Chapter 14
Of all times for Heather to leave her phone on mute…
Gabby herself never turned her ringer off. She never wanted to miss an important call, and besides, her mother always worried that she’d be some lunatic’s target. The least she could do was not add to her mother’s stress.
Why couldn’t Heather be equally obliging? Then Gabby remember that she was spending some alone time with Izzy, Luke’s six-year-old daughter. Which meant she was either at the ice cream shop, Sea Scoops, or looking for sea glass on the beach.
Sea glass on the beach turned out to be correct. Gabby parked her bike in the meadow grass where sand met land, and hurdled across driftwood logs and piles of flat stones to reach the pair.
“Gabby!” Heather looked up from the sparkling sea jewels cupped in her hand. “What’s wrong?”
“The police searched Tamara’s cottage and now she’s been arrested. They’re taking her to the lockup in Luke’s office.”
“Oh my—” She bit off the last word with a glance at Izzy. The little girl, a chubby blond curly-haired angel, was too engrossed with the hermit crab she’d found to pay much attention. “They think she killed Amelia?” she whispered.
“It sure looks suspicious. They must have found something in their search, some toxic plant.” Gabby squatted next to them, regretting her choice of footwear. Her suede boots didn’t need to be anywhere near this clammy sand.
“Does Barnaby know?”
“He ditched me in his rush to get to her, so I’m sure he does. I don’t believe Tamara had anything to do with it.”
“Of course I don’t either, but I’m sure Barnaby will do whatever he can for her. What can we do?”
Gabby had been thinking about this and come to the obvious conclusion. “We can show them her piano student notebook. That would give them another suspect to look into.”
“That’s pretty flimsy evidence. Besides, it will make us look bad for messing with the crime scene.”
Gabby made a face. “Kind of you to say ‘us.’ I was the one who did that.”
“We’re in this together, babe.” Heather turned to her possible future step-daughter, who was peering intently at the tiny claws emerging from the shell the crab was occupying. “Izzy, why don’t you give that little guy a break and try your hand at a sandcastle.”
Izzy pouted, but released the hermit crab, which immediately half-buried itself in the wet sand. “Will you help me?”
“Of course. I’ll be your construction crew. Anything but painting.” She made a face at Gabby, who laughed. They all moved to the slightly drier sand higher up the beach, while Heather launched into teacher mode, explaining how the sand had to be dry but not too dry, and not too coarse or too fine.
When Izzy was settled into her new project, Heather said, “Here’s an idea. Let’s ask Tamara if she knows anything about Keith Garner. Maybe Amelia said something about him recently.”
“You mean visit her in jail?”
“Sure, why not? It’s just a room in the back of the constable’s office. I don’t even think it has bars on the window. The view is pretty, according to my mom. It looks out on the dock that goes into that inlet.”
Gabby felt her anxiety over Tamara’s arrest ease a bit. At least the poor woman wouldn’t be horribly uncomfortable. If she had to go to a real jail, or a real prison, that would be a different matter, but a casual island lockup was probably no problem. “Okay, I’ll see if they’ll let me visit her.”
“Hang on. I got this.” Heather took out her phone. Seeing Gabby’s texts, she murmured, “Sorry. I actually didn’t mean to turn my ringer off. Carrie wouldn’t like that either.”
Carrie was Izzy’s mom, and also a childhood friend of Heather’s. That was life on a remote island, thought Gabby. All the crisscrossed connections went way back. Was that also the case with Keith Garner, Amelia, and Tamara? Connections that went way back?
Heather clicked on Luke’s number. “Hey babe. I’m here on the beach with your angel child and Gabby. Yes, Gabby’s an angel too,” she added. Gabby rolled her eyes. “We’re wondering if we could visit Tamara Brown while she’s in your guest suite at Chez Constable.”
Heather’s cheery expression sobered as she listened to Luke’s answer. “Okay, understood,” she murmured. “Love you. I’ll give Izzy a kiss for you.”
After hanging up, she shook her head. “The Harbortown police are temporarily in charge of the lockup and they’re being very protective. Apparently Barnaby talked them into staying on the island instead of taking her into town, so they don’t want to take any chances.”
“Well, crap.” Gabby heaved out a sigh, then scooped up a handful of sand to add to Izzy’s under-construction palace. “Maybe I could tap on her window and mime through the glass?”
