The Case of the Abandoned Aussie

by B R Snow

  “Let’s hope that makes our job a bit easier,” Jackson said. “Okay, I’ll need to get a list of people who’ve been on the island from Carl.” Then he glanced back and forth at Josie and me. “And I’m sorry to do this, ladies, but I’ll need to get a set of prints from both of you.”

  “You’re joking, right?” I said with a snort.

  “There’s no need to get snarky, Suzy. I just need to make sure I follow the normal procedure.”

  “All right,” I said, nodding. “That ink does wash off doesn’t it?”

  “Yeah, in a couple of days, you’ll be good as new,” he said, laughing at his joke.

  “How about a little respect for the dead, Jackson?”

  He didn’t get the reference and gave me a blank stare. Then I remembered that had been a conversation I’d had with myself. As you’ve probably figured out by now, I have a tendency to do that.

  Chapter 22

  After we finally left the island, I wandered around the Inn the rest of the afternoon into the early evening in a daze. I did my best to deal with whatever issues the staff presented as well as meet and greet our customers the way I always did, but my smiles felt forced. I finally gave up and headed to the back of the Inn to tour the condos and say hello to all our four-legged guests. After that, I felt somewhat refreshed and retreated into my office and stretched out on the couch with Chloe draped over my chest sleeping.

  Josie wandered in soon after I’d settled in and she sat down and put her feet up on the desk. I opened one eye and nodded at her.

  “That was one wild afternoon,” Josie said. “Next time, let’s just go fishing.”

  “You don’t have to convince me,” I said, adjusting the pillow under my head. My movements must have interrupted Chloe’s beauty sleep because she snorted and kicked her legs as she repositioned herself.

  “You do realize that if we’d shown up a half hour earlier, we could have both ended up on the floor next to Marge,” Josie said.

  “I’m trying not to think about it,” I said.

  “So I guess we’re back to square one on the question of who killed Crawford,” Josie said.

  “Yeah, we can officially take Marge off our list of suspects.”

  I conceded the battle for couch dominance and gently moved Chloe off my chest and sat up. Chloe took full advantage of my weakness and stretched out even further. She sighed and began to snore softly.

  “Who do you think did it?” Josie said.

  “Well, if Freddie and Jackson are right about the prints on the knife belonging to a woman, it would have to be either Rosaline or Roxanne, right?”

  “Or Chef Claire,” Josie said.

  “No, I can’t see her as a killer. Can you?”

  “Why not?”

  “She just seemed like such a nice person,” I said.

  “Maybe she had a good reason. Maybe Marge’s warm and engaging personality finally rubbed her the wrong way.”

  “I guess anything’s possible,” I said, shrugging. “But to do that to another person? A knife in the neck.” I shuddered again at what we’d discovered in the kitchen.

  The office door opened, and Jackson entered. He looked more worn out than us.

  “Ladies,” he said, removing his hat and sitting down in a chair in front of the desk. “How goes the war?”

  “I think we should be asking you that question,” I said. “What are you doing here? You get a match on our prints?”

  “Geez, Suzy,” he said, shaking his head. “Let it go, okay? I swear, sometimes you sound just like your mother.”

  “What did you say?” I said, almost coming off the couch.

  Josie found Jackson’s remark particularly funny and laughed loud enough to wake Chloe up. She looked around the room, gave us a quick wag of her tail, then resumed her nap.

  “That was a cruel thing to say, Jackson,” I said, pouting. “You take that back.”

  “Take it back? What are you, three?”

  “Okay, guys,” Josie said. “Let it go. It’s been a long day for everybody.”

  I forced myself to calm down and nodded.

  “Sorry, Jackson. It’s no excuse, but I’m a little on edge.”

  “Forget it,” he said, dismissing the need for an apology with a quick wave.

  “So where are you at?” Josie said.

