Harbour Falls

by Grey, S. R.

  The questions were piling up, and it was high time to start getting some answers. I tossed my cell onto the coffee table and crossed to the bookcase. I yanked the case files from their hiding spot, spread them out on the dining room table, and began to delve into the facts relating to the disappearance of Chelsea Hannigan.

  The files were divided into two sections, one for the Harbourtown portion of the investigation, and one for Harbour Falls. There were reams and reams of official reports from both police departments, dozens of notes from a slew of officers and detectives who had worked on the case, and several grainy still photos taken from surveillance footage.

  This is what I found in the Harbourtown section:

  In July, four years ago, following a church rehearsal, a dinner was held the night before Adam Ward and Chelsea Hannigan were to marry. Having interviewed everyone in attendance, the police concluded that nothing out of the ordinary had happened at the church. However, at the dinner that was held afterward, back at the hotel—where most of the guests were staying—a number of people reported that Adam and Chelsea had gotten into a rather heated argument. What it was about? Nobody could say. But a lot of people did report that Adam took steps to avoid Chelsea for the rest of the evening.

  I picked up a partial transcript from a witness, a male cousin on the Hannigan side. It read:

  Police Officer: “So what did you observe at the dinner?”

  Witness: “Adam didn’t touch his food, which I thought was crazy because that food was incredible.

  Police Officer: “Was that it?”

  Witness: “No no. He got up, said something to Chelsea that she didn’t look happy about, and sat down next to someone else.”

  There was some more unrelated conversation, so I scanned the transcript to see if any names were mentioned. And what did I find? Who’d Adam ended up sitting with? His best man, Nate Jackson. I wished there was some way to find out what they had talked about that evening. But paging through the interviews, I concluded the police had never asked.

  I put the transcript aside, and continued with the timeline…

  The dinner ended at about ten o’clock that night, and around that same time, Chelsea was seen leaving the hotel—alone—in the late-model Jaguar her parents had bought her that summer.

  Shortly after ten Adam was spotted at the hotel bar, drinking with Nate and Helena. All three stayed until the bar closed, at midnight that particular night. The waitress who’d served them stated in her interview that all three were courteous and nice. And though at points they’d gotten kind of boisterous and loud, they all seemed to be in good spirits. Further evidenced by the fact that they’d left her a huge tip.

  The next section I read detailed Nate and Helena’s movements following their departure from the hotel bar.

  They returned to their, at the time, Harbourtown apartment. As it turned out, the couple had a fairly ironclad alibi.

  A water line of some sort had broken that night and flooded out their floor of the building. Nate and Helena, as well as a few other occupants from that part of the complex, were relegated to spend the night in a conference room located next to the rental office on the first floor. Interviews indicated the displaced residents spent most of the night talking with one another about what had happened, until everyone finally fell off to sleep.

  Interestingly, though, one of the female residents reported waking up in the middle of the night and noticing that Helena was missing. When the police questioned Helena on this, she claimed she’d just gone down the hall to use the bathroom. The Harbourtown detectives were apparently satisfied since they eliminated Nate and Helena from their list of suspects.

  So Nate had an ironclad alibi. And Helena had an almost ironclad alibi.

  I paged to the next report…

  Trina, Adam’s sister, and her boyfriend, a guy named Walker, were staying at the hotel where the dinner had been held. Both Trina and Walker gave statements that they’d gone up to their room after dinner, watched some television, and fallen asleep. Nobody could confirm this story.

  Walker was pretty much off the hook, as he was from Boston and barely knew the missing Chelsea. Trina, however, became a suspect when one of the detectives received a lead—from an unnamed source—stating that Adam’s sister despised Chelsea and desperately did not want her brother to marry her.

  Strange, there were no further details on the allegation. What reason could Trina have for hating Chelsea? Whatever it was, I planned on finding out.

  Dr. and Mrs. Ward, though never really suspects, were still questioned. Their alibi was solid. Scratch them off the list of potential suspects. And much like Adam’s parents, all of Chelsea’s family had solid alibis. Scratch Chelsea’s family—which was rather small anyway—off the suspect list as well.

  There was a side entry attached to this section stating that Mr. Hannigan, Chelsea’s father, following his dissatisfaction with the work of both police departments, had hired a private investigator in late July of that year. Notes from several months later, made by a Harbourtown detective, indicated the PI had run into so many dead ends and false leads that he resigned, publicly stating that Ms. Hannigan’s disappearance would probably never be solved. Mr. Hannigan never hired another detective.

  I knew that, sadly, he’d fallen seriously ill the following year. When, months later, he passed away, Chelsea’s mother moved away from Maine. Not that I could blame her.

  Reaching the final pages in this section of the files, I began to read about Chelsea’s last moves in Harbourtown, following her lone departure from the hotel.

  Grainy surveillance footage showed her entering a seedy-looking bar named Billy’s. I’d heard of the place before; it was a rundown watering hole with a bad reputation, located somewhere down by the river docks in Harbourtown. The time stamp read 22:32. So she’d been there shortly after ten thirty. Only one photo had been lifted from the surveillance footage, as there was only one camera at Billy’s, and it recorded only the comings and goings of patrons as they passed through the entrance to the bar.

