Murder on Edisto (The Edisto Island Mysteries) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Praise for C. Hope Clark

  Other Titles by C. Hope Clark from Bell Bridge Books

  Murder on Edisto

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Praise for C. Hope Clark

  Lowcountry Bribe is a fast-paced roller coaster ride of a mystery, full of intriguing characters and a heroine as feisty as she is vulnerable. A rare glimpse into a rural part of the Lowcountry most coastal residents and visitors didn’t know existed. From an author who knows her stuff.

  —Katherine R. Wall, author JERICHO CAY, the 11th Bay Tanner mystery, St. Martin’s Minotaur

  Terrific. Smart, knowing, clever . . . and completely original. A taut, high-tension page-turner—in a unique and fascinating setting. An absolute winner!

  —Hank Phillippi Ryan, Agatha, Anthony and Macavity winning author

  In C. Hope Clark’s novel, TIDEWATER MURDER, Carolina Slade establishes herself as a new genre superstar, taking her place beside Dave Robicheux and Harry Bosch. Well-written and informative about a little-known arm of law enforcement, Clark has written a story that carries the reader along as surely as the tides of the lowcountry. Don’t miss this one!

  —Carl T. Smith, author of A Season For Killing and Lowcountry Boil

  Riveting. A first-rate mystery and a real education. C. Hope Clark continues her series following Carolina Slade, an agriculture investigator, in TIDEWATER MURDER. All I can say is if all government employees had Slade’s get-the-job-done tenacity, I wouldn’t mind paying taxes.

  —Donnell Ann Bell, author of The Past Came Hunting and Deadly Recall.

  High tension in the Lowcountry. Feds, farmers and foreigners collide in this coastal crime novel with as many twists and turns as a tidal estuary.

  —Janna McMahan, National Bestselling author of Anonymity and Calling Home

  I want Carolina Slade to be my new best friend. Smart, loyal, tough but compassionate, she’s the kind of person I want on my side if I’m in trouble. In her second outing, a missing tomato crop, dead bodies, and Gullah voodoo lead Slade into the dark heart of the new south, where the 21st century collides with the past and the outcome can be deadly. As a native South Carolinian, I thoroughly enjoyed revisiting my home state in this engrossing and unusual mystery, and I look forward to seeing more of Hope Clark’s refreshing heroine.

  —Sandra Parshall, award-winning author of the Rachel Goddard mysteries sandraparshall.com

  This story sweeps you up in an instant and carries you far, far away. Clark’s intensely lush and conversational writing will keep you wanting more, turning the pages almost faster than you can read them.

  —Rachel Gladstone, Dish Magazine

  Carolina Slade is the real deal—Southern charm, a steely determination, and a vulnerability she’ll never admit to. Slade is at her absolute best in C. Hope Clark’s Palmetto Poison so hold on for the ride!

  —Lynn Chandler-Willis, Bestselling author and winner of the 2013 Minotaur Books/PWA Best First Private Eye Novel Competition

  Other Titles by C. Hope Clark from Bell Bridge Books

  Carolina Slade Mystery series

  Lowcountry Bribe

  Book One

  Tidewater Murder

  Book Two

  Palmetto Poison

  Book Three

  Murder on Edisto

  Book One: The Edisto Island Mysteries

  by

  C. Hope Clark

  Bell Bridge Books

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), events or locations is entirely coincidental.

  Bell Bridge Books

  PO BOX 300921

  Memphis, TN 38130

  Ebook ISBN: 978-1-61194-523-2

  Print ISBN: 978-1-61194-541-6

  Bell Bridge Books is an Imprint of BelleBooks, Inc.

  Copyright © 2014 by Hope Clark writing as C. Hope Clark

  Printed and bound in the United States of America.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

  We at BelleBooks enjoy hearing from readers.

  Visit our websites

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  BellBridgeBooks.com

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  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Cover design: Debra Dixon

  Interior design: Hank Smith

  Photo/Art credits:

  Beach (manipulated) © Ben Goode | Dreamstime.com

  Tree (manipulated © Mark Vandyke | Dreamstime.com

  :Memj:01:

  Dedication

  To Deni, the spirit of Edisto Beach and the energy behind this tale.

  Chapter 1

  Boston, October

  SERGEANT DETECTIVE Callista Jean Morgan leaned stiffly against a display beside the drug store pharmacy, hands stuffed in her size six jeans, waiting for a prescription. She moved further away as a woman seated herself nearby, hacking, a tissue wadded up one nostril. Callie had to stay healthy for the Leo Zubov prosecution. Her mind played with future testimony against the man and envisioned her upcoming day in court with the pernicious ass. Thrill shivered up her spine.

