Debra Burroughs - Paradise Valley 06 - The Harbor of Lies (13 page)

“Sorry, but we can’t discuss an ongoing investigation.” The chief pitched Colin a look and tilted his head toward the door. “I guess we should be shoving off now.”

They said their good-byes and marched to the police car.

“Let’s hope Emily had better luck with Ben’s secretary,” the chief muttered as they climbed in.

Whitley
. “Shoot!” Colin slammed the palm of his hand on the dashboard.

A wide-eyed Chief Taylor jumped in his seat. “What the heck?”

“The church. Why didn’t I think of it sooner? Maybe it’s in Ben’s computer at the church.”

“All right, all right. Calm down now. That’s easy enough to check into. Sheesh, you big-city types can get so worked up.”

As they drove away from the bed and breakfast, Colin phoned Emily, anxious to know how her meeting went with Whitley. She told him she would be waiting for him at the police station and she’d tell him everything then.

~*~

Emily sat waiting in the small reception area and stood when Colin and the chief arrived.

“Let’s head on back to my office.” Chief Taylor led the way, and they followed him through the secure door, down the hall and into his office, taking seats around the chief’s desk.

“Whitley was pretty closed off at first,” Emily began, “but eventually I got her to open up.” There was no need to tell them how she had left the poor girl in tears. “She said she had overheard Eric Malone, the manager at the inn, on the phone one night.”

Colin’s brow twisted in confusion. “How did she happen to overhear him at the inn?”

“She had been working part-time as a night clerk,” Emily explained. “He said something that sounded like
heroin,
and he mentioned his boat business.”

“Boat business?” Colin asked.

The chief leaned back in his squeaky chair and linked his hands behind his head. “He has himself a beauty of a trawler—you should see it. He runs short cruises between Rock Harbor and Boston. And then there’s the fishing trips he offers the boat for, too, taking tourists out on the bay.”

Colin leaned forward in his seat, resting an elbow on his knee. “Heroin? Boats?”

The chief bolted upright, his hands flying down hard to his desk. “You think he’s the one bringing the drugs into town?”

“Now, Chief,” Emily cautioned, raising a hand toward him, “Whitley said she overheard him through a mostly closed door, so she may have been mistaken. We can’t jump to conclusions because he could have just been talking to a friend about his boat business, couldn’t he?”

“Perhaps,” the chief replied, mulling over the possibility, “but it sounds pretty fishy.” He snorted. “No pun intended.”

Colin glowered at him before turning his attention back to Emily. “What else did she say?”

“She said she had told Ben what she’d overheard. That was a day or two before he turned up dead. The poor thing is blaming herself for confiding in him. She thinks she got him killed.”

“Maybe she did,” the chief mused. “Sounds like she may have stumbled onto our drug source, and if that’s the case, she could be in danger too.”

“That’s why she begged me not to tell anyone she told me,” Emily said. “So you can’t bring her name into this, in any way.” She glanced from the chief to Colin, seeking their consent.

Chief Taylor nodded, but Colin was another story. “If you find the killer, Chief, she’ll likely be called on to testify at the trial.”

Emily straightened in her seat. “Not if we can gather enough evidence to prove his guilt without her testimony.”

“True enough.” Colin seemed to agree, gazing at Emily before turning to the chief. “So you’d better use us while you can, to help you get that evidence.”

The chief cocked his head quizzically. “While I can?”

“You’ve only got us for one more day,” Emily reminded him. “We’re getting married on Saturday.”

Colin reached over and took Emily’s hand. “That’s right, and then we’re off on our honeymoon.” He raised his eyebrows to her with a roguish grin.

Her heart skipped a beat at the thought of it.

“Oh, gotcha,” Chief Taylor replied with a nod.

“Wait. I almost forgot.” Emily pulled a small notepad out of her pocket. She glanced down at her notes. “Eric Malone has two men working on his boat, Whitley said.”

“Her brother’s one of them, right?” the chief asked.

“Yes, Caleb Donovan. But I saw the other guy he has working for him, a man named Rosco. He was arguing with Malone at the inn, and he looked like a pretty shady character. Do you know him, Chief?”

“Oh, I’ve seen him around. I only know him by his first name, like you said, Rosco. If we can get a last name, I’ll do a background check.”

