"I saw a bad guy get killed by another bad guy. Do you think I want everyone to know that?"
"Well, I didn’t say you were a witness," she said, defiance in her posture. Bright red spots bloomed on her cheeks. "I just said the police questioned you."
"Well, jeez, riddle me this, Batman. If the real murderer reads or hears about your story, he obviously knows I’m not the one who killed this guy, so why else would he imagine the police would want to talk to me?"
Her blush deepened, mottling her cheeks and forehead. "The public has a right to know," she said again, her voice rising. "I don’t know why you’re so upset. Most people are happy to be mentioned in my blog."
I closed my eyes.
Detective Fairholm bowed his head and rubbed his eyes with one hand, as if he wanted to blot her image from his mind forever. "Okay, Grace, it’s time for you to be on your way. And I don’t want to see you, hear from you, or hear anything about you. And no more posting on your blog."
"The First Amendment—"
He took his hand away from his eyes and looked at her from under his eyelashes, without raising his head. "Do you really want to discuss the First Amendment with me right now?"
Her lips moved soundlessly, and she rocked up onto the toes of her pumps as if bursting to say something more. Then, seeing Detective Fairholm’s expression, she hesitated.
"Go. Now."
She opened her mouth, closed it, and went.
I climbed back down into the cockpit and slumped into my seat. Despite the heat, my skin felt cold and clammy.
"Listen, Shelby," Detective Fairholm said, "It’s not as bad as it sounds. She’s irresponsible, not to mention annoying as hell. We’re trying to keep a lid on this, as much as possible, although we think she’s got a source in the department. We’ll find out who it is and then…but never mind all that. Let me finish telling you the good news."
I interrupted. "You found the other person? The passenger?"
"What? No, no, not yet." He paused, then went on."About Rumbar. We have a preliminary hearing scheduled day after tomorrow."
"What’s that?" Alex asked.
"It’s a hearing to determine two things. The first is to prove that a crime was committed, and the second is whether a reasonable person would think that the suspect was the one who committed the crime. I don’t think there’s going to be any problem establishing both those things."
I exhaled. "Really? That is good news." But my voice trembled. Matt got up from his perch near the captain’s seat and moved over to sit next to me. He took my hand, and when he felt how cold it was, he took my other hand as well and started rubbing some warmth into them.
"He’s in custody now and not going anywhere, Shelby, so you don’t need to worry anymore."
"He won’t make bail?"
"For all intents and purposes, the answer is no. I guess it’s possible, but it’d be extremely unusual in a murder case, especially for a guy like him."
A guy like him.
I felt the whisper of fear again, thinking of the man with the scars. A guy like him. A killer. A killer who might know who—and where—I was. And even though he was in jail…whoever had been with him was not. Then I took a deep breath, ready to pull myself together and erase the anxiety on the faces in front of me. They were worried about me, and I didn’t want them to be. I pasted on a smile. "That makes me feel better."
But I knew I would have felt even better if Grace hadn’t written her stupid blog. And if the police had found that other person, the passenger in the shadows.
✽✽✽
WE LEFT THE slip in plenty of time to make the lockout. I’d wanted to leave earlier, since apparently Grace hadn’t lied about the fact that people actually read her blog. Several curious people just ‘happened’ to want to visit the Welcome Center, even though they’d lived five minutes away their whole lives, and they just ‘happened’ to wander down to the boat for a chat. Since we couldn’t go through the lock until 1:30, there wasn’t much we could do about it besides try politely to stifle their curiosity.
When we finally got underway, I settled back into my seat in the cockpit, hoping that my mood would improve. Yesterday’s trip from locking in to the Welcome Center had been fun and interesting. Alex had read to us about the Great Dismal Swamp from a brochure the lockmaster had given him. Although it had been hot, the sun shining down through the bright green tunnel of overhanging trees made the inky black water sparkle and shine, and the mild breeze had ruffled the water’s surface from time to time. We’d watched jewel-bright dragonflies hitch rides on the boat’s lifelines, their wings gleaming in the glittering sunlight. Today, the air was hazy and still, so the smooth darkness of the water seemed like impenetrable oil, hiding ugly secrets, and the trees overhanging the narrow canal pressed in on us. Even the dragonflies had abandoned us.
