Hiss and Tell (5 page)

“Dad, I’m going to go,” Sunny told him. “Ken, I’ll meet you at the paper in twenty minutes.” Yes, she might be stumbling around like a zombie tomorrow—or rather, later this morning. But her taste of the reporting life the previous afternoon had been like a long-withheld dose of a forbidden drug. She had to have another fix.

Sunny started getting dressed under the disapproving eye of Shadow, who’d appeared in the doorway. He didn’t like changes in schedule, especially when those changes involved people getting up and going places in the middle of the night.

“Sorry, fella,” Sunny told the cat. “I should be home before sunup. And if not, Dad will feed you.”

She drove to downtown Kittery Harbor, where the town still had its original crooked cobblestone streets cramped close to the harbor. Ken Howell ran the
Courier
from an ancient structure that had probably started off life as a waterfront storehouse. Now it was home to a virtual museum
of printing presses from more than 150 years of putting out the paper. Plus, of course, the equipment to produce today’s editions.

Sunny suspected that there was also a bed hidden somewhere on the premises. Although he supposedly owned a house, Ken seemed to live at the
Courier
offices.

He greeted her at the door, carrying the camera case. “Ready to go?”

“Are you driving, or am I?” Sunny asked.

“Neither.” Ken led the way onto a dock where a man waved to them from beside a cabin cruiser. As she got closer, Sunny recognized him as Ike Elkins, an occasional fishing buddy of her dad’s. Ike had cleverly figured out a way to subsidize his hobby by offering coastline tours, a service he advertised on the MAX website. If Sunny had any more doubts about how they were getting up to Wilawiport, Ike offered the clincher by handing her and Ken life jackets. “Get those on, and we’re set to go.”

Sunny buckled herself into the vest and clambered aboard, taking the camera case from Ken. Then he donned the safety gear and joined her on the deck. Ike boarded as well and led the way to the bridge, indicating a couple of comfortable-looking built-in chairs. “Have a seat. And do me a favor: stay there. It’s going to be interesting enough heading up the coast in the dark without any distractions.”

With that, he turned off the cabin light and dimmed the displays on the instruments. Sailing in darkness required excellent night vision for the person steering, so—lights out. Sunny had gone on fishing expeditions with her dad before the crack of dawn, so she understood. From her seat, she saw that Ike had more than the average amount
of high-tech sailing equipment; besides the GPS display by the wheel, she also saw what looked like a radar screen.

Ike returned from casting off the lines that held them to the pier and followed her eyes. “Yeah, sometimes I like to take the old girl out at night. When I do, I try to make as certain as possible that we’ll come back.”

Sunny couldn’t fault that. No sense in becoming a statistic.

Ike started up the boat, and off they went. Sunny listened to the throbbing of the engine and the occasional burst of radio chatter as they moved away from the lights of town into seeming emptiness. She was thankful the sea was relatively calm, because they were sailing blind. The usual landmarks and points of reference were gone. They might as well have been sailing on another planet.

Cruising up the rocky shores of Maine was a heck of a lot less scenic in pitch darkness, and a little unnerving, too. What if one of those rocks turned up in front of them?

Ike certainly worked hard to avoid that scenario. Besides his high-tech gadgets, he sometimes consulted a chart, using a flashlight with a red lens. “Doesn’t affect the night vision,” he explained when Sunny asked about the red light.

Ike stood behind the wheel, glancing at the GPS and checking the radar screen, but also constantly turning his head, scanning conditions not just ahead of them, but to the sides and even behind. Sunny had no idea what, if anything, he was seeing out there; the only things she could see were bright stars up above—lots of them—if she craned her neck.

Ken sat in a very stiff pose, leaning forward as if he were propelling the boat onward by sheer force of will. In
the dimness, Sunny could see his expression grow more and more frustrated. “Can’t we go faster?” he finally asked Ike.

“Sure, if you don’t mind running into someone—or something,” Ike replied, changing course slightly. In the distance, Sunny now made out little green and white flashes—the running lights of another vessel. “This speed gives us enough leeway to react if something turns up on our path.”

“If we’d driven, we’d be up there in half an hour,” Ken grumbled.

“And you’d be stuck at the roadblock closing off Neal’s Neck.” Ike turned his head, keeping an eye on the other boat, then glanced back at Ken. “If you’re in such a hurry, too bad you didn’t have a friend with a helicopter instead of a boat.”

From time to time, they passed areas of gauzy brightness, street-lit downtown areas of various ports. For the most part, they might as well have been traveling in outer space.

Another bright spot appeared ahead. Ike checked his navigational aids. “Okay. This is Wilawiport.” He sent the boat in a wide curve to avoid crashing into Neal’s Neck.

