by Susie Gayle
I take out my cell phone, call Chief Mayhew, and tell her where to meet me.
CHAPTER 14
* * *
Seaview Harbor is fairly small, as far as harbors go, nestled in an inlet on the other side of the Goose Point lighthouse, opposite the beach. Four long docks extend parallel from the shore, lined with forty-something medium-sized vessels, mostly fishing boats, with a boat ramp, a dry-dock area, a bait and tackle shop and a few fresh seafood vendors.
I pull my SUV into the parking lot and cut the engine.
“You want me to come with?” Sammy asks.
“No, I think it’s better I do it alone. I don’t want to seem threatening.” I say that as if a pet shop owner and his barber friend would be at all threatening to anyone.
As we get out of the car, Sarah’s sedan pulls up alongside us. Taffy the cat is zipped up inside her jacket, and she has Rowdy with her on a leash.
“Will, is everything alright?” she asks. “Why did you ask me to bring Rowdy down here?”
“Back-up,” I say simply as I take the pooch’s lead. “Just trust me on this one.”
“I’ll give her the scoop,” Sammy tells me. “I’m just now wrapping my head around it anyways.”
“Thanks. I’m all set.” Rowdy and I head down to the docks, where Chief Mayhew told me I’d find Brenda Hanes’ boat. It’s not hard to find; it was towed to the last position of the rightmost dock, standing out in sleek, stark contrast between two old, weathered salmon boats.
I unclip Rowdy’s leash and tell him, “Stay right here.” He sits and puts a paw in the air. “No, not this time. I need you right here.”
He lowers his paw and whines a little, but he stays as I board Brenda’s boat. The yellow caution tape that had been stretched across the railing and entry point at the top of the steel ladder has been broken, lying limp on the white deck.
I head down into the cabin. I’m not the least bit surprised to find Shana Barnes inside; I am a little surprised to find her crawling on all fours on the white carpet near the spot where Brenda’s body was found.
I clear my throat. Shana lets out a squeal of astonishment and stands quickly, her eyes wide.
“Will! Hey. Hi. What are you doing here?”
I take her notebook out of my back pocket and hold it out to her. “When you decided to stow away in the car, you dropped your notepad.”
“Oh!” She takes it graciously, and as she does I notice that a couple of her fingers are stained black. “Thank you! I would’ve been totally lost without this.” She tucks it into a pocket of her pea coat and then asks, “Um, how did you know I was here?”
I shrug. “I figured, sneaky reporter that couldn’t get any leads elsewhere and knew the cops were busy… where else would you go?”
“Ah. Good point. I guess maybe you should be the reporter.” She chuckles nervously.
“Yeah, maybe. By the way, I don’t think you’re supposed to be here.”
“You’re right. Guilty as charged. We should go.” She makes a move for the exit, but I stand in the way, unmoving.
“You’ll be happy to know that the police have a suspect in custody.”
“Oh?” she says. “That’s good to know. Is it that boy?”
“It is.”
“Well, that was some good detective work on your part.”
“Thanks.” I shrug. “Though everyone is wrong from time to time.”
“What, you don’t think it was him?”
I shake my head, no. “So hey, NYSA, huh?”
“What?”
“NYSA. It’s on the front of your notebook. That stands for the New York School of Acting, right?”
“Oh. Yeah, I think so. I don’t know. It was just a free thing I got at an event.”
“So you didn’t go there?”
“Nope.”
“Huh.” I reach into my pocket again, this time pulling out the photo from Ham’s wall, a picture of Brenda’s graduating class from NYSA. I unfold it and hold it up for Shana to see. “So that’s not you standing next to Brenda Hanes? With your arm around her? Smiling? Gotta say, you two look awfully chummy here.”
Shana’s mouth tightens into a tiny line. “What are you trying to say, Will?”
“I’m trying to say that I think you realized that the cops would discover it was murder. I think that you overheard me telling Sammy in the car about my theory on Ham and Dan Dickey, and you knew that there wouldn’t be enough evidence to incriminate the boyfriend… so instead you decided to come back here to plant evidence on Hammond.”
As I say this, she puts her hand behind her back—the one with the black-stained fingertips. “That’s crazy!” she insists.
“What’s on your fingers, Shana? Is it grease? Maybe from a bicycle chain?” I shake my head sadly. “He’s just a kid.”
“Fine!” She throws her hands in the air. “You’re right. I did it for the story. Crazed fan murders starlet. But you can’t prove it,” she insists. “You can call the cops right now and it’ll be my word against yours. What are you going to do, hold me here?”
“No, Shana, I’m not going to do that. But we both know it wasn’t just for a story. It was to cover up the fact that you killed Brenda Hanes.”
CHAPTER 15
* * *
Shana says nothing for a long moment, her eyes wide in disbelief. “Of course I didn’t kill Brenda! Why, how could you even suggest that?!”
I roll my eyes. “I guess it’s no secret why you’re not a working actress.”
Her mouth forms a tiny O as she glares at me. “How dare you! There’s no evidence!”
