Page 58 of Bait and Switch
“You knew Suzie Warner, right?”
“Suzie Warner,” she repeated. “Now that’s a name I haven’t heard in years. I knew her well enough, I suppose. She was a couple of years older than me. You know how it is in high school. Heaven forbid you associate with underclassmen. But yeah, I knew her.”
“Think back. Can you remember if she was seen after the party? Did she have plans to leave the island right away?”
There was silence while Greta thought back two decades.
“I don’t have a steel-trap memory like you do, Casey. But I don’t recall seeing her around. I mean, she was saying her goodbyes at that party, so one would assume she was at least leaving soon. Why?”
Casey looked at Gabe and Elton, his eyebrows raised. Were they telling Greta what they’d found? They both nodded.
“We found her backpack tonight, on Gordon’s property.”
She was silent for a heartbeat. “The fuck you did.”
“The fuck we did. Calvin Perkins was there, admitted to setting tonight’s fire. Something to do with his brother, but honestly, I don’t think that detail matters. But he had the pack, or he found it there, or something along those lines. I don’t know if he was planning on trying to burn it too or what. He may not have had a plan. Before I could learn more, someone attacked me—hit me on the head pretty good—and now Calvin is in the wind again. And so is whoever whacked me.”
“Damn.”
“Yeah, the attacker disappeared when Gabriel and Elton showed up. They ended up leaving the pack behind.”
“And you’re sure it’s Suzie’s?”
“There’s a tag attached with her name on it. We haven’t opened it. The less we screw around with it, the better.”
“Are you planning on taking it to the sheriff?” she asked carefully. Greta was fully aware of Casey’s innate distrust of the Twana County Sheriff’s Office. And of Sheriff Rizzi in particular.
“We haven’t talked next steps yet.”
Turning the bag in was the right thing to do, but sometimes the obvious right thing was all wrong. Casey was thinking that the Westfort PD would be the better choice. Technically, the sheriff had jurisdiction over the entire county, which included The Valley, but Casey didn’t want Rizzi getting his hands on the bag too soon. Too easy for it to get “lost.” It wouldn’t be the first piece of evidence to conveniently go missing.
“This is going to blow up the island,” Greta eventually said.
“There’s more,” Elton interjected.
Casey cut over to him, surprised. What else could there be, wasn’t finding a missing girl’s backpack where it wasn’t supposed to be enough? Shit, it had been a long day. It was almost—he glanced down at his watch—nine p.m., but it felt closer to midnight. Or he was getting old.
“What is it?” Greta asked.
“Remember how John Stevens was here earlier? That’s what we were calling you about, Casey, to go over what he said and what Kelly Perkins told us when we stopped by her place.”
Elton started speaking and when he was done, Casey was ready to tear somebody’s head off, starting off with Stevens and ending with Rizzi. Twenty years ago, no one had believed him, and it was because the sheriff and the prosecutor had a deal.
“Holy fuck,” muttered Greta.
“But who killed Peter and why?” Gabe asked. “Not to make it about me or anything, but Peter is the most recently murdered person. His death fits in with all this somehow, but he would’ve left Heartstone before Suzie Warner’s or Maya’s deaths, right? Which means that Stevens is a key player here because that’s the only way Peter relates to all this. He prosecuted your brother, right? Using evidence provided by the sheriff, with whom Stevens was in a partnership?”
“I cannot wait to meet you in person, Gabriel,” said Greta. “You’re thinking Rizzi had—has—Stevens by the balls, and I totally agree. Fast forward twenty years, his son’s murder changes everything, and now Stevens regrets his entire life, as he fucking should. Now what?”
“I’m guessing Stevens is telling the truth about wanting to reconnect with his son. He tried to end, or at least retire from, the agreement, and Vale’s death was the result.” That was Elton.
“He admitted that Peter got a look at some documents,” Gabe said. “Maybe Peter saw something or maybe Stevens said something to him that tipped him off. I guess we’ll never know. Did Peter confront Rizzi? Did he go up to see what Snowcap Estates was and, I dunno, end up seeing something he shouldn’t have?”
Casey eyed Gabe. He suspected that, had Gabe been in Peter’s situation, he would have snooped around.
“If he did drive up there, he could have run into Rizzi or whoever else is part of the investment group,” Casey said. “Maybe he wasn’t killed on purpose, but they”—now he used finger quotes—“decided to leave his body at the marina as a message to Stevens.”
“Why not at Stevens’s house?” Gabe asked.
