Peter climbed up onto the dock and introduced himself, and Kerry followed behind, “I wanted to speak with you about a conversation you had with Velma Whitney two days before she died.”

  Hannah’s eyebrows folded into a v-shape between her eyes, “What do you mean?”

  “Your friend here told us he overheard two people arguing with Velma Whitney two days before she was killed. One was Byron Gray, and he has an alibi for the morning of the murder, and the other was you,” Peter explained just as Hannah pulled back and began to deny knowing what he was talking about. “We saw you both on the security camera footage.”

  Hannah shot a stinging glare at the man standing behind her, “You what? Why would you say that, Alex?” She then turned to face Peter and Kerry who were waiting for an explanation.

  “It was just a stupid argument, nothing huge,” Hannah tightened her grip on her towel.

  “Did she know about the affair you were having with her husband?” Peter asked.

  Hannah hesitated for a while and then murmured that she wasn’t sure, “I denied it since it wasn’t a big deal. He’s too old for me anyway. Harry was just fun to party with now and again.”

  Kerry noticed Alex’s body shift and tense as Hannah referred to Harrison Whitney in a more than personal manner.

  “And you can verify your whereabouts the morning of Velma Whitney’s murder?”

  “I was at the club with Alex,” she pointed to the bartender standing behind her. “I spent the night there with him and we were together until everyone returned for the barbeque in the afternoon.”

  Alex began to nod his head rapidly as Peter and Kerry glanced his way.

  Hannah pulled her arms around her body as she adjusted her towel, “That’s when we heard about Velma’s body floating out from under the dock at the start of the race.”

  Peter confirmed Hannah’s alibi with Alex Berg, who they now knew was the club bartender as well as Hannah’s on-again, off-again boyfriend.

  Red patches began crawling up the sides of Alex’s neck. Some people blushed easily when they were embarrassed, others reddened because it was impossible for them to hide a lie.

  “What do you do at the club, Alex?” Kerry asked, taking both the bartender and Hannah by surprise, and his blush deepened.

  “I’m the bartender at most of the functions, which is almost every second day, and I also do odd jobs and stuff around the club,” Alex mumbled, almost as if he was embarrassed at his job requirements.

  “What would some of the odd jobs and stuff be?” Kerry asked.

  “I take care of small maintenance around the club, fixing loose boards, cutting the lawn, and I do all the supply runs into town as well.”

  “And today?” Peter asked.

  “I had the afternoon off because I have to work a function that’ll run late tonight,” Alex explained.

  “Did you ever have any contact with Velma Whitney during any of your routine duties at the club?”

  Alex folded his arms across his chest and tucked his hands under his armpits and widened his stance, looking more relaxed and at ease than Hannah, who seemed to recoil and tense the longer Peter and Kerry remained on the dock.

  “Mrs. Whitney had me help her with some inventory of the supplies I was picking up in town,” Alex said.

  “Why would she have you do that? Was that normal?” Peter asked.

  Alex nodded, “She was responsible for paying the suppliers in town. She had me do it every Friday afternoon so she could work on the books and then make sure every bill was settled on Monday morning.”

  “Is there anything else?” Hannah asked. “We have a club dinner tonight and I have to get ready.”

  Peter looked to Kerry who then shook her head.

  “No, but don’t leave the area, either of you, I may have more questions for you both,” Peter warned them before he climbed back into his boat.

  Kerry jumped into the back of the boat and sat beside Peter and watched Alex and Hannah as they turned around and walked away. Hannah stomped several steps ahead of Alex. Kerry thought that Hannah wasn’t looking forward to her dinner tonight, and in fact, Kerry sensed she looked a little panicky and afraid. She wasn’t sure if it was because Hannah was worried she’d be revealed as the killer or if it was because she knew who it might be.

