Chapter 24
“I think you just saved our lives.” Tina couldn’t get over that fact. “Which is supposed to be my job, by the way.”
“You’re welcome,” Jack said dryly. They were back at the Spotted Owl Inn, where they’d left their things, though they hadn’t planned to stay another night.
Now there was part of her that wanted to curl up in that cozy, still-mussed bed and forget the feel of heat beating against her face.
Jack was toweling off after his shower, while she was downing her umpteenth glass of water.
Nearly burning to death in a car really dehydrated a person.
“You know I already thanked you. Just in case, thank you. Again. Special thanks to the screenwriter who researched flammable medical fluids. I’d almost forgotten about that episode.”
Luckily, Jack had remembered the scene in which the bad guy had set fire to a hospital room using only a surgical sterilizer. That “medical waste” smell that he’d noticed had nothing to do with her. The back seat had been drenched with ethylene oxide.
Someone had wanted to scare them, but maybe not kill them.
Now that the adrenaline had faded, Tina had analyzed the situation and decided that the former was more likely, but she couldn’t count out either possibility.
But who wanted to scare them and why? Was it related to Mark Peterson? If so, did it have to do with the Night Light murders, the barn fire, or something going on currently?
“We should have gotten the visitor logs for Peterson,” she told Jack. “I want to know who’s come to see him and when. I also want to know about this former psychiatrist.”
“If we go back we need to rent a car.” Jack spoke the words mournfully. The loss of his Audi in such a spectacular way had clearly been a shock.
“I think taking a Lyft might be safer. That way we’ll keep switching vehicles. Same as how we got back here.”
In case they were being followed, they’d switched Lyfts twice, although she was pretty sure that their lengthy interview with the Rutland police had probably scared off any pursuers, at least for the time being.
“What if they can track our phones?”
“Then we’re screwed no matter what we do because we’re talking about people with access to spyware.
” She went into the bathroom to pee, but left the door propped half open.
Her comfort level with Jack had gone through the roof ever since he’d saved their lives.
Steam lingered in the bathroom from his shower and made her think of last night.
It felt so long ago, like one of those before-and-after markers.
Before we nearly died in Jack’s car, and after.
“Your phone’s ringing,” he called to her. “It’s Marigold.”
“Can you answer it? Tell her I’ll be out shortly. Please don’t tell her I’m peeing. That kind of thing is on a need-to-know basis.”
She heard the chuckle in his voice as he answered her phone, then the quiet as he listened to whatever Marigold was saying. She flushed the toilet and washed her hands, trying her best to hear over the sound of the water.
When she emerged from the bathroom, Jack wore a bemused expression. He put the phone on speaker. “Tina’s back. Want to repeat that, or should I explain?”
“Hey Tina. So I dug up the potato patch at the Sunderland place but the only thing I found was an old plastic water pistol, you know, those little toy shooters kids used to play with? It was pretty grimy and ancient-looking, like it had been in there a while.”
“What about the soil? Did it seem freshly dug up or more hard-packed?”
“Fresh-ish. Not hard-pack, but not buried yesterday, either.”
She looked at Jack, who was frowning down at the floor. He’d pulled on a t-shirt and sweatpants, but his feet were still bare. Amazingly, they were just as sexy as the rest of him. “I remember playing with a water pistol when I was little. Jessie had one too, I think hers was green.”
“This one’s green. Ish,” Marigold added. “With a lot of brown stains. Maybe you or Jessie buried it back in the day and forgot about it? Or maybe the tenants found it and hid it away from their kids?”
All were perfectly good theories, and yet Jack shook his head. “I still think she left it there as a message, I’m just not sure what the message is.”
“If she was going to leave a message, why not just leave a message?” Tina asked impatiently. “She had a whole house to work with. She could have hidden an actual piece of paper with an actual note just about anywhere.”
“Maybe she couldn’t,” Jack said slowly. “Or maybe she worried Seth would find something like that. The water pistol would probably look like it was already buried there, if he ever found it.”
That actually made sense, she supposed. Still, it was all so maddeningly cryptic. “Why that particular item, then? Best guess, Jack. Was she warning that he was armed?”
“The Bloodshot Eyeball shooting?” said Marigold. In the background, a crow gave a loud croak, and a distant seagull cawed. The sounds of Sea Smoke Island…almost nostalgic, Tina thought.
“It could be that, but I think there might be more to it,” said Jack. “Some incident that happened with those water pistols…I remember we had a wild full-on battle once, with a bunch of other kids. Someone even got hurt. She might be referring to that.”
Tina shoved a pad of paper—the Spotted Owl logo was printed at the top—and a ballpoint pen toward him.
“Go into the bathroom and close the door. Try to recall every single detail about what happened. If you can, try to see it through Jessie’s eyes too.
Write down every time you or Jessie ever referred to this incident in later years.
What was said, where you were, everything. ”
Jack lifted his eyebrows at her tone of command. They’d been operating as equals in this investigation so far, but right now, she wanted to talk to Marigold alone. And he’d remember more if he didn’t have the distraction of eavesdropping.
“You’re the only one who can decipher her meaning,” she added.
“Right. Bye, Marigold. See you back on the island.”
