Riptide

“Cousins? We don’t look anything alike.”

He gave her a crooked grin.“Thank heaven for that.”

Sheriff Gaffney didn’t like the news from Augusta. He liked tidy conclusions, puzzles where all the pieces finally locked cleanly into place, not this: an old skeleton, identity unknown, that had been bricked inside Jacob Marley’s basement wall after her gruesome murder. He didn’t really want A

Sheriff Gaffney looked over at Ms. Powell’s cousin, a big, tough-looking guy who looked like he could take care of himself. His body was hard and in good shape, but he seemed like a man who could be patient, as if he was used to waiting in the shadows, like a predator stalking its prey. Gaffney shook his head. He had to stop reading those suspense novels he liked so much.

He looked over at Becca Powell, a nice young woman who wasn’t, thank God, so pale now, or on the verge of hysteria. Hopefully her cousin would keep her that way. After finding that skeleton, just maybe she would be glad to have him around for a while. He found himself studying Carruthers again. The guy was dark, from his black hair-too long, in the sheriff’s opinion-to his eyes, nearly black in the dim late-afternoon light in Jacob Marley’s living room. He had big feet in scuffed black boots, soft-looking boots that looked like he’d worn them for a good long time and waited in the shadows with those boots on his feet, not making a whisper of a sound. He wondered what the hell the man did for a living. Nothing normal and expected, he’d bet his next meal on that. Just maybe he didn’t want to know.

The sheriff looked around the living room. Jesus, the place looked like a museum or a tomb. It felt old and musty, although it smelled like lemons, just like at home.

He knew, of course, that everyone was looking at him, waiting. He liked that. It built suspense. He was holding them in the palm of his hand. Only thing was, they didn’t look all that scared or worried or ready to gnaw off their fingernails. A real cool bunch.

Becca said finally, “Sheriff, won’t you be seated? Now, you have news for us?”

He took the old chair she was waving at, eased down slowly, then cleared his throat. He was ready to make his big a

There was a sharp moment of silence, but not the surprise he’d expected, that he’d wanted, truth be told.

“Thank you for telling me so quickly, Sheriff. I’m pleased that it wasn’t, because that would have meant that someone had killed her and it wasn’t me. I hope that wherever A

But Tyler hadn’t acted surprised. He acted like he already knew. Well, damn, if Tyler hadn’t killed A

“It’s not possible that it’s a local teenager, Sheriff?” Becca asked.

The sheriff shook his head. “Nobody just up and disappeared in the town’s memory, Ms. Powell. Something like that, folk just wouldn’t forget. Nope, it’s got to be a runaway.”

Adam Carruthers sat forward, his hands clasped between his knees. “You think this old man, Jacob Marley, did it?” He was sitting in a deep leather chair that old Jacob had liked. He looked like he was the one in charge and that burned the sheriff a bit. Fellow was too young to be in charge, not too much beyond thirty, about the same age as Maude’s nephew, Frank, who was currently in prison out in Folsom, California, for writing bad checks. Frank had always had soggy morals, even as a boy. Maybe the fellow was shiftless, like Frank. But hell, the last thing this guy looked was shiftless.

“Sheriff?”

“Yeah? Oh, it’s possible. Like I told Ms. Powell here, old Jacob didn’t like people poking around. He had a mean streak in him and no patience to speak of. He could have bashed her.”

Adam said, a dark eyebrow raised a bit, “Mean streak or not, you believe he actually bashed a young girl in the face with a blunt instrument and walled her in his basement because he was pissed to see her trotting across his backyard?”

Sheriff Gaffney said, “A blunt instrument, you say. Well, the ME didn’t know what the murderer struck her with, maybe a heavy pot, maybe a bookend, something like that. Did Jacob do it? We’ll just have to see about that.”

“Nothing else makes much sense,” Tyler said, jumping to his feet. He began pacing the room. His whole body was vibrating with tension. He had good muscle tone, the sheriff thought, remembering his own buffed self that the ladies had stared at when he was that young. Tyler whirled around, came to a stop, nearly knocking over a floor lamp. “Don’t you see? Whoever killed her had to have access to Jacob’s basement. Surely Jacob would have heard someone knocking away bricks, then putting them back up. The killer had to have cement to do that. Also, he had to haul the body into the house and down the basement steps. That would be quite an undertaking. It had to be Jacob. Nothing else makes sense.”

Adam said, leaning back in that old leather chair now, his legs crossed at his ankles, his fingers steepled, the tips lightly tapping together, “Now, wait a minute. You’re saying that Jacob Marley never left his house?”

“Not that I remember,” Tyler said. “He even had his groceries delivered. Of course, I was gone four years when I was in college. Maybe he used to be different, went out more.”

“Two things were always true about old Jacob,” Sheriff Gaffney said slowly. “Two things you could always count on. He was here and he was mean.” He heaved himself from his seat. He froze when the button right above his wide leather belt up and popped off. He watched, paralyzed, as the damned button rolled across the polished oak floor to stop at the big toe of Carruthers’s right boot. He sucked in his belly, but he still felt that wide leather belt of his continue to cut him something fierce. He didn’t say anything, just held out his hand.

Adam Carruthers tossed him the button. He didn’t smile. The sheriff clutched that damned button close. Jesus, maybe he should think about that diet Maude was always nagging him about.

Becca pretended not to see anything. She rose and stuck out her hand to the sheriff. “Thank you for coming and telling us in person. Please let us know when you find out who that poor girl is.”

“Was, ma’am, was. I will. I’m glad I called them. I had to worm it out of them, but I finally got to speak to the main guy, a hardnose named Jarvis, and he finally coughed up the info.” He nodded to Tyler McBride, who looked hollow-cheeked, as if he’d been put through a wringer, and then to Adam Carruthers, a cocky bastard who hadn’t laughed when his button had popped off.

“I’ll see you out, Sheriff,” Becca said and walked beside him out of the living room.