he made time for her every day. It was an important thing.
“I do.”
“We ain’t been together in a while. We was young’uns, though, when we first got together, I mean. Didn’t know no better. Back before the world took its toll on us.”
“It’s hard.” Ryan sighed. “Being young. Doesn’t seem to get much easier either. At least not in that regard.”
“I’ve prayed for easy.” Jake took a long, slow sip of his dark beer. “Ain’t never got it though. So, why’d you call me here?”
Ryan looked at the man, his eyes focusing on the tired creases of his face. The long deep lines of his cheeks told the truth of his age. When he’d first met the large man, Ryan assumed he was a bit younger, but the more they spoke, the more Jake let go of his façade. Either that, or this whole thing with his father was taking a bigger toll on the man than the detective originally thought.
“I wanted to run something by you.” He threw back another shot of tequila. “I’ve got a name. Kate Sanders. Mean anything to you?”
“Kate Sanders . . .” Jake repeated. “Yeah, a little bit. Why? What’d she do now?”
The question struck a chord in Ryan. He hadn’t found out much about the woman. But it was obvious from Jake’s reply that he’d known her and that she’d been at least somewhat troublesome.
“Nothing . . . at least, not that I know of.”
