“That would be just awful. I quit doing funerals years ago. Such a waste of time and money and emotion.”
When he was gone, Bruce tidied up the kitchen and left for his next adventure, a trip to the nearest grocery store.
At dusk, Bruce and Polly left his house in the Tahoe and headed north. A few blocks from downtown the island became dark again as they drove into areas still without electricity.
Polly was stunned by the devastation; she had never witnessed firsthand the aftermath of a major storm. Neither had Bruce, for that matter, but after five days he was growing accustomed to downed utility poles, blocked streets, overturned vehicles, front lawns filled with soaked rugs and furniture, and mountains of debris and garbage. They passed a small church where dozens of FEMA trailers were assembled in neat rows in a parking lot and people were waiting quietly, in a long line, to be served dinner brought in by volunteers. They passed a park where a tent city had sprung up. Parents sat in lawn chairs around a fire pit while children kicked soccer balls in disorganized games. Next to the park on a softball field, National Guardsmen were handing out bottles of water and loaves of bread.
Bruce found the street in an old section of postwar tract homes, all of which were damaged and uninhabitable. In most driveways, shiny new FEMA trailers now sat next to cars and trucks. Some had pipes running to the sewage lines; others did not. From the looks of the houses, the trailers would be used for a long time.
Wanda Clary had been Bruce’s first employee when Bay Books opened twenty-three years earlier. As the only holdover from the prior owner, Wanda assumed from day one that she knew far more about selling books than her new boss, and though she was right she wrongly tried to assert too much control. They clashed early and often, and Bruce thought about firing her on many occasions, but she was loyal, punctual, and willing to work for the low wages he offered in the early days. As he learned almost immediately, in retail dependable help is hard to find. With time they staked out their own duties and turfs and Wanda held on to her job, if only by a thread. Before her stroke, she was often abrupt with Bruce, short with customers, and rude to coworkers. But after her stroke, which as it turned out was not that serious, not the first one anyway, her entire personality changed dramatically and Wanda became everybody’s grandmother. Customers adored her and sales increased. Bruce paid her more and they became friends. But the second stroke almost killed her and forced her retirement. Her husband died shortly thereafter, and Wanda, who was pushing eighty, had been barely surviving on a pension for the past ten years.
She was sitting in a lawn chair beside her FEMA trailer, chatting with a neighbor, when Bruce surprised her. She managed to stand, with a cane, and gave him a big hug. He introduced Polly as a friend from California. Wanda introduced her neighbor, a lady not much younger than her, and offered them seats in her kitchen chairs, which had been arranged in the driveway near the trailer. Much of the rest of the furniture was piled near the street to be hauled away one day.
Wanda said her house had taken eight feet of water that had not subsided for three days. Everything was ruined, same as her neighbors. Most of them had no flood insurance, nor did Wanda, and the future was pretty grim. The FEMA trailer was free for ninety days with a possible extension, which made no sense. What was FEMA planning to do with the trailers when they took them away? Wait for the next Cat 4?
Wanda and her neighbor had survived the storm in a shelter on higher ground, and they managed to find a little humor in their story. It was a frightening experience, one that they would never forget. Both vowed to evacuate the next time. Bruce told a few stories about the storm but said nothing about Nelson Kerr. He doubted if Wanda had met him, though she still read almost everything.
Polly just listened and tried to absorb the surroundings. Twenty-four hours earlier she was leaving the safety of San Francisco. Now she was sitting in a war zone with people who were sleepwalking through a nightmare, people who had lost everything and were happy to have a warm bed in a dark, tiny trailer. For a moment, she almost forgot about her brother.
Across the street a small gas engine came to life, then a lightbulb. Wanda said, “That’s Gilbert. His son brought him a generator yesterday and he’s showing it off, says he might be able to rig up a small window unit for some cool air.”
“Have you talked to your son?” Bruce asked.
