Chapter 42 #17
She had taken her father down to the river two years ago—a last outing for a dying man. He’d described that ship as it sailed past, had even saluted the woman at the wheel—and had laughed when the “pirate queen” had returned his salute.
He’d talked about a ship she couldn’t see—a ship she had believed was a delusion.
He disappeared that night and was never seen again.
The police who investigated concluded that he must have wandered back to the river and fallen in—or walked in, since they found his slippers near the edge of the water.
She didn’t argue with their conclusion. A man with only a few weeks—or days—left to live, making a choice.
She never told anyone that there were times since then when she heard his voice in the water of Susurration Sound. I’m all right, Gracie. Don’t worry about me. I’m just taking a last voyage. I’m all right.
“Is it safe to proceed?” she asked.
The pilot nodded, gradually increasing the boat’s speed.
Grace didn’t take a full breath until they were out of the sound and headed up the Fate River to Penwych.
33
When he heard that Grace Russell and two other detectives were in the building, Charles Forrester pushed away from his desk to join his team and greet their guests.
Russell had called him back and said that she had some information about Rachel Nightingale, and she was curious about why a Penwych detective had gone to King’s Hill to pick up a cell phone.
Since this could be Russell’s case, he told Fahey to hold on to the phone for the time being instead of taking it to their tech team to figure out the PIN and find out what information they could glean from the device.
He glanced at his computer and was going to ignore the new e-mail that appeared, unwilling to delay hearing what had pushed Russell to come by boat to Penwych. When he saw the sender’s cryptic name, he froze for a moment. Then he opened the e-mail from Lucas Frost.
The subject line read: You will need this.
The e-mail’s content was a four-digit number.
No signature, which wasn’t unusual. No other information, which meant he shouldn’t need anything else to figure out what to do with the number.
Charles joined his team around the big evidence table, arriving at the same time one of the precinct’s officers escorted his guests to the team’s area of the precinct.
Russell introduced Markus Seibert and Sheina Kali.
Charles had met Seibert at area conferences.
Kali was unknown—and looked as if she hadn’t had an easy time on the trip.
Ian Kuhn set an old, folded blanket on the table. Seibert set a large evidence bag on the table—a bag that held a piece of driftwood and…
“Jesus,” Castelletti said. “Are those hands?”
“We retrieved them on our way here,” Russell said. “They appeared in Susurration Sound.”
Charles heard the slight emphasis on the word appeared and knew what that meant.
Ghost ship.
“Men’s hands,” Fahey murmured. “Not Rachel Nightingale.”
Russell gave Fahey a sharp look. “Not her hands, but Rachel Nightingale is the primary reason we’re here. I’m hoping your people can pull fingerprints off the hands while they’re still fresh.”
“Of course,” Charles said. “Kuhn? If you would oblige.”
“Chain of custody?” Kuhn asked.
“Don’t worry about it.” He received sharp looks from the detectives from the other towns, but he suspected police procedure wasn’t going to help any of them.
After Kuhn left with the driftwood and hands, Russell looked at Charles and said, “Tell me about the cell phone your people picked up at a King’s Hill library.”
Fahey set the cell phone, sealed in an evidence bag, on the table.
“After calling the precinct and asking for me specifically, Rachel Nightingale left her phone outside the library. Hearing my voice, a young girl picked up the phone, and she and her mother took it inside, at my request. By the time Detective Castelletti and I arrived to retrieve it, the phone had shut down. Now it’s locked. ”
“We’ll have to get the tech boys to figure out the PIN,” Castelletti said.
You will need this. “Try two zero zero seven,” Charles said.
Fahey removed the phone from the evidence bag, turned it on, and put in the numbers. “It worked.” She gave him a look that asked a question.
She wasn’t the only one looking at him.
“Anonymous source.” His voice warned all of them not to ask about the source.
“Did anyone see Rachel Nightingale?” Russell asked.
Fahey shook her head. “But the librarians know her. She comes in once or twice a week to do research for her next book or series of books. They had the impression that she was working on a woman-on-the-run sort of story because she’d asked for their help to pull information about women’s shelters and witness protection. That sort of thing.”
