The Girls Across the Bay

by Emerald O'Brien

  “We’ll be checking into Mr. Clarke,” Mac said. “I told you, we’ll follow up on your concerns. For now, you were the person closest to her. We need to hear from you.”

  “Why did you bring her flowers?” Grace asked.

  “It was just something I did every once in a while,” John sniffled. “She deserved more. I should have given her more.”

  “Were you fighting with her?”

  He shook his head and pressed his lips together.

  Nonverbal. Something’s up with him.

  “Mac,” the officer from outside called down the hallway, “Chief’s back.”

  Mac left the room without a word. He and Banning spoke in low voices down the hallway, and another female voice joined them.

  “When you walked in and found her, John, what was the first thing you thought?” Grace asked.

  “He did it,” John said with wide eyes. “He’s finally done it.”

  “Mickey Clarke?”

  John nodded and covered his mouth with his hand, shaking his head.

  He’s going to go into hysterics if I don’t keep him calm.

  “How old are you, John?”

  “Forty-one.”

  “And Lily?”

  “Twenty-seven. Her birthday’s coming up. She would have been twenty-seven this year.”

  “John, we need to contact Lily’s parents. Do you have their number?”

  He shook his head. “She doesn’t talk to her parents much. I don’t have a relationship with them.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “They’ve just never liked me,” he shrugged. “The age difference, I think. Since we got engaged, her dad wasn’t speaking to her anymore.”

  The peace offering of the vase from her mom.

  “But her mom does?”

  He nodded.

  “Why don’t they like you?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “I’m too old? I’m not good enough for their daughter. I never would have been. They’ll blame me.”

  “For her death?”

  He shook his head. “For estranging them from their daughter. It’s her father’s fault he didn’t speak to her. He hurt her so bad because of that…” He stared past her.

  “John?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “That’s alright,” Grace said. “We’ll get their number. Is there anyone else you can think of who’d want to hurt Lily?”

  “No one. Everyone loves her.”

  “Anyone else who has keys to your home?”

  He shook his head.

  Would Lily have let Mickey Clarke in after she’d just been granted a no contact order against him?

  Grace stood from her chair, passing him a tissue from the box on the marble island.

  “Did you wear a coat when you left?” she asked, staring at the tattoos on his forearms as he took it.

  “Yeah,” he said, frowning.

  “When did you take it off?” she asked.

  When did you have time to think about taking off your coat?

  She walked around the marble island and stood on the other side. Banning, Mac, and the officer entered the kitchen.

  “Just after he got here,” he nodded to Mac.

  “You’re going to have to stay somewhere else for a while,” Mac said. “Do you have anywhere you can stay?”

  “I’ll get a hotel room.”

  Mac nodded. “Officer Malone will escort you to your room to pack a few things and answer any questions he’s able to. When you know where you’re staying, this is my number. Please contact me and let me know.”

  Mac handed him his card, and John stood from the table and took it. He was tall, and as she stared up at him, she couldn’t believe he was over forty.

  With a girlfriend in her twenties.

  Officer Malone followed John out of the room and up the staircase just off the hallway.

  Banning shook his head. “This is the first body this year. I want you both on this, and use Malone when you can too, alright?”

  Mac nodded. “When Lockwood gets back to me with her findings, I’ll let you know.”

  “You’ll notify the parents now, then?” Banning asked.

  Mac nodded. “There’s someone else I want to question tonight, too.”

  “You’ve got a busy night ahead,” Banning said, nodding to Grace.

  Banning turned back down the hallway, and Mac followed him. A woman in a dark blue coat stood beside a man photographing the scene and nodded to Mac.

  Chief M.E. had been stitched in yellow writing on the back of her jacket.

  “I need that report ASAP,” Mac said.

  The woman nodded.

  “I’m Detective Inspector Grace Sheppard.”

  “Raven Lockwood,” she replied, nodding. “Chief M.E.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Grace said, then followed Mac out the front door.

  Still trying to keep up.

  “You get the parents’ address?” he asked.

  “No,” she said. “I asked him, but he didn’t have their number, so I’ll look—”

  “Don’t bother. I already have it.”

  “Then why did you ask?”

  “You’d better ride with me,” he said, shaking his head as they passed another officer lugging an evidence box up the driveway. “Don’t want you to fall behind.”

  Grace rolled her eyes, and as they reached the bottom of the driveway, Banning stood in front of two reporters and a cameraman. Madigan was at the front with her phone held out in front of her.

  “You coming?” Mac asked.

  She caught Madigan’s eye and nodded to her. She’d never thought of her as The Press. Just a writer for the local paper, but more often than not, Grace found the media got in the way of the cases she worked.

  Grace turned and jogged to Mac’s car. As soon as she got in, he started to roll away.

  “I’m going to need you to pick up the pace,” he said.

  I’m not slow.

  Am I going too slow?

  “I wanted to talk to the neighbour across the way,” she said.

  “I’ve got Malone on it.”

  He sees things in black and white. He wants facts.

