Halloween Moon

by Kathi Daley

  “Harper is a girl Cammy went to school with,” Tegan explained. “I guess they were close back in the day, but after graduation, they sort of drifted apart, although I guess you could say they were still friends, and they did continue to share friends in common. Harper and Brody started hanging out together a few years back before he got together with Cammy. I guess once Brody and Cammy started dating, the relationship between the two friends really fell apart. Harper accused Cammy of stealing Brody from her, even though I’m not sure Brody and Harper were really an item.”

  “It did seem that they’d made up recently,” Josie said. “I’ve seen them together a few times since Brody and Cammy broke up.”

  “Even if they were speaking again, it doesn’t make sense that Cammy would text Harper at two-fifteen in the morning,” Booker said. “Did she reply?”

  “Not according to her phone records,” Jemma said.

  Coop arrived and the discussion was put on pause while Jemma and Josie got dinner on the table. During the meal, the subject matter of the conversation drifted to more mundane subjects such as upcoming events and problems at work, but as soon as the dishes were done, the subject of Cammy’s death surfaced once again.

  “Parker called while we were cleaning up,” Tegan informed the group. “She’s going to stop by.”

  “Does she have news?” Coop asked.

  “She didn’t say. She just said she was done for the day and wondered if we had leftovers. I told her that Josie put a plate in the oven for her, and she said she was on her way. I guess we can ask her about her conversation with Daddy Davenport when she gets here.”

  Once Parker arrived, she woofed down her food like a stray dog. I guessed she was hungry. When she’d cleared her plate and accepted a beer from Josie, she began to fill us all in. “Harrison Davenport called me this afternoon and suggested it might be in my interest as well as the interest of the newspaper I work for if we spoke before I printed whatever article I’d planned to publish. Figuring that it would be crazy to pass up the chance at a one on one with Harrison, I agreed. I knew that he’d spent hours behind closed doors with the sheriff, the district attorney, Deputy Todd, and a man who must have been Harrison’s attorney, so I was prepared for a canned speech, but I figured even a canned speech was worth an hour or two of my time.”

  She took a sip of her beer and then continued. “What followed was a fairly civil conversation. The implied threat of being sued if I veered from the content he was graciously providing in any way was clearly evident, but even with that, he was mostly cordial.”

  “So, what did he have to say?” Tegan asked.

  “Basically, he told me a story about an insecure young girl who fell head over heels in love with a rich and good-looking boy she could never have. He shared the struggle this highly sought after boy had gone through in his attempt to let the girl down easily, but the girl, it seems, was so obsessed that when she realized she could never have the prince charming she yearned for, she took her own life in an effort to escape the pain of unrequited love.”

  “Oh, please,” Tegan spat.

  “That is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” Josie agreed.

  “Cammy broke up with Brody because he was a monster who hit her.” Jemma seemed to be as upset as the others were. “There is no way she spent even one minute mooning over that lowlife.”

  “Just because she had the wherewithal to break up with a man who hit her, doesn’t mean she didn’t still love him, and it doesn’t mean that she didn’t still feel pain about the way things ended,” Coop said.

  Booker cringed, while the majority of the females in the room gave Coop a look that clearly indicated he was alone in his opinion. I, on the other hand, wasn’t so certain that Coop was totally wrong about this. I’d dealt with domestic violence cases, both as a journalist and as a PI, and there were times where the abused woman continued to love and could even be emotionally hurt by the man who abused her. Cammy had been in a fabulous mood when I’d spoken to her. A few minutes later, she’d had an encounter with Brody and closed early. Shortly after that, she’d met her friends at a party where she’d appeared to be moody and withdrawn. Maybe her encounter with Brody was behind her mood change. Not that she’d necessarily kill herself over the encounter that had taken place, but that didn’t mean that her feelings for Brody were quite as clear cut as most of the women in the room seemed to think they were.

  “Did Harrison offer any proof of this theory?” Coop asked.

