“I heard some about that. Did he slap Prissy around?”
“No, he did not, or he’d be charged with that, too. He’s charged with OWI, reckless driving, assault—on Curt Seabold—destruction of private property, and resisting, as he tried to take me on when I got there.”
“He swing at you?” Donna said, eyes narrowed.
“Half-assed. He was drunk, concussed, and stupid. I charged Curt with assault, as the two of them tried beating the hell out of each other. I let him stay home, and don’t see any cause to lock him up.”
Frowning, Leon rubbed at his chin. “It seems to me Curt was defending himself.”
“He took the first swing, Leon, and said so himself. He’d had a few drinks, but he wasn’t driving—and he won’t be driving his truck ever again from the looks of it. I expect we’ll end up dropping the charge against him, but it has to stand for now. How would he take it if I asked Cecil to go over there with a chain saw and help him cut up the tree on his truck?”
“I’d say he’d take that as good.”
“Then that’s what we’ll do. Nick and Matty are on second shift, but I’ll pull them in if we need them. I want Wagman in a cell as soon as he’s medically cleared, Leon. I filed the paperwork on him last night. He can get a lawyer, try for bail, but he’s in a cell or cuffed to his bed at the clinic. Nobody’s going to drive while intoxicated on the island under my watch and shrug it off.”
“Yes, sir, Chief.”
“You look pretty perky and bright-eyed for somebody who was up half the night dealing with drunks.”
Reed smiled at Donna. “Do I? It must just be my sunny disposition. I’m in my office. Send Cecil in when he gets here. And if he isn’t here in ten, Donna, you call him and tell him to get moving.”
He went in, sat down, booted up his computer. Then contacted the prosecutor who served the island when they needed one.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Rick Wagman got sixty days, a revoked driver’s license (not his first drinking and driving rodeo), and mandatory rehab. Since adultery wasn’t a crime, Reed decided it was a suitable punishment for being a drunk asshole.
April arrived with a two-day snow. Plows plowed, shovels shoveled while the dawn of spring took the island back to midwinter. Then the sun burst out, popping the temperature toward fifty degrees. The rapid snowmelt gurgled its way into forming streams, chewing potholes into asphalt, swamping the beaches.
Reed spent the lion’s share of his first three weeks on the job dealing with weather-related incidents. Off-hours he made himself visible in the village, walking or biking around the island, often with CiCi, Simone, or both. He spent as many nights as he could manage with Simone in his bed.
And dedicated at least an hour every evening to Patricia Hobart.
On his day off in mid-April, he ferried to Portland. He hadn’t persuaded Simone to join him. Probably shouldn’t have mentioned meeting his parents, he realized.
He drove off the ferry, stopped to buy flowers, ended up choosing a madly blue hydrangea bush instead. Rethought, bought three.
His parents weren’t his only visit on this spring Sunday.
He had brunch with his family, played with the kids, bullshitted with his brother, teased his sister, more or less helped his father plant the well-received hydrangea.
And took away an enormous care package of leftovers.
At his next stop he found Leticia Johnson sitting on her front porch potting up pansies. She brushed off her garden gloves when he pulled up.
He thought it amazing she looked exactly the same as she had the night he’d met her.
He glanced across the street, thought the same couldn’t be said.
The landlord had indeed sold the lot. The new owners had razed what was left of the house, built a nice little place—currently a soft blue with white trim. They’d added a porch, a concrete walkway, a short, blacktop driveway, some foundation plants.
Next door, Rob’s and Chloe’s fixer-upper had long since been fixed up into a pretty two-story in a sage green with the addition of a garage on the far side and a bonus room topping it.
He knew they’d added another kid, too.
He pulled the hydrangea out of the car, walked toward Leticia’s welcoming smile.
“Aren’t you a fine sight on a sunny day.”
“Not as fine as you.” He bent down to kiss her cheek. “I hope you like hydrangeas.”
“I surely do.”
“Then pick your spot, and tell me where I can find a shovel.”
She wanted it right in front, where she could see it when she sat on her porch. While he dug, she went in the house, came back out with a plastic container.
“Coffee grounds, some orange peels I haven’t taken out to the compost yet. You bury these with the roots, boy. They’ll help keep the blooms blue.”
“You’d like my father. I just delivered one there, and he said just the same. What do you know about lupines?”
They talked gardening, though most of it was like a foreign language to him.
After, he sat on the porch with her, drinking iced tea, eating cookies.
“You look healthy and happy. Island life agrees with you.”
He hadn’t forgotten she’d come to see him at the hospital—twice. “It really does. I hope you’ll come over sometime, let me show you around. We can sit on my porch.”
“What you need is a pretty young woman sitting there with you.”
“I’m working on it.”
“Well, praise be.”
“How are the neighbors doing?”
She looked across the street as he did. “Chloe and Rob and their two girls are doing fine. Sweet family. We’ve got new ones right across now, in that poor woman’s place.”
“Oh?”
“The family who built the house there—and it’s a nice house, too—they just outgrew it. Young couple in there now, expecting their first next fall. Nice as nice can be. I took them over an apple pie to say welcome, and didn’t they ask me right in, show me around? And the night before trash day every week, he and Rob, they take turns coming over here to take my bins down to the curb.”
“I’m glad to hear that.”
“You’re still thinking about what was.”
“She’s still out there.”
With a shake of her head, Leticia rubbed the cross she wore around her neck. “A person who’d kill her own mama, kill her grandparents, that’s not a person at all. It’s something else that doesn’t even have a name.”
“I have a lot of names for her. I know you didn’t talk to her much, but you saw her, Ms. Leticia. Coming and going. I’m looking for patterns, and breaks in them.”
“Like we’ve talked about, she’d drive up with groceries, stay awhile. Mother’s Day, Christmas, she’d bring something. Never looked happy about it.”
“Did she ever change her look—like her hair, her style?”
“Not to speak of. But now, I did see her once in one of those outfits the girls exercise in. Like for the gym or running around. Wasn’t her usual morning, and she looked downright annoyed. I have to say she had a better figure than I’d have guessed.”
“She ran most mornings. We’ve verified that. Interesting.”
“Now that I think on it, I’m putting that at a time her mama took sick.”
“Could be Marcia Hobart called Patricia, nagged her into coming by before, and Patricia didn’t bother to change from her morning run.”
“Now you’re putting me in mind of something else.” Leticia tapped a finger on her knee. “She didn’t look any different that day, or act it all that much, but maybe it’s a break in the pattern, like you say.”
She rocked, eyes closed, trying to bring it back.