by Clover Tate
Morning turned to afternoon, then to evening, with no Marcus and no Bloodhound. My nerves were taut as a snare drum when it was time to close the shop. August days were long, and when I flipped the sign to “Closed” and brought in the windsocks, the sun still shone low over the ocean.
I didn’t go home. I restocked the kites that had sold and moved to the front a few handmade kites I’d kept in my workshop in reserve. I swept the shop and cleaned the windows. I tallied the day’s sales, thinking of the magical accounting system Sunny had promised. Then I called home.
“Avery? I’m staying late at the shop. I, um, have some sketches to do . . . Yes, super inspired. I’ll see you later tonight.”
The sun dropped lower. The beach was busier than normal, even for a Friday night, which I chalked up to the next day’s kite festival. My stomach growled as if jet engines were landing in my intestines, but I didn’t want to leave the shop, in case Marcus got my note. Sunny had left some tofu pâté in the refrigerator, and I finished it off with a spoon. A banana I’d rejected yesterday as over-the-hill became dinner’s second course.
And I waited. And waited. Night fell, and I flipped on the lights in the old house’s kitchen, now my studio. I listened to the radio and tidied my kite-making materials and did a competent sketch of the teakettle.
How long would I wait? Was ten o’clock late enough? Or midnight? It was completely dark out now, and the street’s bustle had slowed to the occasional resident taking a constitutional on the beach. I yawned and stretched. I hadn’t slept much last night, not after saying good-bye to Jack. Maybe that had been a mistake, too. A hot coal burned right where my heart beat. Jack. I couldn’t in good faith have done anything else.
As Scarlett O’Hara said, tomorrow is another day. Tomorrow was the kite festival. I’d fly Father Wind to a crowd that appreciated it or possibly jeered at me, thanks to the Bloodhound. Marcus would still be gone, or not. Jasmine’s murderer would still be on the loose, but maybe the noose would be tightening around him—or, more likely, in my opinion, her.
In my mind, Caitlin wore the bull’s-eye. She had everything to gain from Jasmine’s death, and she was only feet away when Jasmine died. If only Marcus hadn’t run. He was the last suspect I needed to absolve in order to clear the path to the person who had nearly killed Stella.
I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer. It was time to admit defeat and go home.
And then someone knocked on the back door.
• • •
Through the kitchen door’s window, Marcus was diminished. His eyes were bruised by not enough rest and too much worry. To me, he didn’t look like a killer. He looked like a haunted man.
I opened the door, but he hesitated on the stoop. “Come in,” I said.
Finally, he said, “All right.” The funk of unwashed clothing followed him.
“Where have you been?”
“Around.”
“Not at home, though,” I said. “In Bedlow Bay?”
“In the woods.” He seemed a little spacey.
“Are you all right?”
Instead of answering me, he said, “I remember when Mrs. Ratcliff had this house.”
“Mrs. Ratcliff.” I poured a glass of water and handed it to him. “Drink this.”
He took the glass. “Second-grade teacher at Rock Point Elementary.” He visibly relaxed. “Tough nut. She’s in a home in Astoria now.”
“No kidding. I always wondered who’d lived here.” The house, although gloriously appointed with Victorian details, was modest. But it was in a fabulous location, just a block up from the beach. Many afternoons I’d imagined its original owners having horses stabled down the street, bringing in Dungeness crab for dinner, collecting salmon berries and morel mushrooms, walking up the hill in their Sunday best to church. Of course, that was long before Mrs. Ratcliff would have lived here. Marcus looked to be in his forties. Grade school was a good thirty-plus years behind him. In those days, President Reagan’s speeches might have played on the television, and a station wagon with faux-wood paneling might have been parked in the alley behind the house.
Marcus’s dreamy expression sharpened. He drew my letter from his pocket. “You left this for me.”
