Clammed Up (17 page)

“Do you think Jean-Jacques is back?” Sonny was the one who actually said it, though all three of us were thinking it. He and I sat on the dock, our feet dangling over the side and Jamie lounged against a post. I’d avoided a full-blown panic attack, but still felt drained. We were waiting for Binder and Flynn, who were at Gabrielle and Etienne’s house, interviewing them again. Binder had sent the rest of his team back to Busman’s Harbor with the harbormaster.

“Could Jean-Jacques have been living here?” Jamie asked. “Right along?”

“No way,” Sonny and I answered simultaneously. For once, something on which we agreed. There was no way Jean-Jacques had been living on the island for six years.

“Was the playhouse fixed up when you were out here cleaning up in the spring?” I asked Sonny.

He shook his head. “I’m sure it wasn’t.”

“That’s what the kids said, too.”

“You asked the kids about it? How long have you known?” He seemed aggravated and accusatory.

I took a deep breath before I answered. “On the day of the first clambake, I discovered the playhouse had been cleaned. I thought it was something you, Chris, and Etienne had done to keep the kids occupied this spring.”

“Nope. Way too busy for that.”

I flashed him the best smile I could muster.
Yes, Sonny. I got it. You work hard, too.
“Page said she saw the ghost—or one of the ghosts. Could she have seen Jean-Jacques?”

Sonny started to say no, but then rolled his big shoulders. The day had already been full of surprises.

“We all saw the ghosts when we were kids,” Jamie said. “We talked about them all the time. Remember the ghost stories around the fire after the guests were gone?”

When we’d lived out on the island in the summers, sometimes as an extra special treat, after the dinner guests left, Etienne and my father would build us a little fire and we’d roast marshmallows. Usually, it was Livvie and Jean-Jacques and I, but sometimes Jamie stayed over. It was Jamie’s first mention of a personal, shared memory all day. Neither of us had even breathed a hint about the kiss. What was there to say?

“What will happen to Jean-Jacques if they find him?” I asked.

He wasn’t on the island. Binder and his men had searched every square inch of it, quizzing Sonny and me about hidden rooms in Windsholme, island caves, or forgotten outbuildings. Morrow Island was only thirteen acres and there was a limited number of places to hide. If it was Jean-Jacques who occupied the room in Windsholme, and he wasn’t on the island, that meant he had a way to get on and off. Binder’s team had again searched for signs of a boat and found nothing.

“He’s a deserter, right?” Jamie answered. “He’ll have to go back. I imagine there’ll be some kind of hearing. He’ll go to prison.”

I hadn’t seen Jean-Jacques in six years and only sporadically for seven years before that, but he was a part of my childhood and my heart ached at the thought of him in prison. I felt terrible for Etienne and Gabrielle. “But he didn’t desert troops in the field. He walked away when he was on leave, after he’d already done two tours.”

Jamie shrugged. “Maybe there’s some kind of leniency in those situations. Who knows?”

Binder finally emerged from the house, followed by a drawn and gray Etienne. We piled into the Whaler for the trip to the harbor. I wanted desperately to talk to Binder, but not in front of Etienne. The poor man was in enough pain. I walked to the helm and stood silently by his side all the way to the harbor, hoping my posture conveyed my support. I doubted any greater demonstration would be welcome.

Etienne dropped us at the town dock and left again without saying a word. I checked my cell phone. Three more calls from Bob Ditzy, and he’d started leaving messages. It was well past six o’clock. No point in calling him at the bank at that hour, so why listen to the messages?

“Can we open tomorrow?” I asked Binder.

He looked at me like I was crazy. “There appears to be a fugitive living on your island. No, you cannot open tomorrow.”

“He’s not there. You didn’t find him. Besides, isn’t he a problem for the military?”

“Not if he killed Ray Wilson, he isn’t.”

At the top of the street we split up. Binder and Jamie headed toward the police station, Sonny and I trudged up the hill to Mom’s house. Both of us were so down, it was almost impossible to speak. In twenty-four hours, we would be the people who lost the Snowden Family Clambake.

Livvie’s minivan was in the driveway. So was another car I didn’t recognize—a sporty red BMW with the top down.

Tony Poitras got up from the porch swing when he heard us come up the front steps. “Your mom said I could wait here.”

