by Susie Gayle
“Except that your ex-wife is trying to drive a wedge between us?”
“…Right. Except that. Now I have to run down to the station and give Patty what we found on the beach.”
“Fine. I’ll just stay here and, you know, keep running your store for you.”
I give her a kiss on the cheek. “Thank you, you’re the best, I’m a lousy boyfriend, and I absolutely promise I’ll make it up to you in all sorts of awesome ways.”
“I’ll start making a list,” she tells me.
Sammy and I hop into my SUV and I pause long enough to make sure I have the piece of the will and the star-shaped bronze… thing in my glove box before we head over to the police station.
“Okay,” I tell Sam as I drive, “let’s think about this. Brenda Hanes was turning down movie roles. It’s likely Dan Dickey would have been upset by that, because that means two things: one, she wanted to settle down, and two, less money for him.”
“What on earth are you talking about?” he asks, a little bewildered. Right. Sammy hasn’t been privy to any of my new information.
“Hush. On the other hand, Ham Dobes was obsessed with Brenda. He got her autograph, and then followed her down to her boat, even through a storm. He waited out there for her. Now, he said that was just after five, maybe five thirty… the storm didn’t really pick up until six or so. And according to Patty, the coroner pegged the time of death to be around five thirty. So, it stands to reason that Brenda was dead before the boat hit the jetty.”
“Sure,” Sammy says slowly.
“But someone cut that rope. I’m sure of it. So, based on what we know so far, one of two things happened: either Dan Dickey scared Ham off, cut the rope, killed Brenda, and then threw himself overboard… or, Ham got on the boat, cut the rope, threw Dan overboard, and then killed Brenda Hanes.”
Sammy’s eyes practically bulge out of his head. “You really think Hammond Dobes could have killed someone?”
“Sammy Boy, I don’t know what to think right now.”
“And according to your theory, this fellow Dickey would have risked freezing to death on purpose.”
“I don’t know, Sam!”
“But you do think it was murder?” Shana Barnes says from my backseat.
“Aah!” I scream.
“Ohmygod!” Sammy shouts.
The SUV swerves wildly. I yank the steering wheel to get back into my lane and slam on the brakes.
“What. Are. You. Doing?!” I screech at the reporter. “Did you stow away in my car?”
“Yes.”
“We could have been killed!”
“I think you did pretty well, actually…”
“Are you nuts?”
She looks hurt. “No. Just creative.”
“Get out!”
“Fine,” she mutters. “We’re here anyway.”
Sure enough, my car has screeched to a halt right outside the police station. Shana gets out and walks up the steps to the station. I pull the car into an empty spot and wait for my heart to start beating again.
“It might just be me, but it seems like these Hollywood folks are kind of, I don’t know, insane,” Sammy notes.
“You’re telling me. Come on, let’s go find out what’s going on.”
We head inside the police station and, much to my surprise, we find Dan Dickey sitting in an uncomfortable-looking plastic chair just beyond the entrance.
He looks up at me and scowls. “You again.” Then he notices Shana and his eyes narrow further. “Wait… I know you. Aren’t you that paparazzo that was following us around back in LA?”
“Uh, I’m a journalist. But thanks, Dan,” she says sarcastically.
“Are you in bed with her?” he asks me accusingly.
“Ew, no. I don’t even find him attractive,” Shana says.
“No, of course not,” I tell Dan. “And you… that’s not what he meant,” I say to Shana.
Dan Dickey stands and throws his hands up. “You know what? I don’t care. I just want to know what happened to Brenda.”
“Well, you would know, wouldn’t you?” Shana sneers.
“What is that supposed to mean?” he cries.
“I don’t understand any of it,” Sammy says.
“Enough, everyone!” I shout. I ask Dan, “Where is Chief Mayhew?”
He jerks a thumb toward the back of the station. “Talking to some kid.”
“Okay. I think we should all just calm down and wait for the chief. Except you,” I tell Shana. “You can leave.”
