Terror Flower (River Sunday Romance Mysteries Book 5) Read online

  The meeting adjourned to a book signing. The people lined up to get a copy of the Bell and to have it signed. The author engaged in small talk with her readers as she sat at a small table near the side of the room, penning her signature.

  Tench was anxious to get back to his garage. The African saw him look at his watch. She stood up and walked toward Tench and his aunt.

  As she approached, the Mayor rose. She smoothed her blouse and summer slacks and said, “I’m Mayor Smart. This is Jim Tench my assistant.” Tench took his turn shaking the African’s hand. She had rough hands and a strong grip.

  “Interesting talk,” went on the Mayor, in what Tench knew as her most pleasant voice. “I look forward to reading your book.”

  “I hope you like it. Mister Tench, what did you think?” Owerri asked. Tench didn’t say anything.

  “My nephew is not much on books,” interpreted the Mayor.

  Owerri said, her voice perfectly gracious and statesmanlike. “I have had many students, young boys, in my classes. Few liked books.” She laughed, moving closer to the Mayor. “Oh, yes,” she nodded, “I taught in my country for many years. I came back after studying English literature in England. After my family died everything of course changed. Because of the danger I went into hiding. None of our American friends including Mister Strake could help. After some time I fled back to England where I began writing.”

  Tench offered, “I remember Marengo up at the Strake farm talking about a house with red turrets,” said Tench.

  “Marengo is an old friend and the reason I am staying at the Island. He prevailed upon Mister Strake to invite me to stay.”

  “I would think you’d have something against oil men like Strake, from listening to your talk,” said Tench.

  “No, William Strake and his family remained close to mine when they worked in Africa, although they did not agree on oil policy. Marengo worked for Mister Strake so the government did not bother him.”

  Tench wondered what she thought of Stagmatter, but he didn’t ask. Instead, he said, “Marengo used to tell me he and Mister Strake went to trade for oil leases with the African chief who owned land near that big house. As I remember the story, they didn’t have much luck.”

  “Bill Strake never mentioned that part of his history to me,” interrupted the Mayor, anxious to get back into the conversation. Tench knew her expression, a sag in her face, an embarrassment others knew more than she did.

  Tench said, “Marengo and Mister Strake, they'd come out on the porch where Julie and I were sitting in the evening. They’d tell us stories about Africa and hunting for oil.”

  Doctor Owerri seemed to look past Tench, her eyes glazed for a moment. “Yes,” she said, “That chief they referred to was my father.”

  Tench said, “Well, anyway, Marengo also helped Mister Strake hunt for old cars for his collection. They would go out to the plantations once owned by the Europeans and look in barns where the cars had been abandoned by their former owners.”

  She looked away, back at her pile of books waiting to be signed in the front of the room. Just as she turned away, Tench saw three small vertical scars cut into the side of her forehead, half hidden under her hair. He thought that they might be the same as the ones on Marengo. Noticing his gaze, she quickly turned back to the Mayor and said, “I intend to testify about my book at the United Nations Africa Committee meeting in a few days here in River Sunday.”

  “No one has ever testified before that little group here in River Sunday,” said the Mayor, surprised. “They meet here for a short conference and then they enjoy going fishing, like a little vacation. Lots of Washington politicians come here for the same purpose.”

  For small government meetings, many conferences had been held in River Sunday without media coverage. The attendees, mostly from nearby Washington, liked the side benefits. Besides the good fishing in the local rivers and the golf courses nearby, the Mayor had a working girlfriend in the business outside Annapolis. She could provide on short notice a limousine full of young women or young men or both suitable for a late night party at the hotel. The limo would arrive at the back door well after dark and leave before the town woke up in the morning. Whether Satter and the Mayor had a side bet on this arrangement Tench didn’t know. The sheriff liked more money coming into the town, especially to a tavern he owned. Tench figured he got his share by casually stopping the limo on its way out of town out on the highway.

  “My publisher found out their schedule and thought it would be important to testify to them.”

  “Why testify here? Why not in New York?” Tench asked Doctor Owerri.

  She said, too quickly Tench thought, “The slave monument in the harbor, of course. It’s world renowned. My publisher thinks the press will pay more attention to me and my book if I speak here where the slavery monument is located.” This answer played well to the Mayor. His aunt smiled with the reference to the town’s biggest tourist attraction.

  “Your publisher has also notified the reporters I guess?” asked the Mayor.

  She smiled, a little concerned. “They will be notified,” she said quickly and then turned to her table of books. “Well, I guess I have about an hour to go.”

  One of the audience came up and began to tug on the writer’s arm, saying, “Could you sign my copy, Doctor Owerri?”

  The tall African woman nodded at the Mayor and took this opportunity to move back to her book table. The librarian waited with several people holding up their books to be autographed.

  “Satter will want to know about her talking to the United Nations and all the press she is arranging,” said the Mayor, jotting furiously in her notebook and walking quickly to the door.

  “Yeah,” said Tench. “I expect every crazy in Maryland will come here to demonstrate for and against her.”

