From Beer to Eternity Page 3

  * * *

  The tarp snapped open way too early on Sunday morning. Sunlight slapped my face and a soft breeze had me jumping up. I looked right into the dark green eyes of a man with too long lashes that made me envy him and a stubbled face that made me want to jump him.

  “What the heck?” I asked, trying to cover how flustered I was. Working around kids all the time had taught me not to swear. I squinted toward the sun and figured it must be around seven in the morning.

  “You were snoring. Of course, at first I thought a wounded animal had somehow crawled up under here.”

  This guy was a riot. Sure, my snoring was a legend within my family, and with two older brothers, that was an accomplishment or a curse, depending on your viewpoint. But who was this guy to point it out? “Well, obviously I’m not a wounded animal, so you can just be on your way.” I shooed my hands at him.

  His eyes said he didn’t quite believe me, and maybe he wasn’t all that wrong about the wounded part. But hey, who wasn’t? I sat back on the bench I’d slept on, put on my running shoes, and grabbed my purse. My hair was probably sticking out all over the place. But I didn’t care. At least, I shouldn’t care. When the first thing a man knows about you is that you snore like a rusty chainsaw, the prospect of a future romance is dismal—not that I was interested, even given the earlier jumping thought. Imagine my surprise when instead of leaving, he stuck out his hand.

  “Rhett B—”

  “For heaven’s sake, don’t tell me your last name is Butler.” He did bear a small resemblance to Clark Gable, who’d played Rhett Butler in the movie Gone with the Wind. I climbed out of the boat and snapped the tarp back into place. I hoped he didn’t know Vivi and wouldn’t mention I was sleeping on Boone’s boat. I headed down the dock.

  “And you are?” he asked. His voice sent rumbles through my stomach, or maybe I was just hungry.

  “Scarlett O’Hara.”

  His chuckle followed me. “I won’t tell Vivi you were sleeping on Boone’s boat. But if you keep it up, you’re going to have to explain it to me.” The charming Southern drawl belied the words.

  Drat, he did know Vivi and that I was on Boone’s boat. I didn’t break stride or hurry up, too much anyway. This time there was no following chuckle.

  * * *

  I walked along the marina, heading toward the small parking lot on the east side of the Sea Glass, where I’d left my car. I would drive into Destin, just to the west of here, and shower at one of the beachside free showers meant for washing off sand. It wasn’t ideal, but worked well enough because it was hot out. Thankfully, my brown hair was so short it was wash and go.

  As I approached the back of the Sea Glass, I saw a foot sticking out behind the dumpster that served the Briny Pirate, the Sea Glass, and this side of the marina. A gnarly-looking foot in an old black sandal. I veered over to see if it was one of our customers who was drunk or had passed out. It took me a moment to get there and another moment for me to recognize Elwell Pugh because his head was turned away from me. But he hadn’t had that much to drink yesterday, had he?

  “Elwell?” Then I noticed his armadillo shell hat off to one side. I took another step closer. That’s when I spotted a channel knife sticking out of the other side of his neck.

  CHAPTER 4

  I dropped my purse, screamed, and then clapped my hands to my mouth. I bent down to retrieve my purse, which had landed perilously close to Elwell’s outstretched hand. I spotted blood.

  A roar filled my head. I saw multiples of Elwell. Everything dimmed. I landed on my bum and skittered backward, dragging my purse until I bumped into something. Hands grabbed me under my armpits and hauled me up. I looked over my shoulder. Rhett let me go.

  “He’s dead.” I pointed at Elwell. “Dead. Call the police,” I said. My voice shook. I pressed a hand to my stomach.

  Rhett moved to my side and looked down at Elwell for a few seconds, his face creased. He took my arm and gently tugged me a few feet away, leaning me up against the back of the Sea Glass. “Are you okay?” His look was all wary concern. “Stupid question. No one could be.” He pulled out his phone, watching me closely while he input a number. One longer than 911.

  “Delores? This is Rhett. We’ve got a situation over at the Sea Glass.”

  Situation? I snatched the phone from him. “Delores, I don’t know who the heck you are, but what ‘we’ve’ got is a dead body.” I gulped in a couple of breaths. My legs suddenly seemed to give up the job they were meant to do. Rhett took the phone back from me. He leaned into me so I’d stay upright. His body warm against my cold one. He felt way better pressed up against me than I wanted him to. Way better.