Was this what it would have been like ninety years ago, when fast-moving motor launches delivered crates of contraband booze to the Neal mansion?
Sunny wondered.
Aside from the lights,
she thought as she suddenly found herself squinting against a blinding blast of light. After some blinking, the glare resolved itself into a trio of floodlights, arranged on top of a small cliff, focused down onto the rocks and the water.

“This is it!” Ken grabbed the camera case, taking out
one for himself and one for Sunny. It felt awkward in her hands, unbalanced, most of the weight ahead of her hands.

A telescopic lens,
she thought.

Ken was already snapping off pictures, and she joined him. But as the lens brought what was going on in the distance into focus, she almost dropped the camera into the drink.

Men in the black Windbreakers of the Kingsbury security team and a guy in state trooper gray were down on the tide-tossed rocks, hanging from ropes, trying to get some sort of a harness onto a pale white form . . . a dark-haired woman in a bikini, who lolled lifelessly in the would-be rescuers’ arms.

“Oh, my god!”
Sunny blurted out. That was as far as she got before one of the lights atop the rocky height suddenly shifted to pin them in a shaft of radiance sixty feet long.

“Stop that boat!” an amplified voice boomed across the water. Somebody up there must have a bullhorn.

“Damn! They caught us!” Even as he spoke, Ken kept feverishly taking pictures.

“They probably heard the engine,” Ike told him. “This isn’t exactly a stealth boat, you know.”

“We’re sending a launch out,” the amplified voice announced. “Prepare to be boarded.”

“They have no legal right to do that,” Ken burst out, his camera still to his eye, snapping away.

Ken may have a point,
Sunny thought,
but it could take months in court to establish the fact, our word against
theirs. Here and now, we’re facing a bunch of Kingsbury security guys who won’t be pleased to find us photographing the scene. If they grab our cameras, what are we going to do?

She put her camera on the deck at her feet, digging out her cell phone. This wasn’t going to be easy. Sunny knelt, resting her elbows on the gunwale of the boat, creating the closest thing she could to a tripod. She engaged the camera in the phone, aiming for the scene on the rocks while using all the tricks she’d learned in her photography classes. The results of a nighttime distance shot from a rocking boat wouldn’t be crystal-clear—probably too fuzzy for publishing—but she could hope that it would be legible enough to show what was going on. She kept clicking as fast as she could focus while the people on the top of the rocky prominence hauled the body up from the rocks.

As she worked, another floodlight sent a dazzling beam onto Ike’s boat. Sunny blinked her eyes, finally locating flashes against the glare. They were pretty well spaced apart.

Caleb Kingsbury’s yacht, I bet,
Sunny thought, while continuing to take more pictures.

Apparently the new lighting revealed what she and Ken were doing, because the voice on the loudspeaker became more urgent. “Put those cameras down! This is invasion of privacy!”

Ken put his camera down and turned to Ike. “Can we outrun them?”

Ike shook his head.

I was afraid of that.
Sunny returned to her phone, quickly scrolling through the images she’d shot. She silently
blessed Ike for having a marine signal booster with all his electronics, because she saw bars on her screen. Frantically choosing the best of the harshly lit pictures, she directed them to Ken’s e-mail. “Are your interns awake?”

Ken glanced from the oncoming powerboat to Sunny. “Sure. I wanted everything ready in case we had to go to press.”

“Then call them and tell them to download these pictures,” Sunny told him. “The security guys may get us, but they won’t get them.”

They had a couple of touchy minutes as a Kingsbury powerboat approached, a black-jacketed security guy with an assault rifle in the bow, and all the other guys on the boat keeping one hand on their holstered pistols. The cameras went into their bags and onto the security launch before Sunny and Ken did. Sunny felt a little better for that, actually, realizing how easily the bag could have plopped beneath the surface of the water, an unfortunate “accident.”

Both boats headed for a small wharf on the far side of Neal’s Neck. Sunny, Ken, and Ike were ushered off their boat and up a set of rickety steps, where an additional welcoming committee of Kingsbury security people waited, surrounding the guy with the bullhorn.

Sunny wondered if he’d even needed the bullhorn in the first place—his voice was almost as loud as its amplified version when he shouted at them, “What were you doing, interfering with our operation? Mr. Quimby here says I could have you arrested for trespassing!” He gestured to a gray-haired man wearing a perfectly crisp suit and tie, notwithstanding the hour, but with deep frown lines in his face. Quimby might as well have worn a neon sign saying, “Lawyer.”

