by Blythe Baker
Blaire sighed, her eyes rolling skyward. “Aunt Piper, Matthew didn’t—”
“Just hear me out,” I interrupted. “A lot of different clues pointed to Matthew, so I called Sheriff Shep, and—”
“Matthew didn’t do an—” she said, trying to talk over me.
I was on a roll, and if I didn’t spit it out now, I never would. I continued, despite her interruption. “I called Sheriff Shep, and told him my theory, and he said—”
“MATTHEW CHEATED ON ME!” Blaire shouted. As soon as the words left her lips, she rolled onto her stomach, her face buried in her quilt. “He cheated on me,” she repeated, her words muffled by the blanket.
I sat there in stunned silence for a moment, watching Blaire’s back rise and fall with her heavy breathing. After a few seconds she rolled over, her face peeking up at me, cheeks flushed.
“How did you know?” I asked.
She flopped over onto her back and sighed, shaking her head. “I asked why Shep let him go, and he seemed really guilty, so I began to suspect maybe he did kill the guy. But then he told me the truth.”
“He told you?” I asked.
She shrugged. “I guess being a giant jerk is preferable to being a murderer.”
I couldn’t help myself. I laughed. Blaire shot me a glare.
“Sorry,” I mumbled. “Why didn’t you tell anyone?”
“Would you have told anyone if Mason cheated on you?” she asked. “I was embarrassed.”
She had a good point. I probably would have kept the information a secret for as long as possible. “You shouldn’t be embarrassed. He should be. He let an amazing girl go.”
Blaire rolled her eyes, but I saw a small smirk paint the edges of her mouth.
“So, who do you think did it if it wasn’t Matthew?” she asked, changing the subject. Though her expression didn’t change, I could see the tension in the furrow of her brow.
I wished I could tell her I had another strong lead, and I was hours away from cracking the case, but I couldn’t lie. I had a metal mermaid, a phone number that had so far been a bust, and a couple useless theories.
“You could search the phone number,” Blaire said when I told her how the case was going.
“What?”
“Type the number in a search engine and see what pops up,” she said. “It might give you a name or a business or something like that.”
How had I not thought to do that? I reached out, grabbed her by the cheeks, and left a huge kiss on her forehead. “You’re a genius.”
She grimaced and wiped away the slobber left behind by my kiss. “Remind me never to help you again,” she called after me as I ran for the door and sprinted down the hallway.
I grabbed the tablet we kept at the front desk for scheduling and taking payments, and opened the web browser. The phone number was still in my back pocket, and I pulled it out, smoothing it on the desk with both hands. My fingers tapped anxiously on the wood as I waited for the ancient tablet to open a browser. Finally it did, and I typed in the number and hit ‘search.’
A list of results popped up, and my shoulders sagged. For some reason I’d expected to type in the number and receive one result—the name of the murderer. Obviously, that was an unrealistic dream, and I would have to do some work. I hunched over the tablet and began flicking through the results, dismissing them one by one.
“How did she take it?”
I jumped, not realizing anyone had come up behind me.
“Sorry.” Mason lifted his hands in apology.
I placed a hand over my heart, and shook away my nervous energy. “She already knew,” I said.
I explained the entire conversation to Mason, and then told him about the phone number.
“Why didn’t you just look it up online?” he asked.
I flopped my arms on the desk. “Apparently, I’m the only one living in the Stone Ages, because I didn’t even think of doing that until Blaire mentioned it,” I said.
Mason laughed and read the screen over my shoulder. “Found anything yet?”
I shook my head. “Not yet.”
I clicked the next link, and it pulled up a sales site. Someone was selling a boat.
2009 Seadoo Challenger 430 HP Power Boat - $12,300
There was a phone number listed for offers and questions, but no name. I held up the piece of paper, and my heart nearly stopped.
“Does it match?” Mason asked.
I nodded my head, still unable to believe it.
