Carolina Isle (Edenton 2)

“What does he know? He’s so in love with Ariel that he can’t think about anything else. ‘David, dear,’” R.J. said in a falsetto voice, “‘please go outside and shoot yourself, but be sure and do it in a field somewhere as I wouldn’t want the mess to soil my pretty house.’”

“David isn’t like that. He wants to be—”

“Yeah, I know. President.” R.J. was trying to climb up one part of the wall that was less steep, but his feet kept slipping. Leaning against the wall, he removed his shoes and socks to try again. “I think Ariel would make a great first lady. She could wear pretty clothes that the government didn’t pay for and she’d love having her picture taken.”

“She’s not as bad as you think. There are things in her life that you don’t know about. Ariel and I’ve exchanged letters for years, so we know about each other. She told me that when she was nine years old her mother took her to a psychiatrist in New York because Ariel kept making plans for her funeral.”

“Her funeral? Was she suicidal?”

“No. Ariel told the psychiatrist that since her mother had planned her wedding down to the color of the bridesmaids’ dresses, the only thing left for Ariel to plan was her funeral. What was so funny about it all was that when the psychiatrist asked Ariel’s mother if it was true, she said ‘of course.’ Then he asked her mother if she had the groom picked out too, and Ariel’s mother thought the man was crazy. She said, ‘How can you have a wedding without a groom? Of course he’s been chosen.’ Ariel told me that when the doctor said he wanted to see her mother next time and not Ariel, she left his office in anger and they went home to Arundel the next day.”

R.J. gave a one-sided smile. “I can believe that story. I met the old bat. She threatened me with a lawsuit just for looking at her daughter. But if you ask me, Ariel is in danger of being just like her. Unless she can find a man who’ll stand up to her, that is, and from what I’ve seen, that’s not David the wimp.”

“He …” Sara started to say that David wasn’t a wimp, but she took another drink instead. Under the current circumstances, it didn’t seem to matter what David Tredwell was or wasn’t. “They won’t come after us,” Sara said quietly, looking up at the tree that covered the roof opening. It was still daylight, but it would be dark soon. Then what would happen? “We didn’t find out anything, did we?” she said, and wasn’t fully successful in keeping the tears out of her voice.

“I beg to differ,” R.J. said, rubbing his knee where he’d hit it on the rock. He couldn’t get up the wall; it was too slippery, too wet. “We found out pretty much all that we need to know.”

Sara took another swig of liqueur. “So tell me, professor, what have we found out?”

“That lots of people hated the victim and had a motive to murder him. I don’t think any court is going to believe that any of us killed a man over a dead dog. You know, don’t you, that I have a photo of the dog?”

“You what?”

R.J. stepped back from the wall and dug into the tiny watch pocket in the front of his trousers and withdrew a little disk for a digital camera. “There was a full fifteen seconds between when the police appeared and the handcuffs were placed on me. I took the disk out of the camera and put it in my pocket. I haven’t seen what’s on there, but I know you took—”

“Several photos of the dog lying in the street.” She was looking at him in wonder and admiration. He was certainly able to think quickly in an emergency.

“No,” R.J. said, “you took half a dozen photos of your precious David, but I think the dog is probably in there too.”

Sara was feeling the effects of the booze, so she didn’t protest what R.J. was saying. Besides, it was true. Most of the time she was taking photos, she’d been in the car, but when David was looking at the dog, she’d snapped away. It seemed like years ago now, but she seemed to remember that she was thinking that someday he could use the photos in his political campaigns. When he was a young man he’d been concerned about animal rights, that sort of thing.

“So you have photos showing that the dog was emaciated,” Sara said. “That doesn’t prove that we didn’t hit it.”

“True, but it would have proven that Nezbit was a liar.”

“But now Nezbit is dead. In our bathtub.”

“In Phyllis Vancurren’s bathtub,” R.J. corrected. He was pulling on some weeds that were hanging down from the top of the hole, but they fell away in his hands. “The people on this island have changed their fates,” he said. “If none of this had happened, I would have gone back to Charley and recommended that he not buy an inch of this place, but now I might buy it myself.”

“And bulldoze it?”

“No,” he said, looking at her in surprise. “I’m going to send in a team of geologists and spelunkers to explore every inch of this place. I’m going to find out what it is that ol’ Fenny Nezbit found, how he disappeared, and what he was killed for. I think the middle of this island is riddled with these little bowling ball caves, and I plan to get a report on every one of them. If tourists come here, we can’t have them falling through the center of the island.”

“And breaking their legs,” Sara said. “And having trees cover the top so they can’t get out. And you’d better tell the natives to stop shooting at strangers. And kidnapping their children. And …” She took another swig of liqueur and stopped talking. Thinking about the future and what they were going to do didn’t help the present. “If we yell, do you think anyone will hear us? And if they do hear us, will they come to help or to shoot us?”

“You really are a glass-half-empty type of person, aren’t you?”

“It helps when you have a boss like mine,” she said, then looked at him. “Sorry.”

“Okay, answer me this.” He was trying to move a rock that was against the wall to the center so he could stand on it. “If I didn’t make up things for you to do for me, how else was I going to keep you near me?”

“I think I’m drunk. Why would you want me near you?”

R.J. gave a little snort. “Can’t imagine. How’s your leg?”

“Most of me is numb. I’ve never been much of a drinker. Imagine having a father like mine and not having a capacity for booze. Where are genetics when you need them?”

“My old man was a drunk too.”