by Sarah Fox
The arrival of a large group of diners brought our conversation to an end, but I mulled over Leigh’s words as I took down orders and cleared up a newly vacated table. Most of the rumors Caroline had spoken of matched my previous theories, but now I had a new one. That didn’t mean I could cross Nicola or Del Harris off my suspect list, but it did mean that I needed to look at things from a different angle.
Most likely jealousy—personal or professional—wasn’t the motive behind Christine’s murder. But how could I figure out who Christine had recognized and why that would be a problem if I didn’t have access to Jamal’s laptop?
I didn’t come up with an answer to that question, but a short while later the owner of the laptop himself arrived at The Flip Side and claimed a table in one corner. Leigh took his order while I carried servings of bacon cheddar waffles and strawberry banana crêpes to a different table. When I turned around, Jamal caught my eye. Judging by the serious and somewhat scared expression on his face, I figured it was safe to assume that he’d heard about what had happened to Max.
I took down two orders and relayed them to the kitchen, then quickly surveyed the restaurant. Everyone was taken care of for the moment, so I decided to take the opportunity to speak with Jamal.
“Is it all right if I join you?” I asked when I reached his table.
He nodded and glanced around before saying in a low voice, “Did you hear what happened?”
I sat down across from him. “To Max? Yes, isn’t it terrible?”
Jamal leaned forward, keeping his voice quiet. “Do you think it was Christine’s killer who attacked him?”
“I think that’s the most likely scenario,” I said, matching the volume of his voice. “Especially since your laptop wasn’t found with him. I’m assuming he hadn’t given it back to you yet.”
“No, he still had it.” The fear in his eyes intensified. “Did he find something on it?”
“Yes, something to do with the sites Christine visited on the Internet.”
“But you don’t know what?”
“No.”
Leigh arrived with a plate of churro waffles and a glass of cola for Jamal. I smiled at her and Jamal thanked her, but we didn’t continue our conversation until we were alone again.
“So whoever attacked Max—the killer—must have known or guessed that he’d found something on my laptop.”
“That would make sense,” I agreed.
“But how?”
“Good question.” I pondered it while Jamal dug into his waffles. “Maybe the killer overheard Max on the phone, telling me he’d found something.”
Jamal took a swig of his drink. “Do you think you’re in danger, then?”
The question took me by surprise. I hadn’t considered that possibility since the attack on Max, although maybe I should have. “I don’t know. Max’s phone was missing, too, and if the killer took it they could have figured out that I was the person he was talking to. But if the killer overheard Max’s side of the conversation, he or she would know that he didn’t give me any details.”
“True. Maybe you’re all right, then.”
I hoped that was the case.
Jamal devoured another piece of waffle. “What about me? It wouldn’t be hard for someone to figure out that the laptop belongs to me. What if the killer thinks I know about what Max found?” Fear showed in his dark eyes again.
“We can’t discount that possibility,” I said. “You need to be careful.”
Some of the fear in his eyes morphed into anger, and his hand tightened around his fork. “I wouldn’t mind a chance to make the killer pay for what they did to Christine.”
“You really do need to be careful,” I cautioned him. “We’re talking about someone who won’t hesitate to kill again.”
Jamal chewed viciously on the last of his churro waffles, but he didn’t argue with me.
“Do you have any idea what Max might have found?” I asked.
“No. I would have told you guys before if I did.”
“Christine didn’t say anything? You weren’t with her when she used your laptop?”
“She didn’t say anything about what she was doing, but she was in my hotel room when she used the laptop.”
“Did you see something, anything that might help us?”
“I don’t know…”
“Try to remember,” I urged him.
He stared into his nearly empty glass of cola. “I was texting a friend, but I did look up a couple of times. The first time Christine was scrolling through search results, and the next time I think she was looking at photos.”
“Photos of what?”
“People?” He thought that over and nodded. “Yeah, a guy. I wondered why she was looking at a mug shot, but then I got a message from my friend and forgot about it until now.”
“A mug shot? You’re sure?”
“Pretty sure.”
“That could be a good clue,” I said, a hum of excitement running through me. “Maybe someone working on the film, or someone living here in Wildwood Cove, has a secret criminal past that they don’t want anyone to know about.”
“Okay,” Jamal said, not yet sounding convinced, “but if it’s someone from the cast or crew, how would they have kept their past a secret? That sort of thing is usually all over the Internet.”
“Maybe it’s someone with a fairly low profile, not the actors or the director. Or else it’s someone who lives a quiet life here in Wildwood Cove.” I thought for another moment. “Or they’ve changed their name.”
“How are we supposed to figure out which one it is?”
“I’m not sure yet,” I admitted. “Do you remember anything else about the photo?”
“I think the guy had a shaved head.”
“He didn’t remind you of anyone you know? Anyone you’ve seen while in Wildwood Cove?”
“No, but like I said, I wasn’t paying much attention.”