“You’re right,” I admit. “You did a good job covering your tracks.”
“If you don’t have any evidence, then why do you think I did it?”
“Well, since you asked,” I tell her, “here’s what I think. When the storm started, I think you were holed up somewhere near the pier—maybe the Runside, since it has such a good view. I think you watched Dan and Brenda fight. I think you saw Hammond Dobes leave on his bicycle, and you saw the two of them go down into the cabin. That’s when you went down the pier yourself. It started snowing pretty hard, so there was a good chance no one else would see you.” I pause for dramatic effect and pace a little. “I think you climbed aboard and cut the rope. But you didn’t go downstairs; you waited until Dan came up to see why they were moving. Then you pushed him overboard.”
Shana stuffs her hands in the pockets of her coat and pouts while I explain.
“I think you then confronted Brenda. Maybe you surprised her; there were no signs of a struggle. You hit her on the head with her award so hard that the star broke off. And then you tossed her cat overboard—which makes you a monster, by the way.”
“If any of that were true, then how—”
“Oh, wait. I’m not done. I think you ran the boat onto the jetty on purpose; not only so that the whole thing would look like an accident, but also so you had a way back to shore, climbing over the rocks before they iced over. But before you did, you threw the pieces of the award off the boat and made sure to do a thorough job of cleaning up any pieces of broken glass.
“See, Shana, I don’t think you’ve been sneaking around Seaview Rock and asking all these questions to get ‘the scoop’ on the death of Brenda Hanes. I think you came here to kill her, and you only stuck around to make sure that you had covered your tracks well enough that no one would suspect you.”
I fold my arms satisfactorily, expecting Shana to be amazed at my powers of perception and spill the beans, admit to the whole thing… but instead, she just looks kind of bored.
She laughs a little. “So you got all that just because I went to the same school as Brenda Hanes? Please. No one in the world would convict me from such a wild story. You think I traveled all the way across the country to kill a woman I knew a decade ago? Where’s my motive?”
Well… she’s got me there. I’ve only ever done this whole
confronting a murderer thing once before, and it was way easier to get a confession out of that one than Shana. I kind of thought that after my explanation she’d break down crying and confess. I guess these Hollywood people are tougher than they look—or are just used to lying to each other and being lied to.
“That’s a good question, Shana. I’m not sure I have the right answer, but I can guess. See, you told me that you used to be an actress. The nose-spray commercial, right? So, I did a quick internet search before I came here and I found out that you were in a little indie movie with Brenda Hanes years ago, shortly after graduation from NYSA. Except that Brenda was the lead, and you just had this itty-bitty part.”
“Yeah? So?”
“Did you audition for the lead? But Brenda got it instead? Because according to critics, that little movie is what put Brenda into the spotlight. Helped her get the TV show and everything. Or maybe you only got that little role because Brenda was your friend, and she felt sorry for you—”
“Excuse me?” Shana snaps. “She felt sorry for me? I got that role on my own! I didn’t need her pity!”
Aha. Touched a nerve there, I did. “Are you sure? Because you didn’t act in anything again after that. I’m guessing you were passed up a lot, huh? But Brenda, she went on to stardom…”
“Stardom? Please. Being a TV detective doesn’t make you a star! It makes you a hack! I had talent. I had range. Brenda was just pretty. She had ‘the look,’ whatever that is. I was the best in the class, by far, but Dan Dickey comes in with his slicked-back hair and his stupid suit and he picks her?!” Shana scoffs. “Life was all peaches and cream for Brenda Hanes, wasn’t it? And what does Shana get? She gets to work for a dirty tabloid, chasing down famous people. I should’ve been one! It should have been my fairy tale life! She deserved what she got!”
“And you were the one that gave it to her?” I ask quietly.
“I didn’t come here to kill her,” Shana snarls. “I came here to confront her. I found out that she was turning down all those movie roles, thinking about retiring, and my blood boiled. To have that luxury! Not a day has gone by that I haven’t thought about what I’d say to her, and when I was assigned to her story I followed her here to tell her how she ruined my career… my life. And you know what she did? She laughed at me! She told me I was being ridiculous, holding a grudge like that! She said that it wasn’t her fault at all, and that… that… that I was a bad actress!”
Shana huffs and shakes her head. “See what you made me do? Now I’ve gone and told you everything. Great.” She takes a hand out of her pocket and opens a lockback knife—no doubt the one she used to cut the boat’s line. “I’m sorry, Will. My life was already ruined once. I can’t have it happen again.”
CHAPTER 16
* * *
Shana presses the tip of it against my back as she urges me up the stairs and out of the cabin. “Let’s go. Onto the deck.”
“What are you going to do? Kill me with that knife you have?” I say loudly.
“Uh… what? No. I don’t have the stomach for that. I’m going to tie you to the anchor and push you off the boat.”
“Oh. Wait, how is that better?”
“Just move.”
As I get up onto the deck, I tell her over my shoulder, “Shana, there’s something you should know.”
“What’s that?” she asks as she reaches the top of the steps.
