Eighth Witness

by Kathi Daley

  Jack nodded. “Yes, that is correct.”

  “Are you writing a story about what happened to Gina?”

  Jack bobbed his head. “Sort of. To be honest, I’m not sure if a story will come out of this or not. What we are really doing now is just doing some research so that we can determine if things worked out for Ryan the way they should have.”

  The woman’s eyes darted around the store, eventually settling on me. She seemed like a frightened deer. It was hard to believe she must be in her midtwenties. To look at and speak to her, you wouldn’t think she was a day over sixteen.

  “Would you be willing to answer a few questions?” I asked in a gentle voice. “It won’t take long, and there aren’t any other customers here at the moment.”

  “It is usually slow until just before closing,” she confirmed. “What do you want to know?”

  “Had you known Gina long before her death?” I asked.

  Tina nodded. “Yes. Gina and I went to high school together. After high school, she and Val Goodson and I all stayed on the island rather than going to college or moving away, so we remained friends. I guess you could say that we were best friends, the three of us.”

  “And Ryan? When did you meet him?”

  Tina narrowed her gaze. “I actually met him a while before that. Maybe five years ago. Maybe more. He wasn’t dating Gina then. He’d come in here sometimes to buy an ice cream cone. We sell ice cream in the summer.”

  “Yes, I’ve heard that you have the best ice cream on the island,” I said with a smile. “So Ryan would come in for a cone?”

  “Yes, and when he did, we would talk sometimes. He owned a construction company and there was one summer a few years back when he was doing a remodel on the commercial building down the street. He’d come in most afternoons and buy a two-scoop cone. One scoop chocolate and one scoop vanilla. We sort of got to know each other during that summer.”

  “So you liked Ryan?” Jack asked.

  Tina nodded. “Yes. I can’t say I knew him well, but he seemed to be a very nice man.”

  “So how did he become involved with Gina?” I asked, aware that this conversation would be over if a customer came in, so I wanted to move things along.

  “Gina worked for a Realtor in town who hired Ryan’s company to do some repairs on a house that was part of an estate sale. Gina was the administrative assistant to the broker, so she was put in charge of getting the house ready to sell. It seemed like Gina and Ryan hit it off right away. They had chemistry, that was for sure. I actually thought they might go the distance, but then Gina got pregnant and everything changed.”

  “Changed how?” I asked.

  “It seemed as if their relationship turned into more of a business arrangement than a passionate love story. Gina didn’t want the baby. She told me when she first found out that she was expecting that she was going to get rid of it. But then, when she went to Ryan and tried to get him to pay for her abortion, he somehow convinced her to have the baby and let him raise it.”

  “But she changed her mind,” I prompted.

  “I don’t think that Gina changed her mind about wanting a baby so much as she got herself hooked up with her rich boss. She wanted to live in his big old house and have the luxuries he could provide her, and he wanted children. Gina didn’t want to have any more kids, so she decided to get Hannah back.”

  “But Ryan didn’t want to give her back?”

  “No, he sure didn’t. He was adamant that the agreement between them was that he would raise Hannah. Of course, if you told Gina no, that would just make her all that much more determined to get what she was after. Somehow Gina got her boyfriend to hire an attorney who was going to help them take Hannah away from Ryan.”

  “Do you think he killed her to stop that from happening?” Jack asked.

  Tina shook her head. “No. Ryan could be an intense guy at times, but he wouldn’t kill anyone.”

  “Based on the court record, it seemed at the trial that you thought that Ryan was guilty of killing Gina then,” I said.

  Tina bowed her head. “I never said that. I did say he had been calling her after she hired that attorney, but I never said he killed her. The prosecutor who was trying to put Ryan in prison twisted everything around. He asked me how many times Ryan had called and texted Gina. I said I didn’t know. He asked if it was possible that he had called her fifty times. I said I didn’t think it likely, but I supposed it was possible, though I really had no idea how many times he’d called and texted so I couldn’t say one way or another. When he summarized things he said that I had stated that Ryan had been obsessively calling and texting Gina, which made it look like he was some sort of crazy person. Val and I talked about it before the trial, and she told me that it would be best for everyone if I let the attorney take the lead and basically just agree with him. I was so scared that I guess that is what I did.” A single tear slipped down Tina’s cheek. “I didn’t mean to make things worse for Ryan. Val said the evidence was pretty flimsy and he would probably get off no matter what we said. She told me not to worry about it, so I guess I didn’t.”

  “Do you think that Val thought Ryan was guilty?” I asked.

  “No. But she did hold a grudge against him. You see, she met him before Gina did, and they sort of hit it off too. She hoped he’d ask her out on a date, but then Gina came into the picture and Ryan only had eyes for her.”

  “Did Val lie on the stand?” Jack asked.

  Tina shook her head. “No. She didn’t lie. She just didn’t correct the attorney who was trying to convince the jury that Ryan was guilty when he summarized things in a way that made them seem worse than they really were. Like the use of the word obsession. Ryan was very upset when Gina told him that she was going to seek custody of Hannah, but the prosecutor said he was obsessed with maintaining custody and would have been willing to do anything to prevent Gina from taking their child from him. The way he put things, it really did make it sound like he had gone off the deep end. He made him sound like some sort of deranged, psycho killer.”

