Chapter 23 #2
Ewan shook his head. “I’m on my way back. Put him in a cell and round up the rest of them.”
“Aye, sir.”
He hung up.
“I know John. He seemed like such a nice young man,” I said. He’d sprained his wrist during a rugby game, and I taped him up.
“He is a good lad. His dad took off a few months ago and hasn’t come back, leaving his mum and him to run the farm and store.”
“That’s a lot of responsibility for a kid who is going to be a sophomore in high school.”
“Aye, which is why he is most likely acting out. And this is the last thing his poor mum needs. But we have to teach him, and the others, a lesson. Some time in a jail might do them a bit of good.”
“We call that scaring them straight in America, and you might be right.”
“Kids get bored and do stupid things. But I’ll not allow this sort of thing in my town.”
He had such a sense of pride about Sea Isle, and it was one of the many things I admired about him.
“I don’t blame you. One of the big draws when I came here was that there was so little crime. Though, that was before I found out you’d appointed a special role for me to investigate deaths.”
“It was in the fine print.” He said that every time I complained, and I could finally laugh about it.
“Why did you let me believe you had coroners in Scotland for so long?”
“It is a position I’ve always believed we’ve needed. It’s one of the things the English do right. And thanks to our town laws that give me the right to appoint people to necessary positions, I decided it was time. And let’s not forget, you are good at it.”
Heat spread across my cheeks. “Thanks,” I said. “I swore I would never admit this, but I do enjoy the investigative side of things and not just because I’m a fan of all the mystery series. I’ve always liked puzzles. And the one we’re trying to figure out now is a doozy.”
He chuckled. “I’m not sure I’ve ever heard that word.”
I shrugged. “I don’t use it much, but it is appropriate. I’m certain the murderer is someone close to Jacks. And I understand that most of those people have alibis. But those can be faked. My gut says it is someone who saw him every day.”
“You maybe be right, but …”
“We need evidence to prove it. I know. You always want proof.”
He laughed. “It is how we work in law enforcement.”
“Right, but it’s also annoying. Oh, did your accountant figure out where the stash of cash came from that we found? And did you find any more? I meant to ask that a few days ago. I need to write everything down in my notebook so I can keep track.”
“Aye, we found more in a box in his closet. It was about forty thousand pounds.”
“Wow. I still wonder if he was getting ready to make a run for it.”
“We may never know. His passport is current, though.”
“So, we focus on those who were closest to him. The business partner who was out of town. The assistant who was at a hen party. And maybe the sister who swears she hasn’t seen him in a year, but we have no proof of that.”
“Yes, and those he worked with closely on the train and invited to his home. There are three men who were on his team working to refurbish the interior of the station and the train.”
“I talked to a couple of them the other day,” I said.
Ewan took his eyes of the road for a second and gave me a look.
“Don’t get mad. Mara gave me the list, and I knew they were working as volunteer storytellers as well.
I just asked a few questions. You and Henry probably did the same.
None of the three, though, remembered seeing him that night.
I mean, they could be lying. But that was what they told me.
They were honest about how Jacks could be annoying at times, but he was usually right.
They seemed to appreciate his attention to detail. ”
“Aye, we came to the same conclusions. And while they did have access to his home, they never went to his office, where we found the majority of the tainted lip balms.”
“Hmmm. I hope we catch a break soon.”
“Agreed,” he said.
After dropping me off at the clinic, Ewan said he was heading out to the station to deal with the troubled youth.
I’d no more walked through the door and put my bag in the living room, when the doorbell buzzed.
I glanced at my phone, to see two large men with a third hanging on their shoulders. Abigail walked up behind them.
I quickly opened the door. “What happened?”
“I’m working the med tent at the games,” Abigail said. “I’m fairly certain Carson has fractured his clavicle.”
“Dinnae what that is,” the injured man said. Around his lips had turned white, and it was obvious by the bone poking out that he had to be in terrible pain. “But I’ll be fine after a pint or two.”
Abigail shook her head. “Alcohol is not going to help your injury.”
“Says you.”
“Right, let’s get him back to the lab for an X-ray and we’ll take it from there.”
Abigail motioned for them to follow her.
“Don’t you need to get back to the med tent?” I asked. “I can handle this.” While I wasn’t as fast or as knowledgeable as Abigail, I knew how to run the X-ray machine.
“I put a note out to bring anyone in need down here. And Henry is there to direct people or set up a ride until I get back.”
“OK.” I was grateful for the help.
Once we had him on the table in the back, I sent his friends away. Abigail helped him out of his shirt, which wasn’t easy given his injury.
“What were you doing when you hurt yourself?” I asked. I gently touched the area, and he winced.
“Caber toss,” he said.
I had no idea what that was. I glanced up at Abigail.
“They throw a full-sized log to see how far it will go.”
“It is my best event,” he said proudly. “But I lost my grip, din’I? Slipped, and fell back with the full weight of the log on my shoulder and neck.”
From the contusions already forming in the area, that was easy to see.
“Abigail was right to bring you here. With bruising like this already forming there could be some serious damage.”
“No, I’ve done worse to myself. I’ll be fine.”
“Well, you’re here. I need you to lie still for a bit while Abigail takes some pictures.”
Twenty minutes later, we had our answer. It was a serious break and needed treatment.
“Sling?” she asked.
“It’s centralized, so let’s do a figure-eight splint. I think we have a few in storage. Hopefully, one of them will be large enough to fit him.”
