Stormy Cove (30 page)

“Did you ask her?”

The man wasn’t letting go. Like a bulldog.

“Yes, but she said she didn’t know anything.”

The detective cleared his throat.

“We found the object lying on Reanna Sholler’s body.”

Lori was so shocked that she gawked at Pelley, dumbstruck.

He observed her closely.

“That surprises you?”

Lori nodded.

“Why?”

The younger policeman fidgeted on his chair again.

“Because . . . because of the simple way you put it. Normally the police withhold information that only the perpetrator would know.”

Pelley smiled, allowing his young partner to smile as well.

“Do you watch a lot of mysteries on TV?”

Lori leaned back. She understood his smile. Surely the search party that’d found Reanna must have seen the arrowhead on her body. It wasn’t a secret now, but she was the only one who hadn’t known. She got out of it with the lamest of excuses.

“My mother’s a defense lawyer.”

No follow-up from Pelley. The cop smiled.

“So we have the possibility that somebody took the item from your house. Who might it have been, apart from Selina Gould?”

Lori felt a chill.
Don’t trust that smile.

“Reanna. She was waiting in front of my house last week when I got home.”

“You think she’d gone inside and stolen the arrowhead?”

“Maybe she thought it was pretty.”

It was a weak argument—she could tell by the investigator’s eyes. But his voice remained invariably patient.

“Who else could have made off with the arrowhead?”

“I leave the door unlocked, like everybody here. It could have been anyone.”

Silence. The detective kept his eyes lowered. His companion was writing assiduously.

“Did Noah Whalen know about the arrowhead?”

She leapt up.

“Mr. Pelley, it was not Noah. Noah’s not the murderer. Whoever killed Reanna would not have let himself be seen in a boat with her that evening, which is what Noah did. He wasn’t the only one she had dealings with.”

The officer sat up and took notice.

“No? Who else did you see Reanna with?”

“May I get my laptop from the office?”

She went and got it without waiting for an answer and set it down in front of the men.

Then she called up a specific picture.

“Here, I’ll zoom in. I happened to snap this when I was taking Rusty for a walk. Rusty is Tom and Vera Quinton’s husky. I recognize Reanna on the ATV, but who’s the driver?”

The younger officer spoke up.

“I think I know whose ATV that is.”

Lori waited for a name, but the policemen said nothing. The detective clearly knew as well.

At last, Pelley said, “May I have that picture?”

Lori nodded.

“I’ll print it out.”

From her office, she could hear the two of them conferring in low tones, but the noisy printer drowned out their words.

The detective pocketed the picture, and when he reached the landing, he turned to her.

“Is there anything else you’d like to tell us?”

Good tactic, I must admit.

She hesitated for a moment and then told him, “I asked Noah if Reanna wore a life jacket on board.”

“Did she?”

“Yes, it was yellow. And she didn’t give it back.”

The detective was lost in thought as he ran his hand along the grain of the wainscoting. Then he turned around to go downstairs.

“A photographer really has an eagle eye,” he said.

Lori said spontaneously, “Sometimes I think in colors.”

It sounded awkward, but some things just can’t be said any better.

She would recall those words later and how she was able to put it all in a nutshell.

The red streaks said something to her. They were from the frozen partridgeberries Aurelia had picked the previous September and given to her as a gift. Lori wanted to try to make a partridgeberry pie to get her mind off it all. The berry juice turned her fingers red.

No blood around Reanna’s body. The killer had strangled her. No knife. No bashed-in skull. Just marks from strangulation, that’s what she’d heard. The murderer hadn’t taken out his rage on her, it seemed, but he’d wanted to keep her from talking. Or he wanted to make his own statement, over and above the murder. With the arrowhead.

She thought now that Reanna hadn’t stolen it. Maybe one of the searchers left it on her body.

Poor Reanna,
Lori thought.
She’s dead and can’t talk, and here we are, speculating about her.
A murder victim and now a victim again—of rumors. A hundredfold insult to a person killed so violently. And she, Lori, had constantly done wrong by the kid. Reanna was an inexperienced young reporter who was attempting to recover from a setback. So what if she was gauche? So she exploited her charms. So what?

She’d probably been pleased with her good luck at finding a professional colleague in what must have seemed a desolate dump to a young city gal. And Lori had rejected her advances. Did she die quickly? Did she know what was happening to her? How long did she shake with fear in the face of death? Or did she feel angry at her tormenter, angry at being helpless and at his mercy?

Reanna had been murdered, and life in the village just seemed to go on. It’s probably how people in Stormy Cove had coped with injustice and misfortune forever. But this was no accident; it was murder. The second one in twenty years. At least.

And here she was, baking her partridgeberry pie as if nothing had happened.

She got the sugar bowl out of the cupboard and found she’d forgotten to buy more. She had no choice: she had to run the gantlet at the store again.

As she drove past the church, she looked at the sign out front. The old quotation had been replaced with “God Holds His Protecting Hand over You Wherever You Are.”

“Not in Stormy Cove,” she said aloud. “Not here.”

She slowed down at the fork leading to the harbor. Somebody was walking along the street ahead of her. It was Patience; she’d never seen her neighbor in the village without a car.

Lori rolled down the window, and Patience leaned in, her hair fluttering in the wind.

“Where’s your car?”

“Ches has it. His truck’s in the garage.”

“Where are you going? Can I give you a lift?”

“I was just going to the store. I’m out of aspirin.”

“Get in, I’ll take you there.”

Lori waited in the car in front of the store. Patience had kindly offered to buy sugar for her, and she’d accepted. She had no desire to meet any staring eyes.

