Chapter 6 Jo
Jo
During her decade and a half as a cop, Purity police chief Jo Thibodeau had seen the worst her town could throw at her.
She’d dealt with petty thefts and assaults and drunk drivers, the usual issues that plagued every community.
She’d even dealt with the occasional homicide, which was rare in a small town where most people knew who the troublemakers were and avoided them.
Most of her calls, though, involved minor matters.
A fender bender or a moose blocking the road or a neighbor’s party going on too loud and too late.
Bread-and-butter calls, like the one she’d just received from Dispatch:
The manager at the Cod Cove Resort says one of their waitresses, Karen O’Brien, didn’t show up for work this morning, and that’s not like her. She’s not answering her phone. They’re requesting a welfare check.
Jo could think of any number of benign reasons why a woman might not show up for work.
Maybe Karen O’Brien had forgotten she was on the schedule today.
Maybe she’d stayed up late last night, turned off her phone, and overslept.
Maybe she’d forgotten to charge her phone, or lost her phone.
Jo just needed to ring the doorbell, confirm the woman was alive and well, and then she could move on to the next call.
That’s how Jo expected this to turn out, anyway.
Karen O’Brien lived in one of the hotel’s employee cottages, located less than a mile from the resort itself.
In a state that relied on tourism, where hotels and restaurants had to scramble every summer to find enough housekeepers and waiters and gardeners, the Cod Cove Resort offered an extra benefit to attract its seasonal staff: free housing.
Their accommodations were by no means luxurious, judging by Cottage #14, where Karen O’Brien lived with her housemates, who were also resort employees.
The front yard was choked with ragweed and wild burdock, the building’s shingles were cracked and splintering, and a thick layer of moss feathered the roof.
An unlocked pedal bike leaned against the porch, a bike so old and battered that no self-respecting thief would bother to steal it.
Jo climbed the porch steps and knocked on the door. Waited. Knocked again.
She heard movement inside, the creak of approaching footsteps.
Then the door opened and a barefoot young man in shorts and a tee shirt appeared in the doorway, his mouth half open in a yawn.
His shaggy blond hair was still tousled from bed, and he squinted against the sunlight, his eyes not quite awake.
“Good morning,” said Jo. “I’m Chief Thibodeau, Purity Police. I’m trying to locate Karen O’Brien. She lives in this cottage, right?”
“Yes. But she is in work now.” Judging by the young man’s accent, and by his sharply Slavic cheekbones, Jo thought he must be one of the Eastern European students the hotel hired every summer for the tourist season.
“She didn’t show up at work,” said Jo. “And she’s not answering her phone.”
The young man yawned again, and he peered sleepily at the driveway. “Her car is not here.”
“May I come in and check her room anyway?”
“Yes, yes. You come in.”
“Thank you.”
The young man was finally starting to wake up, and he quickly clawed his hair into a semblance of order as he led Jo into the house.
The living room, like the weedy front yard, was a picture of benign neglect: a faded sofa with sagging cushions, a green carpet, worn and stained by a parade of temporary tenants.
He led Jo down the hallway and knocked at a closed door.
“Karen? Excuse, please, are you here?” He looked at Jo and gave a helpless shrug.
Jo tried the door, found it unlocked, and pushed it open.
Inside was a twin bed and a pine dresser, cheap but functional furniture for an ever-changing roster of employees.
The closet door hung open to reveal a pair of orthopedically practical shoes.
Just the type of shoes a waitress who spent all day on her feet would choose.
The twin bed was carelessly made up, the halfhearted effort of someone who was too busy to worry about smooth sheets and hospital corners, but it had been made up.
Either she had left the house early, while her housemate was still asleep.
Or she had never made it home last night.
Jo turned to the housemate. “I need to ask you some questions.”
He was fully awake now, and by the look on his face, he understood that this day had just taken a serious turn. “I put on clothes.”
The young employee’s name was Andrei Petrov; he was a third-year university student from Belarus, and this was his first time in the United States.
His English was excellent, although accented, and he had the old-world good manners to offer his guest a cup of tea.
As the tea steeped, they sat on the sofa, and Andrei nervously kept track of the time on his phone.
“I work the lunch,” he explained. “At eleven, I must go there.”
