The good news was that the power came back on at six in the morning.
The bad news was that I had missed the switch on my bedside lamp; and, having been up half the night, I was actually, for once in my life, still sleeping at that late hour.
I jerked awake, confused and muzzy-headed. James barely stirred on the pillow beside me, curled into the crook of my neck, drooling on my shoulder.
“Hey! Lights!” came my dad’s voice from out in the hall.
“So get some coffee started already,” I heard Mom mutter to him.
I sat up and blinked, ran my hands through my hair, and smiled. I’d missed my folks. I was so glad they were here, and sorry they had to leave today . . . if they were going to be allowed to leave today, I remembered, fast on the heels of the first thought.
Right. Another crime scene, another mysterious investigation. When would the authorities be back to question us all? Soon, I was sure.
I got up and dug around in my dresser for clean jeans, T-shirt, and sweatshirt. James gave a little mew of protest when I removed my body heat from the bed, but was back asleep almost at once. He didn’t even budge when I slid my hand under the mattress, reassuring myself that Lisa’s binder was still there.
The coffee was already gurgling and smelling fantastic when I emerged into the hallway and headed for the kitchen. “Thanks, Dad,” I said, giving him a kiss on the cheek.
“But of course,” he said. “When do you think we can open this fridge?”
“Not yet,” Mom said before I could answer. “Give it a chance to cool down first.”
I shivered, rubbing my arms under the thick sweatshirt. “It can’t have gotten very warm in there, if it’s this cold out here. I should go start a fire.”
“On it!” came Jen’s cheerful voice from the living room.
I filled two mugs with coffee, added a generous portion of cream (yes, opening the fridge, probably endangering us all, so sue me) to each, and carried them down the hall. Jen was crouched in front of the fireplace, doing her magic.
“Where’s your woodpile?” she asked, taking the mug I handed her with a look of undying gratitude. “Time to restock in here.”
“On the back porch.”
“No, I mean the real woodpile. That’s only like three days’ worth of firewood you’ve got back there.”
“The real woodpile?” I echoed, stupidly.
Jen took a big swig of coffee and turned to give me a look. “Tell me you’ve got more wood than what’s on your back porch, Cam.”
“Um, I don’t know?” I cast my mind over the Brixton estate, thinking about the various sheds and outbuildings and spaces I hadn’t even really explored yet. “Maybe? We can just turn up the central heating, you know. I don’t pay for it.”
“Don’t be silly.” She added a final piece of kindling and began stacking firewood in a lattice pattern over it. “I don’t know if you’re aware, but periodically the power goes out here, sometimes for many hours at a time.”
“Ha ha,” I said, sipping my coffee. Delicious.
“Besides, fire heat is soooo much better for you.”
“In what way, exactly? And can’t I just buy some more wood somewhere?” I didn’t have a lot of spare cash, but how expensive could wood be? It literally grew on trees. And if there was one thing this island had, it was trees.
Jen rolled her eyes. “Good luck, this time of year. If you can find anything at all, you’ll pay through the nose for it. And it won’t be dry—might not even be seasoned.”
“Hm.” I watched as she finished laying the fire and lit a match to the bottom corner. The paper caught at once, the kindling fast behind it. It already felt warmer in the room, though I knew that was just the psychological effect of seeing the flames.
“Okay then.” She sat back and admired her work a moment before joining me on the couch. “Good coffee.”
“My dad made it.”
“I am a man of many talents,” Dad said, coming into the living room with a platter of toasted bagels. “Breakfast only one of them.”
“One of the most important ones,” I said, helping myself to a bagel heavily laden with cream cheese. “Should we let the camper boys know it’s breakfast time?”
“Nah, let them sleep,” Dad said. “There’s plenty more where this came from.”
“As well as about ten pounds of leftover turkey,” Jen said.
I grimaced. “Turkey for breakfast? Ugh.”
Mom came in then, with a cut-up bowl of fruit, and we once more turned our full attention to eating. After all, what was Thanksgiving weekend for?
<<>>
It was nearly eight o’clock before I heard the telltale sound of a sheriff SUV rolling down the driveway. I got up and checked out the window: just Kip, so far as I could tell.
“Well, show time, I guess,” I said with a sigh. Sitting by Jen’s crackling fire and enjoying a simple breakfast with her and my folks had been so pleasant. So . . . normal. I had the feeling that that was the last normal moment we were going to have for a while.
