“Oh no, it isn’t that.” And it really wasn’t. Only I didn’t know how to explain the truth either. Because the truth was, I was going to have to spend the day investigating and there was kinda one main suspect that I had.
The only other person on that boat.
Matt’s sister.
Yes. Alyson had always been close by when a murder took place.
And she had a short temper.
And she had been arrested for arson once. Well, she’d been arrested for many things. Trespassing, protesting, driving a motorbike without a license.
But she couldn’t actually be a killer.
Right?
I knew her too well.
At least, I thought I did.
There wasn’t a sign on the front of the Eden Bay Journal saying there was air conditioning, but I knew that there was. The editor, Rachael, was just smart. She didn’t want to be overrun by all these stranded people.
The cool air hit my face and so did the cool glare that Rachael gave me as I pushed the door open and stepped into the office.
“Sorry about the headline, babe,” she said as though she wasn’t sorry at all. “But it’s the truth. And people are starting to wonder.”
“You do know that if the wrong person got put behind bars, that is actually on the police, not Alyson and I?” I asked after I’d taken a seat on the other side of the desk. Curiously, the article had made basically no mention of that. No blame on the people who were, you know, actually to blame.
Rachael smiled a little smugly. “No, but that wouldn’t make such a riveting read, would it?”
“No. Not such a good story.”
“Exactly.” She was entirely unapologetic about the whole thing.
But I had come for something more than just a confrontation. “Do you still have the newspaper articles from the time it happened? The original Surfboard Killing, I mean.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Don’t tell me you really are second guessing yourself?” she said in a bit of a shocked whisper. She was trying to hide her gleeful amusement, but she wasn’t succeeding.
I just lightly shrugged my shoulders and refused to give much away. I made sure my voice stayed heavy and cool. “Someone is still out there. On the loose. I just want to be thorough.”
She stood up and went over to a large cupboard, pulling out a long drawer. She started to leaf through the archives. “No one is going to trust your judgement this time, you know.”
I didn’t say anything. Eventually, she found the articles that were printed at the time, although I felt like she purposefully made the process longer than it needed to be. Then she kinda threw them across the desk at me.
There were all the details of the original case. Nothing I didn’t already know, but I wanted to be refreshed on how it had all been presented by the press. How sensationalized. How much they latched onto the concept of “The Surfboard Killer,” even when that turned out to be a misrepresentation of what had happened. The later articles even seemed to imply that the person who was caught—Mr. Carbonetti—didn’t fit the picture. Well, no, he didn’t fit the picture that the press had painted because he was a mild-mannered English teacher and the newspapers wanted the killer to be a muscly, seven-foot-tall maniac who was terrorizing the seas and all who dared to surf there.
As I leafed through the old papers under Rachael’s watchful eyes, I started to wonder if she was right. Would it matter what I tried to do to clear my name and apprehend the correct suspect? Everyone had already made up their minds that Alyson and I were wrong. To blame. Here it was, in black and white, in today’s paper.
If only I could call Alyson.
If only I knew who else was on that boat that night.
4
I hadn’t been this close to the ship since the night Dan Millen had been killed. But it was the only way I knew how to get the phone number I needed. The sign at the front still had it printed, black on a yellow background. Garish. I was just punching the number into my phone when I heard someone clearing their throat behind me and I spun around.
He was wearing a captain’s hat. A middle-aged man, but wiry and spritely, tanned with lean muscles.
“Thinking of giving me a call?” he asked, looking me up and down in appreciation. “Feel welcome to any time, miss.”
Well, that was not the best way to get me on his side. Definitely not a great first impression. I mean, I know some men think they are awfully charming when they say things like this, but I was appalled. He was practically old enough to be my father. I tried not to let my disgust show too much on my face, but I also didn’t smile at him too brightly.
“I suppose you’ve saved me the cost of the call,” I said, putting my phone away.
He peered at me with piercing gray eyes. “So what did you want to discuss with me?” he asked, and I realized he had a trace of an American accent.
I shrugged coolly. “Just wanted to see when the ship was setting sail again.” I smiled.
He narrowed his eyes. “Why? You a passenger? You don’t look too familiar.”
“Well, there were three thousand passengers on board—how can you be so sure?”
He pursed his lips. “I got a good memory. And a good instinct. And something tells me you are digging around for info. You from the press?”
I shook my head. “Just an Eden Bay local. One with my bedroom being taken up by a grumpy old man who should be heading to the South Pacific right about now.”
He made a little humming noise. “Hmm. Well, it will still be a few days till we are on board again. Maybe up to a week.”
“You’re keen to set sail again soon, I guess,” I said.
He didn’t answer that. He just stared down at me and his face had changed. Like he had realized something. “So you were one of the girls who was on the ship the night it happened.” A statement, not a question.
I didn’t like the use of the term “girls.” “One of the two women, yes,” I said, making a point but wanting to keep things civilized.
He crossed his arms. “Huh.” He leaned against the wooden pole that held the sign with his number. “And did you see anything?”
