Halloween Moon

by Kathi Daley

  “You know Hope?” Mike asked.

  “I’m renting a cottage from her. It needed some work, so she agreed to pay for the materials, and I’m taking care of the labor.”

  “You must be the woman who came all the way from Georgia to look for her birth parents.”

  Wow, gossip really did travel fast in these parts. “Um, yeah. Sort of.” Suddenly the urge to flee was great. I really had no idea why, although there was something in his eyes that had deepened when he’d realized who I was. “It was nice meeting you, but I really need to go. Have fun at your party.”

  “I will. And you have a nice day as well.”

  My heart rate didn’t slow until I turned onto the narrow road leading out to the cottages. Mike seemed like a perfectly nice guy. I don’t know why I let him get under my skin the way I had. Sure, he was very good looking, but I’d certainly met good-looking guys in the past. It had been a while since I’d had a guy in my life. At least a guy I was physically attracted to in an intimate sort of way. But I wasn’t in the area to find a man, so our attraction, even if it had been mutual, had nowhere to go. Still, there was something about the way he looked at me that caused a tiny tremble that started deep in my gut and worked its way up my spine.

  After I’d managed to apply one of the two gallons of paint I’d purchased to the walls, I took a minute to stand back and really appreciate my work. The dirty white walls were now painted a soft gray, which contrasted nicely with the white trim and dark wood floors. I’d cleaned and waxed the floors, but they really were going to need to be replaced at some point or at least professionally sanded and refinished. Of course, if the floors were new, Hope probably wouldn’t have been willing to rent the place to a woman with two huge dogs, so I guess I was grateful for the scuffed and pockmarked surface that would be easily made a bit more presentable with the addition of area rugs.

  I’d had extra paint, so I’d sanded and painted the old Adirondack chair on the deck to match the interior walls. I’d found a second chair at a second-hand store and painted it to match. There was a swing on the deck that I might tackle next. It would need a new cushion, but I’d seen cushions on sale in town at the gardening center when I’d been in to pick up a couple barrels that could be filled with fall flowers.

  I’d scrubbed the place until it gleamed, and I’d even splurged on a couple throw pillows for the sofa that had been placed strategically in front of the fireplace. A bowl of fruit added color to the kitchen. I was really happy about the way things were turning out.

  Deciding to take the dogs for a walk along the water before settling in to make some dinner, I put away my painting supplies, took a shower, and changed into paint-free clothes. After calling the dogs, we set out down the beach toward Coop’s cottage. As we walked past on the sand, I noticed that he appeared to be out. You would think that living on a single piece of land with five other people would mean you would be running into them all the time, but that really wasn’t the way it had worked out. Hope had indicated that Coop kept strange hours, and based on my observations, he really did.

  The way the peninsula curved around the waterline actually did provide quite a bit of privacy for each of the cottages. If I stood out on my deck, I couldn’t see any of the other structures. In fact, the only structure I could see was a tiny corner of the house on Piney Point. I’d thought I’d seen a man with a large dog walking along the beach below the house a couple times in the past few days, but the beach was too far away to make out any specific features other than to recognize the shapes most commonly associated with a man and dog.

  After I came to the end of the beach, the dogs and I turned around and headed back toward our cottage. I did a mental inventory of the food in my refrigerator as I stepped over a log that appeared to have washed up onto the beach during a previous storm or high tide. I had ham for sandwiches, but I’d had sandwiches the past two nights. Perhaps it was time to try out the stove and make some mac and cheese from a very familiar blue box. I’d just settled the dogs with fresh food and water when I received a text from Jemma, letting me know that she and Josie had just opened a bottle of wine, and I was invited to join them if I wanted. The past couple of days had been quiet, and I could use some company, so I washed my face and brushed my hair and headed down the trail that connected my cottage to theirs.

  We took a few minutes to catch up before launching into a more serious discussion. I told Jemma and Josie about my progress with painting and otherwise freshening up the cottage, and they told me about a hike they’d taken that started on a dirt trail but ended up at the ocean. We chatted about the weather and the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday. We all agreed that it was nice that the main tourist season had come to an end, but we also agreed that weekends would remain busy until after the new year.

  After we’d engaged in several minutes of small talk, Jemma brought up the subject on all our minds. “I heard from Parker,” she said. “According to Deputy Todd, Brody has an alibi for his whereabouts after leaving the general store on Saturday night and is considered to be cleared of any suspicion. Parker said she tried to nail Todd down as to the specifics of this alibi, but he basically shut her down.”

  “Do you think that Deputy Todd would lie to protect Brody?” I asked.

  “He might if his father put enough pressure on the man or threw enough money at the situation,” Jemma answered. “There is also the possibility that Deputy Todd believes Brody, and it’s Brody and not Todd who is lying. And then there is the unlikely possibility that Brody really is innocent.”

  “If not Brody, then who?” I asked.

  “Jemma and I have gone over that very question again and again,” Josie said. “The only thing that makes sense is that Brody killed her, although even we have to admit that a motive isn’t really evident.”

