So how had it gotten under the hedge in Darla’s B and B lawn?
With the cat tucked inside my clothes, I started back to the inn. Whatever hullabaloo that had started in the front had stopped. Now all was quiet. Darla was watching from the kitchen window. Relief touched her face when I brought Gumbo from inside my jacket. “Kitty safely returned.”
“Thank you!” She hugged the cat to her. “I’ll be a lot more careful when I open any doors.”
I held the cap back. I wanted to talk to Coleman first. My mind was going a thousand miles a minute and I couldn’t settle on an answer that explained how the hat had come to be where I’d found it. By all rights, it should be in the bottom of the river, along with Kathleen’s body. Yet it was here. In the hedge—exactly where I’d heard someone earlier. In the same vicinity where Coleman had been attacked.
Either someone had stolen Kathleen’s hat and planted it there. Or … Kathleen was alive.
27
Tinkie followed me through the house, aware that I was keeping something from everyone.
“Coleman and Jerry Goode got into it out on the street,” she said. “Goode must have given Coleman a ride over here from Clarissa’s house. Anyway, Goode was angry that we left the scene of the arrow shooting. He tried to take it out on Coleman, but he got an earful. So what are you hiding in the coat?”
I’d done my best not to give away the fact I had something. “I’ll tell you outside. I need to talk to Coleman.”
“He left with Goode.”
“Voluntarily?”
Tinkie laughed. “Yes, I guess so. I went out to talk to him and he was gone.” She grabbed my arm and moved me out to the porch. “Show me what you’ve got.”
When the front door was closed behind us and I knew we had some privacy, I pulled the hat out and watched her expression go from confused to amazed to wary. “It’s Kathleen’s hat she was wearing when she went overboard. Where did you find it?”
“In the shrubs.”
“And no clue how it got there?”
“None.” I shook my head for emphasis. “Last night I had a sense there was someone hiding out in those hedges, watching us. But I never saw anything concrete.”
“So whoever was hiding in the hedges with Kathleen’s hat was likely the person who attacked Coleman last night?”
“That’s what I’m thinking. That and a lot more. How did the hat get in Darla’s shrubs?”
“And who knew to dress as Friar Tuck to get in the middle of our mumming?” Tinkie was both excited and a little angry. “Someone on the inside is involved in our case, someone who had a lot of access to this B and B. And I believe they’re the same person. Either Kathleen is very much alive or someone is working really hard to make us believe she is.”
Tinkie pulled her phone from her pocket. “Dallas, we need a ride. We’re at the Bissonnette House.” She looked at me. “You’ve got five minutes to get out of that costume before someone thinks you’re celebrating the wrong holiday, like Halloween.”
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“To find Jerry Goode. And Coleman. We’re going to get some answers. Let me grab my Taser. Early Christmas present from Oscar.”
Dang it. Tinkie was one step ahead of me in being properly armed. “You’re going to tase Coleman?”
She laughed, a tinkling bell-like sound. “Not Coleman.”
Which could mean that her focus was Jerry Goode or just about anyone else in town. It was going to be a long night.
We sent a text to Cece and Millie to let them know we were safe and sound and working on our case. They both responded back with whines and complaints that we’d left them behind. Now was the time, though, for action. Tinkie and I needed to carefully prepare for what lay in front of us.
If Kathleen was alive, how had she managed to survive the fall into the river, especially with all the clothes she’d been wearing? The weight of the water, the temperature of it, which would throw her into hypothermia within minutes—how had she avoided all of that? Coleman had saved Clarissa only moments after she’d gone into the water, and the gossip among the EMTs was that another ten minutes and she might have been dead.
Sitting in the back of Dallas’s vehicle, we discussed all of this.
“Pardon me for butting in,” Dallas said, “but what if she had a wet suit on under all those clothes?”
“You think Kathleen wore a wet suit because she intended to go overboard?”
“Actually, I was thinking about Clarissa. What if she wanted to take Kathleen out and she came prepared? Clarissa is always writing opinion columns for the local newspaper about her scuba diving experiences. I hate to admit it, but she’s shared some pretty great photos.”
A wet suit was an idea that hadn’t occurred to me. “Is there a place to rent wet suits?”
“Yes, and I know the owner.” She made a sharp U-turn and headed in the opposite direction from where we’d been going. “I’ll give him a call.” Which she promptly did. In a moment, she’d convinced the scuba shop owner to meet us at his place of business. Fifteen minutes later, we were in the parking lot as he was pulling up. In a small town, people could get to their destination with great speed.
Tinkie took one look around as we got out of the car, and I realized she was thinking exactly what I was thinking. This was kind of a seedy part of town. There was a booger light in the parking lot, but the bulb was broken. Only the moon, slipping between clouds, shed light on us,