Page 76 of Light of Day
Amy Lou’s mouth opened, then closed again. Not quite scared enough yet.
“Once they figure out who set fire to Denton’s house, that person will become the prime suspect in his murder, right, Detective Chen?”
“No doubt.”
“It’s not what you think,” she cried. “It…it…it had to be done. It…it’s for the island. For the greater good.”
“Now that, you’re going to have to explain, because here I thought you cared about the history of this island. That house was one of the oldest still standing. You burned down a piece of history.”
Each word made her flinch, as if he was stabbing her over and over.
“Do you think I wanted to do it? Do you think it was easy? We didn’t have a choice!”
Detective Chen stepped forward, handcuffs jingling. “Okay, I’ve heard enough. We’ll need a full written confession and you’ll have to explain who this ‘we’ is, since it sounds like you didn’t act alone.”
Amy Lou was crying now, backing away, kicking at Chen, making it clear she wasn’t going to go easily. “I don’t confess! I don’t confess to anything!”
“Did you kill Denton Simms?” Luke demanded. He strode to the gas can and nudged it with his foot. A bit of gas still sloshed in the bottom. “Was that not enough? Why did you also have to burn his house down?”
“Noooo,” she wailed. “I didn’t kill Denton. I’m not a murderer. His house was empty. It wasn’t even locked. Anything could have started that fire.”
“How did you know it wasn’t locked? You were there, weren’t you?”
“I…I…”
Luke gestured to Chen to take a few steps back. He wanted to play the good cop here, because that was the only role that Amy Lou would ever see him as. “Officer Chen, can you give us a minute?”
After shooting him a narrow-eyed look, Chen stepped into the main room. “You have the time it takes me to eat two chocolate chip cookies,” she called.
“Those are for the meet—” Amy Lou began, then subsided at a look from Luke.
“Listen, Amy Lou, I don’t believe you killed Denton. But you did have motive, didn’t you? The same motive that led you to burn down his house. Add that to an arson charge, and you could be in very, very big trouble.”
She wrung her hands together. “You have to help me, Luke. I would never kill anyone. I don’t even like to eat lobster because you have to boil them alive. How could I possibly kill Denton?”
“What were you trying to destroy? What did Denton have?”
Amy Lou bit deeply into her bottom lip.
“I can’t help you if you don’t talk to me. Who were you working with? Who set those other fires last night?”
“I couldn’t say. Denton…he was going to ruin the island’s reputation. He…he came to me with a theory based on Jimmy’s tapes, something so horrible I…I can’t even repeat it. He even said he’d found some proof of it. I asked him to stop stirring up trouble, but he didn’t listen to me. After he died, I…I looked through his house to see if I could find the proof, but I didn’t.”
“So just to be safe, you burned it down?”
She hung her head in something approaching shame. “I never would have done it if he’d left it to the historical society like he said he would. He changed his will. Now some stranger is getting it.”
“What do you know about her? Sasha Mackey, right?”
“I know nothing about her. I’ve never heard of her, because she has no connection to the island and she doesn’t deserve that house!”
He cocked his head at the sobbing woman. Instead of sympathy, he felt a growing sense of scorn.
“So you would burn down an actual piece of history to keep an off-islander from getting it? No.” He snapped his fingers. “I know what it is. You burned down actual history to destroy evidence of other actual history that you don’t like. What was it that Denton discovered? That people lived here before the hotel was built? That they were forced to leave? Probably by my family? If that’s the real history, shouldn’t everyone know about it?”
Her head jerked up. “This island is a haven for some of the most elite families in New England. That’s the real history and that’s all anyone needs to know.”
“And you’d go to any lengths possible to make sure it stays that way, is that it?”