  I leaned back in my chair. “Okay, so we know that Brody showed up at the store shortly after seven-fifteen. He was inside for about fifteen minutes, during which time Cammy engaged in what appeared to be a hostile conversation with him. After he left, she closed the store and went into the manager’s office, where she remained for at least thirty minutes. She then came out and closed up the store before returning to the office once again and leaving at eight-forty. We know that she was supposed to meet Heather around eight-thirty, but the party had ended up at a different location than the girls originally anticipated, so Heather texted Cammy at eight-twelve to let her know about the new location. Cammy texted back and told Heather that she had to work late and wouldn’t be there until around nine. When she showed up around nine, she seemed distracted and moody. She indicated she might go home early, so no one really missed her when she turned up missing.” I took a breath. “Do we know what time it was when someone first noticed her missing?”

  Both Jemma and Josie answered that they didn’t know. They also didn’t know if Cammy had still been at the party when she’d placed the texts to the unregistered cell at ten-twelve and eleven thirty-eight. The coroner had put the time of death at some point between eleven and one-thirty, so we suspected that Cammy was already dead by the time someone sent the suicide text from her phone to Harper at two-fifteen.

  “We need to see if we can nail down exactly where Brody was between nine and two-thirty,” I said.

  Both women agreed.

  “Does Brody have his own place, or does he live at home?” I asked.

  “He has his own house on his parents’ estate, which is really more of a compound,” Jemma answered. “He lives alone, but I suppose someone might have seen his truck in front of his place.”

  “There’s no way he went home and didn’t go to the party on Halloween,” Josie said. “Brody is a big party guy. We need to talk to some of Cammy’s friends to see if we can find out who saw him and what time he was seen.”

  “It sounds like Cammy might have been on a boat if she drowned,” I said. “She may have simply wandered into the sea, but a boat is more likely. Does Brody have a boat?”

  “He doe
s,” Josie answered. “He has a slip at the harbor. Booker is still out of town, but maybe we can see if Jackson can get a peek at the security tapes for that night. If Brody accessed his boat, there might be a record of that.”

  Josie agreed to call Jackson while Jemma got on the phone and called Heather to see if she could nail down a timeline of sorts. Unfortunately, the last time anyone asked Heather about that night, she claimed to have forgotten what had gone on. Maybe we’d have better luck with Hillary or one of Cammy’s other friends. After an hour of making calls, it was determined that both Heather and Hillary had seen Cammy when she first arrived around nine, but that she’d left early, and they hadn’t seen her after that. When asked to pin down the time that they’d last seen her, both girls said probably around nine-thirty. We found another friend who’d seen Cammy walking toward the parking area around ten, but her car had been found the following day in the same spot she’d left it after first arriving, so it appeared she hadn’t left alone if she’d left at all.

  Jackson said he would try to find out if Brody accessed his boat on Halloween night, but he also informed Josie that the security cameras were really set up to monitor the rentals, so he doubted there was a camera that would have caught Brody’s boat even if it had been moved. No one would have been around at that time of night other than the security guard, but Jackson offered to talk to him and see if he remembered seeing Brody or noticing if Brody’s boat was missing.

  “Okay,” I said aloud. “Cammy seems to have arrived at the party by nine, and it appears she was seen heading to the parking area around ten. Her car was unmoved, and since she sent a text at ten-twelve, maybe she arranged for someone to pick her up.”

  “Why?” Josie asked.

  “I’d say she’d had too much to drink and was being responsible, but the coroner’s report stated that she didn’t have drugs or alcohol in her system.”

  “She texted the same number at both ten-twelve and eleven thirty-eight,” Jemma pointed out. “If the text she sent at ten-twelve was related to a ride, it’s unlikely she got one, at least not from the individual at that number; otherwise, she would probably have still been with that person at eleven thirty-eight, so there’d be no need to text.”

  “The coroner says she died between eleven and one-thirty,” I said. “I wonder if she texted this individual for help? Maybe she texted a friend at ten-twelve looking for a ride for some reason, but the person didn’t answer, so she accepted a ride with someone else. Then by eleven thirty-eight, she realized she was in trouble and texted the same person again for help, but help didn’t arrive in time.”

  “It’d be a lot easier to decide if that theory had any merit if we knew who the number belonged to,” Josie said.

  I looked at Jemma. “Did you look for that same number amongst the voice calls made to or from Cammy’s phone in the week or so leading up to her death?”

  “It didn’t pop up as either a text or voice call in the month before her death.”

  “What about the landline in the manager’s office?” I asked. “She was in the office for at least thirty minutes after Brody left. Maybe she was using the phone for some reason.”

  Jemma raised a brow. “I didn’t check the records for the landline in the office or for any phone line associated with the general store for that matter, but I can.”

  “Why don’t you do that, and I’ll make us something to eat,” Josie said.

  As it turned out, there was an outgoing call from the landline in the manager’s office to the same blocked number. We still didn’t know who the number belonged to, but it looked more and more likely that if we could figure out who was on the other end of the number, we’d finally be able to get the answers we were after.

