The second man was unkempt and unshaven, and something in both their expressions, severe and almost grim, made me stop and scoop Ethan into my arms. If Jeff was truly in league with Brenda Bronson, if he was the crooked cop . . .
“Marcus, come over here to me. Right now, I mean it.”
But Marcus, suddenly defiant, went trotting toward the men. Jeff saw him coming and dropped to a crouch, beckoning the boy to him and holding out one massive arm. He looked immense, a solid block of muscle, and Marcus seemed so small and fragile. Should I rush over to defend him, or take Ethan out of harm’s way?
If there was even any harm in the offing. I couldn’t tell. I looked wildly around, hoping for other tourists, hoping that my fatigue-blurred brain was making a crisis out of nothing. How could the dock be so deserted?
No, not completely deserted. A man with a duffel bag was approaching from the far end, a man with a pale round face that looked somehow familiar. Moonface! Whether I was still under surveillance, or he really was a boater, it didn’t matter. I wasn’t alone.
“Officer Calhoun!” I called. That would put Jeff Austin on notice that his actions were being witnessed. “Can you help me here, please?”
Calhoun stared at me, then past me at Jeff, and then everything happened at once. Calhoun spun around and set off at a run for the end of the dock, and over the thumping of his footsteps I heard footsteps behind me. Someone shoved me roughly aside, the unshaven man went pounding past with a gun in his hand, Ethan cried his shrill surprise right into my ear, and Jeff Austin set Marcus beside me and barked, “Drop flat now!”
I dropped, covering both boys with my body as best I could. Over Ethan’s startled sobbing and the hammering of my heart, I heard the sounds of a scuffle and a harsh voice saying “Lawrence J. Calhoun, you are under arrest for the murders of Guy Price and India Doyle. You have the right to remain silent . . .”
Then a pair of huge but careful hands was helping me to my feet and taking each of the boys gently by the shoulder. Jeff kept his body between us and the other men, as his unshaven companion hustled Calhoun away in handcuffs. Ethan, teary-eyed but silent, climbed back into my arms, and Marcus seemed to have decided that holding Aunt Carrie’s hand was acceptable after all.
“Everybody all right?” asked Jeff. He watched my face, letting me decide how to handle this. “How are your . . .”
“Honorary nephews,” I said, trying to steady my voice. “Their mother’s at the hotel. We’re fine. Your friend bumped into us, that’s all.”
“I’m sorry about that. My ‘friend’ was in a hurry and didn’t look where he was going.”
“Aunt Carrie knocked us down!” said Marcus, teetering between alarm and excitement. “Why did Aunt Carrie—”
“You know,” Jeff cut in, “it looks like your aunt and your little brother could use some assistance from you. Do you think you could help them get back to your mom?”
This reminder of his big-brother status did the trick with Marcus. He nodded solemnly at Jeff, man to man, and began to escort me importantly back to land. I trailed along with Ethan curled limply against my shoulder and looked a question at Jeff.
“Ask Mike Graham,” he told me. “He knows the whole story.”
Then he strode on ahead toward a patrol car parked up near the main road. Calhoun was in the backseat, staring daggers at me through the window. I shivered and followed Marcus into the hotel.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
I’ve thrown bigger parties than the one at ZZ Nickles’s café that night, bigger and more elaborate and certainly far more pricey. But halfway through the evening, after a visit to the kitchen, it came to me that I’d never thrown a party that was so much simple, good-natured fun. Nothing fancy, nothing trendy, just a bunch of people with big hearts and big appetites sharing a hearty meal and showing their affection for the bride and groom.
I looked around the restaurant with a critical but satisfied eye. We were serving ourselves from a buffet line tonight, and ZZ had set up the beer table at the opposite end of the room “just to keep folks cruisin’.” And cruising they were—the room was full of people balancing heaped-up plates and foaming beer mugs, while the kitchen crew brought forth more and yet more platters of mouthwatering food.
“Coming through!” said a waitress, skirting around me with a small mountain of green-speckled biscuits. “You should try one of these. Honey and jalapeño.”