“Trespassing? Are you and Vince Quimby claiming a twelve-mile limit around Neal’s Neck these days, Trehearne?” Ken inquired. Sunny noticed he’d eased his cell phone out of his pocket, and was fiddling with the controls.

Lee Trehearne, the head of security for the Kingsbury family, choked back what he wanted to say in answer to that. Despite currently looking as though he were on the verge of a stroke, he seemed like the capable, man-in-charge type: tall, and with a commanding presence. There was maybe a little flesh softening the line of his determined chin, but no way did Trehearne give the impression of being soft.

His eyes were like chips of flint as he glared at Ken. “Mr. Howell. What did you think you were doing, lurking off private property at this time of night?”

“I had a tip,” Ken replied. “Someone saw lights on the point and gave me a call. I came to see if it was news.” He paused for a second as the local paramedics came by, trundling a gurney with an ungainly shape strapped in place and covered by a black plastic zip-up bag.

A body bag,
Sunny thought.

Ken lowered his head for a moment. “Looks like sad news, I’m sorry to say.”

That didn’t cut any ice with Trehearne. “I won’t have you turning a tragic incident into some sort of vulgar media circus.” He leaned toward Ken. “The Kingsburys won’t have it.”

He broke off as a couple of state troopers approached from the edge of the cliff. Sunny recognized both of them, she’d seen them on duty at the roadblock. She also recognized the man in the rumpled suit whom they accompanied.
Lieutenant Wainwright was shorter than Trehearne, his hair was thinner, and he had actual jowls rather than a mere softening of the chin. But he had sharp eyes, and Sunny knew from experience that the investigator had a sharp mind.

Wainwright’s not a guy to come out for just anything, even if it happens on the Kingsbury estate,
she thought, suddenly flashing on how Trehearne had used the word “incident” rather than “accident.”

“Well, folks, let’s see if we can clear this up.” Wainwright was obviously going for the “good cop” role in this little drama. His pleasant expression congealed a little when he recognized Sunny. “You,” he said. “Miss . . .” He drew out the title, trying to recall Sunny’s name. “Miss Coolidge. I certainly didn’t expect to run into you out here.”

“This is Ken Howell, who runs the
Harbor
Courier
,” Sunny deflected. “Ken, this is Lieutenant Ellis Wainwright of the state police, criminal investigation division.”

Ken’s nose twitched. He might not have recognized the homicide investigator by face, but he’d certainly heard the name. “How do you do?” he said.

“Mr. Howell asked me to accompany him to follow a lead about curious activity here in this compound,” Sunny said to Wainwright. “Since he didn’t think our press credentials would get us in, Mr. Howell decided on a more indirect approach.”

Wainwright gave a sour nod, all trace of Mr. Good Cop gone. “And you couldn’t have come along at a worse moment. That poor girl deserves more dignity than you’re about to give her.”

“I think she deserves the truth.” Ken glanced over at
Trehearne, who’d just been handed their camera bag by one of his flunkeys. “Instead of being swept under the rug in the name of public relations.”

Trehearne hefted the bag. “You have no proof.”

Wainwright tapped the binoculars that hung around his neck. “If you spent a little more time looking than shouting, Trehearne, you might have noticed that Miss Coolidge also used her cell phone.”

“And e-mailed the pictures on already,” Sunny added.

Ken held up his phone, too. “And I’ve been streaming everything going on here directly to my office.”

Trehearne looked like Dracula discovering he’d just taken a big bite from a loaf of garlic bread.

“So why don’t you return their property, Mr. Trehearne,” Wainwright said tiredly. “If they’re going to run a picture, it might as well be a decent one.”

Lawyer Quimby silently nodded, his frown lines even deeper.

With his jaw clenched, Lee Trehearne handed the camera bag over to Ken, who immediately slipped it over his shoulder. “So we’re free to go?”

“Yes, sir,” Wainwright responded. “I’m sure you’re eager to get back to Kittery Harbor as quickly as possible, so you’ll stay on land.” He turned to Ike. “You don’t mind sailing back alone, do you?”

“Fewer distractions,” Ike said.

A trooper escorted Sunny and Ken to the roadblock, where Sunny expected Ken would either call a cab or one of his local contacts. Instead . . .

“Will?” Sunny burst out in disbelief.

Will Price stood leaning against his black pickup, his
Kittery Harbor Police Force badge prominently displayed from his jacket pocket. “You weren’t the only one Ken called tonight,” he said as he opened the door. “And since I could take the land route, I was here a while ago. As the local liaison officer, I was able to breeze right in, although when Trehearne finally saw me, he exiled me back here.”

“Did you see or hear anything?” Ken let Sunny in first and then climbed aboard with the camera bag cradled in his lap like a baby.