  I was about to ask another question when I heard the bell over the front door. Darn; I guess the interview was over for now. Oh well, I supposed I could stop back by another time. I thanked Tina and assured her that the information she provided was very helpful, then Jack and I left the store.

  “So, what do you think?” I asked as we walked hand in hand toward Jack’s truck, where Kizzy was waiting for us.

  “I think that twisting a witness’s statement to suit your own needs is a very common thing for a trial lawyer to do. I agree with what Gertie told you: Tina is a very passive person and was most likely overwhelmed by having to testify in a courtroom with dozens of people staring at her. I still don’t have a feeling for whether or not Ryan is guilty, but for me, talking to Tina has helped to cement the fact that things did not necessarily go down the way the prosecution convinced the jury they did.”

  “I’m sorry our interview was interrupted. I have the feeling that Tina may know more than she had time to tell us.”

  Jack shrugged. “We can talk to her again.”

  “Maybe we should check in with Rick,” I suggested. “He might know something more than even Alex does.”

  “We’ll call him later. Maybe we can have him come by this evening while Vikki is out of town. For now, let’s head over to the church.”

  ******

  “So what is your plan?” I asked Jack after we had chatted with Pastor Branderman for a few moments before going down to the church basement.

  “I thought we’d start by uncovering as much information as we can from the files we have already gone through down here. Pastor Branderman didn’t want us to take any of the documents away with us, but he was fine with us photographing them. He also said we could scan them into our files once he had the opportunity to review what we dug up.”

  “It seems like he wants to keep some control over what we write.”

  “I get it. He wants to be sure
we don’t plan to exploit the men and women whose files he has been entrusted to protect. It’ll take a bit longer to do it his way, but it should work out fine. Once we have enough data to at least start putting together an outline, we will do a search of the archives at the newspaper. And finally, when we have learned as much as we can from our research, I will attempt to make an appointment to interview Jeremiah’s daughter.”

  “We might want to stop by the museum tomorrow to speak to Meg. She always has a good handle on any topic regarding the island’s history when we’ve spoken to her in the past.”

  “That’s a good idea.” Jack glanced around at the boxes that were piled high around the room. “For today, let’s just take photos of everything we think might be relevant. We can try to make sense of the information after we get home.”

  “When we stopped by to drop Kizzy off at the house I ran into George. He indicated that he would be happy to help us with this project if we need him. I bet Garrett would enjoy helping us as well.”

  Jack smiled. “The more the merrier. It is going to take a lot of time to go through all this. Maybe the four of us can meet up soon. I’d prefer to wait before we bring the others in until after we’ve reviewed the documents we are able to find.”

  I stood back and looked at the stacks and stacks of boxes. I had a feeling that finding the right information to support even one story was going to be a huge undertaking. The boxes were filed in somewhat of a chronological fashion, although it was apparent that things had been moved around over the years and some of the boxes that should be in one place were now in another. Deciding to look through the box closest to the time period Jack had chosen, I pulled it off the shelf and began sorting through its contents. It was fun to take a peek into Gull Island’s past. I was able to recognize buildings in photos that were still standing, as well as others that I knew had long since been torn down. There were photos of the men, women, and children who lived on the island decades ago, as well as others of the beaches and ocean that looked much as they still did today.

  In addition to photos, I found scrapbooks of newspaper articles. I wondered who had taken the time to put the binders together and whether they were still alive. Given the time period we were researching, it was likely they were not. Life must have been significantly slower in those days.

  “Here is something.” I held up an old newspaper article about the flood that had made Jeremiah Groverson a hero. “I think this is the article we found before. Isn’t it the same one that gave us the idea to write the story in the first place?”

  Jack glanced at the article. “Just take a photo of it and move on. If we stop to read everything, we won’t get through much.”

  “Did Pastor Branderman say how long we have today?” I asked.

  “Just until six. He has to leave for a hospital visit then and wants to lock up before he goes. I know that doesn’t give us much time, but like I said before, we’re just here now to get a start.”

  “I bet you can get an archived copy of the article I found,” I said, even though the small paper that originally published the article was no longer in business.

  “I’ll check tomorrow,” Jack answered. “The little monthly was around before digital storage, but I found some of the hard-copy editions stored in the morgue at the Gull Island News. I’m sure I don’t have a full set of printings, but if I’m lucky, I may be able to find this one. If not, we do have the article we found here.”

  Jack and I used every minute that had been allotted to us, but that wasn’t nearly enough time to come up with much. “Oh, look.” I held up a photo. “Here is a photo of this church during the storm that pounded the island at about the same time Jeremiah came across the burning boat. It was used as an evacuation center for the folks affected by the storm surge.”

  Jack reached for the photo. “There are a lot of faces in this photo. I think this might lead us to others who might be willing to share their story, or the stories of their parents or grandparents. If they were here during the storm, they most likely were here when the boat burned.”