  “Well, we tracked down the Chief Operating Officer, Rosaline, and didn’t get a match on her prints. And her alibi checked out. Alice stopped by the Water’s Edge for a drink after work - the poor kid probably needed one. I don’t think this is what she was expecting when she heard she got an internship working on the River all summer. Alice ran into the girlfriend at the bar. Roxanne had been there all afternoon, and there’s no way she could have been at the island when Mrs. Crawford bought the farm. But we ran her prints, per the procedure.” Jackson raised an eyebrow in my direction, and I stuck my tongue out at him.

  “Real mature, Suzy,” he said, laughing. “Roxanne’s prints didn’t match either.”

  “That leaves Chef Claire,” Josie said.

  “Yeah. Or some unidentified intruder.”

  “That’s a pretty remote place for someone to show up in the middle of the day, isn’t it?” I said.

  “You would think so,” Jackson said. “Unless somebody had been watching the island to get a feel for who was there and when they were coming and going.”

  “So what’s the story with Chef Claire?” Josie said.

  “That’s what I’d like to know,” Jackson said. “She’s disappeared.”

  “Interesting,” Josie said. “A runner?”

  “We’re not sure,” he said. “I’m not even sure how she got off the island. All the boats were in the boathouse except for the one the gardener used to run some errands. But he came back while we were all there this afternoon. He says he was alone on the boat the whole time he was away.”

  “He was,” I said. “At least when we saw him.”

  “When did you see him?”

  “Just before we headed over to the island,” I said, glancing at Josie.

  “You saw him? Why didn’t you tell me that earlier when I was interviewing you?”

  “You didn’t ask,” I said, shrugging. “And at the time it didn’t seem relevant.”

  “Suzy, while I appreciate your boundless energy and rather unique detective skills, I think you should leave it up to me to decide what’s relevant,” he said, scowling at me.

  “Next time, ask the question,” I snapped.

  “Okay, guys, enough,” Josie said. “For what it’s worth, Jackson, I don’t think she was on the boat when we saw Carl earlier. But they were dating.”

  “What? How the heck do you know that?” Jackson said.

  “We’ve been busy while you were away at your conference,” Josie said.

  Jackson exhaled and stared up at the ceiling. I would have thought that our hard work and providing new information that could help solve the case would make his job a bit easier. Apparently, we were going to have to agree to disagree on that one.

  “Even if she wasn’t on the boat when you ran into him, it doesn’t mean he hadn’t already dropped her off someplace else. Or she got on another boat.”

  “If she got on a different boat, she could be anywhere,” Josie said.

  “Yeah. That’s why the state police are monitoring her credit cards for activity. If she uses them, we’ll know straight away.”

  “I don’t think she did it,” I said.

  “Why is that?” Jackson said, giving me his full attention.

  “Because I had dinner with her.”

  “Well, stop the presses,” Jackson said laughing. “You’ve cracked the case. You had dinner with her? That’s it?”

  “It was enough. And I don’t think I like your attitude, Jackson,” I said, glaring at him. “Chef Claire has a gentle soul. And she was the only one on the island who showed the least bit of concern for Chloe.”

  “So she’s a dog lover,” Jackson said.
“As you know, I appreciate that quality in people, but that’s probably not going to be enough to clear her, Suzy.”

  “If anything, given what she knows about the different players over there and what’s going on, if you’d asked me who might be the next person killed, I would have said her.”

  “What was Rosaline’s alibi?” Josie said, grabbing a handful of candy from the jar on the desk.

  “It turns out Rosaline has a thing going on with Mrs. Crawford’s financial advisor,” Jackson said.

  “Jerry the Lawyer?” Josie said, glancing at me.

  “Yeah, I think that’s his name,” Jackson said, checking his notebook. “You know him?”

  “Yes, we’ve met,” Josie said. “And Suzy’s even been on two dates with him.”

  “Really?” Jackson said.

  I glared at Josie. This day was getting worse by the minute. I looked at Jackson.

  “Actually, it was only one and a half,” I whispered.

