OB:Really. What do you think about me?
MC:I like your dog.
OB:Thanks.
MC:I think Hope Falls and my brother were perfectly all right without you. We don’t need someone like you here. No offense.
OB:Some taken.
50BIRDY
I can’t decide whether questioning Carter’s sister was a good idea or not; it was definitely more confrontational than I expected. Maddy helped establish that Old Stu is not a reliable witness, and made me feel as popular as a fart in a lift, but I’m not sure I’m any closer to finding out what really happened to Eden Fox. I feel like everyone in this village is keeping secrets. And I’m starting to wonder if coming to Hope Falls was a huge mistake.
I have spent the last couple of hours checking files and paperwork in what this place laughingly calls a police station to see if there is anything else Carter is lying about. I’m normally a pretty good judge of character, but it turns out the man I shared my bed with last night is marriedandhe might be lying about this case. I never pegged Carter for a Casanova. It’s not like me to make such an error of judgment. I don’t know whether it’s the stress of everything I have going on, or whether I’m just too ill to think straight; the drugs I’m taking do ease my pain but they also slow my mind. I need to catch up. I need to know what Carter knows and if there is anything else he and the other residents of Hope Falls aren’t telling me.
I go through Carter’s desk before trying—and failing—to log in to the computer. The cursor winks as though mocking me. I fuckinghate computers. And the internet. And almost all technology. I think I should have been born a hundred years earlier. Jessica Fletcher didn’t have to deal with all this shit. The blue door of the police station bursts open, but it isn’t Carter—he’s still AWOL—instead it is a red-faced Harrison Woolf. He might not have killed anyone, but he looks as though he could be about to. He reminds me of a gremlin who has been fed after midnight.
“Where is he?” Harrison asks, voice raised, practically spitting the words.
“You might need to be a little more specific—”
“Where is Sergeant Carter? That piece of shit has been to interview Gabriella. I told him she has nothing to do with this. I told him she wasn’t to be disturbed. You gave me your word that she would be left out of this, and now I’m getting phone calls from The Manor telling me my little girl has been interrogated.”
She’s eighteen. Not a little girl, I think but don’t say anything. In my experience parents rarely want to hear the truth about their children.
“I intend to make a formal complaint about Sergeant Carter, and I want that incompetent, irresponsible shit-for-brains fired.”
“Okay. Calm down. Breathe—”
“Don’t patronize me. He had no right. This never should have happened.”
“I agree with you. I didn’t know that’s what he was doing. I can only apologize, and promise I will deal with him myself when I next see him. I’m not that happy with him either right now. Is Gabriella okay?” Carter should not have gone to The Manor. I specifically told him not to, I don’t know what he was thinking. No wonder Harrison is furious.
“Of course she is not okay. None of this is,” he says, towering over me and standing too close. “I already answered all your bloody questions. Twice. I let you and him come into my home and treat me as though I’ve done something wrong.I’mthe victim here. Ifthe police had done their fucking job in the first place none of this would be happening. Carter has crossed a line. And you let him. This is your fault. You should have kept your sidekick in line. You should have done your job.”
I’ve grown rather weary of people thinking they can speak to me like this. People who think their time is more important than mine. People who think everything is everyone else’s fault. People who lie.
I can’t stand it anymore.
“You need to calm the fuck down,” I say firmly, and Harrison’s face turns an even brighter shade of red. He looks like he might explode, like the kid at Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. “Seeing as you’re here, perhaps we could talk aboutyourjob again,” I say, and he blinks as though he doesn’t understand. “Thanatos. Is it real?”
He frowns. “You’re asking if my job is real?”
“IsThanatosreal. Can your company really predict the day a person will die?”
I have to know.
The frown stretches into something else. Pity perhaps. No, not pity. Something like disdain. He stares at me then slowly shakes his head as though I am the lowest of the low for asking a question like that at a time like this.
Then he says, “This is aboutmy daughter.”
I feel myself snap, crackle, and pop.
“Oh, I’m sorry, I thought this was about your wife. The reason Carter felt the need to question your daughter is because your wife is missing.”
“I know that my wife is—”
“Do you? I thought you might have forgotten. Let me remind you. Your wife was last seen at a suicide spot. A body was found on the beach yesterday and you seem to be the only person in the village who isn’t talking about it. You haven’t even asked me who it is. You haven’t been answering your door or your phone, when most people in your situation would be desperate for news about a missingloved one. I think that is strange. Suspicious even. And it makes me wonder if the reason you haven’t asked who the dead woman we found on the beach was is because you already know. You coming in here screaming and shouting about your daughter looks a lot like deflecting to me. Your way of trying to divert this investigation from the truth. And it makes you look guilty.”
