“It didn’t occur to you to come straight to us and tell us about the photo when you discovered it?”
“It did occur to me. You and Sergeant Flynn were still out of town. I stopped at the station and left messages for both you and Officer Dawes. None of you called me back. And I tried to tell you last night, but you said you were off duty. I didn’t know both the copy and the original photo would get stolen. Anyway, when I told you about the gift certificates, you didn’t seem interested in my theory that all the diners in the restaurant the night of the murder were connected.” I tried not to sound defensive.
“Julia, there were no fingerprints on the door of Gus’s refrigerator except yours, Chris’s, and Gus’s. There were no fingerprints inside the walk-in except the three of yours and the victim’s.” Binder’s voice, slow and steady, underlined the importance of what he was telling me. “Our killer wore gloves. He arrived at the murder scene with a syringe and a fatal dose of insulin. That means our murderer is a dangerous person. Do you understand me? Not someone who lost his temper in a specific situation, but an intentional killer. You cannot go poking around in this. You need to be careful. I mean it.”
He blew out a breath, slowing his speech and softening his tone. “We’ll follow up on everything you’ve given us, I promise. But you have to let me do it my way. With any luck, there’s an ID for our victim in his backpack and we’re halfway home. Give us some time. We’ll get this.”
There was a shout from under the restaurant. “On my way.” Binder headed toward the building.
*
Moments later, Jamie strolled into the parking lot, a wide grin on his face. “Not even eight in the morning and we’ve had big breaks in both cases. You and Gus found the backpack,” he said, unlike Binder giving credit where credit was due. “And we discovered the identity of our car crash victim.”
“Wow. How did you manage that?”
“I sent a general description of the victim to the Hoopers in Costa Rica. They finally remembered that ten years ago, when the husband had a knee replacement, he had several visits from a private nurse during his recuperation. They gave her a key so he didn’t have to get up to let her in. Somehow, they dredged the name out of their memories.”
“So, spill. Who is she?”
Jamie hesitated. I could tell he was debating whether to tell me. Finally, friendship won out. “A woman named Enid Sparks. We’ve confirmed she hasn’t been seen in her apartment complex since the accident.”
I got so excited, I nearly levitated. “Enid Sparks is the name of one of the women in the photo from the yacht club! She was the sister of Madeleine Lowe, the woman who died.” I gave him the fastest summary I could of finding the photo, talking to the women in it, and then having it stolen.
Jamie was as excited as I was. “That’s it. She got the missing gift certificate and was rushing to meet the others at your restaurant. She got into the accident, became disoriented, and fell off the town pier.”
“Maybe. But none of the other gift certificate holders knew it was a reunion, and Enid lived far out of state. Receiving a gift certificate in the mail wouldn’t be a reason to take a car without permission and drive all this way.”
His shoulders slumped. “You’re right. It’ll come, Julia. Give us time.”
Give us time. Exactly what Binder said.
*
Enid Sparks. The only living—or rather, recently living—woman from the photograph who was not at Gus’s Too the night of the murder. There had to be a connection.
Enid Sparks had “borrowed” a car in Connecticut. Everything in the case kept pointing back to that state. The Bennetts had moved to Busman’s Harbor from Connecticut. The diploma on Henry Caswell’s wall said Yale School of Medicine. Fran Walker said she and Michael broke up because she “stayed in Maine. He was in Connecticut.”
At one point, almost all the members of the Rabble Point set had lived in Connecticut. One of them still did. Or at least she had until very recently. Enid Sparks.
I shook myself, bringing my mind back to the present. Binder, Flynn, the crime scene techs, and now Jamie were under Gus’s building. Why was it taking them so long to bring out the backpack?
I went upstairs to my apartment and started my laptop.
It didn’t take long to find Enid Sparks’s address in North Guilford, Connecticut. The street view on Google Maps showed a well-kept townhouse apartment complex.