Zoe would blame herself for telling her aunt about her nephew's murder—for not letting her die in peace. What a thing to live with. But J.B. stayed focused on Betsy O'Keefe, the nurse and caregiver, the plain woman people underestimated. "I want you to go back to the docks and tell the police everything you just told me. Tell them I think Kyle saw Teddy Shelton throw the grenade and came out to confront him and Shelton snatched him. Tell them I think Stick Monroe's going to kill Shelton and make it look like it was Luke." He paused, but he knew he was right. "They'll know what
to do."
"What about you? What are you going to do?"
But J.B. walked her to her car without answering, helped her behind the wheel and made her repeat back to him what he'd told her to do. The police would call in a tactical unit to deal with Shelton, Kyle Castellane and Stick Monroe. They'd all do their jobs.
J.B. stood back from the car. "Tell them to hang on to Zoe." Monroe was her friend, her mentor—this wouldn't be easy. "I'll grab Bruce and get there as soon as I can."
Betsy nodded, and J.B. was surprised to see she looked less shaken and out of control now that she had a mission to accomplish. "I'll do my best."
As she backed out, Bruce called from the brush and birches between the lobster pound and the cottage. "You've got to see this. Jesus."
J.B. joined him in the tangle of wet, flopping undergrowth.
For the first time, Bruce Young actually looked shaken. He pointed to an apple crate half covered in a black tarp. "Check this shit out, J.B. Isn't that a goddamn submachine gun?"
"MP5." J.B. kicked the tarp off and took in the rounds of ammunition, grenades, handguns, most of it illegal to own even if Shelton wasn't a convicted felon. "When you look at what he left behind, it makes you wonder what he took with him, doesn't it?"
Bruce made a face. "Bastard's armed to the fucking teeth. I'm thinking he took what he could and rowed over to the docks. Leave his truck here, leave the arsenal, misdirect the cops with the stun grenade, keep them on the docks for a while."
J.B. gave him a grim smile. "You're getting good
at this."
"I just want to catch lobsters, you know?"
Bruce flipped the tarp back over the apple crate. He
had drops of sweat on his upper lip. This wasn't his life,
J.B. thought. Illegal weapons, murder. He looked down at the apple crate of Teddy Shelton's prized possessions. "We need to call this in."
"Yeah, sure." Bruce was breathing hard, having trouble taking it all in. He gave the crate a slight kick. "This stuff's small potatoes compared to that last undercover operation of yours, isn't it?"
"Those guys had rocket-propelled grenades. They wanted an Apache helicopter." Bruce made a stab at a smile. "Teddy'll be jealous, knowing you've seen scarier shit than his stuff." "It all works," J.B. said, and got out his cell phone. "It all kills."
Thirty-Two
The naked lightbulb at the top of the attic stairs cut through the gloom of the bleak, gray morning. Zoe sat cross-legged on the floor and pulled open the box she'd packed up after her aunt died. Christina sat next to her. They hadn't said a word since they'd opened the attic door and started up the steep steps.
Zoe had no idea if they'd find anything. Maybe she and her sister were grasping at straws. At this point, why not? It was better than grasping at nothing.
After she'd relayed Betsy's story to Donna Jacobs, who would then relay the information to the state detectives and appropriate federal agents, Zoe had gone back to the café, diving into a warm apple-cinnamon muffin, telling herself that was what she needed to do. Sit there and eat muffins. Stay out of the way.
But the café was deserted, and Christina came out from behind her counter with a muffin of her own. Zoe mentioned that Kyle could have asked her anytime about looking in their great-aunt's attic—he could have sneaked in anytime. Why now?
Christina, apparently, had asked that very question when they'd argued last night. He'd been working on the documentary for months. Why the sudden urgency?
"Then I knew," Christina said. "Damn. I knew it was because of me."
At first, Zoe had no idea what Christina was talking about. Then she guessed it—she could see it in her sis-ter's expression, knew it because she was her sister. "You know about Aunt Olivia."
"I saw her before she died," Christina said. "She told me she knew who'd killed Dad. She was so convinced, Zoe. It was unbearable. I tried to reassure her. Then she died—and I didn't say anything to you because you didn't say anything to me. If you didn't know, it'd just upset you."
