Chapter 32
Now
quinn
‘What the actual fuck,’ Quinn exclaims. ‘Again?’
Phil walks around the hire car. ‘All four tyres.’
‘Jesus Christ. This place is like the fucking village of the damned.’
Phil glances over his shoulder at the hotel entrance. ‘Reckon they’ve got CCTV?’
‘They’re probably the fuckers who slashed the damn tyres.’
Phil opens the boot of the car and unloads two large aluminium boxes filled with lighting and editing equipment. His camera he always keeps with him in his room; Quinn (half) jokes he tucks it into bed with him at night.
‘I’d like to know what their fucking problem is,’ he says. ‘Twenty-one of their kids died. You’d think they’d want to know why.’
‘It’s a good sign,’ Quinn says. ‘It means we’re getting closer.’
‘The deposit’s not on your credit card.’
‘Stop bitching. INN will get it.’
‘Not this time. Christie said three strikes and we’re out.’
‘Fucking hell, Phil. Stop being such an old woman. I’ll pay the deposit myself. I’m telling you, it’s a good sign. Someone’s getting antsy. This is a warning to back off.’
Phil knows better than to suggest they pay attention.
‘What d’you reckon freaked them out, then?’ he says.
‘It’s gotta be something to do with Luke Connelly,’ Quinn says.
‘He’s the key to all this. Someone knows we’ve made the link between his disappearance and the accident.
Maybe his wife got scared and told someone I’d been out to see her.
Or it could’ve been someone at the university who passed on the news we’d been asking questions about his research. ’
‘You’ve made the link,’ Phil says irritably. ‘I’m still not seeing it.’
Quinn has neither time nor patience to explain it all again.
Yesterday, Tara Connelly emailed Quinn everything she’d found on Luke’s computer relating to her husband’s research, which is extensive but ultimately doesn’t amount to much: hundreds of lake water samples confirming high levels of nutrient pollutants, especially phosphorus, in the town’s lake.
Reports analysing run-off from parking lots, roads, farm fields and croplands.
Meticulously detailed accounts of toxic blue-green algae growth, which some studies had linked to ALS and Parkinson’s.
Blah, blah. Awful, dreadful, but already well documented. None of it news.
None of it would get a man killed.
Until this morning, Quinn had no proof, nothing more than her spidey senses to go on. She couldn’t convince Phil, let alone the wider world.
But now someone’s vandalised their car.
It’s neither of the Gray sisters; she’s certain of that.
They may have no love for journalists, but even Amy seemed tired, rather than angry, when she told Quinn she didn’t want to talk about the accident after she went to Amy’s house three days ago.
Quinn had the feeling Amy welcomed her investigation, if anything.
She clearly needed closure, even if she didn’t want it.
No, this vandalism is unsophisticated and bullying and masculine. The kind of low-level violence Quinn has encountered before, when she’s investigated fraudulent contractors and kickbacks at City Hall. It has something to do with her looking into Luke Connelly’s disappearance; she’s certain of it.
She’s found the bruise; now all she has to do is press on it.
She tosses her credit card at Phil. ‘Here. Go find us another car.’
‘How’re you going to get to the marina?’
‘Hitch.’
‘Seriously?’
‘Of course not,’ Quinn says crossly. ‘I’ll get an Uber. Meet me there.’
Fifteen months ago, the marina was off limits, its perimeter marked by police tape and a cordon of grim-faced sheriffs.
That didn’t stop Quinn, of course; she was thrown out twice for trespassing, and threatened with arrest if she returned.
Technically it wasn’t a crime scene: the Lady sank in the centre of the lake, and the dead teenagers were taken to another part of the shoreline, several miles away, well out of the reach of long lenses.
And yet the marina had been given the kind of security Quinn associated with American embassies in hostile terrain.
It was an anomaly. Quinn is intrigued by anomalies. Wanting to know why is what makes her good at her job. It’s what keeps her out of a bottle of bourbon.
The police tape is long gone now, of course. Quinn edges along the chain-link fence after the Uber driver drops her off, peering through its rusty diamonds into the deserted boatyard.
MacGill’s Marina was sold to pay the lawyers, but even though his name is no longer on the signage, it still casts a long shadow.
Most of the wealthy elite who stored their boats here weren’t able to move them quickly enough.
A few locals, Jesse among them, still keep their vessels here, but the marina’s main tourist business dried up overnight.
According to the small sign fixed to the fence, it’s now a marine salvage yard specialising in boat and vehicle salvage for the municipal water system.
The main double gates are padlocked with a heavy chain. Quinn lifts it; there’s just enough slack for her to ease beneath it.
She wipes the rust off her hand as she straightens up and looks around.
If there is money in marine salvage, she sees little sign of it here.
Most of the boat slips are covered in seaweed and green algae, clearly unused.
Apart from one boat cradle containing Jesse’s infamous Chris-Craft – much derided by the locals Quinn has talked to this week, and which stands out like a sore thumb – the others are empty.
A few upturned hulls on sawhorses suggest the place was briefly used for repairs, but no longer.
The Portakabin that once served as MacGill Smith’s office is graffitied and boarded shut.
Quinn isn’t quite sure what she expects to find here that will link the accident or the marina to Luke Connelly’s disappearance.
Most of the useful technical information is buried in the testimony from the various legal cases, civil and criminal; she isn’t going to uncover anything new poking around a deserted boatyard.
But sometimes you just have to get a feel for the place.
She steps over a steel hawser, slipping slightly in the mud.
She’s beginning to feel she’s wasting her time here when she could be talking to the accident’s survivors.
The captain of the Lady dropped dead of a heart attack a month after the inquiry, but she can still track down other members of the crew living in the area.
Maybe they’ll be more willing to talk now the heat has died down.
She swings around at the sudden sound of metal on metal behind her.
She scans the yard, cursing her limited vision. There’s no sign of movement.
Maybe it was a stray cat, or the wind.
And then she hears it again. A clank, and then a scrape, as if someone is climbing a metal ladder.
It’s coming from the far side of the marina. Quinn manoeuvres around the hull of an abandoned dredger as quickly as she dares, slipping and sliding on the slimy causeway.
Someone is descending a ladder from the roof of a two-storey storage shed behind the dredger.
Her flash of red hair is unmistakable.
Quinn watches as Rose Gray jumps the last three rungs.
She must be seventeen by now. She’s looking increasingly like her mother, especially with her hair caught back in a flaming ponytail beneath a navy baseball cap, highlighting the newly angular planes of her face.
She’s wearing khaki cargo pants and a denim jacket, both of which are marked with dirt and rust.
She doesn’t seem even slightly surprised to see Quinn.
‘Oh, you’re here,’ Rose says, as if she’s been waiting for her all along. ‘Listen. I’ve got something I need to tell you.’