“How about you dial and I’ll hold the gun?”
“That works too.”
He dialed the number she gave him, while she got the Clydes corralled in the corner of the fish house.
“Which one of you guys wants to talk first? Or are you all in? I can do a group rate, I don’t mind.”
They thought that was funny enough that it made them relax. They spoke for a few minutes amongst themselves, then Clyde turned back to Tina. “We’ll tell you everything we know. But you have to promise to arrest whoever killed Benny.”
“I can promise we’ll investigate. I will personally monitor the case. But I can’t promise an arrest. That wouldn’t be accurate. I aim for accuracy.”
Clyde’s gaze flicked to the gun still pointed at them. “All right. Do your best.” He managed to make it sound like a demand, despite the gun.
“I always do,” Tina said dryly. “Any progress there, Jack?”
Someone had just answered. “I’ve got the Harbortown Police Chief’s office on the line.”
“Put it on speaker,” Tina commanded. Jack did so. “This is Officer Tina Chen, with four witnesses—no, five,” she glanced at Jessie, who nodded, “ready to testify about a smuggling operation on Sea Smoke Island. Perhaps you’d like to put me through to the chief?”
She winked at Jack; he loved seeing her like this. In her element, doing her thing, excelling.
Then she blew a kiss at him, and he loved that even more. “I might love you, by the way,” she told him.
He couldn’t contain the wide grin that spread across his face. “I might love you too.”
“Huh?” said a gravelly voice on the speaker.
“Oh, hi Chief. No, not you. I mean, you’re a great boss, but you’re no match for my TV crush, who’s now my real crush. Anyway, back to the smuggling. There’s a task force out here, right?”
“Yes. But you were supposed to stay out of their way.”
“I did. I promise. But if they want to make any arrests, they’d better come to me. I’m sending GPS coordinates now. If they meet me here, I’ll take them to the evidence. I have two suspects locked up and five witnesses ready to testify.”
“Goddamn it, Chen. I should have known.” He gave a reluctant chuckle. “Guess you need to go on vacation more often.”
“Take that back.”
41
“Today on the pod, we’re taking you on a little field trip.” Heather winked at Tina and Jack as she spoke into the audio app on her phone. “We don’t do this often, as you know, but Officer Tina Chen promises it will be worth it.”
Tina smiled, then remembered the podcast was audio only, and said, “I’ll do my best.”
“Can you set the scene for us?”
“Sure. We have two cases intersecting here. One is the Night Light murder, which you and your listeners have been investigating. The other is the smuggling operation that we recently busted.”
“By we, she means ‘she’,” Jack inserted. Tina waved him off.
“Team effort. As you all probably know, many arrests were made. Several confessions were delivered and all of the drug they called Night Light was confiscated. But we still didn’t know where it originated. No one would tell us that, not even the South African billionaire trying to establish a black market distribution network. Of course, he’s back in South Africa, not speaking to us at all. He probably never will.”
“What about Seth Baker, also known as Adam Johnson, also known as Lloyd Mansfield? Is he talking?” Gabby asked.
“You left out Joseph Martin, his birth name. He clammed up and refused to say anything more, even through his lawyer. Which was surprising because he’s the chatty type. Loves to talk, especially about how he’s going to save the world.”
“But you’re saying that you figured it out?”
“I have a theory.” She was nearly certain she was correct. It was the only thing that made sense. “I figured you could tag along on this interview, since you helped cracked this case.”
