Page 41 of Mother-Daughter Murder Night

Beth watched, annoyed, as Jack broke off their hug and looked at Lana.

“What is it, Prima?”

“Did she tell you anything else? Do anything detectivey?”

“Ma, Jack’s out of the woods. We’re safe. I don’t think—”

“There was one weird thing,” Jack said. “She made us unpack the first aid kits, and she took all the Maglites. Paul was pretty ticked off about that. She said they might be evidence.”

“Hold on.” Lana walked to the couch and returned with her legal pad and a pen in hand. “Tell me about the Maglites.”

Beth stared at her mother scrawling furiously across the yellow notebook. This was supposed to be a happy moment. A peaceful moment. But Lana wasn’t going to give her that.

Beth turned to her daughter. “Jack, you don’t have to . . .”

“I want to know too, Mom. The slough’s important to me. I want it to be safe. For everyone.”

Beth sighed. Then she got up from the table and started banging plates from the dishwasher to the cupboard.

* * *

“So. Maglites?” Lana asked. She was exhausted, and just taking notes felt like an ordeal, but she’d felt a flare of panic when Beth had proclaimed the problem solved. Like something had been taken from her, like she was in danger of losing the only source of energy she had. She wasn’t ready to give up her investigation, her small flicker of agency. Not yet.

“Every guide boat has a first aid kit in it,” Jack said. “Basic stuff, like Band-Aids and drinking water, and a big honking flashlight. In case we get stuck out late. The only time I used it was when someone lost their ring in the water.”

“Did you find it?”

“No. The lady wanted to dive in and look for it, but then she saw a jellyfish and changed her mind. She said she’d get her boyfriend to buy her a better one.”

“What do the Maglites look like?”

“Like normal flashlights, but beefy. They take like six of the big-size batteries. And they have an American flag design all over them. Paul got them on sale at Army Surplus.”

“Detective Ramirez took all of them?”

“I think so.”

“What do you mean?”

“We have six guide boats, so six first aid kits. But only five of them had flashlights in them. Paul said the other one got lost a while ago. It’s probably true. I don’t check inventory on the first aid kits.” Jack frowned. “I probably should.”

Lana looked down at her notes. Maybe the missing Maglite was the murder weapon. If Paul had killed Ricardo with it, he might have dumped the flashlight or hidden it somewhere. Or he really had lost it. Which wouldn’t surprise her either.

Beth walked by, lugging the old vacuum from the hall closet to her bedroom. She slammed the door and they heard what sounded like a small airplane taking off.

Lana ripped out a page from her pad and made a note to buy a new vacuum. “Was there anything else the detective asked about?”

Jack told her grandmother about the tides and the timing of it all. Lana narrowed her eyes, trying to follow Jack’s explanation about the water and the moon and Ricardo Cruz floating in the slough.

“Twenty-four to forty hours,” Lana said. “So he was killed Friday, and then, at some point that night, or on Saturday, he went into the water. Which means he probably didn’t die where you found him.”

Jack nodded. “I should have realized it sooner. It would be super weird for anyone to get in a fight in those mud flats or get hurt right there. Half the time they’re flooded, and the other half they’re too shallow for a boat to approach. And if he was there all day Saturday, someone would have seen him.”

“If he floated to that spot from somewhere else . . .” Lana started scribbling. “Where? How far could he have come?”

“Depends if he was traveling through open water or along a side creek.”

Lana pushed herself back from the table. “Can you show me?”