Sixteen

I’M standing on a cold, damp dock ready to scream!

That’s how I wanted to answer the man, and I wouldn’t have stopped there. I would have spilled everything, all my fears and frustrations, all my shock and anger and sadness.

But now was not the time.

“We had a bit of a problem,” I said. “I’ll tell you about it later—”

Quinn quickly cut off my equivocating. “If you’re talking about the shots fired from a prop gun, I already heard about it . . .”

Not exactly a shocker. While Quinn wasn’t the kind of guy who kept up with viral videos on social media, he almost always got the word on local police incidents.

“Franco?” I assumed.

“He let me know about fifteen minutes ago. That’s why I left work early and came to see you—”

“Is that your man on the phone?” Madame called through her cupped hands. “Blow him a kiss from me. Just like Dinah Shore!”

She blew a tipsy kiss and threw out her arm, smacking Sergeant Jones on his shoulder. Thankfully, the big guy appeared more amused than annoyed.

I lowered my voice even more and informed Quinn: “Madame invited me out for a late meal at Pier 66, and a few too many rum cocktails—”

“So I deduced.”

“Got it!” Officer Burns cried at last. “Okay, here we go. I see a bunch of video files on this memory stick. One, two, three—five of them.”

“Play one,” Officer Hernandez urged.

“We’ll see if this antique can do it.”

“What’s all that chatter?” Quinn asked in my ear. “Are you still in the restaurant?”

“No, dinner is over.”

“So you’re taking Madame home?”

“Not this minute. We kind of got jammed up.”

“Jammed up?” Quinn’s tone sharpened. “How?”

“We’re at a crime scene, actually.”

“What!”

“Relax. We’re just witnesses.”

“Except I left my glasses at home, so I didn’t see a thing!” Madame announced.

Quinn went silent a moment. “Clare, is your former mother-in-law soused? At a crime scene?”

“No comment.”

“I got one of the videos going,” Burns said. “Looks like a woman waving a gun. Let me turn up the volume . . .”

“EVERYONE, LISTEN! I AM NOT GOING TO HURT ANY OF YOU! I’M HERE TO MAKE A POINT . . .”

I froze in place.

This video wasn’t a suicide note. It was the same viral video I’d viewed with my staff earlier this evening. Like that Village Blend travel mug in the dead girl’s backpack, this downloaded video was connected directly to my coffeehouse.

What I didn’t understand was why.

Why was my former customer carrying a digitally saved version of Gun Girl’s active shooter show? Did she know Carol Lynn Kendall? Or Richard Crest?

Given Crest’s aggressive approach to meeting random women through Cinder swipes, the latter seemed more likely. Could this dead girl have been one of Crest’s many shop-and-drop women?

I had zero evidence of this, of course, and I knew what these Harbor Patrol officers would say if I started blathering wild speculations.

They would say I had no proof.

They would tell me there was no need for a crime scene unit because the body itself was the crime scene and any gathering of forensic evidence would take place at the morgue.

They would argue time of death alone doesn’t prove she was murdered. Even if she wasn’t the four o’clock “jumper,” that doesn’t mean she didn’t also commit suicide.

They would tell me I didn’t even know this girl’s name, and her possession of a viral video seen by tens of thousands of people meant absolutely nothing.

But with everything I’d seen and heard tonight, I strongly suspected there was something to these connections. These officers would agree if only they were in my shoes.

I blinked. Shoes . . .

“Clare? Are you there?”

“I’m here.”

“Is everything all right?”

“No, it’s not . . .” I stepped away from Burns and lowered my voice to a whisper. “Could you come to the pier? I may need your help.”

“To get Madame home?”

“No. To find a missing shoe.”