Southern Storm Read online

  She stared straight ahead at the raindrops making quarter-sized circles on the windshield. “I know.”

  “How’d you hear about the whole thing?”

  “Melba’s prayer chain.”

  Cade’s face twisted. Blair knew he was thinking that she wasn’t a praying woman. “She called you to pray?”

  “Of course not. She called Morgan, who told me.”

  “Oh.” Disappointment slackened his face.

  Blair knew her lack of faith in the things he believed was like a wall between them, but she refused to masquerade as a believer when she wasn’t one.

  He backed out of his spot and pulled out into traffic on the busy street beside the hospital. “Maybe I can brainstorm with you on the way back,” Blair said, “and help you figure out how to find out the man’s identity, in case there’s not a match for the prints. You gotta admit I’m a pretty good problem solver.”

  He considered that a moment. “Guess there’s no better person to help me figure it out.” He sighed. “You should be a cop.”

  “Yeah, that’ll be the day. I look awful in black.”

  He smiled then, and Blair felt a small sense of victory.

  For a while, he drove through the storm, concentrating on the roads rather than trying to make conversation. He drove too carefully, as if certain that another pedestrian-in-distress would jump out in front of him.

  The steady whish-whish of the wipers worked itself into Blair’s brain as she tried to think of solutions. Finding the man’s identity wouldn’t make Cade feel any better about what had happened, but at least he wouldn’t feel so helpless.

  “I’m thinking that you could give a picture of the man to the media and let them get it on the ten o’clock news. By midnight you’re sure to have somebody calling with information.”

  “Where are we going to get a picture, Blair? We can’t very well flash shots of the man’s dead body on the television screen. I don’t want his family to find out that way.”

  “Yeah, you’re right.” She thought about that for a moment. “Maybe just a physical description of what he was wearing and what he looked like. Weight, height, eye color . . .”

  He blew out a long breath. “Maybe someone’s already missed him. Maybe they’d call in. Then I could go to their residence and explain what happened.”

  She shot him a look. “Yourself?”

  “Who else?”

  “Well, I don’t know, but Cade, don’t you think you should send someone else?”

  She saw the muscles of his jaw flexing. “No. I’m the one who should go.”

  Silence again. Blair knew there was no use trying to talk Cade out of that. As difficult as it would be for him, he would never ask anyone else to do it.

  “It’s weird how suddenly life can spin out of control,” he said.

  She let her eyes settle on him. “Isn’t it, though? I’ve been there, Cade.”

  His face softened and he looked over at her. “Yeah, I know you have.”

  She didn’t have to say it. The day her parents were murdered had been the worst day of her life. One minute she was standing in a city council meeting with her sleeves rolled up, ready to fight for Hanover House to stay open, and the next she was standing in the room with her parents’ dead bodies. Cade had been right there beside her.

  “I felt helpless that day too,” Cade whispered, as if he’d read her mind.

  “You weren’t, though. And you’re not now.”

  They drove across the Island Expressway to Tybee Island, wound their way to the mouth of the Savannah River, then crossed the island bridge to Cape Refuge. “My cell phone doesn’t work on the island. Let me just stop by the station and see how far they’ve gotten,” he said, “and then I’ll take you home.”

  “Take your time,” she said. “In fact, just don’t worry about me. I’ll call Morgan to pick me up when she gets home.”

  They rounded Ocean Boulevard at the northern tip of the island, and as they approached the small police station, they saw that the parking lot was full of television vans.

  The media had already heard.

  Cade groaned. “I don’t believe this.”

  “Keep driving, Cade,” Blair said. “Give yourself a minute to think.”

  Cade passed the station and headed down the island. “They must have heard the police scanner. This is all I need. Now it’ll be broadcast all over the airwaves.”

  “But they don’t know who the man is, right? So it won’t matter.”

  Cade breathed a laugh. “Right. They’ll just tell how the Cape Refuge police chief ran some injured man down. And every family in town whose father isn’t home will think it’s him.”

