“That doesn’t matter. If he wants to hoard beans, he can hoard beans. The man lives on an island where zombies roam the cemetery every night.”
“Yes, well … .” Marjory pursed her lips.
“I want to talk about Declan,” I announced before she could walk away. She was a fount of community gossip and I knew she had dirt on Declan. “What can you tell me about him?”
“He was a recluse of sorts,” Marjory replied. She looked as if she’d been expecting the question and she settled into one of my office chairs. That indicated we weren’t expecting anyone after Colette, which made me inexplicably happy.
“I’ve read the case files on the bodies that were found,” I offered. “It sounds as if you definitely had a serial killer on the island.”
“Definitely.” Marjory bobbed her head.
“I can’t find any evidence tying Declan to the killings,” I prodded.
“He had dated the Mahoney girl when she was just out of high school.”
“But that was two years before,” I pointed out. “Why would he still be holding a grudge?”
“He was obsessive.”
“But there’s no evidence in here proving that Declan killed these people. And there are disappearances that were never proven to be murders.”
“So?” Marjory blinked.
“This is a really flimsy folder.”
“He did it.”
“How can you be sure?”
“When he disappeared, it all stopped. There were no more murders, no more missing people. The island went back to being paradise.”
I considered it for a moment. “That does point to his guilt,” I acknowledged.
Marjory smiled.
“It also could be that someone else was doing it and framed Declan,” I said. “Maybe the killer took out Declan as cover. Maybe he’s dead too.”
“You don’t seem convinced of that,” Marjory pointed out.
“I’m not,” I admitted. “For one very specific reason.”
She waited for me to finish, feigning interest. She obviously didn’t care about my ideas but had decided to be polite.
“Serial killers have a compulsion,” I explained. “They might be able to stop themselves from killing if the police are getting close, but in general they have no control over themselves.”
“So if somebody framed Declan, eventually they would have started killing again,” Marjory surmised.
“Pretty much.”
“That proves it was Declan. Maybe he didn’t die. Perhaps he fled to another plane because he knew the police were closing in on him.”
“Were they?”
“I have no idea. Galen wasn’t sheriff then. That was twenty years ago.”
“Where did Declan live? What happened to his belongings?”
“I’m sure it’s all still there.”
