Sitting at the table in the conference room, I couldn’t help but think how its modern blandness contrasted with the historic, mysterious air of the fort we’d just left.Like leaping through time, I thought, as the inner door of the room opened.
Detective Johnson walked in and grabbed a chair across from Ellen and me. “Hello, what can I do for you ladies today?”
“I hope we can do something for you,” I said, before recounting the events of the cocktail party and my adventure at Fort Macon.
“You really believe someone was following you?” Detective Johnson arched her dark brows.
I shifted in the hard chair. “Yes, and I think it may have been someone from the party. Whoever was eavesdropping from behind the hedge. They’d have known where I planned to be, and when.”
“But to play devil’s advocate”—Detective Johnson tapped her pen against her legal pad—“you have to consider the possibility that the individual at Fort Macon was just a random stranger who gets a kick out of scaring tourists.”
“I suppose,” I said slowly, realizing I might have jumped to conclusions again.
“Those sorts of things do happen,” Detective Johnson said. “More than you’d expect.”
Ellen cleared her throat. When the detective’s gaze slid over to her, she leaned forward, her expression intense. “That may be, but someone definitely overheard our conversation last night. I find that to be a strange coincidence, don’t you?”
“Are you sure about that? The eavesdropper, I mean. Perhaps one of the guests was simply loitering at the edge of this holly hedge. It is near the patio.” Detective Johnson sat back in her chair, her intelligent gaze studying Ellen.
“I’m absolutely sure. If you must know, I have experience with noticing such things,” Ellen said.
“Oh? What would that be?”
I glanced at Ellen, waiting for her nod of approval before I spoke. “Ms. Montgomery used to work for a branch of the U.S. intelligence services.”
Detective Johnson’s dark eyes narrowed. “Is that so? I don’t suppose you have any credentials on you?”
Ellen lifted her hands. “I’m retired. But I can give you a contact number, if you’d like to confirm my previous experience. Not all the details, of course,” she added, with a sardonic smile. “But they’ll have my name in their records.”
“Interesting,” Detective Johnson said, twirling the pen between her fingers for a moment before holding out her hand.
Ellen fished a card from her purse and slid it across the table. Glancing at it, the detective raised her eyebrows again before standing.
“Be right back,” she said, as she headed into the station.
“I’m not sure she thinks my encounter at Fort Macon is connected to anything,” I told Ellen as we waited for the detective’s return.
“Oh, I think she is considering all the possibilities,” Ellen replied. “She seems to be too intelligent to reject any leads out of hand.”
Detective Johnson returned a few minutes later. “One of our officers is checking on your credentials, Ms. Montgomery. I hope you don’t mind.”
Ellen shrugged. “Of course not. Although I’m not sure what my former job has to do with anything.”
“You never know,” the detective said as she sat down. “We may need a consultant on some other matters. But back to the case at hand. You two seem to have been playing at investigating, which I’m sure is amusing, but as you can see, might also be dangerous. If your stranger at the fort did happen to be Lincoln Delamont’s killer, you could have put yourself in harm’s way.”
I leaned forward, resting my elbows on the table. “The thing is, we know the eavesdropper wasn’t Jennifer Delamont, since she had already been escorted to her room at that point, and I doubt she was in any shape to sneak back outside. Which blows my theory of her being the killer out of the water.”
“That is, if there is any correlation between this eavesdropper and the individual at Fort Macon,” Detective Johnson said. “And even if that’s true, it doesn’t mean that the same person killed Lincoln Delamont, now, does it? Chasing you around a historic site isn’t really proof of anything.”
I ground my teeth in frustration, but had to admit she had a point. There was nothing that absolutely linked any of these actions or events.
“True, it could be simple coincidence.” Ellen straightened in her chair and looked the detective over in a way that made her appear more like an interrogator than a witness. “However, in my previous job I learned that seemingly unrelated occurrences could prove to be valuable clues. It’s worth a little of your official investigation time, don’t you think?”
“Oh, rest assured we’ll look into it.” Detective Johnson’s gaze slid from Ellen to me. She appeared lost in thought for moment as she examined me. “Now, Ms. Reed, tell me a little more about your plans for the rest of this week. Any more events on the schedule?”
“Only one,” I said, and described the Tey discussion planned for Saturday evening.
Detective Johnson stared at a point over my head. “And your guests have agreed to participate in this event?”