“I’m staying,” she insists.
“I’m leaving.” Dan pushes past us and out the glass doors of the police station.
I groan in frustration. “Sammy, stay here and make sure she stays out of trouble. I’ll go talk to Dan.” I hurry out after him.
CHAPTER 12
* * *
“Dan! Please, wait up.”
Dan Dickey has longer legs than me, and I have to speed-walk double-time to keep pace with his loping strides.
“As soon as the police let me, I’m hopping on the first flight out of here,” he proclaims. “I just want all of this behind me.”
“It might not be that easy.”
“Why?”
“Because... Dan, Brenda might have been murdered.”
He stops and spins on me, his gaze both confused and angry. “What? Murder? What are you talking about?”
Well, cat’s out of the bag, I guess. At least he stopped.
“The police didn’t say anything about murder,” Dan murmurs.
“Of course not. You’re going to be a suspect, Dan.”
“Me?” His face turns a shade paler. “Oh god, no. I would never… why me?” He looks like he might be sick.
“Hey. Come on, let’s have a seat.” I point out a bench a half a block down and we both sit. “Dan, I have information, and I’m going to give it to the police. I’m not going to tell you everything that I have, but you have to understand that as far as the cops are aware, you were the last person to see her alive.”
He nods slowly, dazed, as if his brain is having trouble processing all of this.
“So I want to ask you a couple of questions, and I want you to be honest. And based on the information that I have, hopefully that’ll tell me if you’re innocent.”
“I’ll be honest,” he promises. “Starting with the fact that I did not kill her.”
“Alright. Dan, were you and Brenda arguing about money on the pier before the storm hit?”
He sighs and nods. “Yes.”
“You told me that she was up for some big roles… but she turned them down, didn’t she?”
“She didn’t want that life anymore,” he tells me. “But she didn’t just want to quit the business; she wanted me to quit too. She had plenty of money from the show, and residuals from a few other films… enough for us to be okay for a long time. Maybe the rest of our lives.” He shakes his head. “But of course, all I could see was dollar signs, and I got angry with her for turning down the roles. The whole reason we took this trip was for us to be alone, for her to try to soften me up. So, by the time we got to Maine, I told her that if she really wanted to quit, I would be okay with it… as long as she wrote me into her will.”
“But she didn’t agree?”
“She said that she would. But yesterday, while she was out checking out the town, I found the will… and I wasn’t in it. When I confronted her about it, she came back with another ultimatum: that she would only put me in her will if we got married. That’s what we were arguing about on the pier.”
“And was there anyone else around?”
“No, it was just the two of us… wait.” His brow scrunches as he thinks. “There was a guy on the pier, on a bicycle. I couldn’t see his face; that’s when it started sleeting. But he seemed to be watching us. I shouted at him.”
“And he left?”
“Yeah, he left in a hurry.”
>
“You saw him go?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, Dan. Then what happened?”
“Brenda and I both went down into the cabin. She was really upset. I felt like a huge jerk, so I apologized and told her we’d table the conversation for now. That’s when we felt the boat moving. I hurried up to the deck; we had come loose from the pier and were heading toward the rocks.” He shakes his head. “Then I went overboard.”
“How?” I insist. “Did you fall? Did someone push you?”
“I… don’t remember. It’s very fuzzy in my head. I remember a strong gust of wind, and I was falling… I hit the water and everything went dark. Next thing I knew, I woke up in the hospital.”
“And the cat, Taffy. She wasn’t around when you went over?”
“I’m telling you, Will. I don’t really remember. Last I saw her, she was in Brenda’s arms, in the cabin.”
I hate to admit how convenient alleged memory loss can be, but if Dan’s telling the truth then he has nothing to hide. It’s sort of a catch-22.
“One more thing,” I ask him. “When we brought you to the hospital, you said, ‘I’m sorry Brenda. Please forgive me.’ Why did you say that?”
