Little Moments

by K. J. Emrick

  Sean warbles his opinion of my approach to the situation.

  “Hey, you asked me for help, remember? Just trust me. There, I’ve got one wing free, now the other. Just hold on. Almost… there.”

  With a scree of delight, the baby penguin wobbles out on its webbed feet to fold its beak down against Sean’s chest. They nuzzle each other, beaks preening each others’ feathers, wings flapping, making contented little noises as father and baby are reunited. I guess this is why Sean’s been wandering all over town. He was looking for his son, or maybe his daughter. Not really sure how you tell the sex of a penguin. Either way, these two make a pretty loving family picture.

  Sean looks up at me, and bobs his head down once, for all the world like he was thanking me.

  “You’re welcome. Er. You know, I thought maybe you were leading me to find that guy I was talking about. Bloke’s the key to the whole murder mystery and I’ve no idea where to find him. Don’t suppose you could help me with that?”

  He gives me a squawk and shakes himself all over.

  “No, I didn’t think so.” Oh well, guess I don’t have some magical connection to animals after all. Got a couple of bandicoots around the Inn and I’ll be just as happy not to know what’s going on behind their beady little eyes.

  With one more squawk of thanks, Sean takes his child under his wing and moves them both off in a direction that I assume will take them home. Not sure how they ended up in Lakeshore to begin with, but I hope they make it all the way safely to wherever they’re going. In the meantime, I’ve got to get back to what I was doing. Back to the Inn, to check in on things and to figure out some way to find Harry Kewell.

  Because as of right now, I’m out of ideas.

  When the penguins have disappeared around the corner of the bushes I turn away and head back to the street and my car.

  Only, there’s someone in my car.

  For a moment I have to wonder if maybe I was looking at the wrong vehicle. No, that was definitely our Inn’s little four-door Volvo. Not to mention it was the only car parked on the street. That was definitely my car.

  But that person sitting behind the wheel definitely shouldn’t be there. Tall and tanned, with curly black hair, and when he turned his head just so I could see a stud earring. Well, well, well. I’d been looking for Harry Kewell, and here he climbed right into my car for me.

  Taking out my mobile I take a picture of what’s going on from the other side of the street and send it through to my son with a quick text of my location. Kewell’s trying to steal my car, searching above the visor and rifling the glovebox to find a key. I don’t bother locking my doors in Lakeshore, but I’m not stupid enough to leave my keys inside. I’m betting he’ll try to hotwire it next. Is that a thing? Do people still do that?

  When Kevin tells me he’s on his way, I walk over to my car, and rap on the window.

  Kewell jumps, twisting in the driver’s seat with his hands up and his eyes wide, caught in the act of trying to steal my car to get out of town.

  With a smile, I lift the car keys in my hand and give them a little dangle. “It would be a lot easier with these, wouldn’t it?”

  Thankfully, like I’ve pointed out before, nothing is very far away from anything else in Lakeshore. It took Kevin less than two minutes to get to where I was. Harry Kewell hardly had time to gather his wits and realize he’d been had before the patrol car arrived with its red and blue lights flashing.

  He’d been one foot out the door when Kevin grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and dragged him the rest of the way out to be handcuffed. Never try to resist the police. That’s good advice in general. It’s even better advice when the police officer in question is my son. More than a few have found that out the hard way. Kewell didn’t push his luck today. Maybe there’s some smarts in the man after all.

  Back to the police station we went. Just one of those days where I spend most of my time here, I guess. Kevin’s joked with me before that he should put me on the payroll. There’s an opening for a civilian assistant, apparently, but I’ve turned him down each time he’s asked. I’m pretty happy with the job I have, thank you very much.

  Kevin and I are standing in the hallway outside the interview room, watching Harry Kewell through the one-way mirror. His hands are still in their cuffs, and the chain between the two metal bracelets is secured to a metal ring just under the lip of the table on his side. He can’t go anywhere.

  “For a guy who’s under arrest,” I point out, “he sure doesn’t look worried.”

