Anywhere but Here Page 6

  “Salty?” She heard him whine again.

  She cautiously went into the kitchen. Moonlight shining through the window gave her enough light so that she saw Salty lying on the floor in a puddle of drool. He was panting hard. There were pieces of meat lying around. She knelt down next to him and then she saw the open kitchen door.

  “Hello, Etta.”

  She gasped at his voice and turned to see him sitting at the small kitchen table. He smiled at her… that smile that had seduced her immediately the first time she’d seen him walk into the Paradise Lounge where she’d been working.

  “Mike,” she said, frozen in fear.

  He clicked his tongue and said, “You’ve been a naughty girl.”

  Then something was over her nose and mouth. She struggled with her back against someone who had pulled her against him with one big arm. Within seconds her struggling ceased and she saw Mike disappearing into a spinning tunnel, still smiling.

  Chapter 11

  Tully had told Dan not to worry about Crazy Mary. “She’s not going to risk getting my dander up. She knows I let her slide here occasionally.”

  But Dan worried about it all night. Early the next morning he went to see the woman and to warn her to keep her mouth shut about Stella, but he was too late. She had been dead long enough that rigor had set in. Her stiff fingers still gripped a half empty glass of gin. Her eyes staring into nothingness, her mouth open in a sardonic grimace. She was still sitting at her small table with the television blaring. The yellow cat was licking the remnants of a can of cat food at her feet, insensible to the deadliness of the scene around him. Blood soaked the front of her polyester blouse and pooled in the open hand resting in her lap. She had apparently been strangled with a wire that cut through her jugular, leaving the slice in her throat gaping.

  Dan called for his deputy to come and secure the scene and then followed that call up with one to the coroner. He was frantic to leave and called Tully. When she answered, he told her what had happened.

  “Oh, hon, I should have let you go to her yesterday. I got that poor old thing killed,” Tully said.

  “Well, Mom, I think that poor old thing got herself killed. I’m more at fault. I should have known better. People like her can’t be trusted under any circumstance. But you have to call Etta and warn her. I have to stay here until Bix gets here.”

  Tully sat at her desk and called Etta’s phone. Immediately she hear another phone ringing in the office. She looked under her desk and saw a cell phone on the floor. She immediately called Dan back to tell him.

  “Alright, Mom. Bix just pulled up and the coroner’s right behind him.”

  Jerry Bixby was one of Dan’s two deputies. He had called and woken Bix after the man had just gotten to sleep, having worked the graveyard shift.

  Dan hopped in his cruiser and headed up to Etta’s cottage. He pulled behind her Subaru and got out. Taking the stairs two steps at a time, he knocked on her door. Ida Mae peered from between the curtains in her house watching him. She knocked on the window trying to get his attention. Dan looked across the fence but didn’t see her until she had come out of her back door and was walking across Etta’s driveway toward him.

  “Mornin’ Sheriff.”

  “Morning, Ida Mae.” Dan continued knocking.

  “You lookin’ for Ms. Brown?” Ida Mae came up the stairs.

  Pulling her red sweater around her nightgown, she had walked across the wet gravel in her fuzzy bear claw slippers. Muddy water seeped into the fur. Dan ran past her down the stairs.

  “Something wrong, Sheriff?” Ida Mae scurried to follow him, but he turned quickly. She almost bumped into him.

  “Ida Mae, go back in your house,” he told her.

  “But Sheriff…”

  “Ida Mae! Stop being a busy body and go back in your house now!” he demanded.

  Her eyes widened, her back stiffened at his reproach, and she pursed her thin lips and muttered something under her breath as she hurried back through the muddy gravel. She slammed her door and was in front of her window within seconds.

  As Dan went up the back steps, he saw the kitchen door ajar. The first thing he saw when he entered the kitchen was Salty lying on the floor, not moving.

  ****

  “She’s waking up,” she heard him say.