I grabbed one, and also snagged another ear of fresh corn from where Peggy Nickles was replenishing the buffet. Peggy was looking especially yummy tonight, in a clingy pink top and black leather pants, and attracting her share of attention from the waiters and the male guests both.
I smiled and resumed my place at the “head” table—actually in the middle of the room—where Lily and Mike sat with her brother Darwin and his date, the little boys, Mike’s father, and the Nyquists. Smaller tables all around us, bedecked with flowers, were filled with friends and coworkers, librarians and cops, black and white, all mingling quite agreeably.
Most of the guests were simply celebrating the happy couple, but a few of us had private reasons to rejoice. Especially me—I was giddy with relief at knowing that India Doyle’s murderer was behind bars and that I had dropped off Friday Harbor’s Most Wanted. Mike did know the whole story, just as Jeff said, and he’d explained it to me as he drove me back to the Owl’s Roost so I could change for the party.
The infamous Brenda, it seemed, really had dated Jeff Austin at one time. But not for long, once he met some of her shadier friends. She had moved on to Officer Calhoun, and that proved to be a far more profitable relationship for both parties.
The San Juan County police had begun to suspect Calhoun of taking payoffs, but they had no evidence until the State Patrol started an investigation of Brenda Bronson. Mike explained that her case set them on a trail of drugs and money that reached from Seattle back to Friday Harbor, and finally to Calhoun.
“The local guys are kicking themselves for not spotting Calhoun sooner,” he told me. “Price was a dealer himself, so nobody’s shedding tears for him, but the Doyle girl was kind of a local favorite. Not too good at her job, and kind of a flake, but they liked her.”
“I did too,” I replied. “But are you sure that Calhoun killed Guy as well? It seems like such a different murder, more personal. I’ve got this feeling that—”
“A feeling.” Mike smiled and shook his head. “Woman’s intuition?”
“What’s wrong with woman’s intuition?”
“Carnegie, listen to me.” We’d gotten out of his car by then, and Mike had placed his hands on my shoulders for emphasis. It was such an unusual gesture for him that I listened hard. “The police have their job, and you have yours. Please stop mixing them up.”
So I’d kept my doubts to myself, and tonight the whole question of violent death was being eclipsed by all the vibrant life around me.
True, I had Sigrid on my left hand, hardly a laugh riot, but on my right was Mike’s father, who was quite the character. A widowed gent with a full but tidy beard and silver hair worn rakishly long, he looked like a Civil War general. Or maybe a riverboat gambler.
“Richard Graham,” he told me gravely, as introductions were made around the table. There was a distinct gleam in his eye as he added, “I am not a Dick.”
“I would never have suggested that you were,” I replied demurely, and he threw back his head and laughed.
So I was having a fine time, gnawing on smoky succulent ribs and chatting with Richard, when my mother and Owen stopped by the table. Owen was moving somewhat stiffly, but looking sharp in a dark suit and tie. Mom was dressed in deep blue and beaming like a bride.
“I just wanted to thank you,” I heard Owen say to Mike, “for including me and my daughters in the festivities. Very generous of you. Very thoughtful.”
“We’re both happy to have you,” Mike replied, and put an arm around Lily’s shoulders. “Carnegie’s part of our family, you know.”
>
I noticed Sigrid watching the bride and groom closely, and I hoped she could see how very much in love Mike was and how graciously Lily was behaving to everyone in Mike’s circle—unlike the groom’s two rather ungracious friends.
“Louise,” Lily was saying with a sly grin, “did I hear that congratulations are in order?”
Mom blushed and looked pleased. “Don’t you know it’s a crime against etiquette to announce your own good news at someone else’s wedding? Carrie would never forgive me.”
“Sure I would!” I called across the table. “Tell her, Mom.”
“Tell us all,” urged Richard. “Can’t ever be too much good news, you know.”
So Owen announced that Louise Kincaid had consented to become his wife, and the entire table toasted them variously in beer, club soda, and orange juice. Then Marcus spilled his juice in his lap, and while Lily scolded him gently, Mike rose to take him to the men’s room for a cleanup.
