Page 94 of Trick of Light
“So Keith Garner, now Detective Hooper, was in the ideal position to create havoc on Sea Smoke Island. He knew the island well, knew how to blend in. He would wear oilskins and sunglasses when he was pretending to be a fisherman while doling out ricin and setting it up so Tamara would be blamed.”
“Pretty much. So much for law and order.”
Gabby left that comment there. This story wasn’t about police corruption or anything systemic. In her opinion, it was about something else—the need to control, and how women wound up taking the blame when a troubled boy’s world fell apart.
“Keith Garner was a traumatized boy who grew into a vengeful man. It’s a tragic story. Keith grew up in a family built on a secret and eventually it all collapsed. Which brings us to our second mystery. Can you talk about that? The reason his family came to Sea Smoke Island in the first place?”
“Yes. I located that NDA and the contract.” That was what Celine had been looking for in the Portland condo, but it turned out that John Carmichael had sent Judy to retrieve them months ago. Then he’d forgotten where he’d put them. It had taken days of searching before Gabby and Barnaby finally found them stuffed in the library’s liquor cabinet.
As Barnaby drew in a deep breath, she squeezed his hand more tightly. “It’s quite a story. Keith’s mother, Jill, was a witness to the murder of my real mother, Sophie Brown, at the hands of Annabeth Carmichael. If Jill Garner hadn’t come in the room when she did and found her choking on her own vomit, both of us would probably be dead. She saw Annabeth run out of the room after she’d injected castor bean powder into her IV. My father tried to salvage the situation by covering it up. He paid Jill to keep her quiet, with both cash and a house on Sea Smoke Island. Annabeth’s motive was a mix of greed, jealousy and racism, with a dose of mental breakdown. She got some treatment, then she and Dad reunited long enough to have my sister Fiona. But he never truly forgave her, and dumped her soon after.”
Gabby gave it a moment for that information to sink in. She imagined her listeners’ “dammmnn”s and dropped jaws. “So, if you don’t mind me saying, you are a Carmichael, but you’re being open about this murder, which was secret until we just uncovered it.”
“Yes. I want to honor my real mother’s death and make it clear that while I’m in charge of the Carmichael estate, that kind of shit will not happen. No more ‘get out of jail because you’re rich’ cards. If you fuck up, be accountable. And I’ll start with myself. I spent a good chunk of my life as far away from Sea Smoke Island as I could get. I was dodging responsibility and I acknowledge that. Turns out, coming back was the best thing I ever did. Because I met you.”
His tender tone made Gabby’s face go hot. It was a good thing she was taping this episode on her own. The way Barnaby was looking at her, she wanted to stop the episode right now and run to the closest bedroom, pantry, or storage room available.
“I gotta clarify that this podcast is not a dating app.” Her joke helped her collect herself. “At least not usually.”
“I don’t know, it’s working pretty well so far,” Barnaby murmured.
He had a point. Both she and Heather had been single when they first came out to Sea Smoke for the podcast. Now they were happily cozied up with two brothers. Too bad matchmaking didn’t exactly fit with the dirty rotten bastards theme.
“So now I bet everyone’s pretty excited to find out what the pirate treasure was all about,” she said. “At least based on our comment section. We posted a poll asking our listeners what they thought we found. The results were pretty funny. We got guesses from old cannonballs to a skeleton to a diamond necklace to absolutely nothing.”
Barnaby laughed. “Good guesses. One thing we should mention. We actually located two treasures, one under the lighthouse, and one buried near that pine tree. At first we thought the pine tree was a deflection, but there did turn out to be something buried there.”
“Which was…” Gabby prompted.
“A baby’s coffin. We’ve sent DNA samples to a lab to find out more about who is inside, but it seems that Marianne gave birth to two babies, a boy and a girl, but only the girl survived.”
“And that’s why the pirate crew abandoned her, because they didn’t care about guarding a girl baby.” She remembered the fear she’d felt in that dream. It had come true. Marianne had survived on her own on a Maine island, raising a daughter…and what had saved her was the secret hidden under the lighthouse.
“Before we explain the rest of the treasure, I should mention that the original version of Marianne’s journal will be part of a traveling exhibit on pirate activity in the Maine islands, so if you get a chance to check that out, tag us on Instagram or wherever else you do your media socializing.”
“Yeah, it’s a pretty cool exhibit, underwritten by the Carmichael Foundation, may I point out.” Barnaby smiled wryly, then waved at someone through the window. Gabby turned to see who was coming. Detective Chen was striding down the gravel road from the dock. She wore her usual uniform of impeccably cut black blazer and black pants to go with her black chunky-heeled boots and, of course, her black sidearm. No matter what the weather or her surroundings, Chen was Chen, and that was that.
She too had agreed to be interviewed on the podcast, for which Gabby was extremely grateful. Her mother would be thrilled to know she was giving a highly respected female police officer a platform.
Of course her mother didn’t know that Chen wasn’t just capable, she was hilarious. That was the side of her that Gabby intended to showcase.
“Now, is it time to reveal what we found when the lighthouse foundation got damaged by that blast? By the way, we’re both still thanking our lucky stars that no one was hurt.”
“Close call, for sure. Hooper left that device behind with a remote timer that he didn’t activate until he was far enough away. One last act of destruction.” Barnaby’s grim expression told her what he thought of that cowardly action. Too bad the audience couldn’t see it. They really had to start putting these pods on video. “Little did he know that he’d be helping us find the treasure.”
“Well, he knows now. Hooper, if you’re listening, and I hope you are, we finally did locate the mythical pirate treasure that people have been searching for since the early seventeen hundreds.”
“I always thought it was a legend,” said Barnaby. “Like Shangri-La or Bigfoot.”
“Are those legends, though?” Gabby quipped. “Sorry, that’s a topic for someone else’s podcast. So enough beating around the bush. Tell everyone what we found under the lighthouse.”
“There was some gold. A few pieces, very old. An ancient musket that actually is probably worth quite a bit as a historical relic. But the big find was…”
Gabby did one of her patented drum rolls, which made him grin.
“Documents.”
“Documents? You mean, paperwork?” Gabby teased.