  She scribbled in her notebook. “It’s going to be wonderful for the town. All the publicity. For sure there won’t be any trouble. Nothing has happened in River Sunday since the civil rights riots before you or I lived here.”

  “You better tell Satter.”

  She looked at him, not smiling. “Yes, I will.”

  Others from the audience walked out of the library behind Tench. Some stood in small groups discussing the meeting. One man, attending with a photographer, came from a black owned newspaper in Baltimore and had been taking copious notes during the testimony.

  When Doctor Owerri came out the door still talking with one of the reading group, this reporter approached her.

  “Dr. Owerri,” he asked, “Have you ever met the ‘Serpent?’” He pronounced it “sir-pont” with exaggerated French elucidation.

  She looked at him without any expression. “No one has ever seen him,” the reporter continued, “but he’s supposed to be the worst terrorist in your country.”

  “I don’t know anything about the Snake,” she answered. She began walking away toward the station wagon Tench recognized as from Strake’s farm. She continued to speak over her shoulder, and said, “As you may know, I am no longer welcome in my country. All I know about the Snake, as you call him, is what I read in the press.”

  The reporter continued, “He seems to have disappeared three years ago. Your government continues to say it is closing in on the Snake’s hideout. He has been accused of being the mastermind behind many of the attacks on various governments in African countries with oil. He blew up the hotel and killed the new president of one of them the day after the man took office.”

  A station wagon with the logo of the Strake farm on its doors pulled up. “I suspect,” she said, walking toward it, “He will never be taken alive. He is African. He will be caught when he wants to be and only then, and he will die when he must. He will not be taken by any such governments for they are all illegal and set up by the world elite.” She walked faster to the curb. The door to the car opened and she got in. Three of the African mechanics from the yacht sat in the car. One of them screeched the car away from the crowd and it moved into the t
raffic filled street.

  “Do you think the Serpent is planning terror attacks in Europe?” the reporter relentlessly called after the car.

  The sheriff’s cruiser pulled into the space left by the station wagon. Satter got out and walked quickly up to the Mayor.

  She said, “She’s going to talk about her book to the little United Nations committee this Friday.”

  He said, “I just got word on that from my friends in Baltimore. The word is some people might come down here to demonstrate about the United Nations. I don’t like it, Betty. This town’s too small for international politics.”

  “Will the UN meeting be cancelled?” she asked.

  “That would cause more negative publicity. Apparently this publishing company of hers is pretty powerful.”

  “We’ll handle it,” she said. “After all, it might bring in a company or two to think about the industrial park.”

  “Not if it turns out to be a street riot.”

  “Well, Sheriff,” she said firmly, “You just make sure we don’t have any problems.”

  Chapter Four

  9 AM, Tuesday August 17

  Tench stood with the other mourners among the sweet and sour perfumes of magnolia trees, loblolly pines and raw earth near the fresh dug grave. Subdued by the haze of the hot morning sun, the River Sunday cemetery divided down its center with a narrow entry through large iron gates. Three rusted Napoleon twelve pounder tubes captured from Confederate emplacements at the Wilderness stood picket. The Confederate dead mustered in a section of the graveyard at a right angle of the guns behind a scrolled iron fence overgrown with vines and wisteria. Behind the symbolic protection of the cannon rested the moss covered plots of Union soldiers and people of color.

  He heard the roaring exhaust sound, then saw the car, long and shiny with chrome exhausts coming from the hood. Strake’s antique roadster. The bright pipes passed under the side mounted spare tires and sparkled in the sunlight. The 1932 Mercedes roadster pulled to the side of the road. Strake, on one of his rare visits to River Sunday, had come to pay his respects to Captain Bob.

  The excited chatter took on murmurs of disappointment as the crowd recognized Stagmatter driving the car and Strake absent. Strake’s car curator and chief mechanic turned off the big engine, which continued to pre-ignite for a few revolutions, then sputtered and grew silent. The car sat high on its bright chrome wire wheels. Stagmatter clambered down to the grass. The curator stood large, and like his car, exuded brutish power.

  In the past, this man’s handshake had overpowered the few outstretched hands of friendship proffered him. Stories often passed around about him, and comments too, such as, “Here comes Stagmatter in his German staff car.” Of course, because of his size, no one dared insult him to his face. People had become used to his presence, however, and most assumed Strake had hired Stagmatter, not because the man had personality but because of his expertise on classic vehicles. Therefore, the town’s citizens, with their rural pragmatism, accepted Stagmatter and put up with his rude demeanor.

  Stagmatter strode forward, the people pulling back to give him room, and whispering as he passed. His head, promoting its oiled back yellow brown hair, was higher than the tallest local men. Stagmatter’s impassive face with its square stolid features and half closed eyes displayed no emotion.

  Tench looked around. All the men and women who worked the water near River Sunday had come. They stood respectfully, near the new grave, fresh from work and dressed in their boat overalls. The ones who had crabbed or oystered the tidewater with Captain Bob treated the occasion with such dignity that they even brought their wives and children. The young, eyes wide with the concept of death, held on to their mothers in their fear.

