Word to the Wise

by Jenn McKinlay

  Over the next couple of hours, she and Robbie took turns popping out the back door to see whether Emma and the investigators were still there. They were. Even though Grady’s body had been taken to the medical examiner’s office, the crime scene techs were examining every inch of the area. Emma had left to go talk to Sylvia Grady, but she came back quickly, not finding her at home.

  Lindsey called Sully and told him about Grady. She didn’t tell him about the gun. He was mostly concerned about whether she was okay, and when she tried to pin him down about his morning, he was interrupted by one of the passengers asking about a rock formation on one of the islands. He told her he loved her and that he’d be there as soon as he could. The wait was excruciating.

  Robbie went back out to check in with Emma, and Lindsey tried to do the routine tasks her job required. She had to go over the maintenance budget, as she needed to start looking at replacing the carpet in the building. The existing industrial flooring was becoming worn, and she’d finally wrangled a commitment to replace it from the mayor. Of course, after she’d told him about Grady this morning, she sensed she had slid down the list of his favorite department heads. She was probably hovering somewhere above Parks and Recreation, because they overspent their budget every season, but she was definitely below the Water Department. Mayor Hensen loved them since they were a never-ending, never-fluctuating revenue stream for the town.

  She had just started going over her spending spreadsheets when Sully popped his head into her office.

  “Hey, darlin’, you busy?” he asked.

  The summer sun had left its mark upon him, bleaching the hair on his forearms and on his head with strands of pure gold while it bronzed his skin a rich brown. He looked windswept and smelled of the sea. Lindsey jumped up from her desk and hustled around it to hug him tight.

  “Hey there,” he said. He kissed her head and hugged her back. “It’ll be all right. I know it had to be upsetting finding him like that, but given his behavior, he may have been harassing someone else who decided to take matters into their own hands. Em will figure it out. I’m sure of it.”

  “No, it’s not that,” Lindsey said. “They found the murder weapon, or what we assume is the weapon. It was near his body, tossed into the bushes.”

  “What? That’s crazy. What if a kid had found it?”

  “Exactly,” Lindsey said. “See? You think just like I do. You would never leave a gun out in the open.”

  “Of course not,” he said. “Wait.” He pulled back to look at her. “What do you mean ‘you would never leave a gun out in the open’? You don’t think I did this, do you?”

  “No!” she said. “But the weapon . . .”

  “Is a SIG Sauer P226,” Emma said from behind Sully. “And I believe as a retired naval officer, you probably have one.”

  Sully turned to look at Emma. He met her gaze without flinching. Lindsey felt her heart pound in her chest. It was ridiculous. There was no way Sully would ever shoot anyone unless he had to, and that was not the case here.

  “Is it the murder weapon?” he asked.

  “Don’t know yet,” Emma said. “We’ll have to wait until the ballistics report comes in. Do you have your service revolver in your possession?”

  “Of course I do,” Sully said. He looked annoyed. “I keep it in my office on the pier, locked in the safe.”

  “Then you won’t mind retrieving it for me,” Emma said.

  “Not at all,” he said.

  “Wait,” Lindsey said. “Maybe you should have a lawyer present or at least have a warrant delivered first.”

  They all turned to look at her, but she had no interest in anyone’s reaction except Sully’s. He gave her a small smile. “Don’t worry. My gun is safely locked away. I can show it to Emma, and that should clear me of suspicion.” He gave Emma a questioning glance.

  “It will certainly help,” she said.

  “Let’s go,” Sully said.

  Emma and Sully turned to leave, and Lindsey followed. There was no way she was letting Sully do this on his own. She grabbed her purse out of her desk and followed them. Pausing by the circulation desk, Lindsey told Ms. Cole she’d be right back. Surprisingly, the lemon simply nodded, and Lindsey realized she must look more stressed than she’d thought.

  “It’ll be all right,” Paula said from beside Ms. Cole.

  That clinched it. Lindsey took a deep breath and forced a small smile. “Call me if you need me.”