“Maybe it makes sense that you wouldn’t have recognized him,” I said. “Max mentioned that it was Christine’s ability to remember faces that clued her in, so there’s a good chance whoever she recognized has changed his appearance somewhat since the mug shot was taken.” I glanced around the restaurant and realized that I needed to get back to helping Leigh. “How old would you say the man was in the mug shot?” I asked quickly.
Jamal shrugged. “Mid-twenties, maybe? Not much older than me.”
“But we don’t know when the photo was taken,” I said, more to myself than to him.
A man stood by the cash counter, waiting to pay for his meal. Leigh was busy taking down orders at a table across the room, so I pushed back my chair.
“Take care,” I said to Jamal. “And be careful who you trust.”
I left him with those words of warning and hurried over to the counter. Jamal left The Flip Side a few minutes later, and as I watched him disappear out the door and into the gray afternoon, I desperately hoped he didn’t have a target on his back.
Chapter 22
Although I was anxious to get started on some sleuthing, I was busy helping Leigh right up until closing time. As soon as the pancake house was closed and cleaned, I hurried to the office and settled in behind the computer. Opening the web browser, I hoped that I was on the brink of discovering some vital clues that would allow me—or the sheriff’s department—to solve Christine’s murder before the end of the week.
My plan was to Google each member of the cast and crew, to find out if any of them had a criminal past. The first step was easy enough—all I had to do was look up The Perishing on IMDb to find a full list of the crew and cast members. The next step wasn’t difficult either. I simply had to plug each name into the search bar and sort through the results. Easy enough, but extremely tedious.
An hour and a half later I didn’t have much to show for my efforts other than a dull headache. I’d started with the cast members and had made it through the entire list, looking up both the men and the women in case the man’s mu
g shot wasn’t the only one Christine had viewed online. One actress with a minor role in The Perishing had a DUI on her record, and a male cast member had once served time for assault following a brawl outside a bar in Los Angeles. Other than that, however, I’d come up empty, and I didn’t think those two criminal records were enough to kill over.
I still had the list of crew members to go through, and I hoped I’d have more luck there. I started with the director, Vince Aconi, but while I found plenty of information about him online, none of it involved a criminal history. He’d recently married his third wife, and he had six children between the ages of five and twenty, but aside from rumors about a long-ago affair with one of his leading ladies and a public tantrum at a classy restaurant in Hollywood, there wasn’t much dirt to be found on Aconi.
Before moving on to the assistant director, Howard Eastman, I sat back in my chair and rubbed the spot between my eyebrows, wishing I could erase my headache. When I dropped my hand, Ivan stood in the open doorway, glowering at me in his usual fashion.
“You’re still here.”
It sounded more like an accusation than a comment or question.
“Is it late?” I glanced at the time displayed on the computer screen and realized it was past four o’clock and later than I usually stayed at the pancake house. “I guess I got caught up in what I was doing.”
“Did you walk here this morning?” Ivan asked, his dark eyes watching me closely.
“Brett dropped me off.”
“Then I’m driving you home.”
“Thanks, Ivan, but that’s not necessary. I like the walk.”
The chef’s typical glower grew darker. “Leigh mentioned you were talking with that young man from the film crew.”
“Yes, I was.”
“You’re investigating.” Again, the statement sounded like an accusation.
“Sort of.” I glanced at the computer screen, which still showed the latest round of search results. “Yes.”
“I’m driving you.”
His tone didn’t leave the matter up for further discussion, and I wouldn’t have had a chance to protest again anyhow. He’d already disappeared into the break room across the hall. And after giving it some thought, maybe I didn’t want to protest. The murderer might not have any interest in me, but I didn’t know that for sure. I’d warned Jamal to be careful, and I knew it would be wise to heed my own advice.
I shut down the computer, wishing I’d had more luck, but grateful for a chance to take a break from staring at the screen. Minutes later I’d locked up The Flip Side and joined Ivan in his classic Volkswagen bug.
“What kind of birds have you seen around lately?” I asked as Ivan drove. I knew one of his favorite hobbies was birdwatching.
“Flickers, a couple of Steller’s jays, chickadees, California quail.”
“I love California quail,” I said with a smile. “Their topknots are so cute.”
Ivan nodded once and moments later turned in to my driveway.
“Thanks for the ride,” I said as I climbed out of the Volkswagen.
“Watch yourself,” were his last words to me before I shut the door.
They were words I planned to take to heart.
Once inside, I made sure the door was firmly locked behind me as my first step in heeding the chef’s advice. I allowed myself to spend some time on the couch, cuddling with Flapjack and drinking down a tall glass of sweet tea in an attempt to banish my recurrent headache. It didn’t quite work, so I retrieved some chocolate from the kitchen and snacked on that as well. Fortunately, the combination of the sweet tea and chocolate did the trick and the last of the pain behind my eyes ebbed away.
I chopped up vegetables and put together a pot of minestrone for my dinner, and while the concoction simmered away on the stove, I booted up my laptop and returned to the task I’d started at The Flip Side. I hadn’t had much luck with the cast or the director, but I hoped I’d find something interesting when I looked up the remaining crew members.
