by Sarah Fox
Chloe quickly told her what had happened to Amy earlier in the day.
“Why would Tyrone rob Amy’s studio in the middle of the day?” Chrissy asked once Chloe had finished. “He’s no genius, but I don’t think he’s that stupid.”
“We don’t know for sure what his motive was,” I said. “We just want to find him. He took off when the sheriff went to his mom’s place, and he hasn’t been seen since.”
The bell above the boutique’s door jingled. The three of us turned as one to see who was there. Jake Fellmen stepped into the shop, his discerning gaze quickly taking in the sight of us gathered by the sales counter.
“You again,” Chrissy said with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. “How many more times do I have to answer the same questions?” She didn’t give Fellmen a chance to respond, instead addressing me and Chloe again. “I haven’t seen Tyrone. And I haven’t heard from him either. He’s more likely to go to Coach Hannigan for help than me.”
“Coach Hannigan hasn’t heard from him,” Chloe said.
“Then I guess the sheriff will have to hunt him down.”
“He hasn’t had any luck with that so far,” Fellmen said.
No one spared him anything more than the briefest glance.
“You can’t think of anywhere he might have gone?” I pressed.
Chrissy slapped the skirt and hanger down onto the counter. I thought she was about to lose her temper with me, but then her expression shifted from exasperated to thoughtful.
“There was a place we used to hang out sometimes,” she said. “An old abandoned cabin.”
“The one by the river?” Chloe asked.
“Yes. It must really be a wreck by now, but that’s the only place I can think of.”
The bell jingled again, and this time a young woman with a toddler in tow entered the boutique.
“I really need to get back to work,” Chrissy practically hissed at us, keeping her voice low.
I said a hurried thank-you to her and left the shop with Chloe. Fellmen followed us out onto the sidewalk.
“This is Jake Fellmen, the private investigator Demetra’s mom hired,” I told Chloe.
“Are you looking for Tyrone too?” she asked him.
“I am. I want to question him about some information I got from Quaid Hendrix this morning. I’m sure the sheriff wants to talk to him about it too. But I hear Tyrone’s got himself into even more trouble, in Port Townsend this time.”
“So it seems,” I said.
“I should call Ray.” Chloe dug through her purse and pulled out her phone.
“The sheriff’s her uncle,” I explained for Fellmen’s benefit.
Chloe tried calling Ray, but she soon shook her head. “He’s not picking up. Should I call back and leave a message? Should we call 911?”
“I’ll scout out the cabin and see if Tyrone’s there,” Fellmen said. “No point in calling in an emergency if that’s not his hideout.”
“You won’t be able to find it,” Chloe said. “It’s not on any road or trail.”
“Then show me the way.”
Chloe and I shared an uneasy glance.
“I’m pretty sure my uncle would want us to leave it to him to check,” she said to the PI.
Fellmen took a step backward. “Fine. You keep trying to reach him. If you’re not willing to give me directions, I’ll ask someone else.”
He turned his back on us and strode away.
Chloe stared after him. “What the heck?”
“I think he only cares about his own investigation, not the official one,” I said.
“If Tyrone is at the cabin and he spots that guy looking around, he’ll bolt.” Chloe tried Ray’s number again. “I’m leaving a message.”
She did so, letting her uncle know what Chrissy had said about the old cabin.
“What do you think we should do now?” she asked me after she’d hung up.
I had my focus on a spot down the street. Fellmen had disappeared into Wildwood Cove’s general store moments before, and he’d just reappeared on the sidewalk. He jogged across the street and got into a gray sedan.
“I think,” I said, already heading for my own car, “that we should head for the cabin.”
Chapter 30
“Are you sure about this?” Chloe asked as she slid into the passenger seat of my car.
“No,” I admitted. “But if Fellmen scares off Tyrone, maybe we can keep an eye on him and see where he goes.”
“I don’t know.” Chloe had a death grip on her phone. “Maybe we really should call 911.”
“I think you’re right.” I could see Fellmen’s car up ahead of us, heading toward the river. I followed after him. “We’ll wait on the road. When Ray or his deputies show up, we can point them toward the cabin. Maybe Tyrone isn’t there, but better safe than sorry.”
“I agree.”
While Chloe talked to the emergency dispatcher, I left the paved road for a dirt one. I’d jogged along this route a few times, but I’d never followed the road too far into the woods.
Within minutes we were farther along the road than I’d ever been before. The river was on our right, both it and the road curving eastward. I wasn’t entirely sure where we were, but I figured we were still a mile or two away from the Wildwood Inn.
“We’re almost as close as we can get by car,” Chloe said to me after ending her call.
We rounded a bend and saw Fellmen’s gray sedan up ahead. He hadn’t had much of a head start on us, but he was nowhere in sight, his car unoccupied. I pulled up behind the sedan and parked.
“Do you think Fellmen will be able to find the cabin?” I asked.
“Depends on the directions he got. There are a few landmarks to go by—this big stump being the first.” She pointed at a four-foot-high stump at the side of the road. “But I haven’t been to the cabin in years, so who knows how much things have overgrown?”
