by Kathi Daley
He put them back in the box, then turned to the one on the left.
“Do you know that girl?” I asked, as he studied the dark-haired subject, who was sitting on a bench overlooking the sea.
“Karen Stinson. She was found dead in the river at the bottom of the falls this past July. Everyone assumed she’d been hiking, slipped, and fell.”
I felt a chill run down my spine. “Do you think the same person who killed Darcy killed Karen?”
“Maybe.” He continued to look through the photos. “I didn’t know Karen as well as I knew Darcy, but I imagine these photos were also taken several years ago at least.” Wilder stuffed the photos of Karen back into the envelope and opened the third box. He took out the photos and winced. “Well, I’ll be damned.”
“What is it?” I asked.
He held up the photo of a third young girl standing in front of a Ferris wheel. It was dark, but you could see a carnival in the background. “Carrie Long. She disappeared in the middle of the night this past September.”
“And the photos? Do they seem to have been taken several years ago as well?”
Wilder nodded. “It looks like she was still in high school.”
I didn’t like where this was going. “Is there a fourth girl?” I asked as he opened the last box.
“Tracy Edwards,” Wilder answered as he glared at a photo of another young woman.
“And what happened to her?” I asked.
Wilder’s lips tightened. “Nothing. At least nothing has yet. I just saw her in town this morning.” He took out his phone, pushed a button, and waited for someone on the other end to pick up. “I need you to pick up Tracy Edwards. Take her to my office and have her wait for me.” Wilder hung up, then looked at me. “I’m going to take the boxes with me. We might get lucky and lift a print. Because you touched things, I’ll need you to come by the station to have your prints taken. That way we can eliminate them right off the bat.”
“I’d be happy to. Do you want me to come at any particular time?”
“Any time before six would be great.”
He turned and looked around the basement. “If someone was here recently, there might be physical evidence to find, although from the age of the photos and the amount of dust on the boxes, I’m sticking with my initial impression that the boxes have been here for several years at least. Still, I’m going to tape off the entry and send a team over. You can leave the back door open or be available to let them in.”
“I should be around. I’ll give you my cell number.”
Wilder led me back toward the stairs. As we passed the mattress, I felt another chill run down my spine. Had the person who killed Darcy been staying here at some point? And if so, might they come back?
After Wilder left, I went back to the cottage to fill Georgia in. As I had been, she was shocked and concerned. Who wouldn’t feel somewhat vulnerable? I glanced at Georgia’s Ramos and found I was grateful for his massive presence, even though he probably wouldn’t be much of a guard dog. I decided to take care of the fingerprints right away. It was already past four and I didn’t want to become distracted with something else and forget. Georgia chose to remain at the cottage and continue organizing the kitchen. She’d also need to take Ramos for a walk before dark.
The Holiday Bay Police Station was located in an old brick building between the tiny library and the post office. This was the part of town I’d heard referred to as the public annex. The ground was covered with snow, but from a photo I’d seen, I knew beneath it was a lawn where free concerts were held in the summer.
A middle-aged woman with a rounded figure and a purple tint to her hair greeted me as I entered the station. “You must be Abby Sullivan.”
“I am,” I confirmed.
“Peach Sherwood. I’ve heard so much about you.”
“You have?”
She stood up and came around the desk and took my hand. “Velma said you bought the house on the bluff, but she didn’t tell me you were such a pretty little thing.” Peach frowned. “You aren’t Abagail Sullivan the writer, are you?”
I nodded.
“Well, if that doesn’t take all. I’m such a huge fan. I’m pretty sure I’ve read all your romances, even the steamy ones.”
I smiled. “I’m happy you enjoyed them.”
“I heard you’d stopped writing after the death of your family. I’m very sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you.” I could feel tension build in my chest. “I’m here to have my fingerprints taken. Did Chief Wilder tell you I’d be in?”
“He did. Just give me a minute and we’ll take care of that for you.” She turned on a machine. “I can’t believe Abagail Sullivan is right here in our station. Does the fact that you’re opening an inn mean you’ve given up writing for good?”
“No. I’m working on a thriller. Will this take long?”
“Just a few minutes. Everything is digitized these days. You don’t even have to get your fingers dirty. You will need to wash your hands before we do the prints, though, so they’re free of any lotions. The washroom is just through that door.”
Happy to have a reason to escape, I headed toward the washroom, even though I didn’t have any lotion on my hands. I’d hoped it would take longer for the locals to figure out who I was. I should have realized it was only a matter of time before my sad little story was out to everyone, and they started looking at me with pity in their eyes. Maybe I should have changed my name before moving to Holiday Bay. It was too late for that now.
Taking a deep breath to calm the panic that was building, I washed my hands and returned to where Peach was waiting for me.
She took my hand. “This won’t take long at all. Just relax your hand and let me place your fingers.”
