The Edge

“Okay, did you manage to talk to anyone else who wasn’t grieving?” Devine asked, his ire rising and uncomfortably so.

Dial it back, Travis — you have to work with these folks.

“A few people saw her around, nothing more than hello,” replied Harper curtly.

“Where was she staying? Jocelyn Point?”

“No,” said Harper. “Putnam Inn. Same place as you. Didn’t you know that?”

Fuss looked like she might start laughing.

Small town, thought Devine. Everybody knows everybody else’s business. Even the outsider’s.

“So she spoke to the owner?”

“Sure, she’s known Pat for years. Nothing of any note though, meaning their conversation. Just ‘hi, how you doing.’ Nothing about why she was up here.”

“Did she say whether Silkwell appeared nervous or out of sorts?”

“No, nothing like that. She visited up here pretty much every year,” said Fuss.

“Did you find anything relevant when you searched her room?” he asked.

Fuss said, “We haven’t searched it.” Before Devine could comment on that she added, “We secured it, taped it off, and waited for you to show up, because that’s what we were ordered to do from the get-go. By your folks.”

Harper didn’t look happy about this, and Devine could hardly blame him. And now he somewhat understood their unfriendly behavior toward him.

“So any idea why Silkwell was in town?” He was holding back what Clare Silkwell had told him — that Jenny was coming here to settle some unfinished business.

“No idea, yet. But like you said, early days,” added Fuss while Guillaume covered the body and then turned away to line up some instruments on a metal table. However, Devine could see from the woman’s tensed manner that she was intently listening to every word.

“Tell me about Earl Palmer, the man who found the body.”

Fuss and Harper exchanged a quick glance that Devine couldn’t readily interpret. And Guillaume’s shoulders had stiffened and then immediately relaxed when Palmer’s name had been mentioned.

Harper took a moment to clear his throat while Fuss looked away. Clearly she was going to let her boss handle this one. “Earl’s lived here his whole life. Retired lobsterman and a damn fine one. His wife, Alberta, died recently. And it rocked him to his core. He’s salt of the earth. And his wife was, too.”

“Okay. How did he happen to discover the body? She died between nine and eleven at night. But I understand that he called the police at one forty-five in the morning. What was he doing out at that hour?”

“Hell, lobstermen, like dairy farmers, don’t really sleep,” scoffed Fuss with a forced grin tacked on. “Even retired ones,” she hastily added when she saw Devine was about to interject.

“Granted, but how did he find the body? I was told it was in an isolated place.”

Harper said, “Earl likes to walk the shoreline. Ever since Bertie — that was what everybody called Alberta — died, he can’t sleep. Just drives around or goes out and walks. He likes to hear the ocean. He spent enough of his life on it to where it’s in his DNA.”

Devine slowly nodded and decided he was going to get no farther on this. “Did Jenny have a rental car?”

“Yep,” offered Fuss.

“Was it found near the crime scene? Did she drive it there?”

“No. It’s back at the Putnam Inn. White two-door Honda, you might have seen it. New York plates.”

Devine had seen such a car there. “So, like the room, have you not searched it yet?”

“Those were our instructions,” said Harper sharply. “Federal instructions.”

“Did anyone see her the night she died?” asked Devine. “Dr. Guillaume mentioned a time window.”

“Pat Kingman saw her walk out of the inn around seven thirty,” said Fuss. “She didn’t see which way she went.”

“How far from there was she found?”

“Three point two miles. I clocked it in the car,” answered Fuss.

“Weather that night?”

“Raining like cats and dogs,” answered Fuss.

Devine shifted his focus to Guillaume. “Anything else I should know? Signs of a struggle? Defensive wounds? Skin of an assailant under her nails? Any other forensic evidence at all?”

“No,” said Guillaume. “Just the casing.”

“Are you still looking for the round?”

Fuss said, “It was heading toward the ocean after it left Jenny’s body. Long gone by now, don’t you think?”

Devine glanced at her and noted the condescending expression. He had seen that look sometimes on superior officers of his, the ones who had been several degrees removed from the actual conditions on the ground, but thought they knew better. He hadn’t liked it then and he didn’t like it now.

“Any luck on tracking down the person she was with?”

“Whoa now, who said she was with anyone?” exclaimed Harper.

“I doubt she walked over three miles in the pouring rain to where she was killed. And she obviously didn’t drive herself.”

A wide-eyed Harper said, “Hell, you think she drove over there with someone?”

“Well, it’s our job to find that out, right? So let’s go to the crime scene.”