Alex was at the helm, chatting with Matt, while Nathan sat across from me in the cockpit, not saying much, as we headed toward the lock. Nathan had made a half-hearted attempt earlier at apologizing for his behavior yesterday. I didn’t blame him, exactly, but thanks to him, I’d been a witness to a violent crime. I didn’t really want to talk about it though. He’d been unusually quiet since then.
I stretched out on my seat, in the hopes of getting a nap, but I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking about the night before. Our last cruise had been a real shock, to put it mildly. We’d been hijacked, and I’d seen a man die. But this time seemed different. The hijackers, although they turned violent, weren’t habitual murderers. They’d just tried to kill each other more or less as a last resort. Scar Guy—Johnny Rumbar—was different. He’d just walked up to someone and shot him without warning. I didn’t know what had happened to make him do that, but did it matter? If he was capable of killing one person in cold blood, imagine what he would do to me, the witness to his crime and therefore the threat to his freedom. Even though he was in jail right now and couldn’t get to me…what about his passenger? It disturbed me that I didn't even know what the second person looked like, wouldn't know until it was too late…
These thoughts kept running through my brain, like a gerbil in a wheel. Apart from Alex and Matt’s quiet voices and the faint hum of the engine, it was nearly silent. The humidity that hugged us muffled the sounds around us, and the day seemed eerily still. I finally abandoned my attempt at sleep and sat up, then moved to midships, sat on the deck, and dangled my feet over the side. The obsidian water slid silkily around the boat as we moved forward. I couldn’t see anything under the water, and I shivered as I imagined what creatures swam just below that black surface.
Finally tiring of the gloom and doom of my own thoughts, I stood up and climbed back into the cockpit. Nathan slumped against his boat cushion, looking moodily toward the bank of the canal. Alex smiled at me as I settled back into my seat. He asked if Matt would take the helm, and after he handed it off, came to sit next to me. He pulled open the brochure from yesterday.
"Want to hear some more history?" he asked. I nodded, grateful for the distraction. I looked out over the dark silent waters of the canal, slapping at the ubiquitous mosquitoes while I listened to Alex’s narrative. "Poe wrote The Raven here, according to some sources. That’s interesting. Let’s see. One of the early explorers, William Byrd, is credited with naming the Great Dismal Swamp. Evidently, he didn’t like it here much." He skimmed through the brochure. "What else? The canal was used as part of the Underground Railroad. Escaped slaves used to live here, in secret." Alex paused, looking around at the dense trees that arched over the canal. "Can you imagine being desperate enough to try hacking out a clearing and surviving here, in the heat and with all the insects and snakes and other animals? Including bears and alligators? There are rumors that it’s haunted here. I guess I can see why people might think that. It’s pretty, but a little forbidding, somehow. Maybe it’s just knowing the history, knowing that bad things happened here."
I thought, And another bad thing happened last night. I shivered, t
rying to think of something else.
✽✽✽
SEVERAL HOURS LATER we neared Elizabeth City. As we snaked through the end of the canal and moved into the Pasquotank River, the waterway widened, which improved my mood; I could see the sky again as we escaped from the tunnel of trees, and the water lost its darkness. Alex turned his attention to getting us into Elizabeth City, studying the paper charts and comparing them to the chartplotter. When he thought he’d figured it out, he verified it with Matt, grinning when Matt told him he was dead on course, then taking back the wheel.
Nathan asked where we were going, exactly. I told him that we were heading to Mariners’ Wharf, the city dock. The city allowed boaters to dock free of charge for a couple days along tiny finger piers that ran perpendicular to the sea wall. There were no facilities and no power hookups, but free was always nice, and the Wharf was convenient to the town. Plus, Alex was pretty excited at the prospect of meeting the Rose Buddies. He’d been reading about them.