  “I’ve heard of Mickey Clarke,” she said.

  “Yeah?”

  “He owns Wild Card, and he’s one of the owners of Salty Rocks too. He’s a rough guy.”

  Once she’d gotten close to her contact, Leah, she’d also caught the eye of her boyfriend Conrad Burke’s best friend, Nick Hill. She’d been instructed to get closer with him, and they started dating, hoping the more intimate relationship would get her closer to Burke and any intel on the drugs they’d been moving.

  Salty Rocks had been their group’s favourite club, and Grace suspected the owners were involved in other unsavory business too.

  “Any priors?” Mac asked.

  “Nope. Nothing they could catch him with. John Talbot?”

  “He was arrested and sent to juvie as a teen for possession with intent to distribute,” he said. “After that, it’s just parking tickets through his twenties. Couple months ago, he was involved in an altercation on Seventh in the city. No charges though.”

  “Seventh?” Grace frowned. “That’s where Wild Card is. Who was he fighting with?”

  “Guy didn’t leave a name. Didn’t have a record, I guess, but John’s name was on the record.”

  “Think it was Mickey?” she asked.

  Mac shook his head. “They’d know who he was, wouldn’t they?”

  Of course they would. Why did I ask that?

  Mac turned up the radio, and as they merged onto the highway bridge toward Amherst, she wondered if meeting a friend was John’s real reason for going into the city that night.

  “We should check the café,” she said as they got off the bridge and took an exit lane. “See if he was there for as long as he said he was with who he said he was with.”

  “Tomorrow,” Mac said. “I want to see her parents and then Clarke tonight. Her par
ents live just outside Amherst, technically in Deerhorn County. Then we’ll carry on to Wild Card and see if we can find Clarke there. If not, I want to pay him a visit at home.”

  Grace nodded. “I think they were fighting.”

  “John and Clarke?”

  “John and Lily. I mean sure, men buy women flowers just because, but it was more likely they’d been fighting, it was his fault, and he was trying to make it up to her. I asked if they’d been fighting, and he shook his head, but I think he was evading the question.”

  “I like to work with facts,” Mac said. “Not theories.”

  Add predictable to the list of Mac’s weaknesses.

  She would keep her theories to herself until they turned into something more.

  If only Mac would keep his snide comments to himself, they might have a chance at working together in a cohesive manner to find out what happened to Lily.

  Chapter Four

  Madigan had followed far enough behind Grace that she was sure she hadn’t been spotted, and once Grace went inside the house, Madigan turned down the street.

  “Do you sleep next to a police scanner?” Madigan asked as she stopped her motorcycle beside the Tall Pines news van, where Thane stood talking to their photographer.

  “I gotta say, Knox, I’m surprised you’re here,” Thane said, and the photographer hopped into the back of the truck. “I can’t always keep it straight, so help refresh my memory. Are you working on your own tonight, or as my helper?”

  “I’m here for my own story.”

  A story that will get me on the front page so my Tall Pines Elementary article can be included.

  “Alright,” he said, shrugging. “But tell me—how did you find out about the body?”

  A body?

  Murder?

  “I’ve got my ways,” she said, lifting her feet and driving on past the second house, parking just before the dead end on the short street.

  She took out her cell phone and pulled the strap of her bag over her head, adjusting it across her chest.

  Another patrol car parked in front of the house, and Police Chief Paul Banning stepped out.

  This is big enough, Ornella. Very big.

  Without any extra effort, she’d be chasing the same story as Thane, and from there, it would be a write-off to see who could tell the better story. Thane had her there, hands down.

  She needed a better strategy, and as she met Thane and the cameraman on the road in front of the house, she decided to keep her enemy close.

  Thane’s strength was his tenacity, but his weakness was his ego. If she fed into it enough, she might find a way to beat him at his own game.

  As The Gazette’s photographer snapped shots of the house and stepped back several feet to include the ME’s vehicle in the frame, Madigan turned to Thane.

  “So seriously, how did you get here so fast?” she asked. “You must have some good connections.”

  “Maybe I do,” he smirked, “but I’m not telling you.”

  She shrugged and smiled. “Fair enough. I bet it’s because people are excited to tell you things. You’re this popular news reporter, and I’ve never told you this because your head would be too big to fit through the front door of The Gazette, but you’re a real celebrity around here.”

  Thane laughed and shook his head.

  Just a little more.

  “I bet you haven’t had a story this good in a while. Actually, I’d like to learn from you.”

  He peered down at her from his peripheral. “Oh yeah?”

  Does he buy it? Maybe not, but I’ve got him talking.

  “Just let me know if I can help. What’s going on in there anyway?”

  “We won’t know much until Banning comes back out,” he said. “They haven’t brought the body out yet.”

  Someone’s dead. Who?

  “I see. What do you think happened?” she asked.

  “I overheard the officer tell the Chief M.E. she’s fresh.”

  “Fresh?”

  “Not dead long,” he said. “Now, when Banning comes to give a statement, it’s important to ask the questions our readers want to know. The tough ones, like who was killed? What happened to her? Are there any suspects?”

