Chapter 13
Late Wednesday Afternoon
Amanda drove her mother’s ancient Cadillac back to Webb’s Glass Shop, unlocked the front door, and turned the hanging sign over from CLOSED to OPEN. She felt a huge weight pressing down on her heart because her friends knew nothing about her relationship with Martin. She should have told them when she had the chance. It didn’t make sense, but she appeared to be keeping secrets from the sheer habit of it. Despicable. What remained of her heart seemed like a deep hollow, and she had a sense that a possible future had been severed.
She went back to the office and logged into the computer system. Although the system was old, it still worked like a champ. She logged in to her social accounts and started the slog to find connections that might prove helpful to the investigation into Martin’s bottles.
Although they had texted almost obsessively, she knew he hadn’t frequented the popular social sites and shared anything personal. He had regularly posted a link to a Web site he used for selling his driftwood creations, but the entries had been scheduled in advance. She followed the link and, starting with last month, began searching through the comments participants had left when he posted pictures of his creations.
Most of the comments were complimentary, and Martin answered questions about the components he used and where he had found them. One poster, however, was consistently caustic and accused Martin of using unsavory methods for acquiring the more esoteric parts that were skewing his work toward the steampunk crowd.
Not sure how this could be relevant, Amanda continued to gather a list of unpleasant interactions. She noticed one of them in particular increased in venom as she neared the current date. That Martin didn’t respond to the attacks seemed both strange and sensible. He had ordinarily been quick to try to align fate to his will. Maybe Martin knew that nothing would thwart a troll’s attacks. The most vitriolic postings originated from someone with the user name Anonymous. And all postings from Anonymous had stopped abruptly on the day of Martin’s death.
She leaned back in the creaky old chair, then stood and paced the small office. The next bit of research would entail a bit of hacking in order to identify the troll that had plagued Martin for no apparent reason.
She looked at her watch. It was closing time for the shop, so she went from room to room, turning off the cash register, locking the front door, checking on the status of the kiln, and turning off all the lights, except for the ones near the street-side windows.
Back in the office, she settled down to the tricky challenge of identifying Martin’s troll before she needed to visit her mother. There was always the pressure to make time to go to the home and visit her mother every day, if at all possible. Sometimes, her mother didn’t know her, but the staff knew she was apt to visit her mother at all times of the night and day. Amanda was convinced that the staff gave extra care and attention to her mother because of the frequency and irregularity of her visits. It also made Amanda feel better.
After following multiple threads of information, Amanda finally tracked the owner of the vicious comments to an identifier pointing to a business Web site. She followed the address to a salvage and dive operator who advertised private excursions into the Gulf of Mexico at half-day and full-day rates. The name of the business was Collins Salvage and Diving. It took another series of selective searches to track down the registered owner of the business. The owner was Captain Larry Collins.
She had begun to consider the impact of her discovery when she was startled by a loud knock on the front door. She frowned. The sign was turned to CLOSED, and no one should be trying to get into the shop after hours.
“Ridiculous,” she huffed. “We’re closed.”
She peeked around the office door to see who might be trying to get in. It was Detective Parker. He was standing in front of the door, with a very determined and no-nonsense look on his face.
He knows about Martin and me!
She hurried to open the door and stepped back. She stepped back so quickly, she lost her balance and had to grab the door quickly to keep from falling. As Detective Parker walked into the shop, Amanda thought he had gotten taller since she saw him last. She cleared her throat.
“What on earth brings you here? It’s after hours.”
Detective Parker looked down at Amanda, and the silence grew long and loud.
Amanda repeatedly wrung her hands in a folding motion. “I know. I know. You found Martin’s phone, didn’t you? I knew you would. You know, don’t you? You know about us, right?”
“Since you knew I would find the phone, why didn’t you call and save us both this aggravation?”
“I thought there was a possibility the phone was lost. It was possible, you know. Martin was ridiculously careless with his phone. It was a cheap flip phone with the tiniest call plan ever.”
“We would have gotten the phone records regardless. Even without the physical phone. It merely takes a little longer.”
Amanda covered her face with both hands. “I know. I—”
“I know for certain you know,” Detective Parker interrupted. “What I don’t understand is why you didn’t contact me as soon as Savannah suggested to us that the diver’s body was that of Martin Lane.”
“I was afraid you would arrest me.”
“Not without reasonable evidence.”
“But I don’t know that. I’ve been involved in two separate investigations where a completely innocent person was suspected of murder. That’s twice! Twice!” She halted for a moment to press her ample chest with her hands. “Then the other thing is I need to be with my mother every day. She needs me every day. She would get frightened and maybe the staff would neglect her and maybe she would fall and . . .” Amanda lowered her hands and looked at the floor. “What do you want?”
“It’s not a big problem. You only need to come down to the station to make a statement about your relationship with Martin and answer our questions about his actions. I also need to know where you were the night Martin was killed.”
“It’s a big problem.” Amanda looked up at Detective Parker. “You see, I was with my mom at the nursing home that night. I used to work there before I got my job with Webb’s Glass Shop, and I still have a key. All the staff know me, and I usually help them out when I visit Mom. But her memory isn’t good, and no one knows I was with her that night, so I don’t have an alibi.” She bit her fingernail. “No alibi.”
“We’ll do our job and check with the staff. You might not have seen someone who saw you. But if we can’t verify that you were definitely elsewhere, I’ll have to bring you in for questioning.”
Amanda felt her heart in her throat.