I lowered the windows to let in the evening breeze and to make it easier for us to hear any sounds of someone approaching.
“It could be another ten minutes before Ray or one of his deputies shows up,” Chloe said.
She sounded uneasy, and I couldn’t blame her. If Tyrone was nearby and he really was guilty of attacking Amy—and possibly killing Demetra too—there was no telling what he’d do if he felt trapped or cornered.
“How long will it take Fellmen to get to the cabin if he finds it easily?” I asked.
“Maybe five minutes if he’s going at an average pace.”
I drummed my fingers against the steering wheel, watching the woods on the other side of the narrow road. Nothing other than the occasional bird moved between the trees, and all I could hear was the rushing of the nearby river and the tap-tap-tap of my fingers against the steering wheel. I glanced in the rearview mirror, hoping to see a sheriff’s department cruiser approaching, but the road was deserted behind us.
“He’s probably not there,” Chloe said, not sounding too certain. “He probably skipped town and went back to Seattle, right?”
I detected another sound aside from the roar of the river. Someone was crashing through the forest’s undergrowth.
I sat up straighter. “Maybe not.”
The crashing grew louder, and I caught sight of a flash of movement among the trees.
“It’s Tyrone!” Chloe said, opening the passenger door.
We both jumped out of the car as Tyrone broke through the tree line. He careened to a stop, staring at us with wide, wild eyes.
“What are you doing here?” he asked in a panicked voice. His eyes darted left and right. “Did you bring the cops?”
“Tyrone,” Chloe said, “hiding isn’t going to help you.”
He ran a hand through his messy hair, practically bursting with agitated energy. “They want to lock me away for so
mething I didn’t do. I didn’t hurt Demetra!”
“What about Amy Strudwick?” I asked.
“Amy?” Confusion replaced some of the panic in his eyes. “What does Amy have to do with anything?”
“The sheriff wants to talk to you about Demetra’s case, but he wants to arrest you for assaulting Amy.”
“Assaulting…” He shook his head, looking dazed. “I didn’t touch Amy!” Understanding dawned on his face. “He’s behind it, isn’t he? He’s behind all of it.”
“Who is?” Chloe asked.
“Coach Hannigan, of course!”
Chloe and I glanced at each other with surprise.
Someone moved through the undergrowth in the forest behind Tyrone. He whirled around. Fellmen wasn’t yet in sight, but the sound of his approach grew louder.
The panic returned to Tyrone’s eyes as he focused on us again. He reached into the pocket of his jeans and whipped out a knife before I had a chance to realize what he was doing.
Chloe and I took a step back as he brandished the blade. I bumped into my car, unable to move any farther away from him.
“Toss me your keys,” he ordered me.
“What?” I was so focused on the sharp blade of the knife that I could hardly process what he’d said.
“Your keys!”
I hesitated until he advanced on me with the knife. I threw the keys, and he snatched them out of the air with his free hand.
“Out of my way!”
Chloe grabbed my arm and pulled me away from the car.
“Running will only make things worse, Tyrone,” she said, her voice shaking.
He slid into the driver’s seat and slammed the door. I glanced toward the forest. Fellmen was running toward us, but he still had a ways to go before he reached the road.
“I’m not going down for what he’s done,” Tyrone said through the open window as he started the engine.
“Why do you think Coach Hannigan is behind this?” I asked over the sound of the car’s engine.
But Tyrone didn’t answer. He just reversed my car like a shot, dirt from the road spraying out from beneath the tires. Chloe and I hurried out of the way as he zoomed forward and back in a wild three-point turn. When he had the car faced away from us, he stepped on the gas and raced off along the road.
Fellmen burst through the tree line. “You let him get away?”
“He had a knife!” Chloe glared at him. “What were we supposed to do?”
Fellmen was already climbing into his car.
Chloe glanced at me, and I nodded. I ran around the hood of the sedan and jumped into the passenger seat while Chloe got into the back.
“I thought you were just going to see if he was at the cabin, not send him running,” I said as Fellmen maneuvered his car around, barely more controlled than Tyrone had been.
“He was outside. Saw me coming.”
We bounced along the dirt road. As we zoomed out of the woods and onto the paved street, Fellmen screeched to a stop and swore.
My car was nowhere in sight.
“He’s going to see Coach Hannigan,” I told Fellmen.
“Where does he live?” the PI asked.
“Green Hill Road,” Chloe replied. She opened the back door. “I’ll wait here until someone shows up from the sheriff’s office. Then I’ll send them your way.”
Before I could question whether it was a good idea to leave Chloe by herself, she slammed the door and Fellmen stepped on the gas.
I told him how to get to Green Hill Road while I pulled out my phone, trying to find an exact address for the former baseball coach. When I found Bruce Hannigan’s house number online, I knew we were only minutes away. What I didn’t know was what we’d find once we got there.
Chapter 31
I gripped the edge of my seat as Fellmen tore along the street.
“Does he think Hannigan’s going to help him get out of the mess he’s in?” the PI asked.
“Actually, he seems to believe Coach Hannigan’s behind everything.”
“Everything as in Demetra Kozani’s death and…?”
