Chapter 59
Later that afternoon, after the police had cleared out of the house, word on the street was that an arrest had been made.
While Sailor scrolled for news, Ingrid searched the multiple fridges in the kitchen, pantry, and working pantry, gathering vegetables for a salad.
She chopped it all robotically—Sailor liked her salads chopped fine—then dumped everything in a Waterford crystal bowl and mixed up a mustard vinaigrette to dress it.
She hoped Sailor would eat something. She had refused breakfast.
“Oh my God,” Sailor breathed now, staring intently at her phone.
She read, “‘Tristan “Boney” Anderson, twenty-four, a local ghost tour guide with a prior record for petty theft and drug possession, was arrested in connection with the double murder of Aurelian Stokes Loeffler III and Casimir Stokes Loeffler during the wedding reception of their daughter and sister Sailor Loeffler-Etris, held last night in Monterey Square in front of the Loefflers’ residence, the Noble Hardee Mansion.’”
Ingrid’s entire body tensed, becoming a live wire that surged with a dangerous current. She told herself not to move.
Boney?
It couldn’t be. Why …
Sailor read on. “They’ve put him in jail. No bond. That’s all it says.”
“They’re not going to put any more than that in the media,” Jude said in his clipped accent.
Ingrid’s hand sought the edge of the counter.
She was trembling. Sailor and Jude were now discussing what they’d been able to glean that morning from Judge Norwood and Brooks Glover.
Apparently, the crime scene techs hadn’t found a weapon.
Instead, they’d discovered that one of Rill’s glass display cases had been broken and the antique pirate dirk was missing.
They hadn’t found any prints other than Rill’s and Cas’s in the room; however, the butt of a joint had been discovered nestled in the potting soil, which, when tested for prints, had led them to Boney.
What Ingrid had realized in the hours since she’d been interviewed was that she remembered something else as well.
Something she’d seen in Rill’s study but not registered until now.
Both Cas and Rill had similar gashes in their heads.
Holes, to be specific. It was as if someone familiar with fishing—and how to quickly kill a fish with a spike to the head—had done the same thing to them.
“Who is this Boney bloke anyway?” Jude stared glumly at his salad.
“I have no idea.” Sailor was still reading. “It says he’s a ghost tour guide, that’s it.” She looked up at Ingrid. “Ingrid?”
“He’s a friend of Miles,” Ingrid blurted out.
Now Jude was staring at her. Both their mouths dropped open.
“Do you know him?” Sailor asked.
Ingrid’s mouth opened, too, but nothing came out.
“Ingrid!”
“I mean, a little. Just in passing.”
“Do you know why this guy would want to hurt Dad and Cas? I don’t understand.” She put a hand on Ingrid’s arm. “Why would he do this?”
“I really don’t know.” Ingrid just shook her head, feeling trapped. Anything she said at this point could incriminate Miles. Or herself.
And Miles couldn’t have meant for this to happen … for Boney to be arrested for this. Could he? She couldn’t make any sense of it. She needed time to think. To get Miles alone and grill him.
“Let’s just try and keep calm—” Jude started to say.
Sailor rounded on him. “Don’t tell me to keep calm!” she snapped. “Don’t ever say that to me again! My family is destroyed! Murdered on our wedding day!”
Jude and Ingrid stared at her in silence. She was shaking. Trembling with fury and grief.
“Death is all around me, when I’m awake and when I’m asleep, so don’t you dare ever say that I should calm down!” Now Sailor whirled on Ingrid. “Miles knows this guy, so you have to tell me what’s going on. Tell me the truth right now, Ingrid. I mean it.”
“I truly don’t know, Sailor, I swear.” Ingrid stood. “Not yet. But I’ll find out, I promise you that.”
She hurried out of the kitchen and down the dark hallway, Sailor on her heels. At the door, Ingrid turned to her friend and offered her hand. Sailor took it in both of hers, clinging like Ingrid was the only one keeping her from plummeting to the chasm below.
“I told you once, Sailor,” Ingrid said, her voice low. “I will never leave your side. And I won’t.”
Sailor’s eyes filled with tears once again.
“But now you’ve got to trust me. Trust me that I will find out what happened to your family.”
Sailor was gripping her hand so tightly, Ingrid could barely separate them, but at last she did and stepped out onto the front porch.
“Go back inside,” she instructed Sailor. Ingrid looked over her shoulder. “There are going to be reporters and busybodies and vultures everywhere. Savannah Sauce is yours now. That means everybody’s going to want a piece of you. Don’t give it to them.”
Sailor shook her head, her eyes full of fear. “I’m scared. I’m really scared, Ingrid.”
Ingrid bit her lip, and Jude came up behind Sailor, gently pulling her back into the dark house and shutting the door behind them.
Ingrid turned to face Monterey Square. The police barricades and velvet ropes were gone.
The bandstand and dance floors and bars were gone, too.
The strung lights had been taken down and all the trash swept and bagged.
It looked like nothing had ever happened there.
And then, for the first time, Ingrid thought of something and immediately hated herself for even thinking it. With Rill and Cas gone, not only would Sailor have to take over Savannah Sauce. There was no way she was still going to move to London.