Wilmington, NC 04 - Murder At Wrightsville Beach

would feel if I lost Melanie. And I'd been raised to be courteous, to show respect for the bereaved. "Look, Mickey, I'm really sorry about Devin. What are the police saying ? Was it a drowning?" Or foul play, I wanted to ask.
    "I don't talk to the police," he said with an attitude and stalked around the table while holding the cue stick upright like a lance. "That's what I got a lawyer for."
    Spunky appeared from out of nowhere and jumped up on the pool table. "Scat!" Mickey hollered. "Be glad to be done with that cat," he growled.
    But Spunky merely settled himself on the rim of the table and began to lick a white paw with intense concentration.
    Picking up the thread of our conversation, Mickey continued, "The police talk to me through my lawyer. They said I shouldn't leave town, can you believe that? Not attend my own brother's funeral? Not be with my family at a time like this? My lawyer straightened them out but fast."
    "Do you have any idea when they'll release the body?" I asked.
    "Who knows? They're bringing in some hotshot investigator from the State Bureau. But as soon as they're through, my little brother will be on a train for home. My folks are taking this hard."
    "I'm sure they need you. You ought to go to them," I said. And if an SBI agent had been called in, the police here must think it's a homicide, I realized.
    "Yeah, but I can't go up there right now. Got business here I got to attend to."
    "Uh huh," I said. Bet you do, I thought, as I moved to the refrigerator and poured myself a glass of iced tea. I returned to the pool table because I was curious. "Have the water pipes been fixed at your club?"
    Mickey regarded me with narrowed eyes. "What? Oh, yeah, sure. They're fixed." He turned his back on me.
    "This has to be hard on your parents," I said gently. "And you. If there's anything I can do, please just tell me."
    Propping the cue stick against the table, he turned around and glared at me. If looks could kill! "Drop the phony-baloney, Ashley. I know what you think of me."
    "Don't take this out on me, Mickey. It's not my fault that Devin drowned!" But wasn't it? If I had called the police when the men had intruded into my room, wouldn't they have intercepted them running down the beach? Wouldn't Devin be alive today?
    I defended myself with, "This isn't about only you, Mickey. There's your family to think of. And Melanie. She's worried about you."
    "Okay, since you're so nosy, this is what my lawyer says. Devin's death was no accident. They think he fell or was pushed off that pier. There was a blow to the head that didn't come from striking a pile. They can tell those things. But he did fall. And he did have water in his lungs -- ocean water."
    Picking up the stick, he turned back to the table. "Devin had more sense than to go out on that pier. My mother didn't raise no stupid babies. Place looks like a good stiff wind would blow it in the ocean. But he would have gone out on a boat with someone. The wrong person."
    "Have you talked to his friend?" I asked.
    "What friend?"
    "The civilian contractor from Lejeune. His friend. They spent time together."
    "I don't know who you're talking about. Devin had no friend here."
    "But he did. He told me. And Kelly saw him go off with this guy. A military type. Drove a Marine Humvee."
    Mickey shook his head like I was hallucinating. "I'll tell you one thing, Ashley. Dev had the hots for you." He swept a critical gaze over my work clothes -- a faded denim shirt, my khaki shorts, the pockets loaded with small tools. I was dusty and sweaty.
    "Can't imagine why," Mickey continued and managed a mirthless chuckle. "But you wouldn't give him the time of day. Too stuck up."
    "I'm married, Mickey, in case you've forgotten."
    He seemed to ignore me then. Resumed his game as Spunky watched from his perch on the rim of the table, his head swinging back and forth to follow the action. Every time a billiard ball came rolling his way, he reached out to swat at it.
    I was growing angrier by the minute.
    "Take Melanie," Mickey said. "Now there's one beautiful dish. And Kelly too. They know how to look and act like women."
    He stood his pool stick on the floor. "You know, you wouldn't be so bad if you'd put on some girly clothes."
    I felt my temper flare and realized it had been close to the boiling point a lot recently. "Let's switch the subject back to where it belongs, Mickey, to your dead brother, not my clothes! Devin came on too strong. I'm married and very much in love