“You don’t have a key to the office, do you?” Parrish asked, stirring her tea.
“Not exactly.”
“How exactly do you plan to get in?”
“I need to find Wendell’s keys. It didn’t hit me until tonight, when I was talking to Sharon, that I don’t know where his car is. I don’t even know where our golf cart is. Wendell kept a separate ring for the island—with keys for the house, the garage, his office, and the golf cart.”
“Maybe the sheriff impounded the golf cart,” Parrish suggested.
“Impounded it where? This island is only three miles long. That cart has got to be here, somewhere.”
“For all you know, the keys were in Wendell’s pocket.”
“No. The hospital gave me his stuff before I left. His wallet, his money clip with some soggy twenty-dollar bills. No key chain.”
“What about his phone?”
“Come to think of it, they didn’t give me his phone,” Riley said. “Maybe it’s on the golf cart. He was always leaving it in one of the cup holders.”
“Or maybe the sheriff has it, or maybe it’s at the bottom of the bay.”
“Always the optimist,” Riley said.
“I’m a realist. And you need to be, too,” Parrish said. “Go home and get a good night’s sleep. Tuesday, you can go to the courthouse and start figuring things out.”
Riley stared at her. This was not the Parrish who’d been her wingwoman since childhood. That Parrish was reasonable and rational, but she was also the friend Riley always knew would have her back.
“Go to sleep? How? My life has gone completely haywire. I’ve been locked out of my own home. My husband’s been murdered. I need some answers, Parrish. I need to know why. You expect me to just sit back and wait to see what happens next?”
“Yes, I do,” Parrish said. She ran a hand through her reddish hair, and under the light of the chandelier hanging over the table, Riley could see a half inch of gray at the roots. Parrish had scrubbed off her usually flawless makeup, and now Riley also noticed splotchy patches of acne on her cheeks and chin.
“You’re not a cop, you know,” Parrish said. “And you’re not even an investigative reporter anymore. Even if you could get into Wendell’s office, you have no idea what to look for.”
“I’ll know it when I see it,” Riley insisted. She stood up. “Are you coming?”
“No.” Parrish shook her head. “Sorry.”
“Me, too.”
* * *
Riley steered the cart away from Whale’s Tail. The shrubbery on either side of the trail seemed to close in on her. She could smell night-blooming jasmine and something sour. A skunk? An owl hooted from the treetops.
She couldn’t believe Parrish had abandoned her. Maybe she was being naïve, believing she could solve this mystery, but shouldn’t her best friend have come along—out of sympathy, at the very least?
The air had gotten positively chilly after sundown. She shivered and wished she’d chosen a long-sleeved shirt—or a better best friend.
The path widened as it approached the village, splitting into two one-way roads, with a narrow swath of greenery in the middle. People were drifting out of the Sea Biscuit, lingering to chat in the parking lot.
A light wind whipped up whitecaps on the surface of the bay, where the huge full moon was reflected on the midnight-blue water. Now she was downright chilly. Riley stopped the cart and rummaged through the storage bin strapped onto the back of the cart, next to Evelyn’s golf clubs. Aha! She found her mother’s neatly folded windbreaker and slipped her arms through the sleeves.
She climbed back onto the driver’s seat and sat looking out at the marina, where sailboats, runabouts, and skiffs bobbed at anchor. Occasionally she heard a hollow clanging as the wind knocked rigging against aluminum masts.
Two hundred yards ahead, she saw a stretch of yellow crime-scene tape fluttering in the breeze. Without thinking, she drove toward the long concrete pier that jutted out into the bay.
Riley parked and got out of the cart. Four small orange cones were arranged in a rectangle on the sidewalk. She stood, her arms folded tightly across her chest, and stared down at the concrete.
Was this where it happened? Did Wendell stand in this spot, just three short nights ago? Who was with him? A stranger? The sheriff said he’d been struck hard, in the back of the head. Had Wendell known he was in danger? Was there an argument? Who had done this?
Belle Isle’s summer season was in full swing. Every mooring on the dock had a boat tied up. All but one. Was this where Wendell had arrived at Belle Isle? Why? What was he doing here?
An icy chill ran down her spine, and she stumbled, nearly knocked down, again, by the finality of this moment.
One of the rubber cones had fallen on its side. With her toe, she edged it back to an upright position. This was her reality. Wendell was really and truly gone. Their daughter needed to know why. And Riley needed the truth just as much as Maggy.
Riley gazed down into the inky waters of the bay. Waves splashed at the concrete seawall, washing up random flotsam: bits of marsh grass, cigarette butts, a faded plastic Dr Pepper bottle, and a snarl of monofilament fishing line with a red-and-white plastic bobber attached. Unbidden, a ghostly image of a body, tangled in that same monofilament, flashed in her imagination. She walked back to the golf cart.
* * *
Billy Nolan stared at the computer screen. He looked away, and then back again, but the red blinking numbers hadn’t changed. Which wasn’t really news. They hadn’t changed in the last forty-eight hours either, and God knows he’d checked repeatedly, hoping against hope that maybe the bank had discovered an error. Maybe, he thought, trust accounts were like an old pair of jeans. Sometimes you put them on after not wearing them for months, and money magically appeared in your pocket.
Or not. He desperately needed some magic right now.
He fixed himself another cocktail and wandered over to the piano. Music had been his friend, his only friend, for so many years before he and Scott had connected. His fingers trailed across the keys, and he played a few notes, but they were jarring, discordant. Like his life.
God damn Wendell Griggs. Damn him and his crazy schemes. He’d never really trusted his brother-in-law, but when Wendell came to him with that plan of his, and the veiled threats, Billy told himself that Wendell would make them all rich. And not just Belle Isle rich, which everybody on the island mistakenly assumed the Nolans were, but filthy, stinking, Hamptons rich. Palm Beach rich.
The ugly truth of it was, Billy wanted to be richer than W.R. had ever thought possible. The old man was dead, so he wouldn’t know, but everybody else would know. Scott would know. And that would be enough, wouldn’t it?
Billy drained the highball glass, stared out the window, and was surprised to see a pair of headlights rounding the driveway at the Shutters. He snapped off the lamp beside the piano to enable a better view. The cart rolled to a stop beneath the garage lights, and he saw Riley climb out. It was nearly three in the morning. What was his big sister up to?
19
The list of Memorial Day activities in The Belle Isle Bulletin—helpfully forwarded to him by his mother—was long and exhausting. Farmers market on the village green! Cookout at the pool! Tennis tournament. Kiddie Karnival. Softball. Potato sack races! Shrimp boil on the beach.