by Josh Lanyon
He looked me in the eye. “I know you were in a hotel in Seattle. Though I would prefer if we didn’t go into great detail about it, for the sake of my professional reputation.”
“Sure. But if we have to…”
Did I believe that Mac’s sole concern about being revealed to have slept with me was police-integrity related? No. Not for a second. But I also didn’t want to argue about it. Call me lazy.
“You have an alibi.” Mac released his grip. “Did Evelyn say if anything was taken?”
“No, but I can ask.” I started to tap out the question.
“No need. My cousin’s already telling me about it. He wants me to verify your whereabouts, which I am doing right now,” Mac stated firmly.
“So what actually happened?” I asked. Not only were Evelyn’s texts uninformative, but their disjointed nature worried me. She was old and probably wasn’t all that familiar with texting, but still…
“I can’t tell you.” Mac continued his laser-tight focus on his concealed phone screen.
“Oh, come on!”
“She’s okay, all right?” Mac said. “But I can’t tell you anything more, not before the sheriff has decided what information to release. That’s for your own protection, Drew. So that you don’t appear to have information that only the police and the perpetrator would have.”
“Oh. Right.”
“That said, I can’t stop you from going straight to the source. I bet Evelyn would love to tell you all about it. She isn’t the type to say so, but I think it would reassure her to have you visit her.”
“I will do that.” I tapped out a query and shot it out into the ether.
Evelyn didn’t immediately reply, so I started my morning routine. When I emerged from the bath, I saw that Mac had already gone. But he left a note that read: Have to go talk with Seattle PD. Meet me on the ferry.
***
The ride back to the island proved uneventful. We sat together, though once outside the hotel space, Mac reverted to his blandly friendly demeanor—his professional face.
It annoyed me more than I thought it would. But I couldn’t stop myself from wanting to be near him, thirsty for his attention.
“What do you think the odds are of having a murder and an assault happen in the same week?” I asked.
“Good if they happened at the same place and time,” Mac replied. “These were a few days apart. Still, the chances of them being related are better than average.”
“Please, Mac, don’t overstate it. I can’t stand it when you’re such a drama queen.” Belatedly I noticed that more than a few of the ferry seats were occupied by familiar faces—not people I knew by name, but I’d seen them around town. I toned it down. “Are you going to go see Evelyn and Julie with me?”
“No, I’m going to the station before I pick up the investigation,” Mac said. “What are your plans after that?”
“For the investigation? I’m not sure.”
“Please be joking.”
“I’m really not.” I lowered my voice below the range of the gaggle of commuting snoops who surrounded us. “I need this thing solved, like, yesterday.”
“I understand that. What you don’t seem to get is that these things take time. And some crimes never get solved and you just have to live with that.” Mac’s deadpan delivery communicated more to me than mere words could. “A solution is not guaranteed, no matter how big a nuisance you make of yourself.”
“That does nothing to reassure me that I’m not going to be wrongfully convicted, you realize,” I informed Mac.
“I’m sorry I have to put it bluntly,” Mac said, “but it’s like you’re not capable of perceiving that you’re not a law-enforcement officer.” Mac spoke without anger. More with incredulity at my arrogance. “Okay, let’s say you do figure out who this murderer is. What do you think you’re going to do?”
“Perform a citizen’s arrest?”
“That’s only for felonies committed in your presence. I’m assuming you weren’t present for either of these felonies?”
“No.” I felt a sulk coming on.
“Then you can’t arrest anyone, okay? Just try to be patient. I’ll find out more about it when we get back to the island.”
“That won’t help me, though, since you won’t tell me about it.”
“Just because I’m not telling you about it doesn’t mean it’s not ever going to help you,” Mac said. “It just means you won’t be in control of it, which is as it should be. You shouldn’t be planning to confront a violent person. Ever.”
“You can be surprisingly annoying,” I said.
Mac shrugged as though his behavior was out of his hands.
