Behind the Boater's Cover-Up

by Etta Faire

  I needed to write down everything that woman said. Every cryptic riddle.

  I bit the end of my pencil.

  Damn it. Why hadn’t I paid more attention?

  I took a deep breath. I could do this.

  She said something about changes. I remembered that, and new beginnings. And taking sides. And something about sparrows, I think.

  I pulled one of the other photos out of the scrapbook and turned it over and over in my fingertips, fully expecting to see “Hello Carly” scrawled on the back now, but completely thankful I didn’t. The photo was old and fragile and had that dank smell that old paper sometimes took on. I smoothed it back into its spot, wondering now if this whole thing with Delilah was a fluke or if other cryptic messages were coming my way related to these signs.

  Delilah’s sudden weirdness had thrown me off my game, but that wasn’t going to happen again. If anyone else handed me some sort of weird message, I was going to call them out on it. Ask questions. Be prepared. Shelby Winehouse once told me she didn’t think Potter Grove was safe anymore, like things were changing. I felt it too, but I also felt connected to its strangeness.

  I spent the rest of the night taking as many photos of Aunt Ethel’s notebook as I could. Jackson appeared by my side as I was reviewing them, and I tried to fill him in on everything new about the investigation, but the ghost was even moodier than usual.

  “Looks like you’ve been very busy,” he said, his voice dripping in sarcasm. “But were you able to link Myles Donovan to Gloria’s murder?”

  “Not yet, but I have a feeling if I uncover the cover-up, I’ll be able to link everything. And I’m very close.” I began filling Jackson in on the stuff he missed, which was mostly that I had his aunt’s notebook in my possession.

  He didn’t even smile.

  “That woman took full advantage of the fact she had the power to publish a career-damaging story or sit on one. I think she was taking bribes all over the place. And, I think she was in on the investment. Her notebook is full of lies.”

  “So, I can tell you’re dying for me to ask. How did you get her notebook?”

  I turned my head to the side. “Oh yeah. You weren’t there.” I shrugged. “I guess Rosalie’s sachets work.”

  “I guess so.” He crossed his arms.

  I sat up. “So that’s what this is about. You’re upset about the privacy recipe Rosalie gave me.” I rolled my eyes. “I’ve only used the sachets one day. One day. And you can’t even handle that.”

  “Need I remind you, we have an investigation to do together, and I feel like I’m on the outside of it now.” His voice had the condescending tone again, the one I hated back when he was my professor in college too.

  I egged him on. “You should’ve been there when Lynette brought in this notebook. Thanks for telling me about her phone call, by the way, not that you’re my secretary.” I laughed. “I think my mouth dropped to the floor when I saw the notebook. You would’ve loved it.”

  He stared at me, the clock in the living room ticking noisily in the background.

  I held up the small black journal. “And this thing proves your aunt was close to a lot of scandals in Potter Grove. I bet you’d love to see it.”

  “Perhaps,” he said, with jealous eyes. “But, Ethel is dead. Even if you prove she got away with every pyramid scheme out there, it doesn’t implicate Myles Donovan for the murders of these people. Come on, Carly. Focus on what’s important.”

  “Sorry, professor. I no longer care if I get a B.”

  With Aunt Ethel’s notebook in hand, I grabbed my phone and stormed up the stairs, but Jackson was right on my heels. People are so much faster when they’re dead.

  “I don’t need to explain my research to you, but I’m pretty sure staging the Linders’ deaths was the only way out of that investment for a lot of people,” I said as I ran up the second flight, hurrying down the hall to my room. “Your aunt included. And staging deaths are much easier when you have the police and the press in on it.”

  “Are you implying my father…” Jackson replied, or tried to. He crossed Rosalie’s stinky strands and disappeared mid sentence. I smirked to myself.

  I finished my research alone.

  I waited until I got a text from Lynette that the Herndons had left for dinner before making my way over to the newspaper the next day.