“Good morning, Ms. Tate,” Kip said as I let him in.
I didn’t even tease him about going all official on me, just offered him a cup of coffee.
“Thanks, that would be great. Black, please.”
In the kitchen, I found that the four of us had already drained the first pot, so I ground the beans and started a second one. By the time I got back into the living room with his mug of black, Kip was pacing uncomfortably.
“Ah, thank you. Well, as I was just explaining to your folks here, we need to talk to each of you individually. Deputy Sherman is already over in the main house, getting set up.”
“Deputy Sherman?” I hadn’t met a Deputy Sherman. Come to think of it, I hadn’t met a Deputy-Anyone-Other-Than-Kip. But of course Kip wouldn’t be the only law enforcement in the county.
Jen smiled at Kip. “Ooh, an import all the way from Friday Harbor.”
“Well.” Kip looked even more uncomfortable; he drew himself taller, clutching his coffee mug. “There’s a lot of you to question. Sheriff Fernandez wants this all done by the book.”
“Who do you want to question first?” Jen asked. “And where do you want us?”
Kip shrugged. “Strictly speaking, we should have you all down to the station. But, well, that’s got all kinds of logistical issues.”
I nodded, thinking of the tiny station, and its even tinier interview room.
“So I’m going to have you all come over to the main house. We can use the Brixtons’ breakfast room for our little chats, and I’ll have the rest of you wait in the living room.”
I tried to remember which one was the breakfast room. The house had so very many rooms . . . well, it had to be on the first floor. I hadn’t spent much time on the first floor—or anywhere in the house, really. Caretaker though I was.
My parents started gathering their jackets for the oh-so-long walk to the house across the driveway. I put another log on the fire and lowered the flue a bit, so it would burn slower and hotter, then grabbed my own coat.
“Shouldn’t there be more of you?” Kip asked, his voice dry. “Where’s the rest of the gentlemen?”
“Oh, they’re sleeping in the RV,” I told him. “I can get them up.”
“Thank you.” Kip shepherded Jen and my parents over to the main house.
I knocked on the door of the Intruder. “Rise and shine, sleepyheads!” I called. “Sheriffs are here.”
The door opened and Kevin poked his head out. “We’re up. Come on in, your brother’s still getting dressed.”
I climbed the metal steps into the absurd vehicle. A delicious aroma of coffee met me. “We have coffee in the house,” I said, feeling a little defensive. I nodded at Colin, seated at the RV’s kitchen table with a mug in front of him.
Kevin shrugged and smiled, his most adorable smile, just for my benefit, I knew it. I plunked down at the table across from Colin, who also gave me a smile. Not that I was comparing such things. Of course not.
“I had to try out my new Magnifetta,” Kevin said, removing the carafe from a gigantic stainless-steel tank of a machine and pouring me a cup without asking. Adding just the right amount of cream without asking. I watched Colin notice this and not comment on it.
Smart man.
I considered not taking the coffee, out of principle, but it was coffee, which is a higher principle in and of itself. So.
“This is delicious,” I had to admit, after taking a sip.
Kevin grinned. “I grabbed a bag of your local beans when I was in town. They’re pretty good. The Magnifetta does a good job extracting all the flavor without crushing the delicate notes.”
Over the rim of his own mug, I saw Colin’s eyes dancing with merriment, but he remained silent. Such a smart man.
I nodded at him again, amusement in my own eyes I knew, and looked back at Kevin. Surely he knew we all found him ridiculous, with his excessive foodie-ism. And yet it didn’t stop him. He loved cooking too much, and everything that went with it—for him, at least: finding just the right, weird, rare ingredients; hunting up the exact right recipes and methodologies for combining and preparing those ingredients; presenting them to an appreciative audience, even if that audience was often just himself. He wasn’t a bad man. He just . . . needed to find someone to share this obsession with.
And that someone wasn’t me.
Cliff emerged from somewhere in the back of the camper. “I smell coffee!” he said, cheerfully.
Kevin was already pouring him a cup, handing it to him black.
“We have to go to the main house to talk to the cops,” I told my brother, “so drink up.” I followed my own advice. Really, this coffee was head and shoulders above what Dad had brewed up in my little guesthouse.
There are some pieces of information we’d be better off without.
I sighed internally, mourning my last swallow of the delicious stuff as I handed the empty mug back to Kevin. “Thanks. So, we’d better get over there.”
“We’ll be right behind you,” Cliff said, as Colin got up to accompany me.
