Page 19 of Trick of Light
“I already know what the autopsy says. It says I need to bring Tamara in for an official interrogation.”
Fuck. Barnaby knew his brother was right. The reason was in his phone right now—a photo of the calendar pinned to Amelia’s kitchen wall. The name Tamara and the time 10 am was written on the previous Saturday’s little square. “You know that doesn’t prove anything. Tamara treats a lot of people.”
“And you know I have to question her.” Luke rounded the truck, on his way to the driver’s seat, then paused when he spotted Heather and Gabby wheeling their bikes across the road toward them.
“I can’t say anything to the press,” Luke growled.
Heather flung up one hand. “Understood. We just want to know if we can help.”
“Like how?”
This ought to be good. Barnaby propped his rear against the truck and folded his arms across his chest, prepared to listen to a song and dance.
“We’re all about the research,” Gabby said. “We can find her family. Her friends, her piano students. We’ll just bring you the information and you can take it from there.”
“You have to take her body into town, right?” Heather waited for Luke’s reluctant nod, then continued. “By the time you get back, we can have everything you need so you can notify the people closest to her.”
Not bad. Barnaby had to hand it to them. With Marigold, Luke’s assistant, currently on her honeymoon, he could use someone to do that legwork.
“Fine,” Luke said after a long pause. “It’s not a crime scene yet, after all. But just in case it gets there, don’t go inside the kitchen at all. Keep it short, and don’t move anything in any of the rooms. If you see anything that seems suspicious, call me right away. Take a picture instead of touching it. Touch as little as possible. If you do touch something, put it back exactly where it was.”
Barnaby almost laughed at the look on Gabby’s face, the eye-roll she was so clearly holding back. She gave a mock-salute. “Got it. No one will ever know we were there.”
Luke and Barnaby stopped at the constable’s office first for a body bag from the back storage closet. “Gonna have to order more,” he grumbled. “What’s going on on this island?”
With the help of a contingent of firefighters, they got Amelia loaded onto Luke’s lobster boat, the Izzy C, at which point Barnaby told Luke he was staying put.
Luke frowned, but he was too busy navigating the high chop and the rising and falling float to interrogate him. It was better if he didn’t know, anyway, because he might try to interfere.
“Can I borrow your truck?” he called after Luke when he was already several yards away from the dock. Even though his brother couldn’t hear, he added, “Thanks, it’ll be here by the time you get back.”
Of course he wouldn’t mind if Barnaby borrowed his truck. But he would definitely mind what he planned to do with it.
He drove to the old southwest woods but parked off the road, a healthy distance from the end of the cul-de-sac. He didn’t need anyone speculating about the constable’s truck being in the vicinity.
The wind was busy here too, causing chaos in the treetops high above his head. The woods here always seemed to have a voice, either a dreamy whisper on calmer days or wild whining on windy days. He’d once asked Tamara about that, and she’d said, “The trees know everything worth knowing.”
Typical cryptic Tamara. Did the trees know that she might be coming under suspicion from law enforcement? Maybe the woods needed a little extra help from a human being this time.
He found Tamara in her greenhouse, which was built partly into a slope and made of recycled windows. He’d helped her install a wood stove in it to extend her growing season even longer. Now she could grow her herbs and vegetables for most of the year, except for the harshest of cold winter months.
How was she going to manage when she got even older? She must be in her late seventies, though she never seemed to know exactly how old she was. She liked to call herself a crone. He couldn’t imagine her in one of the retirement homes on the mainland, and there was nothing like that on Sea Smoke. Several times, he’d offered to hire a live-in helper for her, but she insisted her place was too small for another person. She wasn’t wrong.
“You look like trouble’s on your mind,” she said, looking up from the lemon balm she was harvesting. He knew it was lemon balm because she carefully labeled all her herb beds, not because he knew much about plants. They all looked the same to him.
“Amelia Burnhauser is dead.”
Tamara plopped down on the low stool she dragged along with her as she worked on her beds. “Oh dear. I hope she didn’t suffer.”
It seemed an odd response. “You don’t sound surprised.”
“I’ve been expecting this news. She’s been ill. ”
“So you were treating her?”
“I helped ease her symptoms. But I doubt there was anything that could have cured her, as she was hoping.”
If Amelia really had been terminally ill, that would let Tamara off the hook. He took a slightly easier breath. “You didn’t give her any potentially toxic plants, did you?”
