Mariah Stewart - Last Words

He glanced at her abreviated hemline. “Good call. I’ll meet you on deck when the ME gets here.”

Beck set off after Hal, who was carrying two orange cones across the parking lot to block off the entrance in an effort to keep out the gathering crowd of spectators.

Mia paced along the dock, watching for Vanessa.

“Well, wasn’t someone saying last night that this guy was going to make a bold move soon? I’d say this qualifies.” Susan joined Mia on the dock.

They both turned to watch the Cameron cruiser pull into the lot. Chief Meyer got out of the car, and caught up with Beck. They spoke briefly, then walked toward the boat.

“It was a surprise.” Mia nodded, as the two men passed her silently. “But this isn’t quite what I was expecting.”

“Are you kidding? This is about as ballsy as they come,” Susan insisted. “Ballsy as leaving the other body in Beck’s car. And just as much of a jab at Beck, if you ask me.”

“Because Hal is the former chief of police?”

“That, sure.” Sue nodded. “And because Hal is Beck’s father.”

Mia stared in silence at Sue.

“Ah, I take it you didn’t know that?” Sue asked.

“That Hal Garrity is Beck’s father?” Mia shook her head. “No. I had no idea.”

“I forgot that you’re not from here. It certainly isn’t a secret.”

Mia looked over her shoulder to the end of the parking lot, where Hal was blocking off the drive, then glanced back at Beck, who stood on the deck of the Shady Lady . The two men stood in exactly the same position, right hand on right hip, and though impossible to see their faces, even from a distance, the similarities in their body builds were unmistakable. Mia wondered why she hadn’t noticed it before.

Several people were gathered on the opposite side of the building that housed Todd Singer’s showroom. On his way back from the station, Duncan stopped to turn away the curious, except for Vanessa Keaton. Apparently crime scene tape wasn’t intended to keep out members of the chief’s family.

Or maybe it was just that Duncan had a thing for Vanessa, Mia thought as she watched the officer’s eyes follow the pretty young woman along the boardwalk.

“Mia, here are your things,” Vanessa called to her. “God, does this thing just keep getting crazier and crazier or what?”

“It’s pretty crazy, all right.” Mia met her halfway.

“How is Hal? Is he okay?”

“I think he was a little shaken up. As anyone would be.”

“Is it that woman from Cameron?” Vanessa handed Mia the bag she’d brought from Bling.

“It could be her,” Mia nodded, not wanting to discuss what they’d found on the body until they were certain. “We’re not positive. Chief Meyer is on the boat now with Beck.”

The sound of tires crunching on stone drew their attention.

“I see Dr. Reilly is here already.” Vanessa nodded in the direction of the van that had just arrived. “I’ll bet she never expected anything like this when she moved to St. Dennis from Baltimore.”

“She’s been kept busy, that’s for sure.” Mia looked around. “Where’s a phone booth when you need one?”

“What?” Vanessa frowned, then laughed. “You mean to change?” She pointed up the rise to Singer’s. “Todd has a ladies’ room. I’m sure he won’t mind if you use it to make a quick change. Come on, I’ll walk up with you.”

“Thanks again.” Mia looked back at the boat, where Beck was still talking to Rich Meyer. If she hurried, she could change and get back to the dock before he even realized she was gone.

She fell in step with Vanessa.

“If that is the woman from Cameron, why do you think he left her in St. Dennis?” Vanessa asked as they walked toward the boat showroom.

“I’m thinking he’s taking another shot at Beck,” Mia said. “Leaving the body on your dad’s boat was just another way of making it personal.”

“My…?” Vanessa smiled. “Oh, Hal’s not my dad, he’s Beck’s. We had the same mother, different fathers.”

“I am so sorry.” Mia flushed with embarrassment. “I shouldn’t have assumed…”

“Hey, you’re not the first person who wasn’t aware we’re half-siblings. It’s okay. We’ve never referred to each other in terms of fractions.”

“I apologize, all the same. Someone just mentioned that Hal was Beck’s father…”

“I would love to have had him for a dad. I never really knew my own father. He and my mother split up before I was born.”

Vanessa stopped in mid-stride.

“They do walk alike, don’t they?” Vanessa nodded toward the parking lot. Hal was taking more orange cones from the back of a pick-up truck that had just pulled up and setting them around the end of the lot.

“They do. I’m surprised I didn’t figure it out.” Mia told her. “I’m usually pretty observant.”

“How would you know? Beck doesn’t call Hal, ‘Dad’ and they have different last names.” Vanessa smiled. “The funny thing is, they are so much alike in so many ways, and yet they didn’t even know about each other until Beck was…”

Vanessa slowed her pace. “If you didn’t know about their relationship, you probably haven’t heard the story.”

Mia shook her head, no.

“You could be the only person in St. Dennis who hasn’t. Hal was living here when it happened. He’d grown up here, came back after college and stayed. Maggie-she’s our mother-met Hal in Indiana, when he was playing minor league baseball. She was eighteen and he was in his early twenties, I think. Anyway, she met him when he came into her parent’s restaurant. She was engaged to someone else, but apparently that didn’t stop her and Hal from falling in love. Then the unthinkable happened.”

“She got pregnant.”

“Yeah, well, that, too. But before she even knew about that, Hal was drafted into the army and ended up in Vietnam. He didn’t know about Beck, and because her parents were having a hissy, they forced Maggie to marry the guy she was engaged to.”

“Did he know…?”

“About Beck? Yes. Said he didn’t care, he loved Maggie, wanted to marry her anyway, he’d treat Beck as if he were his own, yada yada.”

“I take it he didn’t?”

“He tried. But frankly, I think Maggie must have been miserable. Her brother-my Uncle Jack-told me that her husband really loved her but couldn’t make her happy. I guess she just couldn’t love him. They didn’t stay married long, less than a year. She took Beck and moved to Chicago and stayed with a cousin for a while, I don’t really know the whole story. Maggie doesn’t talk about that time in her life very often. She remarried-my father-when Beck was about twelve or thirteen. About a year later, she found out she was pregnant with me, but by that time, she’d left that husband, too. Beck was supposedly a real wild child, so she tracked Hal down and drove Beck to St. Dennis. The way I heard it, she walked right up to Hal’s door one night and rang the bell, and when Hal answered it, she said something like, ‘I can’t do a damned thing with him, so you’re going to have to take it from here.’”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that. Handed over Beck’s birth certificate and just walked away.”

“Wow. That’s hard to believe.”

“Not if you knew Maggie.” Vanessa watched Beck approach them, and she lowered her voice. “Frankly, I always thought he was the lucky one…”

Mia looked at her, a puzzled look on her face.

“She kept me.” Vanessa walked up the steps and opened the door to the showroom, leaving a stunned Mia to follow.

“I guess I should have expected it, but I really didn’t think he’d make his move so quickly.” Beck stood over the body, Viv Reilly on one side, Mia on the other. Rich Meyer stood on the dock, watching. He was fairly sure the body was that of his neighbor’s child, and did not want to be on the boat while evidence was being collected.