Alex held the wheel with his knee while he made some more notes on his paper charts, glancing up when Matt told us he’d actually met the original Rose Buddies many years ago when he’d crewed on a sailboat heading down the Intracoastal Waterway. Alex perked up. "Tell us about it."
"Well, a couple guys used to come down to the docks to greet the boaters. When I met them, they told me that the way they got started was that one day, one said to the other, ‘I’ve got a bottle of wine that’s not busy. Why don’t you bring some cheese and crackers, and we’ll go welcome the cruisers.’ They thought they’d like to do something for folks who are getting out there, seeing things. The other guy grew roses, so in addition to the cheese and crackers, he brought roses to the ladies aboard. They started a tradition of regular wine and cheese parties at the dock, and they’d also take the boaters around town in their golf cart. Nicest guys you could meet. And the tradition that they started is still carried on. The Rose Buddies still come out and greet the boaters, help them get around town, things like that."
Alex smiled. "Do you think we’ll make it there in time to meet them today?"
Matt shook his head. "We’re going to miss the party this afternoon, but they’ll be back tomorrow."
✽✽✽
WE MADE IT to the city dock in good time, and Matt maneuvered into the slip. After we got settled in, Matt and Alex took down the mainsail, which had ripped along a seam a few days ago when we were crossing the Elizabeth River, and spread it across the grass next to the seawall to see if they could repair it. Nathan lounged nearby. I went below.
I’d completely forgotten about the printout that Grace had handed to Alex, and Alex had tactfully not mentioned it. But I found it in the salon, picked it up, and read.
Last night, our quiet community was rocked by a violent crime, a brutal murder. Eric Bluesky, a recently-released felon, was shot and killed in the parking lot of the Dismal Swamp Welcome Center. Sources close to the investigation say that Shelby Hope, currently aboard Thief of Time, a sailboat traveling the Dismal Swamp Canal that docked overnight at the Welcome Center, was questioned by the police with regard to the shooting.
Oh God. She hadn’t been exaggerating about what she’d written. She might as well have painted a target on my forehead.
As of this posting at 1:45 am—I wondered what the hell she’d been doing up at that hour, writing about things that were none of her business, then I remembered the detective’s comment that she had a cop friend who gave her information—no arrests have been made. Childishly, I felt gratified that she’d missed the scoop that Rumbar had been picked up. The article went on to describe Eric Bluesky’s long and illustrious criminal career. Grace didn’t speculate about what he’d been doing at the Welcome Center in the middle of the night. That surprised me, but maybe she was trying to stick to facts instead of innuendo. Or maybe her lack of imagination inhibited her creative writing skills.
She didn't mention the second person, the passenger. I wondered if she knew there'd been someone else there. Someone I wouldn't recognize again, but who might know who I was… Get a hold of yourself, Shelby, or you'll be jumping at shadows all the time. Stop freaking out. It's broad daylight right now, plenty of people around, you're fine.
Squaring my shoulders, I climbed back into the cockpit, starting to neaten the lines when I noticed another boat heading toward the docks. A woman was at the helm. Giving in to my natural inclination for laziness, I stopped working and hopped off Thief of Time, under the guise of giving the newcomer a hand with her lines. She was making toward the empty slip on our port side.
"Ahoy," she shouted, waving.
I waved back. "Need some help?"
"Sure! Thanks."
I stepped onto the finger pier and watched her slow the boat as she neared the slip. She looked to be in her late forties, with an athletic build and a mop of blonde curly hair that hung just past her shoulders. I envied her confidence in single-handing the boat into a difficult spot with strong currents. She tossed me the bow line, and I helped her wrangle the boat.
"I guess you’ve been here before," I said, smiling, after she’d finished with her lines and stepped onto the dock.
She smiled back. "Yeah, several times. My name’s Jane. My boat’s True Love. Cheesy, I know, but it’s true."
I held out my hand and said, "I’m Shelby. We’re aboard Thief of Time. That’s a good-looking sailboat. What is it?"
"It’s a Bristol. Yours is a Tayana?"