  “Yeah, that’s right, there’s a dead body,” he said. “It’s Elwell.” He listened for a minute. “Okay. We’ll wait here.” After he hung up, Rhett turned to me. He looked so calm. Maybe too calm.

  “What are you doing out here anyway?” I asked.

  “You’re not the only one who sleeps on a boat. Although mine is a heck of a lot more comfortable than Boone’s.” His green eyes stared into my brown ones. “They don’t need to know I found you sleeping on Boone’s boat. A stranger, someone new in town, being around with Elwell dead.” He paused. “It wouldn’t look good for you. Far as I could tell, you were out for a mornin’ stroll. I heard you scream and came to your rescue.”

  I wanted to argue with the “rescued.” I didn’t need anyone to rescue me, but waves of emotion crashed through me. I nodded. He was probably right about the police. But why would he keep that secret for me—a stranger, as he said—when it was obvious that Elwell had been murdered. Maybe he had a secret of his own to keep.

  * * *

  An hour later, I stood off to one side of the action. I guess Delores was a dispatcher because the sheriff’s department personnel had shown up. Someone had handed me a bottle of water. Despite the increasing heat as the sun rose, I still shivered. Rhett was talking to a sheriff’s deputy, and they both kept looking over at me, which was kind of freaking me out. Okay, really freaking me out. I was a stranger in a strange land. I remember how it worked out in the book of the same name for the alien, and it wasn’t pretty. The deputy asked Rhett questions and jotted notes on a small spiral notebook. An occasional phrase drifted over.

  “I heard a woman scream.” They both looked over at me. “No, I’ve never seen her before.” Rhett’s voice changed on that one. His cadence quickened. It sounded like a lie to me, so surely the deputy would pick up on it, but he didn’t say a word. Maybe it was the good old boy network at play, or maybe the deputy didn’t notice. They obviously knew each other from the way they had greeted each other and did the man handshake hug thing. “Yeah, I’ve been sleeping on my boat.”

  I’d had numerous conversations with police officers before while working as a librarian. The library where I worked was in an urban area. Homeless people used it as a place to rest, read, or use the internet. Usually we didn’t have problems, but occasionally we did. Not only with them, but with men who came in to use the computers to watch porn, nannies who got in fights at story time, and kids who wandered off. But I’d never had a conversation with law enforcement officers after finding a dead man.

  While I waited, the loud voices at the bar last night kept rolling through my head. Maybe Vivi had noticed Elwell and his armadillo hat were scaring off the clientele too. Or maybe they had a history I knew nothing about. Or maybe it wasn’t even Elwell she had been arguing with.

  Vivi had shown up thirty minutes ago. She was all decked out, strappy sandals, carefully pressed linen pants, and hair styled so perfectly, it looked like she was ready for a photo shoot. Vivi eyed me from a distance, but the deputies wouldn’t let her near me. And believe me, she’d tried.

  The deputy finished up with Rhett and headed over to me. I took another shaky drink of my water. Tried to gather myself. Rhett walked off in the direction of Vivi, but she turned her back to him. He hesitated, glanced back at me, and strolled out of sight. The de
puty stopped in front of me and squinted. His name tag said Biffle.

  “You doing okay? I’m Deputy Biffle. I’m with the Walton County Sheriff’s Department.” Officer Biffle was a beefy guy with a blond crew cut and a broad forehead. His mirrored aviator glasses reflected my anxious, round face. My short hair stuck up in all kinds of directions and my brown eyes looked scared. But his voice was kind and I relaxed just a little.

  “Considering the situation, I guess I’m okay.” I tried to shut down the image of the knife sticking out of Elwell’s neck, but didn’t have much luck.

  “Name?”

  “That’s Elwell Pugh.” I tipped my head toward the dumpster.

  “Your name?”

  “Oh, sorry. Of course. I’m rattled. Beyond rattled actually.” When he didn’t say more, I realized I still hadn’t answered his question. “Chloe. Chloe Jackson.”

  “Why don’t you tell me what happened?”