A series of pictures were attached to the ad, and I clicked on one, enlarging it. The boat was small, definitely more for watersports than anything else. From the side, it looked like a killer whale—a black curve, like a brush stroke, moved from the back, grew thicker in the middle, and tapered out at the front. It was framed by thick bands of white on the top and bottom. I swiped to the next picture and it was a close-up of the inside—the driver’s seat and the benches in the back for passengers. I knew almost nothing about boats, despite living on an island, but this one looked nice—clean and tidy, no rips or stains on the upholstery. I swiped to the next and final picture, and if I’d been holding the tablet, I would have dropped it.
The photographer had taken an artsy picture from the front of the boat. The bow was in sharp focus, while the rest of the boat and the background had gone blurry. Sitting in the center of the photo, perched proudly on the bow, was the metal mermaid.
“No way,” Mason breathed next to me.
I pulled out my phone and punched in the phone number again. It rang several times, and this time, I did not allow myself to be fooled by the robotic answering machine. When the phone beeped, I quickly expressed my interest in the boat, left my number again, and hung up.
“Do you think they’ll call back?” Mason asked.
I shrugged. “Probably not, but it’s worth a shot.”
We cycled through the photos too many times to count, searching for anything we could have missed, any clue that could point to who was selling the boat, but we didn’t see anything beyond the mermaid.
“Why would Theodore have had this person’s number in his wallet?” Mason asked. “Was he on the island to buy a boat or was he the person selling it?”
Mason’s question sparked a memory. It flickered in the back of my mind, growing brighter the more I thought on it. “Katie said something to me the day the body was discovered,” I said, my voice trailing off while I tried to put the pieces of my fading memory together.
“General Store clerk Katie?” Mason asked.
I nodded and turned to the back wall to try and minimize distractions. My spine pressed against the edge of the desk, but I used the pain to focus my thoughts. “She said that a man came into the store the night before the body was found. He didn’t have a wallet, and he asked to use the phone.”
“Aside from the missing wallet, I don’t see how that is very pertinent,” he said, raising an eyebrow.
“She didn’t know who he called, but she heard him mention something about needing money to get a boat the next morning,” I said, finally opening my eyes and facing Mason. “Katie thought he was talking about catching the morning ferry, but maybe he was talking about buying a boat.”
We stared at each other, and I could tell by his downturned eyes and sad smile that Mason was thinking the same thing as me. We didn’t have much to go on. My case was a build-it-yourself shelf without the instructions. We knew what it needed to look like, but we were missing some steps. Namely, motive. We could place the boat at the cave and we could loosely connect Theodore to the boat, but we didn’t know who wanted to sell the boat or why they would have murdered Theodore. No matter how certain we felt about our lead, we couldn’t take it to Shep until we had more proof.
“We can’t take this to Shep, but are you going to tell Page?” Mason asked, leaning forward, his elbow on the desk. His dark hair fell over his eye, and I wanted to ditch the case and run away with him. Maybe not forever, but just for a week. Somewhere cold w
here I could wear a coat and ski. Solving a near endless string of murders makes you crave a vacation.
“Tell Page what?”
Mason looked over my shoulder, and I turned, following his gaze to see Page coming down the stairs. She had foregone her slacks and button downs for a loose pair of black running shorts and a long-sleeve white shirt.
“I thought you were upstairs with Jude?” I asked the question more to gauge her reaction. I wanted to know what exactly they had been doing up there.
Page was no fool. She knew what I was after. “We were talking and he fell asleep,” she said, rolling her eyes at me. “But what were you going to tell me?”
“We might have a clue.”
Page’s eyes went wide, and she took the rest of the stairs two at a time. “What is it?”
I pulled the mermaid out of my pocket and set her on the desk. Page leaned forward so she and the mermaid were eye to eye. “Is this the clue?”
I turned the tablet back on and showed her the boat advertisement. “I found the mermaid on the beach where the body was found, and this boat is currently for sale. Notice the bow.”
