by Susie Gayle
“What do you mean, gone? She’s… dead?” His eyes immediately mist over as he fights back tears. “Oh my god. How? Why?”
“Right now the police think it was just an accident,” I tell him. “She probably hit her head when the boat ran aground…”
“No. No way.” Dan shakes his head. “Brenda was an expert with that boat. I’ve seen her pilot through worse storms than that.”
“Listen,” I tell him, “I’m not the guy to talk to about this. Our police chief is a very nice woman, and she’s going to help you out, okay?”
“It just doesn’t make sense for her to lose control like that,” Dan insists, ignoring me. “I mean, we were both surprised when the boat came undone from the pier, but she should’ve been able to get us back to shore easily…” He buries his face in his hands.
“Hey, it could have happened to anyone,” I say, putting a hand on his shoulder in what I hope is a reassuring gesture. “Like I said, talk to Chief Mayhew.”
Dan sniffles and glances up at me. “I need to use the restroom. Please don’t leave yet, Will.”
“I won’t. You need a hand?”
“No, I got it.” He climbs out from beneath the warming blanket, a little wobbly on his feet. As I reach for the curtain I hear a familiar clacking of heels taking rapid steps, and as I pull it back I see the snooping blonde reporter striding briskly out of the unit.
Ah, crap. I really hope she didn’t hear any of that.
Dan Dickey doesn’t notice her, busy as he is focusing on walking. As he goes to use the bathroom, I stand there a tad awkwardly, not sure what to do about all this. I should probably give Patty a call and at least tell her that Dan’s awake, and give her the heads-up about the reporter…
“Will. Psst. Hey, Will.” I turn toward the sound of my name. In the next bed over from Dan’s, the curtain partially pulled back, is a sandy-haired teenage boy, waving his hand to usher me over.
“Ham? What are you doing here?” Hammond Dobes is a bagger at Miller’s General in town. He graduated high school last year and has been taking a year off to save for college. He’s usually a cheerful guy, eager to chat while bagging groceries. But at the moment, his eyes are wide and red with the threat of tears.
“Is it true? Is she really dead?” he asks me.
Jeez. If Ham overheard my conversation with Dan, then that reporter certainly did too.
“Yes. She is.” Patty’s going to kill me.
“Oh.” He stares at nothing in particular. “That’s a…” He sniffles. “That’s a real shame. I’m a big fan of hers. I just saw her yesterday.”
“You saw her?”
He nods. “I got out of work around five, and as I was leaving I saw her in town by herself. She was wearing sunglasses and a trench coat, but I knew it was her. I followed her back to the pier on my bike—”
“Your bike. You were the one riding the blue mountain bike in the storm?”
“Yeah. I was hoping to get an autograph, you know, when there weren’t a lot of other people around. But she went right onto the boat and disappeared for a while. I stuck around, hoping she’d come out again, when it started sleeting.”
“Did you see her again after that?” I ask him.
“First I saw that guy, the one you were just talking to. He came out of the cabin and he was shouting, real angry, something about money. He was waving a piece of paper around in the sleet. It was getting soaked. Then Brenda came out and yelled back at him. By then it was coming down hard and I couldn’t hear all of what they were saying, but I did hear one thing. The guy, that guy from the boat, he said something like, ‘Just sign it.’ Then they saw me standing there on the pier, so I took off.”
“And how’d you end up here?”
Ham rolls his eyes. “As I was riding through town, some idiot in a sedan slid on the ice and clipped my bike. I feel fine, but they think I might have a concussion.”
“Okay,” I say slowly, trying to process all this. “And when you left, the boat was still tied to the pier?”
“Yup.”
“Ham, you should really tell Chief Mayhew all this.”
“No way. I have outstanding parking tickets—that’s why I was riding my bike. I can’t get mixed up in anything.”
“Ham,” I say in exasperation, “a woman died. If you have any information, you need to tell them—”
“I’m telling you, Will. But you didn’t hear it from me.” Ham glances at something behind me. His eyes widen and he quickly pulls his curtain shut. I turn to see Dan returning to his bed.