  “Well, I don’t know what happened to Elwell. Not specifically. It looks like someone stabbed him,” I think he rolled his eyes behind those mirrored aviators, “with a channel knife.” A channel knife is a must-have tool for any bartender that’s used for making garnishes. Joaquín’s voice rolled through my head. Information he’d given me two days ago. Why was I thinking that at a time like this?

  “Why don’t you tell me about finding him?”

  “Yes.” I really needed to get Deputy Biffle on my side. I remembered I was living in the land of yes, ma’ams, and no, sirs. I’d better follow protocol. “Yes, sir.” I started at the point when I’d noticed Elwell’s foot by the dumpster and how Rhett had happened along. My heart pounded a little harder with the omission of sleeping on the boat and talking to Rhett.

  “What were you doing out here?” he asked.

  “Morning run.” Thud, thud, thud went my heart. I felt like the man in the opening of Poe’s “Tell-Tale Heart”—“nervous—very, very dreadfully nervous.” But why should I mention it? My sleeping on the boat didn’t seem relevant to Elwell’s murder; it was embarrassing, and maybe trespassing. “I work at the Sea Glass. I ran on the beach and walked back along the harbor to cool down.” It was true yesterday. I hoped the truth part came through and the nervous part would be chalked up to finding a dead body. Every detective novel I’d ever read said to keep your answers short, so I did. I wished he didn’t have the aviators on so I could get more of a read of what he was thinking.

  “You always run with your purse?”

  He was observant. I’d slung it cross-body style after I’d picked it up. “Not always. I was hoping to grab some breakfast somewhere.” Thank heavens I had running shoes on. At least they lent some plausibility to my story.

  He jotted down notes. “How well do you know Elwell?”

  “I don’t really know him.”

  Officer Biffle looked up from his notebook.

  “Elwell hangs out at the Sea Glass sometimes. He was in the bar yesterday, and I asked Joaquín—he’s the bartender—why Elwell was wearing an armadillo on his head. I thought it was strange, but I’m new to the area, so maybe not.” I didn’t want to seem judgmental.

  “It’s strange.”

  I ran through my few observations. I left out the part about hearing Vivi argue with a man. I didn’t know whether it was Elwell. Well, not for sure anyway. “Do you think it was a robbery?” That would be better—not for Elwell of course, what with him being dead and all—but for Vivi.

  “We don’t make snap judgments about murders.”

  “Good to know.”

  “I’ll need your contact details,” he said.

  Oh, sugar. I gave him my cell phone number, hoping that would be enough. It wasn’t.

  “What’s your address?” he asked after he wrote down my number.

  “You can find me at the Sea Glass.” I waved a hand toward it.

  “I need the address. Of where you’re staying.”

  People around here spoke more slowly than they did in Chicago. But his words were so slow it was obvious he thought I was an idiot.

  “I’ve been moving around. It’s tourist season and hard to find a place to stay. One that I can afford anyway.” Maybe I was an idiot—I wasn’t even sure Vivi was going to pay me beyond the tips I made. She’d made it clear she didn’t want me around. I saw a twitch of his lips. Not the kind that foreshadowed a smile, but the kind that meant someone was angry. My oldest brother was the master of the twitch, and every part of me wanted to run like I had as a kid, but in this case I managed to stay put. Bolting wouldn’t go well for me. I gave him the address of the two hotels I’d stayed at. Didn’t say I hadn’t been at either last night or the two nights before that. He grimaced when I mentioned the low-rent one.

  “Not very safe,” he said.

  “I know, sir. I’m continuing my search for an apartment.”

  He let it go after that. Thank heavens.

  “Let me know if you think of anything else.” Biffle whipped out a card and handed it to me.

  “Yes, sir.” He turned and almost ran over Vivi. I hadn’t noticed her approach because I’d been concentrating on Officer Biffle’s reflective lenses the whole time. I looked around for Rhett, but he was long gone apparently. My hormones were sad, but my brain did a cheer. He didn’t look like a killer, but then neither had Ted Bundy—a good-looking serial killer who had committed murders right here in the Florida Panhandle. I loved true crime in book form and on TV, which had come back to haunt me the two nights I’d slept in my car. But being involved with a real-life death I could do without. I’m sure Elwell would be the first to agree with me on that.

  Biffle nodded to Vivi, skirted around her, and headed to his patrol car. I guess that meant I was free to go unless Vivi had something to say to me.