  “Actually, he did. It seems that Cammy sent a text to a friend, basically sharing the fact that she couldn’t live without Brody and planned to end her life. The friend Cammy sent the text to, a girl named Harper Maxwell, is also a friend of Brody’s, and when she awoke on Sunday morning and saw the text, she called Brody and filled him in. According to Harrison, Brody tried to get ahold of Cammy at that point, but of course, she was already gone. In fact, her body was found by the fishermen even before Harper saw the text.”

  “Cammy did send a text to Harper at two-fifteen in the morning,” Jemma informed Parker.

  She looked surprised. “Really? How do you know this?”

  “I hacked into her phone records,” Jemma confessed.

  “Did she share texts with or phone conversations with anyone else?” Parker asked.

  “There were two texts to an unlisted cell number, one at ten-twelve and the other at eleven thirty-eight that I haven’t had time to track down yet, and texts were exchanged between Cammy and Heather around eight-fifteen.”

  “I called and spoke to Heather,” Tegan said. “She confirmed that she was supposed to meet up with Cammy when she got off at eight. She ended up at a different location than the location she’d agreed to meet Cammy at, so she texted her about the change. Cammy texted back to let her know she had worked late and wouldn’t be able to meet up with her until around nine.”

  “Nine?” Josie asked. “But Ainsley said that Cammy closed the store at seven-thirty.”

  Everyone looked at me.

  “She turned the sign from open to closed at seven-thirty. I left, so I don’t know for certain that she left the store at that point.” Once again, I thought about the security cameras and the information they might be able to provide.

  “Okay, so Ainsley visits the store at some point between six forty-five and seven-fifteen,” Jemma started. “At this point, Cammy seems to be in a good mood. She even tells Ainsley about pitching in the big game the following day. Just after Ainsley left the store, Brody pulls up, blocking her in. She decides to wait for him to move. After about fifteen minutes, around seven-thirty, he comes out of the store, and Cammy turns the open sign to closed. At this point, we’ve been assuming she headed to the full moon party, but when Heather texted her at eight-twelve to let her know about the change in location, Cammy told her that she had worked late and wouldn’t be there until around nine.”

  “Seems right,” everyone agreed.

  “Do we know what time Cammy actually showed up at the party?” Booker asked.

  Everyone agreed that to this point, no one had said. Everyone also agreed that when she did show up at the party, she was moody and distracted, and had indicated to several people that she would probably leave early. No one could recall if anyone had said exactly when she left, but we know she sent two texts to the same unregistered cell number at ten-twelve and eleven thirty-eight. No one knew if she was still at the party at this point or if she had already left. If she had left but hadn’t gone home as she’d indicated to friends she’d planned to do, where had she gone? If she’d simply walked down the beach from the party and jumped to her death as certain people seemed to want everyone to believe, it seemed she would have jumped sooner rather than later, and wouldn’t have been alive to send a text at two-fifteen in the morning.

  I didn’t have the sense that anyone in the group had ever really considered the suicide story Harrison was trying to peddle as being legit, but it seemed even less likely that particular sc
enario played out given the late-night texts.

  “Is anyone close to Harper?” Parker asked. “It seems like it might be worthwhile to have a conversation with the woman and see if she knows why, out of all the people Cammy could have reached out to in her last moments, she’d reached out to her.”

  No one claimed to know her well, but Tegan seemed to know her the best, so she volunteered to stop by her place of employment the following day. Jemma was going to continue to try to track down the source of the unregistered cell. Josie was going to talk to the owner of the store where Cammy worked to see if she’d made arrangements to close the store early. Booker was going to talk to some of the men who regularly fished in the area, including the men who’d found Cammy’s body. Coop and I looked at each other and shrugged. Neither of us had a job to do, but we both indicated we’d help where we could.