"And what does Kyle think, that Aunt Olivia left a clue behind?"
Christina was positive that was exactly what Kyle thought. "He's read all of her Jen Periwinkle novels. He says Aunt Olivia was a master at dropping clues. He couldn't believe she'd die without letting us know somehow who Dad's killer is. He wanted to find it so he could do this big ‘ta-da' presentation. You know, like Jen Periwinkle."
Zoe didn't tell her that if Kyle believed there was a clue, he hadn't gone looking for it because of his documentary. He wanted to make sure it didn't finger his father—or him. Not that either was guilty.
She dug into the box she'd put away last year, after the memorial services, after Betsy had moved out, before she'd gone completely off the deep end. She'd collected up the papers on the kitchen table, junk mail, several versions her aunt had done of her own obituary, at least two false starts on a new Jen Periwinkle novel, letters. Nothing looked like anything Zoe needed to save, but she'd left the box for another day, one that hadn't come until now.
Christina pulled out a sheet of typing paper with just Chapter One typed at the top. "She didn't get very far, did she? Poor thing. I still can see her hunched over her typewriter, typing with those bony old hands. It's hard to believe when she started writing, she was younger than I am now." She sighed. "God, I miss her."
"I do, too, Chris." Zoe touched her aunt's things, as if they'd somehow bring her closer to them. "I like to think she's still a presence in our lives, don't you?"
"She is in mine. I'd never have the café without her."
Zoe pulled out the obits and laughed and fought tears at the same time. "Leave it to Aunt Olivia to rewrite her own obituary. Dad thought she was nuts—he threatened to get her on Prozac. Maybe I should have brought the new version down to the paper, but I couldn't think."
"What's that?" Christina leaned toward Zoe and pointed to doodles at the bottom of a half-typed page.
"Nothing, I don't know. A tree. A hangman. Betsy probably tried to get her to play hangman—" But Zoe frowned, examining the doodles more closely, noticing the frailty of the pencil lines. They were definitely her aunt's doing, the difficulty she'd had drawing evident. "Chris, Aunt Olivia had a hard time even holding a pencil. Why would she doodle?"
"Maybe it wasn't her."
Zoe shook her head. "No, you can see it was hard for whoever did it—it had to be her. Look, there are places where the pencil went a little wild."
"Jeez, it really is like a Jen Periwinkle clue, isn't it? You know, how she'd find messages in bottles, stuff dropped just in the nick of time."
"But a hangman and a tree?"
"They're line drawings," Christina said. "She didn't fill them in. Maybe that means something."
Zoe held the paper closer to the dim light. "There's a tiny arrow pointing to one of the tree branches. Oh, hell. Chris—a stick, a stick figure."
"Stick Monroe? Zoe!"
"He was here the morning Dad was killed. the other day—" Zoe swallowed, shaking. "Stick mentioned Aunt Olivia was revising her obituary that morning, before I got here."
"You can't possibly think—no." Christina shook her head. "No way."
If there was a name Olivia wouldn't want to remember—a man she would never want to know had killed someone as surely as she knew that day—it was Stick Monroe. Zoe's hands were shaking so badly she had to set the paper down. Not Stick. She had to be wrong.
"You know what Stick says. Everyone has secrets. Maybe she discovered his secrets."
"Or knew Dad had—but Zoe, Stick wouldn't have the kind of secrets you'd kill your friend to keep from getting out. My God, we have to be wrong!"
Zoe stared at the paper and the simple drawings her great-aunt had done in her last hours. "Dad must have been planning to arrest him."
"Stick? For what? It had to be something awful for him to risk killing someone—to kill his own friend." Christina jumped to her feet, and Zoe could feel her sis-ter's agitation, her fear. "You wouldn't kill somebody over unpaid parking tickets."
"Dad stopped by to see Aunt Olivia that morning. If he said something, and then Stick stopped by—Aunt Olivia wouldn't have to say anything. He'd know. But we're getting ahead of ourselves. Just because Aunt Olivia believed she knew Stick killed Dad doesn't mean she was right. A couple of doodles aren't proof of anything." Zoe handed the half-written obituary and its stick drawings to her sister. "Will you take this to the police? J.B. and Bruce must still be at the lobster pound—I'll take my car and go find them."