“Already on it.” Emily peered down at her notes again. “Try Ciminella. That’s what Whitley gave me.”

“If this is about drug runners,” Colin reasoned, “then it’s entirely possible it had nothing to do with thugs from New York hunting for Ben Kingston.”

“But we can’t be sure of that. We need more proof,” Emily said. “Chief, you’d better ask for a search warrant for that boat. Then test it for any traces of drugs. Do you have a drug-sniffing dog around here?”

“No, but I’m sure I could have one brought over from Bangor. But if I’m to get another search warrant, I’ll need more justification than what you’ve given me. And even if I could get one, it’ll take a while. Remember,” his gaze went to Colin, “the judges are over in Ellsworth, and it’s getting late.”

“Ellsworth? Where the heck is that?” Emily asked.

“Half an hour away,” Colin responded.

“I’ve got an idea.” The chief’s face lit up and he jumped out of his chair. “Maybe we can get Whitley to cozy up to Eric Malone and see what she can find out for us.”

“Absolutely not.” Emily shook her head vehemently, considering what Whitley had told her about their date. “You can’t ask her to put herself in danger. She’s a civilian with no experience at this kind of thing.”

The chief cast her a questioning frown. “You got a better idea?”

Emily looked over at Colin, quirking an eyebrow at him. “Maggie?”

“Who’s Maggie?” the chief asked. “Code name for a secret weapon?”

“No,” Colin replied with a shake of his head, ignoring the chief’s question, “that’s not a good idea. She’s a civilian too.”

“Yes, but she can handle herself. You know she’s helped me on a number of cases, and I wouldn’t be asking her to do anything dangerous, just smile, swivel her hips, and get chummy with Mr. Malone.”

“Who’s Maggie?” Chief Taylor asked again.

Emily turned back to the chief. “One of my friends that came for the wedding. The stunning blonde.”

“Ahhh.” The chief’s eyes lit up with understanding, and an impish grin spread across his face as he sat back down.

“So you’ve seen her?” Emily asked.

“Eyah, at the inn, the night of the murder.”

“Then you know what I’m talking about.”

“Eyah.” His eyebrows rose at the thought of her.

“Now, you wouldn’t happen to have a GPS beacon of some kind around here, would you, Chief?” Emily asked. “Something we could slip onto the boat to see where it goes?”

“Without a search warrant, I can’t authorize planting a tracker. I could get in a heap of trouble. You’re a PI, don’t you have one?”

“I don’t carry them around with me all the time. It’s not like I knew I’d stumble over a dead body and we’d be working a case while we were in Maine for our wedding,” she paused and shot Colin a steamy glare, “or I might have packed a couple.”

Colin leaned on the desk, quickly shifting his gaze away from Emily, and eyed the chief. “Come on, Alvin, work with us here. We’re trying to help you out, the least you could do is—”

“All right, all right. But you can’t say where you got this.” Chief Taylor opened his side desk drawer. He pulled out a small black disc, about the size of a gambling token, with what looked like a tiny computer chip on one side, and he laid it on his desktop. “There’s a hunting tracker. We stick one of these in our pockets when we go up into the mountains, in case we get lost and need to be rescued.”

Emily happily snatched it up and dropped it in her purse. “Thanks. That’s perfect. Now, do you happen to have a wire?”

“Eyah, somewhere in my desk—but we can’t record anything without a warrant,” the chief replied, as if it rarely got any use.

“I don’t want to record the conversation, just listen in, in case Maggie does happen to get in over her head.”

The chief threw her a worried look before bending down to rummage around in the deep bottom drawer of his desk.

“So, of course, I’ll need a listening device to go with that wire.”

“Of course.” The chief rolled his eyes like an irritated teenager and dug back into the drawer.

“What’s your plan, Emily?” Colin asked.

She explained what she had come up with and Colin snickered. “Good thing Peter isn’t coming ’til tomorrow night.”

The chief laid a dark gray plastic box, which housed the equipment, on his desk. “Who’s Peter?”

Chapter 13

“We should be going, Chief.” Emily shrugged her coat on. “We’re meeting friends for dinner.”

Colin’s phone rang and he tugged it out of his pocket. “Hey, it’s Marconi from NYPD.” He pushed the answer button. “Hello, this is Detective Andrews.”

