Page 71 of Light of Day
She waved away the hand Luke offered. “I warned them not to send me out here,” she grumbled. “But my partner’s sick, and I’d be on desk duty otherwise. So here I am. What do have for me?”
“Do you need some coffee? Breakfast? The best place on the island nearly burned down last night, but the second-best place opened early.”
The Clambake Grill had stepped into the breach for the sake of the island’s fishing community—and their pocketbooks, of course.
“I just googled how to get over seasickness. BRAT, they call it. Bananas, rice, applesauce and toast. Do they serve any of that shit?”
“Toast, for sure. Probably bananas.”
“Let’s go.”
Over the most bland and easily digestible meal the Clambake could offer—cream of wheat and packaged banana pudding—Luke filled Detective Chen in on everything he knew about the Denton Simms case. She listened closely, clearly shutting out her nausea by focusing on the details.
“So you think this historical angle is a good one?” she asked when Luke was done.
“Nothing else has surfaced.”
“What about the beneficiary of his will? What was that name?” She flipped a page on her pad. Luke was embarrassed that he hadn’t dug up any more information about Sasha Mackey.
“I left her a few messages, but she hasn’t called back. Anyway, why would she burn down the house she just inherited? It’s still in probate. She won’t get anything now.”
“It’s still good practice to investigate anyone who’s a beneficiary of a murder victim.”
Luke couldn’t argue with that. He drank from his coffee cup, the bitter taste matching his mood. He should have done more to solve Denton’s murder. Instead he’d gotten distracted by everything going on with Heather.
Wasn’t that her reputation? She stirred up trouble wherever she went?
“You ruled out the kid who got hauled off to the hospital?”
“It was just an overnight stay…but yes. He’s not a suspect. Apart from anything else, he has a firm alibi for the time of Denton’s death. He was busy kidnapping someone on the other side of the island.”
“This place…” Detective Chen shook her head. “Is it always like this out here? Crime-o-rama?”
“Not at all. We’re usually very peaceful. Not counting the weather, obviously.” Luke glanced out at the wind ruffling the surface of the water, white spray flying off the tops of the waves. “White horses,” his mother used to call the whitecaps. “So what’s your first step?”
“Scene of the crime, of course. Can you take me out there?”
“Of course, but don’t expect much. It’s a grassy hilltop open to the elements. I doubt anything helpful is left.”
“Only one way to find out.”
Luke suppressed his frustration that he was stuck ferrying around this off-island detective when he could be finding out who was behind these damn fires. It must have been several people, based on the timing. One person at the Bloodshot Eyeball, one at his house, another at Denton’s.
At this point, his prime suspect was his own father. John Carmichael III had the money to pay people to do his bidding, and the ease with which the perpetrators had broken in suggested they were professionals. He ought to go interrogate his dad. Instead he had to trek out to the North Point with a seasick detective.
The motion of his truck seemed to make matters worse. He had to keep pulling over so the poor woman could take gulps of fresh air by the side of the road.
Once they were at the North Point, the wind helped. The color returned to Chen’s cheeks. She even climbed down the first few feet of the ledge to see up close where Denton had tumbled across the rocks.
“We looked down there pretty thoroughly,” Luke told her. He squatted on the ledge, ready to snag the detective if her footing slipped. Beyond her, creamy foam swirled against the rocks a hundred yards down.
“Sometimes fresh eyes can help.”
After a few minutes of intensive searching, Chen hauled herself back up next to Luke.
“See anything we missed?”
“No. But I have a theory.”