As soon as the door was securely closed, Tina took Marigold off speaker and strolled to the window, as far from the bathroom as possible. “It’s looking more and more certain that Seth Baker is Lloyd Mansfield. Now there’s a new twist. You ready for this?”
“Bring it.”
“Linette Mansfield may be the woman we know as Celine Carmichael.”
A stunned moment of silence, then, “Ho. Ly. Shit.”
“Yup. Naomi Martin’s little girl came back years later married to John Carmichael the Third. Do you remember ever seeing the man you knew as Adam with Celine?”
“No. I don’t think so.” The sound of Marigold’s truck stopped. “We went to the inn for drinks one night, but we didn’t see any Carmichaels.”
“Were you with him the whole time?”
“Not every moment. Bathroom breaks, you know.”
“I’m wondering…” She had to put this delicately. “Since Celine was busy with all sorts of scheming, do you think she asked her brother to be her inside man at the constable’s office?”
“You mean, was he spying on me and Luke for Celine?” Marigold let out a snort. “Sure, why not? I didn’t know much, and neither did Luke, but Adam would have been able to monitor what we knew and didn’t know.”
“Thank you. I’m not saying that’s what happened. But it is a possibility.”
“If he was Celine’s brother, and never told me, then he’s capable of anything. That’s just fucking wild. I mean, you arrested her, didn’t you? You took her into town on the police boat. Did she mention she had a brother she wanted to notify?”
Celine had said almost nothing during that trip, most likely based on legal advice. “She did not. Do you remember discussing her arrest with Adam?”
“Oh wow. Yes, I did.” Tina heard the drumming of her fingers on the dashboard. “He said something like, watch, she’ll be out in no time. It’s called ‘pretty privilege.’ Meaning, the fact that Celine is—”
“I know what it means. So he didn’t seem worried at all?”
“No. I mean, why would he? As far as I knew, she was a stranger to him, and he didn’t act any different than that. But you know…Hey there! Slow down, we got some trees down up ahead.”
“Excuse me?”
“Sorry, I’m standing guard on the southwest road.
We had a microburst last night that brought down some old pines.
Waiting on the firefighters. There’s one new guy that…
never mind. Back to what I was saying.” Tina could practically hear her blush.
“A few days after that was when he suggested we spend our pre-wedding night in the Honeymoon Suite. I remember wondering if it was some rubbernecking type of thing.”
Now that was interesting timing. “Were you together the whole time that night?”
“You mean, aside from when he disappeared? Mostly, yes.” Marigold snapped her fingers. “Except for my massage. He booked me a session in the spa as a pre-wedding gift. Or,” she said ruefully, “as a way to get me out of the suite.”
“It’s Adam’s fault that you’re so cynical now, isn’t it?” Tina said regretfully.
“I don’t think I’m cynical. I’m realistic.”
Which was even sadder, thought Tina. Someone like Marigold, with her open nature and refreshing honesty, deserved to have a sunlit path through life. Why did Adam have to come along and mess that up?
“This is helpful. We’re making progress. We’re going to find this lying asshole and make sure he doesn’t hurt anyone else. If it’s any comfort, from what we’ve learned so far about his childhood, I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. He’s already suffered.”
“The answer to suffering isn’t more suffering,” said Marigold wisely.
“I’m not after retribution. I just want to protect other victims. Is there anything else I can do on this end?
I did visit Sandy Clyde, but she had nothing helpful to say.
Or anything to say, really. She did not want to talk to me, at all. ”
“In a suspicious way?”
“Maybe. Want me to try again?”
Why not? It would give Marigold something more to do. “Sure. There is one other thing. Have you gotten the sense that Luke is working with anyone from outside the department on something big? I’m talking, federal big. Maybe international.”
“International? Wow, I don’t know. I haven’t heard anything like that. You should talk to Luke.”
Except that Luke probably wouldn’t tell her. He would have gotten the same message she had from the police chief—stay out of it.
“Just keep your ear to the ground, would you? I get the sense there’s something big underway that the higher-ups don’t want us knowing about.
Which is fine, I get it, but it might be connected to Adam and Jessie.
Of course I could be flat wrong about all of it.
One more thing. I’m sending you a photo I got off Instagram.
It’s a luxury yacht the size of a village, Celine’s been posting from it.
You can cruise her timeline for more photos.
Can you see if either the harbormaster or maybe Chad, the inn’s marina manager, knows anything about it? ”
“Will do. And hey, Officer Chen.”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks for throwing me little jobs to do. I appreciate it, even if it’s just to keep me busy.”
Marigold had to be one of the most down-to-earth people Tina had ever met. “You have real potential, Marigold. Don’t underestimate yourself.”
“I fell for a con man. I ought to hang up my badge, even though I think Luke ordered it online from some prop site. But he won’t let me, so I guess Sea Smoke is stuck with me.”
“They’re lucky to have you.”
Jack came out of the bathroom at that point, waving the notepad in the air with the look of someone who just discovered the Pythagorean Theorem.
“I think I know what Jessie’s telling us. I swear, the way my sister’s mind works…I’m literally the only person in the world who’d be able to translate that message.”
“Tell me.”