“Telling them she’s doing research would be a good way to hide personal interest or intentions,” Seibert said, looking at Russell.
“She said a man was following her, and she was afraid,” Fahey said.
“No one else saw a man near her or acting in a threatening manner?” Russell asked.
Fahey shook her head again as she worked on the phone.
“Why lead us to it? There are no texts, no photos. Only three phone numbers. Two are for Alistair Hampton: cell phone and office number. The other number is for that branch of the King’s Hill public library.
Two phone calls made this morning. One to the train station, and the second, a few minutes later, to us. To me.”
“That establishes a timeline of when she was at the library,” Seibert said.
Establishing a timeline. Or an alibi? That didn’t explain why Lucas Frost sent him the cell phone’s PIN or why Frost had the PIN in the first place.
“What’s your interest in Rachel Nightingale?” Charles asked Grace Russell.
Russell opened a soft-sided briefcase and laid a series of pictures on the table.
“This morning, Rachel Nightingale was seen at four places at the same time, packing up her personal possessions and closing her bank accounts. The two women who accompanied Nightingale to her apartment this morning are known to party with wealthy men, and we suspect another of Nightingale’s companions also liked to party.
The woman who assisted Nightingale in closing her primary checking and savings accounts is unknown. ”
Unknown by name, maybe, Charles thought, but I suspect she came from the other side of the river.
“However…” Russell nodded to Kali, who opened her phone and laid it on the table with a picture filling the screen. “The three women who liked to party were found at the Jackson marina this morning and have been dead for several days.”
Charles felt his heart pounding but kept his voice matter-of-fact. “Anything else?”
“Possessions belonging to a man named Jeremy Swayne were found near the river this morning, along with a blood trail leading to the water. And then there are the dismembered hands we found.” Russell took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“A person can’t be in four places at the same time.
Dead women can’t be walking around helping that person pack up her possessions and close her bank accounts. ”
Were the hands deliberately dropped in front of a patrol boat for the police to find, or wasn’t that a consideration?
Castelletti finally broke the silence that followed those words. “Someone is going to have to go to Wyrd.”
“Not today,” Kuhn said, returning to the meeting. “The officers who patrol around the docks just sent word that the ferry isn’t running to Wyrd after two p.m.” He looked at his watch. “No point in any of us trying to reach the island until tomorrow.”
“The ferry is running one way?” Charles asked.
Kuhn nodded. “They’re continuing to bring visitors back to Penwych but not allowing anyone on this side to board.”
Charles considered—and discarded—a handful of things to say to the detectives from King’s Hill and Jackson.
“I can send someone in the morning to see if any information can be acquired,” he offered.
After all, that was why his team existed—to cross the river and receive answers that no one else would be given.
But this convergence of events? He had an uneasy feeling that Lucas Frost had already given him all the help they would receive from Wyrd.
34
Reginald Hampton III stayed on the edge of the feeding frenzy and gulped a chunk of flesh that floated nearby—and bit through a small fish that had darted too close, leaving its head and tail to sink to the bottom of the sound.
A sinking feast. He’d followed the rush of fish, large and small, hunger overwhelming fear of game fish as big as he was that would fight him over a meal—or fight him because they sensed, in some way, that he wasn’t like them, wasn’t natural.
He was learning how to survive in this eat-or-be-eaten world, but catching food was a skill he hadn’t mastered yet.
He swallowed another morsel that had been flung away from a bigger piece of meat.
There were so many fish darting in and around the carcass, he couldn’t see what it was.
Another game fish? A shark or small whale that had swum into the sound and had been injured by a propeller?
Whatever it was, he needed to get in there and grab a couple more chunks of meat before the thing sank deeper than he was willing to go.
Dangerous things lived in the depths of Susurration Sound.
The sound of a boat motor. Fish scattered. Reginald darted in before they regrouped—and saw what was left of a face he recognized.
Jeremy Swayne. Minus a shirt. Minus hands. Weighed down by a belt made of fish net filled with rocks. Sinking out of reach.
Reginald hesitated for a moment. Just a moment. Then hunger and an instinct not quite his own made the decision for him. He bit deep and gulped down another chunk of meat before swimming a safe distance away from the resumed feeding frenzy.
35