  Tench studied Stagmatter who stood opposite him on the other side of the flower covered casket. Stagmatter, while not appearing particularly malevolent, did have a certain look of boredom that permeated his efforts at sorrow. Tench sensed he attended here under orders from Strake.

  The crowd included an equal number of white as well as black mourners, well representative of Captain Bob’s popularity among all the local citizens. The whites, for the most part, stood back a little from the site, while the people of color congregated closest to the proceedings. Smote, his handsome face shifting back and forth from angry glare to tearful sadness, stood next to the preacher. He’d glance from time to time at Tench, portraying his sorrow. Beside him his rotund wife dressed in her only black outfit, the one she wore when she worked as a cocktail waitress at Lulu’s Motorboat Lounge. Her hands rested on the shoulders of their two little girls, who dressed in white church outfits with black bows around tiny waists.

  Tench’s aunt did not come. If she goes to one funeral, the Mayor often told him, she’d have to go to all of them. The sheriff did not attend either. One day, he got all of Tench’s garage staff laughing, even Beets, who happened to have a perpetually sick wife, and who never smiled. He said with his drawl that he didn’t attend funerals because he saw enough dead people at work. As a matter of fact, only one of the county commissioners came, an overweight white balding man up for election, red faced and standing in his own sweat. The politician nodded to Tench as he looked around at prospective black voters.

  The crowd recited with Pastor Allingham the simple prayers and songs of death. Tench had forgotten these verses he had known so well when he attended a Catholic church in Baltimore with his family. He listened to the others near him and tried to follow with his lips the religious words. Afterward the Pastor, a short black man with a mustache and white hair, began his talk. True to the storytelling talents of good preachers, he started with a story about the Captain.

  “The man we know as Captain Bob, born Mattapeake Lincoln, did watchman duty for me. He’d sit on his porch at his house a few doors away from the church and he’d make sure no one hurt our church.

  “One time he taught me a lesson about being a Christian. A stranger had come to our church, had walked inside on a hot day and then left without anyone noticing his presence. No one except Captain Bob. The man had helped himself to our poor box mounted on the wall just inside the door. He had put several bills and some change in his pants pocket and then had walked quickly away, his head down as if trying to hide his sin.

  “Well, the Captain followed the man. All the time, he told me he had to think of what to do when he caught up with the thief. Captain Bob intended to beat the man, to take back the money and to turn him over to the police. Then he decided to ask him why he stole the money. He thought that the man might be in need and he should consider carefully his punishment of the thief.

  “By and by he caught up to him at the town pier preparing to get on a bicycle the man had stashed along the side of the road. Captain Bob stood in front of the bike and held the handlebars so he could not flee. He asked him why he had stolen the money. At first the man denied doing so, but as the Captain restrained him from getting away, he finally admitted his guilt. He said he had not eaten in three days.

  “The captain came to me with this story and asked me what he should have done. I said, ‘Captain, I hope you gave the money to the man.’ He said he had finally done so. Then he gave me the same amount to put back into the poor box.

  “I tell you this story because this man of our family knew that Jesus wanted us to reach out to others. He taught me that when he came back to the church to repay the man’s theft with his own money. I can assure you the door to our church has never been locked since.

  “He did the work of the followers of Jesus. He worked as a fisherman like many of our family, taking food from the water. The water also gave him peace and kindness. He had a certain humanity Jesus tried to give to all of us, a true sense of home and its people.

  “On the other hand, he was never afraid to take action. He’d see something wrong and he’d look into it. He wasn’t afraid to step up and meddle in affairs about which many of us would never bother ourselves, things which we should have done if we had loved th
is place as much as he.”

  The Pastor looked out at them, “Bob felt love about his home, about River Sunday, about all of us. My brothers and sisters, he knew life is all about home. We defend our home and we fight for it. We have two homes, our home on earth and our home in heaven. Some like Bob are luckier than others and will have both. Others have lost their home on earth and seek to take from others. Men like Captain Bob defend us so we can keep what home we have, yet have charity for just causes, and today we thank him.

  “Captain Bob did what we all strive to do. This man lived as a private soldier, the old time kind of warrior, independent of rank and glory.”

  Tench’s mind drifted to the evening before the old man’s death when he and Smote had dinner with Captain Bob at his house, his home.

  “Como está. Glad you could come,” Smote said, handing Tench an opened longneck. “Maybe you and the Captain could talk while I get some more beers.” He said this with a wink at Tench.

  Smote even then worried about the old man’s safety. The old man had fished the Strake farm shoreline all his life. He did not break the habit. Several times over the past two months he had been warned to stay further offshore by guards patrolling the shoreline, keeping all boats far offshore. Once he came home with bruises on his arms and a swollen left eye, as well as a smashed window port on the side of his boat cabin.

  Abraham, the old man's Chesapeake dog, sat panting on the side of the lawn, amid a collection of waterlogged sticks he liked to fetch. The harbor had become so quiet that the splashes of small perch surfacing among the edge of the mudflat reeds reverberated. Tench had turned quickly at each splash, as if he worried about an enemy lurking out on the water, someone or something intending harm to this old waterman.