I just thought, hey, I’m supposed to be asking the questions here, buddy. Pipe down. I’d had enough questioning from the cops.
“Where were you that evening?” I asked him, refusing to answer his before he had answered mine.
“Why do you ask that?” he asked, looking down at me over his nose, even though he was not that much taller than me. Maybe only 5’8”.
“Well, you are the captain,” I pointed out. “Surely you feel a responsibility for this vessel. I didn’t think you’d go too far from shore.”
He screwed up his face. “I was having dinner out that night.”
I could smell the scent of a lie in the air. It had been almost impossible to have dinner out that night with all the restaurants either already sold out of food or long booked out in advance before the cruise ship ever docked in town.
But I tried not to let my disbelief show on my face. Always better to make people think that you believe their tale so that you can catch them later. “Oh?” I asked, making it sound like I was genuinely interested. “Where did you eat?”
“The VRI,” he replied, with only a moment’s hesitation.
Got him.
Only now I was going to have to speak to Matt.
There was no hostess to greet me at The VRI, so I waltzed right through the doors and into the dining room uninhibited, trying to spot Matt behind the bar.
Oh my goodness. There was a young woman. I could see a mop of long, golden, curly hair cascading down her back, and I started to turn to run out the door.
“Excuse me, miss, can I help you?”
The voice was too low. I spun around. Not Alyson. She had light features and pale blue eyes. Must be a new staff member.
“Oh. Sorry. I, um, I’m looking for the manager. Matt Foulkes.”
“I’ll just get him for you.”
&nb
sp; Matt looked slightly apprehensive when he greeted me this time. Or maybe I was just being paranoid. I told myself that I was. I told him about my run-in with the captain, whose name I realized I still hadn’t gotten. Oh great. It was really going to be easy to figure out if he had a booking then, wasn’t it? Stupid, stupid Claire.
I tried to compose myself because I didn’t want Matt to know my dumb mistake. Hey, we all want to look good in front of our exes, right?
“He says that he was in here that night.” I described his physical appearance for Matt and pointed out that he most likely would have been wearing his captain’s hat.
Matt frowned and kinda scratched his head a little as though trying to think. “Hmm, I’m not sure. We were booked out that night so there were a lot of people in here. I was slammed. Run off my feet. I came straight from the beach to manage the evening shift.”
“I understand.” I was going to have to ask about the bookings then. I was still pretty sure that it would have been impossible for anyone to get in seeing as the restaurant would have been booked out before the ship even docked. “Do you remember if you were already booked out prior to that night or did you take bookings on the day or in the days leading up?”
Matt seemed slightly irritated at having to try and recall this. “I think we still took a booking or two the day before.”
“Oh.” I could feel my face fall as I thought about that. Well, I suppose the captain wasn’t totally caught out as being a liar then. Not yet, anyway.
“I don’t know his name,” I finally had to concede, feeling sheepish, but then Matt interrupted me.
“Carl. Carl Sanderlands.”
Oh. How did he know that?
“I can look through the books, I suppose, but I’m really not supposed to give out information about our customers.”
I made a face. Now that, I did not get at all. It’s not like it was some great big secret. For one thing, the captain—er, Carl—had told me he was here that night. For another, it wasn’t like it was a top secret, private place. “I could have walked past here that night, looked in the window, and seen exactly who was in here,” I pointed out, feeling salty. “What’s up with all the secrecy? He’s not the President of the USA. Though he is from there, I believe.”
“It’s just policy, that’s all.”
But it seemed like there was another reason for Matt’s hesitancy to help me. Just like Rachael the day before, he was talking longer than it needed to flick through the pages.
“Any reason for the lack of cooperation?” I finally asked Matt once he had well and truly irritated me.
“Excuse me?” he said, pausing the finger he was using to run down the list of names of bookings.
I put my hands on my hips. “Why don’t you want help me, Matt?”
“No booking,” he said and put the book away. “Now, I’m sorry, Claire, but I really have to get back to work.”
5
Dan Millen’s face was staring back at me from the most recent issue of the paper. The once-weekly Eden Bay Journal now ran daily versions. Shorter, only a few pages long, but more up to date. I stared back at him. The dead surfer, yes. But another victim of the Surfboard Killer? Surely not. It just didn’t seem likely. In fact, it seemed downright impossible.
Mr. Carbonetti was still in jail. He hadn’t been set loose, he hadn’t been out on bail, and he definitely hadn’t escaped from prison in Sydney. So there was no way that he could have done it
The captain had broken protocol when I’d called him later that evening and he gave me the number of the person who was sharing a room with Dan—a young guy named Michael who was a fellow surfer and possibly one of the men I had seen surfing with Dan the evening of the murder. I had arranged to meet him at Captain Eightball’s. There were no spare tables, so I perched at the bar and waited for him. Finally, he walked in. Yes, that is him. Interesting. He didn’t seem overly impressed about being there. Like he was doing me some huge favor.
I introduced myself and tried to be friendly, but he was a little standoffish as he glanced around. He was tall, with a shaved head, unlike most of the surfers around who kept their hair long. But he was the kind of guy who could pull off the shaved look. He had the cheekbones for it.
