Chapter 32
As the water taxi zipped across the whitecaps filling Lightkeeper Bay on a day of sun and wind, Gabby was glad for the anchoring arm Barnaby kept around her. She probably wouldn’t have been thrown off the boat by the swells, but it felt that way.
“I hate to suggest it, but I think we should split up when we get to Sea Smoke,” he murmured in her ear.
“You check on Tamara, I’ll talk to Chen?”
“Exactly.”
“I was going to say the same thing. But why do you hate to suggest it?”
“Because I’ll miss you.” He nuzzled her ear. How did he know that exact spot was one of her most sensitive turn-on triggers?
“Maybe we can meet up after,” she said, melting.
“Count on it.”
Count on me, was the unsaid part. Barnaby made her feel so secure, so appreciated. No man had ever given her that feeling before.
They parted ways on the dock, after a very public, very passionate kiss that drew a few glances from folks fishing for mackerel.
Okay then. The word would be out, if it wasn’t already.
Heather had left her mother’s truck at the dock for Gabby, with the keys on the driver’s seat. That was one of the island’s charms, for Gabby. No reason to worry about your vehicle getting stolen when there was nowhere for it to go.
Barnaby got into his own truck and sped off toward the southwest woods.
Gabby followed more slowly, because there was something she wanted to do first, before she went to the inn, and he would probably think it was too dangerous.
As soon as he was out of sight, she took the turn that would take her to Amelia’s house rather than to the inn.
She really wanted to look around that guesthouse to see if Keith Garner—or any of the Garners—had left behind anything helpful.
But before she did anything else, she needed to talk to her mother, no matter the time of day.
“How important is it?” Paulette Ramon’s time was always in demand. Not only was she a state senator, but she chaired several organizations and was warming up for a national role.
“I just want to give you a heads-up about a story we’re working on for the podcast. The police might be implicated, but we don’t know yet.”
“Oh for heaven’s sake. Can you drop it until after the election?”
“That’s not until November, Mom.”
Her mother huffed out a breath of frustration. “I don’t need this, honey. The polls are tight. Think of your brother too.”
Guilt crept in like the inevitable tide. “I’m sorry. I promise we’ll be fair and accurate.”
A brief silence followed, during which Gabby imagined her mom calculating every angle in political terms, and possibly also reviewing a speech or two at the same time.
“That’s all anyone can ask,” she finally said briskly. “Will you be at the reunion barbecue? It’s coming up. Make sure you RSVP.”
Maybe her mother was in a good mood. Gabby decided to take a chance.
“One more thing. In pursuit of a story, I got myself arrested and spent a night in jail here on Sea Smoke. No charges were filed and there’s no record of it, but I wanted to tell you so you don’t get blindsided if it ever comes out. ”
“Gabriella Marshall Ramon. I can’t believe what I am hearing right now.” That was just the start. Gabby listened to her mother vent, but this time it slid right off her. That night in jail had bonded her with Tamara so she didn’t regret it for a minute.
“It’ll be fine, Mama,” she said after her mother had wound down the lecture. Almost as if she was doing the maternal soothing. “I promise. The risk was worth the reward, isn’t that what you’re always telling me? And yes, I’ll RSVP to the reunion right away.”
And that was that.
After the call had ended, Gabby sat for a moment as a wild thought struck her. Had she been arguing with her mother’s voice in her head this whole time, instead of the actual woman herself? That phone call had gone so much better than she’d expected.
When she stepped out of the truck, things felt different. Maybe a little unsteady at first, as if she was stepping onto new ground. But her confidence rose as she climbed that long staircase. This was her life, her work, her journey. All she had to do was own it.
The house, on its rocky perch with its blank windows, looked more mournful than ever. The only splash of color came from a bit of yellow crime scene tape stuck in the hinges of the front door, fluttering in the wind.
Gabby reached the covered porch, then walked around back to another set of stairs the led to a brick-lined path to a shed with corrugated metal roofing. It was only slightly bigger than a typical garden shed.
Was this actually the guesthouse where the entire Garner family had lived after Amelia bought the house?