“Hey,” I tell him, “I’m sorry, Dan, but I should really get going. Are you going to be alright?” I can see by his red-rimmed eyes that he’d been crying in the restroom.
“I think so,” he sighs. “I just need some time to process all this.”
“I’m going to tell the chief that you’re awake, okay?”
He nods. “Thanks, Will. You’re a good person.”
I think about the reporter, and Ham’s account, and I almost scoff out loud. A good person wouldn’t have let the information about Brenda’s death slip.
I close his curtain and head out of the unit.
***
“Will, is it?”
I barely make it out of the sliding doors of the hospital before the blonde reporter, who was apparently waiting for me, strides over with her notepad open. “Is it true that Brenda Hanes is dead? Do the police suspect foul play?”
“I don’t want to talk to you,” I tell her.
“People have a right to know.”
“People also have a right to their privacy.” I keep walking, but the woman walks faster and steps into my path.
“Look, I think we got off on the wrong foot here.” She sticks out her hand. “Shana Barnes. I’m a writer for the Silver Screen Report.”
Oh, great. Not just a reporter, but a tabloid reporter.
“I’m just trying to get a story,” she adds.
“Get it somewhere else.” I try to step around her, but she takes a stride to the right.
“You know I’ll get it eventually,” she insists. “You could make this easier.”
“I could also tell hospital security that you’re harassing patients.” I walk past her and this time she doesn’t try to stop me.
CHAPTER 7
* * *
Once I’m back in my SUV, I try to call Chief Mayhew but it goes straight to voicemail. Since the roads are clear, I figure I’ll just head down to the pier and see if she’s there. First I call Sarah and let her know what happened at the hospital.
“That poor man,” she says after I finish. “There’s just one thing I don’t get.”
“What’s that?”
“Dan Dickey told you that Brenda was a great pilot, right? That she’d been through worse storms on her boat.”
“Yeah…”
“But you and Sammy found her body in the cabin. Not in the cockpit.”
“We did.” I almost slap myself in the forehead. Why hadn’t I thought of that? “But what does it mean?”
“I’m not sure, but it sounds like something Patty should know.”
“I’m heading down to the pier now. I promise I’ll be back as soon as I can,” I tell her.
“Take all the time you need. We’re fine here.”
“You’re wonderful. Thanks.”
“I am pretty great. See you later.”
It only takes me a few minutes to get down to the pier, which is abuzz with activity. The police have cordoned off the entrance with yellow caution tape, and Brenda Hanes’ boat has been extricated from the jetty and towed parallel to the pier.
Before I head down, I stop in at the Runside and get two coffees in Styrofoam cups. I get back to the pier at the same time that Patty and another officer, Tom, are coming off of Brenda’s boat. Patty sees me and approaches, tugging off her latex gloves as she does.
I hand her one of the coffees.
> “Thanks,” she says. “Coast Guard has been and gone. Same with the coroner. Now it’s just the boat left.”
“What have you found so far?” I ask her.
She shoots me a sidelong glance.
“I’ve got some new information, too,” I offer.
“Well, you did buy me coffee. Alright. The coroner estimates the time of death to be around five thirty, and confirmed that the cause was blunt-force trauma.” She shakes her head. “Trouble is, we can’t find a lick of anything down there. There’s nothing in the vicinity of the body that could have done that; no blood stains anywhere but the carpet, no damage to any of the fixtures.” She takes a long sip of coffee and asks, “What did you find out?”
“I just talked to the man we found.” I tell her about Dan Dickey, how broken up he was, and I also add in the snoopy reporter, Shana Barnes. “Sorry about that,” I tell Patty. “I didn’t mean for her to find out.”
Patty pinches the bridge of her nose. “Great. That’s the last thing I need right now.” She sighs deeply and adds, “I’m guessing you bought me coffee to try to soften that blow?”
“I said sorry.”