“Well, yes, finally. We didn’t get phone service until Thursday. Phil called yesterday from St. Louis. Asked if I needed anything. Nothing really, I said. Just a new house, new car, new furniture, some food might be nice. A bottle of cold water. He said he’d do what he could, which of course means nothing.”
Changing the subject, and ready to leave, Bruce said, “We brought some water and food.” He left and walked to the Tahoe. Polly followed him and they hauled four cases of bottled water and three boxes of groceries to the trailer. Bruce took a quick look inside and was overwhelmed by the thought of living in such tight quarters for any length of time.
Wanda was crying, and Bruce held her hand for a few minutes. He promised to come back, and made her promise to call if she needed anything. When they left, a crowd was gathering around Gilbert’s lightbulb, and there was music on the radio.
On the southern end of Camino Island, Curly’s Oyster Bar was crowded with locals looking for comfort food and a cold drink, and utility crews killing time on a Saturday night. Bruce and Polly waited half an hour and got a table outside on the deck. Of course, she did not eat fried foods and had never confronted a raw oyster. They settled on a bucket of boiled shrimp and waited on beers. She preferred white wine but Bruce steered her away from the boxed stuff poured at Curly’s. The music from the jukebox was soft and distant, and the conversations around them were subdued, as if folks had just stumbled out of the nightmare and were still stunned by the changes. There was too much work to be done to feel good about life.
In a low voice, Bruce said, “So, you’re the executor of Nelson’s estate.”
“I am. He made a new will last year and named me as executor, or executrix, to be more precise. The gender thing.”
“Who drafted the will?”
“A law firm in Jacksonville.”
“Have you talked to them yet?”
“No. Why the interest in his estate?”
“Just curious, that’s all. I assume he had some assets.”
She sighed, removed her designer frames, and rubbed her eyes. “How much do you know about Nelson’s business?”
“Not much at all. Mostly the stuff we’ve covered—legal career, bad divorce, blowing the whistle. He let it slip once that he paid a million bucks for his condo, but other than that I have no idea what’s in the bank.”
“And his publishing contracts?”
“Nothing. I never asked, he never offered. As we know, he didn’t talk much.”
She put her glasses back on as two tall draft beers appeared on the table. She began, “He left the law at the age of thirty-two, eleven years ago. At the time he was making it big but spending a lot too. What he didn’t spend his wife did. They saved virtually nothing because the future had no limits. As I said, the government paid him five million in exchange for the scoop on his crooked clients, but he thought it would be a lot more. Half of it went for taxes. We pay a lot in California.”
“Another reason to live in Florida. Zero income taxes.”
“A bit too red for me. Anyway, he and Sally were at war, and not long after the money arrived she filed for divorce. After fees and such, he walked away with about a million. A lot of that went for therapy. Then he started writing and made some money, I guess. Again, Nelson rarely talked about his business.”
“Who inherits?”
“A third to me, two-thirds to our parents. A pretty simple will. I’m also the administrator of his literary estate, whatever that means.”
“It means you’ll handle all the rights to his novels—hardback, paper, digital, U.S., foreign, maybe even TV and film. Plus you’ll sell the latest novel, if it doesn’t get you killed.”
“Thanks.”
“One good thing about dying young is that it usually means a spike in royalties.”
“Are you trying to be funny?”
“Yes.”
“Well don’t.”
“Sorry.”
The waitress placed the bucket of boiled shrimp between them and disappeared. They peeled and ate for a few minutes, then slowed down for a little beer. She asked, “So what’s up tomorrow?”
“Our friend from the state police called. He wants us to gather at the station and spend a few hours going over what we know and what they’ve found. Should be interesting.”
“And the thumb drive?”
“They may ask us what we know about his last novel, especially if the hard drive is missing. I want to truthfully say that I’ve never seen it.”
“I feel like I need a lawyer.”
“You gotta hire one sooner or later to probate the estate, here in Florida.”
“Do you know a good one?”
“One or two, but it might be hard to find them right now.”
“Okay, if you’re playing dumb, then I’m playing dumb. For now.”
“We’ll be fine. These cops are not the sharpest ones you’ll ever meet.”
