by Mary Bowers
“We have her computer,” Rita said. “I’m not saying we’re going to be willing to give you access to it, but if we did, could you follow her trail?”
He sneered. “I don’t need her computer for that.”
Rita seemed startled. Then she just seemed embarrassed. “Of course,” she muttered. “And you, just for fun, figured out her passwords long ago, and could have followed her trail any time you were in the mood. Does she have other computers somewhere?”
He shrugged. “You still don’t get it.”
“Probably not. I just happened to be here, so they told me to check you out. I’m not in the cybercrimes department.”
“Cybercrimes,” he muttered derisively. He shook it off and leveled a stare at her. “She only needed to log on, from any computer. Her boyfriend’s. Her sister’s, her niece’s, even public-access ones, like the ones in the public library. You don’t need her computer. You need her usernames and passwords.”
“And you have those?”
“It’s been a while since we worked together,” he said, suddenly evasive.
“But you can get them.”
“Now don’t go thinking I’m some kind of a cyber-god or something.”
“Isn’t that what you’ve always wanted people to think?”
The duel between Rita and Victor was getting less warm and fuzzy, and the undercurrent of sexual tension was falling away, at least on Rita’s side.
I decided to cut in. “Victor, Eden had a sister. She had a niece. If you can help us find closure for them, wouldn’t you want to do that? I mean, if you’re serious about this white hat stuff?” Suddenly another thought occurred to me. “Wait. Kendra is a hacker too. Can you help us find her? I mean, she has to have left some kind of electronic trail, too. Her friends have tried, but they didn’t get anywhere. I’m a little hazy about all this stuff, but you seem to be implying that nobody is safe from you on the Internet.”
“Actually, I’ve already tried. I’ve looked. I know Kendra – maybe a little better than I let on to you yester day. I’m worried about her, too. She no longer exists, at least on the Internet. And somebody like Kendra, if she doesn’t exist on the Internet, she doesn’t exist at all.”
I looked at Rita, but she was just staring at Victor.
“What do you mean?” I said. “Is Kendra dead?”
“I don’t know, but I think so,” he said. “There are places she could’ve gone for help, at least in cyberspace, and she hasn’t gone there. Her bank account –“ He stopped, looked like he was sorry he’d said that, then just plunged on. “Her bank account hasn’t been touched, so what is she doing for money? But you cops know that already, right? You’ve been monitoring her bank account and credit cards. I think you guys should stop fooling around with her computer and start looking for her in the real world. Start looking for a body.”
Chapter 10
“They haven’t even been looking for her,” Asia lamented, when I saw her at Perks on Wednesday morning. “We’ve lost four whole days.”
After my talk with Victor and Rita, I had given Asia a call and we talked it over. She asked me to meet with her, Rusty and Kady the next morning. If the police decided not to form search parties, we were going to formulate our own plan and get moving. Bernie was supposed to call me and let me know what the Sheriff wanted us to do, if anything.
So we were waiting in Perks for Bernie to call. I’d talked it over with Michael, and he agreed with what Victor had said, so he was sitting there beside me in Perks, along with Stacey and Angie from the shelter, ready to go into the swamps and fields west of Tropical Breeze, looking for a body.
Chrissie had come along with Asia, and were sitting tensely in the coffee shop with Rusty and Kady when we got there.
Ronnie had given everybody free coffee and donuts. “I can’t go searching myself; I have to run the shop. But at least I can do something for you guys who are going out to search,” she said.
“What if the cops aren’t going to organize a search?” Rusty asked.
“Then we go by ourselves,” Asia said.
Brave talk, but none of us had any idea how to even get started, or where to look. There was some talk about making up posters, as if anybody in town didn’t already know that Kendra was missing. Asia had bypassed the old-fashioned methods and started some social media buzz about it with a web page, but she’d gotten nothing but attagirls and best-of-lucks from it so far.
I didn’t know where they’d send us, but I was ready with bug spray, protective clothing, and I had lots of bottled water in my SUV. I was wearing my gardening boots, yellow rubber things with hippie flowers all over them, and I didn’t even feel ridiculous. I just felt ready for anything, and had a strong sense of determination. And I really, really hoped the police were going to organize us and give us a mission, because we didn’t know what we were doing.
“So you think she’s dead,” Asia said in her soft voice, to nobody in particular.
“Don’t say that!” Rusty said.
I didn’t know what else to think, but it wasn’t going to help to say it out loud.
My cell phone started ringing, and we all jumped. It was Bernie.
“Here we go,” I told them, and I answered the phone.
Bernie told me we weren’t going searching for a body after all. I could take off my rubber boots. They’d already found her, and Victor had been right, she was dead.
“Where was she?” I asked.
“In a swampy area, the other side of the Intracoastal Waterway. Whoever dumped her there must’ve hoped she’d never be found.”
“Who found her?”