  “Well, apparently he’s been fishing in more than one pond.”

  “He has not been fishing in my pond, Jackson,” I said.

  “So far he’s just been casting into the shallows,” Josie said.

  “That’s enough, Josie,” I snapped. “And that’s a crude expression, Jackson.”

  “I could use a more graphic description if you like. Rosaline told us they were holed up all afternoon at the Twin Pines Motel. Jerry confirmed it, as did the motel. The manager said they were making quite the racket. He went into great detail if you want to hear all about it.”

  “No, we don’t,” I said.

  “Speak for yourself,” Josie said, laughing.

  I glared at her again and turned up the intensity. I think she got the message, but we’ll see. I wasn’t sure what I felt about the news of Jerry and Rosaline being an item. Before I had a chance to think it through, Jackson’s phone buzzed.

  “This is Jackson,” he said. “I see… That’s good. Well done… Interesting. I’ll be right down.”

  Jackson put his phone away and stood up.

  “That was Alice. She got a call from the state police. They found the chef at the Island Towers. She checked in this afternoon. They brought her to the station, checked the prints and got a perfect match.”

  “Wow,” Josie said.

  “I don’t believe it,” I said.

  “There’s more,” Jackson said. “Guess who got fired by Mrs. Crawford this morning?”

  “Uh-oh,” Josie said. “Motive and opportunity all neatly tied up in a bow.”

  “They certainly are,” he said. “Look, I need to get down to the station. We’ll be keeping the chef tonight, and in the morning the state police will come and get her. Do you mind keeping Sluggo one more night? I don’t think I’m going to be able to spend any time with him tonight.”

  “That’s fine,” I said. My mind was going a thousand miles an hour in a hundred different directions. “I’d like to talk to her.”

  “Why?” Jackson said, pausing at the door.

  “Because she’s probably scared to death. And I think she might be more willing to talk with us instead of a bunch of cops.”

  “She’s probably already lawyered up. That is if she knows what’s good for her.”

  “I’d like to give it a shot,” I said, approaching him. “It can’t hurt anything.”

  “Well, it’s not normal procedure,” Jackson said.

  “Jackson, if you use that term again, I swear, I’m going to punch you in the nose.”

  “You’re threatening an officer of the law?” He couldn’t help laughing. “And I’ve even got a witness.”

  “No, you don’t,” Josie said.

  Jackson returned my stare then nodded.

  “Okay, give me an hour before you swing by the station.”

  “Thanks, Jackson. I owe you one,” I said.

  “Now that I think about it, I probably should have used this opportunity as a way to extort a dinner date from Josie.”

  “Yeah, probably,” Josie said, smiling at Jackson then winking at me.

  “But I missed my chance, right?”

  “You certainly did,” Josie said as her smile widened. “But I’ll see you in an hour.”

  Chapter 23

  The stone and ivy-clad exterior of the Clay Bay police station, like the rest of our town, appears quaint and serene. In fact, if it wasn’t for the fact that it contained a handful of jail cells inside its walls, you might even call it inviting. Josie and I entered and waved hello to Jackson who was sitting at the front desk talking on the phone. We waited until he finished, then he escorted us through a thick door into the area that contained three small cells painted an obnoxious hospital green. It was the first time either Josie or I had seen the area and judging from the expression on her face, which I’m sure was the same as mine, once was more than enough.

  Cross that one off the bucket list.

  Chef Claire was sitting quietly on her bunk with her hands folded in her lap. People always talk about the look of a killer. Their eyes, their overall demeanor, or something in their makeup that tips you off that they are guilty. Or a face so devoid of expression, it was impossible to get any read on the person. I didn’t get either of those reading Chef Claire’s face. The only look she seemed to have was one of confusion. Jackson placed two small plastic chairs in front of the cell and left us alone. We sat down, and Chef Claire shifted on the bunk until she was directly facing us, a mere four feet away.

  “Hi,” I said.