“Interesting ex-boyfriend you got there,” Colin said, as soon as we were alone on the driveway. I arched an eyebrow at him, but he laughed before I could say anything. “And yes, I know I have an interesting ex as well. Guess we’re even.”
I laughed as well. “Even. Yes.”
And then we were at the front door of the Brixtons’ house. Right where I’d been just a few short hours ago, talking and drinking with JoJo in the middle of the night, before my trip to the boat to retrieve Lisa’s binder. Suddenly I felt very, very tired all over again, even with my successful mission. Was this ever going to be all solved and settled?
Colin brushed a gentle hand against the small of my back. It could almost have been accidental; I felt it there and then gone, quick as a moment. Much more lingering was the feeling of friendship and peace it gave me. And maybe a little something warmer, but I couldn’t think about that right now.
“Good, come on in,” Kip said, opening the door at my knock. “Find a seat in here; we’ll call you when it’s your turn.”
Colin and I joined the others in the large sitting room—front parlor—ballroom—whatever. It looked like a Pacific Northwest version of an Agatha Christie movie, with the crazy jumbled assortment of folks on all this fine furniture. Mom and Dad sat together on an elegant loveseat; Clary and Maxine had taken a matching one across from them, sitting demonstrably close to one another. JoJo slouched in an overstuffed brocade chair, sipping his own cup of undoubtedly inferior-to-Kevin’s coffee. Diana and Emmett Brixton sat at either end of a long sofa under the front window, far enough apart that another person or two could sit comfortably between them.
I led Colin to a pair of smaller brocade chairs close to the unlit fireplace. There was still room for seven or eight more people in here, if Kip wanted to round up more suspects. Okay, five or six—Kevin and Cliff came in and took a different pair of brocade chairs, in a darker, but of course coordinating, color.
As soon as they’d sat down, Lisa Cannon walked into the room from the hallway; a young woman in a sheriff’s uniform was just behind her, as if escorting her. Lisa gave me a cordial nod without really seeming to single me out, and turned to look at the deputy. “Is that all?”
“Please take a seat, Ms. Cannon; we may need to ask another question or two,” the woman said.
“Of course,” Lisa murmured, and sat on the sofa between the Brixtons, continuing to not really meet my eye. I was dying to talk to her—alone, of course—to let her know what had happened last night, that I’d found the binder, that it was safe in my house . . . well, it would just have to wait.
Kip and the new deputy—she must be Sherman—consulted briefly before Kip turned to the room at large and said, “Ms. Liu, would you come with us?”
Maxine drew herself slowly up from the loveseat. Clary patted her arm as she got to her feet and whispered something I couldn’t hear. Maxine nodded, frowning, and followed the deputies out.
We all sat silently for a minute or two, unsure of the protocol. I could see Diana Brixton looking more uncomfortable than most of the rest of us; did she feel like she ought to offer us all coffee, or breakfast, or something? Were we really all supposed to sit here in this one room? I guessed so.
Lisa, clearly picking up on Diana’s unease, turned and began engaging her in conversation. From what I could hear, it seemed to be just pleasant chitchat about nothing, though I did notice a brittleness to her tone, her smile.
Well, she must be at least as exhausted and unsettled as I was. And curious about what I’d found last night. Anyway, who knew how her questioning had gone?
Even so, her words to Diana broke the ice. My parents began murmuring to each other as Cliff said something to Kevin. I turned to Colin. “Not exactly how I’d imagined spending today.”
He smiled. “Not much ever does go as expected, does it?”
After about fifteen minutes, Deputy Sherman led Maxine back into the room. She practically fled back to the loveseat and curled up in Clary’s arms. I glanced over at Diana Brixton, who was very carefully not watching her daughter with her lover.
“Clarice Brixton, please,” said Deputy Sherman.
Clary gave Maxine one last squeeze before getting up and following the deputy out of the room.
I glanced around, taking a quick count. At this rate, we’d be here all morning, at least.
My mom was clearly making the same calculation. “I hope we don’t miss that twelve twenty-five ferry,” she said.
“You will,” came Kip’s voice from the doorway, “I’m sorry. We’re going to need everyone to stay on. This is just preliminary questioning we’re doing now.”
We all turned and gaped at him. “What . . . why?” I blurted out. “Wasn’t that woman’s death an accident?”
He took a few steps into the room, shaking his head gently. He looked sad, and stressed, and something else I couldn’t quite figure out. “I don’t recall telling you anything of the sort, Ms. Tate.”