Page leaned forward, her expression giving away nothing. “And you’re certain it’s the same boat?”
“Not entirely certain, but it’s a pretty good lead, right?” I’d been expecting Page to be excited about the lead, so her hesitation made me unsure. Maybe I was only seeing what I wanted to see.
She nodded. And then with no warning, Page grabbed the mermaid and headed for the front door. “I’ll be back,” she said.
I grabbed her by the arm. “Where are you going?”
“Tell Jude I went for a walk and I’ll be back,” she said, her toned arm slipping easily out of my grasp.
I tried to protest, but she was out the door before I could say another word.
CHAPTER 17
“We don’t need to worry about your sister, right?” Mason asked for what felt like the hundredth time.
Page had only been gone for fifteen minutes, but we were both on edge, anxious for her to return. It wasn’t like Page to leave without saying where she was going, and the way she’d left so suddenly made me think she knew something she wasn’t telling me.
“I’m honestly not sure anymore,” I admitted. “If you’d asked me that question last week, I would have said that we would never have to worry about Page. But now? I’m not sure.”
Sensing how close I was to a complete emotional breakdown, Mason wrapped his strong arm around my shoulders and pulled me into his side. “She’ll be fine. I’m sure she will tell us what is on her mind when she gets back.”
“I hope so,” I said.
Footsteps on the stairs caught my attention and I turned, expecting to find Blaire. Relief flooded through me when I realized it was Jude. I didn’t want to have to try and explain to Blaire where her mom was and what was going on. Blaire insisted she wasn’t a little kid, but she had waded through more than her fair share of drama in the last few days, and I didn’t want to unnecessarily add more.
“Where’s Page?” he asked.
I could see creases from the blankets along his cheek, and his hair was mussed on one side. I’d been doubting whether Page was telling the truth before about him falling asleep, but this confirmed her story.
“We aren’t really sure,” Mason answered for me.
“She took off fifteen minutes ago,” I said.
Jude walked to the desk, his eyebrows pulled together. “Is she okay? Did she get taken back into the station or something?”
I almost smiled, but managed to bite it back. Not because I was glad my sister was gone and potentially a loose cannon, but because Jude so clearly cared about her. She needed that in her life.
“No, nothing like that,” I said, calming him. “I showed her some evidence I gathered, and it may have overwhelmed her slightly.”
“Oh,” Jude bobbed his head, his gaze turned towards the open front door, looking for her. “Poor thing. She has been through a lot the past few days.”
Mason and I nodded in agreement.
After a long pause, Jude spoke, his voice barely above a whisper. “What was the evidence? Will it prove she didn’t do it?”
I handed him the tablet and explained the phone number and the wallet. Jude nodded as I spoke, his eyes glued to the screen, flipping through the photos of the boat. When I stopped talking, he rose to his feet. “I should go find her.”
“She could be anywhere,” I said. “Besides, she has been gone almost twenty minutes now. I’m sure she’ll be back soon.”
He wavered slightly, and I could tell he was trying to make up his mind. Then, he shook his head. “No, I should just go see if I can find her. If not, I’ll be back soon.”
“Okay, man. Good luck,” Mason said. When Jude hustled through the front door, Mason squeezed my shoulders again. “He seems like a good guy.”
I agreed. “He seems stable, which is exactly what she needs right now.”
When the front door opened, I practically lunged for it, yanking it open all the way.
“Oh my,” Mrs. Smith said, putting her hand to her heart, eyes wide.
“I am so sorry,” I said, smiling to play off how silly I felt. I had been certain Page would be walking through the door any second. A nervous feeling had settled in my stomach since she’d left, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to dispel it until I was able to talk with her. “I thought you were my sister.”
“Quite alright,” Mrs. Smith said. She turned over her shoulder to tell Mr. Smith to hurry up. He was lugging a large canvas bag and I wondered whether they had just finished robbing a bank. I wouldn’t put it past them. “And we just saw Page down at the Marina. She seemed very out of sorts.”
