Page 28 of Light of Day
“Stay away from Judy, the manager. She’s a gargoyle.” Sally reflected for a moment, tapping her order pen against her bottom lip. “Heidi Ochoa, Lydia’s kid, is working out there. You could try her. Tell her I sent you. She owes me for about three months’ worth of mochas.”
“Thanks, Mom.” On impulse, Heather hugged her mother, who froze for a moment in surprise before hugging her back. Their family had never been big on physical demonstrations of affection.
She set off on her bike, knowing that most likely someone would stop and offer her a ride. Sure enough, Tom Nelson, the gregarious mop-topped carpenter who had fixed her mom’s roof last winter, cruised to a stop next to her about a mile down the road.
With her bike stowed in the back of his truck, they drove to the hotel, chatting—of course—about poor Denton Simms.
“People are saying something’s fishy about the whole thing. I don’t think for a second he would have offed himself. Denton was pretty religious.”
“You never know what’s really going on with people,” Heather pointed out.
“But suicide? Why? More likely to be murder, in my book.”
“Murder?” Not even the customers at the Bloodshot Eyeball had suggested that. “Who would murder him? Did he have enemies? He barely fished anymore, did he?”
“He had that feud with the Prevosts. TUs Mainers can hold a grudge.”
“I don’t know.” Heather pulled a dubious face. “I know the lobster wars can get serious, but no one’s ever been murdered because of them.”
“Maybe it wasn’t that.” Tom lifted a hand off the wheel to wave at a truck passing the other way. “But if I was the police here, I’d be looking into murder. You know I worked on Jimmy’s chimney a few weeks ago. I heard him and Denton go at each other hardcore.”
“They were fighting?” Jimmy hadn’t mentioned anything like that yesterday. Maybe it was completely irrelevant, or maybe not.
“Oh yah. I might have heard a punch, but I’m not sure who hit who. By the time I climbed off the ladder, Denton was gone.”
“What were they fighting about?”
“I really couldn’t tell. It sounded like one of them was about to bust out a secret, and the other didn’t want him to. Their voices always sounded the same to me, so don’t ask me which was which.”
If Denton wanted to reveal this “secret,” whatever it was, and Jimmy didn’t—would that be enough to commit murder over? Murder of abrother? Heather found that hard to believe, unless the secret was something truly terrible and life-altering, and she couldn’t imagine what that would be.
A brisk wind made the Lightkeeper Inn’s flags do a lively dance at the top of the flagpoles. None of them were lowered in honor of the dead body a guest had found. Should they be? Heather had no idea, but something about the stately building’s obliviousness felt disrespectful. Guests lounged in the Adirondack chairs clustered around propane heaters on the front terrace. Staffers in golf carts drove here and there across the property. It was business as usual here in the land of the languid.
Whatever. Why should anyone in this privileged world care about an elderly drowning victim they didn’t even know?
Tom dropped her off at the service entrance at the back of the hotel. “You can find Heidi at the front desk, but I can’t drop you off there. All trucks have to come back here.”
“No worries. Thanks for the ride.” She unloaded her bike and propped it against the back wall of the hotel, next to a hose bib. Next chance she had, she was going to squirt WD-40 all over her kickstand and see if she could free it up.
Not that she was staying. God no. But she needed wheels while she was here looking for Gabby.
She found Heidi Ochoa tapping on a keyboard at the front desk. With her dark hair swept up into a tight ballerina bun, and large tortoiseshell-framed glasses perched on her nose, she was nearly unrecognizable as the little girl she used to babysit.
“Heather McPhee? What are you doing here?” As a greeting, it lacked warmth. But what could Heather expect, as someone who’d left and rarely looked back? “I don’t see a reservation for you.”
“My mom sent me. I’m looking for a friend who was staying here.”
Heidi didn’t bother to hide her surprise. “A friend of yours?”
“I know, it seems impossible that I would know someone with that kind of money. But yes, a friend of mine. Gabby Ramon. She’s missing.” All of the hotel staff must know that by now. “I’m a close friend of hers and I’m hoping I can help find her.”
“You’ll have to talk to someone else. I don’t know anything.” Heidi angled her body away from Heather’s in an obvious “get out of my face” move.
“Are you sure? You must have seen her coming and going. Don’t you work here full-time?”
A minuscule shrug was her only answer. Heidi fixed her gaze on the computer as if Chris Hemsworth was waving to her from the screen.
But Heather wasn’t one to give up; she was just getting started. Someone she used to babysit was absolutely not going to get the best of her. She lowered her voice. “I’m sure you guys don’t want word getting out that a guest is missing. That, on top of another guest finding a dead body…I don’t know, that sounds bad for business to me.”