I glanced over at Maxine, but she was avoiding looking at anyone.
“I . . . just thought I heard that?” I said to Kip, uncertain. “That she slipped and hit her head and fell into the water?”
“We do not have a cause of death at this time,” Kip said, to me and to the room at large. “We’ve been asked to keep all witnesses and potential witnesses here for further questioning.”
“But—how long is this going to be?” my brother asked, looking suddenly worried. “I’ve got to get to SeaTac tonight; my flight to Bangkok leaves first thing tomorrow morning.”
“Asked by who?” Jen added.
Kip looked even more unhappy as he answered Cliff, ignoring Jen’s question. “That is all I can tell you at this time. If I were you, I’d see about getting that flight shifted.”
“Well, this is madness!” Diana Brixton protested. “We had planned to leave the island today as well; I’ve got a brunch in Bellevue tomorrow.”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Brixton. I’m doing all I can.” With that, he left the room, heading back down the hall to where Deputy Sherman had taken Clary.
We all looked around at each other, stunned and unhappy. From between the Brixtons, Lisa Cannon gave me a small encouraging smile. I tried to send her a telepathic message, but of course I didn’t possess that useful superpower. “At least we all have plenty to eat, hmm?” she said, brightly. “Houses full of Thanksgiving leftovers.”
Diana looked at her as though she’d lost her mind, then just shook her head and stared out the window.
Time passed. JoJo was called next, and then Jen. When she came back and Colin was called, I asked her, “So, how did it go?”
She shrugged. “Nothing unusual, really. They just asked me to tell them everything that happened, from when we all first went down there to light the bonfire. They made me tell it all two or three times, and Sherman jotted everything down in her little notebook.”
“Usually Kip does that,” I said.
Jen smiled. “He outranks her; she has to do the note-taking for now, till the department hires someone newer, at least.”
“What do they think happened?”
Maxine put in, “I told you what I heard. I think now they’re just trying to be sure they’ve covered their asses in case any higher-ups come in and question everything. You know how it is when too many people start dying.”
“How it is? Like, here? Or on TV?”
“On TV. No one ever dies here.”
It was nearly noon before I was called back—the second to last person. For some reason, I was very nervous. But I wasn’t even a witness, much less a participant. What did I have to worry about?
It was the waiting, I told myself. And this unknown Deputy Sherman, all the way from Friday Harbor, two islands away.
Kip ushered me into the bright, cozy breakfast room—bigger than my entire kitchen, but it did fit the house—and had me take a seat at the small table. “Coffee?” He indicated an industrial-style carafe and a stack of paper cups on the sideboard, next to Diana Brixton’s elegant silver tea service, polished to a high sheen. The effect was as if a mongrel mutt had wandered into a posh dog show and squatted on stage.
“No, thanks, I’ve already had several cups.” Probably I wouldn’t be able to drink regular coffee again, after Kevin’s amazing Magnetotron-stuff, or whatever it was. I certainly wouldn’t be able to stomach cop coffee, I knew that.
“All right, then, let’s get started.” Kip sat opposite me; Deputy Sherman was at the far end of the table, turning her notebook over to a fresh page. I took a moment to study her as Kip set up his little tape recorder. She was very young—though she probably wasn’t quite as young as she looked, because if I didn’t know better, I’d say she was seventeen, and cops aren’t seventeen. Short dark hair, professionally cut and gleamingly clean. I felt a tiny pang of envy; not everyone could pull off an Audrey Hepburn pixie, and as a hairdresser I was painfully aware of that fact. But she was pretty enough, in a quiet way, that it worked. Dark eyes, small nose, and a trim figure; her uniform fit her just right, without being ostentatious.
“So,” Kip began. “Starting with the decision to go light a bonfire on the beach yesterday afternoon, tell us what happened.”
It went just as Jen had said. I walked them through the whole thing, such as it was. Kip stopped me a few times for clarification, even though he’d actually been there the whole time. We slowed down a bit when I went over how Jen, Colin and I had gone down to inspect the body, but even there, I hadn’t much to add. I gave as good a description as I could—same as I’d given Kip before—of seeing the woman prowling around on the boat. “The woman on the beach could be the same person, but I can’t be a hundred percent sure,” I concluded. “I never saw her all that clearly when she was alive.”
“And it was dark,” Kip allowed. “So what happened next?”