Poor Marcus, wandering the graveyard, afraid to come home. “Are you hungry? I don’t have any food,” I said, sorry I’d licked the tofu pâté container clean, “but I can make you some tea.”
“Nothing stronger?”
“Afraid not.”
He sighed and took one of the kitchen chairs before downing the glass of water. “They really tried to kill Stella?”
That had been my ace in the hole. When I’d written it in the letter, I knew that if Marcus was innocent, when he heard about Stella, he’d be shocked. He’d come. “Yes. She’s in Salem Hospital. She’s looking better, but still not conscious.”
“What happened?”
“Someone cut her brake line, and her Corvette ran off the road between here and Spirit Mountain. Before she left the casino, she called and said she knew something about Jasmine’s death. She was on her way to my house when she had the accident.”
He dropped his face into his hands.
“Marcus?”
He didn’t respond. But he was here. I decided to make tea, anyway. I put water on to boil and set out the teapot with a few spoonfuls of Darjeeling.
“I didn’t think it would come to this,” he said. “When I—left, I had no idea.”
I took the chair across from him. “Marcus, I know about your wife. You tried to get that stoplight in Bedlow Bay, but you were blocked. It wasn’t your fault.”
He hid his face, but from his heaving back, I knew he was sobbing. After all that time on the run, grieving and fear had taken their toll.
“And I know you didn’t kill Jasmine Normand. I’m certain.”
We sat silent for a few moments until the kettle whistled, and I filled the teapot. When I returned to the table, he had calmed and looked at me straight on.
“What’s happened since I’ve been gone?” he asked.
I told him about what I’d seen from the beach, the reenactment, and Nicky Byrd. I told him about Kyle coming to town, and Caitlin staying on at the house. I told him that the sheriff was looking for him, but that wasn’t news to Marcus. “That’s what I know,” I said. “Will you tell me what you know?”
I poured us tea in the bone china cups that had belonged to my grandmother. The cups’ filigree and roses looked especially delicate in Marcus’s awkward hands.
“All right. I’ll tell you.” He set down the cup. “I was at Jasmine Normand’s house. You know, Naomi died almost five years ago to the day.”
I nodded. “Go on.”
“I was crazy with grief. She was hit by a car, you know.”
I nodded again.
“People don’t know how to grow a town. They think they can come in and make your home a cartoon of what it really is. That’s what they tried to do with Bedlow Bay. They liked the atmosphere. They wanted to keep it cute.” He spat out the last word. “But we were growing. Just like Rock Point is growing. It couldn’t stay the same.”
“But they wanted to keep it the same.”
“And it killed Naomi.” He wasn’t going to drink his tea.
I wouldn’t drink mine, either. I pushed away the cup. “What did you do?”
“I’ve been thinking about it ever since. When I moved to Rock Point, I saw the same thing happening. Tourists started coming, folks started buying vacation homes here, but the town didn’t keep up.” He stared at teacup, as if the few leaves settled in its bowl could tell him something.
“And then?” I nudged.
“I thought if Rock Point could go back the way it used to be, things would be all right. The kite festival was fine as long as it was mostly locals. But Jasmine Normand would draw crowds. I
kept thinking of my wife, and . . .” He swallowed. “It was all too much. I wrote Jasmine Normand a note, told her to leave town.”
I gave him a moment, then asked, “What else?”
“I went to the beach house that night, and I slashed the front tires of the SUV. I guess someone saw me nearby, because the sheriff came knocking around. I heard about her death, and I lit out. I knew that if there was any chance to pin it on me, they’d do it.” He looked at me, pleading. “It was crazy. I know that now. If I could take it all back, I would.”
So far, nothing he’d said had surprised me, but I was gratified to hear it all the same. “I’m sorry,” I said quietly. After a moment, I added, “When you were at the beach house, what did you see?”
He tilted his head to the side, as if he were calling forth a picture. “I didn’t get too close to the house, you know. I didn’t want to wake them up.”
“But you saw something inside?”