The sky had darkened and the lights along the main avenue were lit up by the time I returned to my SUV. It was beginning to look like a fairyland. I couldn’t wait for the Christmas Festival to get underway. I was sure it would be magical. I considered stopping by the small holiday store I’d seen on an earlier trip into town to pick up a few decorations for the cottage. Nothing too over the top. Maybe some lights and a few pieces of garland, and a couple of candles for atmosphere. I was standing near my vehicle, debating whether to make the stop now or at a later time when I saw Colt Wilder walking toward me.
“Are you here to get your prints done?”
“Just finished up.”
“Thank you for being so prompt.”
“I’m happy to help out in any way I can. Did you speak to Tracy?”
“We did. She’s going to stay with some relatives on the West Coast until we figure out what’s going on.”
“Did she know anything about the box with her belongings in it?”
“It was part of a time capsule project her graduating class did. Four years ago, every senior was given a box in which to place items that were significant to their time in high school. The boxes were locked in the school basement. The idea was that they’d be opened at the class’s ten-year reunion.”
“Obviously someone pilfered the boxes.”
“Obviously,” Wilder said in a deep voice. “I called the school. They’re going to do an inventory. I’ll be very interested in hearing whether there are other boxes missing.”
“Other missing boxes could indicate other girls in danger,” I realized.
“Yes.”
I wiped a snowflake from my face. “I wonder why the boxes we found were in the basement of my house.”
“I suppose it was as good a hiding place as any. No one has lived in that house for a very long time.”
“Lonnie told me Bodine Devine moved out of the house about three years ago. The girls graduated four years ago. You don’t think…”
Wilder frowned. “Perhaps I should give Devine a call.”
Chapter 10
As he said he would, Chief Wilder had sent someone to tape off the basement and verified that it would be fine to start work in the rest of the house on
Monday. I’d asked him if he had any news about Darcy’s murder he could share with me, and his response was that he was “working on it.” Vague, but I understood. Ben hadn’t liked to talk about his active cases either. Still, my curiosity had been piqued, so I decided to do some digging of my own.
“Are you still looking into the murder of that poor girl they found in the woods?” Georgia asked me when I’d settled down at the dining table we’d purchased, along with a bed for Georgia, a sofa, two armchairs to frame the fireplace, and a beautiful walnut coffee table.
“The more I look, the more fascinated I become. I suspect whoever killed Darcy might be responsible for two other deaths, though it’s important to look at Darcy as a victim in isolation as well.”
Georgia sat down across from me. “What have you found?”
“Darcy was the youngest of five girls, all raised by their mother alone after their father was arrested. It seems all her sisters have gone on to live conservative, productive lives. Two, both college graduates, have successful careers and have left Maine. Michelle, the oldest sister, is thirty-five, married to a local pastor, and still lives in Holiday Bay. Kendall, the sister closest in age to Darcy at twenty-four, is engaged to Wesley, the oldest son of Patrice and Jasper Hamilton, the heir to the Hamilton estate.”
Georgia popped a piece of the cookie she’d been nibbling in her mouth. “I’ve never heard of the Hamiltons.”
“Jasper Hamilton is the founder of Holiday Bay Community Bank. I don’t get the sense the family is super rich, like the Hiltons or one of those families, but from what I’ve found, they have more money than either of us ever will.”
Georgia laughed. “If you’re comparing his fortune to the amount of money I’ll ever have, that’s setting the bar pretty low. Are you talking about the huge house up on the hill that looks a lot like a castle?”
“Yes. That’s the one.”
Georgia put another piece of her cookie into her mouth. “Okay. Despite their father being a drugged-out killer, Darcy had four sisters who seem to have done well for themselves. Is that relevant?”
“I’m not sure,” I admitted. “I mostly set out to look for possible motives if Darcy’s death turned out not to have been committed by someone just passing through town. The church where Steven Fisher is pastor is pretty conservative, and from what I’ve been able to deduce, Darcy was very much the opposite.”
“So you think Darcy was killed because she worked in a bar and had a wild side?” Georgia asked.
“Not necessarily. Right now I’m just gathering data. It does seem as if Darcy might have been the least ambitious and successful of her siblings, though. I’m not saying anyone would kill her because of that, I’m just saying it’s interesting.”
Georgia got up to pour herself a cup of coffee before sitting back down across from me. “How do you know how to find all this stuff?”
“First, I’m a writer, and we have to do a lot of research. Along the way, I’ve learned tricks to find the information I need. And I was married to a detective. He had mad investigative skills he shared with me. And I have a friend with connections. His help is invaluable when I need information that isn’t accessible to the average human being.”
“Friend?”
“My husband’s old roommate. He ended up working for the FBI, and Ben and I stayed in touch with him after he moved to DC. Ben called him a few times over the years for help on one case or another.”
“And he’d help you too?” Georgia asked.
I got up to refill my own cup. “He would. Unless it’s hugely top secret or something. In the case of Darcy Jared, if I can manage to come up with a viable theory and need some information, I think he might come through for me. After Ben died, he called me and said he’d always be there for me, and if I needed anything, just ask.”
Georgia laughed. “I like your style, Abby Sullivan. I’m going to take Ramos out for a walk. When I get back, we can go over the grocery list. I thought I’d run into town and get the supplies we need for the week while you singlehandedly solve Darcy’s murder while writing the next New York Times best-selling mystery.”