“Am I supposed to be comforted by that?”
“No.”
The Santa Rosa Police Department was housed in the rear of city hall, a sprawling mix of add-ons and afterthoughts situated two blocks from the harbor and thus deluged by Leo. The complex had been soaked, was still wet, and all its systems would remain inoperable for a long time to come. Temporary police quarters were in the process of being established in a middle school gymnasium a mile inland. When Bruce, Polly, Bob, and Nick arrived punctually at ten on Sunday morning, the school’s parking lot was crowded with patrol cars, city vehicles, and contractors’ trucks. Inside the gym, crews were working to erect temporary walls and doors. No one knew where anyone else was, so Bruce used his cell phone to find Wesley Butler somewhere in the rear, near the boys’ locker room. They followed him down a hallway to an empty classroom where Carl Logan, the chief of police, and Hoppy Durden, ace homicide detective, were waiting with two technicians from the crime lab.
Quick introductions were made, with Butler taking charge. First, they wanted to videotape the statements from Bruce, Bob, and Nick, so a camera and lights were set up in one corner. Bruce and Nick went first. While they answered the same questions, Bob walked across the hall with the two technicians. Using a fourteen-inch laptop, they began working on a composite photo of Ingrid. Butler interviewed Polly and quizzed her about the family and as much of Nelson’s background as possible. He did not ask her about the current novel. When she asked if they found the hard drive, he wouldn’t answer. Half an hour later, the technicians printed a color rendering of Ingrid, and Bob was amazed at the likeness. He warned them, though, that the blond hair was fake.
The woman, whoever she was, looked to be around forty, as Bob had been saying, with high cheekbones, twinkling hazel eyes, long blond hair on the darker side, a comely smile that would invite men of all ages to sit right down and buy her a drink. Gawking at the composite, Bruce found it hard to believe that this lovely creature was capable of such a vicious murder. Poison, maybe, but not a beating with a blunt weapon.
Polly was asked if she wanted to view any of the photographs of her brother on his patio. She said no, she was not ready for that. Butler briefly reviewed the autopsy findings with Bruce and Polly, and downplayed the gruesome parts. Not surprisingly, they had so far found no witnesses, no neighbors who saw anyone coming or going during the storm.
All the neighbors were gone, Bruce thought, but said nothing. He listened as he and Nick were fingerprinted. Because Bob was a felon, his were already on file.
When the videotaping was finished, they gathered around a folding table littered with files and reports. Butler summarized what was already known and what they expected to soon learn. They’d found blood on two walls, on the bathroom vanity, and in the rugs. All samples were at the lab to be matched against Nelson’s. They had also lifted many fingerprints but analyzing those would take time. They were trying to get information from the Hilton—registration records, surveillance footage, and so on, but for obvious reasons that was being delayed. As life returned to normal, they would gather info from other nearby hotels and condo rentals in an effort to identify Ingrid, but Butler spoke as though he knew that effort would be fruitless.
Before the meeting, Bruce had decided that the best tactic going in was to say as little as possible. The police didn’t know much anyway, and asking a dozen questions would a) yield few answers, and b) only alienate Butler and Logan. They were tired and irritated to be working on a Sunday morning, and it became obvious that the review session was only a formality. Butler made his biggest mistake when he said, “We’ve examined the golf clubs and fireplace hardware and everything else in the condo that could’ve been used as a murder weapon, and so far nothing. Assuming, of course, it was a murder.”
Polly quickly asked, “You think it was something other than murder?”
“Perhaps. There was a lot of stuff in the air, Ms. McCann.”
Logan jumped in with “Having now survived a Category 4, Ms. McCann, I can assure you that the amount of debris and junk falling and blowing around in all directions is hard to imagine. You have to see it to believe it. We think it’s possible that your brother got hit more than once with limbs, pieces of the roof, or maybe bricks, who knows?”
Bruce took a deep breath, as did Bob and Nick. Polly gritted her teeth and said nothing.
