by K. J. Emrick
“Oh, I don’t know,” Miranda mused. “This would be one of the last places that the police would look for him.”
That actually made Jack laugh. “You have a point there. As hideouts go, this would be one of the better ones. Still. Nothing else fits. Plus, there’s this mysterious Mel to consider. No. I think Bates was only here for removal of the body.”
“He isn’t the guy threatening Caleb on the tape, either,” Miranda pointed out. “I would have recognized his voice from that. I just wonder how it all fits in.”
“Even if it wasn’t Bates’s voice on that tape, his being here, now, certainly lends weight to the recording. Maybe this thing is bigger than just the murder of one man.”
“How big?”
“Hard to say until we’ve kicked over all of the buckets. I think we should make some waves and see what shakes out.”
“What about the forensics? What did they find out?”
His face looked grim. “It was death by strangulation. Just like we thought. That’s all we have so far but I have a feeling there won’t be much more to be said when they’re done. I think,” he said, “that we should let everyone know that we’re aware Josh Bates is alive. When we do that, we’ll just wait and see what shakes out.”
Miranda liked that idea. “But wait. What if they all scatter to their rooms and start making phone calls in private? We won’t be able to hear anything.”
“That’s where our secret weapon comes into play.”
He looked up into the empty air around them as he said it, and this time he almost managed to find the exact spot where Kyle floated, grinning from ear to ear.
Chapter 12
Once again, they gathered everyone in the dining room. The four from the Blue Jay sat at one end of the table, looking annoyed with each other, and annoyed at Jack Travis for putting them through all of this.
“Sorry to interrupt your day again,” he started when everything was set. “We’ve had a new development in the case I thought everyone should know about.”
“The only thing I want to know,” Alfie Parker griped, “is when you and all your cop friends are going to leave. I have a business to run, you know.”
“Well,” Jack said to him, moving back and forth in front of the table, “you’re doing a great job of it so far, I have to say.”
He wasn’t exactly pacing, but he was still putting everyone on the defensive by making them watch him for several steps in this direction, and then several steps the other way. Once again, Jean-Paul and Sapphire were sitting at the other end of the table, with Butter on his leash, and Miranda standing next to them. She wanted a good vantage point for when Jack dropped his information in their laps.
“Yes, a great job,” Jack said again to Alfie. “There was a murder that occurred, right here, right inside this Bed and Breakfast unless I’m very much mistaken. The dead man, Caleb Owen, was a friend to some of you, a significant other to Ginger here, and I think something else entirely to you, Ben.”
The Melbourne detective’s expression was like a stone. He didn’t say anything, but Miranda could see the gears turning behind his eyes.
“We haven’t found Caleb’s killer yet,” Jack explained, “but we have found something else. Someone else, I should say. There’s a man by the name of Josh Bates—”
He paused, and Miranda studied one person after the other. Alfie and Ginger wore blank looks on their faces at the sound of Bates’ name. Was that recognition she saw in Skye’s face? She couldn’t tell. Ben Clark was just as unreadable as before. That made Miranda think that he knew the name. Then again, he was a police officer even if he was from as far away as Melbourne. He had probably heard about the tour boat captain from Moonlight Bay who had disappeared.
“Josh Bates,” Jack went on, “was here to take Caleb Owen’s body and dispose of it. At sea, I’m guessing, using his access to boats and the water.”
“What!” Ginger exclaimed. “He was going to take Caleb away? Why? How?”
“Someone was paying him,” Jack said simply.
“Who?” Ben Clark wanted to know.
“We’re not divulging that information yet. What I can say is that Bates may still be in the area. For your own protection we’re asking everyone to stay here, at the Blue Jay, until this matter is solved.”
They stared back at him, mouths hanging open, and no one moved. That is, until Ben Clark jumped up from his seat and took hold of Ginger by the wrist. She protested with a squeak, but her uncle was bigger, and stronger.
