Deception Cove

Chapter 26

“HIS NAME IS SAMSON CRISP,” ALICE SAID. “HE WAS THE private investigator I told you about, the one I hired to look into Fulton’s death. No wonder he never got back to me or bothered to send me a bill. I feel absolutely terrible about this. All the time I was thinking he had scammed me he was in that freezer, dead. And it’s probably my fault.”

Drake watched her stalk past him as she made another circuit of the small space. He was seriously annoyed by the distress and the guilt that he saw in her eyes.

“Alice, pay attention. This is not your fault.”

“But I’m the reason he wound up on Rainshadow,” she said.

“He was a professional. You employed him to investigate the murder of a very wealthy man. He had to know that might be dangerous work.”

They were in their room at the Marina Inn. The location was the only place Drake could think of that guaranteed them some privacy. News of the discovery of the body had flashed through the tiny community like lightning. The rumors that Alice had been acquainted with the victim had riveted everyone’s attention. Kirk Willis and the town’s only doctor, Ed Forester, had taken charge of the rapidly thawing Crisp. Forester had made it clear up front that he was a family practitioner, not a forensic pathologist, but he had agreed to examine the body to see if he could determine the cause of death.

Drake was sprawled in one of the room’s two chairs, mostly because it was the only way he could stay out of Alice’s path. She had begun pacing the room almost as soon as he had gotten the door open. Every so often she started to fade a little around the edges, enough so that he had to use some energy to bring her back into focus.

Houdini was hunkered down on the window ledge watching Alice. Whenever she went past his perch, he made small, comforting noises.

“I had no idea that Crisp had come here,” Alice said. “He never told me that he planned to do that.” She came face-to-face with a wall, spun around, and started back toward the opposite wall. “He must have traveled here to see if he could verify my version of events.”

“That’s a possibility,” Drake said. Personally, he had his doubts.

“I must say, Crisp’s investigation was certainly a lot more thorough than I gave him credit for,” Alice continued. She locked her hands behind her back. “I expect that when he started asking questions, he alerted the killer, who followed him here and murdered him.”

“When confronting new facts, the first rule is, don’t jump to conclusions,” Drake said. “We don’t know for certain what Samson Crisp was doing here on the island.”

Alice stopped and turned to face him, startled. “It’s obvious why he was here.”

“No,” Drake said evenly. “Nothing is obvious, not yet. But we may know more when we read his notes.”

Alice looked at the leather-bound notebook on the table. She had notified Drake first after discovering Crisp in the freezer. Drake had done a quick search of the body before Kirk Willis and Myrna Reed had arrived. He had found the notebook inside a waterproof pocket of Crisp’s trench coat. Making an executive decision, he had quietly confiscated it before Willis and Reed got to the restaurant.

There was no telling what Samson Crisp had discovered in the course of the investigation, but whatever it was had most certainly gotten him killed. It was Crisp’s motive for being on Rainshadow that made Drake suspicious. It was a long and expensive trip for a low-rent PI to make without checking to be sure the client would pay for all costs.

“Maybe he found out who really killed Whitcomb,” Alice said. She watched the notebook with an expression of wary hope. “Maybe he also came up with some proof. But why would the killer stick him in Burt’s frozen food locker?”

“I can think of two possibilities,” Drake said.

Alice blinked. “Two?”

“The murder may have been an impulsive act that left the killer with a body to dispose of in a hurry. Evidently Burt’s freezer was the most convenient place to stash it.”

Alice gave that a moment’s thought. “What’s the other possibility?”

“The murder was premeditated but it did not go according to plan. Same outcome. The killer is stuck with a body.”

“And Burt’s freezer was the most convenient place to stash it,” Alice concluded.

“It wasn’t a great option because sooner or later someone was bound to discover the body. But it wasn’t a bad choice, all things considered.”

“How can you say that?” Alice widened her hands. “Who knows how long poor Mr. Crisp’s body has been lying there behind the breakfast sausages?”

“Long enough to give the killer plenty of time to get off the island undetected,” Drake said.

Alice winced. “I see what you mean.” She frowned, her brows scrunching. “I hired Crisp about two months after Whitcomb was murdered. That’s how long it took me to realize that the cops probably were not going to find the real killer. I’ll bet he came here immediately to start his own investigation.”

“Let’s see what Crisp has to say for himself,” Drake said.

He sat forward and picked up the notebook. The freezing process had done very little damage, but nevertheless he turned the pages cautiously.

Alice hurried across the room to look over his shoulder. “Oh, damn, it’s in code.”

“Not exactly.” Drake studied the somewhat cryptic entries that had been made in cramped handwriting. “Some sort of personal shorthand. Since we know the names of several of the people involved in this thing, as well as the locations where the events took place, the initials should be easy enough to identify.” He pointed to the letters A and N. “That’s you. This looks like the date you initially contacted him. And the W has to stand for Whitcomb.”

“Yes. Hang on, I’ll get a pen and take some notes while you read.”

Drake waited until she was settled at the table with a pen and a pad bearing the legend The Marina Inn on each page. Then he started to read aloud. It didn’t take long to pick up the telltale signs.

“Crisp was looking for an angle, right from the start,” Drake said.

Alice frowned. “What do you mean?”

“He realized that the real money involved in the case was the Whitcomb fortune. He started hunting for a way to tap into that the minute you walked out of his office.”