I took them through to the end of the day pretty quickly, there really being nothing else noteworthy to tell. “And then I went to bed, kind of early,” I told them. “I was exhausted, and done being social.”
“You are somewhat of an introvert,” Kip said, kindly. Deputy Sherman glanced up at him for a moment before returning her attention to her notebook.
“Yeah. This whole weekend . . . I mean, even without the deaths . . . it’s been a bit out of my comfort zone.” I smiled at them both.
Kip had leaned forward to turn off his tape recorder but then paused and looked up at me. “So you went to bed, a bit early. Did you sleep through the night, or did anything else happen?”
My heart pounded, my arms tingled, I was going to vanish, oh crap! This had totally blindsided me. What did he know?! How did he know it? Had somebody seen me? “Um, yeah—I mean, mostly. I . . . um, found my cat in the middle of the night. I mean, he found me; he came back and meowed outside the window and I got up and let him in. You know he was missing all day. I’d been worried, but he’s fine.” Now I was babbling, and I knew my face was turning red. I rubbed my arms, trying to keep the feeling in them, trying to stay visible. “But other than that, no.”
Kip watched me closely. Deputy Sherman scribbled notes.
“You didn’t see anything when you got up in the night?” Kip asked, at last. “Other than your cat, I mean?”
Oh crap, I suddenly realized. Had JoJo told them I’d come over for a flashlight? Why was I lying, even? No crime in borrowing a flashlight. Crap! Too late now. “No. Nothing. I mean, the cat, but, yeah. Nothing else.” Shut up, Cam, stop talking.
“Which door did you let him in by?”
“What?”
“The front door or the back door. You said you heard him outside your bedroom window, correct?”
“Yeah.”
“Your bedroom, if I am correct in my assumption, is just about at the middle of your residence. Did you go to the front door or the back door to let the cat in?”
My mind raced. The back door looked down to the beach; the front door looked to the driveway and the main house. “Um, the front door. I went to the front door.”
Deputy Sherman’s hand moved across the page of her notebook. Kip nodded. “Ms. Jennifer Darling was sleeping in your living room, on the couch, is that correct?”
“Yes—but, she didn’t wake up, I don’t think. I heard her snoring. I tried to be quiet, I don’t think she heard me.”
“Of course.” He watched me a moment longer, his eyes revealing nothing. “All right, Ms. Tate, that will be all for now. Thank you.”
And just like that, I was released from my questioning. I walked back to the Brixtons’ living room on shaky legs, taking my seat again by Jen. She reached over and squeezed my hand briefly.
Cliff got called after me; he was the last person. The cops kept him even less time than they’d kept the others.
“All right, that’s all for now,” Kip announced to the room when he escorted my brother back. “You don’t have to stay right here, but I’d appreciate it if no one left the island until I give you the say-so. And please stay in cell phone range, wherever you go.” He was using pretty words like “please” and “appreciate”, but his tone made it clear that compliance was not voluntary.
I wanted to point out that cell phones barely worked even here on the Brixton estate, but I didn’t want to sound snotty, so I just nodded.
“I’ll be in town, and you have my number,” Lisa said to Kip at once, rising gracefully to her feet. She was out the door before I could even catch her eye once more. I really, really needed to talk to her . . . when were all these people going to be allowed to leave?
I stifled my frustration. “Well, I’ll just be back home,” I told Kip. “With anyone who wants to hang out there with me.”
“It’s not like we have much choice,” my mom pointed out. Their ferry must be pulling out right now, without them on it. I hoped they could get reservations for later, or tomorrow—assuming Kip would ever let us all go. The later it got on this holiday weekend, the harder it would be to get on any ferry. At least my parents were retired. If Cliff missed his flight, he was really going to be up a creek.
I led a little procession back around to my guesthouse: my parents and brother, Jen, Colin, Kevin. “Is anyone hungry?” Kevin asked. “I could make up some . . .”
I didn’t even stick around to see what amazing thing he was going to create now. “I’m going to look for some more firewood,” I told the others, and walked straight through my house to the back door, and out again.
For a few minutes, I just walked aimlessly around in the little woods behind the house, breathing and decompressing and waiting for my skin to stop itching. Not because of chameleoning this time; just the general discomfort of being around too many people, for too long. How had I lived in Seattle for so many years? Had I truly adapted to quiet island life this fast? God, I didn’t think I could ever ride a bus or walk on a crowded sidewalk again.
At this rate, I was going to be a wild-haired old hermit before I turned thirty.