  Chapter 7

  By Tuesday morning, I’d made the decision to head over to Deputy Todd’s office and fill the good officer in on the fact that I’d personally witnessed Brody Davenport visit Cammy at the store just before closing on the night she died. I didn’t know that this piece of information would be relevant or important, but bringing the fact to the deputy’s attention would give me an excuse to chat with the man and form my own opinion. Everyone living on the peninsula seemed to think the guy was pretty worthless. I’d met some worthless cops in my life, but the vast majority of the individuals in blue, gray, or brown, as the case might be, were dedicated and hard-working men and women who really did want to track down the truth, and weren’t simply out to cover up a crime; whatever that crime might be. My own father had been a cop, a darn good cop. He’d eventually given his life in the course of doing the job he loved. He knew what he did mattered, as did the men and women he’d worked with. There was no way he would have let some rich guy dictate his actions. Maybe the group from the peninsula had been too quick to judge Deputy Todd. Maybe he was actually a good guy trying to find the truth.

  After taking the dogs for a short run, taking a shower, and dressing in casual slacks and a dark green sweater, I headed into town. I’d pulled up the location of the sheriff’s department on my phone, so I had a good idea of how to get there. When I arrived, I headed toward the front counter. There was a single desk behind the counter, and at that desk, sat a young man wearing a uniform.

  “Can I help you?” the man asked.

  “My name is Ainsley Holloway. I’d like to speak to Deputy Todd if he is available. I have some information relating to Cammy Collins that might be of importance.”

  The man frowned. “What information?”

  “I’d prefer to share what I know with Deputy Todd. Is he in?” If there was one thing I’d learned by working with my father over the past few years, it was to know what you wanted and to settle for nothing less.

  “Have a seat,” the man eventually said. “I’ll see if he’s available.”

  I smiled and nodded, and then took a seat as suggested. Less than two minutes later, the young deputy returned.

  “Deputy Todd will see you now,” he informed me. “If you will follow me, I’ll show you to his office.”

  I thanked the man and followed him down the hallway. I was shown to a small, cluttered office where a middle-aged man with short salt and pepper hair sat behind a desk that was so cluttered I wondered how he found anything. There were files not only stacked on the desk but on the nearby file cabinets as well. I wondered if the man realized he could digitize everything, making the information he gathered and notes he took a lot more accessible.

  “Thank you for seeing me,” I said, stepping into the room. “As I told the other deputy, my name is Ainsley Holloway, and I have information about Cammy Collins.”

  He extended his hand. “Please have a seat.”

  I sat down on a chair across the desk from where he was sitting.

  “I don’t believe we’ve met,” he continued. “Are you new to the area?”

  I nodded. “I only recently arrived. The reason I wanted to speak to you is because I know Parker Peterson, and she indicated to me that you might be interested in my conversation with Cammy shortly before she closed the store up for the evening on Saturday.”

  When I’d mentioned Parker, the man’s expression had shuddered. He most definitely wasn’t a fan. I also noticed that he seemed to sit up taller, I assume in an effort to appear more intimidating. I was used to talking to all sorts of people, so if the man thought sticking out his chest like some sort of pufferfish was going to cause me even a minute of discomfort, he was certainly wrong. As I spoke to the man, I simultaneously scanned his desk for a file that might contain information I would be interested in. When I noticed the file marked Coroner, followed by the name Cammy Collins, I knew I’d hit pay dirt.

  “So what is it you have to tell me?” Todd eventually asked.

  “I was at the general store on Saturday just before closing,” I began. “It was late, and I was the only one there. Cammy and I got to chatting about the full moon festival taking place that evening and the community picnic and softball game the following day, and I have to say she seemed happy and animated. She was enthusiastic, with definite plans for both that night and the following day. She didn’t seem at all like someone who might be thinking of killing herself.”

  “Even if that is true, there is really no way of knowing how a person might be feeling on the inside. By every indication, Ms. Collins was a troubled young girl.”