The autumn morning was gray and foggy. Slate-gray seas and dove-gray sky. As we neared the shoreline, Camas Island seemed to coalesce into existence just in time for the ferry to dock. Deep-green conifers crowded the shoreline, punctuated by intermittent bursts of yellow leaves.
Finally, Mac broke the silence. “So from what Evelyn’s texted you, what do you know?”
“Around three a.m., a man broke in and tried to smother Julie. Evelyn raised the alarm, and the guy escaped.”
Mac nodded.
I continued, “My question is: why attack Julie? And even if you decided to do that, why would you think Evelyn would just lay there and watch you do it?”
Mac sighed. “Maybe the intruder didn’t realize they’d be in the same bed. Neither of them is physically imposing. And in the dark it might be easy to miss that there are two old ladies instead of one.”
Inspiration hit me like a flash.
“Which means we don’t really know if Julie was the intended target. The guy could have been going for Evelyn, which makes more sense.”
“How is that the next logical step?” Mac asked.
“Julie hardly ever leaves the Beehive, whereas Evelyn is always wandering around town, looking into people’s windows and snooping. What if the murderer thinks Evelyn saw something on the night Dorian was killed? He’d think he needed to silence her. What—” I leaned closer to Mac. “What if she actually did see something?”
“If Evelyn had any information regarding this case, she’d have reported it,” Mac said. “She may not be all that fond of the police department, but she’s not the type to let anyone get away with murdering her family.”
I had to agree with Mac on that point.
“So you really think the break-in and the murder aren’t related?” I asked.
“I didn’t say that,” Mac replied. “I just don’t believe that Evelyn would knowingly withhold information that could convict Dorian’s killer.”
“But unknowingly?” I suggested.
“Maybe,” Mac allowed. “The reality is that it’s too early to be leaping to conclusions. At this point we still don’t know why Dorian was killed. Was the murder motivated by jealousy? Rage? Greed?”
“Probably not greed,” I said. “Dorian burned through his cash way too fast to have some big, hidden stash of money. As long as I’ve known him, he hadn’t owned much more than an old Subaru Outback.”
And the man-purse he dealt coke out of.
I paused, allowing myself to listen to my thoughts.
“Oh my God! His bag. I just realized. That thing was hardly ever out of his possession, but it wasn’t downstairs with him when I found the body.”
I pulled out my phone and went to Lionel’s social-media feed. I scrolled back through dozens of new, virtually indistinguishable selfies until I came to the pictures Lionel had taken at the party that Thursday night. I spotted Dorian’s bag sitting on the back bar next to the espresso machine.
“See? Here it is on Thursday night. But the bag definitely wasn’t on the bar when I went in and discovered Lionel sleeping on the floor the next morning.” I continued swiping through the photos until I spotted the bag again.
“Here! It’s here!” My heartbeat picked up as I studied the picture and realized I recognized the man wearing Dorian’s bag slung o
ver his shoulder. “This is Sam’s fuck-buddy…what the hell is his name? Danielle’s brother…”
“Alfred Tomkins,” Mac supplied.
When I turned to look at Mac, he pinned me with a vexed stare and said, “It’s kind of amazing that you will break off a conversation with me to actively research a case I literally just told you to stop researching.”
“I’m not just researching it.” I wiggled my phone in front of him enticingly. “I’m solving it. This is your guy.”
“You think Alfred Tomkins—the vegetarian surfer—killed Dorian to steal his bag?” Mac studied the picture with an unconvinced expression.
“There’s nothing that prohibits a vegetarian from committing murder; just from eating the body,” I responded. “And he’s got Dorian’s bag in this photo.”
“And after he stole the bag, he broke into Evelyn and Julie’s place…why?”
My triumph deflated, but I clung to the fact that I had discovered something fresh. Alfred Tomkins had stolen Dorian’s bag. Though that didn’t make him a murderer and it didn’t give him a motive to accost Julie or Evelyn.