“You mean he tried to sell his services to Ethel Whitcomb?”

“No, at least not yet.” Drake turned another page. “But he did what the cops should have done more thoroughly—what I plan to do as soon as we get the computers up and running again. He looked into the background of everyone who was closely associated with Fulton Whitcomb.”

“Well? Don’t keep me in suspense. Did he find anything that might point to the killer?”

“Do the initials AH mean anything to you in connection with the Whitcomb Museum?”

Alice went still. “The director of the museum is Aldwin Hampstead. He was the one who hired me to work in the gift shop.”

“If I’m interpreting these notes correctly, it looks like Hampstead was operating a thriving business in black market Alien antiquities out of the basement of the museum.”

“Good grief, are you sure?”

“Looks like Crisp was certain about it, which is the critical point.” Drake flipped another couple of pages. “I think it’s safe to say that, after a short but evidently solid investigation, Crisp believed that he had found a way to turn a handsome profit on the Whitcomb case.”

“By finding out that Aldwin Hampstead was dealing in illegal antiquities?” Alice asked. “How does that—?” She broke off, her eyes widening. “Yes, of course, he intended to blackmail Aldwin. But that makes no sense. Aldwin wasn’t the one with the money.”

“No, but Aldwin Hampstead had a pipeline into the Whitcomb money. He had evidently been convincing Ethel to spend a fortune on fake antiquities for years. Looks like Crisp figured Hampstead could find a way to get more money out of Ethel and use it to pay Crisp for his silence.”

“So how did Crisp wind up on Rainshadow?”

Drake turned another page. “Here we go. At some point along the way Crisp realizes that Hampstead and Fulton Whitcomb are into something very, very big here on Rainshadow, an important Alien find. Compared to the potential profits of a discovery that yields a substantial amount of Alien technology, blackmail would be penny ante stuff.”

Alice put down her pen. “He wanted in on the project?”

“Yes. Hampstead agrees. They set up a meeting here on the island to show Crisp the ruin.”

“Instead of taking Crisp on a tour of the ruin, Aldwin Hampstead murdered him,” Alice concluded.

“Looks like it.” Drake turned the last page. “Crisp notes that he made a reservation here at the Marina Inn.”

“Well, it’s not like there are a lot of options here in Shadow Bay,” Alice said. “There are a handful of B-and-Bs, but people tend to remember you in small establishments. The Marina Inn would have seemed much more anonymous.”

“Given that Crisp’s body was found in the basement of the tavern, we can assume he was killed at the inn.”

“It still seems strange that the killer stashed the body in the freezer.”

“He was probably killed there,” Drake said, “or somewhere close by. It’s not easy to dump a body in a small town like Shadow Bay. The obvious location is inside the Preserve, but that would require the killer to carry the corpse through the inn and outside to a vehicle. There would have been too much risk that someone would see something suspicious.”

Alice tipped her head to one side. “We’re assuming that because Crisp came here to meet Hampstead, Hampstead is the killer. But what about Zara Tucker?”

“Zara is a very petite woman. She would not have had the upper body strength to lift Crisp up onto that shelf in the freezer where you found him.”

“Petite, huh? And I think you also said she was beautiful.”

Alice’s tone was a little too neutral and her expression was unreadable.

Drake suddenly felt as if he was walking on eggshells. He cleared his throat. “Take it from me, Zara is not the one who stuffed Crisp into the freezer. She never does her own dirty work if she can avoid it.”

“Which leaves Aldwin Hampstead as our most likely suspect.”

“If Hampstead and Zara are both in on this, which seems likely, you can be sure that Hampstead is taking orders from Zara Tucker. She’s the one running the show.”

Alice nodded once. “I believe you. What’s our next move?”

Drake got to his feet and went to stand at the window. “That’s obvious, isn’t it?”

“Excuse me?”

“Crisp’s body wound up in Burt’s freezer, not the freezer at the grocery store or the one at the fish market.”

“Good heavens, surely you don’t think Burt Caster killed the investigator.” Alice hesitated. “Unless he’s Zara Tucker’s spy here in town.”

Drake shook his head. “I don’t think Burt is the killer. He wouldn’t have sent you downstairs to clean out the last of the frozen hamburger meat if he had stashed a body inside the locker.”

“Right. Whew. That’s a relief. Okay, let’s see what we’ve got.” Alice held up one hand and ticked off facts. “Samson Crisp came here to Rainshadow to meet with Aldwin Hampstead. Crisp wanted a piece of the action at the ruin that Zara Tucker is excavating somewhere on the island. The meeting between Crisp and Hampstead took place at the Marina Inn where Crisp was killed.”

“It seems likely that Hampstead would have been staying here at the inn for the same reason that Crisp got a room there,” Drake said, thinking it through. “It’s the largest and most anonymous motel in Shadow Bay.”

Alice jumped to her feet, excitement sparking in her eyes. “If they both stayed here, there will be a record.”

“The killer would have used a fake name,” Drake warned her. “Rainshadow isn’t a major tourist destination in the Amber Sea, but it gets a fair number of day-trippers during the summer months and on the weekends.”

“But we’ve got dates and descriptions of both men.”

Drake smiled slowly. “We also know that one of the guests never checked out, at least not in person. In a community the size of Shadow Bay, you can be sure that someone will remember something.”

Alice made a face. “Small towns. Gotta love ’em.”