She shakes her head. “Alright. I guess the top of the to-do list is to question this Dickey fellow and find out what sort of relationship, besides boyfriend, he had with the victim.” I cringe a little at the term victim. “What sort of name is Dan Dickey, anyway? Is he an actor too?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so.” Truth be told, I didn’t think to ask Dan what he did for a living right after giving him the news that his girlfriend was dead. “There’s more.” I quickly recount Ham’s story about witnessing their argument, leaving his name out of it.
Patty arches an eyebrow. “Yeah? And who told you that?”
Well, I didn’t promise Ham that I wouldn’t say. And I’m not about to start lying to the police, either. “Hammond Dobes. He’s afraid to come to you. He has, uh, outstanding parking tickets.”
She scoffs. “Oh, I tore those up months ago. Ham’s a good kid.”
“Does that mean you believe him?”
She sips, and then nods solemnly. “I do.”
We’re both silent for a while, and then I ask quietly, “Are we talking about the possibility of this being a murder?”
“No. We’re both thinking it, but no one was talking about it until you brought it up. Thanks, Will.” She sighs. “I mean, we’ll investigate as much as we can, but there’s not enough to call this a homicide investigation.”
“What about the cut rope on the boat?” I point out. “And finding Brenda Hanes in the cabin, instead of the cockpit, during a storm? Not to mention that Ham said it was after five when he saw them arguing. Sarah and I saw him ride by just before six… and then Sammy came to get me, which means that she would have already been dead—”
“Will, calm down.” Patty grips my shoulder and looks me in the eye. “Let me be the police, and you be the pet shop guy, okay? I appreciate all your help so far, but we have procedures. I promise you, I’ll look into all of this. Got it?”
“Got it,” I murmur.
“Now I have to get back to work. We’re towing the boat to the harbor shortly.” She smiles briefly. “Thanks for the coffee.”
“Sure.”
Maybe she’s right. It’s been a long couple of days. Maybe I’m just thinking too much into this.
Or maybe someone had it out for Brenda Hanes.
***
I get back to the shop as Sarah is ringing up a couple of customers. I notice that the cat, Taffy, is sitting on the counter next to the register. Her fur has a nice sheen to it; no doubt Sarah gave her a bath and lots of affection, judging by the way Taffy seems to be so attached to her.
“Hey,” she greets me as the customers leave. “Did you catch up with Patty?”
“I did.” I tell her all about my meeting with the chief.
“So Patty doesn’t want to think it was homicide?”
“Would you?”
“No. But I have to admit that the whole thing would have to be a crazy series of coincidences for it to be an accident,” Sarah agrees. “And let’s not forget the hospital.”
I frown. “What about the hospital?”
“When we dropped Dan off. Don’t you remember? He grabbed my hand and called me Brenda.”
“That’s right, yeah. He said he was sorry, and to forgive him…” I trail off, thinking. “Hey, do you want to go for a walk, get some fresh air? We can close the shop for a little while.”
“Sweetie, you understand that the whole point of having a shop is to keep it open so that people can come in and buy things, right?”
“Just a short while. Come on. And bring Rowdy.”
CHAPTER 8
* * *
By the time the four of us—Sarah, Rowdy, me, and Taffy the cat, zipped securely inside Sarah’s coat—get down to the beach, the police and Brenda’s boat are gone, presumably towed to the harbor as Patty mentioned.
I lead the way down the rocky shore toward the jetty. Behind me, Sarah sticks her hands in her pockets and shivers. “Will, what are we doing down here? It’s freezing.”
“We’re going to play a game.” I unhook Rowdy’s leash and say, “Are you ready, boy? Go find it!”
The dog dashes off down to the pier.
“What do you expect him to find?” Sarah asks.
“Anything.” One of Rowdy’s favorite games is when I hide toys all over the house and then tell him to go “find it.” He flies around the house like a madman in search of anything out of place, and collects all the toys in a pile in the living room. I’m hoping he’ll do the same with the beach.
