Bishop's Reach (A Bay Tanner Mystery) - Hardcover

Bleached-blond call girls rarely bring good news, especially the one who bursts through the door of Bay Tanner's struggling inquiry agency and into her already complicated life. Karen Zwilling swears she's been viciously attacked but can't--or won't--go to the police.

With the tragedy of her husband's murder finally resolved, Bay has been yearning for a little tranquillity, but that hope is shattered, both by Karen's plea for help and by the unexpected reappearance of aging playboy Win Hammond, scion of an old Beaufort family, who has been missing for more than twenty years. Why has the prodigal son chosen this moment to return, and what will the consequences be for his sister, Bay's beloved Miss Addie? Add to all this a suspected embezzlement by a local businessman and his questionable relationship with his partner, and suddenly Bay and her young associate, Erik Whiteside, find themselves hip-deep in cases and clients.

When a disfigured corpse is discovered on the beach at Hilton Head, Bay's longed-for peace and quiet are irrevocably washed away on the outgoing tide, and suddenly it's clear that no one is who they appear to be, including Bay's former nemesis Ben Wyler. As the pieces finally tumble into place, the shocking resolution may prove as deadly for Bay Tanner as the treacherous waters of Bishop's Reach.

Chapter One

Got him!"        
 
Erik Whiteside, his lean, boyish face flushed with triumph, filled the doorway of my tiny office. Behind him, midafternoon light drifted through the narrow windows in the reception area and bathed his white-blond hair in a soft halo.
 
I set aside the financial reports I'd been studying and tossed my reading glasses on the desk. "Got whom?"
 
My partner crossed the gray Berber carpet in two strides and dropped his six-foot-plus frame into the single client chair pulled up to my faux mahogany desk. "You're the only person I know who uses 'whom' in conversation," he said with his trademark grin.
 
"So I'm a grammar geek," I said, smiling back. "Get over it, and answer the question."
 
"Impatient as usual. This one's so good I'm tempted to make you work for it."
 
"Perhaps you might like to recall whose name you see on the bottom of your paycheck, such as it is."
 
"I believe that would be you, Lydia Baynard Simpson Tanner, for which I and my landlord are eternally grateful," he said.
 
Though I called him my partner, Erik hadn't managed to accumulate enough cash to buy an actual interest in Simpson & Tanner, Inquiry Agents, but he assured me he was close. My father, retired judge Talbot Simpson, and I had provided the initial investment enabling us to rent the small suite in a recently completed office complex midisland. My late mother's trust fund and the recovering stock market provided operating capital, supplemented occasionally by an actual paying customer. Erik earned his keep by providing a level of computer expertise unequaled outside a government agency.
 
I leaned back in the swivel chair and pinched the bridge of my nose. Time to get my glasses changed, I thought, another depressing reminder of my looming milestone birthday. "Are you going to answer me, or do I have to beat it out of you?"
 
He laughed. " 'They also serve who only stand and wait.' "
 
"Milton," I responded, "from 'On His Blindness.' When are you going to learn you don't have a prayer in this game? I practically had to memorize Bartlett's just to keep up with my father. Now knock it off and spill."
 
His brown eyes sobered. "I found Win Hammond. After nearly two years, I finally tracked him down."
 
"My God," I said, jerking upright in my chair. "How? Where? Is he still alive?"
 
"Pure dumb luck is how," he said, leaning forward to rest his elbows on the desk, "and yes, he's still very much alive." Erik consulted his watch. "And if everything works out, he should be landing in Savannah in about four hours."
 
My hand reached of its own volition for a nonexistent pack of cigarettes, although it had been nearly a year since I'd kicked the habit for the second time. I sighed in frustration and picked up a pen to keep my fingers occupied.
 
"So give."
 
"Well, you remember the postcard Miss Hammond got from her brother, right about the time . . ." His voice trailed off, and his eyes found mine. The events of that summer two years before--and the rippling aftershocks they'd created--had culminated in a number of deaths, some of which had struck very close to home.
 
"Of course I remember," I said. "He sent her the card after she got attacked. Postmarked from St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands."
 
Adelaide Boyce Hammond, frightened by her brush with death, had asked me to find her black sheep brother. Edwin Hollister Hammond III had abandoned family and country nearly twenty years before and had not been heard from until the mysterious communication which had provided neither return address nor any other useful contact information. Erik and I had been searching for him--off and on--ever since.
 
"Why is he coming here? And how . . . ?"
 
"A long time ago I put out a call on several of the message boards originating in the Caribbean, asking if anyone'd heard of him. I got a couple of responses early on, but they turned out to be false alarms."
 
My mind kept wandering to the scene where I actually told Miss Addie her beloved younger brother was coming home, to the joy on her weathered, octogenarian's face when I announced . . .
 
"Earth to Bay, come in please. Are you actually interested in hearing this, or should I just cut to the chase?"
 
"Sorry," I mumbled. "Of course I want to hear it. Caribbean message boards. False alarms."
 
The phone jangled in the outer office, and Erik half rose. "Let the service get it," I said, and he subsided back into his chair. "Go ahead."
 
"I got back on the trail yesterday when I heard from a woman in the British Virgin Islands, asking if I was still looking for information about Hammond. We exchanged several e-mails before I finally convinced her to do the right thing." He laughed. "I can be very persuasive when I put my mind to it."
 
I returned his smile. In his late twenties, with a long, rangy body and more than his share of blond good looks, Erik Whiteside oozed Southern charm. I couldn't imagine too many people of the female persuasion resisting him, even long distance. Still, it seemed strange the woman hadn't asked for some sort of reward.
 
"So what has Win been up to all these years? Where's he been living?" I tossed the pen back onto the desk and leaned forward.
 
Miss Addie's wish to see her brother once more before she died had seemed an impossible request, my failure to grant it a nagging guilt that had been quietly eating at me for months.
 
"Apparently he's been running a charter service out of Virgin Gorda. Sailing and fishing cruises for wealthy tourists. He's been going by the name of James Holland."
 
"No wonder you couldn't track him down. Why's he coming back to the States?" I glanced at the clock above my framed PI license on the side wall. "And how do you know he's on his way to Savannah?"
 
Again the phone rang on the desk of our phantom receptionist.
 
"Sure you don't want me to get it?" Erik asked.
 
"They'll call back if it's important. That's why we pay a fortune for the answering service. Go ahead."
 
The long and short of it was that Erik's informant, a sometime girlfriend of Hammond/Holland, had dropped by to find him stripping his place and throwing clothes into an old suitcase. When she'd asked Win where he was going, he'd become abusive, calling her names and literally throwing her out into the street. She claimed to have known for a long time about his real name and background. Apparently Win was like lots of people who sought refuge in the scattered islands of the Caribbean: He had a past he'd just as soon forget. They'd even laughed together about Erik's Internet inquiries the previous year. And, since there was nothing in it for her, she'd let it ride. But she'd written Erik's contact information on a slip of paper and tucked it into her wallet. Just in case.
 
"And she volunteered all this because . . . ?" I watched the red flush creep up my partner's neck. "You offered her money, didn't you? I thought we agreed--"
 
"I wired her five hundred dollars, okay? There was no way she was going to tell me anything without it."
 
He raised his head, and we stared at each other for a long moment.
 
"Your own savings, I take it?"
 
He nodded.
 
I sighed and leaned back in my chair. "Okay. I'll reimburse you out of the company account. But just this once. Next time, we need to discuss things before you go running off half-cocked."
 
"Thanks. You're right, but it seemed too good a lead to pass up."
 
And it had been. A quick check of the airline...