Liam turned; the door to the house was open. Clarinda had come out, a plate with a sandwich in her hands.
“Liam, I don’t believe this! Are you accusing Jonas of something?” she demanded.
Liam sighed. “I’m not accusing. I’m hoping someone will be able to say something that will help me.”
“Well, I was the one who was here most when Gary was working. He came over a few mornings—he worked the streets at night, when he couldn’t get himself some kind of a gig. He’d play on a street corner or down at Mallory Square and hope to make his rent on tips. We seldom got into any heavy conversations, though,” she said.
She set her plate down at the table and glared at Liam. “I don’t believe this! How long have we all known each other?”
“I’m looking for help, Clarinda,” he said. She was truly outraged. He was fairly certain that if Jonas was up to anything foul at all, Clarinda didn’t know.
“Right. What do you want? We’ll help you. Sure. It was me. I just decided that I didn’t like the guy and it would be fun to kill him and trap him in the tree roots at Kelsey’s place,” Clarinda said.
“Clarinda,” Jonas said.
“Well, a friend we’ve known forever is accusing us of God knows what!” she said angrily.
“I don’t think he was accusing you,” Jonas said.
“Why not? We all know that women are capable of anger. Let’s see, Gary White was always so clean and fresh. I seduced him. And I shot him. Or stabbed him. Sorry, the papers and the news haven’t said just how he was killed,” Clarinda said.
“And he’s not going to tell us, Clarinda. This is his job,” Jonas told her.
“This is outrageous, is what it is,” Clarinda said.
“Clarinda, honestly, I’m hoping you two can help me. You can see the Merlin place from here. I need all the help I can get. I’m asking you both if you’ll keep an eye out, write down anything that you see. I’d greatly appreciate it,” Liam said.
Clarinda stared at him, looked away and sighed softly. “It’s just infuriating, Liam. How long have you known us? Good God, I serve you dinner half the nights of every week. And Jonas is from here. He’s lived in the same house all his life!”
“Clarinda, I’m looking for answers. I need help.”
“Sure.” She was quiet a minute. “Do you want some iced tea? A sandwich?”
He stood. “No, but thank you. I’m going to head to the station, drop a few things off and start looking into some leads.” He almost said other leads. Luckily, the word didn’t slip out. He didn’t need to make her any more antagonistic toward him.
“You have to eat,” Clarinda said.
“I’ll grab something in an hour or so,” he assured her. “Thanks.”
He waved and left them on the porch. As he got back into his car, he noted that there was a telescope on the upstairs wraparound porch.
It was aimed at the Merlin estate.
“See?” Avery said. “It’s friendly. It wants to play.”
“It’s friendly, all right,” Kelsey agreed.
The dolphin, swimming up and down along her dock, watched them. It seemed pleased to entertain them and didn’t make any effort to disappear. Nor did it grow bored, but rather seemed to be listening to their conversation. It swam up and down and hovered, and then disappeared for a minute, only to reappear doing a majestic leap out in the deeper water.
“I wonder if Liam was right, and he’s lost from one of the dolphin facilities—there are several in the Keys,” Kelsey said.
“Do they ever act like this when they’re just wild?” Avery asked.
“Hmm. Honestly, I don’t know,” Kelsey said. “I mean, I’ve seen them swim alongside boats when we’ve gone out, and they leap as a natural behavior. He does seem to like human interaction. I’ll mention it to Liam again. Maybe he’s heard of a dolphin that was lost somehow. I get the feeling that they’re pretty good at knowing where they’re going, though. I don’t know. But he is fascinating.”
“He’s a nice diversion,” Avery said. “I think I’ll call him Jimmy. Is it a he?”
“I can’t tell you,” Kelsey said. “He’s looking at us and leaping around pretty quickly.”
“Ah, well, if it’s a girl, Jimmy can be short for Jimima. How’s that?”
“Sounds fine to me. I’m going to head back in.”
“I’m going to talk to Jimmy for a while longer,” Avery said.
“Okay.”
“But I’m here for the long run, Kelsey. I’ll be helping you from here on out.”
“It’s okay, spend some time with Jimmy.”
“Maybe I’ll get in the water later.”
“They can be aggressive,” Kelsey warned.
“I’ll watch myself.”
“The water is probably pretty cool. It wasn’t bad the other day, but it can be cool in winter.”
“Hey, I dive in the Pacific, Kelsey. I’ll be fine.”
“Why don’t you wait a bit? I want to keep looking through that book, find more of my grandfather’s notes,” Kelsey said. “Later on, I’ll break for the day and we can go for a bit of a swim together.”