Chapter 34
At the reception desk of the Lightkeeper Inn, it took some convincing before Heidi Ochoa, the receptionist, would tell Gabby what room Officer Chen was in.
“Let me call her first. She didn’t want anyone coming up that she hadn’t cleared.”
“Of course.” Gabby reassured herself that Heidi was just being cautious, probably because she’d stolen her golf cart. But her attitude reminded Gabby of some of the glances she’d gotten when she first arrived at the inn, one of the very, very few non-white guests.
Celine’s nasty words about a “Black Carmichael” had echoed through her mind a few times. Was she ready for his family’s reaction if things progressed between the two of them? Was Barnaby?
She smiled to herself at that. No one cared less about his family’s opinion than Barnaby.
Really, the hard part would be in the other direction, winning over her family.
Even though she’d just set a boundary with her mother about her work, was she ready to present Barnaby Carmichael to the Ramon family?
Put a pin in that one, she decided as she made her way up the stairs to the second floor. No rush on anything. They had some mysteries to solve first.
She found Chen sitting up in her bed, a bowl cradled in her lap, her nightstand loaded with medicine bottles and empty tea mugs.
“How are you feeling?” Gabby asked from the safe distance of the doorway, just in case she was contagious.
“Tip-top,” Chen croaked. “Can’t you tell? Come in, the doc says it’s not infectious.”
“What is it? You look—”
“Terrible, I know. It’s food poisoning. We’re thinking bad shellfish, but it could have been any shellfish. They’re all bad if you ask my digestive system.”
“Yikes, I’m really sorry. Is there anything I can get you?”
Chen shook her head. “They’re taking care of me here. That’s one thing about rich white people hotels. They know how to pour on the coddling when they want to.”
“I’ll pass that along.”
“So what can I help you with, Gabby? I need a good distraction.” She held up a hand as she fought back a moment of nausea. “Desperately,” she said when it was done.
“Well, a lot, actually.” Where should she even start?
“We found out that the tea Tamara gave to Safiya didn’t contain any toxic herbs.
So then we went back to her original blood test results and found nothing there either.
A followup test was ordered to confirm the presence of ricinine, which would point to castor bean, but those results didn’t come in until after Tamara was arrested. ”
Chen’s frown deepened with each word she spoke. “Are you sure about that? I saw the report myself.”
“We’re sure. Safiya requested a copy and let us see it. I have it here.”
She fumbled in her messenger bag and pulled it out. Chen scanned it carefully. “This looks legit. But so did the one I saw.” She grabbed her phone and stared at it for a long moment. “This does seem to be altered,” she finally said. “It’s subtle, but I should have looked more carefully.”
“Why would you if there was no reason to?”
“Still, it’s my job.” Chen gagged a bit and tugged the bowl closer until the crisis had passed.
“Do you have any idea who could have altered the report?”
“There are only a few possibilities.” From Chen’s cagey tone, Gabby figured she didn’t want to point fingers unless she was sure.
“Could the same person have dosed her with castor bean to make her sick?”
Chen shrugged helplessly. “Whoever did that must have been on the island, since three people were poisoned—four including Amelia. How could that same person falsify a tox screen report? No one here would have that kind of access.”
Gabby thought about the mystery person possibly staying in Amelia’s guesthouse. Could they have been hiding out there, sneaking powdered castor bean into drinks? Was it the fake officer who had visited Sasha and confiscated the journal?
“The name Officer Boone, does that mean anything to you?”
“No, should it? He’s not one of the Harbortown police.”
“I know. But someone calling himself that showed up at Sasha’s house. He said he was following orders from someone higher-up, but since he isn’t even a member of the department…”
Officer Chen paled, then clutched the bowl closer to her.
“I knew it. Someone has infiltrated the department. Too many things haven’t been adding up.
If only I hadn’t gotten food poisoning—” She broke off.
“Mother-effer. They did it to me too, didn’t they?
My symptoms are different, no blood, thank God.
Same idea, though. Someone wanted me out of the way. Goddamn it. I need to warn Hooper.”
She grabbed her phone and fired off a text, then fell back on her pillows, exhausted.
“How long have you and Hooper been partners?” Gabby asked as she rose from her position perched on the foot of her bed.
“A couple years. He was at Harbortown PD before me.” Her eyes fluttered closed. “He started about a year earlier. He transferred from Alaska, if you can believe it. From one cold climate to another.”
Alaska?
Gabby froze. Could that possibly be a coincidence?
She pulled out her phone and found the photo from the newsletter. “One more thing before you conk out. Do you mind looking at a photo and seeing if you recognize anyone?”
Before she could hand her phone over, a text popped onto her screen. It was Heather, telling her that she’d just heard from Heidi Ochoa that Fiona was on a water taxi on her way to the inn.
If you hurry you can intercept her at the dock.
“I have to go,” Gabby told Chen as she airdropped the photo to her. “Take a look and let me know if the guy in the back looks familiar.”
Chen squinted at the photo. “The tall kid, the athletic one? First glance, not really. How old would he be now?”
“Thirty-five-ish.”
Chen bent over her bowl again as another spasm hit. Gabby escaped just in time to miss the vomiting fit, although she could hear poor Chen retching even after she closed the door behind her.
She raced down the wide staircase, nearly knocking over the stately porcelain vase at the foot of the stairs, with its outsized bouquet of greenhouse flowers.
A number of frowns came her way from guests lounging in the conservatory, the glass-walled sitting area where she’d spent many a happy hour herself.