  I studied this shot, and though in black and white, Chelsea’s flowery sundress and sky-high heels were clearly out of place with the hard atmosphere of the bar. Why was she there?

  Detectives interviewed the bartender at the time, a man known simply as Old Carl. He hadn’t coughed up much information to the police, but he did confirm Chelsea had been a regular at the bar. He recalled that on that hot July night, Chelsea had consumed a couple of wine coolers and then asked Old Carl a rather odd question.

  She wanted to know why he’d never gotten married. When he replied that he’d just “never met the right one,” Chelsea laughed and said something to the effect of “Neither have I, Old Carl, neither have I.” Even the bartender had to admit it was a bizarre response, especially since he knew Chelsea was getting married the very next day. But who knew why people sometimes said the things they said. Chelsea left the bar at 23:30, less than an hour following her arrival there.

  A number of Billy’s regulars were also questioned. Nothing could be substantiated, but a scandalous picture of Chelsea began to emerge. Most of the men had “no comment” when asked, but a few of the women patrons talked.

  Several claimed to have walked in on Chelsea—more than once—while she was snorting lines of cocaine from a small mirror she’d placed on the bathroom counter. A few of the women claimed they’d sometimes seen her in there doing those drugs with a good-looking, muscular guy. But they had no idea who he was. Descriptions were sketchy, but every single one said he had short-cropped red hair and brown eyes.

  Oh my God, J.T.?

  He’d once had a drug problem. But what would J.T. be doing at a place like Billy’s with Chelsea Hannigan? I couldn’t remember the two of them ever even acknowledging one another. There was no way this man could have been J.T., right?
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br />   Paging hastily through the files, I searched for, but could not find, any mention of J.T. O’Brien. He’d never been questioned, never been considered. And, really, why would the police suspect him? He had no known connection to Chelsea. But for some reason, I couldn’t shake my first impression that the muscular man with the red hair was, in fact, J.T. O’Brien.

  There was one way I could find out who the man had been: go to Billy’s. If this Old Carl was still bartending—and I hoped to God he was—then I’d ask if he’d ever seen J.T. with Chelsea. Chelsea had been a regular, so he’d surely recall her. And I had plenty of old photos of J.T. from back when we were in high school.

  Anxious to get started on really investigating this thing, I considered heading over to the mainland today. But it was a Saturday, and the bar would probably be too busy by the time I got there. I decided to try Monday instead, late morning or early afternoon. A time when the bar would be open but most likely not busy.

  Since I’d reached the end of the Harbourtown section, I took a quick break. More energy bars and bottled water. Ugh, I couldn’t wait to get some real food in the place.

  I gathered up the metallic wrappers, crinkled them in my fist, and tossed them in the trash. And then I hunkered down and started on the Harbour Falls part of the case files…

  Shortly after midnight Chelsea was observed in surveillance footage taken from a bank on the edge of town. She used a pay phone that had once stood in front of the establishment. She was in the phone booth for less than a minute, and then she was seen pacing around the parking lot in her high-heels, looking agitated. A few still shots from the surveillance footage were attached to the file. I flipped through the photos and surmised she’d definitely been mad about something. Perhaps it had to do with the phone call?

  So whom had she been calling?

  I scanned the next several pages, but shockingly, no one had ever thought to get the call records from the pay phone company. Even though those records were probably no longer in existence, I made a note to ask my dad if he could get ahold of them. Since the bank was in Harbour Falls, I was confident the mayor would be able to track them down. So long as they’d not been destroyed.

  Chelsea’s next stop was her last. Well, the last place where her movements were documented—a convenience store located a few blocks from Cove Beach.

  More still photos from surveillance video…

  Shortly after one in the morning Chelsea’s image is captured as she enters the convenience store. The kid working the overnight shift stated that the blonde woman (Chelsea) asked if she could use the phone behind the counter. He refused when he saw her cell phone—on and clearly charged—in her hand. According to the kid, she accepted his refusal and left without incident.

  Why didn’t Chelsea use her cell phone?

  Asking to use the store phone, the pay phone at the bank. Was she worried calls were being traced to and from her cell phone? How many other calls had she made that weren’t captured on video? Most importantly, whom had she been calling? The person responsible for her disappearance? If the nature of their connection was so shrouded in secrecy, then it was quite possible.

  I spread several still photos depicting the outside of the convenience store across the table, placing them in chronological order based on the time stamps. OK, first Chelsea stood by her car for several minutes. Contemplating something? She then turned and walked to the sidewalk. And then…the last image ever captured of Chelsea Hannigan showed her walking out of camera range, heading east toward the dock.

  I went through the files again to highlight some pertinent details.

  Chelsea’s Jaguar was recovered the next day, but nothing was missing. In fact, the car was still locked. Since she’d been heading toward the water, the Coast Guard searched to see if Chelsea had drowned, but no body was recovered. Based on the tides and currents at that time, experts claimed her body would have most likely washed ashore if she’d drowned that night. So that theory was discarded.

