Riptide (Sam McRae Mystery 3)

Her expression distorted, and I thought she was going to cry, but instead she laughed. “Plenty of people might have wanted to kill him.”

“Anyone specific?” I had to restrain myself from grabbing and shaking her.

“Not really.”

“He seemed to have a lot of friends. You, for instance, remained friends?”

“Friends? Ha! People just used him. Why not? He was being groomed to take over his stepdaddy’s business. Funny how many friends you make when you go from rags to riches.”

If I hadn’t been careful, my jaw might have dropped into my lap. “So, he wasn’t always rich?”

“No.” Her mouth pursed with distaste. “His mother was trailer trash who married Marshall Bower for his money. Everyone knows it.”

“So everyone sucked up to him. Is that how it was?”

“Oh, yeah. And talk about a dysfunctional family.” She raised her hands and slid off the porch swing onto her feet. “It was a horrible situation, and I didn’t want to marry into that. On top of everything else …”

She stopped and looked at me. “Anything else you want to know?”

I pondered the question. What about Junior?

“You said Billy Ray was being groomed to take over the business. Why not Marshall Jr.?”

She chuckled. “Junior? Billy Ray can be a class-A jerk, but he has basic common sense. Junior doesn’t have the business savvy Billy Ray does. Or did.”

“So if Bower didn’t trust Junior with the business, I take it Billy Ray was his only alternative?”

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“We-e-ll.” She stretched the word out. “There was Marsha, but she flew the coop ages ago.”

“Marsha?”

“His daughter. She never got along with her dad, so she up and split. Hasn’t been seen round these parts in forever. Like I said. Dysfunctional. Totally sad.” She paused. “Anything else?”

“Actually, yes.” I stood up. “Could you give me the names of everyone who was with Billy Ray the day my friend and I … first met him?”

She shrugged. “Sure. But I don’t really think any of them killed him, to be honest.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Well … Billy Ray could be difficult. But now that he’s dead, they’ve got no one to leech off.” She frowned. “I guess I was really no better. I should’ve steered clear of him and his groupies after we called the wedding off.” She waved a dismissive hand. “Doesn’t matter now, does it?”

I removed a small notebook and pen from my shoulder bag. “So … those names?”

*****

Danni turned out to be the proverbial gold mine of information, providing not only the names of Billy Ray’s groupies, but the address for Marshall Bower’s happy home. There’s nothing like love gone wrong to turn your average person into your very own confidential informant.

Armed with my list of names and the laptop, I headed toward the nearest coffee shop with free Wi-Fi and looked up the addresses. I suspected none of these sources would be terribly forthcoming, but I had to start somewhere. I figured I’d take my chances with Karla Dixon, the busty redhead. Perhaps as a woman, I could more easily establish rapport with her.

Karla lived in a recently built condo in West Ocean City—across the bridge from Ocean City proper. I climbed the outdoor stairs that led to the second level of the sleek, blue and gray building and turned down the walkway to reach Unit #204.

A knock on the door and half a minute later, Karla opened up and greeted me with an open mouth and wide green eyes.

“Hi. I don’t know if you remember me—”

“Yeah, I remember you. What do you want?” She crossed her arms.