“I… I don’t remember saying that. But if I did, it was probably delirium.”
“You’re saying it didn’t mean anything?” I challenge.
He bites his lip and squeezes his eyes shut. “I threatened to leave her, okay?”
“What? Why?”
“When she told me we’d have to get married or she wouldn’t put me in the will. That’s how the argument got out of hand; I told her I’d leave her if she didn’t do it. I apologized right after, and that’s exactly what I told her: I said, ‘I’m sorry, Brenda. Please forgive me.’ You have to believe me,” he says, his eyes pleading. “I didn’t kill her. I loved her. We’ve been together for so long… professionally and romantically. I was her only agent, and she was my very first client. Heck, I cherry-picked her from her acting school the day she graduated. Others tried to sign her, but she refused, so maybe she was the one that picked me.” He rubs his face, fighting back tears again. “Without Brenda, I’d have nothing.”
I’ve seen genuine agony, and if Dan Dickey is faking it, he deserves an Oscar.
“I’m truly sorry, Dan.”
“I just don’t know what I’m going to do now.”
Without Brenda, I’d have nothing. Suddenly it clicks into place in my brain. Dan Dickey couldn’t have murdered Brenda—or if he did, he’s the dumbest murderer on the planet. She was his best client; he was trying to get into her will. If he still killed her despite all that, he would have been ruining his own livelihood—not to mention that jumping into the freezing coastal water might have killed him, as Sammy pointed out.
“I believe you,” I tell him, “and everything you’ve told me is pretty consistent with what we know so far. I’ll help you as much as I can.”
“I changed my mind about you, Will. You’re a good guy again.” He smiles weakly. “I guess we should go back.”
We start back toward the police station. As glad as I am that Dan almost certainly didn’t kill Brenda, my mind is still troubled by the notion that the only other suspect is Ham Dobes. He might have an unhealthy obsession with the actress, but what possible motive would he have to kill her? He would have had to come back to the pier, cut the rope, push Dan overboard, confront Brenda… it just doesn’t make sense to me.
As we approach the police station, we pass by my SUV and I pause, remembering the items we found on the beach. “Hang on, Dan. Let me ask you something.” I open the car and reach into the glove box. “Is this a shred of Brenda’s will?”
He inspects it carefully and nods. “Yeah, it is. I had it folded in my jacket pocket when I went overboard. It must have washed ashore.”
“Okay. What about this thing?” I show him the bronze star with the broken black-glass base.
His eyes widen in surprise. “Where did you find that?”
“It was washed up on the beach.”
“That’s the top to one of Brenda’s awards,” he tells me. “It was her favorite, an excellence award from the New York School of Acting. That’s where she graduated from.”
An award. Of course! Why hadn’t I seen that before?
“She kept this on the boat?” I ask.
“She kept it wherever we went.”
“So this was in the cabin…” I trail off as an epiphany hits me.
“Yeah,” Dan says, not coming to the same realization that I am. “Real shame that it broke like that; it would have been a nice thing to remember her by. I have no idea how it got to shore though…” His eyes widen again, further this time. “Oh.”
There it is.
We both just stare at the bronze star, realizing that I’ve likely been carrying around the murder weapon.
CHAPTER 13
* * *
Dan and I burst into the police station to find Sammy sitting alone in one of the uncomfortable blue plastic chairs.
“Where’s Shana?” I ask him.
He shrugs. “She went looking for you two.”
“It’s probably for the best she’s not around to eavesdrop on this anyway.” With the star and shred of will in my hands, I stride toward a closed door at the back of the station. One of the officers, Tom, shouts at me.
“Hey, you can’t just barge in there like that!”
I barge in there like that. In the small room is a square table and two chairs, currently occupied by the chief and Hammond Dobes, the latter of which has tears streaking down both cheeks.
Chief Mayhew looks up at me in surprise. “Will! What do you think you’re doing?”
