Page 81 of Trick of Light
“Not that I remember.” He squinted at the image on Barnaby’s phone. “I might have seen him around, I guess. He looks kind of familiar.”
“He does, right? There’s something about him, but I can’t pin it down. Let me know if anything rings a bell, would you?”
“Of course. You think he might be back?”
“It’s a theory. A far-fetched one, since it’s more likely that he died in a plane crash. But lately all sorts of unlikely things have been happening here on Sea Smoke.”
“Ain’t that the truth.”
34
At the reception desk of the Lightkeeper Inn, it took some convincing before Heidi Ochoa, the receptionist, would tell Gabby what room Officer Chen was in.
“Let me call her first. She didn’t want anyone coming up that she hadn’t cleared.”
“Of course.” Gabby reassured herself that Heidi was just being cautious, probably because she’d stolen her golf cart. But her attitude reminded Gabby of some of the glances she’d gotten when she first arrived at the inn, one of the very, very few non-white guests.
Celine’s nasty words about a “Black Carmichael” had echoed through her mind a few times. Was she ready for his family’s reaction if things progressed between the two of them? Was Barnaby?
She smiled to herself at that. No one cared less about his family’s opinion than Barnaby. Really, the hard part would be in the other direction, winning over her family. Even though she’d just set a boundary with her mother about her work, was she ready to present Barnaby Carmichael to the Ramon family?
Put a pin in that one, she decided as she made her way up the stairs to the second floor. No rush on anything. They had some mysteries to solve first.
She found Chen sitting up in her bed, a bowl cradled in her lap, her nightstand loaded with medicine bottles and empty tea mugs.
“How are you feeling?” Gabby asked from the safe distance of the doorway, just in case she was contagious.
“Tip-top,” Chen croaked. “Can’t you tell? Come in, the doc says it’s not infectious.”
“What is it? You look?—”
“Terrible, I know. It’s food poisoning. We’re thinking bad shellfish, but it could have been any shellfish. They’re all bad if you ask my digestive system.”
“Yikes, I’m really sorry. Is there anything I can get you?”
Chen shook her head. “They’re taking care of me here. That’s one thing about rich white people hotels. They know how to pour on the coddling when they want to.”
“I’ll pass that along.”
“So what can I help you with, Gabby? I need a good distraction.” She held up a hand as she fought back a moment of nausea. “Desperately,” she said when it was done.
“Well, a lot, actually.” Where should she even start? “We found out that the tea Tamara gave to Safiya didn’t contain any toxic herbs. So then we went back to her original blood test results and found nothing there either. A followup test was ordered to confirm the presence of ricinine, which would point to castor bean, but those results didn’t come in until after Tamara was arrested.”
Chen’s frown deepened with each word she spoke. “Are you sure about that? I saw the report myself.”
“We’re sure. Safiya requested a copy and let us see it. I have it here.”
She fumbled in her messenger bag and pulled it out. Chen scanned it carefully. “This looks legit. But so did the one I saw.” She grabbed her phone and stared at it for a long moment. “This does seem to be altered,” she finally said. “It’s subtle, but I should have looked more carefully.”
“Why would you if there was no reason to?”
“Still, it’s my job.” Chen gagged a bit and tugged the bowl closer until the crisis had passed.
“Do you have any idea who could have altered the report?”
“There are only a few possibilities.” From Chen’s cagey tone, Gabby figured she didn’t want to point fingers unless she was sure.
“Could the same person have dosed her with castor bean to make her sick?”