“That would be fun to witness, but please don’t do anything that’s going to get Luke in trouble.”
“Oh, it’s Luke you’re worried about,” she teased. “I see how it is.”
Heather made a face at her. “Luke lets me play with this little cherub here. What have you done for me lately?”
“Um, painted your mom’s coffee shop? Doesn’t that count for anything?”
But even as they laughed, something Heather had said snagged in her mind. Something about getting Luke into trouble. And then it clicked. “I know how I can talk to Tamara.”
As it turned out, it wasn’t as easy as Gabby had hoped, getting herself arrested on Sea Smoke Island.
She tried walking out of Sea Scoops without paying for her double scoop cone, but the teenager running the cash register didn’t even notice.
Then she walked off with someone’s box of groceries that they’d left on the dock.
But it was too heavy and no one was following, so she sheepishly brought them back.
Face it, she didn’t really have a criminal mastermind brain.
What finally worked was when she spotted one of the Lightkeeper Inn’s golf carts parked outside the post office, its key still in the ignition.
Bingo.
She waited until she saw Heidi Ochoa, the reception clerk, emerge from the post office with a load of packages, then hopped into the golf cart and floored it.
“Whoop-whoop!” she yelled as she zoomed back and forth across the road.
She tried a wheelie, but the cart wasn’t built for that sort of thing.
Heidi ran after her. “That’s mine! Stop, Gabby! Are you crazy?” she kept yelling.
She must be. Why else would a Black woman be trying to get herself arrested? Then again, she knew the constable and could pretty much guarantee that nothing permanent would come from this incident. So in her mind, it was a low-risk, high-reward kind of situation.
Or at least that was the story she was composing in her mind in case she had to explain it to her mother.
Before too long, she caught sight of flashing lights behind her.
Luke was on her tail. Just to make sure he didn’t let her off with a warning, she made a few more wild and reckless turns with the golf cart.
She went around the town flagpole several times, narrowly missed a lamppost, and forced two teenage boys to dive for the bushes before she brought the golf cart chase to an end and pulled over.
“What the hell?” Luke demanded as he stalked over to the stalled-out cart.
“Hi Luke. Damn, you caught me. I’m not resisting arrest, for the record.” She didn’t want that in the report, or on her conscience.
“Good to know.” Luke narrowed his deep blue eyes at her. They were a Carmichael feature shared by Barnaby, though Barnaby’s were deeper set and somehow more intense. “Heidi said you stole this golf cart.”
“I’m not saying anything until I talk to my lawyer.”
“Why don’t you just explain why you took the golf cart and we can avoid all of that.”
“No, thank you,” she said politely. She took the keys from the ignition. “What should I do with these? You should take these so someone doesn’t steal it again. Let’s go.”
Luke ran a hand over the back of his head. “Why does it feel like I’m not the one calling the shots here?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re an excellent constable doing an outstanding job of protecting the citizens of Sea Smoke Island. Come on, let’s get moving.”
She wanted to talk to Tamara before…well, before she decided to stop talking entirely.
“All right, you win.” Luke palmed the keys, then gave her an exaggerated flourish of a bow. “After you.”
At the constable’s office, he handed her off to his assistant, Marigold, so tall and blond she could be a Norwegian pole vaulter. They sat across from each other while Marigold filled out the arrest paperwork. Gabby asked about her honeymoon, but that turned out to be a mistake.
“Canceled,” Marigold said gloomily. “He turned out not to be the man for me.”
“What? What happened, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Is this going on your podcast?”
“Of course not,” Gabby began, before Marigold interrupted.
“Because it ought to. Talk about a dirty rotten bastard. I wouldn’t mind putting him on blast. Can I come on your show?”
“I’ll talk to Heather about it. We have a lot on our plate right now.”
“I know, I know, all that stuff from the nineteen-hundreds. Everyone’s talking about it, but not talking about it, you know what I mean? Like, no one wants to think their families helped kick out those other people. Date of birth?”
Gabby supplied the information, then asked, “What about your family?”
“It doesn’t matter, does it? My family came in the seventies, but I still have to ask, why were they able to move right in and buy property with no problems? Why were some people welcomed and not others?”
“Interesting point.” Maybe they should have Marigold on the podcast—she could be a fascinating guest. “Mind if I ask who the dirty rotten bastard is?”