“I’m sorry,” he said sternly, “but I need to get my niece out of here. It’s clear that the murderer is much more dangerous than any of us thought, if he’s able to hire someone to cover up a murder. I can’t leave Ginger in that much risk.”
“Detective Clark,” Jack addressed him, “you’re a police officer. You understand why we can’t just let everyone scatter in all directions. You’re safe here.”
Miranda knew that wasn’t exactly true. One of these people was a killer. None of them were perfectly safe here until they found which of them that was. There was a sort of safety in numbers. The killer was unlikely to go after anyone else with all these witnesses around, and by the same token she doubted the killer would try to murder this many people and get away with it.
Ben Clark wasn’t having any of Jack’s assertions that they were safe here. “If there’s somebody out there collecting bodies from crime scenes and disposing of them in vans, then this is no simple murder. I want to take Ginger out of here now.”
“Again,” Jack repeated smoothly, “We can’t just let her go. This is still an active investigation.”
“Active or not, she doesn’t need to be here. Unless you think she’s the killer, Jack. Is that what you think? Huh? Is it?”
In truth, he seemed genuinely anxious, almost in a way that Miranda could not argue with. As far as she could see, Detective Ben Clark truly did want to get his niece out of there.
But was it for her sake, or for his?
“She’s not going to go anywhere,” Jack told him. “She needs to stay here.”
“She needs to get out of here before something else happens!”
“I’m the officer in charge of this case, and I’m telling you—!”
Ginger screeched wordlessly and yanked her arm away from Ben. “I’m not going anywhere! I’m staying right here, Uncle Ben. You don’t own me and you don’t owe me anything, either. You can’t order me around like this. I’m staying here!” For emphasis, she jabbed her finger at the floor. “I will not leave until we know who killed Caleb. Just leave me alone!”
“Honey,” Ben said, almost pleading, “as a police officer, I know how these things can go and I’m just trying to keep you—”
“You’re trying to keep me from being my own person, just like you tried to keep me and Caleb apart!”
“Look, if you knew what Caleb was really like, you wouldn’t be arguing with me on this!” Ben Clark swung an arm through the air, figuratively slashing at his niece’s stubbornness. “He was not a good man. He didn’t deserve you. You should never have been with him in the first place.”
“You were just mad because he was so much older than me.”
“There was more to it than that, Ginger.”
“Says you,” Ginger said defiantly, her eyes filling with angry tears.
“Yes,” Ben countered, “says me.”
Alfie Parker shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Ben, you keep saying that Caleb was somehow bad. We’ve all heard you say it. What are you talking about? He’s dead now and there’s a killer on the loose, and I think maybe now isn’t the time for you to keep stuff like this to yourself. This involves all of us and if you’re going to stay here as a guest then I have to insist that you—”
“Just butt out, Alfie,” Ben growled, cutting the man off just like he’d cut off his niece time and again. “It’s your fault that he was anywhere near my niece in the first place.”
Jack had been listening to thi
s interplay, only observing what everyone was saying, but when Ben Clark said that he stepped closer and leaned his hands on the back of a chair. “What do you mean by that?”
Ben ignored Jack. Alfie shifted in his chair again and somehow, Jack’s question seemed to weigh down. “He, uh, just means that Caleb was a friend of mine. Listen, everyone, I’ve known Caleb a good long while and he is a good man. Or rather, he was a good man. He wouldn’t hurt a fly. Why would anyone want him dead?”
Miranda heard the sincerity in those words but at the same time, having listened to the recording that Ginger had given her, she knew that Caleb wasn’t exactly a saint. He was a criminal. Maybe just a small-time one, but a criminal just the same. Ginger knew about it now, at least, and obviously that knowledge didn’t change her feelings. It appeared that Alfie was completely blind to what his friend had been doing. Which might just make Alfie the only one of the Blue Jay residents that Miranda didn’t suspect of being the murderer.
If Ben Clark knew about Caleb’s activities, like Miranda suspected, wouldn’t that be all the more reason for him to keep Caleb away from his niece?