  The office was hotter than most people set their heaters, and cleaner than it was before. I pulled my knit hat off as soon as I got in and fanned myself with its cuteness.

  “You were right,” Lynette said when she looked up from her computer and saw me. She waved me over to her desk, which was just a small, cluttered table off in the corner. “There was more than just the notebook.”

  She brought up a window on her laptop, peering over her shoulder toward the door. She whispered. “I’m pretty sure they would kill me if they knew I was snooping. These are the pictures the photographer took of the accident in 1957. Only a couple made it into the article.”

  I pulled a chair over to her desk and sat down. There were ten grainy, black-and-white images on the screen.

  Each image looked strikingly similar to the last. Five images of the stretchers being pulled from the lake, a boat being lifted out of the water, a close-up of the beer bottles floating along the shore.

  But I noticed something odd. “Look,” I said, pointing toward the screen where the photos all went in sequential order IMG0167 was right next to IMG0168, and on down the line. “Image 173 and image 174 are missing,” I said.

  Lynette nodded.

  I quickly grabbed my phone from out of my purse and took pictures of everything on the screen, trying to guess what the missing pictures could have been from the photos that surrounded them. IMG0172, the image before the missing ones, was a picture of Mason Bowman, sheriff at the time, talking to someone. Unfortunately, I could only see the back of that person’s head. Ball cap, about the same height as Mason. IMG0175 was a photo of the boats involved in the accident.

  It was hard, even now, to see the old photos of the paramedics with their stretchers, knowing who was under the sheets and how they got there.

  Lynette pointed to the screen with her pencil. “I’ll text you these photos along with a picture of the article I found about the Linders. Their remains washed ashore in October,” she said. “And — huge surprise here — their names were misspelled.”

  October. That would explain why I hadn’t found the article. I’d only looked at reels from before that.

  “Remains. Are we talking bodies or clothes?”

  “It didn’t say. I assume bodies.”

  “Don’t assume anything with this paper.” I was really getting annoyed with Aunt Ethel’s journalism standards. “Send it to me anyway,” I said as I took the liar’s notebook from my purse and handed it to Lynette, just as a cold wind shot through the office from an opened door. Because I have that kind of luck.

  I looked up and into the eyes of a chubby, balding man in armpit-reaching jeans and a tucked-in polo shirt. “What’s going on here? Some sort of party? I thought we said no friends…”

  Lynette stuffed the notebook in her pocket.

  “She’s not a friend, Dan,” Grace said from behind him. “She’s the medium I was telling you about. The one doing a seance on the old accident. The one who practically called my grandmother a murderer.”

  I waved to the man. “That’s me, minus the murderer part. And, to clarify, I don’t think your grandmother was a murderer. She was simply a journalist before ethics were a thing.”

  Lynette chuckled by my side and Grace scowled at her.

  I searched my purse for my hat as I headed toward the door, trying to think on my feet, which was not my strong suit. “Anyway, just forgot my hat the other day. Thankfully, your intern found it. She is a treasure to have around. So helpful.”

  Judging by the glares on my way out, I wasn’t sure they bought it. But at least they hadn’t seen the notebook. I smiled to myself as I wal
ked to my car. Maybe my luck was changing.

  Sitting in my car outside the newspaper office, I looked over the article Lynette sent me while my car warmed up again. Like the intern said, the article only mentioned remains.

  Remains believed to be those of Dwight Linder and his son, Frederick, were discovered just south of the country club late last night when a passerby spotted them along the shore. Mr. Linder and his son were last seen July 20 on a boat owned by family friend and business partner, Bill Donovan.

  That was it. I wondered if the article had been buried behind the tips for safe trick-or-treating. I was just about to bring up the photos when a text came in.

  For real? You were the one who wanted to try the spin class. Where are you?

  It was Justin. I was letting this investigation ruin my relationship again. I texted back. “On my way. Meet you at your place in 10.”

  Chapter 25

  Spin Cycles

  Justin smirked at the receptionist when we checked in at Donovan’s gym, like they were sharing a joke. “We’re here to learn bike riding,” he said.

