“Have you considered that maybe this didn’t have anything to do with Helena coming here tonight?” I asked. “Perhaps someone was following her, saw their chance, and took it. Anyone could have been out in the marsh tonight, beyond the beam of our lights. Silently following us. Watching us.” I shivered at the thought.
“Lucy,” Louise Jane said, “for once you’ve come up with an excellent idea.”
“I wouldn’t say that’s all that rare,” I said.
“I said I couldn’t help you, Detective,” Louise Jane said, “but perhaps I can after all. As we all know, the marsh can be a hive of supernatural activity on the darkest of nights.”
“We all know that, do we?” Watson said.
“Those of us who’ve gone to the trouble to expand the scope of our thought beyond worldly thinking, at any rate. We’ve suggested that Helena might have fallen into the water, tripped in the dark perhaps, but what if she was frightened into jumping? What if she saw something that terrified her so much she jumped off the pier, thinking that was her only escape?” Louise Jane sprang to her feet. “I’ll try to contact the spirits tonight. Perhaps they can tell me something.”
“The entire boardwalk and area is off-limits, Louise Jane,” Watson said.
“Surely not for me.”
“Particularly for you,” he said. “We’ll have no séances being conducted in the middle of my investigation, thank you.”
She sat down with a thud and a pout.
That, I knew, wasn’t the end of that. The minute the tape was taken down and the cops left, Louise Jane would be creeping around out there, trying to get someone—anyone—to talk to her. I could only hope I’d be able to avoid being roped in.
At that, I usually failed.
Watson stood up. “Thanks for your help. I know where I can find y’all if I need anything more.”
“I hope it’ll turn out to be an accident after all,” Bertie said. “Poor Helena. Will you let me know, Sam, when you locate her next of kin? I’d like to offer my condolences and help with arrangements in any way I can.”
“Of course,” he said.
Bertie and Louise Jane left, but not until Louise Jane reminded Detective Watson that “there are more things on heaven and earth—”
“I know the saying, Louise Jane,” he said. “Hamlet, Act One, Scene Five. When the Nags Head PD takes instruction from Shakespeare, I’ll give you a call.”
“I’ll be waiting,” she said. “In the meantime, Bertie, have you thought about offering guided tours in the marsh at night? We could find some way of incorporating my stories into library programs. My fee will be entirely reasonable and …” Her voice faded away.
Louise Jane never did take offense when people didn’t take her stories of the supernatural seriously. She just drove straight over them in a bulldozer.
I walked Watson to the door. “I wasn’t aware you’re a Shakespearian scholar, Detective. Many people would get that reference, but not many know the exact scene from which it comes.”
“Can I tell you something in the strictest of confidence, Lucy?”
“My lips are sealed!”
“In school I wanted to major in theater. I planned to be a classical stage actor.”
“Goodness. I never would have thought.”
“Nor did anyone else. Including, eventually, me. I soon discovered that my talent didn’t match my ambition, and I switched courses.”
I could see Sam Watson, tall and lean, square of face and lantern of jaw, piercing gray eyes, nose like a hawk’s beak, bestriding the stage, delivering the bard’s immortal lines in his deep North Carolina accent.
Watson and I stood together, looking out into the marsh. The scene had completely changed from a few short hours ago. The peace and quiet vanished as bright lights were brought into the marsh and onto the pier, and men and women ran back and forth calling to each other. Cars filled the parking area next to the boardwalk, engines running, blue and red lights flashing.
If, I thought, there really is something out there, it would not be happy at the disturbance.
“Good night, Lucy,” Watson said to me. “You have my number if you think of anything.”
“I do,” I said.
A figure broke out of the dark and jogged toward us. Butch Greenblatt, imposing in his dark uniform, jangling utility belt, and sheer size, appeared in the circle of light. “Hey, Lucy. Can’t say I’m surprised to see you here.”
“Just another fun night at the Lighthouse Library,” I said.
“What’s up?” Watson asked.
“Found something.” Butch glanced at me.
“Might as well tell Lucy too,” Watson said. “She’ll find out anyway.”
“Coroner’s been and the body’s been taken away. He had a quick look at it and found what looks like a puncture wound at the base of the neck.”
“Is that so?” Watson said.
“Small, neat, round hole. They’ll know more after the autopsy but it’s unlikely, he said, to have been caused by any sort of fall. Meaning …”
“Meaning,” I said, “Helena Sanchez was murdered.”
Chapter Five
“What on earth has happened now?” Charlene asked the moment she set foot in the library the following day. “There’s a police car parked by the boardwalk and crime scene tape around that part of the marsh.”
I told her about last night’s ill-fated expedition.
“That’s terrible. Bertie was so looking forward to hosting her college reunion here. The police think it’s murder?”
“That’s the assumption they’re going with. At least it was when Watson left last night. I haven’t heard anything new since.”
“We’re opening as usual today?”
“Again, I haven’t heard anything to the contrary. You’re early this morning.”
It was eight thirty. The library opened at nine. I’d slept surprisingly well, untroubled by dreams of long gray hair trapped in weeds or ghostly figures lingering just beyond
