Dark Harbor

by David K. Wilson

“You’re right,” Gina sighed.

  “However,” Carla said, before pausing to think a second before finishing her thought.

  “If I were to maybe ‘unofficially’ see the autopsy report, I could maybe point out any flaws.”

  Gina smiled and immediately looked lighter. Right on cue, Carla’s order number was called out, and she stood to walk back inside.

  “I’ll give you my number,” Carla said.

  Gina stood, too. But instead of walking toward the door, she gently grabbed Carla’s arm.

  “There’s something else,” Gina said.

  27

  Carla grabbed her sandwiches and came back outside where Gina was waiting, except she had moved to a more secluded picnic table so they could have more privacy.

  “Jane told me something recently and made me swear not to tell,” Gina said as soon as Carla sat down. “I didn’t tell the police, but it’s going to come out in the autopsy anyway, so it won’t be a secret much longer.”

  “What is it?” Carla asked.

  Gina took a deep breath of courage and exhaled loudly.

  “Jane had just found out she was pregnant,” Gina said in barely a whisper.

  “Like, just found out?” Carla asked.

  Gina nodded.

  “She only told me yesterday. She hadn’t even been to a doctor yet. It was just from a home pregnancy test. Actually, from six of them. She wanted to be sure.”

  “Her boyfriend…John, right? Did he know?” Carla asked.

  Gina seemed to struggle with the answer.

  “I’m assuming he was the father,” Carla said.

  “Probably,” Gina finally said. “I mean, more than likely, right?”

  “You don’t sound so sure,” Carla said.

  Gina went on to explain that Jane had been kind of weird about it.

  “There was something she wasn’t telling me,” Gina said. “And maybe I’m just reading too much into it. Still, even if John was the father, I know Jane didn’t want a baby.”

  “I’m guessing John didn’t either,” Carla offered.

  “She said she’d tell me more after she talked to someone,” Gina said. “I assumed that someone was John.”

  Carla recalled Sam telling her about seeing them arguing the night of her murder.

  “And she didn’t say anything else?” Carla asked.

  Gina shook her head.

  “One reason we were such good friends is we stayed out of each other’s business,” Gina said. “We kind of had an unofficial ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy.”

  A thought popped into Carla’s head.

  “Did Jane know Norm?” she asked.

  “Yeah, sure,” Gina said with a shrug. “But they hadn’t spoken to each other in a while. They had a falling out about something. I’m not sure what.”

  “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” Carla parroted. “Let me ask you a weird question. Do you think Norm could have been the father?”

  The question threw Gina off, and she shook her head at the absurdity of the notion.

  “I can’t even imagine it,” she said.

  But then she considered the possibility.

  “Oh, my God,” she muttered. “It sure would explain a lot, wouldn’t it?”

  28

  Sam pushed a few throw pillows aside as he sat down on Vanessa’s overstuffed green couch. Carla handed him her laptop, and he quickly opened it to log in to his work email.

  As soon as Carla had left the deli, she had called Sam to tell him about Jane’s pregnancy. The two had wanted to meet in private—away from Vanessa—to compare notes. Their plan was to meet up at a coffee shop with Wi-Fi, but when Carla had stopped to drop off her sister’s sandwich and pick up her laptop, Vanessa had pleaded for her sister to stay. Feeling guilty, Carla had reluctantly agreed and called Sam back to the house. Still, they knew it would be best if Vanessa wasn’t around while they talked about the case. So Sam planned a diversion.

  “That was a great idea to call Jude,” Carla said, watching Sam slowly and methodically type his password on the laptop’s keyboard.

  “I had to thank him anyway,” Sam said. “That police scanner he loaned me is already worth its weight in gold.”

  Sam had called Jude and asked if he could distract Vanessa somehow. Luckily, mid-spring was a busy time for their lavender farm and it wasn’t hard for Jude to come up with a long list of things he needed to discuss with her. He came over under the pretense of discussing some spreadsheets and they both retreated to her home office. As soon as they had left, Sam sprang into action, grabbing Carla’s laptop.

  Carla and Sam had already shared everything they had learned, but were no closer to any real answers than they had been at the start of the day. Even the discovery of Norm’s car didn’t necessarily prove he was alive and on the run. Someone could have stolen the car and recently abandoned it. Everything else they found was nothing more than gossip and speculation.

  “So you think John did it?” Carla asked point blank.

  “I can’t say he didn’t do it,” Sam answered. “But I do know that our local detective friend has turned a blind eye to his buddy. I’m not ready to do that yet.”

  After several mistyped attempts, Sam finally logged in to his account. He had received a text from his dispatch in Texas to tell him he had emailed a copy of John Rowe’s criminal history. Sam opened the document and Carla moved in close beside him so she could see better. Her hair brushed against Sam’s cheek and he closed his eyes to breathe in the familiar scent of her shampoo. If it were up to him, he’d throw the laptop on the floor and turn his full attention to Carla. He’d come all this way just to be with her, and they had spent most of the day apart. But he was smart enough to know that Carla’s attention was on helping her sister right now — so that’s where he was, too.

  “Let’s see what our friend John has been up to,” Sam muttered, bringing his attention back to the laptop screen.