  The two women nodded, and Lindsey saw Robbie waiting for them by the front door. He fell into step beside Emma and Lindsey joined Sully as they all stepped out into the hot sticky July day.

  Because the pier was within walking distance, the four of them crossed the main road, cut through the town park and walked down the pier until they reached the small office where Sully ran his water-taxi and boat-tour company.

  Ronnie, his octogenarian office manager, was sitting at her desk, filing her purple nails. Her cranberry red hair was piled up on top of her head in its usual ball-shaped bun. Her jewelry, circa the nineteen seventies, included strings of big white round plastic beads at her throat and right wrist, with matching earrings and a ring on her left index finger. The look reminded Lindsey of Wilma Flintstone, but she was smart enough not to say anything.

  At the sight of the four of them, Ronnie lowered her nail file and stared at them over her rhinestone encrusted cat’s-eye reading glasses. She glanced from Sully to Emma and back. “What gives?”

  “Nothing much,” Sully said. “I just need to get something out of the safe.”

  Ronnie narrowed her eyes. “Okay.”

  She scooted out of her chair and made room for him. The safe was built into the wall behind Ronnie’s desk. Sully hunched down and turned the combination lock on the safe. It clicked, and he twisted the handle on the safe and pulled the heavy door open. He reached inside and pulled out another metal box. This one was also locked. He retrieved a set of keys from the safe and used them to open the box. When he popped the lid, they all leaned forward. The box was empty.

  Sully’s head snapped up, and he met Lindsey’s gaze. “I didn’t.”

  “I know.” She saw the look of shocked bewilderment on his face and knew even more certainly than before that he was innocent.

  She turned to Emma. The chief looked upset. Lindsey knew what she was going to say next.

  “I’m sorry, Sully. I’m going to have to take you in for further questioning,” Emma said.

  “What is going on?” Ronnie asked. Her gaze darted to all their faces, as if she could read the answer there.

  “It’s just a formality, Ronnie,” Sully said. “There’s been a shooting, and Emma has to track down any leads, of which I am now one.”

  “But that’s ridiculous,” Lindsey said. “Obviously, if Sully had shot Aaron Grady with his own gun, he wouldn’t have volunteered to open up his safe to you. Come on, Emma—you know this is a setup.”

  “I’m sorry—” Emma began, but Ronnie interrupted.

  “Aaron Grady was shot?” she asked.

  “Yes, this morning,” Robbie answered. “Outside the library.”

  “Well, that’s easy to clear up,” Ronnie said. “Sully was here with me, setting up for the tour this morning.”

  “What time?” Emma asked. Her gaze stayed on Sully’s face.

  “Seven o’clock, the usual,” Ronnie said.

  “What time did you leave your house, Sully?” Emma asked. Her voice was even, betraying nothing of what she was feeling.

  “Six fifteen, same as every day,” he said.

  “Can anyone account for your whereabouts between six fifteen and seven?”

  Sully shook his head. “No.” He turned to Ronnie and said, “Call Charlie Peyton, and see if he can take over my tours for the rest of the day.”

  Ronnie nodded. Her big beads bobbled as
she did so, and Lindsey got the feeling she was trying not to cry. She underestimated Ronnie. When the feisty lady stepped back around her desk and picked up her phone, her cheeks had two spots of red, and there was a fire in her eyes that looked as if it could burn through steel.

  “Don’t you worry, boss,” she said. “I’ll take care of things here, and I’ll plan your jailbreak if I have to.”

  Sully grinned.

  “Um . . . police chief . . . standing right here,” Emma said.

  Ronnie turned her fiery gaze on her. “Then consider yourself warned.”

  Lindsey felt her panic wan. Ronnie was right. There was no need to be worried; they would fight for Sully if they had to, and they would win.

  * * *

  • • •

  The police station was in chaos when they arrived. Sylvia Grady was pacing in front of the desk officer, a rookie named Harrison, demanding to speak to Emma, when they pushed open the door and strode in.

