The Marsh Madness

Jordan, I think we need to step back from this relationship. Between your work and mine, we’re just not compatible. I know if you really think about it you’ll feel the same way. You are beautiful inside and out. It’s not you. It’s the situation. Let’s try to still be friends. xo Tyler

I had been so wrong about Smiley’s reasons for getting me a lawyer. He wasn’t looking after my wellbeing. He didn’t want a guilty conscience about the woman he’d just dumped by text. Still be friends? My Aunt Fanny.

I stiffened my back and kept my lower lip from wobbling. I was, after all, half Kelly, and we hold ourselves together when the emotional weather gets stormy. From what little I knew about the Binghams, they were no pushovers either. I reminded myself that I’d been an idiot to let myself fall for Tyler Dekker. He was, first of all, a police officer, and that had been tempting fate. Still, I’d thought he was willing to work at things regardless of our differences. What a fool I’d been.

Now that I was being questioned by his colleagues, he had to put distance between the two of us. He was ambitious, and how would it look to be in a relationship with an accused killer?

And in the unlikely event that he ever attempted to get back together again after this, he’d be really sorry he tried. I was really going to miss his dog, Cobain. Good thing I had Walter on a semi-permanent basis.

I still had Tyler’s house key in the pocket of my deep-orange purse. I liked the idea of flinging the key in his face. But that could wait.

“Who needs a cop hanging around ruining things, anyway,” I muttered, and made a new plan. Time to get into and out of Van Alst House quickly.


*

PING! LANCE HAD done it again. Somehow he’d found photos of the late Chadwick Kauffman. I clicked on the attachments.

I got that old sinking feeling. Not one of the photos was of a lean, dark man with a gecko-like gaze. Instead, a stocky man with a shy smile and reddish-blond hair was the subject. I recognized him from my online search for Chadwick Kauffman. His face had shown up in many of the images. He was alone in each of the photos that Lance had sent, so no chance to see if one of the others was with him.

Lance confirmed the images. “I talked to people who’ve met him at cultural events and fund-raisers. My patrons came to the rescue.”

I wasn’t a fan of Lance’s posse, but I had to admit they’d come in handy this time. A lot of thoughts whirled in my brain. The man who’d met us at Summerlea was not who he said he was.

The big question was: Which of them was dead?

How to find out?

Normally, I would have asked Smiley, but that wasn’t going to happen.

I shot the images of the shy-looking man with the reddish-blond hair to Sammy.

“This isn’t the man we met at Summerlea. But it seems he’s the real Chadwick. Can you confirm and find out if this is the man who died?”

I called Lance instead of texting. I guess I wanted to hear his voice.

“Thanks, Lance.”

“All part of the service.”

“So, that’s not the guy I met at Summerlea.”

“I trust my sources.”

“Oh, I’d never doubt you. Sammy will try to find out if the man in the pix was the victim.”

“Who else would it be?”

“No idea. But no one at Summerlea was who they said they were, so who knows if the real Chadwick was involved with any of it.”

“This just gets weirder and weirder.”

“Yes.”

“What can I do, beautiful lady?”

That saved me asking him for more help, and to be honest, I needed the flowery compliment too. “I appreciate it, Lance. Can you keep looking for any other photos of Chadwick?”

“He was pretty elusive. It took a while to unearth these. Most people are all over the Internet with no good reason, but not this guy, even though he’s the heir to a fortune and a descendent of an influential family.”

“Now we need you to look for a woman, light brown hair, tall, slender, nicely put together, with a slight overbite. She’s the woman who met us at Summerlea, and I believe she’s an accomplice. See if you can find anything that links her to Chadwick.”