  “Maybe the newscasts will lead someone to identifying the body.”

  Cade reached the South Beach Pier, where the accident had occurred. The road was clear now. It didn’t look as if anything significant had happened here . . . like a man dying for no good reason. The blood had all washed away.

  He drove past Hanover House and headed to Blair’s house, next to the library. He pulled onto the gravel parking lot in a grove of pine trees and mimosas, and stopped the truck.

  She didn’t get out. “Cade, are you going to be all right?”

  He didn’t answer for a moment—just stared through his windshield to the trees beyond her house. “Yeah. Thanks for coming. I really appreciate it.”

  She was quiet for a moment, racking her brain for the right thing to say.

  “Cade, if you need some company when you go tell the family, I’ll go with you. I’m not known to be the most sensitive soul in the world, but I know what it feels like to get horrible news about someone you love.”

  He patted her hand. “Thanks for the offer. I’ll let you know.”

  “And for what it’s worth, when you told me about my parents . . .”

  He met her eyes, waiting for her to go on.

  “Well, you did it right. You’ll do this right too.”

  “Thanks,” he said.

  She got out and ran through the rain to her front door, but she didn’t go in until Cade was out of sight.

  CHAPTER 4

  The moment Cade pulled into the parking lot of the police station, reporters surrounded him with microphones aimed like grenade launchers.

  “Chief Cade, is it true the man you hit is dead?” someone asked him as he got out of the truck.

  He slammed the door and didn’t answer. Maybe they didn’t yet know about the gunshot.

  “Did you know the man you killed?”

  He trudged through them, wanting to just get inside and get dry. They seemed ravenous, standing out in the lightning and rain, waiting for a morsel of news. “I’m not ready to make a statement yet,” he said.

  At the front door of the station, which had once been a laundromat, some of the reporters pushed closer to follow him in. “Please wait out here!” He barely had room inside for all the officers on duty. Storm or not, there wasn’t room for all these reporters.

  “Chief Cade, don’t you feel any compulsion to speak to the people about what you did?”

  He turned back to the reporter whose face he saw each night at six and eleven. There was something gratifying about seeing him sopping wet now. “No, James, I told you I’m not ready to make a statement.”

  He went in and stood on the mat just inside the door. Man, he was wet. He’d give anything for a change of clothes. He should have gone by his house and gotten something before coming here.

  J.J. Clyde sat at one of the desks talking into a phone, and Cade pointed at the door. “Don’t let any of them in, you hear?”

  J.J. put his hand over the phone. “I hear, Chief. Any word on who the man is?”

  “None,” Cade said. “Where’s Joe?”

  “On the phone in your office. It’s been ringing off the hook, people asking questions.”

  Cade shot a look through the storefront window to the crowd of reporters standing in the elements. He imagined they were just as intere
sted in the storm pummeling the coast as they were in the death. He almost wished for a tornado to get their mind off him.

  He went into his office and found Joe, Cade’s second-in-command and the town’s only detective, sitting in a folding chair near Cade’s desk, the phone cord stretched taut. “No, ma’am, I can’t comment on the investigation. Yes, ma’am.”

  Cade saw that Joe, too, was wet. No doubt he’d been out in the storm with the others, looking for the man’s car.

  “No, no one was in jeopardy at any time. Yes. All right.”

  He hung up the phone and got to his feet. “It’s been a madhouse. Rumors flying all over town. J.J. said we had a few calls speculating on who the man was. Somebody said he was a Hollywood producer renting a cottage over in Eastgate, but they checked and that man is alive and well. Somebody else claimed he was the sprinkler guy putting in a new system over at the Catholic church. But the sprinkler guy is accounted for.” He looked at the puddle gathering under Cade’s feet. “You really ought to change clothes, Cade.”

  “Later.” Cade ran his hand through his wet hair. “So what are your thoughts on the gunshot?”

  “Sure raises the stakes, doesn’t it? If it wasn’t suicide, then we’ve got a killer out there.”