“Nothing I can say on the record,” Will replied, starting the truck’s engine. “So whatever I mention has to be strictly unofficial, with no attribution.” He shuddered briefly. “That’s all I’d need.”

“But with Wainwright here . . .” Ken shook his head. “It doesn’t look good.”

“The girl who died,” Sunny suddenly asked Will. “Did you get a look at her?”

“Only from the top of that cliff,” Will said.

“Could you make out the color of her bathing suit? Was it black?”

Will shook his head. “Purple.”

“Ken, one of the girls we saw here earlier was wearing a purple bikini,” Sunny frowned. “She came out of that house by the roadblock and walked in ahead of us.”

Ken’s thin face creased as he worked his memory, then he nodded. “You think it’s the same one, Sunny?”

“I’m not sure, but I saw that girl again later, at the pool party,” Sunny said, “with a drink in her hand and dancing. She looked pretty . . . uninhibited. Could it be a case of having more to drink than she could handle and wandering a little too close to the edge?”

“That’s the story Trehearne was trying to sell from the moment I got there.” Will looked disgusted. “And he was pretty heavy-handed about it. But one of the troopers—Hank Riker, a buddy of mine, we were in the same troop—left the roadblock and went down on the rocks for a look. He said there were bruises on her throat, the kind left by human fingers. He’s the one who called Wainwright and made Trehearne’s guys leave things as they were down there until the lieutenant arrived.”

“Good man,” Ken said. “It can’t have been easy standing up to the Kingsburys on their home ground.”

“I’ll tell you, I didn’t see any actual Kingsburys while I was in the compound.” Will shook his head as he drove. “All I saw was Trehearne and that Quimby guy—the lawyer. Maybe they’re all lying low.”

“Possibly it’s crisis management,” Sunny suggested. “No one around to say anything stupid.”

“Maybe,” Ken said, “but it looks guilty.” He leaned across Sunny to talk to Will. “Have you got a name for this girl?”

“Eliza Stoughton,” Will replied. “She apparently came as the date of the best man, Beau Bellingham. A couple of the young people turned up when the body was first found, and I spoke to a few of them before Trehearne shooed them all away from me. For a group that was supposed to be bonding, they broke pretty quickly into bride’s faction and groom’s faction.”

He glanced over at Sunny. “Several of the groomsmen mentioned that Eliza had been drinking pretty heavily and had gotten ‘kinda nasty’ as one of them put it, though Beau Bellingham dismissed it as the mojitos talking. Frankly, I
wondered if he’d been hitting the mojitos, too. He couldn’t seem to take in the fact that Eliza was dead—kept talking about her in the present tense. He let slip, though, that Eliza’d also gotten into it with Tommy—that’s Thomas Langford Neal, the matron of honor’s husband.”

“Interesting situation there,” Ken said. “At one point, the Kingsbury watchers actually thought that the Neal boy and Priscilla Kingsbury might get married.”

“Ew, aren’t the two of them cousins?” Sunny said.

“Second cousins, same great-grandparents.”

“Still seems a little too close for comfort.” Sunny frowned, looking out the windshield at dense forest around them. Except for Will’s high beams, it was almost as dark on the road as it had been out on the water.

“Was Carson de Kruk there?” she asked Will.

Will shook his head. “Neither he nor Priscilla turned up. I’m guessing somebody probably convinced them not to.”

“Somebody named Trehearne?” Ken said.

“Could be,” Will agreed. “When he saw me talking with the wedding party, Trehearne nearly killed himself getting them away from me and getting me off to the roadblock.”

“That guy definitely wanted to control the story,” Sunny said. “His people looked ready to shoot us when they came out to Ike’s boat. And then they grabbed our cameras.”

“And now you say he was maybe trying to hide witnesses,” Ken added.

“So what do you think?” Sunny asked. “Is he just being fanatical about not letting the Kingsburys get any dirt on their shoes, or something else? The way you’re saying he
tried to downplay the whole situation reminds me of how Sheriff Nesbit—”

She broke off with a gasp, turning to Will. “You said you were in a no-win situation. If everything went okay, Nesbit would come out smelling like a rose. But if anything went wrong, you’d get blamed. And now something has
really
gone wrong.”

Will sighed. “It’s not as if either of us could have predicted this. But yeah, I’m sure that after Nesbit and his cronies get done with it, the story will sound a lot worse. ‘How could a seasoned police officer let something so terrible happen at the pre-wedding meet and greet?’”

“So, after spending years pretending that Elmet County has never had a crime problem, now all of a sudden Nesbit will think it’s a big deal.” Sunny looked over at Will, who was busy keeping his eyes on the road. “You know what I think?”

“What?” he asked.