He looked straight at me for the first time that night. “The light was on in the south side of the house.”
“The kitchen,” I said.
“I saw the other one, the other TV star. It looked like she was talking to someone.”
“Caitlin? You saw Caitlin?”
He waved his hand. “I don’t know her name. You saw her. The one who was with Jasmine at the Brew House the day you cussed out Jack Sullivan.”
He’d seen Caitlin, awake and talking, probably to Jasmine. Caitlin had sworn she was asleep all night. It had to be Caitlin who killed Jasmine. “Marcus, I know you’re innocent. You slashed her tires, but that’s minor. If the murderer goes free, more people like Stella could be hurt—or killed.”
He toyed with the cup’s delicate rim but said nothing.
I leaned forward. “Are you willing to talk to the sheriff about this?”
He dropped his head to the table.
“I’ll stand behind you, I will. You have important information.”
“He’ll just want to throw me in jail,” came Marcus’s muffled voice.
“He wants to find the real murderer. You can help.”
chapter twenty-eight
Marcus wasn’t easily convinced, and it took a detailed reminder of Stella’s crash scene to get him to consider talking to Sheriff Koppen.
“I’m not going to his office,” Marcus said. “I’m not leaving here. I don’t want to see anyone.”
I didn’t blame him. Even though it was late, there was the chance that a resident would spot him and call the police, or worse. “Once they know you’ve helped put the real murderer in jail, your reputation will turn around,” I said. “You’ll see.”
He made a mumbling noise I couldn’t interpret.
With an eye on Marcus, fearing he’d change his mind and run off, I called the sheriff. As expected, the phone was forwarded to the county seat in Astoria. “This is urgent,” I said. “I have to talk to the sheriff.” I didn’t want to freak Marcus out by saying “I found a fugitive,” so I bent the truth a bit. “He told me to call him if I found myself in this situation.”
“Then why don’t you have his cell phone number?” the dispatcher said.
Why not, indeed? “It’s someone he’s been eager to talk to. About the Jasmine Normand case.” This got the dispatcher’s attention. “Tell him to meet me at Strings Attached. He knows where it is.” I suppressed the urge to ask that the sheriff bring food. No use pushing my luck.
Marcus sat, undisturbed. Apparently, once he’d made up his mind to talk to the sheriff, he’d stick to it. I was grateful.
“Tell me about your family, about growing up in Rock Point,” I said. We had to fill the time until the sheriff arrived. I didn’t want Marcus to have second thoughts.
For a moment, I thought Marcus hadn’t heard me. Then he said, “Rock Point’s still a small town, but it’s grown a lot since then.”
“You don’t like that very much.”
“Actually, I don’t mind. It brings opportunities for everyone. What I don’t like is thoughtless growth. People come here, make Rock Point bigger, then resent that fact and refuse to do anything to help it grow sensibly.” His expression shifted to a sneer. “So charming,” he said, mimicking a woman’s voice. “They think they can have their cake and eat it, too. They think it’s fine if they build a fancy beach house and run a store selling French cheese, but they want the rest of the town to stay exactly like it is.”
He was warming to his subject. “Like just now. You called the sheriff, and the call probably bounced up to Astoria. At what point do we get big enough to have law enforcement available twenty-four-seven? With tourists, with more people, we’re going to have incidents all night. But some summer-home owner will get mad that we have to move the sheriff out of that hole next to Martino’s and build a new office, maybe even with a holding cell.”
This was so not the Marcus I thought I knew from a mere two weeks ago. But I supposed it had been the real him all along. I’d just never bothered to find out. “You make a lot of sense. Have you thought about joining the city council?”
“In the nineteen-thirties, Farmington Salek was mayor of Rock Point. My great-grandfather.”
Marcus didn’t look particularly mayoral right now with his feral blond beard laced with gray and his less-than-fresh wardrobe, but he was articulate. He cared. He was also wanted by the sheriff for murder. At least we could try to do something about that.
