Death of a Hot Chick (3 page)

One of the state cops said, “Those people
should have waited for us.”

“
They had little kids. They were
tired.” After a moment, I added, “They didn’t even see the
body.”

“
But you don’t know them.”

“
I’ve seen them a time or two. I don’t
know their names.”

The second officer stood inches from my
face. “So you went for a cart. Why?” The troopers weren’t from
Smith Harbor.

“
Boaters help each other, you know?
The kids were tired, they had their hands full.”

“
You’re damn tootin’,” Lizzie said.
“I’d a helped if I’d been here.”

“
But you
did
know the deceased,” the first trooper
said.

“
I’m working for her. Was working for
her. Fixing her boat.” I wished he would look in Nicole’s other
pocket. “She said she’d be back, so I waited for her. Anyway, I
tried to, but I fell asleep.” Would he give me anything out of that
other pocket, like the thirty dollars? No way. “I guess I got a few
mosquito bites.”

“
You notice that dead woman is wet,”
Lizzie told him. “I suspect the killer wanted to wash off the
blood. Probably been shot, but not here, because I woulda heard it.
I hear everything. Nothing gets by this one.”

“
Then you heard the body being dumped
in the cart,” the trooper said.

“
Maybe.” Lizzie shifted from one foot
to another, a sure sign that she was inventing a story. “Yeah, I
musta heard something. Problem is, I was watching my TV and any
little bump coulda been some static. Lotta that around
here.”

Definitely one of Lizzie’s stories. If she’d
heard a little bump, she’d have been outside in a flash. Like she
would have been if she’d heard the young couple returning with
their boat. Like she would have been if she’d heard me at the boat
cart. The only thing she’d heard was the patrol car siren as it
turned into the marina. She’d appeared ten minutes later, which was
just enough time to get dressed.

“
What time was that?” the second
trooper said.

Without looking at a watch, Lizzie said,
“Exactly thirty-seven minutes ago.”

Except, it couldn’t have been. Nicole was
dead before that.

“
Let’s hear it again,” the officer
said, looking straight at me. “It was after midnight and you hadn’t
been out of the boat since Miss Joline left?”

I rubbed my itching arms. “I’d been on deck.
Nicole said she’d be back, and I said I’d watch for her.”

“
Then you were out of the
boat.”

“
But not off the boat. I sat right
there, in the back, before I went inside.”

“
And whose boat is it?”

“
It belongs to Nicole.” With a jolt, I
realized I should have added, “and me.” How could I explain that
title to anyone but Wes?

The trooper must have kept talking, but I
didn’t hear him. Instead, I remembered her voice. “Take it,” she’d
said. “It’s yours.” When I saw her body, I’d known what she meant.
A trade-off. Tit for tat. Not payment for supplies. Strictly a
business proposition. She didn’t give up much—just the title to one
boat completely useless to a dead person. In exchange, she wanted
something quite impossible—the killer’s name. And, she expected me
to find him.

~
~

8:30 am

Under the grime,
Snapdragon
was white gel-coat with one blue
stripe the length of the cabin. Stainless steel grab rails were
placed at strategic spots. A handsome boat once, she would be again
when I was finished. I’d started at the logical place yesterday,
the roof of the pilot house, then on to the bow. But the roof
needed more attention. There were no steps like on newer boats, and
the deck box wasn’t quite tall enough, but the raised roof over the
V-berth was. I lifted my bucket, then crawled on top of the cabin.
The second scrubbing was harder—the remaining dirt, almost a stain,
was stubborn. Still, under the sheen of the water more and more of
the surface shone.
Snapdragon
was a beauty, even if she wasn’t a sailboat.

Was she really mine now? No matter who she
belonged to, there’s absolutely nothing better than working on a
boat, bringing her to life. I could happily work for days, doing
nothing else, but I wouldn’t. I’d have to look for another job—one
to pay for food.

“
Ahoy, the boat.”