  The two of them read through the laundry list together. It wasn’t that extensive. And most of it was at least ten years old. A couple of drunk and disorderlies. A few assaults. All alcohol related.

  “What do you make of it?” Carla asked.

  “The guy used to drink a lot and get into bar fights,” Sam answered.

  “Sounds like someone else I know,” Carla teased, elbowing Sam in the ribs.

  It was true. Sam had a well-earned reputation as a drunk and a troublemaker. Although he considered it a point of pride to Sam that he had never thrown the first punch. It was his smart mouth and not his temper that always got him into trouble. He had a knack for pissing off the wrong person.

  If nothing else, Sam was living proof that the kind of arrests on John’s record were no indication he could commit murder. Especially one as violently as Jane’s attack. On the other hand…

  “He’s got a temper,” Carla said. “Maybe he just snapped. You said they’d been fighting earlier. Maybe she had told him about the pregnancy. He got angry and they fought. Maybe she had decided to keep the baby, and he didn’t want to deal with being a father. Or maybe Jane told him he wasn’t the father, and he flew off in a jealous rage.”

  Sam nodded. “All good theories. But they’re no more than speculation. I need proof.”

  Carla needled Sam again. “Since when has Sam Lawson let something like proof stop him?”

  Sam chuckled. He did tend to trust his gut more than evidence. But he also knew Turner wouldn’t be interested in any theories from him. The only way he was going to get Turner’s attention would be with hard proof.

  “We need to retrace Jane’s steps the other night,” Sam thought out loud.

  “Phone records?” Carla asked.

  “Yeah, that would definitely be helpful,” Sam said. “But I’m sure Turner is already on that, and I’m guessing he won’t be sharing.”

  “What if you could get into her phone bill?” Carla asked. “Would it show her calls and texts?”

  “Definitely,” Sam answered
, shutting the laptop in frustration. “But unless you know a hacker…”

  Carla pulled out her phone and scrolled through pictures. She let out a happy gasp of surprise and Sam turned to see the mischievous smile on her face.

  “You don’t need a hacker if you have her password,” she said, holding up her phone.

  29

  Sam squinted at the photo Carla was showing him on her phone.

  “What am I looking at here?” he said.

  “While we were waiting for the police after finding Jane’s body, I took some pictures,” Carla explained. “Crime scene photos. Force of habit.”

  Sam looked at her and smiled. She was sneakier than he thought.

  “Look on the fridge,” she said, pointing again to the photo on her phone.

  She zoomed in and Sam waited for the image to refocus.

  “I still don’t know what I’m looking at,” he said. “Is that a grocery list?”

  Carla groaned in exasperation and took the phone back.

  “No,” she said. “It’s a list of her passwords. Bank account. Facebook account…Phone bill.”

  Sam couldn’t believe what Carla was telling him. He took her phone back and looked again at the image. Carla was right. It was a list of about ten of Jane’s personal accounts, with the corresponding username and password.

  “Holy shit,” Sam said in disbelief.

  Carla giggled in amusement at Sam’s surprise.

  “Not the safest way to store your security information,” she said. “But I’m not complaining.”

  “You’re brilliant,” Sam said.

  He took her face in his hands and gave her a big kiss. Handing the phone back to Carla, he opened the laptop again. He googled the cell phone company’s website and typed in the login information as Carla read it to him. In an instant, they were in her account.

  He searched around on the site until he found a tab that read “Minute Details.”

  “These must be calls,” Sam said as he clicked on the tab.

  Sure enough, it opened a call log that went back thirty days. Not only did it show the date and time of all incoming and outgoing calls, but also the number of the other caller.

  Carla grabbed a notepad and started jotting down phone calls that happened two nights ago after 8 p.m.

  “Looks like there’s just a couple,” Sam said. “One was for just a few minutes. The other was nine minutes long.”

  “What about unanswered calls?” Carla asked.

  Sam shook his head. That kind of information would be available to Turner and the Chilmark police, but Jane’s phone bill didn’t go into that kind of detail.

  “Does it list texts?” Carla asked.

  Sam clicked back and found another tab labelled “Message Details.” He clicked it and found another log of numbers. This time there were more entries.

  “Looks like she received several texts from one number, but there are no outgoing texts to it,” Sam said as Carla scribbled down the number.

  There seemed to be an exchange with a second number - the same number as the quick call. Several texts back and forth, shortly after midnight.

  Only four other texts from that night, all involving the same number: one outgoing and one incoming text around 7:00 and then the same pattern again at 10:30.

  “So it looks like there were only three people she texted with that night,” Sam said as he put together a timeline. “And she also spoke to two of those people. Person A called her around 6:00 and they talked for about nine minutes. They also sent ten total texts back and forth just after midnight.”

  Using *67 to block her number from Caller ID, Carla dialed the number and wasn’t surprised to get John Rowe’s voicemail.

  “That makes sense,” Sam said. “John called her, maybe to make plans for their date. Then they texted later on after midnight.”

  “Probably still arguing from earlier,” Carla added.

  “Which we can now assume was probably about her being knocked up,” Sam said.