After a few minutes, I’d relaxed enough to actually do what I’d said I’d come out here for. There was a small shed, or maybe lean-to, not far behind my guesthouse. It didn’t even have a real door, just an opening. Inside were large empty terra cotta pots, a few half-emptied bags of soil and mulch, and some gardening tools—a rusty rake, a short-handled shovel, things like that. I thought I’d noticed a stack of firewood in here earlier, but upon closer inspection, it was just a pile of old lumber. Like if a deck had been torn down and replaced. We could still burn this, though, right? Had it been treated with weird chemicals or anything? I’d have to ask Jen, or Colin.
I looked out behind the shed, but no firewood here either. What about the larger outbuilding by the main house?
But I didn’t want to go poking through there, with the Brixtons home. Any firewood there would be for the use of the main house. But I’d check it out, after they were gone, whenever that would be.
The guesthouse didn’t have a garage, but it did have a sort of overhang on the roadward side, hemmed in by trees and not very inviting. I checked under there; nothing.
Stymied, but ready to face human beings again, I walked back to the house.
And that’s when I noticed the latest gift.
Three big ziplock bags leaned against the side of the back porch. Had I missed them on my way out? Or . . . had they been put there while I was out here?
Impossible—I’d have seen anyone walking around back here.
Maybe when I was around the side of the house? But I’d only been there ten or fifteen seconds, tops.
My hands, my entire arms trembled as I bent down to look at the bags. They were labeled, quite unnecessarily, in the precise but shaky handwriting of an older person: white turkey meat, dark turkey meat, homemade cranberry sauce. The sauce was a bright jumble of red and orange; the meat was neatly sliced.
Who the devil leaves anonymous Thanksgiving leftovers for someone??!
“Meow,” said James, appearing from somewhere and sniffing interestedly at the bag of dark meat.
“No way, dude,” I told him, picking up the bags. “A zucchini is one thing; I’m not eating meat and sauce that came out of some psycho’s kitchen, and neither are you.” I’d throw them away in the house, sealing up the trash can tightly. “Come on, I’ll give you some cat food.” And probably some of our leftover turkey, the poor kitty. Maybe if I gave him more treats, he’d stop wandering off and scaring me half to death all the time.
I took a final deep breath before pushing open the back door. James scrambled between my feet and darted into the kitchen, where Kevin was apparently putting the finishing touches on some open-faced sandwiches before popping them into the oven. “What’s that?” he asked, nodding at the bags. “I could—”
“Nope and nope,” I said, heading straight for the trash. “You may be a food genius but even you cannot redeem culinary assault.”
“I . . . what?”
“Long story,” I muttered. “But we’re not eating this.”
“All right.” I could just feel him dying to ask more, but being careful, oh so careful around me. Sigh. I left him to his foodie tasks and went to the front room, hoping to pull Jen aside so I could tell her the latest; I did not want to involve everyone else in this nonsense.
“How did your firewood search go?” she asked.
I told her about the lumber. “But I’m no expert,” I said. “I’ll want you to look at it.”
“You’re probably right, we wouldn’t want to burn that. Let’s go check it out now,” she said, getting the point immediately.
Once outside, I led her to the shed while I told her about the latest “gift.” “Ugh, that’s disturbing,” she said.
“Yeah. What the heck is going on?”
“I want to see that handwriting,” she said. “This is the first time there’s any kind of note, right?”
“I threw the bags away.”
“Well, pull them out of the trash. Cam! This is a clue, come on.”
I sighed. “What, Kip’s got a database of local wackadoodles’ handwriting samples and he’s going to put everything else aside to identify this culprit for me? Hey, maybe the Friday Harbor cops want to chime in on it. Inter-island food-gifting incident!”
“You can’t pretend you think this isn’t all related somehow. Trespassing, prowling, stalking—dead bodies all over the place—honey, this isn’t normal.”
“You’re telling me.”
“So . . .”
I sighed. “Okay, we’ll dig out the bags and tell Kip about it. But not right now!” I hastened to add. “I can’t do all this while my family’s here. They’re already worried enough about me.”
She stood at the shed doorway, giving me a hard look. “Cam, I’m worried about you. Let me say it again: this is not normal. Not normal for Orcas Island—not normal for anywhere. You could be in danger. You’ve been in danger. Somebody’s focused on you in a weird, weird way.”