He certainly thought so. Finger in Ginger’s face, he tried once more to assert whatever imagined authority he thought he had over her. “Listen to me, little girl. You’re leaving here with me, you’re leaving here now, and you will not argue with me about it!”
Ginger’s face turned as red as her hair. Miranda watched the way the cords in the woman’s neck bunched up and her fingers curled into fists and she knew exactly what was going to happen next.
Cocking her hand back, Ginger aimed a punch at her uncle’s face.
Detective Clark managed to grab hold of Ginger’s wrist before her tiny fist came anywhere near connecting. His teeth showed in an angry grimace as he spun her around by her arm and threw her roughly down into a chair, still holding her in a vice-like grip. Ginger let out a cry of pain.
“Ready to listen to me now?” he shouted at her.
“Let me go,” she whined. “You’re hurting me!”
Jack jumped forward, wresting Ben’s hand away from Ginger. “Woah, there. That’s enough now.”
Ben’s eyes turned into chips of granite. “You’re going to want to take your hand off me, Detective Travis. I don’t care if you are the senior detective here.”
For several long seconds Jack stayed right where he was, gaze locked with Ben’s, just to show him he really was the one in charge. Then he let go, still holding Ben in place with a look. “There’s enough going on here without you starting a fight. You think anything is going to be helped by you being arrested?”
“Oh yeah? You gonna arrest me, Detective Travis?”
“Depends, Detective Clark.” Now a smile crossed Jack’s face. “Did you do something to get arrested for?”
They stood there, toe to toe, and Miranda wondered what exactly it was they were measuring against each other.
In the middle of the heated silence, Skye Rogers languidly got to her feet and smirked at the two men. “Well, while the boys play, I think I’ll go get a drink.”
She tossed her blonde hair arrogantly and turned to leave the room. Alfie stood up as well. Ginger cried silently into her hands. Ben broke his staring contest with Jack to look down at her, and the deep concern he had shown her settled back into his expression. He said her name, softly, but she ignored him.
The interaction between the four of them was interesting. Skye couldn’t care less about the others. Alfie seemed to only care about himself and his failing business here. Ginger was lost in her grief. Ben was acting tough, either as a front or because he really didn’t care that Caleb Owen was dead.
What did it all add up to?
Chapter 13
As the four residents of the Blue Jay quickly scattered from the dining room, Miranda decided to follow Ginger. Skye was already long gone and she was going to leave Ben to Jack. Alfie was leaving too, but Miranda wasn’t as concerned about him. She didn’t think he could be the killer.
Of course, she’d been wrong before.
Ginger, on the other hand, was exactly who she needed to talk to right now. She was upset, and when people got that emotional it was Miranda’s experience that they were very likely to give up information without meaning to. After all, when she had played the audiotape for Miranda, she had still been in shock about the death of the man she loved. After a fight with her Uncle Ben over that same man’s death, what might she reveal now?
Miranda had to move quickly before anyone saw her go, before Jean-Paul or Sapphire could protest about her leaving on her own, not realizing that she had company to protect her if she needed it. If nothing else, Kyle could always move a pencil for her or shove a chair across the floor.
He floated along behind her now as she hurried to catch up to Ginger outside of her room.
“Are we going to tie her to a chair?” he asked. “Tie her to a chair and tickle her until she gives us answers?”
“Kyle,” Miranda hissed, “we are not going to torture anyone.”
“I’m not talking about waterboarding, Miranda. Just a lot of merciless tickling.”
“No,” she said flatly.
Kyle pursed his lips and came down hard on the floor, so that his feet slipped through to his ankles. “Spoilsport. You used to be fun.”
“Are you talking to me?” Ginger suddenly asked her. They were at the door to her room now, and the redhead was looking at her strangely through the lenses of her glasses.
No doubt she’d heard Miranda say ‘no’ to what looked like an otherwise empty hallway. “Uh, sorry. Yes. I’m talking to you. Can we talk?”
