Brookner returned, carrying a large brown paper bag with grease stains freckling the sides and a couple of cans of pop stacked end to end. He set the items in the buggy’s floor, then climbed to his seat and unpacked the goods. A sizeable wad of paper napkins went to Jeff, followed by a Styrofoam container with a plastic fork handle sticking through the lid. Next, he handed Jeff a can of pop. When he snapped the lid off a twin to Jeff’s Styrofoam bowl and started eating potato salad, Jeff followed suit.
Brookner said something to the team, and the horses started down the street. Jeff wasn’t aware that you could put horses on autopilot. The two men ate and talked small talk while the horses pulled the buggy down the street. This area was very different from the bustle of downtown. Bed-and-breakfasts were to the left, with guests gathered in white wicker on front porches. On the right were places that reminded him of the fishing cabins along the lakes where he fished with Gordy.
When they’d finished the potato salad, Brookner reached in the bag again and pulled out two enormous disks wrapped in white butcher paper. He handed one to Jeff, then unwrapped the other and aproned the white paper around the sandwich. When in Rome, Jeff thought, and once again mimicked the detective’s approach.
Brookner took a bite, groaned something as near to orgasmic as Jeff cared to hear from any man, then continued eating in silence. Jeff wondered whether the detective was exercising a long-established habit of not talking business over meals or whether the barbecue was really that good. Either, Jeff decided, was acceptable.
He took a bite. His eighty-dollar shirt didn’t matter anymore. He’d buy another one if he had to. This was the best barbecue, the most tender pulled beef he’d ever had. He felt like he was somehow cheating on his chef-wife.
“Okay, Talbot.” Brookner sucked barbecue sauce from his fingers, then wadded the white butcher paper and deposited it in the brown bag between his feet. “Tell me what you got.”
Jeff hadn’t finished his sandwich, but he was on the detective’s turf. He did as he was told. He reported the background information Gordy Easthope had gathered on the Hursts, Hamilton, Davenport, and the three old ladies. He told about the surprise run-in with Trudy Blessing, and how he’d learned that she was Hamilton’s sister. He added the news about Jennifer Hurst’s engagement to Hamilton. He finished up with the document he’d found in Hamilton’s suite, and what Sheila had learned about it over the Internet.
Brookner was visibly surprised. “I’d like to know how in the hell you got the feds to cooperate so easily. God knows I never seem to have much luck with them.”
“I’m helping you, aren’t I?”
“Oh, yeah. I guess you do still fit the slot. At least you’re not belligerent like some of the other G-men I’ve dealt with. Antiques must’ve softened you some.” Brookner chewed at some sauce near the corner of his mustache. “Either that, or you miss sitting in an office making phone calls till your ass goes numb.”
Jeff remembered how he’d felt earlier, being stuck in his room making calls. The same fate awaited him again tonight. “No, I don’t miss that part of it. But it does feel good to look for the missing pieces. Of course, the document might not have anything to do with the cases. It may have been in that clock for years.”
“Damned coincidences. Do nothin’ but muddy up an investigation. I’ll have to talk to the Hurst woman again and hunt down the sister.” Brookner lit a cigarette. “Ever have barbecue that good?”
Personally, Jeff wouldn’t have covered the taste with nicotine. But he said, “I have to hand it to you, Detective. Definitely worth missing a meal at the Grand for.”
Brookner nodded, apparently satisfied.
“Report came back from Nic.” He replaced the reins through his fingers and popped them against the horses’ rumps. One whinnied its disagreement, but stepped lively nonetheless, and the team quickly settled into a trot. “Like you figured, Hamilton died shortly after midnight. Had been in the rain—and the fountain—for several hours. Which, as we both know, plays hell with evidence. Still yet, the lab up in Marquette is testing the lug wrench, although I doubt they’ll find anything after that much time in the water. But you never know. It could still have some hair samples and matter stuck to it. Enough was missing from the victim, that’s for sure.”
“Anything on Davenport?”
“Death by strangulation. Surprise, surprise,” he said. “Nothing that shows any foul play,” he added, replacing the sarcasm with weariness.
“Have you been able to learn whether he has any family?”
“No family. At least, according to his housekeeper there isn’t anyone. I called his residence in New York. I was leaving a message on his answering machine. Housekeeper picked up as soon as I said I was a detective. Told me she comes in a couple days a week to clean and cook up a few meals. Also told me that Davenport didn’t have a wife or any relatives. Said the only things he gets in the mail besides bills are antique magazines and official-looking stuff—number ten envelopes with business logos printed on them. When I told her he was dead, she said, ‘Guess I’ll be takin’ these casseroles home with me. He sure won’t be a-needin’ them.’“ Brookner laughed one of those laughs that tells you he’s heard it all and appreciates a practical mind.
The wind stopped suddenly. Jeff was about to comment on what that meant in Seattle when Brookner looked at the sky, then turned the team down a side street and circled the block. “With any luck,” he said, heading west down Main, “we’ll get back to the Grand before the cloudburst.”
“Have you turned up anything else?”