Another cop, but I knew this one, Smith
Harbor’s own. “Hi, Doug. I mean, Officer Yarnell. I guess you’re
helping the state police?”

He glanced up, then back down at the paper
in his hand. “Cyd Denlinger?” he asked like he hadn’t been at Al’s
memorial service two weeks before. Not to mention that his whole
family had lived two doors down from my family and I’d been the
weirdest, most annoying brat in the neighborhood. Or even that I’d
been one of his loyal backyard detectives for a whole glorious
summer. He added, “Oh, yeah. You’re one of the Landis kids. And the
state troopers were covering for us last night.”

I nodded, and he went on like I really
wanted to hear old memories. His eyes lit up and he suppressed a
laugh. “That accident was my first case. Did you know that? You
were sure mad at that guy. Can’t say I blame you. DUI. Gregory
Norris, right?”

I pulled my brush out of the bucket, but
that didn’t stop him.

“
He turned himself around, I
hear.”

“
So they say.” I moved to a new spot
and continued scrubbing.

He finally got the hint. “You found a body.
I believe you also identified Nicole Joline. How did you know
her?”

I sat back on my heels and gave him my
full attention, since he was now talking murder. “I’m doing a job
for her. Cleaning and minor repair of this lobster trawler. She
planned on selling
Snapdragon
.”

“
And you are still working for her? Or
are you just fulfilling jobs already paid for?”

Did I actually want to tell Doug the boat
was mine now? If it was. “Let’s just say I might as well keep
working until everybody stops asking questions. How about
that?”

“
Oh, yes, I do remember the younger
Cyd,” he said, which I ignored completely. He didn’t wait for any
comment I might make, just asked the next question. “How well did
you know Nicole Joline? Have you known her long?”

“
Didn’t. My sister Kaye knew her.
Pretty well, I guess. She was her teacher.”

“
That would be your sister the college
professor at Hanson Academy, right?”

Did he keep tabs on every family in Smith
Harbor? At least he didn’t run down the list of our whole family
with Kaye’s mostly absentee husband, my sister Pearl with her
namesake Pearl Mesta’s complex of striving to be the hostess with
the mostest, or my parents and grandmother who amiably inhabited
three separate apartments in a four-plex on the bay. “Yep, that’s
the one. When Nicole wanted someone to work on her boat, she asked
Kaye. I met Nicole on Monday.”

“
Right now I’m interested in how you
happened to find the body.”

Did he want the whole story? Had he read the
State Police report? I went with an abbreviated version. “I went
for a cart for the folks on that boat. Just being helpful.”

“
When did you last see the victim
alive?”

“
A few hours before that. Yesterday.
Here. Then she left.”

“
Where was she going?”

“
Someplace to get thirty dollars to
pay for the supplies I bought. From a friend, I think she
said.”

“
Cyd, that’s your statement? She went
to get thirty dollars?”

“
Yes. She’d just paid for a dinghy.
She was....” Why tell him more? He didn’t believe me, and I knew
why. “Nicole Joline,” and “wealthy” were practically synonyms.
Stubbornly, I kept up the explanations. “She only had twenty-two
dollars in her pocket. She said she’d go get thirty more to pay for
the supplies I got.” He could believe what he wanted.

“
Leaving that for a moment, did you
see anything unusual before you found the body?”

What was unusual? The light bulb was out?
Definitely not unusual. Lizzie didn’t show up at the actual murder?
Fortunate for her and definitely unusual, but nothing the cops
wanted to hear. I’d heard a call for help, told to find a killer,
and stuck my hand in a dead person’s pocket?

“
No, nothing unusual.”

Officer Doug kept asking questions. What was
Nicole wearing? Why had I helped the people in the next boat? Had I
seen anything unusual before yesterday? Where would I be moving
when I left the boat?

“
When I leave the boat? Leave
Snapdragon
, you mean?”

“
Yes, I’ll need to know your
address.”