  “I suppose that’s true to an extent, but I’ve had the opportunity in the past to speak to and really get to know a variety of young men and women with emotional problems.” I supposed I was embellishing my experience a bit, but when I’d been a reporter before becoming a PI, I’d done a series of articles on teen suicide and had interviewed a handful of individuals who’d attempted to end their own lives and failed. Still, that was far from making me an expert, but this man didn’t need to know that. “I can assure you that Cammy wanted to live and had plans that were important to her. When I spoke to her, she was full of enthusiasm. I suppose things might have changed after her visit from a man named Brody Davenport.”

  “You actually saw Brody with Ms. Collins?” he asked.

  I nodded. “I was leaving the store when he pulled in behind me. He blocked me in with that huge truck of his, so I had to wait for him to leave. He wasn’t in the store long, but by the time he left, I could see that Cammy was upset.”

  Actually, I couldn’t tell that Cammy was upset at the time, but based on what I’d learned later, it seemed likely that Brody had upset her.

  I raised my hand to my mouth and willed the tears I was pretty good at calling forth on demand. “This whole thing has been so upsetting.” I covered my face and sobbed harder. “She was so young. Much too young to die. She was there one minute and gone the next. I just don’t understand how this could happen.” I crossed my arms on the desk in front of me and buried my face.

  “Are you okay, miss?” the man asked after a full minute had passed.

  I nodded but continued to sob. After what seemed like a long time, but probably wasn’t, I raised my head and looked at the man. “Do you think I could get a glass of water?”

  “Uh, sure. I’ll get one.” He stood up.

  “And a tissue,” I added.

  He nodded and fled from the room.

  Once he was clear of the room, I pulled the file from the coroner toward me and opened the cover. I took out my phone and snapped a photo of the first three pages. I knew I didn’t have long and didn’t want to push it, so I closed the folder and returned it to its original location.

  When I got home, I’d download the photos to my desktop computer and blow them up on the screen. If Cammy Collins died as the result of a swan dive from the bluff, I figured it would be best that everyone knew that now. If she had drugs or an excess of alcohol in her system, that would be good to know as well. But while I’d only glanced at the front page before snapping the photo and moving on to the second pa
ge, I swore on the line designated for the cause of death — it said drowning.

  Chapter 8

  When I arrived back at the cottage, I downloaded the pages I’d photographed and then enlarged them. Sure enough, according to the coroner, Cammy had drowned, and while there was damage to the corpse after being tossed around on the rocks at the bottom of the bluff, it appeared as if Cammy had drowned and then washed ashore rather than having died as a result of the fall. The news seemed too important not to share, so I decided to head next door to see if Jemma and Josie were around. Jemma worked from home, so was around quite often, but Josie was most likely at work.

  “Ainsley,” Jemma greeted after answering the door. “Come in.”

  I took a step inside. “I know you’re probably busy, but I found out some information about Cammy’s death that I wanted to share with someone.”

  Jemma led me into the living room and indicated that I should take a seat on the sofa. “What sort of information?” she asked.

  “I stopped by Deputy Todd’s office to tell him about my conversation with Cammy on the night she died, and I noticed a file from the coroner on his desk. I don’t know why he had a hard copy rather than an digital copy, but he did. Anyway, I managed to get him out of the office for a few minutes, which gave me time to photograph the document. It turns out that the official cause of death for Cammy wasn’t trauma caused by a fall from the bluff onto the rocks below, but drowning.”

  Her brow shot up. “Drowning? Are you sure?”

  “I have the file downloaded on my phone if you want to take a look at it.”

  “Yeah, I do. Email it to me.”

  I did as she asked, and she pulled it up on her laptop.

  “Well, will you look at that,” Jemma said, reading the report. “No drugs or alcohol were found in her system, which is somewhat surprising since she’d been to a party. And while she did have a few fractures, the coroner determined that she drowned and her body washed up on shore at some point after that.” She looked up at me. “I’d say this changes things quite a lot.”