Page 6 of Bait and Switch
“They’ll question me since I knew him,” Karne said, interrupting Casey’s train of thought. “And they’ll probably want me to go to the station. But I swear, I haven’t seen Peter in weeks, and that time was through a car window as I was driving away. The last time we talked was over a month ago. Maybelonger. Like I said, it was over. We were headed in different directions.” Karne huffed a quasi-laugh. “He didn’t even know my mother died. That’s how fucking close we were at the end.”
Something about that statement didn’t sit right with Casey. Not that he thought Karne was lying, he didn’t. But from the little he knew about Gabriel Karne, he just couldn’t see him in a relationship that basically consisted of two strangers. Karne liked to talk, to be with people. He reveled in what Casey’s work partner Greta would callconnection.Even Casey, who prided himself on being an introvert and liked none of those things, could see that.
Elton harrumphed. “How did he get here, then?”
The old man was on the same wavelength as Casey. If Vale and Karne weren’t close, what had brought Vale to Heartstone?
“I have no idea,” Karne said. “None at all.”
“Right, then,” Casey nodded. “We’ll try and keep it simple for whoever shows up. Easy enough since I don’t know anything and neither does Elton. But once they’re gone, we need to have a sit-down. They’ll want Karne to go into the station with them, but there’s security feed of the dock, and no one came in through the gate this morning except the three of us.”
“What?” Karne spun to stare at him. “Why didn’t you say something about the security feed?”
“I just did.”
“Fuck you. It would have been nice to know there’s proof I didn’t kill Peter, because I didn’t.”
Casey started to point out that Karne still could have been responsible for Vale’s death, that Vale could have come in by boat. But Casey couldn’t make himself believe that Karne was a killer. He doubted Karne had access to anything bigger than a rowboat and the idea that he could kill someone, drop the body into a boat, row it to the dock, and somehow heft deadweightonto the dock and then onto theShangri-Lawas ridiculous. Unless Peter had arrived via water of his own accord.
Casey glanced at Karne, distrusting the direction his thoughts had taken.
The entrance at the end of the pier rattled. The sheriff himself, Eli Rizzi, and a deputy waited impatiently on the other side of the chain-link gate. Casey abandoned his musings and strode over to open the lock and let the sheriff and deputy onto the dock.
THREE
Casey
Monday afternoon
Deputy Bree Eaganhad excellent instincts; if Sheriff Rizzi allowed it, she was going to become a great investigator. Casey had often wondered if Eagan would leave the island for a better chance at advancement. He doubted Rizzi would give her the room to grow. The good ol’ boy just wasn’t that kind of leader.
Casey shivered even with his parka zipped to his chin, chilled from standing outside and in one place for too long. The wet and chilly weather he’d felt coming had rolled in along with the sheriff. A gentle sleeting rain had begun to fall, and a foggy mist had settled over the bay. In a way, the weather was a complement to the scene. Death was depressing and violent death even more so.
On one side of the dock, Chief Rizzi was interviewing Karne, while Deputy Eagan was taking down Casey’s statement nearThe Barbara. Casey didn’t envy Karne. From where Casey stood twenty feet away, he could see his expression was a mix offrustration, anger, and sadness. Rizzi was not going to get far with the TCSO’s star suspect.
The county coroner, a local guy named Brett Davidson, was also on the scene. He’d arrived not long after TCSO. There wasn’t a bustling team of people like on TV shows, just Rizzi, Eagan, Davidson, and the ambulance drivers who would remove the body to the hospital.
Of average height and a bit on the heavy side, Davidson was in his fifties. The coroner was an appointed official whose qualifications were that he’d “been interested in the position,” owned a funeral home, and he and his wife had taken a certification class from the state. Casey supposed Davidson was marginally better than what they’d had before. For decades before his appointment, the coroner had also been a county prosecutor.
Davidson would confirm the manner and probably cause of death and then the body would be transported by ambulance to the hospital. It was up to TCSO to gather evidence and catch whoever was responsible for the killing. As far as Casey was aware, this was only the second homicide this year, with Dwayne Perkins being the first.
“So, just to make sure I have the facts correct, you arrived, and Mr. Karne was standing on the pier near the ...” Eagan looked down at her notes. “TheShangri-La. You didn’t see anyone else, and the gate was locked.”
“The gate is always locked.”
“Who else has a key?”
“At the moment, Elton, Karne, and myself. I changed the lock a while back, but none of the other owners have come to collect theirs.”
“Huh, okay.” She glanced up, waiting for Casey to say more.
“I’d been trying to get a hold of the marina board to get permission to change the lock, but it’s a process, so I tookmatters into my own hands. It’s not as if I’m difficult to track down.”
“And when you arrived, Mr. Karne was?—”
“Talking to my dog.”
“I doubt your dog will be able to answer my questions,” Eagan said dryly.