“You’re a server in the restaurant, like Karen?”
“Yes. Today, she is breakfast.”
“Did you hear her leave the house this morning?”
“No. I was asleep.”
“And last night, did you hear her come home?”
Andrei shook his head. “Last night, I work very late, till midnight. When I come home, I think they are both asleep.”
“Both? Who is your other housemate?”
“Hannah.”
“Does she work in the restaurant too?”
“No. She cleans rooms. In hotel.”
As Jo jotted down the details in her notebook, Andrei poured the tea and placed a cup on the coffee table in front of Jo.
It was merely everyday black tea, made with a grocery store tea bag, but he presented the cup as if it were a rare and expensive beverage.
This boy’s mother had certainly taught him good manners.
“When you got home last night, after work, did you see Karen’s car parked outside?”
He thought about it, then shook his head. “I do not remember. I am too tired. I ride bicycle home and go to bed.”
“It sounds like they work you hard here.”
He gave a half shrug, as if the answer was obvious. As if exhaustion was part of the bargain. “Yesterday, I work double. I serve dinner, and then they need me in the bar.”
“And what was Karen’s shift yesterday? Do you know?”
“Last night, she works dinner too.”
“Is that the last time you saw her? At work?”
He didn’t answer, and the pause made Jo glance up from her notebook. He was staring down at his teacup. A lock of blond hair had drooped over his forehead, and she could not see his eyes.
“Andrei?”
“Yes,” he finally said. “Is last time.”
“Does Karen have a boyfriend? Is there a man in her life? Anyone who might want to hurt her?”
“I am sorry.” He set down his teacup. “I do not know. She and I, we are not . . .” He gave a helpless shrug. “We are not friends.”
“Do you not like each other?”
He sighed. “I think she does not like me.”
Jo regarded the young man, wondering what had inspired that statement. Had there been an argument? Or was it just the friction that so often results from housing three unrelated people under the same roof?
“What about your other housemate, Hannah? You said she works in housekeeping?”
At the mention of Hannah’s name, Andrei’s face brightened. “Hannah Murray. She is very nice.”
“Would Hannah know about Karen’s personal life?”
“You must ask her. She is in hotel, now.”
“I will.” Jo stood up. “Oh, one more question.”
“Yes?”
“What kind of car does Karen drive?”
“Brown.”
“Do you know the make? The model?”
Andrei gave a helpless shake of his head. “I am sorry, this is all I remember. It is brown.”
Free housing might come with the job, but apparently so did unlikable housemates.
That was the vibe Jo had picked up from the brief chat with Andrei: Karen was not particularly likable, although he had expressed it in a roundabout way.
We are not friends. I think she does not like me.
That could mean many things, from She doesn’t talk to me all the way to We hate each other, but it was too soon to think about who might want to kill the woman.
The chances were, Karen O’Brien was alive and well and merely sleeping off a drinking binge in some man’s bed.
Or she could have gone off the road while driving home and was trapped in her wrecked car.
Which was why Jo was now driving at a crawl along Back Cove Road.
Last night, Karen had just finished waiting tables at dinner, and she would have been tired.
This was the route she would have taken, and as Jo drove, she looked for damaged trees or broken fences or skid marks.
To the east were open fields, all the way to the sea.
To the west were woods, but Jo saw no recent damage to the trees, no obvious gap that a car might have barreled through.
If Karen had crashed her car, it didn’t happen on this road.
She reached the handsome gold-lettered sign for the Cod Cove Resort and was about to turn into the driveway when an ambulance came whooshing out in the opposite direction, lights flashing.
Right behind it was Declan Rose, driving his blue Volvo.
She knew Declan well, and she half expected him to wave at her as he drove past, but he zoomed right by, clearly in pursuit of the ambulance.
She watched the flashing lights recede down the road and thought: Now what?
She hadn’t received any call for a police response over her radio, so it must have been a medical emergency.
A heart attack on the golf course, perhaps, or a hotel guest tumbling down the stairs.
The resort’s clientele was well heeled and older, an age group prone to trips and falls and strokes, so seeing an ambulance speed away from the resort didn’t surprise her, especially on this busy weekend, with the Stone Coast Conference in session.