  Chapter 10

  On Saturday, Jemma and Josie had gone to visit some friends who lived up near Port Townsend, so the dogs and I had decided to take a long hike south of Gooseberry Bay. The scenery had been breathtaking, and it felt good to get out and stretch our legs with a leisurely walk rather than a fast run, but the dogs were exhausted this morning, so I decided to leave them at the cottage while I went for my morning run. It was easy to overdo it when it came to the exercise needs of dogs as large as Kai and Kallie, which is why I built in rest days after a long hike and was careful to maintain their diet so they maintained an optimal weight, which would lessen the likelihood of joint injuries as they grew older.

  While I enjoyed having the dogs along for my morning run, it was nice not to have to worry about pacing myself for their comfort. Being a runner, I supposed I should have chosen a dog such as a lab where over-exercise wouldn’t be so much of an issue, but there was something about giant dogs that spoke to my heart the way dogs of a lesser stature never could.

  I’d just reached the fence of the estate on Piney Point and had turned to head back when there was a flash of black almost under my feet. I stopped and looked around. I was sure it had been a small animal that I’d come close to stepping on. It was something smaller than a squirrel, but larger than a mouse. When I didn’t initially see what had darted across the trail, I was about to set out once again when I noticed a rustling in the bushes. I slowly approached, unsure of what I’d find. Just as I was about to bend down for a closer look, a black kitten darted out of the bush I was standing next to and ran into the bush a few feet away.

  “Well, I’ll be,” I said aloud.

  The kitten was tiny. Much too young to be alone. I supposed his or her mom was a feral cat that lived in the area. I looked around for evidence of an adult or additional kittens but didn’t see or hear anything.

  “Here, kitty, kitty,” I cooed softly, trying to coax the little guy out of the bush. Every time I reached my arm in on one side of the bush, the kitten darted out the other side and into the next bush. I’d been working on trying to catch the little thing for over twenty minutes when I heard a steady rhythm that sounded like a horse plodding along. I stood up and looked down the trail just as a man on a huge black horse rounded the corner.

  “Hello, again,” I greeted the man I’d met at Hank’s Hardware. He had on a riding helmet today which made him look somewhat different than he’d looked wearing the ball cap. Somehow he seemed familiar now that I had a better look at his face but I was pretty sure I’d never met him before. “I wasn’t expecting to see anyone up here.”

  “I ride in the area when I’m in town. How’d the paint work out for you?”

  “Good. I spoke to Hank, and we settled up.” I looked down at my knees, which were covered with dirt by this point, and then I glanced toward the bush the kitten had last darted into. “There’s a kitten in the bush. I’ve been trying to catch him for almost thirty minutes, but every time I reach for him, he darts out the other side. I don’t suppose you could help me?”

  “I guess I could do that.” He dismounted and then looped the reins around the branch of a nearby tree. “What do you want me to do?”

  “The kitten is in this bush. I’m going to try to grab him from my side, but he’ll probably dart out the other side, so I need you to scooch down and grab him when he makes a run for it.”

  “Okay.” He squatted on the opposite side of the bush from where I was kneeling.

  “Ready?” I asked.

  “Ready.”

  I reached an arm into the bush in an attempt to grab the little fur ball, but as he had the other twenty times I’d tried to grab him, the kitten darted out the other side. This time, Mike was there to grab him. Of course, the minute he grabbed him, the kitten bared his claws, and my knight in shining armor was rewarded with long red scratch marks down his arm. I was afraid that my knight would toss the kitten onto the ground in an effort to escape the sharp claws, but instead, he hugged the little thing close to his chest and began to talk to him softly. After a few minutes, the kitten settled down and stopped struggling.

  “Wow. I’m impressed. You have a natural way with him. Do you have cats?”

  “No. Just a dog and Hercules here.” He no
dded toward the horse.

  “I really appreciate your help.” I looked around the area. “I’d like to look around and see if I can find the mom or other kittens if there are any. Do you have time to hold the little black one for a few more minutes?”

  He smiled at the tiny black ball of fur in his arms. “I have time.”

  I searched the area as best I could, but finally came to the conclusion that if there had been a mama and other babies, she’d moved them.

  “What are you going to do with him?”

  I shrugged. “I’m not sure. I guess I’ll take him back to the cottage and feed him. Maybe I’ll see if I can find a veterinarian to look him over. After that, I guess I’ll try to find him a home. I’d keep him myself, but my stay in the area is only temporary. You don’t want him, do you?”

  “No. I’m afraid I’m rarely home.” He rocked him just a bit. “He’s a cute little guy. I bet you can find someone to take him.”

  “I’m sure I can.”

  The man slowly held the kitten out to me. Our hands touched as we made the transfer, and I had to admit I felt a tingle. If it wasn’t for the fact that I was only in the area for a temporary stay, I might explore that tingle, but as it was, I’d be gone before anything could come of a friendship even if it turned out that he was single and interested, neither of which was a given.

  “How was your party?” I asked as I tucked the kitten into the front of my zip-up sweatshirt, praying the entire time the kitten wouldn’t leave red welts on my chest the way he’d left them on Mike’s arm.

  “It was fine. Really more of an obligation.”

  “I get that.” I relaxed a bit when the kitten seemed to settle down and even began to purr. I’d had to attend a few obligatory functions in my time as well. “Thanks again for helping me. I think we’ll be fine from this point.”