  The speedier the trial the better. The Russian drug czar deserved nothing but the best the legal system could dole out to the bratchnie. Whatever locked him away the quickest and the longest suited her. Since reaching detective, Callie had spent most of her five years running the mazes Zubov incessantly built through Boston’s criminal underground. She’d pursued one trail after another down a hundred dead ends . . . until last week.

  The bastard had threatened her and her family, as well as every cop, clerk, and janitor in the Boston Police Department. This time, however, he’d be dried-up and ancient by the time he got out of jail. Hallelujah and amen!

  Her fifteen-year-old son Jeb loitered a few feet away, reading the ingredients on a bag of candy for diabetics. “Oxymoron,” he said, tossing the item back on the shelf. “Why eat candy if there’s no sugar in it?”

  “I’m impressed you know the meaning of that word,” she said.

  “So you are listening.” Jeb stepped in
front of her and stared deep into her eyes with his familiar please-let-me-have-something squint. “Can I drive home?”

  She gazed up at her six-foot, dashing young sophomore. Too short to reach the second shelf of her kitchen cabinets, Callie often wore boots with heels. She restrained herself from tousling his blond curls, a contrast to her auburn bob. Instead, she glanced out the store’s plate glass window. Seven p.m. The sun was about gone for the day. “I’m not sure, Jeb. It’s getting dark.”

  He acted forlorn. “But the permit says I can drive at night with an adult in the car.”

  Callie’s recurring nightmare involved an out of control truck rushing toward her Explorer, with Jeb at the wheel. Sometimes he was seven with pinchable cheeks, sometimes a tall, lanky fifteen. She would throw a protective arm across his chest, her foot stomping a nonexistent brake. She’d wake in a sea of sweat, her pulse thundering.

  She never told her husband John. He dreamed nightmares of his own.

  Jeb struck a silly pose, eying her, waiting for her answer. “Oh, come on, Mom.”

  “Hush, I’m considering it.”

  She figured eighteen about the proper age to get his license. Maybe when he went to college. She grinned at the exaggeration, then let the grin slide away as she realized how soon that time would come.

  For the sake of their careers, she and John had chosen not to have more children after Jeb. But after a glorious drunken celebratory anniversary weekend, nine months later God gave them Bonnie. Even at thirty-eight, Callie delivered a perfect child . . . then lost her bright-eyed gift one horrific night when Bonnie simply stopped breathing.

  Today would have been the baby’s first birthday.

  John hadn’t mentioned the occasion. Neither had she. They were both at a loss what to do other than privately, silently relive the hurt.

  “Callie Morgan?” called the pharmacist.

  “That’s me.”

  A young tech read the order. “Two prescriptions, right?”

  “Do you need instructions how to use this medication?” he asked.

  Birth control and an antidepressant. What was there to know other than she feared to relinquish either one since Bonnie’s death.

  Callie’s phone rang, playing “Dixie.” A waiting gentleman scowled.

  “Great, Mom,” Jeb whispered. “The South lost, remember?”

  After studying caller ID, she wedged the phone on her shoulder as she paid the white-coated man. “Sorry,” she said, with her best South Carolina Lowcountry drawl three degrees thicker than usual. “My apologies, sir.”

  Red-faced, Jeb walked in the opposite direction toward the vitamins.

  Phone to her ear, she answered, “Callie Morgan.”

  “It’s Waltham. You sitting down?”

  She frowned at her boss’s gravelly, no-nonsense tone. “No, why?” Captain Detective Stan Waltham rarely led with gratuitous niceties. Callie’s Southern gentility usually drew at least one pleasantry out of the man. Not this time.

  “The Feds stepped in on your case.”

  “Why?” She closed her eyes. No! “Don’t tell me Zubov walks. We have him, Stan. He was at the buy, for God’s sake.” She walked away from the waiting herd of sick people. “What happened?”

  “Officially they’ve told me jack shit, but a Homeland Security buddy I served with in the Gulf dropped me a whisper. Apparently Zubov has intel on some terrorist business, so they—”

  “Damn it, he’s not walking.”

  Drugs, guns, human slavery—the local Russian criminal element did it all, but narcotics were Leo’s specialty. The bastard’s white-powdered tentacles reached into and beyond the city, across the state, into New York and who-knows-where else. Far-reaching, but old school. No history of terrorist activity.

  “Not sure about the details, Callie, but you and I are done with him.”

  She spun around only to meet a tall, blue-haired woman. Callie glared as they maneuvered to pass each other. “Who the hell do I have to talk to?”

  “Nobody, we’re—”

  Her phone beeped. John calling.

  “You need to take that?” Stan asked.

  “Not now.” Callie let the call go to voice mail. “So, whose office door are we knocking on tomorrow?”

  John rang again.

  She’d left her husband at home with his head immersed in a work file strewn across the coffee table. His distraction from the day’s significance. Hers was to run the drug store errand, taking Jeb for comfort.