  “Chief Plewicki, what is going on?” Sylvia demanded. “I got your voice mail and had to leave a very important work conference to come here, but no one will tell me anything.”

  “Right, if I could have a word with you alone, Mrs. Grady,” she said. She went to take Sylvia’s arm, but the woman snatched it away.

  “No, tell me now. What is happening?” Sylvia glanced from Emma to Robbie, Sully and then Lindsey. “You! This has something to do with you, doesn’t it?”

  Lindsey didn’t know what to say. She shook her head, not wanting to escalate the situation but not wanting to assume any responsibility for what Emma was about to say either.

  “Mrs. Grady, please calm down,” Emma said. Her voice was stern. It was a tone that didn’t allow for argument. “I will speak with you in private, or you can wait here until I am done with other matters.”

  Sylvia studied her face. Emma didn’t give an inch, and the woman relented. “Fine.”

  “I’ll be right back,” Emma said to them. Then she turned to Sylvia. “Please follow me.”

  Emma led her back to her office. Lindsey, Sully and Robbie waited in tense silence with Officer Harrison. The ticking of the clock was the loudest noise in the room, until there was an anguished cry breaking the quiet. Lindsey felt the hair on her arms stand up.

  “Maybe you all should wait in the break room,” Harrison said. He was tall and lanky, a fresh graduate out of the police academy, and he looked like he wanted to escape the room with them. So he was smart, too.

  “Excellent notion,” Robbie said. He gestured for Lindsey and Sully to follow him toward a room in the opposite direction of Emma’s office. They got only a few steps before the door to Emma’s office flew open and slammed into the wall.

  “You!” Sylvia flew across the lobby at Sully. “You did this. You killed my husband.”

  Sully held up his hands to ward her off. Lindsey moved to stand in front of him as if to protect him from the enraged woman. It was a bad move, as the sight of Lindsey made her even angrier.

  “He did it for you, didn’t he?” Sylvia roared. “He murdered my husband for you.”

  “Oy, and we were so close,” Robbie said.

  “No, he didn’t,” Lindsey argued. “Sully would never harm anyone.”

  “Liar!” Sylvia cried. Her face was red, and tears were coursing down her cheeks. “You flaunted yourself in front of my Aaron and turned his head. This is your fault. My love, my life, my Aaron, would still be alive if it wasn’t for you. You home-wrecker!”

  “That’s enough!” Sully snapped. Lindsey hadn’t known him when he was in the military, but the command in his voice reminded her that he had been an officer; he knew how to lead and give orders, and he didn’t suffer slander—not from anyone. “I’m sorry for your loss, ma’am, but no one here is to blame. None of us had anything to do with your husband’s murder.”

  Sylvia blinked at him. She studied him as if she was reconsidering what she’d originally thought about him. Lindsey held her breath. Was the woman going to have another fit? She didn’t. Instead, her look of grief was replaced by one that was calculating.

  “Then why are you here?” she asked.

  There it was. The fact was that it looked very bad for Sully. A gun had been found near Grady, the same gun Sully owned. The odds that it was the murder weapon were not in their favor, and if Sylvia knew this, she would shout it from the rooftops, and there wouldn’t be a thing Sully or Lindsey could do about it.

  “I found the body,” Robbie said. “That’s why we’re here. I felt the need to have my friends with me for moral support.”

  He stepped forward, using his movie-star good looks, his British sensibility and his calm demeanor to disarm Sylvia. It worked.

  “You did?” she asked. She turned to him, and her expression crumpled. She looked as if she was about to burst into tears, and Robbie opened his arms to hug her and let her cry it out all over him.

  “Oh my God.” She sobbed into his shoulder. “Was it awful? Did he say anything? Did he look like he suffered?”

  “There, there,” Robbie said. “Let’s get you a nice cup of tea, and I’ll tell you everything.”