“Don’t you watch the news? There’s a 3-year old boy who wandered away from home somewhere around there yesterday morning. They were looking for him, going through the swamps, beating the bushes, and that’s how they came across Kendra’s body. Anyway, the little boy came home by himself about an hour later. If he’d come home before they found her, she’d probably never have been found at all. Then we’d all have thought she’d killed Eden and gone on the run. And it looks like she may have died the same night as Eden, although the M.E. hasn’t finished with her yet, of course. They’ll take their time with the evidence, so we won’t know anything anytime soon. But now we know that in all probability, the killer is still here in Tropical Breeze.”
The thought chilled me, and I thanked her and hung up mechanically.
I flickered a glance around the table without really catching anybody’s eye, and said, “I’m so sorry, guys. They already found her. She’s dead.”
There was a stunned silence, and Asia began to quietly cry.
Chrissie gently whispered something to her daughter, sent a sympathetic glance around the table, and took Asia home with her. I didn’t think Asia and Chrissie had known Kendra well, but she was inextricably linked with Eden now, and it was another blow to them.
And of course, Rusty and Kady had been good friends of Kendra’s. They were gray-faced and silent, genuinely shocked. I wasn’t thinking too clearly at that point, of course, but I did wonder if they suspected that Kendra had killed Eden, too.
Suddenly, Michael, Stacey, Angie and I felt like we were intruding. After all, we hadn’t known Kendra at all. We murmured a few things and left. Stacey and Angie were parked behind Girlfriend’s, next door, and so was I, so we left by the back door and parted ways quietly.
Michael came into Girlfriend’s with me and we broke the news to Florence, who cried, of course. She’d seen Kendra every week at the bank, and had liked her. I got out of my gardening boots and put my flip flops on, then went into the shop and helped Florence deal with the people who came in just to talk for the next hour or so. Word had spread fast. Then Michael and I went across the street to the diner and fell into a booth.
“Michael,” I said, once we were alone in the booth, “what’s going on in our town? This isn’t that kind of a place. It’s like some outside force is creeping around among us, invisible, and evil. Something
that has nothing to do with Tropical Breeze itself.”
“Outsiders,” he said, mulling it over. “Yes, it does seem –“
The floor waitress, DeAnn, came up and solemnly said, “You guys want anything? You’re welcome to just sit and catch your breath. Everybody knows already . . . you know, about Kendra.”
“Did you know her?” I asked.
“She came in on her lunch break sometimes. All I know is that she liked our mac and cheese, and she was a good tipper.” Those little details seemed to break her down. Her eyes got watery and she whispered, “I’ll be back in a minute,” and walked across to the Ladies room.
“Well, anyway, they’ll get him now,” Michael said.
“How do you mean?”
“Forensics. The murderer never meant for her body to be found, much less in just a few days. They’re bound to find some DNA or fiber evidence.”
I wasn’t so sure, but I nodded.
“Trust me, Taylor, anybody who’d kill two women in one night . . . this isn’t the first time.”
“But – you think this was a random thing – just some nut? What about the fortune teller? Why would Kendra have shown up while somebody was killing Eden? It doesn’t make sense. And there’s something else, Michael. Saturday night in the fortune teller’s tent, Kendra was afraid. I’m sure of it. She was downright grim, predicting doom and gloom, and almost forcing her tattoo on everybody. Like she wanted us to see it, and be able to figure out who she was, just in case. Like she knew she was in trouble.”
“How does that make sense?”
I sat back, feeling completely empty inside. “I don’t know.”
DeAnn came back, tightly controlling herself, and we ordered coffee. I was about to order an omelet, though I wasn’t hungry, but Michael surprised me by reminding me that it was time for lunch already. I stared at my own watch, unable to believe it. Then I said, “I’ll just have some soup.”
We picked at our lunches once they came, and after the table was cleared, Michael seemed to come out of the mists.
“Well, I’m going to get over to the Mayor’s office.”
“Why?”
“I’m a Councilman, remember? We’ve got to do something about Halloween.”
“Oh, no.” That aspect of it hadn’t occurred to me, and I was saddened. “Do we have to cancel Trick or Treating?”
“Taylor,” he said, gazing at me directly, “there’s a murderer running around. We don’t know what’s motivating him, or why he killed those women. Maybe it was just a crime of opportunity. We can’t have a lot of children going door to door with a madman on the loose. Can you meet me back at the car in an hour or so? If I can’t make it for any reason, I’ll text you.”
“Sure.”
“I’ll try not to be too long, but we’ll probably have to have a special meeting of the City Council.”
“I know. Take all the time you need, of course. I’ll just sit here a while,” I said, not knowing what to do next.
“Why don’t you go over and sit with Bernie?” he said, rising and putting money down on the check. “She could probably use the company right about now.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
In the end, that’s what I did.
Bernie opened the door without her usual wisecrack. Instead, she said, “I’m glad you came,” and brought me inside. We went into her living room, which she almost never used, and sat down. She hadn’t redecorated since 1990, but she didn’t need to. She never watched TV, and that was all there was to do in that room. And her old recliners were still nice and cozy.
“Michael thinks the city might have to cancel Trick or Treating.”
“I don’t see that they have any choice,” Bernie said. “I got a call from the Mayor right before you got here. She told me she’d get back to me about this Friday’s edition of The Beach Buzz; she just warned me that she was calling a meeting of the City Council, and she was going to strongly recommend restricting Halloween activities to private parties, with lots of parental supervision.”