He paused and listened briefly. “I’m here with Emily and the Chief of Police in Rock Harbor. I’m going to put you on speaker so we can all hear what you’ve got to say.” Colin clicked the speaker icon and held his phone out. “Go ahead.”

“Well, your guy Ben Kingston is a popular fella.”

Colin looked over at the chief. “What do you mean?”

“Word on the street is that he’s got a two-hundred-thousand-dollar bounty on his head. I’d say the people he’s supposed to testify against really don’t want him showing up at the courthouse.”

“Which means they’ve put the word out, and probably his picture.” Colin cast a glance at Emily. “Hey, what do you have on a Rosco Ciminella?”

“I’ve heard the name Ciminella before, but I don’t think it was connected to someone named Rosco. Maybe he’s a relative. I’ll check it out. I can’t promise you anything, but I’ll get back to you when I know something more.”

“Thanks, buddy.” Colin shoved the phone back in his pocket.

“You two better get going,” the chief said. “I’ll see if I can find something out about Rosco on my own. And if anything turns up, I’ll give you a jingle.”

~*~

By the time Colin and Emily left the police station, night had fallen and the temperature was beginning to drop. The inn was only a few blocks away, a short pleasant walk down Main Street. The old-fashioned streetlamps illuminated both sides of the narrow street that was crowded with cars and an abundance of tourists who bustled in and out of the warmly lit shops and cafés.

Colin zipped up his coat and circled an arm snugly around Emily’s shoulders as they walked.

On a clear night, stars twinkled across the sky in a heavenly show, but on this night the thick layer of clouds were blocking their light.

They stopped and admired a display of unique Christmas ornaments in the window of one of the local shops. Bright autumn-colored leaves, encased in a sparkling resin, had been strategically hung by narrow silk ribbons on an expansive, bare, white birch branch.

In the reflection of the glass, for just an instant, Emily could have sworn she saw Evan passing behind her. She whirled around, almost knocking into a couple of teenagers walking by.

“Sorry,” she gasped, thrusting out her hands to steady them.

“What’s the matter, Babe?” Colin asked, concern coloring his voice.

How could she answer that? There was no way she was going to tell him that visions of her dead husband were haunting her, that she was seeing him everywhere, especially with their wedding right around the corner. “See the shop across the street? I saw its reflection in the glass. Come on, let’s go check it out and pick up some souvenirs.” She grabbed Colin by the hand and dragged him across the street, dodging moving vehicles.

“What are you, nuts?” He laughed as they reached the sidewalk on the other side.

Maybe a little
, she was beginning to think, but she didn’t dare say it out loud.

After buying a stack of postcards with photos of the area, they headed back to the inn to meet up with their friends for dinner. In the privacy of the long, dimly-lit driveway that led from Main Street to the charming inn, they paused and took in the stunning view of the bay.

A few of the boats docked in the marina were lit, casting a faint glow over the dark water. The large boats—the whale watchers and touring sailboats—were moored in relative darkness behind the restaurants that perched along the shoreline. The silvery moonlight that had shown on the water the night before was now diffused behind the brooding clouds.

The cool night air was laced with the smells of the sea, mingled with the delicious scent of food being prepared at various restaurants nearby.

“I love you, Emily.” Colin drew her into his arms and she felt the warmth of his body pressed against hers.

It was an intimate and romantic moment, just the two of them. There hadn’t been many of them lately—thanks to the unfortunate turn of events—but standing alone, enveloped in each other’s arms, they were shrouded in near darkness as they looked out over the twinkling lights on the water. It was almost as if they were shut away in a world all their own.

She raised her face to him and he kissed her. His mouth was warm and moist on hers, sending a tingling heat flooding through every part of her body.

“I can’t wait to marry you, Babe.” His voice was low and deep, little more than a whisper. He rested his cheek against her temple as he held her close.

“Only two more days.” She tipped her head back a little to gaze up into his eyes, then she snuggled once more against his strong chest, surrounded by the safety of his arms. “Then we’re off to the bright lights of New York City. Think of all the exciting things we’ll do.”

“If we ever leave our hotel room.”

The romantic comment drew her gaze up to meet his. He raised his brows to her and a playfully naughty grin curled on his lips. “That can be pretty exciting too,” he said.