Was it the time to say, “It’s my boat now?”
No. “Until the job is done?” Possibly. But I said, “I hadn’t
planned on leaving. Not soon, that is.” That should cover every
eventuality.

“
Oh? Let me know when you do,” Yarnell
said, then asked, “Have you contacted anyone else about this? Told
anyone, I mean.”

“
Why? Is it a secret that Nicole
Joline died?”

“
I don’t want to find out you’ve held
out on the police to go to the media.” Of course he meant, “Don’t
tell your newspaper friend Teddy Huertes.”

“
Look, I told the state troopers
everything I know. I haven’t gone anywhere since.” I could have
added any number of things, like, “I get your message.” Of course,
I didn’t say that, not until he’d walked back to his patrol car and
taken off.

He didn’t mention anything about not talking
at all. Which was good, for I’d already called my sister. And at
any moment Kaye would drive up, demanding to know even more.

~
~

Half an hour later, Kaye arrived. Her eyes
were red, although she’d tried to cover any trace with makeup. “I
can’t believe it,” she told me. “Nicole was such a sweet
person.”

I grabbed a tissue and handed it to her. “I
can’t believe it either. She was so...so alive!”

Kaye nodded. “Vibrant.” She blew her nose
and reached for another tissue before she went into retrospect
mode. “Nicole was insecure when she first started as a freshman at
Hanson Academy. I’ve... She...” Kaye straightened her shoulders,
blinked the tears away, and went on like she always did. “She
succeeded beyond anyone’s possible expectations. She became a
confident young woman.”

Confident, definitely. “And awfully
convincing too. Somehow, even if she irritated me, she won me over
before she left. I sure don’t know how she could be irritating and
so convincing all at once.” Kaye dabbed at her eyes, so I kept
talking. “Why would anyone kill her? Maybe those business deals
were too sharp. She could be abrasive, but that’s no motive for
murder.”

“
Abrasive? Nicole? Are we talking
about the same person?”

“
You know what I mean. Absolutely
certain that she’d get her way. Not particularly understanding of
another’s needs.”

“
That may have been your perception.
She had to develop that tough skin. You should have known her
before. A cross word upset her for days. She didn’t value her own
worth. It was her father, of course. He beat her down, destroyed
her confidence. I’m of the opinion that he sent her to Hanson
Academy hoping she’d fail our rigorous schedule.”

“
Beat her physically?”

Kaye jerked her head back like I’d thrown a
rock at her face instead of a question. “No.” But she recovered and
asked, “What happened last night?”

“
No more than I told you over the
phone.”

“
Nothing more? Do the police have any
ideas who did it?”

“
Would they tell me if they
did?”

“
We’ll assume they’ll use all the help
we can provide. Walk me through—show me everything. Interested and
knowledgeable amateurs frequently are able to intuit answers when
professionals can’t.”

“
Kaye, I hate to be the one to tell
you. One summer during grade school finding the odd lost cat or
misplaced newspaper does not make you a detective.”

She smiled that know-it-all big-sister-smile
that used to mean I was wrong and she was about to prove it. But
I’d learned a few things since childhood.

I kept up my barrage. “Just because you
devour every speck of information about any mystery on the Eastern
Seaboard, doesn’t mean you’re a detective. Just because you play
mystery games with some club devoted to amateur solving doesn’t
mean you’re a detective. Just because you....”

“
We have to.”

“
Kaye, Nicole’s death has nothing to
do with us. Absolutely nothing.”

“
You know that isn’t true. I’ve lost a
friend. You’ve lost an employer. We are vitally concerned.” She
held up her hands to stop my answer. “Okay, no detecting. We’ll
only gather information and turn it over to the police. Happy
now?”

“
No. The police are gathering
information. They don’t want us mucking up the place.”

Kaye beamed with her big-sister-smile,
knowing full well that she could wear me down. “At least tell me
all about it. Show me where it happened. You know I’m
interested.”

I muttered under my breath, but I turned and
led Kaye to the spot where I’d found Nicole’s body. And, I answered
questions.