Butler knew they were not happy with this and said, “But we’re not sure, and we’ll investigate everything. It’ll take some time, as always.”
Bruce cleared his throat and asked, “What about the hard drive from his computer?”
Butler glanced at Logan, who looked at Hoppy, who appeared to be on the verge of a quick nap. Butler said, “We have the hard drive, but it’s encrypted. Our guys in the lab will play with it again tomorrow, but it looks pretty secure.”
Bruce had heard enough. He stood and said, “Anything else?”
Everyone suddenly stood and began the forced ritual of shaking hands, saying thanks, and promising to keep in touch. As Bruce walked out of the room, he wondered if he would ever see Wesley Butler again.
Driving away, he glanced to his right and saw Polly wiping away a tear, but she said nothing, not for a long time. In the rear seat Nick and Bob were just as quiet, both angry at the police, but also mentally packing their bags. Bob was now cleared to leave the island and would do so within hours. Nick was needed at college where he would party for a week to celebrate the end of summer, and then head to Venice for a rough semester abroad.
Monday morning, Bruce followed Polly to the Jacksonville airport where she returned her rental. They drove to the funeral home where she finished some paperwork and wrote a check. Nelson’s body would be transferred to the airport for the flight home, with his sister riding above him in coach. Back at the airport, Bruce walked her inside and they found a coffee shop in the main terminal.
Nelson’s condo was still guarded by police tape, and Butler wasn’t sure when it would be released. Bruce knew the best mover on the island and agreed to oversee the removal of Nelson’s furniture and possessions. He would get it cataloged and stored, and in a few weeks Polly would return to deal with it. Bruce knew several of the good realtors on the island and would arrange for them to look at the condo and discuss a listing, but cautioned her that the market would be soft for some time. He had a friend who dealt in German imports and could probably sell the car at a fair price.
They sipped coffee and watched the foot traffic. She said, “Nelson’s memorial service is this Saturday. I don’t suppose you could be there.”
Bruce had been contemplating several ways to avoid a trip to the West Coast for what would be a dreadful event, but in the split second he had to come up with a believable response he completely choked. Whether he wanted it not, he was the Kerr family’s point man on the scene and they needed him. “Of course,” he managed to say with just enough conviction.
“I’ll send along the details as they come together. It will mean a lot to my parents. They’re so desperate for information.”
Can’t wait, thought Bruce. How could his presence possibly mean anything to her parents, people he had never met, and, after the service, would never see again?
“Sure, I’ll be there. San Francisco?”
“Dublin, east of the city.”
“Will there be a crowd?”
“Who knows? He had friends in the area, and the old gang from Stanford, but they’ve scattered. Could you possibly say a few words?”
The dreadful event just got a lot worse. Bruce, though, was suddenly quicker. “I can’t do it, Polly. I’ve tried before and just can’t maintain my composure. Sorry.”
“No problem. I understand.”
“The cops didn’t ask about Nelson’s manuscript,” he said.
“I know. What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking the book needs to be read, but not by you, not by me. Not by anyone even remotely connected to Nelson.”
“I’m listening.”
“I want you to send it to a writer named Mercer Mann. She’s from the island but didn’t know your brother. These days she’s teaching at Ole Miss. She can be trusted. She’ll read it, share it with her boyfriend, a former journalist and writer himself, then I’ll talk to them.”
She shrugged as if she would do whatever he asked. “And you think the manuscript will lead the cops to the killer?”
“I wouldn’t put too much confidence in the police. It’s a tough case to solve and they already have a more convenient theory. Blame it on the victim for wandering around outside in the storm. They’ll shuffle papers and ignore our calls and wait for some time to pass, and then one day they’ll break the news to you that the investigation has gone nowhere, which is exactly where it’s headed right now. They’ll promise to keep the file open and hope for a miracle.”
She nodded and said, “I’m afraid I agree with you.”
“I seriously doubt the manuscript will lead to the killer, but it’s the only possible clue we have right now. That, and a pretty good description of dear Ingrid.”