Apparently it was, because when she unlatched the door, she saw it was furnished with bunk beds along one wall and a kitchenette in the back, if a camp stove and a mini-fridge could be called that.
Other than a round table and a small propane heater, she saw no other furniture, no bookshelves or cabinets, logical places to hide something.
Not that she even knew what she was looking for.
Oh well, it had been a long shot.
She wondered where Keith would have slept. Her gaze wandered to that top bunk. Might as well get a closer look. She climbed up on the top bunk bed, which had a flimsy piece of foam as a mattress. Something was scratched into the bare wood of the wall next to it.
Keith + Fiona 4 eva, it said.
Fiona? Fiona Carmichael? Or were there other Fionas on the island? There probably were, and how would Keith have known Fiona anyway? Unless she too came to Amelia for piano lessons? Were they even the same age?
Fiona was thirty-two or so. After a quick calculation, she came up with an age of about thirty-five for Keith Garner, based on the year mentioned in Amelia’s piano student notes, which would have been his last year of high school.
So he’d been slightly older, but from what she knew of Fiona, that wouldn’t have stopped her.
She’d probably been a pretty precocious teenager.
But the Carmichael family would probably not have been thrilled with their daughter getting involved with an island boy three years older than her. Was that the real reason the Garners had left Sea Smoke Island? Had the Carmichaels evicted yet another family from the island?
She thought about the hunting lodge and the private plane that had been taking them there. That spoke of money. Maybe the North Slope job had been a ruse, and the Carmichaels had given the Garners a huge sum of money to go as far away as possible.
If Jill Garner had been paid off to keep her silence about the murder of Sophie Brown, what would stop her from demanding another payout once her son got involved with Fiona Carmichael?
Total speculation, Gabby knew. But still, it was worth following up on.
Except that Keith Garner was dead, and therefore had nothing to do with Amelia’s death.
As she climbed down from the upper bunk, something else caught her eye.
A flash of silver, something wedged between the mattress and the bare wood of the lower bunk.
After carefully retrieving it, she saw it was a torn scrap of a potato chip bag, silver on the inside and bright yellow on the outside.
It didn’t look weathered at all, the way something from nearly twenty years ago might.
Had someone been hiding out here recently? Maybe a guest of Amelia? Or perhaps some local kids had been using it as a playhouse?
Her gut instinct said her first explanation was the best one. Amelia had been virtually a hermit by the end, and the island kids were all busy fishing or partying on the dock.
Back in Heather’s mom’s truck, she pulled out her phone and did some searching about the plane crash that had killed the Garner family. Heather had done that research, and as much as she respected Heather, sometimes she liked to double back and see for herself.
She found the article in the Bethel Clarion that Heather had referenced.
“A Cessna 205 crashed on its way to Caribou Lodge on Tuesday night. After two days of searching for potential survivors, the rescue effort has been called off. All onboard have been declared dead. The passengers were a family of four, Jill and David Garner, along with their two adult children, Keith and William. Local officials say that based on the charred and scattered condition of the debris, everyone onboard most likely died in the fiery explosion when the plane hit the side of the mountain. This is the third such incident this year, and all three have been fatal.”
One article, that was it, written ten years ago. She couldn’t find any follow-ups, such as write-throughs on the family, or quotes from the hunting lodge. Maybe plane crashes were so common up there that no one bothered to follow up.
But the way she read the article, they’d located the debris, but no remains, presumably because the debris was too scattered and it was too remote to confirm it.
Keith Garner was “declared dead,” but did that mean he actually was dead?
What if he’d survived the crash and simply never surfaced in the news again?
Maybe he hadn’t wanted to talk about what happened.
Maybe he’d wanted to start fresh and not relive the nightmare.
Speculation, Gabby, she told herself. You’re grasping at straws.
She did some more googling, but found no further references to Keith Garner. If he had somehow survived, he’d kept a very low profile since then.
Before she set off for the eastern side of the island to check on Detective Chen, she texted Barnaby the photo she’d taken of the words Keith had carved into the wall.
Hey hot stuff. Look at this. Could that be your sister Fiona?
