I was pretty sure this was the same “Sara Somebody” who had already called a couple of times, but I knew right away it wasn’t the Sara who works the hot dog stand down at the beach pavilion, and it wasn’t a new client either. Sara Mem Ho was caller ID shorthand for Sarasota Memorial Hospital.
I’d been friends with a girl in high school named Christine Ho, but I’d certainly never heard of anybody named Mem. I grinned thinking about how I’d tease Ethan about it later, except then I remembered with a jolt that my friend Cora had recently had a little heart trouble, and my first thought was that she was back in the hospital.
Hoping with all my might that I was wrong, I flipped it open and said, “Hello?”
A young woman said in a rushed half-whisper, “Hi. You don’t know me, and I shouldn’t be doing this, but I just thought you should know.”
I said, “Who is this?”
“I’m a night nurse at Sarasota Memorial Hospital. We’re not supposed to get involved in our patients’ private affairs, but…”
I took a deep breath and braced myself for bad news. “Okay. What happened?”
“He’s been asking for you.”
I frowned. “Huh?”
“Mr. Vladek. He made me promise not to call you, but then he asks for you in his sleep.”
She was talking so quietly I wasn’t even sure I’d heard her right. “Mr. Vladek?”
“Yes, Anton Vladek.”
I let out a sigh of relief. “Oh my gosh. I think you have the wrong number. I don’t know anyone named Vladek.”
There was a quick intake of breath and then silence.
I said, “Hello?”
She blurted, “Oh my God, I’m so sorry. I have the wrong number. Please don’t tell anyone I called you.”
I started to ask her who the heck I would tell, but then the line went dead. I sat there staring at the phone for a second and wondering what in the world that could have been about. Anton Vladek sounded exactly like the kind of person I’d get a mysterious call from if I was an international spy. For a second I fantasized about hitting redial, disguising my voice, and asking the mystery nurse to deliver a top secret, coded message to Anton Vladek: The microfilm is in a black valise at the front desk of the Russian embassy, and the eagle flies at midnight.
Instead, I slipped the phone down in my pocket and grabbed my new book. The last thing I needed right now was more drama in my life. Anton Vladek would just have to carry out whatever international spy-ring undercover sting operation he was working on without me.
As I came around the front of the Bronco and stepped up on the sidewalk, I saw a little crowd up the street in front of Beezy’s Bookstore. The first thing that came to mind was that they were having some kind of sale, or maybe a book signing. There are lots of writers around here, so often you’ll see somebody with a table set up, signing their new book at the library or the farmer’s market downtown. But then I realized they were all wearing the same thing: spruce green trousers, black boots, and short-sleeved, green polo shirts.
I stopped dead in my tracks. There were about six sheriff’s deputies in all, standing in a circle behind a line of yellow-and-black police tape. There were two department cruisers parked across the street, and two policemen were stringing more tape around the two shops on either side of the bookstore. They’d also cordoned off the parking spaces directly in front of the shop, which were vacant except for a dusty maroon minivan parked right in front. On the side of the van was a black circle of lettering that read BEEZY’S BOOKSTORE, and inside the circle was an image of an open book.
The door to the bookshop swung open, and two policemen stepped out, followed by a tall woman with sorrel hair and pale, freckled skin. She wore a knee-length skirt the color of a baked potato, with a gray blouse and dull black mules. I recognized her immediately.
Samantha McKenzie. When Guidry had moved to New Orleans, it was McKenzie who’d taken over as lead homicide detective for the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Department. I had met her a couple of times before. She wasn’t much older than me, but I always felt like a little child in her presence, and I must have looked like a fool standing there with my arms dangling at my sides and my mouth hanging wide open. When she saw me, our eyes locked for a second. She had a look on her face that I had seen before—intense alertness and concentration, but with a vague, resolute sadness.
She stepped forward and held out her hand. “Ah, Miss Hemingway, we were just talking about you.”
8
I was standing just inside the bookstore, next to the old burnished-wood counter with the antique cash register on top. It was eerily quiet except for the low hum of the air conditioner built into the wall over the front door. The shop looked the same as it had the night before, except now all the lights in the back of the store were off. The light over the register was on, as were the two hanging glass lamps in the display window, but there was no sign of Cosmo anywhere.
I had the urge to call out for Mr. Hoskins to let him know we were here, but of course that would have been crazy. Somewhere in the back of my mind I must have known what was going on, but there seemed to be a part of me that just wouldn’t allow it. My eyes scanned the pen-and-ink drawings arranged on the wall behind the register, as if I might find some sort of answer in their innocent scenery. In one, a comely woman with long dark hair falling off her shoulders peered down at me with wise, comforting eyes.
I glanced into the back of the store, but since the only light was coming from the front, it was too dark to see anything clearly.
I turned to Detective McKenzie and said, “What’s happening?”
She cleared her throat, and I felt the inside of my palms start to sweat. “We got a call this morning from the man that delivers the newspapers every day. Normally when he gets here the shop’s not open for business yet, so he knocks on the door to let Mr. Hoskins know he’s here and then leaves his stack of papers on the sidewalk.”
She pointed outside, and there on the sidewalk next to the door was a stack of newspapers wrapped in white nylon twine.
“He said usually by the time he’s back in his delivery van, Mr. Hoskins has come to the door and they exchange a wave or a ‘good morning.’ But this time Mr. Hoskins didn’t come to the door. So he got out and went back to look through the door window. The lights were on inside, but the door was unlocked. That’s when he realized something was wrong.”
I looked around the shop. It didn’t seem like there’d been a burglary or a fight or anything like that, so I still couldn’t quite fathom what McKenzie was doing here. At that point, I’m not even sure I understood why the whole place was surrounded with police tape. To me, it was obvious what had happened. Last night, I’d shown up at closing time and interrupted Mr. Hoskins’s normal routine. He’d simply forgotten to lock up before he went home.
I said, “Mr. Hoskins seemed a little absentminded. Maybe…” but the expression on McKenzie’s face stopped me. She shook her head slowly and glanced over my shoulder at something on the countertop behind me.
I didn’t want to, but I turned and looked. Right away, I knew why she’d been talking about me when I arrived. The check I’d made out to Beezy’s Bookstore the night before was still lying next to the bowl of chocolates beyond the cash register. She’d seen my name on the check and was probably about to call me. My check wasn’t what McKenzie was looking at, though.
There, in a diagonal line across the countertop, was a row of red splotches, each about the size of a quarter and spaced a few inches apart. My stomach tightened into a fist as I realized—it was blood.
McKenzie said, “The cash register is empty, and just before you arrived, Mr. Hoskins’s daughter called the station. The doorman in his apartment building said he never came home last night.”