“Autumn!” The whispered voice, coming from the shadows of a tree along the roadway, nearly cause Autumn’s heart to stop.
She whirled around, adrenaline flaring, only to see Ben step out from the bench where he’d been sitting. He must have been there a while, she realized. He looked tired, but anxious.
“I guess something serious must have happened,” he said. “I thought I’d wait here, in case you felt uneasy walking home alone.”
“Thank you,” she said gratefully. Having finally been allowed to leave the venue, it was true that the mile-long walk back to Harbor View had felt like a dangerous traverse in her mind. And with all the buggies still busy, now taking the catering equipment and the helpers back to their home bases, she hadn’t had a choice but to walk. “That’s very kind.”
“I’m so sorry something bad happened,” he said neutrally.
She felt another wave of gratitude that his sole purpose for waiting hadn’t been curiosity. The amount of people who’d lingered at the venue door, peeking in and hoping to find out what was going on – well, eventually, Autumn had wished she’d had her feather duster with her to shoo them away.
“It’s a murder,” she admitted, now feeling glad to offload the gory reality to someone who would understand. Ben caught his breath in horror.
“Autumn, that’s terrible!”
“It is so confusing,” she admitted. “The artist was killed, Rowan Stafford. The entire evening was very stressful, trying to manage him – that was my job because he could be a little – outspoken.”
"Yes," Ben nodded, speaking softly as they strode along, their feet scrunching on the road. "I overheard him talking to a couple of the guests. Eventually, I walked away. He was being very rude. But rudeness is no reason to murder someone?"
“There must be another reason,” Autumn admitted. “I suppose Officer Warring will look into it.”
She couldn’t stop the dubious note from creeping into her voice as she said that. Officer Warring was a fine, good man, and he was excellent at basic policing. But the last time there had been a serious incident on the island, she had to admit, he had seemed a little out of his depth. She’d ended up playing an important role in solving the last murder.
Maybe this time, Warring would have more assistance from the mainland. Autumn hoped so, at least.
“He and his junior officer interviewed me at length,” she said, maybe trying to convince herself as much as Ben. “He must have spoken to me for half an hour, asking what exactly I’d seen when I walked in, my whereabouts beforehand, and whose whereabouts I was able to identify.” She sighed. “The problem is that everyone was wearing masks, I sneaked off to eat some dinner, and then – well, then you and I were about to dance.”
Ben nodded ruefully. “That was the part of the evening I was most looking forward to,” he said, in a tone that made Autumn feel suddenly warm inside, despite the stress of the past few hours.
“Me, too,” Autumn admitted. “So I can’t really account for anyone’s time. And I don’t know if he was murdered five minutes or twenty minutes before I last checked on him. It would have been somewhere in that timeframe, but a lot happened. And I don’t think they can narrow down the time of death so specifically. Not with the coroner getting there over an hour later.”
“No.” Ben spoke with more sureness than she did, and she guessed his veterinary training would have given him knowledge on that front. “By the time the coroner got there, I doubt if such a fine analysis would be possible.”
It was strange to be discussing such a macabre subject as they walked down the clean, quiet and well lit streets of the island. But in a way, Autumn was relieved to speak about it. It was better than holding her anxieties inside.
“They said the knife was an ordinary hunting knife. But you know what that means,” she said.
“Someone must have brought it along?” Ben asked.
“Exactly,” Autumn said. “There were no hunting knives on sale or display at the venue. A few knives in the kitchen, but those were all accounted for.”
“Were there any fingerprints on it?” Ben asked.
“They’re going to check it,” Autumn said. “But I doubt there will be. Don’t you?”
“It would be a basic error,” Ben admitted.
“And if the weapon was brought to the venue, then this was carefully planned,” Autumn said.
“Was there – was there any sign of a struggle?” Ben asked, worriedly.
"The coroner said that he was probably asleep when the crime was committed due to the lack of any visible struggle," Autumn said.
Whoever this killer was, they had managed to work out a way to get to the artist while he was alone, and had been lucky to find him not so much asleep as passed out. And Autumn herself had made it easy by taking him off to his private room.