  “Which also would mean she was still alive when he left her house,” Carla added.

  Sam nodded reluctantly. He hated when facts blew up his theories.

  “This next number sounds familiar,” Carla said. “Hang on.”

  She grabbed her purse and rifled through it until she found the piece of paper Gina had given her earlier with her phone number. She checked it against the phone records.

  “So it looks like Jane called Gina around 6:15,” Carla said. “Probably telling her she had a date with John and getting a little pep talk because of the bombshell she was going to drop.”

  “Then Jane texts her when she gets to the restaurant at 7:00,” Sam said. “I saw Jane and John arguing around 10:00, so that would mean she could have been home by the time she texted Gina the last time.”

  “Then there’s this third phone number,” Carla said.

  “There were no calls to or from Person C, but they sent her nine texts between 11:00 and 11:45. p.m.”

  “And she never replied,” Carla said.

  “She clearly didn’t want to talk to this person.”

  “Shit,” Carla said as she looked down at her phone.

  She held up her phone to show Sam what she found. She had entered the third phone number into her phone and it had matched to one of her contacts.

  30

  Carla and Sam had decided it was time to involve Vanessa in their investigation. Maybe she had answers that would clear things up. Armed with Carla’s phone and laptop, the couple went back to the office where Vanessa and Jude were working.

  Carla told her sister how she and Sam had been using Jane’s phone bill to trace her steps from two nights ago and they had come across a familiar number. Sam opened the laptop and showed it to Vanessa. She stared at it in shock, finally shaking her head.

  “That can’t be right,” Vanessa said.

  “Sure looks like Norm’s number to me,” Sam said.

  “But why would he call Jane?” Vanessa asked. “Why wouldn’t he call me?”

  “Were Norm and Jane friends?” Carla asked gently.

  Vanessa stood up in a huff and started pacing nervously.

  “I just don’t understand,” she said.

  “We’ve heard some of the rumors,” Sam said, ignoring the steely stare Carla threw at him.

  “This island loves a good scandal,” Vanessa said. “If they can’t find one, they’ll make one up.”

  “So you don’t think they’re true then?” Sam asked. “The rumors about Norm and Jane?”

  “I know they aren’t true,” Vanessa snapped. “Norm swore to me there was nothing going on between them.”

  “They were at least talking,” Sam said, pointing to the laptop screen.

  Vanessa glared at Sam, shocked that he could even ask such a question.

  “Whose side are you on?” she yelled before storming out of the room.

  Carla got up to follow her sister, but not before hissing at Sam.

  “Could you try to be a little sensitive? Just pretend,” she said.

  Sam was surprised they both had turned on him so quick. He looked up at Jude, who was also glaring at him. He started to say something in his defense, but Jude shook his head.

  “Tread lightly, son,” he said.

  Sam heard a door slam and then Carla knocking on it, asking Vanessa to open it.

  Maybe he had been a little rough. But he was asking the questions that any detective would have asked. He knew that most wives, when confronted with evidence that their husband was having an affair, were already suspicious. And he could tell that Vanessa was a little too defensive about the whole thing. Either she was in a severe state of denial or she was hiding something. Either way, Sam had a feeling that something just didn’t seem right.

  Carla came back in the room, her face red with anger.

  “Well, she’s locked herself in her room,” she said. “Good job, Sam.”

  “I never accused Norm of anything,” Sam said.<
br />
  “You might as well have,” Carla said. “It’s bad enough her husband is missing and wanted for murder. Now you’re going to throw an affair on top of it?”

  “Why else would he be calling another woman in the middle of the night?” he asked. “To get a cake recipe?”

  Unable to come up with a suitable answer, Carla sat down beside Sam with a groan.

  “Vanessa is fragile,” Jude said. “You best tread lightly.”

  “How much do you know about her marriage?” Sam asked. “Other than the occasional fight?”

  Jude clenched his jaw and walked past Sam, stopping to stare him directly in the eyes.

  “You’re talking about my son and my daughter-in-law,” he growled. “I won’t be a part of this.”

  He stormed out of the room, leaving a befuddled Sam to turn to Carla.

  “How much do you know?” he asked her.

  “I know they love each other,” she answered softly. “Sometimes they just have a hard time living with each other.”

  Her calm tone helped ease the tension in the room. Sam sat next to Carla.

  “Do you think he’d ever cheat on her?” Sam asked.

  Carla shook her head.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Had Vanessa ever even suspected it?”

  “Probably,” Carla answered. “Everyone does at some point or another, right?”

  Sam thought about it. Carla was the first serious relationship he’d had in over a decade, but he couldn’t even imagine her cheating on him. It wasn’t in her nature. Still, when she had wanted to take a break for a little while, Sam had become incredibly jealous and paranoid. If she even spoke to a man, he worried that she was dating him. A bolt of pain and adrenaline would shoot through him at the mere thought of her with another man. If he were to allow himself to get lost in his paranoia, he’d turn into a tumbling mass of rage, pain and insecurity. Even just thinking about it was stirring up those emotions, and he felt embarrassed for feeling so vulnerable.

  Embarrassed.

  “If your sister found out Norm was having an affair, are you sure she would tell you?” he asked.