Deadly Fate (Krewe of Hunters #19)(16)

“No time limit on finding a murderer,” Thor said. “So, did you see anything unusual—besides the setup by the film folks,” he put in quickly. “Did you hear anything, did you see anyone else on the island anywhere?”

Justin Crowley waved a hand in the air. “It’s a private island. We know when people are due out on the ferry. Hell, just ’cause it’s Alaska, doesn’t mean we’re not like the rest of the world! Sometimes, yeah, kids like to come out here from the mainland to the ‘rich people’s island,’ and bring girls and beer or cheap wine, but they don’t stay. We got grizzly bears in the forest and they are mean—especially the momma bears when they got cubs. If kids come, they hang out in the water, hug to the coves. In winter, you can get iced in, so no one comes then. We got generators, the missus and me, because it can freeze like a mother here and the electric can go. Did I see anyone else today—no, I did not. Did I hear anything—no, I did not. I didn’t know one damned thing about the girl in the snow or the woman killed back in Seward until you all came out here today. And that’s a fact—and there’s nothing I can say or do to help you. I wasn’t looking out for anyone to be on the island. I wasn’t paying much attention. We were just getting ready for the film people, sprucing this place up. Hadn’t been rented out in a while. It wasn’t dirty, but it’s like anything else. You don’t use it, somehow you still have to clean it anyway.” He leaned forward suddenly. “Don’t you think we’d like to help you? We live here—survive here. Thinking some maniac who likes to cut people in half might be running around isn’t a good thought, not for my wife and me. We’re a little old to be hitting an overcrowded job market!”

“People don’t always realize what they might know when something first happens,” Thor said. “After a while, you might remember a sound or a moment or something out on the ice. I’m pretty sure that whoever did this had some knowledge of the island.”

“Something might come to you later,” Jackson said. “It doesn’t matter how small.”

“Sure. So, what’s happening now? You’re not leaving the wife and me out on this island alone with a killer running around?”

“No, we won’t be leaving you alone,” Jackson said. “You’ll have forensic crews going through everything at the Mansion through the night.”

“You and your wife are sleeping here?” Thor asked him.

He nodded. “We were planning to, anyway. Natalie Fontaine hadn’t been sure how it would all go. We were prepared for her crew to stay at the Alaska Hut, too.”

“Someone will be here,” Thor assured him.

Justin Crowley nodded and set his hands on his chair. “Then I guess ‘someone’ can talk to me anytime they want. You finished with me for now?”

“Yes, we are. Thank you, Mr. Crowley,” Thor said. “And you know, of course, that we have search warrants that allow us to search every inch of property here, including your personal space?”

Crowley smiled. “Feel free. We’re too old for any personal kinky stuff, so it will be kind of boring, but, hey, go for it.”

Crowley left the room. “Hm,” Jackson murmured. He looked over at Thor and grinned. “Sometimes, the older, the kinkier.”

“Please, Lord, don’t give me any mental pictures!” Thor told him. He leaned back in the chair and rubbed his eyes.

“What do you think—seriously?” Jackson asked him.

“Seriously—don’t paint any mental pictures!” Thor said, and then shook his head, looking at his old partner. It had been over a decade since he and Jackson had worked together. They’d been good partners—great partners, really, even knowing what each other was thinking most of the time. They had an unspoken rule: there was no sense in doing what they were doing if it fell short of real humanity. They tended to be by the book and courteous until they couldn’t go by the book and courtesy just wasn’t in the cards anymore.

“I think that they can search this island for days and miss nooks and crannies,” he told Jackson. “I think that the film crew and the Celtic American people were taken completely by surprise. Then again, the group from the ship are actors, and the film crew are in ‘reality’ TV. As for Mr. and Mrs. Crowley—they’re either cantankerous from too much cold or just downright creepy.”

“Do you think someone else is on the island?” Jackson asked him.

Thor hesitated. “There has to be someone else—or, at the very least, a cache somewhere out here. There’s not even a speck of stage blood on anyone in this house. And yet...I still believe that one of them had to have seen something. Because, at some time, Amelia Carson was killed here or brought here. We know that. We go backward from there.” He looked at Jackson again. “I can’t help but believe that Tate Morley is here somehow. That he is out there on the island. And he’s watching us.”

*

They weren’t being offered any means off the island—not yet.

And it had been hours, or so it seemed. Hard to tell in Alaska in the summer—the sun never seemed to really set. Clara didn’t wear a watch, but she knew that lunch and dinner had come and gone.

State police—ready to draw their weapons at the drop of a hat!—watched over them. The crew of Wickedly Weird Productions had been brought to the entertainment room in back to wait while she, Ralph, Simon and Larry were in the parlor.