“Not you,” said Marcus stoutly. “I want him.”
He pointed decisively at Erik Nyquist and stage-whispered to his mother, “I think he’s a alien too.”
Mike shook his head fondly and deferred to Erik, so what could the man do but extend his gnarled old hand to take Marcus’s small brown one?
“He’s really warmed up to your brother,” I said to Sigrid, just to rub it in. “I’m so glad we could all be here together.”
She nodded, warming just a little herself, and said in her careful English, “I was afraid Erik would not be well enough.”
“What do you mean?”
“He has the kidney stones sometimes. I took him to the hospital not long after you came to see us on Sunday. But he is much better now.”
“I’m glad to hear that.” Sunday . . . the night Guy was killed. If I’d known that before, it would have spared me all that brooding about the Nyquists’ possible involvement in murder. As we chatted a bit more about Erik’s health, I was busy wondering what else I’d been wrong about. On impulse, I ventured a question.
“Sigrid, I meant to ask, when you do organic farming, are there still pesticides and fungicides that you’re allowed to use?”
“Oh, yes,” she said. “Lavender is quite sturdy most of the time, so we do not need them often. But we found rhizoctonia—that is stem rot—in the pink Melissa after such a rainy June, and so we applied a fungicide that is approved for us. You are interested in organic agriculture?”
“Well . . . there’s just so much I don’t know about it.”
That was putting it mildly. I made my way to the bar for another beer, to wash down the crow I was eating with my barbecue tonight. But then Kimmie Winter cut in front of me and I remembered that, in some cases at least, I was an excellent judge of character. She was hanging on the arm of Mike’s best man, a detective who was both single and drop-dead handsome, and trailing a cloud of perfume and flirtation behind her.
“. . . could never do what you do. I mean, all the danger that you’re in. You must have nerves of steel! I’d love to see you in your uniform . . .”
“She’s incorrigible,” said a voice in my ear. Adrienne stood behind me, looking executive and yet almost feminine in a white silk suit. “She did jury duty last year and ended up dating the bailiff.”
We shared a chuckle and then she said gruffly, “I suppose I owe you an apology about reporting your argument with India to the police.”
This is your new stepsister, I told myself. Play nice. “Not at all. I’m sure you were just trying to be factual.”
She smirked cynically. “Oh, like you were being factual about my watch, when you must have guessed that Guy was just repairing it? Face it, dear, we tried to screw each other. So, bygones and all that?”
“But I didn’t guess—” For my mother’s sake, I clamped my teeth against the aggravation rising up in my throat. “Bygones, Adrienne.”
As I took the beer back to my table, I realized I was sweating, but it wasn’t just reaction to Adrienne. The crowded room had grown uncomfortably warm, and the party’s energy had peaked to the point where it would either find a new outlet or fizzle like a leaky balloon. I might have cued Lily and Mike to make their exit, but they were having such a good time that I hated to cut things short.
Then, with impeccable timing, ZZ threw open the French doors to the deck and roared out, “I bet you people want to dance!”
Dancing wasn’t in the official plan for this party, but ZZ was a master improviser. The crowd was ready to kick up their heels, and if the music was zydeco from a boom box instead of waltzes from a string quartet, so much the better. The tide of revelers floated me out to the deck, where the night air was invigorating and the stars were bright overhead. Friday Harbor must be used to hearing commotion from ZZ’s, I realized, because people going by waved and honked their horns.
It was a dance to remember. Mike and Lily started things off, the rest of us joined in, and when Richard scooped me up I went willingly. As we whirled around I saw happy faces, young and old, go flashing by as if I were on a carousel. I was tired and dizzy and I couldn’t hear myself think, but that didn’t matter. I’d done way too much thinking lately, and not nearly enough dancing.
Richard was an excellent dancer. We swayed together through a song or two, and he said, “This is some extended family Mike brought me! I haven’t had such a good time in years.”
As I nodded, smiling, Darwin appeared beside us. He was tall, dark, and handsome, and a good friend of mine.