“What if the person who killed Dorian and the person who attacked Julie are different people? What if when Alfred stole Dorian’s gear, he set off a chain reaction?”
“Hold on.” Mac held up his hand like he was directing traffic and I was doing forty in a school zone. “Tell me exactly what you think was in the carryall.”
“Cocaine,” I said. “And probably MDMA. At least that’s what was in it the last time I saw him open it up.”
Mac raised his brows. “You saw it. Right. So Dorian was in possession of a carryall full of drugs at the time of his murder. It would have been helpful to have this information earlier.” I could hear the edge of annoyance in his voice. “Certainly points to one strong motive for killing him.”
“Right, except like you said, it wouldn’t make sense for the person who had the bag to bother with a break-in.” I pondered the problem. “Unless someone else had the same idea—to rob Dorian. Maybe they went to the Eelgrass and killed Dorian, but then they couldn’t find his bag?”
“Because Alfred had already stolen it,” Mac finished.
“And then when they heard that Dorian had gone to see Evelyn before he went to Eelgrass, they broke into her place, looking—”
“Wait!” Mac cut me off again. “Dorian visited Evelyn directly before he was murdered? How was I not informed of this?”
My blood ran cold. In my rush to impress Mac, I’d blabbed Evelyn’s previous confidence.
“Evelyn just mentioned it offhand…” I trailed off.
I could see the flush of frustrated anger rise in Mac’s face. He glared past the railing at the green-gray water. Slowly the tension drained from his expression. He took in a deep breath, then released it very slowly and turned back to me.
“Is there anything else you’ve been holding back from me?” Mac asked.
“I wasn’t purposefully omitting information. I just didn’t know you then.”
“But you do now?” The direct challenge in Mac’s voice surprised me, but I held my nerve.
“I know you’re more than a pair of cop shoes.”
“That is true.” Mac’s voice warmed fractionally. “So now that you’ve gotten to know me with my shoes off, you’re going to tell me everything, right? Because you can understand how knowing that Dorian had been to see Evelyn might have given us a heads-up. It might have helped us prevent the assault on Julie.”
I hadn’t thought of that, but hearing Mac say it, I realized why he’d been so angry.
“Yeah, I do now,” I admitted. I hoped Evelyn would see it the same way.
I spent the remainder of the ferry ride detailing all I could remember of my conversation with her about Dorian. After the ferry docked, Mac didn’t offer me a ride. I hadn’t expected him to, but still felt disappointed anyway.
Because I’m an idiot.
Chapter Ten
For the first time since I’d stepped off this ferry two years earlier, I considered the nature of Camas Island. It had both real and conceptual borders and barriers. There were less than seven thousand residents on the whole rock, and Orca’s Slough was home to half of them.
In this kind of close environment, people couldn’t hide nearly as much from each other. Everyone knew everyone else’s business—or thought they did. Gossip and grudges couldn’t dissipate across vast distances. But people could also be close, in the best way. Nowhere else would I have found myself hanging out daily with an oldster like Evelyn and a kid like Lionel like some kind of three-generation advertisement for family of choice.
I needed to see Evelyn and Julie, if only to apologize for being off in Seattle the one night they needed help. And for taking the only trustworthy cop on the island with me.
When I stepped into Evelyn and Julie’s room at the Beehive, the first thing I saw was a large cardboard square covering a basketball-sized hole in the room’s one window. Autumn cold seeped around the makeshift patch. Next I laid eyes on Julie’s battered face, and immediately and without reservation wanted to murder whoever did that to such a small, frail old woman. I couldn’t stop myself from looking down at Evelyn’s hands. Two of her nails were torn, and her knuckles were red and swollen.
“I’d say you should see the other guy, but I barely scratched him,” Evelyn said glumly.
“You did your best. You’re just not the bruiser you once were.” Julie’s voice was slurred.
“Did he give you a concussion?” I knelt down beside Julie’s overstuffed red armchair.
“No.” Julie’s exasperation with my question was obvious. “And I’m not having a stroke either. I sound funny because my lip is split. That’s all.”