“I didn’t come alone. Rowdy, shoes! Get the shoes!”
From his place on the dock, Rowdy’s tail wags furiously. He crouches low and makes a spectacular doggie-leap clear onto the deck of the boat, lands less-than-gracefully, and promptly attacks Shana’s leather boots.
“Aah!” she cries. “Get him off of me!”
Rowdy tugs hard, nearly toppling her. She drops the knife and catches herself on the railing. The pooch switches focus and clamps his jaws around her other foot as she loses her balance, slips backward, and falls rear-over-teakettle into the water.
“Good boy, Rowdy.” I pet him on the head as Chief Mayhew, Sammy, Sarah and two other officers come running down the dock.
***
After I had gone to Ham Dobes’ house and found the photo of the NYSA class featuring Brenda and Shana together, I had immediately called Chief Mayhew and told her my new theory. She agreed that it was worth looking into, but that we had zero evidence to substantiate it—which is why I offered to confront Shana instead of sending the police in. I was confident that I could get her to confess, and when that failed, I happened upon the touchy subject of her ruined acting career.
Chief Mayhew had met me at a place near the harbor and fixed me with a wire. She and two officers had been sitting in the parking lot the whole time, listening in and waiting for their moment—which is why I made sure to mention loudly that Shana had a knife. It was code for “come save me before I get stabbed.” Luckily Rowdy was there for back-up.
After the police fish Shana out of the harbor, they cuff the shivering reporter, read her her rights, and put her in the back of a cruiser. Chief Mayhew approaches me, scratching her head, and says, “Remember my offer to buy drinks? I think it just became dinner.”
“That sounds just lovely, Chief.”
“But Will… it would be really great if you don’t find any more bodies for a while, ‘kay?”
Sarah throws her arms around my neck. “You’re an idiot,” she reminds me. “You could have been killed.”
“I’ll make it up to you?”
“I don’t know. You’re already pretty deep in the hole.”
“I will gladly work my way out of it. Starting with dinner tonight.” I don’t mention that the chief is buying.
***
That evening, the four of us—myself, Sarah, Sammy, and Patty—sit around a table at the Runside while Holly brings us a few pitchers of Whale of an Ale, which has never tasted so good.
“How’s Ham?” I ask Patty after a long sip.
“He’s shaken up, but okay,” she tells me. “I think he’ll be walking the straight-and-narrow very carefully from now on.”
“I still don’t understand why he followed that woman all the way back to the pier in the first place,” Sammy says.
I shrug. “Young guy meets the woman of his dreams? You should see his bedroom—he was really into her. It was stupid of him, to be sure, but we’ve all been there, right?”
“No,” Sammy says.
“Nope,” Sarah agrees.
“I don’t think I’ve ever stalked anyone,” Patty adds.
“Fine. Well, I’m willing to give the kid a break.” I raise my glass in a toast. “Here’s to good luck, good friends… and our local grocery bagger not being a murderer.”
“Cheers.” We clink glasses and sip.
Sarah leans close to me and says quietly, “We still need to talk about your ex-wife.”
I take her hand in mind. “No, we don’t. If we let stuff like that get to us, we’re not going to end up any better than she and I did. I trust you; I hope that you trust me. That’s all that matters, no matter what happens or what she might try to do to sabotage us.”
Sarah smiles. “So just ignore her until she goes away?”
I laugh a little. “Something like that, yeah.”
“Alright.” Sarah glances behind me and then motions with her chin. “Looks like you have a visitor.”
I turn to see Dan Dickey standing nearby awkwardly, glancing over in my direction. I rise and shake his hand.
“You want to join us, have a drink?” I offer.
“No, thanks Will. I have a flight leaving in a couple hours; I should get going. I just really wanted to thank you for, you know. Everything.”
“My pleasure, Dan. I hope you’re not a stranger to Seaview Rock.”
“No offense, Will, but I don’t plan on ever coming back here.”
“I understand.” I’m not sure I’d want to either, given everything that’s happened t
o the poor guy here.
“Just one more thing,” he says. “I think I’d like to take Taffy with me.”
“Yeah?”
He nods. “She’ll be a nice reminder of Brenda.”
“I agree. And she should stay in the family. Let me grab my coat. I’ll take you over to the store right now. I’ve even got a cat-carrier for you.” I go back to my table, get my coat, and tell Sarah the news. She smiles wide, delighted that the cat has a good home. I promise her I’ll be back in only a few minutes, and then me and my new friend the Hollywood agent head out into the chilly evening to retrieve his cat.
On the way to the shop, I ask Dan, “So what are you going to do now?”
“I’m going back to LA, and I’m going to continue my agency,” he says. “Find some fresh talent.” He looks me over. “You know, you’ve got a good profile. I could probably book you a commercial or two, if you’re interested.”
“Me? An actor?” I laugh a little. I’m pretty certain I’ve had my fill of celebrities, but it’s still fun to dream. “Sure. Next time I’m in California, I’ll give you a ring and we can set something up.”
THE END