Sonny shook Tony’s hand, mumbled something, and went inside.

I was glad he left us to talk privately. “What brings you here?” It had to be something important. He’d driven for twenty-five minutes and then waited who knows how long.

“You ratted me out.” His tone was light, teasing, but with an edge. “You told Michaela I wasn’t in my room the night Ray . . . that night.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset her. I had no idea she’d get so mad.”

He pulled his perfect brows together. “I want to assure you, what happened that night was totally innocent.”

“I’m not the one you need to tell.”

“I’ve already talked to Michaela. Now I’m talking to you.”

We sat across from one another in my mother’s big wicker chairs. It was that time in the early evening when the wind died and everything was still. I heard the hum of a lawn mower from some far-off yard. Other than that, the town was silent.

“I wasn’t feeling great the night of the rehearsal dinner,” Tony started. “I don’t know if it was prewedding jitters, or too much to eat or what, but I left Crowley’s early. Michaela was dancing with her girlfriends and having a great time. I didn’t want to be a stick in the mud.”

“Was Ray drunk when you left?”

“No. I didn’t see him take a drink except for seltzer water. He’d been sober for a year. I wasn’t worried about it.”

“Did you see Sarah Halsey while you were at Crowley’s?”

“So you know about that? The answer is I glimpsed her coming in as I was leaving. I don’t think she saw me. Frankly, it just made me even happier I’d decided to leave. I didn’t want to see her.”

“Why not?”

Tony’s jaw tightened. “Because she made a chump out of my friend. She’d lied to him, never told him he had a kid. And when he’d sobered up, she tried to keep his son away from him. Ray had a hundred reasons to get sober, but the only one that worked was knowing he had a son. Wanting to spend time with the boy. He tried to work things out with Sarah for more than a year, but she just stonewalled him. He had just told her he planned to sue for visitation. Now he’s dead. His son never even knew him. The whole thing is a terrible waste.” Tony pinched his nose between his thumb and forefinger.

Ray threatened to sue Sarah for visitation? Why had she kept that information back, when she’d told me so much? I needed time to think. “Can I get you something to drink?”

“Sure. I’ll have a beer, if you’ve got one.”

I took a Sea Dog from the fridge and poured an ice water for myself. I’d already done one dumb thing due to drinking in the last twenty-four hours. I needed to be sharp for this conversation.

I handed Tony the beer and sat down. “You were explaining why you didn’t sleep in your bed the night before you were supposed to be married. I know the maid of honor called you.”

“Michaela was out wandering the streets at 2:00 in the morning, meeting up with a drunk man. Lynn was frantic with worry. So she called me. And I went out to look for Michaela.”

“But you didn’t find her.”

“No. Instead of walking from my hotel to the other side of the harbor, I got in my car. I thought it would be more efficient to drive around looking for Michaela than to do it on foot. I drove for a while, but didn’t find either Michaela or Ray. I thought she might be back at the B&B by then, so I pulled up in front and called Lynn on her cell. No Michaela. But Lynn came right outside and got in my car to talk.”

“Oh, Tony.” According to Fee Snuggs, Lynn hadn’t asked Tony to look for Michaela. She’d asked him to come to the B&B. Tony had given Lynn exactly what she wanted.

He put up a hand. “
Nothing
happened. Well, almost nothing. I was out of my mind with worry. It was the night before my wedding and my wife-to-be was missing. She’d gone off to meet my best friend. Lynn pointed out that maybe Michaela didn’t have her priorities straight in terms of the attention and consideration she gave me versus Ray. There was some frustration on my part. Some venting. But that’s it. Nothing happened between Lynn and me.” He hesitated. “Even though that might have been what Lynn wanted.”

“If nothing happened, then why didn’t you tell Michaela?”

“Lynn is a sensitive topic where Michaela is concerned. I didn’t think she’d want to know that I spent part of the night before our wedding—”

“With an old girlfriend,” I finished.

“But I did tell Lieutenant Binder. I’ve been completely honest with the cops about where I was that night.”

“After you left Lynn, where did you go? There was still plenty of time for you to go back to your hotel and get a few hours sleep. But you didn’t.”