“You really didn’t see him at all?” I asked.
Evelyn patted my shoulder. “Drew, we can barely read the subtitles on the television, and it’s sixty-five inches.”
“I think this has to do with the murder,” Julie said in a stage whisper.
The fact that the assailant hadn’t knocked the theatricality out of her comforted me. And made me want to cry, and to strangle the guy who had hurt them. I hadn’t expected to be such a mess. I had to pull myself together.
“I agree,” I managed to say.
We both looked at Evelyn, who sighed.
“Yeah, that’s what the Five-O said when he phoned and gave me business for not telling him that Dorian had visited me.” Evelyn sighed again and then gave me a sidelong look. “I think I need you to give me a ride to the bank.”
“What for?”
“On that day, Dorian asked to put some things in my safe-deposit box. Most of it was just junk he’d picked up and a couple photos of his grandma’s. But he had a sealed envelope too. It’s probably time I looked inside it,” Evelyn said.
Julie nodded in vigorous agreement.
“Wait…what? You didn’t tell this to Mac when he called just now?” I demanded.
“Look, this morning the sheriff trotted in here and started squealing at me about how I brought this on myself and how Dorian deserved what he got.” Evelyn glared at the empty doorway as if she could still see the sheriff standing there.
“We’re not used to having a friendly relationship with Sheriff Mackenzie,” Julie explained. “And that envelope could contain absolutely anything.”
“Dorian trusted me with it. I can’t just hand it over to some pig before I know what’s in it.” Evelyn gazed down at her bruised hands. “Dorian had his faults, I know. But I can still remember what a sweet little boy he was. He used to make me laugh. And when he got older and realized about me and Julie, he didn’t care. He was the only member of my family who didn’t care.”
I nearly responded that Dorian’s open-mindedness probably resulted from having literally no morals, but stopped myself. Of course they cared about the one person who seemed to accept them as they were. And who knew? Maybe he had. What did I know about it?
Nothing. Nothing at all
.
“I can give you a ride to the bank, but…what about this?” I gestured at the broken window. “Why isn’t there someone here fixing it?”
“The handyman’s on the other side of the island at the other facility. He says he can be here tomorrow.” Evelyn crossed her arms over her chest.
“So what? They expect you to just stay here in this freezing, pre-broken-into room overnight? What if the assailant comes back? What if you get fucking hypothermia?”
“We’ve got electric blankets,” Evelyn said.
“And we can snuggle close.” Julie threw Evelyn the sort of playful, blatantly sexual look I was not used to seeing outside of a black-and-white movie. Though charming, it was not convincing.
“That’s just not good enough. Who’s in charge here? Katie the kitchen cop? They could at least put up some plywood instead of this.” I flicked the cardboard with my finger.
“Don’t be mean, Drew. Katie does her best,” Julie said.
“Who is Katie’s boss, then?” I pulled out my phone and started to search the Beehive’s website.
“Drew, don’t cause trouble,” Evelyn said. Then Julie laid a hand on her arm.
“Go on. Let him. I like this new butch persona he’s trying on,” she said.
“I’m not trying on a new persona!” I returned to my regular tone. “I just don’t want anybody to think they can push you around.”
“Anymore,” Evelyn added.
Never again, I promised them silently.
For the next forty-five minutes I harassed the management until they finally agreed to let me hire a handyman myself in Orca’s Slough. Then I spent another hour finding a handyman willing to be hired by me on short notice, in the rain.
His name was Cliff, and his fee drained what was left of my savings, but by three that afternoon, the broken window at the Beehive had been secured and Julie was resting beneath an electric blanket cranked all the way up to nine.
With the arrangements around the window, I hadn’t had time to worry about Mac. Now I wondered if I should tell him I was taking Evelyn to the bank. I decided that although I should, I wouldn’t. The envelope could contain anything or nothing, and it was Evelyn’s call whether we would, in her words, “involve the law.”