  Emma frowned and he shrugged. She waved him toward her office, and they watched as Robbie escorted Sylvia back across the station. When the door shut behind them, Emma faced Sully.

  “I’m going to have to keep you here until the state investigator shows up,” she said. “They’re going to want to interview you. In the meantime, I’ll need a formal statement from both of you and Robbie, too.”

  “Are you arresting Sully?” Lindsey asked.

  “No,” Emma said. “Not yet.”

  “You know I didn’t do this,” he said.

  “I know,” Emma said. “But someone has gone to an awful lot of trouble to make it look as if you did. Why?”

  Sully shrugged.

  “I don’t want to do anything to compromise this investigation, so I’m sorry, but you are a person of interest until further notice,” Emma said.

  She glanced between them as if expecting an argument. There was none to be made. They both knew that as maddening as it was, following procedure was the best defense for now. Emma led them into a back room that had a squashy couch, a TV and a water cooler.

  “Wait here,” she said.

  When she returned, she handed them the Briar Creek Police Department voluntary-statement forms, with which Lindsey was sadly all too familiar.

  “I’m going to send Robbie back here to fill one out, too,” she said. “Maybe between the three of you, we can get a clue as to what is happening. Have Officer Harrison come get me if you need me.”

  When she left, Lindsey dropped her form onto the table and hugged Sully. She needed to comfort and be comforted, but mostly she needed to know that everything was going to be all right.

  “I hate this,” she said.

  “I know.” He ran his hand up and down her back. He leaned back and studied her face and gave her a small smile. “You don’t doubt me for a second, do you?”

  “Never,” she said. “I know you’re innocent, absolutely positively.”

  His smile turned into a grin. “Well, I can’t ask for more than that out of the future Mrs. Sullivan, now can I?”

  This time Lindsey grinned, and for the first time, she felt a spark of optimism. She kissed him.

  “Oh, bugger it, get a room,” Robbie teased as he joined them.

  Sully and Lindsey broke apart, but Lindsey didn’t step away. She glanced at Robbie. “How is she?”

  “Still crying,” he said. “But she’s calmed down quite a bit.”

  “Thanks for your help,” Sully said. “You were a champ to jump in there.”

  “No problem, mate,” Robbie said. He punched Sully on the arm. “I know you’d do the same for me.”

  Sully studied his longtime rival, and then he pu
nched him back. “Absolutely, I would.”

  Lindsey glanced between them. “Are you two becoming friends?”

  “God, no,” Robbie protested. “We’re mates. That’s totally different and much more meaningful.”

  “Whatever you say,” Lindsey said. Still, she could tell that their adversarial relationship had changed somewhere along the line, and she was delighted.

  She handed Robbie his form, and the three of them sat down to fill them out. They didn’t compare their information, knowing that they would all remember different aspects of the morning.

  When they were finished, Robbie glanced up and said, “Emma told me you’re staying here to talk to the state investigators.”

  “That’s right,” Sully said.

  “I’ll shadow Lindsey for the rest of the day,” Robbie said. “Whoever shot Grady is still at large, and who knows what their game is.”

  “Thanks,” Sully said. “That will make staying here a whole lot easier.” He turned to Lindsey. “You’re going to have to be as careful now as you were when it was Grady following you, possibly even more so. There’s a reason he was shot and killed outside the library, and you won’t be safe until we know who did it and why.”

  CHAPTER

  9

  Lindsey hated leaving Sully at the police station. He wasn’t locked up, but that was cold comfort. The gun being the same model as his and his service revolver having gone missing were coincidences that were impossible to ignore. She tried not to fret, but it certainly appeared that someone was trying to make Sully look guilty. It had to be someone who was out to get Grady, who knew that she and Sully had had altercations with both Gradys the night before at the Blue Anchor.

  “Where to now?” Robbie asked as they exited the police station. “Back to work? Or do you want to go home and call it a day?”

  “Neither,” Lindsey said. “I want to go back to Sully’s office.”

  Robbie raised one pale eyebrow.