Suddenly the fishing skiff tucked up on the bank of the river took on new meaning. If Kathleen was indeed alive, she could have swum to the bank and used the boat to make it to a safe dock. But all I had was a suspicion, no evidence.
32
Tinkie and I were both quiet as we left the river behind us. “Kathleen could have been on the boat prior to the Christmas flotilla,” I said. “Maybe she was staying on the boat part-time. That would explain the hair in the brush.” Which would have to be tested for DNA to be real evidence.
“Gumbo,” said Twinkie.
I glanced over at my partner as we walked up the road that would eventually take us up the bank of the river—on a gentler slope—and back to the B and B. We still hadn’t found Darla.
“What’s gumbo got to do with it?”
“Gumbo, the cat. Kathleen wouldn’t spend nights on the boat and leave Gumbo alone, would she?”
Tinkie had a point. I often had to leave Sweetie Pie, Pluto, and the horses because I was working on a case or vacationing with a friend. But I hired someone to live in the house with the pets to keep them company. Gumbo had been left alone until Darla retrieved her. If Kathleen had a choice and had left her animal all alone, then she was not the person I thought she was. Of course, if she was alive—letting everyone believe she’d drowned—she wasn’t that person anyway.
“Why would Kathleen pretend to be dead?”
Tinkie’s face went completely still. “She’s going to kill Clarissa.” Tinkie said it with such authority that I knew she was correct. “Her death is the alibi. She came here and started over. She’s built a new life so she could pull this off. Once she’s done, she’ll move somewhere else. She had to be the one who attacked Officer Goode, too. She must have been afraid he had seen her and was going to tell others. She had to silence him, but she didn’t want to kill him.”
Tinkie was making perfect sense—but we needed a motive. “Why would Kathleen try to kill Clarissa?”
“I don’t know, but Kathleen isn’t dead, and there’s no other reason for her to pretend to be.”
“I agree. She isn’t dead.” There was too much evidence to prove she was alive. Tinkie and I both had suffered some kind of mental block in this regard. We’d been too willing to believe Kathleen would never pretend to be dead. Would never put her friends through such a cruel charade. Good people didn’t do such things. “There has to be a reason for this game she’s playing.”
“We really don’t know her background.”
“We’ve been sadly neglectful in that regard. We never considered her a viable suspect.”
“Darla will let us use her computer. We have to do what we can.”
“And we have to know what Darla’s role in all of this is,” I said. “Kathleen has been on the Tenn-Tom Queen, maybe since the flotilla. We don’t know if Darla knows she’s alive.”
“Maybe not,” Tinkie said. “Darla could have met someone else today. I mean, who was that stranger that almost knocked me down? We’re assuming that note you saw told her to meet at the river. The moon, tidal pull, and Artemis were the clues. For all we know it could be a seafood place. Maybe Darla hasn’t even been back to the boat since the flotilla. We don’t know that she knows anything.” Tinkie’s eyes widened. “And if she was going to meet Kathleen, who’s to say Kathleen hasn’t harmed her or taken her prisoner. In all the time we’ve been here, have you known Darla to leave the B and B for longer than two hours?”
She was right. “So let’s find out.”
It was a longer walk around the bluff to get back to the B and B, but we still had several hours before it was time to meet the men at the parade. Huffing a little from the incline, we made it. Cece and Millie were still hitting the local high points, and the young couple who’d come to stay at the inn had left their bags in the parlor and gone out. We had the entire place to ourselves.
Tinkie went to the computer and I began searching the bookcase. I needed to reread the note I’d found. I should have photographed it, but I’d never considered it was evidence of anything except a romantic tryst.
“I’m going to make some coffee,” I told Tinkie.
“Great idea.”
The first thing I saw in the kitchen was the journal that had been on the parlor shelf. A ragged piece of paper was sticking out of it. I opened the flap. This was a different note, but the message was clear and explicit: “Stop chasing me or Darla will die. Go home to Zinnia.”
I wordlessly took the note, using salad tongs, to Tinkie. She looked up at me, fear in her eyes. “Do you think Kathleen wrote this and that she would really hurt Darla?”
“I don’t know, but I’m calling the police. We have to now.”
“Wait!” Tinkie grabbed my arm. “You might get Darla killed. If it is Kathleen and she doesn’t want you and me investigating, she sure isn’t going to want the police.”
“Damn.” I was caught on the horns of a dilemma. Even if I just consulted Coleman, he would feel obligated to call the police—and that could very well be the smart call. I just didn’t know what the best thing to do was. At last I came to a decision. “You’re right. We can’t call the law. What can we do?”
“If we assume that this person, whether it is Kathleen or someone pretending to be her, has Darla, where might she be?”
“What did you find on Kathleen’s background?”
“I don’t think anything she told us was true. There doesn’t seem to be any record of Kathleen Beesley until the last