  “It’ll be a lot of work to track people down so long after the actual event. I would imagine that most of the people in the photo have either died or moved away. Still, families do tend to share oral histories, so there may be children or grandchildren of the men and women here with stories to tell.”

  Jack set the box he had been sorting through on top of the stack he seemed to be creating off to one side. “It wouldn’t hurt to ask around. For now, let’s just start with what we have. I don’t want to linger beyond the time limit Pastor Branderman gave us. We need him to be supportive of our efforts, and inconveniencing him wouldn’t be a good start.”

  “I agree.” I began gathering the photos I’d been looking through and replacing them in the box from which I’d found them. “And it’s not like we are on any sort of a deadline with the feature. It certainly isn’t a time-sensitive piece. We’ll just take our time and see where our research takes us.” I paused and looked around the room. “I wonder who started storing these items down here and why they stopped.”

  Jack glanced up. “Good question. The boxes as they are labeled date back to the late eighteen hundreds and span multiple generations. And the information kept in the logbooks goes back even farther. I suppose that the pastor who founded the original church might have decided to keep a history of the island for future generations. That would make the most sense in terms of who started keeping the data. As for why it’s no longer kept here, I’m not sure. I suppose we can ask Pastor Branderman if he knows. He is fairly new to the island, and the last box I can see with a date is labeled 1979. It seems the collection of these artifacts stopped at that point, or else they’re being kept somewhere else.”

  Chapter 5

  Wednesday, January 9

  Jack wanted to work on his novel the next morning, so I decided to grab a bite at Gertie’s and then head into the newspaper office for an early start. I’d been around Jack in the past when he had been in the zone, and I knew it was important to leave him completely alone. The hard and steady rain we had anticipated had arrived overnight, so I tossed a raincoat over my clothes and grabbed an umbrella before I headed out the door. After making sure that the door was closed tightly, I ran to my car. By the time I reached the wharf it was pouring, so I parked in front of Gertie’s, then made another quick dash through the rain.

  “It’s really coming down out there,” Gertie said.

  “Tell me about it. I have an umbrella and a raincoat, but I still got wet.”

  “Coffee?” Gertie held up the pot.

  “Please.” I slid onto one of the stools at the counter.

  “Jack not with you today?” Gertie asked as she pushed a full cup of coffee across the counter toward me.

  “He is working on his novel. He seemed to be in the zone, so I came in to have breakfast with you rather than risk disturbing him.”

  “I’m glad you did. It has been dead all morning with all the rain. In fact, other than a man who picked up an order to go, you are my first customer. What can I get you?”

  “Maybe just the coffee and a blueberry muffin.”

  Gertie put a muffin on a plate and passed it to me.

  “So, what are you up to today?” Gertie asked conversationally.

  “The first thing I need to do is head over to the newspaper to make sure our part-time delivery guy has everything under control, and then I want to do some research on the first human-interest piece Jack and I want to publish.”

  “What lucky ancestor is going to be first in your series?”

  “A man named Jeremiah Groverson, who saved a bunch of people from a burning boat during a big storm back in the nineteen forties.”

  “I remember my mama talking about that. She was just a young’un when it happened, but she knew Groverson’s daughter, Gracie. She told me that Jeremiah was a brave man who risked his life to save everyone who was trapped on that boat. You know, Gracie still lives on the i
sland.”

  “We actually have an appointment to speak to her tomorrow. I hope the interview goes smoothly. When Jack first called her, she didn’t seem all that interested in talking to us, but apparently she had a change of heart.”

  “Gracie is a private person,” Gertie said. “If you don’t want to spook her, it will be best to take it slow and careful.”

  I raised a brow. “Careful?”

  “She gets defensive about certain things related to her father. If you ask the wrong question in the wrong way, she will most likely just clam up.”

  I frowned. “Wrong question? I don’t understand. The man was a hero. I would think she would want to talk about that.”

  Gertie raised a brow. “He was a hero all right, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t have a history that Gracie might not want to rehash in a newspaper article.”

  I leaned forward just a bit, placing my arms on the counter in front of me. “You know something, and I am going to guess it is something we have yet to discover.”

  Gertie leaned in close. “I do know something, but it is something not a lot of folks living on the island today know. I’m not sure I should tell you.”

  “Come on, Gertie. Spill. You know I can be discreet.”

  She crossed her arms over her ample chest and took a moment before she answered. Eventually, she began to speak. “Jeremiah first moved to Gull Island because he was on the run. I guess a small island with the limited population here at the time seemed like a good place to hide out.”

  “Hide out?”

  “When Jeremiah arrived on the island he was being chased by the law on the mainland,” Gertie informed me. “From what I have been told, he was wanted for killing a woman up north of here.”

  I gasped. “Killing a woman? Who?”

  “Her name was Celeste Willoby. She was the wife of Harvey Willoby, a rich businessman who owned the cannery where Jeremiah had been working. Apparently, Jeremiah was recently fired from his job, and it was said that he was pretty upset at his unplanned unemployment.”