  It was true. He wasn’t exactly smiling in there, but he certainly wasn’t sweating his circumstances, either. He kept turning his head to look at the mirrored window, obviously aware that he was being watched, and just waiting for us to do something. I swear, it was like he was bored.

  “Know what guilty people do when police arrest them and put them in a holding cell?” Kevin asks me. “They go to sleep.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because for them, it’s over. They’ve been caught. The stress is off. They can finally relax. Innocent people are worried about what’ll happen next. Guilty people will argue with you until they’re blue in the face, but once they know they’re caught, they calm right down. Innocent people who get arrested argue, and then argue some more, and then climb the walls with worry. That man in there is guilty as sin.”

  That all makes sense, in a backwards kind of way. I think back to Stephanie and Thornton sitting in this same room and compare their reactions to what Kevin just told me. Interesting. “So what are you going to charge Harry with?”

  “Stalking and harassing Suzanna, for now. He’s been sending her e-mails and she’s seen him walk by the place she’s renting several times now. She wants a protection order. The arrest will get that started for her. As far as the rest of it… well, that depends on the outcome of this interview now doesn’t it?”

  “Sure does. Hey. Where’s Carly?”

  “I set her a couple of simple tasks to help out my people. She’s at the back with Ben.” He laughs when he sees my reaction to that. “I know you’ve seen it, too. Those two are starting something and who’re we to stand in the way, right? Just nice to see my sister coming out of her shell.”

  He gives me a wink, and then holds the door of the interview room open for me. When I look surprised, he motions with his head for me to go first. I can read that expression of his like a book. This is his police department, he decides what the rules are. Right now that means the two of us are going to team up for the interview.

  If I looked surprised to be invited in on this interview, Harry Kewell looks twice as much so to see me there. I smile at him as if it’s the most normal thing in the world. Well, maybe not in the whole world, but at least in our little piece of it here in Lakeshore.

  “What’s she doing here?” he asks Kevin.

  “Eyewitness,” Kevin answers, taking the seat on the other side of the table. I’m going to stand. That’s fine with me. If this goes right, we won’t be here long.

  Harry sneers over in my general direction. “Eyewitness? What do you think she saw? I haven’t done anything.”

  Lifting a hand, Kevin wags a finger back and forth. “Uh, uh. In this room, I ask the questions. You know your rights, so let’s begin with this. Why have you been hounding your ex-girlfriend, Suzanna Martin?”

  “And your other ex,” I add, “Melanie Abrams. Let’s not forget about her.”

  Kevin gives me a glance, because we’ve got no proof that Harry has been bothering both women. But I saw the look on Melanie’s face when she waited my table in the Rum Runner and her boss yelled at her, and I know she was worried about her and her little girl over something.

  There’s that sneer again on Harry’s face. “See, this is why I never come to this little flyspeck of a town. Every time I do, there’s trouble. First with Melanie. Even had a kid with her and she still left me. Then with Suzanna. Now, you got me hooked up in here.” He rattles his handcuffs again
st the secured metal ring for emphasis. “I should’ve known better than to come back here.”

  “That why you were in my Mom’s car?” Kevin asks him. “Trying to get away, were ya?”

  “Maybe,” he says with a shrug. “Maybe I was just in the wrong car.”

  “Like you’re in the wrong town.” Kevin leans an elbow on the table, holding Harry’s gaze with his own. “We have the e-mails that you sent Suzanna. We have her statement that you’ve been seen around her place several times over the last few days. In fact, her street’s just one over from Biel Street, where you tried to steal that car. So I’ll ask you again. Why were you harassing her?”

  “She belongs with me,” Harry says, with such cold insistence that a little shiver runs down my spine. “She knows that. She just won’t accept it. We had one little fight and she left me and ran back here to Lakeshore. I just needed to show her that one fight isn’t enough to ruin the sort of bond me and her have. She belongs with me.”

  Kevin raises an eyebrow. “Didn’t she have someone new in her life? That’s what she told me.”