  22

  The police sketch was surprisingly accurate. Josh Sutcliffe was still wearing the same black hoodie that he had on when he attacked Harrison Whitney in the parking lot and Kerry was impressed with the preciseness of both the artist and the store manager in the likeness they were able to achieve. Josh was twenty-four, had light brown hair, brown eyes, and a careless attitude. His arms were folded across his chest in a defiant pose and his body was slumped in the plastic chair he was sitting in.

  The interrogation room was down the hall from Peter’s office and Kerry listened from the next room while Peter questioned Josh and Officer Jones recorded their conversation.

  A long scar ran along the right side of Josh’s face, a souvenir he said, from the years before he ran away from home. Once he reached the age of sixteen, Josh decided that he no longer wanted to be a punching bag for his abusive stepfather and left to pursue a career as a musician.

  The band, and his dreams, fell apart his second year in Sudbury when the band’s singer signed a contract with a recording label in Toronto and left them all behind. Without a replacement for their lead singer, and no one interested in hiring a backup band, Josh was once again looking for work.

  Part-time employment went only so far in paying the rent on the bachelor apartment he lived in, which was in the basement of a building that probably should’ve been condemned, and he picked up odd jobs around the lake to make ends meet. He found most of his lucrative employment during the summer months when cottagers were looking for repairs to docks, boathouses, and cottages.

  Josh was leaving the Main Street docks when an officer spotted him. He instantly recognized the similarity to the sketch of Harrison Whitney’s presumed attacker. He refused to answer any questions about the attack and had been sitting in the interrogation room by himself for almost an hour before Peter went in, not even asking to speak with a lawyer.

  “Josh, we need to ask you some questions, and that’s going to be difficult if you refuse to speak with us,” Peter was frustrated but was able to keep his voice low and tone calm. “We can have a lawyer brought in for you if you’d like. It’s your right.”

  “I know my rights,” Josh blurted out. “I also know no matter what I say, I’m going to take the blame for what went down. It’s always the same.”

  Peter didn’t want to scare Josh from speaking, and he kept his next question simple, “What’s always the same?”

  Josh leaned forward and rested his arms on the table, “I’ll end up taking the blame because I can’t afford to get myself out of this.” Josh lifted his arm and waved it over the table. “It’s easier for you to pin this on a broke kid with no prospects.”

  “You’re twenty-four, Josh, you’re not a kid,” Peter reminded him. “If you’re found guilty, you’ll be charged as an adult.”

  Josh looked down at his feet and sighed.

  “What if I make a deal?” Josh asked, pleading with his eyes. “You do that sometimes don’t you?”

  “It depends on what you have to say.”

  Josh dropped his head into his hands, covering his face with his palms, “I never wanted to do it.”

  “Do what?” Peter asked.

  “Hit on that rich guy and his girlfriend,” Josh yelled. “But I couldn’t turn down the money, it was too good. And I only roughed him up and I never touched the girl, even though they wanted me to.”

  Peter realized that Harrison was not just some random target of a petty mugger, but the intended victim of the attack.

  “Are you saying someone paid you to attack Harrison Whitney?”

  Josh nodded.

  “Who?”

  Josh dragged his teeth across his lower lip, “Will you give me a deal and keep me out of prison?”

  After some consideration, Peter promised to see that Josh receive only community service for his attack on Harrison Whitney, assuming the information he provided was legitimate. After Josh insisted Peter put their agreement in writing, he told them who hired him to attack Harrison Whitney. As Peter heard the name, he knew Kerry would be pacing outside the interrogation room door eager to start the conversation that Peter wasn’t looking forward to having.

  23

  Daniella suddenly appeared to be much younger than her nineteen years as she sat in the brown vinyl chair waiting for Peter to call her into his office. Once Josh was certain he wouldn’t be sent to prison for his attack on Harrison Whitney, he was more than eager to share the offer Daniella made to him the morning of the attack.