“Chief, I’m sorry, but I need to speak with you right now.”
“I’m kind of in the middle of something here…”
“I know. It’s important.” My eyes flit toward Ham to give her the hint that it’s about this case.
She nods curtly and rises, pointing a finger at Ham. “Stay put.” She closes the door behind us and leads me to her office. “Alright, Will, what’s going on?”
“I, uh, found some stuff.” I tell her everything; about finding the will washed ashore, and the broken piece of the acting award, which is heavy enough to be the murder weapon, and about Dan Dickey’s alibi.
She takes a few moments to digest all of this and then says, “Just because the guy jumped in the water doesn’t mean he didn’t kill his girlfriend.”
“Right, but what about the cat?”
“What about the cat?” Patty raises an eyebrow.
“Dan says that the last time he saw the cat, it was in Brenda’s arms in the cabin. No cat is going to go wandering around the deck of a boat in the snow and sleet; I don’t think she just fell off. I think that someone pushed Dan Dickey overboard, and threw the cat over afterward.”
Patty blows out a long breath. “That would take a seriously messed-up person.”
“Well, they did commit a murder, didn’t they?”
“Okay.” She rubs her temples. “I really, really hate to say it, but Ham is the only suspect we have right now. Leave that stuff with me and tell Mr. Dickey not to move until I can talk to him.”
“You really think Ham could have done this?”
“I don’t want to think so. But unfortunately, we have a few witness testimonies that say Ham was badgering her at Miller’s about an autograph. She signed one for him, and then—by his own testimony—he still followed her down to the pier.” She shakes her head. “He claims he just turned and left, but no one saw him again until he was riding through town.”
True, we didn’t see Ham riding by until nearly six o’clock, a full half-hour after Brenda’s estimated time of death.
“Go back to the shop, Will,” Patty tells me. “You’ve done enough here, and no offense, but you look exhausted. Next time I see you at the Runside, drinks are on me.”
“Alright. Thanks, Patt
y.” I leave her office and head back out to the little waiting area. I shake Dan Dickey’s hand and wish him luck. “The Pet Shop Stop is down on Center Street,” I tell him. “Stop by before you leave, once all this is sorted out.”
“I will,” he promises.
“Sammy, you need a lift back to the barber shop?”
“I wouldn’t say no to one.”
The two of us exit the station and get back in the SUV. I sit there behind the wheel for a few quiet moments.
“You alright, Will?”
“Yeah, I think so. It just doesn’t feel right, you know? Ham is just a goofy kid.”
“People don’t often know what they’re capable of until they do something they didn’t think they were capable of,” Sammy says.
“I can’t tell if that’s wise or not.”
“Let’s just say it is.” He smiles. “Come on, there’s nothing else we can do here. Oh, before we go—” He twists in his seat, checking the back for any possible stowaway reporters.
“Good idea.” I chuckle.
“Oh, hey.” He reaches for something in the backseat. “She must have dropped this.” He hands me Shana’s small spiral-bound notebook. “You want to know the secrets of the stars?”
“Ha. No thanks; I think I’ve had my fill of the lifestyles of the rich and famous.” Besides, I scolded Shana about people’s right to privacy; I’d be a hypocrite to read her notes.
But I don’t have to.
“Holy crap on a cracker,” I murmur.
“What is it?”
I stare at the notebook for a while. “We have to make a detour.”
***
I drive like a maniac to Williams Street and bang my fist on the front door of the Dobes home while a bewildered Sammy waits in the car.
Ham’s mom answers, her eyes puffy and red. “Will! Did you hear? They arrested Hammond!”
“I know, Melinda. That’s kind of why I’m here. I need to see something in Ham’s room.”
“What?”
“No time to explain.” I push past her and bolt up the stairs, taking them two at a time, and burst into his bedroom. “Where are you…” I mutter as I inspect the photos plastered all over Ham’s wall. “Aha! There you are.”