Rowdy comes sprinting back to us and drops something at my feet, his tail wagging furiously. I pick it up; it’s just a crumpled soda can, nothing noteworthy.
“Good boy, Rowdy. Now go find it!” Off he goes again, his tongue hanging out the side of his mouth. To Sarah, I say, “Dan Dickey claims he doesn’t remember the cat going overboard too. If that’s true, maybe there’s something else that went overboard with him.”
The two of us head down toward the pier and help Rowdy look, checking in the surf and between rocks. Rowdy brings me back a candy bar wrapper, half a plastic bottle, and part of a fishing net. (Don’t let that deter you from visiting. Normally our beach is very clean; I chalk it up to the strong currents of the storm.)
“I don’t think we’re going to find anything,” I call out to Sarah after a while, who meanders near the jetty, crouched over with one hand holding Taffy the cat securely in place. “I think we ought to just—”
Rowdy drops something new at my feet and swishes the sand with his tail. I pick it up; it’s a metal star, made of bronze and about the size of my palm. At its base is a jagged platform of black glass, as if it broke off of something.
“Good boy, Rowdy.” I turn the star over in my hands. “But what the heck is it?”
“Will!” Sarah calls out. “Come here!”
I hurry over to her as she peels something off of a rock at the base of the jetty. “Take a look at this. It’s a page of something.” As she tries to remove the wet paper from the rock, it tears, leaving only a small corner in her hand. A small wave crashes, spraying us both with saltwater, and washes the rest of the page away.
Sarah groans in frustration and peers at the small torn piece in her hands. “The ink is ruined. I can’t make it out.” She squints at it. “It looks like it says, ‘The something will and test…” She looks up at me in surprise. “This is a will, Will!”
“Is there a name on it?”
“No… there’s nothing else.”
I hold up the bronze star. “That’s not all. Rowdy found this.”
“Huh. What is it? Do you think it came off the boat?”
“Not sure, but I doubt it. All the fixtures on the boat were brass, not bronze. This could belong to anyone, actually.” I gesture toward the torn page of the will.
“But I have a feeling that page has something to do with Brenda Hanes.”
“How do you figure?”
“Ham said he saw Dan and Brenda arguing about money. He heard the phrase, ‘Just sign it.’”
I can see by her expression that Sarah is picking up what I’m putting down.
“Should we bring this stuff to Patty?” she asks.
“Yeah, I think so. But first I think I ought to have another chat with Mr. Dickey.”
***
I drop Sarah, Rowdy and Taffy off at the Pet Shop Stop and head right over to the hospital, arriving just in time: as I walk in, Dan Dickey is checking out, looking healthy and dressed in his now-laundered and dry wool sweater.
He looks surprised to see me. “Will, what are you doing here?”
“You know, Dan, I felt so bad about how abruptly I left earlier that I had to come back and make sure you were alright,” I tell him.
“Thanks, Will. I really appreciate that.” He smiles sadly. “I feel fine, physically… though I think it’s going to take a long time to come to terms with losing Brenda. It still doesn’t feel real.”
“Hey, are you hungry? I bet the hospital food didn’t quite cut it.”
He glances at the clock on the wall. “I’m supposed to go down to the police station and talk to the chief.”
I shrug. “Hey, a half hour or so won’t hurt anything.”
He sighs. “You’re right. And truth be told, I’m in no rush to talk about all that. What the heck. I don’t have much of an appetite, but I sure could use a drink.”
“Dan, I know just the place.”
***
I bring Dan Dickey to the Runside, where we take a couple of stools at the bar. I hold up two fingers to Holly, who nods and expertly pours two pints of beer.
“Dan, you have to try this Whale of an Ale they make here. Best beer you’ll ever taste.”
He glances out the windows, which afford a wide view of the jetty and the pier. “I can’t thank you enough for saving my life, Will. If not for you, we’d both be gone.” He looks away sheepishly and adds, “If I had my wallet, drinks would be on me.”