Chapter 5
5
Dead silence fell across the room until Drayton finally spoke up. “Excuse me, but is that thing even real?”
“I don’t know,” Theodosia said. If someone was playing a nasty trick on Jamie, it was about as welcome—and as out of place—as a rat perched on the edge of a punch bowl. “But I’m going to find out.”
“H-how?” Delaine gasped. She was practically speechless, no mean feat for the usually motormouthed Delaine.
“I’ll get an expert opinion,” Theodosia said. She picked up the tray and carried it out to the hallway. Looking to her right, she saw a nurses’ station at the end of the corridor and headed that way. When a gray-haired woman in blue scrubs and a name tag that said Margie Burnham, Rn glanced up from her computer and smiled, Theodosia said, “I need your help with something.”
“Sure,” the nurse said. “What’s up?”
Theodosia lifted the metal cover from the dish to reveal the skull. “Is this thing real?”
Unlike everyone else, the nurse gave the skull a cool, appraising look, then poked the jaw with an index finger. “It’s plastic,” she said as she turned toward Theodosia with a quizzical look. “Is this some kind of joke? Did that little twerp Ardie put you up to this?”
“It’s somebody’s idea of a joke all right, but not who you think. This skull was just now served up on a platter and delivered to our friend in room 427.”
Margie Burnham blinked as she consulted her computer screen. “The hand surgery patient admitted last night.”
“Right. Jamie Wilkes. It was on his meal tray.”
“You’re kidding.” The nurse almost smiled but didn’t quite. “That’s pretty goldarned weird.”
“My thoughts exactly. Do you by any chance have a bag I could put this in?”
“Sure. You’re going to take it with you?”
“That’s right.”
Margie Burnham dug under her desk and pulled out a blue plastic drawstring bag. It was the kind given to patients to hold their clothing and belongings.
“Thank you.” Theodosia dropped the skull into the bag and headed back to Jamie’s room. When she got there, she said, “It’s fake. Probably plastic. The kind of thing you buy in a trick shop.”
“You’re sure?” Delaine asked. She was jittering like an over-caffeinated Chihuahua and nibbling the ends of her French-tipped nails.
“I’m going to give this skull to Riley and see if his Crime Scene guys can pull prints off it,” Theodosia said. “Because this is just way too weird.”
“Who would do something like this?” Bettina quavered. “I mean, it’s absolutely sick.”
“Maybe somebody from the wedding party was trying to punk me,” Jamie said.
“Like they did yesterday?” Delaine snapped.
Jamie looked subdued. “I guess not,” he said, just as a janitor with a bucket and mop came into the room and said, “You need a cleanup?”
“Please,” Bettina said.
Theodosia crooked a finger at Drayton and said, “We need to talk.” When they were both out in the hallway, Theodosia said, “Let’s go down to the coffee shop, get something to eat, and put our heads together.”
“Do you think they’ll have tea?”
“Tea bags anyway,” Theodosia said.
“Then I’d best settle for a glass of orange juice.”
Drayton got his orange juice while Theodosia got a Diet Coke and a peanut butter cookie. They carried their trays to a table in the far corner of the clattery, semi-busy coffee shop, where they could talk undisturbed.
“So,” Drayton said, “what was that all about? How did the skull even get there?”
“I don’t know. But short of it being a Halloween prank, which I don’t think it was, that skull could be some sort of warning.”
“Warning about…?”
“Not sure. But someone seems very intent on targeting Jamie,” Theodosia said.
“After yesterday’s disaster, I figured they were after Bettina. You know, a jilted boyfriend…a jealous whomever,” Drayton said.
“That’s what I thought, too, but this kind of changes things. Somebody who’s clever enough to sneak into a hospital, find out what room Jamie’s in, and try to spook him with a skull—even though it’s plastic—well, maybe Jamie was the intended target. Probably still is.”
“Or yesterday’s intruder, who’s now attained killer status, was focused on both Bettina and Jamie.”
Theodosia thought for a few moments. “Both of them. That’s certainly possible.”
They batted around ideas for another ten minutes. Then Theodosia said, “I think we should go back upstairs and talk to Jamie. Quiz him about what’s been going on in his life. Has he had personal problems? Business issues? Has he ruffled someone’s feathers and made a possible enemy?”
But when they went back upstairs, Jamie’s eyes were closed and he was snoring softly. And Delaine and Bettina were nowhere to be found.