“Sorry, Miranda,” she said quietly. “I guess I made a real mess of things back there, didn’t I? My uncle just manages to push my buttons every time he opens his mouth.”
Unlike her Uncle Ben, Miranda found that she actually liked Ginger. There was something about her that she could relate to. She reminded Miranda of herself at that age. Vulnerable and defiant, both at the same time.
“It’s understandable,” she consoled Ginger. “You lost your soul mate. Your uncle obviously doesn’t understand that.”
She hoped that a little common ground between them would get Ginger to open up. It seemed like it had worked. A tear rolled out of the corner of one eye and Ginger opened her door wide. “Come in, please. It will be nice to have someone to talk to who will actually listen instead of just screaming at me.”
They went inside, sitting down on the couch and chair just like before. Miranda had already decided how to start this. She just hoped that it worked. “Tell me about your uncle. Is he always like this?”
“Like what?” Ginger asked in return, but she was smiling when she said it, a hint of wry humor in her voice. “You mean, like an overbearing alpha male?”
“Yes,” Miranda said. “I mean, he didn’t seem to like Caleb Owen much, yet from what I can gather he was here at the Blue Jay a lot. This place is a long way from Melbourne. Was he here just to see you?”
“I know it sounds that way.” Ginger leaned back into her chair, folding her hands in her lap. “Really, he was kind of Caleb’s friend. They were always together when Uncle Ben was here. He just didn’t want Caleb to be with me. I know it was just about the age difference, no matter what Ben says. He was just looking out for me. I shouldn’t have yelled at him like that.”
“So your uncle actually came here to see Caleb?”
“Well, Caleb and me too, yes. He is my uncle after all.” She seemed to think about it for a moment, then shrugged her shoulders. “To tell you the truth, I thought for the longest time that he was coming here to be with Skye Rogers. I mean, they’re both single, they’re both good looking, it just seemed natural.”
“Oh?” Now that was interesting. “Did you ever see them, you know, together?”
Another shrug. “They flirted, but that woman would flirt with a department store mannequin if it was wearing boxer briefs. I’m pretty sure they spent the night togeth
er in her room a few times, but who am I to judge, right? I was dating a much older man.”
“I see,” Miranda said, and wondered if that accounted for why Skye had so abruptly stopped that argument between her and Alfie when Ben had walked into the room. That had been her first impression of Skye Rogers. Now she could connect it to a possible relationship with Ben Clark, and the picture was becoming clearer. “But your uncle and Skye aren’t together now?”
“I don’t think so,” Ginger answered. “It wasn’t ever something they announced. It was just the feeling that I got, and I’m sure my uncle was trying to keep it quiet.”
“Just like his friendship with Caleb Owen?”
“Yeah, I guess so. I never heard him rip into Caleb as bad as I have now that he’s… now that he’s… you know.”
She couldn’t bring herself to say that Caleb was dead. Miranda didn’t blame her. It must be a hard truth to swallow.
“Miranda?” Kyle asked at her elbow, making her jump. “Are we going to spend all day in here talking to Ginger? I mean, not that this conversation about the love life of her uncle isn’t just absolutely fascinating, but Skye Rogers is roaming around the place unescorted, and remember the last time that happened? She got herself into Caleb’s room and was fingering his underwear.”
Miranda frowned at him, wanting to scold him for being so vulgar. Skye had not been in there to feel through Caleb’s underthings. She’d been looking for something. Maybe the murder weapon, like Jack assumed, but Miranda still had to wonder if it was something else the frisky blonde had been after.
But Kyle was right. Ginger had given her a fresh insight into the relationships going on here at the Blue Jay, but she couldn’t sit here all afternoon like they were having tea and cakes together.
She was just about to excuse herself when Ginger said, “To be honest, I used to make myself scarce whenever Skye and Uncle Ben were hanging out together. I tried to keep out of the way.”