  She really had disappeared without a trace. Even her cell phone was never recovered. It was as if she’d dissolved into thin air.

  Finally, I picked up the part of the files I’d purposely saved for last: The investigation of Adam Ward.

  Being the primary suspect meant he’d been questioned on numerous occasions, but Adam continued to maintain his innocence of any wrongdoing. His weak alibi, however, kept him in the police—as well as the public—crosshairs.

  No one could substantiate his whereabouts after he’d left the hotel bar and parted ways with Nate and Helena. Adam admitted to being intoxicated and said he’d gone up to his hotel room and fallen asleep. He was not seen again until the next morning at breakfast, at around seven o’clock. Even more damning, witnesses claimed he appeared “disheveled” and “exhausted” at breakfast.

  In a quest for clues, a hotline was set up. One anonymous tipster claimed Chelsea had once complained that Adam didn’t love her anymore, had quit sleeping with her, did not want to marry her. The tipster further hinted that Chelsea may have had something on Adam—something really damning—and was using it to blackmail him into marrying her. The police were unable to track down the tipster. And they didn’t uncover any evidence to support the outlandish allegation. In fact, Adam’s past turned out to be squeaky clean, so it seemed unlikely he’d been a target for blackmail. Reaching yet another dead end, the police finally began to let up on him.

  I set the files aside. So that’s how it all went down.

  I had to admit, blackmail would be a strong motive for wanting to silence someone. But I didn’t want to believe Adam had anything to do with Chelsea’s disappearance. Surely, the police would have uncovered something if he had. With enough money, anyone can hide anything, a traitorous voice whispered in my head.

  No, Chelsea’s life had been full of secrets and lies. I was more inclined to believe someone from her tawdry past had caught up to her. But the question remained, who?

  My head was starting to ache; I’d been poring over the case files for hours. I slid the folder back into the bookcase and, in preparation for my visit to the café, began to look over the instructions for ordering groceries.

  Residents were to place their orders with Helena, either through an online ordering system or by taking in a hard copy to the café. Pay options were available online, or payments could be made in person. Nate would then deliver the groceries within a couple of days. A web address and several printed copies of the ordering forms were attached to the instructions. Simple enough. I checked off the items I wanted, wrote in a few not on the list, and left for the café.

  It was raining like crazy, so, once I arrived, I parked in front, lowered my head, and made a mad dash for the door. I didn’t see Nate under the huge awning that sheltered the café entrance from the rain until the last second, and I pretty much collided with him as we both reached for the door handle at the same time.

  Stepping aside, I blubbered, “Oh my God, I’m sorry—”

  “Maddy!” Nate interrupted, laughing and pulling me into a much-unexpected hug. “It’s good to see you. We heard you were going to be staying here on the island with us for a while.” He pulled back, holding me at arm’s length. “Wow, you look great.”

  The café door opened, and Helena appeared in the doorway. “Nate,” she said, clearly exasperated. “Don’t make the poor girl stand out there in this weather.” She propped the door open with her hip. “Come on in, Maddy. And welcome to Fade Island.”

  The café interior was warm and inviting. There were a few small wooden tables scattered about, a plush sofa covered in a nubby, maroon fabric off to the left, and a coffee bar in the back. A menu board hanging behind the bar held only the chalky smears from a swipe of an eraser, but nevertheless, the smell of freshly brewed coffee punctuated the air.

  After a few customary niceties of the r
ecently reacquainted, I said, “Oh, I wanted to drop off my grocery order.” I pulled the folded form from my back pocket. “I’ll probably order online next time, but I really wanted to stop in, see the café, and say hello of course.”

  Helena took the order. “I’m glad you decided to come in. I thought I saw you drive by yesterday in Adam’s old Lexus.”

  Aha, so I was right about the car!

  “Yeah, that was me,” I replied, feeling somewhat foolish that I’d been noticed and had not stopped in.

  “How ’bout some coffee?” Nate chimed in. “It’ll warm you up before you go back out in this mess.”

  Helena added, “I was about to make myself a cappuccino. But I can make you whatever you like. I even have soup today since we’ve had a lot of fishermen stopping by lately.”

  “Just a cappuccino is fine,” I said as I sat down at one of the tables in the middle of the café.

  Just as Nate was about to sit down in the chair across from me, the café door swung open. I fully expected it to be a fisherman or maybe Max. But no.

  It was Adam who stepped in, clad in a dark brown field coat, jeans, and hiking boots. Very outdoorsy, very handsome, I noted. He looked especially good as he ran his fingers through his wet hair, and a trickle of rainwater trailed down his temple.

  Adam caught me watching him and started to smile, but then Nate distracted him as he waved him over. “We were just getting caught up with Maddy,” Nate said.

  Adam came over to the table, and Nate motioned to the chair across from me. “Here, have a seat.”

  Adam glanced at the empty chair, and then, smirking, he said, “Actually Madeleine and I had a rather unexpected, but certainly not unpleasant, opportunity to get reacquainted last night. I think it’s safe to say we’re all caught up.” He looked my way and added, “Isn’t that right, Maddy.”