THEY SPLIT UP and drove back to the work site in two cars. Josie made sure that Dottie traveled with her.
“It was good of you to talk about your past.” She started the conversation as she steered her truck away from the curb. “I know it wasn’t easy.”
“Didn’t have a choice, did I?”
“You could have lied.”
“But you knew the truth.”
“When you came to work for me, I told you I’d keep your secret.”
“And you would, wouldn’t you? You know, you’re a good person. I haven’t run into a whole lot of good people in the past few years.” Dottie was silent for a moment. “You didn’t sleep with that Noel person to get him to leave you his business, did you?”
Josie was shocked. “I… No, is that what you thought?” “I didn’t know. It did strike me as a possibility. I mean, most men don’t just leave a business to a good friend.”
“Noel wasn’t most men.”
“Look, I’m offending you and I sure didn’t mean to. What I’m trying to say is thank you and that Noel Roberts left his business to the right person.”
“I shouldn’t get upset. You aren’t the first person to wonder about my relationship with Noel and you won’t be the last. It’s been a difficult day for us all.” She stopped the truck for a group of giggling teenage girls, their blankets dragging on the road as they crossed to get to the beach. “They look like they’re about to have a good time, don’t they? Not a care in the world, as my mother would say.”
“They’re young. Wait until they get older. They’ll do less giggling then,” Dottie predicted.
Josie thought about Tyler. He was probably the same age as these girls. “I hope you’re wrong,” she said fervently.
“That Annette is just a kid,” Dottie said.
Josie got the impression that the other woman wanted to change the subject. “Yes. In fact, I think she’s the youngest carpenter Island Contracting has had. But I think she’s going to work out.”
“She knows what she’s doing.”
“She went to a vocational school upstate. Their graduates are working for other contractors on the island. Far as I know, everyone’s pretty happy with them. Of course, the others are male.”
“Women have to be twice as good as men to survive in this business.”
“You know, I used to think the same thing, but then I ran across some truly incompetent women, so bad I had a hard time figuring out how they got their licenses, who trained them. And then I realized that there were men who wanted all those women to be bad carpenters or whatever because that confirmed their own prejudices. I’ve been a bit more careful about hiring people since I figured that out.”
“Bastards.”
“I won’t argue with you about that,” Josie said, remembering a few of the disastrous hires she’d made before she realized what was going on. It had been difficult for the company, but worse on the young women who, thinking they had the training necessary for a viable career, suddenly found themselves out the money it had cost them to be trained and without employment.
“What do you think about Jill?” Dottie suddenly changed the subject.
Josie was reluctant to discuss one worker with another. “She seems to be a good carpenter. And she’s worked for four or five years. She wasn’t hired straight out of school. And she had very good references from her last job. She worked out in the Pacific Northwest.”
“She didn’t want to tell the police about the body.”
Josie thought about that for a minute. “Neither did I. Neither did you.”
“And we both have good reasons for that. But Annette thought we should. If you think about it, you realize anyone who is innocent will think we should.”
“I don’t know about that,” Josie answered slowly. “Maybe Jill just doesn’t like authority figures or something.” They had arrived at the house; Josie parked at the curb and both women jumped out before resuming their conversation.
“Like maybe she knows what they can do to an innocent person,” Dottie suggested as they walked up to the front door.
“That’s not necessarily so.”
“Maybe not. But it’s something to think about because there’s one thing wrong with all this.”
“What?” Josie asked, turning the key in the lock and pushing open the door.
“We all have to depend on one another. If one person goes to the police, we’re all in trouble. That’s what’s wrong with this plan.”
“Maybe,” Josie said, walking in the door and flipping on the light switch. “But it looks to me like it’s not all that’s wrong with this plan.”
“What else?”
“It looks like someone got to the body before us.”
Dottie peered over Josie’s shoulder. “Oh, shit.”
There was a scrambling behind them and then Jill and Annette appeared.
“What the-”
But Jill’s assessment echoed Dottie’s. “Oh, shit.”
The canoe was in the middle of the floor. Empty. The blanket that had been tucked around Courtney had been left behind.
“Turn off the light,” Dottie hissed.
“What… Oh, you’re right!” Josie reached out, flipped the switch, and plunged them into darkness.
“What are we going to do?” Annette’s question came out as a whimper.
“Excellent question.”
“Guess we don’t have to worry about telling the police anything.” Josie thought she heard relief in Jill’s voice.
“Unless the police are the ones who found the body and took it away,” Dottie suggested.
“How would they have known about her?” Annette asked.
Josie had been looking around. “I don’t think it was them. If the police had found her, they would still be investigating- or if not, they would have hung that yellow scene-of-the-crime tape around the place.” In the past, she had illegally crossed that tape more times than she wanted to think about.
“So who was it?” Annette persisted.
“Could have been one of those television people,” Jill said.
“But wouldn’t they have called the police?”