  “Vivi, are you all right?” Wade Thomas rushed over to her. He owned the Briny Pirate, the restaurant next door to the Sea Glass. Not only owned it, but was the chef too, and made the best gumbo east of New Orleans—at least that’s what his menu said. I hadn’t had a chance to try it yet. Wade gripped Vivi’s arms, staring into her eyes.

  “Let’s go get some coffee,” Wade said.

  Vivi took another look at me before she smiled at Wade. What the heck was she looking at? Hadn’t she ever seen someone with messy hair before? I stepped back so they could go around me, worried thoughts moving like a school of fish through my mind. Vivi looked as put together as ever as she linked arms with Wade—not like she’d been standing around in the increasingly hot weather. Not at all like a woman who’d argued with and killed someone last night. Not that I’d run into a lot—or any—women who had killed someone the night before. Who was I to say what they looked like?

  Was I really wondering if Vivi had killed Elwell? Boone’s beloved grandmother? The sweet old woman I’d moved down here to help? Well, that was the whole point, wasn’t it? Vivi wasn’t sweet or so old. She certainly wasn’t frail. Physically, she could have done it. But heck, so could I. Or most of the patrons I’d seen at the Sea Glass. Just because Vivi argued with someone last night, it didn’t make her a killer. I needed to clear my head. I needed to run.

  CHAPTER 5

  I headed to my car and drove to Destin, wanting to put some space between me and the dumpster behind the Sea Glass. I parked at the Crab Trap, a restaurant and bar at James Lee Park on a beautiful, wide stretch of beach. I switched to an old pair of running shoes and headed west on the beach. My brothers always teased me about my running. It had started as a way to get away from them when I was five, and as I grew older, I realized it was a way to get away from almost everything. This morning it was a way to try to unsee Elwell’s corpse. It didn’t take me long to figure out running wasn’t working.

  My legs started aching not too long into my run. I wasn’t used to running in the sand, but I pushed on. There was some chub rub, as my brothers called it, going on with my thighs. I wasn’t one of those lanky runner types. Most people tried to cover their surprise when I said I ran regularly. I wa
s a basset hound born to a family of whippets. Back in the family history somewhere, there must be a sturdy plowman whose genes were passed along to me. Thanks a lot, dude.

  Eventually, the tang of salt air, the cries of gulls, and the grace of the pelicans skimming the surf soothed me. Colorful beach umbrellas stood at attention in front of the condos I passed. Rows of chairs sat under them, two by two. The sun smacked me like someone had a magnifying glass on a grasshopper. I wasn’t the only runner out here and I did the chin lift at people as I went by them. Fifteen minutes later, I turned around at what I’d heard the locals call the Old Pier. All that was left of it were a few wooden posts standing firm out in the water.

  When I returned to the Crab Trap, I grabbed my toiletries, some clean clothes, an apple, and a bottle of water from my car. After I showered and dressed in the bathroom, I sat on a picnic table under a wooden pavilion and ate my apple.

  I glanced around, taking in the people laying out beach towels and the gentle lapping water. It looked like paradise. But it didn’t feel that way to me. What was I doing here? Boone. My heart clinched again at the loss of him. I missed him. Six months ago, his unit had been attacked while they were out on patrol. Boone hadn’t been found, but they also hadn’t found his remains. A buddy in his unit had called me to give me the news. Boone had talked a lot about me to him, and when Boone was still alive, the three of us had video chatted several times. Boone’s friend had tried to reassure me. Told me maybe Boone had gotten lost in the melee and he’d turn back up. They were looking for him. But I knew in my heart at that moment Boone was dead.

  I’d spent the first month after he went missing crying. Pulling it together when I was at the library with kids. Their innocent, happy faces probably saved me from a complete shutdown. With time, I realized I had to live a good life for both of us. However, being here in the Panhandle of Florida, in a place I knew Boone loved, stirred up a lot of emotions.

  In some ways being here was easier, because at home everything reminded me of Boone—the bars and restaurants we’d gone to, Wrigley Field, where we watched the Cubs, the Navy Pier, where we walked and talked. At home when I had closed my eyes, I could picture him on the other end of the couch reading, chatting, watching movies with me.