  Cade dropped into his chair. “We can’t speculate until we have some evidence. There’s got to be a car somewhere. An apartment he was occupying. A condo or hotel room. Something.”

  “Alex checked the condos in that area,” Joe said. “He wasn’t a tenant. I was thinking about sending men around to all the hotels on the island, to see if any guests are unaccounted for. It’ll take a while.”

  “Better get started.”

  “Will do.” Joe started for the door. “What about the press?”

  “Ignore them. They know about as much as we do right now. Soon they’ll be scurrying off to meet deadlines.”

  “I hear some of them did live remotes for their six o’clock broadcast.”

  Cade dropped into his chair. “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope. Sorry, Chief. Two birds with one stone, you know. The storm and the accident both in one place. How lucky can they get?”

  Cade rubbed his face and watched as Joe disappeared. Could this day get any worse?

  When he heard a knock on the door, he looked up with dread. Jonathan Cleary—Morgan’s husband and Cade’s best friend—stood in the doorway. “Hey, buddy. You okay?”

  Cade just looked at him.

  “Man, you need a change of clothes.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  Jonathan came in and turned the folding chair toward Cade’s desk. He sat down. “Morgan told me what happened. Want to talk?”

  “I don’t even know what to say.” Cade slapped his hands on the desk and made himself straighten. “You don’t happen to have any new tenants at Hanover House, do you?”

  “Not this month, no. And we checked. Everyone’s there.”

  He sat back, rubbing his mouth. “There are hundreds of tourists on the island this time of year. Maybe I need to do what Blair suggested and make a statement to the press, to give them a physical description.”

  “Morgan told me about the gunshot,” Jonathan said. “You gonna tell them?”

  Cade looked down at the wood grain on his desk and wondered how long it would be before the press learned of that. Doctors and nurses from the hospital knew, and he’d notified his men as soon as he’d heard. Morgan had told Jonathan. . . . Someone would leak it, and the town would panic.

  Cade rubbed his eyes. “I can’t believe this happened. A man’s life . . .” He sighed. “Jonathan, I know I didn’t run the man over on purpose, but maybe I was driving faster than I needed to. Maybe I was negligent by not stopping in time. I saw him standing there. If he was bleeding, I should have seen it.”

  “From a distance, in a driving rain? Cade, you didn’t do anything wrong. You were trying to save lives.”

  “And I took one instead.”

  Jonathan shook his head. “No, you didn’t, man. The guy stepped out in front of you. I talked to Melba Jefferson myself after Morgan told me. She said she saw the whole thing and that you didn’t do anything wrong. The man walked right out in front of you, almost like he meant to. And she didn’t know about the gunshot wound, but she would have said if she’d seen him bleeding. It was pouring rain, Cade.”

  Cade got up and paced across the room, his shoes squeaking on the floor. “He’s dead, Jonathan. The man is dead and I killed him.” He stepped into the doorway and, through the glass, saw that the press corps was not going away.

  He turned back to Jonathan. “I have to go make a statement,” he said. “I have to give them a description of the man so they can put it on the news. If I don’t, they’ll start making up facts.”

  Jonathan got up. “They’re going to attack you with all kinds of questions. Why don’t you let someone else do it? Joe McCormick or somebody.”

  “I don’t believe in passing the buck. I can take it.” He walked to the door, took in a deep breath.

  “Don’t you want to put on a dry shirt and comb your hair?” Jonathan asked. “I could go to your house and get you a change of clothes.”

  “What’s the point? I’m going outside anyway.”

  Jonathan grunted. “Let them in, man. You don’t have to do this out in the storm.”

  “They’re not coming in here and disrupting my whole operation. There’s not room.”

  Jonathan groaned. “At least take my umbrella.”

  Cade took the umbrella and Jonathan touched his shoulder. “What about the gunshot?”