“The housekeeper—the one at the hotel who found Davenport—is pretty shook up, but she seems to recall somebody standing in the hallway when she ran for help. She says she ran for help,” Brookner added. “I say she just plain ran. Superstitious or something. I’ve never seen anyone more afraid to talk about something.”
“Did she remember anything about who she saw?”
“Said it was a white person. Really narrows it down, doesn’t it? Anyway, I interviewed the grounds crew, too. Everybody showed up for work like they were supposed to today. Same crew as yesterday. Nobody quit or called in sick.
“I need something, Talbot. It’s been forty years since the last murder on Mackinac Island. That one was never solved. If this one isn’t solved either, we’ll never live it down. Media pounces on this sort of thing. Always has, but its reach is a hell of a lot farther now.”
“Do you think the two deaths are related?”
“Sure as hell do. Murder just doesn’t happen here. With that in mind, what are the odds of two deaths from unnatural causes happening at the same event, hours apart, not being related?”
“Too much of a spread for my wallet.”
“We need a suicide note or a skeleton in a closet or something on Davenport.”
The rain started sporadically, with drops the size of quarters falling onto the horses’ rumps and forming mud spots in their dusty coats. It broke loose then, and in less time than it takes to tell it, both man and beast were soaked. Brookner urged the horses on, rushing through downtown as Jeff watched people scramble to get out of the way. Many of the pedestrians were in a state of panic, darting this way and that across the street, zigzagging in order not to be run down by wagons and bicyclists. Several drenched people tried to hail the horse-drawn taxis.
The scene was not unlike Manhattan in sudden downpours that send pedestrians scrambling for cabs. Although there were far less people on this island, there were even fewer drivers for hire by comparison. One might argue, however, that these four-legged throwbacks to another time moved a little faster than the cabs in the Big Apple.
Thunder crashed, and Dan and Pat reared as if a string of firecrackers had been thrown at their flanks. Brookner maintained control, expertly working the reins. He turned the team up Hoban Street and reined them in at Market. “We’re already soaked. If you don’t mind walking, I’ll take the rig over to Shawn. I don’t know that restaging what you saw will do any good, but nothing else is, either. I’ll meet you up top in about thirty.”
Jeff hopped down and started toward Grand Avenue. “You don’t have any qualms about being stranded on an island with a murderer, do you?”
Brookner’s question stopped Jeff in his tracks. He hadn’t thought of it that way before. “No, but I’m not sure why.”
“I’ll tell you why. You’ve gotten to know several of those people relatively quickly.” He nodded toward the Grand’s hill when he spoke. “They appear to be normal, upstanding citizens. Some might even say trustworthy folks. You don’t want to suspect any of them. You’ve gone through some motions of playing cop, used your training—what little is left of it—to get some facts a little quicker than I could’ve gotten them. Remember this: at least one of ‘em has let himself—or herself, if you wanna get PC—get caught up in what looks like a crime of passion.”
“You’re wrong, Brookner. My approach is just different from yours. Did you ever stop to think that we’ve covered quite a bit of ground in a short amount of time? We both know that’s the key to any investigation: Get as much as you can the first twenty-four hours. It will work to our advantage that we take very different approaches, like good cop-bad cop. Every damn one of those people is on my list.”
“Good for you, Talbot. You’ve got a list. But yours isn’t necessarily a suspect list. That’s all my list is: suspects. The sister, the ex-fiancee, her husband, even your Three Musketeers and the dead auctioneer. Especially the auctioneer. They’re all suspects. And they’re all on my list.”
A stream of water ran down Jeff’s forehead from his rain-soaked hair. Droplets beaded, clung to his lashes. He blinked rapidly. “Am I on that list?”
Brookner waited a beat before he spoke.
“Why not?”
“You wanna be?” he asked sarcastically.
“Come on. You know what I mean.”
Brookner’s gaze was steady. “I’ve been a cop for most of my life. Call it a gut instinct if you want to. Add to it this: Why would you come all the way out here to kill him? You’d have a helluva lot better chance getting away with it in Seattle.”
Brookner snapped the reins and was gone.
Jeff had to give the guy credit. When he wanted to put things back on a business level, he didn’t jack around. And he’d shaken Jeff up with the island remark, too.
Islands. Jeff had stayed on islands before, but never one this small. He walked up the hill toward his hotel. The day had been hot and humid. Now, the cool rain clashed with the heat held by the ground and formed large, steamy fog pockets that settled over the Tea Garden.
Anxiety came over Jeff. As the fog thickened, he felt something tighten around his chest like a vise. He bounded up the wide staircase and ran to the west end of the hotel’s long porch. He strained to see the lights of the mainland. Nothing. He tried to see the lights strung along the lines of Mackinac Bridge, those he’d seen last night that put him in mind of a skeleton, the brittle bones of its form. Again, nothing. Panic gripped him. His heart beat faster. He took a deep breath, told himself to shake it off, shake away the fear of being trapped on the island. A chilling glimpse of life in Sheila’s world came over him. He’d never felt more isolated.