TWENTY-SEVEN
Poppy dropped everyone but me off at the marina. I called an Uber and went to the airport to rent a car. By 7:30, I was headed out of the airport and back towards Charleston in a cream-colored Ford Edge. I drove back to the marina and waited for Nate to return in Darius’s boat with our laptops and some basic equipment. We’d lost tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of equipment in the back of the Explorer. It would take weeks—and lots of money—to replace it all. Just then I was pondering the deductible on our insurance.
It was almost 9:00 when Nate called and said he was pulling into the marina. I met him at the dock and helped move equipment to the back of the Edge.
“Maybe we should both stay in town today,” said Nate. “I can work on my laptop from the passenger seat while you do your thing.”
I tilted my head, flashed him a look that said, Give me a break.
“Okay, fine. I’m headed back to the house then.” He kissed me goodbye. “Call me when you’re ready for me to pick you up.”
Auggie agreed to meet me in the clubhouse at Cooper River Farms. I had no desire whatsoever to go back to his apartment. His entourage might well all have some sort of pathological attachment to him. But in my personal experience, he invited attention from any woman handy. They could likely all benefit from the counsel of a high-dollar therapist. The question was, which one of them was a killer?
Architecturally, the clubhouse resembled a large farmhouse attached to a barn with a metal grain bin with huge windows in between the two. As I climbed the steps to the wide front porch, I scanned the area for any of Auggie’s groupies. If they were there, they were well-hidden.
The main room of the clubhouse had soaring ceilings and exposed beams. Auggie waited in a leather chair facing the stone fireplace. I took a seat on the cream-colored sofa to his right.
“Thanks for seeing me again,” I said.
His gaze seemed fixated on the fireplace. He looked up after a few seconds. “Have you found anything?”
“I’m not sure. I’m hoping you can help me sort it out,” I said.
“I’ll do my best.” His eyes returned to the fireplace.
“The night Trina Lynn was killed, you were at the fire pit here, with your friends, right?”
“You know I was. Your husband has spoken to all of them.”
“Right. It’s not your alibi I’m questioning,” I said.
He turned his head, looked at me directly, gave me a look that said, What kind of bullshit is this?
“You have a lot of girlfriends,” I said.
“I have friends who are girls,” he said tiredly, like maybe he had defended this before.
“Is that what happened to your long-term relationship? Your girlfriend didn’t care for you spending so much time in the company of women?”
“That was part of it,” said Auggie. “But we parted friends. It was actually Camille. We were engaged.”
“Who broke it off?” I was pretty sure I knew the answer.
“I did,” he said. “We want different things. It’s good we recognized it before we were married.”
“Was Trina Lynn part of your…circle of friends?” I asked.
“Trina? No. She enjoyed her own company. And she spent time with Grey. And Walker. Her family.”
“Did you spend a lot of time with her one on one?”
He lifted a shoulder. “I guess. We worked together. We discussed work. We were best friends.”
“You have coffee with her alone, dinner, like that?”
“Sure. A couple times a week,” he said.
“How did your other friends like that?”
He squinted at me. “I never asked.”
“I have no doubt you were here the night Trina Lynn died.” This was a lie. I thought it possible they had all collaborated on her death for some twisted reason. Not likely, but plausible. “But I need you to think back very carefully. I’m guessing an evening by the fire pit with your…group…that’s something you do frequently.”
“That’s right.”
“You’re all relaxed, drinking beer. It’s possible those evenings sort of blur together in your memories.”
“It’s possible, I guess, to some degree,” he said. “What are you getting at?”
“Are you certain all six of those women—Bailey, Camille, Finn, Jaelyn, Saige and Yeats—were here this past Monday night? When you dashed out that list, could you have written all those names because they’re all usually here, and not because of a specific memory of that particular night?”
He studied the ceiling. After a long moment he said, “Camille wasn’t there. She said she had a headache and was going to bed early. I had forgotten about that. But seriously, Camille isn’t capable of murder.”
“What does Camille do for a living?” I already knew the answer to this, but I wanted him to help me convince himself.
“She’s a production assistant at WCSC.”
“She worked with you and Trina?”
“Yes.”
“Who do you think will take Trina Lynn’s place?”
Auggie turned to me, paled a bit. Very softly he said. “Likely Camille.”
“So she stands to not only gain professionally, but also to take Trina’s place at your side every day. Working together, having dinner, coffee…How did she take the breakup?”
“Not well at first, but I thought we were past all that. I can’t believe she would…”
“I need some more time to look into this. It’s possible she didn’t. But if she did, I need proof.”
He nodded. “Okay.”
“Call her,” I said. “Get her to come over here. Keep her here until I text you, can you do that?”
He licked his lips, nodded, his face grim. “All right.”