Her phone rang. She answered with a smile, little thrills already running through her. A warm breeze wafted through the truck window. In Amelia’s overgrown flower border, she watched a bee dart from one dahlia to another, blissed-out on pollen. “Hot stuff?” Barnaby said in his warm rumbling voice.
“Own it, babe. What do you think, did the mysterious Keith Garner have a thing with your sister when she was maybe fourteen or fifteen?”
“Maybe. Fiona was a wild child. She did whatever she wanted.”
“When you say ‘wild child’…”
“Boys. Weed. You know, I do vaguely remember something about a boy Dad didn’t like. They were going off together on one of our speedboats, for one thing, in all kinds of weather. He used to rant about it.”
That sounded promising. “Going where?”
“All over.” A pause, then an exasperated gasp. “Oh shit. I remember now. They were looking for that treasure.”
“The treasure? The mythical pirate treasure?”
“Yes. I figured they just used it as an excuse to go make out. Or fuck, for all I know. Fiona was a wild child, like I said. But yeah, they were looking for the pirate treasure every chance they got. Then they got into trouble out at the lighthouse. Banged up on some rocks, got stranded. The boat was totaled. That was the end of that.”
Now they were getting somewhere. The pirate treasure was back in the conversation. But how it all fit together, Gabby still didn’t know.
“Maybe you should have visited her in jail instead of Carson.”
“Don’t have to. She’s out.”
“What?” she gasped. Damn, the Carmichael lawyers were good. “Didn’t I tell you this would happen? When did she get out?”
“She just got released on bail. I was surprised too, but her role was minor compared to Carson’s.
She might have agreed to testify against him.
Luke told me she was out, but he didn’t know all the details.
She’s either already at the inn or will be there soon.
You will be too, right? I should have known you’d make a detour, but are you headed that way now? ”
“Yes, unless you want any help at Tamara’s. Have you found her?”
His tone darkened. “No, she’s not here.”
“What? Where could she be?”
“I don’t know. She was here. I see the slippers she was wearing in the lockup. She might be here in the woods somewhere, reconnecting with the owls and the squirrels.”
Gabby’s worry eased. “That’s probably exactly what she’s doing. I feel bad that I left the place empty for a night after promising her I’d keep an eye on things.”
“That’s okay. You can’t be expected to stay in a place with hidden cameras. I should have warned Tamara about that. I should have told her to go anywhere except home. Damn it.”
He really sounded worried.
“So what’s next? Are you going to look around in the woods?”
“For a bit, yes.” She could tell he was already walking around. “I’ll see if she left any clues behind. I really wish she’d waited until I got back.”
“All right, I’ll head for the inn. Meet you there later?”
“You got it. Keep me posted.”
“Likewise.”
She didn’t want to hang up. She’d never understood those people who lingered on the phone past the natural end of a conversation, but now she did. Just the sound of his voice made her feel safe and seen.
“Be careful at Tamara’s, please,” she said. “I’m starting to think there’s a very slim possibility that Keith Garner somehow survived that plane crash. I wish we had a photo of him, but nothing turned up in my searching.”
“Check the island school archives. They don’t do yearbooks, but they put out an end-of-school newsletter that includes photos of graduating students.”
“Is it online?”
“Is your research only online?”
She laughed. “No, but it’s a lot easier that way. I’ll check. See you soon, hot stuff.”
To get the last word on that, she ended the call. Then, just for the hell of it, she googled Sea Smoke Island school. A location came up, but no digitized archives.
Fine. She could do research IRL too. She wasn’t too online for that. She’d stop by on her way to the inn. Or better yet, hand off that task to Heather.
As she was sending that text to Heather, another came in from Sasha Mackey.
Just a heads up. The police confiscated Marianne’s journal from me. They said it might be evidence.
Who took it? Gabby fired back right way.
His name is Sergeant Boone, but he said he was just executing a search warrant. He didn’t know anything more than that, not even what the case was.
By now Gabby was driving down the gravel road, steering with her elbow as she worked the phone. She googled Boone and Harbortown, and got no results. A telephone call to the Harbortown police headquarters told her the same thing. There was no such officer.