  “Couldn’t it be an accident though?”

  Thane shook his head and waved his pen around. “They don’t make this kind of fuss over an accident. They have to at least suspect something else.”

  “Oooh, I see,” she cooed, pretending he’d enlightened her.

  Her phone rang in her hand.

  Will.

  “Hi, babe,” she said.

  “I got home, and you’re not here,” Will said. “Everything alright?”

  “Yeah, I’m just out on a story. There’s been a murder, I think, and…”

  A man followed an officer out of the home, and camera lights flashed across the man’s face. The first person without a uniform to come from the home.

  A witness?

  A suspect.

  “Put your phone down and focus,” Thane hissed.

  This is my out.

  “It’s important,” she hissed, holding her hand up and walking toward the end of the driveway.

  “Will,” she whispered, “I have to go.”

  “Alright, be careful.”

  She hung up and searched her phone for the record app as the man followed the officer down his driveway.

  “Thank you, Will,” she whispered under her breath, “for the excuse to lose Thane.”

  I’m right where I need to be.

  The man stopped at the car at the bottom of the driveway, and the officer continued, ducking under the police tape and walking to his car. Madigan waited for the officer to reach the road before she crossed over the neighbour’s front lawn and stayed tight against the long bushes that separated the yards, jogging toward the man.

  “Sir,” she said, holding her phone in front of her. “I’m with the Tall Pines Gazette. Are you related to the victim?”

  He glanced her way over his shoulder, squinting into the bushes before fumbling with his keys and turning back to the door.

  The Amherst news crew had arrived, and a small group had formed, shouting questions at the man while the officer held his arms out, keeping them back away from the tape.

  “Sir, were you there when the victim died?” she asked, having heard Thane’s voice ask the same question in the crowd moments before.

  “Please,” he said, “leave me alone.”

  Whoever it was, the victim meant something to him.

  She heard it in his voice and remembered the news crews that hounded her after she was released from the hospital following her accident with Drew.

  “I’m sorry.” Madigan sighed and lowered her cell phone. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  He opened the door and hesitated. “She was my fiancée,” he said, turning around to face her.

  Why was he telling her this? She’d hoped he’d talk to her, but now that he was, she couldn’t understand why he would.

  He must be in shock.

  “Do you live here?” she asked, holding her cell phone out toward him again.

  He nodded, looking back at the house.

  With her phone in her hand, she felt silly. A pest bothering a man who’d just lost his fiancée. Or a man who’d just murdered her?

  What do I need from him?

  “What’s your name?” she asked.

  Most people liked to talk about themselves. It always led to something else.

  “John Talbot. Listen, I have to go.”

  “John. What was her name? Please?”

  “Lily,” he said, staring at the ground.

  He’s not looking at me, so no one is noticing me. Keep looking down.

  “Do you think I could talk to you sometime? Interview you for the paper?”

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea.” He shook his head and grabbed the handle inside the door before getting into the car. The tattoo on his left forearm above his watc
h caught her eye.

  A black scorpion.

  I’ve seen that…

  He shut the door, and before he left, he turned to look at her through the window.

  She stepped back, hoping to be hidden by the bush.

  Do I know you?

  He stared in her direction before rolling down the driveway. He pulled out onto the road, and the patrol car followed him, leaving the other officer alone on the other side of the police tape.

  He hadn’t given her much—just names and relations—but it was more than Thane had.

  I can work with this.

  John Talbot.

  She’d never heard of him before.

  That tattoo. It’s generic but…

  The light from the second-story window across the street went out, and she studied the large house with the wrap-around porch.

  Maybe they’re a witness.

  The news group started shouting once more as Chief Banning walked down the driveway toward them. “I’ll make my statement, but I’m not taking questions at this time,” Banning started.

  Now’s my chance.

  “An investigation will be launched into the death of a young woman who will not be named at this time. The circumstances are suspicious in nature, and the Tall Pines PD will be cooperating with a regional detective in this matter. That is all I can confirm at this time…”

  Madigan jogged across the street while members of the news shouted questions at Banning. She strode up the pathway, climbing the stairs to the neighbour’s porch and knocking twice at the storm door.

  She was pushing it for time and luck, but if she didn’t try, she wouldn’t know. The house had an unobstructed view of John’s home.

  A short older woman with curly white hair opened the door and peeked out.

  “Hello,” Madigan said. “Pardon the disturbance. I’m not sure how much you know about what’s going on across the street—”

  “I think it’s a murder,” the woman said, opening the door wider.

  “I’m Madigan Knox,” she extended her hand.

  “I’m Dorothy,” she said, shaking her hand. “My friends call me Dot.”

  “Dorothy, nice to meet you. Why do you think it was a murder?”

  “The medical examiner is still there,” she said. “No one got taken away in the ambulance. Must have some reason to investigate.”

  Dorothy nodded toward the driveway. “John just left. I’m afraid it’s Lily.”