“It’s subtle, but it’s there,” Nate said. “It’s a little faraway look you get in your eyes for just a second. I think I always thought you were just off in your head, thinking about something. Now I know better.”
“It was the same as before,” Laura said, answering his question. “Except this time, I looked up and saw a window. It looked out on the harbor. I was just trying to figure out if this is the same view.”
“Something up there?” Nate asked, turning and looking in the opposite direction, at the buildings behind them.
Laura turned with him, shading her eyes. “Yeah. But I don’t know which building.” This close to the shore, they all seemed to be tumbled on top of one another. Each one was built slightly above the one in front due to the slope of the land toward the sea, meaning that any one of them had the clear view of the boats she had witnessed. Several of the buildings here seemed to be public use, too, which complicated matters—and she needed to figure out the precise angle of the view to know which direction to even look in.
With such an unclear and hazy vision, that in and of itself was more of a challenge than she could really use. And she didn’t even know if she was seeing a spot where the killer often frequented, a place he had been once before, or a place he would be in the future.
She sighed, rubbing her forehead.
“We’ll get it,” Nate said, bumping her shoulder with his own. “In the meantime, at least I’ve got a chance to be useful. We can think this through the old-fashioned way.”
“What are you thinking, then?” Laura asked, trying to let him raise her spirits but failing to be convinced just yet.
“The water,” Nate said, turning back and gesturing to it. The waves rolled lazily as they had before. Up ahead in the distance, though, a dark storm cloud looked ready to unleash all hell. Laura considered it to be a rather clumsy metaphor if someone up there was trying to tell them something. “Everything we have so far is connected deeply to the water. We have a lifeguard—someone who works on the beach, saving people from the water. And she used to work on a boat. Then our other victim works on a boat as well. Plus, both of them were found tied to figureheads on boats that were actively moored in the water.”
“It’s a harbor town,” Laura argued. “Everything here is tied to the water.”
“Well, sure,” Nate conceded. “But this seems to go deeper than that. You could kill someone on land. Leave them tied up outside a building. You could even bury them or try to hide them. This killer wants them on display. There’s meaning behind that. Remember, there’s always reasoning behind it, even if it’s not the kind of reasoning that makes sense to us.”
Laura took another deep breath, tasting salt. “I do think that Theo Kelleigh, as reprehensible as he is, could be right. He’s also a common link between the two victims and the two locations—the only thing we’ve been able to find so far. And I’ll be honest, if he’d scammed me out of a business my family had owned for generations, I think I’d be feeling pretty vengeful myself.”
“Enough to kill?” Nate asked.
“No.” Laura shot him a look. “But I’m in my rational mind right now and I don’t have a predilection toward violence. Maybe if I was someone else, it would be enough. Maybe if I found myself in that situation where I really had lost everything, I would feel it deeply enough to lose my normal sense of morals.”
“You were in that situation, once,” Nate said, the last word clipped as if he realized too late that he hadn’t meant to say it out loud.
“That was different,” Laura said, smiling thinly. She’d lost custody of Lacey fully once, missed out on so much of her childhood. She’d been divorced, living alone in a poky apartment with second-hand rickety furniture, broke, and on the verge of losing her job because of the bottle. “I only had myself to blame. It’s hard to get vengeance on yourself.”
Nate coughed awkwardly. Laura got the sense that he regretted bringing it up. “Well, you got better,” he said. “I don’t say it often enough, but I’m proud of you for staying sober.”
That actually did lighten her heart, more than he probably realized. “Thanks,” she said. “But anyway, we need to focus down on this connection. The historic classic ships. Figureheads. Reenactments and tours. There must be more going on here than we realize. We need to understand more. Trouble is, after what we’ve seen so far, I don’t trust the Sheriff to actually give us enough information if we try talking to him.”
“I agree,” Nate said. He glanced up and down the walkway they were standing on. To their right was the town, a pathway covered by a wall from the sea spray, tourist stores and those selling bait and tackle, wet weather gear, and ship necessities. To their left, the walkway that extended out over the water and the ships that bristled along it. “Good job we’re in the best possible place to find out more.”
“I’ll take the ships,” Laura said.
“I’m glad you said that,” Nate grinned. “I’ll take the town. Meet you back here to exchange notes in… say, two hours?”
“See you then,” Laura said, digging her notebook out of her pocket and moving off to get started.
***
Laura raised a hand in greeting as she saw Nate approaching her from the street, glancing both ways to avoid any oncoming traffic before reaching her. She was getting déjà vu from standing there waiting for him, even though their last meeting had been a couple of hours before.
“You get anything?” he asked, leaning on the rail that divided their platform from the water below.
“Lots,” Laura said, waving her notebook—complete with ten new pages of scrawled notes. “You want to go first?”
“Ladies first,” Nate said, sketching half a mock bow.
“I confirmed what we thought about Kelleigh,” Laura said. “He’s right about being hated around here. I didn’t find one person who had a good word to say about him. I even spoke to a couple of people who work on his boats. They didn’t want to say anything bad about their boss, but the fear and resentment was clear enough. I get the feeling that anyone who argues with him finds themselves without a job. He’s been doing it for years, and it’s only gotten worse as time has gone on.”
“I heard a similar story from the store owners,” Nate said. “There are a couple of other tour operators around here—two or three independents and one big company that runs a similar experience all around the country—and none of them face any resentment or bad feeling the way Kelleigh does. The way the people I spoke to put it, they don’t mind fair competition, but what Kelleigh does isn’t fair.”
“Right,” Laura agreed. “I did also find out some intel on that other pirate tour he was telling us about. The operator is still going, but only barely. His name is Matt Wendell.”