“Maybe they have a good reason not to,” Josie suggested. It was dusk and there was ample light to examine the room, but that would change as soon as the sun set. “Maybe we should look around-but don’t touch anything! Whoever moved the body might have left a clue to his or her identity, and if we don’t find it before it gets dark, it would be nice if it was still here in the morning.”
“What are we looking for?” Jill asked.
“Clues!” Annette sounded excited. “Pieces of fabric that might have been ripped from clothing as someone dragged the body across the floor. Hairs. Cigarette butts. Maybe even a glove or something like that!”
“Or if we’re really lucky, a small pile of the perpetrator’s DNA.”
“I don’t think… You’re kidding me, aren’t you?”
“I am. And I shouldn’t be,” Dottie said. “As the boss says, let’s search. We don’t have a lot of time to lose.”
“Where do we start?”
“With the canoe,” Josie said with more assurance and authority than she was feeling. “How was it taken down? Is there anything in it? Any sign of how Courtney was killed?”
“Excuse me?”
Josie looked at Dottie. “It would be interesting to know how she was killed, wouldn’t it?”
“I don’t know about everyone else, but I thought we knew how. At least, I thought you knew how it was done. You were up there so close to her for such a long time.”
“There was no sign-”
“No gunshot wound?”
“No knife sticking out of her chest?”
“No long, thin cord tied tightly around her neck?”
“I didn’t even see any bruises.” Josie answered their questions. “She was covered with a blanket. Well, not exactly covered. It wasn’t over her head or anything like that. It was lying across her from her feet up to her chest-and tucked in neatly. Almost as though she had been asleep. But she wasn’t sleeping,” she added quickly before Annette could jump to another conclusion. “I’m sure she was dead. She was… well, I’m sure she was dead.” She glanced around the room.
“Look, there’s nothing here that we didn’t put here. One of us might recognize something that doesn’t belong, something that has been moved, something different. All we can do is look.”
They looked. Fifteen minutes later they had nothing. No clues and no ideas. The canoe had been hung from the rafters by a metal chain attached to large metal hooks screwed into beams across the ceiling. The hooks were still there. The chain was piled neatly in the bottom of the canoe. Island Contracting’s policy was to keep a neat workplace. It impressed the customers and saved time in the long run. Nothing, as far as anyone could tell, had been moved. Since the house was unoccupied, there was a lot of dust around. Now that layer of dust was full of scuffed footprints and other marks of human habitation. There was no way of knowing which, if any, had been made by whoever had removed Courtney’s body.
It was getting dark. They were going to be forced to turn on the lights or leave. Josie picked the last option. “Time to go. If there’s anything here, we’ve missed it-”
“Shut up! Someone’s outside.”
“Get down! Shh!”
At Josie’s order, the women dropped to the floor
“Do you think it’s the murderer?” Annette sounded terrified.
“Shh!”
“Josie! I know you’re here. Where are you?”
She recognized the voice and stood. “Everything’s all right. It’s Sam.”
“Who?”
“Her boyfriend, stupid!”
Josie ignored her crew’s comments. “Sam. We’re in here, Sam!”
“Who’s we? Did you have some trouble with the electricity? Why are all the lights off?”
“We… we didn’t want anyone to know we were here. I’ll explain later,” she added.
“Fine. Are you ready to go?”
“Wh-”
“You were meeting Tyler and me for dinner.”
“Oh, I forgot! It’s late! Tyler must be starving!”
“Tyler is fine. I fed him an entire pizza with the works and he’s gone home to watch videos.”
Josie instantly reverted to mother mode. “He’s had pizza two nights in a row. And he watches videos at that store all day. Shouldn’t he be out getting some fresh air?”
“He’s fine. We ate at a table on the boardwalk. He’s had his daily allotment of air-and cheese. I, on the other hand, am starving.”
“Oh, Sam…”
“We’d better get going now that we’ve finished up here.” Dottie spoke up.
“Yeah, good night.” Jill picked up the hint.
“See you in the morning,” Annette added, sounding a bit doubtful.
“Why doesn’t Dottie drive the truck and Jill the Jeep,” Josie suggested. “Annette can ride.”
“Okay.”
“Good night.”
“Good night. Thanks for everything.” Josie realized they all wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. She felt the same way. “You must be starving,” she said, looking up at Sam with a smile on her face.
“I am. Good night, ladies.” He waited until they were alone and then put both hands on Josie’s shoulders and turned her toward him. “What is going on here, Josie?”
She had a question of her own. “How did you know I was here?”
“Your truck and the Island Contracting Jeep are parked out front. I even know that you were at your office earlier.”
“The same way, right?”
“Your truck was parked outside. Anyone could tell you were there.”
“I never thought about that.” Josie spoke slowly.
“So are you going to tell me what’s going on now? Or do you want to wait until we get to the restaurant?”
Josie decided that wasn’t the time to tell him that she had already eaten. “Let’s go to the restaurant. We can talk there.”
And she would have the entire drive to decide just how much she was going to tell him.