“That’s what I’d like to know. He used a fake name, then disappeared. Wish I could figure out what he was after. My entire life savings adds up to about five hundred buckaroos and a vintage station wagon.”
Marigold signed the paper with a flourish. “Okay, let’s go, Gabrielle Ramon. Unless you have someone who can bail you out right away?” she added hopefully. “Heather McPhee? Maybe Barnaby Carmichael?”
Gabby gave a double take at the mention of that name. “Why him?” Then she waved it off and stood up. “Never mind. I don’t want to be bailed out. Take me to prison, please.”
“It’s not prison,” Marigold corrected, “but whatever. You won’t be the only one in there, by the way.”
“Oh, really?” Gabby did her best to sound disappointed. “And I thought I’d booked a single.”
“Very funny. So listen, when you’re done serving all this hard time, let’s talk more about my dirty rotten bastard.”
“Count on it.” She’d add this runaway bridegroom to their growing file of story ideas.
The lockup was a simple twelve-by-twelve room with wooden benches lining two of the walls, a toilet with a privacy screen around it, and a small window with no visible way to open it.
But it was clean and smelled of lemon cleanser and most importantly, there was Tamara, sitting at the junction of the two benches.
She was bundled into a cozy poncho, with a scarf wound around her neck, as if Barnaby had insisted she dress warmly for her trip to lockup.
Her face lit up at the sight of Gabby. “Dear girl!” she cried, starting to her feet. Gabby felt a rush of warmth that nearly overwhelmed her. Tamara appeared even tinier in this bland cube, so lost and out of her element. “Are you coming to get me out?”
“No, sadly.” Gabby took her hands in hers. Tamara’s were rough and calloused, her knuckles swollen from a lifetime of gardening. She sat next to her, close enough to share body warmth. “But I am here. I hope that helps a little.”
“Oh, my goodness, it does. I have no one to talk to in here. No birds, no trees, no flowers. I’ve been sitting here trying to imagine how to talk to a bench.”
“How is that going?” Gabby was genuinely curious to know.
“I can sense that it’s a kind entity. But quite reserved. I’m hopeful that he will warm up to me as time goes on.”
“I’m hopeful you won’t be in here long enough for that to happen. I assume Barnaby is working to get you out?”
“Yes, of course, but it seems the alternatives might be even worse.” Tamara squeezed her hand tighter. “You won’t leave me, will you?”
“No.” Gabby put an arm around her shoulders. “We’re in this together, I’m afraid. Let’s just hope my mother doesn’t find out.”
Tamara made a sound very much like a giggle, or an elfish version of one. “In my family, running afoul of the law is a long tradition.”
“I really want to hear more about that, since we have so much time on our hands.” If only they’d allowed her to bring a recording device in here, or even her iPhone…but they’d confiscated that. “But first, quickly, while no one’s paying attention…”
She got up to peer out the door, which had a window meant for looking in rather than out. The glass had something like chicken wire embedded in it. The only bit of a police officer that she could see was Marigold’s long legs propped on the desk.
Back next to Tamara, she murmured, “Does the name Keith Garner mean anything to you?”
“Garner?” Her voice faltered as she said the name. “Oh dear. That poor family.”
“What happened to them? Heather said they fell on hard times and had to leave the island.”
“Yes, yes. The father had an accident. He fell off a roof and broke both his ankles. The mother had breast cancer and Keith,” Tamara shook her head, “he had his own romantic troubles. Everything went wrong for them at once. Such sadness. I tried to help. But sometimes the healing power of the earth isn’t enough.
” She rubbed her hand across the rough surface of the bench.
“What about Keith? Did you treat him for something?”
“No.”
That was an unusually abrupt answer for Tamara.
“Was he in trouble with the police, do you know?”
“Oh dear.” Tamara’s dark eyes widened. “I do hope not. He wasn’t to blame, at least not entirely.”
“For what?”
But Tamara pressed her lips together and refused to answer.
Gabby tried one more question. “Do you know if the Garners ever came back to the island? Recently, maybe?”
“Oh, I’d be very surprised. I’m sure they have dark memories from that time. But let’s not dwell on that terrible story. What lawless adventure brings you here today?”
Tamara needed a cheerful distraction, Gabby realized. No more questions, at least not now. But there was something to that Garner story, she just knew it.
“Well, it all started with a golf cart…” she began.