  She couldn’t tell if the ebb and flow of the pounding was in her head or from something else. She fought to open her eyes. When she was finally able to get them open, all she could see was a flickering light on stone. She rolled onto her back and looked up at a jagged limestone ceiling. Warmth radiated from her left, and she turned to see a small fire surrounded by rocks. Beyond the circle of light, she couldn’t see anything else. She was lying on a blanket. She reached out and felt sand.

  There was something hard at her feet. She looked down to see a chain padlocked around her ankle. She followed the chain to where it was attached to an eye bolt in the rock wall. She sat up and rubbed her eyes, trying to get a better look around. It appeared she was in a cave.

  “Ah, good, you’re awake.”

  She squinted into the darkness where she saw the silhouette of someone standing against the blue light from the cave opening.

  “Tonight’s moon will be something. You’ll be able to see it from here. Just keep your eye on the horizon through there. It’s not full yet, but it will be in a couple of days. It will probably be the last thing you see, Etta dear.”

  “Mike?”

  He turned to her. “Hello, Etta. Or should I call you Stella?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Sorry about your dog. It had to be done. You know how I hate mongrels.”

  She lowered her head.

  Poor Salty, she thought as she remembered seeing him suffering on the kitchen floor surrounded by what appeared to be poisoned meat.

  “It was Mary, wasn’t it?”

  “Who?” he asked, walking toward her into the light.

  She couldn’t even look at him.

  “Oh, you mean that putrid drunk? Yes, someone like that will tell you anything for just one more drink. Too bad she didn’t get to finish that drink.”

  She put her hand on her forehead. Still woozy from whatever they knocked her out with, she tried to breathe deeply to clear her mind.

  “You killed her?”

  “I did society a favor,” he said, jingling the coins in his pocket.

  “Like you did with those people you’ve already killed, and the women you keep as slaves?”

  He laughed. It was hard to believe she had once loved the man. How could she have been so blind? He wreaked of evil. The once handsome man who had filled her heart with so much joy was now ugly and disgusting.

  “And now you’re going to kill me, too.”

  “No, my dear. I won’t kill you. Not directly. Oh, you’ll die, but not by my hand, and not for a few days. And that reminds me…”

  He turned around and looked at the opening of the cave. “Tide’s coming in. I have to go. But I’ll be back tomorrow.”

  He pointed to a basket that was setting beside the blanket with a bottle of water and fruit in it. “You better eat something and drink that water. You need to stay hydrated.”

  He laughed and it echoed through the cave as he walked through out across the sand.

  Chapter 12

  Canvasing all of the area around the harbor… the people who lived in the cabins and trailers near Mary and the harbor businesses, Dan and Bix came up emptyhanded. No one had seen anything. Some of the fishermen who lived in the area were still out on their boats. It was still raining, but it was a light rain over a calm sea, and that usually meant good fishing. With the late winter and harsh spring that they were experiencing, they fished whenever they could, and some did when they shouldn’t. However, there was a gale warning for the next day, so Dan expected that at least some of them would be coming into harbor by evening, and he knew many of them would end up at Tully’s.

  As much as he hated it, he
was standing at Ida Mae’s door. He’d been by to talk to her earlier, but she been gone. He’d been to the four other houses on that street and no one had seen anything. He knocked on Ida Mae’s door, hearing the cacophonous blaring from a television.

  Ida Mae opened the door and smirked. “So now you want to talk to me, huh, Sheriff?”

  “Hello, Ida Mae. I just have a couple of questions. I came by earlier and missed you.”

  “I had to go to the beauty parlor for my regular appointment.” She patted her tightly curled blue grey hair. “Well, come on in.”

  He stepped into the house and was instantly hit with an intense, sickening odor. It was a combination of lilac room spray, mothballs, and cabbage that was boiling on Ida Mae’s stove. It reminded him of his grandmother’s house, and it wasn’t a pleasant reminder.

  “Sit down, Sheriff. I was just watchin’ my shows. I’ll be right back. I have to put this away. A place for everything, and everything in its place. Isn’t that the best way?” She picked up a sewing box and took it to a room down the hallway.