I nodded, then clarified, "It’s not mine, actually, it’s Nathan’s." I pointed to Nathan, who was still lounging on the grass. "And Alex’s. Alex is the one in the yellow shirt."
She looked toward the three guys. Then she looked back at me. "Wow," she said. "I hardly ever want crew around, but for those three, I might make an exception."
I looked over at the guys, at Nathan with his suave Gregory Peck good looks, at Alex, exquisitely attractive with his dark blonde hair and tawny eyes, and at Matt, ruggedly handsome, his brown hair shining with golden highlights from the sun. And Matt had taken off his shirt, damn him. Part of me enjoyed that, and part of me really wished he hadn’t. It had been hard enough lately to keep my mind off my recently-discovered feelings about my best friend, with all his clothes on. Let alone when he was just wearing shorts, shorts that hung a little low and... jeez, Shelby, what are you, thirteen?
Jane finally dragged her eyes away from the men. "Well, my hat’s off to you, girlfriend. Hey, what are you doing for dinner? I’m starving. I know this great takeout place. Want to walk over with me and grab something to bring back? We can have a picnic supper here on the dock and you can tell me about yourselves."
I hesitated, suddenly unwilling to be away from the comforting presence of my friends. For Pete's sake, Shelby, it's broad daylight. And do you really think this woman had anything to do with Rumbar?
"Sure, that sounds great. Just let me grab my purse."
✽✽✽
"SO, JANE, DO you single-hand all the time?" Alex asked, after we’d returned and handed around the food. She’d just taken a bite of chicken, so she nodded her head while she held up a hold-on finger. She swallowed and wiped her mouth with her napkin.
"Yes, now it’s just me. But in my thirties, I met the love of my life, and he sailed with me for a while."
I looked up and caught Matt watching me. His eyes were dark and unreadable. I wriggled a little, uncomfortable because I couldn’t tell what he was thinking.
Jane went on, "In all truth though, he was just tolerating it for me. He didn’t really enjoy the sailing, and he never got comfortable with the lifestyle…you know, never settling down, just moving from place to place, not having a lot of creature comforts. Bless him, he tried his hardest, and I’m ashamed to say that for the longest time I just refused to see that he was pretty miserable. When I finally did, we tried life his way. We bought a little cottage, with—no kidding, I’m not making this up—a white picket fence, and he got a dog, and a car, and a TV, and a bunch of
other stuff he’d been missing, and he was totally happy. I enjoyed it too for a while. It made for a nice change. There’s nothing like having a hot bubble bath whenever you want one, instead of a two-minute shower in the cockpit with a pint of lukewarm water.
"But after a year or so, the sameness of every day just wore me down. I found myself dreaming, every night, of long passages, of the moon shining down on the open water, even sometimes of storms and being seasick." Her voice sounded melancholy. Alex reached over to squeeze her hand.
"So what happened?" Matt asked.
"We finally talked about it and came to the conclusion that, as much as we loved each other, it just wasn’t in the cards for us to be together. Our ways of living, our ideas about life, were just too different. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, to make that choice—be without him or be without my boat. But we stayed friends, and I just figure we had what we had, and that’s more than some people ever get, so I’m grateful. But anyway, enough of me and my sob story. Tell me about your trip."
Alex began telling her about the cruise so far, while Nathan sprawled in the grass, throwing in a comment every now and then.
And Matt kept watching me.
Chapter 4
When I got up the next morning, Nathan was in our cockpit, talking to Jane, who was having coffee in hers. A mist hung over the water, wrapping everything in a warm clinging fog.
"Good morning," I said, holding my coffee mug carefully while I climbed out into the cockpit.
"Hey," Nathan said.
"Hiya, girl! How are you this morning? Did you sleep okay?" Jane smiled at me.
I grinned back. "I’m good. How are you?"
"Great. It’s an amazing day to be alive. Doesn’t the water smell good?"
I took a deep sniff, but all I could really smell was my coffee. I took a long drink. When I came up for air, I asked, "Where are Matt and Alex?"
Telltale (Shelby Hope Book Two) (Shelby Hope Novels 2) Page 3