  “I better take this call, Stan, but this thing with Leo isn’t over.”

  “Yes, it is, Callie.”

  “We’ll talk in the morning.”

  She answered the waiting call, visualizing John running an impatient hand through his thick blond hair. “Everything okay?” she asked. “John?”

  “Don’t come home.” His fast, blunt message held an unfamiliar concern, his order so eerily strict.

  Callie stiffened. Was he so entrenched in his misery that he couldn’t face her tonight? Dammit, Bonnie’s death wasn’t her fault.

  “Talk to me, John.”

  “Intruders—”

  The phone died.

  Her heart seemed encased in ice. They’d always feared one of their arrests would seek revenge, finding his way to their doorstep. Adrenaline crashed through the chill and pumped madly into her system. She tried to call back. Shit. She tried again. The call routed to voice mail.

  “Jeb!” She ran down the aisle where he leaned on the wall reading magazines and grasped his arm.

  “Geez, Mom. What—”

  She dragged him toward the door, his long legs stumbling. Outside she key-fobbed the locks, jumped into the driver’s seat, and fired the engine. As soon as Jeb shut his door, she slammed her portable blue light on the dash and sped into traffic.

  Jeb’s palms slapped the dash and center console as he stared wide-eyed. “Mom, you’re scaring me. What’s wrong?” His voice had reverted to adolescence, breaking between words.

  “Buckle your seatbelt.” Callie glanced both ways before she ran a red light.

  She dialed dispatch. “This is Detective Callista Morgan. All available units to 475-C Dorchester Avenue. Suspected intruder. Be advised this is the residence of a Boston PD detective and a deputy US marshal.”

  She disconnected and dropped the phone in a cup holder.

  A horn blared as she gripped the steering wheel with both hands, zipping the car around an Escalade and a minivan.

  “Mom!” Jeb shouted as he slammed into the door. “What—”

  “That was your dad,” Callie said, channeling all her faculties into driving. She sped around an SUV through an amber light. “Something’s wrong. I need you to hold it together.”

  He pushed himself back into his seat, fear etched in his face.

  Callie’s heart hammered her ribs as she bridled the gas and brake pedals to ride a razor edge between arriving quickly and not arriving at all, streetlights passing like a carnival ride.

  A city bus and a utility van blocked both lanes as she took another corner. Foot hard on and then off the brake, and onto the accelerator, she veered around them via the oncoming lane.

  She didn’t want Jeb seeing this side of her. But she damn sure didn’t want him seeing the worst case scenario playing out in her head.

  She swallowed once, then again as the first wouldn’t go down. Panic almost overwhelmed her. This could be any of his cases. Any of hers. Names and file numbers raced in her head as fast as the blocks she whizzed past. But it was the Russian’s name that stuck.

  She glanced at Jeb. Was the fear in his eyes mirroring hers? She wouldn’t glance again.

  Three blocks ahead, in spite of the city lights, an angry glow shone in the dusk, setting fire t
o the October sky.

  The stench of burning wire, insulation, and wood wafted into the car vents as she turned onto her street, tires squealing. Three Boston PD units sat several doors down from her address. Flames licked out the bottom floor windows of her two-story white-clapboard home, getting lost in clouds of gray smoke choking the air. Flickering shadows confirmed advancement to the second floor.

  Oh my God, John!

  She jammed the car into park and leaped out. An officer turned and caught her in mid-stride. She struggled to get free, but he tightened his hold.

  “You can’t go in there, Detective Morgan.”

  She stared helplessly at the blaze, the wall of heat searing her face.

  “Did anyone . . . did my husband get out?” Craning her neck, she scoured the gawking faces. Sleeve over her nose, she shouted, “He’s blond, six-feet—” then she gagged on thick fumes.

  “We don’t know yet if anyone—”

  An explosion shot flames out of the roof. She pulled against the officer. “John!”

  Fire fighters labored to unravel more hoses. In the background, she heard Jeb screaming for his father above all the sirens and people hollering.

  A deafening blast. The force hurled her and the cop backward across the lawn. Air whooshed from her lungs as her back slammed into the grass. She lay half-dazed, but pain still tore through her left forearm.

  Two fire fighters lifted her and smothered her burning sleeve, careful not to hit the jagged piece of half-embedded shrapnel that had ripped open her arm.

  She stared numb at the burning wreckage of her home as someone fussed over her. No one could have survived that explosion. Then, as if to confirm the terrible finality, she caught the reality of John’s death in the sorrow of a fire fighter’s eyes, the slow shake of his head to his partner. Their glances back at her.

  Jeb beat his way through the throng and threw himself into her arms. At first she didn’t hear his sobs, then her son’s deep wrenching cries reverberated against her collarbone. She dug her fingers into his hair, her injured arm around his trembling body.