  Cade thought that over for a moment. They were going to find out anyway, but if he could hold off just a while longer, maybe he’d find the man’s identity and be able to determine whether it was suicide or murder. There was no point in creating a panic about some killer still at large when there might not be any foul play involved. “Think I’ll wait,” he said. “There’s too much we still don’t know.”

  Jonathan opened the door for him, and Cade stepped out and opened the umbrella. The winds had died somewhat. The umbrella might hold, after all.

  The press swarmed and Cade took immediate control. “I’d like to make a statement,” he yelled over the voices. “Please get back. I have a statement to make.”

  The reporters got quiet, but they didn’t step back. Microphones loomed so close to his face that he felt he might emerge bruised. He hoped the rain didn’t electrocute any of them. Trying to ignore them, he spoke.

  “This afternoon at 2:00 P.M., a pedestrian was killed on Ocean Boulevard near the South Beach Pier. The man had no identification. I’d like to give you his physical description in hopes that someone who recognizes it can identify him.

  “The man was wearing a red plaid short-sleeved shirt, khaki pants, and a pair of Dockers deck shoes. He had blondish-brown hair and brown eyes, was approximately 220 pounds, approximately thirty-five years old, and about six feet tall. If anyone listening to this can identify this man, we would appreciate your calling 555-8327. Thank you.”

  “Chief Cade, did the impact kill him instantly?”

  “No, it didn’t,” Cade said. “He was alive and speaking right after he was hit and did make it to Candler Hospital in Savannah alive. He died shortly thereafter.”

  The reporters began shouting out questions, but Cade headed back inside, blocking out the noise. Jonathan ducked back in with him and took the umbrella out of his hands. “Good job, Cade.”

  Cade sighed and looked back out at them. “Maybe it’ll do some good. We’ve got to get a name.”

  “We’ll be praying for you, man.”

  Cade stared at his friend for a long moment. “’Preciate it, man. You have no idea how bad I need it.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Cade looked weary and tired when Blair found him at the police station at eleven that night, and from the defeated look on his somber face, she knew he still hadn’t been able to identify the man.

  “Hey
,” she said from the doorway of his office, and he looked up at her and smiled.

  “Hey. What are you doing out so late?”

  “I thought I’d come by and watch the news with you. Jonathan told me you’d made a statement to the press. I see most of them are still out there.”

  He glanced at his watch. “Yeah, they’re doing live broadcasts. Guess it’s time, isn’t it?”

  He had finally changed clothes, and instead of his uniform, he wore a pair of khaki pants and a blue dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up. His face was gray with end-of-day stubble, and his hair seemed to have been unattended since he’d been drenched that afternoon. She felt the urge to push it back off of his forehead.

  He got up, stretched, and turned on the television that sat on top of a file cabinet. Turning a chair around for her, he said, “So you think they know about the gunshot yet?”

  She sat down and pulled her feet up to the seat. “Probably. But they’d find out sooner or later, Cade.”

  “I thought we’d have found something by now. But the man seems to have come out of thin air. No match on his fingerprints. No car, no nothing.”

  “There’s something somewhere. Just give it time.”

  He dropped back down in his own chair, and she saw his fatigue as he leaned his head back. The theme song for the Channel 3 News came on, and she glanced back at him. His face had tightened, and she knew he dreaded the report. The camera zoomed in on the anchor who had stood out in front of the station just a short time ago. Covered with makeup and hair mousse, one would never know he’d been standing in torrential rains for most of the night.

  “Our top story tonight, another baby kidnapped from a hospital in the southeast.”

  Blair smiled at Cade. “Well, at least you’re not the headliner.”

  Cade didn’t seem comforted by that.

  “According to a spokesperson for the Woman’s Hospital in Hilton Head, South Carolina, the day-old baby of Sarah and Jack Branning was kidnapped at 1:00 P.M. today. The kidnapper has been identified as a woman dressed as a nurse, with curly blonde hair and black-framed glasses.”

  “Want something to drink?” he asked, as if trying to divert his own attention.