  Not a great opener, but it was all I had.

  “Hi, Suzy,” she said, then looked at Josie. “Your name’s Josie, right?”

  “Yes. Hi, Chef Claire,” Josie said.

  “Geez, I guess I didn’t get a good look at you at dinner the other night,” Chef Claire. “Excuse me for saying this, but you’re incredibly beautiful.”

  “Thanks,” Josie said, embarrassed by the compliment considering the circumstances of why we were there.

  I shook my head in disbelief. Apparently, even incarceration wasn’t enough to put a damper on the Josie admiration society.

  “Okay, guys,” I said, “Before this turns into one of those women in prison movies, let’s try to focus. Jackson didn’t give us a lot of time.”

  Both Josie and Chef Claire laughed. I reviewed the list of questions I’d jotted down in the car on the way over and launched right in.

  “Would you mind going over what happened this morning?” I said, pencil poised at the ready.

  She thought about it briefly, then shrugged. “Nothing out of the ordinary. I got up around seven and made the coffee and started breakfast.”

  “What was on the menu?” Josie said.

  “What difference does that make?” I said, glancing over at her.

  “You never know. It might be relevant,” Josie said.

  “French toast with fresh blueberries,” Chef said.

  “Yum. Inside the batter or sprinkled on top?”

  “Oh, definitely in the batter,” Chef Claire said. “When they’re part of the batter, the berries become part of the dish and not just something tossed on top at the end.”

  “I saw that on a cooking show and was wondering if it made a difference,” Josie said.

  “Absolutely. And I like to crush the berries with a fork first. It totally releases the flavor. You should give it a try,” Chef Claire said, nodding.

  I stared in disbelief at both of them.

  “Really? We’re going to spend our time talking about French toast?”

  “Sorry,” Josie said. “It just sounds delicious.”

  “And I made bacon wrapped sausage links and some fresh rolls,” Chef Claire said, glancing at me. “They’re the same roll I use for the chili dogs you had the other night.”

  I remembered the rolls. They were impossible to forget. Despite my desire to get on with the conversation, I felt my stomach growl. I hadn’t eaten since the turkey club in the boat.

  “It was a carb-heavy meal, but t
hat’s what they wanted,” Chef Claire said. Then she looked down at the floor. “Not that any of that matters.”

  “Did Mrs. Crawford eat breakfast?” I said.

  “Sure. Like a horse. She had four pieces of French toast and half a plate of the sausages,” Chef Claire said.

  “And when was this?” I said.

  “Right before the witch fired me. That would have been somewhere around nine o’clock.”

  “I thought she was offering you a position at one of her resort properties,” I said, remembering our dinner conversation.

  “So did I.”

  “Did she give you a reason?” I said.

  “Yeah, she did. But it wasn’t a very good one. It was something about me crossing the line. She was pretty angry when she came down for breakfast, and then I saw her check a message on her phone, and it went even further downhill after that.”

  “Do you know what the message was?” I said.

  “No, when you work for people like Marge, you learn early in your career not to ask many questions. Especially anything that might be personal business.”

  “So how did it all go down?” I said, leaning forward in my chair.

  “How did it go down?” Josie said, snorting. “I told you that you’ve been watching too many cop shows.”

  “Well, excuse me,” I said, glaring at her before continuing. “What did she say when she fired you?”

  “It was odd,” Chef Claire said. “She and I were the only ones at breakfast, so we decided to sit at the island in the kitchen. You know, the same place we had dinner.”

  I nodded.

  “Right after she received the message on her phone, she grabbed her fourth piece of French toast, and I asked her if she would like some more maple syrup and she just snapped. That’s when she made the crossing the line comment. Then she said I was fired and had an hour to get off the island.”

  “Just like that?” Josie said.

  “Yup. That was it,” Chef Claire said. “But I think I’ve figured out what the crossing the line remark referred to.”

  “Something about the maple syrup, right?” I said.