  I couldn’t take my eyes off the humungous smiling photo of Myles Donovan placed above the waiting bench in the lobby. It was the same one that stalked you in the hallway of the Grocery Ranch if you ever had to use the bathroom and the one at the main lodge of the country club. A cheesy, promotional, “I’m important because I’m in this suit” photo, mostly there to remind employees they’re being watched.

  I almost pointed at the smug old man and yelled something about how he was going down, but instead followed Justin into the room the perky receptionist told us to go to.

  “Hey, you guys made it,” Parker said. He was dressed like he shopped in the Tour-de-France section of Big Five: bright yellow top and tight-fitting spandex biker shorts. “You both ready?” He clapped his hands together.

  “Ready?” Justin rolled his eyes. “To ride a pretend bike? Yeah, I think I’m ready. Are you ready, Carly?”

  Parker didn’t seem to pick up on the macho-sarcasm coming from my boyfriend, and I wasn’t entirely sure whether Justin’s bad attitude was directed at me or Parker. He was still on trash duty, and despite the “you’re probably onto something big” speech he gave me the other day, I knew he was still pissed.

  The spin class was empty except for the two rows of exercise bikes and the three of us. Parker’s bike faced us, and when he got on it, Justin leaned in and whisper-yelled, “Is this guy seriously going to show us how to ride a bike?”

  I shrugged as hip hop music began to play.

  “We’re going to keep it slow to begin with,” Parker said, cycling away like he was just strolling around a park. “A nice easy pace. Get the heart rate going.”

  I looked to my side. Justin’s “nice easy pace” looked more like a killer was chasing him. Every once in a while, he’d look over at me and roll his eyes, which I couldn’t help but think was adorably confusing.

  Was he trying to impress me with his bike riding skills or was he working out some anger issues?

  “We’re just warming up,” Parker reminded Justin. “You don’t have to go so fast.”

  Justin half-smiled. “I want this to actually be a workout, dude.”

  “Okay,” Parker said as the music began to pick up. “Then get ready. Let’s go.” The music went at triple speed and so did our pace, except for Justin’s because he was already going pretty fast. Parker woo-hoo-ed and stood up. We followed him. At first it was fine, but after about thirty seconds I was ready to sit back down again. Each pedal felt like a million. My butt hurt, along with part of the back of my thighs where I hadn’t even realized I had muscles. Justin was doing even worse than I was.

  Sweat poured from his purplish face. He guzzled his water. Parker was barely sweating. “Everyone okay?” he asked, obviously directing his question to the heart-attack by my side.

  Justin nodded, puffed out his chest, and picked up the pace again.

  “Good. Because that was the beginning round. Let’s raise it up a notch. This is why they pay me the big bucks. Because I get results.” Parker turned a knob on his bike and Justin and I both followed suit. And suddenly, it felt like we were riding uphill, slower, harder. Parker stood up again and so did I. Justin stopped pedaling and drank some water.

  “Do whatever you’re comfortable with,” Parker said, and Justin glared at him before turning his knob even higher and fast-peddling again.

  After about five minutes of this, I was pretty sure my boyfriend was on the verge of death. He was making weird, raspy, gasping noises, kind of like a wild animal with emphysema.

  I grabbed the side of my stomach and stopped. “Sorry, Parker,” I said. “I’m out of shape, and I have a cramp. I’ll need the beginner class from now on.”

  “This is the beginner class,” he replied, still standing as he rode, not even sweating at all. “My advanced class is in half an hour.”

  “Let’s go home,” I said to my out-of-shape boyfriend.

  Justin stopped pedaling and sucked in another strange-sounding gasp of air. “Only if you’re sure you’ve had enough,” he managed to say.

  He grabbed my water on the way to the lobby and chugged it down because he’d finished his. Then he turned to wave to Parker, putting his arm around me.

  “Impressive job out there, dude,” Parker yelled to Justin. “You certainly made pretend bike riding into a real workout.”

