Chapter 13
“I agree. We need to be smart about this case,” I said as Dane gave me a quick pat.
It seemed we were so close to learning what actually happened to Drake. We just needed to find the missing piece.
Or figure out who broke into my room.
Or learn the identity of the person who got the job at Boone Hall after William’s death.
Okay, fine. We were missing a few pieces of the puzzle.
Ugh, why was solving a murder so difficult?
What we needed was a dirty cop to give us all the insider information for the case. I’d even take a talkative medical examiner. Cases were easier to follow when the cops had already proven someone’s guilt by laying out all the parts.
“I have a meeting with that local reporter this afternoon.” After watching the video from Lonny, I saw why the police could so easily call William’s death a suicide. I was sure they’d seen the video. But it put a lot of kinks into my theory. “I need to rethink all my questions now.”
“Let me know if you need anything,” he said as I grabbed my blue notebook from my purse.
I slid the pen from the spirals and stuck the end between my lips.
“Remember, we’re being safe. Right?”
I nodded. “Oh, definitely. Yes.”
Unless something happened, and I had the chance to solve the case by being a little reckless. Then… we’d see how it went.
“I don’t like that look on your face,” Dane said, twisting his body on the couch to face me head-on.
Oh, sweet summer child. I patted his leg, and Dane inched closer. The move put him within sniffing distance, and I sucked in a deep breath of his woodsy smell. It went right to my core and sent my toes curling.
Shit.
I had to get away from Dane. Right away.
For my sanity.
I flew off the couch. “I do better thinking while walking.”
“We all have our methods,” Dane said with a smirk, like he knew I’d lied.
* * *
A few hours later, I pulled my notebook from my purse before taking a seat at the outdoor table. I’d scribbled out most of my original questions to make room for a new line of questioning. Local reporters were a great way to get the inside beat of a case. They also loved to hear themselves talk.
My fingers curled around an iced coffee as the waitress set it at the table. The heat of Charleston’s midday sun pressed against me. Why was it still so hot in October?
“Do you think he’s late?” Dane said, scanning the restaurant. There weren’t many people at the tables, which meant we’d have seen the reporter if he’d walked in.
I scanned the news station’s website, looking for a reminder of what our guy looked like. “No, he’ll be here.”
Mason knew we were here to learn about William’s death with the possibility of highlighting his case for the podcast. If the case ran, we’d use him as an expert reference. Reporters loved that sort of thing. He wouldn’t give up the chance.
“There he is,” I said as I spotted him walking into the café.
In black pressed dress pants and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, he was a classic off-duty reporter.
Mason Townsend loved reporting on city politics, emergencies, murder, and the occasional conspiracy theory.
He had a small but growing cult following online. It made him the perfect contact person.
He scanned the restaurant rather than ask at the hostess stand. When his gaze reached our area, I raised my hand and waved.
“Miss Richardston?” he asked as he reached our table.
Dane and I stood. “That’s me. Thank you for meeting with me.”
Mason pulled out his chair and sat down in one fluid motion. There’s no way he hadn’t practiced that move. I glanced at Dane, who looked like he was trying to hold back a laugh.
Good to see we agreed on the ridiculousness of it.
“You said you had questions about William Drake’s death.” Overhead, a bird cawed. Mason looked up as if annoyed by the interruption of the local wildlife.
“Yes.” I nodded and opened my notebook after Dane and I sat with way less flair. “You covered his death on the USS Yorktown. There is a story that some locals say he was haunted to death.”
“I did. The report has over fifty thousand views on YouTube. People eat up ghost content.” He kept his eyes on Dane as he spoke. “They love anything unexplained and a bit intense. William’s death checked all the boxes.”
I scribbled a note in my notebook and moved on to my first question. “Did you report on the autopsy after they released it?”
His eyebrows ticked up. “You don’t waste time.”
He was observant.
“I’m not here to gossip,” I said, lifting the iced coffee to my lips. “We want the cold-hard facts and so do our listeners.”
He scratched his cheek and settled into his seat as he considered us. “We did not do a full segment after the autopsy results.”
“Why not?”
Mason shrugged. “You’re in the business. You know how it is. A few weeks after William died a bigger sensation happened. A former stripper hired a hitman to kill her millionaire husband. It had everyone wrapped up. They’re going to trial soon.”
“Really?” I made myself a note to look into that for a future segment. We could cover the trial.
“Plus,” he continued, “regular viewers don’t want the nitty-gritty of a death, and how do you explain William’s? The official cause from the coroner was suicide. By drowning.”
I lifted my head from my notebook. “But there was no water in his lungs.”
“Exactly,” he said and paused while I sipped my coffee. “No one wants the heat of exposing corruption in the local government.”
Was he admitting? Local corruption? I made another note.
“Did you read the full report?” he asked.
I pulled it up on my phone. “Yeah.”
“They found dexamethasone in his bloodstream. High levels.”
“Yeah.” I remembered reading that. I’d looked it up because I wasn’t sure what it was. “It’s just an antihistamine.” William died in April, at the height of allergy season.
He grunted. “Google the side effects.”
The police didn’t find it suspicious. But they also didn’t question the oddness that he had no water in his lungs but died by drowning.
“Did the police have any suspects, or did they always consider it suicide?”
Mason took a sip of his water before answering. “They treated it like a suicide from the beginning of the investigation. Hell, I can’t guarantee they even did a formal investigation.”
“Why not?” Small-town police stations had a history of messing up murder investigations. Charleston wasn’t small. But while bigger cities had more resources, they also had more cases.
“His friends said he’d been acting strangely for weeks. He’d been keeping secrets, and he even missed a few shifts at the tour company. There’s a video of him on the ship that night. Strange shit,” he said and leaned toward the table. “He was talking to ghosts.”
“Yeah, we saw it.” So far, Mason hadn’t given me anything new. It was frustrating. “You didn’t update the case when the video came out?”
I’d researched this case for a week before coming to Savannah. If that had made it online, I’d have seen it before this morning.
Mason shook his head. “Didn’t want to make the dead look bad. The case was closed, and we’d moved on to the rich and famous.”
“It’s tragic,” Dane said. He’d been listening intently as we talked.
Tragic, but more common than most people wanted to admit.
“Have there been many other drug deaths in the city this year?” I asked. My iced coffee was almost gone along with my questions.
Mason gave us another grunt. “Yeah, but who doesn’t have their drug deaths? We don’t even report on most of them. Makes people too depressed.”
How much did the general population not realize about what happened in their towns?
I hesitated as the two men seemed to size each other up in the moment of silence and then asked the question I really wanted answered. “Do you believe it was suicide? And if not, how did William die?”
“Well,” Mason took a moment to think about his answer. “A person can dry drown, but it normally happens with kids.”
“So you support the suicide by drowning result?”
“No,” he said with a headshake and another drink of water. “It just doesn’t settle, but we don’t have the time to research cases that don’t make the news.”
I sucked the last of my iced coffee, trying to wet my suddenly dry throat. I sat back in my seat. A chill cooled my arms, fighting against the city’s heat.
“Anything else?” Mason asked.
Yeah, like a million things, but nothing that the reporter might answer.
This meeting with Mason shook me harder than I wanted to admit.
We made quick goodbyes, and I was deep in my thoughts as Dane and I left the café.
“Dane, I have bad news,” I said as we walked back toward our place.
“Let me guess.” Dane sighed. “Another ghost tour. Possibly a séance this time?”
He was so far off.
“We have to break into Boone Hall.”