By the time we finished working him into the sling and explaining that he needed to wear it all the time, it was early afternoon. His friends agreed to keep an eye on him, as he wanted to watch the rest of the games.
“You do not participate, agreed?” I asked.
He nodded.
I prayed he’d do the smart thing and sit out the rest of the day. If nothing else, the pain should keep him at bay. He didn’t want a prescription and promised it didn’t hurt that bad. I had a feeling he was just being a tough guy in front of his friends.
“I need to get back to the tent,” Abigail said.
“It’s nearly time for my shift, I’ll go.”
“It’s OK. Tommy is watching the games with Henry. I’ve got this.”
“Then you can join them. Besides, I’ve seen them practicing and treated a few injuries, but I never had a chance to see the real thing.”
I grabbed my medical bag just in case, and we took one of the shuttles that had been provided up the mountain. The games were taking place behind the old church in the center of town.
After dumping my bag inside the tent that had been set up for medical at the end of the field, I walked back outside to watch the games. They were in the middle of the hammer throw. I only knew that because I enjoyed watching the summer Olympics and that had been one of the events.
The men were huge, and it was amazing to see such feats of power and strength. I couldn’t imagine even picking up the tool they used, and they tossed it so far.
While the patient we treated waited on the sidelines, his friends were warming up for the event. Just behind them I noticed Catherine Allan, the dead man’s executive assistant, sitting with Davina.
They were flirting with the men who were warming up.
“Well, that didn’t take long.”
“What’s that?” Ewan asked from beside me.
I may have laughed nervously.
“Do you have ninja powers? How do you always sneak up on me like that?”
“I wasn’t sneaking,” he said gruffly. “You were the one who wasn’t paying attention to your surroundings. We’ve talked about this: when you’re on a case, you always need to stay aware of everything going on around you.”
He wasn’t wrong, but I wasn’t about to tell him that.
“You could also announce yourself,” I said, bristling slightly. But I couldn’t help but smile. “Is there something you needed?”
“No. I was curious who you were looking at,” he said. Then he followed my line of vision.
“Were we aware they knew one another?” I asked.
“No,” he said suspiciously.
They were laughing and, as broken-hearted as Davina had seemed at Jasper’s shop, she was definitely over it.
“Neither of them seems particularly sad given what they’ve been through in the last week. I mean, I’m all about finding joy where you can, but something about this doesn’t fit right. Do you think they murdered Jacks together?”
He chuckled. “You are more suspicious than I am, which is saying something. They are single lasses who are having fun at the games. Where is an inkling of proof?”
“Oh, come now. You are just as suspicious of them as I am.”
“Only that they seem to know one another and that hasn’t come up in any of the conversations we’ve had with them. But that doesn’t make either of them guilty. Also, which one is the criminal mastermind who thought to put bee venom in a lip balm? And what would be the motive?”
“I feel like you just made a jab at their intelligence, but you make some good points. When you think about it, though, no one in his inner circle seems to be the type who would do something like that. Far be it from me to say they aren’t intelligent enough, but the killer had done their research. Which reminds me of something.”
“What’s that?”
“Well we know that the lip balm was clean when Kiara sold it. And we know it had to be someone in close proximity.”
“Right.”
“But who is to say it is just one person? It could be that a couple of his disgruntled clients could have banded together.”
“We had this convo in the car,” he said.
“I know. I’m just working things out in my head, and I need to say it out loud. It is part of my process.”
“OK. We’ve gone over those lists, though,” he said. “All of the clients either had an alibi or hadn’t seen him in months. And again, access is the biggest part of this puzzle.”
“I agree. We keep coming back to those he worked with, and it always seems to be them. But they have alibis. All of them, except the mistress. She was actually at the train station, but she most likely wouldn’t have had access to his lip balms.”
He was quiet, and I glanced up at him. He stared at the flirting women, but then nodded.
“You’re right,” I said. “I know we need proof, but I’ve been thinking about scenarios. What if he bought his supply of lip balms and then went to work on the train. And maybe they were just sitting out.”
“And someone was ready and waiting with bee venom?” he asked.
“Well, when you say it like that, it seems dumb. But maybe. They were waiting for the right time to present itself. Maybe, they weren’t even thinking the lip balms. Maybe, they were just going to inject it directly into him, but went with plan B.”
“Your imagination is in overdrive.”
I shrugged. “He lost people’s money. To me, that is the number one motive. What if one of his clients paid the executive assistant, or the lover of the partner to put that bee venom into the lip balm?”
“That’s a bit of a reach. I dinnae think that is the way it happened, but I will have Henry grab their bank statements to look for any large deposits.”
“What are you two talking about?” Mara asked as she walked up. She glanced over her shoulder to see who we were looking at. “Oh. They had breakfast together in the pub this morning,” she said.
“They did?” Ewan and I said at the same time.
“Aye. Seemed to be quite friendly and cheerful. I thought it was strange since the girlfriend was so upset the other day at Jasper’s.”
“Did it seem like they’d known each other a long time?”
She pursed her lips. “That I couldn’t say. But they had definitely planned to meet up at the pub. I’d just come down to help out with the morning rush, when the girlfriend walked in, and then Catherine waved her over.”
“That’s interesting,” Ewan said.
“Maybe even more so the guest who joined the both of them.”
“And who was that?”
“The victim’s sister, Kaitlyn Jacks. I overheard her talking about her brother. And she’s been into the pub more than once.”
Ewan and I glanced at one another.
That was very interesting.