“May I cut in?”
As Dar swept me away in his muscular arms, Richard went off to dance with the bride. Partnered with Darwin and then with ZZ, I saw Mike dance with Lily’s aunt from Chicago and caught sight of Ethan’s curly head amid a cluster of kids. Giggling delightedly and hopping up and down like tadpoles, they were accompanied by a pair of gray-haired ladies who had shed their shoes.
I laughed aloud and pointed them out to ZZ. When you see that happen, you know you’ve got a terrific party going. And when I realized that one of the ladies was Sigrid Nyquist, I was astounded as well as pleased.
I also realized at that point that I was utterly exhausted, and said so.
“You go set yourself down, Sugar Pie,” ZZ said. He had a sheen of perspiration on his forehead, and a grin like a wide crescent moon. “I’m going to bring out the coffee and the praline tarts. These folks are going to need their dessert.”
I agreed, and as the music slowed a little he danced me back into the restaurant. Inside, some of the guests were making use of the now-uncrowded space to finish their dinners or just relax and listen to the music. I saw Kimmie and the bedazzled best man close together at the bar, and some of the smallest children dozing in their parents’ arms, and . . . Aaron, hunched over a beer at a table by himself.
I sank into the seat across from him, lifting my hair in both hands to let the air cool my neck. I was still breathing hard, and half-laughing. “What a night!”
“I can see that,” he said sourly. “Looks like you’re having a ball.”
“Why shouldn’t I?”
He gulped at his beer. “I just thought it might bother you that a girl was murdered.”
“Bother me?” I blazed up, planting my hands on the table and leaning forward. “Aaron, I found India’s corpse. Don’t try and tell me I’m not bothered.”
“Sorry, sorry.” He took one of my hands in his and shook it a little. “I’ve been driving around all day long thinking about her, and then to walk in here and see people dancing—”
“It seems cruel?”
“Yeah. I guess I’ve been getting morbid since the fire, Carnegie. Things get to me.”
I touched his cheek gently. The right one, the scarred one. “Of course they do. Shall we get out of here?”
He nodded, and I went to fetch my tote bag. I was rummaging around in it as Aaron joined me, and he must have seen my face change.
“What is it, Stretch? Lost your keys?”
“N-no. No, I found something.” I
closed my fingers around the smooth plastic shape, the size of a checkbook only thicker. “I found this.”
I drew the thing from my bag and held it out on my trembling palm. Guy Price’s e-mailer.
Chapter Thirty
It glared at us from the scuffed-up desktop in my room at the Owl’s Roost, a small plastic clamshell with a blank little screen like a malevolent eye. Aaron hadn’t suggested turning the e-mailer over to the police, and I hadn’t either, because we both knew the questions Lieutenant Orozco would ask.
Did you remove this device from the body, Ms. Kincaid? It wasn’t in your possession, so perhaps you hid it somewhere. Withholding evidence is a serious business, Ms. Kincaid. What do you mean, it appeared in your purse without your knowledge? Ms. Kincaid, do you honestly expect me to believe that?
“Tell me again,” said Aaron, rubbing the back of his neck as if it were sore. “Tell me exactly where your bag has been today. Take it from the top.”
I sighed. We were both tired, and both baffled. Someone had planted the e-mailer on me, but who? Someone concerned with Guy’s death, obviously. But was it his murderer, trying to implicate me all over again, or some other person with some other purpose in mind?
I myself had nothing in mind at the moment, nothing but stupefying fatigue. Being marooned on an island, discovering a corpse, and then spending the night wide awake in a cell was hardly the best preparation for the day I’d had today.
Aaron and I had a pot of coffee going on the room’s hot plate, so I rose wearily from the edge of the bed to refill my mug once again. The woods beyond the window were dark and silent, the other residents no doubt asleep, so I kept my voice down as I took it from the top.
“First thing this morning, they gave me my stuff back at the jail. But they’d already searched it all inch by inch, so this thing couldn’t have been in my tote bag until after I left the courthouse.”
You May Now Kill the Bride Page 19