  Five thousand dollars was a lot of money to most people, but especially to Josh since it amounted to over two months of backbreaking work on the lake. It would have been enough to let him enroll in the electrical apprenticeship program at Red River College, and hopefully, get him off the financial treadmill he’d been running on for the last several years.

  Considering Josh had no prior charges for assault or aggressive behavior, Peter was inclined to offer Josh a chance to stay out of prison.

  Daniella had met Josh when her mother hired him two summers ago to re-shingle their cottage and boathouse roofs. Daniella was immediately charmed by Josh’s hard-luck story and impressed with the fact he’d been in a band and lived on his own. Neither Daniella nor Helena ever had to worry about where to live or how to pay bills, and she found Josh an easy friend to talk to over the years. The offer she made to Josh was made in the heat of her upset after finding out that her mother was murdered, and since she held her father responsible for the pain in her mother’s life, she wanted to hit back. And Josh presented the opportunity to do that literally.

  Daniella Whitney didn’t try to deny paying Josh to attack her father and his girlfriend, and she broke down in tears when confronted with the reality that she almost ended Josh’s freedom.

  Everyone, especially Harrison Whitney, agreed that Josh would be best served if his involvement in the attack was kept out of the courts. As long as Josh would be spared from an arrest record, Harrison agreed he wouldn’t press charges. Along with Josh’s community service, Daniella was also going to have to perform volunteer service work for her part in the hired attack. However, Peter said it could wait until after Velma’s funeral.

  Cries of apology and anger at herself were met with tears from her father as he sat next to her.

  When Kerry had first spoken with Daniella, something had passed between them. Kerry thought she had recognized the sense of loss and desperation in Daniella’s eyes since she’d seen it once before. It was during a case in Montreal, when a young man lashed out at his sister’s accused killer, stabbing him in the chest as he was leaving the courthouse. As Kerry watched Daniella fold under the grief of losing her mother in such a violent manner, and the pressure of the anger she pointed at her father, she wondered if there was something she could have done to prevent Daniella’s actions.

  In the end, there was nothing Kerry could have done, the only thing that would help anyone was to find out who murdered Velma Whitney. Then everyone could begin to heal.

  24

  It was after one in the morning by the time that the last guests left the club. He had been waiting in the backroom, pretending to have left the dinner with the rest of his friends. He doubled back, pretending to have forgotten something at the table, and was hiding ever since in the small locked closet, siphoning courage from his bottle of gin.

  Alex still had another hour left to clean and close the bar before he could leave for the night. He watched through the small keyhole as Alex removed the last of the dishes and glasses from the tables. The volume on the stereo suddenly exploded and Alex sang along with a heavy metal band that was screeching through the speakers.

  He was hiding in wait only because Alex had stumbled upon what he had done, but he still wasn’t sure the dopey bartender even knew what he had found. But it was clear from what he overheard Alex telling Velma that Alex was going to make sure he shielded himself from any blame. The only reason Alex was even hired was that no one else had applied for the position.

  If it had been up to him, he would’ve hired one of the member’s kids and paid them cash under the table. Unfortunately, the club needed someone old enough to serve alcohol and strong enough to pick up their deliveries in town. And none of the kids applying for jobs could satisfy those requirements and now he was faced with stopping Alex before he could reveal to the committee what he had done.

  He dashed out from where he was hiding when he heard the final clanging of the dishes in the kitchen. Moving as quietly as he could, he made it down to the dock and jumped into the back of the club boat that Alex had been using since the beginning of the summer. It was an old fishing boat, with rusted seams along the hull and deep enough to hold the boxes of supplies Alex collected weekly, and sturdy enough for an inexperienced boater.

  His head was spinning, and his heart pounded against his ribs. He pulled his knees up to his chest, bit his lip, and tried to summon the courage he found in the closet with the gin. It was what was going to give him the strength to do what he needed to do, but as he breathed in the damp mold scent of the boat’s tarp, his stomach twisted.

  He exhaled, emptying his lungs and holding his diaphragm down. Now wasn’t the time to be sick.