  “Lies! Filthy lies, is all. She tried to tell me the same thing. That’s what our argument was about. Said she had a guy who would take care of her. Had a real man, she said, someone important, and I could just drop off the face of the Earth for all she cared. Well, I wasn’t buying it. No way. She was just trying to make me jealous like she always did!”

  Those words rang in the interview room. Harry was painting a pretty clear picture of himself as the jealous ex-boyfriend, following a girl across Tasmania who just wanted him to leave her alone. An ex who would do anything at all to keep Suzanna like one of his possessions. Like a toy that was only his to play with.

  “And what about Melanie Abrams?” I ask. “Did you need to follow her here, too?”

  Harry makes a rude noise with his lips. “Didn’t even know she was here. Her and Suzanna knew each other, of course, being from the same town and all, but I couldn’t care less if I ever see Melanie again. Ever. I was here for Suzanna, not Melanie. That little bi—”

  “Language,” Kevin says, a warning in his voice.

  “Whatever. That girl is trouble. She’s trying to take me to court for child support when I’ve had nothing to do with her or our daughter for years now. She can rot in this town for all I care. No. It’s me and Suzanna who are meant to be together. Let me talk to her, and I’ll prove it.”

  As Kevin explains to him that there’s no way that’s going to happen, I start putting more pieces together. Now I know why Melanie looked so worried in the Rum Runner when her boss was yelling at her. She’s hard up for cash, I’m betting, and trying to get the courts to order her ex—Harry Kewell—to pay her support so she can make ends meet. That job at the Rum Runner is supporting her and her daughter and she’s terrified of losing it. I doubt she even knew this poor excuse for a man was in town.

  Which left the situation with Harry and Suzanna, and that’s what brought us to this point.

  “So charge me with sending e-mails,” Harry grumbles, “or whatever you’re going to try to lay on me, and give me my ticket so I can leave this town. You’ll never see me again, that’s for sure.”

  I found that hard to believe. “So you’re just going to give up on Suzanna now, is that it?”

  “If it means getting arrested, sure. She’ll come around. She’ll realize we’re meant to be together and then she’ll come running to me. I just want out of here.”

  “You sure there’s not another reason you want to leave so bad?”

  He glares at me but doesn’t take my bait like I was hoping he would. “Just give me my charges,” he growls, “and let me go.”

  “It’s not that simple, I’m sorry to say.” Kevin doesn’t sound the least bit sorry about it, actually. “See, there’s the matter of what my mother witnessed. I’m afraid that’s going to make this a lot more serious.”

  Harry’s hard eyes turn my way again. “Yeah? So what’d you see?”

  “I saw you,” I tell him, “eating lunch at the Pine Lake Inn.”

  For a moment he just sits there, blinking his eyes. Then he bursts out laughing. “Are you serious?”

  “Yes. I saw you there. I noticed the stud earring you wear and that curly hair. You were there yesterday, sitting by yourself.”

  “You crazy b—” When Kevin clears his throat, Harry thinks better of calling me that name. “You have me in here because you saw me eating a meal in that place of yours?”

  “No,” Kevin corrects him. “You’re here for stalking and harassing Suzanna Martin. Thing of it is, she had a new man in her life. Somebody she really loved. Somebody she gave a token of her affection to. Someone who you weren’t going to let her be with.”

  Harry’s face went darker by degrees.

  “She loved this new man, didn’t she Harry?”

  “No.” Harry’s answer comes out as a croak. “She only loves me.”

  “That’s a laugh, and we both know it. She wanted nothing to do with Mister Harry Kewell. This new man could take care of her. He wasn’t on the hook to pay child support to another woman, for instance. He had a good, strong job. Sure he was older, but some women appreciate an older man. They were consenting adults so who’m I to judge. Right?”

  Harry’s shaking his head now. “No. Only me. She only loves me.”

  “You’re wrong, Harry. She loved this new man. Which is why,” he pauses, taking his mobile off his belt and bringing up the photo of Suzanna and Harry that he showed me earlier. “Which is why she gave her new man this ring, right here.”

  As he shows the picture to Harry, something comes over the man. Something deep. Something dark. Something terrible.