"Kyle—Zoe, do you think he knows—"
But she broke off, and Zoe didn't answer her sister's half-formed question as they headed back downstairs. They'd taken Christina's car up from the docks, and she drove off alone, with obvious misgivings at leaving Zoe to her own devices. But she didn't plan to waste any time. She had her VW back. She grabbed her keys and charged out the side door.
Stick walked around from the front porch. "Zoe."
He had one hand behind his back. Not a good sign, Zoe thought. You always want to keep their hands in sight. "Hey, Stick, what's up?"
She knew she'd blown it. He'd been her friend since she was a little girl, and he'd killed her father. Murdered him. How could she pretend she didn't know?
His eyes narrowed on her. "Oh, Zoe. Zoe, Zoe. You can't hide it. Not from me."
"Stick—"
"Shh. You don't know what it was like to have Olivia look at me and know."
Zoe could barely breathe. "Did you kill her, too?"
"I didn't have to. She was dying. I could see it. Zoe—I have a Zodiac down on the water. I borrowed it from Luke. No one even paid attention. They're all fixated on the idea of Teddy Shelton loose in Goose Harbor with grenades." He swallowed, but didn't look nervous or upset. "I don't have much time. I need you to help me make this work. I've had the plan in place for a year. I've examined all the contingencies. It's my only option left."
He pulled the gun from behind his back. Luke's missing Colt Python. He was Luke's friend. He'd have access to the alarm code—Luke would have given it to him.
He leveled the Colt at Zoe. Had he done it this way with her father?
She refused to panic. "Christina's taking your name to the police."
The shock of seeing Stick—the fury Olivia must have felt at what he'd done—must have been the last straw for her old heart. He'd as good as killed her. Zoe could feel her own rage building, but she knew she had to contain it. If she didn't, she'd die, and so would Teddy Shelton and Kyle Castellane.
"Stay two steps ahead of me," Stick said. "And no cop tricks. I shot your father, Zoe. Don't think I won't shoot you."
Thirty-Three
Christina stumbled out of her car and started to collapse, but Bruce was there, grabbing her around the waist and keeping her on her feet. He and J.B. were at the lobster pound, waiting, as instructed, for the police to get there to take custody of Shelton's arsenal. They'd watched her speed into the lobster pound's dirt lot, so fast J.B. half expected her to drive straight into the water. She'd braked hard and threw open the door, then fell apart.
"Chris," Bruce said gently. "What's wrong?"
She made eye contact with him, her face white. She choked back a sob. "Stick's got Zoe." She couldn't get her breath and thrust a sheet of paper at J.B. "He killed Dad. It's right here."
J.B. took the paper but stayed focused her. "Where are they now?"
"He took her in a Zodiac. Luke's, I think. I was on my way to the police—I saw Stick take her. I didn't know what to do." She was gulping in air. "I don't know who to trust anymore. I didn't want to do anything that would make her situation worse. So I came straight here."
"Stick doesn't know shit about boats," Bruce said. "He's out in this fog? Never mind on purpose, he'll kill Zoe by accident."
Christina, still in Bruce's grasp, seemed steadier. "They headed north."
Bruce dropped his arm. "Come on, McGrath. Let's go. We'll take my boat." He held Christina by the shoulders and gave her an encouraging shake. "You know what to do, right, Chris? Get in your car. Drive back to town. Raise hell."
J.B.
thought Bruce did fine with his instructions. "Tell the police Stick took Zoe as a hostage. He's going after Kyle and Shelton.He'll kill them and frame Shelton if he can. He's had time to work out a plan. He'll keep Zoe as his hostage as long as he needs her—"
Bruce coughed, hiding his own shock and fear. "Got it, Chris?" She nodded. "I—I don't think Stick knows I saw him."
J.B.
started to help her back into her car, but she told him she was okay. "Find my sister."