As if on cue, Sheriff Koppen’s head and shoulders appeared in the back door’s window. I opened the door. The sheriff’s hand was on his gun, his elbow away from his body, ready to draw.
“It’s okay,” I said. “There’s nothing to worry about here. Marcus wants to talk, that’s all.”
The sheriff fixed his gaze on Marcus, still sitting at the dining room table. I stood between the two men and wouldn’t move until the sheriff relaxed his arms. I realized that I’d never seen the sheriff not in uniform, even on weekends, even at the grocery store. Now, he wore blue jeans and a T-shirt with the high school’s mascot on it, plus a long-sleeved plaid wool jacket. With a gun in its pocket.
“All right, Emmy. You can let me in now.”
I stepped aside and pulled out the chair I’d sat in just a minute ago. “For you. I’ll sit here.” With Father Wind suspended behind me, I moved to the stool at my drafting table.
“It’s been a while, Marcus.” The sheriff put his hands on the table, palms down. “You knew I needed to talk to you.”
“Of course I knew. You wanted to put me in jail for killing that TV star. I didn’t do it.” Marcus slouched, his arms firmly crossed in front of his chest.
“He saw Caitlin,” I said.
The sheriff shot me a warning look. “Should we go over to the office?”
“No,” Marcus said quickly. “I want to stay at Mrs. Ratcliff’s.”
Sheriff Koppen apparently got the reference, because he nodded. “Why don’t you tell me your story first, then we’ll get into specific questions?”
Marcus’s gaze dropped to the sheriff’s jacket. We both saw the bulge of handcuffs. Of course, the gun was a quick reach away, too.
“I don’t have proof that I didn’t do it, but I heard about Stella,” Marcus said. “I suppose I’d better tell my story.”
“Listen to what he says,” I urged. “Then question Caitlin again. That’s all I ask.”
At the squeal of brakes in the street, I leapt from the stool. Someone was pounding on the shop’s front door. Marcus bolted for the back door, but I placed myself in front of it, both arms out to stop him.
The sheriff stood, but remained calm. “Calm down. It’s backup. I didn’t know what I’d find here,” he told us. “Just a moment.” He went through the shop and unlatched the front door. As far as I could tell, two men in uniforms stood on the porch. I watched from the workshop’s door, but I couldn’t make out their co
nversation.
“The police?” Marcus asked.
“Yeah, I think so. They’re leaving.”
The sheriff bolted the front door and returned to the kitchen. “Sorry for the interruption. By the way, I asked them to bring back a pizza. That okay with you?”
Marcus raised his eyebrows, and I smiled.
It was all going to be all right.
chapter twenty-nine
Before I got out of bed the next morning, I called Salem Memorial to check on Stella. My phone was on my nightstand, and calling the hospital’s phone number was the simple matter of hitting “redial.”
Stella was conscious, the nurse on duty said. I made her repeat the news twice. Conscious! The relief I felt was so strong that I realized just how much I’d feared the worst.
I sat up. All at once the day was sunnier, happier. Stella was awake. And now that Marcus had told his story, the sheriff would be knocking on Caitlin’s door. Soon Stella would be able to corroborate what I knew had happened the night Jasmine died.
Last night, once a few slices of pizza had been devoured, Marcus had told the sheriff everything he had told me, and more. Sheriff Koppen had him walk through his movements that night, minute by minute. Marcus must have arrived at Jasmine’s shortly after I’d left my spot on the beach. He’d seen Caitlin, awake, downstairs, despite what she’d told the sheriff earlier. The only thing that bothered me was that Marcus hadn’t seen a man, as I had. It was possible, though, that Caitlin had a “guest” that night, and he’d left by the beach.
Sunny’s voice interrupted my thoughts. “Can I come in?” She didn’t wait before pushing open the door. Bear followed her and jumped up on the bed.