  In the photo, Suzanna was standing with Harry Kewell, apparently in a moment when they’d been happy together. Her hand is up on his chest, and there’s a ring on her middle finger. It’s a copper ring, with a braided-rope design and little metal leaves placed in the pattern of a cross on top. I’d recognized that ring as soon as I saw the picture. It was the same one I saw on the pinky finger of Parliamentary Secretary Jackson Fillmore as he was lying dead in his room at the Pine Lake Inn. At the time I’d thought it was an odd sort of ring for a man to be wearing, and especially so for a politician. Except, it was exactly the sort of thing a man would wear if it was given to him by the new woman in his life. A woman he honestly loved.

  Suzanna’s ring was on Jackson Fillmore. He was the man she’d left Harry Kewell for, the one that had caused the fight that sent him into a jealous spiral. No doubt they were trying to keep the relationship secret because of his position in the government, at least for now, but Harry had found out somehow. Probably by coming here to Lakeshore to spy on Suzanna. Once he’d found out the identity of her new love… well, bad things happened.

  I suddenly remembered the words Mabel McGowan had written out for me. Consider love above all else. This was what she meant. Suzanna had finally found a man who would love her and take care of her, and Harry Kewell had taken that love from her in his twisted desire to possess her. His love was rotten. His love had turned to hate. I had figured out early on that the motive for Jackson Fillmore’s murder had to be personal. The answer had been looking us in the face the whole time.

  The whole mystery revolved around love.

  Harry’s still staring at the picture of Suzanna and him. If there’s any justice in the world this is as close as he’ll ever be to Suzanna again for the rest of his life. “You were in the dining room when Jackson Fillmore was there,” I explain. “You saw him leave and go up to his room. We were all up there, but we were all in our rooms for twenty minutes or so. Plenty of time for you to take a knife from the table setting, bring it upstairs with you, sneaking up like you belonged there. You went right to his room, and knocked, and when he saw it was you he invited you in to talk like men. Only, you’re not much of a man, Harry, and so you stabbed him in the back and ran. You thought nobody saw you. You thought nobody noticed you. But I did.�
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  I had been wondering how anyone could possibly get into the inn, up two flights of stairs, and then kill Jackson Fillmore before any of us noticed. I knew Danni was there watching. She would’ve noticed someone who didn’t belong. But there was no reason to suspect someone who came from the dining room. Harry hadn’t come in off the street. He’d been inside already, paying for his meal like everyone else.

  Harry almost laughs. It is not a pleasant sound. “Between the place being so busy and that one guy pointing out which room the high and mighty Jackson Fillmore was in, I thought I was going to get away with it. I figured this was going to give me my chance to get Suzanna back. That guy… that guy didn’t deserve her. Nobody who’s stupid enough to turn their back on a guy with a knife deserves a girl like Suzanna. She belongs with me. With me!”

  Kevin leans back in his chair. The camera up in the corner of the room would have recorded that brilliant confession, and that’s all he needs to wrap up this case nice and neat, courtesy of yours truly.

  I’m still troubled by something he said.

  “What guy?” I ask him.

  He looks at me, his eyes hooded, his lips set in a creased frown. “What’s that?”

  “You said a guy showed you the room Jackson Fillmore was in. What guy?”

  Please don’t be who I’m thinking of. Please don’t be who I’m thinking of…

  “Don’t even know who it was,” he tells me. “Some bloke all in black. Shaggy black hair. Think he was a guest of the place, actually. Had the strangest eyes. Kind of silvery, kind of gray. Doesn’t matter, anyhow. All that matters is I’ve lost Suzanna for good. When this gets out, she’ll never speak to me again.”

  His head falls forward, slumped over the table, and I swear I hear him choking back a sob. Everything was done for him. The mystery was solved.

  But maybe it wasn’t over yet.

  Kevin looks up at me, and I shake my head. The man that Harry described, the one who pointed out the room where Jackson Fillmore was staying, is Mister Brewster. Longtime resident of the Inn. Someone I’ve known for… well, I don’t know how long. Someone I always thought of as sort of a friend.