But then, Autumn forced herself to stop thinking in that direction. It wasn't her fault. It was his fault. He'd been obnoxious and antisocial, and had drunk far too heavily, so much so that a private room had been prepared for him beforehand by Thom, who'd known that he would need to be shuttled off there. The killer must have been watching from behind their mask, but even if Stafford hadn't gone to that room, a determined killer would have found another way.
“Do you think it’ll have a bad effect on business?” Ben asked. There was anxiety in his tone, and Autumn realized he was worried about her bed and breakfast, relying as it did on the sentiment of tourists.
“I hope it won’t,” she replied. “It would be terrible if people were put off the island because they perceived it to be dangerous. And so unfair.”
With her mind now working at full speed, Autumn realized that the vast majority of the guests and the workers were either local, or else, had stayed overnight in one of the nooks and crannies of Magnolia Bay.
She shivered at the thought.
“What is it?” Ben asked.
Autumn shook her head. “It’s nothing, really. Nothing I should be worrying myself about, at any rate. It would be better for me not to think about it at all.”
“You can’t stop thinking about something so serious,” Ben admitted logically. “If you want to share it, then do.”
“I was thinking that the last ferry to the mainland is at ten p.m., and it’s already after midnight. There’s no way anyone could have got from the town hall to the harbor by ten, after killing Stafford. Could they?”
Ben was silent for a while, thinking about what she’d said.
“No,” he agreed. “No way that could happen, with that timing.”
“Did the killer leave at all? Or are they still on the island?”
There was a thoughtful pause as they walked. And then, Ben said something that Autumn had to admit surprised her.
“Do you want to go down and check at the harbor?” he said. “We could ask whoever’s on duty?”
It was really a job for the police, Autumn reasoned, but she found herself wondering how soon Officer Warring would get around to it. He had hundreds of names to go through. By the time she'd left, he'd been interviewing Thom, and a restless-looking Mrs. Hayman had been waiting in line, muttering that she needed to get back to her cat.
She was sure that everyone he interviewed, he would question thoroughly. He was methodical, but slow. And really, she was feeling so anxious about this crime and the possible consequences that she wanted the killer caught, just for her own peace of mind.
"It's only a ten-minute walk. Let's go," she said.
They carried on walking, but now, there felt like a different dynamic between them. They were not just strangers, who were fumbling toward a deeper connection, with a lot of shyness and interruptions along the way.
Now, they were co-investigators, and suddenly, Autumn felt as if this tentative relationship had reached a new level.
The harbor was very quiet. It was officially closed and would reopen at six a.m. However, there was a night guard in place who was stationed here in case of emergencies. Right now, there was an emergency. The coroner and forensics must have sailed over, because the harbor gate was open, and there was a speedboat with an official logo and a yellow stripe, parked in the bay closest to the pier, which Autumn knew wasn't usually there. That was how they'd gotten here.
The guard, seated in his booth, got out as soon as they approached and hurried over to them.
“Good evening,” he said, adjusting the zipper of his reflective jacket. “You folks need anything?”
He was from the mainland, Autumn knew. The guards were part of a rotating team that serviced the island, as well as a few other points around Lake Michigan.
“I was just wondering, for my own peace of mind,” Autumn said, “if there had been any boats coming or going late this evening.”
He thought for a minute, rubbing his short beard as he stared out at the boats.
"It's been quiet," he said. "I came on shift at six, and nobody left since then. A couple of people came back in from a late sail." He pointed to one of the small commercial sailboats that made their living from taking tourists out on the waters.
And that answered Autumn’s question. With a shiver, she acknowledged the killer was most likely still on the island.
Finding him, or her, suddenly seemed like an urgent job, and she was ready to help out again. With all of her heart, she wanted to make Magnolia Bay a safe, peaceful place again.
“I think we need to look at other angles,” she said.
“I agree,” Ben nodded. “I can’t stop thinking about this now. It needs to be solved.”
Then, they reached Harbor View’s front door, and Ben enfolded her in a warm hug. She turned her face up to his. As their lips met in a kiss that turned more passionate than she’d believed it could after such a stressful night, Autumn decided that his support had given her the determination she needed.
She was going to do whatever she could to find the killer, starting first thing tomorrow.