Kate was big on inspirational quotes, some of which she’d written out herself in flowing cursive script. Others were printed out from elsewhere, maybe Pinterest or some other Internet source. Be Kind. You Never Know what Someone Else is Going Through, read one. Tomorrow is unknown, the past is gone, all we have is the gift of the present.
They took extra time with each photo. Those with Kate in them seemed to be relatively recent, since she looked to be roughly the same age she was now. They showed Kate with various customers, Kate showing off a quilt, shots of a local farmer’s market with a Bibs and Bobs booth.
“Maybe she keeps this corkboard strictly for business,” Tina murmured. “Too bad we can’t sneak into her house.”
“We can’t sneak into her house,” he said sternly. “I have a morals clause in my contract.”
“As do I. We have so much in common,” she said dryly. With her fingers, she zoomed in on a small photo at the very lowest corner of the corkboard. “What’s this now?”
The shot showed two little kids bundled up in winter clothes, being pulled on an orange plastic sled by a large man in a heavy parka. The camera was focused on the children, who both wore hand-knitted hats, their blond hair peeking from under the ribbing. The girl sat behind the boy, her arms around him. The man’s head was lowered, his face impossible to see. Maybe he didn’t want to be seen; that was Jack’s impression. Snow covered the ground, and beyond the heads of the children, sea smoke rose from the ocean.
“Is that Sea Smoke Island?” Tina asked.
“I think it is. Look, you can see the Lightkeeper lighthouse way back there. Sea Smoke is the only outer island with such a clear view of it.”
“Well, what do you know. This must be a photo of her kids, and that could be their father.”
“Or their uncle,” he pointed out. “Or a male relative.”
“Yes, that’s true.” She studied the photo. “But look at the kids’ faces. What do you see?”
“The girl looks watchful. She’s holding on tight to her little brother. He looks a lot more happy and excited, with that big grin.”
“Yeah. Also, look at their jackets. Brand-new Bogner ski gear, pricey as hell. No way could single mom Naomi Martin afford those. If she had family members with that kind of money, why would she be scraping by on Sea Smoke? Remember Sally McPhee’s speculation about an abusive ex? That’s a classic tactic, to show up with expensive gifts to try to win someone back. My gut says this is their father, and the girl’s expression tells me she doesn’t trust him one bit. She’s probably seen some shit go down between her parents.”
Jack tipped his glass to her, impressed by that deductive demonstration.
“So her ex did come to Sea Smoke Island at least once. Was he there long enough to kill the man harassing the mother of his children?”
“Maybe. Let’s find out more about him.” She switched over to Google and did a few minutes of searching. “I don’t see any mention of a Mr. Mansfield in this part of Vermont. There’s a Timothy Mansfield in Montpellier, but he’s only forty.”
“What about the last name Martin?”
After more extensive searching, she shook her head. “There are a fair number of Martins, but none that fit the profile.”
“Too bad we can’t tell anything about him from this photo.”
“No, but the kids are plenty recognizable. This must be Naomi Martin’s children, aka Linette and Lloyd Mansfield, and who knows what else. We also have to consider the possibility that Naomi Martin was also an assumed name.
She centered the faces of the two children.
“The boy does resemble the photos we have,” said Jack. “Can you do an age progression on them? Do you have access to that technology?”
“Of course I can, when I’m at work. But I’m theoretically on vacation.”
“Can’t you call in a favor? That’s what we always do on the show.”
“Yes, I know. Tell your writers it’s a cheap plot trick and they’re overusing it.”
He laughed, since he’d told them the same thing already. “Noted.”
She took a moment to mess with the photo, isolating the face of each child and making a new image of it to send to the Harbortown tech person. He watched as she tapped away, her fingers flying across the screen, the quirky curves of her lips lifting as her contact responded. Watching a woman be good at her job had always been a turn-on for Jack, but Chen took it to another level. Watching her do police work was like admiring a salmon swimming upstream, or a swallow riding a current to its nest on the cliffs. She made it look easy, and if he knew anything from his time as Detective Denver Black, it was that the job wasn’t easy.
“Okay, done,” she said, as she set aside her phone to dig into her burger. “He’ll get on it as soon as he can, but it probably won’t be today. All I had to do in exchange was promise to have a margarita.”
Jack felt an odd twinge of jealousy. “With him?”
“No, with myself, or whoever’s handy. It’s because I’m supposed to be on vacation and he knows I don’t do vacations very well. I still get shit about the time I spent mandated time off at the FBI Experience in DC.”