  The morning with Velma was much more disturbing. Taking care of Alex shouldn’t be as difficult since he held no attachment to the kid, and he had time to plan his attack.

  It would look like a mugging and he’d do it in the back alley near his building. He had already checked out the area the night before and very few windows looked out onto the lane, and with the right move to cover Alex’s mouth first, he’d be sure to muffle his yells. He envisioned how the attack would unfold, now he just had to wait for Alex to come down from the club.

  His pulse quickened when he heard footsteps pounding down the wooden steps of the club, followed by a thud on the bottom of the boat. The engine vibrated, startling him, and then his body rolled back as the boat pulled away from the dock.

  Each move of the boat jarred his stomach and rattled his head, but he knew if he could just make it to shore without Alex knowing he was behind him, then he’d be able to do what he needed to do without being seen.

  Finally, the boat slowed down and then the engine stopped. Alex was still singing that stupid song he had blaring at the club and it was an odd thought to think it would be the last song he’d sing.

  Guilt and pain briefly gripped him, but he pushed the feeling aside when he remembered what he had already done and what he’d risked keeping Velma from revealing his secret.

  Slowly and quietly, he lifted the tarp and watched Alex as he climbed out of the boat and then onto the dock. He waited until he was far enough away and then he followed along the same path, shielding himself in the shadows as he ran.

  The gin had taken hold, and he became braver the closer he came to Alex and when he was near enough, he reached out and wrapped his arm around Alex’s neck and covered his mouth.

  He wasn’t prepared for Alex to jerk back his right leg and kick his knee. The move caught him off balance and his grip loosened from around Alex’s neck, and he was suddenly free from his grip. He ran after him and pounced on Alex’s back, pulling on his shoulders and dragging him to the ground. Short nervous stabs followed each scream, and he felt like he was going to be sick. The feeling the knife made as it sliced Alex’s skin and as it tore into his muscles differed greatly from when he used the knife to cut the rope on a sail.

  His palm felt tacky against the metal of the small rigging knife, clinging to his sweaty palm. Alex pushed against the attack, and the force of each shove drove his head against the pavement. As Alex fell silent, the deafening throb of his pounding pulse resounded in his ears and his deep labored breathing filled the space around them.

  By the time anyone found him, he will have bled out, and he’d certainly be dead by then. He’d return to Channel Island and leave the club boat in the slip near the shed, and change his clothes before getting into his own boat and returning to his cottage.

  With his boat lights turned off, he was sure no one would see him as he drifted into the bay by his cottage, and then maybe by morning, he could put the two murders behind him.

  With each move of a wave, queasiness overtook him and he leaned over the side of the boat. Finally giving up the fight against the nausea that stabbed at his gut, which he thought, was easier to feel than the guilt.

  25

  The call to the club president, Paul Jensen, was quick and fruitful. Within ten minutes he had emailed a list of members who had purchased the sailing team jacket over the last two years. The team had updated their design and adopted the recent shade of blue after a member wanted their design to match the Olympic team colors hoping it would spark a winning attitude and record. The team of thirty placed their orders, eager to be ready for their summer race season. Peter was able to rule out eighteen of the members who still hadn’t arrived for the summer, leaving a dozen jackets to track down. The elusive jacket, of course, was Byron Gray’s which was mysteriously removed from his boat.

  Officer Jones was assigned the tedious duty of tracking down the jackets, while Kerry and Peter drove to the cottages to collect them. They gathered each jacket and returned to the lab where Kerry examined each one under a high-powered microscope for scratches or pulls in the fabric.

  “This coat’s fabric is a definite match for the fiber found in Velma Whitney’s ring,” Kerry determined. “However, none of the jackets we collected show any signs of being the one worn by the killer. Outside of the odd spot of mold or food stains on some jackets, there is no evidence that Velma Whitney’s attacker had worn any of them.”

 

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