Well, when she put it that way . . . “I’ll see if I can talk to Kip without anyone hovering over me when I do it.”
“Of course you can.” She rolled her eyes. “What did we just spend all morning doing? Talking to Kip not in front of other people.”
“All right, all right.”
“Good.” She turned and glanced into the shed. “You’re right, don’t burn that indoors. We should have taken it down to the beach for the bonfire last night.”
“Okay, thanks.” We headed back to the house. “So where do I get more firewood now?”
“I don’t know, hon. Let me ask around. Most folks stock up in the summer or early fall. If anyone’s still got wood for sale, you’ll pay a premium, for sure.”
I wondered if Diana Brixton would cover the costs . . . nah, probably not. I looked around us, at the dense forest. “Maybe someone could cut down a tree or two here?”
Jen snorted. “You’re kidding, right? Are you that much of a city girl?”
“What?” I asked, a little stung.
“Even if you could find someone to do that right now, that would be no good for you. Wood has to season—to dry out. It needs a year or more after being cut down. Ever try to light a fire with wet wood?”
“Oh.” Now that she mentioned it, I did seem to remember something about “green” wood. Maybe from a story I’d read. “Yes, I am a city girl,” I told her. “Be gentle. This is all new to me.”
She smiled as we reached the back door. “Sorry. You just seem like you belong here; I forget you haven’t always been here.”
All my earlier pique vanished in an instant. “Thanks.” I pulled her into a quick hug, surprising her, but she returned it with equal warmth.
“So let’s see those bags,” she said, releasing me.
In the kitchen, Kevin’s sandwiches were in the oven, releasing a powerfully fantastic aroma. Fortunately, Kevin himself had vacated the premises, leaving us a clear shot at the trashcan, unobserved. I pushed aside James’s empty food bowl and opened the cabinet under the sink.
“Here you go.” I handed Jen the bag of white meat and the cranberry sauce, then dug around for the dark meat. It had slipped to the bottom of the bag, and was covered with something slimy and awful. “Yech.”
“Hmm.” She ignored my distress, focusing on the handwriting. “Old person.”
“Yeah, I can see that.”
“It looks more feminine than masculine, but I can’t really be sure.” She frowned at the bags. “All older people were taught cursive like that, so it could be an old dude.”
Ephraim Snooks had been an old dude. But he was dead, the day before Thanksgiving. Before making any leftovers.
Jen went on, her eyes vacant as her mind traveled. “Then again, that doesn’t really narrow anything down. Nine-tenths of this island is old folks. So the question remains: who? And why?”
“Yes,” I agreed. “The question remains.”
We stared at each other for a minute. “Well,” she said at last, “let’s get these bags to Kip. Do you want to call him, or shall I?”
“Should we dump the food out first, clean the bags?” I could just see myself hauling nasty leftovers to town . . .
“Don’t!” she cried. “What if it’s poison? He’ll need to test that—it’s more evidence!”
“Is everything all right in there?” Mom’s voice wafted down the hall.
“We’re fine!” I squealed, giving Jen a panicked look. “Just . . . working on my play!”
Jen stifled a giggle, shaking her head. “Good save.”
“Thanks.” I glanced again at the awful bags on the counter. “I guess we could put them in a grocery bag or something.”
“Right.” She rummaged around under the sink, found one, and began loading them up. “You should call Kip. You’re the one who found them.”
“Okay.” I patted my pockets. “I must have left my phone in my room. Be right back.”
James was again snoozing in my unmade bed. “Eat and sleep, is that all you know how to do?” I asked my silly cat. He opened one eye, gave me a look that said You wanna make something of it?, then closed it again. “You’re lucky I don’t make the bed over you, cat,” I said.
My phone was on my nightstand, just where I’d left it. I picked it up and was about to leave when I realized I was alone. Perfect chance to call Lisa.
I slid my hand under the mattress, to reassure myself that her binder was still there . . . and my fingers found nothing.
My heart pounded, my skin flared and tingled. I reached in further, thrusting my hand higher, then lower—and there it was. Down closer to my feet than I’d remembered. “Oh jeez,” I whispered, sinking to the floor in desperate relief.
James snorted with indignation and hopped to the floor beside me, his slumber so rudely disturbed by my fussing with the bed.
“Sorry, dude,” I said to him, rumpling his ears as I tried to catch my breath and slow my terrified heartbeat. “I know you were guarding it, you little watch cat. You wouldn’t let anything happen here.”
I wished I could truly believe that.