I grinned. “Don’t for a minute think I’m not going to do exactly that.”
After Georgia went out with Ramos, I began to see what I could find out about the other two girls. I knew their names and that they were in the same graduating class, but nothing else.
Karen Stinson was found dead in a nearby river this past July. Until the items in the basement had been discovered, her death had been considered an accident. She was twenty-two and worked at the local preschool. She was single, and based on what I could find out by searching her social media accounts, she had a fair number of friends, though she rarely dated. From the photos I found, she liked to hike and kayak. Comments posted to her Facebook timeline after her death made it appear she was well liked and respected. It appeared she’d been quiet, preferring nature to partying, but to know more, I’d have to confirm that with friends or others who knew her. I scoured her social media accounts in search of information about her family. It took a while, but eventually I found a photo in which she’d been tagged. Also tagged were two young women who looked a lot like her who were identified as sisters.
After an hour of research, I had a profile of sorts. Karen was born in a small town in Indiana. Her father died when she was young and she was raised by her mother. Being raised by a single mom provided a common link with Darcy. When Karen was ten, she and her mother moved to Holiday Bay, and it seemed she’d lived here until her death.
Carrie Long, also twenty-two when she went missing, had never been found. From what I could find online, it appeared she was a single mom with a one-year-old. She’d worked as a cashier at the market and volunteered at the day care center in exchange for babysitting for her daughter when she was at work. She was a parishioner at the community church and had been dating a young man named Grayson Porter, who was twenty-five and a youth minister working on his master’s degree in theology.
What did Darcy, a waitress with a wild side, a preschool teacher with a love of nature, and a single mom have in common? On the surface, not a lot, except for the fact that they went to the same high school, so most likely knew each other. I was just about to Google Tracy when my phone rang.
It was Lacy, reminding me about dinner tomorrow night. “Lonnie told me about the boxes and mattress you found in the basement,” she segued into what I suspected was the real reason for her call pretty quickly. “How freaky is that?”
“Pretty freaky. You’ve lived in Holiday Bay for a long time. Did you know Karen Stinson and Carrie Long?”
“Sure. Carrie attended the same church Lonnie and I do. She was such a sweet person. So open and giving. She was raising her daughter all on her own after the man she’d been dating dumped her when he found out she was pregnant, but she never complained for a minute. She worked hard and she loved that baby. I don’t know what happened to her, but I do know she wouldn’t just take off the way some people said.”
“There are those who think she ran away?” I asked, then waited for Lacy to reply.
“A few people, including the detective from the county who came to investigate. They say she was under a lot of stress in the days before she disappeared. She had a full-time job at the market, plus she helped out at the day care almost full-time hours to cover childcare for her daughter. She really had a lot on her plate, and there were some people close to her who told the detective she was pretty much at the end of her rope. On the night she disappeared, she called a neighbor to come over to stay with the baby, told her a friend had called in a panic after their car broke down and she needed to go pick them up. The baby was sleeping, and Carrie promised to be no more than thirty minutes. She never came back.”
“And her car?”
“They never found it. Her cell phone either. Or her purse, for that matter. She just disappeared. I know they used phone records to try to identify the friend who called her for the ride, but it
turned out she didn’t get a call from anyone before she called the neighbor to come over. At least she didn’t get a call on her cell or the landline in her home.”
Okay, that was strange. She left her daughter with a neighbor in the middle of the night in response to a call for help from a friend, but there was no record of that call. If not for the photos in the basement, which seemed to indicate she could have been selected the same as Karen and Darcy, who were dead, I might think she’d taken off as well.
“Carrie loved her daughter,” Lacy continued. “She wouldn’t have just left her if she had a choice. I always felt she couldn’t have simply run away.”
“Were there any other indicators that she might have?” I asked. “Had she cleaned out her bank account or taken a leave from her job?”
Lacy didn’t answer.
“Lacy? Are you still there?”
“I’m here. And yes, there were other indicators. She’d taken a large amount of money out of her savings account the week before. The bank manager questioned her at the time, and Carrie said she was helping out a friend. She didn’t have a lot of money, and the bank manager said he tried to counsel her not to draw her account down so low, but she did it anyway, and it wasn’t his business what she did with her money.”
Withdrawing most of her cash and leaving to help out a friend who they couldn’t prove called would lead to the conclusion that someone had simply taken off to start a new life. “What can you tell me about Karen Stinson?”
“Karen worked at the preschool the twins attend. The boys went there too, and all the kids absolutely adored her. Karen was sweet and thoughtful and patient. Everyone said she really enjoyed her students.”
“I heard she fell to her death while hiking.”
“Maybe. She was the outdoorsy sort. She liked to hike and ski and she often went off alone, which I didn’t understand. If it were me, I’d find a hiking buddy, but people said she was a bit of a loner when she wasn’t working. When she ended up dead in the river, no one thought much about it. Everyone figured she fell and, being alone, there was no one to help her.”