“He was killed for a reason, Bruce. Nelson had no enemies. He was a lovely man who enjoyed life and wouldn’t harm a flea.” Her voice wavered for a second and her eyes watered.
Bruce handed her a folded piece of paper. “Here’s Mercer’s address in Oxford. She’s waiting and will read it immediately.”
Polly wiped her eyes and nodded. “Thank you, Bruce. For everything.”
They walked to the security checkpoint and hugged goodbye.
On Tuesday, eight days after the storm, Bruce waited all morning at Bay Books for a contractor who didn’t show. The insurance adjuster promised to swing by for another look, but he too was busy elsewhere.
Most of the downtown shops were still closed. Some were digging out and tossing spoiled merchandise into dumpsters. Others were locked and dark. The streets were empty. Many of the island’s residents had returned, but they were in no mood to shop. All tourists were gone and wouldn’t be back for months, maybe years.
On Wednesday, another contractor failed to show. Bruce walked home, changed into jeans, and went to welcome Myra and Leigh. They were working at a reasonable pace, hauling debris and trash to the curb, until he arrived, at which time they found chairs in the shade and poured drinks and supervised his labors. Bruce was expected to move the heavier stuff—moldy rugs, piles of wet books, etc. He strained and sweated as they drank and talked about the horrors of surviving Leo. When he was soaked, he finally asked for a break and a drink.
Inside, in the cool air, they gathered in the den. The television was on mute. Myra walked in front of it, stopped as if frozen with fear, and said, “You gotta be kidding.” She moved away and on the screen a weatherman was pointing to a mass in the Atlantic. Hurricane Oscar was still days away, but one projected path, one of many, had it heading their way.
“I can’t take it,” Leigh said.
By Thursday morning, Oscar was a bit closer and even more menacing. Its cone of possible targets had narrowed slightly, but another direct hit on the island was a possibility.
That afternoon, Bruce drove to Jacksonville, boarded a flight to Atlanta, and from there flew to San Francisco.
He was sitting in the elegant Regency bar of the Fairmont Hotel downtown when she walked in. Noelle had been gone for a month, off to Europe to see friends in Switzerland and family in France, and to get away from the Florida summer heat. She had watched with horror as the hurricane pummeled the island, and she had reluctantly followed his advice to stay away. There was little to do at the moment.
She looked like a model, and Bruce embraced and kissed her. That she had spent the last month with Jean-Luc was of no consequence. They had known each other for years, since long before Bruce came along, and their relationship was not going to change. She needed both men and they adored her.
They ordered a drink and talked about Nelson Kerr, a friend she had liked immensely. Bruce brought her up to date with his death, the possibility of murder, Polly’s visit, and so on. In Bruce’s opinion, as well as Bob’s and Nick’s, there was no doubt that it was murder. Noelle was shocked by this. Bruce told her about Nelson’s novel and the thumb drive.
There were no secrets between the two. A wide-open marriage makes secrets unnecessary. The couple trusted each other implicitly and shared everything.
Noelle liked the idea of Mercer reading the manuscript first. No one would suspect her. “Did you and Mercer spend any time together?”
“No. She has a new boyfriend, Thomas, and he was in the way. You’ll like him. Cute boy.”
“Can’t wait. So you have a trip planned. Let’s hear it.”
“Well, we’ll do the service tomorrow, then leave Sunday morning for a little road trip through Napa. Lunch with Rodney on the mountain. There’s a new winemaker, remember that Lance cab that blew us away?”
“Of course.”
“We’re pen pals now and I promised him a visit. Then we’ll make our way to Oregon and the Willamette Valley to taste some new pinots. Sound okay?”
“Sounds marvelous. Sounds like you’re happy to be off the island.”
“Yes, and I’m happy you’re here. The island’s a mess and it won’t improve much while we’re away. It’s quite depressing, Noelle. It’ll take years.”
“We’ll survive. Poor Nelson.”
“I know. We’ll give him a proper send-off tomorrow.”