A while later, I gladly took a break to eat some of the delicious minestrone. Googling the crew members had turned out to be particularly tedious. The crew list was far longer than the cast list and was proving to be just as unhelpful. Midway through, I still hadn’t found anything to suggest that anyone I’d researched could be the criminal Christine had recognized.
As I ate I texted Brett, asking how his day had gone and if he was free to come over for a while. His response came within minutes, but I wasn’t going to have his company to look forward to that evening. He’d worked late, he told me, clearing a fallen tree from a client’s yard and had only just arrived home. After getting cleaned up, he was heading off to Port Angeles to have dinner with his parents and some old family friends.
Have fun, I wrote back to him.
See you tomorrow? his next message read.
Definitely. I followed up that text with a smiley face.
I was disappointed, but at the same time I was eager to finish up what I was doing, and that was going to take me a good while. By the time I finally reached the end of the crew list, I’d yawned several times and my dull headache had returned. I wished it had been worth the time and the headache, but I still hadn’t found anything helpful. Some of the crew members seemed to have very low profiles, with little information about them available on the Internet.
If the person I was looking for was using a different name, or if it was someone who lived here in Wildwood Cove, how the heck was I supposed to identify Christine’s killer?
That was a question I couldn’t answer that night, and I was no closer to a solution when morning rolled around.
At The Flip Side, I distracted myself for a while by writing up the special fall menu items on the chalkboard hanging on one wall, drawing a border of maple leaves for a decorative touch. With a damp chill in the air, I lit a fire before opening the restaurant, and soon had a cheerful blaze crackling away.
“I’m guessing you’ve heard about Logan,” I said when Sienna arrived a few minutes later.
“Yes. I can’t believe he was right here in Wildwood Cove, camping out in that old house while everyone was worried sick about him. Thank God you found him there. Otherwise, who knows how long he would have stayed in hiding.”
“Have you talked to him?”
“For a couple of minutes. His dad took away his phone and all his video games and won’t give them back for a month, but at least he’s not sending Logan back to Portland.”
“So that story has a good ending,” I said, happy that was the case.
“And I don’t have to suffer through any more nightmares about him lying dead in an alley somewhere.”
“It’s definitely good to know he’s safe.”
Leigh arrived then, and I opened the restaurant. By eight o’clock, all the tables near the fireplace had been claimed by hungry customers glad to enjoy the warmth of the crackling flames.
I’d texted Lisa the day before to let her know that everything was okay between me and Brett again, and she dropped by late in the morning to let me know in person how happy she was about that news.
“I knew the two of you could work things out,” she said, giving me a hug.
“Thanks for listening to me vent.”
“Any time,” she assured me.
We took hot drinks and plates of maple pecan sticky rolls into the office so we could chat more over a light lunch. By the time we were halfway through our rolls, the conversation had turned to Christine’s murder.
“Have you found out anything new?” Lisa asked.
I told her about the fact that Christine had borrowed Jamal’s laptop before her death, and how she’d summoned her journalist cousin to Wildwood Cove to cover a juicy story. “Max checked out the browsing history on Jamal’s computer and found something important.”
“What?”
“I wish I knew. He was supposed to come over to my place to tell me, but he was attacked and ended up in the hospital.”
&n
bsp; Lisa’s dark eyes widened. “That was him? I’d heard that someone was attacked, but I didn’t realize it was anyone you knew. It’s bad enough that he was hurt, but the timing makes it worse.”
“I don’t think the timing was coincidental.”
“But I heard it was a robbery turned violent.”
“In a way it was. The attacker took Max’s phone and Jamal’s laptop, but I’m betting the motive was to silence Max and get rid of any incriminating evidence, rather than simple greed.”
“So you think Max was meant to die? That it was the killer who attacked him?”
I nodded as I tore a piece off my gooey roll. “Taking with them the clue that Max found.”
“So you’re no further ahead?”
I chewed and swallowed, savoring the delicious flavors of maple and cinnamon. “I wouldn’t quite say that. I talked to Jamal yesterday, to see if he had any idea what Christine was looking at on his laptop. He wasn’t paying much attention at the time, but he did see a man’s mug shot on the screen. And since Max mentioned that it was Christine’s ability to remember faces that was behind whatever it was she’d found out, we figure she recognized someone who has a criminal past they’d like to keep secret.”
As we finished off our sticky rolls, I told Lisa about my unsuccessful efforts to figure out who that person might be.
“It could still be someone working on the film, if they changed their name,” Lisa said when I finished.
“Definitely, but it could also be someone who lives here in Wildwood Cove, or someone who’s here temporarily.”
“Good point. Although there aren’t many tourists at this time of year, so the latter is probably the least likely.”
I agreed with that. “I feel like I’m spinning my wheels,” I confessed.
“There has to be another way to find out who it was Christine recognized, one that doesn’t require the information on Jamal’s laptop.”
