Page 73 of Wham Line
Jethro worked his phone out of his pocket, swiped a few times, and displayed it.I stood to get a better look.
It was a candid of Jethro, Larry, and Talmage.The three of them huddled together.Talmage’s face was splotchy.Larry looked sallow and grim.Jethro had a kind of numbed detachment that I now understood.The background, with the reclaimed wood and the candles and the white tablecloths, was unmistakably Mizzenmast.
“Do you know when this was?”I asked.
“After Mal died,” Jethro said.“People kept coming over to talk about Mal.I kept having to remind myself they didn’t know he was my dad.They were only saying it because he’d been my boss.”
A low-grade buzz started in my chest.
“I don’t know why she sent it to me,” Jethro said.
Neither did I.The composition wasn’t any good.It had clearly been a quick, furtive snap taken with the camera on Sparkie’s phone.There was nothing particularly compelling about the emotions visible on the three people in the frame.
“Were you close to Larry and Talmage?”Bobby asked.“Did Sparkie think you’d want a picture of the three of you?”
“Not really,” Jethro said.“I knew who Talmage was, of course, and I talked to her on the phone when she called or Mal needed something, but that’s it.And I didn’t meet Larry until he came to talk to Mal about the TV show.”
It was like a static charge building in my head.
This was it.This photo was the last piece to the puzzle.And Sparkie had sent it to Jethro because he’d been playing boy detective, and she’d hoped—what?That if something happened to her, he’d figure it out?
I examined the photo more closely.Jethro’s hair was wet.Damp spots on the jacket Mal had loaned him showed where he’d been out in the rain.Talmage’s hair was escaping from under the chef’s hat.She was twisting a dish towel between her hands.Larry’s hoodie was dark with water.He had curled one hand in, as though protecting it, and when I zoomed in as closely as I could, I thought I could see a scratch.His sneakers were a dazzling, Bobby Mai-approved white.
Did the scratch mean something?Had Larry tussled with Mal and somehow gotten himself injured in the process?If so, it wasn’t anything close to proof—I had no idea how it was supposed to help us identify the killer.Or was it something to do with Talmage?Was she hiding something in that towel?Was it supposed to mean something to me that she was blotchy?Or God, was I being a dope, and I was supposed to see something in the photo that incriminated Jethro?Sparkie had told Larry she was going to try to blackmail the killer, and shehadsent this photo to Jethro.What was I missing?The water didn’t mean anything because Jethro and Larry had both admitted to being outside, and if they’d somehow managed to walk through a wet parking lot without getting wet—
And then it all came together.
Mal’s murder.
Sparkie’s poisoning.
Even why Bobby had almost died.
Outside, the gulls were screaming.
“I know who killed Mal,” I said as I sent myself the photo from Jethro’s phone.
The only warning was the squeak of hinges.I glanced over.Next to me, Bobby tensed.
Larry stood there, holding a gun.“Took you long enough.”
Chapter 20
For a long second, no one moved.Bobby, Nalini, Jethro, and I all stared at Larry.He stared back.His eyes were glassy.That bristly, dark hair made his skin look even sallower than usual under the inn’s lights.The gun in his hand was pointed somewhere between me and Bobby.
“Put the gun down,” Bobby said.“You’re under arrest.”
Larry laughed as he stepped inside and shut the door behind him.“Nice try.”
“Larry,” I said.“You’re making a big mistake.You don’t want to hurt anybody.”
“Don’t I?”Larry said.His eyes moved to Nalini, who was clutching Jethro’s hand, and he crooned, “Isn’t that sweet?I wondered if you two were knocking boots.”
“You can’t kill all of us and get away with it,” I said.
“I don’t know.”Larry smiled, and it was totally empty.“I don’t have a lot to live for, if you know what I mean.”
“But we’re not a threat to you,” I said.“And what does it matter anyway?Wasn’t that the whole point of your plan?That none of it mattered.You really are sick, aren’t you?And that’s why you decided—”
