“I’ve only met her a couple of times, but she seems like a sweet girl, just a little in over her head.”
“Mrs. Harwick tells me that Becca can be emotional. Does that sound right to you?”
“Yeah, I would say she definitely has a flare for the dramatic.”
“And that day you found her crying on the floor in her parents’ bathroom, did you wonder why she was there, instead of her own room?”
“No. It’s a pretty nice bathroom, and the aquarium is kind of soothing, so I got the impression she spent a lot of time in there.”
“Did anything seem strange about her?”
I said, “Other than that she was totally freaking out?”
“I understand she was upset, but the way you described it made me wonder if there wasn’t something else going on, something that might have been influencing her behavior.”
“You mean … like drugs?”
She nodded.
“It’s possible. Like I said, I didn’t know her before all this, so I couldn’t say if the way she was acting was normal for her or not. But she did say her brother had been involved with drugs. That’s why he got a job at the golf club, because the Harwicks cut him off when they found out.”
She nodded. “Mrs. Harwick mentioned that. She also told me she overheard an argument between Becca and August. Apparently something was missing from August’s room, but Becca denied having anything to do with it. Do you know what that might have been about?”
“No. She didn’t say anything about that to me.”
“Alright, one last thing. I keep going back to your porcupine fish. You didn’t notice if it was alarmed that morning you talked to Becca?”
“No, definitely not, I would have remembered that for sure.”
“Do you think a loud noise could have caused it to puff up like it did?”
“Definitely. Especially if the noise was nearby.”
Detective McKenzie pursed her lips together. I could tell she was making an effort to choose her words carefully.
“Like a scream, for example. Could a scream have set off that kind of reaction?”
I nodded slowly. “I think any loud noise could have set it off.”
“Okay. That’s helpful.”
I looked down at my hands. “Detective McKenzie, do you think Becca is still alive?”
She looked at the water for a long time. Eventually I figured out that she wasn’t going to answer me, which was fine. Her silence was answer enough. No matter what had happened the night Kenny met with Mr. Harwick, the fact that Becca had been missing ever since was not a good sign. If she had witnessed what had happened, it was possible that she had been discovered hiding in the bathroom. Becca was tough, but she was still just a teenager and probably not more than a hundred pounds. I don’t think she would have been able to defend herself. Whoever killed Mr. Harwick that night might have taken her. Or worse.
Detective McKenzie turned to me and said, “When my husband died, I felt like I was instantly a member of a secret club, where only people who’ve lost a husband or a wife before their time can understand me. Do you ever feel that way?”
I waited a couple of moments before I answered. “Yeah. I know exactly what you mean. It’s like a club you wish you weren’t in, but you’re glad it’s there all the same.”
“Yes. That’s exactly it. I don’t know what it’s like to lose a child, Dixie, but I imagine it must be that same feeling, multiplied a million times over.”
I nodded. That felt about right.
We sat for a while longer, not talking, just watching the kids play on the beach. I think we were both thinking the same thing: For every hour that Becca was missing, the odds that she was alive got smaller and smaller.
It was bad enough that Mrs. Harwick was now a card-carrying member of Detective McKenzie’s secret club. I hoped with all my heart that she wasn’t about to be a member of mine.
I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy.
22
After Detective McKenzie left, I stayed a while longer and watched the waves crashing in on the beach. Our meeting had left me reeling, and I just needed to sit and rest for a while. There was something about that woman that always made me feel like I’d just lived through a hurricane or run a ten-mile marathon. She was drab and plain on the outside, but on the inside her mind was spinning at about a hundred miles an hour.
I bought a hot dog from the food stand at the beach pavilion and slathered it with hot mustard and relish. By the time I got halfway to the car I’d already downed it, so I went right back and bought another one.
Sitting in the Bronco in the parking lot, I chewed on my second hot dog and tried to sort everything out in my head. McKenzie had hinted that August wasn’t the only one in the Harwick family with a drug problem. If Becca had been high on something, I wasn’t sure I would have recognized it. I never did drugs when I was a kid, and neither did Michael. Not that I was a goody-two-shoes or anything; it’s just that living by the ocean was a good enough high for me. Plus, I’m sure my grandmother would have taken a belt to my backside if she’d ever caught wind of drugs under her roof. My grandmother was a pretty strict guardian, but she never spanked me with a belt, and I wanted to keep it that way.
There was something else bothering me, though. When I mentioned the packet of letters that Kenny had given his father before he left, Detective McKenzie seemed genuinely puzzled, and I didn’t think it was some kind of trick she was trying out on me. She had probably known right away what was just now trickling into my brain: Either Mr. Harwick had hidden that packet somewhere in the house before he was killed, or someone had taken it.
Of course, there was one more possibility: that Kenny had made the whole thing up and was playing me. He knew I would report everything he said to the police.
My second hot dog wasn’t nearly as satisfying as the first, but I ate it all anyway. Sometimes my stomach doesn’t listen to my brain. At Beach Road, I turned left and took the long route around the Key toward the Harwick house. To be honest, I wasn’t looking forward to being in that house alone. Up until now it had been filled with crime-scene technicians and police every time I’d gone over, but now it would be empty.
On the way, I called the Kitty Haven. Now that the investigation at the Harwick house was over, I wondered if Charlotte might be happier at home, even if it meant staying there alone. Being in a strange place with so many other cats can be stressful, especially for a cat as grumpy as Charlotte, and sometimes grumps like to be left alone. Believe me, I know that from firsthand experience.
Marge said, “No, she’s doing just fine. Not nearly as jittery as she was when you first brought her in. Jaz has been spending lots of time with her, and cats always pick up on the energy of the people around them. You know Jaz, she’s always happy.”
That was welcome news, not just for Charlotte but for Jaz as well. When I’d first met her, there were a lot of things you might have called Jaz, but happy was not one of them. It seemed working with Marge at the Kitty Haven was doing her a world of good.
I thanked Marge and told her I didn’t think it would be much longer before Charlotte could go back home, even though I really didn’t know if that was true or not. Detective McKenzie had made me wonder if Mrs. Harwick would ever go back home again. I figured August might be moving back in at some point, but it was entirely possible that he’d be staying with his mother until she was back on her feet.
When I pulled up to the Harwick house, the first thing I noticed was that all the yellow police tape was gone. Luckily for me, the gang of reporters that had been hanging out on the street had finally picked up shop and moved on, too. Until the coroner’s report on Mr. Harwick was made public, there wouldn’t be anything new to report. They were probably all camped out at Mrs. Harwick’s hotel, hoping to get a shot of the fabulously wealthy grieving widow.