“So you were sharing a cabin with Dan before the gas leak?” I asked as my milkshake was passed to me by an overworked waitress.
This milkshake was dreadful, but I suppose that was what happened when you ran out of full cream milk and ice cream and had to use skim. Plus, it was too warm. I set it down and focused on Michael.
Michael nodded and leaned against the bar. He had only ordered a water. And no ice either, because they didn’t have any. “I can’t believe it.” He was talking about Dan’s death, not the ice situation. “Actually, I can’t believe anything about the story you’re telling me. Dan is not the kind of guy who would steal a surfboard.”
I just stared at him. Was this dude really calling me a liar?
“Well, he was the kind of guy who would steal a surfboard, because he did. I saw him with my own two eyes.”
Oh, I knew what that look meant. It meant that I couldn’t be trusted, that my word now meant nothing. Was Rachael right? Had all my credibility been thrown into question now?
“He was a pro surfer. People literally gave the guy surfboards. And expensive, brand name ones as well. Not some no-name board that some weirdo sells on a beach.”
Wow. I mean… I was allowed to distrust and offend Alyson, but that was only because she was my best friend. No one else was allowed to. “Well, I don’t know if I would put it quite that way,” I said through gritted teeth while I saw Michael’s eyes grow colder.
I wanted things to get back on track so that I could at least get some decent info out of the guy.
“Why did you want to meet me?” Michael asked coolly. He reminded me a lot of myself, demeanor-wise, but I was sure that was just about all we had in common. He was just a surfer on a cruise ship. Probably no real ambitions beyond that either.
“I am just wondering if you saw anything on the ship before it docked that might give us all some clue as to what happened to Dan. Did he get into a fight with anyone? Make any enemies?”
Michael shook his head. “Nah, no way. Dan was a decent guy.”
“And how did the two of you get along? I know there can be tension when you share a room with someone.”
He had barely given me anything during our whole conversation, but after that, he really closed up.
“Think I ought to get going,” he said with an eyeroll.
“Hey, I didn’t mean anything by it—” I tried to protest, trying to get him to sit down again.
“Sure you did,” he said. “I can see what game you are playing here. And I don’t want any part of it.”
I felt my cheeks flush a little as he walked out of the restaurant and I had to compose myself for a few minutes.
I needed some fresh air. For some reason, that Michael guy had really rattled me. And anyway, the milkshake was rotten. I decided to head down to the skatepark to clear my head, but on the way, I ended up at the flower park when I spotted an old friend coming toward me with white hair and bright blue eyes.
Byron was walking along with a cane. Doing her best in her old age, but I could see the struggle all over her face. She’d had a nasty fall a couple of months earlier and her hip had never fully healed.
“Hello, Claire,” she said brightly, waving at me as I approached her.
It was just good to see her out of the hospital.
I didn’t want to make any mention of the cane or focus on anything negative.
“You are looking well, Byron,” I said as she took a seat on the park bench. She patted the place beside her for me to sit down as well. I obliged.
“Could really do with a holiday, though,” she said. “With what little time I have left on this planet.”
“Oh, don’t say things like that, Byron, please.” I didn’t think the town could deal with anoth
er death. Especially not the death of someone so beloved.
I was actually pleased I’d run into her because I wanted to ask her something. She was a clairvoyant and had a way of getting to the truth. Through some divine nature or not, I wasn’t sure. But she was usually spot on with her predictions and answers.
Byron was excited to have something to tell me herself. “Oh, Claire! I saw that friend of yours earlier…”
“Oh, Byron, I really can’t,” I said, sorry to interrupt her, but I really couldn’t hear about Alyson. It was a total cold war by that stage.
And I didn’t even know how cold it was about to get.
“Oh.” She blinked a few times as though resetting. I felt like I’d upset her a bit, getting all hot and annoyed when she had thought she was telling me something I’d wanted to hear.
“Byron, do you have any idea who might have done it?” I asked her, hating the sound of desperation in my voice. If you’d spoken to the Claire I was a year earlier, I would never have believed in anything psychic or supernatural and yet here I was, asking a psychic for advice.
But she just laughed and said, “Well, how would I know, dear? I wasn’t on the boat!”
“Oh, well, no, of course not. I just thought you might have…”
“The divine answers?” She shook her head and leaned back on the seat a little, her cane still resting gingerly in her hand. “I am getting older my, dear, and divinity has struggled to speak through me lately.”
I squinted across the road. It was late in the day and it looked like there was a new edition of the Eden Bay Journal. The cover was on display out front of the news agency.
It was Alyson’s face. And this time, I hadn’t gotten her confused with someone else. “You’ll have to excuse me Byron. Please, take care and look after yourself,” I said before hurrying across the road.
But the news agency was already sold out of all copies. Of course they were. There were too many people in this town and none of them had anything to read.
I had to race down to Rachael’s office before it closed to grab a copy so that I could read the full article.
Surfboards and Suspects Page 3