  “Be prepared to bench press next time,” Justin yelled back as we left. “I want you to know what a real workout feels like.”

  He turned to me as soon as we were out of earshot. “He was being sarcastic, huh?”

  “Oh yeah,” I said. “I thought you were pretty impressive, though.”

  Justin kept a normal pace as we passed the receptionist and some other clients in the parking lot until we reached his truck where he practically collapsed into the passenger’s seat, weakly demanding that I drive because he’d pulled something.

  “Let’s go to Spoony River. I’m starving,” he said.

  “Exercise and a healthy meal?” I replied. “We’re living to a hundred.”

  I leaned over and gave him a very light kiss on his very sweaty cheek, even though he didn’t deserve it. The sun was already setting and dinner sounded good to me too. I pulled across the parking lot as a gorgeous blonde in an expensive black SUV pulled in, blaring Taylor Swift.

  “I cannot believe it,” I said, taking my foot off the gas and throwing the truck into park. “Lila Donovan’s here.”

  Justin barely opened his eyes from his fetal position in the passenger’s seat. “So?”

  “So, that’s a pretty big coincidence, don’t you think? Myles Donovan’s granddaughter has been following me all over town since I started snooping into that accident. Or I’ve been following her. Not sure yet.”

  “Maybe you should just stop snooping,” Justin said. He groaned and rolled over, his seatbelt curled uncomfortably around his thick neck.

  “The library. The newspaper. And now this.”

  I also realized she had probably been the one heading to Delilah’s earlier for tea. Delilah’s distant cousin, and probably her namesake.

  I turned around and watched her park, straining my neck to see if she was even wearing a workout outfit. “I cannot picture that woman breaking a sweat.”

  She got out of her SUV and sauntered across the parking lot in leggings and a cute coat, a different cute coat than the day at the library. How many cute coats could one incredibly rich person own? I mindlessly fixed my hair, pulling my curls out of their sweaty ponytail and swishing my head around, pieces of frizz sticking to my cheeks. I checked my hair in the mirror, noticing Lila looking over at me. She waved and I ducked into my seat.

  “She’s watching me,” I said.

  “Well, you are the only vehicle just sitting in the parking lot, idling by the entrance. She probably thinks she knows you.”

  I lifted my head up again as she went inside. “Do you think she�
�s going to the advanced spin class?” I asked as I pulled forward toward the exit.

  “Probably,” Justin replied. “Rich people have time to excel at things like pretend bike riding.”

  “And did you hear Parker say he was getting paid the big bucks? I bet they’re overpaying him so they can control Mildred’s family again.”

  “Carly, you’re being very paranoid.”

  He didn’t know the half of it.

  I knew I needed to ask him about the forest. It was still playing heavily on my mind. “Speaking of probably just being paranoid,” I began. “When I left your apartment the other night, I thought I saw you going into the Dead Forest. Did you?”

  He groaned and rolled back over so he was facing me again. “Now, I’m really worried about you. What? Why would I go into the Dead Forest? Why would anyone? I mean, I’m not afraid of it and I don’t believe the rumors, but it’s also not something I would do. It might be time for you to see someone.”

  I leaned back in my seat. He was right. Damn it. My phone rang, and I pulled it out of my purse, half wondering if it was really ringing or if I was hallucinating again.

  “It’s not a good idea to talk on the phone while you’re driving,” said the police officer beside me.

  “I wouldn’t be driving, officer, if my boyfriend hadn’t pulled something pretending he and Lance Armstrong shared steroids.”

  The call was from California. Gloria’s sister maybe.

  My hands fumbled trying to answer it fast enough. “June Gilman? Hi. This is Carly Taylor…” I put her on speaker, and pulled down the road toward Potter Grove and the Spoony River. “This is probably going to be the strangest phone call of your life,” I said.

  Justin groaned even louder from the passenger’s seat, but I ignored him.

  Her voice was shaky and I could tell her hearing was a little off. “What’s this about again? How do you know Gloria?”