At that moment, I didn’t care whether the couple really had robbed a bank. “How so? Was she alright?”
“Yes,” Mrs. Smith said, hauling her purse higher up onto her shoulder. “She was okay, but she seemed pretty flustered. She was down on the docks standing next to that nice young man’s boat.”
What was Page doing at the docks? She said she was going for a walk. Had she walked all the way to the Marina? That would have taken at least half an hour.
“Which nice young man?” I asked.
“The guest your sister is so smitten with. They are a really darling couple,” she said.
“Jude?” I asked.
She nodded. “Yes, that’s his name. I do hope everything is okay between the two of them. Page looked quite pale. We offered to give her a ride home, but she insisted she could walk.”
I needed to think. I was missing something, and it was obvious.
“Page,” Mason said, his voice a warning.
We looked at each other, and all at once the truth came crashing down on me like a tidal wave.
I grabbed the tablet and handed it to Mrs. Smith. “Is this his boat?”
She looked at it, flipping through the photos slowly, her eyes scanning each image at a glacial pace. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, she nodded.
“Yes, this looks like his boat. Only,” she pointed to the picture of the mermaid on the front. “His no longer has a mermaid on the front. It must have fallen off. Is he selling the boat?”
“We have to go,” I said.
Mrs. Smith continued as if she hadn’t heard me. “Mr. Smith and I have been interested in perhaps buying a boat. Of course, at our age, it may be a foolish idea, but we have been considering it.”
Mason grabbed his car keys and followed me out the front door. Mrs. Smith mumbled something to Mr. Smith about crazy kids, but I barely heard it. My brain was filtering out everything that didn’t matter so I could focus on only the most important thing.
My sister was dating a murderer.
CHAPTER 18
“I’m so stupid. I’m so stupid. I’m so stupid.”
“Piper, stop.” Mason reached over with his free hand to grab my knee, his eyes focused on the dirt road we were currently tearing down. “This
isn’t your fault.”
“I’m so stupid!” I shouted, pounding my fist into the seat. “I can’t believe I didn’t see it.”
“I didn’t, either,” he said. “None of us did. This isn’t your fault.”
“I was just so happy for her. Jude seemed so nice.”
Even as the reality of Jude being the murderer washed over me, I couldn’t quite believe it. I recalled him smiling shyly at Page while she delivered his breakfast, the way he thanked me for my kindness the first time I met him. He didn’t fit my stereotypical image of what a murderer should look like. I wanted to believe I was making a mistake, and clearly Mason did, too.
“So, we’re certain Jude did it, right?” he asked, his eyes darting from the road for only a second to glance at me.
I took a deep breath. “Jude showed up at the Bed and Breakfast claiming he wouldn’t be able to pay until the next day,” I said, glad to be talking it out. “Only, he didn’t pay the next day.”
“Because he didn’t sell the boat,” Mason added reluctantly.
“Right,” I agreed. “And he didn’t sell the boat because Theodore, who was meant to buy the boat, didn’t have the money.”
“Why exactly didn’t Theodore have any money?” Mason asked.
I paused, trying to connect the dots. It felt as if we were reading a book with pages missing, trying to follow the plot line despite large gaps in the story. I sighed, running my hands down my face. “I’m not sure. But when Katie told me about the man who came into the General Store the night Theodore was killed, she said the man spoke on the phone to someone about his bank account. Perhaps he was in some kind of financial trouble.”
“Seems strange that he’d show up to buy a boat, then,” Mason said. “When I’m tight on cash, I don’t typically begin investing in water sports.”
“Well it didn’t seem like he realized he had financial troubles until he arrived. He was livid when he couldn’t pay for his room at the bed and breakfast,” I added. Then I remembered. “I think the police told Page something about Theodore’s ex-wife having cleaned out his bank account. The ex-wife turned out to be a dead end as a suspect, but at least it explains where the money went.”
