Page 33 of Trick of Light
Face it, she didn’t really have a criminal mastermind brain.
What finally worked was when she spotted one of the Lightkeeper Inn’s golf carts parked outside the post office, its key still in the ignition.
Bingo.
She waited until she saw Heidi Ochoa, the reception clerk, emerge from the post office with a load of packages, then hopped into the golf cart and floored it. “Whoop-whoop!” she yelled as she zoomed back and forth across the road. She tried a wheelie, but the cart wasn’t built for that sort of thing.
Heidi ran after her. “That’s mine! Stop, Gabby! Are you crazy?” she kept yelling.
She must be. Why else would a Black woman be trying to get herself arrested? Then again, she knew the constable and could pretty much guarantee that nothing permanent would come from this incident. So in her mind, it was a low-risk, high-reward kind of situation.
Or at least that was the story she was composing in her mind in case she had to explain it to her mother.
Before too long, she caught sight of flashing lights behind her. Luke was on her tail. Just to make sure he didn’t let her off with a warning, she made a few more wild and reckless turns with the golf cart. She went around the town flagpole several times, narrowly missed a lamppost, and forced two teenage boys to dive for the bushes before she brought the golf cart chase to an end and pulled over.
“What the hell?” Luke demanded as he stalked over to the stalled-out cart.
“Hi Luke. Damn, you caught me. I’m not resisting arrest, for the record.” She didn’t want that in the report, or on her conscience.
“Good to know.” Luke narrowed his deep blue eyes at her. They were a Carmichael feature shared by Barnaby, though Barnaby’s were deeper set and somehow more intense. “Heidi said you stole this golf cart.”
“I’m not saying anything until I talk to my lawyer.”
“Why don’t you just explain why you took the golf cart and we can avoid all of that.”
“No, thank you,” she said politely. She took the keys from the ignition. “What should I do with these? You should take these so someone doesn’t steal it again. Let’s go.”
Luke ran a hand over the back of his head. “Why does it feel like I’m not the one calling the shots here?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re an excellent constable doing an outstanding job of protecting the citizens of Sea Smoke Island. Come on, let’s get moving.”
She wanted to talk to Tamara before…well, before she decided to stop talking entirely.
“All right, you win.” Luke palmed the keys, then gave her an exaggerated flourish of a bow. “After you.”
At the constable’s office, he handed her off to his assistant, Marigold, so tall and blond she could be a Norwegian pole vaulter. They sat across from each other while Marigold filled out the arrest paperwork. Gabby asked about her honeymoon, but that turned out to be a mistake.
“Canceled,” Marigold said gloomily. “He turned out not to be the man for me.”
“What? What happened, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Is this going on your podcast?”
“Of course not,” Gabby began, before Marigold interrupted.
“Because it ought to. Talk about a dirty rotten bastard. I wouldn’t mind putting him on blast. Can I come on your show?”
“I’ll talk to Heather about it. We have a lot on our plate right now.”
“I know, I know, all that stuff from the nineteen-hundreds. Everyone’s talking about it, but not talking about it, you know what I mean? Like, no one wants to think their families helped kick out those other people. Date of birth?”
Gabby supplied the information, then asked, “What about your family?”
“It doesn’t matter, does it? My family came in the seventies, but I still have to ask, why were they able to move right in and buy property with no problems? Why were some people welcomed and not others?”
“Interesting point.” Maybe they should have Marigold on the podcast—she could be a fascinating guest. “Mind if I ask who the dirty rotten bastard is?”
“That’s what I’d like to know. He used a fake name, then disappeared. Wish I could figure out what he was after. My entire life savings adds up to about five hundred buckaroos and a vintage station wagon.”