  When she came back in, she sat down at one end of the small green and pink chintz love seat. He watched as she pushed her red-framed cat eyeglasses up on the bridge of her narrow hook nose. She turned her attention to the large-screen television with a bigger than life Judge Judy scolding some poor guy.

  “She’s a crackerjack,” Ida Mae laughed.

  She turned to look at Dan and pointed to a pink slipper chair. “Sit down, Sheriff. What is it you want to talk to me about?” She made no attempt to turn it off or even turn down.

  Dan sat in the chair that wasn’t much bigger than a child’s chair. “Ida Mae did you….”

  She interrupted him, “Are you still seeing Frannie Gorman from the bakery? You know her mother lives two houses up from me? I always liked that girl. Not crazy about her mama.”

  “What? Ida Mae, I need you to please turn off the television. This won’t take long, but I need you to answer some questions.”

  She rolled her eyes, took off her glasses and picked up the remote control, turning off the TV.

  She looked at him with cataract eyes that seemed to be set too far back in her craggy face. It was like she had too much skin on her face. Her fleshy jowls and the waddle above her thin neck jiggled as she shook her head and spoke. “Alright, Sheriff, ask away.”

  “Did you see Stella Brown last night or this morning?” he asked.

  “I saw her last night.” She proceeded to tell him about going to Stella’s house the night before. She included her observation of Stella’s lack of decorating skills and about Salty growling at one of Loretta Murphy’s’s cats. Then she told him she wanted to make a complaint about the cats.

  He shook his head and put his hands up to stop her. “Ida Mae, we can’t do anything about Loretta’s cats. We’ve told you that before. There’s no law that says Loretta can’t let her cats outside, but if you so choose, you can file a civil lawsuit.”

  “Well, that’s what I want you to do then,” Ida Mae said, “file a civil lawsuit.”

  Dan explained that she’d have to do that herself. She didn’t like that answer. She stood up and Dan also got up, which was no small task from the low position on the slipper chair.

  Static shrieked from the portable radio mic on his lapel. “Chief, you there?”

  He pushed the button and answer Chloe, his dispatcher. “Yeah, Chloe, go ahead.”

  “Special Agent Levi from the FBI is here. He wants to know your ETA back at the station.”

  “On my way, Chloe.”

  “Ten four, Chief.”

  “FBI? What’s going on, Chief?”

  He shook his head and said, “Just routine stuff, Ida Mae. Did you happen to see anyone else around last night or this morning?”

  She nodded. “No. Now if you’ll excuse me, Sheriff, I have to go stir my cabbage.”

  Ida Mae shuffled away leaving him standing there. He walked out and closed the door, thankful to get away from the awful odor and Ida Mae.

  He went next door to look around the yard once more. If Salty was growling, maybe it wasn’t a cat. He didn’t find anything but the stub of a cigar in the grass beneath a large camellia bush near the front porch. He picked it up and put it in a plastic bag, then went to the back of the house. It hadn’t appeared there was forced entry, but the back door was open. He looked around for an extra key that might have been hidden under a flowerpot or above the door frame. He found nothing.

  Unlike some law enforcement officers who didn’t like it when other agencies stepped in, Dan was happy that the FBI was so responsive to his call. Fort Landers was a small coastal town. They didn’t have the wherewithal in money or technology to handle something as big as this case. He also knew that with them investigating, it was more likely that Etta would be found more quickly… if she was still alive.

  ****

  She was alive, and she was cold. The fire had burned down, and very little heat was coming from the coals. She had drunk the water and was trying to push the remaining wood around with the empty plastic bottle to ignite it again. There was some paper in the bottom of the basket. She wadded it up and put it under a piece of wood. In just a moment the wood caught fire, giving her a little longer to warm her hands.

  She looked out at the darkening sky. The waxing moon was making its first appearance on the horizon. Its light was brilliant. Mike had been right about that. She wondered if it would, indeed, be the last full moon she’d ever see.

