“Whatever it is, you can tell me now,” Riley said impatiently. “This is my family.”
“We followed up on that tip you gave us. About Melody Zimmerman? Now, I don’t know how you got your information, but it turns out you were right about her. We checked the real estate records, and sure enough, we found out that last month she bought an oceanfront condo in Wrightsville Beach for eight hundred thousand dollars, but she only took out a four-hundred-thousand-dollar loan. Which got us to wondering how somebody affords that on an assistant bank manager’s salary. We took a look at that aunt of hers, whose house she’d been living in here on the island, and it turns out she’d been embezzling money from the old lady’s trust account.”
“I’ll be damned,” Evelyn said. “That sweet little thing at the bank was an embezzler?”
“That’s not all,” the sheriff said, looking chagrined. “After she was charged with embezzlement, she wanted to make a deal, so she admitted that she helped your husband set up those dummy corporations to defraud Coastal Carolina Bank. She forged your name on the mortgage documents for your house. And she pocketed hundreds of thousands of dollars in commissions from the bank for generating all those loans the bank later had to write off.”
Riley nodded. “Did she admit to killing Wendell?”
“She admits she was having an affair with him, and to cooking up the loan schemes, but she insists she didn’t kill him.”
“I don’t believe her,” Riley said. “She’s been lying about her involvement all along. Who else would have a reason to kill him?”
“That’s what we intend to find out,” the sheriff said. “Her story is that they were together that Thursday night, at your house on Sand Dollar Lane. He came over on his own boat, because he didn’t want anybody to know he was meeting her there. Your husband changed the locks on the house, she told us, because of the foreclosure. She says they, uh, had relations there, and afterward, he told her that the real estate deals were falling apart, and he was afraid if you went ahead with the divorce, you’d find out about his financial misdeeds. He told Melody that when he met you at the ferry that next day he was going to beg you to take him back.”
“So that’s why she killed him,” Riley said.
“She says not. Says they had a big fight because she had committed multiple crimes and put her job on the line for him. He shook her off and said he was leaving, so she went back inside your house and packed up her things and then went home to her own place. She insists that was the last time she saw him, and he was very much alive.”
“She’s a liar,” Riley said flatly.
“Maybe not,” the sheriff said. “She claims that after she went inside, she heard Wendell arguing with somebody. A man.” He glanced over toward the table. “I intend to find out the truth, and charge that person with murder.”
“You won’t find the killer here,” Evelyn Nolan called.
“Not tonight, no,” he said. “But the real reason I stopped in here was to make sure you all understand that this evacuation order is mandatory. I’m keeping track of everybody who is on this island, and we will be counting heads tonight, so we don’t have to count bodies tomorrow, after that storm hits. Understand?”
“Perfectly,” Riley said.
65
Scott stood in the doorway, watching the police cruiser’s taillights recede into the distance through a curtain of rain. They heard the words “mandatory evacuation” again just before he closed the door.
He sat down at the dining room table and looked at Riley. “The voice Melody heard that night at the house was mine.”
“Yours?” Billy said. “What were you doing there?”
“I’d just gotten the news from the hotel people that they were pulling out of the Pirate’s Point deal. Wendell already knew. He’d known for some time. I’d sunk my own money into that project—because he assured me if I didn’t sweeten the pot, the deal was doomed. I think he probably knew it was doomed from the start. I got over to the island that afternoon, determined to confront him, and I saw him with that woman, Melody. It was obvious that they were together, literally. I followed them to Sand Dollar Lane, and when I walked around to the back of the house, they were out on the balcony outside your bedroom, Riley. You know how voices carry in the night? I heard almost every word of what they were fighting about.”
“In my bedroom,” Riley said quietly.
“I waited until he came out of the house again. I was furious. He’d screwed me, screwed her, screwed you, Riley. I grabbed him by the arm and told him I knew about everything, including the affair. I threatened to tell you about Melody, about all of it.”
“Why didn’t you?” Riley asked.
Scott shook his head and looked away.
“I think I know,” Billy said. “He told you about how I killed Cal, didn’t he?”
“Who’s Cal?” Evelyn asked. “Billy, you never killed anybody. What’s he talking about?”
“Cal. He was my AA sponsor, Mama. Cal got me sober, saved my life, and then to repay him, I killed him, drunk driving. Drove my old Delta eighty-eight off the road with him in the passenger seat and wrapped it around a tree.”
Billy’s hand clutched the tumbler of vodka. He stared down at the clear liquid, then suddenly pushed it away. “Cal was killed instantly. I didn’t know what else to do, so I called Wendell. He came out and saw what happened. I was so drunk I could hardly stand up. But Wendell knew what to do. He cleaned up my mess and made it all go away.”
“For a price,” Scott said.
“He never said a word for the longest time. Then, he came to me last year, told me he had a great ‘investment opportunity.’ He called it a loan, but we both knew what it was. I gave him everything I had, all the money in my trust fund.”
“He blackmailed you?” Riley said.
“Both of us,” Scott corrected her. “That night at your house, when I threatened to tell you about the affair with Melody, he said if I told anybody, he’d go to the police with what he knew about Billy. He had proof. Cell phone pictures of Billy, passed out behind the wheel of the Delta eighty-eight, and pictures of Cal, who’d been thrown clear of the car.”
Riley’s eyes met Scott’s. His were a pale blue, red-rimmed with worry and fatigue. “Did you kill Wendell?”
“No,” Scott said. “I wanted to. I could have, but I didn’t.”
“Oh, my God.” Billy clutched Scott’s hand. “I was sure it was you. I was terrified it was you.”
“And I thought you’d killed him,” Scott said sadly. “Your drinking was totally out of control.”
“I don’t understand any of this,” Evelyn said. “If Billy didn’t kill Wendell, and Scott didn’t kill him, who did?” She turned to Riley. “You’d never.”
“No,” Riley said. “It wasn’t me. And I know it wasn’t you, Mama. You loved Wendell in spite of everything.”
“That bastard!” Evelyn said. “He tried to ruin my family. And he nearly succeeded.”