Ignoring them, and the voice in her head that wanted to yell something about Barnaby Carmichael being her new boo, she hurried through the elegant foyer, onto the terraced entrance with its converted gas lamps and overflowing planters.
Outside, she looked around for a stray golf cart, but didn’t see any, so she ran down the grassy hillside to the dock. That was the most direct route, unlike the paved road, which took a few turns because the slope was so steep.
At the head of the dock, she spotted a small watercraft zooming across the waves.
Other boats were already tied up at the dock, including one she recognized—Gary’s lobster boat, in which she’d been involved in a shootout.
She spotted a bullet hole that still hadn’t been repaired.
He was probably waiting until the busy summer season was over.
A few teenagers were sunbathing on towels spread across the dock, and a member of the landscaping staff was casting a fishing rod into the water.
Other people were chatting in the freight shed as they awaited their deliveries, or the next ferry, or a water taxi.
Island life, so relaxed in some ways, so full of stress in others.
Island fever was a real thing. Several islanders had mentioned the claustrophobia and hopelessness that could set in during the long, isolated winter months.
As the water taxi closed in on the dock, Gabby caught sight of Fiona Carmichael. She made a whimsical picture as she stood on the taxi’s open deck, her long white-blond hair loose and flowing behind her in the wind, her retro Pucci dress clinging to her body.
Barnaby’s sister. Well, half-sister.
So far, Barnaby hadn’t talked much about the ugly truth that had been revealed about Fiona, that she was so desperate to hold on to her fortune that she’d colluded to get her father declared incompetent, and she’d done everything she could to stop Denton Simms from exposing the dark side of the inn’s origins.
Although she was selfish and greedy, not to mention spoiled, she was still Barnaby’s sister.
Gabby knew he was struggling to come to terms with all that.
She herself had only met Fiona twice, once when she was first investigating the history of Sea Smoke Island, and the second time on that very lobster boat after that shootout, when Fiona had been pulled onboard to shield her from bullets.
Nevertheless, she hoped Fiona would remember her. She waved her arm as the water taxi maneuvered closer to the float where the boats tied up. Fiona waved back. Her butterfly sleeve fell back, revealing the bandage still covering the wound on her arm from that shootout.
Was there a chance that her experiences that night had been shocking enough for Fiona to turn her life in a better direction? For Barnaby’s sake, Gabby hoped so.
As she hurried down the long aluminum ramp that connected the dock to the float, Gabby called out to her. “Hi Fiona, remember me, Gabby Ramon? We survived a shootout together?”
The water taxi bumped against the float, narrowly missing another craft tied up right behind it. Fiona laughed from the deck and prepared to step off. “Hard to forget.”
The water taxi captain helped her off the boat as if she were a queen. She granted him a smile in thanks.
“So nice of you to meet me, Gabby. And so close to where we last met.” She gestured at the bullet-ridden lobster boat tied on the opposite side of the float.
“I’m dying to know what I did to deserve this honor.
Am I a ‘dirty rotten bastard’ now because of everything that happened? I suppose I deserve that.”
That didn’t sound like accountability to Gabby. That sound like flippancy.
“No, no.” Gabby laughed that off. “That’s not why I’m here. It’s something else, something from many many years ago.”
The captain handed Fiona her bags, a set of Louis Vuitton matching luggage that looked brand new.
She must have gone shopping as soon as she left the jail.
After plopping the suitcases onto the float, she handed the pilot a twenty-dollar bill for a tip.
“This is quite possibly my last cash unless I can find a wealthy man to marry me,” she quipped to him.
“At least if my family has its way, and the State of Maine, of course.”
“I don’t think anyone wants you out on the street,” Gabby murmured as she bent to pick up one of the bags, a rolling suitcase with a long handle.
The water taxi pulled away from the float and motored away.
“No one could handle that, especially the other people on the street.”
At least Fiona hadn’t lost her nihilistic sense of humor. Her gaze drifted to the dock above them and the people still milling around. “Oh lordy. I need a minute before I face those gossip ghouls up there.”
Perfect chance to spring an interrogation on her. “I get it. Don’t worry, I can run interference for you.”
“So kind. Until I remember that you had questions for me, which I do. Go ahead, since I’m trapped here until everyone clears out.”
“Well, I’m wondering about a boy you used to hang out with when you were fourteen or so.”
“Oh, Keith? What about him?”
Gabby paused, startled to get such a quick answer.
“Well, I guess, I mean, have you been in touch with him?”
“God no. I never heard from him again after—” She snapped her mouth shut.
“After what?”
“You know what, it turns out, I’d rather face the hordes than answer questions about the abortion I had when I was fourteen. Bye, Gabby. Thanks for the meet and greet.”
Picking up the other bag, she yanked the rolling suitcase from Gabby’s grip and stalked toward the ramp.
Openmouthed, Gabby watched her go. That sure was a twist she hadn’t seen coming.
A sound came from one of the boats tied to the float—the one just past the water taxi. Gabby ignored it, still focused on Fiona and the bombshell she’d just dropped. She watched Fiona stride on to the dock, everyone’s attention glued to her as she headed toward the freight shed.
Which was why she never saw it coming when a hand covered her mouth and a muscular arm squeezed her against a pudgy body.
Before she knew what was happening, she was being hauled onto a boat.
A chemical scent hit her nostrils and everything went hazy.
The last thing she saw before the fog closed in was Fiona turning around just before stepping into the shed, her mouth falling open in pure shock.