  She knew what he had intended. The rising tide would fill the cave, and she would drown, held down by the chain around her ankle.

  “No,” she said aloud. “You’re not doing this to me.” She tugged at the eyebolt holding the chain, but it wouldn’t budge.

  The tide was coming in. The rocks that she had seen out past the entrance to the cave had disappeared and the waves were crashing very close. She didn’t know how much time she would have until they would reach her. She looked around in the quickly dimming light. There were large rocks behind her. She didn’t think there was enough chain to allow her to climb higher on the rocks. He would have thought of that.

  She wrapped herself in the blanket and watched as the last embers went out and the moon had risen so that all she could see was a blackness inside the cave. She continued to hear the waves getting closer. She felt hopeless.

  Chapter 13

  Levi looked like he’d rolled off of a cookie cutter assembly line for FBI agents—probably born in a black suit, his white starched cuffs were precisely one-half inch beyond his sleeve. His striped tie in a perfect full Windsor, clipped with a no-embellishment gold bar. His jacket had been custom made so the bulk of his SIG Sauer 9mm was well-hidden in his shoulder holster… not that anything about the man could be disguised. He was pure cop through and through from the bottom of his classic black oxfords to the top of his blond crewcut. There was nothing grey about him except the stripe in his tie. Life was black and white, right or wrong. He stood up from behind Dan’s desk and reached out his right arm.

  In a steel grip he shook Dan’s hand and said, “Sheriff Baker. I’m Special Agent in Charge Ethan Levi.”

  He made no attempt to relinquish Dan’s chair, and motioned to the chair across from him, but Dan did not sit.

  “We’ve already been working the case since last night,” he said with a Dick Tracey, square-jawed confidence.

  Levi pushed a photograph across the desk. Dan picked it up and studied the smiling face of what appeared to be a handsome but ordinary white-collar businessman shaking hands with a police chief.

  “Looks like the photo of Mike Summers I saw on the computer and in the news,” Dan said.

  “Yes, he’s gotten brave showing his face on TV. But he’s notorious for having plastic surgery to change his appearance,” Levi said.

  “His wife is the missing woman, Etta Summers,” Dan said. “She identified him to us day before yesterday. She disappeared either that night or the next morning. He or someo
ne working for him broke into her house, poisoned her dog and took her.”

  “Yes. We know about her. We had someone watching her to see if she was involved in the trafficking and drug ring. We didn’t think so, but we also didn’t want her ending up like his five other wives. We lost her about three weeks ago. I hope we’re not too late.”

  “Yeah, me too. You said five wives? I only found three in our system, one of them is still alive.”

  “Not anymore. Janice Flannery was found chained to the bottom of a fishing pier not too far north of here a few days ago. We were watching her, too, but unfortunately for her, we lost her, too.”

  If it had not probably cost the women their lives, Dan would have found it amusing that the FBI had lost someone.

  Apparently, Janice Flannery suspected Schemke was alive ever since he faked his death while he was married to her,” Levi said.

  “Schemke?”

  “Yes, that’s his real name. Carl Schemke, Jr. Janice was apparently getting close for his comfort. She must have learned some of his tricks during the short time she was with him. She had a bit of a record, too— mostly petty crimes.”

  “Are you sure he killed her?” Dan asked.

  “He either killed her or had her killed. She drowned. Some kids found her at low tide. That’s how all of his dead wives met their fate. It seems to be a fetish of his. His mother was murdered by his father when he was twelve. His old man, Carl Sr., apparently found out his wife was having an affair. He knocked her and Carl Jr. out with trichloromethane, chained them together and dropped them over the side of his fishing boat with an anchor.

  The kid apparently didn’t get much of the drug, just enough to make him woozy. He came to and swam to the surface to save himself after he somehow got out of the chains. The report indicates he told the police his mom was already dead when he found her. He said she looked peaceful.”

  “Jeez, what a thing for a kid to go through,” Dan said.