“Like you could make any parent take his eyes off his kid with all this going on.”
“Exactly. I may have to announce it on the front page. And I had such a nice layout planned, with a montage of shots I took at your fundraiser last Saturday night.”
“Did they find anything in Kendra’s car?”
“No. They had it towed to the impound yard when they decided she was really missing. They’d gone over it for forensics, but hadn’t found any physical evidence. At first, it just looked like she left it behind and took off. Of course, now we know different.”
“And her cell phone?”
“Also no help. They found it in pieces, next to the body, but they already had her phone records. Texts and such. Nothing.”
“So the killer knew something about forensics.”
She shrugged. “They say every murderer makes at least one mistake. Leaving her body where it would eventually be found might be the one slip-up he made.”
“He? Do they already have a suspect?”
“No. But don’t you think this is a ‘he?’ Who else could manage to kill two women in one night?”
“Michael thinks they’ll get forensic evidence.”
“They didn’t get lucky with Eden. Maybe with Kendra.”
I thought about it, looked at her appraisingly, then told her all about my theory that Eden had been hacking for information to use in the fortune teller’s tent, and might have invaded the wrong computer. Kendra was a hacker, too. It seemed to be the main thing the two girls had in common. “And Victor has turned out to be kind of a shady character. He comes to town, and all of a sudden, bad things start to happen. And their friends told me Kendra and Eden had a physical fight over Victor on Friday night.”
“That’s interesting. Have you told Kyle?”
“He knows.”
Her phone rang, and she slowly got up to answer it, taking her time walking to the kitchen where her landline was.
She listened more than she talked, saying yes, yes, yes, and I will, then hung up.
“Well, I never thought I’d see it happen in little Tropical Breeze,” she said, coming back and sitting down dejectedly. “Halloween is cancelled. They even want to discourage private parties, but the kids already have their costumes, and I, for one, have about twenty dollar’s worth of candy. We’ll have to think of something.”
“Why don’t we make Halloween a kind of whole-town block party? Everybody out of their houses, adults sitting on their front sidewalks instead of making the kids knock on doors, and parents glued to their kids’ sides. I’m sure they’ve already ordered extra police patrols, but I can bring all my volunteers to do a kind of citizens’ patrol, too. They were coming to my party anyway, but we can cancel it and come into town. Do you think the Mayor would go for it?”
She thought it over. “Maybe. I’ll call her back and ask. Watch this space for further developments, and trust The Beach Buzz to be your source for news.”
“You betcha,” I said. “I’ll talk to my volunteers. I’m sure they’ll go for it, especially if they can wear their costumes.”
“I don’t know about costumes. The cops will probably give you tee shirts.”
“No way. I love my lioness outfit, and I only get to wear it once a year.”
She laughed. “I’ll bounce it off the Mayor and see what she says.”
Somehow, sitting quietly in Bernie’s living room and talking about things rationally had settled me down. By the time Michael texted me that the City Council meeting was over, I felt better, and we met behind Girlfriend’s and went home from there.
“Is the Mayor serious about cancelling Halloween?” I asked.
He shrugged and sighed. “What choice does she have?”
“The voters of Tropical Breeze are not going to be happy.”
I told him my idea about how the kids could still have fun, and that Bernie was going to run it by the Mayor.
“Well, I for one hope sh
e goes for it. Frankly I’d rather be on a citizens’ patrol than throwing a party at Cadbury House.”
“You love the Halloween party!”
“Yes, I love the party, but Myrtle is already being a martyr about how much work it’s going to be for her.”
“But we’re having it catered. She’ll just have to do a little light dusting and tell the caterer how to set up the buffet table. She’s going to have help with everything.”
“You know Myrtle.”
While I was grumbling, my cell phone pinged and I asked Michael to check it, since I was driving.
“It’s a reminder. It says, ‘Séance, 10:00.’ Is there something you’re not telling me, darling?”
He was being smarmy, which meant he wasn’t amused, and I had to go ahead and tell him about Ed’s paranormal investigation in the middle of all the madness going on in the real world.
“Seriously?” he said. “You’re going to a séance tonight at the haunted mansion?”
“Oh, that’s just a local legend,” I told him. “Or were you referring to last Saturday night? Anyway, Rita wants it, and after the way I blew her cover yesterday, charging in and denouncing Victor like an amateur sleuth in the third act of a play, I guess I owe her one. She wants an investigation into her grandmother’s ghost or something.”
“And the medium is that flower of the South from Spuds, I presume.”
I glanced at him. “Want to come?”
“Not on your life. But I want a full report. With all this going on, I could use a good laugh.”
I was glad he was taking it so well, but really, a séance with Purity LeStrange and Edson Darby-Deaver was not my idea of comedy night. I was sorry I’d agreed to it, but I couldn’t back out now.
I decided not to think about it until it was time for me to drive right back to Tropical Breeze, and also that I was going to have an extra glass of wine with dinner to brace myself. Purity was probably fasting, but nobody told me I had to.
Chapter 11