“Now what?” Drayton asked.
“We wake him up.”
“Do you think that’s wise?”
Theodosia was already standing at Jamie’s bedside, so she reached out and gave his shoulder a gentle shake.
Jamie’s eyes popped open and he said, “No.” Then Theodosia’s face swam into focus for him and he said, “Oh…hi.”
“Do you feel well enough to answer a few questions?” Theodosia asked.
Jamie wiggled his shoulders and pulled himself up in bed. “Not really, but I’ll try.”
Theodosia slid a chair up to his bedside while Drayton stood behind her. “I’ll try to keep this brief,” Theodosia said.
Jamie gingerly touched a finger to his nose splint. “Okay.”
“We think—that is, Drayton and I think—that somebody might be targeting you.”
Jamie’s eyes fluttered. “You mean somebody wants to kill me?” Now he looked scared.
“It’s possible,” Drayton said. “Have the Charleston Police talked to you about the greenhouse collapse?”
“Should they?” Jamie asked.
“Absolutely,” Theodosia said. “Or maybe Sheriff Ambourn has been in touch?”
“Nuh, no,” Jamie stammered. “Not yet anyway.”
“Well, law enforcement will for sure be asking you some very pointed questions,” Theodosia said. “But in the meantime, Drayton and I would like to do a little nosing around ourselves.” She stopped, drew breath, and said, “Jamie, do you have any enemies?”
Jamie gave her a startled look. “I don’t think so.”
“Anybody who might be angry at you?”
“Not really.”
“A rival at the brokerage firm where you work? Somebody from college?”
“Uh-uh.”
“Maybe someone with a personal vendetta?” Theodosia said, pressing him a little harder. “Someone who believes you may have wronged him in some way and has decided to retaliate?”
Jamie shook his head. “No, I…well…I don’t think so.”
“You were about to say something, what was it?” Theodosia asked.
“I thought about one guy. But, probably not,” Jamie said.
“May we inquire as to who this person might be?” Drayton asked.
“You wouldn’t know him,” Jamie said, shaking his head.
Drayton offered a mild smile. “Try me.”
Jamie hemmed and hawed for a while, then finally blurted out, “I know for a fact that Martin Hunt is super mad at me.”
“Martin Hunt,” Theodosia said. “Why do I know that name?”
Jamie swallowed hard and said, “He owns…”
“Hunt and Peck,” Drayton said, filling in the blanks. “That upscale men’s clothing store over on King Street that caters to the polo and yachting crowd.”
“Got it,” Theodosia said. She stared at Jamie. “Okay, can you think of any reason why this Martin Hunt fellow might want to kill you?”
“You know I’m a licensed broker now…” Jamie licked his lips before he continued. “Well, Hunt was one of my very first customers at Hamilton and McLaughlin.”
“And there was a problem?” Theodosia asked.
“You could say that,” Jamie said.
“Can you tell us what happened?”
“Hunt likes to think of himself as a high roller,” Jamie said. “So he came to me one day looking for a super quick way to double his money.”
“Oops,” Drayton said.
“Right, there is no quick way,” Jamie said. “And I told Hunt exactly that. And then he blew me off and said he really needed a fast payoff and wanted to invest in leveraged ETFs and crypto. I told him there was too much risk involved, but Hunt said he wanted to go ahead and roll the dice anyway.”
“So you rolled the dice,” Theodosia said. “And Hunt lost his shirt.”
“Most of his investment, anyway,” Jamie said. “I warned Hunt these were high-risk investments, but he wouldn’t listen. Didn’t listen. He believed he could double his money, but most of it went south.”
“And after this happened, Martin Hunt actually threatened you?” Theodosia asked.
“Yeah.”
“How so?”
“Physically, verbally, any way he could. And believe me, he meant it,” Jamie said. “You don’t know this, but Martin Hunt was a Golden Gloves champion in Alabama, in the Southeast Golden Gloves. This was right after he graduated from Auburn. Fought in the superheavyweight division and won a diamond belt. Hunt still works out at Greebe’s Gym over on Laurens Street. He boxes, lifts weights, does Nautilus, and supposedly has a Peloton bike in the back of his store. For all I know he does the whole ’roid thing, too. I mean, Hunt is super hard-core.”
“So Hunt actually harmed you physically?” Drayton asked.
“He gave me a black eye once,” Jamie said. “Does that count?”
Theodosia pursed her lips. “I’d say that definitely counts.”