“Are you in pain?” Lori inquired on the way back.

“Headache. Comes and goes.”

Lori looked at her sideways. Patience seemed pale and shrunken.

“I have a bottle of water in my handbag.”

“Thanks.” Even her voice sounded different somehow.

Lori wanted to play for time in order to talk to her some more.

“If it’s all right with you, I’d like to pop over to the other side of the cove. I want to get a shot from there; everything’s so twinkly and nice. Or should I take you home right now?”

“No, no, a bit of fresh air will do me good.”

“Where’s Molly?”

“At Granny’s.”

When they reached the end of the bay, they stayed in the car.

“Is Noah back yet?” Patience asked.

Lori shook her head. “I don’t know why they’re holding him this long.”

“He’s sure to come back today. I’m sure Noah’s done nothing, but he’s a key witness.”

Lori took a deep breath. “The police were at my place today. At yours too?”

“No. What would they want with me? I don’t have anything to do with it.”

Lori thought Patience seemed nervous.
Yes, what would the police want with her?

“I think it’s just routine. They’re asking around. I think that . . . that this time they want to solve the murder quickly, not have it drag out the way it did with Jacinta.”

Patience said nothing. Lori took a risk and startled her with a question.

“They found an arrowhead on the body, like the one I found in my house. It looks like a bird carved out of bone, or like a fish. Did you ever happen to see Una with something like that? Or was anything like that lying around her house when you were there?”

Patience pressed her fingers against her temples.

“I was almost never in her house.”

“Wait, weren’t you friends?”

Patience hesitated a minute and replied, “Una was definitely not my kind of friend. She was deceitful as a snake.”

Lori looked at Patience in astonishment. She’d never heard her gentle neighbor talk like that. And there was more to come.

“Una was after Ches. She’d come to see him when I was out at births. She left him suggestive notes. And she always wanted to dance with him in the Hardy Sailor.”

“What? How did Ches take it?”

“He said he didn’t have any interest in Una. He said to me she flirted with everyone.”

“Did you confront her?”

“No. I told Archie.”

“Archie? Why?”

“Because everybody respects him. Archie has a lot of influence. She wouldn’t have dared to . . .”

“Yes?”

“There’s no messing with Archie. He’d have torn such a strip off her back that she’d never have tried anything with Ches ever again.”

“And what happened?”

“I don’t know.”

“But did Archie go after her?”

“I suppose.”

“Did Una . . . Did she ever say anything to you?”

“Yes, she was furious with me. Said I was crazy to think her and Ches had something going. She said Ches was of no interest to her whatsoever. And that Archie had no say in this and should mind his own damn business and be thankful that some people don’t tell what they know about him.”

“What did she mean?”

“Dunno.”

Lori thought this was very odd.

“So how did it all turn out?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, what happened after that?”

“Una ran off three days later.”

No sound in the car except the biting wind. The two of them stared at the houses of Stormy Cove, the clear light bathing them in a vulnerable innocence.

This is what people will see in my picture,
Lori thought. A cluster of small, modest houses on the shore of a mighty ocean—the simple dwellings of people living a hard life. People would see the truth of it and come to the wrong conclusion at the same time.

She turned to Patience. “Ginette said that Una would never have run away by herself, only with a man, but with somebody who could pay the bills.”

“Fair enough, but certainly not with my husband. You can see that now.”

“Patience, I have to ask: What do you think happened to Una?”

Patience still wouldn’t look at her.

“I think Archie told her his opinion and she couldn’t take it and skipped town.”

“But nobody used her credit card after she disappeared. And she left her cell phone behind.”

“She wasn’t stupid. They could have used those to track her down.”

Lori saw the point. But she had an odd feeling.

“Have you ever talked to Archie about this?”

“No.”

“So you don’t know what he said to Una?”

“No. Can you take your picture so we can go back? My head is pounding.”

“Yes, of course, I’ll take you home right now and come back for my shot after.”

A few minutes later, as Patience was opening her front door, she stopped for a moment.

“I don’t wish anything bad on Una, but my life has improved an awful lot since she left. She made problems for everybody.”

She attempted a tiny smile.

“Thanks for the ride. I’ll feel better tomorrow. And Noah will definitely be back by then.”

Patience was dead-on. That evening, Lori saw his pickup in front of his house. Patience called a little later. Somebody had seen Noah on the wharf. But he didn’t come to Lori’s and didn’t call.

She dialed his number. No answer.

Maybe he needed some time. Maybe he was busy with his boat. After all, he had to catch up on the work he’d missed the past three days.

But not even a phone call.

Had she misjudged? Maybe she wasn’t as important to him as she thought.

We should be able to talk about everything.
He
did
say that.

She barely slept that night.

She was struck by the stillness of the next morning. No wind. Exhausted, she lurched over to the large living room window. The water was so smooth that it reflected the houses and cliffs.

Though she didn’t feel like it, she walked down to the boats with her camera. The sight of Noah’s pickup was like a stab to the heart. His boat was gone, of course. Nobody had asked her if she wanted to go out fishing on such a glorious day.

Lloyd Weston didn’t call either. Patience didn’t drop in. The telephone didn’t make a peep. It was as if they all had abandoned her.

But her in-box was abuzz. Her mother, Danielle, Mona Blackwood, and some Vancouver friends bombarded her with questions about Reanna Sholler’s murder. They’d all heard about it on the news. No requests from reporters, though—almost a miracle. It paid off that she’d told none of her professional colleagues about her project. And Danielle had kept mum.