“And the attack on Amy. I really don’t think Tyrone’s responsible for that. He seemed genuinely surprised to hear about the assault.”
“But why would he think Hannigan would try to rob a photographer’s studio?”
“I didn’t get a chance to tell him about the studio getting trashed,” I said. “He seems to think the attack on Amy is related to Demetra’s death. At least, that’s what I got out of those few seconds of talking to him.”
Fellmen’s jaw was tense and his eyebrows were drawn together as he kept his eyes focused on the road ahead of us. “Even if Hannigan killed Demetra, what would Amy have to do with that?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Did you have the coach pegged as a suspect?”
Fellmen didn’t reply, but the frown on his face was answer enough.
I tightened my grip on my seat as Fellmen barely slowed before turning onto Green Hill Road. “Why would Hannigan kill Demetra?” I asked. “Something to do with Tyrone being his star player?”
“Maybe he thought Demetra was too much of a distraction for Tyrone.”
“Still, killing her? That would be kind of extreme.”
“Tyrone was the best player Hannigan ever coached. If Tyrone had gone on to be a star in the major leagues, that could have given Hannigan’s career a boost. Or at least his reputation. For some people, that’s enough to drive them to murder.”
“Okay,” I said, thinking things over. “But even if that’s the case, how does Amy fit into things?”
“Maybe she knew something.”
“All these years and she never said anything?” A thought struck me. “Her photographs. I wanted to ask her if she had any pictures of the cooking competition’s saboteur in action. What if ten years ago she caught something on camera that would cast suspicion on Coach Hannigan?” I shook my head, disappointment smothering my momentary burst of excitement. “No. If he suspected that, why would he wait until now to do something about it?”
Fellmen finally slowed the car before turning into a long driveway. I could see my blue hatchback parked up a hill, near a one-story gray home that was surrounded by a couple of acres of land. Fellmen headed for the house.
“Maybe we’re about to find out,” he said.
* * * *
Fellmen didn’t go straight to the front door. Instead he approached a large window from the side and peeked through it. Tyrone might have heard us driving up to the house, but I figured it was a good idea not to go bursting in there without an idea of what was happening.
When Fellmen pulled back from the window, frowning, I took his place, sneaking a glance into the house. My heart almost stopped when I saw the scene inside, lit by a lamp and the glow from a large flat-screen television mounted on the wall.
Coach Hannigan stood with his back to the television, his hands raised in the air as if in surrender. Tyrone stood three or four feet away from him, holding the same knife he’d pulled on me and Chloe.
“Stay out here,” Fellmen said in a low voice.
He quietly opened the front door and slipped inside.
I ducked down to stay out of sight and crept beneath the window until I reached the corner of the house. Fellmen had left the front door open behind him, and I didn’t want anyone hearing the call I was about to make.
When the emergency dispatcher answered, I quickly filled her in on what was happening, stressing that Tyrone had a knife and believed he was confronting Demetra Kozani’s killer. The dispatcher wanted me to stay on the line, and I assured her that I would.
When I heard a yell from inside the house, I peeked through the window again. Tyrone now knew Fellmen was there. The PI had his back to me, and Tyrone was trying to cover him and Coach Hannigan with his
knife. I ducked down again and hurried toward the front door, my phone in my hand at my side, still connected to the dispatcher.
I paused for a moment, whispering into the phone that Tyrone was now threatening two men with his knife. Then I crept closer to the open door, staying out of sight but listening to what was unfolding inside.
“I swear I never hurt Demetra, Tyrone,” Hannigan said. It sounded like he was trying to keep his voice calm, but a thread of tension still ran through his words.
“You thought she was bad for me, for my career,” Tyrone said. His voice wavered, and I suspected he was crying.
“But she broke up with you and was going off to New York City. You would have forgotten about her once you got off to college. I had no reason to kill her.”
“He’s telling the truth, Tyrone,” Fellmen said.
“What do you know?” Tyrone yelled. “He killed Demetra and then he tried to kill Amy to keep her quiet.”
“Amy Strudwick?” Hannigan sounded as baffled as Tyrone had when I’d brought up her name earlier. “The photographer? Someone tried to kill her?”
“You did!”
“It wasn’t me,” Hannigan said. “None of it was me. Why would I kill either one of them?”
“You know why!”
I chanced a glance through the front door in time to see Fellmen lunge at Tyrone as he moved closer to Hannigan. The PI tackled Tyrone, and they crashed to the floor together. Hannigan dove into the mix as the other two men struggled on the floor.
A second later, the coach straightened up, Tyrone’s knife in his hand. He backed off as Fellmen climbed to his feet, hauling Tyrone up with him, holding the younger man’s hands behind his back.
I spun around at the sound of tires crunching on gravel. Relief rushed through me at the sight of the two sheriff’s department cruisers coming up the driveway. I ended my call with the dispatcher and ran over to meet Ray as he climbed out of his patrol car.
“Coach Hannigan and Jake Fellmen got the knife away from Tyrone,” I said.
“The private investigator?” Deputy Rutowski asked as he climbed out of the second cruiser.
“Yes.”