By the time J.B. charged down to the dock, she was backing out quickly and Bruce had his boat untied. J.B. was relieved it wasn't anchored in deep water—they didn't have to waste time with a dinghy. Unlike the heap he'd rented to J.B., it was a new boat with radar, GPS, a proper radio, good traps, fresh paint. The same old orange rain gear hung on a hook in the pilothouse.
Within seconds, they were on their way across the mouth of the harbor. Clouds, fog and mist had descended on the gray water, reducing visibility, keeping in the pleasure boats and even many of the working boats. Bruce was undeterred by the weather. He got on his radio and learned from a lobster boat heading back toward shore that he'd seen the Zodiac zip out to the islands off the Olivia West Nature Preserve.
He shouted to J.B. over the sounds of the boat's engine. "Marine patrol will send a boat out, but it's a big goddamn ocean. You going to get into trouble for doing this?"
"It'll take an hour for the tac unit to get here. They'll take over once they're in place. Meanwhile, we isolate the incident and wait for help, do what we can to keep Kyle and Zoe alive." And Teddy Shelton, he thought. Stick would kill him, too. Dead, he couldn't argue with Stick's version of events.
"I like my life as a lobsterman," Bruce said.
But his mouth was set in a grim line, and he cranked up the engine and set across the harbor.
* * *
Stick had too many balls in the air. Zoe could see it as he tried to steer the Zodiac and keep her from killing him. He had his Colt in one hand. One false move, one falter, and she'd be on him. "Your father almost had Luke convinced to tell him about Teddy Shelton. He really put the pressure on."
"What did you care?"
"Luke had already confessed to me."
The hush money. "You'd kill my father—your friend—because you didn't want it to get out that Luke paid you to keep quiet about an illegal gun sale? Come on, Stick. That doesn't make sense."
"Insufficient motive? I tried a murder where a man killed his own brother because he didn't like the way he was chewing his steak."
Zoe didn't let him divert her. "You didn't want your connection to Teddy Shelton to come out. That's why you didn't kill him this past year—you didn't want to draw any attention to him. You must have just prayed for the day he'd leave town."
They were among the small islands off the preserve, but the conditions were difficult—fog, low tide, more drizzle. Stick didn't like boats or the water. His control of the Zodiac was tentative at best. It was a small boat, fast and maneuverable, not as likely as a speedboat or lobster boat to get hung up on rocks or stuck in shallow water at the hands of someone with Stick's lack of experience.
"Teddy Shelton wants me dead
," Stick said, almost blandly.
"Then why hasn't he killed you?"
"He had to toy with me first. Get under my skin. Play out his string with Luke and make some money. He had to be careful your father's murder wouldn't get pinned on him."
"If you knew," Zoe said, "why haven't you killed him?"
He grimaced. "Because I'm not a killer."
She could have jumped up and gone for his throat then. "That's not why. Teddy must have something on you. What?"
"I went to see him in prison. I offered to set him up
with a new arsenal after he got out if he would keep something that he knew secret." Stick seemed unable to stop himself, as if it was cathartic to tell her—or he just wanted her to know why he was killing her before he pulled the trigger. "He came up here before his trial— he was out on bail. I should never have set bail for him. He snuck into my house and found a very small stash I had—not much, just a few pictures…." He didn't go on. Zoe felt her stomach lurch. "Child pornography?"
"I've never touched a minor. Never."
"What did you do, tell Teddy it was for research purposes?"
"Yes. Exactly. That is what it was for."
"He tried to get you to let him off?"
Stick nodded. "It was too late. I'd only make both our situations worse. He's convinced I favored the prosecution and basically made sure he was convicted."
"Not true?"
"No, of course not. I looked for any legitimate way to get him off. He'd have fared even worse with another judge."
Zoe was sickened, stunned. "So you visited him in prison and offered to set him up with a new arsenal."
"That's why he came to Goose Harbor, but it wasn't enough—not enough guns, not enough to make up for seven years in prison. Teddy wants my hide, too." Stick's voice was matter-of-fact, as if he'd resigned himself to what he had to do.
"How much of this did my father figure out?"
"Most of it. Not all. He wanted Luke to come clean about selling the gun to Teddy and how I manipulated Luke into paying me."
"You scared Luke into keeping quiet, didn't you? What does he know?"
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