“I guess I’m all talked out about it,” she said. “I’ve been over it with the cops nine or ten times.”
“Now that you’ve got your story straight, why don’t you lay it on me?”
“I had nothing to do with it,” she said. “And don’t talk to me like that.”
“You weren’t there when she died?”
She shook her head. “Do you have anything to drink around here?” she said. “Aren’t sailors always supposed to have booze on hand?”
I hesitated and took a look at the big purse she’d slid off her shoulder and placed on the table.
“Oh please,” she said.
It was a moment of truth of sorts. Did I think Shannon was knee-deep in this thing? The bigger question was: how could she not be? But as I looked at her across the table, my gut told me she wasn’t. I got up, went to the sideboard, and grabbed a bottle of whiskey, splashing some into a clean glass for her.
“You’re not drinking?” she said.
“You need me to?” I said.
She shrugged her shoulders.
I waited while Shannon drained half the glass in one big gulp. The boat rocked slightly, and I knew that the wind had picked up even more, if it was able to whip waves that big into the harbor.
“I don’t know what’s going on,” she said.
With a shaking hand, she reached for her purse. I watched her as she pulled out a thick joint and a lighter. As she tried to light the tip, it slipped from her hand and landed on the floor.
“Just tell me what you do know,” I said.
“I can’t,” she said, her voice quavering. “I have people who are supposed to do that for me.”
“That’s the problem, isn’t it?” I said.
She nodded.
“Too many people doing too many things on your behalf,” I said. It didn’t seem to register for a moment. When it did, she went pale, and it was hard to see her as the superstar in the press. On the covers of magazines and the object of countless fan clubs and websites. She looked like a scared, lonely woman approaching middle-age.
“Please help me,” she said. “Tell me what’s going on.” Her lips trembled, and the tears started rolling down her cheeks. “Do you know what’s going on?” she asked.
I let out a long breath. “I think I do.”
“Can you explain it to me?”
I took the CD from Molly’s purse, the one I’d found in the twins’ silver BMW. I went to the control panel of the boat where a small, built-in CD player was housed. I flicked on the power button and slid the disc in. I waited a moment and then hit play.
It was just static at first. Almost like a gentle scratching. And then soft, acoustic guitar. Gentle notes, full of sorrow and melancholy.
And then a voice.
A really beautiful, haunting voice that sang of lost love and the ghosts of lovers past.
I was listening at last to Jesse Barre.
The music itself was rough, but you could hear the quality, the command of the song and the ease of the voice. She sounded like a natural. But it was the power of the words that moved me the most. It was the kind of song that if you heard it on the radio, you would wait and hope the DJ would tell you who it was, so you could immediately go buy the CD.
I looked at Shannon, and I could tell she knew the same thing. The fear in her face was gone, replaced with a kind of warm recognition. Even in the midst of murder and mayhem, she was enough of a human being and a musician to recognize true beauty when she heard it. And she was hearing it now.
When the song was over, I turned back to the player and hit pause.
I heard clapping and when I turned back, Teddy Armbruster stood next to Shannon.
And next to Teddy was a man.
He looked oddly familiar to me. He had a smirk on his lean, slightly wolfish face.
The boat seemed to sway under me, and my knees felt weak. I reached out with my hand against the side of the cabinet to steady myself.
“Surprise, surprise,” Teddy said.
The man just looked at me, curious amusement on his face.
It was him.
The man who I’d met on a snowy night so many years ago.
“Look at him . . . he’s in shock,” Teddy said.
I couldn’t stop looking at the man. I opened my mouth to speak but nothing came out.
Teddy spoke again, a wide smile on his face.
“I’d introduce you,” Teddy said, unable to suppress a chuckle. “But I believe you two have already met.”
It was him.
The man who’d killed Benjamin Collins.
Chapter Forty-Four
“Why don’t you step away from the CD player, John?” Teddy said. On cue, the man who’d killed Benjamin Collins eased out a handgun from a shoulder holster.
“Take out the CD and hand it to me,” Teddy said.
I did as asked.
“Teddy, what are you doing?” Shannon said.
Teddy smiled at her, took the CD, and slipped it into the breast pocket of his suit coat.
“Nothing you need to worry about, Shannon.”
“But I do,” she said. She turned to me. “That was Jesse Barre singing, wasn’t it?”
I nodded. “And singing beautifully,” I added, still not taking my eyes from the man across from me.
“What a shame,” Teddy said.
“John,” Shannon said. She was looking at the final destination, but wasn’t sure how we’d gotten here.
“Jesse Barre was going to retire from making guitars,” I said. “Her boyfriend, Nevada Hornsby, told me she was taking a sabbatical.”
“Permanent sabbatical,” Teddy said. “An oxymoron, I suppose.” His smirk was vile.
“At the time, I didn’t know what it meant,” I said. I was about to ramble, but I didn’t know what else to do. No one was stopping me, and I needed some time to try to figure something out.
“But then when I found the CD in Molly’s purse—the one Erma and Freda had killed her for—I started to realize what happened,” I said. “Jesse had contacted Memphis, probably for advice. Memphis lied to me about not knowing Jesse. Memphis was probably threatened by it, worried that Shannon would start buying Jesse’s songs, so she convinced Laurence Grasso that when he got out of prison, if he killed Jesse for her, Memphis would try to get him back with Shannon.”
“Oh my God,” Shannon said.
“Oh please,” Teddy said. He was bored, looking around the inside of my sailboat with obvious disgust. The man with the gun was only looking at me.
“And Grasso set Coltraine up to take the fall.”
“This isn’t true,” Shannon said.
“I think at some point, when Grasso was out of control, Memphis went to Teddy and spilled the beans,” I said. “Somehow, Molly realized what was going on and, ever the spin doctor, Teddy had both Memphis and Molly killed. And now he’ll try to kill me. All to keep the gravy train rolling in.”
Shannon began to sob outright.
“Time to go,” Teddy said. “Get up.”
“You’d better go with him, Shannon,” I said. She looked like a broken woman. Her head down, silent sobs wracking her narrow shoulders—
And then she launched herself at Teddy, windmilling her arms, slapping at his face, trying to claw him. It caught us all flatfooted. Teddy struggled to get Shannon under control. Too late, I started to make my move.
Way too late.
The man was already next to me with the muzzle of the gun just behind my ear. How he moved that fast, I had no idea. But any chance I had was gone.
Teddy finally pinned Shannon’s arms against her sides and hauled her up the stairs. She was screaming at him and calling my name until he managed to clamp a hand over her mouth.
I heard her muffled sobs as she and Teddy stepped off the boat onto the dock.
The man and I stood there for a moment, the boat gently rocking from the departure of Teddy and Shannon.