Tony exhaled loudly as if he’d gotten through the worst of what he had to tell. “I sent Lynn back inside before anything could happen between us. I turned my car around in your driveway, right here. I was going to take one more trip around town before I turned in. I was still worried about Michaela. And Ray. I headed down toward the Lighthouse Inn. I thought maybe they’d gone back to his room. Just for a place to talk. But I never made it. That guy who works for you at the clambake and his wife were walking up from the town dock. I almost hit them. She was in a terrible state. Disheveled and raving. Something about her son. I recognized the guy’s name as soon as he introduced himself, Etienne Martineau. Ray had been talking to him about a business deal.”

Yeah, about buying my family’s island.
But I didn’t say it. I didn’t want to get Tony off track. I was amazed to hear that Etienne and Gabrielle had been on the mainland that night. It contradicted everything Etienne had let me believe. He said he would have heard anyone coming onto our island,
but he wasn’t there
.

“Etienne said his wife was having some difficulties, which was obvious. There was a prescription waiting for her at the twenty-four-hour pharmacy up on Route One. He asked me to drive them there. I wanted to say no, I had my own troubles, but anyone could see the poor guy had his hands full. He told me he didn’t feel he could leave his wife on the island alone.

“So I loaded them into my car. She sat in front and he squeezed into the back. And that’s it. By the time we got up to the pharmacy and I dropped them back at your dock, it was almost three
A.M.
I called Lynn. She answered on the first ring and said Michaela was back at the B&B sound asleep. I went back to the Bellevue. I was terrified of sleeping through the wake-up call and missing my own wedding, so I only half dozed on my bed.”

“You never got under the covers.”

“Okay, now I have to know who your sources are.” He smiled, trying to get the conversation back to a lighter tone, but I couldn’t get there.

I tried to figure out how his story fit and what it meant. “What do you think was in Ray’s camp trunk?”

He laughed. “I told you. I’m sure it was for some sophomoric prank at my wedding. Some best man high jinx. I loved Ray, but he had a highly questionable sense of humor.”

“Etienne said Ray came to the island a few weeks ago to scout it out for a prank. Do you think Ray went out to Morrow Island the night of his murder to set up a joke?”

“And what? Ran into some mad man?”

I didn’t respond, but that was exactly what I thought. A mad man in the form of Jean-Jacques. But I wasn’t going to tell Tony. It was time to tackle the second subject I had to discuss with him. “The prank wasn’t the only reason Ray went to Morrow Island the first time.” I kept my voice steady. All business.

“True.” Tony took a long draw on the beer. “He was looking at Morrow Island for our company.”

“Did he like what he saw?”

“He did.” Tony’s voice was even, too. Professional. “Losing Ray is a huge setback to my business. But I still want your island. I’ll give you one point five million dollars for it.”

“That’s a quarter of the amount Ray mentioned to Etienne!” One and a half million was exactly the amount we owed the bank. Did Tony know that?

“Those were just feelers. Ray and I had never agreed on a specific amount. And now, it seems your business is in distress.”

There was no point in denying it. “The business was in distress when Ray talked to Etienne and Sonny, too.”

“Yes, but back then, those guys believed you were going to save it. You were their great hope.” Tony shifted back into his chair. “But it didn’t work out that way. Instead, you structured a deal with the bank that’s going to put you out of business before the season’s even really started.”

He didn’t just know the amount we owed the bank, he knew the terms. He knew about the five closed days. He’d been talking to Bob Ditzy. If he didn’t get the island from my family, he’d get it from the bank.

My cheeks burned with embarrassment and shame. What Tony said was true. It wasn’t my fault there’d been a murder and a fire on Morrow Island. But it was entirely my fault that the bank was in a position to shut us down just a week into the season. What had I been thinking? What a stupid, stupid deal I’d constructed.

“It’s not my island to sell,” I said unnecessarily. Tony had done his homework well. I was sure he knew my mother owned Morrow Island.

“I’m confident your mother will do whatever you advise. You’re the financial whiz in the family. The offer’s firm. You have until midnight tomorrow to decide. Then the offer goes away and I move on.”

My dreams of being the hero and saving the business were in tatters. My brief fantasy of selling the island for six million dollars and having money for Page, Livvie, and Mom was gone, too. But the money Tony was offering was enough to pay off all the debt and save my mother’s house. If we sold off the
Jacquie II
and some smaller assets, it would provide a comfortable life for my mother. I had to tell my family about Tony’s offer.